"And I'm having..... A boy!"
My friend Tara shouted to us at her baby shower slash gender reveal party. She'd waited for this for so long. We mostly brought neutral colors for gifts, from now on any more gifts mustn't be pink.
Tara and her husband Andrew have been together about five years. When I graduated, he was taking her to Macchu Picchu where he proposed. They married soon after but waited several years for a baby. Now she's eight months, a large bump and a fuller yet radiant face.
We all applaud, hug, and drink our orange juice - Tara isn't drinking due to the baby, and it would be cruel if we drink around her. We celebrate, most of the people there hug their partners.
I don't. I have somebody I consider a partner. We are totally in love. Her name is Siobhan and she's a beautiful mature lady. However, she usually doesn't come to parties like this. If she does, we don't hug the way most of the couples do. Because Siobhan is my mother, and I her only child.
It's sad, because in many ways we're a normal couple. We have to divide chores, we have to agree on what to watch, we have lots of sex. The sex is great, every night we die in each other's arms. We're consenting adults, we just have a passion that neither has found with anyone else.
But sometimes it's painful to be the odd one out, still be seen as single in the eyes of your friends and have to keep that part of you a secret. Tara, along my other good friend Laura, tell each other everything, the only lie between us is that I'm looking for the right one and have a vibrator collection. I have my mom, she satisfies my sexual side completely. My mom and I have a peaceful, completely honest relationship. If we weren't closely related we'd be a model couple. But we've always known that nobody else would understand and so it's a secret between only us.
The party finishes and I go to leave. I usually live in Staten Island, New York, in a nice apartment. Mom sold the family home and lives with me. I tell people money was tight and it's just temporary, but I wonder if some suspect.
Still, that's not the hard part. As I leave Tara's, I reflect on this. I've given a lot up for my relationship. I chose my mother to be my spiritual spouse - and she chose me the same. But I don't get to be a mother myself. I don't get what Tara has - a normal husband everyone likes, the feeling of new life kicking inside you. I'll never have my own daughter look to me with purest neediness, dependent on me for food and warmth.
I wait for a cab - I've flown from New York to the Midwest for this, and I need to get back to my job at a law firm very soon. For the first time, seeing Tara so glowing as she waits to see her own child, I doubt whether my choice these last five years was right. Have I just failed to grow up? I could have loved my mother like a daughter should, maybe even experimented with her. But still matured. Could I not thank her for awakening me sexually, for showing me how to experience true pleasure, then fly the nest?
This is what I think about the whole flight. My 30th birthday is in a week, my mother's 51st in a month. I remember that saying from the Bible, I can just about remember from school RE: there's a time for every season under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die.
My mother will one day die. I will too, but before then shouldn't I experience that time of birth? Feel, maybe only once, what it's like to be a lifegiver and bring a new life to the world?
I get off the plane at JFK and head to my apartment. My mom is waiting. She's cooked a delicious welcome back meal - a traditional Irish pie with every kind of vegetable and Malbec to wash it down. I'm so grateful for her, and I absolutely love her. We are open now, so I am going to discuss this.
"How was Tara's sweetie?"
"Yeah good, she's only got a few weeks left."
"Boy or girl?"
"Boy."
"What are they going to name him?"
"Tara likes Liam, Andrew prefers Rory."
"Either's good, Irish either way."
"Yeah. Mom, when you had me what was it really like?"
"Being pregnant you mean?"
"Yeah and giving birth."
"Pregnant I had some morning sickness, you need the toilet literally all the time. Childbirth hurts, I always say don't be Wonder Woman just take morphine."
"And then?"
"Well you came out and it's the most perfect thing. You're tiny, red and screaming, and I loved you, a love I knew would always last. Thirty years on, it has."
"Love you too mom I just. Well seeing Tara."
"You're broody."
"Perhaps. But this doesn't affect us you're my wife and my first love."
"Sweetheart I know you want to do what your friends do. It's normal to feel a bit left out."
"OK."
"But remember that night? What you said, you'd be my wife if the government let us? Well we're in our hearts married. Each other needs to be enough."
"OK mom. It's silly I mean, how am I going to look after a baby anyway? Here in New York this little apartment. I've got no space and my job, they don't pay maternity."
"We got it so good baby. You're about to be made partner and things are just perfect between us. Aren't they?"
"Of course mom, let's get this in the dishwasher and head to bed."
Soon, it's like it usually is, what I've enjoyed so much for five years - we're naked, cuddling under the sheets as we touch each other. Her fingers on my clit, me going down and sucking hers, back up for her to lick inside me, on each other and scissoring for that mutual climax.
It's so beautifully sexual, we're connected. So understanding as we make love I can't believe there's another couple in New York who are bonded as deeply as us. I turn over, and lie in her arms to be cradled. At 50, she remains gorgeous to me. She's gained a little weight around her stomach the last year, the result of no longer dog-walking over the hills since she moved in with me. But her tender, nurturing flesh is still as arousing as it was when I first knew I wanted her.
Still, I can't sleep. I can't shake the thoughts. It's a tribute to her surely, to be a mother like her? Tara has that eye-catching bump, why can't I? Mom needs a project too, she doesn't work. A baby to look after will keep her busy.
As I hear her breathing loudly, clearly falling asleep, I start to plan. Someone from work? No don't risk things there. Go to a bar? Maybe, but what kind of guys visit those places? The gym? Yes, the gym has guys who'd be good for breeding. There's a few particularly hot ones, what if it was just once? Quick fuck buddies until I'm pregnant, but they don't need to know. I'm not really betraying mom then, we'll still be together and as soon as I'm finished with the guy, back to loving only her.
This is the first night in years I fall asleep in my mother's arms yet don't fall asleep dreaming of her ravishing me. I think instead of some men I've seen on the treadmill, on the leg presses, how I want them to take me only once and make me a true woman.
If everybody else in the gym would just leave, and it be the two of us, they could have me there and then go back to exercise.
I wake up the next morning, thinking of how I fell asleep. There's a problem though, I haven't been with a guy in years. I haven't tried to get with a guy for so long. The guys I talk to are mostly lawyers and judges. I wouldn't know what to do, how to get one.
But I'm determined. I pack my gym clothes and spend the morning finishing casework. At lunchtime, I'm about to go to the gym when I stop myself. For this to work, I need to be at my sexiest. Usually I wear sweatpants and a t-shirt. Kind of clothing where you don't want to be noticed. So first I buy a sports bra and tight gym shorts, that show my midriff and can get eyes on me.
At the gym, I see a guy at the shoulder press. He'll do. This isn't like me, I've never been this impulsive before. I go to the changing room first, trying to collect my thoughts. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder what I'm doing. Why try this Grace? You're in a happy relationship, a relationship that makes you feel good. You've got somebody who loves you, an excellent job, a life. You've not told the one person you should discuss everything with your plan. She said no, how can you be a partner if you do it anyway?
I hesitate, the voice of caution is right. If nothing else, my wife didn't approve and you can't make life-changing decisions without your spouse's approval. It's not a no, it's a not yet. I'll go back to the office, finish up, then head back to mom. I'll talk to her again about my feelings and we'll resolve any conflicts like adults in a healthy, communicative marriage.
From my gym bag my phone rings with a notification. It's WhatsApp. I open up a picture from Tara. Then four more come through. She went into labor, and a few weeks premature yet healthy boy named Liam was born. Oh God he's the sweetest little thing. Five pounds four, delivered in two hours. His eyes closed, still a reddish newborn, he's suckling her.
Damn I want one. My bag goes in a locker and I head back to the floor. I'm not missing out on life. Mom, I love you. In you I found the love of my life. But as you love me you'll understand. I'm not being without a baby. I'll love you and I'm yours alone. Just let me take a man in enough to have my own Liam and then there'll never be anyone else again.
The guy I like is still at the shoulder press. I've seen him a few times, he's usually on the weights. My last attempt with a guy, five years ago, ended in an awkward 'I've got to get back.' I'm not experienced with seduction, what do I do?
I go up to him, and try to seem like I want to be his gym buddy.
"Excuse me, how long will you be using this?"
"A few more sets if that's OK."
"Oh is that long for me to wait?"
I stand by the machine and watch him lift. My black hair in a ponytail, I flick it to one side, hoping to distract him. He notices, and lifts 160 pounds four times before releasing the handles.
"Is that called lifting to failure?" I ask. One thing Laura always advised me about men is, a woman seeming to question their abilities makes them vulnerable.
"Not failure," he says. Already, I'm seeming to affect him. He lifts again, managing to press several times.
"160 pounds that's pretty heavy."
"Not quite my record," he replies nearly out of breath.
"You mean you've maxed it out?"
