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Form a More Perfect Union
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, 2010, 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 are figments of my imagination; any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. |
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Form a More Perfect Union
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Charles:
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Kathleen:
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"You have a nice family," Charles said. "Three of them. And Cat makes up for Bob." "You're prejudiced. I like your brother." "Maybe, and certainly; that doesn't change facts. Do you have your sheet on what we want out of our marriage?" "Here. I don't want to start yet." "Turn right at the next light. That'll take you directly to the interstate." "But, first, remember my telling you about continuing treatments for Daryl Jenkins? The practice gave me hell over that, and I handed it back to them." "Yeah." "I told Jeanette a little of that. I mentioned that I might not have been so high-and-mighty if you weren't able to support me. She said to tell you that." "Well, I'm glad. I'm not allowed to pay my husband's rent, but I am allowed to buy him a parachute. Start now?" "Sure." "I'm going to turn off my cell." "Good idea. Take mine and turn it off, too, will you?" "I like the way you begin. 'To form a more perfect union.' I don't have a header on mine. On the other hand, your first point isn't particularly clear." "Well, it was going to be lying around your house. I thought a blank line was enough to remind me. Anyway, I like the sex we have. It's not something I'm anxious to change, but I think it's the most important part of our marriage. Maybe we can deal with that apart from the rest." "I'm not sure we can. It's part and parcel of the way you deal with the house." "Now, Kath, I've agreed to live in your house. I can't agree to live in your vagina, attractive as that idea is. I have to go out to the office to practice medicine." "You have definitely spent too much time around Bob." "Y'know, I told jokes before I met your brother. I even told them before I met you." "If you'd said that you had an inheritance that I couldn't touch because it had come down from a relationship that preceded our marriage and said that sex was fine because you'd had your orgasm, and that was all that mattered, I'd beat you over the head with a baseball bat." "You wouldn't leave me?" "We've tried living apart. It didn't work. Living *with* you, on the other hand, is occasionally infuriating. And that's from a person who spent 16 years in the same house as Bob Brennan." Well, I'll risk the baseball bat. What's the issue on sex? I thought that your providing my orgasm and my providing yours is something we do right." "Sometimes, Char, I not only want to provide you with an orgasm, I want to see it. Remember that I stopped giving you blow jobs in the dark?" "Do I! When you said it, I wasn't sure you weren't swearing off them altogether." "Nope. I just like to watch you come. And that on-top position gives me an even better view." "Well, it was fun for me, too." "That's fine. But I don't want you trying to bring me to orgasm while I'm watching. I had my climax. I didn't need another." "Well, you can have several. You know, you aren't the only one who enjoys seeing an orgasm." "You don't insist on the light." "Well, 'seeing' might not be the best term. I don't need a light when I have my fingers in you. That time in the daylight with you on top, on the other hand, was a great pleasure." "Okay. That was fun for both of us. We have to do more of that sort of thing. We have our own house to do them in, after all." "And the rear entry. I liked it. Did you?" "That caught me unprepared. In two senses, and I apologize for the second. I shouldn't leave my diaphragm in that long, especially when we're there and can't talk or run to the bathroom to douche. As for the first surprise, we need work. That sounds more neutral than I'd intended." "Didn't sound neutral at all." "Well, if it sounded negative, that's worse. Having a chance at both your cock and your magic fingers at once is a treat." "'Magic fingers.' You do wonders for a man's ego." "Don't I say that to you? I think it to myself all the time. Anyway, I think we need to do that five more times when we're not trying to keep the bed from shaking 'cause Bob can hear." "This is sounding more and more like a schedule. I'm not sure that I like sex on a schedule." "Well, really, you don't come into the office and chase out my patient because you're feeling horny. We have a schedule of no, moderns have. Having a schedule of yes isn't that bad an addition." "I like the way you put it." "Why don't we say that you'll make the decisions on the odd days of the month, and I'll make them on the even days. Except..." "I think I can live with that, so long as you remember that I have limits. You can't ask me to come twice in a session or to delay forever under stimulation." "And, as much fun as my multiple orgasms are to both of us, I can't have a long series on nights before I have morning appointments." "Okay, we'll be in control on alternate days, but the control will be limited to reasonable expectations. And, remember, that either Friday or Saturday will be an odd numbered day of the month." "Sometimes, although incredibly rarely, both." "So, you can expect an orgy on any Friday the 31st." "I'll put it on my calendar. Well, that -- as you said -- is what we've done well. No. Wait a minute. What if one of us doesn't want any sex at all -- sick or something." "Well, if it's that person's day and it's only one day, no problem. If it's not that person's day, that person can call a halt, but by conceding the next day. If it's for longer than one day, the person can call a halt for a reasonable period, but will concede control for later days when her flow has stopped." "Hey! I may not want you mucking about with my Tampax, but I'm always willing to give you a blow job." "All right. That was a low blow. Look, this schedule is to serve us. We aren't going to serve the schedule. I'll depend on you not to fake headaches. Will you depend on me the same way?" "That's a deal. Now, on to my first priority. I didn't recopy mine, but I did renumber them. This was the first thing I thought of, and still my first priority." "Let's hear it. I'm braced." "I don't mind the house being in my name. I think even some more-traditional couples do that. But, aside from the deed and the mortgage payment, this is going to be *our* house, We'll look for a neighborhood where we'll both feel comfortable, then a house which fits all our other needs. When we talk to the neighbors, it's our house, When you bring people home for dinner, it's to your house." "Well, even when my parents were living in a house with my father's name alone on the deed, he didn't bring guests home without asking Mom." "Oh sure. And last Christmas was in -- according to Mom -- Jeanette's apartment. Cat took some things to 'la salle de Maman.' And that had been Bob's room forever. It'll be my kitchen. Maybe it will be your den. But it will damn-well be *our* house. And we'll look until we find a place that is." "I can live with that." "Y'know, Jeanette said that we should ask what's behind the questions and write that as the issues. But what's behind my questions is that I want a real marriage." "It's been fake thus far?" "Not fake, And, maybe I don't mean marriage, What did Jeanette say, 'family'?" "Don't remember that. Your second priority or mine?" "Yours. 'Public face.' It is clearer than a blank line. I'll give you that, Not a hell of a lot clearer, though." "Well, I was writing something we'd be discussing face-to-face. Or, at least, side to side, You want a real family, I want a pretense. I don't criticize you to my family; I think you criticize me to yours. Look, we're going to have disagreements. Jeanette mentioned arguments with Bob; I said I'd never heard any; she said I'd never seen her have a bowel movement, either. "Well, that's what I want. And about sex, too. Yes, you are a big girl, now. But when you talk about your sex life, you talk about mine, too. You want a real family? Well, where I come from a real family has secrets." "You haven't been talking to Mom, have you?" "About this? That's what I've been saying. I don't talk about you." "She said that a lady has two things she does with her husband, but not in public. The second one was criticize him." "Well, where you come from, a family has secrets, too." "I'll try." "That's fair. All I can ask you to do is to try." "And, when I forget, remind me." "In private. What's your number two priority?" "Char, would you want me to be Kathleen Johnson?" "What? Aren't these supposed to be things you're asking of me?" "Yes. And, to be honest, if you'd brought it up, I'd have resisted. But I remember when Jeanette was going on about a joint account. She has one -- they have one -- but it's a joint account of Bob and Jeanette Brennan. I was asking for us to be a family, and I felt that I was resisting it." "Well, if you're offering." "Not in the office. All the diplomas and licenses. But, maybe I'd like to leave the office as Dr. Brennan and come home as Mrs. Johnson." "You're wonderful, Mrs. Johnson." "It'll be a little hassle. If I'd done it right after the wedding, people would have been more understanding." "People will understand. Bureaucracies will be the hassle, and they're never understanding." "And your third priority is arguments. Do you think we have too many?" "I think we have too few. Half the problem about hearing how much you hate only paying half the rent in front of your family is that I didn't hear it in private." "I told you." "Not that vehemently. Maybe neither of us has the brains that Bob has; maybe we merely lack the detachment. But if I'd known how deeply you felt, I'd have at least been looking for a solution." "So you want more arguments?" "But only in private." "Well, I won't give you an argument about that." "Maybe we need a time of the week when we each get out what's bothering us. Saturday suppertime?" "Mealtime might be a problem.... Well, I can't think of another time. Let's try it. If it ruins someone's digestion, we'll at least have a proper time to bring that up." "What's your next one?" "Look, I'm backing into this one. You were raised in a church-going family. So was I. Your prayer sounded sincere enough. Were you just pleasing Mom, or do you really believe?" "Well your mother gave me ample warning, and a choice. If I didn't believe, I could have backed out graciously. What's your point? Do you want mealtime graces?" "How do you feel about going to church?" "You mean us? You know that eleven o'clock Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week?" "Right. But we're not looking at the nearest Methodist church. I know that visiting my old church once a year is one thing. You wouldn't be happy there every week." "I was a little bothered by that woman who kept asking me questions." "She was the choir director." "So your mother told me. She told her that she'd love it if I moved to town, because you'd move with me, but it wasn't going to happen." "Well, that's a danger you'll face anywhere. Once a choir director hears you, she'll want you. But the point is that we aren't locked into any geography but the Philadelphia area. Let me say what I really want." "That isn't what you really want? Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?" "Yeah. The biggest picture is that I want us to be a real family, and -- no -- I'm not clear about what I mean by that." "At least you aren't screaming and letting me guess what you want." "Well, what I mean by a real family would include a community which knows us as a couple. I love your family, and my family loves you. Maybe not all as demonstratively as Cat does, but they all like you. Still, I'm the woman Charles married or you're the man that Kathleen married to them. I want a place where we're the Johnsons -- a community, a society, where we're the Johnsons. Not your friends being nice to me or my friends being nice to you, but our friends." "I can see that." "And the place I'd start would be church. But I want a community in which each of us would be comfortable. And, if you go into a church pretending a belief you don't have, I'll guarantee you'll be uncomfortable." "Well, it's more like, 'I believe, help thou my unbelief.'" "If that 'thou' is addressed to The Lord, He may well. If it's addressed to me, I have enough trouble managing my own belief." "And the most segregated hour of the week?" "Well it may be true on average. But we don't need to fit into the average church. We need to find one church in the metro area where we fit in. That might even help with the house search." "Find a realtor in the church?" "Not if we're going to be the Johnsons in the church and have me buy the house by myself. No. I mean that most churches are neighborhood churches. If we find one in which we both feel comfortable, we'll find a good clue as to a neighborhood in which we'd both feel comfortable." "Sounds good." "Do you mind if I start with Methodist churches? The same provision applies. If the style of worship or the theology looks strange to you, then you won't feel comfortable." "That's not my problem with your home church." "Then I'll start with Methodist churches. Probably be up front with a DS. Write the District Superintendent that I'm a white woman with an Afro-American husband. We'd be interested in visiting a few churches in which he'd think we'd feel comfortable. Worst that could happen is no reply. I'd expect help. And remember that redneck cop that stopped you?" "Yeah." He thought this was a real non-sequitur, even for Kath. "It all turned out all right, thanks to your mom." "Well, he's a member of an integrated police force. Integrated voluntary associations may be rarer, but the members don't keep Klan robes in their closets." "That's a point. If you can find one." "Dad taught me to prioritize questions. You don't make a thousand desks with file drawers the only drawers and then see whether people will buy them. You build, maybe, five. You put them in your catalog. If that brings in orders, you start producing them." "Great! Glad to know that if I ever decide that medicine is not for me." "You don't decide whether you're going to start going to church on the basis of whether or not you think there is a church you can be happy in. You decide whether or not you would go to church if there were one you'd feel at home in. Then you look to see if there is a church you'd feel at home in. Theoretically, you could also decide that you'll go to church even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. But you decide what you will do. You don't decide what others will do." "Have I been dragging my feet?" "I didn't say that. I made a real effort to keep from saying that." Charles laughed. "I love you, Kath Brennan." "And Kath Johnson loves you." "But that was definitely a Brennan response." "I offered to change my name, not my nature. That's going to be typical of Mrs. Johnson's responses." "Fair enough. What's your next one." "The next one is yours. 'Bills.' Are you going to start charging for these discussions?" "Ha. Notice how hard I'm laughing. Look, I know that shared expenses was my idea...." "After my income pulled even with yours, it was your idea." "But when I paid the bills, I paid them on time. I don't want you to try harder, you already said that. When somebody tells you they are going to try harder, it means that the problem will continue, but the person causing the problem will feel more guilty." "You not only spend too much time around Bob, you now have seances with my father." "Anyway, would you trust me with a checkbook on your account, not signature. But I'd deal with the bills each month, decide which one of us should pay which bills. Then I'd fill out the proper check with the proper amount. I'd give you your checks to sign, maybe at dinner -- breakfast is too busy. You'd sign yours, and I'd mail them all." "Sounds like you'd be my secretary. This is the guy who's too macho to have me pay the rent?" "It would be one more household task. We share those. It is one which, quite frankly, you don't perform very well." "Now I know you're channeling my father. 'Vi, the purpose of balancing a checkbook is to ensure that you don't write a check on funds not in your account. You can't be sure if you balance it a month late with made-up figures.' Go figure! Bob, the slob, never bounced a check in his life, as far as I ever heard. He certainly didn't bounce one before I left for college. Okay, it's not one of my plenitude of virtues. Why don't we give you the whole task? That's going to conflict with my next one, though." "You didn't want me to pay bills?" "I wanted -- still want -- you to learn to clean. Look, Char, you're a generous spouse, really you are. There aren't many husbands who do as many cleaning and household tasks as you do. I'm grateful. On the other hand, I keep better books than you clean a room." "Well, I'm going to be doing one more task. Why don't you decide which cleaning task I do worst, or simply the most important. Then you can take the time to teach me to do it to your standards. When I pass your test, we'll go on to the next task." "You are awfully careful to not express yourself on whether there are any universal standards of cleanliness." "There aren't. On the other hand, cleaning a room in a way that annoys your wife isn't a road to a good marriage." "You should check with a few hospitals on universal standards. Okay, I can take that. Maybe, since you're so fond of Bob, you can take laundry lessons from him next visit. Only thing the boy does well." "He, as your mother points out, keeps a wife happy, a child fluent, and a university satisfied with his research and teaching." "I'll grant the fluent. Being around Bob is as good for your vocabulary as it is bad for your blood pressure. As far as Jeanette's being happy, that is the sole crack in the woman's solid judgement. Anyway, we were talking abut *our* marriage. I'll take gradual improvement. And cooking? That's your next issue." "Okay, we split chores. And I can cook some things. But I can cook fewer things than my share of the cooking is assigned. Notice that I've been taking us out more often?" "That's because you don't want to cook? Well, why don't we assign you two dinners a week and breakfast? You do a good breakfast, and that doesn't need to be varied. I ate cereal before I moved in with you. I'll take Sunday lunches -- Saturday lunches when we're both home." And, since the person who was supposed to cook that night paid for meals out, she'd pay for more of those. "That will more than take care of your extra work on keeping the books." "I figured that looking at both together would show more balance. Your next issue?" "Long ago, we said you'd deal with my increased income by spending more time in the healthy-baby clinic. You know, we both went into medicine to make a difference. Freudian analysis doesn't lend itself to charity work. I sort of figured that it would be our pocket, our contribution, your hands. And, actually, you have the hands in the family. "Now, with your new insistence on splitting expenses, it's not our pocket. The money isn't shared. Not only do you spend only a little time at the clinic, but it's your time, not ours. I don't make any contribution." "I didn't see that problem. I'm not sure we ever said that was how we would operate. Bob, the brother you despise, suggested it. I said no more than that it sounded reasonable. I think I know the argument against donating analysis time; I'm not sure I believe it." "Patients spend enough time sitting there with their mouths tight shut, enough time talking about something else. And that's with the clock ticking off a couple of dollars of their money a minute. We don't want to see how many excuses they can find when it's free." "Except that it's the insurance company's money in most cases." "Well, yes. But, even if I wanted to, there would be all sorts of problem. What is an evening at the clinic? Four hours? Three?" "I could do three. They'll take what they can get within reason. Standard is four, and that usually runs closer to five. They never run on schedule." "Three patients an hour?" "They try to do four, which is one reason they run late. Even so, they turn kids away every day. They'd probably take you. You have a license, after all." "Pennsylvania doesn't issue licenses for malpractice. The nurses there know more about the physical problems of children than I do. But three per hour by four hours is 12 patients an evening. That's 600 different patients a year at one evening a week." "Three hundred, if they come back the way they should -- two hundred at the youngest ages." "In four hours a week, I could see four patients. And I'd be *damn* lucky if there was one cure in a year out of four patients. It's useful treatment, but it's definitely slow. Besides that, there is a clinic you can donate time to; there isn't one that wants my skill set. Anyway, what would it take -- over time is fine -- for *the Johnsons* to contribute your time to the clinic?" "Look, this can't be answered in a vacuum. Go to my last, won't you." "Kath stays solvent. Good wish, what does it have to do with our marriage?" "That's one of my demands. We married as two people with large potential incomes and large present debts. Your future income looked a little larger than mine; my debts were a little larger than yours. But we were in comparable states. Now, suddenly, you're an heiress. You have a shitload of net worth right now. Fine! I won't say 'congratulations' because I know you would have preferred the alternative. But that is your present state, and you're not going to lose that state because you're married to me." "Did I mention that I wasn't bopping you on the head with a baseball bat because you were a *generous* male chauvinist pig?" "You said something about taking a baseball bat to me. As long as we're not in the car, I figure I have a good chance of taking it away from you without hurting you." "Well, I really said I was abstaining. Don't take that as a guarantee. It's my life. Let me choose how to live it." "But it's my marriage, too. How would you feel if I were terribly worse off because I had married you?" "Okay. You have a point. It's all right if I use that money for a down-payment on a house?" "Sure. The money's still there. There are riskier investments than houses. But let's not act like we had that money to burn." "We won't. Y'know, either it's *our* money, and any expenditure requires your consent, or it's *my* money, and the expenditures are my decision." "But it's *our* marriage. And one of the assets of our marriage is that you are, right now, sitting on a pretty hefty nest-egg. Don't I have a say in whether we keep that asset?" "I won't do anything radical without consulting you. What does that have to do with the clinic?" "I can give one evening a week. That is, essentially, none of the practice's business. So long as it is time they don't expect me to be there, they won't fight. I've made enough waves, recently, that trying to cut back my hours might make them cut them all the way back. Besides, you're about to buy a house. Until we see all the costs, we don't know what our budget will look like." "Good points. Okay, you'll find an evening a week. Since it's our donation, but it's your time, why don't we revisit the cleaning schedule. I'll find a task that I'll teach you and another task that I'll take over altogether. Why don't you learn to clean the living room, and I'll take over the bathroom. We'll switch later. Someday, if we live that long, I'll teach you how to keep a kitchen clean. You'll do the bookkeeping -- you might as well do all my bookkeeping; I'll just carry one or two checks and tell you how much -- but only cook two dinners a week. I like your cooking." "What does Bob say? 'I didn't cook this' is a fine spice." "And, really, we have different styles of cooking. I might buy a cookbook and broaden my repertoire -- menu?" And, of course, his one night a week at the clinic couldn't be on the night he cooked. So, it would be a good night to get in the habit of her taking him out. The scheduled cook pays the restaurant bills, after all. "You're being generous." "You won't think so when you find how much is involved in really cleaning a living room." "To your standards." "Yeah. But we agreed that those were the standards we would use. What's sniping?" "Isn't that a term used throughout the Brennan family. It's Jeanette's term for the cracks that Bob takes at you, and you take at him -- and occasionally at me." "And you want me to stop." "It's more complicated than that. The first thing I want is for you to become conscious of it. With Bob, it's recreational. Fine! I don't want to be super-sensitive, because, really, I'm not. But that is not my style of humor, either. Beating Bob at it is an accomplishment; beating me at it is no greater an accomplishment than beating Cat would be. After a while, it does begin to become annoying. "Look, I don't challenge you to arm-wrestling matches, do I?" "No. And I see your point. You'd win with very little effort. 'Ha. Notice how hard I'm laughing.'" "I wasn't trying to be funny." "I was quoting you from not ten minutes ago." "So, you're saying I do a little sniping of my own." "Some. Not Brennan quantity maybe. Look, you don't want me to say I'll try harder, but that's the only thing I could say about that. We're not going to cast this family constitution in concrete are we? There is room for amendments?" "Or, since there are only two of us, a whole other constitutional convention." "I got that idea from your header. I'm going to try about the public face, and that's related. Can we hold up on this until some later date when the other points are either working or not working? I'll try to keep conscious of what I'm doing. Jeanette said that I'd married you and not Bob." "Sure. Your consciousness is what I was asking for. Maybe you need weekly phone sessions with Bob in which you two exchange barbs." "Heaven forfend! Do you know how much time that prick would spend thinking up attacks?" "Look, we're coming to an oasis. Ler's relieve ourselves, buy cold drinks, and change seats. You can drive, and I can read the issues for the next leg." "Great." They stayed in the chill diner for longer than they had planned. They each had an iced coffee there, and got another to go. They got back in the car. They were back on the interstate and had both made inroads into their coffees before Charles opened up the sheets. "'All sorts of pleasure from sex.' Sounds like a great idea. How are we going to implement it?" "Well, we already dealt with that. Sometimes, I like to see you come. Y'know, you like my blowjobs, and I like your handjobs. Do you think you might like a handjob from me? That way, I could see you come in an entirely different way." "Well, maybe as a one-off. That sounds dirty in this context, doesn't it? Anyway, it isn't one of my dreams. Does your new-found love of the view from on top mean that I don't get any more blowjobs?" "I think what each of us has been saying is that we'd to add a little more. I don't think we're talking about subtracting anything. With time constraints, of course, we're only going to get variety by decreasing the number of times we do regular practices. I don't think we're talking about reducing anything to zero. And, after all, you run half the sessions. You can call for anything within reason on those nights." "Well that was a long conversation for something we'd already settled. Your next or my next?" "Your next. Let's keep in order. We'll get to the end before we're in traffic which will need my mind." "I think there is too much conflict in our workdays. And, while I hate to say this, you can manage more flexibility than I can." "long-term I should be able to. Short-term, I don't want to shake up patients." "Long-tern is fine. With what we've decided already, my schedule isn't really settled enough to give you a target. 'Expanding the menu'? Is that menu literal?" "Yeah, I already mentioned it, partially. I think we each need to learn to cook more. And that doesn't mean your learning to cook something that I've served recently. We may not be rich in the opulent sense, rich enough to eat out every night or hire a cook. We damn-well are solvent enough to afford good ingredients when we cook and a diversity of dishes. Since, after I wrote this, we cut down on the meals you'll cook, I'm going to buy some cookbooks and try to turn myself into more than a survival cook." "Seems to be demanding more from you than from us." "Well, be warned on my cooking nights. You might end up with a botched experiment." "Or something glamorous and new. Sounds fair. My eighth is 'Decor.' Having seen the house you grew up in, I understand you better. The Brennan version of decorating a room is to move in a bookshelf and fill it." "Hey! I grew up walking on Persian carpets. The last one is in Mom's room. The rest were sold to cover tuition. The house isn't badly decorated. It's just that the furniture is a little old." "Anyway, I think we're getting beyond the stage where our house should be decorated by what you had in your dorm room and what I had in my dorm room." "I can accept that. Let's not buy anything like new furniture until after we've moved into the house." "A wall hanging or two?" "That sounds reasonable. You thinking of African themes?" "Yeah, but I rethought crossed assagais when you started to threaten me with baseball bats. 'Entertaining your family.' I suppose that's entertaining my family. Do you propose rehearsing comedy skits." "C'mon, Char! That's one hell of a lot clearer than 'public face,' to say nothing of a blank line. I love your mother and sister, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the times either one have been in the apartment. They'd really survive my cooking." "Well, Mom would be amenable. We'd just have to find a time. Isis might be a problem. She only visits occasionally, and Mom wants her time then." "Well, we'll start with your mother. When Isis comes to town, we'll invite them both. After all, we'll be less distraction than the neighbors who drop in on those visits." "Okay, We'll find the time. You'll choose the menu. We'll invite Mom." "And, before we do, you'll learn to clean the living room. She'll be shocked." "She'll assume you did it. My next is 'Socializing with coworkers and others.' We have to see how much time we're double-scheduling, but I think we've been neglecting too many people. It was fine before we were married, but I've coworkers who have seen you only briefly. They expect to meet spouses." "We should ramp that up slowly. You're right, and I have a few associates, too. I'd be happier if we had the house first, but that's a long-term goal. This probably shouldn't be." "And, just to complicate things, your matching is 'Time for ourselves.'" "We need to go out on dates -- very non-sexy dates, since we'll come home from them together. I've been in a lot of restaurants with you, but I don't think we've ever seen a museum together." "Maybe we can arrange that by getting our office schedules coordinated." "Yeah, That looks like another issue that we need to put off 'til the next constitutional convention. What's your next?" "We've dealt with it. 'Kath stays solvent.' We'll put more concretion on that when the issue of buying the house comes down from the clouds. Your last, on the other hand, is 'Allowing me freedom of judgement.' Don't I?" "Not when it concerns my family. Look, not only have I known Bob much longer than you have, I've know him much longer than I've known you. Mom, too. The same is true of Jeanette, although we basically agree on her. But you keep telling me that I've misjudged Bob. Well, if a colleague glanced at a patient of yours and challenged your diagnosis on the basis of a snap judgement, you'd be furious." "I have a little more time with Bob than justifies the phrase 'snap judgement.' I'll admit that your mother continues to surprise me. At first I thought of her as just that -- your mother, with the conflicts a white woman would have when her daughter brings home a black lover. Then I got the picture of a very cultured woman. Then, later, there appeared the grade-school teacher. This trip, I suddenly realized that the grade-school teacher had influence. I'd be hard put to tell you the name of the lady who taught my third-grade class. And, out of the blue, comes the references to Skinner. The Dresden Philharmonic, now, that fits better into my picture of her." "Well she is all that and more. She has more personalities than Eve, except that -- as far as I know -- they are all integrated. She came out of a fairly-well-off suburban family. Dad used to josh her about education as consumption over against education as investment. Well, she was going all out for consumption. She was a National-Merit finalist. Not many people got into the University of Chicago back then. And she didn't declare a major until fairly late. She studied education for the MAT and then for a North-Carolina license. She could have got Skinner in either place, but she could also have got it as an undergraduate. "Remember that you got to know her backwards. Before she was your lover's mother, before she was even my mother, she was a U of C intellectual snob. I've heard jokes about how they study more because there is nothing else to do. Both her parents and all four of her grandparents went to college, but she had little respect for the education they got. She told me once that high-school students should be forbidden Dostoevsky. She missed so much when she read him the first time." "I don't really think that there is a huge danger of most high-school students reading him." "My point, exactly. She's not a southern grade-school teacher. She's an educated -- overeducated, maybe -- woman who supports her family by teaching grade school. She lives in North Carolina because that's where Ward Tech sent her husband. She has anomalies -- church for one. She's adopted you and Jeanette and a score of third-grade classes. But let me tell you, her real children were raised by the book. Before I had my first period, I knew much of what to expect and the biology behind it. After, I got a long illustrated lecture on sex, pregnancy, and how to avoid both. I knew what a condom was before I knew that there was sweet wine." "Sounds like the parent we wish all kids had. What's with the sweet wine?" "Not, particularly the parents you enjoy having. Well, most special meals came with wine. I don't think ham qualifies. Bob and I got glasses with a little wine and an admixture of water. But it was always dry wine. When you're twelve years old, dry wine is the sour stuff adults drank for some strange reason. Then Bob learned about sweet wine and razzed them about it." "So Bob had some uses as a brother?" "Bob got to do some things, and I made sure I got to do those things at that age, if not earlier. And, then, Bob got interested in Jeanette and got his driver's license. He didn't want any further privileges. I couldn't borrow the car earlier. I sure-as-hell didn't want it for driving to dates. The truth is that Bob was a useful, not a kind or supportive, brother through grade school -- his grade school days, not mine. After that, he was merely a pain in the ass. He'd learn poetry and go and recite it to me. Dad and Mom limited his recitations to them to one time per poem. I didn't have that defense." "So you sympathized with Cat." "Well, she deserved it just then. Another parent would have spanked her. Bob has other ways of inflicting punishment, and subtler ones. Slap a kid, and he'll slap a smaller kid. He can't recite poetry at him until he learns a poem. But *I* didn't deserve it. It's not as if I did something to Bob. He just learned a poem and went looking for me." "Still, a later Bob lent us his apartment. Seems to me that he's been a friend more recently than he's been a torment." "That was Jeanette's decision. She's a sweetheart. Cat takes after her." "And you say Bob dominates her." "All the time. He's subtle, but I can tell." "But the apartment for which he paid rent is hers to lend?" "They're married, Char. Okay, you're not convinced." "I'm not convinced. Look, we've made real progress. We're out of Egypt, even if we haven't entered the promised land. Let's stop here. I'll turn my cell back on and see who's called." "Good idea. Next time we stop, I'll turn mine back on, and you can drive the last lap." That's what they did. They arrived in the City of Brotherly Love intending to have a late supper from the leftovers that had been shipped with them from the dinner that Kathleen's mother had cooked. Instead, they found an apartment stifling with the remainders of a heat wave and their thriftily having turned off the air conditioners while they took a vacation. They turned the AC on high, stuffed the leftovers in the refrigerator, ran cold water into tub and both sinks, and adjourned to a restaurant where the temperatures were low, if not the prices. When they returned to the apartment, the temperature was bearable. They turned down the air conditioners in the living room and the kitchen to normal levels. They stayed in the bedroom, where they left the air conditioner on high. Charles had a warm shower followed by a cool one. He came out with a towel wrapped around his waist to recommend the sequence to Kath. She followed his pattern exactly. "Y'know, it works." "For your temperature, maybe. There is something about you with a towel wrapped around your waist that raises my temperature." "Really? Well, before you remove it, there's something I want to show you." She sat down at her vanity, rested an elbow on it, and held her forearm vertical and her hand cupped. "Does this look like a challenge to arm wrestle?" "If I could ignore the invitations for another sort of wrestling your torso gives." "That isn't an invitation. You're projecting your own wayward impulses. Anyway, when you think I'm giving you too many verbal attacks, you can make that gesture to remind me. I'll trust you to consider the context." "I will. Y'know, entirely apart from your wardrobe, you are a loveable woman." And she was. This was one of the issues that they'd left for another time -- one of his issues. Kath had figured out a solution and offered it freely. "Well, I love you too. And nothing in our agreement constrains love. Tonight, however, is my night for controlling sex. The first rule is that you have to remove your towel and come to bed. You aren't allowed to touch my towel." When he got in his side, though, she kissed him. As their tongues touched, she pulled his hand to her breast. He glanced over at her night stand. The diaphragm bag was there. How it was going to be useful without his touching the towel that wrapped her midsection, he couldn't imagine. On the other hand, following directions had its own charm, and he had Kath's marvelous breasts to cherish now. She gloried in the pleasure that his magic fingers could bring to her breasts. Soon they were joined by his mouth. Her only directive was to move his mouth from her right breast to her left when that felt lonely. Soon, she needed more stimulation. She unwrapped the towel, but couldn't get it out from under her. "Help me with this." "The towel?" "You can touch it now." So he slid it from underneath her hips. She immediately threw it off the side of the bed. She pulled his hand toward her mound. "Now, your magic fingers can go anywhere." He stroked her labia and then her clitoris. Meanwhile, he moved his kisses from one nipple to the other and back. Sometimes he licked; sometimes he brushed his lips gently across a nipple; sometimes he sucked deeply. She ran her hands through his hair. Whatever the rules of her controlling this night, he resisted when she pulled his head against her breast. He would keep his stimulations as random as possible. Finally, her hand left his head to thrash around her night stand. Then she thrust the bag into his hand. He abandoned everything but a long suck on the nipple of her near breast while he got the diaphragm and jelly out. With everything else back in the bag, he raised his head as he inserted the diaphragm. He checked that it was seated correctly on her cervix. "One more task for my magic fingers." "They aren't magic in there, merely long." Damn convenient, but nowhere near as exciting as they felt on her clit. "Oh?" He found her G-spot with his finger tips and rubbed it. The heat began instantaneously and spread throughout her belly. "Ah! Okay, they are still magic..... Oh, Char!" He withdrew his fingers to stroke her clit again and resumed his kisses -- this time on her far breast. "Oh, Char!" she said again, but she rolled away from him. "What's wrong?" "I need you." She'd had him seconds before. "In me." Oh! She was too close to the edge of the bed. He pulled her back, noticing that she was cooperating in the move. He used his fingers to spread her labia and positioned himself between them. "This way?" She nodded. With a thrust of his hips, he buried himself in her warmth. This was the position he'd introduced and she'd questioned. But her only response was to pull his hand back to her mound. "I love you, Mrs. Johnson." "And I love you." She flexed her hips to feel all the sensations, his cock within her and his fingers caressing the outside. "Oh, Char, take me to the moon!" And she'd already started the journey. His fingers at her entrance and his strokes deep within her stoked the fires. She couldn't give many more orders, but she didn't need to. This was Char, and he could play her better than any keyboard. He'd try to take her there. His finger was busy on her clitoris while he tried to keep his strokes within her slow. When she contracted around him, he maintained the stimulation on her clitoris. He could no longer resist speeding up, however. He drove in and out of that clutching warmth while his own arousal soared upward. Then he grasped her pelvis to pull her back against him as he drove inward and erupted. He shouted, then he pulsed and pulsed. Her last contraction drained his last seed. He lay gasping into the back of her head as he softened within her. His hand relaxed, but her sexy buttocks were still pressed into his thighs and abdomen. "Did I?" he finally asked. "All the way. I could taste the green cheese.... Light?" His stretch to reach the light brought him all the way out. When he returned his hand to her breast, she clasped it there. It was too hot to lie like this, but she was too dear to part from, even by inches. When Kathleen woke in the night, she was cold everywhere that Char wasn't touching. She got up and used the bathroom first. Then she turned the air conditioning back and tossed a sheet over Char before crawling under it. She'd woken him enough that he made his own bathroom trip. When he got back, his skin was a bit chilly. They spooned again, though, and the warmth returned. His hand was between her breasts and she used both hands to keep it there. |
The end Form a More Perfect Union Uther Pendragon nogardnePrethU@gmail.com 2010/10/21 For another story involving a couple working on a formal structure for their marriage, "Life Is Complicated - M" This story is indexed on the subdirectory: Bob and Jeanette Brennan The directory to all my stories can be found at: Index to Uther Pendragon's Website |