“The Addams Family.”
” Again he told himself that he was over-reacting, but his mood didn’t
improve. He felt violated, trivialized, and the fact that he was
talking aloud to himself seemed, annoyingly, to validate his new
national reputation as an amusing eccentric.
He twisted the key in the ignition, started the engine.
As he drove across the parking lot toward the busy street, Marty was
troubled by the feeling that his life had taken more than merely a
temporary turn for the worse with the fugue on Saturday, that the
magazine article was yet another signpost on this new dark route, and
that he would travel a long distance on rough pavement before
rediscovering the smooth highway that he had lost.
A whirlwind of leaves burst over the car, startling him. The dry
foliage rasped across the hood and roof, like the claws of a beast
determined to get inside.
Hunger overcomes him. He has not slept since Friday night, has driven
across half the country at high speed, in bad weather more than not, and
has experienced an exciting and emotional hour and a half in the
Stillwater house, confronting his destiny. His stores of energy are
depleted. He is shaky and weak-kneed.
In the kitchen he raids the refrigerator, piling food on the oak
breakfast table. He consumes several slices of Swiss cheese, half a
loaf of bread, a few pickles, the better part of a pound of bacon,
mixing it all together without actually bothering to make sandwiches, a
bite of this and a bite of that, chewing the bacon raw because he
doesn’t want to waste time cooking it, eating fast and with
single-minded fixation on the feast, ravenous, oblivious of manners,
urgently washing down everything with big swallows of cold beer that
foams over his chin. There is so much he wants to do before his wife
and kids return home, and he doesn’t know quite when to expect them.
The fatty meat is cloying, so periodically he dips into a wide-mouth jar
of mayonnaise and scoops out thick wads of the stuff, sucking it off his
fingers to lubricate a mouthful of food that he finds hard to swallow
even with the aid of another bottle of Corona. He concludes his meal
with two thick slices of chocolate cake, washing those down with beer as
well, whereafter he hastily cleans up the mess with paper towels and
washes his hands at the sink.
He is revitalized.
With the silver-framed photograph in hand, he returns to the second
floor, taking the stairs two at a time. He proceeds to the master
bedroom, where he clicks on both nightstand lamps.
For a while he stares at the king-size bed, excited by the prospect of
having sex with Paige. Making love. When it is done with someone for
whom you truly care, it is called “making love.”
He truly cares for her.
He must care.
After all, she is his wife.
He knows that her face is good, excellent, with a full mouth and fine
bone structure and laughing eyes, but he can’t tell much about her body
from the photograph. He imagines that her breasts are full, belly flat,
legs long and shapely, and he is eager to lie with her, deep inside of
her.
At the dresser, he opens drawers until he finds her lingerie.
He caresses a half-slip, the smooth cups of a brassiere, a lace-trimmed
camisole. He removes a pair of silky panties from the drawer and rubs
his face with them, breathing deeply while repeatedly whispering her
name.
Making love will be unimaginably different from the sweaty sex he has
known with sluts picked up in bars, because those experiences have
always left him feeling empty, alienated, frustrated that his desperate
need for true intimacy is unfulfilled. Frustration fosters anger, anger
leads to hatred, hatred generates violence–and violence sometimes
soothes. But that pattern will not apply when he makes love to Paige,
for he belongs in her arms as he has belonged in no others.
With her, his need will be satisfied every bit as much as will his
desire. Together, they will achieve a union beyond anything he can
imagine, perfect oneness, bliss, spiritual as well as physical