Chapter 15 fifteen

Louis was greeted by his wife at the door, and he was a little taken aback, wearing his favorite kind of bra, a pair of translucent shorts, and nothing else.Louis said: "You look so beautiful, where are the kids?" "Mrs. Dandleridge has them. We can be alone until eight-thirty. We have two and a half hours. Don't waste it." His wife hugged Louis tightly, and he could smell a faint and lovely fragrance on her body, which seemed to be the fragrance of roses.Louis ran his hands over his wife, first her waist, then her hips.Rachel was kissing Louis, her tongue moving in Louis's mouth.Finally the two stopped kissing, and Louis asked his wife a little hoarsely: "Are you ready for dinner?"

"It's sweets," Rachel said, wriggling against Louis, "but I promise you, you don't have to eat anything you don't like." Louis put his arm around his wife, but Rachel broke free, took his hand and said, "Go upstairs." Rachel pulled Louis into the bathroom, filled him with a tub of scorchingly hot bath water, stripped him, and herded him into the tub.Using the sponge mitts she doesn't usually use that hangs by the shower head, she scrubs Louis gently, soaps her body, and rinses off with water.Louis felt the fear of the first day slowly slipping away from him.Rachel was soaked too, her shorts clinging to her body like another layer of skin.Louis stood up to get out of the tub, and Rachel pushed him back gently. "What?" Rachel's hands in sponge gloves gently massaged his body up and down, with an indescribable scratching feeling.Louis began to sweat all over, not because of the hot water in the bathtub. "Rachel—" "Shh, don't talk." Rachel continued to massage him, and Louis was on the verge of orgasm.He felt his eardrums were about to swell.

"My God, where did you learn that?" Louis asked tremblingly when he was allowed to speak. "In the Girl Scouts," Rachel replied primly. Rachel had prepared a stew while she bathed Louis, and it kept heating up.Louis wanted something to eat at 4 o'clock, and now he was so hungry that he ate two plates in one go. Then Rachel pulled Louis upstairs again and said, "Okay, now see what you can do for me." The two began to make out. When it was over, Rachel put on her old blue pajamas, Louis draped a flannel shirt and tailored corduroy pants, and the two went to pick up the baby.

Mrs. Dandridge wanted to know how the accident had happened, and Louis gave a generalization, probably not as much as she had read in Bangor's Daily News the next day.Louis didn't want to say it--it made him feel like a long-term wife, but Mrs. Dandleridge wouldn't take money if she sat a little longer, and Louis was very grateful to Mrs. Dandleridge because she saw With the baby in hand, Louis had the opportunity to spend evenings with his wife. On the Louis family's way home, Gage fell asleep, and Allie yawned incessantly, blindfolded.When he got home, Louis changed his son's diaper, put him in his pajamas and put him in his crib.Then I read the storybook to Ellie for a while.As usual, Ally was clamoring for that book Where the Wild Things Are, and she looked like a little Savage herself.Louis persuaded her to read The Cat in the Hat.Louis carried her daughter upstairs, and five minutes later Ellie was asleep and Rachel tucked her in.

When Louis came downstairs again, Rachel was sitting in the living room with a glass of milk in her hand and a Dorothy Selts mystery novel on her lap. "Louis, are you really alright?" "Honey, I'm fine," Louis said, "Thank you for everything." "Our purpose is to have fun," Rachel said with a big smile. "Are you going to Chad's house for a beer?" Louis shook his head. "Not going tonight. I'm too tired." "I think I'm making you tired." "Maybe." "Doctor, why don't you drink a glass of milk, and then we'll go to bed."

Louis thought he would lie in bed unable to fall asleep, like he did when he was an intern, and the creepy things that happened during the day would flash in his mind like a movie.But he was sliding toward sleep like on a sloping, frictionless plank, where he had read before that it took the average person seven minutes to unlearn the events of the day and fall asleep.He found this statement a little strange.He was almost falling asleep, when he vaguely heard Rachel's voice, as if it came from a distance: "...the day after tomorrow." "Huh?" "Jorland, the veterinarian. He made an appointment to operate on Church the day after tomorrow."

"Oh." Church, cherish when you still have your male organs.Church, poor fellow.Louis then put it all behind him, fell into a deep sleep, dreamless, as if in a cave.