"Call me 'Dad' now, son."
"All right…" David grinned sheepishly at him, "Dad…"
Dad gave him a last paternally hot flank-pinch and told him to: "Hang in there, Tiger, we need you on our team!"
That day David drove home to safety and rejuvenation, thinking: oh golly, what a lucky young average rich suburban husband am I! At the brink of insanity itself I've found that the opiate of mindless conformity is still mine. Oh, it's quite true I'm being bought, sealed and delivered once again, but what a comfort not to have to go to strangers for that any more.
And the bonus? Brand new fruit-of-his-loins, new image growing immaculately in that incubator-chapel of Linda's belly. Last chance to perpetuate the surviving good in him, and exonerate.
TWENTY-TWO
For several months everything reverted to normal for Mr. and Mrs. David Fortune of Hillsborough. David was given a more responsible position at All-Plant Insurance, and would soon be earning forty thousand a year, instead of the measly twenty-five thousand he'd been pulling in before his fall from valor and inhibition. Montclair seemed impressed with the boy's staunch victory in his battle with the devil, although David suspected the old boy could do with a bit of guidance himself. While watching his goatish employer slap the rumps of both office-boys and secretaries, David wondered if there mightn't have been a Valerie Hudson in his life at one time. Or at least half a Hazel-Harry?
At home, too, the pattern snapped back to its treadmill of rigid sobriety, with their Sunday evening sex-skirmish as comfortably premeditated as ever. Having been over-rehearsed for years, Linda and David each did their "let's get convivial" bit, both afraid to let loose and show the other how many exotic new twists and tricks had been added to their repertoire. This sort of "opening-up" process was reserved strictly for strangers; for after all, as husband and wife their most important obligation was to remain good friends, and everybody knows that in passion lie all the seeds of hate. Neither of them had managed to retain any respect for the lovers they'd unearthed during their bacchanals, and such a flagrant lack of mutual esteem could never work in the home. Consequently, in bed this beautiful young couple continued to cool it, for the roles they'd sworn to enact were far too solemn for them to start enjoying their intercourse like a couple of loose-limbed pagans.
There was David's conscience, of course, which was still lodged thickly in his libido, although, for a while he tried desperately not to recognize this truth. However, even if he hadn't failed so miserably at the Prince of Vice, he would surely have taken the pledge anyway, after discovering that Linda was pregnant. If a philandering husband needed an Act of God to make him see the light, that was the act to do it. How shoddy and contrite David felt, to think that a part of him had been growing within her while he'd been out subverting his morals among strangers. To atone for this betrayal he would now devote his whole life to making her placid.
But as the months went by and Linda's time drew near, all of David's newly-paved sex-drives reared their knobby little heads again; for now even the Fortunes' limited bedtime gymnastics had to cease. But oh dear Lord!.. How Linda longed to show him those other methods she'd learned, the moist French-style sharings taught to her by Brad and Darlene and their revolving chain of team-mates; David, at the same time, wishing he might put her through those very same wet-paces. Yet, since they were honor-bound to stick to the scripture, each were thwarted by those unwritten laws of connubial temerity.
"Can you be patient for a few weeks, dear?" she would ask, giving him one of her close-mouthed "I'm Your Auntie Wife!" kisses.
"Yes," sighed David. "If it takes forever, I will wait for you." But he didn't sing it.
And he waited. Those were the bad weeks. All the gut-tearing fevers and images came back to him, assailing. He would lock himself in the bathroom at home, the men's room at work, and desperately wag himself rigid with nostalgia, summoning up all those wistful losses… voluptuous mouths and bodies and members. With Valerie herself leading the brigade, grinding all valves and calling all shots. Because she was still his motor and impetus, ringleader vice-queen not yet exorcised. And in seeing this mind's vision of her, he saw the others, as if she alone had given them birth… Oooh Christ… Those strange and dangling blooming ones still lurking and untasted and all a part of the same lusty cloth of degradation, fresh contours of adventure to drink or to impale. God, how those appetites clung to him! Would only castration cut him free forever?
So David thought about her. About them. How easy it would be to lift the telephone and dial a still-unexplored number. A flick of the fingers and all his buried agonies would find reprieve. The Hot Triumvirate: Valerie, the telephone, and them. Three spectres that stayed with him, ripened.
Linda, meanwhile, had been suffering in much the same fashion, although, thankfully, she'd been much too pregnant to be lusting. She had gradually stopped going to Brad Grogan's apartment, not only because of her condition; he had grown increasingly wilder and more indiscreet, inviting too many questionable types to his apartment, the place getting so crowded that people often had to "make out" while dancing simply because there was no room to do it lying down.
However, Linda went on seeing Darlene Morrison for an occasional lunch in town, although she had deftly managed not to be alone with the girl again. She faced enough disturbing problems now without adding that unsettling influence. Darlene phoned several times a week to inquire about the children and offer advice regarding Linda's condition, never failing to remind the latter about her promise to let her have Brad's baby, should David prove difficult and refuse to accept the child as his own. Linda had regretted that hasty gesture almost as soon as she'd made it, hoping the girl would forget it. But Darlene talked about it constantly. Linda didn't doubt that she was genuinely fond of children, and several times had given in to her request to visit Janice and Larry during trips to Golden Gate Park. Not that she feared any sort of blackmail if she refused to let the girl meet her children. But more than once Linda wondered what might happen when, or if, David welcomed their new baby with open arms. She had a strange feeling Darlene would want something else, if she couldn't have that baby. At present, Linda didn't want to think what that something-else might be; except that whenever she thought of Brad and Johnny and all their blistering performances, Darlene was a part of it. Not as a threat, but as a memory of desire. And promptly stifled such thoughts by reminding herself how constant and devoted her dear husband had been of late, knowing their whole life would hang in the balance when David got his first look at Brad's baby… resigning herself to accepting whatever decision he made. Either a punishment or a rescue, she would take what he offered and find it just.
When Linda's baby arrived, right on schedule, her fears that it would be a perfect latin-flavored replica of Brad Grogan were somewhat allayed. It was a female. Seven pounds four ounces. However, nobody who saw this ravishing little brunette was thrown off the scent in the least. The hair was a fuzzy jet-black, eyes dark, and the olive tones of the skin were downright Mediterranean.
At the hospital, the antiseptic face-mask they gave David luckily hid most of his expressions as he held the yapping infant in his arms. Nor did his eyes reveal any emotion save that of paternal pride. He noticed Linda raising weakly in her bed, her eyes boring holes into him.
"Isn't she an angel, David? Mother says I was a sort of brownette until I was five…"
Her eagerness to mention this point at that particular moment convinced David of the truth. But his eyes danced and smiled as he handed the baby back to the nurse.