Page 53 of Devil's Dilemma

“You okay with that, Melissa?” The doctor’s eyebrow is arched.

“Yes,” Mel says positively, with a quick grateful glance my way.

“You think you’re about six weeks?”

When Mel replies in the affirmative, the doctor commences a complete check-up, sending me out of the room while she performs certain examinations, but I’m there when her blood pressure is taken and a sample of blood. Mel squeezes my hand tightly, and I get the impression she doesn’t like needles.

Mel goes through her health, mentioning her concern about her weight and whether it would affect her carrying a healthy baby. The doctor agrees she’s got a high BMI score—whatever that fucking is, and that she should watch what she eats. Mel looks beautiful to me. Rounded and shapely, in my eyes exactly how a woman should look. I glare at the doctor.

She then talks to us both about what to expect in pregnancy. I learn her tits are already sore and will increase in size.Oh baby, I could ease that pain with my hands and lips.Then mentally slap myself around the head before I get a hard dick in a very inappropriate place.

The doc thinks it’s too early for a sonogram, and as Mel’s certain of the timing of her last period estimates a delivery date. As she does Mel turns to glance at me, and I can see a mixture of fear and excitement on her face. Being given a date has just made it real for her.

“When can we see it? And when can we learn whether it’s a boy or a girl?” It’s me that asks that question.

Mel raises her eyebrow, but she grins. I shrug. Can’t help but get involved when I’m sitting here with her. Some of her excitement must be contagious.

The doc answers me, “After sixteen weeks we should be able to tell. We can schedule that in. If there are any problems, we might have a look sooner. We’ll schedule your next appointment for a month’s time. If anything comes back from your blood work that we need to discuss, then I’ll be in touch. Oh, and if you can get the health information from the father, that will be useful.”

My face tightens as the excitement on Mel’s face disappears.

She’s still down as we walk back across the parking lot.

“I wish Skull was here. I’m so glad you were, Pyro, but there’s so much I don’t know about him. I don’t know whether there’s anything in his medical history I should know about. What if there is, and it harms the baby?”

I know I’m starting to do this more often, but it just seems natural to pull her into my arms and to cradle her head against my chest. “Don’t worry about things that might not exist. Just focus on doing the best that you can.”

“I hate this,” she sobs. “I should be happy I’m having a baby. I am, but I want Skull to be with me.”

“I know.” It’s all that I can offer.

Suddenly she cries out, “He’s dead, isn’t he, Pyro? I’m never going to see him again.”

What do I do? Do I hold out false hope? Do I tell her what my thoughts really are? Can I lie? No, I can’t. “Mel, I’m so fuckin’ sorry, but I think he is. There’s no other explanation why he wouldn’t have come back to you. I don’t know where it could have happened, I don’t know how, who—or even if anyone else was involved—but I’m certain he’d have come back if he could.”

People come and go around us, but I ignore the looks. Let them think what they like. If Mel needs to cry out her anguish in a hospital parking lot, she’s allowed to.

Eventually her tears dry. On the drive back to the compound the odd sob sounds, but she’s slowly pulling herself together. I’m not sure if I handled the situation rightly or wrongly, but Mel’s distress was caused by her beginning to accept she’ll never again see her man. In my view, to allow her to keep hoping, to give her false platitudes after she’d come to that realisation herself, didn’t sit well with me.

Skull’s gone. Deep down in my bones, I know it.

Life has to go on. Particularly that special bundle of cells in her stomach on which Mel’s currently resting her hands.

Taking my right hand off the steering wheel, I place it on hers. “Skull still lives on, Mel. You’re carrying part of him. You can keep him alive in your child and in your mind.”

“I know,” she replies, her voice quiet and low. “I’d never met a man like Skull before, Pyro. He truly ignored our age difference. It didn’t matter to him, and he saw past my exterior to the woman inside. No one’s ever loved me for me before.”

“You don’t want to hear this now darlin’, I know. But when you’re ready, there’ll be someone else for you.”

“Will there?” she snaps. “There never was before. No one wants the fat woman, and a fat woman with a child?”

I pull over to the, slam the car into park and turn on her. “Shut that shit up now, woman. You are not fuckin’ fat. You’ve got curves in all the right places. Those men who couldn’t see how beautiful you are? Fuckin’ blind motherfuckers.”

“You heard the doctor…”

“I heard her say you’re to eat a healthy diet which she’d say to any fuckin’ expectant mother. You are not fat, Mel. You’re so fuckin’ perfect…” I stop before I tell her she’s exactly the kind of woman I want. I stop before I allow myself to even think it. This dilemma is fucking with my head. She’s another member’s old lady. Whether he’s living or no longer breathing, she’s his. If I let myself continue to contemplate in the direction I’m going, I’ll start doing the unthinkable, wishing a brother was dead.

She’s looking at me strangely as I put the car back into drive and pull away.

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