Chapter 30: Irene is Pregnant
I spent that next two days in the Kiva or checking on the mules and oats. I took my meals quickly and read some more of Lady Chatterley.
Most of the guys hung around the Kiva and nursed their wounds. Mike was the only one to pull bathhouse duty but even then business was slack and he had few takers, he said most were reluctant because of prior satiation. Annie Archer showed up and said she couldn't wait for Andre any longer and took Mike in to the alcove.
Mike had promoted two deer and decided to throw a party on Sunday. Able put up two cases of Sarge's Suds and the rest of the guys pitched in. So Sunday afternoon Sarge and Lenore tended the rotisserie on the patio and the whole village showed up. Astral and Audrey were leading the Music club band and everybody was dancing as the sun began to set.
I saw Irene in the trees watching the party. She was out of uniform and dressed in green with an amber shawl around her shoulders. The slanting rays of sun made her hair glow and my heart sing.
I went to her and she waited for me to take her hands. "Oh Josh I have to talk to you."
She seemed agitated and nervous so I kissed her brow and would have held her but she turned and led me by the hand behind some low pinions. She turned and smiled very broadly, "I'm late!" she said and pulled me to her.
I kissed her and smiled, "You missed the venison and it was marvelous."
She looked puzzled and said, "No Josh, my period is late, a week or more, I'm pregnant."
I smiled and kissed her. "Are you happy?"
She smiled and then frowned, "I'm trying to cope with it. I never thought I'd ever get the chance to have a baby. Curse of the Black Women and all." but she took me in her arms and kissed me. "But now that you are here, I have a chance and it has happened, I must like it."
"Let me take you home and we'll talk about it. That party is over nearly." I said and held her hips to mine.
She tucked herself under my arm and led me up to her place. We laughed and I felt her belly on the way. We barley closed the door and she had me in her arms. "Oh Josh," she said, "Can we be naked together again?" and tossed her shawl on a chair.
I was out of my shirt before her shawl hit the chair. I looked at her and unbuttoned her blouse and kissed her ruby nipples. She grinned at me and slipped out of her skirt. It pooled at her feet and she stepped out of it and flicked it with her foot to the chair. I laughed and slipped out of my pants and kicked them into the corner.
Irene took my hand and led me to the love seat, had me sit on one end and lay herself on my lap. She arranged my arms around her, leaned against my chest and kissed my neck.
I looked down at her and she was content to just feel the body heat and kiss my chest. I hugged her a little and kissed her brow, "I'm happy Irene, even if you are unsure yet. It is a big step in a woman's life to give birth."
She looked up at me, smiled, nodded, sighed, stroked my shoulder and lay in my arms. She was looking marvelous in the light that lingered from the window. Her milk white skin frosted with red gold, her bush now trimmed very short. I lay my hand on her belly and stroked it in circles, marveling that inside her, my seed had taken root, and perhaps we together would break the genetic chain that bound us to a time when people were afraid of the future, with good reason.
She looked up at me when my tears fell on her breast. "What's wrong Josh?" she looked up with real concern.
I kissed her and said, "You are too beautiful for me to hold in". I smiled through my tears and licked the trickles off her breasts. "And a babe to bring our people together, and perhaps heal forever the Curse of Black Women."
She smiled, slid up and kissed my tears away. I still felt like she was a miracle and I was an unlikely messenger, but she managed to dry my tears and made me smile about living.
I pushed her back down on my lap and stroked her breast and pulled the nipple a little. She watched my fingers and made soft noises of approval.
The sun took that moment to flash red and yellow rays against the cloud layer outside her window, as if saluting the Red Goddess before twilight set in.
"It is Ra bidding farewell to the Red Goddess," I said and kissed her hair.
"I'm no Goddess Josh," she took my face in her hands and looked me in the eyes, "I'm just a woman."
"No Irene, not just, but an accomplished woman. Serious, capable and talented. You are a whole woman Irene. I love that about you and I love the way you are capable of such tenderness. You are closer to the Goddess than you know." I kissed her and pushed her back down in my lap and stroked her belly and bush softly, "I wonder what it is like to be a zygote? Such complex needs and yet easily satisfied by your womb. Here inside you working for the time he can come out and claim his place in the sun."
"Or her, Josh. It might be a girl?" She looked at me and smiled.
I smiled and nodded, "Or her," I conceded, "But in any event you must teach them music. You must play for them and let them learn to love the feel of music in their lives."
Irene looked at me and said, "Should I play for you?" She smiled and got up, pulled a chair close and pulled her guitar off the stand. She flipped back her hair and arranged her breast to cradle in the body of the guitar and she pinched her nipple and blew me a kiss. She adjusted the tune a little and began a rhythm that bounced and shifted thru minor chords and then settled in a heart beat base line slow and steady, her left hand came down the neck as she played a complicated syncopation. She smiled as she played and her fingers were always sure and I didn't hear a mistaken note.
The base line picked up and there was terror in the melody then it surged in syncopation and the base line picked up even more and she smiled at me and played a soft melody, the heart bass line hammering and yet still in syncopation with her upper register line. It broke up in confusion as her fingers lost the ability to play it any faster.
The heart line came back this time slowing and softening and the melody line sang above it for a few measures before it faded softly away.
"Brava Irene that was magnificent!" I stood and applauded her and she blushed and stood and put her guitar back on the stand.
I pushed her chair back, took her in my arms, put her head on my chest and held her, "Was that a memory or a prediction?" I asked.
She looked at me and kissed me, "Just what was in my heart."
I leaned down, gather her into my arms and carried her to bed; any woman that beautiful is worth breaking a resolution or two, hell for Irene Black I'd do almost anything.
I lay her on the bed and sipped in beside her and kissed her softly. I was slow and smooth as I fondled her and then covered her, my knee between her legs. Feeling her smooth skin and her heat building. She would need to be very hot before she could overcome the changes that she was going to have to make in her life.
I thought about the book that Lenore had given me. How it was still true.