Until Judgment Day (12 page)

“
W
HAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Kathryn's cry came out a gasp, her scream a whimper. Her entire bare body trembled. The naked stranger cupped her tender breast and pressed in tight against her, probing from behind.

A second faceless man slid his hand up her thigh. She felt a finger slip inside, then another.

“You can't do that, you're not my husband.”

“So what?” The man behind her thrust, and she wantonly teased him with her buttocks. “You like it.”

“Yes.” She was hot, wet, and ready. And ashamed. “It shouldn't be like this except with my husband.”

“Quiet on the set!” The director was nude, too, except for sunglasses, a Rolex, and motorcycle boots. The porn-movie studio was antiseptically white and too warm.

Sweat trickled down her right breast, collected on her nipple, and dripped onto the sheet.

He leaped from his canvas chair. “Lights, camera, action!” His penis swung back and forth like a grandfather clock's pendulum.

The cameraman switched on a huge carbon-arc stage light and aimed it directly into Kathryn's animal-hungry eyes. She squeezed them shut but it didn't help. The light was as relentless and penetrating as her pornographic tormentors.

When she awoke, the tropical morning sun was streaming through the gauzy curtains, burning through her eyelids, and searing her retinas.

Her gown had been pulled up above her waist, and Dave was spooned tightly behind her. He had inserted two fingers and was stroking her wetness. His erect penis poked at her from the back.

“Is that you, Babe?” she asked.

“Who else would it be?”

She grasped him, then turned onto her back, pulled him close, spread her legs apart and guided him in. He lifted himself, and while she massaged her sweet spot, he nibbled her swelling, darkening nipples, moving in and out slowly but insistently.

She arched her back. “Now!”

His relief came first, hers moments later.

Afterward, they lay together. He propped himself up and looked into her eyes. “I didn't know you had wet dreams.”

“I don't.”

“Couldn't prove it by me. But whatever, it was fun.”

“Don't expect this every New Year's morning.”

She fanned her face and pushed him off. “Why is it so hot in here?”

“I turned off the air conditioner during the night.”

“Why?”

“Didn't think the morning was gonna heat up so fast.”

“Turn it on, please.”

When he crawled back into bed, she said, “I have something to tell you.”

“If you're still horny, it's my duty to try.” He laid his hand on her tummy, but she moved it.

“I'm serious,” she said, and paused. “I'm pregnant.”

“How can you tell so soon?”

“What do you mean ‘so soon'?”

“We just finished making love five minutes ago.”

“Don't make jokes. It happened in October.”

“You're sure?”

“Absolutely. I went to Doctor Burton last Thursday.”

He didn't move or speak for several minutes.

“Are you upset?” she asked.

“Of course I'm not upset.” He rolled onto one elbow, and kissed her on the mouth. “But I don't learn I'm going to be a father every day. It'll take a little time to sink in.”

“I understand. This will change our lives forever.”

“It sure will.”

A
T NINE-THIRTY,
Kathryn ordered breakfast from room-service. She was tying the belt on her white terrycloth Las Hadas robe when the doorbell rang ten minutes later.

“That was fast.”

Instead of a waiter with breakfast trays, a maid stood at the door wearing a starched white uniform and a name tag that read,
ME LLAMA LUCINDA.
Kathryn guessed she was about fifteen.

“¡Hola, señorita!” Kathryn greeted her.

“¡Buenos dias, señora! ¿Quantos personas en éste habitación, por favor?”

“Dos.”

“¡Gracias!” Lucinda made a note on her clipboard, and left.

“Who was at the door?”

“A maid, asking how many people are in our room.”

“That's weird—she could've looked it up in the guest register at the front desk.”

“This is Mexico, we shouldn't expect American logic.”

When the doorbell rang again, the waiter rolled in a stainless steel cart, spread a cloth on the table in front of the window that overlooked La Bahia, and set a plate of sliced water-melon, cantaloupe, guava, banana, and pineapple in the center. He uncovered a basket of rolls and muffins, and finally poured two cups of steaming coffee.

Dave came out of the bathroom with a fresh shave and wet hair, his complimentary robe cinched tight at the waist, looking like a hairy-legged stork in a ghost costume. He checked the table. “Looks terrific.”

The waiter handed him a check, which he signed after adding a generous tip.

“Will there be anything else, señor?”

“Gracias, no.”

They ate silently for a few minutes.

“Is your age a health problem for you or the baby?” he asked.

“Women over thirty-five should have an amniocentesis test to rule out fetal chromosome disorders, but Burton recommends against it in our case because amniocentesis complicates a potentially more serious risk.”

He stopped with a fork full of blood-red guava halfway to his mouth. “What risk?”

“What's your blood type?”

“A-positive.” He swallowed the fruit with a bite of muffin and picked up his coffee.

“I'm RH-negative. You've got to take a blood test immediately, unless—”

“Unless what?”

“The possibility of genetic defect due to my age plus the inability to detect it by amniocentesis, added to the RH factor, creates a very high-risk pregnancy. Diedre suggested we discuss abortion.”

He set his coffee cup down harder than necessary. Coffee slopped over the rim onto the pristine tablecloth. “What did you tell her?”

“That I'd talk to you. She wants us to understand the risks involved, and consider all possibilities.”

“Ultimately, it's your decision, but unless your life's in danger, let's not consider it. I'll go for a blood draw Monday.”

“I already made an appointment.”

“Shoulda known.” He ate two slices of water-melon and a hunk of pineapple. “What next?”

“If you're RH-positive, the baby probably is, too. Once Diedre confirms that, she'll watch us closely. If the pregnancy progresses normally, she'll give me a RhoGam injection during my twenty-eighth week to suppress RH antibody production, for the baby's protection.”

“What if things don't go smoothly?”

“We take it a step at a time. Diedre will do everything possible to see we have a healthy baby.”

He ate the remainder of his fruit and rolls hesitantly. “There's something I want to ask you.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Remember a year or so ago, we discussed the possibility of me adopting Emma?”

“Of course.”

“How would you feel about me filing court papers to adopt her now?”

“It'd make me happy.”

“What about Emma? I need her approval.”

“Ask her when we get home.”

“I will. What do you think she'll say?”

“‘Yes.' Are you sure that's what you want?”

“Absolutely. Know what else I want?”

“Tell me.”

“When everything settles down—after the baby's born healthy, and we nail the SOB that's killing the priests, let's take a honeymoon.”

“You've got my vote. Where should we go?”

“The most romantic place I can think of—Paris.”

“Sounds great,” she told him. “I've never been there.”

“Me neither, but I've always wanted to go.”

“When we get home, I'll buy a couple of travel guides and talk to our travel agent.”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his right leg over his left knee. Kathryn giggled.

“What's so funny?” he demanded.

“Your robe fell open, you're not wearing underwear, and I can see you're feeling romantic again.”

“Amazing what a good night's sleep does for a man. Does it have the same effect on a pregnant woman?”

She stood, untied her robe, let it fall to the marble floor, and tugged him toward the bed. “You woke me up this morning, what do you think?”

I
T WAS ALMOST NOON
when they smeared themselves with sunscreen beneath the white, Moorish-style beach tent.

“Look,” Kathryn said after a few minutes, holding her new sandal. “The sole's coming off. I'm going to exchange them at La Tabaqueria. Do you want anything?”

“Sí, un coco-frío.”

Dave dived into
A Painted House
, which spawned a new perspective on the stories his parents told about life in rural Arkansas, reminiscent of the Chandler family, before they gave up and moved west to find work in San Diego's aircraft industry.

When Kathryn came back, he said, “Let's name our kid Luke.”

“If it's a boy, I like David.”

He sucked the watered-down juice out of the coconut through a peppermint-striped plastic straw. “Me too, but he'd always be ‘Junior.' Did you get new sandals?”

“No problem, they exchanged the old ones for a new pair.” She held her feet up for him to see. “These fit better, anyway.”

“Why didn't you buy the pair that fit best to start with?”

“The other pair went with my swimsuit.”

He chose not to pursue her reasoning. “You were gone a long time. What else did you do?”

“I figured we might want to get out of the resort for dinner at least once—the concierge made nine
P
.
M
. reservations at a seafood restaurant in Manzanillo Centro. Do you plan to read all day, or would you like to do something healthful?”

“I can read tonight.” He inserted a marker and dropped the book in their beach bag. “I don't want to work out at their health club, but I wouldn't mind getting some exercise.”

“Good—I reserved a three o'clock tee time to play nine holes at Las Hadas Golf Links.”

“I haven't golfed in thirty years and you've been taking lessons—you'll kick my butt.”

“Probably. I'll make you feel better if I beat you too badly.”

“How?”

“Use your imagination.”

The back nine at Las Hadas Golf Links was par thirty-six. Teeing up at hole 12, Kathryn was at eleven strokes, Dave at thirty-two, although she had permitted him numerous free drops to get out of the trees, the sand, and the abundant roughs.

“Problem is, I need left-handed clubs,” he told her. They rode the cart back to the clubhouse, where he exchanged clubs with the help of a bemused attendant.

Southpaw clubs didn't help. By the time they finished hole 16, he had stopped counting his strokes at ninety-two, not including the free drops and the swings Kathryn hadn't witnessed.

He was also down to his second-to-last ball, a beat-up orange reject he'd picked up along the way. Long before, he had declared the balls, the clubs, the groundskeeper, the weather, and the putting greens to be at fault.

On 17, Kathryn doubled over in laughter when he plunked his grungy orange ball into a water hazard after digging up half a dozen divots. He reserved his final new ball for 18 by walking up to the 17 pin and dropping the ball in the cup. It took him three tries.

“I'll make up the strokes on the eighteenth,” he promised.

Hole 18 at Las Hadas is a short hundred forty yards, but reaching the green requires a straight hundred-yard tee shot over a nasty surf and two riprap sea walls.

Dave teed up and drove a divot thirty yards into the near seawall. “That stroke doesn't count.”

“Why not?”

“I didn't lose the ball.”

“I don't think that matters.” Kathryn's eyes were blurry with tears of laughter.

“I still have the tee, too.”

“That's good. If there's ever a worldwide golf tee shortage, you'll be the first link in the supply chain.”

“Don't scoff.”

She shrieked, and when she finally stopped laughing, took a deep breath. “We need to laugh more often.”

He laughed, too. “Easy for you to say, I'm the one being laughed at.”

“I'm not laughing
at
you, honey, I'm laughing
with
you.”

“Sure.”

He wound up with a 3-wood, smacked himself on the back of the head, then connected with his longest drive of the day. His last ball covered ninety of the requisite hundred yards to get on the green before splashing unceremoniously into the unforgiving ocean.

He slammed his clubs into the bag. “Driving the cart's a hoot, and I really enjoy the scenery, but this is a dumb game. I quit.”

“I want to play through and finish,” Kathryn told him. “Will you caddy for me?”

“Sure, my machismo's shot anyway.”

She teed up, rocked back and forth, planted her feet, flexed her knees, and lofted a perfect drive that arched onto the green and landed twenty-five feet from the 18 pin.

They drove across the footbridge, he handed her the club, and she two-putted the treacherous par-three hole.

“What did you shoot for the entire nine?” he asked as he steered the cart past the newly constructed, Mayan-inspired Karmina Palace.

“Fifty,” she answered proudly.

“A golfer's only as good as her caddy.”

Dave parked, handed his clubs to the attendant, and said enthusiastically, “¡Gracias! The left-handed clubs really improved my game.”

“¡Excelente, señor! ¿Cuantos golpes?”

Dave shook his head in disgust, as if he might have shot in the low thirties if he hadn't used the wrong clubs on holes 10 and 11. “Fifty-two.”

“¡Muy bueno!” The attendant nodded in admiration. “Y Señora?”

“My wife shot fifty—beat me by two strokes.”