Coming Pregnancy

Aae and I attend an erotic art show at the Velvet House, a new swing club just north of downtown Dallas. She carries a glass of wine around with her as she slow-walks the exhibition. I stroll behind watching her look at mostly black and white photographs of naked females.

There's a live exhibition in one corner. A big beautiful woman in a barely visible bikini pole dances with a sucker in her mouth. She's under a spotlight. Couples like Aae and myself stop to watch her.

Aae whispers to me, "good for her."

"Don't mock her. Not everyone's born petite," I say.

Aae rolls her eyes. "You have no idea what it's like to be a woman," she says.

At one point, after standing for a minute in front of a photograph of a woman, her fists quenched in front of her, her face crumpled in what looks like pain, Aae turns to me and says, "that's birth."

"No," I say, "that's intercourse."

Aae steps back as if she's leaving to re-examine the photo for confirmation that she's right and I'm wrong. Instead she turns back. Without looking around to see who might be watching she reaches between my legs and squeezes.

"Any of this making you hard?" she asks.

I grimace. I'm soft. Not even just a-little thick.

"No, guess not," she says too loud.

She walks to a photograph of a pink, wilted, drooping tulip, stands beside it pointing and says, "this is you," and grins at me her eyes dancing with a self satisfied mockery.

Aae has to win. I know this. It's part of the deal.

@@@@@

The Velvet House hosts a party we plan to attend this Saturday.

I go shopping on Wednesday in search of a party dress for her. It's Christmas season. I anticipate a lot of traffic and bustle but the mall is quiet except for loud holiday music.

Two children, a boy and girl, maybe five and six years old, play in front of the Christmas tree which towers up to the ceiling in the middle of the mall. The boy is laying on his side, on the concrete floor, pushing a truck around in front of him. The girl stands on her tiptoes, raises her hands above her head, pirouettes, and looks over at a woman I assume is her mother who claps a few times. Their exuberance is captivating, more so than the ornamented twinkling glow of the large tree.

I find it easy to talk to sales women about dresses. At least at first. I ask a short hispanic woman with jet black hair at The Limited if a medium or a small was more like a size six.

She rests one hand on a glass countertop and juts out the opposite hip.

" It depends," she says.

So I describe Aae. "It's for a friend. She's about 5'4" and weighs 114 pounds. She's petite, not round."

I like the black cocktail dress but I don't want to go wrong with the size. I want a red dress but I'm not sure if it's just the Christmas thing.

I stop at Victoria Secrets. An ambience of cultivated provocation leaves a distaste. I prefer to think I'm not so easily manipulated but I am. My generation is nearly past the baby making stage yet there I am gawking for a moment. "It never ends," is a phrase that passes through my mind.

Something I've never told Aae is this: I always take a viagra before we make love. She believes I have outstanding, highly impressive tumescence, but it's all medication. I get anxious if we're in a situation where she might want to fuck and I haven't downed my tablet. When I'm with her I always have one in my front right pocket.

She once asked, while holding my impressive stiffness,"is this normal?" I said, "it's what you do to me."

I believe Aae needs to hear things like that. Probably because I'd like to hear things like that about me. I wish she'd say she loves my penis but she never says that. She says,"is this normal?"

Floey at JC Penneys has full thick lips and some Christmas dresses that might work but nothing sexy and petite except in the juniors section which she walks me over to. I follow her which is satisfying. I like being led by a woman but Im not sure what Junior size would work for Aae.

Aae is not a junior. She's 42 and has four children.

Dillards has a floor of dresses a third the size of a football field. I wander and wander and feel hopeless. The process has started to feel like work. I want a perfect dress to appear suddenly, one that will cause Aae to want to touch it and quickly try it on, one that makes her feel like I know how to bring out her natural beauty.

A small blond woman, with a German accent, her hair in a bun, searches through racks of dresses pulling them out one by one.

"You like this?"

"No,...too long."

"How about this one? Burgundy

is beautiful."

"I'd like a red one."

"For the holidays?"

"No."

"How's this deep red? She will look beautiful."

I need words of reassurance. I need one of these saleswomen to decide for me. I need to be relieved of what's becoming a terrible burden. I feel like I should know what will look beautiful on Aae and it is clear to me that I don't. And that I don't know means I lack something. Aae takes my viagra induced stiffness all the way inside her. I lose myself in her and yet I have little idea what would make her look beautiful. There's something not right about that.

"How about a shawl?"

"What's that?"

"Oh Yes. She'll like that. I've seen her wear one."

@@@@@

On Saturday Aae arrives at 6:00. I'm outside, on my knees feeling around under the front seat of my car where I thought I'd left my wallet while at the gym when I see her mini van turn down my street. I rush to the front door dusting off my knees and open it.

There's Aae. She grins. Her black curly hair floats softly around her pale face, brown eyes and slightly oversized nose. She says nothing.

She carries in a stack of clothes. She is spending the night. She drops the stack of clothes on my cat scratched green striped corduroy sofa. She stands in front of me and cocks her hip. Her face reddens. She explains a concern about her husband.

Her husband, Greg, is always a concern.

She is leaving Greg.

Greg lives in an apartment a block from her house. Greg moved out four years ago.

She has been leaving Greg for four years.

Greg has alcohol issues and other issues that make her pity him.

This morning Greg fell and hit his head.

Greg has a concussion but says he is okay despite the nausea and vomiting. Aae is worried.

Greg was asleep when she left but the older kids reassure her they will watch the baby.

"Do you think he might die?" I ask.

Aae laughs and stops herself from saying what she wants to say.

"So I'm here," she says with a smile and a twirl.

But the moment of lightness vanishes. Aae looks tired. She grimaces in disgust several times as we sit down to talk. The garage door is stuck three quarters the way closed. Her oldest son didn't get home until midnight last night. Greg is Greg.

She likes the dress okay. "You bought this for me to wear?" she asks at one point which is enough of a compliment to make me whole for a few minutes.

She sets it aside, sits down and puts her hands around her cheeks cupping her face.

"Wanna fuck before I get dressed?" She asks while looking at the floor.

"No, I'm good, let's save it for tonight," I say feeling for the pill in my right front pocket.

"I could use a glass of wine."

We sit down so she can drink her glass of wine. Having children means worry she says. There's a hardness in her voice.

"I saw two children playing in front of the Christmas tree at the mall the other night and stopped to watch them for a few minutes," I say.

"You're not a mother." she says.

We have this discussion when we meet someplace without her children. Her children stress her. The moment she leaves them she is stressed about leaving them.

"Motherhood is a cage." I say.

She rolls her eyes.

Later, on the porch at a Mexican restaurant near downtown, Aae is wearing the dress I bought her, looking at a tree filled with black birds cackling so loud we have to raise our voices to hear each other.

"Watch, they hop from limb to limb fluttering their wings," she says.

I'm thinking about being inside of her- of her sitting on my penis going up and down and the exquisite sensation of warmth and friction.

"Would you like to have a child together?" I ask.

Aae twists away from the birds to look at me. Her eyes are steady on my face for the first time today. I say things to Aae for the drama. I try to get through though I don't know what I'm trying to get through.

I continue. "You like me inside you. Why don't you let me put a baby inside you?"

A festivity takes over her forehead. Her chair scraps the floor as she slides it in. She moves towards me. That's the point. All I wanted really was that gesture. I lean forward.

"I can make you heavy, bloated, red faced and your little belly pouch out real far with our child. I wanna be the father of your next child."

She purses her lips, then inhales a laugh, "my next child?"

She shakes her head negatively though I'm thinking about a night several years ago after a poetry reading we made out in a public park down the street from her house. It was before she got pregnant with her last child.

"Moe (her youngest) could be our baby you know. We could have conceived her that night in the park on a picnic table."

"I know," she says.

Aae looks away. The birds have departed. She looks back to me and brings the curtain down on the pregnancy repartee. She wants a new act.

"I like the dress," she says. Where'd you get it?

"Macys. It fits you well though it's longer than I wanted and the neckline is high. I wish it showed more of your breasts. The fabric reminds me of a the doilies they put out at high end restaurants after dinner, the ones for your saucer and coffee cup."

I don't think this is probably the right thing to say but it's what comes out of my mouth.

"I'd have preferred black. You know I went through a goth phase in high school," she says.

"I believe that," I say, "Did you wear black lipstick?"

"Of course. I had to wear pantyhose tonight instead of the garters and stockings that I brought."

I'm confused for a moment. Then I'm okay.

@@@@@

When we arrive at the Velvet House Aae is irritable. She's irritable because I've just told her I put her real name on the guest list. She'd asked that I just use my name but we were both going to have to present identification. The website invitation explicitly says that we are not to use false names. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to risk her declining so I just put her name down.

"If I get fired from my job and lose my children, you're going to take care of me," she says.

"Okay," I say. "We'll just have more children to replace the ones you lost,"

My levity fails. I don't mind.

"You know the story you wrote about our visit to the swing club in August? You left something's out," she says as we walk to the entrance.

"You left out the fact that you went down on me there."

"The story was about how you kissed another guy and disappeared with him to a private room. Not about what you and I always do," I say.

"We were doing it in front of 20 people. That's not what we always do," she scoffs.

"Okay. I'll rewrite it and put it in."

"No, on second thought, you shouldn't write any of this down because CPS might get a hold of it on the internet and find out I'm doing this kind of thing and that I am an unfit mother and take my children."

We pause and turn to each other not far from the entrance. There's a possibility we won't go in. I explain that CPS is overwhelmed with cases. They don't remove children from parent's custody because they disagree with their lifestyle. I speak as if I have inside information that I don't. I hope my words will carry us across the finish line and into the swing club.

"In Texas someone needs to hang," she says as we greet the door attendant. "It's a mean place."

@@@@@

The music is loud. We sit in a corner together. Within minutes Aae says we are being wallflowers. She takes two consecutive swigs from her glass of wine and takes my hand and leads me out on the dance floor even though there's only one other couple dancing. We don't stay long.

The building is an old church. We walk the perimeter then towards the back and through a dark hallway with closed doors. Aae jiggles each door handle but they're all locked. We're someplace we shouldn't be but I like how she's exploring, leading the way. We emerge back into the sanctuary. On the wall behind where the alter was there's a slide show of erotic photos. We sit down on a sofa.

Another couple sits on the sofa directly across from us. I say hello. The woman wears a translucent top of thin black material and short shorts. She has small nipples.

I introduce us. They are Joanne and Martin. They are from Milwaukee. They are originally from upstate New York.

He is in dairy products.

"Milk?"

"Yep."

She is taking a photography class and begins talking about an assignment to photograph a person. She says her friend, a neighbor, volunteered to be the person she photographed. She said she wanted to be photographed nude. But when the time came to take off her clothes she couldn't do it. She said she needed one more glass of wine. Then another.

"She finally got undressed and let me photograph her," Joanne says. "I got some good shots. But the next day she called and told me to delete them all."

Martin interrupts. "You left out the best part."

Joanne leans in as if for us to gather round to hear a secret.

"She told me to watch. She wanted me to watch while she made herself cum. She said it was her thing, something she'd always wanted to do. Then she just started diddling herself right in front of me until she came. That's really what she wanted I think. Was for me to watch."

Aae stops listening at some point and is watching the slideshow.

"Look," Aae says. She tugs my arm, ignoring Joanne's worthy-of-a- comment story.

"The slide show," she says, "there's no male frontal nudity. No penises. I want to see a penis. Why no penises?"

Joanne turns and looks briefly then says it's against the law.

"This is Texas," she says "public photos of a penis are against the law in Texas."

"I didn't know that," I say.

"This is a swing club. Men are going to be naked soon with their penises out for all to see," Aae says.

Joanne shrugs.

Aae's chin comes up and a bright smile leaps onto her face.

"I want to see a penis," she says. "Why don't you guys stand up and pull down your pants so we can both have a look?"

Joanne elbows her husband and grins at him. Apparently, this is a moment they've been waiting for. Who knew. Martin stands up and begins unbuckling his belt. Down go his pants. He pushes his underwear down to his knees.

"Wow," Aae says. She covers her mouth with her hand as if she were chewing a large mouthful of food.

He is large. Very large considering his state of flaccidity. His drooping hang length is the length of my hand and though he was soft, an evident thickness is present.

"I only thought black men had penises that big," Aae says inappropriately.

"What's wrong with you?" I sigh.

Joanne is beaming and I'm sure it's pride. She has some kind of ownership in this moment and for a moment I imagine it was Joanne who convinced Martin to attend this party for this very reason, for other women to see her husband's impressive member. Maybe it's generosity. She wants to share the glory of her husband's endowment.

Whatever. There it is. I need to leave.

"There's no way I can measure up to that," I say standing. "Can I get anyone another drink?"

"You could measure up," Aae says to me though looking at Joanne while reaching for my sleeve, to keep me there. There's a defensive tone in her voice which leads me to believe that she has co-opted my penis in a sudden well-let-show-you-what-I-got contest as she yanks me back to stand next to Martin and his big dick. Another, minor hope arises that she's going to announce that she loves my penis but she doesn't.

"Nick could measure up but I'd need to get him hard. He's small when soft but he has a very impressive erection," she says and grabs my belt buckle and starts to undo it.

A wave of anxiety sweeps through me which usually paralyzes my tongue but I remove Aae's hand, fix my belt, take a step away, and say, with surprising honesty and a laugh, "I'd have performance anxiety."

When I return Martin has pulled up his pants and Joanne points to a B&W image on the wall. A dark haired woman sits straight up on a bed with her breasts jutting forward. She wears a fish net body stocking. She looks inhuman. Mannequin like.

Joanne says, "That picture would

be better if she didn't have that thing on."

We all look at the fishnet covered naked woman.

Aae says, "I think her legs should be open. Inviting."

"But she's waiting..waiting for a man to coax her into opening them," Joanne says.

Aae repeats the word "coax."

I'm always surprised when I hear women talk about sex. Somewhere in the base of my unconscious I'm convinced that women never think about or talk about sex. The belief is so primordially fixed that when I hear a woman talk about sex it feels like it's the first time I've ever heard a woman talk about sex, ever.

And that must mean she's interested in having sex with me. A thought that usually vanishes in moments.

There's a slight rise and then something ho-hum about the moment. It might have been the brittleness in Joanne's face. She seemed statuesque and over-prepared. Maybe it was an air of superficiality that I couldn't shake.

Aae leads me by the hand to the dance floor again. She is almost finished with her bottle of Cabernet. I move to the beat. I'm not awkward but I don't lose myself. I need more from Aae. She's barely touched me.

I should note here that I crave Aae's touch. We met five years ago in a writing group. She's a bright woman, intelligent, occasionally funny, can make a casserole (broccoli and chicken w breadcrumbs), write a story, analyze a movie, hike a few miles, but all that's pretty much secondary to having intercourse with her. Her touch makes me disappear.

Only a few women who I've had sex with and I've had sex with many despite my erection problems, could cause me to disappear when we fucked. These few women were all mothers. I think there's something about women who've given birth that increases their sexual power.

They know touch. They know how flesh comes from flesh. They've been penetrated. They've carried babies in their bodies then cradled, cooed, and nursed them. They know how to be at one with another. And that's what happens when Aae draws me into her body. I disappear. I need a woman who takes me, who steals me from my self-absorbed worry, where I not only lose myself but, and I don't like this phrase, I'm born again.

It's not a feeling she shares. At least she's never said anything like that.

We hit midnight. Drunkenness rules. Shoes are scattered about the sides of the dance floor. The lights are dimmed then go out for a minute.

Aae is out on the dance floor by herself. Her dance is in her hips, she rolls them round and round slowly, up and down, her hands up in front of her, her eyes closed or maybe downcast, as if she were pushing someone away- the pussy grind of rejection. But she drops her hands and grinds her way over to a guy who she had pointed to earlier saying he was cute. She gets down. She rubs her butt against his.

He turns and looks. He kisses her. She has to lean up as he bends down. It's a full kiss.

Aae has beads of sweat on her forehead when she returns to the sofa.

"Get me some water,"she says.

I get up. I stand at the uncrowded bar but find Aae next to me.

"I love his hair," she says nodding at the bartender. She asks him if she can touch it, He agrees. She stands on her toes, reaches up as he leans forward, and with inappropriate deliberation rakes her fingers through his long brown hair. She is tipsy. The bartender grows impatient. Aae likes that she has disturbed him. The alcohol is fueling a thread of obnoxious directness which will grow if she continues drinking.