Gerald's Game - Stephen King [4]
Never mind all that, Jessie; those are things you can consider another day. Right now the only important thing is getting him to let you loose.
Yes. Because this wasn't their game; this game was all his. She had gone on playing it simply because Gerald wanted her to. And that was no longer good enough.
The loon voiced its lonely cry out on the lake again. Gerald's dopey grin of anticipation had been replaced by a look of sulky displeasure. You broke my toy, you bitch, that look said.
Jessie found herself remembering the last time she'd gotten a good look at that expression. In August Gerald had come to her with a glossy brochure, had pointed out what he wanted, and she had said yes, of course he could buy a Porsche if he wanted a Porsche, they could certainly afford a Porsche, but she thought he might do better to buy a membership in the Forest Avenue Health Club, as he had been threatening to do for the past two years. 'You don't have a Porsche body just now,' she had said, knowing she wasn't being very diplomatic but feeling that this really wasn't the time for diplomacy. Also, he had exasperated her to the point where she hadn't cared a whole hell of a lot for his feelings. This had been happening more and more frequently to her lately, and it dismayed her, but she didn't know what to do about it.
'Just what is that supposed to mean?' he had asked stiffly. She didn't bother to answer; she had learned that when Gerald asked such questions, they were almost always rhetorical. The important message lay in the simple subtext: You're upsetting me, Jessie. You're not playing the game.
But on that occasion — perhaps in an unknowing tune-up for this one — she had elected to ignore the subtext and answer the question.
'It means that you're still going to be forty-six this winter whether you own a Porsche or not, Gerald . . . and you're still going to be thirty pounds overweight.' Cruel, yes, but she could have been downright gratuitous; could have passed on the image which had flashed before her eyes when she had looked at the photograph of the sports car on the front of the glossy brochure Gerald had handed her. In that blink of an instant she had seen a chubby little kid with a pink face and a widow's peak stuck in the innertube he'd brought to the old swimming hole.
Gerald had snatched the brochure out of her hand and had stalked away without another word. The subject of the Porsche had not been raised since . . . but she had often seen it in his resentful We Are Not Amused stare.
She was seeing an even hotter version of that stare right now.
'You said it sounded like fun. Those were your exact words: "It sounds like fun."'
Had she said that? She supposed she had. But it had been a mistake. A little goof, that was all, a little slip on the old banana peel. Sure. But how did you tell your husband that when he had his lower lip pooched out like Baby Huey getting ready to do a tantrum?
She didn't know, so she dropped her gaze . . . and saw something she didn't like at all. Gerald's version of Mr Happy hadn't wilted a bit. Apparently Mr Happy hadn't heard about the change of plans.
'Gerald, I just don't — '
' . . . feel like it? Well, that's a hell of a note, isn't it? I took the whole day off work. And if we spend the night, that means tomorrow morning off, as well.' He brooded over this for a moment, and then repeated: 'You said it sounded like fun.'
She began to fan out her excuses like a tired old poker-hand (Yes, but now I have a headache; Yes, but I'm having these really shitty pre-menstrual cramps; Yes, but I'm a woman and therefore entitled to change my mind; Yes, but now that we're actually out here in the Big Lonely you frighten me, you had beautiful brute of a man, you), the lies that fed either his misconceptions or his ego (the two were frequently interchangeable),