Chapter song: Giants by Lights

Chapter 29: Brain Fart

"I know Linda already has a kid, so I didn't think she'd want another," Joan continued.

"Who's this Linda bitch?" Seto blurted.

Mokuba groaned. "Seriously, Seto? I just told you. She's Michael's girlfriend."

"Yeah, did you have a brain fart?" Joan asked.

More of Seto's weight pressed on Joan as his body sagged with relief. "Seto Kaiba doesn't have brain farts."

"Did your neural implants malfunction again?" Mokuba asked.

"No." Seto fell silent for a moment. "I thought I heard something else."

"What did you think you heard?" Joan pressed.

Seto sat up straight and pinched the bridge of his nose. His other hand intertwined with Joan's. "Just tell me again what the deal is."

"Michael and Linda want to have a baby together," Mokuba repeated. "Now here's the part I didn't get to yet. Michael still wants to have a baby with Joan, hopefully before he gets Linda pregnant, so he'll take you up on that four-month offer."

A little squeal of excitement escaped Joan. Seto looked up and saw sheer joy on her face.

"Here's Michael's stipulation, though," Mokuba went on, "he's not going to stop trying after four months. He says that if you're still serious about this in four months, may the best sperm win." Mokuba paused and ran a hand over Joan's cheek. "And that includes mine."

Joan gasped and kissed Mokuba. She then rattled off a few dozen potential baby names that had been rolling around in her head since her teen years. "What do you think?"

"As long as you don't name it something stupid like Joey or Téa, I don't care," Seto replied.

Joan figured those were people from Seto's past he wanted to forget for one reason or another and decided not to press him for details.

"I never gave it much thought," Mokuba said, "but choosing sounds fun."

"Of course if it's Michael's, you two won't have much of a say," Joan reminded them.

Seto caught Joan's jaw and glared into her eyes. "If it's a Wurzel, we're putting a Kaiba in you immediately after it's born."

Joan wanted to explain a few technical aspects of childbirth and how lactation could inhibit ovulation but instead flashed a grin. His kiss came in powerful and ravenous. Joan's face came away from his glowing with excitement.

"Roland, schedule IUD removal for Mrs. Kaiba tomorrow," Seto said.

"Already managed, sir."

"Yeah, we set the appointment while you were sleeping in," Mokuba added, "but it's still up to Joan if she actually wants to go."

"And the student loans?" Joan asked.

"Cleared this morning," Roland confirmed.

"Damn, you rich boys work fast. Are you sure you sent the money to the right place?" She pulled out her phone and logged into her bank to check.

"Mr. Wurzel gave clear instructions," Roland said.

Joan saw that it checked out. "All right. What else is hiding up your ass?"

"Michael told me your ring size and his birthstone. Expect delivery on Thursday," Mokuba said.

Joan's jaw dropped. "Holy . . ."

"Whore, what did I say about the religious crap?" Seto warned.

"I say that from a spiritual standpoint, not religious," Joan clarified.

"Whatever," Seto grumbled.

Joan rubbed her cheek against Seto's bicep. "Anybody ever tell you how sexy that cold and distant act is?"

Seto couldn't stop his scowl from twisting into a smile. No whore had ever put it so frankly. Sure they'd gush about his "aura of mystery" or use some other poetic terminology, but it had always struck him as clingy and pathetic, an all-too-obvious attempt to break down his walls. Now with Joan inviting him to keep his walls up, the need for them vanished.

Mokuba again saw magic happening. He passed his phone to Roland and signaled him to take a picture.

The camera flash jolted Seto from the moment. "I don't recall scheduling a photo shoot."

"Sir, this was your brother's request," Roland said.

"Yeah," Mokuba chimed in, "it's not every day I get to see you . . . you know . . . happy. Roland, keep taking pictures. Have our social media manager pick out the good ones."

"Yes sir."

Seto sighed. "Fine. Maybe this will shut up the gold diggers."

Over the past few days, Seto's panicked social media manager had repeatedly asked Roland whether she should update Seto's profiles or not, and Roland had to keep telling her to wait a little longer to see how things progressed. After all this time, he'd finally found the right opportunity to ask. "Relationship status?"

"Engaged," Seto stated.

Joan remembered that they had her password too and spoke up before Roland could send out any instructions. "Hold up. Don't take Michael off my page. Last time I checked, Facebook only allowed one relationship status. It's not like Fetlife where you can have as many as you want."

"Roland, have that cyber geek we keep on staff hack Facebook. Replace Facebook's relationship status code with whatever this Fetlife thing is using," Seto ordered.

"Sir," Roland cautioned, "if you're the first ones to take advantage of the new statuses, they'll suspect Kaiba Corporation's involvement, especially with all the publicity as of late."

"Hack now, change the statuses after the chatter dies down," Seto clarified.

Roland pulled out his phone and sent the order.

"My . . ." Joan stopped herself from saying god for Seto's sake. "Sounds like I'll get to be Marc's girlfriend on Facebook too."

"Yeah, well I talked to Marc too," Mokuba said.

"And?" Joan asked.

Mokuba's hand ran down his face. "He sent me blueprints for the poly house."

"So that's happening too?"

"Yep. It will take a lot longer to get everything set up, but I got the ball rolling. With any luck, you'll be moving in before you give birth."

"Well, I'm not pregnant yet, but yeah, that sounds good. Let me guess: you already bought the land for it."

Mokuba laughed. "Roland and I can't cover that much in one morning."

"That's good because I have a request."

"What's that?"

"Keep it within twenty minutes' walking distance from a BART, Caltrain, or Amtrak station. I don't drive, and I want to make sure I can get out and go places when needed."

"Already making plans to leave us?" Seto growled.

Joan rolled her eyes. "It's not about leaving you. I'll need to get to an airport if I'm going to Japan every week. Besides that, I have friends to visit up near Sacramento, and I'm volunteering for an event in Pennsylvania on Memorial Day Weekend. I have a life, you know."

Tamara's eyes went wide at the mention of Pennsylvania, but she held her tongue.

"What is this volunteering you speak of?" Seto asked.

"It's a thing peasants like me do when we believe in a cause but don't have money to throw at it," Joan said.

"I don't live under a rock, whore. I mean what cause?"

"It's an international creative problem-solving competition called Imagination of the Mind. Students of all ages compete in it. Sometimes they build robots and sometimes they make art out of trash. Then they present everything in a ten-minute play with costumes and a script they write themselves. Parents don't get to help with any of their stuff – only take them to stores so they can grab what they need."

"Sounds complicated," Mokuba said.

"It is, and that's the beauty of it. There's no one right answer, so each team forges their own path." Joan grinned as she recalled how the program had helped build her confidence in high school. Even with her traumatic internship experience at twenty, she'd refused to cave into the pressures of society, doing what worked for her instead of following the models others had set. "The students also learn teamwork, budgeting, and lots of other skills not taught in most schools."

"How about fellatio?" Seto asked.

Joan's laugh came out with a cough. "OK, not that, but the program as a whole gets them excited about learning, so yeah, maybe in the long run it could lead to them being more curious about things like that."

"So that's how good little Christian girls like you get corrupted," Seto teased.

"Yep. That's how it happens, and that's how I'll be raising my kids, so be prepared for them to turn out ten times as wild as me."

A wave of doubt passed through Seto's mind. Joan seemed on top of her game, but what if he was a horrible parent? His childhood had been fraught with hardship, and he'd come out stronger because of it, but there were still so many social experiences he'd missed. Though he would never admit it aloud, the wage monkey might make a better father. There was something about him, about how quickly he'd responded to Marc's playful threat and how equally fast he'd calmed down that demonstrated resiliency. The world was not only a magical place but a safe place to people like Michael and Joan, people who had always known love from parents who had never failed them, even when said parents coerced their children to believe in an imaginary friend. Perhaps there was some merit to this God concept after all, even if it was purely a figment of human imagination.