On the one hand, it was her body and ultimately her choice. But on the other hand, he would have been a part of it as well. It wasn't something they had ever discussed. Suppose she got pregnant and decided to have the baby? What then? Marriage? Okay. He loved her, no question about that. He also believed in doing the right thing. He could probably get a transfer to her school. Well, come to think about it, she probably wouldn't be able to go to school, certainly for a while and he'd have to get a job. They'd both probably have to get jobs. Could they balance school and jobs and caring for the baby? Daycare was expensive. So were diapers. Clothes. Baby food. Medical insurance. And all right, maybe there wasn't any question that they loved each other, but were they ready to take a step that big?

'How come we never talked about this shit before?' Jack wondered. It wasn't that he'd felt guilty about what they had done. There wasn't anything wrong with that. They loved each other. They had waited until the time seemed right. It wasn't as if he had just torn off a piece only for the sake of getting laid, but this was Marcie. Someone he really cared about. But if you really care about someone, Jack thought, you communicate with them. You find out how they feel about things. You talk things out. Why was it so difficult to talk about sex? Oh, it wasn't hard at all to talk about it with other guys like Neddie. But why did it seem awkward to sit down and just discuss it in a non-threatening way with a girl you cared about. For that matter, he thought, why couldn't a bunch of us just sit down together and talk about it, just between ourselves? A nice friendly loose discussion. Find out how we feel about things. Bounce ideas off of each other.

He imagined himself walking up to the other guys some night, like maybe tomorrow night when they were gathered around a campfire having a few beers. Maybe smoking a few and saying 'Hey, what do you say we talk about sex?

Of course, they probably laugh. So would he if Neddie had said something like that. But after they had laughed and laughing was good to break the tension, he could tell them he was serious. That he wasn't saying that they should talk about you know, doing it, but how they really felt about it, what concerns they had about relationships and things like that. Why couldn't they talk about things like that in a serious, sharing sort of way? Right then, he decided he was going to have a long talk with Marcie that night. That, instead of just jumping back into bed with each other and picking up where they left off, as much as he wanted to do it again. They were going to talk first, really talk and find out how they felt about things, about their plans, and how they truly felt about each other. You shouldn't just let your feelings take control, he thought. They'd just been physically intimate with one another and it was past time they got mentally intimate as well. Maybe nothing would change.