Mother & Slaughter Excerpt

from Chapter Two

"Ellie," said Roz. "For fuck's sake: I think you're pregnant."

“What? No. That’s–” Eleanor shook her head. “No. Impossible.”

“Impossible?” Roz folded her arms. “Really? When was your last period?”

“I don’t know. Who can keep track of that?”

“Are you kidding me? So many people, Ellie.”

“Yeah, well, mine is always a surprise and it’s always a nightmare, so.”

“So you don’t actually know.”

Eleanor got up and went to the basin again.

“Eleanor.” Roz put her hands on her hips.

“What, Rosalind? I’m not pregnant!”

“How do you know?”

“Well clearly I’m not an expert, but I know enough to know that getting pregnant usually involves a penis, and I haven’t seen one of those in at least oh wait shit, yeah, you know what?” She stopped. “You’re right. It’s totally possible.”

“Wait…seriously?”

She turned around and looked at Roz. “Fuck.”

“Seriously?” Roz hit her in the arm.

“Ow! Yes! Seriously. There was a dude. A–” She waved her hand. “A fucking guard or something.”

“A fucking what?! When was this?”

“Like a month ago? I met him at The Pig and Pilgrim.” Eleanor closed her eyes, trying to picture him. “We were playing some stupid tavern game. I drank a lot of ale. We came back here. It can’t have been very good, because I literally don’t remember it.”

“Ellie! Why didn’t you tell me this?!”

“I just said I didn’t remember! I don’t even remember–” She squinted. “You know what, actually, maybe I remember some…” She frowned at the ceiling. “That can’t be right, though, because we didn’t do it all the way.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Well, I didn’t let him finish inside.” She pointed across the room. “I made him come out the window.”

“You what?!” Roz was nearly screaming. “Out the window? You made a grown-ass man come out your window? You made an adult human male jizz out an open window two stories into the street?!”

“Three stories: we were in the bedroom upstairs. And can we not scream about this in my townhouse, please?”

Roz pressed both fists to her forehead, closing her good eye. “Okay. Okay. Well, first of all: props. That is some of the most batshit white girl nonsense I’ve ever heard. Second of all: you know that doesn’t work, right?”

“What doesn’t work?”

“Jizzing out the fucking window, Ellie! You can still get pregnant from that!”

“How? From the jizz in the street?”

“No! I don’t–” Roz huffed. “I don’t know how it works, but it happens!”

“Oh, suddenly you’re a pregnancy expert?”

“Well, my cousin has been pregnant six times and my sister has been pregnant twice, so yeah, at this point I might as well be a fucking midwife.”

Eleanor was chewing her cheek and scowling through the window, lost in thought. “You think it’s magic?”

“Do I think what’s magic?”

“That you can get pregnant like that?”

“You mean do I think men have magic jizz?” Roz shuddered. “God, I hope not.”

“Well, how do they do it, then?”

“We’re getting off-track here. What are you gonna do about this?”

Eleanor agitatedly rubbed the bristles on top of her head. “You think I should piss on some barley seeds?”

Roz spread her hands. “It couldn’t hurt.”

“Do you have any?”

“Why would I have that? You think I’m carrying around barley seeds like some kind of farmer?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one claiming to be a midwife!” Eleanor went to the window and leaned out, scouring the street like she’d be able to see the spot where the jizz had landed, and that somehow, that would make all of this make sense. “Where am I gonna get barley seeds without someone figuring out what they’re for?”

Roz stuck her head out next to her. “Why don’t you want anyone to know what it’s for?”

“I just don’t.”

“Just go to the market and say you’re getting into baking and you wanna grind your own flour. Everyone’s doing that these days.”

“Come on.” Eleanor tilted her head. “No one’s gonna buy that. Everyone knows what a woman buying barley seeds means.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

They stared across the lamplit streets. It had rained again while they’d been talking, and the cobblestones were shiny with it. The last spatters were coming down from the windy clouds.

Roz sighed. “Okay. I know. I have an idea.”

“Yeah?” Eleanor looked at her.

“We can ask my cousin. She’ll have them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, a hundred percent. That girl is always pregnant.”

Eleanor grabbed Roz around the shoulders with one arm. “Oh my God, amazing, Roz, thank you.”

Roz was staring down into the wet street with a distant look on her face. “I’m never gonna look out of a window the same way again,” she said.