Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

“What?”

“It’s a big soapy dishpan of boredom. That’s the truth. And no husband can understand that soapy dishpan. And a woman can’t explain it to another woman because they’ve all got their hands in that same soapy boredom. So all a man has to be is understanding. Yes, baby, I know, I know, you’ve got a miserable life, here’re some flowers, here’s some perfume, here’s ‘I love you,’ take off your pants . Bang!”

He watched Felix, fascinated. Felix was beginning to loosen up, and as his mind loosened, his body also relaxed so that he began shedding his stiff formality, becoming another person before Larry’s eyes.

“Do you think you’re an outstanding lover?” Felix asked. “You’re not a movie star, are you? Not Rock Hudson or Cary Grant?”

“No.”

“You’re just an ordinary guy, am I right?”

“I suppose so.”

“All right. What makes you think your blonde wouldn’t be fooling around with another ordinary guy if you hadn’t come along?”

“I don’t know.”

“Believe me, you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. It’s a big procession, an American Marching Society. From bed to bed to bed, they march. March, march, march! And everybody looks the other way and pretends not to see the parade. Half the people in the world are out there keeping time to the music, and the other half are itching to march, too, but they haven’t got the guts. And do you know who’s leading the procession?”

“Who?”

“A woman.”

“You don’t think much of women, do you?”

“I love every last one of them. But I wouldn’t trust any of them as far as I can throw the Empire State Building. There isn’t a woman alive whose shoes can’t be placed under some man’s bed.”

“There are,” Larry said.

“Who? Your blonde, whatever her name is?” Felix paused “She is a blonde, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. Her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your wife? Eve?”

“I don’t think Eve would,” Larry said firmly.

“Want me to try?”

“No.”

Felix smiled in a very superior way, and Larry wanted to hit him all at once. He wondered why he was talking to a schizophrenic jerk like Felix, especially when he didn’t like either of the man’s personalities: the butler-butcher who looked at the world with secret eyes, or the cynical boudoir philosopher who imparted vast sexual wisdom to a small chosen audience.

“They’re all the same,” Felix said. “They want romance. There’s nothing romantic about changing diapers. And there’s nothing romantic about the unshaved man they see in the bathroom in his pajamas. Once in a while this man will do something heroic. The rest of the time he’s just that tired old unromantic husband. He’s the comfortable living-room sofa. You, me, we’re furniture in our own homes. But if we go next door, ahhh! Next door, we’re heroes!”

“I think Eve loves me,” Larry said.

“Of course she loves you! Who said she didn’t? But you’re still that living-room sofa. If the right man-next-door comes along, she can fall as easily as any woman in the world. One night she’ll be ripe, and once she takes the first step in her own mind, she’s on the way to joining the Marching Society.”

“Not Eve.”

“Who then? Your blonde?”

“Not her, either.”

“All married women are the same. You said she was married, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. Any kids?”

“One.”

“A boy or a girl?”

Larry grew suddenly cautious. It occurred to him that he had admitted far too much about himself while Felix spoke only in vague, philosophical abstracts. “What difference does it make?” he said.

“Then she does live in the neighborhood?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Why are you clamming up if she isn’t someone I might recognize?”

“I’m not clamming up. She’s got a little girl.”

“You said that too fast. She’s really got a little boy.”

“Draw your own conclusions.”

“Sure. You’ve got a married blonde in the neighborhood, and she’s got a son. How’d you meet?”

“None of your business.”

“You’re crazy if you’re playing close to home. Nobody with any sense plays close to home.”

“Then I’m safe,” Larry said, annoyed. “If nobody does it, it’s not expected and not looked for.”

“It’s always looked for,” Felix replied. “Every woman in the world is just itching to sink her teeth into some other woman’s juicy bit of homegrown gossip. It makes her own running around seem more pure. Look, count up the shopping trips, and the visits to the doctor, and the bridge-club meetings, and the sewing-club meetings, and the out-of-town girl-friends who have to be met in New York, and the dental appointments, and the dancing classes, and the adult-education routine — do you know where half of these women really are?”

“Where?”

“In bed. Any hour of the day. Morning, noon or night. With the husband, it has to be at night, it has to be dark on clean sheets, with candlesticks on the dresser and a bucket of iced champagne near the bed. With the man next door, it can be in broad daylight in a smelly barn on dirty straw, and it’s romantic.”

Larry smiled.

“Romance,” Felix said. “They’re all looking for romance because they’ve learned it from books and movies. And what can be more romantic than a man who’s willing to risk your husband’s shotgun to have you? Jesus, you must be the sexiest thing on wheels! This is romance. This is what Mrs. America wants. Do you know what she’s got?”

“What?”

“She’s got a stranger on top of her. And the only exciting thing about this guy is that he is a stranger. She’ll do anything for this stranger. Things she wouldn’t dream of doing with her husband, she’ll do with this stranger. Why? Because she doesn’t own him and he makes her twitch. She’s got to have him. Every other woman in the world is her enemy. She tells herself she’s in love, and she’s willing to risk her home, her happiness, her pride, everything, just to be with this stranger who fills her once a week. The romance seekers. They’re everywhere, ready to fall in love at the drop of a hat. Anyplace you’ve got a housewife, you’ve also got a potential mistress for a stranger.”

“ Your wife, too?” Larry asked.

“Betty’d like nothing better than to roll in the hay with a stranger. She’d be good for him, too. And he’d be great for her. I wish she’d get herself somebody.”

“Why?” Larry asked. “To ease your own conscience?”

“Who me? My conscience is clear. I’m a respectable butcher.”

“But the rest of us are all animals, huh, Felix?”

“ Aren’t we all?” Felix asked, smiling.

The walls were down, and now Felix would talk.

And now, beginning to know the man at last Larry suspected he’d wanted to unload his mind from the very beginning. They sat side by side in the bar at the shopping center. Darkness pressed at the plate-glass window, and they spoke in whispers, like two old friends discussing family trouble.

“Larry,” Felix said, “there’s nothing like it. I know just how you feel. You’re in love, and there’s nothing like it.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I’m always in love,” Felix said. “If I wasn’t in love, I’d be dead. Jesus, Larry, I’m a butcher! ”

He looked at Felix, and he thought Felix is a butcher and he doesn’t like being a butcher or living in Pinecrest Manor with a wife who’s too loud no matter how cute she is. And so he plays around. This is the only excitement in the life of Felix Anders: the meeting, the discovery, the conquest, the retreat, the further conquests. There are no real worlds left for Felix Anders to conquer, no worlds left for the butchers of America; there are only women.