Chapter 8: Every night

When Marilyn was taking a shower the next morning, Andy stepped into the tub behind her. He had been making a habit of that.

“I’m going to miss this,” Andy said.

“Oh, is it the showers you’re going to miss?”

“Among other things. What I’ll miss is being with you.”

“With or inside?”

“Both,” he said. “You’re sexy as hell, but I’ve told you. What I want is to have you in my arms every night. Having you in my sight during the day is a bonus. But I want you in my arms every night.”

“Well, starting in June of ‘78...” And starting in June of ‘78, she’d have his arms around her every night, too. As well as his lips and fingers and his cock giving her more pleasure than she’d had at any time of her previous life. This was something she’d miss, and she’d miss it for the next fourteen or fifteen months.

“Well, it can’t be helped,” he said.

“I sure wish it could be earlier, though.”

“Would your parents pay my wife’s tuition?” And with that question, they left the cooling shower. If people knew who was using up the hot water this week, Andy would be an unpopular tenant.

They didn’t take their books on that morning’s walk to the campus. They did wear sweaters, though, since the weather was cooler. He sat on another bench, and she lay with her head on his lap again. When his cock stirred under her ear, she rolled her head against it.

“It’s weird that they wouldn’t, too,” he said. “They’re paying your tuition, now. Plus, food and housing ... If we lived together, we’d have to get a better place. Dad warned me about that.”

“Your dad warned you about my living with you?”

“When I said I wanted an off-campus apartment, he asked if you were going to join me.” She could remember that question, not that it had come from his father. “He said that you might visit the sort of dump I’d live in, but you’d never call something like that your home. You have taste.”

“You discussed living with me to your father?” she asked. Mr. Trainor sometimes suggested that Andy never mentioned her to him.

“I said I wanted to have an off-campus room, and he asked whether it was for you, too. Marilyn, I don’t discuss us with Dad, but he’s not an idiot. He knows how attracted I am to you. When I called to say that I was staying on campus for this break, he said to give his regards to you. When I asked why he thought you were staying too, he laughed.”

“Mom asked whether you were staying on campus, too. I suppose we aren’t quite as discreet as we might hope to be.” Andy’s father hadn’t come into the room after they’d made love, though.

“I think my intentions were clear as soon as I introduced you to him. All he had to guess was how successful I was being.”

“When you introduced me to him?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’d ever done that with another girl -- not since I could drive. The boy has to meet the girl’s parents and have them lay down the rules. The girl doesn’t have to meet the boy’s parents.” So, she was the only date of Andy’s to meet his father, at least since his father had stopped having to provide the transportation. When he said she was his first, she’d been his first in ways she hadn’t imagined. She felt a little guilty about Colin, although Andy had never asked about him -- never since she’d said that she was no longer going steady with him.

“Well, anyway, Dad wouldn’t have contributed half the rent for an apartment with you -- even if I hadn’t been committed to Zeta.”

“I don’t know quite what Dad was saying. He wasn’t saying anything, really; he was asking. The picture I got was that he was considering paying all the rent. I could just possibly have swung the rent of my present apartment for two years. I’d budgeted more for food than I’ve been using and much more for car repairs. The problem with car repairs, though, is that it’s not a regular outlay. You pay next to nothing for months or years, and -- then -- boom. Anyway, that isn’t the problem. Tuition is.”

Suddenly, she understood that they’d gone from considering a wedding in June ‘78 to considering a wedding in June of this year, a wedding in a couple of months. They were still talking about how impossible it was, but they were considering it.

“Would your dad keep paying your tuition if you were married?” It wasn’t just her parents.

“If I were married? Probably. If I were married to you? Certainly. You don’t know how much the old man respects you. Even without that, he says that he won’t be able to leave us much, but he’ll see that we start life with a good education -- the girls and I.”

“Well, you know that I could get work next year. When you’re an engineer, you could afford my tuition.”

“Well, I don’t think I could get a job near here. It’s a college town, not an electrical-engineering town. Then you couldn’t go back here in August ‘78. Besides, what would that look like to school boards? You’re going to get a degree on time! We have nearly three quarters of an education each. There should be some way of using that as security on a loan.”

“There speaks a banker’s son.”

“Yeah, and the banker would tell you that the security isn’t worth shit to anyone else. Which means that it’s not security.”

They walked back soon afterwards and did their studying. She taught him how to make tuna salad, and they had that and peas and plain lettuce with salad dressing for lunch. Then they sat down to their books. She was cooking or teaching him to cook three meals a day, she was making love twice a day and making out more often than that. Somehow, she was getting as much studying done as she got in the school year. Of course, that didn’t include going to classes. Still, she saw how Andy seemed to have taken permanent residence on the Dean’s List. His brain was only half of it.

They started to do even more studying for the rest of the week. Their conversations had been about how they’d live when they were married, and, when they didn’t talk about this anymore, they seemed to have nothing else to say. Why Andy was silent, she wasn’t sure. She had more to think about than she wanted to share with him. She hadn’t planned beyond teaching him five lunches, and she dropped the ideas of hamburgers and mac and cheese. She cooked three meals a day, easier than teaching him.

The problem was that Andy would get tuition if they were married -- probably rent, too. Mr. Trainor was going to pay that, anyway, and he seemed favorable to their relationship. Why should he punish Andy for marrying her? Mom and Dad, on the other hand, opposed her relationship with Andy. If they could stop a marriage, they would. And, by saying that she wouldn’t have tuition, they could stop the marriage.

Or maybe they couldn’t. If Andy went on in school and she went to work, then they could easily afford everything but his tuition. He had savings, although she didn’t know how much, and a waitress’s or saleswoman’s wage had to cover at least rent and food -- even food for two. People lived on it, after all, even raised kids on it. And they could go a year without new clothes. Andy looked like he hadn’t had anything new but a few ties in the past three. Well, he wasn’t ragged, but he hadn’t bought any new styles since she’d known him. She had, but she could happily give that up for a year.

What she would be quite unhappy giving up would be her future. Andy was right; a year off school and a new school afterwards would make her look uncommitted to possible employers. Of course, if she moved out-of-state, she would need different credits. And she was putting off Illinois History to her senior year. If she moved because of his job, she’d have to take Tennessee History, or whatever. So, she might well be able to graduate in one more year, certain to graduate in one year and two summer sessions.

But she had good grades, if not Dean’s List. She had worked hard to be what school boards wanted. Now, she was thinking about trying to be what school boards might accept. It wasn’t fair.

And Andy wasn’t the one being unfair. His only comment on the idea was to reject it out of hand. It would be ridiculous to flip a coin for which one would drop out for a year and work. Lots of education graduates became subs their first year out of school. She’d sort of thought about going back to Evanston and living in her parents’ house unless she could get a full-time position. They might expect her to contribute, but they wouldn’t evict her if work didn’t come through. Even if she’d get a full-time job would that pay Andy’s tuition over and above living costs? An engineer, on the other hand, would make enough in the first year to pay tuition. Maybe they wouldn’t live as well as she would like, but they could live better than they were living in this room. And that was only one side of it.

If Andy dropped out and went to work, and Andy had job experience to give him better prospects than she had, he would have to pay her tuition. She wouldn’t have to pay his, at least he thought his dad would keep paying it. That made all the difference in the world.

The unfairness was in their situation or, more accurately, in her parents. They didn’t know Andy, and they didn’t like Andy. But it was her life, her marriage, that was under consideration. If they didn’t want him for a son in law, they didn’t have to socialize with her and Andy after the wedding. They were holding one part of her future hostage for another part; she could be an excellent teacher, but only if she bowed down to them about her marriage.

If she wasn’t saying anything to Andy about her worries, she was getting a little more brittle around him. Friday morning, when she got out of the john, she found him waiting in bed wearing only his glasses and a leer.

“Look, Andy, are you doing to participate this morning?” It had been days since he did more in the morning than bring her off.

“I thought maybe tonight.”

“Fine. Let’s make a date for tonight.” She went back in and ran the shower. He joined her, but they washed themselves and got out while the water was still hot. After breakfast, with both of them fully dressed, she forgave him with a kiss. He lifted her onto a chair, and they had a long hug before he did the dishes. “You know, you could do them once a day.”

“When you’re here?” The bed was made, too.

“Once we’re married, I’ll always be here -- or, at least, there.” That was the first time either had mentioned it since the discussion.

“Yeah! And you’ll sleep in my arms every night from June of ‘78 ‘til I die.” He’d accepted that they couldn’t marry earlier; maybe she should, too. It was surprising to remember how recently she’d been worrying about whether she should marry the guy at all.

“Every night. Andy, for all your faults, you’re sweet.”

“You’re the sweet one.” So, they had another hug and a long kiss before sitting down to their books.

It may have been her ultimatum of the morning, but they went back to much milder forms of making out. She took her study break sitting in his lap. That way, they could kiss without either one bending all out of shape. After lunch, he started on the dishes again.

“Just let them soak.” She sat on the bed just down from the pillows. “Come here.” At her gesture, he lay down with his head on her lap. His feet stuck way out, but he didn’t look uncomfortable. Indeed, he looked blissful when she combed her hands through his hair. “What courses are you going to take next year?”

“Well, they open up when you’re that far along. And so much is a prerequisite that I couldn’t have taken much if I’d put off the distribution work. Then, too, AP Calc in high school, despite all the problems it caused me, will really free me up next year. PDE is normally a senior course. So, I can take one more -- three more if they’re only for a quarter -- courses next year than some other students. I’ve told you that electrical engineering splits?”

“You’ve talked about it,” she said. “I’m not sure I got clear.”

“Well, you have a clock and a radio.”

“A clock radio, actually.”

“But they’re two different things. In one, electricity produces power which moves the hands. Now, that’s a damn small amount of power, but electricity can do that. It can run motors from tiny clock motors to amazingly powerful motors that move L trains and more powerful motors yet that they use in industry. That’s one branch.”

“And the radio is the other branch?”

Andy was in lecture mode. “Yeah. Information. Each radio frequency conveys another set of information as to what sounds were made back in the radio studio. TV is a bit more complicated, and computers are nothing more than processing information. Now, information used to be processed by vacuum tubes. You started out with a little current, and that allowed more of a bigger current to flow. Now, it’s done with transistors. And that’s what I’m mostly studying next year, transistors.”

“So, when you graduate, you’ll know all about transistors?”

“As if! It’s like counting Chinese. They’re inventing and discovering more about transistors faster than schools can teach it. And, really, I’m not learning all about transistors. You ever hear of a black box?” Well, she knew what a black box would be, but she suspected this was something different.

“Tell me.”

“Well, we use it a lot in designing things in engineering. You take something somebody else is producing. You don’t look at what’s inside. You know how it responds to input, and you use that. You treat it like a mysterious, sealed black box. You have to do that, if you’re going to design anything in finite time.” Andy thought he was speaking English and explaining things clearly. Well, she’d hang on through the curves. “Even in other fields. An architectural engineer knows what the bearing strength of a steel beam is. He doesn’t know the metallurgy that gives it that strength. You take Driver’s Ed?” She’d even hang on through that curve. She had her man’s head in her lap. She wasn’t going to abandon it because he was discussing too many subjects.

“My Dad taught me.”

“Well, he didn’t begin with the nature of the internal-combustion engine and what the manifold and brake drums do. He taught you that you turn the wheel this way and that heads the tires that way. He said that if you step on this pedal, it goes faster, and if you step on that pedal, it slows down. Black box -- it doesn’t matter why it works that way; it just matters that you know that it will work that way. Well, I won’t be designing transistors. I’ll be designing things which use transistors. It’s just like driving a car instead of making one.”

“If you say so,” she said. Maybe his Buick was a black box. Dad’s Lincoln was bright blue and sleek.

“What about you? I’ll tell you; they didn’t teach any of that Fleurs de Mal when I went to high school -- neither at Gordon nor at ETHS.”

“Well, I have a double major. You knew that. Remember when you taught College Math?”

“Yeah.”

“Donna asked how well you’d done in it, and you said that you’d never taken it in that form. You looked like a teacher because you knew more math than was in this course. Same with Lit. Lit teachers study more Lit than they’re going to teach. So, I’m never going to teach Baudelaire. It’s a shame, though. The whole class would read that section. Anyway...

“Anyway,” she continued, “having an English degree will help me get a job as an English teacher, and English majors have lots of choices about classes. Ed majors are more like engineers. There are so many things you have to take that you don’t have all that many choices within the field. And there are two groups making rules for education. You have to take these courses to get a degree and those courses to get certificated.”

“If engineers used ‘certificated’ to mean ‘certified,’ English teachers would sneer at them.”

“Maybe. Anyway, the two lists aren’t that different. One thing is that you need to take Illinois History to teach in the state. A lot of other states have similar requirements. I’ll take it next year. Then, you’ll get a job in Kentucky, and I’ll have to take Kentucky History.”

“Look, I expect to get a fair number of offers. That’s what happens every year; the companies come recruiting. You go down to interview with the ones which look promising, and some of them make you an offer. All right. We’ll look at those offers together. Where you live means where you teach. I could get a job in Gary and live in Illinois, but not a job in San Francisco. So, where you want to live and teach is part of how we evaluate the job offers. Everybody does that, everybody sensible, that is. Part of what you consider is what they’ll pay, but part of it is what you’ll work on and your future prospects, and part is where you want to live.

“So, some guys will be favoring the places which have great skiing within reach. I’ll be favoring those where you’ll be happy. I won’t tell them. After all, the company only has a set number of locations to offer. They couldn’t change them. But I’m going to consider your happiness as much more important than the starting pay. For that matter, you might consider having more money to spend better than getting a lovely school to teach in. That, however, will be your choice.”

“Andy, you’re sweet.”

“Not all that sweet. I won’t go back to being a hardware clerk to get you your preferred school district.” Well, no. But they would have a joint pot of money. It wouldn’t make sense to cut it back just for her to have a more pleasant job. “Change of subject.” Now he said it. “The way I picture it is for me to commute farther, and for us to live close to your school, maybe in the district. That’s just picturing it. Maybe you’ll see a house you love across the street from the plant, but it’s not likely.”

“Or a house you’ll love.”

“Well, I’ve said my requirement for a house. It’s one that has you in it, you happily in it. You can expect me to share housework; you can expect me to keep the house in repair; don’t expect me to fall in love with a house. I fall in love with much smaller things.” He reached up and ran his hands down her back. If he’d first thought to cup her tits, Andy was showing more sensitivity than she usually credited him with.

Actually, his choice of job should come first. She was sure that any EE job was close to a high school. Teachers could travel as far as students could -- farther than most parents wanted their kids to. Probably most high schools weren’t close to an EE job. And while she could picture a high school without any openings for new English teachers, most of those would be small schools, probably in farming areas, not engineering areas. Feminists yammered about chauvinist men, but the fault wasn’t usually the individual man. Society was set up with men going for well-paying jobs, and women going for nurturing jobs -- teaching, nursing -- which paid less. If Andy handed the entire job search over to her, and he’d gone fairly far in that direction, she’d choose on the basis of what was best for her family. That would almost certainly mean the best job for Andy.

“You look pensive,” he said suddenly.

“You’re a much nicer man than the society allows you to be.”

“If you really believe that, you’re as in love with me as I’m with you.” She believed what she’d meant, which wasn’t how the words came out. She was in love with him but doubted that it was as much as he seemed to be in love with her.

“Of course, I’m in love with you.” Which wasn’t quite what he’d said, but he accepted that. “But your head is so full of deep thoughts that it’s getting heavy. Time for some more study.” And they got up for study.

Sunday, they went to church as usual. Instead of taking her to the house afterwards, though, they returned to the apartment. That night, after they’d had their sex and were snuggling down to sleep, she asked him to get her to classes a quarter hour earlier the next morning. They left well before that, leaving the breakfast dishes soaking in the sink.

When they got to Abbot Hall, she said, “Park it.” When he had, she continued. “Look, I know my parents. If they have a choice between paying my tuition as a married woman and paying it as a single woman, they’ll choose the second -- guaranteed. So, if we want to be married this year, what we have to tell them is that if they won’t pay my tuition, I’ll drop out and go to work. The bottom line is that we’ll be married. But we have to mean it. They may well say ‘no, no, no’ until August. And, if they do, we’ll have to be married. I’ll have to have a job. They may actually say ‘no, no, no’ and mean it. That’s our risk.

“But it’s our one hope. Love you. Goodbye.” She left the car and ran into the hall.

Andy brought the rest of her books by after supper Monday.

“Seventy eight,” he said to her in the hall. It might sound cryptic to the others hearing him, but she knew he was saying that they wouldn’t be married before graduation. He left without kissing her, which probably surprised the audience.

“What’s wrong between you two?” asked Crystal.

“Nothing. All kissed out, I guess. We’ve had so much privacy this week that the audience must have put him off.” This probably didn’t satisfy her, and Marilyn got a few sympathetic looks over the next two days. When Andy showed up as scheduled on Wednesday after supper, she greeted him with a kiss. He took her books and opened the door for her. They left a rather puzzled audience.

“Seventy seven,” she said when they were together in the car. Perversely, the weather had warmed again. The day was just beginning to cool, and he had the windows open.

“Well, which should we do first,” he asked, “fight or make love?” She laughed. Well, they couldn’t make love until they got to the apartment. They might as well fight now. “I want to marry you,” he continued, “but I don’t want to ruin your education by marrying you.”

“You claim to love me, but you’re always putting limitations on marrying me.” She realized that she was being unfair. His limitations were not about not wanting her; they were about not wanting her to be hurt. Which was one reason that -- after the fight -- they would make love.

“Always? I only remember this one.”

“You said that you didn’t want me to have to marry you.”

“And I don’t. It’s not an objection to pregnancy. Throw away your Pills in May of ‘78 for all of me. It’s a matter of your will. I want you to desire me the way I desire you ... And I’d hoped you’d forgotten that. Anyway, twice in ten months isn’t always.”

“I remembered that. And if you desired me as much as I desire you, you’d marry me this spring.”

“I desire you. It’s just that the cost is too great. You’re making a romantic gesture. I’m risking damage to the future of the woman I love.” At that comment, he was parking the car. They walked up the stairs in silence. She was thinking. His earlier question was still a good one.

“Well,” she said when the door was closed behind them, “let’s continue the argument later.” He laughed, which delayed his kiss, but only briefly.

“I love you,” he said when he came up for air. He started unbuttoning her blouse. He was wearing a tee, which she merely pushed up. She played with the hair on his chest while he took it off over his head, which was way over her head. Then he went back to her blouse. “Get your own shoes,” he said when both their jeans and underwear were around their ankles. He picked her up and held her under her knees and under her back. He shuffled very slowly towards the bed. She removed the rest of her clothing. He lifted her so he could kiss her tits when she was done. Then he lowered her to the bed. While he sat on the edge of the bed to remove his tennies, jeans, underpants and socks, she got to stroke him and kiss his shoulder without his being able to do anything to her.

When they were in bed, though, he took over the caresses. Soon, nothing but his upper body was within reach of her hands while his mouth took her to climax after climax. She experienced her fourth while tugging fruitlessly on his shoulders. When he started back licking her cleft, she pulled on his hair.

“That hurts,” he told her pussy. Anyone else would have yelled, Andy told you that it hurt in a speaking voice.

“It will hurt worse if you don’t get up here.” Even so he kissed her mound, stomach, and both tits before he was at her entrance. “Ahh!” she said as he slid so slowly into her. “So full,” she added while he was kissing her forehead.

“So warm,” he responded, “so creamy, so sweet clasping me.” Then he began the rhythmic strokes deep inside her. He moved so slowly that she pulled at his ass to hurry the entrance. She was getting close once again.

“Oh,” she said as lightning struck

“Darling,” he said as he thrust once more. Then he pulsed inside her before collapsing on top of her. His elbows held a little weight off her, but there was a lot of Andy. When he rolled off, she could feel a drip down her right ass cheek. She was too tired to move, and the feeling soon went away. He gathered her against him and draped an arm across her to hold a tit.

“Every night. I’ll hold you in my arms every night.” That was his expressed dream. He never spoke about the sex which would precede the holding, although he certainly went after it when push came to shove.

“Every night, beginning in June of this year. All you have to say is yes.”

“Saying is easy. It’s what comes afterwards that’s hard. You’re asking me to watch the woman I love trade her dreams for waiting on tables.” Now he was speaking about his suffering. Sneaky bastard didn’t admit that it was her sacrifice, her choice. And, really...

“Andy, it’s not an even trade. What we get is the certainty of sharing a life a year early. What we risk is the possibility of my waiting tables for a year. Do you think Mom is going to relish talking about ‘my daughter the waitress?’ She’ll want to put a good face on things. She’s one of the alums who are still involved with Zeta. She gets added respect as the mother of a chapter VP. That would disappear if I drop out to wait on tables. We don’t know that she’d cut off my tuition.”

“And we don’t know that she wouldn’t. For that matter, isn’t it your father who writes the checks?”

“Yeah. But they decide together.” He was right, though, Dad would be angrier about her marriage than Mom would. For that matter, Dad would see fewer positives from agreeing. As much as she’d oppose the wedding, Mom would enjoy putting it on. And Mom’s choice was her marrying Andy or sleeping with him. Not that she really had that choice, but she would try to have it. As far as Marilyn knew, Dad didn’t know that she and Andy were having sex. Pete thought her ‘I won’t answer that question from you’ was pretty lame. Dad might well think the same. If so, he hadn’t taken her aside to ask the question for himself. Anyway, she was getting all mixed up, and that was Andy’s fault.

“You’re not fair, you know.”

“How have I been unfair to you?”

“You give me all those climaxes when you have only one. How do you expect me to consider things rationally after that?”

“Well, God may have been unfair to you, or -- more likely -- to me. You can have all those orgasms. I have to wait awhile after only one.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard about waiting. I thought you were insatiable.”

“Well, you may not have heard about waiting, but have I ever gone right back?” He did all the time; he had this evening. Well, he went back to sex, but not to going in her. Maybe there was a reason for that.

“Well, you certainly go for repeats. Are you really done for the night?”

“For the hour, I’m done. I don’t think I’m done for the night. After all, you’ve been gone for days. I should have lots stored up.”

“And you figure I have more stored up?”

“Well, as I said, you can have more than one in a row. You really have an obligation to use the talents God gave you.”

“Andy, somehow I don’t think they’re going to ask you to be a Sunday-School teacher.”

“Ya think not?” She definitely thought not. She kissed him, though, and he reached for her tits.

“Let’s give it a break. We have studying to do.” She held his arms away while she kissed him. Then she got up. He put his glasses on to watch her dress. Had he really denied that he was insatiable? When she started studying, he put on underpants and jeans and joined her.

“It would mean holding me in your arms every night,” she said when she’d finished the work on the two books she’d brought.

“It would mean your not being a teacher in ‘78 - ‘79. It would mean your waiting tables or selling in a store.”

“Well, you sold in a store. It didn’t seem to warp you.”

“Maybe I’m warped in ways you can’t see.”

“Maybe you were already warped.”

However warped his personality was, one part of him was straight and firm. And when, after he tried to bring her to a third climax with his hand, she reached for that part, it filled her and stroked her. She tensed, spiraled out of control. When the lightning struck and she twitched spasmodically on the mattress, he throbbed inside her and gasped in her ear. He lay on her a long time. When he moved aside and gathered her into the spoon, he fell asleep immediately. She didn’t take much longer.