And Sam Niles had a blue veiner going on a diamond cutter and was impulsively married within four months, wondering, as did Kimberly Cutler, how the hell it all happened.
The first thing Sam Niles didn’t like about being married to Kimberly Cutler was having to sleep in the same bed with another human being. It wasn’t that Kimberly wasn’t carnal and syrupy, she certainly was. But prior to marriage he had seldom had to spend a whole night in a bed with anybody. And early on, Kimberly’s doubts were heightened by Sam’s saying that he’d like to trade their king size bed for twins.
“That’s unnatural,” Kimberly told him as they lay in their king size bed unable to sleep.
“What’s unnatural about it?”
“Newlyweds should sleep in the same bed, for God’s sake.”
“Where does it say that?”
“Sam, don’t you enjoy me in bed?”
“That’s dumb. Do I act like I enjoy you?”
“As a matter of fact you act like a man who does a pretty good act of making love. Oh, I don’t mean fucking. You like that all right. I mean loving. You don’t really give yourself. You hold lots and lots back from me. It’s purely physical, your love-making.”
“All this because I want twin beds. Kim, it’s just that my old man and old lady were drunks and we were so goddamn poor I grew up on the floor. Or when we could rent a pad with a bed I always had to share it with two brothers. And I’m talking about a little bed, an army surplus cot. Christ, I felt like a married man at seven years old, always crowded into bed with one or both brothers. I just can’t bear it anymore to be …”
“Close?”
“Yeah, close.”
“You never want to get close to anybody.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m saying that you won’t let yourself get close to anyone. I can’t understand how you could be friends with Harold so long. He’s a sweet little guy but he’s like glue. How do you stand it?”
“Whaddaya mean?” Sam asked, then added, “Jesus, I’m starting to sound like Dean.”
“There’s something about Harold. You’ve yelled his name in your sleep.”
“So maybe I’m fruit for Harold.”
“You don’t like people, Sam. You’ve had a mean rough life with weak parents and you hate them even though they’re dead. You won’t even see your brothers and sisters unless you have to. It’s very sad. You don’t really want to be close to anyone. Not even me.”
“There oughtta be a law against people taking Psych 1b,” Sam Niles said.
“But why do you stay friends with Harold, Sam? You’re so different. You’ve both been in war and police work, yet he still sees honey where you see slime. He’s always enthusiastic, you’re always bored. Why do you let him crowd you? There’s something, something in the marines. In Vietnam…”
“My mother always told us it cost a nickel a minute to burn a light,” Sam Niles said as he switched off the lamp, leaving Kimberly Cutler Niles to wonder in the darkness. “Of course it doesn’t cost a nickel but I’m a creature of habit. It was just another thing that lousy drunken bitch lied about.”
And Sam rolled over, wishing the king sized bed was a twin, and went to sleep, yelling in the night about a spider hole and a cave, which Kimberly Cutler knew would never be explained, not to her.
From then on the marriage deteriorated very quickly, especially after Sam Niles began to attend various choir practices with various groups of choirboys, much to the disapproval of Harold Bloomguard who tried to hint that he should go home to Kimberly.
Three months later two bitter young people lay side by side in their twin beds, both doing poorly in their college classes because of their miserable relationship. They seethed over an argument they had about one watching television when the other was trying to study.
“So I’ll just quit school in my senior year,” Sam said. “Why’s a cop need an education anyway? No more than a trash collector. That’s all we do, clean up garbage.”
“The garbage is in your mind, Sam.”
“Fine, I’ll just feed on it. That’s what pigs do, isn’t it?”
And then bitter silence until Kimberly made a gambit. “Sam, do you wanna come over here and make love to me?”
“No, I’d rather have a wet dream.”
“Well then go up on Hollywood Boulevard and pick yourself up a queer if I can’t turn you on, you cocksucker!”
“Just like a woman. Never tell a man to go out and get some pussy. Too vain to think another woman might be able to do what you can’t. It’s go get a fag, never a broad.”
“Fuck you!”
“Tennis, anyone?” said Sam Niles, and that was the last word spoken that night.
Two nights later, after they had not seen each other except as she came and went to class and he to the police station, Sam came in after getting off the nightwatch. He found Kimberly sleeping soundly, but as he looked at her long tan body, the blue veiner he brought with him became a diamond cutter. He quickly stripped and got in her bed, nudging her.
“Hi, Kim,” he whispered.
“Oh Christ, what time is it?”
“Two thirty maybe. I wake you up?”
“Oh no, Sam, I’ve been lying here worrying about you getting shot like those idiotic cops’ wives on television. Where were you? Out drinking with the boys again?”
Then Sam was up close, breathing in her ear, touching her with a diamond cutter, saying, “This’ll keep you awake.”
“Only if you stick it in my eye,” replied Kimberly and she didn’t mind at all when Sam slammed out the door, half dressed.
The next night was perhaps the worst since they were both thinking about sex, hoping they could bring some of the drama back into their lives, neither wanting to make the move across the two feet of carpet to the other’s bed.
“You wanna come to my bed?” Kimberly finally asked pugnaciously.
“What do you have in mind, a prizefight?”
“Goddamnit, do you or don’t you?”
“Aren’t you too tired tonight?”
“I’m too tired every night after I’ve been studying for four hours and you come tripping in at some godawful time.”
“Well I’m a policeman and I work godawful hours!”
“You wanna get in bed with me?”
“Sure, but I’m tired too. Just for once, why don’t you come to my bed?”
“If we had one bed we wouldn’t have to be walking a beat across the goddamn carpet.”
“All right, I’ll come to your bed.”
“Not if it’s too much trouble.”
“You want me to or not?”
“All right, all right.”
Sam Niles pulled himself up and walked two steps and lay down beside Kimberly Cutler Niles, and after three minutes of silence wherein neither of the stubborn young people stirred, Sam finally said, “Shall we both put it in and toss a coin to see who has to move?”
Five minutes later it was Kimberly who was half dressed and slamming out the door.
The honeymoon was definitely over, but like so many people, Sam and Kimberly needed a dramatic moment to convince them of what they should have known. Six days later they got it.
It started with Sam Niles deciding to drive Kimberly bananas much as Celeste Holm tried to drive Ronald Colman bananas on a movie Sam had seen on “The Late Show.” He felt a little silly that night as he lay in his twin bed, knowing that he had made enough noise coming home from work to wake up the landlady down stairs. He knew that Kimberly could not possibly sleep through his drawer banging, toilet flushing, door slamming, shoe dropping, and would have to respond as Sam lay in the darkness with his back to her and forced out a muffled hilarious laugh guaranteed to drive her wild.
After the third stream of laughter he heard Kimberly stir in her bed and say, “Sam, are you drunk or what?”
“No.”
“Then what’s so damn funny at three A.M.?”
“Nothing.”
“Then please let me sleep.”