So Bill knew pretty much right away. It was that one-love thing. It was that Beverly’s husband was young, whoever he was, and the opportunity was there and maybe he hadn’t had a chance to taste all the flavors of water. Then, maybe it hit him in the face like it had hit Bill himself.
Forbidden fruit. A bite of the apple. Marie was a pain in the ass, had become a big pain in the ass to Henry Lee, Suburban’s meat cutter who’d taught Bill to cut meat and a whole lot more. Henry Lee was Bill’s partner and partner in crime. They drank together, got high together, and in general, they just liked each other.
Because Marie was a pain in the ass, because Bill had inadvertently walked in on them in the act, Henry Lee offered her to Bill. Once he’d made the offer, it was out there, out on the table. He told Bill she would do anything, that he could do anything to her. He told Bill they could do her together if he wanted, said she’d like it.
Bill declined this offer too. Bill was stricken with Mary, actually in love with her despite the fact that he was living with his wife-to-be.
Mother Mary. Henry Lee and Bill had been shooting the breeze, talking about things, and when Bill had brought up how he wouldn’t mind doing Mary, Henry Lee had told him to go for it, that she’d go with him in a flash.
One day he was just a single, regular guy living in his own apartment on Norwich Street. Then his friends ask him to drive to a party. Then four days later his wife-to-be shows up at his door and says she’s moving in with him.
Curve ball.
One day he’s just a regular student working his way through school on a work-study program, an English major with solid A’s in his major and everything else except science. He’s got a live-in girlfriend who will become his wife and things are good, real good.
Next day he meets one of his professors for lunch to discuss his poetry. That professor, one of the premiere translators of Japanese poetry and a renowned poet in his own right, asks him if they could go check out what was going on at the demonstration, which they do. Bill does something commendable, helps a demonstrator getting beaten by six plain-clothes FBI agents.
Day after that next day he has a concussion and is all beat-up. He’s been arrested and is facing prison time, not to mention being expelled from the university.
Life changed forever.
Ain’t it funny how the night moves!
Marie wanted to get with a white man. She implored him, said he was her chance, that she might never get another chance. Henry Lee was pushing her on him. He’d already been with Mary and Bea and Norma and others. What difference did one more make?
So Bill knew the answer. Bill knew why Beverly’s husband was messing around. Having an affair, that was a bit much, but himself, Bill still loved Mary and could full well understand loving more than one woman at a time. Bill could also understand office stuff, messing around at work, how you could spend more time with the women at work than you did with your own wife. And at work they were all prettied up too.
Forbidden fruit, availability, curiosity, every day close even intimate proximity — these were the answers, the reasons.
Bill made a note to ask Beverly if she had any curiosity at all. He made a note to ask her if she’d ever been with anyone else. He made a note to ask her what her fantasies were and if there were no consequences for anything at all here exactly what she would want and how she would want it.
