Karim al-Zib - A Helpful Wife

"I was unfaithful," Kim sobbed. "I've never been with another man besides Curt. And I've never enjoyed it so much."

"So what are you going to do now?"

Kim turned to her friend in horror. "Whatever he tells me to. Or Curt gets fired." She shook her head sadly. "It's the difference between success or failure for my husband. If he gets fired at his first job, it will be a really bad reference and he may never be able to get a decent job again in international business. He could be permanently ruined because of this."

Sue nodded her head. "You're right there. I think going to Curt's boss was the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."

"So what do you think I should do?"

"He's got you over a barrel, dear girl," Sue told her. "You play ball or you strike out. But you said you liked it. You enjoyed all that wild sex."

"That's beside the point."

Sue took her hand firmly. "You fucked and you liked it and you're going to have to do it again, most probably. So get on with it."

"You're no help at all," Kim pouted.

"What do you want me to tell you? That this stupid thing you did, sticking your pretty little nose into Curt's business, doesn't have to have its consequences? You stuck your husband's ass in a wringer and now you think you're going to get away with it scot free. I'm afraid you've got another thought coming. But buck up, you might have some fun. And I'll cover for you until we find a way to pull your little butt out of the mud you've got it stuck in."

"You'll help me?" Kim asked hopefully.

"However I can," Sue reassured her. "The main thing is to make sure Curt doesn't know what's going on. That wouldn't do any good at all."

"It would ruin everything," Kim agreed.

The girls had two more cups of coffee and talked on and on about contingencies. Sue gave the young bride all the savvy about men that she could to help her through the times ahead, if indeed there were to be questionable times. About six, Curt came through the door, as surly as ever.

"Is dinner ready?" he said, throwing his jacket on the chair. "Or are you going to sit and gabble all night?"

Kim said softly, "I didn't know you wanted to eat so early. I'll fix your dinner right away, if you want me to."

"Please," Curt said sarcastically, "if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

Kim looked up at her handsome young husband, once again on the verge of tears. No other man on earth could make her feel so unhappy so easily, just as no other could make her feel so very happy, if he only tried.

"And how's the happy divorcee?" Curt said, turning to Sue.

Kim cast him a forlorn look and went into the kitchen.

"Broken up any more families lately?" Curt prodded. "You here to give lessons to my wife?"

Sue rose without a word and went into the kitchen. She gave Kim's arm a reassuring squeeze. "I'd better go. Good luck with Sir Galahad tonight."

"Thanks, Sue," Kim said softly as her friend departed. Now she found herself alone with Curt, and he seemed to be in the foulest mood yet.

Later, at the dinner table, Curt devoured the excellent dinner Kim had prepared for him in silence. Over dessert, he said, "I was called into Ike Harvey's office today. It was the first time I've met the son of a bitch. Not really the first time. I met him a couple of months ago, didn't know who he was. He pushed his way into the elevator and I called him a fat slob.

The shithead told me I was on probation, on slippery ground."

Kim had frozen, her back as rigid as a pole, when Curt had mentioned Ike Harvey. She sat speechless, totally expecting her husband to tell her that Harvey had revealed all that had transpired. But Curt seemed not to notice her clay-like expression.

"We'll be damn lucky if we survive the year, so watch your pennies. By the way, did you pay the phone bill?"

"Not yet, Coocoo," Kim said sheepishly. "There wasn't enough money this week."

"Well, try to get it paid next week, will you? And the rent. And don't call me Coocoo. We're not in college anymore. Leave the baby talk out."

"Yes, Curt. Anything you say."

Without another word, Kim got up and began clearing the table. She had not eaten. There had not been enough money to buy food for herself. Besides, she was going to diet, get a bit of that baby fat off her bouncy little bottom. Curt went to the living room and put his face in the paper while a basketball game played on the small black and white TV. Kim sat down at an unstable card table and went to work on a jigsaw puzzle she had half completed. It was a painting of the vase of red and white roses. Kim loved roses.

"That Ike Harvey's a real bastard," Curt muttered. "Has a stable of whores he uses to entertain his clients. Bribes foreign politicians for import permits, wines and dines them, gives them women. I'm picking one of them up from the airport tomorrow. Some bandit from Zimbabwe."

Kim found the place for a particularly strange piece of her puzzle and looked up at her husband. How could it be that he didn't know what had happened to her today, could not see it written all over her face?

"Rumor has it he started out smuggling opium thirty years ago. They say he's still smuggling coke, white slavery, and produces porn, and the corporation is just a front for the whole thing. Makes you wonder."

Kim kept on working on her puzzle.

"Well, don't you have anything to say?" Curt snapped.

"No," Kim said softly, still believing that any moment he would confront her with the shame of what she had done this morning.

"Well, I'm going to bed," he announced, getting up. "Some of us have to work. I've had a hard day. Turn off all the lights before you come." And Curt vanished prematurely into the bedroom as he had almost every night for the past month, purposely going to bed alone so that he could be asleep when she got there and would not be expected to perform as a husband. And when he was gone, Kim bowed her head, choking back her tears, and tried to fit another piece into her puzzle.

About midnight, when she was much to tired to stay up any longer, she straightened up the house so that it would be clean when Curt arose, and it was then that, when she picked up her purse to put it in its place, the contents spilled out on the center of the threadbare carpet. Kim knelt down to pick up the cracked plastic compact, the almost depleted lipstick tube, and the other old and pitiful things she kept to groom herself. That was when she found the envelope.

She was very curious and apprehensive all at once. How had this gotten here? Very carefully, she opened the envelope and took out the contents. She counted the three hundred-dollar bills, slowly, unbelieving. And then she unfolded the piece of memo paper that had been doubled over just once and wrapped around the bills. It was from Ike, but she had sensed that as soon as she saw the money.

The note read:

Here's a few hundred as a well-earned bonus. It won't be the last. Just remember what's at stake for you. Get a new dress and be at my office by eleven tomorrow morning.

Ike

Kim read the note carefully once more, then tore it in tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet. She kept the bills in her tightly closed fist, and a wry smile touched her lips for the first time in a week. Perhaps it hadn't been such a bad day after all. And the phone bill would be paid tomorrow, along with the rent.

Curt Stevens had to admit that he was distinctly confused at what Ike Harvey had just told him. When he received the summons to come to the old man's office, he was sure that the boss had finally learned the identity of the young man who had insulted him in the elevator some time before and that now it was time to receive his notice of dismissal and clear out his desk. But Ike Harvey had been unaccountably amiable and had told Curt that he was interested in his qualifications and asked him if he would care to take an advancement exam for a possible "change" he had not said "promotion," but "change" of position, and perhaps go on a business trip to Colombia the following week.