She was pregnant and everyone told her she should keep it. Ha! As if. You’d have to drug her for nine months straight for that to happen. Sadly, many of Renée’s friends and family would be willing to do just that. All in order to make her “see reason.” To make her understand that her time was “running out.” That is, if she wanted to have the “complete experience” of what it (supposedly) “meant” to “be a woman.” After all, as her so-called best friend, Maura, with two kids of her own, asked, “Don’t you want to discover the true purpose of womanhood?”

No, Renée did not. Not just because she felt that having a child signaled the end of youth, therefore life, but because she knew that it was the biggest lie ever sold that a woman’s greatest purpose was to “squeeze one out.” Nay, squeeze as many out as possible. It was a con, a scam, a sham—and she knew it. In fact, Renée was convinced she was the only woman left on Earth who did know it. If only Sam, the would-be father of her child, was a woman, too. Then she wouldn’t feel so alone in her “opinion” (a.k.a. spot-on accuracy). She also probably wouldn’t be pregnant because she would be a lesbian and they really have to try at being “with child.” Paying vast amounts of money to be just that.

So far, only Sam was on her side about it—the side of Team No Baby. She wished she hadn’t made the mistake of telling so many other people besides him about it. The fact that she did made her briefly question if, subconsciously, she actually wanted to be talked into keeping it. Maybe there was, deep down, this teeny-tiny shred of herself that was screaming to become a mother. To surrender, at last, to alleged “animal instinct.” But no! She knew that wasn’t true, that any such thinking was the residual byproduct of every girl’s early conditioning—brainwashing. She refused to let it take her in, to succumb to it in any way. Having kids was bullshit and that was that.

Renée didn’t ask Maura, or any other theoretically close friends, or even her own mother to come with her to the clinic. Instead, she asked Sam, who was happy to be of service. Of course, he joked that he was just sitting there, while she was the one left with no choice but to get a human being vacuumed out of her pussy.

When Maura asked Renée why she didn’t consider at least giving the child up for adoption, Renée responded that all children were better off never being born and that, as far as she was concerned, abortion was a humanitarian act. And maybe the only one that Renée would ever really partake of. Obviously, Maura was horrified by Renée’s answer, and the two quickly “fell out of touch” after that. Even Renée’s mother started to treat her differently after the abortion. It was as though Renée had done the “one thing” a woman was never supposed to do, not really. Oh sure, liberal white women always talked a good game about advocating for the “right to choose,” but when it comes down to it, they don’t really think you actually should choose to abort. They just want to know the choice is there, for “liberalism’s” sake.

As time went on, and almost a full year passed since she “opted out” of motherhood, Renée found herself surer than ever in the decision she had made. But she had to wonder why, then, did she continually have this recurring dream about being pregnant and everyone in her life telling her to keep it. In the dream, as in life, she chose to rid herself of it. Except that, when the abortionist started to “suck it out,” it only clung more tightly to her womb. So tight that it made her scream in agony in the dream and then awake from that dream-state in a cold sweat while also screaming in life. So much screaming. Like a newborn baby.

She figured the meaning was obvious: the “universe” was trying to tell her she had made a mistake. But she wouldn’t listen. You didn’t have to believe in “signs” from the universe. You could live your life ignoring them entirely. Unless those signs happened to be stalking your dreams incessantly, with no respite. It was getting to the point where Renée dreaded going to sleep. And because she dreaded it, she started to give herself insomnia, deliberately drinking too much coffee during the evening hours and then watching TV shows or movies until three a.m., when she would finally be exhausted enough to have the kind of sleep that was so “blackout” deep as to be dreamless. Or at least she couldn’t remember her dreams as a result of how tired she was while slumbering.

Her new sleep schedule was concerning to Sam, who was growing generally less enchanted with their relationship. Of course, he told himself that his disenchantment had nothing to do with the fact that she aborted their baby. Nothing at all. But he, too, was plagued by something undefinable that kept nagging at him. It might not have manifested in a recurring nightmare that gave him insomnia, but it was there. Eventually, he moved into the guest bedroom, citing Renée’s untenable sleep schedule as the reason why. Naturally though, it was more than that. So much more. And the invisible wedge that kept being driven between them by their phantom baby that never was finally pushed Renée to the brink. Well, that, and lack of sleep. Which is why, one night, when Sam thought he was going to have a peaceful eight hours of restorative rest in time for the next day, Renée stormed in, shook him violently out of his sleep and started to rip his pajamas off (yes, he wore right proper pajamas, like a matching Ricky Ricardo-style set).

Wordlessly, Renée started writhing against his groin, unconcerned with whether he was “in the mood” or not—she simply assumed it wouldn’t take him long to get aroused, and she wasn’t wrong. Maybe still being half-asleep and wanting to believe this was a “sexy dream” rather than a kind of rape, Sam did get stiff rather easily. This was the first fuck they’d had in weeks, what with Renée’s mercurial moods and Sam’s fear of stoking them further by “demanding” sex. In his state of surprise and barely-awakeness, he didn’t even consider pulling out—and she didn’t want him to.

They didn’t talk about what happened the next day. Sam didn’t even want to think about it, let alone acknowledge it. And that was fine with Renée. She only needed him for the fuck anyway. It was going to be her final test about whether or not she truly wanted to be a mother. If he really did impregnate her again, it would give her another chance to see what her decision would be. A few weeks later, as it turned out, she discovered she was pregnant. But rather than feeling the sense of relief at another opportunity to “become Mother” that she had been expecting, that same wave of disappointment and resentment washed over her as the first time.

She didn’t bother to tell Sam. In truth, she broke up with him a few days before she scheduled her second abortion. He didn’t mind. Certainly didn’t argue about it anyway. He might have, of course, if he knew she was once more pregnant with his child. But that was only temporary, Renée reasoned. No need to trouble him about it. And no need, for that matter, to ever trouble herself again with forced thoughts of being a mother. She learned the hard way that dreams don’t really mean anything. Except the ones you have for yourself and your future. And hers was one that would forever declare, “Un bébé? No way!”