Arousing Her

by Tia Siren

  As I gave myself to sleep, I prayed that sense of solidarity we had found today would persist through the news of my pregnancy.

  Chapter 9

  I woke up the next morning, only feeling slightly ill, and was perturbed to find a voice mail waiting on my phone. I assumed it was from Jesse and immediately set it to play.

  To my surprise, it was from Mr. Davis, my boss at the restaurant. He was informing me that I did not need to come in today either. His tone was strange, secretive yet somehow excited, and it worried me somehow. I hoped he wasn’t going to fire me because of my behavior over the past few days.

  Confused but not necessarily upset, I tiptoed down the stairs and was glad to see that Bill was still fast asleep in the living room. Quietly as I could, I went about making myself breakfast while my mind raced with thoughts about the conundrum in front of me. There were so many questions in my mind, not only about my brother’s reaction but also about every other aspect of being pregnant. It was all too much and too overwhelming.

  Minutes later, I found myself seated at the table, ready to enjoy a delicious meal. As a companion, I pulled out my phone and began to browse articles on pregnancy and motherhood. I felt slightly ridiculous reading those, but to feel ridiculous was better than to feel ashamed—which was how I felt when I started reading the articles on abortion.

  In all honesty, I did not want to give up the baby. I’d always wanted to be a mother. I loved taking care of people, which was why I chose nursing as my profession. It was also, what made me a good waitress and what enabled me to put up with my brother for so long. Though I was far from perfect, I at least thought I was sensible and patient enough to deal with a baby. I thought I could add something beautiful to this broken world.

  The biggest issue, however, was the money. It was always the money in this household. Bill and I could barely afford ourselves, let alone another mouth to feed. His new job would help, but he had lost so many in the past five years that I couldn’t rely on him for stability. I realized with a pang that I would also have to give up my classes. There was no way I could study to be a nurse, work and raise a baby.

  It all, I realized, depended on Jesse. He had said he would man up and do what was right, but I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. It could mean any number of things: splitting the abortion with me, sending checks once a month, staying with me as a couple. It could even mean…

  No. I stopped myself. The possibility was too good to even to think about, and I knew that if I allowed myself to dream that way and it didn’t happen, my heart would break. And my heart needed to stay strong.

  For the baby.

  Just then, as I was forcing myself to push that beautiful, scary thought out of my mind, there was a knock on the door.

  “Shhhh!” I hissed irately, annoyed at whoever was showing up at this ungodly hour, and looked at the microwave clock. It read eleven in the morning.

  Oops. Good thing Mr. Davis had called and freed me from work today.

  Hustling to the door while also being careful not to wake my brother, I peered through the peephole. Outside, with a bundle flowers and looking extremely nervous, was Jesse.

  In an instant, my heart seemed to turn into a bird and flutter up through my chest.

  “Hi,” I whispered as I opened the door to let him in.

  My lips pulled up into a smile at the sight of him, and, as quietly as I could, I threw myself into a long, comforting embrace. Jesse kissed me and then shuffled inside practically carrying me.

  “Good morning, Mary,” he said. “You look beautiful today.”

  I was pretty sure I still had pizza grease on my face, and my hair was not even brushed, but I could still tell he was honest. It made me chuckle as he geared up to continue.

  “I’m sorry for running off—”

  “Shhh,” I interrupted. “Bill is still asleep.”

  “Okay,” he said, whispering this time. “I’m sorry for running off like that yesterday. I needed to think, and there were a couple of really important things I wanted to do.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, completely meaning it. “It’s a lot to take in, and I ended up having a great day with Bill.”

  He fumbled for something in his pocket. “I’m glad, and yes, it was a lot to take in. However, we’re not done yet. I have one more thing for you to take in.”

  With that, he placed the flowers on the table and sank to his knees.

  “What do you—oh my God, Jesse!”

  He smiled at the surprise on my face and opened a small jewelry box containing an incredible diamond ring. He paused a moment, as if gathering up his courage, then, at last, he asked, “Mary Taft, will you marry me?”

  I felt the ground wobble beneath me as if God had taken the fabric of the Earth and given it a shake just for fun. Tears brimmed in my eyes as overwhelming happiness filled me. My heart got lodged in my throat. It felt so big I had trouble responding, which caused great fear to be born in Jesse’s eyes.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I thought this is what you wanted—”

  In his fear, I found a laugh. And my voice.

  “I do. I do!” I cried. “Oh my God, Jesse. I would love to marry you.”

  With that, he slipped the ring upon my finger and leaped to his feet. He scooped me up in a tremendous embrace and twirled me around the room.

  Tears leaked from my eyes, and my smile was so broad it almost hurt. Unable to help myself, I squealed with joy, and that was, I assumed, what finally woke Bill up.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked, stumbling from the living room couch and blinking blearily at us. As soon as his eyes cleared, I saw them focus on the flowers on the table, the ring on my finger, and the smiles on both my and Jesse’s face.

  “He…he proposed?” he growled, glowering at me.

  “C’mon, Bill,” interjected Jesse, jumping between us. “I love your sister, and—”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” he hissed and shoved right past Jesse as if he were not even there as he continued to fix his petrifying gaze only on me.

  “Well…” I said, far too timidly, “as Jesse said, we love each other, and…” I took a steadying breath, and said, “Bill, I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” he erupted, outraged. His voice lost its menacing growl and became a full-out bellow of anger. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You’re going to have his baby? That’s it then, Mary, your life is over. You’re selling your soul to the likes of him—”

  “No, Bill!” I cried, finding my courage. “I am getting a life. A new one, because since the day you got arrested my life has been over, too. You’re not the only one who’s suffered.”

  “Do you know what he did to me?” my brother raged. His face was crimson, the veins in his forehead throbbing. “That good-for-nothing coward ran away and left me in the dust.”

  “She knows, Bill,” said Jesse quietly. “I told her everything.”

  He seemed to swell up like a frog, panting with rage and anger. “That just makes you even more of a stupid cunt,” he thundered. “He’ll leave you, too, Mary! He’ll use you, then toss you aside like the cock-sucking whore you are.”

  “Don’t you talk to her that way,” Jesse growled, his voice low and menacing.

  “But that’s what she is. Didn’t want to use the condom, huh, sweetie? What, you like the feel of him too much? You slut! You bimbo! You skank! You cock sucker—”

  Boom!

  Jesse’s fist connected with Bill’s jaw sending him a good three feet through the air before collapsing into a heap on the floor. I gaped at Jesse in horror and then leaped in front of him before he could attack my brother again. All of a sudden those massive, NFL muscles didn’t seem sexy. They seemed menacing and powerful.

  Bill blinked at us, clutching a bleeding lip. He was no longer shouting, but when he spoke, his voice was venomous and worse than ever before. “If you marry him, Mary,” he snarled, his mouth dripping with blood and tears of range, “then I
swear to God we’re not brother and sister anymore. I swear to God.”

  As he staggered to his feet, I made to help him, but he swiped his hand at me like a snake, knocking mine away. Still seething, he staggered up the stairs and into his room. The door, like a guillotine striking wood, slammed down behind him.

  The silence that followed echoed inside the newly formed cavity of my heart. I turned to Jesse, who was breathing heavily as if he had just run a marathon.

  “I’m sorry, Jesse,” I murmured as I approached him. My hand cupped his cheek, and I gave him a kiss. Then, after I’d pulled away, I took his hand in mine and placed the engagement ring in his palm.

  He gazed at me in horror.

  “Does…does that mean you’re saying no?”

  “No,” I said, closing his fingers around the ring. “It just means not yet. This will only work if Bill is okay with it. It’ll only work if we’re in it together, as a family.”

  He seemed hurt and confused as he asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to talk to him.”

  I turned to go up the stairs, but Jesse grabbed my hand.

  “Wait,” he said. “He was pretty upset. Shouldn’t you let him calm down or something?”

  He had a point. I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. My heart gave an impatient throb letting me know I was dawdling when I shouldn’t be.

  “No,” I said. “Something tells me the best time to talk to him is now.”

  Taking a deep breath, Jesse released me and watched as I made my way up the stairs.

  Bill’s door was closed. Insistently, I knocked and awaited his reply.

  Nothing.

  I knocked louder and faster, but still, nothing happened.

  “Bill?” I called, but there was no response. “Bill!” I yelled it this time. For some reason, my heart began to race. I continued to call his name and hammer on the door, but when still nothing happened, I disregarded his need for privacy and seized the knob to wrench the door open.

  Due to my weekly cleaning schedule, I knew Bill’s room by heart. To the left of the door was a small bookshelf, filled with mostly comics, knickknacks, and several football trophies. To the right of the door was the crumpled heap of wrinkled sheets he called a bed. The bulk of the room, however, was dedicated to exercise equipment, most of which he never used. There was a treadmill, a bench press, a mat surrounded by dumbbell weights, and attached to the far wall, hanging from a metal band installed by my father years ago, he had a long, thick exercise rope.

  Hanging from this rope—legs twitching, eyes bulging—was my brother.

  “Jesse!” I screamed. “Jesse! Oh God, come here! Now!”

  “What is it? What is it?” he cried from the stairs, but I was too horrified to respond. Moments later, Jesse burst into Bill’s room and saw my brother’s dangling body. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered as he dashed right to him.

  Seizing him about the waist, Jesse lifted Bill up so that the rope was no longer putting pressure on his arteries. “Find something to cut the rope!” he roared, as my brother’s skin grew blue. “Hurry!”

  I looked around the room, but my brain refused to work. It felt like an oiled ball, left to spin round and round in tumultuous water.

  “Damn it, Mary! Hurry up!” cried Jesse, finally sobering me up.

  “Right! Right!” I stammered and dashed down the stairs. I flung open the second drawer on our kitchen counter and retrieved a pair of scissors. Holding them tightly in my trembling hands, I bolted back to Bill’s room. “Here!” I cried, brandishing the scissors in the air.

  “Cut! Cut!” Jesse ordered, swinging my brother’s body so that the back of the rope was to me.

  Blinking tears from my eyes, I rushed to him and began hacking away at the rope with the scissors. It was a dastardly, devilish thing meant for taking weight and strain, and it took me about thirty seconds to cut the fucking thing through.

  Then, at last, my brother was free.

  Bill sagged to the floor, clutching at his neck, ripping away at the ropes that were still there like one would claw away a snake. His eyes watered as the skin beneath the rope grew purple and bruised. He toppled onto his side, gasping and retching. I flew to him, placing my hands on him, holding him, comforting him.

  “What were you thinking?” I sobbed, and squeezed his hands, his arms, as if checking to see that he was real. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  But he did not answer. Instead, he pressed himself against me and wept.

  Chapter 10

  Six hours later, I found myself sitting on a hard, plastic chair outside a curtained room in the emergency ward. My brother’s neck was bruised, but luckily, there was no permanent damage. The doctors weren’t holding him here because of his physical injuries, but because of his mental ones.

  My brother, Bill Taft, local football legend, prom king, and possibly the most popular man of his graduating class, was on Suicide Watch.

  How on Earth did it come to this?

  Guilt overtook me, and for the umpteenth time, tears streamed from my eyes. I held my hands to my face, and then, in a fit of impotence and frustration, I slammed them against the plastic seat.

  “What is it, Mary?” Jesse asked, taking my hands in his before I could slam them against the chair again. “What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong? I wanted to scream. What’s wrong? Everything, you idiot!

  But instead, my voice came out as barely a whisper: “It’s all my fault.”

  “No,” he murmured. “Don’t say that. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is!” I snapped. “All of it. If we hadn’t gotten together, if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, none of this would’ve happened. Everything would’ve stayed normal.”

  “Was it normal, though?” he asked quietly. “Think of it, you and your brother, before I arrived. Was any of that normal? Was any of it good?”

  I inhaled deeply, trying to fight back my tears. “Some of it, maybe…there were moments…” Frustrated, I groaned and added, “It might not have been good, but it was never so bad he had a rope around his neck.”

  Jesse exhaled and looked deep into my eyes. When he spoke, his tone was firm, but kind. “Your brother has been walking closer and closer to the edge of a cliff for years. Just because you were standing beside him when he fell does not make it your fault. In fact, I bet he only made it this far because of you. This is not your fault. You hear me?”

  Swallowing a sob, I nodded and threw myself into his arms. He held me while I cried until I could cry no more. Sometime during my wallowing, I felt his hand worm its way gently under my arm to cup my tummy.

  “If it’s the last thing I do,” he said, “I will find a way to make this baby’s life amazing.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  Resting my head on his shoulder, I drifted off into a weary, troubled sleep. When I awoke, I found myself in Jesse’s hotel room. He had removed my shoes, but I was otherwise clothed, lying in his bed.

  “Jesse?” I asked, blinking and looking around.

  “Right here,” he replied from the little kitchen in the hotel room. He approached with two steaming mugs in his hands. “Would you like some tea?” he asked, gently holding one of the mugs in my direction. “I double checked. This one is okay for pregnant women.”

  I nodded and gratefully took the cup from him. Careful not to spill any, I wriggled my way into a sitting position on the bed and took my first scalding sip. Though it was hot, it was sweet and soothing—his gesture just as much as the tea.

  He sat down beside me and said, “I am so sorry to have put you through all of this.”

  “Jesse,” I started, “you have been nothing but a comfort since you entered—or, reentered—my life. There’s absolutely nothing to apologize.”

  We kissed and sipped our tea in silence. After several moments, he placed his mug down and turned to face me.

  “You, my dear, look like someone who could use a massage,” he
said.

  “Oh,” I murmured, embarrassed. “You don’t need too. I wouldn’t want a trouble you—”

  He silenced me with a kiss.

  “No trouble,” he said. “None at all. Now roll on your back.”

  After carefully placing my mug down on the end table, I obeyed. Gently, Jesse mounted me, placing his knees on either side of my butt. Mindful of the fabric on my shirt, he lifted it up and over my shoulders so that my back was exposed to him and, in a single motion, he unhooked my bra. The sense of relief and relaxation this brought was immediate.

  Then his warm hands began massaging my back.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” I whispered, overcome with soft, luxurious pleasure.

  He chuckled. “When you train as much as I do, you learn how to treat tired muscles. Now, let’s find out where you carry your stress.”

  His fingertips traced the outline of my muscles. They caressed my shoulder blades, flowed down the valley of my spine, and pressed on either side of my love handles. At last, his thumb pressed down, right over the spot at the middle of my back where my bra strap sits.

  “Ahhh,” I gasped, without even realizing it. I sensed Jesse smiling as he kissed the back of my neck.

  “Right there,” Jesse said as he massaged beneath my shoulder blades. “Right there is where your stress is. It’s because of your tits, you know. Those nice, big, lovely tits.”

  I smiled into the pillow and wiggled a bit so he could sense my breasts moving beneath me. Typically, I felt uncomfortable when guys talked about tits and pussies, but with Jesse, it was all okay. When he said those things, I could tell it was because he loved not just my body but me as well.

  My stress, terrible as it was, began to slowly melt beneath Jesse’s expert touch. Soon I was entirely sprawled across the bed, my arms and legs out, my back naked before him. He did not neglect any of me. When he was finished with my back, he moved on to my arms, rubbing my shoulders and biceps, even down to my hands. Then, he went to my neck. I felt both his hands wrap around the back of my neck, just under my hairline. His power was evident, and his hands huge. If he’d wanted to, he could have strangled me in an instant, but I was not afraid. I was comfortable. So, so comfortable.