Chapter Sixteen

   Bob didn't run after her.  She was standing at the elevator doors,
fuming, when he caught up with her.  He didn't say anything then, or in the
elevator, or as they left the hospital.  At the bike he stopped and faced
her.

   "I'm going back to the motel.  You can walk or ride.  It doesn't matter
to me."

   "I'm not walking back there!" she snapped.

   "Well, the last thing in the world I'd want is for you to get your
CLITTY WHIZZED AGAINST YOUR WILL!" he snarled.

   She got red in the face and looked like she might cry, but didn't.  He
sat on the bike, side saddle, and waited.

   "Can I drive?" she asked, her voice tight.

   "Not while you're mad," he said calmly.  "You'll get a ticket, and the
bike is the only way we have to get home."

   "I'm not going to wreck your precious motorcycle!" she said
emphatically.

   "I know you're not," he said.  "Because I won't let you drive it when
you're in this kind of mood."

   "I hate you."

   "No you don't."

   "Yes I do!"

   "No you don't.  Maybe some day you'll get around to that," said Bob. 
"But right now you don't.  You know how I know?"

   "How?" she said sullenly.

   "Because your mother just told me so.  Apparently she and I have no
secrets either.  So I know you don't hate me."

   She folded her arms across her chest.  "Well I SHOULD!"

   "Are you riding or walking?" he asked.

   "I don't WANT to feel good right now!" she pouted.

   "Then don't."

   "You don't understand," she whined.  "It works too good."

   "Well," said Bob.  "It works too well."

   He thought he might have pushed her too far when she tensed up.  Then
she let out an explosive gust of breath.

   "OK, it works too well."

   Bob took a chance.  "I'm supposed to remind you to tell Dwarf how
brilliant he is."

   He got a grim looking smile in response.  "You're supposed to remind me
about that when I meet him, but thank you for reminding me that you don't
get any sex for a month."

   "I can live with that," said Bob.  "You have the right to be mad about
it, but you should be mad at ME...not your father."

   She looked confused for a second and then tilted her head, examining
him. "I know," she finally said.

   "Good.  Now, I don't mind sitting here, if that's what you want to do,
but if you need some time alone to work through all this anger, I can go do
something else."

   "I don't want to walk to the motel," she said.

   "Then hop on," said Bob.  He got up and straddled the bike.  He waited
until she climbed on behind him before he started it up.

   Then he drove straight to the motel.  = Once there, he realized that
they were caught up in one of the common hazards of traveling, staying in a
motel, and having down time.  There was nothing to do.

   "I'm going to go do some laundry," he said, getting all his dirty
clothes into one group.  "You want me to do your stuff, too?"

   "You're not washing my panties!" she said truculently.

   "OK," he said.

   He left her there.  It was tempting to see if she was watching him
leave, but he recognized that as being self-centered and didn't turn around
to look at the room.  At the laundromat he found an old Reader's Digest and
went through it while he did a pitifully small load.  A young woman was
there, about Jennifer's age.  She tried to strike up a conversation with
him, asking about his motorcycle and, for once, he was unhappy that the
Babe Bike did its job so well.  He evaded the problem by saying that his
"old lady" had designed the paint job.

   When he got back, Jennifer wasn't there.  There was no note, but he
didn't worry about it.  He took a little nap, and was awakened from it when
she came through the door.

   "I went for a walk and a guy hit on me!" she said.  "Can you believe
that?"

   He rubbed his eyes.  "I told you you were a babe."

   "A babe." Her voice seemed to bottle up more emotion than it expressed.
"Is that all I am?  A babe, to ride on your stupid Babe Bike?"

   "Of course not," he said wearily.  "I told you the deal.  I know it was
lame and insensitive and all that crap.  But sometimes that's what men are.
We're lame sometimes, and insensitive.  That's probably why I don't have a
girlfriend."

   It was quiet for long enough that he was thinking about going back to
sleep.  He laid his arm over his eyes and then she chose to speak.

   "Bob?"

   "Hmmm?"

   "How do you feel about me?"

   "Right now?" He lifted his arm.  "Right now you're verging on possibly
having the potential of being almost a pain in the ass."

   She didn't laugh, or even smile.

   "You know what I mean," she said.

   He got serious.

   "Sweety, I really think this is the wrong time to have this
conversation. You're pissed off, and anything I say is likely to get all
turned around in your head and piss you off even more."

   "No it won't," she said.

   "Yes it will, Jen.  Right now you want to be mad at me.  I understand
that.  I even think you have a right to be ticked off at me.  But the time
to talk about...us...isn't when you're pissed off."

   "I'm not pissed off anymore," she said.

   He lifted his head.  She'd sat down in a chair, and had one leg crossed
over the other in that way that only women and gay men seem to be capable
of.  Her leg wasn't bouncing and she looked calm, if a little tense.  He
sat up, stood, and walked around to the side of the bed.  He sat and faced
her.

   "What do you want to know?" he asked.

   "Do you love me?"

   "Yes," he said, with no hesitation.

   "What does that mean?"

   "Mean?" He looked less sure of himself.  Lots of things flickered
through his mind, but, like most men, he wasn't used to examining those
things too closely, or discussing them.  "I'm not sure I can explain it,"
he said.  He expected her to be unhappy, but she wasn't.

   "Try," was all she said.

   "Well," he said weakly.  "You're smart...and pretty...and you make me
laugh sometimes.  You're...I don't know...you're JENNIFER, and I just love
you."

   Jennifer rolled her eyes once, looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

   "When we're done here, and you take me home, where are you going to go
after that?" she asked.

   He blinked.  "Back to Atlanta, of course," he said, sounding confused.

   "And how do you feel about that?"

   "It's where I live," he said helplessly.  "My shop is there.  Where else
would I go?"

   "I'm not going to Atlanta with you," she said firmly.

   He blinked again.  "Well of course not," he said, feeling like he had
just stepped onto ground that was likely to be mined.

   "So that's fine," she said, her voice flat.  "You never see me again,
and it's no big deal."

   "Stop right there," he said.  "That is exactly what I was talking about
when I said this was the wrong time to do this.  I never said anything
about never seeing you again.  It's absurd to even THINK that I'd never see
you again.  You're twisting things all around, and all that's going to do
is piss you off."

   She took a deep breath and seemed to be going through an almost physical
struggle.  Then she let it out.  He almost thought he heard her counting.

   "How are you going to feel when you ride away from our house, knowing
that I'm staying there and you're going back to your shop to work on
motorcycles, and that you won't see me again for maybe months?"

   Bob, being a visual person, closed his eyes and imagined the scenario
she had just described.  He saw himself driving away and almost turned his
head, right there in the motel room, to look back at what he was leaving.
His eyes popped open.

   "Terrible," he said softly.

   "Why?" she asked, leaning forward.

   "What do you MEAN why?" he asked, his voice rising.  "Because I'm
LEAVING!"

   "And you're going to miss all the sex," she suggested.

   He drew in a deep breath and almost laughed.  What she'd said was so
absurd it was laughable.

   "Of course not," he snorted.  "I can get all the sex I want pretty much
any time."

   It was already out of his mouth when he realized how completely idiotic
and insensitive his words had been.  He expected her to scream at him.  She
leaned back in the chair and he felt like he'd struck her with his words.
Her face didn't take on a look of anger, though.  He was astonished to see
that she appeared to be actually thinking about what he'd said.

   "Yes...the Babe Bike," she said softly.

   He defended himself instantly.  "I told you that wasn't about you.  You
weren't supposed to EVER ride it.  It may have been stupid and juvenile and
all that, but I never meant to hurt you or anybody with it."

   "That's what I mean!" she said more forcefully than she'd been speaking.
"Why WASN'T I ever supposed to ride on the Babe Bike?  What's wrong with
ME? Why am I different?"

   The change of wind caught him off guard and he felt like the boom of a
mast had just whipped around and knocked him silly.

   "You're Jennifer," he said helplessly.

   "So I'm Don's baby girl," she said flatly.  "I'm the little stuttering
girl you had to feel sorry for all these years.  I'm not really a
woman...I'm just your adopted niece who you have to be nice to."

   "You're twisting things again," he moaned.  "I knew this was a bad
idea!"

   "Did you ever wish you could see me naked before you brought me on this
trip?" she asked.

   Bob had plenty of experience using SCUBA gear to negotiate treacherous
underwater currents.  He knew the tricks of the trade to keep those
currents from taking him out to sea and killing him.  But the currents he
was caught in now were something he'd never even thought about trying to
fight his way through.  He was reduced to simply stroking, in whatever
direction he could, with whatever energy he had

   "Yes," he said.  "OK, I'm not proud of it, but you've always been cute
and sexy since you got into your teenage years, and there were lots of
times I wished your swimsuit would fall off, or that I'd blunder into the
shower while you were there, or something like that.  But that doesn't mean
I wanted to get you on the Babe Bike."

   "Are you sorry you DID get me on the Babe Bike?" she asked, her voice
intense.  "Are you sorry we had sex?"

   "How the hell am I supposed to answer THAT?" he groaned.

   "Truthfully!" she said, her voice rising.

   "OK, NO!" he shouted.  "I'm NOT sorry, OK?  It's been a dream come true.
I knew it was wrong and I tried not to do it, because I knew it would screw
things up between us, but somewhere along the way I got lost or something.
In fact, I think I let YOU bully ME into some of this!  I'm not blaming
this on you, because I know it's really all my fault, but the fact of the
matter is that waking up with you in my arms, that first morning, is
probably the best I've ever felt!"

   "You mean when we just slept together," she said, leaning forward again.
"Before we started having sex."

   He blinked.  He thought he'd been pretty clear.  "Yes."

   NOW she got up and paced.  On the one hand he wanted to just sit there
mute.  On the other hand, she was obviously agitated again.

   "I really didn't mean to hurt you, Jen," he said softly.

   "You didn't!" she barked.  "Now hush!  I'm thinking."

   Bob wanted to fall back on the bed and magically become unconscious. 
Thoughts of giving up women completely flitted through his mind.  Nothing
he could think of was worth going through this kind of shit.  He thought of
combat.  It was preferable to this.  At least you could shoot back and kill
the son of a bitch who was trying to ruin your day.

   She whirled suddenly and came to stand in front of him...very close to
him.  He felt the urge to spread his legs when her knees bumped his, but
didn't.

   "I'm going to be in agony when you go back to Atlanta," she said softly,
staring into his eyes.

   Bob's jaw dropped.  He dredged up the energy to close it.  She looked at
his knees, pressed tightly together, and apparently decided that if he
wasn't going to let her between them, she'd just straddle them and sit on
them.  She rested her hands on his shoulders then, her face only six or
eight inches away from his.

   "I'm not sorry about the Babe Bike," she said.  "I feel terrible, but
it's only because I'm glad we had to come here to see my parents.  If they
hadn't gotten in an accident, I would never have ridden the Babe Bike and I
would never have had those feelings.  And if I'd never had those feelings,
I wouldn't have thought about you like I did, and realized that I've loved
you for a long time.  While you were wishing my swimsuit would fall off, I
was falling in love with you and I didn't even know it."

   He opened his mouth again and she put a finger over his lips.

   "Hush, I'm talking." She removed the finger and went on.  "Don't you
see, Bob?  This has been like fate or something.  All these individual
little things happened to lead us to this point.  I couldn't understand
what was happening to me, or why I had all these crazy feelings, but I knew
I loved them.  I WANTED to feel like this.  And somehow I wanted to feel
like that when YOU were with me...like you said you felt the first morning
we woke up together.  I love the sex, Bob.  There's no doubt about that at
all, but I love that feeling of being with the right man and knowing he
really loves ME even more.  I'm pretty sure I can get sex whenever I want
it, too, after you leave, but I'm going to be in agony because I can't feel
like I feel right now, because you won't be there."

   She stopped, waited fifteen seconds, and then said, "OK, you can talk
now."

   Her confession had been so far from what Bob had been expecting that he
was still processing it.  That feeling came out in the first thing he said.

   "I thought you were disgusted with me."

   "I was," she said.  "But Mom explained it to me."

   "What?" his mouth dropped open.

   "She explained that you loved me before this and were too much of a
gentleman to have bad thoughts about me, or at least to act on them."

   "Then what the fuck was all THIS about?" he asked, his voice rising.

   "She could have been wrong," said Jennifer, sounding injured.  "I had to
KNOW how you felt before I poured my heart out to you."

   "Jennifer, honey," he moaned.  "I almost had a stroke!"

   "Well you didn't.  So what are we going to do?"

   "I have no freaking idea," he sighed.

   "You're supposed to," she said.  "You're the grown up here."

   His laughter was sudden and explosive.  He knew she might think he was
laughing AT her, but there was nothing he could do.  He fell back onto the
bed and flung his arms wide, as if he were surrendering.  He was mildly
astonished that she just sat there, watching him calmly.  When he stopped
laughing she pulled at his shirt, making him sit back up.

   "Is there any way I could...maybe...go with you?" she asked.

   Suddenly nothing was humorous and everything was very, very serious.

   "That's kind of a radical step," he said softly.

   "So is dying because I'm not with you," she said.

   "You wouldn't actually die," he said.

   "I'd feel like I was," she shot back.  "Just thinking about it right now
makes me want to cry."

   There was no way to avoid the dreaded "M" word.

   "Jen...I've really never given any serious thought to getting married."

   "Me EITHER!" she yelped.  "I never thought marriage was going to even be
a possibility for me!  I don't even know what it means!"

   "Your parents would have heart attacks if you just lived with me," he
said.

   "I know," she said miserably.

   "You can go to college now," said Bob.  "I know how you felt about
it...before...but things have changed."

   "That's part of why I feel so crazy inside!" she moaned.  "YOU did that.
YOU made my stutter go away and set me free!"

   "We don't know that," he said.

   "I do," she shot back.  "Nothing ever worked before, Bob.  Nothing!  And
then I felt you love me.  It was like you got inside my brain somehow, or
in my body or something, and there you were, big and strong and handsome
and you LOVED me, Bob.  I remember feeling like I was finally a real person
at that moment...that I could do anything I wanted to.  I felt like I could
FLY if I wanted to badly enough!"

   "That's just hormones, baby," he said softly.

   "Then why do I feel the same way right now?" she asked helplessly.  "I
was so afraid I was wrong...that Mommy was wrong...that you DIDN'T really
love me...that it was all some kind of game with you.  And when I heard you
talking just now...just a few minutes ago, I could FEEL your love and I
knew I was just being stupid!  I love you, Bob, and you love me!  Why can't
we just be happy together?"

   "It's more complicated than that," he said, with sorrow in his voice. 
"I'm a lot older than you."

   "I don't care about that!" she snapped.  "It's YOU I love, not some
fifty year old guy!"

   "I'm not fifty yet," he said automatically.

   "I know that!" she snapped.  "But you will be in a few years, and you'll
probably be like all those other old men who have to have Viagra to get a
boner, and I'll want to be made love to and you won't be able to do it, and
I'll be all frustrated and let the pool boy fuck my brains out or
something!"

   "What happened to you not caring about how old I am?" he asked, grinning
for the first time in what felt like years.

   "I'm frustrated right NOW!" she said, her voice loud.  "I want nothing
more than to get naked and feel your big fat body pressing me into the bed
while you make me feel like I can fly!"

   "And you can't do that because?" He knew it was probably too flippant,
but her recent speech had, in an odd way, soothed his fears quite a bit.

   "Because I told you no sex for at least a month!" she said tightly.

   "Was that before or after you decided I really loved you after all?" he
asked.

   "I knew you loved me, you turd!" she said.  "I just got scared, that's
all."

   "Scared?  What in the world are you scared of?"

   "I'm scared because you built a whole MOTORCYCLE just to pick up women
so you could make THEM feel like they could fly!" she yelled.  "I DON'T
WANT YOU TO MAKE OTHER WOMEN FEEL LIKE THAT!  I WANT YOU ALL FOR MYSELF!"

   Strangely, Bob was on much firmer ground, suddenly.  A lot of what he
was dealing with was jealousy.  He hadn't recognized that, before, but now
that he did, he felt much better.  Jealousy he could deal with.

   "Then you'd better not even think about fucking the pool boy," he said.
"Even if I can't get it up on command some day."

   His instincts were good.  Now that she'd gotten through being mad
because she WANTED to be mad, and her fears had been shown to be
groundless, she relaxed and leaned forward to hug him.  His arms went
around her and she wiggled closer to him.

   "What are we going to do?" she whispered.

   "I was taking a nap," he said.  "Want to take a nap with me?"

   "Bob!" she moaned.

   "Is there any reason we can't think about this for a while and THEN
decide?" he asked.  "I'm not going anywhere.  You're not going anywhere."

   "I AM tired," she sighed.  Her emotions had taken her for a wild ride
that morning.

   "Get up," he said.

   "I don't want to get up," she responded.

   "I can't get on the bed with you hanging onto me like this."

   "Oh, all right!" she groaned.  "Why are you so difficult?"

   "I'm a man," he said as she stood up.

   "I don't understand why any woman lets herself fall in love with a man,"
she groused.  "All you are is trouble."

   "You can sleep on the couch if you want," he said, smiling.

   "See what I mean?" she complained.  "All I want is a nice, comfortable
nap and you're trying to start a fight."

   He knew there was no way he could win, so he just gave up.  He got into
position and lay there as she crawled onto the bed and lay half on top of
him, snuggling her face into his neck and using his shoulder as a pillow.

   "Do you really love me?" she asked, her voice sounding far away somehow.

   "You know I do," he said.

   She wiggled and moaned.
   "I know."
