The Donor

Chapter 6

Trigger warning - discrimination toward intersex

"Oh, Mila, I invited Lauren to come with us tonight!"

"What?" I looked to my roommate in confusion. When had they spoken?

"Yeah I text her and asked her if she was free. It was the girls' idea!" Dinah explains. Of course it was the girls' idea. It has been two weeks since our family trip to the beach and the girls are back at school, much to their disappointment. Lauren had managed to get some time off work while Emelia was off so she could spend some time with her and that's just what she was able to do. Since the beach trip, the three of us have spent quite a bit of time together.

The first thing we had done was go to the movies, just the three of us. It was pre-planned between Lauren and I, and our daughter was overjoyed to hear she would be spending a night out with both of her parents. Something she also bragged about as soon as she got into school on her first day back. We had gone to see Inside Out by Lauren's request. I thought the film's concept would be too complex for children but I couldn't tell if that was the case with Emelia, she was just as enthralled by the film as Lauren was. As was I if I'm being completely honest. Our daughter sat between the two of us of course, but that didn't stop Lauren and I looking at each other from time to time during the midst of laughter, ensuring the other is also finding the same things funny. She really does have a beautiful laugh and I doubt I will ever tire from hearing it.

One lunch time, Lauren had also taken the two of us to a Pizza Express to make our own pizzas which I think she planned mainly for my happiness rather than Emelia's. Another thing that Lauren turned out to be brilliant at was making her own pizza, unsurprisingly. After the completion of making her own pizza dough, she had offered her services to our daughter, only to be batted away and told that she's almost there. Eventually she had begun helping me with mine because it really was not going well. Initially it was because I sucked at rolling it out properly but I soon got the hang of it, I just failed to show that to Lauren. I liked having her help me. It started with her kneading some of the dough herself but soon after she was holding my hands in her own and manoeuvring my fingers into the correct motion. I remember how nice her hands felt on mine, not as nice as they felt on my skin when she was applying my sun lotion at the beach, but the tenderness was warming and didn't fail to tint my cheeks with a deeper shade of red. The fact she was more open to touching me, unlike how she was that time we went crazy golfing, warmed me just as much.

Her openness to touching me was exasperated that time she took Emelia, Khiara and I to the park. It started out like a normal day at the park. We each took in turns by feeding the ducks from the supply of food that Lauren bought for this event. Apparently bread can be dangerous to ducks as she informed me in one of our late night phone calls so we mutually decided it'd be best if she bought the food. This was our late night phone call before our day at the park, not just a random phone call of ours where ducks' eating habits cropped up in conversation, they touched upon strange and quirky topics but they weren't that bad.

After we basked in the sunlight for a little while, sitting on the grass and engaging in mindless discussion, the two youngest girls had wanted to play soccer. There wasn't a point in settling teams, nor did we create any goal posts to give the game any purpose, but we all enjoyed just running around, passing to whoever and tackling everyone. Lauren appeared to be the only one who could actually play and used simple tricks to humiliate us. It resulted in the three of us to play dirty and tackle her all at once, Khiara and Emelia jumping onto her to knock her off balance, while I went for the ball at her feet. I used my body to shield her from the ball, her leaning over my arched back, and in the midst of everyone laughing and having fun, it didn't seem to cross either of our minds that she was holding onto my hips and waist to try and move me out of her way. It finally came to my attention when Khiara and Emelia had backed off in waiting for my pass, and I was still in front of Lauren, the ball now at my feet, arched over to shield the ball from her and her body mirroring mine to mould her front onto my back. Her forearm was pressed against my bare abs from where my top had ridden up, her hand at the top of my thigh to keep the two of us balanced and her lips tickling behind my ear. All too quickly I had managed to pass the ball absentmindedly to one of the girls, only to turn to Lauren and find neither of us were laughing anymore. We had just looked to each other with reddened cheeks and hidden smiles that hadn't quite made it to the surface.