It happens everywhere. Women get talking and the flow goes something like this:
"My husband the lawyer..."
"Similar to other accountants, my husband..."
"My lover goes until he drops."
"My husband sweeps streets" (How did she get in here?).
Lately whenever effervescent sociologist Bram Wilks is asked her husband works at she becomes defensive.
"He's retired."
"Yes but what does he do?"
"He um writes."
"Good gracious how exciting. What does he write?"
Usually Bram would look for a quick way to exit the room.
"Stories."
"What kind of stories?"
The entire room would now hushed, all ears waiting for Bram's next words.
"He's a fucking porn writer," she'd yell and rush to escape.
Bram (Bramberly) would sob in despair driving home, knowing she was weak at being unable to cope with other people knowing she was harboring a pornographer in her home. She knew husband Petrie would be a socially undesirable misfit in the mind of most people. But she happened to mostly live with her husband of thirty-six years blissfully and the fact was despite this porn thing they were devoted to one another.
Petrie's career had been in journalism and he'd long been regarded among peers in the magazine industry as a writer of substance which is the label given to the echelon of professional writers who just fail to collect at least one national award.
Bram, who is ten years younger than her husband, had assumed that two weeks into his retirement Petrie would open his laptop's word processor and type the first word of his Great Novel that has resided within him all those years.
But Petrie had bolted far beyond that.
He severed all links with his straight journalism past and announced to her he'd write sexy stories to thrust himself into an entirely new genre to expand his writing experience.
The use of the word 'thrust' in such context made Bram nervous and being a sociologist researching into retirement age issues she knew the word 'sexy' was smart-ass code for pornography.
Her comfort zone was reduced even further when she told her mother of her son-in-law's latest bent.
Helen shrieked 'dump him' and hugged her forlorn daughter. She reminded Bram she should have followed her advice and married Ernest Blake, now the city's leading funeral director.
Oh god, Bram wailed silently and kissed her mom and fled.
* * *