Chapter 2

When they got back, she prepared for the new guests first. Then she checked the refrigerator and the rest of the food supply. Only then could she get around to the fact that she was a married woman. They’d shared a room, but not that room.

“Look, you’re not renting out my room?” Stu asked. “I mean...”

“I know precisely what you mean, and not for months.” Much of the year, she didn’t put anybody on the third floor. She would use those rooms before she’d use the one in which she had spent her wedding night.

“Well, we need a wardrobe, unless you want to put in another closet with carpentry. But I can keep only a few things down here until then.” He was very accommodating, using his suitcase to store underwear until they could get another dresser, using only one shelf, the top, in the medicine cabinet.

Still, what had been her space was now their space. It seemed to her that – while his things didn’t take up that much space -- Stu’s person took up a lot.

But, later, in what had been Jessie’s bed, Stu coaxed Jessica back. Then he gave her a climax. Then he filled her and took them to a mutual climax.

Friday morning, she rose first and had her shower. She dressed before cooking breakfast. They ate in the kitchen, and Stu helped clear and get the dishes into the dishwasher. When she got back into her room their room the bed was made.

He drove her to the grocery. She bought two sets of food every Friday. Some for the breakfasts she served, and some for herself. Well, now the second set would be for the two of them. She got two grocery carts and gave him one. She figured twice as much food as she usually bought for herself.

When she got to the cashier, Stu suggested that he pay, cash, for the food for the two of them. She used the B&B checkbook for the breakfast stuff, as usual.

Stu effaced himself when the couple, the Stevensons, came in that night. She dealt with them as she had dealt with a thousand guests in the past. When they were in their room, though, he locked up. She was finishing up in the office, when he came in. He waited for her, and kissed her when she got up from the desk.

“This is Jessie’s space,” she said, “Let’s go in there.” The bedroom had been her mother’s last place, fixed up for her when she couldn’t manage the stairs. Carpenters had built the office out front and closed it off so the two rooms and a bath were a single suite with a single entrance.

He followed her into the bedroom, and kissed her again. “Hello, Jessica.” Actually, she wasn’t Jessica yet, but he soon brought her out. Even though the honeymoon was officially over, he undressed her between kisses until she escaped into the john.

Married life might have more bumps for her -- she found that Stu ate much more than she had expected -- but it had its delights, as well. Then the checks for their joint account finally arrived in the mail.

“Look,” Stu said, “I don’t want to put you on an allowance or anything, but could you tell me, in advance, when you’re going to write more than $2,000 a month in checks.”

“Stu, I can’t manage on that.” The mortgage for the conversion, alone, was more than that. Technically, that wasn’t a check, but she didn’t think Stu would appreciate finding out that the money was taken from the account.

“Well, what did you do before?”

“Before,” she explained, “I spent the profits from the B&B. I put them in my own account.” Should she close her personal account? Well, the mortgage payments were withdrawn from there regularly, and she wasn’t sure all the checks had cleared yet. Would Stu understand that the business account needed to be kept separate?

“Okay. ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’ I don’t expect you to deposit anything in the joint account. You still have your own account, don’t you? Well, keep that the same. Just don’t spend more than $2,000 a month from this account without warning me. For that matter, don’t write checks for more than $1,000 for the next week or so. ETF should be checkable immediately, but let’s let it sit for a few days to keep your Mr...”

“Warren.”

“Keep your Mr. Warren happy. Can we do that?” Stu asked.

“Sure.” He was talking about contributing a lot to the family coffers. It didn’t sound like a joint account to her, though.

“Like I told him, we’re easing into this marriage thing. Probably, when we see how things go, we’ll be able to simplify. But you have a business and a system. They work, let’s let them keep working.”

“Okay,” she said. The next Friday, when they went grocery shopping, he suggested she take her checkbook from the joint account.

He took her out for dinner and one or two lunches a week. Still, she found that her food bill was much higher. It wasn’t anywhere near $500 a week, though.

One night, he took her up and over. She spread her legs further to make space for his body instead of his hand.

“Let’s just cuddle,” he said. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” They got into the spoon position. The flesh pressed against her butt didn’t feel weak to her, but she didn’t argue. She worried that something lovely had ended, but he was eager for her the next night.

The country became obsessed with a trial, and Jessie was as obsessed as anyone. When a bomb had blown up a pair of gay men, it hadn’t made the national news. When the millionaire brother of one of those men had offered a massive reward for the conviction of the perpetrators, it had been a blip on the networks. But, when a top boss in the Mafia was indicted for the crime, the press went wild. There were nightly updates on new revelations, and intermediate updates when the court broke for lunch.

Stu was unimpressed. “Look, do you doubt that the mobster ordered a hit on his brother because he was gay?”

“No. Everybody in the country knows that.”

“Then the only question is whether the prosecutors can prove it beyond a shadow of a reasonable ... a reasonable shadow of a doubt to a jury. And the news reports aren’t really precise enough to tell you that.” Still, she watched the news every night.

They interviewed the guy who had offered the reward when the guilty verdict came down. “Mr. Knudsen, are you satisfied?”

“Brad was my brother. I didn’t agree with all his choices, but brothers never do. Sal was the love of his life. This conviction can’t bring them back.”

“Will the reward be paid now?”

“That’s another question. I may not be satisfied with how things went, but I’m satisfied with Mr. Savrelli’s actions.” Louie Savrelli was the bodyguard whose recordings had been central to the trial. “He is in the witness protection program. The $2,000,000 is in escrow. It will be paid within days. I have to go through the Marshall’s Service. I wish I could shake Mr. Savrelli’s hand, but for his own protection I cannot.”

She had her period, and cut Stu off for several days. When she started the new disk of pills, though, she had good news for him.

“The pills are effective now,” she said. “You don’t need those any more.”

“Oh, Darling.” He put the contraceptive down and kissed her again. He started arousing her all over again. She finally had to ask him.

“Stu, please!” Then he rolled over her and he did please her marvelously. He was warm and not so slick at her entrance. He rubbed her while pressing in.

“Oh, Jessica,” he said. “So warm, so smooth, so soft.” He moved more rapidly inside her, drove in more deeply.

When the fire tore through her, he drove in hard and pulsed. She could feel the warmth pour into her. He fell on her, his elbows not taking all his weight.

“Oh, darling,” he said when he got his breath back, “I didn’t think you could be any sexier. That was wonderful.”

It had been pretty special for her too, but now she felt something leak out of her.

If Stu restricted her to $2,000 a month, be didn’t restrict himself. First was the car. He had her follow him to the rental place he’d been driving a rental car all this time and then drive him to the dealership. He’d already made his choice, and they had it ready for him.

“Now, we just need to deal with the financing,” Jerry said. It was sort of weird seeing her former boyfriend in this context, but the people her age had all been in school with her.

“Lots of paper there,” Stu said. “Here’s a single piece that does as much.” He handed him a check for the whole amount.

He drove the new car out, and she drove her old one back to the B&B.

Then he got a set of weights and a bench for exercise. He set it up in the basement. The last piece of furniture to be added to the bedroom to make it theirs instead of hers was a gun safe.

“I don’t like guns,” she said.

“Well, if you don’t like them, I’ll keep it hidden in there when you’re around unless I need it. Guns can cause accidents, but not when they’re in gun safes.” Generally, he asked, but he was insistent about that.

Stu got a burglar alarm installed. Actually it was two alarms, although with the same company. One guarded the house, and since guests had to be settled before it was turned on, did so for only a few night time hours. The other guarded the private section, and they had it on most of the day, even though that limited her time in the office.

Stu paid for the installation, but the service charged a monthly fee, and the B&B paid that.

They had sex almost every night, and when he went to cuddle mode, it was after bringing her off. She had heard enough to know that this was unusual. Of course, she got only one climax when he did not feel he could get one, but lots of women, maybe most of them, got no climax unless their husbands got one sometimes, not even then.

“Roll away from me,” Stu said one night. She was feeling too contented to roll anywhere, but she figured this would be another night he would go without. She rolled, and he came up behind her. He felt awfully hard against her to be looking for a night without a climax. Then he opened her with his fingers and nudged inside. “Oh, Jessica!” He thrust and went in, but not as far in as was his usual. “Lift your leg.” When she did, he moved his hand around to her front and to her clit.

Then she was getting both sensations. He was moving inside her and stroking her genitals with his finger. As her excitement grew, she started to shove back against his shoving forward. Even with both of them working on it, they didn’t get the length of stroke that Stu got by himself normally. The heat rose, though.

When the fire burst out, she felt herself contract on him again.

“God!” he said and thrust forward. It got him a little further in, but moved her across the bed and up in the bed. Then, he was pulsing in her.

She figured that she wasn’t the only one who had felt her contractions. “Nighty night,” he said a little later. He wasn’t lying on her at all, and soon the only connection oozed out.

She had known there were other positions for making love. She hadn’t been sure that real people used them, and she hadn’t read about that one.

Stu kept his distance from the B&B business. The only bed in the building she didn’t make was the one she slept in. He wasn’t lazy, though. When the day came to rotate the mattresses, she had Sally come in after school. Stu followed them upstairs.

“Look,” he said when he’d seen them flip one mattress, “what’s the sense of my pumping iron down in the basement while you’re straining yourself to do something real up here?” He waited for them to remove the covers, and then he flipped the mattresses. It went much faster like that.

Summer came, and with it better business. The mortgage payments hadn’t really been a worry in the spring, for the first time since she’d opened the B&B. Still, she welcomed the new income.

She didn’t welcome the new work. Despite his participation in heavy work when it came, Stu didn’t reduce her work much.

He did help the guests with baggage, occasionally, older people, lone women or women in pairs. Once he grabbed a folded crib and a suitcase when a couple brought a baby with them. But she had never provided porter service. It improved the experience slightly, and might increase traffic via word of mouth. It certainly didn’t decrease her work load.

He did make their bed and help with the dishes; he took her out for one dinner and one or two lunches a week. That probably balanced the increased housework that came with a man in her suite.

The extra effort she was making, the extra exercise she was getting, was mostly at night. She felt it, but she got too much pleasure to suggest cutting back their sex.

He gave her a tiny gift on the 26th of every month. He called that their ‘luniversary.’ They weren’t anything special, a box of chocolate cherries, a flower come summer out of the garden she had planted. The thought was special, though.

She sometimes wondered when he got his consulting done. In the mornings, he would either work out with the weights, go for a run that lasted more than an hour, or both. He would shower in the late morning and appear with his hair damp and slicked down for lunch. Afternoons, he might work at the computer at his desk in the basement near his weights, but he was always available to take her shopping or perform a chore.

When he spoke of her to their friends, he now called her ‘Jessie.’

She was ‘Jessica,’ though, in their bed at night. “Jessica, oh darling,” he said one Sunday night when more than half the guests had gone home. He had stripped her of the night gown and was kissing down to her breast. “Darling, so sweet.” He continued kissing a path downward. She had more than books to tell her of his destination; she had a fond memory of her wedding night. Still, that had been months ago. He kissed the insides of her thighs while she squirmed. Then his mouth was on her center.

The heat built; the fire roared; the lightning struck. She moaned and writhed.

This time, though, he did not relent. His tongue stroked her, just touched her clit. The fire built again. She felt fingers ease into her. Then his tongue licked her again. She could feel his warm breath all over her genitals. Then she could feel nothing other than the fire burning through her and shaking her limbs.

“Yes, darling Jessica,” he said. Then his mouth returned to torture her. The heat built; the fire flared. She moaned, and the bed undulated under her.

“Yes,” he said. He moved up her body. Then he plunged into her. He skewered right into the fire. His strokes, long and deep, built the heat one more time. She wound tighter than was humanly possible.

When she shattered, she writhed around him. She screamed.

He drove into her, and his shout echoed her scream. Then he collapsed over her, and his gasps answered hers. “Love,” he said when he finally got off and moved to her side.

She hadn’t the strength to answer, but what she felt the next morning was, indeed, love.

They were coming out of the grocery when Chief Watkins stopped them. “That Brighton guy didn’t tell me he was a hero, not even that he was FBI,” he said.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Well, remember the Red Bank bombing case? A gay pair were blown up apparently in the act ‘cause the family of one of the guys didn’t like it. And, I do mean family; they were all mafiosi. Anyway, Brighton turned the case. He got the body guard, Savrelli to wear a wire, and they all talked about the bang when they were banging. Wait a second, Stu. Weren’t you in Ranger school with Brighton?”

“Sure,” Stu said. Surprised you knew.”

“Think he told me. Well, the story says that he met Savrelli there. Did you know him?”

“Don’t remember him. Kevin and I got to be best buddies a little later. I didn’t know everybody he hung with there.”

“Still, it’s strange Brighton didn’t say he was a special agent. I said I was police. Well, I’ll let you guys get that in your car.”

“Do you know why he didn’t?” she asked Stu when he drove her back home.

“Couple guesses. He was with me, and booze. He might have been thinking Ranger, not the bureau. Other thing is that the Feebies don’t always get along with the town clowns. Maybe he wasn’t feeling that fellow feeling; maybe he didn’t want the Chief to trade stories with him, traffic stops against terrorist bombs.”

She let it go. It was far away and didn’t really involve them.

That night, she was very happy that she had let it go. He took her to bed and took her soaring. He didn’t use his mouth on her often, but when he did, it was an experience and an explosion.

She was paying the minimum on two credit cards, and she was suffering from the interest. Well, Stu had said that she could spend anything under $2,000 in a calendar month. She got to the end of the month, and sent one card company the even dollar amount that brought her spending for the month over $1,999. When Stu didn’t comment, she did it again. When that card balance was reasonable, she played the same game with the other card. Actually, with the joint account checkbook, she found herself using the cards less and less.

She had always varied what she paid herself or, legally, what the B&B paid her according to how business was. Her excuse was that she worked less in slow seasons. The real question, though, was what the B&B could afford. When the last leaves fell, and occupancy rates with them, she cut down to a little more than the interest which the bank withdrew automatically.

She had never told him her birthday. She got some cards before the day, but he expressed no interest. August 11 fell on a Friday, and she was busy checking in a fairly full house, some of whom arrived late.

When she got back to their room, there were two packages sitting on the bed.