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A Tuesday morning and her first proper antenatal appointment. Jason had collected her from work in his Austin Martin. Whatever reason he had given to Carla, his personal assistant, it had to be a lie; her pregnancy remained a secret. They’d agreed if the scan was normal, they would go ahead and start telling people. Parents and siblings first then using the capillary effect to reach the extended family. Two e-mails out to friends, which they judged to be the easiest way to make an announcement, one to the vanilla network, the other to their clandestine kinky ones.
Jason, in one of his more frosty lectures some months previously, had forbidden Gemma to have a Facebook account, much to her annoyance. The rise of social media sites had barely begun and she’d been locked out by her cautious husband. Yes, they were wealthy, at risk of blackmail, kidnap, and other unpleasant scenarios, so why, as Jason liked to point out, did she need the extra outlet? She could e-mail, text, and instant message her friends. He wasn’t a dinosaur when it came to technology. However, he didn’t want to put his trust in a system he couldn’t control. Even if she stuck to vanilla subjects, he wasn’t having her posting personal things on the Web.
The last time she had attempted to persuade him to let her have one, he had spanked her for a good ten minutes and made her write a hundred lines like a naughty schoolgirl. I shall not divulge my personal life on the Internet. With little time available, she’d had to do the lines while at work. She’d scribbled away while pretending to read a document in the privacy of her own office.
Someone walked in when she had reached halfway down the sheet, and she had to cover up the lines with a report. Her face had flushed with embarrassment because she had been sure her colleague had caught a glimpse of the repetitive sentences. It never crossed her mind at the time that while at work, she wasn
’t supposed to be in role and Jason never expected her to take time out to deal with his requests. Demands, she clarified. She’d found the idea of doing what Jason asked thrilling, as if she was a covert spy controlled by her Master from afar. The reality wasn’t that far removed from her imagination. Her need to be his submissive blurred at the edges, especially where it touched with her other existence—his wife. What had once been defined and kept to set times had seeped into her daily life.
Thumbing through a magazine, she wondered how Maggie would deal with Jason, knowing about the kinky sex. What kind of image had the doctor in her head—did she see Jason as some domineering tyrant who wouldn’t let Gemma sneeze without express permission or maybe a sex-mad demon who ravished her daily, tied to a post, or something monstrous. She checked her thoughts with a sigh. The silly images were her erotic fantasies and nobody else’s.
During their frequent e-mail exchanges, she’d asked Mrs Henderson to treat them normally and Jason, in his tailored suit and polished shoes, appeared normal. Deep down, she wanted him to feel humiliated. Maggie knew more about him than he did of her—a rare advantage in the games Jason played. Gemma had been reserved and sensible throughout her online conversations with the doctor. Nothing untoward had been revealed. She felt smug as they waited for her name to be called. It didn’t cross her mind that he might take her for a little mind play on such a day.
“Please come in, Mr Lucas, Mrs Lucas.”
Mrs Henderson waved them into her consultation room with a warm smile of welcome. Though they had managed first name terms by e-mail, the doctor had chosen to return to formalities for the benefit of Jason.
“Please sit down.”
There was a glimmer of recognition on her face. An inevitable consequence of Jason’s profile in the world of finance and business media. Plenty of articles had been written about him and his company. Whether in newspapers, specialist magazines, or the minor celebrity pages of the glamour rags. An increasingly common occurrence now that he financed films and attended red-carpet premiers. He refused to do interviews with the press or television journalists and vetted information about him was always released through his publicity team. The moment any untruth or illicit rumour appeared, he would have his lawyers clamp down and threaten legal action.
That didn’t stop his photographs appearing on the Internet or in the press, but at least they weren’t too frequent. If Maggie recognised Jason’s face, Gemma wondered where she had seen him portrayed. Not a medical journal; perhaps the doctor’s husband worked in the City.
“Welcome. Today, you’ll get a first look at your baby. Nothing special. You’ll probably see a heartbeat and maybe the head taking shape. You’re about eight or nine weeks pregnant, I believe,” she said, checking through her notes.
“Yes. About that,” confirmed Gemma.
Next to her, Jason, without shame, scrutinised the room, taking in the pictures of happy pregnant women, the anatomical portrait of the woman’s womb with the perfect foetus contained within. The rows of books and journals on her shelves, the certificates of qualifications lining one wall. Blinds covered the window, and the artificial light gave the room a yellow tinge. It smelt like a hospital, the familiar disinfectant of a well-cleaned room. He glanced at her and smiled, crossing one leg over the other and resting the ankle on his thigh. He appeared composed and at ease, which made her envious. She was determined he should feel some degree of discomfort. She had in that very seat two weeks previously.
The obstetrician glanced up and spoke to Gemma. “Any bleeding, cramping?”
“No. None at all.”
“Have you being sick much? Always an unpleasant side effect.”
“A couple of times.”
Jason pitched in. “Vomiting? When?”
“Yesterday afternoon and last week. In the afternoons, that’s when I feel a bit nauseous. It was the tea.”
“Tea? You drink tea at home without any problem.”
“It was lapsong souchong. I seemed to have developed a strong dislike of it.”
His leg slid down, and he sat up straighter. “Twice? Why did you make it the second time? Were you expecting a sudden liking for it?”
No, not here! With my doctor present. “No. Both times, someone brought the tea to my office.”
“So you couldn’t say no to a cup of tea?”
She cringed. “I’m too polite. In any case, once they know I’m pregnant, I’m hoping that they will line up at my door with plates of cream cakes and tea, preferably English Breakfast, not lapsong souchong.”
“They’re going to wait on you?”
“They’re nice people at my work.”
“Nice? And they’re not at my company? You should know; you worked at both. Nice! I should hope not. I would like to think that my employees operate beyond the narrow field of nice.”
