Douglas McCallister - Rich man, poor man

Lovely Kelly Brown looked up from reading Crime and Punishment, and caught sight of the stain in the carpet that was so plainly visible in spite of all her efforts to arrange the furniture so that it would be hidden. She sighed, thinking that she should be more careful as a homemaker, make some greater effort at graceful living.

But she knew that Tom, her husband, really didn't appreciate the little touches that were so important to her. Flowers on the table, dinner by candlelight. They weren't for him. She knew it was because he'd never had such things at home. He came from a family of decent, hard-working people, the finest in the world, she thought, and they adored their son. But they hadn't been able to do much for him. Not like her own wealthy father who had sent her to one of the best private schools in the country and then on to a good college, where she had spent four years studying psychology and had graduated with honors. Tom, on the other hand, had left school in his teens to go to work. He'd had a good job then, as he did now, as a construction worker. And when Kelly had met him he had seemed so much more honest, so much more exciting than the usual college boy she dated, that she had fallen head over heels in love with him… There had been opposition from her family, but she had expected that, and in the end they had given in and even put up with her own demand for a simple wedding at home, rather than the big church wedding her mother had set her heart on.

But even as she had walked through the big double-doors on her father's arm, to the minister standing near the ornate fireplace, her mother's warnings had echoed in her ears. "Oh, it may be fine at first," she said. "You're young and in love, that Tom Brown has swept you off your feet. But just wait until later. Just wait!"

"Nothing will happen, Mother," Kelly had assured her.

"And that's just it," she had answered, almost spitefully. "Nothing's going to happen. You have nothing in common with Tom, dear, nothing at all. Background, education, nothing. And when the first bloom wears off, and it will, it will… then you'll be stuck with someone with whom you can't communicate. You'll be complaining just about that -the fact that 'nothing's going to happen'. And you'll be bored, my dear. So bored. Sitting around keeping busy with your tatting…"

Kelly had suppressed a smile. "Mother, no one had done any tatting for the last fifty years…"

"It was merely a figure of speech," the mother had snapped. And then she went on. "Mark my words, Kelly. No good will come of this marriage. None at all!"

Kelly's mother had been right, after all. The first year or so had been sheer ecstasy for the young woman. But then the rest of her prediction seemed to come true. There was nothing definite to mark the beginning of what now looked to the lovely blonde wife as the beginning of the end. But she had awakened one day to the fact that she was bored with Tom, that they had nothing in common any more, if they ever had had.

"There's nothing we can talk to each other about," Kelly complained to her best friend.

The other woman had shrugged her shoulders. "Why bother?" she asked. "There are other things…" she had smirked almost lewdly and Kelly had been offended.

She sat now, reading the thick novel. It was so interesting and she longed to share her thoughts with her husband. But she knew it was useless; he might or might not have understood her, but he certainly couldn't have cared less. She stared at him across the room, watching as he leafed through the copy of some girlie magazine he had picked up at a newsstand on the way home, saw the lascivious little play about his lips as he stared at one of the nearly-naked models, and read his thoughts accurately. He was longing to strip off the little loin-cloth draped over her young pink pussy and go plunging deep up inside it. She turned back to her book.

She leafed through the pages, too nervous to apply herself, and then something caught her eye. It was a chapter on marriage and what to do when it all seemed to go wrong. Wife-swapping was the suggestion. My God, Kelly thought, and then, intrigued, she read on. Yes, the experts who had written the book insisted, that was often the solution when a couple seemed to be mismated. Kelly mulled it over. Mismated? But that was what she and Tom were, wasn't it? Mismated! And maybe wife-swapping would solve their problems. She looked up from her book and over at her husband, slouching in the big overstuffed chair that he preferred to relax in. He grinned lecherously as he read some especially spicy passage, then chuckled to himself.

Kelly opened her mouth, ready to read a passage from the book in her hands, and then suddenly clamped it shut. What was the use? He wouldn't understand. He would merely laugh at her as he so often did, mock the use of the technical language, tell her to "come off it". She shook her head. if only…

Tom; sitting opposite his wife, stared at the naked models, licking his lips lasciviously. Christ, they were built. But built! Man, oh man! He had to admit though that his wife Kelly was every bit as beautiful as any one of these bare-assed babes in the photos. As beautiful! Christ, she had them beat by a mile! But his life wasn't all honey and roses, in spite of

that. Shit, something had gone sour somewhere, sometime. Tom scratched his head reflectively, wondering what it was.

Kelly had changed. She had changed, and it wasn't for the better, either. It wasn't that she'd really been acting "superior" on him, she was too nice a kid for that, but Jesus Christ, she sure managed to give that impression.

Like now, he thought. Like now. There she was, acting so goddamned intellectual, reading that big thick psychology book when he had other, and damn it all, better things on his mind. An intellectual, that was what his wife was, and Tom laughed disdainfully to himself as he remembered something that some writer, someone whose name he couldn't remember and one he probably couldn't have pronounced even if he had, remembered how some writer had defined the word. "An intellectual," he had said, "is someone who manages to think about something other than sex at least once in a while." The young construction worker looked over at his wife, staring lewdly at her lovely figure, her beautiful face framed by long blonde hair, her ripe plump breasts damn near popping out from under that tight see-through blouse she wore, her long and voluptuously curved legs curled up beneath her now while one slender foot hung free, waving back and forth provocatively.

Christ, he thought, no one could ever call me an intellectual. Just the sight of his wife sent sudden spasms of lust shivering up his spine, made him ache and burn at the center of him, stiffened his cock beneath his pants until he wanted to get up and grab her… Grab her, yes… throw her down on the floor, strip off that little miniskirt she wore… oh, God! He almost had to laugh, he thought, feeling more like crying. He almost had to laugh at the way nothing added up, nothing made sense. Here was this chick, this living doll -turning him on a hell of a lot more than the girls in the pictures did, and yet at the same time she acted as if she were above such basic indoor sports. Oh, God, he thought, groaning inwardly. Why had he married a beauty with brains?

He sighed audibly this time, and Kelly raised an eyebrow, peering above the page she had been reading. "Yes?" she asked.

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh, I thought you had."

"No, I didn't."

"Sorry."

"Aw, come on, Kelly…"

She closed the book abruptly, with a loud smack that reverberated through the room. "What is it, Tom?" she asked solicitously.

Her tone of voice angered her husband. Who the hell was she to act so high-and-mighty? Like a school teacher or something. As if she was better than he was! Jesus, he earned a good living, didn't he? Gave her