by Roald Dahl
Usually, one didn't even look.
Anyway, it would be madness to put the suggestion to Jerry pointblank. I didn't know him that well. He might be horrified. He might even turn nasty. There could be an ugly scene. I must test him out, therefore, in some subtle fashion.
"You know something," I said to Jerry about an hour later when we were sitting together on the sofa having a last drink. The guests were drifting away and Samantha was by the door saying goodbye to them. My own wife Mary was out on the terrace talking to Bob Swain. I could see through the open french windows. "You know something funny?" I said to Jerry as we sat together on the sofa.
"What's funny?" Jerry asked me.
"A fellow I had lunch with today told me a fantastic story. Quite unbelievable."
"What story?" Jerry said. The whisky had begun to make him sleepy.
"This man, the one I had lunch with, had a terrific letch after the wife of his friend who lived nearby. And his friend had an equally big letch after the wife of the man I had lunch with. Do you see what I mean?"
"You mean two fellers who lived close to each other both fancied each other's wives."
"Precisely," I said.
"Then there was no problem," Jerry said.
"There was a very big problem," I said. "The wives were both very faithful and honourable women."
"Samantha's the same," Jerry said. "She wouldn't look at another man."
"Nor would Mary," I said. "She's a fine girl."
Jerry emptied his glass and set it down carefully on the sofa-table. "So what happened in your story?" he said. "It sounds dirty."
"What happened," I said, "was that these two randy sods cooked up a plan which made it possible for each of them to ravish the other's wife without the wives ever knowing it. If you can believe such a thing."
"With chloroform?" Jerry said.
"Not at all. They were fully conscious."
"Impossible," Jerry said. "Someone's been pulling your leg."
"I don't think so," I said. "From the way this man told it to me, with all the details and everything, I don't think he was making it up. In fact, I'm sure he wasn't. And listen, they didn't do it just once, either. They've been doing it every two or three weeks for months!"
"And the wives don't know?"
"They haven't a clue."
"I've got to hear this," Jerry said. "Let's get another drink first."
We crossed to the bar and refilled our glasses, then returned to the sofa.
"You must remember," I said, "that there had to be a tremendous lot of preparation and rehearsal beforehand. And many intimate details had to be exchanged to give the plan a chance of working. But the essential part of the scheme was simple: "They fixed a night, call it Saturday. On that night the husbands and wives were to go up to bed as usual, at say eleven or eleven thirty.
"From then on, normal routine would be preserved. A little reading, perhaps, a little talking then out with the lights.
"After lights out, the husbands would at once roll over and pretend to go to sleep. This was to discourage their wives from getting fresh, which at this stage must on no account be permitted. So the wives went to sleep. But the husbands stayed awake. So far so good.
"Then at precisely one a. m., by which time the wives would be in a good deep sleep, each husband would slip quietly out of bed, put on a pair of bedroom slippers and creep downstairs in his pyjamas. He would open the front door and go out into the night, taking care not to close the door behind him.
"They lived," I went on, "more or less across the street from one another. It was a quiet suburban neighbourhood and there was seldom anyone about at that hour. So these two furtive pyjama-clad figures would pass each other as they crossed the street, each one heading for another house, another bed, another woman."
Jerry was listening to me carefully. His eyes were a little glazed from drink, but he was listening to every word.
"The next pan," I said, "had been prepared very thoroughly by both men. Each knew the inside of his friend's house almost as well as he knew his own. He knew how to find his way in the dark downstairs and up without knocking over the furniture. He knew his way to the stairs and exactly how many steps there were to the top and which of them creaked and which didn't. He knew on which side of the bed the woman upstairs was sleeping.
"Each took off his slippers and left them in the hall, then up the stairs he crept in his bare feet and pyjamas. This part of it, according to my friend, was rather exciting. He was in a dark silent house that wasn't his own, and on his way to the main bedroom he had to pass no less than three children's bedrooms where the doors were always left slightly open."
"Children!" Jerry cried. "My God, what if one of them had woken up and said, "Daddy, is that you?"
"That was all taken care of," I said. "Emergency procedure would then come into effect immediately. Also if the wife, just as he was creeping into her room, woke up and said, "Darling, what's wrong? Why are you wandering about?'; then again, emergency procedure."
"What emergency procedure?" Jerry said.
"Simple," I answered. "The man would immediately dash downstairs and out the front door and across to his own house and ring the bell. This was a signal for the other character, no matter what he was doing at the time, also to rush downstairs at full speed and open the door and let the other fellow in while he went out. This would get them both back quickly to their proper houses."
"With egg all over their faces," Jerry said.
"Not at all," I said.
"That doorbell would have woken the whole house," Jerry said.
"Of course," I said. "And the husband, returning upstairs in his pyjamas, would merely say, "I went to see who the hell was ringing the bell at this ungodly hour. Couldn't find anyone. It must have been a drunk."
"What about the other guy?" Jerry asked. "How does he explain why he rushed downstairs when his wife or child spoke to him?"
"He would say, "I heard someone prowling about outside, so I rushed down to get him, but he escaped.' "Did you actually see him?' his wife would ask anxiously. "Of course I saw him,' the husband would answer. "He ran off down the street. He was too damn fast for me.' Whereupon the husband would be warmly congratulated for his bravery."
"Okay," Jerry said. "That's the easy part. Everything so far is just a matter of good planning and good timing. But what happens when these two horny characters actually climb into bed with each other's wives?"
"They go right to it," I said.
"The wives are sleeping," Jerry said.
"I know," I said. "So they proceed immediately with some very gentle but very skilful loveplay, and by the time these dames are fully awake, they're as randy as rattlesnakes."
"No talking, I presume," Jerry said.
"Not a word."
"Okay, so the wives are awake," Jerry said. "And their hands get to work. So just for a start, what about the simple question of body size? What about the difference between the new man and the husband? What about tallness and shortness and fatness and thinness? You're not telling me these men were physically identical?"
"Not identical, obviously," I said. "But they were more or less similar in build and height. That was essential. They were both cleanshaven and had roughly the same amount of hair on their heads. That sort of similarity is commonplace. Look at you and me, for instance. We're roughly the same height and build, aren't we?"
"Are we?" Jerry said.
"How tall are you?" I said.
"Six foot exactly."
"I'm five eleven," I said. "One inch difference. What do you weigh?"
"One hundred and eighty-seven."
"I'm a hundred and eighty-four," I said. "What's three pounds among friends?"
There was a pause, Jerry was looking out through the french windows on to the terrace where my wife, Mary, was standing. Mary was still talking to Bob Swain and the evening sun was shining in her hair. She was a dark pretty girl, with a bosom. I watched Jerry. I saw his tongue come o
ut and go sliding along the surface of his lower lip.
"I guess you're right," Jerry said, still looking at Mary. "I guess we are about the same size you and me." When he turned back and faced me again, there was a little red rose high up on each cheek. "Go on about these two men," he said.
"What about some of the other differences?"
"You mean faces?" I said. "No one's goin to see faces in the dark."
"I'm not talking about faces," Jerry said.
"What are you talking about, then?"
"I'm talking about their cocks," Jerry said "That's what it's all about isn't it? And you'n not going to tell me "Oh, yes, I am," I said. "Just so long as both the men were either circumcised or uncircumcised, then there was really no problem."
"Are you seriously suggesting that all men have the same size in cocks?" Jerry said. "Because they don't."
"I know they don't," I said.
"Some are enormous," Jerry said. "And some are titchy."
"There are always exceptions," I told him. "But you'd be surprised at the number of men whose measurements are virtually the same, give or take a centimetre. According to my friend, ninety per cent are normal. Only ten per cent are notably large or small."
"I don't believe that," Jerry said.
"Check on it sometime," I said. "Ask some well-travelled girl."
Jerry took a long slow sip of his whisky, and his eyes over the top of his glass were looking again at Mary on the terrace. "What about the rest of it?" he said.
"No problem," I said.
"No problem, my arse," he said. "Shall I tell you why this is a phony story?"
"Go ahead."
"Everybody knows that a wife and husband who have been married for some years develop a kind of routine. It's inevitable. My God, a new operator would be spotted instantly. You know damn well he would. You can't suddenly wade in with a totally different style and expect the woman not to notice it, and I don't care how randy she was. She'd smell a rat in the first minute!"
"A routine can be duplicated," I said. "Just so long as every detail of that routine is described beforehand."
"A bit personal, that," Jerry said.
"The whole thing's personal," I said. "So each man tells his story. He tells precisely what he usually does. He tells everything. The lot. The works. The whole routine from beginning to end."
"Jesus," Jerry said.
Each of these men," I said, "had to learn a new part. He had in effect, to become an actor. He was impersonating another character."
"Not so easy, that," Jerry said.
"No problem at all, according to my friend. The only thing one had to watch out for was not to get carried away and start improvising. One had to follow the stage directions very carefully and stick to them."
Jerry took another pull at his drink. He also took another look at Mary on the terrace. Then he leaned back against the sofa, glass in hand.
"These two characters," he said. "You mean they actually pulled it off?"
"I'm damn sure they did," I said. "They're still doing it. About once every three weeks."
"Fantastic story" Jerry said. "And a damn crazy dangerous thing to do. Just imagine the sort of hell that would break loose if you were caught. Instant divorce. Two divorces, in fact. One on each side of the street. Not worth it."
"Takes a lot of guts," I said.
"The party's breaking up," Jerry said. "They're all going home with their goddam wives."
I didn't say any more after that. We sat there for a couple of minutes sipping our drinks while the guests began drifting towards the hall.
"Did he say it was fun, this friend of yours?" Jerry asked suddenly.
"He said it was a gas," I answered. "He said all the normal pleasures got intensified one hundred per cent because of the risk. He swore it was the greatest way of doing it in the world, impersonating the husband and the wife not knowing it."
At that point, Mary came in through the french windows with Bob Swain. She had an empty glass in one hand and a flame-coloured azalea in the other. She had picked the azalea on the terrace.
"I've been watching you," she said, pointing the flower at me like a pistol. "You've hardly stopped talking for the last ten minutes. What's he been telling you, Jerry?"
"A dirty story," Jerry said, grinning.
"He does that when he drinks," Mary said.
"Good story," Jerry said. "But totally impossible. Get him. to tell it to you sometime."
"I don't like dirty stories," Mary said. "Come along, Vic. It's time we went."
"Don't go yet," Jerry said, fixing his eyes upon her splendid bosom, "Have another drink."
"No thanks," she said. "The children'll be screaming for their supper. I've had a lovely time."
"Aren't you going to kiss me good night?" Jerry said, getting up from the sofa. He went for her mouth, but she turned her head quickly and he caught only the edge of her cheek.
"Go away, Jerry," she said. "You're drunk."
"Not drunk," Jerry said. "Just lecherous."
"Don't you get lecherous with me, my boy," Mary said sharply. "I hate that sort of talk." She marched away across the room, carrying her bosom before her like a battering-ram.
"So long, Jerry," I said. "Fine party."
Mary, full of dark looks, was waiting for me in the hall. Samantha was there, too, saying goodbye to the last guests-Samantha with her dexterous fingers and her smooth skin and her smooth, dangerous thighs. "Cheer up, Vic," she said to me, her white teeth showing. She looked like the creation, the beginning of the world, the first morning. "Good night, Vic darling," she said, stirring her fingers in my vitals.
I followed Mary out of the house. "You feeling all right?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "Why not?"
"The amount you drink is enough to make anyone feel ill," she said.
There was a scrubby old hedge dividing our place from Jerry's and there was a gap in it we always used. Mary and I walked through the gap in silence. We went into the house and she cooked up a big pile of scrambled eggs and bacon, and we ate it with the children.
After the meal, I wandered outside. The summer evening was clear and cool and because I had nothing else to do I decided to mow the grass in the front garden. I got the mower out of the shed and started it up. Then I began the old routine of marching back and forth behind t. I like mowing grass. It is a soothing operation, and on our front lawn I could always look at Samantha's house going one way and think about her going the other.
I had been at it for about ten minutes when Jerry came strolling through the gap in the hedge. He was smoking a pipe and had his hands in his pockets and he stood on the edge of the grass, watching me. I pulled up in front of him, but left the motor ticking over.
"Hi, sport," he said. "How's everything?"
"I'm in the doghouse," I said. "So are you."
"Your little wife," he said, "is just too goddam prissy to be true."
"Oh, I know that."
"She rebuked me in my own house," Jerry said.
"Not very much."
"It was enough," he said, smiling slightly.
"Enough for what?"
"Enough to make me want to get a little bit of my own back on her. So what would you think if I suggested you and I have a go at that thing your friend told you about at lunch?"
When he said this, I felt such a surge of excitement my stomach nearly jumped out of my mouth. I gripped the handles of the mower and started revving the engine.
"Have I said the wrong thing?" Jerry asked.
I didn't answer.
"Listen," he said. "If you think it's a lousy idea, let's just forget I ever mentioned it. You're not mad at me, are you?"
"I'm not mad at you, Jerry," I said. "It's just that it never entered my head that we should do it."
"It entered mine," he said. "The set-up is perfect. We wouldn't even have to cross the street." His face had gone suddenly bright and his eyes were shining like two stars. "So what do you say, Vi
c?"
"I'm thinking," I said.
"Maybe you don't fancy Samantha."
"I don't honestly know," I said.
"She's lots of fun," Jerry said. "I guarantee that."
At this point I saw Mary come out on to the front porch. "There's Mary," I said. "She's looking for the children. We'll talk some more tomorrow."
"Then it's a deal?"
"It could be, Jerry. But only on condition we don't rush it. I want to be dead sure everything is right before we start. Damn it all, this is a whole brand-new can of beans!"
"No, it's not!" he said. "Your friend said it was a gas. He said it was easy."
"Ah, yes," I said, "My friend. Of course. But each case is different." I opened the throttle on the mower and went whining away across the lawn. When I got to the far side and turned around, Jerry was already through the gap in the hedge and walking up to his front door.
The next couple of weeks was a period of high conspiracy for Jerry and me. We held secret meetings in bars and restaurants to discuss strategy, and sometimes he dropped into my office after work and we had a planning session behind the closed door. Whenever a doubtful point arose, Jerry would always say, "How did your friend do it?" And I would play for time and say, "I'll call him up and ask him about that one."
After many conferences and much talk, we agreed upon the following main points: 1. That D Day should be a Saturday.
2. That on D Day evening we should take our wives out to a good dinner, the four of us together.
3. That Jerry and I should leave our houses and cross over through the gap in the hedge at precisely one a.m. Sunday morning.
4. That instead of lying in bed in the dark until one a.m. came along, we should both, as soon as our wives were asleep, go quietly downstairs to the kitchen and drink coffee.
5. That we should use the front doorbell idea if an emergency arose.
6. That the return cross-over time was fixed for two a.m.
7. That while in the wrong bed, questions (if any) from the woman must be answered by an "Uh-uh' sounded with the lips closed tight.
8. That I myself must immediately give up cigarettes and take to a pipe so that I would "smell' the same as Jerry.