The Deceivers by John D. MacDonald Page B

trying to turn this into a dramatic game because I’ve seen too many movies. Or because I’m bored, or restless or discontented. I am restless and discontented, but I think I’m honest enough with myself to keep from using you as a temporary remedy.”
    “You don’t have to explain that to me.”
    She snapped the cigarette out into the dark yard. “We’re not getting anywhere with this. I’ll be clinical. I happen to be physically very darn vulnerable right now. Not only because the physical side of my marriage has been … personally inadequate for quite a long time. So all this is a big fat rationalization. It’s just an animal need, so I’m cloaking it with a lot of fancy words.”
    “Do you believe any part of that?”
    “Now who’s not helping?”
    “All right. I’m sorry.”
    They were silent for several minutes. He heard the insect sounds in the night. His heart had slowed. He felt tired.
    “Carl?”
    “Yes, Cindy.”
    “If we’re going to be honest, you must know something. A kiss is not supposed to be a shattering affair. I had never known I could be so thoroughly shook up by a kiss. I couldn’t have imagined that any kiss could make me so … damnably and almost obscenely … ready.”
    “I sensed that. The readiness. And I keep wondering if maybe in trying to be honest or talk it to death or whatever you want to call it, maybe on another level we’re merely trying to maintain … all that awareness.”
    “That’s a stinking thing to say!”
    “If we’re going to be honest, let’s be completely honest. I’m sitting here perfectly aware of the fact that this little talk has its inevitable ending. That’s the scene where we tell each other it can go no further, that we are both people of character, that we are too fine to get involved in any sticky little infidelity, and we can’t hurt Joan this way and we have responsibilities to our families and ourselves and so on. And we shake hands on it, or something. Hell, I’m aware of that and so are you. It’s the only way the conversation can conceivably end. But that does not deny the fact that I can sit here and try in desperation to think of some way I can take you to bed and still manage to save my face and yours, that I think there is some glittering rationalization just out of my mental reach, and if I can grasp it and explain it to you, then we might feel that it was our God given right to pile into the sack and have at it.”
    “Don’t. Please don’t.”
    “What good is honesty if it only goes so far? Then it’s as bad as the thoroughgoing lie. Maybe worse. Let’s not, for God’s sake, dwell on the fine textures and subtle flavors of our souls. We’re a man and a woman and we were stupid enough, or I was, to lift the lid on the box and let the monsters out. And we aren’t going to be able to do a damn thing about it. And that won’t be the result of character, it will be the result of emotional logic.”
    “All right, all right,” she said, and her voice was tired. “I should have slapped your face and marched into the house. And now I think I better go in. Maybe if we expose this to some daylight it won’t seem so enormous and dramatic. Maybe in the daylight, Carl, it will look small and cheap and beery and … manageable. But it certainly doesn’t look manageable right now, does it?”
    “No.”
    “But it’s got to be.”
    “Yes, I know that. Good night, Cindy.”
    He stood up and stepped back, aware that he should not get too close to her. She went in without word or gesture, her shoulders at a weary angle.
    He paused at his back door and went to the red maple. The kitchen lights were on and he saw her go from the yard into the kitchen with the bottles and glass she had dropped. He watched her sit in the booth, and then he saw her lower her head to her outstretched arms. He could not tell if she was crying.
    His own house had an odd look to him. He could not identify the strange feeling he had about it.