by Pamela Morsi
He ran one finger lingeringly down the length of her jaw and then traced the shape of her lower lip with his thumb.
Felicite retrieved the damp cloth and sighed heavily. "Please, Jean Baptiste, I am very busy."
She immediately recommenced her scrubbing and her husband stared at her in disbelief. Hadn't Madame Landry promised him something entirely different?
"I was just thinking about Armand and Aida Gaudet," he said. "This is their wedding night."
"Yes, I suppose it is," she agreed.
"Do you remember our wedding night?" he asked. "Do you remember how many times it was before we collapsed in exhaustion?"
"No, not really," she answered. "At least we were inside and warm. I doubt those two can say the same."
"You remember how it was," Jean Baptiste teased. "A pair can make a lot of warmth together."
"I suppose so," she said.
"I know so. Now little friend," he continued, coaxing. "Why don't we go warm ourselves?"
"Jean Baptiste, I am cleaning the house."
"All this dust and grime you're fighting against will still be here tomorrow." He deliberately gave her what she often referred to as his little-boy grin. She'd always found it irresistible. "Come to bed with me, sweetheart, and maybe we can stir up something real dirty in there."
"Not tonight," she said simply.
"Oh yes, yes, please tonight," Jean Baptiste insisted, a whiny tone to his voice.
"No."
"Felicite—"
She sat back on her heels and regarded him unfavorably. "Look at me!" she demanded. "I am nine months' pregnant. I am as big as a cow and twice as clumsy."
He shrugged and spoke in a voice as smooth as molasses. "To me you are beautiful, cherie."
She rolled her eyes and huffed in disbelief. "Well, I don't feel beautiful," she said. "My back hurts, my legs hurt, my feet hurt."
"What about your yum-yum?" he asked, his tone playful, teasing. "You remember how your cher epoux loves your yum-yum. Does your yum-yum hurt?"
"Jean Baptiste—"
"Maybe we can make it hurt. Remember when we would play bon coucher?"
Felicite sighed tolerantly. "My yum-yum is getting ready to bring another baby in the world. I know from past experience that it will be hurting plenty for several weeks thereafter."
"But that's a bad hurt," Jean Baptiste told her. "I want to make it good hurt, like we used to, remember?"
"That was three, almost four, children ago."
"But there are no children here now," he said.
"Not tonight," she stated firmly.
He fought annoyance. Sex offered just about the only pleasure that married life still afforded. But even that had lost a good deal of its luster and was not nearly so available as he had thought it would be when he'd wed.
"Come on, ‘T, he pleaded. "Come on, ‘T amie, maybe I should tickle you. Would that do it? Do you want me to tickle you?"
"No, please."
Jean Baptiste ignored her answer and squatted down next to her with full intention of tickling her into surrender.
A sickly feeling flashed over him, cold then hot. Momentarily he ignored it, but when it sped through him again the resulting weakness caused him to drop all the way into a sitting position on the floor, momentarily faint.
"Please just leave me alone," his wife was saying. "I haven't had time to really get these corners cleaned for weeks. Having the children gone gives me a great opportunity to get some things done around here. And I just really don't feel like doing any sort of bed play with you tonight."
It was as if she were speaking to him from a great distance. A very strange and very unpleasant nausea was building up inside Jean Baptiste. He was never sick, never. The children, from time to time, came down with all sorts of bilious illnesses. And Felicite suffered nausea with every pregnancy. But he was never bothered in any way by sick stomach. Yet he knew, without question, that he was about to lose his supper.
"Oh God!" he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet.
He just made it outside in time and lost his dinner off the side of the porch. His retching was ferocious and unceasing. A half-dozen tremendous heaves brought him down to his knees. Still he felt no relief.
Exhausted he lay down on the porch boards, allowing the cool cypress planks to soothe his fevered brow. He was weak as a newborn kitten. His hands trembled.
What was happening to him? He had felt fine only moments ago. This illness had taken him with sudden tremendous force. Was it something spoiled in his dinner? It couldn't have been; Felicite had fed the children the same before they left. Besides he'd hardly eaten his supper, so anxious he had been to consume the blueberry tart with the love charm.
The love charm? Could the love charm have made him this sick?
Jean Baptiste had little time to consider the possibility. The queasiness came over him again. This time he could not run, or even walk, to the edge of the porch. He crawled forward far enough to hang his head over the side and vomited.
After the upheaval, he rested. He wondered why his wife had not come to his side. She always knew when he needed her. She was always there for him. Felicite must not be aware that he was ill, he decided.
He needed to get back into the house where she could take care of him. He considered crawling, but after a few deep breaths, he assured himself that he could stand on two feet and make it inside. Once there, he was certain Felicite would care for him.
He sighed with anticipation. She would put him to bed, wash him with a cool rag, and make him feel better again. Felicite would care for him.
He lurched uneasily to his feet and made his way to the door. He pushed his way through the curtains and leaned heavily upon the doorframe as he spoke.
"I'm sick," he said.
She didn't answer. He raised his eyes to look at her. She was standing just where he'd left her. But the
hem of her dress was wet and soaked and there was a murky, red-streaked stain on the floor that she'd just cleaned.
"Did you spill something?" he asked.
She looked up at him in stunned surprise and answered, "My water broke."
Chapter Eighteen
"Oh, Armand, you are going to make the most wonderful husband," Aida said with a sigh.
The two walked arm in arm together along the darkened beach. "You make me want to try," he told her.
She looked into his eyes and knew he was telling the truth. He might not love her, but he did want her, he did believe in her.
"It's strange," she said thoughtfully, "that of all the men on the river, you were the one who made me feel most nervous, most unsure of myself. But now I am not afraid at all."
"Good," he said, hugging her close to him.
"I mean," she told him in a softer almost conspiratorial tone, "that I'm not afraid of having a wedding night with you."
They stopped walking and stood together. Aida deliberately fitted herself as closely to him as she could. She saw his eyes widen and he pulled away from her.
"Aida, you don't mean that," he said.
"Oh yes, I do mean it," she said. "I like having you hold me in your arms. I like it a lot."
"Well there is no reason why I can't hold you," he said, wrapping his arms more tightly around her.
"There is no reason that we can't do more."
He chuckled, but there was little humor in it. "No, my dear wife, no reason except that we have no bed, no floor, not even a roof."
"Do you think Adam and Eve had a roof?"
"They at least had a garden."
She giggled and hugged him tightly. She nuzzled against his hair and whispered into his ear. "I want to be your wife."
She felt the shiver that skittered through him.
"You are my wife," he stated.
"I want to be your wife in all ways."
"You will be. But we have no place to stay, not even any place to lie. There will be other nights, my love, many nights. We should wait until then."
"Why?"
"Because . . . because we should."
A niggling worry pursued her. She drew back slightly to look him in the face. "Is it because you think it won't be the same?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that . . . that perhaps you think that without the charm we won't . . . you won't want me."
"I won't want you!" He laughed. "Aida, I've had no charm tonight and I want you now very much."
"You do?"
"Can you not feel it?"
"Feel what?
He pressed more tightly against her. "Feel that?"
"Your leg?"
"Aida, that is not my leg." A strangled sound escaped him. "Good Lord, Aida, don't touch it!"
"You don't want me to touch it?"
"Not now I don't."
"This morning, when you touched me . . ." She lowered her eyes, momentarily shy. "When you touched me, I liked it very much."
"God grant me strength," he whispered before he covered her mouth with his own.
His mouth opened over hers and urged her lips apart. He tasted hot and spicy, and the gentle pressure and tugging drew her until she felt she was nearly inside him.
He relinquished the kiss and feathered tiny pecks and bites along her jaw and neck. Aida arched her throat, eagerly offering to him whatever territory he might wish to explore.
"Oh Aida, I want you so much," he whispered.
"I want you, too," she told him. "I want to touch you."
His breathing was forced and labored as if he'd been running down the beach instead of merely standing on it with her in his arms. She found that her own heart was pounding rapidly, pulses beating wildly in places she had never known she had.
"Make love to me, Armand," she pleaded. "Make love to me now."
"Not here, not now, my love."
"But I want you," she said.
"And I want you, too," he declared. "But it must be a good thing between us, a wonderful thing. You deserve that. You deserve a glowing candle and a warm bed and flowers."
"I don't want those things, Armand. I just want you."
"And you will have me," he said. "But not here, not now. That doesn't make any sense."
"Waiting doesn't make any sense," she said. "Look at Laron and Helga. They love each other, but they cannot be together. What if something comes along to keep us apart as it has them?"
"It's not likely."
"But it could happen. Why . . . why that old skiff could turn over tomorrow and we might be eaten by alligators."
"Aida—"
"Oh Armand, if I am to be eaten by alligators tomorrow, I want to be made love to tonight."
"But—"
"Hold me," she pleaded. "Please hold me and kiss me and touch me."
His better judgment had him hesitate one more moment and then he brought his mouth to hers. "All right, my love," he said. "We'll touch each other. Touching is good. We can touch. I'll touch you."
"Yes, yes, touch me, Armand."
He fumbled through the layers of the shawl-draped blanket and covered her breast with his hand.
Aida arched her back, pressing herself more firmly into his hand. He was caressing, kneading, weighing it. When his thumb slid over the hard, erect tip it jolted her.
"Harder, squeeze it harder," she demanded. "And the other one, too, Armand. Do it to the other one, too."
The blanket dropped behind her, forgotten, as he used both hands to massage her bosom.
"Do you remember this morning?" she whispered.
"This morning they were naked and you kissed them and sucked them. Do you remember that?"
"Aida, do you think I could ever forget it?"
He began to jerk determinedly at her laces, pulling at her blouse until one full round breast had escaped its confines.
"Kiss me, Armand. Kiss me there where I am naked."
He squatted slightly and wrapped his arms around her hips.
Aida gave a startled cry as he raised her feet from the ground, holding her high enough off the ground that his mouth found easy access to the soft round flesh that she offered.
Aida rested her elbows upon his shoulders and restlessly rubbed her cheek against the top of his head as he suckled and teased and nipped at her.
So naturally her legs wrapped around his chest. She dug her bare heels into his curve of his backside to give her leverage to move her body against him.
She strained and squirmed. He brought a hand to her backside to assist her.
In all her life she had never known that the tip of the nipple and the entrance to the womb were so closely linked. Every movement of his mouth on her breast roused an immediate and direct reaction between her thighs. The want, the need that she had experienced this morning was back in raw, profuse abundance. It had to be assuaged.
"Armand! Please touch me down there. Touch me down there."
Immediately he slid her down the front of his body. The instant her feet met the sand, his hand met the ache at the crux of her legs.
The touch of his fingers simultaneously eased her desire and made it worse. She was wet, lavishly wet. She whined and wiggled against the stroke of his hand. When his thumb found the rigid, pulsing nub buried in her curls, she ground out a sound that was animal and pleasurable.
She could hear him speaking to her; she could hear the passion in his own voice.
"You're so hot, you want it so much, you want me so much."
"Please! Please!" Her words of pleading were all she could manage.
"I'm going to put my finger inside you," he told her. "Just one finger. If it hurts I'll stop."
"Do it! Do it!"
A long index finger eased inside her. She gasped.
"Does it hurt? Have I hurt you?"
"More! More!" she begged.
A second finger followed the first, filling her, firing her.
"You are so tight," Armand whispered against her throat. "You are so hot and so tight."
"It feels so good."
"Aida, I'm dying here," he told her.
"Don't die, don't die now."
He began to withdraw his fingers. She reached down and grasped his hand.
"Don't take it out!"
"Easy, Aida, my sweet, my love," he soothed her. "I'm going to make it better."
He thrust back inside her, the heel of his hand grinding down on the soft plump flesh of her pubis.
A startled sound escaped her throat.
He did it again and again and again.
She began bucking her hips to meet his rhythm as the feel of it, the rough, spiraling feel of it drew her further and further and further.
"Let me see it, Aida." Armand's urging penetrated the primal pleasure that enveloped her. "Let me see it, Aida. Let me see you do it. Do it for me. Just for me."
She did.
She collapsed in his arms and together they dropped to their knees as the throbbing succession of clenching spasms drained her. They lay together on the cool sand as she drifted back to earth.
"Oh Armand, oh Armand," she whispered, nearly breathless. "Is it always like that?"
"If it's not," he answered, "then it should be."
She rolled over and pulled him close.
"My goodness, Armand," she said. "I can feel your . . . your leg now."
"Please Aida," he answered, his voice strained. "If you even touch me I will go off in my trousers like a green boy."
"Don't do that, Armand," she said, jerking her skirts up to her waist. "Come inside me, like an experienced husband."
The wanton invitation silenced his better judgment, but not his need to protect her. He slid one arm under her shoulder and the other beneath her knees and pulled her up into his arms. She was grateful not to have been asked to walk; satisfaction had settled in her legs like jelly and she was not certain that she could.
He carried her a little away from the shore to where the sand piled up into small dunes. Sea oats grew tall and in profusion, forming a private shelte
r from the cool wind off the water.
Armand threw down the blanket and then laid her upon it. Hastily he removed his jacket. Aida followed his lead, casting off her remaining clothing, eager to be naked in his arms.
"Oh my God!" she heard him whisper and she looked up to see him staring at her in awe.
She was chilled and covered only in goosebumps, but a strange surge of sensual power flooded through her, exhilarating her. She turned on her side and drew up one leg coyly. She touched her bottom lip with one fingernail.
"Are you cold up there, Monsieur? Perhaps you should lie here next to me. I'm very very warm."
Armand dropped to his knees beside her, pressed her back to the blanket, and spread her knees, opening her before him.
He tore the tie of his trousers, but managed to rid himself of them. In the faint gray silver of moonlight, she saw for the first time how God had built a man.
"Armand, that thing is bigger than you are."
He scrambled to lie between her spread thighs. "With you Aida, it is bigger than it has ever been before."
He stroked her and kissed her using the rough edge of his tongue to taste her for the first time. Aida's flesh alternately quivered and sizzled at his touch. She squirmed and wiggled beneath him, eager to please, anxious to get closer.
He grabbed her bottom in two hands and raised her slightly, positioning her for his entry.
"Aida," he whispered, snuggling up against her ear. "If I hurt you just tell me and I'll stop."
She purred and ran her fingernails along the smooth, pale curve of his buttocks. "And if I hurt you, speak up, also," she said.
Her humor broke some of the tension of the moment. He punished her with a teasing bite against her collarbone.
Armand was an eager but unselfish lover. He kissed, caressed, encouraged, and soothed as he inched his way inside her.
Aida reveled in it. She felt wonderful, powerful, beautiful. He was inside her. She wanted him inside her. The pressure and give of her body as he pushed through the thin barrier brought no pain at all, only openness and relief. He invaded her fully until he was buried to the hilt.
"I love you, Aida," he whispered against her. "There is no charm that could make me love you as I do this moment."
