A lone in the bathroom, she stood in profile before the mirror measuring the making, stroking her belly, caressing the child within, seeing breasts filling. Jesse had confirmed she was beginning to swell. Her eyes appeared to have seen something wonderfully radiant and borrowed a brilliance that lived in them now.
She had turned off the light before opening the door and stood there with a candle in her hand, a phantom image from another time, a world of coaches and horses, mansions on country estates, rustling gowns, lounging hounds, and string quartets. A tortoise comb held her hair up-swept, wayward wisps curling along her ears and down the length of her neck to the band of her gown. The pale pink creamy fullness of her was showing through. In one smooth move she was cross-legged on the bed with the candle placed on the table. A small, flat tin was in her hand.She wore her mysterious smile as she fondled the tin, then opened it and held it out for him to see. “They’re colored crayons. You can dip them in water and paint with them. We can paint our bodies. They’re from France.”
“All right!” he laughed. “What a cool idea.” A thought came instantly. “Can I go first?”
“Okay. There’s a glass of water right there.” He knelt in front of her and took her face in his hands. He touched his lips to hers and felt her breath. He reached down to the hem of her gown and lifted it slowly as she raised her arms to allow passage over her head. She shook her hair across her shoulders and lay back, pale silk and cream and blood beneath. He wet the green one first and touched it to her skin to the right of her navel and moved it in a curving line. “Don’t look till I’m done.”
Nearly an hour had passed when he asked if she’d fallen asleep. She hummed a no. He applied some final strokes and paused to appraise his work before declaring it done. Then he took her by the hand, told her to shut her eyes, and led her to the antique mirror on the wall of their bedroom. He stood naked beside her. “Okay. You can open your eyes.”
She looked bewildered before the words came to her lips.
“Jesse…it’s beautiful…I didn’t know you could do this…”
“Neither did I,” he laughed.
The curving form of a baby enwombed was perfectly drawn on her belly and around it a wreath of green leaves on woven vines with two tendrils emerging at the top and growing up one to each breast where flowers bloomed. A rose on the right, a sunflower on the left, nipples as painted pistils. And just above the delta at the joining of her legs were four pink flowers and little green leaves.
“Your turn.” He said.
“Maybe tomorrow.” She reached up her arms, a look of rut in her eyes, and wiggled her fingers to draw him to her. He felt her painted skin against his own as her arms pulled him in. He moved down her body till his mouth was at the baby and his hands caressed a rose and a sunflower, then slid to the dampness of the delta where the orchid opened crimson and purple and engulfed him in its mystery.
He was always first awake and felt like a kid getting away with something to watch her sleep. Each breath blowing a wisp of hair, away and back. She had her own way of warring with bedding, twisting sheets and slinging pillows. Almost always on her stomach, one hand in her groin, the other slung, a long bent leg sticking out and half a buttock bare. She gave the impression of a mummy that had been granted a brief return to life and, midway through escaping her wrapping, had grown exhausted and fallen asleep. He kissed the plump mellow melon of her rump as he reached to press the hollow just above. She groaned and, stretching long and yawning, turned.
Water steamed over them. The baby and the painted garden on her flesh washed away in rainbow rivers flowing down her thighs as he knelt in the shower sliding the soap over her skin and pressing his cheek to her belly, her fingers in his hair.
He took her by the hand and led her to the porch. Before they stepped through the door, he told her to close her eyes. “What now?” She said.
It was a rocking chair. A hand-done, intricate weaving of bent willow with thick quilted cushions on the seat and tied with bows to the back. “It’s a momma’s chair. You can sit and rock-a-bye-baby in your arms.” She smiled and closed her eyes as she settled her head against the back. He sat on the rail and watched her. All doubt, all fear, had vanished as if it had never been. There was something private and female in this state that she was in, a harmony between temperament and circumstance, a special warming joy distinctly hers.