Until the End of Time

by Schuster, Melanie

  By now, Renee was completely focused on the man she loved, who was making a declaration so sweet and pure that she was afraid to breathe, afraid to break the precious, delicate bond between them. Andrew looked into her sparkling golden eyes and seemed to sense her hesitation; he kissed her until they were both breathless and wild with passion.

  “Sweet Renee, this is the real thing, baby. You can’t lose me, no matter what. I’m never leaving you for any reason. You are everything in the world that I want and I am yours, only yours. Don’t be afraid of this, baby; all those years we waited were just the beginning of the best that could ever be,” he vowed.

  And she didn’t even have time to wonder how her gossamer sheer gown found itself floating across the room, she only had time to sigh with happiness as they found a primitive, erotic passion that surpassed anything they had yet achieved in making love.

  “I love you, Andy, I love you, I love you,” she wept as they loved. When it was finally over, he held her for hours, stroking her and making plans for the most exquisite wedding they could conceive on short notice. At long last, it was time for their real life to begin.

  ***

  After a night of lovemaking so hot that the memory of it made Renee periodically stop to fan herself and blush, there was even yet something tickling the back of her mind. She managed to rise before Andrew and make him a huge breakfast, which she was happy to feed him in bed, much to his delight. Throwing caution and cholesterol to the wind, she made him light, delectable scrambled eggs, crisp bacon and his favorite indulgence, chocolate chip pancakes. His beautiful eyes lit up when he saw this unexpected pleasure. Renee disapproved of them heartily because all that sugar could do nothing but cause chaos in the body, she felt, but he adored them. Watching him consume this mammoth repast and topping it off with a big glass of orange juice and a cup of Jamaican coffee, Renee breathed a sigh of pure happiness.

  She wore an expression that she knew would be called sappy by anyone who wasn’t as much in love as she was. Besides, Andrew had the same look. But as much as she would have preferred basking in bliss for a few more days, there was work to be done. Andrew was off to the hospital and she to the salon, which her stalwart staff had kept running like clockwork. After a passionate goodbye and a promise to call each other later, she and Andrew went their separate ways. The salon and spa were humming along nicely with their abundance of customers readying themselves for holiday festivities. For the first time in ages, Renee was able to really enjoy her place of business and feel that warm holiday feeling which had been knocked completely out of her. It was that as much as anything that kept bringing her back to one thing. Finally, she stole a moment and closed the door to her private office. She consulted the phone book and then entered the numbers into the touch tone pad on her office phone. It less time than she would have thought possible, she had the information she sought.

  ***

  That evening, she surprised Andrew by meeting him at his office. He was taken aback, but not so much that he didn’t kiss her thoroughly. “To what do I owe this singular pleasure, baby? I thought we were meeting at home in a little while,” he commented. Renee walked back and forth in front of his oak desk and fiddled with the few objects arrayed on the surface. Andrew didn’t mind this at all as he had a chance to enjoy the sight of her long, strong legs in her sexy black boots, and admire the way she looked in a midnight navy Calvin Klein suit. He sprawled on the leather settee and waited for her to answer him. Finally, she cleared her throat and began.

  “Andy, I made a couple of phone calls today and this is what I found out. Dana is being held in the county jail while she’s waiting to be arraigned. They won’t allow her to post bail because of the risk of flight. Since she’s from California and her father is quite wealthy, it seems highly probable to the courts that she’d flee this jurisdiction,” Renee rattled off in a monotone. She stopped and looked amused at herself. “That sounded just like something off television, didn’t it?” She shook her head to gather her thoughts and went on:

  “Here’s the thing ,” she said slowly. “ I think that if I speak to her attorney, it might give him a basis on which to mount her defense. I know what she did was wrong and certainly ill advised, but I know exactly how she felt when she did it. I know how she felt when he did it to her. I know, Andy. And even though she is certainly not one of my favorite people, if there is anything I can do to help her, I want to do it. Will you come with me?”

  By now Andrew was sitting straight up, staring at Renee as if they had just met. He rubbed a hand over his face as if to clear his vision; yes, it was his Renee speaking. Although the words she was saying were a bit beyond his comprehension, it was indeed Renee DeShawn Kemp telling him that she was going to try to help Dana Pierson clear herself of charges of attempted murder.

  “Renee, are you sure you want to do this? What did Yolanda say when you talked to her about it?”

  Renee looked him in the eye with a great deal of satisfaction and informed him that Yolanda didn’t say anything because Renee hadn’t discussed it with Yolanda.

  “I’m talking to you about it because this is ultimately only going to affect us. Somehow I have to put this entire episode into my past and leave it there. I don’t know why, but I feel like telling the truth about what he did to me is the only way that I can. So I’m asking you if you’ll come with me to the jail to talk with Dana and her attorney and see if I can be of some benefit to her defense. Will you?”

  “Renee, darling, you know I would walk over fire for you. But this could get messy,” he warned.

  “I know,” she replied softly.

  “This could get a lot of press coverage.”

  “I know.”

  “You might have to testify in court or at least give a deposition in front of a lot of people,” he persisted.

  “Andy, I know all of that, and I am willing to do it. So that her life is not destroyed, so that she doesn’t have to go to jail. Why should she be locked away for the rest of her life after what he did to her? Who’s to say that there aren’t some other women out there that might come forward if I speak up? Evil doesn’t exist in a vacuum, you know; there could be many other women that he has harmed,” she reminded him.

  Andrew’s eyes shone with admiration. “Damn, you’re wise beyond your years, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, Yolanda told me that,” Renee admitted. “But I was wise enough to fall in love with you and wise enough to know when enough is enough and I am strong enough to do this now. Everybody but Chaka and Patti knows everything now, anyway, so who have I got to hide from?”

  Andrew rose from the settee and hugged her fiercely. “Okay, baby, if you’re sure. But can we have Alan or Andre meet us there? Just to have someone looking after your interests?” Renee gave him a sultry smile of pride and pure happiness.

  “That’s what you’re here for, honey. Always. And they are on the way over there now, so we need to get going.”

  ***

  To say that their holidays were merry was like saying that Bill Gates had a little money; it was to understate the situation to a ludicrous degree. Renee and Andrew had the time of their lives. They spent Christmas Eve with his family and then had a private, romantic and delightful celebration of their own at the house in Indian Village. The next day they drove down to Cleveland to celebrate with her family and make amends to her formidable sisters for keeping secrets. All was forgiven in the light of their unmistakable joy in one another.

  “Girl, girl, girl, if you all don’t stop doing all that kissing the house is going to go up in flames,” Lee Ann said good-naturedly as she found her younger sister in yet another sizzling lip lock with her beloved. “I must say, though, I ain’t mad atcha. In fact, I think I’ll find that husband of mine and see if I can’t teach him some new moves,” she winked as she left them cuddled by the fireplace in the basement of their parents home.

  “She should talk,” Renee groused softly. “At least she gets to sleep in the same
bedroom as her man. I’m going to be half a house away from you all night,” she pouted. Then she raised her eyes seductively at Andrew and suggested that he might make a late night call on her. Even though she looked sexy, sweet and delicious, Andrew laughed in her face.

  “Your mama still got that gun? You must be crazy, baby. We’re leaving tomorrow morning and if you want, we can stop at a hotel, but if you think I’m sneaking around in your mother’s house, you have lost your mind. I love you baby, but I want to live,” he said, laughing.

  “Speaking of living, I hear Donovan Bailey is getting out of the hospital in a few days,” Renee remarked. “And there won’t be any charges pressed against his wife, because he can’t remember a thing about the attack…he says.”

  As a result of the shooting and its aftermath, a myriad of information about Donovan Bailey came out in the media, none of it flattering. He went from being the darling of broadcast news to a pariah. In addition to his womanizing, it seems that he was a chronic gambler who had a taste for cocaine and under-aged girls. The beauty part was that none of the information came from The Deveraux Group; it appeared that there were tongues all over Europe which were more than happy to spread gossip which had been carefully tamped down for years.

  To Dana’s utter surprise and gratitude, Renee did assist her attorney in staging her defense. And as Renee predicted, several more women came forward with similar tales of molestation from the hands of the creature. Dana had been released on her father’s recognizance and was in all probability going to do community service instead of serving time. Dana had been grateful enough to acknowledge that she had come to Detroit to take one more swing at Andrew, something she recognized back in the summer was a losing cause. With nothing but candor and admiration in her eyes, she confessed to Renee.

  “I know I was an absolute snot to you and you had no reason in the world to help me, but I’m so grateful that you did. And you know Andrew never looked at me twice. Not even once if you must know. It was all me, throwing myself at him because I was so tired of being on the road,” she said ingenuously.

  This conversation had come about a week before Christmas in the offices of Dana’s lawyer. The plush Bloomfield Hills office was the perfect setting for Dana who was so relieved to be away from the County jail that she fairly shimmered with pleasure. As Renee now recalled, before she could say anything, the door had opened and the attorney Dana’s father retained to defend her entered the room. Dana’s eyes, for once not covered with her gray contact lenses, sparkled like brown jewels as she looked into the smiling, handsome face of David Baptiste.

  Renee smiled to herself when she saw the way he was looking at his client. He was about 6 feet tall, with prematurely silver hair and moustache and he was utterly charming. As well as being charmed by Dana from the looks of things. Renee sighed happily, remembering everything that had transpired that day. Andrew nudged her and asked what she was thinking about.

  “About Dana and David Baptiste, about Yolanda, our families, about you, about our future, just everything,” she said softly. She looked into the face that she would never, ever get tired of seeing and kissed him sweet and hot. “I love you, Andrew, more than anyone or anything in the world. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, or will ever happen to me. With the exception of our babies. I hope we have lots and lots,” she sighed.

  Andrew held Renee as closely and as tightly as he could for a long, long moment. “We’ll have as many as you want, baby. As soon as you want them,” he promised. What promised to be an extremely passionate kiss was cut very short by a disembodied voice from beyond.

  “You can try to make a baby in here if you want to…don’t forget I still have my gun,” intoned Pearlie Mae.

  Between peals of laughter, Renee informed Andrew that her mother also listened at keyholes and was known to pick up the extension on private telephone calls. “Are you sure you still want to marry me? It’s not too late to back out, you know.”

  “Renee, it was too late for me the day I laid my prying eyes on you in my sister’s dorm room. This, my sweet baby, was meant to be. We’ve always belonged together and we always will,” he vowed. Then he smiled broadly and shouted up the stairs, “Is that okay with you, Mom?”

  In a voice of perfect poise and dignity she answered. “Why yes, dear, it certainly is.”

  Epilogue

  “Andy, honey, I’m fine. But if you don’t get my mother out of here it’s going to be a different story,” Renee said sweetly.

  Andrew escorted his indomitable mother in law into the waiting area and kissed her soundly on both cheeks. “Okay, Mom, you heard her. And right now she’s the boss, okay?”

  Pearlie May sniffed and tried to look like her feelings were hurt, but she failed miserably. “I just don’t see why my baby doesn’t want me in there while she has my grandchild. It just doesn’t seem right, that’s all.”

  Andy hugged her as he turned her over to her husband for the duration. “Mom, it’s not like this is her first time doing this. This is our second time around, you know.” He was headed back to the delivery suite when Pearlie Mae got her last shot in.

  “But she’s never had twins before. Twins don’t run in our family,” she sniffed. She made it sound like a highly unnatural and undesirable practice, but Andrew was long gone.

  Renee looked absolutely adorable which is an odd thing to say about a woman about to deliver twins. The birth of their daughter a year earlier had gone so smoothly that Renee was a little embarrassed by it. Andrew on the other hand was as proud as could be. As he was happy to tell people, little Andrea Tiyen Cochran shot out of her mother like a football leaving a quarterback’s hands. Of course, he only used this analogy when out of Renee’s range of hearing since she did not appreciate the imagery therein. But the process of having children certainly agreed with her.

  If anything she was even more radiant than the day he married her in a private, secret ceremony on the Isle of Mustique on New Year’s Day. They simply had to be together as soon as possible after Christmas and Andrew made it so. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, even take the pain of birthing away if he could. She laughed sleepily when he told her this.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. What’s a little pain...well, a lot of pain when you get a beautiful baby to take home? Besides, it’ll give me something to hold against them when they’re obnoxious teenagers,” she yawned.

  And they had already made a truly beautiful baby. Little Andie, named after his twin sister Benita Andrea, was a chocolate beauty who was the image of her mother right down to the golden eyes and the stubborn streak. Andrew stroked Renee’s huge, tight belly as they waited for the new babies to make their appearance. The sex of these babies was a mystery, like Andie’s had been, but Andrew felt sure they were boys. Not that he cared. He just wanted healthy babies and a happy, healthy wife and he would feel more than blessed, which he was. In what seemed an indecently short time, it was all over and Andrew was staggering out to the waiting room where his father-in-law dozed with Big Benny, Martha and a few other family members. Pearlie, however, was on full alert.

  “Well? How is my baby? And her babies? Were they boys or girls? And is everything all right?” she demanded.

  “Everything went wonderfully well. My wife is an amazing woman. She’s perfect and the babies are perfect. Beautiful little girls. And Mom, you were right about twins not running in your family. It seems as though someone was hiding from us for nine months. She had triplets,” he said proudly. For the first time in recorded history, Pearlie Mae Kemp was speechless.

 

 

 
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share