congratulating himself for his tact in not attempting to make love to her. Later would be better; he had to give her time.
After dinner with the children, they went for a long drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. Jake parked the car at the beach, and they took off theirshoes and walked together, arms around each other’s waists. “Remember when,” Jake said, “we tried to camp out here and we had the two sleeping bags and”—she took over—“you were so c-c-c-cold you put on three sweaters and your overcoat and a knit cap and gloves and got inside your sleeping bag and then said to me, ‘Let’s do it’?” “And all those nights we danced to Fats Waller,” he said, “and we’d do it on the floor and on the sofa and then again in the shower and after that at four in the morning and one more time at six and then you had to go home and get ready for work?”
The memories continued—memories of lovemaking in sleeping cars on the way to New York, hotels in Coronado and Acapulco, raftered lodges on salmon-fishing trips in Oregon. The secret fear they each harbored—that perhaps they’d been married too long and the passion had died—melted away as the memories kindled the sharpest desire they had felt in years.
And so, while the great cornball ocean served up a succession of crashing waves, they sank to their knees, and tumbled backward, trying to ignore the cold air and colder sand. They hugged and writhed and kissed, Dinah hiking up her dress while Jake tugged at her girdle and garters. Dinah reached out and groped for Jake’s fly, tugging and tugging. The zipper yielded, then stuck. In a lustful lunge, she tightened her grip on the metal pull and yanked hard. “Honoré de Balzac! Honoré de Balzac!” Jake cried out in alarm, and Dinah dissolved in a fusillade of wanton laughter.
“Oh, honey, your thing’s not c-c-c-caught, is it? Jesus, did I hurt you? Come on,” she whispered, pulling down her dress. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go home to our own bed.”
“Yours or mine?”
“I don’t care. As long as it doesn’t have sand in it!”
O n the way downstairs the next morning, she felt moist and squishy between her legs, and as she moved she could smell, underneath her light bathrobe, the pungent scent of Jake’s semen now resident many hours within her. This was something women never discussed, she thought, the way the lingering semen, the fermenting smell of it, was proof that you belonged to your husband. It made you feel like a watered plant: you would live a few more days. She would wait until evening to shower, wanting to spend the day knowing it was there, washing away its traces only before bed, so that Jake might not meet with the smell and find offensively female that which, after all, had come from himself. Maybe last night they’d hit the jackpot. Maybe six weeks from now she would feel little spasms low in her belly, followed by barely perceptible flutters and fugitive cramps, always for her the signs of the nesting egg settling in for its nine-month sleep. She longed for the heavy tiredness and tender breasts, the headaches and nausea, which she had borne twice before and was eager to bear again.
On the table in the breakfast room, she found a note: “Darling, see front page Met. section, p. 4. I adore you. J.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee, drew the paper closer, and read:
“RED” INQUIRY TESTIMONY REVEALED
Westwood Housewife Tells of
Break with CP Unit
Testimony of a Westwood housewife at an executive hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee appearsin an official transcript of the proceedings released to the press yesterday evening.
Mrs. Dinah Milligan Lasker, 39, wife of producer-writer-director Jake Lasker, and a former motion picture dancer and radio writer, testified in closed session that she had been a member of the Communist Party between 1938 and 1944—leaving it because she found the party’s “rigidity of thinking
After dinner with the children, they went for a long drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. Jake parked the car at the beach, and they took off theirshoes and walked together, arms around each other’s waists. “Remember when,” Jake said, “we tried to camp out here and we had the two sleeping bags and”—she took over—“you were so c-c-c-cold you put on three sweaters and your overcoat and a knit cap and gloves and got inside your sleeping bag and then said to me, ‘Let’s do it’?” “And all those nights we danced to Fats Waller,” he said, “and we’d do it on the floor and on the sofa and then again in the shower and after that at four in the morning and one more time at six and then you had to go home and get ready for work?”
The memories continued—memories of lovemaking in sleeping cars on the way to New York, hotels in Coronado and Acapulco, raftered lodges on salmon-fishing trips in Oregon. The secret fear they each harbored—that perhaps they’d been married too long and the passion had died—melted away as the memories kindled the sharpest desire they had felt in years.
And so, while the great cornball ocean served up a succession of crashing waves, they sank to their knees, and tumbled backward, trying to ignore the cold air and colder sand. They hugged and writhed and kissed, Dinah hiking up her dress while Jake tugged at her girdle and garters. Dinah reached out and groped for Jake’s fly, tugging and tugging. The zipper yielded, then stuck. In a lustful lunge, she tightened her grip on the metal pull and yanked hard. “Honoré de Balzac! Honoré de Balzac!” Jake cried out in alarm, and Dinah dissolved in a fusillade of wanton laughter.
“Oh, honey, your thing’s not c-c-c-caught, is it? Jesus, did I hurt you? Come on,” she whispered, pulling down her dress. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go home to our own bed.”
“Yours or mine?”
“I don’t care. As long as it doesn’t have sand in it!”
O n the way downstairs the next morning, she felt moist and squishy between her legs, and as she moved she could smell, underneath her light bathrobe, the pungent scent of Jake’s semen now resident many hours within her. This was something women never discussed, she thought, the way the lingering semen, the fermenting smell of it, was proof that you belonged to your husband. It made you feel like a watered plant: you would live a few more days. She would wait until evening to shower, wanting to spend the day knowing it was there, washing away its traces only before bed, so that Jake might not meet with the smell and find offensively female that which, after all, had come from himself. Maybe last night they’d hit the jackpot. Maybe six weeks from now she would feel little spasms low in her belly, followed by barely perceptible flutters and fugitive cramps, always for her the signs of the nesting egg settling in for its nine-month sleep. She longed for the heavy tiredness and tender breasts, the headaches and nausea, which she had borne twice before and was eager to bear again.
On the table in the breakfast room, she found a note: “Darling, see front page Met. section, p. 4. I adore you. J.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee, drew the paper closer, and read:
“RED” INQUIRY TESTIMONY REVEALED
Westwood Housewife Tells of
Break with CP Unit
Testimony of a Westwood housewife at an executive hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee appearsin an official transcript of the proceedings released to the press yesterday evening.
Mrs. Dinah Milligan Lasker, 39, wife of producer-writer-director Jake Lasker, and a former motion picture dancer and radio writer, testified in closed session that she had been a member of the Communist Party between 1938 and 1944—leaving it because she found the party’s “rigidity of thinking
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