Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [295]
“And of course you’re big and you’re clumsy,” Jenny smiled ruefully, rubbing the spot on her hip where she had banged against the table earlier. “You take up more room than you’re used to.”
“Here, though”—her hands rose protectively to the top of her stomach—“that’s where you feel things most, of course.” She caressed the rounded bulge as though it were her child’s skin she stroked, rather than her own. Ian’s eyes followed her hands as they moved from top to bottom of the curving hillock, over and over, smoothing the fabric again and again.
“In the early days, it’s a bit like belly-gas,” she said, laughing. She poked a toe into her brother’s midsection. “Just there—like little bubbles rippling through your belly. But then later, you feel the child move, and it’s like a fish on your line and then gone—like a quick tug, but so soon past you’re not sure you felt it.” As though in protest at this description, her unseen companion heaved to and fro, making her stomach bulge on one side, then the other.
“I imagine you’re sure, by this time,” Jamie remarked, following the movement with fascination.
“Oh, aye.” She placed a hand on one bulge, as though to quiet it. “They sleep, ye know, for hours at a time. Sometimes ye fear they’ve died, when there’s no movement for a long time. Then you try to wake them”—her hand pushed in sharply at the side, and was rewarded immediately by a strong push in the opposite direction—“and you’re happy when they kick again. But it’s not just the babe itself. You feel swollen all over, near the end. Not painful…just so ripe you could burst. It’s as though you need to be touched, verra lightly, all over.” Jenny was no longer looking at me. Her eyes held her husband’s, and I knew she was no longer aware of me or her brother. There was an air of intimacy between her and Ian, as though this were a story often told, but one of which they never tired.
Her voice was lower now, and her hands rose again to her breasts, heavy and compelling under the light bodice.
“And in the last month or so, the milk begins to come in. You feel yourself filling, just a wee bit at a time, a little each time the child moves. And then suddenly, everything comes up hard and round.” She cupped her stomach again. “There’s no pain, then, just a breathless feeling, and then your breasts tingle as though they’ll explode if they’re not suckled.” She closed her eyes and leaned back, stroking her massive belly, over and over, with a rhythm like the invocation of a spell. It came to me, watching her, that if ever there were such a thing as a witch, then Janet Fraser was one.
The smoky air was filled with the trance over the room; the feeling that lies at the root of lust, the terrible yearning need to join, and create. I could have counted every hair on Jamie’s body without looking at him, and knew each one stood erect.
Jenny opened her eyes, dark in the shadows, and smiled at her husband, a slow, rich curve of infinite promise.
“And late in bearing, when the child moves a lot, sometimes there’s a feeling like when you’ve your man inside ye, when he comes to ye deep and pours himself into you. Then, then when that throbbing starts deep inside ye along with him, it’s like that, but it’s much bigger; it ripples all through the walls of your womb and fills all of you. The child’s quiet then, and it’s as though it’s him you’ve taken inside you instead.”
Suddenly she turned to me, and the spell was broken. “That’s what they want sometimes, ye know,” she said quietly, smiling into my eyes. “They want to come back.”
* * *
Some time later, Jenny rose, floating toward the door with a glance back that pulled Ian after her like iron to true north. She paused near the door for him, looking back at her brother, who sat still by the fire hearth.
“You’ll see to the fire, Jamie?” She stretched, arching her back, and the curve of her spine echoed