Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 This material is copyright, 2011, by 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.  If you have any comments or
requests, please e-mail them to me at nogardnePrethU@gmail.com .  All
persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures in
the background, are figments of my imagination.  Any resemblance to persons
living or dead is strictly coincidental.

   Round Wheels by Uther Pendragon nogardneprethu@gmail.com

   "Did you enjoy the play last night, darling?  Daddy said you were a
splendid tulip." Kindergarten pageants don't run to speaking parts.

   "You should have come," Alice says, showing that she is quite capable of
repeating the same speech over and over -- maybe not one anybody else had
written.

   "Mommy has classes on Wednesday." Claire was repeating herself, too. 
You did when talking with Alice.

   "Other mommies don't go to school.  You should have come."

   "Other mommies have finished school.  I haven't."

   "You should.  You should have come." Finally, though, Alice lies down to
sulk herself to sleep and Claire escapes to the living room.

   She sits on the couch beside Kirk to watch TV.  Mostly, though she
thinks about the last conversation.  Her daughter is so self-centered, so
selfish.  Sure, Claire's choices made her finish college one class at a
time at night.  She could have had an abortion and finished her senior
year. That idea, abhorrent back then, was looking more attractive in
retrospect the longer Alice whined for not getting everything her way.

   The speeding car on screen goes over a cliff and bursts into flames. 
The first ad up is for Tampax; Kirk wouldn't be interested.

   "She is <b>so</b> selfish."

   "Our six-year-old is selfish.  The wheels on our car are round.  News
flashes." He thinks Alice will grow out of it; she is afraid it's genetic.

   Back then, eight years ago by the calendar, three of her lifetimes ago,
Kirk had been her best friend.  They only had one course together,
Sociology that semester.  English and accounting majors don't take many of
the same courses.  He could probably tell she was upset when she sat down
beside him in the lecture hall.

   "Want to go for coffee?" He asked as they came out.

   "I guess." But she took a round-about path that nobody else was using
then.  "I think Ted and I are over."

   "I'm sorry for you." The careful wording was typical of Kirk.  He hadn't
approved of Ted, and was too honest to pretend he had.

   "Thing is.  We were doing it." He winced.  They'd gone to two dances as
freshmen.  Kirk had wanted a romance, she hadn't felt any attraction. 
Their friendship was a two-year compromise, and sometimes she felt guilty
about it.  But he was her best friend on campus -- maybe her best friend
anywhere.

   "Probably all he wanted." Well, yes.  And, she suspected from his tone
of voice, that it was something Kirk wanted, too.  That wouldn't be too
bad. He wouldn't grab or insist.  And Kirk would take care -- he was a
careful kind of guy.

   But, the next dance, Earl had made a play for her.  Earl was exciting.
Soon they were a couple.  And being a couple with Earl meant coupling with
Earl.  He shared an off-campus apartment with two other guys.  Parties
there broke apart early with each couple going to the guy's bedroom.  Earl
lived on the edge, and it was really living.

   One night, they were making out in his room when he reached into the
drawer.  He pulled out an empty Trojans box.

   "Your roommates must have spares," she said.

   "They're busy." She'd have known that if she'd thought about it.  They
went back to kissing.  His hands were everywhere on her naked body.  He
stroked her until she was wriggling under his hand.  "Let me."

   "But!"

   "I'll pull out." When she heard Joan shriek her climax, he resistance
melted.  He was in her, and over her, and she was climbing the mountain. 
When she came with a moan, he pulled out.

   "Damn!" And he pressed against her belly and throbbed.  The stuff
covered her up to the undersides of her breasts.  That was the most
exciting time.

   Later, though, when her period was late, she bought a kit.  She told
him.

   "Well, I said that you should go on the pill."

   "Well, you knew that I hadn't.  What are we going to do."

   "You're going to take care of your problem.  I'll help pay." That wasn't
the answer she'd dreamed of.  It wasn't even an answer that she could bear.
The class that she shared with Kirk that semester was English History, and
it was in the morning.  Afterwards, she led him to a private corner.  It
was a popular make-out place, but not on a day this cold.

   "Oh, Claire," he said when she'd told him.  She sobbed in his arms.  As
the flow of tears finally slowed down, she felt his erection against her
stomach.  But this was Kirk.  Earl, even Ted, would have expected her to do
something about it.  Kirk' mind, if not his body, was on <b>her</b>
problem.

   "I don't know what I can do.  I feel like killing myself." She didn't
feel like killing her baby, which was the only other choice.

   "Well, it might not be so dramatic, but you do have another option."
Kirk didn't take her suicide ranting seriously; he knew her too well.  "You
know I've had a crush on you for years.  You <b>could</b> marry me.  It
would mean the kid would have two parents.  There'd still be a financial
struggle, but for a much shorter time.  Still, I would want two
conditions."

   "You'd do that for me?" He'd been her best friend.  Right now, he was
her only friend in the whole world, but this?

   "I'd do that.  The conditions.  It would be a real marriage, 'til death
us do part.  You could leave me if I abused you or cheated on you, but
three years from now, you couldn't say 'I'm leaving; I don't love you.' You
don't love me now.  You'd be faithful to me.  You were faithful to Ted,
weren't you?  And even to Earl in that passion pit?" Kirk was exaggerating.
One of the roommates, Tom, had several girls over Claire's time with Earl,
but never two at once.  They'd never undressed in front of the other
couples, much less swapped.

   "That doesn't sound like a single condition, now I say it," he admitted
ruefully.

   Back in the present, Kirk takes her hand.  The couple on TV are sharing
a hug, but their hair is white.  It looks like an ad for an
erectile-disfunction product.

   "You always take her side," she says.  He is affectionate, even lovable,
but he is too soft on Alice.

   "I don't take sides between you.  You're my wife, and I love you.  She's
my daughter, and I love her.  And, really, you love her, too." Which she
does, really, under all the irritation.  Kirk knew her too well, and was
too honest with her.  And Alice was his daughter, that thought pulled
Claire back to the past.

   "One condition?  You said two." It didn't sound like one condition to
Claire either.  But nothing sounded unreasonable.  He was offering to marry
her, he had the right to ask that it be a <b>real</b> marriage.

   "The second is that the child you're carrying will be my child.  I'll
treat him as my son, but I want everyone else to do that, too.  Earl knows,
obviously.  Tell him that if anyone else finds out you'll sue for child
support.  You don't confide in your closest friends; you don't tell your
family.  You don't pull rank on me when we have a disagreement about
discipline that you're the real mother.

   "If this works for you, we'll be a real family.  I'll be a real husband
and a real father.  I just want to have a real wife and a real kid."

   "Kirk.  You are sweet." And, if he wanted to seal the deal by going to
bed right then, she'd been willing to do so.  Hell!  He wanted to; she
could remember the erection pressing into her stomach.  If he asked, she'd
do it.  His next point, though, had gone in an entirely different
direction.

   "I don't think the engagement would look persuasive if we didn't date
first.  After a couple of dances, I'll propose."

   "That wasn't a proposal?"

   "Well, not the one we want to announce.  If we want to keep the context
secret, we can't tell people it dropped out of the sky.  Look, when is the
next dance?"

   "The twenty-second."

   "Will you go with me?" And they'd gone to the dance.  Kirk had improved
in the previous two years.  He held her like a lover during the slow
dances. He walked her home and kissed her outside the dorm.  When she
opened her mouth, his tongue touched hers.  She felt a tingle, but not much
of one.  He clasped her butt and held her against him.  His face was
covered with perspiration when he let her go.

   "I've waited two years for that." And, for those two years, he'd been
her loyal friend.  She'd kissed lots of boys, gone much farther with a half
dozen, and none of them had really been her friend.

   She was anxious by the third dance, though.  He hadn't said anything
about marriage in the meantime.  Still, dancing with him had become
enjoyable -- would have been quite enjoyable if she hadn't been worried to
death.  He led her back to the table after the first slow dance.  She
hadn't been tired, yet, but staying on the floor would have almost meant a
spat.  He seated her in an old-fashioned, formal, way.  Then he dug his
hand into a side pocket of his jacket.

   "Claire." She looked up.  The name sounded like something had to follow
it.  He snapped open the box he was holding.  "Will you marry me?" She saw
the ring.  It was a diamond, if not as impressive as some she'd seen.

   "Oh, Kirk!" The moment deserved some emotion, and she couldn't say,
"Thank God." She reached towards the ring before she remembered protocol.
She held out her left hand with the proper finger extended.  "Yes, Kirk,
I'll marry you."

   Everybody at their table and the ones around had crowded around as he
put the ring on her finger.  It felt a little loose.

   "The jeweler can change the size without marring the design.  He told me
that this is often needed with engagement rings."

   Her friends were excited, even the ones who'd asked why she was dating
that dweeb.  Criticizing one's date was acceptable; criticizing one's
fiance was not.  Her mother was less accepting.

   "Couldn't you wait, dear?  One more year, at least."

   "Not if I want the baby to be born legitimate." There were probably
gentler ways of making the announcement, but why should she spare anybody
else pain?  Only Kirk seemed eager to spare her pain.  Her family came
around.  Kirk told them that he and she would be asking for help later, so
that they should put only as much money into a wedding as they felt the
need to.  The wedding was a church wedding at home, right after school
ended.  It was no more extravagant than the ring had been.  The hotel room
for their first night together had been nice, but not a suite.

   "Oh, Claire!" he said when she came in from the bathroom in her sexy
peignoir.  He'd still been in his trousers, but no shirt or shoes.  He
kissed her, caressed her, helped her off with her clothes and kissed her
again.  When she was lying on top of the bed, he stripped and joined her,
kissing her breasts and stroking her delta.  "I've dreamed of this," he
said.  He continued stimulating her until she had a climax.  Then he moved
over her.  She was lubricated enough that his entrance was easy.

   "Oh, Claire," he said, "I love you!" He took another stroke and spurted
in her.  She held him while realizing that although he'd got some practice
dancing over the past two years, he plainly hadn't had much practice in
this.

   The next morning, however, everything went better.  She urged him into
her before she peaked.  He took longer.  Their orgasm was mutual, if not
quite simultaneous.

   The news is on now.  There is an impending national crisis, about which
several grave men in impressive suits make contradictory predictions.  Kirk
is watching the program as if he understood it.  She thinks back.  A
disastrous wedding night isn't as bad as you thought at the time.  At
least, things could only get better afterwards.  What if your wedding night
was the best sex you would ever have?

   He's seriously watching the program.  When she takes his hand, though,
he squeezes hers.  Then she goes back to the past.

   The first apartment was no improvement over dorm life, and the job
waiting tables was duller than classes had ever been.  She was shocked that
anything could be.  Kirk got a summer job as an "intern," a glorified file
clerk according to him, in an accounting office.  Alice didn't arrive until
after Kirk was back in school.  Sex improved as they grew accustomed to
each other.  It seemed to be one time that the staid, controlled, Kirk lost
all his control.

   She is deep in her memories when Kirk gets up to shut off the set.

   "Sorry," he said.  "Did you want more of that?"

   "Not without you.  I came in to be with you." She could hardly want
more. She hadn't even been paying attention to what was on.

   "Bed time?" he asks.

   "Yeah." Old married people, parents, they go their separate ways, often
in the same room.  They meet in bed.  His aftershave tells her that he
wants sex.  He doesn't shave at night unless he does.  Kirk would take no
for an answer.  He had for years before their marriage and again for months
after Alice's birth.

   "Teach me what to do," he'd said when her guilt had turned no to yes. 
She'd cried at being the one with all the sex experience.  "It isn't that,"
he'd said.  "I can find out about sex in a book.  I have.  But there aren't
any books on Claire.  I can only find out about Claire from the world's
leading expert on her." And he had found out.  Whether she'd been the
world's leading expert or not, they'd both found out.  This excited her
more; that excited her less, the other merely irritated.  She wanted some
things always, others some times, still others infrequently, but wanted
them then.  He'd never got to be quite as exciting a lover as Earl had
been, but trying to pay last month's bills from this month's allowances and
hoping that Alice's fretfulness wasn't an illness that would require a
doctor's visit they couldn't afford soon had her quite tired of living on
the edge.

   Tonight, she wants comfort, and Kirk gives her comfort -- kisses, hugs,
pats.  She takes a while to reach arousal, but he gives her that time, too.
When he enters her, she's more than ready for him.  He rolls them onto
their sides, and takes long, slow strokes.

   "I love you," he says, stating the obvious.  When she kisses him, he
reaches between them to excite her with his hand.

   "Oh, Kirk, now." When she ways that, he rolls her onto her back, and
takes even deeper strokes.  As he speeds up, she rises to meet him.  As she
begins to convulse, he takes one more, harder stroke.  He throbs within
her. He lies on her for a minute of closeness, and then rolls off as soon
as the closeness turns oppressive.

   "Oh, Claire, I love you."

   "I love you, too."

   Even in the dimness of the room with her glasses off, she can see that
he's astonished.  Why shouldn't he be?  She's astonished herself.  But, she
realizes, she does love him, and not only in the afterglow of her orgasm.

   "You do?"

   "Yeah.  You're the center of my life." And that is certainly true.  They
cuddle together and wait for sleep.

   The end Round Wheels by Uther Pendragon nogardneprethu@gmail.com
2011/07/07



   The index to almost all my stories:
/~Uther_Pendragon/index.htm