As Jon attempted to recover his breath, aching to continue where he left off with Karyn, he realized he was now even deeper in over his head with Karyn. Some things needed to be discussed, back outside this story, before they went any further.
"Emoh.", Jon managed to say.
Suddenly, Jon was back in the wishing rock world. He was still holding Karyn, who was draped over him. She seemed quite a bit heavier now that Jon wasn't a bodybuilder. Jon still wanted her in the worst way, but forced himself to put that off.
"Karyn get down, we need to talk.", said Jon. Karyn clearly was wondering why Jon had taken them both out of the hardsuit setting.
Karyn dismounted with ill grace while Jon tried with limited success to assist her.
During an uncomfortable silence between the two, Jon considered how he was going to explain himself. Finally, Jon explained, "Karyn, I meant it when I said that I'd be honored to marry you if that's what you wanted. But we're not married yet! A fantasyland marriage doesn't count. And much as I was tempted, I just couldn't let things go much further until we were really married. You'd never forgive me if your wanting to marry me was all a side-effect of the story we were in."
"Oh Jon, that's so sweet.", Karyn said. She hugged Jon and continued in a sultry voice filled with promise, "Yes, I still want to marry you."
Jon fought down the impulse to roll in the hay with Karyn immediately. "Ok, were both underage, how are we going to get married?", he stammered, trying to maintain control.
Karyn brightened, "We're old enough that we can married with parental approval and a judge's permission. We can get that easily enough with the rock!
"Ok, but we better think out the wish carefully. What it took to get your chest back to normal was bad enough. What the stone could do to get us married could be worse.", Jon cautioned.
"No problem. Marriages can be annulled or divorced.", Karyn asserted confidently as she picked up the wish rock.
