Chapter 4: Back to School

After Mrs. Bryant arrived the next morning, she started her lessons. She and Marilyn would cook baked beans for dinner. Marilyn thought of the preparation for baked beans as opening a can and adding a little flavoring. Mrs. Bryant started by boiling dry navy beans. Marilyn did most of the hand work, but Mrs. Bryant supervised. Marilyn wrote down the quantities of ingredients, but she’d have to remember the tricks. When Mrs. Bryant left for the afternoon, she had a large crock in the oven with directions as to when Marilyn should turn the oven on and when she should turn it off. Marilyn set the timer.

“I don’t want to go upstairs,” she told Andy. “There isn’t all that much time.” There was nearly an hour, loads of time for almost anything. Not nearly enough time for what Andy clearly wanted to do, and she wanted to do it, too.

“Let’s go to the library.” The library in the Trainor house was a place to keep books. There were lamps, tables, chairs, and footstools, but the shelves of books dominated the place. The shelves were built-in, but many of the books were paperback. In the library, he lifted her and set her on one of the footstools. Rather than the chairs which made her head higher than his when she stood on them, this put her eyes about level with his chin.

He poked her chin up with a finger and bent his head down to kiss her. This went on for a long time while his hands roved her clothed body. It was legal now; they had every afternoon now. They were in less of a hurry to get naked than they’d been on movie dates. After a bit, he held her shoulders while he walked around her. He kissed the side of her neck from in back. When his hands went to her tits, she started unbuttoning her blouse. He pulled the blouse out of her jeans. He unsnapped her bra before cupping her tits with his hands. She sank back against him, and he kissed the back of her right ear.

His hands stroked down over her stomach, and she loosened her belt and waistband. With his hands outside her panties, he pushed the jeans down past her hips. They fell the rest of the way without help. He switched his kisses to the space just behind her left ear. She shivered at that, and felt her panties being rolled down her thighs.

“Let me get out of these,” she whispered. “I feel like I’m hogtied.” Actually, while she didn’t like being constricted by the band of tightly rolled nylon, she also didn’t want to interrupt what his mouth was doing to her neck and ears and what his finger was beginning to do around her center.

“Maybe I like having you tied up.” He lifted his mouth for that statement, but his finger was still busy on her cleft.

“You say you have to do what Mrs. Bryant tells you to do, and she says that I’m the boss. So...”

“Nope! You have to tell her what orders to give me.” Right. His dad had given Mrs. Bryant afternoons off just so she wouldn’t witness, let alone discuss, what she and Andy did. If Mrs. Bryant had been around, Andy wouldn’t have had her panties around her knees because he wouldn’t have had them off her ass. There wasn’t much room between her thighs, but Andy had his whole hand in the tight space. His index finger was moving back and forth along her cleft, and his thumb was moving over the bottom of her mound. Neither was touching her clit, but she could feel the motions there.

“Andy!”

“You’re supposed to love, honor, and obey.”

“That wasn’t in the service.”

“You just weren’t paying attention.” Actually, she’d been paying very careful attention. Andy was pressed against her, and she could feel his hardon through his pants. Andy, once again, still had his jeans on. Her struggles were obviously turning him on -- all right, her wiggles were turning him on. Enjoying this game of dominance, she wasn’t struggling seriously.

“So what do you plan to do, caveman, drag me away by the hair?” Hers was short enough to make that impractical.

“Sounds good.” He walked so he was at her side and removed his hand from between her legs. He rested the back of his hand on her mound and tightened the hand into a fist. that caught some of the hairs there between his fingers. He tugged gently. She couldn’t help but laugh.

He came around to the front and pushed her bra up with his forehead. He clamped both hands over her ass cheeks while nuzzling her tits. He went from nipple to nipple. He was suckling on the right one when the kitchen timer went off.

“Now, you have to let me go. I’ve got to set the oven.”

“Maybe not.” He lifted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He set off for the kitchen with one hand on her thigh and the other playing with her cleft.

“Andy!” He ignored her as he went through the hall and the dining room. When he got to the stove in the kitchen, he patted her ass. Then he turned around, so her head was suspended over the oven controls.

“So set the oven.” It wasn’t that easy from this position, but she managed.

“Now, I have to set the timer again.” He walked over to the timer and turned around so she could reach it. Her head was swimming, perhaps from the position, just maybe because he was stroking her clit again. “Andy, you’re making it hard to concentrate.”

“I’m concentrating just fine.” Yeah! And what he was concentrating on was making it hard for her to concentrate. “Besides, you’re the one who’s making it hard.” Dirty jokes, yet, in his father’s kitchen. She set the timer down, and he began to walk away. He gave her ass two more slaps, and the second one stung.

“Andy!”

“Yeah. Who did you think had you over his shoulder?” He stopped slapping her but went back to teasing her clit. The waist of her jeans fell from her ankles. More and more of the jeans trailed towards the floor as he walked through the dining room. Her attention was increasingly captured by the sensations his finger was arousing, but she noticed that they hadn’t gone into the library. Apparently, it was the living room.

“Andy! Put me down!”

“Okay. Use your arms to brace for the fall.” He spun around, making her dizzy for a second. Before she could recover, he was slipping her from his shoulder. She broke the fall by grabbing on to something smooth and brown. When her face was against it, she realized that she was on a huge armchair that Mr. Trainor kept in his living room. Her legs were over the back, and her hands were on the cushion. Andy held her down with a hand on her back and kept stroking her clit.

“Andy! You can’t bring me off in the living room.” A little making out in the family rooms was one thing. But sex belonged in their bedroom.

“I can’t? ... Ever hear about the experimental process?” He kept stroking. The strokes were so smooth; the surroundings were so forbidding; the sex play had been so prolonged. She felt highly aroused. She tried to hold herself back, but Andy was relentless. When the lightning struck, she cried out. She could feel her tits sliding over the smooth leather.

Andy pulled back on her hips, and she slid upwards a bit in the chair. She felt a sharp tug on her feet from the jeans entrapping them. Then he was at her entrance. There was so much of him. He spread her more firmly than ever before. Somehow, from this position, it felt different. She couldn’t move in response. She was still holding on to the arms of the chair to keep from slipping down, and her legs were trapped. Still, she kicked against the constrictions as her arousal took control. She was not only held there, she was captured. She was not only filled, she was invaded and occupied. Then lightning struck, struck again as he thrust against her so hard that she could feel his hipbones hit her ass.

“Darling,” he said as he throbbed deep inside her. Then his hands hit the chair arms behind hers and his weight was pressing her stomach against unyielding leather.

“Get up, can you?” she said when she could speak.

“Sure.” He was even heavier on her before he was off. As soon as he pulled out, she could feel little Andies trickling down her leg. “Better let me get your jeans back before you get up, though.” She felt him fumbling at her ankles. Then his hands were on her left shoulder and her right hip. “Push back.” He helped her get back up, and then he half lifted her to set her on the floor. His strength was convenient for getting out of positions like this. Of course, she wouldn’t have been in that position were it not for his strength.

As soon as she was vertical, the trickle out of her pussy became a torrent. He unrolled her panties, and she pulled them on. At least that would catch what she was leaking. She pulled up her jeans and fastened them.

“Andy...”

“What’s the use of having the house to ourselves if we don’t use it?” he asked.

She laughed. “You’re impossible.” Then a thought occurred to her. “You’re sure of me, aren’t you?”

“We’re married.” Well, they’d been married for 18 days, less a few hours. But this masculine assertiveness was just showing up now. Andy had always been sweet, but -- maybe -- too passive. Well, this dominance was welcome for sex play. Maybe she should re-establish who was the alpha partner now, though.

“Well, if you’re going to tire me out downstairs, you know what you’ll have to do, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Carry me upstairs. Not over your shoulder, but in your arms like you do across thresholds.” And so he did. She kept her arms around his neck but didn’t hug too close. She wanted him to be able to see where he was going. He went into their room and all the way to the bed. When he set her down in the bed -- very gently -- he continued down to kiss her stomach.

When she got the energy, they shared a shower together. She dressed in clean clothes from the skin out. She was loading up Mrs. Bryant with more washing, as well as cooking instruction. Well, maybe she should offer Andy’s help on the laundry.

She got downstairs long before the timer rang. Mrs. Bryant had set the dining room table this time. She cooked the broccoli and had the serving dishes and the salad on the table when Mr. Trainor got home. He didn’t blink at the menu. Finally, Andy told him part of the reason.

“Marilyn cooked this.”

“My compliments to the chef. It’s delicious.” Which would have sounded more sincere if he had said it was delicious before Andy told him she’d cooked it.

“Well, I cooked it under Mrs. Bryant’s watchful eye. I don’t know enough cheap dishes, and she’s teaching me some.”

“Excellent. You did a great job on this one.”

“You don’t mind my kidnaping your menu?”

“I told her that you were in charge -- that your every whim should be fulfilled. Then you ask her for help in making your future family life better. My family, too, you know. And you apologize? The only question is whether this will make you happier.”

“Well, you know your distinction between pleasure and satisfaction. This is about satisfaction, maybe dissatisfaction. I couldn’t serve my husband a rotation of six menus for months.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Andy said.

“My son, you would eat porridge every meal and be happy if she served it. She wouldn’t be happy without fulfilling her image of a good wife.”

“Then, too, I’d have to eat them. I’m not sure that I could tolerate porridge for more than one meal, if that.

“I think,” she continued, “your analysis is incomplete, Mr. Trainor.”

“Oh, your opinion, his opinion, and what? Porridge, maybe, someone else would hear about -- not a six-meal rotation.” He was still on the last conversation.

“Your analysis of happiness. There’s pleasure, and satisfaction, and contentment.”

“Perhaps, but it sounds rather bland.”

“Maybe it is, by itself. But you can’t experience a lifetime of ecstasy, not even a day of ecstasy. You can experience a lifetime of contentment -- as far as yourself goes, although maybe not the way of the world.” She could have said that better, but neither man looked confused. Andy came by his intelligence honestly.

“An interesting trade.”

“But not a trade. There’s nothing in contentment that precludes pleasure or even satisfaction. Maybe the satisfaction is about something you did when you were discontented. As you say, you seldom get both from the same period of time.”

“And, Miss ... Pardon me! And, Marilyn, what gives you pleasure? What gives you satisfaction? What gives you contentment?”

“I get satisfaction from a great many things, from actually learning in a class what I took the class to learn, from having had an impact on Zeta -- a positive impact, from feeding the two of you. On the others, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll pass.” Andy’s father might have provided them with the bed, but he didn’t need to hear what Andy provided in it.

“Fair enough.”

And, aside from praising the food each mealtime, he never mentioned her cooking lessons again.

After Mrs. Bryant arrived on Thursday, Marilyn had to chase Andy out.

“Do you have any sheets that aren’t new and fresh?”

“Lots of old sheets, none that haven’t been washed.” She stripped beds on Mondays, just before doing the wash.

“Well, I’m about to start my period. May I have some old sheets to make the bed again? It would be a shame to spoil the new sheets.”

“Mr. Trainor has lots of old top sheets. The fitted bottoms get worn or torn and I use them for rags. The top sheets just stay. Do you want a couple of them for pads?”

“If I might.” And a dozen of them appeared in the room sometime before noon, folded. Mrs. Bryant never asked why she couldn’t keep her menstrual blood off the sheets.

That day, she learned how to make Spanish rice and to cook grits. They had the grits for lunch.

“It’s really a breakfast food,” Mrs. Bryant said. “It’s better with butter, but we’re trying margarine because you said you’ll be on a budget.”

She had Andy spread two of the extra sheets over the bed. Even though it was the first day of her flow and consequently copious, he wasn’t bothered. Instead, he was grateful that they’d be having sex these days, as well.

“Only in here, though,” she told him.

“Anything you say.”

The amounts Mrs. Bryant used for the meals Marilyn cooked produced more left-overs than Andy ate. Maybe it was because Marilyn still cooked breakfast. She shuddered at the thought of Andy’s eating cold, left over baked beans for breakfast. Sometimes, the three of them had the remains of an earlier night’s dinner for lunch. Sometimes she reheated them for week-end meals.

Mom told her that her parents would pay the sorority dues and parlor fee. She expressed her gratitude, but it was more gratitude than she felt. When she’d thought about it, she figured that she’d already made her impact on Zeta. You don’t grope a Zate, and the frats knew that. The next girl to date a non-Greek wouldn’t be hassled. Probably Kathy would have pledged anyway, but Marilyn had spoken in favor of bidding on an engineering major.

Still, she was pleased to finish out her time at Zeta. Her relationship with the rest of the chapter had been different every year, and it was bound to be different this year. That thought reminded her that she was due to return to campus early for the Zeta chapter organization.

“You know,” she told Andy, “this summer has been great fun, but it’s time to get back to the single limbo of campus.”

“Single limbo?” he asked. Hadn’t she ever mentioned her idea to him?

“We’re in a sort of double limbo here. What we’re going to be is a couple who are individually productive members of society. School is a limbo. This is a double limbo. We’re not preparing for our careers; we’re just enjoying ourselves.”

“I’ve heard that ‘Life is what happens while you’re getting ready for life.’”

“Well, yes. As I said, it’s been quite enjoyable. But even school. You know that I have the greatest respect for what you’ve done, the grades you’ve got, but if you don’t actually practice engineering in the future, what will your accomplishments matter?”

“You have a point.”

Andy was displeased when they discovered their apartment wouldn’t be available until Tuesday. After all, that was still before registration would begin.

“We could take a room in a motel.”

“Andy, please. That’s not in our budget. That’s three days. Anyway, I’ll have to be busy most of those three days, and I’ll have to stay at the house Saturday night, at least.”

“You said every night in my arms.”

“Well, if we had waited until next year, we would have missed a lot of times that we already have had.”

“All right. But I don’t have to like it.” To compensate him, she spent what afternoons she could lying in bed with him after their sex. He didn’t get as many hours with her in his arms, but he got more waking hours.

She took the train down to Champaign on Saturday. The buffet at the house was as lavish as it had been the years before. She wondered briefly whether the cooks fed their own families the way that Mrs. Bryant fed hers. Since she had to wake the others, she turned in early.

The next morning, she pounded on doors until people said that they were awake. Closer to the time for the meeting, she went back to check on the ones who hadn’t come downstairs after a reasonable time. She passed out aspirin, having bought two large bottles of generic in Evanston. After breakfast, she convened the meeting.