The 158-Pound Marriage

I have leverage on him,' she said.

'Leverage?'

'He thinks he owes me something.'

'You never told me,' I said. I didn't like the sound of leverage, of debts owed, at all. It seemed an important omission, and I had always believed Edith told me everything important for lovers to know.

'No, I never have told you,' she admitted. By her tone, she wasn't about to begin, either.

'Don't you think I should know about this?' I asked.

'There are lots of things you believe in not telling,' she said, 'and I've always thought that an attractive philosophy. Severin believes you tell wives and lovers everything, but you don't believe that, so why should I?'

'I tell important things,' I said.

'Do you?'

'Edith--'

'Ask Utch,' Edith said.

'Utch?' I said. 'What does Utch know about it?'

'Severin tells everything,' Edith said.

'I love you.'

'Don't worry,' she said. 'Whatever happens, everything will be all right.'

This wasn't what I wanted to hear. She seemed resigned to something I didn't know anything about.

'Goodnight,' I said. She hung up.

I tried to wake Utch, but she lay in bed as hard and round and heavy as a watermelon. I felt like biting her. I kissed her all over, but she just smiled. Leverage? Another wrestling term. I didn't like its application to couples.

In the morning I asked Utch what Edith had on Severin, or what he thought she had on him.

'If Edith felt good about it,' Utch said, 'she'd have told you herself.'

'But you know. I want to know too.'

'It hasn't been any help to me,' Utch said. 'Severin wanted me to know; if he'd wanted you to know, he'd have told you. And if Edith wanted you to know, she'd tell you.'

'If she didn't want me to know,' I argued, 'she wouldn't have told me I could find out from you.'

'Well, you can't,' Utch said. 'I promised Severin I'd never tell. Go work on Edith for her version.' She rolled away; I knew her position - knees drawn up, elbows in, hair hiding her face. 'Look,' she said; I knew what was coming. 'We're playing by your rules. You're the one who says, "If you see someone else, I don't want to know. If I see someone else, you don't have to know." Right?'

'Right,' I said. I pushed my face into her hair. 'And I think I know that in all these years there hasn't been anyone else for you, right?'

'Don't ask,' she said. She was bluffing, I was sure. 'And I think I know that there have been a few for you,' she added.

'Right,' I said.

'I wasn't asking.'

'Well, I am asking, Utch.'

'You're changing the rules,' she said. 'I think you ought to give a little advance notice when you change the rules.' She backed her hips into me and drew my hand between her thighs. 'One rule is, Take it when it's offered.'