“How do you know that?”
“From the hundreds of times she made me rape her.”
“Hundreds of times?”
“Every time. She wasn’t very voluptuous. She wasn’t at all voluptuous. Two little swellings instead of breasts, that she was ashamed of. So that when I went to bed with her she wanted no preliminaries. Force it into her as far as it would go, and get it over with. Then when I was through it was just the beginning for her. I hated her. And she hated me.”
“Why didn’t you get a divorce?”
“I didn’t want a divorce. Instead of that, I had other women.”
“You would have anyway,” said Geraldine.
“Undoubtedly. At least Agnes kept me from ever having a guilty conscience, I’ll say that for her.”
“I begin to understand something about you and me,” she said.
“Pray tell me, what is that?”
“You said that Agnes had a first-rate mind.”
“She had,” he said.
“Then what you wanted from me was a mind that you could have control over. The mature woman with the kindergarten mind.”
“You’re over-modest, my dear,” he said.
“There you’re wrong, George. I haven’t got a first-rate mind, and I know it. But I am that mature woman, and I want to tell you something. My second-rate mind sees through you. I know a lot about men. Men give themselves away in bed.”
“Do I? Yes, I’m sure I do,” he said.
“Everywhere else, your mind makes you my superior. But not when you take your clothes off.”
“No? Then does that mean you’ve stopped being afraid of me?”
“No, I’m still afraid of what you can do to me the rest of the time.”
“What do you think I want to do to you?”
“Get even with women for what Agnes did to you,” she said.
“That, my dear, is brilliant. You haven’t been reading any books on sex, have you?”
“I don’t have to read books on sex. The ones I did read didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t found out for myself. From men. Old stuff, as the kids say nowadays.”
“Old stuff, except when it happens to you,” said George. “You may have read about kissing when you were a little girl, but the first time a boy really kissed you, it wasn’t old stuff, was it?”
“The first time I was really kissed it wasn’t a boy. It was a grown man, and he had his hand up my leg.”
“Oh, everything all at once,” he said.
“Not everything. I was still a virgin when I married Howard. But I knew what to expect.”
“Did he?”
“He was quite surprised.”
“How?”
“That I was a virgin.”
“And was he pleased?”
“Of course he was pleased.”
“Yes, we all are,” said George. “And I wonder why. After all, a gentleman doesn’t return from his honeymoon and rush to his club and say to the fellows, ‘Guess what! Susie had her cherry.’ “
“You’re only speaking of gentlemen,” she said.
“Well, why speak of the others? You’ve certainly found out by this time that I’m a complete snob. I have to be. My grandson won’t have to be, but I do.”
“Your grandson but not your son?”
“My son is dead.”
“What?”
“Don’t take me so literally. He’s very much alive and already a millionaire, according to young Hibbard. But he’s out of my life and apparently never coming back into it. He’s nouveau-riche. A self-made man, with a Rolls-Royce car and hobnail boots. He can go fuck himself, the little prick.”
“What’s happened? I’ve never heard you carry on like this,” she said.
“Oh, go to hell,” said George Lockwood. He rose suddenly and left the house, and in a moment she heard the Packard’s deep hum in the driveway and the slag of the roadbed being spattered against the wall. George Lockwood was not himself.
George Lockwood believed that the secret of getting the most out of life was in getting the most out of people, and the secret of getting the most out of people was not to spend too much time with any individual at a stretch. No man or woman could be stimulating for days on end. Women, with their power to provide the most stimulating experience in life, were prevented by the physical nature of the male from maintaining their power after passion was spent. The male was obliged to retire until his vitality was replenished, a condition that sometimes had been speeded up by changing to another female.
In any case he had been with Geraldine too long. He returned from Swedish Haven in a better mood which, however, was created by his decision to get away for a few days and not by the mere passing of his irritability. After all, the irritability had been brought on by thoughts of his son more than by impatience with Geraldine. Nevertheless Geraldine had annoyed him, and it would be a relief to spend a few days in New York without her. In Swedish Haven therefore he went to the telephone booth in the railway station and made a long-distance call to his brother in New York. “I have no time to talk to you now, but I want you to call me at home at seven o’clock this evening,” he said.
“Is there anything wrong?” said Penrose Lockwood.
“Nothing wrong. Just call me at seven, when I’ll have more time to talk.”
Promptly at seven, as George and Geraldine were on their way in to dinner, the maid told George that Mr. Penrose Lockwood was on the wire and wished to speak to him.
“Oh, Christ,” said George. “Well, you go on in, Geraldine. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Your soup’ll get cold,” said Geraldine.
“There must be some way to keep it warm,” said George.
“Oh, all right,” she said.
George took the call in his study, leaving the door wide open if Geraldine cared to listen. “Yes, Pen. We were just sitting down to dinner.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?” said Pen.
“About the candy business. Those advertising people, eh?”
“You’re talking gibberish,” said Pen.
“I’m quite aware of that. All right, then. I’ll take the sleeper and I’ll see you at the office in the morning. Give my love to Wilma. Thank you for calling.”
He hung up and went to the diningroom. “I have to go to New York tonight. The advertising people have left a lot of stuff at the office, and you know Pen. He always wants to do the right thing. Didn’t know whether the stuff was important or not, although as a matter of fact in this case it is. Sent his love.”
“I imagine he has a lot to spare, married to Wilma.”
“Would you mind driving me to the station? Ten o’clock,” said George.
“Oh, really, now. Andrew hasn’t had anything to do all day.”
“Thought you might like some fresh air.”
“I don’t like to drive alone at night. Change my clothes to go out, and back again when I get home. And that’s when I begin to get good reception on the radio. Why inconvenience me?”
“Please forget all about it,” said George. It rather pleased him that he could leave in a mood of righteous disappointment. His mind was already made up as to the purpose of his trip to New York, but Geraldine’s refusal to take him to the train set him free. He busied himself alone until train time, and when Andrew brought the car around, George called his goodbye upstairs to Geraldine, who was having trouble getting Cincinnati on the Atwater Kent. If she responded to his farewell, he did not hear her.