Naked Came the Stranger (23 page)

"No. I told you. No!"

"Isn't that amazing?" she said.

"I guess I sound like a real idiot to you."

"Not at all, Mel. You're a doll. But tell me, why not? Are you
afraid?"

"No, it's not that. I mean, I'm not a prude or anything. I just
don't think it's right. I don't believe in the double standard."

"Ummm," she said. "You are a challenge."

The martini had anesthetized Melvin; it was as if what was
happening couldn't touch him. Or at least he couldn't feel shock. But
his physical feelings were intact. He'd had a stiff one ever since
she'd put her hand on his wrist.

"Take your glasses off," she commanded. He obeyed instantly.

"You have very sensitive eyes," she said. "I'll bet you're a very
sensitive man."

RRRRR. "That's Myrna!" Melvin yelled in alarm as he heard the car
come up the driveway outside.

"How nice!" said Gillian Blake, and suddenly she was pressing
herself against him. Melvin responded to her kiss, and she pushed his
hand against her breast, and there was all the softness he had ever
dreamed of.

"Gilly, Gilly," he groaned.

Gillian gently pushed him away as Myrna reached the front door.
"You're a sweetie," she said.

How he ever got through the next half hour was a mystery to
Melvin. Gillian told Myrna that she had been canvassing, and that
Melvin had offered her a drink. As it turned out, Myrna's major
reaction was one of excitement because Gillian Blake had been in her
house. "I'm amazed that you had the sense to offer her a drink,"
Myrna told Melvin afterwards. She laughed.

"Although I think you're a little potted. You should be careful,
you know you're not much of a drinker."

She asked Melvin what he had talked to Gillian Blake about. He
said they had discussed King's Neck and the Blakes's radio
program.

"She's a very sexy woman," Myrna said. "But I'm lucky. I know I
don't have to worry about you."

That night, Gillian Blake filled Melvin's mind as he huffed over
his wife. But Myrna just lay there, a broomstick. He tried to feign
orgasm. "I love you," he said. Then he went into the bathroom with a
copy of a new men's magazine called
Modern Mammaries.

Myrna was still awake when he came back to bed. "You made
believe," she said.

"No," he said. "I love you." But he was thinking about Gilly,
about how she would be in bed. Christ, the way her breasts had felt
beneath the jersey. Only he couldn't. It was bad enough that he had
gone as far as he had. It was the martini that had made him lose
control. And the fact that Gillian, for some reason, was attracted to
him. But the way she had felt. And the way she had kissed. He had
practically been unfaithful just kissing her.

It was a sleepless night for Melvin as his mind raced and plunged
with thoughts of Gillian Blake. Gilly in a bra and panties. Gilly
nude. Gilly undulating in front of him. He and Gilly on a tiger skin,
with her on top of him. Oh, Gilly, Gilly, Gilly. They were on a
balcony overlooking a moon-dappled sea, and she was touching his bare
chest with her fingertips. They were in a rickshaw making love as
they were pulled through the streets of Shanghai. They were aboard a
train rushing through the silent night. They were on a white sand
beach with breakers roaring in the distance. Gillian was whispering
in his ear. "The trouble with you, Melvin," she was saying, "is that
you've never been laid."

"But I have," he was saying. "Ask Myrna."

"Myrna!" The Gillian Blake dominating his imagination was
laughing. "Myrna doesn't count."

The next day was Sunday. Melvin was guilt-stricken about what had
happened between him and Gillian Blake, but he knew he could never
tell Myrna about it. It was something he would always have to live
with. It gnawed at him. Usually, he told Myrna everything. The
slightest guilt bore him down. He was miserable. He wanted to be nice
to Myrna, and he knew he was being nasty. There was no softness to
her, no grace. She was annoying. Skinny, nervous, darting, bugging
him all the time. He snapped at her, and she told him to watch
himself in front of the boy. "I don't know what's gotten into you,"
she said.

They were sitting on the patio, and the May sun was giving Melvin
a headache. He wondered what Gillian Blake was doing, and he thought
about what it would be like with her on a patio. Gilly, Gilly. He
looked at Myrna and tried to smile. "You're right," he said. "I
apologize."

"I' m sorry I yelled at you," she answered.

"It's okay," he said. Damn her. She was wearing an outfit like the
one Gillian Blake had worn the day before, but on Myrna it just hung.
Melvin got up and went into the house. "I have to go to the
bathroom," he said.

He was at his desk the following day, when Gillian Blake called
him. Just like that. "Hi sweetie, this is Gilly." Wow!

"Look," he said. "Uh, about what happened Saturday. I, well,
I…."

"You enjoyed it," she said.

"Yes, but what I have to say is that, um, well is, uh…"

"Don't say anything. Or better still, tell me at lunch."

"No," he said. "I couldn't, I mean…."

"Don't tease a girl, Mel. I said lunch and I mean lunch." She
named a place in the East Fifties. "One o'clock," she said.

They had lunch. It was a French place. Even the vegetables were
fancy. Sitting at a table with her, Melvin felt like a million
dollars. He could feel the other men in the room looking at him
enviously. He found himself drinking a Bloody Mary.

"We can't see each other any more," Melvin said.

"Nonsense," she said.

"You don't understand. I mean, you're the most exciting woman I've
ever known."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"I know this sounds silly, but I just can't do something like that
to my wife."

"I don't want you to do it to your wife," she said. "I want you to
do it to me."

Melvin was shaking. He ordered lobster tails, but he was never
conscious of tasting them. All he was conscious of was Gillian, who
was sensational in a simple black dress with a strand of pearls. He
had another Bloody Mary, and lapsed into half-stammers. He couldn't
stop looking at her. She had ordered snails, and was popping them
into her mouth.

In the taxi on the way back to her office, Melvin told Gillian
once more that he couldn't see her again. She smiled. Then she took
his hand and stuck it beneath her skirt, moving it up her leg to
where the nylon ended and the flesh began. Then she kissed him, and
their tongues were inside each other's mouths. Melvin remembered
thinking that, if it wasn't for the Bloody Marys, he probably would
have come.

"Jeez," the cabbie said afterward, as he dropped Melvin off at his
office. "that was Gillian Blake, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Melvin.

The cabbie kept staring at him.

"Uh, she's a neighbor," Melvin explained.

That night was worse than the one before. Gilly never left his
mind. Myrna had spent a difficult day: She had lost a garden club
election, the cleaning girl had gotten sick and David had misbehaved
in school. "You've got to deal with him," Myrna said.

"What's wrong with you?"

"You're the father."

"Look, I've had a hard day at the office."

"And what about me? That damn girl. You see how you like cleaning
this house."

"Maybe you need a little work. Maybe then you won't be such a
goddamn nervous wreck."

"Oh, is that what I am? And what about you? I don't think you've
heard a word I said in the last three days."

"Dammit, Myrna, leave me alone, will you?"

"You really are upset, aren't you?" Myrna said as she looked at
him. "All right, I'm sorry I snapped at you. So what's the
matter?"

"For crying out loud," Melvin, screamed. "Get off my back, will
you!"

"Melvin, what is it?"

"Aw, shut the hell up, you skinny bitch!"

Myrna ran upstairs crying. That night, Melvin slept on the
playroom couch. Gilly, Gilly. God, but he wanted to make love to her.
But he couldn't. He just couldn't. It was wrong. Wrong. It was
against everything that mattered. It was, well, immoral. He just
hadn't been brought up that way. He was no crazy Gentile. He just
couldn't.

Poor Myrna, he thought. He did love her. They had so much else
together, so much that was meaningful. But, oh Gilly – the feel
of your body, the warmth of your flesh. Oh Gilly, Gil-leeeee.

He called her the following morning from work. "I've got to see
you, " he said. "I've got to explain to you why it has to end."

"You don't have to explain anything, Mel," she said.

"You just have to do what you know you want to do."

"No," he said. "That's just it. I can't. I can't be unfaithful to
my wife."

"Sweetie," she said, and her voice was purring into the phone.
"Why don't you just shut up?"

"Gilly," Melvin moaned. "Gilly."

"Look," she said, "I'm leaving for King's Neck in an hour." She
told Melvin to take an early train and come straight to her house.
"And face it, baby," she said.

"You're going to get laid."

Melvin Corby was like a somnambulist all the way to King's Neck.
When he got into his car at the station, the trance turned into
tension. He drove seventy miles an hour all the way to the Blake
home. She was waiting in the living room for him – the very
incarnation of desire in a diaphanous peignoir, with her hair falling
in loose waves to her shoulders, her perfume scenting the room. She
was sex, excitement, eternal woman. She was all of Melvin Corby's
daydreams rolled into one incredible bundle. She was all the men's
magazines he had ever read, all the pieces of ass Charlie Rider had
ever talked about. She was Gillian.

Melvin stared wildly at her, his face burning, his hands shaking.
No! his mind screamed inside itself. No!

"I can't," he said. "I can't. Don't your understand?"

She was breathing rapidly, her breasts rising and falling beneath
the silken gown, her eyes burning into him, her tongue caressing her
lips. "Sweetie," she said in a voice that was pure provocation, "do
it to me."

"No!" and he was shouting it out loud. "No!"

Slowly, softly, her eyes never leaving him, she undid her robe and
let it fall to the floor.

She simply stood there, the embodiment of Melvin's fantasies
– a sex goddess in a black lace bra and panties, bikini-style
underthings that overwhelmed Melvin with loin-swelling desire.

"I won't do it!" he shouted. "I won't do it!"

Gillian Blake stood in the center of the room, lithe and soft, the
ultimate in ecstasy on a fluffy blue carpet. Then she started moving.
First the bra, then slowly, ever so slowly – Oh Christ! –
the panties.

"Please," Melvin cried. "Please!"

Her eyes were half closed, her body was alive as she moved toward
him, twisting and undulating.

"I won't!" Melvin yelped. "You can't make me!"

She was directly in front of him now, her hands cupping her
rose-tipped, thrusting breasts, her thighs and belly moving back and
forth, her soft golden muff pulsing to take him.

"No!" Melvin screamed.

She reached out and unzipped him. "Now," she whispered, as her
hands stroked and massaged his treacherous organ.

"No!" Melvin yelled. "I love my wife!" He pulled away and ran for
the door. He was groaning and sobbing as he galloped down the walk to
his car. Somehow he got inside and started the motor. Gunning the car
home, he was without coherent thought – his mind was a
twisting, turbulent whirlpool. He was still moaning as he rushed into
his house. He was a nightmare apparition, his hair wild and his
jacket open.

Myrna was at the stove. "Is that you?" she called. "I hope you're
in a better mood. The girl is still sick. And David hurt his knee,
and…."

Then she saw him. "What in the world?"

Melvin Corby stopped for a moment, and stared at his wife. She was
perspiring from the heat of the stove, her hair was in curlers, her
eyes bugged at him from behind her glasses, her body was an obstacle
course of sharp angles, and the thought of going to bed with her made
him sick.

"My God, Melvin," she said. "Zip your pants up!"

Snap! Something broke inside his head, and it seemed to Melvin
that the sound must have filled the house.

"Goddamn you to hell!" he screamed. Bang! His first punch caught
her in the mouth.

Neighbors on Selma Lane heard the shrieking and called the police.
They stood outside their houses in groups and watched the police car
drive up. Then they watched the ambulance. The ambulances – two
of them. One for a battered, bewildered Myrna Corby, the second for
the screaming strait-jacketed figure of Melvin Corby.

Gilly: Did you notice the article in
Time
this week about homosexuality, Billy?

Billy: Yes, I did, dear, and it was shocking to find out how
rapidly the number of homosexuals in our country is
increasing.

Gilly: It certainly makes you wonder about the way we're
bringing up our children. I mean, that's when it starts.

Billy: Well obviously, it's an illness, and it should be
treated as such.

Gilly: I think the trouble is they haven't found the right way
to treat it, yet.

The day was sultry and oppressive. Under the low,
thick blanket of clouds, one felt pressed down, glued to the boards
of the ferry lollygagging through the Great South Bay. Willoughby
Martin uncrossed his legs and lit a cigaret. He held the cigaret
daintily between index and middle finger. Darn! The humidity would
ruin his make-up.

He brushed a hand over his ash blond hair and wondered how to go
about making up with Hank. A weekend at Fire Island with an angry
Hank would be intolerable. They'd had a silly lovers' quarrel;
Willoughby wasn't even sure what had triggered it. The whole thing
was ridiculous because it wasn't as if they were newlyweds. Hank
– tall, angular, beaknosed Hank – had been Willoughby's
mate for two years, New York's gay set knew them as an ideal couple.
And their neighbors in King's Neck had accepted them into the area.
They were the community's pet homosexuals.