Blake.
"You're terrific."
"You're a doll," she said. And now her hand was caressing his wrist. "You're really very nice."
"Not half as nice as you."
"Mel," she said as she stroked his wrist, "I wonder if I could ask you something personal?"
"Ask me anything."
"Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?" Melvin blushed. "Well, uh??"
"No, really. Have you?"
He blurted out the truth. "No!"
"Honestly?"
"I haven't. Not ever."
"Really?"
"I'm telling you, it's the truth."
"You honestly never cheated on your wife?"
"No," he said. "I love my wife."
"Sure," she said. "But have you ever cheated on her?"
"No. I told you. No!"
"Isn't that amazing?" she said.
"I guess I sound like a real idiot to you."
"Not at all, Mel. You're a doll. But tell me, why not? Are you afraid?"
"No, it's not that. I mean, I'm not a prude or anything. I just don't think it's right. I don't believe in the double standard."
"Ummm," she said. "You are a challenge."
The martini had anesthetized Melvin; it was as if what was happening couldn't touch him. Or at least he couldn't feel shock. But his physical feelings were intact. He'd had a stiff one ever since she'd put her hand on his wrist.
"Take your glasses off," she commanded. He obeyed instantly.
"You have very sensitive eyes," she said. "I'll bet you're a very sensitive man."
RRRRR. "That's Myrna!" Melvin yelled in alarm as he heard the car come up the driveway outside.
"How nice!" said Gillian Blake, and suddenly she was pressing herself against him. Melvin responded to her kiss, and she pushed his hand against her breast, and there was all the softness he had ever dreamed of.
"Gilly, Gilly," he groaned.
Gillian gently pushed him away as Myrna reached the front door. "You're a sweetie," she said.
How he ever got through the next half hour was a mystery to Melvin. Gillian told Myrna that she had been canvassing, and that Melvin had offered her a drink. As it turned out, Myrna's major reaction was one of excitement because Gillian Blake had been in her house. "I'm amazed that you had the sense to offer her a drink," Myrna told Melvin afterwards. She laughed.
"Although I think you're a little potted. You should be careful, you know you're not much of a drinker."
She asked Melvin what he had talked to Gillian Blake about. He said they had discussed King's Neck and the Blakes's radio program.
"She's a very sexy woman," Myrna said. "But I'm lucky. I know I don't have to worry about you."
That night, Gillian Blake filled Melvin's mind as he huffed over his wife. But Myrna just lay there, a broomstick. He tried to feign orgasm. "I love you," he said. Then he went into the bathroom with a copy of a new men's magazine called Modern Mammaries.
Myrna was still awake when he came back to bed. "You made believe," she said.
"No," he said. "I love you." But he was thinking about Gilly, about how she would be in bed. Christ, the way her breasts had felt beneath the jersey. Only he couldn't. It was bad enough that he had gone as far as he had. It was the martini that had made him lose control. And the fact that Gillian, for some reason, was attracted to him. But the way she had felt. And the way she had kissed. He had practically been unfaithful just kissing her.
It was a sleepless night for Melvin as his mind raced and plunged with thoughts of Gillian Blake. Gilly in a bra and panties. Gilly nude. Gilly undulating in front of him. He and Gilly on a tiger skin, with her on top of him. Oh, Gilly, Gilly, Gilly. They were on a balcony overlooking a moon-dappled sea, and she was touching his bare chest with her fingertips. They were in a rickshaw making love as they were pulled through the streets of Shanghai. They were aboard a train rushing through the silent night. They were on a white sand beach with breakers roaring in the distance. Gillian was whispering in his ear. "The trouble with you, Melvin," she was saying, "is that you've never been laid."
"But I have," he was saying. "Ask Myrna."
"Myrna!" The Gillian Blake dominating his imagination was laughing. "Myrna doesn't count."
The next day was Sunday. Melvin was guilt-stricken about what had happened between him and Gillian Blake, but he knew he could never tell Myrna about it. It was something he would always have to live with. It gnawed at him. Usually, he told Myrna everything. The slightest guilt bore him down. He was miserable.