Oh, sure, that wouldn't fix everything up. But if he did, they might be able to talk things over. And that at least would be a start, a step in the right direction. So why not?
He turned on his heel, marching back into the kitchen. Kelly was still sitting at the table, staring into space now, still absentmindedly stirring her coffee with a silver spoon that clacked irritatingly, incessantly against the china cup. Her face was ashen white and now her shoulders dropped with the weight of the burden it seemed that she must bear.
As Tom entered the room, she looked up at him with sad and frightened eyes. And then she looked away, saying nothing.
Tom shifted nervously from one foot to the other, trying to think of something to say. He cleared his throat, hoping she would look at him again. But she kept her eyes on the floor, minutely inspecting a scrap of paper that had fallen to it. He cleared his throat again, then wiped his sweating palms against his trouser legs. He swallowed hard then and finally blurted out, "Kelly, I'm sorry."
She kicked at the scrap of paper that she.had been examining, then looked up at her husband and their eyes met. Suddenly she burst into tears.
"Oh, Tom," she sobbed. "Oh, Tom!"
He put his arm around her shoulder, tilting her face up to him. "Don't cry, Kelly," he said, more gently than he had spoken to her in months. "Don't cry, sweetheart."
She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. "What are we going to do?"
He patted her hand. "We'll find something," he said. "It will be all
right."
Kelly continued to sob quietly though. Once again she wiped at her tears, smudging her make-up a little. It somehow made her vulnerable and to Tom irresistible. He hated himself even more for what he had done to her, wanted more than ever to find some way out of this impasse the two were trapped in.
"What?" Kelly demanded suddenly. "What will we find?"
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know. But something." "Tom, we can't go on like this."
"Now don't say such things," he scolded gently. "Don't say such things."
Once again Kelly burst into tears. "It's all my fault," she insisted.
"All mine."
"I was a bastard to you last night," Tom said. "A real bastard. Maybe that's all I am, anyway."
Kelly thought about it, tapping her fingers on the table reflectively. "We're different," she said at last. "That's all. Different."
Tom had an impulse to say, "Sure. I'm a man and you're a woman." But he resisted it, knowing that flippancy at this point would only make matters worse. "Yeah," he said. "I guess so."
Maybe we never should have married," Kelly said. It was as much a question as a statement, and Tom quickly denied it. "But we have such different backgrounds, darling," she said. "My mother always said it wouldn't work, you know."
"I know," Tom said glumly. What a bitch his mother-in-law was, he thought. Typical. What a bitch!
"But maybe we can make it work?" Again it was a question, and Kelly raised her eyes to Tom hopefully.
"I guess so," he said at last, mulling over her words. "Maybe if we try hard enough…
There was another long silence, finally broken by Kelly. "It won't help," she said in a sad and almost broken voice. "It won't help, Tom. You need someone else.. someone who is… well… more like you." She doubled her fist and put it up to her mouth, chewing on her knuckles.
Tom wanted to deny it all, wanted to say it wasn't true. But it was true and that was the hell of it. He eyed her once more, shifting his glance
from her face to the wall behind her, and then to his own scuffed shoes. "You need someone, too," he said at last.
Kelly thought about it, still chewing on her knuckles. "I guess I do," she admitted.
There was another long pause. The girlie magazine Tom had read the night before somehow loomed large on his horizon. There had been all those advertisements, all those stories of wife swapping, all the letters to the editor which extolled the idea. He thought it over, examining the pros and cons. And finally he broached the idea. "Honey, I was reading in that magazine last night…"
Kelly's own mind flashed back to the book she herself had been studying, the psychology book which had advocated a switch of partners from time to time as a means of strengthening a faltering marriage. Why not? she asked herself. And yet the idea of suggesting it herself was out of the question.
She shook herself, forcing herself to concentrate on what her husband was saying. "Yes?" she asked. "Yes…"
"Well, there were a lot of things in it… in that magazine, I mean… about, well, about wife-swapping."
He dropped the word as if it were a bombshell. When it didn't explode in his face, he went on. "I mean, they seem to think it's a good idea. You know what I mean?"
Kelly nodded. It seemed obvious that they thought wife-swapping was a good idea. "Yes, I guess so."
"Well, what would you think of it?" Tom asked her suddenly.
She was both surprised and puzzled. "Of what?" she asked.
"You know… like I said. What would you think of wife-swapping?"
"It sounds to me like a perfectly valid means of establishing a more or less perfunctory relationship," Kelly said.
Tom looked at her in dismay. "What?"
"I said it does seem perfectly valid," Kelly repeated.
"What does that mean?" He felt a surge of anger which drifted away into bewilderment. And then that was dispelled, too. "Honey, I'm asking about what you would think of wife-swapping… for us."
"For… for us?" Kelly stammered.
"Yes. For us." And when she said nothing he asked, "Why not?"
Kelly shook her head. She couldn't think of any reason why they shouldn't. After all, some very valid authorities had encouraged wife-swapping. And on the most basic possible level, what had they to lose? Not one damn thing, she thought with a sudden surge of emotion. Nothing. Oh, God! It might save their marriage, might make their lives tolerable once again.
"I… I think it might be a good idea," Kelly said, suddenly ashamed to discuss the matter. "I mean… well… you know…" Her words faded away, and she sat twisting her fingers together until the knuckles cracked. She stared at her hands as if alarmed by the sudden pop.
"You mean that, Kelly?"
"Yes," she said, nodding vigorously. "Yes, I do."
"That's great," Tom said. "Because I think so too. I think it might be just about the best thing that could happen to us."
Once again Kelly agreed. "Yes." And then she stared again at her slender white hands. When she raised her eyes to her husband's, they were filled with doubts. "But Tom," she began.
"Yes?"
"But… but how would we… well, go about it? You know. Find people? Another couple? You know…" For once she was inarticulate, unable to express herself.
"There are ads…" Tom answered.
Kelly didn't understand. "Ads?"
"Yeah. You know. In the back of the magazine."
"No, I don't know."
"Look, I'll show you." Tom lumbered into the living room, found the magazine he had been reading the night before and turned to the back of it. He carried it to the kitchen, holding it out to his wife. "See. Right
here!"
She scanned it briefly, then handed it back. "Yes," she said. "You're right." She thought about the matter briefly. "Do you think we should put an ad in?" she asked.
"Maybe, maybe not. Let's see if there's something here that we might be interested in." He ran his finger down the column, pausing once or twice. "There's something here," he said. And then he shook his head. "No, it's a swinging single who wants to meet another swinging single."
"That's not for us."
"No," Tom agreed. "That's not for us. And here's someone… No, that won't do, either."
"No?"
"No. 'Swinging couple interested in bondage'…"
"No!"
Tom turned the page and ran his finger down another column. He stopped once or twice, seemed about to speak and thought better of it.