She rolled over onto her back, feeling hot tears of degradation begin to cascade from her eyes. Oh God, oh God, she lamented, what have I done? What have I done? I've desecrated my marriage vows… it doesn't matter that Kirk did it first, not now when my mind is rational once again.
The tears flowed hot and bitter, stinging her cheeks, and again she moaned piteously. She was sick, mentally sick, that was the only logical conclusion. She needed psychiatric help, for in one day she seemed to have forsaken all that she ever considered sacrosanct – her innocence in matters sexual, her marital contract, her love for her husband. Was there hope for her, and or had some incredible transformation taken place inside her body that was unalterable? Had she somehow become a carnal animal instead of a wholesome, loving woman? Oh God, what was the answer? What was the problem?
The sound of a door softly opening snapped Vicki's head off the downy pillow, breaking her reverie, and she looked toward the bedroom entrance. The door was opening slowly, and in the light from the hallway beyond she could see her husband standing framed there, staring in at her. No! her mind shouted. No, go away, go away! I don't want to see you, not now, not ever! Go away, you… you animal…!
But he didn't go away. Instead, Kirk came into the room, walking softly, and crossed over to the bed. Reaching out, he switched on the lamp on the bedside table, flooding the bed with soft, diffused light. Vicki turned her head away, flinging one arm up to cover her eyes. Kirk sat down beside her.
"Honey?" he whispered. "Honey, how do you feel?"
"Go away!" she pleaded. "Leave me alone!"
"Vicki, what is it?"
"You know what it is!" she flared. "Oh, my God yes, you know what it is you… you unfaithful beast!"
"Oh, Jesus!" he said softly, realizing that, somehow, she knew what had happened between him and Christy in the bathtub earlier. It wasn't possible that she could know, and yet… "Vicki, listen to me. Please, honey, listen…"
"I won't listen! I won't!" She turned her head toward him, her eyes blazing wetly with tears of anger. "I know what you did tonight, Kirk! I saw you! Oh, dear God, I saw you and Christy together! I saw… saw her with her mouth on your… your…" She couldn't say it, couldn't continue. She buried her face in the pillow, crying unabashedly now.
He touched her tentatively, and then withdrew his hand as she cringed like a beaten puppy from his touch. "Vicki… Vicki, if you only knew the shame I feel right now. If you only knew the guilt, the terrible guilt… Vicki, I was drunk and I was… oh, Christ, I don't know what what I was! I'm not trying to make excuses, I just lost my head. I didn't want it to happen, I didn't, Vicki. You have to believe that!"
"I don't have to believe anything," she told him, and the anger was rising higher in her now, reaching a fever pitch as it compounded with her own guilt and shame. "All I know is, you were doing something… unspeakable with another woman, with that slut Christy Kaye…"
"She's not a slut," Kirk said defensively, and instantly he regretted his words.
"No? Then what is she?"
"A woman, that's all. A hot-blooded woman, she loves and enjoys sex. There's nothing wrong with that, Vicki."
"She's a whore! A filthy whore!"
"No, damn it, she's not…"
"Why are you defending her, Kirk? Why? I'm your wife, not her. I'm the woman you supposedly love, not that… that harlot."
Kirk felt anger kindle inside him, too. He hadn't expected Vicki to understand, not really, and he didn't blame her for being upset. But… well, damn it, he felt some inexplicable necessity for vindicating Christy's behavior on this night. "Listen, Vicki," he said, "Christy Kaye is a woman, nothing more, nothing less. Just because she's able to respond where some women aren't…"
"Meaning me, is that it?"
"I didn't say that."
"But that's what you meant, isn't it?"
"All right, then! Goddamn it, yes, that's what I meant! Christy really knows how to please a man, to do the things that all men like to have done in bed. She doesn't just lie there like a Goddamned dead fish, counting the cracks in the ceiling and wishing it was over!" He paused, and then flung at her, "She's good, the best I've ever had, Vicki! She's good, do you hear me? Good!"
He has no right to talk to me like that! she thought. He has no right, not after what he's done! What kind of man is he, to sit there and call me names, say that I'm no good in bed, when he's just finished having his… his penis sucked by another woman! He needs to be hurt, he deserves to be hurt! I wasn't going to tell him about Eric and me… I was going to live with my shame and hope that somehow, someday, things would work out. But now I am going to tell him! I'm going to tell him! I'm going to hurt him like he hurt me!
Softly, maliciously, she said, "Eric Kaye didn't think I was such a bad lay. In fact, he enjoyed me. He enjoyed me so much that he came right away!"
Kirk froze into immobility, staring at her open-mouthed. "What… what did you say?"
"You heard me, Kirk! I made love to Eric Kaye! I did it right over there, and I let him have me from behind while we watched you and Christy in the bathtub. I let him have me because of what you were doing… and yes, because I wanted him, because I was hot! What do you think of that?"
Kirk was speechless. His ears refused to believe at first what he was hearing. It wasn't possible! Not Vicki, not his sweet innocent little wife! Jesus, not her, not Vicki… with another man, with Eric Kaye, with his long hard cock shooting off inside her… Suddenly, his anger became overwhelming as he realized, irrefutably, that she was telling the truth – that she had allowed Eric Kaye to fuck her. He bared his teeth, taking her shoulders roughly in his hands and shaking her. The covers fell from beneath her chin, and he saw for the first time that she was naked, that there were thin red marks on her, full, firm breasts that could only have come from a man's grasping fingers. His brain reeled with confused thoughts, the predominant of which was blind rage. "You fucking bitch!" he screamed at her. "You dirty filthy fucking bitch!"
"And what are you?" she shot back. "You're nothing better, for God's sake! At least I was faithful until you were unfaithful. At least I waited until then! How can you be so righteously indignant, when you were doing practically the same thing I was doing! And liking it more!"
"Oh, Jesus Christ!" he moaned. "Suppose… you're pregnant? Suppose he got you pregnant?"
"What would you care if I was?" she asked him angrily. "You don't care for me any more. You proved that by being with Christy tonight."
"And what did you prove by being with Christy's husband?"
"I proved nothing at all," she said. "I just wanted to hurt you, wanted to do something equally as terrible as what I was watching you do. Maybe if I had a child by Eric Kaye it would hurt you even more…"
"Vicki, Jesus, you can't mean that! You can't want another man's baby!"
Suddenly, then, all the anger drained out of Vicki; it left her all at once, and she slumped back on the pillow, her eyes closing. She began crying again. "No," she moaned in a tortured wail. "No, I don't mean it, Kirk! I don't want his baby! Oh God, Kirk, I'm sick, just sick, that's all! I don't know what I want, or what I'm saying!"
Kirk, too, was divested of anger now. He leaned over her to brush the raven hair from her face almost tenderly. "Vicki, oh God, Vicki, I love you! I love you more now than I've ever loved you! We… we both made terrible mistakes tonight, but we can't let it ruin what we have together…"