Teaching Willow: Session Four (8 page)

TWENTY-FIVE- WILLOW

His words are music to my ears, but my heart hesitates.  I feel reluctant because he hasn’t come to me, hasn’t turned to face me yet.  There’s still something there, something hanging in the space between us.  He’s holding back.

When it doesn’t seem as though he’s going to speak or move, I try to find a way forward.  But, simultaneously, he decides the same thing and our voices overlap.

“Was the story you sent
your
story?”

“There are things you need to know about me, Willow,” he says, just as I ask my question.

I pause before I speak so that he knows I’m addressing
his
comment.  “I told you this before, Ebon, and I meant it. You can tell me anything.  Nothing you can say will ever change the way I feel about you.”

My eyes roam his wide shoulders and strong back.  He seems bigger than life since last I saw him, like he’s been very…physical these last months.  His waist is as trim as ever, his butt as tight and round, his legs as long and lean, but his upper body is larger, more muscular.

“You saw what my mother was like.  Well, my father was very similar, only…nastier.  It wasn’t so bad when I was really young, but the older I got, the worse it got.  By the time I was sixteen, I realized that my parents dealt and used drugs, that my father pimped and often fucked other women, and that things were only getting in deeper and deeper as the years went by. 

“For the most part, I went to school, played sports and stayed the hell away from home as much as I could.  I never drank or experimented with drugs, I had a nice girlfriend and I made good grades. I was a decent kid and, under different circumstances, I might’ve had a bright future.  But that was before my father raped and killed a fourteen year old girl from my school.  He overdosed her and had sex with her for almost an hour before he realized she was dead.”

I’m speechless.  I’m completely dumbstruck and my soul hurts as though from a physical wound as I imagine someone doing such awful things to my unborn daughter.  My stomach squeezes uncomfortably and my chest gets tighter and tighter the longer he talks.

His voice is somber as he continues.  “I didn’t know any of this until I came home from baseball practice to find Talia, my girlfriend, tied naked to my bed, spaced out of her goddamned mind with some concoction my mother had given her.  My mother…” he says, his voice dripping with disgust.  “That fucking bitch gave me two choices: Confess to what my father had done and spend the rest of my youth in juvie or watch her overdose my girlfriend and probably go to juvie for it anyway.  She was going to tell the cops that I did it, that I was experimenting with drugs and that I gave her too much. It was that or say that I’d been having sex with Ashley, the fourteen year old, and that she’d overdosed accidentally.”  Ebon’s laugh is so bitter, it stings me to hear it, to hear the hurt. “She had it all thought out.  Made it sound like she was looking out for me.  It wouldn’t be murder one.  It would be involuntary manslaughter.  She promised that because it was an accident and because I was so young that they’d go easy on me.  I guess that’s one thing I never thanked her for.” His laugh is anything but amused.  “She was right.  Thank God.  Ashley’s death was ruled an accidental overdose because my parents testified that they were there and saw her earlier that night, bragging that she’d shot up her first kick of heroin.  That was their idea of being supportive.”

I can no longer stay seated. I can no longer watch Ebon relive this as he stands staring out the window, all alone, as though he’s a miserable island with no one in the world who cares.

I stand and walk to him, setting my hands at his sides and resting my forehead between his shoulder blades.

“Ebon, I’m so, so sorry,” I tell him, tears streaming down my face.  “No child deserves that.  They should never have done that to you.  To
her
…”  I can’t even finish.  I thought my story was bad. I thought my scars were deep.  I had no idea what bad even was until this.  I had no idea that people, that
family,
could be so cruel.

“That’s why I couldn’t feel any sadness when my mother killed herself.”

“No one could blame you for that, Ebon.  No one!  Certainly not me.”

“Maybe not for her, but what about for my father?”  There’s a long, tense pause before he continues.  “After I got fired, I flew to Vegas.  I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew that I had to clean up my past.  Somehow.

“My father was at home.  Half naked.  Hung over.  There was a hooker passed out on the couch.  He told me that Mom had come for me.  He hinted at what they expected.  And what they’d do if I didn’t go along with it.  I knew they meant you.  You’re the only thing in the world they could use to hurt me, to manipulate me.  But I also knew it would never end.  Not as long as they were alive.”

My nerves are raw as I wait for Ebon to finish.

“I loaded up my father’s coke spoon and watched him overdose.  I watched him convulse.  I watched the life leave his eyes.  I could’ve stopped it, could’ve helped him. But I didn’t.  I wanted him gone.  Out of my life. Forever.  As long as he was alive, people–and not just me or you–would be in danger.  I guess I’ve lived knowing that all these years, but knowing that they would come after you...imagining what they might do…”

I feel an angry shiver tighten the muscles of his torso before he shifts in front of me.  I barely lift my head as he pivots in my hands to put his chest to mine, beating heart to beating heart.  When his arms come around me, they’re hesitant at first, but when I melt against him, unable to stop myself, Ebon pulls me in tight against him.  I turn my cheek to his pectoral and tuck my hands between us.  I can’t let him draw me too close.  I still haven’t told him about my bump…my baby bump.

“Is that what your mother was trying to do to me?  To use me as some kind of…of…leverage to get you to do her bidding?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what she was doing.  Just like with Talia, she knew you were my weakness.  Seeing you lying on that bed…knowing what my mother planned to do, what she’d already done…I’m not sorry that they’re dead. I only wish it had happened sooner.  I’m just glad Mom didn’t know the kind of man that I’ve become.  Or how much that man loves you.”

He loves me.

Ebon loves me.

This would be perfect if only…if only I knew how he would react to the news about the baby. 

I feel elated and panicked, as though everything–the past, the present, the future–are all hanging in the balance.  I have life-changing news to share with him.  It could draw him closer to me or push him away forever.  But he has to know. I have to tell him.  He’ll either want us both or…he won’t.

I lift my head, raising my watering eyes to his tender ones.  “Ebon, there’s something else I have to tell you,” I begin, swallowing the ball of cowardice that seems to be swelling in my throat.

Gently, Ebon tucks a damp piece of hair behind my ear.  “You can tell me anything. It won’t change how I feel about you,” he declares, throwing my own sentiment back at me with a sweet, lopsided smile.

“Oh god, I pray that’s true.”  I can’t do it this way, with him holding me so close, staring so lovingly down into my eyes.  It’s too much. I need space to breathe because my lungs have stopped working.  I’m terrified he’ll think this was part of my plan, part of my ploy.

I push away from him, turning to walk a few feet away before I spin to face him.  There’s an urgency trilling along my nerve ends. It’s now or never.  Right this minute.  He has to know.

I spread my arms out wide, my stretchy shirt pulling tight over the bump of my belly.  His eyes first search my face, then they flick left and right to my extended arms, and then they fall.  They sweep me to my feet first before zooming back to my stomach and stopping there.

Ebon’s lips part the tiniest bit and his eyes rise to lock on mine.  Before he can speak, I confess.  Quickly.  Decisively.  “I’m pregnant, Ebon.  With your child. 
Our
child.  A baby girl.”

All the pent up emotion, all the angst and fear, all the hopelessness and anxiety, all the love and desperation come rushing to the surface to overwhelm me.  I stand before Ebon, bared to him in ways that I’ve never been exposed before, and I cry.  Tears roll uncontrollably down my cheeks, but I say nothing, make no sound.  I wait.  I just…wait.

With steps so slow it feels like an eternity passes between each one, Ebon closes the distance between us.  His shocked eyes flicker from my face to my stomach and back again a dozen times.

The tears come even harder when it seems that he’s not going to say anything either.  The seconds tick by like lifetimes, and my heart plummets with each one.

Until he drops to his knees in front of me, reaching out with reverent fingers to lift my shirt and roll it up over my belly. 

“A little girl?” he asks, his voice barely audible.

I can’t speak past the raw, bleeding place in my throat, so I nod.

I watch from above as Ebon leans his forehead against my bump, his hands slipping around my thickening waist to hold me to him. 

“A little girl,” I hear him say, this time in wonder. 

I lower my arms, tentatively running my fingers into Ebon’s hair, needing to touch him even though his arms around wrapped around me.  We stay like that for a long time, Ebon not moving, me crying like a crazy person.

Finally, I feel his grip loosen and he stands.  When he looks down at me, I see the sheen of his eyes, the spiky, wet lashes that frame them, and I know I’ll never be a whole person without this man in my life. 

“I l-love you, Ebon,” I tell him again in my stuttering, hiccupping way.  “I’ve only ever loved you.  And I only ever will.”

With exquisite tenderness, Ebon smiles and cups my face, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that I feel in the deepest parts of my soul.  “I love you, Willow Masters. I will only ever love you.  And our daughter.  I will only ever give you both the very best of me.  Always.”

Like I’m made of glass, Ebon bends and sweeps me gently into his arms, never taking his eyes off mine as he carries me to the bedroom. 

I don’t look around. I don’t bother because I don’t care.  I’m lost in the eyes of the man I love and that’s all that matters to me.  That’s all that will ever matter to me.  Ebon and his love, and the baby that will be born from our passion.

TWENTY-SIX- EBON

Every inch of Willow’s skin that I bare looks different than it did before.  Every kiss that I place
feels
different.  I love her. And she loves me.  She knows me, baggage and all, and she still wants to share her body, her love and our child with me.  There is nothing else in life, nothing that matters more.

I listen to the heaviness of her breathing as I brush my lips over her chest.  I hear the soft gasp of her passion as I bare her fuller breasts, as I nibble her thicker nipples.  The need that I have for her is blended with a reverence, a tenderness that I’ve never felt before, making every touch meaningful, every glance just…more.

I press featherlight kisses over her swollen belly, my head reeling with the knowledge that we truly fucked a flame into being. Willow gave herself to me. I poured myself into her.  And we will soon have a child that will live and breathe because of our love for one another.

When I part her slim thighs and inhale the sweet scent of her arousal, my heart expands to a capacity I never thought myself capable of, making my first taste of her nearly intoxicating.  It’s with a deeper desire, a more profound passion that I drive my tongue into her, that I lap up every drop of her climax.

With her fingers tugging my hair, urging me up to cover her, I ease my cock into her hot, wet body, shuddering at the intensity of the sensation, at the feeling of being home and life being worth living again.

“God, I’ve missed this,” I tell her, withdrawing and sliding back into her, inch by slow inch.  “I’ve missed you.”  I kiss her, long and deep, my tongue matching the movements of my body in hers.

“No amount of masturbating could take away this ache,” she pants to me.  “Nothing can satisfy me like you do.  Nothing in the world.”

I pause, teasing her with short, circular strokes.  “You masturbated, thinking of me?”

“Uh-huh.”

Blood throbs in my shaft.  “Did you finger yourself, wishing it was my cock?” I ask, thrusting into her a little more forcefully, the image of her pleasuring herself pushing me harder.

“Yes,” she admits breathily.  “I even bought a vibrator that has a piece for back here,” she says, guiding my hand around her hip to her ass cheek.  “I know how much you like that.”

My pulse is racing and my body is begging me to pound into her, to stab her deep, but I’m holding back.

“But you like it, too, right?” I ask, trying to hold on to my control.

“I love it, baby. I fucking love it,” she growls passionately, her body tightening around mine like a silky fist.

“I fucking love
you,”
I groan.  “Oh god!”

Willow lifts her hips to meet my thrusts, begging me to go deeper.  My muscles tremble with the effort to resist, to hold back for her and for the baby.

“Ebon, let go,” she whispers.

“I-I’m afraid.  The baby…”

“You won’t hurt her.  You won’t hurt either of us.  Now fuck me like you mean it.  Fuck me like you love me.”

With a growl of my own, I pull out and slam back into her, reveling in the way she gasps.  “Like that, baby?”

“Yes!”

She writhes beneath me and I bend to take a nipple into my mouth, biting lightly on it as I spread her legs wider and bang my body into hers.  Willow raises her knees to take more of me just before she explodes around my cock, her pussy sucking at me like a sweet, dripping mouth. One more thrust is all I can give her before I’m following her over the edge, spewing into her, spilling my love into hers.

“I love you, Ebon Daniels,” she cries, her legs clenching around me.

“And I love you, Willow.  It was always you. 
My
Willow.”

The last thing I feel is the wetness of her tears hitting my cheek as I press my face to hers.