Mouse dropped Leo off at school, then took the subway to Midtown. She was meeting Travis for coffee at Rockefeller Center before he had to work. Travis had been a musical theatre major, one of the rare straight guys in the major, and was trying really hard to break into the Broadway acting scene, which meant that he had to take pretty much any part time job that came along. Basically, "musical theatre" was code for "bartending and poverty," and Mouse felt bad that someone as talented as Travis had to spend his days as a sales associate in a clothing store, and his nights as a waiter. Even if the sales associate position was at a trendy, upscale shop like Anthropologie, Mouse knew that he made minimum wage, and that the employees were "encouraged" to wear clothing from the actual store, where a pair of pants could cost two hundred dollars.

"Wow, don't you look fantastic," he said with a smile, reaching out to hug her.

"I feel really good, almost human," Mouse admitted, nodding her head. "I haven't been feeling sick so much, and we find out the gender soon, so yeah, things are nice."

They headed for the coffee shop right in Rockefeller Center, which wasn't too terribly crowded on a weekday morning, and settled down for a nice chat.

Mouse ordered a large pastry, wishing in passing that they sold savory things, too. She could really go for a big plate of bacon and eggs. And maybe some Feta cheese.

"So, how many weeks now?" Travis asked, smiling at her again. "You're not showing or anything."

"Sixteen," Mouse replied, taking another huge bite of her pastry.

"And when do you start to feel it move around?" Travis asked, curious.

"Within the next month or so, I guess," Mouse answered.

Travis shook his head. "That must feel so weird," he said with a laugh.

He sat back and regarded his ex-girlfriend. It was a cold day, but they were sitting directly under a cone heater, and didn't really feel the chill.

Mouse was wearing a loose-fitting sweater in a pretty shade of blue, with jeans and boots, and she really did look happy and at ease in the sunshine.

"You're just one of those lucky pregnant ladies who gets all bloomy and radiant, I guess," he finally said.

"Did you say 'bloomy'?" Mouse laughed, shaking her head. "I'm just lucky you didn't see me a few weeks ago; I couldn't keep anything down, I had circles under my eyes, the whole shebang, as they say." She took a sip of her tea. "I actually feel hungry these days," she said, gesturing at her empty plate, "not to mention horny."

Travis made a little face as he held his hands up in front of himself. "TMI, Martha, please!" he begged.

Mouse grinned and switched plates with Travis so she could finish his muffin. "I know it sounds weird, but I'm glad we could stay friends, you know?" she confided. "And that I can say that kind of stuff to you. I mean, besides Henry and Mary Lizard, you're really the only person I can talk to, the only friend I have. And they're family, so they really don't count."

"It doesn't make any sense," Travis answered, shaking his head. "You're so friendly and nice, and you've never been particularly shy, I don't think..."

Mouse gave him a look. "Please. How many times did you ask me out before I finally said yes? And that was just to get you to leave me alone," she told him, laughing.

"No, say it ain't so," Travis answered, placing his hand dramatically on his heart.

Mouse had finished Travis' muffin by now, and looked back at the bakery counter, contemplating buying another one.

"You want something else?" Travis asked, noticing her look. "I could go and get it for you?" He began to rise from his chair.

"No, it's fine, I feel good right now, why tempt fate by stuffing myself?" Mouse answered, putting a hand on his arm. "Having my food craving taken care of is just making my, uh, other cravings more noticeable, though," she informed Travis.

At his blank look, she continued. "It's been a really long time since I've had sex," she explained.

Travis stared at her, eyes wide. "Well, if that's a hint, I have to say that, tempting as you are, I don't want to encourage infidelity, especially within the first few months of marriage, so that's a hard no from me, okay?"

He put his head back and laughed, and Mouse joined him, feeling really good, and happy to be there.

"Seriously, though, I didn't know that pregnant women even got horny," he said, looking around to see if anyone was listening.

"Oh yeah, it's a real thing," Mouse assured him. "We're all full of hormones, and everything's all full of extra blood and stuff, you know, very engorged and all that."

"Oh, eww, Mouse, Jesus, I have to go to work in a few minutes, please," Travis implored. "I have to spend the next eight hours selling overpriced clothing to you women, and I don't need to be thinking of engorged things and blood."

"Sorry, Trav, but you asked," Mouse replied, eyes merry. "We pregnant women are full of one and a half times our normal blood volume by the time we deliver. And our hormones make us very, very libidinous and orgasmic, too." She winked at him.

Travis let out a loud laugh. "Great, wonderful," he replied. He glanced at his watch. "And on that note, I'm off to work, so thanks for the images."

He leaned in and kissed Mouse and walked off across the plaza, still laughing.

Mouse, too, rose, and headed back toward the subway. She passed an upscale women's lingerie shop on the way, and her eye was caught by a pretty negligee. She tended toward pjs, with tops and bottoms, or, since her marriage, Henry's old shirts. She owned a couple of nightgowns, but nothing like the wispy, lacy thing she was looking at in the window.

On a whim, she entered the store, where she was bombarded by the scent of various perfumes, and about twenty different shades of pink.

She browsed the racks, smiling to herself. Some of the items looked comfortable, but she realized that most of this stuff was bought for the enjoyment of someone other than the person wearing it.

The older salespeople gave her some looks, but no one came and offered to help, obviously pegging her for a browser who wouldn't spend much in a place like this. This was fine with Mouse, as she had no idea what she'd even say to someone about the things she was looking at.

She was finally approached by a young woman with hair the color of cotton candy, whose name tag said, "KitKat" in curly script. She seemed about Mouse's age, obviously younger than the rest of the sales crew. She looked like she'd be more at home working at a comic book store down in the Village than an upscale lingerie shop in Midtown.

"Are we looking for anything in particular?" she asked with a bright smile. "Just a nightie, or did we want bras and undies as well?"

"Um, I'm not sure," Mouse answered. "I've never owned anything like this, and the one in the window caught my eye." She humorously placed a little extra emphasis on the singular pronoun, wondering if KitKat would notice. "I'm a grown up married lady now, I thought I should look the part," she finished uncertainly.

"Of course, of course," the pretty girl replied. "Every woman should own a few nice pieces, so let's see what we can do."

Apparently not.

"So did we definitely want something pretty and lacy, or do we maybe want to spice things up a bit?" KitKat went on, looking at Mouse inquisitively.

"Spice things up?" Mouse repeated. "How?"

So KitKat led Mouse to the back of the store. The color scheme changed back there, from the pinks and whites out front to shiny reds and blacks. There were also many different textures, ranging from fluffy feather boas to what appeared to be latex and leather.

Wow.

"No, I don't think I want anything like this," Mouse said, looking around and chuckling. "I'm pregnant, and some of this stuff doesn't look very comfortable, you know?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised," KitKat answered, giving Mouse a small smile. "But yeah, if we're pregnant, maybe not the latex, lace-up corset, today, hm?"

Mouse raised her eyebrows as she, too, shook her head.

"Well, you have an absolutely darling figure," KitKat said, looking Mouse up and down.

"Really?" Mouse was surprised. She'd never thought of herself as having any kind of figure, ever.

KitKat nodded fervently. "I'm supposed to be careful what I say to clients," she confessed, leaning in confidentially, "but I'd kill for a rack like yours."

Mouse let out a noise of surprise, laughing. "No way!" she said before she could help herself.

"Come on, this is going to be so much fun," KitKat said, grinning.

"So, what's he like?" she asked conversationally, looking through the racks. "Your guy?"

"Oh." Mouse thought as she took a spaghetti strap baby doll and hung it over her arm. "He's my husband, and he's in his thirties, so I'm definitely not going to be showing him something he hasn't seen someone else wear, probably much better," she finished, shrugging.

"Please!" KitKat chastised, poking her head around a rack of blue silk teddys. "He's with you, he married you, he's going to be blown away." She looked at some underwear that was lying in neat rows on a table. "How about something like this?"

Mouse opened her mouth to tell her that she plenty of underwear, when she noticed that these looked different from what she was used to, odd in some way. They were slit in the middle, looking like they had mouths or something.

"Oh!" Mouse said, laughing at herself. "These are crotchless!"

"You really have led a sheltered life, haven't you?" KitKat said with a giggle. "Take a look, we have so many different styles."

"How are these comfortable?" Mouse asked. "And what's the point? They don't cover your, um, area, you know?"

"That is the point," KitKat replied. "You don't wear them for comfort, we have the ones they sell in the five pack at Target and CVS for comfort."

So Mouse grabbed a few in her size, feeling kind of silly. Some were open in the back, too, so that all they really did was frame your sex, she realized. She balked at the price tags, but she told herself that it was okay, it was a splurge, and Henry would like it, too.

"So, if we're really pulling out all the stops, how about a peekaboo bra?" KitKat asked, raising her eyebrows in a question.

"What's a 'peekaboo bra'?" Mouse repeated. "I've got to see one of those, please!"

KitKat laughed and led Mouse to a rack of bras that did, indeed, have openings of various sizes in the cups, where the nipples could poke out, presumably.

"Oh my god," Mouse burst out, trying and failing to keep from laughing.

"Are you honestly saying you've never heard of these?" KitKat asked, holding a handful of pink, white and other colored brassieres.

"No, I have, I have," Mouse assured her. "I just never really paid attention, I guess. I mean, I wasn't exactly what you'd call a 'targeted consumer,' you know?" At KitKat's look, she continued. "My real name's Martha, but my nickname is Mouse, and let's just say I come by it honestly," she explained.

"Well, we're just going to have to work on that a bit, I guess," KitKat said firmly. "What size are you?"

"Um, I used to be a C, but I might be a little bigger with the pregnancy," Mouse told her, feeling a little odd to be blurting out the information in a store.

"Don't worry," KitKat told her with a wink after she saw Mouse's look. "We're like church, or the doctor, it's all strictly confidential.

"You want to see something in a shelf bra?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

"I definitely have to see some of those," Mouse answered, smiling in anticipation.

So the two young women spent a happy few hours pulling wispy, slippery items from the racks and taking them to the fitting rooms. Mouse was offered sparkling water and a cheese plate, presumably to keep her from getting hungry and leaving.

"See?" KitKat said, eyeing Mouse critically when she emerged in a beautiful, light blue baby doll night gown. It had lace trim, and was see-through, stretchy enough to be comfortable. "You look hot, Mouse, like white hot." She nodded knowingly. "He's not going to be able to keep his hands off you."

She looked around to make sure she wasn't overheard. "I'm not supposed to be so familiar with the clients," she confessed. "But come on, look at you, you look incredible!"

Mouse looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her pregnancy had definitely made her fill out, accentuating her curves, and her nipples were more prominent, darker than before, as her breasts prepared for the task of nursing a baby.

She asked about garters, throwing caution to the wind, but KitKat shook her head decisively. "You're what, three or four months?" she asked, looking at Mouse's abdomen. "You're going to start showing soon, and you won't be comfortable wearing anything that constricts or binds, I think.

"You'll just have to come back after the baby's born," she said with a smile. "We can really drive hubs crazy, what do you think?"

"Sounds like a plan," Mouse answered happily.

Eventually, Mouse realized that she was starving, and that it must be way past lunchtime. Reluctantly, she gathered her choices, and she and KitKat carried the considerable pile to the register.

"Oh, can you feel the hate coming from the old broads?" KitKat whispered as she rang up Mouse's purchases.

Mouse shrugged. "They were all giving me the Pretty Woman treatment," she told the girl with the pink hair. "Remember when Viv went into the dress shop on Rodeo Drive, and no one wanted to wait on her?"

KitKat nodded, grinning. "Who's sorry now?" she sang, making Mouse laugh.

"You know," she continued, handing Mouse the tag after looking at it and drawing a hissing breath, "I hope I'm not being too forward, but I had so much fun with you."

"Me too," Mouse answered, surprised. She signed the tag and handed it back.

"I'm here most days, and I have lunch between noon and two," KitKat said. "If you ever wanted to grab a sandwich or something--?" She looked at Mouse hopefully.

"Really? With me?" Mouse was pleased.

"Of course, what do you mean?" the pink-haired girl asked. "Anyway, come by, whenever, just so you can tell me how all this stuff went over at home, you know?"

Mouse nodded and waved cheerfully at the grouchy salespeople, lifting her bags in a passable impression of Julia Roberts, she thought. She couldn't wait to get home to show Henry her purchases.

She also wanted to see his face when he realized she'd just dropped over two thousand dollars on underwear.

Somehow, she thought he wouldn't mind too much.