Community of Women

12

The weekend.

Roz Barclay was home, alone. Linc had gone down to the tavern. She knew that he would not be there long, that he would not get particularly drunk. She knew, too, that she was home alone, that she was bored, that she was frustrated, and that she was about to go out of her mind.

She took a deep breath.

Other women, she thought, had it easier. More than a few Cheshire Point women had more than one man on tap — Roz knew this for a fact. She knew it about the ones who damn near advertised. She’d seen Harry Barnes, the plumber, go into Mindy Pierce’s house at least twice a week for the past two months, never staying less than an hour and always leaving with a smile of animal satisfaction on his fat face. Now the plumbing in an older home may well require the services of a plumber once a month. But the Pierces had a spanking new ranch home, less than three years old, and they surely didn’t need Harry Barnes in a professional capacity.

Mindy Pierce, however, evidently needed Harry in a bedroom capacity. And made no bones about it, since it was fairly obvious by now to the whole town. The women talked about it and the men shared knowing looks. Roz didn’t talk about it, except for the usual wife-to-husband talks she had with Linc, because she felt that what Mindy Pierce did in her bedroom was none of Roz Barclay’s business.

Roz found a pack of cigarettes, shook one loose and lit it. She smoked slowly, thoughtfully. It wasn’t as though Mindy Pierce, raven-haired and sharp-eyed and large-breasted, was the only Cheshire Point housewife who had mattress matinees. There were others. Roz, quiet and thoughtful, knew a lot of dirt about a lot of people. She didn’t gossip, didn’t spread bad news far and wide. She didn’t even keep her eyes open. But it was easy to know what was going on.

Easy to know, for example, that Ted Carr was God’s gift to Cheshire Point womanhood, self-proclaimed and self-acknowledged as such. Ted slept with any woman handy, and the women of Cheshire Point were most noticeably handy in this respect.

But everybody knew about Ted Carr.

Roz also knew about Elly Carr. This, as it happened, was a deep dark secret. It was a magnificent secret — Ted Carr, boy philanderer, wore the cuckold’s horns and didn’t even know it. Elly dragged down anything in pants that came through the front door. She was more than fair game for deliverymen, door-to-door salesmen, canvassers, solicitors, and, all in all, whatever came close enough to trap.

That was a secret?

Roz butted her cigarette. Usually, she thought, she spent her time pitying Elly Carr. The poor pathetic creature — so much a victim of her own lusts that she couldn’t control her urges, couldn’t help giving in to whatever man presented himself.

The poor pathetic creature.

But who was pathetic now? Elly? Damn it, at least Elly had enough sex to keep her happy. Elly didn’t sit around crying because she needed a man. Elly didn’t burn up with frustration because her husband wasn’t around to make the infernal itching go away. Elly scratched when she itched. When the urge set in — which it seemed to do at least three times a day, to judge from the past performance charts — Elly found a way to relieve it. If Ted wasn’t handy, she selected another man. There was always some man handy, somewhere.

Maybe Roz was the poor, pathetic one.

No, she thought. No, this isn’t the way it is. I’m Lincoln Barclay’s wife. I belong to him and he belongs to me and that’s all there is to it. He’s my husband and I’m his wife. I don’t play around because I need loving, not sexing. And what Elly Carr does isn’t making love. She makes sex instead of love, and maybe that’s fine for her, but it’s not what I want. I’m not built that way.

I’m a woman, she told herself. I’m a woman, not a school girl, and I need to be loved. Just getting banged won’t do it. I’m married to one man and he’s the only man there is for me.

Period.

And when the slump was over, when Linc was a writer again and a man again, then everything would be all right again. Then the moon would beam and the sun would shine and the world would be golden. Then she would make love, not sex, and love would be a living force within her, and the world would whirl and the fulfillment would be sweet, very sweet.

Sweet.

She took out another cigarette, lighted it. She dragged deeply on the cylinder of paper and tobacco, took it from her mouth, stared at it. Her mind, slightly hysterical, saw new things in that one cigarette. If it were a little bit longer, the thought oddly, and a little bit thicker, and if it weren’t burning...

She laughed. She laughed happily and hysterically, and the laughter cut the edge of her frustration and made her whole again. It was amazing, the way laughter could do that for a person. You couldn’t feel too sorry for yourself when you saw the humor of the situation. You couldn’t wallow in self-pity when it was easier to throw your head back and roar with laughter. And, by the same token, you couldn’t be very highly inflamed with desire when you were so busy laughing.

She smoked the cigarette, still chuckling softly to herself.

Elly Carr was at a party.

It was weekend in Cheshire Point, a venerable and venereal institution, and, as usual, Elly Carr was at a party. She was not especially certain whose party it was, and she was not at all certain what she was doing there, but there she was, by George, and in her hand was a martini glass, by gum, so she did the only thing possible under that set of circumstances.

She drained the martini. Most of it went into her mouth, and on down her throat, and eventually into her bloodstream, to remain there until it was screened out by her liver at the excruciatingly slow pace of an ounce per hour. Some of it, however, missed her mouth. The part which missed her mouth then dribbled down her chin and onto her dress. She tried to wipe it away, flailing her hand drunkenly, but she somehow only managed to slap frenetically at her breasts.

Which drew a little attention.

Almost at once there was a man at her elbow. She turned, staring at him but only half seeing him. He was a short man, with crew-cut black hair and thick horn-rimmed spectacles. As far as she knew, she had never seen him before in her life.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” he said.

“How?”

“Slapping yourself like that.”

“Oh,” she said. “Nope, doesn’t hurt a bit. Could slap myself all day and it wouldn’t hurt a bit.”

“But—”

“See?” She slapped herself for emphasis, swatting her breast hard. This time it did hurt, strangely enough, and she clasped her hand to her breast, trying to soothe the pain. At the same time she looked into the eyes of the little man with the dark crew-cut and the horn-rimmed glasses, and this set up the usual chain reaction.

Sex.

She wanted him. It had happened that quickly — from drunken babbling to actual sexual desire. It was ridiculous, disgusting, but there was no way to deny the desire that existed now. It was genuine enough. She ached with want for him — want that had come quite literally out of the blue — and he was right there, and—

“I told you,” the man said solicitously.

“Told me what?”

“That you’d hurt yourself. Hell, that’s no way to wipe up a drink. You should get a sponge or something.”

“Maybe.”

“Or just let it evaporate.”

“I suppose.”

“Look,” he said, “now you’ve gone and hurt yourself. Why don’t we go somewhere so I can massage it for you?”

“But—”

“Just a gentle massage. Sure to do you a world of good. Nothing like an old breast massage to make you feel like a new woman.”

A girl passed, carrying a tray with martinis on it. Elly traded her empty glass for a full one, drank off the gin, and replaced the glass on the tray all in one fluid motion. The short, dark, crew-cut, horn-rimmed man nodded at her with obvious approval. And equally obvious lust.

No, she thought. This was the wrong way to do it. It was okay with a salesman and okay with a delivery boy because the natives and the exurbanites didn’t mingle. But when you started putting out for acquaintances at parties you were asking for trouble. Then word got back to your husband, and then the whole world started to fall in on you.

“Come on,” he said. He was holding onto her arm.

“But—”

“You’ll like it.”

“I know damn well I’ll like it.”

“Then what’s holding you back?”

“My husband.”

The short man whirled around. “So you can go home with him. But first—”

The man touched her. That was nasty, Elly thought. The son of a bitch had to go and put one hand on her breast, damn him, and that was all she needed. It was enough before, without his hands on her. Now, with him touching her, it was horrible.

She needed him.

“Right through that doorway,” he said persuasively, “there is a bedroom. It is empty now. We can go in there. We can lock the door, and no one will disturb us.”

“How do you know?”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“About the bedroom,” she went on. “You act as if you’ve been here before. Do you take many women into that bedroom?”

“Only my wife. Most of the time, that is. Sometimes other women, but generally my own wife.”

“Huh?”

“I live here,” the man said.

Elly nodded slowly. All the martinis were piling up now, and she was quietly bombed, and martinis were never noted as having a particularly repressing effect upon the libido.

“Your house,” she said dully.

“That’s right.”

“You’re the host.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s your party.”

“Sure, honey.”

“Well,” she said carefully, trying her best to avoid slurring her words, “that makes a difference. After all, it’s only right to go to bed with the host. Like saying thank-you for the party, or something. Don’t you think so, honey?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Then let’s go.”

They went. He still held her arm, and now he led her across the floor, through the doorway, into a bedroom. He closed the door and turned around just as she was getting her bra off.

“Like?”

“Sure,” he said.

“You’re the host,” she said. “I have to present my offerings for inspection, you see. For your approval.”

“I think you’re a little drunk, honey.”

“I think I’m a lot drunk, honey.”

“Come here.”

She went to him. It was wrong, and she knew damn well it was wrong, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was her phantom lover for the time being just as sure as God made little green virgins, a phantom lover on a coal-black stallion, and she was stuck.

She had to go along for the ride.