Sol Stein - Other people

My mother told me to always be patient with a man, and I love him don't I, so I'm the good one, I undress him. Boy was that work. I try to get the new silk p.j.s on him — do you know how hard it is on an uncooperative nearly dead body? Well, I did it, and I decide it's no use my sitting there in the chair watching him, so I put the screw top back on the scotch, what's left of it, and stick it in the closet under some of my things, and then I go to bed too, thinking some wedding night.

In the middle of the night, I'm asleep, I wake up because Harry's corpse is awake and he's shoving it to me like a loan he forgot to pay, but before I can really wake up, bang, he's finished. It was like nothing, and he's snoring again. I hate to tell you what my thoughts were for the next hour, lying there, in Florida, wondering had I made the most colossal mistake of my life. When I woke up in the morning, he was dressed and shaved and had ordered up breakfast for me in bed, he kissed me on the cheek, told me how happy he was, okay.

We had a terrific day on the beach, Harry overtipped the blond boy who brought the deck chairs and towels, we ran into the ocean holding hands, we had clam chowder my favorite for lunch, then we walked looking in the stores, and I'm afraid to say I like this or that because if it isn't something super expensive he goes in and buys it for me and I think how stupid I was to worry.

My luck, by dinner time I got the curse. Here comes the second night of the honeymoon, the first really, you can't count what happened the previous night, I told him we should have gone with the wedding date I picked out because I had my days figured, but he insisted on the date his mother picked, she didn't know when my time was. His eyes are bullets. He doesn't want me criticizing his mother.

After dinner we get back to the room and he's coming at me, it isn't even bedtime yet, and I remind him, but he just pushed me down, practically pulls my clothes off, the blood excited him like crazy the way he went at it. What a mess for the chambermaid the next day!

From that time on it's like he waits for my time to get really excited and I got a new worry which is if I get pregnant I won't have my period for nine months. I actually talked to my doctor about it, but all he says it's perfectly all right to have sexual relations during the time if it doesn't bother either party. Bother? He loves it!

I don't want to make it seem that Harry is a kink or something. We have sex between times, too. But I learned quick that if I put on a sexy nightgown and strut around he won't take his eyes off the TV but if I want it, what I got to do is the opposite, make believe I don't want to, that I don't feel like it, try to talk him out of it, and he gets those raunchy twitches in his face and practically forces me, but try to understand. He's not really forcing me, I'm setting it up so he thinks he is because that's what he likes and as long as I'm in control of the situation, who cares?

Harry can be tender, like on my birthday he will pat my hair and kiss me and bring me presents, and now we got kids, he's a marvelous father to them, sweet, even if he doesn't spend time with them. He says when they get older he will, right now they're boring to him, he can't wait till Mike is old enough to go hunting with him. It takes a lot out of a man to own his own gas station, the hours are long, you got to keep open when it's raining or snowing, and I don't blame him for wanting to plop in front of the TV and not move except to snap open another beer can. It's just the romantic side of me feels left out now and then.

I knew he was in a mood when he left this morning, I mean the kind where he'll come home at night and get a bit rough and stick it to me. What I do is call the station to say some nice things, just friendly remarks, so maybe he won't go the black-and-blue route when he gets home, but when I called he said, "Oh it's you, don't have time to talk" and hung up. You see, when he's in this kind of mood, he doesn't take off his overalls when he comes home. He doesn't even wash the grease and dirt off of himself. He pours a shot glass, chases it with a beer, then another, then here we go. So you can imagine how glad I was when he comes home and goes into the shower and then puts on his brand new T-shirt and fresh pants and gets that cup out of the kitchen and goes out the door saying, "I'll be back."

I know lots of husbands what ain't as good providers as Harry. He's a terrific bowler. When October comes and he puts on his red mackintosh and goes off hunting with his guys, it's a week's vacation for me, too. I take the kids places he'd be bored to go. I see my mother. I buy myself things. He never complains about what I've bought when he comes home from hunting.

What would he want with a cup? I'm glad he took a plastic one in case he drops it. I'd hate to break the china set Aunt Louise gave us, it's not open stock.

I'll give him an hour before I get mad.

"You've fixed up this apartment real nice," Koslak said to me.

"Thank you."

"I saw it previous, when the other people was here. You got a real eye for decoration."

Be neighborly, I thought. Don't look bored.

I said, "If your wife needs anything else, just let me know. If I've got it, it's yours."

Koslak laughed.

"I got the Esso station," he said.

"I know," I said. "You filled me up yourself the first time I was in there."

"Oh was you? I don't remember."

"It was raining. You were wet and looked like you wanted to be somewhere else."

"Yeah, inside," he said, laughing again. Then, "I got two kids pumping gas now so I don't get to see all the customers the way I used to.

I wished I weren't wearing the tent. I felt naked underneath.

"You got a broom? I don't mean I want to borrow it, I want to show you something."

I brought the broom from the kitchen. He hadn't moved.

"Let me show you." He took the broom from me, stood on a chair, and thumped the ceiling once. "If you have any trouble from anyone, just do that and if I'm home, I'll come down and help, right?" He laughed. "I wonder what Mary'll think I'm doing banging on the ceiling like that." He looked sheepish for a moment. "Mary's the wife. Mrs. Koslak."

"I think I've seen her." When will he leave?

I turned to the window. I was going to ask him if he liked the view as much as I did since they obviously saw the same thing from their apartment upstairs, in fact they were higher, when I turned and noticed that he was still holding the cup of sugar in one hand but with the other had opened his fly and his cock in full erection was in his other hand.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

My heart was pounding. I had imagined other situations and how I might handle them, but I hadn't realized how much the fear choked off thought. He wants me to be scared. Suppose I just calmly go to the phone…

"What're you doing?"

What is he doing?

"No phoning," he said. "Just do what I say."

I waited.

"You're staring at it."

"I'm not staring at it." I noticed him putting the full cup of sugar down. He held on to the other thing.

"Go into the bedroom."

I could kick him just below it, in the balls. Or in the shin, hard. I don't have my shoes on.

I went toward the chair by the picture window where I'd dropped my shoes.

"Don't move," he said. "If I break your arms, I won't have to tie them."

"You don't have to break anything," I said. "Just tell me what you want."

"I want you in the bedroom."

Who would hear a scream through the closed windows? Maybe he wants me to be afraid. He could hurt me badly. He might kill me by accident if hes deranged. He's got to be crazy to do things like this.

I went into the bedroom. When I turned to face him, I noticed that he had let go of his thing and it had gone part way down. He wont be able to.