Enchanted Desire

Chapter 22

Early one morning, four days before Christmas, I woke up from a sound sleep feeling sick to my stomach. I jumped out of bed and rushed into the bathroom, making it just in time. As soon as I lifted the lid on the toilet my throat clenched and my abdomen began to contract. I could not hold back the wave of nausea that washed over me, and I began to vomit. There were several wet heaves and a couple dry ones, and when I was finally through I did not feel any better.

When I was younger and drank too much, very often I would feel some relief immediately after throwing up, having gotten whatever was troubling me out of my system. This was not like that at all. There was nothing left inside me, but somehow I felt even worse. Kneeling on the cold bathroom floor, I let out a soft moan as my stomach cramped up. It felt like my insides were being tied into knots. I wasn’t drunk and I didn’t have the flu. Food poisoning was always a possibility, but nobody else was sick. It could have simply been too many butter balls, even though I had cut back on my consumption of all confectionary treats a couple days after the baking began. I noticed that some of my jeans were getting a little snug in the waist and hips, and since then I had been hitting the gym a little harder. However, the dieting and extra workouts did not seem to do all that much, at least

not in my tummy, which remained a little bloated.

Maybe it’s your period, David’s voice echoed inside my brain. I wanted to punch the side of my

head to make it stop.

While such a stupid, ignorant, chauvinistic comment only served to piss me off, which was probably why he said it so often in the first place, there may have been some truth to it this time. I was late, though that was not all that unusual for me.

Feeling well enough, I got to my feet and stood there for a moment to be sure. The nausea had passed, so I rinsed my mouth out in the sink and gargled with some mouthwash, swallowing a little of it to get the acrid taste out of my throat. I turned away quickly to avoid my reflection in the vanity mirror and touched my tummy, one hand on top of the other.

My system may have been a little off due to all the stress over the past few weeks. Emotional conflicts can have a profound physiological influence on the body. Between final exams, breaking up with David, and especially wondering about Kenny, the level of tension affected everything from my sleep to my hair, which had begun to fall out in thin strands.

When my mother died, I skipped a monthly cycle completely. My periods have always been irregular to begin with, mostly due to extreme dieting and over exercising, according to my obese male Ob-Gyn. That’s also what he believed was primarily responsible for the difficulty I had getting pregnant. He didn’t know the extent of the overwhelming stress I was feeling because deep down I did not want to get pregnant.

The guilt that I felt about that was tremendous. I almost felt like I was responsible for a sort of

preemptive abortion. I knew it was silly of me to think that way. I did not really do anything to hinder or terminate the pregnancy besides hoping we would not be successful. I just did not want to be tied to David for the rest of my life, and in the month or so since we had broken up, I came to realize that this was the reason I found him so repulsive and did not want to have sex with him. I had no plan to become a parent so I kept my legs closed, at least for David.

Over the next couple of days, the problem I was having with my stomach did not improve. Each morning I got up and either walked quickly or ran for the bathroom, taking a knee in front of the toilet after suffering stomach pain that varied in severity, from mild discomfort to full-blown nausea and retching.

I began to consider that I might actually be pregnant. It was a suspicion that I had avoided thinking about all along, but I could not ignore it any longer.

Could it actually be true?

There did not seem to be any other explanation. If it was true, the one saving grace was that the child would not be David’s. It could only be Kenny’s, which meant that everything I thought I experienced with him was not mere fantasy. It was real.

This possibility made every part of me feel alive with a genuine inner glow and warmth, and I wanted to jump up and down and scream to the world how happy I was. It was difficult, but I was able to control that impulse, at least initially. I wa sure I would not be able to last until Kenny returned, and I had to tell someone.

The next day, on the morning of Christmas Eve, I told my sister about the pain I was experiencing. Expecting a sympathetic ear and hoping for some compassion or advice, instead I got one tasteless joke after another.

“What’s the difference between white onions, brown onions, and a fourteen-inch dick?” Courtney asked me, but immediately answered herself. “Nothing. They all make a woman’s eyes water.”

The jokes only got worse from there, so I just stopped talking to her about anything having to do with Kenny. Another item for the “should have known better” file.