“Oh, my darling!”
“Hello there.” He kissed her forehead, traced his lips through her hair. He put a hand on her shoulder, ran it down along her side to her waist.
“Getting fat,” she said.
“Just a little.”
“Well, I’m just a little pregnant. Pretty soon I’ll look like a pigeon.”
“I like pigeons.” His hand moved to her stomach. “Tell him to kick, will you? I never get to feel it.”
“You’ve felt it.”
“Not in any very dramatic way. C’mon, J-R. Right through the goal posts.”
“Wait a minute. There! Didn’t you feel it?”
“No.”
“God, that was a good one, too.”
“I can’t believe you’re not making this up.”
“Maybe it’s just easier to feel on the inside.”
“Well, there’s not much I can do about that, is there?” He rubbed her belly, rhythmically. “I love you very much, Andrea.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, “Your mother swears you started kicking in the third month.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t think so, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. She also told me when you said your first word and took your first step.”
“I didn’t realize you spoke to her that often.”
“I think she likes me more now that I’m pregnant.”
“She’s always liked you. Did she mention what my first word was?”
“No, and I was careful not to ask.”
“Probably a good move.” His hands moved on her body. “If there’s such a thing as prenatal influence, I have a fair idea what Jeremy Robin’s first word is going to be. Unless I start stuffing towels in your mouth every night.”
“Was I terribly loud last night?”
“Let’s say you were audible.”
“Oh, dear. Must I hide my face from the neighbors, do you think?”
“Let’s say a delicate blush might not be out of place.”
She drew back and squinted, trying to make out his features in the darkness. “You don’t really think anyone could hear me, do you?”
“Are you embarrassed? Yes, I guess you are. I suppose it’s remotely possible that the Gilchrists could hear you. I assume they can hear us because of the ease with which we hear them, but they’re downstairs and doesn’t sound travel up? Like heat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyway, they’re not all that hard to hear.”
“She isn’t, you mean. I never hear him at all. Mark, for all we know she could be alone in there.”
“Well, she wants someone to bite her breasts, and I’m taking the giant leap of assuming it’s him.”
She started giggling. “Aren’t we terrible? To talk like this? I guess she does want her breasts bitten, though. It seems to be an essential part of their lovemaking.”
“That it does. And it seems he has difficulty remembering, because she has to tell the poor bastard over and over again.” He moved on the bed, pressed his face to her breasts. “Shall I nibble?”
“Don’t you dare. They’re so damned tender.”
“Also large. Not that they weren’t always, but this is a nice bonus.”
“One of the little fringe benefits of pregnancy.”
“Fringe is a nice word.”
“Oh, that’s lovely, darling—”
Their lovemaking proceeded gradually in the pattern that had slowly evolved between them — sporadic conversation accompanied by caresses that built up excitement in gentle tentative stages. The banter between them functioned almost in the manner of a stage magician’s misdirection, focusing the attention of the brain while the body was stimulated in spite of itself. She adored this tender and friendly way they had of making love; it was so much more intimate than anything she had ever known.
Until at last he lay atop her, between her legs, her breasts crushed just the least sweet bit painfully beneath his chest, and he was inside her and it all became wordless between them. And all the words went out of her mind as well.
It was so good, so very good, and at one point it came to her that perhaps this was all there really was. When you passed a certain age you could not be as open and honest and certain and true as you might have been in earlier years. Those options ceased to exist for you. So God gave you lovemaking to take their place, and in the dark cave of the marriage bed you and the one you loved could be all those things again, to and for each other, justifying in the minutes preceding sleep all the small deaths and failures of the day.
His lovemaking was long and thorough and gentle, his climax powerful and seemingly whole.
She didn’t come. She didn’t always, especially lately during her pregnancy, and it truly was not necessary for her to come. At those times when she wanted to she nearly always did, and at other times, like this night, she felt no need for orgasm, no emptiness for lack of it.
He didn’t ask if she had come. He said nothing beyond stating his love before turning to his side and slipping into his sleep rhythms. She was grateful for this.
Ten, fifteen minutes later, when she was on the very edge of sleep, her body twisted suddenly as if she were swerving to keep from falling. Her heart was beating violently and her temples pulsed with some unknowable fear.
She lay where she was until she had her bearings. She must have slipped into some dream, and in the dream she must have fallen. Or else she had simply shifted position in her half-sleep and had incorporated the act into a spontaneous dream. All that was disturbing was the anxiety which had accompanied the incident, that and the realization that she was not going to be able to fall asleep again, not for a little while yet.
Mark lay sleeping in his usual position, lying on his side facing the windows, one arm gripping his pillow — to assert possession or to express insecurity? She sometimes wondered. His chest rose and fell with his deep regular breathing. She laid a hand lightly on his upper arm, just wanting to touch him for a moment. He did not stir. She got quietly out of bed and tiptoed from the room, closing the door carefully behind her.
She moved through the apartment, turning on some lights, finding her cigarettes, lighting one, walking toward the window before remembering that she was naked. She got her robe from the bathroom and put it on and then walked to the window and smoked her cigarette all the way down, counting the infrequent cars on Kenmore Avenue. In the time it took her to finish the cigarette, not a single person passed by on foot.
She wanted something but couldn’t decide what. Not coffee — it didn’t keep her awake, but seemed a ridiculous beverage to drink when one could not sleep in the first place. A glass of milk? Good for the baby, certainly. A glass of warm milk, carefully heated on the stove in a saucepan? Everything appealed about it but the thought of actually drinking it.
Whiskey, of course. It was a night on which one ought to be sitting up into the small hours, drinking whiskey with old friends, telling old lies and older truths, knowing they’d all be safely forgotten when dawn came with sermons and soda water. Whiskey by the glass in a snug Village bar around two in the morning in the middle of the week, with the tourists all back at their hotels and the day-trippers back in Queens and Brooklyn and nobody around but the handful of regulars committed to serious drinking.
Not that she often had all that much to drink. But it wasn’t a matter of quantity. It was more a question of attitude.
She found the scotch, carried it into the kitchen, took a large rocks glass from the cupboard. Just as she was starting to tilt the bottle she changed her mind, put the glass away, selected an orange juice glass instead and filled it almost to the brim. Then she capped the bottle and put it away and carried her drink into the living room. She sat down in the wing chair and held the glass to the light, approving the mellow color of the whiskey.