Message-ID: <60739asstr$1289135402@assm.asstr.org>
From: Uther Pendragon <nogardneprethu@gmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} "For Elise" {Uther} (MF voy rom lac wl)
Lines: 3121
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2010 08:10:02 -0500
Path: assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d


                            FOR ELISE
                       by Uther Pendragon
                    nogardneprethu@gmail.com

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, 1999, 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, 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.


                           #     #      #     #

                            FOR ELISE
                       by Uther Pendragon
                    nogardneprethu@gmail.com


Part 1

"Off to the library," Bob Brennan told his wife.  "Anything you
want before I go?"

     "I'm going to call Kathleen," Jeanette answered.  "Sure that
you don't want to stick around?"  He was sure.  The news of his
family filtered through Jeanette just fine.  His mother called
Jeanette one Saturday in three, called his sister Vi the next
week, and Jeanette called Vi (except she called Kathleen Violet
"Kathleen" -- the girl kept changing her mind) the third week.
His family knew much more about his life than they had before his
marriage -- more, his mother claimed, than she had known when he
was living at home.

     "I'll stick around for the call before my birthday," he told
her.  "Other times, I'd just inhibit the girl-talk."

                             - = = -

Jeanette fed her baby, The Kitten, before making the call.
She got out more than the first months, even took one class, but
these family calls were a good part of her connection to the
world.  She didn't want them interrupted.

     "Really," she told her sister-in-law when the amenities were
done, "the date of the baptism depends on you.  It has to be a
Sunday.  Which Sunday is your choice.  The godfather is a member
of the church."  Faint sounds came out of the phone.  Kathleen
was doing something with paper.

     "I'll have to confirm it.  But let's say tentatively the
23rd.  I could never get Thanksgiving.  Couple more things.  Have
you thought about the recordings?"  Kathleen had suggested
confronting Bob and his father with the way that they talked
about each other when they were apart.  It was ridiculous that
two grown men who expressed such admiration for each other when
apart should bristle and quarrel so when together.

     "I have a couple.  Do you?"

     "One since I talked to you.  I got nervous about the phone.
But I'm going back before I see you.  Next week, in fact.  That's
a complication with the schedule."  Kathleen was a hospital
intern.  Getting time off was a problem.

     Kathleen changed the subject.  "Does your sofabed still pull
out?"

     "Yeah.  And you're welcome to do so."  Jeanette wondered why
she would bother.  The folding mattress had seen better days; the
cushions were more comfortable.

     "The thing is, I want to bring a guest."  Ever self-
confident Kathleen was sounding very nervous.

     "It's not Greg, is it?"

     "No his name is Charles.  We were in med school together,
but his internship is in Cleveland."

     "Ouch."  Jeanette had suffered through a fifteen-month
period when Bob was at school or on a summer job almost
constantly.  Long-distance relationships suck.  "This sounds
serious."  She wondered why Kathleen hadn't told her earlier.
They talked often, but Kathleen's romantic life was seldom
included.

     "This is serious.  And one more thing.  Could you not talk
to mother between the time I go there and the time I visit you?"

     "She calls me."  And the conversations with Katherine
Brennan were high spots in her life.  Katherine called her every
third Saturday.

     "I'll ask her not to."  And what one member of the family
asked, that member almost always got.  Jeanette had depended on
that, and not only from her husband Bob.  Now it was the time to
deliver.

     "Okay," she said.  "Keep in touch."

     "I will.  What's my niece doing now?"  The Kitten was trying
to munch on her toes, and that was worth five minutes more of
conversation.  Then she gave her hungry cry, and Jeanette hung
up.  The Kitten was going through a growth spurt.  Sometimes it
seemed to Jeanette that she was nursing more than half the time.
But that did give her a little quiet time to plan how she was
going to tell Bob.

                             - = = -

Bob didn't mind offering hospitality to a friend of his sister's.
Offering his sister was a totally different proposition.  "Vi!
Little Vi."

     "Little Vi," his wife retorted, "is a woman grown, 26 years
old, a medical doctor, and has been calling herself Kathleen for
four years."  He ignored the last bit.  Kathleen Violet was lucky
to get called Kathleen in her presence.  In her absence, she was
still Vi.

     "But still."  They might have fought like cats and dogs
inside the family, but he had still protected her against schoolyard
bullies, let alone mad rapists.  "We don't have to put our stamp
of approval on this."

     "I didn't put my stamp of approval on it.  I don't approve
or disapprove of Kathleen's friends, let alone friends I haven't
met.  I told her that she was welcome.  Welcome with her friend."

     "But still."  He was repeating himself.  Couldn't she see
how wrong this was?  Vi was coming to be a godmother to their
child.  And simultaneously they would encourage her to live in
sin?

     "But still your *sister* is too pure for this.  She's 26.
How old was I?"

     "We were married."  That was totally different.  That was an
act of love, not lewdness.  He'd thought that she had known that.

     "And whose fault was that?  Who wanted to take me to bed?
Who tried his damnedest to seduce me when I was *much* younger
than Kathleen is now?"

     That was totally unfair.  He had loved her, had never tried
to plunder her warmth without extending his protection.

     "But your sister," Jeanette continued, "your sister is
purer than that.  Your sister is chaste.  Your sister has to
maintain her virginity for her whole life."

     "That's unfair!  I loved you.  I wanted to marry you.  You
drew a line and I respected it."  Well, mostly he had respected
it.  "That wasn't like this."

     "Oh Bob!"  Her voice changed.  "I know what that was like.
I was there, after all.  But how do you know that Kathleen and
Charles aren't like we were?"

     "How do we know that they *are*?"

     "We don't.  But Kathleen must think they are.  It's The
Kitten's baptism; do you think that she'd bring a casual affair
to that?  For that matter, maintaining a romance between Chicago
and Cleveland must be one big pain.  She's serious."

     "Maybe she is.  But is this med-school Casanova?"

                             - = = -

Jeanette loved her husband, she felt a little guilty for the
manipulative comparison that she had made, but neither of these
mitigated her exasperation.  "It's her life.  She knows the guy.
He is coming to meet her family.  Really, she is a catch: bright,
pretty, friendly, well-educated."  Well-endowed, which she
probably shouldn't mention just now.

     "Quarrelsome, with a flash-point temper, will argue for
arguments sake."

     "Didn't stop me."

     Bob had the grace to laugh.  Vi might well be the most
argumentative person in the city of Chicago; she wasn't the most
argumentative person in her immediate family.

     "Anyway," she continued.  "She's a Brennan.  She's decided,
and hasn't asked our opinion.  Not that we have any grounds for
opinion yet; that may be why she wants us to meet him."  Bob
snorted.  Well Vi -- Kathleen, must remember to call her
Kathleen, she'd be here in a couple of months -- made up her own
mind.  She and Bob were a lot alike.  "But she asked for
something we could give.  I gave it.  Now *I* need you to be
civil to this guy."

     "While he boffs my sister."

     "Feel free to ignore him completely at those times."

     "I don't have to like it," he said.

     "You only have to do it."

     "Jeez!  You sound like my mother."

     "Thank you."  Katherine Brennan was the woman whom Jeanette
admired most.  Bob didn't have to talk as if it were disgusting.

     "Look.  Talking to The Kitten like Mom talked to me might
be fine.  She never talked to her husband like she did an eight-
year-old."

     "There might be a reason for that."  On the other hand,
Bob's father could be as stubbornly wrong-headed as he was.  Did
Katherine never respond to that childishness?  Not the way that
Jeanette was, at least in her hearing.  Talk about being hoist on
one's own petard.  "Look Bob, this is important to her.  For that
matter, this is my daughter's baptism; it's important to me.
Keep it a smooth social situation for me, will you?"

                             - = = -

Bob thought a bit.  Jeanette had given him so much, and received
so little.  Well, The Kitten wasn't trivial.  But he had
contributed only a little spurt of semen to The Kitten's genes;
she had cost Jeanette so much pain and effort.  Anyway, Bob had
sworn on the altar to back Jeanette.

     "Backed," he said.

     "Thank you," she said in a tone that showed that she meant
it.

     They didn't speak any more about it until they were in bed
that night.  He was idly caressing his wife, and occasionally his
daughter, while one nourished the other.  If he concentrated at
such times, he could usually understand the reports on the day
which Jeanette delivered to her daughter in French.  But this was
a time for relaxation, thinking his own thoughts and putting the
day aside in preparation for the pleasures of the night.  And, to
be sure, appreciating any of his wife's softness that his
daughter wasn't using right then.

     "Et, avec Tante Kathleen, arrive..."  Jeanette was saying,
"Bob, should I call him 'Tcharlz' or 'Sharl' when I'm talking to
her?"

     It wasn't as if The Kitten would be repeating what her
mother said.  On the other hand, it was a policy issue.  "I think
that a person's name is what they call themselves.  Didn't George
Sand insist on the English pronunciation of her first name even
when she was speaking French?"

     "Et, avec Tante Kathleen, arrive Tcharlz.  Il est son bon
ami."  Well, that was one way to express it.

     "How long do you think that they've been sleeping together?"
he asked.  He was lying behind his naked wife, watching tiny lips
sucking where his had sucked so often.  He had often before
stiffened against her in this position, even when the conversation
was non-erotic; just as this conversation was.

     "Well, they couldn't have started after graduation, now
could they?  Being in different cities and all."

     "I wonder if he was her first?"

                             - = = -

Kathleen hadn't told her much.  On the other hand, Jeanette had
held her hand one Christmas when she had decided to turn down a
boy who wanted to go all the way.  A letter from college a few
years later had come with a private note:  "Thank you.  Thank you
so much!  Throw this sheet away before you show the rest of the
letter to Bob."  She'd believed ever since that Kathleen had
consummated a love affair just before she wrote it.  If so,
Jeanette had never learned the boy's name.  But it wasn't this
Charles whom she'd met in med school, and that was strictly
Kathleen's business, anyway.

     "She didn't tell me."  By now, Bob was nearly rigid against
her butt.  Speculation about his sister's sex life seemed to be a
turn-on; not that turning on Bob was terribly difficult.  She
knew a psychiatrically-trained intern who could probably tell her
more about the dynamics of being turned on by discussions of
one's sibling's sex life; unfortunately the intern and the
sibling in question were the same person.

     For that matter, the baby playing with her nipple was
turning her on; and her pediatrician (as well as Kathleen) had
assured her that this was perfectly normal.  Of course, Bob's
kisses on her back and shoulders weren't helping, either.  Or,
depending on one's perspective, they were helping a great deal.

     The Kitten was done and needed burping.  That, however was
her father's job when he was home; and he was busy kissing her
mother.  That spot on the back of her neck meant serious
business, and Bob knew it.  She turned on her back.  "Your
daughter needs a burp and a change."

     Bob got up.  He walked out of the room patting The Kitten's
back and wearing only a spitcloth.  Jeanette, on the other hand,
wore a robe to the bathroom and back.  The Kitten's changing
table and crib, in the dining room, would have to be moved before
company came.

     She lay there listening to the voices from the next room.
Bob recited poetry to The Kitten.  Her recent growth spurt was
leaving her mother rather frazzled.  And the phone call and
subsequent talk with Bob hadn't helped, either.  Jeanette hoped
that Bob wasn't in the mood for one of his "games" tonight.
Well, he claimed that she could have what she wanted, when she
wanted anything particular in the way of sex.  Treating her
husband like a sleeping pill hardly seemed fair, but he never
objected.

     Did she want to be cherished by her loving husband, the
gentleness of his hands and lips and tongue?  Not really.  This
was only a slightly-frazzled night, and Bob was gentle enough
when not provoked.

     Did she want to provoke him?  Did she want her tiger in her
bed?  She had been doing that a lot lately, after a period in
which her body wasn't up to strenuous sex.  Maybe she could have
a mixture.  She took out one condom and hid the box.

     Bob finally got back to the room, already half erect.  "Your
daughter has been rough on my nipples," she told him.  "You think
you can find somewhere else to kiss?"  Now he was pointing
slightly upward.

     He pecked the nipples very lightly.  "Poor breasts," he said.
He planted a real kiss on the valley between them.  He kissed a
path upward to her face, and licked her lips open.  Their tongues
wrestled, then nestled, and then wrestled again.  He kissed her
face and both ears before starting downwards again.  He skipped
her nipples, almost skipped her breasts entirely, on his road to
her belly.  It was so flabby these days and covered with stretch
marks, but he beautified it for the moment with his kisses.  When
he got to her side, it was very tickly, but even more arousing.

     When he reached her mound, she lay there enjoying his kisses
before rolling over.  He got behind her and used her left thigh
as a pillow.  His breath tickled her lips while he reached around
to play with the hair on her mound.  Finally, he parted her outer
lips to lick her inner ones.  She should have been used to that
sensation, but it jolted her anyway.  She felt his snort of
satisfaction, then he licked her again.  She became quite
conscious of all the moisture on her labia; not all of it could
have come from his tongue.

     When he finally licked her labia apart, however, she
abandoned her self-consciousness for pure sensation.  She reached
her right hand back to grasp his calf to anchor her, and used her
left to pull a pillow across her mouth to muffle her.  His tongue
warmed her whole lower belly, and then all the way to her
breasts.  These ached suddenly, feeling as full as if The Kitten
had been gone for hours.  Then the warmth became fire which
roared through her again and again.  It roared through once more,
and she pushed Bob's head away from her center.  His breath was
still an incitement, and then she relaxed.

                             - = = -

Bob loved being so near the epicenter of Jeanette's climaxes.  He
tasted her sweet juices acquire a slight, almost metallic, savor.
He felt her thighs tighten around his head.  He watched as her
belly straightened and tightened.  Then he felt her shake and
heard her groan.

     At that point, he sucked firmly until she stopped moving.

     When she had relaxed, he squirmed out of his position and
kissed his way up her back.  He hugged her and crooned to her
while her breath slowed.  Meanwhile, he wiped his mouth on the
top of the sheet.

     When Jeanette's breath slowed to her normal rate, she turned
onto her back.  He brushed his lips over her ear and licked it
once.  When she moved away from the tickle, he leaned on his
elbow to get a comfortable position for kissing.  He began on her
mouth, licking her lips until her own tongue came out to play.
When she broke the kiss to breathe, he kissed all over her face
and down her neck.

     He remembered her sore nipples by the time he reached her
breasts, so he contented himself with the smooth surfaces.  His
hand played with her fur and then stroked the inside of her
thighs.  He cupped her mound in the palm of his hand while his
fingers touched her outer lips as softly as possible.

     When he kissed up to her mouth once more, he was well beyond
light playfulness.  His tongue invaded her mouth and explored it
all.  She sucked it briefly, and then played tag with it.  When
that kiss relaxed into gentleness, he parted her lower lips and
stroked her valley once.

     He pressed one finger, and then two, into her heat.  She was
ready for him, and he was much more than ready for her.
Nonetheless, he rubbed against the top of her tunnel until he
could feel the little bump there.  Her clitoris would still be
supersensitive.  But a little stroking here, a few wiggles of the
fingers against each other, would raise her excitement to need.

     And so it did.  She gasped around the kiss.  When she arched
off the bed, he abandoned her mouth to kiss her belly.  She
dropped immediately, but the next wiggle of his fingers cut off
her giggle.  When she arched again, he kissed the bottom of her
engorged breasts.  Her face tightened into a frown.  Leaving her
moist warmth with a stroke that passed on both sides of her
sensitive nubbin, he reached for the box of contraceptives.  And
reached again, and flailed over the books on the nightstand.

     "I have it," she said.  "Come here."  He crawled between her
legs, his knees almost against her butt.  By this time, Junior
was sticking out and painfully swollen.  She pulled the packet
from under her pillow and opened it slowly.  "You know," she
drawled, "Vi must not get to meet her boyfriend often enough to
justify the pill."  How could she think of other people at such a
time?  "They may use condoms; I wonder if she puts it on."

     Junior was bobbing madly with each heart beat now.  She took
hold of him at the base and considered her next move; he was
beginning to ache.  She fitted the end to his sensitive tip and
rolled it over the head; he made a conscious effort not to fill
it then and there.  She slowly rolled the condom down the shaft;
the friction as it passed drove his hips to move slightly.  She
firmed her grip on the base.  "It takes longer if you can't hold
still.  There you go.  Want my guidance?"

     He didn't need her guidance; he didn't even need the help of
his own hand.  He shuffled back and lowered himself into
position.  Her fingers spread her lips as he moved forward.
Junior found the goal he had reached so often, and sank right in.
She left her hand between them until he withdrew the first time.

     Then it trailed up his abdomen, fingernails more tickling
his skin than scratching it.  She moved her feet wide apart but
pressed firmly into the bed; he raised himself on his hands and
arms, looking at her face and breasts rather than touching them.
He drove almost her full length every time, and she raised
herself into every stroke.  He watched her face tense into a
rictus before the fury of his own passion blinded him.  He tried
to wait for her, but it was impossible.  When she pinched his
nipples, he groaned, thrust through her incredible tightness
until his knees skidded on the bed, and erupted into her.

                             - = = -

However intent Jeanette had been to tease out her tiger by
holding onto Junior, she had enjoyed the throbbing in her hand
and the feeling of power that its responsiveness always gave her.
Her own naughty plans had excited her almost as much as Bob's
lovemaking.  The sweetly-delayed entrance had swept her much
closer to the edge than she had anticipated.  But she'd resisted
her desire as Bob loomed over her, drove into her, and possessed
her as his prey.  When he had swelled that tiny, warning
addition, she'd pinched his nipples and Keggeled his manhood.
Then she'd surrendered to herself as well as to him.

     The grinding of his groin against hers, the pulsation of his
sex within hers, had swept her up.  Her pulsations were luscious,
they were frightening, they were nearly pain.  And then they were
over.

     She was gasping for breath, each gasp lifting a weight
greater than her own.  She was a little sore on the insides of
her thighs and a little more sore on her vulva.  She knew that
she was dripping onto the sheets, and that it was going to soak
in before she could move.  One leg was pinned and the other was
out in the cold.  She felt better than she had in weeks.  She
hooked the cold leg over one of Bob's.  She would roll him over
and extricate the covers when she wanted to; right now she wanted
the blanket which loved her.

     When The Kitten's cries woke her, she shook her husband
sleeping beside her.  He barely stirred.  She fed The Kitten and
changed her, and then she fed her again.  Bob slept through it
all.  Tigers slept much more soundly than gentle lovers; it was a
wonder that they survived in the jungle.

     Still, the next morning when she was awake enough to think
about it, she had no regrets -- a few aches which came more from
lying under Bob afterwards than from the active sex beforehand,
but no regrets.  Bob looked quite happy and loving, too; but
then, he'd also had more sleep than usual.  She and The Kitten
sent him off to church alone.  She had come to accept the minor
embarrassment of feeding The Kitten during the service, but this
looked like a day when the choice would have been the service
during the feeding.

     The Kitten finally fell asleep again and slept until Bob
returned home with take-out pizza.  Jeanette gobbled some down
while Bob changed his daughter.  Finally she nursed The Kitten in
the rocker while Bob fed her a piece at a time by hand.

     "Y'know," he said, "I can see all that nutrition going in
your mouth, flowing through your body, and into her.  Wish there
were a way to cut out the middleman."  Well they weren't going to
try formula.  What breast-feeding cost in care during growth
spurt time, it saved in care during sick time.

                              - = -

     Katherine called just before Kathleen's scheduled visit
home.  "My daughter has issued a gag order," she said.

     "She told me," Jeanette answered.

     "I hope Bob won't mind my putting the boy in his room -- your
room, I mean."  It was Bob's room.  It was a room in Katherine
and her husband's house, really.

     "As opposed to Vi's room?  He'd be overjoyed.  We don't have
a second guest bed, let alone a guest room.  How are you going to
enforce it?"

     "We are going to show one to one room, one to the other;
then we'll close and lock our door and not come out until
morning.  You know, dear, in my day it went like this: 'I've met
this nice boy.... I think he's serious about me.... I really love
him.... We're moving in together.'  One statement per letter,
other letters in between.  Not, mind you, that it always
developed that slowly, but it was reported that slowly.  I should
think introducing us to Charles at the graduation would have been
a nice gesture.

     "Well, Bob wasn't very outgoing about his feelings for you,
either.  But I always thought that he had forgotten that he
hadn't told us.  I hope he told you, dear.  I can picture him
going on all those years taking you out and watching you race and
everything, but not saying anything.  Suddenly one day he says:
'I think this coming June would be a nice time for the wedding,
what do you think?'"

     "It wasn't like that at all."  Bob and she had conducted
what might be called their first family meeting three years
before they were a family, less than two years after they had
met.

     The conversation circled.  "And how is my namesake doing?"

     "She's nursing right now."

     "I'm sorry, dear.  Do you want me to call later?"

     "If you'd called when she *wasn't* eating, it would have
woken her up."

     "One of those periods, dear?  I can remember."  She went
into a combination of commiseration and encouragement.

     And it circled again.  "I tried to be open with her about
sex, dear.  But children really don't want to hear about sex from
their parents.  Implies that those parents might have working
knowledge.  There was one point when I thought that she was
taking you as a mentor.  From a maternal viewpoint, you know, you
were ideal.  Aside from who you are, even.  Not before marriage,
but enjoyed it after."

     "Were we really that obvious?"

     "The situation was obvious, dear.  Really though, which
would you rather your daughter will think in sixteen years:
'Newly married couples *do* have a great time in bed,' or 'Newly
married couples *don't* have a great time in bed'?  The answer,
of course, is that you won't want her thinking about the subject.
But teenagers do, about sex if not about marriage."

     "Look, I have enough to worry about with growth spurts.  I
don't want to worry about toilet training yet, let alone sex ed."

     "Yes dear.  Back to Kathleen.  She's not like you, dear.
She doesn't have the selflessness to have been satisfied in an
early marriage."  None of the Brennans, the other Brennans, could
see that being married to Bob was what she wanted, that she had
wanted it for years as deeply as Kathleen had wanted to be a
psychoanalyst.  "And I wouldn't *really* want her the sort of
woman who took no pleasure in sex.  So an affair is really the
least of three evils.  It's the sort of thing which you don't
encourage (presumably the boy is providing quite enough
encouragement), but you don't allow it to break the relationship
either.  It's an 'I disapprove -- so how's the weather there?' sort
of thing."

     Jeanette was surprised into laughter.  The Kitten objected
and had to be soothed.  "Not to speak of anything to do with my
future parenting," she said when she got back to the phone.

     "Well, dear, I wasn't consciously lecturing.  I try not to
be that sort of mother-in-law.  You sound as if you have your
hands full."

     "I don't mind your advice, but yes, goodbye."

     It wasn't until The Kitten was asleep that Jeanette
remembered that this break in phone contact was going to be much
longer than usual.


Part 2

     Jeanette could produce more milk, The Kitten's tiny stomach
could hold more, and the feedings slowly returned to being
discrete events.  And The Kitten *had* grown, as Dr. Gupta's
scales recorded on their next visit.

     Jeanette had a new diaphragm fitted on that same visit to
the medical group.  Her cervix, recovered from the delivery and
the subsequent surgery, was now a stable size.  That night, for
the first time in months, she felt Bob ejaculate deep inside her.


     Kathleen asked for the sixteenth of November; Kurt, the
godfather, agreed; the minister scheduled it.


     They fitted The Kitten's crib and the diaper pail into their
room.  The top of Bob's dresser became the changing table.  It
was kind of cramped, but they could invite people for dinner once
again.  It was kind of cozy, too.


     She shaved herself for Bob's birthday.  He loved it.  His
friends took him out for a few beers to celebrate the same event.
The Kitten didn't recognize him smelling of the beer, and
Jeanette had to burp and change her that night.


     The Kitten figured out how to turn from her back to her
front.  She first demonstrated that skill on the changing table,
scaring her father half to death.  Soon after, scorning all
medical advice, she took to sleeping on her belly.  Jeanette,
although sure that Kathleen sent all that news along, would have
enjoyed telling Katherine herself.


     Years before, Bob's father had given her a small tape
recorder to play back radio broadcasts from France.  It had come
with a microphone which she had hardly used.  Now she dusted it
off and took to carrying the recorder with mike plugged in when
Bob might be induced to talk about his father.  She also placed
it under the bed sometimes and asked Bob directly for stories
about his father.

     "The weird thing...." He said one night in bed.  "You sure
I'm not boring you?"

     "Not in the least," she answered.

     "The weird thing is that he hadn't *managed* anything up
till then.  He'd evaluated plenty.  But all that he had bossed
was a small, totally dedicated, team.  A skunk works, if you know
that term, of never more than twenty men.  If they had known what
was wrong with Brewster, they'd never have sent him.  They figure
him for a dollars-and-cents man; but he finds out that the
trouble was personnel.  So he deals absolutely fairly with the
men, gets rid of the worst supervisors, and bides his time.

     "He waits until he knows an upturn is coming.  One of the
biggest companies in the field was in the middle of a bitter
strike.  As you can imagine, office furniture companies aren't
hurt much by union boycotts.  Anyway, he invites the union
leadership to the house.  He sells them on an agreement to have
them sign a direct mail piece to union locals around the country
to ask them to *look* at Brewster's product the next time that
they bought office furniture.  The pitch was that this was a
company that dealt fairly with the union, they should have a
chance.  Second, he gets them to agree that every time a man is
called back from layoff, productivity per person would also
increase.  (He knows what was happening on the shop floor, and
that surprises them.)  Every time a man is called back, he calls
him into the office first.  He tells him that his call-back is
because the other workers on the floor are doing better work, and
asks him to do better work so that the next man can be called
back.

     "Two years later, quality is through the roof and prices
have been relatively stable.  No one is laid off, and wages are
competitive.  The union leadership looks like champions, and so
does management.  They only fight about what they should fight
about."

     He gave her a loud, smacking kiss.

     "I like being in your family."  She pulled his hand between
her legs.

     "I like being in your mnmhmm, too."  He parted her lips to
caress her gently.  After some silent minutes, she tugged at his
arm.  He came on top of her and into her.  Ready for him and
slightly guilty about the running tape, she licked his throat and
pulled him deeper.  "Love you," he said.  "Love... you....
Love... you....   Love... you!  You!  You.  You...."

     The pulsing against her walls sent her soaring with him,
clutching around him, falling after him.  Then she lay under him,
loving the warm, gasping, weight.

     Listening to the tape the next day, hearing the springs sing
accompaniment to his declarations of love, she worried.  But Bob
would hate himself if his father died with this quarrel
unresolved.  She cried when she erased the sexual part, but
keeping that would have bothered him incredibly.


     She began to feed The Kitten some baby-food out of a jar.
That child, who would stick *absolutely* anything else in her
mouth, perversely resisted the spoon.  Some days she started with
half a jar and ended with what looked like a jar each on The
Kitten and on her.


     Having renewed her shaving twice since Bob's birthday, she
let it grow back.  It itched like hell, but remembering his
appreciation made it worthwhile.  And Bob kissed the new growth
as fondly as he had the smooth surprise.

                              - = -

     Kathleen was due on Saturday morning, coming up on the
train.  Her boyfriend was expected that afternoon.  Jeanette
managed to clean the house and persuade Bob to put up a cord
across the archway between the living and dining rooms by
Wednesday.  Bob did the laundry Friday night, and hung a clean
sheet on that cord.  They took it down, as it looked grungy for
the day; but they knew that it would work.  He also made the sofa
bed.

     "Ton pauvre papa," Jeanette confided to her daughter
during the last feeding that day, "il travaille beaucoup.
Merit-il une recompense? ... D'accord, mais quelle
recompense? ... Mechant enfant!  Tu es sa fille vraiment.  Ne dis
jamais ces mots.  Tu es trop jeune."  The Kitten looked back at
her innocently.  "Well, I might.  But you have to be asleep
first, talking about things like that at your age is bad enough."

     "Y'know," said Bob, "I'm going to ask Vi to explain the
psychiatric meaning of the word projection to you."  Bob often
ignored her conversations with The Kitten; he could follow most
of the French, but only with effort.  He could no more ignore
English within hearing distance than he could walk past her bare
breasts without looking.  Anyway, he caught enough of the
conversation to make him smile while he changed The Kitten; and
he showed a more specific reaction about halfway down.

     They were heading into a dry spell, with Kathleen spending
two nights.  The bedroom door and the sheet in the archway
weren't what Jeanette considered a sufficient guarantee of
privacy, especially since the boyfriend would be there.  At the
same time, this promised to be a trying period.  These days, Bob
held on to his temper marvelously, but more easily when he had
been sexually sated.  So she would try to guarantee his satiation
until Sunday evening.

     Tonight was for him, even though she would be deprived for
the same two nights.  One of her responsibilities in the family
was easing social strains, and this would really ease social
strains.  It wasn't for her, except maybe the slightest little
bit.  But nowhere was it written that she couldn't enjoy her
work.

     "I don't mind nursing in church," she told Bob as he came in
from the john.  "After all, everybody's facing in the same
direction.  It's not as if people were looking."

                             - = = -

Bob returned to the room expecting something nice.  Throughout
their marriage, Jeanette had accepted his sexual advances;
indeed, she usually enjoyed them.  Still, he had been the
instigator most of the time.  After the dry spell connected to
her pregnancy and her recovery from the trauma of the delivery,
however, she had begun taking the lead more often.

     The talk about church had him confused, however.  And the
idea of people ogling her while she breastfed, her lawful husband
excepted, was both offensive and arousing.

     "I can just see her demanding to be fed one minute before we
walk down front for the baptism ceremony.  So I thought I'd
express a bottle Saturday.  But I'll produce more then if I'm
drained dry now, and The Kitten left a little."

     He never understood why the tiny volume he got helped this
process, but he never objected either.  The delightful taste was
the least of his enjoyment.  He reached for the sheet.

     "No," she said, "the last feeding was in bed.  It's time for
the rocking chair now.  Sit down."

     He sat down in the rocking chair, sliding forward a bit in
the seat.  He was already rock-hard by the time she got up to
join him.  She sat on his knees facing him.  "This one," she
said.  She bent forwards, proffering her left breast to his
mouth.  For one instant it was tasteless, as her skin often was
when she was newly washed.  He sucked gently and then a bit more
strongly.  The taste came then, the taste of milk, the taste of
Jeanette.  "That's right," she said.  "Oh Bob."

     She held his head to her as he stole his little sips.  The
taste was incomparably warm and sweet, but other sensations were
as strong.  The flex of her large nipple between his lips, the
easing out of the milk onto the back of his tongue, the bumpy
areola on the tip of his tongue, her hands pressing his head
forward or playing with his hair, were only half the experience.

     There was the padded weight of her hips on each of his lower
thighs, but she wasn't sitting symmetrically.  Tickling his left
thigh were light touches which could only be her outer labia and
their sparse hairs.  When she shifted so that those touches were
more firm, they were also damp.  Her knees were spread by the
back of the chair, but his raging erection could still feel the
warmth from the inside of her thigh.

     He held her hips with both hands until she took his left one
in her right and placed it between her legs.  He gave her thigh a
few caresses and then reached for her lower lips.  "Yes, Bob,"
she said.  "That's just right."  She did not talk like that;
entice, sure, make herself available, sure; but she only invited
him verbally when she was in the throes of passion.  And, not
sure that she remembered those occasions, he never mentioned
them.

     He reached the inner lips, *nice* and juicy, and gently
rubbed one against the other.  "Yes, Bob, yes.  Drain me."  He
realized that she was talking about the milk.  He sipped again,
and got a few drops.  That made maybe a tenth of a mouthful,
altogether.  Of course, The Kitten had a smaller mouth.  He
sucked harder and got another bit.

     Jeanette pulled his head back, breaking their connection;
then she pulled his face between her breasts.  What air he could get
was scented with the milky smell from both sides and the more
distant aroma of her arousal.

     When he parted her lower lips and slipped a finger between
them, the aroma was enriched again.  "Yes, Bob.  Please.  Please
right there."  Obedient, he traced the route from the center of
her moisture to the little bump at the top of her groove.

     She rested her chin on the back of his head and murmured
encouragement.  "Mmm hmm, ... oh yes....  Oh Bob!"  He returned
again and again for her juices and found more each time.  He
slicked them up the sides of her inner lips as she rocked back
and forth on his knees in response.  He tried to avoid her clit
on most of these trips, but she moaned every time he touched it.
She straightened in his arms, sitting higher and higher.

     When her nails were biting into the back of his head and her
breath was whistling through her teeth on the inhale and moaning
softly on the exhale, his preparation was done.  He stroked
around her clitoris in a circle, then straight across it.  She
gasped.  He kept stroking right there while she shook in his arms
and continued to gasp.  Then she fell forward onto him.  The
chair rocked way back, he threw his arms around her, the chair
rocked forward again, and they were safe.

     Immediately, though, she was getting up.   He helped support
her while trying to scoot forward.  She grasped them both to
bring him to her entrance.  "Slowly," he warned, "go slowly."
She nodded and slid slowly down his front and around his phallus.

     "Hold on," he said.  She gripped his shoulders.  He pushed
down on the chair, which rocked it back again.  But he was able
to move himself inches forward.  He leaned back.  "I love you."
It seemed inadequate.

     "Love you too."  She stretched one foot back to the wall to
set them rocking.  He and the chair were moving back and forth in
the chair's natural rhythm.  Jeanette's motions were much more
complex.  The pushing leg moved up and down on his thigh, flexing
as it did.  That shifted her weight from side to side as well as
back and forth.  The center of her torso was actually moving in a
circle.  Her vulva, pivoting on his phallus, could not move far.
But it tried to.

     He was being stirred within her like a spoon stirring tea.
The sensations were exquisitely arousing, but they had little of
the direct stimulation that drove his orgasm.  He was moving in
and out much less than an inch.  His arousal grew and grew
without any hint of relief.

     When her excitement overcame her dexterity in reaching the
wall, he started the chair in a longer arc.  Now, he was
clutching her butt to him and relaxing in time to the rocking.
Now, he was moving in and out of her warm slickness.  Now, he
felt his culmination rolling towards him.  Now, she was there
ahead of him, gasping in his arms.

     Now!  And it was now, and now, and now.

     Until he dropped back in the chair and his driving legs and
clutching arms lost their strength.  Jeanette slumped on top of
him for a bit.  Finally, she shivered and climbed off.

                              - = -

     He finally woke himself, got circulation back in his legs,
washed himself off in the bathroom, cleaned up the chair with a
spare diaper, and joined Jeanette in bed.  By then she was fast
asleep.  She was nice and warm, though, and delightfully
huggable.

     Jeanette didn't do mornings.  For a decade, it had been his
time by himself and, strangely, his time to think about Jeanette.
What had got into her the previous night?  Well he had, and
delightfully so.  He wished that he had the recipe for whatever
had sparked that.  Then he felt guilty about that wish.  Jeanette
had certainly enjoyed herself, but she had also expended one hell
of a lot of energy.  She didn't have that much energy to spare,
between The Kitten's demands and the translation that she was
doing for him.  Let her choose the times.

     On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to be very nice on a
morning after she had chosen the time.  He changed The Kitten,
not "being very nice," just his job.  Her mother's daughter, The
Kitten turned over and went back to sleep.  He went to work on
the last set of short papers until Jeanette stumbled through on
the way to the john.  Then he changed The Kitten once more, and
brought her to Jeanette in a fresh diaper and nothing else.  The
sleeper was soaked.

     "Hello, darling," Jeanette said.  "Why doesn't your daddy
join us?"

     Kathleen was due at the train station in less than an hour.
He had work to do that weekend and company would be here for the
rest of it.  That's why he shouldn't join them.  On the other
hand, Jeanette was wearing less than The Kitten was.  Bob decided
that the papers could be returned on Wednesday instead of Monday.

     They took some care to arrange the covers so that The Kitten
would have fresh air to breathe.  Then he nestled against
Jeanette's back.

     "I don't want her to be monolingual French," Jeanette said.
"You talk English to her."

     "I do.  And I recite a lot of poetry."

     "Why don't you tell her a story now?"  Well, the nursing
times were special times for mother and daughter.  The Kitten
couldn't even see him like this, let alone the picture book.
Jeanette's back was smooth and warm against his bare skin, and he
*didn't* want to get up.  On the other hand, this was one hell of
a moment to spoil with a quarrel.

     "Got a book in mind?"

     "I was thinking of the story of Papa and Maman in the
forest."  Junior bumped against her thigh without any other part
of his body moving, so rapid was his erection.  In the forest off
the Appalachian Trail, the first time he came into Jeanette from
behind, was the first time that she had experienced an orgasm
around him.  That had been the seal of their sexual union: not
entering her, not bringing her to orgasm, but her first orgasm
while he was inside.

     "Are you okay?" he asked.

     She shook her head.  "Nightstand."  He'd have to use a
condom, and the box was on the nightstand.  Not that she was
likely to be ovulating yet.

     "Long ago, Catherine Angelique, when your mother was young
and naive, not devious and scheming like she is now...."  He
paused to allow a denial; none came.  "She had the misfortune to
marry your father.  They go camping on their honeymoon, a very
in-tents experience."  He petted Jeanette, including the outside
of her vulva, while describing the trip, that day, the camping
site, and the excursion to and from the farmhouse to get
permission.  Describing her hips moving in front of him, he
recalled them vividly; and this led him to press against their
wider and softer -- but equally sexy -- successors.

     "Then we get into the sleeping bag and talk, somewhat as we
are talking now, except Maman participates a little bit more.  We
kiss and pet and cuddle.  I see a contraceptive at the side of my
head.  Maman had put it there to let me know that she accepted me
in all ways, physical as well as emotional."  He had never
expressed to Jeanette what that acceptance had meant.  He tried
now with a kiss on the back of her neck.  He reached into the box
and sheathed himself with less fumbling than he had on that
night.  "I was lying holding Maman as I am now.  With the
contraceptive on, I slide into Maman."  Jeanette pushed her hips
back in an obvious invitation.  It took a lot longer to enter her
than it had taken to tell, but she was as wet and warm and
welcoming as she had been on that night long ago.

     "And feel her love surround me..."

     "Et je suis sensible a l'insertion de ton papa.  Elle fait
beaucoup plaisir a moi.  Il enroule son acier avec la douceure
infinie."  He lost a couple of words, but that she had been
happy came across.

     "And your father, who had loved your mother for years, loved
her even more.  And he moved in her like this, but a wee bit more
strongly because there was no Kitten to disturb."

     Jeanette pressed her hips back farther.  His shoulders were
now near the edge of the bed.  He could no longer express himself
in words; he broke the silence only by soft grunts as he thrust
home.  He remembered the lovely and love-filled union in the
forest clearing, Jeanette's acceptance of him slowly turning to
eagerness and then to passion.  He experienced her present
enthusiastic participation, instigating the whole thing and
urgently pressing against him as he thrust into her.

     When her finger pressed on the base of his phallus, just
where the sack began, he lost it.  He pounded into her and poured
into her, only sensing her climax as it ended after his was done.

     They lay like that for minutes.  He couldn't even respond to
The Kitten's complaint.  Jeanette hushed her, though, and rocked
her for a bit before laying her in her crib.  She woke him a half
hour later.

     "The train is stopped right now, but they still expect it in
twenty-five minutes."  He got up, washed, dressed, and was almost
awake enough to drive by the time that he got to the car.  There
was another delay reported, though, after he arrived at the
station.  The waiting group looked lost in the station intended
for a much larger crowd.  He could sit with his arms spread
across the bench-back without touching, or even getting near,
another person.  It was very restful.

                              - = -

     When someone did touch him, it was Vi.  "Sorry I'm so late,"
she said.

     "That's okay.  I need to walk a bit before I drive, though.
Need the john?"  At her head-shake, he took her bag and loaded it
into the car.  She walked with him around the parking lot.

     Jeanette was dressed when they got home, and their bed was
made.  Their bedroom, or rather the room that they were sharing
with The Kitten, was Kathleen's second stop.  "She is *so*
precious!" she whispered.  "So precious."  How can you respond to
a self-evident truth?  "Thanks for sending those pictures."

     When The Kitten cried, Kathleen had her in her arms before
the parents had moved.  It wasn't a hungry cry; she wouldn't
scream if it wasn't answered.  "Want to change her?" he asked.

     "Oh yes!"  Kathleen didn't even complain about their
laughter.

                             - = = -

Jeanette supervised the changing, telling Kathleen where to find
things but letting her actually do it.  She brought the bouncy
seat with her out to the kitchen, but she had no illusion that
The Kitten would spend much time in it.

     They grabbed a snack to tide them over until a very late
lunch, when Kathleen's young man could join them.

     After she stored the casserole in the 'fridge, she sent Bob
back to his homework while she, Kathleen, and The Kitten had a
hen party in the living room.  When she went into the bedroom for
The Kitten's favorite rattle, she grabbed the little tape
recorder.  Kathleen's presence made conversations about Bob's
father more likely.

     Kathleen was holding The Kitten when the phone rang.  She
handed her unceremoniously to Jeanette on her way to the phone.
"Brennan residence," she said.

     "Oh, hi.  Yes it's me.  How much time?  Half an hour is
fine."  She called to Jeanette, "Can he park on the street
outside the building?  Illegal?  Unsafe?"

     "That's fine if he can find a space.  This isn't Cleveland."

     "If you can find a space....  Love you too."

     She didn't expect Kathleen to stand on ceremony, but
grabbing the phone like that seemed odd.  So did relaying
directions instead of handing her the phone.

     Their conversation drifted for a while.  Then she took the
bull by the horns.  "Why did Greg's baby gift have your name on
it?" she suddenly asked Kathleen.  She would recognize Greg's
voice on the phone, of course.

     "It did?  I didn't know that.  What was it?"

     "A Snuggli," a surprisingly useful gift from her bachelor
brother.

     "Figures," Kathleen said.  "When he heard you were
expecting, he wrote asking me for a suggestion.  I told him that
I would have loved to give you a Snuggli, but I was broke.  You
understand.  It's silly when you consider the size of my debts,
but they can only be applied to tuition and such."

     "We appreciate *When We Were Very Young*."  They had Bob's
but those books weren't in shape for a child to handle anymore.

     "Anyway, he must have taken my 'broke' description too
literally."

     "I didn't know you two were even acquainted before I got
that gift.  I thought that was a gag or something.  He wrote that
it was from the two of you, but it was his handwriting and posted
in San Diego."  Actually, she had wondered, but the time for
questions had passed before she had worked up the energy to
mention it.  All her discussions with Vi seemed to be about The
Kitten.

     "You know that we knew each other.  He came back with you to
the house sometimes."

     "Well, yes.  But you were in high school."

     "But your Christmas letter mentioned my acceptance at Johns
Hopkins.  He was stationed at Norfolk at the time, with frequent
trips to Washington.  He called me up on one of those trips, and
took me out to dinner.  The distances really aren't that great.
We stayed in touch."

     "He's too old for you."

     "Jeanette, he was a *perfect* gentleman.  Unlike some of my
fellow students.  You mean all the world to him; you are all the
family that he cares to claim.  He wasn't about to foul that up
by taking liberties with me.  I saw him maybe five or six times
in two years.  Then he finally got a seagoing assignment.  What
brings him up?"

     Well five or six times in two years was more than she heard
from him, thinking the world of her or not.  She was saved from
answering by the buzzer from downstairs.  Once again, Kathleen
jumped up.  She buzzed him in without using the speaker at all,
not that Jeanette hadn't done that in the past.  This time,
Jeanette was going to be the one not standing on ceremony.

     "Hold The Kitten," she said and pressed her into Kathleen's
hands.  She went to the door and opened it.


Part 3

     Her first thought was that Kathleen had buzzed in the wrong
man.  He was carrying a suitcase as her guest should.  But his
skin was the color of milk chocolate.

     Kathleen was behind her now, carrying The Kitten.  "Char!"
she said.

     He looked up, blinked, and hurried up the last few steps
with a smile glowing on his face.  Standing level with her, he
looked much larger than he had from above.  He was about Bob's
height, but he was much wider, with shoulders that filled the
doorway.  The effort he had to make to take his eyes off Kathleen
was obvious, but his smile was warm when he said, "Mrs. Brennan?"
He had a rich, very deep, voice.

     "Guilty."

     "Charles Johnson."

     "Won't you come in?"  They were cluttering the doorway.  She
stepped back; Kathleen followed her still carrying The Kitten;
Charles came last carrying his suitcase.  He set that down and
went back to staring at Kathleen.  Yes, it was serious; that
lost-puppy look wasn't something that men would try to fake.

     "Oh, for heaven's sake."  She retrieved The Kitten.  "Make
yourself comfortable while I fetch my husband."

     Bob, who had obviously heard something, was stacking his
materials.  She stopped him with a gesture when he got up, and
handed him The Kitten.  She slipped the casserole into the oven
and turned it and the timer on.  She clattered her heels on the
way through the dining room.  Charles hadn't taken his coat off,
but Kathleen's hair was mussed and her cheek was flushed.  How,
Jeanette wondered suddenly, can you tell that a black person has
been kissing?  Anyway, they had taken care of that.

     "Now let me take your coat.  Oops!  That is Bob, this is The
Kitten, I'm Jeanette.  And that is Dr. Charles Johnson."

     She took his coat and hung it in the coat closet.  "This is
all the closet space that we have to offer you, I'm afraid.  You
two fight it out.  The facilities are way at the other end of the
apartment, through the dining room and kitchen and to the left.
You have the blue towels; for that matter, you have the towel set
that hasn't been mussed up.  Lunch in an hour, coffee available
now.  Anything that you don't see, ask."

     Bob stepped forward and shook his hand.  "Welcome, Dr.
Johnson."  Charles's hand enveloped Bob's, making it look as tiny
as hers did in Bob's.

     "Charles.  May I?"  He was looking at The Kitten.  He held
out his hands.  She looked him over before lunging in his
direction.  The girl thought the law of gravity didn't apply to
her.  He watched her face as he swung her up in a loop that ended
with her on his forearm.  "Catherine Angelique Brennan, I have
heard so much about you!"  He gave her forehead a big kiss.

     "Oooh!" said The Kitten.

     Jeanette had been making a study of what people did with
babies after saying that they were cute.  Often, whatever their
expressed opinion, they didn't seem to feel that babies were cute
enough to actually look at.  Then there were the Bob-type people;
put a baby in front of them, and they forgot everyone else.  One
man in Bob's church had cut in front of her in the line going
out of church; he had then conducted a conversation with The
Kitten (who was on her father's shoulder ahead of him) until it
was time to greet the pastor.  Some people talked about The
Kitten as if she weren't present, some didn't talk at all but
cuddled her, some sang to her, others praised her in a way that
would have turned her head if she could understand.

     Charles was something new.  He held her and watched her
intently, and he certainly kept her attention; but he said almost
nothing.  He clicked his fingers on one side of her until she
turned to the sound and then repeated that on the other side.  He
made some silly faces at her, which she imitated as always.

     "Char!" said Kathleen.  He took no notice.  She sat down on
end of the couch farthest from him.  When his playing seemed to
shift, she said, "Didn't bring your blinking light?"

     "She's a bit old for the Brazelton."

     "She is my niece; Jeanette is my sister-in-law.  Do you
think that she hasn't been taken for regular checkups?  Having a
little busman's holiday, are we?  You're supposed to have your
fill of babies.  Anyway, you aren't in your hospital; you can't
practice medicine here."

     "No offense meant."  He handed the baby to Jeanette.  "I was
just delighting in her health, as other people delight in her
prettiness."  He switched his attention to Kathleen.  "As if!  I
have my fill of charts.  I don't see many healthy children these
days, ironically."

     "Ironically?" Bob was as lost as she was.

     Kathleen snorted.  "He's a pediatric resident, Bob.  We
don't see healthy *anything*."  She didn't have to sound so
dismissive.  She hadn't told them that; she hadn't told them
anything.  Bob had been honestly puzzled.  Clearly she was
determined that, pick as she might at her young man, nobody else
was going to pick at him.

     This took Jeanette away from concern about a new guest and
pride in her daughter to considering the couple.  Charles might
just be strong enough for Kathleen; the lost-puppy look didn't
mean that he would change direction for her sulks.

     She didn't like Kathleen's brittleness, though.  On the
other hand, maybe the brittleness resulted from the situation,
not the man.  Well, it was a brittle situation; and Kathleen's
mystery game hadn't helped it.  It was Jeanette's duty to ease
the tension.  Especially since Bob was giving three quarters of
his attention to his daughter.  Bob did what were essentially
upside-down pushups, raising and lowering The Kitten.

     "Ooooh," she said.

     "Non, ma jeune fille," he said.  "It's not August.  It's
November.  Say 'noh vom brrr.'"

     "Ooooh."

     "I thought Mrs. Brennan was the one who spoke French,"
Charles said.  "Do you both speak French to her?"

     Jeanette wondered whether this reference to Bob's few words
in his atrocious accent as "speaking French" was a formal
courtesy, or whether his ear was as bad as Bob's was.  But there
was a more immediate problem.

     "Mrs. Brennan sent her that dress.  I'm Jeanette.  And if
you're going to expect us to call you 'Dr. Johnson,' you should
have warned Kathleen.  She only spoke of 'Charles.'"

     "Well, Jeanette, the truth is that that's the name I've
heard applied to you.  And Kath has told me lots about you."

     "Can't say the same," Bob said.

     "Wasn't any of your business," Kathleen said.  "Anyway, I
tried to avoid any mention of your shortcomings.  So he has heard
almost nothing about you."

     "Now Kath...."

     "Don't worry, Charles.  They've been squabbling like this
since Kathleen was in grade school.  What does a pediatric
resident do?"

     "Whatever a pediatrician does, except cash checks.  A
*first-year* pediatric resident, however, does just about what a
medical intern does.  Kath will have told you that.  Except that
the patients in my ward don't answer most of the questions; we
have to go to the parents.  It's no job for a man who likes kids,
and I'm a man who likes kids.

     "Do you know what 'He's in a lot of pain now, and he's too
young to understand why; but the pain will be gone in a week, and
he'll be able to play normally in two months' is called?"

     "No."

     "Good news."  The tone was rather bitter for a joke.  "Of
course, there's the other side.  They come in sick, and they
usually go out better -- if not well.  Not that my contribution
to that is much right now.  But I was raised to ask whether I was
making a difference, and doctors make a difference.  You started
off with a mere fertilized ovum and look what you created."
Jeanette couldn't see the comparison for a moment.  "But men
can't do that.  Repair is the next best thing."

     She could see, if not what Kathleen saw in this man, the
substance that could match hers.  The other was always a mystery.
His face was animated, as it had previously been only when
dealing with The Kitten.  "So," she asked, "have you planned on
being a pediatrician for a long time?"  Vi had chosen
psychoanalysis in junior high, to the amusement of her family.

     "No.  It is only the next best thing.  I went to Johns
Hopkins planning to go into obstetrics."

     The oven timer went ping.  She would have to deal with that,
but the conversation couldn't end here.  "So what changed your
mind?"

     "My body."  He held up his huge hands.  "My professors
pointed out that no woman would want these going into her
vagina."

     "Shows," said Kathleen, "how much your professors knew."

     "Kath!"  Was Charles's face a shade darker?

     "Famine alert," said Bob.  Now there were three things to
do.

     "I'm going to need help in the kitchen, Kathleen.  You bring
The Kitten."  With any luck, she could get her blouse and bra
open before The Kitten started crying.

     "They are marvelous hands really, though," Kathleen said.
"Show him the nickel trick, Char."

     That delay was enough.  The Kitten was announcing her hunger
before Kathleen brought her to Jeanette.  She latched on as if
the adults around her were fighting her off instead of rushing
her to the breast.  Once she had her first mouthful, however, she
relaxed.

     Kathleen was clearly anxious to get back to the other room.
Tough!  Jeanette wasn't going to have the first meal that Charles
ate in her house ruined because she couldn't cook and nurse at
the same time.  Vi had been doing a rotten job of managing
Charles's interaction with Bob, anyway.  "Turn off the oven.
It's the knob on the right center," she began.

     When Bob's roaring laugh came from the other room, she could
see the tension lift off Vi.  But she had almost no time to talk
to The Kitten.  She had to micromanage Kathleen; there would have
been plenty of time for her to dart back into the living room if
the meal preparations were done efficiently.  Even with Jeanette
thinking up directions, they came to a break.

     "Vi."  Kathleen looked surprised; Jeanette had been the
least guilty of all the family about calling her by her old name.
Tough!  She was dealing with a teenager right then.  "What is
your primary goal for this weekend?"

     "Well, of course, The Kitten has to be baptized."

     "Pffft."  That goal had nothing to do with Charles's visit.

     "Well, I like him; and I want you to like him and him to
like you."

     "How do you tell when a Black man is blushing?"

     "His eyes.  There are folds around his eyes which darken
quite obviously.  And it's subtle enough that he never learned to
suppress it."  Leave it to a Brennan to enjoy embarrassing
someone she loved.

     "It took me a long hard time to reconcile Bob to the news
that 'little Vi' is sexually active.  You don't have to rub his
nose in it."

     "I'm 27, Jeanette.  Twenty seven, for the love of God.
Thanks for the robe by the way, and the pictures."  She'd already
thanked them for the pictures once.  "Bob is as bad as my father.
And mother put us in different rooms.  Not that she had any
illusions; 'Try to make both beds look slept-in,' she said.  Both
beds were slept in: my bed the first night and your bed the
second.  Did you know that they gave me a much better quality
mattress and spring set when I was maybe fourteen?  You got
cheated because Bob could sleep hanging on a hook.  But Dad put a
bolt on your door before your first trip home; I still don't have
one.

     "Anyway, I think that Dad actually believes that we slept
apart.  I'm a big girl, I've been a big girl for quite some time,
and I'm tired of being little Vi."

     "Fine!  Is that what's important?"

     "No that isn't what's important.  Not what's most important.
You sound like Dr. Schumacher.  Maybe I should have been the
translator."

     "Everybody else's life is easy.  She's finally done; would
you ask Bob to come in here?"

     "You have to see this," Bob said before they sat down to the
meal.  Charles took a nickel and put it on the back of his index
finger.  Just moving the fingers up and down rolled the nickel
back and forth across his hand.  It showed remarkable dexterity
but wasn't *that* impressive; it did remind her of how big those
hands were, though.  His fingers must be twice as long as hers.

     "Have another nickel?" he asked.  She didn't, but Bob
produced one.  Charles rolled one on each hand, going in the same
direction, going in the opposite direction, stopping in the
middle on both hands and then changing directions on one.  Then
he flipped them into the air simultaneously, caught them with one
hand, and slipped them into his pocket.  For a moment she
couldn't figure out why Bob was laughing again.

     "Char!"  Kathleen sounded angry.

     "But that *is* the nickel trick."

     "Would you seat me, please, Charles?"  Bob, taking the hint,
helped his sister into her chair.  His grace was succinct while
mentioning the visitors.  Then they passed the food.

     Charles took a swig of coffee.  "That *is* coffee," he said
in a tone of deep appreciation.  Kathleen laughed.

     "Jeanette taught me," Bob said.  "And then she swore off."

     "So, how long have you known Kathleen?" Jeanette asked.
"She hasn't told us anything."

     "I met her our first month at Johns Hopkins."

     "And I *did* tell you.  I can remember crying to you over
the phone.  That was our first break-up, Char."

     "Let's get this straight," Jeanette vaguely remembered the
phone call and felt she needed to defend herself.  "You tell me
that you had fallen in love, but you and the boy are never going
to see each other again.  That serves as notice that you are
still dating him four years later?"

     "Well," Bob said, "it was from Kathleen, after all."  He was
being real good about remembering her name.  Now, if he could
stop baiting his sister....

     "I wasn't claiming that I'd told you *everything*; you were
claiming that I hadn't told you *anything*."

     After that, Kathleen and Charles recited an obviously-edited
history of their romance.  Not only was there no mention of bed,
there was no mention of any later break-ups, although the "first
break-up" had lasted long enough for Kathleen to date several
other men.

     "...And then he sat down and played the piano without any
music in front of him.  You should hear him play."

     "I played 'Fuer Elise.'  That moment was when I began to
suspect that she felt for me something like what I felt for her.
When you praise the way an adult plays 'Fuer Elise,' it's
certainly not music criticism, it just might be love."

     "It sounded lovely.  You played it beautifully."

     "I could play the piano once.  It takes too much time to
keep in practice.  That piece does sound lovely; it was written
by a genius to sound lovely -- to sound lovely when a beginner
plays it.  Well, I don't quite qualify as a beginner.  I'm more
of an ex-pianist.  I hope to play again some day, but that takes
an hour a day.  That's one hour more than I have right now."

     "Do you play by ear?" asked Bob.

     "Nope," Charles said.  "Fingers, like most people."
Kathleen stuck her tongue out at Bob.  She'd had four years,
after all, and knew all her brother's jokes.

     "But," said Kathleen at the end of the meal, "the way they
do internship match-ups sucks.  We ended up three hundred miles
away from each other."

     Charles added: "We said 'goodbye,' 'it's been wonderful,'
'too bad it had to end.'  We exchanged addresses.  A couple of
weeks later, I wrote her a *long* letter saying that I didn't
want it to end.  Argued endlessly that it really didn't have to.
Got a note from her before I finished it.  She put almost the
same ideas in a nutshell.  She enclosed her phone number."

     "I still have the letter, which he never finished.  He put
it in the mail and called me."

     "You should see our phone bills."

     "And we decided that somehow being three hundred miles apart
made this much more serious.  We should tell the families."

     "Now there," said Bob, "is an original idea.  Telling the
family.  Do you think that you could get a patent?  I'm sure that
no-one else has ever thought of it."

     Kathleen responded in kind.  As the fight escalated,
Jeanette caught Charles's eye; they began to break up.  The
Brennan kids continued to squabble in rising voices until the
howls of their audience were louder yet.

     "It's not funny," Kathleen said.  In the ensuing silence,
The Kitten, excited by all that noise and laughter, crowed and
kicked so her bouncy seat was bouncing at its extreme arc.

     "Yes it is," Jeanette managed to gasp out before she was
overcome again.  "See?"

     Bob, and finally Kathleen, joined in the laughter that time.

     When they were nearly respectable again, Jeanette said,
"Seconds anybody?  Thirds anybody?  I'm thinking of moving this
back to the living room."

     "Take your coffee cup if you think that you might want
more," said Bob.

     "Take mine," said Kathleen.  She swooped down on The Kitten
and freed her from the bouncy seat.

     Charles collected two cups.  "Oh, Jeanette," he said.  The
man was learning.  She looked a question at him.  "One thing you
should be careful about this weekend.  You shouldn't spoil your
daughter."  What?  Was she spoiling The Kitten?  Could you spoil
a kid that young?

     "That's right," said Kathleen.  But Kathleen had confirmed
that you *couldn't* spoil a baby in the first half year.
Jeanette had depended on that information.

     "Leave all the spoiling to her aunt."

     "Yes.  I've got dibs."

     "You!" Jeanette told him.  "You are going to fit right in
with the Brennan family."

     "Why thank you," he said.  Just as if he had received a
compliment.

     When the adults were seated, Jeanette scattered toys in a
rough circle around the living-room carpet.  Then she persuaded
Kathleen to put The Kitten in the middle.  Perversely, The Kitten
decided that Charles's shoe laces were the most fascinating
things in the world.  He had his legs crossed, and she rolled
right under the raised shoe.  He was tolerant of having it
unlaced, but he picked her up when she started chewing the laces
from the shoe on the floor.

     "Those are dirty, Li'l Kath.  We don't eat them.  No."  He
shook his head from side to side.  "No, no, no."  He brought her
up to his face until their foreheads touched.

     "She's not 'Little Kath,' Char."  Kathleen's voice was low
and even.  Somehow that didn't make it sound emotionless.  "She
isn't even "Little Jeanette."  She is her *own* person.  "Kitten"
is fine, "Catherine Angelique" is fine.

     "Okay, li'l Kitten, your aunt will protect you.  Want to go
back down and play with a rattle?"

                             - = = -

Bob was intrigued by this byplay.  And it reminded him of a
nagging question.  "Speaking of names," he asked, "is this 'Kath'
business something new that we're going to be expected to learn?"

     "Only one person calls me 'Kath.'"

     "Fair enough."  She had quite enough names already.

     "Truce?" she asked.  Generally an offered truce was
accepted.

     "I'm not sure.  I don't want to fight, and I apologize for
the sarcasm.  On the other hand, I think that this whole mystery
tour bit was something which Jeanette didn't deserve, and Mom and
Dad *certainly* didn't deserve.  Let's face it, what you are
saying is 'My family is so racist that they won't accept that I'm
romantically involved with a Black man.'  And that isn't true."

     "I'll take full responsibility for that," said Charles.

     "No you won't.  You didn't know them from Adam.  She had
eighteen years with them.  She knew better."

     "Well," Kathleen said, "at first I didn't want to tell them
anything.  You can, and I've known girls who have, write home:
'I'm dating this guy,' and not mention that he's Black.  There
isn't any way that I could have written: 'And by the way he's
Black,' without writing 'I'm dating this guy,'  Now is there?
And I'd stopped doing that.  The first year in college, I'd give
Mom reports -- even pictures -- of the guys I was dating.  The
second year I decided not to.  She asked once how my social life
was going.  I told her that it was fine, and she accepted that."

     "She didn't even tell me that she was seeing *Greg*," said
Jeanette.

     "I wasn't *seeing* Greg.  He even took Charles and me out to
dinner one night.  He liked me, and I was a connection to you.
He told me once that if there had been some way to come to our
house for Christmas but not yours, he would have made the effort.
Anyway, I liked him too.  And I'll admit that I didn't make any
great effort to inform my friends that the older naval officer
was not a romantic interest."

     "She claimed that she wasn't trying to make me jealous."
Charles didn't sound convinced.

     "I was trying to make some of the other women jealous, and I
succeeded.  We were all such a grungy lot, men and women both.
I'm surprised that nobody wore scrubs on their dates.  Anyway,
the time that he treated us both to dinner -- disaster though
that was -- should have convinced you that it wasn't a romantic
interest."

     "I thought that was a great dinner.  Did it disagree with
you?"

     "Jeanette, you remember how Greg has this rheostat southern
accent.  Well, the two of them spent the meal trying to outdo
each other in talking southern."

     "There was a little of that, not the whole meal.  Kath got
annoyed for some reason."

     "Char was born and raised in Philadelphia -- well the
suburbs.  Baltimore is as far south as he ever spent any
appreciable amount of time."

     "Hey!  My mother is from Georgia, and my father's folks are
from Mississippi."

     "Some of my ancestors came from Germany.  That doesn't give
me a German accent."  She took a deep breath.  "Anyway, Bob, you
know how Mom always was: 'Do you want to talk about it, dear?'
Well I hadn't wanted to talk about it for a long time.  And
Charles and I spent too much time in 'This can't go on' mode."

     "Well," said Jeanette, "I can see some of that.  Though I
can't escape the feeling that, if your mother had been my mother,
I'd have told her *everything*."

     "No you wouldn't have.  You have one reason for not telling
your mother anything.  Don't think that other women don't have
other reasons.  Part of it is simply autonomy.  Believe me: Mom
may feel insulted that I didn't tell her about Char, but she
would have been asking herself where she had gone wrong if I had
turned out to be the kind of girl who does tell her mother
everything.

     "In all seriousness, look at Bob.  He wasn't exactly a model
of full disclosure.  The first time I saw you, you'd come to the
door to ask Mom if there were any mail for you.  This was, what?
Three years after you had started dating?"

     "Nearly," said Jeanette.

     "That's not a fair comparison," he answered.  "Mom and Dad
had met her.  You might not have been paying attention, but I had
mentioned her at table.  You were my bratty kid sister, not
trying to start a war -- that was what you were then.  There was
no reason that you should meet my dates.  There is really no
reason that I should meet yours, even now.  Mom is something
else."

     "You're the one who's not being fair.  You were living at
home.  Dad met my dates when I was living at home, or I didn't
date.  'Why do you need the car, Bob?'  I met Charles four years
after leaving home.  I wasn't borrowing the car.  I wasn't using
Mom for a mail box.

     "Which leads to an interesting question.  You've heard a
blow-by-blow description of our three years.  I have never heard
why your letters went via Mom."  There was a good reason that she
hadn't heard that.  For that matter, "blow by blow" was a gross
exaggeration.  But then, did he really want to hear more than
they wanted to tell?  He wasn't about to ask why Charles
considered his sister good in bed.

     "Should we tell her?" Jeanette asked.  "It seems to be a
time for telling stories."

     "Your call.  If I'd known she was interested, I'd have done
more to keep her in suspense."

     "Well, it being my call:  Bob was working on road
construction for the second summer.  Our only connection was by
mail.  Then one day, my mother read one of his letters.  She
demanded that I never speak, let alone write, to him again.  So I
wrote him a letter telling him that, and I asked if he could find
someone who would pass along his letters to me.  I expected that
it would be a fellow student."

     "And," Bob took up the story, "I tried to think of who I
could trust.  Maybe a high-school friend would do it, but there
wasn't one whom I couldn't see reading the letters and passing
them around; at least, he might tell the story to everyone.  Some
parent would hear, and they would tell her mother.  So I wrote
Mom asking if she would do it.  She wrote back that she wouldn't
open the inner envelope, but that I had to promise that I would
write nothing which would shame her by passing through her hands.

     "That took care of the problem, but Jeanette's mother still
tried to break us up when I got back.  She threatened to tell my
parents about the contents of the letter she had intercepted.
I'd told them myself, putting it in context.  Dad thought that I
was one damn fool, but..."

     "Correctly," Vi wasn't reopening the war; that comment was
almost a requirement of their relationship.

     "Well, in this case, yes.  But he was really shocked about
opening someone else's mail.  Not that Mrs. Baker doesn't open
his every day.  But Jeanette was sixteen, for the love of God."

     "Turned seventeen while this was happening," she put in.

     "This is none of my business," said Charles, "but what had
shocked Jeanette's mother?"

     "None of Kathleen's either.  Well, she might have been less
shocked if she had seen the previous correspondence.  Maybe not.
But what had gone before was that I tell Jeanette that I thought
that she was much prettier than the centerfold in my latest
*Playboy*.  She writes back that she wasn't happy about my
reading *Playboy*; I should have desire only for her.  This leads
to an exchange of several more letters.  We talk about other
things in those letters, too.

     "Anyway, I finally write that I would abandon *Playboy* and
only lust after pictures of her.  What I needed, however, were
pictures of her in positions like those of the centerfold model.
Which I describe in fairly vivid detail.  I was trying to get her
off my case; there is no way that she would have posed for
pictures like that even if there had been someone to take them.
My pictures of her were from the yearbook, that sort of thing.  I
still don't have pictures of her that I couldn't show in church
without embarrassing her.  Not that I wouldn't enjoy such, but I
have the real thing."

     "And that," Jeanette broke in, "had to be the letter which
arrived when mommy was home.  I had been intercepting the mail
before she got it.  I took letters from Bob, and left any other
mail that might be addressed to me."

     At that point, The Kitten tired of her rattle.  She threw it
for two feet and rolled over to the teddy bear.  She lay on her
back and lifted it as he sometimes lifted her.  The bear slipped,
making him hope that the comparison that he'd just made hadn't
occurred to Jeanette.  "Isn't she the cutest baby in the whole
world?

     "Anyway," he continued, "that isn't the end of our problems,
but that is the end of the mail episode.  Except that Jeanette
and I used Mom for a mail cut-out until Jeanette went to college.
We were married at the end of that year," he explained to
Charles.

     "School year," Jeanette explained.  "June not December."

     "And an absolutely lovely wedding," said Kathleen.
"Jeanette had me as a bridesmaid, which was incredibly generous
of her."

     "I don't see that as generosity at all.  And by that time
we'd become close friends."

     "Well, I appreciated it.  And you should see Bob in a monkey
suit.  Jeanette, on the other hand, looked breathtakingly
beautiful when we finally got the wedding dress to look right,
and *so* solemn."  He could remember how she looked, not that she
wasn't breathtakingly beautiful every day.  But that day she had
looked ethereal, and that wasn't Jeanette's usual style.

     The Kitten rolled to another stuffed animal, a dog with no
fuzz.  She rejected it immediately and rolled to a soft world
globe.  She was getting fussy.  He didn't want to get up, but he
had to.  One sniff told him that she was messy.

     "She's getting political," he said.

     "Want me to do it?" Kathleen asked.  Hah!  She probably
thought that she was only wet.  "Want to watch?"  He didn't
particularly, but that seemed to have been addressed to Charles
who followed her out of the room.

     He came back so soon that it looked like he had bounced.
"Ah.  Do you mind my going into your bedroom?"

     "Go ahead," Jeanette said.  As long as it was The Kitten's
room, it was public space.

     When Charles brought her back, The Kitten looked two months
younger in his arms.  "Hold it there," Jeanette warned.  While he
did, Bob picked up the toys so he wouldn't trip over them.  There
wasn't going to be much independent play this weekend, he could
tell.

     Charles swung her up and down while he waited.  "Aout!" she
said.

     Before he could correct her, Charles made his own response.
"Oooo."  It was a deep bass, musical even in Bob's ears.

     "Oooh!" she agreed.

     "Oooooo...."  Charles used a full breath to hold that note,
which was a little lower.

     They continued their dialogue until Charles couldn't get
lower.  Then Charles set her between him and Kathleen on the
couch and played fetch-the-rattle for a while.  He would give it
to her, she would shake it for a moment, she would toss it down,
then she would look for it until Charles retrieved it and gave it
to her again.  Bob was happy to see that there was another sucker
in the world.  Jeanette's response to a thrown-down toy was "All
gone!"

     "Isn't she the cutest baby in the whole world?" he asked.

     Jeanette quoted, "Does that question count on the final
grade?"  And then they had to tell the story of the student who
had first made that response.

     He went off to fix dinner soon after that.  Jeanette didn't
come out to nurse The Kitten, which said everything about her
comfort level with the situation in the living room.  Charles
passed through the kitchen once on the way to the john.  "Smells
good," he said.

     "Thanks.  Want to kill the coffee?"  Charles did so, and Bob
began a fresh pot for dinner.

     Charles's footsteps paused in the dining room.  When they
went on, Kathleen's approached him.  She went on to the john.
Who did they think they were fooling?  Who did *he* think he was
fooling?  It wasn't as if he could have kept his hands off
Jeanette in a similar situation.  When the coffee was done, he
made sure the dinner would cook for fifteen minutes without him,
and set the timer for that fifteen minutes.  It was Jeanette's
timer, he clocked actual preparations by his watch.

     Then he announced in the living room: "There is a new pot of
coffee.  Anyone who wants to sample the quality can try it out."
The coffee drinkers went to do so.  When the timer pinged, he
returned to the kitchen to see Charles pouring the first cups
from the new pot.  Vi was quite composed and dignified, if her
color was a little high.  Her skirt, however, was rucked up in
back.


Part 4

     Jeanette watched as The Kitten got more and more fussy.
"I'd better take her.  She isn't too fond of this time of day,
but she seems more nearly content in my arms."

     Charles brought her over to the rocker and sat closer to
Kathleen on the couch on his return.  The Kitten took her
attention, and the couple told each other news of their lives
since they had spoken.  The Kitten was starting to get hungry.
Jeanette didn't want to move; would Charles be offended?  An MD?

     "Would it bother you if I fed her here?"

     "No!  If it would bother you, I'll go into the dining room."

     She unbuttoned her blouse and removed the pad from her right
breast.  Kathleen and Charles were getting along just fine
without her attention.  She told The Kitten all about their day
in murmured French.  Even in bed, she seldom actually fell asleep
while nursing.  In the rocker, which didn't even have arms, there
was no opportunity.  Nonetheless, she was far from her most
alert.  When The Kitten was quite done, she grabbed a spare
diaper from the bedroom for a spitcloth.  She returned to see
Charles asleep sitting up on the couch.

     She stood there, burping The Kitten and trying to avoid
Kathleen's eye.

     "I almost dropped off myself.  You don't know what waves of
peacefulness you two send out."

     "I really must apologize," Charles said when she returned
from putting The Kitten in her crib.  Kathleen wasn't there,
which meant that she was probably using the facilities.

     "Why?  It wasn't as if I had been paying my guests the
slightest attention.  Besides Kathleen says that it was my
fault."

     "Well, it is a restful environment."

     "And I can't imagine that you're well-rested.  Let's make an
early night of it.  A good hostess would have planned a tour of
scenic Grand Rapids; we sort of figured that you came to meet us
and The Kitten, and vice versa."  As if she expected them to
spend the night sleeping.  Oh well, Katherine could pretend; so
could she.  Anyway, the earlier that they got to bed, the *more*
sleeping they would do.

     "Quite true."

     "And speaking of assumptions.  We assumed that you would
like to come to the church service and see the baptism.  If so,
is your car available for transportation?"

     "I don't really think everybody would fit."

     "We probably wouldn't.  But neither would we all fit in our
car.  You'd be surprised how much room a car seat takes.  We
could take two trips."

     "I'm at your service."

     "I know which passenger you would prefer, but she doesn't
know the way either."

     Kathleen had returned in time to hear this.  "We could
follow your car."

     "Or you could sit in the backseat of ours.  That way you
could talk to The Kitten."

     "Char?  Would you mind?"

     "Go ahead.  Anyway, this trip is to meet your family."

     "We'll put Bob in your car to direct you, and we three girls
will have a hen party.  Not that it will last very long.  The
church is ten or so minutes by car."  Not, of course, counting
loading and unloading time.

     Dinner was Bob's special chicken grilled under the oven.  "I
can offer you beer with your meal," Bob told Charles.  "But I
warn you that it carries a risk."

     "Maybe later.  But you don't have to warn me about the risks
of drinking.  Doctors are immune."

     "We aren't immune to the risks," Kathleen explained, "just
to the warnings."
     "Ah, but there are special risks chez nous.  The Friday
after my birthday, three friends from the department took me out
to a bar to celebrate.  Each of them bought a round, and I wasn't
allowed to.  Then I *walked* home.  It wasn't concern for safety;
Jeanette had the car.  But it's a mile and a half, and it totally
cleared my head.  When I got home, The Kitten wouldn't give me
the time of day."

     "I think," said Jeanette, "that she didn't like the smell."

     "*I* think that she is a little puritan.  Three beers, I ask
you!  And she was still standoffish the next morning.  This from
a girl who'll go to almost any stranger.  Anyway I had an open
six-pack in the refrigerator then, and it's still there now."

     "I'll think about that.  Look, I said that the surprise in
my visit was something for which I take the blame, and it is.
First, Kath wanted to introduce me to your parents at
graduation."

     "As I said," Kathleen put in, "my emotional life was none of
their business, but I did want them to meet my best friend for
the last four years.  Anyway, Charles had heard loads about
them.  Besides, I wanted to meet his sister."

     "My sis, Isis.  But I had *two* families there.  My mother
and my step-mother were trying to be civil to each other.  And,
frankly, one of the issues between my parents was that my father
is much more Afro-centric.  Nobody would have said anything to
offend Kathleen, but ... Mom and Dad can zap each other with
comments *I* can't follow."

     "Well," Jeanette said, "Katherine did comment that it would
have been nice to have met you at graduation."

     "I thought Kath said that you hadn't spoken since my visit
there."

     "We haven't...."

     "And," Bob put in, "you don't know what that was asking of
the two of them."

     "... But we did have a talk after your visit was announced.
Katherine thought Kathleen might have worked up to it more
gradually.  First, 'I've met this boy,' and several stages to
'And we are living together.'  Not that you are, but...."

     "So, you see, Kath only did what I asked."

     "Well," Kathleen said, "Bob's right for a wonder.  I *did*.
You asked, but the actions were still mine.  Anyway, your
expectations were confounded, admit that."

     "I didn't have expectations.  I had questions, which were
answered favorably for the most part.  Both your parents were
quite gracious, and their shock was brief.  But remember what
your father said when I asked him directly.  He would back your
choice and your right to choose, but he would have preferred that
you had chosen someone who was white."

     "You asked him that question?" asked Bob.

     "That precise question."

     "Charles, you misjudge my family.  My father, Kathleen's
father, will back his daughter against the world.  Give him a
what-if, and he'll answer a what-if.  Why blame him for that?
Draw up sides, and he's on Kathleen's side.  Period.

     "Anyway, do you think it is unreasonable of him to say that
there are problems, even today, in an interracial relationship?
I mean, isn't that the story that I've heard the two of you tell
today?  What he did was pay you the compliment of dealing with
you honestly.

     "Now, I'll wager that he did nothing at all to make Vi
change her mind."

     Jeanette would bet on that, too.  Partly it was the respect
that the senior Brennan's paid to their children's autonomy.
Partly it was the absurdity of the concept: "Make Vi change her
mind."

     "Did the three of them get into any really good
conversations when you were there?" she asked.  "You really need
all four of them for the full effect, but three can be
entertainment enough."

     "Well, yes.  The family can talk, but I'd expect that of
Kath's relatives."

     "Look who's talking!"

     "Now, now," Jeanette said.  "You can't fight with him; it
would ruin the impression that you're trying to make.  What did
you think of his family?"

     "Um!" said Charles.  "We haven't crossed that bridge yet."

     "And," said Kathleen, "I can make that as great a surprise
as the visit home.  I can just see us knocking on your father's
door."

     "I thought," said Bob, "that you were pretending to be a
grown-up these days."

     "Hush, Bob," Jeanette said.  "She's too smart to *do* it,
but she deserves the right to *plan* it.  It's all the fun and
none of the damage."  And if that didn't communicate to Kathleen,
nothing would.

     "I act more of a grown-up than *you* do, brother mine.  You
couldn't imitate an adult on your best day."

     "Sure I can.  I do a great imitation.  You should see me in
faculty meetings."

     "Charles says that he can drive tomorrow.  I said that you
would ride with him to give the directions.  I'll take Kathleen
and The Kitten in our car."  She was a Brennan, said so on her
driver's license.  She could change the subject whenever she
wanted to.

     "Sounds good to me.  Anybody want more chicken?"

     Charles did.  She and Kathleen hadn't really done the dinner
justice after the snack and late lunch, but the men were still
eating.  Now that balancing the budget was not such an intense
effort, she had come to appreciate having a man who ate her
cooking with such gusto.  (Though she remembered in her heart of
hearts that he would eat PBJs with gusto.)  But she had never
figured out where it all went.  Of course both of them were big
men.

     Indeed, pigmentation aside, Kathleen had picked a man much
like dear old dad.  And, however often she affected horror of her
brother, much like dear old Bob, too.  Loomingly large, bright,
self assured, comfortable in their skins, self-deprecating humor,
*nice* voices.  Charles didn't sound like Bob, but both voices
sounded pleasant -- Bob's father too.  Listening to Bob wouldn't
be half so pleasant if his voice didn't sound so good whether you
were paying attention or no.  Too bad Bob couldn't carry a tune
in a bucket, but one couldn't have everything.

     At the next pause in the conversation, she asked Charles,
"You play the piano; do you sing as well?"

     "I've sung in the choir, but they never asked me to solo.
Another thing which has gone the way of spare time."

     "You know, in old French novels, doctors keep showing up as
generally well-read, well-educated, but also very social,
persons.  Is that a difference of time, or place, or is that the
possibility in front of you?  Or is it simply a convention?"

     "Ask the tough ones, don't you?  Well, doctors talk about
internship and residency as a sort of initiation which they had
to go through as well.  Things will get easier, our mentors only
put in comparable hours when there are real emergencies.

     "On the other hand, the men that I respect study journals
for hours a day, after years in the field.  An MD after your name
means that you once knew a hell of a lot, it doesn't really mean
that you've learned anything since then.  But there is so much
new to learn, I can't see myself ever really catching up.
Whatever I don't know now outside of medicine, I doubt if I'll
ever find time to learn later.  Small things, sure, but I don't
see myself becoming like the two of you, constantly widening your
horizons.  I respect that, and I envy that at the same time."

     The *two* of them were constantly widening their horizons?
Bob sure, but she was half-educated at best.

     "But you are going back to the piano in four years."  It
didn't sound like Kathleen was asking a question.

     "Yes I will.  Especially if I have a fan who impresses
easily.  And, after all, I'll probably have loads of time to read
in the first two years of building my practice."

     "And I'll have even more time."  Talk therapy was not a
growing field, and Kathleen had shared her nervousness about
building up enough of a practice to support herself.  Charles
needn't worry.  As Jeanette had learned, finding a good
pediatrician was difficult.

     "Well," Bob said.  "You always did have difficulty acquiring
patients."

     "Acquiring enough patience to deal with you?  Who could?
But look how much more experience I'll have had when I'm finally
dealing with hospitalized psychotics."  As an intern, Kathleen
was still learning general medicine.  Her psychiatric residency
would begin the next year.

     "Nah!  The hospitalized ones behave quite differently."

     "If we're still in Grand Rapids," Jeanette told Charles,
"give us a call.  I know enough women looking for a good
pediatrician to stock your patient list."

     "And will they still be looking in four years?"  He had a
point.  One of the women she thought of especially had an nine-
year-old.  Keep taking their kid to a pediatrician at thirteen?
Sure.  Look for a new one?  Why bother?

     Dinner never really ended.  They talked around congealing
plates for a long time, then she got up enough energy to clear.
Kathleen joined her, telling Bob and Charles to stay put.  The
food in the 'fridge, the dishes stacked, she got out the ice
cream.  "Get me four bowls," she said.

     "Charles is lactose intolerant."

     Shit!  Did she have an alternative dessert?  Not really.
But you can't eat dessert in front of a guest when he can't, not
chocolate fudge swirl.  Bob raised his eyebrows on her return,
having expected the dessert.  But food was her pidgin, and he
would let her run it even if he'd cooked the dinner.

     Kathleen began yawning, and apologizing for the yawns, soon
thereafter.  Jeanette avoided Bob's eyes.  "I think it is time to
put the doorway curtain up, Bob," she said.

     Charles held the other end, not needing a chair, and the
visual privacy was established.  Bob pulled out the sofa bed, and
she joined him in the kitchen to help with the dish washing.
First, however, they had a nice kiss and hug; they'd given the
younger couple some privacy that day, but hadn't enjoyed any for
themselves since Kathleen's arrival.

     It had been as stressful day, and she yawned during the hug.
Although quite genuine, it reminded them of Kathleen's hints.
She buried her face in Bob's shoulder, he buried his in the side
of her head, and they tried to keep their laughter silent.

     "Oh pardon me," Charles said.  He was standing there in a
robe with his trouser legs showing under it, a shaving kit in his
hand.  Bob waved him through while Jeanette disgraced herself
completely with an even worse case of giggles.

     When her bathroom time came up, she briefly contemplated the
diaphragm case.  Insertion wasn't much trouble, better safe than
sorry, etc.  But they weren't going to need it, and there was no
sense tempting herself.

     She fussed over the kitchen while Bob did his own bathroom
thing.  At the door to the bedroom, she called "Good night, you
two."  Bob echoed her, they responded.  She shut the door with
audible firmness.  They put their robes within easy reach, and
climbed into bed, Bob first.  Bob didn't look bad in pajamas,
strange, but not bad.

                              - = -

Jeanette awoke to the restless movements of The Kitten, who -- of
course -- hadn't adjusted her schedule at all.  She could nudge
Bob and have a dry daughter to nurse in bed.  Then she heard
sounds that weren't coming from The Kitten.  Was Kathleen talking
to Charles?  Why could she hear her and not him?  No, those
weren't words.

     Probably she shouldn't wake Bob after all.  She got up,
changed a diaper, and was faced with a crying child and a
nightgown.  This was ridiculous!  She stripped while The Kitten
screamed over her abandonment, and managed to stifle the third
cry on her breast.  There was a period of silence in the other
room while she eased herself down on the rocker without letting
it squeak.  Then Kathleen's sounds were muffled.  Until, still
muffled, they turned into a single long moan.

     When she finally heard Charles's voice, it had the cadences
of speech.  They got quiet soon after, and her attention went
back to The Kitten.  By then she was playing with the breast.
Jeanette was shivering, and she cut the session short.  Catherine
went back into her bed, on her tummy -- why fight it? and
Jeanette went back to hers.

     Bob, who was wide awake, hugged her.  He was warm but not
particularly comfortable against her.  The man was almost rigid.
Down below, he was rigid.  He should decide between being a
voyeur and being a chaperon.  Anyway, they weren't going to do
anything about either feeling.  And, after all, the couple in the
next room were finished.

     She snuggled against his warm stiffness, which slowly
relaxed to cuddle her.  She was almost asleep when the sounds
from the other room resumed.

     This time, after a few murmurs and bed-movements, the sounds
conveyed the activity as clearly sight would have.  The springs
of the sofa bed announced a rhythm as old as time.

                             - = = -

Bob was holding his wife as an anchor.  It wasn't his business.
It wasn't.  It really wasn't.  Suddenly Jeanette whispered, "I
hope that she's on top."  Why she needed to whisper was a
mystery.  The couple in the living room weren't paying attention.

     She had a point -- Charles must be twice Vi's weight.  But
the springs were moving in a very basic rhythm, quite masculine
by the sound of it.  Quite erotic by the sound of it, as well.
Jeanette shifted so his arousal passed between her legs instead
of pressing against the top one.  Still, that was his little
sister getting boffed; anger and protectiveness stirred in with
the lust to produce a mixture of which he wasn't proud.

     Suddenly there was a soft 'snap!' from the living room and
the squeaks became much louder.  Jeanette shook silently in his
arms, and he struggled to keep his own laughter as quiet.

     "Remember?" she asked.  Of course he did.

     It had been their bed every night in the one-room apartment
in Boston.  They'd slept in it, cuddled in it, necked on the
closed sofa more than once.  He'd gone to bed nearly fully
dressed under the covers and shivered through a bad version of
his twice-a-year cold.  They had lain together with her on top
and him barely inside her, or with him behind her and moving
slowly and luxuriously in and out of her warmth.  He'd kissed her
to orgasm, and sometimes she'd done the same to him, holding him
in her warm mouth and busy fingers.  More often than anything
exotic, he'd been above her; supported on his elbows and her
hips, he'd slipped back and forth in her wet welcome.

     As he was doing one night, finding a rhythm that he could
tell pleased her, working her to her climax and himself close
enough that she would carry him with her, holding her breasts and
teasing her nipples, just able to make out her scowl of
concentration in the dimness.  It was nice, very nice, and he
loved her and had told her so.  It was a feeling which he wished
could last forever, but he knew couldn't last another two
minutes.  It was not, however, an exceptional night; he had to go
to school the next morning and had come to bed a little later
than he wanted to; she had to go to work the next morning and had
come to bed a little bothered that they wouldn't have quite
enough milk for their morning cereal.  It was quite a normal
night for them.

     Until he thrust into her a little harder, glorying in her
warm welcome within, responding to her lustfully clasping limbs.
The snap had sounded like a gunshot next to his ear.  Indeed,
there was a thump on the mattress -- felt more than heard.

     They had stopped dead.  For one second, Bob was truly
convinced someone had shot at them through the window.  He was
even worried that Jeanette's stillness meant that she had been
hurt.

     "What was that?" she'd asked.

     "It can't have come from outside, it would have broken the
window."  He had moved to give himself room to jump to protect
her from any, still undetermined danger.  The springs had
squeaked much more loudly than usual.

     "It's the mattress!" she'd said reassuringly, if
inaccurately.  He raised himself a little to readjust their
position, and she touched his phallus.  He stiffened again, she
reinserted him, they proceeded more gingerly.  Soon, however, the
reaction to the danger (however imaginary) set in.  He stroked
more determinedly; she braced herself to push back more actively.
They were sung to their glory by loudly squeaking springs.

     It hadn't been until they had already mopped up the mess
that the laughter had struck them.

     Tonight, it came back full force.  The squeaky sofa bed was
a joke, the younger Bob and Jeanette had been hilariously solemn
about sex, Vi and her boyfriend had tried so hard to be discreet,
and they had failed so utterly.

     For a wonder, the sounds from the living room lasted longer
than their humor.  "Oh, I love you," Jeanette whispered.  The
kiss went from appreciation to lust in about ten seconds.
Junior, who couldn't stay hard through a belly laugh, began to
recover.

     "We can't," Jeanette said.  The sofa springs said they
could.  "I'm not protected."  He fumbled in the box and retrieved
a packet.  "Then hurry!"

     They certainly should hurry.  The pace was picking up in the
other room.  But he and Jeanette had a decade of experience
together.  They could prolong it, sustaining the sexual suspense
until it felt like pain; they could rush it, quickly creating the
crash of climax.  Tonight called for rushing it.

     He kissed her once more before climbing out of his pajamas
and between her legs.  He opened her lips to fit himself to her
entrance.  Then he drove his sheathed and oiled essence into her.
Her legs closed around his waist, her hands gripped his arms.  In
three strokes, they matched the beat from the other room.  He
made sure to rub against the top of her entrance on every stroke,
she hugged his phallus at its deepest penetration.

     The couple in the next room was still ahead of them, though.
Contralto moans were now matched by bass grunts.  Jeanette had
stopped smiling at what she heard, though.  In the dimness, he
could see her face slip towards the rictus of her passion.  He
heard an unmuffled, "Come for me, Kath; come for me."  Almost as
if Jeanette were responding to that plea, he felt her belly
tighten under him.  "Oh darling!" Charles said next door as
Kathleen's moans soared towards the soprano range.

     Charles groaned.  Bob felt Jeanette clasp his phallus in her
delicious spasms.  He drove into her more wildly as his orgasm
began.  Biting his lip didn't help, he grunted each time he
spurted into the rubber.  He pressed into her for an endless
instant.

     When he collapsed beside her, there was an absolute silence
from the living room.  He and Jeanette cleaned up and cuddled,
but there wasn't even the sound of shifting bodies from beyond
the door.  As he knew that bodies couldn't shift soundlessly when
the spring was loose, Vi and Charles were holding themselves
still knowing what he and Jeanette had just done.  And they had
to have figured out what had inspired that.

Part 5
Jeanette awoke when Bob tossed the blankets away from her front.
He deposited The Kitten in her arms and plucked out his special
pacifier.  The Kitten attached herself to the breast, and then it
was time for mother and daughter to catch another forty winks
while the refueling was accomplished.  Bob, however kept standing
there after he'd tucked the blanket around them.

     "It's Sunday," he said, "the Sunday of The Kitten's baptism.
We have Vi and her boyfriend in the other room.  You should wear
something when you come out.  I love you."

     "Love you too."  It was too early to deal with the rest of
his message.

     She did not, however, return to sleep.  Bother!  She loved
Kathleen, she had really wanted her here, but she didn't want her
here before breakfast.  Once she'd managed to go to an office
five days a week starting earlier than this; she would manage to
get to church today.

     She sketched out the day, and then remembered the previous
day.  Not bad, no great disasters, and The Kitten had been a real
hit.  The day led to the night.  Her face burned, but she
couldn't see what they could have done differently.  Of course,
she and Bob had other times to make love.  She had planned to
skip that night, had worked so that Bob wasn't going to need that
night.  On the other hand, they were in their own home and
wearing wedding rings.  She wasn't about to apologize.

     The Kitten had fallen back asleep.  She wasn't worrying
about her guests.  And they were really her guests and her
ceremony.  Boy!  From the age of one, life was all downhill.

     She returned The Kitten to her crib, where she stayed on her
back for a wonder.  She put on the nightgown, robe, and
slippers -- she might have to spend a good deal of time waiting
in line for the bathroom on the chilly linoleum.  But, when she
got there, only Bob was awake.  "Do you think Charles will want
cereal?" he asked when she came out from her shower.

     "Lactose intolerance.  He certainly won't.  Which means that
you should make the tomato soup with water for lunch."  Bob
stirred a wonderfully smooth cream-of-tomato soup, even though
their milk began as powder.  How could a man so sloppy about some
things be so obsessive-compulsive about stirring soup?

     She was eating her eggs when there was a ringing sound from
the living room.  They both made a motion towards it, were
stopped by the sight of the hanging sheet, and saw each other
realize that it was the sound neither of the phone nor of the
buzzer.

     Murmurs from the other side of the sheet yielded to
Kathleen's emergence, dressed in the robe they had given her.
She headed into the bathroom.  Fifteen minutes later, she emerged
showered, brushed, but still dressed in the robe.

     "Do either of you need it?" she asked.  On head shakes, she
called, "Bathroom's yours."  Charles was dressed in robe and
pajamas and carrying his clothes when he came through.  He
emerged clean, shaven, and wearing a robe over his trousers
before Kathleen joined them.

     Charles looked as sheepish over breakfast as Jeanette felt.
The Brennans -- Brennans by birth -- didn't seem to be bothered
by their memories of the previous night.  "I didn't expect to see
you up before eight Jeanette," Kathleen said.

     "I wasn't.  The Kitten and I had a little snuggle, but even
that began...?"  She looked at Bob.

     "Maybe eight.  She was sopping.  Sometimes that bothers her,
and sometimes it doesn't.  This morning it did."

     "But my alarm rang at eight!"

     "Did you switch it to Michigan time?" Bob asked.  "Anyway,
we have plenty of time to get to church.  Does anyone need to do
anything before then?  Except The Kitten, of course."

     No-one mentioned anything time-consuming.  Charles went to
dress and pack.  Jeanette noticed that he and Kathleen seemed to
dress separately, even if they slept together.  But, perhaps,
that was a matter of space scheduling.  When they heard the sofa
bed chunking against the frame, Bob went to show the trick of
putting it up.

     They changed The Kitten's diaper at the last moment, dressed
her in her nicest dress, wrapped her against the cold, and took
her out.  Ensconced in her backwards-facing car seat, she let
Kathleen entertain her while the car warmed up.

     When they were actually moving, Kathleen apparently noticed
her satisfaction.  "You really don't think that I should put
Char's family through the surprise, do you?"

     "Dear, I never wanted to be *that* sort of a sister-in-law,
but...."  It was her best imitation of Katherine.

     "Yes, mother."

     "I think that you either want a future with this guy or you
don't.  A future with him means a future with his family, willy-
nilly.  Even Bob has to go to my mother's awful Christmas
parties.

     "Anyway, from what he said, his mother is likely to welcome
you.  So don't make her situation worse by offending his father."

     "You do listen to Mom's advice, don't you?"

     "Listen all the time.  Much of the time I take it.
Sometimes it doesn't fit.  Maybe this advice won't fit you, but
think about it."

     "She's afraid that you don't stand up to Bob enough.  He
rides roughshod over you."

     "Kathleen, he spoils me rotten.  And no, I don't stand up to
him.  The closest I came in years was over your visit."

     "Well, you have to stand up to Bob.  He's as pigheaded
as...."

     "I think the comparison you want is 'pigheaded as his
sister.'  And I do stand up to him on some things, things where I
can afford to lose.  But, if it's important, if it's really
important to me, I tell him that.  I *ask* him for it."

     "Well, you shouldn't have to ask him for it.  You should be
able to decide."  Jeanette tried to picture stamping her foot and
demanding that Bob hug her or else.  She and Bob wrangled all the
time, seldom before company, but all the time when alone.  But it
was recreation.  She didn't even *want* Bob to stop his puns, and
he didn't want her to stop complaining about them.

     "Anyway," Kathleen broke into her thoughts, "have you got
any recordings?"

     "A couple.  You?"

     "I think I have enough."

     Kathleen started paying more attention to The Kitten.
Jeanette pulled the car into the lot at the church.  They were
still running ahead of schedule; they were among the first cars
to arrive, and she could park fairly close to the door.  Bob, who
had directed Charles into a more distant spot, didn't catch up to
them until they were inside.

     The Brennans' usual seat was on the left of any one of three
pews a little forwards of the middle.  Bob usually made a point
of sitting far enough from the aisle that a visitor would feel
comfortable sitting next to them, but this morning they took the
edge as they would have to get up for the baptism.  Charles went
in first, then Kathleen, then Jeanette with The Kitten, and then
Bob.

     "Hi Pumpkin," said Kurt from behind them.  Jeanette had
occasionally had visions of his answering "What name shall be
given to this child?" with "Pumpkin."  The Kitten didn't mind,
however; she gurgled at him.  When he had tapped her nose a few
times while she tried to impale her eye on his finger instead, he
turned his attention to the adults.

     "Kurt," Bob said, "This is my sister Kathleen.  And this is
Charles Johnson, a friend of hers from medical school.  Dr.
Johnson is checking out her parenting skills."  Kathleen had
obviously been expecting something like this; she had her arm
behind Jeanette on the back of the pew.  She pinched Bob, who
didn't deign to notice.  After a few handshakes and another
session with The Kitten, Kurt wandered off to his usual seat.

     Bob's next introduction included: "Dr. Johnson is here for
an unstated purpose, but definitely not to check out Kathleen's
parenting skills."  This earned him another pinch.  "Watch out,
Charles," he said when that couple had left.  "This girl isn't
satisfied with anything you say."

     "Bob," Jeanette asked, "could you keep it civil?  The Kitten
and I feel like Alsace and Lorraine."  Being married to a
historian for more than a decade should teach you something.
After that, Bob dropped the teasing.  Kathleen could have learned
a lesson from that, but she probably hadn't.

     She passed a hymnbook to Kathleen.  "Do you need another?"
she asked.

     Kathleen shook her head.  "We can share."

                             - = = -

Bob stood when the minister asked about visitors.  "My sister and
Catherine's godmother, Kathleen Brennan.  Charles Johnson, a
friend of hers from medical school.  Dr. Johnson currently lives
in Cleveland."

     The Kitten enjoyed the getting up and sitting down and
singing.  In between, she was passed from lap to lap.  Half way
through the sermon, however, she got bored.  Bob, as usual, took
her out behind the pews and walked back and forth.  The motion
was all the entertainment she needed, but occasionally an usher
came by to admire her.

     The ceremony went smoothly, but when the water splashed over
her head, The Kitten was annoyed.  Jeanette had brought the
bottle of milk she had expressed on Friday; sticking that in The
Kitten's mouth quieted her.

     There was a small party afterward, catered by the women's
society.  It was silly to go home from that and serve lunch
immediately, but time was winding down.  Somehow stories seemed
appropriate.  "By that time," Jeanette told them, "baths were
heavenly; you weigh so much less.  But the tub looked grungier
and grungier.  I hadn't scrubbed it in months.  So I asked Bob to
take on one more task.  He asked if he could do it slowly.  What
could I say?"

     "Well," Bob said, "it hadn't developed suddenly."  There was
only so much time that he could spend on his knees leaning over
the bathtub before the position caused discomfort.

     "So, the next bath I take, there is a band of glistening
white.  It is about eighteen inches wide and runs from the rim to
the bottom.  Slowly, day by day, it expands in both directions.
Then the bottom, which had never been awful, glistened as well."
There was a lot of illogic in the world, but some people made it
a fetish; three people chuckled over his proceeding logically.

     Well, four people were laughing; but the Kitten was probably
not following the conversation.  She looked entranced by her
toes.  He could remember baring her tiny feet and admiring those
toes once -- such incredible detail; but he'd got over that.

     "So," Kathleen said later, "there aren't one hell of a lot
of desirable psychiatric residency programs in Cleveland.  You
think of big cities, you know; they're all big.  But Chicago is
five times as big as a city, three times as big as a metro area.
And the biggest cities somehow have institutions which attract
patients from further afield.  Anyhow, I have applied to two
places in Cleveland, but I didn't rate them at the top."

     "And," Bob asked Charles, "how about you?"

     "A first-year resident fresh out of med school is 95% like
an intern.  Somebody has to fetch and carry and fill out the
forms."

     "The five percent?"

     "I'm in the one program for the entire residency."

     "So you guys are likely to keep those long-distance bills
for the next three and a half years," Jeanette said.  As if the
long-distance cost was the chief detriment.

     "And it's not as if I would want Kath to take a residency at
an institution where she didn't want to be.  Whatever I think of
psychotherapy, her training is her whole future."

     "Well," said Kathleen, "damned by faint praise."

     "Everybody needs a friendly ear.  That helps loads, as does
a hot bath and twelve hours of sleep.  But running a motel
doesn't require medical training, and I don't see where listening
does either."

     "There is a little bit more involved than listening, Char."

     "The ear helps; nobody has actually shown by control groups,
let alone double-blind experiments, that the mouth has any
positive effect at all."

     "There are times when you sing a different tune about the
positive effects of my mouth."

     "Kath!"  Charles said, thereby erasing the small uncertainty
about what she had meant.  The man was no tactician.

     "So, do you want some prints of the pictures we took today?"
Of course Kathleen wanted pictures; you'd think that Jeanette
wanted to change the subject.

     "I really would appreciate that," said Charles.  "I'll give
you my address before I leave."  Oops!  Well prints were cheap
enough.

     "I'd like some, too," said Kathleen.  "Apparently I'll get
to see the family this Christmas."

     Jeanette had recently seen a hospital from the other side.
She asked some questions about the cast of characters.  "I could
never figure out who all those people were.  So some of them
addressed as 'Doctor' were lowly interns like you."

     Charles and Kathleen tried to clarify some of the roles.

     He had a question of his own.  "And, when the obstetrician
says, 'Get that guy out of here; I already have two patients; I
don't need three.'  Who guides him out?"

     "Probably the circulating nurse," said Charles.  "But if I'd
been an intern in there, I might have done it.  Or even a junior
resident.  Doing what the doctor wants done hurts nobody's
training long-term."

     "Bob!" said Kathleen.  "You didn't wimp out?  Jeanette never
told me."  She hadn't?  It was the funniest event of a not-so-
funny time.  Jeanette had been in *pain* in there.

     "Listen Kathleen," Jeanette said, "and listen hard.  There
is *one* person in the entire universe who hurts because I hurt.
And it hurts him worse than it does me.  I don't think that is
funny.  I've been a friend to you.  My friends don't tease Bob
because my pain hurts him.  Never!"

     "Well," Bob said, "I thought it was funny."  Maybe he
shouldn't have told that particular joke.  She had been hurting,
and that had mattered more than anything at the time.  He found
that turning times of pain into humor eased the memory, and so --
sometimes -- did she.  But her pain was central to that time.
Let her make the jokes.

     "I didn't."  Her voice sounded like she was crying.

     "Jeanette," said Kathleen, "I swear that I'll never mention
it again.  You only have to ask, dear.  Wasn't The Kitten good at
her baptism?  I don't think anyone can blame her for crying about
being splashed."

     While that was one subject that they all agreed on, it took
several more minutes for the conversation to reach its previous
pitch.

     When he thought that they still had plenty of time before
Charles's scheduled departure, Jeanette got up and returned with
a package of food for his trip.  She said, "Well, Charles, it was
nice to have met you.  I expect that I'll hear more about you
from Kathleen now."  Bob checked his watch.  Half an hour left;
had Jeanette got the time wrong?

     "Tell him goodbye, Bob."  He shook hands -- that tone
allowed no questions.  "Now you guys check out the living room,
both of you.  I don't want anything left behind."  She pulled the
curtain across the doorway again.  Then she gathered up The
Kitten, handed her to Charles for a last hug, and took her into
the kitchen.  Bob followed her.

     Charles and Kathleen disappeared behind the curtain before
the light dawned in his skull.

                             - = = -

Jeanette sat on a kitchen chair while Bob got out the papers he
had put away on Charles's arrival.  The Kitten, a little early by
Jeanette's reckoning, pawed at her breasts.  She'd skipped the
jar feeding the previous day because that wasn't the side of her
daughter that she wanted to present to guests.  Did she want to
skip it again today?  Yes.  First, her breast was full to the
point of leaking; The Kitten had last been fed by bottle. Second,
she was emotionally drained; she didn't have the energy for that
struggle.

     She brought The Kitten to her breast.  "Hold me," she said.
Bob stood beside her and held her head against his stomach.  It
gurgled.  She'd rather be held like that and hear his stomach
rumble than have him go off to another city and hear The Mormon
Tabernacle Choir.  A minute later he moved away.  It wasn't far
enough away that she didn't hear him pass gas.  He pulled up a
chair and sat beside her with one arm around her shoulders and
the other hand helping to hold up The Kitten.

     A half hour later, Kathleen went past them heading for the
bathroom.

     She had stopped crying when she came out.  Bob dished up
three big helpings of chocolate-fudge-swirl ice cream.  When The
Kitten was burped, Bob handed her to her godmother.  "Thanks
guys," Kathleen said.  "I don't know how I'll be able to stand
another 43 months of this."

     They let her wear the Snuggli almost until she had to get on
the train.  They waved the train out of sight, and then returned
home.

     The Kitten, who had been especially good for her guests, got
fussy earlier than usual.  Jeanette couldn't blame her, feeling
about the same way herself.  On the other hand, they were really
bad company for each other.  The mood hadn't affected her
daughter's appetite, however; after all, she *was* Bob's daughter
too.  Burped, cuddled, with the special Kitten-goes-to-sleep tape
playing, she was finally laid on her back.  She rolled over and
went to sleep.

     Bob had stripped the sofa-bed.  She washed the dishes to let
him finish grading his papers.  Defiantly decadent, they ate
another round of ice cream after their supper of leftovers.

     This time she made sure to insert the diaphragm when she got
ready for bed.  Bob being still hard at work, she wore the robe
to bed.  The sheets were chilly without him, and lonely too.

     "Just hold me," she said.  He did, but she felt him laughing
against her back.  "What's so funny."

     "'I can make the sun rise if I command it at the right
time.'  What would I have done if you hadn't asked me to hold
you?"  Well, he would have held her; Bob was good that way.

     "Sometimes, I need to be hugged; other times I just enjoy
it.  Stay like this for a while."  So he did, kissing her
shoulder through the robe occasionally, but staying away from the
sexy patch on the back of her neck.  He stayed away from her
nipples, too; but his hand supported her breast when it wasn't
caressing her belly.

     She moved forward for a moment to pull up the back of her
robe.  He completed the job, and their legs could touch skin-to-
skin.  He slowly got an erection against her butt.

     "Want to lose the robe?" he asked.  There were about a dozen
layers of cloth between their waists, and his shoulders were not
touching hers anymore.  Well, she did; then she got another idea.
She checked the clock.  The Kitten would wake up again sometime
within the next hour; if not, she'd at least feed if awakened.

     "Can you lie on your back?"  He turned over immediately.

     She climbed on top.  There was a tube of KY in the
nightstand drawer.  When he was thoroughly covered, she eased
herself back.  "Don't want to make love," she explained -- a
little late, "just want to snuggle."

     It took more of an effort than usual to accommodate his
size.  But there was something sensuous about the stretching.
Then she was sitting on his groin, and she was gloriously full.
She wiped her hand on the sheets; he adjusted the robe in back so
it was under the covers.  He came almost out, however, when she
lowered herself onto his chest.  He pulled the covers up and
tucked them around her shoulders.

     Then he slowly stroked her back and scratched lightly around
her shoulder blades.  His body was motionless under hers except
for his breathing and an occasional thrust to keep a little of
him inside her.  Except for her arms, everywhere they touched was
skin to skin.

     She just rested her breasts on his chest, letting the sparse
hair on his chest tickle her nipples.  She could feel him inside
her, feel him under her, feel his warm hands on her back.  The
scratching felt good.

     "I love you, you know," he said.  She did know.  They
watched each other in the light from the dining room and the dim
night light.

     "I just want to be held," she told him.  "Later, maybe,
after the feeding."

     "I hate to tell you this...."  Well, she knew that he was
inside her.  Who had done it, after all?  Still, this was being
held.  He cuddled her, and she cuddled part of him.  She gave it
a little squeeze to demonstrate.

     His face showed that he had felt that.  She made kissing
faces to him and he sent some kisses back.  But, when he came out
a minute later, she was glad to relax.  She lay more directly on
him, and rested her head on his shoulder.

     "I do love you.  I love your bright wit and your care.
Y'know, it took even Vi a minute to figure out what you were
doing saying goodbye to Charles early.  I love your warmth and
being inside it and being against it."  His erection hadn't gone
down much, and now it was lying pressed along her groove.
Really, if you wanted erotic sensations (which she didn't
particularly, right now) there were more from that pressure than
there had been when he was inside.  "I love your sexy looks and
sexy feel."  She loved his sexy feel, too: his legs between hers,
his chest under hers, his hands on her back, his voice rumbling
beneath her.  "I love the way you care for The Kitten."

     They looked at each other again for a long while.  He made
kissing motions again, and she moved up so that they could have a
real kiss.  They lost contact below, but their tongues played
before she got tired of that position.  She moved down again when
holding herself up became an effort.  She rested her head on his
chest and kissed his shoulder occasionally; he licked at her ear
from time to time, only reaching the back top....

     If she was asleep, The Kitten's first stirrings awoke her.
She got off Bob and stood on the floor.  "I can," Bob said in a
quiet voice.  But he really couldn't have, not without her
getting up anyhow.

     She changed The Kitten, who did not smell like a proper
bedmate.  Then she said, "Move over."  Bob gave her a lot of
space and swept the covers off that side.  She managed to doff
the robe while still holding The Kitten to her breast.  Then she
eased herself into the bed.  Bob covered her but made sure that
The Kitten had plenty of air space.  Then he fit himself against
her back.

     That was nice for a bit, with his hand helping her hold The
Kitten.  Too much had happened to sort it out for her daughter,
so she confined herself to "Belle Catherine... souce Catherine...
habile Catherine" and an occasional "Trouves-tu la leche bonne?"

     When Bob's petting got more intimate, she opened her legs to
encourage him.  "You wouldn't want to just lie here with Junior
inside would you?" she said.  From his motions in back of her, he
would.  She arched her back as much as possible, and he moved
back inside.  Their backs couldn't touch like that, but you can't
have everything.  Then he went back to scratching her back, very
gently, with the backs of his nails.  You can have damn-near
everything.

     She lay in bliss for the longest time.  The Kitten quite
finished her meal, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  She was
on her back, which was good; but if she rolled again to get on
her belly, she might tumble off the edge of the bed.  Jeanette's
arm was there to prevent that, but she had no illusions as to how
long her attention was going to remain on her baby.  Well, this
had been bliss.  "I have to get up now," she said.  Bob rolled
away, freeing her and emptying her in one motion.

     She put The Kitten in her crib, where she woke long enough
to roll over onto her belly.  Once up, Jeanette considered it
wise to visit the bathroom.  Bob had been extremely nice to her
tonight, after the two of them having been extremely nice to
their guests.  It was really his turn.

     When she had cuddled back against his warmth, she said as
much.  "This has been really delightful.  I've loved it.  I bet
you want to finish, though."

                             - = = -

Well, yes.  He wanted to finish.  On the other hand, the evening
so far hadn't been his hardest task of the week.  "Hard," come to
think of it, might apply; but "onerous" certainly didn't.

     "What do you want?  I've loved this so far."

     "I want you to have what you want."  She paused "So long as
it isn't *too* athletic."

     "May I kiss you?"  She puckered up.  Imp!  They had a
smacking kiss, and then he really kissed her, loving her tongue
and the roof of her mouth as he wanted to love her down below.

     "Anywhere you want."  He wasn't going to take that too
literally; probably her nipples were still sore.  He pecked her
lips, kissed her eyebrows, and started his journey downward.

     He kept to the smoothness of her breasts, and only pecked at
one peak.  Her belly, however, deserved the full treatment that
it got.  She writhed to avoid his kiss on her navel, but that was
ticklishness -- not soreness.  By the time he arrived at his
goal, she was ready for him and smelled like it.  A few kisses on
her mound allowed him to savor that odor.

     At the prompting of his hands, she rolled over on her side.
The ease with which she did that was suddenly a pleasure to see,
though it was really months old.  He rested his head on one thigh
while she eased the other one down over him.  They adjusted the
covers so that he could breathe while she had some protection
from the cold air.

     Now her odor came full force.  He licked the thin ridge of
joined lips, slowly working them open while tasting her richness.
He licked each lip in turn, only the tiniest corner of his tongue
even approaching her nubbin.  When she was writhing around his
head, he withdrew his tongue completely, and then flicked it
forward to touch her clitoris.  She gasped.

     He worked his hand between their bodies and then his finger
into her tunnel.  He widened it until another finger fit there.
He flicked his tongue across her clitoris again, and then pressed
his fingers against the top of her vagina.  After all these
years, it still took him a bit of rubbing there before he located
the bump that was her G-spot.

     Now she was his indeed.  He would lick around her clitoral
area until she tensed, then rest his tongue while his fingers
tickled her inside.  When that seemed to bring her close, he held
his fingers still while he licked her lips.  His tongue would get
closer and closer to the clitoris until it actually touched.
When she was moaning from that, he would concentrate on his
fingers again.

     Finally, with her fingernails digging into his scalp, she
pled:  "Please Bob.  Oh please.  Now please."

     He kept his fingers rubbing against each other and against
her.  He pressed his face forwards for the centimeter that it
could move.  He locked his lips around the front of her valley,
and he sucked and hummed.  When she began to go over, he licked
directly across her clitoris slowly but repeatedly.

     Her thighs almost crushed his skull, and she clasped his
fingers again and again.  When those strong, surging, clutches
turned to flutters, he stopped all motion.  Soon after, the
pressure on his head dropped.

     He escaped from between her thighs and turned her over on
her back.  The bedclothes were a tangle under her, but he
couldn't stop for that.  He took the familiar position between
her legs, found the entrance, and pressed home.

     Before she actually came down from her previous high, he was
stroking inside her.

                             - = = -

Jeanette, when she could still think, had thought that it was
typical of Bob that he would choose to stimulate her orally when
he was offered almost any sort of sexual activity.  Not that she
was afraid that he would neglect his own climax; she'd been
married to the man too long to suspect that.  But he took
pleasure in her pleasure almost as much as he suffered from her
pain.

     Then she'd let herself sink into her feelings.  The prelude
had been a blizzard of kisses.  He'd sneaked up on the place
where they both knew he was heading, but his kisses had also
expressed his love for some of the other parts, like her belly
which was no longer so lovable.  She'd felt aroused, sure, and
also tickled; but she'd felt loved even more.

     The love hadn't gone away when he was licking her nether
lips, but the arousal had certainly overtaken it.  First, he took
a deliciously long time licking her open.  Then, he had teased
her with his tongue until she desperately wanted him inside.
Then his fingers had entered her as a kind of security deposit
for the real thing.  After that, she had mostly lost track of the
particulars.

     From Bob's busy lips and fingers and, most especially,
tongue, would come one sensation after another.  Each would send
a shudder of pleasure through her, each would increase her need
for the next.  He had pulled her upwards and wound her tighter.
It had been delight; then it had been glory; it had become
torture.  She had begged him for release.

     Instead, the torture had increased.  Already tightly
stretched, she had been stretched doubly -- triply, until she'd
broken.  And, when she'd broken, she'd broken free to soar.
Connected to the bed by only the sensations at her center, she
had risen into the heights.  It had been joy.  It had been
freedom.

     It had been over.

     And, when it was over, she needed Bob.  That part down
there, which had been all of her that mattered a second ago,
wasn't *really* her.  She needed her husband up next to her head
where she lived.

     Magically, he was there.  And not only there whispering in
her ear, but there for all of her.  His faced filled her vision;
his wide torso sheltered hers from the night and its fears; his
legs were over hers and between them.  And, there between her
legs, he occupied her center; he filled her where she had been
empty.  The only parts of her that weren't touching him was her
calves and feet.  So she curled them in against his thighs to
take care of that.

     "Oh Jeanette," he said, "I love you."  And he loved her very
thoroughly, loved her moving out, loved her coming in.  Loved her
moving against all those parts that his previous love had
sensitized.  He loved her faster and faster, he loved her deeper
and harder, and she loved him back.

     Then his love filled her completely, poured more love into
her.  And her love matched his and took her away.  She soared
upward again.

     And, when she returned, she returned to being held in Bob's
arms and still filled with his love.

     Later, of course, the passion was only a memory -- lovely a
memory as it was.  The magic proof of his love for her, the proof
which had taken her with him to glory when it had pulsed out of
him and into her, was a messy smear congealing on the sheets and
her thighs.  Love can give you a warm glow, but it is a more
comfortable glow when the covers are on top of you, not tangled
beneath you.

     Later, they straightened all that out.  Later they were
parents who checked their offspring and turned her on her back.
(She turned onto her tummy again.  The hospital hadn't palmed her
off with a girl who wasn't Bob's daughter.)

     Still later, she woke to find Bob gone.  He came back in a
minute and slipped into his side of the bed.  "Bob" she asked.

     "I'm here," he said.  And he was.


The End
For Elise
Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com
1999/12/28
2000/08/17
2010/07/02

This is one of a series of stories about the Brennans.
<1st attachment begin>

<HTML removed pursuant to http://assm.asstr.org/erotica/assm/faq.html#policy>
<1st attachment end>

----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------
Notice: This post has been modified from its original
format.  The post was sent as an email attachment and
has been converted by ASSTR ASSM moderation software.
----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ------ send stories to: <story-submit@asstr.org>|
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr.org/faq.html> Moderators: <story-admin@asstr.org> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr.org>   Hosted by <http://www.asstr.org> |
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+