Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,65

the fancy neighbors? My name is Corby, and this is my mother, Mrs. Korbinsky?"

"Don't be ridiculous, ma," he had said, relieved by her refusal.

"Don't worry," she had answered. "I wouldn't embarrass you or Miss High and Mighty. Sadie Korbinsky don't go where she's not wanted. You could give me a million dollars, I wouldn't come."

Miss High and Mighty was Myrna. His mother and Myrna had never gotten along. "A Jewish girl who don't know enough to save chicken fat," was the way Mrs. Korbinsky had characterized her daughter-in-law. Whereas Myrna said that Mrs. Korbinsky, despite living in Brooklyn, was the "most East Side person" she had ever met.

"After all, Melvin, Myrna had once explained, "she simply refuses to change. You know I'm not class conscious. I mean how could I be? Doesn't my own mother play mah-jongg? So it's not that. It's just that your mother refuses to fit in. She acts sort of – well let's face it, she acts kikey."

Myrna, of course, didn't play mah-jongg. She played bridge. She also belonged to the PTA, she was in a volleyball league at adult education, and she was a member of the King's Neck Garden Club. Melvin was extremely proud of the way she was active in the civic life of King's Neck. She was making sure that they fitted into the community.

You had to hand it to Myrna, thought Melvin. Myrna Gold from Forest Hills, the dentist's daughter whom Melvin had drilled at Grossinger's. The first night, before they had even finished the peach soup, they had discovered their mutual interests – books, music, the fact that they were both Democrats. Later, they had cha-chaed together and that was it. Her parents were fine people; oh, maybe her mother was a little overbearing, but after all Myrna's father was a dentist. And the Golds had helped out financially in a number of ways; they had even helped with the house. And he loved Myrna, he owed her a lot. Besides, after nine years of marriage you know that nothing is perfect, that the thing is to do the best you can. Myrna was dark, intense, skinny; she was a good hostess and she could talk about Dostoevsky and Camus. At first, it had been her very nervousness that had attracted him – all that tension. It had held the promise of explosion, but that had never happened. Still, you kept trying. Even after nine years. He'd had great hopes for the two weeks in Miami Beach. A second honeymoon, he'd told Myrna. Just the two of them. But it hadn't worked out. Maybe it had been Myrna's bathing suit. A bikini, but she had looked bony in it, she had looked-well, neuter. And there was a stringiness about her hair. It hadn't helped the way she looked that there had been a couple of real good-lookers at the hotel. There had been one who had looked a little like Gillian Blake – a slim blonde with a good bust. He had watched her at the pool, at the beach, and in the dining room. In Melvin's daydreams, she had seduced him in her cabana – he imagined that she wore black lace lingerie and used alluring perfume. And, also, that she was incredibly skilled in sex. When he was on top of Myrna in their hotel room, he had tried to visualize the blonde. One night, the fiction had succeeded and he had functioned well. But usually it had been the same as at home – no good. The body beneath him was neither soft nor firm, and they achieved little that was mutual except perspiration. Afterward, when he was in the bathroom with a men's magazine that he had hidden in his luggage, he thought he heard Myrna crying. But he didn't let on. Nothing was perfect. And it wasn't his fault. And anyway, they had so much together that was good – the house, David, common interests. Besides, sex was overrated. It wasn't everything. And there were always the men's magazines – a harmless preoccupation.

He had read about men with worse fetishes than men's magazines. Whips, fruit jars, all sorts of things. He was no nut. He was a professional man. A lawyer. A junior member of a New York law firm who specialized in real estate work. At the garden club's party the previous weekend, Gillian Blake – oh Gilly, Gilly, Gilly! – had asked him about it. "It must take a great deal of intelligence,"