But now? Oh dear God, disaster!
She was pregnant. Nearly two months gone. After being initially startled by some telltale signs, she went to an unknown doctor across the Bay, not giving her right name. Then the tests, and the waiting, and the second visit for the final results: "My dear, you will give birth in July, God willing." Those words had sounded so fatal in her ears that Linda screamed all the way home that day, driving along the crowded freeway, turning her radio up loud so no one would hear her shrieking rage.
When Linda realized this baby had to be Brad Grogan's, her freeway aria rose several octaves. It was exactly seven weeks since he'd given her his demonstration in the station-wagon, and that was the only incident within memory when she'd had intercourse without contraception. Before and after, it had either been her Sunday evening diaphragm with David, or, more recently, the daily morning anti-Papal-pill for the newly rigid protection she'd been requiring of late.
She had been such an emotional wreck that awful evening after Brad's assault that it was hours before she'd remembered to douche. Then she'd begun plumbing her bruised depths with a vengeance, but feared it was already too late; and upon observing she might possibly do herself an injury if she didn't cease her fierce efforts, she tossed the bag aside and prayed for the guardian-angel of Planned Parenthood to keep her seedless and barren. Then promptly forgot the horrendous prospect of Brad Grogan's issue blossoming within her.
But it was in there, all right. His. Brad's calling-card and no mistake. Had to be. Black-haired, swarthy-faced Brad with his black-Irish Greek ancestry. There hadn't been a brunette in the family for centuries. Whose picture of her side of the family could she show David to prove from whence had sprung his black-haired child?
Well, there was nothing for it but to have this baby and somehow brainwash David into believing it was his own. He'd always jumped through all of her hoops before, so there was no reason to suppose he'd suffer a lapse in such reflex-conditioning now. If anything, he seemed more agreeable than ever. She couldn't remember when he'd been so passive and pliable. And he was so spent from some new assignment they'd given him at the office that he'd even cancelled his evening classes at U.C. However, he hadn't asked her to stop attending her fictitious book-club meetings two nights a week. On the other hand, he appeared to welcome those evening hours to himself, basking indolently on the divan, watching the children and the TV through half-closed eyes. The final settling-process, Linda supposed, although he seemed sadly young for such vegetation. Yet, this put him in a perfect frame of mind for her to start molding his psyche in advance. There had to be some way to get him to expect a black-haired, black-eyed baby.
She felt an urgent need to discuss this predicament with someone close. She thought instantly of Joyce and tried to visualize her old friend's horrified reaction to learn that she, Linda, had not only been more-or-less raped by her ex-husband, but was about to have his child, which, in a sense, would make her, Joyce, an ex-stepmother.
One morning it occurred to Linda that there was someone to go to, someone warm and understanding. Oh yes!.. the empathic confidante, the tolerant one. Darlene Morrison. She'd tell her what to do.
That morning Linda drove to an isolated phone-booth (would she ever be able to make a phone call from her own home again?) and called her new friend, telling her she had a serious problem she wanted to discuss with her. Darlene immediately assumed she was in some deep venereal trouble and promptly gave her the name of a discreet doctor… "Anything to keep you out of that Gestapo city-clinic on Chase Street. I swear, every time I go there they make me feel like I've just defected from the whole human race, just because I caught a little virus…"
"Oh no, you're quite wrong, Darlene," Linda laughed a bit nervously, "it's nothing like that. Although, in a way, I suppose it is something like that, depending on how you look at it."
"Hmmm… that sounds like I'd better have a look at it, darlin', and fast. You want to come over now?" It was eleven a.m. "It's a good time for me, Linda, because I'm due at the nursery at one, and tonight I'm doing three shows. Fridays are wild for me!"
Linda still found it difficult to adjust to Darlene's schizoid job-activities: co-managing a day-nursery five afternoons a week, and dancing topless on Broadway every weekend. "You're sure I won't be disturbing you?" said Linda.
"Hell no, baby, I'm on my second cup of coffee already. You can join me for half a dozen more. 'Course, we can't talk too loud, 'cause Johnny's got the swing-shift this week and he's still in the bedroom, snorin' his li'l ol' adenoids off!" Darlene's husband was a part-time merchant-marine and truck-driver; a big and power-fully-sexed simple soul.
"All right, dear," said Linda. "I'll see you in thirty minutes or so…"
And in an hour's time Linda had told Darlene the whole story, seated comfortably in the girl's cozy and attractive living-room and finishing her third cup of coffee. Darlene had been listening intently, smoking endless cigarettes and refilling her coffee cup. The lovely girl looked tawny and appealing in a loose-fitting robe of amber tulle, her lustrous auburn hair falling in soft cascades about her shoulders, the firm conical mounds of her breasts quite discernible under the filmy garment. What a strikingly beautiful creature she is, thought Linda; even more so because of the dusky golden bronze of her coloring. She also decided that Darlene was surely the most feminine woman she'd ever known. And yet, as she reviewed some of the intensity of their group-encounters, she found it damnably confusing that any girl this feminine could display such overt lesbian tendencies; especially since she seemed to be absolutely mad about her husband, both physically and romantically. Could wise old Freud and Kraft-Ebbing have been wrong after all when they pedantically discussed rigid patterns and syndromes of sexual behavior? And if they were mistaken, it meant that to deviate was healthy and universal, though not in the Catholic sense, of course. Oh dear!.. It was all too new and baffling for Linda Fortune.
And now, having fallen silent, she felt the girl's eyes probing hers. "Honey, do you know one thing?… I am on to you!"
"What do you mean by that?" asked Linda.
"You think I'm gonna advise you to get an abortion. That's really why you came here, girl, and that's what you want to hear, now isn't it?"
This took Linda by surprise, because she hadn't given a thought to what Darlene might suggest, but had simply wanted to unburden herself. "No, Darlene, believe me, you're quite wrong. Even if I were capable of such an act, there would be too many risks involved. I might never be able to have any more children, for one thing…"
Darlene gave her a speculative appraisal, as if to determine her sincerity. "Honey, you just said the right thing to the right person," she said, her face suddenly aglow with a warm smile. "Because listen, girl, I do not hold with abortion. It's against everything I stand for and dream about. I adore kids… I mean I really love them. That's why I've gotta work around 'em every day. You see, Johnny and me… we can't have kids. It's me, and it's purely physical, or glandular or whatever-the-hell they want to call it. Darlin', I cannot produce to save my soul, and I'm here to tell ya we have tried everything from hormones to voodoo to inhaling the bottled-breath of five trapped virgins… (that's a brand new one, hot from Europe!) All of which is one of the many reasons why my Johnny's such a sweet livin' doll of a husband, because… if he wanted to blast out on his own he could populate the whole Bay Area with all that juicy equipment he's got goin' for him-you dig?"
Smiling, Linda nodded, vividly recalling some of the plunging sessions which she, Darlene and Brad had managed with the heftily-built Johnny Morrison. Those many hours and moments had caused Linda to believe strongly in a nationwide program of 'Sex Education For Adults,' proving conclusively that one's body can go on living after marriage.