“Maybe…” he said, mournfully, “we’ll just have to wait and see…”
“It’s just temporary! Your body’s using all its energy to heal you up… and I don’t think you need to… to worry about it! Anyway… you haven’t talked to the doctor about it, yet… have you?”
“No… Why should I? He’s treating me for my injured back… not for a limp prick!” he growled. “Well… you should say something to him about it… because if you don’t I will!” She was determined.
“No, you don’t!” he exploded. “I’ll tell him when it’s time to tell him! How would it look for my wife to be saying, ‘Doc… my husband can’t get a hard-on… can you do something about it?’”
“All right… I won’t say anything, but I want you to promise me you’ll do it!” she nagged.
Faye had left the hospital, at the end of the visiting period, with a sense of depression she couldn’t shake off. She knew it was because Bill felt so intensely about his temporary impotence; his foreboding attitude toward it had infected her, and she was, by nature, usually optimistic, always looking on the sunny side of things. She didn’t know how she could help him, now; she had agreed not to say anything to Doctor Bender in Bill’s behalf. His vehement outburst when she had said she would speak to the Doctor, if Bill didn’t, made her think her husband had already built up a great deal of tension in himself because of it. He felt threatened… touchy. She could understand that, she thought; after all, his very manhood was involved. A man’s ability to raise an erect penis had to be present… or there was no penetration. There was nothing! How tragic that would be for a virile man… a man like Bill… to be stricken with impotency… permanently!
She refused to believe it could possibly be permanent… with Bill. He had been a virile man… almost too much so! He had been almost too much for her… at first!
Getting into Bill’s car, she drove along the streets, until she gained the freeway, her memories of the three short years of their married life flooding back to her, as she headed toward home, a home without Bill… and she felt the acute loneliness of it. Back and back, in memory, her mind burrowed, until she was remembering how it had been with them, at first, when they were newlywed. It had been a time of joy… and pain.
Chapter Two
It was three days after their marriage. They had eloped to Las Vegas. Now, they were headed back to Los Angeles. Bill had driven the last fifty miles in almost total silence, punishing the Porsche, without mercy, as he blazed down the freeway. His face was set in an unsmiling mask, his jaw jutting out, defiantly, his keen eyes raking the multi-laned highway, judging distances and speeds with practiced and aggressive arrogance.
Deep in the recesses of his mind, he knew that everything would be all right, but at the thinking, conscious level, his brain whirled, constructing defensive arguments; rebuttals designed to convince his uncle that he was, indeed, capable of making some decisions for himself, especially in making the selection of his own wife. The old bastard couldn’t run his life, forever!
The young engineer looked over at her. She sat, calmly, watching the traffic as he drove, her deep blue eyes cool, complacent and unafraid, the speed, somehow almost hypnotic but at the same time, exhilarating. Faye caught his sidelong glance and turned to look at him. He had turned his head, again, however, and was looking ahead through the windshield. Her eyes drifted over the handsome profile of his face, seeing the strong chin, long, straight nose, broad forehead and the slightly pouting lips that gave him that certain, appealing, little-boy look, especially when a lock of his unruly, curly black hair fell down over one eye. She smiled, now, as she saw him toss his head and, impatiently, brush his hand across his forehead in a futile attempt to control the recalcitrant curl. Her tinkling laugh caused him to turn, questioningly, toward her, again. “Something strike you funny?” he asked.
“Yes… the way you’ve been fighting that lock of hair all day… We’ll have to get you to a barber.”
A smile crinkled his face. “So! You’re trying to change me, already… and we’ve only been married three days!”
Knitting her brow, she calculated, rapidly, after consulting her watch. “For your information, Mr. Wright… we’ve been married exactly sixty-eight hours and twenty-three minutes!” she laughed. “It’s not quite three days, yet.” Then, seriously,”… And, you haven’t said one word to me for the last hour! I’m beginning to feel neglected!”
“I’ve just been thinking is all…”
“You mean… about what to say… how to… tell them…?”
“Yeah… and I still don’t know what I’m going to say. It’ll be touch-and-go… especially with Uncle Morris,” he said.
“Is he really… that hard to get along with?” Faye queried, remembering that all she knew about the man was what Bill had told her.
“Well, let’s say that he can be pretty ornery and when he’s really angry, he’s a fire-breathing dragon!”
“Do you think he’ll be angry… about us, Bill?” she asked. Her voice trembled, tension beginning to build in her.
Bill’s answer was candid. “Hell be mad as hell!”
The freeway traffic, again, absorbed his interest. He turned away from her, his jaw set, rigidly, worriedly.
Faye watched as he expertly passed a fast, high-performance sports car, the driver of which had churned up beside them, challengingly, the spitting roar of the car’s engine loud in their ears, as Bill tromped hard on the accelerator and showed the Porsche’s tail to the couple in the other car. His quick grin, as he picked them up in the rear-view mirror, was a boyish exultation of self in an easy victory. “That’ll show them something!”
Yes! She thought about it. Bill’s always showing somebody something! She asked herself what it proved for him. It was like the show-off stunts of a little boy… only Bill was a grown man, still feeling the need to show-off. Was their elopement to Las Vegas just another of the same sort of thing? She wondered, seriously, about it; running away to get married, against his mother’s and his uncle’s wishes, could be an act of defiance… a show-off stunt.
She would have been willing to wait to have a regular wedding in a church… begin their married life in a conventional manner, but now, she knew, they would be walking into a row with them, the first thing… only three days after their hasty marriage.
With unusual fervor, she hoped she would be able to say the right words to Bill’s uncle. Bill portrayed him as a testy, difficult man, yet he had raised Bill, paid for his engineering education, at a good school, had done everything possible to help him; she just couldn’t believe that sort of man could be the ogre her husband painted him.
Certainly, Bill knew, when he urged her to elope with him, that the old man would be hurt
So why had he insisted on their running off? Why? She didn’t know the answer… yet; of course, she had wanted marriage; to her, marriage was, somehow, the answer to many things, and when she had met Bill Wright, consented to date him, she had known that when he asked her, her answer would be a positive yes.
She had not expected him to ask her so soon, and the unexpected manner of his asking had been a great surprise for her, which had come only two weeks after their first date. It had been two weeks of fun, activity and surprising turns of event, capped by their going to Las Vegas, where they were married in one of the numerous, commercial wedding chapels.
No… Faye hadn’t wanted it that way, at all, but she knew, instinctively, that if she had insisted upon the proper procedure: Announcement of engagement, preparation of invitations, arrangement for church wedding, wedding gown; veil, flowers and a reception followed by a honeymoon, her marriage to Bill would never have taken place.