The Stepford Wives

Ira Levin

The Stepford Wives

"Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavors to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence. Now the attitude of the males creates a new conflict: it is with a bad grace that the an lets her go."

Simone de Beauvoir

The Second Sex

THE WELCOME WAGON LADY, sixty if she was a day but working at youth and vivacity (ginger hair, red lips, a sunshine-yellow dress), twinkled her eyes and teeth at Joa

The Welcome Wagon lady put a vial of cologne on top of the other things, and then searched in her bag-"No, really," Joa

Joa

"Do you have any hobbies or special interests?"

She was about to say a time-saving no, but hesitated: a full answer, printed in the local paper, might serve as a signpost to women like herself, potential friends. The women she had met in the past few days, the ones in the nearby houses, were pleasant and helpful enough, but they seemed completely absorbed in their household duties. Maybe when she got to know them better she would find they had farther-reaching thoughts and concerns, yet it might be wise to put up that signpost. So, "Yes, several," she said. "I play te

"Oh?" the Welcome Wagon lady said, writing.

Joa

"He is?" The Welcome Wagon lady looked at her.

"Yes," Joa

The Welcome Wagon lady wrote, and closed her notebook, clicked her pen.

"That's just fine, Mrs. Eberhart," she said, smiling and taking her glasses off. "I know you're going to love it here," she said, "and I want to wish you a sincere and hearty 'Welcome to Stepford.' If there's any information I can give you about local shops and services, please feel free to call me; the number's right there on the front of the discount book."

"Thank you, I will," Joa

"Try them, they're good products!" the Welcome Wagon lady said. She turned away. "Good-by now!"

Joa

Moving whiteness beyond the Volkswagen caught Joa

The whiteness moved to a lower pane, and then to the pane beside it.

With a surprising roar the Volkswagen lunged from the curb, and Joa

PETE AND KIM WERE arguing louder. "B.M.! Diarrhea!"

"Ow! Stop it!"

"Cut it out!" Joa

"She's kicking me!" Pete shouted, and Kim shouted, "I'm not! You diarrhea!"

"Now stop it," Joa

"She kicked me twice," Pete said, and Kim shouted, "You changed the cha

"I did not!" 'I was watching Felix the Cat!"

"Quiet!" Joa

They looked at her, Kim with Walter's wide blue eyes,

Pete with her own grave dark ones. "Race 'em to a flying finish!" the TV set cried. "No electricity!"

"A, you're too close to the set," Joa

Joa

Crouching, she hugged Kim to her shoulder and rubbed her pajamaed back, kissed her silk-soft ringlets. "Ali, come on now," she said. "Don't you want to play with that nice Allison again? Maybe you'll see another chipmunk."

Pete came over and lifted a strand of her hair. She looked up at him and said, "Don't change cha

"Oh, all right," he said, winding a finger in the dark strand.

"And don't kick," she told Kim. She rubbed her back and tried to get kisses in at her squirming-away cheek.

IT WAS WALTER'S TURN TO DO the dishes, and Pete and Kim were playing quietly in Pete's room, so she took a quick cool shower and put on shorts and a shirt and her sneakers and brushed her hair. She peeked in on Pete and Kim as she tied her hair: they were sitting on the floor playing with Pete's space station.

She moved quietly away and went down the newcarpeted stairs. It was a good evening. The unpacking was done with, finally, and she was cool and clean, with a few free minutes-ten or fifteen if she was lucky-to maybe sit outside with Walter and look at their trees and their two-point-two acres.

She went around and down the hallway. The kitchen was spick-and-span, the washer pounding. Walter was at the sink, leaning to the window and looking out toward the Van Sant house. A Rorschach-blot of sweat stained his shirt: a rabbit with its ears bent outward. He turned around, and started and smiled. "How long have you been here?" he asked, dishtowel-wiping his hands.

"I just came in," she said.

"You look reborn."

"That's how I feel. They're playing like angels. You want to go outside?"

"Okay," he said, folding the towel. "Just for a few minutes though. I'm going over to talk with Ted." He slid the towel onto a rod of the rack.