Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

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Waiting, he lay perfectly still in the hot moist darkness. His body, naked beneath the thin sheet, was covered with perspiration. He lay in a kind of patient agony, waiting for his wife to sleep. He stared straight up at the moon-washed ceiling, somehow containing his breath, thinking about what was in the living room behind the screen, on the studio couch.

His wife writhed and twisted, then settled again on the bed, nearly touching him. Working very slowly, he edged away from her — waiting, as a fury of blood drummed in his ears.

Sometimes his heart beat so loudly he imagined Grace would hear.

And he was listening, too...

Listening for those intimate, secret sounds that now and then reached him from the living room. The sound of delicious turning, of a carelessly moved leg. Long, plumply curved, lovely.

Shirly.

Lying in there on the studio couch, waiting, too.

Waiting for him.

Sometimes he almost yelled, it was that bad.

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