Meet me in the guest bedroom at four o’clock. Emily and the kids out for a few hours.
Her heartbeat raced as she read this note. They hadn’t had a chance for that in a long time. She could hardly remember the last time they had had time for it. She thought back. It had been in the guest bedroom, when Emily and the kids were away for the night. That had been at least three months ago. She felt her body respond to his message. Her nipples hardened, her pussy ached, her palms sweated, and always her heartbeat picked up, an increased drum within her breast. Her breath came faster.
She looked at the expensive clock above the doorway. It was currently half three. As soon as she looked at the clock, the front door opened and Elise and Chuck walked through the door. They often walked home together, Zari knew. About five minutes after that, Emily came running down the stairs. She marched into the kitchen – where Zari was cleaning the silverware – and smiled a broad, fake smile. “We’re going to the theater now!” she cried. “Make sure to continue your work while we’re away, p-lease!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Zari said.
Despite disliking the woman, Zari still found it difficult to look her in the eye without feeling guilty. She was mean, and small, and cruel, and hateful, but Zari was still fucking her husband, and had been fucking him for a long time. More than that, Zari still loved her husband, and her husband loved Zari in return. Emily nodded briefly, adjusted her glittering diamond ring, and then turned and paced from the room. About ten minutes later, Emily was pushing the kids out of the house, and the door to the huge mansion slammed behind her. Zari continued with her work, and had just finished the last glass when the front door opened again.
She put everything away and then walked into the reception. Bill walked through the door, that cocky smirk on his face. His eyes went to her legs, which were bare in her maid’s skirt. “Damn,” he sighed, looking up and down her legs. “Just . . . damn.”
“You said that,” Zari said, the glow moving over her, the glow that came every time he looked at her like that. There was something magical, something supernatural in that look and the effect it had on her. She could have been drowning, but if he looked at her like that the water would stop. She could hardly catch her breath when he looked at her life that. She turned away from him, and walked up the stairs. “Are you coming?” she called over her shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I quite like the view from here.”
“Come on,” she replied. “I haven’t tasted you for way too long.”
She heard his footsteps behind her, and then she was off her feet, squealing. He threw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing, and then carried her to the guest bedroom. The bedroom filled with heat as they touched, as though fires burned behind the walls. Three months of repressed lust exploded from each of them, three months of forcing their feelings away. His cock had never felt so hard in her hand, in her mouth, in her pussy. It had never felt so huge. No sooner did she come all over it, then she came again, and again. He sucked her breasts as she came.
They were so caught up in their lust, in the animalistic release of it, that they completely forgot about a condom.
When it was done, they lay in each other’s arms. Zari rested her head on her lover’s chest, and her lover wrapped his arms around her. “That. Was. Incredible.” He laughed, and then kissed her cheek. She smiled at the warm impression left on her skin. His come dripped out of her, down her thigh and onto the sheets, but she didn’t mind.
“It was,” she agreed, gripping his forearm, bringing his close to her. She looked down, and saw her naked black body beside his naked white body, and felt a cool after-pleasure. Her body ached, her pussy was sore, but she was satisfied. She kissed his arm. “We didn’t use a condom,” she muttered.
“Oh, fuck,” he replied.
“I’ll get the morning-after pill, just in case,” she said.
Bill paused for a moment, and then said: “No, don’t.”
“What?” she was unable to keep the shock from her voice. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Would it be so bad if we had a child together?”
His words were crazy, but he said them with a calm tone of voice.
“You’re not thinking,” she said, as though trying to explain a simple fact to a child. “Think, Bill. How the hell could I have your kid? Yes, fine, we’ve spoken about it before, but that was a fantasy. I can’t have your kid. I’m getting the pill. That’s the end of it. Please, don’t say anything else about it.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “It was just a thought—okay.”
She moved further into his arms, wanting to bury herself in him. She often wished she could disappear into Bill, could melt away and simply be with him all the time. Maybe they could run away together to Hawaii, maybe they could live in sun and sand and sea and sex for the rest of their lives. He was only five years older than her; they would have a long time together.
“What are you thinking about?” Bill said, his voice heavy with sleep.
“About things that could never happen,” she smiled. “About a future that could never exist.”
“You’re very philosophical today, Miss King.”
“Whoever said maids couldn’t be philosophical?”
He laughed and then leaned up and over her. He grabbed her breasts and tweaked the nipple. Immediately, it went hard. She let out a moan, and he smiled his cocky smile. When he smiled like that, she found it impossible to be angry with him. Any anger that she’d felt at his suggestion disappeared as he set that smile on her. It was replaced with an intense pleasure that grew the longer he touched her. She reached down and grabbed his cock. Amazingly, it was hard again.
“We might as well make the most of this opportunity,” she said, rubbing the huge length of him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We better.”
In a few moments, they were making love again. Before, it had been rough and hard and violent. Now it was soft, and slow, and tender. He thrust in and out of her slowly, and it was like their love moved around them as they made love, as though it filled the room like a scent and infused their every movement. He looked deep into her eyes. “I love you,” he said, as his cock tickled her sweet spot.
“I love you,” she moaned.
The next morning, when she left her one-bedroom apartment and was driving to the Dunn residence, she passed the pharmacy. She’d planned to stop in here and quickly get the pill. She’d planned to take care of it quickly here. But she didn’t. Instead, she kept driving. She couldn’t explain why.
All she knew was that the idea of taking that pill didn’t appeal to her.
*****
A regular month and a half passed. Regular for Zari and Bill was meeting in secret in the closet or in the guest bedroom as often as they could, pretending that they were just maid and boss when they were in front of the rest of the family, and trying to suppress their feelings that threatened to overwhelm them every second of the day. A month and a half passed, and Zari’s period did not come. She knew that sometimes periods could be a few days early or late, and so at first she did not panic. But after two weeks had passed and no period had arrived, she left the Dunn residence and stopped at the pharmacy she should have stopped at a month and a half earlier.
She bought three pregnancy tests, all different brands, and drove home. Her hands were shaking as she carried the plastic bag up the stairs. The key shook in her hand as she opened the door, and her legs felt like jelly as she walked across the lounge to the bathroom. She tore the packets open, cardboards scattered on the bathroom floor, and sat on the toilet. She held the first test in the bowl, and willed herself to pee.
Come on!she thought. She would have found the image of herself hunched over the toilet with a test in her hand funny if it had not been so nerve-wracking. Come on! Come on! But she couldn’t pee! She thought about all the times in her life when she hadn’t been able to pee but had needed to, all the times in school when she’d had to cross her legs a
nd pray that lunchtime would hurry up, all the cars she’d been in when she’d had to wait for the next service station. It seemed like her whole life she’d needed desperately to pee at one time or another. And now, when she really needed to, she couldn’t!
She waited there for a few minutes – minutes which felt like hours – and then, finally, she peed. She peed on the first stick and laid it on the floor, grabbed the second stick, and then the third. The three sticks were laid side by side, staring up at her threateningly. We hold your future, those arrogant little sticks seemed to say. We can complicate your life more than you can comprehend. Ha-ha!
She paced up and down the bathroom, wringing her hands, legs more jelly-like than ever. It was a wonder she was even able to pace, with her legs as unstable as they were. She paced for what felt like one-thousand goddamn years, and then picked up the sticks. All three of them had the same result: positive. She was pregnant with Bill’s child.
She should have been terrified. She should have cried. She should have been filled with dread. She should have been filled with regret. She should have questioned every decision she’d made over the past two years. She should have remembered the moment where Bill Dunn, her boss, had leaned into kiss her, and she had thought he was hot as hell, and had kissed him back—and she should have hated that moment.
But she didn’t. As she held those tests in her hand, she didn’t feel shame or regret. She found herself smiling. There was life growing inside of her. It was a mad and thrilling thought. There was life in her, right now. Life grew within her belly, and it was hers and Bill’s. Her smile grew wider. That smile told her all she needed to know. She wouldn’t get rid of this child, not for anything, not for anybody. She would have this child.
That left her in a dire situation. How would Bill react when she told him? And how would Emily react when she started showing?
She went to bed that night not expecting to sleep much. Her chest was torn between foreboding and happiness. She could not hate the life that grew within her, but she could see that it was going to make things difficult. She didn’t think she would sleep, but then she thought about names. For some reason, she was sure the child would be a girl. Faith, she thought, smiling into her pillow. I’ll call her Faith.
She woke nine hours later from the most peaceful sleep of her life.
*****
She knew she had to tell Bill. She went into work that Saturday with a naïve grin on her face. Stop smiling, she told herself. You look like somebody who has just won the lottery. Emily isn’t used to you smiling. She’ll sense that something is wrong. A woman like Emily does not want her help smiling! She tried to force the smile away, but it stuck to her face. She kept thinking about the little bundle inside her belly. She was shocked by how excited she was, shocked that she actually wanted the child that grew within her. She had never planned for this; she should have panicked, should have resented.
Emily did not work. She rarely got up before eleven o’clock in the morning. It was Zari’s job to get her children ready for school, to make their lunches and make sure they left in plenty of time to catch the bus. After her children were gone, Emily would come down the stairs dressed as though she was going to a ball. Sometimes she wore sparkly flapper dresses and headbands, with her jewelry clacking as she moved. Zari had never seen such a small woman wearing so much jewelry. She was surprised that she didn’t topple over.
This morning being a Saturday, the kids and Emily did not get up until almost midday. Zari arrived at nine; Bill woke at ten. This gave them two hours in which they could pretend that they were a couple, and that the three people sleeping upstairs were just their tenants. “You look happy,” Bill said, finding her in the living room, vacuuming. He moved close to her so she could hear him over the sound of the vacuum. “Do you want to let me in on the secret?”
He said it so casually, with such lightheartedness, that Zari almost felt bad. He had his confident, cocky smile on his face. His ice-blue eyes were wide open. He never looked more alive than when it was just the two of them. Zari saw him with Emily, and he looked bored and detached. Oh, he wore a smile, but she knew him well, and knew that the smile was fake. Maybe Emily didn’t know it was fake; maybe she did. But Zari knew.
“I don’t want to tell you when I’m vacuuming,” she said, with a small laugh. “I think it will ruin the moment.”
He walked across the room and turned clicked the switch with his foot. He stopped, listening for a few moments, head cocked like a wolf, checking to see if his family was coming down the stairs. When he heard that they were not, he returned to her. She fell into his arms as natural as the sun rose. He held her close to his chest. She could hear his heartbeat pounding against her ear. “Is something wrong?” she whispered.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
“What!” She moved back in his arms and looked up into his face. “How the hell do you . . .” She shrugged. “How?”
He smiled. It was not his usual, cocky smile. It was sad, and reserved. “You never told me that you got the pill, and I never thought to ask. But I realize now that I should have asked. You never did, did you?”
“You know me way too well,” she said in disbelief. “Can you read me that easily?”
“Yes,” he said. “I love you too deeply not to be able to read you, Zari.”
Their voices were lowered, but still Zari cast a look upstairs. What if Emily had her ear to the floor? What if she was listening at this very moment? “I love you, too,” Zari whispered, lowering her voice even more. “You know that. And yes, Bill, I’m pregnant.” She rushed on, afraid that the words wouldn’t come if she stopped to think about it. “I’m keeping it. I can’t even think about not keeping it. I didn’t anticipate that I’d feel like this. I never guessed that I would feel this – what’s the word? – committed. Yeah, that’s it. We didn’t plan it, but I can’t think about getting rid of it. I just can’t.”
“Good,” he said.
“Good? You’re not thinking. There are so many things that can go wrong. I don’t care about hurting Emily. I know that’s a cruel thing for me to say, but it’s the truth. But your children . . . They’re innocent in all of this, Bill.”
He laughed in a strange way, in a way she had never heard him laugh before, and then looked her straight in the eyes. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. That was strange, too. He bit his lip. She had never seen him look so uncertain, not around her. “Zari,” he said, “Chuck and Elise are not my children.”
Before she could react, footsteps sounded on the staircase. Zari knew they were Emily’s footsteps. She was a small, thin woman, but her footsteps were loud and did not match her size at all. Zari jumped across the room and kicked the switch. The vacuum hummed into life, and she had just returned to it, and began sweeping it across the carpet, when the door opened and Emily walked in. Bill had slumped down on the couch and grabbed the first magazine to hand, and now leaned over it, pretending to read. He looked up when his wife walked in.
“Let her vacuum in peace, Bill, p-lease! How is she meant to do a good job with you hovering?”
Bill stood up and wordlessly walked from the room. Emily cast a disdainful look at Zari and followed him, shutting the door behind her.
They are not his children! she thought, in complete awe. How? What?
Her mind blanked. She had never even considered this. It had simply never entered her mind.
Whose are they, then?
*****
Bill pulled on his running shoes, threw on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and left the house and ran toward the woods that bordered their little suburban slice of heaven. He was running away from what he had just told Zari, and all the embarrassment and shame that that brought. It was his big Secret, the Secret he had kept since the week after Elise was born, eleven years ago. He had vowed to himself that he would never tell the Secret, that he would never even think about it, and for nine years that had held up, even when Chuck was born and Emily had to
ld him that he wasn’t Bill’s, either.
But then I met her, he thought, picking up his pace as he left the street. His heavy steps sounded in his ears as he ran. But then I met her, and everything changed.
Zari had slowly, with her love, with her amazing good looks, with everything about her, worn down his resolve. He had thought about tell her the Secret many times over the past two years, but the timing had never seemed right, and he had never had a reason to. But he had a reason now. Yes, a big reason.
She is pregnant!
Even when he thought of it in those simple terms it did not seem real. He would have to tell her, of course. Right now she was most likely wracked with curiosity, hardly able to focus on her work for it. Yes, he would have to tell her. But telling her would mean admitting that he had lived with this, had tolerated it, for over a decade. Worse than that, telling her would make her question why he had initiated things with her to begin with. But she had to know; he loved her too much to keep her in the dark.
He ran through the woods like a man being chased. He knew that if anybody saw him at that moment, they would think he was running from something, and they would be right. He was running from what he had to do. He was running from the responsibility he owed Zari. He could not lie to her; he could not ignore this. It was time to be honest. He returned to the house around half an hour later, panting heavily, drenched in sweat. He went straight to the bathroom and took a shower, and emerged another half an hour later washed and nervous as hell.
He was in the bedroom getting dressed when Emily walked in. She was wearing so much jewelry it hurt to look at her. Nobody had ever told Emily that elegance did not come from draping yourself it tons of jewelry. Nobody ever told her that you could look just as classy if you wore a piece here and there, instead of turning yourself into an ornament. “I’m taking the kids to the movies,” she said. “I don’t suppose you want to come.”
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