Happy Anniversary

Christmas dinner was at Mom and Dad's the following day. All of us got tons of nice things, and nicest of all were the little clay rocking horse ornaments with their names on them that Mom had made for the twins. "They're gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "I'm gonna keep them forever."

Dinner was delicious. There was baked ham, corn on the cob, a green salad, sweet potato crunch, cranberries, and three different pies and two cakes, and in addition, I'd brought a strawberry Jello mold with sliced bananas in it to share. Besides the sexy negligee, Maxim also gave me two triangular tourmaline charms to go on the necklace he'd bought me the previous year and a cute anklet with a frog charm, and I got him his favorite cologne and aftershave in a boxed set.

We spent most of that day at Mom and Dad's, then went home and put all our new things away. Then he gave me my Christmas day spanking, and we made love and then went to bed.

On New Year's Eve, we put the kids to bed and then sat up drinking and waiting to welcome in the New Year. "There sure have been a lot of changes this year, haven't there?" Maxim remarked.

"I'll say!" I laughed. "You became a father twice over! I hope you're not disappointed that neither of them was a boy."

"Of course not! Why should I be? We already have Seth, and I couldn't ask for a better son."

My heart swelled with gratitude for my loving husband. "But he doesn't have your last name."

"He would if I legally adopted him."

I was startled. "You'd do that? Really?"

"Sure, why not? I mean, as long as the grandparents on the other side didn't object."

"I don't see why they would. They hardly ever see the kids anyway." It had actually been over a year since John's parents had seen Seth and Morgan, although they did send cards and small gifts on their birthdays and at Christmas.

On the television the countdown had begun, and we joined in, then cheered (very quietly, of course) and clinked our glasses together.

"Now, are you ready for your first spanking of the New Year?" Maxim asked me.

"My first spanking of the New Year?"

"That's what I said - bend over!"

I bent over the sofa, and a moment later, felt my pants and panties being pulled down. "Oh!" I cried as the first blow hit me. Blows began to rain down until my butt was good and sore.

The following day we went to Mom and Dad's for dinner again, and a couple of days later, school started back, so I had only Morgan and the twins to look after in the morning, and in the evening I had to go to the bus stop to wait for Seth to come home again. "So did you have a nice holiday?" asked Kirsten the first day I went back.

"It was fun," I replied. "The kids got lots of stuff. How was yours?"

"It was great! We went to visit my husband's relatives who live a couple of counties over. We hadn't seen them in several years, so that was cool."

"I'm glad you had a good time," I replied.

"Would you and Seth like to come to Mark's birthday party this Friday evening?" she continued.

I thought quickly. Maxim would be working the morning shift for the coming week so would be available to babysit Morgan and the twins. "We'd love to," I told her. "Thanks."

The night before the party, however, Courtney was up all night crying, and I had to take her to the doctor the following day. The doctor told me she had an ear infection and prescribed an antibiotic for her. By that evening, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. "I'll take Seth to the party so you can stay here and rest," Maxim offered.

"Thanks!" I exclaimed.

"Hey, it's no problem." He gave me a quick hug and kissed my forehead. "Come on, buddy! Are you ready to go?" he called to Seth. Seth appeared a moment later, freshly dressed and with his hair moistened and combed down, holding the present I'd bought for him to take.

"Bye, Mommy," he said to me. "I hope you get better soon, Courtney." He kissed his baby sister's cheek.

When they returned a couple of hours later, I was lying in bed fast asleep, holding Courtney. I awakened when Maxim gently took her from my arms and placed her in her crib. "Hey," I mumbled.

"Hey, yourself." Maxim pinched my nose, then lightly swatted my butt. "Everything OK?"

"I finally got her to sleep," I replied. "How did the party go?"

"It went great!" Seth told me. "I told Mark's Mommy Courtney got sick, and she sent a piece of cake home for you."

"That was sweet of her. Get your pajamas on and I'll read you a story."

"I'll do that," said Maxim. "You just rest."

"Thank you," I told him. I was almost, but not quite, asleep when he turned out the lights and came to bed himself about twenty minutes later. He reached for me, and I went into his arms, where he cuddled me close.

It was raining on the morning of our two-year anniversary. I got Seth ready for school and drove him to the bus stop. 'Teddy Bear' by Elvis Presley was playing on the radio, and I sang along cheerfully while we waited for the bus.

After Seth got on the bus, I drove back home and cooked pink heart-shaped pancakes and then took them into the bedroom to share with Maxim. "Happy anniversary!" I exclaimed.

"Happy anniversary yourself," he replied. "My, those look yummy!"

"They should be," I told him. "I added strawberry flavoring, and there's also strawberry flavored syrup."

He grinned. "Wow, you're really spoiling me."

"Nothing's too good for my little girl," I said.

"Aw, am I your little girl?"

"Of course you are!"

He had to work that day, but that evening, we left the kids with my parents and went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. I had boiled lobster and fried oysters, and after dinner, we went for a walk in the moonlight before heading back to pick up the kids. That night we stayed up half the night making love and then fell asleep in one another's arms. I knew I'd remember it as one of the happiest days of my life.

"Look how high my kite is, Mommy!" Morgan cried happily. "Daddy got it started for me!" It was a windy day, and Maxim and I had taken the kids to the park to fly kites. Seth's was a dragon with a long green tail, and Morgan's was an eagle. The five-month-old twins sat in their double stroller, watching in fascination as the kites soared and dipped.

Suddenly Morgan tripped over a tree root and dropped hers, and it continued to dance in the wind, growing smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared completely. Instantly Morgan burst into tears. "Daddy! My kite!"

"Never mind," said Maxim. "We'll just go back to the store and get you another one."

"But I want my eagle!"

"I'm sure we can find another eagle." He drove Morgan back to the dollar store while I stayed at the park with Seth and the twins.

"He's such a wonderful father," said an elderly woman who was sitting on a park bench. "How many men would go to that much trouble just to make a child happy? Certainly not my son-in-law!"

"Yes, I'm certainly blessed to have Maxim," I agreed.

"I don't think I've ever known anyone named Maxim before," the woman remarked.

"He's from Russia," I explained.

"Oh." She looked surprised but said nothing more.

A few minutes later, Maxim and Morgan returned. "I got a parrot this time, Mommy!" Morgan exclaimed.

Maxim laughed. "It took a little convincing to persuade her that parrots are just as pretty as eagles."

We stayed at the park for about half an hour longer, then went to the pizza buffet for lunch, then went home. Later Lily called me. "Chad and I want to discuss something very important with you and Maxim," she told me. "It would be better if the kids weren't around when we come."

"OK," I said, feeling very puzzled. "I'm sure my folks wouldn't mind watching them for an hour or so." That evening, Maxim took Seth and Morgan around to my parents' and then came back to wait for Chad and Lily to arrive. They showed up about twenty minutes after he returned.

"I might as well get right to the point," Lily began as she and Chad sat across from Maxim and me on the sofa. The twins were asleep in their cribs. "As you know, we've been trying for a long time to have a baby. We finally went for check-ups and just got the results back. It turns out that everything's fine with me, but Chad has a very low sperm count. The only way I could get pregnant would be to use donor sperm. It's very expensive to go to a sperm bank, about five hundred dollars per attempt, so we were wondering if...well..."

"You want me to donate sperm to you?" Maxim was incredulous.

"It would mean a lot to us. We'd prefer the donor to be someone we know, anyway."

"Well, I'm very flattered...I suppose." Maxim chuckled. "But how?"

"Misty gave me a test tube and a syringe. You'd just have to...you know...into the test tube, and then Chad could inject it into me with the syringe. It's a very simple procedure."

"You mean right now?"

"Oh, no. When it's the most fertile time of the month for me. I've been taking my temperature first thing in the morning for many months now, and my monthly cycle is very regular. I'd simply make arrangements to get together with you on the right day. The whole thing, or at least your part in it, wouldn't take any longer than about half an hour at the most."

"But what if I have to work late that day?"

"It doesn't have to be on that exact day. It can be up to forty-eight hours later."

"Wait a minute!" I interjected. "I'm his wife, for crying out loud! Don't I have any say in this at all?"

"Of course you do," Lily replied calmly. "That's why we wanted to talk to both of you together."

"Look, Lily, I'm really sorry you can't have a baby on your own," I began. "But out of all the men in the world you could have asked, why does it have to be my husband? Can you just imagine how awkward that would be for me and Maxim, and later on for the twins, when they get old enough to understand?"

"I realize that it's a really big favor we're asking, and you don't have to decide right away," Lily replied. "Talk it over between yourselves for as long as you want, and when you've decided, just give us a call. OK?"

"We'll do that," said Maxim. "However it goes, I do hope that the two of you have a baby of your own some day. I know you'd make wonderful parents."

Maxim went to pick up Seth and Morgan, and that night, he and I sat up for a couple of hours discussing the situation. "I think it would be wonderful to be able to help our friends out," he said. "I'm just afraid that I'd get really attached to the baby after it was born, especially if it looked like me or any of my family members."

"I'm sure Chad and Lily would let you remain a part of its life," I replied. "And I don't mean to sound selfish, but I'm just not sure how I'd feel about my best friend carrying your child."

"It wouldn't be like I'd sleep with her," Maxim pointed out. "I'd just donate a sperm, one tiny, microscopic cell, smaller than a period at the end of a sentence, and that would be all."

"Even so." I grinned. "How many little Maxims do you think the world could handle?"

He laughed. "You think it over, and if the idea makes you too terribly uncomfortable, I'll tell them we can't do it."

"Thanks, Maxim." I put my arms around him and held him close. "You're the best, you know?"

"No, you're the best." His eyes twinkled with mischief. "As long as I give you a good spanking every now and then."

"Ooh, is it time for that?" I asked.

He winked at me as he took down the pink paddle. "What do you think?"

"I'd guess I'm in for another good pounding!'

"You guessed right - bend over!"

After thinking about it for a few days, I decided that if I truly considered Lily to be my best friend, I'd do whatever it took to make her happy, even if it was something that I wasn't completely comfortable with. After all, would she do the same thing for me if the situation were reversed? I asked myself. Of course she would.

I told Maxim what I'd decided, and he seemed pleased. "That's very mature of you, Lacy," he told me. "I was just thinking the same thing, that even if I'm not one hundred percent comfortable with the idea, if it would make Chad and Lily happy, it would be worth it."

I called Lily right away and told her we were willing to help her and Chad out. "Thank you so much, Lacy!" she exclaimed. "You'll never know how much this means to us."

A couple of weeks later, she called and told me that it was the optimum time of the month for the procedure to be done. I told her I'd let Maxim know as soon as he got back from work. However, he came home a couple of hours earlier than I'd expected him. His eyelids were puffy and swollen, and he looked very pale and was shivering slightly. "I tried to finish my shift, but I just felt so sick that I had to come home early," he told me.

"Oh, no!" I gasped. "Do you want me to call the doctor?"

"No," he said. "It's just the flu. It's been going around the station. A couple of the other guys have had it, too. I'll just rest for awhile. I'll be fine." He headed for the bedroom. Just then, Seth came running from the opposite direction and crashed right into him.

"Daddy! Why are you home so early?"

"I'm sick," Maxim told him.

"Your Daddy needs to rest," I told my son. "He'll play with you another time."

"Aw...I hope you get better soon, Daddy."

"Thank you."

"Can I get you anything?" I asked my husband. "Some hot soup, perhaps?"

"I'm not hungry right now. I'll just take some meds and go to bed."

A couple of hours later, I went to check on him and took him a glass of orange juice before feeding the kids their dinner and nursing the twins. "Thanks!" he said gratefully.

I'd laid Caitlin down to sleep and was burping Courtney when Lily called again. "Oh, I'm sorry! I completely forgot!" I exclaimed. "I'm afraid Maxim can't do it today. He came home sick with the flu."

"Oh, no!" said Lily. "Well, I hope he gets better soon! We'll just have to try next month, then."

I could hear the disappointment in her voice and felt sad for her. "Well, one month isn't that long to wait."

I'd hardly hung up when the telephone rang again. This time it was Misty. "So how did it go?" she asked eagerly.

"It didn't," I told her. "Maxim came home from work sick with the flu, so we're just gonna have to try it again next month."

"That's too bad. Hey...maybe Ilya and I could help!"

I gasped in surprise. "You mean you wouldn't mind?"

"If it helps Lily and Chad to achieve their dream, why not?"

I was surprised that she didn't have the same misgivings I'd had myself when Lily had first made her request. She's a better person than me, I thought to myself.

Within days the entire family, including the twins, was sick with the flu. I still had to nurse the twins, of course, so I did it propped up in bed with pillows, as I was too weak to sit up. Thankfully, Mom came over to help for a few days, and Laura filled in for her when she had to take a break. I don't know what on earth I ever would have done without them.

Maxim recovered before any of the rest of us did. One morning I awakened in a fevered haze to find that he was no longer lying beside me, and a few minutes later, he arrived with a cup of hot broth for me. "I wondered where you were," I told him.

"Mostly catching up on the laundry. It was stacked nearly to the ceiling. It's still piled up higher than you could ever imagine. There's several garbage bags full of used diapers from the twins too. Good thing the trash gets picked up tomorrow."

"I'll say!"

Even though he had so much to do, he still found the time to sit on the side of the bed and spoon feed the broth to me. "This is so sweet of you!" I told him.

He grinned. "Aw, it's the least I can do. Oh, I almost forgot! Whatever happened with Lily and that..." he giggled "...favor she needed from us...well, from me?"

"She called the day you got sick," I told him. "Misty volunteered Ilya to do it instead. I haven't heard anything back from them since then."

"Whew! Well, maybe that's the end of that story, then. I sure hope so, anyway."

Something occurred to me. "Maxim, if something had happened to me where I wasn't able to have any more children after Morgan, would you have married me anyway?"

"Of course! I love you, Lacy. We would have worked something out. I'm just glad that wasn't the case." Just then Courtney began to cry. "Uh oh, sounds like somebody's hungry..."

I sent Seth back to school the following Monday morning. "Aw, Mommy, do I have to go back?" he protested.

"Yes you do. You've already missed a week, and you don't need to get too far behind. Besides, aren't you tired of just lying in bed watching movies all the time?"

"Nope."

"Yes you are." I tickled him, and he giggled.

"We missed you," said Kirsten when we got to the bus stop.

"We've all been sick with the flu," I told her.

"All of you? Even the babies?"

"Yep."

"That's terrible!"

Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Maxim and I were making up for lost time. He'd spank one buttock until it was sore, then go to work on the other. For a few days, I had to sit on soft pillows, but it was worth it.

Soon it was time to register Morgan for four-year-old kindergarten for the following school year, so I drove to the building where Seth had attended four-year-old kindergarten two years previously. I pushed the twins in their double stroller as we entered the building. "Oh, I remember you!" the receptionist exclaimed when she saw me. "How's Seth?"

"Fine! He's in first grade this year."

"Glad to hear it. And he has twin baby sisters now?"

"This is Caitlin, and this is Courtney," I said proudly. I'd dressed the twins in matching outfits, except that Caitlin's was pink and Courtney's was purple.

"Oh, they're so cute!" she gushed. "How old are they?"

"Five and a half months."

"I'm three," Morgan volunteered. "But I'm gonna be four in July."

"My, you're a big girl!"

"Uh huh. And I'm goin' to school here next year."

"So you are!"

She made copies of Morgan's birth certificate and vaccination records, I filled out some forms, and then we were on our way home.

Easter came and went. We bought baskets for Seth and Morgan and did an egg hunt with them again. "I'm gonna share some of my eggs with Caitlin and Courtney, since they're too little to hunt for them," Morgan offered.

"That's very sweet of you, but they're too little to eat eggs this year," I told her. "Maybe next year."

"OK!"