It's got to be the most absurd invention of the romance writers. The idea that with one look you can find the love of your life, your soul-mate.

Now I'll admit that the first time I saw Stefania I couldn't take my eyes off her. But it wasn't that she was gorgeous, or love at first sight. It was more like watching a train wreck. You know it's wrong to stare, but you can't help yourself. She was wearing baggy tattered jeans that had at least four different kinds of stains and an equally baggy grey sweatshirt with a large pizza stain on the stomach. Her hair seemed grimy and was mostly tied back into a ponytail, but a dozen wisps had escaped and stuck at various angles. And to top it off, an ink blot resided on her nose. When I saw her she was standing over a table in the library. The table was scattered with bound copies of dissertations. She'd flip through one, toss it to the side, and pick up another.

I saw her again about a week later, and again I found myself staring. This time it wasn't a train wreck, but rather the almost recognition that can drive you bananas. I saw her lounging on the grass, a beautiful girl wearing cut-offs and an orange Caltech t-shirt. The t-shirt itself made her stand out here on the campus of Stanford. She was lying on her side, propped up on an elbow reading some textbook. Her black hair gleamed in the April sunshine as it splayed over her shoulder and down across her chest.

I kept staring from the bench where I was sitting. I tried not to be obvious, but I probably wasn't too successful. I knew her from somewhere, but I hadn't a clue where. My own book was in my lap. A book that I needed to finish before my next class, but I just couldn't concentrate. Where the hell did I know her from? High school? Undergrad?

The time for my class came and went, and I just kept staring. We'd been sitting there for over an hour, barely fifty feet apart. Then she closed her book and put it back in her backpack. I panicked. She was getting ready to leave. But she didn't. She pulled a huge stack of paper out of the same backpack. It most have been two inches thick. She started flipping through them, reading a bit then looking further in the stack. That was when it hit me. Library girl.

But this was no train wreck. This was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. I'd broken up with my last girlfriend over a month ago and really hadn't been interested since, but I decided to take a shot. I figured that she was out of my league, but every now and then it's good to get in over your head.

I walked toward her using a kind of button hook pattern so that I'd approach her from the side. As I got close, I almost chickened out again. The title of the paper she was reading was A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF ELECTRON PATHS IN IRRADIATED... Thankfully her thumb covered the rest. She had to be a brain. A major brain if she was reading that. And she was not only reading it, she was making some kind of calculations in the margins of the paper. I recognized about a quarter of the symbols she was using, and even though I recognized them, I didn't have a clue what they meant. I got as far as trig in high school and forgot everything I learned as soon as the final test was over.

Now I'm not stupid. I was twenty-six and I'd already earned my Ph.D., but math and science weren't my thing and apparently they were hers. But as I had second thoughts about her reading material, I caught sight of her ass and figured the worst she could do was shoot me down. Who knows, maybe in Latin.

I stood at her feet for a couple of minutes. She was intent on her reading and didn't notice me. I thought about taking the easy out and slipping away, but in for a penny...

I cleared my throat. "Did you ever find what you were looking for so frantically?"

She looked up. "Excuse me?" She lifted her hand to shield her eyes as she looked at me, and I realized that I'd chosen a spot that put the sun directly behind me.

I moved around in front of her so that she wouldn't have to fight the glare, though maybe it was in my favor. "I saw you in the library a week ago. You were going nuts looking through musty old dissertations."

She laughed. She had a great laugh. It was hearty but lyrical. "Damn, I'd hoped nobody saw me."

"Well, I thought about calling the FBI."

She cocked an eyebrow.

"You looked like you'd just escaped from terrorists."

"In my defense, I'd been up about sixty hours straight, and I was looking for one last citation for my dissertation."

"Your dissertation? You're going for your doctorate?"

"What, I don't look smart enough?"

"No, it's not that. I just figured that you were an undergrad. You don't look old enough."

"I'll have you know I'm an old maid. I'll be twenty-three in July."

"Twenty-two and working for your doctorate?" I was amazed. I'd gotten my doctorate at twenty three and thought I was doing great. Average is about twenty five or six.

"Done working, actually. I turned it in right after you saw me in the library. Now all I have to do is wait, then defend it in front of my committee."

"Been there, done that," I commiserated.

"You've got yours then?"

"Last year," I admitted.

"It must have been a relief."

"It was," I said with a sigh. "I had one professor on my committee who not only challenged my conclusions and research, but argued that some of my commas should have been semi-colons."

"Sounds like fun."

"I've had better weeks."

"What are you doing now?" she asked.

"Teaching some classes." I swallowed. "And hoping to take a beautiful doctoral candidate to dinner."

"Good luck. Anyone I know?"

I thought about making a break for it, but the way the sun highlighted her hair was almost magical.

"You."

"Why me?"

"Because you're beautiful. Because you're waiting on your dissertation committee and you're not a basket case, and because anyone who can read that..." I pointed down at the papers in front of her, "can program my VCR so that I don't miss 'Reba' anymore."

She laughed again. "And why would I want to go out with you?"

"Good question," I mused. "Well, I'm cute. And I'm funny. And I don't kiss on the first date, so don't even ask me."

"Not even if I beg?"

"Won't happen," I told her.

By the time we'd finished dinner, I knew I was in love. But not at first sight.

It took me another four months to convince Stefania that she was in love too.

We got married in September. Stef had just started a new job at JPL (CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), so we didn't get a honeymoon then.

And by the way, though it was hard, I didn't kiss her on that first date.

"Are you scared?" Stef asked with an evil smile.

"I think I'd rather be visiting my doctoral committee again," I told her honestly.

She laughed that special laugh of hers and squeezed my arm. We were standing outside her family's house in Watermelon Mountain, Idaho. Snow was falling lightly, adding to the inch that was already on the ground. Meeting my new in-laws wasn't my idea of a honeymoon, but it was Christmas vacation and was expected of us.

"Just remember," she said, turning me towards her, "No matter what happens, I love you." She leaned in and kissed me. "And the best part is, we only have to do this once a year." She kissed me again. "Maybe every other year." And she kissed me a third time. I kissed back, my arms going around her. Her arms went around me, and I felt her hand on my butt.

And that was when the damned door opened.

A few minutes later I had been introduced to the entire clan. Learning all the members of Congress would be easier. The woman who'd opened the door and looked exactly like Stefania wasn't Mom, it was Aunt Sophia. There were two more aunts, Angela and Lucia. All three of them had husbands, two Dons and a Mark. Her mother Camellia and her father Benito. Sophia and Camellia were total babes. Mid-forties but not an once of fat on them. The same couldn't be said for Angela and Lucia who looked a lot like dumplings.

Then there was grandfather Rosario, in his eighties and looking amazingly robust, and his wife Ariana. And she had three sisters who apparently had outlasted seven husbands between them. Rosario had one sister, and she had buried two husbands. The women of this generation seemed to fall into two categories, flesh and bones and wrinkles or fat and wrinkles. The five of them in bikinis at a sex offenders clinic could cure them all. One look at them and you'd never want sex again

Stef had four sisters: Bianca, who had just turned eighteen a few days ago, Daniella who would turn sixteen the day after New Year's, Dona, who was twelve, and Michele, who was nine. Sophia, Angela, and Lucia had another fourteen kids between them, eight girls and six boys. Then there were about a dozen other cousins hanging around, whose origin I never did learn. All in all, this was Watermelon Mountain's own Little Italy.

The family was very old school. Rosario was the patriarch and ruled the family--tribe might be a better word--through his wife Arianna. People came and went all evening. Apparently, this particular neighborhood was almost completely related to my wife, so all these people had homes close by. At first most of the grown-ups sat around the living room, except Stef's mother and aunt Sophia who were putting the finishing touches on dinner.

I was surprised because while we sat and talked, Stef and I on the sofa, the others scattered around the room, Grandpa Rosario sat on a recliner with Stef's sister Dona and her cousin Tabra on his lap. His hands seemed very busy beneath their skirts. Incest didn't surprise, but the openness of it did. I wondered if I'd married into one of those families you always read about in the newsgroup sex stories where everyone fucked everyone else.

After a few minutes, Dona looked as if she were having an orgasm and trying very hard not to make any noise and disturb the adult conversations. When she finally relaxed, breathing deeply, cousin Tabra started. Grandpa seemed proud of himself but the others all ignored it. When Tabra had finished, Dona took her hand and the two of them slid off grandpa's lap, gave me a funny look and slunk out of the room.

I couldn't read their looks. Pleasure from their orgasms, but more. Kind of a now-the-chores-are-done kind of thing.

Grandpa said something to one of the Dons that I didn't catch, and laughed. The Don chuckled artificially. Tabra was his daughter, I seemed to recall. Then grandpa said something else, a little louder and in Italian. Beside me Stef, who'd been holding my hand, tensed up and squeezed.

(Author's note: for the sake of my readers who don't read Italian, all Italian conversation will be translated into English and placed in brackets. This is also for the sake of those authors who don't write Italian.)

"[I'm looking forward to getting to know my little Stefania again. She's been away too long, ]" Grandpa said with a definite leer.

"[I'll thank you to remember that I'm on my honeymoon, you randy old goat, ]" Stef snapped.