FullReads

The negotiations moved along without a hitch. George’s mother held out for twenty-eight thousand shares, and got it. The only problem left was the date for the wedding, and Jenny settled that very quickly. “I want my man, Mom,” she said, “and I want him now.”

Jenny always got what she wanted.

When she and her mother left that evening, she held George’s hand in hers and whispered earnestly, “So they were married and lived happily ever after. That’s the way it’s going to be with us, isn’t it, George?”

“It’s up to you, Jenny; for as long as you want me.”

That was the conventional answer which he was expected to make, but he saw unmasked disappointment in her face. She wanted something more genuine, with more of himself in it. He felt suddenly sorry for her, for the way he was going to use her. She was a pretty girl, even sweet and innocent–if those words still had any real meaning left after what his mother’s world had done to them. Under other circumstances, George would have looked forward with keen pleasure to marrying Jenny. As it was, Jenny Harper was first a symbol of the fakery he intended to destroy, and after that a woman.

* * * * *

Five days later they were married. In spite of the short engagement, Mrs. Harper and George’s mother managed to put on a splendid show in the church. George received a business sedan from his mother, the traditional gift given every bridegroom; and from Mrs. Harper he received a good job in a company where she was the majority stockholder. And so, in the customary pageantry and ceremony, George became Mr. Harper.

“Think of it–Mr. Harper,” Jenny sighed, clinging to his arm. “Now you’re really mine, George.”

On the church steps the newlyweds posed for photographs–George in the plain, white trunks which symbolized a first marriage; Jenny in a dazzling cloud of fluff, suggestively nearly transparent. Then Mrs. Harper drew Jenny aside and whispered in her daughter’s ear: the traditional telling of the secret. Now Jenny knew where the compound was manufactured; and for George revenge was within his grasp.

George’s mother had arranged for their honeymoon at Memory Lodge, a resort not far from the Directorate capital in Hollywood. It was the national capital as well, though everyone conscientiously maintained the pretense that Washington, with an all-male Congress, still governed the country. George considered himself lucky that his mother had chosen Memory Lodge. He had already planned to desert Jenny in the mountains.

George knew how to drive; his mother had wanted him to do a great deal of chauffeuring for her. But he had never driven beyond town, and he had never driven anywhere alone. His mother gave him a map on which his route to the lodge was indicated in bright red. In the foothills George left the marked highway on a paved side road.

He gambled that Jenny wouldn’t immediately realize what he had done, and the gamble paid off. Still wearing her nearly transparent wedding gown, she pressed close to him and ran her hands constantly over his naked chest, thoroughly satisfied with the man she had bought. In the church George had been given a tall glass of the compound; he acted the part Jenny expected.

But it was far less a role he played than George wanted to admit. His body sang with excitement. He found it very difficult to hold the excitement in check. If he had been addicted to the compound, it would have been out of the question. More than ever before he sympathized with the men who were enslaved by love. In spite of his own immunity, he nearly yielded to the sensuous appeal of her caress. He held the wheel so hard his knuckles went white; he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.