"No rules tonight, please. No patients tonight. Just you and me, on our own time. And in love. So let's-" Her legs had opened wide and he was over her. "Paul, I'm ready. Very. And you're-"

"Very."

"It's going to be fun," she said breathlessly.

He went into her slowly, slowly, deeper and deeper, to the very hilt. It was moist, her vagina, and soft as down, and it engulfed him like a frantic hug. He began moving inside her, back and forth, still slowly.

"Ahhh," she moaned, "I love it."

"I love you," he gasped.

They were going steadily when her hands gripped his ribs, slowing him even more.

"Paul . . ."

"Yes?"

"Do you talk when you make love?"

"Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know."

"I do, Paul. I talk."

"That's fine."

"Because usually I don't talk doing it with patients. We're not supposed to."

"I know."

"But this is just you and me alone, and I like to vent my feelings. Also, maybe-"

"What, darling?"

"-because I'm enjoying myself so much with you that it keeps me from being embarrassed. Besides . . ."

"Besides?"

"I-I hope you don't mind if I'm noisy. I like to let go."

"Let go. I will, too."

"Ahhh, good, good. Faster, Paul, faster. Not so slow. Faster."

He quickened his movements. Downward, upward. He accelerated their coupling faster and faster.

"Paul . . ."

He could hardly hear her, with her head going from side to side on the pillow, and her pelvis rocking to and fro. "Paul . . ."

"Yes?" he gasped.

"You know a woman takes maybe fifteen minutes longer to come than a man does?"

"I've heard."

"Not me, Paul."

"No?"

"Not me. I get ready much quicker-maybe as quickly as you . . . Do you mind?"

"Can't wait," he gasped.

For minutes, they were lost in each other, totally fused, all sense of time gone.

"Oh, Paul . . ."

"Yes, darling?"

"I'm almost there. All I need is-"

"Is what?"

"-for you to rub my clit a little harder . . . No, not that way . . . I didn't mean your hand. I want your body to rub my clit when you go in and out . . ."

"Like this?"

He clasped her by each cheek of her buttocks and drew her up against him. Pressing hard together, they caressed each other.

"Oh, yes, yes . . . That's-yes-just right . . ."

"Just heavenly," he gasped.

On and on, clamped tightly together, on and on, both breathing hard.

"Paul-"

"Darling?"

"-those, those books, novels, where the hero, heroine, they're making it, and near the end she screams, 'More, more, more . . . Don't stop . . . Do it harder, please harder.' You know?"

"What-what about them?" he gasped.

"They're not phony, not fantasy; they're real, they're realistic. I know."

"Know what?"

"It's true . . . I'll prove it." Silence, only heavy breathing, body writhing, and then from deep in her lungs came an outcry, "Don't stop . . . More, more, more . . . Harder, please, harder . . ."

He was blinded by perspiration, his chest heaving, his arms trembling, as he went berserk inside her.

She was holding on desperately, her heart hammering, her skin flushed, her breathing irregular, her nails raking his flesh, as her pelvic mound wrenched upward, "Paul, my God, I'm coming, I'm coming, I-"

She screamed out words unclear, and then, panting, she said, "I came."

He could not hear her. He was erupting inside her. The eruption continued and continued and then it was spent. "I came," she repeated from far away.

"I came, too, my darling," he gasped, "like never before."

Gradually disengaging, he fell back on the pillow close to her, his matted hair against her disheveled hair. After a long interval of regaining their equilibrium, she finally turned her head and looked at him. "Hey, where have you been all my life?"

Their arms went around each other, and after a little while, they were sound asleep in their embrace.

Brandon awakened first at shortly after nine o'clock in the morning, his head clear and his muscles loose and rested.

He shifted his head on the pillow to see if Gayle was asleep. Her eyes were closed, and one of her breasts, not covered by the blanket, lay in repose and slightly spread out.

Realizing the blanket covered them both, he guessed that she had briefly awakened in the night to draw it over them.

Feasting on her gentle profile, the happy memory of last night suffused him. He wondered if she, too, upon awakening, would still feel the sensual aftermath of their lovemaking.

As his gaze held on her, he saw her eyes flutter open. After an instant, they opened wide. She seemed to know where she was, and who was with her, because she searched for him at once. She found him regarding her so lovingly that her lips curled upward, and she stretched her arms out for him.

Brandon went into her arms, pressing his mouth to hers, and then working his kisses down her neck to her breast, where he circled the nipple with his tongue.

"I know what I'd like before breakfast, darling," he whispered.

She reached down beneath the blanket and put her hand between his legs, taking hold of him. "I think I know what I'd like, too," she said softly.

His hand grabbed the top edge of the blanket and stripped it away from her.

That moment their passion was interrupted by the sound of a distant thunderclap. Or what sounded as loud as a thunderclap.

It was the telephone on her bed stand, ringing insistently. "You don't have to answer," Brandon said. "This time it can't possibly be Dr. Freeberg."

"But it has to be something important. No one else ever calls at this hour. I must answer, Paul."

She snatched up the phone receiver and brought it to her ear.

She listened, then replied to someone, "Yes, this is Gayle Miller."

She listened some more, and from the intent expression on her face and her half of the conversation that he could hear, Brandon guessed it was someone important about something important, after all.

"Oh, how wonderful!" she exclaimed.

The receiver was pushed tightly against her ear, and her expression had become one of unadulterated pleasure.

"That's the best news in the world I could have heard," she was saying. "How very kind of you to call me. I'm absolutely thrilled. I'll look forward to your mailing the details, and I'll be there, all right. You bet I'll be there. Thank you a thousand times, Dr. Wilberforce."

Gayle dropped the receiver on its hook and spun about on the bed, her arms upraised as she gave a great whoop, her face totally wreathed in a smile.

"Listen to this, Paul, listen. That was the head of the Admissions Committee for the Graduate Program in Psychology at UCLA. They're sending a letter telling me that of the more than five hundred applicants to the Psychology Department this year, I'm one of the sixty students to be accepted. And also, I've been given a Chancellor's Fellowship-a full one-year's scholarship. They were kind enough to call and let me know without my having to wait for their admissions letter. Isn't that fantastic!"

Her arms came down and encircled Brandon, hugging him to her.

He kissed Gayle. "Congratulations, darling. It is fantastic, absolutely."

"Now I'm going to quit surrogating, much as I hate to, and go full steam ahead. I'll be another Freeberg, sooner or later-you watch and see."

"I know you will. I'm sure you will."

Brandon reached for her again, but she held him off briefly and, cocking her head at him, considered him with special seriousness.

"And you, Paul, you should be, too. You should also get a graduate degree in psychology, and then we can both be on campus and afterward have our own clinic and work together. We can work together and love together. What on earth could be better? You must do this, Paul. You must try it. If-"

Brandon grinned at her. "I already have."

"You have?"

"From the moment I met you, Gayle, I knew you'd get into graduate school, and I wanted to get in, too. So I applied, went through the whole routine, and prayed."

"And then what?"

"My prayers were answered. I received my preliminary notification of acceptance last week."

"You bastard, not telling me! With me worrying about your future?"

"I couldn't tell you, Gayle. I had to be sure you'd be accepted. Because if you hadn't been, I might have withdrawn from the whole thing and gone on to do something else with you. Thank God, I don't need a scholarship. I've saved enough along the way to manage."

She took his face in her hands. "Congratulations to you, too, Paul!" She smothered his face with kisses. "Now I'm really on cloud nine."

He cupped his hands under her breasts. "Ever think of trying for cloud ten?"

"I'm beginning to think of it seriously this second." They both heard the front doorbell ringing.

"Who can that be?" Gayle wondered.

"I'll take this one," Brandon said. He leapt from the bed and tramped out of the room. In the living room, he picked his trousers up off the floor, pulled them on, and fastening them, marched to the front door and flung it open.

A delivery boy stood on the porch with a bouquet of yellow roses in his grip.

He handed the bouquet over to Brandon, who signed for it.

Closing the door, carrying the roses, Brandon tramped back through the living room to the bedroom.

Gayle was on her knees on the bed, curious.

"Flowers. Who can they be from?"