We got into the car. Betty didn't live far from where she worked, so she would walk. Samantha really looked tired, too tired to protest when I gave her a deep kiss despite her almost constant urge for coughing. She got one coughing fit after another, and she really varied them. The first one in the car started with a long (probably around five seconds) rattling, followed by between six and ten deep, wet hacks. She then turned her head from me a bit and coughed so it sounded like a thunderstorm in her handkerchief. Her second one (beginning less than half a minute after the first one, which lasted almost a minute, by the way), began with three hacks, followed by a long, rattling inhale and ... an EXPLOSIVE cough, lasting for almost a minute again. She coughed so she was shaking wildly and I heard her cough up a lump of mucus and swallow.
- Will you be able to sleep with that coughh, I asked.
- I can't lie down, I have to sit up and slleep, she replied.
We had a cup of tea and tried to talk, but she kept coughing. Usually in her handkerchief, sometimes in her hand only. Only at one time, she used both her hands up over her nose. She had one period, where she got coughing fit after coughing fit, the total period must have been almost ten minutes. She looked so troubled already after two minutes, so I got up and massaged her hot, soft chest under the scarf with both hands. Sometimes on the upper parts, sometimes on the... well let's say the lower parts. Just to see how she would react, I deliberately got a bit too far downwards at one time, and she then tried to keep her cough back. She smiled a little, put the tip of her long nose on my cheek and wheezed "I'm too tired, John...".
I couldn't help it, but the more she coughed, the more hot I got. As I've said, I'm a lousy actor, so she understood it.
- Lie down on the sofa, she said when her bbad coughing fit was over.
I obeyed, and suddenly she was over me. She quickly took her underpants off under her dress and I got ready too. We made love; her coughing with her lovely fingers over her mouth and me massaging her rumbling chest.
- Will you marry me, she asked when it was over. I just looked at her.
- That's MY line, I said to her, amazed. - I couldn't take the risk that you would nnever say it, she said.
I would like to marry both you AND your cough, I thought to myself.

The next evening, she and Betty appeared in the smoker's room as usual when the other women had left. They were still coughing a lot, and I saw Samantha pointing at me and saying something to Betty who just stared, first at Sam, then at me. I understood my answer to her question the evening before wasn't a secret.