He, too, had been sobered considerably by the chill night breeze. He was still nice and tight, though, just tight enough so that he was on edge with anticipation. In spite of its bad beginning, the evening had turned out very well; he had gotten Cindy drunk, as he had planned, and she had loosened up considerably, even to the point of smiling and tacitly forgiving Ralph for the set of photos of the night before, of that he was almost certain. She was warm and cuddly now, sitting next to him, in an obvious loving and permissive mood; it wouldn't take much to convince her of the rightness, the propriety, of allowing him to take more intimate pictures of her with their new Polaroid. He just had to be very careful how he went about it…
'We're going home, honey,' he whispered. 'Home.'
'Mmm, that's good,' she murmured. 'I… I think I drank too much tonight, Howie.'
'No you didn't, baby,' he assured her.
'I… I'm sorry I was so… so bitchy the first part of the evening,' she said softly. 'It's just that I was… well, that I was upset about… about a few things.'
'It's okay, honey, I understand.'
A few moments later they were pulling into the driveway of their small, middle-class cottage in one of Morriston's older sections. Howard parked the car in the garage, and they got out, arms about one another, and went into the darkened interior. He switched on one of the low-watt lamps on an end table as Cindy took off her coat and put her purse down on one of the chairs.
'How about a nightcap, Cindy honey?' he suggested.
'Oh Howie, I don't know. I've drunk so much tonight…'
'Just a little one,' he said quickly.
'Well… okay. But a little one, now?'
'Sure,' Howard said eagerly. 'Sure, baby.'
He mixed two gin-and-tonics in the kitchen, spiking Cindy's liberally with gin and enough fresh lemon juice to conceal the oily taste of the liquor. He carried the glasses into the living room, handed his young wife hers, and then sat down beside her on the divan.
She sipped tentatively, smiled at him, and then took a larger swallow. 'Mmm, good,' she said. She felt safe and secure, now that they were back in their own home, and a little contrite for the way she had behaved tonight. But, as she had told Howard, she'd been upset and everything had seemed to be drawing in on her at the same time, crushing her under its weight. Now, with the liquor to take away the sharp edge of her problems, she wasn't as sure as she had been that things were going to go wrong in their perfect marriage. After all, Howard still loved her — there was no doubt of that in her mind at all. What, then, could be terrible enough to override that abiding love? Especially since she loved him as deeply as he did her?
Still, though, there was one nagging question permeating her mind. If she had been fully sober, she would never have broached it aloud to Howie — but the drinks had loosened her tongue enough so that, now, she did; she had to find out the truth.
'Howie,' she began, 'Howie, did you… well, did you say anything to Ralph about those… those pictures you took of me the other night?'
He frowned slightly, looking at her. 'Why do you ask that?'
'The way he and Norma were talking tonight,' she replied. 'It was as if they… they knew all about them.'
Howard moistened his lips. 'You're attaching too much significance to those photos, honey,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong in them, you know. Just some harmless intimacy between a husband and his wife, that's all.'
'Howie,' she insisted, 'did you tell Ralph about them?'
'All right, if you must know — yes, I told Ralph about them. I couldn't help it; he kept asking me and I… well, I just blurted it out.'
'Oh Howie, how could you!' Cindy looked as if she were about to cry.
'Hey now,' he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. 'There's nothing to get upset about, for God's sake. Here, drink your drink.'
Obediently, Cindy took a deep swallow from her glass, shuddering a little as the strong liquor raced hotly into her stomach. He had told! She had known he had, of course, but his admission brought a renewed sense of anguish to her. He had no right telling about the photos; they were a private thing between the two of them, something personal, something exciting and…
Cindy sat rigid. Exciting? Had she just thought that the photos he had taken of her were exciting? No… no, she couldn't have… and yet, there was no doubt that she had thought that self-same thought. But why? Did she really think they were exciting? Herself lewdly displayed like… like those women in the other photos she had seen last night, Ralph's photos — displayed in an obscene provocative pose before her husband…
Exciting? No… no… and yet Howard had obviously been excited by them at the time, just as she herself had been undeniably excited by the lewd carnality displayed in those other snapshots. Oh God, oh God…
She drank again, emptying her glass, and when she put it down on the coffee table she felt a terrible rise of guilt once more. And with it came the need to unburden herself, to tell Howard that she had looked at those pictures of Ralph's last night — but not that she had fingered herself while looking at them, never that. Still, she had to tell him that she had seen them, that she had been aroused by them…
'Oh Howie,' she blurted out unable to hold it back longer. 'I opened that envelope you brought home last night, the one from Ralph. That's why I was so upset tonight, because I opened it and I saw those terrible pictures, and I… I was excited by them. I was, Howie, and that's the reason I was so upset. Howie, I actually got turned on looking at those dirty pictures!'
She flung herself against his chest, and Howard held her tightly to him. He could scarcely conceal his elation. So she had seen them, just as he had expected — and, as he had hoped, been aroused by them! Good, good; now he had to proceed carefully, carefully, lest he cause more shame and guilt inside her, break the thin shell of sexual freedom which was beginning to construct itself around his lovely young wife's old-fashioned and ingrained moral ethic…
'You mustn't feel bad, baby,' he soothed, kissing her hair. 'There's nothing wrong in wanting to make love after looking at other people doing it; it's a natural reaction. A perfectly natural reaction that almost everyone has.'
'But the… the people in those photos were doing such… such awful things to one another…'
'There's nothing awful about giving pleasure to your husband or wife,' said Howard wisely, tenderly. 'It's the whole foundation of a marital relationship, honey. If it pleases the one you love, then it can't be wrong. You believe that, don't you?'
'I… I guess so.'
'If, for example, I was pleased taking pictures of you with our Polaroid, pictures of you in the nude, you'd want to do that for me, wouldn't you? You'd want to take off your clothes and let me photograph you, wouldn't you?'
'But… but you couldn't be pleased doing such a thing, Howie! You're not that kind of man…'
'Honey, I like to look at you, at your naked body. It pleases me, it excites me tremendously. I like to look at you in photographs, look at you there in full-color; any man would, any real man…'
'Howie, what a terrible thing to say!'
'It's true, honey,' Howard said, feeling pressure building in his loins as he spoke, knowing he was going to win, that his strategy was working. 'I like to look at you in the nude, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't like to look at other women in the nude, too. Not to touch or anything,' he added quickly, 'just to look at and get excited by, that's all. And you're not any different than I am, not really; you're just like other women in that respect, too. You got excited looking at those photos of other couples making love and I did, too. When I saw them, I got so excited I thought I was going to have an orgasm right on the spot. But it wasn't them I was thinking of loving, Cindy; it was you, you my darling. Looking at those photos of other people doing it made me want you even more than I ever did before!'
Cindy could hardly believe her ears, hearing her husband's confession. He had felt the same as she last night, as hundreds of other people did every day if what he said was true. Why, then, did she feel so much guilt about her own photos and the ones she'd looked at the previous night? If he was right, then she shouldn't have any guilt at all with her own husband. And yet… Oh, she didn't know what to think now; if only she were sober, if only her brain wasn't spinning, spinning…
'I'll prove it to you, sweetheart,' Howard was saying in his mellifluous voice. 'Ralph gave me some other
