For Elise
by Uther Pendragon
anon584c@nyx.net

If you are under the age of 18, or otherwise forbidden by law to read electronically transmitted erotic material, please go do something else.

This material is Copyright, 1999, Uther Pendragon. All rights reserved. I specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping one electronic copy for your personal reading so long as this notice is included. Reposting requires previous permission.

All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures in the background, are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

For Elise
by Uther Pendragon
anon584c@nyx.net

"Off to the library," Bob Brennan told his wife. "Anything you want before I go?"

"I'm going to call Kathleen," Jeanette answered. "Sure that you don't want to stick around?" He was sure. The news of his family filtered through Jeanette just fine. His mother called Jeanette one Saturday in three, called his sister Vi the next week, and Jeanette called Vi (except she called Kathleen Violet "Kathleen" -- the girl kept changing her mind) the third week. His family knew much more about his life than they had before his marriage -- more, his mother claimed, than she had known when he was living at home.

"I'll stick around for the call before my birthday," he told her. "Other times, I'd just inhibit the girl-talk."

Jeanette fed her baby, The Kitten, before making the call. She got out more than the first months, even took one class, but these family calls were a good part of her connection to the world. She didn't want them interrupted.

"Really," she told her sister-in-law when the amenities were done, "the date of the baptism depends on you. It has to be a Sunday. Which Sunday is your choice. The godfather is a member of the church." Faint sounds came out of the phone. Kathleen was doing something with paper.

"I'll have to confirm it. But let's say tentatively the 23rd. I could never get Thanksgiving. Couple more things. Have you thought about the recordings?" Kathleen had suggested confronting Bob and his father with the way that they talked about each other when they were apart. It was ridiculous that two grown men who expressed such admiration for each other when apart should bristle and quarrel so when together.

"I have a couple. Do you?"

"One since I talked to you. I got nervous about the phone. But I'm going back before I see you. Next week, in fact. That's a complication with the schedule." Kathleen was a hospital intern. Getting time off was a problem.

Kathleen changed the subject. "Does your sofabed still pull out?"

"Yeah. And you're welcome to do so." Jeanette wondered why she would bother. The folding mattress had seen better days; the cushions were more comfortable.

"The thing is, I want to bring a guest." Ever self-confident Kathleen was sounding very nervous.

"It's not Greg, is it?"

"No his name is Charles. We were in med school together, but his internship is in Cleveland."

"Ouch." Jeanette had suffered through a fifteen-month period when Bob was at school or on a summer job almost constantly. Long-distance relationships suck. "This sounds serious." She wondered why Kathleen hadn't told her earlier. They talked often, but Kathleen's romantic life was seldom included.

"This is serious. And one more thing. Could you not talk to mother between the time I go there and the time I visit you?"

"She calls me." And the conversations with Katherine Brennan were high spots in her life. Katherine called her every third Saturday.

"I'll ask her not to." And what one member of the family asked another, that member almost always got. Jeanette had depended on that, and not only from Bob. Now it was the time to deliver.

"Okay," she said. "Keep in touch."

"I will. What's my niece doing now?" The Kitten was trying to munch on her toes, and that was worth five minutes more of conversation. Then she gave her hungry cry, and Jeanette hung up. The Kitten was going through a growth spurt. Sometimes it seemed to Jeanette that she was nursing more than half the time. But that did give her a little quiet time to plan how she was going to tell Bob.

Bob didn't mind offering hospitality to a friend of his sister's. Offering his sister was a totally different proposition. "Vi! Little Vi."

"Little Vi," his wife retorted, "is a woman grown, 26 years old, a medical doctor, and has been calling herself Kathleen for four years." He ignored the last bit. Kathleen Violet was lucky to get called Kathleen in her presence. In her absence, she was still Vi.

"But still." They might have fought like cats and dogs inside the family, but he had still protected her against schoolyard bullies, let alone mad rapists. "We don't have to put our stamp of approval on this."

"I didn't put my stamp of approval on it. I don't approve or disapprove of Kathleen's friends, let alone friends I haven't met. I told her that she was welcome. Welcome with her friend."

"But still." He was repeating himself. Couldn't she see how wrong this was? Vi was coming to be a godmother to their child. And simultaneously they would encourage her to live in sin?

"But still your sister is too pure for this. She's 26. How old was I?"

"We were married." That was totally different. That was an act of love, not lewdness. He'd thought that she had known that.

"And whose fault was that? Who wanted to take me to bed? Who tried his damnedest to seduce me when I was much younger than Kathleen is now?"

That was totally unfair. He had loved her, had never tried to plunder her warmth without extending his protection.

"But your sister," Jeanette continued, "your sister is purer than that. Your sister is chaste. Your sister has to maintain her virginity for her whole life."

"That's unfair! I loved you. I wanted to marry you. You drew a line and I respected it." Well, mostly he had respected it. "That wasn't like this."

"Oh Bob!" Her voice changed. "I know what that was like. I was there, after all. But how do you know that Kathleen and Charles aren't like we were?"

"How do we know that they are?"

"We don't. But Kathleen must think they are. It's The Kitten's baptism; do you think that she'd bring a casual affair to that? For that matter, maintaining a romance between Chicago and Cleveland must be one big pain. She's serious."

"Maybe she is. But is this med-school Casanova?"

Jeanette loved her husband, she felt a little guilty for the manipulative comparison that she had made, but neither of these mitigated her exasperation. "It's her life. She knows the guy. He is coming to meet her family. Really, she is a catch: bright, pretty, friendly, well-educated." Well-endowed, which she probably shouldn't mention just now.

"Quarrelsome, with a flash-point temper, will argue for arguments sake."

"Didn't stop me."

Bob had the grace to laugh. Vi might well be the most argumentative person in the city of Chicago; she wasn't the most argumentative person in her immediate family.

"Anyway," she continued. "She's a Brennan. She's decided, and hasn't asked our opinion. Not that we have any grounds for opinion yet; that may be why she wants us to meet him." Bob snorted. Well Vi -- Kathleen, must remember to call her Kathleen, she'd be here in a couple of months -- made up her own mind. She and Bob were a lot alike. "But she asked for something we could give. I gave it. Now I need you to be civil to this guy."

"While he boffs my sister."

"Feel free to ignore him completely at those times."

"I don't have to like it," he said.

"You only have to do it."

"Jeez! You sound like my mother."

"Thank you." Katherine Brennan was the woman whom Jeanette admired most. Bob didn't have to talk as if it were disgusting.

"Look. Talking to The Kitten like Mom talked to me might be fine. She never talked to her husband like she did an eight- year-old."

"There might be a reason for that." On the other hand, Bob's father could be as stubbornly wrong-headed as he was. Did Katherine never respond to that childishness? Not the way that Jeanette was, at least in her hearing. Talk about being hoist on one's own petard. "Look Bob, this is important to her. For that matter, this is my daughter's baptism; it's important to me. Keep it a smooth social situation for me, will you?"

Bob thought a bit. Jeanette had given him so much, and received so little. Well, The Kitten wasn't trivial. But he had contributed only a little spurt of semen to The Kitten's genes; she had cost Jeanette so much pain and effort. Anyway, Bob had sworn on the altar to back Jeanette.

"Backed," he said.

"Thank you," she said in a tone that showed that she meant it.

They didn't speak any more about it until they were in bed that night. He was idly caressing his wife, and occasionally his daughter, while one nourished the other. If he concentrated at such times, he could usually understand the reports on the day which Jeanette delivered to her daughter in French. But this was a time for relaxation, thinking his own thoughts and putting the day aside in preparation for the pleasures of the night. And, to be sure, appreciating any of his wife's softness that his daughter wasn't using right then.

"Et, avec Tante Kathleen, arrive..." Jeanette was saying, "Bob, should I call him 'Tcharlz' or 'Sharl' when I'm talking to her?"

It wasn't as if The Kitten would be repeating what her mother said. On the other hand, it was a policy issue. "I think that a person's name is what they call themselves. Didn't George Sand insist on the English pronunciation of her first name even when she was speaking French?"

"Et, avec Tante Kathleen, arrive Tcharlz. Il est son bon ami." Well, that was one way to express it.

"How long do you think that they've been sleeping together?" he asked. He was lying behind his naked wife, watching tiny lips sucking where his had sucked so often. He had often before stiffened against her in this position, even when the conversation was non-erotic; just as this conversation was.

"Well, they couldn't have started after graduation, now could they? Being in different cities and all."

"I wonder if he was her first?"

Kathleen hadn't told her much. On the other hand, Jeanette had held her hand one Christmas when she had decided to turn down a boy who wanted to go all the way. A letter from college a few years later had come with a private note: "Thank you. Thank you so much! Throw this sheet away before you show the rest of the letter to Bob." She'd believed ever since that Kathleen had consummated a love affair just before she wrote it. If so, Jeanette had never learned the boy's name. But it wasn't this Charles whom she'd met in med school, and that was strictly Kathleen's business, anyway.

"She didn't tell me." By now, Bob was nearly rigid against her butt. Speculation about his sister's sex life seemed to be a turn-on; not that turning on Bob was terribly difficult. She knew a psychiatrically-trained intern who could probably tell her more about the dynamics of being turned on by discussions of one's sibling's sex life; unfortunately the intern and the sibling in question were the same person.

For that matter, the baby playing with her nipple was turning her on; and her pediatrician (as well as Kathleen) had assured her that this was perfectly normal. Of course, Bob's kisses on her back and shoulders weren't helping, either. Or, depending on one's perspective, they were helping a great deal.

The Kitten was done and needed burping. That, however was her father's job when he was home; and he was busy kissing her mother. That spot on the back of her neck meant serious business, and Bob knew it. She turned on her back. "Your daughter needs a burp and a change."

Bob got up. He walked out of the room patting The Kitten's back and wearing only a spitcloth. Jeanette, on the other hand, wore a robe to the bathroom and back. The Kitten's changing table and crib, in the dining room, would have to be moved before company came.

She lay there listening to the voices from the next room. Bob recited poetry to The Kitten. Her recent growth spurt was leaving her mother rather frazzled. And the phone call and subsequent talk with Bob hadn't helped, either. Jeanette hoped that Bob wasn't in the mood for one of his "games" tonight. Well, he claimed that she could have what she wanted, when she wanted anything particular in the way of sex. Treating her husband like a sleeping pill hardly seemed fair, but he never objected.

Did she want to be cherished by her loving husband, the gentleness of his hands and lips and tongue? Not really. This was only a slightly-frazzled night, and Bob was gentle enough when not provoked.

Did she want to provoke him? Did she want her tiger in her bed? She had been doing that a lot lately, after a period in which her body wasn't up to strenuous sex. Maybe she could have a mixture. She took out one condom and hid the box.

Bob finally got back to the room, already half erect. "Your daughter has been rough on my nipples," she told him. "You think you can find somewhere else to kiss?" Now he was pointing slightly upward.

He pecked the nipples very lightly. "Poor breasts," he said. He planted a real kiss on the valley between them. He kissed a path upward to her face, and licked her lips open. Their tongues wrestled, then nestled, and then wrestled again. He kissed her face and both ears before starting downwards again. He skipped her nipples, almost skipped her breasts entirely, on his road to her belly. It was so flabby these days and covered with stretch marks, but he beautified it for the moment with his kisses. When he got to her side, it was very tickly, but even more arousing.

When he reached her mound, she lay there enjoying his kisses before rolling over. He got behind her and used her left thigh as a pillow. His breath tickled her lips while he reached around to play with the hair on her mound. Finally, he parted her outer lips to lick her inner ones. She should have been used to that sensation, but it jolted her anyway. She felt his snort of satisfaction, then he licked her again. She became quite conscious of all the moisture on her labia; not all of it could have come from his tongue.

When he finally licked her labia apart, however, she abandoned her self-consciousness for pure sensation. She reached her right hand back to grasp his calf to anchor her, and used her left to pull a pillow across her mouth to muffle her. His tongue warmed her whole lower belly, and then all the way to her breasts. These ached suddenly, feeling as full as if The Kitten had been gone for hours. Then the warmth became fire which roared through her again and again. It roared through once more, and she pushed Bob's head away from her center. His breath was still an incitement, and then she relaxed.

Bob loved being so near the epicenter of Jeanette's climaxes. He tasted her sweet juices acquire a slight, almost metallic, savor. He felt her thighs tighten around his head. He watched as her belly straightened and tightened. Then he felt her shake and heard her groan.

At that point, he sucked firmly until she stopped moving.

When she had relaxed, he squirmed out of his position and kissed his way up her back. He hugged her and crooned to her while her breath slowed. Meanwhile, he wiped his mouth on the top of the sheet.

When Jeanette's breath slowed to her normal rate, she turned onto her back. He brushed his lips over her ear and licked it once. When she moved away from the tickle, he leaned on his elbow to get a comfortable position for kissing. He began on her mouth, licking her lips until her own tongue came out to play. When she broke the kiss to breathe, he kissed all over her face and down her neck.

He remembered her sore nipples by the time he reached her breasts, so he contented himself with the smooth surfaces. His hand played with her fur and then stroked the inside of her thighs. He cupped her mound in the palm of his hand while his fingers touched her outer lips as softly as possible.

When he kissed up to her mouth once more, he was well beyond light playfulness. His tongue invaded her mouth and explored it all. She sucked it briefly, and then played tag with it. When that kiss relaxed into gentleness, he parted her lower lips and stroked her valley once.

He pressed one finger, and then two, into her heat. She was ready for him, and he was much more than ready for her. Nonetheless, he rubbed against the top of her tunnel until he could feel the little bump there. Her clitoris would still be supersensitive. But a little stroking here, a few wiggles of the fingers against each other, would raise her excitement to need.

And so it did. She gasped around the kiss. When she arched off the bed, he abandoned her mouth to kiss her belly. She dropped immediately, but the next wiggle of his fingers cut off her giggle. When she arched again, he kissed the bottom of her engorged breasts. Her face tightened into a frown. Leaving her moist warmth with a stroke that passed on both sides of her sensitive nubbin, he reached for the box of contraceptives. And reached again, and flailed over the books on the nightstand.

"I have it," she said. "Come here." He crawled between her legs, his knees almost against her butt. By this time, Junior was sticking out and painfully swollen. She pulled the packet from under her pillow and opened it slowly. "You know," she drawled, "Vi must not get to meet her boyfriend often enough to justify the pill." How could she think of other people at such a time? "They may use condoms; I wonder if she puts it on."

Junior was bobbing madly with each heart beat now. She took hold of him at the base and considered her next move; he was beginning to ache. She fitted the end to his sensitive tip and rolled it over the head; he made a conscious effort not to fill it then and there. She slowly rolled the condom down the shaft; the friction as it passed drove his hips to move slightly. She firmed her grip on the base. "It takes longer if you can't hold still. There you go. Want my guidance?"

He didn't need her guidance; he didn't even need the help of his own hand. He shuffled back and lowered himself into position. Her fingers spread her lips as he moved forward. Junior found the goal he had reached so often, and sank right in. She left her hand between them until he withdrew the first time.

Then it trailed up his abdomen, fingernails more tickling his skin than scratching it. She moved her feet wide apart but pressed firmly into the bed; he raised himself on his hands and arms, looking at her face and breasts rather than touching them. He drove almost her full length every time, and she raised herself into every stroke. He watched her face tense into a rictus before the fury of his own passion blinded him. He tried to wait for her, but it was impossible. When she pinched his nipples, he groaned, thrust through her incredible tightness until his knees skidded on the bed, and erupted into her.

However intent Jeanette had been to tease out her tiger by holding onto Junior, she had enjoyed the throbbing in her hand and the feeling of power that its responsiveness always gave her. Her own naughty plans had excited her almost as much as Bob's lovemaking. The sweetly-delayed entrance had swept her much closer to the edge than she had anticipated. But she'd resisted her desire as Bob loomed over her, drove into her, and possessed her as his prey. When he had swelled that tiny, warning addition, she'd pinched his nipples and Keggeled his manhood. Then she'd surrendered to herself as well as to him.

The grinding of his groin against hers, the pulsation of his sex within hers, had swept her up. Her pulsations were luscious, they were frightening, they were nearly pain. And then they were over.

She was gasping for breath, each gasp lifting a weight greater than her own. She was a little sore on the insides of her thighs and a little more sore on her vulva. She knew that she was dripping onto the sheets, and that it was going to soak in before she could move. One leg was pinned and the other was out in the cold. She felt better than she had in weeks. She hooked the cold leg over one of Bob's. She would roll him over and extricate the covers when she wanted to; right now she wanted the blanket which loved her.

When The Kitten's cries woke her, she shook her husband sleeping beside her. He barely stirred. She fed The Kitten and changed her, and then she fed her again. Bob slept through it all. Tigers slept much more soundly than gentle lovers; it was a wonder that they survived in the jungle.

Still, the next morning when she was awake enough to think about it, she had no regrets -- a few aches which came more from lying under Bob afterwards than from the active sex beforehand, but no regrets. Bob looked quite happy and loving, too; but then, he'd also had more sleep than usual. She and The Kitten sent him off to church alone. She had come to accept the minor embarrassment of feeding The Kitten during the service, but this looked like a day when the choice would have been the service during the feeding.

The Kitten finally fell asleep again and slept until Bob returned home with take-out pizza. Jeanette gobbled some down while Bob changed his daughter. Finally she nursed The Kitten in the rocker while Bob fed her a piece at a time by hand.

"Y'know," he said, "I can see all that nutrition going in your mouth, flowing through your body, and into her. Wish there were a way to cut out the middleman." Well they weren't going to try formula. What breast-feeding cost in care during growth spurt time, it saved in care during sick time.

Katherine called just before Kathleen's scheduled visit home. "My daughter has issued a gag order," she said.

"She told me," Jeanette answered.

"I hope Bob won't mind my putting the boy in his room -- your room, I mean." It was Bob's room. It was a room in Katherine and her husband's house, really.

"As opposed to Vi's room? He'd be overjoyed. We don't have a second guest bed, let alone a guest room. How are you going to enforce it?"

"We are going to show one to one room, one to the other; then we'll close and lock our door and not come out until morning. You know, dear, in my day it went like this: 'I've met this nice boy.... I think he's serious about me.... I really love him.... We're moving in together.' One statement per letter, other letters in between. Not, mind you, that it always developed that slowly, but it was reported that slowly. I should think introducing us to Charles at the graduation would have been a nice gesture.

"Well, Bob wasn't very outgoing about his feelings for you, either. But I always thought that he had forgotten that he hadn't told us. I hope he told you, dear. I can picture him going on all those years taking you out and watching you race and everything, but not saying anything. Suddenly one day he says: 'I think this coming June would be a nice time for the wedding, what do you think?'"

"It wasn't like that at all." Bob and she had conducted what might be called their first family meeting three years before they were a family, less than two years after they had met.

The conversation circled. "And how is my namesake doing?"

"She's nursing right now."

"I'm sorry, dear. Do you want me to call later?"

"If you'd called when she wasn't eating, it would have woken her up."

"One of those periods, dear? I can remember." She went into a combination of commiseration and encouragement.

And it circled again. "I tried to be open with her about sex, dear. But children really don't want to hear about sex from their parents. Implies that those parents might have working knowledge. There was one point when I thought that she was taking you as a mentor. From a maternal viewpoint, you know, you were ideal. Aside from who you are, even. Not before marriage, but enjoyed it after."

"Were we really that obvious?"

"The situation was obvious, dear. Really though, which would you rather your daughter will think in sixteen years: 'Newly married couples do have a great time in bed,' or 'Newly married couples don't have a great time in bed'? The answer, of course, is that you won't want her thinking about the subject. But teenagers do, about sex if not about marriage."

"Look, I have enough to worry about with growth spurts. I don't want to worry about toilet training yet, let alone sex ed."

"Yes dear. Back to Kathleen. She's not like you, dear. She doesn't have the selflessness to have been satisfied in an early marriage." None of the Brennans, the other Brennans, could see that being married to Bob was what she wanted, that she had wanted it for years as deeply as Kathleen had wanted to be a psychoanalyst. "And I wouldn't really want her the sort of woman who took no pleasure in sex. So an affair is really the least of three evils. It's the sort of thing which you don't encourage (presumably the boy is providing quite enough encouragement), but you don't allow it to break the relationship either. It's an 'I disapprove -- so how's the weather there?' sort of thing."

Jeanette was surprised into laughter. The Kitten objected and had to be soothed. "Not to speak of anything to do with my future parenting," she said when she got back to the phone.

"Well, dear, I wasn't consciously lecturing. I try not to be that sort of mother-in-law. You sound as if you have your hands full."

"I don't mind your advice, but yes, goodbye."

It wasn't until The Kitten was asleep that Jeanette remembered that this break in phone contact was going to be much longer than usual.

Jeanette could produce more milk, The Kitten's tiny stomach could hold more, and the feedings slowly returned to being discrete events. And The Kitten had grown, as Dr. Gupta's scales recorded on their next visit.

Jeanette had a new diaphragm fitted on that same visit to the medical group. Her cervix, recovered from the delivery and the subsequent surgery, was now a stable size. That night, for the first time in months, she felt Bob ejaculate deep inside her.

Kathleen asked for the sixteenth of November; Kurt, the godfather, agreed; the minister scheduled it.

They fitted The Kitten's crib and the diaper pail into their room. The top of Bob's dresser became the changing table. It was kind of cramped, but they could invite people for dinner once again. It was kind of cozy, too.

She shaved herself for Bob's birthday. He loved it. His friends took him out for a few beers to celebrate the same event. The Kitten didn't recognize him smelling of the beer, and Jeanette had to burp and change her that night.

The Kitten figured out how to turn from her back to her front. She first demonstrated that skill on the changing table, scaring her father half to death. Soon after, scorning all medical advice, she took to sleeping on her belly. Jeanette, although sure that Kathleen sent all that news along, would have enjoyed telling Katherine herself.

Years before, Bob's father had given her a small tape recorder to play back radio broadcasts from France. It had come with a microphone which she had hardly used. Now she dusted it off and took to carrying the recorder with mike plugged in when Bob might be induced to talk about his father. She also placed it under the bed sometimes and asked Bob directly for stories about his father.

"The weird thing...." He said one night in bed. "You sure I'm not boring you?"

"Not in the least," she answered.

"The weird thing is that he hadn't managed anything up till then. He'd evaluated plenty. But all that he had bossed was a small, totally dedicated, team. A skunk works, if you know that term, of never more than twenty men. If they had known what was wrong with Brewster, they'd never have sent him. They figure him for a dollars-and-cents man, but he finds out that the trouble was personnel. So he deals absolutely fairly with the men, gets rid of the worst supervisors, and bides his time.

"He waits until he knows an upturn is coming. One of the biggest companies in the field was in the middle of a bitter strike. As you can imagine, office furniture companies aren't hurt much by union boycotts. Anyway, he invites the union leadership to the house. He sells them on an agreement to have them sign a direct mail piece to union locals around the country to ask them to look at Brewster's product the next time that they bought office furniture. The pitch was that this was a company that dealt fairly with the union; they should have a chance. Second, he gets them to agree that every time a man is called back from layoff, productivity per person would also increase. (He knows what was happening on the shop floor, and that surprises them.) Every time a man is called back, he calls him into the office first. He tells him that his call-back is because the other workers on the floor are doing better work, and asks him to do better work so that the next man can be called back.

"Two years later, quality is through the roof and prices have been relatively stable. No one is laid off, and wages are competitive. The union leadership looks like champions, and so does management. They only fight about what they should fight about."

He gave her a loud, smacking kiss.

"I like being in your family." She pulled his hand between her legs.

"I like being in your mnmhmm, too." He parted her lips to caress her gently. After some silent minutes, she tugged at his arm. He came on top of her and into her. Ready for him and slightly guilty about the running tape, she licked his throat and pulled him deeper. "Love you," he said. "Love... you.... Love... you.... Love... you! You! You. You...."

The pulsing against her walls sent her soaring with him, clutching around him, falling after him. Then she lay under him, loving the warm, gasping, weight.

Listening to the tape the next day, hearing the springs sing accompaniment to his declarations of love, she worried. But Bob would hate himself if his father died with this quarrel unresolved. She cried when she erased the sexual part, but keeping that would have bothered him incredibly.

She began to feed The Kitten some baby-food out of a jar. That child, who would stick absolutely anything else in her mouth, perversely resisted the spoon. Some days she started with half a jar and ended with what looked like a jar each on The Kitten and on her.

Having renewed her shaving twice since Bob's birthday, she let it grow back. It itched like hell, but remembering his appreciation made it worthwhile. And Bob kissed the new growth as fondly as he had the smooth surprise.

Kathleen was due on Saturday morning, coming up on the train. Her boyfriend was expected that afternoon. Jeanette managed to clean the house and persuade Bob to put up a cord across the archway between the living and dining rooms by Wednesday. Bob did the laundry Friday night, and hung a clean sheet on that cord. They took it down, as it looked grungy in the daytime; but they knew that it would work. He also made the sofa bed.

"Ton pauvre papa," Jeanette confided to her daughter during the last feeding that day, "il travaille beaucoup. Merit-il une recompense? ... D'accord, mais quelle recompense? ... Mechant enfant! Tu es sa fille vraiment. Ne dis jamais ces mots. Tu es trop jeune." The Kitten looked back at her innocently. "Well, I might. But you have to be asleep first, talking about things like that at your age is bad enough."

"Y'know," said Bob, "I'm going to ask Vi to explain the psychiatric meaning of the word projection to you." Bob often ignored her conversations with The Kitten; he could follow most of the French, but only with effort. He could no more ignore English within hearing distance than he could walk past her bare breasts without looking. Anyway, he caught enough of the conversation to make him smile while he changed The Kitten; and he showed a more specific reaction about halfway down.

They were heading into a dry spell, with Kathleen spending two nights. The bedroom door and the sheet in the archway weren't what Jeanette considered a sufficient guarantee of privacy, especially since the boyfriend would be there. At the same time, this promised to be a trying period. These days, Bob held on to his temper marvelously, but more easily when he had been sexually sated. So she would try to guarantee his satiation until Sunday evening.

Tonight was for him, even though she would be deprived for the same two nights. One of her responsibilities in the family was easing social strains, and this would really ease social strains. It wasn't for her, except maybe the slightest little bit. But nowhere was it written that she couldn't enjoy her work.

"I don't mind nursing in church," she told Bob as he came in from the john. "After all, everybody's facing in the same direction. It's not as if people were looking."

Bob returned to the room expecting something nice. Throughout their marriage, Jeanette had accepted his sexual advances; indeed, she usually enjoyed them. Still, he had been the instigator most of the time. After the dry spell connected to her pregnancy and her recovery from the trauma of the delivery, however, she had begun taking the lead more often.

The talk about church had him confused, however. And the idea of people ogling her while she breastfed, her lawful husband excepted, was both offensive and arousing.

"I can just see her demanding to be fed one minute before we walk down front for the baptism ceremony. So I thought I'd express a bottle Saturday. But I'll produce more then if I'm drained dry now, and The Kitten left a little."

He never understood why the tiny volume he got helped this process, but he never objected either. The delightful taste was the least of his enjoyment. He reached for the sheet.

"No," she said, "the last feeding was in bed. It's time for the rocking chair now. Sit down."

He sat down in the rocking chair, sliding forward a bit in the seat. He was already rock-hard by the time she got up to join him. She sat on his knees facing him. "This one," she said. She bent forwards, proffering her left breast to his mouth. For one instant it was tasteless, as her skin often was when she was newly washed. He sucked gently and then a bit more strongly. The taste came then, the taste of milk, the taste of Jeanette. "That's right," she said. "Oh Bob."

She held his head to her as he stole his little sips. The taste was incomparably warm and sweet, but other sensations were as strong. The flex of her large nipple between his lips, the easing out of the milk onto the back of his tongue, the bumpy areola on the tip of his tongue, her hands pressing his head forward or playing with his hair, were only half the experience.

There was the padded weight of her hips on each of his lower thighs, but she wasn't sitting symmetrically. Tickling his left thigh were light touches which could only be her outer labia and their sparse hairs. When she shifted so that those touches were more firm, they were also damp. Her knees were spread by the back of the chair, but his raging erection could still feel the warmth from the inside of her thigh.

He held her hips with both hands until she took his left one in her right and placed it between her legs. He gave her thigh a few caresses and then reached for her lower lips. "Yes, Bob," she said. "That's just right." She did not talk like that; entice, sure, make herself available, sure; but she only invited him verbally when she was in the throes of passion. And, not sure that she remembered those occasions, he never mentioned them.

He reached the inner lips, nice and juicy, and gently rubbed one against the other. "Yes, Bob, yes. Drain me." He realized that she was talking about the milk. He sipped again, and got a few drops. That made maybe a tenth of a mouthful, altogether. Of course, The Kitten had a smaller mouth. He sucked harder and got another bit.

Jeanette pulled his head back, breaking their connection; then she pulled his face between her breasts. What air he could get was scented with the milky smell from both sides and the more distant aroma of her arousal.

When he parted her lower lips and slipped a finger between them, the aroma was enriched again. "Yes, Bob. Please. Please right there." Obedient, he traced the route from the center of her moisture to the little bump at the top of her groove.

She rested her chin on the back of his head and murmured encouragement. "Mmm hmm, ... oh yes.... Oh Bob!" He returned again and again for her juices and found more each time. He slicked them up the sides of her inner lips as she rocked back and forth on his knees in response. He tried to avoid her clit on most of these trips, but she moaned every time he touched it. She straightened in his arms, sitting higher and higher.

When her nails were biting into the back of his head and her breath was whistling through her teeth on the inhale and moaning softly on the exhale, his preparation was done. He stroked around her clitoris in a circle, then straight across it. She gasped. He kept stroking right there while she shook in his arms and continued to gasp. Then she fell forward onto him. The chair rocked way back, he threw his arms around her, the chair rocked forward again, and they were safe.

Immediately, though, she was getting up. He helped support her while trying to scoot forward. She grasped them both to bring him to her entrance. "Slowly," he warned, "go slowly." She nodded and slid slowly down his front and around his phallus.

"Hold on," he said. She gripped his shoulders. He pushed down on the chair, which rocked it back again. But he was able to move himself inches forward. He leaned back. "I love you." It seemed inadequate.

"Love you, too." She stretched one foot back to the wall to set them rocking. He and the chair were moving back and forth in the chair's natural rhythm. Jeanette's motions were much more complex. The pushing leg moved up and down on his thigh, flexing as it did. That shifted her weight from side to side as well as back and forth. The center of her torso was actually moving in a circle. Her vulva, pivoting on his phallus, could not move far. But it tried to.

He was being stirred within her like a spoon stirring tea. The sensations were exquisitely arousing, but they had little of the direct stimulation that drove his orgasm. He was moving in and out much less than an inch. His arousal grew and grew without any hint of relief.

When her excitement overcame her dexterity in reaching the wall, he started the chair in a longer arc. Now, he was clutching her butt to him and relaxing in time to the rocking. Now, he was moving in and out of her warm slickness. Now, he felt his culmination rolling towards him. Now, she was there ahead of him, gasping in his arms.

Now! And it was now, and now, and now.

Until he dropped back in the chair and his driving legs and clutching arms lost their strength. Jeanette slumped on top of him for a bit. Finally, she shivered and climbed off.

He finally woke himself, got circulation back in his legs, washed himself off in the bathroom, cleaned up the chair with a spare diaper, and joined Jeanette in bed. By then she was fast asleep. She was nice and warm, though, and delightfully huggable.

Jeanette didn't do mornings. For a decade, it had been his time by himself and, strangely, his time to think about Jeanette. What had got into her the previous night? Well he had, and delightfully so. He wished that he had the recipe for whatever had sparked that. Then he felt guilty about that wish. Jeanette had certainly enjoyed herself, but she had also expended one hell of a lot of energy. She didn't have that much energy to spare, between The Kitten's demands and the translation that she was doing for him. Let her choose the times.

On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to be very nice on a morning after she had chosen the time. He changed The Kitten, not "being very nice," just his job. Her mother's daughter, The Kitten turned over and went back to sleep. He went to work on the last set of short papers until Jeanette stumbled through on the way to the john. Then he changed The Kitten once more, and brought her to Jeanette in a fresh diaper and nothing else. The sleeper was soaked.

"Hello, darling," Jeanette said. "Why doesn't your daddy join us?"

Kathleen was due at the train station in less than an hour. He had work to do that weekend and company would be here for the rest of it. That's why he shouldn't join them. On the other hand, Jeanette was wearing less than The Kitten was. Bob decided that the papers could be returned on Wednesday instead of Monday.

They took some care to arrange the covers so that The Kitten would have fresh air to breathe. Then he nestled against Jeanette's back.

"I don't want her to be monolingual French," Jeanette said. "You talk English to her."

"I do. And I recite a lot of poetry."

"Why don't you tell her a story now?" Well, the nursing times were special times for mother and daughter. The Kitten couldn't even see him like this, let alone the picture book. Jeanette's back was smooth and warm against his bare skin, and he didn't want to get up. On the other hand, this was one hell of a moment to spoil with a quarrel.

"Got a book in mind?"

"I was thinking of the story of Papa and Maman in the forest." Junior bumped against her thigh without any other part of his body moving, so rapid was his erection. In the forest off the Appalachian Trail, the first time he came into Jeanette from behind, was the first time that she had experienced an orgasm around him. That had been the seal of their sexual union: not entering her, not bringing her to orgasm, but her first orgasm while he was inside.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nightstand." He'd have to use a condom, and the box was on the nightstand. Not that she was likely to be ovulating yet.

"Long ago, Catherine Angelique, when your mother was young and naive, not devious and scheming like she is now...." He paused to allow a denial; none came. "She had the misfortune to marry your father. They go camping on their honeymoon, a very in-tents experience." He petted Jeanette, including the outside of her vulva, while describing the trip, that day, the camping site, and the excursion to and from the farmhouse to get permission. Describing her hips moving in front of him, he recalled them vividly; and this led him to press against their wider and softer -- but equally sexy -- successors.

"Then we get into the sleeping bag and talk, somewhat as we are talking now, except Maman participates a little bit more. We kiss and pet and cuddle. I see a contraceptive at the side of my head. Maman had put it there to let me know that she accepted me in all ways, physical as well as emotional." He had never expressed to Jeanette what that acceptance had meant. He tried now with a kiss on the back of her neck. He reached into the box and sheathed himself with less fumbling than he had on that night. "I was lying holding Maman as I am now. With the contraceptive on, I slide into Maman." Jeanette pushed her hips back in an obvious invitation. It took a lot longer to enter her than it had taken to tell, but she was as wet and warm and welcoming as she had been on that night long ago.

"And feel her love surround me..."

"Et je suis sensible a l'insertion de ton papa. Elle fait beaucoup plaisir a moi. Il enroule son acier avec la douceure infinie." He lost a couple of words, but that she had been happy came across.

"And your father, who had loved your mother for years, loved her even more. And he moved in her like this, but a wee bit more strongly because there was no Kitten to disturb."

Jeanette pressed her hips back farther. His shoulders were now near the edge of the bed. He could no longer express himself in words; he broke the silence only by soft grunts as he thrust home. He remembered the lovely and love-filled union in the forest clearing, Jeanette's acceptance of him slowly turning to eagerness and then to passion. He experienced her present enthusiastic participation, instigating the whole thing and urgently pressing against him as he thrust into her.

When her finger pressed on the base of his phallus, just where the sack began, he lost it. He pounded into her and poured into her, only sensing her climax as it ended after his was done.

They lay like that for minutes. He couldn't even respond to The Kitten's complaint. Jeanette hushed her, though, and rocked her for a bit before laying her in her crib. She woke him a half hour later.

"The train is stopped right now, but they still expect it in twenty-five minutes." He got up, washed, dressed, and was almost awake enough to drive by the time that he got to the car. There was another delay reported, though, after he arrived at the station. The waiting group looked lost in the station intended for a much larger crowd. He could sit with his arms spread across the bench-back without touching, or even getting near, another person. It was very restful.

When someone did touch him, it was Vi. "Sorry I'm so late," she said.

"That's okay. I need to walk a bit before I drive, though. Need the john?" At her head-shake, he took her bag and loaded it into the car. She walked with him around the parking lot.

Jeanette was dressed when they got home, and their bed was made. Their bedroom, or rather the room that they were sharing with The Kitten, was Kathleen's second stop. "She is so precious!" she whispered. "So precious." How can you respond to a self-evident truth? "Thanks for sending those pictures."

When The Kitten cried, Kathleen had her in her arms before the parents had moved. It wasn't a hungry cry; she wouldn't scream if it wasn't answered. "Want to change her?" he asked.

"Oh yes!" Kathleen didn't even complain about their laughter.

Jeanette supervised the changing, telling Kathleen where to find things but letting her actually do it. She brought the bouncy seat with her out to the kitchen, but she had no illusion that The Kitten would spend much time in it.

They grabbed a snack to tide them over until a very late lunch, when Kathleen's young man could join them.

After she stored the casserole in the 'fridge, she sent Bob back to his homework while she, Kathleen, and The Kitten had a hen party in the living room. When she went into the bedroom for The Kitten's favorite rattle, she grabbed the little tape recorder. Kathleen's presence made conversations about Bob's father more likely.

Kathleen was holding The Kitten when the phone rang. She handed her unceremoniously to Jeanette on her way to the phone. "Brennan residence," she said.

"Oh, hi. Yes it's me. How much time? Half an hour is fine." She called to Jeanette, "Can he park on the street outside the building? Illegal? Unsafe?"

"That's fine if he can find a space. This isn't Cleveland."

"If you can find a space.... Love you, too." She hung up the phone.

She didn't expect Kathleen to stand on ceremony, but grabbing the phone like that seemed odd. So did relaying directions instead of handing her the phone.

Their conversation drifted for a while. Then she took the bull by the horns. "Why did Greg's baby gift have your name on it?" she suddenly asked Kathleen. She would recognize Greg's voice on the phone, of course.

"It did? I didn't know that. What was it?"

"A Snuggli," a surprisingly useful gift from her bachelor brother.

"Figures," Kathleen said. "When he heard you were expecting, he wrote asking me for a suggestion. I told him that I would have loved to give you a Snuggli, but I was broke. You understand. It's silly when you consider the size of my debts, but they can only be applied to tuition and such."

"We appreciate When We Were Very Young." They had Bob's but those books weren't in shape for a child to handle anymore.

"Anyway, he must have taken my 'broke' description too literally."

"I didn't know you two were even acquainted before I got that gift. I thought that was a gag or something. He wrote that it was from the two of you, but it was his handwriting and posted in San Diego." Actually, she had wondered, but the time for questions had passed before she had worked up the energy to mention it. All her discussions with Vi seemed to be about The Kitten.

"You know that we knew each other. He came back with you to the house sometimes."

"Well, yes. But you were in high school."

"But your Christmas letter mentioned my acceptance at Johns Hopkins. He was stationed at Norfolk at the time, with frequent trips to Washington. He called me up on one of those trips, and took me out to dinner. The distances really aren't that great. We stayed in touch."

"He's too old for you."

"Jeanette, he was a perfect gentleman. Unlike some of my fellow students. You mean all the world to him; you are all the family that he cares to claim. He wasn't about to foul that up by taking liberties with me. I saw him maybe five or six times in two years. Then he finally got a seagoing assignment. What brings him up?"

Well five or six times in two years was more than she heard from him, thinking the world of her or not. She was saved from answering by the buzzer from downstairs. Once again, Kathleen jumped up. She buzzed him in without using the speaker at all, not that Jeanette hadn't done the same thing in the past. This time, Jeanette was going to be the one not standing on ceremony.

"Hold The Kitten," she said and pressed her into Kathleen's hands. She went to the door and opened it.

Her first thought was that Kathleen had buzzed in the wrong man. He was carrying a suitcase as her guest should. But his skin was the color of milk chocolate.

Kathleen was behind her now, carrying The Kitten. "Char!" she said.

He looked up, blinked, and hurried up the last few steps with a smile glowing on his face. Standing level with her, he looked much larger than he had from above. He was about Bob's height, but he was much wider, with shoulders that filled the doorway. The effort he had to make to take his eyes off Kathleen was obvious, but his smile was warm when he said, "Mrs. Brennan?" He had a rich, very deep, voice.

"Guilty."

"Charles Johnson."

"Won't you come in?" They were cluttering the doorway. She stepped back; Kathleen followed her still carrying The Kitten; Charles came last carrying his suitcase. He set that down and went back to staring at Kathleen. Yes, it was serious; that lost-puppy look wasn't something that men would try to fake.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." She retrieved The Kitten. "Make yourself comfortable while I fetch my husband."

Bob, who had obviously heard something, was stacking his materials. She stopped him with a gesture when he got up, and handed him The Kitten. She slipped the casserole into the oven and turned it and the timer on. She clattered her heels on the way through the dining room. Charles hadn't taken his coat off, but Kathleen's hair was mussed and her cheek was flushed. How, Jeanette wondered suddenly, can you tell that a black person has been kissing? Anyway, they had taken care of that.

"Now let me take your coat. Oops! That is Bob, this is The Kitten, I'm Jeanette. And that is Dr. Charles Johnson."

She took his coat and hung it in the coat closet. "This is all the closet space that we have to offer you, I'm afraid. You two fight it out. The facilities are way at the other end of the apartment, through the dining room and kitchen and to the left. You have the blue towels; for that matter, you have the towel set that hasn't been mussed up. Lunch in an hour, coffee available now. Anything that you don't see, ask."

Bob stepped forward and shook his hand. "Welcome, Dr. Johnson." Charles's hand enveloped Bob's, making it look as tiny as hers did in Bob's.

"Charles. May I?" He was looking at The Kitten. He held out his hands. She looked him over before lunging in his direction. The girl thought the law of gravity didn't apply to her. He watched her face as he swung her up in a loop that ended with her on his forearm. "Catherine Angelique Brennan, I have heard so much about you!" He gave her forehead a big kiss.

"Oooh!" said The Kitten.

Jeanette had been making a study of what people did with babies after saying that they were cute. Often, whatever their expressed opinion, they didn't seem to feel that babies were cute enough to actually look at. Then there were the Bob-type people; put a baby in front of them, and they forgot everyone else. One man in Bob's church had cut in front of her in the line going out of church; he had then conducted a conversation with The Kitten (who was on her father's shoulder ahead of him) until it was time to greet the pastor. Some people talked about The Kitten as if she weren't present, some didn't talk at all but cuddled her, some sang to her, others praised her in a way that would have turned her head if she could understand.

Charles was something new. He held her and watched her intently, and he certainly kept her attention; but he said almost nothing. He clicked his fingers on one side of her until she turned to the sound and then repeated that on the other side. He made some silly faces at her, which she imitated as always.

"Char!" said Kathleen. He took no notice. She sat down on end of the couch farthest from him. When his playing seemed to shift, she said, "Didn't bring your blinking light?"

"She's a bit old for the Brazelton."

"She is my niece; Jeanette is my sister-in-law. Do you think that she hasn't been taken for regular checkups? Having a little busman's holiday, are we? You're supposed to have your fill of babies. Anyway, you aren't in your hospital; you can't practice medicine here."

"No offense meant." He handed the baby to Jeanette. "I was just delighting in her health, as other people delight in her prettiness." He switched his attention to Kathleen. "As if! I have my fill of charts. I don't see many healthy children these days, ironically."

"Ironically?" Bob was as lost as she was.

Kathleen snorted. "He's a pediatric resident, Bob. We don't see healthy anything." She didn't have to sound so dismissive. She hadn't told them that; she hadn't told them anything. Bob had been honestly puzzled. Clearly she was determined that, pick as she might at her young man, nobody else was going to pick at him.

This took Jeanette away from concern about a new guest and pride in her daughter to considering the couple. Charles might just be strong enough for Kathleen; the lost-puppy look didn't mean that he would change direction for her sulks.

She didn't like Kathleen's brittleness, though. On the other hand, maybe the brittleness resulted from the situation, not the man. Well, it was a brittle situation; and Kathleen's mystery game hadn't helped it. It was Jeanette's duty to ease the tension. Especially since Bob was giving three quarters of his attention to his daughter. Bob did what were essentially upside-down pushups, raising and lowering The Kitten.

"Ooooh," she said.

"Non, ma jeune fille," he said. "It's not August. It's November. Say 'noh vom brrr.'"

"Ooooh."

"I thought Mrs. Brennan was the one who spoke French," Charles said. "Do you both speak French to her?"

Jeanette wondered whether this reference to Bob's few words in his atrocious accent as "speaking French" was a formal courtesy, or whether his ear was as bad as Bob's was. But there was a more immediate problem.

"Mrs. Brennan sent her that dress. I'm Jeanette. And if you're going to expect us to call you 'Dr. Johnson,' you should have warned Kathleen. She only spoke of 'Charles.'"

"Well, Jeanette, the truth is that that's the name I've heard applied to you. And Kath has told me lots about you."

"Can't say the same," Bob said.

"Wasn't any of your business," Kathleen said. "Anyway, I tried to avoid any mention of your shortcomings. So he has heard almost nothing about you."

"Now Kath...."

"Don't worry, Charles. They've been squabbling like this since Kathleen was in grade school. What does a pediatric resident do?"

"Everything a pediatrician does, except cash checks. A first-year pediatric resident, however, does just about what a medical intern does. Kath will have told you that. Except that the patients in my ward don't answer most of the questions; we have to go to the parents. It's no job for a man who likes kids, and I'm a man who likes kids.

"Do you know what 'He's in a lot of pain now, and he's too young to understand why; but the pain will be gone in a week, and he'll be able to play normally in two months' is called?"

"No."

"Good news." The tone was rather bitter for a joke. "Of course, there's the other side. They come in sick, and they usually go out better -- if not well. Not that my contribution to that is much right now. But I was raised to ask whether I was making a difference, and doctors make a difference. You started off with a mere fertilized ovum and look what you created." Jeanette couldn't see the comparison for a moment. "But men can't do that. Repair is the next best thing."

She could see, if not what Kathleen saw in this man, the substance that could match hers. The other was always a mystery. His face was animated, as it had previously been only when dealing with The Kitten. "So," she asked, "have you planned on being a pediatrician for a long time?" Vi had chosen psychoanalysis in junior high, to the amusement of her family.

"No. It is only the next best thing. I went to Johns Hopkins planning to go into obstetrics."

The oven timer went ping. She would have to deal with that, but the conversation couldn't end here. "So what changed your mind?"

"My body." He held up his huge hands. "My professors pointed out that no woman would want these going into her vagina."

"Shows," said Kathleen, "how much your professors knew."

"Kath!" Was Charles's face a shade darker?

"Famine alert," said Bob. Now there were three things to do.

"I'm going to need help in the kitchen, Kathleen. You bring The Kitten." With any luck, she could get her blouse and bra open before The Kitten started crying.

"They are marvelous hands really, though," Kathleen said. "Show him the nickel trick, Char."

That delay was enough. The Kitten was announcing her hunger before Kathleen brought her to Jeanette. She latched on as if the adults around her were fighting her off instead of rushing her to the breast. Once she had her first mouthful, however, she relaxed.

Kathleen was clearly anxious to get back to the other room. Tough! Jeanette wasn't going to have the first meal that Charles ate in her house ruined because she couldn't cook and nurse at the same time. Vi had been doing a rotten job of managing Charles's interaction with Bob, anyway. "Turn off the oven. It's the knob on the right center," she began.

When Bob's roaring laugh came from the other room, she could see the tension lift off Vi. But she had almost no time to talk to The Kitten. She had to micromanage Kathleen; there would have been plenty of time for her to dart back into the living room if the meal preparations were done efficiently. Even with Jeanette thinking up directions, they came to a break.

"Vi." Kathleen looked surprised; Jeanette had been the least guilty of all the family about calling her by her old name. Tough! She was dealing with a teenager right then. "What is your primary goal for this weekend?"

"Well, of course, The Kitten has to be baptized."

"Pffft." That goal had nothing to do with Charles's visit.

"Well, I like him; and I want you to like him and him to like you."

"How do you tell when a Black man is blushing?"

"His eyes. There are folds around his eyes which darken quite obviously. And it's subtle enough that he never learned to suppress it." Leave it to a Brennan to enjoy embarrassing someone she loved.

"It took me a long hard time to reconcile Bob to the news that 'little Vi' is sexually active. You don't have to rub his nose in it."

"I'm 27, Jeanette. Twenty seven, for the love of God. Thanks for the robe by the way, and the pictures." She'd already thanked them for the pictures once. "Bob is as bad as my father. And mother put us in different rooms. Not that she had any illusions; 'Try to make both beds look slept-in,' she said. Both beds were slept in: my bed the first night and your bed the second. Did you know that they gave me a much better quality mattress and spring set when I was maybe fourteen? You got cheated because Bob could sleep hanging on a hook. But Dad put a bolt on your door before your first trip home; I still don't have one.

"Anyway, I think that Dad actually believes that we slept apart. I'm a big girl, I've been a big girl for quite some time, and I'm tired of being little Vi."

"Fine! Is that what's important?"

"No that isn't what's important. Not what's most important. You sound like Dr. Schumacher. Maybe I should have been the translator."

"Everybody else's life is easy. She's finally done; would you ask Bob to come in here?"

"You have to see this," Bob said before they sat down to the meal. Charles took a nickel and put it on the back of his index finger. Just moving the fingers up and down rolled the nickel back and forth across his hand. It showed remarkable dexterity but wasn't that impressive; it did remind her of how big those hands were, though. His fingers must be twice as long as hers.

"Have another nickel?" he asked. She didn't, but Bob produced one. Charles rolled one on each hand, going in the same direction, going in the opposite direction, stopping in the middle on both hands and then changing directions on one. Then he flipped them into the air simultaneously, caught them with one hand, and slipped them into his pocket. For a moment she couldn't figure out why Bob was laughing again.

"Char!" Kathleen sounded angry.

"But that is the nickel trick."

"Would you seat me, please, Charles?" Bob, taking the hint, helped his sister into her chair. His grace was succinct while mentioning the visitors. Then they passed the food.

Charles took a swig of coffee. "That is coffee," he said in a tone of deep appreciation. Kathleen laughed.

"Jeanette taught me," Bob said. "And then she swore off."

"So, how long have you known Kathleen?" Jeanette asked. "She hasn't told us anything."

"I met her our first month at Johns Hopkins."

"And I did tell you. I can remember crying to you over the phone. That was our first break-up, Char."

"Let's get this straight," Jeanette vaguely remembered the phone call and felt she needed to defend herself. "You tell me that you had fallen in love, but you and the boy are never going to see each other again. That serves as notice that you are still dating him four years later?"

"Well," Bob said, "it was from Kathleen, after all." He was being real good about remembering her name. Now, if he could stop baiting his sister....

"I wasn't claiming that I'd told you everything; you were claiming that I hadn't told you anything."

After that, Kathleen and Charles recited an obviously-edited history of their romance. Not only was there no mention of bed, there was no mention of any later break-ups, although the "first break-up" had lasted long enough for Kathleen to date several other men.

"...And then he sat down and played the piano without any music in front of him. You should hear him play."

"I played 'Fuer Elise.' That moment was when I began to suspect that she felt for me something like what I felt for her. When you praise the way an adult plays 'Fuer Elise,' it's certainly not music criticism, it just might be love."

"It sounded lovely. You played it beautifully."

"I could play the piano once. It takes too much time to keep in practice. That piece does sound lovely; it was written by a genius to sound lovely -- to sound lovely when a beginner plays it. Well, I don't quite qualify as a beginner. I'm more of an ex-pianist. I hope to play again some day, but that takes an hour a day. That's one hour more than I have right now."

"Do you play by ear?" asked Bob.

"Nope," Charles said. "Fingers, like most people." Kathleen stuck her tongue out at Bob. She'd had four years, after all, and knew all her brother's jokes.

"But," said Kathleen at the end of the meal, "the way they do internship match-ups sucks. We ended up three hundred miles away from each other."

Charles added: "We said 'goodbye,' 'it's been wonderful,' 'too bad it had to end.' We exchanged addresses. A couple of weeks later, I wrote her a long letter saying that I didn't want it to end. Argued endlessly that it really didn't have to. Got a note from her before I finished it. She put almost the same ideas in a nutshell. She enclosed her phone number."

"I still have the letter, which he never finished. He put it in the mail and called me."

"You should see our phone bills."

"And we decided that somehow being three hundred miles apart made this much more serious. We should tell the families."

"Now there," said Bob, "is an original idea. Telling the family. Do you think that you could get a patent? I'm sure that no-one else has ever thought of it."

Kathleen responded in kind. As the fight escalated, Jeanette caught Charles's eye; they began to break up. The Brennan kids continued to squabble in rising voices until the howls of their audience were louder yet.

"It's not funny," Kathleen said. In the ensuing silence, The Kitten, excited by all that noise and laughter, crowed and kicked so her bouncy seat was bouncing at its extreme arc.

"Yes it is," Jeanette managed to gasp out before she was overcome again. "See?"

Bob, and finally Kathleen, joined in the laughter that time.

When they were nearly respectable again, Jeanette said, "Seconds anybody? Thirds anybody? I'm thinking of moving this back to the living room."

"Take your coffee cup if you think that you might want more," said Bob.

"Take mine," said Kathleen. She swooped down on The Kitten and freed her from the bouncy seat.

Charles collected two cups. "Oh, Jeanette," he said. The man was learning. She looked a question at him. "One thing you should be careful about this weekend. You shouldn't spoil your daughter." What? Was she spoiling The Kitten? Could you spoil a kid that young?

"That's right," said Kathleen. But Kathleen had confirmed that you couldn't spoil a baby in the first half year. Jeanette had depended on that information.

"Leave all the spoiling to her aunt."

"Yes. I've got dibs."

"You!" Jeanette told him. "You are going to fit right in with the Brennan family."

"Why thank you," he said. Just as if he had received a compliment.

When the adults were seated, Jeanette scattered toys in a rough circle around the living-room carpet. Then she persuaded Kathleen to put The Kitten in the middle. Perversely, The Kitten decided that Charles's shoe laces were the most fascinating things in the world. He had his legs crossed, and she rolled right under the raised shoe. He was tolerant of having it unlaced, but he picked her up when she started chewing the laces from the shoe on the floor.

"Those are dirty, Li'l Kath. We don't eat them. No." He shook his head from side to side. "No, no, no." He brought her up to his face until their foreheads touched.

"She's not 'Little Kath,' Char." Kathleen's voice was low and even. Somehow that didn't make it sound emotionless. "She isn't even 'Little Jeanette.' She is her own person. 'Kitten' is fine, 'Catherine Angelique' is fine."

"Okay, li'l Kitten, your aunt will protect you. Want to go back down and play with a rattle?"

Bob was intrigued by this byplay. And it reminded him of a nagging question. "Speaking of names," he asked, "is this 'Kath' business something new that we're going to be expected to learn?"

"Only one person calls me 'Kath.'"

"Fair enough." She had quite enough names already.

"Truce?" she asked. Generally an offered truce was accepted.

"I'm not sure. I don't want to fight, and I apologize for the sarcasm. On the other hand, I think that this whole mystery tour bit was something which Jeanette didn't deserve, and Mom and Dad certainly didn't deserve. Let's face it, what you are saying is 'My family is so racist that they won't accept that I'm romantically involved with a Black man.' And that isn't true."

"I'll take full responsibility for that," said Charles.

"No you won't. You didn't know them from Adam. She had eighteen years with them. She knew better."

"Well," Kathleen said, "at first I didn't want to tell them anything. You can, and I've known girls who have, write home: 'I'm dating this guy,' and not mention that he's Black. There isn't any way that I could have written: 'And by the way he's Black,' without writing 'I'm dating this guy,' now is there? And I'd stopped doing that. The first year in college, I'd give Mom reports -- even pictures -- of the guys I was dating. The second year I decided not to. She asked once how my social life was going. I told her that it was fine, and she accepted that."

"She didn't even tell me that she was seeing Greg," said Jeanette.

"I wasn't seeing Greg. He even took Charles and me out to dinner one night. He liked me, and I was a connection to you. He told me once that if there had been some way to come to our house for Christmas but not yours, he would have made the effort. Anyway, I liked him too. And I'll admit that I didn't make any great effort to inform my friends that the older naval officer was not a romantic interest."

"She claimed that she wasn't trying to make me jealous." Charles didn't sound convinced.

"I was trying to make some of the other women jealous, and I succeeded. We were all such a grungy lot, men and women both. I'm surprised that nobody wore scrubs on their dates. Anyway, the time that he treated us both to dinner -- disaster though that was -- should have convinced you that it wasn't a romantic interest."

"I thought that was a great dinner. Did it disagree with you?"

"Jeanette, you remember how Greg has this rheostat southern accent. Well, the two of them spent the meal trying to outdo each other in talking southern."

"There was a little of that, not the whole meal. Kath got annoyed for some reason."

"Char was born and raised in Philadelphia -- well the suburbs. Baltimore is as far south as he ever spent any appreciable amount of time."

"Hey! My mother is from Georgia, and my father's folks are from Mississippi."

"Some of my ancestors came from Germany. That doesn't give me a German accent." She took a deep breath. "Anyway, Bob, you know how Mom always was: 'Do you want to talk about it, dear?' Well I hadn't wanted to talk about it for a long time. And Charles and I spent too much time in 'This can't go on' mode."

"Well," said Jeanette, "I can see some of that. Though I can't escape the feeling that, if your mother had been my mother, I'd have told her everything."

"No you wouldn't have. You have one reason for not telling your mother anything. Don't think that other women don't have other reasons. Part of it is simply autonomy. Believe me: Mom may feel insulted that I didn't tell her about Char, but she would have been asking herself where she had gone wrong if I had turned out to be the kind of girl who does tell her mother everything.

"In all seriousness, look at Bob. He wasn't exactly a model of full disclosure. The first time I saw you, you'd come to the door to ask Mom if there were any mail for you. This was, what? Three years after you had started dating?"

"Nearly," said Jeanette.

"That's not a fair comparison," he answered. "Mom and Dad had met her. You might not have been paying attention, but I had mentioned her at table. You were my bratty kid sister, not trying to start a war -- that was what you were then. There was no reason that you should meet my dates. There is really no reason that I should meet yours, even now. Mom is something else."

"You're the one who's not being fair. You were living at home. Dad met my dates when I was living at home, or I didn't date. 'Why do you need the car, Bob?' I met Charles four years after leaving home. I wasn't borrowing the car. I wasn't using Mom for a mail box.

"Which leads to an interesting question. You've heard a blow-by-blow description of our three years. I have never heard why your letters went via Mom." There was a good reason that she hadn't heard that. For that matter, 'blow by blow' was a gross exaggeration. But then, did he really want to hear more than they wanted to tell? He wasn't about to ask why Charles considered his sister good in bed.

"Should we tell her?" Jeanette asked. "It seems to be a time for telling stories."

"Your call. If I'd known she was interested, I'd have done more to keep her in suspense."

"Well, it being my call: Bob was working on road construction for the second summer. Our only connection was by mail. Then one day, my mother read one of his letters. She demanded that I never speak, let alone write, to him again. So I wrote him a letter telling him that, and I asked if he could find someone who would pass along his letters to me. I expected that it would be a fellow student."

"And," Bob took up the story, "I tried to think of who I could trust. Maybe a high-school friend would do it, but there wasn't one whom I couldn't see reading the letters and passing them around; at least, he might tell the story to everyone. Some parent would hear, and they would tell her mother. So I wrote Mom asking if she would do it. She wrote back that she wouldn't open the inner envelope, but that I had to promise that I would write nothing which would shame her by passing through her hands.

"That took care of the problem, but Jeanette's mother still tried to break us up when I got back. She threatened to tell my parents about the contents of the letter she had intercepted. I'd told them myself, putting it in context. Dad thought that I was one damn fool, but..."

"Correctly," Vi wasn't reopening the war; that comment was almost a requirement of their relationship.

"Well, in this case, yes. But he was really shocked about opening someone else's mail. Not that Mrs. Baker doesn't open his every day. But Jeanette was sixteen, for the love of God."

"Turned seventeen while this was happening," she put in.

"This is none of my business," said Charles, "but what had shocked Jeanette's mother?"

"None of Kathleen's either. Well, she might have been less shocked if she had seen the previous correspondence. Maybe not. But what had gone before was that I tell Jeanette that I thought that she was much prettier than the centerfold in my latest Playboy. She writes back that she wasn't happy about my reading Playboy; I should have desire only for her. This leads to an exchange of several more letters. We talk about other things in those letters, too.

"Anyway, I finally write that I would abandon Playboy and only lust after pictures of her. What I needed, however, were pictures of her in positions like those of the centerfold model. Which I describe in fairly vivid detail. I was trying to get her off my case; there is no way that she would have posed for pictures like that even if there had been someone to take them. My pictures of her were from the yearbook, that sort of thing. I still don't have pictures of her that I couldn't show in church without embarrassing her. Not that I wouldn't enjoy such, but I have the real thing."

"And that," Jeanette broke in, "had to be the letter which arrived when mommy was home. I had been intercepting the mail before she got it. I took letters from Bob, and left any other mail that might be addressed to me."

At that point, The Kitten tired of her rattle. She threw it for two feet and rolled over to the teddy bear. She lay on her back and lifted it as he sometimes lifted her. The bear slipped, making him hope that the comparison that he'd just made hadn't occurred to Jeanette. "Isn't she the cutest baby in the whole world?

"Anyway," he continued, "that isn't the end of our problems, but that is the end of the mail episode. Except that Jeanette and I used Mom for a mail cut-out until Jeanette went to college. We were married at the end of that year," he explained to Charles.

"School year," Jeanette explained. "June not December."

"And an absolutely lovely wedding," said Kathleen. "Jeanette had me as a bridesmaid, which was incredibly generous of her."

"I don't see that as generosity at all. And by that time we'd become close friends."

"Well, I appreciated it. And you should see Bob in a monkey suit. Jeanette, on the other hand, looked breathtakingly beautiful when we finally got the wedding dress to look right, and so solemn." He could remember how she looked, not that she wasn't breathtakingly beautiful every day. But that day she had looked ethereal, and that wasn't Jeanette's usual style.

The Kitten rolled to another stuffed animal, a dog with no fuzz. She rejected it immediately and rolled to a soft world globe. She was getting fussy. He didn't want to get up, but he had to. One sniff told him that she was messy.

"She's getting political," he said.

"Want me to do it?" Kathleen asked. Hah! She probably thought that she was only wet. "Want to watch?" He didn't particularly, but that seemed to have been addressed to Charles who followed her out of the room.

He came back so soon that it looked like he had bounced. "Ah. Do you mind my going into your bedroom?"

"Go ahead," Jeanette said. As long as it was The Kitten's room, it was public space.

When Charles brought her back, The Kitten looked two months younger in his arms. "Hold it there," Jeanette warned. While he did, Bob picked up the toys so he wouldn't trip over them. There wasn't going to be much independent play this weekend, he could tell.

Charles swung her up and down while he waited. "Aout!" she said.

Before he could correct her, Charles made his own response. "Oooo." It was a deep bass, musical even in Bob's ears.

"Oooh!" she agreed.

"Oooooo...." Charles used a full breath to hold that note, which was a little lower.

They continued their dialogue until Charles couldn't get lower. Then Charles set her between him and Kathleen on the couch and played fetch-the-rattle for a while. He would give it to her, she would shake it for a moment, she would toss it down, then she would look for it until Charles retrieved it and gave it to her again. Bob was happy to see that there was another sucker in the world. Jeanette's response to a thrown-down toy was "All gone!"

"Isn't she the cutest baby in the whole world?" he asked.

Jeanette quoted, "Does that question count on the final grade?" And then they had to tell the story of the student who had first made that response.

He went off to fix dinner soon after that. Jeanette didn't come out to nurse The Kitten, which said everything about her comfort level with the situation in the living room. Charles passed through the kitchen once on the way to the john. "Smells good," he said.

"Thanks. Want to kill the coffee?" Charles did so, and Bob began a fresh pot for dinner.

Charles's footsteps paused in the dining room. When they went on, Kathleen's approached him. She went on to the john. Who did they think they were fooling? Who did he think he was fooling? It wasn't as if he could have kept his hands off Jeanette in a similar situation. When the coffee was done, he made sure the dinner would cook for fifteen minutes without him, and set the timer for that fifteen minutes. It was Jeanette's timer, he clocked actual preparations by his watch.

Then he announced in the living room: "There is a new pot of coffee. Anyone who wants to sample the quality can try it out." The coffee drinkers went to do so. When the timer pinged, he returned to the kitchen to see Charles pouring the first cups from the new pot. Vi was quite composed and dignified, if her color was a little high. Her skirt, however, was rucked up in back.

Jeanette watched as The Kitten got more and more fussy. "I'd better take her. She isn't too fond of this time of day, but she seems more nearly content in my arms."

Charles brought her over to the rocker and sat closer to Kathleen on the couch on his return. The Kitten took her attention, and the couple told each other news of their lives since they had spoken. The Kitten was starting to get hungry. Jeanette didn't want to move; would Charles be offended? An MD?

"Would it bother you if I fed her here?"

"No! If it would bother you, I'll go into the dining room."

She unbuttoned her blouse and removed the pad from her right breast. Kathleen and Charles were getting along just fine without her attention. She told The Kitten all about their day in murmured French. Even in bed, she seldom actually fell asleep while nursing. In the rocker, which didn't even have arms, there was no opportunity. Nonetheless, she was far from her most alert. When The Kitten was quite done, she grabbed a spare diaper from the bedroom for a spitcloth. She returned to see Charles asleep sitting up on the couch.

She stood there, burping The Kitten and trying to avoid Kathleen's eye.

"I almost dropped off myself. You don't know what waves of peacefulness you two send out."

"I really must apologize," Charles said when she returned from putting The Kitten in her crib. Kathleen wasn't there, which meant that she was probably using the facilities.

"Why? It wasn't as if I had been paying my guests the slightest attention. Besides Kathleen says that it was my fault."

"Well, it is a restful environment."

"And I can't imagine that you're well-rested. Let's make an early night of it. A good hostess would have planned a tour of scenic Grand Rapids; we sort of figured that you came to meet us and The Kitten, and vice versa." As if she expected them to spend the night sleeping. Oh well, Katherine could pretend; so could she. Anyway, the earlier that they got to bed, the more sleeping they would do.

"Quite true."

"And speaking of assumptions. We assumed that you would like to come to the church service and see the baptism. If so, is your car available for transportation?"

"I don't really think everybody would fit."

"We probably wouldn't. But neither would we all fit in our car. You'd be surprised how much room a car seat takes. We could take two trips."

"I'm at your service."

"I know which passenger you would prefer, but she doesn't know the way either."

Kathleen had returned in time to hear this. "We could follow your car."

"Or you could sit in the backseat of ours. That way you could talk to The Kitten."

"Char? Would you mind?"

"Go ahead. Anyway, this trip is to meet your family."

"We'll put Bob in your car to direct you, and we three girls will have a hen party. Not that it will last very long. The church is ten or so minutes by car." Not, of course, counting loading and unloading time.

Dinner was Bob's special chicken grilled under the oven. "I can offer you beer with your meal," Bob told Charles. "But I warn you that it carries a risk."

"Maybe later. But you don't have to warn me about the risks of drinking. Doctors are immune."

"We aren't immune to the risks," Kathleen explained, "just to the warnings."

"Ah, but there are special risks chez nous. The Friday after my birthday, three friends from the department took me out to a bar to celebrate. Each of them bought a round, and I wasn't allowed to. Then I walked home. It wasn't concern for safety; Jeanette had the car. But it's a mile and a half, and it totally cleared my head. When I got home, The Kitten wouldn't give me the time of day."

"I think," said Jeanette, "that she didn't like the smell."

"I think that she is a little puritan. Three beers, I ask you! And she was still standoffish the next morning. This from a girl who'll go to almost any stranger. Anyway I had an open six-pack in the refrigerator then, and it's still there now."

"I'll think about that. Look, I said that the surprise in my visit was something for which I take the blame, and it is. First, Kath wanted to introduce me to your parents at graduation."

"As I said," Kathleen put in, "my emotional life was none of their business, but I did want them to meet my best friend for the last four years. Anyway, Charles had heard loads about them. Besides, I wanted to meet his sister."

"My sis, Isis. But I had two families there. My mother and my step-mother were trying to be civil to each other. And, frankly, one of the issues between my parents was that my father is much more Afro-centric. Nobody would have said anything to offend Kathleen, but ... Mom and Dad can zap each other with comments I can't follow."

"Well," Jeanette said, "Katherine did comment that it would have been nice to have met you at graduation."

"I thought Kath said that you hadn't spoken since my visit there."

"We haven't...."

"And," Bob put in, "you don't know what that was asking of the two of them."

"... But we did have a talk after your visit was announced. Katherine thought Kathleen might have worked up to it more gradually. First, 'I've met this boy,' and several stages to 'And we are living together.' Not that you are, but...."

"So, you see, Kath only did what I asked."

"Well," Kathleen said, "Bob's right for a wonder. I did. You asked, but the actions were still mine. Anyway, your expectations were confounded, admit that."

"I didn't have expectations. I had questions, which were answered favorably for the most part. Both your parents were quite gracious, and their shock was brief. But remember what your father said when I asked him directly. He would back your choice and your right to choose, but he would have preferred that you had chosen someone who was white."

"You asked him that question?" asked Bob.

"That precise question."

"Charles, you misjudge my family. My father, Kathleen's father, will back his daughter against the world. Give him a what-if, and he'll answer a what-if. Why blame him for that? Draw up sides, and he's on Kathleen's side. Period.

"Anyway, do you think it is unreasonable of him to say that there are problems, even today, in an interracial relationship? I mean, isn't that the story that I've heard the two of you tell today? What he did was pay you the compliment of dealing with you honestly.

"Now, I'll wager that he did nothing at all to make Vi change her mind."

Jeanette would bet on that, too. Partly it was the respect that the senior Brennan's paid to their children's autonomy. Partly it was the absurdity of the concept: "Make Vi change her mind."

"Did the three of them get into any really good conversations when you were there?" she asked. "You really need all four of them for the full effect, but three can be entertainment enough."

"Well, yes. The family can talk, but I'd expect that of Kath's relatives."

"Look who's talking!"

"Now, now," Jeanette said. "You can't fight with him; it would ruin the impression that you're trying to make. What did you think of his family?"

"Um!" said Charles. "We haven't crossed that bridge yet."

"And," said Kathleen, "I can make that as great a surprise as the visit home. I can just see us knocking on your father's door."

"I thought," said Bob, "that you were pretending to be a grown-up these days."

"Hush, Bob," Jeanette said. "She's too smart to do it, but she deserves the right to plan it. It's all the fun and none of the damage." And if that didn't communicate to Kathleen, nothing would.

"I act more of a grown-up than you do, brother mine. You couldn't imitate an adult on your best day."

"Sure I can. I do a great imitation. You should see me in faculty meetings."

"Charles says that he can drive tomorrow. I said that you would ride with him to give the directions. I'll take Kathleen and The Kitten in our car." She was a Brennan, said so on her driver's license. She could change the subject whenever she wanted to.

"Sounds good to me. Anybody want more chicken?"

Charles did. She and Kathleen hadn't really done the dinner justice after the snack and late lunch, but the men were still eating. Now that balancing the budget was not such an intense effort, she had come to appreciate having a man who ate her cooking with such gusto. (Though she remembered in her heart of hearts that he would eat PBJs with gusto.) But she had never figured out where it all went. Of course both of them were big men.

Indeed, pigmentation aside, Kathleen had picked a man much like dear old dad. And, however often she affected horror of her brother, much like dear old Bob, too. Loomingly large, bright, self assured, comfortable in their skins, self-deprecating humor, nice voices. Charles didn't sound like Bob, but both voices sounded pleasant -- Bob's father too. Listening to Bob wouldn't be half so pleasant if his voice didn't sound so good whether you were paying attention or no. Too bad Bob couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but one couldn't have everything.

At the next pause in the conversation, she asked Charles, "You play the piano; do you sing as well?"

"I've sung in the choir, but they never asked me to solo. Another thing which has gone the way of spare time."

"You know, in old French novels, doctors keep showing up as generally well-read, well-educated, but also very social, persons. Is that a difference of time, or place, or is that the possibility in front of you? Or is it simply a convention?"

"Ask the tough ones, don't you? Well, doctors talk about internship and residency as a sort of initiation which they had to go through as well. Things will get easier, our mentors only put in comparable hours when there are real emergencies.

"On the other hand, the men that I respect study journals for hours a day, after years in the field. An MD after your name means that you once knew a hell of a lot, it doesn't really mean that you've learned anything since then. But there is so much new to learn, I can't see myself ever really catching up. Whatever I don't know now outside of medicine, I doubt if I'll ever find time to learn later. Small things, sure, but I don't see myself becoming like the two of you, constantly widening your horizons. I respect that, and I envy that at the same time."

The two of them were constantly widening their horizons? Bob sure, but she was half-educated at best.

"But you are going back to the piano in four years." It didn't sound like Kathleen was asking a question.

"Yes I will. Especially if I have a fan who impresses easily. And, after all, I'll probably have loads of time to read in the first two years of building my practice."

"And I'll have even more time." Talk therapy was not a growing field, and Kathleen had shared her nervousness about building up enough of a practice to support herself. Charles needn't worry. As Jeanette had learned, finding a good pediatrician was difficult.

"Well," Bob said. "You always did have difficulty acquiring patients."

"Acquiring enough patience to deal with you? Who could? But look how much more experience I'll have had when I'm finally dealing with hospitalized psychotics." As an intern, Kathleen was still learning general medicine. Her psychiatric residency would begin the next year.

"Nah! The hospitalized ones behave quite differently."

"If we're still in Grand Rapids," Jeanette told Charles, "give us a call. I know enough women looking for a good pediatrician to stock your patient list."

"And will they still be looking in four years?" He had a point. One of the women she thought of especially had an nine- year-old. Keep taking their kid to a pediatrician at thirteen? Sure. Look for a new one? Why bother?

Dinner never really ended. They talked around congealing plates for a long time, then she got up enough energy to clear. Kathleen joined her, telling Bob and Charles to stay put. The food in the 'fridge, the dishes stacked, she got out the ice cream. "Get me four bowls," she said.

"Charles is lactose intolerant."

Shit! Did she have an alternative dessert? Not really. But you can't eat dessert in front of a guest when he can't, not chocolate fudge swirl. Bob raised his eyebrows on her return, having expected the dessert. But food was her pidgin, and he would let her run it even if he'd cooked the dinner.

Kathleen began yawning, and apologizing for the yawns, soon thereafter. Jeanette avoided Bob's eyes. "I think it is time to put the doorway curtain up, Bob," she said.

Charles held the other end, not needing a chair, and the visual privacy was established. Bob pulled out the sofa bed, and she joined him in the kitchen to help with the dish washing. First, however, they had a nice kiss and hug; they'd given the younger couple some privacy that day, but hadn't enjoyed any for themselves since Kathleen's arrival.

It had been as stressful day, and she yawned during the hug. Although quite genuine, it reminded them of Kathleen's hints. She buried her face in Bob's shoulder, he buried his in the side of her head, and they tried to keep their laughter silent.

"Oh pardon me," Charles said. He was standing there in a robe with his trouser legs showing under it, a shaving kit in his hand. Bob waved him through while Jeanette disgraced herself completely with an even worse case of giggles.

When her bathroom time came up, she briefly contemplated the diaphragm case. Insertion wasn't much trouble, better safe than sorry, etc. But they weren't going to need it, and there was no sense tempting herself.

She fussed over the kitchen while Bob did his own bathroom thing. At the door to the bedroom, she called "Good night, you two." Bob echoed her, they responded. She shut the door with audible firmness. They put their robes within easy reach, and climbed into bed, Bob first. Bob didn't look bad in pajamas, strange, but not bad.

Jeanette awoke to the restless movements of The Kitten, who -- of course -- hadn't adjusted her schedule at all. She could nudge Bob and have a dry daughter to nurse in bed. Then she heard sounds that weren't coming from The Kitten. Was Kathleen talking to Charles? Why could she hear her and not him? No, those weren't words.

Probably she shouldn't wake Bob after all. She got up, changed a diaper, and was faced with a crying child and a nightgown. This was ridiculous! She stripped while The Kitten screamed over her abandonment, and managed to stifle the third cry on her breast. There was a period of silence in the other room while she eased herself down on the rocker without letting it squeak. Then Kathleen's sounds were muffled. Until, still muffled, they turned into a single long moan.

When she finally heard Charles's voice, it had the cadences of speech. They got quiet soon after, and her attention went back to The Kitten. By then she was playing with the breast. Jeanette was shivering, and she cut the session short. Catherine went back into her bed, on her tummy -- why fight it? and Jeanette went back to hers.

Bob, who was wide awake, hugged her. He was warm but not particularly comfortable against her. The man was almost rigid. Down below, he was rigid. He should decide between being a voyeur and being a chaperon. Anyway, they weren't going to do anything about either feeling. And, after all, the couple in the next room were finished.

She snuggled against his warm stiffness, which slowly relaxed to cuddle her. She was almost asleep when the sounds from the other room resumed.

This time, after a few murmurs and bed-movements, the sounds conveyed the activity as clearly sight would have. The springs of the sofa bed announced a rhythm as old as time.

Bob was holding his wife as an anchor. It wasn't his business. It wasn't. It really wasn't. Suddenly Jeanette whispered, "I hope that she's on top." Why she needed to whisper was a mystery. The couple in the living room weren't paying attention.

She had a point -- Charles must be twice Vi's weight. But the springs were moving in a very basic rhythm, quite masculine by the sound of it. Quite erotic by the sound of it, as well. Jeanette shifted so his arousal passed between her legs instead of pressing against the top one. Still, that was his little sister getting boffed; anger and protectiveness stirred in with the lust to produce a mixture of which he wasn't proud.

Suddenly there was a soft 'snap!' from the living room and the squeaks became much louder. Jeanette shook silently in his arms, and he struggled to keep his own laughter as quiet.

"Remember?" she asked. Of course he did.

Tonight, it came back full force. The squeaky sofa bed was a joke, the younger Bob and Jeanette had been hilariously solemn about sex, Vi and her boyfriend had tried so hard to be discreet, and they had failed so utterly.

For a wonder, the sounds from the living room lasted longer than their humor. "Oh, I love you," Jeanette whispered. The kiss went from appreciation to lust in about ten seconds. Junior, who couldn't stay hard through a belly laugh, began to recover.

"We can't," Jeanette said. The sofa springs said they could. "I'm not protected." He fumbled in the box and retrieved a packet. "Then hurry!"

They certainly should hurry. The pace was picking up in the other room. But he and Jeanette had a decade of experience together. They could prolong it, sustaining the sexual suspense until it felt like pain; they could rush it, quickly creating the crash of climax. Tonight called for rushing it.

He kissed her once more before climbing out of his pajamas and between her legs. He opened her lips to fit himself to her entrance. Then he drove his sheathed and oiled essence into her. Her legs closed around his waist, her hands gripped his arms. In three strokes, they matched the beat from the other room. He made sure to rub against the top of her entrance on every stroke, she hugged his phallus at its deepest penetration.

The couple in the next room was still ahead of them, though. Contralto moans were now matched by bass grunts. Jeanette had stopped smiling at what she heard, though. In the dimness, he could see her face slip towards the rictus of her passion. He heard an unmuffled, "Come for me, Kath; come for me." Almost as if Jeanette were responding to that plea, he felt her belly tighten under him. "Oh darling!" Charles said next door as Kathleen's moans soared towards the soprano range.

Charles groaned. Bob felt Jeanette clasp his phallus in her delicious spasms. He drove into her more wildly as his orgasm began. Biting his lip didn't help, he grunted each time he spurted into the rubber. He pressed into her for an endless instant.

When he collapsed beside her, there was an absolute silence from the living room. He and Jeanette cleaned up and cuddled, but there wasn't even the sound of shifting bodies from beyond the door. As he knew that bodies couldn't shift soundlessly when the spring was loose, Vi and Charles were holding themselves still knowing what he and Jeanette had just done. And they had to have figured out what had inspired that.

Jeanette awoke when Bob tossed the blankets away from her front. He deposited The Kitten in her arms and plucked out his special pacifier. The Kitten attached herself to the breast, and then it was time for mother and daughter to catch another forty winks while the refueling was accomplished. Bob, however kept standing there after he'd tucked the blanket around them.

"It's Sunday," he said, "the Sunday of The Kitten's baptism. We have Vi and her boyfriend in the other room. You should wear something when you come out. I love you."

"Love you, too." It was too early to deal with the rest of his message.

She did not, however, return to sleep. Bother! She loved Kathleen, she had really wanted her here, but she didn't want her here before breakfast. Once she'd managed to go to an office five days a week starting earlier than this; she would manage to get to church today.

She sketched out the day, and then remembered the previous day. Not bad, no great disasters, and The Kitten had been a real hit. The day led to the night. Her face burned, but she couldn't see what they could have done differently. Of course, she and Bob had other times to make love. She had planned to skip that night, had worked so that Bob wasn't going to need that night. On the other hand, they were in their own home and wearing wedding rings. She wasn't about to apologize.

The Kitten had fallen back asleep. She wasn't worrying about her guests. And they were really her guests and her ceremony. Boy! After the age of one, life was all downhill.

She returned The Kitten to her crib, where she stayed on her back for a wonder. She put on the nightgown, robe, and slippers -- she might have to spend a good deal of time waiting in line for the bathroom on the chilly linoleum. But, when she got there, only Bob was awake. "Do you think Charles will want cereal?" he asked when she came out from her shower.

"Lactose intolerance. He certainly won't. Which means that you should make the tomato soup with water for lunch." Bob stirred a wonderfully smooth cream-of-tomato soup, even though their milk began as powder. How could a man so sloppy about some things be so obsessive-compulsive about stirring soup?

She was eating her eggs when there was a ringing sound from the living room. They both made a motion towards it, were stopped by the sight of the hanging sheet, and saw each other realize that it was the sound neither of the phone nor of the buzzer.

Murmurs from the other side of the sheet yielded to Kathleen's emergence, dressed in the robe they had given her. She headed into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged showered, brushed, but still dressed in the robe.

"Do either of you need it?" she asked. On head shakes, she called, "Bathroom's yours." Charles was dressed in robe and pajamas and carrying his clothes when he came through. He emerged clean, shaven, and wearing a robe over his trousers before Kathleen joined them.

Charles looked as sheepish over breakfast as Jeanette felt. The Brennans -- Brennans by birth -- didn't seem to be bothered by their memories of the previous night. "I didn't expect to see you up before eight Jeanette," Kathleen said.

"I wasn't. The Kitten and I had a little snuggle, but even that began...?" She looked at Bob.

"Maybe eight. She was sopping. Sometimes that bothers her, and sometimes it doesn't. This morning it did."

"But my alarm rang at eight!"

"Did you switch it to Michigan time?" Bob asked. "Anyway, we have plenty of time to get to church. Does anyone need to do anything before then? Except The Kitten, of course."

No-one mentioned anything time-consuming. Charles went to dress and pack. Jeanette noticed that he and Kathleen seemed to dress separately, even if they slept together. But, perhaps, that was a matter of space scheduling. When they heard the sofa bed chunking against the frame, Bob went to show the trick of putting it up.

They changed The Kitten's diaper at the last moment, dressed her in her nicest dress, wrapped her against the cold, and took her out. Ensconced in her backwards-facing car seat, she let Kathleen entertain her while the car warmed up.

When they were actually moving, Kathleen apparently noticed her satisfaction. "You really don't think that I should put Char's family through the surprise, do you?"

"Dear, I never wanted to be that sort of a sister-in- law, but...." It was her best imitation of Katherine.

"Yes, mother."

"I think that you either want a future with this guy or you don't. A future with him means a future with his family, willy- nilly. Even Bob has to go to my mother's awful Christmas parties.

"Anyway, from what he said, his mother is likely to welcome you. So don't make her situation worse by offending his father."

"You do listen to Mom's advice, don't you?"

"Listen all the time. Much of the time I take it. Sometimes it doesn't fit. Maybe this advice won't fit you, but think about it."

"She's afraid that you don't stand up to Bob enough. He rides roughshod over you."

"Kathleen, he spoils me rotten. And no, I don't stand up to him. The closest I came in years was over your visit."

"Well, you have to stand up to Bob. He's as pigheaded as...."

"I think the comparison you want is 'pigheaded as his sister.' And I do stand up to him on some things, things where I can afford to lose. But, if it's important, if it's really important to me, I tell him that. I ask him for it."

"Well, you shouldn't have to ask him for it. You should be able to decide." Jeanette tried to picture stamping her foot and demanding that Bob hug her or else. She and Bob wrangled all the time, seldom before company, but all the time when alone. But it was recreation. She didn't even want Bob to stop his puns, and he didn't want her to stop complaining about them.

"Anyway," Kathleen broke into her thoughts, "have you got any recordings?"

"A couple. You?"

"I think I have enough."

Kathleen started paying more attention to The Kitten. Jeanette pulled the car into the lot at the church. They were still running ahead of schedule; they were among the first cars to arrive, and she could park fairly close to the door. Bob, who had directed Charles into a more distant spot, didn't catch up to them until they were inside.

The Brennans' usual seat was on the left of any one of three pews a little forwards of the middle. Bob usually made a point of sitting far enough from the aisle that a visitor would feel comfortable sitting next to them, but this morning they took the edge as they would have to get up for the baptism. Charles went in first, then Kathleen, then Jeanette with The Kitten, and then Bob.

"Hi Pumpkin," said Kurt from behind them. Jeanette had occasionally had visions of his answering "What name shall be given to this child?" with "Pumpkin." The Kitten didn't mind, however; she gurgled at him. When he had tapped her nose a few times while she tried to impale her eye on his finger instead, he turned his attention to the adults.

"Kurt," Bob said, "This is my sister Kathleen. And this is Charles Johnson, a friend of hers from medical school. Dr. Johnson is checking out her parenting skills." Kathleen had obviously been expecting something like this; she had her arm behind Jeanette on the back of the pew. She pinched Bob, who didn't deign to notice. After a few handshakes and another session with The Kitten, Kurt wandered off to his usual seat.

Bob's next introduction included: "Dr. Johnson is here for an unstated purpose, but definitely not to check out Kathleen's parenting skills." This earned him another pinch. "Watch out, Charles," he said when that couple had left. "This girl isn't satisfied with anything you say."

"Bob," Jeanette asked, "could you keep it civil? The Kitten and I feel like Alsace and Lorraine." Being married to a historian for more than a decade should teach you something. After that, Bob dropped the teasing. Kathleen could have learned a lesson from that, but she probably hadn't.

She passed a hymnbook to Kathleen. "Do you need another?" she asked.

Kathleen shook her head. "We can share."

Bob stood when the minister asked about visitors. "My sister and Catherine's godmother, Kathleen Brennan. Charles Johnson, a friend of hers from medical school. Dr. Johnson currently lives in Cleveland."

The Kitten enjoyed the getting up and sitting down and singing. In between, she was passed from lap to lap. Half way through the sermon, however, she got bored. Bob, as usual, took her out behind the pews and walked back and forth. The motion was all the entertainment she needed, but occasionally an usher came by to admire her.

The ceremony went smoothly, but when the water splashed over her head, The Kitten was annoyed. Jeanette had brought the bottle of milk she had expressed on Friday; sticking that in The Kitten's mouth quieted her.

There was a small party afterward, catered by the women's society. It was silly to go home from that and serve lunch immediately, but time was winding down. Somehow stories seemed appropriate. "By that time," Jeanette told them, "baths were heavenly; you weigh so much less. But the tub looked grungier and grungier. I hadn't scrubbed it in months. So I asked Bob to take on one more task. He asked if he could do it slowly. What could I say?"

"Well," Bob said, "it hadn't developed suddenly." There was only so much time that he could spend on his knees leaning over the bathtub before the position caused discomfort.

"So, the next bath I take, there is a band of glistening white. It is about eighteen inches wide and runs from the rim to the bottom. Slowly, day by day, it expands in both directions. Then the bottom, which had never been awful, glistened as well." There was a lot of illogic in the world, but some people made it a fetish; three people chuckled over his proceeding logically.

Well, four people were laughing; but the Kitten was probably not following the conversation. She looked entranced by her toes. He could remember baring her tiny feet and admiring those toes once -- such incredible detail; but he'd got over that.

"So," Kathleen said later, "there aren't one hell of a lot of desirable psychiatric residency programs in Cleveland. You think of big cities, you know; they're all big. But Chicago is five times as big as a city, three times as big as a metro area. And the biggest cities somehow have institutions which attract patients from further afield. Anyhow, I have applied to two places in Cleveland, but I didn't rate them at the top."

"And," Bob asked Charles, "how about you?"

"A first-year resident fresh out of med school is 95% like an intern. Somebody has to fetch and carry and fill out the forms."

"The five percent?"

"I'm in the one program for the entire residency."

"So you guys are likely to keep those long-distance bills for the next three and a half years," Jeanette said. As if the long-distance cost was the chief detriment.

"And it's not as if I would want Kath to take a residency at an institution where she didn't want to be. Whatever I think of psychotherapy, her training is her whole future."

"Well," said Kathleen, "damned by faint praise."

"Everybody needs a friendly ear. That helps loads, as does a hot bath and twelve hours of sleep. But running a motel doesn't require medical training, and I don't see where listening does either."

"There is a little bit more involved than listening, Char."

"The ear helps; nobody has actually shown by control groups, let alone double-blind experiments, that the mouth has any positive effect at all."

"There are times when you sing a different tune about the positive effects of my mouth."

"Kath!" Charles said, thereby erasing the small uncertainty about what she had meant. The man was no tactician.

"So, do you want some prints of the pictures we took today?" Jeanette asked. Of course Kathleen wanted pictures; you'd think that Jeanette wanted to change the subject.

"I really would appreciate that," said Charles. "I'll give you my address before I leave." Oops! Well prints were cheap enough.

"I'd like some, too," said Kathleen. "Apparently I'll get to see the family this Christmas."

Jeanette had recently seen a hospital from the other side. She asked some questions about the cast of characters. "I could never figure out who all those people were. So some of them addressed as 'Doctor' were lowly interns like you."

Charles and Kathleen tried to clarify some of the roles.

He had a question of his own. "And, when the obstetrician says, 'Get that guy out of here; I already have two patients; I don't need three.' Who guides him out?"

"Probably the circulating nurse," said Charles. "But if I'd been an intern in there, I might have done it. Or even a junior resident. Doing what the doctor wants done hurts nobody's training long-term."

"Bob!" said Kathleen. "You didn't wimp out? Jeanette never told me." She hadn't? It was the funniest event of a not-so- funny time. Jeanette had been in pain in there.

"Listen Kathleen," Jeanette said, "and listen hard. There is one person in the entire universe who hurts because I hurt. And it hurts him worse than it does me. I don't think that is funny. I've been a friend to you. My friends don't tease Bob because my pain hurts him. Never!"

"Well," Bob said, "I thought it was funny." Maybe he shouldn't have told that particular joke. She had been hurting, and that had mattered more than anything at the time. He found that turning times of pain into humor eased the memory, and so -- sometimes -- did she. But her pain was central to that time. Let her make the jokes.

"I didn't." Her voice sounded like she was crying.

"Jeanette," said Kathleen, "I swear that I'll never mention it again. You only have to ask, dear. Wasn't The Kitten good at her baptism? I don't think anyone can blame her for crying about being splashed."

While that was one subject that they all agreed on, it took several more minutes for the conversation to reach its previous pitch.

When he thought that they still had plenty of time before Charles's scheduled departure, Jeanette got up and returned with a package of food for his trip. She said, "Well, Charles, it was nice to have met you. I expect that I'll hear more about you from Kathleen now." Bob checked his watch. Half an hour left; had Jeanette got the time wrong?

"Tell him goodbye, Bob." He shook hands -- that tone allowed no questions. "Now you guys check out the living room, both of you. I don't want anything left behind." She pulled the curtain across the doorway again. Then she gathered up The Kitten, handed her to Charles for a last hug, and took her into the kitchen. Bob followed her.

Charles and Kathleen disappeared behind the curtain before the light dawned in his skull.

Jeanette sat on a kitchen chair while Bob got out the papers he had put away on Charles's arrival. The Kitten, a little early by Jeanette's reckoning, pawed at her breasts. She'd skipped the jar feeding the previous day because that wasn't a side of her daughter that she wanted to present to guests. Did she want to skip it again today? Yes. First, her breast was full to the point of leaking; The Kitten had last been fed by bottle. Second, she was emotionally drained; she didn't have the energy for that struggle.

She brought The Kitten to her breast. "Hold me," she said. Bob stood beside her and held her head against his stomach. It gurgled. She'd rather be held like that and hear his stomach rumble than have him go off to another city and hear The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A minute later he moved away. It wasn't far enough away that she didn't hear him pass gas. He pulled up a chair and sat beside her with one arm around her shoulders and the other hand helping to hold up The Kitten.

A half hour later, Kathleen went past them heading for the bathroom.

She had stopped crying when she came out. Bob dished up three big helpings of chocolate-fudge-swirl ice cream. When The Kitten was burped, Bob handed her to her godmother. "Thanks guys," Kathleen said. "I don't know how I'll be able to stand another 43 months of this."

They let her wear the Snuggli almost until she had to get on the train. They waved the train out of sight, and then returned home.

The Kitten, who had been especially good for her guests, got fussy earlier than usual. Jeanette couldn't blame her, feeling about the same way herself. On the other hand, they were really bad company for each other. The mood hadn't affected her daughter's appetite, however; after all, she was Bob's daughter too. Burped, cuddled, with the special Kitten-goes-to- sleep tape playing, she was finally laid on her back. She rolled over and went to sleep.

Bob had stripped the sofa-bed. She washed the dishes to let him finish grading his papers. Defiantly decadent, they ate another round of ice cream after their supper of leftovers.

This time she made sure to insert the diaphragm when she got ready for bed. Bob being still hard at work, she wore the robe to bed. The sheets were chilly without him, and lonely too.

"Just hold me," she said. He did, but she felt him laughing against her back. "What's so funny."

"'I can make the sun rise if I command it at the right time.' What would I have done if you hadn't asked me to hold you?" Well, he would have held her; Bob was good that way.

"Sometimes, I need to be hugged; other times I just enjoy it. Stay like this for a while." So he did, kissing her shoulder through the robe occasionally, but staying away from the sexy patch on the back of her neck. He stayed away from her nipples, too; but his hand supported her breast when it wasn't caressing her belly.

She moved forward for a moment to pull up the back of her robe. He completed the job, and their legs could touch skin-to- skin. He slowly got an erection against her butt.

"Want to lose the robe?" he asked. There were about a dozen layers of cloth between their waists, and his shoulders were not touching hers anymore. Well, she did; then she got another idea. She checked the clock. The Kitten would wake up again sometime within the next hour; if not, she'd at least feed if awakened.

"Can you lie on your back?" He turned over immediately.

She climbed on top. There was a tube of KY in the nightstand drawer. When he was thoroughly covered, she eased herself back. "Don't want to make love," she explained -- a little late, "just want to snuggle."

It took more of an effort than usual to accommodate his size. But there was something sensuous about the stretching. Then she was sitting on his groin, and she was gloriously full. She wiped her hand on the sheets; he adjusted the robe in back so it was under the covers. He came almost out, however, when she lowered herself onto his chest. He pulled the covers up and tucked them around her shoulders.

Then he slowly stroked her back and scratched lightly around her shoulder blades. His body was motionless under hers except for his breathing and an occasional thrust to keep a little of him inside her. Except for her arms, everywhere they touched was skin to skin.

She just rested her breasts on his chest, letting the sparse hair on his chest tickle her nipples. She could feel him inside her, feel him under her, feel his warm hands on her back. The scratching felt good.

"I love you, you know," he said. She did know. They watched each other in the light from the dining room and the dim night light.

"I just want to be held," she told him. "Later, maybe, after the feeding."

"I hate to tell you this...." Well, she knew that he was inside her. Who had done it, after all? Still, this was being held. He cuddled her, and she cuddled part of him. She gave it a little squeeze to demonstrate.

His face showed that he had felt that. She made kissing faces to him and he sent some kisses back. But, when he came out a minute later, she was glad to relax. She lay more directly on him, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I do love you. I love your bright wit and your care. Y'know, it took even Vi a minute to figure out what you were doing saying goodbye to Charles early. I love your warmth and being inside it and being against it." His erection hadn't gone down much, and now it was lying pressed along her groove. Really, if you wanted erotic sensations (which she didn't particularly, right now) there were more from that pressure than there had been when he was inside. "I love your sexy looks and sexy feel." She loved his sexy feel, too: his legs between hers, his chest under hers, his hands on her back, his voice rumbling beneath her. "I love the way you care for The Kitten."

They looked at each other again for a long while. He made kissing motions again, and she moved up so that they could have a real kiss. They lost contact below, but their tongues played before she got tired of that position. She moved down again when holding herself up became an effort. She rested her head on his chest and kissed his shoulder occasionally; he licked at her ear from time to time, only reaching the back top....

If she was asleep, The Kitten's first stirrings awoke her. She got off Bob and stood on the floor. "I can," Bob said in a quiet voice. But he really couldn't have, not without her getting up anyhow.

She changed The Kitten, who did not smell like a proper bedmate. Then she said, "Move over." Bob gave her a lot of space and swept the covers off that side. She managed to doff the robe while still holding The Kitten to her breast. Then she eased herself into the bed. Bob covered her but made sure that The Kitten had plenty of air space. Then he fit himself against her back.

That was nice for a bit, with his hand helping her hold The Kitten. Too much had happened to sort it out for her daughter, so she confined herself to "Belle Catherine... souce Catherine... habile Catherine" and an occasional "Trouves-tu la leche bonne?"

When Bob's petting got more intimate, she opened her legs to encourage him. "You wouldn't want to just lie here with Junior inside would you?" she said. From his motions in back of her, he would. She arched her back as much as possible, and he moved back inside. Their backs couldn't touch like that, but you can't have everything. Then he went back to scratching her back, very gently, with the backs of his nails. You can have damn-near everything.

She lay in bliss for the longest time. The Kitten quite finished her meal, rolled over, and went back to sleep. She was on her back, which was good; but if she rolled again to get on her belly, she might tumble off the edge of the bed. Jeanette's arm was there to prevent that, but she had no illusions as to how long her attention was going to remain on her baby. Well, this had been bliss. "I have to get up now," she said. Bob rolled away, freeing her and emptying her in one motion.

She put The Kitten in her crib, where she woke long enough to roll over onto her belly. Once up, Jeanette considered it wise to visit the bathroom. Bob had been extremely nice to her tonight, after the two of them having been extremely nice to their guests. It was really his turn.

When she had cuddled back against his warmth, she said as much. "This has been really delightful. I've loved it. I bet you want to finish, though."

Well, yes. He wanted to finish. On the other hand, the evening so far hadn't been his hardest task of the week. "Hard," come to think of it, might apply; but "onerous" certainly didn't.

"What do you want? I've loved this so far."

"I want you to have what you want." She paused "So long as it isn't too athletic."

"May I kiss you?" She puckered up. Imp! They had a smacking kiss, and then he really kissed her, loving her tongue and the roof of her mouth as he wanted to love her down below.

"Anywhere you want." He wasn't going to take that too literally; probably her nipples were still sore. He pecked her lips, kissed her eyebrows, and started his journey downward.

He kept to the smoothness of her breasts, and only pecked at one peak. Her belly, however, deserved the full treatment that it got. She writhed to avoid his kiss on her navel, but that was ticklishness -- not soreness. By the time he arrived at his goal, she was ready for him and smelled like it. A few kisses on her mound allowed him to savor that odor.

At the prompting of his hands, she rolled over on her side. The ease with which she did that was suddenly a pleasure to see, though it was really months old. He rested his head on one thigh while she eased the other one down over him. They adjusted the covers so that he could breathe while she had some protection from the cold air.

Now her odor came full force. He licked the thin ridge of joined lips, slowly working them open while tasting her richness. He licked each lip in turn, only the tiniest corner of his tongue even approaching her nubbin. When she was writhing around his head, he withdrew his tongue completely, and then flicked it forward to touch her clitoris. She gasped.

He worked his hand between their bodies and then his finger into her tunnel. He widened it until another finger fit there. He flicked his tongue across her clitoris again, and then pressed his fingers against the top of her vagina. After all these years, it still took him a bit of rubbing there before he located the bump that was her G-spot.

Now she was his indeed. He would lick around her clitoral area until she tensed, then rest his tongue while his fingers tickled her inside. When that seemed to bring her close, he held his fingers still while he licked her lips. His tongue would get closer and closer to the clitoris until it actually touched. When she was moaning from that, he would concentrate on his fingers again.

Finally, with her fingernails digging into his scalp, she pled: "Please Bob. Oh please. Now please."

He kept his fingers rubbing against each other and against her. He pressed his face forwards for the centimeter that it could move. He locked his lips around the front of her valley, and he sucked and hummed. When she began to go over, he licked directly across her clitoris slowly but repeatedly.

Her thighs almost crushed his skull, and she clasped his fingers again and again. When those strong, surging, clutches turned to flutters, he stopped all motion. Soon after, the pressure on his head dropped.

He escaped from between her thighs and turned her over on her back. The bedclothes were a tangle under her, but he couldn't stop for that. He took the familiar position between her legs, found the entrance, and pressed home.

Before she actually came down from her previous high, he was stroking inside her.

Jeanette, when she could still think, had thought that it was typical of Bob that he would choose to stimulate her orally when he was offered almost any sort of sexual activity. Not that she was afraid that he would neglect his own climax; she'd been married to the man too long to suspect that. But he took pleasure in her pleasure almost as much as he suffered from her pain.

Then she'd let herself sink into her feelings. The prelude had been a blizzard of kisses. He'd sneaked up on the place where they both knew he was heading, but his kisses had also expressed his love for some of the other parts, like her belly which was no longer so lovable. She'd felt aroused, sure, and also tickled; but she'd felt loved even more.

The love hadn't gone away when he was licking her nether lips, but the arousal had certainly overtaken it. First, he took a deliciously long time licking her open. Then, he had teased her with his tongue until she desperately wanted him inside. Then his fingers had entered her as a kind of security deposit for the real thing. After that, she had mostly lost track of the particulars.

From Bob's busy lips and fingers and, most especially, tongue, would come one sensation after another. Each would send a shudder of pleasure through her, each would increase her need for the next. He had pulled her upwards and wound her tighter. It had been delight; then it had been glory; it had become torture. She had begged him for release.

Instead, the torture had increased. Already tightly stretched, she had been stretched doubly -- triply, until she'd broken. And, when she'd broken, she'd broken free to soar. Connected to the bed by only the sensations at her center, she had risen into the heights. It had been joy. It had been freedom.

It had been over.

And, when it was over, she needed Bob. That part down there, which had been all of her that mattered a second ago, wasn't really her. She needed her husband up next to her head where she lived.

Magically, he was there. And not only there whispering in her ear, but there for all of her. His faced filled her vision; his wide torso sheltered hers from the night and its fears; his legs were over hers and between them. And, there between her legs, he occupied her center; he filled her where she had been empty. The only parts of her that weren't touching him were her calves and feet. So she curled them in against his thighs to take care of that.

"Oh Jeanette," he said, "I love you." And he loved her very thoroughly, loved her moving out, loved her coming in. Loved her moving against all those parts that his previous love had sensitized. He loved her faster and faster, he loved her deeper and harder, and she loved him back.

Then his love filled her completely, poured more love into her. And her love matched his and took her away. She soared upward again.

And, when she returned, she returned to being held in Bob's arms and still filled with his love.

Later, of course, the passion was only a memory -- lovely a memory as it was. The magic proof of his love for her, the proof which had taken her with him to glory when it had pulsed out of him and into her, was a messy smear congealing on the sheets and her thighs. Love can give you a warm glow, but it is a more comfortable glow when the covers are on top of you, not tangled beneath you.

Later, they straightened all that out. Later they were parents who checked their offspring and turned her on her back. (She turned onto her tummy again. The hospital hadn't palmed her off with a girl who wasn't Bob's daughter.)

Still later, she woke to find Bob gone. He came back in a minute and slipped into his side of the bed. "Bob?" she asked.

"I'm here," he said. And he was.

The End
For Elise
Uther Pendragon
anon584c@nyx.net
1999/12/28
2000/08/17
2002/12/03
2003/11/30
2004/12/16
This is one of a series of stories about the 
Brennans.
The next story in the series is:
 "Forget All That"  
The first story in the series is:
 "Forever"  
The directory to the entire series is:
 Brennan Stories Directory  
For non-Brennan story of in which sibling 
relations are important, see:
 "Honey Bee"  
The directory to all my stories can be found 
at:
 Index to Uther Pendragon's Website