Bertrice Small - Private Pleasures

"That's weird," Nora responded. "I don't know if I want to get mixed up in something like that. Why can't any of you tell me what it is? Why is everyone so evasive? And all the hush-hush stuff. Is it something illegal?"

They had reached the Buckleys and stood outside continuing to talk.

"Joanne told you the truth. We all view The Channel through different eyes, Nora. I guess the best way to explain it is to say that The Channel lets you live out your fantasies. It's one thing for me, and another for the others. It will be entirely different for you too. Like I said earlier, it's an interactive thingy, sweetie. I don't understand how it works myself, but I sure love it."

"Oh," Nora said. She really didn't understand this computer and interactive stuff. It was all Greek to her. She supposed she was going to have to learn about it if she was going to survive in this strange new world that seemed to have evolved while she had been busy being a good wife and mother. With J. J. gone in just a few short months, it might just be the right time to take a few courses. Rina and Carla were right.

"Let me know how you like The Channel," Carla said, her brown eyes twinkling as she and Nora parted at the Buckleys' kitchen stoop. "See ya!" And she was off across the perfect green lawn to her own house next door.

Nora entered her house, walking through the kitchen into the den, where she sat wearily down in her recliner. Voicing her fears aloud to her friends this morning had finally made her wake up and think about what was happening around her. For twenty-six years she had devoted herself to Jeff, his wants, his needs, their children. Everything was for them. She had never asked anything for herself. Consequently she had grown into a pretty dull person, Nora admitted to herself. Jeff led an exciting life, but her life was so damned ordinary and colorless. Maybe The Channel could be her first step on the road to a new and exciting Nora.

When they had come to Ansley Court it had been exciting. She had loved being at home, decorating each room lovingly and thoughtfully, working out in her gardens with Mr. Handlemann from the nursery, choosing the plants and trees for their property. She had picked fabrics and paints. Bought furniture and carpets. Jeff wasn't interested in any of it. The house was hers, he told her. It was her realm to do with as she pleased as long as it was tasteful and elegant so they might eventually entertain his bosses and clients.

Jeff had gotten himself a job with Coutts and Wickham Advertising. In those days it had been a medium-sized agency. He was unusually clever at thinking up successful campaigns for the clients, and they liked him as well. Jeff had worked hard, but then, Nora thought, so had she. Their home was right out of Country Living . And in those early years she had entertained perfectly for the firm. Their Christmas parties had even been written up in the city paper's Sunday color supplement. And Jeff had been made a partner. The firm was now known as Buckley, Coutts and Wickham Advertising.

And the children had been carefully spaced four years apart. They were terrific kids. Jill had accelerated her college time. She would be through after the summer semester, having finished in just three years. Jill had already taken her LSAT exams and been accepted at Duke University's law school. She would start in late summer. J. J. was not as focused as his sister had been at eighteen. J. J. would take four or more years to get his degree, if Nora wasn't mistaken. But she had no doubt that when he found himself J. J. would excel in life.

Yes, Nora thought to herself, I really have to do something with myself. I've got to get a life of my own now. I've got a perfect house, a perfect lawn, and garden, great kids, but what the hell do I really want? If Jeff is really having an affair, if Rina is right, I could be losing everything. What would I do then? But Nora knew that there was no what-if about it. Her husband was obviously involved with someone else, and until she had said it aloud this morning, she hadn't been able to face it herself. Now she was facing it, and it scared the hell out of her.

What had happened to them? The revelation this morning that Jeff was a womanizer had been a bit of a shock, though. But hadn't she always looked at Jeff through rose-colored glasses from the moment she met him? Yes, she had, she acknowledged to herself. She was dewy-eyed, and he was an important senior on the State campus. She'd never really had a boyfriend until Jeff Buckley. The private school she had attended, Lane, had been an all-girls school.

Her late father had been very impressed with Jeff Buckley. "The boy comes from a solid family," Nora remembered him saying. Jeff Buckley. The perfect prospect. Quarterback. Senior-class president, head of the debating team, at a time when student bodies across America were protesting and rebelling. Jeff, however, did not rebel. Rebellion, he argued firmly, was both inefficient and time-consuming. You changed the system from within the system, not by encouraging anarchy. Jeff had been pure establishment. Nora had thought he was just wonderful, and he had won over her father immediately, calling him "sir." Her parents had met him that first Homecoming Weekend.

Nora's mother, however, worried that Jeff was a bit- what was the word she had used? Bossy? Yes! Bossy. But Nora hadn't minded. Her father had been controlling. It felt good to let someone else take charge. Now after all these years she wasn't so certain that her mother hadn't been right. Maybe her mother had been trying to warn her in some subtle way. But she wouldn't have listened to Margo at that time in her life anyway, Nora realized. She was in love, and it was wonderful! She had never dated anyone else. She was a virgin on their wedding night. She remembered he had been very pleased. It was obvious that Jeff wasn't a virgin, however, but his mastery had thrilled her innocent heart.

But he had never liked it when she showed what he considered undue enthusiasm in their lovemaking. He had once accused her of being whorish, which had hurt her feelings. She had thought he would be flattered by her newly awakened passions. That if you loved someone, you should show him that you did. Jeff was not of similar mind.

"I'd really be wondering about you, Nora," he had said to her, "if I hadn't popped your cherry myself. You really bled, baby."

The sex between them, at first red-hot, had quickly cooled. Not because Nora wanted it to, but because she wasn't allowed to really participate in a shared passion. The novelty wore off, and he seemed less interested. Looking back, it seemed to her as if his only interest in her sexually had been her virginity, and ability to give him children. Then five years ago sex between them had stopped entirely. She even remembered the date. It had been September 5, Labor Day weekend. Jeff had been drunk. He had called her Lanie. Oh, yes. The date was etched firmly in her mind.

Whenever her friends talked about their husbands' ardor, and the fact they weren't getting as much as they once had, Nora was silent. She knew they all assumed it was because she was reticent in discussing sex, but of course that wasn't it at all. If they had known about her situation, they would have pitied her. Nora didn't think she could stand being pitied because her husband no longer found her lustworthy. So she kept her mouth shut, and went on with her life as if everything were fine and dandy, but of course it wasn't. And now it appeared as if her husband was going to dump her like rubbish for another woman. A younger woman. There was no hiding from that.

"I'll bet they're having great sex," she grumbled to herself. She wondered what the other woman looked like. Probably blond. How old was she? Probably in her late twenties or early thirties, which was a good twenty or more years younger than Jeff. Women in their early thirties were really in their prime sexually. At least the kids were grown, or almost grown. There wouldn't be any nonsense about custody or visitation. Nora wondered how much they knew or suspected about Jeff's peccadilloes. Neither Jill nor J. J. had ever been close with their father. He had never been home enough to allow it, but she was very close with both of them.