Chapter 38

STEVE — Monday, January 29, 1962

As I walked home, I realized that we were very lucky to have Vlad and Lou working with us. I was confident that, by the time April came around, I would have no qualms about leaving the application in their hands. I hoped that Sandy's day had gone as well as mine. I had barely gotten into my apartment when I heard my car pull into the parking lot, and shortly, Sandy was in the door. She gave me a warm hug, and I could tell that things had gone well at IBM, so I said, "How did it go today?"

She was bubbly, and exclaimed, "They have offered me what should be a dream job! There's a big department that handles all the NASA stuff, and they have a small engineering group. They badly need computer expertise, particularly for the specification and design of computers that will be on the space vehicles themselves. You know how excited I was last spring when Kennedy announced the Apollo program; now it looks like I can be a part of that!"

I hugged her again, and said, "Dear love, that's wonderful! It sounds like at least one of us can talk about our work, at least if this isn't classified."

"I don't think so; there's another department that handles space stuff for the military. Steve, dear love, let me take you out for a nice dinner and we'll celebrate!"

Still holding her, I kissed her and said, "Let's do, but don't you think we need a shower or something first?" as I started caressing her hair, her face, her lovely body.

"Mmmm. Most definitely!"

"Stand still, dear Kitten." Slowly, one piece at a time, I carefully unfastened her clothes and undressed her, being sure to caress her all over as I exposed more of her body. When it was down to her bra, her panties, and her shoes and hose, I lifted one foot at a time and gave it a quick rub, after slipping the shoe off. She was getting aroused and excited, but when I finally unhooked her bra and caressed her breasts, she moaned for a moment, and then said, "Now, Tigger, it's your turn!"

I started to take off my suit, but she said, "No, let me do it!" and, as slowly and carefully as I had done for her, she removed my clothes. When she had my shirt off, she stroked my nipples with her fingers, and then pressed her chest against mine. I started to hold her, but she pushed my hands away and said, "Not yet, dearest, not until I'm done." She continued to remove the rest of my clothes, slowly and deliberately, all the time teasing me with gentle touches all over.

Finally, everything was off. She said, "OK, now on the bed, on your back. Wait, you didn't finish your job." She pointed to her panties, and said, "Take them off first."

I slipped my fingers under the waistband and gently pulled them down, caressing her bottom as I went along. I then ran my hand up one leg, lingered at her pussy, and then down the other leg.

She moaned again, but said, "NOW! On the bed!" Of course, I fell onto the bed and waited. She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, and emerged. She slowly and sensuously walked towards the bed, and, on her hands and knees, got on beside me. She then proceeded to again caress every inch of my body. I could tell she had put some perfume on under her ears and other places. She was driving me crazy, and I was well aware that she was equally aroused. Finally, she straddled me, and slowly, exquisitely lowered herself onto me, surrounding me with her warmth.

"Oh, Sandy love, so nice!"

"Mmmm, Tigger. You liked that?"

"So much, darling!"

"You can touch me now."

I reached out and caressed her face, running my hands down her neck and finally reaching her boobs. I traced circles around each one, slowly moving inward to the nipples, which were hard as rocks. Finally I touched them, and, as I gently stroked them with my fingers, she gasped, trembled, and started to spasm and thrash wildly. Of course, that caused me to explode also. We held each other, gasping, moaning, and murmuring, luxuriating in the moment.

"Didn't I hear fireworks?"

"I know I saw them, dearest love!"

She rolled onto her side, and I continued to hold her as we enjoyed the afterglow.

Eventually, we made our way into the shower, and carefully washed each other. I called the Willard Hotel and made a reservation for dinner, and then we got dressed, with a lot of touching and caressing. She had a lovely dress and sweater, and I put on my good suit and one of the ties that I had received for Christmas.

"The temperature is in the high thirties tonight, so let's walk briskly! It's only about seven blocks."

Hand in hand, we walked to the Willard. We went in and I helped Sandy out of her coat, discreetly nuzzling her ear in the process. I took both our coats to the checkroom, and pocketed the ticket. We went into the dining room, which was only half-full. I asked for a quiet table in a corner, and they were able to arrange that for us. We sat down, Sandy took my hands in hers, and we looked lovingly into each other's eyes for a moment until we became aware of a waiter discreetly hovering near us.

Sandy said, "We're celebrating tonight! We want to start off with a nice bottle of champagne."

"Of course. I'll have it right out."

As we sipped champagne and studied the menu, Sandy told me more about the upcoming projects that she hoped to be involved with. Her enthusiasm was obvious, and I was happy that she had found something that she would really like.

"You know, Steve, they are going to pay moving expenses for me. I don't think Mom wants her television, since Walt's is newer. Maybe we can have that moved down along with the rest of the stuff and my clothes."

"That's a good idea. I'd just never gotten around to getting one, but I guess you'll want to be watching some of the space launches."

"That, and some of the programs on public television; I've seen some good ones, and you have WETA here in Washington. I don't much care for most of the network stuff."

"I don't either, and I'm not much into watching sports, which is why it never seemed to be a high priority thing for me."

Just then the waiter reappeared, and told us about a few dinner specials that they were offering tonight, in addition to the regular menu. I asked him what he would recommend, and he told us that the Tournedos Rossini was excellent. Sandy asked, "What's that?"

"It's a very tender beef fillet, sautéed, served on toast canapés with a slice of foie gras and a truffle Madeira sauce."

"I'll have that. Steve?"

"Sounds good; I'll have that also."

"How would you like those cooked?"

We both asked for rare, and he said, "Very good," as he scribbled on the check and headed for the kitchen.

"I know I said I'd take us out to dinner tonight, and I meant it, but I know that I can put at least some of mine on my expense account for this trip."

"That's good; some of those prices looked a little bit stiff."

"Steve, dearest, let's not worry about money. I know you aren't making much, and IBM is paying me very well, but you said that in another two years, if you work for the agency as a civilian, your pay will be much closer to mine. Let's put some of mine aside, but there's no need for us to scrimp and not enjoy ourselves. I've set up an investment account with Merrill Lynch and moved my IBM stock into it, and we need to decide what other stock we think we should add to the portfolio using my award money. In April, I'll have the account transferred to their office here, and I'll make you a co-owner. In two years, you can start investing some of your pay, also."

"OK, dear, but if you're doing all that, I'll certainly hold up my end on the cooking and the housework."

"Silly, you know I love to cook also. There's no way I'm going to let you kick me out of our kitchen! Speaking of housework, maybe I can get Mom's vacuum cleaner; I don't think you have one."

Just as I said, "No, I don't," the waiter arrived with our dinner. He refilled our champagne glasses and left us to enjoy the fragrant dish. My first bite tasted even better than the aroma had promised, and the beef was almost fork-tender. I could tell that Sandy was enjoying hers at least as much as I was, and said, "We'll definitely want to try this recipe sometime."

"Oh, yes indeed!"

"Steve, I'm sorry. I should have dragged out my interview so that I would have to stay over tomorrow, also."

"Don't worry about it, love. I'm so glad that you are happy with the job. Can you at least take a late morning flight back? I'll go into work late, since there's no reason I can't work late tomorrow evening."

"I like that idea, in fact I like it a lot!"

We had finished the wonderful beef, and I took her left hand in mine. I then took my glass in my right hand. We raised and touched our glasses, and finished the wine, looking lovingly into each other's eyes. I hadn't noticed that the check had appeared, but Sandy picked it up, looked slightly startled, and said, "Well, I'm not sure how much of this I can get IBM to pay. Let's plan on coming back here in two years to celebrate again when you're done with the Navy, but I'm not sure we'll be here very often before that."

I told her, "I've been here once before, but my parents were paying, and I didn't really pay much attention to the prices then. Besides, we have the Indian place, and I know we will find many more we like."

Sandy put some bills on the check, and we got up. I retrieved our coats, and held hers, then put my own on. Again, we walked hand in hand back to my apartment.

SANDY — Tuesday, January 30, 1962

After a long farewell hug and kiss, Steve put me in a taxi that would get me to the airport in plenty of time for my 10:45 flight to New York. I was on top of the world, between the wonderful close and tender times with Steve, and my excitement about the new job. The plane was on time, and, after it landed and I collected my car, I was on the road to Poughkeepsie. I drove straight to the lab, and went to my office. Paul had seen me come in, and soon appeared in the doorway.

"I had a call from Mike Boumann this morning. It sounds like it went well; I know he's very happy that you accepted his offer."

"Paul, it's a fantastic opportunity. Computer design is my interest, but I've been entranced by the space program, and I'm really excited about the prospect of being part of the effort to move more of the mission control from the ground to the spacecraft itself."

"He said that he'd been looking for computer expertise for his engineering group, and you were a perfect fit!"

"I hope so. At any rate, I'm almost done with the Stretch CE training course material. I'm going to go over it with them later this week, but I think I'll be finished in another week and a half. I was wondering if I while I was still here, I could get some exposure to some of the other computer work that's going on in the lab, perhaps the NPL project?"

"It's going to be hard to find something for only two months, but I may be able to arrange something, and that's an excellent idea. I know that we're winding down with Stretch, and I've been moving a lot of the people in the group over to that area. By the way, don't forget your expense account for the trip."