Chapter 18: Culmination

Monday night, three days before the ceremony, she sat down with Sparky after dinner.

“You know that I’m going to marry your daddy?”

“Yeah. And you’re going to be my mommy.”

“Right. Now ‘married’ is something that people are. They stay married for their whole lives. But it starts at a special time, and that time is called a wedding. Now, your daddy and I will have a wedding day after tomorrow. We would like you to play a special role.”

“Oh, goody!” said Sparky.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to be gone, as you know. Mrs. Darling is going to come by after you get out of school and show you what to do. You already have the dress you’re going to wear. Okay?”

She had two more days of work, but when Eric picked her up on Wednesday, she was free. Sharon Tennant, Laura’s sister and her son Richard had already arrived for the wedding, and Eric warned her that they would be at dinner. Indeed, when she came into the house, Sparky introduced her to Ricky who was playing with her.

“How do you do, Richard,” she said. “I work in an infectious-disease unit, and I change immediately after I get back. I’ll be back down.” She went up, and decided to shower and change into another uniform. Jeans didn’t match the formality of the occasion.

When she got there, Eric introduced her to Sharon. They had dinner, and wine with their dinner. Sharon poured Richard’s glass half full, and Madeleine gave Sparky the same tiny, heavily-diluted helping as she’d seen before.

Dianne took Sharon upstairs while Richard entertained Sparky. Sharon didn’t say anything when Dianne unlocked the door into her dressing room, and Diane realized that she had probably seen all of this before.

“Look,” Diane began, “I know how hard this must be for you -- your sister and all.”

“Well, Laura would have wanted Eric to be happy, and I think he finally is. That’s something that Laura did for Eric, you know. He is great at programming computers, surprisingly good at running a business. He isn’t so good at enjoying himself, and he’s rotten at enjoying spending money. Laura spent their money and enjoyed herself, and Eric enjoyed her enjoying herself. If you tell Eric he can’t come in here, by the way, he won’t. One thing you can’t enjoy while he’s watching you enjoy it is your privacy. Anyway, when Eric told me about you, what I said was, ‘It’s about time.’

“Now, you’re a different woman than Laura was, and you’ll give him different pleasures. He’ll probably give you different pleasures, too, though if you don’t take the most basic pleasure, you’ll be wasting a great natural resource. I got the impression from Laura that he was really good in bed.

“One thing I can tell you about your Eric is that he puts people in Venn diagrams, I’ve seen him draw them.

“The first time Dick cheated on me, I told Laura. Laura told me that Eric said the wrong was mine and the decision whether to forgive was mine. Somehow, though, the next year Dendarii needed someone actually active in the business to serve as vice president. Eric had been the president, Dick the vice president, and Laura the secretary and treasurer when it was formed. Well, I was on Laura’s side, which meant that my husband was on Laura’s side and therefore on Eric’s side. After he cheated, Eric might not have seen him on his side, any more.

“Three times I caught Dick, and three times he asked for forgiveness. Three times I gave him forgiveness. The fourth time I caught him, he asked for his freedom, and I gave him that, too. A few months later, he sent Val a birthday card. It was returned marked ‘refused, return to sender.’ He generally put a dollar bill into his birthday cards, too.”

“Venn diagrams?” she asked.

“You’re in his circle, or you’re out of his circle,” Sharon said. “You are very definitely in his circle. That means that your friends are his friends. It also means that your enemies are his enemies. Some days, Eric enjoys acting on that more than the first.”

“Well, yes,” she said. “I was talking about how peds need to tread softly about reporting child abuse because we can be sued -- totally in the abstract. Eric, in a few seconds, came up with a plan to destroy this person -- not a concrete person, just if anyone did -- who sued me.”

“Well, going against you would arouse his killer instincts, I’m sure. Harming small children just aggravates it. I’ve heard Eric argue against the death penalty for mass murder; I’ve also heard him advocate boiling in oil for child abuse. I’m sure that he wouldn’t really do that, but he’d go pretty far. I’m sure that your making children stop hurting is one thing he must find attractive about you.”

“I’m not sure that peds reduce pain, much. We inflict a lot of pain in trying to avert worse consequences.”

“Well, yes,” Sharon said. “I was probably using the wrong words. If you had to perform an amputation without anaesthetic to keep a kid alive, he’d help you. He’d be in tears, but he’d help you. He used to be very cynical about the phrase, ‘This will hurt me more than it hurts you,’ but I’ve seen him spank Val, and I’ll swear that it tore him up more than it did her.”

“I haven’t seen him spank her.”

“Well, this was years ago, but have you ever seen Val get out of bed when he’s put her in?”

“No,” she said. Mostly, Eric dealt with disciplining Sparky by using his greater strength to move her where he wanted her. It was force, and Eric called it force, but it wasn’t violence. She thought about what Sharon had said about being a ped making her more attractive to Eric. He raved about her shape, but she wouldn’t have her shape in thirty years. She would still be a ped.

Still, she wasn’t worried about Eric’s losing interest in her. This might be naive for a woman marrying a man she had known about four months. She was more worried about surviving his interest in her. When it dropped to maybe half the current amount, she’d start to worry. Maybe Sharon had an insight.

“Somehow, I don’t picture Eric’s eyes wandering. Is this an illusion?” she asked.

“I can’t imagine Eric straying.”

“I worry more about his being too possessive,” Diane said.

“Now, that is real danger.”

Sparky wanted Aunt Sharon to read her the story that night. They all, including Ricky, kissed her first.

Eric kissed Diane good night outside her dressing room. “I love you, Miss Doctor Thibault,” he said. She went through her nightly routine, and came to bed. While he watched, she took off and hung up first the robe he’d given her and then the nightie Anne had sent her. Eric watched until she was under the covers.

“We don’t need to set the alarm, do we?” he asked.

“No, but let’s not go overboard tonight. I’ve had a long day, and we have a wedding night tomorrow.”

“Just gentle love with my gentle lover for the last time before she becomes my wife.” And he was very gentle with her until she had her first climax. When she pulled him in to her, he began with slow, deep strokes which were still gentle. When the flames leaped in her, though, she clawed his glutes, and he rammed himself into her until he, too, exploded. He moved off her, and she backed into the spoon. Almost surrounded by him, she drifted off.

She woke to sunshine alone in the bed, and got to the bathroom barely in time. She decided to delay her shower until it was time to dress for the wedding. She dressed in blouse and jeans. By the time she got downstairs, everyone but Richard had eaten. He seemed to be on his third waffle.

Her family was due in to the airport soon after one. Everybody had met in Denver and come together. She introduced Eric to everybody, and he explained that they were going to return in two cars. He took Ross with him to the rental desk. Ross came back with the keys to the car. Norm bristled, but she had asked Eric, and he had done what she wished.

After they got the luggage from the carousel, they split up. The guys were in the rental car, and Anne and Karen rode with her and Eric in the Rover.

“Look,” Anne said, “you said you’d put us all up. Really, we could get a hotel. Are you sure you have enough room?”

“Well, we have three bedrooms for you,” Eric replied, “but only two baths. The rooms with individual baths are being taken by two relatives of mine. Sorry about that, but your rooms have queen-sized beds, and the other rooms only have twins.”

“You have five guest bedrooms?”

“Well, now we have. When I planned the place, I planned for three kids, and we have rooms for them.”

The Rover drove into the garage, and the rental which had been following it parked in the driveway. Richard volunteered to help move luggage upstairs, and soon they were ready for a very late lunch. Sharon and Richard met her whole family.

Not long afterwards, Eric picked up Sparky from school. Sparky wasn’t sure about all those strange people in her house until Karen pulled her hand to her belly so she could feel the baby kicking. She followed Karen with her eyes the rest of the afternoon.

Eric said something about his company.

“What’s the company?” Norm asked.

“DSI. Dendarii Software Incorporated,” Eric said.

“But you’re so tall,” Ross said. That was ridiculous. Ross was an inch taller than Eric, himself.

“I’m a fan of the little admiral,” Eric said, “not a clone. I had been selling my services as a programmer -- as an individual worker. Now, I was going to operate a software company, and it would charge more. Originally, the name was going to be Barnes Software. Then, with my wife, her sister, and her sister’s husband, we thought of the obvious comparison.” Ross laughed.

The two were bonding, and Diane thought that it was nice that they were bonding. Still, Diane had brought them together, and she was totally out in the dark on that joke.

Someday, she’d get Ross to explain that. Then she corrected herself. She was about to become a married woman. She would go to her husband, not to her brother, for the explanation.

Soon, it was time for her to get ready. She had loads of time by hospital-resident standards, but there was a Jacuzzi in her bathroom, and she was going to treat herself. She sank down and let the bubbles caress her until she was afraid the wrinkles would last ‘til the service. Then she dressed in her underwear and put on her makeup. When he cell rang it was Linda. She let the three bridesmaids (bridesmatrons?) into the dressing room, and they helped her into the wedding gown and then finished their own outfits. When everybody was ready, Linda punched a button on her cell phone.