(1987) The Celestial Bed Page 6

  She repeated this several times, and finally finished by cupping his face in her hands. ‘All right, Adam.’ When he opened his eyes, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. ‘Well, Adam, what did you feel?’

  At first he was unable to speak, and then he whispered, ‘Like I -I wanted to kiss you.’

  She stared at him. ‘Why not? Go ahead.’

  He pushed his face toward hers, and brushed his lips against her lips.

  ‘Was that what you wanted to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or did you want to kiss me in different ways?’

  ‘I — I don’t know what ways.’

  ‘A woman likes to be kissed in other ways, too. On the eyelids, tip of the nose, cleft of the chin, hollow of the throat, and on her earlobes, in her ears, behind her ears. Have you ever done that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do it now, to me. Kissing can be almost as intimate as intercourse. Start with my eyelids.’

  She closed her eyes and felt his nervous lips flutter at them, then waited as he made small pecks at her ears, cheeks, nose, chin. She

  was tempted to grab him, press his mouth against her own, open his mouth and her own and give him a tongue kiss. Just to loosen him up. But she didn’t succumb to it. That would be going too fast, pushing it too hard.

  When he was done, she said, ‘Now it’s your turn to give me a face caress.’

  His fingers went over her face, tentatively exploring and rubbing every feature, for many minutes.

  At last, she opened her eyes. ‘How was it, Adam?’

  He smiled with less effort. T liked it.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Sort of — uh — sensuous,’ he added.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ She sat back. ‘Well, there you are. First two exercises behind you. And nothing scary at all. Maybe you even found it fun.’

  ‘It was fun, I admit.’ He wriggled forward, reaching for his jacket behind him. ‘I guess I should go.’ He paused. ‘What — what do we do at the next session?’

  ‘Foot bath. Then — ‘ Gayle was thinking. ‘Maybe we’ll move right into body imaging.’

  ‘Body imaging?’

  ‘We both stand in front of a full-length mirror and tell what we like and don’t like about our own bodies. We’ll both be nude.’

  His expression did not hide his concern. ‘We’ll undress? I thought you said that would come later.’

  ‘Usually it does. A little later. But I was just thinking it would make it easier for both of us, definitely show more progress, if we were able to work together without anything on.’ She searched his face. ‘How do you feel about that, Adam?’

  ‘I — I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, let me discuss it with Dr Freeberg first.’

  ‘If we do that - how will it help me?’

  Gayle smiled enigmatically: ‘You’ll see.’

  In the quiet of his computerised modern rectory in the rear of his Church of the Resurrection - actually a suite of rooms where the Reverend Mr Josh Scrafield both lived and worked — Darlene Young efficiently continued to go through the routine of preparing her employer for his weekly television broadcast. As she secured Scrafield’s clerical collar to his starched white

  shirt, and helped him into the coat of his conservative dark suit, Darlene was again conscious of her employer’s size and strength, which by now she knew all too well. Scrafield was a powerful man physically, over six feet tall and muscular, who considered his body a temple and who worked out with barbells four times a week with a local exercise coach. She knew, for he had told her so many times, that his temple must be cleansed and strengthened regularly, so that he could stand as an inspiration to the weak and frail of his ever-expanding flock of followers. Scrafield liked to say that he perceived the fears and lusts of his followers, and it was only to understand their temptations fully that he brought himself - forced himself as he put it — at least once a week, to yield to her tender ministrations.

  When she had applied for the job as Scrafield’s secretary, and been hired, her double role of servicing had been understood from the start. Nor had Darlene minded. Scrafield had been single, and Darlene herself long divorced. In her late thirties, Darlene had wanted a man. Scrafield had not been unattractive. His thick eyebrows over oddly Mongolian eyes, fierce riveting black eyes, his pinched nose, jutting jaw, and mesmerising voice (a grandiloquence of speech) had proved utterly seductive. She had been devoted to him, and to his generosity, and she had shown qualities of cleverness that matched his own and this had gained her a promotion to publicist and television producer and allowed her to hire a secretary for herself. By then, she had become less enchanted with him, had tried to overlook his vanity, cunning, and what she suspected was a certain insincerity about his calling. Scrafield’s real religion, she guessed, was his ambition to be Somebody.

  Now that she had him neatly dressed, except for his trousers, she began to remove his trousers from the hanger.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, waving them aside. ‘You know I like to keep them pressed until the last minute.’

  With that, she knew what she had known the last several months. She knew what was in store for her.

  Dressed, but still in his boxer shorts, Scrafield was walking to his gargantuan desk, large enough to satisfy a Mussolini.

  ‘I want to run through the script for tonight one more time,’ he was saying, as he lowered himself behind the desk, took up the script, and wheeled his chair towards her. ‘Do you mind listening?’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ said Darlene.

  ‘If any of it sounds wrong, you let me know.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘All right,’ said Scrafield, clearing his throat, ‘let’s run through it.’

  She sat on an ottoman, near him, as he began to read aloud from the script in his deepened and more theatrical voice.

  ‘Brothers and Sisters,’ the Reverend Mr Scrafield began, ‘once more I have come upon new information about the latest threat that is quietly but inexorably setting about to destroy our families and the very foundations of the American way of life.

  ‘This insidious and cancerous growth that has invaded the schools of our youngest - the schools our children attend, namely, grammar schools and high schools — is known as sex education. This blatant and provocative teaching is being pressed on our young and unformed heirs.

  ‘Speak to anyone who favours sex education in our classrooms instead of in our homes, and more often than not you will find yourself talking to someone who also favours unrestricted abortion, dangerous gay rights, atheism, and Communism.

  ‘Tonight, my Brothers and Sisters, I want you to listen to some facts - actual facts - that have come to light on the matter of sex education.

  ‘According to the latest available statistics, for youngsters between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, there were 1,181,000 pregnancies in a single year - roughly half of them leading to abortions, and half to births.

  ‘Obviously, these unwanted pregnancies were provoked by the kind of sex education going on throughout the states of America — the teachings, by untrained or ill-trained instructors, on every sexual subject from the use of contraceptives to sexual techniques to orgasms. This, in the face of the facts produced by a recent Yankelovich, Skelly, White survey that 84 per cent of parents of teenagers polled feel that it is up to them to inform their children about sexual matters, a responsibility that should be borne only by caring families and not by politicised schools.

  ‘Let me reveal to you a horror story that has recently been exposed in our own backyard. In the high school of San Marcos, California, over 20 per cent of the young girl students were found to be pregnant by the year 1984. When the school board learned

  that fact, the members were quick to reassess the school’s sex education programme and modify it sharply.

  ‘When you learn the shocking statistic that 48 per cent of the states have no guideline policies on sex teachings, and lea
ve policymaking up to local school boards, then you realise that you must have a voice in the decision-making by letting your school board know you have an eye on it and will hold its members accountable for sinful behaviour they promote under the guise of education.

  ‘We must all act in concert with The Women’s Committee for Responsible Government, which has already sued the state of California for spending public money on subversive sex education in our schools. We must join hand in hand to stop this systematic corruption of the innocent. We, too, must become the Godfearing, God-loving moral majority of this wonderful nation.’

  Scrafield droned on and on, and Darlene Young dutifully and attentively listened.

  When he had concluded, Scrafield set his script aside and looked up. ‘What do you think, Darlene?’

  ‘Very good, very frightening,’ she said. ‘Are those statistics actually true?’

  ‘True blue, you bet. You ought to know. You hired that researcher, Chet Hunter, to research it for me. He’s got a reputation for accuracy.’

  ‘Yes, he’s good.’

  Scrafield studied his wristwatch. ‘We’ve still got fifteen minutes or more before the limo comes by to take us to the television studio. I could use a little relaxation, I guess, before going on the air. You up to it, baby?’

  She nodded with fake enthusiasm. ‘You know I am.’

  As Scrafield reached down to the fly of his shorts, she wondered fleetingly why this change had taken place a few months ago. It had always been his habit, in times before, and always before he went on the air, to take her to bed. He had claimed he needed loosening up. He would take her to bed for a quickie.

  But lately there was no more bed. There was only this. She wondered if, turning forty, she had become less attractive to him. Her blonde hair bleached brighter, her face puffier, her large breasts drooping further, and a bit thicker around the waistline and hips. Or was it simply that he had tired of her somewhat,

  become more impatient, and had aged himself and wanted to be relieved more easily without having to work for it?

  She could see that he had opened his shorts and bared himself for her pleasure.

  Without hesitation, and with a set smile, she had come off the ottoman to her knees before him. She took his flaccid organ in one hand. As she did so, he muttered his favourite non sequitur she had heard from him before. ‘Like W.C. Fields used to say, “I never drink water because fish fuck in it.” ‘ Then he chuckled.

  Skilfully, with one hand, she was arousing him. He responded quickly. She saw him close his eyes and lie back, as she lowered her head between his legs.

  In five minutes, he made a throaty sound and then exhaled a great puff of air.

  Later, seated across from him once more, Darlene waited for him to fully recover. Scrafield reached out and patted her on the head. ‘Good, very good, baby. How was I?’

  ‘Wonderful. I love to go down on you.’

  Scrafield frowned darkly. ‘You know I don’t like that expression. I’m against that kind of talk.’

  She felt defiant. ‘Well, it’s something. What is it?’

  ‘Just loosening me up before the big show, that’s all. It’s just diddling, just diddling around.’

  ‘Sounds OK by me, whatever the name.’

  They both came to their feet. ‘Now help me on with my trousers,’ he said. ‘Car should be here for us in five minutes.’ He picked up his script. ‘You don’t think I sounded like I was against sex, do you?’

  ‘Oh, no, Josh,’ she said. ‘Your speech was healthy. It was clearly just against immoral sex. Let me get your trousers.’

  When Suzy Edwards arrived at Chet Hunter’s apartment door, he admitted her at once, welcoming her with an enthusiastic kiss.

  She could see that he had the television set on, and was eager to get back to it. ‘Make yourself at home, Suzy.’ He indicated the television. ‘I have to watch the end of this. It’s almost over.’

  Unbuttoning her leather jacket, Suzy wondered what had riveted Chet to the television set. He was planted before it once more in his wide broken-down armchair. Throwing her jacket aside, she strolled over to see what he was watching. He patted a

  narrow place next to him on the seat and she eased into it close to him.

  Filling the television screen was a handsome man in his early fifties, with the beefy face of a Roman senator, broad shoulders, heavy arms, and wearing a clergyman’s collar and a dark blue suit. Now he was pausing to take up a glass of water from a table at the side of the pulpit.

  Suzy recognised him as the Reverend Josh Scrafield, the most popular evangelist on the West Coast, and immediately she scowled. ‘Chet, what are you doing wasting’your time listening to that bigot?’ she complained. ‘He’s awful. I saw him once, by accident, and I turned him right off. He was doing a terrible number against sex education in the schools.’

  ‘That’s just his usual routine,’ said Hunter, watching the television screen.

  ‘But you don’t have to spend your time - ’

  ‘Business,’ said Hunter. ‘He’s one of my research customers. He assigns me to do an occasional poll for him when he’s looking for issues to discuss on his weekly broadcasts.’

  Scrafield’s booming voice began to fill the small room again, and Suzy wriggled out of the chair, jumped up, and shut off the television set. ‘I can’t stand this any longer,’ she said. ‘We have more important things to do.’

  Hunter had begun to protest, but when Suzy returned and fell back into the big chair beside him, he shrugged, then smiled and wrapped his arms around her. ‘This suits me fine,’ he said. ‘I’m sure glad you came over.’

  Hunter’s hand moved across Suzy’s blouse, curving around her full-blown breasts. He began to undo her blouse. Suzy tried to stay his hand. ‘Listen, Chet, I wanted to talk to you about something first.’

  But his hand was already under her brassiere, his fingers searching for one of her nipples. ‘Make it second,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something else that’s first.’

  ‘Chet, I’m serious …’ Her voice drifted off, as she felt her nipples harden and allowed him to pull her atop him. ‘Chet …’ Then she felt his erection against her thigh and emitted a little moan.

  He was taking off her blouse. ‘We can talk later, honey. I want to go to bed. This time we’ll be great. Come on, honey.’

  Her resistance had gone, along with her blouse. Her brassiere

  came loose and she staggered to her feet, unzipping her dirndl skirt. As her skirt dropped to the floor, she whispered, ‘All right, darling. Let’s.’

  She rolled down her panty hose as he quickly undressed.

  A minute later she was on the bed, on her back, her legs wide apart. She watched as he knelt on the bed beside her. She could see that he was ready and her excitement grew.

  She reached up for him, and he moved quickly between her fleshy thighs.

  ‘Put it in, darling,’ she called up breathlessly.

  He was bending over her, feeling for the mark, and then he found it and she groaned again.

  He began to enter her when suddenly he choked, almost convulsively, and began to have an orgasm.

  ‘Oh, God!’ he exclaimed.

  Suzy lay there, helplessly, eyes fixed on his tortured face.

  Premature ejaculation.

  Again.

  A minute later he fell back on his haunches ready to weep. Suzy crawled off the bed, rubbed his head and walked out of the room. He heard the sound of the shower and when she returned she settled down near him.

  ‘Jesus, I’m sorry,’ he croaked. ‘I’m real sorry. I apologise. I’m as sick of myself as you must be of me.’

  She placed an arm around his hunched naked shoulders. ‘I’m not sick of you, darling. I love you as much as ever.’

  ‘How can you?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘Maybe I do,’ she said, trying to console him. ‘Maybe I know what’s wrong. I know somebody who knows what can
be done, somebody who can help. That’s really why I came over tonight. To tell you I have somebody who can help us both.’

  He met her eyes, discouraged. ‘How? How can anyone?’

  ‘Please hear me out, Chet. You know I took a new job as a secretary a short time ago - a medical secretary …’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Maybe I told you who it was with or maybe I didn’t because of confidentiality. Anyway, the man I went to work for is Dr Arnold Freeberg. Ring a bell?’

  ‘Faintly. Seems like I read — ’

  ‘He opened the Freeberg Clinic downtown not long ago. He’s a bona fide sex therapist. He’s trained six sex surrogates to start working for him, with him.’

  Hunter wrinkled his brow. ‘Sex surrogates? Youmean the ones who pitch in to help men - men in - in trouble?’

  ‘Exactly. Dr Freeberg has just accepted four or five patients. He and his surrogates are going to try to cure them. I know all about it. I was transcribing the patients’ case histories today.’

  She began to tell Hunter about the cases, one in particular with a problem precisely like Chet Hunter’s own.

  ‘Premature ejaculation,’ Suzy said. ‘Dr Freeberg told the surrogate who will work on it, “That should be easy. Those are the easiest to set right.” His surrogate is going to put the patient through exercises that should cure him.’

  For the first time Hunter had straightened up on the bed. ‘Sex surrogates,’ he murmured, ‘right here in Hillsdale, actual sex surrogates in sweet little Hillsdale.’

  Suzy was puzzled. ‘What’s so unusual about that?’

  Hunter reacted surprised. Obviously, his mind was racing. ‘Don’t you see, honey? Your run-of-the-mill conservative American family city doesn’t have sex surrogates on its premises. It just doesn’t. That’s unheard of.’

  ‘I still don’t understand.’

  Hunter jumped off the bed and began to pull on his shorts. ‘Suzy, it’s a story, a big story. If I gave Otto Ferguson at the Chronicle a tip like this, he could put me on the story. And it could lead to my big break, to the job on the newspaper I’ve always wanted.’

  Suzy was on her feet. ‘Forget it, that angle of it, Chet. That’s confidential stuff. Even if I broke my word for you, I’m still Dr Freeberg’s confidential secretary.’