Free Spawn of Hell by William Schoell

handsome duo walked in. Anna felt her face turn hot and red and sweaty with embarrassment. Derek was, as usual, the epitome of cool, so self-assured in his staggering sex appeal and its effect that he was totally unconcerned with the stares.
    Mrs. Hunter got up to greet them. She was fortyish, plump, with a wavy black hairdo streaked with sections of white. “So sorry you missed dinner,” she cooed, pressing her cheek against Anna’s, and then Derek’s.
    “If you’re sorry, why didn’t you let us in here?” Derek said smoothly, not blinking an eye.
    Anna cut into the awkward silence which followed as gracefully as possible. “I know it’s terrible when your guests don’t show up on time,” she said, her smile too big, her laugh too strained, “and interrupt everything. All we’re in the mood for anyway is some nice cake and coffee; right, dear?” She patted Derek’s cheek with more force than necessary.
    Mrs. Hunter showed them to their chairs and introductions were made all around. They sat across from each other, at the head of the table, right next to the hostess. The film stars were no-shows and had been replaced by an obscure senator and his wife. A heavy-set film producer with bulldog jowls sat on Anna’s right, his wife on Derek’s left. She looked like a female version of her husband. Within ten minutes the producer’s hand was on Anna’s knee; his wife’s hand was practically in Derek’s lap. There was no subtle way of removing it.
    The cake was served, along with several delicious pastry selections, hot coffee, spicy tea and liquor. Derek spilled half a glass of creme de menthe on his shirt (he flicked it off with his fingertips, hoping no one would notice), when the producer’s wife’s fingertips crept over spiderlike to the lump inside his trousers.
    After coffee they all went back into the living room, where Derek tried to disengage himself from the woman. Anna was having no better luck trying to get rid of Mr. Bulldog. The man blabbered on about a picture deal of some sort, although she doubted if he had any intention of putting her in movies.
    Anna looked over at her husband. She could read the look on his face easily: “So this is ‘society,’ “ it said.
     
    The fight on the way home in the cab was even worse than the minor spat they’d had in Mrs. Hunter’s living room. It was somewhere between Park and Fifth Avenues that Anna finally realized that their marriage was over, and there was no chance left to save it. They had decided almost a week earlier (as the gossip columns had accurately reported) to have a trial separation beginning the next month, for Anna had hoped that some time away from each other would help strengthen their relationship in the long run. But she knew that she had been fooling herself.
    She believed in open marriage, she knew that she and Derek might have to engage in extramarital episodes in order to get ahead, she recognized that she was more concerned with upward progression among the upper classes than Derek was. For all his beauty and sophistication, Derek was still “just plain folks” and always would be. She thought she could accept his quiet mockery of her hopes and dreams of traveling in better circles now than she had traveled in her youth.
    But she couldn’t. Open marriage was fine for other people, but Derek’s indiscreet playing around was getting to her ego, and the fact that she was desired by thousands of men she’d never even met or seen didn’t help to take away any of the hurt and loneliness. Derek seemed to take his infidelities much more seriously than she ever could; he went into it with a relish far surpassing any feelings she could generate for some rich TV executive who promised her a juicy contract for one night in the hay. He seemed to need these episodes. Did he need constant reaffirmation of his attractiveness; was he a repressed, unliberated bisexual with a Don Juan complex, bedding women when he really wanted men? Did