Jill’s husband didn’t talk very much, and when he did it was only to offer some new complaint about that afternoon’s ride, or about Jill herself Tom carefully reserved his complimentary opinions for the occasional appearance of a bikini-clad beauty who would come into the bar from the swimming pool to get a drink. His comments about the girls were both crude and admiring; he often talked about the way other girls looked and acted in front of his wife, knowing it bothered her. It was a sort of constant underhanded dig at her as though she needed to be continually reminded that she wasn’t wife enough for him.
Tom drank heavily, and Jill matched him. If she didn’t, then he would sit and stare at her impatiently until she had drained her glass and they could reorder. He would not buy a drink for himself alone. Jill found herself getting high quite soon, and no wonder. Neither had eaten since breakfast, they had been keyed up all day and were now exhausted.
The atmosphere between them was strained and brittle, like a finely charged high tension wire, ready to explode at any moment. The silence wasn’t even so much a result of that day’s irritation as it was the cumulative result of all the arguments and tension that had occurred in the past; cumulative because Tom and Jill never really settled an argument, or cleared the air. Because of their inability to communicate, the void between them was left charged with all the bitterness and acrimony of past campaigns, lost and won, and this in turn left open wounds that were easily inflamed by the slightest word or deed.
“Tom, darling, can we get some dinner, please? These drinks are really going to my head.”
“Christ, Jill, we just got here. Let me relax a minute, OK?”
You’ve been here at least twenty minutes.”
Tom cursed under his breath, looked away across the room, and then back at his wife.
“You go get yourself some dinner if you want, but don’t start nagging me, all right?” he spat at her.
“I wasn’t nagging, darling, I only said…” Jill started.
“I know what you said, so why don’t you just button it up!”
Jill lowered her eyes to her lap, and tried to fight off the tears that threatened suddenly to spring into her eyes, Why, oh why, was it always like this? Why couldn’t they be happy and uncomplicated? Why did they have to insult, dig at, and humiliate each other all the time? Why couldn’t they just be easy with each other?
“You can become a nag,” Tom continued relentlessly, “the minute you become a wife, but not before. Understand?”
“Please, Tom.
“I tell you what,” Tom said, a sadistic leer crossing his face. “I’ll give you a chance to be a wife right now. How about going back to the cottage and seeing if these drinks have thawed you out at all?”
“Go back to…?” Jill stammered, looking up fearfully.
“Sure. Seeing all this tail around here has made me horny as hell. Let’s go back to the room and fuck! Now!” Tom grinned evilly as he saw the reaction his words had on his wife.
A slight tremor of agony rippled through Jill. There was nothing she wanted to do less right now than to submit to her husband’s violent lovemaking. And now, it would even be worse than usual, because he was slightly drunk, and that caused him to be even more demanding, more cruel than he normally was. Jill searched her brain to find a way to postpone the inevitable moment when she would be forced to bend before his irrational lust.
“Well, what about it?” Tom rambled on, enjoying the torment he knew he was putting his wife through. “Are you going to be a dutiful wife and take care of my great big hard-on, or not?”
“Tom, please… you know I want to try to please you, but can’t we get something to eat first? Then, if you want.
“Please me?” Tom interrupted. “I don’t want you to please me for God’s sake! I want you to please us both, don’t you understand that? I want to have you enjoy my loving, be excited by it, be… “ Tom stared into the unresponsive eyes of his wife, and gave up trying to explain his feelings to her. After all, he’d tried many times before, to no avail. And he could still see the same look in her face, the look that told him she thought he was a beast simply for wanting to have a meaningful sexual relationship with his wife.
“Oh, to hell with it!” he finally stated flatly. “You don’t understand and you never will. You think sex is something dirty, and completely separated from love. Well, it isn’t… but you’re too Goddamned frigid to realize that.”
“Tom, please,” Jill began, “It’s not that.
“It is that, sweet little wife of mine. You’re a lousy piece of tail, and you always will be!”
With that biting insult, Tom got up and pushed his chair back from the table, motioning to a cocktail waitress across the room.
“Tom, where are you going?”
“Out, baby… Just out. Maybe I can find a little action around this place. It’s a cinch I’m not going to find it with you!” “Tom!”
The waitress came over, and before Jill could say anything more, Tom had given her instructions to serve his wife whatever she wanted and to put it on his room bill, and then he was gone, disappearing out the door without so much as a backward look in Jill’s direction. Jill sat, stunned, not able to believe what he had just said. He was going to find a little action? The depth of the insult only gradually made itself clear to Jill’s liquor-fogged brain.
“What can I get you, deane?”
The voice brought Jill’s mind back to the present, and her eyes came up to meet those of the smiling waitress. She didn’t answer right away.
“If you’ll pardon my suggesting something,” said the waitress gently, “a little Drambuie always helps calm you down.”
“Yes… yes please, that will be fine,” Jill answered vaguely, hardly aware of what the girl was saying. In no time Jill found a slender glass in front of her, filled with the thick, rich drink.
“There you are deane, that will settle you down.”
Jill picked up the glass and sipped it, and was pleasantly surprised by the drink’s good taste.
“That’s fine,” she said to the waitress. “Thank you very much.”
The waitress smiled again understandingly, and left, leaving Jill to her thoughts. Tears of anguish began to form in the young wife’s beautiful eyes, and a choking sob threatened to force itself out of her tortured throat. It was no good. It was all over, she knew that now. There was no hope for her marriage, and she was suddenly reluctant to even try any more. Her life seemed to be lying in pieces around her, all her hopes and dreams shattered into a thousand pieces impossible to ever repair. And it was all her fault… she wouldn’t blame Tom if he went off with another woman tonight… and never came back.
The smarting insults of her husband filled her brain, convincing her that she was frigid, did think lovemaking was sick and depraved, never had allowed herself to experience the joys of sex. She was a prude, like Tom always said, and not fit for the love of any man. “Mrs. Parker?”
The gentle voice surprised Jill, and she looked up to find herself looking up into the kindly face of a man about forty-five years old, fairly short and stocky, with a little mustache lining the crevice of his upper lip. Somehow the man looked vaguely familiar.
“I’m not sure you know me, Mrs. Parker, but I’m Harry Sommers.”
Of course, the president of Jamieson Advertising! Jill made an attempt to compose herself into some semblance of normality.
“Oh yes… yes, Mr. Sommers… how do you do?”
“Oh, I’m just fine. I recognized you, believe it or not, from the photograph on your husband’s desk at work. Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Well, I… I was just leaving Mr. Sommers… “Jill began.