12.(56-59) Ali Plots a Pregnancy

Slim Novel 12 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage

56. Pregnant?

It is 7 AM, the morning after Ali was undone. She has slept the night on sofa. She stretches arms, feeling morphine pleasures in taut muscle fibers. Her contentment started after Eddie penetrated her. It is my most fulfilling experiment, she thinks, smiling at the unaware but in retrospect the perhaps not unintended double meaning. She picks up the thermometer brought to sofa table before sleep and puts it under tongue, timing for 3 minutes on her wrist.

 Looking at her temperature, she whispers, “Thirty-seven point one," using the Centigrade (Celsius after 1948) scale and converting it by a 1.8 multiplication and +32 to the Fahrenheit 98.8. Ali has not been in the habit of taking her morning wake-up temperature because she has not needed to, but she knows a wake-up oral body temperature 37.0 C or more, on the 14^th day from her first day of last menstruation is a sign her ovary just popped-out its monthly ovum (equivalent of unfertilized egg). Probably yesterday. And many millions of Eddie's sperms were jetted into her sexual opening then.

   She is hoping for pregnancy. Young and a super person with much money in a good Swiss Bank, a full life as free agent in a world she never made but hopes to change, Miss Ali wants to have offspring as well as to have non gene-connected mentees, as she refers to those she mentors. And since she does not wish a husband interfering in her life, Eddie is the perfect donor for the sperm that will unite with her ovum. She spent time asking about diseases in his family. It is obvious Eddie has a top brain. And no emotional ties – he has no idea to be her husband or a father of her child now. And she does not desire to let him know.

   She assumes a conception occurred. She knows sperm got high up into her uterine tubes after the intercourse, and one probably joined with her popped-out ovum; and if so, the fertilized ovum, or as it would now be called, the embryo, is being propelled down one of the tubes and after 4 or 5 days should arrive in uterus cavity and implant in the cavity's fertile lining. So, she decides she will not do heavy exercising, have no orgasms, and avoid, as much as she can, unnecessary cosmic-ray, radon gas or x-ray radiation.  
   About cosmic rays, it means not climbing or flying, which she has no plan for. Radon is a radioactive isotope of radium in the atmosphere - exposure to it is best reduced by not going down in cellars, where it concentrates. About x-ray and the like radiation, it means no television watching at Brenda's house.
   She will also have to stop all morphine for the pregnancy and she grimaces thinking of unpleasant weeks of aches and mental depression. But she is strong and knows she can do it because of her good motivation.

For next week, Ali stays home, tells Brenda and Eddie she is ill and please don't come over because “I don't want you to catch it." She is sure of the pregnancy because her morning wake-up temperatures remain at 37.0 C or more.

                    
57.  It's Sweeping the Country
  At 10, Saturday morning the bell rings and here is Brenda followed by an unusually sad-faced Lorna. They sit, Brenda in rocking chair and Lorna in folding chair on her right. Brenda begins.
   "Ali, Lorna's got a prob."
   " What?"
   "She missed."
   "How long?"
   "Two weeks," says Lorna. 
   Ali goes to kitchen and comes back with a clean thermometer. "It's still morning, though not wake-up time. Put it under tongue." She hands Lorna the thermometer.

A little more than 3 minutes later, she reads it "Thirty-seven point two. Hm!  It's high. But then you been up and walking. How do you feel?"
   "Funny. Dry down below." She indicates her sexual area.
   "Who did you? As if I can't guess."
   "Moyshe. We love each other, Ali."
   "But, you're sixteen. What will your parents say?"
   "Mom will slap me hard. Then she'll have Pop take me to get it fixed, downtown. I'm scared."
   "Well, if we were in Tokyo, I'd take you to Madame Ishimoto. But the Bronx an't my turf."
   "Brenda speaks up. "Sister Barbara is the one to see."
   "But Lorna's Jewish. And this is about abortion."
   "Listen Ali, I know Sister Barbara. She's helped other girls. Last month I sent Editha Santiago to her and she took care of her like that. She got some kinda modern method." Brenda snaps her fingers. "She needs a hundred dollars because, as she always likes to say, she's supporting an old mother."
  "OK, Bren, so what is next?"
   "I'll speak to her at Sunday mass. Do you mind if she meets us here, after?"
   "Of course not, Bren, I am dying to meet Ole Barbara."


58. Sister to the Rescue


They sit around the kitchen table except Ali who stands facing the three. Sister Barbara is older than Brenda's description - maybe 35 - and a bit overweight though hard to make out her exact figure through her nun's bulky black garb. She has a handsome face with prominent nose. She speaks in Irish accent that rolls and emphasizes the Rs. She has already asked Lorna the important questions, listened to Ali about the continuing high body temperature, and now addresses the 3 as though they are an audience.
   "I shan't give a guess if the gurrl be pregnant. 'S far as I should care, she ain't. But it's fer sure she needs to see blood soon. Othurrwize she'll be tempted to morrtal sin, even she ain't the true faith. I come from a family of midwives and trained as nurrse in Eire. In a case lak this I know how to bring blood."
   The sister reaches into her briefcase to her left on the floor and takes out a hollow plastic tube - Ali notes it to be about 20 cm (c.8 inches) long, like a flexible soda straw. She explains.
   "'Tis made in Eire by a plastics man. This, my usual, is 4 millimeters (c.0.2 inch) wide and if I cahn't get it in, I use a 3 millimeters. Now, observe the tip, dearie." 
   Ali inspects it. She notes the end is blunted, and cut in the shape of a sharp curette whose shaving edge in a pulling-back motion will shave off whatever gets in its way.
   Barbara continues. "I do evurrthing simple. I push the tube tip into the womb attached by a special spout to yurr water tap. When the water is turrned on, it makes a vacuum and sucks from the tube in the womb. Then I move it back and furrth to take out her period."
   Barbara adds with a tone of finality. "It wurrks well. It hurrts like a bad menstruation but only a minute. Sometime I have to do it ovurr again next day. Occasionally a gurrl may bleed heavy like a bad period but nevurr serious. And please do not furrget, we are all swurrn to silence on Lord Jesus" To Lorna: "In wurrst case, tell yurrr folks yurr flooding, as gurrls sometime do with a bad menstruation, and go see Dr. Goldberg. He is a good doctor even if he ain't the true faith. Then I need a hundred dollurrs for me old mitherr in Eire." Sister Barbara stops. 
   Lorna says "I want my period. Can you bring it out now?"
   "Shewrre."
   "Ali, what do you think?" asks Lorna.
   Ali knows women's care well. She knows about birth control and abortion from Tokyo. She knows in another week it will be too late for such a simple procedure. Also she is impressed by Sister Barbara.
   "I say, go." She runs and comes back with the money cash bill with Benjamin Franklin's face. The sister puts it in her briefcase. She stands and directs Lorna to take off panties but leave skirt and she asks Brenda and Ali to push the table nearer to the kitchen sink and she attaches her tap vacuum with connecting tube to it. Then she goes to the gas range and boils up an open pot of water, dropping her plastic tube into the boiling water. She also directs Ali to get a bottle of antiseptic. Then she rolls up the sleeves of her nun's habit and washes her hands. Ali notes the Sister's finger nails are cut flat on tips. After the hand wash she has Ali pour the antiseptic over her hands.
   She directs Lorna to lie back on the kitchen table. The 2 girls stand by.
   "Now, dearie, put yurr knees up and open wide." Barbara does a cleaning inside Lorna's vagina with cotton balls of antiseptic. Then she reaches over with left hand and picks the tube quickly out of the hot water. Sitting at end of table, between Lorna's open legs, she inserts her right hand into Lorna's sexual opening, explaining to all as she proceeds. 
   "I go furr the tip a her womb. Now I get it between my 3rd and 4th fingers above and thumb. below and use my 2nd finger to feel the opening. Ah here 'tis!"
   With her plastic tube in left hand, holding it carefully about an inch from its blunt rounded curette tip she pushes it inside Lorna's sexual opening which she is holding open with her right hand. 
   "Now, I insert the tip into her womb".
   "Oh, I feel it!" Lorna cries out and Brenda goes to her side to comfort.
   "Now it's inside, "says Barbara. And to Ali: "Turn on the waturr". 
Ali does it and notes that Barbara is making in and out moves with her left hand inside Lorna, and Lorna is gritting her teeth and hiding her head in Brenda's embrace and then, suddenly, blood is coming out in the tube.
   "Success!" Exclaims Barbara.
   "Thank my atheist goddess!" exclaims Ali and then suddenly. "Oh I'm sorry Sister."
   "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Sister!" exclaims Lorna now no longer afraid or in pain. I think I'll become a Catholic."
   "No need, dearie! I don't want to convurrt you by favurrs. The true faith is something each one of us must believe from deep in the hurrt."

So it is done. A girl's life saved from a too early motherhood.


59. Significance


They sit in living room, Ali in rocking chair and Lorna & Brenda on sofa. Sister Barbara has just left, having told Lorna, "Just treat yurrself like you get yurr friend; yurr period blood is evurry gurrl's friend. 
 And 'member, Mum's the wurrd."
   Ali sits rocking furiously a minute. She looks up at Brenda and Lorna. "Girls! I donno about you. But I just witnessed a revolution.  I still can't believe it."
   "Well, I can," says Lorna. I see the blood, I feel my friend coming out. She turns to Brenda, "Thanks pal, for Sister Barbara." And to Ali: "I'll pay you back that hundred soon."
   "A revolution!" Ali repeats. "In minutes, in a kitchen, with the most simple equipment, that religious lady removed the problem. For those of us who know the method, we are freed up from cops, from government, from regulations. One can do it in the family, among friends. And it could be free. Wow! Wow! Wow!  But the Sister is right. "Mum's the word. If these words get out, there'll be hell to pay - atheist's hell too."

Ali made sure to get Barbara's phone number. And before the Sister left, she gave her an invite back for a talk. Barbara's extensive knowledge may be useful for her plan.
   For next, click 12.(60-61) Self PsyA/Hitler's 55th Birthday/Eddie ...