Chapter Thirteen

   Jennifer paced back and forth, still naked, Bob's sperm running down the
insides of her thighs.

   "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain," she recited.

   It was only one of a litany of sayings she had repeated in the last
three minutes.  She turned to Bob, who was sitting up again, on the end of
the bed.

   "It's true!" she said, her voice hushed.  "I can say anything I want
right now, and I don't stutter!"

   "It's a miracle," said Bob softly.

   "No it's not," she said.  "It's because you made love to me."

   "Let's get something straight here," he said, holding up his hands.  "I
think it was the other way around."

   She flipped a hand and started pacing again.

   "It doesn't matter.  I never felt anything like I just felt with you. 
I've never felt closer to another human being than I did with you, just
now...just a few minutes ago.  I felt like my whole world exploded, like a
star, and then came back together." Her mouth dropped open.  "Did you just
HEAR that?" she gasped.

   "I sure did." He smiled.  Her excitement was contagious.

   "Tell me to say something else!" she yipped.

   "Like what?" he asked.

   "I don't know!  I can't think right now!" She stopped, and turned to
him. "Yes I can.  YOU did this for me!"

   "Awww, come on, Princess," he said, feeling somehow happy and guilty at
the same time.

   She skipped to him and climbed onto his lap, straddling him and putting
her arms around his neck.  With her face inches from his, she said it
again.

   "You did this for me, Bob.  You cured me."

   "I didn't cure anything," he said.  "There has to be some rational
explanation for this." She blinked.

   Fright suddenly bloomed on her face.  "What if it doesn't last?" she
asked.

   Bob felt his heart go out to her.  "You stuttered for eighteen years. 
Now you're not.  Ergo, you have at least eighteen more years before you
have to worry about that."

   She closed her eyes for long seconds and then opened them again.

   "Do you really think so?" She grinned.  "I'm still doing it!"

   He looked down.  Sperm was leaking from her pussy onto his cock and
balls.  "You're leaking on me," he said.  "And that brings up something
else.  I shouldn't have cum in you.  We shouldn't have done that."

   She tilted her head.  "You mean I might be pregnant?  Do you think
THAT's what cured me?"

   He groaned.  "I certainly hope not.  I'm in enough trouble with your dad
already.  Besides, that's crazy." He frowned.  "When was your last period?"

   She blinked three times.  "You can't ask a woman something like that!"
she said.  "That's personal!"

   "You don't get much more personal than what we just did," he said
darkly. "When was it?"

   She closed her eyes again.  It was obvious she was thinking.  "I used my
last tampon the day before I called you," she said.  "To bring me here,"
she added.  Her eyes glazed.  "I can't believe I'm just talking like this."
Her eyes cleared.  "This is WONDERFUL, BOB!" She leaned forward to kiss him
soundly, and he pushed her back.

   "Careful," he said, smiling gently.  "That's what caused all the
problems a little while back."

   "No it isn't!" she said firmly.  "You said you were in love with me." A
guarded look came into her eyes and her muscles stiffened.  "Did you really
mean that?"

   Bob's thought processes, at the speed of light, took only fractions of a
second to gel.  He didn't question what they looked like when they
solidified in his brain.  He knew that what he was about to say was, quite
possibly, the most important thing he'd ever say in his life.

   "I meant it," he said softly.  "I'm crazy.  It's crazy...I don't know
how it happened...but it's true."

   She relaxed and her eyes shone.

   "Maybe once wasn't enough," she whispered.  "I mean for a permanent
cure."

   Again Bob's thoughts flashed at light speed through his brain.  There
was the concept of a lubricious woman, a vamp, mixed with visions of her
innocent face from younger years, and the thought of how the purity of her
soul had taken on a golden sheen, as it was exposed to things adult.  He
was convinced she hadn't been injured by what had happened, and that her
innocence, in large part, was still intact.  But the change in her
personality was something both shocking and engaging.  She truly had
transformed from a girl to a woman on this trip, for good or ill, and that
couldn't be undone.

   "There will be time enough for that in the future," he said gently. 
"Assuming your father doesn't murder me."

   "He'd better not!" she yipped.  "I love you!"

   "I love you too, Princess," he sighed.

   "Besides," she said, standing up.  "You cured me.  He can't complain
about that." She turned and skipped toward the bathroom.

   "Don't be so sure about that," said Bob, under his breath.  = She had
done all the work, for the most part, so Bob just got up and used their
damp towels to clean himself off.  He heard the shower come on while he
dressed.  He was putting his boots on when she came out of the bathroom,
rubbing a towel over her naked torso.

   "It feels funny," she said.

   "What feels funny?" he asked.

   "Down there."

   "Oh.  I'm not surprised.  You're lucky I didn't hurt you."

   "You'd never hurt me," she scoffed.

   "Get dressed," he urged her.  "We're going to be late and your parents
will wonder what happened."

   "Well, they'll find out as soon as I talk to them," said Jennifer.  "I
can't wait!"

   He watched her wiggle into panties and jeans and, despite his recent
relief, felt his penis twitch in his pants.

   "Don't you think maybe it might be a good idea to break it to them
slowly?" he suggested.

   "Like how?" she said, pulling a T shirt over her braless breasts.

   "Like maybe you should stutter a little bit...you know...on
purpose...and then get better little by little."

   She laughed.  "I tried that...in the shower.  It doesn't work.  I can't
stutter now, even if I tuh-tuh-try.  See what I mean?  It just doesn't
sound right." She ran a comb through her still damp hair.  "Besides, it
scares me to try.  I'm afraid it will come back any second."

   "What are we going to tell them?" asked Bob.

   "The truth," said Jennifer.  "You made mad, passionate love to me and
I'm cured!"

   "You can't do that!" moaned Bob.  "You won't get past the mad,
passionate love part before Don hurts himself trying to climb out of bed to
kill me."

   "I'll think of something," she said.  "Now, come on!  We're going to be
late!"

   Wondering why he allowed himself to be interested in women at all, Bob
followed her out of the room and out to the bike.  = In the hospital
parking lot Jennifer got off the bike and took her helmet off.

   "It feels different somehow," she said.  She stroked the seat, right
over the clitty whizzer.  "Before, it made me want to have as many orgasms
as I could, or at least have them until I couldn't stand it any more.  Now
it just makes me want to feel good until you can do that to me again."

   "I'd like to remind you one more time that all I did was lie there,"
said Bob mournfully.

   "You got hard," she said, smiling at him.  "You wanted to do it to
me...didn't you."

   He shrugged.  "I've wanted to do that with you all week long."

   "Not before that?" she asked, a twinkle in her eye.

   He smiled.  "Maybe I thought about it once or twice before that, but I
certainly didn't give it serious thought."

   "Pity," she said flippantly.  "That would have made a wonderful birthday
present."

   "That's right!" he said.  "I never got you anything for your eighteenth,
'cause I had to go off to help Matt."

   "Problem solved," she said, pressing her body against him.  "As far as
I'm concerned, this is the best birthday present I ever got...even if it is
a week and a half late." = Jennifer's disclosure of the change in status of
her speech impediment was accomplished in a way Bob would never have
thought about.

   When she walked into her parents' room, Don's bed was still in the
partially upright position.  Her mother had a pillow under her head, but
the rest of her body was flat on the bed.  Jennifer took up a stance,
cleared her throat, and began speaking.

   "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great
civil war...something, something, something...It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this."

   She frowned and then went on.

   "Something, something, something that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth
of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth."

   She threw up her hands and said, "I can't remember most of it.  I never
could.  I hope that's good enough."

   Don was looking at her like she was insane.  Susan's mouth was hanging
open.

   "What's going on?" asked Don, his eyes jumping from his daughter to Bob
and back again.

   "Say something else!" said Susan, her voice rapt.

   "Dear mother, whom I love so much, what would you like me to say?  I
could tell you about the weather outside, which is balmy, or I could tell
you what Bob told me jail is like.  What's your preference?"

   "Jennifer?" Don's voice sounded haunted, somehow.

   "How?" came the same kind of voice from his wife.  Then, "Did you
memorize all that?" She knew that Jennifer could speak plainly when she was
reading or repeating something memorized.  The only other time she'd heard
her little girl speak anything like this had been when she was awakening
from the nightmare that had been her drug-induced coma.  It had never been
as flawless as what she'd just heard, though.

   "No, Mommy," said the girl, finally going to kiss her mother's cheek. 
"I'm cured."

   "But how?" moaned Susan.

   "It just happened," said Jennifer.

   Nobody in the room was buying that.  It even sounded false to Bob.

   "What in the nine hells is going on here?" asked Don.  He tried to sit
up and groaned as pain shot through him.

   "Daddy!" Jennifer chastised him.  "You just lie there like you're
supposed to."

   "I can't believe this," whispered Susan.  "Am I back in that awful
coma?"

   Jennifer whirled.  "It's not awful, Mom.  And it's no dream.  It's real.
Bob did it."

   Bob groaned.  "I'll just go tell the nurse we're here," he said, turning
for the door.

   "Don't you go anywhere!" said Don, his voice strident.

   Bob knew the jig was up...or was about to BE up, anyway, but he tried to
dodge the coming bullet one last time.

   "Man, you need to make up your mind.  First you want me gone, and then
you say I can't leave." He tried a crooked grin on his best friend.

   "Stop!" said Jennifer.  "All I can tell you is that I told Bob I was in
love with him, and he said he was in love with me, too, and I stopped
stuttering."

   It was probably the emotion in her voice that made it work, as crazy as
it sounded.  It explained nothing, really, but it resonated in the hearts
of her parents.  They knew the emotion was genuine.  Don looked at Bob.

   "Is that true?" he asked.  He almost sounded hopeful.

   "Pretty much," said Bob, unable to lie straight out to his best friend.

   Susan remained silent, but there was a thoughtful look on her face. 
Then, before anyone else could say anything else, she spoke.
   "Then we have something to celebrate!"
