“I sometimes thought, dear, that you did them just to make me mad.”
She kissed me and said, “You know me too well, Mrs. Cleary. Don’t tell my husband, you know, that cute redhead next to me, any more of my secrets.”
I saw Jim Clancy on Michigan Avenue before we left Chicago. I thought he looked terrible, a withered little hulk of what he used to be. Still beady-eyed and mean, but now old and like he was on drugs or drunk all the time. My Steve says that the people in the Mob, who own those hotels with him, had better be careful or he’ll rob them like he’s robbed everyone else.
How did he father a daughter as beautiful as your son’s bride?
I hope that Rosemarie and Chucky keep away from him. He ruined her mother’s life and he’d ruin Rosemarie’s if he could.
Martha
14
I rolled over in the bed and buried my head in a pillow to escape from the blinding light.
“I’m sick,” I announced to whoever might be listening.
“Three times on the way up and once after we got here.”
“Who are you?” I demanded, rolling over again and opening my eyes. A woman, backlighted by the sun reflecting off a sheet of ice, towered over me.
“Your wife.”
“I don’t have a wife,” I said, closing my eyes.
“You do now, Chucky Ducky.”
Rosemarie! Were we really married yesterday or was it another one of my bad dreams? Why was I naked under the covers?
“Here’s a glass of water and some aspirin.”
I opened my eyes again and accepted the medication. The woman who offered it, the one who claimed to be my wife, was wearing a lacy negligee that revealed a promising body. If she was my wife, maybe I was very fortunate.
“Did we … ?”
“No, Chucky Ducky.” Her smile washed me in amused affection. “We didn’t. You were too sick.”
I swallowed my pills like a good little boy. I had traded one gentle mother for another.
“Are you hungry?”
“If you really are my wife, you know that I’m always hungry.”
“Good! I’ll get you some toast and tea.”
She slipped away.
Sick on your wedding night because you drank too much champagne! You might be married to the woman with that delicious rear end for fifty years and she’ll never let you forget it!
I felt sick again.
She returned, sat on the bed next to me, and offered me a tray with a cup of tea and two pieces of toast. Her robe slipped partly open.
I swallowed the toast in one bite.
“You’ll never let me forget it,” I said.
“No,” she laughed, kissing my forehead, “never! But I won’t tell anyone else!”
I would have to make love with her soon. How could a man bed his bride when he was hungover?
“Please may I have some more toast?”
“Maybe a waffle?”
“Drenched with maple syrup?”
“Just the way you like it.”
She gathered her robe together and flounced off to the kitchen. I sipped the tea. We’d have to get it over with soon.
I disposed of the waffles almost as quickly as the toast. She sat on the side of the bed again, looking at me worshipfully. How could she adore a goof who was drunk—for the first time in his life—on his wedding night and couldn’t make love to her?
“Am I disturbing you?” Her fingernails skimmed my thigh and flank. “Do you mind if I do this? I’m”—giddy laugh—“kind of new at caressing men.”
I gulped. There was not the slightest possibility of my asking for another cup of tea.
“You are ticklish, aren’t you?” She jabbed at my ribs.
“Stop it!”
“I won’t!”
“Cut it out.” I tried to squirm away.
“Have a mint.” She jammed it between my teeth.
“Prepared for everything,” I muttered.
“More breakfast?”
“No… well, yes!”
She bounded off the bed, drew the flimsy peignoir around her shoulders, and rushed toward the stairs. “I’ll be back in a jiffy with grapefruit juice and pancakes and pork sausages and coffee and the Sunday papers.”
“Rosemarie?”
“Yes?” she stopped in midflight.
“You don’t have to—”
“Enjoy it while you can, husband mine.” And off she went, a comet in full array, trailing the flimsy gown behind her pale legs in a burst of winter sunlight.
“Hold the papers!” I shouted after her.
I ate the breakfast rapidly, now knowing that the time for love was at hand. I would, however, have eaten it rapidly anyway.
“Did you take my clothes off last night?”
“I had to, Chucky Ducky, they were covered with vomit. I put them in the washing machine while you were sleeping . … You know, you’re kind of cute without any clothes.”
I ignored that remark. “I suppose you think that it’s time we consummate our marriage?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well,” I sighed in mock protest, “the first thing you have to do is take off that robe and let me look at youlegitimately this time.”
She bounced off the bed, tossed aside her negligee in a single move, and eyes averted, hands behind her back, permitted me to look at her. I felt like the Burlington Zephyr had rolled over me at seventy miles an hour.
Despite my headache and my hangover, I was ready for love. I had to say something. Where was my quick tongue?
“Do you like me, Chucky Ducky?” She looked up at me.
“Have you ever seen me speechless in all the years you have known me?” I said, stroking her belly with one hand and her hip with the other.
“As a matter of fact, no!”
“I’m speechless now,” I said, pulling her gently into bed with me.
What followed was comedy—delightful, rapturous comedy. I had been an idiot to think it would be anything else. My new wife was a richly sensuous woman, a partner who reveled joyously in every touch and kiss and caress. Perhaps she had willed herself to be that way.
The daimon couldn’t get enough of my bride and I felt constrained to cooperate with his wild and violent excesses. But what I thought was shameless and untamed use of a shy and frightened bride turned out to enchant and entertain her. I was proclaimed several times to be the best bridegroom in all the world.
I doubted the praise. Her satisfaction did not seem physical, no spasms of joy or piercing cries of delight such as Trudi had given, even the first time with me. Still there was no denying Rosemarie’s enthusiasm. For the moment it was enough that she give me pleasure and then rest peacefully in my arms. If I was satisfied, she felt that it was proper for her to be ecstatic.
Poor child must have been terrified that she would never be able to please a man.
Well, we had exorcised that demon. There would be many others, but this morning I would not think of them.
Then she broke the rules again. It is the man who is supposed to fall into exhausted sleep. Instead Rosemarie, her black hair a halo on the pillow, was dead to the world and to me beside her.
I gathered up the remains of breakfast, carried them into the kitchen, washed the dishes and put them away. I realized half way through this process that I was naked and so was the woman who waited for me in bed.
She was still sleeping when I returned.
“Rosemarie,” I said gently.
“Uhm… you want something, Chucky Ducky?”
“You!” I shouted, and fell upon her.
Later, when she returned with lunch, her robe was tied, her hair brushed and tied with a ribbon, her lips touched with lipstick, and her body liberally splashed with an enticing scent.
Wedding nights were not supposed to be like this at all. On the morning after, the bride was supposed to be disappointed and teary, not a shooting star of energy and diligence.
And the man was supposed
to be frustrated at how little pleasure he had felt and not a complacent satyr.
“More fighting in Korea,” she announced. “New Communist attack. We’re supposed to be in orderly retreat to previously prepared positions. Not much else . … Mind if I share your lunch, lord and master?” She nestled into the bed next to me.
“I’m no one’s lord or master. Only an exhausted new husband.”
“You are too my lord and master. On approval, needless to say. Open to brusque dismissal if you don’t measure up in the role.”
We both dug into our hamburgers—smothered with onions, ketchup, and mustard, they were prepared just to my taste. Rosemarie must have been watching my eating habits for years.
When we were finished with the chocolate ice-cream dessert, she put the tray on the bed table.
“You should bring that into the kitchen,” I said.
“Look, Charles, we’ll compromise on cleaning things up. You like to do it immediately. I like to do it at the end of the day.”
“So, what’s the compromise?”
“We’ll do it at the end of the day!”
“Oh.”
She snuggled in next to me.
“Now, who were those two women?”
“What two women?”
“The cornflower blonde from Kansas and that gorgeous giant from Boston.”
“Oh, them! They were General Radford Meade’s assistants in the First Constabulary when I was in Bamberg.”
“Uh-huh! They still think my husband is pretty cute.”
“Most women do.”
“Regardless!” She waved her hand. “They adore you.”
“Most women do.”
“They told me how fortunate I am.”
“I can only agree.”
“Did you date either of them?”
“No… well, I took Nan to the movies once or twice. She’s sweet, but not my kind. So I found her a husband.”
“The man she was with?”
“Right. And Polly was married to John Nettleton—the big mick she was with. I didn’t sleep with either of them.”
“I know that! I want to know why they both told me you’re a hero.”
“I’m not a hero,” I exclaimed.
“They said you were. What did you do? I’m your wife and I have the right to the whole story.”
So I told her about our comic-opera trip up to the border of the Russian zone, where my inept command almost started World War III, and how we arrested the Russian kids who were trying to smuggle caviar, and how I bought the caviar from them and sent them back to their zone.”
She had laughed at all the appropriate places.
“That’s where you got the caviar you sent me. Why did you buy it from them?”
“I figured that they had taken a terrible chance and that they probably deserved a few extra Yankee dollars.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “You really are so sweet!”
“That’s what I always say.”
“Now why did they give you that medal you never wear?”
So I told her the second comic-opera story, of how I had spied on the black marketers, banged up my knee, organized their capture, and would have been shot had it not been for a quick-thinking shavetail fresh out of the Point, and how the black market was back in business in a couple of weeks.
“You really are the craziest of all the O’Malleys! Why did you do all those things?”
“I told myself someone had to.”
I hoped she’d didn’t ask for a third story.
“I love you, Chucky Ducky.”
“Cut that out, woman!”
“You’re so much fun, Chucky Ducky. I like being your wife.”
I began another delirious ride up the mountain of pleasure to the sparkling waterfalls of rapture that waited at the top.
And so it went for all the day.
“Shower or bath?” She pulled me out of bed in midafternoon.
“Rosemarie, I don’t think—”
“Now who’s the prude?” She continued to drag. “Come on, a wife has her rights, you know. I think a bath will be better. And didn’t dear Vangie put in a double-size bathtub just for that?”
The thought had not occurred to me. The dirty man. He and April… shame on them.
“Come on!” I was pushed toward the tub into which steamy water was already pouring. “I will not tolerate you hiding behind silly male modesty, not after all I’ve done for you.” Shame seemed absurd under the circumstances. “In you go, husband mine. Just keep telling yourself that I like you naked as much as you like me.”
“I doubt that.” I settled back in the comforting warmth, “But I take your point”.
“That’s not all you’ll take.” She plopped in next to me. “Here’s the soap and sponge, now get to work.”
I did. She groaned sedately. “That’s better, much better.”
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” I stopped the sponge in its brisk progress across a shimmering breast.
“You don’t have to be that careful with breasts, Chucky Ducky. You can push much harder and it won’t hurt. And I’ll like it more.”
“I don’t mean now… I mean in bed.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Chuck”—she turned serious and solemn; her hand squeezed my fingers and sponge against her breast—“you would never hurt a woman. You’re the most tender man in the world.”
Hardly that.
“Yeah, but—”
She guided my other hand to a submerged thigh. “It is vigorous exercise”—she chuckled—”very vigorous. I know that I’ve had a very ardent man inside of me. But I like that, even more than I thought I would. I’m fine. Really.”
“If I ever…”
“I’ll let you know. Now, clumsy slave, get on with your task of bathing the empress.”
“I thought I was the lord and master.”
“That was a lifetime ago . … Well, slave, that is a little bit better. You do improve with age . … Oh my God, Chucky Ducky… what are you going to do NOW?… Don’t stop, damn it, just because I shout!”
So I didn’t stop.
I wondered in my less tumescent moments (which were few and short) how much of her manic vitality was playacting, a pretense that the ecstatic dream was really ecstatic. But the daimon gave me no choice but to go along with the dream. She had assigned herself a role, donned a mask, acquired a persona, and she was now improvising around it. Brilliantly.
Was it all an act?
Foolish question. We become that which we portray.
Enjoy her while you can.
Because my bride insisted, we said our prayers on our knees before we went to bed for our night’s sleep.
I have kind of been out of contact the last couple of days, I told Himself. All I can say right now is thank you. I’ll do my best to take care of her.
It would be a long, long time before I realized the Deity had a much more complicated plan in mind.
“I’ll drive,” she announced on Monday morning when we ducked out into the subzero cold for our drive to Midway airport and the flight to Mexico.
“I’m sober.”
“As to drink, yes.”
“You don’t think I can drive and admire you at the same time?”
“Right.”
“I agree.” I again dropped the keys in her outstretchea hand. “And this way I can amuse myself in various ways during the drive.”
“Drumming your fingers against the dashboard.” She kissed me and hopped into the car.
“That was nice.”
“What was nice, husband mine?”
I jumped in the other side and closed the door. “Turn on the heat, it’s cold.”
“Not for long, I bet.” She flicked the switch. “What was nice?”
“Our weekend.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” She smiled, quite satisfied with herself. “Chuck, not until we get off the ice. Then within limits you can pursue your, er, amusements.”
; “You know what Dad said to me?”
“No, what did the poor dear man say to you?”
“That women were fun.”
“Well, I’m sure April is fun in bed, though since you’re her son you shouldn’t think about that.” Then, with a tentativeness that tore at my heart: “Was I fun?”
“What do you think?”
“Chuck! I said within limits . … Yes, I think I might have been a modest amount of fun. I hope I was…” She paused uncertainly.
“Let’s go back to Long Beach,” I said as we turned down Ninety-fifth Street.
“Why?”
“It was nice.”
“Mexico will be much warmer.”
“I never noticed the cold.”
“We have our reservations.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re afraid of the airplane ride!”
Caught. I’d better get used to it. “I’ve never flown before.”
“Better get used to it!”
“What if I get sick!”
“We’re flying in one of those new DC-6 things. You won’t get sick.”
“What if I do?”
“I’ll take care of you. I’m getting used to it.”
Despite the newness of the DC-6, I did get sick. Even more so in the old Dakota that took us to Acapulco. When my wife finally tucked me into bed in our cottage near the sea, I murmured, “I’m certainly happy that we’re husband and wife, Rosemarie. Now I can take care of you for the rest of our lives.”
She thought that was very funny.
15
“What is that thing?” I demanded of my naked wife as she held two small pieces of cloth in her hand.
“This?” she said innocently.
“Right! Those two pieces of fabric.”
“It’s a bikini,” she said as she put it on. “You’ve certainly seen pictures of them.”
“I didn’t know women actually wore them.”
“Sure they do. Do you object?”
“No… but you might be attacked even more.”
She grinned. “How could that be possible?”
The surprises would continue through our honeymoon.
As I try to recollect those sweaty, hot-blooded days, it seems that I was learning a number of interesting truths about my woman.
First: By definition, as solemn and as irrefutable as a papal pronouncement ex cathedra, I was a sensational lover. Doubts, hesitation, discussion on that subject were instantly ruled out of court. In bed I was the boss, truly the lord and master. What I wanted and when I wanted it were mine not only by husband’s right but also because I was such a spectacular bedmate. I entertained considerable personal doubt about this praise—not, mind you, about Rosemarie’s honesty, but rather about her objectivity. She was determined that the honeymoon would be good for me and thus for her too. If I was happy with our two weeks in the sun, she would be happy too. Such determined goals are admirable, but when you have willpower like hers, wishing can make it seem so.
A Christmas Wedding Page 13