Chapter 2: Some Direct Research
Mary continued, "Margaret, first of all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I want to thank you on behalf of my own dead mother and what I feel certain she would have wished most dearly, which is for my father to have at long last found love and happiness again after her untimely death. I love you both so much, and I'm so happy for the two of you."
Margaret smiled with joy as Mary spoke, realizing how fully and lovingly Mary endorsed Margaret's illicit and perhaps even illegal romance with her father even given all the danger it implied for all of them.
"I do have a concern though, and I hope it can be adequately addressed for all our sakes. My concern is that your romance with my father could be forced by the demands of nature to result in a swelling of your belly or other consequences which could not be so easily hidden."
Margaret smiled. "This, I have an answer to. Not wanting to bring harm down on the three of us, I had the same concern. It turns out that your father had an operation after your mother died. This operation has no affect whatsoever on his masculinity, I assure you, but it renders him unable to fertilize a woman. He told me what it was. Something that starts with a 'v.' I wrote down the word and looked it up in a medical dictionary at the library. I dearly wanted to believe him, but even so, the stakes are high. In fact, such an operation exists. And by now I'm quite certain he's had the procedure."
"Is there a scar?"
"Not one I've noticed."
"Then how do you know?"
"How would you guess I know?"
"My word."
"Are you scandalized? I hope not. We are deeply in love, and we can't resist nature any better than most. In fact, I think we're much worse than most," she offered, fanning herself from the embarrassing confession.
"Well, of course, I'm very relieved that you're sure. No, I'm not scandalized. Anything where you and my father are so happy together can't be a bad thing. God would have never designed the world so. So I'm left intrigued. I don't know much about the breeding of humans from any of my immediate sources, only livestock, birds and insects. Do you know the female preying mantis bites the head off of her lover upon conclusion of the act?"
"I can relate! My feelings are so strong at that moment! But I've never wanted to eat him," Margaret offered.
Now that her concerns about babies had been addressed, relieved, Mary's curiosity took fast hold of her. "Does it happen like it does with a bull?"
Margaret squirmed and looked out the window while answering the intimate question. "Sometimes."