To Sail Beyond the Sunset (17 page)

“Stop it,” ordered Briney. “This one is the master bedroom. Unless you prefer another room.”

It was a fine, big, airy room, with that sleeping porch off it. The house was empty and reasonably clean (I looked forward to scrubbing every inch), but some items not worth hauling away had been left here and there. “Briney, that old porch swing out there has a pad on it. Would you please bring that pad in?”

“If you wish. Why?”

“Let’s ring the cash register!”

“Right away, Madam! Honey, I wondered how long it would take you to decide to baptize your new home.”

That pad didn’t look too clean and wasn’t very big, but I didn’t care about trifles; it would keep my spine from being ground into the bare boards. As Briney was fetching it in and placing it on the floor, I was getting out of the last of my clothes. He called out, “Hey! Leave your stockings on.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, Mister. Aintchu gonna buy a drink first, dearie?” Drunk with excitement, I took a deep breath and got down on my back. “What’s your name, Mister?” I said huskily. “Mine’s Myrtle; I’m fertile.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Briney finished getting out of his clothes, hung his coat on a hook behind the bathroom door, started to mount me. I reached for him. He stopped me, paused to kiss me. “Madam, I love you.”

“I love you, sir.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. Brace yourself.”

Then he said, “
Unh!
Ease off a notch.”

I relaxed a little. “Better?”

“Just dandy. You’re wonderful, lady mine.”

“So are you, Briney. Now? Please!”

I started to peak almost at once, then the skyrockets took off and I was screaming and just barely conscious when I felt him let go, and I fainted.

I’m not a fainter. But I did that time.

Two Sundays later I missed my period. The following February (1907) I had George Edward.

Our next ten years were idyllic.

Our life may have looked dull and humdrum to other people since all we did was live quietly in a house in a quiet neighborhood and raise children…and cats and guinea pigs and rabbits and snakes and goldfish and (once) silkworms on top of my piano—a project of Brian Junior when he was in fourth grade. That required mulberry leaves, silkworms being fussy eaters. Brian Junior made a deal with a neighbor who had a mulberry tree. Quite early he displayed his father’s talent for always finding a way to work out a deal to accomplish his ends, no matter how unlikely they seemed at first.

A deal for mulberry leaves was big excitement the way we lived those years.

We had kindergarten Crayola pictures with stars on them posted in my kitchen, and tricycles on the back porch, and roller skates beside them, and fingers that had to be kissed well and bandaged, and special projects to do at home and take to school, and lots of shoes to be shined to get our tribe ready for Sunday School on time, and noisy arguments over who got the buttonhook next—until I got shoe buttonhooks for each child and put names on them.

All the while Maureen’s belly waxed and waned like the round belly of the Moon: George in 1907, Marie in 1909, Woodrow in 1912, Richard in 1914, and Ethel in 1916…which by no means ended it but brings us up to the War that changed the World.

But endless things happened before then, some of which I should mention. We moved from the church we had attended while we were tenants of “Scrooge” soon after we moved to our new neighborhood. In part we were upgrading in churches just as we were upgrading in houses and neighborhoods. In the United States at that time Protestant denominations were closely linked to economic and social status, although it was never polite to say so. At the top of the pyramid was high-church Episcopalian; at the bottom were several pentecostal fundamentalist sects whose members piled up treasures in Heaven because they were finding it impossible to pile up treasures on Earth.

We had been attending a middle-level church selected largely because it was close by. We would have moved eventually to a more prosperous boulevard church now that we had moved to a more prosperous neighborhood…but we moved when we did because Maureen got herself quasi-raped.

My own silly fault. In any century rape is the favorite sport of large numbers of men when they can get away with it, and any female under ninety and over six is at risk anywhere and at all times…unless she knows how to avoid it and takes no chances—which is close to impossible.

On second thought forget that bracket of six and ninety; there are crazies out there who will rape any female of any age. Rape is not intercourse; it is murderous aggression.

On third thought what happened to me was not even quasi-rape, as I knew better than to place myself unchaperoned in private with a preacher yet I had gone ahead and done so, knowing quite well what would happen. Reverend Timberly (the slob!) had managed to let me know when I was fourteen that he felt that he could teach me a great deal about life and love…while patting my fanny in a fatherly (!) way. I had complained to my father about it without quite naming him, and Father’s advice had enabled me to put a stop to it.

But this Biblethumper—It was six weeks after we moved into our new house; I knew I was pregnant, and I was horny; Brian was away. I’m not complaining; Brian had to go where business took him and this is true of endless trades and professions; the breadwinner must go where the bread is. This time he was in Denver; then, when I had expected him home, he sent me a telegram (night letter) telling me that he must go to Montana—just three or four days, a week at the most. Love, Brian.

Spit. Dirty drawers. Garbage. But I kept my smile because Nancy was watching me and at six she was hard to fool. I read her a revised version, then put the typed sheet where she could not get at it; she had taught herself to read.

At three that afternoon, bathed, dressed, and wearing no drawers, I tapped at the door of the study of the Reverend Doctor Ezekiel “Biblethumper.” My usual baby watcher was with my three, with written instructions including where I was going and the Home system telephone number of the pastor’s study.

The reverend doctor and I had been doing a silent and inconspicuous barnyard dance ever since he had been called to that pulpit three years earlier. I didn’t like him all that much, but I was acutely aware of him and his deep, organlike voice and clean masculine odor. It is too bad that he didn’t have bad breath or smelly feet or something like that to put me off. But physically I could not fault him—good teeth, sweet breath, bathed and shampooed regularly.

My excuse for going to his study was that I needed to confer with him because I was chairman of the ladies auxiliary committee for the forthcoming whoop-te-do—I don’t remember what. But twentieth-century Protestant churches were always preparing for the next whoop-te-do. Yes, I do remember; a citywide revival. Billy Sunday? I think he was the one—a ball player and reformed drunkard who had found Jesus in a big way.

Dr. Zeke let me in; we looked at each other and we both knew; we didn’t need to say anything. He put his arms around me; I turned my face up. He put his mouth to mine—and my mouth came open as my eyes closed. In scant seconds after he answered his door he had me down on the couch back of his desk, my skirts up, and he was trying to couple with me.

I reached down and took hold of him and got him aimed properly; he had been about to make his own hole.

Big! With a lost feeling of “Briney is not going to like this,” I took him. He had no finesse; he just romped on home. But I was so excited that I was teetering on the edge and ready to explode when I felt him spend—

—just as someone knocked at his study door and he pulled out of me.

The bleeping affair had lasted under a minute…and my orgasm had shut down like a frozen pipe.

But all was not lost. Or should not have been. Once that jack rabbit jumped off me, I simply stood up and was immediately presentable. In 1906 skirts came down to the ankles and I had picked a dress that would stand up under crushing. I had left my drawers off not alone for his convenience (and mine) but because, if you are not wearing drawers and encounter an emergency, you don’t have to scramble to put them on.

As for Dr. Zeke the stupid geek, all he needed to do before he answered that door was to button his pants…which he had to do anyhow.

We could have brazened it out. We could have looked them in the eye, refused to look guilty, invited them into our conference.

But what he did was grab my arm, shove me into his coat closet, and turn the key on me.

I stood in there, in the dark, for two solid hours that seemed like two years. I kept my sanity by thinking up painful ways to kill him. “Hoisting him by his own petard” was the simplest. Some of the others are too nasty to think about.

Finally he unlocked that door, looked at me, and whispered hoarsely, “They’re gone now. Lets slip you out the back door.”

I didn’t spit in his face. I said, “No, Doctor, we will now have our conference. Then you will escort me out the front door of the church, and you will stand there, chatting with me, until several people have seen us.”

“No, no, Mrs. Smith! I think—”

“You didn’t think. Doctor, the only alternative is for me to run screaming out of here shouting ‘Rape!’…and what a police matron will find inside me that you left there will prove rape to a jury.”

When Brian got home, I told him about it. I had considered keeping it to myself. But we had reached a friendly agreement three years earlier concerning how and when we each could adulterate our marriage without offending or damaging the other. So I decided to make a clean breast of it and accept a spanking if he thought I rated it. I thought I did rate a spanking…and if it was a truly hard spanking, that would be an excuse to cry and that would probably wind up wonderfully.

So I wasn’t too worried. But I did want to confess and be shrived.

That friendly agreement for prudent adultery—We had resolved to operate together whenever possible, and always to help each other, cover up for each other, and help the other make the kill. The discussion had come about through Dr. Rumsey’s confirming that I was pregnant again (with Brian Junior) and I was feeling especially sentimental. That, plus an incitement: we had received a pianissimo “mixed doubles” invitation from a couple we liked.

I started in by telling Briney solemnly that I intended to be utterly faithful to him. I had been faithful for four years and now that I knew that I could be, I would be, till death do us part.

He had answered, “Look, Stupid, you’re sweet but not smart. You started in at fourteen—”

“Almost fifteen!”

“Short of fifteen. You told me that twelve other men and boys had sampled your sweetness—but you wanted to know if I thought that the candidates on your Howard list need be counted? Then you revised the tally, telling me that a couple of minor incidents had slipped your mind. You also told me that you had learned to enjoy it almost at once…but you wanted me to know that I was the best. Swivel Hips, do you really think that it changed you and your happy loving ways forever just because that bonehead preacher said some magic words over you? Truth will out, the leopard does not change his spots, and the day inevitably comes. When it does, I want you to enjoy it but to stay out of trouble…for your sake, for my sake, and especially for our children’s sake. But I do not expect you to be what society calls ‘faithful’ forever amen. I do expect you not to get pregnant, not to catch some filthy disease, not to cause a scandal, not to shame me or yourself, not to risk the welfare of our children. Mostly that means using common sense and always pulling down the shades.”

I gulped. “Yes, sir.”

“Now, my love, if it is true, as you assert, that Hal Andrews causes your gizzard to throb but that you are avoiding the temptation on my account, then be assured that your forbearance gains you no stars in your crown. We both know Hal; he’s a gentleman and he keeps his nails clean. He’s polite to his wife. If you don’t mean business, quit flirting with him. But if you do want him, go get him! Don’t mind me; I’ll be busy. Jane is as delectable a piece as I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve hankered to bisect her angle from the day we met them.”

“Briney! Is that true? You never showed it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And give you a chance to go female and jealous and possessive? Sweetheart, I’ve had to wait until you admitted out loud, with no coaxing or coaching from me, that you were feeling a deep curiosity about another man…with a suggestion that perhaps I might feel the same way about his wife. It turns out that I do. So call Jane and accept their dinner invitation. We’ll see what develops.”

“But what if it turns out that you like Jane more than you like me?”

“Impossible. I love you, my lady.”

“I mean what she’s sitting on. How she makes love.”

“Possible, but unlikely. If I did, I would not stop loving you or lose interest in what you are sitting on; it’s special. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try Jane; she smells good.” He licked his lips and grinned.

He did and she did and we four did and they remained our loving friends for years although they moved to St. Joe two years later when he got a better offer from the school board there. That put them too far away for quiet family orgies, mostly.

Over the course of time Brian and I worked out detailed rules about how to handle sex, all of them intended to avoid the hazards while leaving both of us free to “sin”—not carelessly but prudently, so that we could always look Mrs. Grundy in the eye and tell her to peddle her papers elsewhere.

Brian made no concessions whatever to the prevalent belief that sex was in some way innately sinful. He was utterly contemptuous of popular opinion. “If a thousand men believe something and I believe otherwise, then it’s a thousand to one that they are wrong. Maureen, I support us by having contrary opinions.”

When I told Briney about being locked in that closet, he sat up in bed. “That bastard! Mo’, I’m going to break both his arms.”

“Then you had better break mine, too, as I went there intending to do it. I did it. The rest derived from that bald, inexcusable fact. I took a risk I should not have taken. My fault at least as much as his.”