stjourneysch08

Journeys
Lynn

Chapter Eight

M’Bago’s meeting with Eliot was a great success. Catherine called for an appointment, and when she got Elliot on the phone she first conveyed to him Vincent’s thanks and her own for the use of his plane. "Did you have a good trip?" was his answer to her thanks.
"It was glorious. It was the best trip of my life. There is no way to thank you enough for making it possible."
She heard his smile in his voice. "You enjoyed it. That’s thanks enough. I’m happy that you’re happy, Catherine."
"Thanks, Elliot, that’s very kind of you. Now I have another favor to ask."
There was a pause and a chuckle. "All right, shoot. What now?"
"I don’t think this will be a hardship, Elliot. I have a friend I’d like you to meet. I think you’ll like him very much, and I hope you’ll be able to help him with a project."
"All right, Cathy. When would you like to come?"
"Elliot, you’re really very nice. Thank you. We’ll see you at your convenience."
They met in Elliot’s office the next morning. M’bago was prepared with photographs and brochures, and made a very professional presentation. Then he relaxed and answered questions, and his charm, as well as his dedication to Akami, came through with great effect. In half an hour Elliot was deeply involved in planning for Akami’s future.
Catherine looked on with amusement. After a few minutes in which she was completely ignored, she whistled and waved her arms for attention. Elliot looked up and grinned. "Sorry, Cathy. This is very interesting stuff. Did you want to say something?"
"Yes. I wanted to say…goodbye. Somehow I don’t think you two will miss me very much." She laughed and stood up.   "I’ll see you later, M’bago. Goodbye, Elliot, and thank you again for all your kindnesses."
She left the office jubilant that her gamble on Elliot’s interest seemed to have paid off, and indeed it had. The next morning M’bago came to say goodbye. He and Elliot were taking the Lear back to Akami, leaving at noon. M’bago was very happy. "Elliot seems extremely taken with the idea, and we seem also to be compatible as people. Catherine, I thank you for your help in this matter. You may have made a large difference in the future of the animals in our Reserve."
He turned then to Vincent. "Sorry to leave you so soon, my friend. I hope to see you back at Akami whenever you are able to be there. Write to me." Vincent assured him that he would, and they embraced and parted regretfully.
*********
It was necessary for Catherine to close out her cases in an orderly manner to help Joe out as much as possible, but she did no more work for the DA’s office. Her attendance at the office was purely to close out her work, and a few days sufficed to make a business-like end to her job. But she continued to go Above every day, on business of her own.
She was looking for a building, not new and not in the best part of town, a building with at least three stories and with windows on two sides. She found the search to be discouraging for the first ten days; she looked at many places without seeing anything like what she was looking for. However, she was persistent, and the perfect building did appear at last.
She stopped by Joe’s office to share her enthusiasm. "Oh, Joe, it’s absolutely perfect. The neighborhood is…I would call it shabby but still hanging onto respectability, the building has four stories, and it’s got a garden in back! Well, at least it can be a garden someday; right now it’s a trash heap."
"Radcliffe, perfect for what? What in the hell are you going to do with a four-story building?" He turned his eyes to heaven. "I knew it when you quit. You’ve flipped."
"No I haven’t! I’m going to live in it, what do you think? My law office will be on the first floor, and I’ll live above it. It’s perfect!"
"Oh, you haven’t quit practicing law, huh? Gonna sit on the other side of the courtroom for a change?"
"Maybe." Her chin came up.
"OK, OK, that’s fine with me!" He put up his hands as if to ward off an attack, grinning. "I’m just glad you’re not giving it up completely. You’re a good lawyer, Radcliffe. I’d hate to see you quit."
She looked at him soberly. "Thank you, Joe. From you, I appreciate those words."

****************
Catherine approached Vincent very carefully with her idea. Following Devin’s advice, she tried to cover all bases before broaching it. When the evening came that she was ready, she did what had been successful in the past, sat him down at the dining table in her apartment.
"All right, Vincent. Here is my solution for our problem." She slid a photograph across the table to him. "This is a picture of a building. I’m going to make an offer on it."
He looked down at the picture, then up at her. "You’re buying a building?"
"I’m buying a home...for us. Let me tell you my plan. This building will serve as a law office in the storefront on the ground floor, and it will be a home for us upstairs. I’m planning to open a small office for a private law practice. I expect to do a great deal of pro bono work, and I do not expect to work eighty hours a week. And I thought…" She stopped suddenly. What was she doing? Maybe he didn’t want to live with her! Maybe he didn’t want to leave his chamber, where he’d spent all of his life. She looked up at him anxiously. "I guess I didn’t think…not enough anyway. …Well, I’ll have to go ahead and tell you what I’m planning, and hope that you’ll be truthful with me if it’s not to your liking. OK?"
"Yes, of course I’ll be truthful. Why would you think I’d be anything else?" His eyebrow went up in a quizzical look.
"Well, maybe you don’t want to move. Maybe I’ve taken far too much for granted."
He shook his head, amused. "Catherine, tell me."
"I thought we could remodel the upper floors of the building to make a home for the two of us to live in. Mouse says that access to the building from the tunnels is very easy. In fact, he offered to make me an entrance the day I asked him, but I told him I thought it better to buy the building first. He couldn’t see the sense of that at all." She laughed, shaking her head. "I had a terrible time keeping him from tearing down walls on the spot."
Vincent smiled. "He can become over-enthusiastic, but if he says access is easy, it’s easy."
"I’m hoping that this compromise will be satisfactory to you. I would be in the office about eighty percent of the time, the other twenty in court. I’ll hire someone to do investigation; I will do none at all. I’m expecting to spend my days pretty much right there in the building. You could spend your days in the tunnels as you usually do, but we’d be together after the workday is through, very much as we would if we lived Below." She stopped and looked down at the picture on the table. There wasn’t anything else to say so she took the plunge, her heart beating fast. "Well, what do you think?"
Vincent looked again at the picture of the building. "What’s the address?" She told him, and he nodded, satisfied. "Not a long walk from the Hub at all. How many rooms?"
"The second and third stories have no partitions now; they were used for warehousing. It was a wholesale hardware distributor's building. The fourth floor has four rooms off a large center hall. The ground floor is very suitable without any remodeling at all, once it’s cleaned. It’s basically in good repair but I don’t think it’s been cleaned for thirty years! It has a small storefront area with one large office and two smaller ones behind it, as well as a bathroom and a small storage area. The stairway is at the back. There is a full basement, and the stairs are not visible from the first floor at all. And there’s a freight elevator. Oh, Vincent, it’s just perfect. I’m so excited about it. Can you tell?" She grinned at him.
He nodded. "I can tell." He looked down at the photograph for several minutes, deep in thought. Catherine found that she was holding her breath. She let it out in a long exhalation as his head came up and his hands came across the table to clasp hers; he was smiling. "Catherine, I think you have come a long way toward solving our problem. This sounds like a very good arrangement indeed. I can think of no major objections. I just wish…"   His head went down.
"What? Please, what?" Anxiety was plain in her voice.
He looked up from under his brows. "I wish you had let Mouse tear down the wall, then we could go to look at it right now!" He grinned broadly. "I’m feeling more than a little excited about this idea, Catherine. A home of our own is something I never expected. It seems wonderful. Privacy, a place of our own, and both of us to continue our lives essentially unchanged. To be together, and still in both worlds. Catherine, this is a brilliant solution!"
He stood up and threw his arms out wide, exultant in his relief that the way was not closed to a future together. His smile showed his canines as he came around the table and swooped her up into his arms. He turned for her bedroom. "We haven’t made love in your bed yet, and I think that this is an occasion to celebrate!"
He put her down on the bed and stood looking down at her, his face sober now. "I don’t have to give you up." He knelt beside the bed and began to undress her. "I won’t have to try to remember what it feels like to hold you close in my arms, and kiss you… and feel myself sliding into your body, feel you enclosing me in your warmth and your love…oh, Catherine, I couldn’t live without this now…" His hands were working at the fastenings of her clothes, and in a few seconds she lay nude before him. He stood then to pull off his clothes, still looking down at her lying naked, waiting for him. His voice deepened with every word. "…So beautiful…so desirable…I can’t stop wanting you, ever. Not ever." He lay down beside her and turned until he leaned over her. Light kisses started at her forehead, and rained down over her face, stopping at her mouth for a deep kiss, then continuing on down to her breast. He stopped just short of touching the nipple, looking down at it reaching up as if longing for the contact it knew was coming. When he touched her it was not with his lips but with his teeth. They closed around the nipple and he tugged gently, then his lips closed warmly around it, and he drew it deep into his mouth.
Catherine’s back arched up into his touch involuntarily, her breath quickened, and soft words came from her lips. "I love it…oh, do this to me…more, more…again...oh, Vincent…"
Vincent’s breathing had quickened also, and when he left her breast at last his fingers moved over her body with passionate attention, reaching to every inch, covering her with his hands as if learning the map of her body by touch. When he came to her soft mound of pubic hair his hand slowed, and he reached down softly to just touch her outer lips, feather touches running up and down. Catherine moaned and opened her legs further, opening also her center to his fingers. Now they moved inside the outer lips, picking up the moisture that her body gave generously, and sliding with that wetness very lightly over the most sensitive parts of her. Catherine arched her hips up to meet his fingers, reaching for closer, harder contact. But Vincent kept the touch of his hand very light, teasing, making her reach for his touch. Her head began to move back and forth on the pillow, and she slid down farther on the bed, trying for a more solid contact. "Please, please…"
But Vincent was adamant. He moved as she moved, keeping the touch light and soft. She began to moan, saying words not understandable, slurred and softened in the heat of her arousal. When he thought she could stand no more, he took his hand away. "No! Oh, no, come back!" But he had other plans. When he touched her again, it was with his mouth. Her body stiffened and she cried out when she felt his tongue on her. Her head was whipping back and forth now, and her hips raised convulsively in a pumping motion.    He teased just a little more, until her hoarse cries of "Oh, please, please…" dissolved into a moaning lament. Then he moved to her clitoris and steadily stroked it. Her body tensed with approaching orgasm and when it came she convulsed, and a long wail was forced from her. Her bliss went on and on, and he stayed right there, his tongue lapping and licking and drinking up the rush of fluid that accompanied her climax.
Her body relaxed slowly from its tense arch, and she breathed a deep sigh as she came back to the present. "Come up here to me, where I can kiss you." She smiled, looking down at him where his head was rising slowly from his loved task, trailing small soft kisses over her. "I love you so much, and you do such wonderful things for me." He kissed his way up her body to come into her arms and she held him close to her. But after a long soft kiss, she reached down between them and her hand closed around his rigidly erect penis. "I want this inside of me, please… now?"
Vincent was only too glad to comply. But instead of rolling over on her, he raised her shoulder with his hand under it. "Turn over?" He asked hesitantly. Catherine smiled up at him and complied, turning onto her stomach, her arms raised, her cheek resting on her hands. He brought himself over her, and with his mouth next to her ear, he confessed in a half whisper, "I’ve wanted this, but I thought it was…" He stopped, unable to go on.
"I know what you thought." With his cheek pressed to hers he felt her smile. "But it isn’t. It’s very human."
His body relaxed as she said those words. He began to kiss the nape of her neck, and soon his mouth moved down to her shoulders, and then followed her spine down to the swell of her buttocks. His hands covered them and he kneaded softly, but his mouth moved farther down and he began to kiss the insides of her thighs. Catherine made a soft noise and spread her legs farther to give him more access to her body, and while she did this she moved a pillow down and tucked it under her hips, raising herself for his convenience and her delight. Vincent took full advantage of the increased access, and soon she was moaning again.
Vincent moved slowly back up her body, kissing his way back to the nape of her neck. She felt his penis then, nudging at her body’s opening, and she shivered with anticipation of its burying itself deeply in her. As it slid inside they both groaned with satisfaction, and he began immediately to move with quick deep strokes, his excitement very evident.
Catherine moaned again when she felt his teeth on the back of her neck. He opened his mouth to encompass the skin at her nape, and she felt his firm hold on her, his teeth very much in evidence, his tongue laving her skin. It was incredibly erotic. "Oh, god, Vincent, do that!" The words were pushed out on her panting breath.
She was sure that there was nothing that could make this any better, until she felt his hand come around under her, to touch the place where their bodies came together. She felt the jolt of excitement that the feeling of his hand on that joining gave him. His breathing was ragged and uneven now, and he was growling loudly. His hand moved back and forth between his body and hers, and she felt the quickening of his heart to a pounding drumbeat. Then she quit thinking entirely as his fingers touched her clitoris. Sensation rose in a heartbeat to an excruciating height, and she went over with a loud cry.
Vincent’s overwhelming excitement was evident now in everything about him, his breathing, his thundering heart, and then in his rushing roaring growl as his orgasm caught him in its grip. He pumped his seed vigorously into her, his body bucking and arching, his actions wildly uncontrolled.
When it was over, he collapsed on top of her; sweat dripped down onto her shoulder from his face as he lay trying to catch his breath. But in a moment he raised himself up, never forgetful of his great weight. He rolled off her onto his back, still breathing hard, trying to gain enough breath to speak. "Are you…all right? …Did I hurt you? Catherine?"
She was still recovering her breath and didn’t answer instantly.
He raised himself up to look down at her, terrified.. "Catherine! Are you all right!"
"Yes! Yes, I’m fine. I’m…fine. That was…wonderful, Vincent."
He was looking over her body, examining her. "Are you scratched? Bitten? My God, I was totally out of control!"
"Vincent! Listen to me! I’m absolutely fine. Nothing is wrong at all. I’m all right; it was wonderful."
"Catherine, there are tooth marks on the back of your neck!" He was devastated.
"Are there? Quick, get a mirror, I want to see them before they’re gone!" She turned onto her back and grinned up at him. "Vincent, you’re making a great deal out of nothing. I loved it that you grabbed me by the back of the neck. It’s the kind of thing that makes a woman feel wanted!" She put her hand up to the side of his face. "My dear one…even if I had been scratched, or bitten, it would be no more than happens to most people at one time or another. I’m willing to bet that my nails will draw your blood sooner or later. Being uncontrolled on occasion is one of the greatest delights of sex. I don’t want to worry about scratching you, and you mustn’t worry either. OK?"
Vincent shook his head. "Catherine, if I hurt you…it would kill me. I can’t allow myself to be uncontrolled. It’s not safe for you." His head was down, he wasn’t looking at her.
"Vincent? Vincent, look at me!" His head came up slowly. "Did you enjoy what just happened while it was happening?"
"That’s not the point. I can’t…"
She interrupted. "Did you enjoy it? Was it good? Answer me truthfully."
Silence. His head went down again. Finally the answer came. "It was…wonderful. It was incredible." His head was still down, his faced shadowed by his hair. Shame was in every line of him.
"Are you sure that your shame isn’t because you enjoyed it so much? Are you burdening yourself with guilt, Vincent?"
When he looked up at her his face had an arrested look. "…Maybe I am. I have thought that…that position is one which I of all people should not ever allow myself. It’s…animal."
"Now that’s downright silly. People are animals, and that position is the third most popular one, if I remember my Human Sexuality class correctly. Give it up, Vincent. You’re making something out of nothing."
He looked at her in wonder. "How do you do it? It seems I have nothing left to worry about. You make it all unnecessary."
"It is unnecessary. I won’t let you spoil your wonderful spontaneous lovemaking by worry!" She smiled up at him tenderly. "I have a vested interest here. I love you, and I absolutely adore the way you make love to me."
***********
Within the next few days the building was bought. Closing was immediate, since the bulding was empty and the seller was anxious for his money. Mouse was given the go-ahead to make an opening from the tunnels, and on the fourteenth day after Vincent had agreed to her plan, they made their first inspection of the premises, entering by the rough opening that was all that Mouse had finished so far.
Vincent looked around at the second floor for a few minutes without speaking. What he saw was one huge room with windows at both ends and at least thirty years of grime on every surface, and a floor strewn with whatever the previous owner had decided wasn’t worth taking.    As Catherine stood with him, she suddenly saw the room through eyes that saw the dirt and the trash, not the possibilities inherent in the large space and tall windows. My God, he’ll think I’m crazy! Her heart beat hard as she waited for his comment.
"There are wonderful possibilities here, Catherine. I believe we can make a beautiful home of this place."
Catherine let her breath out with a whoosh. "Oh! I’m certainly glad for your imagination, Vincent. It doesn’t look like much now, but it will be a home when we’re done. I know it; if you just look at those great windows and the space, and ignore the trash."
"There does seem to be an oversupply of …oddments."
Catherine snorted. "That’s one way to put it! The previous owner offered to clean it up, but I thought Mouse might want to go through this stuff. It was a wholesale hardware company, and Heaven knows what treasures may be here, and if they’re here, I have every confidence that Mouse will find them."
"He will, and he’ll enjoy the search. You’re right about the windows, they are beautiful. We won’t do anything to change them." The windows were huge, each about three feet wide, and stretching from two feet above the floor to gracefully arched tops that were a couple of feet under the twelve foot ceiling. There were six of them, stretching across the whole front of the building.
"The third floor is just exactly like this one, except the ceilings are not quite so high, so the windows are a little smaller. Come on, let’s go look." She pulled on his arm, and he came with her slowly, looking back at the space, obviously charmed with the possibilities. The freight elevator was at the rear of the building, next to the stairs. Both were against the side wall, so there was space for five of the same large windows in the back.
Catherine bubbled with enthusiasm. "One of the great things is that the buildings directly across the street are only two stories, and they’re newer than this one, so they were made with regulation eight-foot ceilings. No one is on a level with our second floor windows. And the third floor…our floor, is way above everyone else. The back garden…" She stopped to grin as Vincent looked at her quizzically; he’d seen the back yard. "Well, it will be a garden, you’ll see! And it will be as private as we could wish. The buildings on both sides are warehouses, and have no windows on the side looking into the garden. And across the alley is a parking lot. When we’ve built a wall, the garden will be completely private."
They took the freight elevator up to the third floor, and looked at it briefly. It was very much like the second floor. "Mouse will be mining here for days," Vincent said, as he bent down to pick up a piece of angle iron. "There are a lot of usable things in this trash."
The fourth floor had been used originally for living quarters. It was divided off into four bedrooms and a bath, and the woodwork and the floors were beautiful old oak, and still in good condition. "We’ll have guest rooms for tunnel kids when they go to school Above, and there’s a bath up here, too. I have no idea if this plumbing is working or not, but I sure hope it is." The bathroom was out of a 1910 Sears and Roebuck catalogue. The toilet had a wooden tank raised up at eye level. There was a claw-foot tub with beautiful old brass hardware. "I don’t think we’ll change the fixtures, do you, Vincent? They’re charming, and if they still work, let’s leave them. We’ll add a shower though; there’s plenty of room for one."
Vincent looked doubtful. "Would you want to have tunnel children living here?"
"Of course I would. This place is for our friends and family. I hope we will have many house guests from the tunnels. Will you mind?"
He shook his head. "No, of course not. I will be happy to have my family around me. …Thank you, Catherine. It is a generous thing for you to open your heart and home to the tunnel children."
"It is our home; that means both of us. And the tunnel family is my family also, Vincent. I hope to entertain my friends from Above here, too, on occasion. Oh, Vincent, this is going to be fun!"
***********
Vincent and Catherine spent hours drawing and redrawing plans, making sure that everything each desired was included. In the main they were in remarkable accord; only a few things, like the size of Catherine’s closet, caused discussion.
"Catherine, there must be some mistake here. The closet space in our bedroom is as big as the bath!"
"’Our bedroom.’ I love the way that rolls off your tongue, Vincent." Catherine put her arms around him from behind; she was looking over his shoulder at the plans unrolled on the table. "No, there’s no mistake; that’s right."
He turned and looked up at her. "You have enough clothes to fill that space?"
"Well…I’m a professional person, I need to…well…I…yes. I do." She looked a little embarrassed.
He shook his head, nonplused. "Amazing."
*********
They began the renovation almost immediately. When Mouse saw what was just for the "taking" in the building, he was ecstatic. In five days he had removed a mountain of equipment and supplies that was a treasure beyond price to him. "Tools! And good stuff to build things!" As a thank you, he worked long hours cleaning up the two warehouse floors. In another two days, the two floors were ready for work to begin.
Catherine hired outsiders to clean up the storefront on the ground floor, but the rooms upstairs were entirely the province of Vincent and the tunnel workers. Cullen and Kanin both volunteered to help in the planning and execution of the work, and their offer was gratefully accepted. Soon Vincent was besieged with offers of help from all sides. He accepted many of the offers; there was a great deal of heavy construction work to be done.
Work progressed slowly; the regular tunnel work and Vincent’s classes scheduled for weekdays had still to be accomplished. But on weekends, and most evenings, Vincent was busy in "The New Home," as the project began to be called. Catherine worked along with him, learning to handle a hammer and saw with some expertise. She was the general contractor as well, planning the work and coordinating the many jobs to be done, while Vincent estimated times and materials, and recruited help as needed.
"We’re a great team. We could hire out!" Catherine sat back after a planning session had solved several knotty problems.
Vincent looked up at her from under his brows. "I think not, Catherine. There could be some problems not connected with construction when I appeared to start work." His eyes glinted with humor as he said it.
Catherine was pleased to hear him joke about his appearance. It was only one of several ways she had noticed that he was less concerned about how he might appear to others. The most surprising one was that when heavy labor raised body temperatures uncomfortably for men used to the tunnel chill, he stripped casually out of his shirt while working, along with the other men.
That new behavior was a surprise to Father also. He came often to view progress, and when he appeared one day and saw Vincent’s state of undress, his brows went up in astonishment. "Catherine, Vincent hasn’t taken his shirt off in public since he was a child. I have to credit you with that change in him. He appears to be much less conscious of his physical differences than he ever has been before."
"Well, you know, they really aren’t that great. I think he’s had an exaggerated idea of how different he is all his life. His body is beautiful, Father. There’s no reason for him to be ashamed of it at all."
Father looked at her with disbelief in his eyes. "Come now, Catherine, his differences are significant."
"The most significant differences are the ones that everyone sees, his hands and his face. His body is perfect, and not much more heavily haired than some other men." Catherine believed that Father was responsible for a good deal of Vincent’s self-consciousness about his body, and she wanted to make sure he knew that she didn’t agree with him. "He has a body to be proud of, and I think it’s too bad that he didn’t know it sooner."
Father shook his head doubtfully. "Well, whatever makes him more comfortable with himself is a good thing. And he does seem to be that, so perhaps you are correct." But Catherine didn’t think he believed that she was. Too bad, old man, you’re wrong. …My word, I sound just like Devin!
**********
The plan was to make the second floor the common living area of the house. The living room, dining room, and kitchen made up that floor, along with an entrance hall and a powder room. The kitchen was going to be big and comfortable, with an eating area that could accommodate eight people easily, and five huge east facing windows made it bright and cheerful. The entrance to the house was going to be at the back, through the garden. The elevator and the stairs were just inside the door, and on reaching the second floor the visitor saw a long entry hall stretching alongside the staircase past the kitchen and the dining room to the living room at the front of the house.
The third floor was Vincent and Catherine’s sanctuary. It was partitioned into their bedroom at the back, bath, dressing room and closets in the center, and at the front was their private study/sitting room.
Cullen was mightily impressed with the quality of the carved newell post, the stair railings and the woodwork of the fourth floor. "You couldn’t replace this stuff at any price! This is just…" His hand passed reverently over the panels of a door. "…Just magnificent. Trust me, you’re lucky to have it." The windows on the second and third floor had the same beautiful woodwork, and they had been boarded over for many years to about six feet up from the floor, so the woodwork didn’t show the harsh treatment that the oak floors on these two stories had received. But Cullen said that the floors could be pretty much restored to their original beauty by sanding and refinishing. Catherine put her foot down about letting the tunnel crew do this enormous job. She hired professionals, and work stopped for five days until the floors were dry.
They left the renovation of the bathroom on the fourth floor entirely in Cullen’s hands, with Kanin to do the tiling of floors and shower. "Just so there’s a shower in addition to the tub, and if it’s possible, we’d like to keep everything pretty much the way it is. Do you think you could figure out a shower stall that would harmonize with the rest of the bathroom?" Catherine had fallen in love with that bathroom.
"I’m your man! I wouldn’t change anything in here either. These fixtures are irreplaceable, and just as good now as the day they were made." Cullen stopped, thinking, his lower lip caught between his teeth. "Hm-m. I could…yup, Catherine, I think I see what I can do with a shower that will fit in. I’ll have a sketch for you tomorrow."
His sketch was perfect. Dark wood and etched glass made the shower Victorian in feeling and fit perfectly with the rest of the bathroom. With linen cupboards on each side, it covered the end wall of the roomy bath. "Cullen, you are a talented designer!" Catherine was very much impressed.
Cullen gave a stiff little bow, hiding a smile. "Thank you. Then it’s all right?"
"It’s perfectly wonderful, and what’s more, you know it is." Catherine grinned at him, and he grinned back quickly before he turned away.
***************
In a remarkably short time, considering that everyone was working only evenings and weekends, the partitions were up, doors were hung, and the house began to take shape. Vincent and Catherine stood in what would soon be their sitting room, looking out into the westering sun.
"It will be pleasant here in the afternoons, with the sun coming in the windows." Vincent was not yet entirely used to the blessing of sunlight. "I think we should put some sort of couch or daybed right here, so that one could stretch out in the afternoon and read in the sunshine."
"A good idea. Speaking of couches, have you thought at all about furnishings? Have you a preference for some particular style of decoration?" Catherine turned to him, interested to hear his answer to her question. It was something that they had not yet discussed.
"Yes. Big, soft, and comfortable." He smiled down at her, putting his arms around her. "I care not about color or style. Except…perhaps…I favor blue."
Then he frowned. "Catherine, this is all costing a great deal of money. I have to admit I didn’t really think about it when we started, but when I watched load after load of lumber and millwork coming up the elevator…and now there’s furniture! And carpets, and appliances and…I don’t know what else, but I’m sure there are many things I have not even thought of. Are we in danger of running through your fortune?"
"I blush to admit that we are not. My father’s family was very well-to-do, and he made a great deal of money himself, which he was too busy to spend for the most part. So set your fears at rest, my dear, we have a long way to go yet before bankruptcy looms."
"I’m happy to be assured of that. It appalls me to think that I didn’t consider this until now. I’m enthralled with our new home, Catherine, and I’m finding the work to make it happen immensely satisfying, but nothing, nothing is worth the sacrifice of your security. I am not able to…to do what would be needed to ensure that your circumstances would not change if anything should happen to me. There are the tunnels, of course; you know that you would be welcomed there as a family member. But I would want you to keep your life Above as it is now. Do you assure me that your money is adequate for that purpose, even with the outlay for the new home?"
"Yes, Vincent, don’t worry about it. It’s more than adequate. While I worked at the DA’s office I lived on very little more than my salary; I was too busy to spend money, so it just piled up. I have a buyer for my apartment; and I think he’ll come up to my price. If he does, it will realize more than the initial cost of this building. Truly, there is plenty of money, and I’m loving spending it on this, on our place, where we will be together." She looked up at him with the love she felt written on her face, and his head came down to touch her mouth with his almost involuntarily. The kiss was tender and full of their love for each other.
He raised his head after a few moments. "I love you…you are all there is…my life…" The kiss that followed was equally tender, but now there was passion in it. When he raised his head again, it was to look helplessly around the room, which was completely bare. "Not even a chair! Buy beds first. Lots of beds! One for every room."
Catherine chuckled, and drew him toward the door. "Come on, it’s supper time. Let’s go Below and eat, and then we can go to bed early. I’m really, really tired, aren’t you?"
"Yes. Really, really." He smiled, amused at her little pretense of fatigue, and put his arm around her as they walked to the elevator.
*****************
Catherine went on a furniture-shopping spree. The large landing area on the fourth floor was intended for a lounge for the students; it and the four bedrooms were to be furnished in the Victorian style that complemented her pride and joy, the bathroom. "Victorian, but not too fussy. I know there will be boys using these rooms. And there’s a fridge, a microwave and a hot plate in the lounge; it’s a long way to the kitchen. Oh, Vincent, I’m having such a good time!" Her face was bright with happiness as she told Vincent about her purchases, as they got ready to go to work on a Saturday morning. "A double bed, a comfortable overstuffed chair and a desk in every room. And plenty of reading lamps. And wardrobes. What were the Victorians thinking of, to build bedrooms with no closets?"
"And for our bedroom, I bought the biggest, most comfortable king size bed I could find. The room will be carpeted, and the furniture is all large scale. The bedroom is big enough to handle it, and the man who’ll be living there is built on a rather large scale himself." Her hands wandered across his shoulders and down his sides. Her hands moved lower, and Vincent drew a quick breath, his head back, his eyes closed. Catherine chuckled warmly. "Hm-m, yes…a very large scale."
"Catherine, my love…what are you starting? We have a full day’s work ahead of us." He didn’t move away from her hands in spite of his protest, and after few moments he added, "…But maybe we could take just…a half hour to…finish what you’ve begun here." His breathing was fast and heavy now, her busy hands were making him shiver and pant. "Lie down on the bed…I want to talk to you…"
"What do you want to say to me, love?" She smiled at him, still caressing him.
"I want to talk about how much I love you."
She smiled again, slowly, and began to unbutton her shirt. "Just talk?"
"I have something I want to show you, also."
All right. Show me."
So he did.

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