20. Olga

Olga

I woke up surrounded by man, with something poking at my butt cheek. Waking up in Michael’s arms was better than I imagined, and if I was being totally honest, I’d imagined it more than once, especially after he got into bed with me to warm me up when I was sick.

I was probably an idiot. Definitely an idiot. Suggesting a roommates with benefits arrangement would do absolutely nothing to help me get over my inconvenient crush on my friend. If anything, it would probably make it worse. I was in so deep already I’d never be able to get out of this.

What came over the two of us last night, I couldn’t say. Sure, we’d had a few martinis, but neither of us was drunk. We’d had plenty of time on the way home from Sweet Cocktails to reconsider whether it was a good idea to have sex. And yet, we’d gone through with it.

Maybe it was because we’d been dancing around our attraction for each other since the day we’d first run into each other at Sweet Cocktails. Or maybe it was because once we knew the other person was sexually attracted to the other, there was no way to put that cat back in the bag.

Or whatever the American phrase was for once it was out there, it was out there. It was too late to take it back, and I was glad of it because last night I’d had the best sex of my life. Twice. Three times if you counted Michael eating me out. And I definitely counted that.

Three orgasms in one night was a new personal record for me. If I’d known how good Michael was at sex, I would have jumped him the first night I was here and never looked back.

“I can hear you thinking,” Michael grumbled from behind me.

I turned in his arms so I could look at him. “I’m just worried that we messed up our friendship by sleeping together.”

“Does it feel that way to you?” he asked.

“No.”

“It doesn’t feel that way to me either. Look Olga, we were already good friends, we’re just adding a physical component to our relationship. We don’t have to figure everything out right now, we can just relax and enjoy each other. See what happens, you know?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I said, giving him a smile. “I need to ask you a serious question though.”

“What?” He looked slightly nervous.

“How do you feel about morning sex?”

A huge smile lit up his face. “I’m a big fan. Especially if you’re involved.”

***

The next six weeks passed in a haze. I went to work. Michael went to work. With our differing schedules and how busy we both were with our jobs, sometimes we were like two ships that passed in the night. We texted. We coordinated on groceries. We shared housekeeping chores that we did while the other person was at work.

But from the time I got home Friday until Sunday night, it was our time. Michael had scheduled himself off for Sundays so now we had all weekend together. Two days and three nights to do whatever we wanted.

“I need to start moving back and see that the staff can keep things going without me there every day,” he told me. “I can’t keep working at Sweet Cocktails forever. I’m looking to acquire another business investment soon.”

I knew that was true, but I also was absolutely certain he’d made that move so we could spend more time together, and I was ridiculously happy about it. On Friday nights we would get takeout and watch movies or sometimes play a board game. Then we’d spend the whole weekend making love in pretty much every room in the house.

To my amazement, Nutella had stopped trying to kill Michael once we started sleeping with each other. I didn’t know if it was because he understood what it meant when we shared a bed, or if he somehow smelled my scent on Michael, but he’d definitely calmed down around my roommate with benefits. They weren’t buddies by any means, but at least my cat had stopped trying to attack Michael every time they got close to each other. A few times I’d even discovered Nutella sleeping at the foot of the bed with me and Michael, although as soon as he saw that I noticed, he’d skulked off. Nutella, not Michael.

I’d never lived with a man before – other than being roommates with Michael of course – but everything between us felt comfortable and domestic. We’d gotten along well as roommates and it was clear we were compatible, but there was something else there now, an easy intimacy, or maybe it was just that neither one of us needed to hide our attraction for each other anymore.

Even benign things like cooking dinner or going for a walk felt imbued with meaning now. I was happy – happier than I’d ever been in any relationship – and I was sure it was written all over my face every time I was with Michael. When I was alone with my thoughts, I couldn’t help but daydream that we were a real couple. And maybe we would be some day.

I still went to my parents’ house for dinner every other Saturday, bringing Michael with me at my mother’s insistence. We were very careful not to act like anything was going on with us in front of my family, but my mother and sister definitely seemed suspicious. Or maybe that was just my guilty conscience. Either way, my mother had amped up her “you two should get married” narrative, seemingly nervous that I was going to lose Michael before I got him to the altar.

God knows I wasn’t going to try to explain the friends with benefits concept to my mother. After she recovered from her stroke she’d send my father over to kill us both. No one outside of the two of us needed to know that we were more than just friends.

Until the day everything changed…

I’d been feeling kind of nauseous for over a week, but I didn’t think too much of it, figuring I’d picked up another virus or something. I was otherwise feeling fine. Then my breasts got sore, the way they did when I was about to get my period, except my period didn’t come. And my breasts stayed sore. So sore I could barely stand to have Michael touch them.

When my period was a week late, that’s when I started to wonder what was going on with my body. It was never late. I’d always been as regular as could be. I tried to tell myself it was just hormonal changes or something. I’d heard from my sister Alona that her periods were changing, and she was having weird symptoms, and her doctor had just chalked it up to perimenopause.

Pregnancy never once entered my mind. Michael and I were religious about contraception. We’d never once had sex unprotected, even when we had to stop what we were doing to find a condom in another room.

Then one night I flashed back to a memory from high school. Clear as day, I could see our teacher, Mrs. Collins, giving us the sex education lecture that we all received in Freshman Health.

“Condoms are ninety-eight percent effective, girls,” the teacher told us. “But ninety-eight is not one hundred. It’s always best to use additional birth control to be safe if you want to avoid pregnancy. The only perfect birth control is abstinence.”

Unable to get my health teacher’s words out of my head, I decided to take a pregnancy test. After work the next day I stopped at the pharmacy and picked up some home pregnancy tests, telling myself the tests would put my mind at ease until I could get an appointment with my doctor to see what was going on.

It didn’t work. When I saw the two lines on the first test – and two lines on the second one too – I knew my mind would never be at ease again.