"Can I come back some time?"
CHAPTER FOUR
"Why I thought you weren't home nearly enough before! Now you're never here! What on earth are you doing?" Helen demanded.
Adam slumped into a chair in the living room. He'd been trying to avoid this confrontation for days now, ever since he'd opened up his new lab. Getting subjects had proved harder than he thought, and the luck that the middle-aged scientist had had with his first two subjects had not held true for the rest. In order to be completely scientific about it, Adam had been forced to decide that he must advertise for his subjects. He had just returned from placing three separate ads in what were known as "free" newspapers. He hoped that in this manner he might be furnished with a constant supply of new subjects. It was no good having Susi the waitress come back again and again as she wanted to do. He'd already exhausted the wealth of information that he wanted from the young redhead and was ready to move on to other things.
"What I'm doing will make us both famous!" he retorted.
"Hah!" Helen turned from the counter where she'd been mixing herself a drink. "What do I care if we're famous or not? What I want is a husband!"
"What am I?" Adam realized as soon as he said it that he ought not to have. With a moan, he kicked off his shoes and wiggled his toes inside his socks. Worrying about his work at the lab, plus teaching classes and counseling students was beginning to exhaust him. But Adam tried to be optimistic. Soon he would be able to devote his full attention to the Sex Lab. The holidays were coming up and he'd have a good two weeks in which to do all the research he wanted.
"What are you?" Helen downed a fast Bloody Mary, scarcely blinking as the stiff content of vodka hit her stomach, not to mention the spiced-up tomato juice. "That's what I've been wondering!" she spat out. "That is exactly what I've been wondering! Why I hardly know you anymore, Adam. We're like two strangers living in the same house!"
"That's not my fault!" Adam retorted, even though he was almost sure that it was. What could he do about it though? He was who he was, and what was it she wanted from him?
"I want somebody to love me, to hold me, to mix me a drink from time to time. To talk to me when we sit down to dinner!" Helen blurted out, her lower lip quivering as she regarded her seemingly impassive husband who had begun to rub his feet. Faced with Adam's silence, Helen went on. "I want someone who cares what I've been doing all day!"
Adam looked up at his wife. She'd done something different with her hair, but he couldn't tell what it was.
"Did you cut your hair?" he asked.
"Oh God! That was last year, I cut my hair. I'm wearing it down instead of tied back," she snapped, starting to make another drink.
"I knew there was something different," Adam muttered. Why did this interminable conversation have to continue when he had so many other important things to think about?
"You bastard! There's something different all right! I'm starting a new life. I'm a woman and I need a man, and I'm gonna get myself one!" Helen whirled and flung the glass she'd been holding across the room aiming it despite her anger so that it whizzed just above her husband's head and crashed behind him on the wall, creating an enormous blotch of dripping red. Then she stood there, still dressed in her blue wool dress, the one she'd worn to her meeting with her psychiatrist, her fists clenched, neck tendons taut, her whole being defensive and belligerent.
To Helen's surprise, she saw her husband rising, anger contorting his features in such a manner that he looked truly unrecognizable to her. She had wanted to get a reaction, anti for a split second she was pleased to have gotten some kind of rise out of her usually passive husband, until she realized that it was going to be a reaction over which she would have no control whatsoever. Adam looked crazy, like he'd suddenly flipped out just the way she was often threatening to do! She was smart enough to recognize that she'd gone too far and that she'd struck some subconscious chord which was making her husband respond violently. Quickly she backed away from him as she saw him coming toward her.
"How dare you?" Adam growled. "How dare you even bother me with this petty crap? Here I am trying to do the best thing for us, for my career. Trying to show the world! Here I am knocking myself out and for what? To come home and get nagged by a shrew."
Adam took hold of his wife's shoulders and began to shake her hard, so hard that her head snapped back and forth and her teeth chattered against each other.
He's touching me, he's touching me! Helen realized, even as she struggled to get away from her husband. He's paying some attention to me!
She pulled away and spat out, "So what? Now you won't have to worry, I'll go get myself somebody young, somebody who can still make love!"
That did it! Helen turned and ran out of the living room, terrified by her own boldness and by the fact that Adam was coming after her fast. She zipped into the bedroom and slammed the door trying to lock it before Adam got inside. Already the scheming blonde wife was wondering if she could get into the bathroom fast enough to lock that door and then perhaps pretend she was going to take some pills. Maybe she would take some! Maybe she ought to! The distressed wife didn't have time to think this plan through however, for Adam pushed the door open just before the lock caught.
"Too old!" he bellowed. "If you only knew!"
"What! Is there something I'm supposed to know?" Helen sneered, moving to the far wall trying to reach the bathroom door. "All I know is that you can't last more than one-two-three! Mr. Wham Bam, thank you ma'm!" The blonde wife turned and dashed into the bathroom and closed the door as quickly as she could, but a robe that was hanging on the back caught in the opening, and Adam was there before she could get it closed and locked.
He pulled his wife by the hand, with such strength that she came flying out of the bathroom. Taking advantage of this momentum Adam threw her bodily upon the bed.
"I'll show you!" he said through clenched teeth.
"Yeah?" Helen was defiant still, unable to believe what was happening between her and her husband. Perhaps Stan was right, perhaps a new approach, was all that was needed. Perhaps this was it? Flushed and excited, Helen continued to provoke Adam even as he hiked up her dress unceremoniously. "Some rapist you'd make! Hah!" she gasped, panting from the exertion of rolling against him and struggling in a half-hearted attempt to get away.
Goddamn! She was treating him worse than an animal, talking to him like that. He'd show her a thing or two! With a growl Adam yanked off the sheer panties that covered her loins. If only he could tell her the things he'd already done, the experiments, the advances he was making for mankind! And womankind! Of all times for her to question his virility! His manhood! He stood staring down at the nakedly revealed split of his wife's blonde pussy. Helen lay completely still now, hardly daring to breathe. She was painfully aware of her husband's lascivious stares at her near naked body and wished that she hadn't started all this, despite the fact that he was obviously interested in her sexually. But he seemed so strange that for the first time Helen felt really frightened of him.
She looked at him, lifting her head up a little from the bed and became aware of the bulge which was growing up between her husband's legs as he knelt on the mattress before her. She stared at it fascinated and even while she was staring, Adam's hand pulled down on the zipper of his pants. The thick length of his hardening penis leaped into view, the head smooth and glistening, the length of it sinewy and throbbing.
"Like it? Want it?" he leered down at her, waving its length up and down obscenely.
"Adam!" Despite herself, Helen was profoundly shocked by her husband's behavior. She'd never seen him do anything like this. Never! It was a far cry from the love-making she desired, from the tender arms holding her, wringing pleasure from the tender depths of her soul.