(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  The questions on pre-adolescent behavior went on in this vein for ten minutes, and Ursula found it difficult to hide her impatience.

  All of this was a waste of precious time, in terms of Houseday’s million readers, and Ursula’s answers became testier and testier. At last, having revealed that she had menstruated at twelve, she was relieved to graduate to premarital petting. She had too few pages of notes, but now she was sure that she would make up the lack.

  “How would you define petting?” she heard Horace ask.

  This was interesting-it would fascinate mothers and daughters who read Houseday-and she considered it. “Why, I suppose everything that might arouse you, short of actually doing anything final.”

  “Yes, but perhaps I had better be more exact.”

  He defined the component parts of petting. For Ursula, who had never seriously thought about these acts before-at least, not that she could definitely recall-the explicit vocabulary of science made it seem vulgar and unlovely. Nevertheless, she recorded the discussion. Foster must be served. The public, also. Anyway, her typewriter would make it more palatable, sand it down, buff it, varnish it, until the little word Galateas would be acceptable in any family living room.

  He was inquiring if she had ever achieved satisfaction through petting.

  “You mean the first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “In high school, when I was a senior. I suppose you want to know how old I was? Seventeen. Does that mean I was retarded?”

  No comment from the screen on her jocularity. Instead: “What was the method?”

  That damn method, again. Curtly, she explained.

  “Where was this done?” he asked.

  “In his car. We parked in the hills, and got in the back seat. I thought I loved him, but then I changed my mind and-well, we just petted.”

  There was note-taking on both sides of the screen, and then the questions and answers continued, and, at last, they reached the subject of premarital intimacy.

  “Three partners,” she was saying.

  ‘Where did these take place?”

  “The first two in their apartments. And with the last one in motels.”

  ‘Were any one of these the men you finally married?”

  “The second affair-he became my first husband.”

  “But no premarital experience with your present husband?”

  “God, no. Harold wouldn’t think of doing a thing like that before. The first affair was a college kid, when I was in school. Then -well, my other husband, the one who wrote copy-we were in the same office-it was my first job. The last one was after I had to go back to work-I was his secretary-for a short time.”

  “Did you reach orgasm on any of these occasions? If so-“

  “No,” she interrupted.

  “During these intimacies, were you partially clothed or in the nude?”

  “Nude.”

  “When did these intimacies most frequently occur-morning, afternoon, evening, night?”

  “Well, I suppose you’d call it evening.”

  “Most often, was an artificial means used to prevent conception?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your partner use a contraceptive, or did you, or did both of you? Or did your partner practice Noyes’ theory of male continence?”

  “The men always used contraceptives.”

  “Now, returning to the actual act, in regard to method-“

  Ursula’s upper lip was’ damp: heaven protect the poor working girl. And then she realized that her fingers were gripping the pencil so hard that they seemed bloodless, and that she had not made a single note in five minutes. Desperately, she tried to relax, to remember, to write.

  “… name the one of these most frequently employed by you?”

  She named one in a voice strangely not her own. She wrote and, writing, wondered what Bertram Foster would think.

  When Ursula Palmer emerged into the sunlight of Romola Place at twenty minutes after two, she felt slightly let down and concerned, as she so often felt after sex and almost never after writing. The feeling was something that she could not precisely define. It seemed that there was more to be said that had not been said, though exactly what she could not imagine. The questions had covered every possible experience, and she had replied to all honestly. Yet, now, there was a hangover of an insoluble business uncompleted, and it was bothersome, for she was not sure if it involved the questions about sexual behavior or the behavior itself. The good part of it, of course, was the notes. Toward the end, she had

  been professional and put everything to paper, and already she could see that-with discretion and imagination-it would write well.

  Her original intent had been to hurry home after the interview and transcribe the entire adventure while it was fully alive in her mind. But, at the moment, standing before the building entrance, she suddenly had no desire to relive the interview so quickly. It could wait until evening or tomorrow morning. She felt the need to be outside, among people, and not alone with the notes.

  Remembering that she was almost out of stamps, she decided to cross the street to the post office and buy a roll. After that, she would see. There were a dozen household chores she had neglected since Foster’s arrival. She crossed the street and was about to climb the concrete steps to the post office when she saw Kathleen Ballard appear at the top of the stairs and descend.

  She waited. “Hello, Kathleen.”

  “Why, Ursula-“

  “I was just across the street-delivering a rich and entertaining discourse on What Every Young Girl Gets to Know.”

  Puzzled, Kathleen looked across the street, then back at Ursula, and then her eyes widened. “You mean you’ve had your interview already?”

  “I had it,” said Ursula dryly.

  “Oh, I’m dying to hear everything. I don’t mean anything private, but what goes on, what they ask-“

  “You’ve come to the right party. You are speaking to a veteran of the Chapman cabal rites.”

  “They’re interviewing me Thursday afternoon. Is it awful?”

  Ursula did not want to discuss it, yet she did not want to lose Kathleen. “Let’s find someplace to sit,” she said. “Do you have time?”

  “Deirdre’s in dancing class. But I don’t have to pick her up until three-thirty.”

  “Well, then, I’ll give you the Palmer Abridged Version, skipping lightly over adolescent sex play and sundries, and concentrating mainly on coitus-yes, my dear, that’s the word this season; learn to love it-coitus, marital, extramarital, and sort of marital.”

  “You mean they actually make you-” Kathleen’s eagerness had given way to anxiety.

  “They make you do nothing,” said Ursula crisply. ‘We’re all volunteers. Remember? Like Major Reed’s yellow fever guinea pigs.

  All right, let’s walk over to The Crystal Room. According to my prescription, this should be taken with something on the stomach.”

  Those healthy, dull young women, Cass Miller thought. Slouching beside the card table, one leg crossed over the other, his pencil found the question he had just asked. “Have you ever engaged in premarital intimacies?” His pencil hooked the cypher into the blank square, and the cypher meant, to four of them, “No.” This, of course, ruled out the next dozen questions.

  These young women were all of a type, Cass decided, as he gloomily stared at the long sheet. Coast to coast, it was the same. In the East, the type was small and keen or horsey and well mannered, with dark bangs and big bosoms and legs that were good for lacrosse. They had been to Bennington and Barnard and would marry Ivy League boys, who would later drink too much at lunch, and they merged into Perfect Hostess, Tennis Anyone, Bermuda, and Normal Outlook. In the West the type was well dressed, tall and thin, with tangled boyish hair more sun-bleached than blond, and flat breasts and bony spines and bottoms. They had been to Stanford and Switzerland and would marry intense young professional men, and they merged into Conjugal Partnership, Golf Lessons, S
anta Barbara, and Outdoor Living.

  He had caught one of the latter. Cass’s eyes scanned what was already written. Mrs. Mary Ewing McManus. Twenty-two. University of Southern California. Born in Los Angeles. Lutheran. Regular churchgoer. Presently married. First husband. Two years. Husband an attorney. Housewife.

  His gaze continued down the page. Pre-adolescent heterosexual play. Routine. Premarital petting confined to kissing and brief breast contact. Usual. Petting always halted early. And finally, now, premarital intercourse-never. Dull. Dull as dishwater.

  Cass knew that the rest was predictable. Nevertheless, the Great White Father and the STC machine must be served. He looked up at the cane folding screen, with little interest in Mrs. Mary Ewing McManus behind it, and resumed in the tired voice that she mistook for scientific objectivity. “Next, we have a series of questions on marital coitus-in short, the sex history of your marriage. What is the frequency of your love-making at the present time?”

  “Well …”

  “I know it varies. But can you strike an average per week or

  month?”

  “My husband and I make love on the average of three times a week,” said Mary clearly and proudly.

  Cass detected the pride. Sardonically amused, he moved his pencil across the page. Children of this class, perhaps the young in general, were always proud of their frequency ratio, their vigor, their tireless acrobatics, as if they had discovered sex and planted a flag upon it and owned it exclusively. In twenty years, it would be once a week, if that, and she would wonder why her husband always had to work late nights, and she would take to heavier make-up and thinner dresses and a querulous note and wish that her husband’s new young business partner would be more attentive to her.

  “Do you engage in petting before intercourse?” asked Cass.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Can you describe what you do?”

  “I … I don’t know-I mean, it’s hard to explain.”

  Nevertheless, hesitantly, but with Cass’s encouragement, she described the preliminaries of love. Left breathless at the daring discussion of it, she was relieved that further necessity for exposition was done.

  But no sooner had Mary relaxed than she was intimidated by a new series of queries on the act of marital love itself.

  “I don’t know exactly,” she found herself saying. “A couple of times we timed it, just for fun.”

  “Well, how long did it take?”

  “Once, three or four minutes, and then five minutes-about five minutes-and, the other time, the last I looked, it was almost ten minutes, but then I forgot to look again-maybe it was eleven or twelve minutes.”

  “Can you guess at an average?”

  “Five minutes.”

  Steadily, Cass translated to symbols the mingled shy and boastful details of young love.

  Often, in his mind, he mocked the naivete of her worldliness, and several times he suffered the emotion of grudging envy.

  “During the act of love, does it arouse you to watch your husband?” he asked.

  “I don’t watch.”

  “But when you do?”

  “It makes me happy, yes.”

  Automatically, Cass recorded the replies, glancing down the remainder of the page and estimating that it would be fifteen minutes more and that they would be done at three-forty-five. He wondered if he could hurry it. He had the pressure and throb over his right temple, the usual prelude to migraine, and he wanted to lie down for ten minutes before the next interview at four o’clock. Well, what was left? The series of questions on extramarital experiences. Then the short second category on psychological attitudes. And, finally, the third category on reactions to sex stimuli. He was tempted to omit most of what remained. He could accurately forecast her answers. Several times recently he had been so tempted. But again, as before, remembering Dr. Chapman’s persistent warnings that all standard questions be read fully, he repressed the notion. Instead, for variety, he decided to skip to the third category and return to the rest later.

  He found the place on the page.

  “Do you see the maroon box at your feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open it. Take out the first photograph on top. Study it for a moment.”

  He heard her fumble with the lid, then remove the photograph. He heard her strained silence.

  “What do you see? I want to be sure you have the right one.”

  “It’s a … a picture of a classical statue-Greek, I suppose.”

  “A nude adult male and rather handsome,” added Cass. “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Hermes of Praxiteles. Now to the question. Does observation of the nude male in that photograph arouse you at all?” Inevitably, the statistical summary to date came to mind. “Four per cent are strongly aroused, eleven per cent only somewhat, and eighty-five per cent not at all.” Her answer would be no.

  “No,” said Mary through the screen.

  But Cass had already marked the answer before hearing it, and, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, wishing he were free to take something for his head, he moved the pencil point down to the next question.

  When Mary McManus arrived at the parking lot, hardly aware of walking the block from the Association building, she found the new Nash Rambler that was her father’s anniversary gift and settled herself behind the wheel. She made no effort to turn the ignition key. She sat, holding the wheel with both hands, trying to sort out her emotions.

  As in her attendance of Dr. Chapman’s lecture, which had disappointed, she had expected something practical and useful for herself from the interview, and now realized that again she was disappointed. The past hour and five minutes had been far different from what she had anticipated. Her two years of marriage to Norman, in every respect normal if one believed those marriage manuals, had convinced her that she was sexually sophisticated. But now she saw that her father had been right (as ever). The interview, with questions bold, intimidating, and generally startling, had been an unexpected ordeal.

  Yet, reviewing it, she could not find a single inquiry that had been either improper or salacious. Nor had she been interrogated about a single matter that she had not, at some time, personally experienced or heard about or read about. Until this afternoon, the act of love had been the most natural thing on earth. But the persistent and detailed questions about every aspect of it-foreplay, position, those proddings about the climax-behavior she had never before dwelt upon-seemed to inflate the natural act beyond previous proportions.

  Now, thinking it through, beyond the spinning bewilderment, she began to see that her sexual life with Norman-how much she adored him! how special he was!-was not merely one more gift of growing up, one more activity appended to the threesome that had so long been father, mother, daughter, the Ewing family. Rather, it was an act of serious importance that stood alone and concerned only the husband and wife, the McManus family. It seemed to be the one pleasure that was peculiarly her own, that could not be superimposed upon her previous existence. For the first time, she understood that the intimacy she shared and enjoyed with Norman, suddenly so complicated and unique, had no relationship to the old family or the old way but was part of a new family and a new way that cleaved her sharply from the recent past.

  Until this moment, nothing else had been entirely her own. The steering wheel beneath her hands, the miniature sedan that coolly enclosed her, were cords binding her to the safe, dependent, ancient life, as did her features, her blood, her memories. When Norman had wanted to purchase the used Buick on payments, her father had ridiculed the idea and generously surprised them with the new Nash. Her father had given Norman a ready-made career, future unlimited, and saved him and both of them the inevitable struggle that would have resulted had Norman plunged headlong into that romantic partnership with Chris Shearer. And the whole mature concept of remaining unburdened by children, until they were older, saner, more secure, had been the fruits of her father’s wisdom. Yes, e
verything, it seemed, was tied to what she had been, was still part of, except the answers she had given to questions in that room of the Association building.

  She reached for the dashboard and turned the key. The motor caught at once and hummed quietly. Even before the interview she had planned to visit her father afterward. She had felt guilty and unhappy in siding with Norman against him, in rebelling against his proved judgment by submitting to the interview. She had felt that the least she could do would be to heal the hurt. After the interview, she had told herself earlier, she would casually drop in on him at the plant, as she had so often before, and then father and daughter would chat of many things, in the old familiar way, not mentioning the interview but both tacitly understanding that she owed something to Norman’s authority although still (as evident) her father’s daughter.

  But when she wheeled the small sedan out of the lot and drove down Romola Place to Sunset Boulevard, she knew that part of her plan, the most essential part, had been changed.

  Inexplicably, her need was for Norman this moment, not for her father. She must find Norman, her poor darling, and go into his arms, and tell him how much she loved him.

  She steered off the Sunset ramp onto the freeway, proceeding in the slow lane, behind trucks, until the freeway merged with Sepulveda. Riding south, past the International Airport, she presently made out the towering sign in the distance that read Ewing Manufacturing Company. After parking in the executive section, she hastened, in long strides, toward the imposing entrance and left behind the sticky outer air for the chilled interior of the plant’s main corridor.

  She was hurrying up the corridor toward Norman’s office, in the wing behind her father’s suite, when she saw Miss Damerel emerge from the ladies’ room. Miss Damerel, whose hair was iron gray and severely shingled, whose suits were iron gray and sharply cut, was Harry Ewing’s private secretary and had been such for more than twenty years.

  “Why, Mary,” Miss Damerel called out, “it’s so nice you could drop by. Your father will be pleased to see you.”