Chapter 9
Three months of furtive, frantic activity went by. Fred and Jenny Morrison would arise, in their respective bedrooms, with hangovers and each, secretly, going over the lustful events of the night before. The change in Jenny disturbed Fred. She was as polite and attentive as ever, yet their was a subtle change in her attitude.
Gradually, it dawned on him. She was always very careful to find out his future plans. Was he going out that night? And if he was, about what time could she expect him? Where would he be? She was always very careful and casual about asking and, at first, Fred dreaded the thought that she had found out about his affairs and was going to make some silly scene. But, no, slowly it emerged that she was not so much upset but happy that he would be out. Happy? There was only one reason for her being so happy.
His wife was having an affair herself! Fred began to put little things together. A phone call that turned out to be the wrong number, a new smile on Jenny's face, listening to her humming and singing in the morning. Fred stared at her figure under her nightgown or housecoat. It had grown more shapely, softer, more desirable. Mornings, hungover, sipping coffee and looking at her figure and feeling horny, hot, wanting to do to her a few of the tricks he had learned from Sissy and a few other girls over the months, including the colored girl who had turned out to be a hooker. He longed to take his wife out to the garage and fuck her in the car.
In fact, Fred's life had so changed in the last three months that he really had forgotten why he was mad at Jenny, why he wouldn't have anything to do with her. In fact, Fred's values had so changed that he now came to regard so many friends and activities that he used to cherish as bores. So much of it was phony and hypocritical and now other things excited him.
He had become what he thought was a good friend of Nick's. Nick was cool and fast and funny. Fred was learning a lot about women from Nick and even meeting some wild ones because Nick was generous and open minded. Fred confided in Nick and one night, when they were both drunk, he told him about Sissy and the night they watched the colored girl fucking. Nick seemed very interested and so he went on, bragging, about how he had traced the colored girl, met her, took her home and fucked her while Sissy sat in the car and watched.
Nick had talked him into calling the colored girl and they both went over there with a fifth of scotch and had an all-night orgy.
Fred was even smoking and carrying pot now, the pot supplied by Nick who told him it would really "turn chicks on to fucking."
Nick was also talking to Fred about business and, although Fred couldn't say he exactly approved of Nick's ways of making money, there really wasn't- anything too illegal about what he did. And besides, he was making much more money than Fred was with half the effort. "Elks, Lions, Optomists, YMCA, Boy Scouts, that's all penny ante stuff. You just break your balls for a bunch of tightfisted, dull, people," Nick had said.
The remark had hurt Fred and he wanted to argue the point but didn't. There was a germ of doubt in his mind. Nick might be exaggerating, but, he might be right.
It was true many of the people Fred dealt with* were horribly boring and unaware of a great deal that went on under their very noses. It was true he could never confide in anyone what he did at night. If they knew, he would be shunned.
If they knew. Fred had often mulled over that possibility when he thought of his behavior over the last couple of months. If they knew, he would be out of a job. He became elaborate cautious, never meeting Sissy in public. Sissy was really no problem so long as he took her out in his car, let her drive it, and bought her tasteless gifts which she seemed to treasure, like a plaster figurine of Venus de Milo with a luminous clock in her navel. Sissy would coo and cluck and cry a bit over each gift then get down to the nitty gritty of fucking. If they only knew.
And Jenny, too, was having an affair. Putting the two facts together, Fred came up with a nasty possibility: Jenny might be discovered and then he would be the talk of the town, a source for nasty gossip and perhaps even having his job endangered. Fred knew only too well how vicious and destructive small-town gossip could be. It was one thing for him to play around; he was cautious, careful, and it could always be passed off as a lark, a fling, a mistake. The public was always willing to forgive a man. But, a woman? Not so easy? A wife?
Fred convinced himself it was a bad thing, that Jenny was needlessly endangering him. The thought that she might be carrying on an affair in his own house, under his own roof, filled him with dread and rage, He determined to get even with her.
By the time he had left the house and driven downtown to his office, he was filled with righteous indignation. He was raving jealous and was determined to put an end to an intolerable situation. He'd show that two-timing bitch, he'd fix her good. He began devising a scheme where'
he could catch her and fix her good. After all, he thought, I've got my reputation to uphold.
If Fred had only known it, his own reputation was none too good around town. There was talk, not idle gossip designed to titilate, but serious sober talk what to do about a situation that was growing ominous, that suggested dire things. Fred had been seen a lot in the company of Nick Condos and Condos wasn't exactly regarded with respect in most quarters of the town. Fred had been seen to drink quite heavily. And in public. Drinking at home, so that the neighbors didn't know or see was one thing; but, to be seen quite drunk in public, was quite another, particularly for someone in Fred's position.
Fred had been seen in some bad places and had been seen, too many times, with women of a questionable character. Once, a friend, an insurance salesman, driving home from a call, swore he saw Fred, with "a snootful" weaving his way into a house in the Negro section of town. The smell of his breath in the morning and his bloodshot eyes were evidence enough for some people. It was decided that some of Fred's closer friends should sit down and have "a man-to-man talk," with him. Supposing, they said, supposing his father should find out?
Fred Morrison was a marked man, and Jenny a marked woman. And, as their life had changed in Copenhagen, it was about to change even more. A final change, so that, ever after, they would hardly be recognizable as the happy young naive couple that had been married less than a year ago. The weekend that would change everything was coming up. Fred had made careful plans. He called Jenny from the office Friday morning. "Honey? Listen, something has come up and I may have to leave town this weekend. May have to fly up to Cleveland."
"Oh? Why?"
"Well, there's going to be a regional meeting of the Shriners up there." Fred had scoured the papers for an excuse and found that one. "And I've been recommended by some friends and I maybe able to land a job coordinating the whole damn thing. Listen, I'll be on the go day and night all weekend and you know those Shriners so I really can't see you going along. All you'd get to do is sit in a hotel room and wait for me to come back, don't you agree?"
"I do, honey. It would be awful. Promise you'll call me?"
"Sure thing. Oh, honey, I'll have to leave early tonight. You won't mind?"
"Mind? Mind my husband doing a job like that?" she asked with false sincerity. "Ill be proud of you!"
"Good. I'll see you later."
"I'll have everything packed by the time you get home," Jenny said with a husky, gleeful tone in her voice.
Fred hung up and sat looking at the phone. Yes, he said to himself, and when I'm gone, you'll get potted and then, when I come back and find you....
He didn't finish the thought, just sat with his fists clenched.