After a delicious dinner, they moved in to sit in front of the fire and continue the conversation there. When the grandmother clock on the wall struck ten, Catherine put her hand on Lorne's shoulder. "We should let these old folks get some sleep. We have things to do, and we need to be up early in the morning."

They confirmed the six thirty departure and had a round of hugs, then Catherine led Lorne up the stairs. "You'll have to make up for lost time." She pulled him along the hallway to her room. "You're behind schedule with your top-ups."

She opened her room door, and he followed her in. "Wow, this is nice. Huge. This is what you moved into from Cypress?"

"No, my first bedroom was much simpler, very much simpler. All the energy was spent upgrading the winery, and we moved into the old trailer the previous owner had lived in. I was halfway through high school before Dad finished the house."

"It appears as if you still sleep here. So neat and tidy."

"Mum came up to clean, make the bed, put fresh towels in the ensuite. Arrange it while you and I were preparing dinner."

They headed across the room, both leaving a trail of clothing on the rug as they went. He helped her out of her panties at the foot of the bed, and they merged in a tangled hug, hands and lips exploring. At his urging, she sat on the edge of the bed and lay back to welcome his tongue and hands.

"This isn't about making me pop," she sighed. "It's about getting me pregnant." Nonetheless, she relented, and he continued.

Lorne freed his mouth for a moment. "This has been on my mind all afternoon. Fantasising." He resumed where he had left off, his hands now finding her breasts. Close in front of his eyes, the flat expanse of her belly began undulating while the sounds of her breathing quickened and deepened.

"Oh, my God... I don't think... I've ever come... So quickly... Your fantasising... Oh, my fuck!"

He moved up, moved in, and felt her waning pulses as they rolled on the bed together. "It's been a long time," he said between kisses.

"Even in my steamiest novels, you don't exist. I'd never dare write you, you'd never get past the editors. Oh, my God."

When she had calmed, he rolled onto his back with her, still attached, and pivoted her halfway around into a cross. She caught on and swung a leg around, then continued the turn and rose onto her knees to straddle him, her back to him. He held her waist and guided her as she began churning while slowly moving up and down.

"Wonderful view of the action from here. I love the movement of your folds." He ran a hand forward past their junction, pausing to play with her lips before ending on her clit.

She hung her head down to watch his length move in and out. "Your turn, Lorne... You need to... Come now... Oh, fuuuu..."

She collapsed forward, hugged his calves and kissed his feet as she convulsed. He sat up to stroke her back as she continued her heavy breathing. "Hair-trigger," she panted. "Hah, it's the men who... Who're supposed to have." She continued panting, though lighter now.

"Hair-trigger? Okay, this time, I'll peel it before we start. I'll show you a real hair-trigger." He chuckled as he sat, extended his hand to her neck and lightly pulsed it.

She bent her head over to squeeze his hand. "Fuck do I ever want your baby." She moved up into a squat and did deep knee bends above him as he lay back on the stacked pillows, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples. "Forget me, Lorne. Peel it. Now."

Within half a minute he erupted inside her, muffling his howl not to disturb Michael and Rachel. He collapsed back onto the bed, and she laid back on him, still gently rocking her hips. He reached around, found her mound and slowly moved it in circles while his other hand cupped a breast.

"I cannot believe you haven't done this your entire life. You do it with such compassion, with so much concern for me, sensing what I want, what I need. You've led me through position changes I've never explored, led my body, my soul into areas I've never imagined possible."

"I've a vivid imagination, and I've done a lot of research online, preparing in case I ever had the opportunity to do some of these things with you."

"If you keep doing that, I'll pop again." She gave a deep sigh and wiggled her hips.

"Okay, hang on." He chuckled as he grazed his forefinger across her clit.

After she had recovered, they remained connected, lying on their backs with her butt on his hips and their heads on pillows as they stroked and talked. They were giving every opportunity to make it easier for the sperm to find their way downhill to her cervix.

"What do they say online about this? About maximising the chances of conception?"

"I was never willing to look. I didn't want to get my hopes up and then dashed. Nathan was so opposed to the idea from the beginning. There must be a lot of information on the web."

"Is there a wifi connection here? Surely there must be."

She smiled as she pointed to the box of tissues which had been placed at the edge of the bedside table. "Can you reach the box of Mum's thoughtfulness?"

They disconnected, Lorne wrapped himself in a turban of tissue while Catherine poked a wad of it between her lips. He dug-out both their computers, and they sat on the bed, leaning back against the stacked pillows and surfing.

"This is interesting. Listen to this. This site says having sex too frequently can reduce the chance of becoming pregnant. Once a week may not be often enough, while every day is too frequent, as daily sex can reduce the quality of sperm. Instead, aim to make love every two or three days."

"Where's that?" She looked across to his screen.

"At babycentre.co.uk. Seems the Brits still remember Queen Victoria." He chuckled. "I'll send you the link."

"Here's another one: Make a point to have sex every other day starting around day ten. A positive result on your ovulation predictor kit occurs the day before ovulation. Have sex that day and on the next two days. These are the prime days to conceive."

"What's an ovulation predictor kit?"

"Also new to me. Sounds like it would be useful."

"Listen to this one: Reduce the frequency of sex - because it takes time for sperm to both mature and accumulate. This is on webmd.com - Having sex every day even during ovulation will not necessarily increase your chances of getting pregnant. In general, every other night around the time of ovulation helps increase your chance of getting pregnant. It says here that sperm can live up to 72 hours after intercourse."

"Three days? I thought it was four or five days."

"Here's an interesting one: The amount of sperm in men's semen increases if you wait a few days between ejaculations. Here's where it gets interesting, though." Lorne looked up from his computer, smiled then returned to the screen and continued, "But they also found that a high sperm count alone doesn't necessarily improve the likelihood of conception. The longer you wait between ejaculations, the greater the decrease in motility, the ability of the sperm to swim and meet the egg. Sperm motility is one of the most important aspects for conception."

"That makes a lot of sense to me. And also to this writer: It is also possible that a man who doesn't ejaculate enough can have problems with infertility as well. For lack of a better term, sperm that are "fresher" seem to be stronger and faster swimmers. Sperm that have been produced but remained in the body for a while can be less viable."

"Hey, I'd rather have a small army of healthy, aggressive wigglers than a huge army of tired old farts. I say send in the special forces." He stroked her cheek and smiled.

"I was just reading that one. It continues here, answering a reader's comment: So, what does this mean for you? You and your wife had sex shortly after you ejaculated on your own. If the way your body works is similar to the men in the research study, when you had sex with your wife, your sperm count may have been slightly lower... but the sperm that you did ejaculate when you had sex with her were likely better swimmers." Catherine nodded. "Makes sense."

"This one puts it well: ...studies reveal that delaying ejaculation may increase the total concentration of sperm and perhaps the volume of semen. However, the percentage of normal sperm and the percentage of motile sperm both decrease with infrequent ejaculation."

"Listen to this one, it's the results from a study related to abstaining from sex and the ability to conceive: ...looked at sperm samples from around six thousand men who had abstained from sex from one day to over two weeks. The researchers found that if men had low sperm counts their sperm steadily became less mobile after an average of one day's abstinence. Their sperm were going stale..."

"So where are we? These sites are all over the place."

"Normal internet. Everyone has an opinion. A huge filter is needed." Catherine shrugged as she curled her lips. "Like some of the intentionally mucked up stuff on Wikipedia, done to drive someone's personal agenda."

"The religious prudes are likely pushing the infrequent sex stuff. The motility thing makes more sense to me. Think of evolution... The fellows who came most often left the biggest trail of children. It would seem the more attractive males, however you want to define attractiveness, would be the freshest and more likely to impregnate. Both from frequency and freshness."

"Giving sperm no opportunity to deteriorate makes a lot of sense to me. I've been trying to find how quickly they're replaced. Seems to be little on it except nebulous statements."

"Here, I've found a medical blog entry titled How Sperm Are Made: The testes contain over two hundred metres of tubing for the production of sperm. Approximately a hundred and twenty million are started every day. This is equivalent to making about twelve hundred sperm per heartbeat."

"Wow! Twelve hundred per heartbeat. Continuously. So much for the waiting between pops." She reached down, hefted his scrotum and counted ten seconds. "There's another twelve thousand."

"That feels nice, your hand there to welcome the new ones. They may not all make it, the article continues: They take approximately two months to mature, with quality control throughout the production process to ensure genetic and biological integrity of finished product before ejaculation. The final two weeks of maturation are spent in the coiled ducts near the bottom of the scrotum, joining the queue of a billion or more readying to be ejaculated."

"My God, how can we not get pregnant?" She ran her fingers lightly across the bottom of a testicle. "So this is where they're waiting, this lumpy stuff under here. It makes sense to me that if the ones that are ready just sit there, they'll deteriorate under the old idea of waiting to build volume."

"Daily seems better — even twice a day for added freshness." He rolled to cup her breast and kiss her. "I can live with that."