Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

With the photograph was a little flat package in tissue-paper. He opened it gently. A thick lock of red hair, tied with a green ribbon. The lock curled in a tight circle.

Lazarus stared at it. Maureen my beloved, this is the most precious gift of all-but I do hope you cut it so carefully that Brian won't notice it's missing.

He looked at each of her gifts again, restored them just as they had been, put the box into the bottom of his grip, locked it, turned off the tub, undressed, and got into the water.

But a lukewarm tub did not make him sleep. For a long time he lay in darkness and relived the past few hours.

He now felt that he understood Maureen. She was relaxed with what she was-"liked herself" as Lazarus thought of it- and liking yourself was the necessary first step toward 'loving other people. She had no guilt feelings because she never did anything that could make her feel guilty. She was unblinkingly honest with herself, was her own self-judge instead of looking to others, did not lie to herself-but lied to others without hesitation when needed for kindness or to get along with rules she had not made and did not respect.

Lazarus understood that; he lived the same way-and now knew where he got the trait. From Maureen...and through her, from' Gramp. And from Pop, too-reinforced. He felt very happy despite an unsatisfied ache in his loins. Or in part because of it, he corrected, he found that he cherished that ache.

When the doorknob turned, he was instantly alert, out of bed and waiting before the door opened.

She was in his arms, warm and fragrant

She pulled back to shrug off her wrap, let it fall, came back into his arms, body to body, and gave her mouth fully.

When they broke the kiss, she stayed in his ~arms, clinging. He whispered huskily, "Why did you risk it?"

She answered softly, "I found that I must. Once I knew that, I realized that it was even less risk than our walnut tree. The children never come downstairs at night when we have a guest. Father may suspect me...but that makes it certain that he won't check on me. Don't worry, darling. Take me to bed. Now!"

He did so.

When they were quiet, she sighed happily and said, lips against his ear, arms and legs around him: "Theodore, even in this you are so much like my husband that I can barely wait till the war is over to tell him all about you."

"You've decided to tell him?"

"Beloved Theodore, there was never a doubt that I would. I softened some of what I told you tonight and left out a little. Brian does not require me to confess. But it does not upset him; we settled that fifteen years ago. He convinced me that he really does trust my judgment and my taste." Very softly but merrily she giggled against his ear. "It's a shame that I so seldom have anything to confess; he enjoys hearing my adventures. He has me tell him about them over and over-like rereading a favorite book. I wish I could tell him this one tomorrow night. But I won't, I'll save it."

"He's coming home tomorrow?"

"Late. Quite late. Which is just as well, as I don't expect to get any sleep once he arrives." She chuckled softly. "He tild me on the telephone to 'b. i. b. a. w. y. L o.' and he would 'w. y. t. b. w.' That means: Be in bed asleep with my legs open and he will wake me the best way. But I just pretend to be asleep as I wake up no matter how quietly he tiptoes in."

She gave a tiny giggle. "Then we have a happy little game. As he enters me, I pretend to wake up and call him by name-but never his name. I moan, 'Oh, Albert, darling, I thought you would never come!' or some such. Then it's his turn. He says something like, 'This is Buffalo Bill, Mrs. O'Malley. Hush up and get busy!' Then I hush up and do the best I know how, not another word until we both explode."

"Your best is superb, Mrs. O'Malley. Or was that your best?"

"I tried to make it my best-Buffalo Bill. But I was so dreadfully excited that I got all blurry so it probably was not. I'd like a chance to do better. Are you going to give me one?"

"Only if you promise not to do better. Darling, if that was not your best, then your best would kill me."

"You not only talk like my husband and feel like him- especially here-but you even smell like him."

"You smell like Tamara."

"Do I really? Do I make love like her?"

(Tamara knows a thousand ways, darling, but rarely uses anything unusual-lovemaking is not technique, dear, it's an attitude. Wanting to make someone happy, which you do.

But you startled me with your command of technique; you would fetch a high price on Iskander.)

"You do. But that's not what makes you so much like her. Uh, it's your attitude. Tamara knows what is going on in another person's mind and gives him exactly what he needs. Wants to give it."

"She's a mindreader? Then I'm not like her, after all."

"No, she's not a mindreader. But she feels a person's emotions and knows what he needs an4 gives him that. It might not be sex. Aren't there times when Brian needs something else?"

"Oh, certainly. If he's tired and tense, I hold off and rub his back or head. Or cuddle with him. Maybe encourage him to nap, and then perhaps he really will wake me 'the best way.' I don't try to eat him alive. Unless that's what he wants."

"Tamara all over again. Maureen, when Tamara was healing me, at first she didn't even share a bed with me. Just slept in the same room and ate with me and listened if I felt like talking. Then for ten days or so she did sleep with me, but we just slept...and I slept soundly and had no nightmares. Then one night I woke up, and without a word Tamara took me into her, and we made love the rest of that night. And next morning I knew I was well-soul-sickness all gone.

"You are that way, Maureen. You know, and you do. I've been very homesick and much troubled by this war. Now I'm not, you've cured it. Tell me, what did you feel from me the first night I was in this house?"

"Loved you at first sight, like a silly schoolgirl. Wanted to take you to bed. I told you so."

"Not how you felt-how did I feel?"

"Oh. You had an erection over me."

"Yes, I did. But I thought I had concealed it. You noticed?"

"Oh, I didn't see a bulge in your trousers or anything like that. Theodore, I never look down that far; men become embarrassed so easily. I simply knew you felt as I did-and I felt like a she dog in heat. Bitch in heat, I mean-I don't intend to be prim in bed. The instant you met my eyes- standing, out in the front hall-I knew we needed each other and I grew terribly excited...and rushed out into the kitchen to get myself under control."

"You didn't rush, you moved with smooth grace, like a ship under sail."

"That ship was sailing fast; I was rushing. I got myself under control but not less excited. More. My breasts ached and my nipples hurt, all the time you were here. But that doesn't show. It would not have mattered had Father noticed my excitement except that he would not have invited you back-and I wanted you to come back. Father knows what I am; he told me so when he was helping me. He told me to face up to what I am and be happy with it-but that I must learn never to let my ruttiness show, things being the way they are. I've tried-but that night it was very hard not to show it."

"You succeeded."

"Brian tells me that I don't show it. But that night was so difficult. I- Theodore, there is something boys do-and sometimes men-when they're terribly frustrated. With their hands."

"Certainly. Masturbation. Boys call it 'jacking off."

"So Brian says. But perhaps you don't know that girls- and women-can do something like it?"

"I do know. For a lonely person of either sex, it's a harmless but inadequate substitute."

"'Harmless but inadequate-' Quite inadequate. But I'm glad you think it's harmless. Because I went upstairs and took a bath-I needed one although I had bathed before supper. And did it, in the tub. And went to bed and stared at the ceiling, then got up and locked the door and took off my nightgown-and did it and did it and did it! Thinking about you, Theodore, every instant. Your voice, how you smelled, the touch of your hand on mine. But it took at least an hour before I was relaxed enough to sleep."