I cleared my throat. “So...am I buying two tickets, or one?”

“Can we even afford to travel again?”

“Well, I mean, yeah, it’ll be cheaper if I go alone, but we’re a team, Fan—I want you with me.”

“What I meant was...should either of us go at all.”

I swiveled around again and stared at her. Maybe she didn’t understand how serious this was.

“Fannie,” I said quietly, “she sent me a suicide letter.”

“But...you were able to call her, and she was fine.”

“She was not fine. She was karking plastered. And I take this stuff seriously, Fan. Having gone through what I have, having gone through what me and Amalia have, I take this stuff seriously. Why do you think I called the cops on you even though I knew you probably weren’t gonna follow through?”

“Why don’t you just call the police on her like you did to me?” Fannie asked adjectively, looking at me hard.

I say “adjectively” because she definitely said it some type of way—I just didn’t know what that way was. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. Her face just looked...flat.

I knew what to do with angry. I knew what to do with sad. I didn’t know what to do with flat.

“Well...I...don’t think she’s in immediate danger,” I said. “It’s not like what you did, when you...friggin’...jumped out the window with a working lightsaber, and told me you were gonna blah blah blah. She needs support, not involuntary confinement.”

“Yet you thought I needed involuntary confinement,” Fannie said, without breaking eye contact.

The back of my neck prickled. I felt like I was losing at a board game I didn’t understand.

“Look, Fan, I...I’m sorry I put you in the hospital, and I’m sorry it was hard for you,” I said. “But...that...doesn’t have anything to do with this. Listen, am I buying one ticket or two?”

“So...you mean you’re going no matter what. Even if I don’t go with you.”

“Yeah, I’m going no matter what.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Well, I...I don’t know yet, Fan. Until she seems stable.”

“So…you’re just going to leave? Indefinitely...?” Fannie asked, and finally there was an emotion I could decipher, and it was hurt.

I blinked, perplexed.

“Fannie...you’re the one who’s leaving me to take this trip alone. I told you I wanted you to come with me, but you seem like you’re planning to stay here.”

“You decided this today.”

“Amalia drunk-texted me a suicide note today. I told you, Fan, it’s not as if I’m making this trip for fun. Don’t you have any compassion for her? An ounce of empathy? Don’t you care even a little bit?” I asked.

“Oh, dear...you’re quite right...how could I be so foolish and blind to the suffering of another? Yes, Ben; this is important, and we should go and help her, no matter the cost. Together.”

...is what I would have thought Fannie would say.

And I thought I knew her pretty well.

But instead Fannie said nothing, and slowly sank down on the bed with her hands in her lap.

I frowned and opened my mouth a little and shook my head.

“...Fan…”

Slowly, she lifted her face.

“Ben...” she said quietly, “I’ve had to learn recently to set boundaries with the people in my life. I can’t be everyone’s hero. I can’t save everyone. I’ve had to learn that—I’m still learning it. With Bunnie, and Pennie, and my sisters...and my mother... Believe me, dear, I feel sorry for Amalia, truly I do, but she’s...well...I…I just don’t feel that she and I have a connection anymore.”

Her words hit me like a weight to my chest, and hearing them hurt.

It hurt me. But it also hurt because I knew it would hurt Amalia to hear it.

“Fannie…I’m the connection,” I said roughly. “I...I can’t believe that I should have to be the connection between you two, when you literally grew up together and I’m just the rando who visited your school once, but—I’m the connection. She’s supported me through a lot of tough times. She stood next to me at our wedding. She’s someone I care a lot about. And if you really care about me, then you oughta care about her, too.”

“I married you, Ben, not her.”

“Fannie, we’ve married into each other’s families. Your sisters are my sisters now. My mother is your mother. Amalia is part of my family, so by extension now she’s part of yours.”

“But she’s not part of your family.”

“Family isn’t only blood, Fan. I mean—Rey’s adopted, for gosh sakes’, and you seem to understand the concept of her being my sister just fine.”

“Ben, please—I just don’t think Amalia needs you to board a ship and cross star systems just to be with her. If she truly was able to find everything in the Following that she could not find with the Jedi—if it all truly is as real to her as she says it is—then she should have more than enough people to support her there.”

I stared at her.

“...So this is about that, then,” I said quietly. “You’re still mad at her for switching religions.”

“That’s not true,” Fannie protested. “I just recall her saying that she’s gotten along so much better with her new community than she ever did with any of us, and if that were so, then she should have friends there who can help her.”

“Right. Just like how you have lots of the Jedi you’re still close with,” I said, glaring at her.

Fannie’s face grew ashen.

“Man…what is with you?” I asked her, softly but harshly. “We...we visited her for the funeral a year ago. Both of us. And you were more than happy to support her then. We weren’t even together then, you and me, but we both went.”

“Well, that was before...” Fannie trailed off.

“Before what?” I demanded.

“B-before everything else happened.”

“What everything else? What does that have to do with Amalia?”

“Just everything else—and—and it doesn’t have to do with Amalia; it has to do with me.” She bit her lip. “My heart is tired, Ben. My heart is tired.”

“So why does your failure to care mean that I can’t go?”

Fannie winced. “B-because I don’t think you and I should be apart.”

“Well—neither do I,” I said. “You just don’t want me to go see her.”

“I don’t think you need to see her,” she said softly, beginning to knit with imaginary needles in her lap.

I looked at her for a second.

“Fannie,” I said quietly, “Wife or not, you don’t get to tell me who I’m allowed to be friends with. Nobody gets to decide that but me.”

“I-I never said you couldn’t be friends with her.”

“Well—if I don’t get my butt on the next flight to Coruscant, I’m not her friend.” I turned back to my computer and clicked out of the “are you still there” window. “I’m buying my ticket now.”

Fannie got quiet as I put in my credit information, and I let go of a heavy sigh. If I couldn’t get her to come with me, I could at least be relieved she’d quit fighting me about it.

…But she hadn’t quit.

In fact, she was winding up for her next punch.

And here it was:

“...Isn’t this sort of like what happened with you and Pennie?” she asked quietly from where she sat on the bed.

I jolted upright.

“When you…dropped everything and rushed to Ryloth,” she continued, “because you felt she needed your help…?”

My blood ran cold.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I stared blankly at the computer screen, my vision blurring and my head getting loud. I began to hear my heart pumping in my ears. My fingers began to shake on the keyboard.

Don’t get mad. Don’t get mad. Don’t get mad.

I took a couple of deep breaths and slowly turned in the chair to face her. I could feel that my face was all hot. I blinked and swallowed and tried to look at her.

“F-Fannie...” I said slowly, trying to control my voice, “if...if you think I’m going to wind up having sex with Amalia... Please. Just say that to my face.”

“I didn’t say that,” Fannie said, looking a little surprised...but, also, a little not.

Which didn’t surprise me. She knew what she’d said.

She knew exactly what she’d said.

“But...it’s what you meant,” I pressed. “Right?”

“N-not...necessarily…”

Which wasn’t a no.

“Fannie,” I stammered. “J-just…pause. Pause for a second. We...we know the same Amalia, right? Seven feet tall, biceps out to here, drives a crappy repulsortruck with a ‘who defines sentience’ bumper sticker, wore a tux to my wedding, lives in cargo shorts, alto voice like a female Hutt, sits with her knees pointed out, beats everyone at hoopball, hangs her keys and a pocketknife and a braid of duracord on her belt with a bunch of carabiners—that’s the Amalia you’re thinking of, too, right?”

“What does any of that have to do with anything?”

“I-I’m just sayin’,” I choked out. “Just trying to make sure you and I are on the same page. That’s the Amalia you’re afraid of me cheating on you with, right? We don’t know any other Amalias, do we? That Amalia?”

“Oh my goodness, Ben...now that you mention it...yes, I see exactly what you mean, and I realize how ridiculous I am for having such a delusional paranoia!”

...is what I thought Fannie would say.

But instead she said nothing. Just stared at me.

“Fannie,” I said, nearly laughing, but not because any of it was funny. “C’mon. Look me in the eyes and tell me you think anything would ever happen between me and Amalia.”

Fannie was silent.

Which, at first, seemed like a good thing.

…But it wasn’t.

Because at last she said, softly and slowly and looking down at her toes:

“Well…I…I never would have imagined anything happening between you and Pennie. Not until it did.”

And there it was.

My stomach plummeted and my gut twisted up and everything inside me got hot, hot, hot. I genuinely could not see out of my eyes for a moment. I flexed my hands mechanically, trying to ease off some of that extra energy, trying to breathe slowly through my nose. She had asked me to be nicer to her when we fought, and I was trying.

But I couldn’t be nice. I knew I couldn’t. Not after this.

“This conversation is over,” I whispered hoarsely. “She needs me, and I’m leaving tonight.” I hit “purchase” on the screen and sat back in my chair, trying to catch my breath, as if I’d just detonated a bomb remotely—which, perhaps, I had. I slid my sweaty palms down my face.

“I need you too, Ben.”

“She needs me more,” I said through my hands. “I’m sorry.”

“But I…I’m your wife. I…I think I should be…more important to you than she is,” Fannie said, trembling—and I would have called that statement horrifically arrogant, if not for the very palpable sense of panic that rippled beneath her tone.

“Well…y-you’re…you’re not,” I told her honestly, still covering my face.

“I—I’m not?” she whispered.

Man, this just kept getting worse.

“No,” I said, bringing my hands down to look at her. “I told you, Fan. Us being married is just a different category of relationship. Not a more important one. You already get to have so much more of me than anyone else gets to have—I don’t see why you have to try and keep all of me to yourself.”

Fannie’s eyes shone with fear. “Ben, please…y-you have to understand…the family that I come from…m-my father…my mother is still his wife, and has always been, but he doesn’t…it’s as if…she’s never been…she’s not…anything to him…please…I need to know that I’m…that I’ll always be…the only…that you’re not going to…not going to…that I won’t end up like…”

“Fannie—stop,” I whispered. “Just…stop. I can’t…I can’t deal with you comparing me to your slutty dad just because I’m trying to stop my best friend from killing herself right now.”

“I…Ben…that’s not…”

“Stop. Please.”

She stopped. Obediently, you might say—which made me feel some kind of negative emotion that I cannot describe, but cast a deep, dark pall of even-worseness over the whole thing.

Since I wasn’t letting myself get angry, my emotions started leaking out of my eyes. I swore under my breath and blinked hard and wiped my face.

Fannie saw, and began to tear up, too. She’s always been an empathetic crier.

...Which was part of what made it so, so painful to me that she didn’t seem to feel anything for Amalia.

“…W-when will you be back, Ben?” she asked finally.

“I—I told you, Fan. I don’t know.”

“So...we’re...just going to be separated, then, until who knows when?” she asked, her eyes glassy, large, and wet, in a way that stirred up memories of her youngest sister. “But...we...we just got married. That doesn’t seem right.”

Fannie blushed, even though we were alone in my (well, our) room, and I laughed and pulled at the elastic lace to slingshot the panties at her. “Gee, Fan, you oughta see the look on your face.”

“Well—you should have seen the look on yours when I put them on,” she retorted, bending over to pick them up from the ground where they’d fallen. “I’ve never seen your eyes so wide.”

My ears got a little hot. I reached over and smacked her butt, causing her to give a little yelp. “Hey. Quit teasing.”

“You started it,” she said primly, swatting my hand away.

“Well, you retaliated,” I said, turning back around—which was a mistake, because as soon as I had, she got me back.

“Ah—Fan!”

“The Force always restores balance,” she said with a playful smile, picking up one of her robes from the pile. “Always.”

“Yeah, yeah—whatever,” I said, turning to face her and thereby removing access to her target. “Back to what we were saying.” I grabbed one of my shirts from the bed and shook it out. “Well—do you like the idea of those jobs?”

“Um...” Fannie hesitated, smoothing out her robes on the bed before folding the sleeves neatly inward.

“So...that’s a no.”

“It’s not a no,” she said, continuing to fold. “It’s just...different from what I envisioned myself doing. The work I did with Numa’taan was noble, and fulfilling, and exciting. When I quit, it was only because I thought I was called to...well...something even more significant.” She trailed off as she stared down at her folded robes, and I felt her energy shift, becoming heavy and sad.

I frowned, putting my shirt back down, and came over to her. I rubbed my hand over her back and planted a kiss on her forehead, and she turned and buried her face in my chest. I clasped her to me and rocked her back and forth.

Fannie didn’t talk about Bunnie much anymore. But...she definitely thought about her. I could tell.

...Thought about her all the time.

Finally Fannie sniffled and withdrew from me, patting her face with her sleeve, and I snatched one of her hankies from the pile of clean laundry and handed it to her. I thought about making a joke about how she was using sleeves as tissues now (something she always got on my case for doing), but for once in my life I read the vibe and held my tongue.

“I know, baby, I know,” I whispered instead.

She took the hanky and dotted it to her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t you ever be sorry.”

“Wh-what I was saying was...” She blew her nose into the hanky, and folded it up. “I just feel as though I wouldn’t be fulfilling my purpose, waiting on tables or changing bedsheets. Of course I know someone has to do those things, and I do believe there is honor and dignity in all work. But...it’s just not what I pictured myself doing, and...it’s hard to come to terms with it, I suppose.”

“Oh, I hear ya, honey. You are lecturing the faculty with this one.”

“I’m...what?”

“Oh—sorry—it’s just a saying. It means you’re talking about something to somebody who knows all about it. Although, ha—now that I think of it, it’s not totally accurate, ‘cause some of the professors I had back in college—man, I don’t even know why they were there besides tenure—”

“Ben. Focus.”

“Oh. Sorry. Uh...what were we talking about?”

“I said it was difficult to think about doing work that’s so different from what I imagined...”

“Right, right.” I balled up a pair of socks and set them down. “...Yeah. That was how I felt when I quit my job at the news publication. I mean—I studied journalism. Studied writing. Paid a lotta credits—well, my parents did—and did a lotta coursework—well, most of it...and at the end of it all, it’s almost as if I didn’t. Still got stuck working with my mom, which...wasn’t a bad job, really, except for it being with my mom—but it wasn’t what I’d wanted to do. And now I’m in the same boat as you. Pretty soon I’ll be flippin’ bantha burgers or something—if that.”

“Your time at school wasn’t all fruitless,” Fannie said encouragingly. “You’d never have met Treeso if you hadn’t gone.”

“Well, that’s true. But Treese and I never talk anymore, so...”

“Ben, you never talk because you never talk to him. You’re the one who keeps saying you need to comm him back.” She reached across to take a pair of bloomers, which was probably made of ten times more fabric than the underwear I’d launched at her. “You should reply to him today. After the laundry.”

I sighed. “Ugh. Hate being married. Now I’ve got someone on my back who actually makes sense.”

“I’m going to remind you, dear. As soon as we’re done folding.”

“Okay, okay.”

Fannie didn’t reply, but continued folding her clothes, and then I thought maybe I’d been a little snotty. My knee-jerk reaction to her acting as my secretary was usually irritation, but...that was mainly because of my relationship with my mom, and how she was always telling me what I should do—and taking care of me wasn’t really my mom’s job anymore.

But...it was Fannie’s. So...maybe I couldn’t fault her for it.

I stared at the wall for a second, then turned to my wife.

“Hey,” I said, bringing my face close to hers so that she turned, then bopped forward to give her a kiss on the mouth.

“Ow,” she said. “Your nose is poky.”

“Sorry.” I adjusted the angle of my approach and kissed her again. “There. Just...thanks for always helpin’ me out, Fan. Appreciate you. Really. And...that’s just it, ya know? Whatever job you wind up doing, I know that everyone else there is gonna find you so, so helpful. You always care about everything you do. You’re attentive, you’re empathetic, you always give it your all. A lotta these jobs have people just phoning it in, ‘cause they don’t care; they’re just tryna get a paycheck—well, actually, all jobs have people like that—but you care, Fan, you always have—you care about every little kriffi—sorry, karking thing you do. I’ve never worked food service or housekeeping or anything like that, but I can only imagine the people you work with make a huge difference, and I really think you’d be that huge difference to a lotta people. I mean—look at what we’re doing now. Folding laundry is the bane of my existence. But now I get to do it with you...and because of that, it ain’t so bad.”

Fannie smiled and scratched under my chin a little. “Thank you, Ben. That’s very encouraging. And...I feel the same way about you, too. I think you’re very hardworking. And that you’re a great deal of fun to be around.”

I laughed. “Aw, Fannie, don’t lie.”

“I’m not!”

I pointed a finger. “You’ve never had to work with me.”

“I work together with you every day, don’t I?”

“And I annoy you all the time.” I smirked and booped her nose. “You’re just blinded by my sexiness.”

“No...that can’t be.” She gave me a little smile. “You haven’t got enough to blind me with.”

I squinched my nose at her. “Hey.”

“Got you,” she laughed, her eyes twinkling.

I grinned and looked at her for a moment...before suddenly pouncing at her and wresting her onto the bed, sentencing her to death by a thousand tickles.

“Ben!” she cried, trying vainly to push my hands away. “Stop it! Stop it!”

“Fun to work with, am I?” I laughed. “Ya still think so?”

“Ben! Ben! Be—”

She laughed and she coughed, and then suddenly my hands were stuck in the air and I couldn’t move. I looked slowly from my right hand to my left.

“Using the Force,” I remarked wryly. “Now that’s cheating.”

“It’s self-defense,” she giggled, trying to catch her breath as she looked up at me from the bed, her face flushed. “Now...if I let you go, will you behave?”

“Hmm...maybe.”

She released my hands, and I caught myself before I collapsed down on top of her, my arms framing her body. I chuckled and grinned at her, still breathing a little heavier than normal, then leaned down to brush my nose against hers affectionately.

She smiled, and looked at me.

And looked at me.

And looked at me.

...And then I heard the door slide shut.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” I said, quickly getting up off of her and grabbing a lone sock near her head. “Not now, not now, not now. Laundry, Fan. We gotta finish folding the laundry.”

“Oh, surely the laundry can wait a little while.”

“Everyone’s home. Everyone’s awake. Not now.”

“Ben—”

“I said not now,” I repeated harshly, looking at her with—

...Well, I don’t know what expression I had on my face, exactly. But whatever it was, it took the smile off of hers.

We kinda stared at each other for a bit. Finally, she sat up on the bed and nested her hands in her lap, and I found my matching sock and balled the pair up together. I subsequently got through a pair of pants, and a pair of shorts, and three shirts, and five pairs of underwear, and I even folded up a fitted sheet, which is probably the most laundry I’ve ever folded in a three-minute timespan.

I was trying to think of something I could say to change the subject, when Fannie spoke again.

“...Why did you talk about me being a cute waitress?” she asked. “And show me the underthings you’d bought, and...hit me on my bottom, and call yourself sexy, and throw me down on the bed?”

“To try to be annoying,” I said immediately, and watched her face fall—which made me feel bad, and then a little annoyed myself. “Look...I was only trying to mess around. I didn’t mean anything by it. What, we can’t have a little fun?”

“Apparently we can’t,” she muttered.

I bristled and looked at her. “...Okay. Geez. If you’re gonna be like that.”

“I’m sorry—I’m not trying to be like anything—I just—don’t understand why you’re such a flirt sometimes if you—”

“Oh—so you don’t want me to flirt with you?” I snapped. “Fine, I won’t. I won’t flirt with you anymore. I’ll treat you like my sister, if that’s what you want.”

Fannie sighed. “Ben...no...let’s not fight about this again...”

“Hey, you’re the one who started it,” I said. “I start all our funny fights where we’re just goofing around, but you start all the ones about this. I was just trying to have some fun with you, and now you’re turning it into a whole big thing.”

Fannie dropped her head into her hands. “Ben...please...it’s just that...well, we’re finally able to again, and...”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” I asked, starting to get a) sort of defensive, and b) very gesture-y with my hands. “Not mine! I’m not the one who decided that. You decided that. So quit blaming me for the rules you made up!”

“For goodness’ sake, Ben, I’m only trying to talk to you! I know you don’t intend it, but you have to understand that when you do these things—”

“Look, sister, if I wanna have sex, you will hear these three magic words come out of my mouth: ‘Hey, Fan! Let’s have sex!’ Well, okay, I guess that’s five—but I will say that with my mouth, Fannie—with my mouth—so if you don’t hear me say it—”

“Ben, please! I’m just trying to explain my feelings to you—”

“Yeah, I know what your goshdang feelings are. How could I not—we’ve had this stupid conversation like five hundred times. Why does this keep happening? Why do you keep doing this? I like you, Fan, I love you, I had fun yesterday when we did it, but you have to freaking respect me and whether I want to or not and I don’t always want to and especially not when all my family’s home, closed door be damned, so—so can you just stop. Please.” I dropped a folded towel on the bed from chest height and let it land with a heavy thwump.

Fannie stared at me quietly.

“...Closed-door-be-darned,” I muttered in one breath. “Sorry.”

She didn’t talk for a second. The towel had gotten a little messed up when I’d dropped it, so I sighed and went to fix it.

“...Thank you for sharing your feelings, Ben,” Fannie said at last. “I...I hear you.” She paused. “Is it...all right if I tell you how I feel, now? Even if we have talked about it a lot...I think we’re not done talking about it, since this keeps coming up.”

“Fine. Sure,” I huffed. “Why the heeel...ck not.”

“Can you sit down with me?”

“Okay.” I turned around and plopped down hard on the bed, and both of us bounced a little on the mattress.

“Can you hold my hand?”

I flopped my hand out toward her. She took it.

She was quiet for a long time, but at last she spoke.

“...I...know it’s not the same for you, darling,” she said softly. “But...part of how I experience my love for you, dear, is...is in my body. I feel it in my body, Ben. I’m not just trying to take something from you, or...use you, or anything like that. When I feel my love for you, I feel it deep in my stomach, and I start thinking about how marvelous you are, and I want you close to me. I want you. Because you’re wonderful to me. Do you...understand?”

“You don’t have to explain sexual attraction to me,” I mumbled. “I know what it feels like. I do feel it sometimes. Just...nowhere near as often as you do, apparently.”

“But...” She cleared her throat and gave my hand a little squeeze. “...You do understand, don’t you, that when I feel aroused by you...it’s because I love you? Because...it almost seems like...whenever I am, and you’re not in the mood...”

She paused, choosing her words, then gave a nervous little laugh.

“...you act as though I’m trying to eat you.”

I whipped my head up to look at her, and Fannie smiled. It was a funny, sad little smile.

I made a face and rolled my head up toward the ceiling. I hadn’t really thought about why I got so defensive whenever it came up. All I knew was she seemed to want to do it whenever we could, and I didn’t, and it didn’t feel good. It felt sort of scary, to be honest.

…Maybe it did feel a little like she wanted to eat me.

“...You don’t want to eat me?” I asked, a little stupidly.

Fannie giggled softly. “No, Ben, I don’t want to eat you.”

“Okay,” I sighed, and squeezed her hand and bounced it a little. “...Okay.”

“But...can I tell you something, dear?”

“Y...yeah?”

She squeezed my hand back. “You...you need to be nicer to me, Ben. Please. When we fight. Of course we’ll fight, sometimes—that’s just what happens. But...I need you to be nice to me, love, and not just...start swinging punches.”

“But I didn’t punch anything this time. I’ve been trying to do better about that.”

“I mean: I need you to be less defensive and less angry when we have conflict, dear. The way you spoke to me a few minutes ago was hurtful.”

“Oh.”

She rubbed her thumb over my hand, then ran her fingers over and around my wedding band. I looked down and watched her do it.

“...I don’t want to hurt you, Ben,” she said softly. “I’m not trying to hurt you. So...you don’t need to try to hurt me. All right?”

I sighed a great big exhale...then turned and pulled her into me, wrapping my arms around her. She put her arms around me too.

“I’m sorry, Fan,” I mumbled. “Geez...I always do this, don’t I?”

“Not always,” she said graciously, weaving her fingers into my hair. “Your temper has been improving. Perhaps a lot more than you realize. But...it’s mainly when we talk about making love that you get this upset.”

“I—I guess there’s just a lot that’s wrapped up in it, for me.”

“Yes, dear, I know.”

“But...you’re right, I shouldn’t take it out on you—ugh...can you forgive me?”

“Yes, I forgive you.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a kiss and pulled back from the embrace. “Um...do you...wanna tell me what you were gonna tell me earlier? I promise I’ll listen this time.”

“Oh...yes,” she said. “Well, it’s...just that...it...it gets me excited when you flirt with me. And it can be difficult sometimes when it...doesn’t seem to come to anything.”

“So...do you want me to stop? Or...”

“No, I...I don’t want you to stop, I just...” She trailed off, then gave a nervous laugh. “I-I don’t suppose you have any premonition of when you’ll next be in the mood, do you? No, of course you wouldn’t—but—it would just help to have sort of an idea, I think. Of...when I can next look forward to it.”

I scratched the back of my head. “...I mean...we can do it tonight, if you want. After everyone’s asleep.”

“Oh, Ben, don’t say it like that...I wouldn’t want you to just...”

“Well, we gotta work something out. Gotta address my wife’s carnal needs, after all.”

“Ben. Really. If you don’t want to, it wouldn’t be enjoyable for me either.”

“No, I...I can want to,” I said. “Just gotta psych myself up for it.” I paused. “I...guess it helps me, too, a bit. If we know when we’re gonna do it ahead of time.”

“Really? It wouldn’t make you more nervous?”

“Well...uh...I can see what you’re saying...I mean...I guess it could make me more nervous...but...so does being caught off-guard, so...”

“So...maybe we could just make loose plans, then, and be flexible,” she suggested. “It’s worth a try, at least. If it doesn’t work well for us, then we’ll at least know it doesn’t.”

I thought about it, then nodded.

“...Yeah. I guess that’d work. Tonight, then?”

“Tonight. If you still want to.” She tilted her head up to kiss me, then brought her hand up to caress my face, just the backs of two fingers up against my cheek.

“Is…there anything else I could do to help you, love?” she asked softly.

I looked into her eyes.

Honestly, the fact that she would even ask me that—her voice gentle, her gaze sincere—sent an affectionate warmth rippling through my body, and my heart flooded with my love for her.

I thought about it for a moment.

And then I reached behind me for the thin little tangle of elastic lace, and dangled it in front of her on one finger. I quirked my head a little and raised an eyebrow.