When Jane Lovejoy’s husband telephoned to tell
her that he had been passed over for the promotion he had been hoping for, and also
that he had been denied the raise he was expecting, she knew she would have to
do something special to raise his spirits, and that there was some heavy
lifting ahead.
Richard was more fragile and temperamental
than their four-year-old son, and he would need something sweet to soothe his
bruised ego; Jane figured a trip over to Lake Street and an evening of sinful-fun
would be just the thing to keep him calm…she would enjoy it too. More
importantly it would distract him from his worries and his shame, keep him from
turning his resentment and anger against her…or their son.
She sent the boy to her mother’s in Linden
Hills, she had the servants prepare a platter of food they could eat at room
temperature, including a roast beef and a chicken that would keep well for
hours in the ice box.
Her maid helped her with her hair and dress,
after-witch Jane sent everyone home so that she could be alone with her husband
when he arrived; then she fixed herself a martini about a half an hour before Richard
came home.
It was raining hard by the time he arrived and
Jane’s timing was perfect.
He had parked the car under the port
cochere so that he was barely damp when he came through the side door into
the parlor. She went to greet him there with a lit cigarette in one hand and a brandy
Manhattan, made just the way he liked it, in the other.
Jane loved her husband and she was sad to see
him come through the door with his shoulders sagging and the air of defeat hanging
about him.
His face was set in a mean-grimace, but when
he saw his wife standing in the light of the Tiffany chandelier, slender and
blonde and wearing a slinky dress, his mood began to change.
Jane wore her make-up done in her signature
sultry-style, I married a movie-star, Richard thought. As kind as
Dorris Day and as daring as Mae West, the perfect woman.
Richard only paused for a second, as he felt his
sense of failure magnifying for the span of a heartbeat, then his troubles
simply vanished as he gazed at Jane’s glossy red lips. He let those feelings go
and allowed his imagination to fill the hole in his heart with expectations of
what the night promised to become.
The way jane had greeted him gave Richard the understanding
that his loving-wife was going to spend her money pampering him once again, not
to celebrate his success, but to compensate him for his poor performance at the
Lumber Exchange where he sat in her father’s chair.
Jane walked toward him with her pale thighs
barely rubbing together, allowing him to see the hem of her stockings and catch
a glimpse of her garter belt below the fringe of her too-short, emerald gown.
She handed him his drink and the lit Pall
Mall; then kissed him lightly on the lips, brushing them languidly with the tip
of her tongue as Richard moaned with delight. With one sip of his Manhattan and
a puff from the Pall Mall, the scent of his wife’s perfume and the
luxuriousness of her kiss, the sting of shame he had been nursing since the
morning meeting with the board melted away.
The house was quiet.
Richard knew they were alone, and soon they
would be headed to the strip; his wife would dope him up and let him smother
his woes between the breasts of an anonymous immigrant girl, then she would
call her father in the morning to tell him that he was too sick to come in.
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