Sardines

by Lubrican

Chapter : 1 | 2 | 3 | | 5

Chapter Five

Those first pangs of uncertainty bred like rabbits. By the time I got there I was a wreck. I went forth on pure adrenaline and pounded on the door. When he answered it I must had scared him half to death, because I burst into tears and he thought something had happened to Chrissy.

I quelled that fear first, telling him she was fine, but it was like a dam burst inside me and I couldn't keep anything in any more. It all came out, not in the logical, reasoned bits and pieces I had practiced saying as I started the trip back home. It just flowed forth like waves on the beach, unruly and disorganized, as I told him I loved him, and couldn't do without him, and wanted to be his wife and live with him. Bless his heart. He didn't shush me or tell me to grow up. Instead he just held my shoulders like his daughter had held them a few hours past, listening to me babble. He didn't even wipe my tears away, letting me do that myself.

He just listened.

When I finally ran down I felt so hopeless that I almost sat down on the floor. I know I swayed.

"Come on," he said, and pulled me into the kitchen where he sat me down at the table. The car had been warm, so I wasn't wearing a coat when I jumped out of it and ran to beat on his door. He went to the cupboard and got down the bottle of Scotch he kept there. It was half full of a dark amber liquid and had a black label. He splashed some in a small glass and handed it to me.

"Sip this," he said. "Just sips! Sorry, it's all I've got."

I let the liquid go into my mouth and swallowed. Fire flowed from my mouth down to my stomach, leaving a column of warmth, and the faintly bitter taste of smoke in my mouth. I sipped again. It didn't burn as much this time.

"Not too fast," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why?"

"For coming here and crying and making a fool of myself," I said.

"Oh."

He got his own glass and poured for himself. He took a few more sips and I took another one. I decided it was good.

"I see you're driving Chrissy's car. Does she know about all this?"

"She didn't call you did she? She promised she wouldn't!"

"Would I be asking about the car if she had called me?" he asked, calmly.

"I guess not. She said I was crazy."

"I see."

"I probably am."

"Mmm hmm. Is that all she said?"

"She said she didn't know how to feel about it, but gave me the keys. Would you please just say something and get it over with?" I moaned. I took another sip. This one was a little bigger, and I felt that delicious burn again. I decided that the burn of that in my stomach felt almost like the warmth of his sperm in my belly.

"Are you willing to talk about this without yelling and screaming?" he asked.

My gut tried to go cold, but the Scotch wouldn't let it.

I nodded.

"Such a marriage would upset a lot of people," he said.

"My parents," I admitted.

"And many, many others. There is a significant age difference involved."

"That doesn't matter to me," I said.

"I know," he said. "But it would matter to a lot of others. There would be talk ... snide, unpleasant talk."

"Why?" I asked.

"People would assume I got myself a trophy wife," he said. "Or they'd assume you were a gold digger, after my money."

I blinked. I had never really thought about "his money."

"By the time you're the age I am now, I'd be fifty-five," he said. "You'd be in the prime of your life, and I'd be slowing down and getting old."

"That's almost twenty years from now," I said. "That's a whole lifetime away!"

"For you, yes," he said. "But for me, only half as long as I've already been alive."

I said nothing.

"What about your education?" he asked.

That was one of the things I had thought about long and hard on the trip back.

"I've tried to think of occupations I might enjoy, but nothing comes to me. Maybe some day I'll decide I want to do something. I can go to college then. But the time to have children is when you're young and in shape. I love children. I love taking care of children. I want to have your babies, and take care of them. It's not that I want to be a housewife. I want to be your wife, and take care of our family.

"What if Chrissy ends up not approving?"

I had been feeling sorry for myself, and that I just needed to find a way to get out of this torture somehow. I didn't know what to do. I felt awful. He had put forth all the standard reasons why what I wanted would be considered a bad idea by almost everybody.

But when he said "ends up not approving," my mind registered a difference. Everything he had brought up was a possibility. The way he said that about Chrissy, though, sounded like he was expressing concern about a real future.

For the first time since I'd arrived, I had the faintest hope that he was actually considering my proposal seriously.

"Chrissy loves us," I said carefully. I took another sip and realized that my glass was empty. I pushed it toward him and he shook his head.

"You've had plenty," he said. "The last thing you need right now is to get drunk."

"I've never been drunk in my life," I said.

"Well don't start now."

"Chrissy loves us both," I said again. "She wants us both to be happy. If she thought we were both happy, she'd come on board."

"It would change your relationship, though," he said.

Again, he was talking as if it might happen, and he was worried about the possibility there would be conflict.

"Why?" I asked. "I love you already. I'm not jealous of her. The only difference would be that I'd be living with you. Our roles might be reversed in those terms, but why should that affect how we feel about each other?"

"You'd let your husband have extramarital affairs?" His eyebrows rose and he looked shocked.

"You making love with Chrissy would not be an extramarital affair," I said. "It's normal."

"Wow," he said.

"I don't think you get it," I said. "I have been in love with you since I was fourteen. I've never thought of another man in the same terms I think of you. I can't imagine living with another man or having his babies. I've tried to imagine that with other men, and there's nothing there. It's just a big blank. But with you I see this house full of children again ... our children. It's so easy to imagine that that it just seems like it has to happen some day."

"And what if I felt like Chrissy was enough ... that I had already had all the children I needed?"

The tears practically burst from my eyes, but I didn't wipe them off. I just let them run down my cheeks.

"I don't know," I whispered.

He got up and came to my side of the table. He held out his hand, and when I stood he held me for a few moments. I tried not to cry, honestly I did, but I was so sad.

He let go of me and sat down. He pulled me onto his lap. I felt huge, tall, and he looked small somehow because his head was below mine.

"You are something," he sighed. I hiccupped. He put a hand on my thigh and went on. "When you were thirteen, you came to a sleepover. There were a bunch of other girls there, and you guys made so much noise I was afraid that the neighbors would complain. Then it got very quiet, suddenly. I was curious. I went to Chrissy's door and peeked in."

I felt a sudden rush of excited shame. I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"All of you girls were topless and had your hands in your panties."

"Marnie talked us into trying something," I whispered.

"The look on your face was something I'll never forget," he said. "You were in ecstasy. I wanted, at that second, nothing more than to be able to make that look come over your face."

I wiped my cheeks with the palms of my hands. I wasn't crying any more.

"I couldn't forget it. It was the first time I had wanted to be with a woman since Jennifer died."

"I was just a kid," I objected. "I barely had boobs!"

"You were beautiful," he said. "You were captivating. You had so much potential. It practically drove me crazy. And you were here all the time. I managed to wait a year, but then, when you wanted me to play games with you, I lost it."

"You didn't lose it. You barely touched me."

"You have no idea what was going through my mind," he sighed. "I masturbated five times that night. As soon as the game was over I jerked off. I couldn't even get to sleep until I'd done it again. Then I woke up twice more in the night and did it again. In the morning I was sore, but I still had to go again before I could face you at breakfast."

"I never knew."

"You weren't supposed to know," he said. "And when you didn't say anything, I tried to be satisfied with that memory. And it worked, too, until the next sleepover."

"But I slept over lots of times between slumber parties," I said.

"Yes, but you were always with Chrissy."

"And because of sardines ..." I said.

"That let me get you alone."

"And each time you had to do more," I said.

"And each time you let me," he sighed.

"Because I already loved you," I said.

"You were too young. I felt terrible. But you didn't get upset about it, so I thought it was all right."

"It was all right."

"Mal ... you came here tonight and asked me to marry you," he said softly. "I can't help but think I warped you when you were too young."

That was just bullshit and I told him so. "Look. Somebody had to get my virginity. It could have been any of a dozen boys I dated in high school. But the thought of letting them do that made my skin crawl. Should I have let one do it anyway? Just to be rid of my troublesome cherry? How would that have not warped me? I wanted you to do it. I dreamed of you doing it. I masturbated endlessly, imagining what it would be like with you on top of me. And it took you years to finally do it!"

"Would you just listen to me?" he asked.

I nodded.

"So there I was, thoroughly captivated and in love with a fifteen year old girl, something nobody on earth would approve of. And there wasn't anything I could do about it."

"You never told me you were in love with me," I complained.

"It wouldn't have been fair to you. It would have messed with your head. It was bad enough I couldn't keep my hands off of you."

"Twice a year?" My voice rose. "You call that being unable to keep your hands off me?"

"If I'd have let myself do what I really wanted, you'd have been pregnant by the time you were fifteen. The least I could do was leave your mind alone."

"All my girly parts are connected to my mind, Bob," I said.

I blinked. I had just called him by his name. That had never happened before. It was so strange, and yet it didn't feel strange at all.

"I was just trying to do the right thing," he said.

"I think everything you did was the perfect thing," I replied.

"When you were fifteen, I'd have chalked that up to puppy love," he said.

"You told me I was in puppy love with you one time," I said.

"You were."

"Well, my puppy grew up and now I'm in doggy love with you." I was amazed I could make a joke.

"I guess that's the point," he said softly. "You can't choose who you fall in love with."

"So what does all this mean?" I asked.

"It means I'm insane," he sighed.

"Well then I'm insane too," I said.

"I agree," he said. "Fortunately, I think you might be as strong as you are crazy."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means you're going to need to be strong, because you are going to be tested severely in the coming months."

"You're saying no," I said, my voice tiny.

He squeezed my thigh.

"No ... I'm saying yes."

I wasn't around when they dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. I wasn't there when President Kennedy was assassinated. I was just a tiny tot when the Berlin wall came down and the cold war ended. But I'm pretty sure I know what the reactions to those things were like.

It took probably an hour for me to get control of myself. Then Bob insisted that we go shopping for a ring.

Three hours later I had a rock on my left finger that made my knees weak.

After that he said we had to go see my parents.

I thought my parents would go completely off the deep end. Bob lied to them by saying he asked me to marry him, and that I had accepted. My mother glanced at my finger, but didn't examine the ring. My parents still didn't believe it. Then they forbade it. Finally I said "I love you both, and I hope that some day you'll come to accept that this is the right decision for me. I understand if you don't want to help plan the wedding." Then we left. Bob said I was harsh. I told him I knew my parents. He wasn't Catholic. They would never approve of the marriage.

On the way back to his house ... our house? ... he asked me what kind of wedding I wanted.

"An immediate one," I said.

"What about friends and family?"

"We already know pretty much how they're going to react, now don't we?" I said. "Why stir them all up. Let's just get married. I want to make love with my husband."

"Damn," he sighed.

I froze. "I forgot to call Chrissy!" I gasped.

He handed me his cell phone. Her name was at the top of the list and I punched it. She answered in the middle of the first ring.

"You better have said yes, Daddy!" she yelled.

I handed him the phone.

"It's for you," I said.

Well, the rest is history, as they say. People did exactly as he predicted they would. Some assumed I was a gold digger (and even called me that to my face on two occasions.) Others accused him of robbing the cradle. Practically everybody thought that the president and CEO of Carter Industries had found himself a trophy wife.

Subsequent events - and a dose of time - resolved most of those issues.

We got married in a very small ceremony. I had seven bridesmaids: Marnie, Linda, Cheryl, Suzie, Debby, Megan and Valerie. Chrissy, of course, was my maid of honor. They threw a hen party for me, at Chrissy's house - Bob was banned from attending - and it was just another sleepover. We didn't play sardines, of course. Instead they got out of me the details of how all this happened. I managed not to burn Chrissy.

Bob took me to Bermuda for our honeymoon. As soon as we got into our bungalow, which had wide open French doors facing the beach and ocean, I took off my clothes and crawled on the bed. I wagged my ass at him and looked over my shoulder.

"I used to be in puppy love with you," I said. "Now I'm in doggy love."

He took me doggy style for the first time. He also slid his hands under me to put them on my still flat belly, just like he had when I was fourteen.

Except that this time that flat belly had life in it ... life he had put there.

He was only mildly upset with me for lying to him about being on the pill during Christmas break. That's when he got me pregnant. I hadn't believed it would happen, like most young women who aren't planning on getting pregnant.

After the honeymoon, while I used up each day loving my husband and little boy, I wrote all that comes before this, trying to understand why people seemed to hate that we could be in love. I put it in a box, along with my diary which, other than eight entries on the day after there was a slumber party at Chrissy's, probably looks just like any other girl's diary of those years. I just found it a few weeks ago and, on a whim, decided to set the record straight.

It was after I gave him twins, a year and a half later that my parents finally came around. Two years after that when our fourth was born, the comments about trophy wives and gold diggers finally faded away. His peers still kid him about robbing the cradle, but it's a compliment now. At twenty-eight, having borne him three daughters and three sons, I'm still running five miles a day, and could still fit in my wedding gown if I had it. I gave it to Chrissy, though. I'm sure she has it in a box somewhere. Somewhere safe from her own three kids. She married Jesse, and they are quite happy together.

Nowadays every other Thanksgiving and every other Christmas at our house is a raucous affair, what with nine kids running around screaming and playing games, while the parents talk, in-between changing diapers or whatever. And I can even ride herd on all nine of them by myself for an hour or two, if need be. Jesse is a geologist, and he travels to far off places, working for one of the big oil companies. It's not unusual for Chrissy to come stay with us part of the time Jessie is gone.

And I am perfectly capable of watching all nine of the kids while she and Bob ... relax and get caught up on things.

How, you ask, might I keep nine children busy for an hour?

That's easy.

We play sardines.

The End

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