Intersex

Chapter 19.

I woke up in a tangled mess of limbs and bodies at 4 a.m. It was warm and cosy. Hands were on my stomach, in my hair, on my hips. My hands were in someone's hair, the other one tucked somewhere under my pillow. How'd we end up like this? We didn't... I reached down to my underwear in a panic and sighed in relief when they were still on. That didn't quite assure me though. Sure, I couldn't remember anything other than dozing off on the couch but I wasn't so sure since both Jayden and Kennedy were pretty naked on the bed. I pushed all the limbs off of me and crawled out of the bed. There were no condoms on the floor and my lube wasn't out of the drawer as far as I could tell. I stared suspiciously at the two men on my bed. They looked pretty knocked out and that too was suspicious. Either they stayed up too late doing who knows what or they decided to jerk each other off or something before they fell asleep. I squinted at them. Both were very possible.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over me and I had to stop my train of thought for a second while I tried to determine if I was about to throw up or not. There was no time to think. Within seconds I was hunched over by the toilet, the process was just as uncomfortable as it had been the first time. As soon as I thought I was done another wave would hit me and I'd be back with my head in the bowl.

"I thought we were done with this s**t!" I yelled at my stomach between the heaving.

Throwing up might be one of the most unpleasant feelings ever. You can't control it and you're not the one pushing the vomit out. Your body just does all of it and you can't stop it when you've started. You're just immobilised until your body decides that it's had enough.

Hands that weren't mine brushed over my forehead as I breathed heavily into the toilet. Someone pulled my hair away from my damp forehead and gently massaged my scalp. I knew that touch.

"You're okay..." Jayden hummed sleepily. "I've got you..."

"I'm not... okay..." I forced out between another set of heaving and breathing heavily. "This is your f*****g fault..."

"I know..." he chuckled softly. "You were pretty tired, huh?"

"Stop... stop talking..."

I spent another ten minutes at the toilet in Jayden's lap as he patiently stroke my back and stomach while he brushed my hair back. Not that it needed to be brushed back since it was in a medium length undercut but I still appreciated the gesture.

"He's not being very nice to you..." Jayden chuckled as he stroke my small body bump.

"Yeah, I know... it's like he's a little copy of you..."

"Hey now..."

"I wanna go back to bed..."

⚥ ⚥ ⚥

The second time I woke up was at 8:14. I had class at 10. I opened my eyes to see Jayden sleeping in front of me, his long lashes naturally curled and his dark skin looked soft in the small amount of light that seeped through the closed blinds. Kennedy had his arms around me, spooning me like a child.

"Kennedy..." I complained and nudged his arms. "Off..." I groaned. "Kennedy!"

"Mm... what?" He murmured.

"Get off me..."

"But I'm comfy..."

"I need to pee, asshole..."

"But, Micah..."

"My foot is dangerously close to your nut sack right now so if you feel like being able to walk within the next week then I advise you to get off me..."

"Watch it, Kennedy, he's serious..."

"When is he not?" Kennedy mumbled as he turned over, releasing me from his embrace so that I could hurry to the bathroom.

"What was that s**t you pulled last night, huh?" I said and looked down at my stomach. It was becoming a bad habit. Venting and arguing with my own belly wasn't something I ever saw myself doing, no matter how weird I was. "First trimester's over, bud... time to cut the nausea... I'm basically your god right now so I will demand respect... and less crying... thank you."

"Who are you talking to?" Jayden yawned in the doorframe. I yelped and tried to pull my underwear up in a haste since they were still down. My fumbling fingers didn't seem to get the message of haste though. "Calm down, it's not like I haven't seen it before..." he chuckled.

"Have you ever heard of privacy?!" I yelled at him.

"You didn't lock the door."

"You knew I was in here!"

"Why are you shy all of a sudden? You never were before..." he squinted his eyes and eyes me from top to toe while I held my hands over my chest and crotch.

Of course, I wasn't embarrassed before. I looked normal before. I didn't have weird pointy, tender n*****s or a f*****g baby bump the last time he saw me like this. To be fair, he had seen me shirtless yesterday, and then again in the bathroom when I threw up, and now... dammit. My face heated up.

"P-piss of!" I shot at him before stalking out of the bathroom.

⚥ ⚥ ⚥

Mrs Taraha spoke fondly about her journalist days before she decided to become a college professor instead. Now she stood in front of a large class of aspirin journalists in an auditorium that steered all the attention to her. Why did I decide to study journalism? The question was a simple one but I couldn't quite answer it. Jayden had an answer when people asked him why he wanted to study biomedical engineering, he just said he wanted to improve people's health and abilities by creating useful products for all types of disabilities and physical set-backs. Apparently, his younger sister was born without an arm and he wanted to help her create a usable, mechanical replacement for the limb she never had.

Kennedy wanted to become a political journalist and get involved in debates and interviews with politicians and leaders around the world. He wanted a deeper understanding of different ideologies and how people think, therefore he studied journalism to be able to work with understanding a verity of people and showing their good and bad intentions to the world.

But why did I study journalism? It wasn't something I ever really thoroughly thought about when I applied. I just kind of picked what seemed interesting. So when people asked me the question: "why did you choose to study journalism?" My answer was always a mix of bullshit. I'd say that I wanted to meet interesting people and understand their stories. Sometimes I said it was because I liked writing articles. Other times I said that it had been a childhood dream. When my parents asked I told them that I chose it because it was something I could see myself doing in the future. That wasn't entirely a lie. I could indeed see myself becoming a journalist but I never really thought about the future before my life decided to take a detour and start going down a different route than I had originally thought or planned.

"Micah, are you feeling good?" Mrs Taraha whispered in her heavy accent and bent down to face me.

"Wha..." I fumbled before it clicked in my head what she was trying to ask. "Yeah, I'm feeling alright..."

"Have you got a bellyache?"

"What? No..?"

"It's just that you keep rubbing your tummy..."

"Oh!" I stuttered and looked down at my small bump, slowly pulling my hand away. I really had to stop doing that. It did look like I just ate too much and I didn't know what was more embarrassing. Eating until my stomach got bloated and ached or being a pregnant man in college. "It's nothing!" I nervously chuckled, a bit louder than I intended.

"Alright then..." She mumbled, raising her brow slightly before walking off.

"Remember when you used to despise kids?" Kennedy snickered, startling me greatly as I had forgotten about his presence.

"Yeah... other people's kids... not my own..." I said and proudly patted my small stomach.

"You're gonna become a soccer mom..." He snickered.

"f**k you..." I mumbled playfully.

⚥ ⚥ ⚥

I scrolled through my best friend's i********: feed on the bus that would take me to work. She seemed to be doing okay. We hadn't talked in the past few months, both were busy with school and work. It was November 23rd, meaning that my 16th week of pregnancy would start tomorrow. It felt like such a rush, did time always pass this quickly? I would deliver at the end of May next year which felt surreal.

It was dark outside. The first snow had yet to fall and thanksgiving was coming up. I'd get a few days off school and work next week because of it, maybe I should go see Hannah then. Yeah. That'd be nice. That would also give me some time away from my two suiters. I rolled my eyes. They were getting pushier with every passing day. Neither of them seemed to have started taken any action with each other yet, it was obvious that I was their main target. They weren't exactly interested in each other, they were just both interested in me, willing to share me. I shivered at the thought. If they were so intent on having a three-way relationship then shouldn't the two of them also have feelings for each other? Was I just some kind of bridge that would connect the three of us? The thought kind of pissed me off.

I got off the bus outside of the large library and went inside. It was 6:55 am in the morning. The sun wasn't out yet and the November darkness coated the world in a gloomy yet beautiful blanket of comfort. The trees were naked, exposed. I liked them like that. Naked trees reminded me of my time in front of the tv when I was little. There was one Halloween when my parents left town for a party. I was alone home for a few hours and during that time I sat cradled on the couch in a fluffy blanket with a bowl of lemon fudge. A documentary about the Stone Age was running on CBC and I kept glancing at the reflection of the window behind me through the tv screen. Outside the window grew a large elm, larger than our house, its branches wide and strong. The tree was beautiful in the summer when the leaves covered the large tree in a coating of green, but as winter approached, and the leaves fell to the ground, the naked tree left a skeletal silhouette. Its branches twisted in crooked, frightening ways, exposed its large frame and left the naked tree with a sense of death. But that was somewhat comforting. I always associated elms with death. One grew in the cemetery where my grandparents were buried. Perhaps that's why.

The trees were gorgeous though and every time I saw a naked tree in the bitter winter cold, I would think of the elm outside the living room window. I never really thought of it until I was alone that October night, when it gazed at me from outside and I gazed back. I hung a small birdhouse in it when spring came, so that instead of reminding me of death I could see it as something that bore life instead. No birds ever moved into that birdhouse though and the connection I had between elms and death remained.

"Good morning, Micah!" Catherine said as I entered the warm library.

"Good morning!" I smiled at her.

The older lady was one of the two people who singlehandedly managed all of the library. I admired them for that. Her stubborn determination to have everything in order for everyone was amazing in its own and to thing that she, a woman of sixty, managed a library so smoothly was admirable. Catherine and her sister, Louren, cared for the library as if it were an infant child. With only a handful of employees they ruled the library like a castle. Catherine knew every book and their position like the back of her hand and Louren ran the front desk and phones like a machine. They often had small arguments that they solved through laughter and their love for the library showed all over the way they decorated the rooms and interacted with the guests. The library sparked of comfort and ambition that was hard to explain.

"You seen well!" I said cheerfully as I left my coat in the space dedicated for employees.

"I feel just as I always do..." she chuckled. "At my age, death is lingering just around the corner but for now, I think it'll stay away..."

"Don't say that!" I whined and playfully bumped her shoulder. She was the same age as my parents and hearing her joking about dying pained me. Not only because it reminded me of my parents' lives coming to an end but also because she seemed so content with dying. "You've got at least another forty years!" I said with confidence. "I mean, look at those curves, Cathy..." I whistled and spun her around like they did in old movies. "I'd think you were in your thirties..."

"Stop flattering me!" She laughed. Her wrinkled smile made my heart warm with joy. This lady was like an aunt to me, a second mother. I couldn't help myself as I held her hand after the spin. I tugged her arm gently, causing her to take a step toward me until we were practically chest to chest. I stared into her eyes, trying not to laugh as I felt my growing stomach bump up against her. She could barely contain the wheeze she needed to let loose.

"Never..." I whispered with a goofy smile, dragging the 'e' out until she started laughing again.

My hand reached my stomach as I walked away from my boss. When do you have to tell your employer that you'll need to take some time off? Maybe quitting all together and looking for a better job was smarter considering that I'd need more money than this job offered. The thought of going back to the library not as an employee but as anyone else felt strange. Then there was school. I had decided to quit after Christmas and start working full time at the library until May when my due date closed in. Catharine already agreed to that without asking why. A guilty feeling crept into my consciousness. After Christmas I'd be hired full time and I hadn't told her that I'd only be there for a few months yet. It felt dirty, as if I was using her. She didn't know of my plans to quit. I'd have to tell her sometime soon, before my baby bump grew too large.

"Everything's gonna be fine, little one..." I mumbled quietly to myself as I walked further into the library. It was going to be a long day.