Jeanette Brennan felt Bob ease her robe off while they kissed. Understanding why she was in a bad mood, he was being especially gentle and cherishing. She just didn't think that it would be enough tonight. When she was naked, Bob broke the kiss for a scattering of kisses over her forehead. She got into bed while he lit the candle and turned off the light.

After he was beside her, he gathered her into his arms and rolled so that she was mostly on top. He simply held her for a while before kissing all over her face. She felt comforted, if not aroused. "Oh, Bob," she said.

"The world will look brighter tomorrow night," he said. It could hardly look worse. "Just stay like this."

She rolled against his erection where it was pressed between them. "Junior disagrees."

"Ignore him. I am." They lay like that for ten minutes while she unwound. She moved off and lay beside him.

"Tell me a story," she asked him.

"Have I ever told you how the Versailles treaty led to twin beds?"

"No. Because you made that up just now."

"Once upon a time, in a galaxy which is -- on average -- very far away, there was a movie industry which was much less censored than contemporary book publishers were. Hollywood was producing movies showing orgies on the screen. You could go down to the Bijou and see a man holding a woman like this..." He slid his hand up her body to her right breast. "or kissing her like this..." He pushed the sheet off her left breast to allow his lips access. She felt the tiniest response as he licked and sucked her nipple. "or even holding her like this." His hand clasped her vulva, kneading her delta but not parting her lips.

She smiled. Bob was transparent. "You didn't illustrate your lecture on the Saxe-Coburgs," she pointed out.

"Some lectures are easier to illustrate than others. Anyway, along came the Depression. It's possible that this was God's judgment on lazy fair economics..."

"Laissez faire," she said. He was working so hard that it would be unfair to ignore such bait.

"The French may have had an economics policy like you said, but America definitely had a policy of lazy fair. Anyway. It is possible that the Great Depression was God's judgment on lazy fair economics, and likely that it was due to the conditions imposed on Germany at Versailles; but people then didn't think so.

"They thought that it was God's judgment on them for watching pictures of men kissing women like this... " This time he reached over to her right breast and licked until her response was apparent. "or holding them like this... " His hand, which had never left her delta, now squeezed her lips in a gentle, but persistent, rhythm. "So the mood switched quite suddenly. Hollywood opened the Hayes Office, a sort of private censorship organization to avoid government censorship. They made lots of rules.

"They allowed actors to kiss like this..." He stretched until he could kiss her open-mouthed. After the first tongue touches, he licked the inside of her lips. It was a long time until he continued. "but certainly not like this." She was trying to silence her giggles; but silence is one thing, and hiding chest motions from eyes a few inches from your nipple is another.

"I do love you, Bob."

"And I love you." She could tell he did. When he finally caught up with the bobbing nipple, his lips, tongue, and hand worked their old magic. "I love you," he said again as he moved from one breast to the other. She was vaguely conscious of the truth that time, as well. His love supported her as concretely as the mattress did. But she was mostly conscious of her own body by that time. The matching sensations from her breast and her center met and mingled and spread over her whole body. She was warm, and tingly, and then tense. As her arousal overtook her, she felt the need to be filled.

"Now, Bob, please." He took her hand and placed it on Junior, which had softened somewhat. She held him as he climbed between her legs, and he was hard when she placed him where she needed him. She marveled once again at the special softness of the skin over that hardness. Then he was sliding in, not easily and so slowly. When she was filled, she looked into Bob's face in the candlelight. If he hadn't given so many other indications, she would never have guessed from his expression that he enjoyed sex. He looked quizzical and a little grim, as if this were a puzzle to be solved.

He shifted so that one hand could reach her breast before he began to move. These motions were arousing although very slow. Recovering from the lull in her sensations due to the change in position, she tensed again. Just short of her climax, she met his motions and tried to speed them. Instead, Bob slowed even more. Excruciatingly slowly, he entered her, filled her, slid against her as he eased out, and paused just inside her entrance. She pulled at his buttocks to speed him, but he kept up the same teasing, torturing, pace that held her just at the peak of her arousal. Then she plunged over.

Twisting, shuddering, she felt the culmination take her. Now Bob sped up. His weight was on her, restricting her writhing. Pistoned within her by his driving hips, his rod fed her climax as it sought his. She clawed at those hips to pull him further in her. "Oh Jeanette!" he said. Then she felt him crush against her center with redoubled force. "Oh. Jeh. Net!" Impaled, she felt him throb and spurt within her. She heard him grunt somewhere far above her. Then she felt and heard nothing.

Then she felt his weight on her like a gasping blanket. At her push, he struggled off to the side, taking the sheet in which he was entangled with him. Enough later that she was feeling cold, they straightened themselves out. They dabbed up the worst of the mess and moved over to avoid the rest. After he snuffed the candle, she cuddled back against him.

"You never did get to twin beds," she reminded him.

"Didn't want to," he said, tightening his hug. "This is too much fun." And then he was asleep. Even cocooned in his arms, it took her a while to follow.

"You'll be all right?" Bob asked before he left for church.

"I'll survive," Jeanette answered. "I always have. Go! It would be worse if you heard it." After the door closed behind him, Jeanette poured herself another cup of coffee, started the chickpeas cooking and dithered some more. The phone call wasn't going to get easier, though, and Jeanette liked to think of herself as someone who faced her problems. She dialed.

"Hello," she heard on the other end.

"Hello Mommy," she said. "Happy Mother's Day."

"I knew it was you. Greg doesn't even call."

"You're quite welcome. Are you and Daddy having a nice spring? It's just getting warm up here."

"Did you call for a weather report?"

Jeanette bit her tongue to keep from saying that she got frequent updates from her mother-in-law. "No," she said. "I called to ask how you are. The weather is only important if it affects you."

"Well, of course it affects me. You know how I get when it gets all muggy."

Jeanette managed to find some reasonably non-controversial subjects. Then her mother took the bit in her teeth. "You aren't expecting are you?"

"No mother. I'm not pregnant." After nearly a year of trying she wasn't pregnant, but she hadn't let her mother hear her cry since she was 16. She damn well wasn't going to break her record now.

"Well, I know young people today are selfish about that. I'm not getting any younger, you know. I want a grandchild in my arms before it's too late. You two are enjoying yourselves without any responsibilities, but you aren't the only ones in the world. I know that's the style these days, but I tried to raise you to think of others.

"You did, Mommy."

"Then you don't even come home for Christmas. I had already invited people to see you, you know."

"I'm sorry, Mother. I told you about the crisis at work. Bob and I missed seeing his folks, too."

"Bob's no good for you, you know. You could have done lots better and married a man who had a social position and could support a family."

"Mommy, Bob has been either working or in school since he was seventeen, sometimes both. He has a Ph. D. for God's sake. He is highly respected in his department and the university community."

"Well, handsome is as handsome does, as my grandmother used to say. He's too wrapped up in his desires to want you all fat and puffy. I warned you that boys only want one thing. You didn't listen, and then you had to get married."

"Mommy, think hard. If I had really had to get married nine years ago, you would have seen that grandchild that you say that you want. I wore white to my wedding, and wore it honestly."

"You tell him that he has to think about others, too. He never showed me the slightest consideration."

"Yes, Mommy. Look, I have to run."

"Might as well not call as make a call this short. Always have things to do that are more fun than talking to your mother."

Jeanette hung up before saying, "Root canals are more fun than talking to my mother. And, Mommy dear, right after you warned me that Bob was only interested in sex, I went out and damn near propositioned him. If you were against it, and the only person in my life who cared for me was for it, how could it be wrong?"

This was the worst Mother's Day of her marriage, which made it the worst day of her marriage. The calls on her father's birthdays were much easier. All over town, all over the damned country, people were celebrating mothers. Jeanette wasn't one, and -- her body was signaling her -- she would have proof tomorrow that she wasn't on the way to becoming one. After she shed her tears in private, she deliberately turned to practical tasks. She checked on the chickpeas and started the rice for the casserole before showering and dressing. She was listening to RFI while finishing the other parts of the dinner when Bob got back. She turned off the shortwave before going into his arms.

His kiss was brief, but he continued to cuddle her. "Was it very bad?" he asked.

"We are both unutterably selfish that we aren't providing her with a grandchild."

"Did you tell her that we are trying?"

"I never tell her anything. We also should move 'back home.'"

"You are home, darling. This is our home. We are a family, a real family thanks to you."

"We are, aren't we?" She was feeling better.

"You are home, in the arms of your family. And I'll hold you as long as you need it."

"Oh, Bob." They hardly shifted position, but the comforting cuddle turned towards the erotic. They kissed deeply with tongues rubbing tongues. He broke the kiss to nuzzle her neck and squeeze her buttocks. "Dinner's almost ready," she warned him.

"Turn it off or let it burn. I'll take you out." That broke her mood.

"No," she said. "Not today." She moved out of his arms. "All the other women will be out with their children, and I'd feel jealous."

"And they will be upchucking formula on their best dresses, and telling the whole place that they need to go pee-pee, and bitching in carrying voices that they wanted to play with their friends instead, and complaining that the menu doesn't include whoppers. And all those harassed women will look over at you dining tranquilly with your handsome husband, and they will be jealous of you."

"Nonsense, it's nearly one o'clock. Where will I find a handsome husband in time for dinner?" Her heart wasn't in the quip, though; and Bob ignored it. "Not today, Bob. Please." She turned away.

He held her gently from behind and kissed the top of her head. "Not today," he said. She slowly eased back against him and relaxed. His hands were beginning to wander when the timer rang. He took off jacket and tie before setting the dining-room table. (Sunday dinner was too formal for the kitchen table.) She dealt with the food.