Peter Jensen - The Virgin Couple

It was a small party-ten couples and a few unattached men and women-and it was, to Kim Sutton’s mind, rather a stuffy affair. Everyone seemed to be standing in little clusters, talking inanely of topics typical to cocktail parties: local and national politics, current fads and fashions, the Viet Nam war, ad nauseam.

The hostess, a tall, statuesque blonde whose name was Gerry Tatum, circulated amongst the guests with a tray of various preferential drinks-and her long-side burned husband, Roy, sat next to a slim redhead on one of the living room’s two couches, putting his hand on her knee almost possessively when he thought his wife wasn’t looking.

Kim stifled an involuntary yawn, knowing that Barry and she should never have accepted the Tatums’ invitation. Barry had quit the San Francisco Sentinel three weeks ago, and everyone in the paper knew why; as a consequence, minor reporters like Roy Tatum thought it socially impressive to invite Barry Sutton and his wife to their drab little parties. Yes, that was certainly the reason they had been invited; but they’d accepted anyway, knowing this, just to get out of their own house, to see some other faces, to talk with someone besides one another.

They had stayed home every night since Barry’s resignation-they’d turned down two other invitations to social functions-because Barry was trying desperately to get his novel started, working twelve to fifteen hours every day, writing fifteen or twenty pages but throwing most of them away in anger and frustration. It simply wasn’t going right, he had told her; the words wouldn’t jell. The reason for that was a combination of things: the Department of Public Works was putting in a new sewer main on their street, and the noise of jackhammers and heavy machinery and large trucks was deafening at times; the phone seemed to ring continuously with calls from friends, well-wishers, dogs barking, power lawn mowers whining destroyed whatever moments of silence were left. He’d given It up this morning, calling the whole idea an abortion, saying that he wouldn’t-couldn’t-write another line in that house; he had to get away, he’d said, somewhere where he could be alone, in peace and quiet, to collect his thoughts and coordinate his ideas into the cohesive format of the projected novel. And he had to do it damned soon, too; he’d already sold the book to a major New York hard-cover publisher on the basis of, an outline alone, had been given a large advance (most of which was already spent on old bills and incidentals), and he had less than eight months in which to deliver the completed manuscript. It was to be a major, lengthy work, and if he was to meet that deadline he couldn’t afford to lose any more time getting started.

When the Tatums’ telephoned invitation had come that morning, just after Barry’s remonstrations, he had told Kim to go ahead and accept, what the hell; they might as well get out of the house since it was no use in trying to continue the novel.

Gerry Tatum tame around to where Kim and Barry were standing near the large fieldstone fireplace and asked them if they would care for another drink. Barry declined politely, and she moved off again.

He said to Kim, “I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t have stayed home tonight. I could’ve stared at the typewriter and you could’ve stared at me.”

She squeezed his arm, smiling up at him wanly. “I think we’d have had just as good a time.”

“I hate parties like this,” Barry said. “They’re so damned pretentious.”

I know.”

“I haven’t heard an honestly intelligent statement all night.”

“Spoken like the true, novelist,” Kim said in a gently chiding voice. “Mr.

Hemingway, I presume?”

“Ouch!“ Barry said, recoiling in mock pain. “Your barbed wit cuts deep.”

She touched the long, silky strands of her raven black hair in that unconsciously vain way women affect. “I was just teasing, honey.”

“I know you were,” Barry sighed. “How much longer do we have to remain at this abysmal affair, do you suppose? When can we leave without destroying our image?”

“Very shortly,” Kim said. “Can you take another half hour of this?”

“Must I?”

“You must.”

“This is a far, far better thing I do, as Hamlet said.” Barry muttered, taking a moody swallow from his double martini.

Just then, one of the couples whom they had been introduced to upon arriving at the party-Jack and Lynn Goren-made their way over to where the Suttons were standing. Jack Goren was short and heavy-set, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and dark, intelligent gray eyes. He gave the impression of having once been an athlete-he was broad shouldered and thick chested, and the material of his Madras jacket was stretched taut across his pectorals. Looking at him, Barry Sutton thought that he probably worked out regularly in one of the local gymnasiums or health clubs. He had a broad, friendly, contagious smile and an easy-going manner. He was carrying, oddly enough, a glass of dark ale in one huge hand. His wife, Lynn, was tall and lithe with brownish-yellow hair and huge, luminescent green eyes with tiny yellow flecks in the irises. She wore a clinging blue shift which hugged and caressed her slender, high-breasted body, accentuating the easy, natural sway of her tight mooned buttocks. She was holding onto Goren’s arm and smiling warmly as they approached.

“Hello there, Sutton,” Goren said heartily as they came up. “Lousy party, isn’t it?”

“Shall I be honest about it?” Barry asked.

“Sure.”

“Yes. It’s a lousy party.”

Goren laughed deeply, with good-natured, infectious amusement. He said to his wife, “I told you I was going to like this Sutton, didn’t I, Lynn? He’s a man after my own heart-honest and frank and totally lacking in the phony social graces.”

“Thanks-I think,” Barry said.

Goren laughed again. His eyes shifted to Kim, moving easily over her beautifully compact, perfectly symmetrical body in a way which was complimentary to Kim-not lecherous, but openly admiring. “How about you, Kim?

What’s your opinion of this little affair?”

The familiar use of her first name didn’t bother Kim at all; she found herself rather liking this large man. “The same as my husband’s,” she answered ruefully.

“Don’t really know why we came,” Goren said. “Something to do on a Friday night, I guess”

“Same here,” Barry said. They had established a common bond, and he, too, found himself liking Goren. And Lynn, even though she hadn’t spoken as yet, struck him as being an intelligent, carefree soul like her husband. On top of that, she was damned attractive, Barry had to admit; very damned attractive.

They fell easily, then, into conversation. As both Barry and Kim had surmised, the Gorens were witty, intelligent people, interesting to talk to. It developed that Jack was an electronics salesman for a large national company, extremely successful; so much so, in fact, that he was now semi-retired, working when he felt like it. Lynn, in addition to being a housewife, dabbled in oil painting in her spare time. She was very modest about that, but Goren insisted that she was a tremendous talent, witness the fact that she had sold two of her seascapes for five hundred dollars each just last month.

The topic of conversation shifted, naturally, to the novel Barry was writing.

The Gorens had heard of it from the Tatums (no surprise there, Barry thought a little sardonically), and Jack was extremely interested in it. He asked, “What’s the book about? That is, if you don’t mind revealing same.”