“Just Dufus Rufus chasing Frizbeehead again. She scratched me.” He holds out his clawed arm.
“Better sterilize that. Antiseptic’s in the bathroom cabinet. Oh, mind doing the dishes? I’ve got this deadline.”
“Sure, hon. Listen, can we talk, I—”
“Damn, now I’ve forgotten that perfect word. Shit, I spent the last half hour with a Thesaurus and now… stupid dog. Somebody needs to put him out of our misery.” She scoops the cat up and closes the door.
He wishes she would spend a half-hour with her finger in something other than a book.
That evening he suggests that they might spend some time together, since it’s the weekend, but she encourages him to go watch the game with his pals. “Go out and have some fun. Becky’s giving me her feedback on that story I’ve been working on.”
“The slaves in the ice castle one? In Greenland?”
“Not Greenland. A hidden fjord in Svalbard. No, I couldn’t figure out how the characters could stay warm enough to be turned on. I got cold just thinking about it. Now they’re on a boat. Only the Master goes ashore, but that gives the favourite slave time to secretly practise his violin. But of course someone hears him playing the Paganini Caprice No. 24 and finds him, and then he has to decide whether he wants to stay willingly.”
“Still working the gay market? I thought you’d had it with all that spunk.” He knows better than anyone that both the dentist and doctor have documented her strong gag reflex, which precludes certain bedroom activities.
“Pays better, and you said yourself the truck transmission’s about to go. Anyway, the slave’s going to have a guiche, so I need to do some research before Becky gets here.”
“I know how to make quiche.”
“A guiche. Not quiche. A piercing down there.”
“Ouch.”
“Then I’m hitting the hay early so I can get up to do my edits. Mind sleeping on the couch when you get home so you don’t wake me up?”
“How about we roll in the hay instead of hitting it?”
“Funny man. I married you for your sense of humour.”
He receives an ovation when he arrives at the bar. His friends clear a stool for him.
“Have a beer!” Dean cries. “You must be exhausted!”
“Drink up!” Doug says. “Replenish those fluids!”
“Do a shot, man,” Dave advises. “You can’t spare the time for a pint! Gotta get back to the little wife!”
They check their watches. “How long you need to regenerate, man? We’ll let you know when time’s up.”
His cell phone rings. “It’s my wife. I better pick up.”
“Time for dessert!” they all jeer. “Second helpings!”
“Mind picking up some buttermilk on your way home?” his wife asks. “I’m making bread tomorrow.”
“Sure, hon.” He wishes she would knead something other than flour. The only thing rising in his house is dough. They could milk his meat instead. Beat his eggs. Eat her jelly roll. Toss his nuts. Warm her bread basket. Hot cross his buns. Maybe make baby batter and put a bun in the oven.
“So, what’d she want? Come on, you can tell us.”
“Lovin’ in her oven.”
They whoop and slap him on the back. His Hefeweizen splashes his shirt.
“Come on, spill the beans, man. You never tell us anything.”
He swipes at his soggy shirt, imagining:
He bangs the front door open and stomps inside, adjusting his wide load. His wife pauses with her lipstick-stained teacup halfway to her lips. “You’re home early, honey,” she says tremulously from her jasmine steam cloud.
“Jig’s up,” he growls. “Be my whore, or I’ll divulge your pen name to the neighbours.”
Her hand goes up to the red-rimmed “O” of her lips. She sets down the cup in its saucer with a small clink and drops to her knees. “Of course, whatever you want, honey.” She lifts her Save the Manatees sweatshirt to reveal a red lace teddy with nipple cutouts.
“Hello?” Dean snaps in his ear. “Yo, dick brain?”
“Earth to Stud Man,” Doug says. “You gonna give us some dirt, or what?”
“Yeah, your mind’s definitely in the gutter.” Dave orders another round. “Should’ve seen the look on your face.”
“Well, you know, it’s private. Husband and wife.”
“Yeah, and the thirty thousand people who read her stories!”
He can’t blame his wife for his current status as a begrudging icon of virility. She would have kept her kinky stories a secret, but he blurted out the news to the world when the Penthouse check arrived. He hadn’t considered the ramifications. Well, maybe he had, just a little. He was not without pride at his own magnanimity in allowing her to be who she was. That he didn’t hold his wife’s rampant public perversions in check, but allowed them to march unfettered across magazine racks far and wide, was a testament to his part in Steinem’s new race of unthreatened Man. What other husband would be so secure in his manhood that he would be permissive – nay, encouraging – of his wife’s transgressive acts, particularly when they did not involve his own penis? Involved a whole parade of phantom penises, in point of fact.
Ironically, from what he’s heard, his neighbourhood has an above average times-per-week compared to most suburban outposts, owing to the fervour of imagination the erotica writer and her husband inspire.
Does he want them to know the truth, or does he want to continue to stand tall among them as the man who is getting the most nookie? The rare beast who has to keep up with his wife’s ravenous appetite? The stallion who snagged a nymphomaniac? The man who has the pleasure of acting out every filthy scenario she devises? He has more sexual intrigue than the guys on covers of romance novels. He’s not mowing the lawn like the rest of these poor schmucks; he’s munching her bush.
“It’s fiction,” he finally ventures to his bar mates in response. “You don’t have to commit murder to write a mystery.”
They snort and pump their hips suggestively. A woman down the bar looks at them in disgust and carries her Pinot Grigio to a distant table.
Dean notes his scratched wrists. “Whoa! She got a little carried away, huh?”
“So what is the little lady up to tonight?” Doug asks.
“She’s got a friend coming over.”
“You dog!” Dave wipes his beer moustache. “A threesome!”
He bangs the front door open and stomps inside. His wife and her friend pause with their lipstick-stained teacups halfway to their lips. “Jig’s up,” he growls. “Be my sluts, or I’ll delete your American Idols off the TiVo.”
Her hand goes up to the red-rimmed “O” of her lips. She sets down the cup in its saucer with a small clink and drops to her knees. “Of course, whatever you want, honey. You, too, right, Becky?” His wife lifts her orange knit poncho to reveal a black leather teddy with nipple cutouts. But Becky, being small, quick, and lithe, has already crawled halfway across the floor, on a mission to get his cock into her mouth before his wife can. Her breasts fall out of her cardigan as she makes like a Slinky towards him. “I’ve been hungry for you to ask me! All of my sinful stories are just flimsy cover-ups for the real fantasies I’m having about you! Come to Mama, my divine sausage, and gimme the works.”
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”