"You're lying to me," she said. "I've always been honest with you and you're lying to my face right now, Jake."
"What are you talking about?" he demanded, perhaps a little too strongly.
"We've been together more than six months now," she said. "You haven't been with any other women in all that time. You're safe and both of us know it."
"Rachel," he said, feeling his erection wilting as if it had been burned, "I think maybe you're..."
"You don't trust me, Jake," she said. "You think I'm trying to get pregnant, don't you?"
He was momentarily speechless. She had never really snapped at him like this before. The most serious argument they'd ever had had been over who got to eat the last piece of Elsa's filet mignon. And the fact that she'd hit the nail right on the head with her accusation didn't help his state of mind.
"You do think that, don't you?" she asked, hurt in her eyes. She let go of him and drifted a few feet backward in the pool.
"Rachel, hon," he said. "What's going on here? Why are you suddenly flipping out about this?"
"I just want to make love to you without those damn rubbers, Jake," she said, tears running from her eyes now. "I want to feel you inside of me, not a bunch of latex."
"You never complained about it before," he said. "I seem to recall making you scream out to Jesus a few times while I've been plowing you with a rubber on."
She sighed. "You don't understand, Jake, do you? I'm not saying you're bad in bed. You're very good in bed, the best I've ever had. But I want to feel it all! I want to feel you inside of me."
"Rachel, I told you..."
"I know," she said. "You're doing it for my protection. I've heard that bullshit ever since the first time. It's a lie, Jake. It's a goddamned lie and you know it. You think I'm trying to get pregnant. I've told you all this time I'm on the pill, you've even seen my pill case, you've seen me taking them every morning, and you still think I'm trying to trap you."
"I don't think that at all," he said, his eyes not meeting hers.
"Right," she said disgustedly. She paddled over to the edge of the pool and climbed out.
"Where are you going?" Jake asked her.
"I think I'll go sleep at home tonight," she said, grabbing her robe off the chair.
"At home?" he asked. "You mean... at home?"
"Yeah," she said. "You know? The apartment you won't let me give up? That home. I guess I see now why you keep paying for it for me."
She trudged up the stairs and went in through the bedroom balcony door. Jake didn't follow her. He swam around in the pool for a few minutes, his emotions in turmoil.
She was right about everything. He couldn't even begin to deny it to himself. He wasn't worried about giving her any sexually transmitted diseases, nor was he worried about catching any from her. He was worried that she would stop taking her pills or that she already had and that she would get pregnant. And he wasn't continuing to pay for her apartment because he was worried about the burden that would be placed on Maureen, her roommate. He was doing it so she could not claim official co-habitation when (if, his mind corrected) things went sour with her. He did these things as a matter of course, with the cynicism of a man who knew that almost everyone in the world wanted something from him. It had never occurred to him that Rachel wouldn't understand, that his actions would seem offensive to her. Didn't she know the position he was in? Couldn't she appreciate that?
He climbed out of the pool after about fifteen minutes, put on his robe, reactivated the security lights, and then went up the stairs to the balcony. When he entered the bedroom Rachel was not in there. Nor was she anywhere else in the house. She really had gone home.
When he returned from the recording studio the next evening she was there waiting for him, once again dressed in a fashionable and sexy outfit, once again with a drink in her hand. She apologized for being such a bitch to him, blaming it on her approaching period, and promised she would try not to ever do such a thing again. He accepted her apology a little guiltily but offered none of his own.
The sex they had that night was among the best they'd ever shared. Jake wore a condom during it and Rachel did not complain about it.
The routine went on. Six days a week Jake went to the recording studio and continued the process of mixing and overdubbing the eleven tracks that would appear on It's In The Book. Disagreements between Jake, Matt, and Nerdly continued to erupt on pretty much every track they put together, usually falling along the same battle lines that had already been drawn — Matt the traditionalist, Nerdly the progressive, Jake somewhere in between. Sometimes he came down on Matt's side of the argument and sometimes he came down on Nerdly's. Sometimes both Nerdly and Matt got mad at him for trying to find a middle ground.
When he came home each night Rachel would always have a drink waiting for him and Elsa would always have dinner waiting. On Saturday nights Jake would usually take Rachel out to a nice restaurant and then to a club for dancing. On Sundays they would got to the beach or up to Griffith Park or on a shopping excursion to Beverly Hills. They had sex at night, sometimes in the morning, and at least twice a day on Sundays. She never tried to get him to go bareback anymore, never even made any snide remarks if he had to interrupt a spontaneous session in order to go retrieve a condom from his nearest convenient stash of them. She continued to tell Jake she loved him on a regular basis and he continued to not return the sentiment because it continued to not be true. Things seemed the same as they had always been but at the same time it seemed some fundamental change had taken place in their relationship, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Whenever he started to worry too much about this a couple of drinks would usually squash the worry flat and drive it back into the corner of his brain somewhere where he didn't have to think about it.
On August 16, 1987, the recording process finally came to a merciful end. All eleven tracks were now mixed, overdubbed, processed, and on a master recording ready to be put into mass production whenever National Records deemed it the right time for the album to be released. They had no plans to do this for at least another month, maybe longer. Although their previous album, Balance Of Power, had fallen from the number one position some weeks before it was still sitting firmly in the top ten and radio stations all over the country were still playing the hell out of the songs on it. The album had now gone four times platinum, the best selling of all the Intemperance albums so far.
What this all meant was that until it was time to start putting the tour together the band had absolutely nothing to do and no obligations to fulfill.
"Vacation time," Matt said as they left the recording studio for the last time. "You still up for Cabo with me, Jake?"
"Hell yeah," Jake said. "I'm ready to try out this whole fishing thing." Jake had been promising Matt ever since the end of the last tour that he would go to Cabo San Lucas with him in order to sample the lifestyle there and to engage in what was reputedly the best sport fishing in the free world.
"That's my bitch," Matt said. "I'll start making the arrangements tonight. You up for private?"
"It's the only way to fly," Jake said. "Just tell me what I owe you and I'm in."
Matt called him that night while he and Rachel were sitting out in the hot tub, soaking and enjoying a bottle of Cabernet. Elsa brought him the cordless phone, not so much as batting an eye at their nudity.
Rachel watched his conversation, quickly gathering that he was talking about going on a trip somewhere.
"August 25 through the September 3?" Jake asked. "Sounds good to me. Are we leaving from Van Nuys?" A pause. "Bitchin. So I need to be there at nine o'clock in the morning at General Aviation? I can do that. Where we staying?" Another pause. "No shit? They got all the comforts of home there? Good. So what are the damages gonna be?" Another pause. "Eighteen grand? Sounds doable. Just have your guy get an exact amount for me and I'll have Jill wire it into your account." They passed a few more pleasantries with each other and then, in the way of men the world over, ended the conversation now that the information required had been passed. Jake clicked the off button on the phone and tossed it over onto the table next to the spa.