Chapter 3: Her Space

Carolyn Pierce finished doing the grades for her discussion session. Professor Delgado wanted to see her evaluation before issuing the official grades. She suspected that he wanted the grades from the separate discussion sessions to look alike. Well, she’d got her work as a student in. When she got her work as a teacher in, then it would be time to fix up the new apartment. Schedules kept conflicting. Bill had had a lease that ended April 30th. She had been in the worst crush of school work when they had to move.

Now, she had an office if not a desk. They had a dining room if not a dining table. They had a refrigerator with a larger freezer if that freezer was nearly empty. She should get these papers to Delgado and start organizing her life.

“Mrs. Pierce, nice to see you.”

“You said today was the deadline for the grades. Sorry it’s so late.” It was, indeed, a few minutes before 4:00. She’d got less than 6 hours sleep the night before to meet this deadline.

“You’re doing very well. You, indeed, are the first. Did you bring the tests with you?”

“Yeah, and my comments on class participation.”

“Very good. I don’t doubt you, but I want to see the student’s actual answers before I flunk him. Thank you.”

“And thank you, professor. I think I’m going home, now. It was a long semester, a long test period, and a short night.”

“Good night.” With that permission, she went back out. She’d driven, and nobody had ticketed the car for lacking a campus-parking permit. Probably this week, they weren’t enforcing it. She didn’t feel up to cooking anything special that night, or even cooking from scratch. She figured she could microwave the last chili, chop up some lettuce for a minimal salad, and open a can of pears. That didn’t need to be begun for some time. In the fine weather, she smoked her second cigarette for the day outside after parking the car.

In the apartment, she started on her books. The boxes were in her office, although some books she’d needed the last week were in the living room or kitchen; the bookcases were in the office. All she needed to do was get the books in order. She was deep in that when Bill came home. Had he got out early? She looked at her watch. It was 6:24.

Bill gave her a warm kiss. She felt a little guilty when she realized that she was working extra special to be sexy to prolong the kiss and delay the confession.

“I was going to cook for you, but this was just sitting here.”

“I understand. Too bad you couldn’t have had it for writing your papers. You still need a desk. Anyway, we can go out to eat.” Bill was being quite understanding, especially since she’d come to bed the previous night after he’d been deeply asleep.

“No! I’m done with school. I’m going to be a wife. Mind if I thaw something out?”

“Not at all. If you’re done with school, why don’t you meet me downtown tomorrow night? We can shop for a desk, and then go out to eat there.”

“Really?” He was being quite kind. And, with enough sleep this night, she’d be in top form by the time he got off work Friday.

“Really. You don’t need me, you know, for the shopping. Your card is good. Still, I’d like to see it with you. Dress sort of formal -- church clothes would do fine.”

He was sweet, but probably hungry, as well. She abandoned the office to fix the meal she’d planned. He ate with a good appetite.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“A little ... Look ... I’m awfully tired. I want to make an early night of it.”

“Two nights in a row? And you’re not bleeding.” She never liked his description of her periods. On the other hand, she wanted him to want her, and he -- not at all subtly -- did.

“Let’s compromise. I want to go to bed now, and to sleep fairly soon. I’ll crash. I certainly won’t be in the mood if you wake me up at ten or eleven. On the other hand, if we both go to bed now, I won’t blame you if you get up later.” Blame him? She doubted if she would even know.

“That’s different. Want your bathroom time first?”

“Not tonight. I don’t want to lie in bed alone.” Once she lay down, she’d be out for the count. So, he hurried through his bathroom time. She wasn’t so quick, although she didn’t touch her hair. She sat on the toilet for minutes after she was done -- too tired to get up. He was waiting for her in bed. She set her alarm for 10 A.M. while still standing, then crawled in beside him.

Mr. Foreplay made an even clearer appearance than usual. After a while, she pulled his hand to her delta. He stroked her lips, stroked her cleft. Thankfully, when he got to her clit, he stayed there. She flew.

When she came back together, he was kissing up her left breast towards the nipple. She was in danger of falling asleep before he got there. She reached over to Little Bill.

“Huh?” he said. Fortunately, Little Bill was more interested. He was hard as a pot handle, and she pulled that handle towards her.

“Now, Bill.” And it was now. When he entered her, she grabbed him by the ass. The motions, if less exciting than they were when she was awake, were pleasant. Bill moved faster. Then he pulsed within her. He managed to fall off to his side.

“I love you, Carolyn,” she heard as she dozed off. And, in the comfort of that love, she slept deeply.

Two alarms were ringing when she awoke the next morning, but her bladder had the most urgent message. When that need had been relieved, she returned to the bedroom to shut off her alarm. She figured out how to shut off Bill’s. That was a puzzle. It was 11:20. Had he left his alarm ringing this morning? Anyway, she was awake and felt much better. After her shower, she felt starved. She dressed and ate a big serving of the left-over chili before cooking herself two toasted-cheese sandwiches. The rest of the lettuce went well with that. She was dressed in her normal jeans when she remembered that Bill wanted her in church-quality clothes for dinner. Well, that wasn’t a working outfit. Bill called at noon, but he didn’t tell her anything he hadn’t told her before. She made out a shopping list, remembering that they would have dinner out that night. She bought the stuff.

When that was put away, she tackled her office again. The books went faster this time. She was dressed the way Bill wanted her and on the EL at 4:00. She got to his office before 5:00. The set-up was impressive, and Bill had an office all his own. He had a secretary, with whom she’d spoken on the phone, and the space looked bigger than Kindle’s. Larger or not, if contained less -- less even than Delgado’s. His desk was practically bare, which made her photo in her wedding dress stand out that much more.

“Sorry if I disturbed your day,” she told him when they were outside and headed towards Carson’s.

“They wanted to see you. That was fine. A pattern of visits, though, would be disturbing.”

“You have rules?”

“And they’re never written down. Who did you ask about how teaching assistants dress?”

“Cynthia who’d taught the year before.”

“And not the people who told you where to go and what your pay was.”

“Well, no.”

“They’d tell you that anything would be all right. If I asked Mr. Watkins if it were all right for you to visit me every afternoon, he’d say that it was fine. He’d say that, and he’d mark me as unfit for my present position, let alone any possible promotion. Anyway...”

“Anyway, we’re off to get me my own desk.”

“Want to select a dining-room table on this trip, too?”

“Sure, but the people who’ll be judging it are your friends.”

“I have the measurements -- got them last night. About last night ... I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Then she saw, or thought she saw. “Look, Bill, I didn’t get all that much sexual pleasure on the last two nights. Neither of them can be blamed on you.”

“Feel better now?”

“Feel rested now. Ate us almost out of our larder this morning -- this noon, really.”

“Yeah. I saw that your alarm was set for 10. I set mine for 11. Was it a great bother?”

“It was needed. It almost wasn’t enough.”

“You were awake when I phoned.” So that was the reason.

“Bill, you’re sweet.”

“Well, I was worried. You didn’t even stir when I got up. I checked that you were still breathing before I left.” And that was sweet, too. The shopping went well. Bill insisted that she get a solid desk. After all, she’d use it for the rest of her life. The dining room table looked nice, too, though they might move into a house sometime, one with a larger dining room requiring a larger table. The dinner was fancy, and delicious. By the time they got home, though, she was glad to be back. They watched TV together, something they hadn’t done too often in her crunch time.

“Let’s not,” she said when the news came on. This had been such a sweet couple time, and the news always caused fights.

“You’re right. I can get it all from the Trib tomorrow.” He read the Chicago Tribune every morning on the EL. Well, she wouldn’t be there to have a fight with him over the editorials.

“Brush my hair?” she asked when she got out of the bathroom. He liked to do it, and it really needed it. She always skimped it in crush times, and she always paid for it later in more work and worse snarls. And her hair was longer now, although that was at his request.

“Darling!” He brushed her hair out lovingly. There were snarls from the two previous nights she hadn’t brushed at all and, maybe, from other times she’d skimped the brushing for the crush time. Even so, he worked them out patiently. She would have gritted her teeth and yanked her brush until hairs broke or came out. He got the scissors once, and that lump looked like it had been home to a family of mice. She was ready for him by the time they got into bed, but Bill, never taking advantage of that sort of situation, went into his Mr. Foreplay persona.

He kissed her deeply while rubbing her lower lips together. When he got to her clit, she flew almost immediately. She flew twice more before reaching for him.

“Okay,” he said. He got over her and came in her. “Carolyn,” he said. He stroked slowly and deeply until she flew again. She felt him throb deep within her before she was done. He rolled to his side, taking her along with him. Indeed, her legs were around his hips. “Sweet,” he said.

“You’re the sweet one.” But her right leg was asleep from his weight before they separated. He turned off the lamp, and she nestled back against him -- and away from the wet spot. They shared a shower Saturday morning. That made breakfast late. She prepared him a special lunch, not the left-overs which were their standard lunch. Sunday, she even made a western omelet for breakfast. She left a pot roast in the pressure cooker when they went to church, and it was done when they got back from coffee hour. They ate, as had been her custom at home, Sunday dinner instead of lunch. But they had meat loaf for supper.

“You’re spoiling me,” he said.

“Well, the crunch time depleted my stock of left-overs. And this freezer is bigger. It will hold more meals worth. And you’ll have left-over pot roast this week.” Somehow, pot roast didn’t freeze well.

“You’re still spoiling me. We didn’t eat out that much on your last crunch time.” Well, she hadn’t wanted to, and he had bought take-out most nights of the previous two weeks.

She kissed him at the door Monday morning. Then she got to work. She planned meals for the next two weeks which meant making out three future shopping lists. It was easier, especially in this weather, to go food shopping more than once a week than to drive to the store, buy more than she could carry, and search for a parking space back at the apartment.

She washed clothes Tuesday, much more peaceful than Bill’s old habit of doing it on a weekend. She got the clothes sorted and the house cleaned before time to fix dinner. Wednesday, before she’d decided whether to clean the oven -- the previous tenants had left it in a mess, but was she in that much of a hausfrau mood? -- the furniture came. They put the table and chairs in the dining room and the desk in her office. That was what she really wanted to arrange.