Baby For The Bear

“I was just talking about this with someone else,” Ken said. “About the difference between the wild and civilization. We agreed that the wild and civilization are different things that work kind of the same way. Bears in the forest and bears in clothes,” he tugged at the lapels of his jacket, “are basically the same creatures. They want to eat, to overcome competition, and to pass on their genes. That’s why my family wants me to have a cub, to make sure their genes are passed on. We dress it up with all kinds of civilized ideas—but we’re animals. That’s us, Samantha—animals.”

Samantha heard this and accepted it. You’re an animal, all right. You are the hottest animal in the world.

“But what is it you expect?” he asked.

“Someday, Ken,” Samantha answered, “I want to be a mom. Not now, but not a long time from now, either. I just want to be a mom after I’ve had…some other things that a human wants. To meet someone that I like, that I know likes me back. To spend time together and learn things about each other. To make memories. And fall in love. Then, after that…all the rest of it. That’s what I saw for my life. And the whole thing of making a baby with you, the way we were planning to do it…when we really started talking about what it meant, it just suddenly threw me. It wasn’t the way I saw it.”

“I get that,” said Ken.

“But then, since you left my place and I had time to think about it some more,” she continued, mentally adding, …and cry my eyes out over it, “there was one thing I kept coming back to. Ken, I wasn’t ready for the thing we were trying to do, having a cub right away. But there is one thing I’m ready for.”

“What’s that?”

She gave him the most meaningful look that she’d ever given anyone in her life, and simply, decisively said, “You.”

Ken had no answer for that. He just smiled and felt himself melt inside.

“I’m ready for you, Ken. I can’t be the mother of your cub now, and I know that’s what you really want. So if that’s the only way we can be together, I understand and I’ll just go. But I wanted you to know that the one part of what we had together that I was ready for…was you.”

“So you do want to be a mother?” Ken asked.

“Someday, yes,” she said.

“And can you see your ‘someday’ being with me?”

“I can’t see it with anyone else,” said Samantha.

Ken leaned back in his chair. Samantha sat still, sensing the import of this moment, waiting for the next thing he would say, whatever it might be.

“Then there’s just one last thing,” he finally continued. “One last thing we have to understand. It’s something that’s been like…like the invisible bear in the room that we know is there but haven’t been talking about.”

A bit anxiously, Samantha asked, “What’s that?”

Flatly, directly, Ken asked her, “Do you love me?”

Now it was Samantha’s turn to sit back, caught completely unprepared. She tried to say something, but couldn’t.

He repeated, “Samantha. Sammie. Do you love me?”

A dewy look came over her. In business terms, even though she had said and he had agreed that this was life and not business, this above all was the one thing to make or break any deal.

Ken waited. Finally, Samantha spoke.

“Yes, Ken. I love you.”

“And I love you,” he said. “I fell in love with you that first time in your bedroom. And I’ve loved you more and more every minute since. I love you and I want you. And I never want you to push me away or send me away again. If you do, I’ll die. And the first rule of the forest is you don’t let anything kill you. So you have to stay with me and you have to let me love you and you have to love me back. And then…when we’re both ready, we’ll talk again about having our cub. Can you accept those terms?”

A little smile broke out on her face. She shook her head, knowing they were closing the deal. “Yes,” she said. “I accept.”

He held out his hand to her across the desk. She thought he would shake her hand, very businesslike. Instead, he took her hand and kissed it, tenderly, warmly.

Ken released her hand, picked up his phone, and said into it, “Pamela, no calls, no visitors. No exceptions.”

He waited a beat for her to acknowledge, then hung up the phone. Then he opened the top drawer at one side of his desk and hit a button inside it. Over her shoulder, Samantha heard a little clack. She turned and looked in that direction, then back at Ken.

“Did you just…?”

“Locked the door, yes, to make doubly sure we won’t be disturbed. Pamela will be going home soon anyway, but in business things come up. The day’s almost over anyway, but I don’t want anything coming up at the last minute.”

Samantha’s eyes widened, showing her disbelief. “But…Ken, you don’t mean…?”

He stood up, shrugged off his jacket, and loosened his tie. “Yes. I mean.”