Pamela Morsi (35 page)

He began to jerk determinedly at her laces,
pulling at her blouse until one full round breast had escaped its
confines.

"Kiss me, Armand. Kiss me there where I am
naked."

He squatted slightly and wrapped his arms
around her hips.

Aida gave a startled cry as he raised her
feet from the ground, holding her high enough off the ground that
his mouth found easy access to the soft round flesh that she
offered.

Aida rested her elbows upon his shoulders and
restlessly rubbed her cheek against the top of his head as he
suckled and teased and nipped at her.

So naturally her legs wrapped around his
chest. She dug her bare heels into his curve of his backside to
give her leverage to move her body against him.

She strained and squirmed. He brought a hand
to her backside to assist her.

In all her life she had never known that the
tip of the nipple and the entrance to the womb were so closely
linked. Every movement of his mouth on her breast roused an
immediate and direct reaction between her thighs. The want, the
need that she had experienced this morning was back in raw, profuse
abundance. It had to be assuaged.

"Armand! Please touch me down there. Touch me
down there."

Immediately he slid her down the front of his
body. The instant her feet met the sand, his hand met the ache at
the crux of her legs.

The touch of his fingers simultaneously eased
her desire and made it worse. She was wet, lavishly wet. She whined
and wiggled against the stroke of his hand. When his thumb found
the rigid, pulsing nub buried in her curls, she ground out a sound
that was animal and pleasurable.

She could hear him speaking to her; she could
hear the passion in his own voice.

"You're so hot, you want it so much, you want
me so much."

"Please! Please!" Her words of pleading were
all she could manage.

"I'm going to put my finger inside you," he
told her. "Just one finger. If it hurts I'll stop."

"Do it! Do it!"

A long index finger eased inside her. She
gasped.

"Does it hurt? Have I hurt you?"

"More! More!" she begged.

A second finger followed the first, filling
her, firing her.

"You are so tight," Armand whispered against
her throat. "You are so hot and so tight."

"It feels so good."

"Aida, I'm dying here," he told her.

"Don't die, don't die now."

He began to withdraw his fingers. She reached
down and grasped his hand.

"Don't take it out!"

"Easy, Aida, my sweet, my love," he soothed
her. "I'm going to make it better."

He thrust back inside her, the heel of his
hand grinding down on the soft plump flesh of her pubis.

A startled sound escaped her throat.

He did it again and again and again.

She began bucking her hips to meet his rhythm
as the feel of it, the rough, spiraling feel of it drew her further
and further and further.

"Let me see it, Aida." Armand's urging
penetrated the primal pleasure that enveloped her. "Let me see it,
Aida. Let me see you do it. Do it for me. Just for me."

She did.

She collapsed in his arms and together they
dropped to their knees as the throbbing succession of clenching
spasms drained her. They lay together on the cool sand as she
drifted back to earth.

"Oh Armand, oh Armand," she whispered, nearly
breathless. "Is it always like that?"

"If it's not," he answered, "then it should
be."

She rolled over and pulled him close.

"My goodness, Armand," she said. "I can feel
your . . . your leg now."

"Please Aida," he answered, his voice
strained. "If you even touch me I will go off in my trousers like a
green boy."

"Don't do that, Armand," she said, jerking
her skirts up to her waist. "Come inside me, like an experienced
husband."

The wanton invitation silenced his better
judgment, but not his need to protect her. He slid one arm under
her shoulder and the other beneath her knees and pulled her up into
his arms. She was grateful not to have been asked to walk;
satisfaction had settled in her legs like jelly and she was not
certain that she could.

He carried her a little away from the shore
to where the sand piled up into small dimes. Sea oats grew tall

and in profusion, forming a private shelter
from the cool wind off the water.

Armand threw down the blanket and then laid
her upon it. Hastily he removed his jacket. Aida followed his lead,
casting off her remaining clothing, eager to be naked in his
arms.

"Oh my God!" she heard him whisper and she
looked up to see him staring at her in awe.

She was chilled and covered only in
goosebumps, but a strange surge of sensual power flooded through
her, exhilarating her. She turned on her side and drew up one leg
coyly. She touched her bottom lip with one fingernail.

"Are you cold up there, Monsieur? Perhaps you
should lie here next to me. I'm very very warm."

Armand dropped to his knees beside her,
pressed her back to the blanket, and spread her knees, opening her
before him.

He tore the tie of his trousers, but managed
to rid himself of them. In the faint gray silver of moonlight, she
saw for the first time how God had built a man.

"Armand, that thing is bigger than you
are."

He scrambled to lie between her spread
thighs. "With you Aida, it is bigger than it has ever been
before."

He stroked her and kissed her using the rough
edge of his tongue to taste her for the first time. Aida's flesh
alternately quivered and sizzled at his touch. She squirmed and
wiggled beneath him, eager to please, anxious to get closer.

He grabbed her bottom in two hands and raised
her slightly, positioning her for his entry.

"Aida," he whispered, snuggling up against
her ear. "If I hurt you just tell me and I'll stop."

She purred and ran her fingernails along the
smooth, pale curve of his buttocks. "And if I hurt you, speak up,
also," she said.

Her humor broke some of the tension of the
moment. He punished her with a teasing bite against her
collarbone.

Armand was an eager but unselfish lover. He
kissed, caressed, encouraged, and soothed as he inched his way
inside her.

Aida reveled in it. She felt wonderful,
powerful, beautiful. He was inside her. She wanted him inside her.
The pressure and give of her body as he pushed through the thin
barrier brought no pain at all, only openness and relief. He
invaded her fully until he was buried to the hilt.

"I love you, Aida," he whispered against her.
"There is no charm that could make me love you as I do this
moment."

"I love you, Armand," she answered. "I always
have."

It was a tender moment, but the heat of
desire, the needs of the body, the lure of the flesh were honed too
sharply to be denied.

"Move with me," he ordered. "Meet me and
match me."

She did as he bid, greeting him stroke for
stroke, flesh against flesh in an ancient rhythm that was both
universally human and peculiarly their very own.

As they gained confidence in the pairing of
their bodies, their tempo increased. Aida felt herself spiraling
once more. She urged him on, begging, pleading. He was pounding
now, pounding, thrusting. It was wild and rough and sweet, oh so
sweet, as her body tightened like a wire. Pulled taut and more and
more and more.

When she flew apart she cried out. And she
heard him calling her name as if it were an echo.

"Felicite, I'm sick," Jean Baptiste told her.
"I am sicker than I think I have ever been in my life."

As if to answer, she bent over nearly double,
clutching her distended belly for a long moment.

"It's coming fast, it's coming very fast, the
second pain nearly on top of the first."

Jean Baptiste's eyes widened in disbelief. "
T amie, you can't have the baby tonight. I am sick."

She moaned and shook her head. "As if your
will alone should stop it!" she told him. "Go get Madame Landry, go
get me some help."

She doubled over in pain once more. Jean
Baptiste shot outside as if the demons of hell were after him.

He made it all the way to the porch steps
before another wave of nausea overtook him. He hesitated, praying
that the ensuing weakness would pass. An instant later, everything
went black.

"Jean Baptiste, Jean Baptiste." „

He awakened to find her nudging him awake.
She was holding on to the porch rail and prodding him with her bare
foot.

"Wake up!" she demanded. "You have to wake
up, I need you."

"I'm awake, Felicite," he said, moving slowly
as he made his way to a sitting position. "I'm awake, and I'll get
to the boat. I know I can get to the boat."

"There is no time for the boat now," she
said. "There is no time for anything. Come into the house, Jean
Baptiste. You are going to have to help me have this baby."

As if to emphasize her words another pain
went through her and her step faltered. For an instant Jean
Baptiste thought that she might fall from the step and shot to his
feet, hurrying to steady her.

She didn't fall, but he nearly did as
lightheadedness assailed him once more. The smell of his own
sickness and the vile bitter taste in his mouth was abhorrent. As
he helped her back into the house, he began to explain his
predicament.

"I think I can make it to the boat and even
if I pass out there, it will drift downstream," he said. "I don't
think that I can pole to Tante Celeste's for Madame Landry. But I
can get some woman, somewhere surely."

"There is no time for you to go out looking
for some woman," she said firmly. "This baby is going to be here
very soon."

"It can't be this soon," he told her. "The
other babies took hours and hours. Why, the day Marie was born
Armand and I managed to put up the whole west fence while we were
waiting."

Felicite moaned again and leaned heavily
against him. Jean Baptiste held her, worried. Felicite had to be
wrong. A baby shouldn't come this fast. If it did, something might
be wrong. And whether there was something wrong or not, he
absolutely, positively could not help her have a baby.

Once the contraction passed, she seemed
exhausted.

"You'd better lie down," he said.

"Not yet, no not yet, it helps to walk. Help
me walk." They began to move across the room.

"Jean Baptiste you are going to have to help
me bring this child into the world," she said.

He shook his head. "I can't," he told her
simply. "I haven't the vaguest idea of what to do."

They reached the far corner of the room and
turned, heading back the way they came.

"I think I know what to do," she said. "I've
had three, remember, this one can't be that different than those.
Of course, Madame Landry said that each one is different."

Jean Baptiste's queasy stomach was beginning
to trouble him again.

"That old witch!" he proclaimed angrily.
She'd not only left his wife alone while she was in labor, she'd
poisoned him as well.

"You'll need to put some water on to boil,"
she said. "In that basket near the bed I've been saving rags. Put
that old oilcloth table cover over the bed, then cover it with a
sheet. I don't mind a big pile of laundry, but I don't want to lose
that bed tick. That old one was never the same after I spilled all
over it with Gaston."

Jean Baptiste was going to vomit again. He
knew that there could be nothing left in his stomach to heave, but
he was going to have to heave it anyway. As he moved to run
outside, Felicite gasped as the next contraction overtook her. It
was much stronger than the last and she cried out loud.

She had clutched her belly and through the
layers of clothing, Jean Baptiste could see the coursing wavelike
movements.

"Sacre!" he whispered breathlessly to
himself. He was holding her entire body weight in his arms and he
felt as if his weak legs would give out from under him at any
moment.

He tamped down determinedly on the nausea
rising in his stomach. He was not about to throw up on his wife in
labor.

The long agonizing pain passed and she
straightened.

Immediately Jean Baptiste raced out to the
porch and threw up the last bit of bitter brown bile in his craw.
He was weak, weak and sick. He couldn't possibly do this. He should
get on the pirogue and get Felicite some help. That's what he
should do.

"Jean Baptiste!" she called out. "Come here,
I need you."

He hurried back inside the house.

His wife was walking and moaning. She'd
gathered up the harness straps for the bed and an old metal
dishpan.

"He's already started to roll inside me," she
said. "You'd best get the bed ready. We're going to need it soon,
very soon."

Jean Baptiste ran a nervous hand through his
hair. "Felicite, T amie, I can't do this."

She turned to stare at him.

"I simply can't. It is ... I just cannot.
Perhaps if I felt better I would try to . . ."

He watched his wife's face as it changed, as
it changed very drastically. Her brow drew down, her jaw tightened,
her eyes narrowed. Without further warning she hurled the dishpan
at his head. Her aim was nearly true and she caught him smartly on
the shoulder.

"You lousy, no-account, worthless swamp
leech!" she screamed. "Just get out of this house, get out of my
life and stay out of my bed. You can't do this, you can't do this!"
she mocked his words. "Do you think that I can do this? Do you
think I want to? I'll tell you what I want to do. If I could I'd go
back to nine months ago. And when you pulled that big thing out of
your pants, I'd beat you both senseless with an ax handle before
I'd let it near me!"

She was crying now, yelling and crying.