Storiesonline.net
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                          The First Ninety Days
                               by CWatson

All content copyright CWatson, 2003-2008


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Description: Jon was having a perfectly normal life when his fiancée's mother declared war on her. "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back"? Not so when vows are exchanged.  (Chapter 14 now re-posted WITH proper formatting this time.)

Codes: MF cons rom lght 1st safe oral anal mastrb pett slow sch
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Part 1


Day 1: The Wedding

On the day of his wedding, Jonathan Rupert Stanford was up before the sun. It was a murky December morning; the fog had rolled in overnight, lit from within by streetlights and headlights and brakelights, so that the world was suffused with a dim, diffuse glow. Jon thought it beautiful, and appropriate for fifteen days before Christmas.

When he arrived at the office, only Dr. Polkiss was there, strapping on latex gloves in preparation for the day's horde of dental-hygenically-challenged patients. "Hello, Jeannette. How fares your morning?"

"Just fine, Dr. Polkiss, thanks for asking," said Jon. He was the secretary-slash-receptionist for Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry. When he'd been hired, Dr. Leyton had laughed and said that a man was no match for a woman's job, and Dr. Polkiss had complained about the lack of feminine nubility behind the front desk, but no one was saying anything anymore. Jon did his job well. He had a good head for numbers and administration, a knack for smiles and easy humor, and a calm but firm patience with the trouble customers. His only concession to his lack of estrogen was Dr. Polkiss's constant suggestion that his name ought to be Jeannette. "It's a bit early, though."

"Too early for him to be impugning your masculinity," said Peggy Swinton, the head nurse, as she arrived. "Not to mention the Christmas carols. They're everywhere. I swear, I had to flip through five or six stations before I could find anything else."

"It's that most wonderful time of year," Jon said.

"It's make-fun-of-Jon time of the year too, apparently. Don't you have any dignity?"

Jon shrugged. "Not especially, no. What good is dignity?"

"None, if you're a dentist," said Dr. Leyton, coming in the doorway. "You spend your days with your hands in someone's mouth, inhaling someone's halitosis. Tell me where's the dignity in that. Hello, Homes."

"Hello, Stephanie," said Dr. Polkiss.

"What's the client list for today?" asked Dr. Leyton, who insisted that people use her first name to keep her from feeling old. She had met Dr. Polkiss at dental college, where he was one of her professors. They'd hit it off well enough to start a practice together, but they could not be any different if they'd tried. Homer Polkiss was a greying, rattish man with kids in high school. Stephanie Leyton was a blonde bombshell with what seemed like a new boyfriend every week. How they got along was a mystery to Jon, but they managed, so what business was it of his?

"The usual," said Dr. Polkiss, paging through the clipboard printout Jon had provided last night. "Greta Steinem at seven, Marian Wahlburn at 7:30... Ooh, you'll like this, Otis Ostermeyer is in today."

"Oh, Lord, not that old grouch," said Peggy Swinton. "Seems to think we dip all our instruments in salmonella before we work on him."

"How is Caitlyn, Jon," Dr. Leyton asked.

"Oh, uh," said Jon. "She's fine. I think." Caitlyn Delaney was his girlfriend. The dentists had first met her three months ago, when they'd discovered just what a state their books were in. "I'm not a certified accountant," Cait had warned them, "I just majored in it in college," but they had insisted that they had every faith in her, and then gone on to (rather quietly) pay her half again the going rate. Since then Caitlyn had been their steadfast friend—not to mention faithful customer.

"You think?" said Dr. Leyton.

"Didn't I hear something about an anniversary yesterday?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Something didn't happen, did it?" said Dr. Leyton.

"No, no, nothing like that," said Jon, "it's just... She got in trouble. Again. And her mom wouldn't let us celebrate." A year and a half was a pretty significant milestone, too, but that hadn't stopped Mrs. Delaney from declaring a firm No to their faces.

"She's, what. Twenty-one, right?"

"Yeah," said Jon. "In—" He calculated automatically. "—thirty-five days."

"And her parents still don't let her make decisions about who she spends her time with?" said Dr. Leyton.

Three weeks ago, Jon had asked Caitlyn to marry her. She had said yes. But she didn't wear the ring around the house. That, they'd agreed, was worth her skin.

"Man," Dr. Leyton was saying. "I just don't get some parents. You guys have been together for—what did you say, eighteen months?—eighteen months, but her mother still won't..."

"You can ask her on Friday when she comes in for her check-up," said Jon. Mrs. Delaney had not approved of her daughter making friends with dentists when she heard the story. That didn't stop her from taking advantage of the discount Dr. Polkiss had offered to the Delaney family.

"Yeah right," said Dr. Leyton. "That lady has problems listening to people. Whenever you disagree with her, you're wrong. You can have the best arguments in the world, but she doesn't hear anything except the No."

In truth, they hadn't yet told anyone about the engagement, with two exceptions: Nathan, Cait's geographically-removed brother, and Jon's best friend Bethany, who had been instrumental in planning, staging and making sure the whole thing went off smoothly. Jon's parents, whom he lived with, knew he'd been planning it, but not that it had happened, and Caitlyn's parents were clueless.

"What she needs is to get out of that house," Dr. Leyton said.

"Yeah, no kidding," said Jon. "That's what her brother and I have been telling her for ages."

In some ways it was a whole new world, being engaged to Caitlyn Delaney. In others, nothing had changed. They had been laying plans for over a year—not only for the engagement and the wedding, but for how, exactly, to break it to Mrs. Delaney in a way that would not result in Caitlyn being locked in her room for the rest of her life. Jon judged their existing plan as having perhaps a 40% likelihood of success.

"Why doesn't she?" Dr. Leyton asked. "Jon, you're making money. You two could move in together."

Could, but, wouldn't. Caitlyn was a practicing Christian, and believed in the dicta against premarital cohabitation. Jon didn't pay it much mind; as far as he was concerned, they would be married sooner or later, and once that happened, all those not-before-marriage things would cease to be relevant. And he liked the strength of her faith. But he didn't talk much about her religious views, knowing the sort of nervous carefulness that religious people faced in this day and age. And laws of Jesus aside, it was clearly a bad idea for her to stay in that house any longer than necessary.

"We could, but, Caitlyn doesn't have the money. Her parents are paying for her education—they say it's her job. As long as she lives at home until she completes her Master's degree, they pay her room, board and tuition. Once she leaves, that's out."

"How expensive is Shellview State," Dr. Leyton asked.

"About $7500 a semester," said Dr. Polkiss, whose children were getting to be that age.

"Didn't you say she makes a lot of money playing harp?" Dr. Leyton asked. "What, like, $250 a gig? That's not bad for two hours' work."

That was the advantage of being one of the very few harpists available to this entire corner of the state. "Yeah, but, it's more like four or five hours, counting the practicing," said Jon.

"So?" said Dr. Leyton. "That's $50 an hour. Jon, you're making $18 an hour here (overtime factored in), and while you deserve every bit of it, that's damned competitive pay considering what you do."

"He's making what?" said Peggy Swinton. She turned to Dr. Polkiss. "I demand a raise."

"Sure, I'll take it out of Stephanie's salary," said Dr. Polkiss.

"$50 an hour, sure, but that's still not enough," said Jon. They'd been over this before. "Look. Let's just say, for the sake of the argument, that Cait's living expenses—food, gas, rent, everything but school—are $1,500 a month. She'd have to play six weddings a month to do that. Then school: $15,000 a year. That's, uh..."

"Sixty," said Peggy Swinton, who was good at math.

"Thanks. Sixty weddings a year, or five a month, for a grand total of eleven a month—fifty-five hours—just to break even. That's a part-time job, in addition to full-time schoolwork and her part-time job practicing harp and oboe. Where would she sleep in all this?"

"At your apartment," said Dr. Leyton. "Jon, $18 an hour is $36,000 a year—before tax, sure, but that's still a considerable sum. If you two pool your resources, I'm sure you can make things work."

And that got right around back to the original problem. "I guess."

"We've been over this," said Dr. Leyton. "Show her the numbers. She's an accountant. She'll respect numbers."

For all the interviews and careful screening he had gone through, Jon's job didn't amount to much. It was a long shift (7 to 4:30) involving a certain amount of bookkeeping, both financial and calendar, and every now and then he had to go head-to-head with insurance companies over coverage, but most of the time his job was to smile, ask the client's name, and tell them that one of the two doctors would be right with them. When nothing else was happening, which was most of the time, he was left to his own devices. He had long gotten over the incongruity of using an office computer for personal projects. Today he was tinkering with a singing arrangement of the jazz standard Take Five, for use in a small eight-person a cappella ensemble he was part of. It made a good conversation piece when clients asked after the beeps and honks coming out of the computer.

Caitlyn's Away Message was a single troubling sentence: I can't take this anymore. He'd seen her on Sunday, but they'd been tied up with music matters and hadn't had much chance to talk. After a quick lunch, he'd dropped her back at the church so she help her harp teacher, Mrs. Sellitz, play at (what else) a wedding; then had come the request for a dinner together, and the frustration and disappointment on Caitlyn's face when her mother said No. After that, they'd had about five minutes to chat over the Internet before Cait was dragged off for a "family discussion." The long and the short of it was, he didn't know how she was doing, or why she felt the way she did, or what she couldn't take anymore. And on Mondays, she wasn't back from school until 3:30 or so.

So he was surprised when his cellphone lit up just after noon, in the distinctive ring tone (Flower Duet) he had assigned for the love of his life. There were people in the waiting room, but no one begging his attention, and Drs. Polkiss and Leyton were fairly lax about things. He picked up.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Silence.

"What's up?"

"Nothing. I just... Wanted to hear your voice."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Is everything okay?"

"Umm, it's... It's mostly... "

"What did your parents say last night?"

"Oh, just... A lot of stuff that... Look, let's talk about something else, okay?"

"All right... How was the wedding yesterday?"

"It was good. I messed up on the Pachelbel, though."

"Wow, that's not good."

"Yeah."

"I mean, it's not like you haven't played it four billion times."

"You should've seen the bride's dress, though. It was so cool! It had, like, bands of lilac cloth sewn all around it, and the bride had these blue flowers... It didn't quite match the color of the sanctuary, though."

"Yeah, with all those dark reds and browns in there. Sounds like they should've done it in the chapel."

"I think they were planning to, but then they invited too many people."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Every now and then I notice that there's something on my ring finger that I'm not used to. Then I remember." He could hear the smile in her voice.

"That's what it's there for," he said. She had loved the engagement ring, a smoke-grey diamond flanked by two tiny sapphires. He was glad, because the damn thing had cost several paychecks. He also had a hunch that she would've loved it even if it was an onion ring.

"It's weird, because— Well, you know how many rings I normally wear."

Rings were the only jewelry she was permitted. To hear her mother talk of it, the Eleventh Commandment must be, Thou shalt not pierce ears. "Class ring, claddagh ring, and then the one your grandma gave you."

"Yeah. Why should one more make a difference?"

"Well, it's not just any ring."

"Yeah."

Silence.

"I don't mean to—"

"But you're at work, yeah, I know." Suddenly she sounded unhappy again.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"Baby, are you gonna be all right?"

The longest silence yet.

"... I think so. If I can just get through this day... "

"I'm rootin' for ya."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"I love you."

That surprised him: normally he said it first. "I love you too, baby."

"Bye... "

While it was good to hear her voice, ultimately it only made him more worried. She didn't sound very happy. And this was Caitlyn, who had stiff-upper-lip down to a science. If she was audibly upset... 

Of course, Jon was the only person with whom she could drop the stiff-upper-lip science. Maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe.

He had met her at college, in their undergraduate programs. Neither of them had degrees in music, but both of them were around the department enough to run into each other on a regular basis. At first he hadn't given her much thought; she was the harp player, short and slender, dark hair and eyes over pale flawless skin. She was pretty, yes, but by no means a stand-out beauty, and there were other girls, other women Jon was concerned with at the time. He was a senior before they finally connected, over a shared passion for epic fantasy, but even then there wasn't really a friendship to speak of, just common interest.

Caitlyn was not a forthcoming person. She had learned the language of betrayal early—if you give people an opening, they will use it to hurt you. Eight years of home-schooling, combined with entry into college two years early, had stunted her ability to meet new people. In a college environment, she felt young, incapable, and vulnerable. So she insulated herself, becoming untouchable. Jon was one of the first friends, of any sort, she had ever had, and when life became too much of a burden to bear alone, she took a calculated risk and began to tell him about it.

It was a risk neither of them had had any cause to regret.

Parental rebellion was the foundation of their friendship. Jon recognized instantly the portrait she painted: an overcontrolling mother, a silent father who kept his own counsel, a brother who had gotten out, a sister who hadn't. Jon, like Caitlyn's brother Nathan, had managed to keep some marginal control over his life, drawing lines around the parts of himself that his parents were simply not allowed to influence. Caitlyn had not been so lucky. Things were exacerbated when Nathan left home in spectacular fashion, organizing a move to Idaho (where his girlfriend was) without parental supervision or even knowledge, and then forcing his parents to essentially disown him. He was now that wretched symbol of all that could possibly go wrong in a child, and it was Mrs. Delaney's sternest edict that Caitlyn become nothing like him. Nobody had the heart to tell her it was already too late.

They weren't sure what drove Mrs. Delaney; they had been working on a theory almost two years now. There clearly was some internal logic to her actions, but they weren't sure what it was. The first pattern was so obvious that even Dr. Leyton, a dentist by trade, had noticed it: Mrs. Delaney could not stand to be contradicted. Should anyone have an opposing opinion—about anything—they were immediately wrong, regardless of what that opinion actually was. But that didn't explain her insatiable need for control, her use of brute force, her need to be the center of everyone's life. Her philosophy seemed to be, If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. Which was all well and good, Jon supposed, but, did she really want to use a hammer on her daughter?

All that Jon really knew was what Nathan and Dr. Leyton and Jon himself had said over and over: Caitlyn needed to get out of there. Barring that, Mrs. Delaney needed a stern talking-to. This, of course, was far easier said than done; Mrs. Delaney was perfectly capable of ignoring all the advice in the world and pursuing her own course. So Jon and Caitlyn had spent the better part of a year marshalling their forces, gathering enough people that Mrs. Delaney would have to ignore all the advice in the world. So far they had enlisted Jon's parents, Mrs. Delaney's parents, the pastor from their church, Nathan, Caitlyn's harp and oboe teachers... All people Mrs. Delaney respected, in one way or another. Even Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton had volunteered to step in.

The engagement was the next step in the plan. The final step would be to announce their impending nuptials, issuing it as an ultimatum. "Your son is gone," they would say. "Now you have a choice of whether to lose or keep your daughter. If you keep trying to hammer her into the niche you think she belongs in, the way you did your son, she'll leave forever, the way your son did. If you let her go voluntarily, on the other hand, maybe she'll come back voluntarily." Then their allies would have their say, underscoring the message. With luck, they would manage to beat through the layer of stubbornness and make some sort of impact. With luck. Jon had a hunch that Mrs. Delaney didn't even realize what she was doing.

"I can't believe we're talking about this," Caitlyn had said. "It's like... We're declaring war on my mother."

In Jon's opinion, her mother had declared war on her a very long time ago. But all he said was, "It is bad. But, baby, if I had to choose between her happiness and yours, I know what I'd pick." As far as he was concerned, the only thing Caitlyn was doing was starting to defend herself.

But there was nothing he could do about that now. He was at work, and Caitlyn was at school, and he needed to concentrate on the things he could affect now—like his job.

It wasn't until 3:26 that the hammer fell, but what a hammer it was. Jon's pocket buzzed again, and he frowned at the number. It wasn't saved, along with its owner's name, into his phonebook, which meant this was someone who had no business calling him. He didn't even recognize the area code. "Hello?"

"Hey, is this Jonathan?"

"Speaking."

"This is Nathaniel Delaney? Caitlyn's brother."

"Oh!" said Jon. Nathan had graduated two years before him, and they'd been casual friends before he moved to Idaho; things had picked up again (over the Internet) once Caitlyn had come into his life. But Jon always felt a little bit self-conscious in conversing with him, whether over phone or Internet; it was hard to bond with a guy when you were dating his sister. "Hi, Nathan. What can I do for you?"

"We've got a situation. Mom saw."

"Saw what?"

"The ring."

Shit,  though Jon. Shit shit shit. "And there wasn't any way for Caitlyn to squirm out of it."

"No, not with Mom breathing down her neck. She phoned me up immediately to see if I knew. Once I told her, she went off. Just raving for ages. I, I—" A sliver of a laugh. "—I put down the phone to go get a Coke. When I came back, she was still going."

"That's funny," said Jon, not laughing.

"Yeah, " said Nathan, not laughing either.

"So... I guess we're screwed, then."

"No, man, that's why I called. You need to go, right now."

"Go where? Why?"

"You need to get Caity out of there, Jon."

Jon said nothing.

"Think about it. This is the perfect opportunity. Mom's off-kilter, she doesn't know what to think or react or anything. I mean, yeah, she's pissed off, she doesn't think her baby girl should be dating anyone, much less you, much less engaged to anyone,  much less engaged to you. But you know women: talk about love and they get stars in their eyes. There's a part of her that's really pleased. She's trying to ignore it, but I bet she can't. And what's she gonna do to Caity once she makes up her mind? Do you wanna leave your fiancée to experience that?"

Of course Jon didn't. He said nothing.

"She's in disarray. You'll never have a better chance. Go, now, while you still have time."

Jon crossed a hand over his face. "This is gonna be ugly."

"Yeah, I know. You've got my number, call me if you need help. Like, if you need to sneak in or something."

For a moment Jon imagined himself all in black, sliding in through back doors. It really is a war, isn't it. "All right."

"And I'm gonna call Dad, see what I can do from that angle. He might be able to hold Mom back a bit... Or maybe he'll just bend over the way he always does. But it's worth a try."

"All right."

"Good luck, man."

I'm gonna need it.

He went down the hall in a daze, trying to find Dr. Polkiss. He took a wrong turn and ended up in the bathroom. Jeez, I haven't done that since my second day here. What's wrong with me? Besides my fiancée being in the belly of the beast, that is.

"Dr. Polkiss, I may need to request the rest of the day off."

Dr. Polkiss, whose hands were halfway into Glenda Dickson's mouth, said, "Why, what's happened?"

"Uh. Something's come up with Caitlyn, sir."

"With Caitlyn?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Caitlyn?" said Dr. Leyton from the next room over. Like Dr. Polkiss, she was clad in surgical scrubs and had a cloth mask across his mouth, which muffled her words. "What about Caitlyn?"

"Well, umm." Jon scrubbed through his hair with a hand. "Her mother found something out about us."

Dr. Leyton stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her. "What, is she pregnant?"

Jon blinked. "She's not pregnant."

"Well, she might be, if you're having sex."

"We're not having sex," Jon protested.

"You aren't?"

"No. Who told you that?"

"Well, no one, I just, I just assumed that, since you've been going for a year and a half—"

"Stephanie, what you do with your boyfriends isn't necessarily what Caitlyn does with hers," said Dr. Polkiss calmly. "What did Linda Delaney find out, Jon?"

Jon reddened. "That, um. That we're engaged."

Dr. Polkiss looked at him. Dr. Leyton stared at him.

"And you didn't tell us!" she burst out.

"We haven't told anybody," Jon protested. "We were trying to control how the information got out. Instead of Mrs. Delaney finding out and blowing her stack."

"And what did Linda do," asked Dr. Polkiss.

"Blew her stack," said Jon.

"And you need to go over there for a little damage control," said Dr. Polkiss.

Either that, or create an insuperable rift between mother and daughter,  Jon thought. "Basically, yes."

"Clock out," said Dr. Leyton immediately. "No, don't clock out, it takes too much time. We'll handle it for you. Peggy can cover the receptionist spot. We're only open for an hour anyway."

"It sounds like your fiancée needs you more than we do," said Dr. Polkiss.

Jon nodded and began to run.

"Oh, and, Jon?" Dr. Polkiss called.

"Hum?"

Dr. Polkiss grinned. "Congratulations."

He felt blood pounding in his ears as he drove, as fast as he dared considering the speed limit. It was war, really. Mrs. Delaney had proved that time and again. Whenever Caitlyn offered anything that could be construed as an infraction, her mother would respond with crushing force. The best example Jon could think of was when Caitlyn was grounded for putting the bathroom counter into some semblance of order. In the aftermath, Mrs. Delaney had been unable to find something she needed, and then there was miscommunication as to the coordinates of drawers and their contents. Caitlyn was promptly busted for not only cleaning up the counter and thus confounding her mother's ability to locate needed cosmetics, but for not rushing down to help once the item was missed.

Dr. Polkiss's only comment had been, "If my kids cleaned up the bathroom, I'd pay them."

The Delaney house was quiet in the chill December afternoon, belying the raging conflict that must be going on inside. Or maybe this was merely the calm before the storm. Jon's breath frosted on the thin air.

He hadn't been sure how he was going to approach, but the front door opened before he was even halfway up the drive. "Well," said Mrs. Delaney. "The man of the hour."

"Why, thank you," said Jon, "I didn't know you liked me so well."

"I suppose you expect to be congratulated," said Mrs. Delaney. Her hair had gone white long before he had met her, but she was still young and vigorous, and from teaching second-graders could shout anybody down. "Well, I can tell you right now, young man, I will not stand by and let anyone harm my daughter."

"Good, then we're on the same side," said Jon. "I want what's best for Caitlyn, ma'am, same as you."

"What kind words," said Mrs. Delaney with withering sarcasm. "But your actions give them the lie. How did you convince her?"

"How did I convince what, ma'am?"

"To accept."

"Ummm... I asked her," said Jon.

"Mr. Stanford, we are not having this conversation if you will not be truthful to me. We have physical evidence that you have blackmailed her into accepting your proposal of marriage. It's right there on her finger. So, tell me the truth or I will call the police and have you brought up on charges. What did you threaten her with? What have you forced her to do?"

"What has who forced me to do," came Caitlyn's voice from behind her.

Mrs. Delaney turned. "You are supposed to be in your room."

"Clearly, I'm not," said Caitlyn. "So, what's this thing he supposedly got me to do?"

"Agree to marry him," said Mrs. Delaney in thunderous tones.

Caitlyn shrugged. "He asked me. And I said yes."

"You know what happens when you lie to me, young lady."

"I do it all the time, to shut you up." She took two long steps and was out the door, joining Jon on the front porch. His hand sought hers almost by instinct.

"Caitlyn Claire Delaney, you get back inside this instant!" said Mrs. Delaney.

"No," said Caitlyn. Her face was haggard, but evidently weariness was giving her strength, because she was saying things she had never dared say before. "I like it out here. Jon's out here."

"You are in such trouble, young lady," said Mrs. Delaney. "Wait until your father comes home."

"No," said Caitlyn, "I don't think I will." She turned to him. "Jon, can we leave?"

Flustered, Jon said, "Uhh— If my lady so desires."

"She does."

Linda Delaney's face was thunderous. "If you leave this house, young lady, don't ever expect to get back in."

Jon was thinking about Nathan's offer to help them sneak in, and how ineffective that statement might be as a threat. But Caitlyn turned back with real venom in her voice and said, "What makes you think I'd ever want to come back, Mother?"

Mrs. Delaney went very white.

"Do you remember when you asked me about my last argument with Jon, and I wouldn't answer you? Well, it was three weeks ago, when he was helping me get books at the library for my research paper. He refused to let me carry any, because he's a man. I refused to let him carry any, because it's my research project. So the librarian told us to shut up and each take half. That was our last argument. She also told us that if that was the worst thing we could think of to argue about, we would probably have many happy years together.

"So, we're going to go now, to have many happy years together. Good-bye."

They got in the car in silence, with Mrs. Delaney standing in the doorway seemingly stuck between a glower and a shocked stare. Halfway through, though, her face abruptly firmed and she slammed the door. Jon didn't know if she actually intended to follow through on her police threat, so he hightailed it out of there as fast as he deemed safe. The last thing they needed was the police chasing his license plate numbers.

They made good time towards the freeway, but when Caitlyn said, "Jon," he turned at the choking sound of her voice and saw the tears on her face. Then it was a gas station and flaring neon lights, and the roar of cars and gas fumes combined with coalescent breath, and he held her and stroked her hair as she cried on his shoulder.

She had always been just short enough for her head to fit under his chin. Her fine dark hair tickled his skin. Her body was light in his arms, so soft, almost insubstantial, so fragile—but reassuringly solid, and always warm, even in the coldest weather. Caitlyn. His woman. His to protect.

"It's okay," he murmured. "Cait, it's okay. You're free. You're free. You don't ever have to go back there if you don't want to. You're free."

"No I'm not," she said. "All my clothes are there, and my harp. I don't have anything. We have to go back to get those, at least."

"Maybe, but not for a couple days, at least. And you have your keys, you can do it when your mom's not home."

"I don't have my keys. I don't have anything. I just walked out that door with the shoes on my feet and the clothes on my back. I don't have anything."

"That's okay, you can borrow some of mine."

"What, am I staying with?"

"Where else would you stay?"

"Jon, you know how I feel about that."

"No, I know. And I wouldn't if the situation wasn't dire. But it is, sweetie. And it's not like I have any other places I can magically store you."

"I know."

"Besides, even Jesus might make an exception for this situation. Sure, you're not supposed to live with a man before you marry him, but not doing so would be stupid. Besides, you're supposed to obey your parents, and in this case that would really be stupid."

"So, what. Jesus would break his own rules?"

"If obeying them would get you into trouble, yes. Loving people isn't the same as letting them hurt you. In fact, if anything, you'd keep them from hurting you, and tainting their soul with sin, if you loved them."

"When did you get to be such a theologian?"

"Ever since you made me start reading the Bible." He hadn't been keen on that, but she'd offered to come and help walk him through it, and who was going to say no to a chance to spend more time with his girlfriend?

"Oh, so it's my fault."

"Of course it is. Everything good in my life is your fault."

"I don't think we did anything good back there."

He sighed. "No. We broke you out of there, yeah, but in the exact way we promised we'd never try, unless worst came to worst. But, sweetie... I don't think it's really about what's good anymore. It's just about what's best."

She said nothing.

"So, come on. Let's get some gas, and then we'll head" (home) "to my house to figure out what we're gonna do."

She looked up, surprised. "We're getting gas?"

"We've been here for ten minutes, we'd better get gas."

"And then what?"

"Then? Then I am going to hold you for about a week."

So they did. He had to re-orient the car (he'd parked with the pump on the passenger side, for privacy, but the fuel port was on the driver's side), and as they drove home, Caitlyn explained the "family discussion" and her Away message. "It was just a lot of rhetoric. Mom listing all your bad points, trying to make you look bad. Threatening me with the consequences of being too rebellious. It was just a lot of crap, but... It was hard to deal with, after being forbidden to see you. And then this morning I got in trouble again, for the stupidest reason—I told Rex to go say hello to Mom instead of jumping on my bed, and then while he was in there, he sneezed all over the floor. Which was obviously my fault. So she was already threatening not to let me see you on Friday, and I'd only been awake for five minutes. You can see why I wasn't happy."

"How did she find out? —Well, I mean, obviously you were wearing it."

"Yeah. I wanted to see if she wouldn't notice it among all the other rings."

"Guess that worked out."

"Yeah. I didn't think she paid that much attention." She sighed. "I guess I was wrong."

Jon's mother was surprised to see Jon home early, and even more surprised to see Caitlyn with him—but she played the gracious hostess nonetheless. "I don't know how much in the way of lodging we can offer. I will need to consult with Mr. Stanford, and see what he thinks. But Caitlyn, you are always welcome to visit here. Make yourselves at home."

And after they had thanked her and trooped upstairs, Jon made good on his promise to hold her for a week. Caitlyn was listless, clearly still worried about their answerless dilemma, but she accepted his touch readily enough, and it made him feel good. When he held her, he felt... Whole. There was no other word for it. I don't know about this whole thing in Scripture about how a woman leaves her family and becomes one flesh with her husband, but it seems to me that Caitlyn and I have been one flesh for a very long time.

By the time Jon's parents had invited them down to dinner, they had their verdict. "Jon, as you know, we have tried to raise you in Christian values. I don't know how many of them have taken hold, but this one we feel is necessary to enforce. Caitlyn, in light of your situation, we are willing to let you stay the night, but we do not feel that we can host you for any significant length of time."

"As Jon's girlfriend," his mother interjected, "you're very nearly one of the family, but not quite."

"We also wanted you to know," Mr. Stanford continued, "that if there is anything we can do to help you, within the outlines we have just described, you need only say the word. As an architect, I know my way around housing in the Shellview area, and Marjorie has a lot of experience fighting bureaucrats. You are very nearly family—if not to us, then certainly to Jon—and your fights are our fights."

Jon grinned: those were exactly the words he used when trying to convince Cait of that very same fact.

Caitlyn beamed too. "So that's where he gets it."

Jon's mother smirked. "Oh, has he finally gotten it, then?"

After they had eaten, they repaired up to Jon's computer to get in touch with Nathan. dad went straight home and tried to calm things down,  he wrote, but i dont know if he succeeded. u should prolly lay low for a little while, until it dies down.

"Ask him if he has any housing ideas," Jon said.

LightningSpeed: the problem is, i loost trak of all my school friends when i moved. or else id hook u up with them 
MerannaFallon: Jon says I should just stay with him for a while, but I don't think that's a good idea. 
LightningSpeed: ya, scripture n all that 
MerannaFallon: Well, look who's talking, Mr. Living In Sin With An Unmarried Woman. =P 
LightningSpeed: wellll... 

"What?!" said Caitlyn.

"What?!" said Jon.

MerannaFallon: What?! 
LightningSpeed: lol 
LightningSpeed: dint i tell u? 
MerannaFallon: You did NOT, as you darn well know! 
LightningSpeed: lol 
LightningSpeed: since june

"Sheesh, it seems like everyone we know," Jon said. "Zach and Christa over the summer, Brandon and Meredith the summer before that... Hell, Laurelyn must be almost two now."

"No, she's almost one," said Caitlyn. "She was born three months after the Chamberses married, remember?"

"And the scary thing is, they're younger than us," said Jon. "Well. Brandon isn't younger than you, but Meredith is."

"Yeah. That's kind of a weird thought, too, because it's not like we're that old," said Caitlyn.

They exchanged long looks.

"It's a crazy idea," Caitlyn said immediately.

"Yeah, but the writing's on the wall," Jon said. "Just look at what we've been hearing."

"There's writing on the wall, all right, but what language is it in?" Caitlyn said.

"It'd solve all our problems."

"But is that why we want to get married? Just to solve problems?"

"Baby, we've been planning to get married since our second month together. All we've been waiting for is the right time."

"I still don't think it's a good idea."

"I don't think it's a good idea either. It's not a good idea. But it's the best idea."

She was silent.

"Caitlyn," he said. "What do you want? If you put all your doubts aside and just listen to your heart. Doubts are the work of the mind. The mind's job is to second-guess itself. The heart's job is to know what it wants. What do you want?"

She gave a long, styptic blink.

"Let's do it," she said.

Jon's sister Melinda drove them to the mall on a breakneck mission to obtain wedding bands and a gown for Caitlyn. The prospective bride and groom could not drive themselves, because they were on their cellphones, calling up all and sundry and announcing the shortest engagement on record. Some of the people they would have liked to invite were out of town (Nathan was out of state!), and others were busy, but a pretty good number said they would be able to attend. Gifts were not necessary, Jon and Caitlyn assured them, nor was special dress; a more formal and elaborate ceremony was in the works, tentatively set for early March. All that was required was the company. Jon tried to pun that they wanted presence, not presents, but there was a phone in the way and no one got it.

The wedding bands—simple and elegant silver—were fairly easy to obtain, but at the bridal shop Melinda shooed him away. "The groom isn't supposed to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony. Jeez. I'm bi and even I know that."

"You're a girl. Of course you know that."

"I am indeed. Now go away and let us girls attend to our girlish things."

Jon shuffled his feet, feeling very exposed standing outside the bridal store. He didn't understand why that should be so; it wasn't like he was buying condoms or something... Or was he? A man didn't stand outside a bridal store unless someone he knew was inside it. That was pretty incriminating, on the whole. But the only nearby store with any interest to him was a toy store.

As usual, some of the kids gave him weird looks when he came in—he was, after all, nearly six feet and fairly broad of shoulder. Normally it didn't bother him. But today, the kids caught his attention. It was late on a Monday morning, but still, here they were, harried parents in tow. He remembered what his mother had said about parents who were too busy to raise their kids, who tried to buy love with toys instead of actions.

Is this my future,  he wondered. Who will I be the next time I stand in a toy store? Will Caitlyn be with me? Or will she be shuffling her feet outside, yelling at me to hurry up? Or maybe it won't be her at all holding my hand, but someone else, someone new—some little creation made out of our love and out of our bodies. What does my future hold, now that I'm standing here, staring at the action figures holding a bag containing two little rings in their boxes?

He shook himself out, like a dog shedding water. Cut it out. It's just G.I. Joe. He doesn't have the secrets of the universe. And if he does, I'm worried.

Melinda dropped Caitlyn off at the church and then trundled Jon back to their parents' house, where he had cleverly forgotten his tuxedo at. Caitlyn chattered the whole way about her dress: "It's so cool, it's got these blue beads and this shawl, and the train detaches and turns into a skirt, so you can turn it around from formal into something more casual, and I can wear it at the reception!" Jon had no sense of fashion whatsoever, but Caitlyn did, and he trusted her vision.

When he returned for the final time, as dressed and pressed as he could make himself in half an hour, most everyone was already there: his parents, and Beth and Rod and Samantha from the singing group, and Rev. Larry Pendleton and his wife Amber, and Mrs. Sellitz the harp teacher and Mrs. Klein the oboe teacher, and Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton and Nurse Swinton, and Jon's oldest friend Adam and Adam's mom Mrs. Raines and Adam's new boyfriend Thomas; and Mrs. Delaney's parents Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy, and her uncle Max and his sons Lawrence and Heath, and some of Caitlyn's home-schooling friends that he had only met once or twice. But the Delaneys were not there. Jon and Caitlyn had debated for a long time as to whether to extend an invitation to them; ultimately Cait had called her father, but he had never answered. Jon wasn't sure whether that should please him or not.

They had music; Amber Pendleton could play the organ, moving deftly for so large a person. She played the processional as the small and rather mismatched wedding party moved up the aisle. First was Adam Raines, the best man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, followed by Bethany Rademacher as the only other groomsperson, and then by Jon's parents. Caitlyn had asked Mrs. Sellitz, in stout lilac (possibly the same dress she had worn yesterday) to be the maid of honor; she was preceded by Kara Salzman, one of Caitlyn's home-school friends that Jon did not known. Finally came Jon, his heart pounding in his throat, and then Caitlyn herself, resplendent in contoured silk, being escorted by—of all people—her own father. Mr. Delaney was in the same suit and tie he wore every Sunday, but he wore it well, then as now.

Mr. Delaney gave him an unreadable glance as he left his daughter behind. And then it was just Caitlyn, wearing a pale sheath with, yes, a periwinkle-blue shawl and faint blue beading around the bodice. She was not wearing a veil, so he had a clear look at her face: radiant, beaming, happier than he had seen her in a long time. He could only suppose at the shell-shocked expression that must be on his face.

I can't believe we're doing this. This is crazy. We had the idea two hours ago, and now here we are, at an altar, with Reverend Pendleton standing over us. I can't believe we're doing this just for convenience. Are we making a mistake? We've been planning and hoping and praying for this moment for almost as long as we've been dating, and now we're about to throw everything out the window and take the plunge, just so we can... Live together? Is this a bad idea? Are we about to make the biggest mistake of our lives?

Answer your own question, Jon. The mind doubts; the heart knows. What does your heart tell you? What does it say? Does it say something about how you wanted to marry her by your second month of courtship? About how you never feel whole but that she's there with you? Any of that?

And isn't that your answer?

Lawrence Pendleton said, "We are gathered here together..."

Afterwards it seemed an interminable period of time. ("I, Jonathan...") He thought the service would never end, but at the blink of an eye, it was gone. But it was a short ceremony, to be certain. ("... Take thee, Caitlyn Claire Delaney...") He knew that most weddings involved a deal more pomp and circumstance, often with speeches by friends or musical accompaniment that he had often felt was extraneous. ("... To be my lawfully wedded wife...") Theirs, of course, lacked any such diversions, having been slapped together in two hours. They hadn't even had time to write their own vows. ("... For better or for worse...") Caitlyn had been pushing to keep the old vows, though, and now, as he said the words, he thought he understood why. ("... Richer or poorer...") There was something terribly binding about them, but in a way he thought was actually appropriate. ("In sickness and in health...") After all, wasn't this the woman he wanted to be bound to, for the rest of his life?

"... As long as we both shall live."

"I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Then there was cheering and clapping and some catcalls and the official smooch, and Mrs. Raines poured the champagne, and the guests threw rice from a box of Rice-A-Roni that Melinda had brought from home. There wasn't much in the way of celebration, but evidently Rod and Beth had also been slapping things together in two hours, and Octapella sang for them, though momentarily short one member. Jon's parents presented him with the keys to the old Toyota Celica he had been driving for years, and Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry slipped him a check, which was simultaneously crass and very thoughtful. This check turned out to be for five thousand dollars, which Jon would spend much of a fruitless month attempting to decline.

Mr. Delaney drew him aside for a moment. Jon was expecting the worst, but the whole conversation was fairly anti-climactic. All he said was, "I don't approve, but Caitlyn is old enough to make her own decisions."

"Yes sir," said Jon. There didn't seem to be any other response.

"My wife told me what you said on the front doorstep," said Mr. Delaney. He was a rather large man, several inches taller than Jon himself, and had gone mostly to seed as the years passed, but he knew how to hold his silence. "About how we are all on the same side, because we want what's best for Caitlyn. I hope you live up to those words."

"So do I," said Jon. It was the only honest response he could make.

Mr. Delaney offered his hands. "Congratulations, Jonathan."

After that, there was paperwork—mostly the marriage certificate, but some other tax forms that the rather tired-looking court worker suggested they fill out. Jon hadn't realized that there was so much legal gobbledygook involved in taking a woman to wife, but then recalled his father's opinion of governmental bureaucracy and decided that maybe he shouldn't be. It was near ten o'clock at night before they managed to stumble home. The incongruity of returning to his parents' house on his wedding night would not strike him until several days later; what had crossed his mind now was that they'd been so busy that day that they hadn't had time to even kiss until 8:43 PM, when they were standing at the altar.

By now it was past Jon's bedtime, but he needed to strip himself out of his tuxedo, and Caitlyn out of her gown, and then they both wanted showers. Then Jon had to run around to find some clothes for her—Mr. Delaney had brought over a package of clothes and other sundries, but it was woefully inadequate. He wondered who had packed it. Jon was too tall for her, but his sister too heavy and her wardrobe comprised entirely of jeans and black tank tops, so she ended up in his old sweatpants and a T-shirt. Then Jon thought he had better call in that he'd probably be late to work tomorrow, and Caitlyn wanted to check her e-mail. Jon had been awake for over eighteen hours.

By the time Jon was out of the bathroom, freshly washed and hair all dried, Caitlyn had fallen asleep. Clearly she wasn't used to the idea of sharing a bed, because she had simply nodded off in his computer chair. Jon shook his head. It might take him some getting used to as well, come to think of it. They had only slept in each other's company a handful of times—a ski trip last March, a short jaunt to Disneyland on their one-year anniversary—and it had taken some convincing to get her to share his bed, even though he promised (and kept his promise) that nothing would happen besides sleeping. He knew her not-before-marriage opinions on that.

And not tonight either, for that matter.

It took some doing, but he got her out of the chair and into the bed. When he slid in beside her, she smiled sleepily and put an arm around him, but just like that, she was gone again. It wasn't long before he was too.

-------

Waking up that morning was a traumatic experience. Jon had forgotten to turn off his alarm clock, which jolted them both out of sleep at 6 AM. Caitlyn yelped and jumped, smashing into his face with the back of her head, and Jon yowled and held his nose while he scrambled for the alarm. He was a heavy sleeper but a quick waker. Caitlyn, on the other hand, was the exact opposite, and she was still panicked and confused, totally disoriented by the surroundings, when he shut off that thunderous cacophony. It took quite a bit of effort to get her to calm down.

Then Jon needed some tissues for his bleeding nose.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," said Caitlyn, as Jon lay back to try and encourage rapid clotting. "It's just that, I was confused and had no idea where I was, and then the loud noise, and—"

"Id's ogay," said Jon. "I'd be gonfused doo if I woge ub id a strange place."

"Oh, no, there's blood all over," said Caitlyn. There was—some on the pillowcases, some on Caitlyn's shirt, a lot on Jon's shirt. Jon got up, sighing, and pulled two new ones out of his closet. Caitlyn stripped the pillowcases and traded them for her new shirt, and then reapplied the new pillowcases while Jon tossed the old ones in the hamper, and then used the bathroom while he was at it. He was very much awake by now, and there would be no point in going back to sleep.

"What was that all about," Caitlyn asked him from the bed.

"My alarm," he said. "This is when I wake up for work."

"Are you going," she asked.

Jon emerged to see her sitting up, facing away, her pale white back disappearing under the new t-shirt. He suddenly remembered something interesting about marriage.

"I should," he said.

"Why?" she said. "The doctors were there last night. You just got married, I'm sure you have better things to do than go to work."

" 'I just got married'?" said Jon.

He had meant to ask why she hadn't said 'we, ' but Caitlyn turned reflective. "I know, it's weird, isn't it? I mean... Married. We're not engaged anymore. We're not single anymore. I'm not a Delaney anymore."

"Caitlyn Claire Stanford. Mrs. Caitlyn Claire Stanford."

"I sound so old," she said. Then she smiled. "And now that you're newly married, you're thinking of going to work? Don't you have better things to do?"

"No," he said, "not really. Because, now that I'm married, I have to go to work, so that I can make money, and support my wife."

"Don't you get a honeymoon or something?"

"Not after weddings that were planned in two hours." But his own body had given the lie away; he was sliding back into bed next to her. "Maybe after the big formal reception."

"Yeah, we still have to pull that off," she said. "And I guess I had better start thinking about a job. And... Gosh, I don't even know what else we have to do."

"All that can wait," he said. "Right now, I want to say good-morning to my wife."

They kissed, gently, but with increasing passion. His hand stroked through her hair, caressed her face, stroked her neck. His tongue tickled across her lips. He felt her arm curl around his neck, and he drew her down to the bed, side by side with her, kissing in the early morning light.

He had worried about this challenge for months. He was the first boyfriend she had ever had; his was the first kiss she ever had; soon he would be the first lover she had ever had. But she was his first, too, sexually at least. Like any man with hormones in this information age, he had found much to learn from on the Internet, but all his knowledge was theoretical, and not even necessarily of trustworthy quality. When push came to shove, he wasn't sure he could give her an enjoyable first time. A non-painful one, yes, hopefully, but an enjoyable one was probably out of his ability. (Then again, he also doubted if it was within anyone's ability.)

He had been relieved the first time he was able to fire her up. He had kissed her ears before that night, but never her neck, and when he did it was like a switch had turned on. She had never masturbated, never played with her breasts, never even found any reason to try, and he had been worried that the switch might be rusted shut. The day they made out for the first time, that fear had been laid to rest.

It was her neck he started with now, and her face and ears. Once that switch was flipped, her ears had become a surprisingly erogenous area, but it was the back of her neck, the part normally shrouded by hair, that was the most sensitive. He loved to see her face when he kissed her—her eyes closed and eyebrows up, her mouth open in an unconscious O. There was longing on that face, and beauty, and he had always regretted never being able to take her higher. Now that regret too could be put aside.

He kissed down her chin and then down her throat to the pale hollow there at the bottom, and then around the sides, up and down, taking time to kiss her ears, which he knew she loved. Then, gathering her hair out of the way with practiced ease, he laid a first kiss on the back of her neck, followed by a second and a third, while his other hand guided her over on her side until he lay behind her, kissing her, drawing her breath ever faster, while his hand crept down from her shoulder until it rested, gently cupping her breast.

She turned to face him, reaching up to pull his hand away. "Jon." And then, comprehension dawning: "... Oh."

"Yeah," he said, almost apologetically.

"I guess it is okay for us to..."

"Do you want to?" he asked. "If you're not—" He wanted to, of course, but he had waited this long; another hour, or day, or week, wouldn't hurt. And her interest was of far greater importance than his. "If you don't feel ready, or, you don't want to, or—"

Her hand moved his, replacing it on her breast. "Who said anything about not wanting to?"

He leaned down to kiss her, feeling her response as her mouth opened and her tongue reached out to meet his, twining gently around him. With his spare hand he stroked her face and hair again, and then once again embarked down her neck and around, finding those secret spots he loved, feeling her shudder and her breath catch as his lips worked their magic on her skin. And all the while his hand clasped her breast, cupping gently, letting her grow accustomed to his presence there.

When he drew her over to kiss her mouth again, his hand relinquished its hold on her breast, but with purpose this time: it slipped under her shirt, stroking up and down her back. The feeling of her skin sent electric excitement through him. Before now they had only gotten up to some very occasional petting with clothes on; mostly they kissed. He had never touched her bare flesh on anything but extremities before. This was new. This was real. This was wonderful.

Once again he left her mouth and began to kiss his way around her neck, but once again he had gained ground—his hand began the migration as well, this time beneath her shirt, passing over ribs and flanks and back and navel, until his fingertips felt soft warm flesh and there was white cotton under his palm. And all the while his lips did their work on her neck, moving between her ear and the fuzzy underside of her hair, and she shivered and gasped and her heart grew strong under his hand, and as he kissed her he began the careful adventure of liberating her breast from its cotton prison.

In a breathy whisper Caitlyn said, "Do you want me to take it off?"

Jon had, quite honestly, never expected she would suggest such a thing. "Umm. It would definitely make things easier for me."

"Okay." She sat up, separating from his grasp, and her hands went behind her back and under her shirt. Then she stopped. "Umm. Turn around."

"Why?"

Even in the dim light he could see her blush. "I have to take my shirt off."

"So?" he said. "That would make things easier too."

She said nothing, looking both embarrassed and defiant.

"Look," he said. "I'll take mine off if you take yours."

"Okay," she said happily, "you go first."

Suddenly he felt self-conscious. Though tall and fairly broad-shouldered, he got most of his exercise from martial arts classes; he hadn't been to a gym in years. He was fit, but not athletic—which was another way of saying 'scrawny.' And once the shirt was gone he would be clad only in his boxers, through which his erection would doubtlessly be visible. This must be some of what Caitlyn is feeling. Nonetheless, he had said he would—and what was the point of keeping secrets from his wife, anyway?

So he took his shirt off.

Her eyes didn't betray any disappointment, but her arms were slow as they guided themselves through the sleeves, and when she sat naked before him, flawless pale skin and tiny pink nipples on her bare breasts, she looked more miserable than embarrassed.

So he leaned in and kissed her.

He had read a saying somewhere: If you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the only thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it. That was not how he felt at all; she was lovely in his eyes, beautiful beyond measure. But he knew he must not show any hesitation at all, or her insecurities would destroy her. He must give her no reason to ever doubt the truth: that he loved her and everything about her.

So he kissed her, and drew her close with his arms, and delighted at the feeling of her bare skin on his, the softness of her breasts pressed against him, her mouth opening willingly under his, her arms around his waist, the bed cradling them as he drew them down, wrapped in each other's arms.

He had accepted long ago that this would be a slow process; it would take many small steps to awaken her responses and draw her to the point where she was ready, both physically and emotionally, for full-out intercourse. He had looked forward to it for a long time, too; he enjoyed giving her pleasure, watching her respond. He was surprised at how quickly things were happening now; he had expected to have to spend twice as much time and effort to get her where they were now.

His lips found her ear and his hand her breast almost simultaneously, and he was gratified to feel the nipple stiffening, hardening in his palm. This time, though, he left her neck early, kissing across her shoulder blades and then down the line of her spine (she shivered), until he reached the small of her back. He trailed kisses over her hips and flanks (she shivered) and round her belly button, and then finally up to her breast.

The sound she made when his mouth found her nipple, half gasp and half moan, was the happiest noise he had heard in a long time.

He knew he probably should have worked up to it with fingers, but he was too excited to care now. She was responding, responding beyond all expectation. His tongue worked at the little nub, stroking it up and down, while his hand found her other breast and caressed it, stroked it—not just the nipple, but the underside and the seam where it blended back into the body, which were supposedly extra-sensitive. Her arm curled around his head, holding him to her, while her breathy moans began a steady crescendo.

He loved her breasts, he decided. He had known them for only a few minutes, but he already loved them. Her nipples were tiny, so small as to be almost unbelievable, and the areolas around them hardly bigger. Her skin was a perfect white, lit from within by faint, translucent veins. They were just the right size to fit into his hand, smooth and soft, and within them he could feel the beating of her heart. That was something he liked a great deal.

He transferred from one breast to the other, turning his mouth and attention to that yet-untouched territory, while his hand left her chest and began its travels again, scouting out the lee of the land. He caressed her sides and flanks, wishing she were not laying on her back, and then began a steady advance down her hip and thigh, sliding his hand back and forth from breast to knee.

He wasn't sure how he was going to negotiate the removal of her sweatpants—she was, after all, lying down—but when his hand slipped inside the waistband, she surprised him once again. Her hands pre-empted his, and she lifted her hips and suddenly the pants were sliding away down her legs, and now she was naked except for her panties. One hand reached below to help her get free, finally emerging from beneath the bedspread to toss them overside, while the other immediately began an exploration of her leg, feeling the smooth fine skin there, the faint traces of shaved hair... The distinct softness of her inner thigh. He felt heat there, and possibly a hint of damp, though he couldn't be sure.

They remained thus for a long time, his hands at rest and his lips on her breast, her arm curled around him as she arched up, presenting her breast to his ministrations. Then he moved his hand, taking one of those final steps, bringing it to rest on the mound beneath her navel. He felt crinkling hair shift under her cotton panties, and a deep abiding warmth, and she breathed an "Oh" through parted lips and he knew she would be ready. With that knowledge came a upstanding anticipation... But a low, insistent doubt as well.

He pressed his hand gently against her mound, feeling the new pulses in her body as her hips rose in anticipation. When he could wait no longer, he let the pressure up. She whimpered in disappointment, but then tensed—maybe in anticipation, maybe in dread, who could say—when she felt his hand make that final transition and slip inside the elastic band of her panties. His fingers brushed over curly pubic hair, now slightly damp, and then over skin softer than any he had felt before, skin that was soft and warm and now slick with moisture.

Once again she took the dilemma out of his hands. She let go of him again to reach between them, and with a final wriggle she lay totally naked beside him. Her breath came in heady pants now, and her hand clutched him to her breast, while the other raked over his back. Her legs were parted to allow access to his stroking hand, her nipple proud and erect within his mouth. She was ready—as ready as he could make her.

Ideally, he would like to bring her to orgasm, but (enhanced responses notwithstanding) that would have been a project for an evening. He had no real idea how much effort it would take, other than a whole lot, and this wasn't the time. Besides—might as well admit it—he was selfish. He wanted to taste her depths for the first time, and see what it was he had waited for. He wanted to know what this was all about.

His fingers were already wet from her juices, so it was easy to slip one inside her. She did not have an intact maidenhead, which didn't surprise him; she had wanted to be a Dance major, after all. But it did surprise her. "What... What is that?"

"It's just my finger, it—"

"No. —No. Don't."

"Okay, I don't have to—"

"Only—" She was still gulping for air, and her voice was a breathy moan. "Only one thing goes inside me, Jon."

His heart leapt—almost the same way his cock did. "Are you sure?"

"Ye— Yes. Jon, why would— Why would I lie about this?" He felt her hand on his rear. "And why are you still dressed?"

His haste to disrobe would have been unseemly in any other circumstances, but when his cock sprang free, as hard as it had ever been, her eyes widened. "That looks big."

That was a nice thing to hear, even though Jon doubted his cock was truly any larger than average. "Well, that's why I started with a finger."

"Are you sure it'll fit?"

"It was made to."

"Oh."

"I can try the finger again, if you want—"

"No." Her arms closed around him possessively. "No. No, I want you to— To put it in me."

He kissed her. "I will, my love."

He positioned himself between her legs, suspended on elbows and knees so that he could lean down to kiss her. Her breasts made shallow pools under him. "Umm," he said. "If you could, just. Reach down there and, um. Put things where they need to go."

"Oh," she said. "Okay, um."

The touch of her hand on his cock was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was just a hand—how could it be so? His own hand wasn't like the touch of lightning on his skin.

It was almost more than he could bear, but he gritted his teeth and said, "You should probably rub it up and down a bit, get it wet. That'll make it easier to get in."

She looked at him quizzically, but did as he bade. Then her eyes were lost. It felt good to him too.

"It does— Seem really big," she gulped. "But, it's ni— Oooh..." For right then one of her strokes had taken him a little too far in the wrong direction, and he felt the clasp of her pussy lips as the tip slid inside her. The head of his cock was now surrounded by snug, wet warmth, better than anything he had known.

"Sh-should I?" His arms were trembling from the strain of holding himself up.

"Could... Could you go slow?"

He didn't see how he had a choice. If he went fast, he would probably blow right then and there—and what kind of a stupid first time would that be? So, slowly, carefully, he let his hips shift forward, slowly, carefully filling her up inside.

Her pussy was joy and molten fire, as smooth as velvet and warm, so warm on the skin of his cock. Her wetness made her slippery soft. Her depths opened before him as he slid ever deeper inside her, feeling her petals creep up his shaft until finally (sadly) there was no more to give, and he felt her pubic hair tickling his skin and her pussy lips at the root of his cock, and he opened eyes he didn't remember closing and saw her face before him.

She looked up at him.

"Okay," he asked.

She nodded.

"How does it feel?"

"It feels... Different. I dunno."

How would she? They had traded sexual histories (or lack thereof) more than a year ago, and he knew she had never used tampons, had never played with herself, had never even explored up inside herself more than once or twice. What would she compare it to?

"You were right, though. You did fit."

"Toldja."

She gave him a small, shy smile.

"I need to let myself down a little," he said. His arms were aching from the strain of holding himself above her.

"Okay."

"But tell me if I'm too heavy."

"Okay."

He let his elbows move out, settling down on her, keeping himself suspended, but only somewhat, letting more of his weight rest on her. He felt her breasts cushioning him, her breath brushing by his shoulder. She reached up to accept him, her arms circling around his back—and then her legs, bending at the knees, her thighs brushing against his waist. It was almost more than he could bear.

"How do you like it," she asked.

"It's... It feels great," he said honestly. It was heaven, as far as he was concerned.

"Better than... Than playing with yourself?"

"Way better." How could it compare? Five fingers and vaseline were nothing on her warm, tight, smooth pussy.

"Are you... Are you near to..." She colored. "Shooting?"

He felt his own face flush. "It could happen pretty soon, if I let it."

"Oh."

"Why?"

Her eyes were hooded for a moment, looking past him. Then she met his eyes, her gaze clear. "I want you to," she said. "I want you to... Ejaculate in me. I want you to shoot inside me. I want you to make me your woman."

He kissed her forehead, the place currently most accessible. "Are you sure?"

"Don't you want to?"

"Of course," he said honestly.

Her arms left his back and she placed her hands on his shoulders, stilting him up. "Then do it, baby."

How could he refuse?

He began to move, slowly sliding out of her. Her eyes flickered, and he knew it must be uncomfortable for her, but she hadn't asked him to stop yet, so he figured he was okay. Her passage closed up around him, as if trying to prevent him from leaving, but the slickness of her walls made adhesion difficult. When only the tip of his cock remained inside her, he reversed motion, renewing his penetration, and she gave another murmured "Oh..." as he began to fill her again.

On his second stroke he began to speed up—not much, just a little—but even that was too much. It wasn't three or four strokes before he felt the rumbling begin inside him, beginning to burst forth, and he pushed himself in, as deep in as he could go, as quickly as he dared. She must have sensed it, because she said, "Jon?" But the next moment his orgasm hit, and then he was beyond speech.

It was almost too strong. He felt the first rush of semen down his shaft, and a single moment of unshakeable clarity: the rich warm caress of her pussy all down his length, and her whispered exultation and her arms around him and her legs flanking his hips and the pounding of her heart under his chest; then liquid ecstasy burst forth from inside him, and he groaned out his pleasure as his body jerked and clenched and shuddered and fell with an intensity that almost overwhelmed him.

In the aftermath, she murmured his name.

When sensation returned, he found himself collapsed atop her, her head at his shoulder, his heart thundering. Around his softening cock was liquid light: the warmth of his own spend mixed with her juices, and around that the duller, softer heat of her pussy. Her arms and legs still cradled him. He felt the press of her skin against his chest and torso and groin, the tickling pubic hair. He smelled sweat and hair and underneath it all that red scent that was so distinctly hers. He felt her smile at his shoulder. He felt... Everything.

"I love you," he murmured weakly.

Her arms tightened around him. "I know."

There was silence for a time.

"I'd better move."

"It's okay."

"I'll get heavy."

"I don't mind."

"Oof." He disengaged from her, his cock slipping from her grasp one final time (he felt a wave of sadness), and then drew her up beside him. Her arms fit under his and wrapped around his back, his fit around her shoulders. Her head on the pillow met his shoulder, and he rested his on hers. They pressed together, head to toe. They had spent many hours like this in their lives—though, previously, clothed.

"How are you," she asked.

"Good," he said. "Sleepy."

"Sleepy?"

"Yeah. It's what guys do. They cum and then they doze off."

"Really? I never knew that."

"It's one of those... One of those things you don't find out unless you're a guy. And you're so..." A yawn. "You're so comfy..."

Her hand ruffled his hair. "Then sleep, my love. I'll still be here. Sleep..."

He did.



-------

Part 2


Day 2

When Caitlyn awoke again, something was pressing her in an inappropriate place.

Once again it took a while to understand the surroundings, and it wasn't really until she saw Jon's face that everything fell into place. Then she felt his arms around her, felt his shoulder pillowing her head, his cheek pressed against hers, his entire body pressed down the length of hers. She was naked—they both were—and the thing poking her in the inappropriate place turned out to be his erection, pressing up between her thighs.

She could also feel an odd sort of crust drying on the inside of her legs. That was another thing nobody had ever told her about.

We did it,  she thought to herself. We did it. In every sense of the word. We're married. It's done. I... I am Mrs. Caitlyn Stanford.

It's going to take a while to get used to that.

It was hard to tell what time it was; she couldn't see the clock, and whatever sunlight was pouring down on the Earth was being mollified by the overcast sky. It was her favorite season, because everything was so timeless; morning and afternoon and evening blended together in a grey slurry of diffuse light and everpine green. Plus, if they got lucky, it would rain. She had always loved rain. She especially loved rain and Jon's company.

She sort of wanted to know what time it was, and it would be nice to relieve her bladder, but Jon was still asleep, and it was too darned nice here in his arms. It was a little awkward with his neck and head arching over hers—a bit muggy, from lack of air circulation—but not uncomfortable. In fact, she couldn't recall ever feeling this well-rested. Or this relaxed. Or this... Loved.

She remembered now what they had done last night—his hands on her breasts, the urgent heat between her legs, and finally his member inside her—and the thought made her blush, both at the idea of having actually had sex and at the fact that she kind of wanted to do it again. Maybe not now, but, soon, definitely soon. She certainly understood now why Jon had always been eager to push their physical activities past the realm of the clothed. It hadn't been the earth-breaking, life-shattering event some people said it was; in fact, it had been downright uncomfortable to have his penis inside of her. But he'd said it would feel good eventually, and the whole rest of it had been so wonderful that she was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He never made a fuss about it, but I know he chafed at having to wait until marriage to do this. Well... I think it was a good idea to wait—it's not like we were hurt by playing it safe—but I'm also glad we don't have to wait anymore.

She remembered the first time he had managed to get her motor running. He'd kissed her ears before that night, but never her neck, and when he did, all the rest of the world had fallen away. "I've never felt like that before," she had confessed afterwards. "I never knew I could feel that way before." And he had smiled and said, "That's what I'm here for."

She had never known she could feel this way either: comfortable, safe, sheltered... And satisfied, satisfied in more ways than she could explain. It was like nothing could touch her here.

Except for the things she wanted to touch her.

When she kissed his shoulder, he stirred, and when she kissed his neck, he said, "Mmmm." She had only done it a few times before in her life.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning, Mrs. Stanford," he said.

"Hee," she said. "It's going to take a while to get used to that."

"Then I shall say it every morning," he said, "until it is as natural to you as breathing."

"Can you see the clock?"

"Oh, is that all you woke me up for?"

"Heehee. I'm just curious."

"It's a little before ten."

"Hmm. I should get up. But. I'm so comfortable here."

"So am I. But I have to pee again."

"Yeah. And after... What we did earlier... I should probably take a shower again."

"Hmm." She heard his smile. "That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll join you."

"What?" she said. "In the shower?"

"Why not? It's big enough for the two of us. And I can help you wash your hair."

On second thought, that did sound nice. "Well, since you ask so nicely..."

He spooled up the shower while she used the toilet, and then joined him under the warm spray. He took her into his arms immediately and kissed her, heedless of the water coming down on them, and after a moment she closed her eyes and let him. He was right, the shower was indeed big enough for two. Actually, maybe even more than that. Which would be really weird, but I hear some people like that sort of thing.

When they broke apart, his penis was at full staff again, poking at her belly. "Umm," she said. She had enjoyed their session in bed, but she wasn't sure she was up for a repeat performance.

"Oh, um," he said. "It does that."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It does that a lot. It doesn't take a whole lot for it to go hard."

"What, so, you mean— Every time we've kissed, for the last, like, year and a half—"

He shrugged, embarrassed.

"That's... That's kinda..."

"It's just what it does. I don't have control over it. And most of the time you couldn't tell, right? 'cause I was wearing pants."

"Yeah, but..." The thought that, for over a year, he'd had that thing pointing at her... Had she married a nymphomaniac? He had said it was normal, but surely that couldn't be so.

"Look, baby," he said. "Bottom line, it comes down to you. It's you that makes this thing get ready for action, and it's you that decides how and when it gets any action. If we moved too fast last night, you just say the word and we'll slow down. There is nothing that will happen in this marriage that you don't want."

And the thing was, he meant it. She knew he meant it. He had made promises like these many times before, and always kept them. And love welled up inside her and she reached for him and hugged him close, and if that meant he got an erection, that was okay, because there were worse prices to pay for having her beloved close at hand.

He did wash her hair, lathering the shampoo into her long mane of night-dark hair with tender and obvious affection. It felt remarkably good to have him attend to her like that, and she thought she might want to shower with him a bit more frequently. She washed his back, too, and most of his front as well, though she left his private parts for him to take care of. He did no such thing; he washed her everything. It made her a bit uncomfortable to have him wandering around down there, especially with soapy hands, but she said nothing, and he was gracious about it. And, to her surprise, he didn't try to start anything sexual. His erection was always there, sometimes up, sometimes down, but never really fading entirely, but he seemed content to ignore it.

After they had toweled off (he helped with that too), she got dressed in some of the clothes her father had sent her, while he called Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry. "Good news," he said, "they're okay with me taking the day off. Actually, they're okay with me taking the week off, but I'm not sure I will."

"Today, at least, though," she said. It had been over a month since they'd gotten to actually spend an entire day together—much less the twenty-four hours they'd be approaching at about 4 this afternoon—and she didn't want to miss a moment of it.

"Yeah," he said. "We've got a lot of stuff to do, anyway."

"Like what," she said.

"Well... To start with, we need to raid your house and get some of your stuff," he said. "I have no real idea how to move your harp, especially not in Buffy—" (that was what Melinda had named the Celica) "—but your clothes and other things we can at least retrieve. Anything else, we should buy."

"We might want to start a joint bank account," she said. "Pool our assets."

"If you're serious about finding a job, now's the time to start."

"We should probably look for a place of our own."

"Yeah."

"You're right, we do have a lot of things to do."

"Good thing we got out of bed, huh."

"Yeah. But it was comfortable there."

He smiled. "The bed'll still be there when we get back."

They started off towards the Delaney house. It was on the way when Jon saw something that made him slap his forehead in anxiety. "Holy crap, we also gotta get some condoms."

"What?"

"Condoms? You know, birth control? Something like that?"

They were passing by the Planned Parenthood, she realized. "That's a really good point." They had first spoken of children a long time ago, and decided to hold off on that part of their lives for at least a few years.

"God, I should've remembered last night when we were doing it," he said. He knew she didn't like it when he took the Lord's name in vain, and normally he was pretty good about it. He must be really worried. "I've got some, they were right there in the nightstand. I can't believe I forgot."

Why he had condoms, she didn't want to know. "I remembered." If she had known, she might've made a different decision.

"What? Then why didn't you say something?"

"I... I just. I thought... Jon, it was our first time. Your first time, my first time, our first time together. I didn't want... I wanted it to be pure." There was that too. What a drag it would've been to have to stop and put on a condom. "Just you and me, with nothing artificial in the way, just the way God intended it."

"Yeah, but..." (She had no idea how much that pleased him; nor would he be able to communicate it for quite some time.) "What if you get pregnant?"

She gave a deep sigh. That was the question, wasn't it. "Dad used to say that he believes in a woman's right to choose. And, when she has sex, she's made it."

"So... You'd..."

"If it happens, it happens."

"We're not ready for a baby."

"I know." She sighed. "Maybe it wasn't the smartest choice."

"Maybe it wasn't," he agreed. But his hand caught hers and squeezed it fast, and she knew how much he appreciated it.

Caitlyn had been pretty sure her mom would be out at school—probably halfway through the reading course of the day—and she was right; Dad was out to work as well. Only Rex, the collie, was there to greet them, which he did with his usual flopping enthusiasm. As always, he paid extra attention to Jon's pants. Caitlyn had always been embarrassed on his behalf, but Jon took it in stride. "Yes, Rex, cats. There are such things in the world as cats, and their hair gets on my pants. Sheesh, you'd think after a year and a half..."

A thought occurred to Caitlyn, and she blushed. "Maybe he smells... What we did."

Rex immediately nosed over and started sniffing at her crotch.

Jon's eyebrows jumped. Caitlyn, her face red, stifled a giggle.

It was going to be hard to leave her two closets behind. Dressing well (and stylishly, if eccentrically) was one of her favorite habits, and once Nathan had moved out she had claimed his room, and especially his closet, with alacrity. But there wasn't time for a lengthy debate; she had already been making decisions in the car, and once they got up to her room, she sent Jon for a suitcase and immediately began pulling things out. The vast majority of it, she knew, she would have to leave behind; she was only taking that which she absolutely could not bear to leave behind. The Winnie-the-Pooh coveralls, for instance. How could she live without those?

She took a moment to look around the room. She had a lot of stuff, she realized. She had decorated the room herself, on the Victorian principle that every spare ounce of space should be used. The shelf above her bed was covered in Beanie Babies, and much of her doll furniture was on display on the dressers and tables. None of it was practical. She would have to leave all of it here. This was a goodbye that would be a lot harder to make.

She gathered up her cosmetics, her toiletries, and what Jon called her hair-control devices. She picked up a few personal effects, like her journal, and stowed them in her backpack along with her schoolbooks. Her full-size harp, which was taller than Jon, they were not able to bring, but she took her Celtic lap harp as well as her oboe, and they only-half-jokingly talked about wedging the three-quarters harp in the back seats. If they laid it its spine on the floor, curve side upward and the base towards one of the doors, it might fit; but it would probably be damaged during the trip. It would have to remain as well.

Their next stop was a local bank branch, there to pool their financial assets. Caitlyn had thought to bring her checkbook, but Jon had not, so they went to his bank (Citibank) to unite their monies as they had their lives. It took about an hour to close Jon's personal account and transfer its assets to the new one they had opened in their names ("Jon and Caitlyn Stanford" was what would appear on the checks). Caitlyn was astounded at the total assets: nearly forty thousand dollars in stocks, bonds and liquid capital. "What, did you win the lottery or something," she asked once they were out of the building.

"No," said Jon, embarrassed. "I opened that account when I was ten. I've been putting stuff in it ever since. Then my dad's been playing the stock market on my behalf—we did some good work off of Google, we jumped on the Marvel Comics bandwagon, stuff like that. Plus, most of my extended family just gives me money on holidays. And I've been working at Polkiss-Leyton for about a year now, which is, you know, thirty thousand in itself, after taxes. I don't have much in the way of expenses... Well, clearly, enough to have eaten through most of the rest of my savings. But that's over the course of a lifetime. I mean, I only really started making money once I started working at Polkiss-Leyton. Basically, I just... Saved."

"We'll probably be okay financially for a while," said Caitlyn, eyeing the statement.

"Probably," said Jon. "But maybe not. What if you need a car all of a sudden?—which you will, considering that, with my schedule, there's no way I could drop you off at school at a reasonable time."

She hadn't even considered that. "I... I could take the bus," she said. Cars were... What, twenty or thirty thousand dollars? And that was on top of her school payments and whatever living expenses they might accrue... Wait, school? Oh heck, I'm supposed to be in class right now! Finals are next week!

"You could," said Jon. "Which reminds me, we probably have to do DMV paperwork to transfer Buffy to my ownership."

"Can we get lunch first?" she asked. "It's noon." Class would have to wait. She had more important things to spend the day on. And more important people, too.

As they ate, a thought occurred to her. "I guess we didn't get a chance to write our own vows."

"Yeah," Jon said.

"I hope that was okay with you," she said. She had been rather surprised when he'd brought up the suggestion—he hadn't realized he would take such an interest in their promises to each other—but she'd been willing to go along with it. After all, she was writing hers.

"Actually... Yeah. I kind of liked the traditional ones."

"Really?"

"Yeah, there's something very... Final about them. It's fitting. I mean, we really have made a significant commitment to one another, and I don't think any vow I could've written would have reflected that."

She smiled. "That was why I liked them too. I like the thought that there's nothing we won't share with each other."

"Germs," he said. "Diseases. Bad housing conditions. Your french fries."

"Okay, one thing we won't share," she said, grinning.

"Hypocrite."

"Hey, I asked you if you wanted fries, and you said you didn't! You could've gotten your own!"

"But I didn't, because I knew that, being my wife and all, you'd be willing to share."

"Well, I'm not. So deal with it, buster."

They giggled at each other.

After they had eaten, they went to Caitlyn's bank and arranged for her account to be closed and her funds transferred as well. This time it was Jon's eyebrows that went up. "And you were grilling me about things?"

She colored. "It's only like $20,000."

"For someone who's never had a job and whose only income is playing weddings at $250 a pop, that's not exactly a small amount of money."

"Yeah, but, I got money from my relatives too. And when Aunt Muriel passed away two years ago she split her savings up between me, Nathan and my cousins, 'cause she never had kids of her own. That was like ten thousand right there—after tax." She well remembered the fuss her father had made over that. "Pay to Caesar's what is Caesar's, yes," he'd said, "but Caesar sure seems to have an overinflated opinion of himself, doesn't he."

"Maybe we will be okay financially for a while," he said.

"Assuming I don't need a car."

"Yeah. And depending on housing."

"How are we going to find out about that?"

"How else? The Internet."

But they had two more stops to make first. Jon called his father and confirmed the DMV paperwork they would need to go through to transfer the Celica to Jon's name. That in itself took over an hour, requiring several cross-referencing phone calls back to Mr. and Mrs. Stanton for numbers, facts and other minutiae. Then, finally, they swung by the Planned Parenthood to get their ducks in order so that there wouldn't be any unexpected ducks.

The employee, a tall amazon of a woman named Sharon, offered Caitlyn a morning-after pill, but she declined; that was too close to abortion for her taste. They would just have to chance it. Sharon then asked when Caitlyn had had her last period: it had started last Wednesday and, in fact, ended just this Saturday. "You should be okay, then," said Sharon. "It's the wrong time in your cycle for ovulation. You can always take a home pregnancy test if you want to be extra sure."

Caitlyn found herself with a prescription for an oral contraceptive, which they would need a drug store to fill out. While they were at it, Jon got a box of condoms, in supplement to whatever supply he had secreted away at home: "The pill won't actually take effect for a little while," Sharon had told them. "I would at least wait until your next period occurs before you start going bareback. In the meanwhile, you'll want to find an alternative method of contraception in the meantime. Condoms are generally the way to go, but if you really want to be safe you should use more than one form of contraception. The only problem is that most of the female methods are like the pill—you have to put them in place ahead of time or else they won't be effective—and you can't really stack male methods."

"Couldn't you just put on two condoms?" Caitlyn asked.

"Not really, they don't work that way," said Sharon. "You're likely to break one or both of them trying to put the second one on, and then where have you gotten? And female condoms... Well, they suck, let's just put it that way."

"Female condoms?" said Caitlyn in confusion. "They make female condoms?"

"She's new at this," said Jon apologetically.

"Don't worry, at least she's asking questions," said Sharon. "That whole abstinence-only program is a crock. Thankfully you mostly only see it in, like, the neo-conservative home-schooler families nowadays—" Caitlyn stifled a blush; that was her family Sharon was talking about. "—but, still, there's enough of them that we still hear about about it. Mostly when they come in asking how they got pregnant."

Caitlyn shook her head. "Even I know that, and I stayed a virgin until I got married."

"Oh, really? Congratulations!" said Sharon. "Shotgun of some sort?"

"No, more like the other way around," said Jon. "Shotgun is when the parents force the kids to marry. They were trying to keep us from marrying. So, maybe like a gunshot wedding."

And yes, Caitlyn found out, they did make female condoms. Jon said that they were basically Ziploc bags, and about as comfortable and conducive to sexual enjoyment. There were also "diaphragms," latex caps that fit over her cervix (My what?) and needed to be supplemented with "spermicidal foam," which in itself was perfectly acceptable method—but both needed to be applied ahead of time, as much as half an hour in advance, and were not supposed to be left in for long. Caitlyn, who had had sex exactly once in her life, could already see how that could be impractical. She wondered if there were people who actually had to schedule sex into their day planners. That was the only way she could think of to have the equipment installed in a timely and appropriate fashion.

There was also a spectactular and dizzying array of male condoms. Caitlyn had never realized there were so many. Were there that many kinds of penises in the world? Or were there other differences? Why did a condom need to be "ribbed for her pleasure"? How would ribs add to her pleasure? Not that there was anything un-pleasurable about ribs, especially barbequed ones, but she didn't think that was what the condom makers were thinking of. There were condoms advertised for small penises, some for large; there were latex ones and sheepskin ones (which Jon said were actually made of intestines, of all things); there were extra-thin ones "for enhanced sensations" (Why? What about sex needs to be enhanced?) and the ribbed-for-her-pleasure ones; there were even flavored ones, colored like candy and covered in lubrication that tasted (supposedly) like fruit. It was insane. She was pleased when Jon selected a red box of plain, no-nonsense Trojans—pleased, but a little curious as well. She wondered if they made chocolate-flavored condoms.

All Jon said was, "That's the first time I ever stood in the condom aisle without feeling self-conscious." She wondered what he meant by that.

It was nearly four in the afternoon when they got back to Jon's parents' house. They unpacked Caitlyn's things—in itself an adventure, because Jon's closet was fairly full as well; he ended up folding up about half his things and putting them in a bureau for cold storage—and cached their new birth control methods to the appropriate places (Caitlyn to her morning ablutions, Jon to the nightstand). Caitlyn felt remarkably self-conscious about the blister pack in her little satchel of toiletry gear. Why should she? She was married, she was being responsible (or trying to be). Where was the shame in that? Or maybe it was the implication that she enjoyed sex. Did proper, responsible young women use birth control?

Jon's computer opened the Internet at a touch. One-bedroom apartments were running anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a month in the greater area, and they marked down the few that weren't currently occupied; it was, after all, Tuesday, December 11th. There were used cars available from $10,000 upward, but Jon said he wouldn't trust anything cheaper than $15,000. Craigslist was their touchstone, for these things and all others. There were a surprising amount of musical gigs available, both one-shot and permanent, and Caitlyn bookmarked some of the most promising ones. Her piano talents were a bit rusty, but she thought she could get them up to speed, and there was always work for a good harpist. Maybe there was hope for this slapdash marriage after all.

Finally Caitlyn closed the browser and glanced at the clock: not long before 5:00. Jon, who had been writing a public announcement e-mail of their nuptials on his laptop, had finished long ago. "Well," she said. "What should we do now?"

"Hmm?" Jon said.

"It's too early for dinner, it's too early for sleep. What should we do?"

"I dunno, what do you wanna do?"

"I should probably do some homework," she said, remembering now a half-written paper that she had neglected to copy off the computer at her parents' house. "And I've got music to practice, though without my harp that'll be a little difficult."

"You could play air harp."

She laughed. "Yeah right."

"We could... I dunno, we could watch a movie, we could read, we could... I mean, what did we normally do when we had time together?"

"We watched movies," she said. "Or we played The Sims. But mostly, it was just an excuse for us to cuddle."

He laughed. "That's very true." He walked over and drew her into his arms. "So, my lovely wife. What would you like to pretend to do while we cuddle?"

"Hmm." His shoulder made a wonderful pillow. "I like it when you say that."

They ended up forgoing the excuse entirely and simply stretching out fully-clothed on the bed. He lay on his back, and she sprawled out across him, protected and content. His chest was warm and firm, but even more than that she could hear and feel the beating of his heart. She loved that.

"So," he said. "What did you think of... What we did last night?"

"Umm," she said. "It was... It was good."

"... Oh," he said. She had a hunch he had noticed the non-committal tone. "Did you like it?"

The thing was, the truth was far too embarrassing. "... Yes," she mumbled.

"Sweetie, there's nothing wrong with that. Your body's meant to enjoy it. That's what it's designed for. There's no crime in enjoying what God intended you to enjoy."

"Yes, but... It still feels... Wrong. Like, we aren't... Like it's wrong for us to be doing... What we did."

"Why? Baby, we're married. In the sight of God and man, we were married. And in the sight of Uncle Sam, too. Unless you're going to tell me that Reverend Pendleton is actually from some obscure denomination that ordains people via e-mail."

"No, it's not that, it's—"

"Is Caitlyn not your real name? Did you sign with a pseudonym?"

Anger and desperation burst out of her in equal measure. "Jon, stop it!"

He fell silent, surprised.

"Why did we get married? Because it was convenient. That's like people who get married to gain citizenship in America. It's not legally binding, it's wrong. It's a sin. How are we any better? Jon, if you were to tell me that having sex with me wasn't a motivation in marrying me in such a rush, you'd be lying, and you know it. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't desperate to get out my mother's house. That's why we got married, not because we love each other. We were means to an end. That's a sin. That's wrong. We..." She was almost crying now. "We..."

"Caitlyn," he said—quietly, and yet something in his voice moved her to stillness.

"What you say is true. But it would also be a lie to say we married each other solely out of convenience. Do you love me? Do you want to spend your life with me? Do you want to make children with me, and raise them with me? Do you want to grow old with me?" He didn't wait for her answer but continued on. "Because that's what you've said, for over a year, and I believe you meant it. I know I meant it when I said those things to you. Caitlyn, we do love each other. And nothing can change that.

"Now, that's not to say that other things haven't crept in, because, yes, they have. There was convenience involved. It was the best solution to a bad situation—not necessarily a good solution, but the best one. Well, baby, that's just how life works. No one's motives are perfectly pure. We all want selfish things. And God knows that. And He takes that into account when weighing human actions, because He created us selfish, and He knows that the only thing we can do about that is try to be selfish in a way that makes us selfless.

"Look. We're married now. I could be a cruel, insensitive asshole to you, that's technically within my rights as a husband. I would probably notice very quickly, however, that you wouldn't be very nice to me. If I tried being nice to you, you'd probably lighten up as well. Thus, it benefits me to be nice to be nice to you.

"But even more than that, it pleases me to be nice to you. I like seeing you happy, I like seeing you smiling—I especially like seeing you naked and sighing in pleasure, but that's besides the point." She felt her face reddening. "Being nice to you makes you nice to me, yes, but that's ultimately a bonus. It would please me to be nice to you even if it didn't make you treat me any differently. Am I being selfish? Absolutely. But am I being selfish in a way that benefits other people? Again, absolutely.

"Selfishness is a weapon like any other: its effects depends on who wields it, and why. I mean, look at your mother, praying for Nathan's life to fall apart so he's forced to move back home. Sure, it would make her happy to have her son back, but what about what Nathan wants? She's ignoring that and focusing solely on her own needs. That's selfishness used in a bad way."

Caitlyn's brow hardened at the thought. "I still can't believe she did that. Praying to God for Nathan to screw up?"

"Yeah. If God has the sense He gave a goat, he'll just chuck those in the Junk Mail bin."

"Yeah..."

"But, Caitlyn..." His hand touched her chin, nudging her face up to his. His blue eyes were serious. "I love you. Nothing can change that. I've wanted to marry you for as long as we've dated. We've been planning our wedding for seven months on and off. We were going to end up here anyway; now we're just a little bit ahead of schedule. The underlying facts—that I love you, and want to be with you for the rest of my life—have not, and never have, changed."

She kissed him. "You always know how to cheer me up."

They spent a long time on that bed, kissing, just experiencing each other's presence. Sometimes she felt like she forgot each day just how much she loved being in his arms, next to his body, but she didn't mind; she got to discover it anew every time. His arms and back were so strong, like a wall to ward off harm and evil. She felt safe in his arms—safe, and sheltered, embraced but never confined. He fit her perfectly, just the way she wanted to be fit.

The only awkward moment came when he placed his hand on her breast. She was worried that he would try to initiate sex again, which she didn't want—the door was open, at the very least, and the last thing they might need was to be walked in on by his parents or sister—and she said, "No, Jon, not now," and she thought he might be disappointed but if so he gave no sign of it, simply let his hand rest there for a moment and then took it away to stroke her face. She loved him for that too.

As she'd thought they might, Jon's parents came up at about 6:00 and invited them to dinner. It would be their treat, they said, as part of the rather disjointed wedding festivities. So Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Sr. treated Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Jr., plus Melinda, to dinner at Chadley's, a very posh steak restaurant with pretensions of gourmet-dom, according to Melinda: "You can tell by the prices on the menu: there's no decimal places, just block dollars." As far as Caitlyn was concerned, they were more than pretensions: the food was delicious, if occasionally unorthodox—who would have thought that lime would enhance the flavor of corn?, but it did.

Caitlyn found herself contrasting it to dinners with her own family. Once, years ago, there had been this sort of relaxation, this sort of camaraderie, this sort of banter; but then Nathan had gone off to college, a year early like Caitlyn herself had, and things had started to change as his world-view expanded from eleven years of home-schooling to the entire wide world that compresses itself into a university. By the time Caitlyn started her undergraduate career, the atmosphere around the Delaney table was always frosty with disapproval. When Nathan left, things only got worse.

There was none of that here. Jon had told her stories about his family and the utter misery that had once reigned there, as his own mother tried to force her children into molds that did not fit them in the slightest, but Jon had allied with Melinda and his own father Glenn to finally convince her that trying to hammer her square children into round pegs was only causing damage. A midnight ambulance ride for Melinda, who collapsed from malnutrition due to anorexia, was instrumental in winning the case. Now Regina Stanford was a hands-off mother—too hands-off, in Jon's estimation, because Melinda had dropped out of high school, never gone to college, and at twenty-two had still not been gainfully employed. Clearly, Caitlyn supposed, it was possible to go too far in the other direction. She thought she'd really rather have a hands-off mother, though, than one who was probably at this very moment praying for her daughter's marriage to end in messy divorce.

Glenn and Regina Stanford had essentially renounced their parenthood, promoting their children directly to adult status. It led to a disturbing lack of guidance, but also a strong bond of camaraderie. The members of the Stanford family were equal, with no one having any more authority over the others (or at least much more). The parents and children, no longer tied in place by power structure, had become friends.

Caitlyn wondered at this strange family mechanic. Was it the kind of thing she would like to create for her children? She and Jon had been raised in similar environments, and had vowed, both separately and together, not to make the mistakes their parents had. The Stanfords were going to raise their children differently than they themselves had been raised. But what different way were they going to choose? That's a question we haven't quite answered. We know what we're not going to do—but, in a multiple-choice test like this one, that isn't necessarily saying much.

Suddenly a thought speared through her. "It's Tuesday. Jon, it's Tuesday. I have Bible study at eight!"

Jon's eyes popped open. "What time is it." He flipped open his cellphone. "Shit!"

"I take it we have to leave," said Mr. Stanford, looking both bemused and amused.

"I can drive you," said Jon, "but you're going to be at least half an hour late even if we leave this instant."

"Actually..." said Caitlyn, hesitating on the instant of a new realization. "... I'd kinda like it if you would come with me."

Jon looked at her, blinking.

She wasn't sure what had driven her to say that, but she had. She wanted him to come with her. Partially she wanted to walk in there with him on her arm and rings on their fingers and see how people reacted, but it was more than that. Jon wasn't a lapsed Christian, but he was close, and she didn't think that should be allowed to stand. She had been brought up Christian, and she believed in the Message. For her, Bible study was an opportunity to learn about one of the few things that, in the end, really mattered. She knew Jon didn't agree, but if this marriage was going to affect his faith, she wanted to be in a positive way—and as soon as possible.

"Please," said Caitlyn. "I... I think it would be a good idea."

Jon looked at her for a moment more, and then shrugged and turned to his dad. "We do have to leave."

"Then let's leave," said Mr. Stanford, signaling for the check.

By driving like a man possessed, Jon was able to shave it down to 27 minutes late. To her chagrin, only three of the other eight group members were actually in attendance: old Mrs. Lippmann, and the group leaders, siblings Gerald Mormont and Dacey Klein. "It's the Christmas season," Gerald said. "Everyone's so busy this time of year. There's always a sharp drop-off in attendance once Thanksgiving rolls around."

"I see you've brought a new accessory today," said Dacey with a bright grin. She, like Caitlyn, was a jewelry enthusiast, and the two had spent plenty of time comparing notes on earrings, necklaces, men and various other accoutrements no woman should go without. They all knew Jon—he'd been attending church with her for most of their relationship—but this was one of the first times he'd chosen to come to one of these study sessions. "It's good to see you, Jon."

"I didn't get a chance to tell you on Sunday, Caitlyn," said Mrs. Lippmann, "but your playing was beautiful. I have always enjoyed your music at the services."

"So what's with you two," Gerald asked congenially. "Were you late at dinner or something?"

"Yeah, we... We lost track of the time," said Jon.

"That seems to happen to me a lot," said Dacey. "I'll be at work plugging away at the latest financial reports, and then suddenly I get a phone call from Stephen: 'Mom, you were supposed to pick me up an hour ago!' I'm thinking I've got to get an alarm clock for my office!" She laughed.

"Jon, I'm not sure how much Caitlyn tells you about what she tells us," Gerald said, "but, speaking solely as an outsider, I wanted you to know that we were all very impressed with the way you handled the confrontation between Caitlyn and her mother three weeks ago."

"Yes," said Mrs. Lippmann, "very impressed."

"Obviously, Caitlyn wasn't able to give us a word-for-word description of what was said," Gerald continued, "but we felt you handled it with a great deal of maturity and wisdom."

Jon's eyebrows were in his hair. "Umm. Thank you." It had been an eruption after Mrs. Delaney had caught them kissing in a quiet corner of the church gardens. Nothing untoward had been going on—clothes on, hands in the right places, just two people sharing a quick kiss because if they didn't now, they couldn't at all today—but Mrs. Delaney had read them the riot act. When Caitlyn had told them about the 'discussion' that followed (she used the term loosely), the other group members had pointed out how well Jon had deflected any of Mrs. Delaney's attempts to attack him, without launching an attack of his own or even raising his voice. Mom had been essentially talked out of the entire argument, which had only pissed her off more.

"Well," said Gerald. "Since we're all here—as many of us as are likely to show up, that is—why don't we get started."

Caitlyn passed Jon a Bible as they sat down. He seemed uncomfortable with it, which didn't seem a good sign to her.

They ended up near Dacey Klein, who looked over and said, "Ooh, Jon, I like your ring. Is that new?"

Jon looked very uncomfortable now. "Err, yeah," he said. "Fairly recent."

Dacey's eyes automatically drifted to Caitlyn's hands. "Did Caitlyn get it for... Oh my." At the sound of her voice, everyone looked up.

Caitlyn fidgeted. Now that the moment was on her, she felt panic more than anything else. Didn't I want this? Am I really so fickle as that?

"Heaven forefend," said Mrs. Lippmann, who was evidently possessed of alarming eyesight. "Now even the children are getting married."

"Are getting what!" said Gerald.

"Look at her," Dacey said. "Check your own finger. It's right there."

"When did this happen," Gerald asked.

"And why weren't we invited!" Dacey asked, and jumped up and gulped Caitlyn into a hug. "Congratulations!"

"Well, um," said Caitlyn, ineffectually trying to wiggle free. "It, uh." The simple fact was, she wasn't sure she should tell them the truth. Or could tell them the truth. There was much she didn't say about her home life, and she was not by nature a self-disclosing sort of person. "It's a long story," she finished lamely.

"We have time!" said Dacey brightly.

Caitlyn looked at Jon, feeling a sinking in her gut. Jon had been pushing her to start telling people. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, and he did not disappoint her.

"Do you trust them?" he asked.

Well, that was a loaded question—they were right here in the room, after all! But there was also that thing about 'Thou shalt not lie.' "Yes."

"Then I think you should tell them," said Jon.

"You think I should tell them."

"I think you should tell them all of it," said Jon.

Caitlyn closed her eyes. "I was afraid you might say that."

Jon was not a self-disclosing person by nature either, but he knew the value of trust. It was he who had taught her that the basis of all friendship is vulnerability, that the only way to start a true friendship was to tell the potential friend something they could use to hurt you. Before that, though, you had to choose the right person—which Jon was a lot better at than she was. Evidently he trusted Dacey and Gerald, and even Mrs. Lippmann, evidently—if he hadn't, he wouldn't have said to go for it. But it wasn't his family at risk, or his reputation, if any of this somehow got to Mrs. Delaney through the grapevine.

"You don't have to tell us anything you're not comfortable with, Caitlyn," said Dacey, sitting down in the nearest chair.

Oh yes I do,  Caitlyn thought. "I know," she said.

All right.

"I don't know how much you know about myself and my family," Caitlyn said. "I mean, I know what we show to the outside world, but, as with most families, that's not half of what actually goes on."

"Is this something we want to hear?" Gerald asked. "Is this something that might possibly change opinions, hurt feelings, undermine respect... That sort of thing?"

"Yes," said Caitlyn bluntly, "but I wouldn't be speaking of it except in direst need."

Gerald nodded. "So, in other words, we didn't have this conversation. Nobody knows anything about you or Jon or Linda or Sam Delaney that isn't apparent on the surface. Are we agreed?" He looked around the circle and got a confirmation from everyone. This was an old policy with the church's small groups: that anything could be spoken of, in strictest confidence. Caitlyn had never expected to be the person speaking. Caitlyn had never wanted to be the person speaking.

She didn't try to explain the truth of her need: not to be heard, but to speak. She needed—Jon was right about this, she realized—she needed to be able to speak out and have her opinion be respected. She needed to be confident her voice would be heard.

"Well, as I'm sure you know, my brother Nathan moved to Idaho the summer before last, a year after he graduated. What I'm sure you don't know is the circumstances surrounding that move. I'm sure you don't know it because, to my knowledge, none of us have ever spoken of it." Well, Nathan had probably spoken of it to his girlfriend Shanelle—no, his wife Shanelle, now—but Boise was a little far away. "To explain the events of the last twenty-four hours, I need to speak of it now.

"When you saw the four of us in church, you saw a happy family. We were all of us active in the church, and especially in music." Nathan with his ebullient confidence; her father as implacable as an iceberg; her mother, first teaching the children's chorus and then moving on to head the bell choir; and Caitlyn herself, as harpist, pianist and oboist. "What you didn't see was how strictly my mother controlled us. Her word is absolute law in the house, and if you try to protest you just get in worse trouble, even if you're right. Either you fall in line or you get squashed.

"There wasn't much way to resist. We couldn't appeal to Dad because he always just kept silent. Or, if he did speak up, it was to agree with Mom. Even if Nathan and I were to ally together, Mom would just ground us both. She had all the power, and all we could do was cry about it." Which they had. Or at least she had.

"It wasn't so bad until Nathan went to college. We were both home-schooled, so for a long time we figured that things at our house were just the way things were. But then he got out, and two years later I got out, and we both discovered that things could be really, really different. You could raise your kids on television. You could be permissive. You could be strict. You could be overprotective. You could be loving. You could be so busy with your job that the only way you could relate to your child was by buying him toys. Or, more often than not, you weren't any of them, but rather a little of all of them. You were normal."

"This is all enlightening," said Gerald, with his usual gift for tact, "but how does it relate to that ring on your finger?"

"Don't worry, I'm getting to that," said Caitlyn.

"After we started meeting other kids and finding out what their lives were like, the rebellion really picked up. Nathan and I realized just how much we disliked the way our parents were raising us, and he at the very least told them that in no uncertain terms. Mom's response was to ground him for a month, and furthermore declare that, since he was a child, he was not allowed an opinion on the matter." Nathan had raged and stormed and slapped things off shelves, but there was ultimately nothing either of them could do about it.

"After a year of working at the 7-11 on Polk Street, Nathan decided he'd had enough. He packed up, opened negotiations with his girlfriend, and planned the move to Idaho. If you ask Mom what it was like, getting all his things packaged up to be shipped out, she won't tell you. She can't tell you. She doesn't know. Nathaniel did it all himself. He didn't even tell Mom and Dad until two weeks before he left. He just sat them down and said, 'Hey, I'm leaving, ' and didn't give them a choice in the matter."

"What did Linda say to that," asked Dacey.

Caitlyn had the line from memory: " 'If you walk out that door, don't expect to ever walk back in.' " She could still hear it, in her mother's voice.

"And what did Nathaniel say," Gerald asked.

Nathan had smiled that great, cocky grin of his, and just shrugged. " 'Fine with me, ' is all he said."

Her audience said nothing.

"And so now Mom uses Nathan as this example of everything bad. I think she's privately convinced that he does drugs and sleeps with prostitutes. Any time I do something she doesn't like, she's all, 'You're turning into another Nathan.' And now she prays daily to the Lord. She prays to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost—whom she doesn't believe in, but just in case. And she prays that Nathaniel loses his job. She prays for his girlfriend to dump him. She prays for his lease to dry up. She prays for his life to go so catastrophically wrong that he has no choice but to return home. To her."

Mrs. Lippmann said, "I think we see where this is going."

"What was it your mother found out... What did you say it was, twenty-four hours ago?" said Gerald.

Thirty, by now,  thought Caitlyn. "She found out that Jon asked me to marry him." She had said those words twenty or thirty times over the last two days—heck, she and Jon had gone and actually gotten married—but she found that they still sent a thrill of happiness through her.

There was silence.

"And you didn't tell us!" Dacey exclaimed.

"When exactly did this happen?" Mrs. Lippman asked.

"Jon, what's so funny?" said Gerald.

Jon was laughing. "That's exactly what my co-workers said when they found out."

"Which was?" Gerald said.

"Yesterday."

"We didn't tell anybody," Caitlyn protested. "No one except Nathan, and Jon's friend Beth who helped him pull it off. We didn't want it to somehow accidentally get back to my mom. We wanted to use it to our advantage, not have her find out at random and then blow her stack."

"And what did she do when she found out," Dacey asked.

"Blew her stack," said Caitlyn.

Jon was smirking again. Was this still funny to him?

"So, your mom found out," Dacey said, "and blew her stack. How did Jon get involved?"

"Nathan brought me in," said Jon from her right. "Mrs. Delaney called him and asked if he knew. And of course he said, Yeah, he'd known ever since it happened three weeks ago. And of course she was incredulous."

"That she wasn't told?" Dacey asked.

"Or that you said yes at all," Mrs. Lippmann asked.

That was the far more pertinent question. Caitlyn hadn't known the old lady had it in her. "That I said yes. Mom doesn't approve of— Well, she doesn't approve of me dating in general, and she extra-doesn't approve of me dating Jon. I think she kept hoping it was just a phase I'd get through. —Keeps hoping."

"Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think that's a rather misguided hope," said Dacey. "If you had told me—in a timely manner, thank you very much—that you two were engaged, all I would've said was, It's about time."

Caitlyn felt a blush and a smile spreading on her cheeks simultaneously.

"I think that if the others in the group were here, they'd also agree that the two of you are very good for each other," said Gerald. "I certainly think so, and I know my sister does as well. It's there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Why does Linda have such problems accepting it?"

"It's hard to accept your children growing up," said Mrs. Lippmann. "It's hard to accept that they don't need you anymore, especially if your husband has passed on, like my Frank did. Who are you without someone to mother?"

"Yes, but, shouldn't she be happy as well?" Dacey said. "I mean, I have toddlers of my own, and I can't imagine how I'll feel when they grow up and leave, but I like to think I'll pray that they find someone who is good for them, and live happy lives with them. And Caitlyn and Jon complement each other. We only see them a couple hours a week, but even we know that. How could Linda, who has probably seen a lot more of them, possibly have missed it?"

"Willful ignorance," said Mrs. Lippmann. "I faced enough of it from my mother, and my children faced enough of it from me. She doesn't want to see it, so she doesn't. You can lead a horse to water..."

"So, Jon came in," said Gerald, trying vainly to keep the discussion on-topic. "He came in because Nathan called him. What were you trying to accomplish, Jon?"

Jon was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. "Uh, oh, well, uh... Truthfully... I was just there because Nathan asked me to step in."

"And what did he want you to do?" Gerald said.

Jon took a deep breath. "He wanted me to help Caitlyn leave. He said that Mrs. Delaney would be in disarray, and this would be the perfect time to conduct a little snatch-and-grab, before she came to her senses and really dropped the heavy end of the hammer on Cait. I didn't know what to think. I mean, yes, anything I can do to keep her safe, but... That's a bit drastic, right? But Caitlyn made the choice in the end. She said, 'Get me out of here.' So, I did."

"What did Linda say," Dacey asked.

Caitlyn gave a tired sigh. " 'If you walk out that door... ' "

"Of course," said Jon, "we snuck in earlier today using the house key that Mr. Delaney thoughtfully provided in his care package, so, that threat seems to have been null and void."

"And what happened after you left," Gerald asked.

"Well..." Caitlyn shrugged. "We weren't sure what to do. I mean, I still live at home, Jon still lives at home, we don't really have that much money... He's been working since he graduated, and once he met me he says he really started saving up. But that didn't help the question of where I was going to stay. I couldn't go home—"

"You probably didn't want to, either," said Dacey.

"Not hardly. But Nathan's in Idaho, and Uncle Max and Grammy both live too close, Mom would've hunted me down and I don't know if they could've stood up to her. I don't really have any other friends, because I was home-schooled for so much of my life. And I needed to escape somehow."

"So, Jon," said Dacey.

"Except for the Bible," said Mrs. Lippmann. "Old Testament and New."

"Right," said Gerald.

"And so... You got married?" said Dacey.

Caitlyn grimaced. "It sounds pretty stupid when you put it that way."

"Well, then, let me drop an obligatory reference to Britney Spears's 55-hour fiasco and make you feel better," said Gerald, grinning.

"And I guess this was... Yesterday," said Dacey.

"In the chapel," said Jon, pointing, "about... Twenty-four hours ago."

"How did your mom take it," Dacey asked.

"I... I don't know," said Caitlyn, feeling another wave of shame. "We... We didn't tell her. I invited my dad, but, I asked him not to tell until after the ceremony, and... Well, Dad keeps quiet sometimes. Maybe he hasn't said anything at all."

"Is that all, or, are you guys taking a honeymoon, or, doing a reception, or..." Dacey asked.

"My sister just wants to know when the party is," Gerald said, with a deadpan look that gave away the joke.

"Probably in... March. —ish," said Caitlyn. "We're still working on the plans."

"Honeymoon is out until we manage to find a little more income," said Jon. "Which we need to find anyway, because, we can't just keep living in my parents' house."

"Wow," said Dacey. "Sounds like you folks are getting dropped into the real world."

"Kind of," Caitlyn agreed. "I think... I think we knew some of it beforehand. But knowing is a lot different than experiencing."

"Do you regret it?" Gerald asked. "I mean, I really doubt we're about to see another 55-hour marriage here, but... Any feelings, anything like that?"

Caitlyn and Jon looked at each other for a long moment.

"We've had... Doubts," said Jon, without looking away.

"We've definitely had doubts," said Caitlyn, turning back to the others. "No one knows better than we do just what a big step we took."

"I think reality has a way of intruding on even the most well-intentioned of plans," said Jon.

"But what Jon brought up—while I was spazzing out, too—what Jon brought up was that we haven't really done anything but speed up the timeline. It was about time for him to ask me, we'd been talking about it for over a year." She'd been wondering for months when he'd finally ask, and was even getting a bit nervous. She almost didn't dare to ask. What a relief it had been to find out he'd been in collaboration with Beth for months, and had delayed only because he couldn't get the plan right. "We've just... Known. For a long time. That we would end up married. I don't think we ever really questioned it after about our third month together. So, what's wrong with a year and a half earlier than expected?"

"Would you have married him even without the pressure of your mom going off the deep end?" Gerald asked.

Caitlyn looked at Jon.

"I would have married him a long time ago," she said softly. "But... We could never get the other ducks in order."

"Like?" said Dacey.

"Like... Money, mostly," said Jon. "Housing. All those practical things."

"But also figuring out how to tell it to Mom, in a way that wouldn't make her blow her stack," Caitlyn said.

"We essentially pulled a Nathan," said Jon. "Which was something we'd vowed never to do, unless at last resort. Caitlyn wants to somehow leave her mother in a peaceful way. She wants to be let go of. She wants Mrs. Delaney to be okay with her leaving. As opposed to praying to God that her marriage ends in messy divorce. Which she is probably doing right now."

Huh,  thought Caitlyn. I guess great minds think alike. "What we really wanted to do," she said out loud, "was to approach her with a sort of coalition. We'd tell her that we'd gotten engaged, and then give her a choice. Jon says—and I think he's right about this—Jon says that she tries to control us the way she does because she's scared of us. Somehow. She keeps us locked up in chains because, if we break free, she's scared we'll hurt us somehow."

"Which makes sense," said Gerald. "Remember in the beginning of Jurassic Park, how they kept all the dinosaurs in tight little cages so that they couldn't hurt anyone?"

"Ignoring the fact that being crammed in a tight little cage makes one want to hurt people," said Dacey.

"I think it's what you said, Mrs. Lippmann," Caitlyn said. "Mom wouldn't know what to do if she wasn't a mother. That's why she teaches second-graders, that's why she wants Nathan back, that's why she can't, she can't abide the idea of us growing up..."

"So, you use the engagement as..."

"As an ultimatum, basically," said Jon. "Your daughter has grown up, and there is nothing you can do about it. But now we're operating from a position of strength. We have something she wants—her daughter—and she has something we want—a grown-up, free-to-leave Caitlyn. We trade. We tell her, You have a choice. You can let Caitlyn leave—and come back—as she pleases, or you can cling to her so hard that she never wants to return, just like Nathan. And then we'd have a bunch of other people—Rev. Pendleton, Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy, Caitlyn's music teachers—who could tell her just what they thought of her parenting methods. One person you can ignore, but that many..."

"One person she does ignore," said Caitlyn. "I never expected Grampa to take my side in this, but he did, and he gave Mom a piece of his mind. And she basically told him to shut up and butt out, her own father, because it wasn't his business."

"And so that's the sort of thing you were planning to do," Gerald asked.

"We're still hoping to do that, actually," said Caitlyn.

Jon turned to her. "We are?"

Mrs. Lippmann cackled: a single "Ha!"

"Jon, I know you're going to say I don't have to go back there if I don't want to," Caitlyn said to him. The thought filled her with hope and joy. But... "Well, I want to. She's my mother." This was the woman who had given birth to her, after all. Who had held her hand when she broke her arm at six years old. Who had let her write a book report on flowers, just because she knew little Caity loved them. There was so much history there—too much to just abandon, even if some (most) (all) of the recent stuff had been so terrible. This was family. "You went up against your mother, but you didn't just abandon her. You love her. You needed her to change, yes, so that you and your sister could live, but that didn't mean you left her entirely. It's the same with me. I don't want to stay, but I don't want to leave things like this."

Jon said nothing. Then he fetched up a deep sigh, as if contemplating some arduous piece of work, and she knew she had him.

"How many people have you recruited," Gerald asked.

Caitlyn grimaced. "No one, so far."

"Well," said Gerald. "Good thing you just recruited us, then. I mean, you didn't tell us Jon proposed to you, you didn't invite us to the wedding— You better not leave us out of this one." He grinned.

"Absolutely," said Dacey. "I'm not entirely sure what we can contribute, but if you need us, we're yours."

Caitlyn felt her heart thudding in her throat. They said what?

"Toldja," said Jon, smirking.

"Look, stop that," she said, smacking his arm. "You don't have to be so smug about everything."

"What did he tell you," Dacey said.

"He told me... Because, getting people to agree to help with the plan... I'd have to, like, tell them the whole story, you know? And Jon... Jon always said..."

"She never believed me," said Jon. "But what I told her was, There isn't a person alive who wouldn't be sympathetic to your cause."

"Yeah," said Caitlyn.

"Maybe she'll believe it now," Jon said, "since you two have so kindly proven it."

"Hopefully she will," Gerald said. "Because you're right, Jon. No one would be anything but sympathetic. They might not necessarily offer to help, but I'm sure they'd at least wish you well."

"It's not exactly a picnic, what you've had to go through, Caitlyn," said Dacey. "No one's going to blame you for wanting to change your situation."

"Well... Thank you," said Caitlyn. "—For offering to help, I mean. That... That really does mean a lot to me."

"Toldja so," said Jon again, an unrepentant grin on his face.

"Shut up!" said Caitlyn, laughing. He would have to gloat about it!

"Young lady, you need to be more firm than that," said Mrs. Lippmann. "You take it from me: husbands will run roughshod over you if you let them. You keep him in line now, or in five years he'll be unmanageable."

Caitlyn couldn't quite keep a straight face, but she gave Jon her best glare nonetheless. "Jon, put that smile away or you're sleeping on the couch tonight!"

Jon's mouth popped open in a highly satisfactory manner. "Oh-hhhhh," said Gerald and Dacey, like ballgame spectators who have just witnessed a brilliant play.

"That's lesson one," said Mrs. Lippmann, totally unfazed. "You come back when you're ready for the next one, missy."

Jon managed to keep himself quiet until they got to the car, but once they were on the road he immediately burst out, "No fair!"

Caitlyn was feeling very pleased with herself. "How so?"

"I can't banish you to the couch. I can't do anything of the sort! You're not playing fair!"

"All's fair in love and war," said Caitlyn glibly.

"Humph," said Jon, doing a very good impression of an injured martyr, though his rather excessive sulkiness gave the joke away. "This is the thanks I get. I deliver you from slavery under your mother, I provide for you, I even studied the Bible for you. And what do I get? 'Shut up or you're sleeping on the couch.' I may just go sleep on it anyway, if that's how you feel."

"You wouldn't," said Caitlyn confidently.

"Oh really," he said, haughty to the end.

"And, even if you did—" She took his hand from the steering wheel and kissed it. "—I'd have to come down and join you."

"Ummm," he said. "That would be okay with me."

When they arrived at the house, it was closer to ten 'o'clock than nine; the discussion of Caitlyn's situation had run over-time, though obviously none of the small group members had been inclined to protest. As they checked their e-mail and gave another glance over Craigslist (nothing new had emerged), Caitlyn felt a sliver of dread in her stomach, one that grew with every passing moment. It was a little too late to start anything (a movie, for instance), but a little too early to sleep. However, if a husband and wife wanted to go and... do what husbands and wives did, this was probably the perfect time. And therein lay the dread: what would Jon think if she spoke up?

"Jon, would you..." He looked over, and with burning face she blurted it out: "Would you like to get in bed with me?"

Jon blinked at her.

"In case, you know... Something should happen to happen," she finished lamely.

The smile that grew on his face was one of the happiest sights she had ever beheld. "Race you."

They brushed their teeth and ran their nightly ablutions. This time Jon took charge of the situation from the beginning. "Let's not bother with clothes," he said. "And let's leave a light on. We're gonna make this educational."

She felt a brush of panic: lights on? With clothes off? But then, he'd seen most of it the night before, and all of it this morning when they showered. But then, they hadn't been... Doing things... When he'd seen.

She caught herself in mid-insecurity. Will you quit it? He's told you he loves you time and again. He's told you he thinks you're attractive time and again. He's been building you up to this for months, even though you didn't realize it until this moment. And he hasn't steered you wrong yet.

"Educational?" she said. "What, wasn't Sex Ed enough?"

Jon gave her a wide grin. "Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet."

They sat together on the bed, facing each other, wearing nothing. She felt the nippy cold, as she had the night before, and put it out of her head as unimportant. Jon hair was darker below than it was above, like her own, and it reassured her to realize that it was just as unruly as hers. She had often wondered if something was wrong with it.

"So, the point was," Jon said. "I wanted to just let it all hang out. Here's me, here's you, let's ask questions, let's look around. Let's see all there is to see. I don't want you to feel like my body is some foreign machine. I don't want you to feel that way about your body either. I want you to be comfortable."

"That'd be easier if it wasn't December," said Caitlyn with a weak attempt at a smile.

"It is kinda cold," Jon agreed. "But there's nothing we can really do about that. Not for a while, anyway.

"So. Here I am. Here you are. I'm not wearing anything, neither are you. Look all you want. Any questions so far?"

Caitlyn shook her head. She did actually have one—What the heck are we doing?—but she didn't feel comfortable asking it. The thing was, this was so different from what they'd done before. That had been tender, warm, under covers, nothing like this naked numbness with the lights shining down, splintering on her eyes. She felt like a bug under a microscope.

"There's body parts that get all the attention," Jon said. "Mostly boobs, dick and pussy."

" 'Pussy'?" she said.

"It's a slang word for 'vagina'."

"How did that happen," she asked. She wasn't all that familiar with her vagina, but it didn't seem even vaguely feline to her.

"I dunno. 'Cause it's soft and furry?" he said. "I didn't make it up."

"Where did you hear it?"

"The Internet." He gave a wry laugh. "Where else?"

"Oh. Um. Is there like a webpage I could learn all this on?"

"Mmm, probably, but, why would you want to use a computer when you could use me?" He said this with such ingenuity that she had to smile.

"Okay, so. Cock, pussy and boobs. That's where most of the attention goes. But not everybody realizes that there are other body parts that can transmit pleasant sensations. These places are the back, neck, scalp, ears, and fingers and toes." She immediately recognized the places he paid most attention to in their non-sexual physical contact. He has been building me up to this for months.

"Being touched in these places doesn't have to be sexual. In fact, it's not sexual, not in its own right. Really, it just feels nice. But that's part of sex—getting you feeling good and getting you relaxed. If you're tense, it doesn't happen. I'm honestly kind of surprised things worked out as well as they did last night."

"Yeah. I think... Well, it was a rollercoaster of a day," she said. Which was an understatement. She'd gone from wild joy to disconsolate loss and back, several times. "I was just to the point where..." Where I was vulnerable. Where I just needed you so badly, that I would've let you do... Anything. Good thing we got married, he could've pushed me into it and I couldn't've said no. I just needed to trust someone so much...  "I dunno. I think that... If we had gotten married normally? You know, without all the rush and the insanity and... If we had done that, things probably wouldn't've worked out like they did. Sexually, I mean. I would've tensed up and been all..."

"Nervous."

"Yeah. Self-conscious. It's just, yesterday, I was so... Needy. I needed to be loved so badly, and you gave me that, and... It was like I couldn't even conceive of mistrusting you. I would've walked off a cliff if you'd told me to."

"You kinda did," he said in a strange voice. "Good thing I was there to catch you."

She didn't know what to say to that, and she couldn't think of anything else to do, so she kissed him. After a moment she felt him respond, felt his arms snake around her, and they leaned forward to press against each other, their naked bodies together.

"So," he murmured. "Let's get you past your nervousness."

As before, he bore her down to the bed, their arms around each other, and after a few moments of kissing began to wander down the line of her jaw, across her neck, around her ears. She had always loved the tingly excitement his lips ignited inside her—but now, compared to the things they had done last night, it felt but a paltry warmth. She felt a moment of loss; something had passed that they could never reclaim.

I guess it was my innocence.

This time she was very conscious of his penis, erect but folded down against her leg. Even through that undersensitive appendage, she could feel its warmth. She hadn't noticed that yesterday—but then, how she could be expected to notice anything about it, when it was inside her.

Soon, he began to kiss his way down her body to her breasts, and without realizing it, she tensed. It wasn't all that surprising a reaction, she decided later; after all, they were one of the most vulnerable parts of her body, and the times someone had touched them intentionally could be counted on one hand. Jon, she would find out later, noticed it too; but he knew there was nothing to be afraid of, and had decided to prove it to her.

And when his mouth closed around her nipple and her mouth opened in pleasure, he did.

What was I afraid of? I loved it when he did this. But it also begged a question. "Why do you suck on my... My breasts. You're not a baby."

He blinked up at her. "Why, don't you like it?"

"I... I like it." It felt wonderful—like his kisses on her neck, like his tongue tickling the backside of her ear, but better, and stronger. "But... Is it going to feel that way with a baby?" That would just be weird, in her opinion.

He shrugged. "I don't know. When you have one, tell me." And with that, he returned to his suckling, awakening strings of fire inside her that raced and pulsed through her in waves and ran her breath ragged through her mouth.

He transferred on occasion from one to the other, leaving the nipple shiny and contracted and a little bit cold in the nippy air, only to return, and each time the tide inside her rose higher and higher. He noticed her arm curled around his head, drawing him in closer, and wondered when that had happened. She could still feel his penis—his... cock? Where had that term come from?—pressed against her outer thigh, and his body all along hers, and most of all his breath and the touch of his lips on her nipples as he licked and sucked and pulled.

"Does it... Does it go any farther than this," she asked.

He stopped. "Hunh?"

"I mean... It feels good, but... Last time, you did this and then you put your hand... Down there... And then you put your thing down there, and, it was nice, but..."

"Oh," he said. "Yeah, it goes any farther than this. If I do my job right, you have an orgasm."

"I have a... What?"

He gaped at her. "What went on in your Sex Ed class? Oh, wait, homeschooled, never mind. What was your Sex Ed class? Must've been something like, Just don't. Oh, for crying out loud..."

"What's an orgasm," she asked.

"It's... Oh, God, how do I explain. It's what sex leads up to."

She was lost, and surely it showed on her face.

"Okay, we have to do a biology lesson, a little bit. Some crazy scientists named Masters and Johnson (such great names for sexual researchers, wouldn't you say?) did the research and discovered that there's four basic phases of human sexual response. First is arousal, which is what you're going through now. Bloodflow to your pelvic region increases, which makes a man's penis hard and makes you start to get wet down there, among other things. Plus heart rate and so on." His hand cupped her breast as he spoke, and continued its ministrations—which made it a little hard to concentrate.

"Next is plateau, which is just a steady building-up. Everything just keeps growing—the penis gets harder, the vagina expands and the uterus moves to make room inside you for the penis. Orgasm is the third phase. It's the release of all the pent-up sexual energy. In men, that's when ejaculation happens. In women, it's a little more complex."

"That's... That's when the egg is released?" she said, grasping for the nearest metaphor. "Wait, no, that's what happens during her period."

"Yeah. Scientists aren't really sure what orgasm accomplishes. It causes your vagina and uterus to contract several times, and I think there are other things that happen too but I don't remember them. Some women describe it as being sort of like a sneeze, but down there. But the point is, it feels good. It feels really good."

She frowned. Sneezing out of her private parts didn't sound all that pleasurable. "I don't think I've ever had one of those."

"Probably not," he agreed. "I think you'd know if you had."

"So... You do all these things... So that I have an orgasm?"

"Yeah, so that you come," he said, which confused her even more. Come where? "But, it's hard. Most women report that... Well. It's not easy, let's just leave it at that. I'll try. But I don't know if I'll succeed."

She was a little surprised by his intensity. "That's okay," she said magnanimously. "I'm sure you will be sufficient to the task."

"Here's hoping," he grumbled, before attacking her breast again. Then there were no words, and she was lost once again on the ebb and tide of feelings that did, in fact, feel very, very good.

It wasn't too long before she felt his hand began to drift yet lower, and she felt the crimson tingles all down her stomach before his fingers began to brush gently through her pubic hair. He didn't put anything inside her, not yet, but his hand cupping her outside sent tingles and a rush of warmth up her spine, and her legs parted almost involuntarily. She didn't hear the noises she made, the mewing gasps or the whispered encouragements. She didn't notice her hand latching onto his, keeping it from withdrawing from her pubic region. She was lost in a world of her own, a world of their making.

But when finally she felt an intrusion, slipping easily into her passage, she stopped and looked up. "Finger again?"

He blinked. "Why, what's wrong with it?"

"I thought you were... Giving me an..." She hesitated over the unfamiliar word. "Orgasm."

"I am."

"With your hand? I thought you had to use your... You know. Thing."

"Huh? Oh, no, not hardly. Having intercourse is actually one of the worst ways to make a woman come."

This time she caught the word from context: it must be a slang term for 'orgasm.' At least it's easier to say. "Why not? I thought sex is supposed to feel good."

"It does," he said. "But... Well, biology lesson number two. Do you know what the clitoris is?"

"Umm..." She'd heard whispered talk about it, of course, and occasionally run into a reference in a textbook. She knew it was part of her equipment down there, but nothing more. "No, not really."

"It's the... It would be your penis, if you were a guy."

"So, I... I pee out if it?"

"No, no, it would... You don't. Just, the sticky-outy part of the penis. If the baby is male, it turns into the penis in the womb. If not, it stays clitoris."

"So what does it do, then?" she asked.

His hand moved, a tiny bit, and suddenly pleasure washed over her in a dizzying wave.

"That," he said.

"Oh..." she breathed.

"It's actually the only organ on either gender that has no other purpose but sexual pleasure," he said.

"Wow." She giggled. "I feel lucky."

"See, here's—" She felt his finger, sliding into her. "Here's your vagina. Here's your pussy." It slid out again, and began to travel up towards her pubic hair. "But up here..." The wave of joy again. "... is the clit. When I'm down here..." His finger slid inside her again. "There's not much contact on it, is there? And it doesn't feel anywhere near as good, because there just aren't as many nerves in your vagina as there are in your clit. So, sexual intercourse doesn't do the job very well."

"So, how do you do it?" she asked. Not that she was trying to drop hints or anything, but she definitely wanted more.

"You work on the clit directly," he said. "With fingers, or your hand, or your mouth."

"Your mouth?" She'd heard the term 'oral sex' before, but never considered what it meant. "Isn't that... Why would you want to put your mouth down there?" Isn't it dirty? was what she wanted to ask, but then, this whole act involved naughty bits, so maybe that was a redundant question. And the scary thing was, he was already heading south.

"Because it feels good for you?" he said. And then his head descended between her legs.

Afterwards, she would have conscious recollection what would ultimately prove to be her first orgasm (clearly, he was sufficient to the task). She had no real idea what process he went through down there; eventually, years and months later, when sex had become a natural part of her, she would be able to reconstruct it, but of that day she would only remember flashes and instants and impressions. There was his breath, warm on her sex; and then the first touch of his lips as he kissed her; and then an immediate impulse of pleasure when he first began to suck on her clit. After that there was only groaning and thrashing and her hands tangled in his hair and the rising of her moans until the crescendo, release showering through her like fronds from a firework, and then the long aftermath as her heart slowed down.

When she came to, he was wrapped around her, holding her tight. "You were right," she mumbled. "It was good."

"Toldja," he said, in that insufferably smug tone.

"Shut up."

"If you enjoyed it," he said, in an entirely different tone, "it was worth it."

"Hee." What she didn't know was that the process had taken over an hour. In fact, it would be some time until she grasped just what a miracle it was that he—a stranger, someone outside herself—had managed to give her her first orgasm.

"How are you," she asked.

"Umm," he said, shuffling himself. "Pretty good."

She became aware of his erect penis again, and realized just what was going through his head. She was feeling a little bit too comfortable to move, but if that was what he wanted... "Did you want to... You know?"

"I don't have to put it inside you," he said, almost apologetically. "There are... Other ways."

"Like?"

"Well... You could do to me what I just did to you."

That sounded kind of interesting, but it also sounded like a lot of work. "No, just... Go ahead," she said. She supposed she ought to be grateful, but at the moment, she would almost rather him to just climb onboard and do his thing. (Looking back on this moment in later years, she would think, What a guy I was being. Have an orgasm, fall asleep. Good thing Jon kept pushing me... )

"All right," said Jon, undaunted. "Here—let's try something new." Now his arms were around her shoulders, drawing her up. "Let's get some blankets on, it's cold..."

Sleepily, she accepted warmth and shelter, settling against him.

"Okay, now— Let's do it this way. Caitlyn?"

"Mmm."

"Are you awake?"

Not really. "... Sure."

"All right then," he said, "help yourself," and the tone of his voice made her open her eyes. She saw him lying beside her, on his back, grinning over at her—naked from the waist up, the blankets tossed back, and his penis proud and erect and jutting into the air.

She started to protest that she was too tired—and that, furthermore, there was no way of making this work!—but even as she opened her mouth, she started seeing how it could be done. She would need to sling one leg over him and basically sit on top of him... The idea piqued her curiosity—and opened a deep hunger inside her.

Shrugging out of the blankets, she knelt above him on the bed, straddling him, feeling him brush her inner thighs as she did. After that it was hard to look down and see what was going on—she had breasts in the way—so she asked him to put himself in the right place, and a moment later she felt the touch of his cock at her entrance, and then more as he rubbed himself up and down her sex. Cock? Well... It's strange, but in the heat of the moment, it sure beats 'penis.'

She began to sink down on him, slowly, feeling him push up inside her. It was a strange feeling, to have something there where nothing normally was, but not an uncomfortable one. She felt... Full. Full in a way she had never felt before; full in a way she had never known she could feel.

When at last her buttocks touched the top of his legs, when at last he was as fully inside her as he could be, she could have sworn that he was deeper inside her than last time, and she could feel the revving heat inside her, that perilous climb to orgasm that had been so good. He was right, there was no pressure on her clitoris—but as she leaned forward to look down at him, it pressed against his skin, and she trembled.

His hands reached up to cup her breasts, and then to her shoulders, to pull her down to him; inside herself, she felt him withdraw a little. "I've always wanted to do this," he whispered.

It was pretty nice to her, too. "Well, I'm glad you got your wish," she whispered, and then kissed him deeply as she lay supine on him, his cock (penis) deep within and his arms around her.

"So, what do I do," she asked.

"You just... You move your hips up and down," he said. "Make me go in and out of you."

"And then you..." Tasting the word for the first time. "Come?"

"Eventually, yeah— Oh shit, we forgot to put on the condom!"

Caitlyn made a face. "Why did we bother with all that if we're gonna forget to—"

"There's still time, go ahead—"

She lifted off of him while he dug in the nightstand. Coming out with a foil square, he tore open the top, revealing a dome of translucent latex with a ring around the outside. When he placed the dome on the tip of his penis, the ring turned out to be the rest of the condom, unrolling now like Venetian blinds. In a trice he was clad and ready for action. She made a note to herself to learn how he did it.

It felt different this time: drier, somehow, and his entrance less smooth. She supposed that might be the condom—after all, they weren't actually made of rubber but they were called that, and what would it be like to stick something rubber inside her? He also felt more slick, less bumpy—and not in a good way. She instantly understood just what a smart instinctive choice she had made, for their pleasure if not for their future, by letting him penetrate her uncovered that first time.

He must have sensed it too, for his finger found her clitoris again, and she shuddered and tremored with him still inside of her. It felt wildly, marvelously good. Later she would realize that her pussy had contracted instinctively at his touch, and long eventual experience would teach her that squeezing down with her pussy muscles felt a lot better when there was something—say, his cock—inside it.

I guess pussy beats 'vagina' too. It's too... Scientific.

"Whenever you're ready," he said.

She didn't think she would have an orgasm this time, and she didn't. Which was not to say that it didn't feel good, because it did; it just wasn't anything on the level of him using his mouth on her crotch. Now that he had mentioned it, she could feel bursts of pleasure every time that sensitive bud brushed against his penis or his body, and soon she learned to maneuver herself so that it happened on every stroke. She remained prone, kissing him, for a time, but then sat upright above him, for the pleasure of the added depth. She felt him moving below, withdrawing out of her when she moved up and meeting her back on her downstroke. And she was able to watch his face—his mouth open, eyes closed, eyebrows drawn, the quickness of his breath, the expression on his face like he was reaching for something. She had never seen it before, but she thought she rather liked it.

When he came—had his orgasm—it was rather different, because of the latex condom. She felt an almost imperceptible swell within her, and then an increased warmth up near the top of the slick not-quite-penis within her. His face told her more, really: the way his mouth opened, his gasping, the soft moan he made. And then he fell quiescent beneath her, and she knew he was done.

She leaned down, accepting his arms around her. "I love you."

"And I love you."

She thought she could have fallen asleep in his arms, just like this, without him even withdrawing—she had a hunch he could too—but he groaned and said, "I need to take off the condom." And after that, there wasn't much point. She watched him squeeze out the air and tie a knot in the end, and then stuff it back in the wrapper. Though quite a bit longer than when it had come out, it was fairly flat and scrunched in pretty well. Then, when he was done, he coaxed her back into her position over him, draped down on him like a blanket. A moment later she felt the comforters around her shoulders. It was still sinfully good.

"It's backwards," she said after a moment. Normally he was the one cradling her; now it was the other way around.

"I know," he said. "But variety is the spice of life, right? And besides, I like it."

"You do?" She hadn't known that about him.

"Just, you always needed to be held more than I did."

That was true as far as it went, she supposed, but it still surprised her. He had always seemed so self-sufficient. She had come to him with her emptiness and her loss and he had always had the answers. The thought that he might need pampering, just as much as she did... 

Well. I've always wanted to give something back to him, haven't I?

"Well," she said. "Any time you want me, my love."

His arms slid around her, holding her to him tightly. "Yay."



-------

Part 3


Day 3

The first thing that happened the next morning was a phone call from Reverend Pendleton.

Actually, to be proper, the first thing that happened that morning was that they woke up. Jon was quite happy to do so: he had remembered to turn the alarm off this time, so there was no jolting and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Instead, he swam up from drowsiness to a faceful of Caitlyn's hair, which was ticklish but very nice. He had had worries that this position might be uncomfortable for prolonged use, and with a heavier woman he still thought it might be; but Caitlyn weighed about 105, and she made a lovely blanket. His morning wood was very much in evidence, and on occasion brushed lightly against her pussy lips, which gave him an idea.

Though she was still asleep, he was able to find her ear with his lips, especially its backside which she loved him to kiss and lick. He did not have access to her breasts, which were still pressed against his chest, but it was enough; within moments she was awake.

"Mmmm," she said. "Hi."

"Hi," he said. "Turn over."

Soon she was on her side, with him spooned up behind her, his arm looped around her and his hand on her breast, where it so naturally belonged. Her nipples were stiff and erect, begging for attention, and he did not deny her, caressing them with his hand while he continued on her ears and neck and throat with his mouth. When he reached below and found her wet and wanting, he knew what to do.

"Pass me a condom," he murmured.

It was a bit of a trick to get it on blind and one-handed, but he did. Then he coaxed her legs open and slid into her from behind, their bodies still pressed together, feeling her all the way down him, and especially her warm, tight embrace surrounding his cock. The condom sucked—it didn't feel anywhere near as good as unclad—and he had nowhere near the depth that front-to-front positions afforded, but maybe that was for the best; he had never had the longest of fuses, and the fact that he had to urinate was not going to help things.

It was a slow, languorous time, without the urgency of their previous sessions; it was like they were half-asleep, and maybe they were. He swung his arm around to fondle her breasts, sending the other one south to play where the real action was going. He felt his own latex-covered cock, and then the petal-soft folds and lips of her pussy, and then finally the sweet secret bud that was the center of her pleasure. His lips still continued their assault on her ear, and judging by Caitlyn's moans and the way she moved, her hips meeting his every thrust, her breasts presented proudly to her hands, she must be in heaven.

Eventually—far too soon, in his estimation—it was too much, and he pushed himself in as deep as he could go and exploded inside her. "Mmm," she said, holding herself still, and his cock clenched and spasmed and let loose its seed, and she turned her head up to kiss him and said, "Good morning."

"Good morning," he said.

"That was a good way to wake up," she said.

"I liked it too," he said. "Did you... Did you have an orgasm?"

"No, I didn't come," she said, surprising him. Where had she learned that word?

"Do you want me to... Finish you off?"

"Well..." She shrugged. "If you want to. I don't mind either way."

"Mmm," said Jon. The truth was, he wanted to be lazy—but how cruel was that? He'd come every time they'd had sex over the past three days, but she only once. A kind husband would give her the same gift she had given him, and he wanted to, but it was just so much work... 

He was shaken from his ruminations by the ringing of a cellphone. He recognized the ringtone, but it wasn't his—it was Caitlyn's.

Caitlyn's eyes fluttered in surprise, and she scrambled from the bed. Jon glanced at the clock and noted in passing that it was 9:30 AM. Evidently this caller believed in punctuality.

"Hello?" said Caitlyn. "Yes, speaking... Oh, hi, Reverend!"

Jon blinked. What? The only Reverend they knew was Lawrence Pendleton, who had married them not two days hence. Why was he calling them?

"Fine," Caitlyn was saying, "just fine... Um, no, unfortunately, we're not on a honeymoon... We don't have the time or the money. But Jon has a few days off, and we're definitely enjoying ourselves... Oh, mostly business. We opened a joint bank account and found out we had a little more money than we thought we did... We started looking for jobs and a place to live... Heehee. We had to go look for some contraception... Hee. Actually, yes, they're great. I'm really enjoying what we do together." This was about the time Jon's eyebrows climbed into his hair. "Hum? No, not really. I mean, we didn't hurt anyone or lose anything by waiting until we got married. But it's nice to not have to wait anymore!

"Huh? —Oh, sure! Um." She covered the mouthpiece with a hand. "Jon, he wants to talk to you."

Jon blinked. Why would Lawrence Pendleton want to talk to him?

"Hello, Mr. Stanford?"

"Hi, Pastor Pendleton."

"From Caitlyn's description, it sounds like things are going really well for you two."

Jon gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, well. It's only been two days. Give it time."

Reverend Pendleton did laugh. "Yes, I suppose even the strongest marriages have tough days. But, actually... That's what I wanted to speak to you about."

About tough days? "All right..."

"You've been coming to Shellview Federated for a while. Have you ever heard me mention that I provide pre-marriage counseling?"

He had. "Umm... Isn't it a bit late for that, sir?"

Rev. Pendleton laughed again. "'Sir.' Call me Larry, Jon."

"Umm. Okay. Larry." God, how uncomfortable could you get?

"And, yes, it obviously is a little bit late, but better that than never, right?"

"So, you want us to come..."

"It's not an interrogation or anything. I just sit down with you and Caitlyn and we talk about what factors help make a marriage work or not work, and which parts you guys are good at and which parts you may need to look out for in the future. How does that sound to you?"

Clergy made Jon nervous, but he had to admit that, if he and Caitlyn were to make this work, they could use this sort of advice. "That sounds like a good idea, si— Reve— Larry."

Caitlyn mouthed, Sirrevellary?

"All right then. Let me run it by Caitlyn, but, hypothetically, shall we say in an hour?"

"That, uh. That sounds fine to me." They'd have to shower quickly, but he thought they could make it.

"Alrighty then. Pass me on back to Caitlyn, if you would be so kind."

Caitlyn took the phone back. "Hello?... Yeah?... Umm... Actually, yes, that does sound smart. And Jon agreed?... Really? Wow. All right... Okay, an hour it is. Thanks, Reverend!"

She folded the phone up. "We gotta hurry."

They did. They showered together, but for the sake of efficiency there was no playing around; one applied soap while the other huddled under the water. Jon ceded the hair-dryer to Caitlyn, who had a lot more of it, and simply turned on a small fan to hasten his own drying process while he checked his e-mail. He was a little chilly, but it did the job. By 10:05, they were out the door.

To reach Reverend Pendleton's office, they had to go through the Sanctuary, which was what Caitlyn's denomination called their church. Jon had never quite felt comfortable here. When there was a service going, he could blend into the crowd, and besides he had Caitlyn to countenance his presence. But right now the Sanctuary was empty—it was, after all, Wednesday morning—and he heard his own echoing footsteps as an invasion of holy ground.

"I don't belong here," he whispered to Caitlyn.

"Nonsense," she said. "Everyone belongs here. That's the point of Christ."

"Even a heathen sinner like me?"

"Especially a heathen sinner. Jon, we were all heathen sinners at one point. None of us were born pure. Christ knows that. It's not about living a sinless life; that's impossible. It's about finding salvation in Jesus Christ."

"Yeah," said Jon. "And there's another reason I'm not Catholic anymore."

Before she could respond to this, they reached Larry Pendleton's office, and he greeted them at the door. "Welcome, Mr. Stanford. Welcome, Mrs. Stanford. And, as a Methodist, may I say: it's very smart not to be Catholic."

Jon felt his eyebrows climbing up into his hair. Larry Pendleton gave them a grin and ushered them into his office.

For a few minutes there was only formalities and pleasantries, small talk and banter. Lawrence Pendleton had always had been a somewhat drawn man, pale of coloring, and thin as though his faith had emaciated him. This, combined with his preaching, had always given Jon the impression of someone who was, to be perfectly blunt, rather fanatic in his faith. But here he was also personable, and friendly, and charming. He had charisma, of course; a man needed that, to be a successful minister. But he was not cloistered away from the world in the way Jon, with his Catholic upbringing, had been taught was appropriate for members of the clergy. He was able to connect with them, and meet them on their terms.

"I must admit, this is an interesting occasion for me," said Reverend Pendleton. "The first time I met you, Caitlyn, you were... Twelve, I think? It was back up in Washington State. And you were just dwarfed by that giant harp of yours." She was still a good eleven inches shy of it. "But boy, your playing. Do you remember the applause? And then when I was transferred here, and your grandparents and your family took the opportunity to move as well..." He shook his head. "It's almost like trying to sit here and advise my daughter Kim on her marriage. Which would be kind of scary, because she's only sixteen.

"Of course, you're not even twenty-two yet, Caitlyn, and yet here you are. You guys both went to Greenfield University, right? My friend Katrina says she knows a few people down there who are already married, but on the whole, we don't get it. What's up in your generation, that you folks are starting so early?"

"Well," said Caitlyn. "We were planning to wait for at least another year and a half, until I got my Master's degree. But... Things happened."

"But things happened," Rev. Pendleton agreed, nodding. "Boy, how often that seems to be the case. I remember the rush when my friend Dawn got pregnant. This was back when I had just gone through college—you know, 'round the age of the dinosaurs. Well, everyone knew Dawn and Jeremy were meant for each other, so in some ways the marriage was just a formality. And what do you know? Megan is a wonderful, beautiful twenty-year-old, just as kind as her mother and as wise as her father. Or, at least, as near as we can tell. They stayed up in New England, so Amber and I don't get to see them as much as we'd like."

Jon's curiosity was piqued. "This friend of yours—"

"Dawn Graves," said Rev. Pendleton.

"She got pregnant before she was married? And... That wasn't problematic for you?" He was thinking specifically of the Christian taboo on pre-marital sex.

Lawrence Pendleton did not disappoint him. "Well... I don't think it's smart," he said. "I mean, the writers of the Bible put things in for a reason, not just on a whim. But it wasn't really my place, you know? I'm not Jeremy, I'm not Dawn, and what I decide for myself, or what Amber and I decide for ourselves, has nothing to do with what the Graveses decide, or the Stantons, or anyone we know. I think it's a personal thing. I think it's between you and God. Now, Dawn and Jeremy might have some explaining to do when they meet Him, but again, that's their choice. And in terms of harm... Well, it would've been nice if they'd waited, but they did get married, they're still married, I have no doubt their children are wonderful people... It could have been much worse. And I'm sure He'll take that into account.

"I think what Jeremy said they decided was, it'll happen sooner or later, so why not sooner? Well, to prove you can hold off, is why, but again, that's between you and God. They didn't ask me what I thought, so I didn't tell them; I just prayed that things would turn out okay. And, in this case, God has been kind enough to grant us that prayer."

Jon was impressed, despite himself.

"Why," said Rev. Pendleton, his eyes twinkling, "is there some pre-marital iniquity you and Caitlyn needed to discuss?"

"What?" said Jon. "Oh, no, not... Caitlyn was very... Steadfast."

"Which must've been hard for you," said Rev. Pendleton.

"Well... Yes, to some extent," said Jon. "I mean, there's this rock song out on the Internet called Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me—you know, 'Does anybody else get that feeling?' And I think that really adequately expresses the... I mean, it makes you feel like something's wrong with you, you know? How come all these other people, who aren't any better or smarter or kinder or... Or maybe they are smarter, because they aren't dating someone who wants to save herself for marriage. Either way, it doesn't make you feel good about yourself. You start wondering what's wrong with you."

Caitlyn was looking at him in clear disbelief.

"But, on the other hand... No, it wasn't all that hard," said Jon. "You have to realize, the first time I brought up the idea of marrying Caitlyn was... Within about four weeks of our first date. We've been bandying this idea around for a long time. And the first thing we agreed on was that we were going to get married. So when Caitlyn says, Not until then, it's sort of a No, but at the same time, it's also a Yes, just, not now. And that's a lot easier to deal with than a flat-out 'No, ' especially a 'No' that isn't being said by anyone because you're not actually dating, much less planning your wedding."

Reverend Pendleton nodded. "It is. I remember those nights very well. Sometimes I'd sit and pray to God, and His answer would be, 'No.' Which isn't very easy to accept, no matter who says it. Caitlyn, I know Jon was your first boyfriend. Didn't you ever feel that way?—like maybe there was something wrong with you?"

Caitlyn, who still had the remains of a first-class gape on her face, said, "Well... Yes, kind of, but..."

"But not about sex," said Jon.

"There's nothing wrong with that," said Rev. Pendleton. "I forget who did this study, but they found out that the average male thinks about sex once a minute. The average female, on the other hand, thinks about it maybe five times a day. Men are just more preoccupied with sex. It's genetic."

"It was more about... Just, relationships in general," said Caitlyn. "Even my homeschool friends managed to meet people and get dates and all. What did they have that I didn't? I could never figure it out, and God wasn't saying much."

"The hard thing about God is that He sends us what we need, which may or may not be what we want," Rev. Pendleton agreed. Jon was surprised again.

"Well. The good news is, that's all behind you. The two of you are married, and happily so, at first glance. Now let's talk about how to keep you that way.

"The way most relationships start is with two things: physical attraction and some common interest. Jon, you see a girl, or Caitlyn, you see a guy, and you think, 'Ooh, looks good. I would want to, ' as the kids say nowadays, 'get with that.' " He pronounced it with such precise diction that the newlyweds had to laugh. "That's how you know to talk to them. Then you get a chance to actually talk, and you find out you both have something in common. That's how a lot of these things start.

"But we all know that physical attractiveness is no good rubric of relational success. I happen to think Eva Longoria is an extremely attractive woman, but that doesn't mean we would get along." Jon was surprised; he had met Amber Pendleton, who was Caitlyn's height but easily twice her weight, and the woman had nothing in common with Eva Longoria. "Common habits are good too, but not enough either; both Hitler and Churchill enjoyed painting, and we all know how that turned out. So what makes for the foundations of a good marriage?"

He looked at Caitlyn and Jon in turn; they had no answer for him.

"The answer is shared values," said Rev. Pendleton. "The most important determining factor in a stable marriage is whether the husband and wife want the same things out of their lives. If they hold the same beliefs and are united in their goals, they are far more likely to weather the inevitable crises of their lives together.

"Have you two ever talked about this before?"

Jon felt a wave of relief. He'd noticed many years ago that he was looking for a woman who was almost identical to him, and had worried for a long time whether he was crazy, or maybe just narcissistic. But at the same time, he was a little embarrassed, because... "No, not really. We, um. Well, we talked about our lives—about what we might want to see in our futures, but... Never in much detail." What a stupid idea was that?

"Well, no time like the present," said Rev. Pendleton, smiling broadly to cover up the shock he must certainly be feeling. "Jon, why don't you go first, then? Tell us what you'd like to see in your life."

Oh, wait, now I remember why we never talked about it. "Well..." This was really embarrassing. "There's a video game called The Sims where you get to basically invent and control these simulated people. You make them cook, you make them eat, you make them go to their jobs... It's just real life, but it's crazily addictive, no one knows why. Recently they've come up with a way to factor in mood and self-esteem. The Sim has slots for Hopes and Fears. Fulfilling a Hope—fall in love, have first kiss, kids get into a good school, stuff like that—adds self-esteem points, fulfilling a Fear subtracts them. If the bar gets too far into the red, they go nuts—literally, they start going bonkers and this psychologist has to come and straighten them out.

"The thing that determines which specific Hopes and Fears pop up, is the Sim's Aspiration, which is their overall life goal. There's six basic Aspirations: Knowledge, Wealth, Family, Romance, Popularity and Pleasure, or maybe just Comfort. —Oh, and, Grilled Cheese, but you only get that if they use a machine that malfunctions."

Rev. Pendleton laughed. "Grilled Cheese as a life goal. Well, I'm sure stranger things have happened."

"So," said Caitlyn, squinting at him. He'd taught her to play The Sims, only to be alarmed by the truly dysfunctional characters she made. And then set on fire. "I guess you'd be... I dunno, Knowledge, maybe, or Wealth."

Jon felt his face heating. "I'm a Family Sim."

It felt so feminine to him. Wasn't a man supposed to be brawny and resilient? Not sensitive, not touchy-feely, not... "And you have to understand, there's a blurring going on. 'Romance' Aspiration is really more of a Promiscuity Aspiration. Hopes include being in love with three people, having sex with more than three people—not at once, but over the course of their lifetime. Things like that. Whereas all the things that are normally ascribed to romance—true love, soul mates, happily-ever-after, stuff like that—go into Family instead. So, what am I? I'm a Family Sim. I'm a die-hard romantic. And that sort of thing is what I want from my life."

In later years, he would be totally surprised he could say all that with a straight face. An utterly red one, yes—but a straight one.

"Well," said Rev. Pendleton. "You're a handsome guy, Jon. In our culture of masculinity, I can understand why that might be a hard admission to make. But if you look at your wife right now, I think you'll notice just how pleased she is."

Jon looked, and, yes: Caitlyn had a huge, almost foolish grin on her face, and her eyes were shining.

"And, speaking as a fellow Family Sim," said Rev. Pendleton, smiling now, "I think it's a very important calling to go into. True, we're not the ones who ever get written up in the history books... But we're the reason anyone's around to read the history books. Where would the human race be, if it weren't for people who were willing to dedicate their lives to raising a good family?"

Jon felt a little better. Though he was sure his face was still red.

"So, Jon, tell me: has Caitlyn ever expressed wants and goals like yours?"

Jon squinted back into the dim past. "Yeah, I, I think so..."

"And tell me, wasn't that about the time you really fell for her?"

Jon blinked. Now that he mentions it... 

"And Caitlyn, what do you think of this big soft-hearted lunk?" asked Rev. Pendleton, smiling.

Caitlyn gave a happy, tearful grin.

"So, are we in agreement on our first—and most important—shared value?"

Jon and Caitlyn nodded.

"Then we're in business," said Rev. Pendleton. "Now it's just details."

Details, yes: but a lot of them. After ten rather fumbling minutes, Larry Pendleton asked Jon to recount the six aspirations, and he wrote them down and used them to help organize his thoughts. Jon, who had always had a dim impression that he and Caitlyn agreed with many of each other's thoughts but had never bothered to dig any deeper, was surprised at just how frequently they were on the same page. Both felt the need to return for a fourth level of education—Caitlyn was already doing so, and Jon was keenly aware of the lack of earning power inherent in his status as someone with "only" an undergraduate degree, but he had never felt a calling strong enough to commit to. "Besides, it's not like I don't already have a career—family. The problem is, I'm going to need a second career to support my first one." Neither was a large or flamboyant spenders; Caitlyn could spot a bargain from a mile away, and Jon was frugal by nature. Both of them were fans of comfort, especially fine food, but they knew that these were luxuries that would probably have to be abandoned while they struggled to stand on their own four feet. And neither was dissatisfied with their extant sex life—though Larry, winking, reminded them to keep an open dialogue. "I'm sure there are people who could be satisfied with just blindly putting their naughty bits together for the rest of their lives—but I'm not one of them, my wife isn't either, and we don't know anyone like that. So talk to each other. You'll never know what the other wants or enjoys or dislikes unless you talk about it. That's the secret to a happy love life."

He walked them through some of the more practical aspects of life as well. "Try not to let the small things get on your nerves. It's kind of silly to scar or destroy a marriage over something as insignificant as toilet paper, right? And I think the idea of a joint bank account is a good one, because it reminds you that your actions affect someone else besides you."

"Actually, we were kind of worried about financial aspects," Caitlyn said.

"We've been planning and waiting, and been sort of ready to take this last step for quite a while," Jon elaborated, "but as long as Caitlyn lives at home, her parents have said they'll pay for her degree—which she needs, to get any sort of legitimate work as a harpist. On top of that, neither of our finances were in as good a... Well, that's not true, $60,000 isn't bad to start on, but it's also not nearly enough to go with. Eventually, we're going to need... Well, I mean, we were talking about how we might need to get a second car, so that Caitlyn can go to school while I go to work at 6 every morning, and while we're at it we should get a truck or an SUV so we can move her harp around. That's like $30,000 right there. Then we start talking about real estate—an apartment now, eventually a house—and we start zooming straight up near the millions."

"Higher, if you try to live in California," Reverend Pendleton agreed. "Good weather, but not so good on the wallet. They offered me a transfer to a federated church in Saratoga once, in the Silicon Valley? But Amber and I looked at the housing prices and knew immediately we couldn't go. Well, here's an exercise I often do. Caitlyn, let's start with you. Close your eyes... Now, pretend you're entering your house through the front door. Describe what you see."

Caitlyn, with eyes squinted shut, said, "Umm... I see Rex, for one, umm... He's bouncing up and down, practically, because he's so happy to see me. Umm. I see the living room?"

"What's in it?"

"Umm, some couches, some knickknacks of my mom's on the cabinet..."

"All right, perhaps I should be more specific," said Pastor Pendleton, smiling. "What do you see that you either own or made?"

"Umm... There are some paintings on the wall that I did," said Caitlyn, "but, most of them I gave to my parents... Some of the knickknacks are mine..."

Oh, yeah,  Jon thought. She did use to paint. Some of them are pretty good, as I recall. And that was before she stopped painting to learn harp.

"There's... There's nothing else in the living room," said Caitlyn.

"Why don't you keep walking through the house," said Pastor Pendleton, "and telling me what you see."

A major stop was the dining room, which also doubled as Caitlyn's harp repository: her three-quarters as well as her full-size rested there, surrounded by a number of her paintings. The rest of the house, however, was pretty bare... Until they got up the stairs, to her room and the one she had appropriated from Nathan. "Oh boy," said Caitlyn, with a bright grin, "this is going to take a while."

"Why do you think we left it for last?" replied Larry Pendleton with a grin as wide.

Jon had been in these rooms, and they were a sight. Caitlyn had stuffed both closets with clothes, some obtained at bargain price and some at full, but all of unusual make, design or quality. She had painted on the walls, both murals (one in particular a life-size double portrait of two of her fictional characters) and abstract designs. Most of the books and objects and furniture had some sort of sentimental value for her. It had once been Nathan's room, but now it was Caitlyn's.

The room she actually slept in was, if anything, even worse. She had made use of every bit of available space, putting shelves up if necessary. "All this stuff... It'll be a lot of trouble to pack, won't it."

"It will, but the truth of it is, Caitlyn: I don't see possessions, I see dollar signs," said Pastor Pendleton.

Caitlyn grasped at once what he was saying. "I... I guess..."

"I'm not trying to be heartless or entrepreneurial," said Pastor Pendleton. "These are your things, after all, and whether to part with them or not is your decision. What I am trying to do is point out that you have financial resources. You have possessions that can be liquidated. You also have talent. Totally aside from your not-inconsiderable talent at the harp, I was thinking about the paintings, and the origami, and the tap shoes, and even the binders of stories you mentioned. Caitlyn, you are an unspeakably talented person, and if you can find a way to put just one of those talents to work for you..."

A stroke of insight touched Jon's forehead. "Dad's an architect," he said. "You should talk to him about interior design or interior decorating."

"And God said, let there be light, and so there was," said Pastor Pendleton, grinning. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"The origami and painting might be a little harder to turn into a source of income," said Caitlyn.

"Yes, but, the point is not to necessarily have an answer right this second," said Pastor Pendleton. "The point is to identify opportunities that you should keep an eye out for. What if you see an ad in the paper tomorrow offering money for dancers? What if Craigslist has information on a prize contest to invent your own origami design? About 75% of luck is simply being at the right place at the right time. Now that you know what the right place is, all you have to do is wait."

They did the same thing with Jon. His journey felt a lot faster and sparser than Caitlyn's did, but at the end of it both Caitlyn and Pastor Pendleton were impressed. "You were a black belt in karate?" she said. "I never knew that."

"Really?" said Jon, a bit annoyed. He was sure he had mentioned it at least three times.

"And all the things on your computer," said Pastor Pendleton. "Novels, musical compositions, ideas for video games, ideas for comic strips..."

"All half-finished," Jon protested.

"Yes," said Pastor Pendleton, "but that which is half-finished can be fully so, right? And I really liked that one board game idea, of four siblings competing for their father's throne."

"Face it, Jon," said Caitlyn, smiling. "You're talented too."

The one thing they were not able to come to an agreement on was, ironically, the one topic that was not covered by The Sims: religion. Caitlyn bought part-and-parcel into the whole Christian message, but Jon was a lot more skeptical. "I was raised Catholic, and I've heard a lot of stupid stuff from them."

"Would you say you were more spiritual or religious," Rev. Pendleton asked.

"More... More spiritual, if anything," said Jon. "But... I have problems with that too."

"With faith," said Larry.

Jon squirmed uncomfortably. How had he known? "More or less."

Larry Pendleton nodded. "That's not surprising. Things would have been so much easier for God and Man both if God had just made his presence obvious, but for whatever reasons, He didn't, and now Man just has to hope into the heavens."

"It's hard for me to trust in something I can't point to," said Jon.

Caitlyn once again was looking at him like he had grown a second head.

"Can't you point to Caitlyn?" said Reverend Pendleton. "Can't you point to your friends? Can't you point to... Oh, I don't know, because I'm not all that familiar with your personal circumstances, Jon, but there's got to be people in your life who show the presence of God."

"... What?" said Jon.

"God works through human hands," said Caitlyn. "He doesn't send angels or messengers anymore or speak out of the sky. He just sends a person, to be His hands and His mouth and His heart." Her hand caught his, held it fast. "Kind of like how He sent you to me."

When she put it that way, it made a bit more sense, but... "Yeah, but, whatever happened to God speaking in his own voice? To pillars of fire and pillars of salt and, you know, choirs of angels and stuff."

"Maybe they're out of stock," said Rev. Pendleton, a comment that might have been droll if he hadn't been so serious. "Whatever the reason, things like that just don't seem to happen anymore. God works in more mysterious ways now."

"That sucks," said Jon.

"It does," agreed Rev. Pendleton. "I for one have had problems dealing with God, and the things he sends... Because all things come from God, ultimately, which is what makes life so hard to deal with sometimes. My friend Katrina miscarried so badly she was unable to have children ever again. That was from God. My wife was pre-diabetic at the age of forty. That was from God. Things like that aren't easy for any of us to accept."

"Everything?" Jon asked. "Including sin?"

"Yes," said Rev. Pendleton. "Jon, look at sin. Sin starts with something good. Let's just take sex. Sex is good. Sex is a gift. It's God giving mankind a tiny bit of His divine spark, of the creative power that let him conjure world and universes and souls out of nothing. Plus, it's darn good fun. But then Satan gets his hands on it and says, Hey, you know, why not, give it a try, it's harmless—and then we get unwanted pregnancies and prostitutes who have to sell their bodies for their daily bread and the spread of STDs and all sorts of crazy things. But even then, Satan only has his way by preying on inherent human weakness. God made us, just the way we are—susceptible to sin. On some level He must have approved of it."

"But if we're just acting out what God approved of, what's the point?" Jon said. "I mean, He gave us sin, right?"

"Well, yes," said Rev. Pendleton, "but He also gave us the ability to choose. And that's the point, Jon. He wants us to do our best to become better people. Jon, if you were to say what you wanted most for Caitlyn—if you were allowed to choose her destiny—what would you say? What would you choose for her?"

Jon started to give out the generalized platitudes such a question normally inspired... But then stopped, and thought again. This is Caitlyn. She's not the woman of my dreams, she surpassed my dreams. She's everything I ever wanted, and more besides. This is my wife, my love, the woman I want to be the mother of my children. This is the most important person in my life.

Aww, man! How can I possibly narrow it down enough that I could get it all out in one day!

"I would want her to be happy," said Jon quietly. "I'd want her to be able to look back on her life with no regrets. I want her to be able to wake up in the morning and be excited about what she gets to live. I want her to be content, and satisfied, and pleased with what's around her. I want her to be everything she always wanted. I want... I want her to be happy."

There was a period of silence, while Jon felt a tightness in his throat and Caitlyn looked at him with huge, tearful eyes.

"As you wish for Caitlyn," said Rev. Pendleton. "So God wishes for you. But a hundred, a thousand times more, and stronger. Like a spouse, like a parent, God loves you."

"A parent." Jon straightened up. "Like Caitlyn's parents?"

This time the silence was leaden. Then Rev. Pendleton said, "Yes"—an acknowledgement, not an answer. "Yes."

Caitlyn's hand was tight on his own, and her face was grim.

"How much do you know," Jon asked.

Rev. Pendleton sighed. "How much do I know? A little. How much do I suspect? A great deal more. You have to remember, Jon, Caitlyn, that I have been watching you for almost ten years. One picks up things during that length of time. In comparison, I was with my best friends for only three years in college. You can learn a lot about people in a short amount of time, is the point. Ten years has been enough to gather a lot of speculation... But precious few bits of real fact."

"What do you want to know?" Jon asked.

"I don't know," said Larry Pendleton. "What do you want to tell me?"

Jon looked at Caitlyn. She returned him a long, haunted look... And then a deep sigh.

The version she told was different from she had said last night. It was a little faster, a little more compact; evidently, just the one repetition had given her enough feedback to do some editing. It was far more linear, however—starting with Nathan's departure, wandering through the speculation on her mother's motives and her father's passive acceptance of the chaos around him, but then expanding Jon's role in it. "I was desperate. I just wanted to back away and hide inside my own head and never come out. I... I had the good fortune of being able to talk to Jon about it, and when he heard what I was thinking, all he said was, 'Sweetie, what I'm hearing is that you're basically suicidal, ' and he's been looking out for me ever since."

"And more than that," Larry observed.

Much more,  Jon thought to himself. She was right, I did say that—but what she didn't say, what I didn't know until just a moment ago, was that that was the moment I started to fall in love with her. Because she let me inside her for the first time in our lives. —Emotionally, of course, not physically... But of the two, which has proved more important?

"Well..." said Larry. "That's... Well. There's a part of me that's a little pleased that I guessed correctly—I mean, I have friends who are psychologists, but I'm just a minister. But there's another part of me that's not happy at all I got it right, because the guesses were not about good thing." It was such an understatement that Jon almost had to laugh.

"Suicidal, eh?" said Larry.

"We're both writers," Jon said, attempting to explain. "We both have a lot of experience coming up with characters and deciding storylines. There are a lot of influences and personalities that we carry around in our heads."

"That's what my psychologist friend says, and he writes too," said Larry. "But I don't see how..."

"Well, I literally do have characters living in my head," said Caitlyn. "And sometimes, the urge is to, just... I dunno, retreat. Go in, and spend time with them. Live with them. Not come out. They understand me. They care about me. I didn't have anyone like them in real life until Jon came along."

Jon checked a frown. 'The urge is to'?

"So, not literally," said Larry. "But, to all intents and purposes."

"Yes," said Caitlyn.

"All right," said Larry. "I ask because, as a minister, I'm actually obligated by law to have you hospitalized if I find too many signs of suicidal behavior or ideation. Now, while I think it might be beneficial in the long run to do so, I don't think Jon would appreciate me stealing his wife away from him, so we'll sneak you through the cracks. But keep in mind that if things do get ugly, most ministers and all teachers have this legal obligation, and you can use it as an escape route."

"Okay," said Caitlyn.

"But, the good news is, you're free," said Larry. "I mean, you don't have to go back. You're a married woman now, with her own home (eventually) and family (eventually) to take care of. If you don't want to deal with your parents anymore, you don't have to."

"Well, for one, I do have to," said Caitlyn, "because I doubt either of us will stop coming to church. But, even more than that... I do want to, as well. I want to see if I can make peace with my mother. I want to... Nathan just left, just got up and walked away, and while I know he's happy to be free, I also know he wishes he could've made a more peaceable exit. I don't want to do the same. I do want to go back there. I left my mother and father, but I don't want to abandon them."

Larry Pendleton was silent for a long moment.

"Turning the other cheek," he said finally, "is one of the hardest things Christ ever called us to do. But it's also the most important. If there is anything I can do to support you in this difficult time, Caitlyn..."

One of the dumbest things Christ ever called us to do,  Jon thought, but nobody was asking him his opinion. "There is something you could do," he said, and Caitlyn outlined the plan.

"Hmm," said Larry. "That's a little above and beyond. What would Jesus do in a situation like this? It swings both ways. I have nothing but sympathy for you and your plight, Caitlyn," he said, intercepting their confusion before it could rise, "but as a minister, it's in my job description to stay neutral. No matter what happens, no matter who wins, both sides are going to need healing and reconciliation. If I plant myself on one side—yours, in this case—I forfeit my ability to minister to the other. And I'm not sure that's a choice I should be making or even considering.

"I'll need to discuss it with my wife. Having said that, if Amber suddenly shows up on your behalf, you'll understand why." He winked broadly.

"What are you going to tell my mom, if she asks?" Caitlyn said as they prepared to depart.

"Nothing," said Rev. Pendleton. "She of course has a right to know what's going on in her household—but you, Mrs. Caitlyn Stanford, are not a part of that household any longer. And, if she wants to know what's going on in the marriage of Jon and Caitlyn Stanford, she of course is free to ask them herself—but it's not my place to tell her anything. Unless, of course, you want me to tell her something."

"Something about the harp, maybe?" said Jon. "We had to leave it because it wouldn't fit in my car."

"At the very least, I'll probably need it for church on Sunday," said Caitlyn.

"Well, we couldn't deprive ourselves of our favorite harpist," said Larry, smiling broadly.

It was after one 'o'clock when they came out. They found the nearest McDonald's to assuage their hunger, though Jon gave a dubious glance at his wallet; the meeting had given him a keen sense of expenditure. Then they headed back for another squint at Craigslist.

Caitlyn was clearly surprised when Jon started marking down job offers he thought he'd like to look into, but he shook his head. "I love Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton. They're great people, and I have a great job there. But $40,000 a year isn't enough to go on, not with you in the picture."

"I could get a job," she said.

"You could, but you have a degree to finish, and we need the money now. You don't graduate for a year and a half. Your finals are next week. Maybe it'll be practical for you to get a job next year, or even next semester, but for the moment..."

"Yeah, but, that's just for the moment," she said. "Jon, once I get my degree, I can get a real job, and make some real money."

"Yeah, but I still have to make more than $40,000 a year," he said. "Because what happens when you start having kids? You talked about wanting to be a stay-at-home mom."

"You talked about wanting to be a stay-at-home dad," she said.

"Yeah, but, we can't both. Unless we take out massive loans or something."

"So why you?"

"Because... What's the point of a husband, if not to support his wife?"

"Umm."

"Look. Do you know why marriage started?"

"No."

"It's biological. It has to do with how men and women have children."

"Isn't it the exact same way?"

"Not really. Let's take a caveman named Bob. He wants to have tons of kids. So, the smartest thing for him to do is go out and have sex with tons of women. It's easy for him to have sex—doesn't even take five minutes, if he just climbs on board and then squirts and then leaves again. And, by the laws of probability, about a quarter of Bob's sex partners will be fertile. So, if he gets it on with twenty women, in nine months he'll have five kids. But he's not even there to see them, 'cause, once he was done, he went stumping back off into the wild blue yonder or the jungle or whatever—keep in mind that we are really talking a caveman society here. Subsistence-level. Hunter-gatherer."

"Okay."

"So. If Bob just wander around, having sex with every woman he sees, he'll leave a bunch of children behind. And that ensures Bob's genetic legacy will live on, because the more kids he has, the more likely some of them will live to adulthood, and have their own kids, and keep his genetic heritage alive."

"Right. Following you so far."

"Now. Let's take a cavewoman named Sue. What's her smartest strategy if she wants to have tons of kids? Keep in mind that after Bob has had sex with her and made her pregnant and stumped back off into the jungle, she still has to bear the child. That's a nine-month process, during at least three of which she's practically paraplegic. Then the baby pops out, and she's breast-feeding it for two years, and toddling it for another three. All during this time, Sue can't fend for herself. She isn't getting much sleep because every time the baby wakes up and cry, she has to stick her boob in its mouth. She's vulnerable to predators, especially if the baby is crying. She don't have a lot of time to go out and hunt and forage and gather. The likelihood of her dying is pretty darn high, and of her child dying even more so.

"So, what's Sue's smartest strategy? Sue's smartest strategy is to find someone—let's call him Jim—who can take care of her while she's tied down with a baby for years at a time. She should find someone who can hunt and gather for her, and drive off predators when they come looking for the baby. She should find someone who will provide for her."

"So, why not another woman?"

"Well, for a couple reasons. Number one, what if she's pregnant—it wouldn't do for her to be tied up as well. Number two, there's a nice symmetry if the father of her baby is looking after both her and it. Number three, her objective is to have tons of kids, not just this one. So it's nice to have a guy, and his dick, on hand for whenever she's ready for the next one."

"But what's in it for this Jim character? I mean, he gets a lot less sex and a lot more responsibility."

"Well, yes, but, number one: 'lot less sex' may not be accurate. Sure, our wandering barbarian Bob gets to have sex with more women, but only once per woman, and then he may have to do a lot of wandering to find the next one. Jim, on the other hand, may get less variety, but much more regularity—he can have sex with Sue practically whenever he wants. For two: yes, more responsibility, but as we've already discussed, there's at least two men in the world—myself and Pastor Pendleton—who don't mind or even like that. Which isn't so surprising, if you think about it. Willingness to be a provider is a positive survival trait, so evolution would select for it. Bob might get tied down, but he'll never be satisfied, and may not do as good a job at raising his kids as Jim does. He may have less children than Jim does, and not provide for them as well—and then, because they learned at their father's knee, those kids go out and have a few stunted children too. In just a few generations, that can make a big difference.

"And Jim gets other benefits that Bob doesn't at all: companionship, for instance, and emotional attachment. Love. Love for his wife and his children. Love from his wife and his children. Access to better and more plentiful stores of food, because when he has extra, he can store it somewhere instead of being limited to what he can carry while he wanders. Maybe even extra manpower, if he and Sue are living near other couples—and extra manpower means lots more benefits. Culture, more ambitious projects, more food, better quality clothing... Civilization, basically."

"So, that's how marriage started?"

"That's how marriage started. There's a saying that a history teacher gave me: men give love to get sex, women give sex to get love. But either way, the point is to increase the chances that the children live long enough to have their own children. I think you could really make a case for grandchildren being the driving reason for all of life. Why do we have marriage? Why do we have laws? Why do we have civilization? To make grandchildren more likely."

"And that's why being a provider is important to you. It's what evolution says you should want."

"And I guess it's cool to be a human and all, and be able to deny your own instincts and impulses and genetics and programming. But what if you actually do want to act out these things? I hope that's not a crime, because, like Pastor Pendleton said, the human race would be sunk without people who are perfectly happy to follow their genes."

"Where do you get these thoughts, anyway?"

"I dunno. Around. From books. From classes. From watching what people do. I mean, most customs and laws have a reason. We just don't generally know what they are."

"So what about not having sex before marriage? What's the reason for that?"

"Umm... I don't... Truthfully, I don't know. It's not etic to most cultures—I mean, you'll find marriage, some form of it at least, in just about every civilization in existence. But the taboo on pre-marital sex is not as widespread. For that matter, the taboo on extra-marital sex... I mean, most cultures prefer it doesn't happen, but there's varying levels of tolerance of men sleeping with women who are not their wives, or mistresses, or prostitutes, or whatever."

"I... I may have an idea."

"Yeah?" That sounded rather callous, so he tried to soften it with a smile. "Go ahead. I'd like hearing it."

"I think... The ban on pre-marital sex... Maybe it's because sex is... So powerful." She was halting and slow, choosing her words with care, and now her cheeks began to redden. "I mean, I know that when you and I... Do things, I sometimes... I get really into it, and... I'm not as... In-control. As I'd like to be. I'm really starting to understand why people make such a big deal about it, and want to have it so much. I mean... I want to have it." She was positively crimson now.

He gathered her into his arms. "Well, there's nothing wrong with that, before or after marriage."

"There is! You're not supposed to want it until you're married. That's what the—"

"No, that's not what the Bible says. It says you're not supposed to have sex until you're married. But it doesn't say anything about wanting because you can't do anything about that. If God were to condemn us for wanting to have sex despite not being married, well, every person on earth, married or otherwise, would go to Hell. I mean, the sex drive is an integral part of our nature. It's strong."

"I know, and that's why I think there's the rule against doing it before you get married. It is strong. It makes you feel so... Just, so... I dunno, naked, and, and, connected, and... I mean, we're doing something so special. So... So sacred. Nothing hidden, just a man and a woman, every bit of them, without shame or, or fear, or... And I think you would feel that way with just about anyone you had sex with. So, if you did... If you had sex before you married the person, you would think, 'Whoa, we're so close, I love him so much, ' except that you don't, it's just the sex. And then people get married and then discover that they actually hate each other and it's a mess."

"So, you're saying, the reason people aren't supposed to have sex before they marry is because sex can make you think you're in love with them."

"Right. You'd marry the first person you slept with. So, it's safer not to have it involved. It's safer to... Leave it out. So that it can't fool you. So that it can't lie to you. Or else, how do you know that you really, really do love that person?"

"Well, there's some people who think that you don't know that for certain until you sleep with them."

She blinked up at him. "Do you think that?"

Well, it seems kind of irrelevant at the moment, but...  "I... I dunno. And, I mean, unless something really drastic happens, we're not gonna be able to try it the other way, will we? But it seems like... Well, to be honest, I couldn't be happier with the sex we have. It's good, and I think we can make it better still. But then, I don't have anything to compare it to... Which, maybe, is the point. I mean, you know what they say about ignorance is bliss, right? I'm never gonna be dissatisfied with our sex life if I don't have anything to compare it to... Assuming, of course, we're able to get to a point where we're both satisfied in the first place—which maybe never happens to some people, but, again, I don't see that as being a problem for us."

"Yeah. I've been really... Satisfied, too. With what we do." She gave a little giggle. "I mean, we've been married for only three days, but we've already done more things in more ways than I thought we could."

He smiled. "Baby, you ain't seen nothin yet."

"How do you know all these things, anyway?"

He shrugged. "The Internet. Where else. If you still wanted to go out and learn, there are pages I could direct you to." He made a wry smile. "Or movies I could show you, that I have on my hard drive."

He thought she was astonished for a moment, but if so, she covered it well. "Why, Mr. Stanford! Such wicked behavior!"

"I know, I know," he sighed in mock anguish. "I have been sinful. But, I must say, Mrs. Stanford, that it may be to your benefit."

She gave him a hooded smile, and then a kiss that was full of promise; and then he was lost in her mouth, and the sweet heat of her breath, and the warm light of her body in his arms, and the fragrance of her hair, and the overwhelming warmth of his love for her.

"So," he said, once he had his breath back, "these websites, um. Should I... Show them to you now? Or... ?"

She squirmed. "Well... I have class tomorrow. And finals next week. I really should..."

"Yeah. Now would be a really good time to mess up your studies, huh? And I should keep lurking on Craigslist and stuff like that..."

"Oh, man. I have to... I have to go around asking people to help back us up when we confront my mom on Friday."

"Friday?"

"Yeah, why? Is there something wrong with Friday?"

"No, it's just... It's the first I've heard of it, that's all."

"That's okay, it's the first anybody's heard of it."

"When did you decide this?"

"When we talked with Pastor Pendleton. I think that if we have his support..."

"Yeah. He's seen us, but even more than that, he knows your family very well. And they know him. And your mom's always talking about how much she respects him."

"He's just such a powerful ally. And... I don't want to leave this hanging any longer than necessary. I want... We need Mom to..."

"You mean you need."

She shoved away from him. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I didn't either. Baby, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. What Pastor Pendleton said, about turning the other cheek and that being the hardest thing to do... Well, I still think giving the enemy a second opening is a bad idea. But it's also a really brave thing, and a really powerful thing. And... I admire you for wanting to be that kind of person, because it's not easy. It's like the people who climb Mount Everest. Is it a smart thing to do? Probably not. Does it really change anything, on a global scale? Probably not. But we still admire them, for having the guts or skill or even just foolhardy nerve to try such a thing."

She looked at him strangely.

He shrugged. "Baby, I love you. What you want for yourself is what I want for you."

"Even if you think it's stupid."

"Especially if I think it's stupid. 'cause, hey: I better be on hand in case it fails, right?" He gave her his most disingenuous grin, and was rewarded with her faint smile.

"Now. You give me the list of people you'd like to recruit, and I will call them and see if I can set up meetings for you while you do your homework. How does that sound?"

She kissed him again. "It sounds like I have a wonderful husband."

You know,  he thought, a man could grow to like hearing those words.

The calls were fairly easy. Everyone on the list—Mrs. Sellitz the harp teacher, Mrs. Klein the oboe teacher, Uncle Max, Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy—knew him, to one extent or another, and knew at least bits and pieces about the situation furthermore. Jon was able to elaborate with a certain amount of detail: "I mean, I'm not Caitlyn, I don't know the exact deal, but I'm reporting what she's told me as best as I can." What wasn't hard to explain was the idea of The Plan, which he himself had come up with. Grammy wanted to talk with her granddaughter, as did Mrs. Sellitz, and Caitlyn promised (by proxy) to call them as soon as she had a spare moment. In the end, everyone they approached was amenable, and suddenly Caitlyn had doubled her amount of backup.

"You know..." she said reflectively. "We may not have to bring all of them in. Too many... My parents may just close their ears. I mean, the more people think they're stupid, the more they're likely to ignore them out of sheer stubbornness. Maybe we don't need everyone."

"Well, in this case, at least you can pick and choose," he said. "Depending on what you decide to say and how you decide to say it to them, you have a lot of options. And that's better than the other way around."

"Yeah, true. What have you come up with?"

"About the same as yesterday. You wouldn't think we'd be able to find much in the way of housing in the middle of December, but there's some stuff available." He spun the laptop around. "There's a few I thought we might want to take a look at. There's one right near Shellview State that is pretty cheap—only $700 a month. I thought that might be our best bet. It's cheap, it's near school and about as far from Polkiss-Leyton as we are now, and it solves the second-car problem in that you can just walk to school. The problem is, since it rents to students, it probably won't be in the best shape, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right?"

"When can we look at it?"

"I don't know, I was going to call the landlord."

After dinner, Caitlyn returned to her studies, but Jon had an errand to run. Wednesdays nights were when Octapella met, along with Sunday afternoons. Jon wondered what the difference would be, walking in there with a ring on his finger. So many things that could change now. So many things that could stay the same.

Jon, a punctual fellow by every means, was surprised to be one of the last people to arrive—not that he was late, but that everyone else was early. "I think I like this sort of attitude," he said, grinning. "So much better than regular choirs when you can't start for fifteen minutes because of tardiness."

"Hey, who gives a damn about the music," Richard laughed. He was their first bass and never failed to have a smile on his face. "We're here to find out about the festivities."

"I mean, proposing to her is one thing," said their second alto Beth, who had been instrumental in getting the proposing plan to work at all, "but actually marrying her is a whole nother cake."

"Hail, almighty adult one," said Christa Crane, their second soprano, with a smirking grin.

"You're one to talk," said Jon. "You and Zach just got married this summer."

"Well, what can we say," said Zach, with his customary easy grin. "Welcome to the early-start club, man."

"Twenty-three isn't the same as twenty-one," Jon protested.

"Yeah, but in this day and age, where you're not an adult until you have your master's at age 26, you still started early," said Rod, the bass 2. "Besides, you graduated before most of us were even students here, and now you're married. The only thing you're missing is some grey hairs."

"And with the way you folks sing, I'm likely to have them," Jon retorted, grinning. "So. Shall we get started?"

Octapella was an eight-voice group. Jon, a year after graduation, had been recruited into it by Greenfield's choral conductor, Professor Chapman. Jon was a good singer—not virtuoso, but he could get by—and even more than that, had been in the college's previous group and had more composing and arranging experience than anyone who had graduated in the last ten years. Jon didn't think that was accurate, but Professor Chapman had said so, and he supposed he would know. The others were mostly sophomores or younger when the group was founded at the beginning of the previous school year. They were now a year and a quarter old, and were already starting to make waves, not just at the college but in the greater area.

Professor Chapman had done most of the recruiting, and he had recruited well. The previous group Jon had been in, Cantico Insanico, had been a pretty dull place, its members lacking the enthusiasm or energy needed to communicate full-voice eight-part pop music. The group had gone nowhere, and dissolved when its leader (Jon) graduated. When Professor Chapman approached Jon with his new ensemble, Jon's first reaction was, "Don't make me lead." Here, he didn't have to. Bethany Rademacher, the alto 2, was also a first-class monitor, keeping the group from veering too far off-course. Roderick Whitson was a piano virtuoso and could play out most anything passed to him. Serena Langdon, the soprano 1, had perfect pitch and a keen ear for vowel blending. Jon was free to sit back, crank out arrangements and provide stylistic guidance, which suited him just fine.

And boy, could they sing. Jon had done his best to infuse Cantico Insanico with the best singers of his day, but had gone missing in one critical component: joy. He'd found good vocalists, yes, but not the sort of person who sang for the sheer fun of it. Octapella, on the other hand, had that in spades. Professor Chapman, with his long experience at choral directing, had also managed to inveigle many of school's best singers, and the experience was so enjoyable that graduating seniors Zachary Crane and Christa Sternbacher (who had actually become Mrs. Christa Crane before joining the group) had stayed on despite starting their graduate studies and, now, working part-time jobs at a local church to support themselves.

The end result was that, in terms of talent-to-weight ratio, Octapella was the best musical group at Greenfield University, bar none—and Jon had a hunch that they could make a running for being one of the best in the state, too.

It was the last rehearsal prior to their Christmas concert, so there was a lot to run through and some last-minute notes to issue. They were reusing all of their Christmas repertoire from the previous year—they'd gotten the group together just before November of the last year, and not had a lot of time to practice—but with better lead-in and no costly auditions to go through this year, they had spent the last ten weeks cramming music into their heads. Jon was always impressed by how fast people picked things up. Roderick was excellent, and Richard hardly less, so the basses practically took care of themselves; Christa was an excellent sight-reader and could hold up Serena when necessary (which wasn't too often); Bethany did the same with Kathy Sorensen; and Jon, who had often written the parts, could provide just about anyone with the right notes if they came up short, though his first priority was his fellow tenor Zach. Zach was an excellent singer and not a half-bad learner, so Jon thought it a hell of an accomplishment that he was actually the slowest member of the group when it came to picking up music.

And, of course, the details of the marriage started coming out. "Why didn't you tell us you proposed," Zach asked, and as usual Jon had to protest, "We didn't tell anybody, we wanted to keep the information secret so that it didn't somehow get back to Mrs. Delaney and cause her to blow her stack."

"And what did she do when she found out," Zach asked.

"Blow her stack," Jon said, sensing the futility of trying to keep history from repeating itself.

All the people here, of course, had met Caitlyn, and heard at length the stories of her confining circumstances, so they understood what it all meant. "I guess you didn't see any better options," said Christa.

"Jumping into marriage as an act of desperation?" Serena asked. "That sounds kind of... Dumb."

"It does," Jon agreed, "but, remember, I did propose. And she did say yes—before we knew any of this was going to happen. I know Caitlyn was waiting for it and I know I would've done it a long time ago, only I didn't have the logistics and the money and the plan worked out."

"Would she have said Yes a long time ago?" Rod asked.

"... Maybe," said Jon. "Depends on when exactly 'a long time ago' is. You have to understand, we've..." He scrubbed at his neck, suddenly embarrassed. "It didn't really coalesce for a while, but we've been talking about getting married since we were together a month."

Serena and Rod, among others, looked puzzled, but Christa just nodded. "We saw the same thing happen with Brandon and Meredith. I mean, it took them until two summers ago to really make things official, but to some extent that's all it was—making things official. They'd been married in their hearts for a long time—at least since we all came to college."

"Brandon said he just... Knew," said Zach. "Really early on. Which I don't quite understand, personally, 'cause, Christa and I had a much more normal process. We dated, we fell in love, we started to really like each other—"

"We started to really like each other," Christa said, grinning broadly.

"—we started doing the sex," Zach said, "and then we came here to Greenfield together, and eventually some time in all this goings-on I started wondering if Christa was, maybe, the kind of person I'd want to spend my life with. Because, I mean, you can really love someone without them being the kind of person you want to marry. You need to have—I dunno—common goals, and the same priorities— You need to be on the same wavelength—"

"Shared values," said Jon, feeling a dizzy sense of deja vu.

"Yeah, that's it," said Zach. "Shared values. And so one day we just got to talking about this—well, 'one day, ' that's not true, I brought it up 'cause I wanted to know—we got to talking about this and I asked her, you know, What do you want out of your life, you know? And she started telling me, and I felt really weird but really happy at the same time, because everything she said, I wanted too. And I'm just like... Wow. You know? I mean, how many people do you know who married their high school sweethearts?"

"Four," Jon said, who had gotten to know the Cranes and the Chamberses pretty well through Caitlyn.

"Besides us," said Zach, with a smirk.

"No, the romance stuff is not what I'd be concerned about," said Serena. "Jon, anyone who sees you and Caitlyn together would know instantly that you two are good for each other. The kind of couple you'd put money on. But being emotionally ready to marry each other isn't the same as being old enough, or mature enough, or rich enough, or... all those things. What about those? How are those working out?"

"Well..." said Jon, keenly aware of the discussion they had just had with Pastor Pendleton. "Truthfully, that's not as stable as it could be. I would have proposed to Caitlyn a long time ago—I would have married her a long time ago—and I think she would have accepted, too—except that we weren't ready. She wanted to stay home and let her parents pay for her master's degree, which she absolutely needs if she wants to have any sort of career as a harpist. Plus, more time for me to build up a savings. That was really the main reason for us not doing anything presumptuous, and obviously this explosion on her mom's part really forced our hands. We're still... We're still working on it. We feel optimistic, though."

"You can start small," said Richard. "Everyone has to start somewhere. Find a cheap apartment, cheap furniture, cheap clothes... Better get some birth control, 'cause that's definitely a smart investment—"

"Yeah," said Christa, "absolutely. Poor Meredith—after Laurelyn popped out, she was able to go on and finish her last six months, but the money got so short that Brandon just... Dropped out. They've been struggling to catch up for a year now, and it looks like things might not change for a while."

"Hey, be fair," said Zach. "The only reason Meredith got through her degree at all was because of you and Rachel Prescott baby-sitting."

"Yeah, but, we can't breast-feed," said Christa. "We couldn't just, like, take over—and Meredith wouldn't have wanted us to, anyway. She and Brandon... I dunno, they're having problems, but you can also see they're totally happy. They're exactly where they want to be—married, and starting a family. It's too bad Brandon never finished his degree, but that's probably the only thing they'd change if they had the chance to. They love it."

"When they're not falling down exhausted," said Zach.

"Yes, there is that too," said Christa in an entirely different voice. "Maybe we should've moved back with them."

"I'm sure Meredith's parents are taking good care of them," said Zach. "And besides, if we did, we'd never get this Christmas concert sung."

"What? Oh! Right!" said Christa. "Sorry! I didn't mean— Uh. Where were we?"

Jon chucked to himself. Do Cait and I check out like that? "All right, then. Starting back from measure 22..."

It was a very rewarding rehearsal, even counting the distractions of Jon's newly-altered marital status, but a long one because of that. It was nearly 10:30 before Jon was home—a half-hour past his bedtime, if he intended to return to work tomorrow, which he did. Caitlyn had probably been studying all this time—or maybe she'd given up and curled up with a book instead. Or perhaps she was chatting with Nathan on Instant Messenger. Whatever the case, he was looking forward to seeing her.

So he was rather surprised to find where she was: on his computer, staring wide-eyed at what was on the computer screen. She wasn't using Firefox, which was his browser of choice, but rather Internet Explorer, which he knew was what her family used... And which he used for his excursions into the wet wild world of porn.

He wasn't sure what she had gone online to look for—maybe the websites he had spoken of earlier, but maybe something else. Whatever the case was, it was the websites she had found, and that she was now gaping at.

Even as he watched, she clicked the mouse button, and the browser moved to the next page—this one with photographs of various sex positions. She scrolled down so rapidly that he wasn't sure she was even reading the text, but evidently she was, because halfway down she sat back with a stunned expression on her face.

Jon cleared his throat. "Ahem. Um. Hi."

Caitlyn whirled around, her face stricken and utterly red, and Jon couldn't help but laughing. This only caused her face to get redder, which only caused Jon to laugh more, but eventually she cracked a smile, and Jon opened his arms and she ran to them willingly.

"I'm—" she started.

"No you're not," he said, grinning. "I think it's wonderful to have a girl who's interested in what we do in bed and wants to learn more. —To have a wife who's all that stuff."

"Yeah, but... You walked in on me."

"Could be worse. Once in college my roommate walked in on me in a very compromising spot. I was, err. Performing some manual exploration."

"What?"

"I was masturbating."

"Oh. Oh! You must've been so embarrassed!"

"No, not really, actually, we just both handled it with dignity. I said, 'Um, hey, could you wait outside for a minute, ' and when he saw I was missing certain clothes, he understood why, and he went outside. I mean, it's not like he didn't know about it. Masturbation is a fact of life when it comes to teenage guys. I'm sure he does it."

"How do you know?" she teased. "Did you ever walk in on him?"

"No," said Jon. Boy, that would've been uncomfortable. "Umm. No. But I'd be really surprised if he didn't, let's put it that way. He'd be in the like two-percent minority of men who don't."

They stood in silence for a while, fast in each other's arms, receiving comfort, giving love.

"So, my beloved," he said. "What have you found in your searches?"

"A lot," she said. "Way lot. More than I had any idea about. It'd take like a week straight to get through it all."

"Well, we only have the rest of our lives... And besides, it can't take that long to read."

"No, I meant, to try it all," she said.

He felt his eyebrows jump into his hairline. "Mmm. Ah. And, umm. Anything you'd like to place priority on?"

"Umm... I dunno, I... Well, I thought everything looked kinda cool, at least to try. I mean, that doesn't..."

He could feel the heat from her face through his shirt. "All right then," he said lightly, "let's go the other direction. Anything you don't wanna try?"

"Umm... The, um. I didn't like the idea of, the... Behind. That just seems..."

"What, doggie-style?" he said, confused.

"No, um..." It came out in a whisper. "Anal."

"Oh-hhh." He could see why she might find it distasteful. "That's okay. It never seemed like the greatest idea to me either."

"Okay," she said, her relief obvious. "I also didn't know about... Oral sex. About..."

"Really? You seemed to like it just fine last night."

"No, I know, I mean... About me, going down on... You."

Now that was a disappointment.

"I'm-I'm not saying I'm never gonna do it," she said hastily, as if sensing his reticence, "I'm just... I mean... Me, putting my mouth on your... That thing was inside me."

"Well, I've washed it off since then..."

"Jon, stop it. This is serious."

"No, it isn't. Caitlyn, this isn't about... It's not like a contract or anything, where we have to, I dunno, set down in stone what we're going to do to each other. It's for fun. It's whatever you, or I, or you and I feel comfortable with. I mean, yeah, I'd be disappointed if you didn't want to go down on me; I think you'd enjoy it and I know I'd enjoy it. But it's not the end of the world."

"Why would I enjoy it? I mean, putting your thing in my... In my—"

"Look, Cait. My friend Adam is gay, right? So, one time he asked me what was so special about a woman's pussy. He said, It's kind of ugly and it probably doesn't smell too nice... As opposed to a cock, which is all nice and clean and so much easier to put your mouth on. What's so great about it? And it was a good question, that I was never really able to answer, not from a physiological point of view at least.

"But the real answer is this: I like doing it because of what it does to you. As a matter of fact, I like doing it a lot, because you like me doing it a lot. And I would challenge any man in the world to try it, and then still see if he dislikes it after he's seen how much his partner enjoys it. It's hard to argue with success like that. —And, by, 'success, ' I mean, 'orgasms.' "

She giggled.

"Well, then," she said. "Shall we take a look at the computer and see if anything... Rises to the occasion?"

Did she just... My goodness, have I created a monster here? "I would love to, but... Baby, I have to be awake in seven hours. There just isn't..."

"Oh. Okay." Even he could sense her disappointment. (And if he'd known just how aroused she'd gotten from her 'research, ' he might have changed his mind!)

"But it'll be the weekend soon, and we'll have... Plenty of time." He kissed her. "To try out... Whatever you want."

"Mmmm." Her audible smile again. "Is that a date?"

He grinned. "I think it's a—"

It was her cellphone again. "Umm. Hold on. Yeah. —Mom?"

Jon jolted almost involuntarily.

"Right... Right... Okay..." The temperature was falling by the second. "Okay..." A long gap. "Right, and what are you going to do with it? Leave it in the corner untuned? You can't play it." Positively scornful, that one. "Oh yes I can talk to you like... No I am not, mother, I am not Caitlyn Claire Delaney anymore, I am Caitlyn Stanford, and I can talk to you any way I darn well please! And there's nothing you can do about that!"

Then there was a long torrent of shouting from the phone, tinny but perfectly readable in hatred. And then the click of a disconnected line.

Caitlyn stood for a moment, listening to the dial tone. Then, slowly and carefully, she folded up the phone and put it down.

Then she started to cry.

It was many long minutes before she was in a shape to speak to him. Jon cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair, feeling the warmth of her body. He could never understand how she could seem so insubstantial, yet so solid. It was like holding a cloud, or heat, or light.

"It was my mom," she explained. "I called her about my harp—I'm going to need it, soon, or else my practicing will be... Well. I called and she didn't pick up, so I left a message. And she said—" A hiccup. "She said, that... Because they paid for most of it, it's mostly their property, and they're not giving it away."

Jon frowned. "Where'd they get their understanding of law?"

"No, no, that's the problem. They're right. We had to work this out when I was six because Nathan and I co-bought a bike. The proportion of money paid is equal to the proportion of ownership. That's how businesses are owned, that's now real estate is owned... And since I only paid about $2,500 for the harp..."

"How much of it do you own?"

"About... About ten percent."

"Jesus!!"

"Yeah, it was... It was $23,000. And I was twelve, obviously I couldn't pay that. So... So now... They're saying that if I want it back, I have to— Buy the other 90% of it—"

"So tell them you want the 10% you own. Maybe they'll let you have some strings."

"And then— And then they said that, the only way I could get it for free was if I— If I left you, and came back to them, and—"

"Shh," he said. "No. No, there's no need to repeat such awful, hateful words. It's over. She's lost, and she knows it. We have money. We can beat them. If we need—"

But Caitlyn only cried all the harder.

Jon held her for many minutes more, but his eyes were closing and time was ticking away. "Caity, I— I don't mean to, to be insensitive or, or anything, but... It's eleven. I do have to sleep—"

"I know," she gulped, "I know. I'm sorry. I just—"

"It's okay. It's okay. Here. Let me put on some pajamas and then I will hold you as much as you want."

And he did, and she did too, and he did hold her, for all of the night. But though she slept, and eventually he did too, he had a feeling that the honeymoon, such as it was, was definitely over.

You know,  he realized belatedly, this is the first time we didn't have sex when we could have.

Welcome to the real world.



-------

Part 4


Day 5: The Plan

On Friday morning, Jon was up bright and early—or, at least early, for despite Daylight Savings Time there was little sunlight to be had. Leaving his sleeping wife as he had the day before, he snatched a quick five-minute shower, hung some clothes on his body, grabbed a granola bar for breakfast, and drove to work.

"You were saying you needed to leave early today, right?" Dr. Polkiss said by way of greeting.

"Yeah," said Jon, "about one-ish. We managed to line up some appointments to go look at apartments. I told them I'd have to clear it with my boss, and that if we didn't show to just assume I hadn't gotten time off."

"Now, why would you have to tell them such a thing as that," Dr. Polkiss asked, smiling. "Of course you can take off early, Jon. We'll cover for you. You don't really work all that much out there anyway," he added with a grin.

"Yeah, don't I know it. The other thing was... Sad as I am to say this, I might not be able to work here much longer. It's a great job, and I really enjoy it, and I was talking to Caitlyn about seeing if she can shift her classes around enough that she can maybe fill in the gap. But... A family costs money, and..."

"Yes it does," Dr. Leyton agreed, stepping in. "It costs a lot. What, is he handing in his two weeks' notice?"

"No, he's handing us notice of his two weeks' notice," said Dr. Polkiss.

"I'm still looking around," Jon said, "I don't have anything lined up yet. But if something does come up... I mean. I just... Need the money."

"Right," Dr. Leyton agreed, "family being the multi-million dollar industry it has become."

"We could just give him another raise," Dr. Polkiss said.

"No, we couldn't," Dr. Leyton said. "Jon, we love you and we love your work here, but to be perfectly blunt, we pay you more than you're worth. —As a worker, I mean. We pay you a lot less than you deserve as a person, but we didn't hire a person, we hired a secretary. And we're barely turning a profit as it is. Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry is a business, and we have to think like a business, no matter how much we want to be a charity."

"Which is pretty damn much," Dr. Polkiss agreed.

"But you'll probably be here for a while," Dr. Leyton said. "I mean, you don't have any major expenditures in your life coming up, do you?"

"Well... Apartment hunting," Jon said. "And, plus, Caitlyn's mom wrangled on a lot of her possessions. She's making us pay her almost $30,000 to buy it all from her, because she technically owns most of Caitlyn's things. That's like half our total savings."

Dr. Polkiss gaped at him.

Dr. Leyton gaped at him.

Then they looked at each other, and Jon had the impression of a couple of knights going for their swords.

"I swear," said Dr. Leyton. "If there was a test of whether someone two people were qualified to be parents, those two would not have failed. They wouldn't've flunked. They wouldn't even have washed out. They would have been dragged out the door and sterilized by Charles Darwin."

Jon sighed. "Yeah, but then where would Caitlyn be?"

"You gotta take the good with the bad," Dr. Polkiss agreed diplomatically.

"But that's a whole fuckload of bad," said Dr. Leyton. "Seriously. No parent should be allowed to load their kid down with this amount of bullshit."

Jon sighed. "Yes. That is true. But being true doesn't make it happen."

"So, what are you going to do," Dr. Polkiss asked.

"We're putting The Plan on them," said Jon. They'd spent about half of Thursday bringing people up to speed and refining the presentation. "We're only bringing in her grandparents, her uncle Max, and Pastor Pendleton, but we hope it'll be enough."

"Those are powerful names to Linda Delaney," said Dr. Polkiss. "Names to conjure with."

"When are you putting it on them?"

"Tonight."

Dr. Leyton choked on a mouthful of water. "Tonight? On top of work, and checking out apartments? It's a Friday, you guys should be partying!!"

"We'll have time for that over the weekend," said Jon. I hope. I'm exhausted from this week, and so's Caitlyn, I can tell. And it's not like she doesn't have her first final on Tuesday. Jon's mother had very generously agreed to drive Caitlyn to school and pick her up again, joking that it made her feel young again, so Caitlyn would be able to get her papers and final assignments and homework (on which she had spent the other half of Thursday) turned in on time. "Besides, Cait... She's not pleased about all this, I can tell you that, especially the stuff about making her buy her harp from them." A quick call to the local constabulatory had straightened that one out—and, unfortunately, the Delaneys did have the law on their side. "Nobody knows what her music will sound like on Sunday, that's for sure, 'cause she hasn't had a harp to practice on."

In truth, Jon was dreading the confrontation. It would be ugly, he knew that, and probably painful as well. Hateful things were going to be said, by all and sundry, and no matter who won, every inch would be bought and paid for in blood. No one would like each other after this—and, even worse, no one would respect each other either.

Or themselves.

At 1 PM, Jon clocked out and swung on home to pick up his wife. She greeted him at the door with a kiss, and Jon suddenly realized that in the chaos of the last two days, they hadn't had time for sex since Wednesday morning. Suddenly he wished they had a lot more time. But they didn't; if they hurried, they might make their appointment on time. Real life indeed. Why did any of us want to grow up? Well, besides so that we could have sex.

Their first stop was a nice place several miles away from Shellview State, a posh two-bedroom apartment that was far out of their price range. But Jon's mother had suggested they check it out anyway, just to get some perspective. It was very nice—moderately spacious, and pleasantly lit despite the dim December sun. But it was about $1500 too expensive for them—$1500 a month—and though they were polite and acted as though they were considering it, it was all a little white lie.

Caitlyn had also stumbled across a good deal—a very nice apartment for under $1000 a month, so nice they seriously considered taking it. The main problem was that it was just down a major freeway from both Shellview State and Greenfield, and the commutes would be killer. It was just too far out of the way.

The one they were really looking for was not hard to find; Caitlyn had passed that building on her way to school every day. The place did not compare favorably to the other two they had looked at: it rented to students, so it was small and not all that well-kept. Judging by the smell, its previous occupants had either been football players or some sort of mass murderer; either way, it explained some of the splotches on the floor, and perhaps why whoever had previously rented the place had since been evicted. But it offered two overwhelming advantages: it was cheap, and it was close enough to school that Caitlyn could walk (in other words, it was cheaper still). It was the only one they were really considering, and while it wasn't perfect, they knew it was the best choice. It took about an hour to read through and sign the lease, which lasted through the end of the school year to reset the typical leasing cycle: they would move in the day after Christmas, and move out in mid-June. Jon felt tremendously proud, but also tremendously scared.

"I'm not even sure there's going to be enough room for my harp," Caitlyn said as they left. "And good thing they have an elevator, 'cause we can't take that thing up and down stairs."

"We'll need to pack very carefully," Jon said. "And furniture, we'll have to choose that very carefully too. There won't be much room. If you don't mind the kind of cramped quarters we have now, we can just take my twin bed and call that done; open up a lot of space in the bedroom."

"We could bring mine," Caitlyn said. "It's a lot wider, it's more like a queen-size."

"Is it extended-length?" asked Jon, who was five feet eleven barefoot.

"Huh?" said Caitlyn, who was five foot five with heels on. "Does it need to be?"

"Yes," said Jon, who was still five eleven.

"Uhh. I dunno, I'll have to measure it. It's large enough for me; I can sleep on it sideways, backwards, at diagonals... Nathan used to use it, but my grandparents gave it to me, and once he moved out I took it back."

"Your parents might try to take it back too," Jon reminded her.

"But it's not theirs. It's mine."

"You think that's gonna stop them? If we have to get this legally adjudicated somehow..." He sighed. "This is gonna be like a divorce."

Caitlyn gave an unhappy sound. "Let's never get divorced, then."

They got back to Jon's house at about 4 PM. Jon felt tremendously tired: while he had worked yesterday, Caitlyn had frantically finished up a week's backlog of homework; then they'd spent the night carefully refining The Plan into its present format. This was on top of the past three days, which, while fun, had not been especially relaxing; they'd been continually thrust into new situations (including the situation of Jon thrusting into Caitlyn), and while that was rewarding, they both preferred the safety of habit to constant chaos. Jon was looking forward to being able to establish some sort of weekly routine—one that didn't involve them having to develop new patterns of response every two seconds.

When I imagined what my first week of marriage to Caitlyn was going to be like, I never imagined this.

"You know what would've been really bad," Jon said.

"No," Caitlyn said. "What?"

"If your mother had found out about us, and then declared we could never see each other again."

Caitlyn made a face. "Cut off the engagement. Yeah. I think that's probably what we were trying to avoid. Why we... Well, eloped, really, is what we did, even though we didn't go very far."

"What God has joined, let no mother burst asunder," Jon agreed. "If she's going to oppose the engagement, let's make it something she can't meddle in."

"Not that she isn't going to try," Caitlyn warned. "She'll... Ugh, I don't know what she's going to do. She'll..."

"Hey," Jon said, "hey," drawing her to him. "She can try. But she's not going to succeed. I mean, we just agreed that our marriage is beyond anything she can bust up, didn't we?"

"I know," said Caitlyn. "But that doesn't mean life won't be a living hell for a while." And Jon didn't have much of an answer for that, but to hold her tighter still.

"Hmm," she said after a while. "We haven't had enough time to do this."

"Then I know a very good way to spend a couple hours before dinner," Jon said, drawing her towards the bed.

"Okay, but... No... No naked stuff," said Caitlyn. "—I mean, that's fun too, but right now, I just want..."

"And what my baby wants," Jon said, "is what my baby gets."

It seemed like he had utterly forgotten just what comfort was to be found in her arms. It wasn't just being able to smell her, and feel her cheek against his, and her breasts on his chest; it was that his arms were made to be filled, to hold someone close and comfort them. And to be comforted as well. To be reunited; to be... Whole.

"We need to remember," he murmured. "No matter what happens, no matter how, how crazy life gets... We need to stop for a while and just... Hold each other."

"Mmm," she said. "Yeah."

"I wish we had time," he murmured. "I just..."

"I know," she said. "But, if we started, we'd still be here in three hours." She must have sensed his mood—that was just what he was thinking of. "And, we have... A deadline."

"Right," he grumbled. "A line that, if we cross, we're dead."

"No," she said. "We're going to win. We have... We're so much in the right, we have so many supporters, there's no way..."

"No, I know that," said Jon. "What I'm worried about is: in war, everybody loses."

They had agreed to meet Caitlyn's parents for dinner, as a prelude to the campaign and also to see if they could somehow open peaceful negotiations. Jon sometimes thought Caitlyn was looking forward to the possibility of open hostilities—he supposed to he couldn't fault her for wanting the chance to tear her mother a new one, even if he didn't think it was a smart thing to actually do—but clearly she was wary of it as well. What he was more worried about, personally, was that her mother might decide to make a scene. Caitlyn didn't think so—"She's not so lost to propriety as that"—but in Jon's opinion, Mrs. Delaney might be desperate enough to do anything to keep from losing. Or maybe it was to keep control over her daughter. Sometimes it seemed like she didn't see a person at all, just a knick-knack on a shelf that needed to be nailed down so—

"—Hey," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"I just realized something. The theory is, your mother wants to control you, right? She wants you so under her thumb that you practically can't even breathe without her say-so. But it's been hard for her to accomplish this, because you never give her any openings. Right?"

"Okay, I'm with you so far."

"So... You just gave her a huge-ass opening. You let her see that ring on your finger."

"Umm... Ri-iight... But, she didn't—"

"But she didn't!! Cait, what a catastrophe would it have been if she'd said, 'Okay, young lady, we'll let you get married, but only if you agree to our terms, which basically consist of us being able to dictate your life'? What would've happened if she had turned around and used that ring as a weapon against you? What would've happened if she'd taken the weapon you provided her and strengthened her rule?"

Caitlyn was quiet, seeing it now. "Wow."

"She had a golden opportunity and she missed it. Up until the moment you told me to take you away, you were basically submitting to her rule."

"Yeah. I know."

"If she had struck before you'd decided to fight..."

"So, basically..."

"So, basically, she's at her wits' end. She wasn't thinking clearly enough to take advantage of this huge gap in your lines—and half of combat is just being fast enough to exploit momentary weaknesses in your opponent's defenses. You've been fighting with your brain, so there haven't been that many weaknesses to exploit. But your mother's been fighting with her heart—she's been making bad decisions and letting her fear control her—and now we know it. There will be plenty of weaknesses for us to exploit. We just gotta be smart enough and fast enough to see them and hit them."

"Wow," said Caitlyn, smiling. "This is pretty cool."

"We are so gonna wipe the floor with her."

"And here I thought you were the pessimistic one."

"I was." Momentary ebullience faded. "I still am. It's still gonna be really hard. But—that's a pretty good thing to discover about your opponent on the eve of battle, isn't it? That she basically has no conscious idea of what she's doing and how to do it?"

But, instead of responding in kind, Caitlyn sighed. "We're going to war," she said. "Against my family."

And then: "This sucks."

"I know," Jon said, and took her hand. But somehow he knew it wasn't enough.

They arrived at the Delaney house—1334 Praden Terrace—in a flurry of dust and silence. Jon had told Caitlyn at least once a day that she didn't need to return here unless she wanted to... And here they were, returning again. Jon knew he didn't want to, and judging from the heaviness in Caitlyn's step, maybe she didn't want to either. Maybe it was too early. They'd been married for only three days and twenty-odd hours, after all—barely enough time to establish identities of their own. 1334 Praden Terrace, on the other hand, was Linda Delaney through and through. She'd marked her territory as a dog sprays trees, and every decoration, every speck of paint, every flower was a reeking reminder of her presence.

And yet... There, just off the curb, was the teetering mailbox (the neighbors') that Jon had come near to clipping with his wing mirror every time he'd visited. There, towering over the backyard fence, was the tree against which he and Caitlyn had once stolen a few very passionate minutes, tongues dueling, hands roaming further than they had ever gone before. And upstairs were Caitlyn's two rooms, just as fragrant with her personality as the rest of the house was with her mother's.

We have a place here too,  Jon reminded himself. "We have a place here too."

"At least, until I take the last of my stuff," Caitlyn said.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Delaney were meeting them at the door, and it was time to go.

Jon was relieved at the relative calm of the proceedings. On the one hand, Mrs. Delaney kept her peace throughout the meal, and Mr. Delaney seemed content to offer polite conversation. (The man had always reminded Jon of some huge savannah-bound herbivore: placid, but possessed of total stillness, and implacable when roused.) On the other hand, polite conversation was all that was offered; it was plain that the Delaneys had no intention of connecting with their daughter or her husband, and as it takes two to make conversation, Jon and Caitlyn found themselves getting nowhere. Jon found that frigid propriety was not very good seasoning for any sort of meal. If her parents noticed that both he and Caitlyn were eating one-handed—the other clasping their spouse's tightly beneath the table—they made no comment whatsoever.

What did we ever do to you! Jon wanted to yell. What on earth did we ever do to you! We've been dutiful, we've been respectful, we've been mindful of God's laws... Yes, we got up to things that involve a certain level of intimacy, but if you were to tell me you two never did the same, you'd be lying. You've never made me feel any more welcome than politeness requires, but I've done my best to be open and receptive and courteous, for Caitlyn's sake if nothing else— What more do you expect? What more can you rationally expect??

But that was the problem, wasn't it. They had left rationality behind a long time ago.

When they got back to the Delaney house, Jon was struck by a sense of claustrophobia. It took him a while to realize why: it was the amount of pictures on the walls. All those faces, smiling out at him: Linda Delaney, Samuel Delaney, Nathan, Caitlyn herself... Uncle Max, Mrs. Delaney's parents Ruth and Gordon Cassidy, even Uncle Max's sons Roger and Jerome. There were none of Mr. Delaney's siblings, and very few of his parents, but easily a dozen of the others. So many pictures. It had always unsettled him, he realized, the phalanx of garish smiles, much the same way it had discomforted him to always have to tiptoe around his parents' house and the gazillions of artifacts and knickknacks and curios on display. It was like a shout of desperation: "Hey, we're wealthy!" He wondered what Mrs. Delaney was trying to prove with all those pictures.

"So," said Mrs. Delaney, seated on the couch with Rex curled up at her feet. "I understand the two of you had something you wanted to discuss with us."

"Yes, as a matter of fact," said Caitlyn. Jon could see her struggling for composure. "We did."

Mrs. Delaney gestured expansively. Caitlyn was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"As you know," she said, "Jon and I have been married. We haven't come here to discuss this. Pastor Pendleton wed us in the sight of God and man, and we have no intention of getting an annulment or a divorce or anything like that. Jon is my husband, just the way I've always wanted him to be, and I am his wife as I have always wanted to be. I'm sorry we couldn't inform you of our plans ahead of time."

Jon wanted to add that the frosty expressions on their faces were part of the reason they hadn't been informed, but he held his tongue.

"We haven't come to discuss why we got married," Caitlyn said. "We came to discuss why we got married so quickly—why we went from fiancée to spouse in a matter of hours. We wanted to... To share some observations with you."

"I can't think of anything you could say that I'd want to hear," said Mrs. Delaney.

And why do you think we're having these problems,  Jon wanted to say, but he didn't.

"Be that as it may," Caitlyn said with surprising calm, "there are things we feel we want to tell you. And we have agreed that it might be to your benefit to lis—"

"First off, young lady, there is no 'we, ' " said Mrs. Delaney. "You are our daughter, and we haven't given you our blessing for this marriage. Until—"

"I'm sorry," said Jon loudly, "am I hearing that you are denying your twenty-year-old daughter her right, as guaranteed by law, to choose her own husband?"

"Mr. Stanford," said Mr. Delaney, speaking for practically the first time all night, "You are not helping your case with these outbursts. Kindly—"

The entire argument collapsed when the doorbell knifed through it. Mrs. Delaney looked up, annoyed. "Who in—"

"I'll get it," said Caitlyn, who had deliberately placed herself near the door. It was, unsurprisingly, Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy: that was what happened, when one's progenitors lived a mere two minutes' walk away.

"What are you doing here," said Mrs. Delaney.

"We heard there was a party," said her father with a broad grin.

"How are you, Caitlyn," asked Grandma, giving her a hug. "It's hard to believe my tiny little granddaughter is all grown up."

"You're not the only one for whom it's hard to believe, Grandma," said Caitlyn, and Jon suddenly wondered if the old woman had said that just to set Caitlyn up for that response. Eighty though they were, and slow of movement, Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy were still too clever by half. He was just glad they were on his side.

Barely had the grandparents gotten settled (Jon and Caitlyn obligingly giving them half the couch) when the doorbell rang again. It was Uncle Max, followed mere moments later (while the door was still open) by Larry Pendleton. Jon (unasked) grabbed two chairs from the dining room to get them all seated, and of course it took some minutes to get Rex to sit down and stop drooling on everyone's pants. By now Mrs. Delaney was looking around with a wariness bordering on fear. All of these people (with the sole possible exception of Pastor Pendleton) had given her a piece of their minds regarding her treatment of her daughter at some point in the past couple of years. Caitlyn was clearly planning something. The question was, What.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "Now that everyone's here."

"I think it's a bit presumptuous to invite people to a house you don't even live in," said Mr. Delaney.

"It is," said Caitlyn. "But they're part of our conversation. If they leave, I leave."

Mrs. Delaney's face was stone. She didn't want these people here, but this was her best and maybe only chance at getting her daughter to abandon this folly, and Jon knew she knew it. They had been counting on it. "Then let's talk," she said.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "I wanted to tell you about how Jon and I met. We knew each other at Greenfield, but we weren't really friends until last March, when I took a risk and decided to open up to him. He was a psychology major, so I thought I could trust him. And so, I told him..." She drew a deep sigh—this was something that only Jon and Larry Pendleton knew. "I told him that I'd been thinking about killing myself."

There was a complete and absolute silence. Even Rex was still, his liquid eyes inexpressibly sad.

"Jon, of course, was alarmed. He'd never suspected that anything like this was even remotely true about me—"

"We never suspected!" cried Grandma Cassidy, who was, outside of Jon, probably Caitlyn's closest friend.

"I know," said Caitlyn. "I hid it from people. I didn't let on. I took a huge risk in telling Jon—one that paid off, because he was my loyal friend from then on and eventually a lot more—but for the most part I didn't tell anybody. And this was even after having friends at school—Brandon and Christa and all those—who had experience with this sort of thing. But I didn't know that at the time; I only found out after I'd told Jon." She gave him a smile. "Good thing for me that I didn't." "Funny," said Mr. Delaney. "When you invited them over last Christmas, they didn't seem that messed-up."

"Because they aren't," said Jon sharply.

"Well, they must be," said Mrs. Delaney. "Who else would try something as stupid as suicide?"

"Why does a fox chew off its own leg," Jon retorted. "Not because it's stupid—because it's caught in a situation, in this case a trap, that will lead to its death, unless it somehow escapes. Sure, losing a leg is a crippling blow, literally—but better that dying."

"Most of the time, suicide isn't about actually killing yourself," said Pastor Pendleton. "It's about asking for help. It's a rather backward but very effective way of telling the world, 'Look, I can't take this anymore, I need to escape, I need to change something.' Maybe the person actually succeeds at killing themselves. Well, something's changed. Or, maybe their plea falls on the right ears, and someone, let's say Jon, steps in and tries to make things better. Well, something's changed. Either way you achieve your goal. But you're right about one thing: you don't try it unless you have nothing to lose. You don't try it unless something's really, really wrong."

"What could've been wrong?" asked Mrs. Delaney in anger. "Caitlyn, you had the perfect life. You won the Cartier Prize for Musician of the Year when you graduated. You're an excellent harp player, you're an excellent oboe player, you— Your grades were wonderful—"

"And was I happy with any of this?" Caitlyn retorted. "Did you ever stop for one moment and ask, 'Is Caitlyn happy with all this?' "

"Well— Well, of course, we—"

"You didn't." It was like an iron door slamming closed. "You took a quick look around and never thought to ask why I was wearing all black, or why I wanted to spend more time at school, or why—"

"Caitlyn, be fair," said Grandma Cassidy. "You're a very close-mouthed young lady. You didn't tell me these things until I'd been asking you for months."

Caitlyn took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, that's true. I'm not the kind of person who speaks up."

"Well, then!" cried Mrs. Delaney.

"Do you know why?" Caitlyn asked.

Mrs. Delaney blinked.

"I'd like to recount a conversation to you, Mom. You may recognize it. You and I were sitting in the exact same places we are now, and I said to you, 'Mom, I'd like to talk to you about why Jon and I got married so hastily.' And you said... ?" She gestured for Mrs. Delaney to fill in the gap.

"Well, I... Why, I'm sure that I asked for you to continue."

"You said, I can't think of anything you could say that I'd want to hear," said Jon in a sharp voice.

"That is exactly what you said, Mom," Caitlyn agreed.

Mrs. Delaney looked at her husband, whose face was stone.

"Mom, Jon and I did something kind of stupid," Caitlyn said. "We've been working on marriage plans for almost as long as we've been dating, but when this crisis happened we jumped the gun. I don't regret it, not in the slightest, but I also know that if we had waited a few months or even a week to get married, things would have been a lot easier. We're paying for it, now, as we speak, and we will probably continue paying for it for a long time.

"Knowing this, I came to you to talk about the subject—one which is sensitive and will probably result in hurt feelings. I came to you to try and strike up a real conversation. And look how you responded. That's always how you respond, mother. So is it any wonder that I don't tell you anything?"

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. Delaney. "My mother forced me to tell her things all the time—"

"And you appreciated it?" said Grandma Cassidy. "Did you truly now, Linda? I seem to recall a certain incident when you were twelve, where I forced you to tell me that you'd kissed Roger Gorman behind Building Twelve, and you threw beets at me and swore not to speak for me for a month."

Uncle Max laughed. Mrs. Delaney turned red.

"You may appreciate it now," Grandma Cassidy said, "but at the time, you hated it. And you may remember that I didn't punish you, not for kissing Roger Gorman and not for wanting to keep secrets. I let your red face do that. If you're going to try to pin these problems on me, and on your terrible upbringing—Lord knows enough people try to do that these days—I will fight you on it, and you'd better believe my memory's sharper than yours when it comes to those times."

"So, we've established that I can't talk to you," said Caitlyn. "And I can't talk to you because you can't listen."

"Yes I can!" said Mrs. Delaney.

"Then prove it!" Caitlyn shot back. "Listen to what I'm telling you!"

"I won't listen to you if you won't talk sense!" Mrs. Delaney declared. "I am not— I am not some stupid child, to be confused with nonsense!"

"Are you?" said Uncle Max, who heretofore had been silent. His voice was gentle. "Then what happened to the older sister who used to tell me to grow up and admit that someone else could be right, and that I could be wrong? Now, obviously, that's an older sister's prerogative, but—" He gave a light laugh. "—sure looks bad from this angle, doesn't it?"

"Mrs. Delaney," said Pastor Pendleton. "What you are exhibiting is what my psychologist friend Chris Stanton calls, for better or for worse, 'the religious mindset.' He is a self-proclaimed scientist: he examines the facts, builds a hypothesis, and tests one against the other. If the hypothesis is false, he claims, the scientific thinker alters the hypothesis. The religious thinker, on the other hand, alters the facts."

Grandpa Cassidy gave a great guffaw.

"Your daughter is currently presenting you with a number of facts that you find inconvenient," Larry Pendleton continued in a calm voice. "So you are choosing to ignore them. That's an understandable reaction—certainly, we all have things we wish were untrue—but ultimately a dangerous one. Because, if you ignore too many things, you risk losing touch with what is truly, honestly, actually going on. What would Jesus ask of you in this situation? Would he tell you to continue sheltering yourself and attending to your own safety at the cost of other people's feelings? Or would he tell you to step out, to tear down your safety and go out and love people and face the painful truth?"

"Back when I was in college, getting one or the other of my six degrees," said Uncle Max, "I heard of this guy named Occam. Old fellow. English. Designed a razor. This razor wasn't very good for shaving, but it was a useful in circumstances like these. Occam's Razor is a mode of thought, or a philosophy: it says that, if there are two possible explanations for a thing, the simpler one is the most likely to be true.

"So, consider your situation. Your daughter has left the house. She is married and living on her own. She has all sorts of crazy ideas about why she left, and about the mistreatment she has evidently suffered at your hands. Your theory is that she's lying, trying to mess with your head—or, even better, Jon has somehow bewitched her, put ideas into her head, and that's where she got them.

"That theory requires Jon to be a liar—which we know he is not—and furthermore requires Caitlyn to be susceptible to that sort of con—which we know she is not. The next theory, that Caitlyn is lying, requires her to be a liar—which we know is also not true. The final theory, that she's telling the truth, is the only one that stands up, because it requires nothing. Except that you pull your head out of the clouds and listen."

"How can you say that to me," said Mrs. Delaney. "Your own sister!"

"I can because someone must," Uncle Max snapped, and Jon jumped involuntarily—he had never before heard this man raise his voice.

"Linda, do you think this is the only conversation we've had on the topic? We all have our concerns over how you treat Caitlyn, especially after Nathaniel left the way he did. We all know why he left, all of us but you, and there's a really simple reason for that. Want to apply Occam's Razor to that little conundrum?"

"It can't be true," said Mrs. Delaney. "It can't be."

"Oh," said Uncle Max. "So you're going to tell us we're wrong. Me, your brother, and your mother and father, whose advice you always turn to whenever you have questions. Larry Pendleton, whom you moved two thousand miles for because you respect him so much. Your own daughter, Caitlyn, whom you love more than life itself. You're going to stand here and tell us all that we're wrong."

"Mrs. Delaney, please don't think we're simply out here to hurt your feelings," said Pastor Pendleton in a gentler voice. "Because we're not. It's always hard to confront our own mistakes, especially ones that might've hurt someone we love. If we follow Christ, we will be sympathetic to you, and forgive you for your sins. But if you follow Christ, you must face them first."

"Everyone's pointing you in that direction, Linda," said Grandma Cassidy. "Everyone's agreeing. Maybe it's something you should open your mind to."

Mrs. Delaney sat silent for a long moment.

"Tell me," she said.

Everyone relaxed, which Jon thought was a bit premature: she hadn't agreed to listen, only to hear. But everyone seemed to think it a victory. Had they really been that pessimistic about the likelihood of bending her ear? Maybe he should be more joyous.

"It starts with Nathan," said Caitlyn. "And, actually, we may be able to finish there, because everything else was more of the same. So let's start with Nathan. Do you know what he did?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how he would describe what he did?"

Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"That's what I thought," said Caitlyn.

"I thought you said this was about you and Jon," said her father.

"It is," said Caitlyn. "Mom, could you describe what we did as we would describe it?"

Once again, Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"So let's examine that difference," said Caitlyn. "Mom, I'd like you to describe, in your own words, what Nathan did."

"He packed up and left," said Mrs. Delaney immediately.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "What else? I seem to recall some words passing between you and him prior to his departure."

"Yes," said Mrs. Delaney.

"What were they?" Caitlyn asked.

"I... Well... He told us about a month before his departure that he was leaving. And I was very hurt that he hadn't consulted us or told us about it or asked our advice."

"And you had every right to be," Caitlyn said, surprising Jon and her mother both. "I've never lost a son, obviously, but I can imagine how I'd feel if Jon just upped and left me for no reason. But let me ask you: what would you have told him if he had actually asked your advice?"

"I... I would have... Asked him if he wanted help packing, or, or—"

"Really, mother? They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I think they're right. I'm not accusing you of lying," she added firmly, as Mrs. Delaney opened her mouth to protest. "I'm just saying that sometimes people mis-remember. So let me ask it another way. When Nathan told you he was leaving: if you could have told him just one thing, and had him obey it, what would you have told him?"

Mrs. Delaney opened her mouth.

"Honestly," said Caitlyn, and Mrs. Delaney shut her mouth.

She was silent for a long moment.

"I would have told him not to leave," she said.

"Why not?" Caitlyn asked.

After a moment, Mrs. Delaney said, "I didn't want him to."

"Why not?" Caitlyn said again.

Her mother flared. "What, is there anything wrong with wanting a son to stay close?"

"Nothing at all," said Caitlyn. "But as you yourself proved, a child can have their own family and still stay close to their parents. So, what other reasons did you have for wanting him to stay? You shouted at him, mother. Something as simple as where he's moving doesn't provoke that kind of reaction. Why else did you dislike the idea of him leaving?"

"I... I was... Concerned," said Mrs. Delaney. "He's far away, he's in Idaho. It's hard for me to... To keep an eye on him."

"Yes, it is," Caitlyn agreed. "But I'm sure Nathan was aware of that. If he had wanted your eye on him, he could have moved somewhere closer. He didn't. He must have decided he didn't need your help."

"But what if he's wrong," Mrs. Delaney asked.

"Then he's wrong," said Caitlyn, "but isn't that his choice? It's his life, to do with as he pleases."

"But he might make a mistake without someone to help him," Mrs. Delaney protested.

"So?" said Uncle Max. "There's nothing wrong with making mistakes, Linda. The problem is making them after you should know better."

"Look who's talking," said Mrs. Delaney. "You married the same woman twice."

"Yes," said Uncle Max easily, "I did. I'm very happy to have my wife back, and Larry and Heath are glad to have their mother back."

"I never understood what you saw in her," said Mrs. Delaney.

"Of course you didn't," said Uncle Max. "Nobody does. I didn't tell you most of what goes on between me and Velma, neither last time nor this one. I don't tell anybody what goes on, for the most part. And, for the record, I never quite understood what you saw in Sam either. But I also know there's a lot you don't tell me, so I trusted you to make up your own mind, and to know, a lot better than I would, what's best for you."

"But it's not the same," Mrs. Delaney protested. "I do know what's best for Nathan."

"Do you?" Jon said—a little more sharply than he had intended. But... This was just such a stupid idea! "Do you, really, Mrs. Delaney? Tell me, then: what do you know about being Nathan? What's it like to be Nathan? What does he think when he wakes up in the morning? What does he think when he looks in the mirror? What does he think when Caitlyn talks to him over the Internet? What does he think when he goes to work? What does he think when he goes to bed? Do you know these things?"

Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"If you don't, then how, in all honesty, can you claim to know what's best for Nathan? You don't know him anywhere near well enough to make such judgments."

"And there's nothing wrong with that," said Pastor Pendleton, sliding smoothly into the gap. "I have three children of my own, and they still surprise me every day. I don't know them well enough to predict their actions. And that used to bother me, until my wife Amber pointed out that there are only two people who can ever know or even have a chance of knowing what a person will do before they do it: that person's spouse, and God. And even the spouse is wrong sometimes. Seeing as I am neither my children's spouses nor God, I have no chance. And that's something both Amber and I have had to accept, no matter how hard it was to do so—and believe me, it hasn't been easy."

"So, we've established that you wanted Nathan to stay," said Caitlyn. "And we've established that you were scared for his future—which is understandable. But let me ask you a question: how did your mother react when you got married?"

"Nathan isn't getting married," said Mrs. Delaney sharply.

"No, he isn't," said Caitlyn, which was not technically a lie as Nathan wasn't actually getting married, he had simply already done so. "But he is still stepping out and becoming independent—and you've told me many times over the years that marriage was the first time you left Grammy and Grampy's house. So, how did they react when you did exactly what Nathan did: leave the house?"

"They... They seemed pleased," said Mrs. Delaney. Her voice was quiet. "I was so nervous about... About being on my own, and having to cook for Sam, and keep a clean house, and... And they just..."

Jon felt an unpleasant tingling, a wash of understanding.

"Linda... Did you think we..." Grandma Cassidy whispered.

"We... We were happy, because you were so happy," Grandpa Cassidy murmured. "Of course we were sad to lose you, but who wants to be burdened with a parent's worries on the day of her wedding, and you looked—we felt..."

"O Lord, hear our cries of grief and loss," said Pastor Pendleton, his voice quiet but strong. "Help us clear away the obscuring curtains of misunderstanding, and see clearly, and forgive clearly the wrongs that were done us, not of hatred, but of love."

Jon was starting to see the picture a little more clearly. He and Caitlyn had developed quite a few different hypotheses on what drove her mother's actions, but in lack of proof they'd never been able to separate the good ones from the wrong ones. One of those theories was that Mrs. Delaney might have gotten somehow suspended in childhood—obviously, she had grown up physically, and even borne children, but in her heart she was still a little girl, wanting nothing more or less than her parents' love and approval. This one, Jon saw, might have enough proof to start trusting in.

"So," said Caitlyn, gamely dragging the discussion back on-topic for the third time, "we've established that you may not have had any idea what Nathan was actually trying to accomplish. But how did you act?"

"Even I can answer that," said Uncle Max. "She's always been an insufferable know-it-all. She acted like she had all the answers and that Nathan was totally wrong."

"Mom, you teach second grade," said Caitlyn. "Weren't you just telling me last week about that one kid, Davis, who annoys you and the kids so much because—"

"All right!" said Mrs. Delaney.

Uncle Max chuckled. "That's our Lindy. Stubborn to the end."

"So why do you think Nathan might've decided to up and leave?" said Caitlyn. "Why do you think he might've done so without ever consulting with you? Why do you think I might've been so unhappy with the lifestyle you chose for me that I wanted to kill myself? Why do you think I might've upped and left without ever consulting you?

"Is it because we're all nuts? Is it because we're all crazy? Or is it because we knew you'd disagree, and you can't ever accept an idea you didn't have? Because you don't listen to people unless they're agreeing with you? Because you simply can't stand to be wrong?"

Mrs. Delaney was silent for a long moment, staring at her hands.

Then she said, "No," and at the fire in her voice Jon felt his heart drop. We were so close, so close... 

"I know the voice of the Devil when I hear it," said Mrs. Delaney. "His lies are seductive, but they lead you down the path of sin, and the wages of sin are death. I know my heart. I know my truth. I know what the Lord calls me to do."

"The Lord calls you to lie to yourself," Uncle Max said, nonplussed.

"And you," she said, turning on them. "How dare you come into this house, you who claim to be God-fearing people, and spew these untruths to me. Especially you, Reverend! I trusted you! Well. You may think you are safe behind your special little title, but the Lord knows. And the Lord remembers."

"Mrs. Delaney," said Larry Pendleton, "I would not have come here if—"

"Out! All of you! Out, out, out!!" She pointed, imperious. "I never want to see any of your faces again!"

And Caitlyn stood, cold hatred on her face, and spit out the three simple words that (Jon would later find out) she knew would kill her mother's heart in her chest:

"Fine by me."

And Mrs. Delaney paled, but continued pointing, and that was the last they saw of her as they shut the door.

Then there was a profound, ugly silence as they stood on that profound, ugly yard, feeling as if for the first time the acid of the chill December air, and the biting wind on their faces, and the grotesqueries of the silver moonlight. Jon felt ill.

"Well," said Grandpa Cassidy eventually. "That turned out well."

"Will she ever forgive us," Grandma Cassidy murmured.

"You know Lindy," said Uncle Max, "she'll be back by tomorrow," but his normally jovial voice was quiet and tired.

"Well," said Larry Pendleton. "I don't mean to be an I-Told-You-So, but I did mention the dangers of choosing sides."

"You didn't have to come, you know," Jon shot back.

He was instantly sorry—Reverend Pendleton had indeed not had to come, but had chosen to out of the goodness of his own heart, and quite obviously now at some personal loss to himself. Thankfully, the minister was not offended. "I know," he said. "I chose to. My wife passed me a saying she found in a book in a book somewhere: 'Take what you want, and pay for it.' We all took what we wanted today: Mrs. Delaney took her pride, and Caitlyn took her vengeance, and I took the path my heart followed instead of my head. And now..." He sighed. "Now, we must all pay for what we took."

"What's she paying," Jon said, tossing his head at the closed door.

"Everything," said Larry Pendleton. "Did you see all those pictures, Jon? Her family—everywhere her family. The bond of blood is everything to Linda Delaney—and she just alienated every single person who shares it with her. Eventually I think she will start to question if the cost was worth it."

"What will you do if she comes back to you," Jon asked.

Larry Pendleton made a bit of a grimace. "The hard thing: turn the other cheek."

Caitlyn kept it together, for the most part, as they drove back to Jon's parents' house, but she wasn't especially communicative, and when his parents came out to greet them, they needed only to look at her face to know how things had gone. It wasn't until they reached his room that the floodgates opened. Then she cried.

We seem to find ourselves meeting like this a little more frequently than is probably healthy,  Jon thought. And though he once again held her in his arms, stroking her hair and whispering whatever assurances he could, he knew it would not be enough.

We failed. It was his last thought as he drifted off to sleep, Caitlyn's unhappy breath still in his ears and her tears drying on his shirt. We failed.

-------

Day 6

When Caitlyn awoke the next morning, her first thought was, We failed.

It was a cold bleak morning. She had fallen asleep sprawled across him, and outside she could see the overcast wall of clouds. She had always loved this sort of weather, especially when the sun lit up the sky from the inside; Jon said that this was the clouds dissolving into silver linings. But there was no such light now, and all she saw was cold cadaver death.

We failed.

Just the mere thought of it threatened the tears again. We failed. And we were so close, so close...  All it would have taken was that one final admission, that one ultimate concession of error, and they would have been done. But no: Mom had chosen her pride, or some such that she had vaguely heard Jon and Pastor Pendleton talking about through her daze, and maybe now she would pay for it. But Caitlyn didn't think so. Mom had won, after all; there was no way she could possibly be as miserable as Caitlyn was now.

But Caitlyn remembered what Jon had said: "In war, everybody loses."

She looked up at him.

She couldn't see much of his face, not at this angle, but he was squirming a little bit, fidgeting under her, and when she lifted herself up to look at him, his eyes snapped open, wide and terrified.

Then there was a moment of struggling panic until she realized that he wasn't attacking her, he had simply grabbed her and was now clinging to her with titanic force. "Oh God," he breathed, "Oh God, oh God. I dreamt that I lost you. Oh God."

And suddenly she realized that her mother had not entirely won. Caitlyn hadn't achieved that single devastating paradigm shift, but surely Mom had had her own goals as well—mostly consisting of convincing her idiotic, headstrong daughter from pursuing this foolish marriage idea. Caitlyn had nipped those in the bud. True, Caitlyn had lost... But so had her mother. Neither of them had ultimately achieved anything. And perhaps a stalemate was better than a total loss.

And besides: she still had Jon.

His mouth opened hungrily under hers, and his hand snaked behind her head. Another slid down across her back, caressing her buttock and then the leg beneath, and with a sudden jolt she realized just how long it had been since they had... Done it. Not all that long in a global sense—surely even married couples had abstained for longer than two full days—but when that was half the duration of your marriage... Not the way I ever envisioned spending my first week. Even I figured we'd do it more than this.

"Caitlyn..." he breathed. "Caitlyn... I want..."

"Yes," she whispered.

His hands dove under her shirt, trying without much success to undo her bra and relieve her of her shirt at the same time. The bra did come off, and the shirt rucked up above her breasts. His hands found them, the palms rough and good against her skin, while she battled with pants and underwear—hers needed to come off, but she simply pulled his down, letting his erection spring free. Then she was over him, on him, mounting him, welcoming him home.

She wasn't sure how well the entry would go—at less than two minutes, this was by far the most rapid foreplay they had ever engaged in—but clearly her ardor had risen to match hers, because he sunk in to the root on his first stroke, and she almost exploded with the fullness inside her, and with the sudden wave of pleasure. She could not explain the sensations of his penetration—it was like her entire body was wrapped around him when he was inside her. Surely it was not that long, surely she wasn't that cavernous. But that was what it felt like.

They kissed as she rode him, his hands caressing her back, her waist, her hips, and she gloried at every sensation, but it was barely moments before he groaned and tensed and she felt the sudden warm burst of his seed inside her. It felt incredibly good... But then panic speared through her mind—The condom!!—and she lifted off of him, letting the next bursts arc out into the air and onto his stomach. Despite the ringing bells in her mind, she found herself strangely fascinated—she had never seen him shoot before, and had no idea that his penis possessed such... Range. The first one puddled up almost halfway up past his navel.

When he opened his eyes he looked from the semen on his chest to the panicked expression on his face and said, "Shit."

In the shower, she used the detachable shower head to thoroughly irrigate her nether parts. Jon said he wasn't entirely sure this was safe, but it was just water, surely it couldn't hurt that much. She did not use soap, as he was sure that wasn't safe. "It should be enough," he said, "and we can always run and get a morning-after pill if we have to." Caitlyn didn't like that idea in the slightest, but... What was it she had heard Pastor Pendleton say? "Take what you want, and pay for it." She guessed they had.

Jon joined her in the shower after a few minutes of hurried Internet consultation. "You can use soap, if you want," he said, "but you run the risk of, number one, infection because the soap is probably anti-bacterial and will wipe out the harmless population of natives in your you-know-what, allowing less-savory characters to move in. Number two, you have to wash really carefully to make sure all of it gets out."

"I guess I'll have to take my chances," Caitlyn said, reaching for the shampoo.

Jon stood under the spray for a moment. "Well. That was quite a wake-up. Who needs coffee when you could have a pregnancy scare?"

"Yeah," said Caitlyn. "I'm really wishing we had a more reliable form of... Of birth control. One we didn't have to remember every time. I mean, we've had sex four times and used a condom only twice. That's not a very good ratio."

"Well, that at least would've been one of the convenient things about waiting for a few months before getting married," Jon said.

When they had emerged, scrubbed clean and feeling a bit more awake, Jon turned to her. "What do you wanna do? We've got a whole day ahead of us. Two whole days, actually."

"I have two services to play tomorrow," Caitlyn said. "I should probably call Mrs. Sellitz and tell her that I won't be ready—I haven't practiced at all this week. Except for a little bit at school yesterday. You have practice with your group. And I have finals next week..."

"Okay, so, not quite a whole weekend," Jon said.

"And even if I had practiced, it's not like the church has a harp I can borrow; we always brought mine. If I don't have it..."

"So much depends on that one piece of hardware."

"Yeah, no kidding," said Caitlyn. "Well... You brought your checkbook yesterday, but we kinda forgot to—"

"And the check might've bounced, since we technically closed my account and shifted all the assets into a joint one."

"But we don't have checks from that one yet either."

"Yeah, the lady at the bank said some time this coming week."

"Well... I'd better leave a phone call with my dad, or something. See what we can work up. What are we gonna do in the meantime?"

"Well... We could go back to bed and do it right this time."

Caitlyn felt her eyebrows jumping.

"It... It felt good, with you... Ejaculating... Inside me," she admitted, feeling her cheeks flame. "I wish..."

His arms circled around her. "Believe me, baby, it felt good for me too, but we can't. It's just not safe."

"Yeah."

"And... I didn't get to... You didn't come. I should've..."

She hadn't—in fact, she had barely gotten started—but somehow she didn't mind that. "It's okay," she said. "Jon, you always put me first. You always spend so much... So much time, and effort, and strength, and love on me. And I really like that. But this time we put you first, and I like that too."

"I like it when we just put each other first," Jon said.

That did seem the smartest way to run a marriage, but... "Yes, but how do you do that, umm. In bed?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a sixty-nine?" he asked.

Now she was definitely confused. "What?"

"Didn't you run across that on the Internet the other night?"

Did he see what I was looking at? "No."

Jon rolled his eyes. "Come on. We gotta finish your education."

When he sat down at the computer chair, totally naked, and gestured for her to join him, she knew what was going to happen. So she gave him a wink and said, "Just a second," and then darted over to the nightstand for a condom. "Just in case, you know. Something should come up."

He kissed her. "I have married a very smart girlfriend."

With the feeling of his penis (his cock?) under her leg, and his bare chest all down her side, it was a little hard to concentrate at times. But the things on the computer screen were so... Alluring. Instead of leaving her to the mercy of search engines, Jon called up one of the video files he had hidden away on his computer. It was a sort of tutorial, to judge by the narration and occasional bullet points, depicting all the various ways men and women could put themselves together (He did see what I was looking at). The sixty-nine was for oral sex, allowing the man and the woman to stimulate each other simultaneously; once she thought about the numbers, and how they would look together, she understood the allusion at once.

It was the intercourse positions that truly got her going, though. It wasn't just the actual positions, though she really liked the variations she saw on the things they'd tried already (missionary, woman-on-top, spooning). It was also the film. The video was accompanied by footage of various men and women acting out the positions, and while their genitals were rarely visible, it was also very clear just how much they were enjoying themselves and what they were doing. She had seen some of the other pictures of men and women at it—close-ups of private parts, sometimes so close she could barely make sense of what she was seeing. Those did not turn her on in the slightest; these, on the other hand, were far more arousing. It was not so much graphic as it was evocative; she could feel their passion as if it were her own.

She suddenly realized she was squirming on his leg, and that she was very wet. Each wiggle rubbed her pubis against his leg, sending gentle shocks of pleasure through her body. "Hmm," said Jon, a verbal smile. "Maybe we should try out one of these new combinations?"

She almost fell down in her haste to stand up, so that he could put the condom on himself. She saw once again how he did it, and thought she might be able to do it herself next time. Then, with his guidance, she straddled him and guided his fullness into herself. His lips were on her neck, his hands on her back, her breasts pressed against him, and she let her head fall back with a soundless gasp of joy

It was much longer this time, for a variety of reasons. Jon later explained to her the concept of endurance, and how he could last much longer since he had had one orgasm already. She also didn't have much leverage, until Jon noticed and lowered the chair: her legs just weren't long enough. On her end, she could feel her clit pressing against his body every time she moved down on him. And of course the condom helped—by making things worse, at least. It just isn't the same. If I had known, I would've waited. But, if I'd known, maybe I wouldn't have been able to wait. If I'd've known... 

Soon, Jon's hand slipped between them, finding her clit, and things became much better. She wasn't sure how he fit it down there, with his lips still nibbling her ear and her breasts pressed against him for the added pleasure of his chest on her nipples, but he did. And soon she realized how well he had learned to read her, when she felt the first jolt of pleasure beneath her. Then her moans reached a crescendo as her pussy spasmed and clenched down on his cock—Oh, so good, so good, it's so much better with him inside—and then she was gone, overwhelmed, feeling only the rampant pleasure as her body tensed and jolted and shuddered, not noticing her own voice calling out his name, nor his groan of pleasure as he erupted up inside her, filling the condom with his seed.

When she could think, she was breathing hard, slumped onto him, his own breath rattling her hair. "Oh," he murmured. "Oh. Caitlyn."

My Lord. Lord Almighty. Twice in two hours. Twice in an hour! What would people think if they knew?

... Nothing, of course, because they'll never know. Why should it matter what goes on between us, in the privacy of our own... Company? No one will ever know. Unless I tell them... Or Jon tells them. Which he'd better not. I'll never sleep with him again if he does!

... Okay, that's a lie.

"See," he panted. "Now that's the way to start the morning."

"Hmmm," she said.

"And, you know... We may not have won, last night." It was the first reference to last night's events they had made all day. "Actually, we didn't win. We didn't accomplish our goals. But we didn't lose, either. Your mother couldn't take us away from each other. We still have each other. We're still here. I'm still Jon Stanford, and you're still Caitlyn—Stanford, and we still love each other."

She nestled into his arms. "More than ever," she agreed. "More than ever."



-------

Part 5


Day 8

On the first full Monday of her marriage, Caitlyn Stanford arose in equal parts anticipation and dread.

She was still having pangs of readjustment when she woke up and found herself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar place, but there was always the comfort of a very familiar set of arms. Waking up with Jon meant that the day started off right. The only problem was that he had to get up at six every morning--"It's one of the downsides of being a responsible adult," he joked--so 'waking up' was limited to stirring as his arms disengaged, giving him a muzzy kiss, and then wandering back off to sleep. There was never time to share sex, not on that schedule, which also made her sad; morning sex was very pleasant, especially when half-asleep. She had half a mind to wake him up early one day just to do him, but she didn't think he'd appreciate that later in the day.

The end result was that when Caitlyn actually awoke, it was in a cold, still bed that was missing its best feature: her husband.

It was a little after eight in the morning--early, for her, but then they had gone to bed early to make love and then make sure Jon had enough sleep. She'd originally entertained the idea of getting up once he'd drowsed off and continuing her studies, but she'd been far too comfortable. Jon had a way of relaxing her, a way she'd never experienced before. He once told me that I should learn to masturbate as a form of stress relief. I just rolled my eyes at him at the time, but... If I had known... 

It had been a comfortable weekend, to be sure. They'd ended up spending most of it up in Jon's room, studying, practicing, replying to incredulous phonecalls and e-mails from their friends, and trolling Craigslist for job offers and such, coming out only for the necessities of food and church on Sunday. They'd also gotten 'distracted' (as Caitlyn liked to think of it) by each other on a fairly regular basis. She was still rather reticent about the whole thing--there was something fundamentally icky about sex--but it always felt incredibly good, and there was something good about the ickiness as well. Though she tried to resist--and even succeeded at times!--inevitably she would get drawn back to him, to his body and his kiss and that wonderful hardness between his legs, and then something would happen, and there'd be another used condom to dispose of and she would have to try and remember where she'd left off with her work. Good thing the church music had been easy.

The good news was, her first final was tomorrow, on Tuesday, and she had nothing on her schedule for today except for some harp practice. The bad news was, a single day of studying for a final was probably not going to be sufficient.

I think I see why most students get married in the summer.

She had her harp back. She had had him since she was eleven, and his name was Gabriel. Her father had swung by unexpectedly with a car-load of her things--still demanding payment, but at least willing to return them to their true owner. He had been bullish on the check; he was an accountant, it was where Caitlyn had gotten it, and money was serious business to him. Eventually Jon's parents had agreed to pay the sum, with Jon to pay them back the moment their joint-account checks arrived. Caitlyn had a hunch that an extra $5,000 or so might accidentally end up on the repayment check. Ultimately, she was just glad to get her harp back. Gabriel was now set up in the upstairs den next to Jon's bedroom.

It was the first day of finals at Greenfield too, but Jon had managed to convince his singing group to hold a short concert of Christmas music, as a sort of holiday-cheer-cum-distraction-from-finals experience. Caitlyn wasn't sure how he'd managed to do so, but everyone was amenable, even though it meant that some of them would be up late tonight, studying. (Just like I'll be, probably.) Caitlyn was, of course, invited--if not by Jon, then certainly by her friends Zach and Christa Crane--but what made her both excited and worried was that two more people from her graduating class, Brandon and Meredith Chambers, had made arrangements to drive up and attend as well. Christa had also mentioned in passing that some of her other high school friends might come with them, but she had been vague about it and Caitlyn didn't know them in any case.

The Cranes were both at Greenfield's Religious Studies program, chasing the degrees necessary to become music ministers, but Caitlyn went to Shellview State now, and she basically hadn't seen them since they'd all graduated college in June. It was a reunion she welcomed and dreaded in equal measure. She had been fairly close with Meredith and Christa and Brandon, but their lives had simply gone in different directions; the summer between their junior and senior year, the Chamberses married so that little Laurelyn would be born into a wedded family if not conceived by one, and at the reception afterwards Zach proposed to Christa. From then on, those three had been looking forward, worrying not just about studies but nebulous futures that they were now trying to create. Caitlyn had mostly had studies and parental insanity to dwell on, but a ray of light as well: a man named Jonathan Stanford, whom she'd seen around the music department a lot. He'd been invited because he had been Brandon's freshman RA. The revelation of her suicidal nature had gone to him some months before, and he was the only person she knew there, aside from the bride, groom, best man and maid of honor (all of whom were having their own interpersonal escapades). It was at that wedding that Jon drew her quietly aside and told her something about how he felt towards her. Nowadays, they counted it as their first date.

Maybe it's no wonder we got married in the rush we did. Heck, maybe it's no wonder we started thinking about marriage in the rush we did. Though, of course, the sheer luck was that we were compatible at all.

Zach and Christa had gotten married over the summer, after a year's engagement. No children were expected, or planned for that matter; Christa had taken The Pill religiously since she was fourteen, and by her and Zach's best estimations it would be years yet before they were financially and personally ready for offspring. Meredith's surprise pregnancy, announced the April of her junior year, had swept over the school like wildfire; after all, everyone knew that The Pill only failed one woman of thirty. It had taken several conversations with Meredith to straighten things out: Meredith's pill pack had expired, which no one (Meredith included) had realized was possible, and she and Brandon had unknowingly been having unprotected sex for several months before Laurelyn was conceived. It had been human error, not one of the lotto-style failures. Still, the school at large had no real idea what had happened, and even at her graduation Meredith had been accosted by people who thought she was one of the one-in-thirty.

Caitlyn, Christa, Meredith and Brandon had been the stars of the Music department for their graduating year (ironically, only Christa had actually majored in it), and, before Jon, the quartet was the closest Caitlyn had known to friendship. And this was the talk she had been surrounded with: fertility schedules, diapers, breastfeeding, sex and its consequences, receptions, conceptions, apartments, bills, jobs, taxes... Grown-up stuff. Caitlyn had never joined in; she was the odd one out, the one with nothing to contribute. Ironically, she never felt threatened by the fact that her friends had all gone to the same high school, had known each other twice or thrice as long as they had known her; it was the fact that their talk was so far over her head that did her in. There was a part of their lives she could never be involved in, and she knew it.

Now that had changed.

I've been there. I am there. I'm grown up too. I've... Jeez, what a scary thing to say. That I'm grown up. When did this happen? And Meredith skipped a grade too, like me, and she's already a mother. When did growing up become so... Right-now?

But that was all in the future, for her. First she had a lot of studying to get through. A lot of studying to get through.

It was tedious work: reviewing, marking down important tidbits, listing questions she would need to answer. This was relatively easy stuff--it was only the first semester of four before she graduated--but but tiring as well. Every now and then she would glance at the clock: Jon is sitting at his desk,  or, Jon is on lunch,  or, Maybe Jon is in the bathroom, or, I wish Jon was here. That one a little more frequently than the others. The truth was, she missed him. She needed the reassurance of his body, of his breath in the room, his voice behind her ear, his presence nearby. She needed him.

She remembered, after one particularly poignant date--the occasion of their first kiss, in fact, which it had taken her months to build up the courage to accept--she had lain in her bed, feeling the gap where (she had a hunch) he ought to be, and thought: It must get easier after you get married. You must not miss them as much.

Well. I know how wrong that was.

It seemed like an eternity before he would arrive, but then she blinked and it was gone, and he was knocking on the door to his own room. "How are ya, babe. Have you been there all day?"

She was sprawled on the floor, books around her every which way. "Yeah. I don't think I remembered to eat."

He scooped her into his arms. "Right. We'd better go out and get you fed before the concert."

"That'll waste money. Let's just not eat and save up."

"That's my silly little girl. Killing herself for grades and money. If I'd've known my girlfriend was such a masochist, I wouldn't've married her."

"Masochist? Doesn't that make me a sadist, someone who enjoys inflicting pain on myself?"

"No, it makes you a masochist, someone who enjoys watching me writhe because my wife isn't feeding herself properly."

"Oh, so, it's all about you, is it?" she said, giggling.

"Of course it is," he said, his voice rumbling in her ear pressed against his chest. "It's all about what I want, and what's important to me. And what I want is for my wife to still be here in thirty years, and not six feet under because she forgot to eat, so that I can go on loving her and holding her and caressing her and even having my way with her in bed every now and then."

"Ha. Like you're going to want to have sex with me when I'm fifty."

"Of course I am. I'll always think you're beautiful."

"Even when my hair is white and my face is wrinkled and my breasts sag down to my knees?"

"Even then. Mmm. In fact, that picture is so sexy--" His lips nibbled at her ear, a sure sign of what he wanted and a sure way to set her heart racing. "--I want to have sex with you right now."

"Mmph." She did too; oh, how she wanted to. But there wasn't time. "We can't. Not if we have to eat first."

His lips departed abruptly. "Oh, I see how it is. A man wants to claim his carnal rights as a husband, and suddenly she's willing to spend all sorts of money. Let me guess, you want to go back to Chadley's."

"They had good steak," said Caitlyn brightly.

"They did," he said. "But I've got something better." He bent his lips to hers.

"Jon," she said, easing away.

He hesitated for a moment, and then stepped back. "Are you turning me down?"

She looked at his face. He seemed surprised... And a little angry, too. But behind that... Was there a hint of hurt?

Her heart went out to him. "Oh, Jon. No. No, of course not. If you really want me... Jon, I love what we do. It's so... I never knew there could be anything like it. But we don't have time. You have to shower, and we do have to eat, and you said your call time is 6:30, and... If we even had five minutes more."

"You're right," he said. "You're always right." He sighed. "But, tonight..."

She smiled up at him. "Tonight? Baby, the instant we get home, you are going into that bed naked. How's that for a plan?"

He gave her a wicked grin. "Sounds good to me."

For the sake of time, and for old times' sake, they ate at the Greenfield cafeteria. The food was just as bad--or, alternately, just as good--as they remembered. Then they headed north to the Music Building. It was the first time Caitlyn had set foot there since graduating. To her surprise, most of the group was already there; musicians, after all, were not known for their punctuality. Maybe Jon and Professor Chapman had found the world's eight exceptions.

To Caitlyn's repeated surprise, Zach and Christa Crane had brought visitors with them: Brandon and Meredith Chambers. "They weren't busy," Brandon explained, "so we got the day off and made an outing of it. Three-day weekend is nice this time of year." He and Meredith both looked a little haggard, but at last report they were holding down three and a half jobs between them to keep their family afloat. And there was a unity about them, a singularity, as if the two were merely halves of the same whole. Man and wife become one flesh,  Caitlyn thought, and these two certainly have.

And they had become a united, third flesh as well: they had Laurelyn with them, a little bundle of joy with her father's dark hair but her mother's clear blue eyes. "My God," Jon said. "When did she get so... Gargantuan?"

"She's... Getting close to a year old, right?" Caitlyn said.

"Fifty-one weeks exactly," said Meredith, beaming. "The holidays are going to be frantic, what with Laurelyn's birthday followed by Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Day. But at least we'll be seeing a lot of our friends."

"No one else came," Christa said in clear disappointment.

Brandon shrugged. "We tried. We weren't able to get to Jane in time; she scheduled something today. Sajel's visiting her grandparents in Chicago with her family, Arie's into the third trimester so flying down from Seattle is right out, and Derek... Well. After him and Arie..."

"Yeah, no kidding," Christa agreed. "He goes through the motions, but it's like something died inside him."

"The weird thing is," Zach said. "We always figured Derek was the resilient one. But of the two of them, who's the one who bounced right back and then got knocked up and then got married?"

"No," Brandon said. "She and Ralph came down for a surprise visit over Thanksgiving. She's too busy to show it, what with the panic wedding and a bun in the oven, but there's a part of her that died too."

"That's two of the eight of us that The Pill failed," Meredith mused. "A quantum leap in medicine that seems to have leaped over Mount Hill."

"Okay," said Jon, rubbing his hands. "I hate to break up a party, but we've got a rehearsal to run and sound checks to play with. If I could get everyone in here... Mr. and Mrs. Chambers, we'll have to ask you to wait outside, but I'll leave Mrs. Stanford here to keep you folks company. I hope you find her sufficient." And, with a final wave, he ushered his singers into a practice room and shut the door.

Caitlyn turned back to Meredith and Brandon, only to find them gaping at her. " 'Mrs. Stanford'?" they said in unison.

"When did you get married?" Brandon said.

"When did you get engaged?" Meredith said.

"Aah," said Laurelyn.

"We, um... Jon asked me to marry him on November 18th," said Caitlyn.

"And you didn't tell us??" Meredith exclaimed.

"We didn't tell--! Ugh." Caitlyn tossed her hands. "I should just make a sign. People keep saying that to us."

"What, you didn't tell anybody?" Brandon said.

"No," said Caitlyn, "we didn't want it to get back to my mother."

There was a steady silence.

"You didn't want it to get back to your mother," said Brandon.

"Oh dear," said Meredith. "One of them."

"Goo," said Laurelyn.

Caitlyn remembered some of the things Zach had said during his best-man toast. "That's right, you had similar parents..."

"Well, mine were just absent," said Brandon.

"And we made mine shape up," said Meredith.

"But, yes, we know," said Brandon.

"That rules out the shotgun wedding, though," said Meredith, "which is the usual reason for hasty marriages. You folks have only been engaged for a month, so the wedding must have been recent."

"What she's trying to say, is," Brandon said, "that, if you need a sympathetic ear..."

"And, if not, we can always talk about other things," said Meredith, smiling. "I know parental trauma isn't always the most positive of topics."

"Gibubu," said Laurelyn.

"No," said Caitlyn, "it's fine."

She told them the story as concisely as possible, from that first fateful IM to Jon the March before the Chambers' wedding, to the events of this Friday; she was a little surprised at how quickly she could summarize it all up. But then, she'd had a lot of practice over the last week. Brandon and Meredith nodded, making sympathy noises when appropriate, and when she was done Meredith hugged her. "It's not easy, going through all that," Meredith told her. "And then jumping face-first into a marriage... You've been very brave, Caitlyn. None of what you've done is easy."

"I have to ask, though," Brandon said. "Not as a brown-noser, but as a concerned friend. Do you have any regrets about it? About jumping in like this?"

Caitlyn sighed. "Sometimes. Kind of. Maybe."

Brandon shrugged. "Well, that clears it up."

"I don't like what we did to my mother," she said. "We... I said some... I said horrible things."

"Of course you did," Meredith said. "And she probably said horrible things to you. Pain makes people do that. What matters is not that you blurted it out, when you were angry and scared and wanted to hurt her--what matters is that, now, when you're calmer, you regret saying it. Don't give it a second thought."

"Though, also, don't do it again," Brandon added.

"Gah," said Laurelyn.

Caitlyn nodded. "And... Jon and I... We're not ready. Financially, at least. Logistically. We had to run around all last week trying to figure out apartments and finding jobs and pooling our assets and how to get my parents to relinquish my harp, and... It would have been nice to have more time than that, to figure all that out."

"What about with Jon," Meredith asked. "What do you feel about him?"

About Jon?

Caitlyn beamed.

Meredith laughed. "Well, I guess that answers that question."

"No, don't get me wrong, we... Not everything works out." Her cheeks colored, remembering the almost-argument they'd had not an hour ago. "But... Well, when he asked me to marry him, all I could think was, It's about time. And it was different having that ring on my finger, and it's really different having him beside me at all times now, but... In other ways, it's like we've only just finally gotten everything the way we wanted it. I mean, after we started dating, he immediately went out and got a job, because... He just knew. And... I kinda knew, too. And so, yeah, all the changes are weird. But in some ways... The only thing I really regret is not doing it sooner."

"Oh really now," said Brandon, laughing.

Caitlyn colored. "That's not what I meant."

Brandon raised an eyebrow.

Caitlyn colored further. "Okay, that's one of the things I meant."

"We knew you'd like it," said Meredith, smiling. "We could just tell."

"We have a friend back home," Brandon began.

"Friend? You used to date her!" Meredith exclaimed, laughing.

"Right," said Brandon, "as my wife has reminded me, we have a friend, back home, named Jane, who's a lot like you. It took a long time to get her to loosen up, but once she did... Man. She's just a lot happier now, and a lot healthier, and a lot more... Whole."

"What happened," Caitlyn asked, who understood exactly what Brandon was saying. "Did she meet some new guy?"

Meredith shook her head. "The Program."

"The Program?" Caitlyn had heard of it, of course--it was everywhere on the news when it was first approved. But it hadn't come up here to Shellview, where the weather just wasn't warm enough. "She was in The Program?"

"We all were," said Brandon. "That's how most of us met."

Caitlyn stared.

"Googoo," said Laurelyn happily.

Eventually, Caitlyn managed to sputter: "And you didn't tell me??"

Meredith shrugged. "You were always so uncomfortable when we brought up sexual matters. We knew you were a virgin and intended to remain so until marriage. We knew you had never had a boyfriend and didn't have too much experience with physical matters... You were--"

Brandon, who had Laurelyn, looked up. "Hold on, sweetie, I think it's someone's dinner time."

"Let's get one of the practice rooms," Meredith said. She opened the door while Brandon grabbed for the giant tote bag on the floor. "As I was saying. You were inexperienced in both men and sex, and plus we knew you were religious. That made you sound a lot like Jane, honestly--and Jane used to get really offended and kind of self-righteous when these things came up. Obviously you were never like that--you just let us talk about our things, and stayed out of it. But you were still uncomfortable. So how were we going to tell you that we went through a federally-mandated week of being pawed by random members of the student body?"

Meredith had been undoing the fasteners of her shirt as she spoke, and now one breast was bare. Brandon handed the baby over, but Caitlyn got a glimpse of pale, milk-laden flesh, and a pinkish nipple (somewhat smaller than her own), slightly wet, before the baby's head was in the way, and even after that she could still see some of the delicate network of veins beneath Meredith's skin.

"As you can see," Meredith said, "one of the legacies of The Program is that we don't have all that much modesty."

"I... I don't mind," said Caitlyn, truthfully. She knew Meredith would never do this in front of people she didn't trust, so that was a compliment right there. But on top of that, there was something eternal about the moment: Meredith, her head bent over her charge, Brandon hovering over them both, his hand on Meredith's shoulder. This was family at its most basic: the child focused on the mother, the parents on the child. There was no denying the power in that image, or the love they shared.

Meredith seems to have larger breasts than I remember. Maybe it's the breastfeeding. She was always so self-conscious about them being too small, too... 

"So, anyway," said Brandon, grinning. "Away from the confusion and back towards the salacious details. So you guys are doing it?"

"They're married, of course they're doing it," said Meredith.

"So? If Jane hadn't gone through The Program, you know even her husband would've had some trouble getting at her you-know. Marriage means you're supposed to let the walls down, but not everybody is able to do that all at once."

Caitlyn nodded. "It wasn't... In some ways, letting him be physical with me was a lot easier than... Than opening up to him. I mean, it really started the March before last, when I told him about my life. That was... That was a lot harder."

Brandon nodded. "All friendship really starts with opening yourself. Or, if you're a guy, sticking something out and hoping it doesn't get chopped off."

"That's what Jon says," Caitlyn agreed. "That the only way to really start a friendship is to let yourself be vulnerable to that person."

"Brandon, are you sure that's an appropriate analogy," Meredith asked.

Brandon shrugged. "I dunno. But it seems to me that opening up to someone is just the same as offering them something. Ultimately it's the same: vulnerability. It just depends on whether you wanna think of yourself as opening up or offering up. And, amusingly, there's a physical precedent for that between men and women."

"Yeah, but-- There's a philosophy out there that all life is a balance between giving and taking," said Meredith. "And that women are predisposed to give, and men to take."

" 'A philosophy, ' " Brandon chortled. "You read that in Dune."

"So? You're the one that uses the Litany of Fear."

Brandon shrugged. "It's a good prayer."

"And this one's a good philosophy, so shut up," said Meredith, grinning. "Besides, my point stands. If it's men who take, why are they the ones offering up vulnerability?"

"But that's the physical precedent," Brandon said. "Man sticks it out, woman takes it in. And good thing too, 'cause I have no idea how conception would work if it were the other way around."

"Maybe... When the man has an orgasm, he secretes sperm into his... I dunno, I guess it would be his vagina."

"And how does the woman pick that up?"

"I dunno, maybe she absorbs it through her, what, her penis? Or maybe she excretes the egg to be fertilized and then draws it back in."

"So the emphasis is on male orgasm again. Would anyone ever bother making their women cum?"

"They don't do that now," Meredith retorted, laughing.

"I do that," said Brandon, aggrieved.

"Yes, dear, you do," said Meredith, still laughing, "and that's why you were married by the first woman you dated who had any brains."

"Oh, so that's where this baby came from," Brandon declared, trying to look angry and failing miserably. A smile peeked its way out from behind his mask of righteous indignation. "Why, if I'd'a known, I would've..."

"Oh yeah right," Meredith said haughtily, "you would not have." Her regal poise was rather spoiled by the fluster of giggles that escaped midway through the sentence.

"What makes you say that?"

"What would you have gone back to? Your right hand?"

"Excuse me??" exclaimed Brandon. "I'll have you know it's my... It's my left... That..." He was laughing almost too hard to speak now. "I'm not so... So uncivilized as to..."

Caitlyn was in two minds. On the one hand, she didn't really want to think about Brandon... Doing things with himself. (Does he even? Or does Meredith keep him... Satisfied?) She didn't want to think about him doing things with Meredith either. She was sure they must enjoy them, but that wasn't her business and she didn't want it to be. On the other hand, it was fun to see them banter. And it reminded her of the joking that she and Jon had always shared.

"Well," said Meredith, with a grin, "ignoring this uncouth barbarian over here. Who, I think, was going to try and pry exotic details out of you."

"I was not!"

"You're a closet voyeur!"

"So are you, you were in The Program!"

"Any chance of having a serious conversation goes out the window when he's in the room," Meredith told her with a grin. "So why don't we kick him out and have us some girl-talk, just between ourselves?"

"Aww man!" said Brandon. "All right, I'll behave. Girl-talk Mode On."

And he stood composedly and showed no further sign of his previous raucousness.

"Wow," said Caitlyn. "No wonder you married him."

"Yeah," said Meredith, beaming. "He can be uncontrollable sometimes, but he has his compensations."

Brandon stood composedly, showing no reaction but an ostentatious roll of the eyes.

"So, where were we before we got so thoroughly sidetracked," Meredith said. "Umm. You were explaining why you got married to Jon, and we were asking you all sorts of important but possibly-private questions as to the nature of your relationship to him."

"You said you guys had been talking about getting married for... ?" said Brandon.

"Over a year," said Caitlyn. "Actually, within the first couple of months." She blushed. "Which, seems kinda fast, you know? And back then I always got a little nervous, and even now I sometimes wonder if we jumped the gun a little bit..."

"You may have," said Meredith, "but I don't think it's the feeling you need to doubt. Brandon and I... We knew... What, within a couple of months, right?"

"I knew by our third date," said Brandon quietly.

Meredith turned to look up at him. "Really?"

Brandon shrugged. "It just... Took me a little while to bring it up."

"Yeah, no kidding. Why didn't you tell before then!"

"Well, I mean... I just did, didn't I?"

"No, I mean, why didn't you tell me you felt that way a lot earlier, so I could've told you I knew by the third date too! The wedding you played at was more of a formality than anything else," she told Caitlyn. "We'd been married in our hearts for... Years."

"Since we were juniors in high school," said Brandon. "About... What, six, seven months after our first date?"

"You have to understand, it helped that Brandon's parents lived not-here," said Meredith. "We probably got a lot more privacy than you did. Gave us room to explore, and learn, and grow in. It was just us."

Caitlyn nodded. Brandon and Meredith, she had noticed many times, had an odd habit of sort of taking over conversations. They had simply had such intense lives, and learned so much from them, and their love for each other was so all-encompassing. It was inspiring to watch, but hard to talk into.

"What made you decide to marry him," Brandon asked. "And I don't mean, What circumstances, we know that you kind of did it to increase the distance between you and your parents. What I mean is, you must have made the decision some time before you actually did marry, there must have been something about him that made the difference. What was it?"

Pastor Pendleton had, indirectly, asked the exact same question. "He... Umm. We were at his house. He had just taught me to play The Sims." She'd made several based on characters from her books. "Oren caught the oven on fire. It was really funny." The Sims had run around, gibbering in their weird ur-language, and Caitlyn had simply sit back and laughed, while Jon alternately giggled and gave her odd looks. "So then we started talking about our lives, and, you know, aspirations, and what we wanted to accomplish with ourselves, and... We found out we wanted the exact same thing."

"Which is?" said Meredith, transferring Laurelyn from one breast to the other.

Caitlyn shrugged. "Family. To... To find someone to make a life with, and raise our children, and, and not make the same mistakes our parents did. Jon says he wants to be the cool uncle everyone wishes was their dad. I'd just be happy if my daughter felt comfortable talking to me about things."

The Chamberses were silent.

"I realize it's such a... I dunno, a simple thing, not like--"

"A simple thing," said Brandon, "but maybe the most important thing of all."

"It's what we want," Meredith said, "it's what Zach and Christa want... It's what Derek wants, and probably Jane too..."

"Ultimately, it's about making sure that the human race survives, because there are people smart enough and kind enough and wise enough to live through all the stupidity we as a race can inflict upon ourselves."

"I think maybe it's why we found each other so early," said Meredith. "We've heard from-- Well, what with Derek's situation, having lost the woman he thought he'd spend his life with, he started seeing Jane's therapist, Dr. Katrina Stanton, and she said that it takes people an average of 25 or 26 years to get to where we are--to get to the point where they start thinking, Hey, I'd like to have a family, I'd like to be responsible, I'd like to contribute to the future of the world--to start thinking that, much less actually be carrying it out. And, I mean, Derek, you know, he went through college without ever really dating much, at least not seriously, and now he wants to get back in the game, right? But no one seems to appreciate what he has to offer, and if Dr. Stanton is right, maybe they don't. But they will, in a few years. And then maybe Derek can get back on his feet."

"What does that have to do with finding people early," Brandon asked.

"Oh," said Meredith, "uh. I don't know. I lost my train of thought. Oh. It's that: evidently, until you're about 25, it's rare to find people who actually have family as their first priority. And I know we all of us felt very alone for a long time. So, once we found each other... We just never let go. You know?"

"Like seeks like," Brandon agreed.

"Yeah, but what happened to 'Opposites attract, ' " Caitlyn asked, feeling a tad perturbed. That was what she had looked for, basically, until she'd met Jon--and while she'd been asked out a few times, it had never been by anyone she felt comfortable with.

"It's incorrect," said Brandon. "I mean, yeah, variety is the spice of life, but look at you and Jon. You two are more alike than different; specifically, you have in common that very fundamental goal of being dedicated to family, of just wanting that kind of, of quiet life. You're like-- I dunno, you're like two oak trees: sure, you grew up shaped differently, in different circumstances, but the seed, the roots of you, are the same. That's why you fell in love with him and that's why you married him: because in what really matters, you're identical."

"And I, for one, think it's very good to have another family in the world that's actually dedicated to family," said Meredith. "So many selfish reasons for getting married nowadays. I'm glad to see one that's concentrating on the things that matter."

She smiled, and Caitlyn felt emboldened enough to ask her question.

"I was actually wondering..."

"Hmm?"

"About. Um. I was wondering about..."

"About the things a husband and wife do together?"

That seemed circumspect enough. "Yes."

"Why, does Jon not know how it works?" asked Brandon with a grin.

"No," said Caitlyn, coloring, "it's not that. It's..."

"Variety," Meredith suggested. "Being the spice of life and all."

"Some things that Jon wants you to try that you're not sure about," Brandon supplied.

"Yeah."

"What, like anal?" said Brandon, whipping away the euphemism entirely.

"What?!" Caitlyn exclaimed.

"Well, I think that gave us an idea of the parameters," said Meredith, smiling faintly.

"No, let's--" Caitlyn could feel her face flaming. She needed to get back on-topic, and fast. "Let's start with... Well. We... I mean. Jon stole me, and then we got married five hours later. We didn't have time to set up... Umm. Precautions."

"Ah," said Meredith. "Are you on The Pill now?"

"Yeah."

"But not only that, I hope," Brandon said, "because it takes a month or so to kick in."

"Yeah, that's what they told us. We're... We're using condoms too. But sometimes..."

"In the heat of the moment," Meredith agreed.

Caitlyn nodded. "Were you on The Pill when you guys started... Doing... You know."

"Yes, I was," said Meredith, "and had been for a while, but keep in mind that we live in a somewhat more liberal place than here--I mean, we had The Program, for heaven's sake. Mom just approached me one day and said, 'Hey, you know, if you need it, come and talk to me, ' and so, one day, when a likely boy came along... Which wasn't Brandon, I might add, and good thing, too, 'cause I ended up in his bed within about a week." She paused. "Ironically, the boy I actually got on The Pill for dumped me on the second date."

"What would you have done if you hadn't been on The Pill," Caitlyn asked.

"I don't know," said Meredith. "Probably I would've gotten The Shot. But that got yanked by the FDA three years ago. Something about inducing cancer in fetal pigs."

"Which I never understood," Brandon added, "because we ain't none of us fetal pigs."

"Unfortunately, everything else they can inject you with is pretty much the same as The Pill," Meredith said. "Takes a while to take effect. And everything else is like the condom: it needs to be installed, which means you have to remember it, which means it's not exactly conducive to impromptu boinkery."

"And believe me, you have our sympathy," said Brandon. "We tried condoms a few times, 'cause, umm--"

"He doesn't last long enough for me," Meredith said kindly.

"Right," said Brandon, turning a surprising shade of red, "and obviously the condom makes it easier to last longer, but that's because it just doesn't feel as good. For either of us. And eventually she decided she'd rather have a short good experience than a long bad one."

"I like feeling it when he comes," said Meredith matter-of-factly. "There's just something really cool about knowing this thing is going on inside me. Sometimes that sets me off."

There was no part of Caitlyn's face that was not bright red, but she nodded. After all, she felt the same way.

"Any other issues you wanted to bring up," Brandon asked.

"Yeah, um," said Caitlyn, swallowing courage and propriety both from the chill air. One was appropriate here; the other was not. "I, uh. I had some questions about, um... Jon wants me to, um. To put my mouth on his. Um... Penis."

"Okay," said Meredith. "What's your question? I mean, it's pretty simple: his thing's here, your mouth's there, you put them together."

Is it really that simple? "I'm not sure I... I'm not sure I can do it well."

"Why not? Just treat it like a popsicle. And talk to him. Use your imagination, try different things, and then ask him if he likes them."

That was what Pastor Pendleton had said--talk, keep an open dialogue--but she hadn't realized he'd meant like that. "Like... Like what kind of things?"

"Well," said Brandon. "The ridge on the underside of the penis--most guys find that area is really sensitive. And the head, way more than the shaft... You know what I'm talking about, right?"

"No," said Caitlyn in a small voice.

Brandon shot her a careful look. "Have you touched it?"

Caitlyn felt her face flame again. "He's mostly been... Sticking it in me."

"Oh, well, I don't see what's so wrong with that," Brandon said.

"Yes, but most people aren't like you, Mr. Prefers Intercourse Almost Exclusively Over Everything Else."

"You are."

"Yes, and you married me, so we're set, but that doesn't help the Stanfords. Caitlyn, honestly. Tell him that you've never done it before, and that you'll need him to give you suggestions and/or encouraging feedback about what you're doing to him. He'll understand."

"Yes, but..." Caitlyn hung her head. "What if I'm unable to... What if it doesn't make him feel good?"

"Oh, that's highly unlikely. Men are very easy to please."

Brandon shrugged. "This is very true. Men are just more sensitive, for whatever reason--or maybe they have shorter fuses. Generally, a man can masturbate himself to orgasm about four times faster than a woman. This is another reason condoms are really useful."

"The good news is, you can work the condom placement into the foreplay," Meredith said. "When you're finished going down on him, you just slip it on and then go into the intercourse. Unless of course you finish him off orally."

"What, you mean... Until he... Comes?"

"Yeah."

"But, but... He squirts."

"I know."

"Most men do," Brandon added.

"What can I... What do I do about that?"

"Well, for one, getting him off will increase his endurance when he actually has sex with you," Meredith said. Caitlyn nodded; Jon had explained such to her. "So, if you are blowing him, it's not a bad idea to bring him all the way to orgasm. When he comes, you can either stand back and let him go off into the air, or you can let him come in your mouth. Men like that."

"Yeah, but... What do I do once his... Stuff is in my mouth?"

Meredith shrugged. "You can spit it out if you want. Most men aren't too offended by that. You could swallow it, too, though. I know Brandon really likes that, and he says most men are the same. It's not harmful, it's mostly just protein."

Caitlyn felt her eyebrows climbing her forehead at uneven rates. "Yeah, but... That's his... His stuff."

"So?" said Brandon. "Jon licks your stuff when he goes down on you."

Caitlyn had been trying to ignore that fact, but it was so. Jon went down on her, almost invariably, unless they were engaging in a quickie in the morning, and he seemed to enjoy it. She certainly enjoyed it. It would only be fair... 

Meredith must have seen the expression on her face, because she said, "Caitlyn, no one's making you do anything. If you don't want to, I'm sure Jon will understand. I certainly wouldn't blame you; it's not my favorite thing to do in the world. But it's fun, in its own right, and I really like seeing what it does to Brandon. He says it's not quite the same as having sex with me--worse in some ways, but better in others." She smiled. "But it makes him happy--and that makes it worth it for me."

"Why do you think we do these things?" Brandon said, smiling. "I mean, most of it is fun, but eventually there's always something we do just because we know it'll make our lover happy--or maybe just roll their eyes back in their heads. And that's how we prove that giving is its own reward. Especially when our lover turns around and immediately does the thing they only do because we like it."

"It's about compromise," said Meredith, "and it's about self-sacrifice. I remember the first time I was out at a mall by myself, and suddenly realized I couldn't just go buying things for no other reason but that I wanted to. I had Brandon to think about."

"When was that," Caitlyn asked, with an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach: a lot of her own expenditures could be described in just such a fashion.

"Oh, about two months after we started dating," said Meredith.

" 'Compromise' and 'self-sacrifice' are very pretty words," said Brandon, "and obviously it's very easy to just sling them around beforehand. But when you get on the spot and it's time to actually put your money where your mouth is... Well, it's not easy. Don't feel bad. I'm sure Jon's having to make the same adjustments himself."

"It's not easy to just suddenly be half of an entity, when you once were a whole person by yourself," Meredith said.

"Though there are benefits," Caitlyn said.

"Though there are benefits," Meredith agreed. She gave Laurelyn one final pat and the infant gave a tiny belch.

There was a knocking on the door; then Christa stuck her head in. "We're heading down for the sound checks. If you guys wanna come along..."

Sound checks were an involved process, because there were eight singers in Octapella, and each one needed their own microphones. This was not an idle requirement; several of their songs, Caitlyn knew from Jon, broke into eight-part harmony, and balancing the voices would be impossible without one mike per singer. Under the dual guidance of Jon and Rod, the singers ran through several numbers, giving the harried sound engineer time to figure out the microphones. This venue, The Vault, was more of a bar or lounge than a concert venue; on the rare occasions when musical acts did take up residence, they were rock bands that rarely involved more than three or four separate sound feeds. Fortunately, the sound manager (actually named Harry) had served Octapella before, and was fairly used to their vocal characteristics.

"So, these goobers," said Brandon, gesturing at the eight on stage with his head. "Are they any good? Or did we come all the way from Mount Hill for nothing?"

"Brandon," said Meredith, reproving.

"No, seriously," said Brandon. "Remember that group that was here when we were freshmen? Something like, what, Choral, Choral..."

"Choral Pleasure."

"Choral Pleasure, right. It wasn't anything of the sort. There were a couple times when they were so out of tune-- More like Choral Sandpaper, if you ask me."

"Such a kind man I've married," Meredith murmured. "Yes, Laurelyn," she said, reaching over to the babe in Brandon's arms. "A very kind daddy. Don't you think?"

Laurelyn gave a sleepy burble.

"Honestly, it's kind of too bad we couldn't be involved in something like this," said Brandon. "It looks fun."

"Yeah," said Caitlyn. She would've loved to get involved too, but she couldn't sing. Jon said that was ridiculous, that she could actually follow a tune and hold a pitch--but he also agreed that a group like Octapella needed a bit more vocal facility than that. Still, it would've been nice.

"Who's doing the arrangements," Brandon asked.

"Jon is, and Rod," said Caitlyn. "And I think Christa's working on some too, though both she and Jon say she's not quite the same level. They bought some online too."

Caitlyn had been working on something too, actually, in the very few spare moments she had. It was a little harder to do something in secret now that she was married, and it didn't help that her own ability at arranging were far below Jon's or even Christa's. She didn't even have the benefit of working with her native instruments; she had constantly had to ring up Nathan, and once even Meredith, with questions on vocal ranges and how to use each singer and what sort of things she shouldn't ask them to do because it wasn't physically possible. If Meredith had put two and two together, she gave no outward sign of it.

"There are any online?" Brandon said, surprised.

"Yeah," said Caitlyn. "There's jazz stuff lying around, and barbershop, and some of the other college groups are willing to sell copies of their arrangements. And you can always do, you know, 'real choir' stuff."

"What, like, Ode to Joy," Brandon asked.

"Well, maybe not that level," said Caitlyn.

"Though you could probably make that work," Meredith said.

"Jon said something about Moses Hogan," Caitlyn said, "and some Gershwin."

"Right, Professor Chapman gave us some of those," Meredith agreed. "In the 'real choir'." She added quotes with her hand.

"So what are they singing tonight," Brandon asked.

"Christmas music, probably," Meredith said.

"I mean, what specifically," Brandon said.

Caitlyn shrugged. "Jon's been keeping it a secret." That wasn't actually true; she was pretty sure she knew the set list forwards and backwards. But she wanted it to be a surprise for the Chamberses.

Once the sound checks were done, Jon came down to sit with them, along with Zach and Christa, who immediately gravitated to Laurelyn. "Hellooo. Hellooo my widdle snoogy-woogy bear! Yes you is. Yes you is!"

Laurelyn cooed happily.

"Christa's getting her baby fix for the day," said Zach shamelessly.

"Zach," said Christa.

"I swear, she's been thinking about ditching The Pill and just getting one of her own," Zach said.

"Zach," said Christa. "My two best friends had a baby. Your two best friends had a baby. Don't tell me that doesn't affect you."

Zach turned to Brandon, utterly casual. "Sodja catch the game last night?"

"Naw," said Brandon. "I was in bed with my girl."

"Doing what?"

"Sleeping."

Caitlyn couldn't help herself. She said, "Is, um. Is that what they're calling it nowadays?"

Everyone looked at her.

"Okay," said Jon, "who are you, and what have you done with my wife?"

"Hee," said Caitlyn, pleased with herself.

"So you folks ready?" Brandon asked Jon.

"As ready as we're gonna be," said Jon, "considering we're doing twice as much music as last year. 'course, we had a little more time to prepare."

"If you guys were planning to start at eight on the dot," Meredith said, "you started three minutes ago."

Jon glanced at his watch surprised. "Ahh... Give it a couple more minutes. Let some more people filter in."

"Are you guys still charging for attendance?" Meredith asked.

"Not today," said Jon.

"That never struck me as the smartest idea," Brandon said.

"Professor Chapman said to do that for a while, when we were starting out," Jon said. "People believe in the power of money as a determiner of quality."

"Not necessarily," said Meredith. "I mean, a fraud can charge just as much as the genuine article, but that doesn't make it any less fake."

"Yes necessarily," said Jon. "There was a brand of whiskey called Chivas Regal. It wasn't doing very well, so they changed just one thing about it and sales went up by 100%. Do you know what they changed?"

"No," said Meredith.

"The price tag," Jon said. "They doubled it. And that caused twice as many sales. People trust things that cost more."

"That's crazy," said Meredith. "Are you sure?"

"I didn't make that up," said Jon, "it was from my psychology major. Cialdini. Six Weapons of Influence."

"Then why aren't you charging now, if that was likely to raise attendance," Brandon said.

"Well, we never liked the idea of charging either," said Christa. "We only did it to gain attention. Necessary evil. Now we're more established, people know who we are, and we're kind of counting on our reputation to draw people in. This is the first performance we've ever done that we haven't charged."

"It's a calculated risk," said Jon. "It may work or it may not. I've actually been keeping track of our attendance rates, so we'll see what happens. Half of psychology is statistics anyway."

Rod came up. "We ready?"

"We ready," Jon agreed. He kissed Caitlyn on the cheek and went to his work.

Afterwards, Caitlyn could not say how well things went; she wasn't a chorister, she didn't know what to look for in terms of perfection. She knew it sounded good from where she was sitting, and the audience loved it. Zach had ever been a showman, and he took front and center, but he was able to draw out Jon and Roderick and Beth and create an energetic and relaxed environment onstage. Sometimes they almost forgot to sing for having too much fun chattering. But remember they did, and when they sang they were in their element. They did some sing-alongs of easy Christmas carols--those were always fun, especially since Zach or Jon would drop spur-of-the-moment lyric changes just to make people laugh--and for performance pieces they had several of Jon's arrangements, a couple of Rod's, a rocking arrangement of Go Tell It On The Mountain by a defunct barbershop quartet called the Gas House Gang, a write-up of The Carpenters' Merry Christmas, Darling (which had ridiculous lyrics but an almost orgasmic ending chord), and more besides. And when they took their final bows and the audience exploded, Caitlyn knew Jon would be pleased with the night's work.

And he was. "I mean, the whole point was, Let's give them something to think about besides finals, right," he told the group as they gathered together for the last time this calendar year. "Let's get some people in a room and have some fun." It was a bit cramped, with not only the eight members of Octapella in the practice room, but Caitlyn, the Chambers family, Serena's boyfriend Kenton and Rod's girlfriend Candi. No one seemed to mind, though. "Let's make some music, let's have fun, and let's end the year out right. And we did."

"I just want to add," Roderick spoke up from the corner, where he was standing with his arms around Candi. She was the tallest woman Caitlyn had ever seen, but Rod was the tallest man she had ever seen, so she supposed it all worked out. "What is the point of music, if not to take people away from their lives and cares and problems for a little while? To let them step back and think about something else for a change. And if that was our goal, we kicked so much ass."

"I'll be in contact with Harry over getting a few quick CDs burned, for those who want them," Jon said, "and, I think we were going to talk starting in January about maybe putting an album together. But, for the moment... That's it. We're done. Thank you all so much, have a wonderful Christmas, and we'll see you folks bright and early on Sunday the 6th of January."

"Wait, at 11:30?" said Christa.

"Oh, cripes, good point, uh-- Shall we say-- 4 PM? We'll toss some e-mails around over the break if we have to--"

Caitlyn saw Brandon and Meredith joining their friends, but this was only for a split second, before Jon grabbed her in a ferocious hug. "My God, we did it, we did it. I can't believe we did it."

"You did it before," Caitlyn said. Their previous outings had been successful as well, though nothing quite to this level.

"I was so glad you were there," he said.

"I've been at all of them," she said, nonplussed.

"I love you," he murmured, and bent to kiss her. It was then that she noticed something in his pants which was very happy to see her.

"Mmmm," she said, "I can see that."

"What say we head on home and... Engage in a bit of celebration of our own?"

"Hmm, celebrating. Is that the new word for it now?"

"You're not allowed to joke about that until you've done it doggie-style," he said.

"Mmm-hmm," she said. She was a little reticent on that particular position, and he knew it. That comment had not been entirely innocent.

But what had Brandon and Meredith said? Because we know it will please them... 

"You've got a deal," she said, forcing a smile that (to her surprise) wasn't all that hard to maintain.

"Hmmmm," he said, with a truly wicked grin.

The miles they drove seemed to fly by--partially because his hand was resting high on her thigh, which would have caused her mother to swallow her tongue had she known. Yet this was pitted against the heavy feeling in her stomach--for where, in the end, did her boundaries lie? She wasn't sure how far she was willing to let herself be pushed... But if the Chamberses were right, she should let Jon have his way with her, and throw her own discomfort out the window. Their words on the difficulty of compromise and self-sacrifice rang true to her, but this seemed excessive, and maybe even dangerous.

I don't have to give him everything all at once,  she realized. I can let myself get comfortable, and stretch myself slowly, and...  They'd been doing that for the entirety of their physical relationship; there had been times when even being held too tightly was enough to send her into a dizzying panic, and it had taken almost a year before she was okay with the idea of tongue while kissing. He's used to it. I don't have to push myself any-- Well, I guess I should. It would be polite. But I don't have to.

So it was that when they arrived at the Stantons' house, Jon raced up the stairs to their room, while Caitlyn tried to follow at a slightly more sedate pace. No matter how she tried to counsel herself, she was still uncomfortable with the idea of giving any more than she already had. And, I mean, it's not unrealistic to be uncomfortable in a new situation... I'm sure even Jon felt nervous the first time we had sex. Though obviously he hid it very well.

"What's wrong, baby," Jon said from inside the room, and Caitlyn realized she had been standing at the threshold, staring at the floor.

"I..." she said. "I just..."

Because, ultimately, what it came down to was this: I'm not sure I want to be the kind of woman who does these things.

"Do you love me," she asked.

Something changed in Jon's eyes, and he gathered her into his arms. "Of course."

"Even if... Even if I don't... Satisfy you... Sexually?"

He drew her to arm's length. "Now, where did you get that idea? Baby, I am totally satisfied with you sexually. I love what we do."

So did she, but this was contradictory signaling. "But... You... You want me to do... Other things."

He blinked. "Well... Yes," he said.

"So, doesn't that mean..."

"No, it doesn't. Yes, baby, there are things I want you to try. Because I want you to try them. I think you might like them. And, yes, I hope that you'll keep an open mind and be willing to experiment a little. But for one, we've only been married for a week. And for two, even if you aren't... Well, I'll be disappointed. But that's still okay, because we have so much more together that is so much more important than whether we have sex well. Finding sex is easy. Both of us could have done it a long time ago, if we wanted. Finding love... That's hard. And that's what we've found."

... Because, ultimately, she wasn't sure she wanted to be the kind of woman who did those things. But, at the same time, she wasn't sure she wanted to be the kind of woman who wasn't willing to inconvenience herself for her husband. She wasn't sure she wanted to be that... Selfish.

"Okay," she whispered. "I'll try it."

It was only after the words left her mouth that she realized she hadn't specified what it was she would try; but Jon didn't press the comment, simply drew her face up to hers for a kiss.

Soon she found herself on the bed, naked, with him beside her; he lay on his back, and she sprawled atop him, kissing him. She had realized quickly that he liked to have her on top; certainly he didn't have to work as much, and it let him sink deeper inside her, which she liked too. She could control the angle and depth of his penetration, bringing him inside her just the way she liked. Just thinking about it, she realized, was making her wetten.

She pulled back to look at him.

Jon blinked up at her. "You okay?" Her beloved. Her life. The father of her children, eventually. Her husband. Her love.

"I love you," she whispered, and bent down to kiss at his neck.

She had only done this once or twice before, discomfort and insecurity (of course) holding her back. She knew he was disappointed when she would not reciprocate his attentions, but he was patient; he was always patient. That alone made her love him; that alone gave her courage to try. And she tried now, reconstructing what he must have done a hundred times before: kissing down his neck and around the side, under his ears, around the back. (This must be a lot harder for him because of all my hair.) His eyes were closed, his breathing becoming sharper as her lips whispered their way over his flesh. She had only see that expression on his face a handful of times before, and always during their sex play. And, if I looked anything like that, I understand why he always liked doing this to me.

Presently she began to trail kisses down his body, over the planes of his chest and his slatted ribs and the faint ripples of his abs. He was proudly erect, his skin flushed pink and the head a darker red. She could see the small slit where semen and urine must come out. The faint scarring where he had been circumcised as a child, the tracery of veins under the skin... She could feel its warmth, and when she touched it, the skin was softer than anything she had ever felt before.

Jon breathed: "Oh..."

Treat it like a popsicle,  Meredith had told her, but this was like no popsicle she had ever experienced. It wasn't smelly, which was against expectations, and when she put its head in her mouth it didn't taste like much either--a little salty from sweat, mostly. But, oddly, with a pulsing red taste beneath that she realized was Jon's flesh.

Treat it like a popsicle. All right.

She began to lick up and down his shaft, starting from the top surface and working her way around. She stopped at the rim where the bulbous head began, going no further, but working over every inch of the shaft. It was slightly curved downward, a shape she followed with her tongue, and rigid beneath the softness of the outer skin.

The underside ridge,  she remembered, and paid special attention to that when she got there. It was her first look at his scrotum, too--somewhat wrinkled now and looking a little bit small; was it always like that?--and she though his skin there might be soft too. Maybe I should come back to that later. Right now, though... 

It was to the head she returned, which Brandon had said was the most sensitive part. Popsicle, she thought, and wondered if she could suck on it.

"Oh!" said Jon, so sharply she thought she might have hurt him, but then his hand was on her head, and after a moment she realized he was trying to get her to go on.

She had no idea what else to do, so she sucked on him again, using her tongue to rub over the glans and especially the bottom. He was enjoying it, to judge by his hand and his whispered encouragements and occasional moans and the way his body rose to meet her, and it didn't seem long before he whispered: "Oh, God, Caitlyn, Caitlyn I'm gonna come, Caitlyn, Cait--"

What should she do? She could back off and not bring him off, but the thought immediately occurred to her about how she would feel if he did the same. But I don't spray things when I come. How was she going to handle that? She had just made the decision to disengage once the shooting started when the shooting did start, and the first burst hit the roof of her mouth.

Suddenly she tasted salt, and there was something goopy filling her up. It was a good thing she had started to pull back, or she might have choked on it (later in life that exact thing would happen, leading to a coughing spasm and a great deal of panic on his part); as it was, she was a bit too stunned to do anything but hang there as he groaned and his cock spasmed in her mouth, filling her with cloying, sticky seed. It was more salty than she'd anticipated, and the texture was horrible; the only thing she could think to do was swallow it before she gagged. And even then the taste and feel of it clung to her mouth, cloying. It was foul.

"Oh God, baby," he said. "Oh God. That was... That was so..."

"I'm glad you liked it," she said, her eyes watering. She felt kind of violated.

"You..." He sat up and reached for her, his lips coming to hers.

"Don't kiss me," she said.

"Baby, if you're willing to--"

"Don't kiss me, " she said, and got up. "I need to go rinse."

While she was swishing her mouth out with water, he came up behind her; she felt his arms around her, and his fading erection at the small of her back. "Baby... I just wanted to tell you how... God, I dunno. That was... That was the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do, and... I'm so proud of you, and I love you so much."

"Okay," she said.

"And I-- You-- If... You don't ever have to do anything you don't want to. You know that."

"I know." I guess I wanted to... And, I guess, I'm kind of proud too that I did it. Conquering fear is a serious business. But... Never again. At least, not for a long time.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah... Yeah. I, just... I wasn't expecting..."

"Yeah." He chuckled. "And it didn't help that you were so good, baby. I came really hard."

Somehow, that didn't reassure her.

"Now, can I kiss you," he said.

"Is that all you think of," she lashed out. "Is that all that's important to you?"

"No," he said. "I want to kiss you to show you how much I love you. I can't explain it. I've been trying, and I can tell it's not working. So let me show you that you have just given me the greatest gift of my life, by being willing to put my happiness far above your own, and that I love you for it and thank you for it, and let me show you as best as I can. Because it's the only way I know how."

"I'm not done rinsing."

He threw up his hands in exasperation, but when she looked he was smiling. And he bent his lips to her ear and whispered, "I love you," and then kissed it, and then she was gone again.

She felt his lips around her earlobe, kissing and sucking, and then his tongue tickling around the back of her ear, just the way she liked it. His hand clasped her breast, the warm pressure of his palm sending tingles through her, and he held her to him as his mouth began to descend down around the back of her neck.

When he was done, he began to trail down her back, tracing the line of her spine, curling around her buttocks until she could feel his breath rustling between her thighs. At his touch, she bent over, revealing her inner secrets, and then felt the first brush of his lips against her pussy and almost fell.

His lips were down there, and then his tongue, nuzzling her pussy, perusing that most intimate area. Great shocks of pleasure coursed through her as his lips fastened around her clit and sucked, and then (of all things) she thought she felt his tongue entering her, sliding between her pussy lips and then into her passage. It was not very long, and the penetration rather shallow, but the feeling of his squirming, quivering tongue inside her was enough to make her melt.

Suddenly he was gone, and she opened eyes she didn't remember closing and found herself bent over the toilet, of all places, kneeling, her hands supporting her on the closed and lidded bowl. Jon was somewhere behind her, scrabbling around; and then she heard the sound of the condom packet being ripped open.

And what occurred to her, absurdly, was, Hurry up.

He was kneeling behind her, entering her, the shrouded length of his cock sliding into her pussy; she felt exposed, and primal, and sensual, like a lioness in heat. His cock inside her seemed huge, and it slid in deeper than she had ever felt before. She gave a shuddering cry when he bottomed out inside her, and then heard his husky laugh and the whispered comment: "Thought you'd like it."

She couldn't see anything but the toilet tank, but that left her free to enjoy the sensations of him inside her. He began slowly at first, but with increasing speed, sliding in and out of her, penetrating her, taking her, and her body moved in time with his, feeling each thrust and withdrawal. His hands found her breasts, cupping them as they swung beneath her, fondling her nipples; his testicles brushed her clit on every thrust; and she threw her head back and gloried in the sheer wantonness of it all. This is so dirty. This is so dirty. And I like it so, so much.

When her orgasm came it surprised even her; she had only a moment's build-up to realize what was about to happen, and then it burst over her like rain, and she shuddered and clenched in her climax as he (My God!) kept moving on inside her. She was glad she was kneeling, or she might have fallen at the sheer ecstasy. And when she was done, he yet wasn't, and he kept on, his cock pounding into her, and she regaining her energy and moving back against him, until finally he gave a final grunted exhalation and shoved in deeply, and she felt his cock twitching inside her, spending itself into the condom.

"Oh my God," he breathed.

"Yes," she whispered.

"So," he gasped. "All I'm gonna say is: when I have ideas, they're because I'm thinking of what you would like. Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed.

And if he keeps having ideas like these... Maybe he'll turn me into 'that kind of woman' yet.

They slept curled around each other, their breathing united in the dark.



-------

Part 6


Day 15: Christmas Eve

Jon thought Monday night was an awful time for a Christmas Eve, but at least he had the day off. Actually, he had the entire week off; Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry was closed from the Monday the 24th to Tuesday, January 1st. At the very least, he would be a relaxed and well-rested secretary next Wednesday.

Caitlyn had made it through her finals without too much trouble, in her estimation at least, and the grades posted online last Thursday had confirmed that hunch. Her GPA had dropped a little bit—understandably, considering the circumstances of the last two weeks—but Jon had been a little confused when she wailed over the results. "Why, what's wrong with a 3.67?" Caitlyn had just shaken her head and walked away.

Once she was out of her last final, though, things had turned peaceful, almost idyllic. They had spent a day at the mall, scrounging up Christmas presents and making alarming but (they agreed) necessary gouges in their bank account. There were too many people who had been kind to them of late: Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton, Jon's parents, Larry Pendleton, Dacey Klein and Gerald Mormont, Uncle Max Cassidy, his parents Blanche and Gordon Cassidy. Jon bought small gifts for the members of Octapella, and they collaborated on things for the Chamberses and the Cranes, who (of all things) had offered to come up on the 26th and help them move. It wouldn't be polite to ignore their friends—but even more than that, they wanted to thank them. In two weeks and a day they had received more support than they had ever imagined.

Caitlyn had immediately began planning for their formal wedding reception, which they had decided to hold on Saturday March 8th, which was the soonest they felt they could get their ducks in order, and had the secondary virtue of being exactly 90 days after their wedding. It was in the middle of March, yes, but most everyone they were inviting lived locally anyway, and they hadn't planned on anything more than a get-together with a big white cake involved. She had also begun to draft advertisements to post around town, marketing herself as a harpist hirable for special occasions.

Their sex life continued unabated; there were times when they didn't want to crawl out of bed, and times when they didn't have the strength; only propriety, and the fact that they were still in Jon's parents' house, kept them from dropping where they lay. They hadn't gone doggie-style since that initial encounter, not out of distaste for it (Jon had loved it for the raw energy and the depth of penetration, and clearly Caitlyn had enjoyed it as well) but rather because most of their sex just wasn't like that; a drowsy, languid morning session was far more their style, or a sensuous midnight run beneath the blankets. Jon's favorite was the same as his favorite sleeping position: to spoon up behind her, snuggling against her while he took her from behind; she preferred plain missionary, so she could wrap her arms and legs around him, which in truth he liked too. When he realized that they both loved being able to hold each other during their lovemaking, he started them in woman-on-top and then rolled them both to their sides, freeing their arms up entirely. Ultimately, this was not very comfortable—their legs kept getting tangled up, and one of them had to stay on an elbow at all times—and the angle of penetration was not the greatest, a big problem for a couple who loved the feeling of him burying his member to the root deep inside her. But still, if they could make it work, it would solve all their problems.

And when they weren't in bed or squinting over harp music or job offers, they were packing. Jon had a great deal more things than he'd realized; aside from four years in the dorms at college, he hadn't ever lived away from his parents. Much of Caitlyn's stuff, on the other hand, was still at her parents' house, and would likewise need to be packed and sorted. Some of it would undoubtedly be left with their parents, and Jon was already anticipating some sort of major yard sale, with anything unsold being donated to charity, probably. The hardest part was not deciding what to throw away, but deciding what to take. They wouldn't have much room in their apartment, and they had already decided to pack at a minimum. Unfortunately, that was far easier said than done, and Jon found Caitlyn calling his decisions time and again: "You don't really need this. You don't really need that." Most of the time, she was right.

And there was the giddy happiness of just being able to be in each other's company for hours and days at a time. Jon, going to work, knew that he was performing a needed service, that every hour he spent and dollar he earned would make Caitlyn's life better. But, at times, that was the only reason he was able to bear it. With Octapella on Christmas hiatus and most of his friends from outside that group just as busy with their own jobs and their own lives, Caitlyn was the sole momentum of his life, and it was hard to sit at a desk smiling at people with bad teeth when all he wanted was to be at her side. But after he'd left on Friday, he'd been left with the glorious prospect of eleven whole days without anywhere to be, except with his wife, and he intended to enjoy it as best he could.

But today they had better things to do than languish in bed. Christmas was Jon's favorite holiday, because of the big shindig that took place on the eve, and because so many people would be there. Jon, like many children of the Baby Boomers, had more aunts and uncles than he could count on two hands, and though a few had succumbed to disease, cancer or old age, many of them were still alive, and all lived in the nearby area (except for one maverick uncle who preferred Los Angeles). Under his parents' leadership, both sides of the family had united, and Christmas Eve was the day that everyone he was related to by blood gathered under one roof: aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers (both grandfathers having passed away before he was ten), and even Maren, daughter of his cousin Janice. Jon wasn't sure if this made him an uncle or just a very fancy cousin.

And, of course, there was the newest member of the family.

"Are you sure I look okay," Caitlyn asked him for about the fifth time that day.

"Yes, baby, you do," he said.

"I just want to make a good impression on your folks," she said.

"I know, and you will," he said. She looked beautiful, in his opinion—black slacks, a cotton hooded coat that hung to her knees and flowed when she moved, and a form-fitting V-necked sweater with red striping across the breasts and just enough neckline to show a bit of cleavage. He had always loved that ensemble. She had the bearing and dignity of a 40-year-old, and with her hair in a bun she made the staid, respectable look good; but these clothes made her look young. And sexy.

Her face was far from relaxed, though. "Just think: I haven't even met most of these people, but now I'm family. I'm a, a niece-in-law, or something."

"And if you relax a little bit," said Jon, feeling a bit exasperated, "I'm sure they'll learn to love you for who you are. I mean," he said, turning to her, "I did. So you can't be all that bad."

She gave a timid smile. "Yeah, but, you... Jon, you have so much patience. You put up with... All my fears about hugging you, and, and my crazy parents, and—"

"Because you're worth it," Jon said. He took her by the shoulders. This train of thought must not be allowed to conclude. "Because I love you, and because you're worth it, and because look how little it took to make you blossom. I was just the one lucky enough to see it. Now everyone will see it."

"Because of you," she said, stepping into his arms. "Because of you."

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I was only the messenger. Baby, I couldn't've turned you into something you're not. I'm not a fairy godmother, with a magic wand to wave. All I did was give you permission to be what you were already."

She clutched at him, her head against his shoulder. "And I don't owe you anything for that?"

He kissed her forehead. "Nothing at all. Because, baby, it's not a one-way street. You did the same for me. You... You brought out all the... All the good things in me. You're my other half. You're my better half."

She gave a happy sniffle. "How can that be, when you're my better half?"

"Good," he said, with a smile, "I'm glad we got that settled."

I never get tired of this,  he thought. I never get tired of just being here, of just holding her, of just... Being near her. You'd never would have thought, especially after all we do now... But... 

When she finally loosened her hold, she glanced at herself in the mirror and gave a sniffly laugh. "Oh great, now I have to redo all my makeup. And your shirt got wet."

He dabbed at his sweater—yep, damp. Instead, he kissed her. "I will wear it as a badge of love over my heart."

She rolled her eyes theatrically and slipped back into the bathroom.

Downstairs, preparations were in full swing. Jon had already spent the morning helping put things in order and set the large dining table up with plates, utensils, chairs and so on, whereas Caitlyn had offered to help with the cooking and promptly whipped together a chocolate cake so rich that even the smell made him feel sated. Other family members, his father's unmarried aunts mostly, were already in the kitchen helping Jon's mother with her cooking or fixing their own dishes. The newlyweds had only just now, at half past four, managed to retire upstairs to change into something more suitable to the occasion. Part of Caitlyn's concern was the sheer informality of her wear; even Jon, in khaki slacks, pale blue collared shirt and sweater of green wool, looked more dressy than she. But once they got downstairs and saw that most of Jon's family, like Jon himself, dressed with more of a mind for comfort than appearance, she seemed to calm down a little.

Janice and her husband Bill were already there, with little Maren toddling around happily scaring the cat. This was only her second Christmas, and a big deal it was for her indeed. It was the cat's third Christmas, but Whiskers seemed to have taken the concept of 'scaredy-cat' to heart; she was quite friendly, but even slightest unexpected motion or sound or thing could set her to flight, and with all the food and relatives and presents coming in, she was in a state of high tension. The only thing that kept her from darting behind the couch was the fact that a very large and spiny green thing with lights on it was in the way. Most of his father's side of the family was there too, even Auntie Eve, who had been in the hospital not three days ago. The wild thing was that Jon's father's mother, Grandma Lynn, was still going strong. She had seen a husband and her second-eldest daughter into the earth, and now her firstborn was weak on her feet, but she herself showed no sign of stopping.

For Jon, though, the real excitement was his mother's side of the family. Cousin Janice was nearly forty, her older sister more than that, and the only other cousins on his dad's side (the ones in LA) were not yet fifteen. On his mother's side, though, was cousin Mark, the oldest at three years senior to Jon, and cousin Maxwell, and then Alison and Andrea, the youngest and the only one not yet in college. He wasn't sure what had driven Uncle Jack and Aunt Ruby, or Uncle Kevin and Aunt Sally, to give their children such alliterated names, but Andrea was a head taller than Alison, and Max much quieter than his older brother, so Jon figured Caitlyn would be able to tell them all apart. Surely she wouldn't go confusing Mark and Alison, at least.

Everyone knew who Caitlyn was, of course—the news had gone out long ago, and a few had even managed to make it to the impromptu ceremony. And Jon could see them giving her all possible benefit of the doubt, a distinction he doubted she'd need for long. Nonetheless, he could tell she was a little unnerved by the intensity of attention being focused on her, and while they wandered for a while, meeting and greeting everyone there, he took them out of circulation as quickly as he thought it polite to do so. There'd be time. Caitlyn wasn't going anywhere.

Upstairs, the "kids" (such as it was, with only little Andrea not yet alcohol-legal) were indulging in their normal party-going activity: playing Smash Brothers. Jon felt a lot more comfortable up here, and he knew Caitlyn would feel better with something to hide behind. Plus, she was at least a little familiar with these people; she had joined them at family dinners several times over the course of their relationship. Jon, a psychology major, knew what comfort familiarity could engender.

The conversation was casual and unobtrusive, but with little actually said. It was such a difference from the wide-open conversations Jon and Caitlyn had shared with the Cranes and Chamberses, but a welcome one. All of the members of the Hastings clan, including Jon's mother, were fairly private people, and both Jon and Caitlyn fit that mold well. The next biggest news, next to the unexpected marriage, was that Mark had proposed to his girlfriend of three years, but she wasn't here and Jon had never even met her; that was simply not the sort of friendship he shared with his cousins. Of course, this being a family affair, with not even Mark's fiancée in attendance (what was her name, anyway?), Caitlyn was eventually asked as to why she was not with hers. These questions ended once the situation was related—without too many nasty details, as this was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but just enough to pass on an understanding of the less-than-nurturing lifestyle at the Delaney house. The real clincher was when she repeated her mother's directive on the matter: "If you walk out that door..." Jon's family was a good deal more sympathetic from that point on, and Jon could feel Caitlyn relaxing in their company.

The food was, as always, delicious; this was the major holiday of the Stanford/Hastings clan Jon's parents had welded together, and no expense was spared. The cat Whiskers was plied with liberal handouts, with Melinda laughing over how she preferred garlic bread to bits of roast beef. Jon's mother's mother had made her specialty, a huge glass tray of shepherd's pie. When Caitlyn's cake was trotted out there were murmurs of approval; she had frosted it to perfection, even inscribing a snowman on the top, and the first taste (awarded to Jon's chocoholic aunt Susan) was pronounced heavenly. Caitlyn turned pink at the praise, but Jon could see it was doing wonders for her.

The most chaotic part, of course, was the gift exchange—and not a traditional one, but a white-elephant snatch-and-grab free-for-all. Each person contributed a small gift ($15 or $20) and was assigned a number; when that number was pulled out of a hat by the game's administrator (in this case Aunt Theresa), that person would get to select a gift from the pile and open it... Or, if they so chose, steal a gift someone else had already opened, at which point that person would select a new gift. Steal-backs were not allowed in the same round, and an object could only be stolen three times before being taken permanently out of circulation. Uncle Jack and Aunt Ruby, Mark and Max Hastings' parents, could always be counted on to provide cutting-edge DVDs, which were always in demand; but it was Jon's own mother, Martha Hastings Stanford, who was the queen of theft, often setting off huge chains of steals with her choices.

Jon's luck went utterly sour. His first choice was an oddly-shaped package: oval-shaped on the horizontal surfaces, and with a single long vertical side. This turned out to be two festive and New-Age boxes of Kleenex, which he revealed at large while Max roared with laughter. Fortunately, the perpetrator (probably Max) had kindly tucked $15 in small bills into the wrapping paper. Then Jon was stolen from by Alison and Andrea's mother Aunt Cindy (who had either taken pity on him or was short on Kleenex) and got to pick again. He chose this time a small globe, perhaps the size of a tennis ball, wrapped in bright red. This turned out to be nothing other than a set of orchid-colored Victoria's Secret panties. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to get rid of those... Until Caitlyn took pity on him and stole them, earning them both red faces and all sorts of catcalls. Finally Jon gave up and picked the present he himself had contributed, a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, which people seemed content to leave him alone with.

When the last gift had been stolen (a DVD of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which Jon knew his dad was sad to lose) and the last consolation prize picked (a large box of chocolates, which Jon's father immediately swapped with Andrea for the Pirates DVD), the general present-opening began. Jon's family was also in the habit of slinging money around (or at least gift certificates), so there were very few boxes to pass out, and hadn't been for some years; Jon could have given Caitlyn her gift, but was saving it for Christmas Day. What did surprise him was how many envelopes were handed to him. His mother had passed out the declaration when he was eighteen that he was 'too old' for Christmas presents, and holiday-based income had been rather scarce since then. Evidently being a new-married man had changed some opinions (certainly most of the envelopes were addressed to 'Jon and Caitlyn Stanford' instead of just the usual 'Jon, ' or 'Slimeball' if it was from Melinda). And when the Stanfords had finished going through and tabulating what they'd been handed, they were almost $5,000 richer than they had been ten minutes ago.

Later, it seemed to Jon that he said "Thank you" that night more times than he had in the entire rest of his life. Of course, he also meant it more than he had for the entire rest of his life, too.

Then there were good-byes and farewells and merry-Christmases, and then a constant flurry as they shelved leftovers and started putting the house in enough semblance of order that it wouldn't fall apart overnight. Jon was in such a daze that he almost didn't notice his parents putting coats and shoes on.

"Where are they going," Caitlyn asked.

Jon snapped to. "What? Oh. Uh. Christmas vigil."

"At the Catholic church," said Mrs. Stanford.

Caitlyn looked at them for a moment. "Can we come with you?"

"We?" said Jon.

"Of course you can, if you like," said Mrs. Stanford.

"We??" said Jon again.

"Jon, I think this is important," said Caitlyn.

"Cait, the thing lasts until like one in the morning," Jon said.

"And that's late for you," said Melinda, who routinely went to bed after Jon left for work.

Caitlyn drew him aside. "Jon, it's faith. I've been meaning to talk to you about it ever since we went to see Larry Pendleton, but we've been so busy. But now's as good a time as any. I think we need to spend some time developing your faith life."

"At twelve midnight," Jon said.

"It's Christmas. Think about the meaning of that word. Christ's Mass. This is where our whole religion started, Jon. If you can't come to church on Christmas, what's the point?"

"It's not faith I have a problem with, it's religion," Jon said. "Churches have said some pretty stupid things over the years."

"It's hard to mess up Christmas," Caitlyn said. "Come on, Jon. I think it would be good for you."

What occurred to him, absurdly, was the blowjob.

It didn't have anything to do with Christmas, certainly; especially if you believed that Catholic dogma that the Virgin Mary never had sexual contact for her entire life (another thing Jon thought was stupid). What he remembered was the fear in Caitlyn's eyes, and the nervousness, and how she had gone on and done it anyway. What he remembered was how she had been willing to place his wants and needs above her own. What he remembered was how she had inconvenienced and maybe even endangered herself... Solely because she knew it would make him happy.

"Okay," said Jon. "Okay. But I warn you: it's late, and I'm tired. I'm not going to be able to engage as fully as I might have otherwise."

She kissed him on the cheek. "And I'm sure God will take that into account when He smiles down on you."

And that was how Jon found himself sitting in a hard wooden pew, crammed in (or so it felt) with about a thousand old ladies in winter wear that smelled alternately like mothballs or cat pee. He and Caitlyn seemed to be the only people there between the ages of 10 and 40, and the church was packed.

Still, it was a pretty scene: the dais done up in garlands of evergreen with red bows, a life-size Nativity set in one corner, a Christmas tree in the other that must be almost as tall as the ceiling. Jon thought it nice, but Caitlyn seemed less impressed. "It's so gaudy," she said. "Like, I dunno, 'Look at us, we're faithful' or something. Haven't they heard that deeds speak louder than decorations?"

"If you don't like it, we could go somewhere else," said Mrs. Stanton, clearly disconcerted but intent on being obliging.

"Oh!" said Caitlyn, "no, no, I wasn't... It was just... It's not what I'm used to."

It wasn't what Jon was used to either. He had spent eight or nine years of his life here at this church, before his Catholic high school ended any thoughts or pretensions of religion in his life, and the preacher he remembered was much more of the fire-and-brimstone variety, an act he had alternately snored and choked over. Fortunately, that pastor had gone on to greener pastures (ones less denuded by fire and brimstone, probably), and his replacement was a much quieter man. He was balding and bespectacled, but still spry, and there was an air of kindness and wisdom about him—of godliness. And his message was one Jon did not remember hearing ever before in his life.

"When the decorations you see were proposed to me," he said, "they seemed a bit excessive, though still undoubtedly lovely. Which is not to say that we should not be thankful for our lovely and well-maintained church, because we should be. But we should also remember what Christ would have us do. The faith he called us to is not one of sitting quietly in pews in warmth and comfort and splendor. Christ would have us go out into the snow and minister to all his children. Christ would urge us, Go, go out, forget the comfort, forget the warmth and splendor. Those don't matter. What matters are the people out there who need your help.

"Christians have a bad reputation out in the world sometimes, and I can't say we're faultless. Within our walls hide many who use their holiness as a shield on their sins—or, even worse, a weapon with which to hurt others. They hide their sin behind Christmas trees... And sometimes, only a tree as large as ours will hide them. Well, there is nothing we can do about them, and they shall receive their comeuppance in the end—and I certainly have nothing against Christmas trees. This one is lovely, isn't it? But let us think of it, not just as a decoration, but as a reminder. What is it we might hide, behind the shield of our faith? What sins might we indulge in? And what are we doing here, here in our comfort and warmth and splendor?

"The Christmas tree should stay; it is us that should leave. Let us go out, and minister to those in need, and be such a beacon of love and light and peace and joy that those Christmas-tree Christians who would use our faith to hurt others are simply drowned out. Let us be so loving that those false ones among us are rejected, not by ourselves, but by the others who come to see them for what they are.

"Christ taught us to love. To be kind, and patient, but above all to love. And I can think of no better birthday present to give him than to follow his example... From this world into the next."

Then he led the congregation in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

As they got ready for bed that night, Caitlyn said, "I think that was for us."

"What was? The Happy Birthday?"

"No," she said. "The sermon."

Jon blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I think God was trying to tell us something," Caitlyn said. "I mean, look at what he talked about. The tree hiding sinners... The ones who use their faith against other people... That's my mother. And what did the pastor tell us? To go out, and love, and ignore them, and let our deeds speak for themselves and let their deeds speak for themselves, and let people see. What he's saying is, If we love each other, and are good to each other as husband and wife, then... All this other stuff will work itself out. My mother will see. And... And she'll understand."

"No, no, wait, wait, wait," said Jon. "God...  Is speaking... To us."

"Yes," said Caitlyn, surprised. "Didn't you hear Him?"

"I heard a preacher, not God." He slid into bed next to her.

"I heard God speaking with a preacher's voice," said Caitlyn. "Didn't I tell you that God works through human hands?"

"Yes, but... God, speaking... To us?"

Caitlyn frowned at him. "I thought Pastor Pendleton and I made more headway than this."

"You could have," Jon agreed, "but then we got distracted. And," he added, bending to kiss her, "I'm kind of getting distracted with you right now..."

She pushed him away, laughing. "That's not how we got distracted in the pastor's office."

"No, we started talking about your parents."

"Yes, and see how God just picked up where we left off with Him?"

"You're determined to see God in this, aren't you."

"If you're determined, you can see God in just about anything. Which is kind of the problem. George Bush saw God in making war on Iraq, and look what a fiasco that's been."

"So what if it's just coincidence," he asked.

"Where you see coincidence, I see God," she said. "And Jon... Look, your pastor could have preached on anything tonight. He could've talked about any million of things. But he didn't. He talked about sin, and hypocrisy, and how to defeat it. He talked about things that were directly relevant to us. God meant for us to hear those words, and to take counsel from them."

"Yes, but what about all the 998 other people in that room," Jon said.

"I don't know, maybe God had messages for them too," said Caitlyn. "But what they heard from Him doesn't matter. What matters is what we heard from Him, and what we decide to do about it."

Jon stifled a jaw-cracking yawn. He was getting distracted—but not by Caitlyn's body, sweet though it was. "Let's... Let's pick this up in the morning."

"Okay," said Caitlyn. "G'night."

"I love you."

He was going to kiss her, but he fell asleep halfway through it.

-------

Day 17: Moving Day

Jon was awakened by the blazing trumpet of his cellphone. It was a number he didn't recognize—but on the clock was a number he did recognize, all too well; 9 AM. Way too early for Boxing Day. "Yeah umh hngh hello?"

"Hello?" said a disgustingly bright and chipper voice. "Is this Jon Stanford?"

"Mmm speaking."

"Jon, it's me, Christa!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It's Boxing Day!"

"Oh. Oh, right."

"So, you forgot to tell us where you live. We're about an hour out right now, and we didn't want to get too lost. And we figured we'd better get there as early as possible to help you guys move."

"Mmmm right," said Jon. This whole conversation was moving a little too fast for his brain. He gave his address mechanically, and the person on the other end agreed to be there in an hour or so.

"Donwannageddup," Caitlyn murmured.

"Yeah," Jon agreed, sitting down on the bed. Who was that? Who's Christa? What did she mean about... —Oh!!! "Caitlyn! Caitlyn! That was the Cranes! They're on their way here right now!"

"Whuh?"

"We're moving today!"

"Whuh?" said Caitlyn. And then: "—Oh!!!"

They showered quickly, and Jon felt his sluggish brain beginning to catch up to speed. It was very late in the day, for a man who was used to rising at 6 AM, but Jon and Caitlyn had been invited to the Cassidy family Christmas dinner; Uncle Max and Aunt Velma and Lawrence and Heath had all been there, and Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy had hosted. Nothing was said as to the Delaneys and their presence or absence. Both Caitlyn and Jon had drunk a little too much—partially out of sheer nervous dread, partially out of sheer relief at the good company—and when they got home, the bed play had lasted several hours, their longest session by far, but quite a bit of which Jon did not actually remember. He didn't feel any worse for wear because of the wine, but he certainly felt slow.

He stepped out of the bathroom and surveyed his room. The place was a wreckage—some boxes sealed, others opened and half-packed, and some things (like his computer) not even dismantled yet. Suppressing a sigh, Jon reached for the nearest unsorted object.

When Caitlyn came out, she immediately pitched in, but after a moment she wandered over to the nightstand, where last night's crop of used condoms was resting. "Boy," she said, "we sure had fun last night, didn't we. How many times did we do it, anyway?"

"Umm... God, I don't remember... Three times, maybe?"

"Are you sure?"

He squinted back into the mists of dim memory. "Umm... Yeah, three times. 'cause, remember? I said, like, Third time's the charm, huh? And you said, If we need charms on our third try, then—"

"Jon, there's only two used condoms," said Caitlyn in a tight voice.

Then they dropped everything and went scouring around on the floor, behind the nightstand, under the bed, everywhere. They could find no trace of a third.

"Jesus," said Jon, mopping his face with his hands. "We just don't like contraception, do we."

"Jon..." said Caitlyn in a small voice. "The woman at the Planned Parenthood... She said the best time for a couple to have sex, if they want children, is a week before her period."

Jon saw where this was going. "Like now."

"Jon... What are we going to do?"

"First off... We have to get another morning-after pill. Second... We might have to break our lease, because that tiny apartment won't hold two people plus a baby..."

"No, we won't. The lease is up in June, remember? Even if I got pregnant right this second, the baby wouldn't be here until... August, maybe even September."

"Right, you're so right..."

"You're not thinking. Jon, I need you to be smarter than this. You should've known better than to go sticking that thing in me without a condom—"

"Me?? I was half-drunk. You were half-drunk. You didn't remember either! Who's supposed to be 'responsible for our bodies, ourselves'?"

She turned away from him. Suddenly, he felt absurdly guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's all right," she said. "It's not your fault. It's not my fault either. It was just an accident."

Jon grimaced. "One big fuck-all of an accident."

"Just... Good thing we didn't start doing this before we got married, right? —I mean, imagine what it'd be like if we got married because I was pregnant."

Jon wondered about that. What would it have been like? Would it have happened at all? If Caitlyn had ever expressed interest in having sex with him, he would have tried to get her on The Pill in plenty of time to spare. How she would have hidden the pill packs from her mother, he had no idea. Maybe she would've found those instead. And then we'd be right back here, where we started—gunshot wedding, to make it impossible for them to keep us apart. Except we'd be a little ahead on The Pill schedule. Though, knowing our luck, probably not much more ahead.

Caitlyn was looking at him with an odd expression. "What would you do if I were pregnant?"

Jon shrugged. "Marry you. And have the family we've always wanted to. Things would be tricky... But how is that any different from now?"

The smile on her face was like the sun.

When the doorbell rang, they hadn't gotten all that much more packed than when they'd started, and Jon realized with a guilty start that he might have forgotten to tell his parents of the impromptu plans. Sure enough, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford looked a little startled at the advent of four college-age kids on their doorstep, all married and one with a babe at the breast, but they had gotten good at taking things in stride, and within moments Zach's easy charm and Christa's sunny disposition—not to mention little Laurelyn—had put them at ease, and they retired with the confidence that their son and daughter-in-law were in good hands.

"So," said Christa, rubbing her hands together. "How are we going to do this?"

"Well," said Jon, feeling acutely uncomfortable. "Most of my stuff is upstairs. It's, uh... We're not quite done packing yet."

"Of course not," said Zach, "no one ever is."

"Don't worry, we're good at this," said Christa, smiling. "We've had to move practically a household worth of stuff back and forth from Mount Hill to Greenfield every year."

"And who's fault is that," Zach asked her.

"Yours, Mr. I Can't Live Without My PlayStation," said Christa.

"Look who's talking, Mrs. I Can't Live Without My Hair-Dryer."

"And it's quite a hair-dryer," Meredith offered. "Once she shorted out the entire dorm with it."

Christa was quite red at this point. "Look, the point is, if you'll take us to where your stuff is, we'll start figuring out how to best load and pack it all."

Jon had finagled the use of his parents' minivan, and Brandon had a smallish SUV and Zach a pick-up truck from his parents, so there was plenty of room. The major problem was the actual packing. They weren't bringing a lot of Jon's furniture, just a desk and some chairs; and he had never needed much to sustain himself beyond a computer (both desktop and laptop for convenience), the Internet (Wikipedia) and some books. And of course he needed his clothes, his toiletries, things like that. He wasn't even taking his PlayStation, though maybe he'd return for it one day. On Christa's orders he packed his underwear and socks in a laundry hamper and covered them with his towels; a second contained his computer and bathroom peripherals (packaged together because they weren't made of cloth), and a third his books (by far the heaviest). For his clothes, she poked holes in the bottoms of plastic trash bags and threaded the hanger loops through them, turning them into giant suit bags. The computer's monitor and tower were the only things that weren't packaged up somehow. And of course there were Caitlyn's two bags of clothes, plus assorted toiletries and harp paraphernalia, not to mention the lap Celtic and the full-size themselves. These were stowed carefully in the back of Jon's van.

While they were stripping the room in preparation for the move, Brandon held up something. "Hey, Jon, was there a reason this was in your pillowcase?" It was a used condom, half hanging out of its wrapper.

Jon and Caitlyn exchanged looks.

"Boy," Jon said, "we sure were half-drunk last night, weren't we?"

"You were," Brandon agreed. "Can I stop touching this now?"

When they were done and after Brandon's hand had been most thoroughly sanitized, most of Jon's things were still on the floor, and so the Cranes and Chamberses helped him sort them into "Throw Out," "Give Away" or "Try to Sell and Then Give Away" piles, with the very few "Keep"s remaining where they were. Quite a bit more ended up in the "Throw Out" and "Give Away" piles than Jon had anticipated, which he later attributed to the peer pressure of having his friends nearby. But if he could live without it, he might as well.

"So, is that all you two are going to live on," Christa asked.

"No," said Jon, feeling a sinking dread in his gut. "There's a lot more at Caitlyn's place."

They lingered at the apartment unloading and setting up the few bits of furniture Jon had; the desk was placed in the bedroom, and it became clear that the Stanfords would need to buy some new stuff (a dining table and chairs, a couch for the main room, perhaps a chest of drawers) and definitely some kitchen utensils and groceries. The harp was wedged very carefully in the corner, with fervent wishes for good sound-proofing in the walls. Jon's computer got into the Internet in a trice, much faster than any of them had anticipated, and before they went to lunch he ceremonially read aloud his new one new e-mail, a gibberish-laden offer to increase his penis size which was then ceremonially deleted.

While they were eating, Caitlyn came to a realization, to judge by the hand she slapped to her forehead. "That reminds me, I wanted to talk to you about the conversation we had the other day. I wanted to finish the conversation we had the other day."

Jon, who had been hoping she'd forget, said, "Oh."

"But we can't, now, not in company," said Caitlyn.

Jon, who had been hoping she'd feel that way, said, "Oh."

"What conversation," Meredith asked.

"It was about God," Caitlyn said.

"What about Him," Meredith asked.

"Whether He speaks to us," Caitlyn said.

"Oh, no question," Meredith said. "Constantly. Just, never in His own voice, only through the words and actions of others. We just have to be smart enough to recognize Him when we see him."

"That's part of the game, kinda," said Zach. "The game of life. Where, if you can keep an open mind and an open heart, you can hear God's voice. The game part comes in where you have to figure out what's God and what's Man and what's just gibberish. Which can be hard. But it's fun, you know?"

"Why, what did God say to you," Christa asked.

Caitlyn related the sermon from the Christmas vigil. Jon was half-expecting her to get it wrong—religion just made him queasy like that—but she repeated it almost word-for-word, and then went on to give a summary of her interpretation. The others were nodding before she was half-way through.

"I think Jon's church is very lucky to have that pastor," said Christa. It's not my church, Jon thought.

"I think that's definitely God," said Zach. "I mean, like you said, Caitlyn, that guy could've talked about anything or anybody for his Christmas vigil sermon. But no: he chose to talk about something directly applicable to your lives. I'd feel confident about calling that a message from The Big Guy."

"What do you think, Brandon," Meredith said.

Brandon gave Meredith a short, direct look, and Jon could have sworn he was saying, We'll talk about this later. "First off," he said, "I don't know if I believe in God either," and suddenly Jon felt a lot better. "Regardless, though, it's good advice. I mean, face it: the only choice you guys have, to win over Caitlyn's mother—or to reconcile with her, for that matter—is to just stay the course, and grow your marriage to the point where it speaks for itself. So that when your mother finally gets her head out of her ass and looks around... Grandchildren, too. It's hard for any parents to argue with grandchildren."

"You had some trouble with yours, didn't you?" Caitlyn asked. "What do they think, now that they have Laurelyn?"

Brandon bit his lip for a moment. "They died," he said finally. "Private plane crash outside of DC."

There was a period of silence. Jon opened his mouth to say something, but from the look on Brandon's face, thought it might not be appropriate. Meredith gazed at her husband's face in clear anxiety for a moment, and then turned to fuss over the baby.

"My parents are delighted with her," she said, less than cheerfully. "After my brother died... It took a lot of the heart out of them. Seeing them with Laurelyn... It's like... They came alive again."

There was another moment of silence. Jon was burning with questions now (What brother?), but this didn't seem to be the time.

"Okay, this is no fit talk for newlyweds," said Zach. "We should be telling them raunchy jokes and sex suggestions, not all this... This stuff about death and parental stupidity and. Like. Stuff like that. I mean, come on! You're newlyweds! Parents are over, you don't ever have to go back there if you don't want to!"

"Jon's been telling me that since the first day," said Caitlyn softly. "And yet we still keep going back."

Jon squeezed her hand.

"Okay, I have a question," said Brandon, breaking out of his self-imposed lethargy. "What was with that condom in the pillowcase?"

Jon and Caitlyn turned bright red.

But after they were done eating and laughing and the good mood had been restored, there was no putting off the visit to the Delaney house. They were bringing out Caitlyn's bed for its larger size, and some of the furniture in her room (a chest of drawers, for instance) and possibly her three-quarters harp, though it might bankrupt them to obtain it. Jon had had to bring his checkbook, of course; they'd only paid for and bought the full-size harp so far, and there were still some clothes and other things to secure.

Jon also immediately realized that today, a holiday, was the wrong time to call: while Caitlyn fumbled with the key, the door was opened (tearing the keychain from her grasp), revealing her father in the doorway.

"What are you doing here," he said in his gravelly voice.

"Came back for my stuff," said Caitlyn, daunted but trying not to show it. Mr. Delaney was a big man, and could look very forbidding when he wanted to—now, for instance. A quick glance over Jon's shoulder showed that, for his friends at least, it was working; only Brandon still had his poker face on, though Meredith was rapidly reasserting hers.

"And these?" said Mr. Delaney.

"Hard to move a bed with only two people," said Caitlyn.

"We could've helped," said Mr. Delaney.

"You could've," Caitlyn agreed, her voice already stronger. "Would you?"

Mr. Delaney looked them over.

"They can't come in."

"Then we'll just set up camp right here on the doorstep," said Brandon.

"Brandon," said Christa in a cold undertone.

There was a flicker of motion behind Mr. Delaney: his wife, coming to investigate. When she saw them, her eyes hardened. "I told you to leave and never come back."

"You did," Caitlyn agreed. "You didn't mean it the first time."

"I did the second," said Mrs. Delaney coldly.

"Then get out of our way, and we'll get what we came for and never trouble you again," said Caitlyn, her voice just as hard.

Mrs. Delaney's face turned pale, but she moved aside and let Caitlyn lead her squad upstairs, trooping muddy meltwater on the clean floors.

"Jeez!" said Zach, looking around her room. "Beanie Babies! Like, half of the world's Beanie Babies right here! I hope you weren't planning on bringing them with you, 'cause we'd need five or six more cars to—"

"It's okay," Jon whispered. "It's okay. You don't—" You don't ever have to come back here,  he had been going to say, but they kept disproving that statement; saying it again wouldn't make it any more true. He stroked the back of Caitlyn's head and wished there was more he could do.

"It's not easy to stand up to your parents," said Meredith softly. "One of the drawbacks of being born is that we automatically love our parents. And when we have to hurt them, it hurts us, too."

"Shouldn't it work the same for parents to kids," said Christa.

"Yes, it should," said Brandon. "But downstairs is living proof that it doesn't always."

"Now hold on," said Zach. "Sure, they may not act like they love Caitlyn very much... But from what you guys've told us, they wouldn't know how to act loving if their lives depended on it. At heart... Caitlyn, do you know what the opposite of love is?"

"No," Caitlyn sniffed.

"Hey, this is my line," Meredith protested faintly.

"It's indifference," said Zach. "If they didn't love you, Caitlyn, they wouldn't have reacted at all when you showed up. They would've just said, 'Fine, whatever, ' and left it at that. The fact that they're reacting to you at all... It means they love you. Or at least care about you. Now, the problem is, they show it in ways that you don't understand—that any of us understand—but that doesn't change the underlying fact that they do love you."

Brandon and Meredith turned to each other. "We taught him too well," Brandon said, "he's taking our place."

"Shouldn't the opposite of love be hate," said Caitlyn.

"No," said Zach. "—or, rather, yes, within the range of emotions. But you don't hate someone who's insignificant. You don't hate someone who isn't important to you. You hate, I dunno, George Bush, because he can screw you over. But you don't hate an ant, because what can an ant do to you besides crawl up your pant leg?"

"I dunno," said Jon. "I woke up with an ant crawling on my face once. It wasn't fun."

"So I guess it wasn't necessarily accurate to say that they love you," said Zach, "but it is accurate to say you're important to them. You matter to them. There are good, true, emotional reasons—however misguided—that cause them to act towards you the way they do."

Caitlyn sighed. "I'm not sure if that's reassuring or not."

"Worry about it later," said Christa. "It's going to take us hours to get all this sorted out."

And take them hours it did; it was past dinner-time before the final load had gone into the shell-covered back of the Crane family pick-up. Caitlyn had given a final run-through of her clothes and other possessions, delineating some for movement to the apartment and consigning the others to storage at Jon's house, where they would meet their various fates (yard sale or permanent storage; the Throw-Away pile was being left here). Jon, Zach and Meredith ended up making an early run at about 4 PM, taking the first load of stored things to Jon's house; the remainder filled all three cars, though to be fair, some of it was furniture. Mr. Delaney, glowering from the recliner at the foot of the stairs, seemed inclined to open his mouth about the property they were carting away, but when he saw Brandon's face he apparently thought better of it.

About a quarter of Caitlyn's clothes were left here, and another half went back to Jon's house; the rest went with them, along with the bureau, a small kitchen table and attendant chairs, bookshelves with books, and the queen-size bed, which turned out to be long enough, though Jon still thought his extended twin would be smarter. They could wedge the full-size harp into the bedroom with the twin in; and besides, what was the point of such a huge bed when he and Caitlyn would be taking up so little space in it? But Caitlyn wanted it, so he bit his tongue. The thing he was most worried about was the clothing; she had enough of it to fill their small closet, and then where would his go? But it could be worse; going back to his house for storage was, by far, the majority of her property: all three-hundred-odd Beanie Babies, crammed into boxes, and her dolls and doll furniture, not to mention books, paintings, paperwork, the three-quarters harp and fifteen years of personal diaries. Jon had never known that a person could have so much they couldn't bear to part with, but then he stopped to wonder just how much of this might appear for sale on eBay in the near future—and, for that matter, how much of a profit they might reap from it.

Laurelyn was, for the most part, a model of patience and forbearance, but she was also only 368 days old, and she had only so much tolerance for noise and chaos and laughter and jostling around. A couple of times she cried. The first time she was satisfied by Meredith's breast to suckle (Jon thought to himself that any number of men could be similarly pacified), but the second she squalled for nearly fifteen minutes, and nothing Meredith could do would placate her. Or maybe it was just a ploy; after some attention and playing around, the baby quieted down, and Meredith could return to packing full-force. Jon caught Mrs. Delaney sort of hanging around during these periods of baby crisis, but she averted her eyes and bustled off every time he saw her. He wondered what was going through her mind. In any case, it was at dinner that Laurelyn really took off, yowling her head off to the point that Meredith was forced to retire from the restaurant for the relative peace and quiet of the Chambers's car. "Well, at least we know she's definitely our child," she quipped. "She hates big crowds."

Christa watched her go in admiration. "I don't know how she does it. There's times when that kid just drives me nuts, but you never hear Meredith complain."

"Maybe it's different 'cause it's her kid," said Zach.

"Yeah, but she's like a sister to me," said Christa, "shouldn't that count for something?"

"It does bug her," said Brandon quietly. "You just... She doesn't talk about it to most people."

"As in, to anyone but you," said Zach, smiling.

"Hey, I am her husband," said Brandon.

"God, look at us," said Christa, shaking her head. "We just helped our friends move into an apartment. I'm legally drinking a Piña Colada. My best friend's a mother, for heaven's sake, and one of my other best friends is due in... What, two weeks?"

"About," Brandon agreed.

"When did we get so old?" Christa exclaimed.

"Weren't we always?" Caitlyn asked.

Everyone looked at her.

"I don't know about you, but... I've always felt... Mature," said Caitlyn. "I never felt like I was a child, or that the things that happened to me were any less important because I was young at the time. There was never a moment of, I dunno, 'Oh, I'm not a child anymore, I'm an adult now.' There was never a moment of, 'Oh, I'm a child.' I've just always been... Grown-up."

Jon found himself nodding. So was Brandon. "I know Meredith felt the same way."

"And you guys... Well, you're the most stable people I know," said Caitlyn to Zach and Christa. "You never lose perspective, you never get tripped up by the details, you... It's like nothing can faze you. And it takes a lot of maturity to be like that. There are adults who never learn it."

Everyone was nodding now.

"So... I don't think it's that we're extra grown-up now," said Caitlyn. "—Or rather, I don't think that we're extra grown-up now, I think it's that we've always been this grown-up, in our hearts at least, and it's just our bodies that have finally caught up. So now we're just being who we've always been. Now we can finally be who we've always been."

"Hear, hear," said Christa, raising her drink

"Crazy," said Brandon.

"What?" said Zach. "I think it makes sense."

"No, as in, that's what we've always been," said Brandon, grinning. "Crazy."

"Crazy for sex, you mean," Zach retorted. "Crazy for pussay!!"

"Guys," said Christa, with a grin but also a warning, directing them at Caitlyn's red face with a slight nod.

But Caitlyn made a weak grin and said, "Well, if you're sex fiends, no wonder you got married so quickly. How else would you get it regularly?"

Zach and Brandon stared at her.

"Did she just... Join in the banter?" Brandon said.

"Quick, grab a Bible," said Zach. "Look for other signs of the Apocalypse."

Dinner was like that: a light-hearted, enjoyable affair filled with good food and good company. The Cranes insisted on paying for it. "You can pay us back by cooking us dinner one day. Neither of us can cook, so most of the time we don't eat very well." Jon and Caitlyn laughed and promised to do so, even going the ultimate step of making a pinky-swear with Christa. It was the most fun Jon could remember having in a long time.

Back at the now rather-cramped apartment, the Chamberses and Cranes helped move furniture around—quickly, as it was now getting fairly late, and they still had a two-hour drive to get back to their beds in Mount Hill. The most critical object was, of course, the bed: it was not only largest, heaviest and most difficult to move, but it was also the one they would need the soonest. But while they were at it, they also managed to maneuver the bureau drawers into the bedroom, and then stood the bookshelves up, parked the table and chairs in the middle of the room, and declared the furniture 'in place.' "At least, at the moment," said Brandon. "You'll probably want a couch, a TV, kitchen gear..."

"Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of shopping tomorrow," said Jon.

"And a lot of unpacking," Caitlyn said, eyeing the boxes, hampers and crates without enthusiasm. "If we're just leaving in six months, maybe we should just leave everything boxed."

"Not the clothes," Jon said, "those we at least gotta hang. Or shelve."

"Yeah, but, everything else."

"Not if you want this to be, like, our place. Things in boxes is just a storage room. Things on shelves, decorations on the walls... That's a home."

"Yeah... We could put my lighthouse painting up on that wall... —Ooh, and the harp one over in the corner. That can be the harp corner! And—"

"Well, I can see our job is done here," said Brandon, grinning.

"Thank you so much for your help," Jon said. "I'd offer you folks room and board for the night, but... As you can see, there isn't a lot of room, and even less board."

"What is 'board, ' anyway," Christa asked.

"Food," said Brandon, the History major.

"Yeah, we offered you that," Christa said, grinning.

"Why 'board'?" said Meredith, nursing Laurelyn. "Am I a board?"

"No, it's... I dunno, something about tables," said Brandon. "Like, a buffet table or something?"

"What, am I a table," said Meredith, genuinely confused.

Jon laughed and bade them goodnight.

Caitlyn was already wandering around the room, scoping out their various options for decoration. "Do you think the Kelsings will mind if we repaint their walls?"

Jon laughed. "I think that we should ask them before we hit the Sherwin-Williams store, if that's what you're thinking."

"Yeah, we should, but, wow, we could do such cool things with this room! This white stuff on the walls, it's boring, we could, I dunno, we'd need something to match the carpets, but after that... And we should probably get an air freshener in here, and..."

Jon kissed her on the cheek and left her to her excited burbling. For his part, he wanted two things: a piss and a shower.

The stall was not quite big enough for two people, but he thought they could squeeze if they really had to. We might have to try some of this standing-up sex thing. He also realized he should probably be careful about his shower durations; they were drawing from a communal hot-water heater, and a needlessly long shower could empty the reservoir for someone else down the line—or maybe even for himself. Fortunately, five-minute showers were his norm. Caitlyn might have some problems, though; she liked a half-hour or more.

It was only 10 PM, but the truth was, he was tired. It had been a long and demanding day—a rewarding one, to be sure, but demanding as well, both physically and emotionally. He had made some new friends, but faced down some enemies too; and on top of that he'd been physically moving non-stop except for lunch and dinner. As he saw it, it was time to get some rest. He unpacked his clothes, hanging most of them up and designating a single bureau drawer for his underclothes, and then went out for the bedclothes that Caitlyn had brought from her home.

"Going to bed already?" she asked.

"It's late," said Jon. "—Well, it's not that late. But it's late enough, and I'm tired."

"You're an old man," said Caitlyn, grinning.

"And you're married to an old man, so who's out of luck there," Jon returned with an arch smile.

"You weren't old when I married you," said Caitlyn. She gave his body a once-over. It had become their custom to sleep without clothes on; it was a lot more convenient. "You look pretty spry, too, for such an old geezer."

"Well," said Jon modestly. "I do my best."

"So," she purred, slinking over to him. "This 'sleep' you speak of. Is that an invitation to... Join you for some... Private time?"

"Actually, I was just going to sleep," said Jon, and she gave him such an eyebrow that he laughed aloud. "But, obviously, if you can convince me otherwise..."

"Hmm," she said, grinning. "Give me a few minutes to shower, and maybe I can."

But he never found out, because by the time she came out of the shower, he actually was asleep, and that was that.



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Part 7


Day 22: New Year's Eve

When Caitlyn woke up, she was hungry, and as always there was the disorientation of the unfamiliar surroundings. But these surroundings were coming more familiar by the day, and it was only a few moments before she realized, Oh, it's the apartment, that's my chest of drawers and we're in the big bed, and the hum is the computer, and it's New Year's Eve (on a Monday, of all days!), and it's our own place and Jon is here and I'm happier and freer and better than I've ever been in my life.

She felt Jon stirring behind her. "Good morning, my love."

"Mmmm," he said. "Hi."

"We should get up," she said. "I'm hungry."

"I'm tired," he said. "We should go back to sleep."

"Why? We slept all yesterday."

"That wasn't sleeping, baby."

Okay, so it hadn't been. The nightstand was littered with condoms; they'd spent almost all day in bed, rising only to order a pizza at about 4 PM. True, they had slept in between sessions, catching a nap here and there, but for the most part they'd lain naked together, talking, whispering, laughing... And having sex, of course. They'd run the gamut, too, from raw physical lust to tender, emotional lovemaking, and once he'd simply slid in while they talked, chatting on as if he wasn't buried to the hilt inside her. It was more sex than she'd ever thought possible... And more fun, more relaxing, more loving, than she'd thought possible either. This must be what honeymoons are like. Why do people travel? It'd be a lot cheaper to just do this at home.

But maybe they were making up for lost time; the previous week had been less than relaxing. After getting moved in, Jon and Caitlyn had spent the entirety of Thursday shopping for needed supplies and materials—dishes, utensils, pots and pans, groceries, a couch, a somewhat larger TV than the 12-incher Jon had bought from a friend three years ago, a stand to hold it to eye level, and even some rugs and wall-hangings. It was the first time Jon had ever been to an Ikea, but not Caitlyn's; unfortunately, her experience with the store did not cover the subsequent furniture assembly (Jon: "This is like Legos, but worse"). They had also cooked dinner, a first time for both of them: Jon had dabbled at cooking before, hoping his father's talent at the stove had somehow come down to him, but never pursued it seriously, and Caitlyn was a fine hand at desserts and baked goods but had almost nothing else. The results were relatively edible, but not as good as could have been hoped for, and they'd stayed up a further several hours spreading out rugs, hanging pictures and juggling the arrangement of couch, table, bookshelves and other things.

They had made great progress, and Jon had then had and carried out the semi-inspired idea of inviting his family over for dinner on Friday. When they awoke, they were still tired and somewhat cranky with the unexpectedly-complicated logistics of putting a home together. The previous night's efforts had also not alleviated their concerns about their cooking skills (or lack thereof). It was a mood that not even sex could avert. They had spent the whole day arguing over the menu and then cooking the chosen items (a fairly simple list, to be sure: spaghetti with a slightly-spicy meat sauce which in itself was the most challenging item, homemade garlic bread, a spinach salad and one of Caitlyn's pans of patented brownies for dessert), and while the dinner was a success, they still felt nothing but weariness when they dropped into bed.

On Saturday, they slept in late but rose without their customary morning lovemaking, which Caitlyn was already beginning to miss if it didn't happen. She ended up devoting most of Saturday to harp practice, since she had barely touched the thing all week except to help move it to their new apartment. Moving it on Sunday would be nigh-impossible with only the tiny Celica on their side, but a quick phone call to Jon's parents fixed that problem. Jon had spent most of the day on the computer, trolling Craigslist, calling in favors and trying to get a feel for the job market. He wasn't entirely sure what his skills were worth anymore, and what he should realistically shoot for or expect. He also checked out the local car dealerships, cross-referencing places where he could trade in Buffy for something with more trunk space, and which cars provided that necessary space. A pick-up truck would be ideal: the harp had over 2,000 pounds of pressure on its frame, and if damaged in a car accident it might flat-out explode, throwing chunks and splinters with deadly force. Sheer safety mandated a separate storage compartment: "That's why all my family's cars are SUVs or trucks," Caitlyn explained. Jon agreed, but he simply wasn't sure he could drive such a thing.

Sunday after church (without car accidents) had been their first chance for sex since the morning of the 24th, which (Caitlyn thought) might have had something to do with the decision to devote the entire day to it. Or maybe we were just glad to be free. Jon was right: now that things are out of boxes, this place looks like a home now, not just some apartment people are living in. And it's our home. We don't have to worry about... We don't have to worry about anything but what we think... And maybe the neighbors too. But what they don't know can't hurt them, right?

"Maybe it wasn't sleeping," she said, "but we just got... What, like, nine hours."

"Yeah, but we woke up at three to do it some more."

She remembered that one well. He had slipped in from behind, but then turned them both over and begun to ram into her. She had found herself flattened beneath him, her face pressed into the pillow, his hips connecting with her butt on every stroke, and loved every minute of it. "Okay, so, six uninterrupted hours," she said.

"That's not enough."

"Plus the three or four we had before that?"

"Used it up doing you from behind."

She turned. His eyes weren't even open, but he had a grin on his face.

"You just wanna stay in bed and have more sex," she said.

"Yup," he said, reaching out with one arm and gathering her to him without ever opening his eyes. "Another lazy day in bed sounds fine to me."

It did to her too, but two in a row... Wasn't that kind of excessive? Maybe in a month. Or a week. Or tomorrow. "Jon, it's New Year's Eve. We should at least get up and celebrate. Maybe with your folks. Maybe with your friends."

"So, what, that'll start at, like, 10 PM? That still leaves us all day to play around."

"Jon, if we don't get up, you won't ever want to. We'll just end up spending all day in bed again."

"Says you. How do you know?"

Because I wouldn't want to get up either. "Look. If I have sex with you now, will you get up so we can celebrate the New Year?"

"Oh, I see how it is. Bargaining. We haven't been married for a month and you're already leading me around by my dick."

"Why, sweetie, I thought I was doing that from our first date," she said sweetly.

"Of course," he said. "I only married you for your pussy." His hand slid down her back, over her buttock, down her leg. "And your boobs, of course." He bent to kiss her. "And your mouth... And your tongue..." he murmured into her mouth. "And your sweet neck..." He kissed down the length of her throat as he spoke, and on down her body. "And your cute little ears... But most of all..." His lips landed at the top slope of her breast, the left one. "But most of all your heart. That little beating thing that makes you so kind, and patient, and wise, and brave, and everything you are that makes me love you."

She felt the first touch of his hand at her nether lips while his mouth found her breast. And then she was gone at his fingers on her clit and the deep, satisfying pull on her nipple. She didn't feel her arms clutching him to her, but he did.

Abruptly—it seemed like mere moments, but it might have been an hour for all she knew—his lips left her breast and his hand her pussy, and she felt a moment of vast confusion before his lips landed on her abdomen, kissing their way south. She felt the tickle of his lips and tongue down her stomach, over her navel, and then through the sensitive, tingling patch of hair at the bottom of her body. And then the first touch of his tongue, slipping between her legs. She moaned and arched to him, allowing him easier access, suddenly noticing his arm around her waist, her hands holding his head to her, urging him on, urging her pleasure.

Ripples and shocks of pleasure surged through her as his lips and tongue went about their business. She had, now that he'd done this to her so many times, a better idea of what went on down there—mostly he would suck on her clit, but his tongue would probe her inner secrets as well, finding folds and crevices she never knew existed. It had long ceased to amaze her that he seemed to know her body better than she herself did. And every moment of it was joy and warmth and the sweet tension of her body slowly tightening up towards orgasm, an orgasm that hung there, tantalizing, always just out of reach.

Knowing what he would be thinking, she found enough wherewithal in her hormonal frenzy to reach over and snag a condom, which he passed down to him. He took it from her hand without stopping his assault on her pussy, and soon he was sliding back up to meet her face-to-face. She hooked her leg over his, slid an arm under his shoulder, and reached down to place him inside her.

There, she thought. I knew we could make it work.

Face to face, feeling the planes of his body all down her own, feeling his cock plumbing her depths, was like heaven. She kissed at his neck and ear, the only part of him she could reach, but it was hard to concentrate with all that sex going on. The penetration was perfect: he was at a sharp enough angle that his shaft brushed against her clit with every stroke, but he could also bury himself to the hilt within her, letting her feel him deep inside. Her hands moved to his buttocks of their own accord, urging him on, drawing him in, feeling his skin brush against her nipples and stomach and pelvis, feeling closer to him than she had ever felt before. His heart thundered against her shoulder.

"I love you," she whispered. "Oh, Jon, I love you so much—" And then, to her surprise, she was cumming, hard and strong and so powerful it almost overwhelmed her. She felt her body clenching around the solidness of his cock, the hitching and spasming and the sheer delirious joy of her body's release, and then a moment of pure clarity as the first dim burst of warmth filled the tip of the condom inside her; and then all was fuzz and ash and twitching ecstasy as their bodies surged together in the final release and fell again.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

She felt warm, and safe; she felt more relaxed than she could remember feeling in a long time. She felt contented, sated, complete. This was heaven. It must be. And yet... "Jon... We... We have to get up."

"Nnngh. Why."

"Because if we don't, we never will."

"That sounds okay."

"We'll just melt into a puddle together and never be able to move again."

"I'd like to be in a puddle with you. I'd like to be just one flesh with you. No you anymore, and no me either. Just us."

"I'd like that too, but puddles can't hold down jobs."

"Why would we care? We'd be a puddle."

"Jon, please. We can't."

He was silent for a long time. Then he gave a deep sigh. "Yeah. We can't."

She followed him into the shower stall, knowing how cramped it was and not really caring. Some things were more important than a little discomfort. Wordlessly they soaped and scrubbed, passing things back and forth without asking, until finally he gestured for her to turn around and began to shampoo her hair. His hands on her scalp felt very good.

"It scares me sometimes," she said finally.

"What does?"

"Just how good you feel. Jon, this is the kind of thing that... That could become addicting."

"But we're married now. Isn't it okay to be addicted to your spouse?"

"Is it ever okay to be addicted to anything?"

"Depends on how you control it. Some things are inevitability in this life."

She wasn't sure she liked that attitude. "Jon... Remember what Pastor Pendleton said. Sin starts as something good. Then it gets out of hand, and that's where it becomes sin. Having... Making love with you is so good. Jon, I just... It makes me nervous. Sometimes."

"So you're saying it's sinfully good?"

Put that way, it sounded kind of stupid. "Jon, I'm just saying that... We should be careful. We should keep our eyes open. We should be wary of temptation."

"I always keep my eyes open," said Jon. "Especially when you cum." When she started to protest, he said, "All right, I'll be serious. And I will keep my eyes open. If you're concerned, then I'm concerned too."

She leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

The apartment was definitely a bit of a mess. They'd done some desultory clean-up the night of the Stanfords' visit, but not much, and most of the dirty dishes still slanted into the sink. The counter looked like a war zone. And there were still plenty of boxes, crumpled packing paper and the other detritus of moving, waiting to be discarded. Jon gave a groan when he surveyed the scene, but Caitlyn took him well in hand, and by noon the place was looking more livable. Jon made sandwiches, Cait poured the milk, and they ate facing each other across the table, feeling rather satisfied.

"So," Caitlyn said eventually. "Who are we going to invite over or otherwise try to inveigle? We just had your folks over the other day. The Chamberses and the Cranes have seen this place, and besides they're probably at their homes and with their families. Your friends..."

"Well, Adam and Steve and all the rest," said Jon. "I dunno, Adam's my oldest friend but not really my best, and the others... Steve can get so self-centered, and Lana will complain about how her boyfriend's at UCLA—either that or just be face-first with him, which I guess I can understand because they only see each other three months a year, but, still. Either way, she isn't very social sometimes. And then ever since Adam and Steve broke up... We're all going our separate ways now. Who would you like to invite?"

"Well... Brandon and Meredith and Christa, really, but they're probably busy. I didn't ever really have any other friends."

The rim of his cup hid his mouth, but she could see the smile in his eyes. "You sure didn't get out much, did you."

"Jon, it's my parents we're talking about," Caitlyn said. "We had to elope for me to get out." The thing on her face was supposed to be a smile.

Jon sighed. "Yeah. I guess it's not surprising."

"You saw how fast their opinions changed," said Caitlyn. "Remember the Christmas party I had, when you were a senior? My parents met Meredith and Christa and thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. But I blew that out of the water, and now they think they're one step from the devil."

"Well, you got out," Jon said. "We had to elope to do it, but you got out." His hand covered hers.

"Yeah," said Caitlyn sadly.

There was silence for a moment. She felt Jon's eyes on her face. She had always felt people's gazes as almost a physical phenomenon, like acid on her skin—but not Jon's. His gaze warmed her. His gaze protected her.

"Well... I guess that solves it," she said finally.

"Solves what?"

"Who to invite over." She sighed. "We should ask my parents to come."

Jon almost fell out of his chair. "What?!"

"Jon, we tried going head-to-head with my mother already. We failed. Our only option now is to just... Be. It's like your pastor said at Christmas. Let our love shine so brightly and so clearly that they can't help but acknowledge it. City on a hill. Let it speak for itself."

Jon scowled. "I still think we'd be better served by just cutting contact with them and calling it quits."

It was tempting, true, but really... "Jon, honestly. Could you have done that with your parents?"

It was a risky argument, really. Jon had already fought this war against his own parents, turning his mother's head around until she could see the truth; he had been where she was now, fighting, winning, losing, loathing them and held in place by nothing more than sheer familial loyalty. But he'd also said that the constant battles she'd had to fight against her parents, and his role in them, had drawn his own family together; reportedly, he was closer with them now than he had been in years, perhaps ever. It might go either way. But Jon was a Family Sim; these things were important to him.

And she guessed right, as he sighed and hung his head and shook it. "No. I couldn't have just walked away. But I just don't think this is going to turn out well. Nothing does, while your mom is involved."

"Yes, but... Jon, we still have nothing to lose. There's nothing she can do to us that will make any difference anymore. They can't force us to divorce, they can't... They can't hold any more financial clubs over our heads... We're independent now. We're paying rent. We're not dependent on them at all. We have nothing to lose, and everything to win. They can't hurt us anymore."

"They can't hurt me," Jon said. "You they hurt all the time."

As if I needed to be reminded of that. "Please, Jon. For me."

Jon looked at her for a moment. Then he fetched a deep sigh.

Caitlyn was of two minds as she picked up the phone. Words had passed between herself and her mother, ugly ones, and it might be that Linda Delaney had simply had enough of her wayward daughter. But then she remembered what Jon had said about her mother needing to be a mother, needing so desperately to have this part of her identity that she couldn't take her children leaving. Maybe that one would win, instead of the other. She could only try.

And, as it turned out, it did win. "They'll be here at five," she said. "We have to cook again."

"We'd better throw out all those condoms," Jon said. "Actually, we'd better empty the trash too. The last thing we need is for them to notice some tell-tale sign."

"They may not even know what a condom looks like," Caitlyn said, but she knew Jon was right. Besides, what was one trip down the stairs compared to their safety?

They planned a slightly more impressive menu this time, using the cookbook that the Chamberses had given them as a Christmas present. Caitlyn nominated mashed potatoes, and a peach cobbler to please her mother; Jon recognized a recipe for teriyaki chicken which his father often used, and decided to mix some carrot slices and broccoli florets into the stir-fry as well, along with the mandated bell peppers and bits of garlic. It would be an unorthodox menu, to be sure, but Jon thought everything would taste just fine.

The only problem with cooking was the size of the kitchen: tiny. There was barely enough room for one person to work, but they had decided early on that both of them would do the cooking, partially because they both wanted to learn but also because they wanted their marriage equal. It was cramped, but fun, and they were learning to stay out of each other's way and in any case there were far less pleasant people to be tripping over. Caitlyn had observed long ago that adding Jon to just about any task made it fun; she supposed there wasn't any reason cooking ought to be different.

The only thing that concerned her was that it would be just the four of them, the Stanfords and the Delaneys. A neutral third party might be a smart idea—but she couldn't think of anyone, and neither could Jon. "The thing is, we have no lack of third parties," he said, "but the neutrality's the hard part. Just about everyone we know is on our side. And we'd want someone who was going to help keep the peace, not take our side—no matter how nice that might feel."

"Jeez, look at us," Caitlyn said. "Planning for disaster. Maybe we won't need a third party. Maybe they'll be civil. Maybe we'll be able to make peace and have a nice time."

"Do you think so?" Jon asked.

"No," Caitlyn admitted.

"Well, you said it yourself," said Jon. "No matter what, they still can't hurt us."

"You said it yourself," she replied. "They hurt me all the time."

"But not me," he said. "And you know I'll be right where I belong: in between you and them. After all, they can't hurt you if they can't get past me, can they?"

She sighed. "I wish it were that easy." But she smiled too, and felt better.

These were the thoughts that preoccupied her that New Year's Eve: worries and concerns and possible disasters, flitting through her head. She remembered the Scripture that said, Do not worry about matters, but rather pray about them, and tried to, but it was a little easier said than done; there were only so many times she could ask for guidance, and strength, and the wisdom to not do anything that would tick her mother off, before it all got stale. Especially since she had probably ticked her mother off just by inviting her. For the first time she understood some of Jon's dissatisfaction with religion. This... I never thought I'd say this, but it isn't always satisfying. It's an answer, but not enough of one, not at times like this.

This was how Caitlyn managed to look up an hour later and discover that the meal had practically cooked itself.

They stood in the middle of the room, arms around each other, food ready and needing only re-heating to be servable. They'd emptied the trash and tidied up the kitchen area; they'd folded (or at least hidden) all the dirty clothes. The windows were open, admitting the grey strained winter sunlight, and the television was on to provide some inoffensive background chatter. It looked as good as it was likely to get.

"How do you think we should act," he asked her.

She sighed. "I think... I think we need to avoid offending them. We need to be as non-offensive as possible."

"Easier said than done, when we offend them just by being married," he said.
"Yeah. I... Yeah."

"Remind me again why this was a good idea?"

"Because I'm a sadist, and like watching you suffer... And because I'm a masochist, and like watching myself suffer."

"Good thing I've got a psych major. I'll straighten you out."

She clung to him tighter. "Sometimes... I wonder if we made a mistake. Sometimes life seems so crazy... Why were we in such a rush to grow up?"

"Because that was the price we had to pay to get you out," he murmured. "And, baby, you're happier now. I've seen you. You're free, and that makes you happy."

"I'm happy because you make me happy," she whispered. "But all the other stuff..."

"Doesn't make me happy either," he finished. "But, baby, as long as we make each other happy..."

"Mmmm," she said, melting into his embrace.

How long they stood there, she could not say, but soon—all too soon—came the knocking on the door which indicated that the war, for better or worse, had resumed. It was followed immediately by a buzzing sound, which indicated that one of her parents had figured out how to work the doorbell.

"Hi," said the Stanfords.

"Hello," said the Delaneys.

There was an awkward silence.

"Well... Why don't you come in," said Caitlyn, wondering just how askew her hair had gotten. Hopefully Jon had no lipstick prints on his face, though hers didn't tend to do that. —No, there shouldn't be, because she wasn't wearing any make-up. How quickly and politely could she slip away to fix that?... 

Then she caught herself. Why am I thinking about putting on make-up? This isn't a formal occasion, we're not entertaining guests or anything... Are we?

Her parents were duly impressed by the apartment and its furnishings—that is to say, not impressed at all, but pretending at it for politeness. They were rather critical of the dirtiness of the space (which was significant, though they'd done all they could without a steam-cleaner), its environment (not the most savory part of town) and its size (miniscule), and Mrs. Delaney seemed quite disapproving of the Ikea couch (which looked like nothing more than an extra-wide lawn chair but was quite comfortable). They seemed particularly unimpressed by the closet, in which Jon's and Caitlyn's clothes were stacked side-by-side, and the large double bed in the middle of the room. Jon and Caitlyn nodded, and smiled, and didn't say a word of agreement or disagreement either way, which Caitlyn could tell was only making her mother more peeved. She felt a surge of tiredness. Were they never going to let up?

After they had taken a tour of the apartment's three rooms, and Mr. Delaney had considered attempting to squeeze into the bathroom but decided against it (not because he was that large, but because it was so small), Jon led them back to the common room, leaving her parents before the TV momentarily while he and Caitlyn fired up the stove and microwave to rewarm the food. "We couldn't have had a better start," Caitlyn grumbled under her breath, and Jon touched her hand. She could see he wanted to do more, but didn't, for her parents nearby.

Once the food was ready (and tantalizing aromas were wafting through the apartment), Caitlyn returned to her parents. "Dinner's ready, if you are."

"Dinner? Oh, Caitlyn, that wasn't necessary," said her mother in a singularly underwhelmed tone.

"Nonsense," said Caitlyn, forcing a briskness into her voice that she didn't really feel. "Now that we live on our own, I figured it was time to pay you back for all the dinners you cooked for us. Come on."

"I hope you're serving more than dessert," said her father, which was probably supposed to be a joke but which she didn't think funny.

"Mmm, smells good!" said Jon in a disturbingly hearty voice. He handed out the plates and mismatched cups while Caitlyn's parents seated themselves around the table.

"Shall we?" said Caitlyn's father, holding out his hands, and Caitlyn and her mother took them, as well as Jon's, in preparation for the grace. But then Mr. Delaney looked at Jon with a tilt of his head, as if to say, Go ahead.

Jon froze. "Uh," he said. "Umm. Heavenly Father, we, uh. We thank you for the gift that we are abounty receive. Err. That we are... Bountifully... Able to receive. May the, uh. May the gifts of your grace be blessed to us—err, on us, um. Always. Amen."

"Amen," said Mr. Delaney, without a hint of irony, but Caitlyn saw her mother shoot Jon a dirty look before disengaging.

Jon picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes and was about to serve himself, but Caitlyn intercepted him and handed them to her father instead. Jon, taking the hint, routed all the food through him from then on. The mashed potatoes were a little dry, courtesy of their microwaving, and the chicken was a bit charred and not quite teriyaki'd enough. The carrots were interesting, though—fresh and crunchy, barely cooked, not the soggy, mushy things Caitlyn had generally been served at her parents' house. She thought she liked these better.

"These aren't cooked enough," said Mrs. Delaney.

Caitlyn wanted to throw something.

Jon shrugged. "I've always been a fan of less-cooked carrots. You get them boiled too much and they're almost like baby food. If you don't like them, the kitchen's right here—we can always send them back."

Caitlyn's mom seemed mollified, but once again gave Jon a cold look when she thought he wasn't looking. What, did she expect him to know how she likes her carrots?... Then again, with all the times Mom's served us carrots... Well, Jon doesn't think that way and I don't either, but, maybe Mom's got a point.

"So," said Mrs. Delaney, evidently an opener for conversation. "You two have been married for... What, three weeks now?"

"Three weeks and one day," said Jon promptly.

"And how is that going so far," said Mrs. Delaney, with an insufficient attempt at a pleased smile.

Caitlyn wanted to let a huge grin slide across her face, but remembering her mother's presence, she gave a noncommittal shrug. "It's been fun."

"It has," Jon agreed.

"Fun?" said Mrs. Delaney. "Is that what a marriage is about to you? 'Fun'?"

"No," Caitlyn protested weakly.

"I don't think the grounds of our marriage are any business of yours," said Jon.

"It is when my daughter is involved," Mrs. Delaney retorted.

"Jon," said Caitlyn, and Jon subsided. She turned to her mother. "The basis of our marriage, mother, is respect, love and shared values. He wants what I want. I want what he wants. And when that's not true, we talk it out until it is."

"And what if he wants something crazy," Mrs. Delaney said. "What if he wants a new sports car, or, or a vacation in Las Vegas, or a mistress on the side?"

"Then we talk a lot," said Caitlyn blandly. "If he can convince me that those things are actually going to do us good... Now, the mistress, I really doubt he could convince me of that. But hopefully we can compromise. And if we can't... Well, there might be problems. But we'll cross that bridge if it happens, which I seriously doubt it will."

"Though Vegas does sound fun," Jon said. "Lots of flashing lights and big fancy hotels that are half theme park. Could be interesting."

Actually, Caitlyn thought so too, but with her mother glaring like that she couldn't very well say so.

"So you married because you 'want what he wants, ' " said Mrs. Delaney. "Like what? Sex?"

Caitlyn tried to catch Jon's eyes, but missed. "What," he said, "is there something wrong with sex?"

"Before marriage, there is," Mrs. Delaney exclaimed.

"Well, good thing we got married, then," said Caitlyn blankly.

Mrs. Delaney opened and closed her mouth, looking from one of them to the other.

"Mom, get over it," said Caitlyn. "I know you've done it."

"What!" said Mrs. Delaney.

"Oh, you haven't?" said Caitlyn. "Then how did Nathan and I get here? Immaculate conception?"

"We may be a new generation, but we still make grandkids the same way," said Jon blandly.

"That's besides the point," said Mrs. Delaney. "Your father and I waited until we were married."

"So did we," said Caitlyn. "I told him very bluntly that certain things, including sex, were off-limits before marriage. And he was very patient and agreed that my rule was law."

"That's a rare man," said Mr. Delaney.

"Then how do you explain all the times I saw you kissing," Mrs. Delaney thundered.

Caitlyn and Jon exchanged surprised looks. "Umm," said Caitlyn. "By the fact that kissing is not sex?"

"Slippery slope!" said Mrs. Delaney. "Slippery slope! One day it's kissing, the next it's fornication."

"That's a big sort of a step," Jon said, still in that utterly bland voice. "Is this one of those 'Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200' things?"

"Is that what you think," Caitlyn said.

"There's a rather classic reason for why a man and a woman get suddenly married," said Mr. Delaney in an implacable voice.

The light dawned on them both; Caitlyn could see it on Jon's face, could feel it on her own.

"So you think we're keeping some sort of secret from you," Jon said.

"Something about, for instance, impending grandchildren," Caitlyn said.

"And, judging by the look on your face, you probably wouldn't believe the truth," Jon said.

"Jon," Caitlyn said. That was probably true, but there was no need to antagonize her mother like that.

"And you think this is an appropriate environment to raise a baby," said Mrs. Delaney, triumphant now. "This, this— This little hole in the wall, where you can't take a step without tripping over a harp or a couch or— You call this a place to raise my grandchildren?"

" 'Your' grandchildren," said Jon.

"It's small, yes," said Caitlyn. "But it's convenient to school—"

"And there's another thing, what about your degree," said Mrs. Delaney. "You need that degree. I can't believe you would jeopardize your entire future just for a few stolen moments of—"

"Caitlyn, are you pregnant," asked her father.

Caitlyn, surprised, said, "No."

Mrs. Delaney stopped in mid-word.

"Yes, it's small," Caitlyn repeated. "But it's convenient to school, meaning we don't need a second car, and it's cheap. And, since it's just the two of us and will be for some years yet, we do not need a lot of space."

"We are not having a baby," said Jon. "Disbelieve us if you want. Nine months will prove you wrong."

"As to finances, yes things might be a bit tight for a while," said Caitlyn, "but between the two of us we had over fifty thousand at our disposal (before we had to buy my harp back) and we're working on making more. Jon's already—"

"Don't tell her that," said Jon. Evidently financial matters were private to him.

Caitlyn shot him a glance, but said nothing more.

"So," said Mrs. Delaney. "Wouldn't it have been more... Convenient... To hold off a little? To let my daughter finish her degree, and build up some more money? Instead of having to just, suddenly... Jump the gun."

"No," said Jon bluntly. "What would you have done to Caitlyn once you found out we were engaged, if we'd given you the chance? Would you have locked her in her room? Would you have forced her to cut off all contact with me? We'd been talking about—"

"Jon," Caitlyn said. Her mother didn't need to know the depths of their relationship. Not yet.

"And so you made a bargain," said Mrs. Delaney. "You told her, I'll agree to marry you, but only if you have sex with me. Kind of a silly deal, don't you think?—tying yourself down for life just for a few clandestine sessions?" She gave what was supposed to be her best leer.

Jon's face clouded. "If you think—"

"Jon," Caitlyn said quietly, laying her hand on his own. He looked at her. "Excuse us for a moment, please."

In the bedroom, she slumped against the wall. "This isn't working. They're getting to us." She left the door a little bit open—mostly closed, for privacy, but just enough to suggest that they would come out soon. "They're totally getting to us."

"Well, maybe if you'd stop holding me back, I'd—"

"We're trying not to piss them off! You want to just open your mouth and vent your frustrations! That's—"

"That's better than dancing around them!"

"No it's not, you'll just piss them off further. They're already— They think they're winning, and if you let them get under your skin like this they'll take it as a sign that they're really winning—"

"Well, if you'd let me say something to them I could disabuse them of—"

"No!" she said.

The dull murmur of conversation from the common room went silent.

"Jon, we... We need to agree on what we..." She covered her face in her hands. "We need to decide what we're going to tell them and..."

"I don't like your method," he said.

"I know, and I don't like yours, so we'll compromise. We..." She fell silent as the enormity settled before her eyes.

"What?" he said, still pacing, his voice still tight.

"Jon, we... We've been doing this all wrong. We... Jon?"

"What?"

"Hold me."

He halted in mid-step, looking at her with those fiery eyes. But whatever he saw on her face, it changed his mind, because he stepped over to her and gathered her into his arms. She felt the tension in his body for a moment... And then he relaxed, and deflated, and was the warm, loving husband she knew.

"We've been doing it all wrong," she murmured. "This is what it's about. We said we need to avoid pissing them off; well, we can't. We said we need to tiptoe around them to avoid making them more ticked off; well, that's wrong. What we need to do is... Just be natural. Say whatever we'd say if they weren't listening. Be normal. Just... Love each other. Instead of hiding it for fear of making things worse. We can't not make things worse. But at least we can show them what it actually is they're upset with."

"God, you're right. Why didn't I see that? How stupid can I get."

"How stupid can we get, it was my idea to be all tip-toe..."

"So we're both stupid. We share our smarts and our dumbs."

"That's what marriage is about, right?"

They stood perpendicular to the door, wrapped tight in each other, her head against his chest, feeling his breath in her hair as he bent his head over her, and she opened her eyes and suddenly realized that her mother was peeking in the slightly-open crack of the door. Before Caitlyn could say anything or even really comprehend, her mother's mouth tightened and she went away.

Caitlyn closed her eyes again. Whatever. It's fine. We've been playing my mom against herself, and now we just realized that she's been playing us against each other. No longer. Now we know, and we're going to stop, and go out there united, and nothing she does will hurt us. When my husband and I are together, we are unstoppable.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay," he agreed.

It was the first time they had held hands over the table in her parents' company.

"Sorry about that," said Caitlyn smoothly. "Little, you know. Marital strife. It's all worked out now. You know how it is." Her mother's face tightened a little, but her father nodded.

"As I was saying," said Mrs. Delaney. "This marriage idea of yours is silly. You're not ready, and it's only going to cause problems in your future. In both of your futures."

Jon looked at Caitlyn. She smiled at him. And he smiled back and said, "We don't agree."

" 'We'?" said Mrs. Delaney sharply.

"Yup," said Caitlyn happily. "We don't."

"It's true we're not quite ready for marriage, not financially at any rate," said Jon. "But I also think both of us don't want to wait that long. The way the economy is nowadays, you're basically not ready until you're thirty. Then you get married and have kids, and suddenly you're turning sixty around the time your kids graduate from college. That's nuts. I don't want to be that much older than my kids."

"Neither do I," said Caitlyn. "So that means we have to start earlier. And if things happen before we're not ready... Well, it'll be tough for a while. But... We have friends who got through their undergraduate degree despite having a baby, so it's doable." If her parents noticed the singular degree, they gave no sign. "And I know Jon would do whatever he could to make things easier."

"She's only my wife," said Jon. "I'd... I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I failed her."

"As to being silly... I think Jon asking me to marry him was the smartest thing he's ever done. And that my saying yes was the smartest thing I've ever done. Jon wants the same thing I do: a family. Nothing more, and nothing less. I didn't think I'd find someone who wanted that, at least not for a few more years, because we are that far ahead of the curve, most people do get married at 25 or 30. Why do you think I was asked out by Ray?" That was the 46-year-old. "Why do you think I was attracted to Ray? Because we were looking for the same thing: someone to settle down with and have children with."

"We are ahead of the curve," Jon said. "Most people don't settle down and have this kind of life for a few years. They play around a little first. Which is their choice, but, obviously, Caitlyn and I didn't want to do that. So we didn't. And I'm just happy we found each other, or we might both still be lonely and bored."

"Did you notice that Jon didn't have a job when we first started dating—and that, about two months later, he did? Do you know why? Jon was originally planning to take a year off, do some soul-searching, maybe even travel."

"I wasn't sure where I was going. I graduated with my degree and it was like, 'Well, I'm not in school for the first time in sixteen years, now what?' I didn't know who I was without going to class. But then... I met your daughter. And I knew who I was. I saw that I had a chance to, you know, build for myself the kind of life I'd always wanted. And so I started working towards that, and I have been ever since."

"When was the first time you brought up the idea of us getting married, anyway?" Caitlyn asked him.

"I dunno, wasn't it... What, like, some time around our one-month anniversary?"

"Yeah, something like that. And a month later we weren't even saying 'if we get married' anymore. It was just 'when, when, when.' "

"But I don't think we were expecting it to happen this fast."

"No, of course not. But we also weren't expecting... We were hoping we could win you over, Mom. Let time and exposure change your mind. But it didn't quite work, obviously, and when you blew up so badly, we just... We said, 'Forget it, let's just get married and send a message she can't ignore.' We knew you wouldn't approve. But... I guess that didn't matter to us very much."

"Well, I don't approve," said Mrs. Delaney. Jon and Caitlyn didn't say anything. "And I think it's time to put this farce at an end. You're too young, you don't know what you want, you have no idea what you're getting into—"

"Have you heard a word we've said?" Caitlyn asked, more aghast than anything else.

"You'll come home with us," said Mrs. Delaney. "We'll talk to Pastor Pendleton about getting the marriage annulled—"

"He won't," said Jon, "he supports us in this. We've already talked to him."

"Then we'll speak to another priest," said Mrs. Delaney, "one's as good as another. And one day, when you're ready, Caitlyn, we'll marry you to a nice boy, one who—"

"—Isn't Jon, so I'm not interested," said Caitlyn.

"You will shut your mouth, young lady," Mrs. Delaney thundered.

"Mom, I think it's really cheeky of you to come into someone else's household as a guest and then start throwing orders around," Caitlyn said, letting anger color her voice for the first time.

Her mother stood, her chair tumbling back. She was almost as tall as Jon. "I didn't come here to eat your bad food and listen to your silly excuses. I didn't come here to be insulted. I came here to get my girl back."

"You can't have her," Caitlyn retorted.

"I'm not leaving without her," Mrs. Delaney said.

"Then you might be here for a long time, because I'm not leaving either."

"Caitlyn Claire Delaney, you are a willful, disobedient child! I will not—"

"NO I'M NOT, MOTHER!!" Caitlyn yelled, on her feet now, her voice so loud that she thought her mother's hair was blowing back.

Then she was crying.

Dammit, I hate crying in public, she's going to hurt me, she's— And when she felt arms around her, her first instinct was to pull back. But then she smelled that warm brown scent, and felt a chest in just the right position to support her head, and she cried into Jon's shoulder and clung to him as his arms wrapped around her, sobbing like the end of the world, and neither of them ever saw the pain on Linda Delaney's face when she saw her daughter turn to the comfort of another's arms.

There was silence for a long time.

Then she heard her mother's voice, cold. "You are no child of mine."

"That's entirely correct, Mrs. Delaney," said Jon from above her, his voice quiet—quiet and infinitely sad. The sound of it rumbled in his chest under her face. "She is not your child anymore. You say you came here to get your little girl back. I'm sorry to say that she isn't here. She isn't anywhere. She was taken from you by God, and time, and the natural order of things, just like your son was. Your baby girl, Caitlyn Claire Delaney, is gone.

"Your daughter, however, is still here. Caitlyn Stanford is still here. And as your words hurt her, you can see she still loves you dearly. Her life may be... More in another's hands, now, but inside every adult is still a child, who wants their mother there. Your daughter, you can have. She wants you, and loves you, and maybe even still needs you for things that I can't give her. Your daughter, you can have. But only if you can give up your little girl. Only if you can let your little girl go, so that your daughter can come back to you.

"And now I think you've upset Caitlyn, so, I'd like to ask you to leave."

"What if we don't," Mrs. Delaney said immediately. "What if we stay."

"Then stay, if you choose," said Jon. "I'm not going to force you to leave. I have more pressing matters to attend to." She felt his hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair, smoothing the tears out of her. "Shh. It's okay, Caitlyn. It's okay."

It's not okay. It'll never be okay again.

Then there were footsteps, and the front door closing, and silence for a long time; and eventually she realized they must have sat down on the couch, because that was the shape her body was in, and the congenial buzz of the television was closer, but for a long time, there were only tears, and the bone-deep weariness of failure. I'm no child of hers. I'm no child of hers. I'm not... My mother... 

Not even Jon is worth this.

-------

When she awoke, the television was much flashier. She was lying with her head in Jon's lap, she realized—a small puddle of drool had formed on his pant leg—and there was raucous celebration on the screen. In the slow, hazy process of waking, it took her a little while to understand what she was seeing: Times Square, on the eve of the new year, working itself into a frenzy as the ball dripped ever downward. The clock on the screen said 11:37.

"Hey," she heard, and a hand moved from her back to her hair, stroking lightly.

"Hey," she said. "Have you been here all night?"

"It's okay," he said. "I've been watching the ceremony. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before."

"Really?"

"Just... Never been interested."

She sat up, feeling muscles rejoice and complain as she extricated herself from her former position, and then stretched, to see if she could get herself unknotted. Immediately she felt his hands on her back, massaging, working the tension out of her arms and shoulders and sides.

"You haven't been here the whole time," she said.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, for one, the lights are off. Plus, the food's all cleaned up and the dishes put away."

"Hey, you were sleeping that deeply. I just snuck back in after I was done."

"I hope you threw away that terrible teriyaki stuff."

"Hey, I liked it. I thought it was pretty good."

"You like teriyaki-flavored charcoal?"

"Better than styrofoam mashed potatoes."

"... How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I made them out of styrofoam."

"I saw you mashing up a to-go container."

"But you still ate them."

"I was hungry. Needed something besides charcoal. They looked good."

She was lying back in his arms by now, across his lap, held up by one arm so that she could look into his eyes. "Thank you," she said.

"You looked tense. It was the least I could do."

"No, for... For having faith in me. For letting me invite my parents. For letting me do that to you. For... For being able to just put the whole relationship on the table and not, and not be ashamed, or shy, or..." It's so much more than that. It's everything. It's...  "Thank you for loving me."

His arms brought her up to him. "Baby, you made me everything I am. How could I not love you?"

But how did that happen? You made me everything I am, which is why I love you. It's so tangled up. How did that all happen?

They kissed as the TV continued its raucous chatter, broadcasting live the things that had happened three hours ago on the East Coast. She turned in his lap, leaning into him, kissing him, feeling his response under her as his tongue slipped into her mouth, feeling his hands running down her back, and when she was ready she whispered, "Hold on a minute," and darted off into the bedroom and came back with a condom.

And they did it in front of the television, naked on the couch. There was no fuss, no hurry, no urgency, just his love for her, and hers for him, as she straddled him and took him inside her. Her clit brushed against his body at every stroke, but that almost didn't matter; what was important was his lips, his hands, his eyes, his arms around her and her breasts against his chest and their tongues intertwined and the fact that she loved him, more than words could say, more than even their lovemaking could say. She noticed in passing that the blinds were open, but decided that she didn't care; probably no one was looking, and probably they couldn't see even if they were, and what was to be embarrassed about anyway? She loved her husband; what was wrong with showing that?

No. Jon isn't worth losing my mother. Jon is worth so much more than that. Without him, I wouldn't have her at all.

When it was over, they cuddled up together to watch the ball drop, back-to-front like spoons. She hadn't come, and his was so subdued that she almost missed it, but that wasn't important either. We're together, and it's a new year, and nothing can take us apart.

"I think I wanna kiss someone at midnight," said Jon.

"Hmm," said Caitlyn. "I've never done that before."

"Neither have I, actually," said Jon. "Maybe we could, you know. Change that."

"I dunno, Mr. Stanford," said Caitlyn. "I'm not that sort of girl."

"The sort of girl who kisses at midnight?"

"Yes," she said. "Such an unsavory reputation. But, I think that, for the right man, I might change my mind."

"Mmm," he said, nuzzling her neck. "I might be the right man."

"Are you?"

"Let me prove it."

Three... Two... One...  said the television. But they never noticed it at all.



-------

Part 8


Day 24

On Wednesday morning Caitlyn was alone again. Jon was long gone; it was, after all, nearly nine in the morning, and he had been at work for almost two hours. Caitlyn, for her part, had very little to look forward to; the new semester at Shellview State would not resume for another few weeks. Jon had suggested she look for a short-term job, an idea she wasn't particularly keen on but knew she didn't really have a choice over. They were paying $2,000 a month in rent, expenses, insurance and other bills; that was most of Jon's paycheck. If they wanted to make or save any, it would have to come from Caitlyn—a startling thought for a twenty-year-old woman who had never held a steady job before.

Well, I can sleep in a little bit. I won't miss any job openings by closing my eyes for another twenty minutes. Or will I? What if someone's auctioning a job off on eBay? —Okay, maybe not something that crazy, but, what if someone's about to apply for my dream job, and if I don't get up right now, I'll miss it?

She was still pondering this potential quandary when a banging noise came from the door. Moments later, there was a buzzing noise as her mystery visitor figured out how to operate the doorbell. Caitlyn sat bolt upright. Whoever might it be, here on January 2nd at nine in the morning?

Caitlyn got out of bed and was about to head for the door when she remembered what she was wearing: specifically, nothing. They had long gotten out of the habit of wearing clothes when they went to bed: they never seemed to be wearing them when they got up. She grabbed the nearest things to hand—a pair of Jon's sweatpants and an old sweater—and was about to answer the buzzing doorbell again when she noticed the used condoms on the nightstand. (I swear, those are like a permanent decoration. How many have we gone through?—and us being married for less than a month!) She shoveled those into the trash, thinking in passing that, for once, they'd served a good purpose; whoever this person was, leaning on the doorbell like the Devil himself was after them, it would probably suit her to greet them without dried come crusting on her legs.

When Caitlyn finally opened the door, it was no one she knew: a woman, maybe her mother's age, with mousy brown hair, a seamed, lined face, careful eyes. Caitlyn thought she'd seen her around the apartment complex, but she couldn't be sure.

"Good morning," said the woman.

"Umm," said Caitlyn. "Good morning."

"I hope I'm not interrupting you," said the woman, with a smile that did not carry into her eyes.

Caitlyn felt a budding kernel of dislike: with as long as it had taken her to answer the door, it ought to be clear that she had been interrupted. She said, "No, not at all."

"All right," said the woman.

There was studied silence for a moment. Caitlyn tried not to fidget. Where was Jon when she needed him? He had always been far better at dealing with new people.

"I'm Margaret Clarke," said the woman abruptly, holding out her hand.

She shook it. "Caitlyn De- Caitlyn Stanford."

"Is your boyfriend still here?" said Margaret Clarke.

Caitlyn frowned. How would she know there's a man here? "No," she said, "I have no boyfriend. My husband is at work."

"Oh," said Margaret Clarke. "Well. I see."

"Is, uh, is there anything I can help you with," Caitlyn said, desperate to find out what this woman wanted. Either that, or get her out of her face.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I came here to approach you about something," said Margaret Clarke.

Caitlyn kept her face impassive at the odd choice of phrasing. "All right."

"Two days ago," said Margaret Clarke. "My children and I were watching the New Year's ceremony at Times Square. Did you see it? It was marvelous."

"Yes, we saw it," said Caitlyn, with a cold feeling about where this was heading.

"Well," said Mrs. Clarke. "During the festivities, my two boys—they're only six and nine, it was very exciting for them to be allowed to stay up and watch the ceremony—during the festivities, my two boys happened to be looking out the window. They were bored, as young boys are wont to be. And, as we live in 547, across the courtyard, we can see this side of the building fairly well."

"I see," Caitlyn said.

"Can you recall what you and your 'husband' were doing at about 11:50 on New Year's Eve?"

Caitlyn fought to keep her voice neutral. "Yes."

"Then you can imagine what I and my boys saw when we looked out our window, Ms. Stanford."

"What you saw," said Caitlyn, "was husband and wife, sharing with each other a gift from God, to express their love for each other and strengthen their marriage."

"What I saw," said Mrs. Clarke, "I saw through open windows."

Caitlyn's mind found a gap in the logic. "The lights were off. I'm surprised you saw anything at all."

"Well," said Mrs. Clarke, bristling. "My sons have exceptional eyesight. At first I thought it was innocent—my little Robert turned to me and said, 'Mommy, what are those two people doing?' But when I looked myself—why, my heart almost stopped in my chest."

"And what did your little Robert's father have to say?" Caitlyn asked.

Mrs. Clarke's face closed. "His father divorced me just after Robert was born."

I can't imagine why. It was an unworthy thought, but she could not prevent it. Nor deny it. "And what did you tell them, Mrs. Clarke?"

"I told them that they should turn their faces away from those who would sin in the sight of God and man," said Mrs. Clarke.

The only other person I've heard say that—'In the sight of God and man'—is Jon. I wonder where they got it. Caitlyn picked her words carefully. "Well, you'll be pleased to know that it was not a sin, Mrs. Clarke. Jon and I are happily married. We have only been so for a few weeks, which is why we are, perhaps... Eager, at times, to enjoy ourselves. But we made the decision to wait, and have never regretted doing so."

"I see," said Mrs. Clarke, in a voice that suggested she believed nary a word.

"So, tell me," Caitlyn said in a pleasant, conversational tone. "What sin did you see?"

"What I saw," said Mrs. Clarke, "was you, and your 'husband'—" The quotes were even more audible now. "—sharing pleasure, in the sight of God and man."

"Well," said Caitlyn. "I can understand how that might dismay you, and I apologize for alarming your children, but I don't see how that's a sin."

"It is," Mrs. Clarke insisted. "Coupling is a shameful thing that should be done in secrecy, not, not on the couch in front of the window for all the world to see."

Caitlyn tried to keep from gawking, and almost succeeded. "A— A shameful—"

"God frowns upon you when He sees your wanton lust," Mrs. Clarke declared in sepulchral tones. "It is the way of sin. It is the way of the devil. Your coupling must be chaste, and only for the purposes of procreation."

Caitlyn was devoutly glad she'd hidden the condoms. "Must it."

"Yes."

"Where'd you get that idea?"

"It's in the Scripture," Margaret Clarke insisted.

"Book, chapter, verse," Caitlyn demanded, marching over to the bookshelf where her own copy of the Bible rested.

"1st Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 3 through 5", said Mrs. Clarke—and then, before Caitlyn could even open her Bible, recited the quotation. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God." Then she stood there, glowering.

Caitlyn finally got to the assigned page. Her copy had it a little differently: "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable." The crack about lustful Gentiles made her bristle—what right, after all, did this woman have to judge her faith based on a few glimpses of a passionate moment? Did it say that sex was intended solely for childbearing purposes? No, not really... But it could be interpreted that way, depending on one's definitions of 'sexual immorality.' Perhaps it should be; it was certainly true that almost all sin starts as an excess of something. Heck, Caitlyn herself might have seen it that way, once upon a time, not all that long ago. A lifetime ago. A marriage ago.

But she wasn't going to let this snotty, mouse-haired lady who didn't have a husband and maybe didn't even have kids boss her around.

"Ma'am," she said finally. "As a Christian, it is my duty to inspire the love and faith of Christ in all those around me. If I share in the sacramental love that God ordained me to share with my husband, I don't think God will frown on me. However—" She held up a hand, interrupting Mrs. Clarke as she began to bluster. "—However. It is not my duty to inspire sacramental love in other people. If you would prefer that your family not be... Exposed... To what my husband and I do together, then, very well. Next time I shall close the windows."

Mrs. Clarke's face grew grim.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," said Caitlyn primly. "I'm a student at the university, and class starts in about ten minutes." It was a lie, but a small one—only jumping forward three weeks, as opposed to, say, killing millions of Jews. "Thank you for your visit."

Margaret Clarke's face could have launched a thousand thunderbolts. "You have not heard the last of me, young lady. Nor your 'husband' either."

Who asked you,  Caitlyn thought, closing the door.

Now it was 9:20, and she had no idea what to do with herself. She didn't exactly want to be awake, but there was clearly no going back to sleep—not riled up the way she was. Despondent, she threw herself at the computer, checking empty e-mail accounts and boring websites, and then fired up the television, though there was nothing much going on there on a Wednesday morning either.

I wish I could talk to Jon. But she tried not to do that while he was at work; Polkiss-Leyton had been too kind to them to even consider irking them. None of her friends from Greenfield were available, and even if she had made any at Shellview State (she hadn't) they might not be here. And she couldn't even go driving somewhere; Jon had their car. It just wasn't a good time, she decided, to be bored and lonely, she decided.

There's dishes to do,  she thought, and laundry to run. And I should do some harp practice at the very least, or pull out my oboe and work on some of that. Jon's been very bad for my music. Of course, if I did practice, that Margaret Clarke would come over and complain about noise pollution too.

The visit had discomforted her more than she had realized. Caitlyn was devout in her faith; she knew what mattered to her, and that this life was temporary while the next was forever. Whatever it took to make sure she would pass between those pearly gates, she would do. But in her mind, as long as she and God were square, no one else had any right to criticize her or make demands of her.

She reminds me of my mother. She knew exactly the buttons to press. Jon's the only person who's ever been able to get a reaction out of me so... Thoroughly.

The problem was, what if Margaret Clarke was right? What if coupling was a shameful thing? What if it was wrong to take such pleasure in sex? Caitlyn was a careful person by nature; she interpreted the Bible broadly, to be sure that no sin or anything even close to it should pass from her. If it was in the Bible, it was something she should heed; it was as simple as that.

So what does this say?

She knew what Jon would say: something fanged and vicious about conservatives and their narrow-minded views. But this was Jon, who had wanted her to break the fornication laws—and not even for her sake, but for his! Jon was selfish; he didn't even deny it, though he certainly did his best to turn it to beneficial use. Well, let Jon be who he wanted to; it didn't bother her to be conservative by modern standards. If he had a problem with that, he'd just have to deal with it.

And, to be fair, so far he hadn't had a problem with it; when their ideologies clashed, he had explained his views and opinions, and then let her make the final decision. This was especially true of their lovemaking, which (she had to admit) she controlled almost totally. True, he initiated most of the time... But she knew that if she pushed him away, if she told him, No, not today, that he would back off and leave her alone. He would if she did.

She hadn't yet.

He has made me more... What was that word she used? 'Wanton.' I thought that was Chinese food. I guess it means, what's the dictionary say... Uh. "Immoral or unchaste; lewd." And also, "Frolicsome; playful." Right. Well, together, they mean... Sensual, I suppose. Interested in pleasure. Hedonistic. Well, yes, he has encouraged that part of me: he's encouraged me to enjoy myself, and it's worked, and I have. The question now is whether that's a good thing or not.

I need advice.

The first person she was able to get an opinion from was her harp teacher, Mrs. Jane Sellitz, who was luckily in between lessons and could spare a few moments for a phone call. Jane was not an especially devout person, nor particularly complex in her theology, but Caitlyn trusted her—she'd been taking harp lessons from her for five years now, first at Greenfield and then at Shellview State—and she had been one of the few people Caitlyn had ever confided in, to small extents before Jon entered her life and to larger extents after. But Caitlyn had never talked to her about religious matters. She wasn't even sure what to expect to hear from Mrs. Sellitz. But she knew she wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear from somebody.

"That sounds Puritan to me," Mrs. Sellitz said. "I mean, I know our country was founded by religious conservatives trying to escape persecution, but some of their attitudes are really outmoded now, and this is one of them. If God had meant for sex to be shameful, it seems to me He would have made us feel shame over it. We don't. In fact, we feel pleasure in it—because God intended for us to do so. Anyone who thinks God doesn't want us to enjoy sex needs their head examined. I don't know about the wisdom of doing it on the couch with the blinds drawn open, though," she added with an audible grin.

It took until much later in the day, after Jon came home, to get the second opinion she wanted, which was Reverend Pendleton's. For the most part, he agreed with Mrs. Sellitz. "Now, there's a line between celebrating our bodies, and celebrating our bodies in a way that offends people, and—in that you seem to have offended someone—" He was laughing. "—you may have crossed that line. Which is something you may want to be aware of in the future. Sometimes the urge to be intimate is... Overwhelming. That's part of God's gift to us: that He made it so powerful, and so enjoyable. But there are always people who will be offended by any honest demonstration of feelings, never mind one of such a private nature. That's just part of life. The only thing we can do is try to stay away from them."

And of course Jon had his own things to say. "Under what rock did she grow up. Just wait until her kids get to The Program. She'll have a heart attack and then they'll be orphans."

"Just because she doesn't want them exposed to sex now doesn't mean she'll mind later," Caitlyn reminded him. "They are less than ten years old."

"No," said Jon, "it doesn't, but she will. That's the problem with our culture. We started off with these religious conservatives and their attitudes never really died. We as a culture are scared of sex. —Which isn't necessarily inappropriate, 'cause sex is a powerful thing. But the only thing to do with fear is face it, not run away from it."

"Still, they're boys," said Caitlyn. "You know how people can be. It's okay for guys to have urges, but not women. Women have to be chaste."

"Is that what your parents believed," Jon asked. "Did they let Nate be all horn-doggy and all that?"

Caitlyn fidgeted. "No."

"There's people who believed that sex is solely for procreation, and that it's a sin to feel pleasure doing it," Jon said, and Caitlyn felt a chill at the echo of Mrs. Clarke's words, which she had not repeated—she had only given him the gist of the encounter. (She hadn't needed to give more before he exploded out of the gate.) "There's people who still believe it."

"Yes, but..." said Caitlyn. "What if they're right?"

Jon stopped, and gave her a long look, half fondness and half exasperation. "Fifty years of scientific research goes up against two thousand years of pure superstition, and guess which one you side with."

"Jon, things are in the Bible for a reason."

"And where in the Bible does it say that taking pleasure in sex is inherently sinful," Jon asked her.

She showed him the same verse Mrs. Clarke had showed her.

"Come on," said Jon. "That's a warning against lust. We're married. We don't have to worry about that."

"Yes we do!" she exclaimed. "Jon, it isn't called one of the Seven Deadly Sins for nothing, you know."

"So, what, are they admonishing us against being too sexual?"

"Maybe," she said. "Jon, we... I don't know what's going to be normal for us, really, I mean, we haven't even been married a month. And I don't know what's normal for people who have been married a month, whether they're always this... Into each other. But we've... We've been having a lot of sex, Jon. Almost every day."

"We haven't today," he said.

"Yeah, but it's only six o'clock, you know we'll probably."

"Well... Yeah. But there's been days when we didn't do it."

"Which we've made up for by doing it more than once on other days. How many times did we do it on Saturday? We've averaged more than once a day by now."

Jon grimaced. "If you wanna... Hold back a little..."

She knew he wouldn't like it if she wanted to; she knew he would accept it nonetheless. He had always put her first; it was part of why she loved him.

But she didn't want to hold back. And that was part of the problem.

"Jon, I think we just need to... Be less... Open about it. I mean, admit it: doing it on the couch with the windows open... Just... That was not... Wise."

"Yeah."

"Let's just try and keep our... Activity... On the down-low from now on."

"On the what?" said Jon.

"And..." she said, ignoring him. He had always given her slang dubious looks. "If other adjustments need to be made, well... We'll talk about them."

"Okay."

But after dinner, another swift crisis came up, when Caitlyn got up to use the bathroom. While there, she discovered something very interesting. "Aack! Jon, I'm on my period!"

"Oh," he said. He blotted out the doorway, probably seeing her panties colored with a faint tinge of blood.

"I can't believe I forgot. I started the first Wednesday of December, it's the first Wednesday of January—"

"That doesn't always work, sometimes there are five weeks in a month."

She was scrambling around for pads. "Uh-oh. Did we forget to get me any, um. Any sanitary napkins?"

His brow furrowed. "You know, now that I think about it..."

"Oh, jeez. Here, let me go to the store. I'll be right back."

She drove Jon's car to the nearest drug store. She had been in it many times, but only in the passenger seat, and it was weird to be behind the wheel. The hardest part was figuring out the levers and knobs and controls to change the seat around; Jon was quite a bit taller than her, enough to make it impossible to drive with the seat in his configuration. And the gear shift was on a stalk control, instead of the center throttle she was used to from her parents' trucks and SUVs. But once she got herself oriented, she and Buffy made good time to the store.

The sanitary napkins were easy to find, and while she was at it she decided to grab an extra box of condoms; they were almost out, and though the Pill ought to be in force by now, she had a thought to make Jon keep using them until her next scheduled ovulation, just to be safe. And even if not, what harm would one more box do?—they might need them someday.

But when she reached the aisle with all the condoms in it, she hesitated.

Come on,  she thought to herself. It's just an aisle. All you're gonna do is march down it, pull a box off the rack, and walk away. And then... And then get in line at the cash register, and pay for them, and have to endure the cashier's looks while she thinks, 'Oh, this woman must be having sex.' And every other person who sees me while I walk to the register. They'll be thinking that too. They'll know that I'm having sex—

Suddenly she understood why Jon had always insisted that they buy condoms as a couple.

Okay. Okay. It's all right. They don't know. Maybe I'm a schoolteacher... A really young one. Who is teaching... Sex ed. Or, maybe I'm a single woman who is... Curious. Yes, that's it. Or, or maybe, um. Maybe I was going to make balloon animals out of them, for... For... Oh freaking heck! They're all going to think I'm having sex!

Okay. Okay. Just... Walk down the aisle. You've done that once already. Just walk down the aisle, pick up the box, and walk back out. Very easy, very simple. Very cool. It's easy. Go ahead.

It was all very well until she had the box in her hand. Then she almost ran.

"Why'd you get those," Jon asked. "I thought they said that you'd be safe by your next period. You have been taking it regularly, right?"

"I haven't missed a one," she said. She'd originally thought it might be easy to forget to take the Pill in the mornings, but they'd been having so much sex that it stayed on the forefront of her mind. "But, I just... Want to be safe. You know, around the time when I'm... Most fertile."

"Well, we don't have to use those while you're actually menstruating, do we," he said, standing up, and suddenly she noticed the bubbling air of excitement about him. She had totally missed it during the panic of bleeding. He doesn't want to use condoms anymore... Well, and to be fair, neither do I.

But sex during her period? "Eew! Jon, I'm bleeding down there!"

"So?" he said. "I don't care. I just use my hands instead of my mouth."

"Yeah, but— But— Jon, that's dirty."

"So's most of sex."

She didn't answer. She couldn't really explain what she was feeling.

"Look," he said. "If you don't want to, we don't. But what I'm saying is, I want to, and I can't think of any really good reason not to."

"You just want to do it without the condom," she said spitefully.

He flinched, but stood his ground. "Yes. And I know you do too. The fact that you're bleeding doesn't bother me. And I can't think of any reason it ought to bother you. Besides, from what I saw, you don't bleed much anyway." That much was true; she rarely had anything more than a trickle.

She sighed. "Look. I still want to call Pastor Pendleton. I haven't gotten his opinion yet, and I'd really like to. Let me do that first." And he gave her a look as if to say, I know you're stalling,  but made no other argument.

So she called Larry Pendleton, and he gave his opinion on Margaret Clarke and her hard-line Christianity, which was more or less what she'd predicted. "I'd also like to ask, how is Jon reacting to this?"

"He's..." She glanced at Jon, who was doing the dishes—probably to give his hands something to do. "He's scornful."

"Of what?"

"Of... Of the idea that sex is something to be ashamed of."

"And well he should be. Caitlyn, sex can be very embarrassing—especially when you try something new and it doesn't work out quite the way you wanted it to. But it's not shameful, at least not when shared in love. And no one with eyes to see or ears to hear can truthfully claim that you and Jon don't love each other."

"Yeah. But now he's... Unh."

"He is... ?"

Caitlyn colored. "Well. I'm... It's that time of the month."

"And Jon is... Not deterred?"

Caitlyn colored further. "No."

"Well, Caitlyn. Believe it or not, I often get couples asking me about bedroom matters, and this issue comes up quite a bit. And I've always said, If your man isn't willing to put in, he shouldn't expect you to put out. Sex is a matter of give and take, like anything else in a marriage. If all he wants is to go in and serve himself, it's totally within your right to take issue with that."

"No, no no, that's the thing. He said he'd..." Her face was positively on fire now, and the words were practically a whisper. "He said he'd just use his hand."

"Oh."

"I don't... I mean, that's dirty."

"What is? The hand or the blood?"

"The... The blood."

"Well, there's a precedent for that. Blood is a powerful thing. People bleed when they're hurt. When a child looks like their parents, or has their talents, we say that it's in their blood. When Orthodox Jewish women are on their period, they are supposed to stay away from men for fear of contamination. And Christ gave us his blood, to seal our new covenant with him. Not Budweiser, not Dasani, but blood. Blood is a powerful thing."

"So what if... What if Jon gets contaminated?"

"Do you really believe that?"

The likelihood of that was slim, especially since that law was more spiritual than biological in nature. The question was not whether her blood would harm him in this world, but rather the next. "I don't know. Probably not."

"Well, it's up to you. But, personally, I don't think menstrual flow makes you unclean. If anything, it's a celebration of God's divine gift of Creation, given to you as to all women. You can bring forth life out of your body, Caitlyn. That is a precious gift. Now, creation is not an easy thing; you pay for it, and with one of your most important parts. But if anything, that blood makes you holy. And if Jon wants to, ah, worship at the altar of your holiness, do you really want to turn him down?"

"... Did you just make an innuendo?"

He laughed. "Well, Caitlyn, I may be a minister, but I'm also a human. That makes me prey to all the other human failings—like innuendos. I understand that Gerald and Dacey's small-group study came to an end last year."

It took a moment to follow the topic shift, and another to follow the calendar. Last year? —Oh, yes: it's January 2nd. "Yes, it did."

"Well, I happen to know that George Larson is starting up a group this week—I believe the first session is this coming Tuesday—for people in college or just out of it. I thought you might like to know."

"Ooh! Yes, I would like to know!" She had been in George Larson's small groups before, and they were inspiring; he always found new ways to not only make the Bible fun, but make it make sense. "Do you think he would mind if Jon came?"

"Well, I'm sure he wouldn't, but the real question is, do you think Jon would mind if Jon came."

"... Well, yeah. I'll ask him about it."

"Do. But if Jon wants to come, I'm certain he's welcome."

But Jon was less than pleased with the idea. "Caitlyn, I'm not sure... I don't know if..."

"You don't want to go," she said flatly.

"No, it's not that, it's..."

"You don't want to go," she said again.

He sighed.

"Jon, it's okay if you don't want to go."

He gave her a sideways look. "Just listen to the way you said that and tell me if you really meant it."

She felt her cheeks heating. Okay, so she hadn't really meant it. She'd live with it if he didn't want to, but in her opinion his relationship with God was dangerously unhealthy.

"Caitlyn, you've just demonstrated why I don't want to go. I've already had... Well, do you remember what I told you about that girl Karen I used to date?"

"A little," Caitlyn said. Jon had had a fairly constant string of relationships from high school onward; it was a little difficult for her to keep them straight, especially since thinking about them fed her own feelings of inadequacy. Jonathan Stanford had been playing the field since he was fourteen, while Caitlyn Delaney had had exactly one relationship ever. Of course, that man was now her husband, so she supposed her dating life had been successful, but she still couldn't tell Karen from Alice from Tia from Maggie from Jennifer from a hole in the ground.

"Well, this was back in high school," said Jon, "and I really liked her. I'm not sure how she felt. But she was... Intense. About her faith. And she seemed to think it was her mission to convert me."

Caitlyn frowned. That would be awkward. "But you're a Christian."

"Not an orthodox-enough one for Karen's tastes, evidently," Jon said. "I made the mistake of telling her that I had not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior—" That last with a tinge of sarcasm. "—and she wouldn't let it go."

"And that's why you broke up with her?"

"That's why I broke up with her. She's engaged to someone else now. Cait, I don't want to be friends with people who are going to try to change me. Much less going out with one."

... And probably even less married to one... 

She went to him and put her arms around him. "Jon... If you don't want to go, then you don't have to. But I'm not going to judge you on how... Orthodox your faith is. And I'm sure that none of the people at George Larson's group are going to judge you on that either. That's not what we're about. We're about... Learning, for ourselves, what God wants for us. Christ told us not to judge—or, at least, not to say what we judged."

"Yeah, but some people seem to think that it's their job to steer us away from sin. Like your Margaret Clarke person."

The memory rankled. "Yes, like her." Every now and then I meet someone who makes me ashamed to be a Christian. "But she's not a true Christian. A Christian is motivated from love, not... Not self-righteousness or, or a need to meddle, or... Whatever it was she was on."

"You don't think she was doing it out of the goodness of her Christian heart."

She sighed. "Well, I'd rather believe the best of her, but if she was acting out of compassion, she sure didn't show it. She was acting like she had an agenda."

"And Christians don't? Sweetie, you guys go around approaching people and trying to convert them to your way of thinking. That's what conversion's all about."

" 'Your way of thinking'?" she said. "I thought you were a Christian."

"Well, I don't..."

"You said you were raised Catholic."

"I was, and confirmed too, but that was my mother's idea instead of mine, and there's another example of agenda. But since then I've started having my own thoughts."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Quite possibly something wrong with that. They're not orthodox in the least."

"Well. I don't think your friend Karen is anyone to judge by. She sounds about as conservative as I am."

"Maybe more so. But even by liberal thinking I'm way out there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... You know that whole thing about 'personal lord and savior, ' right? Come to Jesus and you get into heaven. That whole thing's so stupid to me. I mean, so if some guy achieves salvation and then goes around killing and looting and raping and stuff—I mean, say Hitler converted right before he died. Does that excuse him from everything he did? According to this doctrine, yes it does. That's kinda dumb in my opinion."

"Hope springs eternal. Suicide is a mortal sin."

"Good point, but that only stops Hitler. Dozens of others might've slipped through."

"Yeah."

"So, I mean... If you can just take Jesus into your heart, what's the point? Why does anyone need to behave, or care, or, or— Or anything like that."

"So it wasn't just the conversion, it was also that specific doctrine."

"Yeah."

"So what do you believe?"

Jon ran a hand through his hair. "Well. Well."

She touched his face. "I'm not going to judge you."

"Yes you are," he said.

"All right, I am," she admitted, "but I'm going to be nice and keep it to myself."

He smiled. "Okay."

She smiled too. And then waited.

"What... Well. When I call myself a Christian, I'm not saying I believe in all the, the Pope and the Church and all that stuff. The Church has done some pretty dumb things over the last two thousand years. Crusades, Spanish Inquisitions... Even this nonsense in the Methodist Church about kicking out gay pastors. I thought the message was love, not judgment."

"So, why do you call yourself a Christian?"

"Because I try to follow Christ," he said.

She was silent, contemplating the enormity of the idea.

"And I don't mean that in the church sense or even in the, the religious sense, or— It's just that... If I had been mending my nets on the dock one day, and Jesus had called me to come with him... I hope I would have followed. He had all the good ideas. Love. Love is a good idea. Love is an idea I would follow."

"Yeah."

"Everyone offers you 'the way'. Everyone offers you salvation. Everyone offers you a method. Drink Sprite and you'll get girls. Wear these shoes and you'll kick ass at sports. Listen to me and I will bring you to eternal life. Success, success, success. And then you turn around and your teeth are rotten and you're wearing a bomb to go blow up a school bus full of innocent kids who've never done harm to you or anybody in the whole wide world. And you're wearing really uncomfortable shoes. It's all crap. Jesus lived it. And for better or for worse, he was willing to die for it. For what he believed in. There aren't that many people you could say that about over the course of human history."

"Yeah."

"So, he died. Did he come back to life? Was he the Son of God? The Bible says so, but it has an agenda, just like everything else. Just like Jesus, for that matter. But I don't care anyway. It doesn't matter to me if he came back to life. It doesn't matter if he was the Son of God. What matters is that he had good ideas, and I would follow them. I would follow them no matter who he was."

She nodded. "You're a Christian."

"A Christian without church."

"That's okay. Like you said, the Church has dome some pretty stupid things on occasion. But some good ones too."

"Yeah."

There was nothing more said for a few moments. Caitlyn supposed that, because Jon was not offended or angry, he had noticed her judgment: that it was unorthodox, yes, but not without merit. Indeed, she thought there might be some benefit to casting free of the church and simply acting in the example of Christ. We'd get a lot less bogged down in all this dogma, at least.

"So, does that answer your question," he asked.

"What question?"

"Whether I want to go."

"Jon, it's not my question, it's yours. Do you want to go?"

He was silent for a moment.

"Do you think I'll be judged?" he asked.

"That's a silly question," she said. "Weren't you just saying that humans judge each other all the time?"

"Do you think they'll hold it against me?" he said.

"No," she said. "I think they'll accept you for who you are, and appreciate your thoughts and differences, and encourage you to follow Christ's example." As I do.

He was silent for a moment.

"It couldn't hurt," he said finally.

"And if it does, you don't ever have to go back," she said.

"Okay," he said, smiling.

"Okay," she said, and kissed him.

It was a long kiss, one full of promise. When they stopped, her arms were around her neck, and his at her back, holding her to him. "Hmm," he said. "So maybe you are interested in the sex thing."

She made a noise that was somewhere between a giggle and a sigh. "You're insufferable, aren't you."

"Or maybe insatiable."

"Or maybe both."

His hands tightened on her back, pulling her closer to him, but he made no noise, awaiting her reply.

"Well... I actually got some practicing done... The kitchen's okay... I found a few places online I want to send my resume to... But, oh—I have to do laundry."

"Can't it wait?"

"Not if you want clean underwear tomorrow."

"Umm."

She smiled up at him. "Here, I'll make you a deal. You help me with the laundry, and then after that... You get to do anything you want with me."

"Anything, eh," said Jon, grinning, waggling his eyebrows. "Even without the condom."

She felt a quick moment of concern—What if he asks me to do something I don't want to?—and just as quickly squelched it. He won't. And if he does, I'll tell him no. He knows me, and I trust him. I love him. That's why I let him do anything to me at all.

"Anything," she said her smile a promise. "Even without the condom."

"Hmm," said Jon. "You've got a deal."

And so they presaged that most intimate of activities by going to the laundromat. The other customers there must have thought them insane: giggling, winking, sultry and intense by turns. Or perhaps they simply smiled: A young couple, drunk on love. Or perhaps just drunk. But Jon and Caitlyn didn't notice. They passed the time by walking around the area, checking the shops and restaurants, making their plans and suggestions. And then Caitlyn had to teach Jon how to fold up his clothing, because he'd never done anything but hang them before, an impossibility now that Caitlyn's clothes alone were taking up most of the closet space even when folded. So Jon learned to fold clothes... Which was good, because after he'd had his way with her, all over the just-folded clothes, they needed to be folded all over again. Which they did, laughing, naked, before falling into bed again in each other's arms.

"We should do that again," Jon said to her.

"What," Caitlyn said, "you mean the part where you came up behind me and—" He had used his mouth, without making any complaints; and, after a moment, Caitlyn hadn't made any either.

"No, I mean... The whole laundry thing," Jon said.

Caitlyn stared at him.

"I mean... People do sex all the time. We do sex all the time. You can have sex with someone without having a relationship with them. You can have sex with someone without even having an emotional connection. But who are you going to fold laundry with? The people you live with. The person you marry. The people who actually mean something to you."

"... Yeah. I see what you mean."

"So, yeah. I think... 'cause it's the everyday things. Getting to fold laundry with you. Getting to cook dinner with you. Getting to kiss you before I get out of bed. I think those are the things that mean the most to me."

She snuggled close to him. "You always know the right things to say. Good thing I married you."

She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, the solid strength of his chest against her own, his breath ruffling her hair, the warmth of skin on skin, feeling safer and happier and more loved than she ever had in her life.

-------

Day 30

Being alone, Caitlyn decided, was not a good way to wake up.

It was Tuesday morning, and Caitlyn had a long day ahead of her. On Jon's advice she had canvassed the campus for temporary jobs—or maybe even ones she could hold down for the remainder of the school year—and several departments had expressed interest; she would have to interview with both the chemistry department and the music department today. She also had her oboe lesson today, and with any luck Mrs. Klein would be at least a little satisfied with her playing; she'd actually gotten some practicing done. And then there were always the little chores that needed to be done around the apartment—cleaning, cooking, laundry, taking out the trash. Jon did his best to be helpful, but that wasn't much; and besides, most of it tended to be done by the time he got home. After all, she needed a distraction from the long, tedious hours.

And, of course, today was the first meeting of George Larson's study group.

Caitlyn, for her part, was excited. She wasn't sure how Jon would react, but she had no doubt that George would win him over; he tolerated no pretension or hypocrisy in his discussions. As far as George Larson was concerned, no one had the answer yet; there was always farther to go. He was a personality who, while warm, was never quite satisfied. He and Jon should get along marvelously.

Of course, that didn't quite help her conquer the feeling of loneliness, waking up in a bed meant for two, accompanied only by the gap in the blankets where her husband ought to be.



Okay. Okay. You're a grown woman, Caitlyn Delaney Stanford, and you can do better than this. What, did getting married take away all your independence? You just stand up and get to work.

Stand up while on the bed? I might hit my head on the ceiling.

You're not that tall.

... Good point.



She stood up, the covers lapping around her feet. See. I can do it. I can conquer my own lethargy. I am woman, hear me roar!

Don't know how you're going to get down, though,  said that devil's voice in her head, with just a trace of a snicker, and left.

Drat.

She had just stepped out of the shower when her cellphone trilled, in the polyphonic crescendo Jon had made for her on his computer. Two years ago he had arranged Danny Boy for four-voice choir, not knowing until after the fact that it was her favorite song. Now it was her ringtone too, the one she had set to ring whenever Jon called her. These modern appliances. Who would have thought of assigning a different ring to different people, so you can tell who it is just by the sound? But it works.

"Hi."

"Hey."

"What's going on?"

"Umm. Not much. Bit of a quiet period, no one scheduled to come in, so I thought I'd give you a call."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I, um. I just... It was hard to leave."

It had been utterly impromptu, with no planning beforehand. They'd cooked together, and then on a whim Caitlyn had grabbed a couple of candles to lighten the mood. That was all it took to get started, though by the time they had set out every candle Caitlyn had thought to bring (which was quite a lot) and the rather tawdry penne alfredo was framed as if for a banquet. Jon broached a bottle of wine, and there it was, out of nowhere, a romantic dinner for two. Then they'd gone to bed and made love for what felt like half the night—slow, sensuous, luxuriant, spending time on each other and each other's bodies. She had even gone down on him, and for the first time enjoyed it—not so much the physical process of using her mouth on him, but the way he reacted, his moans and whispers and sighs. Too often, she felt, their sex was more physical than emotional—sex, to put it simply. Last night, from dinner to lovemaking, had been the most deeply romantic experience of her life, and it was hard to wake up in the morning without him. "I missed you too," she said.

"Well, umm. Also, I found out something interesting."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Well... Today... It's the thirtieth day of our marriage."

"... Oh?" she said. She didn't see what was special about it. "Well, that's, um. That's nice."

"Yeah. We've been husband and wife for thirty days."

"Okay."

"You don't think that's interesting?"

"Well," she said, smiling. "It seems kind of random. I mean, I suppose you'll start calling me up on random days and say, 'Hey, baby, it's the, ' I dunno, 'it's the three-hundred-forty-seventh day of our marriage, wow, ' and I'll be like, 'That's nice. What's so special about three hundred forty-seven?' "

"Well, honey, " he said. "Thirty is a little different than three hundred forty seven."

"Why? Did we outlast another celebrity or something?"

"Umm. I dunno. Probably. But I don't know who. Like, maybe, Tom Green and whoever was dumb enough to marry him."

"Tom Green got married? Wow. Some girl must've been pretty desperate."

He laughed. "Yeah."

"Happy thirty days, my love," she said, smiling. "Wait, no: Happy thirty days, my husband."

"Happy thirty days, o wife of mine."

That put her in a better mood.

What was also nice was a second phone call she received, just before lunch while she was hammering out some last-minute notes on her oboe. "Hi! Caitlyn! It's Christa! Happy new year! Classes started yesterday so we're back in the area. Just wanted to say hello, maybe hang out together. Are you guys available?"

"Umm... Not tonight, unfortunately. Jon and I are going to a Bible study. It's the first session, so I feel like we shouldn't miss it."

"Oh, that's too bad! —Not that you're doing a Bible study, I mean, but that you're busy. Well, there'll be other times. But how have you been? We haven't heard from you since we helped you move!"

"Oh, we're... We're just fine. Working, studying, practicing, and having fun in the meantime."

"Ohh, you're one of those extended-honeymoon couples, I suppose!"

"No, not..." said Caitlyn, laughing. "... Well, yes, kinda, I guess. We just... We really enjoy what we get to do together."

"That's good! That's really good! See, the thing about sex in a marriage is that, unless something goes drastically wrong, this is the last person you're ever gonna do it with, you know? So you have to, you know, get it right the first time—and how many of us ever manage that? That's one of the major arguments in favor of pre-marital sex—and, sin or not, you have to admit it makes sense. And so, when I heard about how, you know, how hesitant you were sometimes about physical contact, I have to admit, I was a little nervous about you and Jon, and whether you guys were gonna be able to work things out. But it sounds like you are, and I'm really glad of that!"

Caitlyn was grinning. Christa Crane was, by far, the most upbeat person she had ever met; just hearing her voice made Caitlyn want to smile.

Still, she felt compelled to say, "It's not just the, um, you know. The stuff we do in bed. It's the... It's the everyday things. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. He even jokes about paying the bills. Just... Even the everyday stuff, he makes it fun."

"Wow, it sounds like you guys have it made! I'm really happy for you, Caitlyn!"

"Thanks."

In this way Caitlyn found herself fortified to face the day's chores. A little friendship goes a long way, I guess. Mrs. Klein was impressed with her playing, the interviews went well, and the day seemed to fly by until the bolt clacked in the lock and Jon emerged out of the haze of the outside world. When he saw her, his face lit up in a smile.

"Every time I'm even tempted to sit there and wonder," he murmured, "why I bother with any of this at all... I see you. And I remember."

She smiled too. "Hi. Long day?"

"Really long. So many people today, I don't know what it is. And then it's Tuesday, it's the butt-end of the week: all your energy from the weekend has run out, and you can't start looking forward to the next one yet. At least during school there were fun extra-curricular to liven things up. Maybe I should ask Octapella to meet on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays..."

"That might be a good idea. How was work?" She sat down on the couch, and Jon slumped across it sideways, his head in her lap, looking up at her with a weary smile.

"Full of cranky people with bad breath," he said. "Nobody wanted to be polite, nobody had any idea what they had come in for... I think it was, like, 'Visit the Dentist Day' at a retirement home, because all of them were old, and none of them had any idea who their health-care provider was. But they were all sure they had one, and that it would pay for their appointment. Which means that I shouldn't ask them to pay now, just in case. And how dare I suggest, just because they can't remember the name of HMO or what their account number is or provide any sort of proof of membership, that they don't have health insurance. Ugh."

She stroked his head and ran her hands through his hair.

"The best part," he said, "was this lady who came in—about a gazillion rings on her fingers, enough metal to make like ten sets of braces—carrying this tiny dog. Like, rat-sized chihuahua here. Furless and boneless and with these huge eyes, crying out, Save me, Save me. And we're like, How do you plan to manage this dog while Dr. Polkiss is working on you, and she's like, You'll handle him. Seriously, just like that. And I'm like, Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm not a dog sitter, and she looks at me with this look, like, you know, How dare you. And so we ended up locking him in the bathroom, of all places, which of course means that nobody can use it while the dog's in there—and of course he's just yapping away, begging to be let out, and I'm like, If he piddles in there, we're totally making her clean it up. And then, two minutes after she leaves, she comes back and she's like, Excuse me, my car's been dented while in your parking lot, I expect you to take responsibility for it."

"You're kidding," Caitlyn said.

"So we all go out there and it's this fancy shiny Porsche, it's like, pure silver, and it's parked diagonally across two slots and like a third of the way into the road. And she's like, I don't care if that was irresponsible parking, people are not allowed to just throw their cars around as if they own the place, that's my property they're damaging— And finally Stephanie just bitched her out and made her go home. And then went to call our lawyer, 'cause we think she might sue."

"No way," Caitlyn said.

"And all I could think of, sitting there staring at this lady's car, was:... How come so many stupid people have so much money, and I'm struggling here to make thirty thousand a year?"

"Well, all men are not created equal," Caitlyn said. "To some of us God gave brains, and to some strength, and to some wisdom. And to others, He, um... Didn't."

Jon gave a single bark of laughter.

"And God gave us those things to test us," Caitlyn said. "To see what we do with them, and how we treat others with them, and what we do with our God-given talent or ability or wealth or whatever He gave us."

"Hah. So, I can look forward to this stupid lady having a lot to answer for when she meets her maker."

Well... That's not exactly what I meant,  Caitlyn thought.

"Still, though," Jon said. "That doesn't help us out. Her messing up doesn't help us get ahead. What are we going to do? Money's going to be tight for a while, sweetie. I don't mean, like, we have to eat cup-o-noodle three meals a day or something, but... We'll have to be really careful."

"Yeah."

"But the good news is..." said Jon, sitting up. "I got a job offer today."

"What?" said Caitlyn.

"Yeah. This guy comes in for his dental work and afterwards he drops by and is like, So, um, would you happen to be interested in a new opportunity? You seem like a smart, intelligent guy, but all you're doing is sitting here checking people in, and I thought, you know..."

Wow. "This could be it, Jon! This could seriously be it! Maybe God has opened up a way! Maybe this is the answer we've been looking for!"

"You seem to be seeing God in a lot of things lately," said Jon in a casual voice. "Did He drop in while I was at work?"

Caitlyn blinked at him. Did he... ? What? "No, I just..."

"It's got something to do with that Larson guy's group, doesn't it," he said.

"Well, so what if it does," Caitlyn said. "Am I not allowed to be excited about this? I think it's going to be a really good experience, Jon."

"Okay," said Jon, and his tone indicated his utter lack of anticipation.

"So, um," she said, not really wanting to dwell on that subject. "What about this guy who talked to you? What did he say?"

"Well, um," said Jon. "He said that he had an opportunity where I'd get to work with people and sell a product, and that I could make quite a bit of money. And he gave me his number and said to call him."

"Are you going to?" said Caitlyn.

"I dunno," Jon said, "probably. I mean, there's nothing to lose, really, not from just calling him."

"What was his name?"

"Uh... Roger. Roger DiSalvo."

"Why don't you call him now?" Caitlyn said.

Jon blinked at her.

"Well," she said, shrugging. "We have a little bit of time before we have to start making dinner. And if you're interested and excited, maybe he'll be more interested in hiring you."

"Now?" Jon said.

"Nothing to lose, right?" He wasn't the type to make snap decisions; he liked to think out all the possible outcomes beforehand. It was one of her favorite things about him, but right now it just wasn't the right approach.

Jon looked at her for a long moment. Then he pulled out his cellphone.

As the phone rang, she stretched out, resting her head in his lap, reversing the situation of moments before. It was comfortable, lying here, feeling the cushion of his legs under her head, the warmth of his palm against her cheek. And though he was wearing pants, it was tantalizing to think of what was under them, mere inches from her head. It wasn't so interesting being able to see up his nose, though.

"Hello? Hi, Roger, this is Jon Stanford. We spoke at Polkiss-Leyton—... Yes, yes, I'm just fine, thank you... Well, as a matter of fact, I have. I've just talked it over with my wife—... Well, yes, well, it was an, uh, an unusual situation... Oh, about— Thirty days?... Oh, well, thank you, um... Oh really? Is that so?" He looked down at her, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. "He wants you to come too."

Caitlyn started. "What?"

"He says the offer's open to both of us. We can work together."

"We... Really?" It was one thing to go out looking for opportunities, but quite another to have one handed to her on a silver platter.

"Why don't you? You just said we—" He put the phone back to his mouth. "I'm sorry, uh, just a moment, please, I'm discussing it with her right now... Ah, okay. Thank you." He looked back at her. "You just said we have nothing to lose."

"Yeah, but..." It was true; they didn't. But now, in the moment, all she could really feel was apprehension.

"Sweetie..." he said, and his voice was different. "I don't— I'm not saying you have to take this job. I'm not saying I'm gonna take this job. But why don't you come. It'll be a learning experience for when you interview with other people. And, besides... I'm stronger when we're together."

She smiled up at him. "You always know the right words to say."

"Yes," said Jon into the phone, "we'll both come."

They set up a meeting for the coming Sunday, the only time all three of their schedules meshed. Caitlyn was a little bit worried that this Roger DiSalvo person would complain about having his weekend taken away from him, but Jon showed no evidence of such. And just like that, they had a possibility to look forward to.

"Wow," said Caitlyn. "Wow. They say God works in mysterious ways."

"He does," Jon agreed, "but not when it comes to food. We'd better get started on dinner if we're going to make your Bible study thing on time."

She blinked at him. "You care about us being on time? I thought you weren't interested one way or the other. I thought you didn't want to go."

"Well..." said Jon.

She sat up, for the advantage of looking him in the eye. "Jon, if you don't want to go, you don't have to."

"Well... No, 'cause, that's not quite accurate. I do wanna go, Cait. I think... I think it could be a good opportunity. But I'm worried about what will happen."

... And, when she got down to it, wasn't that exactly what she felt about this job interview?

"There's no need to worry," she said, smiling. "I'll be there with you. And we're stronger when we're together, right?"

So they made dinner. Aside from trying new recipes, they had also began alternating who made which part of the meal: today Jon was in charge of the vegetables and the starch, while Caitlyn handled the main course. Both of them were getting better at cooking, that was certain. They had also gotten into the habit (picked up from Jon's parents) of cooking very large portions and then subsiding on leftovers for a day or two afterwards. In these endeavors, it was always Jon who overestimated, cooking more than enough and saddling them with excess food; Caitlyn, who never had that problem, wasn't sure where his judgment was going wrong. She would glance over his shoulder occasionally, making sure he wasn't going overboard, and sometimes Jon would catch her and give her a long-suffering look. But hey, if he wanted to eat the same food for five or six days in a row, that was his problem.

And then it was time to go.

Jon was quieter than normal on the drive over, and despite her excitement Caitlyn felt his nerves taking hold. Besides, wasn't that her normal response?—to be nervous in the face of the unknown? Certainly it had been drummed into her from childhood on that the world was a dangerous place. Six years in college had helped negate that, but Caitlyn still wasn't comfortable in new and unknown situations. Why should she be calm, this time, and Jon nervous?—if you could call her mood 'calm;' she wasn't sure she could anymore.

"What are we going to do?" she said suddenly.

Jon looked over at her; from his expression, her train of thought had left him behind at the station.

"If... If things go... If things go crazy. If we don't like it. If they all turn out to be, what, I dunno... Crazy." Like Margaret Clarke.

"Do you really think they will?" Jon asked.

"Well, I..." Thoughts rolled over in her head: the likely ho-hum battling against the improbable but picturesque disaster. "I don't know. It's a possibility."

"It is," Jon agreed, "but I don't think it will be."

"Why not?"

He looked over at her. "I trust you."

She was silent.

"You know better than I do in matters of the spirit. Just like I'm more used to earthly matters. So I'll look after us in this world, and you look after us in the next."

She covered his hand with her own. "Okay."

Since Caitlyn was involved, they were fashionably late—which was really just her excuse for never quite being organized; she knew it rubbed on Jon's nerves sometimes, and she planned to work on it in future. There was already a pretty large crowd of cars in front of George Larson's house, in eclectic mixture: the budget sedans of the newly independent rubbing shoulders (or bumpers) with giant SUVs borrowed from parents by home-for-the-holidays college students. Inanely she wondered what the crowd would look like once the semester schools kicked back in.

She had never been to George Larson's house before, a modest yet inviting place huddling under its shelf of snow. Inside was a blast of warm air and voices: people, people her age, people younger; some loud, some listening; some she recognized from church, some she hadn't seen in years.

George Larson, pastor and father of two, evolved out of the chaos. He was a congenial man with the most luxuriant eyebrows she had ever seen. "Caitlyn Delaney. I'm glad you could make it." Warm, solid arms engulfed her, so different from Jon's. Pastor Larson was like a safety blanket.

"Or," he said, putting her away from him, "am I to understand that it's Caitlyn Stanford now?"

"It is," Caitlyn said, blushing. "Mrs. Stanford, I guess."

"And is this the lucky man?" asked Pastor Larson. Pastor Pendleton could radiate charisma when he wanted to, but George Larson was like an uncle: benevolent, ever-smiling, and lit like a sun with the warmth of understanding.

"It is," said Caitlyn. "Jon, this is Pastor George Larson. Pastor, this is Jonathan Stanford, my husband." How strange to call him that—and how wonderful. Even after a month, it still made her beam.

"Jon, it's a pleasure to meet you," said Pastor Larson. "I've seen you around church many times, but never had much chance to talk to you. And now it seems like you've done your part to make Caitlyn here very happy."

"Well," said Jon, "I try. She sure does her bit in keeping me happy."

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the wedding," Pastor Larson said. "Larry of course called me the moment he got word, but I was already in a movie with my children. Well, let me take this opportunity to wish you both a long and happy life together."

"Thank you," they said.

"Welcome to both of you," said Pastor Larson, enfolding both of them in a smile. "We'll be starting in just a few moments, but feel free to help yourself to any refreshments and meet some of the others. We're glad you're here."

As they drifted deeper into the maelstrom of people, Jon bent close to her and said: "Does he always use the royal 'we'?" But there was a smile in his voice when he said it, and Caitlyn thought that George Larson had won him over. As she had kind of counted on. Not that Jon needed to be bamboozled, but it would help if he felt welcome. And making people feel welcome, of course, was what Ministers of Hospitality like George Larson did best.

The rest was a hodgepodge conglomerate of church members, homeschoolers and random acquaintances. She could tell that Jon was waiting to see how she reacted, and when she didn't immediately involve herself in the general meet-and-greet, he too hung back. It was not that she didn't know anybody—half a dozen people came up and greeted her with the air of meeting a long-lost friend—it was that nobody knew her. None of them were sure what to do with Jon. She wasn't sure what to do with Jon. For that matter, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. She wasn't sure who she was.

I see some of these people in church on a weekly basis. Some of the others I haven't seen in years. But either way, I'm not the person they knew. I've changed. I'm married and I'm here with my husband, while they talk about fantasy football and the kind of parties they go to at school. I've experienced the pleasures of the flesh—then again, I may not be the only person here who's learned about that. But the point is, my sphere of interest has moved on. Grades don't interest me, nor the vagaries of sororities; I have other concerns now. I've changed.

Is this why Jon didn't want to go?

She found herself sitting off to one side with her husband, the two of them looking out into the crowd with mild disinterest—exactly the place she'd hoped not to find herself. This is where I always am, in a crowd. Sometimes, if I was lucky, Meredith or Zach or one of the few people I knew would come over and talk with me, but most of the time I would just be here on my own. Too scared to make friends, too lonely to leave. Because I was scared—no, I am scared. Scared that, if I got to know anyone, they'd find me lacking. That we wouldn't get along and there'd be a disconnect and I'd mess it up so badly that they'd never want to talk to me again.

But this time, she realized, she wasn't alone: Jon was with her, holding her hand, occasionally leaning over to murmur something in her ear. Her other half.

I actually forgot he was here for a second. Is that a bad thing—or a good thing, that he's become as much a part of me as breathing?

Presently George Larson moved into the center of the room, clapping his hands. "Okay. Okay. Everybody. If I could have everybody's attention, let's begin our fellowship. Okay. Okay..."

The group started to sort itself out. Jon and Caitlyn, who were sitting against the wall (next to the piano), quickly found themselves included, as more chairs were added and the circle expanded to accommodate all the warm bodies. As luck would have it, none of the people Caitlyn recognized were sitting nearby.

"Hello to all of you," said Pastor Larson. "I'm glad all of you could come, even if you can only attend for a few sessions or even only for this one. As you have probably heard, this is George Larson's college group."

"So, if you were looking for the Knitting Circle, this might be the wrong place," said the woman sitting next to him, and Caitlyn, realizing that Jon had probably never met her, leaned over and said over the laughter, "That's Alice Larson. Pastor Larson's wife." Jon nodded.

"Why don't we begin by going around the circle and introducing ourselves," Pastor Larson said. "I suppose I'll start. I'm George Larson, and you probably all know me from church, where I am the Minister of Hospitality. I live here in this house with my wife, Alice, who is sitting right next to me; our children, Keisha who is ten and Madison who is eight, are with Pastor Pendleton and his family, who kindly offered to look after them tonight. I've been in ministry for almost twenty years, and it's a joy to be able to work with the people I do, and do the work I do, and I thank God every day for the kindness he has shown me."

"Now, I don't know about you, but that put me to sleep," Alice Larson said. Evidently she was the more talented at public relations between the two; Caitlyn had long ago observed how Pastor Larson's public speaking was mild to the point of being pedantic. "So let's do something a little bit more fun. How about... Everyone say their name, what school they go to and when they're going to graduate, and, ah. Their favorite summer vacation."

By these standards, the group was an eclectic mixture, to say the least. Some were still in their first year of college, and others were about to graduate, though none were in the workforce or master's programs. Many of them were at schools with Christian backgrounds, those who weren't at seminaries to begin with; that was one of Caitlyn's few regrets, that she hadn't been brave enough to go out for a Jesuit university like Santa Clara or Loyola Marymount. She might've flourished in such an environment, she thought; Greenfield had been nice, but not as welcoming as she could've hoped. But if she had gone elsewhere, she would've never met Jon, and then where would she be?

"I'm Caitlyn—" (Delaney) "—I'm Caitlyn Stanford. I graduated from Greenfield University last summer with a double degree in Music and Accounting, and in eighteen months I'll be graduating from Shellview State with a master's in Harp Performance. Umm. My favorite summer vacation is probably... Oregon, without a doubt. I love the coast over there—probably because I like the climate here, too. There's so much land out in Oregon that just hasn't been touched yet. It's really nice."

"Now, Caitlyn," said Alice Larson. "You said your last name was Stanford. Am I mis-remembering, or has that always been your last name?" It was so innocently phrased that Caitlyn wondered if George had asked his wife to draw out this little tidbit.

"Umm," said Caitlyn, with a glance at Jon. He seemed composed, and his hand still clasped hers, so she went ahead with it. "No. It's only been mine for about a month. —Thirty days, actually. Before then, it was his." And then, sensing the gap and the opportunity for a bombshell: "I guess I should've introduced myself as Mrs. Caitlyn Stanford."

She felt rather than saw Jon roll his eyes.

There was a ripple of surprise; only George Larson was exempt. Max Lapinski said, laughing, "Are you sure you're in the right group? Shouldn't you be looking for the Knitting Circle?"

"Are you kidding? I don't knit!" Caitlyn retorted.

"That would be me," said Jon, completely deadpan, and there was more laughter.

"I for one am glad that Jon and Caitlyn are here," said George Larson, in a quiet voice that nonetheless drew all ears. "Young though they may be, the Stanfords will still be able to provide a different perspective on the things we talk about in this group. Remember that, for many of you, they represent where you ultimately hope to be, if in ten or fifteen years instead of just after graduating. And seeing as how Caitlyn is still in college..."

"How old are you, Caitlyn," Alice Larson asked.

"Twenty," Caitlyn said. "Well, almost twenty-one. On Sunday I'll be twenty-one."

"Happy early birthday!" Max Lapinski shouted.

"You aren't twenty-one yet, but you're already working on your master's degree?" Harry Radnick said.

"Home-schooled," said Missy Sloane, who had taken "classes" with Caitlyn under Mrs. Delaney for several years. "Didn't you test out of high school at, like, fourteen, Caitlyn?"

Caitlyn nodded. She and Nathan had learned the same material for most of their lives, despite their three-year age difference.

"Well," said George Larson. "Here's someone who's not only older than most of the people here, but younger as well. It's an interesting dichotomy. Why don't we move on to the next person. Caitlyn, I believe this is the lucky man?"

"Yeah, um, hi," said Jon. "My name's Jonathan Stanford, and I graduated from Greenfield University two years ago. I'm now in the work force—I'm an 'adult, ' ha-ha yeah right—but I still have a lot of friends in college, and, um. Doing my best to provide for the lovely woman beside me."

"How did you two meet?" Alice Larson asked.

"Through school," Caitlyn said. "We'd see each other around the music building."

"Were you a Music major?" Alice asked Jon.

"No, I just love it to death," said Jon. "I should've been, but by the time I realized that, I was a senior and it was too late."

"And we would see each other around," Caitlyn said, "and then we got to talking, and eventually... Well, the rest is history."

After they'd gone around the circle, Pastor Larson sat up and said, "All right, then. Now that we all know each other, let's get started on tonight's discussion. Alice and I don't really have any plans at the moment as to the tone of these meetings; we thought we'd just let the membership decide. But we did pick a topic for tonight, and it's arguably the biggest one there is.

"We've all heard that God is love. But what is Love?

"We'd like to split the meeting up into smaller groups and have a short discussion about what, exactly, love is. Why don't... From Alice to Stacy, from Greg to Harry, from Missy to Harold, and from Helen to me. Those will be the small groups. We'll discuss for, let's say, five minutes, and then reconvene. Okay."

From her group, Caitlyn knew Melissa Sloane, but Harold Cheng was new to her. The other two moved their chairs up to form an arc. "So," Missy said. "Love."

"Wouldn't they be the experts?" Harold Cheng said, gesturing to Caitlyn and Jon. "I mean, they're married and everything. They'd know the most about it, it seems to me."

"I dunno, not necessarily," Missy said. "There's more to love than just getting married."

"Yeah, but, isn't that, like, the fullest expression of love?" said Harold. "You know, when you get to, um, 'know someone Biblically'?" He added the quotes with his eyebrows. Caitlyn felt a spike of distaste.

"Not necessarily," said Jon. "I mean, yeah, there's love between, you know, people who are in romantic relationships and stuff. But then, what about when you say that you love your friends? Does that mean that you want to, I dunno, kiss them and marry them and, what, um, obtain carnal knowledge of them or whatever?"

"And then what about, you know, stuff?" Caitlyn said. "People say, 'I love chocolate cake.' "

"Amen, sister," said Missy Sloane.

"Do you love chocolate cake the way you love your husband? —Or wife? Or the way you love your friends? Or even the way you love God?"

"I think it's hard to know God Biblically," said Missy, always the pragmatist.

"Not necessarily," Jon said. "He doesn't make Himself known overtly very much anymore. One could argue that knowing Him through the Bible is the only way to know him."

Caitlyn gave him a glance. He didn't believe such things, she was pretty sure—his appreciation for the Bible was just about nil—and she didn't think he should say them if he didn't believe them. Even if they did happen to be true.

"I don't think that's exactly the meaning we were going for there," Missy said.

"Oh, not enough innuendo for you?" said Jon, with a look of such bald-faced innocence that Missy burst out laughing.

"I still think that romantic love is the ultimate expression of love," said Harold. "I mean, seriously, who else do we love so much that we would die for them?"

"Our parents," said Caitlyn promptly. She felt the brief look Jon gave her like scalding water on her skin.

"Or sometimes our friends," Jon agreed.

"But we don't love them in the romantic, Valentines-Day sense," Caitlyn said. "Or, at least, we shouldn't."

"Loving your parents that way is icky," Jon said.

"I don't think there's just one kind of love," Caitlyn said.

"But we only have one word for it," Harold said.

"That's just the linguists' fault," said Missy. "The ancient Greeks had more than one. Actually, they had five."

"Really?" said Jon. "I've only heard of three."

"Well, you should study more," said Missy with smiling simplicity. "They had philia, which is the love between brothers. They had eros, which is, you know, being in love with someone. Lust. They had agape, which is something like 'unconditional regard for other human beings.' They had storge, which is the love between parents and children. And then they had some fifth one which I can't remember off the top of my head. It's been a while since I took Foundations of Christianity."

"And you'll notice that that still doesn't cover chocolate cake," said Caitlyn.

"Maybe that was the fifth one," Jon said.

"I think that's part of why Pastor Larson decided to start with this question," Missy said. "It's one word, but we use it to describe so many feelings and concepts. Romantic love, which in this case includes physical attraction. Bonds of friendship and brotherhood and family. Affection for objects."

"Pets," said Jon.

"Yeah, there's another one," said Missy. "Pets. It's a huge subject, and the definition of the feeling seems to change depending on what it's aimed at."

"So, what are the things we normally say we love," Caitlyn asked, "and what do we mean when we say we love them?"

"Well, we say we love our girlfriends or boyfriends or husbands or wives," said Harold. His eyes were eager, like a child awaiting birthday presents. Caitlyn wondered briefly if he had just gone through a break-up or something.

"Let's start from the top," said Missy, with just a hint of a look around her eyes to suggest that she, too, had picked up on this odd fixation. "We say we love God. What does it mean to love God?"

This was Caitlyn's question to answer: Missy had posed it, Jon probably didn't have an honest answer (though, bless his heart, he would certainly try if asked), and somehow she wasn't sure she wanted to hear Harold's. "It means that we listen to His will and try to live it out in the world. We love him because He is worthy of love, because He looks after us and guides our steps, and we obey His will because doing so will please Him—and please us as well, because we know He wants only the best for us."

"So there's an element of service," Missy said.

"I think there's an element of service in all love," said Jon. "We love God, so we do what makes Him happy. We love our significant others, so we do what will make them happy. We love our friends, so if we can make them happy, we can. We love our pets, so we look after them and fulfill their needs as best we can—even though that can be difficult, 'cause, it's not like we can necessarily talk to our pets."

"Hey, speak for yourself," said Caitlyn, at the same time Missy said, "I can." They glanced at each other and grinned.

"Well, yes, we can talk to them," said Jon, giving them both a wry look, "but they might not answer."

"Hey, speak for your pets," said Caitlyn, at the same time Missy said, "Mine do." They looked at each other and grinned.

Jon gave a long-suffering sigh. "We even love chocolate cake, which exists solely for our pleasure and nourishment, so we honor it by allowing it to fulfill its purpose," he finished. "Love means thinking about other people. Love means wanting to make others happy. Love means service."

"And then, because they're happy, they thank us and serve us and try to make us happy," Caitlyn said. She couldn't keep herself from thinking about Jon's face when she took his member in her mouth: the sheer longing there when she started, and the love when she finished. It wasn't her favorite thing to do, but it was growing on her a little bit—and the love on his face, and then the love in his hands and tongue as he lavished attention on her in return, and in his arms when he held her in the aftermath, were certainly a worthwhile reward.

"I don't think the self-sacrifice thing is necessarily true," Jon said. "I think that, in many ways, we don't have to put ourselves second when we love, because the very act of pleasing someone else pleases us too. Love is the only gift that gives to both the giver and the receiver. But I think you have to be willing to. You have to realize that, to truly love someone, you do need to place yourself second, and be willing to do something even if you think it's a terrible idea, or if it won't please you at all."

"And that's probably most important in a romantic relationship," said Missy.

"No, not necessarily," said Caitlyn. "Sometimes that's very important with God too. Isn't that the problem we all had before we became Christians?—the fear that God would ask us to do things that we found objectionable? I know that, for me, baptism was the hardest part: I'm scared of drowning, I mean really scared of drowning. So for God to ask me to, you know, to risk this thing... It'd be like if baptism involved being covered in spiders."

Missy jumped.

"Yeah, you see where I'm going with this. So to be baptized and to follow Christ was literally taking my life in my hands. But it was important enough, so... I did. Because I knew that, no matter how objectionable I found it, it was for the best. And that pleasing God was, or at least should be, more important than pleasing myself."

"And besides, if you did drown and die, newly-baptized would be about as holy as it's possible to get," Jon quipped. Caitlyn rolled her eyes.

"So I think it's not about being in a romantic relationship and having to sacrifice something for them," Caitlyn said. "I think it's... The deeper or more strongly you love someone... The more likely it is that pleasing them will require you to do something you'd rather not. And, so... The more you love someone, the harder it is to keep loving them, but... The greater the rewards if you do."

"So it's not about who you're in love with," Jon said, "it's about how deeply you love someone. And, generally, the people we're in love with are the people we love most deeply, so, yeah, you do have to sacrifice more for them. But if the most important person in the world to us was our best friend—"

"Or God," Caitlyn said.

"—Or God," Jon agreed, with only the slightest pause to show his surprise, "then they would be the person we're most likely to sacrifice for."

Harold Cheng had an expression on his face that Caitlyn found difficult to interpret, but if she had to guess, he was disappointed, or maybe even angry, with something he'd heard. And then, as his face resolved, she realized he was glaring at her. Why? All she'd done was speak the truth.

Jon leaned close and said, "I'm glad you didn't drown and go holy up to God," and she smiled and whispered, "I'm glad I didn't either," and when she looked back at Harold's face it was clear and clean again.

Pastor Larson's voice cut through the low babble. "All right, if we could rejoin the circle again, I believe our five minutes are up... If everyone could rejoin the circle... Yes, yes. All right. Everyone present and accounted for? Which group would like to go first?"

Alice Larson looked at the people to her left and said, "Hmm, we might as well go first. Jenna, why don't you explain."

The girl Jenna threw her hands in the air. "How did I know that was coming." There was laughter, which Caitlyn didn't join in—why was that funny? Clearly, there were in-jokes going on that she wasn't aware of. "Well, we talked mostly about the fact that there's multiple things we love, and that the meaning of the word changes depending on what it is we're loving."

"Hey," said Jon loudly, "they plagiarized our idea!"

"No," Max Lapinski said, "they plagiarized our idea!"

"What sinners we all are," said Sylvia Blumenthal, "whatever happened to 'Thou shalt not steal'?"

Jenna Richmond plowed on. "We say that we love all sorts of things—friends, lovers, pets, God, cheesecake—but we don't love them the same way. And we can't, they're such different things. I mean, cheesecake isn't even alive. But yet we say we love them. So, we think that the word 'love' has a different definition depending on the context. Depending on who the beloved is."

"Or what," said Alice Larson.

"Or what," Jenna agreed.

Max Lapinski went next. "We ended up talking about kinda the dark side of love. There's times when we get, I dunno, sort of hung up on love as this thing we're supposed to have—you know, media expectations and peer pressure and all that. Even just look at fairy tales: true love and things like that. Or parents who are too caught up in loving their children to give them room to grow." Jon and Caitlyn exchanged glances at that one. "And that kind of segued into a conversation about what love is not. I mean, we all know the Scripture: Love is patient, love is kind, blah blah blah. But what is love not? And the thing we got down to, ultimately, is that love is about the other person. It's inclusive, not exclusive; it's accepting, not controlling; it's selfless, not selfish. Love is almost completely one-way: from the lover to the beloved. It doesn't expect anything. It just... Gives."

"A good thing, I think, for young newlyweds to hear," said George Larson with a smile.

Missy Sloane took the floor. "Ours kind of grows off that. We talked about love as related to self-sacrifice. I mean, we all know that love is (or is supposed to be) selfless and inclusive and accepting, but Jon and Caitlyn came up with an interesting observation: the deeper we love somebody, the more likely it is that putting their needs over our own will be objectionable to us. It increases the chances that we'll have to do something we don't want to. So, the people we're most likely to sacrifice for are the people closest to us. I think, normally, we expect those people to be the ones we're in relationships with, but that might be best friends, or God, or our parents. And—actually we didn't talk about this, I just thought of it just now—and maybe, sometimes, we hold back, because we feel like we shouldn't have to sacrifice for anyone but our romantic partners or whatever. I mean, the two topics are so intertwined in our modern culture: your lover is the person you have to sacrifice for, and nobody else. Maybe, if we aren't willing to put ourselves second when other people are involved—friends, parents, God—that limits our ability to love them. Maybe the depth of your love for someone is defined by how much you're willing to sacrifice for them."

Caitlyn gazed at her, feeling an odd sense of pride that her random thoughts could have encouraged such an observation—because, unquestionably, Missy was right. We can control how deeply or strongly we love other people. It's totally up to us.

"Our group came up with something that each of your observations point at," said George Larson.

"You mean, you suggested to your group," said Alice Larson with a grin.

"Well," said George Larson with a modest smile. "I have lived approximately twice as long as the average group member. Anyhow, you'll notice that nobody talked about feelings when they talked about love. Doesn't our culture normally describe 'love' as a feeling?—an intense attachment?—affection, love, sympathy, desire, care? And yet nobody addressed those.

"The reason they did is because those things are feelings. They grow and fade over time. Love is not a feeling: love is a choice."

The group was silent.

"We will always feel things," George Larson said, "and what we feel is not necessarily under our control. Sometimes we will feel affection. Sometimes we will feel contempt. Sometimes we will feel nothing. And, as with any emotion, we choose whether to express it. Well, the reverse is also true: we can choose to express emotions we don't feel. Sometimes choosing to express them makes us feel them: happiness makes you smile, but it's also a proven scientific fact that smiling makes you happy. Just the physical act of smiling engages the endorphins and neurotransmitters that lead to uplifted mood. The brain is a marvelous creation: it both controls us and is controlled by us.

"Joy, happiness, affection, sympathy, desire: these are emotions. We cannot choose them, merely influence them by our actions. Love is an action. We can choose it. And the question of whether we do choose it goes a long way towards defining who we are—not just as Christians, but as people."

"Wait, so," said Max Lapinski. "If God is love, and love is a choice... Does that mean God is a choice?"

His tone was so perfectly bewildered that he garnered an immediate laugh, but George Larson merely nodded. "Yes, Maxwell. God is a choice. We can choose whether or not to be in touch with Him, and privy to His voice in our lives. And, once we have chosen to hear His voice, we can then choose whether or not to heed it. God is always present, but He gave us free will, and that means it is our choice whether or not He participates. Haven't we all seen those people who, in social gatherings, tend to withdraw, preferring not to participate in the fellowship even when invited?"

Caitlyn felt the burn of eyes on her face. Then she realized that many of them were actually looking at the man sitting on her left: Harold Cheng. And yet she thought, If they're not looking at me, it's only out of politeness. I too am one of those people.

"Now, unlike those people, God will always come join the party if we invite Him to," George Larson said. "But first we have to invite Him in. And that, Max, is most certainly a choice."

Caitlyn was nodding. And so, she saw, was Jon.

"I think that was a really good meeting," he said as they drove home. "I had never thought of love being a choice before."

"Neither had I," Caitlyn said. "But let he who has eyes to see and ears to hear..."

"Yeah," said Jon. "I think that, no matter who we are or what we believe, there's a part of us that recognizes truth. Whether we like it or not, whether we want to believe it or not, we hear the truth and it stays with us."

Yet you don't recognize the truth of the Bible,  she thought, but what she said was, "That doesn't explain my parents, though."

"No, it does," he said. "They clung to their lies so fiercely because they heard the truth. They heard it, and didn't like it. They saw the love between us and didn't want it to be so, so instead of facing it they turned away. Hearing the truth is not the same as being able to accept it and adopt it."

"Is that why you don't believe in the Bible?" she said.

Jon looked at her a long moment. Then he looked away for a long moment more.

"Yes," he said finally. "It simply doesn't make much sense to me. There's a difference between knowing something in your heart and knowing something in your head. The stories in the Bible make sense to my heart, but not to my head."

"But that's where faith comes in," Caitlyn said. "Being able to trust that, even though it doesn't make sense now, it someday will."

"Yeah, but, I don't just sit and wait for sense to be delivered," Jon said. "I try and figure it out. There's this old guy, lived about the 1500s. Said, 'I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense and intellect intended us to forgo their use.' He was a smart guy: figured out that the earth revolves 'round the sun. Galileo. You may have heard of him."

Caitlyn recognized the faux-folksy tone in his voice, refused to rise to it. "Well, it's good that you're trying to figure it out. Too many people just dismiss it. What did you think of the meeting overall?"

Jon shrugged. "I liked it. It's fun to meet people our age—even if they are a little bit younger—and none of them are, like, flaming hypocrites or judgmental or anything. Heck, most of them are normal."

She glanced at him. "You saw it too?"

"And just our luck, he gets in our group," Jon said. "What do you think it was?"

"But... The thing is, he kinda belongs," said Caitlyn. "Remember what Pastor Larson was saying, about, you know... People who kind of prefer to stay off to one side?"

"Yeah," said Jon. "I used to be like that."

"So did I," said Caitlyn.

"You still are, kind of," Jon said, not unkindly. "I said like twice as much stuff to the large group as you did, and it's your church."

"But it wasn't just shyness or whatever, he also seemed... I dunno, angry or something."

"You saw it too?"

"I don't know what it was. What did we say to annoy him?"

"Nothing, that I can think of. But it's not like we know him well enough to be able to figure it out."

"And it's not like he'll give us the chance to get to know him that well," Caitlyn said. "It's like... We failed some test of his, or something. Without realizing it."

"Well, at least we don't have to think of him until next week," said Jon. "And hey, maybe he won't come."

"Oh," said Caitlyn with a veiled smile, "are we going next week?"

Jon rolled his eyes and put his hand on top of hers, their fingers interlacing. She squeezed his hand.



-------

Part 9


Day 35: Caitlyn Stanford's 21st Birthday

When Jon opened his eyes on Sunday it was still dark out—which, to his thinking, was far too early. However, he didn't find any reason to complain, as the thing that woke him up was the tickling sensation of Caitlyn kissing her way down his chest.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," she said. "Lie still."

Jon snuck a look at the clock while he could: about 5:30. What, exactly, did Caitlyn have in mind that would take so many hours... But then he remembered that she had been asked to play at the 7:45 church service today, as well as the 9:00 and the 10:30. If they wanted to do anything beforehand—which, clearly, she did—now would be about the time.

He felt her lips brush petal-soft around his navel, and then the tickling intrusion of her tongue. She seemed to like that part of him—certainly it made him jump, feeling that warm, slippery-soft touch in a place he had never thought of as sensitive, much less erotic—warm, soft, slipping into crevices he never knew he had. And then her kisses were trailing down through his pubic hair, towards the cock already beginning to thump with blood.

He felt the warmth of her breath on his sensitive skin a moment before her tongue touched the top of his cock, sliding down towards the head. She wrapped it around the underside, stroking up towards the base, sliding in between the shaft and his scrotum, making him tingle. She was getting awfully good at this.

He hoped she wasn't trying to somehow guilt him for not making any overt preparations for her 21st birthday today. To her knowledge, he hadn't made a cake or set up a party or even bought her a present. Of course, telling her in advance about a surprise birthday party would sort of ruin the point. The Cranes were bringing the present, and the Chamberses were bringing the cake.

But it was hard to concentrate on all that with her mouth on his cock.

She took the head into her mouth as it slowly inflated, swelling with blood. For a few moments she simply held it in that warm, wet pocket, letting him feel the faint touch of ridges on the roof of her mouth, her lips clasping his shaft, every little quiver of her pink tongue. Then, after he had stiffened, she began, running her tongue around the head of his cock, caressing it with the gentlest and merest of touches. It was hardly enough to get him off, but the sweet tickling sensation was pleasurable in its own right. And besides, there was something indescribably loving about her ministrations, the tenderness and care in every line of her body as she bent over him, showering love on that most secret and sensitive of places.

"Oh Caitlyn, I love you," he breathed.

He felt rather than heard her smile. "I know. Now be quiet and let me love you."

Her tongue began to slide down his shaft, stroking the underside ridge all the way down to his balls and then back again, taking him as far into her mouth as she could manage. She had never heard of deep-throating, and he saw no real reason to inform her: what she managed already was quite enough for him. When she was satisfied with his lubrication, she fastened her lips around his head and began to suck, using her hand to stroke up and down. They had discovered, quickly, that this was the most efficient way to get him off—a useful discovery, considering his stamina or sometimes-disappointing lack thereof—and evidently that was what she had in mind. Jon was groaning and writhing on the bed—he wanted to stroke her hair, but he'd seen men in porno grappling the woman's head to his crotch, and he want to move even vaguely in that direction—suddenly he didn't want her to finish at all.

"Caitlyn... Caitlyn..."

The sensations stopped. "Yeah?"

"Let me... Do you want me to do you?"

An unreadable pause. Then: "Okay."

He reached down to draw her up until her face was level with him, kissing her soundly in the process. Then, without further ado, he began to kiss his way down her neck and chest towards her breasts, tasting her pale flesh, feeling her nipple stiffen in his mouth as her arms cradled his head.

The funny thing was that, though playing with her breasts was undoubtedly more erotic for her, her tummy, and especially her navel, were more sensitive. They had learned from each other, each experimenting, learning things to try from each other by discovering what worked best on them. Caitlyn had actually been the first to try the stomach area, but it was when Jon tried it on her that things really got interesting. Even the slightest touch would make her jump—great involuntary twitches that were almost violent in their intensity. He could never do that by playing with her breasts or even her pussy. Of course, she never grabbed his head and held it to her belly button, either.

He knew he wasn't going to last long once they finally started fucking—not without the condom, not with his early-morning need to pee, and especially not now that she'd gotten him so close to the edge already. So when he got to her pussy, that warm feminine flower already moist and distended, he knew he had his job cut out for him. Like most women, Caitlyn found it hard to orgasm from penetrative stimulation; complicating the matter, she really liked having him inside her when she came. It was delicate balancing act, finding exactly the right level to stimulate her to before moving up to penetrate her, but one thing was certain: Jon loved to practice.

He found the little nub at the tip of her cleft and encircled it with his lips around it, applying gentle suction; by now, he knew better than to start off with the high-intensity stuff. As her breathing increased, he started licking up and down her slit, applying firm pressure with his tongue, tasting the tang of her nectar and feeling the smooth texture of her skin. Then he began to focus on her clit, licking up and down the hood and shaft, until her moans and gasps told him she was ready. Finally, he put his lips around her clit again and sucked on it, hard this time, while slowly working his fingers into her pussy.

Though it was a little hard to see her face with pubic hair and breasts in the way, Caitlyn's breathing was clearly audible now, and her expression was that look of hopeless longing that he loved so well—the look that meant she was his now, body and soul, surrendered to whatever he planned to do to her. Her pussy was smooth and wet to his touch, pulsing slightly in time with her heartbeat, and when he applied upward pressure inside her, she gasped again, arching her back, her hands rifling through his hair.

"Oh... Oh Jon... Oh... Now, oh—"

Moving up over her, he heralded his arrival with a kiss; one arm entwined his neck even as her legs spread, and she reached down between them to guide him in.

He sunk to the hilt with a single smooth thrust.

It was almost too much, even right then—he could feel every fold and ridge of her pussy enfolding him, a smooth warm wet tunnel that clung to every vein and ridge of his cock. Every time it's better than I remember. How can that be? Do I just forget?—or does it keep getting better? If he moved would come, he knew that without thinking, so he let himself settle on his elbows and knees, kissing her, his tongue entwined with hers, his hands enshrining her face as she wrapped her arms, drawing him close, welcoming him home.

"Are you... Are you ready?"

"I'm too close... I'm too close, love. If I..."

"It's okay, it's okay... Just stay here, stay here, I love you..."

She lifted her legs, linking them behind him, cradling him, changing the angle of her pussy, allowing him to sink deeper still. Even that was almost too much, and he moaned into her mouth. "Baby... Baby... You've gotta let me rest for a bit..." To distract her, he bent his mouth to her breasts, suckling at her nipple. She moaned and arched her back—once again changing the angle of her pussy around him. Jeez, I think we have to lie completely still... 

He reached down between them, finding the nub at the top of her slit, and began to caress it, taking the opportunity to move his other hand under her body, crossing her back. She gasped and clenched his body to her, and the shudders from her pussy nearly drove him mad. If he came now, so close, so close to their goal... But he didn't, and as he continued to play with her clit, he gradually became accustomed to the clenching of her body as it moved under him, undulating from hips on upward, while her breasts cushioned his chest and her moans sounded soft and warm in his ear. Seizing the inspiration, he sucked her earlobe into his mouth, licking the back side that was normally protected by the shell of her ear, and was rewarded almost immediately by her arms tightening around him, her hand seizing the back of his head. "Oh, oh, oh... Baby, baby, do it now, oh..."

This is going to be the shortest thing in the history of ever.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to move within her. By moving so slowly he could basically prevent himself from boiling over, but even he could tell that it would do nothing for her. He had to go faster.

"It won't be long," he whispered.

"I'm so close," she breathed, "I'm so close, oh, Jon, oh..." And to his surprise he felt her fingers replacing his down below, increasing the stimulation on her clit. "Just, just... You..."

He kissed her.

In six strokes it was over. As he slid out he felt her pussy contracting behind him, closing down in anticipating of his next stroke. Her knuckles brushed against his navel, her fingers tickling his shaft as she worked at her own climax. And then there was the joyous sensation of burying himself in her, her walls opening to receive him, her slickness cradling him, welcoming him home. Her breath rushed damp in his ear; her nails scraped over his scalp. He did it twice more, and as he pulled out and pushed in for the fourth, he felt his orgasm beginning to boil over—and then the glorious but none-too-helpful sensation of her pussy contracting as some spike of pleasure jolted through her. How does she expect me to— And then, as he drove in a third time, he knew that it was over: he felt the rushing sensation beginning deep inside him, and knew that it was time.

And then, as he thrust one more time, he heard her cries reach a miraculous crescendo, and felt her pussy clamp down on him with unmistakeable strength. And he had just time enough to voice one questioning cry before his own orgasm hit him, washing away all thought. And all he could feel was the clench and rush of his cock, and the tremendous spurting as his cum rushed out to her in a joyous surge, as she gasped and cried out as her pussy clenched around him, shuddering with release, and the crescendo washed over them both like the first blast of morning sun.

And then he was heavy and panting and sweating, his heart thundering over hers, and her legs were clenching his torso with a strength that was almost uncomfortable, and it was pretty darn cold with all the blankets thrown back. And yet he felt so warm, so welcomed, so loved, that he never wanted to move.

"Oh..." she gasped. "Oh..."

"Happy birthday, darling," he whispered.

He felt her giggle under him, in her chest pressed up against his. "Is that all you could think of to get me?"

"Well, I made it myself. I thought you might like it."

"Hmm. If that's the case, I can't wait for my next birthday."

"Hmm."

"I love you, Jon. I love you so much."

"I love you too."

"There aren't... There aren't words enough for, for how much I love you. There aren't even actions enough for... Even the things we do, together, here, when we're alone... They aren't enough."

He kissed her cheek. "No, they aren't. But they're the best we have. We'll make do."

"Yeah."

"And besides, if it doesn't express it enough, we could always, you know, do it again."

She laughed. "I wish, but... We kinda have to get up now. We have to be at church by seven."

"Ungh. You mean I have to move after all that?"

"Sorry, baby."

"I almost wish you hadn't done that stuff to me. It's like my bones have melted."

"You don't mean that."

"No, I don't. I'm glad we did that."

"A fun way to start off my 21st year."

"Yeah."

"Well, come on, honey. You've got to move, or I can't get up."

"So... If I don't move... You'll be stuck here?"

She laughed. "You better not."

"And I can, you know. Have my way with you again?"

She swatted him gently on the head. "You're insatiable, you know that?"

"No, actually, I'm rather sated at the moment. Totally satisfied. So satisfied that I don't want to move at all..."

She rolled her eyes, put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed. "Come on, lazybones. Up and at 'em."

"Melted bones," he protested, but he rolled off her obediently and they got up to get ready.

"I guess this is gonna be a busy day," she said as they drove to church. "I'm only playing up to the offertory, so we can leave at about eleven, but we have to drop the harp off back at home and then have lunch before your appointment with Roger DiSalvo at one—"

"My appointment?" said Jon, glancing over at her. "You're coming too, remember?"

"—but after that," Caitlyn said, "we have the rest of the day to ourselves. What should we do?"

"I dunno, sweetie, it's your day." Come home and have a party. I hid a spare key under the welcome mat last night, so if Christa and the others show up at 1 PM, they should have plenty of time to set up and be ready when we get home from Roger DiSalvo's office... Whenever that is. "What would you like to do?"

"I don't know. I can't really think of anything. Besides Disneyland."

"Besides Disneyland," he agreed.

"We could go... I dunno, we could go see a movie, we could go ice skating... We could invite people over and have a party... We could just stay home all day..."

There were all sorts of comments he could make about that option—and the activity it implied—but Jon decided to play it straight. "You know I'd like that, Caitlyn, but it really is your day. Whatever you want to do is fine with me."

She gave him a mischievous glance. "Even if I wanted to go out and get roaring drunk?"

He shrugged. "I'd hold your hair back while you vomited." He gave her a leer. "And call you stupid every second of it."

She gave him a snort and a smile. They drove on in companionable silence for a few moments.

"What I'd really like..." she said finally, and at her tone of voice Jon looked up. "What I'd really like is to see my parents."

Jon fought the urge to cover his face with his hands—he was, after all, driving a car. "Caitlyn, the last time we did that, it didn't really work well."

"I know, but... Jon, they may not want to have anything to do with me, but I still want to have anything to do with them."

"I know. And, Caitlyn, they feel the same way. What do you think they're doing over there? Your mom's probably spending as much time as she can at work—your father too. Why? Because they don't want to come home to their empty, dusty house. Their lives means nothing without you, and they know it. So if you really want to have a good relationship with them, you should keep the pressure on, by leaving them alone, until they come begging to you."

She sighed. "Maybe if we invited them over along with a bunch of other people. You saw how they reacted to Brandon—he just wouldn't take any of their nonsense, and they knew it. And if we made them promise to be polite."

"Do you think it'd work?" Jon asked, who didn't think so at all.

She sighed. "No. I think they'd promise and then just come over and make a scene anyway. I don't think the laws of propriety matter to them when I'm involved."

Jon, who had thought that from the beginning, belayed an I-told-you-so by covering her hand with his own. "Soon, my love. Soon. They can't wait forever."

She turned away to look at the nighttime scenery scrolling by. "Jon... What if they can?"

"What?"

"What if... What if they can wait forever? What if they suddenly realize that, no, they, they didn't really need me, they... They can live without me?"

Jon had never claimed to understand Caitlyn's parents—but sometimes, he didn't understand Caitlyn either. "Well then... Good riddance. Cait... If they take the time" (and forego thir pride long enough) "to get to know you for who you actually are... Well, they're your parents. They'll love you even if you turn out to be an axe murderer. Which you are not. You are a wise, loving, moral, Christian woman. That's something they respect. They'll love you. And, if they're going to judge you based on who they think you are—based on the Caitlyn who lives in their heads, whom as we both know has nothing to do with the Caitlyn who once lived in their house—then why would you want their approval anyway? If they dislike you, it's not because of who you are. If they like you, it's still not because of who you are. And, frankly, it's easier to just be rid of them."

Caitlyn turned a sad gaze on him. "Jon, they're my parents." And though Jon had not had the best of relationships with his family, he had to admit that, were they to turn their back on him, it would pain him quite a bit. It's kind of like undermining the foundation of who I am. My family is where I learned, for the most part, to be me. My family made Jon Stanford. For all of them to turn away, to deny me, to say, No, we will have no part of you... 

But it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'd still have Caitlyn. I have a life outside my family now, an identity that is separate from the people I came from. I have more than one family, and the second one is just as important as the first.

... And if Caitlyn doesn't feel that way, why did she marry me?

Now hold on a second, Jon Stanford. You don't know what she feels. Don't jump to conclusions. Remember Jack Crawford: When you assume you make an ass of u and me both. And besides, losing half your identity isn't made any easier to bear by not losing all of it.

"Jon?" Caitlyn said. He realized suddenly that she was standing outside the door of the borrowed van, peering in—that he had managed to arrive at the church without even noticing it. "Is everything okay?"

"—Yeah," said Jon. "I'm coming with you." He started to open the door, only to notice the sudden dreamy smile on her face.

"No," she said, "you did that already."

Jon felt a smile splitting his face.

"That was really something," she said.

"Yeah. It wasn't easy, but, I think it was worth the effort."

"We should try that again some time," she said. She still had that distant, bemused expression on her face.

"Well, after the job appointment, we could just stay at home all day," he said, and was rewarded with a giggle and a kiss on the cheek.

Jon had to admit that he was not looking forward to sitting through all three services. Fortunately, neither was Caitlyn. "We'll stay for the first service," she said, "and then after I play the offertory at the 9-AM we can go get some food or something. Or just wander around the downtown area, if we want. And then... Oh, but: after I play the offertory, Pastor Pendleton will come up and preach. We can't exactly be zipping up the harp while he's up there."

Jon grunted and settled the harp on its two wheels. Eighty pounds of wood wasn't too bad, but there was almost nowhere to grab it. "So tell him we've got somewhere to be and we have to leave early."

Caitlyn said, scandalized, "We can't lie to a pastor!"

"It's just a little white lie."

Caitlyn shot him a grumbling look.

"Fine, then, ask him if we can leave early. We'll wheel the harp into the side office and zip it up there." The harp went everywhere in a protective shroud; without its cushioning, car drives might be fatal.

"Hmm, he might be okay with that," said Caitlyn. "I mean, it's seven o'clock. He's probably not even here yet."

And that was their cover story at eleven. "Before I begin, I'd like to take this moment to thank Caitlyn Delaney Stanford, who has played at all three services today. Despite the cold weather and the early hour, she agreed to be here at seven AM to rehearse and play in the early service, and then the other two as well. We've decided to let her and her husband Jon go home a little early, but first: we've received news that it's actually Caitlyn's birthday."

Caitlyn, halfway across the dais, turned bright red.

"How old are you today, Caitlyn?" Larry Pendleton asked, turning to her, and the grin on his face that told Jon that the minister had been planning this ambush for several days.

Caitlyn was gawping like a fish, so Jon took matters into his own hands. "She's twenty-one."

"She's twenty-one," Pastor Pendleton marveled. "Twenty-one, a truly gifted harpist, studying for her master's degree and happily married. She started early in her life as well as early this morning. So, in honor of what will hopefully be a fun and enjoyable day: Amber, if you please?"

And Amber Pendleton struck up the organ in that old familiar arpeggio, and the entire congregation sang. Caitlyn looked somewhere between offense and tearful happiness. Jon, who was singing along at top volume (and in key, thank you very much), saw a sea of smiling faces... Except for those belonging to Samuel and Linda Delaney. Caitlyn's father was stone-faced—he could be hiding just about anything under that Easter-island visage—but Mrs. Delaney looked to be nearly choking on her fury.

Jon hustled his wife off the dais before she could notice that particular feature.

"I can't believe it," Caitlyn said, somewhere between annoyed and giddy. "I can't believe it. Who did that?"

"Dude, how many other people get happy-birthday'd by the entire church?" Jon said, trying to inspire a smile.

"It was probably Pastor Larson," said Caitlyn. "Or Mrs. Larson. I am so gonna—"

"Thank them," Jon said. "Thank them kindly."

"Well, yes, of course," Caitlyn said. "And then, on their birthdays... I don't know, do you think a stripper cake would be too much?"

"For our budget, yes," Jon said, laughing, and started pushing the harp.

They dropped the harp back off at the apartment, snagfed a quick lunch, and at 12:55 rolled into a parking space at Global Economic Associates, Inc. Roger DiSalvo was exactly as Jon remembered, a portly Hispanic with a shaven head and fairly bouncing with energy. "Jonathan Stanford, and on time I see! You know, I always say you can tell something about a man by whether he arrives when he says he will. I'm glad to see you. And this beautiful creature must be your wife. Your name is?"

"Caitlyn." She extended her hand to be shaken. "Caitlyn Stanford."

"Caitlyn. A lovely name for a lovely woman. it's a pleasure to meet you. Why don't you both come up to my office and I'll show you what Global Economic Associates can do for you."

"Laying it on a little thick, isn't he," Caitlyn said to him in an undertone. Jon shrugged. Yes, he supposed, one could look at it that way, but Jon preferred to wait and see before making any firm judgments. Roger DiSalvo exuded an easy camaraderie which Jon admired. Maybe effusive praise was just his way.

Roger DiSalvo led them up the stairs and down the hall, through a conference room so large it could probably house an entire company. The room was completely bare, for the most part, save a table in a corner and a few banners above the front stage. Off of this room were a number of smaller rooms, one of which Roger ushered them into. "My office," he said. In this office was a curving, two-sided desk with a wheelie-chair for Roger on the inside and client chairs on the outside; a computer; a closed filing cabinet; and some binders piling up in a corner.

Roger wasted no time in getting down to business. Quickly he was knees-deep in talk about finances, 401Ks, retirement, investments and other monetary chaos. Some of the particulars of it evaded Jon, but he wasn't too concerned about that: Caitlyn, after all, was the Accounting major, and he was sure she would catch what he missed. The whole thing seemed fairly simple, though: an overall plan to help make sure there was always enough money. Jon, keenly aware of the inadequacy of his current salary, could much appreciate that.

"Basically, we at Global Economic Associates take this knowledge out into the world," Roger said. "We teach people these principles and then help them choose investments, insurances and savings policies that will benefit them in the future. So, what do you guys think? Did you guys know about this stuff before today?"

"No," Jon said. "No," Caitlyn said.

"Would you tell people this information if you had the chance?"

"Well, sure," Jon said, but Caitlyn, evidently seeing where this was going, said, "Only if they paid me!"

"Ha-ha, that's the spirit!" said Roger. "Now, if you're interested, we'll have you each fill out an application form. One of the things we'll ask you to do is assemble a team, a group of people who are close associates of yours who will help you market, process and approach. Furthermore, employees at Global Economic Associates—" Jon noticed the slurring, as if he'd said the name thousands of times before: globaleek-nomica-soshits. "—are technically self-employed, and one of the things we'll require is a $50 deposit with which we run a background check. Since you will be selling insurance policies and such, it's important to us to hire trustworthy people who have never had prior trouble before, you understand? And, because it's a business expense, you can claim it as a tax write-off. We accept check or credit card."

"Ah, um," said Jon, digging for his wallet. "Okay."

"Jon," said Caitlyn, in a voice that stilled movement. "I think I left my wallet in my purse. Would you mind going out for it?"

Roger DiSalvo turned away from his computer to look at them.

Jon blinked. "Umm, sure. Umm. Just, give me a minute, and I'll be right back."

When returning the harp to the apartment, Caitlyn had changed clothes. Currently she was wearing a voluminous hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of jeans fished out of the men's department, small enough for her frame. They were her favorite jeans, she said, because they had the one thing most women's pants lacked: pockets, pockets a capacity of more than a fluid ounce. And when she has pockets, doesn't she normally keep her wallet in... ?

And a quick look in the car confirmed that, yes, she did normally. The wallet wasn't in her purse. Chapstick, make-up, sunglasses, cellphone: all those things were, somehow crammed into a package that looked barely large enough to hold a compact. (She had always prided herself on Mary-Poppins-style handbags.) Undoubtedly she knew she had the wallet; why had she sent... 

—Oh!

"I, um, I couldn't find it, sweetie," Jon told her. "I think we left it at home." He tried to keep his voice level and normal, and not tense and confused. How did he sound normally? I really should pay attention to myself. It's hard to lie convincingly when you don't know how you sound when you tell the truth.

"Uh-oh," said Caitlyn, sounding for all the world like a woman without her wallet. "We'd better go home and check, I'd hate to think of what would happen if I lost it..."

"Yeah," Jon agreed, trying not to sound too emphatic.

"Oh dear, that is troublesome," said Roger DiSalvo. "Jonathan, do you think you could finish your application before—"

This time Jon was on the ball. "I wish I could, but all of Caitlyn's ID and credit cards and things are in that wallet. If someone's gotten their hands on it... Well, seconds could matter."

"We'll call you back about finishing them up," said Caitlyn.

"All right, well," said Roger DiSalvo, evidently realizing there was no hope. "Let me at least walk you down."

As he did, he regaled them with his own life story: married young, divorced younger, and now with sole custody of a seven-year-old daughter. "Depending on my earnings, I might be able to retire in a few years. I'd really like to spend that time with my daughter." Jon could appreciate the sentiment, but at the moment his paranoia was up, and while Roger's story might be heart-felt, it might also be manipulative. Jon would take no chances.

What spiked Caitlyn off, anyway?

It wasn't until they were safely away in the car that Caitlyn could answer. "It wasn't the money thing... Okay, it wasn't just the money thing. I've had business classes in cheats and scams and stuff like that, and... Well, the $50 sort of made everything clear. All the little details I'd noticed. Like, how totally empty the conference room was. How empty his office was. Nobody else seemed to be there, did you notice? And then, when he said we'd have to recruit other people into the business... It all just lit up at once."

"Jeez," said Jon. "I'm glad I had you there!"

"I was just scared you wouldn't get my message," Caitlyn said, looking at him. "When I sent you after the wallet..."

"Yeah, I almost missed it," Jon agreed. "Jeez, how stupid can you get. We really gotta work out a code or something for—"

The trill of a cellphone interrupted him. It was Jon's. "Hi, Jon! It's Christa! How are you?"

"Christa?" Uh-oh, she must be calling about the party. He switched the phone to his left hand, for the fragile advantage of distance. "Hi, how are you?"

"Doing great, thanks! Listen, we managed to get in and we're all set up. Are you guys coming?"

"Um, uh—" Thank God for that spook at the office; otherwise, my brain would still be running at melted-bones speed. "Look, Christa, I'm kind of on the road right now." "Oh my goodness, is Caitlyn there with you, " Christa began, but Jon rode her over. "Do you mind if I call you back when I get home? Say, about twenty minutes?"

"Ohh, of course, " said Christa, picking up on it with an alacrity that made made Jon feel old and slow. "When you get home, then."

"Thanks," said Jon. "Bye." He turned back to Caitlyn. "Sorry, where were we?"

"You were about to come back up to his office and ask me whether I had my wallet in my pocket," said Caitlyn, amused.

"Right, don't remind me," Jon groaned, and Caitlyn laughed, and afterwards there was silence for a while.

"... How come I didn't see it," she said eventually. "I should've... I dunno, even from the moment I saw him, I was a little bit... I mean, he was so congenial, you know? He was really trying to sell. And I should've been on-guard more, but, he drew me in. He suckered me in just like—"

"Hey, hold on a minute," Jon said. "You saved us! If it hadn't been for you, who knows where we would've ended up!—Short a hundred dollars at the very least, and God only knows what else!"

"I should've seen it," Caitlyn gritted, thudding down on the armrest with a fist. "I should've seen it—"

Jon, having no real idea what to say, said nothing. He gave her a wide-eyed look and turned back to the road. Why is it so important to her? Why is she taking it so seriously?... 

After a few moments, she sighed. "And here I was so sure that God had put that in our path. That God had smiled down on us, and was giving us a way out. And it turns out that it was actually... Not Him. The Other."

Jon, though he wasn't sure he should mention it, said, "Cait... You know, they could be reputable. Maybe it's just... A weird way of doing business."

"Maybe," said Caitlyn, in a voice that told him she didn't believe it. And Jon, still not sure what else to say, let silence rule the ride home.

He had almost forgotten about the party, and for a moment was extremely confused at the sight of the foil balloons and the giant banner, clearly Zach's work (nobody else would draw using highlighters), blaring "HAPPY 21st CAiTLYN!" The birthday girl in question, CAiTLYN (What happened there?), said, "What the heck—" and took two steps into the room.

"Surprise!" said Meredith and Christa and Brandon, popping out from behind the couch. Jon hadn't realized there was enough room back there for everybody.

"Unh??!" said Caitlyn.

"Happy birthday," Christa said, descending on her with a hug and a pair of those air-kisses Jon had never quite figured out.

"Blame him," Brandon said with a grin, pointing at Jon.

"He's good at ambushing," Meredith agreed.

"No, as in, blame him if Laurelyn has somehow made a mess of your bedroom in the five minutes we left her in there," Brandon said.

"I'd better go check on her," Meredith agreed, pacing over to the door. But as she passed the threshold she had to step back, as Zachary Crane strolled out in calm oblivion.

"What," he said, looking around, "did I miss it? Aww, crap. Surprise!" He lunged like a Broadway singer, throwing his arms wide. Jon laughed.

Caitlyn had the happiest look on her face Jon had ever seen; she seemed near to tears again. "I can't believe you guys."

"Believe it," Brandon said, a warm smile on his face.

"What else are friends for?" Christa asked.

"Well, besides messing up your birthday," Zach said. "By the way, we invited a bunch of people you either know, kinda-know or thought you'd like, so I hope you're ready for a crowd."

"We did not," said Christa, shooting her husband a half-annoyed, half-affectionate look, which Jon thought must appear on her face with alarming frequency. "We did invite some people, though. It's your twenty-first birthday. The six of us would be a little bit boring."

"Now, I don't know about that," said Meredith, coming in with Laurelyn in her arms. "For one, there's seven of us, and this little critter can cause an enormous amount of trouble."

"Oh, yeah, we should've child-proofed the apartment first..." Christa exclaimed.

"And don't worry, if it gets to be too much we'll quiet things down," Brandon said.

Caitlyn turned to Jon with an unsteady expression. "You," she said. "Made me think that you were planning absolutely nothing."

Jon tried to keep from grinning. "Well, um. That was, in fact, the essence of the surprise."

"You," she said, "are in serious trouble, young man."

Taking a gamble, he said, "Well, if it's anything like the trouble we got into this morning, I'll take it!" And the others laughed, and Caitlyn, though she tried to hold her stern expression, couldn't, and moved into his arms and held him tight.

"Happy birthday," he said.

"I love you," she said. "You know, I really was kind of thinking about just spending the whole rest of the day here with you."

He felt his body stirring, and willed it to be calm. "Well... We can always send them home early..."

She laughed against his throat.

Within an hour, Zach's promise had lived itself up. Aside from a few members of Octapella whom Christa and Zach had thought to invite (Rod, Beth, so on), there was Rachel Prescott, who had started out as Laurelyn's baby-sitter but almost turned into a third member of the family. On her arm was someone Jon had never met before, a fellow named Jeff Gainesborough. "He's from our high school," Christa explained. "We set them up on a blind date last year. We wouldn't've invited him if we didn't think he'd get along with you guys." On top of that there were a few people Jon had managed to invite from Shellview State, friends and compatriots Caitlyn had met in her half-year there. (The hardest part had been finding a way to contact them, since he hadn't even met one of them. Facebook was a life-saver in this regard.)

It was a lively party—probably the most exciting one Caitlyn had had in her life—but Jon couldn't help looking around and realizing that most of them didn't know each other, and furthermore that many of them didn't really know Caitlyn. It had been Christa's idea to invite more people, and Jon had agreed because he couldn't see the harm in it, but ultimately the people who mattered most were the five who had started out. We're her friends, we five. The rest... Well, I don't know how close they are. Or consider themselves to be. Are they here for the party, or are they here for her?

That's something we need to work on,  he decided. In part it's because she's been so sheltered by her parents, but she can also be so... Standoffish. She doesn't like letting people in. And so she's only let a few people in, and one of them's her husband but the other four are busy having their own lives. She needs other people. She needs people.

And I'm the same way,  he realized. I have Octapella, sure, but, sometimes I'm not sure how close they are either. We both need friends.

Soon enough, though, he found himself doing his part. Jeff Gainesborough would probably get along with Caitlyn; he was certainly getting along with Jon. Though quiet, and minoring in Math (inexplicable to Jon), his reticence concealed, not slowness, but a careful manner and utterly deadpan humor. This was a man who thought carefully about what he saw. It took a little while to get him to soften up—but then,  Jon thought, remembering the college-group meeting on Thursday, it took us the same. And, once someone had sat down to talk to him, he showed no intention of remaining aloof.

"How did you meet Rachel," Jon asked.

"Through the Chamberses," Jeff said. "We went to high school together."

"Wow," said Jon, who hadn't kept track of anyone he'd gone to high school with. Of course, if it had been Brandon and Meredith...  "And... You were, what, visiting them or something?"

"Actually, it was really a joint thing between them and the Cranes," Jeff said. "I was on the ski trip they took last year, and Zach and Christa took the opportunity to put us together in a sort of blind date thing."

"Wow. Impressing a girl is one thing, but impressing a girl while on skis is quite another."

"Yeeeeaaaah," said Jeff.

"But, um, it seems to have worked," Jon said. "I mean, she's dating you, you're dating her... You guys seem really happy together. Like Brandon and Meredith."

"Well, thank you. That's a big compliment... Actually, too big a compliment, because I'm sure you must be exaggerating."

Jon laughed. "Okay, so I am. But... You know. There's some of that."

"What, as in, how Meredith's personal orbit is defined entirely by Brandon? And vice versa?"

"Yeah."

"Well, thank you. That is a big compliment." There was no smile this time. "Even though it's not quite true anymore; now their orbits revolve around Laurie."

"Yeah. That's true. And they're so tired all the time. They try to hide it, but..."

"Well, Laurelyn's turning into quite a handful. It's just that time of her life. Rachel—" He gestured to his girlfriend, who was re-acquainting herself with the tiny girl who had been hobby and livelihood for six months of the last year. "—has more patience with her than anyone I've ever seen, except Brandon and Meredith of course, but eventually everyone is gonna do something to tick you off—especially once they get older and start being able to pull more things down to the floor. And on top of that, they're both working their tails off to make ends meet. Brandon's really angling for a promotion or a better job somewhere, because when you don't get paid much your only choice is to work longer, and eventually you run out of hours in the day."

"It sucks," Jon said. Brandon and Meredith were such nice people; they deserved better than this. "Makes me really glad Caitlyn and I aren't having kids yet."

"Yeah. Number one way to sink yourself into poverty: divorce. Second way: kids."

"Kinda funny how so many of their friends are starting to deal with both of those things," Jon said. "Is it normal for so many of us to be married or getting married this early in our lives?"

"Maybe it was," Jeff said, "back in the 1600s. There was a time when you hit puberty—or made your first kill, or whatever coming-of-age ritual your society upheld—and that was it, you were an adult and ready to get married and have your own family and everything. Nowadays it's a little different. With increasing health standards, kids are hitting puberty earlier and earlier in their lives. But with increasing job standards, they're hitting the workforce later and later in their lives. You start having this ten-year gap where the person is physically mature, but not... Not what, not economically mature, I guess you'd say. Not yet acting as an adult in the economic sense of holding down a good job and being self-sufficient and whathaveyou. That's where 'adolescence' comes from. Heck, that's where 'teen pregnancies' come from. In the 1600s, there were no teenagers—just adults and children. Teenagers, young adults, adolescents—these are people who are old enough to have kids but not old enough to pay for them. And, yes, Brandon and Meredith are in that category, and they're fighting as hard as they can to get out of it. It may even be working."

"And yet here we are," Jon said, who appreciated these new and interesting thoughts but still hadn't really had his question answered. "Caitlyn and I, and Zach and Christa, following in their footsteps. —Not with the kids thing, but, with everything else. By your analysis, we're not even ready to be married, because that too costs money and most of us are still getting our fourth level of education. I'm the only one with the, um, with the whateveryoucallit. —The 'economic maturity' to be getting married. We're starting early. And all of us know Brandon and Meredith."

"That's true," said Jeff. He cracked a dim smile. "It's like they're beacons for love or something. They just, what, trade it around."

Jon was going to laugh, until he saw that Jeff wasn't really joking.

"Maybe it's their mutant power," he said.

"Quite possibly," Jeff agreed.

"Convincing all and sundry to fall in love."

"Oh, it's not just all and sundry," Jeff said. "I think that all they do is—whether by accident or by design—they organize the people around them. Using their gravitic influences, of course. And, just by moving through their lives, they get that person pointed in the right direction and facing someone they can find love with. They just make it... Easy to find someone who's good for you."

"It worked on me, and I didn't even really know them," Jon said. "I mean, we were friends, but, I wasn't nearly as close to them as Caitlyn was. Is."

"They've got the magic." Jeff shrugged. "That's all I know."

Around the time people had started getting hungry, a delivery man from a pizza place showed up, called in by the Cranes; Caitlyn insisted on paying, and would have won if Jon hadn't rolled his eyes and sided with Zach. There was a small but varied selection of alcohol, for those who would care to partake in it; everyone gathered around as Caitlyn took her first official sip of alcohol, from a can of beer which she immediately pronounced disgusting and foisted off on Jon. Jon, who also found it disgusting, threatened to pour it down the toilet until Zach, loathe to waste beer of any caliber, appropriated it from him. Under Meredith's guidance, Caitlyn found a wine cooler much more to her taste. And shortly thereafter Christa trotted out Meredith's cake, a rich dark confection containing a denser concentration of chocolate than anything Jon had ever experienced.

Caitlyn was having fun, but by the time the cake was gone, it was apparent to Jon that she was starting to tire of the constant buzz. For that matter, so was he; though he had a higher tolerance for chaos, this was too much. Not to mention that he had to be up early tomorrow for work. Fortunately, Christa and Zach had planned for this eventuality; Jon had merely to stand up and explain the situation, and the guests were wishing Caitlyn final happy-birthdays and moving out the door. Not the Cranes and the Chamberses, of course; they stayed to help clean up. "We also figured you might want a little quiet time to wind down in," Christa remarked.

Caitlyn shook her head, amazed. "You guys think of everything."

"We've had practice," said Zach with an insufferably smug look.

Laurelyn had been asleep for some time, and after checking on her, Meredith returned to the main room, where the others were relaxing. "I hope that all wasn't too much or anything."

"It was... A lot more than I expected," Caitlyn said. She was curled up on the couch, her head on Jon's shoulder, and it was all Jon could do to keep a big, satisfied grin off his face: there was nowhere else on earth he would rather be. "I mean, whenever I thought about my 21st birthday, I figured I'd be... With my parents... And, like, we'd see a movie, and have a party, and that would be it. Maybe they'd let me try some wine or something. This was... So much more."

"Blame him," Meredith said, pointing at Jon. "He set most of it up."

"Hey, I just organized it," Jon protested. "All you subcontractor folks did the actual hard work."

With a winking look at Jon, Brandon asked, "And, Caitlyn, were you expecting to be married on your 21st birthday?"

Caitlyn sat bolt-upright to stare at him. "What, are you kidding? I wasn't sure I'd be married on my 25th birthday! If I thought about it at all! When I was sixteen I took a look around and, just... Ugh." She collapsed back on the couch, a little too far away for Jon to reach. "All I saw was just this, this wasteland. Here I was, in college, but younger than everybody there, and not making any friends, and... And I wasn't sure how to change any of that, you know? I mean, yeah, I could wait for a few years until I was actually the same age as the people around me, but... What do I do now? And plus on top of that I've always found it easier to relate to people who are older than me... I mean, when I was eighteen, I was asked out by this guy who was thirty-seven. And I told him, 'I'm eighteen, ' and he said, 'That's not a problem with me, ' and I was this close to actually going with him." She shook her head. "I just... I saw the future I wanted, but... I had no idea how to get there."

"Yeah," said Brandon.

"Yeah," said Meredith.

"Yeah," said Jon.

"Yeah," said Zach.

Christa looked around at them. "My goodness. Am I the only one here who's never felt that? I feel so... Virginal!"

"Well, that's why we keep you around, babe," Zach said, draping an easy arm over her shoulders. "Innocent, unfettered optimism."

"What else did you guys do today?" Meredith asked.

"Well, besides this morning," Caitlyn said, "we—"

"Why, what happened this morning?" Brandon asked, a shameless grin on his face.

"We-ell," said Caitlyn, looking a little guilty. "Well, um, we, um. We had fun."

"Well, that's good," said Meredith, totally unashamed.

"We also went to church," Jon said, rolling his eyes. "This crazy lady over here played her harp in all three services, including the super-early-in-the-morning one."

"How super-early was it?" Christa asked.

"Was the sun up?" Zach asked.

"7:45," Caitlyn said.

"Man," Zach said.

"Man," Christa said.

"If our church asked us to show up for that service, we'd tell them to go jump off a cliff," Zach said. "In a respectful and Christ-like manner, of course."

Brandon snorted. He was grinning.

"Wait," Meredith said. "You'd tell them in a respectful and Christ-like manner to jump off the cliff?—or you'd tell them to jump off the cliff in a respectful and Christ-like manner? Did Christ prescribe ways for jumping off cliffs?"

"Right, anyway," said Christa, after giving Meredith a dirty look. "What else did you do today?"

"Well, church," Caitlyn said. "And then afterwards... Suddenly I'm cold." She looked around in confusion. "Did someone open a window?"

"You took off your sweater," Jon said.

"I... I did?" Caitlyn chafed her arms. "No, it's right here."

Jon spread his arms wide, giving her a Duh look.

"Oh!" Caitlyn exclaimed. She snuggled back up to him, draping her body over his in an entirely satisfactory manner.

"I swear," Jon said into her hair. "You have two undergraduate degrees. I thought you were smart!"

"Shut it, buster, or we aren't having any fun tonight," Caitlyn said, a smug grin on her face.

"Oh-hhh!" Brandon, Zach and Meredith said all at the same time.

"So, anyway, honey," Jon said. "What else did we do today?"

"Well... We dropped the harp off... The entire congregation sang 'Happy Birthday' to me because my harp teacher told the head pastor—"

"Oh, is that how it happened?" Jon said.

"Yeah, didn't you see her? She was in the third row."

Jon hadn't seen any trace of Mrs. Sellitz. "No."

Caitlyn sighed. "You need to look harder. She was there. Anyhow, I had that happen... Then we dropped the harp off... Then we had lunch... Then... Oh!"

"Oh?" said Meredith.

"Does this have anything to do with where you were when I called Jon?" Christa asked.

"Well, it's more Jon's story..." Caitlyn said.

"No, go ahead, you tell it," Jon said. "We haven't had a chance to talk about it. I wanna hear what you thought."

"Well, you started it," Caitlyn said. "He approached you in the first place."

"Look," Brandon said, grinning, "just tell the freaking story, okay?"

"Well, Jon was at work," Caitlyn said, "and some guy came in to be dented."

"Huh?" said Christa.

"Oh, that's mine," Jon said. "I work at a dentist's office. So, verb form of dentist, dent. To dent. A dentist dents."

Christa gave him a most incredulous look.

"Don't worry, honey, it makes sense," Zach said.

"It does not!" Christa protested. "Verbing weirds language!"

"Right, so, dentist," Caitlyn said. "And Jon's the receptionist and probably just twiddling his thumbs, and so this guys says, Hey, my company's hiring, you look bored, what do you think?"

"And Jon said, Sure?" Meredith guessed.

"Jon said Sure," Caitlyn agreed. "And he called the guy later that day—"

"You made me call him," Jon protested.

"You said you had nothing to lose!" Caitlyn said. To the others: "This guy's such a dork. Anyway, so, he called this guy Roger, and Roger said, Hey, why don't you bring your wife too, and so after lunch we went to his office."

"And?" said Christa, an excited expression on her face.

"And, I think it was a scam," Caitlyn said.

Christa's face fell.

"What did you think, Jon?" Brandon said.

Jon shrugged—not an easy proposition with Caitlyn leaning on him. "Well, as Cait pointed out to me in the car, I wouldn't know a legitimate business from a scam if my life depended on it. I figured I'd better trust her judgment. She's got the Accounting degree, she would be more likely to know something."

"Their office was empty," Caitlyn said. "Like, empty. A huge room with no one and nothing in it. And his office didn't have a single paper in it or anything—it was too neat, it didn't look like he actually used it. And practically the first thing they asked us for was fifty dollars."

"Fifty dollars?" Meredith said.

"Each," Caitlyn said.

"That is kinda fishy," Christa said.

"Was there anyone else in the office?" Zach asked.

"Not that we saw," Jon said.

"But that could just be because it was a Sunday," Brandon said.

"Yeah, but who works on a Sunday?" Meredith said.

"Either someone who was golfing all week or someone really desperate," Zach said.

"Either way, is that someone you want to be hired by?" Christa said.

"So, what did you do?" Brandon said to Caitlyn.

"We got out of there," Caitlyn said. "Jon was really good. I could tell that none of this had even crossed his mind—he figured it was all legitimate—but he picked up on my signals and we bluffed our way out." She smiled up at him. "I'm glad I married someone with brains."

Jon felt absurdly pleased.

"Are you going back?" Christa asked.

Caitlyn looked to him, and Jon felt a moment of confusion. Me?

"Umm... I don't know," he said. "Probably not. I... I mean, maybe it's legitimate. And, what Roger was talking about, how Caitlyn and I can work together and make money and... Well, it sounded like a good deal. I wish I didn't have to pass it up. But... It's simply too risky. It's not something I feel like I'd be able to trust. If it were just me, then maybe... But it's not, it's Caitlyn too. There's just too much at stake right now."

"And is it important for you to find a new job?" Brandon asked, with a glance at Meredith.

"Well... Yeah, just a little," Jon said, mopping his face with his hand. "I mean, I like what I do now, but there's no... What's the term. —Oh. No growth potential. I mean, I'm a receptionist, it's not like you can move up from there. And we're barely making ends meet as it is. I can't continue like this."

"Then shouldn't you be looking for another job?" Caitlyn said, turning her head to face him.

Oh God, not now. "Cait, that's... Easier said than done. Everything out there... I check the websites, I check Craigslist, I check Monster. com, and everything anyone's looking for is, 'With experience, ' 'with experience, ' 'with experience.' I don't have experience. I'm entry level. And the few I do find for entry-level, I send in my resume and a nice cover letter, and... Nothing happens. It's not easy to just, just keep..."

"We may have an answer for you," Brandon said, looking back over at them. Beside him, Meredith looked rather pleased with herself.

"As you know," Brandon said, "I now work in a doctor's office."

"You do?" Jon said. He hadn't heard anything about that.

"Okay, as you should know, I now work in a—"

"You never told us," Caitlyn said.

Brandon tossed his hands. "Okay. As you have now been informed... " He shot them both a sarcastic leer. Caitlyn gave a magnanimous wave to indicate he should continue. "I work in a doctor's office. But not as a receptionist, Jon: as an assistant."

"Hmmm," said Jon, already seeing the potential.

"It's skilled labor, so they pay more—I'm getting about $30,000 a year now. It's the medical field, so you'll always have work because people will always get sick—if that changes, there's bigger things afoot than just job loss! You get to work with people—which, because you were a Psych major, I'm guessing isn't going to be a problem. And there is lots of, as you said, growth potential: there's tons of fields to specialize in in medicine, and tons of niches to fill."

"Okay, but, I can't move to Mount Hill with you," Jon said.

"Not a problem," Brandon said. "My boss, Dr. Keltey, has a friend, a Dr. Aaron... Umm, something—I'll get you the exact name and contact info if you're interested, don't worry—Dr. Aaron Something, who works here in the Shellview area, and is looking to hire. Kelt asked me because I used to go to Greenfield, I might know someone. And, hey: looks like I might."

"Okay, but, you said 'skilled' labor," Caitlyn said. "Does Jon have those skills?"

"No, he doesn't, but that's the thing," said Brandon. "Neither did I. And a lot of doctor's offices are starting to form sort of joint-scholarship/internship things where you're eased in, simultaneously taking classes and getting on-the-job training. You have to pay for the first couple of months of classes out of pocket, but after that you start actually working and drawing a salary—and that pays for the classes pretty quickly, let me tell you."

"Wow," said Jon. "That sounds almost too good to be true."

"It almost is," Brandon said. "With the Baby Boomers starting to hit that really medical-intensive age, and less and less non-immigrant Americans going into medicine, they're strapped for manpower. Normally you're supposed to go to school first to become a certified medical assistant—"

"There's such thing as a medical assistant?" Caitlyn said.

"My point exactly," Brandon said, grinning. "Nobody's heard of the field, so nobody goes into it."

"There's a lot of fields like that nowadays," Christa remarked. "They just keep diversifying what's going on."

"Remember in that old video game Oregon Trail, where there were only three jobs?" Zach said. "Those were the days."

"Right, as I was saying," Brandon said, rolling his eyes at them. "Nobody's heard of it, so nobody goes into it. Now, obviously, if you're friends with one, you've heard of it, and before now that sort of person-to-person recruitment was enough to fill all their vacancies. But not anymore. So now they have this stop-gap program, where they train you and put you to work simultaneously."

"What do you do?" Jon asked.

"Well, the last time you went to the doctor's office, what happened?" Brandon said. "You went in, they took you to a room, and someone came in and did your blood pressure and height and weight and stuff like that—the busywork, in other words, before the doctor came in and did the actual thinking. That busywork person is a medical assistant. When they're not doing that they're running the front desks, making appointments, dealing with phone calls... You've got a lot of responsibilities, yeah, we kind of get stuck with everything that's not doctoring. Docking?"

"That's right," Caitlyn said. "Take the second syllable off."

"Right, well," said Brandon, giving her a leer. "Anyway, that's the job description, but if you think about it, none of it is too hard. I guess this is the menial-labor side of the medical field—we're like the gardeners, the construction workers, the shelf-stockers, stuff like that. But it's medicine, so it's a little more glamorous."

"Wow," said Jon. He wasn't sure if he was going to like or enjoy or even be good at such a thing, but he knew he had to try: it was simply too promising to pass up. "What a birthday present."

"And it's not even your birthday," Meredith laughed.

"Consider it a gift for the whole family," Brandon said.

" 'Whole'?" said Caitlyn. "There's only two of us. Unless, um... Unless, Jon, there's, uh, something you want to tell us."

Jon's mind flashed uncontrollably on subjects of alien implantation and tentacle rape. "I'm not gonna tell you about that!"

"What??" said Caitlyn.

"What??" said the others.

"Okay, um," said Meredith. "Does anyone else not want to know what just went through his head?"

"Not me," said Christa.

"Not me," said Caitlyn.

"Not me," said Brandon.

"Not me," said Zach.

"Ha-ha, you were last," Brandon said. "In the mush-pot with you."

"What!" cried Zach. "Nooo! Last night I had to wash the dishes, and now this?"

"Life just sucks for you, honey," Christa said with a conspicuous grin. "Deal with it."

Zach gave a martyred sigh. "All right, all right. What was it you thought of, Jon?"

Jon shook his head. So not talking to anybody about that! "Sorry, guys, just... It's late, I'm tired. My brain must be short-circuiting or something."

"Aww, is it time to go already?" Meredith said.

In a stage whisper that was probably audible across the courtyard, Brandon said, "They want us to go home so they can have sex."

"Oh!" said Meredith. "Right. It's time to go already. My goodness, look at the time!" She bustled into the bedroom to retrieve her sleeping infant.

"Uhh..." said Caitlyn, who knew that Jon had meant nothing of the sort.

"No, no, it's all right, we totally understand," said Christa with an indispensable grin. "You're an adult now, Caitlyn, fully an adult. There's absolutely nothing wrong with, uh, celebrating that adultness."

"She's not fully an adult," Brandon said. "She isn't twenty-five. She can't rent a car yet."

"... And, that's important because... ?" said Christa, pausing from gathering up the cake tray to give him a perplexed look.

"Well, it's important if you broke the car you own!" Brandon said.

"Ignore this moron over here," said Christa. "You're an adult now, in every sense of the—"

"Besides, can't you still rent a car, they just charge you extra?" Zach asked, shouldering his backpack of stuff. Brandon was gathering up the baby bag. Meredith came scooting out, grabbing a misplaced pacifier as she did.

"Okay, you guys, we're off," she said. "Enjoy the rest of your night. And, again, happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday!" the others echoed. And then the door closed.

Caitlyn sat up to look Jon in the eye. "Uhh," she said again. Aside from a few balloons and the banner hanging from the ceiling, dripping ribbons, there was no proof that anyone had even been here.

"I, uh... I dunno," Jon said. He'd never seen anyone get packed up and leave within a minute, much less a gang of four with a yearling child. All in all, he was kind of impressed.

"Did you set that up with them or something?" she said.

"No," he said. "I didn't... The thought never occurred to me. Actually, I had totally forgotten to say anything about early bedtimes at all, we were just lucky that Christa and Zach thought ahead." He was telling the truth, but he had a hunch his wife didn't believe him.

"But it's worked out conveniently, hasn't it," said Caitlyn, giving him a look. "One would almost think it was your birthday instead of mine." Jon felt a moment of freezing panic, that she actually was offended—but then she grinned, a great teasing smile, and his heart beat again.

"Well... Look, Caitlyn. So what if I did arrange a, what, a private 'go home and let us have sex' signal. I wouldn't've given it until you were done with the party anyway—you know that. And, if it turned out that you weren't in the mood or something—" (Which I think is the case.) "—then... Then we wouldn't do anything. Nobody's forcing you to do anything here. Not them, and certainly not me. It's your birthday. You. Everything is about you today."

"Even you getting a new job?" said Caitlyn, though she sounded more perplexed than suspicious.

"Yes, even me getting a new job," Jon said. "Caitlyn, everything I am is about you. Every day when I wake up, when I go to work, when I come home. You. I have the most beautiful, most wonderful, most precious woman in the world, right here in my arms... And it's my responsibility to make all her dreams come true. If you think I don't take that seriously... Well, I wonder why you married me, then. It certainly wasn't because of my skills as a lover."

He was serious, but she smiled. "No, but you aren't bad in that department either."

"Well," he said, and tried not to look smug.

"Anyway," she said, hitching up a little further so her chin was closer to his. "It seems to me that we have a couple hours before you really have to be asleep... And an apartment that, quite suddenly, is empty of guests. Just a husband and wife... Just you and me." Her eyes twinkled with a smile. "What do you think we should do in the meantime?"

"Hmm. Maybe if we, uh, consider the options, something will... Come up?"

She rolled her eyes. "How'd I know you were going to say that."

"Race you to the bed," he said. "Last one there has to do unmentionable things to the other person's unmentionable parts."

She tilted her head. "You do realize that, since I'm lying on top of you, you're a lot more likely to be last."

He tried not to smirk. "The thought had occurred to me."

She grinned. "You're on."

She did, in fact, beat him to the bed. Neither of them had any cause to complain.



-------

Part 10


Day 37

"Ahh, Jon," said Dr. Polkiss. "What can I do for you. What's this you got here?"

"Uhh ... My two weeks' notice," said Jon sheepishly.

" ... Oh," said Dr. Polkiss.

"I, umm. Well, technically it's 13 days' notice, because Dr. Chandakar wants me to start Monday after next, but I wasn't able to get in touch with him until yesterday, so..." Jon shrugged. "I got it together as fast as I could. I've actually never written a two-weeks'-notice before, I hope it's okay."

Dr. Polkiss had the letter out and was glancing over it. "It doesn't really have to contain anything except a statement that you're getting out ... There aren't actually any rules for it, besides the traditional ones for all business writing ... Spelling and punctuation and all that. And you seem to have used those..."

"In what? Is he writing a novel?" Stephanie Leyton swept in, looking (like she always did) as though she'd just stepped in from a glamour magazine. She peered over Dr. Polkiss' shoulder. " ... Oh." She sighed. "Well, I knew we were going to lose you eventually. You've got a lot to offer, you're wasting yourself here. Our loss, someone else's gain. Where're you going?"

Jon explained the job offer Brandon had suggested. "So I got in touch with the person he suggested—Dr. Aaron Chandakar—and he did in fact have the sort of opening which had been described. They're understaffed and ready to expand. There's a lot more chances for promotion—"

"And raises," Dr. Leyton said.

"—yeah, and raises," said Jon. "And, what with prices going up and Caitlyn to think about ... She's doing the scholarship runaround, but ... Well, suffice it to say that extra money would be really nice right now. And it's never too early to start saving. We've been talking about maybe having to get another car ... We might have to move at some point ... You know, a place of our own, instead of having to rent or lease..."

"There might be an addition to the family," Dr. Polkiss said.

"Oh God, don't talk about that," Jon exclaimed.

"Well, it's what marrying is for, right?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Yeah, but ... Christ. I'm not even twenty-five yet," said Jon. "And Caitlyn just turned 21 two days ago. And our bank accounts aren't nearly in the ... If it happened..." He thought about Chamberses, to whom it had happened. They were surviving, yes, but that was about the best that could be said for them.

"Better invest in birth control then," said Stephanie. "They say birth control is expensive, but you know what's more expensive? Baby."

"True enough," said Jon.

"God, it's so crazy," Stephanie said. "Here you are, neither of you twenty-four, and you're already starting to think about kids and, and buying your own house, and ... My God. I'm thirty-two and I'm not even to that point in my life."

"Well, if you wanted to get your own place," Jon started. "I mean, the housing market is a mess right now, so..."

"No, it's not that," said Stephanie. "I just ... God, I dunno. I remember when Caitlyn could come in here, and I would look at the two of you together and think, 'What the hell is wrong with this mom? Doesn't she know real, honest, genuine love when she sees it? How could you not be happy that your kid had found that?'"

"Well, attempting to link 'sanity' with 'Caitlyn's mom' leads to a lot of frustration," said Jon.

"I know, but ... I mean, you know? It's not easy to find someone who's gonna ... Who will work towards that with you. I mean, I know for a fact that if Caitlyn said she wanted ... I dunno, if she wanted to move to Chicago or something ... You'd work with her towards that. I mean, maybe you'd try to talk her out of it first, but, assuming it was a smart move, then ... You'd support her. You care about what she thinks, what she wants ... You share her dreams."

"Why, Stephanie," said Dr. Polkiss. "I hadn't known you went in for the romantic stuff. Whatever happened to 'Single, independent and proud of it'?"

"I know, I know," said Stephanie, shaking her head. "And it's still so much easier to be single, to not have to ... To not have someone constantly hounding you over when you're coming home, and why didn't you do the dishes, or have to kick his ass about leaving the toilet seat up, or ... Or any of that. But at the same time ... I mean, who do you fall back on? Who's going to look after you? When you're down, or when you're sick, or ... Who's gonna put a smile back on your face?"

She sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Well, Stephanie..." said Dr. Polkiss. " 'Single, independent and proud of it' doesn't have to be a permanent decision. You still have time to change your stripes."

"I know, but ... Where's the guy, you know?" Stephanie said. "All I get is just ... You know, one-night stands. And then people who're ... I mean, you ask them where they're going tonight, and they get all defensive, like, 'What business is it of yours, why do you care where I'm going?' And I'm thinking, 'Well, if I didn't care before, I sure do now.' You know, people who ... People who don't..."

"Who don't want to be tied down," said Dr. Polkiss.

"Kinda like you?" said Jon, smiling at her.

"Well..." said Dr. Leyton. "I mean, yes, there are things I don't want to be bothered about. But there are others that ... I mean, it's not all-or-nothing, you know? There are things I want to be able to do where my husband says, 'Okay, that's fine, don't worry—'"

"'Husband'??" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Well, yeah, that's where it's going, isn't it?" said Stephanie.

"Perhaps, but you've never expressed any such desire before," said Dr. Polkiss.

"Doesn't mean it isn't there," said Stephanie. "And besides, like I've ever met a guy who was even vaguely right for it."

"Fair enough," said Dr. Polkiss, who had been grumbling (quietly) about Stephanie's tastes in men for as long as Jon had known them. "Go on."

"Well, I want ... God, I dunno. I mean, how come you can't find a guy that isn't co-dependent and isn't commitment-phobic? Isn't there someone in between? Either they're all over your business or they don't want to be bothered."

"Those guys do exist," said Dr. Polkiss. "Jon, for instance."

"Yeah, well, no offense, Jon, but I don't think you and I would work out," said Stephanie. "You're still too far on the 'co-dependent' side for me."

"Fair enough," said Jon, grinning. "Stephanie, it sounds like you just have to find the right guy. You can't be the only person out there who wants part-freedom, part-independence. You just gotta find the others who are like that."

"Oh, right," said Stephanie, whose tone of voice made clear her opinions of success for such an endeavour. "Where?"

"Well, not bars, for one," said Dr. Polkiss. "Not clubs. Well, maybe clubs, but in general those places are filled with people from your former lifestyle—which you just said isn't right for you anymore."

"Where?" Stephanie said, sounding desperate.

"The gym maybe?" Jon said. "At least, people there are likely to be a little more serious."

"Yeah, but, they're all married," Stephanie protested. "They all come in with their wives or their girlfriends."

"All?" said Dr. Polkiss. "You can't find a single one who isn't tied down somehow?"

"Well, maybe not all..." Stephanie said.

"Then there's hope," said Dr. Polkiss simply.

"But ... God, I'm so old! And compared to you guys ... I mean, here's Jonathan, getting married at..."

"Well, Jonathan's a special case," said Dr. Polkiss. "Peggy got married when she was twenty-nine. I got married when I was thirty-three, and even back then that was a pretty normal age for it. You've still got a year to go, even by old-fogey standards like ours." He grinned. "Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it never will."

Stephanie shook hair back from her face, sighed and nodded.

When he had a spare moment, Jon sent Caitlyn an e-mail: I need to remember, every day, to be thankful that I found you. He knew it would make her smile to read it, and that made it worth doing.

Nothing much happened at work—the same parade of people, the same procession of cavities and bad flossing and halitosis—but as Jon packed up, he remembered that today was Tuesday, and that they were supposed to head off to this week's installment of the Larson college group. He wasn't sure he was looking forward to it. The first week's meeting and discussion had been very good, of course, but was that going to be a fluke? No matter how much exposure he had to Caitlyn's idea of a good church (and, to be fair, it was quite a good one in his experience), he could never be entirely trustful of an organized religion or its governing members. He had heard too many preachers say too many stupid things in the name of their faith.

He knew he was being reluctant, of course. If part of being a Christian was to be open to new experiences, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. That didn't generally stop him from trying other things in life—Brandon's job suggestions, the GEA fiasco, new things in bed with Caitlyn (especially those)—but when it came to the church, he was curiously conservative, and he knew himself too well to be able to lie about it. For some reason, I'm just not comfortable there. And I don't know why.

When he got home, he found Caitlyn curled up on the couch, working her way through a textbook. This was sight enough to drive all other thoughts from his head. She was dressed in dark canvas pants and a sleek woolen sweater, warm but still molded to her curves. Her dark hair curled around one ear, making commas against her pale skin. She was beautiful to his eyes, more beautiful than anything else he had ever seen, and it was a scary and exciting thing to know that this girl, this woman, was entrusted now to his care.

I need to remember, every day, to be thankful that I found you.

Something in his gaze must have tickled her. She looked up. "What?"

The moment was gone. Jon shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing important."

"Long day?"

"Too long." Any day away from you is too long.

"Well, there's leftovers in the fridge, so if you wanna take a nap or something before we go—"

"I love you," he said, unable to hold the words in any longer.

Caitlyn blinked, and then gave him a wry smile. "Well, good thing, because if not, it'd be rather inconvenient to be married."

"I love you, Caitlyn."

"I love you too, Jon," said Caitlyn, still with that wry smile, "but I'm starting to wonder if you got enough sleep last night."

Jon wasn't sure what he had been trying to accomplish, but he was quite sure this wasn't it. He wobbled back and forth for a minute, trying to decide whether to push any further, and then gave up and went to check his e-mail. Presently Caitlyn put aside her text and broke out the leftovers; dinner happened, and they talked as normal, and Jon didn't give any more thought to it. It wasn't until much later that he realized in his brain what his heart had already known: that he had been looking for some sign of love or affection; some indication that, if he asked, she would put the book down and come say hello. And that, for the first time in their marriage, she hadn't.

Nonetheless, from some instinctive understanding of the situation, Jon didn't push her, and the conversation was light but meaningless until they got to the Larsons' house and the meeting started.

Though he had only been there once before, Jon felt a strange sense of homecoming. Part of it was that the home was so inviting—the home, and the people who lived there. Alice Larson greeted them both—greeted him—like a long-lost friend, and her husband was scarcely less welcoming. And many of the "kids" greeted them the even more warmly—Max Lapinski, Missy Sloane, Alisa Bergen. Jon wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to befriend them to such a level. Or was this just how they greeted everyone? Jon, who had grown up primarily in the company of his sister's cats, was still acclimating to the kind of people who preferred dogs.

Caitlyn's family keeps a dog. And yet Caitlyn ... Look at her. She hasn't taken to all this hugging and air-kissing and stuff either. Heck, I think I'm more comfortable with it than she is. Of course, they don't do the air-kissing thing on me. Jon had never understood that gesture in the first place.

It was a warm but frantic five minutes, of course, as everyone got back in touch with everyone and caught up on recent events. Everyone wanted to know how he was doing, what had happened since the last meeting, as if it had been months and not seven days. Long-lost friends is right. I wonder how this came about? He'd never met any group or organization that greeted in quite this particular manner. Certainly Max and Alisa and Missy and Pastor Larson and Alice Larson all felt that nothing special had happened to them this week. Jon wasn't sure that anything special had happened to him either—at least, not anything really worth saying. The weird little ... incident ... earlier today, for instance: how could he broach it, when he wasn't really sure what had happened—or, for that matter, that anything had happened at all? Even so, at the rate Caitlyn and my lives have been going recently, maybe we'll be glad of this attitude next week.

The one person he wasn't really glad to see was Harold Cheng. Something about this man just rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was the way he seemed to be visible out of the corner of one's eye for one moment, and the next have gone away again. Was he lurking, stooping—trying to find some moment in which to swoop in?

And sure enough: a moment came in which Caitlyn was deep in conversation with Missy, and Jon looked away for a second to see who else was there. And he caught eyes squarely with Harold, who looked astonished to be noticed.

Jon made a split-second decision to give it a shot. "Hi, Harold. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," said Harold. "I've just been, you know. Working."

"Oh? I thought you were in school."

"No, I'm like you," said Harold. "Older. I work at a software company in Belham Falls."

"They have software companies here?" said Jon. "This isn't the Silicon Valley."

"Not many, but they're here," Harold said. "I mean, have you seen the housing prices? Not everyone can afford to be based there."

"Fair enough," said Jon, who was well aware of how far his luxuriant receptionist's salary would actually take them in a monetary crisis.

"I had to do this piece of coding today," Harold said. "I'm not sure who was in charge of it earlier, but the logic was ... I mean, he had contradictions everywhere. I think he rewrote half of his functions differently in different places. This one time I..."

And Jon listened in mounting horror, realizing that when he had asked him, 'How are you, ' Harold had taken it seriously.

Do people do that? Does everyone do that? No, of course not. The others—most people—had said a few words about their own lives, and Jon (taking the hint) had said a few words about his; and then they had picked up something interesting from whatever had just been said, and run with that. Asking 'How are you?' was a way of allowing each person to establish a potential topic of conversation. You weren't supposed to take it seriously.

But isn't that misleading? Why should we ask how the other person is doing if we don't actually care—or, rather, if that isn't the answer we want them to give?

But no one else does it. They all know it's misleading. They know that 'How are you?' is a code, a way of saying something that isn't the words themselves. They understand the, what, the social context? The clues? They aren't fumbling over it. They aren't making social faux pas. They aren't ... Awkward.

Pastor Larson was standing in the middle of the room, attempting to gather everyone to order. "If we could all sit down ... Excuse me, everyone, if we could please all..."

"Thanks, Jon," said Harold, with a smile, "you're a really good listener," and sat down on the other side of Caitlyn.

Jon, numb, sat down too. Caitlyn took one look at him, leaned in and said, "What?" Jon shook his head. The thought that Harold was now going to treat him as a friend had rendered him temporarily mute.

"Hello, everyone," said Pastor Larson. "Thank you all for coming. This is the second meeting of our college group, hopefully the second of many. I see we have some new faces today; why don't we start by going around the circle and introducing ourselves."

The new people were, by and large, folks who either hadn't heard about the college group or hadn't been able to make it last week. There were quite a few of them, but the group did not seem to have increased appreciably in size. Jon wondered who had decided not to come again. He wondered if, had he not been married to Caitlyn, he would've been one of those drop-outs.

"The Scripture we've chosen to discuss today is one of the most famous in all the Bible: Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-45." The coordinates meant nothing to Jon, but there was enough response from many of the group members—Caitlyn included—that he realized it must be something famous. And once the Bibles were passed out and cracked open, he saw why. "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these... "

"A profound statement," said Pastor Larson, "with profound consequences. Every follower of Jesus, from the Apostles on down, has known that Jesus was calling us to do something very different with our lives, to live in a very different way than we had lived before. 'Love your neighbor, ' yes, but ... What else? What do you think Jesus means by this passage? Who do you think he was referring to; who do you think he was describing as 'the least'?"

They split into groups, as they had the week before. Jon was pleased that Harold was on the seam: he was divided into one group, Caitlyn into the next. Of the other two in their four-person group, one was Max Lapinski; the other, Lauren Schachter, was one of the new people. She was heavy, but not unpleasantly so, with a big smile.

"So," she said. "Scripture."

"Yep, the Bible," said Max Lapinski. "The good ol' Holy Book. The Word of God."

"Good advice to all the world, at the very least," said Jon.

"Amen," said Max.

"But strange advice, too, at times," said Caitlyn. "Imagine what the disciples must've thought when they heard this. 'We're supposed to do what-now??'"

"Christ had a habit of that," Max said. "Remember the parable of the prodigal son? Kid comes back, having wasted half of his father's fortune, and we're just supposed to welcome him back in? It took me a long time to understand that story."

"God works in mysterious ways, they say," Lauren said. "To which my answer is, 'Duh!—don't you read the Bible?'"

"So anyway, the least," said Caitlyn. "They whom we are supposed to serve. Who are they?"

"Well, what does the Bible say?" Lauren said. "I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was homeless and you took me in."

"I was a stranger and you took me in," Caitlyn corrected, her finger already tracing the passage.

"I was sick and you tended me?" Max said.

"Yeah," said Caitlyn. "And, I was in prison and you visited me."

"Well, there's some of 'em right there," said Lauren with a wide grin. "The least, to whom we are supposed to minister."

"So, hungry people—ain't got any shortage of those," Max said.

"Give me your tired and your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," Jon recited out of some dim memory.

"Obviously, if you want people who are in prison, you could go to a prison," Max said. "If you want someone sick, you could go to a hospital."

"Obviously," said Lauren. "And the homeless ... Well, check your local street corner. If they're out of stock, check the next one."

"Ha! There we go! We've got it sorted!" said Max.

Jon glanced at Caitlyn, and she met his eyes. Jon was pleased that she agreed with his assessment: that there was more to it than this. Max was a sophomore in college, Lauren a freshman; They're young, Caitlyn's gaze seemed to say. Give them time.

" ... No, that can't be it," said Max. "There's more to it than that. There's always more to it than that."

"Yeah, it's never that simple," Lauren agreed. "It's not just always the most obvious places."

"A friend of mine..." Caitlyn began. "My friend Brandon once said that people who wear masks are also the ones most likely to be deceived by them. Those of us who ... Who are hiding the truth about ourselves—or have things we don't want seen—those are the very people who are least likely to notice when someone else is acting the same way."

"That's ... That's really interesting," said Lauren, sounding intrigued.

"Yeah, but, what does it have to do with this?" Max said.

"It relates because all of these ... these afflictions, for lack of a better word ... All of these afflictions might be right in front of us," Caitlyn said. "We don't see them, because they don't look all, you know, all stereotypical—because the person is hiding them. But they're there."

Jon saw where this was going. "When we hear about what Christ is saying—people who are hungry, or unclothed, or imprisoned—we all think, 'Oh, that could never happen to me. Those are things that happen to other people. Those are things that happen to other countries.' And ... I think we can rule that out. I think the point is that that's not true. These things are as real to us today as they were in Christ's time."

"It's only that they've gone underground," Caitlyn said. "But that makes it all the more important to fight them, because most people won't even notice they're there."

Lauren and Max exchanged looks, and then turned almost as one to regard the two of them.

" ... What?" Caitlyn said.

Lauren shrugged. "Well ... Every now and then, you guys prove you're married." She was smiling.

Jon felt a flush on his cheeks. He didn't need to look at Caitlyn to know hers were probably the same.

When the groups reconvened, the discussion went essentially the same direction it had in their circle, which Jon commented on during the drive home. "I guess we figured out where it was going."

"Yeah, that 'the least' are all around us," Caitlyn said. "That if we keep our eyes open, we'll see them. It's not a bad idea, really. It's a reminder that the people we're called to minister to aren't just, you know, 'out there.' They're here too."

"If we can find them," Jon said.

"Aren't they right under our noses?" Caitlyn said. "Isn't that what we figured out?—that they're everywhere, just hiding? All of us—I mean, heck, Jon, you took me in."

Jon was silent.

"I was a stranger, and you invited me in." Her hand covered his on the center console. "At Meredith's wedding, Jon. I was ... I was alone, and frightened, and feeling so ... Unloved. Like nobody in the world would ever want to ... Like nobody in the world did love me. I was unknown to everyone and outside everything. I was a stranger. And you... Saw, and even though I was the least, you invited me in."

His hand turned palm-up. Their fingers intertwined.

"That's what it's about. That's what we're called to do. Surely you of all people can understand that."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

"I think what it really is," she said, "is that—is that we're supposed to look at everyone around us, and ask ... You know, 'How are they hungry? How are they thirsty? How are they naked or homeless or imprisoned? And how can we help them?' You know?"

Jon knew. It was why he had majored in Psychology; why Christianity called to him; why, when he had sat down with a shivering girl named Caitlyn Delaney at a wedding and heard her story, he had begun to love her in those very moments. There is a world of suffering out there—so many hurts and pains and fears to be addressed. Everyone has their burdens. Too much for any one person to heal. But whatever comes my way, whoever happens to stray before me ... That's who I'm called to treat with. I can help—and, even more than that, I must.

He squeezed her hand. "We can do it," he said. "Together, we can do it."

They smiled at each other in the shifting light.

"And ... There is someone right under our nose," she said. "Someone who needs help.

"Okay," he said, smiling. "Who?"

"Harold."

"What?!"

"You heard me," said Caitlyn. "Jon, look at him. He's friendless and alone. Did you see the way he latched onto you?" In the darkness of the car her eyes still seemed to catch the light. "He has no one to listen to him, no one to befriend him. He's like I was. Doesn't that ... Doesn't that make you feel anything?"

He's not nearly as attractive as you are. "He's not nearly as well-mannered as you are. Caitlyn, I ... Jesus."

"You're not supposed to just say that, Jon."

"Look, Caitlyn, you know why he doesn't have friends? You know why everybody ignores him? It's because he's desperate. He's desperate and he's lonely. And people can smell that. They don't wanna touch him with a ten-foot pole! Because if they do, they know he's gonna glom onto them. He will latch on and he won't let go. Is that what you want, Caitlyn? Do you want to be his only friend?—the person who's in charge of all his happiness?"

"First off, Jon, who says I'm in charge of all his happiness? If a time comes when he wants too much from us, then I'll tell him we're busy and that we don't—"

"Ha. You? Caitlyn, when have you ever been able to turn people down? You drove four hundred miles to play for free at the wedding of someone you don't even like just because someone asked you."

"That's besides the point. And second, no, I don't wanna be his only friend: I want to do what Christ calls us to, which is help him reach the point where we're not his only friends, because he can go out and make more."

"Christ calls us to put ourselves in a lousy position?"

"Christ calls us to do good works!"

"Christ calls us to do stupid works, more like." He knew the instant he said it that he should've kept his mouth shut, but by then it was too late. Besides, he couldn't help what he thought was true. "Caitlyn, trying to help Harold Cheng is a mistake. He'll hurt our feelings, he'll use us, he'll be a constant annoyance, and once he feels better he'll go off and leave us with nothing."

"Turn the other cheek."

" ... Can be suicidal."

"Jon, it's not going to lose us that much."

"It's not the loss, it's the principle of the thing. What good does it do to cripple ourselves, to drag ourselves down with this?"

"We're fulfilling the word of God! We're showing our faith!"

Jon had no answer to that. Or at least, none he could say out loud.

Caitlyn heard it anyway. "And you don't think that's worth doing. Do you."

"Caitlyn," he started.

"You don't think it's important to act as a Christian in this case."

He wanted to answer, but their turn came up, and for a few moments he was busy parking the car and dogging it down; and by the time he was done, she was already gone up the stairs. He did think it was important to act as a Christian—yes, maybe even in this case. But he didn't think turning the other cheek meant deliberately shooting yourself in the foot ... Did it?

When he got into the apartment she was digging blankets out of the closet.

"I'll sleep on the couch," she said. "It's my fault. I'm the one having the disagreement. You shouldn't have to get exiled for that."

"Wait, the ... You ... What?"

"We had a fight, didn't we?" She didn't turn to face him. "Our very first fight."

It was. Even though they'd dated for eighteen months, they'd never raised their voices like this. Jon felt a draining sensation in his guts. "This wasn't a..."

"We found something we couldn't agree on," said Caitlyn in a businesslike voice. "Something we just have to agree to disagree about. Doesn't that sound like a fight to you?"

Jon felt the world in a dizzying swing under him. He latched on to the first coherent thought to bob his way. "I didn't ask you to sleep on the couch."

She gave him a bleak look. "I did."

Jon stared at her for a few more seconds, and then, ever obedient to her wishes, crossed to the bedroom and closed the door. Finally it occurred to him that she didn't want to be near him tonight.

Automatically he checked his e-mail and put some sleeping clothes on—it was the first time he was wearing them in months, since there was normally a beautiful woman in bed with him, one who loved him just as much as he loved her. It wasn't even his bed; it was Caitlyn's. She had slept in it for years before now. Who was he to be occupying it while she tossed and turned on the canvas couch? He didn't belong here. Not without her.

She hadn't debated or hesitated; she hadn't questioned the prerogative. Instead she had simply exiled herself—had simply taken it upon herself to bear the sufferings of the situation. 'We had a fight; it was my fault; I should be the one to be punished.' It was one of the things that made him love her: that she would not let anyone come to pain if she could be brought there instead.

What am I doing? It should be me out there instead of her. It should be me out there with her.

He lay in the tangled sheets, soaked in the light from the streetlamps, one arm flung above his head. He could not tell when he slept or woke; one dribbled into the other and back again. Perhaps he dreamed that he was awake. He did not look at the clock; he didn't want to know. The drone of the computer was empty in his ears. He missed the breathing, the constant subconscious near-subliminal in-out that meant his light, his life, his everything, was still here for him. He caught himself turning to see the crescent-moon of her face and forced himself to stillness.

He only knew he was asleep because she woke him.

"Jon. Jon." The voice was low. "Jon, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Though it was dead-of-night o'clock, he was awake; this time, his brain was ready. "Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for..." The voice was choked, the crescent-moon streaked with tears. "I don't want to be alone anymore, Jon, I shouldn't've ... I thought, if I abandoned you, if I made you feel like I felt..."

"I would never abandon you," he said. He sat up, swinging his feet out, and put his arms around her. She was cold; to his touch she seemed almost icy. How long had she stood here? "I would never ... Caitlyn, if you're set on this, if this is what you think is right, I'll support you. I love you. I'm your husband. Some things ... There are things that are more important than what I want."

"Oh, Jon," she said, and threw herself into his arms.

"What are you doing out there? You should be in bed. It's late. Come on..."

"I had a ... I had a dream. That you were gone, that I came in here and you were gone, there was ... All the clothes, all your things ... And it wasn't that you'd left, it's that you'd never been to begin with ... And I had to, to come in and see, and, and, and I—"

"Shh, it's okay. I'm here." It was awkward getting her into the bed, but they managed. "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving you. Never. I love you."

"Jon," she whispered.

"Shhh, it's okay. It's okay. You're home."

In only a few moments, she was asleep again, the silver of her tears still drying on her face. And, in only a few moments more, so was he.

He was home too.

-------

Day 40

On Friday, Jon got home early. Caitlyn was rattling around in the kitchen, washing some dishes, when he came in unexpectedly. "They let me go a little early," he explained. And, almost immediately, the shenanigans started up in earnest.

Caitlyn had had a pretty quiet day. She had gone back down to Shellview State to see if anyone had a part-time job she could get into, and left her resume at a few places; one supervisor had even interviewed her, but he was looking for behind-the-counter workers at the school's cafeteria, and Caitlyn didn't see that working out for her. The job at the library, the T.A. position under Professor Cowell in the Music Department: those were what she was hoping on. She wondered why she had bothered spending so many days trolling the Internet when going in-person had been so much more efficient: she'd gone in for barely an hour and been infinitely more successful, in that people had actually acknowledged her and some had shown definite interest in taking her on—as opposed to the Internet applications she'd tried, in which her appeals had disappeared into the Great Cyber Beyond with hardly an acknowledgement of their existence, and no one had ever answered her back. She realized now that people must be a lot more interested in you if you showed up in person. Then why do they bother with the Internet?

She had also spent a little time on the phone with Harold Cheng. The conversation had been a little strained, mostly because Jon was right: the man had no social graces to speak of whatsoever. Was 'conversation' the right word when it consisted solely of Harold rambling for thirteen minutes on the intricacies of function order and coding elegance? He probably would've gone on longer if his lunch break hadn't ended. Nonetheless, she wasn't going to admit defeat. Surrender was not in Caitlyn Stanford.

Relations between her and Jon had been very friendly since their spat. She was going out of her way not to antagonize him, and she had a sense that he was too. There was a lot of laughter between them, and some more conversation than they had shared previously, but never about anything important. Everything was happier, but also hollower. And they had not been conjugal since her birthday dinner, which she was somewhat embarrassed to admit she missed. Jon seemed to have no interest in her, which seemed astounding. She knew that, probably, he was holding himself back, giving her space; he knew she wasn't always, wasn't perfectly, comfortable with what they did together, even though they'd been married for over a month. And yet something kept her from reaching out instead. Part of it was shame—no matter how loose Jon kept her, there was a part of her that believed no proper woman would ever try to initiate sex. And part of it was fear: what if he actually had lost interest? What if it was all a facade? What if he had learned something so catastrophic that he could no longer bear to ... Well, clearly, it was easier to just not broach the subject.

So when he came in the threshold and said, "They let me go a little early," she smiled at him and said, "Well, more time for us to be together," in the hopes that he would take the hint. She didn't want to be estranged from him like this.

"It's Friday," he said. "What do you want to do?"

"I was thinking ... I was thinking we might just have a quiet night together," she said. She looked up at him, stroked the line of his jaw with a finger. "Just the two of us."

"Oh really," he said, smiling.

"It's been ... It's been a stressful week," she said.

"That it has."

"And it's been a long time since we've been ... Together." She felt her cheeks heating, but didn't back down.

"That it has," he said.

"If ... If you wanna, you know, go do something else ... I mean, the Cranes are back in town, we could always look them up. Or we could invite some of your friends from Octapella over."

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to spend time with my husband," she said.

So that was what they did.

They cooked dinner together—the first time they'd done so all week. They talked, they laughed; but it was less fake, less empty. Jon told her about the stupid things the patients at the dental clinic had done; she told him about the stupid things she'd seen while walking around campus. She felt in some strange way like she hadn't seen him in ages, even though she'd gone to sleep next to him not eighteen hours ago.

She needed to broach it somehow, so she said it as they worked: "Oh, and, I got Harold Cheng's number from Pastor Larson."

"Oh?" said Jon. He didn't look at her. "Did you call him?"

" ... Yeah," she said.

"What did he say?"

"Well ... He gave me a lecture on how to program a database management system," she said.

She saw a quirk of a smile, quickly hidden. "Did you ask him for a lecture?"

"No," she said. " ... Well, yes. In that, you know, I talked to him at all."

She knew that, if he wanted to say, I told you so, now would be the time; and she resolved that, if he did, she would bear it in silence. But instead he shook his head and grinned. "Well, next time, you can bore him with a lecture on harp architecture, and that way you'll get even."

She turned to him. "Does it bother you? Does it bother you that..." She couldn't articulate what it was. Really, she wasn't sure herself.

"Well," he said. "I worry about you. I mean, seriously, hon—you don't know how to say no to people. This ... Harold's co-dependent, in a way, in that, once he's got a friend, he won't let go. I worry that you'll get so locked up in it that you won't have time for yourself."

Or for my husband,  she finished in her head. "Maybe so, but remember, Jon, that's what I have you for."

He gave her a cautious look.

"You're ... Well, maybe 'selfish' isn't the right word. But you have such a sense of ... Boundary. You know what lines people are allowed to cross, and what lines they aren't. And you don't let anybody trample on you. And I know that ... If I let you ... You'll do the same for me."

"Yeah, but, will you let me?" he said. He reached out to touch her shoulder.

In answer, she moved into his arms, drew him down to her, and kissed him.

His arm circled her waist; the other her shoulders. She felt the way his body arched over hers, melding to her; she felt the buttons on his shirt pressing against her skin, the warmth of his body against her breasts. His tongue caressed hers; she drew a hand through his hair. She could already feel a touch of wetness between her legs, a touch of stiffness against her belly.

"Oh God," he breathed. "It's been too long."

"Well, maybe if you..." The rest of the protest was lost as his mouth found her ear. His tongue traced the skin of her head, the folds and crevices there; then his teeth, nipping gently. While dating him, she had never understood why her ear was such an erogenous zone for her: it didn't seem to elicit any such response from him; instead, he liked it when she sucked on his fingers, though. Then they were married, and she found out that, without realizing it, she had loved his ministrations on her ears in anticipation of what he would do with his tongue down below.

He bent his head further, kissing her neck; he turned her body, shifting her hair aside. She felt the sudden coolness of air on the back of her neck, already tingling with goosebumps; then the touch of his lips sent shivers through her. She reached for his hand and pulled it around to cup her breast.

"Maybe if I what?" he said.

"You were the one holding off," she said.

"What, you think I wanted to? I didn't want to hurt you."

"Maybe if we had talked about it."

"Okay. Wanna?"

"Unhhhh."

"There, we've talked about it."

She laughed, low and husky, as he drew her back against him. His lips moved to her other ear, licking and nibbling, as one hand covered her breast and the other slid down to rest on the crotch of her pants. Her nipples had already stiffened against her bra, though she doubted he could feel it; the hardness in his pants was pressing into her back and she knew that his hand down below must be feeling the fire there as well. He bent his head around her shoulder to nip at her throat, and she threw her head back, letting him hunch over her, letting him feed the fire.

When his hand left her breast she gave a moan of dismay, but then she felt him fumbling with the button on her pants. In a moment they were pooled on the floor. Then she felt knuckles against the bare skin of her butt, and had a moment's confusion before suddenly his erection was free, a bar of fire between her legs. When his hands grasped her hips, she let him tilt them backwards, and suddenly he was home.

It was a different sensation than before. He had entered her from behind before—doggie-style a few times, or a slow, langorous bout in the mornings as they spooned together in bed. This was entirely different. His lips on her ear, his hands on her breasts, as she stood with her ass in the air, feeling him penetrate her from behind, feeling their bodies undulate back and forth as he did her. She had no idea how she'd gotten this wet. She had no idea how she'd gotten this horny. He was moaning in her ear, and she was moaning too, and if they'd forgotten to close the blinds again than that stupid neighbor of theirs was going to get an eyeful of Jon's butt but she didn't care, she was lost to the moment and she wanted nothing more than his cock inside her.

He thrust with sharp, deliberate movements; he couldn't get as far in as he could in other positions, probably because of the awkward angle. Her whole back was covered by his chest, by that warm plane of muscle wrapped around her. His arms were crossed over her chest, hands on opposite breasts, kneading their flesh. She felt his thighs knocking against the back of her legs as he straddled her, shoving up from the hip, impaling her on his cock—his warm, fat cock, so magnificent inside her, filling her up, filling her body with pleasure, making her whole.

Suddenly she felt him tense, heard him groan; he thrust in as deep as he could go, and she felt him pulsing, throbbing; and then the warmth of his seed deep within her. She sighed with pleasure and pressed back against him, wanting him deeper, wanting to draw him as deep as she could go, feeling his love for her in his breathless moans, his arms strong around her, his heart thudding against her skin, his hot cum pulsing out of him, splashing against her walls. That was his love for her, that warm and gooey treasure deep within her, and her love for him was to be here, to take it, to feel it cling to the walls of her pussy, to caress him with her length to serve his pleasure, and to lean back and kiss him as his heart thudded down from its final crescendo.

"Oh, God, Caitlyn ... Caitlyn, my love, my beautiful beautiful woman ... I don't know how I ... How can I ever show you how much I love you..."

"Didn't you?" she said, smiling, and wiggled her hips against him. This did very interesting things to them both, since he was still inside her.

He kissed her again, and as they stood entwined, his penis softened and eventually dropped out of her. She was sad to feel it go. That's how I know we were meant to be, that he was meant to be mine. When we're just talking about things, or working up to it, I always feel so awkward, so doubtful ... But once he's inside me, once we're actually making love, he fits me perfectly. He belongs. I am his, I belong to him, my body was made to be a home for him. And his was made to live in mine.

He stood back, and she bent down to pick up her pants and put them back on. She knew her panties would be soaked soon, by his cum and by her own juices, but she didn't want that dripping down her leg. But when she turned, Jon had simply stepped out of his pants and was now bare from the waist down. His penis waggled stiffly from side to side, still proud if not at full mast, and his pubic hair made a dark thatch above it.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

He shrugged, gave her pants a look, and raised his eyebrows at her.

She rolled her eyes.

Of course, in that state of dress, she knew where things would head once they got the chicken in the oven and themselves in the bedroom; and Jon did not disappoint. Having said that, he made a play of it, kissing her everywhere, slowly liberating her from her clothes, undoing one layer at a time with the utmost care and love. Soon they sat naked together, facing each other unashamed over the bedcovers.

"Does it really bother you that I want to help Harold," she asked him.

He made a face. "It ... I dunno, Caitlyn. He just ... He rubs me the wrong way. Kind of..." He sighed. "Kind of reminds me of myself, in some ways."

She looked at him. "What?"

"Well ... You didn't know me back then. But I was a lot like that when I was younger. So ... So underconfident. Clinging to whatever I had to make me sound interesting. You might not believe it, but, I was one of the weirdos once."

She didn't believe it—not because she thought he was lying, but because she simply couldn't see it happening. Jon was so confident and genuine today. But if he said it had happened... "And you don't really like seeing that reminder?"

"No," he said. "I didn't much like myself back then."

She touched his hand to show her sympathy. He took it, resting them on his knee.

"And..." He sighed, rubbing his face with a hand. "And, it makes me wonder ... God, I dunno. It makes me ... Wonder if ... Maybe ... I mean, you like me, right? And ... He's ... Like me."

She saw where this was going, and spoke sharply to head it off.

"Jon, Harold is no more like you than ... Than Rex is like you. You're right, maybe you were like him once ... But you're not like him anymore. You're so different from him now. You've gotten over your lack of confidence, and now you ... Well, you do what makes sense to you, you say what's in your heart, and you don't care if others disagree. Harold wants to be liked, he's almost like a dog that way; you don't need to want that, because you know you are. There's a huge difference.

"And, Jon: I married you. I am your wife. You are my husband. That's more important than ... Than a lot of things. Than almost everything. It doesn't matter if Prince Perfect comes along tomorrow—I'm already married, to you. I've made my decision." She stroked his face. "And I don't regret it one bit.

"And besides, even if Prince Perfect were to come along, I can guarantee you he's not Harold Cheng." She smiled.

His face was pale, drawn. She suddenly realized just how difficult it must have been for him to make that admission. Love for him swelled in her heart, and she drew him to her, putting her arms around him, holding him close.

"I love you," she whispered. "We're married. That's that. Nobody could ever... Ever take your place in my heart. I wouldn't let them."

He drew her close, his arms around her, and shook. When she felt wetness on her head, she suddenly realized he was crying. Curious—she had cried in his arms so many times, but this was the first time the reverse was true.

Funny; I thought I knew all there was to know of him.

It didn't take long. After a little while he shook his head and sniffed and got his composure back. "I love you," he whispered. "I'm so glad you're in my life." And when he pulled away, she looked up and saw the silver tracks on his face, and kissed them, and then kissed him.

As they sidled together, still connected at the lip, she let her hand drift down his body, over his warm chest and down into the thatch between his legs. His cock was still damp from her own oven when she took it in her hand, which reminded her that if she wanted to play with it, she should probably clean it off first. She gave him a final peck and got up for a washcloth. "I'll be right back."

Once her plaything was washed and dried, she regarded it with clear eyes. She was still vaccilating over it. She knew that he liked it when she played with it—well, that was only fair; she liked it when he played with her privates, assuming she could get over the pre-nervousness—and to be perfectly honest she didn't mind doing it either. His penis as an object wasn't all that thrilling to her (unless it was deep inside her, pushing up towards her womb where, God willing, he would one day start a life inside her), but she knew what it did to him, knew how much he loved it when she played with it—loved doing those things to him.

The problem was his semen.

As far as she was concerned, there was only one appropriate place for cum in the human body: inside her, as deep as it would go, warm and slippery and tingling in the corners and crevices of her pussy. She didn't like it in her mouth—the taste just wasn't any good, nor the texture—but the idea of backing off and letting him just spurt everywhere wasn't any good either. Once, in the early days of their marriage when they had still lived at his parents' house, she had asked him to spurt off as an experiment—well, she had helped him get there too—and watched as it flew everywhere. They had done this in the shower, which had helped with the clean-up; but right now they were lying on their bed, and she didn't want his semen getting all over the place—the bed, his legs, maybe even her. But conversely she didn't want to have to get him in the shower every time she wanted to kiss him on the penis.

The solution, to her, was for her to straddle him and take him inside her when he reached his coming point, and let him spurt off in the place he belonged, in the place she loved to have his cum. But Jon didn't like that. The one time she'd done it, he'd protested that it wasn't fair for him to take his orgasm inside her without being compensated in return, and then insisted on going down on her—going down on her!, while his cum was still inside her! She was so grossed out by the idea that she was completely unable to relax, and (as she'd learned by now) orgasm was downright impossible when tensed up. She'd never tried it again.

Some of this must have been on her face; or perhaps Jon simply knew her well enough to predict her thoughts. "Baby, you don't have to. Not just to please—"

"Hush," she said, smiling. "I want to. I like to. I just ... Don't know what to do when you come."

"Just ... Well, I have an idea, but it, umm. It came from the Internet."

From one of those euphemistically-named 'adult videos.' "Okay."

"You could just ... Keep your mouth there, and, and let it shoot, but ... Let it drip out again. That would control the, um, the splashing, but it still wouldn't get too much of anywhere."

She shrugged. "It's worth a try. Why don't you lie down?"

He scooted back on the bed until he was sitting up against the wall. It wasn't what she had intended, but as she moved in closer she decided this was fine too—maybe even better. She could lay her head on his lap and get to work; she could look up and see his face. His hands caressed her back, stroked her hair. Yes, this would be just fine.

His penis was small and soft, but even as she took it in her mouth she felt it begin to warm and enlarge. He was circumcized, so there was a ring of flinty skin partway down the shaft, but otherwise the skin was deliciously soft and smooth, in a way she had never imagined before becoming married. She could still smell the scent of their previous coupling; but then she would've needed shampoo to fix that. She could stand it.

She was pretty familiar with its geography by now, and she began to lick her way up and down the shaft. She took advantage of its current flaccidity to suck it all into her mouth; once he was up to full staff, there was no way to fit it all. As it continued to grow and firm, she let loose, and then returned to the head, noting in passing that her nose was now itchy and tickly from its brief contact with pubic hair. She stopped to scratch it and continued on.

What Jon had told her was that an in-out, or perhaps up-down, motion was necessary to bring him to orgasm—sensible, since that was the motion his penis went through when buried deep inside her, touching folds of her body she never knew were there—and that her mouth was the most logical tool to use. But she wanted to see how much she could accomplish with her tongue. Conscious of his hands in her hair, on her back, she began to rub her tongue against the underside of his penis, first gently, and then with increasing intensity.

She wondered suddenly what they must look like now: Jon upright in the bed, hunched over her, his eyes lidded, his hands caressing her skin; she curled up on the bed, her head in his lap, her own privates peeking out between her legs as she lay on her side. Jon was groaning now, possibly taken aback by the sudden intensity of sensation, and she propped an elbow up on the other side of his legs so that she could approach from the top. Giving up on the tongue, she began to work her mouth up and down, gently at first but with increasing speed. His cock seemed larger in her mouth than ever, and his breathing was ragged—a sure sign of his impending orgasm. "Caitlyn," he was gasping. "Caitlyn, Caitlyn ... I'm gonna—"

A sudden intensity of thought grasped her: that she didn't want to miss this orgasm. She knew what it felt like when he was down below—the pulsing, the splashing, the urgency in his muscles as he pushed his way deeper into her body—but now she wanted real details. She secured her lips to his shaft, pressed her tongue up against the bottom of his penis, and hung on for dear life.

She sensed rather than felt his balls contracting, pushing his semen up; but she felt it as it burst up into the shaft, felt him swelling in dimension. And suddenly with a tremor he was there, bursting up into her mouth—she had the sense to breathe through her nose this time, and it pooled on her tongue. As she watched from her limited angle, his mouth gaped and his eyelids fluttered; his hips jerked below her as he spurt twice, three times, four times more into her mouth, until they fell back on the bed and the last bits trickled out. Then his head fell back and he was still, except for the gasps of his breath and his hand, warm, now cupping her cheek.

"Oh my God," he gasped. "Caitlyn." Does he have to keep saying that?

She signaled with a hand that she needed to run to the bathroom, where she spit out his cum in the toilet. No matter how cool it was to have him come for her that way—and she had to admit, it had really been cool to have such a front-row seat to his orgasm—she still didn't like the stuff that came with it. She swished with Jon's mouthwash too before returning.

"Caitlyn, you are the craziest girl I've ever been married to," Jon said.

She laughed and climbed onto the bed. "Oh, you've been married before me?"

"You said you weren't gonna ... I figured you weren't ... I totally wasn't expecting that!"

"What? That I would hang on?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, you do realize it's more intense when you keep doing stuff to me as I come, right?"

She hadn't thought about that one way or the other. Under normal circumstances, Jon had been cumming at least once a day since their wedding night; she hadn't, though he was still doing a perfectly wonderful job as far as she was concerned. Regardless, though, she just wasn't very familiar with them. "Well, then, I'm glad I helped you enjoy yourself."

He shook his head. "Caitlyn. Caitlyn, my beautiful woman, my..." Words seemed to fail him, and he took her back in his arms.

She smiled up at him. "Yes, Jon. Your woman. I'm yours."

He kissed her, drawing her up to meet him, and then began to nibble at her neck again. She sighed her pleasure, sensing that it was his turn, that now she was in his hands. Even though some of the things he did felt dirty to her, she had never felt threatened in his arms. Whatever he did, wherever he was, was safe, and she could relax under his lips, his hands, knowing that no matter what, he would never hurt her.

Though he might push at her a time or two.

He kept kissing her as he drew her down to the bed, his arm under her as he laid her down flat. He leaned over her, kissing her, as his other hand began to explore: tracing her face, the edge of her nose, the line of her throat; her collar bones under her skin; the inside of her arm, her palm and the tips of her fingers. As his hand began its return journey, he began to kiss at her neck again, and then her ear, that ever-sensitive spot. He said that he loved her ears, that they were perfect to him. He was crazy, of course; who cared about ears. But it was nice to hear.

She let herself lean back and surrender under his ministrations as he began to kiss his way down her body, his lips following much the same trail as his fingers, but he let himself derail as he passed her breasts. He kissed his way around the right one, over and under, side to side, covering every inch of the skin of her breast. She had never been secure in the size of her breasts. Clothed, they seemed far less impressive than the ones she saw on TV, in movies, on magazine covers at the grocery store; unclothed, without the benefit of the padding she'd installed in her bras, things were even worse. Jon had never evinced any concern about the size—or lack thereof—of her breasts; indeed, he claimed they too were perfect for him, just like her ears. Obviously, he was crazy. But it was still nice to hear.

He was covering her breast in kisses, now looping inward in concentric circles ... But still he had not touched her nipple, proud and erect and longing for his touch. When he finally did she felt her passion mount, a fresh sensation of wetness between her thighs, a new wave of pleasure sweeping over her as her arousal climbed another notch. And as he sucked her nipple, swept over it with his tongue, pulled at it with his lips, his hand began once again to wander south.

She felt it tracing over her stomach and navel, stopping for a moment to play in her belly button (it tickled a little, but Jon seemed to find it cute—he was crazy, wasn't he?) and then, to her surprise, detour down her leg. She felt his finger trail down the side of her thigh, and then, tingling, to the back of her knee; she'd never known that spot had so much sensitivity. Then, as he switched to her other breast and began to kiss all over it, his hand began creeping up the inside of her thigh.

As before, he seemed to avoid that special, private place—sliding up and down her thigh, switching from one to the other—as his kisses orbited her nipple. Finally he did both at once, attaching to her nipple as his hand settled over her pubis, his longest finger down the length of her opening. A distant voice marveled how he must have done this on purpose; most of her, though, was consumed with the sudden sensations as he latched on to the two most delicate places in her body. She felt as though her whole body was throbbing in time with her heart ... And in time with the deep, persistent ache in her groin, where thanks to the magic of Jon's hands and lips a gap now begged to be filled.

She thought he would follow with his lips where his hands had gone—but to her surprise he instead began to kiss his way back up her body, until suddenly their lips met. She threw her arms around him and drew him close, moaning into his mouth as he began to rub back and forth with the hand on her pubic mound; she could feel that hand becoming slippery as more of her fluids leaked out of her. She let her tongue duel with his, stroked his back with her nails, drew him closer—as close as she could, with that arm between them, slanting down into the gap between her legs.

She felt him inserting a finger into her. Normally she protested this because she didn't like having anything but his organ in there—in fact, he hadn't tried it since their wedding night—but today the need for orgasm was too strong, and she felt herself clamp down on him involuntarily. It wasn't as large as his member, of course, but it was better than nothing. Even as his finger remained inside her, he continued to rub at her mons, sending shocks of pleasure through her, building up the fire inside her. Her nipples burned against his chest; she felt her breath hitching, her heart racing, as he insinuated another finger within. Her body was spasming, clenching down in his fingers irreguarly and involuntarily; each spasm sent greater tremors of sensation through her, a reverberation that would soon spill over.

She could feel the volcanic tide rising within her; she had given over kissing him long ago, her head thrown back, and he was kissing at her neck, her ear, her chin. Suddenly she felt the fingers inside her crick forward, touching off some inner spot inside her—and then she was gone. Her moans shrieked to a crescendo and her body shook as her pussy tightened on his invading fingers, clutching at them with spasmodic strength, as the heel of his hand kept pressing against that perfect button, as her body seized up with the gushing torrent of her release.

She fell back on the bed, spent.

Down below she felt him slowly withdraw his hand, leaving a slick, somewhat clammy emptiness inside her. Gently he gathered her to him, her arm limp around him, her breathing heavy against his chest, until she could hear the beating of his heart. She felt his lips kissing the top of her head, the little whorl where no hair lay. She felt rather than heard his whisper: "I love you."

There was a beeping sound coming from somewhere near. Realization shot through her: "Jon, the chicken!"

The chicken was not nearly as dead as it could have been—very crispy, to be certain, but not burned and not too dry to eat. Laughing about the mishap, they supped naked, sitting across from each other, trading bites with their forks. She wished they had lit the candles, but she hadn't thought to set them out and she didn't want to ruin the moment by stopping to get them. They had had such perfect sex today. They had made such perfect love today. Anything might break the spell; she had no intention of being the one to do it.

She looked down at her chair, suddenly realizing that the juices of at least two orgasms—her recent one, and then Jon's deposit from their upright bout at the kitchen counter—were probably leaking out onto it. "Umm ... Maybe we should wash these cushions."

Jon laughed. "It might be wise. Zach says that when he and Christa go around without clothes, they use towels on the seating surfaces."

"Zach has talked about that?"

"Of course," said Jon. "So has Christa. I mean, they aren't like flinging it all over people's faces or anything, but if we're curious they're willing to share."

Caitlyn handled this new thought gingerly. That level of self-revelation seemed ... Extreme to her. And yet, if someone wanted to ask her for advice, shouldn't she be willing to help them?—even if it required reaching into the depths of her own private life to do so? Sure, there were things she'd rather keep secret, but God's word on the subject was clear: she was here to serve, and the circumstances of that service would not always be under her control. Jon, she knew, felt much the same way, reticence over Harold Cheng notwithstanding. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

"I'm glad we had this time," she said. "I'm glad we had this chance to ... To just be, and to love each other." She smiled. "I'm glad I hung on even when you squirted."

His eyebrows jumped. "Yeah, I still can't believe you did that."

"Well..." She shrugged. "I wanted to be there when you came. I wanted to ... Get to know you." Now she knew things about him—about his face as he came, about the way his body behaved as it began to fire, about that one spot on his underside ridge that seemed to be the most sensitive place on his body. No one else knew these things about him—as was right, of course, since she was his wife.

He smiled. "That you did. And I guess I returned the favor."

"I don't think you've ever made me come before without using your ... Your mouth."

"I don't either. Sometimes it happens when we're doing it, but mostly it's when I go down on you."

"How come you never did it before? I kind of liked it this way. I liked being able to hold on to you, and kiss you, while you ... Played with me."

He shrugged. "Well ... Probably, if I'd tried before now, it wouldn't've worked. I mean, I have to get to know you too, you know."

She gave him a mischievous look. "What was it like?"

He seemed a little taken aback by this question, but he didn't let it stop him. "Well ... You were squeezing down on my fingers, and your whole body got ... Well, it was like all your muscles flexed, a little bit. And then afterwards you went limp." He smiled. "And I got to see your face." The smile faded a little bit, becoming warmer, as if he were looking out into some remembered past. "You're so beautiful when you come."

She drew his hand to her lips and kissed it.

As they cleaned up the dishes and put the semi-dry chicken back in the refrigerator, he said, "Honey ... Can I make a request?"

She smiled at him. "Anything. I'm your wife, Jon. My body belongs to my man, to do with as he sees fit."

He seemed taken aback by this too, but again he plowed on. "Would you ... Would you shave yourself for me?"

She blinked. "What, like ... My hair?" Unconsciously she combed a tendril back behind her ear.

"No, your..." He gestured with his eyes. "Down there."

Caitlyn blinked again.

She looked down at herself. Though her pubic hair was slightly matted and slicked down from their recent exertions, there was still rather a lot of it. She imagined being Jon, trying to stick his face into that thicket; she remembered sticking her own face into Jon's. Obviously, since his things stuck out, she got a little less of it in the way, but when Jon was going down on her...  Well, actually, she didn't blame him for wanting her to cut down on her pubic hair.

But at the same time...

"Shave? Like ... Like completely bare?"

"Not if you don't want to," Jon said quickly, which she understood to mean, Yes. "Just a trim, maybe. But ... I mean, I've heard that your ... Your area gets a lot more sensitive that way. It feels better during sex."

"If I was completely bare ... I would look like a child," she said, and gave him a suspicious look.

He ran his hand through his hair, clearly uncomfortable. "That's not ... No you would not, sweetie. Trust me. I've seen this sort of thing, umm, on the Internet, and, well ... I really like it."

"What would I do, just use a razor?"

"And shaving cream, yeah. Like when you shave your legs."

She still wasn't very good at shaving her legs; she had only started doing it after they got married. Jon, bless his heart, had not said anything one way or the other, besides that she need do nothing she didn't want to. Nonetheless, this was different. "That area's a little more ... Delicate, Jon."

He mopped his face with a hand. "Look, you don't have to if you don't want to. I'm just saying that ... You know. Maybe it's something you could look into. It might make life easier for both of us."

It sounded weird, but then, so did a lot of the things Jon had introduced her to over the last month or so. Even sex sounded weird at first. And didn't I just tell him that he could do as he pleased with my body? "Well ... I suppose we could try it. Just a trim, though."

"Great!" he said. "Umm. Shall we?"

"What, you mean now?"

He grinned. "No time like the present, right?"

She let him lead her to the bathroom. "Are you gonna do yours?"

He stopped to blink at her. "Do you want me to?"

Truthfully, she didn't care one way or the other. But fair is fair. Besides, maybe it'll be an inconvenience and he won't ask me to do it. "Sure, why not?"

So, with her pair of scissors, she sat on the toilet and began to snip. Jon watched her with eager eyes, which was part endearing, part creepy and part just-plain-annoying. To head him off, she pointed the scissors at him. "Why, you wanna help?"

"Sure," he said, and Caitlyn was left to wonder if this could possibly backfire any further. She was letting Jon approach her privates with a pair of scissors! But he was gentle and careful with them—somewhat more than she'd been herself—and there were no unexpected pokes or cuts. And, to be fair, it was probably easier for him to see and get an even trim than for her to. He fetched a cup and used some water to rinse out the trimmed bits, which had the added effect of smoothing out her hair and letting him see if it was even; they laughed that he was turning into a full-fledged barber. Now if only he wouldn't cut it so short; instead of a proverbial bush, all she had left now was a trimmed lawn no longer than the last segment of her pinkie finger.

When he was done, he offered her the scissors. "Your turn." He seemed to have no nervousness that she would commit some accidental atrocity on his unspeakable personals. But then, of course, all his were dangling out in the open, not tucked away inside his body where no one could see them.

For a moment she pondered this bizarre convolution of creation and existence. How did that affect personality or social expectation?—that women's privates were internal, and men's on the outside? How would life, the universe and everything be different if that simple biological fact were reversed? What would it be like if women were the ones you kicked in the balls?

"Caitlyn?" said Jon, and she suddenly realized she had been staring at his crotch this entire time. His hand cupped her cheek, a familiar gesture. "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing important," said Caitlyn. She turned her head in his hand to kiss his palm. It tasted slightly sour, and she realized this was the hand he had put between her legs. Oh well. No help for that now.

It was probably easier for her to trim his hair because of all the dangly-outy bits, but she felt like shorter scissors might have been more useful. These were the scissors she used to cut cloth for her sewing projects, and they were longer than Jon's penis even if fully erect. Something shorter and subtler might've been easier to work with under these circumstances. Still, it was easy to handle his penis and keep it out of the way as she worked—and, as an added bonus, it began to firm, making it easier to judge how short she'd gotten his hair. She was surprised that it looked so much longer.

When she was done and had put the scissors down, he rose without a word and she did too. She did not expect him to sweep her into his arms and carry her to the bed. She hadn't until this time even been aware that he could pick her up like that. Suddenly she was aware of his penis warm against her hip, of the resurgence of the sweet ache between her legs—the gap that, even now, longed to be filled.

He deposited her on the bed and, without further preamble, dove between her legs. Immediately she felt that he was right, that she could feel so much more down there with so much less hair in the way; but very quickly she had other things on her mind: his lips on her mound, on the flesh to either side of her opening, on the crevices around it, on the now (dramatically) less protected top of her slit, where that specially-sensitive nub lay open to his ministrations. As he began to suck on her clit, she wove her fingers into his hair and moaned.

When she came it was not as intense as before. She had lost herself in the sensations, letting her head fall back and glory in the feeling of his lips on her clit, his tongue inside her; and then, without warning, she was there, the great tremble and gush as her pleasure rushed out of her in a clenching, spasming wave. Even before the last contraction ended she felt the deep ache of her emptiness, and reached for him to draw him up and penetrate her. He must have known, for he rose up, her legs still over his shoulders, and positioned himself.

He slid home in one swift thrust.

It was a new sensation, completely unlike anything she'd felt before. Her legs were bent at an acute angle, her body curved; she could see her own feet hanging in the air, Jon's face between them. He too must have been bent at the waist, his hips and legs back behind him as he pushed himself forward. He was deep inside her, deeper than she'd ever felt before; it was almost uncomfortable, but at the same time it was thrilling, incredibly erotic, to know that he was stretching her inner depths, forcing her to accomodate his intrusion—that no man had ever been this far inside her; that no other man ever would. His face was a mask, like nothing she had ever seen before, an almost animal look of passion there as he pumped into her, slapping softly against her thighs on each thrust, her body flexing to absorb them. She was in the middle of the bed; there was nothing to hang on to; she was completely at his mercy. Maybe the thought should have scared her; instead it sent another thrill through her. He had her body at his command, and—no matter how bad, there was simply no other appropriate word—he was going to fuck the heck out of her. She had never had sinful sex before, not like this, but she knew instinctively that that was the right word; knew, instinctively, that this was sinful only because of how unbelievably good it was going to be.

Though it was thrilling to be plowed into this way, it was also uncomfortable, and after only a dozen strokes or so he stopped to adjust his hold. He slid his legs up until he sat on his feet before her, and her body slanted up the wedge of his kneeling legs. Her legs were together, not parted the way they normally were for their sex, and she felt the difference in the tightness of her walls as he battered against them. He was holding her by the ankles, levering in and out of her, while her fingers scrabbled against the sheets for what purchase they could find; her toes were near his head, and suddenly she noticed that he was kissing and sucking them. Why he would want to do that was a question for another day; there was nothing more important right now than his cock within her, his body firm against the back of her legs, the blood rushing to her head, the powerful way he moved inside her.

It took him a long time to come, but she paid it no mind. The ride was all, the sensations, which were pleasurable but almost not so; somehow she knew that sensation was not their goal, but instead the animal velocity of their expanding emotions. If she had come it would have been a distraction. Nonetheless she was so far gone that she almost didn't notice when he came; it was only his sudden groan, after so long of complete silence, that alerted her. Again she felt the building pressure through two layers of skin and nerves; again he grew, swelled, burst within her; again the burst of whiteness and heat, deep against her inner walls, deeper than she'd ever had it. Maybe this time it'll stay in. Semen seemed so sticky when it splashed in her mouth; how come it dripped out of her when she stood up?

She had not come, but she didn't care; in some ways it was better. Nonetheless she realized she was exhausted by the sheer amount (and intensity) of sex they had had—from lovemaking to pure fucking and back again. Wordlessly he began to extricate himself, and when he let her legs down she stood up to turn off the lights. She crawled into bed beside him and, with barely a kiss good-night, dropped off to sleep.



-------

Part 11


Day 45

Jon's alarm jolted him out of slumber with its hateful buzz. Blinking his eyes into focus, he rolled away from his wife to slap the darn thing off. Whether he really wanted to be, he was awake right now; the adrenaline coursing through his system guaranteed that. It was the same alarm clock he'd had back home, and all through college and most of high school: a good ten years now of following him around and waking him up. By now the sound was hard-wired into his brain—and, evidently, into the noradrenergic pathway, judging by the boost of adrenaline that always seemed to strike whenever it went off. Why did that happen? How did that happen? Clearly, Pavlov was right, we are trainable—but of all the things... ?

For a moment he merely lay there, staring up at the ceiling. His left arm was still trapped under Caitlyn's body; in fact, she was cuddling it, the hand up near her face as though she meant to kiss it. They had slept this way, with only occasional variation, every night since their wedding.

It's Wednesday. Yesterday was our last day at Pastor Larson's college group, today it's my last Wednesday with Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton, and on Monday I start the training program with Dr. Chandakar—a training program which requires me to be on-station at the luxurious time of 9:30 AM. Caitlyn and I will get to go to bed together. Caitlyn and I will get to wake up together. There won't be long periods of time when only one of us is in this bed. Jon, like Caitlyn, was a night owl; if left to their own devices they'd be awake until 2 AM and abed until 10—maybe later if anything frisky happened, which Jon was looking forward to. Right before bed or right on waking up were his favorite times to savor her body. Obviously, neither was an option when he was sleeping from 10 PM to 6 AM, she from 2 to 10. He had tried awakening her just to have his way with her, and she was always receptive (in a sleepy sort of way), but he always felt bad afterwards, like he was using her, and stopped doing it altogether. We wouldn't be here, in our own apartment, if not for my job, but it really is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to our sex life.

Carefully he began to work his hand free of her grasp. Caitlyn didn't waken.

When he had dressed he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked down at her. She was still curled up on her side, fringes of hair around her face, her mouth slightly open. She never snored. To Jon's knowledge, neither did he, but how could he know what he did while asleep? She looked peaceful. She was so beautiful to him.

He caressed her cheek with one hand. Caitlyn didn't waken.

The only thing that made it possible to leave was knowing that she needed him to—that their precarious existence here was made possible by his efforts. That, if he didn't, she would not be here to return to. And suddenly, it was okay to leave.

The day seemed to pass with the slowness of molasses. People came in, had their teeth fiddled with, left again; and he would check the clock and see, to his despair, that only five minutes had passed. He had enjoyed his time here, working with these people, doing this job, but now he was excited and ready to go. He didn't want to be here anymore. He wanted to be doing something different. He wanted to have more and better chances to spend time with his wife.

The only highlight was a call from Caitlyn. "I can't talk long, I'm between classes."

"Classes?"

"Silly, it's the first day of school. I'm at Shellview. Remember?"

"Jeez, I feel stupid. You told me that yesterday when we said good-bye to the college group. From now on you have orchestra rehearsals while they're meeting."

Her laughter, like a loving caress. "Yep. I'm on campus and I'm taking classes, because the school year started up again."

"How's it going so far?"

"It's fine. I'm in Jazz Theory, which is going to be cool, and I'm taking my Composition seminar. You know, the one I've been excited about taking ever since I started my Master's program?" He heard the teasing smile in her voice.

"I remember," he said. "I'm not forgetful, Caitlyn, just stupid."

A full-blown smile now. "Oh, is that what it is? Well, I'd better go then. I don't like talking to stupid people."

"Why'd you spend so much time with Harold then?" said Jon.

The instant the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. The previous night, Caitlyn had invited Harold to join them for a late snack at a coffee shop—with Jon's consent and presence, of course. He could tell Caitlyn had regretted the idea within five minutes of sitting down with him ... But she had her pride, and she would not give up on what she felt God was calling her to do. It was a sore spot with her now, and unless he was stupid he wouldn't bring it up.

Thankfully, Caitlyn misinterpreted it. "Oh, is that's was bugging you? Jon, if you don't want me to do something, you can always just say that."

Yeah, but will you listen to me? He knew what she was like once she got an idea into her head. "I know."

"I said it before, Jon: you're my husband. There's no one more important than you. There's nothing more important to me than what you want."

After a moment's debate, he said it: "Except God."

"Well ... Yes. But, God wants me to be a respectful wife and honor you."

And if I want you to do something ungodly? This time he didn't say it.

"—Oh, I just remembered: Jon, someone asked me to play something next weekend."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. One of my friends here is having her wedding and they wanted... "

She'd been turning gigs down because of their inability to move her harp in any safe manner. "So we'll need..."

"I think we need a truck. I know you like your car, Jon, but ... I think we need to trade it in."

Funny how she springs this on me now—right after she said that, if I asked her, she would do it. But the thought had no real heat. Jon had known this moment was coming ever since they'd wed; they would need to be able to transport her harp somehow. And it would definitely be nice to have another source of income. "Then how about we go after I get home? You figure out what kind of truck we need, and once I get home we'll go after it."

"All right."

"We'll have to be quick, though—I have Octapella practice at 7:30."

"Ooo, an adventure," she said, the grin audible in her voice.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

And so they went. Jon got home, kissed his wife, and they went down to the car for the last time. Caitlyn was smart enough to suggest that they empty the car of personal possessions first, and they wound up carrying a surprising amount of stuff back into the apartment. A fair bit of it went in the trash—old receipts, loose Xeroxes, bits of fast-food detritus—but among other things, they found an entire compliment of maps which Jon's mother must have stashed in the car. Neither Jon nor Caitlyn used maps, but the things must've cost money and they weren't going to throw them away. And then Caitlyn thought that they might need proof of registration and other legal documents, and they spent another fifteen minutes ransacking the apartment to find where they'd put them. Finally, at 5:35, they were on their way, praying that the Toyota dealership would still be open.

They needed a pickup; Caitlyn had been there when her parents did the math, and remembered it well. Gabriel, her full-size harp, was 65 inches tall and 40 inches wide; they needed at least that much space in the bed. Fortunately, even short-bed trucks were that large, so they'd have some wiggle room. While Caitlyn's family bought Ford, Jon's family and friends had had good experiences with Toyota, and the Tacoma was certainly retailing for cheaper. The only thing left to discuss was whether to get a standard cab or a full-size; eventually, when children came along, they would need back seats, but Jon couldn't even picture any children he might have with her at this point; the idea seemed wholly abstract to him. What was certain was that it would be years yet before any offspring came along. So why spend money on seats they didn't need now, and maybe never would need if the truck was obsoleted before then. They decided to make the final decision once they got on-site and had seen what there was to see.

Two hours later, they had their truck.

The salesperson was friendly—too friendly; after a whirlwind tour of the lot, Jon was glad he'd brought a notepad, because he knew next to nothing about cars. If it went forward when he hit the gas and slowed down when he braked and turned when he steered, it was fine with him, but here was the salesman throwing a blizzard of options and suggestions at him: skid plates, wheel locks, chrome grille bumpers, "overfenders" (whatever the heck those were). Jon dutifully noted them all down and then took five minutes off to call his dad, the one person he knew who was knowledgeable about cars. His father's tastes ran more towards tiny, high-performance coupes (he was still ranting and raving about a Mazda Miata he'd owned until an oblivious driver had backed onto it in a parking lot), but nonetheless he was able to walk Jon down the checklist and, as Jon had expected, tell him that most of the offered items were completely useless, whether in general or to the Stanfords' particular needs. Jon came back to the salesman with a firm grasp of what he wanted and some good ideas on how to get it. ("Besides," Caitlyn whispered to him, "the one thing we really want is a truck cap to protect the harp, and they don't sell those here; you have to get them after-market.")

Caitlyn did most of the bargaining; she had much more practical knowledge of trucks—not to mention loans and APR financing and things like that. As it turned out, there was little point in trading in Jon's 13-year-old Celica, as it was barely worth anything. This, as Caitlyn pointed out, would give them greater automotive flexibility, though Jon thought the greater insurance payments might cause problems later, not to mention the issue of finding it a parking space. Nonetheless Caitlyn insisted on putting as much down as possible on the truck, which she checked with him on because (as she put it) "that thins out our bank account just a little." Then she used a calculator; for what purpose, he had no idea. The poor salesman looked flummoxed, and who could blame him: here was this girl, 5 foot 3 on a good day, who seemed to know his job better than he himself did.

In the end, the check written and the papers signed, all that was left was for Jon to drive the thing off the lot. And that in itself was an adventure.

"Uh, Caitlyn ... I've never driven a truck before."

"It's not that hard. It's just a big car."

"It's a lot bigger than anything I've ever driven before," he said. He liked his Celica. It was small and unassuming. It wasn't large and overbearing and didn't reek of testosterone. A pickup truck involved more masculinity than he really cared for; after all, men did some pretty stupid things sometimes. Like drive trucks.

"You'll be fine," Caitlyn said, giving him a proud smile. "You can handle it."

"Yeah, assuming nobody sees me in the cab and snickers."

"Oh, come on," Caitlyn said, grinning. "Don't you want to be seen driving a big, strong, manly truck?"

"Not particularly. Why'd you have to decide on playing such a big, strong, manly instrument?"

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Ultimately, it wasn't too much harder than he'd expected. The V6 gave a lot more power than Buffy's four-banger, but the greater weight of the truck helped even things out. Nonetheless, the gas pedal was rather more sensitive than he was used to, and he knew the truck would be jumping a little bit until he got the hang of it. The most disconcerting part was the larger size of the vehicle, but he'd driven his parents' van enough times to have some capability with a larger car. It would take some time before he got the truck's various corners perfectly aligned in his mind, but he was confident he could do it.

Still, it wasn't Caitlyn driving their very-brand-new car off the lot and worrying about whether she was going to accidentally hit something with it.

They stopped at a McDonald's for dinner. Jon parked very carefully and then joined his wife inside. As they sat down, he realized it was basically the first time all day they'd had time off together. "So," he said. "How was your day?"

"Well," said Caitlyn between a handful of fries, "we just bought a truck, so I'd say it's been pretty eventful so far." She grinned.

"Any specific details on this wedding you're playing at?"

"Not really. They gave me the music they want played, and half of it I've done before and the other half doesn't look hard. It's at a church in Westhaven and they want me there at 2 PM, so we'll probably want to leave here at about 1 just to be safe. And we can do it! We have a truck!"

"How much are they paying you?"

"About standard rate. $300."

"Not bad. That's another, you know, fifteen or twenty dinners at McDonald's."

He hadn't meant anything by this, but to Caitlyn it had a sobering effect. "Yeah. Accountant or not, they never told us just how fast it goes. Three hundred dollars seems like a lot of money, but when you get down to it..."

"Especially in light of the, you know, $10,000 we just put down."

"At least the monthly payments are lower that way."

"Yep. We should probably focus on paying that off ... You know, if we have any spare money after rent and utilities and living expenses and whathaveyou."

"What, you mean, send in extra money?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, you're probably right..."

There was a short, comfortable silence. Jon put his arm around her, drew her close; she rested her head on his shoulder, he on the top of her head. How many times had they sat like this over the year-and-a-half of their love?

"We never do this anymore," she said. "We never just ... Sit together. We're always busy. Or, you know. Doing it."

"Yeah. Not that there's anything wrong with doing it."

"No, of course not." He heard her smile. "But it's nice to do other things too."

They stayed like that for a little while, but it was hard to eat and they separated again.

"How was school?"

"Oh ... You know. School."

"Still excited about your classes now that you've had them?"

"Well ... I know how much work they're going to be. But it should still be fun. I mean, I was excited to take them because I want to learn what they teach."

"Any cool new people?"

"Mmm, not really. Just the same old. It's not that big a Music department. Besides, they're ... Well. I mean, it's kind of like being at the college group, you know? They're so young sometimes."

"Yeah."

"They're all like, you know, 'I got so wasted last night' or 'Dude, this girl's totally coming on to me' or 'How do I get my boyfriend to stop staring at other girls' ... And I'm sitting here thinking about how to optimize the car payments. It's a different world."

"That doesn't have to be an obstacle. You can join their world."

"Yeah..."

"Isn't that how you felt when you were friends with the Cranes and the Chamberses?—that they were in a different place from you?"

"Yeah, but ... Well, number one, they're not anymore. We've joined them. And, number two, I don't really want to go back. What the kids talk about seems so ... Shallow."

He smiled. " 'Kids.' You do realize they're probably older than you. I mean, you skipped how-many grades?"

"Yeah ... And, I mean, there are some older people there too, but ... I don't feel like I fit in with them either. They have kids and stuff." She sighed. "I guess I'm just an outsider."

He put his arm around her shoulders again. "We all are. You and me and Brandon and Meredith and everyone. That's why we're such good friends. That's why we love each other."

She turned to look at him. "You? You're not an outsider."

"Maybe not anymore," he said. "But that isn't because I met people who just magically let me in. I learned. I learned how to be ... How to get along with people. How to, you know, present myself. So that people didn't want to kick me out. And I learned how to be comfortable and not kick myself out."

"Really?" she said. "How do you do that?"

"Well..." He shrugged uncomfortably. "First, you have to stop judging people. I mean, yeah, these kids in your class sound kind of immature, but you have to be willing to give them a chance anyway. Second ... Well, you just gotta open your mouth. Let things come out."

She grimaced. "Whenever I do that, I sound like an idiot."

"I know. That's part of the learning. Everyone starts that way. But either you keep going and learn how to stop sounding stupid, or ... You stop talking."

"Guess which one I picked." She grimaced again. "I think changing myself would be a lot easier if it didn't involve, you know, changing myself."

"Yeah. But even if it's hard, it's worth doing."

"I always ... I mean, I'm there, and, I always have chances to meet people and make new friends and..."

"Well ... If at first you don't succeed, right?" Inspiration struck: "—Or, think of it as turning the other cheek."

"To the people? I mean, I've barely talked to them."

"To yourself."

She was silent.

"If it's important to give other people a second chance, how much more important is it to give yourself one? If it's important to love other people, how much more important is it to love yourself?"

Caitlyn gave a sad shake of her head. "Loving yourself isn't easy."

"I know. You'd think they'd've taught us these things."

"But at least I have you to love me," she said. "That helps."

"Well," he said, smiling, "I'm glad to be useful."

When they got home, they draped themselves over the couch by silent agreement; Jon knew she must be trying to preserve the mood, and was content to do the same. For a short time they merely sat together, his arm around her waist and her head on his far shoulder; when they kissed it was gentle, without urgency. He was reminded of the early days of their love, when everything about her was new and every day dawned with the promise of discovery, when at any point he might learn more about her or find out something new. There had been an innocence to those times that he found he missed. Today...

"I wish we'd had more time," he said. "I wish we'd been able to ... Explore more. Before we got married."

Caitlyn looked up at him. "Jon, I wasn't going to have sex with you before we got married."

"I know," he said. "I just meant ... I mean, there's other stuff that, kind of ... Leads up to it."

"That counts as 'sex' in my book," she said. "Foreplay counts."

"I know. I remember." A wry smile. "But, seriously, Caitlyn, what happens if I do this?" He moved his hand from her stomach to her breast.

She shrugged. "You can do that."

"But is it a big deal? Is it something that ... I mean, remember how big a deal it was for me to, to rub your back, or to touch your bare stomach?"

"I think I see what you mean," she said.

"I just wish we could've ... Spread it all out a bit more."

She smiled. "We could've waited to have sex."

"Pfft. Yeah right."

She kissed his cheek. "Yeah. And I think I understand your viewpoint a little more. Back before we got married, I never understood why ... I mean, yeah, I enjoyed what we did together—what you did to my body, the way you made me feel—but it wasn't really anything special. I didn't know it could be special. And now I see that you were trying to teach me that. And ... I kinda wish I would've let you."

He kissed her forehead. "Yeah, but, what would you have done if I'd tried to go all the way?"

She smiled. "Told you to put your pants back on. Politely, of course." She reached up to stroke his face. "And that's one reason I am glad we waited—so that I never had to tell you that."

He smiled back, and kissed the palm of her hand. "How come you never ask me for backrubs anymore?" he asked.

It was a jump, but evidently her thoughts were in the same place his were, because she followed it. "I dunno. I don't need them as much, I guess." She smiled. "You relax me."

"And besides, your mother isn't around to stiffen you up."

"That too. I'm also not practicing the harp as much. That's eighty pounds balancing on my right shoulder—it's a lot of stress."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I dunno, just wondering. I hadn't done it in a while and I like doing it."

"Even with all the other stuff you get to do to me?"

"Even with all that. Caitlyn, I love you. Every part of you is wonderful to me."

She smiled and kissed him again. "Every now and then, you remind me of why I married you."

She lay on her stomach on the couch, as she had so many times before, and Jon straddled her hips. Her skin was warm to his touch; they had always joked about his poor circulation, but Caitlyn didn't have that problem, and even during the first dates there had been some "heat redistribution" from her to him. He gave her a preliminary once-over with his hands and then began working his way up her spine in deep, firm strokes, kneading the tension from her muscles. His thumbs were strong by now, but he remembered when a prolonged session would leave him sore. Of course, Caitlyn was also a lot more stressed out back then; now her muscles felt like butter, pliant and not requiring much work. Where once he had had to battle knots of tension, today they just seemed to melt away.

"Mmm," she said, a verbal smile.

Backrubs had been one of his few excuses to touch her bare skin, though she'd never allowed her shirt to get rucked up very far. Once, it had been a big deal; today, if he asked her to take her shirt off entirely, she probably would. He decided not to. There was something to be said for innocence.

"Never mind the bedroom stuff," Caitlyn said. "You're doing this to me every night."

"I would love to," he said.

"Mmm ... And I might even have some ways to reward you."

He heard the promise implicit in her voice, and deliberately ignored it. He didn't need any thanks for loving her; it was what he had been made for. "Whatever you want is fine with me."

He had never been allowed to massage her legs before—too much potential for sexual content—and once he had finished with her shoulders he began working down them for the first time. There were jeans in the way, there was not much to see; and Caitlyn was quiescent under his hands, not displeased but clearly not excited either. This was new territory, and there were things he would need to learn.

She finally spoke when he got down to her feet. "Where are you going?"

"Just ... Exploring. Are your feet ticklish?"

"I dunno."

"Do you like foot massages?"

"I dunno."

"Hence the exploring."

"Okay."

He helped her out of her socks, sitting cross-legged at the other end of the couch. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her turn over so that she was lying on her back, looking up at him.

Hers were the first feet he had ever paid attention to. Her skin was pale and soft (as ever it was), and her toes small but well-shaped. He noticed immediately that her smallest toenails were somewhat misformed, almost rectangular in shape like his were—was this a human-wide thing, or just them? Her feet were a little cooler than the rest of her, but dry, and without smell. They were beautiful to him—small and somewhat delicate, but not without strength.

When he looked up, she wiggled her toes at him with an amused smile on her face. "Finding anything interesting?"

"Well, I found these feet," he said. "Also, some toes. I'm still investigating."

"Oh? You think there may be more to find?"

"Quite possibly," he said with a smile. Hands were sensitive; he knew that from first-hand experience. And, considering the evolutionary etymology of feet, he didn't see any reason why they should be any different.

He began to knead the musculature of her foot—the long muscles along the inner arch, the broader ones along the flat. He wasn't as familiar with the anatomy of her foot; actually, he wasn't very skilled at massage in general: all he had to go on was a few Internet articles and some hands-on experience with Caitlyn. The end result was that he was condemned to a lot of fumbling around at first.

When her feet seemed as relaxed as they were going to get, he shifted gears to his fingers and fingernails. If the skin was really as sensitive, then liberal application should yield something nice ... And indeed, she seemed pleased with the attention.

And yet... "Jon, are you ... Are you going to spend a lot of time down there?"

"Why?"

"Well, it ... It just seems ... Sort of ... Weird."

"Why, do you not like it?"

She shrugged. "It's not ... There's nothing wrong with it. It's just ... Are you supposed to like my feet?"

" ... Am I not supposed to?"

"Well ... It's not exactly what I imagined."

"What do you mean?"

"I just ... Do you remember what Pastor Pendleton said, about good things sometimes leading us astray?"

He sighed. Not this again. "Caitlyn, is there anything in Scripture that says that I'm not allowed to like your feet?"

"Well, no, but—"

They were saved from this morass by the ringing of Caitlyn's cellphone, buried somewhere in her backpack. Wordlessly Jon stood up and found it for her. The tag on the little screen sent a stab of ice through him: Mom.

Caitlyn stared at the screen for maybe two seconds before answering.

"Hello? ... Yes ... Yes, hi, Mom. Umm. Hi ... What's going on?"

Jon sat back down on the couch, a feeling of dread in his gut. As far as he was concerned, Linda Delaney's presence never heralded anything good.

"Yes ... Yes ... Well, I have a wedding to play that weekend, so it has to end before ... Okay ... Okay, that's fine ... Well, if they want me back— Hold on." She took the phone away from her mouth and turned to face her husband. "Yes?"

"You don't have to say Yes," he said.

"Jon, they're asking me—"

"I know they're asking you. If they asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"

She gave him a look of affection and exasperation mixed. "I hardly think playing at a church service is jumping off a bridge. Mom says they miss me."

"That's all well and good, but you have to think of yourself. You know how hard it is for you to say No."

"Yes, but is this the place to start? This is my church, Jon. We've barely gone to church since we got married. This is important to me. And besides ... This is my gift. This is what God blessed me with. He didn't give me these talents just so I could please myself; He gave them to me so that I could share them with others."

He said nothing. After all, didn't he feel the same way? That, if someone needed him, he should be there for them, and never count the cost? It was the other thing that bound him to Caitlyn, to Brandon and Meredith and Zach and Christa and all those other outsiders: the idea that some things, some needs, were more important than his own happiness. Way more important.

"Then I'll be there," Caitlyn said. "But only for that, all right? If there's something else they want me to do, I want to hear about it by next Monday. You're lucky my friend is getting married on Saturday, or we wouldn't be able to come at all." Jon smiled at her; this was a definite shift in tone from the somewhat-limp assertions of personhood she had used to make. "And if there's something else you want to do, I want to hear about it by next— Oh. Okay. Okay ... Umm. Well. Hold on."

She turned to Jon again. "She wants us to come to dinner on Friday."

Jon covered his face with his hands. "Didn't we have this fight already?"

"Jon, she's my mother. She says she misses me. She says she wants to make peace between us."

The ache in her voice pierced him, but he made himself ignore it. Would she sound the same about me? "She wants to use you, Caitlyn. You're not a person to her, you're just a thing she uses to feel better about herself. And if you don't let her, she'll just beat you up until you fall in line. What did we get married for, if not to get you free of her?"

"We got married because we love each other," she shot back. "And because we want to share our lives together. Because we want the same thing from our lives, and the best way to get those things is together."

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

"And one of the things I want in my life is my mother's presence," Caitlyn said.

"I understand that."

"Do you? Jon, if I asked you to cut loose from your mother, to just never speak to her again ... How would that make you feel?"

She had asked him this before. He had no intention of rehashing it now. "Look, Cait, I'm just worried, okay? I don't think your mother respects you. I don't think she cares about anything except her own feelings. I think—no, I know—that she's willing to hurt you to make herself feel better. And, with that in mind, I can't help but think that it's better to stay away from her."

"Better," she said, "but not good."

Jon was silent.

"Jon, please," she said. "This is who I want to be. This is the life I want to live. Weren't you just saying that I should be willing to turn the other cheek—to give people a second chance? Well, how can that apply to me but not to my mother?"

And just like that, he was caught. Because, after all, that was the truth of it: if he loved her, he would support her; he would be at her side even when she did things he thought were a bad idea. If he loved her, it was not his place to judge—to have opinions of his own, certainly, and to express them if need be, but not to judge. If he loved her, his place was to support her, as unconditionally as he could.

And besides, he couldn't argue this one without sounding like a hypocrite.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. But let the record show that I am opposed to this. That I think it's a pretty bad idea."

"Jon, I'm not sure it's a good idea myself," she said. "But I have to try." Her eyes were clear, and steady on his. They were the perfect shade of blue: dark but not lusterless, and lit now with a calm, unblinking shine.

He sighed. Then he leaned over to kiss her.

"Mom? What time? Seven-thirty? Okay, we'll be there. See you then. Bye."

She closed the phone. Jon felt its flip-snap lid like jaws closing around him, crushing him into place, locking him to this course.

Caitlyn stared down at the phone for a moment, her eyes somewhere else. "Well," she said. "I guess that's that."

"I guess it is," Jon said. He couldn't accurately describe the feeling in his gut, a dropping sensation like all doom descending upon him at once. But at the center of it gleamed a single hard nugget of truth: that, if she were to ask him to cut loose from his mother, he actually would.

"Jon ... Thank you," she said. "For ... For being you."

He looked up at her. Her eyes were still steady, but they swam now with hope and anxiety and fear and a dozen other things he couldn't name.

"I couldn't do this without you," she said. "I couldn't ... Go back. Not and have any hope of keeping myself. They'd ... They'd take me. They'd take away my ... My me. Who I am. Everything I am. They'd just ... They'd turn me into a shell, someone who, who can't even breathe without their say-so. And the only reason I've been saved from that is ... You."

"The only reason you can go back safely, you mean."

"Yeah."

He felt a mirthless smile crack his lips. "I wish I wasn't so good at what I do. Then you'd stay here safe. With me."

She gave him a sad smile and came into his arms. But for the first time in his life, holding her gave him no warmth.

"Well..." she said. "We were ... Doing some interesting things before my mother called. Shall we, umm ... Shall we get back to that?" Her smile, and the promise implicit behind it. "I believe you had earned yourself a reward..."

The mood was broken; he didn't see any way to replace it. "No, it ... It's getting kind of late, I should think about bed soon. And you wanted me to look up that stuff for the reception..."

"Yeah," she said, her face downcast. "And I guess I should ... Well, I've got stuff to do too." She stepped away from his arms.

In the end, Jon reflected, there were some things you could never get back.

-------

Day 50

On Monday morning, there was something delightful in the bed when Caitlyn awoke. It was her husband.

The noise was the alarm, doing its buzz-buzz-buzz; the sensation was Jon, rolling away to snap it off. She had gotten so used to this over the last six-or-seven weeks that she could just roll over and go back to sleep with nary a flutter of an eyelid. But today there was muted winter sunlight and the twittering of birds from outside; it was morning, not dead-o'clock, and Jon was starting at his new job today.

The one that let him sleep until 8 AM so that they could actually wake up together.

She rolled over to face him and kissed him soundly. "Good morning, my love."

"Hey," he said. "You know, you don't have to wake up."

"Well, I might as well," she said. "My first class is at 9:35. And besides..." She smiled. "This is one of the best times to get, umm, close to you."

"Oh," he said.

He didn't seem especially enthusiastic, but then they had just woken up. And besides, it had been a fairly trying weekend: dinner with her parents on Friday, and then seeing them again in church on Sunday morning. Jon had barely said anything the entire time; Caitlyn herself had been torn between the joy of being back where she belonged—back in that comfortable space she had inhabited with her parents—and sheer dread that somebody was going to say something nasty and blow the whole dream out of the water. Fortunately, no one had; but she could see that Jon was tense-jawed throughout the entire thing. He simply didn't understand that her parents could be loving and caring too. She guessed she didn't blame him; he'd never seen them be anything but cold and domineering, and he had always had a hard time believing in what he could not see. He was thorough; he wanted to be sure of as much as he could before he made decisions. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

She had been hoping they could "get close" over the weekend, but things had come up almost like clockwork: homework assignments, harp practice, a dinner invitation from Jon's family, the wedding reception on March 9th creeping steadily closer. Today it felt vastly distant, but in a mere three days it would be February and the date would seem much closer. The long and the short of it was that there had been too much to do for them to spare any time for "getting close." The funny part was that Jon had taken a sudden interest in the reception, prompting her with things she'd forgotten or overlooked whenever they showed sign of slowing down. She didn't for a second believe any of it was truly important to him—men just weren't concerned with questions of hors d'oeurve or the appropriate combinations of napkins and cutlery—but he could be incredibly thoughtful when he wanted. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

"Jon," she said. "I know that ... I'm not always one of the easiest people to live with." That was an understatement; she was a dreadful perfectionist and hated it when other people slacked off. A lot of perfectly good group projects had been ruined this way. "And I know that you don't always agree with my decisions. But, even then, you keep supporting me. You don't give up on me. And that means so much to me. I've never ... I've never had anyone who didn't give up on me. I would've married you for that alone."

He was silent for a moment; but then a smile, a real true smile, bloomed on his face. "Then it's a good thing you did marry me."

"Jon, I know that ... Sometimes you disagree with what I do. God only knows that sometimes I disagree with what you do. But..." She sidled closer to him, entwining her arm around him, letting him feel her naked breasts against his skin. "Never doubt that I love you. Never doubt that. Even if ... Even after I'm dead, when my bones have long turned to dust ... I will still love you." Now it was her seeking his refuge, her sheltering in his arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder. "Always. Always. No matter what."

"Well, good," he whispered, "because even when you do stupid things, I feel the same way. I don't think there's anything you could do that would make me love you less."

She saw her opening. They hadn't done anything since a hurried and somewhat-unsatisfactory session on Wednesday night, and the gap worried her. "Is there anything I can do to make you love me more?" Not to mention that, well, she wanted it. I'm a married woman. I'm allowed to want it.

She pulled back to watch his face and saw the smile grow. "I dunno. Should there be?"

They entwined on the bed, kissing, their arms around each other, hands between each other's legs. He was soon at full staff—she felt a ping of triumph, that she had been able to bring him to arousal so quickly—and he gently removed her hand, whispering for her to enjoy what he was doing to her. Both arms went around him, and she drew him to her, gasping into his shoulder as his fingers did their magic work, rubbing against the outside of her opening, one finger to either side of her clit. As he bent his mouth to her breasts, she felt her wetness grow and knew she would soon be ready.

But when he moved to ease one leg over his hip, she stopped him and rolled to her back, drawing him up over her. "I want you on top." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissed at his neck, and opened her legs.

They had experimented with a lot of different ways of making love over the short course of their marriage; by far the most common ones were face-to-face on their sides, not always comfortable but workable, or spooning, because by far the most common times for them to make love was just before going to bed or when waking up together on a weekend morning. She had ridden him a couple times, and he had ridden her a couple of times, and had both loved the fullness of his penetration, but athletic, sensation-focused sex wasn't really their thing. And in the end, she still liked this the best, what Jon called the "missionary" position because supposedly it was the only Christian-approved way of getting it on: she on her back, her legs flanking him, her arms caressing his back and hair; he on his elbows, his forearms enshrining her face, the weight of his body pressing her to the bed, and his cock inside her, as far as it would go. The penetration was not as deep as some of the other positions; nor were the sensations as intense as they had been the one time he'd taken her with her legs closed. But nonetheless, she loved it here.

It was everything she wanted from their loving; here she could watch his face as he gasped and shuddered with the pleasure of her body, and feel his eyes on her as she did the same. Here they could kiss, and moan, and whisper to each other—talking dirty was beyond her, and this was hardly the time to have a conversation, but whatever whispered endearments he or she might murmur were near to hand her. Here she could draw him down until he lay on her entirely, and hear his breath rushing through her hair, and know that he could hear the same. Here she could feel his heart beat against his chest, and know that he could feel the same. Here, they were as close as they would ever get to truly becoming a single one person.

And it was everything she could ask for from sex too. She never felt controlled here; actually, that wasn't true—she did, a little bit; and that was part of the thrill. She felt owned this way; she felt possessed this way. She was a woman, serving her husband's pleasure, being taken by him as only a husband could; she was his solace and his joy. It was who she was meant to be. It was what she was meant to be. If she must be reduced to a set of animal or evolutionary influences (as Jon believed, in his peculiarly post-religious way, was an appropriate mindset), then let her be this: the woman supporting her man, her hips tilted up to receive him, her arms binding her to him, her whole body pressing up to him as he grunted and pushed and flexed over her, drawing himself slowly in and out of her as she threw her head back in glory. This was where she belonged. This was where she was meant to be. Her entire life had called her to be here, to this place, to this point, under this man. Here she was made. Here she felt dominated. Here she felt whole.

She drew her legs up, drew them even further, linking them across the small of his back; suddenly she felt him deeper inside her, and gasped with the pleasure of this new intrusion. She was so glad the condoms were over; she could feel every ridge and vein of his cock as it slid in and out of her. His muscles were hard against her chest, his breath hard against her neck; she ran her fingers through his hair, across his shoulders and back. She was arching up to meet his every thrust, pressing her clit against him so that they gasped together at every thrust; she could smell the tang of her own fluids, of his sweat and hers.

"Baby..." he whispered. It was a throaty word, tinged with lust; the sound of it set her tingling. "Baby ... I'm gonna cum ... I'm gonna—"

"Come inside me," she breathed. "Make me your woman. Show me." She let her legs fall, tightened her arms around him so that his head was beside hers, folded into the cushion of her hair, his body flexing against hers. She grasped his buttocks with her hands, urging him on. "Oh, Jon, come inside me, make me—"

He thrust one more time and gave a great gasp and a throttled moan, and she felt the muscles in his ass flexing; and then she wrapped her arms around him as she felt the push, the burst, the flood, the great white splash of his cum deep inside her, hotness coating her inner walls, splashing up against the underside of her womb. She kissed his ear and ran her nails over his back as he twitched a few more times, his body expelling its last reserves; and then it was over.

She had not come. She didn't care. To her, serving his pleasure was so much better. It's the fundamental difference between us. Jon tries—and oftentimes he even succeeds—but he's a taker, and I'm a giver. Sometimes it causes us problems; but in bed, it makes everything perfect. Because when we're in bed, I don't want to be anything but the woman who gives him his pleasure; I don't want to be anything but the body that makes him come inside her ... It's almost embarrassing, how much I want his cum. But it works. And he loves it too.

She was startled to feel tears in her eyes; startled at how happy she was. How lucky I am. That I found this man, this wonderful perfect man ... The one who turns me into ... Well, not a slut, I think. I have a few layers of dignity between myself and that. But someone who loves sex. And it's okay for that to be, even though it's dirty, because he makes the dirtiness good. Together, here—him inside me, my body cradling his—we're perfect.

"Jon?" she whispered.

"Yeah, baby?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, baby. I love you too."

It was difficult to get herself to move, especially with Jon lying full-out on top of her; maybe another woman would have found him heavy, but to her he was just right. But with a little bit of cajoling she got him on his feet before she went to take a shower and coax as much of his cum out of her as she could. She hated to; if she could, she'd leave his spend inside her for as long as possible; but by now she had personal experience with the fact that he would leak out of her before too long, and she had classes today. The last thing she needed was for some passing scoundrel to catch the scent of semen—it was very distinctive; you could not mistake it for anything else, once you knew what it was—and make some joke about it. Panties would soak it up, but they could not fight gravity.

When she emerged, she found Jon waiting for her. He was dressed nicely, in the same business-casuals he had worn to Polkiss-Leyton, and there was a quizzical look on his face. "First thing I do once I get in is thank Dr. Chandakar," he said.

"Oh?" said Caitlyn.

"Yes." He drew her to him. "Now I get to wake up like that every day."

She laughed. "Thank him for me too. I think we'd better not do it quite as ... Vigorously... Every morning, but it was definitely a great way to start the week."

"You didn't come, did you?"

"No."

He frowned. "Caitlyn, you gotta tell me these things. I know that, sometimes, in the moment, I get ... Preoccupied with my own pleasure, but, you stop me if that happens, hon. Hold me back and say, 'Wait for me, Jon, ' and I'll make sure you—"

"Shh." She put a finger across his lips. "Stop, you silly man. I love it when you come inside of me. I love feeling it happen, I love watching your face, I love knowing that I did it, that I can pleasure you so well ... If I were cumming too, I wouldn't get to do any of that. So I'm fine the way it is."

"But..." His face was wrinkled in confusion. "You didn't come."

She smiled. And yet another example of that fundamental difference. Does he understand? Does he even realize? "Baby, when you make me come, how do you feel? Happy? Proud of yourself? Pleased that I'm experiencing such pleasure?"

He smiled. "That's it, more or less."

"Well ... Imagine feeling that, but knowing you had done it with your body. With the part of you that was meant to do that to me. Not your hand or your mouth, which is good too, but ... You know. The organ. Your penis."

He considered.

"Wouldn't it be that, and then some?"

"You know, come to think of it ... I don't think I've ever managed to make you come during actual penetration ... Or, if I have, I was coming too and, as you correctly identified, was kind of distraced at the time." His eyebrows quirked. "I'll have to work on that next time." He smiled down at her. "But, baby, it's okay for you to enjoy yourself too. You don't always have to be the giver. You can take pleasure too."

She beamed, and leaned up to kiss him. Just when I think he's run out of ways to surprise me... 

9:35 was her composition seminar, and in spite of its upper-division nature there were a number of underclassmen in it, in addition to the age-scattered clutch of graduate students. The professor, Dr. Kleimann, was new to her but seemed competent enough, and had authored several compositions which the orchestra had played; the students, as she'd mentioned to Jon, were more of a mixed bag.

Barely had she gotten settled in her seat when one of those kids came in. His name was Wesley Bannen and he seemed to have a high opinion of his attractiveness to women. To be sure, he was extremely handsome, with bronzed skin, perfectly-coifed golden hair and a boyish charm that reminded her of Max Lapinski; he was shorter than Jon but more muscular, and wore both his height and breadth well. Today he had dressed in a polo shirt (in January!) and clean slacks; she wasn't sure if he dressed up for school, or just as a matter of habit, because the fact of the matter was that his clothes, too, made him look good. In short, he was an impressive package. But he seemed to expect that this would win the hearts of any woman he laid his eyes on; evidently, the standard procedure was for him to sit next to the girl, give her his good looks, flash her a winning smile, and then move on to the humping-like-bunnies part of the program. Certainly he'd seemed surprised when the first three steps didn't work on her.

To be fair, he was certainly a fine specimen of manhood; had there not been a husband in her life, she would've been flattered, maybe even flustered. But ever since that fateful day when she'd played at the Chamberses' wedding, there were two categories of men in the world: Jon, and Everyone Else. And, no matter how shiny their smile or how luminant their skin or how charming their cologne, Everyone Else seemed to fall dreadfully short in comparison.

"Hey there, Caitlyn; how was your weekend?" said Wes. He slung his bookbag and then his person into a desk with a careless ease that made her jealous.

"It was pretty good," she said, smiling. It really was flattering to have him posture like that; she had enough confidence in her position now that she could enjoy his charm without falling for it. Just another example of how Jon has been good for me. "I had dinner with my family on Friday, and then with my husband's family on Saturday."

He knew, of course; she had mentioned it last Wednesday, during the first meeting of the class. "Husband? Sweetie-pie, you're far too young to be saddled down like that. Ditch that old oaf!, have some fun!, sow your wild oats!"

"With you?" she said, amused.

"Well, sure, if you wanted," he said with another dose of that easy charm. He made the whole thing look so effortless. "I'm sure I could show you something new." Such a change from the shy, almost inaudible words she'd first shared with Jon, there under her parents' noses as Brandon and Meredith's wedding. And yet the difference was important. From Jon, she knew, the words had come from the heart. Wes could lie to the devil and look good doing it.

Her daring rose and she gave him a wicked grin: "What, like a tiny penis?"

To his credit, he didn't even flinch. "So what if it is? As the whore said to the bashful sailor, 'It ain't how much you got, son, it's all in how you use it.'" There was laughter from few classmates who had straggled in and were trying (without success) to look like they weren't listening. "And baby, believe me: I know how to use what I got."

Again, it was the comparison that did it. In Wes' mouth, 'baby' was a throwaway term, just another pronoun to be switched out interchangeably. (She wondered how many he had.) From Jon it took on a whole new dimension: layers of tenderness and intimacy and the deep knowledge of their long association. It was an encapsulation of his love for her. He would never just throw it away.

"Wes," she said, smiling. "You're cute, and you're a lot of fun. But I'm afraid I'm just a one-man kind of girl." She showed him her claddagh ring; though he had not proposed to her with it, she wore it on her left hand now, with the heart facing towards her, as befitted a married woman. "Last April I lost a ring that looked just like this: a claddagh ring, but with the band in a Celtic-knot design. I had bought it when I was eleven, and I'm glad I did because I've never seen this particular design for sale anywhere else. And then ... I lost it. And I felt terrible."

"Then ... Where'd that come from?" Wes said.

"Well," said Caitlyn. "A certain boyfriend of mine asked me for the details, and then went out on the Internet to find something similar. He said it took him about an hour of various searches and sorting through the results. And then he had to drive north for an hour just to pick it up. So he did all that, and then, one night, when we were out to dinner ... Well, he came through for me."

"Wow," said Wes, seemingly impressed. "That's pretty cool."

"And he said one thing which I always keep in mind," she said. She indicated the heart on the claddagh ring. Above it was the crown for loyalty, and the hands for friendship; but this heart meant more than just love. "He said, 'Be careful with that heart. It's mine.'"

The classmates, who were definitely listening now, gave a chorus of appreciative "Awww"s.

"So, I'm sorry, Wes," she said, "but I'm taken. I'm a happily-married woman. And if it makes you feel better, it's not you; it's that there isn't anyone who could take me away from him."

"Well, that's too bad," said Wes. "A girl with class—I like that. But my loss is your husband's gain. Is it okay if I still sit next to you?"

She returned his grin. "Only if you promise to tone down the extravagant flirting."

During the fifteen-minute passing period between this class and her next (Music Research, a class concerned solely with the writing of scholarly papers and the official formatting of said publications), she called her husband; unsurprisingly, she got his voicemail. He was probably busy, it being his first day on the job and all, and she hoped she hadn't disturbed anything by calling him. He didn't call back until 12:35, which told her he had remembered her schedule: she was walking back to their apartment, having just got out of the class.

"Hey!"

"Hi, baby. How's school?"

"Oh, you know. The same."

"Any hot boys trying to lure you away from me?"

She laughed. "Actually, just one. I got him shut down in a hurry."

"Too skeevy for you?"

"Actually, no, he was kinda cute."

" ... Oh... "

His hesitation was almost palpable, but she let her smile carry through the phone and said, "But what do you feel when you see a nice-looking lady walk by?"

"Umm ... Well, I'd tell you, but I don't think I'm supposed to admit to my wife that I notice other women."

She laughed. "Jon, I know you're only human. Of course you notice. But... ?"

"But ... Well ... I mean, you know. They are attractive, right? And I look at them and think, 'Well, gosh, if I weren't spoken for, I might want to look into that. But I am, and happy to be, so... '"

"And now you know why I don't feel uncomfortable about telling you there's a cute guy in my class. Because I too am spoken for, and happily so. As I told him."

There was a short silence, and then Jon's voice, quieter. "Caitlyn?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

She smiled. "I love you too, baby. How's the new job going?"

"Oh, well ... It's ... Well, it's pretty busy. I'm on lunch break right now, but I've been shadowing this guy, Roberto? Basically, I just follow him around and watch what he does, and get to try it out every now and then. They tell me there's supposed to be a class—we're actually supposed to be, you know, sitting around and taking notes—but they're shorthanded today so all us trainees just got thrown into the practical training instead. It's been interesting."

"Any cute girls there?" She wanted to picture the situation as best she could.

"Well ... There's one. Her name's June. But ... She's not really my type."

"Oh?"

"She's not you."

She felt a wash of love and affection. "I love you too, Jon."

"Look, Caitlyn, I ... I'm sorry I was so distant last week."

"Were you?" she said in genuine consternation. "Honestly, we were so busy that I didn't even notice."

"Well, that was ... Part of the distance. It's just ... Caitlyn, I've always known that one day it might come down to a time where your parents stand in front of you and demand you abandon me for them. And, it's ... God. I mean, you've chosen me. You've chosen me again and again. There's no reason for me to be nervous about what you want or who you want. But, I ... Especially now that they're back. I just keep thinking... "

"It's okay," she said. "Jon, it's okay. I'm not perfect either. I have insecurities too. And that's why I told you, and that's why I show you with my heart and soul and body and voice and everything, that I love you, and that I would never... Never ... Choose them over you." She was glad she had gotten back to the apartment; she had no interest in letting people see her choke up over a phone call. "I want them to be a part of my life, I want them to meet their grandchildren whenever we have them, and be able to show them my room at home that I decorated and ... I want them to be in my life—but only if they're willing to accept that you are a part of it too, and that they can't change that."

"You've said that before, " he said.

Even if he hadn't meant it as a criticism, she took it as one. "I know." She sighed and leaned back against the closed front door. "I haven't always been ... The most supportive of your presence in my life. But, Jonathan ... I'm still here." She held her breath. There was nothing else she could say, no other truth she could offer.

She heard him sigh. "You are. And, you know ... I think I don't give you nearly enough credit for that."

There was a short silence.

"So, this cute guy of yours ... Did he notice what we were up to this morning?"

"Umm ... How would he have noticed that?"

"Well ... He might've smelled it."

"Jon, I washed off in the shower this morning. I'm not going let that smell linger when I'm going to school."

"I know, I was just teasing."

"No matter how much I'd like to."

"Wunhh??"

"Jon, don't act so surprised. I don't mind..." What was the right way to put this? " ... being marked by you. I don't mind the world knowing that we're married, that you have primacy over me. Why do you think I wear your wedding ring?" Or the engagement ring with its fantastically-colored diamond, or the claddagh ring he had bought her to replace the old one. "It's okay with me if people know I belong to you. I like people knowing it. It's just that ... people knowing it through that particular way ... might not be ... Politic."

"Hmm ... You know, I didn't realize you had that kind of ... I dunno, that kind of submissive streak in you."

"A what??"

"A ... Well, I mean, you're your own woman; you're very dedicated and determined. But ... You kind of like the idea of, I dunno ... Being marked, as you said. Of being ... What, of being mastered."

Come to think of it... "You know, I think you have a point."

She heard his smile. "Might be something to look into."

She made herself a sandwich lunch while contemplating the list of homework assignments already handed to her and the constant demand of her instrument lessons, not to mention the general housekeeping chores that seemed to be in perpetual bloom. Groceries were taken care of, as Jon had promised to get them on his way home and he almost never forgot his assignments, but there would be laundry soon (if there wasn't enough already), and the dishes would pile up the way they always did. She had never been both a full-time student and a full-time housewife before (if you could call it that, since they lived in an apartment and didn't have kids; if you could call it that, since political correctness decreed the use of unwieldy and highly-oversyllabic terms like "domestic administrator"). She could already see that some duties would have to be reapportioned. She knew Jon wouldn't mind; but she also knew that his standards of cleanliness and timeliness were simply not the same as a woman's. She wondered how far the household would deteriorate.

While she was eating, the phone rang again. Expecting something last-minute from Jon, she was surprised to hear Christa Crane's voice on the other end. "Hey, Caitlyn! I realize it's last-minute and kind of unorthodox, but Zach and I realized that we hadn't seen you since your birthday, and we thought, 'Oh no,  that can't be allowed to last!' So, we were wondering if you guys were free tonight. We figure, it's a Monday and there's probably nothing going on... "

And that was how they ended up with visitors. Caitlyn scheduled them for seven that night, which should be enough time for her and Jon to put something good together for dinner, and then left him another message keeping him abreast of the updates. She needed to put in some harp and oboe practice in preparation for her lessons on Tuesday and Thursday; she was starting to think that maybe she should set oboe lessons aside, at least for her own sanity. The two instruments together took up about ninety minutes of her time; the homework took another forty-five, as she had no "real" classes until Wednesday and some of it could be spread out to there. Between it all, her mind had plenty of time to wander.

She'd never put that much thought before into domination and submission, but in retrospect she wondered why it hadn't occurred to her yet. She had assembled a modest collection of what her mother had condescendingly termed "young women's fiction," always with a bit of a sneer that Caitlyn should have descended to that level. "What's to read about," she'd once asked. "You'll find a nice young man and get married by Pastor Pendleton, and that'll be it." Sometimes Caitlyn wasn't sure her mother understood her at all. But that was neither here nor there; the relevant fact was that almost all of those "young women's fictions"—the romance novels, in other words—had elements of control in them. There was always the powerful man with half-unlaced shirt and burning gaze, the man whom (it was sensed, and sometimes spelled out) could take a woman against his will if he so chose. Of course, he never did ... Or, if he did, the loss of control was dismissed or validated when it turned out that the woman "burned" for him just as much as he did for her.

It was a rape fantasy, pure and simple; the message was that, if a woman wanted sex, it was permissible for a man to go for it even if she resisted, because in the heat of the moment she would be compliant. Caitlyn wasn't sure if she liked this fantasy, or the fact that she was buying into it. Because she was buying into it, that much was plain; there was something incredibly exciting about the idea that she might be able to incite her man to some lust-crazed frenzy. After all, if she had inspired him to hold her down and ravish her, who truly held the power in this situation? And besides, she could not deny the animal attraction in being taken by a strong, powerful man who would convince her to see things his way—a man who knew what he wanted, and intended for them both to have it.

The aspects of non-consent were troubling ... But they linked perfectly with the animal-lust aspect too. It was as if a woman had to trick her man into ravishing her in order to be satisfied; it was as if his lust for her was the actual goal, and achieving it would simply carry them away and smooth over all the rough edges. That seemed stupid at first glance; after all, what if the woman actually didn't want it? But, at the same time, wasn't that more or less how her own sex life had started? Here was Jon, knowing that he could show her to her pleasure, knowing that he could awaken her sexuality, but having to overcome her hesitations and inhibitions to do so. Hadn't there been an element of non-consent in those actions?—he, riding roughshod over whatever barriers and defenses had been instilled in her by upbringing and education, to touch her most intimate places, awaken her most intimate responses?

And yet it hadn't been like that at all, and she knew it. She had not asked, but she knew in her heart—had never doubted—that, if she had on their wedding night asked him to hold off, to ease her in more slowly, that he would have. He had opened her secrets that night, plumbed her depths, yes, but only because she'd let him. He would not have forced himself on her. He would've been anxious, frustrated, maybe even angry (and knowing now what she did about sex, she couldn't blame him), but he would have forebore. And with her consent, he had done only what he knew she would thank him for: touch her most secrets places, awaken her most intimate responses. She knew now what he had done, and she was glad for it. If he'd left me to discover these things alone, I would probably be just lying there thinking of England. I would never have understood just how intimate and passionate our loving was supposed to be.

And that was the heart of it.

In those romance stories, the danger was part of the fun—the women protagonists, frail though they might be in body, always seemed to enjoy playing with the lit bombs they made of their men, teasing them until the overwhelming passion swept everything away (especially reason, dignity and clothing). Caitlyn understood that feeling—the frisson of danger in toying with something only somewhat under control, something that could turn on you if you mistreated it ... But in the romance novels, the turning-on-you was never a bad thing. When a man turned on her woman, it was always to their mutual pleasure; it was a no-lose scenario—especially since, even if the woman was at first resistant to the idea of sex, she turned out to have wanted it too. There was never a sense that the woman was teasing simply because she could, but had no intention of giving it up; there was never the sense that she was promising more than she intended to give. Caitlyn thought such an action was stupid in the extreme; Caitlyn thought it still didn't justify rape. And yet, in the stories, this side of it just simply didn't happen. The women always wanted it; the men were always gentle. Caitlyn knew enough of real life to see those for the fantasies they were.

And yet, with Jon, she had a fairy-tale come true. She knew he would never hurt her. She knew he was safe. And so it would be okay for them to play like that—because she knew that, if she said the word, if she was too frightened or the situation was spiraling out of control, he would stand down and they could reset. (She made herself a promise right there that, if they ever did have to back off like that, she would give him a blowjob as a reward. After all, one good turn deserves another.) No matter how threateningly he might posture, how loudly he might growl, she knew that, down at the bedrock of soul where the real decisions were made, he would never hurt her.

And if their sex in these sessions should happen to involve a certain amount of grabbing and holding-down...

Caitlyn came to herself suddenly. She was sitting behind the harp, its massive countenance frowning down on her shoulder, but the sheet music seemed utterly foreign to her, as though she had never seen it before. She had a vague recollection of having played the same page five or six times. And between her legs ... She could feel the throb, the ache, the void inside her begging to be filled; her panties were wet, and maybe even the bottoms of her pants. Her chest was heaving, her nipples stiff against her bra; she was more turned-on than she had been even when Jon was fucking her this morning.

Carefully, as though it (or she!) might break, she leaned the harp back down until it supported its own weight. Then, carefully, as though she (or it) might break, she slid her hand down inside her pants, between her legs, into the flaming heat and murky damp, touching herself with sexual intent for the first time in her life.

The lower fringes of her hair were matted with her own wetness; she felt the slipperiness of her pussy as she leaned back against the wall to give herself more access. She had thought to slide a finger inside herself, but some unknown instinct made her press her hand against her own clit, nestling it into the webbing between her fingers. The wave of pleasure was almost dizzying, but oh so good; she had barely begun to press down when orgasm burst over her.

Her body shook like a leaf in a storm; she felt the explosion of pleasure beneath her as her pussy spasmed, clenching down on some non-existent intruder; her own movements caused her hips to buck against her hand, pressing her clit against her fingers and deluging her with sensations so strong as to be almost unbearable. She heard the rushing in her ears, and faintly beyond that her own gasping moans; and then it was over and she collapsed back down to the wall, breathing hard.

After a minute she stirred, and began extricating her hand from her privates. Unsurprisingly they were coated with her own lubricants; she smelled up close the tangy scent Jon's face always bore after he went down on her. After a dream-like moment she raised that hand to her face and tasted her own self for the first time; she was curious, and this seemed the thing to do. It tasted not unlike its smell: sour, somewhat metallic. She wasn't sure why Jon seemed to like it so much.

She was more composed when Jon came home; she'd changed her panties, and her pants to be safe. She couldn't remember being that worked up in her life. Jon had certainly never managed it, which was somewhat frightening considering that he basically was her sex life. Of course, Jon had been involved in the fantasy—kind of, sort of, to a certain extent, maybe—but it was just that: a fantasy. For mere imagination to have that much power over her—more than her husband...

Despite all her efforts, Jon sensed it. He turned her away from the mashed-potato mix with gentle hands and then tilted her chin up to look at him. "Hey. You've been quiet ever since I got home. Plus, your favorite jeans, which you were wearing today, are in the wash all of a sudden. Something happen?"

Caitlyn wilted for a moment. You notice these things? Though, considering how much she loved those jeans, and how often she wore them, maybe it would've been something to yell about if he hadn't noticed by now. But that was neither here nor there. The pertinent fact was that she couldn't talk about this, not to Jon—it was too potentially volatile, too potentially shameful. And yet she was bound to him by love, and if he wanted to know...

"You'll always love me, right? Always? There's nothing that could change that..."

He gave a gentle laugh. "What, this again? Didn't we just go through it with me earlier today? What's going on, hon?"

"Will you?" she insisted.

He sensed her intensity and didn't laugh again. "Yes, Caitlyn Stanford, I will. I will always love you. For better or worse, in good times and bad, through sickness and health, as long as we both should live. And even beyond then."

"Okay, then I can tell you," she whispered, though she still wasn't sure she could. "When you ... When we talked, earlier on the phone ... What you said about ... Dominating me ... I thought about it, and..." Almost silent now. "I really really liked it."

She saw Jon's eyebrows leap practically into his hair.

"I don't ... I'm still not really sure why I like it, but ... I do. And..." A nervous giggle. "I got soo worked up thinking about it."

"Hence the, err, pants replacement?" he said, an amused smile on his face. "You must've really been going, for that much smell."

She felt her face drop. "You could smell it?"

"And, if Zach or Christa pass by the laundry hamper, which they almost certainly will since it's in the bathroom, they will too." Then he laughed as

Caitlyn stormed over to the hamper and stuffed the offending articles all the way to the bottom.

"Well," she said. "Where were we?"

"Err," he said, still laughing, "I think both of us had received shocks in a rather brief period of time."

"Mine has been dealt with," she said primly. "What about you?"

"Well..." His lapsed into silence. "It's, um ... Well, I guess I can see it. I mean, you've never lacked for strong authority figures in your life; even me, to a certain extent. It makes sense that they would get ... What, entangled up in your ideas of sexuality."

"You don't think they're supposed to be," she asked, immediately apprehensive.

"Well..." He shrugged. "It's not my personal cup of tea, I have to say. I'm not into the whole 'power' thing. But that doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or anything. As long as you aren't harming people, whatever floats your boat, right?"

But if it isn't his cup of tea, how do I get him to do it to me? "Okay."

"I mean, there's nothing in the Bible about that either, is there?"

"Not to my knowledge," she said. "I mean, there's the strictures about rape and all that, but it's not really rape if we're both just pretending."

She could see by his eyebrows that she had shocked him again, but to his credit he plowed on. "If we ever get to the point where we can entertain fantasies, I think it's a good sign. A lot of times—well, heck, just a minute ago—we feel really nervous about trying to explore the, umm, exotic sides of our sex lives."

"Or even talking about them."

"Or even talking about them. And that sort of exploration is only possible when you feel, you know, really safe and secure with your partner, because if you tried it for real you might get hurt, or somebody might get in trouble. So ... I'd say it'd be a good sign."

"Isn't it already?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean ... Jon, I do feel that safe. I know we can explore the ... I know that we can, you know, play out those fantasies without anybody getting hurt. Because I already feel that safe."

"That's good," he said, smiling, and reached out to draw her into a hug.

"So can we try it?" she asked.

He stopped with his arms halfway around her. "What, like ... Right now?"

She glanced at the mashed potatoes, and then at the vegetables Jon had been working on. They could keep. "Sure, why not?"

He gave a distracted grin. "Who are you, and where's the woman I actually married? She's really hesitant about sex."

"And isn't it every man's dream to be married to a woman who really likes it," she countered, grinning.

"I suppose it is, but I'm not just any man," he said, running a hand through his hair.

"Of course not," she said, slinking closer to him. "You're the man who's going to hold me down and have his way with me." Just the thought of it made her tingle.

But Jon didn't look excited; as a matter of fact, now that she looked closely, he seemed downright worried. "Umm ... Look, Caitlyn ... I'm not sure if this is really the, umm, the right expression for me."

"Huh?"

"It's just ... I don't like the idea of putting that power relationship in sex. We've never done that and I don't know if it's a smart idea. It adds violence to the relationship, pure and simple."

"Oh, come on, Jon, I'm not asking you to spank me or anything." Not even a little? "Just ... You know. To be a little more aggressive. To be more physical. To be more ... Controlling."

"I don't know if I even like that," he said. "That's what your mother does. It just isn't..." He sighed. "Are you sure you like this idea?"

In answer, she took his hand and placed it on the juncture between her legs. She knew he could feel the heat even through the cloth. But even then, it wasn't enough, so she guided him into her pants. She felt his fingers taste the slipperiness between her nether lips, and watched his eyebrows jump for a third time.

Suddenly she became aware of just how weird this might look: the two of them just standing here with his hand down her pants. I hope I closed the blinds!—I haven't had any more problems with that stupid Mrs. Clarke, but why tempt fate? Nonetheless she didn't feel weird; there wasn't anything wrong, in her mind, with sharing her arousal with her husband. Especially since, in its own way, this wasn't even remotely sexual. They were talking about sex, obviously, but he wasn't really doing anything to her, nor she to him; she was simply expressing her arousal, the effect this particular fantasy had on her. It wasn't erotic; it was factual.

I see what he means about feeling safe.

"Well," he said, slithering his hand out of her pants. "That answers my question. Umm. Gosh. Umm. Look, Caitlyn, this is just ... I dunno if I can just swallow all of this all at once. Give me a little time to think about it, okay?"

He hadn't said no. She smiled. "Take all the time you need, my love."

Christa and Zach arrived thirteen minutes late—Caitlyn should've remembered to account for that when scheduling them—and burst onto the scene with their typical energy. Barely had Caitlyn opened the door when she was being engulfed in a full-on hug. She wasn't used to there being someone else's breasts in the way. Jon popped the chicken from the oven, Caitlyn grabbed the mashed potatoes, Zach offered to say a quick (and all-inclusive) grace, and off they went.

The Cranes were doing just fine, thanks for asking. They had returned to Greenfield at the beginning of the month for the second quarter of their respective Master's programs, much as Caitlyn had just last Wednesday, and were settling back into their school-year routines. Octapella had rehearsed several times already, of course, but they'd only seen Jon there and didn't want Caitlyn to feel left out. Yes, they had very much enjoyed their first Christmas together; they'd gone home to spend it with their respective families, but on the 26th had had their own personal Christmas together back at their place—well, right after they'd helped move the Stanfords into this very apartment, that's when! They were married now; though they loved going back to Mount Hill to see their family, 'home' was their apartment just off the Greenfield campus, and the two people who lived there. How was Caitlyn doing?

"Oh, about the same," Caitlyn said. "Shellview went back in on Wednesday." She described her classes, what little there was to say about them; it wasn't like she'd learned that much jazz theory or new composition techniques since then. She was also taking a class about music in the age of computers and filling her ensemble requirement in the orchestra, in addition to harp and oboe lessons every week.

Jon talked about the truck they'd bought and the adventures of finding a cap for the bed, and then moved on to his new job. "The one Brandon told me about, at Caitlyn's birthday."

"That was barely two weeks ago," Christa said. "Two weeks ago yesterday, wasn't it? You guys move pretty fast."

Jon shrugged. "It was a good opportunity. No reason to wait, right?"

"How was it," Caitlyn asked. She realized that, though he'd come home over an hour ago, she hadn't asked him about his day yet.

Jon shrugged again. "It was ... fine," he said. "It's my first day, after all. A lot of new technology, a lot of new jargon. And technically they haven't started training me yet."

"Oh?" said Zach.

"Well ... Remember what Brandon said about the industry being short-handed?" Jon said. "He wasn't exaggerating. There were quite a few people home sick, and then quite a few extra people coming in because they were sick and needed to see their doctors. We had more people coming in than the staff could handle. And that was with me and the other two trainees being temporarily promoted to apprenticedom and actually just shadowing real medical assistants."

"Wow," said Christa. "Total immersion."

"Yeah. I think I can get to handle it. But what a way to find out."

"Do you like your coworkers?" Zach asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Jon. "They're just fine." He smiled. "I'm already learning which ones sleep around and which ones go home to their wives. It's a big complex—I'm not actually assigned to any one doctor, Brandon just said Dr. Chandakar because he was Brandon's connection, he was, like, the 'who you know' angle. Which is actually too bad, because Dr. Chandakar's nice. He's got an accent but his English is perfect ... Well, except for the accent. I haven't dealt with too many Indian people, so occasionally I have to double-take."

"I'm sure you'll get used to it," Christa said. "I didn't know too many Indians myself until I came to Greenfield, but now it's easy."

"What about the assistants and nurses and such?" Zach said.

"They're ... They're a good group," Jon said. "I mean, I haven't known them that long, but ... I mean, in order to handle this medical stuff, you have to have a certain amount of intelligence, or at least a certain amount of reliability. And ... That's my kind of person ... And of course I've only been there one day; God only knows how everything will pan out. But that's the feeling I get for now."

"Any people our age?" Caitlyn asked.

"Not too many," Jon said. "Most people our age are still in school, remember. But some."

"Hey, hold on," Zach said, grinning at her. "How come you didn't know that? You're his wife, you're supposed to be the first one he talks to."

"Well, because the instant I got home, she dropped all sorts of bombshell on me," Jon answered, giving her a wry leer that (she suspected) wasn't entirely joking.

"Uh-oh," said Christa. "Are you pregnant?"

Caitlyn laughed. "No, nothing like that. At least, I don't think so. My period should start, like, tomorrow, so ask me on Friday or something. But probably not. I am on The Pill now."

"So, juicy gossip," Zach said, grinning. "Something interesting, probably, 'cause you didn't cheat on him and you aren't pregnant. Something harmless but really interesting in its implications. Which is the best kind."

Caitlyn hesitated for a moment; after all, she did want to have Zach and Christa's respect. But she had told Jon, the person whose rejection would hurt her most, and he had accepted her even in his surprise; and besides, if the Cranes were going to separate themselves from her for something as minor as this—after all the talk they'd shared, after all the discussions on sex technique she'd listened in on, after being one of the first people to meet Laurelyn Chambers—then their friendship wasn't worth that much to begin with.

"I told Jon that I want him to dominate me in bed," she said.

Zach and Christa shared a short look. Then they both turned back to Caitlyn. "And?" Zach said.

Jon laughed. "Well, remember that this is a girl who's never masturbated in her life."

"Well ... Actually..." Her cheeks were flaming. "That's not true."

Jon shot her a look. "What? But you said that..."

"I know, I know, and ... It was true. Until this afternoon."

Christa looked back and forth between them in confusion. "Why, is Jon not satisfying you?"

Yes, if he won't do this for me,  she thought, but aloud she said, "No, that's not it at all. We did it really well this morning, actually. It's just that ... I was thinking about, umm. About Jon, um. Dominating me. And ... I got really worked up, so I..."

"You go, girl," Zach said, grinning.

"I was really worked up, it only took about three seconds," Caitlyn said, feeling redder than ever.

She saw Jon's eyebrows perform the now-familiar lift. "Jeez," he muttered into his drink.

"Okay, so..." said Christa to Jon. "What's the problem?"

Jon considered his drink for a moment.

"I just don't feel it's safe," he said. "I think that, for something as delicate as sex, it's a mistake to put in power and control and denial elements like this. Unless the bond is really strong and can withstand violence that way."

"Well, the thing is, it is totally consensual," Zach said. "Caitlyn is consensually telling you to bugger off, and you're consensually getting her to yield to you." He grinned.

"Look, all I know is that what you play at has a way of becoming what you actually think," Jon said. "And I don't want those ideas to become the way I think, no matter what. Because then what separates me from her parents? What keeps us from turning into them?"

"Oh, come on," Caitlyn protested. "That's not what's gonna happen—"

"Caitlyn, think about what they did to you," Jon said. "Think about the way they think. They make the decision that they know what's best for someone else, and then they don't stop until that decision is enforced. That's the way they roll. It doesn't matter what you want, only what they want. It's rape, Caitlyn. It's violence. And I don't want to toy with that, even for fun." He reached out for her, his palm warm and rough against her cheek; it was the most intimate gesture they ever shared. "I love you too much for that."

She pressed his hand against her cheek, kissed his palm. "Oh, Jon. Don't you see? It's precisely because you love me too much to do it that we can do it. It's because I know you never would hurt me."

"Today," Jon said. "What about tomorrow? What about a week from now? What about after we've done it so often that I grow to like it, and I want to have dominion over you like that? What happens when I become the thing I hate most?"

This was a different matter. "Jon, you wouldn't become that kind of—"

"Maybe, maybe not, but Caitlyn, I don't want to even risk it. This is more important than ... Than anything."

"What is?" Christa said. Caitlyn had almost forgotten she was there. "What's more important? To not hurt Caitlyn?"

"To..." Jon looked back across the table. "To not turn out like her parents did. To not turn out like my parents did. To not repeat history. To learn from their mistakes, and not screw my kids up like they did theirs."

Caitlyn took his hand again. "I never knew that."

Jon gave her something of an alarmed look. "Really? I'm sure I've mentioned it."

"You have?"

"Caitlyn, it's like the most important thing to me. That's what I wanna do with my life. That's why I'm a Family Sim. Because there's nothing more important than raising your kids well."

That he had said, both before and after they'd married. "Okay, now I'm back in we've-talked-about-this territory."

"Caitlyn, it sounds like this is something that's important to him," Christa said. "Is it something you really want to push him on?"

"No," said Caitlyn. "Not if it's important. But..." She could already feel the enthusiasm draining away. "I was really looking forward to it. I really liked the idea."

"I'm sorry," said Jon.

"It's okay. I'll get over it. It just..." Now she was a little frustrated. "I mean, we try everything you come up with. When's it my turn?"

"Cait, you don't have to consent with the things I come up with. If any of them rub you the wrong way..."

"I mean, everything, just from day one," Caitlyn said. It was true, after all; he'd more or less guided all their bedroom activities. "You're leading me, you're teaching me..."

"Cait, that's just because I happen to be more experienced than you. It's not like I have an agenda or anything. I just..."

She was more angry than she'd realized. "Can't we just, for once, do something my way? Just for once. We do everything your way. You owe me."

Jon looked a little helpless, so it was just as well (for him) that Christa intervened (Caitlyn felt for a moment that she should never have invited them). "Caitlyn, I'm not sure that's really a wise attitude to take about this. Are you listening to yourself?"

"So what if I'm not," Caitlyn said, feeling sulky.

"One of the ministers at the church where we work brought up an interesting point a while back," Zach said in a conversational tone. "He was talking about the difference between hopes and expectations. A hope, he said, is a positive statement. It says, 'I think it would suit you to do whatever-it-is, but I won't judge your or love you any less if you don't.' Whereas an expectation, on the other hand, is not supportive or positive or affirming whatsoever. It says, 'I think it would suit you to do whatever-it-is, and I withhold my love and approval until you do.' It's an act of violence. And I think you can guess which of the two modes you're approaching from now."

"And, Caitlyn, that's why I don't want to introduce these elements of power-play into our relationship," Jon said. "Love is about giving. Sex is about giving. There should never be an element of taking in it, never. Giving, yes; and accepting what is given. But never taking."

"Which makes it strange that the act itself is described as 'taking' a woman sometimes," Christa remarked.

"It is, isn't it," Jon said. "That's weird."

"Though, most of the time that's only in the romance novels," Christa said. "Especially the ones with the ripping bodices and thrusting loins."

"Wow," Zach laughed, "I can't believe you said that with a straight face." Caitlyn, for her part, could feel her own cheeks heating: those were exactly the terms used in the young-women's novels. Had Christa read the same ones?

"I've never read those," Jon said. "What's with the bodice-ripping?"

"Oh, it's just this weird trope in some of them," Christa said. "You know: the tall, intensely physical man who's interested in the woman's charms, and the woman is resisting—or at least is saying no. You know?"

"Yeah, right," Jon nodded, understanding blossoming on his face. "And he is, err, insistent, and she continues to resist but it turns out that she was either playing with him or was secretly aroused. Boom. Deus ex machina."

"It's not really a healthy outlook," Zach said. "Doubtlessly led to a certain amount of date-rape. The underlying philosophy is that a woman doesn't know her own wants when sex is concerned; she's just putting on an act to be seductive. Or living out society's expectations, since a good women never says Yes to sex."

Caitlyn felt an extra bloom in her cheeks; that last sentence definitely applied to her. Or had, previously; there had been some adjustments made, starting on the night she'd said 'I do.'

"Meaning that, whenever a woman says No, the man feels justified in ignoring it," Jon said. "There's no provision for a woman meaning No. Either she says Yes and they do it ... Or she says No, which is a Yes in disguise to the man, and he keeps pressuring her until she relents, and ... They do it."

"Date rape," Zach said.

"No, not really," Christa said. "It's a really fuzzy line. I've never been in that position personally, but I know someone who has, and we agreed pretty quickly that it's a gray area. I mean, it's 'Fine, let's get this over with.' Is that a No? Is that a Yes? It's not really either of them. She's relenting under duress. It's a gray area."

"Gray means no," Zach replied. "Look, remember what Derek used to say back in high school? Quoted Brian Billick: 'No means no, Maybe means no, and Yes means no the next morning.' " Jon laughed. "You can never assume, is the point. So, 'Fine, let's get this over with' is definitely a No."

"Fair enough," said Christa, gesturing with a hand to accept his conclusions.

"Date rape," repeated Zach.

"Fair enough," said Christa again. "But—assuming of course that you actually did want the sex—I can see how it could be ... Flattering. To have a man who knows what he wants, and plans to get it. And knows that he wants you." She grinned. "There's something to be said for raw physicality, especially where sex is involved."

"So you believe in it too?" Caitlyn said.

"Well, I'm not sure I'd wanna act it out, but, I certainly understand the appeal," Christa said.

"Hunh," said Zach. "You learn something new every day." He grinned. "I hadn't realized our sex could get any more physical."

"Yeah, it gets pretty wild sometimes," Christa said, giggling. "I don't think Zach could do it either. He just ... He doesn't run that way. He's too much like a puppy dog."

"Uhh..." said Zach. "Thanks. I think." He grinned.

"But Jon, on the other hand," said Christa. "Mmm ... I can see it." She nodded. "I can see it. I think he could find it within himself to be masterful in bed."

Caitlyn felt herself beaming. She liked that idea.

Jon looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Oh thanks. Now she's going to badger me until I give in."

"Well, that's your job," said Christa. "To hold her back. Jon, the same thing is true of you as it is of Caitlyn: don't ever try something unless you feel completely comfortable with it. Your job isn't to try something you think is uncomfortable. Your job is to get comfortable with it."

Jon grimaced. "Yeah. I guess. Because she's right, we do mostly do things my way. And..."

"And even if that weren't true," Zach said, "you'd still be obligated because you love her."

Jon squinted at him. "That's backwards, isn't it? I love her, so, isn't she under obligation to me?"

"Nope," said Zach. "Not at all. Nope nope nope. The person who's under obligation, my good man, is you. Not because you owe her for gracing you with her presence or some other waffly thing like that. Nope. You have obligation to her because you love her. Your obligation is your love. Because, let's face it: if it's within your power to make her happy, you wanna do it. Don't you?"

Jon didn't answer. He didn't have to.

"So, once you find out what would make her happy, you've gotta do it. Because you love her. And there's nothing more important in the world than making her happy."

"Which is exactly how I feel when we make love," Caitlyn said to him. "Remember? You were asking whether I came, and I said, No, I don't need to. It's because of this." She stroked his hand. "It's because I love you, and that means your pleasure is more important than my own. It makes you happy to not have to worry about that, to just be inside me and let go of having to be, I don't know, responsible for the whole act. It makes you happy to just slide into me and be carefree. And besides..." She was blushing again. "I actually really, really like it when you come inside me."

Jon smiled at her. He turned his hand up to clasp hers.

"Well, why don't you try this at some point," Christa said. "Jon, it sounds like you're in charge most of the time when you guys are in bed, right?"

Caitlyn laughed. "Who else? He's the only one who knows what's going on."

"Well, why don't you reverse that some night?" Christa said. "Caitlyn, you be in charge. You make the decisions, you take control—it's only been a few weeks, but I bet you know enough about himself and yourself to keep things moving."

Caitlyn frowned. "I don't wanna be in charge. Wasn't the whole point that I wanted him to be more in-charge?"

"Yes, and he's going to work on that," Christa said. "In the meanwhile, if you're in charge, it might give you more ideas for things you'd like to try. You said that you guys always did things Jon's way, because he's the only one who knows what's going on. Well, if you explore, maybe you'll be able to even the knowledge out. And maybe you'll find things to try which Jon finds, ahh, less objectionable."

"Fair enough," said Caitlyn, borrowing Christa's expression.

"And you," Christa said, looking at Jon, "you have your assignment already."

"Okay, Mrs. Crane," said Jon in a squeaky voice. "Is it time for recess yet?"

"I keep telling you you should get a teaching credential," Zach remarked.

After the Cranes had gone, things were a little subdued; Jon and Caitlyn put away the leftovers and cleaned up without much talk. She knew that Jon was mulling over everything that he'd heard tonight; and, to be fair, she herself had some new thoughts to consider. Now that Zach had mentioned it, she could see how almost her whole life had been one long string of expectations—of people making demands on her time and thought and energy. Even better, her parents had never let her turn down one of these requests; when she was younger, they'd made the decisions for her, and by the time she was older, the habit had settled to the consistency of concrete. Oh, to be sure, they'd claimed it was for her own good, and maybe it was; certainly she had already achieved a certain notoriety as a harp player despite her meager age. But the end result was that she was almost completely incapable of saying No.

Only Jon had ever gone into things without placing demands on her.

But even then, the distinction was meager in her mind—not because Jon's approach was similar, or because he was lying; no, it was because (she realized) she still had no conception of saying No. If a person needed her help, she helped them; this was law. It was the Christian thing to do. Jon was much the same; it was part of what drew them together. But Jon had always been much better about drawing barriers around himself—like with this whole dominance thing; he wasn't rude about it, and tried to minimize the conflict, but he'd made it clear that he had problems with the whole thing and didn't want to participate. For Jon, saying No was something as self-evident as breathing.

And what Zach had said about love! She'd never thought of it in quite that way before. It was a strange way of looking at love, but there was no denying its power.

"We should introduce Zach to Pastor Pendleton one day," she said. "I think they might get along."

"I'm sure they'd be able to have some great conversations at least," Jon agreed.

Jon took a shower while Caitlyn checked her e-mail; whether by coincidence or some other skill, her mother called while he was busy. It still startled Caitlyn how much it surprised her to see that name and number flash across her screen; she'd seen it multiple times a day while she still lived with her family. Shouldn't she be used to it? Why should she not be used to it now? "Hi Mom."

"Good evening, Caitlyn. How was school?"

"Oh ... School-ish. You know how it is."

"No, I'm sure I don't." Caitlyn's mom was a second-grade teacher, and brooked no disrespect for education.

"Well, it's only just started," Caitlyn said, feeling a pang of the old impatience. Mom knew that; she'd been calling every night. "There hasn't been that much time for anything to settle yet." She was fairly sure Mom was asking just to make conversation, which was all well and good in person but sillier when you were calling someone up at 9:30 PM.

"I can't believe your school only started now. I've been back in since the 7th. We've already moved on to some advanced topics."

"What, like three plus three?" said Caitlyn.

There was a frosty silence. "Caitlyn, I don't know what's been going on between you and that man, but I am still your mother and deserving of your respect."

This was no time to get into an argument; Caitlyn didn't really want any more strife in her life. Especially not with Mom. Who would sit here and argue until she got her way, which at this rate could take until two o'clock tomorrow morning. "I'm sorry, Mom, it's been a long day." She was beginning to understand what Jon had said about her parents getting their way.

"That's no excuse. I raised you better than that."

"Well, then, it's a good thing I married a man who's willing to put up with it," said Caitlyn.

"Yes. Your husband." Caitlyn could swear the phone was getting chilly in her grip. "How are things in your ... household?"

I'm trying to get him to dominate me, Mom. I learned it from you. "Just fine. He's starting at a new job, and I have an interview tomorrow for a position on-campus. And just now we had Zach and Christa Cranes over for an impromptu dinner party."

"On a Monday night?"

"Well, we're all busy people, Mom, we gotta move it or lose it."

"A new job, you say." Caitlyn had the distinct impression that Mom had never heard that slang before. "What's he doing now?"

She wasn't sure she wanted to tell her what Jon was doing. Drs. Polkiss and Leyton had stopped offering Mom the relative's discount she had availed herself of while Jon was working there, and she had immediately sought out a new dentist; the last thing they needed was for her to change doctors too. "More of the same, basically. He likes it. It's good."

"Why does he need a new job?"

"Why does anyone need a job? To make money. The things we need don't grow on trees, Mom."

"No, they grow in the heart." Caitlyn was surprised at this seemingly-transcendent comment from her mother—at least, until she continued. "There's nothing more important than your salvation in the Lord, Caitlyn."

"Yes, Mom, I remember." It was hard to forget; after all, an eternity of hellfire and damnation hung in the balance. Besides, despite what people would have her believe, it wasn't that hard to get into Heaven. Why take the risk if you didn't have to? "Jon isn't making me do anything sinful or inappropriate."

"I wonder about that, " said her mother.

I'm sure you do, because you think sex is sinful. Caitlyn wondered if her mother believed in some crazy Puritan idea she'd heard—that the only proper way for a man and woman to have intercourse was with a bedsheet in between them. Caitlyn didn't think this idea would work at all; she thought the sheet would chafe the man's penis far too much for him to reach his orgasm, and no orgasm meant no cum—and no cum meant no conception. Besides, wouldn't the bedsheet have a condom-like effect on his sperm? Besides: having a bedsheet stuffed up her privates? Maybe the bedsheet idea was complete fiction. Maybe they cut a hole in it. Either way, it was just stupid enough that Caitlyn thought her mother would fall for it.

"Mom," she said. "I'm twenty-one years old. I'm old enough to make decisions for myself."

"But to make mistakes for yourself?"

"Well, then, how old is old enough to make mistakes for yourself?" Caitlyn asked.

"Approximately the time you're born, " said Caitlyn's mother. "Which is why God graced us with the Bible. His Holy Word contains all that we need to keep from making mistakes in this life."

The fact that Caitlyn agreed with her mom didn't make her sound any less like a pious sheep. "Well, Mom, you'll be glad that both Jon and I know the Bible well, and follow its precepts. We also know each other well. This is also a Biblical precept—to love your spouse, and be faithful to them, and be good to them."

"Is Jon good for you?" her mother asked, abandoning all subtlety. "Does he do good things for you? Does he keep you from the path of sin?"

A lot more than you guys did. "When he doesn't, we talk it out. Everyone makes mistakes, Mom. The more important question is whether we're willing to stop making them."

"Mm-hmm, " said Mom. Caitlyn could tell she was unconvinced; at what, Caitlyn couldn't begin to fathom. That Jon wasn't leading her down the path of iniquity? That they could discuss those trangressions that did happen? That people made mistakes?—Caitlyn knew that, as far as Linda Delaney was concerned, Linda Delaney had never made a mistake in her life.

"Okay, Mom, I've gotta go. It's bed time."

"We'll talk tomorrow. Good night."

Caitlyn folded up the phone just as Jon came out of the bathroom, rubbing his hair with a towel and wearing absolutely nothing. "Your mom again?"

"Same Mom time, same Mom place," Caitlyn said.

"You know, you could tell her you're busy," Jon said. "I mean, it's not like you guys have a lot to talk about."

That should be less true than it is. "I know."

"You're, like, on different worlds. Specifically, she lives on a world where she's always right, and you never are."

Caitlyn sighed. "I know."

He gave her a quizzical look. "And yet ... You still want me to act that way towards you regarding sex?"

"Ooo." She gave him a grin.

He tossed his hands theatrically, sending the towel flopping. "I should know better than to ask questions like that."

"But, Jon, you are always right when it comes to sex." She stepped close to lay a hand on his chest. Sometimes she'd been naked while he remained clothed, but this was the first time the opposite had been true.

"First off, no I'm not, but second off, even if I am, it's for completely different reasons. It's because I study you. I love you, and learn about you, and apply what I've learned. That's completely different from me just dictating that you're going to like something and then expecting you to fall in line."

"Not really," she said, "because you know me so well. You'd always be right." She smiled up at him.

"Ugh," said Jon, wiping his face with a hand. "Look, are you sure there aren't any other things we could try? Ones less ... Volatile?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I didn't know I had any kinks until this afternoon. Christa's suggestion was a good idea, by the way. Do you have anything?" She thought about the pubic-hair surprise. "If there's anything else you're planning to drop on me, I think I'd like some preparation."

Jon shrugged; she was surprised to realize he was a little uncomfortable. "Well ... I always ... If you plan to breast-feed, I kinda wanna try it."

This time it was her eyebrows making the climb. "Umm ... I have no idea how I feel about that." What would it be like to nurse Jon? What would it be like to nurse a child? She could barely envision what any child of theirs would look like. They both had brown hair, Jon's a bit lighter than hers, but he had the most remarkable eyes and she hoped her children would have them. "Let's table that until later. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with trying it, but I have no idea what I'll think about it."

"That's fine, it's not like we'll be having children any time soon anyway," he said, still a little wild-eyed. He was very good with his poker face—so was she, of course—but she knew his eyes well enough to see when he was nervous. "And ... Well ... I kind of want to try ... Anal."

That was definitely a shock. "You said you had no interest in trying it. I remember it well."

He looked pained. "I know, and, I didn't. But ... Things have changed."

"You realize, there's passages in—"

"I know, I know. If you don't want to, you don't want to, and I live with it. That's the way it's always gone. But ... I mean. I'm curious. This is the one sex life I ever get—you're the woman I love, you're the woman I married, and, knock on wood, we'll be together until the end of time. But that means that, if I want to try something, it has to be with you. And ... This is something I'd like to, just, try. To see what happens. If that's okay with you."

She wasn't sure it was. Scriptural strictures aside, she couldn't get her head around the idea of something going in the out door. Actually, she couldn't get the idea of anyone wanting to interface with that area of herself voluntarily. "Why? I mean, Jon, what's the appeal?"

"I dunno, I just..." He shook his head. "Baby, I really like that part of you." His hand slid down her hip, over the curve of her waist, came to rest her left buttock. "I don't get the option much, but, I really like watching you walk, and how you sway." The hand squeezed gently. "You have a really beautiful ... Butt."

She tried to suppress a giggle over this comment. She almost succeeded.

"Okay, okay, it sounds stupid," he said. "Maybe it is stupid. Caitlyn, I'm not saying it's logical or intelligent or anything. I'm just ... Interested."

 ... Which, in the end, was exactly how she felt about this whole domination thing. Because, undoubtedly, Jon was right: there were good and intelligent reasons for her to not want to move in that direction. Reasons that, clearly, hadn't stopped her from wanting it anyway. If she could want something for no meaningful reason, then so could he.

That didn't answer the original issue, though: the one about the Bible.

"Well-lll..." she said. "I don't know. It isn't ... It isn't something I ever, ever thought I would do. And I think it might be wrong."

"That's ... Fair enough," he said. "At least you're not saying No."

"But I'm not saying Yes either," she said.

"No, I understand that," he said. "And since you haven't said Yes, that means it's off-limits until you give a real answer."

Which meant the domination stuff was off-limits too, since he hadn't said Yes. Though he also hadn't said No either. "Agreed."

"And in the meanwhile..." he said. "There are always other things that are ... Not out of bounds. Which we could engage in."

She gave him a teasing grin and stepped closer to him, feeling his semi-hard shaft against her pants. After what we did this morning, he's still interested! "Oh? Are you interested in getting to know your wife a little better?"

"Always," he breathed.

 ... And, in the end, wasn't that the entire point? To feel that, no matter what they'd done before, he could never get enough? God only knew that she never could.

And this time, when he comes inside me, it gets to stay there.

Whatever the case, Jon was on form tonight. Almost before she knew it, she was naked on the bed, his hand between her legs, feeling the rush of her second orgasm of the day. The other had been stronger, but this one was sweeter—not nearly as overwhelming, so that she could feel Jon's breath on her neck, the warmth of his skin. When she had control over herself again she reached for him, rolling onto her back for the second time today, inviting him in.

When he slid home she moaned her acceptance into his mouth.

But instead of moving, he simply lay there for a while, touching her, kissing her, being kissed in return. She caressed all of him that she could reach—his face, his back, his arms, his shoulders, his cute little butt—and then drew him down to her, coaxing him until finally he relented and let his arms relax, resting every ounce of his weight on her. He was not a big man—he weighed at most 155—but even if he had been heavier, she would not have felt smothered. He was perfect here. This was where he was meant to be.

He kissed at her ear. "See, isn't this good too? Just ... Making love. Sharing our love with each other."

"Yes, it is. Jon, I never said I don't like this. But, don't you see? Even just by letting yourself lie on me like this, you make it better for me."

"Why?"

"Because I can't move."

He was silent.

"Jon, I really really like it this way. I like it that you're so ... Physical with me." She couldn't explain it; she'd never been able to. "I like being overwhelmed with it."

He raised his head to look at her—which, of course, required him to take some of his weight on his elbows. "You really are serious about this, aren't you."

She wiggled her hips against his to prove the point. "Maybe, after you're done, you could fall asleep on me like this."

"You'd suffocate."

"I wouldn't." She doubted she would. "If you got too heavy, I'd push you off." And it would be worth the risk, in her opinion. "Jon, I want this."

He just looked at her for a moment; then he smiled, something amused but a little bemused at the same time. "I never know what to expect from you sometimes."

"Isn't that supposed to be a hope?" she said, smiling.

"Good point."

"Well, speaking as the woman you're currently inside, I hope you'll start moving until you come in me." She grinned up at him. "Deep in me, all warm and sticky inside me so that it doesn't dribble out. And then when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll feel your cum still there, and get really turned on, and I'll wake you up and we can do it again."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Who are you, and what've you done with my wife?"

"She's still here. You just awakened the part of her that really, really likes sex." She wiggled her bum again. "This one."

"I've created a monster."

"Oh, come on, you know you love it," she said, grinning.

In answer, he began to move inside her, and she let her head fall back to glory in the thrill of his penetration. She drew him down to her again, bringing his full weight onto her, holding him tightly against her as, down below, he began to thrust in earnest. "Of course, so do I..."



-------

Part 12


Day 55

Jon awoke on Saturday morning with a challenge set for himself. What Caitlyn had said—about bringing a partner to orgasm using only the appendage intended by nature—had stuck with him; he wanted to see if he could do it. And today was Saturday; aside from Marissa Helmsley's wedding to Rob Caruthers, which would require their presence (or, technically, Caitlyn and the harp's presence; but the thing was too big for her to move alone) at 2 PM, they had nothing to do at all. This was the perfect time for some good sex.

Assuming I can make it good.

Caitlyn, of course, slept like a stone; she didn't waken as he extricated his arm and then rolled her onto her back. She was limp and trusting in his arms, her mouth slightly open to admit small, ladylike snores. He clasped her cheek with his hand and kissed her forehead. There were some whose instincts would be to take advantage of her vulnerability; his were to protect her, to shelter her with his efforts and love and his body if need be, to keep her safe from the storms outside. He loved her. He could do nothing else.

In spare moments over the week he had researched this dilemma. The theory was obvious: to bring her as close as he could to orgasm before penetrating her, and then to let his cock do the rest. He knew to slide up her body a little further than normal, to put more direct pressure on her clit; and he knew from Monday's watershed discussion that she was incredibly turned on by his presence bearing down on her. Beyond that was timing, luck and speculation. How close could he get her; and how much of that orgasmic tension would fade away while he maneuvered himself up to penetrate her? How quickly could he do that? He felt equal to the challenges ... But he knew himself well enough to know that it was unearned confidence, that he was flying more or less blind here. Several sites had suggested throwing her legs over his shoulders for the deepest possible penetration and G-spot stimulation; he was sure they were right, but thought it might still be smarter to go with what he knew. After all, despite her flexibility, he didn't think he could rest all that much weight on her if her legs were up like that—not without hurting her or yanking something out of shape.

Still, this was the kind of challenge he thrived on.

He planted gentle kisses around her brow, her nose, her cheeks, her chin; when she didn't waken, he began to move around to her ear, applying lips and tongue to the delicate ridges and folds, to the pale lobe of flesh below. He did it gently; he had suddenly realized that it might be better if she woke up mid-way through, already turned on before she was even conscious. Though she still slept, he could see that his efforts were having an effect; her breathing was growing steadily deeper, and every now and then she breathed out a sigh and moved a little.

She didn't wake up until he had already paid some homage to her breasts and was halfway down her stomach. Her breathing gave a sudden hitch and she moved convulsively, as though being startled out of sleep; a moment later, her hand landed on the back of his head. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," he said in between kisses.

"I was having the most remarkable dream," she said, a smile evident in her voice.

"Good," he said in between kisses. "Just lie back ... and let me ... make them ... come true."

"Mmmmm," she said, a verbal smile. Her hand tightened in his hair.

When he reached her hips, he bypassed her privates entirely, knowing she would have expected him to go there; there was something to be said for anticipation. Instead, he began to kiss her inner thighs, down one leg and up the other until making his procession down to her feet. Besides, she was on the tail end of her period, and, no matter how brave he acted or how he steeled himself, he just wasn't a fan of that salty taste.

As he began to kiss around her ankle (her hand was long gone by now, of course), she said, "You certainly seem to like it down there."

"Well ... I guess I do. Anything wrong with that?"

"Umm ... They're kind of dirty."

"Why? You wash them when you shower. They smell just fine. Your socks don't smell when you take them off, nor do your shoes."

"Yeah, but, Jon—"

He wasn't going to let her hesitation stop her in this case. He took her big toe in his mouth.

She liked it. He could tell, she liked it—her words cut off mid-sentence with a moan, and he saw color flood into her cheeks. Her toe tasted like her fingers did—warm skin with its faint reddish taste—but was a little large for his mouth, so he began to transfer down the row. (This little piggy... ) Her second toe curled in his mouth like a big comma, the bulb fleshy and light, with plenty of crevices and folds to explore. Her big toe brushed against his cheek, and from his vantage point here as he knelt at the foot of the bed he could see her pussy beginning to open like a flower, the outer lips parting and the inner petals beginning to show themselves—a sure sign of her arousal.

When he had reached the last of her toes, he was tempted to try using his teeth, but some instinct made him resist; perhaps he decided he'd pushed enough for one day. Instead he began to kiss back up her body, switching from leg to leg, once again bypassing her pussy in favor of her breasts. He spent longer here this time, kissing over every inch of them, only leaving them when her nipples were fully erect and he could sense that he was no longer thrilling her in any meaningful way. He was here to build her up, not waste time.

As he approached her pussy for yet a third time, her legs parted to welcome him, but once again he took his time. The heat and scent of her arousal were palpable, but he kissed around her legs and the skin of her crotch, concentric circles that slowly narrowed towards that single velvet spot. He thought about going for her anus, or at least her perineum, but decided she'd been stretched enough for one day. He kissed up and down her outer lips, and then up and down the inner ones, caressing them with his tongue; and then he was there, and, abandoning pretense entirely, he latched his lips in a circle around her clit and sucked.

Caitlyn gave a yelp; her whole body jerked, her knees coming up around his head. Simultaneously her hands landed on his head and shoulders, locking him in place. He was starting to learn some of the signs of her impending orgasm, and many were there—he couldn't actually find her clitoris, it had retreated so far under the hood, and her breathing had gone raw; the flesh of her pussy had darkened in color, and her legs were tense against his body. And her whole body, not just her face, had begun to flush, a sure sign that she was getting close. He added a rubbing element with his tongue, licking up and down in the little patch of flesh he had staked out, and she began to moan.

"Tell me when," he said, taking a moment away from her body. "Tell me when."

"Keep going. Keep going. Oh, oh, oh ... Jon, keep—"

This was the critical moment. As her pitch spiraled higher and her body continued to tense, he knew that if he wanted to penetrate her, the time was now. But could he compensate for the sudden disruption in her pleasure?—she wouldn't stay aroused for very long, maybe only seconds. If he was going, he needed to go quickly and he needed to go now.

In retrospect, he wasn't sure how he did it; maybe Caitlyn helped him, somehow, despite her pre-orgasmic delirium. All he knew was that one moment he was hunched between her thighs; the next he was up over her, guiding himself in. He sunk to the hilt in one go, and then moved himself up until his shoulder covered her face, changing the angle to put more stimulation on her clit. Caitlyn grabbed him by the butt and pulled, as though trying to consume him bodily. "Jon— Jon— Do it, do it, oh—"

Three quick strokes, and she was there.

He felt the tremor under him, watched her body seemed to stretch and tense like a spring; then her face went slack with the relief, and he felt the firm clenching of her pussy around his shaft as she shuddered under him, her arms and legs losing their strength, the tension in her face melting into an expression of exhausted joy. The squeezing must have felt remarkably good to him, but he didn't notice; he was too busy watching her come.

Her eyes closed and she relaxed back onto the bed; he kept himself occupied kissing her neck, her ear, her face, even her eyelids until she opened them again and smiled up at him.

"Wow," she breathed.

"I love you too, baby," he said.

"Oh, I love you so much..." She reached up to kiss him. "That was ... I see what you mean about ... About wanting me to cum."

He smiled. "It was fun for me too. Most of the time I'm down there when it happens, or coming too; I don't get to watch."

"Yeah, no kidding. Remember what Alice Larson said during the session we spent talking about sex?"

"Umm..." said Jon, casting back through his memory. "Some of it." The other college-group kids had been surprisingly mature about it, even Harold—Jon had half been expecting titters and suppressed sniggering. But then, we're none of us eleven anymore. Or even fifteen. "Everybody was looking at us funny."

"Well, we are married," she said. "The only ones who are supposed to have that knowledge, besides Mr. and Mrs. Larson themselves."

"Fair enough."

"What she said was that watching someone orgasm is one of the most intimate experiences a person can have, because you're not completely in control of yourself when you come. Your face and body do things that aren't really voluntary."

"Like having an orgasm."

She giggled. "Yeah."

"No wonder everyone looked at us funny," Jon said, "they were all wondering what we knew."

Caitlyn giggled. At other times she might take offense at this thought; right now, today, she seemed remarkably mellow. Certainly they were having a philosophical conversation while he was still buried to the root inside her.

"I like that idea," Jon said. "I remember thinking it was a good point. It's like a reward for going through all that effort: you get to meet them at the one moment in time when they're completely vulnerable."

"Yeah, and it's something you only ever share with your lovers, so it really is intimate. Especially if you're one of the people who waits until marriage."

Jon had once cursed his luck at never meeting a girl who was willing to put out. Now, here, with this viewpoint, with this woman, he was actually rather glad. "You're the only person who will ever get to watch me come. You're the only person who will ever know me that way. And I'm the only person who will ever know you that way either."

She kissed him. "And that's why I like it when you come inside me without me cumming too. Because I get to just ... Experience it. To know you. To really know you, at your most private and intimate moments."

He kissed her back, feeling the warmth of his feeling for her rise inside him. "I love you, Caitlyn."

She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him down to kiss him. "I love you too, honey. Now, about this getting-to-know-you thing..." She wiggled her bum around his hardness. "Isn't there something you're supposed to do when we're like this?"

He pulled his head back to look at her. She was wearing a wicked grin and she kissed the tip of his nose. "Come on, baby. Make me your woman."

It was different now that she had come—a little looser, a little wetter, not quite as warm—and he had a hunch that this might not be entirely pleasurable for her, and maybe not very comfortable either. Nonetheless she cooed her acceptance, drawing him down, pressing up to meet his thrusts, whispering in his ear how good he felt, how much she loved to have him inside her. He held himself up on his arms so that she could see his face; they kissed each other's lips and ears until he came, groaning, holding himself deep inside her, unable to move, held immobile by the force of his pleasure as it surged up through his cock, rushing out into her, like love made tactile and physical; she moaned as it rushed through her, and he imagined his spend inside her, clinging to the folds and crevices around her cervix, pooling inside her body. And as he settled against her again she sighed in deep satisfaction, completely content.

When he woke up again he was soft but still inside her, lying on top of her, wrapped in her arms and legs. She too was asleep, and seemed to bear no discomfort from his weight. Still, it wasn't entirely a comfortable position for him; his neck had a crick from bearing too far forward, and his arms were numb. Despite her protests, he extricated himself from her, rolling onto his back and drawing her with him; unusually, she followed, sprawling out over his chest.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Not time to get up yet."

"We have to leave at one."

He turned his head to glance at the clock on his side. "It's not even ten-thirty."

She sighed. "Soon."

Silence for a time.

"We'll have to shower."

"Probably."

"I guess I should take extra pains with my feet from now on."

"Might be wise."

"Well ... If you really want me to."

"Didn't you like it?" He raised his head to look at her.

"Well ... It was ... It felt nice, yes. But it was ... Weird, too. I mean ... They're my feet. I've had them, my whole life; they've just been there. I'm not really used to the idea that they're supposed to be made to feel good."

"Fair enough."

"And besides ... I wasn't ... I was a little nervous."

"Oh?"

"Jon, I need my feet. What if you had somehow ... Umm. Damaged them?"

On the one hand, he felt a little offended that she thought he could be so careless. On the other hand, if someone was fooling around with his feet ... They were certainly delicate; he certainly needed them. The possibility of injury might indeed put a damper on his enjoyment.

At the same time, though... "So, let me get this straight: you want me to dominate you, and take control of the sex, and do whatever I want ... As long as it's also what you want?"

She sighed. "Yeah, it does sound kind of stupid that way, doesn't it."

He rolled to his side so that he could see her. "On the contrary, that's the only way it sounds sane. I would be worried if you felt any different."

Her eyes lit up. "So you'll do it?"

"Well, let's not go that far. That fast. Caitlyn, it still doesn't sit very well with me."

"Why not? You know I want it. And you know you want it too."

"Want what? The potential for abuse is just too ... I mean, we haven't even tried it and we've already gotten to places where you feel uncomfortable."

Her face grew resolute. "What if I gave you blanket permission. What if I said, 'Tonight you can do anything to me, and I promise to like it.' ... Or at least let you." A new thought: "Ooh, what if I faked it!"

He winced. "That would be an even worse idea. Caitlyn, weren't we just talking about how orgasm is intimate precisely because it can't be faked?"

"Tell that to about a million women from here to Eve," Caitlyn said.

Jon winced again. "I didn't know you even knew about that."

"You find out interesting things on the Internet," said Caitlyn. "And until school started I didn't have much to do. But in any case, that's not what I meant."

"No, it's completely what you meant," Jon said. "You were willing to lie to me to make me happy. And, while it's the thought that counts, I really wish you wouldn't do it." He touched her face gently. "No one's worth that. Definitely not me."

She held his hand against her. "It's because you say those things that you're worth it. But you're right. I won't."

He leaned across the bed to kiss her, and for a moment there was silence; and when they stopped, there were more arms and legs wrapped around each other than before.

"But what if ... Jon, what if we established rules?" She took her hand away for a moment to comb a strand of hair from her face. "What if we said, 'Okay, here's what's allowed and here's what isn't.' What if we limited those activities to ... I mean, that's kind of what happens anyway, right? Sometimes, like today, we experiment; sometimes, we just do it the normal way ... Like today too, after we were done experimenting. We can say, 'No experimenting when Jon's dominating me.'"

"That would work," he said, "except that Jon dominating-you-kind of is experimenting in itself."

"Okay, so, only one kind of experiment at a time," Caitlyn said. "And also, what Zach and Christa were saying about No not meaning anything ... And, if things go the way they could, then maybe 'No' would be flying around a lot without it being meant to mean anything..." She was turning very red by this point, but she plowed on. Jon wondered just how deep this non-consent fantasy went with her. "Maybe we should establish something where it really does mean No. A, a word, or maybe a sentence. And if I say it, you know that I'm actually uncomfortable and not just faking it."

Jon nodded. "A safe word."

"Yeah. Something I'd never say normally, like ... I dunno. 'There are petunias in my meatballs.'"

Jon laughed. "That might be a bit over the top. But it's a good idea to have one. Having rules is the only way to keep things like this safe."

She grinned. "So you'll do it?"

"How can you be so eager about this and so nervous about foot play?" He kissed her before she could answer. "I can't make any promises, sweetheart. But ... As long as it seems safe, and like nobody's going to get hurt, I'm willing to look into it."

She squealed and dove into his arms, kissing him madly.

"Umm, Caitlyn, err. Not right now," he said. "I'm not gonna do it now."

"No one said you had to," she said, in between kisses. "I'm just going to show you how much I love you." And she began to trail kisses down his body, aiming for the member between his legs that was even now beginning to stiffen with heat.

She took her time, kissing around his ear and his neck, and then made an unexpected detour: she stopped to play with his nipples. She had never done this before; it had never occurred to them to try it. But it became instantly clear to Jon that this was something she should try again; and, he wagered, moments later it became clear to her as well.

"Hmm," she said. "He seems to like it."

"Yeah..." he breathed. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before—the warm sensation of her mouth and tongue; the deep pulling feeling that seemed to stretch through his body straight down to his cock; the feeling of her head against his chest, her hair in a shower over their skin. He cradled her closer, urging her on, and she did not disappoint; she began to lick his nipple rhythmically and rapidly, each one eliciting a moan.

"Hmm," she said. "I wonder if, maybe, I can make you come one day just by doing that."

"Darned if I know," he said. "Maybe." It seemed fairly unlikely—he didn't think he was that sensitive—but stranger things had happened. Besides, why discourage her from exploring.

He heard her grin: "Should I try sucking on your toes now?"

Honestly, the thought did not turn him on as much—but mostly because his feet weren't nearly as sanitary as hers. "They're kinda grody."

"Oh."

"Maybe you should wait until after my next shower." He wouldn't mind experiencing it, but he did mind the thought of inflicting his feet on her. That went beyond cruel-and-unusual.

She smiled and gave his nipple another kiss. "Always good to know my man's looking out for my best interests."

When he came she suspended her mouth over his cock as he'd suggested, using the roof of her mouth to control the splashing; he felt her warm breath ghosting over the head of his cock, her hand firm around his shaft, and gave a great sigh of contentment. There was something to be said for intense sensation, but something also for a warm, relaxing orgasm at the hands of his beloved. He wished he could do that to her; he wished they could ever reach a point where it wasn't a big production for her to come. He wished they could reach a day where he could simply crawl back up to her, as she was doing now, and be thanked with nothing more than a kiss.

After a rapid shower each, they ate lunch and then began to debate the finer points of dress and decor. Caitlyn wasn't any meaningful part of the festivities, and the bride had forgotten to pass on the color scheme, so she eventually settled on a nice winter dress—something dark enough to be formal and not take attention away from the bridal party, but not so dark as to be somber. Meanwhile, Jon got the harp shrouded and onto its wheels, took it down the elevator (a fair detour, but wiser in his opinion than trying any stairs), and then opened up the back gate and the back window on the the cap. The truck was a dark maroon, the fiberglass cap tan, both of them sensible colors; after some deliberation and driving it around a little, Caitlyn had named it Leroy—or rather, LeRoi, with the French accent, meaning "The King." Jon had taken to calling it by the American pronunciation, when he wasn't calling it Mr. Jenkins and ignoring the weird looks Caitlyn gave him. He wasn't going to go around giving his truck a fancified foreign name.

The harp weighed eighty pounds. Jon knew he could lift that much, but it was still a hell of a strain to get it up onto the lip of the bed. Besides, this wasn't some piece of durable hardware he could just sling in and let fall down; the harp's descent needed to be controlled. By the time he got the thing safely ensconced in the back of the truck, his muscles were burning and he was sweating all over, despite the snow still on the ground. God, I gotta take another shower, don't I.

"Where are you going," Caitlyn asked when he started stripping off his clothes. And then: "Jon, you did it yourself?? You should've waited for me, I would've helped you!"

"In your clean fancy clothes like that?" Jon said.

Caitlyn was pinning some clip-on earrings to herself—she didn't have any piercings, which was something he liked about her—but she nodded vigorously nonetheless. "Yes, even in these. Oh, cripes, did you get it in okay? Did you damage it?"

"Of course not," Jon said, "I'm not that incompetent."

"Honey, that thing's heavy." She hugged him roughly, heedless of his nakedness. "Next time, wait for me, okay?"

Jon relented and let his arms fall around her. "Okay."

When he released her, she rubbed the side of her face, which was now wet with his sweat. "Great. I gotta wash my face again. And redo my makeup..."

"See, that was the other reason," Jon said, stepping into the shower and closing the door. At least he could just do a quick soap-and-rinse and be out in five minutes.

"Well ... Next time we'll have to get the harp in before we start getting dressed. Heck, maybe before we take a shower."

"Hon, we took a shower because we were both reeking of sex and I had cum all over my stomach. We couldn't've very well gone outside like that."

"Darn. You're right. Man. When did life get so complicated?"

"Umm ... December 10th, I think." The day they'd gotten married, in other words.

"Ha-ha," said Caitlyn from outside the shower. "Say more stuff like that and you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight."

For Jon, this was a new experience of a wedding. He hadn't been to all that many in his life: one with his cousin getting married, and then the Cranes' last summer and the Chamberses the year before that; and then of course his own, not even two months ago. At those he had been a part of the congregation: one of the happy people assembled to bear witness to the joining of two people in love and commitment; once he had been one of those people. Today he was a nobody, one of the few administrative elements helping to keep things running smoothly. He didn't know any of these people, didn't understand why everyone was laughing, didn't know what to look for when people began to walk down the aisles. He was an outsider here, completely unconnected from the sacrament going on in front of him; he didn't even have the benefit of Caitlyn's company, as she was up front with the harp while a place was found for him in the back. In fact, the only thing he recognized was the processional music: the timeless Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Faure. No wonder they were looking for a harpist; most of the time they have to make do with a pianist or something.

To his admittedly-critical ear, the assembled choristers weren't the best, but they held their own; in fact, they sounded rather better than Jon would've expected from such a small group. The bride was Caitlyn's classmate from Shellview State's Music department; perhaps she had hand-picked this group herself. If so, what mattered was to hear them singing, whether or not they did it well or just competently.

They saved a different song for the bride's procession: Caitlyn dueting with a flute. He couldn't remember the name of the song off the top of his head, but everybody knew it (from Caitlyn's sheet music he would later discover that it was the Meditation from Jules Massenet's Thaïs). It was just as well that no one was singing: he remembered seeing his own bride, his beloved and beautiful Caitlyn, descending to the altar to meet him, and thought that nobody could sing, at least not well, during this particular moment. There was a particular apex of beauty which a woman achieves only once—on her wedding day; no one, not even a complete outsider like Jon, could help but respond to it. And yet the sight of this radiant stranger walking down the aisle served only to heighten his own sense of isolation; where was his bride, his beauty, the light of his life? What was he doing here, alone, deprived even of that one person who was everything to him?

Caitlyn wasn't needed for the rest of the ceremony, so when she was finished playing she excused herself silently and came back to sit with him; and, as though sensing his mood, she tucked herself under his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. That was good. But somehow it wasn't enough.

Once the service was over and the bride officially kissed, the congregation began to break up, heading off to the reception at a nearby hotel while the wedding party lined up in various combinations for photos and so forth. This was, Caitlyn indicated, the proper time for them to sneak the harp out and bus it over to the reception, where Caitlyn would play until the newlyweds showed up, at which point Caitlyn was done and could go home or stay for a free dinner at her discretion. Working together, the Stanfords got the harp into the reception hall without too much trouble; Caitlyn was right, it was much easier with her help. Nonetheless, Jon remembered her father doing it all singlehandedly, and resolved that he would like to be able to do the same. There was a certain pride, and a certain masculinity, that he felt obligated to uphold.

Caitlyn chattered on about the things she was seeing at this wedding and its reception, and the ideas she was getting for their own shindig. "Do you realize we only have five weeks left before it happens? Things are mostly in shape—the photographer is coming, the food's set up, the hall is rented, they got the flowers figured out, and I talked to some friends about the musical side of it—did you ask Octapella if they wanted to sing? Heck, did you ask them if they wanted to come? 'cause they're totally invited. Anyway, I think things are in good shape, but I just love the things they did with the flowers here. I mean, it's a sit-down dinner..."

Jon was thinking about dollar signs. "How much would that add in terms of cost?"

"Oh, gosh, I dunno. Maybe ... Seven or eight hundred?"

Jon winced. In other words, double or triple what we're making here tonight—and frankly, we're getting overpaid for being here. "Caitlyn, I'm not sure that kind of expenditure is ... really that wise. Especially in light of how much money we've been spending recently. I mean, we just bought a truck, for heaven's sake."

"I thought that was an investment," she said, her voice cool. "So that I could do gigs."

"Well, yes, but only kind of," he said, "because cars depreciate. It's more an expense. Besides, you've only played one gig so far. We'll have to go to, like, twenty more before we even break even."

"That's true," she said, though it was clear from her voice she didn't like it. Then she gave a sigh and put her smile back on. "Oh, well. A girl can dream."

He did his best to be polite and even social throughout the event, but either he didn't do as good a job as intended, or Caitlyn knew him better than he'd thought, because as they were driving home, the squares of other cars' headlights shifting across the ceiling and the wheels thrumming under them, she laid her hand on his arm and asked, "What's on your mind?"

Jon shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing worth mentioning. I just ... It was weird."

She nodded. "It is weird. I was watching Marissa come up the aisle and it was like... 'The last time I was at one of these things, that was me.' Before, I never even flickered an eyelid at weddings, but I think it may be different now."

"Makes you think, doesn't it."

"Yeah. Marissa's like 28. Her husband is 30. And here I'm..." She gave a helpless shrug. "Makes you wonder. How do people get to where they are. What weird tricks of fate or God or coincidence brings you here, and them there."

"Well, if you want to know the specifics..." Jon said. "Maybe it just took her longer to find the guy of her dreams."

"And maybe she didn't have parental lurking to force her to jump into bed with him early," Caitlyn said.

"As for us..." Jon said, ignoring her comment and the can of worms it implied. "We met each other, and were smart enough to give each other a chance. And plus we weren't ... We didn't have that whole mindset of, you know, 'I don't want to be tied down, I want to just go out and live life and do crazy things.' We were ready to settle down."

"That's true," she said. "We didn't hesitate about ... Going for what we saw. Can you imagine what might've happened if one of us was like, 'Yeah, it's nice, but I don't want to get serious'?"

"We sure wouldn't be here, let me tell you that."

"Yeah." Her hand tightened on his arm. "I can't imagine what that'd be like. I don't even want to imagine what it'd be like. To not have everything we have ... To not be ... Here. With you. In this car, doing this thing. Doing everything we do."

"Dinner.

"School."

"Laundry."

"Dish-washing.

"Gigs."

"Work."

"Sex."

"Yes, definitely. I just ... The last time I played a wedding was ... Actually, it was the day before ours, come to think of it. But I'd been doing them since I was, like, twelve. And ... I just remember being there, playing these songs and watching all these beautiful brides coming up the aisle, and thinking... 'How am I ever gonna get that. I wanna be the one in the beautiful dress. I wanna be the center of attention. And for that ... I need a husband.' And I would shake my head and think, 'Like that's ever gonna happen.' I was twelve, I was home-schooled, I didn't know anybody, I'd never had a crush on anyone or had anyone have one on me ... I thought I'd be stuck where I was. With my family. For the rest of my life."

Jon reached up to grab her hand with his own.

"And, I mean, this was before sex. Like I knew what that was. Mom didn't say a thing about where babies came from, I learned that from ... Jeez, who'd I learn that from? One of the other home-school kids. His mom told him. And I asked Nathan and he was completely surprised, like, 'You're kidding, what are you talking about? Mom always talked about the stork.' And then when we asked Mom ... Huh. Boy, that was a mess."

"I can imagine."

"We didn't tell her who told us. Nate lied, and I just followed his lead. So Mom never knew."

"How old were you?"

"Like ... Eight."

"Wow. That might be kind of young. I didn't know until I was ten. I learned it from school, my parents didn't tell me either ... Well, I mean, I knew about the pregnancy stuff, but they always glossed over how the sperm got there."

"We got the whole kit and caboodle. And yeah, it was a little young for me, I didn't get it. But Nathan was twelve. I bet it was a little different for him."

"Probably."

"Anyway, I was just ... I mean, I'd be fourteen, sixteen years old, watching this bride come up the aisle, and thinking, 'She's going to be with her husband. They're going to know each other Biblically.' And, the thought didn't really have any appeal to me, you know? It was just ... It was a fact of life. I knew if I wanted to have kids, I'd have to do it, but I didn't think it was anything special. Especially because I didn't think it was ever gonna happen.

"And then you came along." Her hand squeezed his. "You came along, and suddenly ... I had hope. I had hope again, and I could ... I could keep going. I could play those weddings and watch these brides walk down the aisle and think, 'That could be me. For the first time in my life, there is an actual chance that, one day ... That could be me.'"

They had decided not to get an extra-long cab with a back seat, but had compromised by going for a truck with no center console, so that three could sit on the front bench. Caitlyn slid across it now to wrap herself around his arm; Jon gave her a little of that before tucking it around her, drawing her in.

He saw the whole thing in a new light now. Playing those weddings, every time—Caitlyn had longed to be that woman. And, with every gig, the dream had grown, as she collected each little tidbit and idea and added it to the fantasy in her heart. Of course she had plenty of ideas for what the reception should be like; in her place, so would she. And here he was, being all frugal and telling her to tone it down—when, for that matter, he had almost denied her her dream in the first place: sure, she was married, and (please God) happily so, but all the pomp and circumstance had been rushed or even dismissed in the chaos. What was supposed to be the happiest day of a woman's life, and they had blundered into it with barely a few hours' notice.

It was her dream, and she had given it up to be with him.

"Caitlyn ... I'm sorry for being ... Stingy. About it. I mean, I know you're the accountant, I know you've been doing this for ages—I'm sure you know what you're doing, and how to do it cheaply. I just ... I can't help..."

"Toting up the dollar signs," Caitlyn said. "And you're right, I probably am kind of ... Cavalier about spending money on it. It's just ... This is my day, Jon. I want it to be..."

"I know, and it should be. It should be perfect. That's what my baby deserves." His arm tightened around her. "So ... Next time I complain, you remind me of that."

"Okay." She snuggled against him. "And next time I go crazy, you keep being the voice of reason. It works out well that way."

Silence for a time.

"Don't forget to buckle," Jon said finally.

She rolled her eyes. "You're not going to crash."

"Hopefully not, because I have the most important thing in the world in here with me," Jon said, "as well as the thing that's most important to her." He tossed his head to indicate the harp in the back. "But, on the off-chance that something does happen, I want to make sure both those things survive. I mean, how do you think I'd feel if I let you put yourself in a position to be turned into paste on the backside of the windshield?"

Caitlyn rolled her eyes again: "Oh, baby, that really turns me on." But she did buckle her seatbelt, so Jon called it a victory.

"So..." she said. "Babies."

Jon felt himself jump a little involuntarily. "What about them?"

"Well, we're going to have them one day, aren't we?"

"I ... Presume so. Seeing as both of our stated goals are to be good parents. That kind of requires baby-having."

"You're going to be such a good father," Caitlyn said, smiling. "I can just see it now."

"I'd rather not see it now," Jon replied. "We have like no money in our bank account. We'd be just as screwed as Brandon and Meredith."

"They're doing okay."

"They've gotten really lucky. We might not."

"We could ask your parents for help. We could ask my parents for help."

"Let's not. They would probably impose, like, restrictions and requirements on us. Like, we'd have to take the kids to Sunday school every week or something."

"What's wrong with that?" Caitlyn protested.

Jon grimaced. A fine time this was to leave his tongue unguarded. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

"No, tell me, Jon," Caitlyn said, louder this time. "What's wrong with that?" Clearly, his reassurances had been less than reassuring.

"Nothing's wrong with Sunday school, Caitlyn," Jon said. "Because, God only knows, we should totally let your parents encourage their grandkids to turn out exactly like them."

"There is nothing wrong with Sunday school, Jon," Caitlyn ground out. "It's true that Christians make mistakes, but I challenge you to find people of any creed who are perfect. And there are still good things to be learned. Like loving your neighbor. And being content with your current circumstances."

It was an implicit criticism of his impatience for sex throughout their courtship, and it made him angry. "And deciding that if you try hard enough, you can force other people to be someone they're not?"

"You just don't get over that, do you," Caitlyn said.

"No, Caitlyn, I don't. It's an extremely dangerous mindset. It's selfish like no one's business, and it describes spiritual maiming as justified as long as it achieves the attacker's goals."

"Jon, my parents wanted me to change certain things about themselves. So do you. So do I. We all agree that I'm not perfect. It's like surgery to remove something unneeded or unnecessary."

"Yes, but they don't agree that you have any right to decide for yourself what should change. You and I perform surgery. They use an axe."

"Our kids aren't going to learn that."

"Are they?"

"Who would teach them?"

"Your parents, for one. And maybe us, if we're not careful."

"Then it gets learned," Caitlyn said.

Jon was appalled. "So. Basically. You're saying that it's okay for us to screw our kids up the same way we were screwed up by our parents."

"Jon, we didn't get 'screwed up.' We turned out okay."

"Yeah, you know who else says that? Abusive parents. The first time they lay hands on their child. And maybe every time thereafter. 'My folks did it to me, and I turned out okay.' No you bloody well didn't. Caitlyn, you're screwed up. So am I. So are your folks, so are my folks, so's just about everyone we know. Some way, somehow, we were all screwed up by our parents. And if we, you and I, are really serious about not screwing up our kids in turn, the first step is admitting that we are screwed-up, and that we need to not just blindly repeat what our parents did."

"Well, fine, we're screwed up," Caitlyn said. "You're absolutely right that we need to be careful, and that we can't just do it carelessly. But that doesn't mean the church is out, Jon. Christianity isn't about screwing up your kids—if anything, it's the best example we have for not screwing them up."

"Every parent I've known who messed their kids up this way," Jon said, "has called themselves Christian."

"So? Every one of them was alive too, weren't they? Isn't it you Psych majors who say that 'correlation does not prove causation'? They may appear together, but that doesn't mean one causes the other; it could be just coincidence."

"Or there could be a third factor that causes both," he said. "And yes, perhaps Christianity is benign. But my point is we have to judge that. We have to see with our own eyes and make our own decisions. And if it turns out to be encouraging us to hurt our children..."

The car had stopped long ago, and now he turned to her. He was surprised to realize that she had tears in her eyes.

"It's funny," she said, "how it always turns out that there's something I have to change. Give up my parents. Give up my religion. Give up my dream wedding. Give up something that's important to me. When do you change, Jon?" Her voice was choked and flinty. "You're so smug in your little viewpoint, so content with your logic and secularism ... Well, answer me this, Jon: when do you start having faith? When do you start giving people second chances? When do you start supporting someone even when they want something you don't?—loving them, in other words? When, precisely, Jon Stanford, do you change?" She shut the door behind her and ran up the stairs.

This was how Jon found himself in the winter darkness, out in the falling snow, trying to get the harp out of the car by himself. With all the wetness he wasn't too sure of his footing, but on the third try he got the wheels down and the harp undamaged. And, in truth, he wasn't looking forward to getting back inside all that much. Slowly, taking his time—well, one should be conscious of treacherous footing, especially when pushing a harp which was actually more expensive than the car that bore it—he got up to the elevator and then into the apartment.

The bedroom door was closed. There was a thick blanket and a pillow in front of it. Jon felt a sinking feeling, like someone had cut off his entire bottom half and everything inside him was just dribbling out. But there was nothing to be done—was there?—except get on with it. Crying or assigning blame wouldn't help him now. He maneuvered the harp back into its corner, picked up the blanket and pillow, and made himself comfortable on the couch. It was not much more than a canvas hammock, built for lightness and radical design; he decided that they should replace it with a more conventional piece of furniture forthwith, at least once they had the financial recourse to do so.

Caitlyn slept out here once. She just ... Took it upon herself. Voluntary exile. And this thing is not comfy. She's right, whenever things go wrong in this relationship it seems to be her who has to change. Whereas I ... If I had to give up something that was important to me, for the sake of my kids ... What if I couldn't sing anymore? What if, say, Octapella took off, and we were touring and making lots of money somehow, but Caitlyn was pregnant and needed me to come home? What if I didn't have that part of myself? What if I had to give it up? He didn't have to answer that question. Caitlyn was right.

And yet she knows I'm right. She knows that, if we're united in the goal of not screwing up our kids, whoever they may be and whenever they may happen, we have to be willing to do anything, change anything—be anything—for their sakes. A time has to come when we're willing to say, 'What our kids need is more important than what we want.' Our own parents were never able to say that ... And she and I paid the price for their immaturity.

And that's why we're both alone tonight. Because we're both right, and we can't stand that.

The thought had a strange, if fearful, symmetry to it. He found the alarm-clock function on his cellphone, set it to wake him for work the next morning, and fell asleep, deciding not to contemplate the unthinkable. Deciding not to think about what would have to happen if one day she said, No, that's not my goal; no, Jon, we are not united.

It was better to sleep than to think about that.

-------

Day 60

Thursdays were not Caitlyn's favorite day.

She had only one class on Thursdays: Jazz Theory, which was full of interesting sounds and blue notes and fun different chords that she hadn't thought were possible. Jazz Theory also had, by far, the best classmates in it: a lot of excellent musicians with a lot of skill. But before Jazz Theory was her oboe lesson with Mrs. Klein—only half an hour before, which left her scant time to get any food down her gullet unless she wanted to eat at three when she got home. And then she had Orchestra practice from 5:30 to 7:30, which was right when Jon was starting to get home and have some dinner. He'd already gotten into the habit of delaying the meal until she arrived, but the long and the short of it was that, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, after he left in the mornings she didn't see him again or hear from him again until dinner. The exact combination of classes and scheduling seemed designed perfectly to stymie any attempts at communication: she couldn't call him but for a couple minutes because she was too busy eating; and after his lunch break was over, that was that. It couldn't've been worse if they'd tried.

In addition, on this particular Thursday Jon didn't wake her up for any bed play; instead, he simply woke up and left while she was still asleep. Indeed, the first indication she had of his presence was the sound of the front door closing behind him.

For a moment, she lay in bed biting her lip, trying not to cry. There was no one to see her, but it still wouldn't do to be this ... Flighty. She was a grown woman. There was no reason to get all tearful just because her husband had left her without saying a word. Shouldn't she be grateful that he had let her sleep?

But ... Ever since that fight last Saturday ... It's the same as when we had the fight last month. He isn't on the couch anymore, but he's just been more ... Distant. He isn't as touchy-feely, he doesn't initiate sex as much ... Like,  ever. And when he doesn't do that, I'm scared to try it myself, for fear of ... What, of being turned down? Of discovering that there's something he needs to tell me that will just bring all of this crashing down? That's not gonna happen. Why should I be so scared of losing my husband?

 ... Then again, when you put it that way, why shouldn't I be?

I need to talk to him about this. Whatever is bothering him, whatever is on his mind, we need to talk about it and get over it. Instead of letting it come between us like this. We need to ... Get rid of it, so that it can't foul the waters between us.

What an excellent realization for a Thursday morning!

Feeling strangely hopeless, she heaved herself out of bed.

Most of the morning was spent on last-minute oboe practice, to make sure everything was in shape for Mrs. Klein. In the actual lesson, Caitlyn thought she did fairly well; she kept her head and didn't make too many mistakes. She should've known better, though, than to try to hide her mood from her teacher; Janet Klein had always been excellent at reading people.

"Caitlyn, we're never going to get anywhere if you're this distracted."

"This ... Why, what's going on?" Caitlyn asked.

"Well, you just played that four-measure repeat section about five times," said Mrs. Klein. "You seem to like it a great deal." She was smiling. "Is there something you need to tell me about those measures? Something scandalous, perhaps?"

Caitlyn lowered the oboe. Unless marked otherwise, you were only supposed to observe a repeat marking once; to follow it blindly over and over was something either a moron or a comedian would do. Caitlyn was not Victor Borge, so she knew which option was left.

"Seriously, Caitlyn, what's going on? Your head's been in the clouds since you got here. Funny thing is, your playing's been better than ever. Maybe you should come in distracted every day." She gave Caitlyn a look: half-glowering, half-amused.

"Sorry, Mrs. Klein," said Caitlyn. "It's just ... It..." She gave a sigh. "It's Jon."

"Oh, you mean that guy you married two months ago?"

"Yeah," said Caitlyn, humorless. "Him."

"So what's going on?" Mrs. Klein said.

"I ... It..." said Caitlyn. And then it all came spilling out: the barbed discussions about the reception, the fight, the presence of her parents. "And on top of it, there's something Jon doesn't want to talk about. I don't even know what it is, I just know it's there. Because he isn't ... He isn't being affectionate, he's barely speaking to me ... We don't even do it when he gets like this, and he was looking forward to that since the moment we started dating. It's like ... It's like he's scared of what will come up if we actually talk."

"So why don't you say something?" Mrs. Klein said.

"Because," said Caitlyn. "I'm scared of what'll come up if we actually talk."

"Well. What do you do normally when you guys have a fight?"

Caitlyn gave a bitter laugh. "We don't. We never really fought while we were dating, it's only been since we got married ... I'm not saying we haven't had disagreements or anything, it's that we never fought about them—we just talked it all out, he never lost his patience and neither did I. I guess we never talked about anything important ... No, that's not true, is it; we found out a lot of things about each other." They'd shared their goals and dreams long before they'd been married; what Pastor Pendleton had once said, about sharing core values, they had known instinctively for more than a year before he said it. "We just ... We never met anything we didn't want to talk about."

"So, talk about it. Don't let him deflect it."

"Yeah, but ... I'm not gonna see him until way later tonight. Like, after orchestra practice."

"Why not?"

"Because he's at work until I leave, and then I'm at orchestra for two hours."

"What about before then? Can you visit him?"

"I ... I don't know, actually. He hasn't even been working there for two weeks, I don't want to..."

"Why don't you find out? I mean, don't be insistent, but, ask if you can talk to him for five minutes. Or leave him a message. I'm sure there's some way to get in contact with him."

"But what would we say in that amount of time? I don't think this is a discussion we can have in five minutes." Especially since we like make-up sex.

"Hmm, that is a good point. But seriously, Caitlyn, I hope you understand what I'm getting at. There's always a way. Tell him you want to sit down and talk with him. Tell him you want to apologize."

"But I haven't done anything wrong," Caitlyn protested.

"Perhaps you haven't, but it's better than telling him, 'We need to talk, ' and having him come in on the defensive. Besides—" Mrs. Klein gave a broad smile. "In my experience, it's very rare for any husband or wife to be able to say, 'But I haven't done anything wrong, ' and have it be true. Our spouses know exactly what to say to push our buttons—and we know the same about them. It happens unintentionally a lot of the time. But if you said it, you have to be responsible for it."

"So," Caitlyn said, "if I say I want to apologize, he's more likely to be willing to listen. Plus, I probably have something to apologize for."

"Exactly. And, of course, so does he. So why not take the approach that raises the chances of both of you doing so?"

It was practical advice; and good advice too, as Caitlyn was concerned. Ever since I got married, all sorts of people have interesting things to say to me. I wonder if that's a coincidence. —Well, no, it's not; I think the more important question is, why they waited until now to tell me. Maybe because I didn't need it until now? Maybe because I wasn't prepared yet to hear it?

After her lesson was done, she took Mrs. Klein's advice and called Jon. At the very least, she could make contact. And it scared her more than she could say that Jon didn't pick up. He had never done that before. Nonetheless she plowed on with her message. "Hello, Jon, it's—" (your wife) "—Caitlyn, just ... Just calling to see if you had a spare second. I know it's a crowded schedule today, but I ... I really hope we can find some time to sit down and talk. I don't know what's come between us, but I don't want it there. I just don't. There shouldn't be anything separating me from my husband..." She felt tears threatening her composure and forced herself to bear down. "Let's work this out. Okay?

"If you have any time or you want to answer, please don't call until I'm out of class at 2:30, but other than that ... I'm looking forward to hearing from you. I love you ... Bye."

He didn't call; instead, her phone made a noise she'd never heard before—in the middle of class, too. But barely had she begun to dive for it when the noise stopped. Afterwards she flipped the phone open and saw a new indicator: New text message.

"New text message? How do I read that?"

Her classmate Marissa Helmsley—Marissa Caruthers now, as it was her wedding Caitlyn had played at last Saturday—stopped to help her. "You don't know how to read text messages?"

Caitlyn just shrugged helplessly. "I always just called people. Maybe it's— Oh, no, that must've been the Cancel button. Oh, no. What if it was from Jon? How do I read it? Is it gone forever? What do I do??"

"Calm down, missy," said Marissa, grinning. "You're a married woman now, just like me ... Jesus. I'm 28 years old and you don't know how to read text messages? Here, gimme that. You don't need to be anywhere, do you?"

"No, this is my last class of the day. I was just..."

"Good, me too. Let's sit down. This shouldn't take long in any case."

Caitlyn let them into the harp room and they sat down. Within moments, Marissa had divined out the inner workings of Caitlyn's cellphone. "Here, you just go into the main menu, and then see here?"

"Oh, yeah, I see it," Caitlyn said. " ... Jeez, I probably could have figured that out myself. If I were clear-headed."

"Plus, it's easier when someone else just shows you," Marissa said. She hit the Cancel button again and the screen blanked. "Now, show me how I got to that menu."

Once she was satisfied that Caitlyn could now receive (and send!) text messages at her discretion, she left, making some veiled references to a husband she needed to go home and get nasty with. Well, the getting-nasty was pretty blunt; it was the husband who seemed to be a mysterious part of the equation. Caitlyn shook her head and read the text message. It was indeed from Jon, who said that, if she would like to swing by at any time, his supervisors had authorized him to take ten minutes off to talk to her, and that driving instructions had been e-mailed to her. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

Caitlyn walked home, dropped off her backpack, printed out the instructions, and found the keys to LeRoi. Jon was still driving his old Celica, Buffy, to work every day. Did that say something about his preferred level of masculinity? Did it say something about his comfort zone? Or was it simply that the sedan got better gas mileage? Caitlyn was fine driving the truck; she had driven her parents' vehicles plenty of times. She liked the feeling of power LeRoi gave her. She liked the feeling of being tall. She was 5'3 and descended from a family where no one was shorter than 5'9, including Aunt Velma; 'tall' was not something she could often ascribe to herself.

She got to the place: Shellview Medical Federation, an organization Caitlyn's parents had always sneered at for no good reason she could see. She missed the first parking lot and had to take the next one down. She parked her car, walked up to the receptionist's desk, and, after a moment's consideration, asked if her husband Jon Stanford was on site. The woman behind the desk spoke to a phone. Less than a minute later, he was jogging in from the other side of the building.

"I thought you'd park over there," he said, not even breathing hard.

"I..." She shrugged. "I've never been here before."

"Let's sit down," he said.

They took chairs in the corner of the room, a fair distance from the other patients waiting to be attended to.

"So, what's going on?" he said.

"I just..." she said. "I wanted to see you."

"You would've seen me tonight," Jon said.

"I haven't seen you since Marissa's wedding," Caitlyn retorted. "You've just been so..." She took a deep breath. "That wasn't how I was supposed to start. Mrs. Klein told me to say I wanted to apologize."

"For what?" Jon said. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"That's what I said. But Mrs. Klein said that, in most marriages, that's almost never true. Everyone's done something wrong. It's just a matter of identifying it."

"Well, you tell her that—" Jon began, but was interrupted when her cellphone began chirruping again. She looked at it, sighed, and flipped it open. It was her mother.

"Good afternoon, Caitlyn. Your father and I just had something come up for tomorrow night, and we were wondering if you were free for dinner tonight instead."

Caitlyn felt a vague sense of vertigo. " ... Tonight? Mom, it's Thursday. I have orchestra practice on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Remember? You used to have to take me there. That hasn't changed."

"Well, we could wait until afterwards. —Or, even better, you could tell Jon that was where you were going, and come with us instead."

"Wait, wait, let me get this straight. You want me to skip orchestra practice, to come to dinner with you guys ... And without Jon?"

"It's Rebecca's Parliament, dear, I'm sure he wouldn't want to."

That was true, as far as it went; Rebecca's Parliament was a tea establishment given over to profusions of ribbons, lace and (no point in denying it) girly stuff. Jon would look like a vulture in a flower bouquet ... But her father would look like a tyrannosaur. "If he's not invited, I'm not invited either, Mom. And besides, I do have orchestra."

"Well, what about next Thursday then? I'm sure you could ask for the day off, and we're not doing anything special."

Jon spoke before she could open her mouth. "Today's February seventh. Next Thursday is Valentine's Day. The answer is No."

She didn't like the peremptory way he said it, but he was still right. "You may not be doing anything special on Valentine's Day, Mom, but Jon and I are."

"Valentine's Day? Has that come up on us already? My goodness, where has the year gone? Well, if can't be helped, it can't be helped. What are you doing for Valentine's Day?"

Jon motioned to have the phone. "Mrs. Delaney, this is Jon. As a matter of fact, I haven't told her yet, because I've been planning a surprise. So Caitlyn wouldn't know what's happening. But, suffice it to say, there are plans, and we do plan to celebrate."

There was indistinct noise from the phone; Jon was holding it on the same side she had, meaning the phone was on his outside ear. Whatever her mother was saying, Jon looked surprised.

"Well, yes," he said. "Mrs. Delaney, I don't know what your experience has been, but if you ask me, a marriage simply means more opportunities to be romantic and to get to know each other. I don't intend to stop treating her well just because I see her every day.

" ... All right. All right." He still looked surprised as he handed the phone back. "She wants to talk to you again."

"Well, I'm glad to see he's taking care of you, at least, " said Mrs. Delaney. "You never know with some of these people."

This was such a tangential comment that Caitlyn decided to let it pass. "Yes, Mom, he does. And when he doesn't, I sit him down for a stern talking-to. A girl's got to have some standards, you know."

"Well, I'm glad you've learned that at least, Caitlyn. We'll call you if our schedule changes. Have a good evening."

"Bye, Mom."

She hung up, put the phone away, turned to Jon. She felt the weight settle back in her stomach: they still hadn't broached the issue at hand. "Now. Where were we?"

But, to her surprise, Jon put his arm around her shoulder and drew her to him. "You were defending me in front of your mother."

"I guess I was. The weird thing is, she listened this time."

"My beautiful wife was reminding me why I love her."

"Oh?" she said, feeling a pleased smile on her face. "Why do you love her?"

"Because she loves me."

"But she loves you because you love her. That's circular. How'd it get started?"

"Well, I started loving her because she's beautiful."

"Oooh, now there's a ringing endorsement." She gave him a wry smile. "You know what they say is the first to go."

"Because she's beautiful," Jon said, "and brave. So brave that she would stand up to her own mother to keep me at her side. Which I don't think I actually appreciate as much as I should."

"Well," she said. "It gets easier and easier."

"No, don't do that, sweetie, don't just let me off. Don't let me take you for granted. Look me in the eye and say, 'You don't. And don't you forget it, buster.' Have pride in yourself. God only knows, you deserve to."

She smiled at that. "That's not my way, Jon. Never has been. And I look forward to the day you take me for granted. I look forward to the day when we know each other so well that we don't even have to think about it, the other is just ... Just there, and ready to support us." She put her arm around his waist. "I look forward to being even more one person with you."

He thought about that for a second, and then kissed the crown of her head. She leaned against him, feeling his head settle atop hers, and felt closer to him than she had in days.

"Unfortunately..." he said. "I have to get back to work soon. Ten minutes, remember."

"Yeah."

"So ... You were saying we both had some apologies to make?"

"Yeah." She sighed. Mrs. Klein was right, of course; but that didn't make it any easier to do. "I'm sorry for ... Well, honestly, I'm not sure what I did to make you pull away from me. But I'm sorry for doing that. I would never want you to ... Jon, when I say 'I love you, ' that really doesn't cover it, it's such a lame expression. I mean, yes, I love you, but it's more like ... I need you. You are me. So much of who I am is because you've encouraged me be that person, or made it possible to do it ... I don't know what I'd do without you. I couldn't be without you. Without you, I couldn't be."

His arm tightened around her for a moment.

"So, the next time I do something that pushes you away, please, tell me, because it hurts me to hurt you and I never want to do that, I don't ... It only hurts us for you to be silent like this."

"Yeah," he said. "And I guess that's where I come in. I'm sorry for pulling away, Caitlyn. I'm sorry for ... For being scared."

"For being scared of what?" she asked. "What did I do?"

"I..." Out of the corner of her eye she saw him mop his face with his free hand. "Honestly, I don't know. I'm not entirely sure. I think it's that ... I think it's that I'm scared of losing you."

She pulled out of his grip, astonished. "Of losing me? Of losing— Jon, I just told my mother that we aren't going anywhere without each other! That I would be diminished without you! How could you be scared of losing me?"

"I don't know!" he exclaimed. "I don't know! I just ... I know that it could happen. I know that ... Caitlyn, there's so many things that draw us together, but there are things that push us apart too. Things that ... I mean, yeah, they look like details, maybe, but sometimes details matter. And, just ... I'm scared that, maybe, one of these things will come up. And you'll discover, and you'll realize ... Because, Caitlyn, what you said about yourself, about 'I love you' being insufficient—that's true for me too. That's true for me too. So when it looks like something might be threatening us, like there's something that might cause me to lose you..."

"Like... ?" she said.

He closed his eyes, heaved up a deep sigh.

" ... Like your parents," he said. "I just don't ... Caitlyn, you know that they want you back. You know that they're only talking to us now, that they're only putting up with me, because it's the only way to have you in their lives. And, even though they're being polite about it now, there haven't been any signs that they've given up on plotting to take you back. I mean, yes, that's unfair; maybe they are playing it straight. But you know it's my way to assume the worst, and besides ... Just, just knowing their track record ... Caitlyn, even from an objective viewpoint, I think they might be a threat."

Caitlyn said nothing. There was a great deal she could say to the contrary, after all; but Jon had heard the phone conversation. And, to be perfectly honest, she thought he might be right.

"And ... Every time, every time, you've been loyal to me, you've stood up to them and refused to let them lure you away. And ... I know that. And it means more to me than I can say. But, just ... Every time they show up, every time they call, every time we see them ... It's irrational. But there it is."

She kissed his cheek. "Yes, your feelings are irrational. But a wise man once told me that it doesn't matter how logical your feelings are—they're still there, and you just have to deal with them. He was a smart person, that man. That's probably why I married him." She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.

"I'm just scared," he whispered. "I'm just a coward."

"It's okay," she murmured. "It's okay to be scared sometimes." How often had he done this over the course of their love—being there for her, being strong for her. For once—just once—it was her turn instead. "That's why you have people who love you. To keep you strong when you'd rather turn away."

"God, can you skip orchestra practice? I don't want to wait until 7:30 to see you."

She smiled. "Hon, you waited for twenty-four years. Four more hours won't hurt you."

"No, it's not even that, it's ... We haven't touched each other for this long since Saturday. We haven't talked this long since Saturday. And ... I miss it."

"Well, whose fault was that," she retorted, grinning.

"I know, I know," he said, not laughing. "I screwed up. But now that we're un-screwed up, I ... This is the most important thing in the world to me: you. Us. Let's get back to it."

She kissed him gently. "Have dinner waiting for me, and you're on."

For the first time in days, she saw him smile. "Your wish, my love, is my command."

Only, it didn't work out that way in the end. Because, as she was driving home from Jon's office, her cellphone rang again. It was not, as she expected, her mother. It was Harold Cheng, mentioning that he hadn't heard from them lately, and would they care to, say, have dinner together tonight? It was a not-so-subtle reminder that Harold had no other friends, and that they hadn't spoken to him for nearly two weeks. Caitlyn felt immensely guilty.

So when she got home, Caitlyn sent her first text message to Jon. It took a little while to figure out the typing interface, but she got it in the end: dinnr w Harold 2nite 8 PM dont cook k? It also took her an age to find the question mark; she didn't even try for the apostrophe.

Jon didn't answer. She hoped he'd be okay with it. But, if he was okay with it, why wasn't he answering?

What would he do? Would he just ignore her instructions and have dinner ready for them? No, that wasn't his style; there were levels of rebellion he was capable of, but they didn't reach nearly that far. Would he refuse to go? She hoped not. She felt bad for Harold, but that didn't mean she wanted to brave that lion's den without Jon. But she'd given her word to Harold too. What a mess. When Jesus told us to love our neighbors, did he anticipate crowds like this?

When she got home from orchestra practice, Jon was sitting on the couch watching TV. That in itself was unusual; to her knowledge, he'd never turned the thing on before. At least he'd gotten the message.

"Hey, hon," she said. "Ready to go?"

He flipped the TV off, but didn't move. For a moment, there was silence.

"Did you plan to ask me if I was interested?" he said.

" ... Aren't you?" she said.

"Well, first off, it's Harold," said Jon. "He's going to spend half an hour rambling about his latest programming project or the equipment he needs for his Shaman in World of Warcraft, and the next half-hour complaining about why girls won't touch him with a ten-foot pole. As if he hadn't answered that question already."

Caitlyn said nothing. It was rather harsh, but completely true as far as it went. I'm a nice guy,  Harold would rant, I make a lot of money, I have a good job, I live on my own. Girls should be falling over me. They just don't know what they're looking for. Harold was closed to the idea that he might need to change. He seemed to expect everything to fall into his lap just as he was. And, the Stanfords agreed, until he got over that attitude, there wasn't much they could say to him.

"Second off, weren't we going to spend some time on us? Weren't we talking about getting back to what's important to us?"

"This is important to me," she said.

"Yes, but what about me?" he said.

"Weren't we asking about you supporting me even if I do things you disagree with?" she said.

Jon was silent.

" ... I think that's something I need to apologize for," she said.

" ... It is," Jon said. "But it's also true."

Caitlyn was silent.

"Look, Caitlyn ... I understand that it's important to you. And I appreciate it. But I don't like you just making decisions about us without consulting me."

"Well, maybe you needed this decision made for you," Caitlyn said. "You just don't ... Jon, being a Christian just isn't important to you. I'm your wife. It's my place to be strong where you're weak. And this is one of those places."

"Then how come I don't make decisions about your weak spots?" he said.

"What, you mean the bedroom? Jon, yes you do. We've been over that. And haven't I been encouraging you to do that as well?"

"Maybe you have," he said. "And maybe that makes it fair. But it still doesn't make it right. Caitlyn, maybe I'm strange, but I believe it's never someone's place to make decisions for another person. That's why I'm nervous about power play in the bedroom and that's why I'm nervous about this."

"Why?"

"Because you aren't allowing this to be the wrong choice."

"Jon, how can it be the wrong choice to get into Heaven? How can it be the wrong choice to be a good person? How can it be the wrong choice to be sitting on the docks and have someone call you to come be a fisher of me, and to follow?" She used his own words on the subject, knowing he would remember them.

Jon said nothing.

"Jon, I love you. I want what's best for you. I know this is who you want to be, even if it scares you, even if it's hard sometimes. That's what a wife is for—to encourage you to be your best self."

"That's what a husband is for too," he said. "And being your best self involves not just blindly doing what your mother does."

Caitlyn was silent. Does it all come back to them? Is that what this is about? Does it, always, come back to them?

Jon heaved a sigh and got to his feet. "Well, we'd better get going if we aren't planning to be late. You know he won't be."

"Y-yeah."

"But next time ... Consult me, Caitlyn." Jon towered before her, polite but not pleased. "You're right, of course, and we both know that. But that doesn't mean you should be making decisions and then railroading me in hindsight. If you can convince me after the fact you can convince me before. So why not do it in the correct order next time."

"Okay," she said.

"And no plans for tomorrow, either," he said. "We still need some 'us' time."

"Tomorrow?" she said. "Forget about tomorrow, what about tonight after we get home? You don't have to leave until 9. We've got that long to ... Get re-acquainted with each other." She pasted herself to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Finally—finally—he quirked a smile. "Don't think you can distract me with sex, young lady."

"Why not? It works so well on me, I figure it must work on you too." She grinned. "Besides, what better way to celebrate the fact that we just got through a fight without anybody having to sleep on the couch?"

He tilted his head, giving that some thought. "You know ... I like the way you think."

It was lame, but she said it anyway: "Well, enjoy it while you can, baby, 'cause once we get home, there won't be very much 'thinking' going on anymore." She grinned.

He grinned back, and swept her out into the night.



-------

Part 13


Day 67

Jon woke up first on Thursday, which meant he could be the one to say "Happy Valentine's Day" first.

"Aww, I wanted to say it first," Caitlyn said, leaning in for a kiss.

"I could fall asleep again," Jon said.

"No, we don't have time," Caitlyn said. They had gotten into the habit (when they weren't abstaining due to arguments) of waking up quite a bit earlier than the alarm, in order to fool around if they wanted. Sometimes they didn't; sometimes, especially of late, they preferred to just lie together and talk. These times were not only some of their best sex, but some of their best love and communication as well—not to mention, sometimes, their only chances to get in touch with each other all day, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when their schedules kept them apart from 9 to 8. When they were fighting, Jon had missed these moments more than he could say, and he was more glad than he could say that they had fallen into this particular habit; it was the best way he could think of to start the day: focused on what mattered to them. Focused on each other.

"But next year," she threatened, "you'd better sleep in so I can wake up first."

"Next year?" Jon said. "I didn't realize we were planning that far ahead."

"Well, now you do," she said with a smile. It was a gentle reminder, he knew, that she wasn't going anywhere. She leaned in to kiss him again. "And since I haven't said it yet: Happy Valentine's Day."

For a moment, they just cuddled together, skin on skin, breath on breath.

"Man. I can't believe we can do this," he said. "Before we got married, if we'd been like this, I would've been all like, you know, 'Sex! Let's have it!' But now we can just ... Be."

"Yeah."

"I've been looking forward to this for a long time."

"Huh?" She peered up at him. "Not having sex?"

"Yeah." He smiled. "Well, not, I mean, not-having-sex, but ... Being in a place and a position where ... It's okay not to. Where we know we don't have to be, you know, all over each other, because there will be time. When there's no pressure and we can just ... Be."

"Where we can take each other for granted."

"Yeah. This is why I was pushing for us to, you know, start getting intimate sooner. So that we could arrive here."

She gave him a sardonic look. "Sweetie, if you're gonna tell me you wanted us to start having sex early so that we could stop having sex early ... I'm not gonna believe you."

"Well, umm ... Humph," said Jon, to admit defeat, and they snuggled silently for a few more minutes.

"So," she said finally. "What would you like to do on this lovely first Valentine's Day together?"

"Stay home and make sweet love to you all day long," Jon said.

"And what are you gonna do?"

"Get up, go to work, and make money," Jon said. "And then sit around for an hour and a half until you get home and I can spring my surprise on you."

"Is it a reservation somewhere?" she asked.

"That would be telling," he said, giving her a smile. He wasn't going to let this one out until they got there.

"Can it be changed?"

"Why?"

"Because I talked to Dr. Murray, the orchestra conductor. He says that they aren't doing any of the music that requires a harp today, and I don't have to show up if I want."

Jon blinked. That did indeed throw all his plans out the window. "Umm ... It's Valentine's Day. People book these things like six months in advance. I don't know if we can change it."

She gave him a leer. "Well, this is what happens when you keep secrets from your wife."

"How am I supposed to make it a surprise if I don't keep it a secret," Jon protested, sticking his tongue out at her.

"Well, umm ... Humph," said Caitlyn, to admit defeat. "Just like a man, of course. Makes all these plans, and then doesn't account for new developments. Can't be bothered to..."

Jon rolled his eyes and dove in to kiss her.

They quickly grew amorous, and before he knew it he was suckling at her breasts, feeling her pliant flesh against his face, drawing her nipples into stiff tension. She drew his head in closer, pressing him to her, and somehow they ended up rolled over, with her above him, cradled in the curve of his body, moaning and gasping and pressing herself to him. He didn't have to reach below to check her rising ardor; he could feel the heat, and now the wetness, against the skin of his stomach.

Unexpectedly she backed away from him, maneuvering, reaching for his hand with hers. Then she was straddling him, guiding him in, sinking clear to the bottom in one smooth thrust. She wriggled her other hand and he seized it in hers. Then, supported thusly, she began to ride him.

The penetration was deeper and of a different quality than he was used to, as she guided him towards spots inside herself he hadn't known existed. It was also completely different to be seeing everything; normally he either got the arch and bump of her back, or her face beside his, but now he could see it all: her nipples, taut and still shiny with damp; her breasts proud and erect as she rode him; the smooth flat expanse of her belly and the adorable dimple of her belly button; and even her pussy lips clasping his shaft, pressing against him with every downstroke. He stared at that greedily for a moment before leaning up to attack her breasts again.

Between urine pressure and the incredible stimulation, he wasn't going to last long and he knew it. He asked her to stop, or at least slow down, until he could get some control over herself and last longer.

She gave him a wicked grin. "Who says I want you to last longer?" She ceased her thrusting, but began to move her hips back and forth against his, his cock still trapped inside her and caressed on all sides by her warm, clinging pussy. Jon moaned into the hollow of her neck. "It's Valentine's Day, my dear, and I want to start it off right: with your cum inside me."

The fleeting thought crossed Jon's mind that he might have bitten off more than he could chew; then he was cumming, ecstasy pounding through him as he exploded inside her, held rigid by the sensation as she continued to move on him, sending paroxysms of pleasure through him as he groaned and clenched and spurted up deep inside her, harder and longer (it seemed) than he had ever come before. His whole body felt tight, especially below, as though she had begun to suck him into herself; his heart was hammering within his chest.

He collapsed back against the headboard, spent. After a moment, he felt her lips feathering against his neck.

"Happy Valentine's Day, my love."

"Unhg..." he said. It was about as much coherence as he could manage.

He heard her pleased giggle. "This time, I don't care who notices: this one's staying inside me."

"Unh ... Aren't you ... Going to school?"

"Yeah, but it's only one class and my lesson. After that, we're going out to dinner."

"Where more people see you."

"So, maybe I'll take a shower before then." He heard her grin.

He tried to open his eyes; he didn't really succeed. "You're much too chipper for this early in the morning."

She kissed him. "What's not to be happy about? It's Valentine's Day, I'm with the man I love, I have a load of his cum deep inside me where hopefully it'll stay when we're done—and, from the looks of things, I just did such a good job with you that I blew a couple of fuses. I'd call that a good start to the day."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy. I have to drive a car." This time his eyes opened. "Maybe I should take a shower."

"Wouldn't that be a reversal," she said, teasing. She lifted herself off him, and he almost whimpered at the sensation rippling through his still-too-sensitive cock. "Well, there's nothing else to be accomplished here. Up and at 'em, sweetie. We got a long day ahead."

In the shower, Jon woke up fully. He shook out his head and chuckled to himself. I might indeed have bitten off more than I can chew ... But at the very least, the ride will be fun. The funny thing is, though, that there's only certain things she's really enthusiastic about. She likes the idea of being dominated, and she likes it when I cum inside her, but mention almost anything else...  He shook his head again. Well, that's the way it works sometimes. Besides, both of those ideas are relatively conservative—almost Biblical, in their own way. And the part where she likes me cumming isn't a bad benefit.

When he came out of the shower, Caitlyn was dressed and preparing for her day. "Just so you know," she said, "You're not the only one with surprises."

"Umm..." he said.

"What?" she said.

"Well ... Considering you almost killed me just now and we haven't been up an hour yet, I'm kind of..."

"Well, that was one of the surprises, so now you know what's in store," she said, smiling.

Jon was devoutly glad he had stacked a couple more surprises of his own throughout the day. Meanwhile, though... "So you mean I'll be fucked within an inch of my life more than once today?"

"Nooo," she said, giving him a patient smile. "Not all of them involve sex.""But some of them do?"

Her enigmatic smile was all the answer he got.

"Man," he said. "I'm not sure whether to jump with glee or run for the hills."

"And here I thought you were the one with the sex drive," she said, grinning.

"I do have a sex drive. It's just that it's pretty general. You only like a couple of things, but you're really into them. It's about the same energy as mine, but, really concentrated."

"Hmm. Fair enough," she said, smiling. "But, in the meanwhile, go on ahead and go to work. You have surprises to look forward to."

"I'd also better fill out a life insurance policy," he said. "Just in case."

She gave him a dirty look, and then snagged him as he was going out the door for a long, lingering kiss. Suddenly she was clinging to him, tears in her eyes.

"I love you so much, Jon," she whispered. "I never thought ... I never thought I could be playful like this. I never thought I'd be able to be ... This."

He gave her a wry smile. "Crazy and horny?"

She blinked up at him with her beautiful dark eyes. "Happy."

He kissed her back. "I love you too, Caitlyn. Making you happy is what I was put on this earth to do."

"Happy Valentine's Day."

"Happy Valentine's Day."

The first surprise was a Singing Valentine. Jon was in the back along with Nathalie Watts, Jason Belton, Hector Gonzales and Celise Chan—the other trainees, in other words—being lectured on the intricacies of the blood-pressure cuff, when someone cleared his throat from the doorway, and everyone turned to see a man of immense stateliness and immense bulk. "Excuse me," said the man in a resonant voice. "Is this Room 204?"

"It is," said Thuy, the teacher.

"My name is Roger Valentino," the very large man said. His every movement and word carried the gravitas of a Shakespearean actor. "I am looking for Mr. Jonathan Stanford. Is he within the confines of this room?"

Everyone looked at Jon. Jon felt a bead of sweat drip down his face.

"Ahh, I see I have found the right place." The man entered the room. He was of such ponderous girth that Jon had no idea how he would fit through the threshold, yet he seemed to negotiate it as though it were nothing. "I have here a Singing Valentine to be delivered to a Mr. Jonathan Stanford from a Miss Cai— Ah, I beg your pardon, from a Mrs. Caitlyn Stanford. Your bride, I presume?"

Nathalie giggled. Jon had to clear his throat before speaking. "Uhh, yes, that would be—" He had the insane urge to say, 'No, that's my mother.' "That would be she."

"Well, then, Mr. Stanford, I beg you attend these words which I shall now sing. And, your beloved urges me to assure you, they are meant from the heart."

Thus he planted his legs solidly, drew a dramatic breath, and began to sing in his rich, resonant voice.

Baby, I'm so into you
You got that something: what can I do?
Baby, you spin me around
The earth is moving, but I can't feel the ground

People were beginning to laugh, which (Jon had a hunch) was the whole point. Mr. Valentino's voice rang through the room; Jon could see, from the room across the hall, heads popping out, and thought people might be hearing it all the way to the front desk. Even better, Mr. Valentino was overplaying the part: dramatic gestures and facial expressions, and the most exaggerated vibrato Jon had ever heard; he sounded a little bit like an ambulance siren. Jon was beginning to smile himself.

Every time you look at me, 
My heart is jumping, it's easy to see:
You drive me crazy!
I just can't sleep
I'm so excited, I'm in too deep
Whoa-a-a, cra-zy, 
But it feels all right!
Baby, thinking of you keeps me up all night!

At this, Mr. Valentino flourished his cape and gave a deep bow, as though he hadn't just finished an operatic rendition of a Britney Spears song, and everyone applauded, Jon included. Man, how am I gonna top that! Everything I set up seems so lame in comparison. Though at least the musical Valentine he'd set up involved some flowers.

During his break, he called the restaurant to alter the reservation. Clearly, the gods were smiling on him: the person who had called before him had done so to cancel their 6:30 appointment, which the Stanfords would be able to make if they hurried. So, with a minute left in his break, he called Caitlyn. "Hey baby."

"'N Sync?"

"Yeah."

"You know I hate them." She was grinning.

"Oh yeah? Well, you know I hate Britney Spears."

"It was revenge. I knew you were gonna send someone to sing 'N Sync to me."

He laughed. "Well, the good news is, we're on for dinner at 6:30."

"You got the reservation moved?"

"Yup. Be ready to jump out the door the instant I get home."

"Aww, too bad. I had some ideas about how to spend the the time until our 8:00 reservation."

"Oh?" he said.

"Yeah. But there's no time now. And besides, you said I had to be dressed."

He felt his eyebrows jump. "And was that going to be one of your surprises?"

"Well, I think it would've been surprising, but no, I hadn't planned it; it just occurred to me."

Unfortunately, he didn't think the restaurant would be pleased if he switched back to the 8-PM timeslot. "Well, we'll just put that into play after we get home."

"Any specifics on clothing?"

"It's a pretty nice place, if that's what you're asking."

"Oooh, splendor and finery." He heard her grin. "Now I know it's Valentine's Day."

"I love you."

"I love you. Happy Valentine's Day."

Fortunately, there were no more Caitlyn-sponsored surprises throughout the work day, though Jon did get a little good-natured ribbing from the other staff members. Okay, maybe a lot of ribbing. People were still asking about the 'opera singer' when he was leaving to go home. The worst, of course, came from his classmates.

"Wow, someone must really love you," Celise said. She had an accent, if not much of one, but the straight black hair and yellowish skin were a dead giveaway. "Either that, or have a lot of money to blow on you."

"How'd you get someone to like you that much," Jason asked him. "You secretly a hypnotist or something?"

"Hell, how'd you get married," Nathalie said, grinning. "You're, like ... What, twenty-two?"

"Twenty-four," Jon said.

"Shit, man, I'm twenty-eight," said Jason.

"He must've taken her to Vegas and got her drunk," Hector laughed.

"Or got her pregnant and had to marry her," Nathalie said.

"Or maybe it was an arranged marriage?" Celise said.

Jon decided to laugh about it. "You all are just jealous."

"Pfft. Of getting tied down?" Jason laughed. "Hell no, man; freedom's where it's at."

"Yeah, but, he gets it regularly," Celise said, nodding in Jon's direction. "Doesn't have to go out to a bar and get a girl all liquored up."

"Ha," Jason said, his teeth startlingly white in his dark face. "Like I got to get a girl drunk to get her interested in my johnson." He was grinning.

"Oh, you don't?" Nathalie said, laughing. "No wonder you don't get any."

"Hey now, don't be giving a brother a hard time," Jason said, with a transparent attempt at wounded dignity.

"So what actually did happen, Jon," Celise asked. "Now that we've impugned your reputation and that of everyone at this table. You're not that old. How'd you get hitched so quickly?"

Jon gave them the condensed version of it; their breaks weren't all that long, after all. For the most part, his coworkers seemed impressed.

"But don't tell me you're gonna take that shit lying down," Hector said. "She sent some guy in to sing bad music at you? You so pussy-whipped that you just gonna take it?"

Jon grinned. "I did the same to her."

"Britney Spears?"

"Worse. 'N Sync."

"Holy shit, man!" Hector exclaimed. "If you're divorced by tomorrow morning, we'll know why."

"I think the only thing colder would be to send someone to sing Eminem," Nathalie said.

"Excuse me!" said Celise.

"Or Whitney Houston, that song from The Bodyguard or whatever," said Jason. He pitched a screechy falsetto: "And I-iiiiiieeiiiiii... "

"Excuse me!" said Hector.

"You're in the wrong key," Jon said, deadpan. And that was how break went: with laughter and bad music all around.

Caitlyn, as he'd requested, was waiting and ready to go when he arrived home. "Where were you? That took a little longer than normal."

"Traffic," Jon said, grimacing. "At least we'll get the carpool lane together."

"What do you think," Caitlyn asked, spreading her arms. Her hair was up in a complicated knot, and she had dressed stylishly and well, in a night-black gown that somehow stayed demure despite the way it hugged her figure. The blue highlights brought out her eyes; the little fringe on her shawl swung as she moved. Jon, who had planned on a polo shirt and some khaki slacks, made a note to dress up a little more.

"I think that you must've gotten home and spent the entire time deciding what to wear," Jon said, grinning.

"No, I also decided what you should wear too," Caitlyn said, grinning. She gestured to the bed, where (indeed) a dress shirt, tie and pressed slacks were waiting for him. "We'll match."

"Cool," said Jon, smiling. "Do you know how to do a tie?"

"Yeah," she said, her smile vanishing, "don't you?"

"I barely ever wear one," he said.

"It's a men's accessory."

"I still barely ever wear one," he said.

She rolled her eyes and brushed past him into the room. She had it ready by the time he had the other clothes on. "I'm gonna have to teach you this. How are you going to tie me up if you can't even tie yourself?"

Jon blinked. "I'm tying you up?"

Caitlyn beamed at him. "I sure hope so."

Jon shook his head and smiled. "Let's at least have dinner first."

"Mmm, dinner," she said. "You said it's a surprise. Where are we going?"

"Didn't I say it's a surprise?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's a surprise." He stuck his tongue out at her.

"Don't point that at me unless you intend to use it," she said.

He gave her a leer. "Who says I don't?"

She stepped close, entwining herself into his arms, and kissed him. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"Happy Valentine's Day. You know, you do realize that saying it over and over doesn't make it true."

"So? What else am I supposed to say? Okay, then: Saaaaad Valentine's Day." She made a puppy-dog pout.

"Besides. With you here, I don't need anything else to make it a good day."

"Hmm." She pretended to think it over. "But I'm here every day."

"So, every day's like a Valentine's Day to me," he said.

"So, you mean I should send a Singing Valentine to you every day?" she said.

"No!" He laughed. "That's quite alright, thanks. Besides, I think we'd go bankrupt pretty quickly."

"True enough. Yours must've been even more expensive; it included flowers." She gestured to the bouquet she'd gotten, which (for once) looked exactly like the one he'd picked out of the brochure, and which was now resting in a vase. "How did people like it, anyway?"

He told her about it as they drove, and she told him hers. Evidently, she'd been in the middle of her Jazz Theory class, and many of her classmates (not to mention the teacher) had taken it upon themselves to accompany the performer. Then, somehow, they got into some improvising, which of course was the real heart of jazz anyhow; it was some fifteen minutes before the deliverer managed to get out again, but he seemed to have been quite entertained. Caitlyn, of course, had turned bright red once the mushy-gushy song started coming out. "God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You. Jeez. Laying it on a little thick there, o hubby of mine."

Jon shrugged. "It seemed the best option for causing as much chaos as possible. Not to mention that it's also true."

"Have you seen that music video? You do know it's supposed to be a Mother's Day song, right?"

"Really? With that level of smarminess?"

"Well, I didn't do it," Caitlyn said.

"Good," said Jon. "I'd be extremely concerned if you turned out to have somehow been a former member of 'N Sync. It would certainly explain why you hate them, though."

"Yeah. I was their sixth member. Of course, that was before the sex change."

Jon stared at her. " ... Uhh, okay, 'Sad Valentine's Day' moment there."

Caitlyn smirked at him. "Jon, look at the road. You're driving."

Their dinner was not at Rebecca's Parliament. This was not for lack of trying; the maitre d' had informed him that they had been booked solid since November, and that (furthermore) the guest list was so predominantly female that Jon would feel completely out of place. "You know the term 'sausage-fest'?" the woman had said. "Yeah, we have like the opposite problem here." So, instead, Jon had looked up the nicest fondue place he could find. It was unusual, it was exotic, he knew Caitlyn had never been before, and he figured she'd love the richness of the food. Besides, he knew he could sell her on anything that involved a dipping-pan full of melted chocolate for dessert.

It was just as good a surprise as he'd hoped. Caitlyn was delighted with the food choice and particularly seemed to enjoy getting to spear things with the pronged fork. The presence of cheese didn't hurt either. They traded bites over the pot, giggling when one or more of them accidentally dropped something into the dip.

Of course, Caitlyn didn't eat much.

"What's wrong? Does something in the food not agree with you?"

"Silly." She flashed him a radiant grin. "I'm waiting for dessert. So hurry up and finish," she said, "so that we can get to the chocolate!"

Jon gave a theatrical roll of his eyes. "I might've known."

"And then, after the chocolate ... We can go home," she said, her voice husky now but no less excited, "and ... I can give you your next surprise." She caressed his cheek with a finger; the touch felt electric to him.

"Hmm," said Jon. "Should I get the check?"

"Silly," she said, "not before dessert. But, umm." Her grin widened. "Very soon after it."

Jon rolled his eyes again and signaled for the dessert course.

He had planned to basically attack Caitlyn once they got home, but she fended him off. "Nope! Nope, no no no no. These are very special and fancy clothes, Jon. We gotta get out of them and hang them up properly. Sheesh, what kind of a barbarian do you think I am." She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Don't point that at me unless you plan to use it," he said, echoing her comment. And Caitlyn turned right back to him and gave him that roguish grin: "What makes you think I don't?"

So Jon very carefully got out of his tie and shirt and slacks, and stored them very carefully back in the closet. He had just managed this when Caitlyn reached over and tugged on the leg of his boxers. "Those too," she said. And Jon, starting to get an idea of where this was going, took off his boxers and his socks and got totally naked.

"Should I fold these up too?" he joked, and went across the room to dump them in the hamper.

"Okay," she said, "all done." She closed the closet door and turned to him, bare as the day she was born. She had shaved recently; except for the patch between her legs, she was smooth and completely bare. Her long brown hair was loose and tucked behind her ears, a few tresses already working themselves loose; some of them cascaded down her shoulders, drawing out the pale perfection of her skin. Though long, her hair did not hide her nipples, nor her large puffy areolas, so tempting to the tongue. Her eyes were wide and luminous, the midnight color of a moon-drenched sky; he could spend years just staring into them.

"Now," she said, crossing the room to him. "Where were we?"

"Something like this," he murmured, and drew her lips up to his.

They stood entwined in the dim light, kissing, she on her toes and he bending down to compensate for the difference in height. His hand was between her legs, feeling the warmth and wetness between, and hers were between his, stroking him into erection; her other arm looped around his waist, his skin burning with her touch. He went to his knees to suckle at her breasts. It was a new dimension for him, to be shorter than her like this; her breasts were at the perfect level for his face. Her mouth opened in a silent 'O'; one arm circled his shoulders, the other hand ruffled his hair; and still he kept his hand busy between her legs, encouraging her continuing arousal.

Soon she was drawing him up, beckoning him. She leaned back onto the bed, her feet still dangling over the side, and drew him between her legs. They had never done it like this before, but the mechanics were obvious; he slid inside her and then bent over to kiss her. They moved together, she rising to meet his gentle thrusts with her legs now encircling his waist, her ankles locked. When he came it was silent, almost anticlimactic, but that was good in its own way; they kissed, staring into each other's eyes, whispering their love for one another, whispering the pleasure of their bodies to each other, enjoying the gentle blush of orgasm as his body pumped out its seed within her. He had cum, but he felt, not sated, but rather whetted for more, ready for greater play. And he could tell that she felt the same way.

"My last surprise," she said to him, "is one that had to wait until now."

"Oh really," he said, smiling. Considering where they were—considering he was still balls-deep inside her, her legs still up around him—it was pretty obvious what the surprise would concern.

"Yes," she said. "I have been thinking, and I've looked it up on the Internet ... And ... If you want to try, umm ... Doing it in my, umm, my tush ... Well, I'm willing to give it a try."

He realized his eyebrows were far above his hairline and made a conscious attempt to control them. Those muscles sure get a lot of work when she's around.

"But, a couple of conditions," she said. "You were talking about rules to prevent things from getting out of control, and you were right. So, first rule: If I ask you to stop, you stop. I don't know if it's going to be painful and I don't know if it's even going to work."

"Of course," he said, kissing her. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"I'm not going to say 'Stop' unless it's one of those two things," she continued, "but I want your promise regardless."

"Of course," he said again.

"And second, you have to wear a condom."

"That sounds fair to me," he said.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Then ... Well ... Let's try it."

So he got up and withdrew from her and they both went to the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" she said.

Jon pulled out the tube of KY Jelly he had brought from home. "We're going to need this."

"Where'd you get that?"

"I brought it when we moved here. I did masturbate until we got married, you know."

"We've been living here for over a month and I never found that?"

"Did you know what it was?"

"Okay, fair enough. Now, shoo."

"Why?"

"Well ... I wanna go to the bathroom," she said. "I don't think there's very much ... Back there..." She gave a covert tilt of her head to indicate. "But whatever is in there, I want it out so that you don't go bumping into it. The thought of you... interacting with that stuff ... isn't a turn-on for me, Jon."

"Me neither." He wrinkled his nose.

"I mean, why do you think I'm making you use the condom?"

"Well, safety reasons," he said. "I mean, modern medicine being what it is, we don't have to worry about STDs, but if we did, anal sex would be one of the best ways to share it with the other."

Her eye twitched, but she nodded.

"Plus, it'll probably make it easier, because the latex will keep things smooth."

"You've been thinking about this too," she accused.

"Well, yes," he said. "Sweetie, we're not just talking about just ... Sticking it in. There's a whole build-up that goes along with it. It's like making love."

She gave him a faint smile. "Well, you've always been good at that, at least."

While she was occupied—after the toilet flushed, the shower went on for a short time—Jon flicked onto the Internet and did some work of his own. Caitlyn's faith in him notwithstanding, he still had his own concerns. He had tried to prepare for this, of course, but there was only so much preparation he could do before he began to cover the same material over and over. Besides, his main concern was something he would have to face in the moment: the anal sphincter. Simply put, Caitlyn needed to be relaxed about this whole thing. So far she seemed calm, but also deeply determined—and he knew force would not be the answer. In fact, determination seemed to him to be the opposite of what they needed. Instead of tension and force, she needed to be relaxed and completely accepting; after all, what she could accept in her mind, she would be able to accept in her butt.

How do you get a woman to loosen up if she's not entirely sure she wants to?

When she came out of the bathroom, he said, "I have another rule to put in place."

She gave him a skeptical look, but said, "Okay. What is it?"

"I get to call it off at any time too, if I don't think it's working."

She gave him the skeptical look again. "Jon, you put the condom on and then you slide it in. What do you have to worry about?"

He touched her cheek. "You."

She said nothing.

"Caitlyn, you want to try this, and I love you for it. But just because we want it to happen doesn't mean it'll work. If you think things are getting out of hand, you get to call it off, no questions asked. If I think the same thing, I do too. The point is, I don't want you to force yourself to make this work. I don't want you to damage yourself for my sake."

She made a grimace that he couldn't interpret. "Okay." Then she took a deep breath and seemed to set herself. "So ... How are we gonna do this?"

Setting the condoms and lube on the nightstand where they would be near to hand, he had her lie on her stomach. As he did, he recalled how often he had seen her like this, clothed, and how infrequently he'd seen her like this when she was naked. He almost rarely saw her body, even during sex; most of the time they were face-to-face, or at least spooned together. Now he could see it all: the elegance of her arms and the faint lines of her shoulder blades; the bumps of her spine; the ever-enticing curves of her ass and the treasure below them; the long strength of her legs; and as always the pale flawlessness of her skin. There was a little birthmark above her right buttock. How had he never gotten around to finding it yet?

This would be a seduction, paramount to the one he had managed on their wedding night, the first time they'd ever made love. Today, unlike then, she was much more relaxed and comfortable in sex; today, unlike then, he was attempting to involve an orifice that God had never intended to be penetrated. Even despite her new-found confidence in her own skin, he thought tonight would be the greater of the two challenges.

He began by sprinkling kisses around her face and neck before returning to her left ear, that familiar territory, site of so many explorations and discoveries. Gradually he began to move down her neck and spine, scattering kisses wherever and whenever the whim took him. Then, as before, he began to massage her back.

"Mmmm," she said. "Didn't I promise myself I was going to make you do this to me more often?"

He kissed her again in response.

"Hmm. I can feel your package. It's all dangly."

He was working at her shoulders, sitting astride her hips, his butt on top of hers, and his genitals had come to rest in the small of her back. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. But, umm, it's all ... Limpy."

He chuckled. "Believe me, hon, it won't stay that way."

He worked his way down, finally reaching the base of her spine, and then split his hands to follow the backs of her thighs. He could see from her pussy that she was a little aroused—maybe; not much, and possibly this was an artifact of their previous lovemaking. Nonetheless, she was relaxed and (if his own experiences were any guide) primed to be turned on.

He was right. It didn't take long before her pussy had darkened to a pale, feminine pink and shown signs of wetness. It was a little harder to get to her clit, since it was pressed down against the comforter, but she was instinctively raising her hips and in the end they worked it out. What was also hard was getting his fingers into her pussy with his face in the way; he ended up sliding his hand in sideways and curling his fingers, his knuckles pressed against his nose. He felt strangely like a snorkeler.

"Ooh, ooh..." she whimpered. "Don't let your cum leak out. Some of it's still in there."

He stopped. "Did you seriously walk around all day with my cum inside you?"

"Yeah. I totally—ohhh—I totally did. I could kinda feel it, even. It made me feel really sexy. All day." It made him feel kind of sexy too; he could feel his cock stiffening even further. As if having his nose half an inch from the smell of her arousal wasn't doing enough.

Once she felt ready to him, he left her clit and began the real exploration.

Her perineum was not a very large area—her genitals being what they were—but he knew she'd probably never been touched there before, not even by her ownself. It was close enough to her asshole to be forbidden territory; it wasn't her pussy; and, he hoped, it wasn't associated enough with her butt that she would protest him using his mouth on it. He had a hunch that fingers wouldn't do it any good.

She shivered and whimpered when he first placed his tongue there, but nonetheless spoke up: "Jon, is that ... Is that sanitary?"

"Didn't you wash after you were done?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then I'm sure it's clean."

"Clean enough for your mouth?"

"It just tastes like soap to me," he said. "I think that's clean enough. Does it feel good?"

"Yeah, it feels fine..."

To judge by her reactions, it was better than just 'fine.' He knew that there was power in places that weren't normally touched during the course of everyday life; he intended to exploit this power as much as he could.

Her anus, of course, was another such zone.

He didn't just plunge in; instead he began walking up her buttocks with his fingers. Her ass was not a place he really paid that much attention to. Certainly it was very attractive to him, in its smooth roundness, but there wasn't a whole lot you could do with it; it was just there, with no special features. That was a downside, in his opinion. Nonetheless, it wasn't normal territory for him, and he intended to exploit that.

He traced his fingers over the crease between buttock and thigh, down the top of her crack, in criss-cross lines over the surface of her ass. There was hair here, as there was on him, but not enough to make much difference, besides, that puckered rosebud center was still in full evidence.

Finally, he placed his finger directly on it and began to move it in gentle circles. Caitlyn stiffened when he did so, but after a moment she began to relax.

"Sweetie," he said, "this isn't going to work if you're tense."

"I-I know."

"So ... Just concentrate on the sensations. Concentrate on enjoying it. If it ever hurts, tell me. If it doesn't feel good, tell me."

"Should it feel good?"

"Does it?"

A hesitation. Then, " ... Yeah."

"In answer to your question," he said, "it should feel good. Nobody talks about it, but there's pleasure nerves all throughout the anal sphincter. Doesn't it usually feel good to, you know, go number two?"

"Well ... Yeah."

"So, don't worry, it's not like this is something your body wasn't designed to feel."

"Okay, okay. But ... Do you have to make me feel it?"

Jon looked up. She was propped up on her elbows, looking back over her shoulder at him. He suppressed a sigh. So it gets down to this. I did have the hunch.

"No, Caitlyn, we don't have to. There's nothing that says you and I 'have' to do anything. But, if it's okay with you, this is something I'd like you to explore."

"You'd like me to explore?" she said.

"Well, yes. It's your body, isn't it? Shouldn't you be aware of everything it does?"

Her hooded eyes gave no indication of her reaction to this. "Well ... Can you at least come up here for a while? It's all ... It's kinda weird to have me up here and then you down there. Especially since I can't see anything."

Actually, that sounded fine to him. What they had done so far was rather clinical, to be honest, and he didn't want that to be associated with it in her mind. This needed to be something warm and emotional. If it was at all possible to make her ass seem romantic, he needed to do it.

Of course, that didn't stop her from freaking out again. "Jon! Don't touch me with that hand! It was just on my butt!"

Jon kept his face straight with an effort. "Caitlyn, did you clean up before we started?"

"Yes."

"Well, it looked like you did a good job. I didn't see anything clinging or dangling down there. I think everything on the surface is clean."

"But ... But that's still..."

"I know it is. But that's exactly the point. It's not dirty, or dangerous. It just is."

She squeezed her eyes closed. "Still."

"Do you want me to go wash it?"

She gave him a cross look. "You don't have to take that tone with me."

"I'm not! I'm just asking..."

"Okay, okay. Yeah, why don't you wash it. I'll still be here." She sounded humorless.

While soaping his hand off, Jon reflected on the situation. This isn't turning out right. She isn't having fun, she doesn't like the idea ... Both of us are uncomfortable. Maybe we should give up, or at least try again later. No one says we have to succeed today. There's time. Hell, we'll be married for the rest of our lives. There's lots of time.

When he came out she was curled on her side, silent. He could see her pubis peeking out from between her legs, but there were more important things on her face—annoyance, confusion, sadness.

He lay down beside her and put his arm around her waist.

"Whoa! That's cold," she said.

" ... Well, yeah," said Jon. "I just washed it. Look, Caitlyn ... Do you want to stop?"

She turned her head to look at him. "Do you want to stop?"

"What I want," he said, "is for you to enjoy what we do. If you aren't, then there's no point in continuing."

She was silent for a moment.

"I..." she said. "Well, it doesn't feel bad. But it doesn't feel good either. It's just ... Strange." She colored. "I keep thinking how it might feel better if it was ... No, I can't say it."

"If I were using my mouth?"

She colored further. "But I can't ask you to do that. It's icky."

Jon didn't cherish the thought, but... "I'd do it anyway, if you wanted."

"I don't want you to do that! Jon, I'm not worth that!"

"So ... You're telling me that it's worth doing, but it's not worth doing right."

She flipped to her back to glare at him. "If you keep contradicting me, I will make you kiss my ass."

There was no good response to that. "Look, hon. Do you want to stop?"

She was silent for a moment.

"I ... I dunno. It, just ... It's so, like, predetermined—what we're doing. It's like, 'Durr, okay, we've decided that we're gonna play with Caitlyn's butt tonight, ' and everyone's just going straight there—"

"'Everyone'?"

"Okay, fine, not everyone. But it's, like, so determined. Like we're on a mission or something."

"Yeah."

"Can we just ... Can we just ... Do what we normally do? You know, just ... Just make love. And then, if ... Certain ... Other zones ... Happen to get involved, then they ... Happen to get involved."

In answer, he kissed her. "You should be in charge of everything. You always know what to do."

"Except when it comes to my butt."

"Hey, I'm learning too. We're both in the dark."

"Not really," said Caitlyn, "seeing as how the light's on."

"We can turn them off," he said. "I think I can still find my way around."

This sounded pretty lame, even as he said it, but on Caitlyn it had a surprising effect. " ... You really are serious, aren't you."

"About what?"

"About making me feel comfortable about this."

"Well ... Yes," said Jon, feeling as though this maybe should've been obvious.

She was silent for a moment.

"The lights are okay," she said finally. Then she reached up to draw him down to her. "And you, my beloved man, have some new experiences to introduce me to."

"Your wish, my beloved wife, is my command."

"Happy Valentine's Day."

It was, indeed, more natural this time. They kissed; they fondled; his erection firmed between them, and soon his hand was tasting her wetness as she gasped her ardor into his neck. This time, when he touched her entry for the first time, she understood.

After a time of gentle massage, he said that he would like to put some lube on her ass and see what happened. Caitlyn still seemed a little nervous. "You're going to try to put something up there?"

"Just a finger. And it won't go anywhere unless you want it to. And we'll use so much lube there's no possible way it could hurt. My finger is smaller than what normally, umm, passes there."

She rolled her eyes, but kissed her acceptance.

A moment later he had poured a generous dollop of KY between her cheeks. Caitlyn giggled. "Ooh, I've never quite felt that before." It suddenly occurred to Jon to wonder why he hadn't ordered some wine or something with dinner. For Caitlyn to be lightly buzzed right now ... But then, she'd never shown any inclination to alcohol, and to be honest he liked that about her. He liked that she could have fun with a straight face. He liked that she could do things like this without having to lubricate her courage.

There were so many things he loved about her.

He set the tip of his finger at the tip of her asshole. "May I?"

He could see her nerves, but she nodded. "What do I do?"

"Just relax." He kissed her. "Relax, and concentrate on feeling ... Open."

She gave him a wry smile. "Now there's a pleasant image." But she closed her eyes and began to breathe slowly.

He bent to kiss her. "I love you," he whispered, "so much."

"I love you too, baby, but you've got something to do and a wife with only so much nerve." She arched an eyebrow without opening her eyes.

As he expected, her outer sphincter opened without much trouble; it was probably relaxed by now anyway. The inner one, however, remained resolute for a few seconds, until Caitlyn took a deep breath. Then his pinkie passed through. He was glad he had covered it with lube, for now it passed slowly into her until he was buried to the knuckle; he knew she could feel the rest of his hand bumping up against her body.

Caitlyn opened her eyes.

"That was ... Anti-climactic," she said, "kind of."

"How does it feel?"

"It..." Her brow creased in concentration. "It doesn't hurt, if that's what you're asking. It's not unpleasant. There's a little bit of a stretching sensation, but according to what I read, that's normal."

"Yeah."

"It ... It doesn't feel bad, per se ... But it doesn't really feel good either. It's just ... There. There's just a thing in my butt." She paused a moment, then said: "I can't believe I said that with a straight face."

Jon kissed her, and then returned to her nipples to reawaken her arousal.

They did it several more times, each time introducing a larger finger; by now, Jon's hand felt wet and rather sticky. By the time he had traded up to his middle finger, she was rather more into it, no longer losing her arousal and possibly even finding pleasure in the contact. He knew better than to expect her to completely go crazy over it and find it instantly comfortable; the human body didn't work like that. He had no idea how she'd taken to normal sex so easily, for that matter.

The first time he withdrew his pinkie, he surreptitiously brought it up to eye level. To his surprise, it was completely clean. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this pristine condition. Well, Caitlyn's a neat person by nature; maybe that extends to, umm, even her butt.

"Are you ready to, umm ... To try the next level?" he said.

"Umm..." She bit her lip. "Are you?"

"If you are," he said. "Caitlyn, I'm okay with anything. We have time. We have the rest of our lives. Whatever you feel comfortable with, that's what we'll do."

She bit her lip.

"Let's do it."

She rolled onto her side while he got the condom on and put another squirt of lube against her ass; the inner sides of her cheeks were already pretty much coated, but that wasn't going to help with his entry. He rubbed his latex-sheathed cock up and down the crack of her ass, trying to get as much lube on its surface as possible. Then he positioned the tip of his cock at her entrance.

"Ready?" he said.

"Ready," she said.

It took longer for the head to get inside; it was rather larger in diameter than anything else they'd put inside her thus far. There was another short delay as Caitlyn winced a little and took a deep breath; then he was in, sliding in slowly until he was buried to the hilt.

He slid his body up behind hers and kissed her ear. "How are you doing, baby?"

"I'm ... I'm really ... Full," she said in a somewhat-strained voice.

"Does it hurt?"

"It's a lot ... It's a lot bigger than anything else that went there," she said.

Jon hadn't thought to have a variety of objects on hand for a prolonged dilation process. "Do you want me to pull out?"

"I don't want you to move at all right now," she grumbled.

"Does it hurt?"

"No, it doesn't ... It's a stretch, but it doesn't really hurt. But I don't ... Know if I like it."

"It's okay," he said. "We'll just ... We'll just stay here until you know what you want."

They did. Caitlyn didn't seem in the mood for conversation, so he didn't say much; it was a little surreal to be there, almost painfully erect, his cock swallowed by her ass and clenched tightly by her anal sphincter. Her opening here was rather tighter than her pussy, but once into her bowel the sensation dropped off sharply. He felt like he could move around inside her without touching anything, rooted as he was by her assholes. It was definitely different than normal sex, that much was certain.

"I never thought I'd be here," she said suddenly.

"Be where?"

"Well ... Valentine's Day. You know how hard it is to be single on Valentine's Day?"

"As someone who has been exactly that for most of his life ... Yeah, I do."

"And for a long time, it was like... 'Ha-ha, you're stuck here. You aren't going anywhere. You're single, and that's it for the rest of your life.' And I couldn't see any way to change that—I wasn't meeting anybody; the people I did meet were all older, or over the Internet ... I didn't have any friends. I was just ... Stuck."

"So you never thought you wouldn't be alone on Valentine's Day."

"Yeah. And then, sex, just ... Ugh. You know it was never something I concerned myself with. I figured, you know, Yeah, it'll happen—if I ever get married, and fat chance of that, but on the off-chance I do—it'll happen, because I want to have babies, but I always thought of it as ... Just ... Something I'd have to do. Something I'd submit to, because it was my duty. A means to an end. I never thought I'd enjoy it. I never thought I'd do it just ... Just because it's fun to do."

"Yeah."

"And now ... To be here ... With a husband, enjoying sex ... And having his penis in my butt."

"Umm ... From the sound of your voice, it sounds like you aren't enjoying this very much."

"No, I don't think I am. Pull out of me, Jon."

He did. And that was the end of that.

Jon checked the latex. It was still pure white; no smudges of brown, and, more importantly, no stains of red. For that, at least, he was glad. He pulled the condom off and put away the lube while Caitlyn stood up—a little bow-legged and awkward—and shut herself in the shower. He went to the sink in the kitchen and washed his hand of the immense coating of lube it had suffered; there was some on his groin as well, but it was going to be harder to get that off without a shower, which Caitlyn was using.

He hoped this whole incident wasn't going to cause problems. If they did, he wondered what they might be, and how he would have to deal with them.

He was still lost in thought when Caitlyn came out of the shower; in fact, he didn't notice until she perched on the bed beside him. Her hair was slicked down and her skin glowed; clouds of fragrant steam billowed from the bathroom door.

"You were thinking hard," she said.

"Yeah, I just ... I dunno. It ... That wasn't how I saw things going."

"That wasn't how I saw things going either," she said. "Though, I guess I gained more than I lost."

He wasn't entirely sure what this comment was referencing, so he kept silent.

"Would you be okay," she said, "if I said I didn't really want to do that again?"

"I would be fine with that," he said.

"Really? I figured you wouldn't want to give it up. I thought you'd like it."

"No, I had no idea whatsoever. I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I just ... Wanted to see what would happen."

"To explore."

"Yeah."

"Well ... Fair enough. But, the ... Well. You're my husband. But even so, I think that's all the exploration you're entitled to."

"Okay." He dared to glance at her. She was brushing out her hair; she wasn't looking at him. In fact, for all their conversation, she didn't seem to have acknowledged him at all.

"Caitlyn... ?" he said. "Are we ... Are we okay?"

"What do you mean," she asked without turning.

"Is this ... Is this something that's gonna ... Cause problems? For us?"

The brush faltered for a moment.

"I just ... When we were lying there, when you were in my ... Butt ... And you've got gunk all over your hand and I've got slippery stuff all over my butt, and I just suddenly thought... 'Why are we wasting time like this? Why are we bothering with all this stupidity when he could just ... Just slide in my front side and be... ' I mean, it always worked that way. We never had to do so much ... Work."

"Well, true, but ... What would you be saying if it turned out that you loved it and were glad we tried?" he said. "Hindsight is 20/20."

"No, you're right, and that's a valid point. But ... I just couldn't help feeling that ... That it was wrong for me. That it was wrong for us." She turned to face him. "You didn't enjoy it much, did you."

He wondered what the right answer was to this question. If he said he hadn't, would she be offended that she had compromised herself without gain? Especially since this was something sinful by her account. And yet, to him, there was no meaningful answer but the truth. "It was ... I could live without it," he said. "It wasn't like bad, but it wasn't special either. Maybe if we explored it more we'd find out what it was good for, but, I wouldn't regret it if we didn't."

She nodded. "I knew you'd say that. It's like I said. That just ... That just isn't our direction."

"Okay." He leaned close to kiss her forehead. "I can understand that."

She sighed. "Never thought I'd spend Valentine's Day like this."

"Like what? Not alone, having sex for fun, and doing it up the bum?"

She grimaced. "Finding out that, even when you act from love, sometimes you still make mistakes."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that.

"Well, umm..." he said. "It's still Valentine's Day. There's still a couple hours left on the clock. What else can we do to put some of the magic back in your day?"

She shook her head. "Can you ... Can you just hold me? Tonight? No more messing around, no more politics, no more of ... All of that. Just ... Just the fact that we love each other. Nothing more."

"Of course," he said, and tilted her face up for a gentle kiss. "Your wish is my command."

"Thanks."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Happy Valentine's Day." It was her line, but he said it, hoping to put a little laughter on her face.

But all he got was a worn smile. She said, "Yeah."

-------

Day 72

When Caitlyn awoke on Tuesday morning, her butt was still sore.

It had been like this ever since their disastrous little flirtation with her nether regions last Thursday, and Caitlyn was starting to get concerned. Jon was solicitous and concerned—he always was; God had made him that way, and Jon could no more detach himself from it than stop breathing—but she could tell that he didn't think it was anything worrisome. To be fair, there was no burning pain, no blood, no constipation problems; but sometimes she felt like there was something still up in there, and that it might come clattering out at any time. This was ridiculous, and she knew it; nothing had gone there, besides Jon's bare fingers and his not-so-bare member, and all of those things had come out again. Yet she couldn't help but suspect. Perhaps Jon had inserted something while she wasn't paying attention ... But what?—and to what purpose? Her husband would never do something like that. Besides, what could he have put in? A tracking device? Why? And why there, when she might accidentally flush it out with remains of last night's dinner some day? The whole thing was ludicrous. There was nothing wrong with her rear.

It still didn't keep her from feeling a little sore.

Today she woke up first, finding herself conscious and in his arms. She had been here many times, of course; but right now, 'here' was a place where she felt absolutely no thrill, had absolutely no desire for his body, and she didn't like how comfortable she was beginning to feel in this place. This has happened too many times before. We get into fights, he detaches; we get into fights, I detach. And we didn't even really have a fight! We had a discussion—completely mutual, completely civil—that sodomy was not our thing. He agreed with me, and I agreed with him. So what's going on?

Why do we keep fighting? What's going on with our marriage? We never had problems like this when we were dating. True, we never had sex like this either, but... (And there's another thing. Before, it wasn't a big deal if we never did it, because, well, we never did it. Now that we have a sex life, it's a problem when we don't anymore. Things have just gotten complicated.) What changed to make us have all these disagreements? She wasn't sure, but she knew people who would insist on Ockham's Razor. What changed in your marriage? Perhaps, the fact that you have one?

When she turned to look at him, his eyes were open.

The words tumbled out of her before she could stop them: "Jon, do you love me?" She felt her face reddening—what a thing to blurt out! How much more insecure—how much more tacky—could you get?

But Jon merely blinked a couple of times. "Of course," he said. "You're my wife, my love, the apple of my eye—everything I live for. Of course I love you."

She pressed herself into his arms with hysterical strength, trying to ignore the burning in her eyes. "Then love me. Take me. Make me your woman. Make us one."

He did. They kissed and touched in the grey morning light, fumbling at each other, stroking each other's faces. She was not ready, but she pulled him into herself anyway, feeling the way he filled her, the way he pushed at her inner walls. He pumped and strained away inside her, but did not kiss her. And when he finally filled her with his seed, she felt no pleasure at its warmth pooling in the crevices of her body, no joy at having brought him to his climax.

When she showered, his cum leaked out of her. She could tell by the sudden feeling of warmth passing between her nether regions. She had never liked that sensation: completely aside from her goal of keeping his spend inside her, there was a creepy, slimy feeling involved when it suddenly came splashing out. For a wild moment she wondered if she could somehow stuff it back in using the shower head; then she cleared her head, and sighed, and reached for the soap.

It was all wrong.

Jon was not waiting for her when she emerged from the bathroom; he was sitting on the couch, staring off into oblivion. When he heard her move, his vision suddenly seemed to focus.

"Something's wrong," he said.

"What?"

"There's something between us," he said. "There's something that's making us ... That's keeping us apart."

Caitlyn wondered if she should be angry it had taken him this long to notice. But she nodded. Really, she was just glad he had noticed. After all, this wasn't about him pulling away in secret.

"Any idea what it is?"

She felt a flash of indignation that he would assume she was keeping secrets from him. Then she realized he was probably just asking, with no implications intended. And besides, it was a valid question. "No idea at all." What if she had known? Wouldn't that have made things simpler?

"Is it related to ... Thursday?"

In the days leading up to February 14th, it had been 'Valentine's Day' in all their conversations. Now it was just 'Thursday.' "I don't ... I don't think so. Maybe. I don't know. It ... I haven't been waking up with screaming nightmares about it or anything."

"Yeah, I noticed."

He would; he was sharing her bed, after all. "Do you know?"

He shook his head. "I have some ... I have some ideas. But nothing concrete."

"Tell me if anything comes up."

"I will."

"I'm tired of this. I don't want to ... Can't we come up with a better way to argue? Instead of just ... Erecting walls. Erecting walls so that we can't even touch each other anymore." She felt tears burning at her eyes again and blinked to force them back.

"Well," he said, "we could throw things at each other instead."

Is that our only alternative? Well. We're in fine shape then, aren't we. It was a pleasant thought.

On Tuesdays her first class was Jazz Theory, followed a half-hour later by her harp lesson with Mrs. Sellitz. She had three and a half hours to kill. There were dishes to put away, clothes to wash, bathrooms to clean, but the thought of those things filled her with despair. When Jon was here they were painful but necessary chores, like paying the rent; but today she felt that steady foundation of his presence trembling under her. Is this what earthquakes feel like?—to know that the solid ground under you isn't actually, by any means, solid?

On impulse, she found herself calling Pastor Pendleton. "Hello, Pastor? ... Yes, I've been doing all right ... Thank you. Thank you, no, that wasn't ... Actually, I was wondering if you were in your office today, I was hoping to stop by ... Oh? Okay ... Umm. Okay. I'll ... I'll be right over."

Pastor Pendleton was going over some paperwork with his wife when she arrived, but no sooner had Caitlyn knocked on the door, it seemed, than they were done. "If you'll excuse me, I'll excuse myself," said Mrs. Pendleton. "Tons to do anyway. My youngest son Chris has a soccer practice tonight, and I'm supposed to bring the snacks. My one piece of advice to you, young missy: if you want to stay sane, never have kids."

" ... Says the woman who prided herself on insanity in college," Pastor Pendleton remarked.

His wife leveled a finger at him. "Hey, mister. I know where you sleep."

Pastor Pendleton made an innocent look. "Just, doing my part to keep you humble."

"Keep it up, buster, and I'll be doing my part to keep you chaste," Mrs. Pendleton threatened.

Her husband spread his arms. "Now, Amber. I am a minister of the Lord. And everyone knows that priests don't have sex." He grinned.

"Oh, really. And where, precisely, are you going to explain our children came from?"

"You know, I've actually been meaning to talk to you about that for some time," said Pastor Pendleton. "But the thing is, I can never get around to it. Every time I try, you strip me naked and have your wicked way with me."

"Good thing, too," said Amber Pendleton to Caitlyn, "'cause if I'd left it up to him, we wouldn't have kids yet. Have a nice day, hubby." She rolled her eyes and swept out the door.

"So, Caitlyn," said Pastor Pendleton. "What can I do for you?"

Caitlyn had been staring, caught somewhat off-guard by this unabashed banter. But now she tried to remember why she was here, and everything came flooding back. She sat in a chair and tried not to feel miserable. "Umm ... Nothing," she said, "nothing really. I just ... Wanted to talk."

"Well, this is a house of the Lord," said Pastor Pendleton, moving to her side of the desk and turning a chair to face her. "Talk is something we do here. What would you like to talk about?"

Caitlyn opened her mouth, but no sound came out. "Umm. Well."

Pastor Pendleton tilted his head. "Why don't we try it this way. Good morning, Caitlyn. How are you?"

"I'm ... I'm fine."

"How have you been? You're in church quite a bit, but we never seem to have a chance to talk."

"I'm ... I'm doing okay."

"How is everything at home?"

"Oh, everything's ... Great..."

"How is your husband doing?"

Caitlyn was starting to feel stupid, giving these halting non-answers to all his questions. "He's, umm ... He's all right. He's at work right now."

"How are things between the two of you? Any arguments or problems coming up?"

"Umm ... Well ... There is ... Something."

"I see. Would you like to talk about it?"

"I..." Yes, she would; she very much would like to. But... "I'm not sure what it is."

Pastor Pendleton must have been despairing to himself, but outwardly he simply smiled. "Well, that certainly helps narrow it down.

"I-I'm sorry, I know it..."

"It's okay, Caitlyn, I was joking. And, actually, we can approach it from that angle. Can you tell me about the problems you do know about? If it's not those things, then that helps us narrow it down."

Caitlyn felt strangely guilty, telling someone else about her marital woes. She also thought that 'problems' might be an overstatement; everything was fine between her and Jon ... Wasn't it? "Well ... He's not ... He's not as much of a Christian as I would like."

"How do you mean? For about the last year and a half, Caitlyn, he's been coming here with you; I can't think of many times off the top of my head when I've seen you here without him."

"I know, but ... For him it's ... It's the polite thing, you know? It doesn't mean anything to him."

"Does that make a difference on his behavior? Jon has always struck me as a very gentle, very caring person; and, from what I hear from other members of the church, such as Pastor Larson and Jerri Sloane, they think much the same of him. He's polite, personable, a good talker and a good listener; he's always patient and kind ... At least, he is when we see him."

She recognized the opening, but it didn't apply to this situation. Jon was not two-faced like that; where he was concerned, what you saw was what you got. It was one of the things she loved about him. "No, it's not ... It's not like that. He isn't ... Hurting me or anything." Not even my bum. No matter how weird or uncomfortable it was, no one can deny that he was very considerate and loving about it.

"Okay. Are there any other issues that have come up?"

"Umm ... Well, just ... I mean, we talk, you know?"

"Always a good thing for a husband and wife to do," said Larry Pendleton with a straight face.

"And we ... We come up with things that, maybe, we think, the other person could improve about themselves."

"Which could potentially cause some defensiveness," said Pastor Pendleton, "since there's always an element of judgment involved. Even if it is your husband or your wife, whom you love more than life itself, it can sting to hear that there's things you need to work on."

"Yeah, we aren't ... There isn't, like, pressure or anything," said Caitlyn. "He's really good at that. But ... The thing is, there's never ... Well, I mean. If he says, 'Hey, have you ever tried it this way, you might be happier, ' I'm like, you know, Sure, why not. But ... When I suggest something..." She thought about her wish to be dominated.

"Mmm," said Pastor Pendleton, nodding. "That's one of the most difficult things to accept about being married, Caitlyn—or, indeed, about being alive. If Jon feels like he's an okay guy the way he is, then you just have to accept that. You can't make him change. You can only make him want to change."

"I know, and ... I guess he is okay the way he is." Except for not wanting to tie me down to the bed and have his way with me.

"Are you?" Pastor Pendleton asked. "Okay the way you are?"

Caitlyn thought for a moment. "I ... Well, I know Jon would say I am. But ... He's biased."

"Perhaps he is, but there are so many people biased against us in life; isn't it nice to have someone biased in your favor instead?"

"Yeah, I guess. But, I just ... I mean, yeah, I know I can't make him change. And I know he doesn't feel like this is a bad thing. But, when I think about him in church and how he just ... doesn't... Believe, it..."

"If he changed, you think it would be for the best."

"Yes."

"But ... I don't know how to make him want to change. I just don't ... He's so content now. He thinks he doesn't need faith. And yet, every time he asks me to do something..."

"Oh? Does he expect you to bow to his whims?"

Caitlyn felt herself coloring. "No, he ... He's always made it clear that ... That if I'm not comfortable with something, or, or if I think I'd be better off without it, that ... I can say no."

"And does he mean it?"

"Yeah, actually, I think he does," Caitlyn said, thinking back to Thursday and feeling her face color. "But... I always feel like..."

"Like you have to please him."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I ... I don't know. It's just ... Jon says it was trained into me, and I think he's right. And, it's one of the things he thinks I should change about myself."

"To be less willing to please? Since he's your husband and the main beneficiary of that trait, shouldn't he want you to stay that way?"

"Well, I don't think he wants me to be, like, contrary or anything, but he says ... He says he worries about my willingness to put others first. He says I'm too willing to damage myself for the sake of others."

"Now, that I find to be a valid concern. Does it happen often?"

"I don't think so." She gave a humorless grin. "In fact, the one time I think it happened, it was Jon I was trying to please."

"Oh?" said Pastor Pendleton. "And, if I may ask, what was his pleasure on this particular occasion?"

Caitlyn felt her face flush. What did I just maneuver myself into? And yet she realized suddenly that this was exactly why she had come—for a second opinion, for outside advice, not just on her marriage as a whole but on her marriage in light of this new development. In light of Thursday. "He..." She took a deep breath, determined now to say this without stuttering. "He asked me if I would let him try anal sex on me."

Pastor Pendleton nodded. "Okay."

Caitlyn waited for him to say more, but he didn't. She realized the floor was to her still. "And, it ... It wasn't ... It was weird, but it wasn't, like ... Unnatural. It didn't hurt or anything. I didn't feel like it was something I had to strain myself out of shape for. —Not physically, at least." She was fairly sure larger things had passed through that region at some point—though generally in the opposite direction.

"Physically it was all right then. Mentally?"

"Mentally ... Well, I learned to relax a lot," she said with a humorless laugh.

"Spiritually?" Pastor Pendleton said.

That was the tricky question. "I ... Well, I thought about it a lot. I mean, Jon didn't just spring this on me, he said it a while ago, and I did a lot of thinking. I know it's proscribed in the Bible, but—well, let's be honest, so is eating shellfish. When Jesus came to us, he gave us a new covenant, and the rules of the Torah don't apply to us anymore unless he specifically underlined them. And there's nothing in the New Testament prohibiting sodomy."

"That much is true," Pastor Pendleton said.

"And, besides, it ... Well, I think the best description of it would be a 'technical sin.' God says it's bad, but ... It can be done without hurting anyone."

"In this life, at least."

"In this life, at least," she agreed. "And that was what I thought about the longest. In the end, I decided..." She hesitated. She wasn't sure this was the sort of thing you were supposed to say to a minister of God. "In the end, I decided that, if it would please my husband, I was willing to commit this sin. Not to be malicious, not to divorce myself from God, but ... Out of love. I'm not saying I would murder somebody, or steal, or ... Or something that would really, definitely hurt someone. Not even if Jon asked me to. But for this, which seems so technical, which some religions don't even condemn ... That was a sin I was willing to commit, because I love my husband that much."

She felt tears stinging at her eyes again. She had cried too much today already; it wasn't even lunch yet. And yet these tears were not of self-recrimination. She was remembering how much she loved him. She was wishing she had him back.

"I think there is honor in that sort of love," said Pastor Pendleton. "And I think there is virtue in it as well. And sometimes I think we could use more people in this world who have your mindset—who understand the rules, and study them, and know that all of them have exceptions and that sometimes it's okay to step outside them for a while. We need more people who care less about mindless obedience and more about doing good—even if, on very rare occasions, doing good isn't the same as doing right."

She felt his hand on her shoulder, a fatherly gesture. When was the last time anyone had done that to her? Jon, probably, during the months of their courtship; certainly not her actual father, who would probably be threatening her with bodily harm by now.

"Do you regret it?"

"I ... Don't, actually, not really," she said. "He ... He said that he wasn't sure he would like it, that he just wanted to ... Well, to try it and find out. We tried it. We found out. I don't think it's right for us."

"You believe it's a sin?"

"I have no idea if it's a sin or not," she said, maybe a little sharper than she'd intended. "But that's not it anyway. I don't care if other people do it, I just don't wanna. I just ... What he and I did, when we were ... Exploring that outlet..." Boy, that was more double entendre than she'd intended. "It wasn't ... Loving. I mean, he was very kind and considerate, and he always stopped and made sure it didn't hurt and that I was comfortable with it, but, it was so ... Detached. I don't think we could ever do ... That particular activity ... Without having to be, I dunno, clinical about it. Scientific. And that's not how we're called to be together, that's not how we were called to share our bodies with each other. That's not who we were meant to be.

"I love him, and I love making love to him, and if ... If anal sex could be incorporated into that, um, into that activity, I would welcome it. Even if it was a sin. And how could it be sinful, if it were strengthening our love for each other. If it was loving, I would be fine with it. But ... It wasn't about strengthening our love or our trust or our bond, it was just about ... Sex ... And, I mean, we do that sometimes too, where we really want..." She thought of the times when she lay beneath him as he hammered into her, or was taken from behind on her hands an knees—hearing the smack of his body hitting hers, feeling the raw wanton pleasure of their rampant hormones, driving each other on towards climax. " ... Where we really want to have the pleasure of it, to feel those sensations which you don't get any other way."

Pastor Pendleton was nodding. "You want to have an orgasm. You really want to—please forgive the word, but it really is the most accurate term here—you really want to fuck each other."

She blushed to hear him curse, but he was right: 'making love' was too romantic, and 'sex' too scientific. In the word 'fuck' was a layer of pure raw sexuality that those other terms didn't have. If she treated it as a description and ignored the fact that it was a dirty word, it was completely accurate.

"And there's nothing wrong with that. Orgasm is part of the gift God gave us. And it's a mark of the trust and intimacy between the two of you that you can abandon yourselves with each other and indulge in such pleasure like that."

Caitlyn nodded. It underlined the point. "But, even at times like that ... Even when we're ... well ... fucking ... It's something that makes us love each other more. We couldn't have it if we didn't love each other. We couldn't have sex of any sort if we didn't love each other. And most of the time it's not about chasing the orgasm, it's just about ... Loving each other, and being close to each other, and sharing these physical sensations which are so intimate, because we've never shared them with anyone else ... The orgasm almost doesn't matter. It's about making love.

"But when we were, um. Exploring that outlet..." Pastor Pendleton gave her a wry smile. " ... it wasn't about love. It wasn't ... It wasn't even fucking. It was just ... Totally physical. It was just ... Sex."

"And that's how you knew it was right for the two of you."

"Yeah. It was just physical sensation without the love underlying it, and ... That's not what interests me. And I know that isn't what interests him either. We were both virgins, and I know he could've changed that about himself if he wanted to. But he didn't. He said he wanted to find some woman to fall in love with, and then have sex with her. When it meant something."

"When it reflected a strong emotional bond."

"Yeah. Why would he do that if all he wanted was just ... The pleasure?"

"No good reason, unless he was totally incompetent with women. And I think we can rule that out." Pastor Pendleton smiled, and Caitlyn surprised herself by smiling too.

"Do you think less of me?" she said.

"Of you? Of course not," said Pastor Pendleton. "Caitlyn, everyone makes mistakes; that's something that's true of everyone who ever lived (with the sole possible exception of our Lord and Savior). And besides, I don't think this was a mistake. You and your husband decided to experiment with something, and found it wasn't to your liking. I'm sure the two of you have tried new things together before—both in and out of the bedroom—and that sometimes they just don't catch on."

That much was true. Though, to be fair, this was the first time they'd ever tried something that was going to be categorically ruled out; "But ... If this wasn't a bad thing, why is it making a difference?"

"Is it making a difference?"

"It ... I don't understand it. But ... Ever since we tried it, there's this ... Well, maybe not 'wall, ' but ... We're both more hesitant. He doesn't initiate sex as often, I don't initiate sex as often, we've barely had a real conversation since ... When we do have sex, it isn't ... Neither of us gets into it."

"That definitely sounds like a problem," Pastor Pendleton said. "And you don't know what it is."

"That's why we started listing all these other things," said Caitlyn, without humor.

"And it's not any of those?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Caitlyn. "Of course, if we wanna start listing all the things I don't know, that might take a while."

"Well, if some insight does occur to you, I'm always available," said Pastor Pendleton. But Caitlyn went home, got herself some lunch, and then went off to her harp lesson without any occurrence of that helpful flash-of-insight phenomenon. There wasn't anything from Jazz Theory, either; evidently there were to be no helpful comments from passersby or classmates to shed some light on the subject. She needed to get home and spend some time in prayer, but somehow she wasn't sure that would help either. God could be deeply inscrutable when He chose.

Jon didn't call during his lunch break, which was unusual; but then, it was a Tuesday. Maybe he remembered she'd be in a lesson. He did call as she was leaving the Jazz Theory classroom. "Hi, sorry I didn't call earlier, I didn't get my lunch break until now."

"It's all right."

"So, um ... Any thoughts on what's going on?"

"Not really. You?"

"Not really. But I've been busy. I mean, I just got my lunch break."

"I went to talk to Pastor Pendleton."

"Really? Man, I wish I could've come. He's a good guy to talk to."

"Yeah."

"Did he have any ideas?"

"No."

They talked a little more, but it wasn't really a conversation, and when they hung up she felt like nothing had changed.

It wasn't until Caitlyn had gotten home and was applying herself to her homework in a desultory fashion that the next phone call came. It was from a voice she hadn't heard for a couple weeks. "Hi, this is Harold."

"Oh! Umm. Hi, Harold. How are you?"

"I'm really good, thanks! How are you? How was your Valentine's Day?"

"Oh, it was ... Really good. We went out to a fondue place, which I'd never done before, so, that was fun." In light of the more traumatic events, it was sometimes hard to remember that Thursday had actually been fun. At least, before the trauma started. "Umm ... How about you?"

"Oh, it was great! Did I tell you? I got a girlfriend!"

Caitlyn felt her jaw hit the floor—for a moment, she thought it had actually become detached from her body and fallen off. Then she realized she'd dropped the cup she'd been holding. Fortunately it was plastic, and mostly empty. Mostly. She wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder and reached for the paper towels. " ... Really! That's ... Wow, that's incredible!"

"I know, isn't it? You remember the last time we went to hang out? Well, after you guys left, some girl came over and talked to me. She said she'd heard some of our conversation and that she felt sorry for me—"

Hold on, she what?? Did he really just say that? Caitlyn for a moment imagined her forehead in the center of Harold's crosshairs. "Oh?"

"Yeah, she said that you were trying your best to be a good friend, but Jon was kind of holding you back."

" ... Oh," she said. What was the right response to that. "Umm. I'm sorry. Jon can be kind of..."

Harold chuckled. "No no no, don't worry. Heck, maybe I should thank him: if it weren't for that, I would never have met Pamela."

Caitlyn let out a silent breath. "Still, I want to apologize. Jon's rudeness helping you get somewhere still doesn't excuse the fact that he was rude. And the next time we see you, I'll make sure he does as well."

"Well, actually... "

Caitlyn held her breath again. Oh, now what?

"Talking with Pamela ... Well, we talked about a lot of things. And she said that, if Jon didn't want to be there, I shouldn't make him. So, you don't have to bring him. Actually, don't bring him at all. Pamela thinks he's kind of a jerk. And, actually, so do I."

The fact that this Pamela person was right, under these circumstances at least, did not mitigate her indignation. "Where Jon isn't welcome, I'm not welcome either, Harold. We're married. There isn't a line you can draw between us like that."

"Oh, well, that's too bad. Oh well. I guess I'll see you around church then?"

It took Caitlyn a moment to process this statement. He's ... He's just...  "Umm ... Yeah. I guess." He's just cutting us off?

"Okay. It's been nice knowing you, Caitlyn. Take care." He hung up.

Caitlyn stared at the phone. Who poured a quart of fresh guts down his throat? He had a hunch her name started with a P and rhymed with -amela.

Jon was right. Harold was a jerk. Up until now he'd been a lame, friendless one, to be sure, but ... A jerk nonetheless. After all we've done for him—being as nice to him as we can, being supportive of him even when he annoys us ... And now he just wants to ... I can't believe it! He wouldn't even know her if it wasn't for us! She wondered if he was getting laid. Might that be the source of his new-found confidence?

Jon was right ... But so was Harold.

Jon had done his best to be patient, and she knew it; but there was probably no way to hide the fact that he didn't actually like Harold, and she knew that too. They had been counting on Harold remaining so self-absorbed that he didn't see what was right under his nose: Jon's boredom—and, for that matter, Caitlyn's boredom as well. Now that the long affair had been played out and there was no pressure, she could admit it to herself: she didn't like Harold either. Perhaps this Pamela found his ego and constant chatter endearing; Caitlyn, for her part, had wished for a sock to stuff in his mouth. She had done it only because it was the right thing to do; and, no matter how much she tried, virtue had not been its own reward in this case.

And yet it wasn't Caitlyn's mistreatment Harold had zeroed in on. It was Jon's.

Jon didn't care. And even more than that, Jon didn't even try to care. He just judged from the start and didn't give Harold a second chance. The fact that Jon was right doesn't excuse him; he could've just as possibly been wrong. Jon just ... Judges. He decides, and then he sticks himself in that rut, and he doesn't ... He doesn't ever give anybody a chance. He doesn't listen to anybody. Not to God, not to other people ... Not to me.

She knew then what the problem was.

It was a long, tedious wait until she saw him again. She had to sit around the apartment, trying to do homework or housework, checking the clock for progress. An hour would pass and she would glance at the digital display on the wall only to find that, no, as a matter of fact it had only been three minutes. Then she had to go to orchestra practice, where everything seemed chosen deliberately to make the time drag: no one had their music, none of the instruments were in place, people were late, people forgot what they were doing, Professor Felman forgot what they were doing ... Everything that she could imagine going wrong, did; and then something went wrong that she couldn't imagine: the membrane on the timpani ruptured, causing some sort of damage to the instrument, which would only increase the repair costs. And then, of course, Felman had them stay late to make up for lost time, further delaying not only her reckoning but her evening meal. By the time orchestra practice let out at 8:11, she felt ravenous, and five years older.

When she got home, Jon was pacing anxiously, but she thought this was an improvement from zoned out, sitting on the couch. "Where were you?" he demanded.

"Orchestra practice ran late," she said. "Everything went wrong."

"By forty-five minutes?"

"Yes, by forty-five minutes. When I say 'everything, ' I mean 'everything, ' Jon. Did you know that, if a violist accidentally strings his instrument with two C-strings, that's a bad thing, and he has to stop, take off the wrong string and put the right one on again? And that, since he's the soloist, we have to all sit there waiting for him?"

"Wait, seriously?" said Jon.

"Seriously," said Caitlyn. "You know Felman. He's a nice guy, but if you mess up he really lets you know." She blinked at him. "Why, what did you think had happened?"

"Uhh ... Nothing," he said.

She looked at him.

"Well ... Something, but ... I don't want to dignify it by saying it out loud."

That was fair enough; how often did she feel like it was better to keep her thoughts to herself? "Okay. Well, I'm here. And I'm sorry for making you wait."

"It's okay. Umm. It's just leftovers, so..."

The dinner was civil, and they talked rather more than they normally did; these things gave her heart. He joked about things that had happened at work; she, now able to laugh at the various errors at orchestra practice, related some of those. But just as conspicuously, there were things they didn't talk about; just as conspicuously, he kept his hands to himself. Normally it was as if he could never get enough of her, as if being physically apart from her for more than a few minutes was too much; sometimes it was wearying, but sometimes it was endearing too. Today its absence screeched like a singing wineglass.

Caitlyn suddenly saw herself: sitting at this table with as genuine a smile pasted on her face as she could manage, trying to be polite, feeling completely helpless. Her marriage, once as reassuring as a cathedral, now seemed riddled with cracks, liable to fall apart if touched the wrong way; they had instinctively avoided anything that might cause the whole house of cards to fall apart. Is this what it comes to? We married, we loved each other; but now ... It this all our love amounts to? This is the man I decided to spend my life with. Is this all it takes to rive us apart?

" ... I have to go to the bathroom," she said.

Their toilet was off in its own little room, barely more than a closet, for no good reason she could understand. She closed the door though the resulting room was claustrophobic. It felt like she did.

She stayed in there a long time; she almost could bear to come out. When she did, Jon was on the computer, and the food put away, including the meal she had half-managed to consume. She microwaved it and forced a little more down. For the first time in her life, she understood what people meant when they talked about food tasting like ashes.

Finally, she was out of excuses. She put the plate down and faced the door to the bedroom. Beyond it, Jon was still clicking away, doing God-only-knew-what. She envied him his calm. She envied him his distraction.

"J-Jon?"

He looked up immediately. "Yeah?"

"We ... We need to talk."

A swift series of emotions crossed over his face; he made a few more mouse clicks, presumably pausing whatever activities he was doing, and stood up to walk to her.

She envied him his calm.

"Did you figure it out?" he said.

"Yeah," she said, "I think I ... I think I get some of it."

"Okay." If his heart was anything like hers, it was flip-flopping in his chest, but it still didn't show on his face. Darn him.

"I, umm. I spoke with Harold today."

"Okay. And?"

"Well ... He said that, actually, he has a girlfriend now."

She was expecting disinterest, and Jon did not disappoint. "Excellent, now we can stop wasting time on him. Did he say how he got her?"

"Jon, no one is a waste of time."

"He is. I wonder how this girlfriend of his puts up with him."

"She likes him because, to her, he is not a waste of time," said Caitlyn, a tad more sharply than she'd intended.

"Well, fine," said Jon, "to her he's not a waste of time. But, seeing as how we aren't either of us this girlfriend of his..."

"Jon, don't you get it? Christ calls us to keep looking. Christ calls us to try and find out how he isn't a waste of time."

"So you mean Christ calls us to be his girlfriend? Both of us?" said Jon.

She didn't let him derail her. "Christ calls us to turn the other cheek. To give Harold a chance—to give him as many chances as he needs—to show us who he truly is, so that we can appreciate him that way."

"So, what?" said Jon. "Are you saying I didn't give him a chance?"

"I don't have to say it," Caitlyn said quietly. "You know it's true."

To his credit, he didn't try to deny it.

"And so, I should add, does Harold," Caitlyn said.

That got him. His eyes went wide and he stared at her. "He noticed?"

"Yes."

" ... Shit. That sucks."

"Would you like to know what he said to me?"

Jon grimaced. "No, I wouldn't, but I think I need to anyway. Tell me."

"He said that he could tell. He said that he was tired of being treated that way by you, and he said that, the next time I go hang out with him, I shouldn't ask you to come along."

Jon mopped his face with his hands. "Shit. I didn't ... Caitlyn, you know I wasn't trying to ... Shit. I wanted him to feel accepted. I wanted him to feel liked."

"Then why didn't you do it instead of faking it," she asked quietly.

"Well ... Because ... Well, I mean, come on, Caitlyn, I don't like him." He gave a rueful grimace. "I think he's a jerk."

And as she knew all too well, that was an accurate assessment. "Well. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles."

"So, how'd he meet this gal, anyhow?"

"After we left, she came and talked to him. She said she felt sorry for him, having such half-assed friends."

Jon gave a guffaw. "So you mean it's actually our fault that he has a girlfriend? Ha! I hope he thanked us."

"Still, Jon. It's true that our poor friendship ended up helping him, but that doesn't excuse us for being poor friends. It doesn't excuse you for being a poor friend."

"I never said it did," he said. "I was just pointing out that it had a beneficial effect—"

"So that you could cop out of the responsibility?"

"Caitlyn ... It's not my responsibility to be his friend. Unless I say it is."

"Didn't you?"

"No! Caitlyn, I don't even like him."

"Then why were you trying to do something nice for him?"

"I..."

"And why, for that matter, couldn't you have done more than a half-assed job at it?"

"Well ... I..."

"It's because you just decided," Caitlyn said. "You just ... You make up your mind, Jon, and then you don't let anyone dissuade you. Not even things like, say, facts, or the truth."

Jon looked stricken. "I thought that was your parents' purview."

"Evidently it's not exclusively theirs. Doesn't it take one to know one? Jon, this is even true of our love life. I want you to tie me down and have your way with me, and you won't entertain the thought. You want to do my ass, and I consider it, I prepare myself for it, I let you do it—"

"Caitlyn, I have moral objections to that, as I've told you—"

"Jon, I had moral objections to letting you do what you did on Thursday. But I did it anyway."

He was silent.

"I know there's a lot of stuff going around about whether the Bible is still applicable, and some of it is pretty valid. But there's no harm in playing it safe, is there? Even if you're not sure, why not avoid it anyway? But you didn't want to. So I did it. For you. I let you do things to me that made me uncomfortable, that didn't feel comfortable, that maybe have put my standings in the afterlife in jeopardy."

"You didn't have to."

"I know. And I thought about it a lot. And you know what I decided?" Once again the tears were threatening. This time they weren't joyful. "I, I decided that, if it would please you ... It was worth it. It was worth the risk. I love you so much that I'm willing to put myself in a bad position to make you happy."

"Caitlyn..."

She heard the pain in his voice, but didn't let herself stop. "Jon, I sinned for you." Definitely crying now; maybe he was too. "I let things get to be too much, because I love you. I walked down the path of sin for you. And yet now you won't walk down the same path for me. Heck, you won't even walk the path of virtue for me. You just won't move. Because you've made up your mind, and you aren't going to listen to anyone anymore. Chuh. You are like Harold that way."

He was silent for a moment, and Caitlyn felt the world shying under her; there were many millions of responses he could make, and most of them were the wrong ones. But he said, "What do you think I should change," and hope soared in her heart.

"I just ... Jon, I want you to try being more open to ... To changing your mind. To listening to people. I want you be willing to give people a chance."

"To turn the other cheek."

"Yes, to ... To be open. Nobody ever knows the whole story, Jon. Someone may rub you the wrong way, but that doesn't mean you know them, or that they're going to stay like that forever. You just have to give them the benefit of the doubt."

He looked at her. "What happens if they just keep rubbing you the wrong way?"

"Then you just keep trying."

"That could take a while."

"Jon, it's about being willing to love. Don't you believe in that?"

"Caitlyn, you of all people should know that some people aren't easy to love."

"Then you just keep trying. You don't let yourself get knocked down. You don't let yourself get stopped by setbacks. Perseverance is a virtue, Jon."

"I know, but ... What about if it's a lost cause?"

"There is no such thing," she said. "People will be wonderful if you give them the right chance. Jon, you taught me that. No one is a lost cause to God."

"To God, perhaps, but ... We here on Earth have kind of a different perspective," he said.

"But isn't that the point of faith?" she said. "To become closer to God? Pastor Pendleton likes to say that a husband and wife should form a triangle with God, so that to become closer to Him is to become closer to each other."

"Yeah, I remember," he said. "Your parents have that pinned up on their refrigerator."

"What did you think?"

"I ... I dunno. It just ... It's a good way to think about it."

But not a way he liked. She tried a different tack. "Weren't you the one saying that pursuing Christ was important to you? That you wanted to follow Jesus' example?"

"Yes, I do," he said. "But within reason."

"And what does that mean?"

"What it means," he said, "was that Jesus was the son of God. As such, it's a lot easier for him to do those things."

"You said you believed in him even if he isn't divine in nature," she said.

"Well ... Okay, fine," he said, and she knew she'd headed something off. "Fine, so that argument doesn't work. But I still think it stands."

"How?"

"Look, sweetie, Christ was all about self-sacrifice."

"Of course. 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son... ' " John 3:16 was, arguably, the cornerstone of Christianity as a religion.  ... that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

"Right, so, God's into self-sacrifice. Jesus set an example by allowing himself to be martyred. He let himself die for the sake of the world."

"Okay," she said, not getting his complaint. "So?"

" ... So..." He seemed to be struggling with a concept too strange to articulate. " ... So ... That doesn't strike you as suicidal?"

She gave him a look of confusion. "What?"

"Look, sweetie, God gave us that as an example. Christ tells us that you should be willing to give up anything—anything—in His service. Including your life. Including everything that's important to you. Doesn't that scare you?"

Caitlyn shook her head. "God would never ask those things of us if He didn't plan to give us more, and better, in return."

"Tell that to six million Jews," Jon said. "Tell that to victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Tell that to the orphans in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fatherless kids here in America too."

"True, those people suffer, but you're making the mistake of assuming that this human frame of reference is the only one that matters. The benefits of those fates may only become clear later in life, or even only in Heaven. What matters is not that we understand, what matters is that we persevere."

He shook his head. "You can't really believe that."

She looked at him, bewildered. "I do believe that. I can't explain how or why; that's faith, Jon, that's personal. That's something you have to find for yourself. All I know is that I do believe. I believe that, when God calls, I should listen. And I believe that, whatever God asks of me, however onerous it may be ... There are blessings on their way."

He shook his head. "You may believe that, but I don't. I just ... God plays His chess without consulting His pieces. I can't help but worry that He would move me away from you."

"Well, it's okay if you don't believe it yet," she said, "that's part of the faith journey everyone has to make. But as to the other ... It may be true, but He still wouldn't split us apart."

"Why not?"

"Well, because He meant for us to be together, didn't He? If that's the case, then nothing can keep us apart."

"And if He didn't?"

She didn't like to think about that, but there was no way to not lie: " ... Well, if that's the case, then nothing can keep us together. But that includes not having faith in Him, Jon. That's like closing your eyes and pretending I can't see you."

"Caitlyn, I just can't trust that God is going to do what's best for me."

"Yes you can, Jon. And besides, how do you even know what's best for you? None of us knows what's actually, really, truly right for ourselves in the end. Besides, if you can't trust God to know that, how can you trust other people, who know even less?"

"Well, at least they're there. At least I can explain it to them."

"And maybe they'll listen, but that still doesn't make it right."

He gave her a cross look. "This is about Thursday, isn't it."

"No, it's not about Thursday," she said. " ... Actually, no, that isn't true. It is about Thursday. It's about every Thursday. And Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every other day. It's about everything, Jon."

"Oh, great. I've been married ... What, ten weeks? And now I find out I've been messing up every day of the whole time."

She touched his shoulder. "No, not messing up, just ... Maybe making a few missteps."

"Do you really think Thursday was a sin?" he asked.

"I ... I don't know," she said. "I don't ... Boy, I just talked to Pastor Pendleton about this, like, twelve hours ago. Let's see if I can remember it. Jon, I just felt that ... That it wasn't the right path for us. I don't mind exploring, and we've certainly found things that we like, but ... This isn't it. What we did ... It was just purely about sensation."

"We've done that," he protested.

"No, we haven't," she said. "We never did anything that was only sensation. We've done things where we love each other and we're ... Really going at it ... But never something where we're just really going at it. And that's why it's wrong for us. Everything we've ever done in the bedroom has been about love ... Except this one. This wasn't about love, it was just about sex. And ... I don't think there's any way we could make it be about love. It's just too ... Weird."

"But is it a sin?" he asked.

"No," she said, "it ... I mean, like I said, I don't think it's right for us. But that doesn't mean I can condemn it totally. If other people can make it work, can turn it into something that deepens their love for each other, then how can I denounce that? We're just not one of those people."

"Fair enough," he said.

"But that just brings us right back to where we started," she said. "How come you aren't willing to take a chance on what I want?"

"It would strengthen our love for me to tie you to the bed??"

"Yes," she said. "I know that sounds crazy, but it's true."

"What, is there something in the Bible about this too?"

"Jon, shut up. You do realize that almost all of our sexual relationship has been about you convincing me to try things that you knew I actually wanted in the first place, even if I didn't realize it. This is just the logical extension of that. We already said that we were going to put rules in place, that we wouldn't be allowed to do things while tied-up that we wouldn't do free ... I'm submitting because I want to. Because you know my body better than I do, so I might as well just let you have my way with me. Because, if I do, we'll both be happy. And because I like the idea of being helpless in your arms."

"Caitlyn, I don't know if I like that idea. I think it's important for you not to get too—"

"Ugh!" Her frustration finally exploded out of her in a shove that rocked him back on his heels. "Jon, why can't you just try it! Why do you have to think all the time! Can't you once, just once, put your faith in me and believe I might know what I'm doing?"

"Because that's what I see you doing all the time, and you seem content to let that lead you to the grave!" he retorted.

She said nothing.

"Can't you think every now and then? People ask you for stuff and you just say Yes blindly without thinking through the consequences. Maybe virtue is its own reward, but that doesn't mean it compensates for what you give up to get it."

"What do I give up to get it?"

"Time with me," he said. "Time to yourself. Sanity. You're doing better now, because we're together more, but have you already forgotten what it was like when you were still with your parents? Everyone wanted everything of you. And you always felt like you'd only find yourself if you gave it to them. Well, that's just wrong, Caitlyn. The only place you're going to find you is inside yourself. It's not from the satisfaction of serving other people. It's not from making sacrifices to make other people happy. It's from knowing who you are, what you want, and being able to say No."

"I believe in a faith that always says Yes," she said.

"Well, I can't do that," he said.

"Maybe you can't now," she said, "but if you give it a little time—"

"I don't mean now, I mean ever," he said. "Caitlyn, the only way you know yourself is if you say No. That's the only way to have a self: to have boundaries up where people can't cross, to draw a line in the sand and say, 'Beyond that is Me; nobody touches it without my say-so.' What do you think I've been encouraging you to do for the last twenty months!"

"Say No," she said, feeling wooden.

"Yes," he said. "To say No. So that there's a place for you to fall back on. So that there's a place you can go when you're all Yes'd out. So that there's a place Yes can come from. That's the other argument I have: that if you give and give and give of yourself, eventually there's no You left. You're totally willing to destroy yourself like that, and, fine, I guess I can't stop you. But it's not something I can do. Not me."

"So..." Her lips felt numb. "So, what are you saying?"

"I guess..." He sighed. "Caitlyn, I just don't think this is right for me. Christianity, I mean. Caitlyn, I will support you. I'm your husband; I love you. If you want to go to church and be involved there, I'll come with you. And I'll believe all that I can. But you can't ask me to embrace something that makes you willing to just... Destroy yourself like this. Suicide is a mortal sin. Even in pursuit of God."

Caitlyn felt a dropping sensation in her stomach, like the roller coasters she sometimes went on—as if the floor had simply gone out from under her.

This was too important to her to abandon. This was too much a part of who she was. This was too much a part of who and what she needed Jon to be. She was a Christian woman; it was her calling to love, and love, and love, no matter what it cost her. She had thought that Jon—Jon, of all people, who had been love to her for almost two years now—would understand. She had hoped that she could bring him around. If we were meant to be together, nothing could tear us apart. She could already feel tears threatening her eyes, for the umpteenth time today. If we aren't... 

"Jon, I ... I don't think this is right for me."

He looked at her, his eyes confused. And something else, too; something wild. Something desperate. "What do you mean?"

There was no stemming the tears now; she forced the words out as best she could. "That's ... I can't be with someone who feels that way. I can't be with someone who isn't going to be with me on that journey." There were tears outside; inside, though, she felt nothing but empty. Curiously hollow, as though something had simply withered and died. "You once said that, when you marry someone, when you choose someone to walk down the road of life with, you should choose someone who's walking to the same place you are, and along the same path. If you aren't ... If Jesus isn't something you're aiming for, then our paths are not the same."

"Caitlyn—"

"I don't know what we'll do about ... Everything," she said, now unable to look at him. Now she was not hollow; now there was pain. Jonathan, my heart, my everything, my all ... Jonathan, who knows my body better than I do, who knows my heart better than I do ... Jonathan, whom I trusted...  "We've spent a lot of money together, and bought things together. Maybe we can..."

"Caitlyn—"

She couldn't look at him. It was too scary to imagine what she would see.

"We'll— We'll work it out. We'll work it out." Now that we have nothing to work out anymore.

"Caitlyn, you can't mean that, you aren't—" He was reaching for her; she felt his hands on her shoulders, the brush of his chest as he tried to draw her to him. It was too much; his touch burned on her skin. Jonathan, to whom I gave everything. She shied away from him.

"I'll call you," she choked out, and ran.

She actually collided with the wall. But then, what else would you expect when you were too blinded by tears to see?

Outside, she stood in the cold, feeling more than seeing her breath frost on the evening air. She had nothing on her—no phone, no driver's license, no money, none of her homework assignments; she had not thought to grab her backpack on the way out. She didn't even have a sweater.

She could not stay out here. And she couldn't go back in. She felt almost betrayed by what she had learned about him, by what he had said; she needed this space, needed this distance, no matter what.

She didn't want to live without him.

She didn't know if she could live with him.

This thought threatened another flood of tears. Caitlyn bore down hard until she had a grip on herself.

Tears could wait. There would be plenty of time for them later.

It was a five-minute walk to the Shellview State campus. There was a pay phone there. She would call her mother. She would explain the situation, and ask if she could come back. She would be at her mother's mercy. There was no one else she could call; the only people she might trust in this situation, even remotely, were Zach and Christa Crane, and God only knew they would probably try to put them back together. Caitlyn didn't know if she could stand that right now.

It was the bed she had made for herself. Now she had to lie in it.

Caitlyn scrubbed her eyes with her sleeves, and then her nose. She lifted one foot, moved it forward, put it down. Then the other: up, forward, down. This was called walking. She knew how to do it. She had done it all her life, in fact; and most of the time she'd done it, she'd been alone.

She'd just have to get used to that again.



-------

Part 14

Day 75

At the sound of the doorbell, Jon jolted from his chair. Was he dreaming? Had he fallen asleep? Or had he simply zoned out somehow? That last was getting more and more common; he would awaken at work with no recollection of what he had been doing. Just today he had found himself in his car, the motor idling, in front of his parents' house, fumbling for a garage-door opener that was no longer there, while his confused parents knocked on his windshield in the twilight. He hoped he wasn't going insane. He had enough problems as it was.

"Good evening," said Meredith Chambers. "I hope we're— Goodness, Jon, you look terrible. Have you been sleeping?"

"Uhh," said Jon, trying to make his voice less gravelly and not particularly succeeding. "Come on in."

She and Brandon did, with Christa and Zach bringing up the rear. There was no sign of Laurelyn; perhaps she'd been left with the friend Sarah Prescott, or maybe even with her grandparents. "So!" said Zach. "Two weeks until the big day, huh?"

"Uhh," said Jon. His brain felt like tar. "What?"

"Your wedding reception," Meredith said patiently. "It's two weeks from tomorrow. Caitlyn asked us to come up because we offered to help with the planning and organization. Where is she, anyway?"

Jon looked at her guileless face; at the equally bland expression on Brandon's. Then he looked at the Cranes. "Who told you."

"Who told us what?" Christa said.

"Hey, man, we're not blind," Zach said. "We've been in practice with you. You're like a walking zombie. But you didn't seem to want to talk about it. So we didn't ask."

"Instead you just showed up?" said Jon.

"Well, we were invited," said Zach.

"By Caitlyn," Meredith said. "Where is she, anyway? Caitlyn!" She descended into the rest of the apartment. "Caitl— Is she not here?"

"I see her backpack," Christa said. "We saw both of your cars when we came in. Jon, what's going on?"

"Have you been sleeping on the couch?" Zach exclaimed. "What is going on?"

Jon decided to tell them. It was four simple words: Caitlyn has left me. They weren't all that hard to say; in fact, he had said them—each of them individually, of course—many times in his life. He was capable of saying these words. He had never strung them together in quite that order before, of course, but he was sure he was up to the challenge. It was just four words.

He opened his mouth. What came out of it was, "... Oh God."

Then there was no more speech for a while, because he was crying, as the enormity of it all settled over him. Caitlyn has left me. His wife, his light; all his hopes and dreams of the future had walked out the door and never returned. He wasn't even sure she missed him.

When he could look up again, Christa and Brandon were sitting on the couch to either side of him. Meredith had pulled over a chair from the kitchen table, and Zach was on the futon.

"Okay," said Christa. "Let's start from the beginning. What happened?"

"I ... We ... We had a difference of opinion."

"And that's why she's not here anymore?"

" ... It was a big difference."

Christa gave a cracked smile. "I hadn't noticed."

Slowly, with many fits and starts, they walked him through it. He found himself repeating himself, mis-remembering, having to go back and change his mind. The truth was that he'd been in denial this whole time—he'd even taken to sleeping on the couch, because it was easier than going back to that empty bed. Sometimes, passing through to go to the bathroom, he thought he could still smell her—sometimes the smell of her sex, sometimes her shampoo, sometimes even the faint reddish scent of her skin.

It was easier to avoid the bed.

People knew something was wrong, of course; there was no way to avoid that, what with his zoning out every few minutes in the middle of God-knew-what. His coworkers had asked him about it, and while he'd only said that there were some issues at home, they knew enough to read between the lines. After all, this was the guy who'd had the opera singer sent by his wife; he was regionally famous now, enough for them to have some context. Many of them had stopped to offer their sympathy and support—his fellow trainees, some of the actual medical technicians, even a couple doctors.

One of the other technicians had the unfortunate name of Gretchen Webster, but she brought a lot of spunk to the role; she was slender, with wavy blonde hair and a frequent smile. She had been very solicitous of Jon ever since he'd come in on Wednesday like a zombie, and didn't seem to mind going out of her way to be helpful to him. When Caitlyn had told him about her little adventures with flirting at school, and asked him if there was anyone who caught his eye at work, it had been Gretchen who came to mind: upbeat, charming, never outside the bounds of propriety but always with that twinkle of mischief in her eye. She was Jon's kind of woman, and while she had been completely proper up until now, Jon could read between the lines. She was going to make some man very happy someday, and Jon found himself realizing that, under different circumstances, he might have been that man. Maybe this is who I would've married if it weren't for Caitlyn. Maybe this is what my future was going to look like.

But she was so ... Unworldly. He would look at her perfect face and her perfect white teeth and wonder if she had ever worked a day in her life. There was a certain maturity necessary to make relationships work—both a willingness to bend and a willingness to stand up for oneself. He wasn't sure she had either of them; how could she, when it seemed like she'd never so much as stubbed her toe over the course of her life? She had perfect clothes, perfect parents, a perfect job, a perfect car ... She wasn't real; there was nothing behind that facade that didn't seem like it would crack at the first blow of the hammer. She didn't have the steel that came from long years of gritting through pain. She wasn't...

She wasn't Caitlyn.

"So, to summarize," Christa was saying. "You said that Caitlyn needs to be more defensive, and less prone to just letting people take advantage of her. And Caitlyn said that you need to be a better Christian—specifically, more open to the presence of God in your life, and to how He manifests through other people."

"That sounds about right," Jon said.

"And you ... Didn't want to?"

" ... Well, when you put it that way it sounds really lame."

"Well, maybe it is really lame," Christa said, giving him a look. "Jon, are you really saying that it's a good idea to be closed to new experiences?"

"Well ... Not all experiences are good," Jon protested.

"Nonsense," Brandon said. "Experiences are what you make of them. Every cloud has a silver lining."

"Yeah, but every silver lining has a cloud," Jon said.

"And there you have it," Brandon said. "Jonathan Stanford, you are officially fucked. No matter what you do, there is a cloud associated with it. And since your objective is to avoid the clouds, that means you better not leave this apartment ever again. —Oh, wait: if you stay here, you'll run out of food. But then, if you eat food, you might get cancer, so you might as well not eat. And maybe you shouldn't sleep either, since you could roll out of bed and break your neck."

"What my husband is trying to say," Meredith said, "is that you can't avoid the clouds. Jonathan, bad things happen. The question isn't whether they do; the question is what you can get out of them."

"Yeah, but ... It's hard to do that," Jonathan said. "It's hard to be ... I dunno, to be so open-minded that you can see past the cloud to the silver lining. It's not just something I can pick up and suddenly start doing."

"So you're not even going to try?" Christa said.

"Is..." It ended up sounding more plaintive than he'd intended. "Is it worth it?"

"Jon, only you can answer that," Christa said. "But what do you think? Don't you think life might be easier if you can look at it from a positive standpoint? Don't you think things might be better if, when someone comes to you with something, you aren't asking yourself whether you need to protect yourself from them? And what you might be able to gain from it?"

"Well, by Caitlyn's example, I might be able to get myself worked to death," Jon said. "I know you guys never see it, and it's a lot better now that she's out of her parents' house, but ... It's like she doesn't know how to say No."

"Why not?" Christa said.

"I don't know. I ... I think it's just too much in her personality. This need to ... To live up to other people's expectations."

"And you find that dangerous?" Meredith said.

"Isn't it?" said Brandon. "How soon before someone comes up and asks you for something you'd rather not give, but you're not used to saying no so you give it?"

"She never had any problems with saying no to Jon when they were dating," Meredith protested. "Remember? They didn't do it until they got married."

"So," Brandon said, turning to Jon. "Something that caused you 18 months of celibacy, and you want to reinforce it?"

Jon grimaced. "What is this, Tell Jon He's Stupid Day?"

"Yes," Brandon said.

Jon turned away, helpless. He wasn't sure what to say to that.

"And while we're at it, what's wrong with Christianity," Christa said. "It's about calling people to a higher standard of behavior. I'd think you of all people would support that."

"Yes, but ... I'm not sure I like this standard," Jon said.

"What's wrong with it," Christa said, but Meredith asked, "Why not?"

Jon looked at her. "Well, just ... There's so much stuff piled on. I mean, I'm okay with Christ..."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Brandon said. "You don't get into Christianity because you're a fan of the Pope or something. You do it because you generally believe in God and specifically believe in Jesus. You think he had the right idea."

Jon felt a chill at hearing his own words given back to him.

"If you think Jesus had the right idea, then what's holding you back," Brandon asked him.

"Well ... Because of the other stuff piled on. Okay, so I admire Jesus, so I think his is the right way to live. That doesn't make me Christian enough for the other Christians."

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with your faith?" Zach said. "Your faith isn't something you wear on your sleeve so others can judge you for it. Your faith is between you and God."

"And, while there are people who think you should wear your faith on your sleeve, so they can judge you for it," Meredith said, "you can safely tell them to jump off a cliff. In a respectful and Christ-like manner, of course."

"You know, we never did work out how that phrase applies," Zach remarked.

"It's like a relationship," Christa said. "Only three people ever know the truth about what goes on in a relationship: the two people in it, and God. And sometimes one of the people in it is behind the times. Well, faith is your relationship with God. And this time there's only two people in it."

"And sometimes one of them is still behind the times," Zach said.

"So, yes, there are people who will judge you," Christa said. "But weren't you just talking about how important it is to say No to people? If they do judge you, you can say No to them."

"No what?" Jon said.

"No, you can't judge me. No, you don't know the whole story. And no, it isn't your business anyway."

"Then how come Caitlyn gets to judge me on it," Jon said. It was a little more bitter than he'd intended.

"No one said Caitlyn was doing the right thing," Meredith said. "Ideally, she would be loving and supportive, and accept you as you are. That would certainly be the Christlike thing to do. But an ideal is exactly that—something to strive for, but not necessarily something one ever achieves."

"And while she may be going about it the wrong way, but that doesn't mean she's wrong," Zach said. "Jon, do you think it's worth it to become more in touch with God?—so that you can be a good influence on the world?"

Obviously, there was no way Jon could have said No to that; but even if there was, he wouldn't have said it anyway.

"Then why don't you?" Zach said.

"Especially if it'll bring Caitlyn back," Christa said. "Do you want this split to become permanent, Jon? Would you like to separate from her?"

"How can you even ask me that," Jon retorted. "If Zach left you, how would you feel?"

"Then why don't you?" Christa asked.

"I ... Be ... Because..."

They were silent, listening.

"Because I just don't believe," Jon said quietly.

They said nothing.

"The idea of someone, of ... Of some force, some benevolent character who will always love you, who ... Who is always there for you ... I just don't believe that. I try to be it, but God only knows that I don't succeed, and ... And the one person who, who I thought might be it..." He sniffed to clear his nose. "She's gone. And when I look at ... Well, I mean, look at my life. I never had that kind of love growing up; my parents were like Caitlyn's. Maybe not quite as bad, but ... They still used their love for me to manipulate me, to control me. The idea of unconditional love ... Of someone who loves me without having an agenda ... I'm just not sure I can believe in it."

"I can understand that," said Meredith. "My parents were the same way."

"As were mine," said Brandon.

Zach and Christa looked at each other. "Sheesh," said Zach, "we sure lucked out!"

"I think parents may be one of the most powerful influences in forming a child's faith," Meredith said. "Because, you're right: they do seem to ... I dunno, to almost personify God to a young child. They're who we look to for proof that these values work. And if we don't see it..."

"Though that isn't to say that you're crippled," Brandon said. "Isn't that the whole point of the evangelical experience? People being brought into their faith during their maturity. From which we learn that faith isn't limited to being taught; it can also be learned."

"Assuming you're open to it, of course," Christa said. "'Lead a horse to water' and all that."

"Yeah, but, just ... That's exactly my point," Jon said. "About parents being one of the most powerful representations of God in a person's life. That's important to me. I don't think there's anything more important than, than being a good parent, then raising your kids well. It's what I live for. It's why I married Caitlyn. Whatever else happens, I want to do a good job ... And, I thought she did too."

"So, let me get this straight," Brandon said. "It's important to you to be a good and positive presence-of-God in the lives of your hypothetical children ... And, with that in mind, you refuse to know God, and get better at living out His presence in others' lives. Okay. That will totally help you achieve your stated goal of being a good father."

"It's not God I have a problem with, it's religion," Jon said.

"Then don't catch it," Brandon said.

"You make it sound like a disease," Meredith said, amused.

"It is if you believe Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash," Brandon said.

"Honey, I've caught the religion," Zach quipped.

Christa slapped him on the leg. "Wear a condom next time!"

"What precisely are you scared of?" Brandon said. "What's holding you back? Are you worried about being a Christian ... Or are you worried about not being enough Christian to please Caitlyn?"

"Or are you worried about being too much Christian and turning out like your parents," Meredith said. "Because you don't have to worry about that. Haven't we just been talking about how good you are at saying No?"

"I think that's why you're so insistent that Caitlyn learn to say it," Christa said. "Because she's so willing to say Yes to things, and because she gets so ... Caught up. In just saying Yes, yes, yes all the time."

"Which, I'm sure, is good in the bedroom," Meredith said with a completely straight face.

"Except for when she wants me to tie her up," Jon grumbled.

"You want her to be able to say No," Christa said, "because, to you, that's important to being a good parent: knowing how to judge for yourself. Not just doing things because you're expected to or because someone tells you it's the right thing to do. Knowing how to think for yourself."

"Do you really think she just follows blindly?" Brandon said. "Because I don't mind telling you, Caitlyn has always struck me as a very free-thinking, independent woman. I don't think she has any trouble turning outside ideas down."

"Yes, but what if Christianity is 'outside ideas'?" Jon said. "What if Christian religion is, I mean, since we've evidently agreed that faith in God would be for the best."

"Have we, now," said Christa, smiling.

"Then that's what you're there for," Meredith said. "As long as the two of you are able to discuss it, you know, objectively. I don't know how important her faith is to her—"

"It's very important," Jon said.

"—but as long as you guys can keep the discussion limited to—how do I say this—personal practices and practical applications, as opposed to yelling at each other about disagreements in belief, you should probably be able to work it out. Caitlyn's a reasonable person. You wouldn't've married her otherwise."

"And," said Brandon, "if it's important to you to become a better person, and a better father ... Well, you know what to do."

"Do you ever pray?" Christa asked.

"Not ... Not really," Jon said. He'd been taught to kneel and put his hands together; it seemed so childish now.

"Maybe you should try it," Christa said. "It's like meditation, almost. And it's also like saying No," she added, smiling. "You tell all the other distractions to shove off and just focus on what's important to you. And you bring those things to God and listen to what He says."

"And what if He doesn't say anything?"

"Then listen to your ownself," Christa said. "God created you; He loves you. You have at least a little of His Divine Wisdom, Jon. (Heck, knowing you, you probably have quite a lot.) Sometimes God doesn't answer when you pray to Him ... But sometimes, He doesn't need to."

"Can I trust Him?" Jon said. "Every other person I've ever trusted ... My parents, my friends ... They've all let me down. They've all—"

"Even us?" said Christa, surprised.

Meredith touched her gently on the arm. "It happens. Maybe it's inevitable. You know you've hurt me before, and I you, and we're closer to each other than we are to him. It's nothing personal."

"No, it isn't," Jon agreed, "but ... It's not a good track record. I just ... I just don't know if I can believe," Jon said. "In a God that loves me. Everyone I've ever trusted ... I don't know if I can rely on anyone except myself."

Brandon gave him a calm, direct look. "Have you tried?"

They asked him if there was anything in the apartment Caitlyn might need, and he gave them her backpack and a few other things—toiletries, toothbrush, the like. Then they left. The apartment was empty again. They had given him a great deal to think about, though, so while Jon was alone with his thoughts, those thoughts were more than enough of a crowd.

Almost everything that had been said had been a new idea to him, or at least a new angle on an old idea. He realized he had probably become stuck in his ways; he had lost touch with what other people were thinking, and begun to drift further and further into more radical territory. That was prone to happen, of course, in isolation; it was proven psychology. But Jon had never really thought it might happen to him.

Jesus. I'm getting old. How long until my first gray hair?

So. Christianity, starting over. Without prior misconceptions. Without prior conceptions of any sort.

The first Christians were the disciples. Jesus called them, and they came. They believed in what he was doing. That's still true today—you aren't a Christian unless you believe. And unless you're willing to express that belief.

Is that was Caitlyn was complaining about? Because, sure, it's easy to say that Jesus was a good guy, that you agree with him ... But less hard to act it. Less hard to live it. Have I been living it?

Immediately his brain started to protest. Phrasing it that way made it sound like Jon had been living a bad life, one filled with vice and iniquity. Jon silenced that voice as well as he could. It was true that he had been living as moral and virtuous a life as he could, and trying to do as much good as possible; and there was dignity in that. But it wasn't the same as trying to follow Jesus.

Human life is so selfish. If left to our own devices we just do whatever the heck makes the most sense to us—hurt this person, take this stuff, sleep with this lady. No thought of consequences. No thought of love. We live for ourselves and for no one else. But that's how we know that Jesus was a divine influence: he encourages us to transcend our mere humanity. He wants us to be more than just plain old selfish human. He wants us to care about others more than we care about ourselves. He wants us to ... Love.

Caring about others more than he cared about himself was something Jon was very familiar with. It was what he felt about Caitlyn, to be certain; and there were others in his life—not many, but some—for whom he wouldn't hesitate to drop everything and go to their aid. Four of them had been in this apartment not half an hour ago. And it was how he felt about his children too, hypothetical though they might be: once they were born, there must be no higher priority in his life. This part of the territory, at least, he understood.

But what about people like Harold? It was clear what Jesus would call him to do: to love this person anyway, no matter how unlovable Jon might find him to be. But doing so would only open Jon to further aggravation and annoyance. Where's the virtue in doing something stupid like that? I have no idea whether he's ever gonna change.

And yet wasn't that what everyone had been telling him? That there was hope of change, and that Jon shouldn't give up. That sometimes what you saw wasn't the entire story. That there was hope of change.

I don't know if I believe that people can change.

Well, you better, because if you don't, you're never getting your wife back.

Could he give God a chance? Could he give the world a chance?

Jon got on his knees and clasped his hands together, as he had been taught by his parents from beyond time immemorial. But the pose felt juvenile to him, and he had done it insincerely so often that he couldn't believe in its power anymore. This is not for me. Not anymore.

Casting around for a suitable pose, he found himself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes closed. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. Our Father...  No, that was meaningless too. He felt a moment of frustration that Caitlyn wasn't here. Surely she'd have some ideas. God, why isn't she here? Right when I need her the most, too... 

What had Christa said? Focus on what was important to him, and bring that to God. All right. What was important to him? How was he supposed to approach God?

The answer to the first question was easy. Caitlyn. She was everything he wanted his life to be. He supposed that, if push came to shove, he could let this separation occur. He could give up; he could move on. He could divorce her, and go on to marry ... Who? He tried to picture such a future, and all he saw was an empty, misty gap where some unknown woman would presumably go.

That isn't for me. It was really that simple. That isn't for me. My future lies with Caitlyn Delaney now ... One way or the other.

But how was he to go to God with that? It wasn't like writing a letter to Santa Claus or anything. Dear Santa, I want my wife back. Please leave her in my stocking on the chimney...  Right, like that was gonna work.

He suddenly realized the synchronicity of it all. Isn't this a sign that this is the right path for me?—that I can't do it without Caitlyn. That I have to do it, whether or not she's there to help me. Or is it a sign that Caitlyn is the right woman for me—that the right choice is to stay with her? (As if I could ever do anything else... )

What do you think?

He suddenly realized that, though his eyes were closed, his face was upturned, as though oriented to some distant heaven. He felt like a radar dish, scouring the skies for faint signs of life ... And yet it seemed right to him. Wasn't that where he had been left?

What do you think, God?

I know this is the right path for me. I think that's been bludgeoned into my head by now—by Caitlyn, by my friends. By You, since clearly all those things were the sound of You trying to tell me something. But ... I don't know if I can walk it. It's scary, to put my trust in someone else's hands. It's scary, to put my life in someone else's hands. And, to me (as I'm sure You know) they're much the same thing. I'm not saying I can't or won't try, I'm just saying ... It's scary. It's something new and different, and every time I've tried it in the past, it just ... It hasn't worked out.

Will you help me? If I give it a try ... Will you help me?

He didn't know how he knew, only that he did; only that suddenly, it seemed easy. That with so many friends helping him, with so many factors lined up in his favor, it must be nearly impossible to fail. He could do this. He would do this. It was what he was called to; it was what he was meant for. To live as well as possible, to love as well as possible ... To follow Jesus. To turn the other cheek. To have faith in the world. To believe ... That there is hope.

The feeling faded, and he became aware of the pain in his bent back and folded legs.

Jon sighed. Maybe I can do it. But I guess it won't be easy. And I'd better start now, before I lose my nerve.

He had an hour or so before he needed to sleep. Caitlyn had left her copy of the Bible. He got up, opened it to the Book of Matthew, and began to read.

-------

Day 78

When her alarm went off, Caitlyn woke up with no idea of where she was. She didn't recognize the noise of the alarm clock, and there was an unfamiliar ceiling above her, and what looked like a fringe of Beanie Babies peeking over the rim of a shelf. She was low to the ground, not waist-high the way she preferred her beds, and somehow she felt as though she were backwards—as though her head should be where her feet were. And there were distant noises like dishware being used, which wasn't right for this time in the morning.

Then she realized she was at home, in her parents' house, in her old room. The room she had lived in for 14 years. The room that had been hers ... Until she met Jon.

She was in a sleeping bag on a squashy air mattress, and there was no question about it—she was backwards. When her bed was here, the headboard had been where her feet were. But the bed was not here; she and Jon had taken it when they moved to her apartment. She was wearing one of her oversize T-shirts, one that reached halfway down her thighs; she had left them here when she moved, and now was somewhat regretting it. Only now did she realize just how naked she felt when sleeping with nothing on, husband in bed with her or not. Besides, the T-shirt was truly voluminous, probably large enough for her and Jon to wear together if for some reason they decided to do so; there would have been plenty of room for him to slide a hand up to clasp a breast, the way he always seemed to. She had a feeling it was simply unconscious, that he couldn't stop if he wanted to. She had never felt confined by his embrace; in some ways, it made her feel free.

The shirt had twisted in the night, and clung now to her body. It was like Jon that way.

She wasn't wearing panties—why, she had no idea, except that they would have gotten in the way while she was still with her husband, in a way that the T-shirt would not. That was why they had given up on wearing clothes to bed in the first place—why bother, when all you did was sleep in them? And sometimes not even then, if one or the other of them should get amorous before slumber took them. It was far easier for him to have his way with her if she just wore nothing; far easier for him to simply slip up into her from behind as they spooned together. Far easier for her to take him inside her with nothing in the way; nothing even to have to worry about taking off.

All these thoughts were making her horny. She wished her husband was with her. She wished she had some form of relief. Maybe if she touched herself ... No, not here, in her parents' house; not with the alarm going off, which her mother had undoubtedly overheard. She wouldn't feel comfortable and relaxed here, the way she needed to for orgasm; she also had a feeling that all the fumbling around and experimenting would just frustrate her even further. How long would it take to give herself an orgasm? Far longer than she had, certainly—here in this stranger's house with this new alarm clock going off, in this uncomfortable sleeping bag and this swath of shirt. Even if she had had a husband here, she doubted she would feel comfortable enough to entertain sex.

She had never felt naked in bed with her husband. It was only now, in this stifling T-shirt, that she felt indecent ... Indecently clothed. How bizarre.

As she moved to slap off the alarm, she became aware of stickiness between her thighs. Looking down, she realized her period had come. The shirt had bunched between her legs, and its hem was thick with red.

"Mom!"

"What, honey?" came her mother's voice from down the stairs.

"Where are my ... Umm. Napkins?"

"Your WHAT?"

"My sanitary napkins! It's ... That time of the month!"

There was a bit of silence from the kitchen, followed by the thuds of her mother ascending the stairs. Her mother appeared at her threshold shortly.

"So?" said Mom. "You know the rules, Caitlyn. We give you your supply, and store them somewhere yourself." Mom hated menstruation. Caitlyn had barely started her own courses when Mom had gone through menopause; her good cheer had been something to behold. Evidently it was a joy to no longer be 'unclean in the sight of the Lord.'

"Mom, I don't remember where I put them."

"How could you forget? Did you change your storage spot recently?"

Yes, she had; now they were stored in the cabinet under the sink, in her apartment with Jon Stanford, fifteen minutes from here next to Shellview State. But her parents preferred to ignore that she had ever been absent from under this roof.

Caitlyn said nothing; Mom seemed to hear it anyway. "Well, that's your business then. I have no idea where you put them, Caitlyn, and if you can't remember, that's your problem. Now. Once you get yourself sorted out, breakfast will be ready, and then you have classes to go to." She went back down to the kitchen and resumed her clattering around.

Caitlyn had to go downstairs still wearing the bloodstained shirt—sure, there was a nice little blotch right in the middle, but she sure wasn't going to put on another shirt and blotch that one up too. Rex was lying in the family room; he wagged his tail as she passed, but didn't come and follow her. (Maybe he smelled the blood.) She ransacked the bathroom looking for those darned Maxis With Wings. Had she taken them all with her? Of course not; she remembered the jump of panic when she got her first period in the apartment. There must be some around here somewhere. If nothing else, she would use her mother's. Now, if only she could find them. Where were they?

It was only after three minutes' bathroom demolition that she remembered they were upstairs—and that, furthermore, she had taken them out the day after Christmas and planned to bring them with her to the apartment. They'd been accidentally left behind in the pile in her room; Caitlyn had tripped over them last Tuesday, stumbling in for the first time in months, and almost broken her neck. They weren't here at all. Also, this toothbrush was hers. She'd used it daily until that fateful afternoon when Jon took her away from here. She'd seen the color at the drugstore—a red body with black grips, so unusual in this day of alabaster dental hygiene—and bought every copy of it she could get her hands on. Who did she think it was, her dad's?

This isn't my home anymore,  she realized. I can come back here, and I certainly have, but this ... This isn't my home anymore. I don't belong here. I'm not welcome here. My parents have made that endlessly plain.

But I'm not welcome with Jon either. Not anymore.

While digging through her sock drawer for something appropriate to wear—hopefully those black ones with the pink, yellow and purple polka dots; had she left those at the apartment?—she felt a little flash of pain. Frowning, she began to pile socks on the floor until a glint of metal emerged. It was a claddagh ring, with the band in a Celtic pattern. How did this get in here? I haven't put my rings on yet. Then she realized it was the original, the one she had lost; Jon had bought her a new one, which currently rested on the night table next to the foot of her mattress bed. This was the original one. This was the first. This was the one that didn't have Jon's heart in its hands.

She wondered if this was an omen. Where do I belong? It's like I have a choice now. She didn't wear her engagement ring anymore; she had bagged it carefully and put it in her jewelry box. The silver wedding band she found hard to part with; eventually she moved it to her other hand, where it didn't mean the same thing. (Or something like that. She'd have to look this up.) And now here she had two claddagh rings: one she'd bought for herself, the other bought for her by Jon.

The rings, she saw now, were not fully identical. The heart on Jon's was a little bit bigger, the hands on hers a little bigger. Which was more important, to have a heart or to offer it?

She left them all on the nightstand. Today she would go ringless.

She ate the pancakes her mother served her without comment; they were the same pancakes her mother always made, with the same vaguely-cinnamon flavor. Perhaps this was meant to make Caitlyn feel at home. Certainly Linda Delaney seemed to be feeling an undeniable pleasure at getting to serve her daughter breakfast again. For her part, Caitlyn chafed with impatience, wishing she could chew faster. But she knew she wouldn't be allowed to leave the table until her mother was seated and eating.

Finally Mom got herself pancake'd out and seated. She held out her hand.

Caitlyn stared. Oh, come on. No way. Every meal?

Mom glared and gestured with the hand.

Caitlyn sighed, put down her knife and fork, and took Mom's hand. Mom then reached out with the other as though someone else was sitting there, and closed her eyes.

"Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the bounty we are about to receive. We give thanks for the glory of Your creation, for the friends and family You have blessed us with, for the privileged place You have given us on this good green Earth. We give thanks also and especially for the return of Caitlyn, who, like the prodigal son our Savior spoke of, was lost and now is found. Help us welcome her back into the shelter of Your Peace and Your Grace, which flow through the loving walls of this home. In the name of Jesus our Savior we pray. Amen."

"Amen," said Caitlyn, eager to be shut of this mess. She might've known her mother would do something like that—especially with the subtle dig about her life out of the house; the Prodigal Son reference implied her to be either foolish, a sinner, or both. And besides, the idea of 'loving walls' brought to mind some completely different imagery if Jon was involved.

She found herself asking, before she could stop it: "Mom, when's the last time you and Dad had sex?"

Her mother almost choked on her mouthful of pancake. "Wh— I— What?"

"Mom," said Caitlyn, keeping her patience about her, "I'm a grown woman. I know how babies are made. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine—I mean, it's your private matters and all—but don't think you have to shield me from adult truths or anything."

"Well," said Mom, "you are growing up. You've gone through puberty and everything. Perhaps it's safe to talk to you about these things."

Caitlyn wondered if Mom would have said that had Caitlyn's period not struck so explosively this morning.

"Well ... Caitlyn ... When a man and a woman love each other very much, they often feel ... Urges. But all people, woman especially, must be careful about these urges, because they lead to sin."

"It's sinful to have babies," said Caitlyn in a flat voice.

"It's sinful to indulge in too much of Earthly pleasures, Caitlyn," said her mother in a surprisingly earnest voice. "Remember, we are Christians. Our place is not here, but in Eternity; and our calling is not to be comfortable here, but to prepare for Paradise."

That much was true, but... "So the fact that your body is meant to feel pleasure—"

"Temptation, pure and simple," said Caitlyn's mother. "God made carnal thoughts to test the faithful."

"So, probably not for years, huh?"

"Probably what not for years?"

"Since you and Dad ... Did it."

"Not for many years, Caitlyn. In fact, I don't believe your father and I have engaged in that act since you were born."

Caitlyn was astounded despite herself. "You mean ... The last time you two were intimate together was when I was conceived??" She was twenty-one years old!"

Mom's eyebrows jumped. " 'Intimate'? What sort of a word ... Oh. Oh, Caitlyn." She sighed, and—to Caitlyn's eternal surprise—reached out a motherly arm to draw her daughter close. "You got out of there just in time, didn't you. My poor baby..."

Caitlyn was shaken to realize that her mother said it the same way Jon did. Without the element of prurience, of course, but ... With the same all-encompassing affection, the same encapsulation—the same sense that this word was merely a label, a way of invoking that galaxy of experience and time that they had shared. And as for the hug ... Was it the first time this decade? Quite possibly. Quite possibly.

She got on campus almost forty minutes early. That just made her miserable again; her apartment was only five minutes away, and she could think of some very nice things she and Jon could be doing to fill the time. Some of them involved being naked. Others involved her begging him to take her back. Had it really been almost a week without him? She'd gone to classes, done homework, gone to church—with her parents, for the first time in a long time; without her husband, for the first time in longer—and even played for one of the services, albeit on her three-quarters harp since Gabriel the full-size was still at the apartment. There was another thing she missed.

She knew she couldn't go back anymore. Their paths had diverged, permanently. If he couldn't accept the presence of God in his life ... It was the right thing to do. She had compromised herself in the eyes of God once already, to no avail; there was no point in doing so again.

That didn't make it any easier to do.

Living with her parents was a nightmare. Mom had always been clingy; if she was alone in a room, she would pick up whatever she was doing and go find company. She could not bear to be without human contact for even five minutes. It had only gotten worse once Nathaniel left (either because Mom had gotten more insecure or because Caitlyn was the only one left for her to glom on); and now that Caitlyn herself had returned, Mom seemed determined to glue herself to her. She'd probably be here with me right now, drifting around campus, if it weren't for the fact that she has to be at work in five minutes.

And then there was the constant criticism. Veiled comments about how difficult her life must have been on her own, since clearly her layabout companion wasn't helping. Seemingly-innocuous questions that turned out to be about whether Jon had introduced her to any unsavory characters or deviant habits. Accusations about her decreased church attendance. Implications that, so far as they were concerned, her marriage had never been legal, and that she had been living in sin, and indulging in sin with a man, for two months.

Jon had been right. They didn't know how to treat her like an adult. They didn't even know how to treat her like a child. A child you teach, in the hopes that they will internalize the lessons and grow up to be the kind of person you want them to. Mom and Dad never taught me. They just ... Handed down their judgments and expected me to obey. It's like they never cared about whether I could survive out of the house.

 ... No, it isn't that. It's that they never thought I'd have to.

How had it taken her that long to realize? Or had she needed Jon to show her? He had always said that you could never see a situation clearly from inside it, after all, and he was probably right about that. He'd been right about a lot of things.

Though not always the things that mattered. Because, even despite all ... Despite the mistreatment, despite the bizarre goals ... Her mother loved her. Caitlyn could no more deny this than she could that she was breathing.

Classes were dreary beyond belief, especially since she couldn't concentrate; she hadn't been able to concentrate since last Tuesday, and she was fairly sure her coursework was showing the signs of it. Her new backpack was actually Nathan's, one of the multiple ones he'd gone through during college, and was almost empty; all it had was some replacement notebooks and pencils. Her new wallet was actually an old one from her childhood—it was neon orange—and had very little in it besides a bit of cash and the provisional/temporary drivers' license they'd printed out for her while they replaced the one she'd "lost" (left at the apartment). Setting it to her shoulder, feeling the contents shift and rattle inside, only reminded her of what she'd lost.

Bereft of focus, she found herself drifting, daydreaming. Random scenarios flashed through her head. What would it be like to divorce? How many people could claim to have divorced before turning 22? Could she apply to the Guinness Book of World Records? What would her life be like from now on? When she tried to picture it, all she saw was a grey, featureless void, for all the things she had wanted (a home; a family; children) she could not imagine without envisioning Jon. All her goals and dreams had gotten wrapped around him; they were inextricable now. She must abandon them and fine new ones.

There was a guy, to be certain; his name was Aidan, which was cool right off the bat. She only ever saw him in Jazz Theory, but he liked to sit near her. He dressed in a leather trench coat and wrote in numerous, voluminous notebooks in jagged, terrible scrawls; he had a dark, chuckling sense of humor and a low, husky voice. He carried melancholy on him like a cloak; when he was concentrating on something he was a vision to behold: that pensive look on his face, the folds of leather rustling about him. He was handsome and deeply intriguing to her; she knew that, if her heart hadn't already been so irrevocably bonded to someone else's, she would have romantic interest in him. She could tell that he felt the same way; the fact that he had been polite enough to not acknowledge them was just another turn-on. If not for Jon ... Maybe this would've been the man for me.

And yet ... Sometimes his words took on the tone of a whining child, and jagged on the ear; sometimes she thought his attire and demeanor were just affectations meant to attract the female eye. When he spoke of a traumatic past, the tale rang tame to her; maybe he was downplaying it, but to her practiced ear it sounded more like the kind of suffering a teenager would consider horrific. He didn't have that unshakable sense of self, like Jon did; he still felt the need to posture. He couldn't roll with the punches the way Jon could—that incredible ability to take setbacks and wounds, most often from the people he loved most, and just keep on smiling. He didn't have the steel that came from long years of gritting through pain. He was cool, but ... He wasn't Jon.

And those were the worst moments—the ones where she forgot that she could never have him back. Half a dozen times she found herself with a half-formulated list of what housework, homework and music practice she would accomplish before Jon came home for dinner; once she even started thinking about what they would do when they were in bed together. Then she would jerk back into reality and have to bear down before she started crying in the middle of the lecture. That wouldn't do at all.

All of this made for three hours of classes that seemed to take a decade.

She was in for a surprise: when she came out of the Music Building, there were two familiar faces waiting for her. Christa Crane gave her a smile and said, "Care for a lunch date?" And Meredith lifted her backpack—Caitlyn's backpack, the one she had had for years now, the one she'd been too absent-minded to take with her when she left—and smiled too, and for the first time in almost a week Caitlyn felt less than completely alone.

But there were other issues at hand first. "I thought you had a job. Aren't you supposed to be at work now?"

"Well, I have some time off stored up," said Meredith with an easy smile. "And besides, after I found out what had happened, well..." The smile slid off her face.

"There are some things that are a little more important than others," said Christa.

"Yes," said Meredith. "And ... Well, we care about our friends. Brandon and I ... We were involved when you two got together."

"No you weren't," Christa said. "They got together on their own, they just happened to be at your wedding when they did it."

"Regardless," Meredith said. "We feel responsible, at least a little bit. I know Brandon would've been here two if he could, but ... We agreed that I would probably be able to accomplish more."

"I'm just happy to see you," Caitlyn said. "Sometimes I feel like I could count my friends on one hand."

Caitlyn used her cellphone to call her mother's cellphone and tell her where she'd be—she chose it deliberately because she knew her mother wouldn't pick up. Then the three of them began walking towards downtown, talking about nothing important at all, trying to decide where to go; they settled on a restaurant Meredith had seen before and always wanted to try, but never gotten around to. Caitlyn knew that there was a reckoning coming soon, but it was nice to just be casual for a little while; it was nice to feel as though things were normal. She hadn't felt normal since Tuesday. There were a lot of things that had been missing from her life since Tuesday.

They ordered, and then continued to chat inconsequentially about the food for another good half hour or so. But all good things must come to an end, and eventually Christa settled herself at the table and looked at Caitlyn. "So. What's going on."

Caitlyn sighed. "I guess you've heard."

"We talked to Jon," said Christa. "We heard his side of the story."

"He's broken up, Caitlyn," Meredith said. "He misses you. He needs you."

"I ... I'm sure he does." She did too. "But he'll just have to learn to live without me." She would too. "We talked. It became clear that ... That there were fundamental differences between us."

"Like?" said Christa.

Slowly, with many stops and starts, they walked her through it. Then Christa boiled it down in a way that made it all seem simple. "So ... You feel that Jon isn't loving or Christian enough, that he could stand to open his heart a lot more. And Jon feels that you're too eager to please, that it's so important to you to please whoever happens to ask for your help, that you end up putting the important things—yourself, him, your marriage—on the back burner, where they don't belong."

" ... Well," said Caitlyn, feeling a bit defensive, "when you put it that way, it sounds like a bad idea."

"Isn't it?" said Meredith, arching an eyebrow. "Caitlyn, you can't just let yourself be dissuaded from what's important to you."

"Being a follower of Christ is important to me," Caitlyn said. "And did Christ ever meet someone he wasn't willing to help?"

"Maybe he didn't, but did he have a wife and kids back home?" Meredith asked. "If it's important for you to be a force of aid and help, then go join the Peace Corps or the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and serve abroad. We'd all applaud you. But you can't have your cake and eat it too, Caitlyn. You're married now, and you've said you want to have kids. You can't go around being a distracted do-gooder with things like that in your life."

"So you're saying it's a sin to be Christlike and help people," Caitlyn challenged.

"I'm saying, it's a sin to break your own marriage vows," Meredith said without raising your voice. "When you married Jon, you swore before God to always honor him. You swore, to Jon and to God, that your husband and the things you built with him would be the most important part of your life."

"I'm not ... Jon's exaggerating," Caitlyn protested. "Maybe I was spreading myself a little thin before we got married, but not after. I mean, until we bought the truck we didn't even have the opportunity."

"Perhaps not, but the way you say that implies you intend to go back to it," Christa said. "What are we talking about here? Overbooking?"

"Well ... Last October there was a point where I had like five gigs in two weeks. But, I mean, I got paid for all of them. And nobody complained about my playing or anything. Or my homework, for that matter."

She realized both of them were looking at her. "That sounds bad, doesn't it."

"Only slightly," said Meredith. "Are there seriously that few harpists out there?"

"It's not an instrument you just fall into or anything," Christa said. "It's like beekeeping that way. There's gotta be a 'wanna' involved."

"What's your goal in taking all these gigs," Meredith asked. "What's your goal in saying Yes to whatever opportunities are given you?"

"Well, when I was living with my parents, my goal was to make money so that, if I had to move out, we'd survive it," Caitlyn said. "And it was Jon who was always telling me to get out of there, that I needed to spare my sanity."

"Okay," Meredith said. "Say you're done. Say you're out of there, and your sanity's in good hands. Since, until last Tuesday, that was actually true. Someone offers you a gig—what kind of gigs do you normally get?"

"Either it's someone's wedding or funeral or some other occasion," Caitlyn said, "or I'm an ad-hoc harpist for an orchestra. Some harpists are full-time members, but others prefer to freelance, and some orchestras don't have the budget to hire a musician who's just gonna sit there half the time."

"Okay," said Meredith. "Say you're offered a gig, and you tell Jon about it and, for some reason, he asks you to turn it down."

"It's an orchestra appointment that rehearses on Wednesdays," Christa supplied. "Meaning there'd be a scheduling conflict with Octapella. And let me tell you, Caitlyn," she added with a wry smile, "the seven of us might be in trouble if he wasn't there."

"There we go," Meredith said. "For that reason, Jon tells you he'd like you to turn it down. What do you say?"

"Well..." said Caitlyn. "The..."

"Not the polite answer," Meredith said. "The one you really want to give him."

Caitlyn's chin came up. "Jon can go home and stuff it."

Her friends regarded her with identical tilted looks; she was struck suddenly by how much they reminded her of sisters.

"For me, there's nothing more important than being the kind of person who says Yes," Caitlyn said. "If someone needs me, I should be there. I should never hesitate to place the needs of others above my own."

"Okay," said Meredith. "And it doesn't bother you that you're hurting Jon? It doesn't bother you that you're taking him away from something that's important to him?"

"And what about your schoolwork?" Christa said. "Suddenly you have one less night to get things done. You're threatening your own schedule, your own grades. You're piling on more stress for ... What? A few dollars?"

"Not to mention that hurting Jon is the same as hurting yourself," Meredith said, "because you love him, and that makes his feelings as important to you as your own. If not more so. That's been true since your wedding—since before your wedding. And if it isn't, I have some questions why you married him in the first place."

"Yes, but..." said Caitlyn, helpless to explain. This all made sense in her head; why was it so hard to communicate it to her friends? "What good am I, if I'm not helping people? What difference does it make for me to sit at home comfortably with Jon if I'm not changing lives and doing good? That's my calling. That's my mission. I am a Christian. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor more than yourself. And I do. My life is meaningless to me unless I can get out and make a difference."

Christa and Meredith regarded her silently.

"I'm sorry to hear you say that," Meredith said.

"What?" said Caitlyn.

"You're meaningless unless you're a Christian?" said Meredith. "Your life has no value except as it pertains to God's ministry? Caitlyn, there are very few Christians who would ever agree with those ideas—and, frankly, they're the ones who give the rest of us a bad name."

"Your life has enormous worth," Christa said. "To a loving God, to loving friends, and to a husband whose love for you is beyond doubt. Caitlyn, you should see him. He's a wreck. He's not complete without you. And, though we're doing our best to keep you smiling, we can tell that you're not complete without him either."

"A sign, incidentally, that you married the right person," Meredith said. "But we're getting off track here."

"Very true," said Christa. "Caitlyn, you have inherent worth. There is meaning to your life even if you never lift a finger to help another person. There's meaning to your life even if you hurt people."

"I don't believe that," Caitlyn said.

"Well you should," said Christa, "because it's true."

"That's not how I was raised," Caitlyn said.

"And that isn't good enough incentive to learn differently?" Meredith said.

"You guys make it sound like a bad thing," Caitlyn said, "but it's not. I was raised to think of others. I was raised to be generous with my time and effort, and to not count the cost. I was raised to be selfless."

"Yes, and that's probably why Jon is concerned," Meredith said. "Because he doesn't want his kids to have no self as well."

"Man, and here we thought he was exaggerating," Christa remarked.

"What do you mean?" Caitlyn said.

"To be devoid of self," Meredith said, "to not possess a sense of identity. To be self-less. Is that really want for your children, Caitlyn? That they have so little sense of self-definition that they let anybody trample over them whenever they please?"

Caitlyn remembered the fiasco on Valentine's Day, when she had let Jon take her to a place that, in retrospect, she wished she'd known not to go.

"Ah, I see you've had experience with that," said Meredith in a dry voice.

"Now you sound like Jon," Caitlyn accused. "He's so ... So judgmental. He decides what he wants, he goes for it, he doesn't let anyone change his mind. He decides he doesn't want something, and he doesn't change his mind on that either. What's wrong with being open to new experiences?"

"Nothing," said Meredith, "except for the people who use that to take advantage of you."

Caitlyn thought about all the time she'd spent with Harold: humoring him, listening to him rant, keeping her real thoughts concealed beneath her face of friendship—knowing he didn't want a friend, just a crutch to lean on. Knowing she was being wasted here.

"Ah, I see you've had experience with that," said Meredith in a dry voice.

"So ... So what are you saying," Caitlyn said. "I have to compromise my Christian behavior just to protect myself?"

"No, not that you have to," said Christa. "That you can. Caitlyn, we are all called to be ministers of God, to spread His Word and His Love throughout our world. But there comes a time when to give too much of yourself is to fatally compromise your ability to do those things. Imagine you're going around somewhere and, I dunno, you run into a hundred people. Except that one of them is standing alone, and you can only speak to one group at a time. So you talk to this guy and he believes, but he says, 'I'm only going to become a Christian if you jump off this cliff.'"

"Right, because that happens all the time in proselytizing," said Meredith.

"Girl, please," said Christa, "I'm trying to make a point here. Caitlyn, what do you do in this situation? Understanding that, if you convert this man to Christianity, that's the end of your usefulness to God? Understanding that you can leave him and go do good works among the other ninety-nine, and make a difference in their lives and convert them ... Without having to put an end to your life in Christ?"

"And, with that in mind, why do you allow people to ask you to jump off cliffs?" Meredith asked.

Caitlyn had her answer to that. It was the reason she'd allowed Jon to have his way with her; the reason she let Harold babble at her; the reason she didn't hesitate when someone needed her harp and her hands. "To let them know I love them. To show them that I love them."

"You love people who bog you down with five gigs in two weeks," said Christa.

The right answer would be Yes ... But it wouldn't be the true answer. Not real love. Generosity, sure; affection, empathy, loyalty; many of the higher virtues. But not love.

"Then why?" said Christa. "Why put yourself through this wringer for nothing? Why hurt yourself—and now your husband—for people who are only a paycheck to you?"

"Because ... Because that's what I was taught," Caitlyn said. "When I was young, my parents would always say—"

"Oh-hhhhh, " said Christa.

"Getting in trouble for being selfish?" Meredith said. "Expecting you to share? Punishing you if you hesitated for even a second over it?"

"No, that's not what it was like at—" Then Caitlyn realized that, on the contrary, this was exactly what it had been like. Oh my goodness. "I can't believe it."

"Demanding you sacrifice your own satisfaction? Expecting you to be selfless?" Meredith said. "As in, not like, This is a value we want you to learn, but rather, We won't love you unless you're this way?"

"Yeah," said Caitlyn, feeling stunned. "Yeah." That was it exactly. That was the life she had lived for twenty years, and she hadn't even realized it.

"Jon made a really interesting statement when we were talking to him," Christa said. "He said that the parents you live under are the people who most strongly influence your idea of what God is like."

"Well, yes," Caitlyn said. "Isn't that always how it starts out?" She had been brought to church by her parents, and she knew Jon had been brought as well by his; they must have taught him about Jesus and God, at least in the beginning ... Come to think of it, maybe that explained his faith. Caitlyn liked her parents-in-law just fine, but no one could call them devout.

"No, it's not just that they teach you about God and get you to read the Bible," Christa said. "I mean, it's that, but it's not just that. Jon said that our parents live the role of God to us. When we're young, our parents create our idea of who and what God is supposed to be."

Caitlyn was silent for long moments, mulling over this new thought. That smacked to her of idolatry; and certainly her parents (nor any parents she knew) had

never demanded their children worship them. But that was the whole point of Jesus, after all, the whole point of Christianity—that Christ had come down to earth to be the example of how to live a God-like life, to model Christian/Godlike behavior. Now, obviously, parents weren't Jesus. But ... Still. Wouldn't that assigning parents too much credit?

"I don't know," Christa answered, "it might be. But, think about everyone you know. What is Jon's conception of God, in comparison to how his parents treated him? What's yours?"

"I think Jon's in much the same boat as Brandon," Meredith said. "Which makes sense, because they've had similar experiences with their parents. Jon says he finds it hard to believe in the idea that God won't let him down if he puts his trust in Him, and Brandon understands that because both of them have been let down by many people, particularly their parents, before."

"And we don't even know how our friend Jane got to be the way she is," Christa said, "considering how much her parents had mellowed by the time we knew them, but ... They were a lot like yours, Caitlyn. Manipulative. High expectations. And she turned out to have pretty low self-esteem, just like you."

"This self-esteem thing," Meredith said. "It's so tricky. On the one hand, you have all these cocksure crazy people with no conception of humility ... And on the other you have people who have just been trodden into the dirt. It's like no one can ever get it right. But if your parents didn't teach you to have good self-esteem, it comes out. The only thing that varies is how it comes out."

"I was lucky," Christa said, "and so was Zach. We both came out of our childhoods with a pretty good sense of ourselves. We both take it for granted, of course, because we just haven't lived with anything else; but now we look at the people around us and realize just how lucky we were. Our parents managed to ... Well, they managed not to screw us up. That sounds so simple, but it's starting to seem like one of the rarest things there is."

Caitlyn nodded. "That's important to Jon too. And me. I just ... I hate the idea of any child of ours growing up the way he and I did ... Sheesh, listen to me. I make it sound like we lived in poverty or something. We didn't. We were comfortable. We had everything ... Except love."

"Then why don't you give these new ideas a try?" Meredith said. "Maybe you're not convinced that it's right to stand up for yourself, to be selfish, but isn't it worth it to try it and find out? Because, if we're right, then clinging to your current model would lead to screwing up your kids. Do you really want to take that risk?"

"But ... These are my parents," Caitlyn said. "They've been supporting me and taking care of me and ... And everything. For years. Don't I owe it to them to please them?"

"Because they love you?" Christa said. "No."

"What?" said Meredith. "That sounds backwards."

"Didn't we tell you?" Christa said. "It was something Fr. Winston said. He said that most of our ideas of love are completely backwards that way. When you love somebody, they don't owe you anything—because love is the most voluntary and subjective of emotions, he said, or something like that, and as such the lover is free to decide whether or not to love at all. But the beloved doesn't owe the lover anything, because the lover is making a rational choice, which implies a willingness to accept all consequences thereof. Instead, the lover feels called to serve the person he-or-she loves, because that's what love is: a rational, voluntary choice to put the other person's needs first. It is given free of charge and with no obligation. It's the only truly free gift we ever get."

"I really do need to meet this Fr. Winston of yours," Meredith said. "He sounds like a very interesting person."

"So, no, Caitlyn," Christa said. "If your parents truly love you, they don't expect any recompense for their actions. Virtue truly is its own reward in this case. and, if they are leaning on you to be appropriately grateful, then, well, they're trying to manipulate you. No one should have to pay for what is given freely."

"Yes, but, what if I love them?" Caitlyn said. "If I love them, I want to please them, right? ... And if they tell me there's something I want done..."

"Fair enough, yes," said Meredith. "But that's when you have to decide."

"Decide what?"

"How far your love goes. Who you're actually willing to change yourself, or hurt yourself, for. Caitlyn, you know your parents don't actually love you. They love who they want you to be, not who you are. And this mythical Caitlyn they want you to be—you know enough about her to know that you wouldn't be happy if you became her. It would be an injury to yourself. Your parents may have your best interests in mind, but they still intend to chop off the best parts of who you are. Is that really what you want for yourself?"

"Especially since, remember, you're worthy of love just as you are," Christa said. "You have worth to a loving God, just the way you are. And if your parents don't love you, just the way you are, then they are the ones who have strayed from the path of Christ, not you. Jesus said to love even sinners. How then are you any less deserving of your parents' love?"

"And you haven't sinned," Meredith put in.

Caitlyn wasn't sure what to think. There were so many different forces spinning around in her head and crashing into each other like some deranged roller derby. But in the end, all she had to ask herself was one question: What would Jesus do?

Christa signaled for the check, and they left.

It was relatively quiet around the house until Mrs. Delaney returned at 3:30. Caitlyn pasted herself at her desk—the same one she'd used for so many years; the computer that had entertained so many desperate Instant-Messenger conversations with Jon—and tried to get something done about her homework, but there was no focus in her now; she didn't even have the gift of music to distract her, because all her instruments were at the apartment. Instead, all she had was her thoughts—and there were certainly enough of them to keep her busy.

For all her life, she had believed in the necessity of earning love; this had been hammered into her from an early age, until she breathed it in and out like air. It had taken Meredith's insight to remind her that she believed it. And, through all her life, she had never hesitated to do whatever she thought would earn her love; that too had been beaten into her. If she wasn't loved, her parents had told her, she was worthless; if she wasn't doing what they told her to, she wasn't loved. It was manipulative; it was cold and unfeeling. No wonder she had fallen so hard for Jon: he had taken one look at all of this and simply decided to love her differently. To love her, always and forever, come whatever storms.

It had worked, she realized. He did love her. And, of course, she loved him. Even if she never saw his face again, heard his voice, felt his touch—even if she divorced him and re-married and made a family with someone else—she would love him to her grave. In that moment of hope she knew that she had achieved the kind of storybook, fairy-tale love she had always wanted for herself. At any other time she might have found that comforting; now, in this place of desolation, it was not an entirely pleasant thought.

She had lived with her parents' way for her entire life, with Jon's for less than a tenth of it. She believed in some reckless place that her parents' way was the right one. But then why had she sought refuge in Jon's arms?—he, who was the antithesis of what her parents had taught her to believe? By all rights, she should have been miserable there; but it was the happiest she'd ever felt, the strongest and best she'd ever been. Was it true?—was her parents' way flawed?

The Thursday Fiasco seemed to say so. If her parents' rules were true, she should have been willing to go through with it no matter the discomfort to herself; instead she had selfishly demanded that Jon stop because she just didn't like it. If her parents' rules were true, the proper response for him would have been to threaten her, to bluster, to tell her how ungrateful she was that he was slaving night and day to pay for their apartment and her education and music lessons. Instead, he had simply agreed, had nodded and kissed her and did as she bade.

Jon loves me. Jon actually, really, honestly loves me. He said that, if I turned him down on the bum thing, he would swallow his disappointment and live with it. I didn't believe him, of course—not with the conditioning I've received—but he meant it. Because he was disappointed, he must have been; it wasn't romantic or loving or even pleasurable for either of us, and he wouldn't have wanted to try it if he hadn't thought it might be some or all of those things. He must have been disappointed. But he never said anything more about it, except to ask if I was feeling all right. He really meant it. He really loves me.

And what about me? Shouldn't I, having done that thing for him, uncomfortable and unpleasant as it was, have been demanding all sorts of recompense from him? Shouldn't I, having just demonstrated my love for him in such an ostentatious way, have been demanding reward? —Heck, shouldn't I have been doing that for everything in our sex life? Because I sure don't. Our lovemaking is always about giving—and more often than not, from me to him ... And I like it that way. The whole dominance thing is about the fact that I like giving to him. If my parents' rules are true, I should be begrudging him everything. Instead, I'm just giving it away. And, most of the time, feeling like I'm actually getting the better end of the bargain.

(Of course, I also doubt my parents ever enjoyed sex the way Jon and I do.)

So. Where does that leave me?

Jon says I need to be selfish, but if Meredith and Christa are right, what he's really saying is that I need to be less generous with my willingness to earn people's love. What he and Meredith and Christa (and probably Brandon and Zach, if they'd come) are all saying is that ... I should take more worth in myself. I shouldn't depend on other people thinking I'm worth something, I should ... I should believe that I, out of myself, am worthy of love no matter what.

She thought about her flaws: her inability to get a job up until now, which was partially due to the peculiar circumstances of her life, but more due to sheer laziness—she just didn't want to. She thought about her inability to say no, her tendency to double-book, to have to turn in shoddy work because she took too much on her plate; she thought about her habit of procrastination, which only exacerbated things by decreasing her efficiency during the little time she had. She thought about her selfishness—getting harp gigs simply because she missed the public exposure. She thought about how half-heartedly she studied, wasting the education her parents (and later her husband) had earned for her by the sweat of their brow. She thought about her deep insecurities—her inability to say No; her need to have others' approval; her willingness to turn off her own personality and bend to the whims of others.

Me? Worthy of love? Ha!

 ... And yet Jon loves me.

So do Meredith and Christa. So do Zach and Brandon. So does Mrs. Sellitz. So does Mrs. Klein. So does Gramma and Grampa. So does Uncle Max. So do Jon's parents. Maybe some of them are family ... But these are all people whose judgment I trust, whom I am proud to be close to. And if we add to the list of people who maybe love me, or at least have been kind in the past, we get all these other people as well—Pastor Pendleton and Pastor Larson and Alice Larson and Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton and all the members of Octapella and all of Jon's extended family and his sister Melinda and even her cat, Whiskers, who would sometimes come visit while we lived in Jon's parents' house, and whom Jon said is so shy that almost none of his other friends have ever met her. And even my parents, misguided though they are.

Do these people know me? Some of them don't. But some of them do. And the one thing in common between all the people who know me is that ... They love me.

Jesus said to love the sinner, but hate the sin. I believe that, and I try to love sinners as best I can. But surely I have sinned too much to be loved or forgiven. When he talked about sinners, surely he meant people with silly things like having eaten meat on Sabbath or being a tax collector or having been caught in adultery. Surely no one as hopeless and flawed as ... Me.

She had not really come to any conclusions by the time the front door opened to admit her mother. At least at that point she had good reason to bear down and concentrate on her homework. It wouldn't do to zone out while Mom was ten feet away (of course), grading math assignments ... Especially since she told Caitlyn to drop whatever she was doing and help out. The implication, as always, was that she was due her daughter's obedience. Caitlyn didn't like to think that her friends were being proved true, because it put her parents in a bad light ... But she also couldn't deny what she saw with her own eyes.

Caitlyn turned back to her homework (that, at least, she could change) and kept busy as much as she could. She had quite a bit of homework to do, and no small bit of it she could probably stand to do again now that her backpack had been returned to her. Plus, she wasn't sure how much parental exposure she could handle right now.

She knew she wouldn't be able to stave them off past dinner time; through some miracle, she nonetheless managed that. Her father had stopped by for some idle conversation when he got home, and Mom tried to talk to her while they graded papers, but Caitlyn was monosyllabic and they got the message. Once they were all at table, though, all bets were off and she knew it.

Her father led the grace this time. Before leaving for a family (and husband) who held no such custom, she had appreciated the gesture; today, she still agreed with it in spirit, but felt that her parents were rather ostentatious about it. It was not that her father's prayer was overlong (though he'd been shorter); it was that it didn't feel genuine. In the unlikely event that she could get Jon to say a prayer over a meal, she knew it would at least be heartfelt. Now, to her ears, her father's words rang false; it was as if he was maintaining some facade, going through the motions. Had it always been like this? Had he changed, while she was gone? Had she changed? Or had this morning's cynicism simply infected her?

It was a mostly civil dinner. Mostly.

At first the talk was nothing consequential; how was school, how was work, how are your students doing. Nobody had yet noticed Caitlyn's magically-returned backpack, so she didn't have to answer any questions about how she'd gotten it; it was taboo for her to mention Jon, and the Chamberses and Cranes were almost as bad.

Of course, Mom and Dad were free to mention Jon all they wanted.

"So, Caitlyn," said her father. "Have you thought about how you plan to get your harps back?"

No, Caitlyn hadn't. Thus far, she'd been practicing on the Shellview harps, staying at school during the gap before Orchestra practice. Oboe lessons had been suspended indefinitely, to Mrs. Klein's approval; in her opinion, Caitlyn had always been stretched too thin, and it would be better to develop full expertise with one instrument than to play two with only mediocrity. (Of course, Mrs. Klein had some pointed comments to make about Caitlyn's particular choice of which instrument to drop, but that was Mrs. Klein—all bark and no bite.)

"The longer you leave them there..." Dad said.

"Dad, I'm not even sure who technically owns them," she said. She and Jon had pooled their monetary resources together and stopped keeping track ever since. That wasn't a big deal as far as housekeeping budget was concerned—but property and ownership laws were a whole different story. They'd learned this when her parents had forced her to buy the full-size harp from them, on the (legally accurate) grounds that since they had purchased the harp for her (she'd been all of 12; there'd been no way she could afford a $20,000 instrument ), it actually belonged to them. "This is probably the kind of thing we'd have to hire a lawyer for."

Her parents were silent for a moment, trading unreadable glances.

"Well ... Maybe you should send him an e-mail offering to buy them back," her father said. "It would certainly be cheaper than hiring a lawyer."

"Uhh ... Dad, with what money? All my life's savings are in the joint account we opened in December. I don't have a cent to my name." She'd better stop using her credit card; there was no way she could pay the reckoning at the end of the month.

Besides, she didn't want to e-mail him. She didn't want to start the long, convoluted process of separating his life from his. While she ignored the problem, she could pretend it wasn't there. She could pretend that she didn't wake up every morning feeling like she might have just made the greatest mistake of her life.

Again, her parents had their silent conversation.

"Then perhaps you should consider this a lesson, Caitlyn," her mother said. "In taking hasty and ill-advised action. When you make a mistake, you have to pay the consequences."

Oh,  thought Caitlyn, they rub my face in it now. As if I would've been allowed to do this kind of learning if I hadn't made the "mistake" of going out to live my own life. Out loud, she said, "So, what? I'm supposed to earn the money?"

"That's how most money is gained, yes," said her father.

"And how am I supposed to do that? It's hard to take gigs as a harpist when you don't have a harp." She didn't even have the benefit of her 24-string lap Celtic, which she had taken with her and was now (of course) at the apartment.

"Well ... I suppose we could loan you the money," said her father.

"I don't think we should," her mother said. "Sometimes it takes a good hard lesson before someone learns." Caitlyn knew then that they had discussed this issue beforehand, and were playing from a script. "I mean, there's always Starbucks."

"I didn't say we should just give her the money free and clear," Dad said. "It would be a loan, an actual loan, with interests and monthly payments. With collateral as insurance. You've always been paid well for your services as a harpist, and that should be even easier now that you're not so occupied with your so-called husband."

Why, again, had she ever thought that coming here would be a good idea? She should have turned herself on the mercy of the Pendletons, who had three kids, or the Larsons, who had two. Mrs. Sellitz, maybe. Even living in a box on the sidewalk might've been better.

The dig about her husband goaded her into careless speech: "You know, we wouldn't be having this problem if you hadn't forced us to buy the harps from you in the first place. They'd still be legally yours and we could just go in and seize them."

"How dare you criticize us!" her mother snapped, her voice dropping an octave. "After we were kind enough to take you in! After how thoughtless and disloyal you've been! We could have turned you out on the street! We are your parents, who have fed you, clothed you, sheltered you despite your horrendous behavior! The least you could do is be grateful to us!"

And there it was.

She realized that her relationship with her parents had been irrevocably altered. Getting out of the house, living with the kind of independence she'd long dreamed of—it had spoiled her; she was now more willing to question, to think outside the patterns her parents wanted her to follow. (And as far as they were concerned, she'd been too full of questions even before she'd left.) And now, after the conversation she'd had with Meredith and Christa, after the light they'd thrown on the way she'd lived ... She could not stay here. Even if she wanted to (and she didn't), that would require submitting to her parents' rule, and that was something she couldn't do anymore. Inevitably, she would fight against it; inevitably, she would rebel; inevitably, her 'tainted' ways of thinking would come to light; inevitably they would kick her out. Her days here were numbered.

And yet what did that leave? She couldn't move out on her own; she'd used all her resources to support her erstwhile marriage, and there they remained. Could she remand herself to the mercy of those others? Perhaps, but not for any meaningful length of time, not long enough to actually get back on her feet. Could she live on the street, or hide out on the Shellview State campus? Not without incurring grave physical danger; she had no idea how to survive alone, and doubted her ability to learn. Could she go back to Jon?

That, she wasn't as ready to answer. She wasn't sure what the right answer was. She had come to see that her own behavior had been un-Christian in its own way, but so was Jon's, and there was no indication that he intended to fall back into line. It was right there in the Bible that it was a sin for a Christian to marry outside the faith, and Jon certainly qualified. She could not, in good conscience, return to him. All the things that she valued about him—his humor, his touch, his wisdom; his willingness to challenge her, his sense of self; his dreams of the future, his unflinching support of her goals, the children they had planned to raise; the breadth of his shoulders, the laughter in his brown eyes, the tenderness in his body as he made love to her—all those things, she would have to abandon.

That was perhaps the hardest thing of all.

She couldn't stay; she couldn't go; she couldn't return. What, then, was left for her?

"Well?" her mother snapped, and suddenly Caitlyn realized that this whirling kaleidescope of thought had kept her immobile at the table for long seconds. "What have you to say for yourself?"

Caitlyn felt hysterical sobs welling at her throat. She didn't trust herself to speak. What could she say? What could she say that wouldn't get herself killed? What could she say that wouldn't cause an explosion? How was she supposed to navigate this mess? What was she going to do for herself now??

But as she cast about in confusion, that single central question fell sharply into place: What would Jesus do?

" ... That I resent being manipulated this way!" Caitlyn said.

"Caitlyn Claire Delaney, how dare you speak like that!"

"Fairly easily, as you can see," she said, deciding to keep her temper in check as much as she could. (But oh!, how good that outburst had felt!) "Mom, I do appreciate what you've done for me, and I know you didn't need to take me back in. But that was something you chose to do, for love, out of the goodness of your hearts. Wasn't it? Or was it something that you intend to barter for? Is this another loan, with interest and monthly payments?"

"It could be," her father said in his grumpy, gravelly voice. She and Nathan had often joked that her father sounded like a mountain. "Don't make the mistake of thinking we owe you anything, Caitlyn."

"Fair enough," said Caitlyn. "I won't. But don't make the mistake of thinking I owe you anything either."

"We gave you life," her mother said in a voice tight with anger.

"For which I am grateful," Caitlyn said. "Mom, believe it or not, I'm glad to be here. But that doesn't extend to allowing you to control me like this."

"And how, precisely, do you see our requests for respect as controlling?" said her father in a voice she recognized as being dangerously calm.

"Because it's not just respect. You guys imply that, unless I do things your way, you won't love me."

There was silence at this proclamation, as they worked through it.

Surprisingly, Dad was the first to speak; surprisingly, he didn't deny it. "Well, Caitlyn, that just means you're growing up. Because that's the way the world works. Either you do what people tell you to, or you get kicked out."

"Really," said Caitlyn. "Then how come my friends love me just the way I am? Gramma? Grampa? Mrs. Klein and Mrs. Sellitz? How come Jon loves me just the way I am? I don't have to earn their approval; I don't have to follow their directives. All I have to do is be who I am."

"If that's what you think, then you're in for a rude awakening," her father said.

"No, I'm not," said Caitlyn, "because they prove it. Because when they say it, I believe them because I know it's true. And hey, look at this: isn't this what Jesus calls us to do? To love unconditionally, and not judge, and not be selfish?"

"You're not going to claim that ... that... That man is a better Christian than we are," her mother thundered.

"I shouldn't have to," Caitlyn returned. "What precisely does Scripture say about love? 'Love is patient, love is kind... '"

"First Corinthians, chapter 13," said her father.

"You don't need to quote the Bible to us," said her mother.

Evidently I do,  Caitlyn thought. "Tell me, then: where precisely in those verses does it say that love is withheld if the person you love doesn't obey you? Where is it said that love is only to be given out as a reward? Where does Christ command us to collect our rightful rewards for the love we bestow?"

"That's not what we do," her mother said in that same tight voice. But now there was a tinge of fright behind it. "That's not what we do."

Caitlyn shrugged. "Maybe it isn't, but it sure comes across that way."

"Maybe you need to open your eyes," her father growled. "You think just because you went out and sinned a little that you know anything about the world? You think that you understand parenting better than we do?"

This was such a ridiculous attack that Caitlyn laughed. "Dad, I'm not claiming to understand anything. All I'm telling you is what I see."

"What you see doesn't matter!" her mother thundered.

Caitlyn just looked at her.

"There is a difference," said her father, "between your opinion, and the truth."

"I agree," said Caitlyn. "Are you willing to admit that there's a difference between your opinion and the truth?"

"Why should we?" said her father.

"Because it's true?" said Caitlyn. "Or is reality one-way? You are the final arbiters of fact and truth in this family? What you say, goes?—End of story!"

"Yes," said her father. "End of story."

"And that's how I know you don't love me," Caitlyn said. "Because, when I tell you that I am in pain, that I am hurt, that I don't know what to do, you don't listen to me, or seek to understand my viewpoint. You don't extend the compassion and sympathy love implies. You run me over with a steamroller."

"When do you ever tell us those things!" her mother retorted. "You've kept your little secrets for years. You barely talked to us any more than Nathan did!"

"Yes," said Caitlyn. This was true as far as it went. "Do you know why?"

"Oh, am I going to be told that I made another mistake?" said Mom with contempt.

"Yes, actually, you are," said Caitlyn. "Jon said—"

"Why do I care about—"

"Mom, you are going to have to accept the idea that people other than you know things," Caitlyn snapped.

"He doesn't!" Mom cried.

"In point of fact, he does," Caitlyn said, "but why trust me? Why don't you let me tell you what he thinks, and judge for yourself?"

Mom had no answer for this, though her eye twitched.

"Jon once said that real friendship only starts with moments of vulnerability. It's when you go to somebody and tell them that you're in pain, or tell them something that they could use to cause you pain. For instance, if Nathan were to come to me and say that he had a crush on Nicole Stather." This was a historical incident; the poor girl had had to turn him down, as politely as possible, in the middle of a home-school lesson. "Under those circumstances I have two possible choices. The first is that I can accept his overture of friendship, keep his secret and give him counsel. The second is that I can use this information and hurt him—for instance by running straight to you guys and blabbing about it. That would shame him, and he would feel, rightly, betrayed by me."

"What does this have to do with us loving you," Mom snapped.

"Just this," Caitlyn said. "You say that I never came to you with anything. That I never extended overtures of friendship. In light of what I've just said, can you imagine why?"

Mom was silent, but Dad said, "There is a third option. Maybe you never gave us the trust we deserve."

Mom rallied to this. "Regardless of what you might think, Caitlyn, you have not been a good daughter."

"Then I haven't," Caitlyn said. "Again, I ask you: where is the part of Scripture that says you are allowed to deprive me over this? Whatever happened to, 'Love the sinner, hate the sin'?"

Her father growled, "Maybe you're too sinful to love."

"Maybe I am," Caitlyn said, trying not to flinch. Her father—probably without knowing it—had just said the thing that, in her secret heart, she most feared was true. "I know quite a few people who disagree with you. This is a democracy; majority rules, doesn't it? But when did Christ ever say that someone was too sinful to love? When did he ever meet anyone he couldn't find time to love? When did he ever neglect someone when he could have stopped instead?"

"What's your point here, Caitlyn," her mother said, sounding impatient. "Just tell us what you're getting at."

"What I'm getting at?" Caitlyn said. She sighed. "What I'm getting at is, simply, that I don't think you love me. Not in any way that matters. Now, obviously, you have chosen to feed and shelter and support me for twenty-one years. And I thank you for that. But that's not love. It's not ... It's not about emotions, or heart. And even though you feed and shelter and support me, I have never once—not once—felt that you approved of who I am."

"We don't approve of who you are," her father growled.

"Does that stop love?" Caitlyn said. "Love the sinner, hate the sin? I don't approve of what you do to me, but I love you anyway—as Jon has lamented, time and time again."

"It's not your place to disapprove of us," her father said.

"And that's how I know you don't love me," Caitlyn said, her anger bucking under her. She had kept her temper in check for far longer than she'd thought possible, but now even this supernatural patience was beginning to wear thin. "Because when I tell you that you've hurt me, you deny it. You don't care about how I feel. All you care about is just ... just defending your petty little position. You only care about being right."

"And you don't?" her mother retorted. "Look at all this mess we've been talking about—you just going on and on and on about how wrong we are—"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT BEING RIGHT!" Caitlyn bellowed. "I JUST WANT TO STOP HURTING ME!"

The force of it seemed to blow her mother's hair back. Caitlyn felt deafened. It was the loudest she'd ever yelled in her life. The neighbors must have heard.

"Don't you guys get it? You hurt me! When you take this attitude, when you try to control me, when you bludgeon me with your arguments instead of listening, you hurt me. Love isn't about that! Love isn't about twisting someone's arm until they obey you, and neither is parenthood! It's about nurturing someone and letting them grow and helping them be who God intended them to—not to mold them into the shape of you! If you love me, you should listen! You should respect my words and my self-worth and ... Well, God, I don't even know if you do love me." She had believed it this morning; now, she wasn't so sure. "You've been kind of denying it all night if it makes your arguments stronger. Do you even know?" There were tears at the corners of her eyes, just hovering there, but she couldn't afford to acknowledge them now.

"Jon says I have trouble letting myself be loved. So does everyone who knows me. And they say it's because of you. They say you guys never loved me the right way, and now I'm scarred for life. They worry about whether I can be a good Christian!—because I don't know how to be loved! That's the foundation of our religion, that's the overwhelming message Christ came to give us—and I can't let myself experience it! Because I keep expecting someone to come in and yank it away, to tell me that I have to earn it, that ... Well, you know what? I don't! I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved. I'm Caitlyn Delaney Stanford, and I'm a wonderful person, and people should love me because of that. I deserve to be loved. And so do you!

"And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is, I know that you can't stand it." She was definitely crying now. "I know you can't bear to be wrong. Your egos are more important than your own daughter. So you'll kick me out tonight, and probably never speak to me again. I lost my parents tonight: the last people on earth who were willing to take me in, and I just turned them against me. And when I'm there on the sidewalk with no jacket and no money, you know what? I'll still love you! That's the worst part! Because you're Sam Delaney, and you deserve to be loved, and you're Linda Delaney, and you deserve to be loved, and no matter how awful you are to me, you're my parents, and I love you!"

Definitely crying now. Somehow she made it up the stairs without breaking her neck. Then she fumbled at the sliding door for long minutes before she could close it. Rex slid in at the last second, and she lay on the sleeping bag with her arms wrapped around him, muffling great, wracking sobs with his fur.

-------

She wasn't sure how long she stayed there. Maybe she fell asleep. Or maybe she passed out, exhausted from the long rigors of the day—of the week. This had been the longest week of her life. But she woke up to a gentle knocking on the door. The lights were still off and it was still dark outside.

"What is it," she said. She had meant to say, 'Who is it.' Maybe 'what' was more apt a description.

"It's ... Your mother."

Caitlyn said nothing. There didn't seem to be anything to say. She felt drained, wrung out; hollow inside, as though everything had been poured out already. Either her mother would tell her to pack and leave, or she wouldn't.

"Your father and I ... We had a long talk." Her mother's voice was muffled through the door. "What you said..." Her voice firmed. "What you said, Caitlyn ... Was hateful."

Of course it was. Caitlyn said nothing.

"It also ... Explained a great deal," said her mother. "So many things that ... Your father and I never understood. We could never ... We could never make sense of ... Of certain events—your brother moving away, primarily, both some other things too; your moving away; the way certain people treated us. We had never understood ... And now you've told us these things, and they don't sound right, and we don't like them, but ... We may have to accept them, because they're the only thing that makes sense.

"We, umm ... We're going to try and change. We. Umm. We have never ... Been faced with something like this, and, we ... I don't know if we ... Have what it takes. But, if we are in fact actually ... If we are in fact actually hurting our children..."

There was a silence at this point—a longer one than her mother habitually left. Caitlyn, curious, let go of the dog and opened the door.

She was surprised to find Linda Delaney still there, crying silently.

"I don't know how you can still love us, Caitlyn," her mother said. "We are such sinners..."

She went into her mother's arms. "Because there are more important things than whether you're a sinner," she said. "That's why."

"Not in Christ," her mother said bitterly.

"Yes, even in Christ," Caitlyn said. "Remember what he said to the people trying to stone that adulterer? 'Let he among you without sin... ' If love were only for the perfect, there'd be none in this world."

"But then how do we judge?" Mom gasped.

"You don't, Mom," Caitlyn said, hugging her tight. "You don't. You just ... Love. No matter how flawed the person is. You love."

Mom said, " ... Is that what you get from Jon."

She wasn't sure if it was a slight or not. "Yes, Mom. That's what I get from Jon."

Her mother sighed. "I guess ... You'll have to bring him here. If he can do a better job of loving you than we can ... Well. We're your parents. That can't be allowed."

There were several reactions that flashed through Caitlyn's mind. One was pleased affection that her mother was beginning to regain her pride. Another was the thought of what she and Jon did together when they loved, and how inappropriate it would be for her parents to try the same thing. And the third was...

"Am I going back to him?"

Mrs. Delaney put Caitlyn away from her to look her in the eye. "Aren't you? I can't imagine you'd stay here. I mean ... Clearly this is ... Not the best of places for you."

Caitlyn was silent for a moment.

She didn't know what he was doing; she didn't know what he was thinking. She didn't know if she could bring him around to her way of thinking. She didn't know how he felt, if he would be willing to take her back. She didn't know what kind of compromises she might need to make. All she knew was that she had sworn, in sight of god and man, to be at his side forever.

And that she loved him, and couldn't bear to be without him.

She sighed. "I don't know what he'll say."

"If he's smart, he'll ask you to take him back," her mother said.

"Yeah, but, can I take him back?"

"Why wouldn't you? Didn't you marry him?"

"Mom, he's not a Christian," Caitlyn said. "I thought he was, but..."

"Caitlyn Claire Delaney, what kind of a statement is that!" her mother said. "Look at where Christianity got us!"

"Mom, at least you and Dad are trying," Caitlyn protested. "I don't know if Jon will even do that."

Mom was silent for a moment.

"Caitlyn, you'll have to go back eventually," she said. "Yelling aside, you do need to get your money and your harps back. Why don't you at least talk to him? You never know what he'll say."

Caitlyn stared at her. "Am I dreaming, or did you just tell me to give him a chance?"

Her mother gave her a wan smile. "Caitlyn ... We knew. Of course we were angry that you seemed to be going off and living your life without consulting us, or allowing us to be part of it; of course we resented it; of course we didn't want to talk about it. You'll feel the same when your children begin to leave the home, though I hope you'll handle it more gracefully than we did. Because we knew. It wasn't often, but every now and then we would see the two of you with your guard down, when you felt comfortable being yourselves. And, just seeing ... We could tell that eventually you would leave us, and go with him, and make him your family. Because that kind of love ... Can't be denied.

"He loves you. And you love him. And maybe he's not the right one for you; maybe this was all a mistake. But I know you, Caitlyn. And if you don't manage to make this work, well ... That will be an even bigger one.

"There; love is supporting someone even when they're planning something stupid; how am I doing?" She smiled.

Caitlyn threw herself into her arms again. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, sweetie," Linda Delaney said. And for the first time in years, maybe for the first time ever, her daughter believed it.



-------

Part 15


Day 80

The apartment was silent when Caitlyn let herself in.

This was to be expected; it was lunch time, and Jon preferred not to waste gas coming home during his break. Caitlyn had herself just gotten out of class. She had walked the familiar paths feeling like an intruder; it had been an effort to keep herself from skulking. From shuttered windows she felt accusing eyes burning her skin. Or was it her own guilt she felt?

For the most part, the place was as she'd left it; certainly Jon hadn't changed the locks or anything, or else she wouldn't've been able to get back in. Everything was a little dustier and dirtier, but she supposed that was to be expected. Her harps had not been touched, which didn't surprise her; Jon was about as knowledgeable about harps as Stephen Hawking. There were dishes drying on the dishrack—ugh, why did he always insist on having the glasses in front? Some nonsense about how they went into the cabinet first. The fridge contained nothing but a half-eaten box of pizza. There was a blanket and pillow on that terrible hammock-couch: why had he been sleeping out here? There was a perfectly good bed in the bedroom; she should know, she had slept in it for most of her life. Why had he stayed out here? Without really understanding how she got there, she found herself stretched out on the couch, her head where his head would be, her feet (near) where his feet would be. Yes, it was just as uncomfortable as she remembered.

The pillow smelled like his hair.

Suddenly she had to concentrate hard to keep her composure. She sat up again, forcing herself to be still. Come on, girl. It's just ... It's nothing. It's nothing. You'll get over him. He'll be a memory.

In theory, she had a letter she was going to put on the counter, where he would see it; in theory, she would leave that and then get out. Now she didn't want to move. She had bought this blanket for Jon, for no other reason than that he'd mentioned he wanted a fuzzy blanket. It was the color of steel wool and surprisingly soft to the touch. Everything here had some memory, some significance. This was the coffee table they'd seen for sale on a sidewalk—it was a sheet of pure glass balanced on gilded stilts—and that they'd haggled over for a good-natured half-hour, and then had to figure out how to wrestle home with only the space in Jon's Celica at their disposal. Those were her harps; no need to mention what they meant to her. And if she looked, she could still find the faint blotch they had left making love on New Year's Eve, which no amount of scrubbing could remove. It was subtle enough that no one had yet noticed it, but it was there.

How could she leave here? This was her home. But how could she stay? Her memories with Jon were what made it special; but was there room in her life for him anymore? More pertinently, was there room in his life for her—and all the values she brought with her? I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do.

Sound sent her jumping out of her introspection. It was the familiar grate, click, snap of a key opening the deadbolt. But it was 12:43 PM, and Jon was at work; who the heck else would have a key? Was she about to meet a paramour of his? Had someone stolen his keys? Would—

Jon Stanford walked through the door.

For a moment there was dead silence as they stared at each other.

Jon could feel his heart thundering. He had not slept well since the day she left and to his tired eyes she was the most beautiful thing in the world. He wondered for a moment if he were hallucinating. The curve of her cheek; the dark innocence of her eyes; the flow of her hair—he felt like a man dying of thirst, finally given the water of life.

Why on earth had he decided to come home for lunch today? What bizarre instinct or prescience had prompted this?

"Uh ... I..." she said. "I wasn't ... I was just coming in to ... To get some things."

" ... Oh," said Jon. He wanted to ask why she was sitting wrapped in his blanket, but he didn't trust his voice at the moment.

"I didn't think you'd..."

"I, umm. I. I could go back."

This sounded lame even to his own ears; the awkwardness of it cost them another minute of fumbled silence.

"I guess ... Next time I should, umm, call, or—"

"No, no, it's, it's, um. It's fine. I mean, you live here too. I wouldn't..."

He saw her expression sadden: after all, she didn't live here anymore. He wished he knew what to say to her. Wrapped in the blanket, pale against the dark grey of the winter clouds, there was a haunting vulnerability on her face, in her posture; she had never looked more beautiful to him. He wanted to go to her and draw her into the circle of his arms. He wanted her to live here again ... But would she?

As he watched, Caitlyn visibly pulled herself together. "Umm. Thank you for the backpack, by the way. It's made life ... A lot easier."

Jon shrugged. "It wasn't my idea. When Meredith and the others came..."

"You could've withheld it."

"What would be the point in that?" he said. Petty revenge was an empty pleasure to him.

"Umm, well then. I ... mostly came about the harps," she said. "They ... Because we were forced to buy them from my parents, and did so with money from a joint account, there is a sticky legal question about the ownership. We need to decide ... About them, and also the money in the account."

"You can have them back," he said. "And we'll split the funds." The harps were worth nothing to him; there was nothing he could do with them. And having them gone would be another reminder he didn't have to deal with. "I don't ... I'm not in the business of causing problems for you, Caitlyn."

"Okay," she said. He was wearing the black dress shirt she had always liked, with the wide pointed collars; it brought out the coloring in his eyes and hair, the breadth of his shoulders, strength of his jaw. Everyone looked good in black, but she had always thought he wore it better than most. Certainly better than that that fop Aidan. She never wanted to look away; she clung to the sight of him like a drowning woman. "I'm not going to take your salary from you, Jon. Whatever you've earned since we moved in together, you get to keep. If you could assemble—"

"It doesn't matter to me," he said. "I won't ... I'll probably give up the apartment. It's too empty with ... with one person. And why waste money on this when I could, you know, move home and ... It doesn't matter to me. You'll need the money more than I will, you have to move out on your own now." It was that darned nobility of his, the one which could almost make her believe that chivalry had not died. It was one of the things about him she loved best.

"I ... I'm not ... I'm not moving out, Jon," she said.

She could see his face fall, and she realized he must think she had returned willingly to her parents. Which of course was true, but her parents had changed now. So had she. He thought she was willingly jailing herself again, when nothing could be further from the truth.

But what was the point of saying it? It didn't matter; not anymore.

"Well," he said. "Still. We'll split it half and half."

"No, that's not fair to—"

"It doesn't matter," he snapped. "Caitlyn, the money ... doesn't matter."

Suddenly she understood: for him, the money was all about her. He didn't earn it because he needed it, which was completely accurate; she'd rarely known anyone as frugal, as content within himself. He earned it to support her—her, and all she represented. Would he quit his job after this? She hoped not: the thought of him lolling aimlessly around his parents' house filled her with sadness. Let him keep some direction, some momentum in his life. Let him find some meaning. Now that the only meaning that mattered to him had been stripped away.

"Jon, the money doesn't matter to me either," she said. After all, she felt the same way: under her parents, her needs were fulfilled. Money was a tool to buy a future with ... And now that she had none, what good was it?

Jon jerked his head. "Well, fine, then, we'll give the whole darn thing to the poor. Fuck. Why's it always have to be such a battle with you?"

Because I don't want you to be alone,  she thought. Because I don't want to have taken everything from you. I have to leave you something. I love you. I have to leave you something.

"Do you ... Do you really mean it?"

"Mean what?" He felt instantly contrite. What a thoughtless thing to say—why hadn't he been watching his tongue? This was no longer the sort of relationship where he could just blurt out whatever was on his mind. Not anymore it wasn't.

"About ... Giving to the poor?"

Jon tossed a hand. "Well, if we can't use it, we might as well give it to someone who can." Wasn't it Thoreau who had said, 'Simplify, simplify'? Surely this counted.

"That's ... That's a very Christian thing to do," Caitlyn said. Her large eyes seemed to draw at him.

Jon resisted them. Did she really need to rub it in his face like that? He remembered what they'd broken up over. "It shouldn't be that much of a surprise, Caitlyn. I do try. I just don't necessarily succeed."

"Do you?" she asked.

"Fuck. I even pray now. Not like there's anyone else to talk to out here." That was true, as far as it went; sometimes the silence got oppressive, and there was only so much he could do on the Internet to keep himself occupied. (At times like this he wished he'd bothered to bring his PlayStation.) He wasn't sure he dared contact the Cranes or the Chamberses, since they had all but declared their neutrality by offering to transfer some goods to Caitlyn. And, to be honest, there was some solace in pouring out his thoughts to God. Rarely did The Big Guy ever say anything, but it made Jon feel better to think that there might be Some Eternal Ear listening to his woes. Certainly his only other conversational partner—a fellow named Jon Stanford—seemed unsympathetic to his plight.

Suddenly he remembered what they had broken up over. This was too close to dangerous territory. He shut his mouth and decided not to say anything more, and for a time there was silence.

Caitlyn finally said, "I'd ... Better go. My ... My mom will be wondering where I am."

"Yeah," Jon said, feeling bitterness take hold. Back she goes. Everything I offered her—all the hope, all the future, everything—and she'd rather just go back to her broken family and their broken love. I gave her everything, and she wouldn't ... Why did I bother thinking anyone could change. Nobody ever does, nobody ever learns. They just keep on doing the same dumb things they were taught ... Which means I'm doomed, because I wanted to change—I wanted to be better than just what I was programmed with.

At least now I don't have to waste my time trying.

He decided to pretend like he actually felt that way. Maybe, if he did it long enough, it would become true.

She had stood up and shed the blanket, and was now walking towards him. He took a step sideways to give her room to pass, trying to ignore how her eyes looked when he did it. He didn't want to. He wanted to plant himself in her way and never let her go.

They had long ago reached the point where their wants didn't matter anymore.

"Will you ... Will you be okay?" she said.

Jon looked away. "I'll be fine. I'll live ... This isn't the first break-up I've lived through."

He felt rather than saw her flinch away. "Well ... Okay then." She sounded ready to cry. He had to harden his heart against it. "Good-bye."

He said nothing.

The door opened.

Suddenly he felt panic seize him. She was actually going to do it. She was actually going to walk out of his life. His wife, his dream, his woman— "Caitlyn."

She turned.

He felt his throat knot, had to concentrate to clear it out. This was not the time to garble. "Isn't there ... Some way to work it out?"

Caitlyn tried not to feel hope blossom in her chest. This was not the time to break down. "I ... I don't know, Jon. Why ... Why wouldn't there be?"

"Well ... Because ... You..." His mouth was working soundlessly, as though trying words on for size, discarding three for every one. "You left," he said finally. "You said that ... That you couldn't live with ... With someone who ... Who wasn't Christian."

She wasn't sure she could face that. How right she had been—and how wrong. "And you said that you couldn't live with ... With someone who needed you to be one. You said it wasn't for you."

He was silent for a long moment.

"I..."

She watched his face—those dark, intelligent eyes; the brow wrinkled in thought. His eyebrows had always been a work of art: perfectly arched, not a hair out of place. How much she missed him!

"Maybe I..."

He put his hand to his face—the old familiar gesture.

"Maybe I ... Was wrong about that," he said.

Caitlyn felt her face go white even as hope took flight in her.

"I ... What you said about ... About me trying ... You were right," he said, his speech slow as though every phrase were a separate thought. "I should try. It's hard, and sometimes it seems crazy to me, and I don't know if I can succeed, but ... I learned that. When you were gone. I learned that I should ... always ... Try."

He caught her gaze with his own.

"It's the right thing for me to do. For me. And for you too. Because, if you want it for me ... It's right."

She could say nothing. Her heart had leapt into her throat and there was nothing she could get out around it—nothing like, Praise the Lord, or, I'm so glad for you, or, Yes, I'll take you back, YES!!! The most important moment of her life and she could not get the words out—

"But, then..." He sighed. "You're still choosing away from me. You're always choosing something else. You say Yes to everyone except me. I never know when you're going to leave me and go back to what's really important to you—"

"Jon," she forced out. The words were garbled to her ears. "What's really important to me is you."

He was silent, but in his eyes there was a light of wild hope.

"You were right, you were so right ... You didn't ... You were right and I was wrong. I wanted things a certain way and I couldn't see that I already had them—you were loving me, but just because you didn't ... You didn't seem to be Christian, I didn't believe that ... I didn't really believe that anyone loved me. I didn't believe that I could be loved. And ... You were right. I shouldn't let people manipulate me, I should be willing to stand up for myself. It's okay to say No."

"You mean..." he whispered.

"Yeah," she said. "If you ... If you asked me to come back..."

"Then ... Then you would," he said. "Because you could."

"And you could take me back," she said. "Because you don't have any problems with me anymore."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

"Okay," she said.

"So..." he said. "Would you come back to me?"

" ... Yeah!" she said.

She let the door swing shut and hurtled into him. His arms settled around her as if by instinct, and the last thing she saw was his surprised face before she squeezed her eyes shut and buried her tears in his chest.

"I was wrong too," she whispered. Oh, for a second chance, a second chance, what would I have given for this...  "I was so wrong to assume that ... That just because you didn't follow the rules, you weren't ... You were always the voice of reason, telling me to be careful."

"And you were always the voice of wisdom, telling me to be brave."

"Maybe that's how we know we're right for each other," she said. "And how could I have been so stupid!"

"I wasn't very smart either," he said.

"Next time that happens, you have to stop me, okay?"

"Only if you promise to stop me."

"Of course." She raised her head to look at him. "Baby, you don't think I'm letting you take this journey alone, do you? I want to be there. I want to see what Christ says to you. I want to see what God calls you to." She reached up to touch his face; the contact burned her fingertips. "And I want to go with you.

"And besides," she added, "I have to stay near you, so you can remind me to let myself be loved."

He raised his eyebrows. "I can't imagine how that went over with your parents. They must've blown a gasket."

"Oh, my God, Jon! You won't believe it!" (Wait, what did I just say?) "They changed! They changed, Jon! I talked to them about it and they listened! They actually listened!"

"They listened?" he said, clearly incredulous. "You talked about it?"

"Well, okay, some of it was, umm, not quite as polite as talking," she said, "but ... They did listen." Even now she wasn't entirely sure how she'd done it. "They started to see that sometimes they hurt the people they love, and ... They decided they didn't want to do that anymore."

"My God," he said. "People can change."

"I know, they can," she said. "Isn't it amazing? Just when you thought you knew it all. Just when you thought you understood everything."

"God walks in," he said.

"God walks in," she agreed. "And a miracle happens."

"Yes," he whispered. "A miracle happens." She felt his lips brush the top of her head.

Suddenly overwhelmed by a new freshet of tears, she pressed her face to his chest. "Don't ever leave me, Jon. Don't ever." She hung on tight, until she thought she could hear his ribs creak. "I almost made the biggest mistake of my life. Promise me you won't let me. Promise me that when I'm stupid, when something goes wrong, you'll stay with me. We'll work it out. Promise me we'll work it out."

"Yes," he whispered, drawing her in tighter. "Yes. Caitlyn, all that goes for me too. I almost lost you. We almost lost each other."

"Because we were stupid."

"Because we couldn't compromise."

"Because we were blind."

"Because we were proud."

"We were such fools."

"And let's never be fools again. Never. Never, Caitlyn, never..." And now he was crying too, his tears warm as they traced their way through her hair.

Clumsily, blind with tears, she pulled down his lips to kiss him.

Her arms stole around his neck, his around her waist. Her mouth opened to admit the caress of his tongue, and she responded to it with her own. His hands began to roam her back. Her tears were drying to frost on her face as passion consumed them. They were close, body to body, chest to chest, and she suddenly became aware of the hard warmth poking at her belly, of the ache between her legs. It had been too long, far too long. Once she had been embarrassed about these things, but now all she wanted to do was love him.

"Oh God," he breathed.

"Oh baby," she whispered.

"Caitlyn, I love you," he said. "Caitlyn, I love you so much..."

"I love you," she said. "You're my better half. I'm nothing without you."

"You're mine too. I..." He seemed to give up on words and simply kissed her again.

The bed was waiting for them. She understood now why he had slept on the couch: he couldn't bear to be in this bed without her. She would have felt the same. But now they wouldn't have to.

Her pants slid to the floor, her panties following. He fumbled at his zipper; then his cock sprang free, hard and proud and ready. As he positioned himself over her, she lay back on the bed and let sensation fill her.

In one slow thrust, he slid home.

She felt tears in her eyes again, good ones this time—happy tears. She reached up and drew his head to her breast, pressing him against her heart. And she felt a wetness, a coolness on her shirt, that might have been his tears too.

She didn't know which she wanted—to feel him close to her or to feel him inside her; to love him or to fuck him. And for a while they simply stayed there; his cock buried inside her, sharing their love and their tears and their kisses. When he began to move again it was gloriously good; she felt her breasts straining against her shirt, the buttons on his shirt pressing a line down her body. She pulled her legs up from the floor and wrapped them around him, changing the angle of his cock inside her, bringing him deeper, welcoming him home.

Jon was lost to himself, feeling only her body under her, her arms and legs cradling him, the warmth of her depths down his full length. Every sensation was heightened to him: her chest expanding against his with her every breath, her hands on his back, her every ridge and fold caressing him with every stroke. He didn't want to feel anything else. He didn't want to be anywhere else. He was home.

He moved up to kiss her as his orgasm drew closer. She must have sensed it, or known: "Come for me, baby. Come inside me. Make me your woman."

He did.

As he pushed into her, he felt the pressure like an earthquake inside him, mounting to the point of bursting. And then it was there, and he was there, and his pleasure exploded out in a great gush, rushing out into her, giving her the ultimate proof of his love and his pleasure. The walls of her pussy stroked him, wet and warm; her legs rubbed against the sides of his body; her breath caressed his ear as she threw her head back, sighing her pleasure as she felt the flood of his cum; his cock throbbed and clenched, the semen pulsing out of him; her body cushioned him, pressed up against him; and through it all was the delirious love, and the joy of having her back. His wife. His woman. His Caitlyn.

He pressed his face to hers and felt the tears there. "Never leave me," he whispered. "I love you. I need you."

"Always," she whispered.

They cuddled together under the covers, face to face, her head tucked under his, protected by the arch of his neck. He told her about the conversation he'd had with their friends, and about the feeling of confidence when he finally decided to open himself to God. She told him what Meredith and Christa had said to her, and about the argument with her parents. They made love again; this time she went down on him, pleasuring him with her mouth, making love to his penis slowly and tenderly, and this time when he came she let him come in her mouth, wanting his seed, wanting his pleasure. His cum was still unpleasant, but good too, its saltiness like the condensation of his pleasure; this time she didn't care, and swallowed it all. This time she had her orgasm, his hand between her legs and his lips teasing her neck, before she drew him back on top of her, and another when he penetrated her, her body clenching around him, feeling every ridge and vein inside her, the beat of his heart against hers. As he reached his final climax, gushing inside her, she gloried in it, drawing him close, and feeling that she would melt with love. And afterwards, still wrapped in each other, they slept.

Eventually, real life came back. Jon's stomach was rumbling, a reminder of why he had come home in the first place, and his cellphone was ringing with calls from his office and coworkers. He'd gone home for lunch three hours ago, had something happened? Where was he? And Caitlyn, who was no less hungry, called her mother as well.

"Hi, Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Umm ... I thought I should tell you that I won't be coming back tonight."

"Why not? Has something happened?"

"I ... Well ... I came home," she said.

"Caitlyn, you're not making sense here, " said her mother.

Jon smiled. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Delaney."

" ... Oh. —Oh! Have you reconciled?"

Caitlyn beamed. "Yes, Mom. We're going to give it another chance."

"Well, then!" said Mrs. Delaney. "That's good! Caitlyn, you left a load of laundry in the wash, so please do stop by so the rest of us can use the machine. But I'll tell your father not to expect you for dinner."

"Mo-ooomm," said Caitlyn, half blushing. "My laundry isn't that messy."

"Caitlyn, I don't even begin to comprehend whatever complicated system you have for your mountains of clothes, " Mrs. Delaney said, her smile audible. "And we'll see you at church."

"Oh?" said Caitlyn. So far as she was aware, she hadn't been planning anything for Sunday. She certainly wasn't planning anything now—not with a husband to reunite with.

"Well, I presume you have a great deal to give thanks for, " said her mother.

Jon smiled. "That we do, Mrs. Delaney. That we do."

They made sandwiches naked, tripping over each other, laughing, drunk with love, and ate on the couch arm-in-arm because they didn't want to let go of each other. But as the realities set in, Caitlyn felt a little more sober about things. "Jon ... There's still a ways to go. We may have ... We may have decided to give it another try, and work things out, but ... We still have to work things out."

Jon looked at her quizzically. "Do you think it won't work?"

"No, I..." She sighed. "I shouldn't admit this, but even if you weren't able to find God, I would love you anyway. I've learned that ... The hard way."

"You should admit that," he said, tilting her chin up until he met her eyes—the old familiar gesture. "That's why we're back together, isn't it? Isn't that what we had to break up to learn? That the whole point is to love each other as they are?—not as we think they should be."

"Yeah, but ... Jon, it really does bug me that you won't open your heart that way."

He gave her a wry smile. "And it bugs me that you won't stand up for yourself. But I'm not going to break up with you about it."

She returned his twisted smile. "Fair enough."

"Besides, sweetie, what if I did demand it from you? If I said, 'Okay, Caitlyn, I'll love you if you become the way I think you should'? How would you react?"

She gave him a mock glower. "I'd tell you what I told my parents, which is, Screw you."

"Exactly. And if I said, 'Caitlyn, I love you, and always will, and that's why I'm concerned about blablablah'? If I said it that way?"

She saw. "Which is why breaking up isn't the right thing to do over these problems. The right thing to do is stay together."

"Because if I leave you, and if you leave me, we'll never change. But if we stay together..."

"And if you help me, and I help you..."

"Because God only knows it's easier to change if you have someone nearby to remind you to do it."

"No kidding," she said.

He sighed. "I'd be lying if I said I had perfect confidence in this whole thing either. Sweetie, you have to understand that, while I'm trying to be open to God, my faith won't necessarily be the same as yours. Not as ... All-encompassing. Not as loud. If you need me to become your type of Christian, I'm not sure I ever can."

"Jon, it's not about type or flavor or whatever," she said. "My faith is different than Nathan's, which is different than Mom's, which is different from Gramma's. It doesn't matter to me what kind you have—as long as you have it."

"Okay," he said. "And ... Besides," he added, "it's because I love you that I want to change."

She nodded. "It's like, 'Be deprived of my love, or be deprived of your self.' And seriously, what do you think I'm gonna choose at that point."

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "I can see your transformation took hold just fine."

"But if it's, 'Be loved, or be loved and be a better person... '"

"Yeah," he said. "And who else is worth being a better person for?"

"How did we not see this?" she said. "It's like ... Completely obvious."

"At least we figured it out before we did something really stupid," he said.

"Yeah. My God, can you imagine us having to actually divorce and go our separate ways?"

"No," he said, as if it was as simple as that.

She put her sandwich plate on the coffee table so that she could hug him with both arms. "Good. Neither can I."

He held her tightly. "I don't want to be apart from you, Caitlyn. You're my better half."

She smiled into his chest. "How is that possible?—you're my better half."

"Well..." She heard him smile. "Anything's possible with God, I guess."

"Yeah. With God, and with love ... Anything's possible."



-------

Part 16


Day 90

On the morning of his wedding reception, Jonathan Rupert Stanford was up before the sun. Outside the window was the orange glow of a streetlight; it cast its glare up through the prison-bar pattern of the shutters, painting zebra stripes on the ceiling overhead. He was sweating and his heart was racing. He had dreamed that he was alone, and that all the world had somehow gone, and left him behind. He had been alone on a long, featureless void; all that he could see was sere grey stone, with a purple-black sky above, devoid of any feature: no insect or grass or sky or even sunlight. It had been the most bitter desolation he had ever known.

His arms were empty. The bed was empty.

For a moment Jon felt a scream of panic in his head, blotting out all other thought. Was the dream true? Had Caitlyn left him? Had something gone wrong—some decision he had made, some off-hand thing he had said, some quirk in her conscience—to cause her to give up and abandon him again? Was he, once again, alone? But then his eyes fell upon a streak of yellowish light on the floor of the bathroom, light leaking out from the toilet closet, and the thought penetrated his crazed mind that she might have merely gotten up to go to the bathroom—a hypothesis supported by the rattle of a toilet bowl in use. Never mind. False alarm.

She seemed to be in there a long time; as his sweat cooled and his heart slowed, he wondered if her departure had been the reason he'd woken. He couldn't remember what the dream had been before all everything had been taken away, but he did know the rapidity of dreams; he could remember times when he'd been visited by half-hour epics in the seven minutes allotted to him by the "snooze" button. Perhaps his subconscious mind had noticed her withdrawing from his arms and worked it into the dream.

And that caused me to dream about the end of the world?

Of course it did. What else would it be?

When she came back to bed, her expression suggested she was surprised to find him awake, but she smiled and slid into his arms and kissed him nonetheless. "Good morning," she said.

"Better, now that you're here."

"I hope I didn't wake you," she said.

"It's okay," he said. "Besides, I doubt this'll be the first time."

"Mmm," she said. She snuggled into his arms, feeling how good it was to be there—his warm, strong body protecting her from harm, his arms gathering her to him. His embrace made her feel precious. And it was good to be reminded that they would have the rest of their lives together. She had doubted that, too often, over the course of their first ninety days.

She became suddenly aware of the clamminess of his skin, and how hard his heart was going. "Honey, are you okay?"

"Umm," he said, his voice vibrating in his chest. "I had kind of a bad dream."

"Oh," she said. "Why? My parents weren't that traumatic last night, were they?"

"No, it wasn't that," Jon said. "They were ... They were different. For the first time I felt like they accepted me."

"Yeah."

"For the first time, I felt like they accepted you. Like they weren't just storing up things to complain about later."

"Ohh, they still have stuff to say about me," Caitlyn said with a wry smile. "They just let me ignore it now."

"Still. That's a big step."

"Yeah."

She felt his lips brush the top of her head. "You guys have come a long way."

"We have." It had not always been easy; already she'd had three arguments with her parents about whether or not they'd fallen back into their old ways, and she'd been living with Jon again ever since that fateful day. Of course, being with Jon wasn't always perfect either. But they were trying. All of them were trying. "We all have."

"Yeah."

"Then what was your nightmare about?"

"Well..." She felt him tense a little. "You had left me."

Was that his nightmare? Just that?—that I'd gone?

 ... But then again, hasn't that been his nightmare? And mine, too?

She kissed his chest, right above the beating heart. "But I came back."

"Yeah." His arms tightened around her, drawing her close. "Yeah."

When she awoke again, there was sunlight instead of lamplight slanting through the windows. A glance at the clock showed that it was nearly nine; they didn't need to be anywhere until the reception. Jon was still asleep, the heat of his morning wood pressed against her. That gave her an idea: she wanted him to wake up with him in her mouth.

And in this case at least, what Caitlyn wanted, Caitlyn got.

She knew the exact moment when he snapped back to consciousness—his breath caught, and his whole body tensed a little. Then she felt his hands caressing her face, stroking her hair. "Baby, you should know," he said, "I'm not going to last much longer."

She smiled up at him. "Good."

She fastened her lips around his erection and began to suck in earnest. She positioned her tongue to stroke the little underside ridge while she bobbed up and down the shaft, giving him the in-out motion she knew would stimulate him best. And when she felt his climax boil over, she brought him deep into her mouth so that he spurted to the back, and she swallowed it all as he came.

The dazed look in his eyes as he opened them was all the reward she wanted. He drew her to him and kissed her, and then tucked her head under his chin. She curled up on his chest, feeling his heart beat under her, totally content.

"Okay," he said eventually. "Now that you've done that, I really have to go to the bathroom."

When he returned, he cupped her chin with a hand. "How come you swallow sometimes and others you don't?"

It was a good question, one she had been thinking about herself. The first time she'd done fellatio on him, she had decided she never wanted to taste cum again, nor feel it in her mouth; but as time had passed, her opinion had changed. Certainly she never had a problem with the actual fellating, only with the cum at the end; certainly she began to like sucking him off more and more, especially after she realized how fun it was to be right there (right there) when he came, feeling it through lips and tongue instead of only through two layers of skin and nerve and tissue, when he was inside her down below. (It was fun to have him come there too, of course, but the simple fact was that her genitals were not designed for detailed observation.) And ever since they'd reunited, they'd been making love seemingly non-stop; she'd sucked him off almost every day, sometimes at his urging and sometimes of her own volition—but only sometimes did she swallow.

"I dunno," she said, shrugging. "I think ... It has to do with my mood at the time. Sometimes you want me to, and I like to, but ... I don't really like having cum in my mouth."

"Fair enough," he said. "I'm not sure I would either."

"But ... If I'm really into it, and I'm doing it because I want to, then ... It ... It's actually kind of a turn-on for me. I, like ... It's really hot to think that I'm using my body to bring you off. It's really hot to be ... Part of that process, and to use every faculty I have to serve your pleasure. When I'm doing it, it's okay."

"So, let me get this straight," he said, amused. "If I ask you to do it, you don't want to swallow. But if you want to do it, you do."

"No, it's ... I still don't, if it's me doing it. It's more that..." She struggled to articulate the thought. " ... There's more important things than the fact that I don't want to swallow."

He was silent for a moment.

"Why? Is that ... Weird?"

"No," he said, "actually, I was just thinking that maybe that's the right way to approach the whole thing. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, you should think about whether it makes your partner happy, and ... Just ... Go for it."

His words made her feel a little ashamed of herself. "And here it took me three months to pick up on the idea."

"It's okay," he said. "You were new to sex. There was a lot you had to get used to."

"Yeah, but ... That was the attitude I was taking to the whole rest of my life," she said. " 'If it makes other people happy, then it's worth it—even if it makes me unhappy.' That's what I was doing for other people ... But not to you." She sighed. "Heck, I was even ignoring you to do it for other people. That's lousy."

"Nonsense," he said. "You were still getting used to it. No shame in that. Besides, a lot of what I wanted to try, we ended up not liking."

"Yeah, but ... I shouldn't've hesitated. I never did with anything else in my life."

Suddenly he gave a soft laugh. "God, look at us. You're arguing that I should be upset, and I'm arguing that you shouldn't. Talk about ass-backwards."

She smiled. "Yeah, I guess this is the better way to do it."

"Remember that one time we were in the Shellview library, and we were arguing about who should carry the books?"

The memory widened her smile. "You were saying that you were the boyfriend, so you should carry all of them. And I was saying that it was my research project, so I should carry all of them."

"And the librarian said, 'If that's all you have to argue about, you're in good shape.' We smiled the whole way to the car."

"It seems so long ago," she said. "Was it really ... Early November?"

"Well ... We've come a long way since then," he said, taking her hand in his own. He had her left hand, which had the wedding ring on it. "Things have changed. We've gotten stronger."

"And had our share of troubles," she said.

"And had those," he said, kissing her hand. "But..." He leaned in, and instinctively she tilted her head to receive his lips. "In the end..." He kissed her again, beginning to shift his weight. "I think ... Our love ... Is still ... That strong." In between kisses he levered himself forward, so that now she lay beneath him, pinned to the bed—just the way she liked it.

"I sure hope so," she whispered, entwining her arms around his neck, "because I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend the rest of my life with."

They kissed for a long time, simply enjoying the moment; she cradled him in her arms, caressing his back as his lips began to wander over her flesh, coaxing him to lie in between her legs. She loved him; she loved how he could make her body feel. When his lips attached themselves to her nipples, she sighed and pressed herself up to meet him. She could already feel the bar of his erection against her leg, and the corresponding warmth between her own legs—a sense of slipperiness, and the beginnings of an ache begging to be filled.

His hand slipped between her legs, and breath rushed out of her at the dual stimulation. She felt the heel of his palm against her clitoris, his middle finger across her opening, its tip on the little patch of flesh between her pussy and her anus; then he began to rock his hand from side to side, and thought became a low priority. He was making her ready, preparing to make her his, and she gave him free rein over her, gave him her body to do with as he pleased.

And he did.

As he continued to fondle her, he reached up to put her hand on his member; taking his instructions, she began to stroke it. And when he had judged she was ready, he withdrew his hand from below and, to her surprise, cupped her cheek with his hand. She smelled her own arousal there, felt her own wetness against her cheek; and, in acceptance, she pressed his hand to her face with her own, turned it to kiss his palm.

She saw the light in his eyes and had an instant to wonder what it meant. Then he had her: her hands pinned by his own, pinned above her head. Suddenly she was trapped, her hips pressed to the bed by his own, her hands and arms trapped in place, her breasts exposed and proud in their silvery-wet arousal.

She saw the light in his eyes and felt a thrill of fear, chased by a thrill of excitement.

"Well, I've got you now," he said, sounding very smug. "What, precisely, am I going to do with you?"

She recognized the play-acting in his voice and responded to it. She knew how a proper woman was supposed to react. "You may have captured my body, you vile man, but you shall never have my spirit."

He gave her a leer that was actually rather convincing. "It's not your spirit I want, missy." And, without letting go of her hands, he dove at her breasts again.

It was the same as before; it was so much better. Her whole body felt ramped up; her heart thundered in her ears. Before she could at least squirm in reaction or something; now she was trapped, almost completely immobile, and her only option was to suffer through it—as if feeling every sensation doubled could be counted as 'suffering.' Her breasts felt twice as sensitive as normal; she could feel his lips, the bumps of his tongue against her nipples, the faint pulling sensation as he sucked, even the warm rush of breath through his nose against her skin.

He tried to move her wrists together, and she struggled, only partially in play. But Jon was stronger than her (of course he was), and suddenly she was pinioned by only one hand. Now he had one free—and where should it go but between her legs.

"The young miss seems to like it," observed Jon in his reedy 'villain' voice.

She had to think to find an appropriate response for that one; it was hard, with pleasure coursing through her this way. "Have you no mercy, you beast? My body may have yielded to you, but in my heart I will resist you until the end."

"Oh, go ahead and resist then," he said, with that thin grin, "it makes it more fun."

She did—for all the good it did her. Though she bucked against him, he held fast; he did outweigh her by a fourth or so. And—purely by coincidence, of course—every movement brought her clit into sharp contact with his hand, sending shocks and tingles through her body. By the time she had given up, she was panting even harder than before—and only partially from the exertion.

"Hmmm," said her 'assailant.' "I think you're ready for what I've got in mind."

Martyred to the last, she gave a dramatic sigh. "Do as you please, you uncouth ruffian. But know that every moment of pleasure my body experiences will only sanctify me in the eyes of the Lord."

"Well then," he sniggered, "you ought to be pleased: your holiness is the most important thing on my mind."

Her surprise at that remark—it was the last thing she would have expected his 'character' to say—must have shown in his eyes, for he chortled again and then reached down to position himself at her entrance. There was a moment of fumbling as she felt the head of his cock brushing against her labia; and then he was sinking into her, in and in, caressing her with every vein and ridge, until finally he had bottomed out inside her and there was no more to give.

"Feeling holy yet?" he said.

"Ha," she returned, "it would take more than that to sanctify me."

"Got a high opinion of yourself, dontcha," he mumbled offhand.

It was almost too much; she felt a laugh bubble up and had to force it back down. "I'm worth far more than a scoundrel like you," she retorted, her game face back on. Why does he have to talk? Why can't he just fuck me?

He affected offense. "Why, now. That's an unkind thing for a woman to say. Guess I'll have to convince you."

"And how, precisely, do you plan to do that?" she said.

He withdrew and pushed back in, just one. She gasped, feeling the thrust all the way up her body, from her hips to her bobbing breasts to the flex of her arms.

"A man has his ways," he said.

Each thrust was exquisite torture; she felt sensitive, so sensitive, and every movement was magnified. She felt the ridge around the head of his cock pressing against her inside walls with every thrust and withdrawal, felt his balls brushing against her ass; he had moved up her body, and every thrust brought her clit into contact with the base of his cock. He was resting his weight on her, mostly, pressing her into the bed; she could feel the rigid tension in his arms from holding himself up. Unable to brace herself, her whole body moved with each thrust, absorbing the shock; she felt her breasts swinging free, her nipples brushing up and down against his chest with every thrust. His face was there, right there, eyes crimped in concentration. And through it all was the glorious sensation of his cock inside her, his body against hers, his strength holding her down, her body bearing up to him, pressing up to him, welcoming him, wanting more, urging him on despite her own immobility. She wanted this. She wanted him.

Suddenly she was cumming—she didn't even know how it happened, only that it had: she felt the power overwhelm her, and then it was bursting through her, and for one transcendent moment she felt with perfect clarity every ridge and vein of him, every inch of his skin pressed against hers—the stiffness of his nipples, his ribs pressing down on her, his breath on her face, the bristle of his public hair tangled in her own—before she was gone; her body spased and contracted around him, clenching at his cock with marvelous strength, exhausting itself against his body, and she was plummeting over the edge, falling, lost to her pleasure, gone.

When she could feel again, she opened her eyes to find his face still hovering above her; the hard intrusion down below was still present. "Well, now," he snickered. "Looks like someone's gotten a mite holier. Now it's my turn."

It was in-character for her to just lie there and take it, and she barely felt able to move anyway. Besides, he must have been close; it was only a minute or so of him rutting away at her, which was just fine because that was about how long it took for her to come back to earth. Lying there, trying to keep an exhausted smile from her face, she felt him pushing into her, penetrating her, caressing himself against her pussy, using her exquisite embrace to bring himself to his pleasure; felt him stiffen, heard the little groan; felt him push his way as deep as he could; felt the sudden warmth inside her, the pulsing sensation, the way his cock throbbed as it squirted inside her, the change from burst to slow gush as the last of his cum dribbled out into her. She wished she were more awake to enjoy it.

Then he collapsed against her, spent.

For a long time all there was was their breathing, the sound of their exhaustion. She broke it first. "Baby?"

He knew from that word that she had broken character, that the long charade was over. "Yeah?"

"I love you. I love you so much."

"I love you too," he whispered, and released her hands so that she could hug him.

Then, still joined, they fell asleep again.

-------

The reception, they had decided, was going to be mostly for fun.

True, people were allowed to dress up, but only if they felt like it, and the Stanfords had emphasized in the invitations that no presents were required or, in fact, allowed (unless someone should happen to feel really moved by the Spirit, they wrote, at which point it would be only polite to accept this kind and Christian gesture). The food, though catered by the hotel providing the hall, was as cheap as Jon felt they could get away with, and the DJ was a friend of Caitlyn's from Shellview State who had offered a significant you're-my-friend discount. (Actually, she had offered to do it for free, wanting the exposure and experience, but Caitlyn had insisted on some sort of fee.) As formal occasions went, this was going to be about as informal as one could get; as Jon and Caitlyn saw it, it was more important to get together the people they loved, and have fun with them, than anything else.

The two of them were not ashamed to be part of the entertainment. Octapella had whipped up a fifteen-minute set, and Caitlyn would perform a duet with Meredith that the two had used on several previous occasions. As they saw it, this party was as much for their friends' benefit—perhaps more so—than their own.

The two of them arrived somewhat early, certain that things would be going frantically wrong, and were pleasantly surprised to find that nothing could be further from the case. Christa and Meredith were there, the former coordinating things with her usual efficiency, both surprised to see them there. "We called around ten-ish, but you didn't answer," Meredith said. "So we just came and did as best we could."

"Ten," Caitlyn said. When she glanced at Jon, he knew she was thinking the same thing he was.

"We were, umm..." said Jon. "Occupied."

"Naturally," said Meredith. "But so occupied that you couldn't hear the phone ring?"

"Well, actually, we'd just about worn ourselves out by that point," Caitlyn said. "We were, umm ... Exploring new options."

"Oh?" said Christa, curious. "Did that, umm, other possibility finally get worked out?"

"It did," Caitlyn said, beaming. Jon found himself smiling too. He still had his reservations, but he had to admit it was thrilling while it lasted.

"What other possibility?" Meredith said.

"Well ... I wanted him to dominate me," Caitlyn said. Jon felt his eyebrows make the customary climb: he hadn't thought she'd say it this publicly.

"What?" Meredith said. "How come I never heard about this?"

"I thought I told you," Christa said, startled.

Jon, grinning, left them to take a circuit around the room. Everything seemed to be coming together as they'd planned: the configuration of tables, the food, the flowers, just about everything. Of course, he might not recognize an error if he saw it; while he'd been somewhat involved, most of the details were in Caitlyn's head, or Meredith's, or Christa's. Feeling confident everything was in good hands, he went outside to begin moving the harp into position.

Eventually, guests began to arrive, some quite early, and the four of them withdrew to get their party clothes on. Caitlyn had spent the entire time chatting with the other girls, and seemed surprised (if pleased) that Jon had at least gone through the trouble of deploying the harp. "Sorry, I got a little distracted."

"Did you have a nice talk," Jon asked, smiling.

"Yeah, we, umm. We talked about a lot of things."

He saw her blush, and his smile widened. "Trading ideas?"

"Umm," she said, blushing even further. "Maybe."

They got dressed, wearing (by choice) the same thing they'd worn to their actual wedding almost three months ago. Caitlyn, looking at her husband, admired how the tuxedo brought out his height and the breadth of his shoulder; Jon, admiring his wife, noted how the dress highlighted her figure, the richness of her hair, the pale color of her eyes. Both thought to themselves, I must be the luckiest person alive.

As they drove back, Caitlyn finally broached the topic of what they'd done that morning. "So, um ... How was it for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well ... You were saying that you were worried," she said. "You were saying that ... You exerting power over me wasn't something you liked the idea of."

"Yeah," said Jon. "Caitlyn, power begs use. I don't ... I mean, now I know I can hold you down and have my way with you in bed. What about when I start wanting to do that outside of bed?"

She reached to the steering wheel and placed her hand on his. "Jon. What did we do today in bed that I didn't want you to do?"

"Well ... Nothing, really."

"Exactly. I wanted it, and you knew I wanted it. After that, we just had fun. And it was fun, wasn't it?"

He thought back to his off-hand comment about holiness and how she'd almost broken character. "Yeah, it was ... It was kind of fun." And then: "I was surprised at how hard you came."

"Yeah, I ... I don't think I've ever come that hard in my life. But, don't you see? It's because I was so turned on."

He gave her a roll of his eyes without taking them from the road.

"And ... Jon, I trust you. I know you'd never push me to do something I wouldn't want to. And that's why I can enjoy that kind of play. Because I know that, no matter what, you still have my best interests at heart."

"I have pushed you to do something you wouldn't want to," he said. "Remember?"

She remembered. "Well, first off: that's why we ought to have a safe word. Obviously we didn't have time to set one up today, but we will. Second off: Jon, you didn't push me into anything. You told me you wanted to try something, and I decided to let you."

"You said you wouldn't like it."

"I said I might not like it," she corrected him. Okay, so I was 95% sure of that. But I love you enough to have tried it anyway. "Heck, you said you might not like it, Jon. That's why we tried it. In the end, we both didn't like it, and that was that. If it hadn't been for the other issues we were facing, we would've just shrugged and laughed it off."

"Are you sure? I thought you said you thought it was ... Wrong."

She realized she probably hadn't told him the whole story. "Jon, I thought it was wrong for us. It didn't hurt, and it wasn't uncomfortable, but I didn't ... It didn't feel bad, but it didn't feel good either. And don't think there's any way we could ... Make it feel good."

He nodded. "At which point it isn't something we're really sharing, it's just ... One way. And I don't like that any more than you do," he added before she could say anything.

"And, I mean, that doesn't say anything about anybody else. Maybe others can do ... Sodomy ... In a loving and Christ-like manner, in a way that strengthens their love. If they can, good for them; it's not my place to complain. It's only my place to say that, unless we can make it into that, unless it's something that strengthens our love instead of detracts from it, then I don't think we should do it."

"And if we could?" he said. "If it made us stronger?"

She gave him an eye-roll. "Well, I did say, didn't I?" She wondered what such a transformation might entail. Yes, it was dirty. But wasn't that exactly the point?—that they trusted each other enough to indulge in something so sinfully wanton? And if I like feeling his cum inside me in the front, imagine how I'd feel walking around being stretched in the back!

And suddenly she had her angle.

Another thought swam at the periphery of her consciousness, circling; she made a grab at it, but missed. What was it? Something about angles. Angles as in sex? No, that wasn't it...  She realized Jon was still looking at her, and forced herself to concentrate.

"In any case," she said, "even if we're playing around with domination, it's still consensual. The whole thing is consensual. That's why we have a safe word."

"But what about the rest of life?" he said. "I'm glad you trust me to not hurt you, but the simple fact is that I'm not sure I trust myself."

She gave him a concerned glance. "What, do you really have that little willpower?"

"It's not about willpower," he said, "it's just the way life works. We get frustrated with each other; you know that. But I think that, if we let ourselves 'play' like this, it will only encourage me to one day force you to do things my way—and not necessarily in bed; in fact, probably outside of it. And I just don't want to step in that particular direction."

That was fair enough, as she was concerned. "Well, then, why can't we have a safe word for that, too? Some ... I dunno. We'll set up something where, if we invoke it, we have to drop whatever we're doing and whatever we're feeling and compromise. If I think you're turning into my parents."

"Or if I think you're turning into your parents."

"Exactly. Since, God only knows, that's what we're both scared of."

He smiled. "Let's do it. Let's find something and have it be our safe word. Let's make sure we can always step back out of the moment and take a good look around."

"Because that way, we can tie each other up to our heart's content," she said, beaming.

He gave her another ostentatious eye-roll, then stopped the car in the parking space and leaned over to kiss her.

Back at the room they'd hired, Meredith and Brandon were adding their own little touch to the proceedings. "You know how you're supposed to tink the wineglasses when you want the bride and groom to kiss?" Brandon said. "Well, the hotel staff said to please not, because that makes the wineglasses break. Shoddy glassware, I guess; we didn't have any problems at ours. But, there it was. And by coincidence, we were looking around in a shop and saw that they were selling these..." He held up what he was setting copies of at each table: a little silver ribbon, with bow-tied ribbons in the wedding colors Caitlyn had chosen. "So, we thought..."

Jon glanced at Caitlyn, and she saw that her thoughts were mirrored in his head. "Save us one of these," he said.

Brandon smiled. "Souvenir?"

"No, we're going to use it," Jon said, grinning. He turned to Caitlyn. "What do you think we should call it? The Compromise Bell?"

Distantly, she saw Brandon look both amused and impressed at the same time, but her thoughts were full of that circling idea, which had suddenly snapped into full focus. "No, that's not it at all. It's not about compromise. It's about angle."

Both Jon and Brandon were looking at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean ... Look, Jon, look at what we were talking about in the car. I want you to tie me up to the bed, you want to do my ass."

Brandon guffawed. "Jeez, and here Meredith and I were thinking you two would be even more plain-vanilla than we are!"

"We could have arguments about this. We did have arguments about this. But now, instead of fighting some more, we're looking for ways to compromise."

"Yeah, exactly, so," said Jon. "The Compromise Bell."

"Yes, but ... That's the wrong angle," she said. "Look, in any argument, you can look at it one way, which is, I have to do what?? She wants me to tie her up? He wants me to let me put his thing where? Or, you can look at it another way, which is, How can I further please my partner? What can I, out of love for my partner, do to make them even happier?"

Jon nodded. "You can be stingy or you can be giving."

"And it's all about the angle," Caitlyn said. "They're flip sides of the same coin. Clouds and silver lining. Instead of being grudging and refusing, you're looking for ways to let me be submissive to you while still keeping that behavior out-of-bounds for normal life. And instead of asking why you want to have anal sex with me, I'm looking for a way to take pleasure in it too. Because I don't want this to be something that pushes us apart. I don't want it to be something we fight over. And neither do you."

Jon nodded. "Instead of trying to get our own way, we're trying to find a way to give the other person their way. To want what they want."

Brandon summed it up for them: "Anything that pushes people apart can also draw them together."

"And so that's what I think the bell should be for," Caitlyn said. "The Unity Bell. Not just to remind us to compromise, but to remind us to look at the situation from different angles until we can turn it into something we agree on. Because there's always something we agree on. Let's always start there."

Brandon turned to look across the room. "Honey?" he called to Meredith. "Do we have any extras of these back home?"

As more and more guests began to arrive, the Stanfords found themselves drawn, both together and separately, into varying conversations. Many of Jon's relatives were present, with only one or two cousins absent due to educational commitments out of state, and all of Caitlyn's family was here. Many of their friends were here as well; they took particular pleasure in seeing Zach and Christa still talking to Pastor Pendleton and his wife long after the Stanfords had wandered off, and in seeing Stephanie Leyton playing with Laurelyn Chambers. The most pressing issue, though, was to introduce their parents to each other, because, despite the year-and-three-quarters their children had been together, they had never met.

Jon and Caitlyn had discussed, with a certain amount of trepidation, what they might do if things went sour. Glenn and Regina Stanford had certainly heard their share of horror stories from Jon (and a few from Caitlyn as well), and Linda and Sam Delaney had taken it upon themselves to vilify anything Jon was related to or involved in. While both sets of parents knew that peace had been declared and cooperation would be ideal, old habits die hard. And, indeed, the first few minutes were somewhat uncomfortable. Nobody had any idea what to say. But after a while, once politeness had been established, the walls began to come down.

"Is that Caitlyn's harp?" Mr. Stanford said.

"Yes, that is," Mr. Delaney said.

"We've never heard her play before," Mrs. Stanford said. "Though Jon vouches for her skill."

"She is indeed very good," said Mrs. Delaney.

"She's very talented all around," Mrs. Stanford said. "You've raised a daughter you can be proud of."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Delaney. "Heaven knows we tried."

"You should be proud of your son," Mr. Delaney said. "It, um. It couldn't have been easy, putting up with what he's experienced since he started dating our daughter. But he has persevered."

"Well, the same could be said for Caitlyn," said Mrs. Stanford. "We've never seen her exhibit anything but patience and kindness, no matter what the circumstances she was under."

"Well, that's 'cause I only show my annoyance to Jon," Caitlyn said, now beginning to blush at the praise.

"Look, you guys just keep complimenting each other," Jon said, smiling. "We'll keep circulating. And I think one or both of us is supposed to start making music soon."

"Thanks for the praise, but you'll change your mind after you actually hear me playing," Caitlyn said, laughing.

Of course, that wasn't true; she did okay. (Actually, to judge by the clapping, she did quite well.) But Caitlyn attributed that more to the environs: to working with Meredith, who was an excellent musician; to being here in this place, surrounded by the people she loved; to being happier, more at peace with herself, than she'd ever been in her life. And then Jon got up with Octapella and ran their set, and that worked too; obviously, it was a different kind of music, but still well-received.

Finally, one of the hotel staff asked that the guests be seated for dinner, and Meredith (who had been asked to do so) stood to open the toasting. She had been somewhat embarrassed to be chosen for this, and her statement was short and sweet.

"Someone once told me that, if your marriage is merely formalizing what everyone knew already, you're in good shape. I'm happy to say that, in the case of Jon and Caitlyn Stanford, that's the absolute truth.

"The first time I saw them being together was, actually, at my own wedding the summer before last; they'd driven down to Mount Hill together, and had rarely parted company throughout the night. Once school began again, my friends and I were able to see them together a little more frequently, and we were able to confirm what we thought we'd seen even though it was only their first date: that the two of them were deeply in love, and—even more than that—ready to be in love together. We all agreed that, if these two played their cards right, and didn't mess things up, they'd eventually find themselves married too. The love between them was that strong, and that obvious.

"Well, here we are," said Meredith, smiling.

"Unfortunately, a marriage is not all joy and laughter, though it certainly has its share of those. It also requires patience, love, selflessness ... All the higher virtues. And Jon and Caitlyn have already undergone their own share of difficulties in the first ninety days of their union. But they are still here, stronger and—at a glance—more in love than ever. They have grown not only in love, but in wisdom. And, were we able to return here after ninety years, I have no doubt that we would find them loyal and in love still.

"To Jon and Caitlyn Stanford." Meredith raised her glass. "May your years be happy and fruitful. May the best of your past be the worst of your future."

There was a general chorus of agreement, and a clinking of glasses; and then, seemingly organic out of the process, the sound of someone tinkling one of the "smooch bells" (as Zach had called them), a sentiment which was immediately echoed by just about everyone in the room. Jon looked at Caitlyn and saw her blushing, felt his own face burning as well. How can this be? We've seen a lot more of each other, and done a lot more to each other, than just this.

Of course, that wasn't in public.

But she rolled her eyes and leaned towards him, and he kissed her long and deep, and the crowd went wild.

Even after they pulled apart, one bell went on ringing. And Jon looked out and saw Meredith hurrying over to Laurelyn Chambers, currently in the care of her grandparents and swinging a bell with happy abandon. There was laughter, and Reverend Pendleton intoned, "And a child shall lead them!"

Then, after more toasts and more smooching and more food, the DJ kicked her gear into motion, and announced the first dance of the married couple.

Jon smiled at his wife. "Shall we?"

Caitlyn giggled at her husband. "I thought our first dance as a married couple was in your bed, ninety days ago."

Jon rolled his eyes. "Maybe, but we've changed since then, and learned, and grown. Maybe we said the vows three months ago, but in some ways it is a new start."

Caitlyn thought about that, and then nodded. "At the very least, it's the beginning of 'happily ever after.'"

"Yeah."

"Though it's not going to be that easy," Caitlyn said. "We've had a taste of that. 'Happily ever after' isn't perfect. You have to learn to be more loving. I have to learn to be more self-protective. There will be fights and conflicts and times when we need to use the Unity Bell."

"I know," said Jon. "But there's no one on earth I'd rather be at one with than you."

Caitlyn smiled at her husband—a great, beaming smile of love. "I feel the same way."

Jon smiled at his wife. "Shall we?"

"And, presenting..." said the DJ into her mike. "The happy couple, Jonathan and Caitlyn Stanford!"

Jon gave her his arm, and Caitlyn took it. And together, they walked onto the floor, and into their ever after.


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The End
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Posted:  2006-10-27
Last Modified: 2008-10-24 / 08:33:44 am
Version: 1.10
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