Chapter 7
WHEN EDDIE LEFT HER PLACE THAT NIGHT, Marion had been acting as if a great disaster had struck her.
Having done this to her, he was determined to cut off his relationship with her. He didn't need her so badly that he had to put up with scenes like that, and he didn't want to have it go any further.
However, he got a phone call from her a few days later. She wondered where he'd been keeping himself, and said she had tickets for a play at one of the colleges that night.
So he went over for dinner. He'd just tell her after dinner, but before the play, which he didn't want to see-that it had been nice, but this was the end. But he didn't get the words out.
Marion was matter-of-fact and even casual with Eddie. She remarked about their sexual interlude that he mustn't blame himself or keep away from her just because he'd acted so-so naturally. He was taken aback by those words-so naturally.
It turned out that Eddie didn't have to endure the college performance. They stayed at her place, and he got her into bed. He never knew quite how that happened. But he enjoyed himself with her body, and before he left her place that night, he was numbed to discover she had taken for granted that they'd be married. And he hadn't put up one word or gesture or attitude against this union which she quite evidently took as inevitable, normal, and-natural!
He had many objections against marraige, which he could recall and bring up when he was alone. But she had a great many good reasons why he should marry her-and she didn't even have to put them in words: he knew what they were, her very person and way of life proclaimed them. For example, Marion wouldn't be so crude as to straight-forwardly put it to him that she would support him while he continued his studies, and that he wouldn't have to work at any more trivial, poor-paying part-time jobs. Not only did she have a position that paid excellently, but her family had money. As Marion's husband, Eddie wouldn't want for anything. She was well-educated and cultural, too, which was a decided asset for the wife of a young lawyer. She knew the right things to know in the artistic world, just as she and her family knew many of the right people in the social world of the city.
As for love, she took that for granted now. Marion knew he loved her and that he desired her-else why would he have seduced her? Eddie realized that it didn't occur to this naive girl that he just wanted her for sex because she happened to be there and avail able ... but that any other female body would have been as acceptable. Of course, on the other hand, that was as good a reason as any why he should take her as a wife-one woman was the same as another for his sexual purposes. Oh,' he knew that a beauty like Elizabeth Hanover would be ideal, but in the dark, Marion or any female was just as serviceable.
While Eddie thus reconciled himself to his fate if it was to be, he had a notion that he'd be spared because Marion's family would object.
It was a vain hope. Perhaps she had told them they were lovers and had to get married. Even without that added persuasion, it would have been no great difficulty getting their consent. The family was not so well off that they were snobbish or guarded against a fortune-seeker's getting their daughter. She was, in addition, not so young and far from a vibrant beauty, who could look to pick and choose among suitors. Like many a set of parents, the worst thing they could imagine for a daughter was the prospect of being an old maid, so even if they had felt she was marrying beneath her, this was far preferable to being spouseless.
And in actuality, Edward Kilby didn't look like that bad a prospective son-in-law. Since World War II, it had become customary for many brides to help their new husbands through school. It was no disgrace. Eddie was a fine-looking young man, he was doing well in his studies, and his eventual profession was honorable and lucrative.
Because of all the circumstances of the relationship, the wedding was kept small and dignified, with the ceremony in the large home of Marion's parents.
The parents had offered to pay for a honeymoon In Florida,, but practical Marion had decided to take the cash to save for a home of their own. So they'd honeymoon in her apartment.
Eddie had gone in a big way for drinks at the small reception for Marion's family and friends, and when they got to the apartment, he found that they'd sent along a huge bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. Since she didn't drink but a token glass, Eddie finished it off by himself, thinking that married life on this lavish scale wasn't so bad after all.
Marion's bridesmaid had helped her pick out a traditional, flimsy nightie. When Eddie, drunk and giddy, wove his way to the bedroom, she stood there awkwardly, her dark-rimmed glasses still on-making a funny picture of a studious girl trying hard to be casual with her body showing clearly through the supposedly sexy right wear.
Eddie laughed and grabbed her clumsily, falling heavily on top of her as she sprawled foolishly on the bed. Unceremoniously, he pushed up the fragile material, and he tore off into a heady gouging of her private parts with all the drunken abandon of a bawdy-house customer getting his money's worth out of a whore.
He tried for the second time that night, but the alcohol was against him, and he fell off Into a drunken, snoring stupor.
He awoke late the next day, hearing the water running in the bathroom. He had a terrible, hung-over feeling, and also a sense of shame for the way he'd treated his bride the night before.
After her shower, Marion returned to the bedroom in a plain housecoat. He felt sorry for her, in a way. For one thing, he'd never tried to have intercourse with her so that she also would have an orgasm. He had never even been nice while taking her sexually. Well, he'd try now. He'd take her in his arms, tell her all the words of affection that she wanted to hear, and with his manliness, he'd make her come so that she'd cry in pleasant pain at the ecstasy.
When she was near the bed, he put his arm around her buttocks and said seductively, "Come here, doll."
Marion pulled away. She was going to the kitchen to make breakfast. "No." Then she added, wrinkling her nose, "It's so messy."
It was an ominous start for their marriage, on both their parts.
As their years together passed, this matter of their non-adjustment in sex more and more bugged him. It wasn't just the mediocre experiences inbed-a physical thing-but what this did to him mentally, as a male. It undermined him as a man that she wasn't interested in him as a sexual being; it undermined him that he couldn't make her burst like a skyrocket as they arrived at their height of passion together. It didn't matter that she was not satisfied; no, that didn't matter a bit, what she wanted or didn't want; only his own satisfaction mattered to him. It undercut him as a man. He told himself that she was more stupid than any prostitute-they knew the value of moaning and groaning phrases like, "What a man!" which did something to a guy whether he believed them sincere or not.
Occasionally he'd revert to his old ways of picking up homely stray girls who were grateful to get the attention of being laid by this good-looking young man. But this was a poor solution to his problem. It could no longer be just a casual matter, since he was now a married man, and had to sneak about doing this. If he went for the better-looking stuff, he had to spend time and money before he could get in good with them. Time was sparse since he was a serious student. The money he'd have to use in such adventures would all come from Marion, and the grated on Eddie's soul; perhaps even a little on his conscience.
Marion was an intelligent and sympathetic woman, and Eddie could always go to her for advice and find her very practical and helpful. He could talk to her, too. He told her just about everything that had ever happened to him, even the sexual adventures-perhaps in a bragging fashion-and funny things like the strange adventure in the homosexual mansion. He showed her the photograph of himself taken that night, he hoped it would excite her and they'd have a big time. She didn't get hepped up, but he stripped her and took her anyway. That was one thing she objected to about their lives together-how every subject, every conversation, every, occasion ended with Eddie's pumping her, if he had his way. From her point of view, it must have seemed that he was oversexed. Or it gave her doubts about herself being undersexed. At best, she thought that she stimulated him a great deal, and that wasn't too awful a concept for a woman to live with.
He was never idle in his studies, and he passed his bar examinations with flying colors. He had some tentative feelers from some of the big law firms downtown, but, for his own reasons, he settled in a small office with another young lawyer on a business street away from the heart of town.
It was rough sledding for months, with not enough money coming in to support a canary, much less himself and Marion. She, of course, continued to support them.
Then, he got a case that started him on a whole new aspect of his career-and of his life.