Saturday morning, after one more round of morning love to say good bye to their bed, they checked out. They ate lunch in another of the hotel's restaurants. They were back in Evanston in the early afternoon. Andy set down their luggage to give two short rings on the bell. Then he opened the door with his own key. He carried her across the threshold. She greeted the family while he took their luggage up to his -- now their -- room.

"What the!.." he shouted above her head.

"It's a new mattress," his dad began. Andy came downstairs.

"Since there's only one of me and there's two of you," he continued, "I figured that the double bed belonged in there. It's a new mattress, and there are new sheets." Well, a double bed had been more fun.

"You're very kind," she told Mr. Trainor -- Mr. Trainor senior.

"Selfish. The more comfortable you are, the likelier you are to visit."

After a little more talk, she walked over to her house -- her parents' house. Andy looked at her and then at his dad before she left. He seemed to want to go with her -- to protect her? -- but that wouldn't be appropriate. Mom was, in fact, nice. All their recent battles were over. She was married to Andy, and Mom could have no objection to her sleeping with him. Mom believed in monogamy, and that meant she wouldn't urge Marilyn to seek another man. The wedding was over; they'd each got some of their way on that. But those battles were definitely in the past.

"It seems your sisters all had nice things to say about Andy," Mom said. Well, what did you expect on his wedding day. Zates could be critical, even catty, but they didn't dump on your decision when it was clearly your decision. Besides, the Zates present had included Barbara and Brittany.

"Yes, Mom, Andy's fairly popular with the chapter. They see him around; they see how he treats me; they see him being helpful."

"Are other boys so violent, then?"

"Well, I wasn't thinking of violence. Although some girls on campus have been date-raped. We had a freshman this year get groped at a school dance. And a few boys get violent in other ways. But those are the minority. Verbal abuse is much more frequent. Well, Andy doesn't do any of those things. Besides which, he is formally polite -- carrying packages, opening doors. They've never seen him drunk; I've never seen him drunk.

"Those are the negatives he lacks. Beyond that he's nice."

"Well, dear..." Marilyn was trying to sell an issue which had been decided. She changed the subject.

"I'm really grateful for all you put into the wedding." Which lumped the cash in neatly with the planning. Well, some of the planning had been helpful. "It's a day that I'll remember for the rest of my life."

"Well, dear, you're staying there?" Mom changed to another topic.

"We could hardly stay here." Pete the Pervert would be listening at their door.

"You will Come to dinner, you and Andy?"

"Sure. Do you want to invite Andy's family, too?"

"Well, we do owe Jim Trainor a dinner." Now, that was interesting. She couldn't mean the rehearsal dinner.

"If you invite us and him this week, you should really invite his daughters, too." That would cram the table, though. Mom wouldn't deliberately choose a night when Pete was otherwise engaged. "You've barely met the girls, but they're quite nice."

"Well, why don't we say you and Andy for Monday?"

"That's fine. I'll convey the invitation."

"The wife makes the couple's social engagements by herself."

"Yeah, Mom, but I'm a very new wife. I don't know what other commitments he has. We didn't spend the week merging our calendars. We had other things to do."

"And you complain about Pete! Don't think I believe for one minute that you were that busy that way for an entire week."

"You're right on both counts, Mom. I suppose I should manage his social life. It's just that all my thoughts about social life culminated one week ago."

"Well, on your social life of one week ago, I've got the wedding gifts with a list of who gave them in your room upstairs. I must say the toaster oven from the MacGregors impressed me. They were invited simply as the parents of a bridesmaid. Half the church members who attended gave nothing."

"They brought their attendance, their witness. Loads of them didn't go to the reception, either." And their attendance at the ceremony hadn't cost the family anything. "As to Barbara's parents, she was one of the girls Andy tutored. They might be grateful for that. But you're right. I have to get on the thank-you notes. But let's put that off 'til Monday."

Back at Andy's house -- now their house -- she rang the bell. April opened the door.

"It's Marilyn!" she yelled to the rest of the family.

"I'm sorry, Marilyn," Mr. Trainor said, "I didn't give you this." He got a key out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Too many other things on my mind."

"Or Alzheimer's," Molly said.

"What's that? I forget what we were talking about." His children laughed.

"Before I forget, Andy, Mom invited you and me to dinner Monday. I said a tentative yes. Are you free?"

"As a bird. I don't have anything to do except with the people here."

"Well," said his dad, "you need to get some formalities taken care of."

"Yes, but Marilyn is one of the people here. I thought we'd go down to the bank Monday to get her name on the account. Is it okay to wait until we're back to do that on the Champaign account?" That seemed to be addressed to her.

"Quite all right." Andy had two bank accounts, savings up here and checking in Champaign.

"If they're having you over, I think we ought to invite your family. How does Wednesday sound?" Mr. Trainor looked around. "I know you can't speak for your family, Marilyn, but does anyone here have any conflicts?"

"You might want to invite just my parents."

"And not Pete?" asked Molly. Well, for a great many reasons, not least Molly's interest in him.

"Listen, my new sister, I don't mind if your dad invites him. That's his choice. But you be careful. I know that guy. Don't get in any back seats with him."

"Marilyn!"

"I'm not saying to stay out of back seats with boys in general. That would be not only hypocritical, but... You're a high-school graduate?"

"Yeah."

"Years too late." How many years she wouldn't say while both April and her dad were listening. "I'm saying watch out for this particular guy. I've heard him talk about girls, and he's only out to score."

"He did tell me," Andy said, "that the game was getting sex from a woman without marrying her. According to him, I'd lost. I told him that was like telling Babe Ruth he'd lost because he hadn't scored a touchdown. I'd won the World Series in the game I was playing." That was sweet of Andy.

"The whole family," said Mr. Trainor. "Pete will sit next to Molly, and I'll get a set of handcuffs for him." His kids laughed again. When he called to give the invitation, he confirmed that she and Andy would go there on Monday.

Dinner was order-out pizza. Everybody got to choose one topping. She was asked last, which surprised her at first. Mr. Trainor seemed to defer to her so regularly. Then she realized that the last place was a privilege. If your first choice was named by somebody else, then you got it and your second choice, too. Even so, five toppings on a pizza seemed excessive. She realized, though that the Trainors were used to four.

That night, she saw the bed for the first time. The frame was old and solid, made of a dark wood. The mattress felt new. Its surface was flat and firm. The sheets were new; you could see the remains of the creases that had been folds in the package. Conscious of the ears around them, they made slow, quiet love. When her first climaxes hit, Andy was kissing her. When he was in her, however, and the feeling was most intense, his face was inches from hers, and their mouths were not aligned.

"Ah!" she cried as the lightning struck.

"Oh, darling," he said as he pulsed within her. He was heavy on her as she recovered. She delighted in his weight, but began worrying about the noise they'd made.

"Do you think they heard us?" she whispered in his ear.

"No." But he sounded doubtful. They arranged themselves in the spoon. "I love you," he whispered into her hair. She hugged his arm and he hugged her in response. He loved her, and she loved him. She'd been silly to worry about the ratio.

Sunday morning was hectic with five people trying to shower with only one bathroom. In deference to his family, Andy didn't even suggest showering together. The Trainors had a small room with a toilet, sink, and medicine cabinet downstairs. She put her at-home makeup, as opposed to what she carried in her purse, on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet. The only other materials there were a bottle of Tylenol and a package of bandages.

When they were getting their seats in church, she suddenly realized that she wasn't sitting with the Trainor family. She was sitting there as part of the Trainor family. After church, people came around to congratulate them, and Mom and Dad stood near to share the congratulations. Mr. Trainor had anticipated this and had made his reservations a half hour later than usual.

She rode in the back seat between Andy and April when the entire family was in the car. On the way back, April asked her, "What brought on that problem at the last minute? At the wedding, I mean. I thought you loved Andy."

"I do, and I did then. I was just being silly."

"It wasn't silly at all," Mr. Trainor said from the front seat. "Marriage is a leap into the dark, a lifetime commitment. She wasn't ready for marriage, and she realized that at the last moment. But most marriages occur when the couple isn't ready for marriage. Indeed, you can't really be ready for marriage before it happens, no more than a new-born infant is ready for birth. It's almost traditional for brides to panic at the last minute. It's traditional for someone to calm them down if that happens."

"Your father talked me though it."

"I dealt with the expressed problem, and that got her attention off the underlying problem, which was that it is a leap into the dark."

"What was the problem?" Andy asked. "The expressed problem, that is."

"Well," she told him. "I decided that, however much I loved you, it wasn't as much as you loved me. You'd given me an image of love, and I wasn't living up to it."

"I do love you."

"And I love you, too. I'm just worried that it's not so much."

"If it would make you happier, Marilyn," his dad said, "I suspect that much of what Andy calls love is really selfishness. He wants to have you in his life."

"But I want her to be happy, too. All right, that's a requirement for the other. I couldn't have her long if I make her unhappy. But it's a separate desire. I want to see Marilyn happy. I want to make her happy."

"Well, you can't," his dad told him. "One person can make another unhappy. One person can't make another happy, although they can provide the circumstances that tend to increase happiness in that person."

"Well, I'll try that, then."

"And if your wife is wise, she'll let you know what those circumstances are." Which was advice she should take.

That night, he held her in the spoon position with his hand between her legs. She moaned into a pillow as the lightning struck again and again. When, finally, he entered her, he rested inside while stroking her still.

"I love you; I love you," he whispered when he finally moved inside her. His motions and her squirming responses seemed to go on forever. When he moaned and thrust harder against her, she climaxed as well. He tucked the sheet over her. She was partly recovered when she felt him, no longer stiff, slide out. She thought of the conversation that afternoon in the car.

"Well, darling," she said, "you've learned one way to make me happy, anyway."

"I love you, you know. This makes us both happy."

Monday, they ate breakfast with Andy's dad. The girls were still asleep, and she and Andy wore nightwear. It was the first time she'd seen Andy in pajamas. When he was with her, even when the room was cold, he put on a robe -- if that. After breakfast, still before the girls awoke, they had separate showers.

Mrs. Bryant came in before Molly and April got up.

"You didn't need to make the bed," Mrs. Bryant told her later when they were alone. "I do that. I do all the cleaning and straightening except Andy's bookshelves and waste paper."

"I didn't. Andy did. You have enough to do with four rooms occupied and five mouths to feed. By the way, Andy and I won't be at dinner tonight." She figured that the news of the guests wasn't for her to give. This wasn't her employee; she was a guest in the house.

"I'm not worried about amounts. With Andy home, all the left-overs will be eaten before they spoil."

The girls wanted to go shopping, when they had risen and eaten. They actually wanted Andy to drive them.

"Let's walk," Andy replied. "It's not far, and I want you to know the way back. I think Marilyn and I will be back for lunch," he told Mrs. Bryant. April and Molly said that they'd eat in town. They were, at least, going to do their shopping in Evanston. "Did Marilyn tell you?" Andy asked Mrs. Bryant. "We're having three guests Wednesday. Eight in all. Her family."

They walked the girls to downtown Evanston. Andy took her on to his bank, and they got her name on the savings account. It really was a brand-new account in both their names. The bank closed his old account. He handed her the passbook as they were leaving.

"Which of us should keep this? You're in charge of chores. Handling the money might not be quite the same thing, but it makes sense for you to assign that as well."

"You should keep it. Andy it's your money."

"Not since the ninth. Is it okay if we don't officially transfer car title? I think there's a charge for that."

"Andy, it's perfectly all right."

"I've given you the keys, right?" he asked as they went out the door. He reached to his key ring. "Nope! They're here. Sorry about that." He handed her three keys. She gave him her key ring instead of accepting them.

"Take your apartment keys off, too, will you? I'm bad about that." Andy was always so skilled with key rings. She always risked breaking a fingernail. This time, too, he got both old keys off and three new keys on.

"The one which isn't a car key is to the garage. You can use it, but maybe you want to ask me or dad to get the garage open if it's closed. Anyway, if there's anything else I've forgotten, let me know."

"Well, it is an awfully long time since I was kissed." So he took care of that, right on the street.

They ate lunch with Mrs. Bryant. The main course was sloppy joes. They were flavored with green pepper, onions, and at least one spice out of a jar. Andy took three, and loaded the buns heavily. There was also a salad. The beverage was water, which rather surprised her. Her family had always had soda on hand for the kids. Well, maybe she wasn't a kid anymore, but a married woman.

"Are you tired of the baked ham, Mrs. Trainor?"

"Marilyn, please. The baked ham was six months ago, and it was delicious."

"I thought I'd do that, then. Your parents have had the roast beef, Ms Marilyn, and the ham will serve any number." Marilyn accepted the name silently. She figured that 'Ms Marilyn' was as good a compromise as she was going to get. "Andy," Mrs. Bryant continued. "could you get a shopping list for me?"

"Sure, but you should really ask Marilyn for my services. She assigns chores in this marriage." Andy was going way too far, and she gave him a look to show it. "Anything else you want to add?" That was addressed to her.

"Well, maybe. Mrs. Bryant, do you have eggs and bacon."

"Bacon. If you want many eggs, Andy should add them to the list." Andy did so, and left. Mrs. Bryant got up to put the dishes in the sink and the left-over sloppy-joe mix in the refrigerator. "Did the mister tell you that I won't go in your room if the door is closed? If you want anything cleaned up, leave the door open." And when she didn't want to be disturbed, she could just shut the door. When Andy got back she led him upstairs. Behind the closed door, they had a nice cuddle. They were leaving sex to the nighttime, but privacy invited the sort of intimacy that they'd had before they'd gone all the way. And even though they did stop, the fact that they didn't have to stop added spice to their kisses.

When the girls got back, Molly had bought a charm for her bracelet, and April had bought nothing.

"In a tenth of the time you took," Andy said, "I filled a large grocery bag and carried it home."

"Andy," she said, "they weren't buying. They were shopping." He looked puzzled. "Males!" It wasn't just Andy who couldn't see the pleasure. Well, if time would allow, she'd take them down to the Loop and show them real shopping.

Before dinner, they went upstairs to change. They got a little more cuddling in, too, but she came down looking, if she said so herself, suave. It was a mild day, and they walked. Andy took a umbrella just in case.

Mom and Dad were on their best behavior. Dinner was Mom's lamb chops, which Marilyn knew were a lot of trouble to cook.

"Yummy," she said. "I never got the hang of these."

"If you'd like, I could give you one more practice session."

"Mom. We've planned out our budget. I'm not buying a single lamb chop in the next year. What I need practice on is mac and cheese. Now, if we end up in Evanston..."

"Are you planning to work in the Chicago region?" Dad asked.

"Good question," Andy said. "But one that it's way too early to answer."

"Look," Mom said, "you two can discuss business later. What did you and your father think of the wedding?"

"Well, Dad can speak for himself. He hasn't expressed any opinion except to accept that Marilyn is married to me. And, really, that's what I came away with. It was a fine ceremony and a fine reception, but the important part was, 'I now pronounce you man and wife.'"

"You sound like you'd have preferred a justice of the peace."

"Ah, but the issue I cared about was the woman I married. I think Marilyn wanted that ceremony and that reception. Certainly, she wanted her sisters there. I get the impression that Zeta is important to you, too."

"Yes," Mom admitted. "It is."

"Well, while this is simply news you can send your chapter, Marilyn's chapter was well represented. I expect everyone will have heard every detail by the end of August."

"And," she pointed out, "the state board was represented, too. Of course, it won't be so important to them."

"If half of them weren't convinced that you were pregnant..."

"Well," Andy said. "They'll learn otherwise. Maybe we should send you occasional snapshots. Like kidnap victims, she could be holding a current newspaper above her flat belly."

"I wouldn't be that blatant. I'm considering picturing the two of you on a Christmas card, though." Mom was being subtle -- for Mom. "But, you would have avoided all that if you'd waited another year."

"There would have been several advantages for waiting another year," she said. "In total, they didn't compete with the advantages of marrying when we did."

"What were they?" Pete asked.

"Pete, you are too young to be a dirty old man." There must be advantages beyond the sexual, but right then she couldn't think of any.

"Pete!" said Dad, and Pete shut up.

After peach cobbler, Pete went out, she and Mom headed for the wedding presents, and Andy and Dad settled in the living room for a talk. She hoped they could keep it civil.

Mom gave her a list of the gifts, names, and addresses. Mom was good about that. They then sorted out what gifts would go to the new apartment, what gifts would be returned to the store, and what gifts would be stored here until she and Andy had a larger place. They'd got only three bath towels, unlike her parents, who'd stocked up on towels well into the second decade. They'd received no sheets but one electric blanket. With decent heat, one blanket would be enough.

"And, speaking of wedding gifts, Mom, could we have a couple of beach towels?"

"Sure."

"I wouldn't want to use these for the beach, and the Trainor towels I've seen look just as fancy....

"And, while you're in a generous mood," she paused and Mom waited patiently. "You've been wonderful about the wedding, and continuing my tuition is real generosity. But, look, Mr. Trainor, Mr. Jim Trainor, is springing for our rent next year. Andy is paying the food budget and that sort of thing out of money he earned and saved. I know that budget, and it doesn't have enough space to pay for my next year's dues and parlor fee. Even if it did, I'd feel awfully strange asking it of Andy. And I'd feel stranger asking it of his dad." Mom said nothing. "So, I'm asking it of you. I don't want to go on alum status for my senior year, but one reason, the first reason, Zeta is important to me is because it was important to you."

"Well, Marilyn, I'll ask your Father."

"Thanks, Mom, I couldn't ask for more." She knew that each of them had a budget of 'pocket money.' They used to call it the parents' allowances in contrast with the kids' allowances. She knew that she'd asked for more than her Mom could spend out of that. Anything more would be a joint consultation.

"Jim Trainor paid for Andy's apartment last year, too, didn't he?"

"Yeah, Andy figured that he could afford two years' food, but not that and two years' rent. Mom, this is a guy who worked five summers, and doesn't seem to have spent more than a pittance of it. And, when his dad told him a maximum he would pay, Andy shopped around to get the cheapest apartment. That saved his dad plenty. If you told Pete you'd spend up to so much for his rent, he'd find a place renting within a dime a month of that."

"And stick us with the utilities, that he hadn't thought about. We have another child who's like that, too." Well, she wasn't as bad as Pete, even if she was closer to that than Andy was. "And this paragon wanted an apartment of his own because?"

"All right. He knew I'd visit him there, and I couldn't get in the dorm. Mom, you would have rather we waited for the wedding night, and we didn't. But there was a wedding. Doesn't that mean anything?"

"It means something. I never pushed you to marry him. It's best if the marriage comes earlier in time, but it's more vital that it come first in importance. I would have preferred to have you wait until after the wedding, but I also would have preferred you to delay the wedding, even after you started sleeping with him, until you were sure."

"Well we did delay until we were sure. As a matter of fact, the discussion for the longest time was about a wedding after graduation. After we were sure about the rest of our lives, we were thinking of waiting to consecrate it."

"What made you decide differently?"

"What made me decide? I can't speak for Andy on this. One thing was just what you object to. We'd discovered sex together, started off on that journey with only each other to guide."

"He was your first, are you sure you were his."

"Mom, believe me. That was his first. I was there for his first sex experience and his second. Even I could tell the difference, and I was just as green as he was. After that, my engineer went home and read the manual."

"That part doesn't sound so romantic."

"Doesn't it? Well, the bodice-ripper I left for you to return after Christmas had a hero who was terribly skilled because of years of varied experience. I prefer my life. One of us had to learn somewhere, and I prefer his learning from books. And learning from books is so Andy."

"I keep looking at the marriage he comes from and hoping that that won't happen to you. Don't you ever worry?"

"Do I ever stop worrying? Look, Andy loves me, his Dad says he wants me even more. But what does he love about me? If it were my looks, I'd work to keep my looks. If it were my entertaining conversation, I could keep up with current events. If it were my sexiness, I'd subscribe to Cosmo. I'm going to be sleeping in the same bed with the guy for decades; I could keep him so drained he'd never be able to get it up for another woman.

"Do you know what his top criterion for the marriage is? Almost his single criterion. I can make out the budget. What will be the division of household chores? Marilyn can assign him his jobs. Where will we live? Well, it has to be a place where he has a job offer; other than that, I can decide. What will we eat? If I don't decide it will be out of cans. But there is one bottom line."

"This intrigues me."

"I have to sleep in his arms every night."

"Men all think they can perform more than they really do."

"What's with your generation and sex? Andy wants sex, but he is literal about my sleeping in his arms, or at least in one arm. He's literal about sleeping, too. After the sex, instead of the sex if necessary, I have to sleep cuddled up next to him. We spoon, and he has an arm around me. Let me tell you, one of Andy's arms is something substantial to hug."

"Well, if that's what he wants and you've decided to give it to him, I don't see what the problem is."

"As long as he wants to hold me, there is no problem. But what do I do to make him want to keep holding me? ... Anyway, you don't think his wanting to have sex every night would have been perverse?"

"Wanting is never perverse, darling. You're married. Projecting performance into the distant future is megalomaniacal. I hope you stay married for a long time, but you won't stay newlyweds."

"But my periods?"

"My sexually liberated daughter! Is he squeamish about your menstrual blood?"

"No." For that matter, Andy seemed to treat her own squeamishness as one more peculiarity to which he had to adjust.

"Well, you have longer experience with it than he does. You should be less squeamish. Just make sure that you take the tampon out first. As I said, every night will be beyond his ability; stopping for a week might well be beyond his patience at his age." Well, she'd make her own decision, but being what Mom called squeamish didn't match her self image.

She and Andy joined his family for a while, but they turned in early. With three people still awake in the house, she pulled a pillow over her face when Andy started kissing her thighs.

She had him set the alarm early, and she got up and used the downstairs toilet. In her nightie and robe and one of Mrs. Bryant's aprons, she got ready for breakfast. Andy had come down in his robe and pajamas and was already eating the bacon and eggs when Mr. Trainor appeared dressed for the office.

"Two eggs?" she asked. "Sunny-side up all right?"

"Marilyn, you didn't have to... Yes, that sounds delicious." She served him, made her own, and sat with them. "You really didn't need to do this. This is supposed to be your honeymoon."

"Our honeymoon was last week, and a delightful gift it was. I'm not totally helpless in the kitchen." When Andy had eaten seconds and his dad had gone to work, she sent him upstairs to wake his sisters. "Tell them that the kitchen closes in 15 minutes."

Well, they took closer to 20, but both girls came down in their sleep gear for breakfast. They were complimentary about the food, and they accepted her decree that they would clean up and stack the dishwasher. She went up for a shower. She was clean and dressed and downstairs putting no her face when Mrs. Bryant got there.

"Everybody up? Ms. Marilyn, this looks like your influence."

"They took a bribe. I gather that you don't cook breakfast for them."

"Not unless Andy was sick. I used to make breakfast for little April, but that was long ago, and she was little April then."

"Well," she asked Molly and April, "do you guys have anything planned for today? I thought we could go down and window shop on the Magnificent Mile."

"Oh, could we?"

"If you're ready to start in less than half an hour." The girls rushed up the stairs. "And Mrs. Bryant, since this isn't a program which will interest Andy, could you teach him how to vacuum?"

"Sure. I can do that. Andy learns well. Lunch something cold that you three can eat when you get back?"

"Sounds great."

Most of the shops in Evanston, after all, held goods the girls could afford, or that their dad could afford for them. In Downtown Chicago, they saw evening gowns that cost more than their clothes budgets since birth and bracelets and necklaces whose sales tax amounts were higher than the gowns' costs.

Wednesday morning, again, she cooked breakfast. She then went down to the Secretary of State's office to get a driver's licence in her new name. Andy took a book on some EE subject to the back yard to soak up knowledge and sunshine simultaneously. She came back to find him embroiled in an argument with Molly. She had wanted him to drive her to the beach, but he'd declined. There was a bus line close, and the walk wasn't that difficult, but Molly thought the Andy's objection had been to her swim suit.

"Marilyn, look." Molly was still wearing the suit. "Isn't this what you'd wear?" Well, yes, it was very like the suit that Andy had appreciated on his girl friend. That might be why he didn't approve of it on his sister. After lunch, Marilyn decided that she'd deal with Molly.

"Why don't you put some shoes on and come for a walk?" She did, still in the swim suit. "Look, Molly, see this?" She showed her the rings. She meant the wedding ring, but the engagement ring was much more prominent. "That means that your brother and I are one."

"So you make love."

"No. That's 'one flesh.'"

"You can't tell me that..."

"I'm not denying we make love. I'm saying that it's another term, a quite similar term, but it has a different meaning. We are one. We are the same thing in many ways. One of those ways is that if you quarrel with him, you're automatically quarreling with me."

"Really?"

"Really. Now, I want to be your friend, but I can't be the friend of someone who is Andy's enemy. And, really, you don't want to be Andy's enemy. Despite sometimes feeling angry with him, you really love him. And he loves you; he's told me so. Don't you think you can keep the peace with him for the rest of the week?"

"You know. I have two parents, actual parents. And I have a step parent who thinks he's my parent when he doesn't think he's my boyfriend. I don't need another parent."

"No, you don't. And do you think your actual father would like to see you walking on this block dressed in that suit?"

"Dad? No way. He's Victorian!"

"Okay. Well, Andy might possibly have chosen not to drive you because he didn't want you to be seen by boys. He might have been deep in his book. He might not want to put more miles on the car. But let's say he disapproved of your being seen by boys in that tempting bathing suit. Even so, he merely refused you a favor. When we went out, you still wearing the suit, he didn't try to forbid you. He knows he's not your parent. Now, April's parent, maybe, but a doting parent."

"Well, yes. You think I should make peace with him?"

"I would prefer it if you kept the peace with us."

"Okay."

"You know, you might not like to hear this, but sometimes you remind me of him. That simple 'okay,' when you agree. Sometimes I want to keep arguing because I can't believe that he's ended his arguments.

"Mind if I change the subject?" she said, changing the subject.

"Go ahead."

"You're going to college, right?"

"Fresno State."

"Far enough from home?"

"It's north of L A -- inland."

"Girl's school?"

"You really don't know me. It's coed."

"Well, when you get there, you'll probably meet lots of boys, some of whom you'll like."

"Y'know. If I sometimes sound like Andy, you sometimes sound like an English teacher."

"Good! 15 months from now I'll be supposed to sound like an English teacher for forty hours a week. Anyway, there you'll be meeting loads of boys, going out with some -- possibly just one."

"And you're going to warn me..."

"I'm going to advise you. If I were doing it over, and I'll admit that this is hindsight, I would have gone down to Student Health my first week on campus and said, 'give me a prescription for the Pill.' Now, before you've met any of those nice boys, you'd be prepared. Actually, it takes a month to take effect, but you don't want to go that far with a guy before you've known him for a month."

"You aren't pregnant, are you?"

"God no! Did you think I was? Does your dad?"

"No. Dad said that you and Andy were both sensible people, and that two sensible people don't usually have an unplanned pregnancy. But you were so, you know, 'I didn't, and I wish I had.' Why do you wish you had?"

"Well, by the time I went to Student Health, I had chosen the guy and decided that it was time. And, as I said, it takes a month to take effect. But really, I think that once you're real serious about the guy, then going on the Pill is like deciding to have sex. And -- I don't know what your situation is, and I don't want to know -- but that's maybe a decision you don't want to make yet. On the other hand, saying, 'I don't know what's going to happen, so I'll be protected,' isn't deciding to have sex."

"It sounds a lot like it."

"Well, it's not. Look, like I said, I don't know how far you've gone and that's your own business. If you have a particular situation on which you want advice, then you come to me and ask for that advice. But I've heard a lot of stories from girls about how they got carried away. And getting carried away is part of the fun. Even now, when we have a marriage certificate and everything, sometimes I get so carried away that I don't know at the time that I'm on the Pill -- or that I'm married, or anything. What I'm saying is that it's damned convenient that I'm on the Pill when I get carried away."

"I'm not sure that I want to be the sort of woman who is always prepared for sex."

"But you want to be the sort of woman after whom the boys lust. Look, that swimsuit is designed to make all males want to tear it off. Which is fine. But you run the risk of the wrong male's tearing it off. As for being prepared for sex, you don't tell the guy. It's probably a bad idea to tell the guy until you've decided that he's the one and you're ready to have sex with him. Because he'll hear that you're willing to have sex, and if you're not willing to have sex with him -- right then -- he'll be mortally offended."

"So you say I shouldn't tell this imaginary guy. Did you tell Andy?"

"Well, you tell some guy some time. You don't tell any guy until it's relevant. When I told your brother I was on the Pill, he had a contraceptive in his hot little hand. And that's one good check point. If a guy wants to have sex with you and he doesn't provide contraception, then he's not worthy of having sex with you. He's not even worthy of having a date with you." Then she thought about what she'd said. "I don't really mean wanting."

"What do you mean, then."

"Well, if you wore that suit to the beach, a dozen guys would want to have sex with you. I hope that none of them would haul out a contraceptive. What the guy wants isn't the point. When he suggests sex or tries for it, then he should provide the contraceptive. If he merely has a hardon, a proper lady pretends she doesn't notice."

"You're full of rules."

"Well, rules for proper ladies. Making fun of them for having a hardon is rather mean, unless you have a good reason to make fun of the boy. And, remember, you may be giving a mortal insult to a guy who will drive you home and is stronger than you are. Rubbing up against it on the dance floor is slutty -- no two ways about that. Rubbing up against that while you're making out is something else. But you want to be a proper lady in public. What you do alone with the guy depends on your relationship with the guy."

"Contextual ethics."

"Contextual ethics. And, since the context is that we don't talk about the sex of respectable people in public, you don't talk about anything I've said about my sex life with anybody else, not even April."

"Not even Andy."

"Especially not Andy. You're Andy's sister. As far as you're concerned, he doesn't have a sex life, even now that he's married."

"You talk to me."

"Well, you're my sister, too. And sisters can give hints on being women to their younger sisters. Now, some logician might claim that if I have a sex life, then Andy must have one as well, but the social consensus isn't logical."

"Want to go around again?" Molly asked. They were almost at their house.

"Not really, unless you want to." So they went in and watched TV with Andy and April. When Mrs. Bryant began setting the table for dinner, she went upstairs to change her shoes. Andy went up with her. He rubbed her feet. He rubbed some other places, as well, but she was quite neat when she went downstairs again.

At dinner, Mr. Trainor sat at the head of the table, and she sat at the foot. He seemed to be indicating that she was the hostess, which wasn't really true. Her parents were at either side of him, with Mom, Pete, and Molly filling up one side of the table, and Dad, April, and Andy filling up the other. Every leaf was in the table, which gave each of them reasonable room. Molly was dressed demurely enough. The ham was delicious as she'd remembered it, and there was a bottle of wine on the table.

She could see Pete's eyes boggle at that. Pete had started sneaking beers at a too-young age, and he'd been drinking with Dad's consent before she'd left home. He probably hadn't had booze at a formal dinner before. Well, at the reception, certainly, but not at somebody's house. Andy poured April one, not very full, glass. Knowing what would happen if she tried for another, she didn't. Andy nursed his glass though the meal. Her parents enjoyed the particular wine. Pete took more than the two of them did, but seemed to treat it as booze.

Molly, who knew about good wine even if her experience had been limited, was seeing that Pete didn't. Marilyn could see her opinion of Pete sink through the evening.

"Marilyn tells me, Andy, that you aced all your courses again this last semester," Dad said. That was definitely Andy's best point that could be shared in public. Dad must have decided to put the best face on what he'd failed to stop.

"Yes. But this semester was all courses in my major except partial differential equations. I needed those grades."

"Is it easier to get an A in Electrical engineering?" Pete asked.

"It's easier for Andy," she said. "The major is considered one of the more difficult ones at the university. PDE is the top undergraduate course in math. Our chapter maintains guides on what courses are easiest to pass. Andy has only taken one of those, drawing."

"You didn't tell me that was on the list of hammock courses," Andy said.

"Well, you didn't ask me. I suggested that you take chorus, but you had your reasons."

"Yeah," Andy said. "Engineers have to draw, even though they do it differently. I thought free-hand drawing might give me an edge. Who knows whether it did."

"You seem," Mom said, "to see everything as means to an end."

"Well, ma'am, everything can't be a means. You have to have ends. But, yes, I see course work as a means to an end. If you want to learn something because you're curious about it, then you can read a book. If you're going to need to know all -- a limited, but real, all -- about it, then you take a course. Then your teacher tests you. He's supposed to be able to discern whether you know it or not. And, of course, if you're going to sell your ability in the field, the buyer wants to see that certification of your knowledge from the teacher. I can't see taking a course for fun."

"Well," she pointed out, "you enjoyed swimming. You might have enjoyed chorus, too."

"That's a point. Some things aren't learned well from books. You need your muscles as well was your mind. I couldn't have learned driving from a book -- or dancing."

"Book learning isn't everything," said Pete.

"No, it isn't." Andy was being polite -- agreeing as if Pete's statement was different from something he had said.

"I'm not going to college for book learning."

"Then," Dad pointed out, "I'll be wasting a hell of a lot of money for tuition." Dad was no more pleased with Pete than Marilyn was, same reaction for different reasons.

"Do you have a major in mind?" Andy asked. Pete had just said that he didn't plan on studying, but Andy had a hard time conceiving of going to college without studying something.

"I'm going to college to meet girls. You did."

"To be pedantic, I met Marilyn before college. I met plenty of girls at college, notably Marilyn's sorority sisters. Those meetings, however, were, in your mother's distinction, means rather than ends."

"Well, I'm not going to waste my time in classrooms and libraries the way you did."

"Since your the grounds available to you for judging whether I wasted my classroom time were my grades, I think your judgment needs reconsideration." She couldn't tell whether Andy had missed Pete's meaning or he was deliberately misconstruing it. By this time, Andy was adopting his 'I'm a sane man arguing with an idiot' tone. Which was an accurate portrayal of the situation.

"And, Molly, you're going to college, too." Mom moved to defuse the awkward situation. The only awkwardness was that her son was getting drunk on a good sauterne, but Mom could never see the value of disagreement.

"Yes, ma'am. Fresno State. I'll major in business, maybe accounting." Maybe Molly wanted to meet boys as much as Pete wanted to meet girls, but she was too smart to set that as her only goal. She'd meet plenty of boys in accounting class, anyway. Feminists were breaking down barriers, but maybe fewer than boy-crazed coeds were.

"You don't want to waste all your time in classes, like your brother did," Pete said.

"Well, I prefer to be compared to Marilyn. She's not done with college, but by the time she leaves, she'll have a profession and a husband -- a husband who has his own profession. Really, if you're not preparing for a profession as well as meeting girls, then you'd better look for a girl who is willing to support you." Molly's tone didn't suggest that there would be a great many who would be willing to do so.

"No way! I'm going to be the breadwinner in my family."

"Then, Pete," Dad said, "you're in the horns of a dilemma. There are jobs which will support a wife and family, if not at the level you're used to being supported, without a college degree. You, however, are not prepared for any of them. A gas-station attendant or waiter won't put as much money in your wallet as you're used to spending, much less add anything to your attractiveness to women who are looking to be supported. Either you get an education from your college time, or you won't have any attraction for those women you hope to attract."

Pete poured another glass of wine. He wasn't going to answer. The conversation moved on without really leaving the subject.

"Y'know," Andy said, "Every household in our society produces and consumes. We don't, except for a few farmers back in the hills, produce much of what we consume. We produce one thing and mostly consume other things."

"That's not quite true," his dad said, "you produce a great deal of what you consume. Marilyn cooked breakfast this morning; she'll cook almost all your meals for the next nine months. The conversation tonight is something the people here both produced and consumed. I, at least, enjoyed most of it. When it doesn't enter into commerce, the economists ignore it -- rightly so, usually -- but it does exist."

"Very well, Dad. But a household must consume a great deal -- of vital necessities -- that it cannot produce. The general run of man enjoys consumption, and endures producing for the pleasure of consuming. Marilyn and I see our future as being among the privileged class that enjoys producing what we will produce, as well. That makes us among the fortunate. It's not so much that we'll be a two-income family. It's that we'll be a four-enjoyment family, or -- at least -- three. I'll enjoy engineering, Marilyn will enjoy teaching, and then we'll bring our paychecks home to enjoy what they buy."

"Well," Dad said, "if you make it, more power to you. I can't quite see enjoying engineering, myself -- or, really, teaching."

"Well, Dad," she said, "teaching day to day may be a grind, but you get a good deal of satisfaction when your students learn."

"That's an interesting distinction," Mr. Trainor said, "some things are pleasant to do, and other things are pleasant to have done. They give satisfaction. Somehow, I can't think of many things which are both."

That night, going to sleep, she thought of Mr. Trainor's distinction. He'd missed one sort of pleasure. After the pleasure brought by Andy's kisses and strokes, the satisfaction of being filled by the man she loved, and the short but intense pleasure of climax, there was the comfort of being held in the spoon. Pleasure, satisfaction, and comfort. She enjoyed all three, and Andy brought her all three. She should reciprocate, should bring him all three.

Thursday morning, she cooked pancakes. Andy and his dad both enjoyed them.

"I keep saying that you don't have to do this, but I'm glad you do."

"Well, Mr. Trainor, remember your distinction last night. You get pleasure from eating them; I get satisfaction from cooking them. And, too, I could hardly eat them if I didn't serve you as well."

"You're being ambiguous." She didn't know what he was talking about. Maybe he could tell that, because he continued, "There are three people here, including yourself. If you're not talking to yourself, you're talking to 'Mr. Trainor.' Now, 'Jim' would be specific."

"Somehow, I don't think of Andy as being 'Mr. Trainor.' He's called me 'Mrs. Trainor' occasionally."

"A much greater accomplishment of the last semester than his GPA. Why shouldn't he glory in it?"

"But, I'm Mrs. Trainor because I'm his wife. He was Mr. Trainor before the marriage. I think of him as Andy. He knows to whom I'm talking when I use your name."

She cooked for Molly and April, as well. The bribe got them out of bed at a reasonable time. After breakfast, she suggested a walk with April. Walking outside the house was the Trainor method of getting a private conversation. This made her all the more nervous about her activities with Andy being overheard at night.

"Well, what has your life been like this year?" She asked April when they were on their way. "I've been so busy with my own. Your sister has graduated, which was expected. I don't know what you've been doing." April handed her a photo. He looked like a very ordinary high-schooler.

"That's Tony."

"Presumably meaning that he's significant in your life. Is he in your grade?"

"He's a year ahead. He'll be a junior this year." Which was good and bad. That meant that April had two more years of his company at most. It also meant that he'd be ahead of her and pressing her for the intimacies he believed were the right of boys his age. But she kept those worries to herself.

"How long have you known him?"

"Just this last year. He wasn't in my middle school."

"And how long have you been dating him?"

"What makes you think..."

"C'mon April. I asked what's been up in your life this year. You showed me this picture. For that matter, you brought it downstairs to show me. I'm not prying, or if I am, you invite it. What is your relationship with Tony? How much do you want to tell me?"

"You can't tell anyone."

"That's the rule of this talk. We not only can't tell what the other one answers, we can't even tell about our questions." Of course, she'd break her word, and break April's trust in her, if it was absolutely necessary. If April was about to elope, Marilyn's lips would get unsealed damn fast.

"Well, it's not quite dates."

"Who knows about him, anyway? Your mom? Your dad? Your sister?" Molly would have been some protection in the past year. A hundred miles away, she wouldn't be much help in the future.

"Well, they know something. Not Dad."

"So they know he's your friend, but not how significant a friend. I don't know that, either."

"They don't understand."

"If you aren't specific, they never will."

"Well, you found your love. Why can't I have found mine?"

"What kind of friend is he anyway? You don't precisely date. What are the imprecise dates?"

"We talk."

"That's good." It was damn dangerous, but they had to talk. "You say that he might be the love of your life. Is the feeling mutual?"

"There's no 'might' about it. He's the man I'll love forever."

"Well, you didn't say it like that before. Let me tell you a story about Marilyn. Sorry to talk about myself when this was supposed to be about you, but you don't sound quite ready to talk about April.

"Anyway, most of my 11th grade year and all of my 12th grade year I was going with this guy. During the later part of it we were going steady. Before we got to that stage formally, we were really only dating each other. When, in my senior year, a perfectly nice guy asked me for a date, I turned him down because I had found my steady. The summer after I graduated, I was a little older than Molly is now and in precisely the same educational situation, we got more serious. We were going off together away from other people. Well, he wanted sex. I wasn't ready yet. He tried to make me, and we broke up.

"Even that wasn't the first time that I'd been in love. What I'm saying to you is that this guy, Tony, is the boy you love. He might be the last boy you love. Realistically, he might not."

"You only love once."

"Bullshit! When you fall in love, you tell yourself that the previous love wasn't real. When you fall in love at your age, your elders tell you that it's 'puppy love,' and not real. Those are all lies. Now, some of what is called love in high school isn't love. But what people call puppy love isn't what I mean.

"You desperately need a date. If you don't have a date, you're a social zero and your friends -- some 'friends' -- will think you're a sexual zero. You get a date. The guy tells you he loves you because he knows you won't get into the back seat unless he does. You tell him you love him because only an utter slut would get in the back seat with a boy if she didn't love him. But, in fact, neither one of you is in love. You're, at best, in love with being in love."

"This isn't like that."

"I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that there is real love at your age. I felt real love not all that much older than you are. I'm also saying that the one we love can change. You're growing -- growing emotionally even more than you're changing physically. He's growing. If his growth is different from yours, and boys grow emotionally way differently from how girls grow, the growth is as extreme. And I've talked about males and females; the truth is that different males change differently and so do different females. The track of my life is not the same as the track of Molly's life is not the same as the track of your life."

"You don't think that Tony and I have a future."

"I didn't say that. I said that there is a possibility that Tony and you will grow apart. There is also the possibility that you two will grow together. It's happened. But, since both possibilities exist, the wise woman will live in a way that make both possibilities bearable."

"Well, I couldn't bear it if something happened to separate us."

"Depends on what. If Tony grows to want somebody else or a totally different kind of woman than the one you're growing into and you remain in love with him, it will hurt like hell. If, on the other hand, he grows into the sort of man you can't stand, or even can't respect, it will hurt you much less. In that case, some day you will look back and say. 'That guy! I couldn't love him now. I thought I loved him when I was in 9th grade, but I was wrong.' Really, though, you'll be wronging your present self if you do. The future you will be patronizing the present you the same way that the adults who talk of puppy love are patronizing you now -- or would be patronizing you if you told them."

"So, when do you know, know for sure?"

"You don't. When you both stop changing, then you should be able to be sure, but you never stop changing. Maybe on your death bed or something. But, short of that, you don't know. You just make a leap into the dark. Still, the later you make that leap, the better your odds."

"Dad thought that you should have waited another year."

"Yeah, everybody did. Everybody except the two of us. The problem was that we couldn't wait more than another year. If we did, we'd start our lives in different places, probably different states. So the question was what would we learn by waiting a year. It didn't look like we would learn much."

"You say you've been in love before. I don't think Andy has."

"Yeah. And that scares me shitless. Look, as I told you, when I was in love with Colin, I turned down any chance for love to develop between Andy and me. I know myself; I'm not going to allow anyone else to creep into position to be my love in competition with my love for Andy. Andy is honest; he keeps his promises. And he's promised to stick to me for life. On the other hand, I don't think he would have let any promise keep him from pursuing me. So my love for Andy grew, and I won't let any competitive seeds any space to grow. That's my wedding vow. I get the impression that your brother was hit by a thunderbolt. I haven't the foggiest notion as to how to shelter him from another thunderbolt.

"Look, this is all private. Just because I worry about something like that happening sometime in the future doesn't mean your brother is guilty, or 10% guilty, or something, of looking outside his marriage vows."

"Sure. I don't think he will, anyway."

"Anyway, enough about me. What will you do? And I can't wait to hear about these almost dates." Well they were more secret than almost. When they went to a movie, they entered separately and sat together. The two met and talked. Tony had a family as troubled as April's own. His father had remarried and hardly saw his kid. His mother hadn't remarried, but she'd had several live-in boyfriends. Marilyn would call them affairs.

She got the idea that April was in little danger of getting into Tony's back seat anytime soon. He didn't have a car; his mother had two jobs which made her car unavailable for Tony. They kissed, but they talked more. April made it sound as though kissing was as far as they'd gone.

She enjoyed the girls' visit, even though it put a crimp in her love making with Andy. They might not listen at doors, but they were too close for Marilyn to be sure of privacy. She lay in the spoon position with a pillow close to her mouth and Andy's hand between her legs. When he came in her, that position kept their motions from shaking the bed too much.

Sunday, they saw the girls off on their flight. Everyone left in the house took a siesta afterwards. She and Andy cuddled. Andy considered 'every night in my arms' a minimum. He was eager to have her in his arms at other times, too.

Jim Trainor took them out for dinner that night. He sprang on them that Mrs. Bryant would be coming in only in the mornings for the rest of the summer.

"Y'know, I never give her a vacation." This was so transparently a way to give her and Andy some time for sex with no other ears in the house that she had to restrain herself from thanking him. She couldn't say anything without bringing up the unmentionable.

Monday, she stretched her breakfast repertoire to an omelet. She started a load of dishes before she and Andy went out to sun in the back yard. Andy was happier about her bikini when no other males could see it. Applying the sun screen to each other was still sex play as much as it had been before. When they lay down on the towels, they kept their voices low enough that Mrs. Bryant wouldn't overhear them.

"You've made a real conquest of the old man," Andy said.

"God, I'm so grateful to him. This giving us some time alone is only the latest."

"You'd think he wants this marriage to succeed. Well, you scored a gazillion points with him when you made The Moppet a bridesmaid."

"April was an excellent bridesmaid, and didn't look anything like a moppet. Your little sister is growing up."

"Happens to the best of them. At least she hasn't got as nasty as Molly got at that age. You might have something to do with that, too."

"Love me, love my dog -- er -- groom."

"I'm your dog. Pet me and I'll roll over for you. Feed me and I'll lick your lips."

"Which lips being carefully unspecified."

"Well, we dogs have problems getting up high." The teasing continued, but they talked seriously, too. He'd bought two books for future courses. In her absence during June, he'd nearly got through one of them. She was worried that she couldn't cook enough cheap meals to last them for 9 months.

"Everything you cook is delicious."

"You won't think so after the 20th repetition." Although he might. After all, before she'd tried to civilize him, he'd opened a can for lunch and finished it for dinner without any heating. But she would damn-well get tired of the same ten dishes. She worried about that, and the hand he held out to her wasn't enough comfort. They lay side by side soaking up the sun in silence.

When Mrs. Bryant called them in for lunch, they brought the beach towels with them. They draped them over the chairs to protect them from the sun screen.

"Now, Andy," Mrs. Bryant said, "I just made your bed with new-bought sheets. That sun screen would be awfully hard to get out of those sheets."

"Yes, ma'am. We'll take a shower." If Mrs. Bryant noticed the singular for shower, she didn't show it. Well, after she went home they would shower together. She and Andy weren't especially noisy lovers. Even in the back seat of a sealed car parked a mile from anyone else, he'd whispered his passionate love to her. Even so, the past week had worn on their nerves. They'd been constantly conscious of three pair of ears which might overhear anything.

Now, they were going to have the entire house to themselves. After Mrs. Bryant left, they went upstairs in their swim suits. Andy turned off the air conditioner while she stripped off the bedspread and top sheet from the bed that Mrs. Bryant had carefully made.

"'Yes, ma'am?'" she asked Andy. His relationship with the housekeeper was complex beyond her understanding.

"Dad always insisted that she was in charge. And he required her to require us to speak to her politely. The Moppet was four when she started. If she demanded something, Mrs. Bryant would say, 'What's the magic word?' If I demanded a snack, she'd ignore me the first time. The second time, she'd tell me that she didn't fix food for rude boys. Well, I learned to ask her for things. And she'd ask me for things. If I didn't do what she'd asked, she'd tell me what to do. If I didn't do that, she'd report me to Dad.

"Our relationship changed as I grew older, but Dad never actually told me that any rules had changed. I really think that she and I worked out our own modus vivendi. But she's always been in charge. Well, I promised her that we would take a shower...." While he'd been speaking, he'd taken off his swimming trunks and then her bikini. He put them both on top of his dresser.

They walked to the bathroom quite naked. His cock was already at half mast. Under the shower, they washed off all the sun screen. He also meticulously washed the parts that the sun screen had missed because the bikini had covered them. When she tried to be equally meticulous with him, he pulled back.

"Careful there. I think I'm on a hair trigger." They dried each other off and then ran back into their room. Daring or not, he closed the door. She dropped onto the middle of the bed and spread hands and feet.

He crawled over the foot of the bed and began nibbling at her left ankle. He took his time getting to the top of her thigh. When his mouth was where it belonged, she shuddered and grabbed his hair to pull him against her. She felt him lick her outer lips, then lick the inner ones open. Still, he didn't quite reach her clit.

"Damn you, Andy! Just a little bit higher." All that got her was for him to move his head back. She tugged so hard against that motion that she must have got some of his hair.

"Did you say something? Your thighs were covering my ears."

"Come on! Give it to me!" She almost shouted the last. He returned to her pussy mouth and licked up her cleft again. This time, though, he did reach her clit. "Yes!" Two more licks and the lightning struck. She moaned. He sucked her clit softly while lightning struck again and again and she rolled all over the bed.

When she couldn't manage another motion he relented. He kissed down her right leg to that ankle while she gasped. His path back up used kisses alternating from one leg to another. By the time he got to her thighs, he was licking as well as kissing. He was trying to arouse her again, but...

"You used up everything I had that last time. I'm surprised I even survived."

"I'm not trying anything. I'm just kissing." Yeah, right. Had she regarded Andy as honest? Not in bed, he wasn't. But he tickled her thighs with his tongue before dipping it into her navel until she rolled back and forth in an attempt to escape. Then he pressed his mouth against her mound. He breathed in and out through the hair there, and she felt a stirring of renewed arousal.

When his tongue went back to her pussy mouth, he touched her clit again. She shivered with the sensation. He passed one finger and then two into her pussy, pressing upwards as they moved back and forth.

Her sexual feelings, rising from the dead, started to spiral upwards again. Andy kept his fingers still while he licked her cleft upwards to her clit. Then he rested his mouth unmoving against her while his fingers wiggled within her. She tensed; she could feel that the lightning was close.

"I love you," Andy told her, or perhaps told her pussy. That was where his mouth was, anyway. Now, neither tongue nor fingers were moving. Finally, the fingers started moving in and out while still pressing upwards. His tongue licked her cleft more slowly than ever. When it reached her clit, the lightning struck again. Andy sucked her clit while stroking those fingers all around inside her. He didn't stop until she sobbed.

As she slowly recovered, he was cupping her mound and kissing her tits. He was avoiding her nipples, which must have cost him some effort considering how heavily her chest was heaving.

"I love you," he said when she'd nearly recovered. He gave her a long, deep kiss before heading back to her tits. He started stroking her inner lips with his finger.

She grabbed at his cock, but he evaded her.

"Marilyn, I'm..." Her second grab was successful. She tightened her grip. It always felt bigger inside her than it felt in her hand, but this time it felt big even to her fingers.

"No way, boy. You're not going to drive me to climax after climax until I'm left as a sad puddle soaking into the mattress. I'm putting this into me. You come along if you want to stay attached." Under that threat, he moved between her legs. She guided him into her entry, not letting go until the tip was parting her lips. Then he spread her, filled her, with his hard heat.

"I love you," he said after kissing her forehead.

"I love you, too." And then he was moving slowly and firmly in and out. By his third stroke, her hips were driving her upwards to engulf him. The heat gathered right where he was rubbing inside her. She grabbed his ass and pulled him deeper into her as the lightning struck. Then she was skewered to the mattress as he pulsed deep within her.

When he collapsed, he rolled carrying her to her right. Her leg was trapped by his, and her hand was pressed into the bed by his hip. She was gasping into his neck, and she could hear him gasping somewhere near the top of her head.

When she woke up, he was holding her in the spoon. He was breathing against her hair. His breath sounded like he was asleep, too.

"Oh, Andy," she said.

"Darling!" he said. He hadn't been deeply asleep. "I love you." He moved back until only her ass was touching him. "I love you," he shouted. He came back into the cuddle. "I adore you," he whispered. "I lust after your sweet body. It's unbelievable that those beautiful climaxes are partly in response to actions of mine." Partly? What other cause did he have in mind? "That makes me so proud and so possessive. I can't let you go, Mrs. Trainor." She didn't have anything to hold but his arm, so she petted that. She brought his hand to her lips to kiss every finger and then to suck them one by one. Too bad it was the right hand; the left one held the ring.

"I love you, too. Slide your left hand under me." She lifted up a little on her elbow, and he accomplished that. She held his hand so their rings clicked. "Married," she said.

"Married. Tell me you'll stay with me forever."

"As long as we both shall live. I'll lie in your arms, or at least your arm, every night. Afternoons are optional and occasional. Tell me you'll stay with me as long as we both shall live." He'd already said that once, in front of God and a large number of witnesses.

"I'll never leave you. You'd have to drive me away. Promise that you'll teach me how to keep you happy." This had been a good start, no matter how much she'd bitched when he had her on edge.

"Well, this was a good start.... Remember your dad's distinction? Well he missed one. You have pleasure and satisfaction, but you also have contentment. You brought me pleasure, ecstacy, earlier, but this is another kind of happiness. The contentment of lying in your arms."

"You like it, too?"

"I like it, too. I feel that you're not only embracing me, you're protecting me."

"I am. I will." And she would treasure that promise. While Andy wasn't what you'd ask for in a bodyguard -- he was totally unathletic and didn't seem to have any history of fighting -- there was an awful lot of him. The forearm, which was all that she got to hug in this position, was something substantial in itself.

And how else could Andy keep her happy? Well, when the occasion arose, she'd tell him. Actually, while they were in a double limbo -- they were taking a break before going to their positions as married students which would end after the school year -- Andy was doing what he could to make that a success, studying the book of one of his future subjects. She was clear that, while she'd stand by her man, she'd be happier if he were successful.

It wasn't only money, it was respect. She was going to be Mrs. Marilyn Trainor, English teacher, but she was also going to be Mrs. Andy Trainor, wife to that engineer over there. It would be nice if he were a successful engineer. Not that she was certain what a successful engineer looked like. She already suspected that Andy wasn't likely to make a very good executive. But he seemed to think that one could be a successful engineer without crossing that divide. Since she didn't plan on going into school administration, she was hardly in shape to criticize.

But they still had to get through this coming year. Andy's dad had hinted strongly that he could be depended upon for back-up if they didn't make it on their own. She realized, however, that Andy was determined that they make it on their own. He was committed to her happiness; she should be equally committed to his. Somehow, this was even more important on the issue of getting through the year financially. She saw clearly that Andy could sail through the year by himself. He simply didn't require anything but the bare minimum. She saw that most of his expenditures for the past year had been for her.

Well, how to get through the year? She knew the budget, and the food part of the budget would be her responsibility. The difference between scraping by and relative opulence was sitting on her left hand. It didn't matter that Andy had been willing -- eager -- to spend more for the ring; it had been her decision. And, she was quite clear, it would be possible to feed the two of them with that food budget. She'd taken account of Andy's appetite. But would it be possible for Marilyn to feed the two of them on that food budget? She knew how to cook only a few dishes, and more than half of these were expensive show-off dishes. Beef Stroganoff would eat up half a week's food budget for one meal. The other dishes tended towards lunches and snacks. She could feed Andy hamburgers, sloppy joes, toasted cheese sandwiches, and the like. Those didn't feel like meals to her. They were fine for once-a-week supper, even for lunch every day, but they didn't add up to a three meal a day, seven days a week, menu.

"I love you," she said. She loved him, and she'd keep house for him. She'd just have to learn awfully fast. Well, she'd bet Mrs. Bryant knew how. She not only cooked for the Trainors, she probably cooked for the Bryants, too. And they didn't look like a family which baked a whole canned ham to serve three because the guest had previously dined with them and been served roast beef.

"I love you, too. I've been appreciating the steam coming out of your ear. Ever going to tell me the problem?"

"Not now, Andy."

"Well, remember I'm the engineer. We might not look like much, but we're good at solving problems."

"I like your looks, but this is my problem to solve. If I can't, then I'll ask you."

"That's fair. And all's fair in love and war."

"Are you sure that we're at war?" He laughed. He nuzzled the back of her head for a minute, then he spoke again.

"You know, we're doing this to avoid night-time sex, but do you think I could pet you -- very quietly -- tonight? I promise, I'll only try to bring you off once."

"And what about you?"

"I won't be ready tonight. But you can be. I won't tease you the way I did this afternoon. It wouldn't be fair when you're trying to be quiet."

"Andy, you're weird."

"Yeah! But I love you."

"And I love you, too. See how quiet you can be." And she'd try to be quiet, too. Feed him on the cheap and enjoy orgasms at his hands -- was there anything else to make him happy?

When the alarm went off at 5:00, they got up. A quick rinse under the shower -- keeping even her hair dry -- hanging up towels and bath mat in the bathroom, dressing. It all took less than half an hour. They were downstairs with Andy showing her the library long before the door bell gave two short rings. Jim Trainor let himself in.

"Really, you don't have to warn us," she told him. "I'm your guest."

"Well, I hope you will be a guest in this house often in years to come. I would point out, though, Mrs. Trainor, that this is the Trainor house, and you have no other residence until school opens in August. This is your home, now."

"Well, if it's my home, I should get the food on the table." The food, of course was prepared. The table was set. Still, she dished it up. The kitchen table was the one set, and she put the food there. When the girls had been there, they'd used the dining room for all meals but breakfast, and she had chosen that. When the girls had been there, though, that meant five persons per meal. The kitchen table would have been crowded.

"Point taken," Mr. Trainor said. "You married a very sharp gal, Andy. You'll have to keep on your toes." That was ridiculous. She wasn't stupid, but Andy was way beyond her in intellect. Mr. Trainor started saying grace, though, and she couldn't interrupt. After grace, the two males got into a political argument.

"After Nixon," said Andy, "the Republicans couldn't have expected the country to go along with their next choice."

"Jerry Ford was a good man who didn't have a fair chance," his father replied. "Don't you agree, Marilyn?"

"Look, I'm married to one of you. Do you really want me in the argument too?" Mr. Trainor laughed.

"You don't deserve her, you know."

"I know, but I'm going to try to."

After dinner, she tried planning out meals for her new household. She got through six days. Even then, she was afraid that her choices would strain the food budget. That night, Andy slid one arm under her pillow before stroking down her body with the other. Just before the lightning struck, he pulled the pillow in front of her face. The gasp was lost in the pillow. Andy stopped stroking then, as he had promised to do.

"I love you," he whispered. She hugged his arm until sleep took her.

When Mrs. Bryant came in the next morning, Marilyn had a question for her.

"I'm going to be a housewife, and I don't know much about it. I wrote out a meal plan for six days, and I'd like to have your opinion on it."

"That a meal plan for here?"

"For Andy and me down in Champaign. We have a tight budget, and I don't know many cheap meals."

"Well, let me look." She read the list of 30 meals without comment.

"I was wondering if you could teach me to cook some more cheap meals during the next couple of weeks. I feel rotten, because you've three people to look after and less time to do it in, but do you think you could teach me a few?"

"Ms. Marilyn, you're worrying about the wrong things. Look, Mr. Trainor gives me few orders. He asks. I'm no fool. If the man who pays you asks you to do something and you don't do it, he hires somebody else who will do it. Even so, it's nice to work for a gentleman." Had he asked her something which would interfere with teaching her to cook more meals?

"What does that have to do with what I asked?"

"His last order was about you. You're in charge. I'm to do whatever you tell me to do. What you want is the most important thing to do. If you set me down here until time for me to go and his bed doesn't get made, I'll just tell him that you needed me for something more important."

"Well, it's not more important."

"If you want it, it's more important to him. Now, for cooking cheaply, there are two things I'd ask first. Can you eat breakfast cereal? What do you think of rice?"

"Sure. I just think cereal is pretty far down on my list of choices for breakfast. As to rice, I associate it with oriental food. I think of it as fairly luxurious."

"Well, if I'm saving money on food, I don't cook eggs or even pancakes for breakfast. Maybe save that for Sunday. And every meal has to contain starch. Potatoes and rice are the cheapest starches. Really, rice is cheaper. When you buy potatoes, you buy water and skin.

"Look, Ms. Marilyn, half of what you have here you could serve over rice. Buy as big a package as you can get, as big a one as Andy can carry. It's cheaper that way, and dry rice doesn't rot. Instead of a bun for sloppy joes, make the mix and put it over rice. Rice with milk and brown sugar makes a better breakfast than those packaged cereals, too, but white folk don't eat it."

"Well, that's a start."

"Look, you want to learn to cook some cheap meals? What ones do you know?"

"That list is pretty much it."

"Can it wait 'til tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I have to make out a shopping list." Mrs. Bryant seemed so busy with other things, that she didn't seem that she could have a chance to make the list. At lunch, though, she had a shopping list to hand to Andy.

Marilyn turned off the air conditioner in their room and made some modification in her dress while he was gone. When he got back with the groceries Marilyn helped put them away. There seemed to be a lot, and neither of them could figure where such things as rice and navy beans went. When they'd done what they could, she challenged him to a strip race. The winner would be the first person naked in their room.

Immediately after she said that, she sprinted towards the staircase pulling her blouse off as she went. Andy passed her on the stairs by taking them two at a time. He was down to underpants and one sock by the time she had her jeans and tennies off. She, however, had no underwear to remove.

"You cheated!"

"I won! That means you have to kiss my mouth and tits." He lifted her up for a long kiss with tongue meeting tongue. When he lifted her further to suck her nipples, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

"The bed's still made," he mumbled into her cleavage.

"Beds! Who needs them?" She eased her hug to allow his mouth more access. He stroked down her back to clutch her ass cheeks. After squeezing them one at a time -- left, right, left ..., he brought one hand under her until his fingers could open her pussy lips. Then he stroked her cleft. While they didn't need a bed, he did walk her over until she was dangling over theirs. As her arousal soared, she felt dizzy and afraid of falling. She tightened her arms until his mouth was pressed against her breastbone. Still, the relentless finger stroked her; still, his other hand clenched and relaxed around her right ass cheek. She felt herself tense, and clutched his back more tightly. His arm moved to her waist and held her pressed against his chest like a steel band.

Then lightning struck. She convulsed within his tight grip. The finger kept moving and she convulsed again.

"Oh, love, oh, Marilyn, oh, darling, oh." While he said that, he held her safely while her own arms dangled. "I love you," he said letting her slide down his body slowly for an inch or two. He was holding her with only one arm while the other hand was busy opening her pussy lips. Then she felt him at her entrance. "Oh, darling," he said again. She felt him enter a little more as his hips rocked forward inside her thighs.

"Yes," she said as he lowered her a little more and entered her a little more. He was hot and spreading her entrance ever wider. She tightened her legs about his hips -- not to stop that entry but to prolong the sensation. Slowly, he lowered her. Slowly, he entered her. Slowly, he spread her walls apart. When her lips reached the level of his, their mouths opened and they traded tongues. He was holding her tight, and she tightened her hug on his neck to prolong the kiss. He swayed back and forth, barely moving himself in and out.

The kiss ended as he moved her further down and himself further in. Minutes later -- minutes which felt like days -- he was buried deep within her, filling her as she'd never felt filled before. He kissed her forehead.

"Darling," he said, "sweet darling." He began to sway from side to side. She felt dizzy, highly aroused, perilously suspended over the floor, held secure in his arms, filled by him. And while her body hung suspended, her spirit soared. She was flying up into the clouds, up among the lightning bolts.

Then one struck her. She convulsed against him and convulsed around him. Every muscle tensed, then relaxed, then tensed again. She could feel his hardness in her center as she contracted around him.

"Darling!" He pulsed inside her contractions. He bent and lowered her to the bed, bringing himself half out of her as he did. Then he thrust in again, spiking her against the bedspread.

When she recovered, she was mostly across the bed with her head resting on the edge of the mattress and her feet on the floor. He was resting on his elbows above her with his belly against her mound and his cock somewhere far outside. Her arms were flung wide, but her thighs still felt his weight.

"Love you," he said. He eased himself back.

"You too." She'd lie like this for a while -- maybe a week. If Andy would close the door, nobody would come in.

She heard the shower run for a second. Later Andy came in with water dripping from his crotch. He toweled himself off. He started to get dressed again. After a minute, she got her own clothes on. She had to go downstairs to get the blouse.

After Mrs. Bryant arrived the next morning, she started her lessons. She and Marilyn would cook baked beans for dinner. Marilyn thought of the preparation for baked beans as opening a can and adding a little flavoring. Mrs. Bryant started by boiling dry navy beans. Marilyn did most of the hand work, but Mrs. Bryant supervised. Marilyn wrote down the quantities of ingredients, but she'd have to remember the tricks. When Mrs. Bryant left for the afternoon, she had a large crock in the oven with directions as to when Marilyn should turn the oven on and when she should turn it off. Marilyn set the timer.

"I don't want to go upstairs," she told Andy. "There isn't all that much time." There was nearly an hour, loads of time for almost anything. Not nearly enough time for what Andy clearly wanted to do, and she wanted to do it, too.

"Let's go to the library." The library in the Trainor house was a place to keep books. There were lamps, tables, chairs, and footstools, but the shelves of books dominated the place. The shelves were built-in, but many of the books were paperback. In the library, he lifted her and set her on one of the footstools. Rather than the chairs which made her head higher than his when she stood on them, this put her eyes about level with his chin.

He poked her chin up with a finger and bent his head down to kiss her. This went on for a long time while his hands roved her clothed body. It was legal now; they had every afternoon now. They were in less of a hurry to get naked than they'd been on movie dates. After a bit, he held her shoulders while he walked around her. He kissed the side of her neck from in back. When his hands went to her tits, she started unbuttoning her blouse. He pulled the blouse out of her jeans. He unsnapped her bra before cupping her tits with his hands. She sank back against him, and he kissed the back of her right ear.

His hands stroked down over her stomach, and she loosened her belt and waistband. With his hands outside her panties, he pushed the jeans down past her hips. They fell the rest of the way without help. He switched his kisses to the space just behind her left ear. She shivered at that, and felt her panties being rolled down her thighs.

"Let me get out of these," she whispered. "I feel like I'm hogtied." Actually, while she didn't like being constricted by the band of tightly rolled nylon, she also didn't want to interrupt what his mouth was doing to her neck and ears and what his finger was beginning to do around her center.

"Maybe I like having you tied up." He lifted his mouth for that statement, but his finger was still busy on her cleft.

"You say you have to do what Mrs. Bryant tells you to do, and she says that I'm the boss. So..."

"Nope! You have to tell her what orders to give me." Right. His dad had given Mrs. Bryant afternoons off just so she wouldn't witness, let alone discuss, what she and Andy did. If Mrs. Bryant had been around, Andy wouldn't have had her panties around her knees because he wouldn't have had them off her ass. There wasn't much room between her thighs, but Andy had his whole hand in the tight space. His index finger was moving back and forth along her cleft, and his thumb was moving over the bottom of her mound. Neither was touching her clit, but she could feel the motions there.

"Andy!"

"You're supposed to love, honor, and obey."

"That wasn't in the service."

"You just weren't paying attention." Actually, she'd been paying very careful attention. Andy was pressed against her, and she could feel his hardon through his pants. Andy, once again, still had his jeans on. Her struggles were obviously turning him on -- all right, her wiggles were turning him on. Enjoying this game of dominance, she wasn't struggling seriously.

"So what do you plan to do, caveman, drag me away by the hair?" Hers was short enough to make that impractical.

"Sounds good." He walked so he was at her side and removed his hand from between her legs. He rested the back of his hand on her mound and tightened the hand into a fist. that caught some of the hairs there between his fingers. He tugged gently. She couldn't help but laugh.

He came around to the front, and pushed her bra up with his forehead. He clamped both hands over her ass cheeks while nuzzling her tits. He went from nipple to nipple. He was suckling on the right one when the kitchen timer went off.

"Now, you have to let me go. I've got to set the oven."

"Maybe not." He lifted her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He set off for the kitchen with one hand on her thigh and the other playing with her cleft.

"Andy!" He ignored her as he went through the hall and the dining room. When he got to the stove in the kitchen, he patted her ass. Then he turned around so her head was suspended over the oven controls.

"So set the oven." It wasn't that easy from this position, but she managed.

"Now, I have to set the timer again." He walked over to the timer and turned around so she could reach it. Her head was swimming, perhaps from the position, just maybe because he was stroking her clit again. "Andy, you're making it hard to concentrate."

"I'm concentrating just fine." Yeah! And what he was concentrating on was making it hard for her to concentrate. "Besides, you're the one who's making it hard." Dirty jokes, yet, in his father's kitchen. She set the timer down, and he began to walk away. He gave her ass two more slaps, and the second one stung.

"Andy!"

"Yeah. Who did you think had you over his shoulder?" He stopped slapping her, but went back to teasing her clit. The waist of her jeans fell from her ankles. More and more of the jeans trailed towards the floor as he walked through the dining room. Her attention was increasingly captured by the sensations his finger was arousing, but she noticed that they hadn't gone into the library. Apparently, it was the living room.

"Andy! Put me down!"

"Okay. Use your arms to brace for the fall." He spun around, making her dizzy for a second. Before she could recover, he was slipping her from his shoulder. She broke the fall by grabbing on to something smooth and brown. When her face was against it, she realized that she was on a huge armchair that Mr. Trainor kept in his living room. Her legs were over the back, and her hands were on the cushion. Andy held her down with a hand on her back and kept stroking her clit.

"Andy! You can't bring me off in the living room." A little making out in the family rooms was one thing. But sex belonged in their bedroom.

"I can't?... Ever hear about the experimental process?" He kept stroking. The strokes were so smooth; the surroundings were so forbidding; the sex play had been so prolonged. She felt highly aroused. She tried to hold herself back, but Andy was relentless. When the lightning struck, she cried out. She could feel her tits sliding over the smooth leather.

Andy pulled back on her hips, and she slid upwards a bit in the chair. She felt a sharp tug on her feet from the jeans entrapping them. Then he was at her entrance. There was so much of him. He spread her more firmly than ever before. Somehow, from this position, it felt different. She couldn't move in response. She was still holding on to the arms of the chair to keep from slipping down, and her legs were trapped. Still, she kicked against the constrictions as her arousal took control. She was not only held there, she was captured. She was not only filled, she was invaded and occupied. Then lightning struck, struck again as he thrust against her so hard that she could feel his hipbones hit her ass.

"Darling," he said as he throbbed deep inside her. Then his hands hit the chair arms behind hers and his weight was pressing her stomach against unyielding leather.

"Get up, can you?" she said when she could speak.

"Sure." He was even heavier on her before he was off. As soon as he pulled out, she could feel little Andies trickling down her leg. "Better let me get your jeans back before you get up, though." She felt him fumbling at her ankles. Then his hands were on her left shoulder and her right hip. "Push back." He helped her get back up, and then he half lifted her to set her on the floor. His strength was convenient for getting out of positions like this. Of course, she wouldn't have been in that position were it not for his strength.

As soon as she was vertical, the trickle out of her pussy became a torrent. He unrolled her panties, and she pulled them on. At least that would catch what she was leaking. She pulled up her jeans and fastened them.

"Andy..."

"What's the use of having the house to ourselves if we don't use it?" he asked.

She laughed. "You're impossible." Then a thought occurred to her. "You're sure of me, aren't you?"

"We're married." Well, they'd been married for 18 days, less a few hours. But this masculine assertiveness was just showing up now. Andy had always been sweet, but -- maybe -- too passive. Well, this dominance was welcome for sex play. Maybe she should re-establish who was the alpha partner now, though.

"Well, if you're going to tire me out downstairs, you know what you'll have to do, don't you?"

"What?"

"Carry me upstairs. Not over your shoulder, but in your arms like you do across thresholds." And so he did. She kept her arms around his neck, but didn't hug too close. She wanted him to be able to see where he was going. He went into their room and all the way to the bed. When he set her down in the bed -- very gently -- he continued down to kiss her stomach.

When she got the energy, they shared a shower together. She dressed in clean clothes from the skin out. She was loading up Mrs. Bryant with more washing, as well as cooking instruction. Well, maybe she should offer Andy's help on the laundry.

She got downstairs long before the timer rang. Mrs. Bryant had set the dining room table this time. She cooked the broccoli and had the serving dishes and the salad on the table when Mr. Trainor got home. He didn't blink at the menu. Finally, Andy told him part of the reason.

"Marilyn cooked this."

"My compliments to the chef. It's delicious." Which would have sounded more sincere if he had said it was delicious before Andy told him she'd cooked it.

"Well, I cooked it under Mrs. Bryant's watchful eye. I don't know enough cheap dishes, and she's teaching me some."

"Excellent. You did a great job on this one."

"You don't mind my kidnaping your menu?"

"I told her that you were in charge -- that your every whim should be fulfilled. Then you ask her for help in making your future family life better. My family, too, you know. And you apologize? The only question is whether this will make you happier."

"Well, you know your distinction between pleasure and satisfaction. This is about satisfaction, maybe dissatisfaction. I couldn't serve my husband a rotation of six menus for months."

"I wouldn't have minded," Andy said.

"My son, you would eat porridge every meal and be happy if she served it. She wouldn't be happy without fulfilling her image of a good wife."

"Then, too, I'd have to eat them. I'm not sure that I could tolerate porridge for more than one meal, if that.

"I think," she continued, "your analysis is incomplete, Mr. Trainor."

"Oh, your opinion, his opinion, and what? Porridge, maybe, someone else would hear about -- not a six-meal rotation." He was still on the last conversation.

"Your analysis of happiness. There's pleasure, and satisfaction, and contentment."

"Perhaps, but it sounds rather bland."

"Maybe it is, by itself. But you can't experience a lifetime of ecstasy, not even a day of ecstasy. You can experience a lifetime of contentment -- as far as yourself goes, although maybe not the way of the world." She could have said that better, but neither man looked confused. Andy came by his intelligence honestly.

"An interesting trade."

"But not a trade. There's nothing in contentment that precludes pleasure or even satisfaction. Maybe the satisfaction is about something you did when you were discontented. As you say, you seldom get both from the same period of time."

"And, Miss... Pardon me! And, Marilyn, what gives you pleasure? What gives you satisfaction? What gives you contentment?"

"I get satisfaction from a great many things, from actually learning in a class what I took the class to learn, from having had an impact on Zeta -- a positive impact, from feeding the two of you. On the others, if you'll pardon me, I'll pass." Andy's father might have provided them with the bed, but he didn't need to hear what Andy provided in it.

"Fair enough."

And, aside from praising the food each mealtime, he never mentioned her cooking lessons again.

After Mrs. Bryant arrived on Thursday, Marilyn had to chase Andy out.

"Do you have any sheets that aren't new and fresh?"

"Lots of old sheets, none that haven't been washed." She stripped beds on Mondays, just before doing the wash.

"Well, I'm about to start my period. May I have some old sheets to make the bed again? It would be a shame to spoil the new sheets."

"Mr. Trainor has lots of old top sheets. The fitted bottoms get worn or torn and I use them for rags. The top sheets just stay. Do you want a couple of them for pads?"

"If I might." And a dozen of them appeared in the room sometime before noon, folded. Mrs. Bryant never asked why she couldn't keep her menstrual blood off the sheets.

That day, she learned how to make Spanish rice and to cook grits. They had the grits for lunch.

"It's really a breakfast food," Mrs. Bryant said. "It's better with butter, but we're trying margarine because you said you'll be on a budget."

She had Andy spread two of the extra sheets over the bed. Even though it was the first day of her flow and consequently copious, he wasn't bothered. Instead, he was grateful that they'd be having sex these days, as well.

"Only in here, though," she told him.

"Anything you say."

The amounts Mrs. Bryant used for the meals Marilyn cooked produced more left-overs than Andy ate. Maybe it was because Marilyn still cooked breakfast. She shuddered at the thought of Andy's eating cold, left over baked beans for breakfast. Sometimes, the three of them had the remains of an earlier night's dinner for lunch. Sometimes she reheated them for week-end meals.

Mom told her that her parents would pay the sorority dues and parlor fee. She expressed her gratitude, but it was more gratitude than she felt. When she'd thought about it, she figured that she'd already made her impact on Zeta. You don't grope a Zate, and the frats knew that. The next girl to date a non-Greek wouldn't be hassled. Probably Kathy would have pledged anyway, but Marilyn had spoken in favor of bidding on an engineering major.

Still, she was pleased to finish out her time at Zeta. Her relationship with the rest of the chapter had been different every year, and it was bound to be different this year. That thought reminded her that she was due to return to campus early for the Zeta chapter organization.

"You know," she told Andy, "this summer has been great fun, but it's time to get back to the single limbo of campus."

"Single limbo?" he asked. Hadn't she ever mentioned her idea to him?

"We're in a sort of double limbo here. What we're going to be is a couple who are individually productive members of society. School is a limbo. This is a double limbo. We're not preparing for our careers; we're just enjoying ourselves."

"I've heard that 'Life is what happens while you're getting ready for life.'"

"Well, yes. As I said, it's been quite enjoyable. But even school. You know that I have the greatest respect for what you've done, the grades you've got, but if you don't actually practice engineering in the future, what will you're accomplishments matter?"

"You have a point."

Andy was displeased when they discovered that apartment wouldn't be available until Tuesday. After all, that was still before registration would begin.

"We could take a room in a motel."

"Andy, please. That's not in our budget. That's three days. Anyway, I'll have to be busy most of those three days, and I'll have to stay at the house Saturday night, at least."

"You said every night in my arms."

"Well, if we had waited until next year, we would have missed a lot of times that we already have had."

"All right. But I don't have to like it." To compensate him, she spent what afternoons she could lying in bed with him after their sex. He didn't get as many hours with her in his arms, but he got more waking hours.

She took the train down to Champaign on Saturday. The buffet at the house was as lavish as it had been the years before. She wondered briefly whether the cooks fed their own families the way that Mrs. Bryant fed hers. Since she had to wake the others, she turned in early.

The next morning, she pounded on doors until people said that they were awake. Closer to the time for the meeting, she went back to check on the ones who hadn't come downstairs after a reasonable time. She passed out aspirin, having bought two large bottles of generic in Evanston. After breakfast, she convened the meeting.

"Okay. I'm Marilyn Trainor, elected vice president as Marilyn Grant. I'm most of what's left of the executive committee. You'll elect new officers today, and they'll take office tomorrow. Any questions?"

"Yeah. Where's Andy?"

"He's coming down on Tuesday, when the Student Housing office will let us into our apartment. And that question was out of order. Nominations for President."

"I nominate Marilyn," said Denise.

"I'm not running for anything. I'm not living in the house this year. More nominations." Gail and Peggy were nominated. Peggy, who'd been her roommate freshman year, won.

Karen and Beverly were nominated for vice president, a more recent roommate and her little sister. Beverly won. The final slate looked like:

President -- Peggy
Vice president -- Beverly
Treasurer -- Diane
Chaplain -- Margot
Social chair -- Lisa
Academic chair -- Martha
Facilities chair -- Grace
Charities chair -- Christine, for a second year
Pledge chair -- Gail

They would take office the next day, but she still had to run the meeting for the rest of Sunday.

Monday, Grace called for roommate selection, and recited the rules: nobody could room with a former roommate or a woman of her line. A room had to include two years at least. There would only be a limited number of doubles, and there were rules for qualifying for those. Marilyn asked for recognition. The day before, she had been the one recognizing. Now, she needed Peggy's nod, but she got it.

"Look, some of you will think I've no business addressing room assignments, since I won't be in one. I do think, however, we need to consider whether we'll keep squeezing pledges into three rooms. This last year we had one room containing 6, and I was sorry for them. We could have three rooms containing 6 apiece, at the outside. What happens if 19 girls accept our bids? Of course, giving freshmen four rooms would mean three fewer doubles."

"And what if 15 accept?" Asked Janet, a new junior. "That's more likely. Only 16 accepted this year. That would mean nine upperclassmen living in triples so that three pledges can live in a triple." Her arithmetic was wrong. Three of those nine would live in a triple, anyhow. Still, for women who had suffered as pledges their freshman year, the argument was strong.

"Really," Grace said, "while I respect Marilyn and welcome her optimism, we only have 18 bedrooms in all. While there is a little drop off from one year to the next in residents -- some girls drop out of school; other girls might get married and move out of the house, though we don't know anyone who would do that -- more than 14 average per class living in the house would mean some of the upperclassmen would have to live with three roommates if we allowed four rooms for pledges."

Marilyn's suggestion was voted down.

When Andy called late Tuesday, he was installed in the new apartment. He picked her up in the car. When he got to the apartment, he picked her up literally. How many thresholds was he going to carry her over? She pictured him carrying her into their retirement home when they both had white hair.

Compared with his room for the previous year, this apartment was opulent. It had a living room, a separate bedroom, a real kitchen that held a table, and a bathroom. The kitchen had a reasonable number of cabinets, but they nearly filled them with what Mrs. Bryant had sent. Not only were there a sufficiency of cooking utensils, she'd shipped all the food that she'd ordered to teach Marilyn to cook cheaply and only partly used. Most of what she'd learned required time to cook, but she sent Andy out for cheese and had the maccaroni boiled by the time he returned.

After supper, they went to bed. Andy attacked, there is no other word, her with his mouth. He held her lying on her stomach while he kissed from her ankle all the way up to the sensitive spot on the side of her neck. She was already wet before she turned over and he kissed her on the mouth. When that long tongue-duel ended, he started down her front. Neither of them doubted where he was going, but that trip seemed to take forever. When he finally reached her pussy lips, the eon of preparation had a predictable result. On his second lick across her clit, lightning struck.

He didn't let up. She squirmed all around the bed while he licked and sucked her clit. Only her hips, held down by his considerable weight through his arms, stayed anywhere near the same place. She was floundering with her head nearly off the side of the bed and begging for him to enter her when finally he did. He joined her in her last climax. When he moved off, he pulled her into his arms and covered them with a sheet. Daylight was still coming through the window when she dropped off.

It was day outside again when she woke. He was still holding her, but his cheek was smooth That meant that he'd been up and had shaved. After she took her own bathroom time, he insisted that she come back to bed.

"Look, you had four days out of my arms."

"Three. You had me last night, and daytimes are a bonus."

"Okay, but I think you should allow me to run our times together for three days, today, tomorrow, and Friday. Do you have to be at Zeta house this morning?"

"No. They're doing rooms this morning, and I'm already moved out. I do, however, have to cook you breakfast. Do we have margarine and salt?" She'd already seen the package of grits.

"Mrs. Bryant sent a box of salt and a bag of sugar. She told me to buy margarine, milk, and eggs down here."

"Did you save the receipt?"

"I think so."

"We're going to save all the receipts for groceries."

"Why? When I buy for Dad, I need them for reimbursements, but..." A long pause. "We still haven't got your name on the checking account. I have the papers here, but you have to go in." Skip the bank for now.

"Well, we're going to keep a record of every penny we spend for groceries. And we're going to add them up to make sure we're not going over budget."

"Okay. But can I run our time -- when you're here?"

"I have to cook, but otherwise you can control me through Friday. You can't do what your did last night, though. If I'm a puddle on the mattress without the strength to get up, saying, 'Okay, Marilyn, you can leave for your duties,' doesn't work."

"All right, but you're so beautiful then. Can I start now?" With Andy's metabolism, he should be hungrier than she was. If so, that was clearly not his greatest hunger.

"But I have to cook later." Without further comment, he began to kiss her. The kisses on her face ended with a long, wet kiss. Then he went lower. When she had climaxed, he hugged her in the spoon and pulled the sheet over them. When his stomach growled, she got up. In the bathroom, she thought about putting on her makeup. Somehow, she expected that it would only get smeared. She'd put it on before leaving. She might as well delay her shower, too; she'd need one after what Andy was planning. When she came out of the bathroom, she started to dress in last night's clothes.

"It's warm," Andy said.

"Andy, I'm going to be cooking."

"Wear an apron. I brought two." Aprons were to protect clothes against food splashes, not to protect skin. And what would protect her against the voyeur lying in bed with his glasses on? On the other hand, she had said he could control things today. She put on the apron and cooked grits. After they ate together, he put the dishes in the sink. She started the beans cooking. Today's supper would be baked beans. It took two stages of preparation, and that was fitting for a day without morning duties.

She hung up the apron and headed towards the bedroom. She could guess that his plans didn't center around a long discussion of the budget in the living room. He stopped her before she reached the bed and turned her so her back was towards it.

He knelt on the carpet and started to kiss her tits. He stroked her all over before concentrating on her thighs. When he pushed her to sit down, her knees were wobbly enough that she welcomed it. Then he put her legs on his shoulders while he kissed her pussy. When the lightning struck, his hands were on her tits. It stuck again before he let her drop back to recover. He then lifted her and put her down lying on his side of the bed. He covered her with the sheet, then he crawled in beside her on her side and lay on his back. His cock was sticking straight up. Well, he had only himself to blame that he hadn't put it where it belonged.

"When you're ready, I'll help you aboard." It was about time. These had been delightful, but she'd begun to feel empty. She knelt straddling him, getting into just the right position. Slowly, she lowered herself until he was filling her. When she started back up, he held her hips. "Now lie on me." She lay down, still moving slowly and carefully. He hugged her in a way that crushed her tits to his chest. When he rolled them to her right, she got her left leg down. When he rolled them to her left, she got her right leg down and he did something with the sheet. Every time he moved under her, he also moved inside her. "Want the sheet?"

"Yeah." The day was getting warmer, and they were alone, but she felt awfully exposed like this. He got the sheet across her over his arms. Now, he was hugging her with one arm and pulling her against him by the ass with the other hand.

"In my arms," he said. They were going to stay like this 'til the timer rang? If so, her tits were going to stay crushed.

"Let me raise up a little on top." He eased the arm around her back. She tried to support herself with hands on the bed, but that put a lot of stress on her arms. His chest was significantly wider than hers was. She lay with her forearms on his chest and her hands on his shoulders. You'd think that would hurt him, but his only response was to turn his head to kiss her wrist. Every one of her motions moved him inside her. When he pushed her a little further down by her hip bones, he went into her more deeply.

"Now," he said putting both hands on her ass, "you're in my arms. They going to need you any time soon?" 'They' presumably meant Zeta.

"No, They're doing room moves, and -- in case you hadn't noticed -- I don't have a room there any more. They have two vacancies in my old room, which will help Grace." He asked about the move, and she told him the complexities: Almost all actives would be moving. Most of the beds and dressers to which they were moving, all the rooms, would have occupants already.

"What they should do, is leave the sophomores 'til last. Nobody is moving into those rooms." They'd already figured that out. "Everybody strip beds. Then the one moving in could dump everything on the bed, like I do with laundry before I sort it. They could put their sheets on top of the dresser in their old room, and empty out the dresser drawers as they move out. Sophomores could help their grand big sisters and then their big sisters. Then they could help her. When everybody is moved, everybody fills her dresser. It shouldn't take more than a morning, even with too much traffic in the halls."

Great! Her engineer had his cock buried in her pussy, and he was solving the moving problem off the top of his head. Still, that sounded like it would work. She might mention it to Grace. That he could think of something like that when he was in her, though, contradicted everything he'd ever said about her sexiness. She tightened her pussy around him, and he moved one hand to her left tit. He rubbed her nipple with his thumb.

"Stay here," he said. And she stayed there until the timer rang. Then she went to the kitchen to turn off the beans. She got back into the apron and completed the preparation for baked beans. He sat watching her. When he stood up, he still had a hardon.

"Maccaroni and cheese all right for lunch?" she asked him.

"Later. We have loads of time." Which wasn't the question. It was, however, his priority. She took off the apron and twitched her ass as she walked into the bedroom. "Take the other side," he said. did he want to change sides of the bed with her? She was willing; it wasn't as if she had a long history of sleeping on one side of the bed. When she lay on his side, he came around the bed and knelt down.

First, he kissed her. Then his hand stroked down to her pussy. He kissed her tits and sucked her nipples until she felt highly aroused. Then he looked at her as the lightning struck. His gaze at her thrashing about on the bed was embarrassing, but also sexy as hell. He left his hand on her mound when she relaxed and bent to kiss her again. They went through the same thing twice more.

"Andy," she cried when he began to stroke her cleft again. "I need you now."

"But you're so beautiful like that," he said. Nevertheless, he climbed on the bed between her legs. He stared at her eyes while she put him where he belonged. He slid in slowly but quite smoothly. She was so wet by then that he could have floated in.

"So full," she said when he was all the way in. He kissed her forehead.

"So warm, so smooth, so welcoming." She was more than welcoming. She'd missed him; her pussy had missed him terribly. He moved out slowly and in even more slowly. Her hips drove her pussy up to engulf him when he didn't enter quickly enough. "Love," he said, but he kept moving slowly.

"Love!" he shouted when lightning struck her. He grabbed her shoulders and rammed into her. She could feel him pulse deep within. Then he collapsed over her.

When the timer rang, he got up and went to the kitchen.

"It doesn't seem to be on," he called. Well, the timer wasn't for turning the stove off; the timer was for turning the cook on.

"I need to start my preparations." She got up and headed into the bathroom. He came in right after she got in the shower.

"No fair," he said. When was the rule was written that she couldn't take a shower alone? Well, he could run these three days. Besides, he was convenient for washing her back. He was more interested, though, in washing her front. Even so, they got through in a reasonable time. He dried her, but she started putting on her face while he dried himself. She chased him out to let her relieve herself and use a douche in privacy. The budget wasn't going to cover many of those, but if she put on panties so soon after sex she'd have him soaking her panties the entire chapter meeting.

The bed was made when she came out, and he was in the kitchen dishing out the left-over maccaroni and cheese. She'd intended to heat it up, but it wouldn't be all that bad cold, and she didn't feel like asserting herself. As a matter of fact, she didn't have much energy for anything.

"You know, you really drained me."

"But you look so sweet writhing like that." Writhing? Was that what she did in her climaxes? And Andy liked to watch? Well, it probably was as good exercise as tennis, and one hell of a lot more fun. Anyway, he hadn't objected to her dressing completely. The cold mac-and-cheese wasn't all that bad. Whatever Andy's other faults, he'd eat left-overs cheerfully. They'd probably have to establish some rule as to which he could eat for snacks, but she wasn't looking forward to another meal of this dish. The baked beans, now, would feed two -- even if one of the two was Andy -- several meals. Dinner tonight, Sunday supper, lunch sometime next week?

"Look, could you drive me to the house? I'm running late." And he wasn't dressed yet.

"Um, why don't you drive yourself. There's plenty of gas. I'll get..." He got up and picked up his pants. "Don't you have your keys?" And so she did. This wasn't her boyfriend who'd gladly drive her in his car. This was her husband, and there was no reason she shouldn't drive herself in the family car. "Go out the main entrance and turn right. We have our own slot. It's fifth from the north-west corner."

"Kiss before lipstick?" she asked. He lifted her up to kiss her. She put on her lipstick and picked up her purse. "Love you."

"Love you," he said. He opened the door for her. Luckily there was nobody to see his nudity. She'd have to explain how the rules about opening doors had changed due to their marriage. Or should she? She had been damn glad to have a gentleman as a boyfriend; why shouldn't she have one as a husband? She'd have to set strict limits on nakedness, though.

It had been incredibly generous of Jim Trainor to take them into his house. But now they were in their own home, really theirs. And they would make the decisions. Andy's wishes were important, and so far Andy's wishes had led to great fun, but there were rules she had to decide, too.