Isaiah 9:18
Friday 31st August: Patricia Hartnett was everyone's idea of a successful woman. Starting from the day she'd won the beauty pageant at West Springfield High. Five-foot-three with green-gray eyes and rich, auburn hair, she could fill out a bathing suit in knock-you-dead fashion, or pour herself into a ball dress like some sort of package from heaven. There were those that regarded Trish Hartnett as the blowzy barmaid type - but mostly they were older and mostly they were women. Trish was as bright as a button with her high-stepping boots and plummeting neckline. She could talk the hind legs off a donkey but she sure knew her stuff. And she knew how to work hard. She hated not to work, she found idleness enervating, she was never drained by work. A high earner, she had a baby-pink house and swimming pool to match - way before she'd been married to her childhood sweetheart, Sean.
Sean Hartnett was Sean-baby to Tricia. Sean had led a tougher life, kicked, slashed and gouged at the whim of outrageous fortune. For Sean, Trish had been a refuge. Whilst she earned her money through interior design, Sean worked as a master carpenter. Hence the re-encounter. Sean had in turn represented security for Trish after a series of unhappy love affairs. They'd have been married sooner but for the fact the church demanded a year's engagement - not the Catholic church in general but rather Our Lady of Perpetual Help in particular.
Tonight Sean had come home - late. Sean often wasn't home 'till late these days and Trish was about ready to lam into him heavy. She was tired of being taken for-granted. The first couple of months of their marriage he'd been late and she'd been angry but sex had been a great healer. She'd start by wanting to rip his heart out but he'd smile his boyish smile and she'd find herself wanting to rip his pants off instead. For Trish, as for most women, sex was more than the mere pleasure of the act. Sex represented shared comfort and intimacy, both surrender and dominion, freedom and expiation as well as laughter and exquisite relief. She was that type of person incapable of celibacy. And for Trish that meant a need for a man of her own. Not some shallow one-night stand. Nor, like some latterday Saint Teresa, did Trish find religion a substitute for sex. For her, committment to one partner would be sullied by any secret betrayal, whether the object of your sexual sublimation were a boy in a bar, a vibrator in the bathroom, or Christ crucified. She had one lover and one lover only - and that was Sean. But six months into the marriage the sex wasn't there. Sure she'd make a play for him out of sheer frustration but he'd say he was too tired and she'd sulk. Which all in all depressed her because a lifetime's experience had taught her that what men invariably wanted was her body. To be rejected was humiliating. She was being rejected now and she couldn't bear it. She realised this damn rejection was becoming the norm.
"What is it Sean-baby?" She spat out the words. "Can't get it up?"
He raised an eyebrow. Dissatisfaction spread from his eyes to the rest of his face. "Don' be so disgusting," he said. But to stand his ground required an arrogance he didn't have. He turned his back to her and stepped to the huge freezer where she kept ice, beer and bourbon always at the ready. He reached for the bourbon, sloshing it neat into a highball glass over ice like it was tea. Then he sank into a red leather chair.
She spoke with slow emphasis, not even liking herself, but who knows what poisons in the mind can do. "You drink too much Sean-baby. Maybe that's why you can't get it up." She felt strong but vulnerable. Raw maybe describes it.
But Trish could do nearly anything if the pressure was great enough. Trish walked towards him, fingering the buttons of her blouse. The shakiness of her hands contrasted with the steadiness of her voice. She was breathing through her mouth and tiny beads of sweat pricked the backs of her arms. The muscles in her face tightened. She shivered. She was furious with the man but still hoped to break the tension with sex. She ran her tongue over her lower lip. She felt like some star about to go supernova, almost rocking with repressed sexual energy.
It wasn't going to happen. Sean flinched as she reached to touch him. "Cut it out Trish. Give me a breather."
She remained in front of him for a long moment, the fingers of one hand still lingering on the buttons of her blouse. Then she seemed to give up, her hands dropping to her side.
He had turned his face away. He swallowed the bourbon that remained in his tumbler then moved his highball glass in a careless arc, dismissing her. "I've had a hard day."
For answer she slapped him hard - hard enough to pink his cheek and slop his whisky. Then her inner dignity, forged so long ago, took hold and she turned and walked from the room. The tears were bubbling up, filling her pretty green-gray eyes - but she wasn't going to let him see her cry.
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