Mrs. Correlli's Lover

"You present me with millions of your little spermaleafs--"

"Spermaleafs?"

"It's what your father called them," I said. "And I've condemned all but one of them to a certain death."

He raised his head again. "What did you say?"

I repeated what I had said.

"Mom...?" His voiced alarmed now. "What are you talking about?"

I raised my head, looked into his eyes. "Didn't I tell you?"

"Tell me what?" he said, half-sitting up with me atop him.

"That I might be pregnant, of course."

* * *

I awoke with a start and sat bolt upright. The covers fell away, and although I searched them desperately, there was no Bradley--or anyone else--hiding within. I flopped back to the mattress, panting.

"My God," I groaned. "What if I do get pregnant?"

I turned on my side, tucking the comforter in beneath my chin. The dream was fading now, all but forgotten, but not the feeling of dread. Yesterday, I had stood in my bedroom planning to commit incest with my son, aware that I was fifteen days into my cycle. A brand new egg, a tiny little human being in the offing, was even now making its way to my uterus, to patiently await fertilization.

Bradley would have to wear a condom, I thought, like it or not. I was not coming home from Holiday Inn pregnant with a fifth child. Not this little girlie-cue.

And we're missing the important consideration here, my voice of reason stated.

That being, I asked?

Sex with your son?

Okay, I thought. I've been over that. Countless times. Pick another subject.

I turned onto my back, tucked myself even tighter, stared at the odd shapes left on the plaster ceiling by some sponge.

Did I really not have a problem with this? I thought about Bradley taking off my clothes tomorrow night in the motel room. I thought about renting the motel room today, lying when the young woman on the phone asked the number of occupants.

"One," I had said. "Just myself."

Only, the number was really three, wasn't it? One plus one makes three.

I pitched over onto my other side, irritated, mouthing silent curses at my obstinate conscience.

"Why don't you leave me alone?" I muttered.

Why don't you come to your senses, she answered?

It's too late to take a pill, I thought. I'll use my diaphragm. Tisha's diaphragm, I reminded myself: It's why she was born.

Around four o'clock, I finally fell back asleep. I dreamt only once that I remember, about little yellow ducklings paddling around a murky, heart-shaped pond. They quack-quacked the name of the child that I had never delivered to be Bradley's baby brother.

* * *

Brad and I didn't talk the next day. He was gone all day long, either mowing lawns as he had done since starting his summertime business back in 2003, or running errands for our crippled neighbor, Mrs. Roderigo. At five o'clock I saw him momentarily as he came inside to clean up.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"A little," he mumbled.

Don't get peevish, I thought. He's as uptight as you are, Anita.

"I can make you--"

"I don't want anything, Mom. I'm going up to take a shower."

He began to walk away and then stopped. I thought he would go on, but he reversed course and came over beside me and kissed the side of my neck. I inhaled his odor of sweat and grass and pheromones and told my upstart heart to quiet the hell down.

"Maybe, I will have something," he half-whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"Anita Collins. On the half-shell."

He kissed my neck again and I shivered right down to my toenails. Then he walked away and I stared after him, eventually telling myself to close my mouth.

* * *

Friday was awful. I cannot describe Friday. It is not in my vocabulary.

At four o'clock, I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and ran water into the tub. I sat on the tub's hard side, my legs widespread, feet in the water, shaving my pubic hair into a thin blonde stripe half-an-inch wide, starting just above my clitoris. I shaved my labia completely free of hair, something I hadn't done in four years. Then, weighing the consequences of a deadly slip of the razor, I rendered myself free of hair everywhere.

I had finished the hard part, so I shaved my legs and then my underarms, emptied the water and started the shower. If Geena or Lettie wondered why Mom was taking such a ridiculously long shower for a birthday dinner with Bradley, let them.

I dressed in a sleeveless blue and green sundress. Beneath were the new Victoria's Secret bra and panties I had bought Thursday afternoon. I decided against pantyhose. My legs looked fine.

Dressed and ready to go, I found everyone in the kitchen but Geena. Bradley was dressed handsomely in new khaki Docker's and an open-throated shirt. His hair was a teenage mess, but otherwise he looked fine.

He looked at me only for a second when I walked in, but long enough. His face grew red, and hiding it, he opened the refrigerator door and busily inspected the shelves.

"What time'll you be home?" Lettie wanted to know, chewing a leftover Domino's breadstick.

I took the breadstick away from her--"Hey! That's mine!"--and directed her to the dinette table and made her sit down. "No eating at the counter," I said for the ten-thousandth time. I picked up the small tub of barbeque sauce, and put it on the table before her.

"This is not dinner," I said.

"I know it isn't," she answered peevishly.

"And where is your little sister? You're supposed to be watching her."

"Under the table."

I looked down. I heard scuffling sounds and a 4-year-old's merry giggle.

"All right," I said. "Be good tonight. We'll be home by ten o'clock or so. I don't want any funny business, either. Tell your sister . . . Geena!" I shouted.

"What?" came her distant reply.

"No boys in this house, young lady!"

"Oh, Mom," she answered disgustedly.

"I mean it!" I called out, to no response.

Lettie had done a double take. "Ten o'clock?" She looked at the sunflower clock on the wall. "How long's it take to eat dinner, Mom?"

Not looking at her, but at her brother, I said, "We might see a movie afterward. I'm not sure yet. If we do, it could be as late as eleven-thirty, or twelve o'clock. I want you in bed when I get home, if that's the case."

"Oh, Mom." She rolled her eyes and got a smack atop the head for it. "Ouch!"

"Eleven o'clock," I reminded her. "No later." I kissed her on the head and we left.

* * *

Bradley drove. I sat seat-belted in beside him, legs tightly crossed, fidgeting, lower lip between my teeth, staring out the window. I saw nothing but a passing blur.

Hesitantly, he asked: "You all right?"

No, I was not all right! Jesus Christ, Bradley, I am not all right.

"I'm fine," I said. "Drive."

Ostensibly, we were on our way to the Red Lobster on Shady Grove Road in Rockville; in reality we were heading for the Holiday Inn on Montgomery Village Avenue in Gaithersburg. A one hundred and forty dollar, one-night-stand.

"I can't do this," I almost said.

A Ride-On Bus passed us on the right, blowing diesel fumes against the windshield. Even with the windows closed I could still smell it. Just terrific, I thought sourly, for an already clenched stomach. Was I going to vomit? Right here in the car?

Again, I almost told him I couldn't do it.

Anita! Come to your senses! He's your son!

My son, I thought, almost sadly, who's had a crush on me for--

I broke off that line of thought. He was eighteen now; I was well over eighteen. Live in the present, I thought, not the past. The past is done.

At Montgomery Village Avenue, Bradley made a left, continued down a block and U-turned. At the front entrance of the hotel, he pulled in to drop me off. I retrieved my valise from the rear floorboard where I had left it that afternoon, and slipped it over my right shoulder. A sundress and a valise: how cute.

"Remember," I told him needlessly. "Half an hour. No sooner. I don't want anyone getting suspicious about this."

"I know, Mom."

"And when you come up? Be on your cell phone the entire time. It'll make you look more natural." It didn't occur to me that it was me he should call. "And don't look around the hallway when you're walking down from the elevator. Just come to the room and--"

Shit! I thought. He wouldn't have a key. "Shit!" I hissed. "You won't have a key."

He shook his head and laughed at me. "Who do you think'll be talking to me the whole time on the cell phone? When I get there, you just open the door, Mom. Or leave it open for me. This isn't rocket science, Mom."

"Oh," I said, feeling extremely stupid. "Yeah. Sure. Okay."

"Relax, okay?" He rubbed his hand up and down my left arm. "Just take it easy. It'll be fine."

"Sure," I said, taking a deep breath and smiling bravely at him. "It'll be fine."

What a load of hogwash.

* * *

The room was 7012. It faced Montgomery Village Avenue, giving me a splendid, three-second view of Lakeforest Mall before I closed the drapes.

I didn't even remember checking in. I couldn't tell you if the woman--I think it was a woman--was black or white, American or foreign. Maybe she had an accent?

I dropped the valise in a chair and stretched my back. For one glorious instant, I had this insane notion that I was about to start, that everything would go circling down the drain tonight, and I almost laughed. Oh, if only, I thought bitterly.

Bending down and rummaging through the valise, I came out with an unopened box of Trojan condoms, a tube of Ortho spermicidal jelly, a box of spermicidal applicators, and my not-so-trusty diaphragm from four years ago. Between the four of them, I thought I'd be safe. I hoped I'd be safe.

"Okay," I said, placing the box of condoms on the nightstand. Hurrying into the bathroom, I rushed right out again and dashed over to the door to see what that noise had been in the hallway, to make sure it was locked, and to make sure that no one was lurking outside with a camera.

A camera, Anita? You are coming unglued!

I returned to the bathroom and removed my panties, placing them on the sink top, and sat down. I opened the ludicrously-pink carrying case and removed the diaphragm. I checked it carefully all around the perimeter, as I had already done three times that day, and then prepared to put it in.

"God, I hate these things," I said aloud. I hated them, and right then I hated myself even more. With a mechanical motion I squeezed a small amount of jelly into the bowl of the cup and folded the ring over the jelly.

"Just do it," I told myself, and then did.

For good measure, I added a small squirt of cream from one of the plastic applicators and then wiped myself to remove any excess. I knew what the stuff tasted like. Then I slipped back into my panties, smoothed my dress and went into the room to wait.

And I thought: Effective for two hours. That was the lifespan of the spermicidal jelly: two hours. If sexually active for more than two hours, the instructions had read, or if not active for the first two hours, apply more spermicidal jelly into your vagina. If diaphragm comes dislodged during sex, consider emergency contraception.

I felt incredibly sick at my stomach.

My cell phone rang and I started and grabbed it off the bed. It wasn't Bradley though. It was ...

"Geena, what is it!" I snapped.

There was a startled silence on the other end. Then finally, "Geez, Mom, get a grip. It's only a birthday dinner."

"What?"

"You said you were going to Red Lobster," she complained.

Oh, no. Oh, God no. "Where are you," I demanded. And don't you say--

"Red Lobster. Where are you?"

* * *

In a panic I speed-dialed Bradley's cell phone number.

"I'm here," he said. "Is it time?"

"Get the hell up here!" I hissed. Then, "No! Meet me downstairs in the driveway! Right away." I was already running for the door, valise forgotten.

"What's going on?" he demanded, sounding in equal measures mystified, miffed and disappointed.

I told him.

* * *

All things considered--considering how it could have gone--Bradley's surprise birthday party was not a disaster. The birthday boy showing up an hour late wasn't so great--an event justly and wholly the fault of his stupid mother, a fact my brat's Geena and Lettie and everyone else involved in the party didn't let me forget for ages--but we survived.

That was two weeks ago. Brad's father has long since flown back to his bimbo in Connecticut, and things have pretty much settled down again at home.

Pretty much.

As I type this diary entry into my Apple iPad, sipping the iced tea Bradley has so thoughtfully brought out onto the back porch for me before returning to his work on the broken lawn mower--I get to watch his strong broad back shimmer with perspiration in the noonday sun--I say a silent prayer, thinking how badly things could have ended.

Next week, I'll ride along with him to Maryland University to see the campus and to be introduced to his coaches. We plan to spend some time in the very nice new hotel they opened up on Baltimore Avenue near the college. Bradley had me call over there, yesterday, to check the rates. Very reasonable, I thought.

Am I scared?

Of course I'm scared. Terrified.

Am I going to do it?

We'll see what happens. Again.