Baby's First Book of Seriously Fucked-Up Shit

LI’L MISS ULTRASOUND

Kip brightened when Wendy came in from the waiting room, radiant with smiles.

Today was magic day. The next few sessions would acquaint Wendy with his enhancements to the ultrasound process. He wanted her confident, composed, and fully informed onstage.

“Wendy, hello. Come in.” They traded hugs and he hung her jacket on a clothes rack.

“You can kiss me, you know,” she teased.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right in the office. Well, okay, a little one. Mmmm. Wendy, hon, you’re a keeper! Now hoist yourself up and let’s put these pillows behind your back.

That’s the way. Comfy? Can you see the monitor?”

“Yes.” Eagerly, she bunched her maternity dress up over her belly. Beautiful blue and red streaks, blood lightning, englobed it. A perfect seven-months’ pooch. Her flowered briefs were as strained and displaced as a fat man’s belt.

“Okay, now,” said Kip. “Get ready for a surprise. This’ll be cold.” He smeared thick gel on her belly and moved the hand-held transducer to bring up baby’s image. “There’s our little darling.”

“Mmmmm, I like that ‘our’!”

“She’s a beauty without any enhancement, isn’t she? Now we add the dress.” Reaching over, he flipped a switch on his enhancer. Costumes had come in three years before, thanks to the doctor Kip had studied under. They were now expected fare. “Here’s the one I showed you last time,” he said, pink taffeta with hints of chiffon at the bodice. There slept baby in her party dress, her tiny fists up to her chest.

“It’s beautiful,” enthused Wendy. “You can almost hear it rustle.” What a joy Wendy was, thought Kip. A compact little woman who no doubt would slim down quickly after giving birth.“Okay. Here goes. Get a load of this.” He toggled the first switch. Overlaying the soft fabric, there now sparkled sequins, sharp gleams of red, silver, gold. They winked at random, cutting and captivating—spliced in, by digital magic, from a captured glisten of gems.

“Oh, Kip. It’s breathtaking.”

It was indeed. Kip laughed at himself for being so proud.

But adding sparkle was child’s play, and he fully expected other ultrasounders to have come up with it this year. It wouldn’t win the contest. It would merely keep them in the running. He told Wendy so.

“Ah but this,” he said, “this will put us over the top.” He flipped the second switch, keeping his eyes not on the monitor but on his lover, knowing that the proof of his invention would be found in the wideness of her eyes.

Eudora glared at the monitor.

She had won the Li’l Miss Ultrasound contest two years running—the purses her first two brats brought in had done plenty to offset the bother of raising them—and she was determined to make it three.

Then she could retire in triumph.

She had Moe Bannerman, the best ultrasound man money could buy. He gestured to the monitor’s image. “She’s a beaut.

Do you have a name yet?”

“Can the chatter, Moe. I’ll worry about that after she wins.

Listen, I’m dying for a smoke. Let’s cut to the chase.”

Moe’s face fell.

Big friggin’ deal, she thought. Let him cry to his fat wife, then dry his tears on the megabucks Eudora was paying him.

“Here she is, ready for a night on the town.” He flipped a switch and her kid was swaddled in a svelte evening gown, a black number with matching accessories (gloves and a clutch-purse) floating beside her in the amniotic sac.

Eudora was impressed. “Clear image.”

“Sharpest yet. I pride myself on that. It’s the latest in digital radiography, straight from Switzerland. We use intensity isocontours to—”

“It looks good. That’s what counts. We win this round.

Good. Now what about the swimsuit?”

“Ah. A nice touch. Take a look.” Again his hands worked their magic. “See here. A red bikini with white polka dots.”

“The sunglasses look ordinary, Moe. Give her better frames, a little glitz, something that catches the eye.”

“I’ll have some choices for you next time.”

She shot a fingertip at him. “To hell with choices. You get the right ones first time, or I’ll go to someone else.” She’d heard rumor of a new ultrasound man on the horizon, Kip Johnson. He deserved a visit, just to check out the terrain.

Handsome fuck, scuttlebutt said.

“Yes, ma’am. But take a look at this. It’ll win us this round too. We show them the bikini, a nice tight fit that accentuates your baby girl’s charms. I’ve even lent a hint of hardness to her nipples, which will most likely net you a contract with one of the baby-formula companies. But watch. We flip a switch and…”

Eudora had her eyes on the screen, her nicotine need making more vivid the image she saw. It was as if the kid had been suddenly splashed with a bucket of water. No twitch of course. It was all image. But the swimsuit’s fabric lost its opacity. See-through. Gleams of moisture on her midriff.

Her nipple nubs grew even harder, and her pudendal slit was clearly outlined and highlighted. Moe, you’re a genius, she thought.

“Cute,” she said. “What else you got?”

Thus she strung the poor dolt along, though his work delighted her. Dissatisfaction, she found, tended to spur people to their best. It wouldn’t do to have Moe resting on his laurels. People got trounced by surprise that way. Eudora was determined not to be one of them.

When they were done, she left in a hurry, had a quick smoke, and hit the road. The Judge was due for a visit. There were other judges, of course, all of whom she did her best to cultivate. But somehow Benjamin—perversely he preferred the ugly cognomen “Benj”—was The Judge, a man born to the role.

Weaving through traffic, she imagined the slither of his hand across her belly.

Benj walks into the house without knocking.

In the kitchen he finds her dull hubby, feeding last year’s winner (Gully or Tully) from a bottle. The beauty queen from two years prior toddles snot-nosed after him, wailing, no longer the tantalizing piece of tissue she had once been. Her name escapes him.

But names aren’t important. What’s important are in utero images and the feelings they arouse in him.

“Hello, Chet,” says Benj.

Stupid Chet lights up like a bulb about to burn out. “Oh, hi, Benj. Eudora’s in the bedroom. Have at her!”

Benj winks. “I will.”

He winds his way through the house, noting how many knick-knacks prize money and commercial endorsements can buy. Over-the-hill, post-fetal baby drool is all he sees on the tube once the little darlings are born. It never makes him want to buy a thing.

“Why, Benjamin. Hello.” She says it in that fake provocative voice, liking him for his power alone of course.

As long as he can feel her belly, he doesn’t care.

“Touch it?” he asks in a boyish voice. “Touch it now?” He thickens below.

“Of course you can,” says Eudora, easing the bedroom door shut and leaning against it, her hands on the knob as if her wrists are tied.

Stupid Chet thinks Benj and Eudora do the man-woman thing. Chet wants money from the winnings, so he’s okay with it as long as they use rubbers. But they don’t really do the man-woman thing. Nope. They just tell Chet they do. Benj rubs her belly and feels the object of his lust kick and squirm in there, touching herself, no doubt, with those tiny curled hands, thrashing around breathless in the womb, divinely distracted.

Breathless.

Baby’s first breath taints absolutely.

“Touch yourself, Benjamin.”

He does. He wears a rubber, rolled on before he left the car.

Later, he’ll give it to Eudora so she can smear it with her scent and drop it in the bathroom wastebasket. Chet’s a rummager, a sniffer. It’s safer to provide him evidence of normalcy.

To Benj, normal folks are abnormal. But it takes all kinds to make a world.

His mouth fills with saliva. Usually, he remembers to swallow. Sometimes, a teensy bit drools out.

The baby kicks. Benj’s heart leaps up like a frisky lamb.

Eudora pretends to get off on this, but Benj knows better. He ignores her, focusing on his arousal, and is consumed with bliss.

Kip was alone in his office, making final tweaks to his software.

Wendy had been by, an hour before, for one last run-through prior to their appearance onstage.

Five more minutes and he would lock up.

His ultrasound workstation, with its twenty-four-inch, ultra-high-resolution, sixteen-million-color monitor, had become standard for MRI and angiography. Moe Bannerman, last year’s winning ultrasound man, had copped the prize, thanks to this model. But Kip was sure, given the current plateau in technology, that whatever Moe had up his sleeve this year would involve something other than the size and clarity of the image.

Butterflies flitted in Kip’s gut. Somehow, no matter how old you got, exposure to the public limelight jazzed you up.

The outer office door groaned. Maisie coming back for forgotten car keys, thought Kip.

A pregnant woman appeared at the door. Eyes like nail points. Hair as long and shiny as a raven’s wing. Where had he seen her? Ah. Moe’s client, mother of the last two contest winners.

Wendy’s competition.

“Hello there,” she said, her voice as full-bellied as she was.

“Have you got a minute?” She waddled in without waiting for an answer. “I’m Eudora Kelly.”

He opened his mouth to introduce himself.

“You’re Kip, if I’m not mistaken. My man will be going up against you tomorrow.”

“True. Look, according to the rules, you and I shouldn’t be talking.”

She approached him. “Rules are made to keep sneaky people in line. We’re both above board. At least, I am.” Her voice was edged with tease, a quality that turned Kip off, despite the woman’s stunning looks. “Besides, even if I were to tell Moe what you and I talked about or what we did—which I won’t—it’s too late for him to counter it onstage, don’t you think?”

“Ms. Kelly, maybe you’d better—”

She touched his arm, her eyes intent on the contours of his shirtsleeve. “I’ll tell you what surprises he’s planning to pull tomorrow. How would that be?”

“No, I don’t want to know that.” He did, of course, but such knowledge was off limits. She knew that as well as he.

“They say you’ve got new technologies you’re drawing on. A background in the movies. Maybe next year, you and I could pair up.”

Kip reviewed his helpers, looking for a blabbermouth.

No one came to mind.

“In fact,” she sidled closer, her taut belly pressing against his side, “maybe right now we could pair up.” Her hand touched his chest and drifted lower.

“All right, that’s enough. There’s the door. Use it.” His firmness surprised him. It was rare to encounter audacity, rarer still therefore to predict how one would respond to it. He took her shoulders and turned her about, giving her a light shove.

She wheeled on him. “You think you’re God, you spin some dials and flick a few switches. Well, me and Moe’re gonna wipe the floor with your ass tomorrow. Count on it!”

Then she was gone.

The back of Kip’s neck was hot and tense. “Jesus,” he said, half expecting her to charge in for another try.

Giving the workstation a pat, he prepared to leave, making sure that the locks were in place, the alarms set.

“Fool jackass,” Eudora said. “The man must be sexed the wrong way around.”

“Some people,” observed the judge, his eyes on her beach ball belly, “have a warped sense of right and wrong. They take that Sunday school stuff for gospel, as I once did long ago.”

“Not me, Benjamin. I knew it for the crock it was the moment it burbled out of old Mrs. Pilsner’s twisted little mouth. Ummm, that feels divine.” It didn’t, but what the hell.

Benjamin would be pivotal tomorrow. No sense letting the truth spoil her chances.

The judge’s moist hand moved upon her, shaky with what was happening elsewhere. Soon he would yank out his tool, a condom the color of rancid custard rolled over it like a liverwurst sheath. “Yeah, I wised up when I saw how the wicked prospered,” he said. “How do you do it, Eudora? This is the third sexy babe in a row. Your yummy little siren is calling to me.”

“She wants it, Benjamin,” said Eudora.

Perv city, she thought. It would be a relief to jettison this creep as soon as the crown was hers. Three wins. She would retire in glory and wealth. At the first sign he wanted to visit, she would drop him cold. No bridges left to burn after her triumph. Let the poor bastard drool on someone else’s belly.

Benjamin groped about between the parted teeth of his zipper. Eudora said, “That Kip person’s going to spring something.”

“Who’s he?” asked the judge, pulling out his plum.

“You know. The ultrasound guy that Wendy bubblehead is using. Scuttlebutt says he’s doing something fancy.”

“Ungh,” said Benjamin.

Eudora pictured Kip’s office receptionist, her hand shaking as she took Eudora’s money. She was disgustingly vague and unhelpful, Maisie of the frazzled hair and the troubled conscience. All she gave off were echoes of unease: he has this machine, I don’t know what it does, but it’s good because he says it is and because they both look so sure of themselves after her visits. Worthless!

“My baby girl’s getting off, hon.”

“Me too,” he gasped.

“You’re a sweet man,” she said. “Show us your stuff. Give it to us, Benjamin, right where we live. That’s it. That’s my sweet Benjamin Bunny.”

Benj really gets into it. Eudora’s bellyskin is so smooth and tight, and as hot as a brick oven. He smells baby oil in his memory.

Eudora has no cause for worry, he thinks. Moe Bannerman’s a stellar technician. What Moe’s able to do to tease naked babes into vivid life onscreen is nothing short of miraculous.

Benj conjures up the looker inside Eudora’s womb by recalling what hangs on his bedroom wall, those stunning images from Life last year—better than the real thing though a boner’s a boner no matter how you slice it.

He dips into Tupperwared coconut oil, smearing it slick and liberal upon her belly, as he does upon his condomed boytoy. Oil plays havoc with latex, he knows, but Benj isn’t about to get near impregnation or STDs.

Benj bets Moe Bannerman wil carry his experiments in vividness forward in the coming years. Headphones wil caress Benj’s head as he judges, the soft gurgle of fetal float-and-twist tantalizing his ears, vague murmurs coaxed by a digital audio sampler into a whispered fuck-me or oh-yeah-baby.

Or perhaps virtual reality will come of age. He’ll put on goggles and gloves, or an over-the-head mask that gooses his senses into believing he’s tasting her, the salty tang of preemie quim upon his tongue, the touch of his fingertips all over her white-corn-kernel body.

Benj shuts his eyes.

Eudora starts to speak but Benj says, “Hush,” and she does. This time the rhythms are elusive but there, within reach if his mind twists the right way. The beauty queen to be is touching him, indeed she is, those tiny strong little fingers wrapped about his pinkie. Her eyelids are closed, the all-knowing face of the not-yet-born, lighting upon uncorrupted thoughts, unaware of and unbothered by the sensual filtering imposed by society on the living.

Her touch is as light as a hush of croissant crust. This, he thinks, is love: the wing-brush of a butterfly upon an eyelash; a sound so faint it throws hearing into doubt; a vision so fleetingly imprinted on the retina, it might be the stray flash of a neuron.

With such slight movements, love coaxes him along the path, capturing, keeping, and cultivating—like a seasoned temptress—

the focus of his fascination, so that the path swiftly devolves into a grade, hurrying him downhil and abruptly thrusting him into a chute of pleasure. He whips and rumbles joyously along its oily sides once more, once more, ONCE MORE!

Kip followed close behind a stagehand, who wheeled the ultrasound equipment to the tape marks, locked down the rollers, and plugged the cord into an outlet on the stage floor.

Wendy had already settled into the stylish recliner.

“Hello, darling,” said Kip, taking her hand. Wendy returned his kiss. “How are you two?”

“Fine.” Her voice wavered, but Kip judged it near enough to the truth.

The stage manager, clipboard at the ready, breezed by.

“Two minutes,” he said. Hints of garlic.

Beyond the curtain’s muffle, the emcee pumped things up. A drum roll and a cymbal crash rushed the orchestra into an arpeggio swirling up to suggest magic and pixie dust. Kip squeezed Wendy’s hand.

When the curtain rose, Guy Givens strode over. “And here’s our first round winner, Miss Wendy Sales. Round she certainly is. And ready for another round, I hope. Wendy, how does it feel to be the winner of our evening wear competition?”

“Wel , Guy,” said Wendy, as he poked the mike at her mouth,

“it feels great, but I don’t bet on any horse until the race is over’s what my momma taught me. Al these great gals I’ve met? Their babies too? They’re al winners as far as I’m concerned.”

“Ladies and gentleman, let’s give the little lady’s generosity a big hand.” The emcee’s mike jammed up into his armpit so he could show the audience how to clap with gusto. Then it jumped back into his grip. “Wendy, with that attitude, you’ll be a great mom indeed.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

Ignoring her answer: “And now… let’s see your adorable little girl in her bobbysoxer outfit! ” The tuxedoed man backed out of the spotlight, his free hand raised in a flourish.

Deftly fingering a series of switches, Kip hid his amusement at the emcee’s tinsel voice, as the orchestra played hush-hush music and Wendy’s child came into view.

A tiny pair of saddle shoes graced the baby’s feet. Her poodle skirt (its usually trim stitched poodle gravid with a bellyful of pups) gave a slight sway. She wore a collared blouse of kelly green. A matching ribbon set off her tresses, which Kip had thickened and sheened by means of Gaussian and Shadow filters combined with histogram equalization.

When the crowd’s applause began to fall off, Kip put highlights back into baby’s face, an effect which brought the clapping to new heights.

As if in answer, Kip turned to two dials and began to manipulate them. The baby’s eyes widened. She gave a coy turn of the head. Then her eyelids lowered and Kip wiped the image away.

The effect looked easy, but the work that had gone into making it happen was staggering. To judge by the shouts and cheers that washed over the stage, the crowd sensed that.

Wendy glowed.

“Judges? ” screamed Guy Givens into his mike.

One by one, down the row of five, 10s shot into the air.

A 9 from a squint-eyed woman who never gave 10s drew the briefest of boos.

Wendy mouthed “I love you” at Kip, and he mouthed it back, as the music swirled up and the curtain mercifully shut out an ear-splitting din of delight.

Eudora watched from the wings as the TV jerkoff with the capped teeth and the crow’s feet chatted up her only competition one last time.

The swimsuit round.

Moe’s water-splash effect had gained Eudora an exceptional score, but from the look on the ultrasound man’s face out there, that insufferable Kip Johnson, she was afraid he was poised to take the Wendy bitch and her unborn brat over the top.

Dump Moe.

Yep, Moe was a goner. Yesterday’s meat. Spawn the loser inside her, let her snivel through life, whining for the tit withheld. A dilation and extraction might better suit. Tone up.

Four months from now, let Chet poke her a few times. Stick one last bun in the oven.

Then, adrip with apologies, she would pay Kip another visit, playing to his goody-two-shoes side if that got him off.

Hell, she’d even befriend his lover. If Wendy had a two-bagger in mind, Eudora would persuade her—strictly as a friend with her best interests at heart—to retire undefeated.

Onstage, that damned tantalizing womb image sprang to life again, this time dressed for the beach. Her swimsuit was a stylish fire-engine-red one-piece that drew the eye to her bosom, as it slashed across the thighs and arrowed into her crotch. Nice, but no great shakes.

Then the kid’s face animated again. Eudora knew that this face would bring in millions. For months, it would be splashed across front pages and magazine covers. Then it would sell products like nobody’s business.

Would it ever!

Instead of repeating its coy twist of the head, the intrauterine babe fluttered her eyelashes at the audience and winked. Then she puckered her lips and relaxed them. No hand came up to blow that kiss, but Eudora suspected that Kip would make that happen next year.

Her kid would be the one to blow a kiss. Her kid would idly brush her fingers past breast and thigh, while tossing flirtatious looks at Benjamin and viewers at home.

Eudora scanned the judges through a deafening wall of elation. There sat the oily little pervert, more radiant than she had ever seen him. Another year would pass, a year of wound-licking capped by her triumph, and Kip’s, right here on this stage. Then she’d dump the drooler. One more year of slobber, she assured herself, would be bearable.

Eye on the prize, she thought. Keep your eye on the prize.

Benj is in heaven. His drenched handkerchief lies wadded in his right pants pocket. Fortunately, his left contained a forgotten extra, stuck together only slightly with the crust of past noseblows. It dampens and softens now with his voluminous drool.

The curtain sweeps open. Midstage stand the three victors, awaiting their reward.

Wendy’s infant has quite eclipsed Eudora’s in his mind.

The third-place fetus? It scarcely raises a blip. Its mother comes forward to accept a small faux-sapphire tiara, a modest bouquet of mums, and a token check for a piddling sum. An anorexic blonde hurries her off.

Eudora’s up next.

Replay pix of her bambina flash across a huge monitor overhead. Beneath her smile, she’s steaming. He’s in the doghouse for his votes; he knows that. But there’s always next year. She needs him. She’ll get over it.

A silver crown, an armful of daffodils, a substantial cash settlement, and off Eudora waddles into oblivion, her loser-kid’s image erased from the monitor.

Then his glands ooze anew as the house erupts. Like a bazillion cap guns, hands clap as Wendy’s pride and joy lights up the screen with that killer smile, that wink, oh god those lips.

“AND HERE’S OUR QUEEN INDEED! ” screams Guy Givens, welcoming Wendy into his arms. Gaggles of bimbos stagger beneath armloads of roses. The main bimbo’s burden is lighter, a gold crown bepillowed. Wendy puts a hand to her mouth. Her eyes well.

Then it happens.

Something shifts in the winner’s face. She whispers to Givens, who relays whatever she has said to the crown-bearing blonde. Unsure what to do, the blonde beckons offstage, mouthing something, then walks away. Wendy leans against the emcee, who says “Hold on now” into his mike. A puddle forms on the stage where she is standing. “Is there a… do we have a… of course we do, yes, here he comes, folks.”

Benj feels light-headed.

The rest drifts by like a river ripe with sewage. Spontaneous TV, the young doctor, the ultrasound man, a wheeled-in recliner, people with basins of water, with instruments, backup medical personnel. Smells assault him. Sights. Guy Givens gives a hushed blow-by-blow. And then, a wailing thing lifts out of the ruins of its mother, its head like a smashed fist covered in blood, wailing, wailing, endlessly wailing. Blanket wrap. The emcee raises his voice in triumph, lowering the tiny gold crown onto the bloody bawler’s brow.

It’s a travesty. Benj is glad to be sitting down. He rests his head on his palms and cries, mourning the passing of the enwombed beauty who winked and nodded in his direction not five minutes before.

Is there no justice in the world, he wonders. Must all things beautiful end in squalor and filth?

He craves his condo. How blissful it will be to be alone there, standing beneath the punishing blast of a hot shower, then cocooning himself under blankets and nestling into the oblivion of sleep.