Stephen King - Gerald’s Game

For her and Gerald that hadn’t been a drawback, because they had slept in separate rooms, both here and in the Portland house, for the last five years. It had been her decision, not his; she had gotten tired of his snoring, which seemed to get a little worse every year. On the rare occasions when they had overnight guests down here, she and Gerald had slept together-uncomfortably-in this room, but otherwise they had shared this bed only when they had sex. And his snoring hadn’t been the real reason she had moved out; it had just been the most diplomatic one. The real reason had been olfactory. Jessie had first come to dislike and then actually loathe the aroma of her husband’s night-sweat. Even if he showered just before coming to bed, the sour smell of Scotch whisky began to creep out of his pores by two the next morning.

Until this year, the pattern had been increasingly perfunctory sex followed by a period of drowsing (this had actually become her favorite part of the whole business), after which he would shower and leave her. Since March, however, there had been some changes. The scarves and the handcuffs-particularly the latter had seemed to exhaust Gerald in a way plain old missionary-style sex never had, and he often fell deeply asleep next to her, shoulder to shoulder. She didn’t mind this; most of those encounters had been matinees, and Gerald smelled like plain old sweat instead of a weak Scotch and water afterward. He didn’t snore much, either, come to think of it.

But all those sessions-all those matinees with the scarves and the handcuffs-were in the Portland house, she thought. We spent most of July and some of August down here, hut on the occasions when we had sex-there weren’t many, hut there were some-it was the plain old pot-roast-and-mashed-potatoes kind.-Tarzan on top, Jane on the bottom. We never played the game down here until today. Why was that, I wonder?

Probably it had been the windows, which were too tall and oddly cut for drapes. They had never gotten around to replacing the clear glass with reflective sheets, although Gerald had continued to talk about doing that right up to… well…

Right up until today, Goody finished, and Jessie blessed her tact. And you’re right-it probably was the windows, at least mostly. He wouldn’t have liked Fred Laglan or Jamie Brooks driving in to ask on the spur of the moment if he wanted to play nine holes of golf and seeing him boffing Mrs Burlingame, who just happened to he attached to the bedposts with a pair of Kreig handcuffs. Word on something like that would probably get around, Fred and Jamie are good enough fellows, I guess-

A couple of middle-aged pukes, if you ask me, Ruth broke in sourly.- but they’re only human, and a story like that would have been too good not to talk about. And there’s something else, Jessie…

Jessie didn’t let her finish. This wasn’t a thought she wanted to hear articulated in the Goodwife’s pleasant but hopelessly prissy voice.

It was possible that Gerald had never asked her to play the game down here because he had been afraid of some crazy joker oopping out of the deck. What joker? Well, she thought, let’s just say that there might have been a part of Gerald that really did believe a woman was just a life-support system for a cunt… and that some other part of him, one I could call “Gerald’s better nature.” for want of a clearer term, knew it. That part could have been afraid that things might get out of control. After all, isn’t that just what’s happened?

It was a hard idea to argue with. If this didn’t fit the definition of out of control, Jessie didn’t know what did.

She felt a moment of wistful sadness and had to restrain an urge to look back toward the place where Gerald lay. She didn’t know if she had grief in her for her late husband or not, but she did know that if it was there, this wasn’t the time to deal with it. Still, it was nice to remember something good about the man with whom she had spent so many years, and the memory of the way he had sometimes fallen asleep beside her after sex was a good one. She hadn’t liked the scarves and had come to loathe the handcuffs, but she had liked looking at him as he drifted off; had liked the way the lines smoothed out of his large pink face.

And, in a way, he was sleeping beside her again right now… wasn’t he?

That idea chilled even the flesh of her upper thighs, where the narrowing patch of sun lay. She turned the thought aside-or at least tried to-and went back to studying the head of the bed.

The posts were set in slightly from the sides, leaving her arms spread but not uncomfortably so, particularly with the six inches or so of free play afforded by the handcuff chains. There were four horizontal boards running between the posts. These were also mahogany, and engraved with simple but pleasing wave-shapes. Gerald had once suggested that they have their initials carved in the center board-he knew of a man in Tashmore Glen who would be happy to drive over and do it, he said-but she had poured cold water on the idea. It seemed both ostentatious and strangely childish to her, like teenybop sweethearts carving hearts on their study-hall desks.

The bed-shelf was set above the topmost board, just high enough to ensure that no one sitting up suddenly would bump his or her head. It held Gerald’s glass of water, a couple of paperbacks left over from the summer, and, on her end, a little strew of cosmetics. These were also left over from the summer gone by, and she supposed they were dried out by now. A real shame, too-nothing cheered up a handcuffed woman more reliably than a little Country Morning Rose Blusher. All the women’s magazines said so.

Jessie lifted her hands slowly, holding her arms out at a slight angle so her fists wouldn’t fetch up on the underside of the shelf. She kept her head back, wanting to see what happened on the far end of the chains. The other cuffs were clamped to the bedposts between the second and third crossboards. As she lifted her fisted hands, looking like a woman bench-pressing an invisible barbell, the cuffs slid along the posts until they reached the next board up. If she could pull that board off, and the one above it, she would be able to simply slip the handcuffs off the ends of the bedposts. Voil a .

Probably too good to be true, bon-too easy to be true-but you might as well give it a shot. It’s a way to pass the time, anyway.

She wrapped her hands around the engraved horizontal board currently barring any further upward progress for the cuffs clamped to the bedposts. She took a deep breath, held it, and yanked. One hard tug was enough to tell her that way was also blocked; it was like trying to pull a steel retaining rod out of a concrete wall. She could nor feel even a millimeter’s worth of give.

I could yank on that bastard for ten years and not even move it, let alone pull it off the bedposts, she thought, and let her hands fall back to their former slack, chain-supported position above the bed. A despairing little cry escaped her. To her it sounded like the caw of a thirsty crow.

“What am I going to do?” she asked the shimmers on the ceiling, and at last gave way to desperate, frightened tears. “Just what in the hell am I going to do?”

As if in answer, the dog began to bark again, and this time it was so close it scared her into a scream. It sounded, in fact, as if it was right outside the east window, in the driveway.