'After lights out, the husbands would at once roll over and pretend to go to sleep. This was to discourage their wives from getting fresh, which at this stage must on no account be permitted. So the wives went to sleep. But the husbands stayed awake. So far so good.
'Then at precisely one a.m., by which time the wives would be in a good deep sleep, each husband would slip quietly out of bed, put on a pair of bedroom slippers and creep downstairs in his pyjamas. He would open the front door and go out into the night, taking care not to close the door behind him.
'They lived,' I went on, 'more or less across the street from one another. It was a quiet suburban neighbourhood and there was seldom anyone about at that hour. So these two furtive pyjama-clad figures would pass each other as they crossed the street, each one heading for another house, another bed, another woman.'
Jerry was listening to me carefully. His eyes were a little glazed from drink, but he was listening to every word.
'The next part,' I said, 'had been prepared very thoroughly by both men. Each knew the inside of his friend's house almost as well as he knew his own. He knew how to find his way in the dark both downstairs and up without knocking over the furniture. He knew his way to the stairs and exactly how many steps there were to the top and which of them creaked and which didn't. He knew on which side of the bed the woman upstairs was sleeping.
'Each took off his slippers and left them in the hall, then up the stairs he crept in his bare feet and pyjamas. This part of it, according to my friend, was rather exciting. He was in a dark silent house that wasn't his own, and on his way to the main bedroom he had to pass no less than three children's bedrooms where the doors were always left slightly open.'
'Children!' Jerry cried. 'My God, what if one of them had woken up and said, "Daddy, is that you?" '
'That was all taken care of,' I said. 'Emergency procedure would then come into effect immediately. Also if the wife, just as he was creeping into her room, woke up and said, "Darling, what's wrong? Why are you wandering about?"; then again, emergency procedure.'
'What emergency procedure?' Jerry said.
'Simple,' I answered. 'The man would immediately dash downstairs and out the front door and across to his own house and rin
g the bell. This was a signal for the other character, no matter what he was doing at the time, also to rush downstairs at full speed and open the door and let the other fellow in while he went out. This would get them both back quickly to their proper houses.'
'With egg all over their faces,' Jerry said.
'Not at all,' I said.
'That doorbell would have woken the whole house,' Jerry said.
'Of course,' I said. 'And the husband, returning upstairs in his pyjamas, would merely say, 'I went to see who the hell was ringing the bell at this ungodly hour. Couldn't find anyone. It must have been a drunk.'
'What about the other guy?' Jerry asked. 'How does he explain why he rushed downstairs when his wife or child spoke to him?'
'He would say, "I heard someone prowling about outside, so I rushed down to get him, but he escaped." "Did you actually see him?" his wife would ask anxiously. "Of course I saw him," the husband would answer. "He ran off down the street. He was too damn fast for me." Whereupon the husband would be warmly congratulated for his bravery.'
'Okay,' Jerry said. 'That's the easy part. Everything so far is just a matter of good planning and good timing. But what happens when these two horny characters actually climb into bed with each other's wives?'
'They go right to it,' I said.
'The wives are sleeping,' Jerry said.
'I know,' I said. 'So they proceed immediately with some very gentle but very skilful love-play, and by the time these dames are fully awake, they're as randy as rattlesnakes.'
'No talking, I presume,' Jerry said.
'Not a word.'
'Okay, so the wives are awake,' Jerry said. 'And their hands get to work. So just for a start, what about the simple question of body size? What about the difference between the new man and the husband? What about tallness and shortness and fatness and thinness? You're not telling me these men were physically identical?'
'Not identical, obviously,' I said. 'But they were more or less similar in build and height. That was essential. They were both clean-shaven and had roughly the same amount of hair on their heads. That sort of similarity is commonplace. Look at you and me, for instance. We're roughly the same height and build, aren't we?'
'Are we?' Jerry said.
'How tall are you?' I said.
'Six foot exactly.'
'I'm five eleven,' I said. 'One inch difference. What do you weigh?'
'One hundred and eighty-seven.'