Chapter 25

Two hours later they finally got out of bed. The whole time after he "got her pregnant" as she later described it to him, they talked. She told him more about what she had thought of and remembered while they were making love. It was a cathartic kind of confession for her because they lay there naked and cuddling, but no sex was going on. She included that as something new and wonderful, a gift he had given her. She told him about how she had been sure at that instant that he was impregnating her, and about how her mother and aunts had been so good about it when she came crying home, sure she'd be thrown out.

"I hope I didn't make you pregnant, then." he said at that point.

"Could you ever hope you did make me pregnant?" she asked amazed.

"Of course." he said. "You're a wonderful mother who has raised a fabulous daughter. More children deserve to have you as a mother."

"I've been a horrible mother." she sighed. "All Becca wanted to do was date that nice young Denny and look what I did."

"Didn't it work out all right?" he asked.

"Yes, but I'm surprised she doesn't hate me." said Gidget.

"You're pretty hard to hate." he commented.

"And you're sweet." she said, kissing him.

"And you taste tangy." he reminded her.

"Are you trying to seduce me again?" she challenged.

"You bet I am." he grinned.

"Well, you can't." she said firmly. "This is just practice. I'm going to find some nice rich man who can't live without me, and seduce him."

"You already did that." he smiled.

Her eyes widened. "I guess maybe I did at that." she said. "But it wouldn't work. I can't marry you, and you can't marry me."

"I don't think marriage is the glue that is needed to hold this relationship together." he said. "I've been thinking about buying a big house, one of those monstrous things with twenty-seven rooms, and inviting all you girls to live with me."

"You want your own harem, do you?" she asked grinning.

"Well sure I do. If they're anything like you, I want them all." he said. He didn't think it politically correct to tell her he already had more than half of them already.

"Why that's ... that's ... that's polygamy or something!" she said leaning back from him. "You can't do that! It's just ... wrong!"

"Let me ask you this. Would you do this with me again some day?" he asked. He cupped a breast and squeezed it.

"Yes." she said immediately. "I loved what we did today."

"What if you got married?"

"That would be different." she said. "I might still want to, but I wouldn't."

"Good for you." he said. "What if you don't get married?"

"I already told you." she said.

"What if I get married?" he asked.

"No go." she said firmly.

"What if I have a girlfriend, or several girlfriends?"

"Now you're trying to trap me. One girlfriend ... no. More than one girlfriend and all's fair in love and war." she said.

"You have the strangest rules." he laughed.

"Wasn't it that way back in 1950?" she asked.

"Yes, I suppose it was, but I'm not in 1950 any more. This is a whole new world and I've broken a lot of rules already." he said.

"Could you make love to more than one woman and feel good about it?" asked Gidget. Her whole life had been steeped in the supposed virtues of monogamy.

"Only if it they were the right women, and it didn't hurt them." he said.

"Good luck." she said. "Women just don't want to share like that. Most women anyway." she said.

"Let me ask you a question." he said. "What if the women I wanted to make love to were you and ... say Sunny, or even June?"

She started to answer and he put his finger to her lips.

"Before you answer that, think about it. When you came here today, did you intend to end up like this?"

"Of course not." she said

"Are you unhappy that you did?"

"No!" she was frustrated. "But..." she stopped. She suddenly understood what he was getting at. She had done something crazy and wild and against the rules ... something completely unscripted and it had been wild and wonderful and full of ecstasy. There had been pain and fear in it too, but they had been washed away on a sea of trust and faith that she wouldn't be abandoned. She was even more convinced, if anything, that this man would never abandon her.

"That's pretty weird to think about." she said finally.

"So, if I told you I'd made love to Sunny, would you be mad at her, or jealous?"

"Did you?" she asked.

"No, but use your imagination." he said. He was suddenly glad he hadn't used her mother's name.

She was quiet for a long time.

"You know, I think you're turning me into some kind of kinky freak." she said finally.

"What I'm trying to do is free you from some of those rules that have choked you half to death." he said.

"Okay, so no, I don't guess I'd be all jealous if I knew you were making love with both Sunny and me, but that's Sunny, not some strange woman."

"You want to know something?" he asked.

She nodded.

"If I'm lucky enough to get to experience what happened here, with you, or Sunny, or any of the beautiful women in my life right now ... I don't need any strange women."

The image of one of Bob's readings from Rip's journal popped into Gidget's mind. She envisioned them all sitting around in the semi dark as Bob sat alone, reading. Her imagination stripped all the women naked, and made Bob's penis jut a foot into the air. She laughed, thinking about it and he looked at her quizzically. She didn't tell him about it though.

"You'd better eat a lot of oysters if you plan to keep nine women happy." she laughed.

"You and I both know I won't be keeping nine women happy. I wouldn't even try."

"What if we all demanded it?" she asked impishly.

"Then I'd have to set up a schedule." he said grinning.

"That wouldn't work." she said. "I'd want you every night myself." She was at once shocked that she'd said it, and amazingly happy that she felt free to say what she felt.

"Then some of you are just going to have to find your own man." he said.

Finally they got out of bed and dressed. They cleaned up the cabin and got back in the car to head back home. As they rode along Gidget played with the wind with her hand, making it plane up and then down as the wind pushed against it. She felt relaxed, and peaceful ... sedate in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Could mere sex do that?

"Grandpa?" she said. "Bob! I'm going to call you Bob from now on. I can't call you grandpa after today."

"Bob's fine." he said.

"I'm glad this happened, but I don't think it's going to help me with dates. I don't want to be seduced ... well by anybody besides you ... and most men don't want to be chased by a woman. Besides, I wouldn't do what we did with a man until ... I don't know when I'd do that."

"That's probably a good plan, if the man has enough control to wait for you to be ready." he said.

They rode on a while.

"Bob?"

"Hmm?"

"What if you did make me pregnant?"

"You want the truth?" he asked.

She nodded, frowning.

"I'd be a very happy man." he said.

She looked surprised. "But you know we couldn't get married." she said.

"Big house." he said. "Lots of room." He looked at her. "Big family house." He drove on a little further. "How would you feel about it?"

"I don't know." she admitted. "My brain tells me it would be terrible." She turned toward him. "But my heart tells me it would be wonderful."

He just reached over and squeezed her hand.

They went the rest of the way in an easy silence. When they were almost to the house, she spoke again.

"Bob?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think one date is going to be enough for me to figure this all out."

He was grinning like a madman as he pulled up to her house.

In Sacramento, at the North substation, there was a desk in a corner that was used by detectives whenever they were up that direction on a case. Zack liked to hang out there both because the personnel were friendly, and because he could get more done there than at the main station, where everything was crazy all the time. He had mentioned this to Val, but didn't think anything of it. The desk was behind a partition for privacy during interviews and there was a computer terminal that accessed the same information he could access at his real desk down town. He was reading through a witness statement and thinking about calling it a day when he heard a female voice ask for him at the booking desk.

"I'm looking for Detective Simpson."

The Booking sergeant's rough voice came next. "And the nature of your business with Detective Simpson?"

"I want to see him." said the voice, which Zack now recognized as Val's. He grinned. He'd see how fast on her feet she was. The men she'd have to get through were trained to weed out superfluous complaints and domestic arguments that didn't amount to enough to be worth a detective's time.

"And what, exactly do you want to see him about?" asked Sergeant Rollins.

"I just want to talk to him for a minute." she said, her voice rising. "If you tell him my name he'll want to talk to me."

"I'm sure he will." said Rollins, sarcasm in his voice. "Now, are you going to tell me what you want to see him about or not? I'm a busy man here."

Zack almost laughed. Rollins hadn't booked anybody into jail in two days. The North substation was a quiet place. That's why Zack hung out there.

"Look, don't be a jerk, just tell him I'm here. He'll want to see me." she said.

"Ma'am", he heard the booking sergeant's voice rise. "I told you already that you have to tell me what you want to see him about!"

"He's not going to like it if I tell you why I want to see him." she warned. There was something in her voice that made Zack sit up and take notice. He started to close out the file he was reading in preparation for getting up.

"You just let me be the judge of that." said Rollins' heavy voice. Zack could see that four or five other personnel had drifted into position, both in case something got ugly, and just to watch.

"Okay," she said sweetly, but loudly. "I haven't had hot, sweaty sex in over a week, I'm as horny as a three antlered goat, and he's got the stick to scratch my itch with!" she finished loudly.

There was an instant of complete silence.

"Now, may I please see him?" Val asked politely.

It was pandemonium as all the personnel within earshot started laughing, hooting and generally making fools of themselves. Zack stood up sighing, and as his head popped up over the partition Val waved gaily at him.

"Hi honey." she said over the hubbub.

"Better get going sweetie" said a patrolman to Zack in a high falsetto voice.

"Don't want to keep the little missus waiting any more than you already have" whined another in an equally bad falsetto.

Rollins looked over at Zack and grinned. "Zack, I believe this young woman, I repeat young woman has some business with you. Maybe I should ask for some ID? Wouldn't want you to get in trouble for robbing the cradle!" He burst into laughter as there were more hoots and hollers. Through it all Val stood, tall, slim and beautiful, holding her purse in front of her with both hands, looking as unruffled as if she were alone at a bus stop.

Val pulled up her purse and pretended to look through it. "My fake ID is in here somewhere" she said earnestly. "I'm eighteen." Her clear soprano voice went throughout the station.

"Sure you are sweetheart." guffawed Rollins.

"She's almost twenty." snarled Zack as he threaded his way through laughing cops. He walked up to Val, who leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, smiling.

"You're gonna pay for this." he growled to Val.

More laughter.

"Oooo" she said in her little girl voice. "I sure hope so."

The place went wild as Zack, red faced, pulled her toward the door. As she went through she waved at all the laughing cops and sang out "Bye fellas."