Chapter 2

Getting Together

The next time David saw Jen was at her parents’. She had been shopping with her mom. Her mom was a nice woman, as one would expect from such a nice daughter. After a pleasant -- if superficial -- conversation, he and Jen headed for the Conference offices in his car. That might not be the smartest way into the Loop. They arrived a few minutes early. This didn’t seem to be the place for holding hands, much less anything more serious. When the cabinet meeting broke up, all the departing members congratulated Jen and him. He was really the person who should be congratulated; maybe Jen deserved commiseration. Still, it boded well to have people who could do them good or ill every year in the future as well-wishers.

“Now then,” Campbell said when he’d ushered them into a conference room and shut the door, “the service. What sort of vows do you want?” He hadn’t thought about that. Would a DS perform some off-the-wall service?

“What’s wrong with the traditional ones?” he asked.

“How traditional?” Jen asked.

“What’s in your service book.” He took a deep breath. Some weddings at which he’d officiated hadn’t struck him as particularly Christian. “Let me tell you, I do have the emotions we call ‘love’ towards you. And I’m quite willing to tell the world. Want me to take out an ad in the Tribune? But I won’t say the present tense in the service. The promise to love is a promise to seek your good -- seek it in the future. It isn’t a feeling.”

“Let’s use the standard form,” Jen said.

“This is looking easier and easier,” Campbell said.

“Two rings,” he put in. “I’m not dictating to her; this has already been discussed. The rings are already picked out.”

Campbell asked a dozen more questions before he got to “Music?”

That was Jen’s department. “The Independence organist, Mrs. Dixon, will play. She’s not very good, I fear. I’ll have her send you the playlist. That will be very traditional. No soloists...” she trailed off and looked at him.

“Unless you would be willing to,” she finally continued.

“You want a song from me?” he asked.

“Very much.”

That hadn’t been discussed. She’d get what she was asking for unless it was sickly sweet. But Jen wasn’t the type for sickly sweet. “Something particular, something you won’t know until the event, something you approve beforehand?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘approve,’” she answered.

“You can pick it out later,” Campbell said.

But he’d had time to think. “Know ‘As Men and Women We Were Made’?” They were talking about a worship service, after all. “Composer named Wren.” Couldn’t think of his first name, but one thing he knew. “Not Christopher. Fairly new.”

Jen shook her head, Campbell nodded his.

“Not in the hymnal,” he admitted.

“Yet,” Campbell said. “It’s only about a decade old. Should I pencil it in?”

“Oh yes,” Jen said. She sounded pleased.

When Campbell got to the questions he’d sent, they handed him their negotiated answers. In his case, at least, they were a Xerox of the negotiated answers. Campbell went through the answers with them.

“You know the part of the ceremony,” Campbell finally asked, “where the officiating minister says, ‘Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder’?”

“Well,” he continued, “it sometimes seems to me that we concentrate on the wrong part of that. What would it mean to treat your spouse as the person God has put you together with?”

“Well,” he responded to their silence, “I’ll leave you with that. It’s something to think about, not only now, but during the marriage as well.”

They walked out with Campbell and, when he turned off towards the bus stop, went to get the car. When he stopped at a red light, he asked Jen, “Honeymoon?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” she said. Good answer, but not the question.

“Sounds like a great idea. But specifically. Do you already have something planned? Do you want to plan it together? Do you want me to surprise you?”

“You have something in mind.”

“I’m considering something.” He’d been considering it for some time, not wanting to suggest it to her until he was certain that this would work out.

“Why don’t you run it by me?” Jen asked. “We’re not like you men, you know. Women have to know where we’re going before we can pack for the trip.” That was fair.

“Do you swim?” he asked.

“Some.”

“Only pools?”

“Lake.”

“Ever been in the ocean?”

“No,” she said “Is that what you want?” It was what he thought might be good for her. She needed to be far away from Independence.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking of. A small inn by the Atlantic. It doesn’t get as warm by June as Lake Michigan does, but you float better in saltwater.”

“Sounds good.” Then she changed the subject. “Do you want my questions for our marriage now?” Apparently, the plan for the honeymoon was accepted.

“I was thinking when I took you back. You sure you want to go back by train?”

“I’m sure.”

Well, she could change her mind. “Pizza?” he asked.

“Sounds great.”

“Decide the toppings now and come in with me to order it.” Aside from the cheese, she chose a different assortment than the last time.

After the kiss and starting the coffee, he laid out the table. When his tie threatened to drag over the pizza, he took it off. It wasn’t as if he had planned to wear it throughout the evening.

When he came back Jen was looking much tastier than the pizza had. During their a long kiss, she flowed into his hug. “Sure you want pizza?” he asked. Then they went into the kitchen and ate.

She was wearing a suit. He didn’t want to get pizza sauce on it, but he did want to get his hands on it. Well, he wanted to get his hands on her, and she’d be wearing the suit for the next few minutes. For that matter, he wanted to take it especially slow tonight. If that ran past the train schedule, then he’d drive her back. He washed his hands when Jen was clearly on her last piece.

They had a nice kiss before they adjourned to the bedroom. There, he kissed her gently and unbuttoned one button. Then he kissed her again and unbuttoned another. When he had draped the blouse over a chair, he took a long kiss. With her still in his arms, he reached behind her to undo her brassiere. He stepped back and moved his hands around her sides. Then he had a breast in each hand, gently brushing the nipples with his thumb. He took the brassiere off and placed it over the blouse. Then he kissed her again.

But those sweet, responsive, nipples were calling. He kissed a line down her neck and shoulder ‘til he reached one. When he kissed it, she encouraged him by pulling his head into the kiss.

He sucked there, bent over awkwardly and with his hands stroking her back and bottom, until she pushed him back. He worried that she’d grown tired of his kisses, but her next move was to lie down. That would be much better -- easier access and even more access.

He kissed her before lying down beside her, though, and he needed to remove her skirt. He made separate trips for the skirt and the panties. There was so much of Jen he hadn’t kissed yet, and he’d intended to make this a slow session, too.

Not lying down yet, he began to remedy the lack. He kissed her breasts again, giving them each equal attention. He kissed her sweet abdomen, her navel and sides. When he got low enough that the pantyhose interfered, he tugged them down with her cooperation. That revealed her hair which needed kisses as much as her breasts had. When he’d kissed there, her thighs called.

Jen looked bound with her pantyhose around her knees. Suddenly, that was a turn-on. It wasn’t a turn-on he wanted to pursue, however. He removed them and put them with her panties. Now Jen was revealed in all her glory, wearing nothing but a watch and a ring -- his ring.

He should kiss the whole of that glory, from the neck to the toes. Before he could, though, Jen started unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re wearing too much,” she said. The sweet girl wanted him.

He kissed her for that. He could have managed the shirt faster than she did, but ‘faster’ wasn’t a value tonight. It became less of a value when she’d opened his trousers. She gripped him.

Afraid that he would come right there, he moved away. Jen seemed to see the danger, but she had a demand. “Well, lose those.” He lost them, as well as the shoes and socks. He knelt over her and resumed the kissing. He started on the valley between her breasts and passed on to her belly. Leaving her hair for the return trip, he kissed the inside of her thighs. That brought his nose right where Jen smelled most arousing. And he could just barely taste her, too. He licked a thigh and anticipated the taste of her center.

But that was not to be. Jen pulled him up in the bed by his hair. “Damn it,” she said. She wanted him!

Well, he wanted her. He wanted her right then, but somewhere in his mind there was a corner still lucid. “The Trojan,” he reminded her.

“Get it.” Woman knew what she wanted, and -- since what she wanted was him -- that was delightful. He got it.

He stopped at the entrance to paradise. “Oh, Jen. Oh, Jennifer.” Then he slid into that sweet embrace. The lovely smoothness, the warmth -- despite the Trojan, enclosed him. As he began his motions, he felt her hands clasping his bottom.

Soon, he felt an even more intimate clasp. Jen was pulsing around him. He drove in and out of that pulsing warmth ever more rapidly as his tension built. “Oh Jen,” he said as it peaked. He emptied himself into her and collapsed. The last thing he could control his muscles for was to roll to her side. He was still conscious of Jen’s warmth beside him and her hand holding his.

Too soon, though, Jen got up. Instead of coming back where she belonged after a bathroom break, she started to dress. “I’ll get a cab,” she said.

“No, I’ll take you.” He put on the same underwear but slacks not good enough for school and the shirt he’d planned on. His set of questions was already in the pocket.

They got in the car, and he started on his way. Before they got to the turn-off for the expressway, he said, “I could take you the whole way. I’m going to be making the trip every day next year, after all.” And he felt fully awake, now.

“The car’s parked at the station.” Then he could drive her to the station. “For the rest of my life, I’d feel two-faced every time I talked about stewardship of natural resources.”

“There is that,” he admitted.

Jen put a sheaf of papers on the dashboard. “My questions. You seem to have forgotten yours. Maybe distracted.”

“I have them,” he said. “I planned to wear this shirt.” But that reminded him. “What I did forget was the pizza. I wanted to give you the leftovers.”

“Anything you don’t eat, refrigerate and bring on Sunday.”

They kissed goodbye just at the beginning of the platform. He waited until the train started moving, then shook himself. He went back to the car and drove back to his apartment, an apartment which was beginning to feel strangely lonely.

He had meant to save Jen’s questions for the next day, but the temptation was too great. He read them in bed. She’d been less structured than he had, giving only one layer of questions.

One of her questions was “sex.” He was tempted to answer that “yes.” Serve her right for her answer to his honeymoon question. But he did have ideas about sex, ideas he should express before the marriage.

The next day, between classes, he sorted out the two pairs of questions. He numbered the two copies. After work, he typed them up again, both sets conflated into one. He couldn’t see how to express his assurance that he wasn’t about to run her pastorate. He sure-as-hell shouldn’t phrase that as a question: “Is Jen in charge of her church or is David?”

He’d Xerox the questions the next day at the seminary. They’d have a postage scale there, too. He did type out the envelope to Jen.

He had thought out two points that needed more space, he put them on separate sheets. “D1. Jen is the assigned pastor. She decides -- subject to the usual committees and The Discipline -- what goes on in the church. David has the same right to opinions as any other parishioner, but Jen decides. Similarly, David is the professor. Jen has the same right to opinions as any other alumna, but David decides -- subject to the seminary’s policies, of course,” ran the first.

The second said, “D2. Paul writes, as you know, about each spouse giving the other his/her due. Pretty generally, this is taken to mean that one is to engage in the intercourse one’s spouse needs/wants. I take it so myself. Now, not as an interpretation of that, but as one way to fulfill that advice, here’s what I suggest: In any relationship at any particular time, there will be one who wants more and another who wants less. I suggest that we have intercourse to fully satisfy the one who wants less. After that, it will be the task of that person to satisfy the other. Manually, or through cunnilingus as seems appropriate at the time. Now this won’t solve every problem/conflict. What happens if I seriously want you at ten thirty on a Sunday morning? But I do offer it as a guideline.”

Saturday, he called up Jen’s mother. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Saunders? This is David Blake. I visited you the other day. I have a question, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell Jen.”

“I don’t like keeping secrets from my daughter.”

“Use your own judgment on this one. A wise man once said that a man only needs to remember four dates, 1492, 1776, his anniversary and his wife’s birthday. And, he said, you can get by without the first two in a pinch.”

She chuckled. “So, you want to know Jen’s birthday?”

“Yes, and I might want to surprise my wife. So, I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell her I asked.”

“It’s April twenty-fifth.”

“Thanks much. I’ll never surprise her that I know my wife’s birthday, but I might surprise my fiancée. I’m glad I asked.”

“You’re quite welcome. I don’t mind keeping that sort of secret.”

“And keep it for a few days afterwards, will you? I’ll have to look at a calendar, but I suspect I won’t be able to get together with her on the twenty-fifth.”

She agreed, and they got off the phone soon thereafter.

He remembered the pizza and brought it to her before church. She put it in the ‘fridge, but -- despite his getting there early -- she had things to do to prepare for the service. Her kiss was light and more dutiful than passionate. He drove her to the parishioners’ again after the service. It was a nice visit, marred only by what they were being deprived of.

Back at the parsonage, Jen turned on the downstairs lights on her way to the upstairs. They didn’t really need light, but it signified to any passersby later on that he was in her living room and not her bedroom. When they were in the bedroom, they shared a deep kiss. She responded to his unbuttoning her blouse by trying to unbutton his shirt. That didn’t work.

They both laughed. “Faster if we do ourselves,” Jen said, stepping away. He started on his clothes and walked around the bed to reach a chair which would take them. When he was stripped, he got the Trojans out of his briefcase. “Would it cause problems if I left these here?” he asked. He neither wanted to invade her space nor to leave evidence where it might be found.

“Good idea.”

He put them on the nightstand on his way to kiss Jen. The kiss was delightful. She was nice and warm against him, firm nipples pressing his chest, firm belly against his erection, firm buttocks under his hand.

After her mouth, he kissed her ears and her throat. He had to break the hug before his kisses reached her breast, but he could caress her front like that. When he stopped kissing to catch his breath, Jen went to bed. “Join me,” she said.

When he did, he lay on his right side and caressed her with his left hand. He kissed her near breast while his hand was on her far one. Then he smoothed his hand down that lovely belly to the hair at its base. Jen spread her legs, improving his access. He cupped her mound in his hand, fingers playing with her labia. He kissed over to her far breast. When his lips got to the nipple, his finger got to her nubbin.