We spent almost four months in California without a single drop of rain, and from the moment we got home, it has been raining nearly non-stop. As we moved into December, the rain turned into very strong, cold winds and the occasional snowfall. We woke up Christmas morning with sixteen inches of fresh snow that had fallen over night. It was gorgeous, but before we could even get to opening presents with the babies, we had to shovel and plow the driveway and our private access road to ensure we could get out if Sam went into labor early. Thankfully, that did not happen, but it has been a constant worry.
I’ve barely been sleeping because I’m so paranoid that we’re going to get another big dump of snow and we’re going to end up trapped in the house and unable to get Sam to the hospital. August, our midwife prefers to be available to an expectant mother for the entire last month of her pregnancy, especially since she lives in Cherokee and she’s not able to do routine in-person checkups with my wives throughout the entire duration of their pregnancies. But with Sam’s due date so close to Christmas, we pushed her flight back till the fifth of January so she could be home to spend the holidays with her family. A bad snowstorm threatened to push that date again, but thankfully, we were able to get her here to the house and she has been constantly assuring us that Sam and our baby or babies are doing great.
It’s January 10th, a week from Sam’s due date, and I’ve been up since three in the morning, just watching out the front window to monitor the amount of snowfall collecting on the driveway. With a wooden yardstick in hand, I go out every so often and check the depth in various spots because the wind gusts are causing drifts to form across the driveway, walkway, and the lawn. By seven o’clock, it’s up to eight inches in some areas and only one in others. I know by plowing this early I risk waking up my wives, but the risk of Sam waking up in labor and it not being done is one I’m not willing to take.
With Aura at my side, trudging through the snow, we walk back up the driveway and climb into my Land Rover, which has been outfitted with a snowplow on the front. I cringe as the metal plow grates on the asphalt. It’s so loud!
It takes thirty minutes to plow the turnabout, the long driveway, and the long private access road we live off of. The main road looks like the city has been keeping up with it, which is a relief and helps me relax a bit as I drive back up our driveway to park in front of the walkway. If we have to take Sam to the hospital during this snowstorm, the Land Rover will be leading the way, just in case it’s necessary to drop the plow and clear a path.
I shovel the walkway again, then toss some sand and rock salt down to help prevent ice from building up. When I open the front door, Shannon walks into the foyer with a steaming mug in one hand and a folded towel stacked with a change of sweatpants and socks in the other.
“Good morning, sweetie. Strip out of your wet clothes and change into these.”
“Thanks, babe. Did I wake everyone up?”
“Yes, but it’s okay. How bad was it out there?”
While Shannon uses the towel to dry Aura off, I strip out of my gloves, winter jacket, boots, pants, and socks, and I tell her about the snow drifts, the biting cold wind, and the condition of the main road. After I have the fresh pants and socks on, she hands me the steaming mug.
“It’s hot apple cider. Awenasa is making tea and breakfast should be ready soon.”
“Thanks, babe.” I take a tentative sip, and since it doesn’t burn my tongue, I take a larger gulp and sigh in relief. “Oh, that’s good. It’s so damn cold out there.”
“Come on, we got a fire burning for you.”
While Shannon goes back to the kitchen to help finish cooking breakfast, Aura and I walk into the living room and sit down on the large futon mattress.
Sam is sleepily lounging in the corner of the sectional sofa with her feet in Symone’s lap and Symone is giving her a foot massage. But as I’m taking a sip of cider, she sits up more, blinking rapidly, as if trying to wake up more, and tells me, “Thanks for taking care of the snow. How long have you been awake?”
“Since around three. Aura and I have been going out to check the depth and shovel the walkway periodically. I tried to wait as long as possible to plow so I didn’t wake you all up, but it was getting too deep in some areas.”
Sam yawns as she shakes her head. “You should take a nap after we eat breakfast. You haven’t been sleeping enough.”
“I’m okay.”
She smiles as she rests her head back and puckers her lips in an air kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too. How are you feeling? Aside from being tired.”
“My feet and ankles are sore even though I’ve been in bed all night. My lower back and hips hurt. I’m hungry. And horny, but I’m too tired to deal with that right now.”
Symone and I release a small laugh, which makes Sam give us a pouty glare and stick her tongue out at us. Symone rubs her thigh, and lovingly suggests, “Maybe we can take care of that after breakfast.”
“Maybe. I’m not feeling very sexy right now.” She looks down at her beachball sized belly as she starts rubbing it. “I feel like I’m going to pop. I can’t believe how big I’ve gotten since we got home.”
It is pretty incredible how large Sam’s belly has gotten. Sam is such a petite woman that it’s kind of scary seeing how much her abdomen and skin have had to stretch to accommodate the growth of our baby or babies. It’s even more jarring because she hasn’t really gained any weight anywhere else. If she had filled out more like Shannon and Awenasa had in her thighs, ass, and face, it wouldn’t look like she was literally about to pop at any second. Sam has an extremely high metabolism and it’s hard for her to put on weight, and even through this pregnancy that hasn’t changed, even with the extra food she’s been consuming. Sam’s appetite has been nearly insatiable, especially the past four months. She’s pretty much been eating enough food in one day for two to three grown adults. It has gotten to the point that she has complained about being tired of eating, but she does it anyway.
It really is going to be interesting to see if she’s carrying twins or just one very chubby happy baby. Chubby babies are so damn cute, but I really hope the baby isn’t too big because that’s going to be hell for her to have to pass.
“What you thinking about, baby?”
I look up from Sam’s belly into her curious eyes and smile. “Just wondering what you’ve got baking in your oven.”
While rubbing her belly, she jokes, “You make it sound like I might have a wolf or an alien in here.”
“You know I’d love the hell out that alien, so that’s okay if you are.”
“Oh, my god.” She laughs hard and shakes her head. “I swear, if I give birth to an alien, I’m immediately having my tubes tied.”
“Well, according to some historians and archeologists, we’re all aliens that basically just got stuck here for some reason, so…”
Between laughter, Sam cuts me off, saying, “Kayla, I love you, but stop it. You’re making me envision our baby coming out with scales and multiple sets of eyes and…”
“I’d still love our scaly baby. And come on, you know how lost I get looking into our babies’ eyes. If our baby had multiple sets,” I sigh, “I’d be in another galaxy.”
“Literally.”
We laugh at Symone’s comment, and Sam deduces, “I think the chances of us having a scaly baby with a ton of eyes is pretty much zero.”
“If you had let me buy you one of Pluto’s moons after Keira gave birth to Savannah last autumn like I had wanted to, we might be able to have a nice alien baby.”
Sam laughs hard and tosses a throw pillow at me. I catch one corner, but half of it hits Aura’s side, and she looks at Sam and releases a whiny howl as she tilts her head in a questioning way.
“Sorry, sweetie. Come here.” Sam holds her hand out to Aura, so she gets up, shakes her fur, then walks over to lick Sam’s hand once, then licks her belly through her oversized tee shirt while Sam pets her. “Kayla is being silly this morning. I think lack of sleep is really getting to her. I think we should make her take a nap later. What do you think?” Aura howls with a head nod, making Sam grin in a victorious way. “See, Aura agrees, you need sleep.”
“I’ll try, but I really don’t know if my mind will relax enough to sleep.”
Shannon walks in, and announces, “Breakfast is ready,” so we all stand up and follow her to the informal dining room and kitchen.
We join our wives, babies, and August around the table, and Awenasa rubs a hand over Sam’s shoulders, and as she lightly grips the back of her neck, giving it a massage, she asks, “How are you feeling?”
“The same.”
“Sorry, love. After you eat, we can draw a bath for you. Maybe that will help.”
“Okay. Then we have to make Kayla take a nap. She’s been up since three watching the snow.”
Awenasa looks over at me with a loving smile. “We’ll watch the snow so you can sleep.”
I shrug a shoulder as I cut through my apricot and pineapple candied ham steak. “Maybe. I know I should be tired, but I don’t feel like I’ll be able to sleep.” I look over at the back door and watch the snow swirl and dart around in fast gusts. “We may need to ask Sara and Keira or Tonya and Jade to stay here till after Sam goes into labor so the weather doesn’t prevent someone from being able to get here or to the hospital to watch the babies for us.”
“Sweetie,” Shannon places a hand on my cheek, turning my gaze away from the snow, “you need to stop obsessing over the weather. You’re going to make yourself sick with all of this stress. But if it will help you relax, we’ll ask someone to stay here.”
“Yeah, I think it will help a lot.”
“Okay, sweetie, we’ll text them after breakfast. Eat up.”
Breakfast is tasty and it’s nice to listen to my wives talk about the various things they’re working on right now. Like music. Dance choreography. Plans for a spring dance showcase for Jaime and Symone’s students. Advances with the herbal business. And August even tells us some news from Cherokee. But my eyes keep drifting over to the backdoor to watch the unrelenting snow.
As hands land on my shoulders, I startle and look up to see Sam standing behind me. “Come on, you need to try to sleep.”
“Babe, I’m fine. Really.”
“Get up.”
I groan dramatically while swaying side to side like a reluctant child, but I stand up. She takes my hand, and as she begins pulling me out of the dining room, she tells our wives, “I’m going to put the wolf to bed,” and all of our wives and August respond, telling me to relax and sleep well.
As we’re about to pass the front door, I tug on Sam’s hand. “Hold on, babe. Let me check out front.”
“We’ll watch the snow.”
“If I don’t look, I won’t be able to rest.”
“Fine.”
The driveway looks like a zebra with stripes of muted black asphalt and stripes of denser bright white snow. It’s hard to say for sure from this distance, but it appears like the deepest parts are probably only a couple of inches.
“See, it’s not bad. Come on.”
Sam closes the door and tugs on my hand. I support her with an arm around her waist, staying a step behind her so I can catch her if she loses her balance on the stairs, and we slowly make our way upstairs. When we reach our bedroom, she’s a little winded and immediately sits on the side of the bed.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just tired.” She pats the bed as she shuffles back. “Come on, baby, get in bed with me.”
I crawl around to the other side and help her shuffle back and pull the covers up over us. Resting on an elbow on my side, I rub my hand over her belly, and Sam sighs as she places a hand over mine with her head tilted to look at me with a sleepy smile.
“Hey, beautiful.”
Her smile widens and she puckers her lips, so I bend down to give her a long, slow kiss. After a few minutes, Sam caresses my cheek and pulls away.
“I love you, Sam. Do you remember when we did that homeless outreach program our senior year? It was such a heartbreaking experience, especially because of how many kids were there. But it was also a really powerful experience on so many levels. Even though I was in love with Awenasa and still hoping for a future with her, I knew I was in love with you and started seeing a future with you as well. When we were playing with those kids, I just knew deep down we’d be playing with our own kids one day. I wanted you to be the mother of my children. I know I wasn’t able to show it or say it back then, but when you broke up with me, you really broke my heart. I felt like I didn’t just lose you; I lost the future I envisioned in my head for us. When you showed up on campus at Josh’s party, I was so confused. I didn’t know what to feel or think. I was so fucking happy to see you and to have had you back in my arms again, but I was scared. I thought you were there to fuck with me. I was afraid you were going to hurt me even more. Thank you for fighting for us.”
I swipe my thumb under her eyes as a couple of small tears break over the rims. She catches my hand and kisses it, and after taking a few deep breaths, she answers, “I love you, Kayla. We both broke each other’s hearts back them. We were both too stubborn to tell each other I love you.” She bites her bottom lip for a moment, and while looking down and not meeting my eyes, she adds, “I’ve always been too afraid to ask. I know you don’t still feel that way. But that night, when I showed up at Josh’s party and I finally told you I love you, you said you love me too but you loved Maddi more.” She slowly meets my eyes, and asks, “Why did you love her more when we had been together so much longer than you had been with Maddi?”
“I think it’s because of the jealousy issues you had back then. Not when you would get feisty if someone flirted or something like that. You know I love how feisty you are.” She smiles and puckers her lips, so I give her a peck on the lips. “You sometimes accused me of stuff I wasn’t doing and you had no reason to think I was. It made me feel like crap about myself. I think that’s why. But you’ve grown out of that and you’re perfect now.”
“Till I saw you dancing at that party in high school, I thought I was just bi-curious. I had only dated guys and never even kissed a girl before, just had some celebrity crushes on women that I didn’t really think meant anything. But I felt things that I had never felt before just from watching you. And when you had your hands on me and we were dancing, it was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. I guess part of my jealousy issues were because I was afraid of losing you and part of it was because of my insecurities about my sexuality. You already knew you were gay and so did everyone else. I was worried that my lack of experience with girls would make you get bored quickly or something.”
“Sam, we were each other’s first – we never had sex with anyone else, so what more experience did you think you needed to have to feel secure with me?”
“I don’t know, baby, it was a weird time. I was figuring out who I am, falling in love with you, dealing with jokes and criticism for suddenly having a girlfriend, both from friends and my parents, and my parents were fighting a lot back then. I’m sorry I made you feel like crap about yourself. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know.” I give her a kiss and run my fingers through her golden blonde hair. “Is there anything else you’ve been afraid to ask me?”
“No. Kiss me.”
As our mouths meld together, our lips and tongues suckle and lash together in a mind-numbing pattern that steals the air from my lungs and causes a tingling sensation to trickle down my body. I run my hand down the side of her neck, between her breasts, over her domed womb, and between her thighs. As I cup her center, Sam takes in a sharp breath through her nose and spreads her thighs.
I release her mouth with a long, sucking nibble of her bottom lip, then trail sucking kisses down her neck, over her breasts on the outside of her tee shirt, and crawl down the bed. She pushes her hands into the mattress to lift her hips while I tug her pajama pants and panties off. As I lay down between her thighs, I leave feathery kisses up the entire length of the inside of both thighs and around her bikini lines before dragging the flat of my tongue up the full length of her sex, from her anus to her clit.
With a sharp moan, Sam says, “I love you, Kayla.”
“I love you too and I always will.”
I’ve always regretted saying that to Sam that night when we finally told each other I love you. It might have been true, but it wasn’t necessary to say aloud and I feel horrible that she has lived with that all this time, wondering why I didn’t love her as much as I loved Maddi back then. I feel awful that I caused her any fear or insecurities about herself and our relationship.
I love all of my wives so deeply that there’s no way I could possibly say I love one more than the other. They’re all such wonderful women with their own unique personalities and qualities and I feel whole with all of them.
Trembling, Sam pats my head, and between gasping breaths, says, “Baby, I came, oh, god, it was good.” I continue gently lapping over her clit, and she giggles as her body spasms and she pats my head again. “Get up here and,” she releases a sound between a moan and gasp, so I remain planted between her thighs.
She releases another gasping groan, and as she sits up some, grabbing her belly, I feel a rush of fluid hit my bottom lip and chin and trickle down my neck. It was way too watery to be cum, so I pull away to look at her groin and see a huge wet spot under her.
“Shit, I think your water just broke.”
I jump out of bed, throw the bedroom door open, and scream down the stairs, “August! Come quick!”
In an instant, there’s a stampede of feet running across the hardwood floor below, so I jump back on the bed next to Sam and take her hand.
She grips my hand tightly, and between gritted teeth, she says, “It hurts.”
Before I can respond, August rushes into the bedroom carrying her medical bag. Our wives are right behind her, carrying our babies, and Aura pushes through their legs to get into the room and hops up onto the bed to sit next to me.
“I think her water broke and she appears to be having a contraction.”
August sits down on the bed on Sam’s other side, and after glancing at the large damp spot on the bedsheet, she opens her medical bag, saying, “Someone call for Sara and Keira to stay with the babies and call ahead to the hospital.”
While Symone and Shannon leave the room to make the phone calls, Sam says, “It’s too early.”
The panic in her voice is gut wrenching, but August assures her, “You’re within a week of your due date, which is completely normal and safe. But just because your water broke and you had a mild contraction doesn’t mean you’re in labor. We’re just going to the hospital as a precaution. Focus on your breathing. I’m going to listen to the heartbeats.”
After putting earbuds in her ears so only she can hear the life beating in Sam’s womb, August rubs the fetal doppler over Sam’s stomach, pauses, moves it again, then waits. She smiles and gives Sam’s hand an encouraging squeeze.
“Sounds good in there. Now, let’s all get ready to leave. But take your time. Rushing and panicking could speed up the process. And remember to breathe.”
After August leaves the room, our wives join us on the bed, and Awenasa places a hand on Sam’s leg. “Are you ready to try to get up to put your pants back on?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid to move.” She looks down and tilts her head side to side, then releases a whimper and whines, “I can’t see the bed around my big belly. What does it look like?”
“Like you spilled a small glass of water.”
Sam tries to see around her belly again, then exhales hard and looks at me. She blushes and touches the collar of my long sleeve tee shirt.
“Oh, my god, my water broke on your face.”
All of us laugh, and Sam tries not to because she’s teary eyed and her bottom lip is trembling with emotion, but she laughs as well.
“It’s okay, babe. Come on, let’s get you ready to go.”