Breed Me, Mark

Ms. Jenner’s cardigan says NEXT STOP, MATERNITY LEAVE, and it’s the only thing I’ve read all hour.

Over the heads of the six people in front of me, she clicks to a new slide and doesn’t read a word off it. She never does. She’s taught this class a million times.

This semester is different, though.

Usually, I can sit through a lecture without remembering a single thing from it.

I copy the headings, underline terms, and fill the margins of my notes with tiny stars and hearts. By exam week, I have a notebook full of pretty handwriting and almost no useful information.

Ms. Jenner usually makes it easy to pretend I’m paying attention. She has a dry, precise way of explaining things, pausing just long enough for us to catch up before she moves on.

I like her class. I like her, too, in the ordinary way you like a teacher who remembers your name and doesn’t make you feel stupid for asking a question.

So when she pauses mid-sentence and presses one hand to her belly, my attention snaps into place. Not because I’m worried about the lecture. Not because I suddenly care about the diagram.

I just can’t look away from the small, intimate gesture. It makes the whole room seem to tilt toward her.

I tell myself it’s curiosity. A perfectly normal interest in the miracle of life, or whatever phrase people use when they want to sound less strange than they feel.

The lie lasts until her hand moves again.

The lavalier mic clipped to her cardigan picks up every rusty bellows breath, and her hand keeps drifting back to the top of her belly, like she’s checking it’s still there.

Over…and over…and over.

I should be looking at the slide. I’m not.

Fuck, do I try not to stare at the professor’s baby bump. Its gravitational pull is a lot to ignore.

Ms. Jenner is wearing maternity leggings, a gray XL T-shirt, and a flannel cardigan over the bump, but its huge girth cannot be denied. It looks like a Grape Big League Chew bubble. If you poked it with a toothpick, it would pop.

There’s something about Ms. Jenner that could only be described as “glowing,” which I cannot help but notice.

I shift like a silly girl, uncrossing my legs. My teeth mark up my BIC ballpoint pen as my eyes follow the professor around the front of the room.

I take note of the way her bump stretches the cardigan. The way her breasts bob up and down. The way she pets her tummy like a purse dog.

Justicia at last! Mamma is going to the panty section at Target for your wee little socks.

I experience a wave of nerves every time Ms. Jenner stops in my general vicinity. Not to mention the steady, pass-the-probrecito-I-can’t-stop-thooking arc of sexual energy that zaps me from my hard, nipple-packing Sergio Tacchini polo down into my hot pocket.

Deep and low and heavier than Jabba the Hutt’s head cold.

The lesson continues—and so do the impossible Newton’s Cradles between my thighs—for the next eleven minutes.

Ms. Jenner collapses into a folding chair at the head of the class, exhausted, as the students shuffle toward the door in a human conga line.

I gather my ingredients with less élan than usual, my attention snared by the prospective patient of the third-floor maternity department at Northern Mills Hospital.

She’s rubbing her sausage ankles as I make a beeline for the exit. The buzzing in my ears increases, drowning out all thought. I can’t wait to get to my dorm room. The rest of the day’s classes can go multiply for all I care.

Ms. Jenner calls my name as I shoot past her. I stop dead in my tracks.