"Aw knock it off," he said, in his pants and zipping up now. "With the possible exception of you and David, people who honor and revere their sex-partners are really committing incest. Don't you think that's naughty?"
Linda turned and somehow managed to give him a proud and haughty glare. "For that remark alone, Brad Grogan, you should be sent to an asylum for life. Although I suppose I should be grateful that you excluded David and me from your obscene generalization."
"Oh well, hell. You and David and the Golden-Couple-Bit. What you guys've got is real great, and your marriage is a permanent fixture. But believe me, that kinda slop's gettin' rarer and rarer these days…"
"David and I have a perfect marriage," said Linda, who was still able to recognize a cue when she heard one.
"Yeah, yeah. Spare me the propaganda, please. And anyway, that's what he says too…" And suddenly Brad remembered something rather curious: the last time David said that, it sounded like a complaint. What the hell did that mean? That Linda was smothering that poor guy with too much nooky? Then Brad took a fast last glimpse of Linda's flouncy breasts just before she slipped into her bra, and thought: ooh hell no!.. who could tire of that? He decided that in David's case the rich supply of sex with his own wife had put him in such a perpetual state of hot-nuts that he'd simply started wanting more of the same with others. That old no-two-girls-bang-alike temptation. But dammit, after all their years of confiding in each other, why had David kept him from suspecting the truth about Linda? Was he ashamed of the fact that she had this big sex-problem, and was such a cocked-out little glutton in bed? It hadn't worked that way with him, because, after all, hadn't he admitted the real gamy facts about Joyce? Although, wait a minute; come to think of it, he hadn't done that until after their divorce. So maybe there are some things guys just don't tell other guys about their wives while they're still married to them.
Brad drove Linda back to town in a gloomy, stilted silence, while he kept thinking how damned strange and ironic it was that nobody ever really knew what anyone else was like, not deep down where it counted most. Except, of course, for Linda Fortune-because she had turned out even wilder and juicier than he'd predicted. Carefully, he began plotting newer strategies to trap her into taking advantage of what he was sure she couldn't get enough of: the pounding slamming big-meat of a loud-mouthed brawling ex half-back. One Bradley Grogan, preferably nude and in person…
… And zoom!.. chalk up another one for the big black-Irish Greek Boy!
Linda let herself into the house about five that afternoon, feeling limp and shaken. Fifteen minutes later David's phone-call came. He'd be tied up at work on a special project and wouldn't make it home for dinner. God, what a blessing, she thought. Then told him she had a headache and would retire early; which, she hoped, would explain why her voice sounded so oddly tense and tired on the phone.
Lying awake in bed later that night, she kept running her hands all over her body, pressing those tender places where Brad had so relentlessly trampled and infringed, that pompous bull! How smugly he'd taken it for granted that she'd adored every minute of their encounter, heinous and abominable as it was. How on earth had he ever acquired such a low opinion of her? He saw her as a scrounging, wanton alley-girl, instead of the snow-white Goddess-image to which David so persistently clung. Which of these pictures was correct? She found Brad's concept the more exciting of the two, for it was such a new and unknown quality. But only the idea, she told herself-certainly not the man himself. God, he was so… disrespectful! Why hadn't there been any worship in his lust, the poor sick egomaniac!
Ah, but if only David were more aggressive and had the courage to take her like that, crudely and by force, instead of the polite and mutually suitable way they always did it. There might be so very much they could share, if that dear boy but dared. Of course, it would involve a terrible break with tradition, almost like doing away with Christmas and Thanksgiving. For, after all, wasn't he her husband?… clean, pastel and gallant? That was the role he insisted on, and by now she'd grown quite resigned to it. The die had been cast too long ago. And besides, she much preferred staying up there on his pedestal, for wives were at their best when they were shrines. And so, up there she would remain, lest he see some of the dirt that now lurked inside of her. She must somehow never let that boy know how much she'd grown to enjoy the act of intercourse; it would shatter all his illusions about her, poor darling. Those craven appetites had no place in the home! And the dread arrived of these lusts only convinced Linda even more that everything must remain exactly the same in the Fortune household. The soothing automation of familiar sharing, and safety…
But still… mightn't there be other anonymous brute-crawlers in the shadows of the trees? Now that she recognized this stirring birth of her needs, why not create more such opportunities? Ahh… they're all out there waiting to strap her up and drag her down… boys and men with their tangling dark hungers. Would she go seeking them now… other plungers, other rude ones?
TEN
During the next few weeks David and Linda were each too preoccupied with their own private upheavals to observe any marked changes in the other. And now they both saw the imprint of what they expected to see in one another, instead of what was actually there: the new softness, the sensual lassitude in their movements and demeanor. Too separately involved to be suspicious, they still let themselves take it for granted that, like furniture, love-on-the-hearth never really altered, it just grew more comfortable.
Before contacting the third girl on his computer-list-Valerie Hudson, how that name stuck and beckoned in his mind! — David, wanting to plant some legitimate excuse for remaining in the city one or two nights a week, went to the trouble of enrolling for an evening course of music appreciation at U.C. He made a point of discussing this with Linda, even filling out the registration forms in her presence.
"Sweetheart, next to you, music was always my first love," he told her. "You won't be lonely those nights, will you, Linda? Because I'll… have to stay in town for dinner, and then rush right on to class."
"Oh David, don't be silly, I'm very proud that you're still hungry for education." She put down her crochet-needle and gave him a bright-eyed smile. They'd been watching Family Affair on Television, which had the same appeal as wallpaper that told a story: soothing, but you didn't really have to follow it. "As a matter of fact, darling, I too have been thinking of things cultural…" Linda paused here and swallowed a large slice of her conscience. "Joyce Grogan has joined a… a Great Books Discussion Group, and she's been urging me to take part in it. Now I think I'll just do that little thing!"
"Oh great, Linda… I think that's…" Then he stopped and recapitulated. "Did you say Joyce…?"
"Well yes, she… and several others in my bridge-club, they've all been telling me it's a very stimulating group…" Why did he look up so sharply, she wondered… Was there something in my voice? I happen to know there is such a group in town, and he can verify it… although I'm not too sure poor Joyce has become that rehabilitated these days. Then why did I use her name… why not one of the others? Was it because I was thinking of Brad…?
"That's marvelous, Linda," David said now, trying to recover from the shock of seeing Joyce as a bookworm, and thinking what an expert that woman was at juggling her double lives… even managing to fool her best friend. "I'll feel much better about going to school if I know we're both being students at the same time…"
"Yes, it is a progressive idea, isn't it, David?" she said, more at ease now as she noted that he was genuinely pleased. "Perhaps we can even manage to be away on the same nights. That way neither of us will get the chance to miss the other…"