At first it was annoying. I’d answer the phone and the men were
always surprised to hear a male voice. Then they’d leave messages
for her as if I were only her roommate, or a brother, or a butler,
someone who didn’t matter, maybe an accustomed cuckold or neutered
eunuch. Their tone was always condescending as they instructed me
what to tell her, that they were suggesting this time and that
place for her to meet them, have I got all that written down?
Women callers would query who I was when asking about Cassie’s
availability for a double date, but I’d still reveal nothing.
Cassie’s business negotiations were sometimes tricky and opposing
lawyers are often deceitful, so I was under strict instructions
never to identify myself as her husband or as anyone else, never to
provide callers with any information whatsoever, not even my name.
Just to take messages.
I did that, and when Cassie got home she’d leaf through the slips
impassively, set several aside, and look up distantly and thank me,
her mind already elsewhere. Was I unawares helping her carry on
assignations with numerous men? Opening her moist, pink pussy to
them and then bowing obsequiously away, as so frequently now in my
masturbation fantasies? I wondered. It made me uneasy.
Finally I balked, especially at transmitting to her the exact words
of various men’s seduction speeches, at serving as their pander.
So Cassie got an answering machine and set it up in the hall just
outside my study. Then it did the answering aloud, while I
eavesdropped like a guilty voyeur at a porn movie who’d sneaked in.
My consulting service has its own number and I’m not that all
gregarious, in fact I’m a loner with few friends, and those few out
of town. So most of the calls were for Cassie — from clients,
co-counsels, legal aides, girlfriends, all straightforward enough.
But also, many were from those swarms of hopeful admirers. And on
the speakerphone, I’d hear everything.
Cassie’s voice on the answering message is husky with desire as it
tells everyone who calls, “Hi, Cassie here. I can’t talk right
now, you know how it is, but I do want to know everything you have
in mind, what it is you want. So please tell me!” Somehow she
creates the impression that she’s in bed with another man at that
moment but would rather be with the caller. I suppose it’s good
for business.
The result is that often every day when I’m alone at my desk doing
my calculations, I hear men just outside the door talking to my
wife sometimes intimately. Sometimes only asking for a callback.
But sometimes right out and open asking for a date, offering her
fabulous dinners, concerts, shows, companionship, parties with
celebrities attending, weekend resort trips. Always promising
incredible experiences she’ll never forget. Some of them allude to
past unforgettable moments, whether theirs or someone else’s I
can’t ever tell for certain.
I suppose it’s flattering that though men find Cassie attractive,
she chose me. Still, it’s disquieting to listen day after day as
they attempt to seduce her with advantages I can’t possibly offer.
Worse, several times a day the phone will ring once and then I’ll
hear clicks, then those same voices repeating their proposals and
propositions, then more clicks. That’s Cassie picking up her
messages from her office. Sometimes I hear her cut them off,
cancel them abruptly in mid-pitch. But some she listens until the
man has finished his appeal, declaring once again that she’ll love
it, what he’s suggesting, she’ll never regret it. Then sometimes
there’s a pause before the final click. Is she writing down his
phone number before clearing the phone for new messages? Or at
that moment is she using another office line to call him back?
I feel very peculiar at such times. I try not to listen, but I
can’t help wondering whether … whether she … these are
attractive-sounding men offering marvelous opportunities, men of
substance and intelligence. I feel strangely stirred. Because
Cassie is so terribly attractive. But no. She’s my wife. It’s a
matter of faith. I trust her. I have to trust her. And she loves
me.
And she’s just told me that yet again, in the most powerfully
persuasive words imaginable. Yet here she was sitting up in bed in
her daintiest nightie, her eyes moist, asking me exactly how I feel
when I see men flirt with her, trying to get into her pants, men
who don’t know or care that I’m watching and listening. Or maybe
it’s a special pleasure for them to know the husband is watching
while they debauch the wife.
How do I feel when these things are happening? What can I say?
That I feel jealous? That’s to confess weakness.
“Proud that you’re my wife, that’s how I feel,” I said finally. “I
also feel a touch of pity for them, that they can’t have you. And
I’m glad once again that I’ve got you. That you’re mine.”
“And you’re mine!” she interrupted, nodding in affirmation. “But
go on! There must be more.”
I felt challenged, so I dug a little deeper. “I’m annoyed that you
might feel annoyed or plagued or insulted by their flirting,
because you’re a married woman after all. Especially when they’re
persistent.”
“Oh, Hal,” Cassie said, sounding a little disappointed. “Of
course! I know all that! All very respectable. That’s how any
decent man would feel. But really, down below these things? How
do you feel for instance when I flirt back? You’ve seen it at
parties. I love to flirt. I can’t resist teasing anyone, not even
you! What then?”
That was a tough one. Because every time I’ve seen her flirt, seen
her toss her head and glance and smile sideways, I’d feel
everything I’d just confessed to her, yes. But also something
else. A terrible twist in my vitals. A pang of fear. Of jealous
anxiety. My God, what if she left me? What if she expected me to
tolerate sharing her affections with anyone else?
Then more terrible in its way would follow a thrill of
anticipation, even an eagerness to see it happen. And a sense of
fatality, of readiness to accept that it must happen. A feeling
that it was inevitable for Cassie to seek and find other men. That
I should feel pleased for her, and reconcile myself to it. Mostly
I could stifle that weird apprehension.. But not always.
I had to formulate an honest answer. But a complete answer?
I played for time. “Maybe I feel complacent when I see the man’s
no competition for me and you’re having a good time toying with
him. I know you like to toy with guys. And I like to watch you
having fun — you do sometimes glance over at me to share your
amusement when someone’s spreading it a little thick. I like that.
I feel closer to you, times like that.”
I was still sitting on my side of the bed, preparing to slip under
the covers, seemingly at ease. A long silence followed.
“Honey, listen. I hear you, and I’m glad. But I know there’s lots
more. You masturbate to other feelings, much more powerful
feelings, when you imagine I’m with other men. I know that. I
want you to dig deeper, till maybe you’re in a place where you
don’t want to go. This is pretty primal stuff.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean, honey,” I said. I hoped I
didn’t know.
Her face grew firm, thoughtful. She put her fingertips together in
front of her. It was as if she were beginning an opening argument
to the jury.
“I’ve beeen talking to my partner Nadine, you’ve met her, our
firm’s divorce specialist. She’s built her whole practice around
the way men feel when other men are sniffing around their mates.
I told her I once had a boyfriend who went ape whenever I even
talked to another guy. Really crazy jealous. But that you know,
part of the craziness was that it excited him? He’d agonize and
get angry, but he was always aroused! Cock like a telephone pole.
Then at the height of his insecurity he’d pound it into me, if we
were alone for a few minutes.”
Talk of her previous liaisons made me uncomfortable. “You have
interesting coffee room conversations,” I said, trying to jest.
Cassie paid no attention. “He got to be a jealousy junkie, he got
off on it, and he began to accuse me of all sorts of impossible
liaisons just so he could get off on it. I had to tell him about
other men I’d been with when we were in bed together, or he
couldn’t even get it up. Whether I’d been with those other men or
not. So I quit with him — it got to be too much. I needed
someone gentler and more considerate, less fretful, less demanding.
And that was when you walked into my life and changed everything,
sweetheart.”
“I’m glad,” I said. What else could I say? She was circling
something. I waited for her to pounce.
“Nadine told me that’s a primal animal reflex in males. Because
fear and desire and possessive hostility all conflict, making for
a crazy mix inside them of horniness and jealousy. Because our
species descended from two different kinds of primate with two
different sets of instinctsm she says. Some men have more of one
kind than the other.”
I nodded. An intellectual exercise like this at bedtime was
tolerable, if it led to more physical things eventually. It seemed
likely. She paused, and then folded her hands on the book still in
her lap.
“Nadine says there are monkeys where males and females choose each
other and then stay monogamous, like us, or like we try to be.
They even share all household chores, like raising babies.” She
smiled at that.
I smiled back.
“But there are also the great apes, she says, where males fight
each other for access to all the females, and the biggest are the
ones most attractive to the females and the others get the
leftovers.”
“I suppose,” I said. Where was this going?
“The lesser males accept the situation. They have to. They feel
competitive, but they know that if they fight a bigger male they’ll
get torn limb from limb. So all of the males feel pleased to yield
their mates up to the bigger male.”
“Adultery City,” I said, still trying to keep it light.
“Well, that’s what jealousy is in men, according to Nadine. An
instinct to defend your access to a mate you’ve supposedly chosen
for life, the way the monogamous monkeys do, yet a fear of
inadequacy and a readiness to yield her the better man. To the
biggest ape. Even more, not just a readiness, a desire to yield
her. To survive by offering her to him. Nadine says men get off
on that desire. That’s why it blows their minds. They can’t
accept how they feel, it makes them crazy.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“We try to be monogamous, but some men are simply more attractive
and all women know it. They want a reliable partner who’ll help
around the house, so they marry old Joe. Then they have affairs
with the strong, attractive guys. Old Joe can’t do anything about
it, so he learns to ignore it or accept it. Even feel aroused by
it.”
This was not the most reassuring lesson in cultural anthropology
I’d ever heard. I knew what she was saying, but I didn’t want to
and didn’t know why she was saying it. I just sat there quietly on
the side of the bed and waited. She sometimes got like this when
she was relaxed, lecturing. Also when she was planning something.
“They’re conflicting instincts, to fight your rival or surrender to
him. To lust for battle or lust to be defeated, Nadine says. Men
can’t help it. She says that knowing this, she can break almost
any man’s case if he’s trying to divorce his wife for adultery.
She can make him crazy enough so eventually he’ll sign anything.
If the wife’s her client and is willing to aggravate his jealousy,
she can awaken in the husband so much perverse eroticism that he’s
fucked up utterly.”
I turned now to look at Cassie. “Cassandra,” I said. My voice was
grave. “What are you driving at?”
“Your happiness, sweetie,” she answered. “Because I do love you so
very much.” And her eyes told me that was the simple truth. She
took my hand in both of hers, and rested them on the coverlet.
“Honey, let me ask you a little more directly. Don’t you ever feel
even the teensiest, weensiest bit jealous when you see me flirting
with some other man? Fearful of your own inadequacy? Don’t you
feel some sort of twisted fight or flight reflex in your tummy?
Even though you’re sure of me, sure that no man will ever get
anywhere with me, and you pity them, and you’re annoyed with them,
and you’re proud of me, and you’re glad that I’m having fun, and
all that, all those things you’ve mentioned? Don’t you also feel
stirred by the possibility that I might actually be unfaithful to
you? Excited by the possibility? Sexually, I mean? Doesn’t it
make you hard? Isn’t that why you love to masturbate to the idea?”
We’d never talked about this. Our devotion to each other, our
faith in each other’s fidelity were so sacred that jealousy was
unmentionable, by mutual consent off limits. To confess jealousy
implied self-doubt, vulnerability, weakness. Accusation. Cassie
was looking at me now with her classic concerned expression,
earnest and appraising, yet also with a hint of amusement in the
set of her lips and the corners of her eyes. Did she know
something I didn’t? I tried to see if she was more deeply
concerned about something not yet mentioned, since she was looking
directly at me and I could see everything. I saw nothing.
Yet I already felt that familiar sharp twist in the belly, a fear
that she was about to confess to an affair, to a little lapse, that
she’d slept with someone else. That she’d found me inferior. That
some other man’s cock had been inside her and she preferred him.
Repeatedly. Lots of different men’s cocks. That she was an eager
cock slut. That she’s forgotten to mention it to me, but months
ago she’d accepted a position as Company Whore, that for months her
cunt had been the drooling property of every man in the building
and every out-of-town visitor! That she could never get enough.
Oh, God, no! What mad fantasies!
I saw nothing unusual in Cassie’s face. I decided not to see
anything unusual. I swallowed. We were always honest with each
other. She’d specifically asked for honesty.
“Jealous. Am I jealous about you and other men? Yes, sometimes,”
I said.
Another long silence. “Can you explain that? Say a little more?”
Now her voice was low, coaxing, as if she were talking about
something terribly important, but talking to a small child who
might easily get frightened.
I tried to explain. “Sometimes when you flirt back, you get so
intense. Your eyes sparkle and your whole body gets so eager it
seems to glow. You look so incredibly desirable! You kind of
concentrate on the man as if you were so deeply attracted you want
him to take you away and bed you down right then.”
I was going to add that I knew of course that she wasn’t attracted.
But the fact is, at times I didn’t know. There was that Christmas
party at the Country Club for example, when she looked so
incredibly gorgeous as always, so lively, and she danced with so
many different men that I lost sight of her for an hour or so.
Other wives seemed to be coming on to me as if to distract me while
their husbands were screwing Cassie, as if they wanted to even the
score by screwing me. And because I had to parry them politely I
couldn’t break away and go looking for Cassie. Toward the end of
the evening I was sure, almost sure, despairingly sure, that she’d
already gone off with someone else who even at that moment was
twisting her whole body onto his ten inch dick. That I’d be going
home alone.
I relived that terrible moment. Again my heart felt squeezed by
the anguish of losing her.
Cassie was watching my face closely, and saw, and relented for a
moment. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “You look so pained! But I just
told you, and it’s true, it’s true! I’ll never leave you, never!”
Then as if to distract me, she added, “You say, ‘him’. Suppose it
isn’t a ‘him’ I’m attracted to but a ‘her’?”
I suddenly relaxed. “You, flirting with another woman? I’ve never
thought of that. I’ve never seen it!” She was teasing! Maybe
all along?
“You never noticed? Oh, baby, you can’t be that naive! Women
flirt differently, that’s all. We have lesbians in our office. I
flirt with them sometimes. And they flirt back if so inclined, we
both enjoy the give and take. There’s a certain special shimmering
satisfaction when you feel attractive to another woman. Men don’t
feel that way about other men I suppose. Or maybe only gay men
do.”
“I suppose,” I said. “Women do feel more free to be affectionate,
to hug and kiss each other and so on. Men don’t dare.”
“They should dare,” Cassie said. “They’re missing out!”
Was this what she wanted? For me to start an affair with a man?!
“But all right then, Hal, let’s go back to those times when my eyes
sparkle and my body is sending messages to some man, and you’re
feeling jealous. Tell me about it. What’s inside the jealousy?”
I sat silent. Maybe if I kept to the surfaces? I was getting
terribly uncomfortable. I sensed that there were things here I
didn’t want to know, nor for her to know. “Anger,” I said finally.
“Maybe. A little.”
“Toward the other man or toward me?
“Toward the other man, if he seemed to be my equal, someone I could
take in a knock down drag out battle for your affections. Like one
of your apes. I’d never do it, of course, he might be your best
client, you’d never forgive me.”
“Never anger toward me?”
“Never, sweetie.” It seemed strange. I wondered why not. Men
murder their wives on suspicion of adultery. Because they’re
afraid to take on their rival?
That answer pleased her. “My cave man,” she smiled. Then she
leaned toward me, her eyes alert. “But what if the man isn’t your
equal, honey. What if he’s obviously stronger, taller, more
self-assured, more powerful? Richer, cleverer, more handsome?”
She paused. “Better hung, with a much bigger cock, men always
worry about that? A really heavy package? What if you thought
that if I danced just once with him when he was aroused and rubbed
my belly against him just once, I’d never want to dance with you
again. How would you feel then?”
I tried to swallow but my throat was dry . She wanted honesty.
Honesty hurt. I tried to stall. “Honey, why are you asking these
…?”
“Just answer me,” she said abruptly, as if I were under
cross-examination. Her voice ripped through my feeble evasion. ‘I
must be cruel to be kind,’ popped into my head irrelevantly.
Othello said that just before he strangled Desdemona in an insane
fit of jealousy. Insane or deceived? This was cruel. How is she
being kind?
My answer? I knew how I’d feel. I felt it at that moment.
Vulnerable. Lost. Desolated. Inadequate. Helpless. I said
finally. “I’d feel terribly vulnerable. Inadequate.” I paused.
“Helpless, hopeless. Impotent,” I added, near tears. “Terribly
alone.”
She leaned back now. Did I see pity in her eyes now? Was it
compassion? No, it was pity. And something worse? I looked away.
“Only a little more now, baby. Please bear with me. You’re doing
fine. I know it hurts. So, what I understand is, if you saw me
flirting with someone you knew was more desireable than you, more
of a man, you’d cope by quitting? You wouldn’t fight? You’d give
me up to him even before there was any reason? As if you’d already
lost me?”
I couldn’t look up at her. She was right. I was ashamed to
confess it, but I already had. I wasn’t a great ape, I was a
lesser ape. A trusting monkey. I wouldn’t fight, I’d turn belly
up.
Because I’d know that married or not, Cassie’s affections are her
own, not mine. That I can’t commandeer them. That any woman can
betray any man if she chooses, let the Great Ape beget all her
babies and Old Joe help her rear them if he was willing to settle
for sloppy seconds. That all men are powerless.
That Cassie could love me at all had always seemed to me
inexplicable. No more so than at that moment.
“Yes,” I said. What a terrible admission! “If you thought he was
a better man, and you were attracted to him, I’d give you up to
him. It would be humiliating. I’d try to feel happy for you. But
what else could I do?”
She ignored my question and again tried to ease me out of my
misery. Was she joking? “Suppose it was a woman? Then you
couldn’t compete at all, could you?”
Now I could barely speak. “No,” I whispered. “I couldn’t. Not
with a woman. Not if you preferred a woman.”
“You’d feel the same way? Impotent? Inadequate?”
Why was she tormenting me? She’d just told me she’d love me
forever, and confessions like that from Cassie are rare! “Yes.
Maybe.”
“Ashamed too? Because your manhood was somehow compromised?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“So under either circumstance you’d likely give me up without a
struggle?”
“I’d have to, wouldn’t I?”
“Even though you love me?”
“Yes,” I said. Where was this going? Had I lost her? Was she
preparing me for an ultimate announcement? But she’d begun by
reassuring me that she loves me, and that positively, absolutely,
she could never leave me! I felt bewildered! “Because I couldn’t
compete anyhow.” Then I said defensively, “And also because I love
you.”
She picked up this last idea and continued calmly. “Yes, there’s
love, isn’t there? Because you love me, you’d feel I deserve
someone better than you, isn’t that right? You’d want me to have
someone better than you. That would be your gift of love to me.
You’d console yourself with that noble idea, with your sacrificial
devotion to me.”
Was she being playful? Was this serious? I’d been sitting slumped
on the side of the bed for too long. I withdrew my hand from hers
and turned, and got into bed. Slipped under the covers alongside
her and leaned back on my pillow. Then turned and studied her
face.
I still couldn’t make out anything. She was nearly inexpressive.
I tried to regain a semblance of dignity. “That’s right,” I said.
“I’d feel nobly sacrificial.”
“So if you found out somehow that I was having sex with someone
more desireable than you, not just flirting but actually going to
bed with him, enjoying sex with him, what you’d feel is not anger
but emptiness, loss, sorrow, humiliation, and maybe also a kind of
nobility.”
“Yes. I suppose.” I felt like a fool, saying that.
“Oh honey, I’m so sorry, I really don’t want to hurt you, but I
need to go on. I love you. No matter what else, I’ll never leave
you. I know that! You know that too, don’t you?”
I swallowed. I could, just barely. “Yes. I do.” I did, but
somehow it didn’t help. “I hope I do.”
“Well, remember it. Now a terribly painful question, baby!
Please, tell me the truth! This sorrow. This humiliation. Would
it be a sweet sorrow? An eager humiliation? A satisfying agony?
Maybe you’d feel ashamed that you couldn’t keep me, couldn’t keep
the woman you love, and maybe you’d also feel somehow glad that I’d
found someone better? Because that’s what you want for me? Is
that it so far?”
‘Because that’s what I want for her’? Talk about a trick question?
But it was true. And honorably true. I did love her. She does
deserve the best. The better man should win!
“I guess,” I said as we both lay back on our pillows. Now I was
staring at the ceiling. “Yes.”
“So the more I fucked him the more justified you’d feel that you’d
given me up to him?” Her voice was now inquiring carefully.
“You’d be humiliated that you weren’t man enough for me, but also
glad for me, that I’m better off, better fucked?”
I was silent now.
“Happier, for my sake, because you’d knew I was feeling happiness
you couldn’t provide? Happy to be sacrificing your pleasure for
mine?”
No more commitments. It was too dangerous. “I guess,” I said.
“Maybe.” And that was all. I was now cold sober and serious.
What was this interrogation about? What was she about to tell me?
“When you saw me embracing someone else it would bring you a
terrible but also a terribly deep satisfaction, so complete you
can’t describe it? An irresistible desire to see more? You’d want
it to stop but you’d want it to go on and on?”
I had no reply. I couldn’t reply. My throat was closed.
“You’d feel ashamed but also aroused? Joyous? It would confirm
your own inadequacy, it would take you out of the running, you’d be
free of a terrible imperative to fight for your woman? And you’d
take your cock in hand and jerk off in desperation but also for
joy?”
“Maybe,” I said with enormous reluctance. I could imagine such a
situation, my wife enclosed in the arms of another man, someone
stronger, more confident, more commanding, with his far bigger
prick thrust deep inside her as — in an ecstatic trance — she
slid slowly up and down on it. I felt my balls shrivel, and a
strange, terrible sweetness did indeed invade the pit of my
stomach. I’d felt it often enough before, when I’d realize that
Cassie was replaying certain phone messages several times. I’d
think she was actually considering those men’s offers! Then I’d
feel that same anguished twist of ecstasy, and I’d masturbate.
She’d even told me to! I had to be honest with this woman. I’d
sworn to be.
“Maybe?” she asked.
“My God, Cassie! Yes! Yes!” And I actually began to cry. I felt
torn open. I couldn’t help it.
“It’s terrible, sweetie, isn’t it? You want me to be unfaithful
even though you dread it!” She was nodding in sympathy, but she
made no move to touch me, to console me.
“Yes!” I sobbed the word, struggling to regain control.
“Because that’s the way you are. That’s the way all men are. More
often than we think. Only the biggest apes aren’t.”
“Yes. Oh, Cassie, please don’t!”
But she was relentless. “Imagine me naked in some hotel room
somewhere, astride some muscular stud with his penis already deep
inside me, slowly rotating my pelvis so I can feel how full I am,
how packed tight, how unfamiliar that feeling is after the kind of
sex you’ve been giving me. He thrusts himself in deep again and
again, and he seizes my hips with his powerful hands and lifts and
lowers me on that grand cock over and over and finally plunges it
so far in I can’t breathe and he spurts and spurts strong sperm
into my cunt that race to beget his baby in my womb for you to
raise for him! And I love it! Because though I love you, he’s
superior to you in every way.”