Andy Trainor and his wife, Marilyn, moved into his old room in his father's house after graduation in May of 1978. It looked a little like regression to childhood, but he was clear that it was a temporary arrangement. He was beginning a job. Marilyn would begin one in September. They had practically, although not quite, exhausted their savings. Once they had money coming in, they could get their independence.

Dad was quite happy to have them, as well he should be. He had wanted them to live in Evanston, and they would. Marilyn was cooking delicious breakfasts again.

While Marilyn wouldn't begin teaching until September, she was busy these days. She accompanied him to his job out beyond O'Hare on his third day. She decided that he should have different clothes than he'd worn in school. Nobody else said that he should, but this was an area in which he deferred to Marilyn absolutely. She took him with her to a department store where she picked them out and he tried them on. She was also looking for their apartment and shopping for furniture. Since his requirements for both were minimal, he deferred to her there, too. What he needed from an apartment was that it keep him warm in winter, dry during rainstorms, and -- most of all -- that it keep his wife happy, or, at least, not make her unhappy. Since he wasn't at all sure what made her unhappy, letting her pick the apartment and the furniture seemed like the best way to guarantee this.

After a day of filling out forms and being told about the company and several days of getting to know the team of engineers he'd be working with, he got started on actual work. Gary, the senior engineer who ran the team, gave them all a new problem. They were each to work out a solution and bring it to work the next morning. His solution wasn't adopted, and he could see why Gary preferred Dan's. Then they all worked together to move Dan's solution into a design and an assembly system. The next week, that design was in the chute for production, and they were onto a new problem. He'd always had fun working on puzzles and such, but it was much more fun to work on a puzzle which was going to turn into something which would be actually manufactured.

Meanwhile, he'd received his first paycheck and Marilyn had found an apartment. Saturday, they opened a new checking account. They deposited the check in the bank and transferred enough from savings that they'd have $700 when the paycheck cleared. That looked like rent money and more. Marilyn had made a selection.

"Let's go see my first three choices after lunch," she said. That seemed like too much work. If they did, he would have to find out which one she preferred, and he wasn't all that good at understanding Marilyn yet.

"Why don't I look at your first choice after lunch," he said. "I've told you, my requirement for an apartment is that you're happy in it." She called from home, and the landlord could show the apartment to them. It looked like an unfurnished apartment. Marilyn thought she would be happy in it, and if they moved in a bed and shared it, he would be happy in it. The only question was the heat. Would she be happy in the apartment in December.

"Might I see your heating plant?" he asked. "The furnace?" When that didn't communicate. The furnace looked respectable, but what did he know about furnaces? Anyway, it was big and in decent repair. "It looks like it could keep this building warm.

"You want this?" he asked Marilyn.

"Yes."

"I'll require the first month's rent and another month for the security deposit," the landlord said.

"I'll have to postdate it. We just established the account today, and the money isn't good until the deposit clears."

"Well, don't expect to do this every month." He didn't. What part of his last statement hadn't the guy understood?

"We won't. I'm new on the job. I got one week's pay yesterday. I'll get two week's pay the 16th. That'll clear before the first of July."

They settled everything, signed the lease, gave him the postdated check. Marilyn had looked at some furniture, but she hadn't made her selection yet. She said that she would have some to show him the next Saturday.

Gary, the engineer who led the team that he was on, suggested that there was more that the new engineers could learn from books. Actually, one of his recommendations was a course that Andy had taken. He ordered the other two books he recommended, though, and planned to read them over the summer.

Marilyn took him to see the furniture that she had selected that Saturday. He checked the bed to see that it was sturdy enough to take any motions on their parts -- any motions on his part, really. Marilyn was a tiny little thing. She moved dramatically enough but she didn't have enough mass to provide a significant momentum. Well, the bed was solid. She asked him if the chair and sofa for the living room was comfortable for his height, and he tested them out and said that they were. They put it on time payments. The furniture wouldn't be delivered for another week, and they'd call Marilyn before.

When the furniture was there, they moved in. He carried Marilyn over the threshold of what would be their home. Then he brought their possessions up from the car while she put them away. She had cooked dinner, meat loaf. They didn't have a kitchen table, yet, so they ate in the living room with her sitting on the sofa and him on the easy chair. They picked up some of the wedding gifts from her house in their last trip of the night. That Saturday, they bought a kitchen table and 4 chairs. This time, they paid cash. They kept moving in. They didn't have bookshelves, so he decided not to move any of his books. By the end of the day, he was tired, but dinner revived him.

"Y'know," he said as they got ready for bed, "what we should really do is make love in every single room of our home."

"Tonight?" She didn't sound like she thought it was possible. Well, it wasn't.

"I wish! I'm just sorry I didn't think of this sooner. We only got to two rooms of the U of I apartment." The living room had a couch that had accommodated her easily. He would have had to lie with his feet off it -- or his head, or both.

"And your first place, Marilyn said. "We could have made love with one of us in the kitchen." She saw the humor in so much. That kitchen had been a little on the small side. All the rooms of this apartment, however, were more than large enough to hold the two of them. Well, before they had sex outside this room, he had to get her in the mood.

He lifted her and they had a long, wet kiss. Instead of setting her down on the floor, he lifted her farther up to stand on her dresser. He turned her do her back was to him. He really should install a mirror in the closet door, but the only mirror in the apartment of a useful size was the one on her dresser.

"Squat down." He steadied her as she did. As her knees bent, they also spread. He could see the reflection of her mound and vulva in the mirror. He reached around her waist to cup them. As she came lower, he held her breast with his left hand. Her position couldn't be comfortable, and he went to work without teasing. He kissed her neck while stroking her groove and clitoris with one hand and her nipples with the other. Despite the uncomfortable position, or perhaps because of it, she soon tensed.

He watched her expression in the mirror as well as her erogenous zones. She looked worried. Then, she closed her eyes as her face expressed a concentration inward. When she grimaced, he grabbed her. That kept the writhing body safe, but she kicked outwards and hit the mirror stand with one foot.

"Yeah," he said. "You are so beautiful -- always, but most beautiful like this." And he could see her motions in the mirror as he felt them against his chest. "Love you." He lifted her and turned her so they were face-to-face. He hugged her to him as he backed away from the dresser. She held his neck and curled her legs around his waist. He got them to the living room and stopped in the middle of the floor.

"Put me in," he said. When she gripped his cock, he lowered her so that the tip was enclosed. "Oh, Marilyn." As he lowered her slowly, her warmth and moisture spread over his cock until she held it completely.

He walked to the couch, enjoying the tiny movements in and out of her slickness. He stopped in front of the sofa. He rocked back and forth moving himself a little in and out of her. He was holding her securely, but she tightened her grip on him just the same.

Then she writhed in his arms while she gripped his cock rhythmically. Moving back and forth in that pulsing grip, he lost it. All his love pumped out into her.

With the last of his waning strength, he lowered her to the sofa. He came out as he supported himself on his outstretched arms. When she struggled up, he stood back to give her room. She ran to the bathroom clutching between her legs.

She came back with a box of baking soda. Apparently, he'd spilled a little jism on the sofa. She dumped a pile of baking soda on the spot.

"You are a sex maniac, you know," she said when they were in bed.

"Aww." She wasn't so angry with him that she refused his arm around her.

"I may love you despite that, but you are."

"Well, I love you because of that. Does that mean that we don't make love in the kitchen and the bathroom?" Really, this was their home. They were a newly married couple. How many of their acquaintances hadn't figured out that they made love?

"It means that I plan the action," she said. Well, that would be okay, then. Actually, most of the positions which they hadn't tried, aside from those which would be impossible for those of their relative heights, required more from her than from him. He almost expressed his agreement, but then he felt it wasn't required.

When their anniversary rolled around, he was glad he had kept his mouth shut about making love in the other rooms. In the intervening weeks, she had made no move to take the initiative on sex in the other rooms.

However awful the delay in their wedding had seemed at the time, it made celebrating the anniversary much easier to afford this year. He took her to Manfredo's, which they wouldn't have been able to afford at the beginning of June.

When they returned to their apartment, and their bedroom, she responded to his removing her clothes by removing his. They each had to get their shoes, and he had to get his t-shirt. He slowly rolled down her pantyhose while she was still standing; the panties only took a moment. She stripped off his shorts, and they were naked. When she turned towards the bed, he picked her up in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. When she moved her head back far enough that he could see, he carried her into the kitchen. He pulled his chair into the middle of the floor. He managed to sit down with her still in his arms.

Then she was in his lap free to his touch. He kissed down to her breasts while stroking her thighs. She was wet for him when he reached her vulva, and she writhed the first time after only a few strokes. She was secure on his lap and responsive in his arms.

"Andy. Please. You. Now!" Well, he wanted her, too. He lifted her up and turned her to face him. With one kiss on her cute belly, he let her slide down his body towards his groin and his cock. He freed one hand for a moment to align them, then lowered her the necessary bit more. Her labia enclosed his tip. Slowly, he let her down until he was surrounded by her warmth. Then he shifted his grip to under her arms. He moved her up and down his length, and then again. When she writhed in his arms and clutched around him, he pulled her down again. Then grabbed he butt to pull her closer.

"Marilyn," he called as he lost it. He didn't feel himself rise, but he did feel it when his butt slapped against the chair when he fell back. He held her to him with what strength remained.

"Oh, Andy."

"Happy anniversary, Mrs. Trainor." And they sat like that for a time before going to bed.

He got two weeks of (unpaid) vacation days in July. The second week would be the first week the girls were in town. They'd spend the first week mostly by themselves, and he was happy to devote himself to her company. They planned to go to the beach Monday -- no sense trying on the weekend when the working stiffs would fill the place up. Marilyn got out her bikini.

"Isn't that a bit daring for a married woman?" If he had wanted to mail her in that suit, he'd have to put stamps on her skin. There wasn't enough cloth to hold a postage stamp.

"You loved it when I wore it for you."

"I still love it. You look sexy in it. Of course, you look sexy anyway. I'm just not sure I want you looking sexy for other men."

"Poor Andy. Well, I've caught my limit. Maybe it's unfair to keep putting bait in the water. I'll get a tank suit." And she bought a on-piece bathing suit on Saturday. It wasn't what you'd call Victorian, but it didn't require trimming her pubic hair so that it wouldn't show.

And swimming was fun that Monday. Tuesday of his vacation was loads more fun. They had a slow shower. Then she writhed repeatedly for him before breakfast. She taught him how to cook sloppy joes, and they had them for lunch. Then they went out to buy a television set. He felt a little weird about a television in the house without a bookcase in it. Watching with Marilyn that night was delightful, though. Her face was so expressive in the flickering light.

Wednesday, they went back to the lake in the morning. After lunch he asked her whether she minded his building a couple of bookcases.

"You're not thinking of bringing your library here, are you." Heavens no. Dad would let him keep the stuff in the basement there forever, and it would really crowd this place. He thought that the dictionary and the science books from his room, at least the ones he hadn't outgrown, and whatever they got new. He already had bought two new engineering books, and he would probably need more.

He measured the space in their bedroom, and figured it would hold two free-standing sets of bookshelves four feet wide, each. Having the tops and sides about the same length would be convenient. Mr. Schmidt's hardware store was hardly a lumberyard, but it sold some lumber, and they would cut the length you wanted. Thursday, he got boards -- 12 of them precisely 4 feet long for the shelves and sides and 4 more at 49 1/2 inches long for the tops and bottoms. He bought an electric drill with several bits; he already had screwdrivers. Paint to match the bedroom walls, paintbrushes, braces, etc. rounded out his purchases. If he was going to have tools, he needed a tool box, and he bought that. While he was there, he consulted the guys who knew carpentry about what he'd need and what he should do. They told him that bookcases of the open design he wanted were a bitch because they could sag slantwise.

He'd paint them in the apartment building's parking lot, but he built them in the bedroom. Marilyn didn't object to the noise of the drill at all. He wasn't a handyman, but he though he'd done a good, sturdy, job. He'd used both corner braces and T-braces. These could support shelves full of books, but could easily be moved when empty. When he was satisfied, he vacuumed up the sawdust from the drilling. Then he called Marilyn in to see what he'd done.

"One for you, and one for me."

"In here?" She didn't look impressed, or even satisfied.

"I thought so. I measured the space." For that matter, they were now sitting in the space he'd planned for them.

"Why don't we put one in the living room?" Well, that would work. He naturally thought of books in the bedroom because that was where his books had been at home. Still, she didn't look at all pleased. Should he have painted them before showing her?

"Okay, but the paint won't match." He could, though, get more paint for that one. He carried it into the living room, and wondered where to put it. Soon, Marilyn came in and told him where things needed to go to fit the bookcase into an arrangement which would suit her.

Friday, they went back to the lake. Saturday, he painted the bookcases down in the parking lot in the morning. They had dinner with Dad and the girls who had newly arrived. Sunday, they met the family and all sat together during the service. Dad didn't suggest joining the Grants. April rode back to the house with him and Marilyn.

He and the girls had all been born in July, and they'd made a habit of celebrating all three on the same day when the girls were in town. Molly's birthday was the 25th, and so they chose that day for the joint celebration.

"You don't mind our doing the celebration with my family?" he asked Marilyn.

"Andy, it's your birthday. Why should I mind your doing it your family's way? Besides, you want to celebrate with April." Well, that was true.

So, Tuesday, they had roast beef. Dad went so far as to get a bottle of wine -- the first time he had for a family festival. Of course, Marilyn was there, now, and he'd promoted April to a full glass, even if it wasn't legal for her to drink yet.

"One glass won't imperil your driving, Andy," Dad said. "You guys will stay until 10 o'clock or so, anyway, won't you?"

"We'd be pleased," said Marilyn. So he took a glass.

April opened her gifts first, and thanked Marilyn for the bracelet that was officially from both of them. It was Molly's real birthday, and by family custom that meant that she opened her gifts last. He went next. Marilyn's gift to him was a new dress shirt.

The schedule called for the girls to be Marilyn's guests the next night. They didn't have room for Dad around the table. Dad suggested to Marilyn that she take the wine and finish it the next night. She said that he was being too generous, but she didn't suggest that they were keeping the apartment dry.

Wednesday, since he would drive the girls home, he passed up the wine. He wondered about Marilyn's opinion of serving drinks, though.

The next Monday, he returned to work. Gary had an interesting problem for the team.

"We produce tuners for a radio company," he said. "They've now redesigned one model of radio with a larger speaker. They want the radio to fit in precisely the old box. That leaves us with a tuner to fit into narrower dimensions. It's tight. Here are the present specs." He passed around a couple of sheets. "Now, each of you go to your desks and figure out how to fit these into this space. Don't collaborate before Wednesday. We'll meet Wednesday morning to see each man's plans. We'll probably collaborate after that, but I want you to think by yourself for today and tomorrow." At first, Andy took the components and tried to fit them into the available space. He found several solutions, none of them elegant solutions. None of them, even, looked like anything he wanted his name associated with.

Then he remembered what Prof. Abrams had told him more than a year before. He went back to the basics. What was the input? What output was desired? Was there another way to do this. He ended with a radically different design with fewer, but more complicated and more expensive, transistors. According to his supplier price lists, his design would have material costs $4.27 more for each one than the old design. Still, he thought that this was the best idea that he could come up with.

The four beside Gary each came in with 5 copies of his drawing. Bob was first. He suggested putting the assembly right around the cone of the speaker.

"I would be nervous about the connections," Gary said. "With the customer's emphasis on the speakers, I'd expect many of these radios to be played at top volume. That means shaking right next to your assembly. A soldered connection should withstand a good deal of shaking, but that's inviting a problem."

Dan's was more conventional.

"Yeah," Gary said. "We can play with that design in tiny increments, but that's fairly well what I came up with. Andy what do you have?"

Andy passed the copies of his design around.

"What's this?"

"Well, our circuit has a job to do. It's damn hard fitting those transistors into the space our customer can give us. My early tries showed that, and these two proposals show that more clearly, unless Tom found something that escaped me. So... I looked to see what other design would do the task that the circuit has to do. I think this one would do it. The materials cost more, but the assembly should be easier."

"Would it really do the same job?"

According to specs, it would. I didn't have that transistor available to breadboard it."

"How much more?"

"Four twenty-seven."

"The savings on assembly should cover that. I'll order a couple samples of the transistor. Tom, what do you have?" Tom had something much like what Dan had suggested.

A few days later, Gary told them that his breadboarding had confirmed Andy's reading of the specs. They worked a bit on Andy's design, and then sent it to the industrial-engineering people to turn it into work orders.

Dad had issued a standing invitation for him and Marilyn to visit. When Marilyn didn't take him up on that, he started to name specific days. One Friday, he had them to dinner. While Dad gave Marilyn a tour of his library, Andy investigated the liquor cabinet in the living room. He noted the drinks that Dad had there. If they were to serve booze, they needed to buy some. He didn't yet know, though, whether Marilyn planned to serve booze.

"Do you want the apartment to be dry?" He asked her the next day. She looked at him without answering. She didn't really expect him to make that decision, did she. It was about how they dealt with visitors, and that was a total blank spot with him. "Or should we serve drinks?"

"Drinks, sure."

"Want me to buy the stuff?" They had enough money in their checking account to cover those purchases, now.

"Go ahead." So he drove into Chicago. He knew where Dad made his purchases. He bought brandy, vodka, bourbon, rye, Scotch, and two liqueurs -- Dad's brands. The cost turned out to be higher than he had expected, but they took a check.

"Can I put these in the kitchen?" he asked Marilyn. They didn't have a liquor cabinet. Should he have bought one? "We don't have a place in the living room."

"Sure. Use the top shelf of that cabinet, would you." She showed him the left-most cabinet in the kitchen. Most of the bottles had to go on their sides. That was one job taken care of. Now, when she wanted to serve drinks, she could.

He got a mirror and installed it on the bedroom closet door the next Saturday.

When Dad next came to dinner, he talked about what he saw as his responsibility towards his children. That led to his insurance policy.

"Andy, you have responsibilities, now. Do you have insurance?"

"No."

"Well, you owe some obligations to your wife. The church says, 'as long as ye both shall live,' but really you have a few responsibilities beyond that." Dad was right, as he often was about marriage. The man was a great theorist on that matter, bad as his practice had been. Marilyn thought that a $40,000 policy would be more than adequate.

He got a medical examination, and then the policy.

When Marilyn bought her car, he felt a little guilty about driving a Buick while she drove a Toyota.

"Don't be silly, Andy," she said. "The Toyota will be perfect for driving in town. And, after all, you use it to earn the larger salary." But that wasn't how they were supposed to treat expenditures.

"Between you and me, there is no question about who earns the larger salary. It's all in one checking account. It's all our money." Actually, once it had been earned, he thought of it as her money. Before Marilyn, he hadn't seen much that money could do for him. Beyond buying SF, it had never brought him much pleasure until he rented an apartment where she would visit him. Now, it looked like it would keep her happy, which was much the most important thing in his life.

"Yes, dear, but you didn't use that money to buy the Buick. When you need another car, we'll talk about how much car you'll need." Well, that was all very well, and she had keys to the Buick, not that those did her any good when he was at work.

They each got a pledge card from the church. He tore his up immediately. They would pledge as a couple. He asked Marilyn how much.

"Really, Andy. I think we should pledge $2 a week for the next year. We're tight." He hadn't known that. Maybe he should have bought fewer tools. He'd known they were tight in Champaign, but he'd thought they were past that now that he was drawing a salary. Of course, they were paying rent now, too.

"We are? Well, okay then." He wouldn't buy any more books, either. Gas was sort of a necessity, but he sometimes drove to the laundromat when the load was heavy. He didn't have to do that.

He did sort of have to go to the picnic that Gary held for his group at the end of summer. He asked Marilyn, and she said that they should go. She made a great impression on everybody, as he had expected.

September came, and Marilyn started teaching. She was only a sub, and he remembered how subs were treated. She seemed to enjoy that, though. Apparently, she enjoyed the extra income, too. Her first budget for this year had called for putting her earnings into the savings account, but she suggested that the checking account needed a larger balance.

"Sure. I didn't know you were worried. I could have done something." Well he'd known she was worried after the pledge cards came in the mail, and he'd cut back then. But he'd spent lots of money before that.

"Well, there was nothing that needed to be done, really." She took a deep breath, looking as though she had been worried. "It wasn't that we were overdrawn or anything. It was that I felt nervous about the cushion."

"Sure," he told her. "It's your money, after all, put it where you want."

"It's our money, Andy. If the money you bring in is jointly ours, then so is the money that I bring in." Really, the money from both incomes were hers. He bought gas, tools, and books, and he wrote the checks for rent, utilities, and time payments. He sometimes bought the groceries from her list; more often, he drove her to the store and paid at the check-out line. Actually, though, spending was her responsibility in the marriage. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the puzzles Gary gave the team, he realized that he couldn't work as an engineer if it didn't bring him a paycheck. Once it was in the bank, it was her decision, and she made excellent decisions which kept him fed, dressed, housed, and otherwise happy.

"Well, it's a joint account. They're both joint accounts."

In November, Marilyn spoke to her mother's circle of UMW. Marilyn knew so much, and it was nice to see that others were beginning to recognize that.

She limited him to $25 for her Christmas gift, and $125 more for Dad, Mom, the girls, and Mom's husband. He always gave The Turd a gift, and he always gave Andy a tie. It was probably necessary to keep peace in the family. The other gifts to his family were officially from both of them, and so were the gifts to Marilyn's family and some of her friends from Zeta.

He gave her some perfume. Her mom, who had never approved of him but was a great help on this, told him the kind she would like. She gave him a big kiss in front of Dad for the bottle. Her gifts to him were a Silverberg and an Anthony -- hardbacks. He didn't have either one, though he had read both.

After the Christmas break, Marilyn started getting more frequent work. Most of it was substituting for one teacher, Mrs. Piekarz, who had taught him six years before. She'd looked old even back then. It was great that Marilyn was using what she'd learned, but she cut him way back on the number of climaxes she would have before school days. Mrs. Piekarz went back and forth between the schoolroom and illness, but Marilyn never eased up on the restrictions.

His work was going well. Gary sometimes challenged all four of his team like he had on the tuner. Sometimes he gave lesser assignments to single individuals, at first only to Bob or Dan. They'd been around longer, while Tom, like him, was in his first year. In February, he got his first solo assignment.

Often, what Gary presented to the whole team were significant puzzles. What he assigned to Andy by himself were never more than cookbook applications. Still, he tried to do a good job on all of them.

The weather turned nasty, but, since they were tight on money, he still walked the three blocks to the laundromat every week. Then the weather improved and the evenings turned lighter.

He was a Chicagoan, used to all that the weather could do. Usually, during his school days, when the weather outside was unpleasant, the kids who made his life miserable were inside. And, once he got home, he could change into dry clothes if his were sopping. The trade-off had been more than worth it.

It was a sign of how different his life was this year, when he did most of his traveling in a water-tight car, that the weather could be the most unpleasant aspect of his day. He found himself, even in a lighted office, resenting the gloom of an overcast day. Then he reminded himself that he had Marilyn at home; he didn't need the sun.