Jennifer Saunders knew all about Prof. Blake's reputation. The first class he'd taught a couple of years earlier had taken care of that. He was demanding about studying and stingy with grades. Still, she either took this course from him or left Garrett Theological Seminary without ever having a course in Paul's epistles. She felt lucky that she had reached her second year without having had him before.

What people hadn't mentioned was his voice. It wasn't really a preacher's voice; he obviously made no effort for sweetness in tone. On the other hand, it was a pleasant voice. And he carried the classroom without the slightest hint of strain. Jen had the sudden desire to hear him sing. She hadn't much time to think about that, however. She filled pages of her notebook, first day of class or not.

"Romans," he said, "may be the first Epistle in the Bible. There are several reasons for considering it the culmination of Paul's theology, however. We are going to study it last. We are starting on Corinthians. I want you to read both letters before the start of next class. You're expected to have an English translation of the entire Bible, or -- at least -- the entire New Testament, with you in class. We may have to look another report up. By 'translation,' I don't mean 'paraphrase.' The Living Bible and Phillips are right out. This class is studying as much as possible what was written. I'd prefer something later than 1950. The King-James translators did great work, but the language has evolved since then."

Having already earned his reputation for being demanding, he paused to pass out his syllabus of the course. Then he started on his contextual lecture. "In reading Paul, we always have to remember that we are reading other people's mail...."

He didn't let up in later classes. The second week, he suddenly was wearing glasses, but nothing else changed. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and the joke was that if you dropped a pencil while taking notes, you would miss two questions on the next test. Jen began to see a pattern in his thought, though. "That's what you think he meant," he told Pete. "What did Paul say?"

"He said that every bit of scripture was inspired by God," his latest victim replied.

"Let's look at that. Read me verses fifteen and sixteen."

"'And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.'" Pete was obviously ignoring the professor's strictures on the King-James translation.

But Blake was hunting bigger game. "Now there are two things here. Notice that Timothy knew the scriptures from childhood. What scriptures? The Septuagint. That's what Jews outside Palestine read. Our Old Testament and our Apocrypha. The second thing is that scripture is inspired by God. Paul doesn't say that it is dictated by God, and Paul damn-well knew about dictation, he did it himself. Now you may think that he really meant that the Old Testament and the New Testament were dictated by God. But that isn't what he said.

"And there is something paradoxical in claiming that Paul is telling us that the Epistle to Timothy was dictated by God, but Paul used the wrong term by mistake."

Not that Blake was any easier on the liberals than he was on the fundamentalists. One day, he came into class with a stack of papers. The class worried. A pop quiz was one thing, but these looked like two-hour finals.

"You might have heard," Blake began, "the story about the man whom the police arrested for bank robbery. 'You might as well confess,' the cops said. 'We have an eye witness who can identify you positively.' "What does he know,' said the man. 'I was wearing a mask.'

"Well, back in the nineteenth century, there was a serious theological movement called 'The Historical Jesus.' Writers could tell you what Jesus really taught, as opposed to what the first-century Gospel writers thought he had taught. Since the nineteenth century was the acme of science and human understanding, they could strip away the encrustations and reveal the real teachings.

"Then a theologian named Oll-bare Shvite-sair wrote a book analyzing their teachings. You've heard of him as a medical missionary, but he was a concert-level organist and a major theologian as well." At this point, Jen started to suspect that he was talking about Albert Schweitzer, but he was talking too fast for her to go back to correct her notes. "What he did was to compare what the historical-Jesus writers had said about questions on their own with what they said Jesus had taught. Guess what? In every case, although what Smith attributed to Jesus might be different from what Jones attributed to Jesus, it was identical to what Smith taught on his own. They hadn't stripped away the encrustations added by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; they had stripped away the teachings that offended them. They'd added a few encrustations of their own, as well.

"Now, today, there are still people doing nineteenth-century theology. But they've decided to wear masks. The group calling itself 'The Jesus Seminar' are voting on what Gospel teachings they want to call into question. You won't get Smith's votes to compare with Smith's positions. You'll only get the majority opinion. But I figure that I know what the majority of these theologians teach. I figure that most of you have some idea, too. So, I've taken a few passages from each of the four Gospels. I want each of you to vote on them. Not on whether Jesus actually said them; on whether the Jesus Seminar people will vote them in or out."

What he passed out was two pages stapled together. He might think it was only "a few passages," but each Gospel filled one side of a page. And they were citations only; "Jn 1: 42 IN OUT; Jn 1: 47-51 IN OUT," was the top line on the back page.

"What does this have to do with the Pauline Epistles?" Craig asked later in the cafeteria.

"I don't know," Jen said. "I hope he has tenure." Blake never hid his opinions, but passing out sheets with his name on it, headed with the question: "Based on your knowledge of the general trend of liberal theology, will The Jesus Seminar vote these passages in or out? Circle one," looked like spitting in the faces of most of the faculty.

"I hope he doesn't have tenure. I hope they sack him. What do you girls see in him anyway? What does he have that -- for instance -- I don't?"

Well, for one thing, he had a Ph. D. But that wasn't quite what Craig was asking.

"Testosterone, Craig, testosterone," Barbara said. She was an older woman who'd been secretary to the president of an insurance company until he retired, her husband moved to Chicago, and her youngest child went off to college. She was unfailingly nice, and would read to you from the meticulous notes she kept in steno pads. Somehow, though, she and Craig had struck sparks from the first day.

"So much for being a happily-married woman," said Sally. She was one of the "girls" who definitely was not attracted to Prof. Blake.

"This," Barbara held up her left hand to display the wedding band, "goes on my hand, not on my eyeball, to quote Henry." Henry was her husband. "But at my age, I dream more about introducing Blake to my daughter than of seducing him myself."

"Poor girl," Sally said. "Testosterone, maybe. But married to that man? That isn't a dream, it's a nightmare." Jen wasn't sure. In high school she would have said so; in seminary she kept her own counsel.

One place she didn't keep her own counsel was appearance. She consulted Barbara on her wardrobe. She was a grad student, and dressed like a grad student. But she was becoming conscious that she would have to dress like a preacher fairly soon. And she hadn't many memories of woman preachers. Barbara dressed more formally than anyone else in Jen's classes, more formally than the few woman faculty members.

"Well, I'm not trying to set any styles," Barbara said, "or even keep up with any styles. Most of what I wear is old, what I wore to the office a few years ago." Jen suspected that Barbara had spent more on clothes in the last year than Jen had. "I'll tell you what I'd tell my daughter."

"Please do."

"The first thing you have going for you is that your parishioners won't have any more experience with woman pastors than you have. They won't compare you with their ten last. Still, jeans and a sweatshirt won't do." Which was what Jen was wearing during the conversation. "Workdays, sure, but you want to look like somebody to fill a pulpit, not somebody to empty the wastebaskets. And you want to avoid garish colors and anything frilly. You'll be a young woman and the ordained spiritual leader of the church. You should make it easy for them to see you as the spiritual leader, harder to see you as a young woman. Not that I'd advise anything unisex."

"Unisex sounds radical."

"And you don't want to look radical. Preach a radical vision, if that's what you think they need to hear, but dress conservatively. One thing I'd suggest -- cut your hair." Jen followed that advice.

Blake collected the papers on what he called "The Schweitzer Game." He even handed out a report on the average class guess on what the Jesus-Seminar answers would be. He didn't seem to grade them, though.

Student church was something the administration thought it had to provide; it wasn't something the students thought they had to attend. Third-year students who hadn't got a chaplaincy internship -- even many who had lucked out that way -- had somewhere else they had to be on Sunday morning. The minority of the first two years who were serious about church mostly attended a real church with a real congregation. The majority, conscious that this might be their last opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning for the next forty yeas, took that opportunity. When a student preached, he dragooned his friends into attending; when a faculty member preached, his favorite students usually showed up.

When David Blake was announced as preacher on one Sunday, Jen got herself to student church. She had been right, Blake's singing voice was clearly audible over the small congregation; and it was even more pleasant than his speaking voice. He made no effort to sweeten that for the sermon, either. He did, conspicuously, turn down the pulpit microphone.

"I'm going to read a bit more than the Lectionary section," he said when he got to the Gospel. He read the entire first chapter of Luke. Then he preached on what Jen had always taken as introductory material. "So, what does an inspired writer do?" he asked rhetorically. "Luke went over the whole course of the events -- events as recalled by the witnesses he had -- in detail. Luke didn't hide in his room and figure out what had happened by what felt right by his lights. At least, if he did, he doesn't tell us about it. Now, I'm a professor of the New Testament, and you might think I'm promoting my own field; but I think we are called to do the same thing. As professors of theology, as people who will be clergy hired to preach the word, as simple believers, we are called to go over the records we have of the whole course of those events. We are called to read the Gospels and study the Gospels." He repeated and expatiated on this theme, but it clearly was the central point of his message.

Jen did all right on the tests, but she was starting to dread the end-of-term paper. She started a draft of it well before the class work wound down. She was also careful to keep a low profile in class, though the word was that Blake didn't grade you down for contradicting him. Some of the other students didn't take that precaution.

"Well," Sally said in class, "Paul was a sexist. We shouldn't try to follow his teachings about women." They were on Colossians, the last book they'd read before Romans.

Blake had left the third and fourth chapters to be covered in one day, but he wasn't going to applaud their being ignored. "I think you're reading him anachronistically. The people who claim that Paul was transcribing what God dictated for the twentieth century are consistent -- I don't agree with them, but they are consistent. On the other hand, saying that Paul wrote on his own authority but he was wrong about the position of women in the twentieth century shows a little confusion.

"Now, as I emphasized in our study of Philemon, Paul is always ready to say that believing might add obligations; he never teaches that it removes any. A woman who believes has all the obligations that she would have as an unbeliever, and a first- century Greek woman had the obligation to obey her husband. Were the husband also a believer, that put some obligations on him; it removed none from her."

"I'm here to clarify what is my theology," Sally replied. "And I must say that you aren't helping."

"Good! Well, really, I should be indifferent rather than favorable. There is no reason that I should care why you are in class, so long as you aren't here to disrupt it. I'm here to teach what Paul wrote. Barbara might be here to polish her shorthand skills for all I care. If you go out of this class knowing what Paul wrote, I've fulfilled my obligation to the seminary."

"And your obligations to us?" Sally was really reaching.

"None. Oh, I've the same obligations that I owe you on the street as a Christian and as a citizen. But my obligation as a teacher is to the seminary. Their obligation to you is to give you the preparation to be a preacher of Christian doctrine, of Methodist doctrine in particular. I must have overlooked the place where they promised to help you work out your private theology. Just to satisfy my curiosity, and not part of the course work, what do you plan to do with that theology when you have determined it?"

"I'm going to be a pastor, of course. How could I do that without working out my own theology?"

"Well, it's none of my business. As I said, I hired on to teach Christian theology. But I should think you would have a hard time making a living as the founder of The Church of Sally."

"It's not The Church of Sally. I'm going to be a Christian pastor. It's just that I have to decide what my theology is. Then I'll preach that."

"I don't see why you expect some congregation to pay you for that. They are more likely to expect you to preach the theology of the church. Now, look at Jen. Plenty of parishioners would like to look at her. Even if she grew her hair back out, though, I doubt that many people would pay to hear her opinions. They want to hear the Gospel. For that matter, I have a D. Min. just like you'll have; I studied years after that. You don't seem terribly anxious to hear my opinions."

Jen wondered what she had done. She'd kept her mouth shut, and here he was singling her out.

But she survived. She did well on the final, worked hard on her paper. She got a B in the class. She was tempted to sign up for his class on Hebrews the next quarter, but it really wouldn't fit into her schedule. She needed more classes on counseling. She hardly saw Blake that quarter.

For the '81 - '82 academic year, she was a student assistant. She rarely got to the campus. She did see Blake that summer, though. She'd got in a bind at the church where she was student assistant. This resulted in her turning in a paper on that assistantship way late. It was after the end of school, and she stopped at a local burger joint to kill time before she went home.

Out the window, she saw a familiar face. Blake was loading up the basket of a bike with groceries. He was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. He got on the bike and pedaled away. It was a quite different view of her usually-formal professor.

She was admitted into the annual conference on trial and was sent to a small, rural, church for her first year. It was the only church in Independence, Illinois. Since you would miss Independence if you blinked while driving through, being the only church actually in town was no great distinction.

She put her interest in Prof. Blake away in the same mental file drawer as her high-school crushes on movie stars. The change in status was a struggle. For one thing, more than half the congregation was older than her parents. They were nice enough to her, one family or another invited her to share dinner with them every Sunday. She couldn't see how the schedule was arranged, but she never got two invitations the same week.

The meetings with the pastor-parish committee -- the general church had gone over to the designation, "staff-parish," but this congregation ignored that change -- were friendly. She found preparing a sermon every week a draining task. On the other hand, she felt that she did a good job on visiting the sick and on some of the counseling.

One counseling session surprised her, though. The man was considered one of the young people of the congregation. He was only a few years older than she was, and a bit more than four years married. "Debbie should obey me," he said. "Doesn't it say so in the Bible?"

"So it does," she replied. "But what does it say about what you should do? 'Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.'" (She'd found that the King James Version spoke to these people in a way that more modern translations did not. She was trying to wean them away from that, but this man had more immediate problems. Besides, 'bitter' spoke more to his problem than 'harsh' did.)

"Now, you've come to me; she hasn't. And, no, I don't want you to persuade her to come; it still would be your coming to me. I'm available for any question you have about your behavior. I'm not a judge to decide between you two when only one has asked me to. And I'm not Anne Landers to tell you that you've done right when all I've heard is your side to the story. Now, let me tell you, you sound bitter to me. First, get rid of that bitterness." She had to restrain herself from saying 'cast the log out of your eye.' "Then, when you've established a pattern of treating your wife sweetly for a week, ask her as a favor to do one particular thing your way. That won't solve all your problems, granted. But those problems have grown over four years. They aren't going to disappear over a few days."

"Shouldn't she obey me?"

"That depends. Not depends on the situation, although that may be true. It depends on what you mean by 'should.' Morally, she has an obligation to please her spouse. But you don't have any entitlement to that. Scripture tells you what you should do; it doesn't tell you what you're entitled to get. It tells you that God loves you. Debbie might love you, too, but scripture doesn't guarantee that."

"A wife should love her husband."

"A spouse should love the other spouse. Certainly, a husband should love his wife. Concentrate on the things you should do. That's what Paul was writing in that passage you quoted. He addressed wives; he addressed husbands. You were reading Deborah's mail and ignoring what he wrote to you. Do you see that?"

"You're on her side."

"Nope. I'm on Paul's side. Actually, I'm on your side. I'm appointed here to counsel all who come to me on what I see as the Christian response to their problems. I told you what I see as the Christian call for your behavior. Not telling you the Christian call for Deborah's behavior is hardly being on her side. If she had come to me, I'd tell her that. She didn't. You did. I served you as best I could. Do you see that?"

"I suppose."

"Look. What Christ told us to do doesn't necessarily get us better treatment. Turning the other cheek just gets you slapped on the other cheek nine times out of ten. Marriage is different. You two were in love four years ago. She must still see a lot in you that she loves. She probably sees a lot of bitterness, too; I sure do. I'm not telling you the Christian call on you because it will make Debbie's behavior better. I'm telling you because that is my job. On the other hand, in this particular case, it is likely to make her behavior better. And, if it doesn't, you'll still have done what Paul told you to do."

After the man left, still unsatisfied, unlikely to even try her advice -- much less likely to follow it long enough to matter, she shook herself. After all the courses in counseling, she'd ended up paraphrasing what her course on the Epistles had said. She wondered what Sally would make of her comments, wondered what she would have said. Probably, she would have denounced the guy for being a male chauvinist pig. And that would be even less useful than Jen's response.

One emphasis of Blake's, that she had carefully not mentioned, was that the obligation to obey was an obligation that first- century wives took on and Christian conversion hadn't removed. Had Deborah taken on the obligation to obey? Knowing Independence, Jen suspected she had.

Anyway, she was never going to see Prof. Blake again. She could never tell him that she had learned something in his class, after all. She was a little surprised at that, and suspected he would be greatly surprised.

And then she did see him again -- hear him first. One Sunday late in August the congregation sounded firmer, richer, during a responsive reading. It was as if a new voice had been added, a deeper voice which spoke the passages with conviction. It actually sounded like Prof. Blake to Jen, but she shook off that supposition. She was an adult and had a sermon to preach in two minutes. She couldn't let her imagination control her like it had when she was an adolescent.

At the end of the service, however, he was in line. "Nice to be here," he said.

"Nice to have you here. A visit from the faculty is a rare honor this far out in the country." A professional response. She couldn't act like a groupie; she was supposed to be these people's shepherd. And, as this was going to be Blake's last contact with her, let him see her acting as an adult and a clergywoman.

It wasn't the last contact, though. Her phone rang late Monday afternoon. "Independence United Methodist Church."

"Reverend Saunders, please." A pleasant, deep, voice. Could it be him?

"Speaking." The church struggled to raise her salary; they weren't about to spring for a secretary.

"David Blake here. Once your professor in the Epistles. Yesterday, I visited your service."

"Yes, Professor Blake." She'd recognized him without his identifying himself the day before. Why did he need that elaborate description today?

"I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your sermon, Reverend Saunders."

"It's Jen, Professor Blake. You always called me that."

"You were my student, then. You're a pastor, now. My pastor, at least last Sunday."

"I'm still Jen."

"And I'm David. I enjoyed your sermon, Jen."

"That's nice to hear, David. Do you have any suggestions?" Blake was an expert. She didn't agree with all of his theology, but she respected his knowledge of the New Testament. Anyway, she could take any criticism to keep that voice on the line.

He laughed. "I disagree with everything I hear. I have disagreements with some of what Barth wrote in Der Romerbrief (in dem Romerbrief? -- never mind). But not something for you to work on. If you want to work on a weakness, you need to increase your confidence. You're a preacher; you're their preacher. Go with it!"

"Thanks."

"Anyway, I enjoyed hearing you." No more than she had enjoyed hearing him, but she didn't say so. "I wanted to ask you to lunch after the service next week. Do you think you might go?"

She took a long time thinking. The Lindners had asked her to dinner that Sunday, and she had accepted. She could beg off, but she didn't want the consequences. "I'm really sorry. I've accepted another engagement for that time."

"Well, I'm not available the next Sunday. I'm going to be preaching that day and won't even get to hear you. How about the Sunday after that? Twenty days from now?"

"I'd be quite pleased." Quite pleased? She'd be ecstatic.

"It's a date, then." She was sure that he didn't mean a date in that sense, but still she could dream. "Do you want my phone number in case something comes up?"

She wanted his phone number. Nothing would come up. She'd see that nothing did. "Please."

He gave her his apartment phone including area code -- which she already knew; she'd gone to school in Evanston for three years -- and talked for a minute or two more. "Well," he said, "I'm keeping you. Nice talking to you, and nice hearing you on Sunday."

"Thanks for calling. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

And now all she had to do was to last three weeks. But she didn't even need to do that. He was in the congregation again the next Sunday, and stopped to shake her hand on the way out. It was nice touching him, but she let go rather than make an exhibition out of herself. He wasn't in service the next Sunday, but he'd warned her of that. When Isabel Jenkins asked her to dinner the next week, she told her that she had a previous engagement. "Give me a rain check, okay?" The Sunday after that, she knew he was in the congregation by the sound of the hymn. Afterwards, he hung back while the regulars filed out. "Enjoyed your sermon," he said. "Can you have lunch with me?"

"Yes." She hoped he had enjoyed her sermon. She'd preached on the Epistle to please him.

"My car? What do you have to do here?"

"Ten minutes to lock up." Not that there was anything in the church worth stealing. Even the electric organ was worth more as an antique than as a musical instrument. But lonely churches were often a target for vandalism.

His car was a compact, ideal for Evanston streets and tight parking -- not so hot for driving miles in the country. Once they were inside, he asked her for a suggestion. "This is your territory, after all. I don't know where people eat out here."

"Dairy Queen?" It was, after all, the spot where she ate out most often.

"As fancy as you're comfortable with. Neither of us is really dressed for Dairy Queen, and I was planning to buy you a real dinner."

When she named Jerry's, he merely asked for directions.

When the food came, he said, "They know you're a pastor, don't they?"

"I don't know."

"This sort of area, everybody knows everybody's business. Start without grace, and all the members of your staff-parish committee will know before you get to dessert. Want me to say it?" At her nod, he recited -- he didn't sing -- 'Be present at our table, Lord....'

"So," he said when they had both started eating, "are you enjoying being a pastor?"

"Some of it. Preaching is still a chore. I find that I like making hospital calls, though. So many of them, especially the old people, are more of a comfort to me than I am to them."

"'You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.' Well, a better something. I found being a pastor the hardest part of being a minister. Now, preaching -- I could do preaching. But, then, I have opinions on what the texts mean. You might have noticed."

She smiled. After she swallowed, she admitted, "I did notice."

He was grinning. Obviously, he didn't mind his reputation for being opinionated. "Anyway, you're enjoying your job, then? Not everything, obviously. But it would be horrible to find you'd prepared three years to qualify for something you don't want to do."

"Oh, yes. It's rewarding. I even found out I'm using stuff I learned. Your course, for instance."

"That must have been a shock! Find yourself preaching the Epistles a lot? Quite frankly, that surprises me. I'd think you'd stick with the Gospel your first year, maybe your first three."

"Well, yes." Except when she wanted to impress him. "I was thinking of something else. But this church, that church, gets a new pastor every year. Not only new to them, mostly newly ordained. If new pastors stuck to the Gospel, they'd never hear the Epistle or the Old Testament lessons at all.

"Anyway, I meant something else. I was counseling." She stopped; how much confidentiality did she owe?

"Smith and Jones," he said.

"Except it was Smith and Smith. And only one Smith showed up. So I found myself quoting a certain professor on Paul's only answering the question of your responsibility."

"And Paul got that from his Master. 'Who made me a judge over you?'"

"Well, yes. And I said that he could come for counseling, but not for counseling on how she should behave."

"Great! That's one time you resisted temptation."

"One time out of how many?"

"One time I've heard of. Anyway, you only have to resist one time at a time. I could have said that better."

"It communicated." And now why didn't he provide some temptation? Not that she was in a mood to resist.

Instead, they went back to eating. He offered dessert, paid the bill, and drove her back. "Did you leave your car at the church? I didn't see the parsonage."

"It's not far." She directed him. He opened her car door, and watched her until she shut the parsonage door. He didn't really give her an opportunity to ask him in, though. That was probably just as well; however much he'd been in her thoughts, she was just an ex-student to him.

He called the next day, however. After thanking her for the company at lunch, he asked her to out again in two weeks. The second lunch was like the first. He called on Monday and asked her out in two week's time. He attended the next Sunday, and she went to the Petersons for dinner. Nobody in the congregation invited her for the next week. Without consulting her, maybe without discussing it with each other, Blake and the congregation had divided her Sunday afternoons neatly. The third week, Blake at least took her to a different restaurant without asking for her recommendation. Still, he didn't come in; he didn't kiss her good night.

He called that Monday, however, and invited her to another lunch in two weeks. She accepted. The intervening Sunday, she had dinner with the Watkins family. The next Saturday, she went to bed early. She could feel she was coming down with a cold. She barely woke to the alarm that morning. She had kicked the blankets off during the night. Despite the inadequate furnace in the parsonage, she felt like she was burning up. Getting out of bed was a tremendous effort, and she realized that she was seriously sick. There was no way she could lead a service that morning. She managed to call the District Superintendent, but got his answering machine. She called Joe Englehard, chair of the pastor-parish committee, to tell him that she couldn't make it. "You know, David Blake?" she croaked. "Professor Blake? He's an ordained minister. See if he can lead the service." Then she crawled back to bed. By then, she was shivering; and the blankets didn't seem to help.

Blake called Wednesday. "This is David. I hope you are feeling better."

"Better. Not good."

"I've been going through the Old Testament -- Lectio Divina -- so I preached on Exodus. It wasn't a passage from the lectionary, but you didn't give me much warning."

"I didn't have much warning, myself."

"Well, they were kind afterwards. They did get some sort of service. Anyway, Sunday is the first Sunday of December. You celebrate Communion on the first Sunday of the month, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to do it? Frankly, you still don't sound recovered." She still didn't feel recovered. She felt, actually, more dead than alive.

"Could you? And I'm sorry to miss the lunch."

"I'll call your district superintendent and establish my bona fides. Don't worry about the lunch. I'm sorry, too, but I'm more sorry that you have to go through the sickness."

"It's only a cold. I keep telling myself. It feels more like the black plague."

"I'd bet against the black plague, but have yourself checked out. It's an upper respiratory infection; I can hear that over the phone. But people die from the flu, and you could have pneumonia."

"I've been to the doctor."

"Good. I'll call your DS."

And, he did lead the service that Sunday. She dragged herself there and heard him preach from the lectionary. She half- expected Englehard to ask why she couldn't preach like that, but all he asked her was about her recovery. She was back in the pulpit the next Sunday, and she felt almost recovered. He called that Monday.

"This is David. You sounded much better, yesterday. Have you recovered, or was that a false dawn?"

"You always identify yourself. And it's never Dave. I think I've recovered. It was only a cold."

"One of those things which they describe as, 'it's not fatal; you only wish it were.'"

"Pretty much."

"I wondered if you think you'll be recovered enough next Sunday to go out for another lunch. That was supposed to be an invitation; I'm sorry if it sounds so convoluted."

Recovered enough? She'd get up off her death bed to go out with him. Then, she remembered that she had stood him up earlier. And she couldn't go that week.

"That's the potluck. Are you coming?"

"Of course! Where two or three Methodists are gathered together, there shall a potluck be also." She laughed. "I'll bring my famous Pauline chili."

"Who's Pauline?"

"You don't know her. I chopped her up to add to the chili. No. 'Pauline' is an adjective. I make the chili according to the directions of St. Paul. Well, I'm keeping you. Bye."

He'd been in an awful hurry to hang up. But, then, it might have been avoiding the obvious questions about St. Paul. There was no entry for 'chile' or 'chili' in her concordance; she wasn't surprised.

There were five long tables for the potluck, with places for eight at each table. He didn't try to sit at her table. Two more tables held the serving dishes. His chili was hot, which might be a mistake with this crowd. People were complimentary, though. Not many men cooked around Independence. "Well," he said in a voice which comfortably carried this small group, "I tried to follow the advice of Paul. He says to cook chili a long time over very low heat so all the flavors mix in -- but the dish isn't scorched."

This was too much. Jen said, "I had a thorough introduction to the letters from Paul taught by an excellent professor. The course didn't mention chili."

"I can't see how it missed it. Somebody have a Bible?" Don Montgomery was sitting at the same table. He pulled out his pocket New Testament. "Excellent, please read First Corinthians, Chapter seven, verse nine."

Montgomery looked up the text. He laughed and passed the book over to Blake. "You read it."

"For it is better to marry than to burn," Blake read. Jen wasn't the only one who groaned. This led to more jokes in the same vein: how we know that God plays baseball, the name of Jesus' dog.

Blake answered that one. "His dog was named 'Physician.' For in Verse 23 of the fourth Chapter, Luke records Jesus as saying, 'Physician, heel!'"

When everything was cleaned up, he offered her a ride back to the parsonage. She was tempted, but there were a dozen people listening whose rides she had rejected in the past. "It's only a short walk."

"I'll walk you back, then. Let me put this in the trunk."

He walked her to her door. It was now or never. "Would you like to come in?" she asked.

"Thanks."

Now what could she offer him? Coffee seemed a little weird; she had none made, and the church women had poured out pots a few minutes ago. She didn't need to offer anything.

As soon as she closed the door, he took her in his arms and kissed her. That was sudden. It was also delightful. She put her arms around him. "You don't know," he said, "how long I've wanted to do that." Well, not as long as she'd wanted him to do it.

She snuggled against him. "The first day?" She hoped that seeing her in a leadership role the first time he attended this church had changed his picture of her.

"Not quite. I tried to teach the course without my glasses. No reason for you to remember. Anyway, fourth or fifth class, I gave up. I wore the glasses, and could see you clearly. Stupid of me to have deprived myself of that sight for so long."

He'd been attracted back in class! "You never showed it."

"Well, I tried not to. What would your classmates have said! Still, I'm not sure I hid it all that well."

She kissed him for that; well, for something. He licked her lips at the start of her kiss, then inserted his tongue. A shock ran through her when their tongues met. She tried to unzip her coat and failed. She stepped back to remove it. He pulled his off, as well. Then he tossed it towards the couch.

This time, their bodies met when they kissed. His tongue explored her mouth while his hands explored her back. One settled on her rump; the other held the back of her head. She was out of breath when he broke the kiss.

"It is as good as my dreams," he said. She was glad she hadn't been the only one dreaming of this. "I'm going to leave while I can. I'll call." Then he walked out the door, carrying his coat.

She needed a change of clothes, at least. She'd been sweating; inability to feel anything wasn't the only problem caused by kissing while wearing a winter coat inside. She suspected that the food smells weren't the only ones on her clothes, either. It wouldn't do to have her parishioners get downwind of her while she smelled like a cat in heat.

She made a few necessary phone calls; she'd cut way back on hospital and nursing-home visits while she suspected that she was in the contagious stage of her cold. Phone duties over, she drew herself a luxuriously hot bath. She was wallowing in the depth of the water, in her memories of the afternoon, and in her imagination of taking it further, when the phone rang. Getting out of the hot bath and going downstairs to answer it would just risk a relapse of the cold. Besides, David didn't call on Sundays. She let the answering machine get it.

When she did listen to the messages, though, it had been David. Well, she had his phone number. She dressed in a warm nightie and robe, and got comfortable before she dialed.

"David Blake."

"This is Jen. You called."

"I didn't mean for this to be on your bill; I'll keep it short."

"I'm in a comfortable chair. I meant for it to be a long call. Minimum salary isn't that minimal."

"Well, I'm not too bright, but sometimes ideas do get through. Y'know, your congregation wants to feed you on Sundays. There is no reason that I have to compete with that. I know about committee meetings; Lord, how I know. Still, are you available any week nights? What's your schedule this week?"

Was he talking about taking her out this week? She could cancel the meetings. "I have trustees on Wednesday and choir practice every Thursday."

"I have late afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Would Friday cut into sermon prep too much?"

For a date with David, she'd wing it. For that matter, she wrote more than half her sermons on Saturdays as it was. "Friday would be fine."

"Expect me then. Parsonage at five o'clock?"

Five was a little early, but she wanted to see him. She certainly wasn't going to ask him to come later. For that matter, maybe she could ask him in. "I'll expect you then."

On Friday, he waited on the front porch and escorted her to his car. "Look, I'm sorry for springing this on you," he said when he was behind the wheel, "but I wanted to see the state of the roads first. How would you like to eat in Chicago?"

Ride with him for more than an hour each way? That sounded delightful. Besides, sometimes she had to escape the country. "That sounds lovely. But it means two round trips for you." Of course, she should offer to drive her own car. But she wanted to sit beside him.

"No bother. The roads are fairly clear. Probably less driving than you do on a hospital-visit day." That was an exaggeration. "Have you ever eaten Korean?"

"Bulgogi?"

"Bulgogi is to Korean cuisine what McDonalds is to American. Feeling adventurous?"

She was feeling very adventurous. "Let's."

"You were a great hit on Sunday," she told him. Then she saw that he could take that two ways. He'd been a greater hit with her than he had ever been with the potluck, but maybe she should stick to the public appearance. "People were talking about you before and after the trustees' meeting."

"My popularity didn't extend to my cooking. I don't think anyone but myself took seconds on my chili."

"You know what Johnson said about women preaching?"

"When a dog walks on its hind legs, you don't ask how well he does it?"

"Right. Well, I think these people regard a man's cooking the same way. Ted Jackson and George Blum are widowers. They brought the store-bought desserts."

"My mistake was trying to vary the recipe for what I imagined the crowd would like. I used half the hal-uh-pain-yoess that I would have used for myself."

Jen noticed that Greek words weren't the only ones that David seemed to pronounce like the people who invented them. "The hot peppers?"

"Yeah. I figured that bunch for favoring blandness, so I only used two. And I cut them into very small pieces, too."

"Yours wasn't the only chili there."

"I noticed two bean dishes. They looked identical to me."

"Mrs. Benson's chili. She brings a smaller pot without any chili powder for the people who don't care for it."

"That must have been the batch I took. But I thought it was better to take from the larger pot."

"That's chili in Independence. A sprinkling of chili powder for the adventurous."

"Look, Korean food might be a mistake."

"That's Independence. I'm Jen. Anyway, they liked your jokes."

"That's Independence, you're Jen."

She decided to let that pass. "And they said you preached a good sermon, too. A couple of the men were talking about 'Dave,' though. I wondered whether I should correct them."

"The good reviews were generosity. The only virtue of the first one was brevity. I've been going through the Old testament, and was on Exodus. Still am; it's forty chapters."

"You said something about Lectio Divina."

"A sort of bastardized version. I read a whole chapter -- you can't do Lectio Divina on that much. Then I look for the passage that addresses me that day. Then I read the passage three times, sometimes a fourth. When I'm home, I read aloud. Then I meditate on what the passage means. Then I ask what the passage is calling me to do that day."

"I think of you dealing more with the New Testament, and more...." She didn't know what to say. 'Meditation' didn't fit her image of him.

"More intellectually?"

She nodded, then realized he was watching traffic. "Yeah."

"Sort of is intellectual study of the new Testament. The New- Testament writers were.... What did Paul say to Timothy? 'Remember that, from early childhood, you have been familiar with the sacred writings.' The New-Testament writers were familiar with the scriptures. They had allowed -- no invited -- those scriptures to address their lives.

"When -- in Romans -- Paul recounts a list of the heroes of the faith, we can go back and read those particular stories to illuminate what he was saying about faith. But that isn't what Paul did. He had read those stories so many times that they were engraved on his memory. And not those stories alone. He omitted much more than half of what he knew.

"Now, some new archaeological discovery about Jerusalem in the time of David might be important to your preaching from Samuel. You should certainly keep up on that sort of thing. But -- if that knowledge was lost by the time of the first Herod -- it hardly will matter to my studies.

"And I could read those passages asking myself what they meant to Paul, what they meant to Matthew. But that would be a sort of game, and they definitely weren't playing games with them."

"Anyway, I'm talking about me. What I did was to think back on the week's study. I was on the burning bush thing then. I preached on Moses' stuttering. God chooses unlikely messengers.

"And don't bother to correct mistakes about my name. They need to learn a lot more than you can teach them in a year; prioritize. But let's get to the more interesting person in the car. How was your week?"

But she found him fascinating, by far the most interesting events in her week had been his phone call and this date.

At the restaurant, he said, "Where there are no eyes, there is no caste. Would you like to share a bottle of wine with this meal?" He described the dishes for her comments and suggested that they share the food that was brought. "As long as you like some of it, you can eat that. My descriptions aren't going to do much good; how do you know whether you'll like the taste of seaweed if you've never eaten any?" Her life in college and the seminary hadn't been as sheltered in terms of food as he seemed to think, though he was miles ahead of her in diversity of experience.

She noticed, too -- that anonymous or not -- he said grace before the meal. Then, "That's kimchi. You think my chili was hot? Try a little and have a forkful of rice ready. Drinking water doesn't work." It wasn't that bad. For that matter, she had liked his chili. After he watched her eat a little, he took some, too. She wasn't going to compete with him on volume.

Their discussion mostly focused on the meal, and on what he knew of Korea. "We think of consonants as fixed. There is a 'K' sound, and there is a 'G' sound. Korean, however, has a sound half-way in between. Is that kimchi, or is it gimchi? Really, it is not quite either."

At the end, he asked, "Care to have some dessert at my place? I love Oriental food, but they don't really have desserts for the Yankee taste."

"Thank you. I'd like that." And, she thought, if you want to show me some etchings while we're there, I won't scream very loud.

As soon as they entered, he excused himself to start the coffee. He must have made some preparations beforehand, because he returned before she had fully opened her elaborate winter gear. He hung that in the closet, removed his own -- including his suit coat, and hung all that up. "Welcome to my humble abode," he said in a mocking voice.

There was nothing mocking about the kiss, though. He started with his lips closed, slowly licked her lips before penetrating her mouth. And then hugged her close while his tongue explored every crevice. Her arms were around him, too, when they could hear a bubbling sound from the kitchen. "Coffee's ready," he said. "Come in there."

There was no dining room between the living room and the kitchen. Instead, an area in the kitchen held a small table. He served her coffee there, and offered cream and sugar. After pouring his own cup, he took two unopened quart-sized cartons of ice cream out of the freezer compartment of his refrigerator. "Lime sherbert? Or caramel-fudge swirl?" he asked. It was a choice of extremities.

"Caramel fudge swirl," she said. She wanted to be decadent. He dished her up a generous amount and put slightly less in a bowl for himself. He used an ordinary serving spoon for the scoop.

"There's plenty more in the package," he said, "but I don't want it to melt." He put it back in the freezer before sitting down across from her. The ice cream was good, but if she was going to ask for seconds, it would be on the kisses.

She didn't have to ask. When she had finished her bowl, he got up and walked around the table. She rose into his arms. This kiss must have lasted even longer than the first one. His hands roamed her back, stopping for longer and longer times on her rump. Finally, he broke the kiss, but not the hug. She leaned against his chest while his hands squeezed her rump.

"We'd be more comfortable in the living room," he said. They'd be even more comfortable in the bedroom, but it wasn't her place to suggest that. Everything she'd seen so far had looked like he'd cleaned it this morning, but a bachelor might be embarrassed by the state he kept his bedroom.

In the living room, he sat to her left on the couch. His arm was behind her, and the other hand turned her chin towards him for a kiss. During that kiss, he started caressing her breasts. He didn't unbutton anything, but he kept holding her with the arm behind her and fondling her. Finally, there was a musical tone right between her breasts.

She started in surprise. He showed her his watch. "Nine- thirty. We really should go. I still have to get you home, much as I've enjoyed this."

They took turns in the bathroom, and she was doing up her layers when he came out. He donned a warm sweater instead of the suit coat, and then the same coat he'd worn earlier.

"What's your schedule like next week?" he asked in the car. "I still have late classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays." Well, the next week would be a busy one for her. They finally decided that Monday would be the only evening both would be free. "It looks like Monday or the week after," he said. "Look, I'll call you tomorrow."

And he did. "Would Monday be too soon?" he asked. Right then wouldn't have been too soon for her, but she managed to keep from saying that.

"Monday would be fine."

"How long has it been since you had a real deep-dish pizza?"

Out in the country, good healthy food was plentiful. Pizzas, though, tended to be frozen. "Far too long."

"Hows about we pick up a pizza and eat it at my place?"

"Sounds delicious."

"Dress accordingly. Is four o'clock too early to pick you up?" Four o'clock was fine.

So she was wearing jeans and sweatshirt under the same warm coat when he picked her up on Monday. She'd taken some time selecting her best-looking bra. "This is a great idea," she said. "My mouth has been watering ever since you suggested it. This is part of my childhood." By then, she was looking forward to the pizza almost as much as to the kisses.

"You a Chicago girl?"

"Better believe it! You're not." Indeed he sounded like an Easterner.

"Never saw Chicago until I came here for the Ph. D.," he said. "Indeed, I'm still a member of the Wyoming conference."

"You don't sound like a Westerner." What did people from Wyoming sound like anyway?

"Not unless you're from New England. Wyoming as in the Wyoming river, not as in the state. It's in upstate New York." He didn't sound quite like a New Yorker, either.

The pizza place was a dump, but it smelled wonderful. He asked for a fifteen-incher but let her pick the toppings. "Get the key, will you?" he said as he carried the box towards his kitchen. He relieved her of those when he came back and then helped her off with her coat. He turned out to be wearing jeans, too, once his own coat was hanging in the closet. His plaid shirt still smelled of detergent when she was cuddled against his chest after the first kiss.

He was holding her there and lightly kissing the top of her head when the percolator burbled again. He let her go and ushered her into the kitchen. The table held two plates, and two cups and saucers. The opened pizza box divided them. He seated her and poured her coffee. Then he got a disk pizza cutter. He cut the pizza into halves, then quarters, then eighths. He put one eighth on her plate before pouring his own cup. "Want to sing the grace?" he asked.

They sang "Be present at our table, Lord." Then he took his own piece of pizza. He might have been an Easterner, but he'd been in the Chicago region long enough to know that you don't offer a fork to somebody who is going to eat serious pizza. It was delicious. When she'd finished, he set his own half-finished piece down and served her another without asking.

"Warm up your coffee?" indeed, was his only conversation until she'd finished her third piece and sat back in satisfaction. Then he said, "There's still ice cream from the other night. Want some?"

"A little, if I might." What he dished her was less than he'd given her on Friday, but still a generous interpretation of 'a little.'

He didn't take any, but he did pour himself another cup of coffee when he'd finished his second piece. "More ice cream?" he asked. "More pizza?" When she shook her head, he said, "Let's take the coffee out into the living room."

They did, he carrying his cup and the pot. They sat on the couch again, this time with him to her right. He hugged her and kissed her hairline before turning her chin up and towards him. She didn't resist. His kiss was sweet, then demanding, then gentle. His hand began to explore her breasts through the sweatshirt as his tongue explored her mouth.

He tugged at the shirt. She unsnapped her jeans to let him draw it up. He stroked her stomach before cuddling her bra- covered breast. She could feel her nipple harden and wondered whether he could feel it through the bra. Mostly, though, she reveled in the sensations. When his hand smoothed down her back, she leaned forward in silent permission. He tugged that part of the sweatshirt out of her jeans and trailed his hand up to the bra clasp. She leaned forward a little more and pressed her elbows back. It took him a couple of tries, but he unsnapped the bra.

His other hand stroked down to her belt and then upwards. It didn't stop until he was clasping her left breast. He broke the kiss. "Sweet Jen," he said, "sweet, sweet Jen."

He kissed all over her face before returning to her mouth. Now, his tongue licked hers while his hands played first with one nipple and then with the other. "Lift your arms," he said. He was holding the bottom of her sweatshirt. When she lifted them, he pulled the shirt up over her torso. She pulled each arm out and tugged the shirt over her head. He tossed it and the bra to the far end of the couch.

He licked her lips while holding her left breast. He was stroking her nipple with his thumb and finger. When his mouth left hers, there was no doubt where it was going, but she thought she would explode over the time he took getting there. When his lips finally touched the nipple of her right beast, they did so very gently.

When his tongue licked it, she dissolved. She was vaguely aware of his easing her back on the couch. She was acutely aware of his sucking one nipple then the other. His tongue filled her mouth once more while a hand was on each breast. After a long period in paradise, she heard him say, "Let's get more comfortable." She didn't feel him anywhere, and struggled back to full consciousness.

Then he picked her up. She was a full-grown woman, but he handled her like a baby. She was lying in his arms against his chest. She was conscious of passing through a doorway, then he set her down on a bed. Good!

He kissed her again, his tongue meeting hers while she hugged him. She pulled his clothed chest against her breasts until they hurt. When she let go, he moved away. Then he was kissing her face and neck. He kissed down to her breasts, kissed all over her left one before getting to the nipple. He held her right breast while he licked there, then teased the right nipple with his hand while sucking the left one. He kissed a trail down her left breast, across the bone, and up her right one. Finally, he licked and sucked that nipple.

He kissed a trail down from her breasts and across her stomach. Then he pulled away. She felt abandoned until he started untying her shoe. He removed both of them -- she'd worn such clunky shoes for the winter weather. He pulled her socks off and kissed her big toes through her pantyhose. He knelt on the bed over her as he kissed her stomach again, working up her body to her breasts. There, again, he kissed all over each breast before getting to the nipple. Then he kissed back down to her navel. That was ticklish.

"Let me," he said. His hands were at her waistband. She arched so that her rump was off the bed. He tugged the jeans down, the panties going with them. Jen had selected her bra for him to see; the panties were old, and the elastic was shot. She hoped he wasn't looking at them. Now, she was wearing only pantyhose and a watch.

He kissed her stomach before saying, "Again." She arched, and he pulled her pantyhose down. He stopped to kiss her mound -- the bony part, not anything sensitive -- before taking them all the way off.

"Sweet Jen," he said. "Beautiful Jen. Delectable Jen." Now, he kissed her thighs. She raised her knees and spread her legs to welcome him, but he lay beside her instead. While he kissed her breast, his hand caressed her thighs and toyed with the hair on her mound. He parted her lips. "Oh Jen," he said. He sucked her left nipple as his finger traced up her cleft.

When the finger touched her clitoris, she gasped. He sucked hard. He stroked her and sucked alternate nipples until she shook with a climax.

Not relenting even then, he kissed her gasping mouth and then headed between her thighs. His finger made way for his tongue. He licked those lips, occasionally just touching her clitoris with his tongue. She felt herself spiraling upward again. He didn't let up, licking her lips, licking her so-sensitive clitoris, playing with her nipples with one hand. He inserted a finger and massaged her tunnel while his tongue was busy just outside. He even sucked the clitoral area while she was already having a spasm. She arched again and again. Finally, she reached down and pushed his head away.

He withdrew his finger and lay beside her. It was time for him, way past time, but she needed to catch her breath first.

The next thing she knew, she was covered with the bedspread and several blankets. He was shaking her shoulder. "Time to wake up. I have to get you back."

"What time is it?"

"Nearly one. You've been asleep for hours."

She had?

"I've put your clothes at the foot of the bed," he said. "Are you going to go back to sleep?"

No. For one thing, she had to use the bathroom. "I'm awake."

He left her. When she had donned the minimum, she dashed out. He directed her to the bathroom without her asking. After that, she got everything on. He'd put her outerwear on a chair. She was tempted to sneak a look at his drawers, the drawers in the nightstands, at least. He might come in, though. She did look around. There was an stationary bike to one side. It almost looked like two rooms, one for sleep, a much smaller one for the exercise.

He was already wearing a sweater when she came out, and he got his coat on immediately. They went downstairs with him carrying the pizza box. When they got to the front door, he said, "Wait in here." She watched him get in the car he'd left down the block. He took some time getting it started, then he drove away. Before she could figure out that this was the most efficient way to get back to the apartment house, he was back. When he stopped, she went out. On the short walk to the car, the wind cut her to the bone. "I'd have offered you a shower," he said, "but I was afraid you'd catch your cold back in this weather." The heater was on, and, by the time they passed the county line, the car was warm.

"I'm sorry," he said. She wasn't. She was just sorry this hadn't happened months ago. He couldn't date a student? What about the year and a half she'd been a seminary student but not his student. "I got carried away." He wasn't the only one. And not only figuratively. He'd carried her off to his bed. How Neanderthal! How sexy!

He didn't say anything else. She almost dropped off again. He started humming. "Sing it," she said.

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine," he sang softly. "Oh what a foretaste of glory divine," was much louder. Then his voice softened again. Was he being suggestive? Professor Blake being blasphemous? She decided it was all her imagination.

After he finished the tune, she asked, "Would you like to sing another?" She fell asleep to his marvelous voice.

"Jenny," he said. "We're there." He shook her. He walked her to the door, and went in to the kitchen while she was starting to unwrap herself.

He was still in his coat, though, for the good-night kiss. He was more tender than passionate. "Love you," he said. "I'll call." She managed to bolt the door after him and get into her nightgown before dropping into bed. She had so much to think about, but sleep took her immediately.

The next morning, she found the pizza box perched precariously on top of some of the other items in her refrigerator. There were two pieces still in it. However much a Chicagoan she was, cold pizza wasn't her idea of breakfast. She did nuke one for lunch, however. Her phone rang about two-thirty.

"Independence United Methodist Church."

"David. Can you talk?"

"It rings in the parsonage, too. I'm all alone."

"No calls from the D. S. asking what you were doing being driven home after 2:30?"

"No. I think they were all asleep."

"Lucky them. This seminar isn't going to get much from me today."

"I'm sorry!"

"I'm not. Look, I already know that the rest of this week is shot. Could I prevail on you for another date next Monday?" Could he prevail? The question was whether she could wait that long.

"I'd be honored."

"Same time? Maybe another nationality's cuisine?"

"What nationality is pizza anyway?"

"American. Chicago isn't a nationality."

"Tell Da Mare! Anyway, I'd be honored." She'd said that already. But he didn't seem to be complaining.

She was tempted to call him during the week, but she resisted. She paid for personal long distance, but the church treasurer saw all the bills, and they included the numbers she called and the minutes the call lasted. Maybe she was paranoid; maybe somebody had seen her arrive in David's car in the middle of the night and told all their friends. They wouldn't call the district superintendent to complain, whatever David thought. They wouldn't even complain officially to the pastor-parish committee. Martha Englehard would hear the gossip and tell Joe. Since he hadn't been officially informed, there would be nothing for him to do.

On the other hand, she had to deliver moral imperatives to these people. If they suspected that she wasn't following the morality that they thought important, they'd ignore her even more thoroughly than they did now. At the committee meetings, anyway, she saw no sign of disillusionment.

Sunday morning, she heard him during the first hymn. That voice had sung for her on their way back, a private concert. She started to think back on that evening, but pulled herself up short. She had a service to lead; she couldn't even think of her sermon until its time came.

The handshake and the comments seemed incredibly innocent to her. Others took longer in the line than he had.

Monday, he called her again. "On for four?"

"Oh yes. Dress casual?"

"Casual is fine."

Well, casual might be fine, but she wasn't going to wear tight jeans again. She was ready at ten 'til four. He rang the bell at five 'til. "Was I too demanding on the ride back?" she asked. "I loved your singing, but I was too out of it to think that you might strain your voice. And then I fell asleep on you."

"I kept singing. It kept me awake. How did your day go?"

"Last week? I was rather slow in the morning, but I felt wonderful. I did some hospital visits in the afternoon and perked right up by the evening meeting."

"And today?"

"Great" she said. "I had this to look forward to."

He stopped for Philippine take-out in the city. He seemed to know where everything was. They had to park two blocks from his apartment, but the walk wasn't chilling. Again, she collected the keys and gave them to him when he returned from the kitchen. He helped her off with her coat and scarves, then stood back to admire her peasant dress. "If that's casual, I'm one of the casualties."

"It's old." And she couldn't wear it around the church; it almost called for pigtails, not that she would wear them -- not that she could wear them with this hair cut. Still, she didn't look professional in the dress; she looked like a young girl. On the other hand, she had no problem with David's thinking of her as a girl.

He tipped her head up, and kissed her sweetly. The percolator burbled before they could get serious. In the kitchen, he poured her a cup, and served her a small portion of each of five dishes.

"Taste each," he said. "Take as much as you want for seconds."

"Chicken adobo," he identified one dish.

"I'm glad you waited until after I'd tasted it. It tastes delicious, but 'adobe' doesn't sound appetizing."

"Adobo is different. I think the names are a coincidence. Now that," of another dish she was sampling, "is pon-sit. The Greek gods ate ambrosia 'cause nobody on Mount Olympus could make pon-sit."

It was delicious. The whole meal was delicious. "Want dessert?" he asked at the end.

Well, yes. But she didn't want ice cream. She wanted some more of his delicious kisses. "No. Want me to take the coffee while you clean up?"

"That would be kind of you."

He had two nightstands, one on either side of a twin bed. She put a cup on each and went back for the pot. It went on the nightstand with his cup. She was still wearing the clunky shoes. She wore them to the church and changed there on Sundays. She slipped them off now. She sat against the headboard.

"Jen," he called from the living room. A minute later, he looked in the doorway. There weren't a hell of a lot of places to look in the apartment. He quirked an eyebrow, but made no verbal comment. He sat against the headboard on the right side. There wasn't much room, but she didn't want more. "My cup?" he asked, nodding towards it.

"Yeah."

He kissed her deeply, then held her breast through the dress. He didn't mention that she wasn't wearing a bra. Maybe he had noticed earlier, though it would be hard to see in this dress. His other hand reached behind her and slipped inside the neckline. His fingers couldn't quite reach her left nipple, they stroked the top of her breast.

When she broke the kiss to breathe, he kissed her forehead and nose. That tickled. He moved back, pulling at the shoulders of her dress. "Don't want to get this wrinkled," he said. Wrinkled? She'd told him it was old. On the other hand, since the option seemed to be removing it, let's protect it from wrinkles by all means.

She'd selected this pair of panties for his view. They covered only the essentials, and were lacy there. He seemed to be looking at her bare breasts, instead. She hoped he wasn't disappointed at their size. But he'd seen them already, and he hadn't seemed to think they were too small. This time, too, he looked at them appreciatively. Then he kissed them appreciatively.

He covered with kisses the entire surface of each breast except the aereolas. When he finally licked across her nipple, it sent a thrill through her. She was quite excited before he returned to her mouth for another deep kiss. His hand went to her thighs during that kiss. He tickled her there, caressed the insides of each thigh. She spread her legs, but he didn't seem to get the hint.

Then he trailed his hands up between her legs, stroking the thighs as he went. This time, he didn't stop. His hand covered her mound. He licked and sucked her nipples as he lightly caressed her lower lips. She arched to press more firmly against his hand. She loved the feelings; then she wanted more; then even those stopped.

He lifted his head and his hand moved to her waist. "These are lovely," he said, "but aren't they in the way just now?" She lifted her rump again so he could remove the panties, and then again to help him ease off her pantyhose. He stripped off his shirt and undershirt, although not -- oddly enough -- his pants before returning to lie beside her.

His skin was warm against hers as he kissed her. Then he moved aside before renewing the kiss. He stroked her thighs again while his tongue invaded her mouth. This time, there was nothing barring his access to her genitals. His fingers were a little chilly as they parted her lips, but the sensations they brought heated her. He stroked her as his lips traveled down her throat and chest. He sucked on her left nipple just as he stroked her clitoris for the first time. Fire burned through her; she may have gasped.

"Lovely Jen," he said. "Delightful Jen." Then his mouth went back to doing better things. When he abandoned her breasts, it was to trail kisses lower and lower. When he got to her waist, he got up to move between her legs. He kissed both thighs on his way to their juncture. The first touch of his lips on her lower ones was delightful. And then it got better and better.

Heat spread out all over her body from her center, from his tongue. The heat became a fire which burned through her. It consumed her.

And, when it left, nothing remained. Slowly, her self came back together, David was holding her, cuddling her, murmuring to her. "Jen, sweet Jen," he said. "Jen, lovely Jennifer, say yes." Say yes to what? He was holding something in front of her face. It was a packaged condom.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, David, oh yes!" Which, one part of her brain noted, was much more romantic than 'It's about time.'

He rolled away from her. She felt the bed shake as he pulled off his trousers and rolled on the condom. Kneeling between her legs, he kissed her. Then he kissed each of her breasts while his fingers spread her labia. She felt him right at the opening. He kissed her again. "Oh Jen," he said. Then he pushed in.

He spread her, filled her, stretched her. She felt his pelvis press hers. He shifted so his hands could reach her breasts. "Sweet Jen," he said before he started moving.

He withdrew slowly and almost all the way on each stroke, then pressed inward until she was filled. Then he would rub against her from side to side before withdrawing again. She crossed her ankles behind his rump and lay back to enjoy all the sensations. Soon, though, she dropped her feet to the bed to thrust back. She was enjoying every moment of this, and she would enjoy the moment of his orgasm the most. She was looking forward to that, the tribute to her desirability. She'd had hers, and -- as much as she was enjoying the prelude -- knew she wouldn't have another tonight.

Then she did.

One moment, she was feeling warm all over in response to his ministrations. The next, she was burning up. She thrust up desperately, impaling herself on him. Every muscle tightened to the point of torture, and a fire burned through her. It felt like paradise; it felt like hell. "Oh!" she said. And then she collapsed.

He thrust into her, driving her inches up the bed with his force. Then he was having his own orgasm inside her limp body. When he was done, he fell sideways, taking himself out of her. She could hear him gasp. Minutes later, he stretched out an arm to hold her lightly. Their breathing evened together.

"Oops!" he said. He reached between her legs to pull out the condom. "Shouldn't matter. Some might have spilled out of this end, but it couldn't get into you. You're delightful. Give me another minute to get my breath back, and I want to kiss you again." He pulled her hand over to his face and kissed that.

When he finally recovered enough to move, however, it was into the bathroom. She could hear the toilet flush and the water run in the sink. It was neatly combed David who returned to the room. His hair was all he'd arranged, though. His entire wardrobe consisted of a wristwatch and two socks. He did kiss her, then. He kissed all over her face, and was starting on her neck when her bladder called.

When she had used the toilet and washed her hands and face, she looked at herself critically in the mirror. At least there were no suck marks. Being kissed on the neck was remarkably pleasant at the time, but she was a professional woman -- a pastor. She couldn't show up at a pastor-parish committee meeting with hickeys. Her nipples looked more red than usual; maybe those were suck marks. If so, nobody would see them but her.

David interrupted those thoughts by knocking on the door. "I'm leaving a robe hanging on the doorknob," he said. "It's mine; sorry." She stood behind the door to retrieve the robe. This was silly; he'd seen everything. But it was how she felt. He wasn't in the living room when she came out. She dressed in the bedroom. She did sneak a look at the drawers in his nightstands. She found nothing exceptional, except that there was an open box of condoms in one and one lone condom in the other. She found him in the kitchen. He rose to kiss her. His hands smoothed down her back and held her by the rump. When she had to breathe, he turned her around.

She leaned back against him while his hands cupped her beasts through the dress. "We have a while, yet," he said. "You could have more food, or the ice cream, or we could stand like this." She didn't move. "I should apologize for the time mess last week. I didn't know what to do. I'd never expected it to go that far."

"Tonight surprised you?"

"Can't claim that it did. The depths of the pleasure, sure. Your beauty is always a surprise. Not that you are beautiful, I've known that since I first wore glasses to class. But the extent of your beauty. Even when I've seen it earlier, that is always a surprise. Anyway, the extent of your beauty might be a surprise, the depth of my pleasure might be a surprise. But the basic outline of our activities has been my dream for a week. I had to make a purchase, after all. This evening was lovely. Last week was lovely too; it's just that it was something I hadn't anticipated."

She could tell he wasn't talking about the food. 'Purchase' must have meant the condom. Well, he didn't keep them on hand for all his conquests; he didn't just happen to have a spare robe for female house guests; his bed was clearly intended for one. Whatever she was to him, it didn't look like she was the latest on a long list. "Well, I didn't anticipate it, either." And she hadn't. She wouldn't have worn the jeans otherwise.

His watch alarm broke into those musings. He let her go; she straightened; he stepped back and shut off the alarm. "Nine- thirty," he said. "We really have to go soon if we are going to get you back before midnight. Want some of the leftovers for lunch?"

"I don't think so." She was a professional woman living on her own. Pizza was one thing; pizza was a necessity of life of which she had been deprived. He didn't have to keep her supplied with food. On the other hand, his care was touching.

They kissed once before putting on their outerwear. "Wait in here," he said at the bottom of the stairs. "The outer door doesn't lock. I'll come back for you." She did wait behind the inner door until she saw his car stop. He was out of it, coming towards the door, when she came out of the building. He opened the door for her. The wind wasn't bad.

The car started off chilly, but warmed as they were driving along. "Do you want me to lower the heater a bit?" he asked when they got on the interstate.

"A bit."

"Look, what does this Saturday look like? Do you think you could give me a good block of time? Can you finish sermon prep by Friday?"

'On Friday' he must mean. "I think so. Is that an invitation?" Did that sound terribly arch?

"Not a very specific one, I'm afraid. I'll call you in a day or so." They rode together silently for a while. "If nothing comes up, I ought to get you back home by midnight. Don't want your people mad at me."

"Seems to me you take more effort being ingratiating with a bunch of people who have no power over you than you did with your students and fellow faculty members."

"Ah, but they do have power over me. I don't want to be a drag on you."

"I'm less careful."

"That's you. If you offend them, and offending is one part of the job-description for a preacher, then that was your decision. I just don't want to be a drag on you."

"And if you offend? That's your decision. But I'm surprised that you didn't get in trouble over the Schweitzer game." She didn't try for a German pronunciation.

"Well, a student took it up with another professor."

"Craig?"

"He didn't say. I didn't ask. Besides, I can't remember Craig. The only way you can keep track of present students is to forget the former ones."

"You remembered me."

"That's different. You're special. I'd have noticed you passing in the street. Anyway, was Craig one of the fundies? The guy who complained was a fundy."

"Huh?" That wasn't Craig, but why would a fundy complain over the game? And she'd never heard him use the term 'fundy' before. Not that he hadn't dealt with the concept in class.

"I was surprised too. So was the professor he went to. He explained that -- whatever my manifold sins from his perspective -- this particular scheme was aimed at The Jesus Project. Anyway, he had to break it to the kid that there was no way to discipline me for not believing in inerrancy -- not at Garrett. Really, the admissions office should weed out kids with that low a reading comprehension."

"That low?" she asked.

"He thought I was asking what passages should be kept in the Gospels. Wasn't the question on the sheet clear?"

"It was clear to me." And it had been clear to her. Those pages might have been nasty, but they hadn't been vague.

"Editing the Gospels isn't my business."

"You don't seem to like any cutting. The first sermon I ever heard you preach" discounting what preaching he did in class, but she wasn't going to mention that, "was off the lectionary. The very first part of Luke."

"Well, the lectionary is a different matter. If you follow the lectionary, your congregation hears a good solid chunk of the Bible over three years. In general, I'm suspicious of pastors who don't follow it. Their congregations are likely to hear only a few passages."

"That's assuming they come between Easters."

"That's assuming they come every week, or -- at least -- on a regular basis. If they only come on Easter, they'll only hear one story, but -- if they can only hear one story -- the Resurrection story is the one to hear."

"But you don't consider yourself bound to the lectionary."

"I'm not bound to it; I don't preach often enough; I don't have a congregation which needs to hear the whole thing. Give me a little warning, though, and I'll preach on the lectionary when I'm substituting."

"Sorry!"

"I wasn't thinking of you. I do a little substitute preaching. Anyway, you didn't get sick to stick me with an impossible assignment.

"Anyway," he continued, "I don't believe in dropping the lectionary to preach every week to the same people on your few favorite passages. On the other hand, I don't see where the committee's neglecting a passage means that should never be heard. A few of the lists in the Old Testament, maybe; Paul's personal greetings to individuals, though I might try one of those on a bet; but there isn't a passage in the Gospels which isn't worth a sermon."

She thought. "Matthew's genealogy of Jesus."

"You won't believe this."

"Try me."

"I've not only preached on that, I preached a funeral sermon on that."

"You're right." She didn't believe him. Sunday morning sermons had many purposes; letting the congregation hear the passage in scripture was certainly one of them. A funeral sermon had only one purpose, and the audience was not composed of people whose education was your responsibility.

"There was this man," he began. "He married this woman, and they had two kids -- Depression or not. Then he went off to the Second World War and died in combat."

This wasn't tracking. "You preached a funeral sermon for a guy who died in World War Two? When was the funeral held?"

"No. The story is only beginning. Anyway, his widow met another man. The two of them fell in love. They married, and had another kid. That child grew up and died in Vietnam. Plenty of combat deaths in this story. Finally, the man died -- the stepfather.

"The only survivors were the stepson, the stepdaughter, and their families. He'd been almost the only father the two kids -- grown kids with families of their own by this time -- had ever known. Apparently -- hey! I only heard this after the guy had just died -- he had done a splendid and loving job as a parent. Certainly, he had sacrificed to put both kids through college.

"So," he concluded, "I preached on Jesus and his stepfather. They said some kind things -- with tears in their eyes -- after the service."

"You're proud of that, aren't you? David can preach from any text. Want to preach my sermon Sunday? A nice passage from Leviticus on the kosher laws?"

"Not this Sunday," he said "thank you. That what you're going to preach on? I haven't looked at this week's lectionary." Who had? she thought. It was Monday. Sermon prep was Saturday, no it would have to be on Friday this week.

It was a thought, though. She had a fully qualified preacher in her congregation. The only problem was the suspicion that the congregation would prefer his sermons to hers. Certainly prefer the preaching style, probably prefer his theology. It might not be as antediluvian as theirs, and it contained some odd twists, but it was much less modern than hers. Of course, and the DS had been quite open about this, one thing she was doing there was letting one more congregation get used to seeing a woman in the pulpit. She couldn't simply retire to counseling and hospital visiting and leave the pulpit to David. Not that he seemed likely to let her.

She glanced over at him, but he was concentrating on the road. Considering that they were on a divided highway intended for several times the present traffic load, such concentration was unnecessary.

"Want another hymn?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh yes!"

So she snuggled down to listen to another private concert. When he stopped after the fourth one, she was too sleepy to offer conversation. She was nearly awake, however, by the time he stopped in front of the parsonage. He walked her to the door, but refused her invitation. Probably that was wise. The way they behaved in Evanston wouldn't do for Independence, let alone the parsonage. "I'll call," were his parting words.

And he did. "This is David." He always identified himself, probably not realizing what a distinctive voice he had. Maybe he was reinforcing his choice for the form of his name. "I want to thank you for our last date." He was willing to put their relationship that way in public. Of course, this phone call wasn't public; but a dozen people had keys to the church. Maybe a hundred for all she knew. Any one of them could pick up the phone there.

"I was wondering if I could have your company again on Saturday? Would one o'clock at the parsonage work for you? That would mean a late lunch, can you manage until two?"

"You don't have to feed me."

"I do if I want your company for the meal. Anyway, I have to feed myself. I want your company for most of the afternoon, and that fits my schedule. Does it fit yours? I don't want to impose."

"It can fit my schedule as well. I'll just have to do sermon prep and hospital visits earlier."

"Thanks."

"Why don't you make it one o'clock at the church instead? Would that be a problem?"

"One o'clock at the church."

She was all ready except for having her coat on and was looking out the window when he drove up. She'd donned her coat by the time he knocked on the door. They talked of minor things while he drove, and stopped midway at a restaurant which catered to expressway traffic. He was silent until he got them back on the expressway and moving with the scant traffic.

"Look," he said suddenly, "I was attracted to you long ago. Maybe it was all physical back then. Since then, I've gotten to know you. And I like what I've gotten to know."

All that was nice, but it wasn't getting anywhere. She certainly couldn't see a response.

"I think this attraction is mutual, maybe not as great, but you seem to like me, too."

"Of course, I like you." For the love of God, she'd gone to bed with him.

"You've done all the marriage counseling thing, taken the courses and all that, done some counseling yourself this year."

"Yes."

"You know that attraction isn't the be-all and end-all. But it's a great start -- maybe a necessary start."

Suddenly they were talking about marriage. Did he mean them? "Yes. David, didn't you once say that one should get to the central point of a paper by the second paragraph, first paragraph, preferably?"

"Yeah. So what's my point? Is that what you're asking?"

"That's what I'm asking."

"Jen, would you marry me?"

Would she marry him? She hadn't dreamed of this. Well, she'd dreamed of it, but long ago and not particularly seriously. "Do you mean would I possibly consider it? Or is that a proposal?"

"It was supposed to be a proposal. I'm doing this really badly."

"Well, I would possibly consider it. And, since that was supposed to be a proposal, this is supposed to be an acceptance."

"Good. When we've picked out the ring, I'll ask you in better form. So long as you say yes, I don't care how many times I have to ask. I may just do it every day for practice."

Well, he needed the practice. "And when will we be picking out the ring?"

"That's where we're going. I made an appointment with a Chicago jeweler. Sorry I didn't warn you, but I couldn't. I did this badly enough anyway."

"That's all right." At least, she knew she'd be his first fiancee. David wasn't the sort to struggle with a speech twice.

David had called ahead. The jeweler brought out several examples of ring sets. He'd removed the price tags. "That's not for you to worry about," David said. "You want to consider what it would look like on your finger for the rest of your life. If you want time to think, that's fine. Just look now." But there was an emerald and diamond ring with the tiniest diamond on the woman's wedding ring and none on the man's.

"You're sure you want to wear a ring?" she asked him.

"If it means I'm married to Jen, it will make me proud."

She thought the rule was that she paid for his ring, but David and the jeweler seemed to be agreed that he was going to pay for all three. He handed over his MasterCard, looked at the bill, and the sale was made. She still didn't know the price when he took her hand. "Jennifer Saunders, will you marry me?"

"David Blake, I will."

He slipped the ring on her finger. The two wedding rings were in separate boxes. He gave the man's ring to her and pocketed the other box.

They were back in the car well before five. "What do you want to do with the rest of the evening?" he asked. "I'll admit that this was my priority. I'll drive you back, if you want. Still, I'd rather have a date with you. I haven't had a date with my fiancee, yet. Would you rather go out to eat? Would you rather take out something and eat at my place."

"I'm not really dressed for a fancy restaurant." She'd get by, but she would really prefer to spend the time at his place. "And we did eat lunch late."

"Want to go back to my place? I'm a little nervous walking around with the band in my pocket. We can plan the rest of the evening there."

"Let's."

At the apartment, he took her coat without rushing to set the coffee on. When both coats were in the closet, he kissed her. First the kiss was sweetly gentle. Only his lips touched hers. Then he pulled her against him while his tongue invaded her mouth. His hands were on her rump, she decided to do the same to him. He pulled one hand up to adjust the angle of her head. Finally, they had to breathe. "Come in to the kitchen," he said, "while I start the coffee."

There were several tasks involved in this. He'd obviously prepared before the other times. When the percolator was working to his satisfaction, he returned to the kiss. Then he turned her around in his arms. He kissed her hair and occasionally her ear while he held her breasts. "You liked those better without the bra?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I liked them even better without the dress. Still, this is nice, too. I even like the way you look with your hair cut."

"But better with it long. I had it long enough to sit on in college. You'd have loved that."

"Sweeping the ground when you walk."

"Gee, thanks! It was hard enough to care for when it was half that length. I can imagine combing dirt and twigs out of it every night."

"Well, I said I like how you look now. I wasn't talking about practicalities, I was talking about looks. I like the way you're dressed now; I liked the way you were dressed Monday better; and I liked the way you were dressed Monday in the bedroom best of all. Still, I wouldn't suggest you go out in this weather without a coat."

"I'll forgive you."

He kissed her right ear then. That tickled and she turned her head. He took that opportunity to kiss her left ear. The percolator burbled, and he released her to deal with it. He poured them each a cup. "There still is ice cream in the freezer. Don't want you to spoil your dinner, but you could have a bowl."

"'Spoil your dinner.' You sound like my mother."

He dished her up a bowl. "At the risk of being repetitive, do you want me to get a pizza?"

"Pizza? Did the man say pizza? I might propose."

"Can't. You're wearing an engagement ring. What sort of topping?" He got the menu that had come with the first box. "Green peppers?"

"Yes."

"Mushrooms?"

"Mmm," she said, "mushrooms."

"Anchovies?"

"Are you going to read me the whole list?"

"Why not?"

"Pepperoni. That should be enough."

"And cheese?" he asked.

"And cheese. Isn't a pizza without cheese."

"Cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers. Sounds like a heartburn special."

"Now you do sound like my mother. A heartburn special would have to include hot peppers and onions."

"Want them?"

"Heavens no," she said. She didn't want the heartburn, either. Cheese, pepperoni, green peppers, and mushrooms would be a nice satisfying meal. She ate the ice cream. He hadn't dished himself any, though he drank his coffee.

"Deep dish?" he asked suddenly.

"Is there another kind?"

"There is on the menu. If I wanted to really sound like your mother, I'd send you to bed without your supper."

What had she done? Then the magic word, 'bed,' sank in. "I'm willing."

He came over and held out his hand until she took it. He helped her to her feet and pulled her into his arms. After the kiss, he led her to his bedroom. In front of a chair, he kissed her again. His tongue explored her mouth while he hugged her to him. She became quite conscious of the firmness against her belly.

When he broke the kiss, he gestured toward the chair behind her. He knelt at her feet as she sat. He removed the clunky shoes and the warm socks. He massaged her feet through the pantyhose. When he stood up, he didn't reach for her. Instead, he removed the spread from the bed and dumped it on a chair on the other side of the bed from her. When he'd turned down the sheets and blankets together, he folded them down again. They were an oblong on the bottom quarter of the bed.

This time, he came over and spread his arms wide. The kiss was long and a little awkward. He was even taller when she had her shoes off. Keeping up the kiss, he explored the back of the dress with his hands. He pulled the zipper all the way down before finding the snap at the neck. When he had unhooked her bra, he stepped back.

She removed the dress and then the bra and handed them to him. He took them and draped them across the bedspread on the chair. When he returned to her, he kissed her while his hands roved over her skin. They stopped on her breasts. He bent down to kiss each, holding them up with his hands. "Lovely. See, you look even better this way."

"They aren't too small?" she asked,

He kissed them again, sucking each tip into his mouth in turn. "They're too big to fit. What more do you want?"

"I want you to do that again." So he did, this time licking the nipple when it was in his mouth. She could take this all day. Who needed pizza?

He knelt again, and eased her panties down. When they puddled around her feet, she stepped out of them. He pulled the pantyhose off her rump and down to mid thigh. He kissed her mound. "See," he said, "your hair doesn't have to be long for me to love it. I think, though, that this would work better if you were sitting down."

When she sat, he removed the pantyhose from each leg. He kissed her right knee and trailed a string of kisses up her thigh. It tickled, and she drew her knees together. "But," he said, "I think you were sent to bed." She got up, crossed the distance of a yard or so, and lay down on the bed. "Do you want to remove your watch?"

She couldn't see why for a minute. But when she had put the watch on the nightstand to her left, she was wearing nothing but the engagement ring. He took her left hand in both of his, and kissed it, first the back and then down the finger to the ring. He stepped out of his loafers and joined her in the bed. Still, he was fully dressed.

They had a long kiss, tongues licking tongues. He was leaning over her from her right, and his hand caressed her from her knee to her breasts and back again. He was holding her left breast when he broke the kiss.

He took two breaths. She was out of breath, too. Then he began kissing and licking down her neck. The licks couldn't leave hickeys, but they were ticklish. He didn't relent however much she wiggled. He went on to her left breast. When he licked that nipple, his hand caressed downward. His fingers combed firmly through the hair on her mound. On her lower lips, however, they were very gentle.

She held his shoulders. "You're still dressed," she said.

"Ihm hihm." Great! She'd intended a hint, not a score on a true-false test. Then he parted her lips and stroked between them. He moved his mouth over to her right breast, and she forgot about his clothes. His lips and tongue did lovely things to her; so did his finger. She relaxed and wallowed in the sensations.

He was gone for a moment, but then he was between her legs kissing the insides of her thigh. She drew her knees up and spread her legs to give him access. All he did was to switch thighs. It was minutes later when he finally kissed her lower lips. She pulled his head against her more firmly. He moved his arms so his hands were on her breasts. All the sensations were lovely. She kept her hands on the head which was delivering such sweetness, but relaxed back to let it happen.

He opened her lips with his tongue. He thrust it hard against her entrance. Then he licked her cleft up to her clitoris. He licked one lip, then the other, then the valley in between. He pressed his chin against her lips and moved it back and forth. She was near, she was very near, when he moved his mouth away to rest his cheek right there. He kissed her left thigh. She pulled on his hair again, but he ignored her. Even his hands were motionless on her breasts.

"Sweet Jen," he said. "Sweet, sweet, Jennifer and her special sweetness." At that he resumed licking her center. His hands moved again, drawing his fingers across her nipples. His tongue was on one lip, then the other. The tension built at every sensation. She gloried in his attentions, she ached from his attentions.

Finally, he closed his lips over the area of her clitoris and sucked. She flew away.

But he didn't release her. He kept sucking, kept licking, kept fingering her suddenly-so-sensitive nipples. She spasmed, spasmed again and again. She arched upwards into his mouth. Then she collapsed.

She vaguely felt the bed shift as he got up, felt the covers being removed from under her feet. She was covered with the blanket and sheet. He carefully tucked her in, and kissed her forehead. "Guten abend," he sang, "gute nacht, mit rosen bedacht...."

"Jen," he said in a much different voice, not singing but speaking loudly. "Jen, wake up! It's dinner time. Pizza's here." Why couldn't he let her sleep? She only needed ten minutes. But, even if he would, her bladder wouldn't. She opened her eyes. The only light was spilling in from the doorway.

He was completely dressed, and when he kissed her forehead again, his cheek felt cold. "I have something for you," he said. "Look." He was holding a robe. "And slippers. I figured that you needed to keep your feet warm."

She put on the robe and stumbled into the slippers. They were warm -- indeed fuzzy; they were also a little tight. By the time she got out of the bathroom, she was awake.

"You look delightful," he said. "Want to eat dressed like that?"

"I have to go with you to get the pizza."

"It's in the kitchen." And so it was, a box on the kitchen table held a deep-dish pizza already sliced. There was a slice on each of two plates at facing places at the table. A bottle of red wine and two wine glasses shared the table with them. A light was beginning to dawn.

"How long did I sleep?"

"Little more than an hour. Hungry?" Surprisingly, she was.

"Yes. Should I dress? Did you get the wine on the same trip?"

"I already had the wine. Not opened in case you'd want to eat something else. You are dressed, darling."

"Did you buy the robe and slippers especially for me?"

"Yep. Hope the slippers fit."

Should she tell the truth? If they were going to be married, he'd have to know her sizes. "Actually, they're a little small."

"Good! You have a petite build, but the slippers looked awfully tiny when I compared them to my feet. Can you wear them tonight?"

"Sure. Slippers aren't that size-dependent." They fit her feet, they were just a little snug. Slippers should flop around a little.

She sang the grace with him and sat down. "Delicious!" she said before taking her second bite.

"So you are, but it's not modest to say so." The pizza in her mouth dissuaded her from sticking out her tongue. "You need to plan how you're going to tell your congregation. Merely wearing a ring and waiting for people to notice might work for some women, but it's probably not what you want." He was still in the professor mode. Well, he had the experience of being the pastor, although probably not of being a pastor announcing his engagement.

"And how are you going to handle your end?"

"I'm not. Oh, I'll tell my family. Basically, though, I plan to let this year's supply of students depart thinking I'll always be an old bachelor, and next year's supply come to class to see a man who looks like he's been married forever. Not that many students check you out to see whether you're wearing a ring. Especially men teachers."

"A long engagement?"

"You're in charge of schedule -- within reason. It should be obvious, though, that if you want a decent honeymoon you'll have to wait 'til the end of school. Of course, we could marry earlier and just take a vacation when we can both get off. Honeymoon's are a tradition, they aren't an essential part of marriage.

"Look, there is what David wants, and what Jen wants, and what David's situation requires, and what Jen's situation requires. My bottom line was satisfied when you said you'd marry me. I might have preferences besides, but I don't have other requirements. You are going to find that your situation lays a lot more demands. I'm just looking ahead at some of them. Your congregation is going to expect that their church is the scene of the wedding. Your parents might well expect otherwise. I'm not being demanding; I'm exercising forethought. I've had more time to look at what this will mean, after all."

This was a more interesting point than people telling her where they wanted her to have her wedding. "How long have you known you would propose?"

"Known? Not long. We couldn't get married without knowing we were sexually compatible, could we?" She'd have to think about that comment, but now wasn't the time. "Been considering it? Not as long as I should have. I'll swear that I wasn't thinking about marriage when I first looked up what church you'd been assigned to. It was nowhere in my mind those first lunches. Now, looking back, it should have been. I couldn't let this girl go out of my life; I had to see her again -- and again and again. So how else could I keep her in my life? When you think of it, I was an idiot for not seeing that.

"On the other hand," he continued, "dreaming of kissing you was frustrating enough. If I had been thinking of marriage back then, I'd have driven myself crazy. There were too many obstacles."

So why hadn't he mentioned this to her? He'd played a disinterested professor, then a faculty member checking out how a former student was doing. On the other hand, he was the only Garrett prof who had shown up in Independence. And she should have tumbled when he came back -- he couldn't have visited many students on that schedule. It wasn't as if he got to some church services on Mondays and others on Tuesdays. "So all of this was a plot?"

"Well, no. That's what I just said. Or, and in one manner it was, it was horribly done. I just wanted to see you again. Then I wanted to take you out. Then -- well really not then -- I wanted to kiss you. I'd wanted to kiss you much earlier, but I never thought I'd be able. And asking your pastor out for lunch is easy enough; dozens of families in your church do it. Kissing a woman you've taken to lunch is easy enough; she might not like it, but she likes you enough to go on a lunch date. It isn't as if it's a great step. Kissing a woman you've taken to lunch because she's your pastor is impossible."

"Well, when you hid your feelings, I couldn't respond to them." She was being a little unfair; she'd hidden some feelings, as well.

"And if I had stated them explicitly, it would have been sexual harassment."

After a brief pause, he laughed. "You can't guess what I'm working on now, though."

He was eating pizza now, but that isn't what he meant. Was he working on another idea for their marriage? For their evening together? "What?"

"A book on Paul's views on marriage. A fairly ambitious one. The nature of marriage in the Hellenistic society of his audience, in the Roman law which more-or-less controlled them, in the Old-Testament background and contemporary practices of Palestinian Jews. Then Paul's admonitions in light of those practices. I'm not dealing with one Letter, nor with what he says on other subjects in the Letters I mention. I didn't see the connection 'til just now. It's a fair question, an important segment of his teaching. I'm obsessing over an ex-student I'll never see again, and I -- just coincidentally -- set out to investigate what Paul says about marriage. So, I wasn't consciously thinking of marrying you until fairly recently."

There was a long silence. She though about his last comment; she thought about her dinner. She wanted more; she'd been deprived of real pizza for most of the last year. On the other hand, she didn't want to overeat. She might have a heavy weight on her stomach soon. Indeed, she'd be disappointed if she didn't. This business of licking her to ecstasy was all very well. What was she thinking -- it was delightful. But she wanted him in her, too. Finally, she asked, "could you cut one of those slices in half?"

He served her the half slice. As she was finishing it, he got up and dished himself a portion, a very small portion, of the lime sherbert. As she poured her second glass of wine, she decided to refuse dessert. She never got the opportunity. "Let's adjourn to the bedroom," he said as she ate her last bite of pizza.

He took his bowl and coffee cup with him and set them down on the left-hand nightstand. She set her cup and her wineglass on the other nightstand; she normally avoided coffee at night lest it should keep her awake, but keeping awake might be necessary in view of her recent experience in this room.

He finally took her in his arms and kissed her. His tongue was warm and gentle in her mouth. His hands gripped her rump, and the one on her right cheek was cold. She said not a word about that; she wanted it there. When he broke the kiss, he undid the sash of her robe. He kissed her forehead briefly before brushing the robe back. He was still fully dressed! She started to unbutton his shirt.

When she was done, he stepped back, pulled the shirt out of the waist of his trousers, and undid the last button that the trousers had hidden. He took off the shirt and tee-shirt. When he hugged her this time, she could feel his skin against her breasts. His hands roved her back before clutching on her rump again. Then they caressed her sides on the way to her breasts. His hand was still cold against her right breast. She stepped back.

He went to the bed and folded the covers down as before. At that unspoken invitation, she lay down on it. "I'll have to get another pillow," he said. "I used to imagine you in this bed, but I considered those daydreams. I didn't prepare for it."

He leaned down to kiss her. He was holding himself up so that his chest just brushed over her nipples. He straightened and picked up his bowl of sherbert. He tilted the bowl and scraped the spoon along the side. After putting the bowl down he dripped the liquid from the spoon onto her. It was cold, especially cold on her breast. The drop that hit her nipple was really cold.

"Hey," she said.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. He put the spoon in the bowl and bent down to lick the spills off her. He enclosed the entire tip of her breast in his mouth and sucked that bit of sherbert up. He sat on the bed and reached for the bowl again.

"No way!" she said. "I don't want to catch cold again."

"Okay," he said. She could taste a little lime sherbert on his tongue when he kissed her again. Again, his chest just touched her nipples. He broke the kiss and trailed a line of kisses down her neck and chest. It wasn't the first time he had done that, but it was the fastest he had ever traveled that route. Any of the college students in her past had moved faster.

When he got to her breasts, he kissed a line from the dry nipple to the other and back. Then he retraced the line. He did return to her mouth without kissing anywhere in between. When his tongue was in her mouth again, she reached for his belt.

She could undo his pants, but not get them down. He broke the kiss and got up to undress fully. He even pulled off his socks. He knelt between her feet and began kissing just above her knees. This was arousing, no question about that. It was also maddening. "I want you in me." There, she'd said it.

"Yes," he said. "Soon." He kissed up her left leg and up to her breast. His hand went to his nightstand and pulled open the drawer. Most of her attention was on the lips playing with her nipple, but she could hear him scrabbling around in the drawer. When he drew his hand out, he switched to the other breast and then kissed a line downwards towards her navel. His tongue stabbed this and tickled her there before his hands went to her groin.

He played with her lips for a minute. Then his mouth was there. His lips kissed her lower ones before he parted them with his fingers. The first lick was a delight. Then his tongue was a tease. When he finally touched it to her clitoris, she gasped.

He raised his head. "Like that?" he asked.

"Oh yes!" She had to answer even though she didn't want a conversation right then. He must have thought the same, because he put his mouth to better use. The licks on her lips aroused her at first; soon they moved to her clitoris. She was spiraling upward; the fire was coming. Then he stopped again.

"Now, David," she pled.

"Now," he agreed from somewhere near her breasts. She felt him just between her labia. It entered her; spread her; filled her. "I love you, Jen," he said. His face was inches from hers. She hugged him with arms and legs. He swayed left and right, causing all sorts of interesting sensations where they were joined.

Soon, he was stroking in and out. She felt him everywhere, above her brushing her breasts with every move, his back under her hands, his legs between hers, even his calves under her feet. Most acutely, though, she felt him enter and leave her. He rubbed against her entrance with each movement. She could feel the slipperiness of his motion deep inside her. Somewhere, a tension was gathering -- a fire was smoldering just where he was filling her. "Love," he said again.

Then it took her. She soared flaming, soared to somewhere outside this room. When she came back, he was pressed deep into her and throbbing.

He clutched his genitals and rolled to his side. She could hear his breathing. An arm hugged her. Later, he moved around in bed to pull up the covers. She turned to face him, and he hugged her more tightly.

"Sweet Jen," he said. From this position, she was facing the clock when he got up. It wasn't yet seven. What a day!

"I have to get you back. You'll want to call your staff- parish committee. Do you want a shower?" She did. He got out while she took it. The other half of her slice was on his plate when she found him in the kitchen. They were both fully dressed by then. They kissed in greeting.

He carried the box on their way to his car. "Let me get on the expressway," he said when the engine started. "Then we'll talk."

"Look," he said when he had settled into the expressway traffic pattern, "we really are embarking on two activities. One is a wedding; one is a marriage. I'm available for planning the first, but I expect that you'll have others better equipped to do that. The one decision I sort of forced on you was that I would wear a ring. Sorry about that; I saw it more as something I was offering you." Actually, so had she. "If it bugs you, tell me. I want anybody who's interested to see that you are off the market. I really want that. I think it's only fair to show that I'm off the market, too. Students don't matter, as I said, they know their teacher is unavailable to them. Present company excepted, of course."

He'd been damn unavailable to her, whatever he said now. And she remembered some of the discussions. The students hadn't regarded him as unavailable -- difficult, maybe. For that matter, he'd been seen as more difficult as a teacher than as a sex object. "You aren't going to wear the ring in class?"

"I'll wear it everywhere. It's not as if chalk qualifies as dangerous machinery. I doubt that they'll look. Anyway, I only brought up the ring because it's something I pushed into the wedding. Both rings, actually, though yours is fairly universal. You know what I mean. Anyway, I probably have other things I'm assuming about the wedding. If you really want something absolutely non-traditional, that's negotiable. If you want something that's a variable within the tradition, that's your decision. I only need to be told if you need me to do something. And, as I said before, 'your decision' doesn't mean 'your desires.' Some other people will have expectations, as well. But, even here, those are your decisions. Making them happy will help your career.

"That's the wedding," he continued. "Now, as to the marriage, you may not have noticed, but you are engaged to one opinionated son of a bitch." He was grinning. Her not noticing was supposed to be funny. "My only saving grace is that I know I'm an opinionated son of a bitch. I want some things for the marriage; I think marriages are a certain way. You've done enough counseling -- hell, your courses should have pointed this out -- to know that the second bit is more of a problem than the first. Anyway, we'll have to decide all sorts of things. Don't accept something 'cause I feel strongly about it. I feel strongly about everything.

"And," he wound up "one thing I feel strongly about is that I want this to make you happy."

"Well," she said, "I notice that you waited until after I'd accepted to say that."

"Well, yes."

"But I'd already figured out that you have strong opinions." She'd known that about him before she'd taken his class, actually.

"And the only way to deal with that is to have strong opinions of your own and let me know them."

"Word on you back at the seminary is that you don't take off for arguing with you."

"Take off? I hope not. That's called 'participation in class.' Well... some arguments aren't. Even so, if I get off on a tangent, a student's following me along the tangent is not the sort of mistake I can take off points for.

"And one problem is that I have strong opinions -- not exclusively, but especially -- in your field. If -- no when -- I tell you that you are doing something wrong in the church, remind me that you are the one appointed to be the pastor."

"I asked you for feedback on my sermon once; you wouldn't give it to me."

"I gave you feedback. There are all sorts of things you could improve, obviously. There always are. There will be for the rest of your life. The one thing, though, that you need to realize is that you already do a good job. Polishing, everybody can do. I'll help you with your tuckpointing; you don't need a gut rehab. Pardon my metaphor."

"I'll pardon it. It speaks."

"Now I'm doing it again. Do you want to continue as a Methodist preacher?"

"Yes."

"Good. I wasn't saying you had to. I was assuming you wanted to. Do you feel especially called to town and country work?"

"No. I'm a city girl; I have more to offer in the city."

"Would you mind asking for an appointment close to my job? You're a traveling preacher, I realize. Still, cabinets make some allowance for preferences. Sorta have to."

"Sure. I'll ask for that."

"Tell you what. I'll make a list of what we have to decide about our future. You make one to. The questions, not the answers. We'll merge the lists. Then each of us will fill out the answers. Then we'll look at where we'll have to compromise."

"Sounds like a man who's taken a marriage course."

"Taken more than one. Counseled a lot, too. Always felt inadequate. Bachelor telling a married couple what to do. Telling a married man was bad enough. A married woman!"

"Didn't seem to bother your friend Paul." This was a side to David that she hadn't seen before. He came across as both competent -- he'd preached a sermon for her on well less than an hour's warning, only a few minutes of which were possible prep time, -- and arrogant. Not arrogant, quite, but well satisfied with his abilities.

"I hope it didn't seem to bother me either. And -- though I hate when people say this -- it may have been easier in Paul's time. A wife's role was well-established; so was a husband's. All he had to add, and that was a lot, was that a Christian acted on behalf of the other. What are the roles today? And what happens if the socially-defined roles change? Or they see their roles out of different subcultures. He says, 'I want to be married to you'; she says, 'I want to be married to you.' What if they don't mean quite the same things by those words?"

"So you want us to get everything down beforehand?" Well, a guy who'd gone through a couple of break-ups vicariously was a lot better than a guy who had gone through a couple of break-ups for real. "You haven't been married before, have you?"

"No. Not even close." That was good.

"We really don't know a lot about each other, do we? I mean, I know your theology fairly well. I know a little about your taste in food. I don't know where you grew up, all sorts of things."

"Getting to know you," he sang, "getting to know all about you. I can't," he said in a speaking voice, "remember the rest."

"You sing other things than hymns?"

"Yeah. Grew up in a time and place where all my contemporaries were into rock, and the choir director wasn't. Made me much more important in the choir than I'd have been in the fifties." She wasn't sure. His voice would send any choir director into ecstasy. "Anyway," he continued, "he did some non-church stuff. Music teacher in the high school, too. I was his favorite soloist for all of it. You?"

"I sing well enough that the director wants me to sing with the choir. But that's Independence."

"That's anywhere. I like your voice. Liked it, speaking voice that is, before I liked your looks. That was just the glasses, though."

The silence was companionable. It was odd, when she liked his voice so well, that she could be happy riding along with him in silence.

"Coming to church tomorrow?" she asked when he'd turned off on the road to the parsonage.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

She pulled off the ring. "Darling," he said. "What did I do?"

"I'm not breaking the engagement. Bring this with you. I worked hard on that sermon yesterday. If I make the announcement before it, nobody will hear one word. So bring the ring with you and be ready to come up front."

"You still have to tell your staff-parish committee." These were entitled to know important changes in the pastor's life before the congregation, as a whole, did.

"I'll call them."

The first call she made, however, was back to Chicago. "Hello?"

"Hello Mom. Are you sitting down?"

"I am now."

"Guess what?"

"You're not pregnant!"

"Not yet. I just got engaged."

"Oh darling! Do I know the boy?"

"I don't think so. And he's not a boy. David is an older man."

"Um, darling,... by older, do you mean older than you are or older than I am?"

"Mom, keep hoping. Nobody's older than you are. He's maybe a decade older than I am. David was one of my professors in seminary."

"He's gainfully employed, then? Or did you mean that 'was'?"

"He's still a professor. I'm not in seminary any more. Remember? You went to the graduation. Anyway, I hope he's gainfully employed. You should see the ring."

"Will I?"

"I'll be home some day next week, or the week after. For that matter, you and Dad could come out to Independence. You could hear your daughter preach."

"I'll talk to your father. It's a long drive."

"I keep telling you that it's no longer going west than it is going east. Anyway, if you do come, don't mention the reason. I don't want to announce the engagement 'til the end of the service."

"A secret engagement?"

"Secret for less than twenty-four hours. We'll announce it at the end of the service; it's just that nobody will listen to the sermon if I announce it beforehand."

"Darling, I'm so glad for you. Will we meet the groom?"

"At the wedding. You can meet the fiance tomorrow."

"I'll talk to your father. Love you."

"Love you." And she did love her, especially from this distance. And she hadn't sent her to bed without her supper. Not ever. Of course, she couldn't have sent her to bed as pleasantly as David had.

The other calls were local ones.

"Hello."

"Mrs. Englehard. This is Jennifer. May I talk with your husband."

A pause, then, "Pastor?"

"Joe. I have something to tell the pastor-parish committee. I would like you not to talk about it to anybody else until after church."

"Okay."

"I just got engaged."

"David?"

"Yes."

"Going to tell the congregation?"

"At the end of the service."

"It's a girl's choice when to announce it. Let alone a preacher's. Congratulations."

"Thanks. I'll call the others."

On the third call she was asked, "That Dave guy finally popped the question?"

"It's 'David.' And am I the only one who was surprised by this?"

"Look. A new member joins the church, doesn't even join -- just comes, and asks the preacher out to dinner way out of turn. Do you think he wouldn't hear about it normally? Let alone doing it again and again. We let him alone 'cause we could see that something else was going on."

And what more had they sensed was going on? She'd never know. Some days she was shepherd to this flock; some days she was an absolute stranger surrounded by a pack of wolves.

"Anyway," she said, "we're going to announce it tomorrow, but after the service. So I'd appreciate it if you don't tell anyone."

"Betty's already heard too much. She won't tell anyone else, though."

One member of the committee wasn't home. Paul Douglas might possibly be surprised tomorrow; no he was on vacation. The others hadn't been surprised tonight.

In bed, she went over the afternoon -- and the night. David was as opinionated in bed as he was in class. Whatever intellectual certainty he had that she was entitled to half the decisions in the rest of the marriage -- and she could tell that she would need to assert herself to get them -- didn't extend to the sex aspect. On the other hand, he had heeded her 'no' about the sherbert. And it had been sexy. Maybe sometime they could do that again; summertime, maybe. Maybe he should have used the wine instead of the sherbert.

And "they had to know they were sexually compatible before they could get married." (That was his idea, if not his exact words.) That sounded an awful lot like trying her out. Still, if so, what he was trying out was her response to him. For that matter, he couldn't expect to make such prolonged love when they were married. She was going to have problems getting up for the service tomorrow, and she had more than twelve hours to go. Luckily, she had the sermon all prepared, and it was a good one. She knew she could get satisfaction from a relatively brief encounter, even if he didn't. And she could sleep easily after a single climax. Tonight, she would sleep like a log.

And she did.

The sermon sounded less impressive coming out of her mouth than it had looked when she was composing it. That was a pity, since her parents had made it to church -- early, too. When the last hymn was sung, she came forward.

"I have an announcement to make. David, would you come up here?"

He walked up, digging his hand in his outer breast pocket. "Did you have a question?" she prompted.

He had the ring in his hand. "Jennifer, will you marry me?"

"Yes David, I will." He pushed the ring on her finger and raised her hand to his mouth. He kissed the back of her hand. His tongue slipped out and licked, but nobody could see. When she looked, there was a twinkle in his eye.

The End
Blake
Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com
2003/03/27
Thanks to Neneh for proofing this.
David's take on this story:
 "Jen" 
Another story about another couple: 
"April's First"
The next stage in the adventures of Jen and David:
 "Prelude" 

The index to almost all my stories is:
Index to Uther Pendragon's website