Chapter Text
You’re five-and-a-half months into the thing with Avery when you realize it.
Oh, shit, I have to lock this down.
Your phrasing could probably be better than that. Probably. It’s still the substance of what you think, anyway, and that counts for something.
You were drunk when you recognized it, or at least the fun sort of buzzed that you get at these things, fancy parties where all you’re there to be is Avery’s adoring backup dancer. Not that you’re that much of his backup, when you’re dancing—he’s good, but you’re better, Charlie’s lessons kicking in until movement is all you are.
He likes it, for all that he has a funny way of showing it. He smiled, tonight, when the two of you won the dance-off, wound his arm adoringly around you in the ballroom; when he drove you home, he didn’t bother to get more than a block away from the party before he pulled you out of the car to bend you over the hood and fuck your ass, rough enough that you were glad you always lubed yourself up before you went out with him. You stared at your makeup smudged onto the hood of his car, a lipstick print in the shape of an open, moaning mouth and glitter where your eyelids shed flakes of shadow, and you almost laughed at how absurdly hot it was, and then Avery tightened his grip on your tit where his hand was pulling down the neckline of your short ballgown, and did something to the angle of his thrusts—and your orgasm, and the realization that this was exactly what you wanted, crushed you flat to the pavement.
And so now you’re walking back into the orphanage, a spring in your step, a couple thousand pounds richer, with his semen sliding out of your ass, and you’re thinking: I’m going to marry this man.
It’s the sex.
And the money.
They go together, which makes sense, because one is a direct consequence of the other. He’s paying you for the sex, which means you cannot under any circumstances tell him how good it is for you. If he knows you’d do it for free, he might expect you to do it for free.
Even Bailey’s barging into your room the next morning can’t unsettle you, which is shocking—the man lives to unsettle. You pay up, gleeful at how much money you get to keep tucked away, spread throughout the little stashes scattered throughout your room. You’re trying to stick to a budget, you really are, but with Avery and Niki in your life, it’s just fun to be able to afford it. You bought Robin a tuxedo for Christmas, and she’d clutched it to her chest with a level of awe that made you giddy.
And it’s fun for you, too. You have a closet full of clothes to reflect that, gowns and flashy skirts and a shockingly short and tight leather dress. Avery really likes that one. You’ve cut down to just a few jobs, mostly tutoring rich kids and giving massages at the spa. The second one is more fun; Avery’s even shown up once or twice while you were working, although the only thing that had gotten massaged then had been the inside of your pussy.
The amount of sex you’re having with Avery would be embarrassing, if he wasn’t so good at it. It’s not just the weekly dates, now; he’ll drive you to school and stop in a convenient alley, or he’ll take you to the pub after school and finger you under the table, and when you’d worked as a temp in the same office building as him… you would feel sorry for whoever had to clean that elevator, except it had been you who had had to clean that elevator.
You go to the temple on Sunday, sitting in the pew next to Sydney, and you follow along with the liturgy by rote, shifting in your seat on the hard pew. Sydney notices that something’s wrong, but doesn’t ask. Probably because she knows that you would tell her, if she did.
When the service is over, you ask her to go for a walk with you, the way you usually do, and she accepts, gratefully. It’s too cold for the beach, and so you wander around the shopping center, giggling as you try to climb up the down escalator and get yelled at by a security guard, trying on clothes neither of you wants to wear, and eating every free sample you can find.
“I know we have so much fun shopping,” Sydney confesses, as the two of you sit side-by-side on a bench by one of the main exits, passing a little sample cup of fancy parmesan crisps from the bougie grocery store between you, “but I still think that people-watching is my favorite part.”
You knock your shoulder into hers, gesturing as subtly towards a young couple walking in together as you can. “What do you think they’re here for?” you ask, trying not to be noticed by the couple.
“An engagement ring, definitely,” Sydney says. “Look how close they’re walking. And neither of them is wearing one yet.”
“You always say things like that,” you say. You pause. “I think you’re right, this time.”
“I always am,” Sydney says, with a smile that you know means she’s in on the joke. “What about them?”
You watch the family, the parents holding on to their daughter’s arms as she swings between them. You mean to say that you think they’re here for new shoes for the toddler, that she’s got to be insisting on being held off the ground because she doesn’t like the way her current ones fit. The words that actually come out of your mouth are much different. “I need to get pregnant,” you tell Sydney.
She coughs and splutters, covering her mouth so as not to spray bits of crisp everywhere. “Right now?” she asks. It’s not a bad question.
“You offering to help?” This gets an even bigger reaction, one that draws eyes onto the two of you, as she laughs in shock, the gold cuffs on her braids glinting in the sunlight.
“I know you have my mum for science class,” Sydney gasps out, in between gales of laughter. “So I know you know that’s impossible.”
“You don’t know what she’s been teaching me,” you argue.
“Oh, yes I do,” Sydney says. “It’s all over the dinner table. And during dinner. ‘Syd, baby, do the kids still call it scissoring? Are you making sure to talk to your friends about birth control? I have some extra condoms, if you want to hand out free samples at your library counter. You know you can always ask me if you need to borrow a vibrator, I know how stressful your exams can be.’ She doesn’t understand.”
“Borrow a vibrator?” you ask. “Like—one of hers?”
“I told her I didn’t want her to buy me one,” Sydney says. “I think she’s trying to compromise?”
You laugh. “This is why she’s my favorite teacher,” you say. Not like Doren, who’d handed back a test with a flyer for a domestic abuse hotline tucked inside; and who’d asked you to stay behind after class to ask if you were safe at home; and who’d pointed out the bruises on your wrists when you’d looked at him like he was crazy, which he was.
But getting pregnant isn’t crazy. Avery’s responsible, and he’s probably the type of traditional guy who’ll insist on taking care of you, if you’re having his baby.
You stop taking your birth control that night.
You’re careful, at school, screaming for help before you fight. Ordinarily, you win, but this isn’t a time when you can accept the possibility of anyone else’s semen getting anywhere near you, even if it’s only between your thighs. So you spend a lot more time dodging, and walking between classes with your friends, and you stay out of the school toilets entirely.
Avery drives you and Robin to school, and drives you home, and on Thursday he takes you to the pub, buys you a drink, and you suck his cock in a bathroom stall, and then you wash the taste of his cum down with the rest of your mulled wine. You don’t even like mulled wine.
And you plan. There’s a few ways to sabotage condoms, and you’re working on finding the most plausible ones. Avery buys his own, his preferred brand. Size XL, and you don’t even think it’s vanity sizing.
There’s heat, and friction, and punctures, and incompatible lubricants. You wonder about how to introduce some sort of oil suppository, and one that wouldn’t be obvious to Avery or irritating to your tissues. If you can find the brand he buys, you can put them under a hair dryer, or push holes through them, mess with them until they’re liable to break in the act.
You’re still thinking about how to maneuver a broken condom into Avery’s pocket on Saturday, when you’re sitting across from him and eating dinner and picturing his cum in your pussy. It’s distracting, especially because you usually like linguine, and you take him up on it when he offers you champagne. You should be relaxed, full and fed and happy, and instead you’re wound up with what you’re planning.
The hot tub is also a good idea, though, and you climb in with him, cuddling transparently. You’re both naked, having abandoned the pretense of swimwear some time ago. He’s got his hand around your waist, and he’s just stroking your stomach, down where it’s in that sort of in-between phase, not quite a come-on, but clearly not anything else.
“Shall we take an early night, doll?” Avery asks, reaching for your other hand, and while you would accept, you’re fed up. You’ll get it out of the way now, get him off here instead of in the bed, where the sheets will get messy with sweat and cum.
You grin, and straddle his lap. “I have a better idea,” you say, and you lean down to kiss him. He kisses back, of course, because the only time he doesn’t kiss you back is when he’s kissing you first.
“Of course you have a better idea, doll,” he says, once he’s pulled away. You won’t admit it, but you like him like this, hair ungelling itself in the humidity. He looks almost like a real person.
“I always have good ideas,” you say, and you make sure your tits are just at the waterline when you giggle, so the little waves bump into your nipples. You eat with the eyes first, and all that.
Avery smiles, and kisses you, and grabs your hips, and you can feel his cock pressing hard against your stomach. You fucking love that he’s always ready to go. You know that the stereotype for older men is that they can’t get it up, but with Avery? You’ve never had a problem. This is the part where he usually reaches for a condom, and moves you away while he rolls it on.
Tonight, there’s none of that, and you’re almost expecting him to move to your ass when you feel the head of his cock between your labia. Pressing in.
No way.
No fucking way.
And yet it’s true: he’s in you, bare, surrounded by the bubbling jets of the hot tub. Is it—is it really that simple?
You usually try really hard not to think of Sirris while you’re fucking Avery, because you’re not actually attracted to her, and because it seems like the kind of thing that would upset Avery. Tonight, however, you’re reminded of the last class before break, when she’d done a sex-ed question-and-answer session.
“’Is it true that you can’t get pregnant in a hot tub?’” Sirris read off the card. She shook her head. “Absolutely not. That’s an urban legend. They used to tell us that, of course, but we know better now. Always use a condom, or hormonal birth control, or, better yet, both.”
This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and you have to muffle your grin against Avery’s neck as you ride him, intent on milking him for everything he can give you. You want it in you, his semen spurting directly into your womb, despite your knowledge of the impossibility of that.
You’re going to be so fucking pregnant. You’re going to be full of him even when he’s not there, and you’re going to have a child, real evidence that you belong to someone.
It won’t happen the way you’re picturing it, you know. There’ll be no instant swell in your abdomen, no sensation of fertilization. You won’t even be able to know, right away.
You come, thinking about it, cunt clenching down in a positive feedback loop that has Avery groaning and spilling too, directly inside, and you milk him for all of it, staying on his cock as it softens, working playful little kisses across his jaw as he relaxes, hoping that you can have this forever.
You lie, afterwards, and tell him you need to go freshen up, and you stack towels on the bathroom floor to raise your hips up and make yourself into a funnel for his sperm. And then you do dry your hair, and re-apply your lipstick, and you talk him into a second round on the bed. He wants oral, this time—not exactly unexpected, that’s what the lipstick is for—and so you give it, leaving red smears around the base of his cock.
He offers to reciprocate, but you don’t want him to be made aware of his cum inside you, and so you get yourself off by riding his thigh instead, letting him grope your tits and talk about how hot it is for him to watch you come.
You go to bed satisfied, happy, and full of him.
Avery can tell you’re happy about something, but he doesn’t pry. He probably thinks it’s just the sex, you think, sitting in his car with your to-go cup of coffee from the little cafe in the hotel lobby. He doesn’t know what you’re planning. He won’t know, until it’s too late to stop it.
You buy the pregnancy test that day, but you force yourself to wait a week before you take it. You’re fortunate that he never offers you a drink at the poker games, or at the parties afterwards.
You take the test in the third floor bathroom in the orphanage, the one that everyone takes their pregancy tests in. For luck, maybe. Or it might just be tradition. There’s a scorecard with tally marks carved into the wall next to the toilet, ‘positive’ and ‘negative,’ with a third column, added in a different hand, for ‘false fucking negative goddamn it.’ You piss on it, and force yourself to look away from the little window as you wait the fifteen minutes. It’s not a pot, but you aren’t going to watch it either.
The test is negative. Fine. You’ll fuck him in the hot tub again. It’s not like it’s a hardship. You add a tally to the negative column on the wall, drop the test in the trash, and try not to worry about it as you leave.
So you’ve got a month, and you have research to do.
Sirris answers your questions with a bemused air, as you press her for details about pregnancy. She does insist on handing you another package of condoms, and is extremely skeptical of your explanations about how really, you’re fine, your boyfriend buys his own.
“He—these aren’t the kind he uses,” you say, not meeting her eyes. “He needs a… larger. Size.” You’re sitting behind the counter at her shop with her, because she offered you one of the stools and you didn’t want to seem rude.
Sirris sighs. “Using a too-large condom is almost as bad as using no condom,” she says, like she’s said it a million times.
“I know,” you say. Your entire head feels hot, fizzy in a bad way. You’re going to have to… explain. Your eyes catch on the display on the wall of her shop, dildos in sizes ‘is it in yet’ to ‘average’ to ‘oh my’ to ‘yikes’ to ‘what the fuck’ to ‘medieval torture device,’ all lined up in an array of fleshy and neon silicone. “He’s, uh,” you say, and you gesture somewhere between ‘oh my’ and ‘yikes.’
“Congratulations,” Sirris says dryly, and winks. This must be how Sydney feels when you tell her about your dates. This is awful. “But really, be careful. You’re a good student, with a bright future. I’d hate to see you lose all of that because you believed the wrong man when he said the condoms he’d brought were safe.”
You don’t have the heart to tell Sirris that that’s the opposite of your problem. “Don’t worry,” you say. “I’m not pregnant.”
Yet.
You buy fertility pills this go-round, time when you take them so that you’ll be at your peak fertility the next time Avery takes you to the hotel. You go through Landry, actually, since you worry that Avery would think to ask after it at the hospital, if he gets the idea. Better to move subtly, even if it’s unnecessary.
There’s a constant thrum of arousal pulling at the back of your mind the entire week leading up to your date, and it only gets worse as the days pass by, one after the other.
On Friday, you go to the bathroom before all of your exams, shove your hand down the front of your skirt, and rub yourself to a hasty, insufficient climax. You’re certain that your teachers all know what you’re excusing yourself for, but… well, you’re excusing yourself, and so you get away with it. It helps, barely; you only earn distinctions in English and history: English because that little creep who sits next to you let you cheat off her paper, and history because you came twelve times during the lunch period and all you can feel from your pussy is a sort of swollen numbness. (The way that your swimsuit digs into it later is horrible.)
You forgo underwear beneath your keyhole dress the next day, and you like the way Avery’s eyes linger appreciatively on the waist-high slits that make it perfectly clear that the dress is the only thing you’ve got on. He gets his hand into one of them when you climb into the car, playing with your pussy as he drives. When you get to the hotel, he makes you lick his fingers clean before he hands you the key and drives off to go park it.
“You can get started without me,” he says, eyes on your open mouth and flushed cheeks, “but you aren’t allowed to come until I get there.”
You strip the second you enter the suite, tossing the dress aside without caring where it lands. This morning, you had your hair done by a professional, shaved everything from the neck down, painted your fingernails and toenails a glossy shade of pink that you hope communicates ‘flushed and turned on and incidentally you should also come inside me,’ and took a double dose of your fertility pills.
In retrospect, that’s probably what did it.
It’s fortunate that Avery arrives when he does; you’re trembling on the brink of orgasm only holding off on it because you know he finds it funny to punish you. You like it too. Two months ago, he’d spanked you over his lap the way Bailey does, but Bailey never makes you wear a butt plug, and he certainly doesn’t finger you between rounds of spanking.
But you aren’t exactly looking for punishment tonight.
Avery doesn’t even say anything when he sees you, only shoulders off his suit jacket and dumps it by the door before he strides up to the bed and kisses you firmly, one hand on your hip and the other wound through your hair. You used to do it all up, but these days you mostly leave it half-up-half-down, giving him something to grab.
It takes maybe thirty seconds—his thigh pressed between yours, his teeth on your lips, his hand tight at the back of your neck—and then you’re coming, gasping and squirming in his hold. You would be embarrassed, except you’ve learned that coming quickly only gets you to come again sooner.
Avery pulls back, looking smug, and there’s a damp spot on the dove grey leg of his trousers. “You may want to dress before dinner,” he says. “Unless…” His eyes rake over your naked body, predatory and pleased.
You know a dare when you hear one. “Like they’d do anything to me with you here,” you say, and he gives your ass a squeeze as a reward.
Dinner is great, even if you’re cold out on the balcony. It’s worth it, for the flustered expression on the waiter’s face, and for the proud one on Avery’s. You get the feeling that he’d like to parade you through the whole town like this; look, this is mine, you can’t touch it.
You eat, and you drink, and you gratefully sink into the hot tub with nipples hard enough to cut diamonds. Fortunately, Avery’s warm, welcoming mouth is waiting for them, and for you.
There’s no condom this time, either, and you’re grateful that he’s consistent, and, privately, gleeful that your plan was successful.
He has you hold your tits while you ride him, rub them together in front of his face for his amusement, and to make it easier for him to bite at your nipples.
That goes on the list of silliest things that have made you come, but, given that it made you come, you can’t exactly bring yourself to care.
Avery marks you all the way up, like that, tits and shoulders and neck covered in marks you’re sure will stay, and he works a finger into your ass until you’re so full and moaning with it that you’re certain that everyone below you can hear. Good! Let them! Everyone should know that he’s about to make you pregnant.
You’d swear that you can feel the jets of cum hitting your cervix as he ejaculates and groans and forces your hips down further onto his cock, not that it’s possible to go further. And oh, look, hello, third orgasm of the night!
He urges you to get out of the tub slightly sooner than he did last time, which makes sense, given that all you’re doing is lying there, draped over him, and twitching every time he moves.
As you cross the suite to the bed, you feel Avery’s cum dripping out of your pussy, and it feels like victory.
That night, all of your dreams are of a full belly and a warm bed, and you wake up in the morning with the sure knowledge that you’re going to achieve it.
“School will be out next month, right?” Avery asks, as he presses the elevator button.
“Yeah,” you confirm, although you don’t know why he cares.
Avery hums. “If you’re looking for work, I’m in need of a personal assistant.” He makes it sound exactly like the proposition it is. “I need someone… flexible, capable of handling large workloads, and able to think on her feet… and her back, and her stomach, and on my lap, and on her knees… think you fit the bill?”
You feign concern. “I don’t know if I’m right for it,” you say, pouting your lips. “Will there be a job interview?”
Avery grins. “You know, princess, there just might be.”
So that’s how, on Monday afternoon, you skip your history and swimming classes to go suck Avery’s cock for a job he’d already offered you anyway. It’s really a top-quality blowjob—wet and sloppy, your tits shoved out of your bra and sweater, his cock down your throat for most of it, your mascara running down your face and your lipstick making a little red ‘o’ all around the base, and, when he starts coming, you pull off and make sure you get it all over you.
You blink up at him, eyes big and wet, your tears and his cum sliding down your face, and you use your wrecked voice to ask him if you’ve got the job.
“Fuck, doll,” he groans, slumped back in his seat. “If I can’t have you draining my balls every day, I think I might have to retire early.”
So you do get the job, but he doesn’t let you fix your clothing or wipe off any of his cum until you leave for the day.
“It’s easier than introducing you,” he says, after the latest stammering employee has delivered a message to his office. “This way, they know you’re mine.”
It is a bit much. It’s also the hottest thing that’s ever happened to you.
“I might be an exhibitionist,” you tell Avery, and he laughs out loud, and tells you that if you’re so certain, you can go bring him another cup of coffee from the lounge.
There are three employees already there, chatting about bi-annual analytics, and one of them drops a mug when she sees you walk in. You do your best to ignore them as you set the machine to brew, and put a mug underneath it.
“Fuck, you think she’s lost?” one of them says, too loud to be anything but a stage whisper. “Think we should help her find her way back onto a dick?”
Another one laughs, softly. “You’re kidding,” the woman who dropped the mug says. “Security doesn’t let whores in unsupervised anymore. She’s gotta be with someone.”
“She’s his new toy,” the third says. “No way is she anything else. On this floor?”
Your ears burn. You’re not a whore, technically. Avery isn’t paying you for sex. Officially.
And you’d fuck him even if you weren’t being paid. He’s good at it, knows what gets you off and is generous with it. Like this, for example; the shame of being exposed, the pride of being shown off. It’s probably foreplay.
You keep your head up, shoulders back, expression as collected as possible as you turn around and leave the lounge. The three watch you go, expressions openly lascivious, and the lean man who’d identified you as belonging to Avery gives you a casual wave.
“Tell the boss we said thanks for the eye candy,” he says, tone playful.
“He’s got good taste,” the broad man says.
“Thanks,” you say, because what fucking else is there to say?
At least Avery’s pleased when you bring him his coffee.
You spend the rest of the week working after school, and it really does seem like you’re only here to be beautiful and stared at and played with. Sure, Avery always has something for you to do, but it’s becoming more and more clear that he’d be just as pleased with you if all you did was lie on his couch naked. (You do a little bit of that, but mostly you sort files and make copies and answer Avery’s phone. It’s almost like a real job.)
The weekend is thrilling, both because school is out for a month and because you’re going to get to see if you succeeded.
You buy another pregnancy test.
This time, there’s a second line.
You stare at the test, and your hands tremble, and you sit on the cold toilet seat for several long minutes as you watch it, just to make sure it won’t go away.
You’ve done it.
Part of Avery is growing inside you now.
It’s all you can think about, that night in Bailey’s apartment, and the next morning sitting on the pew next to Sydney at mass. You’re pregnant. You’re going to have his baby. You’re going to have a family.
On Monday, you go back to work, and it’s increasingly clear what your job really is.
It’s astonishing, how much energy Avery has. He’s got stamina. He’ll have you make copies and tell you to slip a scan of your tits into the stack, and then he’ll send you out to buy him lunch and he’ll eat you first, and then he’ll work with you sitting on his lap (and then, usually, on his cock), and then he’ll want you to suck him off under his desk before he drives you home.
It’s a good job. You’re good at it, and he pays you well, and you’re getting laid so much that it’s starting to get boring. You answer the phone one day while he’s railing you, have an entire conversation with someone else’s secretary about scheduling a meeting, put her on hold, reach down to rub your clit furiously until you come, and then, before all of the aftershocks are over, pick the phone back up, and confirm that yes, Thursday at 11:15 a.m. will be perfect.
It’s even worth the looks you get from the other employees. They also know what you’re here to do, and they’re happy to watch you do it. And you do, as it turns out, like it when they watch. When they know who you belong to. On Friday, he has you take notes for him in a meeting, and once it’s over and everyone is packing up, he invites you over to show him your notes, and you do.
He pulls you in close beside him, arm around your waist, as you flip through the pages of your notepad, and he smiles. “Good girl,” he says, and his hand squeezes at your ass, low and on the side, so that everyone still in the room can see. “Scan these in for me before you go, princess. I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”
You beam, and, daring, lean up to kiss him on the cheek. He tolerates it indulgently, chuckles, and sends you off with a fond pat on the ass.
You do have to be careful, at dinner. He’s ordered wine, as usual, and not drinking would give the game away too soon. It’s fortunate that you’re clever enough to have come this far. Footsie under the table turns into a game of escalation, going further and further, and when he comes, he has to excuse himself to the bathroom to clean up before it becomes obvious. You pour most of your wine back into the uncorked bottle, and then you ask him about an acquisition his company is planning, and he’s almost too distracted by his explanation to drink his own wine, much less to notice that you aren’t drinking yours.
When you take into consideration the additional fact that he eats you out in the backseat of his car, it’s an incredibly successful operation.
You’re good at this. You have a good job, and good friends, and you’re going to have this man’s baby.
You go out with Sydney the next Friday after work, since it’s been a couple months since the two of you went to the hairstylist, and you tell Avery that morning because he usually drives you home to the orphanage.
“Are you planning to do anything with your hair, princess?” Avery asks, leaning back in his desk chair. You shrug.
“I mean, I’m not going to get any braids,” you say, fiddling with it. “I might need a trim?” Avery tilts his head at you, and makes a thoughtful noise.
“You’d look good with a bob,” he says, standing from his chair. “Something a bit modern, with…” Avery trails off, circling his desk to stand behind you and direct you to the mirror on one of the walls. He runs a finger along your neck. “Layers here, higher in the back, and…” He lifts a few strands, rolling them between his fingers. “You could handle some highlights, to frame your face.”
“Sure,” you say, barely paying attention to what he’s saying with all your focus on his body behind yours. Avery isn’t really that large, not by any means, but he’s tall, and he’s got a breadth to his shoulders that you really do enjoy. “Do you not like how it looks now?”
Avery chuckles, deep and friendly. “Of course I like how it looks now,” he says. “But people notice these things, and it’s been a while since you’ve made a change. Why not give them something to talk about?” He pats the pocket that you know he keeps his wallet in. “My treat, of course.”
Well, you do love spending his money. “Thank you, Avery,” you say sweetly, and then you turn around and balance your hands on his shoulders so that you can kiss him on the lips.
Sydney is delighted with your plan. “Highlights take a while,” she says, pleased. “And I was planning on doing longer braids, so you won’t just be sitting there the whole time.”
“I think I’ll just be sitting there the whole time anyway, just with dye in my hair,” you say, bumping your shoulder into hers. “Don’t you always do longer braids?”
Sydney laughs. “No, like—“ she gestures “—longer longer.” You look.
“Wow,” you say. “You sure you’ll be done before the shopping center closes?” The stylist is admittedly open pretty late, but you’re pretty sure that it’s not enough for that much hair.
She shrugs. “I can finish them at home,” she says, sounding pretty unconcerned. “Mum can help me, too, she just can’t start them. She gets distracted.”
“Sirris?” You ask. “Really? She gets distracted?” Sydney laughs, and laughs, and the two of you enter the salon still giggling to each other.
While Sydney explains her plan of action—medium-sized braids, extensions in an almost glittery shade of copper—you sit down in one of the other chairs.
“I want to go shorter,” you say, waving your hand at about the height Avery had when he demonstrated that morning.
“That’s a lot of length to lose,” the stylist says. “You sure you want a change that big?”
I’m about to have an even bigger change, you think, but don’t say. “I think I’m ready for it,” you say. “I have it on good authority that it’s going to be cute.”
The stylist grins down at you. “Oh, it’s going to be cute,” they say. “I’m a professional.”
They really are, you think, almost six hours later, as you walk out of the closing shopping center with Sydney. Your entire head feels lighter, and the air on the back of your neck is a distractingly new sensation.
Your haircut didn’t take the full six hours, but hearing every bit of gossip in the lives of the four hairdressers in the shop did, and so did convincing Sydney to tell stories about working on the adult shop with Sirris. (Okay, convincing only took some of the time, and the stories themselves took a lot of it. She had two of them collapsed on the floor, crying with laughter, when she told them about the guy who tried to try on a condom and then put it back on the shelf when it didn’t fit.)
You’ve got highlights in a shimmery strawberry blond, and your hair curls in towards your chin charmingly.
You really do hope Avery likes it.
You don’t really say that to Sydney, because you don’t really talk to her about Avery. Mostly because you don’t really want to hear her thoughts about it. And she doesn’t ask. She knows you have a… whatever it is that Avery is to you. You’ve mentioned going on dates with him, at least, because she’s invited you to hang out on Saturday evenings.
If she tried to save you, you’d…
You don’t really want to be saved.
When Avery picks you up the next evening, he confirms it, bending down to kiss your newly exposed neck, and, yeah, that’s what you do this for. And he doesn’t stop touching it, either, running his hand over it. He’s pleased he’s done this to you, and you’re pleased too.
At the party, you get dozens of compliments on it, about the color and the shape. You thank them, and confirm with the people who recognize you that the style is new, and it’s enough of a distraction that you can keep wine out of your hands for almost the whole party.
Avery’s proud the whole time, hands on you possessively, showing you off to everyone. He never says that the change was his idea, but he certainly accepts the credit for it.
He likes looking at you, too. He has you strip as soon as you get into his car, and takes the long way home, even as you worry that you’re dripping on his seats.
It’s one of the last times he’s going to see you like this, you realize. Your body will change, with the pregnancy. You know some of it, at least, from science class: you’ll have stretch marks, your breasts will grow and become heavy with milk, your posture will change to put your full stomach first. It’s better than a tattoo, because you’re going to have a baby at the end of it.
You know your baby isn’t going to look like a baby yet, but you can almost feel it humming inside you, moving, growing.
People can tell something’s up with you. Sydney, when you sit next to her at mass, asks what you’re smiling about, and you tell her you can’t talk to her about it in the temple, and she squeals in delighted scandal. Whitney shoves you into the fountain in the park because you’re too cheerful, and even that doesn’t kill your good mood.
Robin asks you about it too, and you don’t really know what to tell her. “It’s my new job,” you say, instead of telling her about Avery.
She knows about Avery. He’s driven the two of you to school often enough that there’s no way she wouldn’t know.
You don’t talk to Robin about Avery. You don’t know if it’s because you’re trying to spare her or because you’re trying to spare yourself.
She wrote you a letter, a few weeks after you took on her debt. It was… brave, you would say, to ask you if you wanted to be her girlfriend.
It was kind to give you a way out.
You haven’t spoken about the letter. You’re not sure what you’d say.
You couldn’t tell her why you don’t want to date her. All of your reasons feel so flat and useless, when you try to line them up. She’s like a sister to you, except she’s obviously not your sister. You’re straight, but couldn’t you make an exception for someone who loves you this much? You have a boyfriend, but it isn’t like Avery would know about it, and it’s not like Robin cares what he thinks. You’re paying Bailey for her, but that’s why she said she liked you.
It doesn’t make sense. The thought of going into her room and kissing her still sends fear and nausea rolling through you. That doesn’t make sense either.
So you tell Robin that you’re happy about your new job, and it’s not even a lie. You are happy. You’re making acquaintances, if not friends, and the computer repair technician who you brought coffee while he updated Avery’s PC stopped by again to give you one of the cookies his mother baked him. You’re even starting to understand Avery’s abstruse filing system.
On Thursday, Avery sends you out to pick up his lunch, and you grab something for yourself that you haven’t tried yet, falafel and a sweet potato salad served cold. There’s a bit of a bounce in your step as you make your way onto Avery’s floor, and into the corridor where his office is located. He does so often use lunch as an excuse to take a break. You’re wet just thinking about it.
There’s a woman talking to Avery, and you slow your steps. She’s tall, and wearing a dark blue suit, and as you walk closer, you see that she’s holding a tablet.
She’s talking to him, and he’s listening, and she laughs boisterously as he makes some joke that you can’t quite hear. You’d try to get closer, except Avery sees you, and smiles, and walks directly past you to pick up his bag.
You aren’t jealous. It would be absurd. But you pay attention to it, filing it away in the back of your mind. Avery does finish his lunch by having you for dessert, and that’s enough of a balm that you don’t worry about it, even though you do remember.
You see her a couple times more, on Friday. In the halls, having serious conversations with several of the employees who you’ve ascertained are high-level. She’s important. She knows people. And for some reason, you’ve never seen her before.
You make the decision. You’re going to tell Avery you’re pregnant today, at the hotel, before he gets another chance to try to foist a glass of wine onto you. You just barely managed to distract him at the party, and you’re certain that if it continues, he’ll know you know.
So you do what you’ve always done. You curl up in Robin’s bed, once she’s back from the beach, and you play video games with her, all the classics, everything that even you stand a chance at beating. You don’t win often, but this way you stand a chance, and the snacks you’ve snuck in and the lemonade she shares with you carry you through until eight p.m. hits and it’s time to face your fate.
You don’t tell Robin where you’re going, and she doesn’t ask. And you’re grateful.
You wear the same dress you did last month, for luck, and to remind Avery that you really are worth the trouble. He still likes it, even if his reaction isn’t quite as forward as it was, and despite the fact that you don’t undress for him, he still decides that the first thing he wants to do is make out with you on the hotel bed.
Well. There’s no time like the present.
“I need to tell you something,” you say, as Avery runs his hand up the slit in the side of your dress. “Um. Please don’t be mad?” You play it up, put it on, the uncertainty.
Avery pauses, hand stilling and tightening fractionally on your thigh. “Yes, princess?”
“I—I didn’t...I didn’t get my period this month,” you say, letting a bit of your real shame creep into your voice. “I thought I was late, but then it just got later and later, and…”
Avery’s hand clenches, his nails digging in before he forces himself to relax. “It could still be late,” he says. He sounds like he’s speaking to himself.
“It could be,” you say. “I don’t know what I should do.”
“We should know first, before we do anything,” Avery says. “Have you taken a test?”
You shake your head. “I’m scared they’ll think I’m a slut if I go in and buy one,” you lie.
Avery laughs. “You are a slut, doll,” he says, squeezing your hip appreciatively. “You’re my slut.”
It sounds better when he says it than when Whitney does.
Avery calls room service for the pregnancy test, and it’s delivered within a few minutes. Hell of a concierge. He enters the bathroom with you, and tells you to take the test as he watches.
He even holds it, too, the whole time, even as you urinate onto it. That takes longer, the weight of expectation damming your bladder shut. And then he keeps a hold of it, in the chair by the bathtub, as you wait, still sitting, perched on the toilet. Your heels are still fucking on.
He doesn’t really speak to you as you both wait for the fifteen minute timer he set on his phone to be up.
It’s positive. You don’t even have to see the test window to tell that, as Avery’s hand closes on it so hard it almost cracks. “Excuse me,” he says, voice harsh, and he sets the test sharply down on the bathroom counter before he stalks out. You stay. Years of experience with Bailey have taught you that an angry man is an unpredictable man, and that he needs time to calm down. You’ll be fine, as long as you stay out of his way.
You count, in your head: his thumping steps in the room outside, tiles on the floor, little soaps by the sink, days your baby has been growing inside you. The law is on your side, here. In this one instance. Six weeks since your last period means that your baby is protected, and that Avery can’t just take you to the hospital and tell them what pills to prescribe. You’re not sure you could report Avery to the police, if he tried to make you get rid of it, but it would be difficult for him to force you.
It’s a long wait. It’s better than the alternative.
Avery re-enters the bathroom with much more composure than he’d left it with. He’s taken off his jacket, tie, and belt, and unbuttoned his shirt some. His watch and cufflinks are off, too. His hair is out of place.
Despite it, he’s smiling.
“It’s remarkable news,” he says, lowering himself again into the chair. “Let me be the first to congratulate you.”
Is he serious? “Thank you,” you say, to be polite, and Avery nods. “I’m… not sure what to do.”
“And you’re sure it’s mine?” Avery asks, staring down at you, where you sit on the toilet. You’d tugged the hem of your dress down, and your panties up, but it still has you feeling exposed.
You nod. “It’s just you,” you admit. “You’re the only one I’ve had sex with for a long while, now.” It’s true, as long as you’re of the opinion that massage is simply a healthcare practice, and that if you’re not naked, it doesn’t even count.
Avery smiles, when you say that. “They can’t compete, can they,” he boasts, already walking out of the bathroom and gesturing for you to follow. “Weren’t you on birth control?”
You nod. “I was,” you say. You’re being very careful not to lie. “It’s supposed to be effective almost all of the time.”
“You’ve always been exceptional, doll,” Avery says. “But when could we have possibly…”
You can see him realize it. “I thought the water would wash it away,” you say, because he’s clearly thinking what you’re thinking.
“The hot tub,” he says, flatly. “I shouldn’t have risked it.”
“I’m sorry,” you say, apologetic enough so that he’ll avoid putting the pieces together. “I—I should have asked you to wear a condom.”
Avery shakes his head, stalking towards the balcony. “It’s my fault,” he says, as pissed as you’ve ever heard him. “I’ll take responsibility for it.”
“What do you mean?” You really hope he doesn’t. If he’s going to insist that you abort, you might have to, because if you don’t, the game will be up.
Avery sighs. “Do you even have to ask?” he asks. “We need to handle this, before it handles us.” He stares out the window, away from you. “You’re free tomorrow,” he says.
“Kind of?” you say. “I have mass.”
“You can skip a week,” Avery says. “They won’t excommunicate you for that, you know.” He shakes his head. “We’ll have to go out of town for what we need, so I’m going to have to book train tickets. We’re leaving as soon as we can; I’m almost certain it’ll take a while.”
You freeze. “I—isn’t that illegal?”
Avery actually laughs. “What, going out of town?” He reaches for his briefcase. “Princess, if anyone actually got arrested for that, I’d never leave the pillory.”
“No,” you say, hoping he won’t make you say it, “I mean. Ending it?”
“Fuck no,” Avery scoffs, sitting down on the couch and pulling out his laptop. “If you’re with me? Someone will find out, and there’ll be hell to pay. And I do depend on my reputation. I’m simply going to need to make an honest woman out of you.” He gives you an arch look. “You are legal, doll?”
Oh.
He’s not just going to let you keep the baby. He’s going to keep you.
“I’m eighteen,” you say, heart in your throat. “We met a week after my birthday.”
“Convenient,” Avery notes. “Although I would have waited, if I’d had to.” He shoots you a sly wink. “I’m booking the tickets now, and a fitting at a boutique. You’ll need a dress, for the engagement photoshoot.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” you ask, a little high-pitched.
Avery rolls his eyes. “When I do that, you’ll know,” he says. “There’ll be a photographer. And you’ll be better-dressed.”
Your cheeks burn, a little. “It’s a nice dress,” you say. “You don’t like it?”
“Of course I like it,” Avery says. “But in a town like this… no one’s making clothing for anything but taking off. Nothing’s built to last.” He taps at the keys. “Our train leaves at eight. I have a few meetings out of town, anyway, so I’ll have to… hm.”
You watch as his focus narrows. He works quickly, on his computer, as much an extension of his body as his car. You’ve never had the same skills—Bailey’s computer is the only one in the orphanage. All your lab reports and persuasive essays are typed up in the library after school (and once, when the power went out at the school and everyone was sent home early, in Sirris and Sydney’s cluttered living room, kneeling on the floor by the coffee table because you didn’t feel safe balancing Sirris’s laptop on your knees on the couch). But Avery’s good at it. You like to watch him work.
“Done,” Avery says, flipping his laptop shut and tossing it—you flinch—aside onto the other couch cushion. “I told you I’d handle it, didn’t I?”
“You did,” you say, mouth dry and eyes big. You should have done this months ago. Avery will do things for you. He has power, and when he leverages it to help you, it’s like the whole world moves under your feet. He’s going to marry you. You’re going to marry him. You’re going to be married. “I—thank you, Avery,” you say, as he stands.
“Get on the bed,” Avery says, and you scramble to obey, yanking the zipper of your dress open so quickly you hear it catch a bit. Whatever! It’s fine!
“No dinner?” you ask, teasingly, as he starts to slide his belt out of the loops.
“I thought we’d start with dessert,” Avery declares, unzipping. “It’s not like you can get more pregnant, after all.”
No, you can’t.
You definitely would be, if it was possible.
You eventually eat dinner, sore and satisfied and already in pajamas, because there’s really nothing to be done for your dress (you didn’t, in the end, get it off before Avery got to you, and it smells even more like sex than you do, right now), and you relax in the hot tub, and then you go for round… something in the hot tub, and for round n+1 in the bed, since Avery called housekeeping to have them change the sheets.
Avery already liked sex.
He apparently likes it more without condoms.
You fall asleep immediately, too tired to do more than roll onto your side. Your dreams, or what you remember of them, are ones where you are held, secure and kept, in Avery’s arms.
You try to hold on to that warmth the next morning.
You’re chilly, waiting for the train, and Avery drapes his jacket over your shoulders. He’d woken you up at six, and the two of you had showered and dressed, wearing the clothes you wore to the hotel, and he’d picked up coffee for the both of you while you sat in his idling car at the curb. “Decaf for you,” he promised, when he handed over the to-go cup. “We need to think about the baby, don’t we?”
Decaf defeats the entire point of coffee, but you hadn’t wanted to bother him by asking for something like hot chocolate or tea instead, so you’re using the cup as a handwarmer while you wait. You’re early, of course, because Avery’s distrust in all vehicles that he does not personally control is a deep and abiding one.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me wearing this?” you ask. “I could have made it home to change, if we’d hurried, and I’ve got a jacket of my own.”
“Do you really think that I wouldn’t take care of you?” Avery asks. “I do want you to make it to the wedding. And I won’t be wearing this for the meetings, anyway.”
“What will you be wearing, then?” you ask. Surely he doesn’t intend to shop for clothing just to go to his meetings.
“Your suit,” someone says, behind you, and you and Avery both turn. Avery turns expectantly, already holding out a hand to take a garment bag.
It’s the severe-looking woman you saw Avery talking to on Thursday. She’s dressed in a dark green suit, tailored to flare at the shoulders and hips in a retro, feminine style, and her hair is cut short, curling crisply around her ears.
“Lena,” she said, offering you her hand to shake. “I work with Avery. I’ll be helping you shop for dresses.” You glance quickly between her and Avery. If she’s—
“Nothing like that, princess,” Avery reassures. “I’m not as expert in women’s fashions as I am in men’s, so I’m calling in someone with a little more personal experience.”
Your glance at Lena is doubtful. Her suit looks good on her, but it isn’t a dress. “It’s nice to meet you, Lena,” you say, shaking her hand. “I… thank you for helping.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she says, before she turns back to Avery. “Now, this is your suit from the office, so it ought to match with your current accessories.” You give it a critical glance. It looks to be almost the same shade of grey as the one he’s currently letting you wear the jacket from.
“I’m sure it will,” Avery says.
There’s a rumble from the tracks, and you turn to watch. You can see the train start to come into view, roaring along in the morning air. It’s an odd feeling as it rushes past the platform, slows, and stops, a screech and rattle from the tracks.
Few passengers disembark—a few who are clearly coming into town for work, a few tourists, one who you can’t puzzle out until you notice the clearly labeled Field Notebook peeking out of her tote. A scientist, then.
Avery and Lena wait until the other passengers have left before they board the train, heading by silent, obvious consensus towards the first class car. You follow along, a little awkwardly. Avery isn’t even letting you hold your own ticket.
Your car, at least, is nice. It’s mostly empty, and the seats you select surround a table. Avery sets his briefcase on the fourth seat, just to make it clear that it’s reserved.
Neither of them talk, once the train starts moving. They’ve both got their laptops out, and you idly watch over Avery’s shoulder as he works.
Lena’s phone rings, maybe thirty minutes into the trip, and she excuses herself to answer it, tone clipped as she says something you don’t quite catch.
“Why did you ask her?” you whisper to Avery, as Lena stands in the corner of the train car to take her call.
“She owes me a favor,” Avery says, just as quietly. “I considered her for a promotion a few years ago, despite the fact that she was working as my executive assistant at the time. She’s currently the director for human resources and administration.”
You freeze. “She was your assistant?” you ask, the jealousy that you’ve been trying to tamp down quickly flaring up.
Avery shakes his head. “You and she have very different sets of skills,” he says, in a tone that’s just a shade mocking. His hand, resting on your thigh, squeezes flirtatiously. “I couldn’t ask her to do the things I ask of you, after all. She and I share some preferences.”
Oh. That… explains the suit, you think. “It’s nice to meet her,” you say, instead of anything about his comment on your skills.
“I’m glad you think so, princess,” Avery says. “I needed someone to take you shopping, and she does dress well. I don’t want you to make me look foolish at our engagement party, after all.”
“I won’t,” you say, blushing. You know what a risk it is, for someone in his position to marry someone in yours. You have nothing to give, beside yourself.
You’re very glad that Avery wants you.
Lena returns, rolling her eyes. “I leave them alone for three days, and they’re already forgetting everything they’ve ever learned,” she says. “This has to be why you send me out for acquisitions.”
Avery sighs, deeply. “If you want something done right…” he says.
“Fire everyone who does it wrong,” Lena finishes. She resumes her typing. “I’m going to let everyone involved with this know that they need to stop asking questions about procedures that we’ve had established for years, and that the next person who asks me any fucking questions about it is going to be transferred to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.”
“You’d think our people could handle buying another company,” Avery says, rolling his eyes deeply. “I’ve been sure to give them the practice.”
You fidget with the hem of your dress, and you try not to interrupt.
Avery excuses himself to the bathroom a few minutes later, and returns wearing the fresh suit and a new tie. He’s preening, and so you run your hand up and down his bicep as you tell him it looks good on him. Lena, across the table, stares as far into the middle distance as she can manage.
Avery has called ahead and rented a car at your destination, so the three of you are able to pile into it. You slide into the back, enjoying the extra space, and Avery drives the three of you to a small shopping center that you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t be allowed into if you weren’t with Avery.
He leaves you with Lena, at the door of a boutique with a window display full of achingly beautiful dresses, and a promise that he’ll see you again at two, for a late lunch.
“Be good to her,” Avery murmurs, leaning in under the pretense of kissing you on the cheek. “I have work to do.”
And then he leaves, apparently confident in Lena’s ability to select appropriate clothing for your engagement dinner.
“He likes you,” Lena says, holding the door to the boutique open for you. “I think you’re the first one he’s actually spoken about in the office.”
“I am?” you ask, stepping inside.
“Really,” Lena says. She follows you, pace steady. “This place is very… dressy.”
The boutique’s interior is soft and rosy, and even the smell is feminine. You have to agree with her. “You don’t… this isn’t what you usually do, is it?” you ask. Lena laughs in agreement. “Why did you even say yes, when he asked you?”
Lena stops, and turns to face you. “How many other division heads are women?” she asks. You’re not actually sure, and so you shake your head. It’s apparently the correct answer. “It is a dog-eat-dog world,” Lena says, quietly enough that you’re sure the rest of the people in the room can’t hear her. “You have to do special favors for the boss, if you want to get ahead. And this is a… painless favor. Avery’s better about that. More strategic, at least.”
“He is,” you agree, for lack of anything better to say. “You don’t have to help me, if you don’t want to.”
Lena laughs again. “Oh, yes I do,” she says. “I don’t know dresses, but I do know cheap. You’d walk out of here in the worst thing you could find, just to save money. And Avery would kill me if I made him look cheap.”
“Okay,” you say. “I can’t let that happen.”
Lena speaks to a receptionist for a moment, and she guides you to a fitting room. It’s an actual room, rather than a little bathroom stall, and there’s a full wall of mirrors, a couch, and a carafe of fancy sparkling water, brought in after Lena said something to one of the receptionists.
She might, you think, know that you’re pregnant.
An attendant, a young woman with her hair in a chic bun, materializes in the dressing room as you’re trying not to examine your reflection too obviously.
“My friend here is getting engaged,” Lena says, in response to a question you’re certain wasn’t asked out loud. “She needs a dress. Her husband is quite well known, so photos will almost certainly appear in the news. We’d like her to look good, for the occasion.”
“Oh, my,” the attendant says. “Okay, darling.” She turns to you. “Arms up, let’s get measuring.”
Lena’s strategy appears, very quickly, to be volume. Once they have your measurements, she starts pulling gowns left and right, in hues all over the rainbow and styles everywhere from fancy to fanciest. You try them on, and some of them you barely make it into before she’s shaking her head and holding out the next one.
A sequin-covered maxi dress in a wine-dark purple, asymmetric layers of lace trim running across the hips quickly gets a no, as does a mauve gown, the top and bottom of which are connected by delicate, floral lace panels, “It makes her look too short,” the attendant says, already whisking it away.
You stop re-dressing after the fourth gown, staying in last night’s lace panties and the pasties the shop provided you with. Enough of the dresses you’re trying on have built-in bras, so you don’t need to wear your own, and the ones that don’t… usually seem to be incompatible with wearing a bra regardless.
A white and blue sleeveless gown with crisscrossing shoulder straps gets an immediate no. “Childish,” Lena says.
You try on a floor-length pink gown with sleeves so off-the-shoulder that the highest point of the dress is just an inch above your nipples, and Lena rolls her eyes in disgust. “Whorish,” she says.
The next dress is metallic red, with a plunging neckline, slits up both legs, your back left entirely bare, and endless layers of lace ruffles falling down the back of the dress, which gets the ax so quickly that you don’t even have to worry about doing up the ties at the back of your neck. “Childish and whorish,” Lena says, to the chagrin of the attendant.
“I think we should continue with the bodycon styles,” she says, as you return in an off-the-shoulder champagne gown, with lines of gold sequins flowing all the way down the floor-length skirt. “He’s planning the proposal in the next two weeks, and she may as well show it off while she still has it.”
“Would you like to try a corset top?” the attendant asks, already holding up a strapless lavender gown with a ruched, slit skirt. Lena likes that one better, although she disagrees with the height of the slit.
“Nothing above mid thigh,” she says. The dress you arrived in, with its crotch-height slits, lies guiltily on a chair, forgotten.
You haven’t really been a part of this, other than as a model. You could probably be effectively replaced with a particularly realistic dress form. You make an attempt to try on a gown with silver and gold beads sewn in swirling, fern-like patterns, and you’re at least allowed to hold it up to your body before you’re made to put it back.
A rose-gold strapless dress is rejected because its ruffles are too “princessy,” and when you try to object by saying that that’s what Avery calls you, the attendant and Lena both roll their eyes.
Cocktail dresses are almost all derided as making you look too young, although you make enough longing glances at a light blue one with a sculpted, sweeping corset bodice that the attendant and Lena do let you try it on, if only to point out that the color doesn’t do you any favors.
“What about this one?” you ask, reaching out to touch a gunmetal dress covered in hundreds of mirrored pieces, like a rock through a cathedral window.
“It’s like a caricature of designer fashion,” Lena says. “No.”
That has turned them on to darker colors and shiny, reflective elements, though, and you try on a slinky black gown with pearls spilling down from the portrait neckline, a crushed velvet wine-colored strapless dress with structural seams accentuating the shape of your body, and a navy blue gown with an elaborately beaded corset bodice and fully sheer elbow-length sleeves.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Lena says, pleased. “And remember, this is the first day of the rest of her life.”
In the end, you pick three to show Avery, after his meeting.
A one-shoulder gown that spills on the floor around you, covered top-to-bottom with sequins that slowly fade from bright silver to gunmetal to black. The skirt is longer in the back, forming a slight train that allows you to still walk, despite the dress’s length.
A mermaid dress with a sweetheart neckline and—Lena finally acquiesced, acknowledging that Avery wouldn’t really care—a hip-high slit, so covered in lace and sequins and tulle that you feel like you’re wearing the forest at night.
And, finally, the attendant did find one with mirrors that Lena agrees will work. They’re all on the corset bodice, forming rays out from your heart that are mirrored by the irregular lines of beads flowing down to the hem of the skirt. The skirt is satin, not quite black, and flares out from your hips.
“We’re waiting for Avery before we make a decision, right?” you ask, and Lena nods. “He’ll be along in about an hour,” she says. “And then we’ll go to lunch.
“She’s also looking for a wedding dress,” Lena tells the attendant, who looks extremely pleased. She’s probably paid on commission. “In maternity sizing.”
“Oh!” the attendant says, and then: “Congratulations?” Her tone is a bit more hesitant than you think even she intends.
“Congratulations,” you confirm. “We just got the news.”
“The wedding’s at the beginning of July,” Lena says. “She’ll be… three months along?”
You nod. “I think.” You know.
“We’ll find one with positive ease,” the attendant assures you. “And the price of the gown will, of course, include an alterations session the week of the wedding. In case we need to let it out or take it in a little. Do you mind if I return the gowns you haven’t chosen, before I bring out some from our wedding collection?”
“Yes, please,” you say. It’s a necessity, honestly. The dressing room, which had felt overly large when you first entered, is now a riot of fabrics and textures. You’re still practically naked, in a room full of more clothing than you’ve ever owned in your life.
You help the attendant load the dresses back onto their hangers, and she wheels them all out on a large cart. And then you’re alone, with Lena sitting on one of the uncomfortable armchairs, legs planted and shoulders slouched, an awkward caricature of confidence.
“We have a few minutes,” Lena says, waving you over to her seat. “I’ve heard that Avery hired you for a certain skillset. I’d love to receive a demonstration.” She stops you, as you’re standing in front of her, and raises her eyebrows meaningfully. “Do I need to spell it out for you?”
Oh, you think, as Lena pushes down on your shoulder. Be good to her. She and I share some preferences.
Avery didn’t just give you permission, he practically told you to do it. You get on your knees.
You don’t really mind doing this. Sometimes, when you’re cleaning, or giving a massage, a client asks if you provide extra services, and sometimes you say yes. Not for everyone—but when you’re short on cash, sure. You say yes more often for women, but that’s simple practicality. Less choking, less mess.
You don’t look at women on the street and think: I want to lick her pussy. You certainly don’t notice them the way you noticed Avery.
You let Lena handle the undignified origami of getting her suit trousers out of the way before she guides your head in, one hand buried in your hair. You lick and suck where she moves you, focusing on a steady rhythm and repeating anything that makes her gasp.
Of course she wants this. She went out of her way to help you today, and you owe her for that. She wants you to look good, even if it’s for selfish reasons. You’re especially grateful that it’s for selfish reasons, actually, because that means it’s honest. You want to marry Avery because you’ll be safe. Avery wants to marry you because he likes his reputation. Lena wants Avery to think she’s a good employee because she wants her career to go well.
You slide a hand into your panties as you lick deeper into her, nose pressed to her clit, because you might as well get something out of this as well. Lena notices. “You want—oh, yes, do that again—here, let me,” she says, doing something with her leg, and then the vamp of her shoe is pressed into your mound, and you’re able to grind down against the metal bit across the top. It’s good, a little harsh in the best way, and you make a little noise into Lena’s pussy.
She likes that, and so you do it again, and again, and her thighs tense and tremble around your head, and she grinds herself agianst your face until she’s satisfied. “Good work,” she says, pleased and relaxed.
Before you can respond, there’s a sound from behind you, and you turn to see the door practically slamming shut.
“Oh, she’s…” you say, trying to get up despite Lena’s hand in your hair.
“She’s already seen you,” she says. “You might as well get off.”
You’d like to be able to say that you’re strong enough to resist, but you aren’t.
At least you come quickly.
Lena smiles when she goes and opens the door and motions the attendant and her cart inside. You just hope you haven’t soaked your panties enough that she’ll see.
If she does see, though, she’s very tactful about it. She launches into her explanation immediately, holding up gowns for you to view.
“Since you’ll only be at three months,” the attendant says, “It’ll be easiest to focus on dresses with large skirts that will also help… lift you.” She makes a gesture in the general direction of her bust. “It’ll define your waist without you having to worry about shapewear.”
And so she’s found you five dresses, all full-skirted and in mikado and taffeta and tulle, with shoulder straps and sweetheart or v-shaped necklines.
Lena vetoes the tulle. “Her hair will still be about this short at the wedding,” she offers. “I think sleek and shiny is the ideal.”
Ironically, shopping for a wedding dress is much easier than shopping for an engagement dress. There are more constraints, and you’re not really trying to perfect the fit, anyway. Everything you pick out has room to grow, and since it’s going to be altered, you’re really shopping based on the catalog pictures.
The final dress is made of mikado silk, with a sweetheart neckline, a low back, a full, floor-length skirt, and a belt of fabric twisted into the shapes of roses. There are accessories that they offer—a twisted rope of pearls to wear about your neck, gloves or detachable sleeves, a sheer cape with fabric roses at the hem—but you decide to wait for Avery before you ask for any of those.
He arrives just after you’ve re-dressed and re-settled yourself on the chair across from the four hangers you’ve set up with the dresses you’re looking at—the three for the proposal and the wedding dress that you’ll have to have altered to fit you the week of, because you’re pregnant. And everyone here knows it—the attendant, Lena, and Avery. Who’s going to marry you about it.
“This is quite the surprise,” Avery says, as he steps through the door. “I didn’t know you were going to give me options.”
“You only told me dinner,” Lena says. “We needed a few, for different types of events.”
“Still,” Avery says, and then his attention is directly on you, “I’ll need to see them on you, first, so I can make a decision.”
Avery hands you the first dress, the one with the sequins, and as you look around for—what? A curtain, maybe—he catches you by the wrist. “I need to try this on,” you say, looking up into his pleased eyes.
“Of course you do,” Avery says. “But honestly, doll. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to,” the attendant says, before she immediately fades back into the background at Avery’s glance.
“Why wouldn’t she want to?” Avery asks. He’s speaking to you.
So you strip again, this time for him, and you let him help you zip up the dress when you’ve gotten it on.
“Very nice,” Avery says, gesturing for you to twirl. “A bit glittery, isn’t it?”
“I like it,” you say. You try to keep the defensiveness out of your voice. If you give him something to argue with, he can argue. Better that you just not let him. “They’re all glittery.”
“It’s ‘in’ right now,” the attendant adds. Helpfully, this time. “The majority of the designers we feature are including it in their ready-to-wear lines.”
“Well, if they’re all glittery,” Avery says, hand on your bare upper back. “Let me see the next one.”
He likes that one, too, sliding his fingers into the slit skirt and smirking at you. “You do know what I like,” he says, stroking your thigh.
“I learn quickly,” you say, although you’ve had a long time to get used to his preferences. “Do you like it?”
“It doesn’t flatter your figure as much, with the embellishments,” Avery says. “But it is nice.”
You change again, still in front of him. The back of the third dress laces up, and so you turn to him to ask him to tie them in a bow. You could do it yourself, but asking him for help is part of the fun.
Avery smiles as he trails his hand along the low neckline of the mirrored dress, once he’s tied the bow and you’ve turned around. “It does very good things for you,” he says. He’s definitely talking about the way it lifts your breasts. “And the material is much softer.”
“Silk,” the attendant comments. “It’s from the designer’s Fall 2023 collection. We just received it.”
“Modern,” Avery says. “Although it is avant-garde. Mirrors? That’s quite the leap.”
He looks, for a while longer, announcing that he doesn’t need to see the wedding dress, if you’ve already decided, and that it’ll be bad luck to see you in it, and so you change out of the dress and place it back on the hanger.
“Which one did you like best?” you ask, re-clasping your bra, now that you’re finished with your modeling session.
Avery raises his eyebrows. “I think I liked the model best,” he says, reaching out to cup your chin. “And I’m certain you’ll look beautiful in whichever one you pick.”
“Really?” you ask, looking up at him. You’d assumed he was going to choose for you.
“Really really,” Avery says. He smiles. “They’re all appropriate.”
“Oh, wow,” you say, staring at your selection of gowns. “I—can I get the one with the mirrors?”
“I already said you could,” Avery says, tone a little tight. “Don’t you listen to me?”
“Of course I do, it’s just—it’s…” It isn’t the kind of thing you’ve ever imagined you could have. It’s a dress you’re going to wear once, really. It’s not even going to fit you in a few weeks. And you get to have it. “It’s beautiful.”
“Well?” Avery says, gesturing for the attendant to take your chosen dress.
“Thank you,” you say, hurrying to embrace him. He stiffens a bit, before his arms come up to your back and pull you in against him. The fabric of his suit is rough against your mostly-bare skin, and his grip on you is tight and certain.
“You know what kind of thank you I’m really looking for, don’t you?” he murmurs, into your ear where no one else can hear—not the attendant, who’s currently packing your chosen dress into a delicate-looking bag, and definitely not Lena, who’s pretending to be looking at something on her phone behind Avery. Your eyes meet hers. Well. You guess you know where she learned it from.
“Aw, in front of everyone?” you ask, a little less quietly.
Avery snorts. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?” he says. “We’re going out for lunch. You’ll wait for me in the restroom.”
It’s a painless price to pay for a dress, and an engagement, and for every promise that comes with it.