Instead, he parried her admission.
"And why not?" he asked, gently. "Poor thing! I'm away so very often from you. And you are so very much, so completely, woman!"
"That's just it, Hector. Woman. Not oversexed. At least I don't think so. But just woman. And this time, when you were away for so long, when for so long I had wanted you, there came suddenly the chance for intercourse with somebody. It was just a quick, plain and simple fuck. The chance offered. I yielded."
Hector grinned. His first shock had subsided. Of course, the crazy way they lived, the long separations – of course she would take a lover. The miracle was that she had lived without one for so long, for six long years. Or so she confessed, anyway. This demanded adjustment. If she were to be deprived of her husband for such long periods, was it her fault? It would be cruel to deny her, the splendid Louise, of all women, the right to sex, to deny her the right to copulation when and where she might choose to effect it.
"I'm glad you told me," he said, understandingly.
"So am I," she said. "Look, Hector. My job takes me away from you for too long at a time. Then, when I can be settled for a while, you are gone. Soon as we meet, I have to shuttle halfway round the world again – the glamorous, globe-trotting beauty consultant to the House of Pierre. It's true, we make wonderful money. We live in the best of hotels. But one thing is lacking most of the time. That thing is sex."
"Love – that I know I have. For your love, my darling, I am grateful. You are the most wonderful man I know. You are all I want. When I can have you. But I loathe going to bed with my whole body aching for just one thing – a man between my thighs."
"My heart aches for you. That's one thing. But my body ache, which happens, you know…?"
"For a penis?" he asked.
"That's just it. For a penis. Any penis. For a man just to fuck me until I collapse, like you do. That, Hector, is another sort of ache altogether."
"I see," said Hector gravely. "So?"
"So I want your permission to take a lover when I want one. Look, Hector, every time I ask you, you tell me: 'No mistresses'. But I don't believe you. You couldn't be the man you are to me, if you weren't often, well at least half that man, to other women."
Hector lay back, realizing the conviction underlying her words. She knew he had had mistresses – scores of women chosen only for the gratification they could give him for the nights in which he had taken them to his bed.
Softly, he said: "My darling – and hell, I hope this isn't going to hurt you – you're right. There have been mistresses."
To his surprise she accepted his admission as casually as if he had told her there had been games of tennis.
"So you see," she said, "we have to rationalize about this thing. There is some reasonable concession we have to make, the one to the other, some tolerance we have to show."
"I suppose we have to. O.K. then. In principle, I'm prepared to go along with you. But tell me first, this lover of yours. Where did you have him? In Australia when you were there, or since then?"
"Since then."
"In Switzerland?"
"No, Hector. Not Switzerland. Here. Right here in Nice. After six whole months of wet dreams, of masturbation after parties, after all the times I've longed for you, it was right here in Nice."
"When?"
Louise lied then.
"Does it matter? Just while you were away. That's as much as I will admit."
"Is he as good a lover as I have been?"
"Conceit!"
"But born of love. Of my love for you…"
"In that case, I'll allow it then. But Hector, this is 1960. These aren't the days of our youth any more. We – you and I – are worth a million pounds, perhaps. I've lost count. There is more than you or I could ever want. Still we persist in making more money. So what we have to do now is to plug up what could widen into a dangerous rift between us – sexwise, that is. This thing, this need of mine for sex, is something that's been growing on me for a long time."
From refilled glasses they drank again.
"You have any ideas then?" he asked her.
"Yes," she admitted. "Funny. It's only now that I've really crystallized them into words, now as I talk. And you had better like them, because you are going to be called on to live up to some of them."
"Listen. Nobody loves me like you do. To you alone will I utter this truth. There is no man so tender, so passionate, so strong, so capable. There is no man who can do to me just what you can in bed. And that's what you always tell me, that in bed I am supreme among all the world's women."
"It follows then that we need one of two things. Regular sex with each other, or just regular sex with anybody. I assume you've been getting regular sex with anybody, and I'm at precisely that stage now that I want it, too, if not with you, then at least with some other man, or even men, of my own choosing."
"So listen carefully. Because I don't want to do this behind your back. I propose to bring my lovers to you. I propose to strip and to get into action with them so that you can approve. Or disapprove. I would never take a man of whom you did not approve, Hector."
"But you, on your part, will bring your lovers to me, right before my eyes. I will approve of them. Some I will not permit to come into the same room as I am in, no doubt. But I will be sensible and try to avoid hating them for being your mistresses. If I approve, then it will be for all time."
"Lovers and mistresses, of course, who don't measure up – these we will abandon. That is to be understood."
"But then, Hector, when you go away, I'll at least know that I will have a penis to serve me, even if I don't have a husband. And that'll apply equally to you and your mistresses. You see, now?"
"Just like I've been doing all along then?" asked Hector, gently teasing.
"Just as you've been doing now, for six years and more," she said, then added firmly, "and as I want the right to do from now on."
Hector sat up, slapping his thigh.
"You know, damned if I don't think this whole thing looks like a mighty fair arrangement for us. We don't live like other people. So the hell with it. We won't love like other people either. It's revolutionary, but damned if I don't think it's just crazy enough to work. Now tell me, who is your lover? Is he here, perhaps, in Nice?"
"He is."
"Will we meet?"
"Certainly," she said levelly. "But only when you produce a mistress. I'm not going to give all and take nothing in this arrangement. Surely you have somebody here in Nice or close by whom you keep for when I'm not here with you?"
Hector, momentarily perplexed, thought suddenly of a woman called Claudine Ferrandi, Italian producer of plays and revues. She lived very much of her life in Nice. Claudine was a fine girl, in the fussy femininity of whose villa he had spent one or two tempestuous weekends from time to time.
"Oddly enough, yes I do," he confessed.
"Then we will bring them together, your mistress and my lover. Soon. The sooner the better. Agreed?"
"Without doubt, agreed," said Hector easily – and yet uneasily.
CHAPTER FIVE
In their respective hotels that night, Hector and Louise did a great deal of thinking.
Hector's thinking was coloured largely with relief, relief that Louise seemed quite prepared through her own suggestion to condone his marital infidelities. And he had to admit it, they had been frequent.
Indeed, the way she seemed to have the situation planned, there was even promise of fun in the prospect.
She's an odd girl, he thought. Beautiful, that went without saying. Beautiful of face as she was of figure. But today she had given him insight into a mind he had never credited her with. Here she was almost prepared to encourage his peccadilloes! And to think of the scores of times he had crept, conscience-stricken, from the beds of his various mistresses!