We make another foray into M territory in this chapter, but with Ross and Blake this time. In fact, this chapter is all Ross and Blake, and it's an important chapter.
September 14, 1995, 6:07 AM-Ross and Blake's House
Of the people closest to Christina Blake Thorpe Marler, the one that knew her the best was her husband Ross Marler.
And because he knew Blake better than anyone else in the world, he knew that the real reason they hadn't made love in almost three weeks was because Blake was afraid of putting any kind of pressure on them to conceive.
Since their last negative pregnancy test at the end of August and the resulting argument, they had been talking almost nonstop, they had had a few date nights, and they were reaffirming their bond. There had also been plenty of kissing, and, to use the baseball vernacular, Ross had gotten to second base several times...but they hadn't had any kind of sex in almost three weeks. Now it wasn't that Ross was a sex maniac (although until Blake's raging case of baby fever, they had had a very, very satisfying sex life), but he knew that their sex life was the last part of their relationship that needed to be repaired. They were back to normal in every respect but the bedroom.
But Blake kept finding reasons to put off resuming lovemaking. And Ross certainly didn't want to go back to Blake worrying about ovulating and obsessing over optimal positions to aid in conception. But Ross feared that the lack of lovemaking would soon become the next elephant in the room for them to deal with.
He wasn't afraid to make love with Blake again. Whether they made a baby or not, he truly believed that she would not put undue pressure on them to do so. But he knew Blake well enough to know that she was terrified of pressuring him in any way. Ross certainly didn't want to pressure her either, but he wanted to find a way to get Blake past her fear of being intimate with him again.
He also wanted a genuine, full-wattage Blake smile, the kind that lit up her entire face and his heart at the same time. She still hadn't let one of those grace her face, and he honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her laugh a real laugh, either.
So he wanted to make her smile and laugh for real, and get her past her fear of being intimate again. The question was, how to accomplish those things...and when?
Tonight was probably out, he thought, since they had that Bar Association dinner to go to. Ross hated those things. They always served rubber chicken and overcooked Brussels sprouts, he always heard "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A damn good start" at least eight times, and this year, Arthur Hedges was being honored. Arthur Hedges was 89 years old, in perfect health, still had all his own teeth and no hearing aid, still kept office hours three days a week and heard cases in municipal court, and was the biggest windbag Ross had ever known in his entire legal career. Arthur Hedges could have talked Strom Thurmond, the filibuster record holder after talking for 24 hours and 18 minutes straight in the Senate in 1957, under the table. But the dinner was being held at the country club, and with Ross being a member in good standing of the Bar Association, and having clerked for Arthur Hedges when he was in law school, he was expected to attend.
The alarm rang then, and Ross's day officially began with a good morning kiss from Blake, negotiating shower rights, and then they were off to their respective offices after Blake double-checked the time that the Bar Association dinner began-7:30.
September 14, 1995, 8:57 PM-Lakeland Country Club
The dinner was even more boring than Ross had originally thought it was going to be. Arthur Hedges was in rare form from the start of the evening, and he hadn't even begun his speech yet.
Ross thought longingly of the country club's swimming pool, which wouldn't be drained until October 1, per the usual custom. The warm Indian summer night, with the full moon high in the inky black sky and surrounded by seemingly millions of stars, was tailor made for a swim, and he would much rather be out there in the pool with Blake than in here listening to Arthur Hedges holding court at their table, not allowing anyone else to get a word in edgewise, and continually, erroneously referring to Blake as Blair. (Blake didn't have the heart to correct the old codger, not that she was able to get out more than one word at a time before he started talking again, plus she knew that Ross had clerked for the man when he was in law school, so despite the fact that Hedges droned on incessantly, Blake sat there with her most convincing interested smile pasted on her face while inwardly cursing the man for being such a boring windbag.)
As the waiters were clearing away the dinner plates, and the head of the Bar Association was preparing to give his tribute speech as an introduction for Arthur Hedges' speech, Ross decided that enough was enough. He leaned over and whispered in Blake's ear, "Meet me by the restrooms in five minutes."
Blake thought they were sneaking out early to go home, which was more than fine with her. This evening had been even more exceedingly boring that she had expected it to be, given that it was a room full of lawyers and judges, half of whom were over 60. When she reached the hall, no one was there, and a few minutes went by before Ross appeared, no longer wearing his glasses. He took Blake's hand, threaded his fingers through hers, and led her out the nearest door. She was puzzled when they didn't go to the parking lot. "We're not going home?" she asked.
"No," Ross replied cheerfully.
"Where are your glasses?" Blake asked.
"In the car with my watch and cuff links," Ross replied. "I won't be needing them for awhile." He stopped and looked at Blake consideringly. "Give me your earrings," he said.
"Huh?" Blake asked. Now she really confused. "Why do you want my earrings? What are you going to do with them?"
"Wrap them up in my pocket square," Ross replied. "I don't think you want to lose those. Your parents gave you those for your birthday." He took off again, and Blake followed after him, inwardly cursing her high heels.
"Ross, where are we going?" Blake asked. He seemed to be walking around the country club building. If this was just a breath of fresh air before the sure-to-be-godawful-boring, neverending speech from Justice Windbag, Ross wouldn't want her earrings, and he wouldn't have locked his own glasses, watch, and cuff links in the car, but it didn't dawn on Blake what Ross had in mind until they reached the pool area.
Ross knelt at the pool's edge and tested the water with one hand, then nodded in satisfaction before getting to his feet again. "It's the perfect night for a swim, don't you think?" he asked.
"We don't have bathing suits," Blake pointed out.
Ross scoffed at this. "Like that ever stopped you," he said. "I recall two separate occasions at this very pool when I saw you skinny dipping. I'm merely taking a page from your book."
"That was years ago," Blake reminded him.
"Three," Ross said. "It was three years ago, shortly before we got together. Your earrings?" he said as he held out his hand. Blake gave them to him but didn't remove anything else she was wearing. After wrapping her earrings in his pocket square, he carefully replaced it in his breast pocket, then headed into the nearby cabana. He returned two minutes later wearing only a big, fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist and carrying another big, fluffy white towel folded in his right hand.
"You wouldn't," Blake said.
"Why not?" Ross asked. He handed her the folded towel he was carrying.
"You really want to go skinny dipping in the middle of the Bar Association dinner?" she asked.
"What better time?" Ross asked. "Right now, Arthur Hedges is putting everyone in that ballroom to sleep with his reminiscences about when the original courthouse was built and how he scratched his initials in one of the sidewalk squares as an 8-year-old boy before the wet cement dried." He gestured to the sky above them. "There's a full moon, about a million stars, and this is probably the last warm night for months. I've been thinking all night that I'd rather be out here swimming with you than in there taking the world's only proven cure for insomnia." He then whipped off his towel, tossed it far enough away so that it wouldn't get wet, and dove naked into the pool, breaking the surface a moment later to find Blake standing on the pool deck staring at him, her jaw somewhere around her ankles.
"You're actually doing it!" Blake exclaimed, surprised.
"And it's fun," Ross said. Then he looked at Blake mischievously as he asked, "You remember fun, don't you, Blake?"
Blake had a strong sense of déjà vu then, and it hit her that she had said those same words to Ross the second time he had found her skinny dipping in the country club pool three years ago, the night she'd been drinking and had purposely flirted like crazy with Ross and tried to entice him, flustering him instead. He had been concerned that she had had too much to drink so he had driven her back to her mother's house, where he had refused to leave until he knew that she would be all right, surprising her with how well he was taking care of her despite him having just said at the country club when she was making him flustered that they didn't even like each other. She remembered asking him if he was sure about that. After that night, Blake had known she liked Ross. He was the first person in her life that had treated her with respect as her own person and shown concern for her well-being, since neither of her relationships with her parents at that point had been what would be considered healthy by any standards.
For the first time in a long time, Blake remembered that time, remembered that she hadn't initially pursued Ross because she was in love with him, but had pursued him as a way to get back at her mother. It was the kind of thing that could only happen to Blake. She had truly regretted hurting Holly the way she did then, but she could never regret going after Ross, because despite initially going after him for all the wrong reasons, he had ended up being the only man she loved, and the only man who loved her, for all the right reasons. Blake had started falling in love with Ross before she could stop herself, and then she realized that she didn't want to stop herself, and then, wonder of wonders, not only did he fall in love with her too, but seeing the real her didn't send him screaming for the hills.
Blake was jolted out of her reverie when Ross splashed her, soaking her dress and giving her an unrepentant smirk. "You're flirting with danger," she warned him in a low voice as the memory of that night three years ago slowly faded to the back of her mind.
"So far, you're all talk. Why don't you try proving it?" Ross goaded.
"Oh, I intend to," Blake replied as she dropped the towel Ross had handed her and quickly undressed, scattering her clothes, stockings, and shoes haphazardly around her. When she was naked, she dove into the pool and swam underwater until she came up behind Ross, and then she surfaced and dunked him. When he came up spluttering and his eyes cleared, she was right there, looking at him with dancing eyes and laughing. Blake was finally, genuinely laughing for the first time in Ross didn't even know how long. Not wanting the moment to end, he splashed her again, so she splashed him back, still laughing, and then he dunked her, and after he dunked her, she took off swimming underwater again, headed for the deep end of the pool. When he realized that's what she was doing, he followed her. She surfaced at the edge of the deep end and waited there for him, treading water.
When he reached her side, she was watching him, her laughter having subsided and been replaced by the beautiful, dazzling, full-wattage smile he knew and loved so well, and had waited so long to see again. They just looked at each other for a moment, treading water, neither of them saying anything.
Then Blake swam to Ross and put her arms around his neck, stretching up to kiss him deeply. She pressed herself against him and his arms went around her to hold her as they kissed, their bodies responding to the feel of one another as their tongues dueled and danced.
Blake broke the kiss panting, and Ross was also breathing hard. It had been so long, she thought, far too long, since they had been completely in the moment, as they were now. She had been holding back these past few weeks, scared to make love again because she didn't trust herself not to put even unconscious pressure on them, but babies were nowhere in her thoughts now. Her only thought right now was Ross, and how much she wanted to be with him. She rested her forehead against his for a moment before wrapping her legs around his hips and pressing her chest to his. "I want to love you, Ross," she said huskily, "and I want you to love me."
"I always love you," Ross replied breathlessly as he tightened his arms around her, feeling every inch of her that was pressed so tantalyzingly against him.
"You know what I mean," Blake continued, looking up at him with sparkling eyes. "I need you, Ross."
"I need you too, Blake," he replied. Slowly, gently, he maneuvered her towards the edge of the pool, grateful that it had been refinished in ceramic tile before opening for the year. Blake gasped aloud at the sensation of the cold tiles at her back as Ross pressed her up against the side, one arm across her shoulders, the other gripping the edge of the pool next to her head.
And then he was inside her, and she gasped aloud again, throwing her head back as she tightened her grip on his shoulders. Ross dipped his head to kiss and suck the tender flesh of Blake's throat as he began moving inside her in earnest, and she moved with him now, meeting him each time he pushed into her, their movements actually creating waves in the pool.
With every stroke Blake's inner walls were squeezing Ross, and her hands came around his back to pull him even deeper inside her body, making him moan, and bringing an answering moan out of her as she felt him so deep inside her. He lifted his head to look into her eyes, and then she kissed him, plunging her tongue into his mouth and mimicking with her tongue his movements inside of her until the need to breathe forced them to break the kiss. Their eyes locked, and Ross rasped out, "So amazing," as Blake met his next thrust.
"So amazing," Blake panted in agreement as they continued moving together, the peak fast approaching. A few more thrusts, and then Ross hit the perfect spot inside Blake with a particularly strong stroke, and she was soaring, shattering in his arms with a hoarse cry of, "Oh, Ross!" Then she muffled Ross's own cry of pleasure with a kiss as he emptied himself into her before he collapsed against her so they were both pressed up against the side of the pool.
He framed her face in his hands and kissed her softly, quickly. She looked at him tenderly as they rested against the side of the pool, wrapped in each other's arms. She laid her cheek against his shoulder, and he rested his chin lightly on the crown of her head. A few minutes went by like that, and then Blake lifted her head, kissed Ross, and said, "We should probably get out of here."
"Yes," Ross agreed. "I want to take you home, and I'd really rather the collection of old geezers in there didn't get a look at us like this."
"If Arthur Hedges saw us like this, though, maybe it would render him speechless," Blake said, clearly teasing.
"Nothing can render Arthur Hedges speechless," Ross retorted. "He was there the night Marilyn Monroe serenaded President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, and he talked through the whole thing."
"He talked through that?" Blake asked incredulously. "Are you sure he's human?"
"Not entirely, no," Ross said. He let go of Blake to climb out of the pool then, and after he had grabbed the nearer of the towels he had brought out for them earlier, Blake climbed out of the pool, and Ross wrapped her up in the towel, drying her off before picking up the other towel and drying himself. Blake then picked up her clothes and followed Ross into the cabana, where they got dressed again.
After they exited the cabana, still more wet than dry but dressed again, Blake threaded her arm through Ross's and said, "Take me home."
"Your carriage awaits," Ross replied as he threaded his fingers through hers, and then they made their way to the car and went home.
September 14, 1995, 11:18 PM-Ross and Blake's House
After washing the chlorine from the pool off each other in a long, hot shower, Ross and Blake dried off and then got into bed, snuggling together. Her head was resting on his shoulder, and he was slowly rubbing up and down her back. "Do you remember when you told me that when I don't push, I'm absolutely irresistable?" Blake asked.
"Yes, I do," Ross replied. He had said that to her after the first time they had made love. "But for the record, I find you absolutely irresistable all the time."
She shifted so that they could see each other's faces. "I guess I still haven't really learned not to push," she said ruefully. "And then I got scared. I was afraid that I'd push you again unconsciously somehow, and that's why I kept putting off making love after that fight we had."
Ross gave her a tender smile. "I know," he said. "I know that you were afraid. And I wasn't thinking that we would make love in the pool when I got the idea to go skinny dipping. I just wanted to do something that would make you smile a real smile again, something fun and a little bit crazy. But I'm not sorry we made love in the pool." He paused for a beat, then asked, "Are you?"
She heard the undercurrent of fear in his voice. "Not at all," she replied firmly. "We were completely in the moment, and it was beautiful and perfect and right and-"
"Amazing," he said in unison with her.
She smiled at him again, and there were no shadows in her eyes or smile now. The fear and the anxiety and the stress were all gone. "It's been too long since we had fun like we had tonight," she said. "When you get a great idea, Counselor, you get a great idea."
"The part of my brain that came up with this was not alive before I met you," Ross said earnestly. He pushed Blake's damp hair off her forehead and let his hand fall to her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.
"You're the best surprise of my life," Blake said fervently. "You are everything I dreamed of and never thought I'd find." She framed his face in her hands. "And the miracle of it all is that this sweet, kind, loving, sexy, amazing man that I am so completely, madly in love with loves me too, even when I'm pushy and even when I mess up and even when I'm at my absolute worst."
"You want to talk miracles?" Ross inquired, pulling Blake against his side and gazing intently at her. "I was sleepwalking through life, thinking that I'd missed all my chances, and that I would just go on like that forever...and then out of the blue, this bold, sassy, smart, passionate, beautiful woman knocks me off my feet and brings joy and light and love into my life like I've never known. She woke me up to all of life's possibilities, and she not only loves me, she trusts me enough to let me in, to let me see her at her most vulnerable, to let me see the real her, which was not an easy thing for her to do, but she trusts me enough to do it, and I will never take that trust, or her love, or her for granted." He kissed her forehead before pulling back to look at her once more. "You are the miracle of my life, Blake. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. You're the best surprise of my life. Whatever I did or said to make fate decree that you are the woman who loves me, the woman I get to spend my life with, I don't know what it was, but I will be forever grateful for it, and for you, because I love you with all that I am, and I always will."
Teary-eyed, Blake leaned in and kissed him, and Ross kissed her back. Then she snuggled into his arms once more, resting her head in the crook of his neck. She was asleep in a few minutes, and the warm, solid weight of her in his arms, one arm stretched across his chest, and her deep, even breathing lulled Ross to sleep soon after.
And as Blake and Ross slept peacefully in each other's arms, they had no idea that love was not the only thing they made in the country club pool, for as they slept, tiny cells were rapidly dividing deep in Blake's womb, and the very beginnings of new life were starting to grow.