JUDAS KISS- NINE- HEREAFTER ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

When they were finally in bed, he immersed himself in her body and began kissing her. His hand moved up and down her body ; then he began talking again. She put her hand on his

mouth: "Hush, enough!" She wanted him to find out about her pregnancy now. His hand moved up and down her body. Her breath was labored. She was whispering some prayers that she had learned in Sunday School when she was a child. She was praying for God's help! Suddenly his hand stopped moving on her stomach. He was silent for a a few deadly moments; and then he sat up and put the light on. He looked at her naked body.

Are you ...?" He could not finish his sentence.

She thought that she had to get it over with no matter the consequences. No speeches, no explanations, no lies.

"Yes, I am pregnant, five months!"

Steve got up from bed. He put his clothes on and left the house. He did not show any emotion. She could not read anything in his stoic face. She knew he would return. He needed her too much to go for ever, to leave her!

She took a shower and dressed up. Sleep was now a far mirage. She went to the kitchen and made coffee. He had taken her car. He yet to buy a car for himself. He just had returned the day before. Helen sat on the recliner chair with the cup of coffee in her hand. She wished she could smoke a cigarette, but she knew that was not good for the baby!

Steve drove without knowing where to go, what to do! In a way he regretted that he had left the home; but now it was too late. He needed to stay out at least for the night now that he done the inevitable. He did not return till the next day around noon. He never said where he had been or whether he had slept the night before or not. There was no smell of alcohol, so Helen knew that he had not gone to a bar for drinking!

The college that Helen worked was not opened yet. There was some construction going on there that had to do with safety issue. Therefore the administration had decided to open the college on first of February, when the remodeling and construction would come to end or almost to end. Because of this delay of opening the college, they had decided to delay ending the semester to make up for the lost time and this interruption.

Helen did not want anyone at college to know that she was pregnant since everyone knew that her husband was in Vietnam. She had taken the Spring semester off completely. According to the doctor, her baby was due towards the end of May. She wrote in her letter to the Human resources and also a copy to the administration, that she would like to take the Spring Semester off to be with her husband, who was returning from Vietnam. They all believed her. They all thought to themselves that what a faithful and beautiful wife she was! She was given the leave of absence without pay. Even though she was a new teacher and had not yet had her tenure. They promised her that her career was not in danger. "We need good teachers like you." Every one in college loved her. They loved her quiet manner, her dignity, her unobtrusiveness, her humility, her modesty, and her humbleness. No one knew that all these were played by a great actress as she was; so no one could know her past, or find out that she was pregnant. Up to the time that fall semester ended before Christmas, she was not showing at all, and the way she always dressed to show how unassuming she was, helped her so people would not talk behind her back. "How come Helen always dress up like students, big shirts, or sweaters and jeans?"

To Be Continued

JUDAS KISS- NINE- HEREAFTER ✆ ✆

Slowly and gradually Jacob's coming to college, where Helen taught, became less and less until it stopped completely.

By the time Steve came home towards the end of January of 1968, Jacob has given up. Helen heard from a mutual friend that his wife and he were planning to have another child! What a fruitful man he was! She also heard that he was now the partner in the law firm of his father- in- law.

Helen was both happy and sad. She was happy that he had returned to his family, that his wife's family had forgiven his foreboding. She was happy that she was carrying his baby, just part of him! But she was sad that he had not fought enough to get her back; that his effort to get her back was short and it subsided fairly quickly! She thought about men in her life, from her father, to Roger, to all those rich clients of Roger, who had wives and families, yet coming after girls like her; and of course Jacob and Steve! Her resolution was that all men were the same. They came and went in her life! They used her and then threw her out like an old handkerchief!

At this point of her life, her thoughts and feelings about men were nothing but a distasteful concept, a generalization that all of them were the same!

"They all are the same! They never be a true love. They all just want you for your body! Oh, God I wish I was an ugly, deformed woman!"

She tried to convince herself that Steve, her husband, was a better man that others that she knew. He had tolerated her and her antics for the last three years and had always come back to her. He was faithful to her. He was hard working! He was Honorable! She even thought about an abortion for the sake of saving her marriage before Steve would return. But no, no she could not do that to Jacob's seed, to the child of one man she truly loved now and forever.

"I beg Steve to forgive me. He loves me enough to forgive me. But what if he wants to know who the father of my baby is? I can't, cant ... no way ... I won't...!"

It was New Years Eve, exactly a year since she had seen Jacob in that hotel party. She recalled how she had flirted with him, how she had taken him to her small apartment!

Letting him go was like a death of a loved one, even though she had never had a true loved- one! But she could imagine how would it feel to see someone you loved, to leave for ever, like death!

She pictured standing over Jacob's dead body, and his splendid and probing glance which enveloped her, as if his eyes were not dead, while his body was all dead, She could swear that it looked as though he would at any moment would ask her a question in an understandable language ; but he was dead! He was silent and did not utter any sound! He did not move a limb or twitch a muscle. All Helen saw was that in the last moment, as though he was responding to some sign that no one could see, a whisper, no one could hear, his frown became heavy, as if agonizing over an intimidating expression! The luster of wondering glance swiftly faded into a vacant glassiness! Helen opened her eyes and realized that she was dreaming how death, or loosing someone dear looked like!!

To Be Continued