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“I going to be taking special care of you,” she had announced, releasing Gemma from her clutches.
Jason flipped the blister pack over. The days of the week were printed on the back. “You’ve missed one.”
His comment didn’t surprise her. “Just one. I’m nine weeks pregnant, and that’s all I’ve missed.” She didn’t have the courage to tell him it was her second strip and she had forgotten two on the previous one. Keeping her head down, she managed to avoid his gaze. He tossed the pills back on the bedside stand.
“I’m hungry. I’m going to have a snack,” she said and hurried off to the kitchen, leaving him in the bedroom.
She’d spent the afternoon reading leaflets and skimming through her pregnancy books. She wished she hadn’t. One book gave a blow-by-blow weekly guide to being pregnant, and she didn’t seem to fit any of the descriptions. Yes, her boobs resembled melons in size, and she had been sick, but she didn’t feel especially tired, her mouth didn’t taste metallic, and neither was she dashing to the toilet frequently. She fretted she wasn’t feeling pregnant enough.
By the time Jason got home, a sea of facts, FAQs, and advice had amassed in her head, drowning out her rational thoughts. Not a clear list of do this or don’t do that, just advice or worse—speak to your health-care team—a comment at the bottom of each sheet. Gemma liked structure and unequivocal guidelines. When she worked, she applied her methodologies and rules, knowing them to be efficacious. She hadn’t suspected being pregnant would create a stream of ambivalence about her own natural status. She’d assumed it would be clear-cut and laid out like a road map.
Inside the fridge, on the middle shelf, pate: a no-no. Goat’s cheese meant listeria, and eggs would have to be well cooked. Gemma hated hard-boiled eggs, and just imaging the solid pale yolk nauseated her already-anxious belly. Slamming the fridge door, the food issue was the final straw, and she screamed expletives at the refrigerator as if it was to blame.
“What fucking good am I going to be as a bloody mother when I can’t even feed my fucking self.”
“Gemma!”
She spun around. He stood in the doorway. The intensity of his stare projecting across the room like the beam of a laser pointer. Gemma hid her face behind her hands. Jason wrenched them away and held her face between his slender fingers.
“What’s with the crazy shouting? Don’t tell me this is just hormones, because I don’t buy it.”
“I can’t find anything to eat. All those bloody leaflets and books telling me what I can and can’t do. They’re not even consistent. I’m not finding pregnancy easy.”
“Why did you think it would be easy? Your body is changing daily, and here you stand, stressed out and screaming the place down.”
He drew her towards him, and she rested against his chest. Gemma listened to his beautiful calming heartbeat radiating out while he s
troked her back in a parallel rhythm.
She snivelled. A childish sound even by her own standards. “I feel like rubbish. The fridge just seemed full of things I can’t eat.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He let go of her, opened the fridge, and rummaged through it. “Cheddar cheese, mature. Carrots from your own garden. Chicken soup, homemade by Mrs Harris. I don’t see what the problem is, Gemma. If you go looking for stuff you shouldn’t touch, you’re going to see it, aren’t you?” He took the cheese out and found a packet of crackers in a lower cupboard.
She slid onto a stool by the breakfast bar, and while he sliced pieces of the cheddar, she buttered the crackers.
“Better?”
Pausing, she rocked her head from side to side, uncertain whether to give an affirmation. “Yes.”
He sighed, spotting her lack of conviction. “When are you at your calmest, Gem, most settled and confident in yourself?”
She wiped butter off her lip with the tip of a finger. “You know the answer. When I’m with you. At your feet, waiting for you to tell me what to do. I’m at peace then. Assuming you’re not going to ask me to do something I detest!” she said with a half-hearted grin.
She rested her head on her arm. His finger traced the outline of her cheekbone. The crackers lay on the plate, her appetite gone.
“Be my submissive, Gemma. Not for the sex, but because then you will be my pregnant wife to control and you will not have to sink into this state of uncertainty and rambling thoughts. I will give you protocols, specific rules to follow to help you cope. Instead of seeing the information or advice given to you as obstructive and frightening, I would make it acceptable to you.” He leaned on his elbows, levelling his face with her hers.
She blinked several times, tilting her head up. His request came out of the blue. He’d never brought up such a full-time arrangement before, not since their engagement, when they’d swept away their previous failed attempt at Domination and submission. Back then, she’d resisted high levels of control in her life, being micro-managed, but, as he pointed out, he hadn’t framed his current request in the context of sex. “What would you get out of it? If this isn’t about sex?”
His eyes twinkled at her. The overhead halogens accentuated their blueness. “You. A pregnant submissive who trusts me and abides by my rules. I would be involved—a connection to the baby. That would please me. The sex would be there, but our existing arrangements would remain unchanged. This would simply be about dominating you, me as the traditional head of household, maybe practise at being Daddy?” Gemma couldn’t picture Jason as a Daddy Dom, but there again, he called her babe all the time, and a mainstay of his dominance had always been his protective nature. His expression grew sterner. He tapped the breakfast bar. “Do as I ask without questioning me. Unburden your overactive mind and imagination. It would please me to have your obedience.” He stood up. “Think about it.”
Flummoxed by his request, she could do little but think about his idea. As he was about to leave the room, a thought popped up. She swivelled about on the barstool. “Could you write something down for me, you know, some kind of protocols or rules. Something concrete for me to consider and discuss with you.”
Jason shrugged, holding the door handle. “Sure. If it helps.”
Gemma went to bed early, not to sleep, but to snuggle up under the duvet and watch the flat-screen television tucked away in the corner of the room. The pictures didn’t entertain her. She wandered mentally, recollecting the afternoon’s gardening stint. A disappointing summer with plenty of foul weather and cool air. She’d done some weeding and planting in her vegetable patch, and over the telephone discussed with her brother, John, a fellow gardening enthusiast, her plans to have a fruit orchard.
She never had any difficulties planning her hobbies or interests. Nor at her work desk, where she was well-grounded in the necessary methodologies and processes. So why was she turning into a hopeless pregnant woman? Didn’t other women breeze through pregnancy without fraying at the seams?
