Ch.8, Pt.6: Katherine stared at him, barely breathing…
Katherine stared at him, barely breathing, until she saw his nostrils flare as he tried to control a smile. Then she gasped and chuckled before swatting him. “You tease!” Laughing, she started rapidly flailing at his face and head, cuffing him and crying “You’re a dead man!”
He ducked, laughing as well, holding his hands out to catch hers by the wrist. “You started it, with your obsession with stripping.” His laughter faded and he kept hold of her wrists. “But I was toying with you, not teasing you.” And slowly he brought his face toward hers and kissed her.
As she responded he let go of her wrists and they wound their arms around each other. When they stopped kissing, Katherine rested her head against him. They sat on the blanket box together, holding each other close.
“That answers my question,” he said.
“What was that?”
“Was that a one-night stand, or are you willing to continue with me.”
In reply, Katherine turned her head to his face again. His mouth tasted like coffee and donuts. This time, when his hand touched her breast, she broke away. “But there are a few things I have to discuss with you.” Suddenly shy, she started with the easiest question. “Why didn’t you return my call?”
“I apologize. I’ve been very busy. Whenever I had a chance to call you, it was very late at night or during office hours, when I didn’t want to bother you.”
Katherine wasn’t satisfied. “I have an answering machine, and you could leave a message at work, and I’d call when I was free.”
He kissed her forehead. “Okay. I’ll do that from now on.”
She moved on to the next difficult point. “Last time, we didn’t do anything about birth control.” She glanced at him. He was paying attention and smiling. “And I think that if we do that again, we should take precautions.” Why is it that I can let this man lick me all over, yet I can’t talk about birth control without embarrassment, she thought.
“We don’t have to,” he said softly. “I’ve had a vasectomy.”
Katherine was silent as confusion washed through her. He can’t make me pregnant. Even if I wanted him to. Low tremor of grief. How could he make that decision? It limits his whole future. Our future. Maybe he’s joking. Maybe it just happened. Maybe I’m having a child anyway! Hope.
“When did you have it?” Katherine demanded. “Just lately? Is that what you’ve been doing?”
Rick gave a hoot of laughter. “I had it just after my second child was born.”
“Second child? What are you talking about?” Katherine suddenly felt numb. “I thought you weren’t married.”
“I’m not. I’m divorced.”
“When were you divorced?” She was trying to absorb all the information. Vasectomy. Children. Divorced.
“A few years ago.” He frowned and glanced out the window.
Divorced, children, vasectomy. There was a lot she didn’t know about this man. And there was no chance that she was pregnant. She looked at him a moment, feeling that he had told her he was impotent. He didn’t seem as male, as desirable as before. He no longer seemed dangerous and exciting. “So you’ve had your children. How nice for you. How many did you say?”
“Two. Both boys.”
“How old are they?” She braced herself, fearing that they were little children.
“19 and 16.” Katherine must have looked shocked, because Rick added “Yeah, they’re pretty big boys now. One’s in university.”
“You married young.”
“Right out of high school. Had to marry, actually. That was Jason. Then Jeremy came along, and I thought we’d better put a stop to it.”
“I see.” Katherine got up and started folding some clothing she had left on a chair. “This is a lot of information to take in all at once.”
“Does it make a difference?”
“No, it’s your business. It’s your life. It’s just that - you’re going to laugh, but for the last few weeks I’ve been worried that I might be pregnant. And ironically, that’s impossible!” Katherine gave a humorless smile.
Rick got up and approached her. “You weren’t planning to get pregnant by me, were you? Because I’m not crazy about women who try to get themselves pregnant without telling the man.”
“Well you don’t have anything to worry about even if I were, do you? You can’t get a woman pregnant.”
“That’s right. That was the whole idea.”
They simmered a moment in anger.
“I’m the one who brought up the subject of birth control, remember? So I would hardly be planning to steal a baby from you. In fact, I was worried because we hadn’t used birth control. And now -” she shook her head. “All that worry for no reason.”
“I didn’t think of discussing it with you because I haven’t had to worry about birth control for a long time.”
“Yeah. You’ve got teenage boys, and I’m just starting to think about having children.”
“At your age? You can’t be serious.” His frown suddenly cleared as Katherine stiffened and slowly dropped a sweater back onto the chair. “You are serious.”
“I think we’re finished in here,” she said icily, moving toward the door.