The Housewife Blues

by Warren Adler

  Her parents were proud of her for attracting such a marvelous man at the ripe old age of twenty-five. Her dad called him "a go-getter," which was his highest form of compliment.

  She worried, of course, that the differences between them in terms of "worldliness" would inhibit or even destroy their relationship. A small-town upbringing carried a stigma of diminishment, not that she didn't have her defenses. When they were together, she made light of the idea that she was "a Hoosier hick" and he was a "city slicker," but like all humor, there was an element of truth hiding just below the surface of her words.

  Of course, Larry's response was all the more disarming, since he assured her that "a Hoosier hick" was exactly what he had in mind. She wondered how he defined the image and hoped he hadn't equated it with naiveté or ignorance. Inexperience and innocence were other matters entirely, although she showed him that she was certainly not innocent in sexual matters. That, too, had given her pause. She had worried that too quick a sexual capitulation and the resultant evidence of her experience might frighten him off. It didn't. After three nights of consecutive dating, she was in his motel bed, an actively aggressive participant.

  "Nothing hick in this department," he had commented.

  "Can't fool nature," she had responded saucily. "If the conditions are right, it takes you there."

  "You're exactly what the doctor ordered," he'd told her.

  "Likewise," she had agreed, complimenting him sincerely on his manliness. She had, of course, been concerned about a possible disappointment in this area. Early on he'd admitted that his first marriage was dysfunctional. It didn't take long for her to discover that it wasn't his fault.

  "Perfect fit," he told her.

  "Uh-huh," she agreed.

  She hoped that he attributed her knowledge to the fact that she was a medical person.

  "Now wasn't he worth waiting for?" she proudly told her parents and brother when it was apparent that a genuine relationship had begun to spring up between her and Larry. Naturally they agreed.

  Even the parameters he had laid down on the night he had proposed, which was exactly three weeks after he had come into town, were a perfect parallel for her own aspirations.

  "Make me a home, Jenny," he had told her the night of his proposal. "Let me love you and protect you." They had been lying naked on his motel bed. "You can't imagine what it means to a guy who comes home after fighting the world to find a beautiful, loving woman waiting—"

  "To fall into his arms," she interrupted. "Willing, wet, and wonderful. Who has spent her day making coming home special and has prepared a lovely meal."

  "With a delicious bottle of wine."

  "That, too."

  "Sheer heaven," he said. "Far from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

  "Yes," she replied, vaguely remembering the words as a famous quote. "Far from those."

  "Which brings up a question," he teased. "Do we make love before or after dinner?"

  "Why not both before and after?"

  "Why not? Every night of our lives."

  "Mornings, too."

  "Exactly my fantasy," he said. "A wife who runs my house and a whore in my bed."

  "A whore?" She feigned offense, but she knew what he meant.

  "I will aim to please in all areas." She giggled.

  "Pinch me," he said. "I must be dreaming."

  "I won't pinch. But how about a love bite on that?" Her lips closed around his erect penis. God, she thought, how grateful I am that you've sent me such a beautiful man.

  She loved seeing him naked, and he enjoyed exhibiting himself, especially, as now, when his penis was in glorious erection. He was so perfectly proportioned, he reminded her of a picture of the Michelangelo sculpture of David. She loved the feel of the rippling tightness of his body, his hard buttocks, his ivory smooth penis. She loved wrapping her legs around him, swallowing him into her. It set off sparks within her body. Nor was she loath to try any new way to bring him pleasure, and she could be as compliant in sexual matters as he was aggressive and eager and vice versa.

  She also enjoyed exhibiting herself in whatever manner he requested, and she refused him nothing. Pleasing him, even at that early stage, had become her mission in life. She had every reason to believe this desire was mutual.

  "Between people who love each other, there are no barriers," he told her. "Only trust and honesty." She agreed with all her heart.

  It gave her goose bumps to discover such a mutuality of ideas about what a true relationship meant. It was as if they were sharing some wonderfully deep and very private secret.

  She was certain that there was something between them of real lasting significance, of which the body's pleasure was only a symbol, something spiritual and holy. This was, for her, a lifetime commitment. She had no doubt that it was for him as well.

  There were of course some drawbacks to the impending marriage. Since his office was in New York, she would have to leave Bedford, which would be traumatic, but it would certainly be exciting to live in Manhattan.

  "It's a lot different from Bedford," Larry told her. "But I'll teach you how to hack it."

  There would be an adjustment period, of course. She had never been to New York and was well aware of her own lack of what he called "street smarts." Big-city life was intrinsically frightening to small-town folks. People might characterize her as a hayseed or a hick. But, she was, she knew, a quick learner, and she was determined to pull her weight as the wife of the brilliant and beautiful Larry Burns.

  She was certain also that he would not opt for children immediately. Considering his first experience with marriage, he would be cautious, waiting perhaps a year or two to be sure of their compatibility.

  He made a great living, he informed her, although he was never specific about the number. Six figures was all he would volunteer, which was good enough for her and more than good enough for her father, who thought he had reached the pinnacle of success at thirty-five thousand dollars a year. In their value system, the man was the provider.

  "And that's only the beginning," he told her. "I've got plans, big plans, and someday I'll be the boss."

  She certainly had caught a good one, the family agreed. She also assured them that she would be a frequent visitor to Bedford, certainly on holidays. They knew that, of course. Her heart would always be in Bedford. That was her upbringing. Family was everything, regardless of distance.

  Not that they weren't truly worried. The big city, especially New York, to a small-town Hoosier was seen as a corrupting influence. She assured them that they had given her a good foundation and that she was beyond corruption, and with Larry protecting her, what was there to worry about?

  Larry's family was practically nonexistent. He was an only child who had been raised mostly in boarding schools. His father was an accountant in Seattle who had married twice after leaving his mother and had acquired two additional families, which kept him perpetually strapped for money. He and Larry hardly communicated. His mother had died years ago. Obviously, Jenny reasoned, Larry was a man who hungered for the joys of home and hearth, of real family, and a wife to love and care for him and provide him with children. She vowed to be that wife.

  On the day she left Bedford, Jenny and her mother had a real heart-to-heart, complete with tears and lots of hugs.

  "Just be good to your man and everything will be fine," her mother told her.

  "You know I will, Mom."

  "And never, never stray from your real values."

  "Never, Mom."

  "Sometimes things will get tough. There will be ups and downs, but in the end it will be the wife who holds things together."

  They hugged each other for a long time and dried their tears. Then Jenny's mother gave her the petit-point poem entitled "The Wife," by author unknown. It was suitably framed and had been replicated from her grandmother's, one of those sentimental possessions that are handed down from mothers to daughters. Her mother, she knew, had hung it on the inside of
her closet door, where it still remained through the years, a kind of very private and very cherished idea. Jenny knew that her brother's wife had also received one when they were married.

  She took the petit-point poem from her mother and read it aloud.

  THE WIFE

  The heart of a home is a loving wife

  Who protects it always from trouble and strife

  Her sacred role is to love and to care

  Always to nurture and forever to share

  As helpmate or more, she can never lose

  Unless she surrenders to the housewife blues.

  Again mother and daughter hugged and cried. Jenny had never been happier.

  Jenny set to work putting the apartment together with tremendous enthusiasm. Larry had given her a budget, and she was determined to stay within it and impress him with her own resourcefulness and good taste. He had also given her samples of the colors he favored and she did not make any purchases without his complete approval. She welcomed his hands-on attitude and his firm views.

  They haunted the little antique stores tucked away in various Manhattan neighborhoods and bought numerous items that seemed to fit perfectly in their apartment. She favored American Colonial and he favored Victorian English, but they managed to compromise and get the apartment furnished with a minimum of new pieces. They did, however, purchase a new four-poster queen-size bed.

  "And it had better be sturdy," Larry had told the clerk with a wink.

  She particularly enjoyed putting together the kitchen. She always had a flair for cooking, and Larry let her buy whatever equipment was needed, including expensive copper pots, which she hung from hooks on the brick wall. She also bought a complete set of knives, which she kept in a wooden block with handy slots on the kitchen island. On a shelf over the sink she had put a wonderful antique spice rack. In the kitchen closet she put a wine rack that held thirty-six bottles. Larry considered himself an expert on wines.

  She had known from the beginning that Larry loved the idea of coming home to a well-cooked meal, and she had done her best to oblige. Once, however, while working late into the afternoon in the apartment, she'd neglected to prepare a meal and was obliged to call a carryout pizza place for their dinner.

  It was, of course, against Larry's ideas about how to conduct oneself safely in the city, but she was certain he would allow her to make this one little exception. Besides, she liked pizza, which went very well with a salad and a glass of wine.

  Unfortunately, he got home almost at the exact time that the delivery man pressed the outside buzzer.

  "Who can that be?" he had asked.

  "The pizza man," she replied, pressing the buzzer that would allow the man to enter.

  "Are you out of your mind?" he rebuked.

  "You know I like pizza and I haven't had time..."

  "Jenny, how many times must I warn you? The carryouts in this city are a license to steal or worse. The statistics on this are appalling and I will not allow you to endanger yourself."

  "Now, that's being paranoid. Lots of people order carryouts in New York."

  A moment later the door buzzer sounded and Larry rushed to the door. She watched him opening it carefully, keeping the chain on the hook. After inspecting the delivery man, a black teenager, he asked the price and quickly exchanged the box of pizza for the money, then swiftly rechained the lock and slid the dead bolt into its slot.

  "He was just a kid," Jenny said.

  "Right. A black kid. The highest single group of crime perpetrators in the country."

  "Really, Larry..."

  "I'm not kidding, Jenny. No more of this. Not ever again. I want a promise."

  "You're taking this much too seriously, Larry."

  "A promise," he repeated.

  "If it means that much." She sighed.

  "It does."

  "Well then, I promise."

  It was, after all, just to keep the peace. If it was important to Larry, then it was important to her. She let it pass, put it out of her mind, and did not let it interfere with her putting the apartment together.

  He fitted out one corner of their bedroom with a weight bench set up between two standing antique mirrors that gave him a two-sided view of himself when he lifted weights. He usually did it wearing only a jockstrap, and he enjoyed having her watch him do his sets. For Jenny it was sheer joy watching his muscles ripple, and invariably she reacted sexually.

  From the beginning Larry had harped on her not to be too pushy in trying to get to know the neighbors. New Yorkers, he insisted, were uncomfortable with neighborliness, and he didn't want her to have to face what might be interpreted as rejection. She appreciated his concern, but exercising a mild assertiveness, she reminded him that she had worked for several years as an assistant in a doctor's office and was not totally naive about people and their motives. She pointed out, too, that people who lived under the same roof were obligated to get to know one another, if only as a kind of insurance for emergencies.

  "I've got to learn how to deal with city people," she told him.

  "Forewarned is forearmed," he told her. "Most New Yorkers have a siege mentality."

  "People are people."

  "New Yorkers are conditioned by a hostile environment. They react to everything defensively. Even their offense is defensive. Most people in this town are takers, not givers. Besides, what do you need them for? My advice is keep to yourself, mind your own business. It's safer."

  "I'm perfectly capable of making that judgment on my own."

  "Of course you are, darling," he said, retreating somewhat. "But, remember, I grew up in Manhattan and it's gotten worse over the years. I can smell the hustlers, the phonies, the users. Lean on me in that respect. I know. Believe me, I know. All I'm saying is watch out. Next thing you know you'll be involved in somebody else's complications. Trust me."

  With that in mind, she nevertheless felt obliged to make a modest effort to strike up some social intercourse with the neighbors. After all, in her comings and goings, how was one to avoid them? A smile and a kind word were certainly in order under those circumstances. So far, the easiest people to get to know were the Richardsons, largely because Terry was naturally approachable. Godfrey was less so, but had been gracious and charming at dinner.

  Larry, although he had consented to her inviting the Richard-sons, had been a reluctant participant.

  "You know how I feel about getting too intimate with the neighbors."

  "Just dinner, Larry. You never know when you'll need a little neighborly help one day."

  "As long as it's just dinner," he told her.

  The dinner had seemed to go well. She had made her grandmother's favorite meat loaf recipe. She also did her homemade biscuits and baked what she considered her inspired apple pan dowdy. A real "down home" meal with succotash and whipped-up mashed potatoes. Only the fancy French red wine served in big stem glasses gave a touch of Manhattan sophistication.

  The Richardsons were pleasant and affable and seemed to like the meal, except that Godfrey hadn't touched the succotash. But the conversation seemed to steer clear of any real intimacy. Mostly the talk centered around contemporary art. Godfrey owned an art gallery, and Larry probed him most of the evening about which artists were on their way up for investment purposes.

  "Now did that hurt?" she asked after the Richardsons had gone and she had finished the dishes.

  "Depends on your definition of pain," Larry said.

  "I don't understand," Jenny replied, confused.

  "Meat loaf?"

  "What's wrong with meat loaf?"

  "Oh, it's fine for cafeterias and home meals, but for guests? Really, Jenny. Meat loaf?"

  "It's my grandmother's recipe," she said, her stomach churning.

  "Succotash?"

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "I hate to put it this way." Larry sighed. "You worked so damned hard. But it's ... well ... second rate. Not in taste or even intention. Just ... lower order ... not upscale."r />
  "I did serve that fancy French wine," Jenny said. She felt rebuked.

  "It's not important," Larry said. "You did tell them it would be no big deal."

  "Yes, I told them."

  "Call it gentle advice, Jenny. Not worth a hassle between us. Put it in the category of a learning experience."

  "I am confused, Larry."

  "Just trust me. I've got a handle on perception. Follow my lead. It's my fault, really. I should have put my two cents in. Anyway, forget it. Fact is, the meat loaf was yummy and the apple pan dowdy scrumptious."

  He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

  "You're wonderful, Jenny. Wonderfully Midwest. Don't ever lose that."

  She wanted to explore the question further, but she decided that she would leave it for another time. She knew she had a lot to learn.

  "Notice how Godfrey was hustling his artwork? Proof positive. Everybody here is hustling something."

  "I wasn't paying much attention to that side of it," Jenny said.

  "Well, I hope you learned something about the banking business from Terry."

  "Actually we talked mostly about babies. Hers. They've been going to a fertility clinic."

  "So much for opportunity," Larry said with a sigh. She glanced at him suddenly, wondering if he was serious. He must have felt her scrutiny. "She is a banker," he said. "We gave them dinner. There's a quid pro quo here somewhere."

  "They're neighbors," Jenny said, confused by his remark. "Just neighbors."

  "Nobody is just anything, Jenny. Not in the Big Apple," Larry said, reaching for her hand and leading her gently into the bedroom.

  Two hours and ten minutes by the clock passed before she heard the elevator move in the shaft once again. It annoyed her that she was timing the liaison as if she were a private detective.

  Yet as soon as she heard the elevator, she dashed closer to the window, hiding in the shadows at a spot that offered a good vantage to watch the street. Sure enough, the woman appeared on the steps, and Jenny studied her carefully, as if her physical aspect might reveal some confirming truth. She seemed to have combed her hair with some care and put on new makeup and did not look as furtive or as anxious as before. In fact, she seemed almost relieved, as if she had been through some ordeal and was glad that it was over.