The Other Woman Read online

  "Well?" he asked.

  "This is going to give your ego a real boost," she began nervously, wondering why she was so afraid of telling him. "I'm just telling you this because I trust you so much—"

  He laughed. "Oh, lay on the old guilt," he bellowed. "Make me feel so guilty in advance, I won't be able to enjoy it—whatever it is! Are you going to tell me?"

  "It's about Nicole Clark," she stated directly, plunging right in.

  "Who?" he asked earnestly.

  "Nicole Clark," she repeated.

  He looked genuinely puzzled. "Who's Nicole Clark?

  Jill's face broke into a wide grin; she felt instantly better. "You really don't know? She works in your office. Or at least, she's there this summer—she's a student. Dark hair, young—pretty, if you like that perfect kind of type—you were talking to her for quite a while at the picnic—"

  David's eyes reflected his confusion. She could actually see him trying to piece together the various parts of the invisible puzzle, trying to put a face to the name Nicole Clark. Pretty... dark hair... student... "Oh, Jeez, Nicki, of course. Nicole Clark! You made her sound so formal. Pretty, you said? She's gorgeous!"

  He obviously liked that perfect sort of type. Jill felt her face muscles tense. ''So, you know who I mean," she said unnecessarily.

  ''Of course. Bright, bright girl. Nice, too. Very sensitive."

  "I'm sure," Jill said, flopping backward onto her pillow, her back rigid.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Oh, nothing. Just that that gorgeous, bright, nice, sensitive person informed me at the picnic that she intends to marry you."

  For several seconds, David said absolutely nothing. Then he started to laugh.

  "I'm not sure I see what's so funny," Jill said quietly, trying not to pout.

  David kept laughing. "Well, it was joke, for heaven's sake." He laughed even louder. "That's very funny. I didn't realize she had such a sense of humor."

  "Now she has a sense of humor too. Wonderful," Jill muttered.

  "Jill, come on, you're not really upset, are you?"

  Jill's voice was louder than she had intended. "Why shouldn't I be upset? Some girl tells me she's going to marry my husband and my husband makes me feel much better by telling me she's a) gorgeous, b) smart, c) sweet and d) sensitive. Oh, and I almost forgot e) she has a wonderful sense of humor."

  David was suddenly all over her, kissing her face and neck, tickling her sides. “Come on, you silly goose. What are you upset about, huh? You know I love you. Well, don't you?'' Reluctantly, she found herself nodding. "So, why do you let a silly little joke upset you?"

  "Because it wasn't a joke. She told me that. She made it very clear."

  David sat up. "Tell me exactly what she said." Jill related the Sunday afternoon conversation to the best of her ability, trying to keep her voice as flat as possible.

  "Still think it's all a joke?" she asked.

  David's voice was suddenly very serious. He looked directly at his wife. "I love you," he began. "I love you very much. It's why I married you. And I have absolutely no intention of marrying anyone else. Do you understand? Or even looking at anyone else. You are the only one I want or need or will ever want or need. In other words, you, lady, are stuck with me. For keeps. If Nicole Clark was serious, she's a very foolish girl and I'm extremely disappointed in her behavior."

  Jill felt her eyes fill up with tears of love and gratitude. She repeated his words over and over in her mind, trying to stop herself from wondering if he had ever said anything similar to Elaine, trying to stifle the sound of her mother's initial warning when she had told her she was involved with a married man: "If he'll do it to one woman," she had said plainly, "he'll do it to you."

  "Go away, Mother," she muttered.

  "What?"

  Jill laughed. "Nothing."

  "Why are you crying?"

  She shook her head. "I love you," she said as he kissed away her tears.

  "Well, then, do me a favor," he said, kissing her nose. "Keep remembering that / love you, and that you're as beautiful as any woman I've ever known."

  He kissed her mouth. "Now hold me," he commanded gently, turning over and feeling her crawl into the space around him, their limbs resting comfortably against each other. She was almost asleep when he started to laugh. "I can't believe Nicki actually said that!"

  Jill said nothing, feigning sleep. Instinctively, her body moved closer, hugged him tighter to her. Damn him, she thought sullenly, any hopes she'd had for sleep vanishing, and he’s interested.

  Chapter 4

  Jill tossed restlessly, vaguely aware that it was morning and probably time to get up. She wasn't ready yet—her eyes were still unwilling to open themselves to the light she knew was trying to crawl beneath the bedroom curtains, and her body was tense and sore from lying in all the wrong ways. If only she'd been able to sleep for a few hours, she thought as she reluctantly opened her eyes, swallowing the nausea that always developed when she didn't get enough rest, and looking over at the clock radio which was mysteriously sitting on the end table beside her. What was it doing there? She wondered, feeling suddenly disoriented. It was always on David's side of the bed. At precisely 6a.m. every weekday morning, David's hand would blindly reach for the right button, his face remaining submerged beneath the blankets, and abruptly silence whoever was rocking them awake.

  With no need for further alarms, David would sit up in bed fifteen minutes later, and head for the bathroom. Whatever it was he did in there took exactly one hour. (She had once timed his activities—five minutes in the shower, ten minutes to shave, thirty seconds to brush his teeth, and another five minutes to blow-dry his hair. That left thirty-nine minutes and thirty seconds unaccounted for, and when she once asked him "What is it that you do in there for so long?' he had winked and said, "Ask my mother. She trained me.")

  Men put such a premium on their precious bowels, Jill thought, closing her eyes again. Every morning like clockwork or you'd think the world was coming to an end. Jill thought quickly of the large container of Metamucil on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet. It was there for just such an emergency. She laughed silently. She was the one who should be taking it, with her regular irregularity. She often went as long as three or four days without— her eyes opened suddenly, shooting back at the clock. It was after eight! David was usually long-gone by this hour. Perhaps he had already left, having completed his morning rituals in absolute silence. Had he come in to wake her up at seven-thirty the way he always did? She couldn't remember his mouth grazing the side of her cheek the way he did to say good morning and have a good day. She couldn't remember anything having happened at all.

  And if it hadn't—if the alarm hadn't gone off for the first time in four years (probably because whoever moved it had loused up something inside)—that meant that they had overslept and David would be late for court that morning. She remembered he had to be in court by nine o'clock. Frantically, she turned toward her husband.

  "David—" She stopped short at what she saw.

  They were lying together beside her, wrapped up in each other's arms, their legs encircling each other's hips which were rotating grotesquely, their hair falling across each other's faces, so that at first she couldn't make out who exactly they were. Jill sat up in bed and moved closer to the couple who were obviously ignorant or unmindful of her presence. She pulled the blanket and watched in wonderment as their bodies slapped against each other, flapping like fish at the bottom of a rowboat, colliding and retreating in endless repetition. She saw the woman's ample bosom squashed beneath the light blond hairs of her husband's chest, heard her husky voice whisper something in David's ear. "She's watching," she knew the girl had said, wondering why she was able to hear so clearly. David laughed and swung their bodies around so that the girl was now on top. His hands reached up and suddenly pushed the girl's body away, so that the large breasts and effortlessly flat stomach were thrown back, arching up toward the ceiling. They re
mained locked together as her black hair fell away from her face. She was laughing. Slowly, she turned her head to stare directly at Jill. It was her mother!

  Jill sat up in bed with a start, a loud gasp escaping her mouth, her eyes fully open and on the alert. In the next instant, David was awake beside her.

  "My God, Jill, what's the matter? Are you going to be sick?"

  Jill's eyes moved immediately to her husband's startled face. He looked terrified.

  "Jill?" he asked. "Answer me—are you going to be sick?"

  It took a minute for Jill to come to terms with the fact that she and David were alone in the bed and that what had transpired had all been a peculiar dream. It had felt so real.

  "I had the most ridiculous dream," she said slowly, in amazement.

  "Jesus," David muttered, falling back against his pillow. "Jesus."

  "Well, I didn't do it on purpose," Jill said in her defense. "Wow, was it strange! And in such detail."

  "What time is it?" David asked, retreating under the covers.

  Jill looked over at the end table beside her. The clock radio was gone.

  "Where's the radio?" she asked in alarm.

  Once again, David shot up in the bed, looking at the table to his right. "What's the matter with you? It's right here. Where it always is." Jill looked over in his direction.

  "And it's five to six, for God's sake. I could have slept five more minutes." He looked anxiously at his wife. ''Is there any point in my trying to lie down again?"

  "I should have known it was a dream when the clock was on the wrong side of the bed," she said, watching David lie back and roll over. “That was the tip-off." She lay down beside her husband, hugging his back to her stomach. "Not to mention my mother."

  "What are you muttering about?" he asked, his voice muffled against the pillow.

  It was a question that required no answer. Indeed, it was a question that precluded any answers that almost dared her to try. She recognized the tone. It meant be quiet and let me get some sleep. Jill felt herself going over the events of her dream, losing them as they ran to get away from her conscious self. By the time David's hand reached up to silence the musical alarm (Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb doing "Guilty"), all but the image of her mother's face on Nicole's body—she knew it was Nicole's body welded to David's groin—had disappeared.

  David sat up in bed and stretched. Jill waited for the feel of the bed emptying as his body moved quickly out, but instead she felt cold, a draft, like her blanket, reaching up and covering her from her feet to her shoulders.

  "Out of bed," he said, playfully, pulling at her arms, her completely exposed body curling into itself against his sudden invasion. "Come on, you cost me five minutes of sleep. Time to pay the penalty." He let go of her hands and began pulling at her feet.

  "What are you doing?" she laughed, kicking at him. "Go away. You know I have another hour and a half! What are you doing?" She screamed, laughing helplessly, as she felt herself being tugged onto the floor. He grabbed her ankles. "What are you doing? Where are you taking me?"

  She opened her eyes, tears of laughter running down her cheeks, and watched his nude body (magnificent, she told herself, even at six in the morning) dragging her nude body (less than magnificent, she thought, trying to cover the slight rounding at her belly) across the bedroom carpet. ''Watch my head!" she shrieked, as they rounded the comer and moved out into the hall. ''Where are you taking me?"

  "You need a shower," he said.

  "Oh, no!" Jill screamed, starting to struggle in earnest. "Not at six in the morning, I don't need a shower! No!" She yelled again as David pulled her into the small washroom.

  "You're lucky this floor is carpeted," he said over her squeals, one hand holding firmly onto her foot, as he reached up and, leaning over the tub, turned on the shower. Jill kicked at him frantically with her free leg before she felt his arms grab her around the waist, lift her struggling body up into the air and deposit her with seemingly no effort at all under the forceful spray of the shower.

  "Shit," she screamed. "It's freezing!"

  "Sorry," he said, quickly adjusting the taps and climbing in after her.

  "You're getting my hair all wet," she yelled, starting to laugh again.

  "It needs washing."

  "I just washed it!" She squirmed along the side of the tub.

  Again David picked her up and deposited her directly under the flow. Every time she tried to protest, her mouth filled up with water, so she stopped trying to speak and recognized that she was actually enjoying the water and the sheer force of it as it pelted her body. She was aware of his hands now on her breasts, soaping them with a gentle massage, moving down to her stomach. In another few seconds, he was inside her, pounding her back against the tile, moving her up and down against the taps. If this is another dream, she thought, it sure beats the last one.

  Her mind flashed back to almost five years ago, the night he had come to her door at two in the morning, drunker than she had ever remembered seeing anybody—the only time during their illicit romance that he had stayed till the morning. Abruptly, she was back in the present, the water stopping as David maneuvered his wet body away from her own, kissing her sweetly on the lips. "Get out of here," he whispered. "I have work to do."

  She laughed. "You always were terrific under water," she said, confident he would understand her reference. He gave her backside an affectionate pat as she struggled out of the tub and into a waiting towel. "I'll make some breakfast," she said.

  "I'll be a while," he answered.

  "Yes, I know," she said, backing out of the room, closing the door behind her and heading down the familiar hallway.

  It was six thirty-five. She had an extra hour before she really had to be up. David would be in the bathroom for another forty minutes. She could crawl back into bed and try to get some more sleep. Or she could do some exercises, she thought, drying herself off and dropping the towel to stare at herself nude in front of the mirror. Definitely some exercises, she decided, lying on the floor and bringing her knees to her chest, rolling them back and forth from side to side. Beth had told her about an exercise class and suggested that the two of them join. She'd have to call Beth and ask her about it. She'd definitely like to start. Her body was falling apart. Had David noticed?

  Jill kept her knees bent and put the bottoms of her feet on the floor. Cupping her hands behind her head, she tried to sit up. "Oh, my God," she said, "this is ridiculous." She managed to get herself in a sitting position. Beth, she thought, visions of Beth's bleeding hand before her eyes. She wondered how she was this morning, if the bleeding had stopped. The cut had been deep, very unpleasant-looking. She'd call Beth after her nine o'clock class.

  The thought of her morning class made her instantly depressed, all those bright, young faces waiting eagerly for her to unleash the vast secrets of her experience and expertise. She hadn't even thought about today's lecture, what she was going to say to these youngsters who still thought that all you needed was a college degree and a love of film to be able to walk up on the stage and collect your Academy Award. They would all be in her classroom at the sound of the bell, waiting for her words of wisdom. What could she tell them? That she was bored to tears and wished she were anywhere else? What was she doing stuck in a classroom? She was meant to be out there in the real world, directing its violent outbursts and capturing history as it stumbled forward in all its trivial displays. She was meant to be moving!

  What was she doing here on the floor? She wondered suddenly, pushing her body up with her elbows. This isn't going to work, she told herself, standing up. She needed the discipline of the very classroom she hated if she was going to get her body back in shape. She selected a mauve cotton dress from her closet and put it on, wrapping the towel around her head as she moved from the bedroom, down the hall to the front door.

  The morning paper was waiting. The paper boy was always very prompt—he must get up at dawn, Jill thought, bringing the paper int
o the kitchen and laying it on the counter as she poured some coffee into the percolator. The headlines were as depressing as usual—the economy was going all to hell; they were in the midst of a recession which was in all probability leading them toward a depression; the arms race was back in bloom; the I.R.A. and the P.L.O. were doing business as usual. Wonderful, she thought.

  "Do you want some eggs?" she called toward the bathroom.

  "No thanks," David yelled back. "Just toast and coffee.”

  Jill reached for the bread basket and took out several pieces of white bread. David was always telling her to buy whole wheat, but she hated the taste, and stuck stubbornly to the Wonder Bread she had known since childhood. Leaving the coffee to perk and the bread to sit until David was ready to toast it, she picked up the paper and went into the den.

  The large leather chair beckoned invitingly and she plopped herself down, flipping quickly through the paper. She felt strangely assured to note that in addition to the latest in floods, fires and other natural disasters, Chicago could still be counted on to produce its share of murders, rapes and robberies. Jill moved directly to the Classified Ads and Companions Wanted columns. She settled comfortably back and began to read.

  The ad caught her eye immediately:

  WANTED

  Black, attractive man, 6'5”, professional baker, separated, no ties, from upper middle class family, planning to return home to West Indies in December, seeks attractive, exuberant, intelligent, plump, and sensuous Caucasian female accountant.

  Now, that's telling them, Jill thought, laughing out loud. No room for error here. It was all spelled out perfectly clearly. Exactly what the man desired. Her eyes quickly ran down the rest of the Companions Wanted columns. It seemed that all sorts of gorgeous, intelligent, successful people were out there looking for friends. Friends? She asked herself. An interesting choice of words.