Chapter 10

(conclusion of this part of the story!)

Daylight stole across my face, awakening me. I took a moment to orient myself, cataloging arms clasped around me, Kathy’s soft breath into the side of my neck, and her firm breasts pressed into my flank. One hand was clutched, possessively, about my morning wood. As delightful as that was, I had pressing business to attend to, involving my presence before a certain porcelain bathroom fixture.

I scooted closer to the edge of the bed, and then disentangled her fingers from my favorite organ. She murmured something, indistinctly, and I slid out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom, there to stand in near bliss as the pressure on my bladder slowly faded. Of course, standing with my head nearly upon the tank did not particularly enhance the experience, except for the absence of urine spatter upon my wall.

While I was up, I set to washing my hands, brushing my teeth, and splashing my face in a facsimile of cleaning it. I considered the changes in my life, revealed the prior evening. After all, I am about as energetic as the next guy, attending to the problems that face me presently, and tending to worry about tomorrow’s issues, tomorrow.

Well, impending fatherhood, and the associated wedding, had just gained considerably more immediacy than I had thought they had. Marie, Kathy’s mother, had approved of our relationship, and appeared to have convinced herself that we had thought through the implications of a mixed race relationship. Well, we had thought that we had, and, fortunately, had not had any oversights shoved into our faces. Now, since my not-a-timetable had just been thoroughly reset, well, bringing Marie up to speed sooner rather than later likely would prove less problematic than trying to delay things.

While I was ruminating, it appeared that Kathy had noticed my absence, had awakened, and had followed the sound of running water to locate me. I realized this when a dark haired imp peered around my shoulder, snaked her hands around my waist, and found my dangling reltney.

“What got my husband-to-be out of our bed so early? I woke up, wanting some sweet, slow, morning loving, and you were gone! And, you’re limp! Oh, have you grown weary of me so soon? Have you grown bored with my soft brown body so quickly? Here, I have given you everything, and more, my very future, and you have almost cast me aside, so you could, what? Floss your teeth! Oh, woeful is my lot, betrothed to a man who can ignore me! Whatever can I do, what salvation can I find?”

I made to interrupt her, and redirect her to the realities of male plumbing and mornings, but, she hushed me assertively, continuing her plaintive soliloquy.

“Hush, fool! You have a warm, willing, nay, eager, woman in your bed, who, already succumbing to your nefarious scheming, has acceded so thoroughly to your foul strategy, that her kitty compels her to seek out yet more of your foul mishandling! So, do you seduce her, yet again? Do you caress her awake, so that Cupid’s spell may tease her awake, impatient for more of your besmirchment of her previously fair character? No, no no! You, fool! You sneak off to the bathroom, where, having awakened alone after your ravishment most base, she discovers you staring blankly into the mirror, rather than gazing lovingly into her deep brown eyes! Oh, the vile rake to whom I have betrothed myself! Such a heartless villain!”

Triumphantly, she paused in her oration, spun me around (impressive, considering my 7 inches greater height, and 70 pounds greater weight!), and posed, nakedly, hands on her hips, as if to dare me to contradict her narrative.

Couple of things occurred to me. First, her firm, dark breasts swayed, slowly, with each breath. Her narrow waist tapered to her firm hips, drawing my eyes to her sexual bulls eye, her smoothly shaven pudenda. Returning my gaze to her face, her bright eyes and ghost of a grin drew me as if into her soul. THAT resolved the entire “limp johnston” issue she had raised.

Secondly, I was beginning to learn that when she waxed poetic, she was giving me a large and generous ration of shit.

Thirdly, well, she was correct. Missing any opportunity to romance my beloved was foolish.

I wrapped her up in a crushing hug, leaned back a bit to lift her off of her feet, and whispered into her ear, “Hush, hush, sweetness! I repaired here to brush my teeth, and freshen up, so that our morning coupling could be as sweet for you, as your every breath is for me!”

She reached around my shoulders, joining her hands behind my neck, and, giving a hop, wrapped her legs around my waist, responding, “Carry me to bed, husband mine! Let’s start our day with sweet lovemaking!”

The following hour was spent in a variety of kisses, caresses, and closeness as we celebrated our pending union. Her delight pleased me as much as my own physical pleasures; her climaxes drove mine.

As we lay, afterward, in breathless consummation, I turned to her, and asked, “How do you think we ought to go about bringing this up with your mother?”

She turned, snuggling into my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Well, honey, this could go two ways. Either she will not be surprised, and will be happy for us, or she will not anticipate our marriage, particularly at this point in our relationship, and will be anxious or unhappy. What do you think?”

Kathy appeared thoughtful, and finally turned her gaze back to me. “Well, our planning a hurry up marriage will likely let her know that things are not exactly as we had planned. I agree, she could be pissed, or she could be guardedly happy for us. Pissed, because she might see things as our hands being forced. Guardedly happy, because we are only gonna be doing what we were gonna be doing, anyhow, simply sooner than we had thought. Let me think about it a while longer, and I’ll give you my take on our chances.”

I dozed a while, awakening eventually to the smell of coffee and breakfast. I stumbled down the hallway. And there beheld a smiling Kathy, daintily enjoying her breakfast. I scooped eggs, bacon, and toast from the platter, poured myself some coffee, and joined my beloved. She greeted me with a raised, Spock like, eyebrow. “So, somebody decided to arise, and not sleep the entire day away, eh?”

From around a bite of eggs, I replied, “Nope! Got things to do, and people to see! Any insights into how we’re gonna bring your mom up to speed on our speeded up plans?”

“Why, yes! I have phoned Mom, and invited us to dinner at home. You are gonna pick up some chinese- here you go, I have the order listed right here!- and then we’re gonna have a sit-down, and you will reveal all to her! See? Easy-peasy!”

She smiled at me, serenely. I wasn’t, altogether, feeling it. “Uh, Honey? Do you have any further details on how this conversation will open up? Ya know, if we were both reading from the same script, it might go just a wee bit smoother!”

“Well, I suppose something along the lines of, ‘Hey! Mrs. Edwards! Thanks for inviting us to dinner. Did I mention that I’ve impregnated your daughter? Could you pass the soy sauce?’ is not likely to bring about the warm maternal feelings that I would hope she would have at her darling daughter’s impending nuptials. That’s where you, my smooth talking fiance, get to strut your stuff!”

I gathered my thoughts. “Uh, Sweetie? Have you, ya know, clued her in on your impending maternity in any way?”

She made as if to reflect. ‘Uh, lessee ... Um, nope!”

“Do you suppose that you might want to share that sort of kinda life changing epiphany with her, your own self?”

Kathy’s eyes grew large. “Oh, no, buster! You are gonna be right there, beside me, when I tell her she’s gonna be a gramma! I hope that the presence of witnesses will dial back the earthquake that will follow!”

“OK, how bout this? We finish dinner, gather in the living room, I ask her for permission to marry you. You enthusiastically encourage her to assent, and we celebrate that approval. You subtly suggest that sooner would be better than later, and ‘let slip’ the fact that you are going to have our baby. What do you think?”

“I was totally with you, until the ‘let slip about the baby’ part. Wouldn’t that part wait a bit? Like, a couple of months?”

“Honey? At what point do you think you will start to show? Which would anger your mother more, our starting a family before our wedding, or lying by omission during the engagement? Finally, on what basis do you think that she will not see through our deception?”

Kathy wrung her hands. “Mark, I just do not know what to do! Anything we do will lead to trouble! I cannot see any way out of it!”

I stepped from my chair, around the table, and cradled her head against my stomach. “Honey, honey, honey! Shhh! We will get through this! You are going to be my wife, aren’t you? No second thoughts about that, right?”

She sniffled into my shirt. “R-r-r-right!”

I continued. “We’re going to have this baby, and love her and raise her, right?”

More agreement. “Y-y-yes.”

“So, your mom may be irritated, but she doesn’t have to put up with me for the rest of her life. That’s your problem! We, together, are going to make our own lives together, right?”

Sniffles, then, “Y-y-yes.”

“So, Sweetie, let’s worry about things that we can fix, worry about things that might change things between us, and ignore things that we cannot change, or do not concern us and our future together. Sound like that makes some sense?”

Kathy pulled a little way away from me, looked up at me, wet eyes gleaming, and agreed. “Y-y-yeah, that makes sense. D-do you really think my Mom won’t hate me? That she won’t think I’m some silly little girl, and let some fast talking white boy into my pants, and knock me up?”

I hugged her close. “Kathy, your mom loves you. She may be disappointed that we got things out of order, but I cannot believe that she will hate you in any manner. Remember? She herself gave her approval for you to spend evenings, weekends even, at my apartment. She knows that we have been intimate. While you have taken your pills, they sometimes do not work. We are one of those ‘sometimes’, it seems.”

I rocked her, just a little, as we hugged. Again, she pulled a little bit away, looking up at me. Uncertainty was all over her face. “You don’t think I did this to trap you into marrying me, do you?”

I grinned at her. “What? You don’t think that I got you pregnant so that you could not abruptly come to your senses, realize what a putz I am, and run away, screaming, into the night? Aha, you have yet to figure out my clever scheme, sweeping the belle of the ball into my clutches, and, before she can come to her senses, trapping her into marriage! Bwah-ha-ha-ha! You are helpless before me! There is no escape for you, now!”

For my cleverness, I received a flyweight punch into my side. “You rat! Here I’m seriously asking you if you feel trapped, and you make jokes! Tell me the truth: do you feel like I’m trapping you, that our child and I are trapping you into marriage?”

I got more serious. “You do remember that I had planned upon marrying you, right? We had planned on starting a family, right? We were going to have to let your mother in on our plans, which, of course, assumes that she had not already figured all that out, all on her own, already, right?”

Kathy nodded.

I carried on. “So, here we are, discussing plans that we already have made, both wedding as well as baby, and plans that I have already eagerly agreed to, and you are asking me if I feel trapped? Really? Do I look as if I feel trapped?”

Mutely, she shook her head negatively.

“So, remember that stuff about not worrying about things that we cannot affect?”

Nodding, she agreed.

“Here’s my idea: Own the fact that you are not trapping me into anything. Realize that neither you nor I can change how third parties are going to react to our decisions. Since we cannot alter those reactions, I am disinclined to give them much thought. Let’s finish our breakfast, cleanup the apartment, get dressed, and go face your mother.”

I paused a bit. “So, when did you tell her to expect us?”

Kathy blushed, just a bit. “Umm ... around 3 o’clock?”

Surprised, I asked, “For dinner?”

Shyly, she nodded. “Uh-huh. For dinner. At around three. At home.”

I looked the kitchen clock. “Uh, Honey? Isn’t it around 1 o’clock, right now?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shouldn’t we be moving along in that plan, just a leeetle bit faster, than we are?”

She ghosted a grin. “I suppose so...”

I pecked her on the lips. “Eat up! We have things to do!”

We finished breakfast, washed our dishes, and stepped into the shower. Feeling the ticking of the clock, we confined ourselves to a relatively sedate washing, drying ourselves and dressing.

At the restaurant, as we waited for our food to be boxed up, I was a little concerned about Marie’s response to our soon-to-be revelations. Well, uh, no. I wasn’t “a little concerned”, in any way. Rather, I was deeply into what I hoped would not develop to be “flop sweat”, fearing that Marie would achieve orbit, and the resulting tirade would make Kathy and my relationship exponentially more complex and complicated. As I ruminated, I considered several other, equally dramatic ways this could go south.

Kathy took note of my uncharacteristically solemn mood.

“Whatcha thinking?” she inquired.

“Uh, nothing...” was my unconvincing response.

“Ohhh-kayyy”, she drew out. “Did somebody die, and you weren’t gonna tell me?”

My thoughts were, ‘Uh, me. Just, not quite yet’, but my words were, “Nope. Just thinking.”

She leaned against me, spading her hand into my hip pocket. I chuckled. “We’re not even married yet, and here you go, lifting my wallet!”

Leaning her head against my chest, she answered me. “Silly white boy! Since I already have stolen your heart, stealing your wallet is a trifling accomplishment!”

Further conversation was interrupted by our order being called out.

In my car, she held the food as I navigated the afternoon traffic. Kathy took a breath, and probed further. “Something is bothering you, and you don’t want to talk about it. What’s up?”

I took my own breath, and tried to still my whirling thoughts. “Well, sweetie, I’m anxious about this reveal to your mother. What if she goes ballistic, and that places you in the middle of a shit storm? What if she is horribly hurt, and you feel guilty? What if she decides that I’m some asshole, who swept you off you feet, impregnated you, and now I’m gonna let all your family in on the fact that I’m a superficial piece of shit, and I’m gonna make tracks for outer Uzbekistan? What if you feel like she hates me, and that puts you in the middle, and you have to choose between your own mother, and me, and you never really come to terms with the decision that you have to make, whichever way that goes? It may wind up being just so terribly unfair to you, that I don’t really know what I hope and pray happens.”

I blew out a deep breath, that I had not know I was even holding. “There. That’s what’s the matter. I love you, I love our baby, and I want you to be happy, and comfortable, however this winds up.”

My beloved considered my fears. “I haven’t told you this, because, I figured your already swollen head, would swell even more, and you’d never be able to squeeze it through a doorway ever again, but Mom likes you. She’s serious about the improve-my-grades thing, and she has been very impressed by your attention to my schoolwork. She was concerned that you’d be all about the booty call, but the fact that you made certain that we got all our school work done before happy fun times, well, she thinks that you showed a lot of maturity right there.”

She continued. “She even likes you for your own self. She likes that you worked your way through school, she likes that you’re a suburban white boy, but moved into the city and took a job with the fire department. She likes all your talk about ‘duty’ and ‘honor’, and while she has teased you about it, she is impressed that you have your own medic bag in your car.”

Kathy paused a moment. “I think she even knows, or suspects, that I’m pregnant. She’s been prying, trying to figure out what has had me preoccupied, asking if you and I are alright. I love that you are concerned about possible effects on me if things blow up, but I think that she may or may not know, but the fact that you will be at my side when we tell her, will tell her everything that she wants to know about what we are going to do, together. So, try not to worry. We’ll be fine.”