The Christmas break from high school was two weeks, which was both good and bad. The bad part was that I wouldn't be seeing Terry every day in school. Terry is Terry Randolph. He's a sophomore like me, and we'd been going together practically forever. The anniversary of our first date was coming up in January, and I was already looking for some way to celebrate it. Hallmark really missed out on that one. My name is Vi (Kathleen Violet) Brennan.

Monday before Christmas we went for a drive. It wasn't really a date. Terry is only a few months older than I am, but he has a driver's license. Dad, who won't let me get my learner's permit until I enroll in driver's ed at school, made it real clear that he didn't like my going out with an inexperienced driver in the wet weather. I was tempted to tell him that we'd spend most of the time parking, but I resisted.

Mom took the edge off the inquisition by inviting Terry to dinner on the twenty-sixth. My brother was coming in later this night. His in-laws had made a big thing about having Christmas dinner there. So Mom scheduled our Christmas dinner for the day after Christmas. I had argued for an invitation for Terry, and had gotten it.

We actually drove a lot and talked. Then we parked and talked. Okay, we kissed too. We both had our coats and shirts open, and we were hugging skin to skin. Although the car heater couldn't beat the chill, that wasn't the reason for most of my shivers. Terry is a very good kisser, and his hands did things to my breasts which my hands can't. Then he spoiled it all.

He started undoing my jeans. Now, I admit that he needed to push things sometimes. We would still have been kissing with our mouths closed if he hadn't. I usually don't mind saying 'no, ' but this was ridiculous.

"Come on, Terry. Get serious. This is hardly the time or place."

"When is the time, Vi?" Well, sometime when it was warmer, and I was wearing a skirt so it wasn't so blatant. Let's face it. I loved how he could make my nipples feel, I suspected that his fingers might feel much better than mine between my legs. On the other hand, I had real mixed emotions about even Terry feeling me there. And my emotions about the next step were totally unmixed. Not now, not soon.

"Who says there is a time?" I asked. I share about half of my inner conflicts with Terry, those not about him.

"There is going to be a time, Vi. And soon. We have been playing on the edges long enough. I'm tired of going home from these dates with my balls hurting. I wasn't trying to do it tonight." At this point I became quite clear that we weren't talking about his feeling the outside of my panties. "But sometime soon we have to take this relationship to an adult level. We're sixteen. We've been going together for a year. And dammit, I love you and I want you."

"I love you, too." Which was less true than it had been five minutes earlier. "That doesn't mean that I'm ready to go to bed with you."

"Yes, that is what it means. If you aren't ready to take that step, maybe you don't love me."

"I'm not ready to take that step. It doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about you. It has to do with what I feel about me."

"Maybe your feelings aren't what I thought. Maybe we aren't the couple I thought we were." We damn well weren't the couple I had thought we were.

"Maybe you don't want to be part of a couple who doesn't sleep together."

"No 'maybe' about that."

"Please take me home."

That he did. I'll grant him that. I climbed the stairs still in my coat because it was the only thing that was fastened. I hurried into the bathroom, great excuse. By the time I took my coat back downstairs, my bra was fastened; and my shirt was tucked into my jeans. I thought I looked calm, cool, and collected. "What's wrong, dear?" asked my mom.

"Nothing at all," I said, and fled to my room.

Mom knocked on the door. "Want to talk?" If I had, would I have hidden in my room? Parents!

"No! Go away." She did.

Okay, I could have asked Mom's advice, and maybe she wouldn't have freaked. The problem was that I knew her advice. What I really wanted to ask was "Mom, did you wait? Are you glad you did? Mom, did you and Dad start before the wedding? Did it make a difference?" Hell, they met in college. "Mom, was Dad your first? Did that matter to him? Does it still matter to him?" Yeah. Right. I'd rather die.

Two days before Christmas, and dying looked like a better and better option. I pasted a smile on my face and went for the gift wrap. That was an excuse to shut myself in my room the rest of the night. And then I came upon the game cartridge that was my gift for Terry.

That sent my mind spinning again. I wanted Terry. I even wanted him in my body, but not yet. Dammit, it's my body. Finally, though, I had the presents wrapped and myself in bed. Then my mind circled the problem again until I fell asleep.

Mom picked up my brother and his wife at the bus depot in the middle of the night. I woke and put on my robe when they came in. Nobody was feeling terribly sociable. It was "Hi, Bob, hi Jeanette. 'Night Bob, 'night Jeanette."

That raised another possibility. I happen to know that Jeanette had waited until, or almost until, her wedding night. Bob had come home from college with the decision that changed his career plan from lawyer to history professor. That takes a lot longer and produces less income afterward. This had led to a whole series of family conferences at which we learned that Jeanette's family would not put one dime into her education once she was married. Jeanette had suggested that she drop out and go to work. "After all," she had said, "I'm the one who wants to get married."

"That's not true," Bob argued, "I want to marry you."

"Eventually, but you'd be quite content for the next two years if we just slept together."

At which point, Dad diplomatically asked something about student loans, but not before I had blurted out, "You aren't?" It was embarrassing at the time. That whole series of meetings was a disaster. Jeanette always treated me as a friend after that, though, and had made me one of her bridesmaids.

That thought solved nothing, but did introduce new questions. Did I have the guts to ask her? What did I want to ask her? Did it apply? While Terry makes more than my heart go pitter- pat, Bob isn't what you'd call a sexy guy. If you had to pick the media star whom he most resembles, you'd go for Mr. Rogers, not Brad Pitt. Some women have a naturally low level of sexual desire. I don't think I'm one of them; was Jeanette? Maybe she didn't particularly want to have sex with Bob, anyway. Wanting to live in the same house with him, though, is perverse; been there, done that, tripped over his things.

I went over the whole mess again and again before I fell asleep. There didn't seem to be any answer.

The morning was brighter, as mornings tend to be. It was Christmas Eve. I had a library book to finish before I opened my presents Christmas morning. With my wrapping done, I didn't have to do anything before it was time for church. Thinking about my problems and sleeping on them had done no good; maybe a couple hours with Patricia Phillips would let a solution surface. It has happened.

Bodice-rippers are better distractions from some problems than from others. Rolfe would stroke Marged's breasts; I'd tickle mine; I'd remember Terry's sexier strokes. Then I would run the whole circle of worries again. I hadn't reached page 300 before I heard stirring from the next room. Bob and Jeanette had awakened, and I thought of having breakfast with them. Breakfast didn't seem on their minds, however. Bed creakings, bathroom doors, and such were followed by very low voices. Every word spoken in a normal voice in that room can be heard in mine.

Then the bed creakings resumed. I couldn't help it, I went to the point on the wall where the sound was loudest. Nothing was clear for a couple of minutes. Then Jeanette started speaking softly. "Yes, love. Please. Right there."

I was still in my nightie and already damp from the reading. I brushed my nipples where they were poking out the cloth. I tried not to picture the couple. Then I tried to picture them. Sex ed classes are much better on how the critical parts fit together than on how the rest of the body can be arranged. I knew that sex meant rhythmic motion, but the creakings became quieter and had never been rhythmic. Bob was utterly silent, but Jeanette was making sounds between moaning and humming. I didn't know what they were doing, but I could guess what she was feeling. I pulled my nightie up and stroked my groove as I heard her voice rise in both pitch and volume.

She moaned much louder and the bed shook as I began stroking my clitoris. "Oh," rattle, stroke. "Ah?" rattle, stroke. "Ah?" rattle, stroke. "Oooh," rattle, stroke. "AH! AH! UHngh!" much rattling, which my stroking couldn't keep up with. I heard one more rattle and a grunt, then silence. I continued on, memory making me as hot as any bodice-ripper ever did.

"I love you. Love you desperately!" from Bob. My brother is no Cyrano. Then there was a pause with a little bed rustling but no talking.

"Yes, love. Now!" said Jeanette in a voice loud enough to startle me. A moment later, the bed creakings did become rhythmic. Now, I could picture them, Bob pushing in and out of Jeanette. I stroked myself in time to his motions. Jeanette started moaning again, very softly but timed with the bed noises. I almost fell to the floor as I came. I caught myself against the wall, but any noise I made wasn't noticed in the next room.

The bed motions were getting faster and faster. "Love ... you ... Love ... you!" Bob gasped in time with the creaks. Then the bed shook but not rhythmically. Bob was only grunting like an animal. Jeanette sounded more like a low organ pipe. It was almost a pure tone. It was also the most erotic sound that I had ever heard. I almost came again without touching myself.

In the silence from the next room, I tiptoed to the window seat which was the point farthest from that wall. I sat on it very slowly in hopes that no sound would be heard next door. There was low talk and a laugh or two from that room, then that door and the bathroom door. I hurried to dress.

I was well into my second waffle when Bob and Jeanette came down for theirs. Jeanette did not look, if you'll pardon the expression, freshly fucked. She didn't even look besotted, which she had -- to an embarrassing extent -- during the whole wedding period. She looked freshly showered but not quite awake. Bob seated her as I got up to operate the waffle iron. He poured two cups of coffee and brought her one. She drained it, and he got her a refill before he sat. My brother as a gentleman was a new experience, and a brief one.

"Morning Kaytoo," he said. "My, you must have grown a millimeter since June." If your name is Katherine, please don't name your daughter Kathleen. Mom was Kate or Katie, and I was Kaytoo until I rebelled. Kaytoo is Kate, too, or Kate Two. Do you think that's cute? Well I don't! Mom and Dad learned, after I stopped answering to that name at age nine. Another member of the family is taking a little longer.

"Good morning, Jeanette," I said, "it's nice to see you. Did you enjoy your trip?"

"G'morning, Vi. Great to see you. On a bus in winter? Nice to be here, though." I slipped the waffle on her plate and sat down. Bob moved over to make his own, stealing a big piece of mine in the process. I didn't mind. I'd put boysenberry jam, which he hates, on it.

"Now children," Jeanette continued, "it's Christmas Eve. Santa has loaded his sled already, and he doesn't want to go back for more coals and switches for your stockings. Do you think we might have a little peace?"

"From these two?" Mom asked from the doorway. "Keep dreaming." She replaced Bob by the waffle iron and put the rather mangy waffle he had made onto his plate. He smothered it with syrup and started wolfing it down. "Lunch is obviously going to be waffles and pick-up. Good morning, sleepyheads."

Jeanette looked a little sheepish. It could easily be the look of a guest who had slept through the first morning of a visit and then looked for breakfast before her hostess. It could also be the look of a guest who had taken a private pleasure with her husband instead of greeting the rest of the family. I knew which. I also knew that Mom had included me in the greeting. Bob, of course, had no conscience whatever. He mumbled something which could well have been "morning" around a large bite of waffle.

Then he shocked me completely. He swallowed and said, "I'm sorry, Vi."

"Accepted," I said. If the fight with Bob was over for the day, I could still finish the library book before church.

"Jeanette," said Mom, "you were already welcome here. You know that. But that little miracle makes you even more welcome. Is the room okay? We could move the rug back, but that's a major undertaking."

Each of us had had an oriental rug in the bed room, reminders of another life, until Bob had moved out. His rug had been moved to the living room to cover worn spots in the carpet. The rugs are beautiful when I look at them, but bring up worries when I hear them mentioned.

My father works for Ward Tech, one of the larger and more predatory conglomerates. He used to be in the acquisitions division, leading a team to evaluate middle-sized companies. Ward Tech only buys companies that it can turn around. The team interviews the workforce and studies the books and the company's operation over two or three weeks. They say "buy" or "don't buy." Then they prepare a report as to how to improve performance for the companies that they recommend buying. Those teams are highly paid, their leaders are very highly paid and on the path to the upper reaches of Ward Tech. They sometimes get to see their families on weekends.

Dad's year-end bonus when I was seven was more than his annual salary since his heart attack. We spent money accordingly. He protected his family's future with high insurance; he tried for real wealth by putting all he had saved and all he could borrow into a start-up company run by two business-school classmates. He'd covered all the possibilities but recovering from a heart attack.

While he was getting well, we had our first real family meetings. At seven, I participated. We decided unanimously that we wanted to have Dad home instead of trying to return to the old life. His investment went down the tubes. Ward Tech, which had continued his salary during his recovery, paid him no bonus. They did move him to run a company, Brewster Equipment, that they had acquired.

Growing up here was weird. Dad was one of the highest-paid executives in town, but his salary was half his previous salary (not even counting bonus). We had a huge debt, but the president of Brewster Equipment had to have a certain life- style.

Mother got a teaching job. We took no fancy vacations. We worked off the debt. There is no way that Bob or I can qualify for student financial aid; I can sort of understand that. Our family income is in the top percentiles. On the other hand, we had five months of savings when Bob entered college. The oriental rugs are increasing in value as we walk on them; I don't know why. They will cover tuition when both of us are in school. Jeanette is another problem. She is one of us, and cutting the family's expenses on Bob. Someday she'll need to finish college, too.

"The room is delightful," Jeanette said. The room wasn't delightful, it held the few remnants of Bob's childhood that even he had outgrown. Outgrowing isn't Bob's strong point.

"We could move in a cot. That twin bed's too small for two."

"No it isn't!" said Bob. Jeanette blushed a little, but shook her head at mom.

"Young love," said Mom. Now Jeanette and I were both blushing. Bob never blushes.

"Honest, Katherine," Jeanette said. "Everything is delightful."

"Dear," Mom replied. (You have to look at Mother when she talks. She calls everyone "Dear.") "Now that you are part of the family, don't you think that you could call me 'Mom'?" Jeanette froze. Mom saw it and her face fell. She must have forgotten the times when Jeanette picked up mail from Bob here because she didn't trust her mother not to open letters at her house. Then Bob, of all people, came to the rescue.

"And now that she's part of the family," he said, "you could call her 'Aunt Amy.'"

Mom and I both broke up. "That bad?" asked Mom.

"Worse!" said Bob and Jeanette together.

"It meant so much when you said I could call you 'Katherine.' Can't I still?" said Jeanette.

"Of course you can, dear." The two of them hugged. You can call Mom anything if you hug her. "Is there anything that you two need?"

Bob, knowing that he was included for the first time, spoke up. "The wrapping paper, if we could. We brought most of the stuff unwrapped." Of course Bob hadn't wrapped anything. It was only noon on Christmas Eve.

"I have it," I said. "I'll bring it around when I go upstairs."

Dad wandered in and greeted everyone. We all had sausage and more waffles and applesauce. I followed Bob and Jeanette upstairs. I brought them the wrapping paper knowing that I had made a decision.

"Bob, do you have anything that needs to be wrapped in Jeanette's absence?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question. "Then could I have a little talk with you, Jeanette?"

"Go along," Bob said. "I'll do the wrapping. You do the fancies." I already knew that my package would rattle if I shook it. The nails and Bandaid tins were saved from year to year. Jeanette followed me into my room and over to the window seat.

There didn't seem to be any easy way to work up to it.

"May I ask you a question?" I started.

"Ask away. I may not answer." Oh great!

"You delayed sex till you got married. Are you happy you did?" I sort of gasped at the end.

"Kathleen Violet Brennan, if this is your idea of a subject for an English theme, your teacher will be unhappy. But not one millionth as unhappy as I will."

"No. This is important." I stopped but she just waited. "This is personal."

"It is important enough to invade my privacy."

"You can't tell anyone."

She just held out her hand palm out. "Dump it."

I talked in fits and starts. I had to go back to explain things. Finally the whole thing was out. "So, I have to know. Is waiting worth it?"

"So he told you to lie down or walk?"

"That's one way of saying it."

"For the record, I really think that you should talk to your mother."

"I'd die. I chose to confide in you."

"I won't tell anyone unless you ask me to. Do you love him?"

"I know that you think it's only puppy love. But..."

"Vi, at your age I had been going with my future husband for nearly two years. Being sixteen doesn't make it insignificant. Being sixteen does make it a pain. I ask again. Do you love him."

"Yes. I think I do. I was never in love before."

"Does he love you?"

"I think so. If I can't tell with myself, how can I tell with him?"

"Does that matter to you?"

"You know, you aren't answering any of my questions."

"Sex is the most beautiful thing in the world. It makes the earth move. You should wait.

"Those are the answers; and they are true, even if they don't make sense. But you have heard them before. I'll tell you this, I'm not going to bed with this, ... this Terry?"

"Yeah, Terry."

"So my answers don't matter. Your answers do. Is it important to you whether he loves you?"

"Desperately." She grinned at this. I must have looked hurt, I certainly felt hurt.

"Sorry. It's your brother's favorite word. Okay, let me tell you a story. This is private. If you have to tell it to your daughter, or mine more likely, fine. Otherwise, don't say anything to anybody, including Bob. We're invading his privacy as much as mine.

"Anyway, 'lie down or walk' were Bob's words. Some friends of ours had broken up after the boy made that sort of demand on the girl. Somehow, everybody knew about it. Anyway, Bob told me that he might -- actually, he told me that he would -- make the same sort of demand on me someday. He asked me to promise that, after he did, I would forgive him.

"He said something like 'That won't be me talking, it will be..." Her pause made me suspect that she was making everything up. " ... his lust talking." Then I decided that she was just censoring words.

"He said something," she continued, "about penance after he laid the demand, not immediate forgiveness. Of course, once he put it like that, the demand became something else. He'd said that if I said 'no' -- when I said 'no, ' actually -- he would still want to date me. He had made it impossible to actually threaten to leave me.

"And I'll tell you this. If he had actually told me that he would quit dating me unless I slept with him, if he'd said that and I had believed him, I would have slept with him. But it would have destroyed the heart of our relationship. Did you know that Bob once said that if I wasn't going to finish college the wedding was off?"

I was still trying to digest her statement that she would have slept with Bob. Was she telling me to say "yes" to Terry? I had heard Bob say that the wedding was off. So had the rest of the family and our neighbors. I just nodded. She took a long breath and resumed.

"I went home that night and cried. We never set conditions. We never said 'I'll love you if... ' In the morning I saw that I'd been silly. He wasn't setting a condition on his love. And he was promoting what he saw as my benefit. Our love is unconditional. The time of the wedding wasn't. It would have been two years earlier if it had been up to us.

"I'm not saying our love will never end. If I walk out that door and a truck runs over me, you can be sure that my love will end damn fast. But that's okay, because I'll end with it."

I'm sure that she made some more points. I had stopped listening. That last statement had floored me. I and my friends joke about dying all the time, I've wished I would die instead of taking an algebra test. We don't mean it. Jeanette did. She thought dying was the okay way to stop loving Bob. Bob? That was ridiculous. But it was true, you could hear it in the casualness of her statement.

I was in love with Terry. Did I love him? If I never saw him again, I'd sure miss what he could do for my feelings. I dreaded going to school with all my friends knowing that I was without a boyfriend, without a boyfriend again. Was that love? Not by the Jeanette test.

Did Bob's love match Jeanette's? I didn't know. Maybe. He wanted to marry her, but not if she was going to get hurt by it.

When I finally got back to her, Jeanette was telling another story. "So I finally got clear that he was talking about the indefinite future. If this was going to be a permanent thing between us, having him go to Ohio to work for the summer would pay off in the end. If it was only going to last another year, then the summer was too precious to waste.

"I was half a year older than you. We'd been going together maybe a year and a half longer than you and Terry. We started talking marriage. To tell the truth, I'd been thinking of it before that. He had to have been, too.

"Look, Vi. I know brothers are sort of dorky by definition, but that's all right. Consider Bob a minimum standard." I held up my hand for her to stop, and she did. I was considering.

Would Terry bring his summer work plans to me? That might be a little unfair. The Brennans hold family meetings, not everyone does. I was going around in that circle when Bob knocked on the door.

"Got them all wrapped," he called. "Want to do fancies?"

"Yes, darling, later," she shouted back. "Vi is telling me all about your past sins."

"All? C'mon, Vi. We have to be at church at nine. Just hit the high spots." He went clattering down the stairs.

"You know," said Jeanette, "you have a lot of options."

"I only count two."

"You can say 'yes' and mean it. You can break up with him. But! You can also string him along. You can pretend it never happened. You are being rather hard on him, you know."

"That is a strange thing to say."

"I ask again, is it important whether he loves you?"

"It's very important."

"Okay. Accept first that he wants to have sex with you. Boys do. Don't hold that against him.

"If he meant that he would leave you unless you slept with him, then he is a total user. He doesn't love you. He may think he does, not knowing what the word love means.

"If it was only his, uh, lust talking, then you are in a total tailspin over a much less important situation. Your boyfriend went too far. Slap his face or wash your hair on your next scheduled date. Let him know that he hurt you. Accept his apology and go on."

"How do I tell?"

"There is a third possibility, actually the only possibility. He is somewhere in between. Part of him wants to be your paladin, part of him wants to get all his sensory jollies and be one of the big boys at your expense. That's what I mean when I say that you are doing him an injustice."

"What's a paladin?" I could almost tell. Mostly, I was trying to cut down the flow of ideas until I could deal with them.

"A paladin is a knight, a champion, a loyal protector.

"It would be a mistake to only think of dealing with his lustful part. That would strengthen the lustful part. He did take 'no' for an answer. He did drive you home. Shouldn't you deal with that part? Shouldn't you strengthen your loyal protector? Or, maybe, someone else's loyal protector. Maybe you'll spend the rest of your life with him, maybe you won't. You claim to love him. Couldn't you love his better part?"

"Are you saying that I should say 'yes' or that I should say 'no.'"

"Neither. Sort of both. I'm saying -- rather I'm suggesting, knowing that this is your life -- that you say, 'I know that you are too fine a man to have meant it, but I'm still deeply hurt that you said it.' Help him be your loyal protector."

"That sounds much better."

"Uh, Vi. Are you still planning to be a psychiatrist?"

"Psychoanalyst."

"Then get hold of your own psychological reality for a second. This option sounds better because it assumes a different Terry. It will be better if he is interested in keeping a relationship to the girl with the most intelligence and finest personality that he is ever likely to meet. It won't be better if his highest priority is dipping his wick in a real, live vagina. It sounds better than your last choice because your last choice assumed that the latter was his priority."

"I really think that you're right about Terry. That he's basically a good guy who got carried away."

"That's not what I said. I have never met him." Terry was at the reception. I understand her not remembering. "I said that it is a possibility that you have to consider. I don't want you dating Terry if he is more interested in what's between your legs than what's between your ears. But you may very well still want that relationship."

"I don't know. You'll meet him on Thursday." Then I stopped and thought. "Maybe you won't. So, did you have to train Bob to be your loyal protector? How many times did you have to slap his face?"

"Mostly he was there before me. I don't think I ever slapped his face, but I used my elbows a lot. Your brother has no sense of propriety."

"I know."

"On the other hand, there was a lot of display behavior in what we did. You know, 'We are a couple, and the boy is a lustful boy, and the girl is a good girl.' I mostly used my elbows in public. Words were sufficient in private. Again: brothers are sort of dorks by definition, but Bob was a paladin to me.

"Enough of this baring of the soul. We're invading his privacy as well as mine. And I don't think it is necessary any more."

"Thanks. Thanks for answering. Thanks for letting me invade your privacy. I think that I have my answer now."

"Uh, Vi. As a charter member of Future Psychiatrists of America, you should know this. You already had your answer."

"Huh? No I didn't. I was going around in circles."

"You came to me. You knew my answer. You asked me to persuade you. You know girls who are involved in affairs, some of them in the first heady days of pleasure. You could have gone to them and gotten a different answer. For that matter, you could have asked me if it were worth doing instead of worth waiting. You didn't want my answer, which is perfectly all right. You wanted your answer validated."

She might be right. "I guess I have some growing up to do. You did suggest answers that I hadn't thought of, though."

"We all have some growing up to do. Don't think that asking for a sounding board is immature. Or even asking for advice when you really want a sounding board. Speaking of growing up, this conversation threw me for a loop. I think that neither walking down the aisle, nor the honeymoon, nor even getting a job which we depend on for food, put me over the line as firmly as this talk."