The Training of Jeff Stintum Ch. 06

Sarah plopped another meatball in her mouth. "Yeah! It's all mine! Pretty neat, right?" She swallowed and chuckled as she pointed around with her fork. "I mean, of course I have a mortgage and everything, but it actually ends up being cheaper than rent in the long run."

"You have...a mortgage?" The word sounded so unfamiliar and foreign to Jeff. Sarah laughed at him again.

"Yes, Jeff! That's what we have instead of rent when we buy houses." Again, Jeff couldn't decipher her tone. Was she mocking him?

"Unless you're like, an oil baron or something," she continued. "The thing about buying is that you have to put down a big chunk of money first. That money is called a downpayment." Jeff was encouraged to see that Sarah was enjoying the conversation, and this was the first Jeff was hearing about this kind of stuff; he was actually interested.

"Really? Like how much?" He was feeling more normal by the second as he started picking at his food.

Sarah stretched her arms over her head and flexed in relaxation. Every time she did something like this, Jeff's skin cooled as he literally felt her shadow over him. She had finished her second plate, and was sighing contentedly. "Well, that depends. Basically the minimum payment you would need to buy a home would be 3.5 percent down with an FHA loan on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage."

Jeff understood none of this sentence and could only ask, "3.5 percent? Of...uh...of...what?"

Sarah smiled down warmly at him. "Of the full house price. So, like this place was on the market for about $500,000 dollars, which means that the minimum I had to put down was $17,500. But I could actually put up $25,000, so that means my monthly mortgage payments are lower." Jeff's head was spinning. This was all so much more money than he could imagine, let alone possess. Sarah was looking at him with a widening grin. She allowed him a few moments before she reached over and poked him in the stomach with a red fingernail.

"Don't worry about all this stuff, Jeff. It's just numbers, numbers, numbers. They're not for everybody. I guess that's why I'm training to be a scientist, right?" She gestured over to a desk in the corner of the adjacent living room that was piled high with stacks of papers. Above the desk were a number of what looked like charts on the wall. She looked back to him. "But yeah, everyone has their thing, you know? Me, I like numbers, data, facts. You're more of the...expressive type, right?" She gestured to his sculpture and to the pieces of paper on the counter. Jeff had to keep her away from the poems.

"Well, yes, of course. As an artist, yeah...I find numbers...um, too uh, limiting, you know?" Sarah nodded gently. "Umm," he continued, looking for an escape, "what are you working on over there?" He pointed to her desk in the other room, and Sarah turned to look.

"Over there? Oh, just some stuff for work. Medical stuff — lots of numbers. Probably nothing you'd be too interested in." She turned back to the counter, pivoting her large pelvis. Jeff had completely forgotten about the rest of his food and was melting more and more into her body, her presence, her aura. And he could see her looking at the pieces of paper he had brought.

"Oh! Oh, no! Of course I'd be interested!" said Jeff, quicker than he'd have liked to. "I'm always down to....you know...learn new things. Science is cool. I mean, I liked science when I was in school and everything. Space rocks and biology and volcanos and everything. Some really great stuff there."

Sarah looked at him for a second or two with her affectionate smile, her eyes darting back and forth over his face and his body, as if scanning him. Her mouth was opened a bit in some kind of anticipation, her nostrils gently dilated.