The First Ninety Days Ch. 08

The sanitary napkins were easy to find, and while she was at it she decided to grab an extra box of condoms; they were almost out, and though the Pill ought to be in force by now, she had a thought to make Jon keep using them until her next scheduled ovulation, just to be safe. And even if not, what harm would one more box do?—they might need them someday.

But when she reached the aisle with all the condoms in it, she hesitated.

Come on, she thought to herself.It's just an aisle. All you're gonna do is march down it, pull a box off the rack, and walk away. And then... And then get in line at the cash register, and pay for them, and have to endure the cashier's looks while she thinks, 'Oh, this woman must be having sex.' And every other person who sees me while I walk to the register. They'll be thinking that too. They'll know that I'm having sex—

Suddenly she understood why Jon had always insisted that they buy condoms as a couple.

Okay. Okay. It's all right. They don't know. Maybe I'm a schoolteacher. ...A really young one. Who is teaching... Sex ed. Or, maybe I'm a single woman who is... Curious. Yes, that's it. Or, or maybe, um. Maybe I was going to make balloon animals out of them, for... For... Oh freaking heck! They're all going to think I'm having sex!

Okay. Okay. Just... Walk down the aisle. You've done that once already. Just walk down the aisle, pick up the box, and walk back out. Very easy, very simple. Very cool. It's easy. Go ahead.

It was all very well until she had the box in her hand. Then she almost ran.

"Why'd you get those," Jon asked. "I thought they said that you'd be safe by your next period. You have been taking it regularly, right?"

"I haven't missed a one," she said. She'd originally thought it might be easy to forget to take the Pill in the mornings, but they'd been having so much sex that it stayed on the forefront of her mind. "But, I just... Want to be safe. You know, around the time when I'm... Most fertile."

"Well, we don't have to use those while you're actually menstruating, do we," he said, standing up, and suddenly she noticed the bubbling air of excitement about him. She had totally missed it during the panic of bleeding.He doesn't want to use condoms anymore. ...Well, and to be fair, neither do I.

But sex during her period? "Eew! Jon, I'mbleeding down there!"

"So?" he said. "I don't care. I just use my hands instead of my mouth."

"Yeah, but— But— Jon, that's dirty."

"So's most of sex."

She didn't answer. She couldn't really explain what she was feeling.

"Look," he said. "If you don't want to, we don't. But what I'm saying is, I want to, and I can't think of any really good reason not to."

"You just want to do it without the condom," she said spitefully.

He flinched, but stood his ground. "Yes. And I know you do too. The fact that you're bleeding doesn't bother me. And I can't think of any reason it ought to botheryou. Besides, from what I saw, you don't bleed much anyway." That much was true; she rarely had anything more than a trickle.

She sighed. "Look. I still want to call Pastor Pendleton. I haven't gotten his opinion yet, and I'd really like to. Let me do that first." And he gave her a look as if to say,I know you're stalling, but made no other argument.

So she called Larry Pendleton, and he gave his opinion on Margaret Clarke and her hard-line Christianity, which was more or less what she'd predicted. "I'd also like to ask, how is Jon reacting to this?"

"He's..." She glanced at Jon, who was doing the dishes—probably to give his hands something to do. "He's scornful."

"Of what?"

"Of... Of the idea that sex is something to be ashamed of."

"And well he should be. Caitlyn, sex can beveryembarrassing—especially when you try something new and it doesn't work out quite the way you wanted it to. But it's not shameful, at least not when shared in love. And no one with eyes to see or ears to hear can truthfully claim that you and Jon don't love each other."

"Yeah. But now he's... Unh."

"He is...?"

Caitlyn colored. "Well. I'm... It's that time of the month."

"And Jon is... Not deterred?"

Caitlyn colored further. "No."

"Well, Caitlyn. Believe it or not, I often get couples asking me about bedroom matters, and this issue comes up quite a bit. And I've always said, If your man isn't willing to put in, he shouldn't expect you to put out. Sex is a matter of give and take, like anything else in a marriage. If all he wants is to go in and serve himself, it's totally within your right to take issue with that."

"No, no no, that's the thing. He said he'd..." Her face was positively on fire now, and the words were practically a whisper. "He said he'd just use his hand."

"Oh."

"I don't... I mean, that's dirty."

"What is? The hand or the blood?"

"The... The blood."

"Well, there's a precedent for that. Blood is a powerful thing. People bleed when they're hurt. When a child looks like their parents, or has their talents, we say that it's in their blood. When Orthodox Jewish women are on their period, they are supposed to stay away from men for fear of contamination. And Christ gave ushisblood, to seal our new covenant with him. Not Budweiser, not Dasani, but blood. Blood is a powerful thing."

"So what if... What if Jon gets contaminated?"

"Do you really believe that?"

The likelihood of that was slim, especially since that law was more spiritual than biological in nature. The question was not whether her blood would harm him in this world, but rather the next. "I don't know. Probably not."

"Well, it's up to you. But, personally, I don't think menstrual flow makes you unclean. If anything, it's a celebration of God's divine gift of Creation, given to you as to all women. You can bring forth life out of your body, Caitlyn. That is a precious gift. Now, creation is not an easy thing; you pay for it, and with one of your most important parts. But if anything, that blood makes you holy. And if Jon wants to, ah, worship at the altar of your holiness, do you really want to turn him down?"

"...Did you just make an innuendo?"

He laughed. "Well, Caitlyn, I may be a minister, but I'm also a human. That makes me prey to all the other human failings—like innuendos. I understand that Gerald and Dacey's small-group study came to an end last year."

It took a moment to follow the topic shift, and another to follow the calendar.Last year? —Oh, yes: it's January 2nd. "Yes, it did."

"Well, I happen to know that George Larson is starting up a group this week—I believe the first session is this coming Tuesday—for people in college or just out of it. I thought you might like to know."

"Ooh! Yes, I would like to know!" She had been in George Larson's small groups before, and they were inspiring; he always found new ways to not only make the Bible fun, but make it make sense. "Do you think he would mind if Jon came?"

"Well, I'm sure he wouldn't, but the real question is, do you thinkJonwould mind if Jon came."

"...Well, yeah. I'll ask him about it."

"Do. But if Jon wants to come, I'm certain he's welcome."

But Jon was less than pleased with the idea. "Caitlyn, I'm not sure... I don't know if..."

"You don't want to go," she said flatly.

"No, it's not that, it's..."

"You don't want to go," she said again.

He sighed.

"Jon, it's okay if you don't want to go."

He gave her a sideways look. "Just listen to the way you said that and tell me if you really meant it."

She felt her cheeks heating. Okay, so she hadn't really meant it. She'd live with it if he didn't want to, but in her opinion his relationship with God was dangerously unhealthy.

"Caitlyn, you've just demonstratedwhy I don't want to go. I've already had... Well, do you remember what I told you about that girl Karen I used to date?"

"A little," Caitlyn said. Jon had had a fairly constant string of relationships from high school onward; it was a little difficult for her to keep them straight, especially since thinking about them fed her own feelings of inadequacy. Jonathan Stanford had been playing the field since he was fourteen, while Caitlyn Delaney had had exactly one relationship ever. Of course, that man was now her husband, so she supposed her dating life had been successful, but she still couldn't tell Karen from Alice from Tia from Maggie from Jennifer from a hole in the ground.

"Well, this was back in high school," said Jon, "and I really liked her. I'm not sure how she felt. But she was... Intense. About her faith. And she seemed to think it was her mission to convert me."

Caitlyn frowned.Thatwouldbe awkward. "But you're a Christian."

"Not an orthodox-enough one for Karen's tastes, evidently," Jon said. "I made the mistake of telling her that I had not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior—" That last with a tinge of sarcasm. "—and she wouldn't let it go."

"And that's why you broke up with her?"

"That's why I broke up with her. She's engaged to someone else now. Cait, I don't want to be friends with people who are going to try to change me. Much less going out with one."

...And probably even lessmarriedto one...

She went to him and put her arms around him. "Jon... If you don't want to go, then you don't have to. But I'm not going to judge you on how... Orthodox your faith is. And I'm sure that none of the people at George Larson's group are going to judge you on that either. That's not what we're about. We're about... Learning,for ourselves, what God wants for us. Christ told us not to judge—or, at least, not tosay what we judged."

"Yeah, but some people seem to think that it's their job to steer us away from sin. Like your Margaret Clarke person."

The memory rankled. "Yes, like her."Every now and then I meet someone who makes me ashamed to be a Christian. "But she's not a true Christian. A Christian is motivated from love, not... Not self-righteousness or, or a need to meddle, or... Whatever it was she was on."

"You don't think she was doing it out of the goodness of her Christian heart."

She sighed. "Well, I'd rather believe the best of her, but if she was acting out of compassion, she sure didn'tshow it. She was acting like she had an agenda."

"And Christians don't? Sweetie, you guys go around approaching people and trying to convert them toyour way of thinking. That's what conversion's all about."

" 'Your way of thinking'?" she said. "I thought you were a Christian."

"Well, I don't..."

"You said you were raised Catholic."

"I was, and confirmed too, but that was my mother's idea instead of mine, and there's another example of agenda. But since then I've started having my own thoughts."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"Quite possibly something wrong with that. They're not orthodox in the least."

"Well. I don't think your friend Karen is anyone to judge by. She sounds about as conservative asI am."

"Maybe more so. But even by liberal thinking I'm way out there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... You know that whole thing about 'personal lord and savior,' right? Come to Jesus and you get into heaven. That whole thing's so stupid to me. I mean, so if some guy achieves salvation and then goes around killing and looting and raping and stuff—I mean, say Hitler converted right before he died. Does that excuse him from everything he did? According to this doctrine, yes it does. That's kinda dumb in my opinion."

"Hope springs eternal. Suicide is a mortal sin."

"Good point, but that only stops Hitler. Dozens of others might've slipped through."

"Yeah."

"So, I mean... If you can just take Jesus into your heart, what's the point? Why does anyone need to behave, or care, or, or— Or anything like that."

"So it wasn't just the conversion, it was also that specific doctrine."

"Yeah."

"So what do you believe?"

Jon ran a hand through his hair. "Well. Well."

She touched his face. "I'm not going to judge you."

"Yes you are," he said.

"All right, I am," she admitted, "but I'm going to be nice and keep it to myself."

He smiled. "Okay."

She smiled too. And then waited.

"What... Well. When I call myself a Christian, I'm not saying I believe in all the, the Pope and the Church and all that stuff. The Church has done some pretty dumb things over the last two thousand years. Crusades, Spanish Inquisitions... Even this nonsense in the Methodist Church about kicking out gay pastors. I thought the message was love, not judgment."

"So, why do you call yourself a Christian?"

"Because I try to follow Christ," he said.

She was silent, contemplating the enormity of the idea.

"And I don't mean that in the church sense or even in the, the religious sense, or— It's just that... If I had been mending my nets on the dock one day, and Jesus had called me to come with him... I hope I would have followed. He had all the good ideas. Love. Love is a good idea. Love is an idea I would follow."

"Yeah."

"Everyone offers you 'the way'. Everyone offers you salvation. Everyone offers you a method. Drink Sprite and you'll get girls. Wear these shoes and you'll kick ass at sports. Listen to me and I will bring you to eternal life. Success, success, success. And then you turn around and your teeth are rotten and you're wearing a bomb to go blow up a school bus full of innocent kids who've never done harm to you or anybody in the whole wide world.And you're wearing really uncomfortable shoes. It's all crap. Jesuslived it. And for better or for worse, he was willing to die for it. For what he believed in. There aren't that many people you could say that about over the course of human history."

"Yeah."

"So, he died. Did he come back to life? Was he the Son of God? The Bible says so, but it has an agenda, just like everything else. Just likeJesus, for that matter. But I don't care anyway. It doesn't matter to me if he came back to life. It doesn't matter if he was the Son of God. What matters is that he had good ideas, and I would follow them. I would follow them no matter who he was."

She nodded. "You're a Christian."

"A Christian without church."

"That's okay. Like you said, the Church has dome some pretty stupid things on occasion. But some good ones too."

"Yeah."

There was nothing more said for a few moments. Caitlyn supposed that, because Jon was not offended or angry, he had noticed her judgment: that it was unorthodox, yes, but not without merit. Indeed, she thought there might be some benefit to casting free of the church and simply acting in the example of Christ.We'd get a lot less bogged down in all this dogma, at least.

"So, does that answer your question," he asked.

"What question?"

"Whether I want to go."

"Jon, it's notmy question, it'syours.Do you want to go?"

He was silent for a moment.

"Do you think I'll be judged?" he asked.

"That's a silly question," she said. "Weren't you just saying that humans judge each other all the time?"

"Do you think they'll hold it against me?" he said.

"No," she said. "I think they'll accept you for who you are, and appreciate your thoughts and differences, and encourage you to follow Christ's example."As I do.

He was silent for a moment.

"It couldn't hurt," he said finally.

"And if it does, you don't ever have to go back," she said.

"Okay," he said, smiling.

"Okay," she said, and kissed him.

It was a long kiss, one full of promise. When they stopped, her arms were around her neck, and his at her back, holding her to him. "Hmm," he said. "So maybe youare interested in the sex thing."

She made a noise that was somewhere between a giggle and a sigh. "You're insufferable, aren't you."

"Or maybe insatiable."

"Or maybe both."

His hands tightened on her back, pulling her closer to him, but he made no noise, awaiting her reply.

"Well... I actually got some practicing done... The kitchen's okay... I found a few places online I want to send my resume to... But, oh—I have to do laundry."

"Can't it wait?"

"Not if you want clean underwear tomorrow."

"Umm."

She smiled up at him. "Here, I'll make you a deal. You help me with the laundry, and then after that... You get to do anything you want with me."

"Anything, eh," said Jon, grinning, waggling his eyebrows. "Even without the condom."

She felt a quick moment of concern—What if he asks me to do something I don't want to?—and just as quickly squelched it.He won't. And if he does, I'll tell him no. He knows me, and I trust him. I love him. That's why I let him do anything to me at all.

"Anything," she said her smile a promise. "Even without the condom."

"Hmm," said Jon. "You've got a deal."

And so they presaged that most intimate of activities by going to the laundromat. The other customers there must have thought them insane: giggling, winking, sultry and intense by turns. Or perhaps they simply smiled: A young couple, drunk on love. Or perhaps just drunk. But Jon and Caitlyn didn't notice. They passed the time by walking around the area, checking the shops and restaurants, making their plans and suggestions. And then Caitlyn had to teach Jon how to fold up his clothing, because he'd never done anything but hang them before, an impossibility now that Caitlyn's clothes alone were taking up most of the closet space even when folded. So Jon learned to fold clothes... Which was good, because after he'd had his way with her, all over the just-folded clothes, they needed to be folded all over again. Which they did, laughing, naked, before falling into bed again in each other's arms.

"We should do that again," Jon said to her.

"What," Caitlyn said, "you mean the part where you came up behind me and—" Hehad used his mouth, without making any complaints; and, after a moment, Caitlyn hadn't made any either.

"No, I mean... The whole laundry thing," Jon said.

Caitlyn stared at him.

"I mean... People do sex all the time.We do sex all the time. You can have sex with someone without having a relationship with them. You can have sex with someone without even having an emotional connection. But who are you going to fold laundry with? The people you live with. The person you marry. The people who actuallymean something to you."

"...Yeah. I see what you mean."

"So, yeah. I think... 'cause it's the everyday things. Getting to fold laundry with you. Getting to cook dinner with you. Getting to kiss you before I get out of bed. I think those are the things that mean the most to me."

She snuggled close to him. "You always know the right things to say. Good thing I married you."

She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, the solid strength of his chest against her own, his breath ruffling her hair, the warmth of skin on skin, feeling safer and happier and more loved than she ever had in her life.

Day 30

Being alone, Caitlyn decided, was not a good way to wake up.

It was Tuesday morning, and Caitlyn had a long day ahead of her. On Jon's advice she had canvassed the campus for temporary jobs—or maybe even ones she could hold down for the remainder of the school year—and several departments had expressed interest; she would have to interview with both the chemistry department and the music department today. She also had her oboe lesson today, and with any luck Mrs. Klein would be at least a little satisfied with her playing; she'd actually gotten some practicing done. And then there were always the little chores that needed to be done around the apartment—cleaning, cooking, laundry, taking out the trash. Jon did his best to be helpful, but that wasn't much; and besides, most of it tended to be done by the time he got home. After all, she needed a distraction from the long, tedious hours.