A Merry Little Christmas (30 page)

“Of course I had them before, but look how much bigger they are. They’re bigger and rounder and they look much better, don’t you think? I love being pregnant.” She sighed.

Donnie couldn’t answer;
he was too occupied with stroking his wife. His hands moved from her breasts down to her stomach, where he caressed her smooth belly that was just beginning to really show. He braced his legs wide apart as he slid his questing fingers down lower, to stroke the curly hairs that shielded her femininity. Finally he was able to speak.

“I love you being pregnant, baby. You get more beautiful every day and more desirable. I want you so bad I can’t stand it,” he admitted. “Every time I look at you I get weak in the knees.”

Angelique leaned forward a little so that her bare bottom was positioned on his manhood. “Yes, but you get strong everywhere else,” she purred. She
undulated
her hips so that there was no mistaking her intention. “I think you have on way too many clothes, baby.”

In deference to the blazingly hot August weather, Donnie was wearing only a pair of loose-fitting cargo shorts that he got rid of quickly. He embraced Angelique and they kissed long and passionately as he slid his hands down her body. Anchoring his hands on her hips, he picked her up while she wrapped her legs around him and he entered her from this standing position. The rhythm was quickly established and their unending desire to please each other led them to a trembling completion. Bathed in perspiration and needing more, Donnie walked over to the bed with her still locked around his waist. They lay down to begin a second trip to paradise.
 
Still
intimately joined, he began moving inside her while their mouths sought each other in a hot, prolonged kiss. All too soon, Angelique was quivering on the brink of release. She gasped and screamed Donnie’s name over and over and he joined her in a deep, pulsating orgasm that left them both shaken and satisfied.

He chuckled. “We’re not going to be able to do this when your mother is here. A little loud loving in the afternoon is fine when we’re alone, but I don’t want to shock my favorite mother-in-law,” he drawled as he licked the beads of perspiration from his wife’s neck.

Angelique returned the favor by running her tongue along his collarbone, then sighing as she savored the salty essence of his skin. “I’ll try to behave, beloved, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t know what it is about being pregnant, but I seem to be insatiable these days. I can’t resist you,” she whispered and kissed him on the mouth.

After Angelique had discovered that Selena was absolutely correct and she was pregnant, she had become despondent instead of excited. She couldn’t bring herself to tell even her
loving
husband because she didn’t know how he would react. She kept remembering his words the first time they made love, that there was plenty of time for babies and that this was just for them. She alternated between being frightened and being elated and the resultant stress exacerbated her morning sickness to the point that Donnie was frantic. Upon finding her losing yet another meal, he insisted on taking her to the hospital. Finally, she had to tell him. She made him sit down and she told him, as quietly as possible, that she was pregnant. She had closed her eyes to avoid seeing his expression and opened them to find him kneeling in front of her with tears
running
down his face.

“Angel. My Angel, why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out? When are you
due
? Is that a good chair for you to be in? Come here, come with me,” he said, scooping her up in his arms. He took her into the living room and sat down with her on the sofa.

“Baby, you’ve made me so happy, I can’t see straight. I’m going to be a daddy, Angel! And you’re going to be a mommy, the best mommy in the world. I love you, Angel. I’m so happy you’re my wife. You make me happy every day of my life. I can never show you how much I love you,” he murmured into her neck. He’d finally realized that she wasn’t speaking and asked what was wrong. “Umm, baby? You can jump in here anytime.”

Now it was time for Angel to start weeping, big silent tears that heartbreakingly ran down her cheeks.

“Oh, baby, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?” Donnie asked.

“Adonis, I’m not going to make a good mother, I’m going to be a terrible mother. I won’t be able to read our baby bedtime stories. Suppose I do something bad with their medicine or their baby food because I read it wrong? And besides,” she sniffed, “dyslexia is genetic. Suppose I pass it on to our children? I don’t want our babies to take after me, Adonis, I really don’t.”

The first thing Donnie did was rock her and comfort her until the tears stopped. Then he reassured her. “Honey, I know plenty of Ph.D.s that I wouldn’t trust with a stray cat, much less a child. There’s more to being a good mother than reading bedtime stories. You’re so creative, you’d paint them b
edtime stories and act them out so
don’t even worry about that. And if you want to, only if you want to, there are some things we can do to help with the dyslexia. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to fix you or make you over. I’m not trying to do that. I was lucky enough to find the perfect woman for me the first time out, and you don’t need fixing. And as for them taking after you, who better?” He smiled at her and hugged her closely. “You have no idea how wonderful you are
,
you really don’t. You sit here for a minute and I’m going to show you something. Be right back.”

He left the room and returned with a thick photo album and proceeded to show her pictures of himself as an adorable little boy, a terribly gawky preteen and, finally, an adolescent who personified the concept of “pizza face.” Angelique gasped when she saw the pictures; they looked nothing like her handsome husband.

“Oh, my God!
My poor Adonis, that looks really bad,” she sympathized. The pictures truly didn’t resemble Donnie in any way. His face and neck were covered with cystic acne, big, fierce, red pustules that made his face lumpy and totally unappealing.

“I was the most miserable child you ever saw, Angel. My skin broke out when I was twelve and it didn’t clear up until I was nineteen. Benita never stopped looking for something to cure my acne and she finally found a good dermatologist and a formula that really worked. I think that’s why I worked so hard in school, because I had to feel good about something in my life. The acne was on my back and my chest as well, by the way. It was a terrible time in my life. So don’t hope that our babies take after me, they might end up with that horrible skin.”

Angelique was shaking her head in amazement. “This is so sad and so ironic. I was always considered to be a very pretty child, but dumb as a post. I heard one of my
teachers
use those very words once. People seem to think that children can’t hear or something because they never hesitate to say whatever they want in front of them. I hated being pretty,” she confessed. “I thought that if I
were
plain or really ugly, people would be nicer to me, they wouldn’t be so hateful. They always thought I should be able to do things that I couldn’t do and it gave them pleasure to see me foil. They were never as hard on the average-looking children.” Suddenly she
blushed
bright red. “I’m sorry, that sounds so conceited, doesn’t it?”

“No, it sounds like you didn’t have very good teachers, certainly not very compassionate ones. But there are all kinds of ways to learn better reading skills now, and there are some counseling places that specialize in that kind of thing. If you want to go, we’ll go. It’s up to you, Angel. But right now you have to tell me two things. Tell me when our baby is coming, and please, oh, please, God, tell me you’re happy about it.”

Angelique hugged him tightly and showed him her deep dimples in a wide smile. “I’m very, very happy, my husband. I’m going to have your baby! And I’m going to give him to you for Christmas, how does that sound?”

The months passed quickly, and soon it was August and Angelique was a very busy, as well as a very happy, expectant mother. She did agree to go to a center that would help improve her cognitive skills and one of the things she and Donnie learned to do was side-by-side reading, where they sat next to each other and read aloud from the same book. After a month or so of this her reading skills improved tremendously, and so did her interest in books. Donnie brought her some she thought were the most wonderful in the world—novels by Pearl
Cleage
—and she was utterly captivated by them.
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, I Wish I Had A Red Dress,
and
Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do
all served to take her to a new level of interest as well as skill; she wanted to read more and more. Soon she started taking great pleasure in getting books that not only had lyrical phrases but hot love scenes in an effort to reward Donnie for taking the time to read with her. They became well acquainted with authors Francis Ray, Leslie Esdaile, Bette Ford and Beverly Jenkins. Donnie was particularly fond of
Beverly
Jenkins’s historical novels, while Angelique’s favorite was Janice Sims, who wrote exceptional contemporary novels.

Now paper and hardback books were everywhere in the house, not just the audio books she had utilized so effectively before. She was extremely proud of herself and eternally grateful to her understanding husband. The only thing that would have made her life complete was the one thing she wouldn’t ask him for: a ring. The platinum one from Tiffany was still in a drawer and she made no effort to get it sized because she hated it
.
It was big and gaudy and not to her taste at all, but she was so pleased that he’d bought it for her after their debacle of a wedding in
Vegas,
she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. What she wanted was something simple and pretty in yellow gold, but she felt it would be ungrateful to ask for another.

She also wanted a real wedding, but she wasn’t about to bring that up, either. She just couldn’t see spending all that money when they were already married. So it was
n’t the wedding of her dreams,
at
least she could remember it now.  F
rankly it wasn’t as sordid as she’d
feared,
it just wasn’t what she thought of when she thought of a wedding. It was nothing like the wedding of Lisette and Warren, that’s for sure. They were getting married that Saturday and her mother was coming in on Sunday, so Angelique had plenty to do without worrying about rings she didn’t need or weddings she shouldn’t have. Her life was
good and she had no complaints, just lots of blessings.

***

As was usual at any gathering, Paris, Angelique and Lisette were the last three remaining. This time it was appropriate because the occasion was the bridesmaids’ luncheon,
a sweet
tradition
before a wedding. Lisette had treated her four bridesmaids and maid of honor to a lunch she prepared herself at her home. She would soon be leaving the house forever, as she would be moving to Farmington Hills with Warren. Her sister Miriam, the maid of honor, had to leave as she had a date with a man she was quite serious about. Warren’s sister
Valorie
had to depart due to babysitter concerns, as did the other bridesmaid. So it was just the three of them sitting around in the partially packed house, talking. They were finishing off the last of the nonalcoholic pomegranate
Be
llinis
Lisette had made while they talked about the changes the year had brought

“I met Warren for the second time in January, and here it is August and we’re getting married. Of course, I had to chase him down like a dog and beg him, but it worked,” she said with a laugh.

Paris stared curiously at Lisette. She had been out of town for several long stretches and missed some crucial developments in the Lisette and Warren romance.

“What are you talking about? Ever since he met you Warren has been knocked off his feet; what do you mean you had to beg him? And is there any more of that fruit salad?”

Lisette went off and came back with the bowl of fruit salad and three big spoons. She shrugged as she handed out the spoons. “May as well eliminate the middle man, you know we’re going to eat it all. Now, my dear Paris, the thing is that my Warren was being a perf
ect gentleman. A true gentleman;
`
he took me out, wined me and dined me and he never put his hands on me,” she said indignantly “Oh, he would kiss me until I couldn’t remember my own name, but he never acted interested in anything else. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong because he always told me how much he loved me. And I love him, too, too much to not find out why he didn’t want to make love to me.” She stopped to scoop up some fresh pineapple from the now-communal bowl and went on.

“Well, I’m bold, but not
that
bold, so I had a hard time figuring out how to approach him. And then everything sort of became clear one day. We were invited to a party given by a dear friend of mine. I was very pleased about the invitation because Clinton was my very first sweetheart and we had stayed friends for years, even though he lived in Texas. Now he’s moved back to Michigan and he was throwing a party and Warren didn’t really want to go, but he didn’t want me to be unhappy, so we went. And when he met Clinton, the look on his face was simply priceless.” She laughed.