Thy Neighbor's Wife, page 21
A lawsuit against the Masters and Johnson center by a husband of one of the surrogates, as well as snide speculation in public print about the performance of the machine, contributed to the researchers’ decision to eliminate these features from their laboratory work, although female surrogates would continue to find employment at several other sex-therapy clinics that would be established around the nation as a result of Masters and Johnson’s fame and success. At some of these clinics, couples would be tutored in the art of giving erotic massages and would also be shown instructional films on fellatio, cunnilingus, and the joys of mutual masturbation that were more sexually explicit than what was passing for pornography in theaters on Forty-second Street.
The number of mate-swappers in America, most of them middle-class married people with children, were now estimated by some swing-trade periodicals to exceed 1 million couples; and in a speech to the American Psychological Association, Dr. Albert Ellis, a psychologist and author, said that marriages can sometimes be helped by “healthy adultery.” Group nudity could also be personally beneficial, according to psychologist Abraham M. Maslow, who believed that nudist camps or parks might be places where people can emerge from hiding behind their clothes and armor, and become more self-accepting, revealing, and honest.
Mixed nude bathing and massage became popular during the sixties at such “growth centers” as the Esalen Institute in Northern California, a lush retreat nestled in rocky cliffs overlooking the Pacific where the spirit of Reich seemed alive in the faculty that supervised dozens of sensuous seminars attended by thousands of predominantly middle-class couples that made Esalen a million-dollar-a-year enterprise. Most of the new forms of therapy that had been at least partly inspired by Reich’s work—bioenergetics, encounter, sensitivity training, primal therapy, rolfing, massage—were available at Esalen, where the most prominent therapist was Dr. Frederick S. Perls, a German refugee who had been one of Reich’s patients in Europe before the war.
Like Reich, Perls had become dissatisfied with Freud’s “talking cure” as well as with many of Freud’s rigid practitioners who, in Perls’s view, were “beset with taboos”—it was as if “Viennese hypocritical Catholics had invaded the Jewish science”—and Perls’s therapy emphasized instead new methods for achieving freer body movement, more awareness, fuller expressiveness, and “life feeling.” Too many people were obsessed with their heads and were alienated from their bodies, Perls believed, adding: “We have to lose our minds and come to our senses.”
Much of what was being advocated at Esalen and elsewhere was in harmony with John Williamson’s own attitude, although he wanted to go further than Reich’s followers in altering the sociopolitical system through sexual experimentation—he hoped to soon establish his idealized community for couples wishing to demolish the double standard, to liberate women from their submissive roles, and to create a sexually free and trusting atmosphere in which there would be no need for possessiveness, jealousy, guilt, or lying. Now was the perfect time for such a venture, Williamson felt; society was in turmoil, and people were responsive to new ideas, particularly in California, where so many national trends and styles had started.
If successful, his project could be financially profitable—like Esalen, or the Synanon drug program founded by a onetime alcoholic; or at least heavily funded and solvent, like the Kinsey Institute and the Masters and Johnson clinic—as well as becoming a contributing force toward a healthier, more egalitarian society. But first he had to organize his core group, those intimates who would help him initiate the process and ultimately serve as the “instruments for change” in other people’s lives. He already had several candidates in mind, people he had befriended since moving to California three years ago. Most of them were in their late twenties or early thirties, were employed in large corporations, were divorced or unhappily married, were restless and searching. Several of the men were engineers, conservative individuals whose livelihood was linked to the fortunes of the defense industry in California but who admitted to extreme boredom with their work and home lives and seemed ready for radical alternatives.
Among the women Williamson had in mind were Arlene Gough, with whom he had enjoyed a brief affair after meeting her at Hughes Aircraft, and with whom he was still friendly. He was also close to two other women who worked at his electronics firm, one of them an extremely attractive individual who had been an airlines stewardess. But the woman he considered most essential to his program—which he would call Project Synergy-was Barbara Cramer.
In the months he had spent with her since their trip to San Francisco, he gradually realized that she already possessed many of the qualities that undoubtedly would be the goals of women in Project Synergy: She was professionally successful, independent, and self-assured, was sexually liberated and aggressive when it suited her, and was not intimidated by the possibility of rejection. In some ways she reminded him of Dagny Taggart, the heroine in At las Shrugged, although Barbara Cramer was thankfully not a female elitist and would therefore serve as a more representative role model to the young middle-class women that Williamson hoped would be drawn into Project Synergy. He saw Barbara as the prototype of the new woman of the changing middle class; and, in a synergistic sense, she ideally suited him—her assets complemented his deficiencies, and vice versa. She was verbal and active while he was theoretical and introspective; she was more direct and efficient if less calculating and visionary. She did not procrastinate, she knew what she wanted. She had already decided, at twenty-seven, that she would never have children, being aggrieved by recollections of her hapless mother and other child-rearing women she had known since leaving rural Missouri. But Barbara nonetheless wanted to become more feminine than she was, more gentle and sensitive, and she also admitted to Williamson that she sometimes felt sexually attracted to certain women. Williamson urged her not to repress this, but to explore it in the interest of greater self-awareness; and shortly after their marriage in the summer of 1966—a conventional act that they both agreed would create a socially acceptable facade for their unconventional life-style—John Williamson decided to fully test Barbara’s tolerance of sexual variety within their marriage.
Hours before they were to leave Los Angeles for a restful weekend at Lake Arrowhead, he informed her that they would be accompanied in the car by a young woman from his office named Carol, the former airline stewardess that he had dated prior to his meeting Barbara. When Barbara seemed unenthusiastic, he assured her that Carol was very feminine and charming, adding that it would be both beneficial and enjoyable for Barbara to have her as a friend.
Barbara had heard him discuss Carol before, always fondly but never hinting that he was still seriously involved with her, if he ever was; and Barbara imagined Carol to be, like the receptionist she was, a lovely frontispiece for a faceless corporation, a naive young individual who had found a father figure in John and had, like so many other women, been drawn to him because, unlike so many men, he would listen to a woman, would really listen to what she was trying to say.
Late that afternoon after she had met Carol, Barbara amended some of her assumptions about her. A tall, angular blonde with dark eyes and a graceful body, Carol seemed hardly naive and quite composed, although there was nothing haughty or affected in her manner. She appeared to be genuinely happy to meet Barbara, and remarked on how impressed she had been by John’s description of Barbara’s career; as they rode in the car toward Lake Arrowhead, Carol was careful to include Barbara in all the conversations with John about their office and their mutual friends.
Still, despite these efforts, Barbara felt uneasy with Carol, and she recognized this as characteristic of the way she had nearly always felt toward women in social situations; though she privately was attracted to them, she could not easily relate to them, having had limited experience with her own sex during her tomboy adolescence and the years that followed. The one time that she had cultivated a female friendship with her schoolmate Frances, it had ended sadly and bitterly, and Barbara still could not explain her own strange, hostile reaction to Frances after Frances had announced that she was getting married and moved out of their apartment.
Barbara also felt somewhat disconcerted in the car because she sensed that she was the odd woman in this threesome with Carol and John, and that they had arranged this weekend behind her back. Barbara had pondered her husband’s intentions as soon as he had mentioned that Carol would be joining them, and she now anticipated being put in the position of possibly having to accept or reject Carol as a bed partner with John at Lake Arrowhead, or perhaps being left with the choice of remaining on the sidelines while her husband embraced Carol as a way of proving, as he often said he could, that wholesome, open sex with friends need not disturb the deeper meaning of marriage.
When they arrived at the lake, it was early evening and Barbara was relieved to discover that their cabin had two private bedrooms. But before they unpacked their luggage, John suggested that they quickly go out to dinner before the restaurant closed. After a few drinks, a good meal, and much amiable conversation and laughter, Barbara felt more at ease; but later, on returning to the cabin, she saw Carol and John place their luggage in the same bedroom, and soon they began to casually undress.
Barbara remained in the living room, stunned, silent, waiting for an explanation that was not forthcoming. Too proud to reveal her discomfort, too shocked to even think clearly, she sat on the couch staring at the open door of the bedroom. She heard them hanging their clothes in the closet, speaking softly. The open door was no doubt John’s way of saying that she was welcome to join them, but he would not be coaxing her, the decision would be entirely her own.
It was confusing, harsh, and frightening, and all the earlier talk on John’s part since their marriage about the merits of open sexuality did not now alleviate Barbara’s uncertainty; it was one thing to agree with John’s theories and quite another to employ them in moments like this, with a woman she had just met, and the longer Barbara hesitated the more she knew that she was unable or unwilling to move toward the door.
She felt numb, dizzy, and it took all her resources to stand and walk into the other bedroom. She closed the door. It was after midnight and she was very tired and cold. She realized that she had left her suitcase in the living room but she did not want to get it. Slowly undressing and folding her clothes over the back of a chair, she got into bed and tried to sleep; but she remained tearfully awake until dawn, hearing the sounds of their lovemaking.
The next day, shortly before noon, she was awakened by the soft touch of her husband and his gentle loss. Carol was smiling behind him, holding a breakfast tray, and soon they both were sitting on the bed, stroking her and comforting her as if she were a young girl recovering from an illness. Barbara felt strange and embarrassed. John said that he loved her and needed her; Barbara, forcing a smile, did not reply. He suggested that after breakfast they all go swimming and skiing on the lake, but Barbara said that she preferred remaining in bed a while longer, and told them to go on ahead, she would join them.
She spent part of the afternoon in the cabin, then took a long walk in the sun and crisp air, regaining her composure. She was not angry with John or Carol, though she conceded that this weekend surely was the beginning of a new phase in her marriage; but instead of feeling panicked or threatened, she felt oddly contented and free. Her husband had freed her of certain indefinable fears and romantic illusions about sex and body pleasure, as distinguished from the meaning of marital love. Her awareness that her husband had been sexually engaged the previous night with another woman was, after she had recovered from the shock, not really so shocking; and when John had announced his love for her in front of Carol this morning, Barbara believed him, for now there was no reason for lying. Their relationship had become more honest and open, had expanded not only for him but for her. She knew that now she could do as she wished, with whomever she pleased, without risking his rancor, or so she assumed. His railing against covert adultery and senseless sexual possessiveness and jealousy had culminated last night in a defiant act against a centuries-old tradition of propriety and deceit, and she admitted to being both stunned and stimulated by what had just transpired in her life. She was married to an uncommon man, mysterious, unboring, unpredictable, a quiet man who said he loved her and needed her.
Soothed by the walk, she returned to the cabin, took a bath, and changed her clothes; then she left for the restaurant-bar looking for John and Carol. John smiled and waved as he saw her, and both stood to embrace her as she arrived, and Barbara soon felt almost as comfortable with Carol as she did with her husband. Though the bar was crowded and noisy, there was a special warmth among the three of them as they sat drinking and talking, and the dinner with wine that followed in the restaurant represented to Barbara an almost celebratory conclusion to all the preceding hours of anguish and anxiety; and the last thing she expected at this time was that the complexity of her life would be compounded.
Shortly before eleven o’clock, at the end of dinner, she was surprised by the sudden arrival at their table of a man to whom she had been attracted in the past. The man was a friend of her husband’s named David Schwind, an engineer; about thirty years of age, he was one of the few men her husband knew in Los Angeles who had not been married at least once. Barbara had met him earlier in the year while water-skiing with John and others at Pine Flat Lake, near Fresno, and she had then been drawn to his strong but delicate features, his athletic body, and his somewhat shy, aloof manner. David Schwind was employed at Douglas Aircraft, and John had seen signs of his mechanical skill during the weekend when David had quickly repaired the motor of a malfunctioning skiboat. Since then, in various ways, John had recruited David’s friendship, taking him to lunch, seeing him socially after work. Now at Lake Arrowhead, as David joined their table and sat next to Barbara, unannounced but obviously expected by her unsurprised husband, Barbara had no doubt that David’s presence was attributable to a telephone call made by John earlier in the day. While the purpose of this visit was not entirely clear to her, it was a foregone conclusion on her part, knowing her husband, that it had a purpose, and would in time clearly reveal itself.
In the meantime, in a mood of blithe resignation, Barbara ordered another drink and responded amiably toward David, although she detected within him a certain discomfort and reticence. Sipping his drink, saying very little, listening absently while John and Carol did most of the talking, of which little could be heard over this increasingly noisy Saturday night crowd, David Schwind seemed to be debating within himself the wisdom of being where he was. A half hour later, after John had paid the bill and rose to leave, David reacted by suggesting that perhaps he should be on his way; but John urged that he return with them to the cabin, and Barbara smiled at David in a way she hoped was reassuring.
It was well past midnight as they returned; and, after they had sat for a while in the living room, Barbara volunteered to make a pot of coffee and asked David if he would mind igniting the small stove in the corner. While waiting for the water to boil, Barbara and David stood talking together, soon becoming so engrossed in one another that they were unaware of the fact that John and Carol had quietly left the room. When David turned and noticed the unoccupied sofa, he seemed startled.
“Where’s John?” he asked.
Seeing that the bedroom door was closed, Barbara replied with newfound nonchalance, “He’s with Carol.” As David looked at her quizzically, she hastily added, “It’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“But shouldn’t I be going?”
“No, please don’t,” she said quickly. “I’d like you to stay.” She moved closer to him, put her arms around him, and told him that her husband was counting on his staying overnight, and so was she. After reaching behind him to switch off the living room lights she took his hand and led him into her bedroom. She closed the door and immediately began to remove her clothes.
Making love to David that night, and again at dawn, was for Barbara a source of great release and unabashed pleasure; and far from having any misgivings about it, or feeling romantically detached from her husband, she felt quite the opposite. She believed that she had now achieved a new level of emotional intimacy with John, and that they had both shared during the night, in different rooms with different people, a gift of loving trust.
Instead of loving him less after sleeping with another man, she was sure that she loved him more; and when she got up for breakfast, leaving David asleep beside her, she was greeted in the living room by her husband’s approving smile and kiss.
THIRTEEN
JOHN BULLARO, whose extramarital affair with Barbara Williamson had been incredibly sanctioned by her husband—who had also taken Bullaro to lunch and urged that the affair be continued—knew that he had no choice but to comply with John Williamson’s astonishing request, and this he diligently did during the winter of 1967 through the spring of 1968.
Bullaro had also agreed to visit the Williamsons’ new home in Woodland Hills and meet a few of their liberated friends, an obligation that he anticipated with trepidation until he arrived one night to find the group very congenial and attractive, particularly a petite dark-eyed brunet who greeted him at the door with a serene smile and wearing only a negligee. Her name was Oralia Leal, and in the light of the doorway he could see her upturned breasts and dark nipples through the delicate material, and as he followed her through the foyer he observed her graceful hips and the fact that under the negligee she was completely nude.
