Chapter 3

Linda sat dejectedly on the living room couch staring thoughtfully into a glass of gin and tonic. She knew next to nothing about drinks and drinking, but she had seen her husband Tommy mix so many of these since she had known him that she had automatically made one for herself after deciding she needed something alcoholic to help calm her nerves. Her head was slightly dizzy from the second one she had drunk in the last half an hour since she had tried to call Tommy at school.

Once again she reassured herself that it was Thursday and she hadn't made a mistake. This was the day that Tommy had promised faithfully a week ago he would leave school early and take her shopping in the city. He should have been by to pick her up long ago, and she had impulsively called the school to find out if something unexpected had come up to prevent his leaving. Though the secretary had even gone to the trouble of sending someone down to the gym area to look for Tommy, he was nowhere to be found. His office was locked, the secretary said, and his car was not in its usual place outside the gym.

By now Linda was lightheaded from her inexperience in drinking, and she tried again to rationalize away her fears. She had noticed a strange change in her new husband since that Sunday at the Teachers' Country Club but had tried to ignore it, hoping it would work itself out. First she had perhaps foolishly denied him her body that night because she had accused him of giving Grace Furness too much attention, and the following morning Tommy had left for work without waking her with a kiss as he usually did. Then he had come home later than usual on Monday, and she was sure she had detected a slight fragrance of perfume and what might have been a touch of lipstick on his mouth. He had not greeted her with his normal attempt to get her into the bedroom the first thing, instead acting a little off-handed toward her, saying only that he wanted to take a shower before supper.

She was sure he had consciously avoided her eyes as if he had a reason to feel guilty, and immediately she had begun to suspect something was wrong. She told herself she had only been married to him for a few weeks and had not had time to get to know all his moods and feelings in spite of the fact that they had seen a lot of each other for a whole year before that. And, she had reminded herself, dating a person was one thing, but living with him was another. Later, the worried young wife had tried to persuade him to confide his problem to her over supper.

That had only seemed to make him worse, and then when they were in bed later that night, she had thought maybe he needed very badly to make love to her and that was why he seemed upset. But when she had begun to give him the tenderly inviting caresses she knew he liked, he had first pushed her away angrily as if she were some cheap slut he had met in a bar and then, when she had persisted, thinking he was angry for her refusal the night before, he had attempted to do some awful things to her and tried to make her return them. This was a more subtle change in him that had been happening since their wedding night twenty-four days ago. The things he wanted her to do were things she had heard about but didn't really know normal people did. They were perverted acts and she had only heard some of the bolder girls in college whisper about them in dirty jokes or in insinuating giggles about the boys they had been out with.

Tommy had become even more angry with her when she had refused to let him do those perverse lewd acts and ended up by shouting at her with impatience and frustration when she had refused to do them to him. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to try. God knows she wanted to make him a happy husband the way she had thought he would be, but she just couldn't force herself to go through with it. The thought of that horrible scene in the bed when he had tried to put his head down between her legs and the coldness with which he had treated her afterward when she had refused to let him brought tears brimming to her eyes. She sobbed softly and took another mouthful of the gin and tonic, wincing slightly as it burned its way down her throat.

And now this! His mysterious failure to pick her up was the crowning blow. She had tried to remind him that morning before he left for school, but he was vague and non-committal. At the time she had thought he was just preoccupied with himself and had been sure he was aware the shopping trip she had planned meant a lot to her, but now she was no longer sure of anything.

The troubled young bride finished the last drop of her drink and went to the kitchen for more ice to make another, secretly hoping that Tommy would come home and find her half drunk for the first time in her life. That would show him just how much he had upset her by his negligent actions!

Her mind ran to another possibility that also may have caused his sudden indifference, but she quickly dismissed it as too silly to even consider seriously. This was the nagging thought at the back of her mind that he might have been seeing some other woman before they were finally married and that she had allowed him to make love to her: a woman who perhaps would do all those awful things he had tried so desperately to get her to do.

Well, the lovely blonde murmured to herself, if that was the reason he was acting so strange, it was still no justification. She couldn't help it if she was what everybody called an old- fashioned girl. She hadn't been about to let him make love to her in bed before they were legally married, and now that they were, she wasn't going to allow herself to be degraded into doing those disgusting things he wanted. She didn't want to lose him, but she had her pride.

Linda returned to the couch, setting her drink on the coffee table and dropping her head into her hands. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she recalled how well things had seemed to be going up until the night they were actually married. She had turned down the opportunity to become a guidance counselor with her recent college psychology degree in order to marry Tommy, giving up the career she had worked so hard for. It had been the best position she could have hoped for with her lack of experience in the field, and it would take her years to work up to that level if she started off at the bottom the way most people had to.

It just didn't seem fair, she complained to herself through the haze the gin was causing in her mind. She gave up everything else she ever wanted for Tommy's sake when he insisted that no wife of his would ever work, and now he was treating her like dirt under his feet. She just didn't understand it -- why did the world have to be so cruel sometimes? She had to talk to him about it as soon as she saw him or she would go out of her mind. She had already known from her marital psychology courses that both of them would have to go through a period of adjustment to each other, but this was too much to take.

Abruptly her sobs ceased tearing from her throat. The telephone was ringing in the bedroom. She couldn't imagine who would be calling her at this time of the afternoon. Then she knew it had to be Tommy! He was calling to explain why he had not come home when he had promised he would.

That must be it! He probably had a perfectly reasonable explanation, and here she was worrying herself sick.

She reached the bedside table and jerked the phone from the cradle excitedly, hoping with all her heart to hear his voice.

"Hello, is that you Tommy?" she blurted out breathlessly.

Her smile suddenly faded away and her heart felt as though it would stop.

The voice of Fred Furness came to her in a hoarse whisper over the phone.

"Linda, it's me, Fred, Fred Furness," he rasped in a low voice. "Listen closely. I don't have much time, so do just as I say. Understand?"

Linda stood struck dumb for a moment at the sudden surprise of hearing his voice. "What is it?" she finally managed to stammer.

"Believe me, this is important to both of us," he whispered, hurrying his words together with such urgency that she listened as though her life depended on his voice.

"Do exactly as I tell you. I'm going to put the phone down on this end, but don't hang up whatever you do. Got that?"

"Y-yes," she stuttered in confusion, "but can't you tell me what..."

"Shhhh!" he interrupted her, "don't make a sound on that end," he hissed. Before she could say anything else, she heard a metallic noise as he put the phone down, and then there was the sound of his footsteps retreating into the distance and a door closing so softly she could barely hear it.

She stood frozen into immobility for a long time listening to the mechanical noises on the open line, and once she thought she heard the distant murmur of voices in another room, but Fred did not come back to pick up his end.

Once she picked up her ears as the unmistakable sound of a woman's laughter came to her hearing, and she thought she recognized it as Fred's wife, Grace, but she couldn't be sure.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang in the living room.

Good Lord, now what? she thought. She caught herself just in time, about to place the phone back in its cradle, and instead laid it on one of the pillows on the bed, running to answer the door.

"Fred! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed in surprise when she saw who it was.

Without waiting for her to ask him in, he brushed past her, his face glowering as if he were angry enough to kill somebody.

"What is it?" she begged to know.

"Shhhh!" he silenced her, looking around the living room. "Where's the telephone?" he growled. She saw he was taking a small portable tape recorder out of his pocket and inserting a plug connected at the other end to a suction-cup microphone.

"I -- in there, by the bed," she stammered as she pointed down the hall. "C-can't you tell me... ?"

'In a minute," he cut her off. "Wait here while I set this up. It's a special attachment for recording from a telephone. I'll be back in a second."

With that he entered the bedroom and closed the door. Linda was too shocked by his strange behavior to refuse anything and sat hesitantly on the edge of the couch while she waited for him to return and explain.

Finally, after what seemed a long time, the door to the bedroom opened quietly and then closed again as he came in to join her. The haggard look on his face made her feel so sorry for him that she felt she should be able to comfort him in some way, but she didn't know how.