The K-1 class was brought into church during the last hymn. Sylvia went out to the aisle so Kim could see her. She shushed her during the benediction. That was as long as Kim could be expected to stay silent.

"Mommy, we're going to the zoo." They went back to Sally for the details.

"You were invited, Kim. I didn't say you would go. You have to ask Mommy's permission.

"It's like this, Sylvia: Next Saturday, nine-thirty 'til maybe one. We'll have snacks so they won't starve from the late lunch. Tom Olufs has a van. Sound good?"

"Sounds very good. You're an angel with all that you do."

"My own don't want anything to do with me. Johnny asks 'When's dinner.' Bea is usually on a diet and doesn't even ask that. Yours, on the other hand, is unfailingly loving. Anyway, don't tell anybody, but Sunday-School teachers get to take trips to the zoo and play with finger paint. I not only get to enjoy other people's kids; I get to enjoy a prolonged and repeated childhood." Just who Sally was asking her to keep the secret from wasn't clear. She shared the 'secret' with everybody she talked to.

"Should I set up an appointment for that morning?" Becky asked. "We'd talked about that afternoon." She was a real-estate agent, and had been helping Sylvia look for a house. George said that when Sylvia found one she liked, he would look it over. He talked as if her liking it were the big question. Their affording it looked like a bigger problem. But she wouldn't share that with Becky until she had to. And some of the houses Becky showed her had looked splendid. Still, it was no kindness to her to have her rearrange her schedule to show Sylvia houses that she couldn't afford and had no likelihood of buying.

"The afternoon is great. I'll leave Kim with George. He'll have to manage her by himself soon enough." When she went into the hospital, she meant.

And George wasn't the worst husband at housework and childcare. When she and Kim got home, he had a Sunday dinner prepared for them. Kim told him almost all about the trip to the zoo, including improbable details that couldn't have come from Sally.

"It's this coming Saturday," she supplied the one detail that Kim had omitted.

"Does that give us time to arrange for her to leave Kim?"

"Oh, Daddy."

"Really, you'd look cute in a cage. Besides, zoo animals don't have to have their hair brushed." Something Kim hated.

"Oh, Daaa Deee!"

"Oh, Kimmm Berrr Leeee." George took advantage of superior breath control. Kim always let hers out explosively.

The next day, when both were at school, Kim in kindergarten and George teaching anthropology at Northwestern, she dug up the bank statements. George kept everything financial so neatly. However neat, those statements weren't reassuring. For the school year, the ending balance for any month was between four and five thousand dollars. The balance during the month only once went below two. That was good money; when she'd had her own account, it had never looked that fat. And, really, she hadn't brought anything in for nearly an entire year.

On the other hand, George kept telling her that they could afford a house because they had squirreled some money away in the bank. Four thousand wasn't house money. It wasn't close. Even if they could bring the monthly payments down to their current rent, they would need a down payment.

Well, her mother had trusted her father to handle finances, and it had been a compliment for George to tell her that he wanted to copy her parents. He didn't think his parents -- or any marriage either of his parents had ever made -- was worth copying. If she had it to do over, she wouldn't have told him who managed the money. Still, he handled the finances more easily and neatly than she had ever done. It was just that she couldn't figure out where the money was going.

Still, she had other things to worry about, other plans to make. Saturday morning she fed her daughter for her morning seeing the animals and her husband for his morning imitating them. They didn't have all that much time together without Kim somewhere around -- sleeping, maybe, but around.

After breakfast, George coaxed Kim into her coat. At the sound of a horn, Kim looked out the window.

"That's them."

"'That's they,' sweetie." Kim wasn't about to learn that, but she could hear proper English at home, at least. "Bye, sweetie. Love you."

"Love you, Mommy." George walked her out and came back alone.

"How was Sally?" she asked him.

"Remarkably cheerful for a woman facing a morning with those monsters. She sent you her best." George liked to pose as a child-hater. She knew better.

"Now." She didn't know why she bothered. "You enjoy playing with Kim."

"One is fun. Eight is torture. Anyway, I enjoy playing with her mother more."

"You do? I didn't even know you'd met Sally Swanson's mother." George ignored that to kiss her. Maybe it was a demonstration of whose mother he'd meant.

"You're sexy," he said groping her, "even if you're not funny."

"Ha. If this is sexy, the Hindenburg would have really turned you on." She wasn't that bad now, but she knew it was coming. The horrible thing was that, sometimes, knowing how unappealing she was, she had gotten unbearably horny in the last months. Well, if that happened again, George was willing to pretend that she was appealing. He'd always been able to get it up, too. On the other hand, she suspected that a knothole in a fence could give George an erection.

In the bedroom, he undressed her. She cooperated in undressing him. Once in bed, he resumed his blarney.

"Sweet, sexy, woman."

"What I really am is available."

"Sweet, sexy, available, woman." Okay, George whatever his faults, had a sense of humor. And he had a touch, too. His finger parted her lips to stroke her clitoris. She relaxed back as she started to climb the mountain.

His beard tickled her face while his tongue tickled hers. The man she'd married had been clean-shaven, but the man she'd fallen in love with had had a wild beard -- almost Smith-Brothers in style. Now, he had a well-groomed beard, a professorial beard, a beard that he'd learned to use maddeningly well in foreplay. It was brushing her boobs now. Some of that was unavoidable; it just naturally accompanied his mouth. Some of it was damn-well deliberate. he tickled one nipple, then the other until she needed his mouth to suck away the tickle.

"Help me," she said when she needed him inside. She could turn by herself, but the habits from the last stages of her last pregnancy prevailed. For one thing, his care for her increased her arousal. For another, it gave him something to do besides watching her awkwardness. He gently helped her turn on her left side.

Then she reached between her legs to get him where she needed him. His prick spread her lips. Then it eased into her pussy. He was moving gently, but soon she felt his legs warm against her ass and she was full. Full! His hand gripped her hip bone.

"Mmm. You not only look sexy, you feel sexy." Well, he felt sexy, too. As she felt the warmth behind her, the motion within her, his fingers brushing over her clitoris, she began to climb the mountain. He held himself totally within her while still teasing her clitoris.

"George!" She was nearly there, but she needed his motion. And, then, moving strongly in and out of her pussy, he gave her just the motion she needed. It took her over.

He followed immediately. She heard him gasp and felt him thrust deep into her and throb.

"Lovely darling." As she became more conscious of the world around her, he was kissing her back. The time between kisses grew longer, and then there were none. She basked in the warmth and the love for a while before she had to get moving.

"Becky Darwin wants to show me some more houses this afternoon. I should dress before Kim gets back." Dressing afterwards just might raise questions. Well, she'd douched and dressed and was almost finished preparing lunch when Kim buzzed. Nobody else ever leaned on the buzzer that way. George left the kitchen to let her in.

"Who is it?"

"Daddy."

"Kim! Mrs. Swanson brought you back?" Kim ignored him to get to the toilet. She washed her hands -- Sylvia listened for the sounds -- before coming back out.

"I specifically told her to leave you there," George continued.

"Daddy!"

"Weren't there any cages free in the monkey house?"

"Monkey!" Now, that was a word that Kim enjoyed. When lunch was on the table, Sylvia came out to find the two giggling together.

"You two are silly," she said.

"Mommy."

"Hello, dear. Did you enjoy your trip?"

"We saw lions and elephants. One elephant did number two."

"I'm glad you got an education. Are you hungry? It's lunch time." And they went in to lunch. Kim regaled them with the details -- the details less interesting than elephant crap -- of her trip. George, abandoning his W, C. Fields imitation, listened.

Becky came by while they were still sitting at the table. She put on her coat and went down to join her in the car.

"You'll love this house," Becky said when they were on their way to the third place. The problem was that she did. It had two main floors, a full cellar and an attic. The plumbing was modern, including a bathroom for the master bedroom, another upstairs full bath, and a toilet-and-sink 'powder room.' She could just see George in the library. And they would need years to fill those shelves. There was a room upstairs that could be used as a nursery for a while and then turned into an office for George.

But the house was less impressive than the yard -- really, yards. A couple of trees shaded the front of the house, one on the east and two on the west shaded the sides. No less than three trees graced the back yard, and one was a massive oak. It must have been older than the house, older than Evanston.

It was the house of her dreams, the house in which to raise her family, the yard to which she could send them out to play. The downstairs could entertain George's students, her daughters' friends, even her social friends. The upstairs could hold the family and keep it's privacy. It had everything that they needed.

Except a price they could meet.

She was polite to Becky driving back. She was not very attentive -- although more attentive than a repetition of the report on the zoo trip deserved -- to Kim during supper. George, however, saw through her.

"See anything you liked?" he asked.

"One was heavenly, perfect except for the price. They wanted $320,000. It had three bedrooms a finished basement, and a nice, shady, yard."

"Was it worth $320,000?"

"Maybe on the market, not to us." They could never raise that sort of money. They had put almost nothing away, and now they would have another mouth to feed. She'd like to breast-feed this one, too, but she suspected that she'd have to go back to teaching. And that meant back to substitute-teaching.

"Why not. You make it sound like just what you'd want."

"It looked Victorian. But what's a down payment? 20%?"

"Well, we'd want to pay more."

"That's $64,000!"

"Yes."

"George we don't have $64,000 in the bank. We don't have four, at least not for the entire month." His mouth dropped. Didn't he read those bank statements? But his next statement was a complete non-sequitur.

"God! Darling, I haven't been trying to mislead you. The funds are in both our names -- joint tenancy with right of survivorship. I told you about them, once."

"What?" What was he talking about?

"I keep saying we're putting the excess in the bank, don't I?"

"Yes, but as I said, there isn't all that much in the bank. I look at the bank statements. We had a bit there when we moved, but not that much."

"Well, it wasn't really a bank. It was a mutual fund, two of them, a stock fund and a bond fund." The light dawned. He'd mentioned the mutual funds once -- telling her that they couldn't go wrong. Well, her father had educated her about investments which couldn't go down. When he dropped the subject, she had assumed that they had gone in the direction which they couldn't.

"You did tell me about them, I remember now. You mean when you keep saying we don't have to worry, we really don't have to worry. I feel such an idiot."

"No, I'm the idiot. We can get something over 150 K out of the funds." That 'K' had to be thousands of dollars. That was much more than they needed for the down payment. More than that, it meant that they hadn't been scraping by. He'd assured her of that, but she hadn't felt it could be true. And, if they hadn't been scraping by, then they could afford the mortgage payments and depend on his raises to educate their girls.

"I was thinking that you were blithe 'cause you'd never had to worry."

"Well, blithe about this, yes. I've had to worry about my profession, and about the draft. But there is the trust."

"It's not really enough to support a family of four." That was part of his blitheness.

"No, it's not. But it's enough to stretch your fall into a long glide. And, even though I fouled up telling you, it was enough to pack away a little nest egg, too. Look, tell your broker I'll look at the house tomorrow. I want to check that this is a reasonable market price, that it hasn't been eaten up by termites, that sort of thing. Still, I should look at it, too, if I'm going to live in it for the next twenty years."

"You'll love it like I did." And, maybe, they could get it. It was the house of her dreams to hold the family of her dreams. She didn't want to be rich like George's father was rich, and his grandfather had been in his time. Given the choice, she'd take real poverty and a loving family over what George reported. The reason he had a trust fund was that his grandfather hadn't wanted his father to be able to touch the money. But, not faced with that choice between real evils, she'd prefer to be comfortably well off. Money wasn't everything, but it sure eased a lot of bumps in the road.

George went to church the next morning and arranged for Becky to show him the place. Kim was watching cartoons when he got back. That was a more certain way to keep her attention off them than sleep was these days.

"What did you think?" she asked.

"Well, I want to do due diligence, but the eyeballing went well. One condition, though."

"What's that."

"It's a nice yard, but if Kim wants to do something, a tree house for example, then she can. It's not whether the neighbors will think it's blight. Number two, as well." They really needed to decide on a name soon.

"Fine." This from the man who pretended to want to ship his girl off to the zoo. "The back yard is the place for holes to China, though. And there are safety rules." She'd never let Kim dig a hole deep enough to go over her head. On the other hand, most holes to China didn't get deep enough to hide the digger's knees.

"Yeah. I'm not saying she can have a tree house without checking the carpentry; I'm saying that she can have a tree house without our checking whether it spoils the look of the ground."

"Don't look now, but your W. C. Fields imitation is slipping."

"Maybe so. Agreed?"

"Agreed. I love you." And she did love him, more for the condition than for the agreement on the house. She decided that, if they got the house, she would seal that love in a special way. They should make it their house by making love in every single room. Well, they would have to wait until she was back in shape for the attic, and probably most of the downstairs rooms, too. But this would be their house, and he would have memories of making it theirs, as well.

He closed on the house while she stayed home with Kim. That felt macho, somehow, but she was getting what she wanted. George was entitled to his quirks, after all. She did accompany George to see about the mortgage. He presented the house and their bank statements, then let the banker talk.

"Well, if our assessor finds that the price is reasonable, and these income figures check out, we'll want a 20% down payment. That would be $62,000," he said. "Would you want a twenty or a thirty year mortgage? The longer term carries with it higher interest rate, but the monthly payment is significantly lower."

"And a smaller down payment would mean an even higher interest rate?" George asked. That wasn't what he'd suggested to her, but she was letting him handle the financial side. She was much happier about doing that than she'd been for months.

"If we found you credit-worthy. That would mean a higher monthly payment, and more risk on our part. Your appointment at Northwestern isn't tenured, is it?"

"Right. And, since you would charge more for a longer term and a smaller down payment, you would charge lower interest for a shorter term and a greater down payment. We were thinking of 50% down and ten years." George was a sharpie when the banker had expected a supplicant.

"I would have to see about that. I'm certain something could be worked out."

"I'm sure." George agreed, then continued inexorably.

"We would rather have all our banking business in one place, of course. On the other hand, we'll be checking with some downtown banks as to what their rates would be for those terms." The banker was gracious showing them out, but George had him over a barrel.

"You were really hard on him in a sweet and gentle way. I don't think I've seen that side of you." Indeed, after all this time, she was still seeing new sides to George.

"It's all in understanding the culture. And, after all, that's my job. My old coat, remember that?" It was his memento from his South American trip. "I bargained for half an hour to buy that at the cheapest price I could. I'd have been facing a knife if I'd threatened that seller. On the other hand, he'd not have understood the threats I made to the banker. Our mortgage is worth something; the float on our checking account is worth something. Just maybe, if we get our mortgage elsewhere, we'd take our checking account there. He would recoil if I made it explicit -- as a matter of fact, our business isn't something they'd cry over losing -- but he has to figure that in while he calculates his mortgage interest rate. He'll not beat out Harris, but they'll not beat him out either."

"Are you really even going to talk to other banks?"

"Sure -- to keep him honest, and to be honest myself. What makes a bluff believable is that some people carry them out."

"Sometimes, I think that I don't understand you." Sometimes? Whenever she began to think she understood George, he showed another facet.

"Do you think I understand you? Of course not. A lot, having been with you for a decade. But you have a lot of mysteries." She was a simple schoolteacher married to an ethnologist-pirate.

"I do? I'm not transparent? I think I'm transparent." And the ultrasound had revealed the only real secret she was hiding months ago.

After they got the mortgage and the deed, she had to furnish the place. George built up the checking account to cover this. Aside from a firm mattress on the double bed, he had no preferences on house furnishings. The library would be his place, and he thought of furnishing it as installing books on the shelves.

Kim was more demanding. She got a twin bed, a vanity table, a night light. She was really too old for a night light, but she claimed to be afraid of total darkness. Aside from that, Kim was amenable when Sylvia steered her towards choices that her mother would be able to stand for the next five years.

She had the upstairs area painted before they moved the new furniture in. The downstairs could wait. They got a new washer and dryer for the cellar.

Moving their possessions was almost an anticlimax. They'd sold their furniture when moving from Canada. She had everything packed the night before, and met the movers at the new place. She sat in a chair and directed them to the room the box belonged in. George came with the last things, and without Kim. She was staying with Tammy and her mother. When George had put the sheets from their bed upstairs -- they'd just have to go down to the washing machine, but she hadn't warned him -- he went into the library and started loading the shelves. He came out, however, when the movers reported that they were done. He payed them in cash. He went out for lunch -- Chinese, since there was no Kim to insist on pizza -- and kitchen necessities.

After all the chaos of moving, it was nice to share a quiet lunch with no distractions from Kim. Afterwards, George did the minimal cleaning up while she went upstairs. If she and George were going to make love in every room, that meant in Kim's room, as well. But she'd promised that it would be truly Kim's room. Probably, they should share that particular experience before Kim really moved in. She stripped and put the dress back on over her skin. She stripped the bed in Kim's room -- she should have thought this through before making it. She covered it with a folded top sheet for a double bed. As she brought her plans to fruition, her body responded to her thoughts. By now she really wanted George.

"George." Hadn't he heard her. "George!"

"Coming. Trouble?" He came up the stairs.

"Sorry. Forgot how big this place is."

"Emergency?" Not the sort that he obviously meant. Her pregnancy wasn't causing any problems; it made some things, indeed, even easier.

"Yeah. I'm in desperate need of a kiss."

"Well, those can be provided."

"You're overdressed," she noted after he'd provided a few. He was already unbuttoning her last garment, but his were all in place.

"Well, actually, so are you. Let's adjourn to our room and complete the job." Well, he was agreeable to the action, if ignorant of the location.

"Kim's room. I want to christen every room of this monster, and Kim's will never again be so accessible."

"Lead on." He followed her into what would be Kim's room. He finished taking off her dress, and she turned to get his clothes.

"You," she told him. He stood still to be undressed, but he kept caressing her through the process. He smoothed along her right breast towards the nipple. He rubbed one finger lightly over her clitoris. She was already climbing the mountain, and she wasn't in position yet.

Well, two of them could play that game. When she'd got his trousers and underpants around his ankles, she rubbed all along his prick. It had already been standing out, but it hardened in her hand and the angle went higher.

"Hey," he said.

"Turnabout is fair play." She left him to extricate himself from the clothes and clambered onto the bed. She'd already figured out that kneeling sideways on that mattress would risk his pushing her off. She knelt with her head pointing towards the head of the bed and her ass above the foot.

George, though, stood beside her and resumed foreplay. What did the man need, an engraved invitation.

"George!" She could maintain this position for only a limited amount of time.

"You want me to get something for you? Maybe a blanket?"

"Maybe a dildo, since I don't seem to have much chance at getting your prick." That got him moving. He Walked behind her and out of sight. Soon though, his hands were on her ass. Then his prick slowly entered her pussy. She needed that, had needed it for some time. She moved back until she was filled.

"Oh." It felt good. Even now, when they were into the serious stuff, his finger found her clitoris again. She wasn't about to argue; that felt good, too. With that and the friction within, she was climbing the mountain. She wanted him with her as well as within her.

"Yes. More. You." And he was giving her more -- if not more length, more speed and more force. She pushed a hand against the wall to increase his penetration. She was climbing higher on the mountain, rising vertically. She'd love for it to go on forever, but it couldn't go on. And, when it ended, she fell off.

He clasped her legs to pull himself into her. She got more of him, and he pressed against her lips. Then he was throbbing within her throbbing.

When he let go, she fell sideways. At least she fell on the bed so the baby was safe. He was out of her, even out of her sight.

"I love you," he finally said from somewhere behind and below her. Then she felt the bed move as he pulled himself up.

"Love you, too." She could feel his jism seeping out of her. "Think you could manage a washcloth? You came a gallon."

"Some of it was you." She'd been secreting, but nothing like the amount oozing out between her lips. Unless her water had broken, and it didn't feel like it, it was almost all his.

George might quibble, but he was eager to care for her. He brought back not one but two cloths. She took the first one to wash herself, starting with where drips had gone on her thighs. With the second cloth, she dried herself off. She figured that the leakage hadn't finished, so she held it to the entrance to her pussy while she got up. She sat on it for a minute.

"I think I'll go back to our room," she said. "Make the bed, will you? And bring all our stuff." He did. She went back to bed. That adventure had taken more out of her than she'd expected.

"I may be clumsy as hell," she explained when he got to their room, "but pregnancy gives you a perfect excuse for siestas."

"Did I hurt you?"

"Not seriously. I've got your fingerprints on my thighs, though."

"Sorry. You were damned sexy, but I shouldn't have got carried away." Which would have been a great disappointment.

"Getting you carried away was, after all, my design. Think her bedroom is sufficiently inaugurated until she goes away to college?"

"I may not get it up until then. God, Sylvia, but you drained me." Well, that was no danger. That was his immediate response. The strain she was feeling, on the other hand, was a clear warning. That hadn't done any damage, but she shouldn't risk it again.

"I won't try that again until I'm back in shape. Still, it's nice to know that we're not locked into one position. Love you."

"Love you." And, conscious of his love, she drifted off into a nap. The house was so large that even the return of Kim wasn't enough to wake her.