Gerald's Game(4)

She was seeing an even hotter version of that stare right now.

"You said it sounded like fun. Those were your exact words: "It sounds like fun.""

Had she said that? She supposed she had. But it had been a mistake. A little goof, that was all, a little slip on the old banana peel. Sure. But how did you tell your husband that when he had his lower lip pooched out like Baby Huey getting ready to do a tantrum?

She didn't know, so she dropped her gaze... and saw something she didn't like at all. Gerald's version of Mr Happy hadn't wilted a bit. Apparently Mr Happy hadn't heard about the change of plans.

"Gerald, I just don't-"

"... feel like it? Well, that's a hell of a note, isn't it? I took the whole day off work. And if we spend the night, that means tomorrow morning off, as well." He brooded over this for a moment, and then repeated: "You said it sounded like fun."

She began to fan out her excuses like a tired old poker-hand (Yes, but now I have a headache; Yes, but I'm having these really shittypre-menstrual cramps; Yes, but I'm a woman and therefore entitled tochange my mind; Yes, but now that we're actually out here in the BigLonely you frighten me, you had beautiful brute of a man, you), the lies that fed either his misconceptions or his ego (the two were frequently interchangeable), but before she could pick a card, any card, the new voice spoke up. It was the first time it had spoken out loud, and Jessie was fascinated to find that it sounded the same in the air as it did inside her head: strong, dry, decisive, in control.

It also sounded curiously familiar.

"You're right-I guess I did say that, but what really sounded like fun was breaking away with you the way we used to before you got your name up on the door with the rest of the type-A's. I thought maybe we could bounce the bedsprings a little, then sit on the deck and dig the quiet. Maybe play some Scrabble after the sun went down. Is that an actionable offense, Gerald? What do you think? Tell me, because I really want to know." "But you said-"

For the last five minutes she had been telling him in various ways that she wanted out of these goddam handcuffs, and he still hadn't let her out of them. Her impatience boiled over into fury. "My God, Gerald, this stopped being fun for me almost as soon as we started, and if you weren't as thick as a brick, you would have realized it!"

"Your mouth. Your smart, sarcastic mouth. Sometimes I get so tired of-"

"Gerald, when you get your head really set on something, sweet and low doesn't come close to reaching you. And whose fault is that?"

"I don't like you when you're like this, Jessie. When you're like this I don't like you a bit."

This was going from bad to worse to horrible, and the scariest part was how fast it was happening. Suddenly she felt very tired, and a line from an old Paul Simon song occurred to her: "I don't want no part of this crazy love." Right on, Paul. You may be short, but you ain't dumb.

"I know you don't. And it's okay that you don't, because right now the subject is these handcuffs, not how much you do or don't like me when I tell you I've changed my mind about something. I want out of these cuffs. Are you hearing me?"

No, she realized with dawning dismay. He really wasn't. Gerald was still one turn back.

"You are just so goddamned inconsistent, so goddamned sarcastic. I love you, Jess, but I hate the goddam lip on you. I always have." He wiped the palm of his left hand across his pouting rosebud of a mouth and then looked sadly at her-poor, put-upon Gerald, saddled with a woman who had gotten him out here in the forest primeval and then reneged on her sexual obligations. Poor, put upon Gerald, who showed no sign whatever of getting the handcuff keys off the bureau by the bathroom door.

Her unease had changed into something else-while her back was turned, as it were. It had become a mixture of anger and fear she could remember feeling only once before. When she was twelve or so, her brother Will had goosed her at a birthday party. All her friends had seen, and they had all laughed. Har-har, preety fonny, senhorra, I theenk. It hadn't been funny to her, though.

Will had been laughing hardest of all, so hard he was actually doubled over with one hand planted above each knee, his hair hanging in his face. This had been a year or so after the advent of the Beatles and the Stones and the Searchers and all the rest, and Will had had a lot of hair to hang. It had apparently blocked his view of Jessie, because he had no idea of how angry she was... and he was, under ordinary circumstances, very much aware of her turns of mood and temper. He'd gone on laughing until that froth of emotion so filled her that she understood she would have to do something with it or simply explode. So she had doubled up one small fist and had punched her well-loved brother in the mouth when he finally raised his head to look at her. The blow had knocked him over like a bowling pin and he had cried really hard.

Later she had tried to tell herself that he had cried more out of surprise than pain, but she had known, even at twelve, that that wasn't so. She had hurt him, hurt him plenty. His lower lip had split in one place, his upper lip in two, and she had hurt him plenty. And why? Because he had done something stupid? But he'd only been nine himself-nine that day-and at that age all kids were stupid. No; it hadn't been his stupidity. It had been her fear-fear that if she didn't do something with that ugly green froth of anger and embarrassment, it would

(put out the sun)