Bloodchild (7 page)

"Out here?" He also looked around, as though that were answer enough, and then went back to her naked bosom. But she tightened again and turned away from him. "Come on, what's wrong? You can't be serious about worrying about anyone. We'd hear or see them coming long before they arrived."

"I don't know. I feel nervous."

"Shit." He sat up. "I can't believe this. And tonight too." He looked away angrily.

"Oh, Teddy." She reached up for him.

He looked down at her. "What?" he asked, his voice filled with confusion.

"Something's wrong. I can't explain it."

"With us?"

"No, not with us. At home," she added softly.

"What do you mean? Someone sick? Problems with the new baby?"

"Yes," she said. "It's the new baby. It's changed things and made me very anxious."

"Well, don't let it get to you. Things will smooth out. Anyway, put it out of your mind for the time being." He started to lean toward her again. She pulled back.

"You're not listening. Dana's different, and the baby is…"

"What?" He stopped inches from her lips.

She was going to tell him the truth, that the baby wasn't Harlan's and Dana's, that it was adopted, but all she could say was, "He's weird."

"All babies are weird," he said. Before she could reply, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her so demandingly that he pressed any further conversation back into storage. She allowed herself to be turned into him and let his hands find her breasts again.

"Oh, Teddy."

"God," he said, "when that crowd was cheering and I was out there and I looked up at you, I felt so good. You gave me confidence. I don't know what love's supposed to be," he added, "but it can't be more than this."

His words were enough. She surrendered to his advances and made as many demands of him as he made of her. It all served to help her forget those anxious feelings, and because that was something she wanted to do so much, she was willing to make love more passionately and more completely than before. Those images of Dana and the baby evaporated. The sun slipped completely below the horizon, and darkness, tempered by the moonlight, hung around them like so many thin, black gauze curtains.

Afterward they did not speak. Teddy folded up the blanket and put it back in the car. The two of them moved like shadows of themselves. Their lovemaking had taken them to a higher level of communication. They spoke to each other in gestures and in quick glances. In the car, Colleen lowered her head to his shoulder and they drove out of the darkness, rising out of their own quiet thoughts like two people who had been asleep for a thousand years.

By the time they arrived at the Beast Burger, the crowd had swelled to an unmanageable number. Half the high school had learned where the team had gone to celebrate and was there as well. Throngs of high-school students were gathered outside the doorway of the popular hangout, waiting for an empty seat or even some empty space. Even so, the moment they arrived, a place was made for Teddy and Colleen. They were treated like guests of honor at some community affair.

With all the excitement surrounding her, Colleen didn't think about her family until Teddy drove her up to the house. It looked like all the lights were on.

"Are they having a party?" Teddy asked.

"Oh, Harlan's mother-in-law's here," she said, remembering Jillian's arrival. "But I don't know why every light upstairs is on."

"Want me to come in? I should say hello and see the baby."

"Yes," she said quickly. She wanted him to see the baby, hoping he might confirm some of her strange, unexplainable feelings.

"Hey, champ," Harlan said, greeting them at the door. "We heard about the game." He shook Teddy's hand. "Congratulations on a terrific game."

"Thanks, Harlan."

"Colleen!" Jillian stepped out of the living room to greet them. "You get more beautiful every time I visit."

"Thank you, Jillian. This is Teddy Becker," she said. "Teddy, Dana's mother, Jillian Stanley."

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stanley." He extended his hand.

"Call me Jillian. So you're the hero?"

"Just one of a group of heroes," Teddy said, smiling.

"Where's Dana and the baby?" Colleen asked. She thought Jillian smirked at the question.

"She went up to feed him. Again," she added.

"It's all right," Dana said, looking down from the top of the stairway. Everyone turned. "The feeding's over." She came down the stairs slowly, carrying Nikos in her arms. She was wearing her white-and-blue velvet robe and matching slippers, and she had her hair pinned up. She appeared fresh and vibrant, that pale, peaked look gone. "Hi, Teddy," she said. "Congratulations on the game."

"Thank you, Dana."

Dana turned the baby and held him up.

"Say hello to the town hero, Nikos. Someday you'll be playing football too."

Nikos opened his eyes and then closed them.

"Typical baby," Dana said. "Unimpressed with football heroes."

Everyone laughed.

"Well, I'd better get my rear end on the road. I'm sure my parents are waiting for me," Teddy said.

"Congratulations again, Ted," Harlan said.

"Thanks. Cute baby," he said, looking at Nikos. The baby burped and everyone laughed. Dana put him over her shoulder and patted his back gently. "'Night," Teddy said. Colleen followed him out to the car. "I don't know what you meant before," he said as they went down the sidewalk.

"What do you mean?"

"About being anxious because of the baby's arrival. Every-one seems happy as hell in there. Dana doesn't seem any different and the baby's cute. What do you mean by saying it was weird?"

"It wasn't that way before," Colleen said. "Dana was different and the baby was…"

"What?"

"I don't know." She looked at her finger. Although there was no evidence of any wound, it was still sensitive. How could she explain it to him, anyway? She couldn't explain it to herself.

"Maybe you're imagining some of it," Teddy said. "It's a big change in the house, but you'll get used to it. Believe me." He kissed her and got back into the car.

"Maybe," she said.

"This was one of the greatest days of my life, for many reasons," he said. "But you were the most important reason. See you tomorrow."

She smiled and watched him back out. Then she turned and went back to the house. Just as she walked in, Dana was going back upstairs, carrying the baby so that his head rested on her shoulder. Colleen watched them go up. Suddenly the baby opened its eyes and looked down at her. She saw it lift its head slightly, and then she swore she saw it smile. It was such an unexpected kind of smile, a knowing smile, an arrogant smile. It was as if it were letting her know it had pulled something off.

She couldn't keep her eyes off it until Dana reached the upstairs landing and disappeared around the corner. Then she turned and saw Jillian standing in the living-room doorway staring at her, a worried look on her face.

Teddy was wrong. What she felt wasn't her imagination. But what was it? What did it mean?

"Come," Jillian said, holding out her hand. "Join us for a few minutes and let's catch up."

"Yeah, let's hear the details about the game," Harlan said.

"Forget the game," Jillian said. "I want to hear about her love life."

Colleen smiled. She glanced up the stairway again and then took Jillian's hand and went into the living room with her and Harlan.

Dana lowered Nikos into his crib. He was wide awake and stared up at her as intently as she stared down at him. She imagined he was just as fascinated with the sight of his mother as she was with the sight of him. Babies were truly miracles, she thought, and the miracle of Nikos was so overwhelming that she had nearly lost the memory of her own infant dying quickly in the delivery room. She could recall only a vague image now—the image of a child being handed up to a nurse who handled it with the greatest of care.

Maybe it wasn't dead; maybe it was Nikos. This memory of her baby dying—it was probably just a nightmare, she thought. As she stared down at Nikos she promoted that idea more and more until she accepted it as fact. There was no other baby but this one. No, there was no other baby. It came to her like a chant. She had to repeat the thought aloud.

"There was no other baby, only you."

Nikos smiled and jerked his arms toward her, as if he understood.

"Yes," she said, smiling, and then she ran her right forefinger down his cheek to his neck. "No other baby."

He smiled and shook his tiny body from side to side, as if struggling to stand up so he could embrace her. His movement and energy took her breath away, and even though she had just placed him in the crib, she couldn't resist taking him into her arms again.

He pressed his face against hers and she stood there feeling his warm lips moving against her skin. Her heart began to throb and she felt her nipples stiffen. She had fed him only a short time ago, yet she felt this great need to bring his mouth to her breast.

The urge to do so was so overwhelming that it made her head spin. She held him away from her and looked into his face. Was it what he wanted? He wasn't crying; he seemed content. Perhaps she would make him sick by feeding him so much. But there was such a heat and a tingle in her bosom now, undulating within her breasts. She closed her eyes. It felt like a man was gently caressing her and then running the tips of his fingers down the outline of the veins that were close to the surface of each breast.

Funny, but when she thought of a man doing this, she didn't think of Harlan. The man in her imagination was dark-haired and dark-skinned. He was a shadow, the personification of masculinity, rather than any one person from her past or in her memory.

She brought the baby close to her again, and he made a sound in her ear. It wasn't a cry, exactly. It was more like the sound of sucking. It sent a tingle down her spine. Nikos pressed his right hand against her cheek and then wiggled as though to free himself of her embrace and work himself down her body. She was surprised at his strength and determination.

"Okay," she said. "Okay." She started to put him back into the crib, but he screamed and waved his arms at her. He wasn't trying to escape her embrace; he was trying to move himself closer to her bosom. She vaguely wondered if all babies this young had such firm control of their arms and legs.

"What's wrong with you? Don't you want to sleep at all, Nikos?" She lifted him back to her and he stopped crying.

"That's just the way to spoil him," Jillian said, and Dana spun around to confront her mother in the doorway of the baby's room.

"My God, Mother. You frightened me. Why did you sneak in here?" she asked sharply. How long had her mother been standing there, and how much had she seen? she wondered, filled with a guilt she didn't understand.

"I didn't sneak in here, Dana. You probably didn't hear me approaching because you were concentrating on the baby so much," she said. She stepped farther into the room and shook her head. "You can't pick him up every time he cries, Dana. He'll cry all the time, expecting you to. Let him cry himself to sleep, honey."

"He doesn't cry that much, Mother. He won't be spoiled."

"Oh, dear," Jillian said. "You've got to give yourself a break from it, Dana. Put the baby in the crib and come downstairs. You and I have hardly had a chance to talk," Jillian pleaded.

"In a while," Dana said. "I'll come down in a while. I promise."

Jillian shook her head and smiled.

"If your father was alive, he'd be roaring at you like a lion. If there was one thing he couldn't stand to see, it was parents doting on their children."

"I don't dote on him, Mother. I see to his needs. There's a big difference."

"Dana, listen to me—"

"I'll be down in a few minutes, Mother," Dana said more firmly. Jillian saw that she was glaring at her now. Her eyes were glowing with anger, the heat from their embers spreading quickly through her face, tightening her jaw, inflaming her skin. When her lips pulled back, her teeth flashed. Jillian thought she was becoming unrecognizable.

"All right," Jillian said, and left.

Dana waited until she heard her mother going down the stairs. Then she looked at Nikos. His eyes moved with every turn of her head. He was studying her to see what she would do with him; she felt sure of it.

"Poor baby," she said. "I won't leave you yet."

She carried him out of his room to hers and placed him on the bed. He stared up at her silently as she took off her robe. She was wearing a sheer white nightgown. Once again that wave of heat undulated through her bosom. She put her hands under her breasts and felt their fullness. When she opened her eyes, she saw how the baby continued to stare up at her.

She brought the straps of the nightgown over her shoulders and down her arms, permitting the sheer material to slip over her breasts and gather at her waist. Then she stretched out on the bed beside the baby, turning him toward her. He brought his right hand to her left breast and pressed his palm against it. She smiled when he giggled and smacked his lips.

She turned onto her back and lifted the baby so he could rest on her stomach, just below her bosom. She enjoyed the feel of his movement on her body, and for a while she just lay there with her eyes closed.

But it wasn't enough. Her breasts were aching. She cupped them and pressed her palms against them, but nothing stopped the dull but constant agony. She felt like she had been brought to the point of an orgasm and then left to dangle. She couldn't help herself.

She kept telling herself it was bad for the baby to feed so often. Surely he would regurgitate and maybe even get sick, but there was a force working within her that pushed all her motherly concern aside. With her eyes still closed, she reached down and grasped him at the waist. Slowly she brought him up to her breasts until she felt his lips slide over her right nipple.

For a few moments the baby did nothing. When she opened her eyes and looked down, she saw him looking up at her as if he were teasing her. Gently she brought her right hand to the back of his head and pressed him forward, urging him to feed. Then he closed his eyes and she felt the pressure when his lips tightened around her nipple.