Chapter 14: Third Person Plural?

August 2, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“Good morning,” I said when Michelle finally woke.

She turned to face me. We’d been spooned together since we’d finished making love.

“Good morning,” she smiled.

“How are you?”

“Perfect. It was perfect. You were perfect. Thank you!” she said softly, almost as a quiet prayer.

I smiled, “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” she said. “But how you made me feel? I had no idea!”

“The soreness will go away. That was from being virgo intacta. There’s probably some blood, too.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be? It’s supposed to hurt and there’s supposed to be blood.”

“Sometimes. It depends on the girl.”

“Move the comforter,” she asked.

I did and there was, indeed, a decently sized red spot on the sheet, and red streaks on her thighs and on my flaccid shaft. She giggled, then pulled the comforter over us.

“We’ll wash the sheets this morning,” I said.

“OK. So now what?”

“Now, we shower, have breakfast, and you go to Mass. When you come home, we’ll talk.”

“Mass?”

“Mass.”

“But...”

“But nothing. Go to church, Michelle. We’ll talk when you come home. Please?”

“OK,” she agreed, still puzzled. “I’ll see you upstairs in fifteen minutes.”

I thought about offering to shower with her, but something said to wait until we talked. I looked deeply into her eyes, then kissed her softly. She returned the kiss and we held it for only a few seconds before I rolled over and sat up. I pulled on my pajama bottoms, put on the top and buttoned it, and then pocketed the tube of K-Y. I got up, put on my robe, and turned to look at Michelle, who was still lying in bed with the comforter pulled up to her chin.

“Thank you for the wonderful gift,” I said.

She smiled at me; I turned, opened the door, and left the guest room. I walked up the stairs and opened the door and was greeted by a cranky four-year-old.

“Where were you, Daddy?” she asked, scowling, hands on her hips. “I looked for you!”

“I slept later than usual, Pumpkin, I’m sorry.”

“Did you kiss Michelle?” she asked.

I picked her up and hugged her and kissed her cheek.

“Yes, I did. And your mommies know I did. But we don’t talk about who Daddy kisses with anyone else. OK?”

“Yes. It’s a secret! That’s what my mommy says!”

“Yes, but you can always talk to Mommies or Daddy about kissing. Always!”

“Good!” she agreed. “You stink!”

I laughed, “I need a shower! I’ll go get one and then we can have breakfast, OK?”

“Yes!” she said kissing my cheek.

I put Birgit down and headed up the second flight of stairs and quietly let myself into the master bedroom. Jessica and Kara were awake, talking quietly and cuddling.

“Morning, beautiful wives!”

“Good morning, Tiger!”

“Good morning!” Kara added.

I went to the bathroom and took off my robe and pajamas, and adjusted the shower then stepped under the spray.

“I take it she’s OK?” Jessica asked, coming into the bathroom.

“She’s just fine. She’s getting a shower, then we’ll have breakfast, though if she has more than a piece of toast and tea, I’ll be shocked. After she eats, she’s going to church. I insisted. Then we’ll talk.”

“It sounds as if you’ve thought it out pretty well. Just once?”

I smiled, “We obviously had the same ideas. Last night was a single act of lovemaking. Just some kisses and intercourse. IF she wants to continue, we’ll worry about the fancy stuff.”

“If?” Kara asked, joining Jessica in leaning against the sink.

“If,” I said. “Let her go to church, pray, receive communion if she wants to, then come home and talk.”

“A reversal of the usual pattern where you talk them to death first,” Kara said, without even a hint of humor.

“First of all, I’ve done nothing but talk to Michelle for the past six months. Second, once she decided, there wasn’t really anything to talk about. I did ask, right before, to make sure. Now that it’s done, we can talk.”

“I suppose that does make sense.”

“I was met by the ‘Neighborhood Watch’ on my way upstairs,” I chuckled.

“Birgit?” Kara giggled.

“Complete with hands on hips and a scowl and a question of why I wasn’t up early to spend time with her. She did ask whether I kissed Michelle or not and I told her I had, but that wasn’t something to talk about except to one of the three of us.”

“I told her the same thing,” Kara said. “I mean, not about Michelle, but about kissing. We don’t need any repeats of Jesse telling the world what you’re doing!”

I got out of the shower and Jessica handed me a towel, smirked, and then she and Kara got into the shower together.

“Seriously?” I groaned.

“You need to have your talk with Michelle,” Jessica said. “THEN we’ll see about showering, or anything else, together.”

“What?!” I gasped, shocked.

“He’s still easy to wind up, isn’t he, Kara?”

“Forget it!” I chuckled. “I’m going downstairs to see my daughter!”

I picked up my pajamas and tossed them in the hamper, hung my robe in the closet, and dressed for the day, all the while trying to block out the giggling that was coming from the shower. When I was dressed, I headed to the kitchen where I found Birgit waiting for me, along with Michael and Albert.

“Hi kids! Breakfast?”

“Waffles, please!” Albert requested.

“Is that OK with your brother and sister?”

“Yes! Waffles! All of us!”

I got out the ingredients and mixed up the batter while the waffle iron preheated. I was just putting the batter in to make the first waffles when Michelle came into the kitchen.

“Hi, Michelle!” Birgit said happily.

“Hello, young lady!” Michelle replied.

She went, as usual, to the breadbox, got out two thick slices of bread, and put them in the toaster. I’d already put the kettle on, so she poured hot water into a mug, put some fresh English Breakfast tea into a tea ball, and put that into the mug. She sat at the island on one of the stools. A couple of minutes later her toast popped up, and she got butter from the larder and spread it on her toast, then sat back down and began eating.

“You should eat a better breakfast,” I said, taking the first waffle from the iron.

I split the waffle into four, put each piece onto a plate, added a dab of butter and a dollop of syrup and set one before each of the kids.

“Does everyone want two pieces?” I asked.

“Yes!” all three kids replied.

I started the next waffle just as Abbie came into the kitchen.

“Breakfast?” I asked.

“Bacon and eggs, if you don’t mind,” she said.

“I already have the oven on for the bacon,” I said.

That was my usual low-carb breakfast, though I did eat toast or a piece of a waffle occasionally. I got the bacon into the oven and started making eggs just as Jessica and Kara came into the kitchen with Ashley and Stephie. Michelle finished her meal, put her dishes in the sink, and announced she was heading to church. I fed the kids their second round of waffles, then served bacon and eggs to everyone else. Jessica and Kara each ate a piece of waffle as well.

“Morning,” Bethany said, coming into the kitchen, stretching.

I offered her breakfast as well, and she sat down. I poured her some coffee and began making her breakfast when Matthew finally came into the kitchen.

“You slept late,” I said.

“He was playing with his handheld video game last night,” Elyse said, coming in right behind him.

“In the closet?” I chuckled.

“Yes. I went to check on the boys when I went to bed and saw the light!”

“Matthew, are you supposed to play video games after bedtime?” I asked.

“No. But I wasn’t sleepy!”

“Then we can talk about a different bedtime, OK? But once Mom puts you to bed, you stay in bed.”

“Yes, Dad,” he sighed. “Is there a race today?”

“No, not today,” I said. “Next week. Abbie, did Jason say anything about Davey Allison?”

“Just that he’s in bad shape from that wreck at Pocono two weeks ago. I’m still shocked he raced with a skull fracture last week!”

“Jess, please don’t!” I sighed, seeing she was about to say something. “Can we leave it, please?”

She shot me a hard look, but didn’t say anything.

“He’s got a one point lead over Bill despite all his wrecks and injuries,” Abbie said. “Jason’s also happy because Alan is only 120 points behind Davey.”

“That can be made up,” I said. “One or two slip-ups by the guys leading the points. Heck, if Bill would have had a decent race at Daytona, he’d be ahead by eighty points or so. One race makes a difference. Ask Mark Martin!”

“Jason says he’s STILL livid about that. That engine spacer penalty cost him the Cup.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t have been caught!” I chuckled.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to cheat!” Jessica said snippily.

Abbie and I both laughed.

“Everyone cheats!” Abbie grinned. “You just don’t get caught!”

“Remember what I said about the rulebook being written in pencil with half the pages blank?” I asked. “Well, you push the rules, hard, because NASCAR can decide to screw you EVEN IF you follow the rules to the letter. Heck, all you have to do is look at the mystery cautions that conveniently come to bunch up the field or prevent cars from going down a lap!”

“If even the sanctioning body cheats, why bother?”

“Because they love to race and can make a living doing it,” I said.

We finished breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and took the kids to play in the sunroom. About thirty minutes later, Kara and I walked Jessica to work, then returned home. About twenty minutes after that, Michelle came home and went to change. I made some tea, took it to the ‘Indian’ room and waited for her to come back upstairs. When she did, I poured us each some tea, and we sat in two of the basket chairs.

“How was church?” I asked.

“Strange. It felt like every single person in the church was staring at me, thinking ‘That girl just had sex’.”

“Did you go to communion?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No. It didn’t feel right. I need to go to confession.”

“And say what?” I asked gently.

“I have no idea,” she sighed. “I didn’t quite think this part through before last night.”

“And now?” I asked.

She frowned, then seemed to force a smile, “I have no idea. I mean, it was beautiful, and loving, and you made me feel really special. But what we did was sinful. Well, I thought so. Or I think so. I don’t know! It’s all so confusing.”

This was, more or less, the reaction I’d expected. She’d struggle with it, and come to one of two conclusions. And at the moment, I wouldn’t bet on which it would be.

“But you decided to do it anyway?” I asked.

“Yes. I wanted to. More than anything I’ve ever wanted. And it was beautiful, as I said last night. So close. So intimate. And that feeling at the end was incredible. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before! Sex ed at my school didn’t really talk about that.”

I smiled, “I can see how that might be a difficult topic in a Catholic school.”

“It was mainly about the mechanics, then about not defiling yourself with fornication, self-pleasuring, or unnamed things on which the church frowns. But we all know what they meant.”

“Pure, not ignorant?” I asked.

“Yes, but no longer pure,” she sighed.

“And is that a problem?”

“I don’t know. That’s just it. I have very mixed emotions right now.”

“Would you tell me?”

“Not wanting to sin, but hoping I can sin again with you very soon!” she said with a nervous laugh.

“I want you to take some time to think about it,” I said. “First, a couple of days to heal. If you were sore this morning, you probably want to wait at least a few days. Second, you need to decide what you think and what you want, and then, how to live your life going forward.”

“As a girl who isn’t a virgin? But who wanted to be one on her wedding night?”

I nodded, “Yes. Can you tell me why you changed your mind about that? Or are you not ready to?”

She smiled, “On January 19th, when you saw me naked and I saw you naked, I wanted you. More than anything I’ve ever wanted. I didn’t understand it. And I resolved to stay pure. But that feeling, that urge, kept coming back, stronger and stronger. There were a few times I almost demanded that you kiss me and then take me to bed.”

“When you held my hand in the sauna?” I asked.

“That was one. And a couple of times when you hugged me. I know you didn’t mean anything other than friendship, but my body and mind ran away with thoughts of you doing what we did last night. Only I couldn’t properly envision it from what I learned in sex ed. Then I was attacked, and I fought hard. Not just to stop from being raped, but because I wanted YOU to be the one. I wanted to be a virgin for you, and then not a virgin because of you.

“I stabbed his eye to protect myself. For you. But I couldn’t tell you. We talked about things like that in a general way, but it was something I couldn’t tell you or ask you. And I knew you would never, ever make even the slightest move towards what I knew I wanted. I had to find a way to tell you, but not tell you, if that makes sense.”

“It does make sense.”

“I tried to find a way, but because of how we’d talked, I really couldn’t. I was driving myself crazy. I almost kissed you about a week ago, hoping that you would get the hint, but I was afraid that would drive you away, or that would try to talk me out of it.”

I smiled, “I probably would have.”

“And then the situation with Alli yesterday gave me the opportunity. When you decided to talk to me, I realized I had a chance. So I made the comment about if you took her to bed, you would have to take me to bed. I was worried at first, because you thought I meant to NOT do it. But then we talked, and I realized that if I said it again, and told you I meant it, then you might consider it. When you told Alli to stay after lunch, I was sure.”

I nodded, “I know. But I wasn’t at that point. I talked to Bethany, who couldn’t say much, obviously, because she counseled you. But she did say you were mentally and emotionally able to give consent. And I talked to Jessica and Kara about it. And after those conversations, I told Jess and Kara what I was going to do.”

“Which was?”

“It’s a bit crude. I can tell you exactly what I said, or paraphrase it.”

Michelle laughed, “You took me to bed last night. I think I don’t mind a bit of crudity.”