Conclave (Hypernaturals 3)

Heartbeat of Love

Jessica made a popular suggestion. "Speaking of medical gear, as soon as everyone is done with dinner, I have a fetal heart monitor. Helen has not heard her babies heartbeat. Not that way. It's different than hearing it when it's inside you. Less noise from the rest of the body. Just the fetus's heart. I thought I'd get that out and let her listen. Note to self: Order a top of the line ultrasound machine. Lori: Let's you and I go up to the suite and make a list later?"

Lori agreed amid a general chorus of enthusiasm for hearing the baby, and the remainder of the food was polished off quickly.

As we cleaned up plates, Danny commented "That is such a freakin' weird way to think. The idea that you can decide to go take off a few decades and learn a whole new skill, like medicine."

I replied cautiously. "I am looking forward to that part of Vampiredom at least. I always hear that the average person has three different careers before they retire. Now there is no retirement. Ever. I can learn medicine, aviation, physics, astronomy, geology, and become utterly proficient in each one. My geekdom is only getting started." I was not trying to rub it in, but there is another part to that we would all have to acknowledge sooner or later. Our human friends will age. Grow old. Die. We will, short of accident or discovery, live on.

Jessica took it to a different place "You absolutely plan for the future, but you also need to live in the moment. Be doing what you love with whom you love. It's the only way. No matter how long we seem to have, it will still not be long enough. Why I dragged Helen to our bed. I did not want to wait for those two idiots to figure it out."

Helen and I looked at each other silently. I have already passed up on so much with her. She seemed to be having similar thoughts.

Jessica retrieved the heart monitor and had Helen lay out on the couch. We gathered around on all sides, as Jessica sat on the coffee table, and opened up Helen's shirt, unzipped and pushed down her skirt. Helen enjoyed being undressed by Jessica but took charge and slid everything off to make it easier: Not a shy woman. Jessica applied a gel and then placed the monitor low on her abdomen, moving it around. The monitor attached to a box with a speaker and the speaker crackled as she moved the wand around. A rapid thrumming noise appeared. Helen lifted her head from the cushion on the arm immediately, and a hand covered her mouth as it made a little 'O' shape.

"There she is! Your little baby, Helen." Jessica said happily.

Helen looked down at her gelled abdomen in wide-eyed wonder. I could tell she is fighting to keep from tearing up. I looked over at Danny, and he is having a very similar reaction, his arm wrapped around Lori, who, as a nurse, has heard this many times before but still smiled hugely.

I looked back at Helen's rapt expression, and a little part of me melted. I always have her in my mind as reserved. A bit of an ice queen. I know she is hell on wheels in bed, but all that sexual passion never quite removed the feeling that Helen is by nature cold. Distant.,

There she is, listening to the heartbeat, and falling in love with the child within her. It changed how I thought of her. She is going to be even harder to resist. I am so going to lose this battle of will.

This is also my baby. I understood that Jessica and I are having a baby. That Helen and I are having one also seems like something that would happen somewhere up in some backwoods clan or a bigamist cult. I did not think I am anything like a cult member. Or is it the cult leader that gets to screw all the women in the cult? Either way, I did not feel like one of those either.

It is weird. It is disquieting. Undeniably it is happy too. I thought of my parents and suddenly realized that they are going to have a grandchild that we could not tell them about. Maybe we could not tell them about either of them? What if they had fangs at birth? Breastfeeding would not be fun.