She greeted Jason in the hallway, as had become customary. A lingering kiss of welcome and he went off to his study to deposit his laptop case. The summons followed soon afterwards and she found him sitting in his leather office chair, feet on his desk, examining her lines with a broad grin on his face.
She rested her arms on the desk while he slipped down her slacks and knickers. Her lines lay on the desk under her as she stuck her bum up and he fucked away in her rather wet hole. He pressed his palm on the nape of her neck and her belly hung down in front of desk, unimpeded. The other hand wrapped about her hair, somewhere to tug and pull without distressing her sensitive state. Fingers tangled in loose strands, and her scalp tingled and buzzed as if she’d discovered a new erogenous zone. She loved it and thanked him for reaching into her, finding her submission.
“Please, may I come?” she asked, on the brink of exploding with a tremendous orgasm.
“You may.”
Jason’s voice, so controlling and liberating to hear, made Gemma thrash about with the intensity of her orgasm. He had to support her, holding her up underneath the hips. Her heart palpitated and stomach tightened almost painfully, making her catch her breath. He spurted into Gemma not long after as her belly relaxed back out from its pseudo contractions.
“I love you, Gemma. You kinky girl. Even your lines are beautiful,” he murmured as she rested her bulky form on his lap. “You’re also getting bloody heavy. Off. Tidy up and make me food!”
***
By Christmas, the construction of her atelier was complete. She and her mother christened it by doing some painting on Boxing Day, both of them admiring the frosty view out of the vast window. Gemma loved it: her perfect place. Over the previous weeks, she had been in and out of the pool next door, popping into the atelier to soak up the ambience. She considered swimming the best form of exercise for a pregnant woman, although she told Jason she felt like a wallowing whale, heaving her body from one end of the pool to the other.
She’d assumed Jason would take her for a fuck in the atelier, way of stamping his mark on the space, but he didn’t.
“Sex? In your atelier?” His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Dinner remained the key time to raise any important issues, his undivided attention guaranteed.
“Yes,” she squeaked.
“No,” He put the fork down. “I wouldn’t touch you in there, not like that. It’s your space. I thought that was what you would want?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Okay.” He returned to his meal, shaking his head slightly. “In any case, I assume I will be at work while you’re in there.”
For a while afterwards, she felt disappointed, She’d harboured a few fantasies about him having sex with her in the room. However after considering his opinion, she agreed. She needed a space away from him. The potentially suffocating power he had over her required respite and room to think, to be her own creative person.
Christmas and the New Year came and went in a blur and, by the final month of Gemma’s pregnancy, she quit work. There were cakes, cards, and presents, which when unwrapped revealed baby clothes and soft toys. She hadn’t told Daniel she didn’t plan on returning, but she thought she’d dropped enough hints for him to guess. His merger plans progressed, and in the few months, his company would cease to exist as an independent small business. Gemma was glad to be out of it.
Just as she found sex unappealing and hard, antenatal classes started at the maternity clinic she attended, led by a rather talkative midwife. She went to most of them with Jason. The breathing exercises, panting or taking deep breaths—all came naturally. She’d practised them for years during other painful activities. They would sit on beanbags on the floor doing the exercises and, for a brief while, they were an ordinary couple about to have a baby. Jason wasn’t the slightest bit dominating or controlling. He was what Gemma needed him to be: her supportive birthing partner.
Gemma created her own birth plan. The birthing pool sounded very appealing, as she enjoyed swimming in the warm indoor pool at Blythewood. She ran through her list of requirem
ents with Maggie, and the two discussed options, never touching on the issue of intervention or drastic measures.
The next time she met Maggie was at Blythewood House. Hugh came, too. Gemma had plucked up the courage to invite the couple to the country house. She wanted Hugh to see the atelier. Anxieties hit her the night before, when she decided she was being presumptuous asking an eminent academic to see the workshop and paintings of a rank amateur with no qualifications. If she hadn’t been pregnant, Jason would have spanked her into a better frame of mind. In its place, he gave her an ego-boosting talk and reminded her that she had sold quite a few of her paintings and she should climb out of her pit of low self-esteem, yet again, and demonstrate her self-confidence.
Hugh belonged to the old school of charming gentlemen. Older than Maggie with greying hair and a slim build, he wore the clothes stereotypical of an academic: a knitted Argyll jumper over grey-flannel trousers. If he didn’t appreciate Gemma’s work, he was an excellent liar. He complimented her on the compositions and eye for detail. As she waddled around the atelier, he admired the collection she had painted from her memories of the cruise—in particular, he praised a picture of a lone gondola on a Venetian canal with the gondolier leaning on his pole, waiting for a customer.
There’d been other paintings from the cruise, but Gemma hadn’t been as pleased with them and had left them unframed or off display. As he admired the workshop, Maggie took note of the play area, partitioned off by an interior wicker fence with a small gate. The wooden floor was covered with soft rugs laid out ready for the baby to lie and kick.
“Lovely, Gemma. You’ve created an idyllic environment.”
During the evening, Hugh rambled on about the study of art and how to target worthy recipients for Gemma’s scholarships.
“I need criteria for judging who should obtain my grants.” Generous grants. She anticipated many applicants.
Hugh made various suggestions, including talking to other funding bodies for their input. Gemma made mental notes.
“The gallery?” asked Maggie, sipping on a glass of wine from Jason’s wine cellar, probably a hundred pounds in value.
Gemma glanced sideways at Jason, seated at the head of table, his finger hooked around the stem of his wine glass. Today, he let her lead the conversation. He said nothing, she recalled the debate they’d had one evening, sitting in front of a blazing fire. Each day of her pregnancy, the realisation of the effort involved in kicking the project into play weighed her down. He had questioned her, probed until she confessed she intended to put the gallery to one side.
“Hire somebody to do manage it for you.” His simple suggestion had filled her with horror.
“It’s my dream. How can I claim it if I pay somebody else to realise it for me. Your preference, not mine.” She crossed her legs, struggling to negotiate her bump.