Tom and Crystal

They went back inside. He asked her, "What are your plans now?" She looked startled, and he said, "I mean, how urgently do you want to get home? Or are you expecting to stay the night?"

"You know, that issue never occurred to me. I'll need to get up and get to work by eight, but if it's OK with you, please, I'll stay!"

He said, "That's great! We should get to bed soon, then, but come in here first. I have something to give you."

They went into the kitchen and sat at the table. He reached into his pocket and took out the vial of perfume. "Here. This is for you."

She was obviously completely baffled. He told her about his talk with Miss Reilly, carefully using her correct name—and what he'd done.

"OK, that explains the things she said to me, and the look on her face. But Tom, I can't let you pay that much for a gift for me!"

"You're too late. I already have. I have no idea whether that perfume is worth that much, in any real sense, but you said you really wanted it. I told you, if you're playing the part of my girlfriend, you need to have some gifts to show off. Show off the perfume! I mean, wear it and let your friends have a sniff of it on you. I'd rather you be a little coy and mysterious about exactly what it is and how much it cost, though. Just tell them it was more than you'd ever pay. And I don't even know what it smells like—whether I can stand it on you."

"You bet I will. And you get to be the first to know!" She dabbed the tiniest bit of it several places, then said, "OK, sniff."

He did. "I'm not all that fond of perfume in general, but at least it's kind of subtle. Not bad."

They went upstairs and got ready for bed. It was a little early, but they didn't take things too slow. Crystal, though, seemed much more eager than she ever had before. She was moving more vigorously with Tom's thrusts, pushing him faster, then gasping and whimpering—and then holding him more tightly inside while she moaned over and over, causing him to ejaculate before he'd meant to or expected.

She took a large wad of tissue and wiped, then stuffed it against her crotch. She used her mouth to clean him off. She took a moment to say, "Would you like me to keep going?"

"It feels amazingly wonderful, but—not now. Maybe something in the morning?"

She wrapped herself around him for a moment. "Tom, thank you. You were considerate from the beginning, but I never dreamed of anything like you did today. I only wish I could give you more."

She moved back a little way, and they both went to sleep quickly.

In the morning they hurried through things—sex and shower—and Tom was very much aware the sex was pretty much for his benefit. At breakfast he asked Crystal, "That was an orgasm last night?" When she agreed, he said, "So that's what it feels like, for the guy."

"We should talk more about that, when we have more time. There's a range of possibilities. But basically yes. I should have said something last night, afterward. I never thought you might not know, and I should have."

"I thought it must be, but when I had an apartment I heard a couple of women. They were a lot louder, and it was all the time—at least, I think it started the moment the guys went in. It went on and on, anyway."

"We'll talk. And I need to warn you. My period starts next Tuesday. Are we still agreed on that?"

"Sure. I meant what I said."

"I promise, I'll do what I can to make it up. As much oral as you want, any time that's reasonable, for sure. And thank you."

Things went along for a few months. They went out to eat occasionally. They went to concerts and plays, mostly in the city. For concerts, it was more often than not the classical music Tom preferred—Crystal liked it OK but found it kind of boring. Sometimes it was the glitzy pop that she loved. Tom tended to find that pompous and overdone, but he could enjoy it sometimes, depending on the singer and the lyrics. Crystal had heard opera music a few times and not cared much for it, but seeing it on stage—with projected, translated lyrics—she changed her mind. Tom liked a lot of the grand opera repertoire, but he also liked comic opera, and Crystal found that easy to relate to. Mozart, Rossini, Strauss, Offenbach, Gilbert and Sullivan—even when the performance was in English she liked the projected librettos, and the broad humor and the music worked together for her.

They occasionally joined Crystal's friends in the before-dinner hour, but their girl talk was too raunchy for his taste. Crystal was surprised. She'd heard them and joined in for years, but never noticed that until Tom mentioned it later, and as she became conscious of it she found it bothered her too. Her friends' talk tended to drift from men to clothes to men to cosmetics to men to money to men—and their talk about men was usually about sex, even when it was pure speculation, pure gossip. Hearing them from a different perspective, she began to find them pretty shallow.

They also did things like going to the beach and the zoo, and walking in the park. When the fair came to a town not too far away, they went to that. Neither of them really enjoyed the rides, though—they'd each been thinking the other would enjoy it. Walking together watching other people was fun, though.

Then one evening, in the middle of an installation, Tom got a phone call from Crystal. "Tom, I've got a problem here. I'm pulled off the street here, corner of Twelfth St. and Third Ave., because my oil light came on. That's one of the few things Daddy told me about car problems—if that happens, pull off, turn off the engine, and don't start it up again. But what do I do?"

"I'm tied up here—I can't really talk very long, even. Call Dave's Garage." He checked the number and gave it to her. "Ask for Dave—say I told you to talk to him, but if he's not there whoever's answering the phones will do. Tell him what you just told me. There are a bunch of things it could be, some more serious than others—but don't run the engine the way things are, at all. They should send out a tow truck—if they don't suggest that tell them I said to, but they will. You ride in with the driver. I'd suggest you ask for a ride to my house if it's not just low oil—but they'll probably need to keep the car, at this hour. I'll get you to work on time tomorrow." Tom was talking fast, flying through all this.

"Tom, I can't afford any of this!"

"I've got to hang up. Give them any information they ask for. We'll figure out what to do tomorrow, when we know what's what. They won't ask for money tonight, anyway. Right now, I've got to hang up. Call me when you get home. I love you." He broke the connection and got back to work.

He was pretty late getting home. Crystal had found frozen leftovers and gotten them thawed and warmed—he hadn't worked with her very much on cooking, but they'd gone through this a few times. To his surprise, she flew into his arms the moment he came in the door.

"What did I do to deserve this reception? I'm sorry I couldn't drop what I was doing to help, by the way. We had a big problem."

She looked at him in surprise. "Well, I guess, first off, you told me what to do when I was stuck there by the side of the road, silly. I don't know how I'll ever pay for the towing or whatever work it needs. But then, don't you remember what you said, the last thing you said when you were telling me what to do?"

"I guess I must not. All I remember saying is that we'd figure out the next step when we had information."

"Tom! You said, 'I love you.' You never said that to me before!"

He held her back a little way, looking at her seriously. "Well, I do, but I didn't mean to say it then, either. I was distracted. Telling you that feels like—like I'm trying to make you want to stay with me permanently. More coercion or something."

She was quiet for a moment. "I guess this is something we'd better wait to discuss, too. Right now, we need to eat. I nibbled, and I hope you got something too, or you must be starving! And we both have to get up pretty early, 'cause you're taking me to work. Come on, it's all keeping warm. Let's sit down!"

As they ate, he told her about various problems that could cause the oil light—the oil pressure light—to come on. Then he said, "Crystal, I've hesitated to bring it up. This isn't something a mere boyfriend has a right to demand—but I'm going to, anyway, and I'm afraid it'll be painful. For you more than me, I think. From that very first discussion of that perfume until tonight, you've said many times that you can't afford this or that—could never afford whatever it was! I don't know exactly how much you earn, but something's wrong, and I mean to find out what and get it straightened out. After work, tomorrow, I'll pick you up. Depending on what Dave and his crew find, we may go there and get your car. But after that, we're coming here to go through your finances. To start on it, anyway. Friday night we're not going out, because I expect we'll still be at it. Same for the weekend."

He was about to go on, but she looked at him in horror, and then burst into tears. He went around to her, stood her up, sat down in her chair, and pulled her into his lap. Then he just held her for the ten minutes or so it took her to stop crying—or at least to slow down to where communication might be possible.

He gave her his handkerchief. When she'd wiped her face and blown her nose, she said, "Tom, I can't let you cover all my money problems. I know you can afford it! But—.

"Look. When I agreed to be your girlfriend, I knew I was making myself a whore. A prostitute. I'm trading my body—not for money, but for silence. OK. You haven't treated me that way, though. And tonight you told me you love me! At this point, I've been your girlfriend for months. And I've loved that! But if I let you cover the mess I'm in, I'll be just your whore again. A kept woman. A mistress. A gold digger. Staying with you for what you give me. And I love you!"

That last sentence came out as a wail, and she was crying again.

Again, he gave her a few minutes. Then he said, "Crystal, I may have to cover something. Some things. I doubt it, but that's possible. If I need to pay Dave for your car, though—and it sounds like I will—it'll be a loan to tide you over.

"I'm afraid that for you it's going to be a lot worse. Somewhere, somehow, you've been spending a lot more than you should. A lot more! You probably could name some of it, but don't, not now. We'll sit down and figure it out. In detail.

"You don't use cash very much, do you?" She shook her head. "OK, but the first thing I insist on, starting right now, is that when you do—in fact, when you spend money or pay out money in any form whatever—you write it down. I've got a little ledger book somewhere, small enough to fit in your purse. But don't you dare try to cheat! Every penny, you say who got it, when, and what you got for it. Do you understand?"

She looked at him, and then dropped her eyes. "Yes, Tom."

"Tomorrow night, we'll start going through all your accounts. I'm assuming you bank on line—that's right, isn't it?" She looked at him and nodded again. "You're going to give me all your usernames and passwords, for everything. We may have to go back farther, but we'll start with the beginning of last year, for now. We'll get your current balances, but also every transaction. You won't remember what they all were—that's why the ledger for future expenses—but you'll remember some, and even when we don't have a breakdown we should get some idea of what you're buying, from where you bought it."

He gave her a little squeeze. "Crystal, this is going to be very personal, and it will hurt. I'm only your boyfriend, not your husband. I really don't have a right to pry into your affairs this way. If I were your husband, I could argue that I did—but I wouldn't automatically have the right to dictate how you spend money, not without some consultation. OK, we'll discuss it, but—it sure looks like you have some spending addictions. I can guess a little, but when we're done I'll know, not guess. Think of it as an intervention. I'm doing it because I care about you and it looks like you need this. You have choices, still. If you aren't willing, we're back to where we were when I showed you that video."

She looked horrified again—or maybe just distraught. But after a minute she put her arms around him and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him very hard. "Tom, I'm afraid. I'll try to remember that you're not just being nosy and controlling. You're right, I can't keep on the way I've been. I can't even afford whatever fixing my car will take, or buying another one if that's what I need to do! I've been heading for the day when I'm pushing my belongings around in a shopping cart—a stolen cart at that!—trying to find room in a shelter somewhere. I told you how I hate feeling like I'm a whore as it is, but I'd soon be trying to sell my body for a hamburger with fries. To anyone I could find." She was dripping tears, again.

He stood up. "Well, right now what we need to do is get to sleep. I admit I was hoping for sex, but you won't feel much like it tonight. Do you want to sleep in the guest room?"

"Tom, are you out of your mind? Whatever we decide about sex, I'm in your bed. Period. Unless you want to kick me out—and in that case, I want a chance to argue first!"

When they were in bed, she asked him what he wanted in the way of sex. He declined to make a request, and she just used her mouth on him.

Breakfast was just eggs and bacon, with toast. He showered alone, but she insisted on giving him oral sex again.

He dropped her off and went on to finish the job he'd been doing the night before.

Dave called him during the afternoon. The immediate problem had been a simple lack of oil. They'd changed oil and filter, checked other fluids and topped them off or replaced them, and taken a little time verifying that the engine wasn't seriously losing oil. "It looks like the oil hadn't been changed in two or three years, and I figure that's the only reason it was so low," Dave told him. "I think nobody's looked at the car at all. She's lucky she didn't fry the engine before the light came on. Two of the tires are completely shot, and the O2 sensor's bad. There are probably other things we didn't find yet. If we fix those, you—she won't get it until tomorrow. What do you want me to do?"

"Get it to where it's not an accident waiting to happen—a death trap," Tom told him. "I can ferry her around tomorrow." Dave gave him an estimate, but they both knew it was only a guess at that point.

He called Brown's and left a message for Crystal, saying he'd be picking her up when her shift was over, and to call him if she needed to work later. He got the last details of his job wrapped up, and found a table in a coffee shop where he could sit and work for an hour. When he picked her up, he told her what Dave had said. When she wanted to discuss it more, he said to wait till they were home.

He asked whether she needed to swing by her apartment for anything—any financial papers, in particular. She said she didn't keep anything of that kind. Her checkbook was in her purse, not that she wrote checks at all often.

They discussed the car over supper. He had some stern things to say about the need for regular maintenance. "It's a very good thing you listened to your father on that point," he said along the way. "If you'd kept on driving with the oil that low, pretty soon the engine would've seized. That means the metal parts that have to move past each other would just grab on to each other instead. Engine stops suddenly wherever you're driving. And you and the car behind you suddenly make a very intimate acquaintance. On the highway, you probably die. Where you were, probably just a lot of broken bones and smashed organs."

"I couldn't afford to take it anywhere!"

"You can't afford not to! Crystal, this is why we're going to go through your finances."

They set up at the desk in his lab. He questioned her, getting a list of her email account and all her financial accounts everywhere. She became rather irritated because he kept asking over and over, trying to make sure he had them all. Then he asked for usernames and passwords. She used the same information for every account—and it wasn't even obscure! He felt like putting his head down and crying. At least she wasn't carrying a paper list in her purse! One of his clients routinely did just that.

"OK, I'm a security freak," he told her. "But this is insane. Anyone at all could guess those, in maybe five tries—that password is right there on your Facebook page in plain sight! Someone may already have! You need separate passwords for all these accounts, and they need to be hard to guess."

"But then I can't remember them myself."

He showed her a system for generating more secure passwords that were still memorable, and installed a password manager app on her phone—since she used that for accessing the sites.

"What if I lose my phone?"

"Two things you might be worrying about. If someone finds your phone, they can't get at those passwords—unless you don't close the manager. So always, always close the manager! Of course, you have to remember the password for the manager. What is it, by the way?"

She told him. He said, "Very good! Don't forget that one. But if you lose your phone or forget the password manager's password, I've got a record of everything in my own password manager, all in its own group that identifies it as yours. But you have to ask me—nobody, but nobody gets that password, or access to my manager. And you need to keep me updated, if you make changes.

"Besides backups here, I have copies on line—very, very heavily protected—so failure of my own server wouldn't be fatal, either. And you need to know this: I have a safe-deposit box in my bank, and the master passwords are there. Right now that wouldn't do you any good, though—I need to tell my lawyer that there may things in there with your name on them, and that you need to have my main password if I'm dead or incapacitated or missing too long.

"Worst case for you, though—and it could be pretty bad!—is that you have to go to all those institutions, including your email provider, and prove you're you, and set up your information on your new phone or whatever. So keep your phone secure."

They visited each site in turn, and he looked at her account information—for evidence that someone had hacked in—and changed the passwords. He also downloaded balances and all transactions for the previous year and to date for the current year. He set up an account for her on his own system and started loading all her balances and transactions into the finance app he used.

This all took longer than he'd intended, so at that point they closed everything and went to bed. Crystal said she wanted sex, but he was pretty sure it wasn't actual desire on her part but a sense that she owed him, and he was exhausted, so he declined. He actually got into his pajamas for almost the first time with her. He, at least, had no trouble going to sleep.

Friday evening after supper saw them back at it. Tom finished getting everything imported. He reconciled all her accounts, showing her how. It looked like Crystal never did that, from the condition of her checkbook—not even to the extent of looking at all her transactions for one month. Not even to the extent of recording a lot of the automatic transactions and keeping a running total! He spoke sternly on that subject, too.