Page 52 of Smart@ss Cyborg

I start to agree that privacy is preferred, but Becky answers, “By you sounds good.” So I carry the chair from the corner where the mural worlds collide and set it near Stella’s.

“Do you want me to get the rug for the floor?” C’vest asks. “There will be less risk of you slipping.” The question isn’t directed at me so I remain silent as I return to Becky’s side. C’vest has shifted so that he’s in front of Stella, his hands brushing from her shoulders to her hips. “I know you were worried about it getting stained, but we can buy a new one if we need to replace it.”

Stella pats her husband on the chest. “I think we’re okay for now. Why don’t you two go take care of the horses? Give Becky and me a chance to settle in without you both hovering.”

Banished to stabling duties, C’vest and I efficiently untack, brush, and feed the wagon horses, and after I care for Paco, I lock him in a stall.

Paco brays as I leave. It’s a distinctly amused sound. I believe that he wishes me to know he enjoys a challenge.

When we return to the house, C’vest directs me to follow him to a siphon room where we wash our hands and arms and faces thoroughly—and then we wash our hands again for good measure. I hastily pat my beard dry with a towel he hands me.

“Where is the midwife?” C’vest grumbles as we return to our wives, who are midwifeless and seated on the horseshoe-shaped seats of their birthing chairs—

And both of them are breathing in an alarming pattern.

“What has your wifedone?”I growl at C’vest, rushing forward.

He snarls a protest behind me.

Stella regains her normal pattern of breathing and calls, “C’vest, can you please rub my back?”

He nearly knocks me over to reach her.

Becky looks up and holds out her hands to me. In one of them, her thumb is folded over a wooden comb. “Stella is teaching me how to breathe with a relaxed jaw during a contraction.”

I meet her eyes to let her know I’ve processed her statement as I help her to her feet and round her, getting shoulder to shoulder with a bristling C’vest, and begin rubbing Becky’s back as he works on Stella’s.

I copy his strokes, which start at his wife’s lower back and move up to her shoulders. When he changes target areas and concentrates on the areas above and below her hips, I do the same for Becky.

Our wives resume conversing to each other, grimacing every so often through a contraction. The back rubbing session ends when they each need to use the siphon room. When they return to the birthing room, they mostly stay on their feet, walking around the room. Waiting for a medical professional to appear. Having contractions. Allowing their cervixes to open without medical supervision of any kind.

When they retake their seats once more, C’vest prowls at his mate’s chairside until she tells him to sit, please.

He obediently retrieves a stool from a closet. Grudgingly he hands me one too.

We no more than sink down on them when there’s a knock on the door. C’vest lunges up to answer it. He returns swiftly, nearly dragging in a woman carrying a bag of supplies.

The midwife.

“Wash your hands,” I warn her.

She gives me a sharp look. “I’m Jane, and I’ve delivered more babies than you can imagine. I wash my hands.”

“William,” Becky says. “Come here.”

Setting her bag down and beginning to unpack it, Jane informs me rather severely, “I have only so much tolerance for being ordered to do what I already know to do by worried husbands. Consider this your only warning, sir.”

“Sorry,” Becky tells her, petting my arm.

Jane shrugs and shares a look with my wife. “I understand that it’s hard for a man to watch his wife in pain. It’s why I try to develop some level of trust before birthing day arrives.” Her eyes drop to the way Becky is now fisting her hands and I’m rubbing her back through a contraction. “Are you in labor too?”

“Yessss,” Becky confirms.

Jane looks between Becky and Stella, who is also having a contraction. “How far apart?”

“Four minutes for Stella,” C’vest replies. “Five minutes for Becky.”

While the significance of the contractions’ timing is lost on me, I can’t miss the way Midwife Jane’s eyes widen.

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