Foretaste I had made the appointment to see the chairman of the history department to discuss my reappointment, but other matters came up first. Dan was understandably more concerned with my reaction to his talk. "You seemed unhappy with my report on 'Doctor' Franklin," he said. I could hear the quotation marks around "Doctor." For that matter, his lecture had been brutal about Ben Franklin's reputation as a scientist. I was glad he'd brought it up. "Well," I said, "it's not my century. Not my continent for that matter, but...." "But? But he was one of your boyhood heroes?" "It's not that. Hari Seldon brought me into history, and he's fictional. It's just that when you American-history people tell us that Franklin didn't do anything for the progress of our knowledge of electricity, you cite previous American historians who said that earlier." "And that isn't good enough?" "When the historians of science say that he did make discoveries, they list the discoveries and cite a book he wrote. Professor Macleod taught me that 'Primary sources are trumps.' I just wish you'd read the book Franklin wrote. There is a modern edition." I slipped a card over to him; it said: "Benjamin Franklin's Experiments, a new edition of Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity edited by I. Bernard Cohen Harvard University Press, 1941" "Okay. I'll try for interlibrary loan. Speaking of Prof. Macleod, and he isn't the only man who thinks that primary sources are trumps, how's your dissertation coming along?" I put out a hand and twisted it. "Comme ci, commme ca. The writing is coming along; the schedule raises some problems." "Your continued teaching has always been contingent on your receiving your degree. We normally grant one extension of a year, but that is our limit; and I can't guarantee that." "My understanding is that my deadline is this coming September," I said. "I can meet that. To do so, however, I need to go back to Boston for the defense. They can't get a committee together before our summer session begins." "You're that close?" "Nitpicking issues of format. I have it on a word processor, but Macleod wants to see one more draft, and there isn't time before summer. I'd like to teach in the summer session." (And they would like to have me teach then. Tenured faculty wanted to go somewhere else, and summer courses tend to be basics for people who flunked the first time.) "But I have to go back for the committee, and would like to go back for the ceremony, which neatly corresponds to the last day of our exams." "Well," he said, "you know that reappointment decisions aren't simply up to me. But you have a good record as a teacher, and finishing the dissertation on time is less common than not. If the administration decides to reappoint you, I'll find the people to cover your classes and proctor the exam. Didn't you help cover when Peter was sick?" "Yes." "Worry about this quarter. Let me worry about next." By not stopping off in the library for any research, I got home well before Jeanette. Dinner that night was ramen over rice, and I could cook ramen. The rice was leftover. We had first adopted ramen as a meal when we were broke newlywed students. (Now there is a redundancy.) Three packages of ramen cost less than a dollar and could feed us in a pinch. Two packages with vegetables or scallion tops in it could make a dinner with toasted-cheese or peanut-butter sandwiches. It made, as tonight, a great topping for rice. After a while, we acquired a taste for it. Our expenditures had seemed to increase faster than our income the first year in Michigan. Our lifestyle hadn't felt extravagant, but our bank balance looked like we'd been extravagant. Jeanette had needed a car to get to work. We had a dining room in the new apartment, and needed a table and chairs to use it. The sofa bed, despite some great times, had started being a little hard on our backs. We'd kept it as a sofa, but bought a real double bed. With the time that each of us was putting in on the dissertation, a second computer had made sense. The rocking chair wasn't strictly necessary, but had been worth every penny. We had seen the food budget as one place to practice moderation, aside from having learned to enjoy the cheap food. We have never gone back to the tightness of the early days, however. My meatloaf recipe is no longer a birthday treat; I put a generous helping of frozen mixed vegetables in the soup water before the ramen. Anyway, our next two years at Grand Valley had shown better economic results than the first. The furniture was paid off, the car nearly so. We were current on my student loan, had paid my folks back for the airfare, and had money in savings. We were, after all, deciding between two different expenses which we had delayed until now. I crushed the packages of ramen, "dujours" in our parlance. When the water came to a second boil around the vegetables, I dropped the noodles in, tore the packages of seasoning, emptied them, turned the soup off, and covered it. When Jeanette came through the door a few minutes later, I had the table set and the meal one minute from serving. "Love you," I said. We had a kiss and a hug around her coat. "Mmm, love you," she said and unbuttoned her coat. When I slipped my hands inside, she relaxed against me in a long hug. "Do I smell soup?" "Uh huh. The stove's off, no hurry." I cuddled her against my chest, my hands innocently on her back. "I really am a mess, just as I said." I kissed her forehead. "Can't I hug my wife without my motives being suspect?" After all, I had fixed dinner partly because she had complained Thursday morning that her period would be starting. I knew that my access would be cut off. She rubbed against the slight firmness in my groin. "Like that?" she asked. "Bob I never suspect your motives." "Never?" "Never *suspect*." "My wife doesn't understand me." "Your wife understands you perfectly." She rolled against my middle again. Junior, totally in response, firmed more. "It's just that your wife isn't going to do anything about it tonight. Wait a few days. Want me to finish setting up?" She did, putting the rice and the soup in separate serving dishes. With trivets, we could have had the soup pot on the table. The rice was already cold. But I will admit that the table looked better her way. We could have been in a restaurant. After dinner, she gave me another kiss. "Thanks for cooking," she said. Then she had her own tasks while I washed the dishes and outlined my lectures for the next week's History of Western Civ. class. When I came to bed, she was wearing a flannel nightie and, my hand discovered during our kiss, panties as well. Still, she cuddled into the spoon position as soon as I lay down. After smoothing down her hair -- I love it but not for breathing -- I rested my right hand on her belly between the navel and the sensitive parts. That was two layers of cloth, probably more, above her skin. "I talked with Dan today," I said. "What did he say?" "Reappointments are really the responsibility of the administration." "This is news?" she asked. "Not really. I just wanted to convey that the degree was on track. Besides, there are the problems of timing." "And?" She rested her hand above mine, which I took as a sign of approval. She took no notice of Junior, who was -- by then -- pressing her nightie between her thighs. "He made helpful noises," I told her. "Urk, urk, urk. Urrrk?" "A little more helpful than that. He'll probably recommend reappointment, though he didn't say so. There is no reason to believe that he'd take it to the mattresses if his recommendation isn't approved." "Why wouldn't they approve it?" She rolled away from me. "Any number of reasons, nothing that I can control. The legislature may appropriate less money for universities this year, or give a lesser share to Grand Valley. They may have a project for the money they get. Still, we get lots of students; and they all take history courses, if mostly surveys." She pulled up her nightie until the side was at her waist. She took my hand in hers and guided it back to a similar spot, but under the nightie. When she snuggled back against me, Junior was now pressed into her buttock. Really, he was pressed against the wrinkles of her nightie. "It is the other side of the academic life," I continued. "There is only so much you can do. Remember when Peter got sick? I covered some of his classes." "Yes. Was that so hard?" "Oh no! Though it did take some time I planned to put into the dissertation." I still have to learn the subject every time I teach something new. Peter who had taught that course the three previous years, probably was more on top of the course than I ever would be -- from much less prep time. "But Peter is one of the ones with grad students. A couple of dissertations came to screeching halts right then. I did what I could; there aren't all that many of us in European history. Still...." Still, as she knew, a man who hadn't finished his own dissertation had no business advising on another's. "Do you think they'll turn you down 'cause your wife's so ignorant?" "First of all, you aren't. And you shouldn't take the word, 'administration,' so seriously. Somewhere in the admin, there's a folder which has your transcripts in it." Else she wouldn't have been able to take those night courses. "Somewhere in the admin, there's a folder which says that I'm married to Jeanette Brennan. Nobody has both folders." "Well, the folder with my transcript says that I'm married to you. That's how I get tuition." "Look, those guys are hardly judging me. If Dan recommends me, that helps. And he sure had better. The problem is that Dan probably recommends too many retentions, he is a nice guy. If the doctorate comes through in time, and I don't see how it could miss, that helps." I slipped my little finger under the elastic waist of her panties, meanwhile raising my eyebrow in question towards her. The eyebrow was a total waste; she had her back to me. After a minute, I eased my hand further into her panties. She dug her butt against my lap. "But mostly, they aren't looking at me at all. They are deciding how many history instructors to reappoint. When they look at the list, they'll count that number down and draw a line. I just hope that 'Brennan' is above that line. If they are barely looking at me, they aren't looking at you at all. "Really," I continued, "it's a shame they aren't. You're charming. You're intelligent. You're friendly. You're just the sort of person that they *should* want in the university community. It's just that I doubt if that's one of the things they consider. The department, now; the department knows you and likes you." "You're projecting," she said. Clearly she meant it psychologically. "Really, I'm not. They all like you. Maybe the men have more reasons than the women, but have any of the wives actively made you feel unwelcome?" "You're not?" She giggled and rolled her butt down and then up. When she finished, Junior was trapped between her buttocks. "I'm not attributing my feelings to others just because I feel that way." Sliding my hand slightly lower, I could get the middle finger on one of her lips below the parting and my ring finger on the other one. (Does the right hand have a ring finger?) By pressing with one and then with the other, I could move her parts against each other. Tonight, she wouldn't have enough moisture to touch her clitoris directly. "Anyway," I said as If I hadn't paused, "have the women been unwelcoming?" "Well, they're polite. But I feel such a dunce, especially around the women faculty." Two of them are still working on their dissertations, as I was. The others all have doctorates. "You're too smart to compete on their specialties. As for current events," I said, "you had a plan to deal with that problem years ago. We tried the plan, and it was a tremendous success." This was an oversimplification. Jeanette had proposed that our evening meals feature conversations on current events, with the content provided by *Newsweek*. For the first years, I had been ahead of her. I had been paying more attention before her proposal, and -- after all -- the study of history provides a context for many news stories. After Dad started giving her subscriptions to French magazines, the lead passed to Jeanette. She read about events that didn't make it into American consciousness, events before the American press realized their importance, and perspectives that didn't reach these shores. Dad gave her a two-speed tape recorder at the same time as the short-wave radio. After that she really took off. She would tape news programs in French and play them at half speed while she rode back and forth on the MBTA. At first, she played them again and again at half speed and then at full speed. She almost ignored content, concentrating on simply being able to understand the announcer. Now, however, the two-speed tape player only comes into use when she is listening to period drama. She now listens to news programs in French every day. She is abreast of the politics of France, naturally, but also of the rest of Europe and many parts of the third world that Europeans notice and Americans don't. These days, I discuss current events at dinner less frequently than I learn about them, via *Radio France Internationale* and my wife. And, meanwhile, the magazines keep coming. Dad switches them each year, which gives Jeanette exposure to a broad perspective on contemporary French society as well as the quite variegated vocabulary which was the intent. Working at the office, interpreting and editing for her husband, working hard at the current events, taking courses at night and studying for them, Jeanette has had less time than she would like for reading French literary classics. What she has read, however, far exceeds the requirements for "liberally educated English speaker." All the time I had been thinking this, my fingers had been going back and forth on Jeanette's lower lips. Perforce, my palm was pressed against her fleece-covered mound. Junior, who was caught against her buttocks had reacted to all this sensual input as well. "Bob," she said suddenly, "you're not going to sleep. Why don't you go take a shower?" Now, I'd had a shower that morning. Still.... I took a shower. I was even hopeful enough to take extra care cleaning my groin. When I returned to the bedroom wearing a towel tucked around my midsection, she had the lamp on her side of the bed lit. Jeanette moved over to my side of the bed. "Here," she said, patting a pillow on her side. That whole side was without the top sheet and blankets. When I lay down on my back, the light from the lamp shown on my left side. "Put your hands behind your head," she said. She unwrapped the towel so I was lying on it. Junior was already moderately firm, but not yet stiff enough to choose his own direction. She moved him to lie against my belly. Then she kissed the base where the scrotal sack emerged. Junior twitched; I might have twitched all over. She adjusted the lamp-shade so that my groin was in the center of the patch of greatest illumination. She knelt between my legs and trailed kisses from Junior's base to just short of his head. She looked me in the eye. "You enjoy this, don't you?" she asked. "Very much!" "Good! Keep your hands behind your head." She raised my left knee and kissed that thigh. Then she repeated with the right. I now had my feet planted on the bed and my knees bent. Her forehead brushed against Junior as she kissed into the fold of my groin. She fluttered her eyelashes against him. Then she kissed around the hairline down there. I tried to steer her head so her mouth made more direct contact. "Put your hands back behind your head," she said. I did. "You like this don't you?" "Desperately." It's not as if denying it would have convinced her. "You are wonderful." By this time, Junior was fully stiff and hovering above my pelvis. With one hand, she pulled him downward until he was almost vertical. This caused a mild pain, but the clasp of her hand on the lower shaft was delightful. She watched me as I watched her lick her lips. She opened her mouth as wide as possible, surrounded the head, then closed her lips until I could feel their moisture on the top of my shaft. She licked the head. Keeping her eyes on my face the whole time, she sucked mildly and then raised her head so that her wet lips touched every bit of me until they passed the tip. She blew gently across the now-wet head. I was close, so close. "Pass me the Kleenex, would you?" she said. I released my hand to get the Kleenex box from my nightstand. She took two tissues while I held the box. While I replaced the box on my nightstand, she folded them in quarters, using my belly as a table. She released Junior to hold those two squares of Kleenex in her left hand. "Clasp your hands again." I interleaved my fingers, almost the same way I do for prayer. Then I put them back of my head (and on top of the pillow). She slipped her hand under my scrotum. "Are there lots and lots of little Bobs in these?" she asked. "You know, your head -- the big one -- is the only part of you that objects to having kids. All the rest of you wants as many as possible." She kissed up my shaft. "Let Junior think of my being fertile." Well, Junior was quivering in desire by then. *I* think it was the ministrations of her lips. She removed her hand from my scrotum to wrap it around my shaft. Again, she watched my face as her mouth enclosed me. She licked the head and then bobbed up and down around me. She renewed the suction as I started to push myself upward and into her. "Jeanette," I said. I was much too far gone to stop. Gallons and gallons poured through my phallus as she continued sucking. When she spat it out, however, it didn't overflow the two pieces of Kleenex. She threw them away before getting out of bed and walking over to her nightstand. There, she opened a can of soda and poured it into a glass. She stood drinking for a minute before topping off the glass. "Scoot over," she said. I scooted. "You are wonderful." She is. She's lovely and desirable and sexy. She's also so persnickety that she has to have a glass for her soda. "Want to kill the Coke?" I took the can. *I* don't need a glass. It wasn't particularly cold -- she must have got it out of the refrigerator while I was taking my shower -- but it was wet. It was diet Coke, so drinking it after brushing shouldn't rot our teeth. The caffeine so late at night was something else. But I only got a quarter of a can, and Jeanette is immune. She finished after I did. She hung my towel over the closet knob. She turned off the lamp and got into bed. She took my hand in hers after she snuggled against me. "Cold!" "What did you expect?" She held it for a couple of minutes before putting it back over her belly. "You are a wonderful girl," I said. "A wonderful woman." "And you have a warm hand." I moved my warm hand under her nightie. A few minutes later, I cupped her mound. Again, my fingers went back and forth. This time I was rubbing her outer labia through her panties. "It's not being opposed to having children," I told her. "It has nothing to do with thinking you're undereducated. It has to do with wanting you to have the experience you missed." "But, Bob, it's the experience you chose. I wanted us to be a family." "We aren't?" "We are," she admitted. "More, maybe, than most couples. We do talk, just like your family." Jeanette's first real experience of my family had been a series of family meetings. In those, even my bratty kid sister tries to stay on-topic. Anyway, the conversations that Jeanette and I have at the dinner table had been her idea. "Your idea," I reminded her. "But real families cross several generations. Your family keeps traditions, Brennan traditions, Grant traditions." And that we do. "Jacobs traditions?" "There might be some good ones. I'd have to check with grandparents and cousins." If her opinion of my parents is exageratedly good, her opinion of her parents is unrelievedly bad. What I've learned at first hand confirms the direction of her belief, if not the intensity. She rolled away from me to reach her nightstand. Before I could feel rejected, she handed me the tube of KY. I squeezed a significant blob on my right middle finger. "Lift your panties, will you?" I asked her. She pulled them higher and tighter around her. That hadn't been what I meant. When you are lying in bed, two significantly different directions are 'up.' "Give me space," I said. Turning on her back, she cleared away bedclothes and nightie as well as lifting the elastic of her panties. I was able to get my hand in there without spreading the jelly all over her pubic hair. She had to replace the cap on the tube before putting it back on her nightstand. Then she covered us back up. "Brrr," she said when I finally reached her labia with the lubrication. Well, it was cold for that sensitive spot. I don't know what choice I'd had, though. She'd been the one who chose to leave the tube on her nightstand rather than on the heating vent. I let that hand rest for a while. "You know," I said, "this business of being a family is all your accomplishment. I've brought some customs from my family, like family meetings. But the structure is something you've done. Or am I ignoring things I've imposed?" "'Imposed' might be the wrong word, Bob. Some things were unconscious on your part. An anthropologist would say that all sorts of things were unconscious on both our parts. But I had a choice about anything strange to me. I can remember your asking if I were comfortable with your saying all the graces; it was funny." "I was perfectly serious. My father either says them or passes them around -- asks someone else to say grace on a special day. I don't know whether Mom ever got asked, but *you* did. I'm not into playing the paterfamilias. I have a partner." Which might have been a little hard on Dad. He listens to Mom; she can bring him up short, although she almost never does, when he won't listen to anyone else. "You offered me the option of saying the prayers, Bob. What you didn't see was the option of starting meals without prayer." Would you start a meal without saying thanks for it? That is important to me. "But that wasn't imposition. I considered it, and wanted to continue the Brennan tradition that way. I just thought it was cute that you hadn't considered it." I think of Jeanette in many ways, but most often as sexy; she thinks of me in many ways -- some of them complimentary -- but most often as silly. "Besides, so many of your special prayers mention me." "Well, yes." I started spreading the lubricant. "God may be the ultimate cause, but the cook is the proximate cause. Besides, I am grateful for you. I just need to remember it more often. And I'll admit that regular grace is often perfunctory. It's like saying 'I love you,' as I walk out the door." "I'm glad about that too. And I didn't start that." "Not the same thing if you had. Anyway, I *do* love you. Sometimes in the morning, we both need reminding of that." By this time, my finger had run into the little string. I carefully tucked it as far back as possible to keep it out of the way. Jeanette giggled. As I said, mostly she thinks of me as silly. "Well, I love you too. If that love is faint in the mornings, so am I." "Anyway," I cut out a few parentheses, "If you want to say the grace, you only have to warn me before I start. Do you really have problems with sitting while I say it? And we do have the structure of a family; and it's your accomplishment; and, if I've imposed something, you can tell me that. We can change." I finally reached the center of all her feeling. This was where the lubricant was most important, and I had enough of it left. "Or we can keep it," she said. "Grace structures the meals, and it's a Brennan structure. It's just that some of the things we've done are important for you." "I've never said it wasn't. For that matter, I really apprciate the things you've done to structure us. Even when I wouldn't have bothered, even when I would never have done it, I can see the difference between living in a home and living in a dorm room." "You can Bob?" She spread her legs to give me better access. "I certainly can. Maybe I'm more grateful for other things." I leaned over to kiss her. Meanwhile my finger kept moving. "But I'm grateful for that, too." "I'm glad. Beforehand, you seemed to want to marry me as much as I wanted to marry you. Afterwards...." "I found out that being married to you was even better than I had expected. But I wanted to spend time with you; I wanted to sleep beside you every night...." "You wanted to have sex with me," she said. "Well, I would have called it 'making love' with you." "You would have called it by words I won't use." And she wouldn't use them. She was raising her mound now, to give me better access to her clit. But, as far as she was concerned, my hand was 'down there.' "Anyway, I wanted marriage. You wanted marriage. Maybe we didn't want the same aspects of marriage." "Maybe." "But admit that you've enjoyed my aspects." She might be pushing her mound up into my hand, but she wasn't going to make any such admission. "I've certainly enjoyed yours." "Comforting hugs?" "Well, hugs," I said. "And I enjoy that you want me to comfort you. "Anyway," I brought us back on topic. "Your putting me through college was part of being married. Consider that putting you through is part of being married too." "And having children? Is that part of being married?" "Certainly it is. You have to ask yourself what would be best for you to do first." A woman with a BA can bear a child; can a woman with a baby attend college full-time? "We have to decide as a family. I'm not going to force a baby on you if you don't want one." This was important to her. She stopped moving against my hand to say it. "A little Jeanette? I'd love one. The thing is, I want the college more, but I want it for *you*. I can't say that this is what we'll do because it would be best for Jeanette; not if you *really* want the other. You're a person." "I'll weigh it up. You're right, it is still a little iffy." It was a lot iffy. On the other hand, maybe the first hand, I was certain that I could rub slowly all over her sensitive vulva. By now I could concentrate on her clit. "You're the person I love." I said. Something was wrong with the way I'd said it before. "Especially, I can't run you." "Love you," she said. She was silent, if moving appreciatively, for a few more minutes. "Love this." That was the last thing either of us said about my carresses. Shortly afterwards, she tensed. I kissed her while I stroked her clitoris directly and continuously. When she gasped into my mouth, I let go and snuggled against her. She left for the bathroom soon after, though. I took the opportunity to wipe off my fingers. They felt like KY, not like her. When she got back, she snuggled against me in the usual spoon. "Love you," I said sleepily. She pushed back against me. "Love you," she responded.