The Number of the Beast

IV

Because two things equal to the same thing

are never equal to each other.

Deety:

I woke early as I always do at Snug Harbor, wondered why I was ecstatically happy-then remembered, and turned my head. My husband-'~husband!"- what a heart-filling word-my husband was sprawled face down beside me, snoring softly and drooling onto his pillow. I held still, thinking how beautiful he was, how gently strong and gallantly tender.

I was tempted to wake him but I knew that my darling needed rest. So I eased out of bed and snuck noiselessly into my bath-our bath~-and quietly took care of this and that. I did not risk drawing a tub_although I needed one. I have a strong body odor that calls for at least one sudsy bath a day, two if I am going out that evening_and this morning I was certainly whiff as a polecat.

I made do with a stand-up bath by letting water run in a noiseless trickle into the basin-I would grab that proper bath after my Captain was awake; meanwhile I would stay downwind.

I pulled on briefs, started to tie on a halter_stopped and looked in the mirror. I have a face.shaped face and a muscular body that I keep in top condition. I would never reach semifinals in a beauty contest but my teats are shapely, exceptionally firm, stand out without sagging and look larger than they are because my waist is small for my height, shoulders and hips. I've known this since I was twelve, from mirror and from comments by others.

Now I was acutely aware of them from what Zebadiah calls his "infantile bias." I was awfully glad I had them; my husband liked them so much and had told me so again and again, making me feel warm and tingly inside. Teats get in the way, and I once found out painfully why Amazons are alleged to have removed their starboard ones to make archery easier.

Today I was most pleased that Mama had required me to wear a bra for tennis and horseback and such-no stretch marks, no "Cooper's droop," no sag, and my husband called them "wedding presents"! Hooray!

Doubtless they would become baby-chewed and soft-but by then I planned to have Zebadiah steadfastly in love with me for better reasons. You hear that, Deety? Don't be stubborn, don't be bossy, don't be difficult-and above all don't sulk! Mama never sulked, although Pop wasn't and isn't easy to live with. For example he dislikes the word "teat" even though I spell it correctly and pronounce it correctly (as if spelled "tit"). Pop insists that teats are on cows, not women.

After I started symbolic logic and information theory I became acutely conscious of precise nomenclature, and tried to argue with Pop, pointing out that "breast" denoted the upper frontal torso of male and female alike, that "mammary gland" was medical argot, but "teat" was correct English.

He had slammed down a book. "I don't give a damn what The Oxford English Dictionary says! As long as I am head of this house, language used in it will conform to my notions of propriety!"

I never argued such points with Pop again. Mama and I went on calling them "teats" between ourselves and did not use such words in Pop's presence. Mama told me gently that logic had little to do with keeping a husband happy and that anyone who "won" a family argument had in fact lost it. Mama never argued and Pop always did what she wanted-if she really wanted it. When at seventeen I had to grow up and try to replace her, I tried to emulate her- not always successfully. I inherited some of Pop's temper, some of Mama's calm. I try to suppress the former and cultivate the latter. But I'm not Jane, I'm Deety.

Suddenly I wondered why I was putting on a halter. The day was going to be hot. While Pop is so cubical about some things that he turns up at the corners, skin is not one of them. (Possibly he had been, then Mama had gently gotten her own way.) I like to be naked and usually am at Snug Harbor, weather permitting. Pop is almost as casual. Aunt Hilda was family-by-choice; we had often used her pool and never with suits-screened for the purpose.

That left just my lovely new husband, and if there was a square centimeter of me he had not examined (and praised), I could not recall it. Zebadiah is easy to be with, in bed or out. After our hasty wedding I was slightly tense lest he ask me when and how I had mislaid my virginity... but when the subject could have come up I forgot it and he apparently never thought about it. I was the lusty wench I have always been and he seemed pleased-I know he was.

So why was I tying on this teat hammock? I was-but why?

Because two things equal to the same thing are never equal to each other. Basic mathematics if you select the proper sheaf of postulates. People are not abstract symbols. I could be naked with any one of them but not all three.

I felt a twinge that Pop and Aunt Hilda might be in the way on my honeymoon... then realized that Zebadiah and I were just as much in the way on theirs-and stopped worrying; it would work out.

Took one last look in the mirror, saw that my scrap of halter, like a good evening gown, made me nakeder than skin would. My nipples popped out; I grinned and stuck out my tongue at them. They stayed up; I was happy.

I started to cat-foot through our bedroom when I noticed Zebadiah's clothes- and stopped. The darling would not want to wear evening dress to breakfast. Deety, you are not being wifely-figure this out. Are any of Pop's clothes where I can get them without waking the others?

Yep! An old shirt that I had liberated as a house coat, khaki shorts I had been darning the last time we had been down-both in my wardrobe in my- our!-bathroom. I crept back, got them, laid them over my darling's evening clothes so that he could not miss them.

I went through and closed after me two soundproof doors, then no longer had to keep quiet. Pop does not tolerate anything shoddy-if it doesn't work properly, he fixes it. Pop's B.S. was in mechanical engineering, his M.S. in physics, his Ph.D. in mathematics; there isn't anything he can't design and build. A second Leonardo da Vinci-or a Paul Dirac.

No one in the everything room. I decided not to head for the kitchen end yet; if the others slept a bit longer I could get in my morning tone-up. No violent exercise this morning, mustn't get more whiff than I am-just controlled limbering. Stretch high, then palms to the floor without bending knees-ten is enough. Vertical splits, both legs, then the same to the floor with my forehead to my shin, first right, then left.

I was doing a back bend when I heard, "Ghastly. The battered bride. Deety, stop that."

I continued into a backwards walkover and stood up facing Pop's bride. "Good morning, Aunt Hillbilly." I kissed and hugged her. "Not battered. Bartered, maybe."

"Battered," she repeated, yawning. "Who gave you those bruises? What'shis-name?-your husband."

"Not a bruise on me and you've known his name longer than I have. What causes those circles under the bags under the rings under your eyes?"

"Worry, Deety. Your father is very ill."

"What? How?"

"Satyriasis. Incurable-I hope."

I let out my breath. "Aunt Hillbilly, you're a bitchie, bitchie tease."

"Not a bitch this morning, dear. A nanny goat-who has been topped all night by the most amazing billy goat on the ranch. And him past fifty and me only twenty-nine. Astounding."

"Pop's forty-nine, you're forty-two. You're complaining?"

"Oh, no! Had I known twenty-four years ago what I know now, I would never have let Jane lay eyes on him."

"-what you know now-Last night you were claiming to have sneaked into Pop's bed, over and over again. Doesn't jibe, Aunt Nanny Goat."

Those were quickies. Not a real test." She yawned again.

"Auntie, you lie in your teeth. You were never in his bed until last night."

"How do you know, dear? Unless you were in it yourself? Were you? Incest?"

"What have you got against incest, you bawdy old nanny goat? Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."

"Oh, so you have? How fascinating-tell Auntiet"

"I'll tell you the truth, Aunt Hilda. Pop has never laid a hand on me. But if he had... I would not have refused. I love him."

Hilda stopped to kiss me more warmly than before. "So do I, dear one. I honor you for what you just told me. He could have had me, too. But never did. Until last night. Now I'm the happiest woman in America."

Nope. Second happiest. You're looking at the happiest."

"Mmm, a futile discussion. So my problem child is adequate?"

"Well... he's not a member of the Ku Klux Klan-"

"I never thought he was! Zebbie isn't that sort."

"-but he's a wizard under a sheet!"

Aunt Hilda looked startled, then guffawed. "I surrender. We're both the happiest woman in the world."

"And the luckiest. Aunt Nanny Goat, that robe of Pop's is too hot. I'll get something of mine. How about a tie-on fit-anybody bikini?"

"Thanks, dear, but you might wake Zebbie." Aunt Hilda opened Pop's robe and held it wide, fanning it. I looked at her with new eyes. She's had three or four term contracts, no children. At forty-two her face looks thirty-five, but from her collarbones down she could pass for eighteen. Little bitty teats-I had more at twelve. Flat belly and lovely legs. A china doll-makes me feel like a giant.

She added, "If it weren't for your husband, I would simply wear this old hide. It is hot."

'If it weren't for your husband, so would I."

"Jacob? Deety, he's changed your diapers. I know how Jane reared you. True modesty, no false modesty."

'It's not the same, Aunt Hilda. Not today."

"No, it's not. You always did have a wise head, Deety. Women are toughminded, men are not; we have to protect them... while pretending to be fragile ourselves, to build up their fragile egos. But I've never been good at it-I like to play with matches."

"Aunt Hilda, you are very good at it, in your own way. I'm certain Mama knows what you've done for Pop and blesses it and is happy for Pop. For all of us-all five of us."

"Don't make me cry, Deety. Let's break out the orange juice; our men will wake any time. First secret of living with a man: Feed him as soon as he wakes."

"So I know."

"Yes, of course you know. Ever since we lost Jane. Does Zebbie know how lucky he is?"

"He says so. I'm going to try hard not to disillusion him."