Oh My God

Chapter 3 -- Knee Deep

Kathy became very quiet after supper. I figured she was having second thoughts.

"Kathy," I said, "If you're having second thoughts I'll understand. I can drive back to my place, no sweat."

She look sad, "Oh Ian it's not that. It's just that you'll be leaving me tomorrow. I've really had a good time with you."

"Kathy, you sound like it's all over. I was just trying to get up the nerve to ask you for your phone number. You have been so great about all this and you are so pretty. I've never met a girl I can talk to like I can to you. I want to see you again so bad it hurts worse than my ass."

Kathy blushed but had a big smile on her face. "I know you said that but I've had such bad luck with boyfriends. I guess I'm just nervous. Oh by the way I slipped my phone number into your laptop case and in your bicycle bag and in your suitcase. I really want to see you again too."

I started laughing. "I guess I'm lucky you didn't put it in with my gauze pads and ointment."

She blushed, "I... I did."

I looked at her for a minute and we both started laughing. I took her hand and pulled her to me. She wrapped her arm around me. We kissed and giggled and kissed some more. "I left you my number and address... in several places including the refrigerator." We burst into laughter again.

We both had a beer. I laid on the couch and she sat on the coffee table while we talked. We talked for three hours then Kathy said, "Time to change our bandages."

I said, "Okay who showers first."

She gave me a half smile, "You do of course. You're the guest."

I nodded and got up and headed for the bathroom. I was quick but still thorough. It felt good to wash, all except my ass. It was still very tender but starting to feel better. When I finished I called out. "Ok Kathy, your turn." and went to the guest bedroom.

I got a glimpse of her in her nightgown as she slipped into the bathroom. She was wearing a thin cotton nightie. It was translucent and I could see her figure thru the cloth. I got in bed, lost in thought, "

Jesus this is incredible. God she's beautiful and that night gown! I only had a glimpse but what a body. She's a bloody wet dream for any man over twelve. Lord help me be right for this girl, she's absolutely fabulous. "

Kathy knocked then entered the room. She turned to sit on the bed and I noticed what looked like whip marks on her back. I softly asked, "Kathy are those whip marks on your back?"

She shuddered, "Yes, sir. I mean yes Ian. Donnie beat me. That was why I finally threw him out and threatened to call the cops. I couldn't take any more."

"That was a month ago right? That's a long time. What did they give you at the hospital?"

"Oh Ian, I was so ashamed I didn't go to the hospital. I stayed home for a week, like you laying on my stomach... One other good thing came from you running me down, I think the antibiotics are helping my back as well as my knees. I can feel the difference after just one day."

"Kathy, embarrassed or not you should have gone to the hospital. You have nothing to be ashamed about... Will the welts be permanent?"

"I know I should have gone but my head was really screwed up at the time. I think the welts will go away in time. They did the other times. This was the worst he ever beat me. I just couldn't take it any more."

I got up and bandaged her knees. When I finished I lay back down so she could do my ass. I also noticed some abrasions around her wrists and ankles but I didn't ask her about them.

When she finished with my ass Kathy took both my hands in hers. "Ian, I'll understand if you don't want to see me anymore, now that you know."

"Kathy, you're still beautiful and fun to be with. You're warm, kind, tender and caring. I've had the best day and a half of my life being with you. Why would I not want to see you again?"

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. "I...I...Oh thank you. You make me feel so much better about myself."

I could tell there was something else but I decided to wait and let her tell me when she was comfortable with it. I pulled back the covers on the bed. I pushed everything except the sheet to the foot of the bed. I know my ass couldn't take too much pressure and I was sure that Kathy's knees weren't in any better shape.

We lay in the bed facing each other and talking. Again we didn't seem to have any lack of things of interest to talk about. We didn't agree on everything and had some spirited discussions over those items.

At just about ten minutes to midnight Kathy looked at the clock. "Oh look at the time." she remarked. "We'd better go to sleep."

"Kathy do you have classes tomorrow?"

She blushed, "Yes but not until two in the afternoon."

That's good to know. "I don't have to go to work until this time tomorrow. If we stay up later tonight and sleep in it will help me get ready for the mid-shifts but if you're tired I understand."

"I...I'm not tired. I didn't even consider your schedule. I do need to do some studying. In fact a lot of studying. I missed three weeks of classes when Donnie tore up my back. I'm way behind."

"Oh what kind of classes?"

"Well the most pressing one is for tomorrow. It's in systems administration. I have to write some scripts. I don't understand why I need to learn to write code to learn systems administration."

"Well do you want me to help? I told you I would tutor you."

She looked at me with her mouth half open. I reached out and gently closed it. Kathy blushed, "Well... can you explain why I have to learn to write scripts. I have to write a script to check the log files. I'm not even sure what I'm checking for."

"Okay. What if you want to look for warnings in the log file. How would you do that?"

"Well you could just use grep for warning on the log. Nothing hard about that."

"How about if you have fifty systems to check each day? Also what if the log contains several days worth of data."

"Yeah, that would be a lot of work but how would a script help?"

"If you make the script email the results to you and put it in your crontabs and it would run automaticaly. Then you could install it on each of your systems and all you would have to do is check your email. If you're really clever it will only email you if it finds something during the current day. Does that make sense?"

"Yes...I guess it does under those circumstances. Can you think of another example?"

"Sure, Your boss comes in and wants a list of the unique IP addresses that are hitting your web server in a twenty four hour period." He also wants a count for each unique IP address."

"Oh that's a hard one. Those logs are huge!"

"Yeah you have to write a script. It would take you a year to do it by hand." We got up and went to the table where her computer was so she could start writing on the scripts.

She got really enthused and we talked until about four in the morning. We talked a lot but I made her write the script herself. It frustrated her because each time she finished I asked about something else the script should do."

At one point she asked, "Why don't you just line up all the requirements at one time? Doing this repeatedly is dumb."

I took her hands and gently rubbed her wrists. "Two reasons beautiful. First, you rarely have time to sit down and think of all the things you want the script to do before you start writing. Second, I find it is easier to start with something simple and add to it. The job doesn't look nearly as daunting looking at one little piece as it does looking at a list of eight or more things the script should do. Actually there is a third reason. You get to test the script and ensure that it works at each stage. It makes it easier to fix the problems."

She looked at me and at the final script. "Damn," she said, "You are a good tutor. I was all set to fail and have this hanging over my head too."

She started to get up from her computer. I said, "Kathy will you sleep with me again?"

She blushed and stammered, "S... sure Ian. Why?"

"Just because I enjoyed waking up to your beautiful face so much."

She smiled, "Good answer. No... great answer. Yes I will. I enjoyed waking up and seeing you there. Once I got over the shock."

We went to bed. She didn't even get a more modest nightgown. I asked her about that. She said, "After the last six hours doesn't seem necessary. I like the way you make me feel. I like the way you look at me." She spooned up to my front and we went to sleep with me nuzzling her hair and holding her to me with an arm around her waist.