Unknown
Sally and Duke
Chapter 1
I wonder why it is, Sally Denham thought quizzically to herself, that nothing in life ever turns out quite the way you think it will? Take me, for instance, a born and bred New Englander-what am I doing in Quiggville, Tennessee? I'm not even sure I like the South (perhaps 'approve of' was more the term), yet here I am practically committed to spending the rest of my life here! Once Ray gets his partnership we'll be committed for sure.
Funny, how the expression had slipped into both their vocabularies so that one or the other of them seemed to use it several times a day.
Once we get the partnership. Will our lives really change so radically, and for the better, when the magic day comes? As a matter of black and white practicality they would. We know what the drugstore grosses every year, and the net. Half that net will be ours… not just a salary. A salary that was far too low considering what pharmacists were making elsewhere, even taking into account that this apartment over the store was thrown in free of rent and utilities. Ray, of course, wouldn't see that he could be making twice as much in Knoxville or Nashville, or anywhere else in the country. And as Sally pointed out, that they could save the necessary capital twice as fast.
"But then I wouldn't get this chance, the option that I have by working here!"
"Do you mean an option in writing, like on a piece of property?"
Sally's pretty brow wrinkled slightly.
"No, not an option in the literal sense. I meant the agreement between me and John Blodgett that I can come in as a full partner."
"And you have only his word on that?" the tiny furrows creased deeper and her clear grey eyes were disturbed, "No witnesses or anything?"
"Honey, that's the way business is done in small Southern towns… just by sort of talking things over. When the time comes, we'll draw up some kind of agreement. You have to remember that things are slow-paced here."
She would grant that. Things were snail-paced in Quiggville, in fact, and if it wasn't for the appointments of her piano pupils she often would not know what day of the week it was. Yet to see Ray so happy and absorbed in his work was worth it all, she felt. Traditionally a wife was the helpmate of her husband and should make the sacrifices and endure the necessary hardships to give him his start.
When they had met on the campus, Ray had made his prospects clear from the very beginning. His parents were dirt-poor farmers from the mountain area of Tennessee and he was attending school through a scholarship and money he had saved while in the army. Sally was not wealthy by any means, but certainly better off financially and in family background. They had married during their senior year and moved to Quiggville right after graduation. Ray had been recruited with glowing promises by John Blodgett… he needed a pharmacist immediately; the old man who had the job had died and the local residents had to go ten miles to the county seat to have prescriptions filled. In answer to Ray's questions about a share in the business he said he would be willing to take in a partner as soon as Ray could raise "a little cash to bind the deal" as he was occupied with other business interests and did not like to work in the store himself.
Sally never forgot her first look at Quiggville. It was little more than a crossroads, actually, with a square in the center of town where the roads met. The important stores and churches were located on the square, with a grassy park and the Confederate monument in the center.
Stretching beyond that were a few blocks of houses in each direction along the shady quiet streets… and then the shabby, haphazardlyplaced houses of the black people. A half-mile out of town was a new subdivision of rambling brick homes where the younger business and professional people lived and entertained each other with rounds of barbecues and cocktail parties.
The social position of the Denhams was not yet clearly defined. Ray had joined the Jaycees and Sally had been invited to some women's meetings, but they were not really "in", another fact which she found galling. Of course it was difficult to accept invitations or to entertain because of the long hours Ray worked and their shabby old apartment. Sally had painted and done a lot of fixing, but it was still dreary and depressing with its old-fashioned high ceilings and antiquated plumbing fixtures.
When they got the partnership they would buy a lot in Hickory Acres-their credit would be good then for a home building loan from the local bank. And they could afford to have a baby.
If we're still sleeping together, she said to herself. Oh, God, what makes me think of things like that? Of course we'll be sleeping together… we're husband and wife, and that's one of the most important things about marriage, isn't it? Yet after a year and a half together, the inexorable truth was that their sexual relationship was getting worse, not better. Since they had settled into the routine of their life in Quiggville, particularly, Ray initiated the sexual act less and less frequently. Sally never made advances to him, of course; she felt that was the man's prerogative and in any case her own sex drive seemed to be rather low… she could live with or without it… actually it was just a little bit distasteful to her, the whole messy thing. But she did worry about Ray's satisfaction and whether it was normal for him to so often be too tired or preoccupied.
Just last Sunday afternoon there had been a peculiar episode. She had been washing the lunch dishes while Ray sat in the living room reading the paper. Sally had not heard him enter the kitchen until the moment when he seized her around the waist. Of course she screamed and then laughed and they stood there together for a moment. Then Ray's hands had slipped upward to cup her firmly rounded breasts and she felt his lips nuzzling the back of her neck as he squeezed and kneaded the pliant, resilient flesh under his fingers. It wasn't that she didn't like to be caressed in that way, but her hands were wet and soapy and she didn't want to ruin his clean shirt… they were going for a drive as soon as she finished the dishes.
So she had continued with her work and acknowledged his presence only with a brief affectionate smile tossed over her shoulder at her young husband. He had kept his hands on her breasts and pressed closer behind her until she was wedged firmly between his body and the sink and his loins were up tight against the ample spheres of her buttocks. Suddenly she was uncomfortably aware that Ray had an erection and the hard throbbing bulk of his penis was pressing into the crevice at the end of her spine. Perversely, her only reaction was annoyance.
Why on earth, at such an inappropriate time? A peaceful Sunday afternoon and they were almost ready to go out. She set the last saucepan in the drain and pulled the plug, still pretending not to notice Ray's obvious arousal although his penis was now digging into her to the point of widening the split between the two soft fleshy cheeks of her buttocks. His hands slipped from her taut-stretched nipples and began to work up under her apron, massaging her flat little belly while from the rear he slowly rubbed his loins against her with insinuating pressure.
"Sally," his warm breath stirred in her left car, "let's go in the bedroom, honey!"
"Oh, Ray…" she protested gently, "here I've been hurrying to get ready while you read the paper, and now you want to fool around."
"Who's fooling around? I mean business, I'm horny as hell!"
"Ray!" she hated that vulgar expression. "I just don't understand why-I mean, of all times," it was difficult to hold her voice steady when his fingers had reached her pubic mound and were moving over the sensitive area in a slowly rotating motion that despite her annoyance was making her feel curiously weak and warm up between her legs. At that moment the wall telephone rang.
"Damn it to hell!" her husband cursed with surprising ferocity.
Sally twisted in his grip, "A-aren't you going to answer it?"