Intimate Secrets

Three weeks later, after playing the two Rock on the Range shows and waking up sick for the fifth morning in a row, Ash knew in his heart of hearts what was wrong with him. There was no other explanation aside from being pregnant with his lover’s child, especially considering that the period he was supposed to have was a week late. He’d never told the guys about such an embarrassing thing since they didn’t really need and likely didn’t want to know, but now he wished he had.

Once he finally got his roiling stomach under control, he got himself dressed and ringed his eyes in eyeliner like he normally would, then told his dogs, Tokyo and Killer, bye before making a run to CVS. Even though he was pretty sure that he was carrying Andy’s child at this point, he wanted to take a pregnancy test just to be sure. It could just be that his body’d had enough of the stress he was constantly under and upsetting his stomach as a result, but he highly doubted it. And depending on what the pregnancy test said, he’d decide if he should see his OB/GYN before they left to embark on Warped Tour in a week.

After getting the pregnancy test, he quickly headed home so he could take it, not wanting to accidentally bump into one of the guys on the street. They’d automatically assume it was for some slut he’d slept with claiming to be pregnant, but even still, he didn’t want them knowing he’d had to buy such a thing. Either way, they’d never let him live it down.

“Oh, my Godsmack,” he breathed short while later.

The Clear Blue digital pregnancy test that lay on his bathroom counter read the one word he hoped it wouldn’t. In bold black lettering, it clearly read “pregnant” in the display window, and Ash felt his face grow pale as the result registered in his brain. It was obvious that he needed to go see his OB/GYN now, just to be on the safe side and find out if this thing really was as accurate as the makers claimed it was. Then he’d be able to figure out how he was going to hide his pregnancy, if he really was pregnant, from the guys while they were on the road. That was going to be easier said than done, and he knew it, but it was better to know for sure than to assume the test was wrong and be unknowingly pregnant on the road.

“Hi, Ashley,” a woman’s voice answered after he’d dialed her number.

“Hey, Rebecca,” he said. Yes, he was on a first-name-basis with his OB/GYN; sue him. “Listen, I need a favor.”

“All right; lay it on me,” Rebecca told him.

“I’ve been waking up sick the past few mornings after a drunken mistake, and I just took a pregnancy test. It came up positive, but since these things aren’t made for men, I wanted to come in and have you confirm it,” Ash said quickly.

“That’s fine by me. C’mon in and I’ll be waiting for you,” she said.

“Thank you so much. I’ve got Warped Tour coming up next week, and I want it confirmed before I leave for that,” he explained.

After ending the phone call, he quickly grabbed his keys and wallet, which he stuffed in his pockets along with his phone, and told his dogs bye again. He was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs about this visit, considering that it was the first one since his days in porn industry that he had to come in because he actually suspected he was pregnant.

Upon arriving at Dr. Rebecca Lane’s office, he saw the OB/GYN waiting by the front desk. Knowing she’d already gotten him checked in since she was waiting on him just as she’d promised to be, he followed her on back to an exam room. Once there, she had him strip down to his boxers before even so much as getting his weight, and he complied immediately. Getting his height and weight was nothing, and they weren’t much different than the last time he’d come in. His height hadn’t changed at all since he was long since done growing, and his weight was only a couple pounds more than he’d thought.

With his height and weight measured and recorded, Ash was asked to hop up on the exam table so she could get his blood pressure. He was completely silent as she pressed the bell of her stethoscope against his arm after wedging it up under the cuff wrapped around it. Moments later, she’d gotten the reading, which wasn’t too bad at one-twenty-six over eighty-two, and recorded it, as well. The only thing left to get was his temperature, which was also normal at ninety-eight-point-six.

Afterward came the more intimate parts of the exam, such as pressing on his lower belly where his womb was. He didn’t mind that as much as he minded her having to press on his chest, which was a bit tender to the t-ouch, but didn’t complain. Rebecca could tell that he was likely pregnant already, and she hadn’t even gotten far enough to warrant an ultrasound, considering that breast tenderness in a woman was a clear sign. If his chest was this tender and he was actually pregnant, that’d be the equivalent of breast tenderness in one of her normal patients, and she knew it. However, she still decided to do an ultrasound while he was here just to be damn sure before she gave him a definitive diagnosis one way or the other.

“I’ll be right back, Ashley. I’m gonna get the ultrasound scanner so we can know for sure,” she told him.

“Sounds good, Rebecca,” he agreed, staying on the exam table. He took a deep breath as he lay there twiddling his thumbs in anticipation.

“All right, pull the waistband of your boxers down just a bit,” Rebecca said when she came back. “Not low enough to flash me, but just above you crotch.”

“I’m pretty sure that if you wanted to be flashed, you’d just ask,” the bassist chuckled.

“Exactly. So, if you are pregnant, have you got any idea who the father is?” she asked curiously. She knew what a man-whore he was reputed to be.

“I know exactly who the father is, if I am,” Ash answered, gasping when she squirted cold gel on his belly.

“Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly. “There’s no way to warm it up, or I would.”

“It’s fine, Rebecca,” he told her. “I knew it was coming; the chill is still a shock, though.”

“All right. Let’s get a good look at what’s going on, shall we?” the doctor asked.

“We shall,” he agreed, watching the screen as she pressed the probe to his belly.

She slid it around for a moment to smear the gel before pressing a bit more firmly, and the image that met their eyes was one they’d both expected. Right where his womb should’ve been, there was a little white blob in a sea of black, and from the almost invisible fluttering she zoomed in on and pointed out to him, he could tell that he was, indeed, pregnant.

Ash clapped a hand over his mouth as he gasped and she told him that, based on what she was seeing, he was no more than three weeks pregnant, at the most. Doing the math in his head, he knew that sounded about right since it’d been exactly three weeks since the night he and Andy had gotten drunk and gone at it like rabid monkeys. Now he knew for sure that he carried the child of his lover, but now the question was…how to hide it while trapped in close quarters for the next two months? He’d be lucky if he could pass off the morning sickness as hangovers, and he knew it.

Rebecca made it clear to him that he shouldn’t have to come back until after Warped Tour was over, but that she wanted him to go to the nearest hospital if he didn’t feel right while touring. He agreed because that was simple enough for him, and he’d get the care he needed, if any were necessary. With the walk-in appointment drawn to a close, she bid him adieu and left him to get dressed again after giving him copies of his ultrasound pictures to take with home and on the road with him.

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he breathed, now sitting behind the wheel of his car. “I have so much shit to do, and what feels like not nearly enough time.”

Dropping his head against the steering wheel, he tried to come up with a plan to hide his pregnancy from the guys while they were on the road, knowing that he couldn’t tell any of them, least of all Andy. He wasn’t even sure if the frontman remembered their drunken tryst, and if he didn’t, he didn’t want to remind him by walking up and saying, “Hey, Andy? Guess what? I’m pregnant, and the baby’s yours”. Yeah, that’d go over just great, especially since none of them knew about his well-hidden secret, to begin with. He decided on his way back home that he had a week to figure something out, so there was no sense in giving himself a migraine trying to plan everything in a day. After all Rome wasn’t built in a day, so why should his plan be?

* * *

A week later, they’d embarked on the beginning of their summer tour before Warped and were at the first stop, which was in Nuremberg, Germany. If he’d wanted to accidentally let the guys in on his secret, he would’ve dropped out of any tours that were overseas, considering that he was scared to Death the flights from one continent to another could harm or kill his baby.

No one but he and Rebecca knew that he was pregnant, though, just like he wanted, so if he’d backed out of anything overseas on such short-notice, suspicions would’ve been raised. He was already having a hard time keeping his morning sickness in check, even with the anti-nausea medication his doctor’d prescribed, along with copious amounts of ginger. The guys were wondering what was going on, as they’d never seen him go near anything with ginger in it, whether it was because he’d never tried the stuff or had and didn’t like it. That, and hiding the fact that he wasn’t drinking, period, was getting hard to hide, as well.

Four days into the tour, in Denmark, he woke up at the ass-crack of dawn with his stomach roiling like a hurricane-tossed sea. As quickly as he could, he kicked his covers off himself and jumped down from his bunk, the landing only making his nausea worse. With a hand clapped over his mouth, Ash made a mad dash for the tiny bathroom, unable to get the door locked before he had to hit his knees. The pain that shot through them from the hard landing was nothing in comparison to that in his ribs.

“Ash? You okay in here?” someone asked.

He was too busy vomiting to even register that he’d woken Jinxx up by accident.

“Holy shit, man,” the multi-instrumentalist breathed, kneeling down next to him. “Dude, how long has this been going on?”

The bassist shook his head, both unable and unwilling to talk.

“You need medical help. I know this isn’t from drinking, and it’s been going on at least ever since the tour started,” Jinxx said.

“Promise me…you won’t…say…anything,” he gasped.

“About what?” Jinxx asked, confused.

“If I…tell you…what’s wrong…you have to…promise to…keep you…mouth shut,” Ash told him, trying to sound as stern as possible.

“All right. Now what’s wrong with you?”

“You’re not gonna believe this, but…I’m pregnant.”

Flabbergasted, the multi-instrumentalist rocked back on his heels. “What? Have you lost your marbles, Ash? Men can’t get pregnant!”

“I’m one of the very few who can,” he said dryly. “I was born with a woman’s reproductive tract, as well as a man’s. I didn’t find out until a few years ago, back when I still worked in the porn industry, when this very thing happened.”

“Holy shit,” he breathed in shock. “Well, who’s the…other father?”

Ash shot him a glare, and it was obvious what he wanted to say but didn’t dare.

“Oh, my Godsmack…” Jinxx’s eyes widened in shock. “When are you gonna tell him?”

“I haven’t the foggiest, if I tell him at all,” he answered honestly. “Hell, I didn’t plan on telling any of you, but I know you; you’d hound me until you got an answer.”

Now that he felt better, the slightly younger man helped him get cleaned up and out to the living area. Knowing he couldn’t have as much caffeine as he used to and that it would help his nausea, he simply requested a glass of ginger ale when he asked if he wanted anything. As he handed the glass to him, Jake stumbled out of the bunk room, his hair a mess and his makeup smeared all over his face.

Taking one look at him, Ash normally would’ve started howling with laughter at his appearance, but couldn’t muster so much as a chuckle at the moment. Jake looked at him like he’d grown an extra head since he didn’t laugh like he normally would’ve, rather than if he’d actually laughed. The guys were all beginning to suspect something was wrong with him, but he didn’t dare tell them. Especially not since finding out he was pregnant, his migraines were getting worse with every passing day, on top of everything else he was going through. The added stress of touring didn’t help.

Since they had several days of shows that he was required to show up for unless he was dying, Ash decided to go back to bed and try to get as much sleep as he could. His head was, once again, pounding like a hooker on pay day, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to play with a migraine like that. The stage lights would be insanely too bright, the music insanely too loud, even with his soundpack, and he’d end up collapsing in a pain-stricken heap on stage if he tried performing with a migraine.

As he settled down to get a few more hours of sleep, he couldn’t help the tears that welled in his eyes for several reasons. The first and foremost was the migraine that was so bad it was making his eyes cross because they couldn’t focus on any one thing for too long without making his head hurt worse. The second was because his hormones were out of control due to the pregnancy. His third reason was because he was so stressed out that, like a woman, he just wanted to cry until he felt better. And his fourth reason that he could come up with off the top of his head was because he was sick of being around Andy when he loved him with every fiber of his being while that love wasn’t being reciprocated.


Later that morning, after CC and Andy finally decided that it was time to rise and shine, the frontman was outside the bus talking to Juliet again. He’d felt himself drifting from her ever since the night he and Ashley had gotten drunk and done Hell only knows what together, but couldn’t bring himself to break her heart. He didn’t even know if he had a chance with the bassist, and didn’t want to give up something good on the off-chance that things between them wouldn’t work out.

He’d never been the type to hurt someone if he could help it, and he wasn’t about to do a one-eighty now. If anything, he’d rather that Juliet got fed up with his drifting from her and broke up with him, because at this point, it wouldn’t bother him in the least. Sure, he’d be upset from losing a companion, someone who’d listen to his bitching and complaints more than the guys would, but other than that…nothing.

By the end of the phone call, she’d realized that he wasn’t consciously paying attention to her, that he was letting his alter ego talk for him again as he lost himself in his thoughts. With a growl of anger, the blonde bottle rocket said the two words he’d been waiting for and hung up on him, drawing a sigh of relief from him. Andy stubbed out his cigarette before boarding the bus again to start getting ready for that night’s show, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders at last. Jake, Jinxx, and CC, who were getting ready, gave him curious looks, and he glared so they wouldn’t ask any questions.

“Where’s Ash?” he asked curiously, taking note of the bassist’s absence once again.

“In his bunk asleep,” Jinxx answered. “Don’t bother him; he hasn’t been getting much sleep. I’ll wake him up in a little bit.”

“Why not just put his makeup on him in his sleep?” Jake suggested.

“If I thought I wouldn’t wake him up doing it, I would,” the multi-instrumentalist said. “Besides, we all know what a perfectionist he is when it comes to his hair, makeup, and war paint.”

“True enough,” Andy agreed. “You sure it’s not because of those damned migraines he keeps getting?”

“I think that’s part of why he hasn’t been sleeping enough,” he answered, nodding. “Shit, it’s later than I thought; I better go get him up.”

The rest of the guys nodded their agreement, going back to doing their hair and makeup before getting dressed while he woke Ash up. They thought nothing of him sleeping whenever he could, especially if he’d been getting migraines out the ass lately. It was only when Jinxx gasped in shock and horror that they knew something was majorly wrong.

Running over to the bunks, he saw the man he loved laying on his side, looking as angelic as ever while asleep…with a pool of blood on the pillow under his head. Gently rolling him over, they saw that the blood was running out of his ear, which couldn’t possibly be good. Being the strongest, Jake and CC managed to get him down out of his bunk while Jinxx ran off the bus like a roadrunner to find their manager, John. It was obvious that that night’s show, and maybe a few over the next few days, would have to be cancelled and that Ash needed to be hospitalized to find out the source of a headache so bad it caused him to bleed out of his ears.

In too much shock to do anything, Andy merely stood there with his jaw on the floor, following his brothers and the man he loved in a daze a few minutes later. The moment the guitarist and drummer carried him into a local ER, he was whisked away by a team of doctors and nurses who spoke surprisingly good English. That was the last time any of them saw him for several hours, and they were all worried sick as they waited in the waiting room. However, none of them were as worried as the frontman.

Notes