There’s too much violence in the world. Like the TV industry, in the interests of good taste, let us black out what followed. There is no need to dwell on Archer’s swollen agony. There is no need for the camera to follow him out into the night as he runs screaming incoherently up the road, clutching his wounded organs, holding them out before him like a fattened sacrificial lamb being offered to placate the angry goddesses of mortality, haying at the moon in the vain hope that balm for the victims of ballbusters might be forthcoming. No, there’s no need to dwell on those agonizing hours. A time lapse is indicated. . .
It is a week later. The pain has abated. The swelling has gone down. Archer’s organs are back to normal.
“Normal”? Well, anyway, the pain was gone. And they looked okay. As to function . . . Archer just didn’t know. .
But there is no memory of pain. That's what the obstetricians tell women going into labor, anyway. (And if ninety per cent of the women seem to suffer from 'total recall right down to the snipping of the umbilical cord, if constant and eager verbalization of this unremembered pain takes on the form of female competition, if their clincher is “So show me an obstetrician who ever had a baby and let him tell me he can’t remember how he suffered,” if the lie thus seems to be given to the “no-memory-of-pain” theory, that still may be no reason to scrap it. The explanation may simply be masochistic nostalgia, a Weiz-schmertz-y picking of scabs long healed, a deSade-like probing with the mental tongue of yesterday’s sore tooth.) So, Archer had no memory of pain past.
What he did have was a fear of pain future. Plus a fear of being let down by his whimsical whang when next he put it to the test. But Archer was determined to overcome both fears. By an accent of syllable, he lent originality to triteness and verbalized it to himself this way: “I shall over-come!"
After his experience with Llona, however, he wasn’t about to risk “over-come-ing” in the domestic hay. The very thought of sex with his wife was enough to make him break out in an Alaskan sweat. He wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.
(“A ten-foot pole”? He should be a tenth so sexy! “A ten-foot pole”? Recalling Llona’s catastrophic calisthenics, Archer pitied the ten-foot Pole who tried! “A ten-foot pole”? She’d probably chop it up for kindling!)
So, with three limp inches eager to regain confidence, Archer decided to hie his libido elsewhere. “I’m going out to play golf,” he informed his wife the following Sunday morning.
“Have a good time, dear.” Sarah Bernhardt had nothing on Llona when it came to acting. Neither her face nor tone of voice betrayed any feelings save wifely permissiveness.
Inside, though, Llona was seething. She’d seen Archer “playing golf” before. Sure as God made little wormy apples, Llona knew who her husband, the putz! would be putting! Shirley Simpell, pure-and-simple—-only not so pure!
Bikini’d like an angry Amazon, armed with binoculars, Llona marched up to the roof and reconnoitered the golf course. The wild hair of her rage focused the cross-hair of the field glasses on the rough beyond the fifth green. There they were! Archer in golf knickers, Shirley in a pinafore, pigtails, and pink ribbons, sticky-lipped innocence tongue-licking a peppermint candy cane.
Llona strained to read their lips. “Golly-gee . . . Mom’s apple pie . . . Holy Cow . . . Spiro Agnew . . . Ginger-peachy . . . Support our boys in sleepaway camp . . . ” was the best she could make out of what Shirley was saying. “Shee-it! . . . Legalize pot! . . . Mother fucker! . . . Lenny Bruce . . . Up against the wall! . . . Bring the boys home from Daleyland . . .” was her reading of Archer’s twisting mouth. Llona gave up the effort and concentrated on actions. Which speak louder than words anyway—except that Archer’s actions seemed to suffer from laryngitis.
With lowered knickers billowing out from his ankles, Archer was clutching Shirley's pigtails like a subway strap-hanger at the mercy of a heavy-footed IRT engineer waiting for the word to go out on strike. Her curly head was buried in his lap and her tongue was as busy as ever it had been with lollipop or peppermint stick. However, after a while, it became obvious that the flavor was eluding her. She was stuck with a Tootsie-roll lollipop with no filling.
Shirley tried. Lord knows she tried. Llona had to give her that. But in the end Archer’s whole body sagged as limply as his Benedict Arnold candy cane and his hands fell away from-the pigtails. Shirley arose, straightened her pinafore, shot him the contemptuous look hawks reserve for the truly effete, and drove for the sixth fairway. Archer sat for a while, dejected; finally he got up, pulled up his knickers, sneaked his golf ball out of the rough, and followed her.
Despite herself, Llona couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. The knowledge that she really had unmanned him stirred her conscience. The feeling would grow during the days that followed. But on this afternoon it was still only a flick of guilt, easily ignored. And Llona did ignore it when Archer arrived home later in the day.
“How did the golfing go, dear?” Llona greeted him cheerily.
“Lousy. I only hit two balls all day. And that was when I stepped on a rake hidden in a sandtrap.”
“That’s too bad.” The words were sincere. Llona really did feel badly for him. He looked so down.
Archer was down—but he wasn‘t ready to count himself out yet. He had a frigid ace in the whole, a straw nicknamed “Iceberg” to clutch at. He sneaked out of the house, called her up, and made a date to come calling.
What he didn’t know was that as soon as he’d hung up, Iceberg called Neva Holdkumb to alert her to their impending date. And as soon as Iceberg hung up, Neva-—naturally-—called Llona keep her abreast of developments. Llona heard the news with mixed feelings. But she withheld judgment pending the results of the date.
Archer rang the bell of Iceberg’s apartment three times before she finally answered. “Oh, it’s you.” She greeted him coldly.
“It’s me all right.”
She simply stood there, blocking the doorway.
“I can prove it,” Archer said after a moment of frosty silence. “Would you like to see my driver’s license?”
She ignored the sarcasm. “Well, as long as you’re here, I suppose you might as well come in.” She turned her back on him and led the way to the living room. She didn’t seem to care whether he followed her or not.
Archer shrugged and followed her. “You were expecting me, weren’t you?” he asked when they were in the living room.
“I guess so.”
“I mean, I did call, and you did invite me to come over.”
“That’s right.” She stared at him noncommittally. Her impersonality was lent additional coolness by the high-necked grey wool dress she was wearing. Its straight hues and unfashionable length completely concealed the shape of her body, a shape Archer remembered as having been quite nice when revealed in the nude during the marathon encounter. Her blonde hair was pulled back in an asexual bun which made her face look harsher than he recalled. “Sit down.” She indicated a straight-backed chair. When Archer was seated she sat down in a similar chair across the room from him.
There was a long silence. It didn’t seem to bother her. But Archer found it awkward. Finally, he broke it.
“About working our problems out together . . . ” he said hesitantly.
“It was a dumb idea,” she said flatly. “I don’t know why I suggested it. If you’ve any ideas about sex, forget them. I’m frigid and that’s it.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Archer said morosely. “I’m impotent.”