Hush A Bye

Everything in the room was white. The walls, the floor, even the furniture were painted white. A pristine white, but that was definitely going to change. The nursery needed splashes of color to brighten it and to give the newborn baby something interesting to look at. The child's mother was going to see to it.

The question now is should it be painted pink or blue? Color schemes are important when decorating a baby’s room. Can’t have a pink room for a boy, no matter what anyone says. Of course, no one has said anything to the woman sitting in the rocking chair, one way or the other, but color is important to a child’s well-being as far as she was concerned.

The room could be green. Yes, a nice soothing green to calm the baby when it is upset. But then again, green is the color of money, of jealousy and greed. Green was the color of his eyes – the father of her child and Lisa Braxton shuddered when thoughts of that man ran through her mind. Concentrate on the baby, she chided herself. The baby is what matters here, not the conniving bastard who provided the semen. Think about the baby.

The baby. Lisa didn’t have to work too hard to push away the thoughts of betrayal and pain brought on by her ex-boyfriend. She was sitting in a rocking chair, in a small room that overlooked the garden, rocking gently back and forth as she lovingly smoothed her hand over her extended stomach. The child growing inside her was all that mattered in her world; nothing could distract her for too long.

She continued to rock as she turned her attention to the window and the beautiful scenery that soothed her soul. The bushes swayed in the wind, the green of the leaves balancing out the bursts of color that sprouted around them. His eyes were the color of grass, she remembered, as her thoughts took her back down the trail of her past. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back to rest on the chair, while she continued to rock, allowing herself to be lost in the history of her recent past. A past that played out in a scene that raced through her mind.

She had met him at a bar. Desperation had brought her to the bar, a need to fulfill the aching loneliness that seemed to hover over her at every opportunity. She needed to chase away the loneliness and the only way to do this, in her mind anyway, was to pick up a man to take home with her and to keep him there until her body conceived a child. It was the only way. A child would love her unconditionally and would never leave her to suffer through the pit of despair. A child would fill her life with love and happiness. She just needed to conceive.

The bar was smoky and dark, but that gave her an advantage. She had applied her makeup carefully, using dark colors to hide the lines that came with age and she knew the dark and dimly light interior would help in her disguise. She smiled at a man who nodded at her, then made her way over to the bar to order a drink. A wave of disappointment overcame her as she glanced back at the man. His attention was already on another woman, one much younger, and Lisa tamped down on her anger. There were other fish in the sea, she told herself.

And there were. She had managed to meet and converse with three other men before the man who would eventually be the father of her baby showed up. He had casually walked over to her, and Lisa couldn’t help but smile back at him as a thrill of excitement raced down her spine. He was gorgeous. His eyes were his best feature, green and set perfectly in his features - she could almost picture a baby with those beautiful eyes.

They had talked and flirted, while Lisa carefully plotted her seduction. She had to be careful not to scare him off. She laughed at his latest joke, then reached out to trace a finger across his arm, up and down, slowly tracing random patterns with her fingertip, and she smiled when he stared into her eyes. He smiled back, then drained his glass before taking her hand and saying, “Let’s go for a walk.”

The air was much cooler outside the bar, and Lisa breathed in a breath of fresh air, suddenly glad that she was free from the smoke-filled bar. Her future lover pulled on her hand, urging her to follow him and she did willingly. Her heart was racing with anticipation of what was going to happen and she hurried her step to keep up with him.

“Wait!” she said, as she tugged on the hand holding hers. He stopped and turned back, staring at her warily. “I like to take things slow and easy.” It was the truth, although in reality what she really wanted was to take back some control of the situation. This was supposed to be her conquest.

“Slow and easy,” he repeated.

She nodded, then moved up to him and reached up to put her arms around his neck, whispering in a sultry voice, “Very, very slow and easy.”

She had him. His eyes darkened and he smiled at her before lowering his head to kiss her. His lips felt so good on hers, and Lisa tightened her arms in an effort to pull him closer. This was what she wanted. She was one step closer to getting pregnant and this man would be the one to dispel her loneliness with his love and with his baby. She kissed him back, her passion fueled not only by his skill at kissing, but also by her triumph. He was now hers.

“My place is just a couple blocks from here,” he told her when they came up for air. His hands were massaging her breasts and Lisa realized that slow and easy may not be the best thing for her after all.

She followed him as he led the way to his apartment, no longer caring that he was practically dragging her along with him. He had lit the fires in her body and she couldn’t wait to fulfill her desires. She was going to conceive tonight, she was sure of it.

Her plans had worked. Lisa rocked back and forth in her chair as she remembered that night. He had been an attentive lover, making sure she went away satisfied. He had touched her in ways she could only dream about, bringing her pleasure with his skill and she smiled as she remembered the long, deep kisses as they lounged in the aftermath.

That was all in the past though. She had seduced him and he had betrayed her when he told her the next morning that he was married. Technically he was separated from his wife, but a divorce was definitely the next step, as far as he was concerned, or so he told her. She didn’t believe him, though. All men were the same – cold, conniving and total bastards.

Lisa had been devastated. The father of her child was married to another woman. He would deny her and the child the first chance he got. She was sure of it. How could he willingly get her pregnant knowing that he wouldn’t be around to help her take care of the baby?

“We don’t need him anyway,” she told the baby that resided in her womb. “It will be just the two of us. It’ll be alright, you’ll see.” She smiled as she felt the baby move inside her, telling her of its faith and love in her. “We’ll be just fine.”

She went back to looking out at the garden as she continued to rock, her voice breaking as she crooned a soft lullaby to her offspring, “Hush a bye, don’t you cry-“

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The two men standing outside of Lisa Braxton’s room watched through a window in the door as she crooned the lullaby. One of the men shook his head sadly as he said, “She’s been a patient here for over six years now. This is her third ‘pregnancy’ since she was first brought here.”

“Psuedo pregnancy?” the other man asked, as he stared at the woman in the rocking chair.

“Yes. She came to us right after she miscarried her only real baby. She had murdered the child’s father, then tried to perform an abortion on herself. Nasty business, if you ask me, but she has convinced herself that a baby is the only way to condone her guilt.” He sighed as he looked at the woman. She was watching her hand as it smoothed over her stomach, while soft sounds of the lullaby she sang wafted toward him. “We have tried everything to help her, but so far nothing has worked. She waits patiently for a baby that will never be born.”

“Why did she want to kill her baby?”

“Apparently she had a one night stand with the child’s father and became obsessed with marrying him. It’s unfortunate that the man was already married and was expecting a child with his wife. He had no intentions of leaving his new family for Ms. Braxton, but she was insistent. She stalked him, terrorized his wife and generally made life miserable for them all. When she found out she was pregnant, she went to him thinking he would definitely leave his wife for her.” The doctor stopped speaking to look back through the window at the woman, wishing he knew exactly what it was she was thinking. “When he refused, she killed him, stabbed him thirty eight times with a butcher knife before turning the knife onto herself. She didn’t succeed in killing herself, but the knife wounds were in her stomach, leading us to believe that she wanted the baby to die, as well.”

“Yet she keeps trying to reproduce the child.” It was clear the young man had a hard time accepting the multiple pseudo pregnancies.

The Doctor nodded in agreement at that statement. “I can only speculate on this because she refuses to believe that her child ever existed, but I think that she realized at the last minute that she was killing her baby and had a change of heart.” He watched as his patient suddenly looked up at him, her eyes penetrating as she stared at him. He gave her a small smile then said, “Now her mind takes her through these phantom pregnancies every few years to achieve her dreams.”

“What happens when she doesn’t give birth?” the other man asked, his voice laced with concern.

“She becomes distraught and angry. Each and every time she blames the nurses and orderlies, accusing them of stealing her baby and demanding that we do a formal investigation. After awhile, she calms down and convinces herself that she had never been pregnant, and the cycle starts all over again.” He sighed in frustration as he turned to look at his companion. “A year later, she is ‘pregnant’ again, despite the fact that she is not sexually active.” He smiled at the mixture of emotions flashing across the young man’s face. “She flat out refuses to believe us when our medical tests prove otherwise,” he added.

It was apparent that the whole topic was hard for the other man to comprehend. “In almost all documented cases of Pseudocyesis, the woman has been sexually active,” he said. The Doctor nodded his head, already knowing where this statement was leading. “How can she justify a pregnancy?” His green eyes grew wide as he stared back at the Doctor. “Surely she doesn’t think it’s an immaculate conception?”

“No, not immaculate conception,” the Doctor hurried to say. “She relives the night she conceived her real baby in her mind, and goes from there.” The woman had gone back to talking to her ‘baby’ again, and the Doctor watched her as she rocked back and forth. He was at a loss on how to help her. “You’ll get a chance to talk to her tomorrow. Come. Let me introduce you to my next patient.”

They walked away from the room, while the Doctor briefed his protégé on his next patient. It didn’t matter if they had stayed, they couldn’t have heard the words the woman was speaking to her child as she rocked. She spoke softly, aiming her words at her extended stomach, “Your father has come for us. I told you he would.” She smiled as she turned to look at the door. “His eyes are green as grass, and his smile, oh darling. He has the most beautiful smile. Now we can be a family. You might even get a brother or a sister. Yes,” she said, as she stared at the door with an evil smile gracing her features. “Your father has come to be with us.”