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This material is Copyright, 2010, Uther Pendragon. All rights
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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.
Form a More Perfect Union
by Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com
MF wl
=============================================================
Charles: | Kathleen:
|
To form a more perfect Union |
1) ________________ | It will be OUR house. (1)
2) Public face | Society (and church?) (3)
3) Arguments | All sorts of pleasure (6)
4) Bills | Learn to clean (4)
5) Cooking | Mrs. Johnson ? (2)
6) Sniping | Time for ourselves (9)
7) Workdays | Allowing my judgement (10)
8) Decor | Expanding the menu (7)
9) Socializing | Entertaining your family (8)
10) Kath stays solvent | Contribution to HB clinic (5)
=============================================================
After dinner Sunday, Kathleen and Charles kissed Cat goodbye.
They took less exuberant partings from Bob, Jeanette, and
Kathleen's mother. Charles drove while Kathleen waved from the
window until they turned the corner.
"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, your 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,
/~Uther_Pendragon/Gjt/gus_02m.htm
"Life Is Complicated - M" </a>
This story is indexed on the subdirectory:
/~Uther_Pendragon/brennan.htm
Bob and Jeanette Brennan </a>
The index to almost all my stories:
/~Uther_Pendragon/index.htm