Chapter 5: Control

Sunday, Candy was outside when Eric drove up.

“Did you have a nice Christmas?” he asked.

“Fairly nice, surprisingly enough.” He didn’t need to know the ups and downs. “And you?”

“Really, the pageant was the acme of my Christmas celebration. I gave and got a couple of presents, but the celebration is really about kids. I did get handmade gifts from each of the twins ... Should I have got you a present?”

“I’m glad you didn’t. I didn’t get you one.”

“Yeah. What are we?”

“Friends.”

“I’ll go with that.”

Attendance was sparse for the service. They sat with Joan and Kurt. She and Joan were side by side, and Eric and Kurt were on the ends. Somehow, although she and Eric weren’t sitting as close together as Joan and Kurt were, they were one couple and she and Eric were another.

Eric took her to yet another restaurant. He seemed to know millions of them. It was an Evanston restaurant, though, and she was totally unsurprised by the question he asked when they got to the car after eating.

“Would you like to see my etchings again?”

“I’d like it very much.” In his apartment, he hung up her coat and then his parka and his suit coat. After a long kiss standing up, he turned her around. He kissed her shoulder while unzipping her dress and unsnapping her bra. He reached inside and held her boobs. He kissed the back of her ears while playing with her nipples.

“Really,” he whispered, “shouldn’t you take off your dress and hang it up?” While she did, he stripped off his own shirt and undershirt. They had a long kiss with skin pressing against skin. Then he led her to the couch. They sat side by side, while he kissed her and stroked her boobs. He kissed her mouth but spent as much time kissing all over her face and on her neck, ears, and shoulder. Finally, he kissed down her left boob to suck on her nipple. He was exciting. He went back to her lips before breaking to look her straight in the eyes.

“If I remember, he scared you when he took off your pantyhose.”

“Yeah.” It hadn’t quite been frightening to her, though the entire incident had frightened her to death. She’d told Jerry ‘no,’ and he had ignored her.

“You might want to take off your own this time.” He went back to kissing her and stroking her nipples while she thought. Did she want to be naked with Eric? How far would it go? Well, she didn’t feel all that scared, she might not be as excited as she had been other times, but she was more excited than scared. When she straightened, he moved back. She got half up to push the pantyhose down her thighs. Then she sat down to get them off her legs. She would never have chosen a soft chair, much less this mushy sofa, for doing that task.

“Oh, darling,” he said when she got the second foot out of them. “Darling, darling, Candy.” He kissed her again when she settled down beside him. One of his hands was holding the back of her head while the other was stroking her boob. Then that hand left her boob to stroke from her knee inward. She was a little scared, but the scare was making her more excited. She grabbed his hand before it reached her pussy. He pulled it back and moved back from the kiss. She was holding his hand and moved it back where it had been.

“Just checking,” she said.

“You are in control.” He stroked the inside of her thigh without going any further. She moved her hand up to pull his head back into the kiss. When his hand reached her panties, he stroked the outside for a while. She spread her legs and scooted forwards on the cushion. She wanted this.

As soon as his finger was inside her panties, she realized that her play-acting over the past few days had been wrong in one way. His finger was much larger than hers had been. The pad of the finger felt fat between those lips. Soon, much too soon, he pulled his finger out and backed off from the kiss.

“I really think you should be sitting up here.” He slapped his knee. So, like the little kids with Santa Claus, she sat on his lap. He hugged her, and her right arm was pressed against his warm skin. He stroked both her boobs before he brought his hand back down between her legs. This time, he didn’t stop. This time, he dropped his head down to kiss her boob and suck her nipple. This time, she had a climax.

“Oh, Candy,” he said. His hand was between her legs, but he was no longer moving it. “Oh, Darling.” They kissed again, more from her impulse than from his. Their tongues played.

“Oh, Candy,” he said. “Are you okay? Was that okay?”

“That was wonderful.” It hadn’t been as intense as the climaxes she had brought herself, but a man had been holding her and stroking her; a man had had his hand on her pussy, and it had hardly frightened her at all.

“Should we stay here? ... Or should we go into the bedroom?” This had been grand. Did she want to go further?

She had thought things through, spent days thinking things through. She had told him she would think things through instead of having another date. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She hadn’t really expected to get this far with this level of comfort. If she didn’t go all the way, then there was one act that Jerry still haunted. But she really didn’t want to have sex with Eric, at least not very much.

She had wanted to have sex with Tom; sometimes she had ached with desire. She hadn’t done it because she was a virgin and losing your virginity was special. By the time the prom came along, she was clear that they were going different ways, and your first time shouldn’t be with somebody who was going to leave you -- who you knew was somebody who was going to leave you. But this wouldn’t be her first time. If she hadn’t been a virgin, she would have had sex with Tom, probably would have had it a year ago. You can’t unring a bell.

Eric was sitting quite still while she thought. He kissed her shoulder occasionally -- not the top edge that he’d kissed in the beginning and had kissed sexily -- he was kissing the corner, the boniest part. That was Eric. She’d make a decision, and he would accept her decision. And, if she didn’t quite love Eric, she loved that about him.

Then, too, she was scared; she had a damned good reason to be scared. And she was less scared with Eric. The fact that he was waiting for her decision was an argument for having sex with him.

If she met a man later who swept her off her feet, she might freeze up at the last moment if her only memory was of Jerry. If she froze at the last minute today, Eric would stop. Who else would? When she met the one who would be her lifetime mate, she couldn’t give him the gift that he would be the only man who was ever in her pussy. Jerry had taken the ability to give that gift from her. Would it be so much worse for him if she gave him the third time instead of the second? Especially if she didn’t lay it out. He would, after all, know that it wasn’t the first time because he would know that she had a child. Maybe it would be more important for him that she didn’t shiver in fright when he first had sex with her.

And Eric, whatever her emotions towards him, was the nicest man she’d ever met. Besides, she was proving to herself that Jerry hadn’t ruined her life, and she could only prove that when she had done everything.

She looked around the room. The doorway to the kitchen was just an opening without a door. She’d been through the closet, bathroom, and outer door. The only other door had to be the bedroom door. As she got off Eric’s lap, he dropped his hands. She was nearly to the bedroom before he got up. The bedroom was neat, and the bed was a twin with a bedspread on it. She pulled down the bedspread, blanket, and top sheet. She lay down in the middle of the bed before Eric got near.

“Candy, darling,” he said. She could feel the bed sag and hear his shoes drop as he knelt beside her. He kissed her mouth and then her boobs again. “Let me,” he said when he straightened up from those kisses. His hands were at the waistband of her panties. Having already decided to have sex with him, she simply raised her hips off the bed. He pulled her panties down and then off.

Instead of starting on the sex as she had expected, he stroked her again. His finger felt even bigger as he stroked between her lips down below. He kissed her boob and sucked her nipple while he stroked her clit. She was getting close. She needed him to press more firmly and stoke more rapidly on her clit to get off. Instead, while he maintained the slow, steady pace with the light touch, she grew more and more aroused.

This climax was extraordinarily intense. She shook.

As she lay there recovering, she felt the bed shake from his motions and heard a drawer open and close. Then he kissed her forehead.

“I love you, Candy.” Right then, she loved him, too. “May I? Candy, dearest, please say yes.” He was between her legs. He took her hand and brought it to his groin. She felt something. It was his cock. He was holding her fingers against a band of something at the base of his cock. Of course, he had a rubber on. She really wouldn’t have identified it if it hadn’t been the only thing he could possibly be showing her right then.

“Please say yes.”

“Let me see.” He knelt up, still between her legs. She’d seen Tom’s cock several times and felt it in her hands more often. Eric was naked, and his cock was shiny from the rubber. It was more blatant sticking out than Tom’s had been peeking out from his pants.

“Please say yes.” Well, she had already decided.

“Yes.”

“Darling!” He dropped down. That frightened her for an instant, but he didn’t touch her until he had stopped right over her. She felt him spread her lower lips with his fingers, and then he was going into her. It was smooth. It didn’t hurt, wasn’t even uncomfortable. He was a little cool at first, but he warmed up while he stayed still and kissed her. “I love you. May I move?”

“Sure.” And so he moved in and out. This felt nice, and the expression on his face in front of hers was intriguing. He looked like he was concentrating on doing it right. Was it so very difficult? At first, he moved slowly, and the feeling inside her was pleasant if not in the least arousing. Then he moved more rapidly. That didn’t feel as pleasant, but she began to be aroused.

“Darling!” he said. He shoved into her and against her hard. She felt some movement down there inside her. Then he was lying on her. She put her arms around him. Well, she had had sex twice. The earth hadn’t moved either time. Poetry and exaggeration aside, they were talking about climaxes. She not only hadn’t experienced an especially intense climax; she hadn’t experienced any climax at all.

She couldn’t blame Eric, though. And, except for that one moment when she thought he would fall on her, it hadn’t been frightening. She figured that he wouldn’t have dropped down if he hadn’t straightened up when she asked to see. And, now she knew what one felt like in her hand, she wouldn’t ask to see it again.

Why had he used a rubber? He wasn’t in any danger of making her pregnant. Still, Jerry hadn’t, and Eric might have wanted to be as little like Jerry as possible. Eric was, indeed, as little like Jerry as possible.

“Sorry,” Eric said. He moved off her and lay to her side. She was in the middle of the bed, and it wasn’t that large a bed. She moved over and then, thinking he might see that as moving away from him, reached over to hold his hand. He moved a little closer.

“Was that okay? Were you frightened?” If she answered either question with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ he’d hear the answer to the other question.

“I wasn’t frightened at all. You were very gentle. It was fine.” He moved a little closer and put an arm over her. He kissed her shoulder again.

“Look, can we talk? You’ve said that you think you’re pregnant. Have you been to a doctor?”

“I’m pretty sure.” He didn’t have to hear about throwing up.

“You don’t look pregnant. Well, even if you are certain, you should go to a doctor. I don’t know all that much about pregnancy, but I’ve been in the choir when pregnant women have talked. They all visit the doctor.”

“I’ve told Mom. Maybe I’ll ask her about doctors. I don’t like talking to her about it. She doesn’t believe I was raped. She thinks I wanted to have sex with him.”

“Well, when we’re married, I’ll be paying your doctor bills, or -- at least -- my insurance will. I don’t see anything wrong with starting early. Really, it’s just investment in having a safe pregnancy, and most of the pregnancy will be during the marriage.”

We’re they going to get married? That was news to her! Well, she had told him that she couldn’t marry him because she would be too scared to have sex. She wasn’t too scared to have sex. But that was only one reason she didn’t want to marry him, the reason that sounded nicest about him. But, really, she hadn’t decided not to marry him, either. She should keep her damned mouth shut until she had decided. Besides, right now wasn’t the time. They had just had sex, and he was in the afterglow.

“You have to talk to somebody. Do you know your gynecologist? Doctors have ethical rules, just like lawyers do. (Not a great recommendation, I know. but we mostly obey legal ethics. Honestly, we do.) Anyway, go to your doctor. I’ll pay, and he’ll keep silent.”

“I don’t know.” Actually, the doctor she remembered, and not too well, was her pediatrician. She’d only gone to Mom’s doctor two times, and those were for bad cases of flu. She couldn’t remember much of anything from those feverish times, much less the doctor’s name.

“If you don’t want to ask your mother for a name, do you want to ask Prof. Pierce?”

“Huh!”

“As I said, the women in the choir gossip with each other. They don’t talk to me about such things, but I hear. I’ve heard her say nice things about her gynecologist.”

“I won’t talk to Prof. Pierce until school starts again.”

“You could call her on the phone. I have her number. She is almost certainly at home now.” He was pushing her. Well, he thought it was about her health. She got up and got dressed. Eric dug out his church directory, and she called. Mr. Pierce answered.

“May I talk to Prof. Pierce, please.”

“Sure.” There was a long pause.

“Carolyn Pierce speaking.”

“Prof. Pierce, this is Candy -- Candy Wharton. I hate to bother you again.”

“Candy ... How did you get this number?”

“Eric gave it to me. I hate to bother you at home, but I have a question and you’ve helped me before.”

“That’s quite all right.”

“I want to talk to a gynecologist. I need to talk to one. And I don’t want to ask my mom. Do you have the name of one?”

“Sure. I use Dr. Gabel, but he’s in Evanston. You aren’t, are you?” Well, she was, but she wasn’t about to tell Prof. Pierce where she was. Besides, she meant getting to the doctor’s, and she wouldn’t start from here.

“I can get there.”

“I’ll get you the number.” She did, and Candy thanked her. They said goodbye and hung up.

“I’ll call him Monday,” she told Eric. He’d been in his bedroom until she hung up. He could still hear the conversation, but he hadn’t been hovering over her shoulder. He was now dressed in slacks and a plaid shirt.

“Good. What’s his name?”

“Gabel.” Eric looked it up in the phone book to see the spelling. Prof. Pierce hadn’t thought that was important. He wrote out a signed check to Dr. Gabel with the amount left blank.

“Look,” he said when he handed it to her, “maybe you should be checked for venereal diseases as well as pregnancy.” She felt the bottom drop out of her life once again. “I trust you, but I don’t trust the MF. Miss Murphy thought he might make a habit of something like what he did to you.” Well, that explained why Eric used the rubber. And he was right. “Don’t, for God’s sake, have nightmares about that. Just check it out.”

“Okay, I will.”

“I don’t know what to do next. We could stay here. I have eggs and I could fix you an omelet for dinner. We could go to a movie and eat out. We could even go to a movie and come back here, for that matter, but I wouldn’t take you to a place where the food is cooked as badly as I cook.”

“Why don’t you take me home?”

“Well, there are a lot of reasons against it, but come here.” He gave her a kiss. As their tongues played, his hands roved over her back. When he let her go, he went to put on his shoes. He got their coats out of the closet and handed her hers.

In the car he asked her, “When can we get together again? Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, but it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. Truth to tell, what I like about being with you, is you. I’m not all that enthused about taking you out drinking somewhere.”

“Well, I know I said that I would think things out last week, but I didn’t think things out enough. I really didn’t expect that.”

“Darling? Did I push you too far?”

“You didn’t push. The situation did. I was going to go along with you until the fright got too bad. The fright was going to get too bad long before we got to actual sex. I trusted you to stop when I said ‘no.’ Hell! You even asked me to say ‘yes.’”

“Well, yes. I said I’d go forward until you stopped me, but right then I thought that you should have more opportunity to stop.”

“Eric, you’re a wonderful guy.” And he was. If he wasn’t her life choice, she would owe him forever. Her life choice would owe him, too, in a way that life choice would never understand.

“I love you,” he said. She was supposed to respond, but she couldn’t. And Eric, who was always so permissive, didn’t press the issue.

“So, I really think we should wait ‘til next Sunday.”

“Your choice.”

Mom was all huffy when she got home. Mom didn’t like how much time she spent with Eric, but she expressed that by making the time she didn’t spend with Eric that much less pleasant.

“Men only want one thing from you,” Mom said. Actually, Eric wanted more than one thing. If he had only wanted sex, she wouldn’t have these questions buzzing around in her head.

“And Dad? Dad is a man. Did he only want one thing from you?”

“Well, if he did, he had to marry me to get it.” Well, Eric wanted something from her, and he certainly had to marry her to get it. She had dinner with her family and then escaped to her room. She might escape from them, but she didn’t escape from herself. She couldn’t really escape from Eric. His body was back in Evanston, but his issues were in her room with her.

She knew a drug store which still had a pay phone. She called Dr, Gabel’s office Monday and the machine told her to call back on Wednesday. Wednesday, she asked for an appointment. She told them she wanted to be tested for pregnancy and VD, and she wanted an appointment as soon as possible. She got an appointment for Friday.

The waiting room was full, and half those waiting looked pregnant. The nurse took two vials of blood and told her to strip and put on a flimsy gown. When the doctor came in, he had another nurse with him. He gave her a thorough examination including putting her on her back with her feet in what he called stirrups and looking in her pussy. When he was done, he’d seen more of her than Eric, Jerry, and Tom had combined. He ended up wiping what looked like a Q-tip down there and dropping it in a test tube.

“Now tell me about it,” he said. She looked at the nurse. “She won’t say anything. She never has, and she’s heard worse.”

“Well, I was raped.”

“Recently, and have you reported it to the police?”

“No and yes.” She told him the whole story, leaving out Eric. If you thought you were pregnant, you should see a doctor. If you had been raped, you should be tested for VD. There was no reason to mention that these were Eric’s suggestions.

“Well, we’re going to make both tests. You’re right, my best guess is that you are pregnant, but the blood tests are certain.”

“From one time of sex?”

“Well, every pregnancy results from one single act of intercourse. Each act, of course, is unlikely to cause pregnancy. But some individual acts do. Look at my waiting room as you go out. Then, too, men produce sperm on a fairly regular basis. How many sperm are produced in one hour differs from one man to the next, but the man having sex once a week or once a month is likely to produce as much sperm in a week or a month as he would if he were having sex once a night. That’s a simplification, but the man who raped you probably wasn’t having sex as often as the husbands of the women in the waiting room are. He probably had more sperm saved up.

“Anyway, as I said, we still aren’t certain. You have missed periods before, and you have been under major stress. As for venereal disease, I see no obvious lesions. A century ago, a doctor would have said that you don’t have any disease. Again, the tests will be more certain. If you do test positive, I am legally required to report it.”

“But I was told that you’d keep secrets.”

“What you tell me, I will keep secret. What I observe in examining you, even what the lab observes and reports to me, I can be forced to disclose. If you test positive, public health workers will contact you. And they will keep it secret. You look doubtful.” She felt damned doubtful.

“Well there are two points. Remember, you’re thinking that they’ll know something shameful about you. What they know is a long list of people who have syphilis. Why should they make an exception to their vow of secrecy for you? The second thing is the consequences. Maybe you’d be embarrassed if your neighbors found out. But you wouldn’t be one tenth as embarrassed as the Public Health Department would be. I would introduce a resolution at the next meeting of the medical society calling for the resignation of the director. That resolution would probably pass, and he would probably resign. He wouldn’t resign, however, before firing the investigator responsible for the leak. And he’d do everything in his power to see that the guy never worked for government again. These reports are confidential. Doctors make them under that understanding, and we take the idea of confidential seriously.”

“You sound like you do.” And, after all, she had already told too many people about the rape.

“We do. Now, you’re healthy. Have you lost a little weight lately?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, fad diets aren’t a great idea for pregnant women.”

“I haven’t been following any fad diet.”

“Girls your age,” he glanced at a folder he had in his hand, “19, are usually healthy. This is really a great age for bearing a child. Our society isn’t set up that way, but your body is. On the other hand, you -- your age contingent -- take your health for granted. Now, if you’re going to bear this child, you have to take care of yourself and it.”

“I haven’t decided.” Well, he had brought up the issue of abortion. He had, at least, been hinting at it.

“I don’t perform abortions, but I can refer you to a medical doctor who does, a skilled professional. The intercourse was two months ago?”

“Just about.”

“You should make the decision. It’s a serious decision, and I will say that I’m not happy with abortions. But it’s your decision. What you have to see is that an abortion in the next month or two is better for you than one later in the pregnancy. So my medical advice is to decide -- and decide definitely.

“Now, as I said, there is still a possibility that you aren’t pregnant. If you aren’t, I want to see you again. The amenorrhea, the cessation of your periods, can have other causes. Some of them are dangerous. If you are pregnant, there is a schedule that they’ll give you at the desk. If you are both pregnant and have VD, then that’s a complication. The treatment for some venereal diseases changes if you are pregnant. Anyway, we’ll call you with the results, probably two calls. If you aren’t home, don’t be afraid of the message on your answering machine. We don’t leave any information, just that you should call the office. The news that you are pregnant is for you to tell, not for us...” He was silent for the longest time.

“That’s part of my standard spiel. It doesn’t quite fit this case, does it?”

“It’s very reassuring.” She felt better about trusting her secrets to an office that routinely kept secrets. She could imagine someone who was told to keep this particular secret saying, ‘Let me check the records. Oops! We aren’t allowed to tell you about Candy Wharton.’ “Look, can I just call in for the information? I didn’t tell my mom I was coming here.”

“Sure. Denise, take care of that won’t you? But if you test positive for a venereal disease, that will still be reported.”

“You’ve made that clear.”

So the nurse took her to the desk and made sure she wouldn’t be called.

“When should I call?’

“The pregnancy test is certain to be back in a week, probably by Tuesday. I’m not sure about the other.” They did take confidentiality seriously here. She’d said ‘VD’ to the receptionist when she called in, but the nurse wasn’t going to say it in front of her.

She didn’t know if anything was open at Circle, and she’d told Mom that she was going to the main library. She went from the doctor’s office there. She had things to think about. Indeed, she started thinking on the El. She’d had those thoughts whirling around in her head all week without any resolution. Now, she had to get them in order.

Eric thought that they were engaged. He’d paid for the doctor’s appointment thinking that. Was she going to marry him? Her first excuse, and it was more than an excuse, was that she wouldn’t cheat him of sex, and she didn’t think she could deliver on the promise of sex. Well she could deliver on the promise of sex. And he’d certainly seemed happy enough with their sex Sunday. So, she wouldn’t be cheating him. Would she be cheating herself?

That was a deep question with many layers and many strings through it. She had experienced love, and she didn’t feel that towards Eric. Well, she didn’t feel that towards Tom, either, though she had. Probably, girls who married for love fell out of love after a while. And would Eric fall out of love with her? If he did, and it was very likely, he would still be the kind man she knew he was. Marriage was his idea, and he knew it. He wouldn’t blame her for his change of heart. If she married Eric, not loving him, she would still be a good wife to him. She owed him that much.

But she didn’t feel the earth move with Eric. Hell! She hadn’t even had a climax during the sex. Some women were frigid. Was she frigid, either always or because of the rape? She didn’t feel frigid. She had had climaxes. She had had one, actually two, Sunday. She just hadn’t had any during sex. She had never had a climax during sex, but she didn’t have enough experience to say that it was her rather than her partners. And the romances all said that those climaxes were special. On the other hand, the romances all had beautiful heroines and handsome, rich heroes. That wasn’t a source you could trust. Eric offered her something, call it safety. Was she going to refuse that in the hopes that the romances were right on this detail when they were so unrealistic on so many other details? And was she going to take the chance that her life, already ruined in so many ways, was going to fit the romance. If her life was a romance novel, Jerry would have fallen in love with her -- he was closer to the romantic hero than Tom was, let alone Eric -- and courted her for months confessing his undying devotion to her before they ended up in bed. In an older romance, they would have been married before they ended up in bed.

And her child. She had said that she would make things as good for her child as she could, despite her future bad circumstances. She knew herself well enough that she knew that this resolution would be tested many times. But, right at the beginning, to say that her daughter had to enter life with a poor, unskilled single mother working as a waitress or something when she could have a decent life and a father just because her mother wouldn’t give up the hope for a fairy-tale ending. And, of course, she hadn’t totally decided against an abortion. That life of struggle with not enough money for toys -- and maybe not enough for food -- and with the stigma of bastardy, might not be worth living. It might be a favor to the baby to never be born. But would it be a favor when the alternative was a kind father with a decent income like Eric?

Of course, she didn’t know that Eric intended to be a kind father. Maybe he expected her to get an abortion. Even if not, would he treat another man’s child with kindness?

Well, she had raised the questions. And, really, there was only one sensible answer. If Eric would care for her child as he cared for her, she would marry him. And, if she did and her fated love came along later, she would say: ‘Sorry, fated love, too many other things happened first.’

Sunday, they had communion again. Eric looked at her when she didn’t go down, but he didn’t say anything. Afterwards, in the car, he had a suggestion.

“Look we have to talk. Why don’t we get take-out and eat in my apartment?” ‘Talking!’ Boys were so transparent. Well, she was willing. After all, she had only had real sex twice in her life. She might well get a climax with a little more practice.