"Still taking your vacation off the scrambled times?" Roger asked Bill Pierce. Now that Roger Watkins was president and he was vice president of marketing, 'Mr. Watkins' had become 'Roger.'

"Well, Jim can take care of the reps the supervisors can't. The truth is that we want to move this summer, and I haven't selected a place yet. I'm taking 2 weeks in May for looking and 2 in August for moving."

"Going to look in Kenilworth?" That was where Roger lived, which was an argument for Kenilworth. It was also, however, an argument against Kenilworth. There were other arguments against Kenilworth that it would be more polite to mention.

"Probably staying in Evanston. There are lots of good homes in Evanston, and we have roots there." And they had only so much for down payment. Carolyn was a reason to stay in Evanston. She was a professor, a professor who happened to be married to him and happened to have twin sons. Her identity, though, was as an economics professor. She wanted to socialize with other professors, and Evanston was knee-deep in them. Socializing with executives was always an effort for Carolyn, and he held his breath every time in worry that she would stop making the effort.

Then, too, he was almost the only corporation vice president attending Aldersgate. Jim, sure, but banks had VPs by the dozen. Jim said so himself.

They respected professors more, but he was a big frog in a small puddle. In Kenilworth, he'd be among presidents of larger corporations than Andalusia. He had plans for his family, and impressing richer neighbors weren't among those plans.

"Well, we'd like to have you. It's a great place."

"I'm sure. Well... Old story. Do you have time?" Gossip was all very well, but they had jobs to do, too.

"Sure."

"Story is about a real estate man. Customer asked what people were like in the town.

"'Well, what were people like where you lived before?'

"'Greatest bunch of people you ever met, awfully friendly and helpful. I'm real sorry the job moved me away from them.'" He changed his voice a bit for the different character.

"'Well, you'll find people here very much like that.' Next day, another customer asked the same question was asked about where he'd lived before.

"'They were a terrible bunch of grumps. The best thing about moving was getting away from them.'

"'Well, I'm sorry to say that you'll find your new neighbors very much the same.' His wife overheard both conversations and challenged him. They couldn't both be right.

"'I'll bet,' the real estate man said, 'that both people agree with me after a year. The kind of person you are has much more to do with how you experience your neighbors than your neighborhood does.'

"So, I'm sure that you experience a great neighborhood. But I don't have to check out the neighborhood to tell that." Roger laughed.

"You think it's like that?"

"Yeah. You and I wouldn't be comfortable in Englewood, and nobody's safe there, but beyond that it's more being a neighbor than who is your neighbor."

"Well, you'd be a good neighbor in Kenilworth."

"Thanks, but I've saved up an Evanston down payment. I don't think I have a Kenilworth down payment, and I want the boys out of the apartment. With 4-year-olds, crossing 2 streets before you can run in the grass is constant worry."

"Well, it wasn't our first house, by a long shot."

"There's that, but let's cross one bridge at a time." Roger's wife didn't work. If she ever had worked, she had never had a fucking profession. Her identity was Roger's wife. Carolyn's identity was an economics professor. They had enough problems in their marriage. He wasn't going to try to mover somewhere she'd be seen as simply his adjunct.

He took the vacation. Since he didn't need to go to the office these days, he would spend more time with the boys. House hunting wasn't a full-time occupation. When Barb got there Monday morning, he suggested an outing in the park with the kids. She looked at the dishes.

"Look, Barb, the cleaning is your second responsibility. I'll be gone all afternoon. If some things don't get done, Carolyn will blame me." Why Barb worried, he couldn't figure. She'd already given notice. She was going to get married and have a baby of her own. Carolyn was already in a dither finding a replacement; she wasn't about to fire Barb and look for a replacement any earlier. "That reminds me, instead of vacation days this year, would you be happy if we paid you for two weeks after you left."

"That would be fine." So they took the kids to the park to run around. Often, that didn't require two adults, or even one. Occasionally, Johnny ran towards one street while Paul ran towards another. He expected kids, let alone Carolyn's kids to rebel against their parents' desires; rebelling against their parents' desire that the kids survive was going a little far. Barb cleaned up the kitchen before fixing lunch. The kids watched TV while she did, and he watched with them. And Carolyn called his programs 'pablum.'

After lunch, he visited the realtor. Marge Vargas was the agent he saw. He laid out their down-payment maximum.

"Now, that should be 20%. So, what do you have priced within 5 times of that?"

She showed him a book with pictures. She had a map of Evanston and another of the northern suburbs on the wall. He was familiar enough with the town that the map location told him a little about what would be around the places that looked possible.

"No," he said of one picture. "Those amenities and that decor may well be worth the price, but we have two 4-year-old boys. They need space, space inside and space outside."

"Space and a low budget. How does a fixer-upper sound?"

"It depends. First, as I said, we have two small boys. A hole in the floor that we could fix next year would mean that at least one of them would fall through and break his neck before we got around to it. Second, I'm not going to do the job myself. A roof that we'd have to replace in a couple of years is fine if that knocks the price of the roof off the price of the house. I'm not going to put in sweat equity."

He spent the first day looking through books she gave him. She would arrange a route to see those which looked possible. Marge went out twice while he was in the office, but he didn't mind. The choices were what he'd come for. They made another appointment for Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, they went looking at his choices in the northwest quadrant. Even that was a lot of driving.

"I'm sorry," he said after one house. "It looked a lot different in the photographs."

"Don't be sorry. In the first place, any time I can deal with customers during school hours is a bonus. In the second, I'm getting a better picture of what you want. We'll make a list of the places where you want to see the interiors. I'd like your wife along for that." Well, if she wanted Carolyn she wouldn't get school hours.

That afternoon, he got back to the apartment early. Barb hadn't started dinner prep, and he told her not to. When Carolyn got home, she and he took the kids to the park. They didn't have enough of these family excursions, even ones this short.

"I figured I'd get take-out. Can you handle the kids in the car while I go in?"

"Why don't I go in? You can drive around and pick me up." And that's the way they did it. The kids were reasonable, as well as locked in their car seats, while the car was moving. They raised a ruckus when it was parked more than a couple of minutes.

"This looks too good to be true," he told Marge about a picture Thursday. "The description looks like a lot more house than the price does."

"Well, the description is accurate, and the price is too. But you're right. Let's stop off there, and you'll see." The house looked fine when you were looking east. The house to the west of it was a boarded-up eyesore. Still, the house looked fine.

"The City is going to tear that down one of these days, and the price of this one will go up. The owner, however, was transferred. He can't wait." Bill went to the boarded-up house. The doors and ground-floor windows looked totally secure. There weren't any basement windows. He didn't want Paul and Johnny anywhere near a vacant house they could get into, but this one looked safe.

"What about the basement? I don't see how they got light down there."

"No basement. It's built on a slab. That's what went wrong. Look at that." She pointed at a crack in what he'd taken for the foundation. "It could have been repaired, but it's stood for too long. As I said, the City of Evanston wants to tear it down sometime, but the matter of who pays for that is in the courts."

Well, the house next door wouldn't impress the people from Andalusia that he needed to impress, but the house fit his desires otherwise. "I'd like to see the inside sometime. Put it on the list."

Friday, they looked at the house. It fit his requirements and his wallet, and it was the first house to do so. It had a master bedroom with its own bath, with two other bedrooms, a full bath, and some other rooms upstairs. It had large living and dining rooms downstairs and a small 'parlor' off the living room. That would make a good office for Carolyn. He made an appointment with Marge for him and Carolyn to see it together.

The best laid plans of mice, men, and husbands (who are something of both), went agley. Carolyn kept the appointment by herself, while he stayed home with the kids. She came home and got lunch on the table.

"Okay," he asked Carolyn when the kids had eaten and returned to the TV, "did you like it?"

"It's awfully big."

"A house for a family of four. The twins will get bigger. They're four in '78. They'll be sixteen in '90. They'll need a little room, then. This place is cramped for the entertaining I have to do as a vice president, and I want a formal space that can be separate from the family space."

"Keep Johnny and Paul away from your guests?"

"As far as possible. I'm proud of my boys -- our boys -- but I don't want to cramp them very long the way they'd have to be cramped among business guests."

"You let them run in church."

"Yeah. 'Suffer the little children to come unto me and restrain them not.' It's His house. He sets the rules. Andalusia, on the other hand, contains some real pricks."

"If I'd said that..." She said after a glance at the boys.

"To me alone, I'd let it go. Of course, I know which executive of Andalusia you know best."

"Well..." she began. But this wasn't the time for a fight; it was the time to reach an agreement.

"And the office?"

"It's really a parlor."

"I didn't say that anyone else had used it for an office. Could you use it for an office? It's right off the living room, but you could shut the door when we were entertaining. You would be needed, anyway. You couldn't work then."

"It looks great."

"You sure that you still want the changing table? Wouldn't it smell?" Her old desk had become a changing table when her old home office had become a nursery. Was that really 4 years ago? It must be; often as they seemed to, the boys didn't age more than one year per year. He had no problem replacing the desk.

"We selected it for my desk at home years ago. It doesn't smell that bad; we kept a pad on it. Get it out of the boys' room, and its odor will fade fast. But isn't the house far from the EL for your purposes?"

"I drive to the EL anyway. I only walk now when the weather invites it, and the weather hardly ever invites it. Besides, I've been thinking of getting a parking space downtown."

"And the next-door neighbors?" he asked.

"You mean the Adams family?" Yeah, but it wasn't really a haunted house. He nodded. "Is it safe?"

"I don't see how they could get in." Of course, with boys, your not seeing how they could didn't mean that they couldn't find a way to get in.

"Look, my friends wouldn't bat an eye if we lived next to a graveyard. How about your friends?" Well, the house next door might be a problem, but any place he'd seen would have some problem.

"So, we invite them after dark. Actually, I'm not in any danger of getting fired, and I have little chance of getting promoted this coming decade, if ever."

"Reached your level of incompetence?"

"Not quite, although the presidency might very-well be it. Look, if the board is happy with Watkins, they'll keep him for another 16 years. If they get unhappy with Watkins, they won't want to make another marketing guy president."

They talked more, and they each visited the house again. Finally, he made an offer. The owners haggled a bit, but they finally settled.

The place needed a bit of sprucing up, including a paint job for most of the interior, but they would move the first week in August. Carolyn didn't try for any conferences that summer. They would put the boys into the same room for the time being. Sooner or later, they would want their own rooms, and that house had the space for that. It also had the space for a sort of rec room for them and their future friends. That would leave the living room free for adult entertainment. For boys, those provisions were probably less important than the yard. Carolyn objected to rough-housing in living room. Very well. In good weather, they would rough-house outside.

Meanwhile, Barb was going. Carolyn brought the matter up.

"You know, Bill, that the larger house means someone has to take care of it." He had, after all, lived alone in an apartment. He knew that cleaning was required.

"Well, I don't expect you to be that someone. That was perfectly clear before we were married. Anyway, the boys will be less of a problem, and they'll have a space to make their messes in that doesn't have to meet adult entertainment standards."

"Does that mean that you aren't going to spin them around until they vomit in the living room any more?" That was unfair.

"That was once, and it was only Johnny. 'They' didn't throw up. He did. Do you really want me to stop dealing with the boys in the living room?"

"I never wanted you to stop dealing with the boys. I want you to deal with them less violently." She wanted him to deal with them as if they were girls. Well, they weren't.

"Well, they're boys. You'll have to admit that I don't pick on them. Lots of what I say and do pisses them off. Lots pisses you off. What do I do with them that you and they both disapprove of?"

"Anyway," she retreated, "we're going to have to get someone new. And that person will have to be a genuine housekeeper."

"Yeah. Really, I think that's your pidgin. I have to approve, but you have to deal with her." He didn't expect Carolyn to do housekeeping, he did think that housekeeping was her responsibility.

"Well, I've been thinking. Remember when Andy and your girlfriend, Marilyn got hitched?"

"She was hardly my girlfriend." Carolyn had been jealous at one point. It had been early in her pregnancy, and the hormones caused emotions which went looking for reasons. Carolyn had never understood how sexy her pregnancy had made her, but she'd chosen the wrong target for jealousy, even so. He was a T&A man, and Marilyn had almost no tits. Damn little hair, either, and Carolyn knew he liked hair. Actually, Marilyn had been an attractive teenager, when you could think she was growing into a beautiful woman. She hadn't, had hardly grown at all. "I just thought that the kids were getting a rotten deal. The wedding was years ago, and I've barely spoken to either one since. What about it?"

"Well, one of the guests was their housekeeper, and Andy called her 'Mrs. Byron' or something. It seems that when she was hired, Jim thought it was wrong for his young kid to call a grown woman by her first name."

"Well, he calls you by your first name. Me, too."

"Yeah. But he's not so young anymore. The twins, on the other hand..."

"So, you want them to call the new hire "Mrs. Smith," or something. I can see your point, or Jim's point." For all of him, they could call her anything but 'mommy.'

"And that means we call her that, too. After all, we're talking about an authority figure -- for the boys, not for us."

"Well, I'm not sure names influence whether boys that age obey. They obey 'Barb' faster than they obey you or me."

"That age, sure, though even now I'm not sure. But I'm looking for a permanent hire. I'm planning to spend lots of time looking and then more time persuading the boys to trust her. I sure don't want to do that over again. Do you really think that they'd obey someone they call 'Barb' -- a Black woman they call 'Barb' -- in 10 years?" Would the boys turn into racists? At 14? Probably. Prejudice reaches its maximum in high school.

"Fourteen? Do I think they'll obey anyone at 14? Not likely."

"Well, that's true, but I think the name would give us a little edge."

"Sure. I don't care. Actually, your idea makes sense. It's bad management to deny your employees dignity. It's highly valued and costs you almost nothing." And, as she'd said, the twins were unlikely to obey their parents' slavey.

"There are days I think you learned something valuable in getting that MBA." She was damn snotty about his degree. It paid several times more than her Ph. D. did. But, then, she never trusted the market.

"I learned lots in business school."

"Yeah, but much of it was nonsense." She was just being snotty. Well, she was on edge. Could he remember when she hadn't been on edge? He could remember the girl he'd married, who hadn't seemed on edge, though she'd been snotty even back then. Still, Carolyn was pushing herself closer and closer to a nervous breakdown. He couldn't help by giving her more leeway. Every minute she had to spare went to her God-damned research. Then the thought was driven from his mind.

They were, after all, a married couple in their bedroom. Damn! Whatever her other faults, Carolyn was a very hot woman. She'd been hotter before the twins, but the difference wasn't sagging breasts. Most of the difference was that she was exhausted.

He thought about that on his way home from work the next day. Well, for all her snottiness about his MBA, he was the manager. He'd have to manage his family. They were moving into a new place. Somehow, he'd experienced this apartment as camping out since the birth of the twins. The boys would have a yard, and he'd see they got the equipment for having a boyhood in the yard -- and in the house in bad weather. Now, he would have to manage Carolyn if he wanted to keep her.

Whatever the danger of losing her to someone else, and his estimate of that danger fluctuated wildly from one day to the next, he was in real danger of her going off the deep end. Of course, she didn't accept her need for his management, but that was just one more problem. His task was to get her in better shape, not to have an excuse with which to cover his ass when she flew apart.

Really, her problem was fairly simple. She had too many tasks. If he had his choice, she would dump the economic research. As far as he could tell, Circle paid her to teach and didn't care whether she did research or not. If it meant promotion, the promotions had been damn slow coming, and the pay raises were no longer necessary.

But he clearly didn't have his choice. Carolyn saw herself as a researcher, an economic researcher. One possibility was to have her give up teaching. That wasn't within their budget constraints this year, but it might well be next year. They'd saved up for the down payment, and that was more per month than the present house payments were. They were no longer paying rent, too. Still, this wasn't the time to suggest that. She'd made a commitment this year at least.

She had two groups in the church that took time, if not a hell of a lot of time. She could drop those, but she didn't look more drained when she came back from her circle or from choir practice. She liked to sing, and the circle was no longer her responsibility. It was probably better for her to have some life away from the twins, too. When she and they were in the apartment together, she was always at their beck and call. Now, he enjoyed his time with the boys. Carolyn seemed to experience her time with them as one more duty. He was no further along with his problem when he got home. The boys took all his attention until they were in bed. Carolyn went in and kissed them good night, and he read the story. When he came out, Carolyn was at the kitchen table, buried in some phase of her research. She looked harried again, and the boys weren't what was harrying her.

Although he'd said something about approval of the housekeeper, Mrs. Jackson was in the apartment when he got home one Monday evening without Carolyn's even having mentioned her before. Well, she didn't look impossible. He could exercise his veto if she didn't work out. The boys hadn't taken to her completely, but they were remarkably accepting when you consider how important Barb had been in their lives. On the other hand, they might not have realized that the change was permanent. Then, too, kids were resilient, often remarkably resilient when you least expected it.

While he got the house up to snuff and the move arranged, he plotted what he could do about Carolyn. The move would be the proper time. With the boys, they were trying to give a little time for one adjustment before they started another. An adult could handle a total change better than a series of partial ones. He finally had his plan figured out.

Mrs. Jackson stayed in the apartment with the boys moving day while Carolyn waited at the house for the movers. He followed the van. Later, he went back for the twins while Mrs. Jackson followed him to the new house. She arranged the kitchen. He was prepared to get take-out, but Mrs. Jackson left them a meal when she went home.

The next morning, when Mrs. Jackson showed up, he took the boys out into the back yard and started them learning to catch and throw a ball. They were way too young for bats and gloves, too young for even a real baseball. He used a rubber ball that wouldn't hurt one if it hit him. At one point, Paul decided to throw as hard as he could at Bill. He could throw neither very hard nor very accurately.

By the time they went in for lunch, they were exhausted. After lunch, their bitching about naps was quite half-hearted. When they were on their beds in their rooms -- dressed except for their shoes -- he left them with Mrs. Jackson and asked Carolyn to accompany him on a shopping trip. She came along, although she threw him a quizzical look.

"Look," he began as soon as he was on the road, "you're a great mother -- a little overprotective, maybe, but a great mother. I'm sure you're a great economics professor. Sometimes, could you think about being a wife?" If he'd told her what was good for her, no matter how obvious that it was good for her, she would get up on her high horse and ignore him. On the other hand, she had to admit that she had obligations to him.

"I think about it. I do it. What more -- what specific things more -- do you want me to do? Sometimes, I feel on the edge of exhaustion?" Well, that was more clarity than he'd expected of her.

"Only sometimes? Only at the edge? Most of the time you look exhausted and act exhausted. I don't want you spending more time on wifely chores. I want you spending less time on other chores. I want a rested Carolyn when I have you. It seems to me that the last time I saw you relaxed was when you came back from Boulder. Was that two years ago?"

"Yeah. I spent the first two days in bed." He deliberately slowed down. He felt a knife twisting in his gut, and if he'd allowed his foot on the accelerator to respond to his emotions he'd have been breaking the sound barrier, let alone the speed limit. "I dragged myself out, presented the paper, and went right back to bed." He didn't want to know about her affairs. Having them was bad enough. Telling him about them?

"You shouldn't have told me that."

"Well, I told you I had mountain sickness. Do you know what that is?" Some sort of euphemism? It didn't sound like it. Yeah, he had some picture.

"Something to do with altitude. I don't think we make anything for it." He didn't have Andalusia's pharmacopeia in his head, by any means. But he had some picture of what they had to sell.

"Unless you provide oxygen tanks. You lose all your energy for a few days until your body gets used to the lower air pressure. I don't think there is any treatment other than sleep." Oh, sleep? Well, he really had no problem with her being in bed alone. That was, really, going to be his suggestion.

"You're saying you were in bed alone?"

"Well, you weren't there. If you had been, I'd have told you not to touch me. Bill, you haven't seen me really exhausted. Getting up to pee was a major effort. What did you think I meant?" Well, spending two days in bed sounded more like exercise than rest.

"Actually, I've always suspected those conferences. You're there. Bunches of men and very few other women are there. I and the boys aren't there. You are, for once, rested. You talk about socializing. I'd rather not know how far that socializing goes."

"Well, I don't go very far. Really, I went to a few conferences as a grad student, and guys hit on me. Hell! Guys hit on me throughout school. I'm used to it. That doesn't mean I took them all up on it. Don't tell me that you didn't hit on girls; I can't believe that you started in church." She was saying that he hadn't started with her. Well, he never claimed that he had. He'd ended with her, though.

"Well, I generally did my hunting in other venues. You were just too tempting."

"Anyway, guys mostly have stopped hitting on me. A few undergraduate students, and those guys are more weird than attractive. You're the only guy who sees me without my bra these days -- well, Dr. Gabel." Her gynecologist saw parts much more intimate than her melons. "And I'd rather you didn't. I haven't been with any man since we married -- any other man -- really, not since our first kiss. I wasn't being faithful to you back then. Hell! I fought with other people, and that was what we were doing most of that time. I dated some guys, but they didn't attract me enough that I went to bed with them. Can you say the same?" Well, he could say precisely the same.

"If you mean guys, yeah. What you really mean, I made a promise on our wedding day, and I've kept that promise. I won't claim that I was faithful to you when you told me that you wouldn't date me if I was the last man on earth." His cock hadn't been, though his mind might have been. He'd though more about her than about his bed partner even in those days.

"Well, as I said, I wasn't trying to be faithful to you, either. I was a free woman, and I was very selective -- except for once." She always had a little dig for him.

"Yeah. You really went slumming then. But, admit it, I can really bring you off."

"Oh, you're sexy as hell. Girls complain about guys doing all their thinking with their little heads. Your problem is that you try to use the one above the neck. You do much better with the other one." Well, the rest of the world thought he was effective as an executive, not as a gigolo. But this wasn't advancing his plan.

"Well, you're sexy as hell, too. I just think you'd be even sexier if you got enough sleep."

"And I wasn't slumming with you. Look, Bill, I've never claimed that you don't have your good points." Well, 'never' was an exaggeration. She had always, however, said he had his bad points, which was what she was implying here. "I'm even beginning to appreciate your skills in child care, which wasn't what I considered when I decided to marry you." Well, there was one good point that it would be nice to have acknowledged.

"And I keep you well, too. Somehow, I think that if it were known that I'm a corporate vice president and making more at 38 than 90% of men ever do, that would interest lots of women."

"Well, I don't worry about the women who want your paycheck. I worry about the women who lust after you because you're GIB." Were there any?

"Well, you're the only woman is in a position to find that out. What grates is that the provision of the roof over your head counts for so little."

"Well, I always pictured myself as providing my own support ultimately. That hasn't worked out all that well. Somehow, I didn't include full-time child care in the expenses."

"The best-laid plans of mice and men..." At this point, he pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket he'd chosen as the closest to the new house and, therefore, worth a little trying out. He was at their destination, and he had barely broached the subject. Luckily, Carolyn looked no more eager to get out of the car than he was.

"Yeah. Anyway," she asked, "what more do you want me to do? Try harder at what?" Well, that was his opportunity, if not the way he wanted her to look at it. She was already trying hard in too many directions.

"You know, you take one Tuesday a month for those circle meetings."

"Well, you take a Tuesday a month, too, and a Monday. Do you want me to quit?" No. He wanted her to quit other things.

"Not particularly. That leaves 2 other Tuesdays. And Finance takes some months off. What I'm suggesting is that when we're both home you take the other Tuesdays off from the boys. Get yourself some sleep."

"You mean that?" Duh! Why would he say it if he didn't mean it?

"I mean that. Why would I bring it up if I didn't mean it. Damn it, woman, the only thing we had going for us when we got married was sexual compatibility."

"Well, I try to deal with all your sexual needs. Don't say that I don't." That she did. He would be much happier, though, if she thought of it as coming to him to deal with her sexual needs. But that was another subject for another day. It was a distraction from this discussion. Well, he could twist it back to the subject.

"One of my sexual needs is a sex partner who isn't sleep deprived. Is that so strange? Would I be more fun if I was falling asleep?"

"Okay. I can't call that a selfish demand. I'll try to take those nights off." Once again, this was one more thing she would try. He didn't want her to try more; she was trying too much.

"Look. Do more than try. Prioritize. If I'm not home, you take care of the boys. If you have to grade papers, you can do it. You go to the circle. For anything else, you have a conflict and can't make it. It's just that the appointment is with your bed."

"I'll try." And that was the most he was going to get from her. They went shopping.

The next Tuesday, though, he was prepared. As the 8th was an even day, he cut Johnny's pork chop for him while Carolyn cut Paul's. The boys needed much less assistance at meals these days. Of course, they still need more than they wanted. When he talked about it to others, they were the parents of children. In practice, either he dealt with the kids, or Carolyn did, or they each took one. Well, any kid deserved some time when he had a parent's full attention, even when he didn't want any parental attention just then. It was probably a greater need in twins. The way they alternated, each boy got the full attention of each parent for significant periods of time. The reason he was thinking about this, he suddenly decided, was that he'd already thought through the post-dinner evening and everything which could go wrong.

"Leave the dishes," he told Carolyn when dinner was done. "Why don't I bring the boys in later to say good night." They, and she, would want good-night kisses, and she shouldn't be shocked when the boys entered her bedroom. He took the twins out to play catch in the late light. They had a little sunburn, and so did he. The sun was low enough that it wouldn't aggravate it. Sunburn in August just showed what a troglodyte existance the Pierce family had been living. June was month for sunburn, maybe July. By August boys, even adults, should be tanned enough that no amount of exposure could burn them.

He tired the boys out until bed time, and supervised a joint bath. He knocked on the bedroom door before ushering the boys in. Carolyn was enough awake to speak to them, but she lay down and let them instigate the kiss. Kissing Mama good night was enough different from having Mama kiss them good night that the boys were impressed.

"As Mama bad?" Paul asked. "Is Mama sick."

"No. We keep telling you that you need your sleep. Well, grown-ups need their sleep, too. It's just that grown-ups know that and little boys don't." A little preparation for the next time one says that he's too big to have to do something. "So we take extra sleep when we need it, or when we need it and we can do that. Sometimes, we have other things we need to do."

Johnny was sure that he didn't need any sleep and wouldn't for hours. He, though, was asleep before the second story was finished. So was his brother. They didn't miss anything. Those were favorite books, and they'd heard them many times before.

Probably leaving the dishes hadn't been a good idea. Getting the grease off was a harder task than it would have been an hour before. When Carolyn went to the Priscilla Circle, the boys were with him in the kitchen while he rinsed off the dishes. He had been afraid that they'd want to be with Mama if she were home. Well, there were plenty of options. She could take the dishes or the boys. The twins were familiar enough with the yard that they could be trusted back there by themselves for a few minutes. He didn't want to give them enough time to chase each other into the street.

He watched TV through the news. Carolyn was back asleep when he went to bed. She stirred, but she didn't wake fully, when he slid in beside her. Perversely, he lusted after her strongly then. He had wanted for so long to have sex with his rested wife. Well, as he often told the boys, there were things you wanted that you couldn't have. He hugged her. She was soon back asleep, and, after a while, he slept, too.

"You were right," she said the next morning. "I feel much more rested now." Well, she was certainly more rested now. Her night's sleep had been nearly 14 hours.

"I doubt that one night is enough, but we'll have some more before you get too deep in your teaching." He had no doubt that she would find more demands to take that time. Carolyn always took on more than she could handle, although he'd admit that twins were more responsibility than a single child, and that was something that had blind-sided them. If she had taken on that responsibility without seeing how much it would drain her, the event had surprised them both.

Carolyn sent to her home office. The boys watched their TV as if they didn't have a yard to play in. Well, they did have sunburns. He left Mrs. Jackson in charge of them and the house to go and buy a power lawn mower and a can of gas. He mowed the lawn, wearing a long-sleeved shirt to protect his own sunburn.

The rest of the day went predictably. He got the boys outside for an hour before dinner. Running got them as much exercise as wrestling had, and running didn't disturb Carolyn as much. Their sunburn didn't itch so much, and he got them to bed without too much excess fuss. Carolyn came in to kiss them good night. He went downstairs to watch television.

"You sure you can't think of something more interesting?" Carolyn asked when she came downstairs. The innuendo was obvious, and it was part of her sex play. She was quite capable of telling him that he was, 'good in bed but not good for anything else,' in front of a mixed-sex group of choir members in the basement of the church. When it came time for actual sex, she liked to be less explicit.

"Can you?" His cock was already expressing its interest.

"Yeah. Finish this show. I'll take a while." When the show rolled the credits, he went upstairs. She was brushing her hair, and he took over the task. She had sexy, raven locks, and he loved to take care of her hair. Actually, he loved to stroke it, but he was happy stroking it in a way that resulted in its looking like she wanted it to look. As he brushed, he was looking down. She let her robe fall open so he could see her other hair, the hair on her snatch.

"Do you think you could let it grow out again some day?" he asked. He meant the hair on her head. It was still lovely, but it had been lovelier, and even more fun to brush, when it had been longer. He wasn't the only male in her life who liked to touch her hair, however, and the boys hadn't learned to stroke gently.

"Maybe. They don't grab as often, and they could reach it now if they wanted to."

She took the brush when she decided that he was done. She set it down, got up, and turned to face him. She started unbuttoning his shirt. She didn't have and buttons; even the belt on her robe was loose. He stroked her melons. When she got to the last shirt button outside his trousers, she started on his belt. He removed the shirt and undershirt while she opened his trousers and pushed them down. They had a nice kiss with lots of tongue. He stroked down to her buns and then used them as handles to pull her deeper into the kiss.

When she moved away, he couldn't follow. The trousers around his ankles hobbled him.

"Get the light and door, will you?" she asked. She lay on the bed with her buns in the air. He got the chair in position and sat down to untie his shoes and remove the rest of his clothes.

"Minx." Still, she wasn't saying 'no.' She was saying 'make me.' He latched the door, one improvement over their previous bedroom, and turned off the overhead light. Her buns seemed to glow in the lamplight. He was a T&A man, and if her melons had been the first thing he'd noticed about Carolyn, her buns were sexy too. And the position was sexier.

The first time he'd taken her when she was lying face down was a time when she been lying like that to deny him access to her front -- thinking to deny him access to her snatch. While the instigation of this night was all hers, there was a taste of 'make me' in that position.

He got into bed and kissed the back of her neck. He stroked down her back, squeezed both buns, continued to her thighs. She spread her legs. The 'make me' was a complete tease.

"Sorry." He moved to give her room. The closer to the center of the bed she was the more comfortable they'd both he in another minute. He stroked the insides of her thighs -- starting far enough up that he could easily reach both with only his right hand. He bit the back of her neck very gently as he got two fingers into her wet snatch. Then he was stroking that wetness down to her clit.

As he stroked her, she stuck her buns up higher. Then she pushed herself up and back until she was on her hands and knees. It was going to be doggy-style rather than him lying on her back. He had to stop his contact to get in position behind her. Then his cock just touched the entrance to her snatch.

"Yes," she said. She stayed still as he slowly thrust into her.

"Yes," he agreed when his cock was as deep into her snatch as it could get.

"Let me," she said. She pushed her buns into his lap until she had a better position. He let her push him back until she said, "Yeah." He reached around her to get her clit from the front before starting his motions. Her snatch was so wet and smooth around him as he withdrew, so warm and welcoming as he drove in again. They got into a rhythm with her moving back as he moved forward and vice versa.

Then she went over. Her snatch grabbed his cock, let it go, and grabbed it again. He drove in and out through that fluttering grasp before he lost it. He drove deeply into her, pushing her forward bu burying himself in her snatch. He pulsed there while she sagged down onto the mattress.

When he got the strength, he kissed her good bye and returned to his own side. She rolled back so she was facing him.

"You," he said, "have the best ideas." She'd always made it clear that she enjoyed sex with him, but he got an extra charge when she planned something.

"Well, you have good ideas, too." Sure, he instigated sex more often than she did, but he thought her choices were more imaginative. Maybe just having her choose made them seem that way.

"Yeah, but you give me those, too." And she did. There was something about Carolyn that radiated sensuality.

They settled in the house for rest of the week. The boys' sunburns turned to tans, and he got them outside long enough for their tans to deepen. By Friday, they were racing in circles around the outside of the house by themselves. He no longer had to think up games for them to get them outside. While the twins were up, he was a parent and Carolyn was -- mostly -- an economist. After the kids were in bed, they were a couple. If the sex was less adventurous, it was quite enjoyable. He'd been right; Carolyn was sexier without a sleep deficit.

Back at the office, Jack, one of the other vice presidents, commented on his tan.

"Did you go to Florida for your vacation?"

"No. This year we stayed here. Moved house, though, and got a place with a yard. I don't think August is the month to go south, anyway. Maybe I'll save up some days for December another year." Actually, he doubted that. Traveling with kids didn't look like much of a rest to him, and he didn't want a vacation from his kids. Well, maybe a day or weekend alone with Carolyn would be nice.

"I lived for years," he continued, "in an apartment as a single person. By myself, it felt like home. Then the two of us moved into a larger apartment, and it still felt like camping out. Now, I want to be in my home. Sure, I can understand people wanting to get away from the everdayness, but this year I'd rather get established at home."