The Rampage MC #2: Beard and Emily

Chapter 6 (Beard): Do You Hear Yourself?

She played me.

One minute, I was explaining to Emily that I'd be moving in to watch over her, and the next, she was hunching over, her arms going around her belly, groaning in pain.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" I'd demanded, not having the first clue what to do. Make her lie down? Call an ambulance? Throw her in the car and drive her to the hospital?

She groaned again and moved her hand over her belly. "Oh, shit," she gasped. "Beard, I need my amnio-placentaoscilloscope right away. It's in the back seat of my car. Go get it, please."

Holy fuck. This sounded serious.

"What --"

"It's a transducter to measure the twin's hippocampal conductivity waves in the amniotic fluid -- Oh!"

Again with the belly clutching. Not gonna lie, I was getting freaked out, especially since I had no idea -- none -- what the hell she was talking about. I needed to read up on pregnancy fast.

"My car's open, please -- OH! -- I really need it."

Then she clutched her belly and groaned, long and low, and if I never heard that sound again, I'd be good with that.

"I'll get it, Emily. I'll be right back. Don't move from the couch."

Then I fucking ran out the door to the car, flung open the back passenger door -- she and I'd be having words about leaving her car unlocked -- and looked around. The interior was pristine, and there wasn't even a scrap of paper on the floor.

"Thanks for stopping by," she called to me from the front door. "I'll be in touch."

I started toward her, realizing I'd been played.

"I'm turning on my alarm as soon as I close and lock the door, and the police will be here in less than two minutes if you try to get in."

Just before I reached the door, she slammed it and locked it.

I stood on Emily's porch for a minute, debating the wisdom of picking the locks on her door and showing her exactly why throwing down the gauntlet was a dangerous maneuver to pull on a man like me. Then I thought that maybe it was smarter to let a pregnant woman who was that mad maybe calm down a bit. I'd go to my house, grab some clothes and, on the way back to Emily's house, stop by and talk to Genny for five minutes.

It took a lot longer than five minutes.

"Hey, Genny," I greeted her when she opened the front door. Chain was behind her. Wanting to get back to Emily, I decided to treat it like church and dive right in.

"Genny, as a pregnant woman, you know you're big, right?"

Her welcoming smile morphed into something that wasn't pleasant.

"Excuse me?"

I was pretty sure that tone in her voice would prevent global warming and keep the polar bears protected for a long time.

"What the hell, Prez?" Chain growled at me.

"Just hear me out," I held up my hand. "Chain, I think you're getting a bit thick around the middle."

Chain shrugged and, with his free hand, patted his belly. "Genny's a good cook."

"There it is," I said, and they both looked at me, confused. "You make a comment about a woman's size, and it's the end of the world. You make a comment about a man's size, he shrugs it off and moves on, like a reasonable person. Doesn't cry about it, doesn't freeze you out, doesn't get mad about it. I don't get why you women have to be so sensitive about your size. There's no way you don't see yourselves in the mirror and not realize what's happening to your body. You've got a baby in there. You're huge. So what? We're supposed to pretend that you haven't blown up like hot air balloons?"

Genny looked at me consideringly for a minute. 

"You found Emily, Levi said. Let me guess -- you said something stupid about her pregnant belly."

"She's pregnant with twins. I didn't know at the time! So I just made a comment that she was bigger than most pregnant women. Once I found out we were having twins, I told her the size of her belly made sense."

Chain chuckled sadly while Genny stared at me for a full minute. "Are you really that stupid, Beard? You never tell a woman that she's big...or gained weight, or even that her blowing up like a hot air balloon is understandable."

"How the hell would I know that? I've never had a relationship! I just fucked a bitch and then told her to go."

"How shocking you're still single," Genny said as she rolled her eyes at me. "If you want to have any hope in the future of being with this woman, pay attention."

Then she shot a look at Chain.

"Levi, how long have we been married?"

"Seems like only yesterday, Genevieve," he responded immediately.

"And do I look pregnant? Like, am I getting super big?"

"Genny, if I didn't know you were pregnant, I wouldn't know you were pregnant."

"One last question, Levi," she said. "Does this dress make me look fat?"

"Genevieve, you look sexy as fuck in that dress. Nothing could make you look fat because you aren't."

Genny looked back at me, triumph in her eyes. "See how it's done?"

"So, you basically lie to the woman? I thought you women were all about honesty in a relationship."

"We are," Genny explained patiently, "except when we aren't. The first time I asked Levi if I was getting super big, he looked at my belly and then back at me and said, maybe not super big, but definitely big."

"Definitely not the right answer," Chain said, wincing at the memory.

"Your problem is trying to deal with women like you'd deal with your brothers or other men. You say shit to them, and you guys laugh it off or fight it out, but you get over it. We don't. We pick apart each word you said, we obsess about what you meant, we roll it over and over in our minds, we discuss what you said with our friends, we think about it constantly and we take what might have seemed like a perfectly innocent comment to you right into our hearts and let it hurt us."

"You should just let it go and get over it," I told her. "You read way too much into the comments we make if you're thinking about them that much."

"Let it go..." she shook her head. "Oh, Beard, totally different subject for a minute and this may not be the time to bring it up, but I've heard from a lot of the club girls that you have a micro-peen, and you don't even know what to do with the little you have."

"Genevieve!" Chain protested, but I could tell the bastard was trying not to laugh.

"What the hell? Who the fu--" I shouted.

Genny waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, get over it. I didn't mean it that way."

I relaxed a bit, realizing she was just making a point. "That wasn't funny," I grumbled at her.

"But, take the lesson. Women are sensitive about certain things, just like you men are. We maybe handle things differently, but at the heart of it all, we just want to feel like we're still beautiful to you. And when you make comments about our size, whether you mean to or not, that makes us question whether you still find us attractive."

"Emily's beautiful," I told her. "Her size has no bearing on that whether she's normal size or the size she is now."

"Oh, dear lord," Genny said. "Do you hear yourself?"

Well, no. Not really.

"I really need your help, Genny," I pleaded with her. "I want to get it right with Emily."

She sent a look to Chain. "Better set another plate at the table for dinner. This could take a while."

And it did.