Her father was re-elected as County Sheriff, and was spending more and more time in his job. Tommy was also working a lot of overtime. She was grateful that he seemed to fall upon a lot of the night shifts, which she enjoyed because of being able to sleep alone in her bed.
After she had been married about four years, her father's brother died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving her aunt, Dolores, destitute. Since there was plenty of room in their home, her father immediately invited her to move in with them. Not only did she readily accept the invitation, but since she was an excellent cook and housekeeper, it was natural that she took over most of Molly's duties. This left Molly with a lot of time on her hands, which she filled mainly by spending more time with Carol, and, at the urging of her father, by doing volunteer work in the community.
During this time, Tommy was spending less and less time at home, often staying out all night even when work did not demand it. Their sexual encounters continued to be rough affairs. She eventually came to characterize them in her mind as the copulation of goats: Molly was the nanny goat, and Tommy a billy goat who roughly mounted her, humped and bleated for a short while, and then just as roughly, dismounted her. Fortunately, their copulations became less and less frequent, until it became rare that they even slept together, let alone have intercourse. This was fine with her, though she began to have suspicions that Tommy might be seeing someone else.
John, the young sheriff in whom she’d been more interested, confirmed this for her when he brought Tommy home one morning in the patrol van, out of his mind on whiskey.
‘How is he drunk?’ she said, barely able to conceal her repulsion at the sorry state of her husband. ‘I thought he’d been at work all night.’
‘Not any work you’d care to know about,’ muttered John in an undertone, but loud enough for Molly to hear him.
‘What do you mean?’
John shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t be the one to tell you what your husband gets up to, Molly, but if it carries on I might have to arrest him, and then it’ll be too late.’
‘He’s … he’s seeing someone, isn’t he? My husband’s having an affair. Don’t worry, John, I was already aware of that.’ Then she considered what John had just said. ‘But … you wouldn’t arrest him for having an affair, because that’s not sheriff’s business, unless …’
‘Unless,’ repeated John flatly, hardly able to meet her gaze. He turned his hat in his hands over and over, then finally let his words tumble out. ‘I’m sorry, Molly, but Tommy has been exhibiting sexually deviant tendencies. We’ve all been aware of it, but most of us ignored it to spare you the humiliation. And your father, of course.’
It was the worst thing she could ever have imagined of her husband, but as she thought about his apparent disgust at the touch of her flesh, and the barbaric, brutal, Saturnalian assaults on her body, it all made sense. ‘He’s a … a queer?’
John looked around him as if willing someone else to appear to answer her questions, then nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. Yes, he’s queer. And he’s going to have to be very careful or he’ll lose his job.’
‘And his wife,’ said Molly bitterly.
‘I think,’ said John, scratching his nose, ‘that maybe he lost his wife a long time ago.’
She watched John as he poured Tommy out onto the steps and drove away as fast as he could decently allow himself to go. Why had she permitted herself to be intimidated by this horrible man – and furthermore, why had John? Their lives could all have been very different.
She sighed and stepped over her husband’s prone body. Let him sleep it off. Whatever ‘it’ was.
She began to seriously review their marriage, in an attempt to discover what had gone wrong. During their first year, she’d started to wonder why she was not getting pregnant, since they used no precautions. Also, she was puzzled by the fact that Tommy never mentioned children, and always seemed rather indifferent whenever the subject came up. The fact that Maureen ended up having three boys, all within the first six years of her marriage, added to her wonderment. Moreover, it seemed that all the young married couples in the area, except for them, were having babies. Naturally, her sister, her father, Carol, and many others inquired from time to time about whether she and Tommy planned to have children. She never knew how to answer them, so she always responded with a vague answer.
Now, in retrospect, she decided that the reason she never became pregnant was Tommy's fault. Perhaps the rumors were true, that he was queer and might, therefore, have faulty sperm. She had no idea, but this possibility made sense to her. She thought that his queerness might also explain his "billy-goat-like" method of sexual intercourse. Thus, rather than "normal" love-making with his wife, it might be that it was simply a form of queer masturbation.