 Copyright 1998,1999 by Jane Urquhart

 JANEY'S MARCH (3RD try)
 by Jane Urquhart

 Author's Note:  If you've read the story that finally
 was posted as "Janey's March," then you know that it
 has absolutely nothing to do with this one.  When I
 first started writing, I knew what my first two stories
 would be, then Lord Malinov's Island party gave me the
 subject for my third. Then I had to start thinking:
 what would I do for "Janey's March"? This is the third
 try on a story I never finished. Why not?  You know
 how snotty characters can be to their creators.  Well,
 Janey finally simply told me that she wouldn't even
 consider having sex with her brother-in-law.  No way.
 That put the cap on this one, so I had to start all
 over.  I like parts of this and probably will use them
 at some point in some story, but this one's never going
 to get written. Pity.

                     -----------------

 Beth, my little sexpot friend, was in great form when
 we had our regular weekly lunch early this month. She
 kept wanting to talk, loudly and at some length, about
 our February adventure, the one my husband keeps refer-
 ring to as "swingin' in the rain." Now,when you eat at
 the Trident, you aren't exactly in a private space--
 it;s more like eating in an elevator. The food;s good,
 but you'd better not care whether the people at the
 next table hear what you're saying, because they're
 only about two feet away. So I kept shushing her, and
 she kept starting off again. I finally got her to
 change the subject by complaining about my husband's
 brother,who came night before last to spend a week
 with us while he attends some kind of conference. 

 "He acts like a major depression case," I said, "and,
 so far, he treats me like I have leprosy. The kids and
 Bob had already left, so it was just him and me at
 breakfast. He ate with his nose stuck in the paper and
 barely said two words. Did the same thingt this
 morning. And last night neither of us got in 'til late,
 so I barely saw him." 

 "Well, what's matter with him?" Beth asked. 

 "How am I supposed to know?" I said. "I've only met
 him two or three times,when we've gone back to Iowa to
 see Bob's parents for some holiday and found him there
 with his wife. He seemed o.k. then, and Bob says he was
 a big joker when they were kids." 

 "Good looking?" Beth asked. 

 "I'll say. He's not as tall as Bob, about my height I
 guess, wide shoulders, flat stomach, clean-cut looking.
 Yesterday morning he wore his uniform to the first day
 of his conference and he looked like a poster boy for
 the Army. Badges, ribbons, razor-sharp creases, the
 works. Today he wore a polo shirt and a jacket and
 looked like a movie star." 

 "Ummm," Beth said. "How do you want him to treat you?"
 
 "Like a human being, for God's sake!" I said. "He could
 at least talk to me. He acts like I smell bad or some-
 thing." 

 "You wouldn't like a little schmoozle, maybe?" 

 "Oh, God, you only have one thing on your mind, don;t
 you! This is my husband's big b-r-o-t-h-e-r." 

 "I say it;s best if you keep it in the family," Beth
 said, primly. 

 "Forget it," I said. "I just want him to be civil." 

 "You want my advice?" she asked. "You're a trained
 therapist. Do therapy. Show him a little skin." "That's
 not exactly what Carl Rogers would recommend," I said.
 
 "If you were some old psychology guru it wouldn't work.
 But it works for me and it'll work for you." 

 "Come on." 

 "No, I'm serious," she said. "He;s a male. They're not
 complicated. When you want something from a male, you
 make it worth his while, or at least make him think
 it'll be worth his while. So give him a little taste
 and imply there's a banquet waiting.You could start
 off by asking him why he's such a prick. That would
 get his attention." 

 "Maybe I will," I said, then went back to my omelette.
 Beth started trashing theBoston Ballet and we forgot
 about nasty old Henry.

                       -------------- 

 I called Bob that afternoon from my office. 

 "What's with your brother?" I said. I described two
 days of lousy breakfasts. "I don't know," Bob said.
 "He acted a little like that with me, too. Nothing
 much to say. I haven't really seen him since the
 divorce. Maybe he's got problems." 

 "Well, if he didn't yesterday," I said, "he does now.
 I can be just as nasty as he can." 

 "Please don't," said Bob. He knows I can be nasty, and
 I could hear him cringe right over the phone. "Why
 don't you play therapist, instead? He used to be a
 nice,happy guy. I used to worship him. I don't know
 what's wrong, but what you describe isn't the Henry I
 knew ten or twelve years ago." 

 "OK," I said. "He's your brother, so I'll try. But he'd
 better loosen up." 

 Henry is just two years older than Bob. They had the
 same parents, lived thesame places, and ought to have
 turned out sort of similar, but they didn't. Somebody
 handed Henry a rifle when he turned up for ROTC class
 the first day he was in highschool and Henry fell in
 love. Somebody handed Bob a book before he even went
 to school at all andsince then he's tried never to be
 more than half an hour from a big library. SoHenry's
 a lieutenant colonel in the Infantry, and Bob's an
 associate professor of medieval history. 

 I was ready when breakfast time came around. I didn't
 have to go into the city, soI came down in my night-
 gown and robe to get the kids off to school and say
 goodbye toBob. Then Henry came down, dressed in casual
 civilian clothes.  

 "Hi," I said, smiling. "You get your choice of break-
 fasts this morning because Idon't have to go to work."
 
 "Ugh, thanks," he said, looking off into the distance.
 "I'll just take whateveryou'rehaving." 

 He sat down and picked up the paper. Beth told me to
 do therapy. Bob told me to do therapy. I'm just a
 vocational counselor now, but I've had the courses, I
 know the moves. Then I remembered Beth'sideas on
 therapy. Of course, Beth's a five-foot-four bundle of
 sex waiting to happen,while I'm a five-foot-ten,
 freckled-faced, messy-haired, slightly overweight
 faculty wife with two kids. Still, she's no dummy. But
 if I wanted to follow her advice, I'd have to approach
 the problem a little differently. Therapy began. 

 "How would you like to arm wrestle?" I said solemnly.
 Henry looked up, puzzled. 

 "Huh?" 

 "I said, how would you like to arm wrestle? Come sit
 over here. I'll clear a space." I picked up some dishes
 and a place mat and put them on the drainboard. Then
 Isat backdown and looked at him. "Well, come on." 

 "I don't generally arm wrestle with women," he said.

 "Well, this isn't generally. Come on over." 

 "What's this all about?" He said. He was beginning to
 look a little more alive. 

 "I have this thing," I said. "I like for people to
 treat me like a human being, I just thought a little
 arm wrestle would break the ice." He shook his head,
 wiped his mouth with a napkin and began to move into
 thechair next to me. Then he got up and took off his
 jacket. His biceps came into view. Ithought I might
 lose the match. :He sat back down and put his right
 elbow on the table, ready to go. He smiled. Maybe a
 couple of millimeters wider than anything I'd seen so
 far. I grabbed his hand. 

 "O.K., I'll call the start," I said. And I did. Now
 maybe ;m female and all that jazz, but I'm not a
 ninety-pound weakling. In fact, I  weigh a hundred
 and sixty. (Maybe a little more--you think I'd tell
 you?) I used to throw the javelin and put a shot, and
 I still swim all the time. So when he kind of lacka-
 daisically pushed, I shoved his hand down within an
 inch of the table. Hecaught on just in time. Then
 he started pushing back. It took him a long time,
 nearly a minute, to pin me. Of course I nearly busted
 a gut. (That;s the athlete talking; I'm really a prim
 suburban housewife, and such language never crosses my
 lips.) He let go and I whooshed, then smiled. "See?
 You touched me and I didn't break," I said. "You could
 probably take a chance and talk to me. After all, I
 expect you could protect yourself if  I'd start to eat
 you up." 

 "Yes, well," he said. Then he actually smiled a real
 smile. "I can't tell anybody back at Fort Benning that
 you almost beat me. I'm a big hardass, you know?"  

 "Well, on very short acquaintance I like the hardass
 better than the prick you've been since you got here,"
 I said. 

 "Am that bad?" he asked. 

 "Yes," I said. Then I just sat there and looked at him.
 Therapists aren't supposed to talk; they make you talk.
 
 "I guess I am," he said. "I don't have much to do with
 women. The ones in my battalion think I don't like
 'em." 

 "They think you don't like them?," I said. 

 "Yeah. I kind of avoid them in the O-club, and I treat
 the ones who work for me very formally." 

 "You avoid them," I said. 

 "I haven't had much to do with women since I got
 divorced," he said. "Since you got divorced?" 

 "All right, you asked," he said, "so I'll tell you.
 " You know how it is in the Army, right? You live here
 for a while, get transferred, live there for a while,
 get transferred again and live somewhere else for a
 while. If you'rea regular, like me, you know a few
 people whenever you hit a new place, you'vegot a new
 job you're comfortable with, you settle right in. But
 your wife doesn't know anybody, so she's lonely until
 she gets to know a few people. As soon she begins to
 getcomfortable you move. Takes a certain kind of woman
 to put up with this. 

 "Meanwhile, you go on maneuvers, you go on TDY--
 temporary duty--somewhere else, you sometimes have to
 work a week or so without even getting home. Pretty
 often,when you do get home, you're shot to hell and
 just want to sleep, not party. Some people have kids--
 we didn't. So naturally she gets a job. Selling real
 estate is not unusual. Makes pretty good money if
 you're in the right place, and we always were. She
 meets a lot of civilians who don't go off to the
 boondocks all the time. Screws a few guys, just for
 the hell of it. No big deal. Of course, I didn't know
 about that part. "I go off to Bosnia. She stays home,
 of course. I come home after a few months really
 feeling lousy. Bosnia is a terrible place. I saw lots
 of guys and quite a few nicelooking women all blown
 apart. They kind of superimpose on all the dead
 IraquisI saw a few years ago. This gets on everybody's
 nerves, but if you're like me, you've got aplace in
 your mind where you put this stuff so it doesn't bother
 you. Good soldiers all have that place--it's what keeps
 you from going nuts. Short-timers don't have it--they
 get PTSD. So I put all that bad stuff  back there in
 the place I don't look. Unfortunately, when I got home,
 I'd get all sexed up looking at Katie, she'd take off
 her clothes, ol' dick just shrivels up. Then a staff
 sergeant I know pretty well tells me I ought to keep
 an eye on my wife.What can I do? I do nothing. She
 gets sick of this after a while and moves out. End of
 story. Only I came out of it not too happy with women,
 not very trusting, you might say.Actually, not too
 happy with people in general. They seem to kill each
 other a lot. Sothat's why I'm a prick. Ironic, the
 word you chose. Maybe lots of other things, but not
 a prick. 

 "But I couldn't just tell you to fuck off--you're
 Bobby's wife, and you listen and keep your mouth shut,
 and you damn near pinned my arm, so I decided to tell
 you why I'm not a very nice guy." He looked up at me
 and smiled crookedly. 

 "Did you tell your wife about Bosnia?" 

 "Not much," Henry said. "She was pretty busy, and she
 didn't like to hear about bad things." 

 "You know something?" I said. "We've all got a place
 like yours where we put things we don't want to think
 about. I'm lucky--mine doesn't have blown-up bodies
 in it,just things like a kid that got slapped when he
 shouldn't have, a mother hurt when I toldher to go to
 hell because she was trying to protect me, a guy I led
 on in a big wayand then dumped without even bothering
 to get back in touch, a couple of times I cheated
 various ways, a husband I screamed at when he hadn't
 done a thing. Just little stuff,compared to yours. I
 can keep it pretty well battened down. When I get to
 feeling bad about something, though, all that stuff
 seeps back in and makes things worse. Ican tell Bob
 what's bugging me, and that helps. Or I can tell one
 of my women friends.Then Ican say, 'get on with it,'
 and put the old stuff back out of sight. But you can't
 tell anybody, can you?" 

 "Nope," he said. "But I'm familiar with 'get on with
 it.'  I just can't seem quite todo it." 

 "Give me your hand," I said, reaching out to him.
 "Feel that? My hand? I'm all in onoe piece, and you
 can feel the bones in there, all covered up with skin
 that will feel pretty good if you let yourself feel
 it. The fingers work. It's all alive." I squeezed."I
 could squeeze hard and hurt you. But I don't want to,
 so I won't. Do you want to squeeze harder?" 

 He increased the pressure a little. "Yes, I'd actually
 like to squeeze harder." 

 "Go ahead." He squeezed a little harder. "No," he said,
 looking at me, "I can't. I don't want to hurt you." 

 "So we don't want to hurt one another?" 

 "No." 

 "Remember that. Now what do you want for breakfast?
 You've got to go towork." 

 I cooked for him.

 -------------And this is where it stopped------------- 

 Janey98@hotmail.com
 