Frank Markser - Teaching swapping

Linda returned to the couch, setting her drink on the coffee table and dropping her head into her hands. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she recalled how well things had seemed to be going up until the night they were actually married. She had turned down the opportunity to become a guidance counselor with her recent college psychology degree in order to marry Tommy, giving up the career she had worked so hard for. It had been the best position she could have hoped for with her lack of experience in the field, and it would take her years to work up to that level if she started off at the bottom the way most people had to.

It just didn't seem fair, she complained to herself through the haze the gin was causing in her mind. She gave up everything else she ever wanted for Tommy's sake when he insisted that no wife of his would ever work, and now he was treating her like dirt under his feet. She just didn't understand it – why did the world have to be so cruel sometimes? She had to talk to him about it as soon as she saw him or she would go out of her mind. She had already known from her marital psychology courses that both of them would have to go through a period of adjustment to each other, but this was too much to take.

Abruptly her sobs ceased tearing from her throat. The telephone was ringing in the bedroom. She couldn't imagine who would be calling her at this time of the afternoon. Then she knew it had to be Tommy! He was calling to explain why he had not come home when he had promised he would.

That must be it! He probably had a perfectly reasonable explanation, and here she was worrying herself sick.

She reached the bedside table and jerked the phone from the cradle excitedly, hoping with all her heart to hear his voice.

"Hello, is that you Tommy?" she blurted out breathlessly.

Her smile suddenly faded away and her heart felt as though it would stop.

The voice of Fred Furness came to her in a hoarse whisper over the phone.

"Linda, it's me, Fred, Fred Furness," he rasped in a low voice. "Listen closely. I don't have much time, so do just as I say. Understand?"

Linda stood struck dumb for a moment at the sudden surprise of hearing his voice. "What is it?" she finally managed to stammer.

"Believe me, this is important to both of us," he whispered, hurrying his words together with such urgency that she listened as though her life depended on his voice.

"Do exactly as I tell you. I'm going to put the phone down on this end, but don't hang up whatever you do. Got that?"

"Y-yes," she stuttered in confusion, "but can't you tell me what…"

"Shhhh!" he interrupted her, "don't make a sound on that end," he hissed. Before she could say anything else, she heard a metallic noise as he put the phone down, and then there was the sound of his footsteps retreating into the distance and a door closing so softly she could barely hear it.

She stood frozen into immobility for a long time listening to the mechanical noises on the open line, and once she thought she heard the distant murmur of voices in another room, but Fred did not come back to pick up his end.

Once she picked up her ears as the unmistakable sound of a woman's laughter came to her hearing, and she thought she recognized it as Fred's wife, Grace, but she couldn't be sure.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang in the living room.

Good Lord, now what? she thought. She caught herself just in time, about to place the phone back in its cradle, and instead laid it on one of the pillows on the bed, running to answer the door.

"Fred! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed in surprise when she saw who it was.

Without waiting for her to ask him in, he brushed past her, his face glowering as if he were angry enough to kill somebody.

"What is it?" she begged to know.

"Shhhh!" he silenced her, looking around the living room. "Where's the telephone?" he growled. She saw he was taking a small portable tape recorder out of his pocket and inserting a plug connected at the other end to a suction-cup microphone.

"I-in there, by the bed," she stammered as she pointed down the hall. "C-can't you tell me…?"

"In a minute," he cut her off. "Wait here while I set this up. It's a special attachment for recording from a telephone. I'll be back in a second."

With that he entered the bedroom and closed the door. Linda was too shocked by his strange behavior to refuse anything and sat hesitantly on the edge of the couch while she waited for him to return and explain.

Finally, after what seemed a long time, the door to the bedroom opened quietly and then closed again as he came in to join her. The haggard look on his face made her feel so sorry for him that she felt she should be able to comfort him in some way, but she didn't know how.

"Would you like something to drink?" she finally thought to ask.

"God, I could use one," he answered in a broken voice.

Linda brought him a double gin and tonic and watched him with apprehension as he drank almost half of it at one gulp.

"Thanks," he mumbled. "I really needed that." He paused for a moment, staring into space. "The two-timing little bitch," he hissed in a low voice as if talking to the wall instead of to his pretty blonde neighbor.

Linda flinched involuntarily from his words and the tone of his voice, but did not protest his using them out of consideration for his obviously distressed and worried condition.

"W-who do you mean?" she stammered, not able to believe the accusation implied by his words.

"Please excuse my language," he begged her. "It's just that I still can't get used to the idea. And after all these years."

The young housewife flushed as she suddenly realized what he was referring to, recalling in vivid detail the obscene noises she had overheard only a few days before outside the Furness' apartment. "You mean you think your wife has been cheating on you?" she asked in an attempt to appear shocked and surprised.

"I don't think – I know she's cheating on me," Furness blurted out angrily. "Right at this very moment, on our own bed, she's spreading her legs for some bastard! And when I get my hands on him, I'll…"

Linda clapped her hands over her ears to shut out his blunt profanity and the forbidden scenes it brought to her mind. "Please don't talk like that to me," she pleaded, until he noticed her distress and stopped shouting.

"I-I'm sorry, Linda," he apologized, secretly proud of how he was playing the injured husband. "I'm a little more than upset by the whole thing, I guess." He drained his drink and stared at the ice-cubes in mock despair. "May I have another one?" he asked presently, holding out his glass and making the ice rattle for effect.

Linda felt herself suddenly warm and sympathetic toward him. "Yes, of course, Fred. Try and relax a little," she suggested, wondering briefly what her psychology professor would have done under these circumstances. She felt twice as sorry for him as she would have a few days ago, before her own severe problems with her husband Tommy had begun. In fact, she told herself, if it hadn't been for the events of the last few days, she wouldn't even have let him in the door. But now, so confused herself that she didn't know which way to turn, she could almost understand the violence of his present mood.

Fred Furness accepted the fresh drink from her and took a long swallow. He let his eyes wander once again over the slim, well-rounded body sitting on the couch before him. He was aware that something was upsetting her and wondered momentarily if she had already guessed what her husband was up to. He hoped not. He wanted to enjoy to the full the final moment when he would play back the tape-recording he was making from the telephone in the other room. He wanted to watch this little innocent, hard-to-get bitch break into a thousand pieces like a delicate, paper-thin china teacup smashing onto a stone floor. That would really do his heart good, especially after enduring the superior manner she had always used toward him, as if he were some kind of coarse unmannered peasant and she an aloof, lily-white princess.