Wife On Demand

by Alexandra Sellers

  Sometimes she could imagine him standing over her, large and strong, could feel him in the darkness, and she would put up her arms and, tasting his nearness, feel him lie down on her body, even the weight of him. Then the memory of the thick length of his sex entering her would boil in her, and her blood coursed through her with such deep excitement that she moaned aloud.

  She did not give herself release. She tried once, but it was shallow, a lie that did not release the deep psychic need that consumed her. She remained instead within a cocoon of desire that burned and melted in her for days on end, her whole body on some other plane of existence. Her skin shivered inside her clothing, her thighs were hot with readiness for him, she was in a permanently aroused state, physically expectant, a woman whose lover has briefly broken off proceedings to take a sip of warm brandy which he is going to lick onto her already trembling body...

  His signature at the bottom of a business letter when she opened a file was enough to make her visualize his hand, and if she visualized his hand, she felt it stroke her, and if his hand stroked her... Hope inhabited two realities. The one where she was always with him, and that other, the one people called the “real world,” which seemed less and less important to her.

  She hung her bedroom with her oils of him. On certain nights she awoke to find the moon highlighting one or the other of them, making the skin come alive. Then she would remember the days she had spent painting it, and the heat of those long summer afternoons would happen again in the room, so that she was sweating.

  She painted him from memory. That was perhaps the highest sensual experience of all. Re-creating him under her brush, watching his body form as she stroked it, the slipperiness of the oils all that was between them...it was almost desperately erotic.

  She painted him as an ancient ithyphallic god, his sex hugely enlarged; as hungry, painting it, as she had been when she kissed it and took it deep into her mouth.

  She painted less and less figuratively after a while, expressing herself instead in wild colours and suggestive shapes, so that the canvas seemed on fire with physical and mental need. She painted fire, she painted flood, she painted scorching sun and burning heat, and storm and hurricane.

  But always it was Jude she painted. Jude, who looked at her and said, “Don’t come here, Hope.”

  “The police came and took a statement from me,” she said, on one visit. “They’re going to call me as a witness for the prosecution.”

  Jude stared at her. “You? Why?”

  “That letter—that letter from Bill Bridges they found in the files. Warning you about the results.”

  “There was no letter from Bill Bridges warning me about results,” Jude stated flatly.

  “No,” she said, licking her dry lips and dropping her head. God, if only she could hold him! The look in his eyes was so dark and angry, but if she could hold him...

  “You saw a letter?” he demanded, as if realizing it was futile to shout denial at her. “They showed it to you?”

  She nodded.

  “Why? What’s it got to do with you?”

  “It’s got my initials on it.”

  Jude’s eyes narrowed and he swore violently under his breath. “That’s impossible! You weren’t even there! What did it say? What’s the date on it?”

  He made her nervous and she began to stammer.

  “Hope, calm down and tell me. I’ve got to know.”

  “It’s dated August first, Jude.”

  “August first! The whole damned thing was built by August first! I saw the test results months before that! Who the hell are they trying to kid?”

  His voice crackled hoarsely in the intercom that connected them. His eyes were hollow, his face pale. She wanted so desperately to help him, and all she could do was bring him evil news. They had shown her the letter, and it was stamped with the Thompson Daniels Received stamp, and initialled with Hope’s initials, but Hope could not remember having seen it before.

  “Jude, the letter has my initials on it,” she said baldly, not looking at him.

  “Had you seen it before? Did you remember initialling it?”

  “I couldn’t remember. I can’t say whether I’ve seen it or not. I didn’t necessarily read everything I opened.”

  “For God’s sake, you’d have remembered that! A letter telling me—what did it say?”

  “It said that they’d now completed all the testing on the more extreme forms, and were enclosing the test results. They pointed out specifically that all but one of the forms were within the specifications of your design, but that one shape had showed unexpected expansion or flexibility, or some phrase like that. They suggested that you modify the secondary structure to allow for greater movement at those critical points.”

  Jude was silent when she stopped speaking. There was a frown of concentration on his forehead. “What the hell is Bill Bridges playing at?” he asked himself after a moment. She made no response.

  “And was it marked for enclosures?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re supposed to have forgotten whether you saw it or not? Don’t be ridiculous, Hope! Either you saw it or you didn’t. It’s not something you’d forget! If you saw it, you passed the test results and the letter on to me. Are you telling me you absent-mindedly filed such a thing without mentioning it?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Well, if you’d passed it to me, believe me, I’d have remembered it! So if you didn’t pass it to me, and you didn’t file it, Hope—it never arrived!”

  “But they’re my initials, Jude!”

  “Somebody has forged them. Forgery’s the easiest art there is! Initials—anybody can make a squiggle!”

  “Jude, the stamp was our stamp, and it was found in our files—what are you suggesting? That the police are party to a fraud of that magnitude?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Jude, this is Canada, not Czechoslovakia, and you are not a political prisoner.”

  “Hope, you did not see that letter. It is impossible that you saw that letter. It did not exist. I saw the test results for every single form we used before the end of June. There was nothing to come, and if there had been a discovery of some kind of test error, Bill Bridges ought to have phoned me as a matter of absolute priority. I had a building going up! Now, make up your mind that if you had seen that letter you would remember it, Hope!”

  He was right. Of course. Her mind seemed to clear suddenly of doubt. She had been so deeply involved with her sudden new relationship with Jude in early August, and she had begun to imagine, when the police took her statement, that she had initialled the letter and passed it on without taking in the importance of the contents.

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said, smiling at him with a huge feeling of relief. “Of course I’d never seen the letter. I would remember, wouldn’t I?”

  Their eyes met, and it was only as their gaze locked that she realized how rarely they now allowed themselves to meet each other’s eyes. The flame of deeply suppressed desire puffed into life between them. That was all it took, just his dark eyes fixed on her, and she felt his hands on her face, her breasts, her thighs. She could feel her own sex swell with the heat of blood, and moisten with the liquid of desire, making her ready for him. She knew, she was certain, that his flesh was hard, that he too was ready for her.

  “Hope,” he breathed, and involuntarily his hand came up to press the glass that separated them. Her own hand flattened against it of its own accord, and ached with the force of the current that passed from him to her. “Hope, I’m sorry I’ve been so hard—it’s the only way to stay sane in here.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “It’s all right, Jude, I know. I won’t come unless it’s necessary.”

  “If I think about you I’ll go mad.”

  “Don’t think about me.” She drew her hand down, breaking the connection. She could feel pain all along her arm and into her breast. “See you, my da—Jude.”


  She got up quickly and left.

  The prosecution put on a methodical case. They called the investigators who had examined the site and the shards of broken glass, and heard that several pieces of one particular shape had probably started the disaster. The days of extreme heat and then the sudden cooling had been more than these shapes could withstand. They had shattered, abruptly altering the pressure inside the building, and hurling chunks of broken glass against neighbouring sheets of glass, also at their limit because of the freak conditions. The hot air in the building rushing out into the suddenly cold outside air had also made a contribution to the destabilizing of the whole. There had been a kind of explosion, such that for some time there had been some question in the examiners’ minds whether it was due to a bomb or a gas leak. But they were now satisfied that it was down to a design fault, the glass being subjected to stress it could not withstand.

  They called an officer from the Serious Crime Squad, who testified that several letters later to be used in evidence had been taken from the files of the offices of Thompson Daniels. A document from DeMarco Test Laboratories, each page of which was stamped with a Thompson Daniels Received stamp, detailing the test results, had been found misfiled in the dead files.

  Bill Bridges, the president of Environmental Glass Systems, testified that the tests on all the various forms of the curvilinear glass—which had been specifically developed for the Rose Library—had been ongoing throughout June and July, that Jude Daniels was aware that they were ongoing, and that only one form had not proven to be equal to the stresses that might occur in situ. When those results had been complete he had called Jude Daniels to tell him, and had sent a cover letter with the full test results calling his attention to the particular results that put shape 31AA on the safety borderline. He had suggested that the structure as originally designed should be modified by the installation of a channel frame around those pieces, to allow for the greater thermal movement the one particular form proved to have. Jude Daniels had replied that channel frames around these pieces would spoil his design because, unlike the silicone glass-to-glass joint on all the other pieces, they would be visible. He had urged Jude Daniels to examine the test results carefully before making a final decision.

  He identified the letter and the lab report as being those which he had sent through ordinary mail.

  “On what date did you call Jude Daniels to tell him these test results were coming?” asked the defence on cross-examination.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” said Bill Bridges. “Around the time of the date of the letter.”

  “How close to the date of the letter?”

  - “Within a day.”

  “By phone, or in person?”

  “By phone.”

  “Where did you talk to him?”

  “Over the phone.”

  “I mean, where did you call him? Where was Jude Daniels when you phoned?”

  “I don’t remember now whether I called him at the office or on his portable.”

  “Did you ever discuss the results with him after Jude Daniels had seen the tests?”

  Bill Bridges pulled his ear. “Oh, ah...I don’t think so.”

  “You mailed the results by ordinary mail?”

  “I believe so.”

  “It didn’t occur to you to send such a significant document by courier, or registered mail?”

  “Not then, no. Now, of course, I wish I had thought of it.”

  “Why?”

  Bill Bridges stared. “Why? Well, because...” He faded off.

  “Go on, Mr. Bridges. I’d like to hear why you think things would have been different if you had sent the results by registered mail.”

  “Well, just to make sure.”

  “So there’s some doubt in your mind whether Jude Daniels ever saw these test results. Ever heard of them.”

  “No...no, there’s no doubt.”

  “We only have your word that the conversation you talk about ever took place. You can’t remember where you called him, or when you spoke to him. Are you absolutely sure you remember talking to Jude Daniels at all?”

  “I’m sure I talked to him,” said the witness testily.

  “But you’ve admitted that perhaps if you’d sent the results by a more certain method, this tragedy of the explosion of the glass your company manufactured might not have happened! Now what is the jury to take that to mean, except that you are afraid Jude Daniels never saw these results, never knew anything about them?”

  “He knew. I told him myself.”

  “But you don’t remember the date.”

  “It was close to August first.”

  “And you don’t remember the time.”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t remember whether when you called him he was at the work site or the office or in the bathtub or in bed.”

  “He wasn’t in the bathtub and he wasn’t in bed.”

  “If you called his portable, how do you know that?”

  They called an engineer from DeMarco Test Laboratories, the independent lab, who testified that they had done the testing of the various glass shapes throughout June and July of that year and had delivered the final results already in evidence to Environmental Glass towards the end of July.

  They called a weatherman who detailed the extremes of the weather during the weeks prior to the disaster, and outlined in formal terms just what atmospheric conditions had produced the sudden temperature drop and the hail.

  Hope was in the courtroom for every minute, and each time Nicholas Harvey got to his feet for the cross-examination she relaxed a little more. He was masterly, easygoing, but getting to the central weakness every time. And where there wasn’t one, he made it look as though there was. They were going to win. She was sure of it.

  “Call Corinne Lamont.” The Crown Prosecutor looked towards the judge. “Your Honour, this is a hostile witness. We may need a certain latitude here.”

  As an almost beautiful blonde woman approached the witness box, Nicholas Harvey got to his feet.

  “I see no reason why this witness should be hostile to the Prosecution’s case, Your Honour. Quite the contrary,” he said.

  Hope sat forward curiously. Weird. Who was this woman?

  “As she is the fiancée of the defendant...” the Crown Prosecutor began, and there was a roaring sound in Hope’s ears as the world closed in. She fought the beckoning oblivion. She would not faint. She could not. It was a trick, a trick.

  “...and never has been, and I move that my learned friend’s comments be struck from the record and that the jury be instructed to ignore them!” Nicholas Harvey was saying indignantly.

  The judge leaned forward on his elbows and addressed stern words to the Crown Prosecutor, and then spoke briefly to the jury, but all Hope could do was sit upright and pretend to be alive while Corinne Lamont smiled long and lovingly at Jude and knives tore at her heart and gut and the heat of her own spilled blood flooded her.

  When she could hear again, the deep pink, perfect mouth was saying with a sweet smile, “I’m listed in the casting directory as actress/singer/dancer.”

  Oh, Jude.

  “...with the defendant?”

  “Well, sort-of fiancée, I guess you’d call it. We’re not exactly engaged.”

  “Can you explain more clearly to the jury?”

  She obediently turned to the jury. “I got offered work at the last minute on a cruise liner for the summer, as a performer. Our relationship was just at a point...well, the job came at kinda the wrong time, but I wanted to take it. And Jude said, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, maybe we’d get a better feeling for what we both wanted if we separated for a while. So we sort of agreed that we’d take this as time to think, and then when I came back, if we still felt the same, we’d get permanent.”

  Hope’s stomach was churning. The knives were cutting her apart. She was going to be sick. She had to get out before the tears spilled over, before she made a fool of herself...
r />   “Under this agreement, did you feel free to look at other men?”

  “No.”

  But she couldn’t leave. She had to listen. She had to know.

  “Was Jude Daniels free to look at other women?”

  A flicker of a glance at Jude, and then away. “We didn’t discuss it.”

  So she was a fool, a woman who didn’t know the difference between a love that could never die and a summer fling. Hope could scarcely control her response to this final destruction of her world. There was bile in her throat.

  “You didn’t ask him, and he did not promise, not to get involved with anyone else?”

  “Your Honour, may we know where all this is leading? This sounds like a fishing expedition and I’m curious as to what my learned friend is hoping to catch,” said Nicholas Harvey before the witness could answer.

  “May the jury be excused while we discuss this, Your Honour?”

  There was an interminable delay while the judge so ordered and the twelve members of the jury struggled out of their seats and out the door. The witness departed too, and then there was a low-voiced argument between the two lawyers in front of the judge. Hope sat in sickening suspense through it all, and only when Corinne Lamont was getting back into the witness box did she think that it might be better not to hear this. But to get up now and struggle out in front of everyone was more than she could do.

  “Now, Miss Lamont, if you remember. I was asking you whether you and the defendant had a mutual agreement and commitment to avoid other relationships during your own absence on a cruise ship in the summer.”

  “No, we didn’t,” Corinne Lamont said flatly, but with a tremble in her voice that made it clear she was lying.

  “Why not? If this was a testing time, isn’t part of such a test the discovery of whether each party can remain faithful during an absence?”

  The actress shrugged with charming candour. “I knew that if Jude really loved me, it wouldn’t matter who he saw while I was away. I mean, it’s the bird in the cage, isn’t it? You open the c-cage door to let it out, and if it’s really yours, it’ll come back to you. If it doesn’t, it was never yours in the first place.”