animals, snakes, and, yes, birds.
He smiled and looked over at Louise who was splatted out on the bed, face and belly down. He’d worn her out, in the best possible way. Three bouts of lovemaking; four, if you counted him going down on her.
What a shocker Louise had turned out to be. First, the transformation from Farmer Jane to Mother Earth to Mommy of the Year (or Aunt of the Year) to Hot Broad, and now Wild Lover. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, or even if he’d had expectations of landing in her bed, but her enthusiasm and lack of inhibitions were a welcome surprise. He couldn’t wait to see what she did next.
Of course, this was only going to be a short-term affair. Even Louise agreed about that. They’d discussed it in between one of their bouts of sex. She was still grieving for some long-dead fiancé, had a child to raise, and plans to build her folk-healing business here on the bayou. He was an ambitious almost-doctor whose future was uncertain, not just what his specialty would be, or if he’d specialize, but where he would do it. Besides, he was leaving for Massachusetts in less than a month.
Enough said. Everything was copacetic.
He eased himself off the bed, careful not to disturb Louise. He was about to draw the light sheet over her body, but first (shoot me! I’m a man!) he admired the view. She was short, but perfectly formed for her size. He was particularly attracted to her small waist, that delicious dip of her lower back, and her buttocks, of course, which were plump and nicely rounded.
Enough. He had to get going. Drawing on his clothes, quietly, he slipped out of the room, pulling the door half closed. After relieving himself in her small bathroom, he washed his hands and combed his hair. Opening the door, he almost ran into a little person standing there in yellow-and-white checked pajamas and a mop of dark hair, looking like a miniature version of her aunt. Justin wasn’t particularly fond of kids, but this one was adorable.
“I hafta pee,” she said, as if she wasn’t at all afraid of the stranger in her house. But then, they had met on that day at the church festival when her friend had that breathing incident.
“Do you want me to wake your aunt?”
She shook her hair. “I kin do it myself.” And she did. Pulling down her pajama bottoms and tiny blue panties, she hitched herself up on the toilet, did her business, wiped herself meticulously with exactly three sheets of toilet paper (she counted), and then washed and dried her hands. She’d been taught this bathroom routine well, apparently.
“Okay, are you going back to bed, or should I wake your aunt now?”
“Breakfast,” she said decisively, already heading toward the kitchen.
Justin stood, undecided for a moment, glancing from Louise’s bedroom to the kitchen and back again. In the end, he decided to let Louise sleep a little longer.
“My name is Justin,” he told the little girl who was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for service.
“I’m Adèle, but you kin call me Addie. I’m almos’ five years old.”
Am I supposed to give her my age, too? Or tell her to call me by some nickname, like Jus, or Justy, or Doc?
Nah, he decided, and instead asked her, “What do you want for breakfast, Addie?”
“Coush-coush.”
“I’m afraid that’s beyond my culinary abilities.”
“Huh?”
He opened the fridge door, scanned the contents, and said, “How about bacon and scrambled eggs?”
She nodded vigorously.
While he was frying the bacon and scrambling the eggs and toasting five slices of bread, enough for all of them, in the event Louise got up soon, he carried on the most bizarre conversation. Adèle skittered from one subject to another, like popcorn on a hot griddle. Maybe this type of dialogue was normal for an almost-five-year-old, but it was beyond his experience.
“I like to color. Do you like to color?” she asked.
“I did when I was a kid, I suppose.”
“We kin color after breakfas’.”
Great! “That would be nice.”
“Are you Tante Lulu’s boyfriend?”
Hopefully. “Maybe.”
“Boys like to kiss girls. Do you like to kiss girls?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Blech! Miss Dawkins has big boobies.”
“Who?”
“Miss Dawkins. She’s gonna be my kindergarten teacher.”
Please don’t ask me if I like big boobies. “You said you were almost five years old. When’s your birthday?”
“In this many days,” she said, opening and closing her fists two times.
Twenty days, he translated. He would be gone by then.
“Boys have two-two’s and girls have wee-wee’s,”