He then pulls me in, not giving me the opportunity to speak. This so isn’t going how I planned. I can’t even find my tongue to speak. And boy do I look an alarming sight. Nervously, Stenton places his popcorn on a nearby table and rakes his fingers in my soaked, bushy hair, paying me an audit of sorts. Then he smells the alcohol on my breath, likely confirming how I was able to get in without alerting him. There was no way I could drive with the amount of alcohol I’ve drank, reeking to the degree I am.
“Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem with you using my staff, but it doesn’t feel good knowing my driver is working behind my back to set me up.” Then his shoulders drop. “Baby, why didn’t you just say you were coming over?” I can’t speak to answer. I’m trying. There’s something I need to get off my chest. “Take off this coat. You’re going to get sick.” Before I can think to stop him, Stenton has already pulled my trench coat open. “Goddamn,” he breathes.
“I want another baby. And before you speak, I need you to know I’ve figured out my hesitance in opening up to you. In…going full throttle with us. You’ve made demands, presented a sequence for how our future is going to play out. I don’t work that way. I have to go with what I feel. You’ve always manipulated things with me, taking on this “master plan” supposedly for my own good. An equal partnership doesn’t work that way. Love isn’t perfectly orchestrated, it’s combustible and unpredictable. It just happens when it’s meant to happen.” I glance down to gesture my frame. “Like the first time, you don’t get lingerie.” That reference to our first time together in Alpine causes his eyes to snap from my completely naked body to my face. I shake my head, forging ahead. “I know you need to lead in order to feel like the man, I don’t have a problem with that, but this will be an equally charted journey. I want a baby, and I don’t want to have to play quid pro quo to get it. If we’re going to do this, you will adhere to my terms, too.”
Stenton’s shell-shock leaves his mouth hanging agape. After seconds long, he places his fists on his waist, as he contemplatively gazes into the distance. I can see the impression of his desire through his sweats. I wait with bated breath, feeling my chest cave, a sensation I thought I was done with as far as Stenton is involved.
What could this do to us?
“Look, Zo, about the baby. That’s a long and complicated process—”
“Why does it have to be?” I throw my hands on my hips.
“Because it is. It’s not something we can take on right now with you in my vestibule like…,” his marbled eyes trace my body, down to my pointy stilettos, “…this, but it’s also a topic we can’t avoid. I can tell you this; I’ll give you all the babies you want, but not until you’re my wife, Zo. That is my sole term. The details behind it, you can knock yourself out weaving together.”
As my eyes sweep the floor, I feel my face crack, almost into a cry, but I don’t feel sad. I feel relieved. I thought he’d call my bluff. He’s conceding. I can work around that term. My chest is now heaving and I’m trying to hold my poker face for one more condition.
My timid eyes meet his searing gaze as I brave, “One last thing.” Stenton steels. That’s all I’m getting from him. I shake my head repeatedly as I assert, “No condoms. No more. Not ever. It creates more than a fluid barrier. It does feel different, unlike my assumption before…Alpine. It makes me feel you want a barrier against me. Like there’s a wedge—”
Stenton grabs me at the face and pushes his tongue hungrily into my mouth, silencing my grievances. Lifting me onto his waist, his long arm crossing my arched back makes me feel precious and protected. He walks over into the living room where I feel him tugging beneath me. Then he slowly falls to his knees with me clasped to his torso. Suddenly I see those marbled eyes filled with a torrent of emotions.