Deadly contract

"You are mine."

"Said who?"

"Said the way you breathe when I'm close."

By five thirty, the party was winding down, with people gradually leaving. By six, the Davis place was almost empty of guests and Joy and her mother stayed back to help clean up.

"I had my four month ultrasound on Friday, Melissa said out of the blue as she and Joy were restocking the dishwasher together. Their mothers were outside at the time, piling up more dirty plates to carry in.

Joy stiffened as she always did these days when girls she knew talks about their pregnancy.

"Oh?" She managed to reply as casually as she could manage."Everything well,I hope?"

"Marvelous."

Joy was on the verge of tears herself. She didn't give a damn if she had a girl or boy. She just wanted a baby.

"Would you like to see the pictures of the ultrasound?" Melissa asked her. "I brought them," she added before Joy could say yes or no.

John saw the stricken look on Joy's face the moment he walked into the kitchen.

"What is it?" He asked straight away. "What happened?"

"I have to get out of here, she muttered.

Too late Melissa was back in a flash with the dreaded pictures.

John had no idea what had distressed scarlet earlier but he suspected by the look on her face that she still wanted out. He did, too. Hell, yes. And the sooner the better.

"Sorry to love you and leave you, folks," he said once his mother stopped to draw breath. "But i asked Joy our tonight and she said yes. So if you don't mind, we'll be off." So, saying, he took hold of a startled Joy and steered her firmly towards the front door.

Five minutes later, John was reversing her car out of their garage, Joy only then realizing she'd have a lot of questions to answer when she finally got home that night.

"Nice wheels," Joy," John said once they were underway. "The last time i was home you were driving an old white rust bucket."

"I decided to spoil myself this year," she replied.

"Am i allowed to ask what upset you so much?

Suddenly, the tears which had been threatening ever Melissa brought up the subject of her pregnancy came back with vengeance.

"I'm thirty four years old. My biological clock is ticking away like a bomb. Already the odds of my conceiving a child are going downhill. If i don't have a baby soon, I might never have one."

"Don't be ridiculous, Joy. Women of forty and older are having babies all the time." But you're not over forty yet, Joy. Not by a long shot. There's no reason to panic.

"I have every reason to panic."

"Look, if you're so damned desperate to have children, then why don't you go out and get yourself pregnant? You're gorgeous, you'll have all the offers you could want."

Joy gave him a totally scandalized look, determinedly ignoring the fact that he thought she was gorgeous." You think i would risk falling pregnant to just anyone, potentially also risking my sexual health?"

"So you're just going to wait till Mr Right comes along?"

The thing is, John, she said, still slightly hesitant. "I've decided to have a baby by artificial insemination. I investigated it thoroughly on the internet first," she rattled on, feeling compelled to explain it more fully. "Anyway, I found a local clinic where they had a whole catalogue of sperm donors to choose from. All their background information was listed: their physical characteristics, health records, intelligence levels, I picked one out which I liked the sound of. He's American , tall , good looking, with dark hair, blue eyes and an IQ of a hundred and thirty.

John shrugged. He wasn't sure why he found the idea of Joy having a baby with Mr IQ of a hundred and thirty so uncomfortable, but his whole body objected.

"Wanting a baby is not exactly complicated. It's basics drive in most women."

"I dare say you're right. Look, it's obvious that you're determined on this course of action, so I have a suggestion to make which I think would be infinitely preferable to your being impregnated by some stranger who will impart nothing to your child's life but a set of genes, which may not be as desirable as they read on paper. After all, what do you really know about this sperm donor? Nothing of any depth, that's for sure. You don't know his background or his family or his mental health. Perhaps it is a blessing that you haven't conceived his child so far."

Joy couldn't believe that John was being so negative. She had no idea what his counter suggestion was going to be, but if he thought she was going to change her mind about trying for a baby then he was delusional.

John knew that what he was about to propose would shock her. He was pretty shocked at it himself. But something deep inside him was driving him on the thought of Joy having a baby to some anonymous stranger wax repulsive. She deserved better than that.

"So, joy , in the internet of the future happiness and security of your offspring, I propose that you ditch your present sperm donor in favour of me."

She just stared at him with rounded eyes, looking for the catch. Or the joke.

"You have to be kidding me!" She exclaimed at last.

"Actually, no," he said feel perversely pleased with his offer now that he'd made it. "I'm not."

"But why?"

"Why not? I qualify, don't I? I'm tall, responsibly good looking, with dark hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately my IQ is a good bit over a hundred and thirty but that's a moot point. I promise i won't interfere with the way you had planned. Thought I would like to see the child occasionally.

Joy shook her head from side to side. "I'm having serious trouble taking this all in."

"Take your time."

Joy blinked, then frowned. "I still can't see why you would offer to do this."

"I'm capable of kindness, you know.

"This is more than just being kind," Joy said, trying to get her head around John's offer. " I have confess that I'm tempted. Mum would certainly be more comfortable with you being the father than some stranger."

"I would manage so. She quite like me, you know. Has done ever since I promised to look after you on the school bus."

"Rubbish! Come now, John, you've never been the Good Samaritan type. Which makes you offering to be my sperm donor all the more puzzling. Heavens, I don't know what Yo think or what to say."

"Just say yes, Joy."

"But it's such a difficult decision. I mean... it's a big thing to have a child together. Different if we were in love."

John snored. "As we both know, being in love is no guarantee of future happiness. People fall out of love all the time."

"Oh. Lord, I still don't know. If we go ahead and do this, what on earth are we going to tell everyone?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Your priority at this point is becoming pregnant. Your body obviously isn't clicking with the sperm donor you chose," he went on with cool, corrupting logic. "You need to try someone different."

Joy knew that, if she failed to get pregnant again with her chosen sperm donor, she'd regret not accepting John's offer. It was a case of do now, or possibly die childless!

"Okay. Okay. I'm going to throw caution to the winds and just say yes."

"Great," John said, feeling more excited than when he'd found oil. "So what's the plan?"

" I'll contact the clinic first thing tomorrow morning and arrange for a time for you to go in and give them a sperm sample. Then, when....."

"Hang on!" John interrupted immediately. "That's not how it's going to be done at all!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean i have no intention of becoming a father vis a turkey baster. Or a syringe. Or whatever they use these days. If we're doing this, let's do it right."

"You mean you... you want to have sex with me?"

John smiled wryly. "Don't sound so shocked, I've wanted you since the first moment i saw you today, not to mention for years while growing up."

Joy blushed furiously, shocked, yet secretly elated to discover that the feelings which had so blindsided her today had been returned for so long.

"But don't start thinking that I'm doing this just because of that, because I'm not." Even as the denial left his mouth, John suspected he was morally skating on thin ice here. If what he was saying was strictly true, then why no just do what she suggested, go to this clinic and give them a sperm sample?

The truth was he did want to have sex with her. At the same time, he did also believe that normal intercourse was the best chance Joy had for falling pregnant. Clearly, coldly clinical method hasn't worked. She needed to relax, to enjoy herself.

John decided to be bluntly honest with her. "Not that I won't enjoy having sex with you," he admitted . "But that's not the only reason I'm suggesting we actually sleep with each other. It's because i think you're more likely to fall pregnant that way. Which is what you want, isn't it? To have a baby?"

John's saying the word "baby" dragged Joy back to the present. She'd been off in another world ever since he'd confessed to wanting to have sex with her since they were teenagers. "What? Oh yes, yes, , that's what I want," she said. "A baby."

"So what do you say, Joy?"

"I don't know what......." The idea of actually sleeping with John made her head spin.

He sighed. "What don't you know?"

"Look, I can understand that my suggestion has come as a bit of a shock to you, so why don't we go somewhere for coffee and talk about it rationally?

"I dont think I'm capable of being rational about this. You've totally blown me away. I have to think about this on my own."

John nodded. He wanted her to say yes with a depth of desire which shocked him; something in him was demanding that he and only him should give Joy the baby she so desperately wanted. How ever, much as he hated it, she needed time.

"I'll take you home."

Joy sighed. The idea of going home and facing her mother while she was trying to decide something so huge didn't appeal either.

"How about we drive to Erina Fair and see a movie ? You can pick something you'll like, some macho action flicks with lots of car chases and killings. You can get all involved in that whilst i sit in the dark and think.

He laughed, " You are such a sexist Joy. I happen to like a wide range of movies, not just macho action flicks as you put it."

"Oh sure," she said in droll tones.

"I'll prove it to you."

He surprised her by choosing a romantic comedy, one of those friends into lovers plots which had become popular lately. Joy might have enjoyed it if there hadn't been so many sex scene, all of which were extremely raunchy. Clothes were stripped off at regular intervals as two friends had wildly uninvited sex in every conceivable place and position: on the floor. On the sofa. In a lift. Even in a meadow. The ending annoyed her as well it was pure Hollywood fiction where the protagonist feel in love and lived happily ever after. As if that ever happened.

"Is that what you're afraid of?" John said as they left the theatre. "That if we have sex you might fall in love with me?"

Laughter spluttered from Joy's lips before she could smother it.

"Right," he said drily. "Obviously,?that's not what you're afraid of."

No, she said. Her feats had nothing to do with love. She stopped walking to turn and look up at him with thoughtful eyes."

Suddenly, she couldn't do it.

"No, John," she said, and pulled her arm away from him.

"No what?"

"No, I've decided not to accept your offer. Thank you for making it; it was amazing generous of you. But it's just not going to work for me. Please don't argue with me about this or tell me I'm being irrational. Because if you do I know I'm going to burst into tears again." Which was true. Her emotions, already fragile, were in danger of embarrassing her once more.

She couldn't tell what john was thinking. He face had always been hard to read.

"I see," was all he said. "Well, it's your life, Joy. You do what you think best."

"Thank you," she said, struggling to keep the tears in check. No point in going for coffee then, is there?" He said brusquely. "I'll take you home."

Joy's mother was still up watching television when she let herself into the house. Her mother glanced at the cock on the wall . It was only just after nine.

The same thought kept Joy awake long after she climbed into bed. She tossed and turned, her mind torturing herself with the horrible "what if? " what if she didn't fall pregnant next month? What then? Would she keep on trying or resort to more complicated and expensive procedures live IVF? How long could she keep doing this before she went stank, raving mad?

The man himself was thinking along those same lines as he stood at his bedroom window, staring down at Joy's house as he'd done so many times when he'd been a boy,

Okay, so his offering to be her sperm donor had begun as a gesture of kindness, but it had quickly changed to one driven by his male hormones. He wanted her, naked and wiling in his arms. He made his way downstairs where everything was quiet; his parent had gone to bed some time ago. Switching on the kitchen light, he went to the drawer where his mother kept an assortment of Biros, writhing pad, and different size of envelopes. Selecting what he wanted, he returned to his room, switched on his bedroom lamp and sat down to right. It took him several attempts before he got the wording just right but eventually he was satisfied.

Dear Joy.

By the time you read this I will have left. Not Australia l, as my family believes. I have an apartment in Darwin where I go every winter for a weeks rest and recreation. This time, how ever, i intend to stay longer, though please keep this information confidential. Joy, I presume you are determined to keep trying for a baby by your anonymous donor. And that's your right. But if it's not successful, I wish you to know that my offer is still open. I can't promise you romance but I do promise you what i think you need very badly. Here are my mobile and satellite phone numbers so that you can contact me no matter where i am.

Your friend always, John.

He added the numbers then slipped the note into an envelope and wrote Joy's name on the front, having already to drop the later into her mailbox tomorrow whilst she was at work. By the time she got home he would be long gone.

Then it would be up to her.

Exactly one month and one day later.

It hadn't worked. Again.

Despair clutched at Joy's already cramping stomach as she hunched over the toilet seat. There had to be something wrong with her. Because it didn't make sense. The clinic had tried a different procedure this time, putting the sperm right into her womb instead of just on the cervix. It was a more expensive procedure but wasn't supposed to give her a better chance of conceiving.

A total waste of money as it turned out.

She dreaded telling her mother. Yet, she would have to. Joy wished now that she hadn't confined her plan in the first place. She should have just gone to the clinic on her own, in secret. That way, she could have handled her disappointment in private, without the added pain of watching her mother's disappointment. Her mum sometimes pretended that she didn't mind not having grandchildren but Joy knew that wasn't the case. She'd often said how she'd wanted to have a bigger family herself.

Joy frowned at this last thought. If her mother had wanted more than one child, then why hadn't she had some more? Joy's Dad hadn't died till she was mine. Joy sucked in sharply at the possibility that her mother had been unable to conceive more babies. But if that were so, then why hadn't she mentioned it to her? It might be an important clue over why she was having such trouble conceiving herself.

Not that she could go out and ask her right now. They were both at the salon, working. Wednesday was always a busy day. It would be impossible to question her till they were on the way home late this afternoon.

Her mom knew, the moment she saw Joy's pasty face and dull eyes, that her period had arrived. The poor darling, she thought sadly as she watched her daughter put on a smiling face for a client.

"You know, don't you, mum?" Joy said the moment they were alone in the car on the way home. She'd seen the sympathy in her mother's eyes when she'd come out of the powder room a couple of hours earlier. The sympathy and the sadness.

"Yes," was all her mother could bring herself to say. She was close to tears. Not for herself but for her daughter.

"Mum," I've been thinking, was there any physical reason why you didn't have more children?"

Her mom swallowed. She'd been expecting this question for ages.

"Not that I know of," she answered truthfully. "I was thoroughly checked out, the same way you've been. One doctor said stress and tension can sometimes be the problem."

"Yes, I've read about that," Joy said. "That's why couples sometimes fall pregnant after they've adopted a child."

"Your father and I were going to foot a child," her mom confessed. "But then he was..." she broke off, unable to continue.

"Oh, mum. I'm sorry. I know how much you loved Dad."

After her dad funeral she'd listened to her mother cry at night for months. It never surprised Joy that her mother hadn't ever dated again or remarried. She'd been a one man woman.

Joy knew she'd never find that one true love like her mother had. But she was going to become a mother, come he'll or high water. All afternoon, she'd been thinking about the latter John left for her a month ago. When she'd first read it, she'd been incredibly touched, especially with his intuitive observation about her fragile nervous state. She'd almost changed her mind about going back to the clinic and rung him straight away. But, in the end, she simply hadn't had the courage to take what would have not to involve other people, and to not face the problem of actually having sex with john. Joy understood that sex for men was not the big deal it could be for women. For her, anyway. She'd become more edgy about it as she'd got older. Less confident. More nervous.

But the time for being nervous Nelly was long gone. If she didn't take john up on his offer she would always regret it.

Of course, he might have changed his mind by now. God, she hoped not!

Well, if he had, she'd just have to persuade him otherwise, Joy vowed with renewed resolve. If he waffled, she'd remind him now how much he'd always wanted to have sex with her!

Joy might have been shocked at herself if she hadn't been so fired up.

"Mum, I think that i might go away for a while. On a holiday."

"Oh? Where to?"

"Somewhere warm. In Australia, of course. I don't want to go overseas."

"Carina is nice at this time of the year," her mother suggested.

"I was thinking of Darwin. I've never been there . And I've always wanted to see kakadu." A total untruth . Joy had seen one or two documentaries about the Northern Territory and was not at all interested in vast wetlands filled with biting insects, wild buffalo and crocodiles.

"Really?" Her mother said,sounding surprised.

"I could go on some organized tours. That way I'd have company. You could manage. I managed when you left to be an Estate Agent, didn't I? When were you thinking of going?"

"Not sure yet. Possibly the end of next week." Joy knew exactly when she would ovulate. She'd been charting her cycle for months. Two weeks after her period started was beginning of her peak days for conceiving. No point in going to Darwin much before then. At the same time, she'd to make it seem like she was going on a real holiday. She could hardly just go for a few days.

"For how long?"

"I'm. A week or so, maybe ten days." She added for good measure.

"So you won't be going to the clinic for another procedure next month?"

"No, mum. I've decided to have a break from that for a while."

As soon as they arrived home, Joy made the excuse that she needed to lie down for a while. When her mother offered to make her a cup of tea, she declined, saying she was going to take some painkillers and have a short nap before dinner. Fortunately, it was her mother's turn to cook.

Also, fortunately, Joy's bedroom was at the back of the house, some way from the kitchen. Once her mother turned on the television, she would not hear Joy talking on the phone.

Joy's hands were literally shaking as she drew John's letter out of the bedside drawer where she'd kept it over a month ago. He'd given her two numbers, one for a regular mobile, one for a satellite phone. She say on the side of her bed and tried the mobile number first. It rang, thank heavens. She would have hated for it to be engage. As it was, she'd skyway worked herself up into a right side.

"For pity's sake, John answer the damned thing." She muttered under her breath after it had rung several times.

But he didn't, and the phone eventually switched to his message bank. A despairing Joy didn't leave any message, choosing instead to try the satellite phone first. She actually prayed as she punched in the numbers