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PEARLS movie was just fantastic but what

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Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This

story is the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or

downloaded for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for

anyone to download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as

long as there is no intent to charge money or barter for the

privilege of acquiring this material.

(copyright 2002, Rev. Cotton Mather)

E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com

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THE YEARS LIKE PEARLS ON VELVET



They met on the first day of school, and it was dislike at first

sight. On that first morning, the early-grades teacher, Mrs. Wells,

called the class of 15 kids to pay attention, and she spent the next

several minutes learning each child's name. The class spent the next

hour or so repeating names, matching names with faces in the combined

class, the second-grade kids helping the kindergarteners with the

memorization.

Later that day, after lunch and after recess, the kids were

scattered around the room. Some were playing with clay, others were

drawing with pencils, and Mrs. Wells had the older kids at the

blackboard, working on addition and subtraction. Harold, or Harry as

he was known then, was just walking toward the closet where there was

a big box of wooden blocks, intending to build a bridge or a town or

something. Just as he reached the door of the closet, he saw a girl -

he thought her name might be Mary Lou - hanging from the edge of the

big cardboard box that held the blocks, either trying to pull the box

over, or else climb into the box to get the blocks. Suddenly, the

side gave way. There was a loud crash, followed immediately by a cry

of anguish from underneath the torn side of the cardboard box and a

big pile of wooden blocks.

"Oh, no! Owwwww!"

Don't start crying, thought Harry. It was your own darn fault.

Mary Lou started crying.

What a stupid girl, thought Harry.

"What a stupid BOX!" wailed Mary Lou between howls of pain and

embarrassment.

Mrs. Wells came bustling over to lend aid and comfort to the

slightly injured little girl. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the

class came over to watch the entertainment, and to see who was stupid

enough to pull an entire box of wooden blocks over onto themself.

To Mrs. Wells, Mary Lou was an unfortunate child, needing little

more than a bandage and a soothing word.

To the rest of the children, Mary Lou seemed to instantly become the

teacher's pet, and so was immediately considered an outcast.

To Harold, she was, additionally, without doubt, the stupidest girl
he had ever known.

It was an inauspicious start to the school year for Mary Lou, who

was reluctantly allowing Mrs. Wells to minister to her cuts and

scrapes. At six years of age, she was the youngest child in a family
of eight, so she was well aware that this accident put her in a

difficult position in the classroom. She just fervently hoped that

the rest of first grade went better than the first day did.



"Do you remember that time in first grade when you tried to climb

into that box of blocks?" Harold wheezed as he laughed. He was

gazing down, unseeing, at the jumbled stack of dog-eared playing

cards that had tumbled to the table, triggering the memory of an

incident from their childhood so long ago. "I think it was the first

day of school, too." He started laughing, a breathy, gasping sound

that quickly deteriorated into a series of raspy coughs as he sat on

the sagging couch in the small room. His face turned a mottled red
as he coughed, and he reached for a tumbler of water on the end table

with one hand, and struggled to extricate a linen handkerchief from

his back pocket with the other as his coughing eased down. He was

wearing an old pair of trousers that may have been part of a suit at

one time, held up by suspenders stretched to accommodated his large

belly. He wore a stained sleeveless t-shirt that might have once

been white, the cotton fibers struggling to stay together across his

middle. He was almost completely bald, with just a fringe of steel

gray hair horseshoeing around his head.

Mary Lou just looked at him, her eyes following everything he did.

Her frail, worn body was slumped in her wheelchair, leaning to one

side like a worn piling of an old seaside dock. She had some use of

her arms and hands, but she needed help with even the seemingly small

tasks, like eating or adjusting the tattered blanket that covered her

weak and horribly thin legs. Her white hair was thin enough to see

her scalp as she leaned against the support post of the back of her

chair. Her brain was muddled and confused, but only part of the

blame could be from the drugs and painkillers her doctor had her on.

She was, after all, 85 years old, and slowly, too slowly, dying.

Old age is not for the faint of heart, she thought for about the

hundredth time.

She remembered the blocks falling on her. She remembered Mrs. Wells

as if she had seen her just yesterday. Why couldn't she remember

what she had for breakfast that morning? Or had she not eaten

breakfast that morning? She brushed a strand of hair off her

forehead with a hand veined and twisted from rheumatoid arthritis,

the knuckles large and bony, the fingers bent and misshapen into

nearly useless appendages.

Her eyes fluttered as the drugs took another circuit around her

body, sending her brain into swirls of semi-consciousness.

She dozed.

She dreamed...



...they were on a cruise ship, unpacking in their stateroom. (This

really happened, her subconscious self insisted. We were on this

cruise.) Mary Lou looked over at Harold and laughed.

"What's so funny?" he grumbled.

She sat down on one of the small beds in the tiny cabin. There were

two single beds, perpendicular to each other, taking up about 70

percent of the room available. The rest was cabinets, a tiny desk

and chair, and floor. They had been bumping into each other almost

constantly, getting in each other's way as they unpacked their

suitcases.

"You are," she said with a smile. She admired her husband's

backside as he took a pile of shirts out of his suitcase. "And

you're cute, too," she added.

"Huh," he grunted. "Cute. Since when is a 47-year-old grandfather

'cute'?"

"Maybe I just like 47-year-old grandfathers," she said, still

grinning.

He looked over at her in unconcealed surprise. "Really? I would

have thought you were more of the younger gigolo type of granny," he

teased.

"Come here," she said, a gleam in her eye as she patted the bed

beside her. "I'll show you how much I like grandpa types."

Harold raised his eyebrows at her, then glanced at the cabin door to

make sure it was securely locked. He sat down next to her and leaned

back, propping himself on his arms. Mary Lou leaned into him,

reaching up to play with his ear as she closed her eyes and softly

kissed his lips.

She pressed against him a little harder, opening her mouth just

enough to moisten their connection, and ended up pushing him down

onto the tiny bed and draping herself across him. He put his arms

around her, quite naturally reaching down to her butt and pulling her

lower body harder against his swelling cock.

Keeping her lips against his mouth, she murmured, "Is that a present

for me I feel?"

"Might be," he replied, still clutching at her bottom. Her dress

was starting to hitch up her legs.

"When do I get it?" she asked, still connected to his lips.

"You can have it any time you want it," he said with a smile. "Just

reach down and take it."

"Oh, like this?" she asked. She reached down.

Harold groaned. "Yeah, just like that," he mumbled.

She squeezed him a little harder.

"Or like that, too," he said.

"But not like this?" she asked teasingly as she pulled his zipper

down and snaked her fingers into the opening. She had lifted up and

was looking at his face by now, gauging his reaction to what she was

doing to him. She wanted to be careful not to set him off too early.

It was her vacation, too, after all, and she wanted to have her fun.

"Like that is good, too," he said with a struggle. It seemed like

all the blood was rushing south, leaving his brain a little starved

for oxygen. He was having some trouble putting two coherent thoughts

together. Even his hands had stopped their clutching and grabbing as

he concentrated on the sensations running up and down his nervous

system.

When she saw the look in his eyes that told her she had taken him

far enough for the moment, she stopped what she was doing and began

unbuttoning her blouse. She pulled it out of her skirt and shrugged

out of it, reached behind her and undid her bra, discarded that

alongside her blouse. She leaned down, rubbing her swollen nipple

along his cheek, tempting him. He turned his head and captured the

swollen nub between his teeth, biting down softly before suckling at

her breast.

It was Mary Lou's turn to moan. Her breasts had always been very

sensitive, and she loved having them sucked on and played with. She

gazed down at her husband of 25 years with love and desire as he

worshipped at her body for perhaps the 3,000th time, and she closed

her eyes and remembered the first time he had kissed her naked

breasts....



...Mary Lou and her best friend, Loretta, had planned to go to the

Saturday evening picture show. A brand-new movie with a brand-new

star had just come out, and both girls were dying to see James Cagney

in "The Public Enemy". Their parents had consented (after all, they

were 14 years old, certainly old enough to go to a moving picture
show by themselves, they argued), but what their parents didn't know

is that Mary Lou and Loretta were meeting two boys at the theater.

Harold and Albert were both in the same classes as Mary Lou and

Loretta. The girls both thought Harold was the cuter of the two.

Mary Lou had a huge crush on him, and, since she was her very best

friend, Loretta was going to let Mary Lou sit next to Harold at the

movie.

They were practically giddy by the time they got to the theater, and

they had to wait in line to purchase their tickets. They each had a

whole dollar with them, more than enough to see the show, get some

popcorn, and maybe stop at the corner drug store for an ice-cream

soda afterwards.

The movie was just fantastic, but what Mary Lou would always

remember was how Harold, just after the newsreels but before the

opening credits of the feature appeared, managed to wiggle the little

finger of his left hand against her own right little finger, and they

weaved into each other, one finger at a time, until they sat there,

hands clasped together, paying as much attention to their own sweaty

palms as they did to Cagney growling on the giant screen.

Afterwards, the four friends trooped down to the corner drug store,

chattering and replaying scenes in the movie. Albert tried to talk

like Cagney and failed miserably, creating howls of laughter at their

table as they delved into strawberry sundaes and ice-cream sodas.

Before too long, it became a Saturday ritual for the four friends.

It was the Depression, but they each had a little spending money,

enough for a trip to the movie theater and an ice-cream afterwards.

By the fourth date (Mary Lou certainly considered it a date; she

wasn't sure if Harold thought of it as a date, though), the two

couples would split up after leaving the soda fountain. Albert and

Loretta usually walked down Main Street, window shopping on their way

home. Mary Lou and Harold walked through the park, past the band

shell, sometimes finding a park bench and sitting and talking for a

few minutes before walking back to Mary Lou's house.

The second time they walked through the park, Harold was brave

enough to hold Mary Lou's hand; the third time, as they sat on a park

bench, she even let him kiss her, a quick and soft brushing of his

lips on hers.

Each week after that, Mary Lou allowed slightly more liberties,

until finally, toward the end of summer, she got tired of waiting for

Harold to be brave enough to get really serious. As they walked hand

in hand through the park toward the band shell, she deliberately

steered their steps toward the deep shadows inside the shell. They

sat on the wooden floor, leaning against the wall, and kissed each

other passionately. Finally, nervously, Mary Lou took Harold's hand

and guided it to her breast, pressing his palm firmly against her.

He was quite startled when she did that, she noted with a certain

amount of satisfaction, but he didn't jerk his hand away. In fact,

he seemed a little frantic as he squeezed her boob.

She was wearing a dress that buttoned down the front to her waist,

and she began to unbutton it. Harold was still involved in their

kiss, as well as distracted by where his hand was, and didn't notice

what she was doing until she grasped him by the wrist, pulling his

hand away from her chest.

He must have thought he had done something wrong when she did that.

He was all set to apologize for taking too many liberties with her,

when he realized that her dress was unbuttoned, and she had placed

his hand on the bare skin of her chest. He could feel the heat

radiating off her body through his hand, and her chest rose and fell

as she breathed deeply. She held her breath, and gently pushed his

hand down, so that his fingers slipped beneath the cottony fabric of

her slip and the cup of her brassiere, until he was holding her

breast, her swollen nipple searing a spot on the palm of his hand.

"Oh, Mary Lou," he moaned, as he bent to kiss her throat and neck.

In his passion, he shoved his hand further down her dress, and her

straps slipped off her shoulder, exposing her to the night air as he

rubbed and pinched her.

Mary Lou couldn't believe how good it felt to have Harold do this to

her. She was very hot, nearly sweating, and there was definitely a

lot of moisture all of a sudden in her underpants. Almost

subconsciously, she pressed on Harold's head as she played with his

hair, willing him to kiss her lower than her throat.

He took the hint, and worked his way down her body, covering her

bare skin with kisses and nibbles. His lips followed the natural

curve of her, taking in the way her tissues softened and spread as he

nibbled his way to her cleavage and the small mound of her young
breast. They found the bumpier skin of the areola and instinctively

latched onto the swollen nub of her tender nipple.

He sucked on her, all the while holding the weight of her breast in

the palm of his hand. She looked down on him in love, wondering at

the feelings running through her. She knew she would never ever

forget this moment...



...and she hasn't. Even when Harold managed to roll her over and

insinuate his knee between her legs, her skirt riding up as his hands

scambled to find the elastic of her panties, she could recall that

first, tender touch of his lips on her flesh.

Later, after Harold finished and rolled off her, she lay there on

the tangled bed, allowing herself to be lulled into a dreamlike state

by the gentle rocking of the big ship as it headed out to open

water...



...to awaken to the cruel reality of the present. The lazy roll of

the cruise ship shifted to the lolling of her head as she opened her

eyes, seeing her loving husband bent over her, struggling to lift her

out of her chair and into their queen-sized bed. Even at under 90

pounds, she was a burden nearly overwhelming for Harold. She

grimaced, knowing she no longer had the physical strength to assist

him, miserable that she had come to this helpless state.

Finally, though, he was able to hoist her into bed. Her useless leg

caught on the back of the chair, and it hit the side of the bed and

rolled away as he pulled her up to set her on the pillow. He was

breathing hard, and his face was red from the exertion. He started

wheezing, and then the coughing began. He collapsed down onto the

bed beside her as his spasms abated. He fished his handkerchief out

of his pants pocket and wiped his eyes. He was breathing hard now,

waiting for his heart rate to slow down. He could feel the small

weight of his wife next to him, a feeble heat from the other side of

the bed as he lay there, catching his breath. Unbidden, his mind

cast back into the depths of memory to recapture another moment...



...Mary Lou was always a thin girl, he thought to himself as he lay

in bed on that Sunday morning. He was propped up on one elbow,

looking at his sleeping wife. His pregnant sleeping wife. Seven

months along with their second child, and she had gained nearly 40

pounds. He had never seen her so...round. His gaze took in the way

the covers mounded over her as she lay there. Her swollen belly, the

curve of her hip, were hinted at by the way the blanket covered her.

His eyes kept on returning, though, to her breasts. This second

pregnancy really made them get big, he thought to himself. He

reached over and gently touched one of her swollen boobs.

Mary Lou opened her eyes when she felt his touch. She smiled.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked playfully.

"I'm just checking out the new you," he replied.

She slapped his hand away and struggled to get out of bed. "You are

incorrigible," she complained good-naturedly. She stepped toward the

bedroom door, and turned back. With a gleam in her eye, she said,

"Hold that thought." She slipped through the door and tiptoed down

the hall to the bathroom.

When she returned, she slid back into their queen-sized bed next to

him. She smelled of toothpaste.

"Randall's still asleep," she whispered as she shimmied up next to

him and wrapped her arms around him.

Harold couldn't resist playing with her new, larger boobs. He slid

his hands under her nightie to hold them both, taking care to be as

gentle as he could. He knew they must be very sensitive. He lifted

up her nightie and nuzzled her swollen tips with his lips. He heard

her moan in appreciation, and felt her reach down and snake her hand

through the gap in his boxers. The sudden sensation of feeling her

warm hand on his swelling cock reminded him of the first time he was

able to convince her to touch him...

"...right there," he whispered feverishly. He was holding Mary

Lou's hand against the hardness of his dick, hoping that she wouldn't

panic like the last time. He bent to kiss her swollen nipple again.

Now that he knew how sensitive they were, he figured that keeping her

heated up through her boob was the best way to keep her from taking

her hand away from him. As he nibbled on her distended nub, he felt

her fingers flex against him, timidly exploring. He moved his hand

up to rub her other breast, reasonably confident now that she would

continue to use her hand on him. His hips involuntarily hunched up

against her fingers, creating a delicious friction through his cotton

trousers. He could feel his swollen head trying to punch its way up

out of the top of his pants.

He loved feeling the weight of her breasts in the palm of his hand.

Ever since she first allowed him to touch her there, just a few weeks

ago, he had fallen more and more in love with her. And now, it

seemed as if she was willing to touch his organ, cementing their

feelings for each other. Was 15 years old too early to consider

marriage?

Almost without volition, he whispered, "Oh, Mary Lou, I love you!"

He was rewarded with an almost frantic squeezing of his hard cock.

She moaned, and held his head closer to her breasts as she answered

softly, "I love you, too."

He abandoned holding her breast for a moment, so he could loosen the

fly of his trousers. Mary Lou, having done the laundry for her

family for years now, understood the functions of boxer shorts, and

with only a slight hesitation managed to work her fingers through the

seam of his underwear, and touched a boy's actual erect penis for the

first time. Harold grunted, immediately losing control, and

spurted...

...his seed as he stroked into her, mindful of the treasure she

carried inside her swollen belly. He sighed in satisfaction,

extracted his shrinking member and climbed over her bent knees to lie

next to her, draping his arm across her and idly fondling her breast.

Mary Lou lifted his arm off her and slid out of bed. She stood and

put her warm fuzzy robe on, clutching it closed around her.

"I think I hear Randall," she said. "I'll be right back."

He closed his eyes in post-coital laziness. A few minutes later, he

felt her presence again as she lay back down. He could feel her body

heat against his back as he lay there...



...and he wondered how they could get along, with her condition

deteriorating as it had. Her first stroke, 18 months ago, had put

her in the wheelchair. Another small stroke 6 months ago took away

her ability to speak. Her limited mobility and communication was

worsened by her arthritis. She couldn't even grab anything to help

him move her around. Their oldest son, Randall, had arranged to have

safety bars installed in their bathroom, but if her hands didn't

work, what good were they? Randall was 1,000 miles away, with his

own family to worry about. Their second son, Joseph, was not close

to them, and was no help. So it was up to Harold to care for Mary

Lou. He was willing to do it. After all, she meant everything to

him. Willingness, however, did not always translate into

effectiveness. Harold was 85 years old, too, overweight and with a

heart condition, besides. There was only so much he could

accomplish, under the circumstances.

It had been three weeks since he had the strength to get Mary Lou in

and out of the bathtub. It was five days since he had the strength

to even take a shower himself. How did we come to such a pass?

Harold thought to himself. We were doing so well together. When did

we get so old? There was a time when I didn't think I would make it

to 30...



...Harold ducked his head down as the mortar flew overhead. He was

at the bottom of a muddy trench, somewhere in northern France. A few

hundred yards away, there was another trench, this one with German

soldiers in it. I hope they're as cold and wet and miserable as I

am, he thought for perhaps the thousandth time.

"Hey, Lenny!" he shouted. His radio operator was only about fifteen

feet away, but the noise made it impossible to talk in normal tones.

"Lenny! What date is it today?"

Lenny looked up from trying to get his radio working and looked at

Harold as if he was crazy.

"I dunno. Tuesday?"

"Not the day. The date. What's the date today?"

"Aw, fer chrissakes, Harry, I don't know. May something. Maybe the

14th? Why? What does it matter?"

"You're right," muttered Harold, but Lenny wasn't listening, or even

paying any attention to him anymore. "It doesn't really matter. I

can't be with Mary Lou for our anniversary, anyway."

I'll count myself very lucky if I even make it out of France alive,

he thought. He unconsciously reached into an inside pocket, feeling

for the last letter he got from his wife. She had included a picture
of herself with the letter, taken by her dad in the back yard. She

was wearing a printed floral sundress with a big, wide-brimmed staw

hat, standing with her hands on her hips. On the back of the photo,

she had written "Easter, 1943. Hurry home soon!" in her flowing

handwriting. Her dark hair was fluffed and curled, resting on her

shoulders like Rita Hayworth's, and Harold thought she was the

loveliest creature he had ever laid eyes on, Rita Hayworth included.

If I only get out of here alive, he promised himself, I will kneel

down at her feet and tell her over and over again that I love her and

will never ever leave her again.

Eventually, of course, he did get out of there alive. And, on the

troop transport back across the Atlantic, the sawbones on board gave

him 100,000 units of penicillin to cure the "gift" he got from that

cute little French girl in Orleans. He wasn't quite sure how he was

going to tell Mary Lou about that...

...but Mary Lou had war stories of her own she was not looking

forward to relating to Harold when he got home. She held his letter

in her hands as she sat on the porch swing and fretted. Should she

tell him? Should she just try to forget about it? She was in agony,

trying to make a decision that could affect the rest of her life. If

she told Harold about her foreman at the telephone company, he was

likely to go looking for him before he even unpacked.

She shuddered at the memory of Mr. Holdman's grimy office, being

called back there for her "performance evaluation". Yeah, right.

She found out, too late, what sort of "performance" he wanted to

evaluate. During shift change, when she would least likely be

missed, what with girls going in and out of the exchange building,

Mary Lou found herself on her knees, her blouse undone and her bra

shoved down and out of the way, with Mr. Holdman's dick in her mouth

and his hands on her tits.

She could only be glad of two things over the whole sordid mess: she

managed to keep her job, and she didn't give Holdman the additional

satisfaction of seeing her swallow his load. Instead, after he had

erupted into her mouth, she grimaced, turned her head aside, and spit

it all out on the floor next to his desk. As she straightened her

ripped nylons and rearranged her clothes, she wondered how many other

of the girls who worked in her department were trying to get the

taste of their boss out of their mouths...



...She was awake now, looking at him. She had a look in her eyes

that he had noticed before. She was trying to tell him something,

something he didn't want to recognize. It was a look he had seen

many times before during the past couple of months.

Their doctor was an idiot, thought Harold. Damn Medicare, and damn

the VA hospital, and damn every goddamn HMO that ever was spawned for

forcing us into this unspeakable situation. My Mary Lou a crippled

shadow of the woman I've known, me with a heart condition and

diabetes that will probably kill me even slower than the strokes are

killing my wife, and I don't have the strength to care for myself,

much less give Mary Lou the help she needs.

"Go to sleep, Louie," he said softly, tenderly, as he gently

caressed her shoulder. A tear slipped down her seamed cheek as she

looked imploringly at Harold. He stared back at her, unwilling to

acknowledge her unspoken request. He finally tore his gaze away,

feeling slightly ashamed. He looked back at her, but she had closed

her eyes. Before long, he could tell she was drifting off into the

only place she had left to go where she was once again whole and

young and pain-free. Harold rolled over and scrunched his pillow

into a ball beneath his head. But this night, sleep was eluding him.

He couldn't find a comfortable position. He got cold, so he slipped

under the blanket. Then he got too warm, and threw the covers off.

His pillowcase was damp, so he turned his pillow over, punching it to

fluff it back up. Even that small exertion caused some shortness of

breath, so he had to spend the next several minutes trying to force

more oxygen into his system, which elevated his heart rate, heating

him up and making him sweat again. When the sweat dried, he would

get chilled, crawl beneath the covers, and the cycle would start

again.

Around dawn he managed to fall into a light, troubled sleep, until

the light coming in through the broken blinds hit the bed. Streaks

of red and yellow against his closed eyelids colored his jumbled

dreams...



...of the bouquets of roses on the head table in the VFW hall.

Harold watched as his best friend, Albert, raised his glass of pale

champagne. Harold glanced at his bride, his arm draped around her

shoulder, and Mary Lou smiled at him, the brightest, happiest smile

he had ever seen.

Albert tapped his knife against the glass, until the ringing halted

the buzz of conversation coming from the wedding guests.

"Quiet, please. If I may just say a few words. Thank you."

Finally, the room quieted, and everyone turned to hear what the best

man had to say.

"I don't know how many of the guests here know the story of how we

all met," Albert continued. "I actually was one of the later

arrivals to this rag-tag group of guys and gals." He waved his arm

to indicate the wedding party seated at the head table. "I didn't

meet Harold or Mary Lou until the third grade, and by then they had

already developed quite an active dislike for each other, it seemed

to me at the time. Harold was constantly picking on Mary Lou during

recess, and it bothered me so much that by the second week of school,

I had decided that I needed to save this pretty little girl from her

tormenter. So one day, when Harold was being his usual obnoxious

self..." Albert ducked out of the way of a dinner roll headed for

him, courtesy of a grinning Harold. "As I was saying, Harold was

being his usual obnoxious self, and I stepped in to save Mary Lou.

Mary Lou, bless her heart, practically knocked my block off for

interfering. She knew, even back then, that Harold was participating

in an early courtship ritual, even if Harold and I didn't realize it.

"And today," he continued, now looking at the couple, "we see the

culmination of that courtship ritual. Congratulations to both of

you, Harold and Mary Lou. May the joys of the day carry through for

the rest of your lives."

Later that night, when they were finally alone in the small hotel

room, the nervousness of their first night as husband and wife was

setting in on both of them. Mary Lou retreated to the tiny bathroom

to ready herself, and Harold undressed next to the closet.

When they had opened the door and looked in, the bed looked like it

was huge in the room, and their focus automatically went to it. They

had been going together for such a long time, and had done their

share of fooling around, but they were entering this marriage as

virgins together. The enormity of the day was suddenly upon them.

Harold stripped down to his boxers, turned out the light by the door

and switched on the table lamp on the bedstand, and jumped between

the sheets to await his bride.

Finally, the bathroom door opened, and Mary Lou stepped nervously

out. The vision took Harold's breath away. She was wearing a filmy,

frilly nightie that somehow both hid and accentuated her curves. The

light from behind her turned the material almost transparent, her

body a darker shadow within. She put a hand to her throat, and

glided to her side of the bed as Harold, as if awaking from a dream,

pulled the covers back for her, holding his arms open as she melted

into him.

They were both anxious, much too anxious to be any good for each

other this night, but it didn't really matter. After some

preliminary kissing and fumbling, it was obvious that they were both

ready. Mary Lou encouraged him to roll over and cover her, holding

him and guiding him into her for the first time. She cried out in

pain, in joy, as he pierced her maidenhead, and they became, at that

moment, truly husband and wife.

Later, they lay together, arms and legs entwined, naked and sweaty

atop the covers. Harold looked into the face of the only girl he had

ever loved, searching for confirmation that this was, indeed, real.

She gazed back at him, eyes shining, unshed tears of happiness making

her eyes sparkle in the dim light...

...of mid-morning. He hated to see her crying like this, unable to

communicate to him what was wrong. The tears were starting to

trickle down her cheeks now, and that look was back in her eyes.

"No, Lou. I can't." He turned away, so that he couldn't see the

disappointment on her face.

He got up and made his way to the bathroom. He ran his fingers

across his bald head as he looked in the mirror, looking into the

mirror to see what knowledge was in his own eyes.

He came back to the bedroom and wheeled the chair over next to the

bed.

"Come on, girl. Time to get up," he said. He bent down and grabbed

Mary Lou under her arms and tried to pick her up, when he felt

something give in his back. In pain, he dropped her, falling to his

knees beside the bed. His chin hit the edge of the bed as he fell,

and he bit his tongue hard enough to bleed.

"Ah, damn," he muttered. He tried to pull himself up, struggling to

his feet. He couldn't straighten up. He shuffled around the bed and

crawled onto his side, curling up into a less painful position. Mary

Lou struggled to turn over so she could see him. There was so much

she wanted to tell him, how much she loved him, and how he made all

her dreams come true, even when they were little kids. As she looked

at him, the tears started once again.

He knew what that look was conveying, and he was so tired, and

frustrated, and sick, and, damn it all, so old, that he knew he had

to follow through with the promise he had made her so many years ago,

in the church that no longer existed, in front of so many friends and

relatives now gone: to love, to honor, to obey, on and on, to the end

of their days.

To love. To honor. To obey. Slowly, reluctantly, he reached for

the pillow.

The last expression that he saw on Mary Lou's face was a mixture of

love and thanks, relief and forgiveness.