"Oh yeah," Hilhard said. "I know most of us always say that there haven't been very many, or "one or two," something like that, so that we don't look like we're bragging. But we all know exactly how many and the women keep track, same as we do. If you count Mercy, I've fucked nineteen women."
"Really," Evans said drily.
"I realize that's not much of a total," Hilhard said. "I plan to add to it as soon as possible. Put my best efforts forward, you know? I've always had this tendency to fall in love, where I only have one woman at a time besides my wife, I mean. I know it's held me back. There've been times when I've actually walked away from a chance to go to bed with a woman I was strongly attracted to, because I didn't think it would be fair to my girlfriend if I did. Not because most people'd look at it as being that I would've been cheating on Mercy with both of them, then; because the way I looked at it I'd've been cheating on the woman I was cheating with on Mercy. I've been doing my best to overcome that."
"I can see where it's been complicated for you," Evans said, laughing.
"Keeping nineteen women straight. Must be quite a challenge."
"Well, but not all at once," Hilhard said. "And Mercy was sort of a constant, you know. It was her plus somebody else. So it was eighteen besides her, but usually only one of them at a time." He paused. "I'd have to say also, she was as good as most of them were, better'n several I had."
"That was what I was getting at," Evans said, 'as delicately as possible; not very. You didn't start compiling a fairly impressive life-list of sexual partners because of deprivation at home, I take it?"
"Nope," Hilhard said. "Mercy was always willing, God love her. She was a virgin when we got engaged that was a big reason why we got engaged; it was the only way I could get her pants off. But after that she was as ready as I was. Sometimes in fact, she was readier. More'n once I drove home early Friday after having nooners with Stacy, wasn't feeling all that eager, but an hour or so later, there I am, having to get it up again to give Mercy a dash in the bloomers 'fore the kids came home from school."
He chuckled. "I was younger then. Good thing for me, I guess kind of tough to explain to your wife she'll have to wait 'til bedtime 'cause you're not up to it; just finished banging your girlfriend in Boston."
Evans furrowed his brow. "And I can take it all of these eighteen women were unmarried?"
"Four of them had husbands," Hilhard said. "One of them was separated, in the process of getting divorced, so I'm not sure she really counted as married. But the other three married ones were cheating, same as I was."
"Oh, wonderful," Evans said. "That means one of the imponderables we'll have to think about here is the possibility that one of their spouses will decide to divorce them, and name you."
Hilhard shrugged. "I realize it wasn't smart," he said. "But at the time I was not engaged in being smart. I was letting my dick do the thinking. Here I've got this good-looking woman practically throwing herself at me, and I know she's married, and she knows I'm married, and this obviously makes no difference to her, so then why should it to me?
"Well, it shouldn't," says my cock, and therefore it doesn't, and the next thing I know, we're in bed. I don't know whether you've ever had that happen to you."
"Can't say as I have," Evans said. "Probably wouldn't let it anyway, even if I had the chance."
"Well, I have," Hilhard said, 'and I am here to tell you: you missed something. It's exhilarating when that happens to you. When you've just been introduced to someone that you didn't even know an hour ago, and she looks like a movie star, and you can tell right off that she's so hot to trot you could probably fuck her right there on the rug, in front of all the people, if you wanted to. All you have to do is say the word and take her by the elbow, and she'll go anywhere you want, up on the roof, if that's what you want, and help you get her clothes off and then give you the ride of your life.
"When that happens you don't think about how smart or stupid or risky it is, or how you've got a wife and kids at home, or anything else in the world; all you think about is that all you have to do is ask and you can have her. It'd be a crime not to do it. So the decision's easy: you do it.
"At least that's the way I saw it. I was never that good an athlete. I wasn't an A student either. I had no talent for music. I wasn't especially funny. My father wasn't a major-league ballplayer. My mother was a housewife. Girls never paid much attention to me. I was who they went to the prom with when they'd begun to think no one was going to ask them. They were not on the cheerleading squad. I wasn't especially attracted to them. They weren't attracted to me. We were both involved in fulfilling a ritual. It was sort of like valet-parking. We both had to Go to The Dance or Be Weird; that was all. We didn't have very much fun.
