Three On A Match
The girl was breathing softly now, so Andrew kept quiet as he slipped from the bed and pulled on his dressing robe. The fabric was frayed and thin in spots, and he would have liked to get a new one, but it was only through the accumulation of little economies that he could even afford this spare apartment and make those hunting trips he was known for. Like the one he'd just returned from, in faux triumph, he reflected morosely. He couldn't have afforded even that one, if his fiancée hadn't offered to pay for it. He'd demurred and tried canceling the hunt instead, but she'd added to the humiliation by saying she liked to see his picture in the papers when he returned from his trips.
He snorted at the memory, and to bury it went to the window to gaze at the blazing lights of the city. So much life pulsed through Philadelphia, even in the early morning hours. To watch it made his blood quicken, which only made things worse: that jungle would soon be closed to him, once he and Gwen had finalized plans for the marriage. Maybe he had returned to the States just in time, he thought: he could still bag a few more trophies from the city before being walked docilely down the aisle and into the waiting cage.
The thought made him angry, and aroused, and he went to the dresser mirror to brush back his thick, dark hair and look closely at his lip. The girl had bitten him—she had actually bitten him, to his great surprise—and not gently, either, which really was the mark of an amateur. Or of a passionate nature, though he was not inclined to credit her with that. In the mirror he saw her turn over onto her back, which removed the last impediment to desire.
He threw off the robe and pulled the sheets back and pushed her legs apart, and with no little roughness shoved himself inside her. She gasped but didn't appear to wake, which was just another goad. And he had so many things to goad him. That was for being the heir to an old Philadelphia name and depleted fortune. That was for Gwen and her striving, grasping, parvenu mother. That was for his weakness of will in trading real freedom for a dowry that would only support a façade of the same.
The girl groaned and pressed her fingernails into his back, but he hardly noticed. Gwen had also insisted on financing another manuscript-acquisition tour. Pete—poor, dutiful Pete, living on a pittance as Andrew's private secretary when he could be teaching literature at an Ivy League college and sleeping with coeds—was in Europe now, poring through the collections. Andrew hated old books, but collecting books was something McNeals were supposed to do. He rammed a few more resentments into the girl. She gasped and squeaked like a chew toy, and he thought briefly of giving her a fat and tender lip to match his own, but couldn't really stomach pretending to be so aroused.
She was desirable—she was intensely desirable—she had fiery red hair and sharp green eyes and breasts that were round and firm and fit perfectly in the cup of his hand. He'd wanted to sleep with her the moment he saw her. But Gwendolyn Tate had old-fashioned ideas, and even after they were officially an "item" and then a "couple" and then "intended" she had kept herself cooling in a remote orbit. He'd gotten his revenge by refusing to set a date for the marriage, and by pretending to infer from her lack of complete intimacy a reluctance on her part to commit to him. He took a sniggering, secret satisfaction in the tears that welled up in her eyes at his well-feigned hurt. He'd also insisted that there be no children—not even their contemplation—a gratuitous blow, though an honestly felt one: he couldn't abide children.
Maybe, he found himself thinking as he sagged against the girl, maybe he should break it off with Gwen. The name "McNeal" gave Andrew a lot of influence and cachet—and his rugged and still-youthful looks gave him a mastery of the nightlife—but it was a burden without the money. Instead of lifting the mortgage on his name with a marriage, perhaps he should just liquidate what was left of it. He'd learned a lot from Pete over the years—maybe he could take the kind of academic job Pete disdained. It would be a genteel life, but hardly more impoverished than the one he was living now. And there would be the girls—the tender twenty-year-old girls whose seduction would be so easy it would almost be boring. Andrew had often ribbed Pete about the girls, and what he was missing. Pete himself had a matinee idol's looks. He only lacked self-confidence.
And money. With a sigh, Andrew rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, and gave up on his little fantasy of an escape into academia. It was, in its modesty, a very dispiriting fantasy, but it was all the more dispiriting because he knew it was now an impossibility.
Because Gwen had won. Finally. That very night, in this very apartment, which was where he had hidden all his other conquests in the months since he had sworn to be faithful to her as her intended.
"So," she called out muzzily from the bed. "Are you going to set a date now?"
"Don't press it, Gwen" he said, and said it all the more irritably for feeling that, in finally having deflowered her, he was now well and truly trapped.
* * * * * *
It really had been an exciting ceremony. Well, not the ceremony itself, which was all starch and strings and a tedious little homily by Father Michael. But then Pete had burst in just before the rings were to come out and shouted "Stop! I'm the real Gwendolyn Tate!" And then there'd been shouting and shoving and fainting, and now Andrew was standing in the reception hall, twirling the strange medallion on the end of its chain and reading with ever-increasing amusement the old book—one of those ghastly tomes his grandfather had collected in Europe and which he himself had never even glanced at. Leave it to trusty, diligent Pete to find this medallion obscurely gathering dust in the McNeals' trophy closet, and a book that told all about it in the McNeal library!
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Father Michael trying to look over his shoulder. "I beg your pardon, Father, but this is a private matter," he growled.
The priest turned a little pink. "The ... uh ... the gentleman is asking for whiskey. We're not inclined to give him any. What ... uh ... what do you think it means?"
"I think it means the gentleman wants to get good and drunk," said Andrew. "But do keep him sober. I want to talk to him."
"Is that wise?"
"Why not? I think the groom is just the person to calm a bride who has come so very close to being accidentally jilted."
Father Michael looked alarmed. "You're not putting any stock in this ... this story of his, are you?"
"Of course not, Father, I'm not a heathen. But poor Pete has obviously suffered some kind of breakdown, and it's best to humor him, at least for a bit."
Andrew McNeal, as it happened, was a skeptic of the most hard-headed sort, which meant he saw no reason to believe a book full of bosh—but neither did he see any reason to doubt it. And even if poor Pete were mad, an afternoon of banter and argument and cross-examination promised a lot more fun than a boring wedding and reception. And if it all happened to be true?
* * * * * *
"Like I said before," said the man who looked like Pete, "we made the swap before ... before he slept with you." He crossed his arms and glared.
Andrew reacted as though he hadn't heard this revelation yet. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "So ... so you and I have never actually, er, made love?"
"I told you I wouldn't until after we were married." His eyes flashed.
"But we can't get married, Pete," Andrew objected. "It's not traditional."
The man flushed. "That's why Pete and I have to change back!"
Andrew smiled. "Tell you what, old man. Let's you and me just have a quickie, right here and now, and call the whole thing even."
* * * * * *
"That's disgusting!" cried the girl in the wedding gown. She buried her face again in Mrs. Tate's prodigious lap.
"But he's absolutely convincing," said Andrew. "For instance, he knows all about that birthmark I have on my— I do beg your pardon, Mother Tate."
"And why shouldn't he know about it?" the girl cried, raising her head again. "Haven't you been in changing rooms and locker rooms with him before?"
Andrew gave a low whistle. "Dear me. Really, Pete, I had no idea you'd been looking at me so carefully when I took you to the Turkish bath all those times." The girl screamed and beat her fists against Mrs. Tate's thighs.
* * * * * *
"I hope you and Pete had fun with my body, darling," said the man, looking very clenched. "Because I'm beginning to think you were in on it the whole time, that his finding that medallion and book and proposing that he and I swap just long enough for him to 'satisfy' you, was all just a ruse."
Andrew rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "That would be a terrific trick, wouldn't it, Pete?" he said. "Of course, it presumes Gwen's acquiescence in the ruse afterward. No, this way is much better. You pretend to be Gwen trapped in Pete's body, and make a fuss until someone gives you a lot of money to go away."
"This isn't about money," shouted the man. "This is about getting my family and my body back!"
"Was it really so bad being my private secretary?" said Andrew, ignoring the outburst. "I know it was a lot less cock and a lot more bull that what I normally slip Miss Trent at the office— I say! Was that the real problem? Not the poverty, but the fact that I wouldn't put out for you?"
The man's eyes widened slightly, then his lip curled into a sneer. "Say whatever you like about Pete, sweetheart" he said, leaning back. "He's not here to defend himself, you know."
* * * * * *
"How could you say such ... horrible things?" the girl gasped and sobbed.
"Yes, I think you must be Pete," Andrew said unhappily. "Mother Tate, would your daughter—your real daughter—carry on with such caterwauling?" Gwen's mother merely looked very grey and very grim.
The girl in the wedding dress bit her finger. "But I don't know what else to say! I've told you so many things that must prove I'm the real Gwendolyn Tate!"
Andrew snorted. "But that's the beauty of the medallion—at least, according to this book. You'd have had weeks, Pete, weeks, you know, to learn all about Gwen. No, I'm sorry," he interrupted as she started to argue. "I'm sorry, old man, but you're going to have to swap back. If you don't, I'm canceling the wedding."
The girl's face froze, then twisted into a silent scream as she collapsed, sobbing, against Mrs. Tate's shoulder. Andrew sniffed noncommittally and left the room.
"Andrew Stephen McNeal!" He put away the cigarette he'd started to light and turned: it was Mrs. Tate, who had obviously wasted no time in following him outside. "You may think you know what you're doing—"
"Thank you, Mother Tate, I think I do," he replied. "All is transparent. I do apologize for the rough words and for the expense of all this—" he gestured at the decorations. "I am still going to marry your daughter, but it would be best, after what's happened today, if we just eloped and had a quiet ceremony." He smiled and patted her coolly on the shoulder. "Send— Er, send the girl along to that room down there when she's calmer."
In reality, Andrew had no idea who was who—nor did he much care. All that mattered to him that was that the dilemma have a solution, and he'd seen that solution almost as soon as the problem had been posed. Everything in the meantime had just been play.
In fact, the answer was delightfully simple—and if the medallion worked as promised, it would be simply delightful as well!
"I don't see the need for anyone to be piggish," he said when he had the two claimants alone in one of the changing rooms. "The solution, plainly, is to share and share alike." He smiled.
They looked puzzled, which amused him. He swung the medallion lazily on its chain.
"Yes, we're quite fortunate that the thing which caused this little debacle can also solve it so neatly," he continued. "You see, whichever body either of you end up in—well, it's going to leave someone very unhappy, isn't it? Obviously, then, the thing to do is to make sure no one is made permanently unhappy. Which means you two are going to have to come to an arrangement."
A flush rose in both their cheeks, but neither said anything.
He smiled. "Oh, don't look so concerned. We'll all get along famously. And just to show my own sense of fairness—I'll subject myself to the same arrangement."
By now he could hardly keep the glint out of his eye, and the anger on their faces faded to something like dread.
* * * * * *
Andrew woke slowly from delicious dreams and—though the clock said it was nearly seven-thirty—burrowed deeper between the creamy sheets. There hadn't been sheets like this on the bed in years; and these, like so much else that was new and expensive and wonderful to see and touch, had been something Gwen insisted upon after the honeymoon.
Andrew stretched and sighed and lingered inside the memory of the previous night. Andrew—the other Andrew—the person who was currently being "Andrew McNeal"—had furrowed Gwen's body deeply during the night. He had been in a temper over her spending and there had been words, and those hot, angry words had still been flashing between them when he seized her by the arm and forced her into the bedroom and onto the bed, where he had thrust himself angrily—and repeatedly—into her; more than once during that hour she had thought she'd heard her ears pop. But the screams of fury had, without changing their timbre, become screams of passion, and now Andrew—the person who still thought of himself as "Andrew"—pulled Gwen's knees up to her chin and rocked back and forth, cradling the memory of sex and the memory of orgasm and the memory of the other Andrew's rough face against hers.
She felt a little dizzy when she got up and threw a dressing gown on, and patted her cheeks and chin in the mirror before going down into the breakfast room. Gwen's body had put on a few pounds, and that wouldn't do.
Her husband was still at the table, sipping coffee and frowning over the stock tables. New York Central had closed down five points the day before. Andrew had warned them they'd have to diversify out of railroads, but had been in Pete's body at the time, and whoever had been Andrew then hadn't bothered to follow the advice.
"Oh, the new fall fashions are out!" she exclaimed as she threw her arms around her husband's broad shoulders and looked down at the open newspaper. "Scrambled eggs and sausage for me this morning, Stevens!" she called. "I'm starting a diet tomorrow and need to keep my strength up."
"I thought you were looking a little fuller lately," her husband said.
"Actually, you'll be the one starting the diet," she replied. "Or do you think we should get Pete to do it?"
"Pete and I swapped just last week," he said. "This is short notice."
"Well, you didn't mention you'd swapped, so it's not my fault," she retorted. "But, anyway, someone is going to have to watch Gwen's figure, and I prefer to do it from the outside. By the way, you were masterful last night."
"You were acting like a perfect beast and deserved everything I gave you."
"I hope you saved some for Miss Trent. If we're going to swap this morning I don't want to spend the day mooning impotently at her."
"Why don't you swap with Pete, then? I think he's got a date with that movie star tonight."
"I never liked her pictures. Personally, I'm hoping he dumps her soon."
"You'll like her once you're in his body. I can't stand Miss Trent when I'm being Gwen."
"That's because you have no willpower. Maybe I will swap with Pete. He tends to get bogged down with a girl when I'm not in him to keep him circulating."
In the end, she agreed to take over for Andrew while he took over for Gwen and dropped six pounds from her frame. They also agreed to tell the person playing Pete that he needed to start sleeping around more—the post-marriage settlement had given Andrew's former private secretary more than enough money for things like a month-long tour of the Continent, where he could sample the pleasures of some of the finer European ladies. After all, what with Andrew having to keep himself discreetly to a wife and a mistress these days, Pete was fucking for three.
So Andrew took the tie from her husband's collar and went back to the library to fetch the medallion from the safe. A change would be good: Gwen's body had been feeling a little achy the last few days, and she took that as a sign she'd been Gwen for too long. Now she'd get to take a nice long break from the female form by alternating the roles of masterful corporate executive and rutting, carefree playboy.
Only when she touched the medallion to the tie, and found that nothing happened, did a terrible dread—mixed with a walloping nausea—drop into the pit of her stomach.
The End