Linda sat dejectedly on the living room couch staring
thoughtfully into a glass of gin and tonic. She knew next to
nothing about drinks and drinking, but she had seen her husband
Tommy mix so many of these since she had known him that she had
automatically made one for herself after deciding she needed
something alcoholic to help calm her nerves. Her head was
slightly dizzy from the second one she had drunk in the last half
an hour since she had tried to call Tommy at school.
Once again she reassured herself that it was Thursday and she
hadn’t made a mistake. This was the day that Tommy had promised
faithfully a week ago he would leave school early and take her
shopping in the city. He should have been by to pick her up long
ago, and she had impulsively called the school to find out if
something unexpected had come up to prevent his leaving. Though
the secretary had even gone to the trouble of sending someone down
to the gym area to look for Tommy, he was nowhere to be found.
His office was locked, the secretary said, and his car was not in
its usual place outside the gym.
By now Linda was lightheaded from her inexperience in
drinking, and she tried again to rationalize away her fears. She
had noticed a strange change in her new husband since that Sunday
at the Teachers’ Country Club but had tried to ignore it, hoping
it would work itself out. First she had perhaps foolishly denied
him her body that night because she had accused him of giving
Grace Furness too much attention, and the following morning Tommy
had left for work without waking her with a kiss as he usually
did. Then he had come home later than usual on Monday, and she
was sure she had detected a slight fragrance of perfume and what
might have been a touch of lipstick on his mouth. He had not
greeted her with his normal attempt to get her into the bedroom
the first thing, instead acting a little off-handed toward her,
saying only that he wanted to take a shower before supper.
She was sure he had consciously avoided her eyes as if he had
a reason to feel guilty, and immediately she had begun to suspect
something was wrong. She told herself she had only been married
to him for a few weeks and had not had time to get to know all his
moods and feelings in spite of the fact that they had seen a lot
of each other for a whole year before that. And, she had reminded
herself, dating a person was one thing, but living with him was
another. Later, the worried young wife had tried to persuade him
to confide his problem to her over supper.
That had only seemed to make him worse, and then when they
were in bed later that night, she had thought maybe he needed very
badly to make love to her and that was why he seemed upset. But
when she had begun to give him the tenderly inviting caresses she
knew he liked, he had first pushed her away angrily as if she were
some cheap slut he had met in a bar and then, when she had
persisted, thinking he was angry for her refusal the night before,
he had attempted to do some awful things to her and tried to make
her return them. This was a more subtle change in him that had
been happening since their wedding night twenty-four days ago.
The things he wanted her to do were things she had heard about but
didn’t really know normal people did. They were perverted acts
and she had only heard some of the bolder girls in college whisper
about them in dirty jokes or in insinuating giggles about the boys
they had been out with.
Tommy had become even more angry with her when she had
refused to let him do those perverse lewd acts and ended up by
shouting at her with impatience and frustration when she had
refused to do them to him. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to
try. God knows she wanted to make him a happy husband the way she
had thought he would be, but she just couldn’t force herself to go
through with it. The thought of that horrible scene in the bed
when he had tried to put his head down between her legs and the
coldness with which he had treated her afterward when she had
refused to let him brought tears brimming to her eyes. She sobbed
softly and took another mouthful of the gin and tonic, wincing
slightly as it burned its way down her throat.
And now this! His mysterious failure to pick her up was the
crowning blow. She had tried to remind him that morning before he
left for school, but he was vague and non-committal. At the time
she had thought he was just preoccupied with himself and had been
sure he was aware the shopping trip she had planned meant a lot to
her, but now she was no longer sure of anything.
The troubled young bride finished the last drop of her drink
and went to the kitchen for more ice to make another, secretly
hoping that Tommy would come home and find her half drunk for the
first time in her life. That would show him just how much he had
upset her by his negligent actions!
Her mind ran to another possibility that also may have caused
his sudden indifference, but she quickly dismissed it as too silly
to even consider seriously. This was the nagging thought at the
back of her mind that he might have been seeing some other woman
before they were finally married and that she had allowed him to
make love to her: a woman who perhaps would do all those awful
things he had tried so desperately to get her to do.
Well, the lovely blonde murmured to herself, if that was the
reason he was acting so strange, it was still no justification.
She couldn’t help it if she was what everybody called an old-
fashioned girl. She hadn’t been about to let him make love to her
in bed before they were legally married, and now that they were,
she wasn’t going to allow herself to be degraded into doing those
disgusting things he wanted. She didn’t want to lose him, but she
had her pride.
Linda returned to the couch, setting her drink on the coffee
table and dropping her head into her hands. Tears began to well
up in her eyes as she recalled how well things had seemed to be
going up until the night they were actually married. She had
turned down the opportunity to become a guidance counselor with
her recent college psychology degree in order to marry Tommy,
giving up the career she had worked so hard for. It had been the
best position she could have hoped for with her lack of experience
in the field, and it would take her years to work up to that level
if she started off at the bottom the way most people had to.
It just didn’t seem fair, she complained to herself through
the haze the gin was causing in her mind. She gave up everything
else she ever wanted for Tommy’s sake when he insisted that no
wife of his would ever work, and now he was treating her like dirt
under his feet. She just didn’t understand it — why did the
world have to be so cruel sometimes? She had to talk to him about
it as soon as she saw him or she would go out of her mind. She
had already known from her marital psychology courses that both of
them would have to go through a period of adjustment to each
other, but this was too much to take.
Abruptly her sobs ceased tearing from her throat. The
telephone was ringing in the bedroom. She couldn’t imagine who
would be calling her at this time of the afternoon. Then she knew
it had to be Tommy! He was calling to explain why he had not come
home when he had promised he would.
That must be it! He probably had a perfectly reasonable
explanation, and here she was worrying herself sick.
She reached the bedside table and jerked the phone from the
cradle excitedly, hoping with all her heart to hear his voice.
“Hello, is that you Tommy?” she blurted out breathlessly.
Her smile suddenly faded away and her heart felt as though it
would stop.
The voice of Fred Furness came to her in a hoarse whisper
over the phone.
“Linda, it’s me, Fred, Fred Furness,” he rasped in a low
voice. “Listen closely. I don’t have much time, so do just as I
say. Understand?”
Linda stood struck dumb for a moment at the sudden surprise
of hearing his voice. “What is it?” she finally managed to
stammer.
“Believe me, this is important to both of us,” he whispered,
hurrying his words together with such urgency that she listened as
though her life depended on his voice.
“Do exactly as I tell you. I’m going to put the phone down
on this end, but don’t hang up whatever you do. Got that?”
“Y-yes,” she stuttered in confusion, “but can’t you tell me
what …”
“Shhhh!” he interrupted her, “don’t make a sound on that
end,” he hissed. Before she could say anything else, she heard a
metallic noise as he put the phone down, and then there was the
sound of his footsteps retreating into the distance and a door
closing so softly she could barely hear it.
She stood frozen into immobility for a long time listening to
the mechanical noises on the open line, and once she thought she
heard the distant murmur of voices in another room, but Fred did
not come back to pick up his end.
Once she picked up her ears as the unmistakable sound of a
woman’s laughter came to her hearing, and she thought she
recognized it as Fred’s wife, Grace, but she couldn’t be sure.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang in the living room.
Good Lord, now what? she thought. She caught herself just in
time, about to place the phone back in its cradle, and instead
laid it on one of the pillows on the bed, running to answer the
door.
“Fred! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed in surprise
when she saw who it was.
Without waiting for her to ask him in, he brushed past her,
his face glowering as if he were angry enough to kill somebody.
“What is it?” she begged to know.
“Shhhh!” he silenced her, looking around the living room.
“Where’s the telephone?” he growled. She saw he was taking a
small portable tape recorder out of his pocket and inserting a
plug connected at the other end to a suction-cup microphone.
“I — in there, by the bed,” she stammered as she pointed
down the hall. “C-can’t you tell me …?”
‘In a minute,” he cut her off. “Wait here while I set this
up. It’s a special attachment for recording from a telephone.
I’ll be back in a second.”
With that he entered the bedroom and closed the door. Linda
was too shocked by his strange behavior to refuse anything and sat
hesitantly on the edge of the couch while she waited for him to
return and explain.
Finally, after what seemed a long time, the door to the
bedroom opened quietly and then closed again as he came in to join
her. The haggard look on his face made her feel so sorry for him
that she felt she should be able to comfort him in some way, but
she didn’t know how.
“Would you like something to drink?” she finally thought to
ask.
“God, I could use one,” he answered in a broken voice.
Linda brought him a double gin and tonic and watched him with
apprehension as he drank almost half of it at one gulp.
“Thanks,” he mumbled. “I really needed that.” He paused for
a moment, staring into space. “The two-timing little bitch,” he
hissed in a low voice as if talking to the wall instead of to his
pretty blonde neighbor.
Linda flinched involuntarily from his words and the tone of
his voice, but did not protest his using them out of consideration
for his obviously distressed and worried condition.
“W — who do you mean?” she stammered, not able to believe
the accusation implied by his words.
“Please excuse my language,” he begged her. “It’s just that
I still can’t get used to the idea. And after all these years.”
The young housewife flushed as she suddenly realized what he
was referring to, recalling in vivid detail the obscene noises she
had overheard only a few days before outside the Furness’
apartment. “You mean you think your wife has been cheating on
you?” she asked in an attempt to appear shocked and surprised.
“I don’t think — I know she’s cheating on me,” Furness
blurted out angrily. “Right at this very moment, on our own bed,
she’s spreading her legs for some bastard! And when I get my
hands on him, I’ll …”
Linda clapped her hands over her ears to shut out his blunt
profanity and the forbidden scenes it brought to her mind.
“Please don’t talk like that to me,” she pleaded, until he noticed
her distress and stopped shouting.
“I — I’m sorry, Linda,” he apologized, secretly proud of how
he was playing the injured husband. “I’m a little more than upset
by the whole thing, I guess.” He drained his drink and stared at
the ice-cubes in mock despair. “May I have another one?” he asked
presently, holding out his glass and making the ice rattle for
effect.
Linda felt herself suddenly warm and sympathetic toward him.
“Yes, of course, Fred. Try and relax a little,” she suggested,
wondering briefly what her psychology professor would have done
under these circumstances. She felt twice as sorry for him as she
would have a few days ago, before her own severe problems with her
husband Tommy had begun. In fact, she told herself, if it hadn’t
been for the events of the last few days, she wouldn’t even have
let him in the door. But now, so confused herself that she didn’t
know which way to turn, she could almost understand the violence
of his present mood.
Fred Furness accepted the fresh drink from her and took a
long swallow. He let his eyes wander once again over the slim,
well-rounded body sitting on the couch before him. He was aware
that something was upsetting her and wondered momentarily if she
had already guessed what her husband was up to. He hoped not. He
wanted to enjoy to the full the final moment when he would play
back the tape-recording he was making from the telephone in the
other room. He wanted to watch this little innocent, hard-to-get
bitch break into a thousand pieces like a delicate, paper-thin
china teacup smashing onto a stone floor. That would really do
his heart good, especially after enduring the superior manner she
had always used toward him, as if he were some kind of coarse
unmannered peasant and she an aloof, lily-white princess.
He had never had any trouble getting the women he wanted, but
best of all, the real kick, was to take a proud young bitch like
this one and bend her completely to his will, watching her slow
subjugation, making her yield to his basest desires. Yes, Fred
Furness thought with a sardonic smile, it would be worth it to see
all her carefully guarded scruples crumble like shattered crystal
when he rammed his rock-hard cock deep up into her openly spread
cunt. Sure, it meant that he had to let his wife Grace get
screwed by another man, but when he himself made that long-awaited
lunge up between Linda’s soft white thighs, it would seem a small
price.
And, he added to himself, he would enjoy this one more than
most. The barely disguised contempt she held for him would change
slowly to a glassy-eyed stare of helpless desire as he ruthlessly
ground his thick manhood up to the hilt in that white little belly
of hers. He enjoyed looking forward to riding up over her wildly
heaving body, feeling her billowing ripe breasts crushed up
against him, and he thought greedily of what it would be like to
make her beg for it. He’d show her husband how to handle a prim
puritanical bitch like this one.
Even with Fred’s burning eyes flitting over her body, Linda
forced herself to remain calm, though her stomach was churning
inside like a whirlpool. First, she was worried about her
husband; and then here was Fred Furness saying all kinds of awful
things about his wife. She could hardly believe her ears, even
though she knew that a lot of so-called “modern” wives were
unfaithful to their husbands. It made her realize with force that
it was in fact possible for even her own husband to think of going
with other women. Maybe her own attitude toward such things just
seemed silly to Tommy. His strange behavior of the last few days
told her something was wrong, and yet she wanted with a11 her
heart and soul for it not to be so.
She couldn’t help it if she was old-fashioned and her own
husband ought to be able to recognize that fact and treat her
accordingly. She felt a sudden welling of angry tears and was
relieved to see Fred Furness get up and go back into the bedroom
where the telephone was. She didn’t want her gruff neighbor to
see her crying, to start asking all sorts of embarrassing
questions. She couldn’t bear the thought of admitting to the
coarse Furness that she too was having problems similar to his.
In the bedroom, Fred Furness smiled crookedly at himself in
the mirror. He put his head down close to the telephone and
listened for a moment, but his wife and Tommy must have finished
with their private orgy, for their voices came from a great
distance. He removed the suction-cup microphone from the receiver
and put the phone back on the hook. Then he ran back the tape on
the miniature recorder, listening from time to time until he found
what he was looking for — the beginning of their love-making
session on his bed.
This’ll blow little Linda’s innocent mind sky-high, he
chuckled to himself. Carefully he packed up all his equipment and
stuffed it into his sports coat pockets before returning to the
living room. Now I’ve got to play this thing right, he warned
himself. He was tempted to run the tape for her then and there,
but he restrained himself. It would be infinitely better to do it
the way he had originally planned and to get her over to his
apartment. When he caught sight of Linda on the couch in the
living room, he was sure she had been crying while he was gone,
but she immediately straightened herself up and acted perfectly
calm for his benefit.
“This time I’ve got Grace dead-to-rights,” he growled as he
walked toward the drink he had left on the coffee table.
Linda had made herself another drink, and she nervously took
a small sip. She couldn’t help noticing the bulges in his pockets
and assumed correctly that Furness had what he had come for. She
wondered vaguely what he had on the tape-recording, but something
in the back of her mind told her she wouldn’t really want to know.
This was the first time she had ever been so closely involved in
such sordid goings-on, and she was sure that just to hear the tape
would cause her to go to pieces. She didn’t have the slightest
idea of what the voices on the tape would be saying and she was
afraid to let her imagination fly. With difficulty she tore her
eyes from the over-stuffed pockets of his jacket and looked
fleetingly at Furness’ face.
The poor man was obviously hard-pressed to control his
outrage. She was glad she wasn’t in Grace’s shoes; there would be
quite a scene in their apartment later if the tape revealed in
detail what Fred until now only suspected was true.
Involuntarily, Linda shivered as she pictured Fred taking out his
anger on Grace, and she wondered briefly if she shouldn’t warn her
pretty neighbor. But the injustice of being unfaithful to husband
or wife forced her to feel more sympathy for Fred Furness than for
Grace, and she decided it would be better to keep out of the whole
thing. Already she had done enough in letting him make this
recording in her apartment, and she wouldn’t be able to help
feeling guilty if anything really bad happened because of that.
She watched Furness throw the last of the gin and tonic down
his throat and head for the door. He stopped before opening it
and turned to her, his face twisted in a good imitation of an
injured husband’s.
“Linda, I can’t thank you enough for helping me like this.
Things just couldn’t have gone on the way they were, and I was at
my wit’s end until I thought of confronting Grace with something
solid like a tape-recording. She’s been denying all along that
she’s been playing around, and I haven’t been able to catch her in
the act. But this time the clever little whore has tricked
herself right into a pile of trouble,” he said in a coldly
contemptuous tone. “I hope to God you never have to go through
anything like this. It’s more than anybody should have to take.”
Linda involuntarily sucked in her breath at his words.
Little did he know that she was suffering from similar suspicions
about Tommy. It was all she could do to keep from blurting out
her feelings, in spite of the fact that Fred Furness was the last
person she would have chosen to tell. But she forced herself to
keep quiet, and then he was opening the door to leave.
“I — I hope things aren’t as bad as you think,” she told him
as she got up from the couch.
Furness patted the lump inside his pocket. “They’re worse
than I would have imagined,” he said in a grim voice. “But with
this, it’ll get better fast — or else.” With that he said good-
bye and closed the door behind him.
As soon as Furness had gone, Linda shook her head sadly,
suddenly almost dizzily intoxicated by the gin, and headed for the
kitchen. She stopped in the doorway indecisively, not wanting to
eat alone again while her husband was out running around. Finally
she made up her mind and went instead to the bedroom, for she felt
very tired and not at all hungry. No sooner had she felt the
pillow under her head than she dropped off into a heavy dreamless
sleep. She didn’t know it was the last time she would sleep the
untroubled sleep of innocence.
