Chapter Thirty: Steady & Scarlet

He is rock-steady, push-pull, right-there, don't-stop, don't-stop, don't-stop gorgeous.

Rowdy's hips move maddeningly slow as his forehead rests against mine. Our hands are intertwined above my head and he whispers love, love, love with heated breaths.

It burns like hell, and I cling to his soul with every thrust. It's the only thing keeping me from twisting, crying, shaking, and running.

I clench my eyes shut, praying for the pain to go away. "I'll stop, baby," he whispers. "Tell me to stop…"

He knows I can't; he knows I want this and I couldn't ask him that even if the room was burning around us. So I take the fire within and I quench it with his love.

Rowdy releases one hand, gripping my thigh and pulling it higher. It makes him go deeper, reaching spots he couldn't feel before.

"I can't hold on," he groans, and a bead of his sweat drips on my nose. I pant and Rowdy adjusts his position and pulls out of me. He props himself on his weak knees and I see the slightest bit of red on his skin.

"You see that, Cotton baby?" He slides himself back into me. It still hurts like hell, but the burning is starting to subside. He pulls out. "You see what you're giving me?"

I moan at his words and he does it again. In. Out. In. Out. Each time, my body sucks him back in and I clench around him. He strains as he drags me closer, so that my arched bottom rubs against his thighs. He rubs my clit with this thumb, pumping continuously.

My small breasts bounce up and down and I feel the need to grab them. Rowdy rocks me steadily, shaking my world along with him. "Tell me you love, baby…"

I can't speak. I blink, breathe, cry, but no words form. Rowdy's nails dig into my waist. My toes curl and my heart pumps too fast. It rushes, pulsating for him. Only him.

"Tell me … tell me you love." His words are broken fragments as he plunges into me. He's not being gentle any more.

"My heart is beating for you like it's fucking."

"Fuck-ing?" My eyes go wide at his dirty words.

"And I could stop if I wanted to..."

Rowdy is the filthiest of liars. He can't stop at all. He digs and finds, thrusts and drives into me with wild abandonment. I cry out, spewing words I mean but can't say clearly. "I love, Rowdy! I love, I love, I love!"

I come undone as he pushes several more times with murmurs of my name leaving his lips. He falls forward but I catch him. He smothers me with kisses too scattered to keep up with.

"You fib," he accuses me, breathless and wrapping his arms around me.

I gasp, trying to speak. "What?"

"You can't love, Cottonseed. You are love."

I think he's delirious, so I laugh. "That don't make any sense."

"It's like telling the moon to moon. It can't. But you can tell it to glow. And that's what you're doing. Glowing all around me, just by being you."

He tickles the delicate skin around my nipples, curled up so that we're inhaling each other's air. "I'd rather be a sun."

"Naw," Rowdy answers, strumming his fingers down my belly. "The sun's too hot. It'll burn you alive. But see, the moon has these craters…"

Rowdy takes me to outer space and way out there, we love and we are love. It's the same, really.

He explores, I see stars, and by the time we're done, there's meteor showers all over the place.

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Rowdy kisses me just as I shut the door behind me. It snaps closed with a sound that startles me and I jump.

"Well, well, well." Alice Jo's voice scares the living daylights out of me as she and Jasper come strolling down the hall. "What do we have here?"

Oh. Crap.

AJ walks in circles around me. "Dress not zipped up all the way."

"Messy hair." She twirls a knotted curl around her finger.

"Smudged lipstick." She wipes my bottom lip and holds her hand up as evidence.

"AJ, please, please, please. Don't say nothing to Ma."

"Oh I won't," she says, crossing her arms. "I've been waiting for this day a long while now. I have demands."

She cares less about my sinning and more about how this profits her. "What do you want?"

The list is so long, Jasper leaves us to go into his room. I can hear him and Rowdy laughing it up.

Bastard.

"… and those yellow rain boots of yours. I'm thinking it's time I start wearing pretty things."

"Not my boots, AJ. Anything but my boots."

"Ma!" She screams real loud and I hold my hand over her mouth to shut her up.

"Hush! Fine. You can have my stupid boots!" We shake on it, and there's no take backs. I know she won't say anything, but I have to keep her quiet anyways.

"So, how was it?" AJ slides the card into the door lock and glances back at me with curious eyes.

"Like Heaven," I sigh dreamily.

"I bet," she snickers. "You know, Jasper and I talked about it, but we ain't ready yet."

"You're too young," I say, as if me being the older sister makes me an adult.

"Look who's talking," she snarks back. "But I'm glad we haven't. I'm waiting until marriage, but Jasper keeps condoms in his wallet just in case."

Condom?

The blood drains out of my face and I glance down my sore, sore legs.

Damn him. Damn Rowdy and all his queen talk and his stupid moons.

Sweet Baby Jesus.

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I don't speak to Rowdy for three whole days. I've got a lot on my mind, being a non-virginal pregnant teen and all.

Sure, he comes by, but Ma tells him I'm sick and she just keeps feeding me chicken noodle like it's the cure for pregnancy. It isn't, but I eat it anyway.

For the baby.

When Ma's gone shopping and Papa is at work, I sneak thread and needles from Ma's sewing kit. Jessie runs into my room, begging me to play hide n' seek.

"I can't right now," I say, positioning the rain boot between my legs. "I'm busy."

"Busy doing what?" Jessie watches me thread the needle and stick it into my boot. It's difficult, but I think I can make it work.

"Sewing."

Jessie sits in silence, looking at me move the thread in and out until it starts to form a letter.

"A?" she asks, tilting her head. "Why on earth are you sewing an A?"

I hang my head in defeat. It's my scarlet letter.

"'Cause, Jessie, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner of the worst kind!" Tears escape my eyes as she hugs me around the waist.

"Oh, Cotton!" Jessie bawls with me and she doesn't even know why.

"Cotttttttttton!" AJ screams from downstairs. "Rowdy's here!"

I sniffle and wipe my tears, careful not to poke myself in the eye.

"It's okay, Cotton," Jessie comforts me. "You just keep sewing that A and I'll find your other boot and we'll finish the entire alphabet!"

Her words just start a whole new round of waterworks. By the time Rowdy enters my room, my face is red and Jessie's got an armful of my shoes. She runs out the door, bumping into Rowdy.

"Woah there! Slow down, Jessie," he says, straightening his crutches.

"I can't," she says breathlessly. "Cotton's a sinner and she needs her ABC's done so Baby Jesus can forgive her."

"What?" Rowdy glances around in confusion, but Jessie's already gone, singing and yelling for AJ to help her so I can save my soul.

I cover my eyes, sobbing as Rowdy locks the door and approaches me. "Cotton?"

He sits carefully on the bed beside me, rubbing my back.

"Don't touch me!" I cry. "That's how we got into this mess in the first place! You gotta get a job Rowdy and I need more thread for my boots. And I gotta breastfeed, but my boobs aren't even that big so our baby is gonna starve…"

"Come again?" Rowdy looks at me with concern and I lose it.

"I'm pregnant, Rowdy!" I yell, throwing my boot onto the floor. "I'm with child and Papa is gonna kick your ass until you can't walk again!"

Rowdy's eyes widen, but all I can think about are car seats when I don't have a car and baby food that isn't carrots. I refuse to let my baby eat carrots.

There won't be any of that veggie eatin' around here.

"Cotton, shhh," Rowdy wraps his arms around me. "It's been three days. I don't think you're pregnant."

I wrangle myself out of his grasp and stand up. Poking my belly out as far as it will go, I cup my hands underneath. "I am! Look how big I'm getting. Oh, Lord! It's gonna be a big one! It's gonna shoot out of my vagina like grease in a frying pan!"

I bawl and hold my swollen belly and wonder if Ma will sew baby booties or if she'll be too mad.

Rowdy sits on the bed, laughing up a storm as I cry in agony over my scarlet letter baby.

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Six days later my cycle shows up.

I reckon I wasn't pregnant at all. I told Charlotte Rose everything that had happened and she suggested birth control pills.

Well, first she hit me on the arm for doing the horizontal mambo, then we prayed and I asked God for mercy. We made a plan to ask our mothers together so they wouldn't be suspicious, and we'd say we needed 'em for cramps.

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I'm just happy I'm not going there knocked up.

So I lie in bed, listening to Jessie whisper about something or another when a rock hits my window. In the still of the night, I smile.

Rowdy's back.

I figure I'm going to be asking for forgiveness again and again.