“But I mean, it’s fine.” Eric nursed his pride and fidgeted with his tie. “Obviously, it’s not important, because— wow, I’m so excited for us. I really can’t articulate it.”
“I’m going to have a glass,” Dahlia assured him with a tight laugh.
“Dolly, you can’t drink now.”
The menu’s second most expensive bottle of wine, uncorked, leered from between their empty plates. As the waiter filled their glasses, Eric had gazed into Dahlia’s brown eyes and emphasized that she was worth the splurge, and now he looked like a fool.
“Relax, hon,” Dahlia said. “One glass won’t do any harm. My cousin Mimi was going on benders up until the day she found out she was pregnant and by then, she was two months along. And her son came out healthy as can be. Besides, you’re right, I should have told you before you ordered.”
Eric was ruining things. He tried to let it go, to discuss girl names and boy names and when to tell their parents, but it was Russian Roulette, every sip a click of the trigger, their baby staring down the barrel. The bottle had been expensive though, second from the top on a slim menu that boasted quality over quantity, a sparse scrawl of upscale Italian options. Eric had chosen this restaurant for their third wedding anniversary because its reviews-to-ratings ratio had been higher than the others on his short list. One negative review dogged him though and as they were shown to their table, he had debated telling Dahlia not to order the ravioli in case it was as chewy as the reviewer claimed, but he didn’t want to prime her to have a negative food experience. He relaxed when she selected the linguine.
The candlelight brought out the honey tones in Dahlia’s complexion and he took refuge in her lovely face and flattering make-up. Other men had watched her walk to the table but it was him she was smiling at. She oohed over her gift, a necklace, a silver seashell with a single pearl.
“It cost a full month’s earnings, but I knew you’d love it,” Eric said as he clasped it around her throat.
It hung just to the swell of her breasts. Though she purred her thanks and pressed her lips to his, he sensed a whiff of distance. She was probably thinking about the baby and how stupid it was to waste a month’s income on a necklace when there were diapers to buy. It wasn’t like the pregnancy was a complete surprise. They had been trying for months. He should have planned ahead better, been more conscientious. He had let her down. He should suggest returning the necklace.
Dahlia gazed at him, fingertips on the seashell, and smiled with so much love. More love than Eric deserved. She was happy with him. She was happy with the gift. Should she be though? Shouldn’t her maternal instincts be insisting they direct all resources to the baby?
Dahlia took another sip of wine and Eric’s fist clenched under the table. Why couldn’t she have told him she was pregnant before he ordered it? The perfect night they could have been having instead haunted every moment. He swallowed a hard mouthful of water.
“Isn’t it wonderful that I don’t feel any different?” She giggled.
”You really shouldn’t finish that glass,” he said, pulling out his phone.
“It’s not a big deal,” she sighed. “One glass is not going to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.”
“Look, it says here that no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. It can lead to long-term harm to the baby. It’s just not worth the risk, okay?”
Dahlia looked lost for a moment, but then emptied her glass into his.
They walked to the train station, coats open to the mild autumn evening. Eric was afraid of squeezing her hand too hard but also afraid of letting her go. So much was at stake now. His Dahlia, his blonde-haired whiskey-and-fireworks girl, who burst into embarrassing song in line at the airport, who had asked him out and kissed him first, who was so gorgeous and didn’t even care — his Dolly would be a mother. A damp blazer of anxiety sat on Eric’s shoulders. Dahlia had always been cavalier with her body, laughing off bruises and cat scratches as though her skin was an outfit she could replace. She was too careless a vessel for a baby. He almost wanted to demand she hand it over and let him carry it.
What if she tripped? She really shouldn’t have had that glass of wine. He shouldn’t have made a big deal over how expensive it was. She really should have told him before he wasted the money.
Entirely new shades of danger painted their eighth-floor apartment. The windows opened too readily and too widely. Sockets grinned from the walls. All the table corners could carve open a baby’s head like a soft plum. Their late-night musings about possible crib locations now needed to be firmed up into a purchase, and what if they bought the wrong one?
Seemingly uninterested in the hard left their lives were about to take, Dahlia sucked Eric’s earlobe into her mouth as soon as she’d kicked off her kitten heels.
“My Prince Eric,” she sighed, breath down his neck.
Her palms coasted over his chest, the heat on his nipples summoning his entire body to attention. He had always been so sensitive there, much more than Dahlia with her dead-end buds. Would she be able to breastfeed with inverted nipples?
Eric touched her back with a hesitancy not felt since high school, that first female contact, when girls seemed as delicate as his mother’s tulips. He coaxed Dahlia onto the soft bed instead of bending her over the couch like she wanted – liking it clothed and rushed, fucking like they’d get caught, an animal mounting another. Panties shucked and dress hiked up, she waited on hands and knees. Hands barely skimming her hips, his penis gentled into her.
“Harder,” she laughed reproachfully, wiggling in his grip.
“I’m just worried about the baby.”
Her head dropped and irritation loosened her shoulders. He softened with her. Their bodies slipped apart with a squelch and for the first time, Eric thought of the misty concept of childbirth as a tangible act. It would happen here, on the stage of her body, in the nook between her legs. That wet welcoming space Dahlia reserved just for him. All their lovemaking, that ecstatic rhythm and connection, had been mere overture; the actual performance was a solo.
“Eric, it’s fine. It’s still an embryo at this point.”
“These aren’t small risks,” he insisted, loins cold. “I’d never forgive myself if I did something to cause you to lose the baby.”
“I know, but I’m not made of glass. I’m still allowed have orgasms.”
“Let’s just talk to a doctor before we do anything.”
“I’ve been to the doctor and she said it’s fine.”
“Did you ask specifically about penetrative sex? Did you ask how vigorous the sex could be? No, you never think to go into that level of detail.”
Dahlia snatched up her underwear from the floor, tugged off the rest of her clothes and flung it all into the laundry basket. Between his taste for lingerie and her preference for clothed sex, nudity marked the end of intimacy for them rather than the beginning.
“Look,” Eric continued. He scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. “This is what pregnant women are meant to do, right? Prioritize the baby? Even your body puts the baby’s health over its own needs and gives all its nutrients away.”
“I’m not just my body,” Dahlia said on her way into the bathroom.
“Of course not, but your body now has a job to do and we need to respect that. Dolly, you can’t be mad at me for putting the safety of our kid first.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, voice flat. “Guess I’m not mad then.”
As she showered, Eric wondered with mild alarm whether Dahlia was still using the old brand of make-up remover wipes. The percentage of alcohol was too high, would dry out her skin and age her. He’d searched online for a better brand and she’d agreed to switch with vexing nonchalance that implied she’d get around to it at some point. She had no idea how lucky she was that he took so much interest in the quality and efficiency of her self-care products. Most men didn’t know the difference between toner and moisturizer. He was a good husband and he would be a good father. He already had spreadsheets comparing brands of diapers and breast pumps.
Lights off, they lay in bed. He curled into Dahlia’s shoulder, pleased when she relented and wrapped an arm around him. Eric rested a hand on the taut skin below her navel and murmured hello.
It wounded him how quickly Dahlia dropped off to sleep. Everything that needed to be planned, everything he didn’t know and every error he couldn’t afford to make loomed in the dark, like stalactites rapidly growing down at him, the fear calcifying drop by drop until he was knitted in stone. His dreams overflowed with small, still bodies and Dahlia sobbing in accusation.
Lavender bloomed beneath Dahlia’s brown eyes after she crossed into the second trimester. She swelled beneath Eric’s hand, his palm filling with her a tiny bit more every day. He recalled how as a child he had flattened his hands against the spinning globe on his grandfather’s desk. Dahlia was becoming an entire world. Eric regularly found himself in awed tears at breakfast, reaching to touch her on impulse. His reverence made her laugh, then squirm. She side-stepped him to pour a second mug of coffee.
“Should you be drinking that?”
“Have you thought about going back on the anti-anxiety meds?” Dahlia sighed, adding milk.
“Did you know there’s as much sugar in that milk as in Coca Cola?”
“It’ll probably be a late one tonight, so no need to make dinner.”
“You should talk to Anna about handing off some of your cases,” Eric said. “You need rest.”
They had always been proud of being an unconventional couple. Dahlia was the commuter in tailored Tory Burch dresses, her calendar laden with client meetings and city martinis. She had a trajectory at the firm and a laptop she’d race into a burning building to save. Eric did freelance copyediting, mostly for law or advertising firms. Steady work but hardly making him millions. He scoffed at the bar talk about gunning for promotions. It demonstrated far more confidence, he argued to his friend Graham, to have a woman who didn’t depend on him. Her choice to stay was far stronger proof of his masculinity than the ability to balance a woman on his bank account. Graham slapped him on the back and said knocking up his wife was the gold medal anyhow.
The finality of the statement prickled at Eric. Because it was true; he had done his job and now he was unnecessary. Dahlia could feed and fund their child herself. Her finances and medical history were equally stable. Her mother and friends were ready to step in should Eric fail to support her. And they expected him to fail, didn’t they? What woman hadn’t been disappointed by a man? Eric itched to prove to Dahlia, her divorcée mother and her powerful colleagues that he was critical to this undertaking. He read the baby books, padded and secured the apartment, scheduled appointments, prepared healthy meals and scrambled to take on more freelance work.
“You don’t have to try so hard,” Dahlia laughed, not understanding. She leaned away from the kitchen table with a groan. “I don’t look bad, do I?”
“You look pregnant. Though yeah, that outfit makes you look fatter than you are. You’ve got shirts that flatter your figure better.”
“My figure. This isn’t my figure.”
Green tea sloshed sharply in her mug. Eric had finally gotten Dahlia off coffee after a massive fight where he called her reckless and hurled statistics at her until she cried. He hated making her cry – more than anything, he hated it – but some fights had to happen for things to change.
Dahlia set the mug down on the table and tucked her face into her hands, keeping her tears for herself.
“I miss my body. I don’t know if you can fully understand how scary it is to feel like your body isn’t yours. Like you’re wearing a disguise and no one can see the real you.”
“Sweetheart, it’s only for a few more months.”
“You’re disgusted by me, aren’t you? That’s why we haven’t had sex.”
Eric had regular nightmares about returning from a long vacation to find Dahlia had let herself go, blobs and bulges of flesh insisting she was the same person and he should love her anyway, heaving apart her meat-log thighs and demanding that he fuck her, and Eric would lurch awake, queasy, momentarily horrified and revolted until he remembered Dahlia was just pregnant.
“It’s more that I’m worried about the baby,” Eric said, stacking her breakfast plate on top of his. “You know I’d never forgive myself if—”
“Yeah, yeah, prioritize the baby, my body’s just the disposable vessel it feeds off of, I’m not a human with her own desires.”
“Dolly, this is only temporary. You’re just hormonal. You want this baby, remember?”
“I don’t know. I thought I did.”
Eric’s heart punched up into his ribs.
“…What?”
“Sorry,” she choked out, hands over her face again. “You’re right. It’s hormones. I do want the baby. But I want myself too.”
“You can’t just say shit like that,” Eric snapped, his skin hot and tight.
Dahlia wilted.
“This isn’t okay,” Eric continued. “You’re not okay. I mean, listen to yourself. Am I meant to be feminist here? To tell you your body is yours alone so go ahead, queen, and have an abortion? That’s a monstrous position to put me in. You’re telling me to choose between you and our child—”
“I’m not saying that!”
“—because of what? A little discomfort? Everyone feels alienated from their own bodies. Everyone feels like they’re wearing a disguise and nobody sees the real them.”
“I never used to.”
“You should be grateful the pregnancy is healthy and, I don’t know, be in awe or something.”
“I can’t help how I feel!”
“But you can acknowledge that what you feel is disconnected from reality! Have you considered talking to someone about this?”
Of course, his careless girl had considered it yet taken no action. So, Eric curated a list of local mother-to-be groups, weeding out the religious ones, and therapists that specialized in parenting matters. Dahlia resisted, dragged her feet, got upset when he followed up — but one day, she texted from the office that she’d be late home. She was going to give one of the groups a try that evening. He told her he was proud of her, had always loved her for who she was, and that she would be a great mother.
It caught Eric off-guard, how quickly his suggestion took hold and helped. As though he’d dropped a seed into a pot and given it a splash of water from the tap, and blinked to find it was gobbling down rain and sun, sustaining itself, propelling upwards and greenwards. The other mothers-to-be validated Dahlia’s ambivalence, respected her fears, and traded weird horrible wonder-filled stories about how this was the best and worst thing they’d ever done.
The whiskey and fireworks had calmed into something pure and cool.
“We both valued my looks so much, you know?” Dahlia tilted her head back to tap a hydrating face mask into place. “And it’s like I can finally view my body as having worth separate from appearance. Right now, my body’s purpose and value lie in being healthy and physically strong, but there’s no reason that shouldn’t be my body’s purpose and value all the time. I feel like we obsessed a bit too much over me having a flat stomach and blonde hair.”
“Well, there’s a good reason for that,” Eric protested, pulling up a few statistics on his laptop about how much better the world treated pretty people.
“I know,” she said with impatience. “But I feel like I wasn’t respecting my body for everything it could be. Now, I’m healing, if that makes sense.”
Dahlia’s fingers stroked the moisture from the mask under her chin and down her slender neck. After wiping her hands on a small towel and setting a timer, she retied the sash of her silk robe. Delicate pinks and mint green swaddled her enormous belly. Her long hair was piled on top of her head, dark roots showing, and she propped her feet up. She appeared so utterly feminine and content that Eric hated her for a second. The emotion was a shock of heat in his gut. He wanted to slap the cup of jasmine tea from her hand. He felt excluded, as though Dahlia and her body were friends going on a trip without him.
“I’ve started outlining work-out plans for after the baby’s born,” he said. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard in the first month, but there are gentle exercises you can do to ease back into physical activity.”
“You’re seriously already worrying about what I’ll look like post-birth? You really think that will be a priority for us once Melody-or-Dylan is born?”
“You just said that you wanted to be healthy and physically strong even after you gave birth. Don’t fall into the trap of using motherhood as an excuse to be fat.”
“Fat isn’t the same as unhealthy.”
“It is, actually,” Eric snorted.
“Well, skinny certainly isn’t the same as healthy. Look,” Dahlia huffed through the mask. “I’m not saying I’ll be out of shape forever but, I don’t know, Eric, maybe the miracle of our child being in the world should matter more than how we look in the photos.”
“Of course,” he placated. “But remember how pissed you used to get when I hounded you about sunscreen? And just the other day, you said you appreciated my fastidiousness because of how young you still look. This is the same thing — giving birth will age you and you’ll need to actively work against that.”
“You’re so incredibly shallow!” She snatched the mask off without waiting for the timer. Her face glistened like a placenta. “If Melody-or-Dylan is ugly, are you going to disown them?”
“Please don’t say that. It’s literally my worst nightmare.”
“Fuck you.” Tears strangled her voice. “Well, I am going to love our child with everything I’ve got no matter what.”
“Of course, I’ll love them,” Eric said calmly. “But can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t prefer our kid to be good-looking and intelligent?”
“And how long will you give me after I give birth to get back into shape? A week at most before you start nagging me? What if it takes a year?”
“I’ll love you regardless, you know that. But part of loving you is helping you to be your best self.”
“It’s like you think my body is your domain.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Good! Because you’re not fair! And your obsession with what I look like is sick. It’s my body. Do you get that? It’s not yours.”
“Well, it’s not like anyone cares what I look like!” Eric snapped. “I’d give anything to be looked at in public the way you are. But even you don’t care what I look like.”
“I like how you look!”
“But you don’t care enough to tell me how I could improve.”
“Yeah, because I love you and don’t need you to change.”
“Well, maybe you should!”
The argument caught on itself, corkscrewing into its own crippled logic, fed itself fatter and meaner, until it filled the apartment.
Dahlia was so pretty and she could be beautiful if she would just put the effort in and take Eric’s advice. But she didn’t care. She didn’t understand what she had. Eric wasn’t unattractive but guys weren’t meant to primp or sparkle. He used to think he was gay, the way he wanted to be looked at and admired. He wished he was gay. It would have made everything so much easier.
Dahlia slammed the door to their bedroom, which Eric had stopped sleeping in during the thirty-fourth week of the pregnancy, when her endless rearranging of weight had shredded his nights. It was lonelier being shut out by two instead of one. Or was it three? Dahlia, her body and the baby — a gang he could never be a part of.
The evening hovered around him, his whole life out of reach. He craved the feel of Dahlia’s lithe, lean form beneath him. Wanted to dress her in jewel-toned panties he’d then take off, to sink his body into the home of hers. The word domain stuck in his mind, exhilarating and shameful. He felt it in his nipples.
Eric buzzed, needing to exist, to be seen. He met Graham at the bar, navigated sports talk against the backdrop of beer taps and arcade machines until they were finally drunk enough to be honest.
“Man, I get it,” Graham laughed. “It’s evolution. You think a woman’s hot, you knock her up, and your subconscious is so proud of itself, it wants to keep going. Except you can’t knock up the same chick right away, so your dick’s looking elsewhere. I mean, it’s like the Chinese emperors or sultans or whatever. They all had concubines for a reason. While your main lady is incubating, you get a piece on the side so you don’t potentially fuck up the baby.”
“That’s not what I’m looking for,” Eric said. “Cheating on your pregnant wife is a pretty scummy thing to do.”
“Not as scummy as leaving her though. It’s only dumb Western morality that says it’s more honorable to divorce a pregnant woman than to cheat on her. You ever had a redhead? One just walked in.”
“The whole point of what I was saying was that Dahlia is acting like I’m a monster for wanting her to get back into shape after the baby’s born.”
“Pure fucking irony, right? The whole reason she’s not fuckable now is because she was hella fuckable and thus, you fucked. Ignore it, man. It’s just the hormones. Emily was a nutcase during both pregnancies.” Graham drained his beer. “I might go for the redhead if you don’t.”
The woman’s coppery hair fell long and straight. Her waist was slender, the way Dahlia’s used to be. Eric squeezed his own waist through the flannel of his shirt, aching for the feel of a curve. He tried to see if anyone was looking at him. No one was.
The bar was too loud. For the redhead, he would have to yell about desire and logistics, pay for the drinks and a cab, attune himself to the unfamiliar instrument of her body, stress over making her sing, then stress over returning to the swollen fury of his wife. He pictured Dahlia’s glistening, tear-streaked face, mottled pink, her eyebrows skewed from the mask.
The bar was too loud but Graham bought a bottle of Grey Goose. Eric poured out shots of cold vodka for the redhead and her friends. She wasn’t especially beautiful. Her hair and the masterful make-up did most of the work. Eric squinted into her when she sat close with a hollered greeting. He asked whether she had false eyelashes on or used a volumizing mascara. She laughed too hard and smushed a breast into his soft bicep. He waited for her to stroke his neck or dare a hand on his waist. She waited, too, her expectation female and unfair. She had the role he wanted, a role he couldn’t even audition for.
On the train, lilting with every lurch, Eric blearily typed her brand of mascara into the Notes app on his phone. The station and the street wobbled. The lock danced in the apartment door, teasing his key for a full minute. An unopened cardboard box containing a stroller leaned against the kitchen table. He petted the box and drank from the tap. Dahlia could always just dye her hair red, once she looked good and right again, after Delody-or-Mylan was born. Should he be looking into boob job doctors already? She’d droop after breastfeeding.
The mattress rose up to smack his chest, uncorking the breath from his lungs. He was a guest in a guest room. His tongue was sour. He fought his clothes off until his bare body pressed into the sheets.
“Naked as a babe,” he mumbled, laughing stupidly.
His flesh felt tight and heavy. He searched his own skin the way he’d searched for his buttons and zippers, sure of another layer to be shed. He cupped his pecs, squeezing them together, and pictured Dahlia in the pink bikini on that beach the week of their wedding, imagined red hair and a boob job. The bikini had tied into a bow on each side, the pink strings licking over the tops of her thighs.
Eric’s palms coasted over the ridge of his hips and he saw Dahlia as she was now. Stroking upwards from his waist, he outlined the shape of the swell, the mound of potential, the whole world, the warm safety provided by his own body, so loved and loving, life-giving. His hands tingled hot. They seemed attached to him only by string and glue.
Once the baby was safely out, once Dahlia’s belly had tightened and flattened, he would dress her in a bikini that glittered, bring the sun to the prime architecture of her breasts. How big should they be?
Eric staggered upright. His cupped hands floated in front of him, dizzily measuring. D cup? Double D? Had to be big enough to be seen. He put his shoulders back, imagined a sweep of red hair, and he creaked onto the balls of his feet because high heels would angle him into the ideal posture, draw attention to the right places. Maybe cork wedge sandals and toenails painted to match the swimsuit. It was a bright hot oil spill inside him – how much he wanted this. A continent of yearning pushing up under the sea.
Off-balance, too light up top and too heavy below, Eric stumbled sideways. He caught a flicker of movement on the wall and turned. The mirror slapped him with the image of a cold and lifeless thing fumbling in the dark. He tasted the salt and the sun, felt the ghost of glitter on his skin, and he wondered where he’d gone.
Laura O’Gorman Schwartz is a queer writer of fiction and non-fiction who grew up in Ireland, Japan, Singapore and (anticlimactically) New Jersey. She fled to Bard College in upper New York to major in Japanese and now resides in Singapore with her non-binary spouse and their boyfriend, as well as two cats and too many cactuses. Her short stories have appeared in several publications, including ‘The Birmingham Arts Journal’, ‘Ruminate Magazine’ and Ohio State’s ‘The Journal.’
