Sex Crimes by Nikki McWatters

Kicked the hell out of me.
    ‘No sugar,’ I yelled out, as if Chris might have forgotten my attempt to be a picture of health during this pregnancy.
    Autumn in the mountains was a beautiful time of the year. The corn-flaked leaves drifted through the cooler breezes and the air was thin and crisp. I liked to take in a bush-walk at least every other day. But with Chris home it was easier just to hang about, lazing, snuggling and talking about life, the universe and everything.
    I opened the laptop beside me, because it didn’t exactly fit on my lap at that stage and I checked my mail. Nothing. Just spam and junk. I deleted it all, still ever optimistic that I’d hear some good news from my agent or get a royalty statement or a request for an interview or God forbid, a bite from a film company who wanted to film one of my tales. Now, that would be nice. But that morning, it was all just rubbish.
    Next I checked my blog stats. I got two looks from Peru. It’s a silly game I played. It became kind of addictive. I kept a list of all the countries of the world and crossed them off as they appeared on my blog stats. Childish. Writers find a myriad of ways to distract themselves from writing. It’s hard when your office is your bed and you sit in your p.j’s all day with no one else about. Just your computer. So the internet becomes your pool of workmates and I checked in to the Sydney Morning Herald for news updates, Facebook, twitter and blog stats and kindle book sales and online reviews of my books in between every chapter of text I wrote.
    At school the teachers always tell Olive she needs to learn to manage her distractions . What hope does she have when I can’t concentrate without getting some Facebook updates every half an hour through the day?
    It’s worse when Chris is away and while he usually calls in everyday and Skypes with Olive for hours, it still gets lonely up here in the big cold mountain house. I miss the city. The rat-race. The friend network, the business lunches and publishing meetings. But when Chris’s last album went global and sold millions, we started getting so much unwanted attention from fans and the media. Even the dreaded paparazzi. Chris is a pretty private person despite the stage persona. At home, he’s a slippers and movie sort of guy. Likes to poke about the kitchen concocting incredible dishes. I often joke that he should start a rock and roll themed cooking show. Maybe he will now.
    ‘Here you go, gorgeous girl,’ he announced, arriving by my bed, putting down the cup and saucer and kissing the top of my head.
    ‘You look like shit,’ I smiled up at him. ‘More nightmares? What’s that about?’
    He shrugged.
    ‘I don’t know. My guts are all over the place too…I’ve got the runs and then I’m all bound up…’
    ‘Enough …enough,’ I interrupted, squeezing the image out of my brain. ‘I don’t need bowel updates. Go to a bloody doctor.’
    ‘Maybe,’ he shrugged.
    He must have been getting sick, I thought. It worried me because usually Chris is cast iron healthy. He was great when he got home from tour. He was relaxed and so happy and chilled out but that last week or so before that day, he’d been stressed, not sleeping, bags like black hammocks under his eyes. He’d been snappy and irritable. I even pulled the X-Box out of storage in the garage and he was not even interested in playing that. He jumped every time the phone rang and I thought he was having some kind of psychological adjustment thing after being on the road for four months or so and then back to chilled out Leura with only the sound of crickets and birds to listen to. I don’t think he’d even picked up a guitar or touched the piano since he got home.
    ‘I listen to you whinge about your haemorrhoids,’ he joked and I threw a pillow at him.
    ‘With a bit luck that will all be over soon. Thirty-three days to go,’ I said, rubbing my huge round belly.
    Chris put his head down on my stomach