Robert Heinlein - To Sail Beyond The Sunset

Theodore understood it. He caught his breath. I said, ‘We haven't time to be shy, dear Theodore. Don't be afraid to touch me.'

He cupped my breast. ‘I love you, Maureen!'

I answered soberly, ‘We have loved each other since the night we met. We simply could not say so.' I raised his hand, then slid it down the full neck of my dress, felt scalding excitement as his hand touched my breast.

He answered huskily, ‘Yes. I didn't dare tell you.'

‘You would never have told me, Theodore. So I had to be bold and let you know that I feel just as you do. Our turn is just ahead.'

‘I think I remember it from bringing your children out here. I'll need both hands to drive that lane'

So I'll let you have your hand back - temporarily. As soon as we are in there and you have stopped the car, I want both your hands on me and all your attention.'

‘Yes!'

He drove in, turned his car around and headed out, turned off his lights and stopped his engine, set his hand brake and turned to me. He took me in his arms and we kissed, a fully shared kiss, with our tongues exploring and caressing and talking wordlessly. I was in Heaven. I still think that a totally unrestrained kiss is more intimate than coupling; a woman should never kiss that way unless she intends to couple at once in whatever way be wants her.

Without words I said this to Theodore. As soon as our tongues met I pulled up my skirt, took his hand and put it between my thighs. He still hesitated, so I moved his hand further up.

No more hesitation - All Theodore needed was to be certain that I knew what I wanted and that his best attentions were welcome. He explored me gently, then slipped a finger inside. I let it enter, then squeezed it as hard as I could - and congratulated myself on never having skipped my exercises even a day since Ethel was born, two years earlier. I love to surprise a man with the strength of my vaginal sphincter. My passage is so baby-stretched that, if I did not work endlessly to overcome it, I would be ‘big as a barn door and loose as a goose' - so says my father, whose advice got me started on this routine years ago.

We were now past all shyness, any turning back. But I had something I had to tell him. I got my tongue back and took my mouth a half-inch from his, chuckled against his mouth.

‘Surprised to find that I am not wearing bloomers? I took them off when I went upstairs... for I can't tell my gallant warrior a proper farewell with drawers in the way. Do hold back, beloved soldier mine; you can't harm me, I'm expecting.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Must I always be the bold one? I am pregnant, Theodore; no possible doubt, I am seven weeks gone. So don't use a rubber on me -‘

‘I can't, I don't have one.'

‘So? Then isn't it nice that you don't need one? But didn't you expect to have me?'

‘No. I did not. Not at all.'

‘But you're going to have me. You can hardly get out of it now. You'll have me bare, darling, no rubber. Would you like me to be bare all over? I will be if you ask me to. I'm not afraid.'

He stopped to kiss me fiercely. ‘Maureen, I don't think you are ever afraid of anything.'

‘Oh, yes, I am. I would not dare be alone on 12 thStreet at night. But afraid of sex and loving? No, not anything I can think of. So help yourself, my darling. If I know how, I'll do it. If I don't, show me and I'll try.' (Theodore, stop talking and take me!)

‘This seat is narrow.'

‘I hear that the young people take out the back seat and put it on the ground. There is a robe in the back seat, too.'

‘Um, yes.'

We got out of his car - and ran into the most confounded Keystone Kops contretemps I have ever experienced.

Woodrow.

My favourite, Woodrow, whom I could happily have throttled at that, moment, was in the back seat, and woke up as I opened the door. Well, I think be woke up; he may have been awake and listening the whole time - memorising any words he did not know, for later investigation - and blackmail.

Oh, that boy! Would the world let him grow up? I wondered.

But what I said, in my happiest voice, was: ‘Woodrow, you're a scamp! Sergeant Theodore! See who was sleeping in the back seat' I reached behind me and tried to button Tbeodore's breeches.

‘Sergeant Ted promised to take me to Electric Park!'

So we went to Electric Park, thoroughly chaperoned.

I wonder if other women have as much trouble getting themselves ‘ruined' as I do?

About twenty hours later I was in my own bed, my husband Captain Brian Smith on my right, my lover Captain Lazarus Long on my left. Each had an arm under my neck, each was using his free hand to caress me.

I was saying, ‘Brian beloved, when Lazarus completed the ritual by answering, "But not ‘While the Evil Days Come Not'," I almost fainted. When he said that he was descended from me - from us, you and me - from all three of us, you and me and Woodrow - I was convinced that I was losing my mind. Or had lost it.'

Briney tickled my right nipple. ‘Don't worry about it, Swivel Hips; on a woman it hardly shows. As long as she can still cook. Hey! Stop that.'

I eased up on him. ‘Sissy. I didn't do that very hard.'

‘I'm in a weakened condition. Captain Long, as I understand it, you decided to reveal yourself - against your own best interests I believe - in order to tell me that I won't get hurt in this war.'

‘No, Captain, not that at all.'

Briney sounded puzzled. ‘I must confess that I don't understand.'

‘I revealed that I am a Howard from the future in order to reassure Mrs Smith. She's been worrying herself sick that you might not come back. So I told her that I was certain that you did come back. Since you are one of my direct ancestors, I studied your biographical résumé before I left Boondock. So I knew.'

‘Well... I appreciate your motives; Maureen is my treasure. But it is reassuring to me, too.'

‘Excuse me, Captain Smith. I did not say that you won't get hurt in this war.'

‘Eh? But you just did. So I thought.'

‘No, sir. I said that you will come back. You will. But I did not say that you won't get hurt. The Archives in Boondock are silent on that point. You may lose an arm. Or a leg. Or your eyes. Or even become a basket case; I don't know. I'm sure of just this much: you will live through it and won't lose your testicles and penis, because the Archives show that you two have several more children. Ones you will sire after you come back from France. You see, Captain, the Howard Family Archives are mostly genealogies, with few details otherwise.'

‘Captain Long -‘

‘Better call me "Bronson", sir. Here I'm a staff sergeant; my ship is light-years away and far in the future.'

‘Then knock off calling me "Captain" for Pete's sake. I'm Brian; you're Lazarus.'

‘Or Ted. Your children call me Uncle Ted or Sergeant Ted. Calling me Lazarus could involve all sorts of explanations.'

I said, ‘Theodore, Father knows you are Lazarus and so do Nancy and Jonathan. And so will Carol when you take her to bed. You let me tell Nancy when you took her to bed; my big girls are too close to each other to keep such secrets from each other. So it seems to me.'

‘Maureen, I said that you could tell anyone because you would not be believed. Nevertheless each case involves long explanations. But why are you assuming that I am going to take Carol to bed? I did not say that I would. And I have not asked for that privilege.'

I turned my face to the right. ‘Briney, do you hear this man? Do you see now why it has taken me more than a year to trip him? He didn't offer the slightest objection to screwing Nancy -‘

Tm not surprised; neither did I.' My husband leered and licked his lips. ‘Nancy is special. I told you.'

‘You're an old goat, my beloved. I don't believe you've turned down anything female since you were nine -‘