“Don’t be. Just relax. Kiss me. Relax. I love you, Karen, you know that.”

“I know. You’re not disappointed, are you?”

“No. You’ll see.”

“You’re gentle. Kiss me. Oh, Joey, I do love you.” She put her arms around him and kissed his chest. She rubbed her face against it. “I knew I’d like this. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being the way you are.”

“Hush up. You’re the only one I’ve really wanted for this, do you know that? Everything about you is wonderful. I don’t think it, I know it. You’re all I want.”

“I want a lot of this,” she said.

“We haven’t even started.” He stroked her back. He needed her and she did not know it. If they married and she bore his children, all the gifts of love would still come from her. “Do you know all the things I’m going to do to make you happy?”

“I’m happy now, Joe. I really do love you. I’m just learning how much.”

He held her against him. He had no idea of the time, but it was not late. He ran his hand over her back and she twisted and lay down. He patted her bare bottom. “Karen?”

“Do you still want to marry me?” she asked.

“Yes.” She hugged him, kissed him. For a moment he thought that she did not know that he was waiting for her to say it, too.

“If I don’t marry you I’m crazy,” she said.

That winter, the next spring, and the following summer, they saw each other every weekend, and late at night during the week. She changed jobs and they had to find new places to meet. They went to parties and down to Joytown, and when they were broke they went to Young Communist League meetings, put their names to nothing, and helped themselves to cake and coffee. She gave him André Malraux to read. One afternoon at a departmental reception one of her professors saw him squeeze her bottom and he laughed aloud; another time, quite late, she was locked out of the dormitory and had to spend the night at his house, and in the morning his parents found him on the couch and her in his bed in his pajamas.