Martian Time Slip

Returning to the kitchen with the empty pitcher, June said, "I want to tell you what Tony did the other day." Tony was her current lover; she had been having an affair with him for six months now, and she kept the other ladies, especially Silvia, up to date. "We had lunch together over at Geneva II, at a French restaurant he knows; we had escargots--you know, snails. They serve them to you in the shells and you get them out with a horrible-looking fork that has tines a foot long. Of course, that's all black-market food; did you know that? That there're restaurants serving exclusively black-market delicacies? I didn't until Tony took me there. I can't tell you the name of it, of course."

"Snails," Silvia said with aversion, thinking of all the wonderful dishes she herself would have ordered, if she had a lover and he had taken her out.

How would it be to have an affair? Difficult, but surely worth it, if she could keep it from her husband. The problem, of course, was David. And now Jack worked a good deal of the time at home, and her father-in-law was visiting as well. And she could never have him, her lover, at the house, because of Erna Steiner next door; the big baggy hausfrau would see, comprehend, and probably at once, out of a Prussian sense of duty, inform Jack. But then, wasn't the risk part of it? Didn't it help add that--flavor?

"What would your husband do if he found out?" she asked June. "Cut you to bits? Jack would."

June said, "Mike has had several affairs of his own since we've been married. He'd be sore and possibly he'd give me a black eye and go off for a week or so with one of his girl friends, leaving me stuck with the kids, of course. But he'd get over it."

To herself, Silvia wondered if Jack had ever had an affair. It did not seem probable. She wondered how she would feel if he had and she found out--would it end the marriage? Yes, she thought. I'd get a lawyer right away. Or would I? There's no way to tell in advance... .

"How are you and your father-in-law getting along?" June asked.

"Oh, not badly. He and Jack and the Steiner boy are off somewhere today, taking a business trip. I don't see much of Leo, actually; he came mainly on business--June, how many affairs have you had?"

"Six," June Henessy said.

"Gee," Silvia said. "And I haven't had any."

"Some women aren't built for it."

That sounded to Silvia like a rather personal, if not outright anatomical, insult. "What do you mean?"

"Aren't constituted psychologically," June explained glibly. "It takes a certain type of woman who can create and sustain a complex fiction, day after day. I enjoy it, what I make up to tell Mike. You're different. You have a simple, direct sort of mind; deception isn't your cup of tea. Anyhow, you have a nice husband." She emphasized the authority of her judgment by a lifting of her eyebrows.

"Jack used to be gone all week long," Silvia said. "I should have had one then. Now it would be so much harder." She wished, fervently, that she had something creative or useful or exciting to do that would fill up the long empty afternoons; she was bored to death with sitting in some other woman's kitchen drinking coffee hour after hour. No wonder so many women had affairs. It was that or madness.

"If you're limited to your husband for emotional experience," June Henessy said, "you have no basis of judgment; you're more or less stuck with what he has to offer, but if you've gone to bed with other men you can tell better what your husband's deficiencies are, and it's much more possible for you to be objective about him. And what needs to be changed in him, you can insist that he change. And for your own part, you can see where you've been ineffective and with these other men you can learn how to improve yourself, so that you give your husband more satisfaction. I fail to see who loses by that."

Put that way, it certainly sounded like a good healthy idea for all concerned. Even the husband benefited.

While she sat sipping her coffee and meditating about that, Silvia looked out the window and saw to her surprise a 'copter landing. "Who's that?" she asked June.

"Heaven's sake, I don't know," June said, glancing out.

The 'copter rolled to a halt near the house; the door opened and a dark-haired, good-looking man wearing a bright nylon shirt and necktie, slacks, and stylish European loafers stepped out. Behind him came a Bleekman who lugged two heavy suitcases.

Inside her, Silvia Bohlen felt her heart quiver as she watched the dark-haired man stroll toward the house, the Bleekman following with the suitcases. This was the way she imagined June's Tony to look.