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Message-ID: <62191asstr$1338509401@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Uther Pendragon <nogardneprethu@gmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} "Making it - F" -- Uther -- MF wl
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Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 20:10:01 -0400
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
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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, 2012, Uther Pendragon. All rights reserved. I
specifically grant the right of downloading and keeping one electronic copy
for your personal reading so long as this notice is included. Reposting
requires previous permission.

If you have any comments or requests, please e-mail them to me at
nogardneprethu@gmail.com.

All persons here depicted, except public figures depicted as public figures
in the background, are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to
persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.


Making it - F
by Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com

MF wl


When the summer of '79 came at last, Marilyn Trainor bought a copy of
<i>The Joy of Cooking</i>. She made two new recipes every week, and served
any successes for family Wednesday. Andy said he enjoyed her cooking, but
Andy had said he enjoyed every meal she cooked. His dad had said he would
enjoy porridge for every meal if she served it, and that might really be
true.

She had taken home from school a teacher's copy of each of the English
textbooks she might have to teach the next year. Most of them, except for
the extra crib notes for teachers, looked familiar. They were mostly later
editions of what she'd studied in high school, but they weren't all that
different.

The English department social life moved from Friday nights to monthly
lunches. She invited some of the women to her home for lunch, but only
three at a time. They only had four chairs. Anyway, those conversations
went better. She would feel odd about having men as guests when Andy wasn't
home.

Under her time crunch, she'd limited Andy to one sex session a night. He
wasn't allowed to bring her off unless he participated, too. Hell, from
everything she'd heard about men, that should have delighted him. Andy was
the exception to that rule -- Andy seemed the exception to most rules. With
more time in the summer, she relaxed her prohibition.

"There's nothing wrong with bringing me off, <b>first</b>. That doesn't
mean the first ten times; that means the first time. Still, I expect you to
participate in the second act of the night. Really, it feels much better
for me when you're in me."

"But you look so cute and sexy when you writhe." Was that what she did
during climax, writhe? Well, from the state of the sheets later, maybe she
did.

"And, Andy, remember the books you were researching back in school? Maybe
we could try something new, or somewhat new, on Saturday nights. We'll both
be rested then." Actually, while being carried transfixed or riding him
while he lay on his back made for sexier memories, she wasn't sure that
they were really sexier at the time. He took her up on the suggestion for
variety. That Saturday, he stood behind her while she knelt on her dresser.
It wasn't a great position, but he loved all the views he got of her. The
next Saturday morning, they showered together as usual. He went far beyond
their usual teasing. Finally, he had her holding on to the pipe going into
the shower nozzle with her hands and his waist with her legs. The water
poured down onto them and between them as he pounded her to a devastating
climax. The next Monday, she bought a rubber mat for the bottom of the tub.
She'd been as frightened of them both falling down and breaking their necks
as she'd been aroused.

Pete's grades, if not spectacularly good, weren't spectacularly bad,
either. He got his first A of his college career. It was in Phys-Ed --
soccer. Mostly, he was settling for gentlemanly C s. It was the first
suggestion that Pete had anything to do with being a gentleman. When she
and Andy were guests at the Grant house, she learned that Pete <b>had</b>
taken some courses at Truman (junior) College the previous summer. He
didn't seem eager to give her credit for the idea. Well, solving the
problem was more important than getting the credit.

When something went wrong with the transmission in the Buick, Andy drove
her Toyota to work for a week. There was enough in the checking account to
cover the repair bill, but that took most of the cushion. She transferred
$800 from savings.

Andy would be paid for summer vacation this year. This made the whole idea
look better. She and Andy laid out their plans. They would get some
swimming in the first week, and his sisters would be in town the second.

"And, really," Andy said, "I said I'd read the books you teach. I'm not
going to go over grammar again. I used better grammar in high school than I
can use at work, anyway. But literature is what you love. I don't want to
be ignorant of what you're doing." Well, she had more time in the summer
than he did; he knew more of her field than she knew of his. She still
wasn't going to learn anything about electrical engineering.

"I don't think they're any different from what you read in school." Well,
it turned out, the senior book wasn't. Andy, though, had spent his first 3
high-school years in Chicago. Gordon Tech was only a few miles away, but it
had used a different series of books.

Monday night, after their day at the beach, Andy sat on one end of the
couch reading the poetry sections from the freshman book to her. She lay
with her head in his lap. The book's poetry selections were definitely less
romantic than Baudelaire, but she could feel his erection stir under her
head and they were close to their bed when they got up.

She'd cut out TV in order to keep up with her teaching. She returned to it
now. Daytime TV didn't appeal. She heard complaints about reruns, but she
hadn't seen most of the evening shows the first time around. She asked Andy
what he wanted. Men had different tastes than women, and Andy had different
tastes in most things than either women or other men.

"Whatever pleases you," he said. He had never turned on the set while she
was preparing for classes, but she'd attributed this to courtesy. On the
other hand, he'd not wanted a set in his own apartment, not even when he
had budgeted over $1,000 as surplus. When she watched TV, though, he didn't
go off to do his own thing. He sat right there, touching her. Sometimes, he
held her in his lap.

They'd never made out in movie theaters like some teens did -- afterwards,
sure. They had been in college before they'd gone to movies together, and
Andy was fairly shy. Now, though, in the privacy of their own home, his
shyness disappeared. The only time they finished a show without a hand on
her tit was when they both were between her legs.

When Molly and April came to town, they joined her and Andy at the beach
one day. The California girls could swim better than she could, but they
much preferred lying on the beach absorbing sun and attracting boys. Their
two suits together used less material than Andy's, much less her own tank
suit. April was about to be a high-school senior and needed a C cup. Molly
professed jealousy.

"I used to have a little sister I taught about becoming a woman. Now, I'm
between two women, and I'm in the shade of both of them. Andy's optics
books can't explain that."

"April, sure," Marilyn said. "Way back at the wedding, I thought she had
already become a beauty. But me? I'm an old married woman in a matronly
suit with my belly button covered."

"Hah!" Molly said. "My brother isn't the only man on the beach who's
lusting after you. After all, April keeps what they really want covered,
too."

"I'm not only vertically challenged, I'm challenged in the mammaries."

"Yeah? Hold your towel so it covers your left hand. Walk to the end of the
beach and back. We'll check how many men follow you with their eyes."

"Please don't," said Andy.

"Andy," April said, "you're jealous."

"Well," Andy said, "I have a license to be jealous." He held up his hand so
that the ring showed.

They ate dinner every night that week and several lunches at Jim Trainor's
house. He had extended an open invitation -- "Just let Mrs. Bryant know" --
when they moved out. Now, however, he requested their presence
particularly. One night, Molly asked her for a walk after dinner. That was
that family's way of having a private conversation.

"You know," she told Molly, "you're older now than I was when we had the
first of these."

"Yeah. But you're older, too. By then, I'd told April all about periods and
such. That doesn't mean that I didn't need your advice then. Besides, Dad
says you're awfully smart. Maybe it's not smarts; it's wisdom. I know more
than you did back then, but I'm not sure I'm as wise."

"You're very kind. So's your father. He keeps telling Andy that I'm smart,
but Andy's the one who's in Phi Beta Kappa."

"He is? Look, you don't know as much science as Andy does. If it could be
measured, you might not even know as much English as he knows science. But
you know people, and that's not Andy's strength. You read <i>Stranger in a
Strange Land</i>?"

"Yeah."

"Guy from Mars had to be told all about humans' rules. Well, Andy's not
from Mars, but he might as well be."

"Yeah. When I first saw his apartment -- you know he lived off campus for a
year before we were married? -- he was eating straight out of the can. No
plates, no sitting down, same can for two meals in a row."

"That sounds like Andy. You're sure two different people. Still, you're
happy together, aren't you?"

"Are we? I'm happy. My only worry is whether Andy is happy.

"Y'know," she continued. "I'm a strong woman, despite my size. I could deal
with a guy who insisted on having his own way. My senior year in high
school, I was involved with a guy. (If you tell your brother this, I'll
slice your throat.) We got hot and heavy the last summer. He tried to force
me. He wasn't Andy's size but he was one hell of a lot stronger than I am.
I scratched and bit him until he lost his libido. I can deal with the guy
who wants to ignore my desires. But marriage is a compromise; everybody
will tell you that. How do you compromise with someone who says, 'Whatever
you want, dear?'

"The apartment. I had three top choices. I wanted to show them all to Andy.
He only wanted to see my top choice. Then he wanted to see the furnace
there. Are the rooms the way he'd like? I'll never know.

"When I ask him what TV shows he wants to see -- ask him -- he says that he
wants to watch the ones I want to watch. And that's before I've expressed
any preference. What does he enjoy, anyway?"

"Well, that I can answer. Last night, when we were all in front of the TV
set, there was a rerun I hadn't enjoyed the first time. I was looking
around the room, wondering whether to suggest switching channels. April was
engrossed. You were enjoying yourself. Andy wasn't watching the show; he
was watching you. And I ended up watching him, sometimes watching the two
of you. Well, if he says that he enjoys most the shows that you enjoy, I'd
believe him. Except that he isn't really enjoying those shows; he's
enjoying you.

"Is he happy? Well, I'm three years younger, and I don't remember all that
far back. (Some of my friends remember their first-grade teacher. I can
barely remember my <b>fourth</b> grade teacher.) Anyway, all the time I was
in the same house with Andy, I don't remember him being happy. Sometimes,
he was miserable. Sometimes, especially when he had something new to read,
he seemed content. I didn't think of it back then, when he was my obnoxious
older brother. Looking back, though, I'd never seen him happy. Those meals
after church with you, that's the first time."

"You really think he's happy with me?"

"Yeah. I think that's why he stopped visiting Mom. Those visits made him
miserable, but Andy was so used to being miserable that he barely noticed.
Then, too, he got to see April. But when he was with you, he'd stopped
being miserable."

"I feel sorry for him."

"Well, if he hadn't made my life miserable back then, I'd have felt sorry
for him back then, too. I don't see the sense of felling sorry for him now.
He's enjoying himself. Y'know when you said that the two of you were one
flesh? I couldn't be his enemy and your friend?"

"Yeah, but you're still confusing the terms."

"Well, he's enjoying himself, but the part of himself he's enjoying is you.
Damn! But that sounds dirtier than I intended it to sound."

"It sounds quite complimentary."

"Well, you've taken care of the problems of one Trainor, maybe two. Dad's
much happier about Andy. Care to try for three?"

"What's your problem. Seems to me that you've had a successful school
career so far." It also seemed that she was less boy crazy than she had
looked at the time of the wedding.

"And I have you to thank for that. Not that others hadn't hinted in that
direction. I took a long look at what I wanted from life and what I was
good at. I have the family skills with numbers, not like Andy but better
than most. Well, I like buying things, too. It seemed to me that an
accountant would be able to buy a lot of things without spending 40 hours a
week kissing ass in endless meetings. And I find that I like accounting.
Numbers are even more interesting when you put dollar signs in front of
them."

"Sounds like you don't have any problems."

"Sounds like I have a career choice. Even there, I have some problems, but
not anything you'd be likely to help with -- not terribly serious problems,
either. Remember when you told me to go on the Pill as soon as I started
college, before I met any guys I would want to fuck?"

"Yeah, and did you?"

"No, but I should have."

"You're not?" She had not been, considering her shape in the bikini she'd
worn the day before, pregnant for <b>long</b>.

"Nope. And I'm not a complete idiot, either. I'm on the Pill, but I didn't
go on until I met what I thought was the special man. Well, I'm over that
guy, and still on the Pill. Trouble is that I'm seeing a professor of all
things. He's quite a religious guy. We have to sneak around, even though he
isn't, thank God, a business professor."

"Married?"

"Divorced, and before I came along. But the way he treats me, I'm sure he
thinks I'm a virgin. We haven't done it yet, and I'm scared that he'll be
able to tell."

"Did you bleed the first time?"

"No, but it hurt a bit."

"Well, there's no reason he should be able to tell. And he hasn't the
slightest reason to expect that you're a virgin. That doesn't mean that he
doesn't think it. I only mean that, as long as you don't lie outright, he
has no grounds for accusation. He is, after all, a divorce'. Now, I'm not
speaking from experience, here. All sorts of parts of this situation are
different. Even so, if you want my opinion, this is my opinion." But she
was getting ahead of herself.

"You say he's religious. What do you mean by that?"

"He goes to this fundie church in town, goes every week as far as I can
tell."

"Okay, first. You tell him that you're interested in him. If the two of you
have been sneaking around, that shouldn't shock him. Then you say that his
religion is part of him, and part that you can find out about. Ask him what
church he attends, unless he's already told you so plainly that asking will
sound silly. Then, tell him that you're going to show up at the service to
find out about it. You don't want to sit by him or have him acknowledge
you. If he's keeping it secret, your showing up in his space might give him
palpitations. If you say you don't want your relationship public, he'll
relax when you show up."

"That doesn't really deal with the problem."

"Well, if he's a religious guy sneaking around with you but respecting your
assumed virginity, then he's thinking marriage. At least, he should be. You
have two problems with that. First, he thinks you're a virgin. Second, you
may have incompatible church preferences. You don't go at college, do you?"

"No. Only when I visit Dad."

"Well, you have to think through your religious views before you stand
before the altar to be hitched. Then, you make it sound like there are two
possible outcomes. If he proposes before getting in your pants, you tell
him that there are two problems. The first is that his religious views and
yours may be incompatible. The second is that he won't be your first man. A
proposal deserves that honesty."

"And if he doesn't propose?"

"Well, do you want sex with him?"

"Yeah. We're already doing everything else but, and I'd like to go further."

"Then you have two choices. First, you wait until he initiates the act.
Either in the afterglow or on the next date, you tell him quite honestly
that he wasn't your first. Tell him that he was better in some particular
way if you honestly can. 'You were so gentle'; 'you were so large'; 'you
made it last so much longer.' He wasn't your first, but he was your best.
For a guy who wants you to have sex with him out of wedlock, that's enough
for any reasonable ego.

"Otherwise, when you're both getting hot and bothered, tell him that he
doesn't have to restrain himself. You're on the Pill."

"What if he wants to know who the other guy is?"

"Tell him that he's faculty, after all. You're not going to tell him until
your first guy is out of school. I'm assuming that he's not out of school
yet. Then tell him that you'll lay it out when the time comes, but you
expect a list of all his previous sex partners, too. I say, 'Tell him,' but
I mean for you to keep your word when the time comes."

"You're asking a lot -- asking a lot of both of us."

"Well, I don't know anything about hot sex affairs. I won't claim I waited
for marriage, but I certainly didn't carve notches on my bedposts, either.
(Conveniently, 'cause I didn't have bedposts, but...) All I know about is
sharing. If I don't want a man all the way in my life, I don't want him in
my vagina, either."

"You should carve that on your front door."

"It would embarrass Andy horribly."

"You know, one birthday -- we all have birthdays in July -- I gave Andy a
shirt. It was a nice shirt, and it cost me money I would <b>much</b> rather
have spent on myself. April gave him a craft project. He said a polite
"thanks" to me and was so taken by April's gift he kept pencils in it until
he moved in with you."

"He still does."

"I was infuriated. Well, if he wasn't going to be appreciative, I wasn't
going to be generous. Christmas, I gave him a used paperback. I think it
cost me a quarter. The next day he came to dinner with the book almost
read. 'Nice story,' he said, 'thanks.' So I gave him used paperbacks for
years thereafter, and he never cut down his presents to me or complained at
all. I still don't rate with his Moppet, but Andy isn't greedy in most
things. Now, about you... You know, you told April about different kinds of
love. Well, you guys have sex and all, which I don't suspect Andy of even
sublimating with April, but I think he loves you that way, too."

"Maybe he does. He carries me sometimes." Sometimes, of course, that was
blatantly sexual, but not always. "Is twice around the block enough?" And
they went in the door.

"My turn tomorrow night?" April asked from her seat in front of the TV.

"Sure."

"You see, Marilyn?" Jim Trainor said. "You thought you were marrying one
guy. What you were really signing up for was being counselor for an entire
family. When do I get my turn?"

"You don't," Andy said. "She took Developmental Psych in school, not
Abnormal Psych."

"Aww..."

"'Honor thy father and thy mother,' Andy," she said. She thought of Molly's
guess at Andy's feelings. If Molly was right, she didn't have to worry
about Andy's straying. She still felt sorry for the boy he had been,
though. It was a shame that Andy hadn't had more pleasure in his life.

"Is engineering turning out to be what you expected?" she asked in the car
on the way home.

"Yeah. More. The classes were all learning with a few problems to solve
along the way -- and those somebody else had already solved once. Now there
are problems most of the time, and you only learn something to solve a
particular problem." His description sounded like ulcer time to her, but
his tone of voice made clear that Andy was enjoying himself.

"What do you want?" she asked when they were in their apartment with the
door locked.

"You." Nice to hear, but not particularly clear.

"Well, you have me."

"Yeah!" He sounded very pleased about that.

"So, how do you want me?" That was the real question.

"Really? Not limited to two orgasms?" Was that what he wanted? Well, she
could give him that, if he didn't push it too far.

"You can have me tonight the way you want me, so long as I can get you when
I want you." She could enjoy multiple climaxes, being rested and without
any obligation to meet in the morning. She should cook him breakfast, but
refusing him what he really wanted for that reason would be silly.

"That's fair."

He picked her up, kissed her, and started to undress her. Well, if he
wanted her, he wanted her naked. He took care of her clothes, even getting
the pantyhose off without turning it inside out.

"You, too," she said when she was naked. He was much faster with his
clothes. Then he lifted her again, kissing her forehead, mouth, tits, and
stomach before lowering her to the bed. "I love your strength," she said.
"How you can pick me up."

He kissed her feet again, sucking her toes. The feet weren't clean this
time, but this was going to be Andy's night. When he kissed the sole of her
left foot, though, she pulled away.

"Tickles," she explained. He went to the ankle and kissed his way up the
inside of her leg. By the time he got above the knee, she could feel
herself flowing. He continued up her thigh in slow stages, licking as well
as kissing. By the time his mouth got to her moisture, she could feel some
of it trickling down her right ass cheek. She was shifting back and forth
across the sheet.

Andy clamped his hands on her hip bones as his mouth covered her pussy. He
licked up her groove and stopped just short of her clit. She grabbed his
hair to pull him closer.

"Andy, do it!" Well on his next lick he did. Lightning struck. Her
consciousness was only inward for the longest time. She was on fire. The
fire was centered in her pussy, but it reached all the way to her
fingertips. Her muscles were pulling against each other, but they couldn't
escape the fire. Finally, she was exhausted.

"Andy, let up," she managed to gasp. Her hands were already in his hair,
and she used it to push his head away.

"I love you," he said from somewhere between her legs. He kissed her left
thigh while she struggled to get her breath back.

"You, too." She kept her hands in his hair, though, in case she had to push
him away again. He was surprisingly obedient, though, kissing no higher
than the middle of her thigh. He did change thighs. When her gasping eased
and she thought she might live, his kisses started creeping up her right
thigh. "Give me a minute." He relented, kissing a path downward towards her
knee. His hands slid under her legs, though, and she soon felt them cup her
tits.

Her nipples hardened in response to his fingers, and his path reversed
again. As his mouth moved up her leg, his shoulders moved up the bed under
her legs. Soon, he'd pushed them up until her knees were bent sharply. His
mouth went over the end of her mound and the tops of her lips. She felt his
breath there and directly on her clit. She tensed, feeling the arousal
renewing itself.

Abruptly, he withdrew his hands. He rose up on one elbow, and slid a finger
into her. When she could look down, she could see his face. He withdrew the
finger and then put two into her. They slid in and out for a moment, then
stopped when mostly within. She felt them moving around in her, and then
she felt her arousal spiral upwards.

"Oh, yes," he said as the lightning struck her again. She could feel
herself clamp on the bony fingers, but that didn't make those fingers stop
moving. She couldn't control herself. She felt her knee knock against his
shoulder, but all he said was "Darling."

She finally collapsed. He stopped moving his fingers for a minute, and then
leaned over to kiss her between her belly button and her pubic hair. When
she looked down he was staring at her. Their eyes locked for a minute, and
then he bent to kiss her thigh again.

"This time, you," she said.

"But I am in you." He wiggled his fingers. His grin looked devilish.

"You said." He'd promised something about coming in her when she asked.

"Okay." He pulled his fingers out. He kissed both her thighs, but then he
moved up her body. He kissed as he went, kissed a line up the bottom of her
right breast, then kissed a line from one nipple to the other. He wasn't
rushing things, but he was coming nearer. When he kissed her on the mouth,
she grasped him. She used her left hand to spread her lips apart. Maybe she
could taste a little of herself on his lips, but his tongue tasted like
Andy. When that kiss was over, he moved up the bed and she could place him.

"Oh, darling," he said as he slid between her lips. He was so hard entering
her, spreading her, filling her. He kissed her forehead when he was totally
inside. Then he began moving. It moved so slowly, slid against her so
arousingly, filled her so completely. Lightning struck! Clamping on his
cock felt different from clamping around his fingers. It felt, somehow,
more satisfactory. She felt his hardness moving out through her
contractions, then driving in hard.

"Oh, love," he said as she could feel his throbbing inside.

When he fell, he fell to the side and came out. His leg was over hers, but
not heavily. She could hear his gasps in a different rhythm from her own.
Much later, he pulled his leg off her, rolled on his side, and cuddled up
to her.

"I love you," he said.

"You lust after me."

"Well, yeah. That too."

"That's okay. Sometimes, I lust after you, too." He hugged her more
tightly. He kissed her shoulder, but she could feel him laughing through
the kiss.

The next day, to her surprise, she woke up feeling energetic. They were due
at the senior Trainor house for lunch; she wouldn't use her food budget
this week. She fixed an omelet for breakfast. Andy was still reading the
freshman Lit book. Somehow, studying meant that he sat at the table;
reading meant that he lay on the bed. She tidied up the kitchen and then
began to vacuum the living room. Andy came out of the bedroom.

"That's my job."

"Not in the summer, Andy." Had he really not noticed that she hadn't asked
him to vacuum for more than a month? He looked puzzled. "When I'm done in
here, move onto the couch. I'll do the bedroom." He went back to the
bedroom and his book.

They got to the Trainor house early, and the conversation was general
through lunch. Mrs. Bryant fixed the lunch and cleared, but she ate with
the family. April and Marilyn took their scheduled walk after lunch.

"Excited about your senior year coming up?" she asked April.

"More excited about my Freshman year coming after that. Do you think I
should go to the U of I?"

"I can tell you about the U of I -- some things about it. You would have to
answer that question yourself. What would your mother think?" Andy's
parents -- April's parents -- had what was probably a civil relationship
for divorced people, but there was definitely some competitiveness. Andy's
mom seemed, from Marilyn's perspective, to be more hostile towards Jim
Trainor than he was towards her.

"Well, Dad pays child support now, and Mom has custody. Next year, he's
only obliged to pay college costs, and there's no requirement that it pass
through Mom's hands." April sounded like she'd made her choice between her
parents. "You know Mom and The Turd are headed towards divorce?"

"I hadn't."

"They're in counseling. I don't see the counseling working. I wouldn't make
the effort if I was Mom. Anyway, Molly thought about simply making this her
home away from college, but that would have left me out on a limb." A lot
to think about. "Now, we both could. Anyway, the U of I?"

"What would be your major?"

"I haven't quite decided. It's not what you think. I'm thinking of going
pre-med. As far as high-school grades go, I have a fair chance." She wasn't
boasting. Jim Trainor got reports of her grades and passed them on to Andy.
Andy was quite proud of 'The Moppet,' which nickname was getting to be
sillier and sillier. It would be absurd for an M. D.  "But those are grades
in high school. I need a field, chemistry or biology or something, where I
would have a chance if I can't get into med school." This was Andy's
sister, after all. The silly girl she had known had grown up. Which
reminded her.

"What's your relationship with Tony?" At least April wasn't planning to
elope with him, and he should have graduated.

"Tony's fine. It's odd. I'm thinking of being a doctor -- a people doctor
-- and Tony's thinking of being a veterinarian. We're not more than casual
friends now. I know that I thought I loved him back then, but I didn't."

"Oh yes, you did. Or, at least, the April I knew back then did. You're a
different person. So am I a different person than I was back then, but
you're more different -- internally, at least." April was different on the
outside, too, by an inch in height and at least two cup sizes, but Marilyn
wasn't going to harp on that. "Is there someone else you want to tell me
about."

"There's someone, at least there was someone when I was in school. We
haven't done much this summer. But not wanting to tell you about him isn't
keeping secrets. He might be part of my life next year, but he won't be
part of my life the year after. Maybe April-back-then was in love;
April-now isn't."

"That's fair. At least, it's fair to me. I hope you're not leading him on."

"He's in it for what he can get. And what he can get stays above the waist.
Y'know, Molly can talk all she wants about my figure, and, sure, more guys
want to date me than want to date a stick. But, when they want a date, they
want to explore the whole thing. And, really, you need to have a date."

"Yeah. You kiss a lot of frogs."

"Huh?"

"Old fairy tale. Girl finds a frog who can talk; he talks her into kissing
him; at the kiss, he turns into a prince. Recent update. Girl is
congratulated on her prince; she says that she had to kiss a lot of frogs.
Of course, in the modern version, it isn't really a prince in the sense it
was in the fairy tale, and they weren't really frogs, either."

"I think I get it. Still, leaving aside that it was <b>Andy</b>, I envy
you."

"Don't envy me. It happens, or it doesn't happen. When it happens, it's the
best thing in your life. Trying to make it happen can be the worst thing in
your life."

"Tell me about it. Look at Mom. But I wanted to ask you something else. Do
you think I could get into your sorority."

"Well, I don't know if a sister-in-law is a legacy. Even without that, you
look like a Zate. They want good-looking women. It helps. I could help you
deal with how to dress and how to act at rush time. You wouldn't really
disappoint them later. Maybe your wardrobe is a little more explicit than
their standard, but I've only seen a little of it. You understand that,
even if you went to the University, the actives voting on your membership
wouldn't include anyone who lived in the house with me. Only a third of
them would be the class who were pledges my senior year.

"The real question, though, is would your dad pay for it? He's always been
utterly gracious to me, but I get the feeling that he isn't fond of the
Greek life."

"Well, he'd pay for me to belong to <b>your</b> sorority. You don't know
how much he respects you." That was maybe the wrong verb, but Jim Trainor
obviously <b>liked</b> her.

"You know," she told April. "I went into Zeta because it had been such a
large part of my Mom's life. I really liked my time there. (You should know
that your brother absolutely hated my time there.) On the other hand, it
seems to be a smaller part of my life now than it was of Mom's life when I
was growing up. I go to an occasional meeting with Mom, and they make much
of me because I was chapter vice president. If I have a daughter, she may
join Zeta, but she won't because it was such a large part of her mother's
life." She didn't want to discourage April. Taken all in all, she was glad
she'd been in Zeta. Maybe because she thought of her as Andy's sister, she
was less sure that April would be as glad.

"I don't know what that means for you," she continued. "I don't even know
what that means for me. I will say that your going to college in order to
become a doctor is better than going to participate in the social life.
Even if you don't become a doctor, you'll have learned something."

The weather was bearable, and the family was on lawn furniture and some
kitchen chairs in the back yard when they got back. They were drinking iced
tea. She and April joined them.

"Mr. Trainor," she said. "You tell Andy everything you hear from Molly and
April, don't you?"

"Pretty much. They don't tell me many secrets. I suspect that they tell you
more."

"So why doesn't it go the other way? Why didn't you tell them that Andy
made Phi Beta Kappa?"

"Did you?" This was directed to Andy.

"She told me to."

"Andy! They invited you to join. I said to accept. You're not a member of
Phi Beta Kappa because your wife told you to join. You're a member because
you had an exceptional scholastic record."

"Actually," said Jim Trainor, "he's a member because of both reasons. And,
really, I didn't write the girls for two reasons, as well. He didn't tell
me, and you didn't tell me. You know, when you were younger, it made sense
for me to be the conduit of information." He was now speaking to his
children. "Now, it makes less sense. You could write each other."

"Yeah," April said, "but one stamp is cheaper."

"Actually," Molly said, "she and I talk on the phone. And, really, if Andy
didn't tell you, what makes you think he'd have told us?"

"You see, Marilyn," Jim Trainor explained, "Andy answers many of my direct
questions."

"I answer all of them."

"'That's none of your God-damned business,' is not what I'd call an answer."

"It's an answer, and, when I've used it, a precisely accurate one."

"Anyway, he answers questions, but he doesn't volunteer much information.
Even when he introduced us, he didn't tell me that you were important in
his life or anything."

"I could have been just a casual acquaintance?" Well, that was all right.

"Except that you would have been the first casual acquaintance whom he had
ever introduced to me. For that matter, you were president of MYF when he
was a member, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, we were both in church most of that year, and he didn't introduce us
then. Besides which, Andy may not have a very communicative mouth, but he
has a very communicative face. You were damn important to him. How
important he was to you was less obvious." Well, how important was he to
her at the end of their freshman year? For that matter, he hadn't acted
like she was 'damn important' to him.

"Well," Andy said, "it all turned out well in the end."

"Except that this isn't the end," she pointed out. "We haven't lived ever
after, let alone happily ever after."

"Then, you have to tell me what would make you happy. I'm willing enough,
but maybe not understanding enough."

"Maybe?" asked Molly. "Andy, everybody here knows you're a really bright
guy. Understanding, you're not."

"Well," she said, "if he wants to know how to make me happy, he's been
remarkably successful these past two years. I'm not so sure that Andy's
devoid of understanding. Now, understanding his sister is a different task.
Do you understand Andy?"

"I don't," April said, "Does anybody? I like him. Andy is my very favorite
brother, but I've given up trying to understand him."

"Well, I'll take that from you, being chosen favorite out of such a wide
field." April just laughed. Then she looked serious.

"Dad," April asked, "what would you think of Molly and me moving here? It
would only be school vacations, of course. But Mom's custody expires next
year."

"Well, what would your mother think?"

"Mom wouldn't like it. I don't claim that she would. I'm not talking about
when she has any say in it. You send Molly's tuition check to Mom. Do you
have to?"

"Well, the check is made out to the school. Sending it to her is just
evidence that I'm fulfilling my legal requirement. Still, however dead a
marriage is, it involves obligations which aren't dead. Despite what she
thinks, I'm not interested in doing something just to damage her. I did her
enough damage."

"That was her fault."

"Yeah. You came to that conclusion base on your close observation of the
marriage. Baby, even Andy, who saw and heard way too much, doesn't know
enough about that marriage to make that judgment. Even so, fault in divorce
is a legal fiction. 'No fault' is a newer legal fiction. You go into
marriage promising to be a good husband to that woman.... Let me start over.

"Anne marries Bob. Anne promises to be a good wife to <b>Bob</b>. Bob
promises to be a good husband to <b>Anne</b>. Nobody promises to be some
sort of good spouse in the abstract. So you're right; 100% of the blame is
Margaret's, but your implication is wrong; 100% of the blame is mine. I was
a failure as a husband to Margaret. However good a husband I might have
been to some other woman, I failed utterly as a husband to the woman I
promised to be a good husband to.

"And, you'll notice, I didn't try again. While I'll entertain the
hypothesis that my skills as a husband would have pleased some other woman,
as a practical matter I never identified the woman with whom I would risk
it."

"Well," April said, "you're a success as a father."

"One third of a success. Molly hasn't flown quite out of the nest yet, and
you've barely begun. Now, Andy seems to be quite an accomplishment."

"Hey, don't I get any credit?"

"My son, you get 100% of the credit for your own life -- well, Marilyn has
to share the credit. She shares the life, especially the part you enjoy.
You wouldn't claim that there is much credit to go around for your
high-school years, would you?

"But my credit, and it is only partial, is for what my child is. There
isn't a division between what Andy accomplishes and what Jim accomplishes
in Andy's life. As far as I contributed anything, it shows in what you are.
I contributed half your genes and a bit of tuition."

"And," Marilyn pointed out, "some good advice -- and more good letting
alone."

"Well, yes, a lot of good parenting is abstaining from pissing in the soup.
And, that, April, is why I'm reluctant about pissing in the soup of your
life and Molly's. You have to see, too, that your mother's control allows
me to be the lax parent. If you did live here, even as an adult, you'd have
to follow some rules that I haven't needed to impose when you're on
holiday."

"Well," asked Molly, "what?"

"Nope! One thing I'm not going to do is allow you to parent shop. I will
point out a couple of things. I attend church, and you attend with me.
That's no imposition three Sundays in the year. You might find it one, and
it's one your mother doesn't require. Then, too, I don't restrict your
dating when you're in Evanston, because your situation does that. Now,
you'll be on campus most of the year, but you might not be as happy
spending three months without dating as you are spending two weeks without
dating."

"You'd forbid me dating?" Molly asked.

"No. But I'd impose some restrictions as to meeting the boy and when and
what."

"You didn't impose any restrictions on Andy."

"As a point of fact," Marilyn told her, "he did. What Andy did was his
business; what Andy did in the house was your dad's business."

"And," Jim Trainor said, "restrictions on daughters are generally stronger
than restrictions on sons in this culture. And, if you moved here you'd
accept my rules before you saw them. I doubt that your mother would take
you back because I was too strict."

"Would you listen to Marilyn?"

"I'd listen to her advice. I'd always listen to her advice on something
like this. Maybe not on lending policies, but she wouldn't offer advice on
that. The responsibility would be mine, though, and not Marilyn's, and,
therefore, the decision would be mine."

"And," Marilyn said, "you have to understand that the advice I give you
under seal of secrecy isn't necessarily the advice I'd give your dad to
allow. When I was in Zeta House, a girl asked me what were the rules --
rules between he sexes. I told her there were many sets of rules, but 'good
girls don't have sex' is a fine rule. She was rather surprised. But, if
your dad were to ask me, I'd advise his making that a rule. Sometimes, you
choose to break that rule, but it's way to early for sex if you're not
ready to break a rule."

"So, I should forbid it, and they should ignore me?"

"So, you should definitely forbid it. They might arrive at a situation
where they decide to break that prohibition. 'Ignore' is too strong a word.
One thing they should definitely keep in mind is that you would disapprove
if you knew."

"Are you making one rule for us and another for yourself?" April asked.
Well, she'd never admitted that to them she'd had sex, at least that she'd
had sex before marriage. On the other hand, they'd talked to the Zate
bridesmaids, and those knew she spent lots of nights with Andy. Anyway,
they were too old to believe in unicorns or virgin brides.

"Well, Mom disapproved, and I knew she would. I knew that Dad would have
disapproved, too, if he'd known."

"He did," Andy said. Now, that was a surprise. When had Dad learned, and
when had Andy learned that Dad knew?

"And did Dad disapprove?" Molly asked.

"He was never consulted," Andy said.

"And if I wanted to live in a single room off campus next year, would Dad
spring for it?" Jim Trainor didn't answer.

"Look," she said, "since everybody says they respect my advice, I'll repeat
some unsolicited advice that I gave a bunch of women in the church --
slightly changed to fit the circumstances.

"When a woman goes off to college, she's going to meet a lot of new guys,
presumably some of them attractive. I think she should go on the Pill
before arriving on campus. That's not saying she'll have sex. That's saying
that if she meets a guy and gets carried away, it won't end in disaster.
That's saying that if she goes on a date with a guy who is moderately
attractive, and he turns out to be a rapist, she has one fewer problem than
she would have otherwise. And, since she makes the decision before she
meets any of the guys, the decision to take the Pill isn't a decision to
have sex. You should go on the Pill a year from now, and your father should
encourage that decision."

"Well, Marilyn," Jim Trainor said. "That's one piece of advice from you
that I won't follow."

"Really, Dad," Andy asked, "is it so different from the advice you gave me
about condoms? 'If you have one, you don't have to use it; if you don't
have one, you might wish that you had brought it.'"

"Did he really say that?" April asked.

"More or less," her father admitted. "But boys are different from girls.
And, really, I wasn't telling him to have sex. I was telling him to be
careful if he did. That was a protection for the girls he would date."

"Yeah," Marilyn said. "Boys are different from girls. One way they're
different is that boys don't get raped."

"Well, Marilyn," Jim Trainor said, "did you really run that risk?"

"From Andy, no, objectively. Andy always took no for an answer. But my
situation was Russian roulette, and so is Molly's and April's. And they
won't be dating Andy. If you say that I went on dates with Andy, you say I
wasn't in any danger, but if you say I went on dates with a guy, then I was
in danger of the chamber including a bullet. I was groped by a guy on a
house date. I wasn't raped, and I don't think anyone ever was on a house
date. Frat guys can be selfish idiots, but that idiocy would be extreme.

"A house date means that your sorority agrees to date some fraternity. The
house provides one person for the date of one person of the other house.
So, it's sort of a first date, except that you don't get a choice and
neither does the guy. For a first date, you get chosen personally, at
least, and you accept that guy. Anyway, after that, I wore padded bras. If
the guy wanted to grab a tit, he would end up grabbing foam."

"I didn't know you had padded bras."

"Andy, listen to what I said. When a guy that I didn't want to touch me
there grabbed me, he got foam. By the time you touched my tits, I was quite
ready for you to do so. For that matter, if I hadn't been ready, you gave
me a chance to stop you. April has to find another solution, though." Andy
blushed.

"You make it sound like a war," Jim Trainor said.

"Well, in some ways it is. You have to have a date, and the boy wants to
know what he can get for being a date. Apparently, boys don't need to have
a date quite so badly. You were a boy once, did you stay up nights worrying
whether anyone at all would ask you to a dance?"

"Well, I can remember wondering whether a particular girl cared for me. I
can remember walking to the phone, being too nervous to make the call, and
coming back later."

"Yeah. But that was a particular girl. We go through that, too. And in high
school it seems we always fixate on the most popular boy instead of one who
is likely to call."

"Like fixating on the president of MYF," Andy said.

"Now, son, you won that one. Patience is a virtue."

"Well," Marilyn said, "I was hardly the most popular one."

"You were far enough above me to turn me down."

"I wasn't above you at all. I was going steady." She felt a little guilty
about that white lie. However fine a man he was now, and however smart a
boy he'd been then, he <b>had</b> been below her socially. Still, that
wasn't what she'd thought of back then. The answer to the  quarterback
would still have been no.

"As to living off campus, Molly," her dad said, "you have to understand
that Andy cost me less in room and board for the last two years of his
education than he did for the first two."

"That doesn't include the hotel," Andy said. He may have remembered the
bills and added them in his head.

"The honeymoon was a wedding gift. It wasn't your school expenses. Anyway,
I had already said that I'd cover his tuition and living expenses. It
seemed to me that I'd be imposing my morality on him -- not my morality as
in what I practiced, my moral choices for what he should practice -- to
refuse to pay less than I had guaranteed just because that room might be
used for what I wouldn't permit in this house.

"I didn't know whether Marilyn would visit, but I knew damn well that he
wanted that room because he hoped -- maybe expected -- that she would.

"Then, too, do I hold a double standard? Yes I do. But I'm influenced by
society's double standard. Andy wasn't going to ruin his life. And that
wasn't because Andy was sensible, not even because Marilyn was sensible. It
was because nothing, from a publicly known affair to a child out of wedlock
is one tenth as damaging to a man as it is to a woman. I'm sorry, Marilyn,
but in this I have to worry about my own children."

"Well, I can't object to that. You've always been kind to me, and your
generosity to the two of us really has helped me as much as it has helped
Andy. After all, I was grateful at the time for your being more
understanding than my parents. It would be hypocritical to accuse you now
for the same actions.

"But something you have said raises a question I've asked others. Let's
leave April out of it; she's still in high school now, though the question
is about the future."

"Well, she'll be going to medical school. Her after-school future is a long
way away."

"While you wouldn't enjoy either one," she continued, "which would you
consider the greater disaster: Molly had an affair and then broke up; Molly
got married and then broke up?"

"Well, speaking from experience, the broken marriage is a much greater
disaster. It would have been, even though I don't really have the
experience here, a greater disaster even without children."

"Then seeing this, seeing that you're expecting to walk Molly down the
aisle one day, would you really say 'not until marriage' to her?"

"You're a hard woman? Why did I think you were so sweet and gentle?"

"The size fools big men like you and Andy."

"Well, given the choice that you've expressed, you're right. If Molly is
ready to go to bed with a man and I'm not sure of him, I'd be a perfect ass
to insist upon marriage. That doesn't take into consideration that a single
mother's life -- which is hard enough -- is a damn sight harder when she
was never married."

"So your wishes to your daughter is that she doesn't have sex with a man
until she is certain that he's the right one, but that she doesn't rush
into marriage even then, and that -- married or not -- she practices birth
control until the couple is in a position to raise a kid."

"In terms of what's good for their welfare, yes. I still don't like to
think of my daughter having sex. Is that just emotion?"

"Probably," she said. "The lesson, Molly and April, is to go on the Pill
but don't let your dad know."

"Gee, thanks. You know, I say that kids make divorce worse, and it does.
From a totally selfish standpoint, though, much of my pleasure these days
comes from my children -- and, until today, from my daughter-in-law." She
took that as a compliment. The exception was said with a smile. "I'm not
sure that my pleasure is justification for putting you through hell,
though. On the other hand, what's the alternative? Would you really rather
not have been born? You kids could not possibly have had different
biological parents."

"Well," Andy said. "For all its pain, my life has had more pleasure." His
sisters agreed.

"I'm surprised at Andy's response. This year, sure. But I can remember your
childhood. And you were so much more aware of the arguments and aware of
them so much longer."

"Yeah. I wouldn't have said that a year ago. Maybe I'm valuing the recent
past more than the first 12 years of school. But, then, I've good reason to
see a bright future. And it's not <b>only</b> Marilyn. I go to work, and
they give me concrete problems to solve, and I solve a damned fair
percentage of those problems. That's not only my ego talking. They said
something like that at my first annual review. The company has a range of
raises every year, and I got the top of the range." This was the first time
she'd heard about that. He deposited his paycheck in the account; she
didn't note the amount. "And, then after work, I go home to Marilyn. The
commute is no fun, but it's seldom a real pain, and the rest of the week is
one pleasure after another. Technically, I probably don't know anything
while I sleep, but I go to sleep with Marilyn in my arms; I wake up with
Marilyn in my arms. I'll count the sleep time as pleasure, too."

"You, know, Molly," Jim Trainor said, "Andy told me quite brutally that I
didn't have the right to an opinion about his relationship to Marilyn. I
tried to refrain from expressing one. But I had one, as who would not.
That, too, influenced me. She was, obviously, the best thing that ever
happened to your brother. I saw it. While you saw less of them than I did,
didn't you see it?"

"Sure. He was different, even when she wasn't around."

"Well, if he was obviously happier with her, and, moreover, better off,
then I would have felt damned guilty impeding that relationship. So, if you
want me to subsidize your shacking up with some man, you have a better
chance if the man makes you obviously better off. It's not that you'd think
that you're better off, it's that all the family thinks you're better off."

"So," Molly said, "you don't want to restrict us in any way. You just want
to make the condition that the relationship does April or me as much good
as Marilyn did for Andy. Not that that's a restriction or anything."

"What makes you think that I don't want to restrict you in any way?" His
kids laughed at him -- maybe laughed with him.

Well, being told that she was good for Andy was one thing. Having a family
discussion about how good she was for Andy was another. These guys believed
it. Was it objectively true? Well, nobody's being happier was objective,
but almost everybody who could form an opinion from observation thought he
was happier. That was as good as you could get. Of the people who knew him
then and still knew him, only his mom and Mrs. Bryant weren't present, and
his mom hadn't really seen Andy with her.

Andy went back to work, his sisters went home to California. She worked out
tentative lesson plans for the year for all four grades. Andy had finished
the Lit books she had brought home, and she had enjoyed his reading the
verse to her. She went to the library to take out a book of romantic poetry.

"You don't mind?"

"I love it," he said. "I'd love reading you the phone book with your head
in my lap, and this is much better."

She looked over all of Andy's clothes. Some were too ragged for wearing to
work. One shirt had an impossible ink stain running down from the pocket.
Weren't engineers supposed to wear pocket protectors? She put all the
clothes that weren't suitable for work aside. He needed another pair of
dress pants, two more pairs of khakis -- the ones he had were 5 years old,
now -- and 4 more white shirts, 3 of them long-sleeved. She was cycling him
up from khakis to dress pants slowly.

"Are the pants you wear comfortable?" she asked him.

"They're beginning to feel tight in the waist." It was good she'd asked.
Andy wouldn't have volunteered that. They both went shopping this time, and
she checked that the pants were comfortable and had a little expansion room
in the waist.

"You know," she told him, "you eat like a horse and never put on weight.
Well, now, you're beginning to put on weight."

"You think? I hardly ever walk any more."

"I think." They got a bathroom scale on the same shopping trip. The next
morning, she had him weigh himself. It came to 187. "Well, the ceiling for
your weight is 190 pounds. When you weigh more than 190, I'll restrict your
meals." Andy didn't argue. He also didn't ask what she weighed. The man's
lack of any sense of what was expected could be infuriating, but sometimes
it was damn convenient.

She weighed 122, which was seven pounds more than she should weigh. Well,
she would restrict herself at lunch and watch her dinners.

She had felt funny about inviting men to her house when Andy was gone, but
Gayle and Steve Bonney were both English teachers. Gayle would function as
a fine chaperone for Steve. She invited them and Rose Ackerman to lunch.
She cooked her meat loaf, and got in ginger ale. The English teachers
usually served beer at their lunches, but she wouldn't know what to do with
the remaining bottles if she did. She didn't like it, and she didn't think
Andy liked it either.

"Now, that's a generous bookcase," Steve said when the Bonney's came in.
"Looks a little empty, though."

"My husband built it." She didn't mention the other in the bedroom. "We
left our old books back at our old houses. Except for our dictionaries and
a few schoolbooks, these are all new."

"I don't have any beer, she told them when her guests moved to the kitchen.
If someone would prefer the hard stuff, I have that. The ginger ale is the
only mixer, though."

"I'll take you up on that," Steve said. "Branch water is good enough mixer
for me."

"You'll have to settle for tap. The booze is on the top shelf of that
cabinet." She pointed. "Help yourself. It's a little high for me."

"Your husband trying to keep it away from you?"

"Andy asked me for some space in the kitchen. I gave him the space I found
least convenient."

"Bourbon hasn't been opened. Let's see what else you have...." He rummaged
around on the shelf. "Damn! I don't think any of them has been opened."

"Maybe not. Feel free to open one." He reacted to her offer by reaching
down a bottle of bourbon and mixed a drink with tap water.

"You had Black Label up there. Well, with the amount the two of you seem to
consume, I suppose buying the best won't break you."

"Andy asked me whether we would serve drinks to guests. We haven't had too
many guests."

The conversation turned to the looming beginning of the school term.

"You know," Steve said, "grade school is where they're supposed to learn to
read. Sure, giving us the job of raising their standards is fair. I don't
mind introducing kids to Shakespeare, or even Frost. I get the feeling that
I'm introducing half the kids to <b>reading</b>. 100,000 words is one
novel, a rather short novel. It's not <i>War and Peace</i>, but it's a
respectable novel for adults. Now, how many of our kids own books totaling
100,000 words?"

"Now, Steve," Rose said, "you're asking how many they own. They've read
more than that."

"Well, if they read half of what they're assigned, they have. Look, I'm not
trying to establish any property criterion. If a kid has a library card and
uses it regularly, I respect that completely. If he can't afford his own
books, that's no problem. But how many of our kids can't afford their own
books? Do you see how much junk they own?"

"Well, most of them... But we have kids who can't afford a decent meal."

"Yeah. Or their parents don't feed them because they're feeding their own
habits. But you see most of our students hanging out at hamburger and pizza
joints. If I had a student whom I knew read library books but couldn't
afford his own, I'd be tempted to fucking give him a couple of books,
myself. They don't read. They watch TV."

"Well, admit it, Steve," Gayle said, "we watched television, too. We still
do. We read then, and some of them read now. The younger generation has
been going to hell in a handbasket since the time of Aristotle. Honestly,
do any of us know an adult who doesn't watch TV?"

"Well, I once did," Marilyn said. She wanted them to respect Andy. "My
husband lived alone for a year before we were married. He didn't own a TV
set. The first year of our marriage, we didn't own a set, either, but that
was mostly budget constraints. I had to adjust the food budget to be able
to afford a vacuum."

"Then he got out of school and settled for being a couch potato?" Steve
asked.

"Then we both got out of school. I was the one who wanted a TV. I watched
in the sorority house before I was married, and -- of course -- in my
childhood from the time I could turn on the set -- probably before."

"He didn't watch in his teen years?"

"He probably watched, but I've never heard him speak about his favorite TV
show. Now, science fiction, that's something else. He still gets and reads
SF magazines."

"You're still an infatuated newlywed. I hate to break it to you, but when
men 'read' magazines, they don't always look at the words." She went into
the bedroom and brought back an <i>Analog</i>.

"If he gets this for the pictures, he's wasting his money." She handed
Steve the magazine. It was mostly words printed on pulp. There were a few
line drawings, only one of them of a woman, and photographs of a NASA site.
Steve handed it around

"Not what I'd call great literature," Rose said.

"No," Steve said, "but that's what I've been saying. The man <b>reads</b>.
If Marilyn wants him to be familiar with <i>Moby Dick</i>, she probably can
think up a way to persuade him to read it."

"If I'd read it myself. Right now, he's not going in for great literature.
He read the Lit books I'll be teaching next year this summer. He figures
that he wants to know what his wife is doing. And that's Steve's point.
Okay, Andy is a college graduate; he probably has above average reading
skills for a college graduate. Still, what we beat the kids over the head
to get them to read in 9 months is one third of what he thinks is
subsidiary reading in the summer."

"One third? What year didn't he read?"

"Senior. He took twelfth grade at Evanston. He was in Chicago before that,
and they had different Lit books. So, he'd already read the senior book.
And, believe me, if Andy was assigned some reading, he did that reading.
For that matter, I taught <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> for practice teaching. He
read it to see what I was doing. He'd had two other plays in high school,
but not that one."

"Well, I can see what attracted you to him."

"Steve," Gayle said, "I've seen her husband. That's not what attracted her.
Not that you should be jealous, or anything."

They were in church every week. If she could go most of the weeks when
she'd been overwhelmed by class prep, she could go in her leisure time.
Bill Pierce and his twins usually sat two or three rows ahead of them. One
week, Mrs. Pierce sat with her family. Later, when they were in line
waiting to shake the pastor's hand, Mrs. Pierce came up to her.

"You know, Marilyn, you have a lovely voice."

"Thank you. It's not like yours." Mrs. Pierce sang an occasional solo.

"Well, it's sure not like mine today." Okay, her voice was scratchy today.
But Marilyn had enjoyed it when Mrs. Pierce was singing solos. "Summer
colds, somehow, are the worst kind. Anyway, you should consider the choir."

"I'm overwhelmed in the school year." Which sounded wimpy. Mrs. Pierce
taught college and had two active -- they were tugging their father in
opposite directions right then -- boys to take her time when she wasn't.

"Well, you know, there are all those college kids in the choir. We're
always short in the summer. If you don't think you can make practice in the
fall, consider next summer. Not that I've contributed anything the last two
weeks, but that's this damn cold."

The summer was drawing to a close. Instead of Wednesday night, she invited
Jim Trainor for a Saturday. They would serve him lunch and talk in the time
afterwards. Andy did the laundry Friday night, instead of his usual
Saturday.

"That was delicious, Marilyn," Jim Trainor said when the meal was over.
"I'd like a little walk to help me digest it. Would you be so kind as to
accompany me?"

"Really, Dad," Andy said, "I could take the walk and leave you two the
privacy."

"I'm an old man, but not old enough to fear a few flights of stairs." So
they went down, left the building, and turned right. "I'm sorry, Marilyn,"
he said, "I should have asked whether you're tired of those stairs."

"That's quite all right. I'm not sure that it would feel like a private
conversation if we were still up there."

"You think I was too strict with my daughters, don't you."

"Really, no. As I said in front of them, parental rules are fine. It's just
that sometimes you have good reason to break them. Now, if you're going to
feel betrayed if they do..." And, really, Molly already was. Her guy didn't
sound great to Marilyn, but it was Molly's life and Molly's choice.

"Yeah. It's just that the boy's saying yes, and the hormones are saying
yes; <b>somebody</b> ought to say no." She grinned at him. "Your advice was
very good about taking the Pill and not telling me. Does that sound
hypocritical?"

"That sounds honest."

"I'm not sure it is. You don't want to hear about the sex life of your
daughters. What I'll do when they're married, I don't know. You carry that
infant in your arms, and you promise that you'll do everything you can to
protect her. And, of course, anybody having a sexual attraction to that
infant would have to be really sick. Boys... well, you worry about a boy
but not in the same way....

"Anyway, that's water under the bridge. How are you and Andy doing?"

"We're doing great. Don't we look happy?"

"Well, you look happy, and Andy doesn't look harried. That's equivalent to
ecstatic in anybody else."

"Was his childhood as unhappy as it sounds?"

"Childhood? He was a happy baby and toddler. Sobbed uncontrollably
sometimes, of course, but he laughed gleefully more often. After maybe
first or second grade, he was never really happy. The divorce didn't help,
of course, although his parents' battles before the divorce might have been
worse. Later, I felt guilty about fighting Margaret for his custody. He
needed another school; she would have given him one. Whether it would have
done him any good is another question. And, with Margaret gone, he had his
home for a refuge. I'm not saying that she was worse than I was, but
<b>we</b> were a damn-sight worse than I was alone.

"Finally, I moved here. I used my promotion as an excuse and got a better
house, but I switched him from one school district to another. He fought me
over that, and he may have been right, but I think the new school's bullies
didn't have him in their sights. You were an entirely unexpected bonus. I
don't think either of us was thinking of happiness for him, merely a
reduction of pain."

"Well, whether or not a different high school helped him, college did. He
shone there."

"Oh yes. And, if some of that was you and consequently unpredictable, a lot
could be foreseen. He went from an environment where his gifts were
despised to one where his gifts were honored."

"Not by everybody." She remembered the criticism of the seniors at Zeta.

"Never by everybody. But the University has two advantages -- three really.
First, while it's not a heaven of intellectualism, it's more intellectual
than any high school. Second, the least academic and least intellectual
kids in high school aren't around any more. Third, it's larger -- vast --
and much less homogeneous. If there were circles where he would still be
despised, he didn't have to go there. The athletes are a smaller fraction,
and they are worked much harder. They don't have time to bully the Andies.
Anyway, even that's in the past. You guys are happy with each other?" If
that was an enquiry into their sex life, it was a subtle one. Whether or
not it was, the answer was the same.

"Very happy, speaking for myself."

"Well, there is no question about Andy. Basically, stick around and tell
him what you need. If he can provide it, he will. If he can't provide it,
you knew him before you married him. Don't blame him too hard for
inabilities you should have known existed. And you're happy with your
career choice?"

"Yeah. It's a shame that my promotion came at a good woman's illness, but
I'm a full-time teacher now."

"That I knew, and don't worry about succeeding through someone else's loss.
Speaking as an old fart, if we didn't die, there would be no room for
anybody else."

"You're not that old."

"More than twice your age. Anybody who's twice your age is over the hill.
That's a constant, beginning when you reach the early teens. Anyway, I knew
your position. I asked whether you think that you can be happy in it."

"Remember your triad of pleasure, satisfaction, and contentment?"

"It's more yours than mine, but yes."

"Well, I think teaching provides plenty of satisfaction. I'll depend on my
marriage for most of the other two."

"Y'know, one problem Andy had about enjoyment was his standards for his
grades." This was Andy's dad, and the abrupt change of subject must have
been in the genes.

"Yeah?"

"He expected, required of himself, that he get an A in science and math --
later in engineering. That meant that he'd either suffered a defeat or
avoided a defeat. Nothing there to celebrate. His standards in other
courses weren't all that much lower. I never heard him exult in an A. Well,
in the same way, if you don't get satisfaction from what you've achieved in
your marriage, then you have ridiculously high standards.

"And, pardon me for prying, but it's almost the only place I could actually
help. Are you two doing all right financially?"

"Yeah. Damn near everything we own is still on the installment plan, but
we're making the installment payments. For that matter, now that I'm
getting a regular salary, we've been socking some away. I don't know why
you're so hesitant to ask. We'd be deep in the hole if you hadn't helped --
the last year in school, the month we lived in your home while Andy started
his job, the car for God's sake. And, while I never went to you last year
when we were close, I certainly would have if things had got worse."

"I never knew that there had been trouble."

"There really wasn't. It's just that some expenses came before some income.
We had money in the checking account, but it hadn't cleared. I had to buy
clothes for school before I taught, and there was a short -- but annoying
-- gap between teaching and getting paid. Then, though I didn't have to, I
chose to buy a car for me. Getting to the school would require two bus
trips from here. It's doable, but not what I'd like to see every day.
Really, though, Andy could drop me off on the way to his job.

"Anyway, in August, I drew the savings account down almost to zero. My next
step was a Mayday call to you at work. Because of the waiting time on
deposits, it would have had to be cash."

"Well, so I wasn't asked for money, but you acted as though you had a line
of credit. That's not so bad, really. And you say those times are past?"

"Yeah. Line of credit?"

"Mostly for businesses. Let's say your business makes a solid profit and
has lots more assets than liabilities. You want to play the acquisition
game. Instead of the Smith Corporation going to its banker and telling him
that it wants to buy up the Jones Corporation and laying out the entire
business model, it might go to its banker and say: 'This is how much we
make now, and this is how much we have in assets without any acquisitions,
how much are you willing lend us on present assets?' Then they have that
much as a line of credit. When they need it, they can borrow it.

"Anyway, you weren't in as much danger as you seem to think. Banks live off
float, and if you're using it, they can't. On the other hand, they aren't
anxious to lose a customer. Andy had been depositing pay checks from the
same company for a couple of months. They'd cleared. Really, they clear in
a few days. Your checks were from Evanston Township School District. You
were banking in Evanston?"

"Yeah. Bank of Evanston."

"Well, they knew the school district wasn't kiting checks. They'd have
called you up if your outlays depended on non-checkable funds, but they
wouldn't have been anxious. If you had money in a savings account, they
would have been even less anxious. That said, it's good to have some
padding. You never know what can go wrong, like the transmission going out
in Andy's car."

"Yeah. Glad that wasn't last year."

"If you have padding now, that looks fine. There are people in your
generation -- hell! people in my generation -- who are living off their
next paycheck, sometimes their next three paychecks. I can't criticize you
for buying your first furniture on the installment plan. I wouldn't
encourage you to buy replacements on the installment plan. The furniture
should last long enough after it's paid off to afford new ones from
savings."

"You live on interest. You don't believe in paying interest."

"Andy told you that? Well, it's not quite true. I have a mortgage on the
house. I have a credit card; really I have three credit cards until they
cancel the one which paid for your honeymoon for lack of use. The second
one is for business expenses, and the bank pays. They all get paid on time;
that avoids interest there. You have to be careful, though; even when you
pay the credit-card bill when it arrives, that's money you spend before you
get it."

"As opposed to rent, which is due the first of the month. The money Andy
earns from the 13th through the 26th of August will be paid on September
7th. If the mail is dependable, it will get to the bank on the 10th, and
will clear on the 24th. That's just in time for the rent payment on the
first of October. So what he does in August pays his housing in October,
and that's without any padding at all."

"Yeah. Back in the Middle Ages, the step beyond apprentice was a
journeyman. They called him that because he was paid every day for that
day's work. He could work for a day, draw his pay, and spend it that night.
On the other hand, he had to walk to wherever he wanted to shop and turn
the coins over to them. You mail checks. Your convenience costs you the
delay."

"It's the best of all possible worlds?"

"In a sense. It's the only possible present. There is more than one
possible future. I don't want one in which there are no checking accounts,
and not just because I'm a banker.

"Look," he continued, "I repeat that you have done more for Andy than I
dreamed possible. I hoped that he would have a life with less unhappiness.
Actual joy was beyond my expectations. That said, you have introduced a new
worry. It was clear to me that he wasn't interested in most consumer
things." That was a wild understatement. She'd had to ask him to eat off
plates he owned and to wear more than three of the neckties he owned. What,
beside food and books, would Andy buy for himself?

"I scouted out apartments," she told his dad. "I had a little list. I
suggested that he visit my three top choices to see which one he thought
best. He only wanted to see my top choice."

"Yes. When I gave him a maximum amount I would pay for rent, he chose a
place costing a little more than half that. My dime. That's what I mean. I
never feared that, once he had a steady job, he would having any problem
paying for everything he wanted. Now, however, he has you. He really wants
to buy everything which would make you happy. And is that limited?"

"Yeah. I know. I give him a budget. He can't spend more than that on my
Christmas and birthday gifts. You know, I told you about worrying over the
disappearing padding in our accounts. I want stuff. I want as much stuff as
Molly and April do. But I want to be solvent more."

"I wish they did. You know, suburban living scares me sometimes. It's not
just the suburbs, but they epitomize living away from your job. Could you
tell me what your father does? Not his office title, but what he does all
day?" She started to figure out how to tell him what she knew. Then she saw
that the question was literal. He was asking not "What does your father
do?" but "How well do you know what your father does?"

"Not very well."

"Well, that's modern American life. Adults produce and consume, but our
kids only see us consume. You, luckily, want to participate in one sort of
production you saw often. Andy read about engineers, if fantastic future
engineers, in his SF. Most of the productive jobs in this economy are jobs
that the next generation never sees being done.

"Anyway, I fear that this produces a good fraction of a generation who
identify themselves as consumers."

"Have you met my brother Pete?"

"Only a few times."

"I think you've identified his problem. And, you know, it's worse for boys.
I've known girls who want to be wives of providers, but even they have seen
their mothers work. I think Pete sees himself as bringing home a paycheck
-- and dominating the little woman because he is the provider. I don't
think he sees himself as doing something specific to earn that paycheck.
Maybe I'm wrong."

"Well, Molly has some work in view, and so does April, although med school
is a long process."

"For her, and for you."

"Well, year after next is the hardest part, financially. College expenses
are a damn-sight more than child support, and next year I'll have college
expenses for two. But, after that I'll only have college expenses for one
rather than child support for two. And I foresaw the expenses. Like you, I
saved up a little. Anyway, as I said, I cradled that baby in my arms. I'll
be damned proud every step she takes. You know, Andy kicked and screamed,
but I wanted him to fly out of the nest." She took a minute to realize that
he meant teenage Andy kicking and screaming figuratively, not baby Andy
kicking and screaming in his father's arms literally. "I'm just as proud of
the girls, and Margaret got the kicking and screaming; I was spared most of
it. Not that I wouldn't have taken the problems of adolescence in exchange
for the presence of the adolescents. Anyway, April may live away from me,
but she'll be connected to me for another decade."

"And she could spend the summers with you."

"Margaret would hate that." She had no answer, and they walked nearly a
block in silence before he continued. "You know, you have seen the love
that accompanies marriage. Divorce ends the marriage. Is it so strange that
it doesn't end the love? I hurt her deeply towards the end; I hurt her when
we were battling for custody. After a while, I decided that i didn't want
to hurt her again. Andy and Molly had to choose once. I don't want the
girls to have to choose again."

"Well, they have chosen, and I think your wife prompted that choice." She'd
be damned if she'd call Margaret Trainor Brewster by her first name. She'd
hardly met the woman. 'Ex' didn't sound right, but she wasn't really Jim
Trainor's wife any more -- although he didn't seem so certain about that.
The term, 'wife,' seemed the least-bad choice. And Jim Trainor (another
least-bad term) didn't blink at that description. "Would you really play
the martinet with them if they came here for the summer?"

"Well, it probably wouldn't be <b>them</b>. Two years from last June, Molly
will graduate, and April will return from her first year of college.
Anyway, no. I'd like to see any dates, but I'd negotiate any curfew rules
with April. Don't tell her that, however."

"Well, the general rule of my talks with them is that we both keep them
secret. Both I and the person I'm talking to, I mean."

"Do I have the same privilege? I'm honored. Anyway, I know that my opinion
doesn't count. Andy made that quite clear, and unnecessarily; I had the
highest opinion of you. He did, however, introduce you, and that's a
precedent that I can use."

"You said that I made dating sound like a war. You make parenting sound
like a war."

"Wasn't it for you? From the other side, of course."

"Well, sometimes. I always thought that you were much better as a parent."

"An opinion that Andy didn't share. One's own parents are tyrants. They
have to be, really. In the first place, more rules are necessary than kids
see as necessary. In the second place, you aren't really free until you've
won your freedom in a struggle. Permissive parents are fooling themselves.
Their kids are going to rebel. You just have to draw a line in the sand
where rebellion doesn't end up with the kid dead of in prison."

"I can remember telling Dad that I'd be back in the house for breakfast."

"For breakfast? With Andy? From Andy, rather."

"Well, as Mom pointed out, Andy had to be at work most mornings. The latest
I actually got back to the house in the whole time I lived there was from
Prom, long before Andy. I just didn't want them setting a curfew. The truth
is that you can only spend so much time parked in a car before you have to
find a bathroom."

"And you never went to a motel?" She was dead silent. "Well, you're much
more polite than your husband. He'd have told me that it was none of my
damned business. And, that is quite true."

"And, speaking of Andy, is it time to return to him?"

"After you."

Gary Davis held another picnic. These Labor-Day picnics seemed to be an
institution. They both wore jeans and sweatshirts. Their clothes fit in
perfectly this year. Andy introduced her to the new guys on his crew. He
hadn't told her that there had been any changes. Besides the current crew,
the guests included some people who had once been on Gary Davis's crew in
the past and some other engineers and their families. Sue introduced her to
some of the wives of the other engineers.

"Some of us girls get together occasionally," Sue said. "Would you be
interested?" She was getting all these invitations now that she was going
back to work. Where had they been in the summer?

"Interested, yes. Available, maybe less so. I'm a teacher, a fairly new
teacher, and I'm still finding my way."

"Teacher?" One of the other women asked. "What grade? Where?" She must have
been mother of one -- or more -- of the kids Marilyn had seen running
around. The kids were more or less in a pack, mixing ages and sexes.
Individuals had to choose between hot dogs and games.

"High-school English. Evanston. I won't know which grades until school
starts, maybe all 4."

"English teacher. I'll have to watch my grammar."

"Look, the company pays Andy. They don't pay me." The women looked puzzled.
"I don't correct anybody's grammar unless I'm paid to." An inner voice said
'paid to do so,' but she ignored it. Too precise grammar would ruin the
impression she was trying to make. The other woman visibly relaxed.

Andy brought her a plate. When he saw that she was in a hen party, he
backed out. She later saw him with swinging a young boy around in a circle
holding on to the kid's wrists. Several others -- both boys and girls --
seemed to be waiting in line.

"The way Gary talks about your Andy," Sue said. "I would have thought him
all brains. The kids think he's a jungle gym."

"Well, you could hardly expect him to swing Gary around by his wrists."
Everybody called him 'Gary.' Even some of the kids running around, though
not his own kids, called him that.

She went back to work. The classes seemed less obedient than her previous
year's classes, partially because only one of them was a senior class. She
had mostly ninth graders, but she had one advantage with these. They came
into school seeing her as a fixture. Her classes the last year had seen her
as the new teacher intruding into an established routine. To the freshmen,
she could say, or imply at least: 'This is high school, and this is what
you do in high school.'

Andy resumed the cleaning chores without demur. She wasn't sure he'd even
noticed that she'd done them during the summer. She still had to tell him
when they, except the laundry and dishes, needed to be done. Maybe he
hadn't noticed that the carpet had been swept -- even that it had needed to
be swept -- during the summer.

She fully expected to limit sex to times when he was in her, like she had
the year before, but she hadn't felt the need yet. She certainly enjoyed
having two orgasms a night, as long as that left her enough energy in the
morning to get her through a whole day's teaching. So far it seemed to.
Andy, who always could learn things from books, kept up the experimentation
on Saturdays. She noticed that the rest of the week fell into a pattern. On
Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, except during her period, he brought her
to her first climax by his mouth, excited her with his tongue again, and
then entered her in the matrimonial position. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays, and every day during her period, he took her to her first climax
by hand. Then he entered her either in the matrimonial position or from the
back with them both lying on their left sides.

Andy wasn't a dull lover. She felt he was a repetitive one. Then she felt
guilty. Andy was, after all, operating within constraints she had set. Her
problem with him was the same she'd found when they were college freshmen
making out -- Andy didn't push the limits she set.

"Look," he said one Saturday night. "There are only so many positions, you
know."

"Probably." And of the sexual positions that a man and a woman could use,
some were quite impossible for her and Andy. They were different sizes.

"Would you really mind repeating some on Saturdays?" Well, she thought that
they had. The books must make subtler distinctions than her memory did.

"Andy, I wouldn't mind at all. Do what appeals to you on Saturdays." And,
if that meant carrying her all over the apartment, it was only one night in
the week. But he mostly stayed in bed, or at least in the bedroom, on
subsequent Saturdays. They had more sex in front of the mirror, but even
that wasn't frequent.

When she did lesson prep at the kitchen table after dinner, he usually had
something to read across from her. It was either one of his SF magazines or
a book from the library. She looked at one of the library books, and it was
something scientific rather than a novel.

The pledge card came from the church again -- this time for them as a
couple. Well, she'd been ashamed of their previous pledge, although nobody
had said a word. This time they could do more.

"What do you think, Andy? We're making it, now?"

"We are?"

"Andy! You balance the checkbook."

"Every month, when the statement comes in." Then he had to know how much
they had in the checking account. Even if the savings account had been
empty, and it contained thousands, the checking account should have told
him that they were making it.

"Do you think we should pay $20 a week. I've felt a little guilty."

"The church I feel guilty about is Urbana First. We felt poor back then,
but they were so nice to us. Our parents, at least, were supporting
Aldersgate, and we'll be supporting it now."

"How long did we go there?"

"Well, we attended more than 2 1/2 years. Those were school years, say
3/4ths of a calendar year. Five halves times 3/4ths is 15/8ths. I could
look it up on the calendar, but a little more than 15/8ths is about 2
years."

"A hundred weeks then?"

"Just about."

"Would you want to send them $400?" That would be an extra $4 a week.
They'd usually put in $1 a week from the two of them.

"Could we afford it?"

"Sure. September was one of those three-paycheck months, again, wasn't it?"

"August, really. August 31st was the third paycheck."

"Why don't we? We'll start the new pledge to Aldersgate in January." And
that was how it was decided. She'd consulted him, and the Urbana check was
really his idea. Why did she feel like she'd been making the decisions for
the family?

"If we're making it, can I start buying books and tools again?" That didn't
sound like anything which would strain the budget. Still, tools could cost
anything. What did Andy need tools for, anyway? Well, if he wanted them,
even if he didn't need them, he should get them. It was one purchase that
he seemed to enjoy, and he enjoyed so few.

"Sure. My family had adult allowances as well as kids' allowances. Why
don't we say $20 apiece each week? Would that be enough?"

"Cumulative? That would be more than enough."

"What do you mean cumulative?"

"Some tools -- even some books -- cost more than $20 each. If I don't spend
the money this week and next week, I have up to $60 to spend the week after
next." That was Andy, saving up money again.

"Sure." Now she would have to figure which of her expenditures were out of
her allowance. Not clothes or gas, those was work expenses.

Andy really needed a new suit. At least, he needed another one. She figured
how much it would cost, and then limited Andy and her to that amount each
for Christmas presents for each other. She felt a little guilty about the
sneakiness of that, but even his dad admitted it. Andy didn't have any
experience of wanting more than he could afford. Therefore, he had no sense
of budgeting. He'd wanted so little that he'd never had a problem with
that. Now, his problem was that he wanted to make her happy, and she wanted
enough to exhaust the federal budget.

Well, she wanted all the clothes in the store; she wanted to go to fancy
restaurants every week. She, however, wanted to be solvent <b>much</b>
more. She had been damned unhappy when they looked like their cash would
run out. Not eating out didn't make her unhappy. If Andy wanted a happy
wife, he'd just have to put up with one who ran the budget. And, to be
honest, Andy seemed to assume that running the budget was her right, indeed
her responsibility.

Christmas Eve was Monday, but, of course, a day YKL was closed. Conscious
that his Christmas gift would be something he needed but didn't
particularly want, she cooked him an omelet for breakfast in her nightie
and robe. Then she went back to bed.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked when he came into the bedroom.

"I'm feeling fine. I was just a little cold." She pointed to the nightie
draped over the robe on the chair.

"Darling!" Andy could take a hint, especially a hint about sex. He stripped
and came to bed with her. Whatever would be under the tree for him, he
enjoyed Christmas Eve.

She gave him a note that they would buy the suit for his Christmas present.
Somehow, that was another least-bad choice. She wanted him present for
fitting when she picked out the suit. He gave her a bottle of perfume. It
was a larger bottle than the year before, but the same perfume. She'd
picked out the presents for his sisters this time. She thought she knew
them well enough. He still chose the gift for his dad, a biography. Andy
was great at picking books, especially books for Jim Trainor. Father and
son understood each other. Maybe his father was the only person who
understood Andy; she was sure that she didn't.

They got the suit that Saturday. Monday, they went to her parents'
traditional New Year's Eve party. Andy stuck to ginger ale because he was
driving. He was insufferably cheerful the next morning, but he did provide
her with coffee and aspirin. She was tempted to ask for something in the
coffee, but the only people who used hair-of-the-dog were more serious
drinkers than she wanted to think that she was.

Andy went back to work after the break, and - soon enough -- so did she.

Her lesson plans were more realistic, and she had a mental picture of most
of the individual student's progress. She took the long weekend over
Presidents' Day to list them all. She was shocked when she discovered that
she had no picture of where two dozen of the 140 students were
academically, and only vague pictures of where another dozen were. These
weren't in any trouble; she was acutely aware of those. They weren't the
stars; she already knew whom to call when she needed the right answer. They
were the wallflowers.

In addition to the class planning, she started a pattern of figuring out
the educational status of one particular wallflower per class every week.

Andy was home less than she was, and never when she was gone unless she
planned a shopping trip for that specific purpose. She took to assigning
him specific times to vacuum when the noise would bother her the least.
When she was grading papers or doing class prep at the kitchen table, he
was usually reading a book across from her. She noticed a new engineering
book in his shelf of the bedroom bookcase. When her work was done and it
was too early for bed, he watched TV with her.

Later in the year, she went to the library for another book of love poems.
Andy was glad to read them to her while she lay with her head in his lap.
Andy always seemed happy to do things with her, anything she wanted. She
was sometimes tempted to ask: "What do <b>you</b> want to do?" But, really,
she knew what he wanted to do, and, after they went to bed, they would do
it.

That was a general problem. Andy wanted her to be happy, and -- if only
from a sense of fairness -- she wanted him to be happy, too. She did get a
feeling that he enjoyed his work. Probably he got the same satisfaction
that she felt from her teaching on the days when the kids actually seemed
to learn something. Whenever she asked herself what else he enjoyed, even
when she asked him, she got the answer that he enjoyed <b>her</b> being
happy. That was nice to hear, but it hardly made their relationship sound
reciprocal.

When Eric Stewart got married, the entire congregation was invited to the
wedding. She remembered her gratitude for the people who had given her
practical wedding gifts, and she and Andy were some of the adults in the
church, now. They not only attended the wedding and the reception -- which
was at the church -- but they gave a set of towels. She remembered her
Mom's comments about how many towels she'd received. Still, it was a more
reasonable wedding gift than a punch bowl.

The bride, Candy, looked young. She'd seen her around once or twice, but
she wasn't one of the long-term members of the church. Eric Stewart, while
younger than Dad, was of the older generation and some sort of lawyer. He
been singing in the choir since she was in MYF.

"Mrs. Trainor," a freshman girl asked, "why do we study this?"

"Well, Denise, do you mean apostrophes in particular or all punctuation?"

"All this grammar stuff." Denise would be sent to the principal for saying
'grammar shit,' but that was clearly what she meant.

"Look, when you go to a doctor with a fever, he doesn't put some ice on the
thermometer." They looked puzzled -- good! Up to then, they'd looked bored.
"Well, your parents have been telling you how important it is to get a
high-school diploma. And it is. But it's only important because the diploma
certifies to some things. One of them is that you know how to write
English." She wondered if her nose was growing after telling that whopper.
Damn few college freshmen could write decent English. "And part of writing
English is grammar and punctuation. So, even if the school slipped up and
gave you a diploma without your knowing how to write English, that would
only mean that you would get in trouble sometime later. It's like driver's
ed. If you could bribe the teacher to pass you without learning it, you
would still be pulled over by a cop as soon as you tried to drive on the
streets without knowing what you're doing. Well, sometime you'll get a job
which requires writing English. And, so, I'm going to require you to learn
the baby steps of writing English this year." They looked bored again, but
they got down to learning the distinction between "it's" and "its."

She got into a crush and asked Andy to get take-out. He looked in the
refrigerator before leaving, but she had long-since given up on
understanding why he did things. He came back with <b>one</b> serving of
sweet and sour shrimp.

"There isn't enough for both of us," she pointed out.

"There's enough for you. The 'fridge is crammed with left-overs. That's
what I'll eat." Well warming them up wouldn't take all that long, and she
really needed a break, even though she couldn't afford the time.

"Choose what you want... " He was right, there were loads of left-overs.
"... and I'll heat them up for you."

"Well, you're busy." Was he going to heat them up for himself? She'd taught
him to cook a few meals, but heating up left-overs wasn't on her planned
curriculum. On the other hand, this was a bright guy. Maybe he could figure
it out from the cooking. "Do I really have to follow that rule tonight?"
Did that mean he was going to eat them cold?

"Andy, I love you dearly."

"And I love you."

"But I'll never understand you." She did let him, that night, eat the
left-overs cold. She even joined him standing at the kitchen counter. The
table was two or three layers deep in her papers, and she hadn't the energy
to clean it off. When she finally quit, when the work wasn't really
finished but her brain was, she crawled into bed. After what he'd done for
her, she was determined that she wouldn't refuse him. But he merely scooped
her into the spoon and hugged her until she dropped off.

One morning, when that crush was over, while she was putting on her face,
she heard an annoying drip. It was the shower, and she couldn't get it to
stop.

"Damn!" she said to Andy when she came out. "The shower's leaking. I can't
turn it off." He went into the bathroom and came out again.

"Neither can I. Can it wait 'til Saturday?"

"Sure." Why calling the landlord should wait from Wednesday until Saturday,
she couldn't figure out, but they weren't paying the water bill.

On Saturday, he came back from doing the laundry with some tools and stuff
from the hardware store. By dinner time, he had fixed the leak. She had
never considered Andy a handyman, but he seemed to be turning into one.

For her birthday, Andy gave her a book of poetry. The poems varied from
romantic to somewhat erotic. She gave him a warm, wet kiss for his
thoughtfulness. She was grateful, although her thoughts were tangled. When
she untangled them later, they ran: At least it wasn't more perfume; she
hadn't opened the bottle from Christmas, yet. Andy thought he knew her well
enough to figure out what sort of book she'd like; that symbolized that
they were married as much as the ring did. Well, he enjoyed reading, poetry
to her, too.

The school year drew to a close. She had to suspend the poetry reading and
TV watching times to grade the finals. When she had handed her grades in,
she took a step back to remember what they'd done during the year. Almost
all the students had learned something. Greg hadn't, but he'd get another
chance to learn freshman English next year. Ganga hadn't learned much
formal English because she'd started the year speaking more grammatically
than Marilyn did. What Ganga had learned was slang and pronunciation, and
she hadn't learned those in class. Most of them, though, had learned a
year's worth of English that year.

"I think," she told Andy, "that I'm learning how to do my job."

"That's nice to hear. I always knew you'd be a great teacher. Remember back
when I was your first pupil?" Well, she remembered when they'd first
studied together.

"And how are you doing?" He, after all, had been an engineer for just about
two years.

"At work? It's great. They're showing me serious problems these days. I
filed my first patent ap. Well, not me; there's a department to do that
stuff, but my name's on the application." She could echo Jim Trainor's
complaint. Andy never told her anything. 'By the way, Andy, have you made
any honor societies or applied for any patents recently?' That wasn't the
sort of question you asked your husband. Well, he hadn't told her about the
first raise, either.

"And have you received a raise that you haven't told me about?"

"No. The employee reviews are going on, but I haven't had mine yet. The
raises all come at the payday before vacation. Why? Do we need more money?"
They didn't need money; Andy, in particular, didn't need more money. Did
Andy need anything?

"No. Just tell me when you get a raise."

"'Cause, if you want, I'll stop spending my allowance, except for gas,
until the raise comes in." Was he buying gas out of his allowance? She
wasn't, and her commute was a fraction as long.

"Andy, you balance the checkbook. Is there enough money in there?"

"We had $2,563.26 as of the statement period. That includes deposits which
hadn't cleared yet, but I subtracted the checks we'd written which the bank
hadn't seen." He knew how much was in the checking account to the penny.
How could he possibly ask if they had enough?

"Well, that's quite enough. If it weren't, I would plan to put my last pay
into checking instead of savings. I just like to know about your successes,
okay?"

"Sure. I didn't think you wanted to hear about engineering." Well, how
could she put this?

"Andy, I'm afraid I can't follow the problems you solve very well." That
was more polite than saying that her eyes glazed over when he tried to
explain them. "But, when your solution impresses your bosses, I'd like to
hear that they were impressed."

"Okay." He sounded confused. Of course, Andy lived for the puzzles; he
probably didn't care for the impression he made.

"I love you. I might not understand you, but I love you."

"I love you, too," he answered. And that was the most important. Even if
she never learned the impression he made on his bosses, they made a great
impression on each other.


The end
Making it - F
by Uther Pendragon
nogardneprethu@gmail.com
2012/05/29


These same events from Andy's perspective:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/Gjt/tra_14m.htm
Andy's experience

The first adventures of Marilyn with Andy:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/Gjt/tra_01f.htm
"The Meeting - F"


Another story about another couple struggling with money issues:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/Gjt/fos_10f.htm
"Enough - F"



The index to almost all my stories:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Uther_Pendragon/www/index.htm
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