See, here’s the problem—unfortunately, despite Owen usually managing to fuck me over his desk—or on his couch, or over my desk, and even over Carter’s desk—several times a week, in addition to the night or two every week Carter and I stop by the mansion so Owen can properly fuck me in his bed, I haven’t gotten pregnant.
During the first six months of our term, I’m afraid I was apologizing to Dray a lot every four weeks when I’d discover the proof that, yet again, whatever we were doing wasn’t working.
But if you look at the beautiful photo-shoot that was done of the three of us one day over at the Florida Governor’s Mansion, you can’t spot anything wrong, even though I’d started that morning softly crying alone in the bathroom when I realized my period had arrived.
Carter looked gorgeous, and with his arm draped around my shoulders and us looking into each other’s eyes, you can’t miss how we feel about each other.
Owen, on the other hand, looked fuckinghawt. Through his office, he now receives dozens of love letters and e-mails every week. It pisses me off that Carter sets Owen up to go out for a minimum of one fairly visible “date” a month with a couple of trusted beards. They don’t know Owen’s ours, but the women also have their own secrets to hide and are willing to sign NDAs and stay quiet in exchange for the visibility. They usually have dinner, sometimes see a movie or play or concert, or attend some other event, and then part ways at the mansion, where the date started.
I pitch a fit and Carter cuts it back to every other month. So, during the next six months we’re in office, I spend it struggling not to burst into tears anytime someone asks me about kids. Inside my brain, pet would spend those particular moments curled up in a tight ball and sobbing while, outside, Susa smiled and said one of the several ready-made answers I usually used, depending on the circumstances.
That’s year one.
Year two, I spend it basically trying to ignore my monthly visitor. In whatever private times we have together, Carter and Owen start doing nothing more than cuddling with me during those particular weeks. I think Carter or Dray gives Owen a warning, because despite us not sharing a bed every night, Owen always seems to know exactly when my period starts, and always calls me in to his office for a few minutes of cuddling on his couch, my head in his lap, and his hand stroking my hair.
Did I mention how much I love my men?
Year three sees the return of Susa Evans, hardened politician. My period is irrelevant, because our agenda is in full swing, and I have more important issues on my plate, like trying to rally lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to push through legislation to help our schools and tighten background check requirements for gun purchases. I refuse to discuss my personal monthly issues with Carter or Owen. I safeword out of conversations on that topic with them on a regular basis, citing work.
Year four…
Basically, a repeat of year three, only with more bitchiness. I’m thirty-nine and, let’s face it, if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably won’t. Unfortunately, in Momma’s family, there’s a history of women entering menopause in their forties, including Momma. I’m not there yet, but it’s just a matter of time.
I still refuse to talk about it with Carter, and now with Owen, although I’m gentle with my sweet boy when I safeword the conversations with him. I always do it lovingly, gently, and give him a sweet kiss when I do.
Then new packages of birth control pills appear on the counter in our townhouse bathroom two weeks ago.
Enraged, I throw them away. I understand it was a silent, gentle way of Carter trying to tell me I didn’t have to keep trying and doing this to myself every month. But…
Yeeeeah.
Why take something that Iobviouslydon’t fucking need? What a horrible, cruel reminder, everyfuckingday, that, no matter how badly Ididwant this, for me and for my men, it was something apparently outside evenmytenacious grasp?
I’d rather have the monthly mocking by my body, thank you very much.
I might be a masochist, but I’m notthatkind of masochist.
It was bad enough knowing I’d traded Owen’s biggest dreams for mine, and that the chance to have thisonething wastheone thing I couldn’t give our sweet boy, or my husband.
That, in my mind, I’d failed to put my boy first the way I’d promised Carter twenty years ago that I would.
Who, to be honest, is a fuckingsaintto put up with me right now. I’m shocked Carter hadn’t moved in to the mansion, or at least into Owen’s townhouse next door. Even Dray’s had to safeword on me a few times lately when I get bitchy.
After not talking with me about the birth control pill incident, Carter finally asked me last Tuesday evening if I wanted him to make an appointment for me in Tampa with a fertility specialist, and—
Well, I honestly don’t remember much after practically screamingCarter Edward Wilsonat him, verbally taking his head off at the kneecaps with a long, one-sided screaming diatribe, whose contents I can’t even remember, while coming up off the couch and swinging at him. I’d been sitting there, reading on my tablet, scanning through the text of a new bill hitting committee that week.
At some point later, I was sobbing and realized we were both on the living room floor, and he had my hair tightly wrapped around his fist so he could keep my head pinned down. Because apparently I bit and scratched him a few times, actually breaking skin on his left arm. He was also covered with nasty bruises and scratches on both arms the next day, to the point he wore a long-sleeved shirt for his daily jog with Owen, and made sure to wear long-sleeved shirts to work every day to hide the marks.
But when my brain returns just enough to register what’s going on, I find he’s also sitting on me with my arms trapped against my sides, and was texting someone with his free hand.
I uselessly struggle for a few seconds before I dissolve into tears again.
Meanwhile, Carter sits there, grim-faced and silent after setting his phone aside on the coffee table.
We’re still sitting there a few minutes later when I hear a car pull up outside, followed by the sound of someone entering Owen’s townhouse next door, the front door slamming shut behind them.
I was still sobbing as, next door, footsteps run upstairs, the tell-tale beeps I’d rarely heard in a couple of years, unless one of us had to go next door to get something for Owen, and then the sound of footsteps running downstairs in our unit.
