Brass Bed Read Online Free Page B

said.
    “No,” I said.
    “I was certain you’d be glad. Why aren’t you? Doesn’t it make you feel good to see me again?”
    “It makes me feel terrible.”
    “Why?”
    “You know why.”
    “Yes, I know, but tell me anyhow.”
    “Because it’s an aggravation.”
    “Do you think of me and want me when we’re apart?”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “When is it worst? The thinking and wanting, I mean.”
    “At night. When I’m lying in bed.”
    “That’s true. I knew you’d say that because it’s worst then for me too. Is it any satisfaction to you to know that I’m lying in bed and wanting you too?”
    “Very little. I try not to think of you lying in bed.”
    “Oh. I see. Because Kirby’s there with me, you mean. Yes, I can see that it wouldn’t be pleasant for you to think of that.”
    “Well, let’s quit thinking of it, then.”
    “I’m quite sure I’d be miserable if it were the other way around and someone was lying with you.”
    “No one’s been lying with me.”
    “I expect that someone will, though, sooner or later, and I’ll be perfectly miserable about it. Do you think I ought to quit sleeping with Kirby?”
    “It’s none of my business. I would like, please, not to think about it at all, one way or another.”
    The front screen opened and shut. Footsteps approached in the hall, and Kirby Craig came into the room. He was wearing a white suit and white shoes, and he looked very rich and handsome and genial. Probably he was quite nice in his own way, and it was remarkable how much I hated him.
    “Hello, you folks,” he said.
    Jolly let go of my hand, and Sid got off the arm of Fran’s chair, and Fran stood up deliberately and set her empty martini glass on a table.
    “Have you come to hit someone in the eye?” she said.
    Kirby got red in the face, and suddenly he did not look at all pleasant. The red did not spread evenly under his skin, but had a kind of mottled appearance, like liver blotches, and seeing him like that gave me some satisfaction in a small way.
    “Come off it, Fran,” he said. “You get fresh with me, I’ll spank your butt.”
    “I believe you,” Fran said. “You are just the big, virile man to do it. I have never seen a bigger, more virile man in all this big, virile world. God, I admire you tremendously!”
    “Just be a good girl, that’s all.”
    “A man who would black his wife’s eye should be thrashed,” Sid said suddenly.
    “Thrashed!
Thrashed,
for God’s sake!” Fran threw her arms up into the air and sat down again in the chair. “Why must you constantly interfere, Sid? I was absolutely confounding this big, virile man, and you have reduced the entire dramatic scene to an utter farce.”
    Kirby was looking at Sid ominously.
    “Who’s going to thrash me?” he said.
    Sid stood up very straight and looked dignified. In spite of handicaps, he really did. He wasn’t big or impressive, but somehow he managed to look quite dignified.
    “You needn’t try to terrify me,” he said. “I’m completely impervious to your brutish behavior.”
    “You’re just a God-damn coward,” Kirby said. “You wouldn’t fight if I spit on you.”
    “Fighting is vulgar,” Sid said. “I don’t fight.”
    He walked over to the hall and turned.
    “With neither men nor women,” he said.
    He went out, and Fran began to laugh. On her face was an expression of mixed amazement and admiration.
    “You know, that was damn good, wasn’t it? That remark about neither men nor women. I’m amazed that old Sid would think of something like that. It must have been irony or something, wasn’t it? Was it irony, Felix?”
    I didn’t answer. Jolly went over and set her glass on the table beside Fran’s and then returned and faced Kirby.
    “At the risk of being hit in the other eye,” she said, “I must say that Sid is right. You are very vulgar, Kirby.”
    “Don’t needle me, Jolly,” Kirby said. “Just don’t needle me.”
    “May I feel your muscle?” she