The Housewife Blues (3 page)

But being a traditionalist did not mean that she was not
modern in her ideas. One did not have to be militant and outspoken to
understand her own version of liberation, which to her meant being respected by
men and consulted as an equal on those subjects where she could contribute. In
her mind, however, there was a distinct separation between home and business.
Home was, generally speaking, a woman's domain, and business, also generally
speaking, was a man's.

Her own mother, for example, ruled the roost with tact and
subtlety, never relegating her father to a secondary position in terms of respect
and the illusion of command. He was always the man of the house, an authority
figure to be deferred to and consulted for his wisdom and knowledge of the
world. Early on, Jenny recognized that her parents' home was a repository of
love and contentment. If she could replicate such a home in her life, Jenny
decided, that would be the ultimate fulfillment.

Unfortunately, there were drawbacks to her fulfilling these
dreams of love and contentment. The mating rituals in a small town did not
provide much variety in terms of husband material. Not if you were choosy like
Jenny, whose personality and good looks demanded that she choose a mate who was
a cut above most of the boys who stayed on in Bedford.

The local boys who were going to make something of themselves
had already moved out of town. This left the older men who had chosen to come
back and set up shop in the professions and started to raise their own
families.

It was slim pickings indeed, but this never depressed her.
She adored her parents and her brother, who had married a local girl before he
was twenty and already had three children, and he was just twenty-seven. She
envied him, but in a healthy way, not to the point of despair, and she loved
her nieces and nephew and never gave up on the idea that her man would come
along one day.

Her family, naturally, wanted her to "settle
down" and considered her too picky in her choice of men. Her defense was
that she prized her independence, which she did, although in her heart of
hearts she would have loved to settle down with the right man and raise a
family.

Jenny, who had her own small apartment not far from Dr.
Parker's office, loved to come over to her mother's house and help with the
chores. Most of the girls in town were well schooled in what was still referred
to in Bedford as the "domestic arts." They were taught cooking, the
care and cleaning of household furniture, sewing, knitting, petit point, simple
repairs, gardening, and little specialties such as putting up preserves and
canning. Weekly family gatherings were a ritual, as was going to church on
Sunday in your best clothes, having the neighbors in for barbecues, and
generally participating in community activities.

This did not mean that Bedford was isolated from the
realities of the surrounding world, the global village. It did, after all, have
cable television and access to a wide variety of other media that provided a
great deal of knowledge of what was happening beyond their cloistered
small-town world. It even had its share of what were once considered exclusive
aspects of big cities, drugs, crime, racial animosities, homosexuality, and,
even in Bedford, AIDS. Bedford also had its Republicans and Democrats, its
pettiness and gossip, its Gothic secrets, its hidden aberrations, its share of
pain and poverty. For people with oversize dreams and ambitions, Bedford was a prison. But not for Jenny.

Her father worked for a carpet manufacturer, a good solid
job with a pension and health benefits that paid enough for the family to own
their own small home with a nice yard and two old cars and to have raised a son
and a daughter. The concept of the family fortress, their good name, being
thought well of, doing the right thing, having compassion for the less
fortunate, and being decent to your fellow man was the bedrock of her family's
value system.

Jenny's value system did, however, have its private
exceptions, particularly in the practice of sexual congress, which carried with
it an element of hypocrisy. The sexual revolution was a fact of life and the
peer pressure extraordinary. It was the one value that couldn't, at this
juncture, be multigenerational. It was simply not in her parents' lexicon of
experience. Her mother had been a virgin until she was married, and, Jenny was
certain, she believed in her heart that the same was true of her daughter, all
the evidence around her notwithstanding.

Her one overt break with the family value system was when
she had an affair with a doctor who had offices in the same building as Dr.
Parker, Darryl Phipps, a man in his mid-forties who was going through a trial
separation at the time of their liaison. Yet officially he was still a married
man, which carried with it a stigma that made Jenny uncomfortable and forced
them into a secrecy that also made her ashamed.

In retrospect, Jenny rationalized, their affair was part
learning experience, part sexual awakening. Darryl Phipps was an import to Bedford, having married one of the local girls he had met on a skiing vacation. He was
East Coast Ivy League with a level of sophistication that was unknown in her
experience up until then. By osmosis and intimacy, she felt somehow socially
and culturally elevated by the relationship.

More important, Darryl had confirmed what she had
suspected, that her teenage jock boyfriend, long gone by then, was a sexual
illiterate and probably a premature ejaculator, a condition that, by the
testimony of her girlfriends, seemed to afflict the young men of Bedford in epic proportions. By contrast, her mature lover was enormously patient,
considerate, and wonderfully instructive. In the end he opted to return to his
wife and children. Actually Jenny felt relieved by his decision and was
enormously grateful for the experience. Discretion had left her reputation
intact, her self-esteem enhanced, and her sexual nature understood and vastly
reinforced.

This prior relationship stood her in good stead with Larry
Burns, who had been married once before for a brief period and was still bitter
about that episode in his life.

According to Larry, his former wife had been a journalist,
far more interested in her career than in him and their marriage. That was, in
fact, the hidden agenda of their whirlwind courtship and the one thing that set
Jenny apart from his former wife. It was, she told herself, fate intervening,
as if Larry Burns did indeed drop from heaven, right into the target's
bull's-eye. In a wife he wanted exactly what she aspired to be, homemaker,
mother, nurturer, devoted helpmate, lover.

To her family Larry was an awesome figure, a smashing
success in the advertising business, handsome, intelligent, articulate,
charming. He was extremely fastidious about the care of his body, and his
grooming was tasteful and immaculate. She liked that. It showed that he had
respect for himself and his good looks. Indeed, at that point in time she
enjoyed watching him pose and primp in front of the mirror, and she was oddly
pleased when she spotted him surreptitiously checking his image in whatever
reflection was handy. Even the after-shave he used was deliciously enticing.

He was also enormously organized, fastidious in keeping
records of his expenditures and allocating his time. This greatly impressed
her. It indicated that he was a man in charge of his own destiny, someone who
would be in control of his and his family's life, able to intelligently plan
the future, not be a victim of circumstances, a rolling stone.

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."