Free Three Sides of the Coin (Catherine I) by Carole J Lennon

control.  It seemed inefficient to worry whether a character on a television show would die in the upcoming weeks.  Steven would worry in advance and have a plan for any occasion.  In fact, he considered it a gift that he was so unlucky.  It forced him to think, 'What could go wrong?  And what could I do about it?'  It always amazed Catherine that her worrywart husband was at his best when bad things happened.   He would worry about having enough money to buy new tires for the car, but didn't blink an eye when the tire went flat.  It eventually dawned on her that the proactive worry paid off in efficiencies during a crisis.
                  In another sense they were similar.  When they could see the future, they both set about doing something about it.  Once she saw and felt a design, she relaxed and moved on to the next project.  He would worry about how to make that window fit in the wall, then come up with an installation technique that he could do at the least cost and effort.  And she knew he could do that, so she didn't worry.  And they both worried about the money.  Their dreams, her dreams, rapidly outgrew their budget and as a result she was forced to wait and he felt disappointed that she could not see her visions quickly.  He knew, in his heart, that she could always out-design any flow of money, but he wanted to provide her with all possible joy.   But that was not his source of anxiety as he knew he had done all within his power to move things along.  He had a very nice paying job, and he did almost every physical act on their designs that could be done.   This made pretty much every project cost half, or less than what it would cost if they had hired a contractor.
                  His anxiety was of a sexual nature.  He had waited all these years for the kids to move out and had expected the focus of their lives would turn back to each other; once the worries of curfews and teenage activities were beyond her worry scope.  But Catherine had routines for her daily activities.   This allowed her to perform boring tasks without thinking about it.  She could design in her head as she prepared breakfast, washed clothes or changed the bed sheets.  If it was not a daily routine, it would force itself into her consciousness and she would find herself questioning the task and why she had to do it.   She would feel both a responsibility to do such tasks and a resentment to be having to do it.   So washing clothes impinged upon her consciousness and bothered her, but like many of these tasks, her ego was such that she believed no one, not even her well intentioned and clever husband could do them to her satisfaction.  It was wise that she chose such a mindset on things like the wash because he was horrible at things like that.  He didn't know much about fabrics and their optimum wash temperature.  He had no memory for where the five different soaps, three bleaches, two fabric softeners and eighteen or nineteen different specialty spot cleaners were, leave alone when they should come into play.  But he could vacuum like a champ, but she had it in her mind, from her mother of all people who had never worked outside the home, that certain jobs were 'women's work' and should not be foisted upon the husband.
                  So despite the fact that the kids were gone, and there was less work to be done with just two sets of dirty clothes and dishes, the number of tasks that she was requiring of herself stayed fairly constant,  even if the volume of the tasks had decreased.  As a consequence, she was about as tired as ever, and when the task of sex came up, she would slip into the routine they had developed.  This is not to say the two of them did not enjoy it.   No orgasm could be a waste of time, in Steven and Catherine's eyes.  But Steven felt that sex should be more interactive and with two creative people, surely there could be something more than