David was a half-hour late getting home that night, but when he told Linda that one of his fillings had dropped out and he'd needed some emergency dental work which might easily have happened after all his zealous gobbling-his wife believed him without question. And without much interest, it seemed to him; which of course, meant that he was her computer, and since she'd installed his primary behavior-tapes eight years ago, she would naturally take all his performance-patterns for granted. He could probably go out and mow the lawn stark naked and have her see him as neatly dressed and dapper, simply because that was how she'd programmed him at the altar.
David felt flushed and restless that night, and was certain his lips must reveal some redolent traces of their new journey. Surely some facial alteration was to be expected after all that coital swamping. But Linda noticed nothing, convincing David that people who see each other daily don't really look at what they're seeing at the moment. Instead-and particularly if they're tied umbilically together through marriage-they see an old family snapshot, a replay of their very first impression. Hence, marital faces remain just as fixed and unchanging as the wedding-band that welds them; and eventually, when husband and wife start to resemble one another, the blended identity-loss achieves its ultimate goal: Mom and Dad, the Goldust Twins… the double nonentity…
Happily, David found Linda's abiding trust in him such an unswerving force in her life-she, too, had been pre-steeped in the blood-brother faith eight years ago-that neither a divorce nor a legal separation would ever be necessary. Once he'd achieved sufficient in-flight production hours with Joyce Grogan, he planned to zoom right on down that list of computer-cuties. An endless square-dance of bed-hopping… and swing your partner and dosi-do 'til she's too punchy and spent to bother with any… Then, still maintaining that Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang cadence, prance on to the next willing victim and excavate… and sop up all those little-boy rivers of dreams, displace the cream-popping nightmares with the trembling thighs of reality.
David was thoroughly convinced that his proposed double-life was entirely feasible when he passed the supreme test on the following Sunday evening at eleven. ' When Linda winked and sparkled: "How about it, hon-you feel like being convivial?" David did not get his up-in-a-jiffy boinnnggg! of an erection. But a few moments later he had no trouble filling her fond old prescription, and without having to envision her in a more provocative position. Instead, he thought of Joyce with her knees on-the-wing. And because of that shattering image, there was one awful moment when David forgot himself and slotted his truant weapon from side to side instead of respectfully arrowing it straight in and straight out.
"Oops!.. Sorry, dear. Did I hurt you?' "Oh dear God in Heaven, NO!" Linda screamed affably; and David thought it marvelous the way she could smile and bite her lip at the same time.
David often scanned the remaining collection of names on his computer-list during the next few days, but each time he felt ready to take action and dial another number, something stopped him.
Joyce.
He hated to admit it, for he saw this crippling infatuation as an impediment to all his degenerate plans for the future. How could he flit recklessly from one playmate to the next if he was already hung-up on his very first sampling? Dammit, he couldn't get her out of his mind, the adulterous bitch, and he supposed this meant he was transferring his old fidelity-reflexes from Linda to Joyce. But the trick now was to juggle a whole slew of loin-partners, not simply replace one static constancy with another.
He let a week of anxious indecision go by, during which he remained tense and unfulfilled, both at home and abroad. Then the devastating eruption of his dreams began again, with a tumbling, voluptuous Joyce now replacing his writhing in-laws; which was perhaps a Freudian leap in the right direction, but not exactly the tail-binding consummation he'd had in mind. He kept seeing her lips, nipples and labia and vibrant green eyes and glistening red hair… and ooh!.. that endearing drive-in deposit-window she'd embroidered in her panties kept haunting him everywhere. Finally, when he realized what an infuriating blind-alley daily meat-beating could become, he tried to phone her on two successive Wednesday afternoons. At the Fairmont, of course, and under her assumed name; leaving his own alias and private number with the desk-clerk when she didn't answer.
When the third week went by, with Joyce making no attempt to get in touch with him, David grew more sulky and irritable than ever. Perhaps he hadn't been such a hot-Apollo in bed after all, not really the kind of guy she was used to. He didn't have Brad's pushy ego and bravado and charm. So all right, he wasn't her cup of tea, the fickle little sow!.. with all her squealing and twitching and pretending. Why the hell'd she have to make him think he was so special… kissing and hugging and grabbing and grunting, when she probably performed like that with every guy she touched?
But he couldn't help reliving those fantastic hours he'd spent with her, playing with his long hard recollection in the locked booth of the men's room at work while he reprised every grinding curve of her body… gasping and shooting his load into a new Joyce-orifice each time he diddled himself… aw get that hot boy-cream, you spreading country-club slut… up your twat, in your kissy mouth… up your ass!.. damn ya, I hate ya for ruining Brad's life the way you did… hate ya!.. Afterwards he'd sulkily mop up, re-zip and return to his sleek status-symbol of a desk. His secretaries had been eyeing him curiously for some time now, asking themselves what might be causing his obvious decline. Luckily, the Montclairs were still touring Europe and wouldn't return until November. Otherwise, old Wilbur himself might be politely inquiring why David was still dawdling over a project that should have been finished weeks ago. But David was much too distraught to concentrate on his work, and for the first time since his marriage he took advantage of his family-connections at All-Planet Insurance Company and quite craftily goofed off.
One Saturday morning in late September David told Linda he wasn't in the mood for his usual golf-game, nor did he have any particular interest in going into town to watch the Forty-Niners play football, which should really have piqued her curiosity, since he was an avid football-fan and the new season had just begun. Instead, she blandly assumed he preferred to remain at home and watch some other team play on television.
"No, dear, I'm trying to say I'll be free to drive you to the supermarket today," he said. "We haven't shopped together in ages, and it used to be such fun."
"Why, David, how very sweet of you!" Linda accepted his thoughtful gesture with a blinding domestic beam, rushing over to lend him her cheek; and without collateral, thought David, kissing it, and remembering that Joyce Grogan also shopped at this market every Saturday and knowing he was desperate enough to hope he could manage a few words with her.
David made a point of taking little Larry and Janice along on this brief drive, trusting that their caterwauling in the back seat would keep Linda sufficiently distracted while he tracked down her dear old sorority-sister. As they pulled up to the shopping-center, amidst screeching brakes and kids, David knew that the devils were with him, because he caught a glimpse of Joyce heading towards her Thunderbird at the other side of the lot, a delivery-boy carrying a load of groceries for her. Observing that Linda was too busy corralling the children to notice anyone else, David let them all out of the car, saying he'd join them after he found a place to park. Then, when Linda scurried off with her brood and shopping-list, David quickly drove across the lot towards Joyce's car. He parked at a safe distance and waited until the delivery-boy placed a large box of groceries in her back-seat and departed.
Joyce was just about to drive off when David got out of his car and ran up to her, calling her name. "Joyce, please wait a minute, I've got to talk to you…!"
She turned, and when she saw who it was she frowned, then gave him an icy stare, but lowered her window and waited until he reached the car. "Good morning, Mrs. Grogan," he said loudly, in case anyone nearby could hear him. "Lovely day, isn't it? Bet you're as glad as we are that the kids are finally back in school…"
"Will you lower your voice, you clod?" she said in a hoarse whisper. "You're about as subtle as a drunken lumberjack in heat! What the hell do you mean by accosting me right here in town?"
He stared at her, overwhelmed by her slashing vivacity, the hot green eyes and russet hair, the bouncy nude memories… "Accosting you?" he tried to laugh this off, she had to be kidding! "Oh Joyce, I'm sorry if I'm not being very discreet, but I've got to see you again. Why haven't you returned my calls?"
Joyce fidgeted nervously in her seat and kept glancing about to see who was listening. "If you weren't such a sniveling amateur, you'd know what my silence meant," she hissed at him. "I received several other calls after I saw you, David, all of which provided partners who are far better equipped than you to cope with a woman of my seasoned standards. In short, they're stud-professionals, baby, and they know exactly what to do without being taught…"
David looked woebegone and felt about three and a half years old, as he stood there, shifting from one foot to the other. "But dammit, Joyce, you said I was doin' real good. Remember the way you kept swishin' around when I kissed it? God!.. you seemed so happy!"
"Will… you… Shut up!" This time Joyce's whisper was so savage it sprayed a little, and she darted her eyes thither and yon like an incensed paranoiac. "You damned pervert, do you realize where we are?"
"Oh hell, we're in a parking lot," he muttered, "and there isn't a soul around at the moment…"
"We are in Hillsborough, David, which is where we happen to live. And if you'd retained your sense of values, you'd know this is hallowed ground for me and I cannot afford to have it desecrated by your foul-mouthed insinuations!"
David kept staring at her lovely foul-mouth as she spoke, unheeding and urgent. "Call me at my office Wednesday morning," he said quickly, seeing she was about to roll up her window.
"Oh, you maniac!.. can't you get it through your head that you're much too close to my home and children? I have a clean reputation to uphold in this community, and I mean to keep it that way."
David watched her face go pale, watched her sparks fly out at him in the morning sunshine… "Oh Joyce, you are really too much, you know that? You practically tore my pants off to get at me, and now you're reading me the kind of riot-act I haven't heard since Sunday School…"
Joyce started to breathe rather hard and fast, and standing on his toes, David could just make out the big fat knockers swelling out and in and out… as she snarled, "I'm warning you, David Fortune, don't ever speak to me in this town again, unless we happen to be part of a family-grouping… playing bridge or around the pool, or doing something else that's similarly loyal and neighborly. I don't know how sick you have become, dear heart, but I, for one, do not spit, shit, or fuck where I eat!" With that, she closed the window and drove off.
David wandered dazedly into the market, where he helped Linda pick out some fresh cantaloupes, squeezing a pair of melons so fiercely that he broke a nail.
On the following Monday morning Brad Grogan telephoned David at his office and offered to take him to lunch that day. David felt instantly grateful for this opportunity, and, in a strange way, felt closer to his old friend than ever; for now he knew first-hand what the poor guy had gone through, married to that raving virago. And, like a pair of combat-weary soldiers, they'd fought a common enemy and had gone down in flames together. Man, they'd really been there!.. hit by the same missile-spray. Maybe they could find some meager comfort in comparing notes, although something told David that in this case perhaps he shouldn't burden his comrade with too many of the details.
"Been wondering about you, boy," said Brad, after a waiter had taken their order. "Thought it was about time for a little progress report. How've you been making out?"
It suddenly occurred to David that if he was careful not to mention Joyce's name he could, after all, tell Brad everything. A real man-to-man cleansing of the soul. Jesus, how great it was to have a buddy at a time like this!
"Oh wow, Brad… are you ready for this?" he preambled. "I hooked on to the most gorgeous sex-freak in captivity! And I mean to tell you this gal was such a pig for it, she couldn't get enough… pow, pow, pow!.. 'til I thought I'd bust a gut!"
"No shit." said Brad, with rising interest.
David felt a weird sense of power, being able to say so much about Joyce and still keep her identity a secret from her ex-husband. "But you know something, Brad…?"
"No… What, old-Buddy?"
"I'm too goddamned naive for my own good…"
"Uh huh… that's what I always said about you," Brad's smile was brilliant, downright captivating.
David leaned across the table for a stage-whisper. "I made the mistake of wanting to see her again. Imagine trying to have a big romance with a cock-hungry broad like that. I guess grownups don't play that way, eh, Brad? They just hop right on to the next one. Safety in numbers and all that cynical jazz. That's how you cats operate, so I guess I'd better get the hang of it. Except… maybe I'm too old to start playing that way, too damned sincere and idealistic to love 'em and leave'em the way you do huh. Brad… you old Tiger you!"
Brad was staring at him, his smile slowly dissolving as he leaned across the table, nearly knocking his forehead against David's. "Answer me one question, Dave…"
"Shoot," said David; tiger-to-tiger hookup now.
"When you saw it was Joyce showin' up for that date, why the fuck didn't you walk away from her?"
David swayed backwards in his chair, almost knocking it over. "I… I don't follow you," he managed, dimly wondering how much weight Brad had on him, and how long it had been since he, David, had defended himself in a bloody fist-fight.
"Yesterday was my Sunday to visit the kids," Brad went on calmly, "and just before I left, Joyce told me everything…"
"Oh… well… that wasn't very nice of her," David mumbled, glancing about the room for exits.
"At first she thought you were pretty funny, like a twentieth-century Diogenes looking for an honest orgasm. But now that you've started tailin' her around at supermarkets…"
"… Oh now wait a minute!.. one lousy supermarket!"
"… She begged me to keep you off her back!" said Brad.
"Now that's funny!" David tried to chuckle but choked on it.
"What the hell do you mean by waylayin' that woman right in the heart of Hillsborough?" Brad's voice rose a little now. "Dammit, if you want to play dirty, lay off my family. You hate my kids or something? Do they need this kind of shit in their lives? That's why I pulled out, for Christ's sake, and let everyone think Joyce was so blameless… so those brats could honor their mother in peace!"
David saw several surrounding patrons try to perk up their ears and he tried to interrupt Brad, although he was feeling pretty queasy by this time… "Brad, what can I say?" he muttered lowly. "I know I'm a… a prize fink and a bastard, but I couldn't help myself. You know what a… I mean… how she, the way she…"
"It was Dirty-Pool, David!" Brad said through clenched teeth. "Jesus, you were the only friend I had left in this world who hadn't laid her. Don't you see what you've done to me… to both of us?"
… Oh you handsome popular sonofabitch! thought David; you've been screwin' every girl in San Francisco, and you begrudge me this one bang-in-the-hay simply because it used to be your property…!
"Look Brad, it's not as if I ever looked at her while you were still married… like all those other guys, I mean. You have to remember she's your ex-wife now, and she's… well she's fair game…".
"Keep it up, boy… keep callin' her names, that's lovely!"
"All right, if you want the truth, she insisted that I take her on…"
"Oh sure, she forced you. An ass like hers and she had to tie you down for it, huh, Dave? What'd she use… chloroform, Sodium Pentathal…?"
"Dammit, I tell ya she wouldn't take no for an answer-she threatened to tell Linda…"
"Oh Ho! Was that before or after you threatened to tell the Hillsborough P.T.A. if she refused to go to bed with you whenever and wherever you wanted it?"
David gasped, his mouth hanging open. "Brad, if she said that, she's a damned liar, and I think you know it…"
"Look Dave, you can knife me in the back any time you want, but it just so happens that Joyce is the mother of my children, and for your information, no mother of my kids is a sex-freak or a pig or a cock-hungry broad. She happens to be very well thought-of on that whole fuckin' Peninsula, and that's how I mean to keep her. Last night I gave her the big scoop. I said 'Joyce, as far as I'm concerned you can screw all you want to-but screw outa town! Otherwise I'm gonna drag you through the dirtiest custody-battle on record, and name names-all those local boys who made good… and man you'll really hear some bombs go off!' "
… Name names, thought David… my name. And not "Thorndike" either. Names like Montclair… and Fortune, and down-the-drain Mr. Future…!
With a shivering sacrifice-sigh, David rose and pointed a finger at his jaw. "Hit me, Brad. Right here, if it'll make you feel any better. I know I've got it coming…"
In a scuffling fury Brad scraped back his chair and got to his feet, his huge physique hulking and massive, as several waiters watched and waited in a breathless tableau of suspense. "You've got something coming, Dave, and I'm gonna see that you get it. I'm gonna knock you right on your ass!" David closed his eyes and waited-the end-of-an-era, he thought… "But not here, old-Buddy," Brad went on. "Oh hell no, I want to give you something you'll remember… so I'm gonna hit you right where you live…"
With that-and without bothering to pick up the check-Brad turned and stormed out of the restaurant.
Where I live, thought David, dazedly resuming his seat. When the headwaiter rushed over to ask if there was any trouble, David dismissed him by saying that he and Brad had been rehearsing a play to be performed at the Y.M.C.A. And then he tried to evaluate all that Brad had threatened: To hit me where I live would have to involve Linda, because where I live is at home, which is where she lives… so that's what he plans to do, tell her everything! Oh hell no, that doesn't sound like Brad. He wouldn't fink deliberately just to get back at someone who'd finked accidentally. But how do I know that, dammit!.. he's been a pretty bitter boy lately, the big pissed-off bruiser. Everybody's been down on him, with me the last in a long line of traitors. Well, with Linda I'm safe anyway, because she hates his guts and wouldn't believe him on a stack of bibles, no matter what he told her. Christ, he absolutely nauseates her, and she wouldn't even let him in the door or give him the time of day, because that brawling Papa-Bear approach would never work on my meek little poem of a wife. 'Cause after all, I'm her husband, and even I know better than to try using the hard-sell attack on her, even though I've never tried it…
… Hmm… there was a profound marital message lurking in all that logic; but David didn't want to think about it now when he'd reached such a jazzy juncture in his life and still had a whole helluva lot of history to make. How could he care what happened on the home-front when he was so hot-to-trot and conquer distant lands?
With that cavalier thought in mind, David paid the check and went out to a public phone booth. Whereupon he pulled out his computer-list and dialed the very next number.
"Hello, is this Hazel?"
"Yes," a voice full of toasty husk and harmony, "and this is David Thorndike."
"That's true, but how did you know? I mean, with so many on the list, how could you be sure…?"
"Process of elimination," Hazel interjected. "You're the only one on my current list who hasn't tumbled yet."
"Oh?" said David; but decided not to examine this reply too closely; since feeling like something leftover from a bargain-counter didn't exactly fit in with his present mood. And anyway, the therapy of speed was the important element here. He needed the sweet balm of a rebound-match, and fast! "Well, how are you, Hazel?" he said.
"I'm tall and willowy, David. Six-two with heels-and you?"
David gulped, finding this another miracle of matching; because he was the same height, without heels, of course, which was just fine, since he wasn't altogether certain it was a twin he wanted in this department. "I'm also six-two," he said, and then, hoping to sound a bit more devil-may-care, he added: "Would that do it for you Hazel?"
"Oooh! I'll recline to answer that question."
… Jesus, we just saved a full hour of preliminaries and we haven't even shaken hands!
"Meet me in the lobby of the Hilton at five-fifteen this afternoon," she suggested in those languid, Lauren Bacall-tones. "We'll have cocktails first; and then… the compatibility-tests."
David gaped at the mouthpiece, nodding so fiercely he shook the perspiration from his forehead. "All right, it's a mate… uh… Date! But… how will I know you?"
"I'll have you paged, David. Just follow any bell-boy calling your name."
"That sounds neat enough for me. I'll be there."
"You're all heart, David."
He hung up, and spent the rest of his office-afternoon in a cold tingling sweat and flurry of fever-rashes, just thinking about this long-stemmed stackjob that lay in wait for him.
Sniveling amateur! Is that what Joyce had called him? Well, balls to Joyce and balls to Brad and balls to Linda too! To say nothing of Hillsborough itself and the Montclairs and All-Planet Insurance and his Goddamned sheltered upbringing. After scaling about a dozen American beauties like Hazel, he'd be teaching them all how to pop their pistons, and in every freaky position known to man or beast. He would, to put it crassly, become a "stud-professional." And even top horny-humpin' Brad's filthy record before he was done.