Chapter 45: Reviews

March 12, 1987, Indianapolis, Indiana

"Morning, Babe!" I said as I walked into the apartment just before 7:00am.

"Hi, Tiger!" she replied, pressing herself against me for a tight hug and kiss. "You must have been up very early! And what are you doing here early this morning instead of tonight?"

"We finished yesterday, so I decided to surprise you by showing up this morning. This way I get to see you before you go to work! What time does your shift end?"

"At 6:00pm. I'll be home about 6:30pm. I was thinking — you have your dinner with your sister Saturday evening, so if you stay with me tomorrow, too, and head back to Chicago on Saturday afternoon, I could stay here instead of driving to Chicago. Do you think Kara would be upset?"

"I don't think so. She'll be up by now, so I can call and check."

"Thanks," she said.

I called our private line and Kara answered. She quickly agreed to the plan, told me she loved me, and I told her the same.

"All set," I said.

She smiled, "Great! Do you need breakfast?"

"I grabbed a donut and coffee on the way here. One day of a bad breakfast won't kill me!"

"No, I suppose not! I hadn't planned for you to be here early, so you'll need to get something for dinner tonight if you don't want to go out."

"No problem. I'll go to the corner grocery store. I'll take your grocery list and do your shopping as well."

"Thanks. And do you know what we're doing tonight?" she asked with a smirk.

"I have a pretty good idea," I said with a silly grin.

We kissed and hugged, and she headed out the door to work. I went over to the PC I kept in her apartment, turned it on, and sat down. I pulled several diskettes and a stack of papers from my overnight bag and got to work. I was working on the changes that would allow us to implement the system-wide text search, while Heather was doing bug fixes back in Chicago. The changes I was making were vast, which meant that I would have to merge her changes into the new code instead of just copying the modules. I wished there was a source code control system like SCCS, which I'd used on the Unix systems, for PCs, but I hadn't been able to find one. That meant a lot of extra work.

My stomach rumbled and made me look at the clock; I'd been in my zone for almost seven hours! I made a sandwich for myself and took Jessica's shopping list, giving it a quick glance and mentally adding a few things as I went out the door just after 2:00pm. When I got back to the apartment, I put everything away, and then called the office to check in. Kaitlin had no messages for me, so I went back to work, making sure to set a timer so that I could have dinner ready when Jessica arrived home around 6:15pm.

I worked until about 5:00pm and then made dinner. I set the table, including the candles that I'd purchased, and had everything ready when I heard Jessica's key in the door. I quickly lit the candles and waited for her to come in.

"Oh! A romantic dinner! Do you think you're going to get lucky just because you set out some candles?" she teased.

"No, I'm going to get lucky because you made it quite clear this morning what was going to happen!"

We hugged, and she kissed me, and then we sat down to eat. I knew I had to tell her about Becky, but I decided to wait until after dinner. She told me about her day in the ICU and I told her how things had gone the day before. When we finished eating, I got some ice cream from the freezer and served some for both of us, and then we did the dishes.

"I really should have taken a shower when I arrived home," she said. "But you had a romantic dinner waiting for me! I'll take one now. Want to help?" she giggled.

"Absolutely!" I said, following her down the hall to the bathroom.

Her combination tub/shower wasn't nearly as big as our walk-in shower back in Chicago, but we managed. I enjoyed soaping her body, paying particular attention to her small, firm breasts, her tight butt muscles, and the delightful groove between her legs.

"Naughty, naughty!" she giggled, as I slipped a finger inside of her.

"I could stop!" I teased.

"And I could kill you!" she gasped as I put pressure on her clit.

I gently slid my finger in and out of her, while using the heel of my hand to put continuous pressure on her button. Jessica leaned back against me and I moved my other hand to cup one of her breasts and rub her nipple with my thumb. She groaned softly as I felt gentle spasms around my finger that was pushed deep inside her.

"If you don't take me to bed and fuck me right now, I WILL kill you!" she gasped.

I shut off the water, pushed back the shower curtain, picked her up in my arms and carried her to her bed. I laid her gently on the bed, got on top of her, and in one hard stroke pushed deep inside of her.

"Ungh!" she groaned, gasping for air.

She wrapped her legs around me and urged me on, and we had a hard, driving fuck that threatened to break the bed. Jessica was humping against me with wild abandon, and I was pounding into her as hard and fast as I could. Ten minutes later, after her third orgasm, I slammed deep and filled her with spurt after spurt of cum. Jessica wrapped her arms tightly around me and held me to her as we both gasped for air.

"I think we need another shower!" she said, about five minutes later, when our breathing had slowed.

"I think you're right. But then we'll just end up back here, won't we?" I chuckled.

"Not like this, though," she sighed. "I mostly don't like doing it that way, but for some reason, I just needed that tonight. Let's shower, change the sheets, and have some tea."

Fifteen minutes later, with no hanky-panky in the shower, we were sitting on the couch, cuddled together with mugs of tea.

"So, why did you need that?" I asked.

"I have no idea!" she giggled. "But I'll let you know when I need it again!"

"You do that!" I chuckled.

"How was your dinner with Becky's family?"

"It was good. They're really nice people. Becky and I played chess and talked. She's doing really well. I'd say that she's more or less recovered from her suicidal state and is a relatively normal young woman."

"Relatively?"

"Relatively. She did flirt with me quite a bit. She even asked me to play chess for stakes."

"What kind of stakes?"

"If she won, we'd fool around. If I won, I was off the hook, so to speak."

"You said no, of course."

"I said 'yes'. But I won."

"That was dumb, Tiger!" she said fiercely. "How could you make a bet like that? What if you lost?"

"Calm down, Babe! I told her I could only do it with permission from you and Kara, and that was never going to happen."

"And if Kara and I had said 'yes'? Then what?"

"You wouldn't. And even if you did, Kara wouldn't, because of our history."

"And you thought it would be a good idea to even ask me about it, let alone ask Kara?"

"What harm did it do? None! I'm sure that Becky realized that Kara would never say 'yes' because of what happened six years ago."

She paused, narrowing her eyes, "Are you SURE?"

"About what? That Kara would say 'no'?"

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure. Kara wasn't the same person she was six years ago, or even three years ago. She might well have said 'yes' and if she had, then Jess might even have agreed.

"Primarily, but also, what if Becky is playing the same game she played back in High School?"

"I don't think Becky is playing that game," I said. "But suddenly, I'm not so sure of myself with regard to Kara."

"And if Kara and I had said 'yes'? Then what? You would have sex with a girl who caused you to cheat in the past? How smart is THAT?"

"Not very," I said, chastised.

"What's curious is why you would want to have sex with her. Wait! You still have feelings for her!"

"I do, but not like it was in the past. But I can see how you would think it was dangerous."

"Because it IS dangerous, Tiger. It's dangerous in the same way Penny is dangerous."

I scoffed, "Penny is not dangerous."

"No? And when she graduates from High School and demands her ring?"

"That was college graduation she was referring to, and it's not going to happen," I said. "She's been dating a guy pretty regularly for the past couple of months. She'd rather work for me."

"And if she thinks she can work for you AND sleep with you?"

"She can't. In order for that to work, she'd have to marry me, and that can't happen. You're my legal wife and it's staying that way!"

"Does Penny know that?"

"Yes, of course. I've told her many times. Penny is not going to be a problem. Besides, she knows that she needs your permission, and she knows that you won't give it. You put Penny off limits, and that's where she stays. It's nearly two years since I was with her last."

"Tiger, your freedom, what there is of it anyway, depends on trust — me trusting you and me trusting the girl. I don't trust either Becky or Penny."

"I got it," I said. "I made a mistake. I won't make it again."

"Good," Jessica said, then smiled. "You're about due, aren't you?"

"Due?" I asked.

"For a dalliance! That's why you were interested in Becky! Find a safe girl, Tiger."

"Our original deal was until you finished your Residency, but that was when you were going to be in Indianapolis. Does it end in May, now?"

"Wondering how quickly you need to find someone?" she giggled.

"No, I'm wondering what you're thinking."

"About your dalliances? I guess the answer is that I'm comfortable with how you've handled it. And it doesn't bother me the way it did at first. If you stay away from dangerous girls like Becky and Penny, you can have your occasional dalliance, assuming that Kara's OK with it."

"Even after you move to Chicago?"

"Yes. We'll discuss it again when I finish my Residency. Now, finish your tea and let's go make love!"

I drained my mug and Jessica and I went to bed. We made love, then cuddled together and fell asleep.

March 13, 1987, Indianapolis, Indiana

"How can you be so wide awake so early in the morning?" Jessica groused.

I was working at my computer, and had been for over an hour when Jessica got out of bed. I'd woken up, and slipped out quietly so that I wouldn't disturb her.

"I've been a morning person for as long as I can remember," I said.

"Well, Mr. Morning Person, I think we have time to go back to bed before breakfast!"

"You need more sleep?" I teased.

"No, you jerk!" she laughed. "I need you to make love to me! That's what I need!"

We made love, showered together, and then I made breakfast. We ate, and when she left for work, I continued working on the legal software. I was making excellent progress, and was ahead of schedule. When I stopped for lunch, having remembered to set the timer, I called Chicago to check on my messages. Kaitlin didn't have any for me, so I asked to speak to Dave. I let him know that I wasn't going to be at breakfast, and that I'd see him on Monday.

"How's the coding going?" he asked.

"Great. I'm ahead of plan for the search function. Did you and Julia have your design meeting?"

"Yes. We'll have a proposal to review on Monday for what goes into the release. We had our business development meeting. Mario closed the deal in Pittsburgh."

"Seriously? Even though Boston Legal Systems lowered their price?"

"Yes. It was a combination of our referrals, as well as the spec sheet that Mario put together for version 2. He only included the global search feature and the things that are already completed, and that was enough to put us over the top. The search feature is a major selling point and a major advantage."

"Awesome. The big challenge is including the WordPerfect documents in the search. I'm still working on the C code that will extract the text and load it into the database. My big concern there is that it will have to be run manually whenever new documents are added. And it's not very fast."

"Maybe it's a task that someone starts when they go home for the evening. You wouldn't have the ability to search a document until the following day, but I don't see any way around that."

"I don't think that's unreasonable," I said. "And we can work on improving it for future releases."

"Good. We need to do your review," Dave said. "Is Monday OK?"

"Sure. Do you have everyone else's for me to look through before you present them?"

"I do. You'll have those on Monday as well."

"Perfect. Thanks, Dave!"

We hung up, I ate my lunch, and then got back to work. When my timer went off, I made dinner, planning it for 6:30pm so that Jessica could shower before dinner.

"You didn't like last night?" she teased.

"I did. But you implied that you wanted to shower before dinner."

"I do. I'll be back in a flash," she said.

She was true to her word and ten minutes later, I was putting the food on the table. When we finished eating, we did the dishes and then decided to go for a walk. When we reached the sidewalk in front of the apartment building, Jessica slipped her hand into mine and we set off down the street.

"How is your ICU rotation going?" I asked.

"Fine. I should get good marks. It's really all about knowledge and memory. If you pay attention to the monitors, do the exams, and can answer the doctors' questions, you'll score well. I spend a lot of time with the nurses, of course, because they do most of the minute-to-minute work."

"What do you do in your cardiology rotation?"

"Assist with exams and procedures. Things like cardiac catheterization and angiograms. If the cardiologist is nice, I might even get into a cardiac surgery or two. I don't know how Northwestern does it, but in Indianapolis, that rarely happens."

"And then you have your outpatient rotation, and then move to Chicago!"

"Yes! I'll start bringing stuff each weekend I come up in April so we can easily get everything into two cars for the final drive back. We'll need to clean the apartment and turn in the keys, but that can be done on Saturday the 30th. How is Stephie doing?"

"I'll call her on Sunday, but last weekend she was doing OK."

"And how are you doing?"

"OK, I guess. I know what's going to happen, but I can't say that I'm prepared for it."

"Just remember that all of us are here for you."

"I know," I said.

We walked in silence, and eventually returned to the apartment, where Jessica made us some tea. We sat on the couch with our mugs and cuddled until bedtime.

March 14, 1987, Chicago, Illinois

"I'm sorry I missed your birthday last night," I said to my sister as we got into my car.

"It's OK. I know that Jessica needs you. But you really missed something! That goofball Jorge brought some of his friends to the house and they serenaded me! They were on the front porch of our house, with guitars! It was awesome! And then we had our party. It was amazing!"

"That's cool!" I said. "How does it feel to be twenty?"

"Not much different from nineteen. Next year, I can actually drink when I go out with the girls."

"How do you manage Saturday nights?"

"We go to places that have food and get tables. That lets those of us who aren't twenty-one yet hang out with everyone else."

"How are you and Jorge doing?"

"Pretty much the same, which is good. I did go on a date with a guy I met at UofC, but I won't go on a second one with him. Where are you taking me?"

"We're going to an Italian place in the Loop — Italian Village," I said. "They have nice private tables."