Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

  The bell rang not too soon after that and I went through my day’s schedule. In English class, a substitute teacher was in again and we learned that Mrs. Duncan was out because she was going to doctor’s visits. She was, surprise surprise, pregnant but would be returning shortly. She was a short woman with a somewhat plus-size figure and I could picture her sporting a large pregnant belly quite easily, exciting my imagination.

  Once again, I ended up being partnered with Glenna to study for the coming final. The goal of the exercise was to draw comparisons between the books we’d read over the year so we could find things to write about in the coming essay questions. But, since it was Glenna, we made little headway and eventually we both decided to just study quietly by ourselves.

  After a while, curiosity kept eating away at me and I had to ask her. “So…I guess you’re just about the only student who isn’t pregnant here, huh?”

  “That is quite the assumption,” Glenna said in her obnoxious rehearsed tone, not even looking up from her book.

  “It’s not that big of a deduction,” I said, laughing. “You’re not pregnant, right?”

  “That is a very personal question.” Now I was getting confused. Why not just say no? Then again, with Glenna, everything had to be a headache.

  “Well you aren’t married so getting pregnant would go against your whole value system…right?” I said with a nervous gulp.

  “You always understand so little about my faith,” Glenn said, glancing up at me with her dismissive gaze. “Not that it’s any of your business but yes, I am pregnant.” Somewhere in my head, I wanted to make some kind of crack about how the abstinence-only sex ed she fought for at school clearly doesn’t work but I was too shocked to even put the words in the right order. “In fact, everyone in my prayer club is pregnant.”

  “H-h-how? How could you go along with the pact?” I got out in shaky words, my eyes instinctively looking for Tori and hurrying away as soon as I found her.

  “For your information, we came up with our own ‘pact’ before we heard what everyone else was up to. Don’t lump us in with these…harlots,” Glenna said, nearly spitting the last word out. “We decided we wanted to get pregnant now so we would give birth in November and have our babies with us around Christmas time.”

  “But…why?”

  “Hey, that doesn’t sound like studying,” the substitute said, looking in my direction. I didn’t realize how loudly I was now talking. Other students chuckled – it was obvious what I had been talking about. I caught Tori glancing over at me, a thin smile on her fat lips and her eyelids lowered and lazer-focused on me.

  I felt a soft buzz in my pocket and I hid my legs under the table so I could check my phone. It was a text from Tori.

  I quickly shot back.

  Right before I put it back in my pocket, I saw Tori’s response. How she could text with such speed and stealth, I’ll never know.

  Then it hit me why I was so rattled by the announcement of Glenna’s pregnancy. As I turned back to her, I saw what I had ignored. Beneath the terrible clothes and the horrible personality, Glenna was a good-looking young woman. In fact, the conservative clothing choices added an air of mystery to her body and her sweater was tight enough to show her curves that were sure to become even more defined as time went on. I shook the thoughts out of my head. There may have been a big countdown clock for when I could most likely have sex with a pregnant woman but Glenna had to be firmly in the “No” column along with Natasha and my step-family.

  Soon after came my Phys. Ed. class where the guys in the locker room were nowhere as quiet as they had been in the hallways. Everyone was loudly either trying to figure out who was pregnant with whom’s kids or bragging about how the “pact” had led to them bedding several fellow students.

  “So, dude, what do you think?” Louis asked me. “Think any of the girls here could be carrying your baby? You fuck any of them?”

  I had to tread lightly, not wanting to let slip the fact that I was a virgin. “Not in the past few months,” I replied.

  “Then I guess you’re off the hook,” he chuckled. “Same for me. I’ve never been so grateful to not get laid.”

  “It doesn’t sound like any of the girls are going after the fathers anyway,” I said.

  “Yeah, true. I wonder what their plans are to support their kids?” Louis asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess if they came up with this big plot to get pregnant, they must have planned that out too. I dunno.”

  We went out to the gym and warmed up with a few laps. The usual groups were out practicing, which surprised me. Lori shot a basket that bounced a bit away from her and we had a short chance to chat. “You’re still practicing?” I asked.

  “Sure, the competition’s always stiff,” Lori replied with a smile.

  “But…by the time the season starts, you’ll be…” I started to say.

  Lori read my expression and stuffed the basketball under her shirt, playfully rubbing her mock belly. “Like this?”

  “Yeh,” I blurted out, suddenly seeing my mental image of Lori with a bulging pregnant belly become a reality.

  She dropped the ball out from under her and laughed. “So will the other team; it’ll be even.”

  “The other team?”

  “We’re not the only ones with the pact,” Lori said with a wink.

  I felt my erection throb again. “M-maybe you should start practicing with a fake belly.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Lori said, mulling it over in her head as she rejoined her teammates. I trembled at the thought of going to a basketball game with all pregnant players, complete with chants from pregnant cheerleaders and intermissions with a pregnant step-team. I got back to jogging, my erection stopping my legs as they tried to bent.

  My last class of the day was pre-calculus with Natasha. I hadn’t seen her since she first revealed over text that she was pregnant. As tense as I had been around my step-mom and step-sisters over the weekend, my heart really started racing when Natasha walked in. Actually being friends with a pregnant girl – how would it go? Could we just joke about her belly as it grew into a wonderful swell? Would she share the details with me I’d always begged to know about pregnant women?

  Natasha didn’t seem nearly as nervous, smiling wide at me as she took the adjacent seat. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” We opened our books and turned our attention up to the front as Ms. Briggs paced around, trying to conduct her lesson. I tried to focus on my buxom teacher to ignore all my pregnant classmates in the room, especially the one sitting next to me. It wasn’t hard either. Her long hair was silky, her chest was heaving, her ass was tight, her skin was glowing…wait…

  Just when the unnerving possibility entered my head, Ms. Briggs, clutched her stomach and bent over. We could see the sweat start to bead on her face and she bolted from the room. After a few minutes, she slowly returned, even sweatier and letting out the occasional burp.

  “Uh, Ms. Briggs?” one student asked, raising her hand and slowly moving out of her seat. “Are you…pregnant?”

  Not everyone paid attention in pre-calculus but every eye darted straight ahead as Ms. Briggs stood there in the midst of a particularly pregnant pause. “Yes,” she finally squeaked out. As the room erupted in gasps and laughs, the clock struck 3 and everyone was drowned out in the noise of other classes letting out for the day. “M-make sure you study for your finals this Friday!” Ms. Briggs tried to get out as everyone got out their phones and started texting the big news.

  “Talk about a coincidence,” Natasha said as we walked to the library. “The word is every teacher here is pregnant too. Well, everyone who is young enough at least.”

  “Y-yeah, funny how that worked out,” I stammered.

  “‘Worked out.’ Listen to you,” Natasha chuckled. “This must be like a dream come true for you.”

  “It’s a little surreal,” I gulped, my eyes down at my feet. Natasha stopp
ed me on the steps of the library and forced me to look her way.

  “Hey, we’re going to be…cool during all this, right?” she said, gesturing between the two of us. “I’d like to keep having a friend for the next nine months.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be cool,” I said, meeting Natasha’s eyes for the first time all day. “It’ll take some getting used to but…yeah. You know I’m just shy.”

  “Especially about pregnancy,” Natasha nodded. “I get that. But hey, you’ll work that out of your system when the whole school is swimming in bellies.”

  I blushed and snickered. It was weird now but I was glad the one person who knew was Natasha. “So do you, like, feel any different?”

  Natasha sighed and ran her hands down her waist. “Not really. I mean, it’s pretty early but I mostly don’t notice. My stomach feels a little funny every now and then but that’s about it.” She pressed her palm against her belly button and rubbed gently. “But I’m already getting a bit of a bulge.”

  I laughed quickly to hide my excitement. “I think it’s a little early for that.”

  “Yeah, that’s what has me kinda worried,” Natasha said with a small scoff. “Alright, time to get to work. I’m not on maternity leave yet.”

  Despite the school’s bluster on that first assembly, when it was revealed how literally every student’s uterus in the high school was occupied, things died down quickly. Since it was a private school, they were able to keep everything in-house and not receive much blowback. And they didn’t have many detractors. The same “pact” seemed to be going on in every school in the county, public and private, and there were even some reports of the same thing happening in other states.

  And they ended up being quite accommodating. The schedules for the finals became very flexible to fit around when girls had the worst morning sickness. Luckily, Lori and Tori had almost no nausea so we all drove out the first available days and knocked our finals out of the way. To my surprise, I aced them all.

  There was an “end of the year” party planned but since no one would be bringing any alcohol, interest died off and I spent the following days at home looking for a summer job instead of celebrating. Besides, I still had to return for one more year of high school so there didn’t seem to be a point in rolling out all the festivities.

  The downside to not going to any definitive party was I didn’t get to see Natasha again before she left. She was accepted to the program in Washington D.C. for advanced mathematics students and would be there all summer. I missed being able to hang out with her, but still, one less growing pregnant belly for me to stress over seemed good.

  I was prepared to have a strange summer but I figured, next to dodging my step-family and working during the summer, I could put a cap on things and manage the craziness.

  I was wrong.

  My summer job was working in a library. We all lived in the state capital so the library had a shit-load of old documents and records that needed someone to take the time to sort it all out and digitize it. And that lucky person was me. Honestly, it was a pretty good deal. I got paid reasonably well, the work was easy (if not a little monotonous), and I could check my phone or listen to music and podcasts whenever I wanted since it was just me in the back of this massive library.

  In fact, being stuck in the back of an office all day ended up being good for me. The “baby boom” wasn’t just relegated to my school but was all around the city. Female library employees and patrons were all sporting the faint signs of growing bellies and I was not emotionally ready to deal with that on a daily basis yet.

  A week into my job, I got a call from Samantha. “Hi Alex, you have all sorts of moving equipment at your library, right?” she said.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, looking at the carts I used to move around boxes of documents. “Why?”

  “I need to move around some things from the lab to the house and no one here is free to give me any help,” Samantha said with a little pout.

  “S-sure, I can come help you out,” I said quickly. “You probably shouldn’t doing any heavy lifting in your, um…”

  “In my condition?” Samantha said with a little laugh. “I never knew you were so old-fashioned.” I blushed and stammered to try and correct myself. “But I do need a hand so if you have any push carts you can lend, that would be great.”

  I took my lunch break as Samantha drove to the library. I loaded up my carts and got in the passenger seat, greeted by her usual radiant smile. “Why do you need to move your equipment?” I asked.

  “I figured if I’m going to have a new baby, I might as well get things set up so I can work from home for a bit,” Samantha said. “And while I’m at it, I’m taking some prenatal gear they never use.”

  “P-prenatal?” I repeated, knowing my medical terminology just well enough to translate.

  “Ultrasounds, fetal monitors, things like that,” Samantha said. “How do I get out of this part of town? The traffic is confusing.”

  “Oh, I’ve never gone this way,” I said, looking around. “Uh, take this left I think.”

  The detour took us deeper into the city by accident and Samantha parked in a slower area so I could check the map on my phone. As I typed in our destination, we both looked up to see a group of men in suits leaving a club. It didn’t have a sign but it was well known as a “gentlemen’s club” for the businessmen in the city.

  I heard a small, fragile gasp escape Samantha’s lips and I looked up. My dad was the last one in the group to leave the club, laughing more than I’d ever seen from him. Racing through my head, I was trying to think of explanations. He worked in banking so he could have been taking some of these other guys out to loosen them up to talk some business. It didn’t mean he was getting anything out of it himself.

  Then, a woman in very short shorts and a zip-up sweatshirt ran out and grabbed my dad. She was loud enough that we could even hear her in the car and she was complaining that he stiffed her. My dad laughed, reached to a wad of money out of his wallet, and spread apart her sweatshirt to stick it between her breasts. When she turned to go back inside, he gave her a strong slap on the rear before laughing again.

  I slowly turned to see Samantha. She was biting her lip and trembling, her skin turning red. There was an intense burning in her pupils.

  “Samantha,” I said quietly. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she said. I had never heard Samantha that stoic. It was unsettling.

  When I got home after work, I stayed in my room. I didn’t want to stop and talk to Samantha, or my step-sisters for that matter. I didn’t want to remind her of her cheating husband. Surfing the web ended up not being very relaxing, since news stories about various celebrity pregnancy announcements kept popping up. Many of them were women I’d fantasized about sporting big bellies but now was not a great time for that.

  Finally, I heard the front door open and close so I knew he had to be home. I slowly crept out of my room and looked down to the living room. Samantha walked in, her arms around Lori and Tori. My dad was standing across from them.

  “What’s happened?” my dad asked.

  “A lot’s happened, Richard,” Samantha said in her unnaturally calm voice.

  “Well what is it? Is everyone okay?” my dad said, sounding a little panicked.

  “Oh, we are going to be okay,” Samantha said, tightening her grip on her daughters. “I don’t know about you.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Today, I saw you…leaving a strip club,” Samantha said, her voice fluctuating a little. “I asked around and you were getting more there than just lap dances. And it turns out this wasn’t the only club.” She crossed her arms and stepped forward, straightening her back and standing tall.