by S. C. Adams
He pauses, and I can’t help but look over at him. He locks eyes with me.
“I’m falling in love with you, Claire.”
My eyes go wide, and I am utterly speechless. I can’t believe he just said that. That is not the talk I was expecting. With everything that’s gone on recently, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to process it all.
I know he’s expecting an answer, but there’s nothing I can say. Well, really there’s plenty I can say, but nothing I can form into words. I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him there’s the possibility he’s a father again. I want to tell him that I have feelings for him too. I want to tell him that I want to be with him. But I can’t.
“I need some time to process this.”
I can see the disappointment in his eyes, and he nods. Then he gets up and shows himself out. I close the door behind him and lean against the door with my forehead just below the peephole. I watched the color and hope leech from him, and inside I just feel broken.
My eyes start to tear up, and I hear him slowly walk down the hall. The tears slide to the tip of my nose and drip down onto the carpet. I lightly smack the door in frustration, then knock my head against it.
“I’m pregnant.”
15
Alex
I know Phil said that once I heard a noI could be free to move on to bigger and better things. But after hearing what was effectively a no, I can’t bring myself to move anywhere at all. I hardly even want to go downstairs to get a cup of coffee. Imelda has been a big help this week, and I can’t thank her enough. She’s kept Sadie happy, fed, and entertained. Really that’s all I can hope for.
I start to think that maybe I should never have joined that online-dating app. That maybe I shouldn’t have brought Claire to my home, any of the times I did. I shouldn’t have let her so close to me and Sadie.
I went into something I wasn’t ready for. I’d told Phil I wasn’t ready for it, but he urged me to go for it. I guess I should be angry at him. He was just trying to help. And I certainly can’t be upset with Sadie; she was just an innocent bystander in this whole thing.
How Claire had looked at me when I told her I was falling for her felt like a thousand knives stabbing into my guts and twisting. I was hoping for something more than just being shoved out. I would have settled for a silent hug. That would have been thousands of times better than what I got.
The second I left her apartment and got in my car, I couldn’t stop the tears. I sat there for far too long watching the tears drip onto my lap before heading home. Once I got home, I hugged my little girl and sat in the living room watching a movie with her. But all I could think about was Claire.
My mother calls, breaking me away from this fog. I answer the phone and listen to her talk about something meaningless. She says that she will be by in an hour to pick up Sadie, then talks about something else that I’m not paying attention to. Hopefully, she doesn’t realize I’m not paying attention. Granted, she’s my mother. Of course she knows.
I get myself up off the bed and down into the living room where Imelda is singing a song with Sadie. I tell them that my mother will arrive soon and that Sadie needs to get ready for her day with Grandma. Sadie quickly bounds up the stairs to get herself ready.
I plop down on the couch, and Imelda looks over at me.
“¡Señor! ¡Ay, dios mio!” She dramatically shields her eyes and turns her head away while tapping her chest with her hand, mimicking a racing heart.
I chuckle and close my knees. I am wearing shorts and boxers underneath my robe, but Imelda enjoys the joke nonetheless. She looks at me with a big smile, then comes to sit next to me on the couch.
“¿Que paso?”
I look at her and try to put the thoughts out of my mind. “Nothing.”
“I know that’s not true. You know that’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve been distant. When you play with Sadie, the smile on your face is as fake as a hooker’s tits.”
I laugh at her description, then shrug again. “There’s just a lot going on.”
“Like what?”
I look at her, and she looks at me.
“I may not be your mother, but I am a mother. I know when you’re lying, señor. I know when you are down and upset. It’s better to just get it out in the open.”
I take a deep breath and start to tell her everything about Claire. I mean everything. I tell her all about the sex, the website, the hookups. She sits there and listens, nodding along with my stories. Then I get to our final meeting and how distant she has been. I tell Imelda much more than I think she really needs to know, but she asked and I apparently need to get it out.
She sits there and nods for a while, pondering everything I said. She looks at me and pats my shoulder. “You love her, don’t you?”
I nod.
“And you told her?”
I nod again, looking down at my hands in my lap.
“And she just said she had stuff to figure out?”
Again, a nod is all I can muster.
“Give her time. She’ll come around, and when she’s ready, you best be too. You can’t have her ready to give some big speech about love to you looking like a bum.” She motions to me, all of me.
I rub my hand through my disheveled hair and chuckle. “Thank you, Imelda.”
“Now go take a shower. Reinita will go out with abuela for the day. Go find your friend Filipe.”
Imelda never calls Phil, “Phil.” She calls him “Filipe,” which Phil has taken as a term of endearment. I give her a big hug and head upstairs to take a shower.
While in the hot water, I hear a knock on the door. Then I hear Sadie run downstairs to greet her grandmother. Imelda and my mother talk to each other for a short while, and then I hear the door close.
There are footsteps coming up the stairs. I listen to Imelda go into Sadie’s room and do some cleaning. Then, after a while, I get out of the shower and try to find something nice to wear. I’m going to listen to Imelda and go out for some drinks or something with Phil.
I decide on a dark green button-up, which I only button halfway up. I have to look good after all, and I’ve been told I have a nice chest. Then I grab a pair of dark jeans. I don’t own many pairs of jeans and I don’t really get to wear them often, but tonight I feel I should. I trot downstairs, and Imelda is down there putting some laundry in the washer.
She gives me a hug and tells me that she’ll be back late. I tell her that I don’t expect to be back until the wee hours of the morning. She agrees that that might be a good idea, and then she leaves. I stand in the kitchen, leaning against the island and staring down at my phone sitting on the counter.
I really want to call Claire, but Imelda said I should wait. She hasn’t steered me wrong before, so I decide to listen and shove my phone in my pocket. I head over to the small coat closet by the front door and find a light leather jacket. I throw it over my shoulder, grab my keys, and open the front door.
Standing there on my stoop, her hand up in a fist poised to knock, is Claire. She looks gorgeous with her flowing locks of chocolate hair and deep coffee eyes that you could get lost in if you aren’t careful. She’s dressed simply, but each piece of clothing hugs her curves perfectly. She has a short-sleeved shirt with a flowy overshirt wrapped around her shoulders, and a pair of jeans that leaves little to the imagination.
And now, she is frozen and staring at me like a deer in the headlights.
“Claire?”
“Is now a good time to talk?”
I stand there, just as frozen, with my hand still on the door. Then I nod and step back to let her in. She walks past me timidly and heads to the living room. I close the door and stare at it for a second, gathering my thoughts. I take a deep breath and head to the living room after her.
We sit on opposite ends of the couch, turned to face each other. She is picking at the edges of her sleeves, clearly nervous. I start to feel sick. If
she is this nervous, it can’t be good news for me.
“Alex, I’ve really enjoyed our time together these past few weeks.”
I nod, though it’s not what I want to hear. No conversation that ends well starts with something like that.
“I know it took a lot for you to tell me that you’re falling for me. And I admire that courage.”
I glance up at her, wanting so badly for this conversation to just end with an “I love you too” so we can go on with our day.
“That courage actually spurred me to come here today to talk with you.”
I sit a little straighter. Her demeanor has changed. There is the semblance of a nervous smile twitching at the edges of her lips. That is not a sign of a bad conversation—quite the opposite.
“On Sunday after I left, I went home and did a lot of thinking. I know that I left rather quickly, and I’m sure that upset you. I’m sorry for that, but there was a lot on my mind at the time.”
I watch her nervously looking around, trying not to make eye contact with me out of fear that she won’t be able to complete her sentences.
“I uh… I had a suspicion… So, I…”
She pauses, and I can hear my heart thumping right up against my ear drums. I’m kind of worried but in a different way now.
“I took a test.” She smiles nervously but still doesn’t dare make eye contact.
Test? What kind of test? Like something to do with parties? Do party planners have a certification test like electricians and such? What was she suspicious about that needed a—
Oh…
“I’m pregnant.”
My heart stops, my eyes go blank, and I can’t express anything. There’s nothing there. Her words echo in my head over and over again. It tries to sink in, but I must have heard her wrong. That can’t be.
“I haven’t slept with anyone other than you while we’ve been, um… doing our thing. So, it’s yours.”
The words echo and echo. They ring through my ears, and I don’t know what to do.
She keeps talking, but I don’t know what she’s saying. I can hear the sounds of her voice, but I can’t comprehend any syllables or words. To me it sounds like white noise. Like when you’re sitting in the woods and just listening to the wind in the leaves, and the brook trickling over the rocks, and the birds chirping away.
After a few minutes, I start to hear her again. I can make out the words now. I still don’t know what to do or say, but I can hear her.
“I never thought about getting pregnant, but it’s happened and it happened to be with you. I don’t know what to do. I know you said you don’t want to expand your family, so I’m left with…”
I immediately lunge across the couch and pull her into a big hug. I know what I said, but that doesn’t matter. I want her to be here, to wake up next to me, to play with Sadie. I don’t want to see her leave again.
I kiss her deeply, and she seems surprised by the kiss. I kiss her again, and I can feel her cheeks getting warm and a tear sliding down her cheek. I can feel her body tremble against my chest, and I just want to hold her close.
Our lips meet again and again until I manage to bring the words I have to the surface.
“I love you, Claire. I don’t care what I said then. This is something that involves both of us, and I want to be here for you. We will get through it all together.”
I kiss her again and hold her hand in mine. She grips my hand tight and nuzzles her forehead into my neck, letting the tears fall down her cheeks. I rock slowly and stroke her hair. Then I kiss her head and gently pat her on the back.
“You won’t be alone. If you’ll have me, I want you to stay, and together we can care for our child.”
I kiss her head again, and she wraps her other arm around me, holding tight.
“It hurts that you didn’t tell me earlier, but that’s okay. You said you needed time. That’s more than fair.”
We sit together for quite a while. On the one hand, I don’t expect her to respond to me yet. On the other I want her to tell me what I want to hear. We hug and kiss again. She pulls back and wipes her cheeks.
“I love you too, Alex.”
I smile and nervously chuckle before embracing her again. We sit there holding each other for quite a while. We whisper little “I love you”s again and again. Then we kiss each other more passionately than ever before.
The second our lips meet, it’s like kissing each other for the first time. There’s an immense spark of passion. Our tongues slide together and embrace. I grab her ass firmly and pull her onto my lap. She moves with ease until she is straddling me with a smile in her kiss.
I slide my hand up her back and neck, entwining my fingers with her hair and holding her close against my body. She starts rocking her hips against my lap, waking up the beast within.
She caresses my bare chest and slides her hands down to unbutton the front of my shirt. I let her take her time; I already have a few shirts to take to the tailor for new buttons. I bring my free hand around to her stomach and hold it there for a few seconds.
She stops kissing me and places both her hands over mine. I look down at our hands with a smile, and she leans in, touching her forehead to mine. I keep my hand steady and gently caress her with my thumb. She sighs happily.
I kiss her again and slide my hand up her shirt so that our skin is touching. Her skin is soft and warm. I caress her belly softly, then slide my hand farther up until the tips of my fingers are touching her bra. She pulls my head close, shoving my face between her breasts.
I breathe in deeply and inch my hand up to caress her breast. I rub my thumb lightly right where her nipple is beneath the fabric. She moans softly, so I bring my hands behind her to unclasp her bra. I pull it away and throw it to the floor.
My hands find their way to her breasts, and I caress her bosom gently at first. I roll my thumbs around her nipples, making her sigh happily. Then I pull her shirt up over her head and toss it away as well. I gaze upon her plump bosom and really take in the sight. She caresses my head, and I bring my lips to one of her perky nipples.
I suckle her nipple gently and roll it playfully between my lips. I grasp her other breast with my hand and firmly dig my fingertips into her flesh. When she moans again, I bring my lips to the skin above her areola and gently bite. Her moan turns into a shocked gasp, but not in a bad way. I keep my teeth on her skin and press deeper so that my teeth and my fingers are holding each breast equally.
She makes a faint sound of pain, and I stop. I look down at the bite mark on her breast and kiss it gently. Then I kiss each breast in turn, swirling my tongue around her nipples. She moans softly again, and I bring my hands up to grab her breasts. I plant a kiss on her chest, then the very bottom of her throat.
A soft moan escapes her lips and I kiss her neck, slowly rising until I plant a tiny peck on her chin. She looks down at me, and we kiss again. I buck under her, and she rocks against me. My hands hold firm to her breasts as our bodies writhe together.
I keep one hand fixed in position and slide the other around to her back. Then I caress down her body until my hand is just above her waistband. I slip my fingers underneath her jeans and panties and slide them down to hold her ass. We kiss again with a shared sigh of pleasure.
She has my shirt undone and pulls it away from me, tossing it somewhere behind. She places her hands on the zipper of my jeans and slowly pulls it down until she can reach her hand inside to caress my rather hard cock. I let out a slight moan, then bring her head close to me so that I can whisper in her ear.
“Get on your knees,” I whisper in the most commanding voice I can.
She seems a little taken aback but slinks off my lap nonetheless and kneels before me. I undo my pants enough to make the comfortable and reveal my cock from beneath by boxers. I stroke it once to make it stand on end for her. Her eyes are drawn to it and stuck on my shaft. I widen my knees to allow her access.
She pounces like a feral cat, her mouth open and ready to
accept me. I gasp in pleasure as she sucks the tip of my cock between her lips. She swirls her tongue around and around, and I place my hand on the back of her head, more out of habit I guess than actual control.
Her tongue feels amazing on my cock, wrapping around it and stroking up and down the shaft. She places her hand at the base of my cock and begins to stroke it firmly. At that point, I grab hold of a fistful of her hair to control the bobbing of her head. I can feel her melting in my grasp.
I force her down, then up, again and again. She strokes my cock as I bob her head, and I can feel wave after wave of pleasure coursing through my body. Her mouth doesn’t go all the way down my cock, but I don’t care. Just the feeling of her tongue, her lips against my shaft, is amazing.
She moans softly around my cock. I bob her head a bit faster, and she tightens her grip. Waves of pleasure course through me, and it’s almost too much. I stop her abruptly by pulling her hair back. She moans, her head getting pulled away with a bit of saliva dripping down her chin.
I smirk and force her to look me in the eye. “So, we have the entire house to ourselves. Any fantasies?”
She laughs. I watch her glance over at the kitchen. We share a laugh, and I release her. I nod toward the kitchen, and she stands and saunters away. When she’s at arm’s length, I reach out and smack her firmly on the ass. She jumps with a shocked grin, and I grin back.
As she walks toward the kitchen, she steps out of her jeans and panties. Then she turns around and leans against the island, her body fully nude for my pleasure. I stand and turn to gaze at her magnificent glory. I drop my pants and boxers before walking over to her.
I approach and let my hands fall against her hips. I caress her skin from her lower thigh all the way up her side. She shivers and goose bumps rise on her skin as my fingertips graze her ever so gently. My hands come up around her breasts to her cheeks, and I pull her into another loving kiss. Then I trace down her arms to her wrists and grab them firmly.
I twist her around so she is facing the counter and slam her palms on the countertop. She keeps her palms flat and widens her stance, hefting her breasts up onto the cold tile and lifting herself up on her toes.
