Penny Driscoll: Sister_s husband

She started to cry a little bit again as she thought about the unfairness of it all… his calling her a "frigid bitch"… telling her that she ought to go to see a doctor about her condition… when the whole thing very obviously was all his fault. Why couldn't he see that… that it was his fault that she was this way, after he'd forced her that first night into an unnatural act, and then afterward took her virginity in the most brutal manner possible.

It was true that that had been over two years ago, and yet the memory stayed with her. A memory that returned to her whenever anything was wrong, or whenever she had an argument with Jim, no matter what it was about. She just could not forgive him that… not yet anyway… perhaps not ever! And now this! An unsigned letter! Kay stood up again after finishing her third cup of coffee that morning. She felt trembly all over, and her nerves were taut as a bow as she headed toward the living room, the note still clutched in her hand. A sickening feel was starting in the bottom of her stomach as the idea of her husband with another woman shouted loudly in her head – an 18 year-old girl at that! – kept spinning over and over again in her mind. She fell onto the living room couch heavily, her long, lithe legs splaying out as she let her head fall on the back of the seat.

"Oh, God…" she moaned, "It's probably true! He said just last night when I refused him that he was going to look elsewhere!" Jim's exact words came back to her in all their startling clarity, and Kay flinched at their impact.

"If you can't bring yourself to put out for me, your husband, then I'll get it somewhere else!" He'd slept on the living room sofa, right where she now sat, and she'd had their big double bed to herself… and not for the first time either.

The note read: "See for yourself tonight!"… Kay wondered what that could possibly mean. Someone had probably seen Jim with the girl, whoever she was… and had been malicious enough to send her that horrid note. Kay knew that she wasn't the most popular young wife in the neighborhood, but she never had let it bother her much. Most people were jealous of prosperity, she knew, and the fact that she was a strikingly beautiful girl, who had once been Homecoming Queen at Granger High didn't make her quite like the average housewife. Jim might one day become president of the bank, the way he was going, and everyone just generally assumed that he was a real winner… and that she was very fortunate to have landed him.

Little did they dream… she thought now… the humiliations that Jim inflicted on her in the privacy of their bedroom. The sacred first night of the marriage had been such a ghastly experience that most of the time whenever Jim approached her she was filled with a self-loathing so strong that it made it impossible to respond to him. She clenched her eyes tightly shut at the memory of it, and the image of him making some silly girl… some little slut… wondrously happy superimposed itself upon the image of her torment. A girl like that perhaps, she thought, "would be eager to do ugly things like he does!" A tremor passed between the long, full shanks of her thighs, and a stab of painful desire filled her entire being as she collapsed on the sofa in tears. "If only I could!" she cried, "Oh God, if only I could!"

It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and Kay passed the mirror in her bedroom again. Her normally sparkling blue eyes were sunken and listless, and her pale blonde hair had an uncombed, unkempt appearance. She had put on the soft, blue bathrobe that Jim had given her the Christmas before, and its warm woolen lining brushed against the nakedness of her lushly vibrant body beneath it, making her feel secure and sheltered to some extent. The brandy bottle was on the dressing table, and Kay thought she would have just one more. She needed something to get her through the day… and the brandy had seemed the only answer. At first the burning liquid had shocked her entire system, but gradually a hazy feeling had set in and dulled her senses enough to make the emotional turmoil more bearable. At times she was even able to make herself believe that the note was entirely fictitious… that someone had just wanted to upset her and had deliberately lied. But then she would recall Jim's behavior the night before and his words to her… and the way he had stalked out of the house that morning without saying goodbye… his lips set in a determined way that she didn't quite recall having seen before… and she would know that it was true.

Kay had riffled through every magazine in the house, having brought them up to the bedroom while the hired girl cleaned the house downstairs. She just couldn't face anyone, not even the girl who came in for 2 hours every day to help clean. She'd told her to do only the downstairs and then had gone to her bedroom, where she'd remained the rest of the day. She toyed with the idea of calling Jim at the bank… knowing that he would still be there even though the doors were closed to the public by now. But what could she say… If she confronted him with the note, he would either deny it… or worse, tell her that it was true!

The trembling blonde wife sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the telephone. For the first time it occurred to her that her husband might be in love with someone else! The idea frightened her so much that she started to shiver, and hurriedly climbed into the bed for added warmth. Clutching her robe to her trembling body, she pulled the covers up over her head, feeling a dizzy sensation as she closed her eyes and the brandy raced through her system.

"No… he can't be… it's just some girl… just someone for sex and nothing else!" But the thought gnawed away at her insides, and Kay realized with an acute sensation how very much she was still in love with her husband, in spite of the difficulties and the misunderstandings that they had. She realized that she'd always thought that one day their differences would work themselves out… that they would be just like any other married couple, leading full and meaningful lives together. Just when or how that day would come, Kay had never figured out, and now, she feared that unless something happened quickly to straighten out her marriage it might end before anything else could be done!

Kay gave a little moan and inhaled the fragrance of her own perfume beneath the covers, and just then the telephone rang. She leaped up from the covers to reach for the receiver. Perhaps it was Jim!

"Mrs. Carroll?" She didn't recognize the voice… perhaps it was just Wards calling about that rug she'd ordered. Her heart sunk. "The address is 457 Turnabout Lane… Go to the side window on the right… about 10:30 tonight."

There was a click and the phone went dead. Kay became frantic. "Hello…hello… who is this… who???" But she knew that the female on the other end of the line had hung up, and finally with a dazed expression, she, too, replaced the dead receiver. In her head the address seemed to ring with a horrid finality. "457 Turnabout Lane… Oh my God…! Oh Jim… Jimmmmmmmmm!" she wailed, cradling her head in her arms and sobbing into the fresh flower print of her no-iron sheets.

Sleep came only because of the heavy flood of alcohol in her veins, and moments later, Kay lay tossing upon her bed, her pale blonde hair spread behind her, her delicate finely chiseled features contorted by the emotions of the dream that filled her tormented mind.

She was in high school again… sitting in her usual home room seat but the teacher, instead of being Mr. Rogers, was Jim.

"Jim!!!" she cried, feeling all the other students turn to look at her. And suddenly her peasant blouse was falling from her shoulders, showing her breasts almost to the tips… and no matter how much she tried to push it back up the pink protruding tips of her breasts continued to be exposed, and finally the elastic of the blouse failed entirely, and she was sitting there completely naked to the waist… She seemed to feel Jim's eyes on her… burning holes into the creamy surface of her exposed flesh, the trembling globes of her breasts were warm and flushed and responding to his eyes almost as if he were touching them. She could feel a shamefully wonderful sensation spreading from them to the rest of her body, and she knew that everyone else in the class could tell what was happening to her.