The wedding was held that evening.
No elaborate ceremony. A Shintō wedding was, by nature, simple, vows before the gods, the exchange of the three-three-nine cups, and a miko to recite the blessing.
But the "presence of the gods" at this wedding, was the groom himself.
Kishin Mikoto-no-Mitama.
And the miko, was the bride herself.
Kikyō had changed into a shiromuku, which Momiji and Botan had spent the entire afternoon digging out from the supplies Hōjō had left behind. That ruler of Sagami had actually brought even this kind of thing…
She truly was perceptive enough.
The white outer robe covered her from head to toe, pure white as first snow. She stood before the altar in the main hall, holding the vermillion three-three-nine cups.
Across from her, Shinji.
Still in gray robes.
The golden ring within his crimson demon eyes rotated quietly.
Momiji stood to the side, both hands holding the sacred sake flask, her face bright red, her hands trembling faintly, she was struggling not to laugh.
Botan had already given up resisting. Two streams of tears hung on her round face. She muttered, "So moving, so moving," and was promptly kicked by Momiji.
Kaede crouched on the threshold, twin-tails swinging, both eyes sparkling.
"Brother Shinji and Sister are actually getting married!?"
She had seen weddings before, but had not expected it so soon.
Kenshin stood upon the approach outside the main hall. Her eyes gazed at the candlelight within. Her forehead band drifted in the night wind.
She did not enter. She merely watched from afar.
Her heartbeat was very loud. The tips of her ears were very red.
But she smiled.
"Congratulations."
Her voice was so soft only she could hear it.
But beyond that, there was one more sentence…
"It seems I will have to work even harder!"
Within the main hall.
Three cups of sake, drunk in turn.
Kikyō set down the final cup. Her fingers slid from the rim across his fingertips.
Shinji looked at the miko before him in her white shiromuku, her features as cold and clear as ever, yet beneath the candlelight, a faint flush floated upon her cheeks.
The crystal of the hairpin at her temple was especially striking against the white robe.
Red and white.
Demon and spirit.
Him and her.
"From this day on....." Shinji spoke. "You are my wife."
Kikyō's dark pupils met his crimson ones.
"I have been from the very beginning." She answered. "A miko, from the start, exists to serve her god, does she not?"
The instant the vow settled, the Shikon no Tama against Kikyō's chest lit up.
Abruptly, without the slightest warning, pale white light seeped from within the collar of the miko's shiromuku.
Not blinding.
Yet warm beyond measure.
Like the first ray of dawn piercing the clouds.
Shinji's crimson demon eyes narrowed faintly.
The System panel flickered.
[Shikon no Tama · Naohi: Affection 100 → 108]
He was briefly stunned.
Max Affection was 100.
Until now, every artifact he had cultivated, Muramasa, the Thunder Horn, the Cat-Demon's Claw, the Venomous Dragon Reverse Scale, Yura's comb, Banryū, the Shikon no Tama itself, had all stopped at 100.
At the ceiling, their abilities and talents were permanently fused, irreversible.
Not a single one had ever exceeded that number.
But the Shikon no Tama had crossed the line.
And not a slow climb to 101 or 102, it had overflowed by eight points in one breath.
"Shinji—"
Kikyō had also sensed the anomaly at her chest. Her right hand pressed against the inner side of her collar, her palm covering the Shikon no Tama.
The surface temperature of the jewel was rising. Yet it did not burn. It was only an exceedingly pure warmth, as though something was holding her hand.
Then.
Light surged from between her fingers, condensing nine cm above her palm into a fist-sized sphere of light.
The sphere was whiter, brighter, cleaner than ever before.
Within the sphere, an exceedingly blurred outline could be faintly seen.
A humanoid shape. Very small. Like a curled female figure, wrapped in white light, quiet as though sleeping.
The Four Souls sealed within the Shikon no Tama; Aramitama courage, Nigimitama kinship, Kushimitama wisdom, Sakimitama love, when good thoughts prevailed, they condensed into the Naohi white jade.
That outline was, unmistakably, the Naohi itself.
The residual soul of Midoriko.
Like Onikiri's Oboro. Like Yura's comb's manifested form.
This jewel, which carried the power of the strongest miko of centuries past, Midoriko, who had perished alongside countless demons, its inner spirit was attempting to materialize. To take form.
Though it was far from complete, as though still missing something, the outline flickered once and withdrew into the jewel.
But it had, indeed, moved.
And it seemed only a matter of time.
This was very likely because the Shikon no Tama had, during this period in Kikyō's hands, been absorbing only positive emotions.
Positive was good.
Therefore the Naohi had grown stronger and stronger. The Magatsuhi had been steadily suppressed.
And now, with the Affection overflowing, it finally had the chance to manifest outward.
Momiji's hand froze midair holding the sake flask.
The little miko in white stared wide-eyed for three seconds, then whispered, "So pretty."
Botan finally found her chance and let out a loud "Waaah!"
Kaede crouched on the threshold, twin-tails swinging. She tilted her head back, watching the dissipating white light, and clapped her hands together.
"Is a god blessing Brother Shinji and Sister!?"
She was promptly rapped on the head by Momiji, your Brother Shinji is a god, what other god's blessing does he need?
But a seven- or eight-year-old girl's intuition was sometimes more correct than any common sense.
It was, indeed, the Naohi within the Shikon no Tama.
Their blessing.
Beyond that.
Outside the main hall, at the end of the approach, the Sacred Tree's branches and leaves also emitted an exceedingly faint hum at this moment.
That divine tree, guardian of Kaede's Village for centuries, upon its canopy, the leaves that had been ordinary green now carried a pale golden halo beneath the moonlight.
Upon the trunk's surface, the growth rings seemed to flow with something from within.
Shinji's panel surfaced characters once more.
[Sacred Tree: Affection 7 → 12]
From Satisfied to… Fondness.
A divine tree of divine-artifact quality, connecting past, present, and future, at this moment of the wedding, it had produced a leap in Affection toward him.
The Talent was drawing closer.
But this was not the time to ponder such things.
Shinji dismissed the panel and turned his head toward Kikyō.
The miko also turned to look at him.
The surprise in her dark pupils had faded.
What remained was something he knew very well.
Trust.
And an exceedingly faint, smugness.
As if to say; See? Even the Shikon no Tama approves.
The two looked at each other.
Then they smiled together.
Shinji's smile was the unabashed kind, the corner of his mouth lifted high.
Kikyō's smile was the kind that softened the line of her lips, melting all coldness away.
Beautiful beyond measure.
The candle flame leaped once upon its copper stand.
That night, in the bedchamber.
The concealing barrier spread silently once more, sealing all four walls and the ceiling, reiryoku flowed once across the wooden surfaces before vanishing.
Not even light could escape.
The candle was blown out.
Moonlight slipped through the crack in the window, falling upon the laid-out bedding, turning the outline of the white shiromuku into a sheet of silver.
Kikyō sat at the edge of the bedding. The hairpin at her temple gleamed in the moonlight with the interwoven luster of dark crimson and white.
She lifted her eyes.
"Shinji."
"Mn?"
"Tonight… don't hold back."
Shinji's movements stopped.
His crimson demon eyes met her dark pupils.
"Are you certain?" He asked.
Kikyō did not hesitate.
"I am your wife. I want to bear all of you."
Her tone was calm, yet hiding a near-willful insistence.
"…At least, tonight, I want to try."
Shinji hummed,
Shinji knelt in front of her.
He did not tear anything.
His fingers found the small stiff cap of cloth that closed the shiromuku at her throat. He lifted it away as if it were a seal, not a garment. The silk loosened. Her collarbones came into the moonlight, clean and sharp, a faint pulse living in the hollow between them. He looked at that hollow the way he looked at a blade he intended to keep.
Then he kissed her.
Not the brief press from the torii. Not the vow-kiss after yes. His mouth opened over hers and stayed. Kikyō's lips parted on a breath she had meant to keep inside her chest.
"Nn…"
His tongue slid in, slow, tasting the last trace of sacred sake and the heat that had already begun to rise in her. She made a small sound into his mouth—surprised at herself—and her hand rose to the front of his gray robe, clutching fabric instead of pushing him back.
"Mmnh… Shinji…"
He kissed her deeper.
Head tilted. Nose against her cheek. One palm at the nape of her neck, thumb under her ear, holding her there while he took his time. The kiss wettened. Broke. Returned. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and released it with a soft, wet mmph, then kissed the corner where it joined her cheek, then came back to the center and did it all again, slower. Kikyō's lashes lowered. Her other hand found his shoulder. When he drew back just enough to bite that same lower lip, her fingers tightened until the gray cloth wrinkled.
"Hah… Shinji—"
It was not a protest. It was the sound of a woman whose composure had been asked to move and had, reluctantly, begun to.
He did not answer with words. He went to her jaw. The hinge of it. The soft place just beneath. Then the side of her throat, where a pulse beat hard against pale skin that had spent a decade hidden under a miko's collar. He kissed there until the skin warmed under his mouth. Opened. Sucked.
"Ah—!"
Kikyō's breath hitched; her chin lifted despite herself, offering more of the line she usually kept locked away. He dragged his tongue up the tendon and bit, gentle, then less gentle, until a mark began to live there.
"Nnh… there… haah…"
Making out like that, they stayed for a long time.
Wet. Quiet. The barrier on the walls drank the sound and still left the little ones behind—mm, nn, the catch of her breath every time his tongue stroked the roof of her mouth. She kissed him back now—not matching his hunger, answering it. When he sucked on her tongue she shivered and her thighs pressed together under the silk.
"Hnn… don't… tease…"
Kikyō felt him against her thigh through both layers of cloth.
She looked down.
The gray robe could not hide it. Thick. Heavy. Already hard, pressing the fabric into a shape that had nothing ordinary in its size. The outline ran along her leg like a living thing. She stared for a heartbeat. Color rose on her cheekbones, high and sudden. She did not look away.
She slid off the bedding.
Knees to the tatami. White silk pooling around her calves. She set both hands on his thighs and looked up once, dark pupils, flushed mouth, the composure of a woman who had already decided and would not be talked out of the decision.
Then she opened the lower tie of his robe.
Slow.
The knot gave. The cloth fell to either side. What she freed was not a man's ordinary flesh. After the Twelfth Transformation it had changed with the rest of him: longer, thicker, faintly marked along the vein with a dark-crimson heat like banked blood-fire. The head was flushed dark, already wet at the slit. It rose against his stomach, heavy enough that when she wrapped her fingers around the base her hand did not close. Heat bled into her palm.
Kikyō leaned in.
She did not start with her mouth.
She breathed him in first. Close enough that her nose brushed the base. The scent was heat and skin and something that was not human—osore and living fire and the faint iron sweetness of the Shura-Heart. Her lashes lowered. A faint tremor went through her shoulders.
"Hah…"
She turned her face and breathed again, slower, as if committing it.
Then her tongue touched the underside.
One slow stripe from base to crown.
Shinji's breath left him in a sound he did not bother to hide.
"Kikyō—nngh."
She licked again. Broader. Tasting. The head smeared against her lower lip; she took that wetness in and swallowed it without comment, throat working once.
"Mm…"
Then she opened and sank down.
Hot. Tight. Her mouth was smaller than the thing she was trying to take. She worked him in inches, cheeks hollowed, saliva already shining at the corner of her lips. When he bumped the back of her throat she made a muffled sound and stayed there.
"Nnghk—"
Breathing through her nose. Eyes watering once before she forced herself lower. Her tongue pressed the underside. Her lips stretched pale around the girth.
Shinji's hand hovered, then settled in her hair. Not shoving. Feeling the motion. Feeling how she chose it.
"You don't have to take all of it at once—"
She pulled off just long enough to speak. A thread of spit connected her lower lip to him. Her voice was already ruined at the edges.
"Hah… I said I wanted all of you."
Then she took him again, harder.
"Mmph—nnh—slurp—"
The wet sound filled the sealed room. Kikyō's head moved with a rhythm that started careful and turned greedy. She sucked until her jaw ached. Drool ran down her chin onto white silk in a darkening patch. Every time she came up, her tongue dragged the underside in a long, deliberate stripe; every time she went down, she tried to take more than last time.
"Nn… mmph… hah, hah—"
When she could not take him all, she used her hand on what her mouth could not reach, twisting slow at the base while her lips worked the head with wet, filthy little chu, chu sounds she would have died to hear in daylight.
Shinji's composure cracked in pieces.
His abdomen tightened. The golden ring in his crimson eyes spun once. A low sound left his chest.
"Kikyō… hh—look at me."
She did, mouth full of him, dark eyes wet at the corners, a flush living all the way down her throat to the open collar.
"Nnghk… mmph…"
His other hand joined the first.
He held her head and moved.
Not cruel. Not gentle either. He used her mouth the way she had asked to be used: deep, steady, until her throat fluttered around him and a gag broke wet against his skin.
"Ghk—! Nngh—hhk—"
Kikyō's fingers dug into his thighs hard enough to leave marks a mortal man would have felt for days. She did not pull away. Tears stood on her lashes and then ran. When he pushed to the root her nose pressed his abdomen and a raw, choked sound tore out of her, vibrating around him.
"Nnghk—ghk—hah—mmph—!"
He fucked her mouth like that until her thoughts scattered.
Spit strung between her lips and his shaft in shining threads. Her tongue went slack and then worked again, stubborn, the same will she used to hold a bowstring at full draw. Each thrust made a filthy, wet noise the barrier swallowed and still somehow left in the air—glk, glk, slurp. She gagged. Recovered. Took him again.
"Good," Shinji rasped. "That's it—nngh—take it."
"Mmph—! Hhk—Shin—mmph—"
A thin line of saliva and his own leaking heat ran off her chin and spotted the silk between her knees.
"Kikyō—I'm—"
She answered by swallowing around him. Tight. Deliberate.
"Nnghk—!"
Shinji came with a growl that started in his chest and ended between her teeth.
"Kikyō—nngh—!"
The first pulse hit the back of her tongue, thick, hotter than a man's should be, faintly bitter-sweet with the heat of the Shura-Heart. Vicious in volume. It filled her faster than she could drink. She tried. Her throat worked, once, twice, a third time.
"Mmph—nngh—gulp—hh—"
Still it overflowed, white at the corners of her mouth, sliding down her chin in a heavy line, dripping onto the ruined silk at her breast.
He pulled back.
Kikyō stayed kneeling.
Mouth open. Tongue out, painted. His spend sat heavy on it, shining in the moonlight, a line running from her lower lip down the column of her throat.
"Hah… hah… ah…"
She looked wrecked and strangely calm, as if she had completed a rite and was waiting for the next motion of it. Then she closed her lips, swallowed once, twice—
"Gulp… nn… gulp…"
—and licked what had escaped back into her mouth with slow, thorough passes of her tongue—across her lower lip, the corner, the wet on her chin—as if wasting it would have been a failure.
"Mm… hah…"
She swallowed again.
A thin sound left her—half cough, half breath. Her eyes were wet. Her mouth was red. She rose, lay back on the bedding, and opened both arms toward him.
"Come." Her voice was ruined and steady at once. "Hah… don't stop."
Shinji came down over her.
He opened the upper silk and drew it off her shoulders. The cloth caught at her elbows, then fell. What it left was exactly what he had always known was there and had never treated as spectacle: modest, perfect, high on her chest, pale except where his mouth had already marked her throat. The areolae were a warm brown, larger than the small peaks they surrounded. The nipples had drawn tight in the cool air, the color darkening as he looked.
He put his hands on them.
Kikyō's back arched off the bedding.
"Ah—!"
He pressed. Not playful. The weight of Earth in his palms, thumbs dragging across the peaks until they darkened further and her breath broke.
"Nnh—Shinji—"
He squeezed, released, squeezed harder. Kikyō's mouth opened. A real moan slipped out.
"Aahh… haah… not so—ah—!"
He pinched the left peak between finger and thumb and rolled it.
"Shinji—wait—too—ahh—"
"You said don't stop."
He bent and took one nipple into his mouth.
Sucked.
Hard.
"Aahh—! Nnh—your mouth—hah—!"
Kikyō's hand flew to his hair. He drew on her until the flesh pulled, then bit the soft underside of her breast, not enough to break skin, enough to leave a wet red mark that would last past dawn.
"Hnn—! Biting—ah—Shinji—!"
He returned to the nipple and sucked again, tongue flattening, then flicking, then sealing and pulling until her thigh jerked against his hip and a broken sound left her that she tried, too late, to catch behind her teeth.
"Mmnh—ahh—ahh—haah—"
He gave the other the same.
The sounds she made climbed from swallowed gasps to broken little cries she would have killed anyone else for hearing. Her chest rose into his mouth. Her nails scored his scalp. When he left her breasts they were shining, wet, the brown areolae darker, both peaks swollen and abused, a bite blooming under the right one like a secret.
"Hnn—Shinji—your mouth—don't—hah—don't stop there either—"
He left them and shoved the lower silk up around her waist.
He did not take it off.
The white cloth bunched at her hips in a ruined belt. Beneath it she was bare, already soaked, the inner lips flushed dark, a thin thread of wetness connecting her to the bedding. The scent of her hit him—human, clean, desperate. Her thighs tried to close. He set them apart with his hands and looked.
Then Shinji latched on.
No warning. Mouth over her whole sex, tongue pushing into her, then up, flattening on her clit and sucking.
Kikyō's cry cracked the quiet.
"Aahh—! There—nnh—ahh—Shinji—!"
Her hips tried to escape and his hands locked her thighs open, thumbs pressing the soft inner skin hard enough to mark. He drank. The wet sounds were shameless—slurp, suck, swallow. Each pull drew another pulse of slick onto his tongue; he swallowed it with an audible gulp and went back for more, nose pressed to the dark hair at the top of her mound.
"Ah—ah—wait—I can't—haah—your tongue—nnh—!"
Her voice broke into something like weeping. Not pain. Overflow. She squirmed, silk twisting in her fists, heels digging at the bedding, then her hands found his head and pushed him in. Harder. Deeper. His nose crushed against her. He sucked her clit in a tight, mean rhythm, two fingers sliding into her while his mouth worked, curling up, finding the place that made her whole body seize.
"Nnh—! There—there—ahh—Shinji I'm—I—!"
Kikyō came with a sob that tore the last of her composure out of her throat.
"Aahh—ahh—aahhn—!"
Shinji did not lift his mouth. The gulp was audible in the sealed room—once, twice, a third time—gulp, gulp—as he took what she gave him and kept licking through the shakes until her thighs trembled on either side of his face and her voice went thin and wrecked.
"Stop—no—don't stop—hh—Shinji—nnh—too much—ah—!"
Only then did he rise.
Her spend shone on his mouth. He wiped nothing away. He turned her onto her stomach.
White silk still rucked at her waist. Hairpin crooked. Face turned on the bedding, mouth open, eyes wet, a strand of black hair stuck to her cheek.
"Hah… hah… Shinji…"
He set one palm in the small of her back, lined himself up against the soaked, still-fluttering heat of her, and drove in to the root in a single thrust.
Kikyō screamed into the cotton.
"Aahh—! Too—too big—nngh—!"
Full. Stretched past the warm-up, past her mouth, past what her body had practiced. Shinji did not wait for her to finish adjusting. He pulled back until only the head held her open and rammed in again.
Slap.
"Ah—! Ah—!"
The slap of skin filled the chamber. Her fingers clawed the bedding. Each thrust shoved her up the futon; he dragged her back by the hips and did it again, deeper, the head knocking against a place that made her cry out on every stroke.
"Shinji—too deep—ahh—right there—nnh—ah—ah—ah—!"
He leaned over her, chest to her back, and found her mouth from the side. Kissed her through the cries, swallowing the broken sounds.
"Mmph—ahh—mmph—"
One hand slid under her and crushed a breast, pinching the abused nipple.
"Aahh—! My breast—nnh—you're—ah—!"
He fucked her like that until her voice went raw and the bedding under her hips was dark with what leaked around him.
"Hah—hah—ahh—don't pull out—"
He pulled out anyway.
She made a helpless noise at the empty.
"Nnh—!"
He flipped her onto her back, pushed her knees to her chest, and entered again in one stroke. The new angle dragged a sob out of her.
"Aahh—different—nngh—so deep—Shinji—!"
He kissed her. Sucked the bitten breast until she arched and wept.
"Ah—ah—your mouth—suck—nnh—I can feel it in my—ahh—"
His mouth left her nipple with a wet sound and went to the other. All the while he thrust, heavy, unrelenting—slap, slap, slap—heat and slick and weight stacking until she could not tell where one climax ended and the next began.
"I'm—again—nnh—ahh—Shinji I'm coming—aahhn—!"
He turned her onto her side.
One thigh hooked over his arm. He took her there, slower only for the first three strokes, then hard again.
"Hah—this way—ah—ah—ah—!"
His mouth found the damp hollow of her armpit—hot, salt, the private scent of a body that had fought and prayed and now could only shake. Kikyō made a startled, helpless sound at that.
"Nnh—! There—that's—ahh—dirty—Shinji—haah—!"
Her free hand clutched his hair and did not pull him off. He licked there. Opened his mouth over the soft inner arm and bit. Thrust through it. The intimacy of it broke something in her voice. She cried his name into the bedding and came again, clenching so hard he had to grind through it.
"Aahh—Shinji—nngh—I can't—I can't—aahhn—!"
"You can." His voice was a growl now. "Nngh—take it. Look at me."
Another position.
He sat back and pulled her astride him. Silk still around her waist like a ruined flag. His hands on her hips lifting and dropping her onto him until her head fell back and the hairpin finally came loose and struck the floor with a small, clear note.
"Aahh—! Wait—too—slap—ah—ah—ah—!"
Her breasts moved with every fall. He caught one in his mouth and sucked while she rode, or was ridden; the distinction had left the room.
"Mmnh—your mouth—suck—nnh—Shinji I'm going to—ahh—!"
She came again with a broken wail, inner walls locking, and he kept moving through it, lifting her, dropping her, using her weight against her.
"I—I can't—Shinji—please—haah—it's still—ah—!"
"You can." His voice was wrecked now too. "Look at me. Nngh. Say it."
She did. Tears on her face. Mouth red. Eyes still his. A strand of spit and his earlier spend still faintly shining at the corner of her lip.
"Hah… don't stop… ahh… don't stop…"
He put her on her back one last time.
Hooked both legs over his shoulders. Folded her nearly in half. Drove until the barrier on the walls flickered and the reiryoku patterns shivered like disturbed water.
"Aahh—! Aahh—Shinji—nngh—too deep—I can feel you in my—ahh—stomach—ah—ah—ah—!"
Kikyō cried out with every stroke, no composure left, only his name and don't stop and the wet, filthy rhythm of a wedding night that had gone past ritual into something only the two of them would ever admit. Her hands opened and closed on his arms. Her mouth stayed open.
"Hah—hah—ahh—Shinji—Shinji—nnh—!"
Each time he bottomed out a raw sound tore out of her, higher, then hoarse, then almost silent except for the hitched breathing.
"Shinji—I'm—again—ahh—I'm coming—aahhn—!"
"I know." He kissed the wet under her eye. Did not slow. "Give it. Nngh. Give it to me."
She did.
The climax took her like a bowstring snapping. She shook, clenched, wept.
"Aahh—ahh—aahhn—Shinji—!"
He buried himself to the hilt and came with her.
"Kikyō—nngh—!"
Heat poured into her in thick pulses, the same vicious volume as before, filling her until it leaked around him onto the silk in a hot, pale run. Kikyō shook through it with him, nails in his back, a last raw sound torn out of her throat and swallowed by his mouth.
"Mmph—ahh—mm… hah… hah…"
They stayed joined.
Breathing. His forehead on hers. Her legs slipping weakly from his shoulders, trembling, marked at the thighs by his hands. Inside her he twitched through the aftershocks. She flinched at each one.
"Nn… still… inside… hah…"
She did not ask him to leave.
Shinji had pulled back only far enough to look at her.
She was wrecked. Flushed. Wet to the wrist if he put a hand between them.
"…Again," she said.
The word came out wrecked. Not a plea. A decision.
Shinji's mouth curved, slow.
"You're shaking."
"I know." Her dark pupils found his crimson ones and did not look away. "Nnh I can still take you. I am your wife. Treat me like it."
He kissed her once; deep, claiming, swallowing the sound she made against his tongue.
Then he hooked her knee higher, lined himself up where she was already open and leaking him, and pushed back in to the root in one long slide.
"Ahh—! Shinji—hhah—"
Her back arched off the bedding. Her nails bit his shoulders.
He did not stop at the hilt. He stayed buried and rolled his hips, grinding that inhuman thickness against the spot that made her vision white.
"Mmhh—wait—no, don't wait—"
"I'm not waiting."
His voice was low against her throat. Still restrained. Still holding the last of it back. She felt that too, and hated it, and wanted it, and pulled him deeper anyway.
Outside, Maple Town slept. The six tiers of vermillion torii stood black against the thinning night.
Inside the barrier, the miko's voice broke again, wet and shameless, and her husband answered her the only way that mattered.
He drew back.
He drove in.
And he did not stop.