"Those are rough customers. He'd better watch his P's and Q's."
"I'm sure they're just dropping him crumbs. He can take care of himself." Dean didn't agree but held his tongue.
"Arthur asked me to marry him," Ethel pronounced as Dean struggled with an obstinate bra snap.
"I thought he liked boys-not women," Dean answered.
"Of course he does. He likes any type of male. He's as queer as a three-dollar bill."
"It's not 'queer' nowadays, Ethel. The proper term is 'gay'."
"There's absolutely nothing 'gay' about Arthur," she answered. "He's a worse glum-bum than you when you're in one of your moods. But he was so cute today. He got down on his knees, right there in my office. He said he had been thinking of asking me for weeks."
"Have you slept with him?"
She pushed away. "God, no! What on earth would we do?"
"The same thing you'd do if you were married, I suppose."
"I can tell you what I'd do if I were married to Arthur-the same thing we're doing right now, with my same little playmate." She laughed as she tickled him.
"I'm afraid I'd have to take a hike once there was a wedding," he said, as he rolled over.
"Why David darling, you're jealous!"
"Nothing of the sort, but there's a difference between consenting adults and adultery. I just don't fool around with married women, especially a woman wed to a Mafia lawyer."
"That's nonsense! And Arthur's not smart enough to be a Mafia lawyer. Besides, he'd be in total agreement with the arrangement. It would eliminate his watching me pant around the house, looking for it, and him mooning away because he couldn't deliver."
"And that wouldn't bother dear old Arthur?"
"David, sometimes you're so naive, it's incredible. He just wants a wife so people won't question his sexuality."
"Maybe they'd question it less if he'd stop trying to pick up pretty men at gay bars."
"That was a one-time mistake. Arthur's much more discreet now."
"That may be so, but I'd still pass on the offer," he answered. "I could never be sure the old boy wouldn't have a change of heart some night and blow me away just to prove his masculinity, or send some of his Philadelphia clients around to work me over." Then he added, "Are you going to marry him?"
"Oh, hell. I don't know. Let's get down to business," she said, pulling him to her.
Ethel lived in the pride of Parkside, a new six-story luxury apartment building southeast of town. She occupied the largest suite in the structure, seven spacious rooms on the top floor. The living room and kitchen, which faced to the south, provided an exquisite view of the surrounding countryside. Presumably, the other rooms too offered calendar-quality scenes, but Dean never viewed them. Ethel always performed her lovemaking in a darkened room. Any suggestion of an open window shade or even a night-light was summarily dismissed. He once dreamed her naked torso was horribly disfigured by a giant birthmark but the truth was more likely childlike modesty kept in check by a general arrogance that forbade her to admit anything deemed to be a weakness.