Slipping Away

Chapter 41

February 14th, 1996

Mariah chuckled as she felt Michael nuzzling her neck, leaving  a small trail of kisses on her neck. They had returned to New York, but were staying in Michael's condo instead of Janet's. Her husband had returned from touring as a dancer and they wanted to give them their privacy.

"Hey, hey, hey you're still married." She teased, not opening her eyes.

Michael huffed, rested his chin on her shoulder. "I'm separated. I'm basically single."

She rolled over, opening her eyes. "No, you're not. You have me."

"Do I? You told me to take it slow." He pointed out. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Well," Mariah interlocked her fingers with his. "I'll tell you this, you don't not have me."

"But I don't have you either." He said. "I can respect that. I want you to be completely comfortable before we get back into a relationship."

Mariah frowned. "I have a question: what if I can't have a baby?"

"Well, would you be okay with adoption? Or, we could have a surrogate." Michael suggested.

Mariah raised an eyebrow. "A surrogate?"

Michael nodded. "We could take your egg and my sperm so the baby would be biologically ours and have another woman carry it for us."

"How do you know about this?" She asked. She had never really heard about people using their own eggs inside of another woman, only with the father's sperm.

Michael flushed. "Well, when I was trying to convince Lisa to have my baby I looked into a lot of different things. It's a really new thing, it's only been around for ten years."

Mariah nodded slowly. "What if the surrogate goes psycho and decides she doesn't want to give us our baby back?"

"Then we take her to court and get our baby." He said, shrugging. "Though I see what you're saying. Maybe Debbie could do it if it's necessary."

Mariah rubbed her stomach. "I hope it's not, but I couldn't go through what I went through with Prince again."

"Let's not even think about that. That's later on down the line, I just want to see you smile." He said.

Mariah smirked. "I have smiled."

"Not like you used to." He pointed out. "You used to have this huge smile, it used to light up a room."

Mariah noticed he was smiling at her, making her feel self conscious so she decided to change the subject. "So the Grammy's are coming up..."

"Yeah, and you're nominated for six this year. I'm proud of you, you're gonna go in and have a clean sweep." Michael said.

She shrugged. "You never know. That new girl Alanis Morissette is nominated for just as many as I am and we're up in a lot of the same categories."

Michael shook his head. "There you go doubting yourself again. Have a little faith in yourself."

She sighed, but Michael had a point. She had been asked to perform and her single One Sweet Day had been number one since it had been released in November.

"See, you know I'm right." He said.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah oh shut up."

He chuckled and looked at the clock. "Well, it's Valentine's Day and neither one of us have anything scheduled."

"So what do you have in mind?" She inquired, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips.

Michael smirked. "I don't know, whatcha wanna try?"