Page 57 of Shame

I pant erratically, waiting for the next time to push.

As if from afar, I hear Jane’s soothing voice, telling me to keep breathing, to listen to my body.

“Fuck my body!” I cry.

“Yeah, hon, that’s why you’re here now. That’s how babies are made.”

“Fuck you,” I scream and she laughs. She fucking has the nerve to laugh.

I put a hand between my thighs and there it is, the head, it’s stretching me wide open. I want to puke.

“I don’t want it! I can’t! Take it away!” I wail.

Jane puts a hand over mine, feeling what I’m feeling, the slick hard thing that is too big to exit there.

“Okay, that’s it. On the bed. Now. We don’t want to drop it on its head.” She grabs my arm in a steel grip, as Alex grabs my hips. I end up on all four on the mattress, squealing and crying.

“I hate men and their fucking dicks!”

“Don’t we all,” mutters Alex.

“This is how God created us. We’re supposed to do this.” Jane strokes my cheek.

“I hate God!” I scream.

An urge to push, a primal reflex ancient as time itself, makes me arch as I lose all control.

“You’re doing great. It’s coming. You were made for this. Don’t stop, don’t stop pushing. All the way now and this is over. Do it. Push!”

My roar is a long guttural, inhuman sound as my body turns itself inside out. Suddenly the pain subsides as something thick and slippery slithers out between my legs. I gasp for air at the same time as the tiniest of wails comes from whatever has come out of me.

I push my sweaty face into the pillow and, as the adrenaline leaves me, the complete lack of energy makes me sag.

There’s movement between my legs. A baby cries. I cry.

“It’s a boy, Carmen. A beautiful baby boy. Here. Look.”

“No,” I wail. “Take it away.”

“No, you turn over and take your baby. You’re being irrational. He needs his mom.” Her voice holds a sharpness I’ve never heard before and something in it makes me turn my head, and then shuffle over so I’m lying on my side.

Jane stands next to me, cradling a little thing wrapped in a towel. Alex holds up a pair of scissors and a couple of rubber bands, looking questioningly at Jane who nods for her to go on and cut the cord. The tiniest of hands is the only thing I see, little fingers clutching air, helpless, confused.

Oh my fucking God. I don’t even know what I’m feeling. There’s too much going on. I’m bone weary, there’s something thick in my chest, twisting my heart. My pussy aches and my boobs tense up at the little grunts from the baby.

“Give him to me.” I open my arms to make room.

“Atta girl.” She puts the little bundle next to my chest and pushes down the edge of my robe, freeing a breast. “Put his cheek to the nipple. He’ll know what to do.”

I take a moment to study the little thing, touching his hand with the tips of my fingers. He tries to grip me, and I find it amazing he can even do that. His eyes are so tired, and so dark. Dark like mine, dark like… his father’s. His skin, under streaks of blood, and patches of a white fatty substance, is a beautiful caramel hue, and his nose straight.

Alex and Jane are silent, all of us awed by the miracle that is a new life being born. It doesn’t matter that I don’t want him, won’t keep him. In this moment, an angel touches us all, and we’re engulfed in what women have felt since the dawn of time, the act connecting us all, every generation back to Eve.

The little one makes funny little grunting noises, like a hedgehog’s, as he searches for my nipple. When he finally latches on, it’s as if a tingling electric impulse runs from my nipple straight to my pussy setting off a new sucking sensation.

“Jane,” I grunt. “After-fucking-birth.”

“Just focus on yours. We’ll be here.”

---