Page 19 of The Facilitator, Part 3

Chapter Eleven

It was Lauren’s turn to spend some time in the hospital room, not the same one I’d been in, of course.

Not even the same hospital, but a rather lovely private clinic in London.

She was to be sedated and her eggs collected.

She smiled, laughed, joked with the fertility team, but all the while I could see how anxious she was.

When Lauren was worried or scared, she was over friendly.

She was the perfect example of an extroverted introvert.

She’d go over the top in situations that she was uncomfortable in.

I held her hand and I did my best to comfort her.

I was there when she returned. She was sleepy and dozed and I wondered if that, like me, had been a combination of her sedation and the nights she’d been hanging over the toilet instead of sleeping. She’d joked that she was looking forward to the sedation so she could get a good few hours of sleep.

Then came the first of many anxious waits.

Each egg would be injected with a single sperm, we were told and then, a little over a week later we were back. She was in and out in fifteen minutes having two fertilized egg implanted.

I wanted to wrap Lauren up in cotton. I wouldn’t let her do anything, carry any objects over the weight of her handbag, and we did all this without telling anyone.

We had made a decision that this journey would be made in private until we had something exciting to tell…

or had decided it wasn’t a route for us.

“For fuck’s sake, Mackenzie!” Lauren snatched her workbag from my hands. She stomped through the house to the living room and threw it on the sofa.

“Mmm, okay,” I said, following her. I’d picked the bag up from the seat of the car. Yes, I didn’t want her straining herself, but I’d carry that bag for her simply because I was a gentleman.

She had her back to me and her arms were folded tight across her chest. From the way her shoulders were moving, I knew she was crying. I walked up and wrapped my arms around her. She gripped my arms with her hands.

“I’m so fucking horny, it’s making me mad,” she whispered .

I chuckled and kissed her neck. “Well, you only have to ask,” I said. I turned her around and kissed her eyes of her tears.

“Oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said and then chuckled. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I got the easy part in this, what you’ve got to go through makes me in awe of you. If fucking you on demand whenever you want is my punishment for putting you through this, punish away,” I said, unbuttoning her shirt.

She pulled her shirt off her body so hard, the cuff buttons popped off and clattered to the floor.

She didn’t get much farther than that. I grabbed her wrists and pushed her against the back of the sofa, bending her body over it.

I wrenched her skirt to her hips and tore a hole through her lace panties.

Before she had a chance to take a breath, I was inside with not just my cock but my fingers as well.

“Oh God, yes, more, Mackenzie,” she shouted.

She demanded more by shoving her ass back at me.

I gave her every inch I could. I pushed in hard, taking her feet off the floor at the same time.

I pounded so hard, sweat had my shirt stuck to my back, and it dripped from my forehead.

She cried out loud, gripped the sofa top, and came.

I continued to fuck her; I wasn’t done with her yet.

I was also nowhere near my release. Although pure coincidence, I was fucking her as often as I could as if I could get her pregnant.

I fought back the tear that wanted to leave my eye.

I was not going to start feeling sorry for myself.

No way. Instead, I took that frustration out on her, and she loved every second of it.

I slapped her ass cheek; I reached down and pinched her tender clitoris.

I stuck more fingers in alongside my cock, stroking her walls.

When I finally came, I slumped over the top of her breathing hard.

I removed my fingers and my cock. When I placed my hand on her back, I panicked.

“Shit, Lauren, there’s blood.”

She stood and turned. She picked up my hand and looked at the pink tinge to my fingertips. “I don’t think that’s anything more than you giving me what I desperately needed. A good hard fuck,” she said, and laughed.

“You’re bleeding,” I said. My voice was a little higher, displaying my concern.

“Mackenzie, sometimes I bleed a little. If I’m still spotting after a shower, I’ll call the hospital.

Now, as lovely as your cock is, it still isn’t long enough to get to where that little egg is securely lodged.

” She placed her palm on my cheek and gently kissed me.

“Seriously, you need to relax because you’re not helping my anxiety levels. ”

“Can we just call the clinic?” I asked. She reached over the sofa for her bag and called the clinic.

“Hi, my husband is concerned because, after sex, we have a little blood, and I mean a tinge, nothing more. Can you reassure him?” She handed the phone to me and I listened.

“Okay, thank you,” I said, handing it back to her and chuckling.

She thanked the nurse and promised to call should she still be spotting in a few hours. She then wrapped her arms around my waist. “I love you so much,” she said, raising her face for a kiss.

She started to cry again. “Fucking hormones,” she said, and I wondered if that meant she might be pregnant.

The following day I bought five pregnancy tests, making sure to get different brands in case they worked differently.

I lay awake that night irrationally checking the sheets for any spotting.

If Lauren knew, I’m sure she would have been pissed but I just couldn’t help myself.

I lay there for hours running names through my head and wondered, if it were a boy, whether she’d object to Mackenzie. I’d love for there to be a third.

I couldn’t breathe for two weeks. I walked around with a fake smile on my face, when inside I was counting down the seconds before she should do a test. One million, two hundred and nine thousand, and six hundred seconds later, she did a test.

It was negative .

She held the stick for an age just staring at it. A lone tear ran down her cheek and she brushed it away. “That’s probably to be expected, Mackenzie,” she said. I smiled and nodded. I kissed her lips and then I walked downstairs mumbling about getting some breakfast.

I stood outside in the garden with my coffee and had I not been surrounded by houses, I would have screamed out the curse words that littered my brain, the anguish I felt inside was so tightly contained but bursting to come out. My jaw ached because I held it so tight.

Lauren appeared dressed for work.

“Are you going in?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes. Mackenzie, we have to get on with our lives around this. You have to. We were prepared for failure,” she said.

I wasn’t , I thought. I nodded and smiled. “Let me make you a tea,” I said, more because I wanted something to do.

Lauren called the clinic with the results and an appointment was made, they wanted to do a blood test, just to double-check and my heart lifted. Maybe it was a mistake.

Sadly, the blood test just confirmed the stick. More appointments were made, another date set for implanting the next eggs.

As the weeks wore on, I became more animated and Lauren became more anxious.

I did all I could to inject some optimism into her.

She told me over and over that she wasn’t anxious about whether the IVF would work or not, but more about my crash when it didn’t.

I brushed that off, laughing that she was being silly and I loved her and I could cope with anything as long as we were a team.

I had no idea how wrong that was.

Despite Lauren doing all she could, I refused to fuck her. I would make love to her, I was gentle, but it didn’t satisfy that itch she had inside her. The second eggs had been implanted and, as before, and coincidently, she was as horny.

“Fine, I’ll sort myself out,” she’d said, one evening, teasing me.

She sat in our bedroom with the camera on, watching herself with a vibrator.

She teased and she fucked herself with it.

She came and she coated her fingers, crawling to where I was and placing those fingers on my lips, when I tried to lick, she pulled away and sucked them into her own mouth.

I was infuriated and frustrated, and I’d grabbed her, threw her on her back, and made love to her.

I had an irrational thought that I’d caused the last embryos not to take.

I was in the kitchen when I heard my name being screamed.

I dropped the pan with the steaks cooking into the sink and ran up the stairs.

Lauren stood in the bedroom with her hand over her mouth.

She held a stick in the other. I ran to her and grabbed the hand, turning the stick so I could see that very obvious blue line.

I looked up at her and she shed tears, she nodded, laughing. I pulled her to me, then pushed her away and checked the stick again.

“Do it again,” I said.

“That’s the third and all are the same. We’re having a baby,” she whispered.

I held her so tight. I closed my eyes and I shed tears myself. I kissed her neck and I held her at arm’s length just staring at her naked body.

Although there was nothing more than half a pea-sized, or less, baby, she held her hand over her stomach. “We’re having a baby,” she said, again.

I fell to my knees and I kissed her stomach.

Lauren dressed and all the time I sat on the bed and watched her. We held hands as we walked back to the kitchen, where I managed to salvage the steaks. We laughed and chatted and planned. I wanted to write up a food plan, she was having none of it.

“Mackenzie, millions of women get pregnant. I just carry on as normal but without the wine, obviously,” she said .