He was ashamed of it, but Vito’s first feeling was one of relief. He was pretty sure what it was that she would have demanded he swear to next, and he knew that such a vow would have put a great strain on his salvation. Marie was a very attractive girl, and he would now be forced into intimate daily contact with her. Vito doubted his ability to restrain himself in such a situation.
Still, at first he did restrain himself out of respect for Marie’s recent bereavement. Three times a day he called upon her to unlock the chastity belt. But he was most circumspect, and his fingers never trailed over her flesh as they had that first day he met her.
Marie, pure and innocent, didn’t even admit it to herself, but somewhere deep inside her she was disappointed at Vito’s scruples. In mourning for her mother, life was dull, and she had much time to remember the feeling Vito had once aroused. Piously, she dismissed the thoughts from her mind—but the feelings remained.
One day she called Vito. “Can you come right over?” she asked. “I need to be unlocked.”
“But it’s only three o’clock,” he protested. “You’re not due to be unlocked until six.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I’ve taken a laxative.”
“I’ll be right there!” ‘
That was the the first time. There were others after it. And their frequency grew until Vito came to tremble at the sound of the ringing telephone.
It rang at all hours. Early in the morning, at the most inopportune times during the working clay, in the middle of the night—at all hours. It’s all very well for a locksmith to have an obligation to his patients, Vito told himself, but this is ridiculous! And it got more ridiculous, until it reached the point where Vito’s life was so completely disrupted that he could neither work nor sleep. Finally, he decided to speak strongly to Marie.
“Look, this can’t go on,” he told her one night. “I can’t take it. Why can’t I just leave the key with you, and-—”
“You would break your deathbed promise to my mother?” Marie’s eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t help it! I’m cracking up! There’s no other way!”
“Yes, there is. There is another way. There is one way in which my demands on you might be lessened.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you married me!”
“Now, wait just a minute—!”
“It is the perfect solution! Don’t you see, Vito? If you marry me, you will be released from your promise to my dying mother. Once I am married, my virtue will no longer be at issue, and I can take charge of the key myself.”
“But, I don’t want— That is, I don’t think what I mean is I’m not ready— My financial position doesn’t allow— Shouldn’t love enter into-— Let’s not be hasty— Marry in haste and-—”
But all Vito’s protests were to no avail. In the final analysis, he had no choice. It was either marriage, or the nuthouse for him. He chose marriage.
And then there was the wedding night. In crisp, new silk pajamas, his hair combed neatly, an aura of after-shave cologne about him, Vito went to his bride. She lay on the bed in a filmy black nightgown, perfumed, her tongue peeping out between her lips, waiting. Vito dangled the key from his hand as he slowly approached her.
“And now this is yours.” He held it out to her.
“Thank you.” She took it and slipped it under her pillow.
“But aren’t you going to use it?’
“What for? I don’t have to go.”
Vito smiled at such naivete. “It is necessary,” he told her gently, “if we are to make love.”
“You mean that you wish me to submit to your carnal desire?” Marie sighed. “Mother told me that there would be nights like this.”
“You’ll enjoy it.”
“I will not! What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“My kind. My wife. Hurry. Unlock the damned thing.”
“Unlock it yourself if you’re in such a hurry,” Marie pouted.
Vito reached under the pillow, grabbed the key, unlocked the chastity belt, threw it aside, and flung himself over his wife. “At last!” he cried.
“Ouch!” she responded.
“There now, doesn’t that feel good?” he purred a moment later.
“I don’t feel a thing.”
“That’s not very tactful. Come on now. HOW about this?”
“I liked it better that first night when you were taking the belt off.”
“Don’t be silly! I was using metal tools then.”
“I know. That’s what I liked better.”
“Marie, you’re not trying.”
“Why should I? You’re trying enough for both of us.”
“There now! How about that? Wasn’t that thrilling?”
“Not as thrilling as the way the key felt when you used to unlock me.”
“Now! Now! Now!” Vito released his passion.
“Ho-hum . . .” Marie yawned.
“Phew!” Vito rolled over on his back.
“Are you finished now?” Marie asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I can put my chastity belt back on?”
“What for? I mean, you’re married now. There’s no need to --”
“I think there is. But you needn’t concern yourself, Vito. It is my responsibility now. Just because I’m married and no longer a virgin is no reason to allow myself to become promiscuous.”
It took a while before Vito truly appreciated the meaning of Marie’s last remark. At first he took her reluctance to have sex as simply the natural shyness of a new bride. But by the time the first year of their marriage had passed, he was facing the fact that he and Marie were engaged in an all-out battle over sex.
The battle centered around the key. Every night Marie hid it. And every night she came to bed with her chastity belt securely fastened in place. Two or three nights a week, they would have fights over her refusal to tell Vito where she’d hidden the key. But he only won the battles on the average of once a month.
Desperately, Vito attempted various sexual innovations, hoping they would arouse Marie’s appetite for making love. But they only disgusted her the more. And her attitude toward Vito became rigid with the conviction that he was a perverted and oversexed satyr. His frustration with his marriage grew and grew and grew. . . .
“Three years now it’s been like this,” Vito told Penny as they sat in the cocktail lounge and started on their third pair of martinis. “It’s driving me out of my mind. I need help!”
“I do sympathize,” Penny said earnestly. “But I honestly don’t see how I can help you.”
“I don’t know. I’m so confused. You’re my only hope. You see, when Marie took this job, I had hoped that it would change her. I thought working in an editorial office, coming into contact with sophisticated people, dealing with the romance problems presented in Lovelights, might broaden her outlook, increase her tolerance for sex, as it were. But it hasn’t worked out that way. She’s worse than ever. You’re her boss, and a woman of the world-—I can see that—perhaps if you could talk to her . . .”
“I don’t think it would help,” Penny said honestly. “For one thing, I’m not as experienced as you seem to think. I’m unmarried. I’m younger than Marie. I don’t think she’d have much respect for any advice I might care to give her.”
“Then what am I going to do? I can’t go on like this. I’m a normal man. I can’t take being locked out by my own wife. Look, let me be honest with you. I’m losing control of the situation. Last night, for instance-— I’ll tell you the truth. Marie isn’t out today because she’s sick. She’s absent because of last night.”
“What happened last night?” Penny asked soothingly.
“I wanted her. She was wearing her belt as always. I asked her for the key. She wouldn’t give it to me. She wouldn’t tell me where it was. I begged her. She refused. I broke down. I cried like a baby. That’s when she made her mistake. That’s when she laughed at me. She shouldn’t have done that. I went berserk. I ran into the kitchen. I got a hammer. I went back to her. I stood over the bed. She laughed again. I raised the hammer. And —”