Chapter 1
Jean lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and waited for the doorbell to ring. She fluffed the pillows on her plush couch and bent to pick up a few crumbs off the deep shag rug and place them in the ash tray. Then she walked over to the picture window and pushed the curtains to the side and looked out.
What was keeping him? The detective she had hired was five minutes late. It was after two o'clock in the afternoon and her son David would be arriving home from school in about a half hour and she shuddered at the thought ' of having to explain to him the detective's presence.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a beat our station wagon turn the corner and park in front of the house. He got out and walked toward the house and she heard the bell ring. She crushed the cigarette and answered the door.
"What kept you?"
"I had to have these pictures developed."
He entered and took and envelope out of the breast pocket of his shaggy suit and threw it on the coffee table. He sat down without removing his hat and lit a cigarette and groped for an ash tray.
"Your suspicions were right," he said, "your husband is fooling around."
"Do you have proof?" A long ash fell from her cigarette and fell to the carpet without her noticing. She took a long draw on it with her trembling fingers.
"Look in the envelope."
Her face was ashen and she picked it up with her heart pounding. It was a long moment before her shaking fingers could remove the contents. They were photographs of her husband and another woman.
"Where did you take them."
"I followed the pair of them from a motel out on route 9 to a bar out in Queens. I took these shots without them noticing with a small camera."
She thumbed through the set of photographs with sweaty fingers. One shot had them raising their glasses in a toast. Another pictured her husband Gil kissing his female companion with both their eyes closed. How could he have done this to her?
She crushed out her cigarette and lit another.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Meyers, but you hired me to do a job and I did it."
"And you seen them come from a motel?"
"That's right."
Her knees were weak and she had to sit down. She was hurt and confused at the same time. She rememberd how they used to love and go sailing together on warm summer days. She couldn't believe he would destroy their memories for a tart. She lost control of herself and started to cry.
The detective watched her from across the couch as she raised her hands to cover her sobbing face. Not a bad looking broad, he thought. Wouldn't mind taking her for a tumble or two.
"Take it easy, Mrs. Meyers. I've seen this kind of thing before. He'll drop her in a flash when he gets tired of her."
If he was trying to comfort her he was doing a bad job. To think that her husband could value love so cheaply made her feel worse. Would he lie to her when she confronted him with it?
"You don't understand. Robert always worked late at the office. Or at least that's what he told me. Now it looks like he was lying to me all along."
"This is better than not knowing, isn't it?"
She had to wonder about that. Supposed she didn't say anything to Robert about it at all and tried to patch things up undercover, so to speak.
She heard herself mutter somewhat unconsciously, "Did they seem close to one another."
The detective remembered how the man and the slut had played stinkfinger under the table in the bar. He could tell the tart was red in the face and was nibbling his ear. He chose his words carefully to spare her feelings.
"No more so than any other couple out on a date."
"Did he take her home, do you know?"
"Yes. And it looked like she was seeing him on the sly because he dropped her off around the corner."
The only reason he would be with this woman, then, was because she was younger. She picked up the pictures again and looked at them through wet eyes.
She was cute in a way. She had blond hair and blue eyes and wore too much make up for her taste. Her blouse was very low cut and one shot showed Robert fixedly staring at her ample breasts.
The detective fidgeted in his chair and cleared his throat to get her attention away from the photographs that nailed her husband. There was the matter of being paid and he didn't really feel like dotting about with this one's hurt and scorn.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Meyers, but I'm a professional and can view these things with an objective eye. Your husbands just on a mad fling trying to make himself feel young again. It's no big thing."
How could he say that. Doesn't a person's feelings count for anything anymore. Those beautiful winters in their log cabin up at the gorge were now just splattered fragments in her memory. The knowledge of his cheating had killed her faith in the truth and replaced it with a dull, painful acceptance.
She pulled herself together.
"Yes, well, it's my problem now. How much do I owe you?"
"Let's see. A hundred dollars a day for two days, plus expenses comes to two-fifty."
She got up and found her purse and counted the money out onto the table in front of him. It had cost her two-hundred and fifty dollars to find out her life was in shambles.
"Thanks," he said, and stuck out a grubby paw and pocketed the money in a flash.
"If you ever need me again you know where to get in touch, right?"
He stared her down to see how she would react to his hidden intentions. She was an attractive bitch, one of those cultured ladies who went to bridge lunches and was active on the PTA. With her hubby out fucking about she must be lonely.
"No thanks. I shan't be needing you ever again, I'm sure."
She went to the door and opened it to let him out. It was getting late and David her son would be home from school any minute. She perished the thought of him seeing the detective now that she knew the truth.
"Goodbye," she said.
He brushed past her and grazed one of her breasts with his open coat as if in a rush to get by her. But she backed away. Either she wasn't lonely or she was just stubborn.
"Don't feel badly, Jean, some men don't know how good they have it."
"I'll be okay. Thanks for the nice words."
He bent forward a little and he tried a pass. The thought of him combined with his smelly odor revolted her and she pushed him away. They were all the same, these men. They were all out for one thing and one thing only.
"You better leave this minute. How dare you."
"Sorry. It was worth a try," and he stepped out.
She slammed the door and was wringing her hands as she walked to the photos and retrieved them before David came home. God knows what he would think if he saw them.
Now that the detective was gone she was free to express her emotions. She weeped uncontrollably. Memories of the past were flodding her head. Only last month they had planned a Hawaiian trip that Robert had forward to for years.
It was when he had suddenly backed out of it and rather non-chalantly brushed it off that her suspicions were aroused. They had lost the deposit for the travel agency who warned them that their reservations were exclusive and it would be months till another booking.
She rifles through the pictures and examined them again. What a dispicable thing for him to do to her. What if someone they knew had seen them? How would she explain it and what could she possibly say to make herself not feel like a fool?
The pictures were revolting. She had to vomit. She took long deep breaths and this always helped to calm her nerves. In her hands were the photos that were getting clammy from her sweaty palm. She couldn't resist looking at them though they made her sick to her stomach.
Atop the stack was the one catching them in a lover's embrace. She remembered that the lewd detective had stated they acted like any other pair of lovers. Almost against her will she felt a tingle spark between her legs and register in her consciousness.
Jean was a chaste woman of impeccable character. At boarding school the girls jokingly referred to her as 'the last of a dying breed'. But that was alright. She couldn't fathom giving her self to someone who didn't value the strength of her enormous will to love.
Lately her husband's loving attentions had dropped off to practically nothing. If he had been fooling around all those other times at least he hadn't deprived her sexually like he did this time. She couldn't remember the last time they had made love. She was becoming more conscious of her sex organs each passing day that she lived unfulfilled.
She tried very hard to ignore the feeling in her clitoris as she viewed their warm embrace in the picture but it was impossible. She clamped her legs more tightly together to try and get rid of it but this only inflamed her more. Then she heard the door open and quickly shoved the photos under the cushion of the couch.
"Hi, mom," she heard her son say.
"Hello, David, who's your friend."
"Mom this is Ronny. Ronny, my mother. I told him it was alright for us to use the pool. Boy, is it hot."
The boy came over to her and very respectfully held out his hand to clasp it in friendship.
"Don't get up," he said, "I'm very pleased to meet you."
She drew herself together and spoke to him.
"Hello Ronnie. Are you in the same class as David?"
"Just in science. We were assigned a project during a lab session and did very well. David and I have a lot in common."
"Yeah, we both like to swim," her son said smiling. "Come on, Ron, I have a pair of trunks that you can wear."
"And make sure to put the filter on. You know how your father likes to keep it clean."
She still thought about him in the same old way, that was obvious. She cared about the things he liked and the memories they shared together. She sighed forgetting that the boys were still present in the room.
"Is anything wrong mom?"
"No, David, I'll be okay. Just an attack of the blues. Once I make myself busy I'll be alright. You two run along and be careful."
She watched them leave and depart to David's room to change their clothes. Ronnie was a big boy for seventeen and though he was the same age as her son he towered over him. He was at least six feet and had a very sturdy build. She couldn't help but notice that his jeans were very tight and his shirt was open baring the little hair on his chest. He had a dark complexion and combed his jet black hair straight back and very neat.
She thought to herself that David's extra pair of swimming trunks would never fit him and went into the master bedroom to find a pair of her husbands that would be closer to his size. But when she went to the dresser their wedding picture caught her gaze and the tears began to well up in her eyes.
"Robert, how could you, how could you," she heard herself say as she sat down on the bed and dried her eyes so that the boys wouldn't notice. It was a miracle they hadn't mentioned anything about her eyes being red but it was only natural for boys to be lost in their own world and interests.
At the bottom of the bed was her trunk stuffed with all her little girl things from when she was a child. She looked at it and remembered how they had first met. It was at a concert which both their schools had been invited and she thought back to what a gentleman he was when an anxious man had bullied past her and stole her seat.
Robert was so suave and command of the situation and politley told him that the seat was taken. Something in the way he had said it convinced the man that there was more behind his words than just hot air. He was so chivalrous and handsome that when he offered to buy her a Playbill she could hardly resist not saying yes. Then they spent a wonderful evening together and he called her the next day and it had been the two of them ever since.
But it was all changed now. Everything he had ever said to her must be re-evaluated on the basis of what she had just learned. She was eighteen when they were married. Her mother's objections were quickly squelched when she discovered that he was from the Prendergast family, the one that owned the shipping line, year old son that was a year away from graduation. She had good friends and a varied social life that kept her in touch with all levels of the best in culture and would enjoy the both of them spending Sunday afternoons at the museum.
She went to the closet and touched his clothes . They were all fine garments made of the best material. Robert always liked being well-dressed and that was one of the things that endeared her to him.
Robert wasn't fond of wearing his wedding ring because he said that he just didn't like to wear rings generally. Now everything he ever said was in doubt, and she played with the lovely, shining object in her nervous hand. She was crying again when the phone rang.
She went to the night table and picked it up.
"Hello, Jean?"
It was Robert. She stopped her crying so he wouldn't hear it. She couldn't help but smile. Maybe somehow he had sensed that something was wrong and he called. With everything she was still glad to hear from him.
"Honey, is that you?"
"Yes, I'm calling from the office. I just wanted to tell you that I'll be working late and won't be home for dinner."
Her heart dropped. She felt lost and all alone. Did he think she was a fool? She fought to contain her composure and decided to play it nice.
"Oh honey, not tonight. I need you so badly. I miss you."
"I'm sorry dear, but you know how it gets with this production schedule I have to meet. If I don't deliver the goods by the fifteenth the importer will drop us."
"But just this once can't you make an exception." Then she hesitated and against her better judgement said, "Do it for me, please."
"Now don't be a child, Jean, I have to work late. It's not like I want to."
There wasn't a note in his voice that would indicate that anything was awry. She still held his wedding band in her shaky hand-clutched it as if to send a wave of love across to him over the distance. He did not receive the transmission.
"Don't do this to me, Robert," she said with desperation.
"Do what. What are you talking about?"
She couldn't go on with his deceptive tactics. For an instant she had felt like telling him she had found him out. But the feel of his wedding ring in her hand brought back those memories of their love which she couldn't forget.
"Nothing," she said. "We'll talk about it tomorrow on your day off."
"Oh honey, that's another thing. Ralph can't take the Chicago trip and I'm going to have to go in his place. Sorry, but it's just business. You understand."
"Yes, I understand," she heard herself say, and then she hung up.
She was frozen in her place as her mind raced back to the days they were so happy to just be with one another. She remembered the day they had made love on a small island they had found just for themselves one day while out sailing. She was disturbed from her reveries by the gleeful shouts of the boys out by the pool.
She lit another cigarette and walked over to the window and looked out at her son and his school friend. The boy was throwing David passes with the football and she noticed that the swimming trunks he had on were much too small for him. Unconsciously she focused on the bulge in his crotch and remembered what she had come into the bedroom for Robert didn't even bother to come home that night. He called once again and said that he was so tired he was going to sleep at the office and then catch his plane in the morning. Jean was so defeated she offered no resistance and accepted her fate. That night she tossed and turned in bed as the pictures kept racing across her consciousness and stopped her from getting any peace. The picture in her mind the most was the one of him and his lover passionately kissing.
She tried to repress her thoughts but they haunted her like a bad dream. She remembered how the striking pose had aroused her against her will and fought to wipe the urges from her brain.
But she was so lonely. If only Robert would return to her at that instant she would forget everything just to have him by her side. Thinking of them making love filled her with longing. She couldn't help herself and put her hand down to her vagina.
She had never masturbated before. At boarding school the girls would joke about how they were so horny they would take care of it by rubbing their clitoris. It had only been during her husbands painful abscence that she had become aware of the spot at all.
Carefully she placed her fingers through her pubic hairs and reached the little protuberance at the top of her vagina. She parted the lips with her ring and index fingers and lightly rubbed her clitoris with her middle finger.
It had been so long the last time her and Robert had made love. She rubbed her clitoris a little harder and considered putting a finger inside her vagina. The rubbing made her feel better and she thought of the picture of the two lovers kissing in the bar infatuated with one another.
It felt so good she began to strum her clitoris with two fingers. Suddenly the scene of his son's friend standing by the pool in his too small bulging trunks flashed through her head.
With that thought on her mind she put her long finger into her vagina and moved it in and out. Her husband and her lover must be making love this very minute and that thought spurred the motion of her fingers.
She kept both the picture and the day's scene on her mind as she fingered herself. Soon she came and the vibration of orgasm rang through her body.
She couldn't believe what she had done. She felt awful for having performed a dirty act. It was the first time she had never masturbated and to think she had accomplished the task by thinking of her husband and her lover now made her sick.
She had masturbated with them on her mind and the young friend of her son's and the feeling made her feel evil and wracked with guilt. What had she done? How could she live with herself, she wondered.
In her lonely desperation she got up from the bed and looked at herself in the mirror. There were tiny lines under her eyes and small bags under her chin. Otherwise the ravages of time had been good to her.
She stared at herself and tried to rationalize the guilt that was throbbing through her. She did not deserve this. Life was unduly cruel. She watched the tears well up in her eyes and then sobbed in convulsive gasps. She stood there with both hands holding her face as the feelings of desperation and shame pulsed through her brain.