BOB Brennan finished his second sandwich and started to stack dishes while still seated. "Lovely dinner Mrs. Brennan."

"Oh Bob," Jeanette answered. "If I made more..."

"You make more than I do. That's for sure. You cook better, too. I don't moan and groan about being a drone."

"You planned that!" Actually, he hadn't. It had come after "moan and groan."

"I'll never tell. Look, you are a lovely woman. You are a great wife. We put your education on hold. Self- deprecation makes no sense. Anyway, I like fancy ramen. I like toasted cheese sandwiches. I like the cook." He got up to kiss Jeanette.

She pulled his face into hers for a minute's kiss, then got up so they could kiss standing. Each had hands on the other's rump. He started to knead. Jeanette broke the kiss.

"Do I have time for a shower and..." she asked. They were perfectly open with family, friends, and casual acquaintances about using contraception. Somehow, between themselves it had become a verbal hiatus.

"I'm going to let the dishes soak. Get prepared, but not the shower."

"Dirty dishes and a dirty wife?"

"I washed the dishes yesterday, and the game begins with a shower."

JEANETTE went into the bathroom, stripped, reached out and put her panties in the hamper. She prepared and inserted the diaphragm. Then she used the toilet.

Inserting the diaphragm bothered her. She loved sex -- truly she did. But she wanted it to be spontaneous. There had been times, before the marriage, when she could have been swept across the divide. Bob, of course, was committed to not betraying her. She'd expected to enjoy marital intercourse but had been surprised at how much sheer pleasure she received.

First Bob's hands and then his penis had wrenched orgasm after pulsing orgasm from her. She had enjoyed them all, but the honeymoon had included a gorgeous dinner and two luxurious breakfasts. She had enjoyed them too. The future would be better if it included all these pleasures than if it didn't, but not immeasurably so.

If she could only keep three memories from the honeymoon, one would be the fifteen almost uninterrupted days with Bob. Another would be the repeated times he gasped and chanted his love and passion for her in the starlit tent. If she could only keep one, it would be the memory of Bob's stopping to worry about her pain at a point when, she now knew, he would have ignored a fire in the room. Then he looked so concerned and sorry that he had hurt her.

In between, of course, he had hurt her. But, if you are spontaneous, the first time hurts. She had been offered options and refused them. Her pain hurt Bob more than it hurt her, probably more than any pain of his ever had. Bob put her interests before his, as often as not. No one else in the whole world ever had.

What Bob called games bothered her more than the contraception. She was not above planning a little something herself, like preparing a meal that could wait before ambushing Bob with her bra off. But those ideas arose spontaneously, they weren't scheduled. She didn't plan beyond just having sex while Bob wanted to plan different kinds of sex.

He had suggested one night a week for experiments, or games. She had agreed on the condition that she could choose half the games. He agreed.

She had taken first choice last week. If he wanted games, Jeanette could play games. She had chosen 'missionary.' It had seemed a triumph then. Bob was not going to be in a mood for compromise tonight.

BOB rinsed the dishes under the faucet and stacked them in soapy water.

The dishes were fancy enough to serve company and could go from freezer to microwave without damage. They didn't have a microwave. They were newlyweds.

He figured that Jeanette was subconsciously looking for a fight. Seducing a woman who was feeling negative is not the easiest task in the world, but Bob felt the future pressing in on him. Jeanette had said "no" to premarital intercourse. He'd traded that for nominal agreement that "Marriage is about sex." Any agreement of that generality with Jeanette was nominal.

He suspected that anything major that they did not adopt in the next nine months, they wouldn't try. Cunnilingus, standing sex, sitting sex, doggie style, these were his goals. Subtle variations could follow. Sex was never going to be as central in her universe as it was in his, but this year was on his side. Sex was what newlyweds did. If, this year, he could show her all the joy, then it would become important enough.

He loved this girl, a girl that he was usually careful to call a woman. He had gladly promised to have sex exclusively with her. He agreed that the marriage license was a license to seduce rather than a license to rape.

But she, quite unconsciously, governed their sex life with a veto. If you talked about it, it wasn't romantic and spontaneous. If you didn't talk about it, it was an unacceptable surprise. She thought it was perverse to plan times for sex, he thought it was perverse to plan activities which meant that there would be no time for sex.

After stripping outside the bathroom, he went in and hung all his clothes on the back of the door. She was standing in the tub, dressed in a shower cap. Period.

Her beauty kept taking him by surprise. He felt that the lush curves on hip and breast of the 19-year-old were an undeserved bonus. The girl he had fallen in love with had been 14 and straight as a stick.

She was 5' 8" and stood absolutely straight. Her face was cute, rather than beautiful or sexy, with wide-spaced blue eyes, a button nose, and a wide mouth. She had made the girls' track team in High School, and her body still carried no superfluous pound. She stood with the balance of a cat.

Strong legs met in a wide cantilever (whose widening explained why her times had barely improved between her sophomore and senior years). The delta between was wide and outthrust. All the trimness of the rest of her body was denied by the lushness of the black curls covering that area and by her proud, high breasts. These were B cups, and they came directly forward, staring now at him as directly as he was at them. The pinkish brown areolae were nearly as wide as the four fingers of his hand. The nipples could stand out, as he knew, more than a half inch. They were a quarter inch now, and starting to grow under his inspection.

He wasn't the only one doing inspecting. His erection was at four o'clock, and she was smiling at it. He brushed his teeth at the sink before he spoke.

"The name of the game," he stated in a formal voice, "is foreplay. The second stage is a shower in which Bob washes Jeanette and himself."

"You're no fun. That's not fair! Why second?"

He knew that she would get to the main question sooner or later. He joined her in the tub, took her hands and put them on his shoulders, pulled her chin up, and kissed her.

He pressed her lips with his for a second before parting his. Her mouth opened, but his tongue explored the insides of her lips first. When he went between her teeth, she opened wider and met him with her tongue. These played tag until his dodged back into his mouth. When hers followed he sucked on it gently. Junior had moved from four o'clock to two o'clock, and it was time to take a shower. He broke the kiss.

The tub was a new one-piece fiberglass molding. It had two rubber anti-skid pads semi-permanently attached to the bottom. All the plumbing had been installed during a Clinton administration, the tub-shower in Bill's, the rest in DeWitt's. Jeanette got far back while he adjusted the faucets. He lifted the diverter and got scalded, then frozen. When the flow had normalized, he soaked. They shifted places so she could soak while he soaped. When they shifted again, he began to wash her.

JEANETTE could learn to enjoy this, sex play apart. Her back really got scrubbed. He knelt to wash her legs and feet. She didn't feel that her breasts needed so much attention, but the attention was very gentle.

The first time they had done this, Jeanette had explained that the amount of soap and soapy time that he had given her cleft was probably bad for the sensitive skin there. She should do the washing. She had expected arguments, maybe a promise to do it better. He had agreed with suspicious alacrity. Then he claimed that, since any remaining soap was a threat to their mutual pleasure, he should help on the rinsing. Today he helped quite thoroughly.

Okay, it was a turn on. So was the memory of that supple mind. She would love Bob even if all they could do was talk.

He rinsed what parts of himself hadn't been hit by the shower in passing. Then he got out and dried himself while she rinsed herself off and turned off the water. There was easily room for two in the tub. There was barely room for two in the rest of the bathroom.

He was waiting with a luxurious terry-cloth sheet when she stepped out. They had loads of gorgeous new towels. The wedding presents had been heavy on bath towels, much better than punch bowls.

He wrapped her in the huge towel. Then he rubbed her down with a normal one, except where he patted her down with it. He was ridiculously protective of her breasts. He sat on the commode to rub her legs and to pat between them. He started out the door.

This was not a turn on. She stopped at his hanging clothes, removed the underwear, dropped them into the hamper, and continued on with both their clothes. "And he was such a neat camper," she confided to the ceiling.

He followed her through the kitchen and living room to the bedroom. He always managed to be behind her when she was walking naked, and many times when she was clothed. She had given up when they were in the house alone. She rolled her hips exaggeratedly.

She hung up his shirt and her blouse and skirt in the closet, and his trousers on a hook. When she returned her attention to Bob, he again used a public-announcement voice.

"The third stage is a brief period in which Jeanette stands here and Bob kisses her in lots and lots of places."

"And when does Jeanette get to kiss?"

"When Bob kisses her on the mouth. And, of course, next week when it is her game." She was beginning to regret her gamesmanship.

"And why are we standing here when there is a perfectly comfortable bed over there?"

"Because kissing you on the bed is the fourth stage."

At that he turned her to kiss the back of her neck. That tickled and she wiggled. Bob put a hand on her butt, partially to restrain her, but she knew he was also enjoying the wiggle. As his mouth proceeded down her back it got less ticklish, and she stopped wiggling. He knelt to reach her butt. This kiss disturbed her without making her feel at all sexy.

He got her to turn around so he could reach the undersides of her breasts. She had to bend over for him to go further up in this position. She did, and he licked up to the crest of her right breast. The gentle suction on her nipple made it pulse with her heart beat and strain outward. Then he nibbled across the valley and sucked on her other nipple. Feeling the awkwardness of the position, she straightened suddenly.

He kissed the bottom of that breast followed by a trail down her belly. He stopped at the belly button to give it a smack, but he didn't try to enter it with his tongue this time. He held her butt to keep her against his lips. He licked and sucked a slow trail down her belly to her fur and then kissed all over it. He ended at the very bottom of her delta where the cleft was about to begin.

She was antsy, and her knees were beginning to feel weak.

BOB could sense that Jeanette had passed the point of diminishing returns. He let her go, and she got into bed. He lit a scented candle before turning out the light. The candle lit the bed indirectly from the top of the dresser. She lay in a dimness with shadows which danced when drafts hit the candle.

He brought an internal struggle to bed. He was determined that the play had only begun. He wanted Jeanette writhing in desire for him before any penetration began, and he wanted to approach this goal slowly, passing along all her minor erogenous zones before he hit the major ones. Junior, on the other hand, wanted to climb inside Jeanette's lovely vagina and stroke there until he exploded.

Bob started by kissing Jeanette all over her face, little pecks on her forehead and eyebrows, real kisses on her cheeks, a line of kisses down her nose. Then he reached her open mouth. His tongue and hers met in a race to penetrate the other's mouth. They pressed together, they played. She slipped hers under his. He reached for the roof of her mouth and just made it. He withdrew. She followed, to fall into his trap. He closed his lips over her tongue and sucked gently, then hard. He licked the underside of her tongue once, and tasted sweetness.

JEANETTE was beginning to get into this.

Candlelight was romance. She had been a tough girl, a student and athlete who got good grades and good scores by hard work more than aptitude. She dared anyone to think that she was a dreamy romantic. Only Bob ever took that dare. She never admitted it to him, but she loved him for it. Similarly, she never asked for protection, never -- really -- wanted it. That Bob wanted to protect her always confounded her. Little kisses on her forehead were protective. By the time, Bob had reached her mouth, the notion that this was the wrong kind of sex had faded beneath the notion that this was the right man.

She met his mouth greedily, chased his tongue willingly into the trap, enjoyed it all.

Then he broke the kiss to drop to a more comfortable position. They kissed again and their tongues played between their mouths. She retreated, he followed, and she sucked him. They relaxed into a quiet kiss, lip to lip.

Meanwhile, she enjoyed his caresses. He started at her shoulder and stroked down one arm, returned to the shoulder and stroked down her side to the hipbone. He was always fascinated by the way that stuck out when she lay on her side, to her it just did. He was silly to find it sexy, but -- in her present mood -- cutely silly.

The next stroke crossed the side of her left breast, and then his hand returned upward to cup the breast. He broke the kiss to start a little chain of kisses down her jaw line. She expected him to take a fast trip down her neck to the breast, but instead he moved toward her ear. That tickled, and she wiggled, but he licked surfaces that she had forgotten she had.

"Now, I'll have to wash it again," she teased. "And I sold my body to get it washed in the first place."'

"This is washing. Haven't you ever seen a mother cat."

"You don't qualify." She was tempted to grab Junior to prove it, but that would really be cheating.

Now, he started on her neck. This was a different kind of ticklish, and he tapped her nipple from time to time to emphasize it. When he pushed on her shoulder, she turned at his signal, even if it came at an odd time. He continued to kiss her neck and ended up at the voice box when she was lying straight. These were very gentle licks, and he didn't suck as he moved down the front of her neck until he hit bone. From there, his kisses were demanding as they traced a diagonal path toward her left breast.

Ascending the breast, he became more gentle. He licked all around the areola before settling in on the nipple. Once there, he played elaborate games. He would suck it in and then lick it, rub his lips in opposite directions and then suck it in again. She never figured out if the elaborate mouth play was supposed to distract her attention from the hand stroking down her belly towards her vulva. If so, it didn't work. It was definitely a nice feeling, though.

When his hand got to her delta, she spread her legs to give him room. He simply rested his hand there between her legs for a bit as if to imitate warm, thick, panties. She squeezed her legs together to say, "Hello, hand." Then she relaxed to give him room. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and sucked in the entire top of her breast. He pulled back slightly to let it all ease out. He increased suction on the nipple, but it popped out. He kissed that nipple with a peck.

"I love you," he said on the way to the other breast.

As he sucked at that nipple, he began to move his hand down below. On the pubic bone, he pressed down fairly hard with the heel of his hand and then let up, repeating this in a slow rhythm. When he eased up, his fingers moved gently over the outsides of her folds. Neither the suction on her breast, nor the motion between her legs brought on any sharp desire. All she really wanted was a little more of this.

The feelings, and the consciousness of being loved, and the dancing candlelight all worked together so that she floated in sensuous satisfaction and a bit of desire.