Black Ties and Lullabies, page 26
She’d never actually visualized the man before. He was more of a thought, a concept, an ideal. But that night, when she lay down to sleep and that hazy dream returned, this time it was Jeremy’s arms that were holding her, his warmth she was sinking into.
And she went to sleep feeling as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Two weeks later, on a Tuesday evening, Bernie and Jeremy walked down a hospital corridor to room 202 and peered through the glassed-in upper half of the door. Four other couples were already there, sitting in a circle on the floor. Bernie couldn’t help thinking they looked like four beached whales with four clueless people sitting beside them who had no idea how to get them back in the water. And as soon as she and Jeremy joined them on the beach, they’d look just as lost, clueless, and stuck.
“Are we late?” Bernie said. “I hate being late.”
“Yes, we’re late. So we’d better get in there.”
Jeremy opened the door for Bernie, then followed her into the room. Another woman was there in addition to the four couples, but since she was single and nonpregnant, Bernie guessed she was the instructor. She sat on the floor with the others, her legs crossed in a funny yoga position that only freakishly thin women could accomplish. She tilted her head, blinked her giant blue eyes, and gave Bernie a beatific smile.
“Hello. You must be Bernadette.”
Bernie felt an instant sense of ick that she just couldn’t quell. She knew women like this one. They were named Lilith or Harmony or Sapphire and spent a lot of time visualizing world peace.
“Uh… yeah,” Bernie said. “Bernie, actually.”
“Bernie,” the woman said, that smile still stuck to her face. “I’m Crystal.”
Of course you are.
“And this is your birth coach?” Crystal said, turning her attention to Jeremy.
“Yes. This is Jeremy.”
“Hello, Jeremy. Please join us.”
Just then, Jeremy’s phone rang. As he reached for it, Crystal’s saintly smile turned into an admonishing frown.
“Turn it off,” Bernie whispered to him, and he looked back at her as if she’d asked him to sever his own arm.
“Off,” Bernie said.
Jeremy twisted his mouth with irritation, but he turned off his phone and stuck it into his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” Crystal said. “But we’re learning how to make birthing a child a calm, tranquil experience. A ringing phone instantly destroys that tranquility.”
Bernie had never thought of childbirth as being a particularly tranquil activity. But if Crystal could show her how to refrain from gnawing through Jeremy’s jugular vein during labor because he was the one who’d put her there, she was all for it.
Bernie found an open spot on the floor. Jeremy helped her sit, which was becoming more difficult to do with every week that passed. If she was this unwieldy at eighteen weeks, what would she be like in another month or two?
She didn’t even want to think about it.
Crystal suggested they go around the circle so everybody could introduce themselves. Fortunately, only two of the couples were of the traditional variety—husband and wife. One couple was a woman and her female partner, and the other was a woman with her boyfriend, so Bernie didn’t feel even more out of place than she had walking through the door. But she did have the sense of the others sizing them up. As always, they had to be thinking the obvious: She’s with him? What’s the deal with that?
“Now,” Crystal said. “Can anybody tell me the most valuable thing you can take into the birthing room with you?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not an iPhone,” Jeremy said under his breath, and Bernie raised an eyebrow. No smart remarks. This is serious business.
“The answer is a positive state of mind,” Crystal said. “In light of that, we’re going to learn some positive affirmations. Ladies, will you repeat after me?” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then spoke as if she were channeling Confucius.
“I believe in my capability to give birth.”
Jeremy turned to look at Bernie, one eyebrow lifted. Is this woman for real? She shot him the evil eye. If I have to say this stupid stuff, the least you can do is listen.
Bernie repeated the words, even though she was pretty sure this baby was coming out no matter what she believed.
“I trust my body to birth my child,” Crystal said.
Bernie said the words, but really. Ditto her previous thoughts. Bodily trust wasn’t going to change a thing.
“I inhale peace,” Crystal said as she sucked in a noseful of air.
“Inhale peace?” Jeremy whispered.
Bernie repeated the mantra, then sucked in some air of her own, smelling not one iota of peace.
Crystal tilted her gaze toward the ceiling, her eyes drifting closed. “My pelvis is like a flower opening to the sun.”
“Pelvic flowers?” Jeremy murmured. “Good God Almighty. Now I’ve heard everything.”
“Will you knock it off?” Bernie whispered back.
“Bernie?” Crystal said. “Jeremy? Is there a problem?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I was just wondering exactly how one inhales peace. And that pelvis thing—”
“Never mind,” Bernie said, digging her fingernails into his thigh. “I’ll explain it to him later.”
For the briefest of moments, Crystal’s mystically enhanced demeanor gave way to a cranky schoolmarm expression. It was probably her way of warning Jeremy that even though she inhaled peace, she didn’t mind exhaling a little kick-ass. Then she transported herself to the Land of Bliss once again.
“What’s very effective during the more difficult phases of childbirth,” she said, “is to distract yourself with positive mental images. Imagine yourself walking along a tropical beach with ocean waves lapping at your toes. Picture yourself in a beautiful country garden, picking a bouquet of roses…”
Uh-huh. And the whole time Bernie would be picking those roses, her entire lower body would feel as if somebody was smacking it with a sledgehammer.
“After the break, we’ll work on visualizations such as these in conjunction with our breathing exercises,” Crystal said. “So now we’ll talk about the various kinds of breathing for each stage of labor…”
As she rambled on, Bernie thought, Who knew there were other ways to breathe besides just in and out?
An excruciating hour and a half later they were leaving the class, armed with a couple of book recommendations and breathing homework. Max swung the car around to pick them up.
“You don’t seem to be clicking with our instructor,” Bernie said as they got into the car.
“What’s with her, anyway?” Jeremy said. “Shouldn’t she be in a cult somewhere drinking Kool-Aid, waiting for the mothership to return?”
“Hey, you said you wanted to come to these classes.”
“Yeah, but I thought they’d actually be practical. All that woo-woo stuff’s about to kill me. And I figured if I got bored, I could text somebody, or maybe check stock prices. But Attila the New Age Hun made me put my phone away.”
“You have the attention span of a gnat. Will you at least try to pay attention next time? If I don’t learn to breathe right, I have it on good authority that I’ll be in excruciating pain and scream my head off.”
“You know, women had babies long before anybody ever heard of childbirth classes,” Jeremy said. “They used to give birth on cave floors in subzero weather with a T-Rex growling outside, and not one of them sprouted pelvic flowers or inhaled peace. So why do we need all that affirmation crap?”
“We? Who the hell is ‘we’?”
“Hey, I’ll be right there to feel your pain. Or at least watch it.”
Max glanced into the rearview mirror. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
Jeremy shook his head sadly. “Believe me, Max. You don’t want to know.”
A few minutes later, Max pulled up outside Bernie’s apartment. Jeremy got out to walk her up the stairs.
“Okay,” Bernie said, as she unlocked her door and Jeremy escorted her inside. “Now you have an idea what the process is like. Are you still sure you want to be in the room when things go down?”
“No problem,” Jeremy said. “I’m not the one whose pelvic flower is going to be opening.”
“She makes it sound so easy, doesn’t she?”
“Yep. Gardening, giving birth… it’s all the same.”
Listening to Jeremy’s easy banter about her upcoming screamfest made Bernie feel as if she wasn’t in this alone, and a sense of contentment surrounded her like a warm blanket.
“Well,” he said. “I’d better go. I have a flight to catch early tomorrow morn—”
All at once, Bernie felt a strange flip-flop in her stomach. She gasped a little, steadying herself by putting a hand against the door frame. She thought for a moment something must be wrong, only to realize it was just the babies moving.
Just the babies moving. That was like saying a tsunami was just a big ocean wave.
Jeremy took her by the shoulders. “Bernie? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just the babies moving.”
“Moving what? A piano?”
“Sure seems like it. Here. Feel this.”
She grabbed Jeremy’s hand and placed it on her belly, and a moment later, it happened again—a big, undulating shift beneath her skin that actually made his hand move. Her doctor had told her that she’d feel quite a bit of movement, since she was having twins, but she sure hadn’t expected this.
“Whoa,” she whispered, laughing a little. “Are you believing that?”
Bernie expected him to make some smart comment about the movie Alien, suggesting that maybe the babies were actually creatures from outer space, or maybe tell her if she thought the kids were acting up now, wait until they were thirteen and started screaming and slamming doors.
He didn’t.
Instead, he continued to stare down at his hand where it rested against her, seemingly transfixed. He took a small step forward, easing so close Bernie swore she could feel the warmth of his body mingling with hers. Then he put his other hand on her. Spread his fingers. Waited for movement. When it finally came again, a tiny smile curled the corner of his mouth.
“My God,” he said breathlessly.
The next few seconds seemed to stretch into hours. Barely able to breathe, Bernie lifted her hands and placed them on top of his. The moment she touched him, he slowly turned his gaze up to meet hers. When their eyes locked, she flexed her fingers in a gentle caress. They stared at each other like that until the moment was so charged with emotion that she thought she’d die from the intensity of it. Was he looking at her like this because of the babies?
Or because of her?
He turned his hands over to grasp hers, giving them a gentle squeeze, his eyes fixed on hers with unrelenting intensity. She felt as if he was reading every thought she had, and those thoughts were growing hotter by the moment. She’d never felt desire like this in her life. Never ached for a man’s touch so badly she couldn’t breathe. It was as if every hot, sexy thought she’d ever had about him was coming to life.
He pulled one of her hands against his chest, where she felt his heart beating wildly. He smoothed his other hand along her upper arm to the curve of her shoulder, then tucked it beneath her hair at the back of her neck. When he brought his lips to within inches of hers, she could almost feel him quivering with self-restraint.
“I want you so much,” he whispered. “Please don’t tell me no.”
“Not a chance,” Bernie said.
“Thank God,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Chapter 27
Jeremy felt so good and Bernie needed him so much that she almost cried out with relief. He kissed her like a man who’d been deprived for a decade—rough, eager kisses so incredibly satisfying that she thought her whole body was going to liquefy and ooze right onto the floor. The almost incapacitating desire she’d felt for him for so long clashed with the sensations flooding through her—his taste, his touch, his scent—and she wanted to drown in every erotic moment. What kind of a fool had she been to tell him she didn’t want this?
After a while, he took her by the hand, and somehow they made it to her bedroom. He opened the door and pulled her inside, turning and nudging the door closed with his heel. Then he was kissing her again, and any remaining doubt she had about being with him vanished, and the place inside her that had been desperate for this kind of intimacy was suddenly filled to overflowing.
Suddenly he pulled away, breathing hard. “Hold on. Wait a minute.”
She froze. “Wait? Why are we waiting?”
“Because we have to take this slow. Slow and easy.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re pregnant,” he said, still catching his breath. “But don’t worry. I know how to do this. I’ve been reading up.”
“Reading up on what?”
“Sex during pregnancy. Now, don’t get mad about that. I wasn’t presuming anything. I just like to be prepared.”
“Uh… okay.”
“You’re in your second trimester. Did you know that’s the best time for sex? Women are generally sick during the first trimester and tired during the third. The second is the sweet spot. So our timing’s good.”
“Then we’d better get started, huh? In case the timing turns bad?”
“And I’ll be extra careful, because I know there are some things that may be uncomfortable for you when we’re doing it.”
The only thing making her uncomfortable right now was the fact that they weren’t doing it.
“So we need to think about positions,” he said. “Those are important when you’re pregnant. I learned about three of them, but they’re kinda hard to describe. Wait—one of the websites had photos. Let me get my phone.”
No. This couldn’t be happening. Surely he wasn’t reaching for his phone. Surely he wasn’t—
Good Lord. He was.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. He gave the screen a poke, then swept his thumb across it a few times.
“Bridges. Put down the phone.”
“It’ll only take a sec. I have it bookmarked.”
“Are you actually going to show me pictures of people having sex?”
“They’re wearing clothes,” Jeremy said. “The photos are just for demonstration purposes.”
She grabbed the phone from his hand and tossed it to the top of her dresser. “I want to have sex. You want to do research. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“I just want to do it right.”
“There is no wrong way to do it.”
“Oh, yeah? You should read the websites. Women change a lot when they’re pregnant. What turned them on before turns them off now. Some parts are really sensitive. Lots of conflicting messages. For the record, guys don’t like conflicting messages. It makes it hard for them to… you know. Do the job.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Do the job?”
“And now you’re laughing,” he said, turning away. “That’s just great.”
Bernie stood there for several seconds, totally confused by this decidedly non-Jeremy behavior. Then the most amazing realization struck her.
“Are you nervous about this?” she asked.
He whipped back around. “Nervous? Me?” He laughed a little. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“Yeah. A man who’s made love to umpteen women, and not one of them has ever been pregnant.”
“Well, yeah, that’s true, but…” As his words faded out, he turned away, his mouth tight-lipped with irritation. Then his eyes drifted closed and he let out a sigh of resignation.
“Okay. You’re right. I told you I knew what to do, but the truth is that I don’t have a clue. This is uncharted territory for me. I’ve wanted you so badly I could taste it, and suddenly here we are, and now… now all I can think about is messing it up.”
“Messing it up?”
He let out a long breath. “I’m just afraid of doing something that makes you uncomfortable, or hurts you, or makes you want to stop.”
She couldn’t believe it. Jeremy Bridges, a man who’d left hundreds of satisfied women in his wake, was actually uptight about making love to her? Something about that made her want to start kissing him and never stop.
She inched closer and placed her hands against his chest, then leaned in and touched her lips to his. “That’s not going to happen. And just for the record, I’m nervous, too.”
“You are? Why?”
“Because you’re a man who’s made love to umpteen women, and not one of them has ever been pregnant.”
“True, but—”
“I’m not like the picture-perfect women you’re used to being with.”
He kissed her neck. “And I thank God every day for that.”
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed in what you see. So I’m thinking maybe you should turn out the lights.”
“Bernie—”
“I’m thirty-six years old, I’m pregnant, gravity and I are not on speaking terms, and I could fill the Great Lakes with the water I’m retaining.”
“I don’t care,” he whispered in her ear. “I want to see you.”
“Do you also want to see my white cotton underwear?” She rolled her eyes. “God. Why do I have to be so damned practical?”
He smiled. Then he laughed softly, shaking his head. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“Now you’re laughing,” she muttered. “Wonderful.”
“If you had any idea of how hot I am for you, you’d know just how fast that underwear is going to end up on the floor.”
