Chapter 1: Hunger

Janet Riordan kissed her husband and carefully straitened his tie. "I can't have you going to the Walker's party looking sloppy," she said. "That stuck-up bitch Marge would spread it all over the church that I was a poor helpmate to you if she got half a chance."

Rev. Bill Riordan smiled and kissed her just below her hairline. "Now that is no way to talk about the wife of my most important member. Tom Walker is chairman of the deacons and if he says no to my raise, well, I don't know what we'll do then." He glanced at his watch and quickly grabbed for his bible. "I gotta go. Marge made the reservation for 6:15 sharp and she hates it if anyone is late."

Janet watched him leave then went into the kitchen to prepare supper for herself and the children. She stared at the short row of canned soups and macaroni boxes and thought about the old joke, 'How come Baptist preachers are fat while their wives and kids are so skinny? Because the preacher lives off the congregation, but his family has to live off his salary.' She wondered if she should have asked him to bring home a 'doggy bag'.

Janet silent cursed the Walkers and the other fat cat members of her husbands flock. Most of the members were working class people like herself and she got along well with them. The Walkers and a few other well-to-do members, however, really got her goat. They controlled the purse strings of the church and paid her husband a miserly wage. It wasn't enough to keep even a single man decently, she thought. How in the world could Bill have been so insane as to marry her and have kids?

She didn't blame Bill, of course. She knew when she met him that he had a 'calling' and she had always known that they would never be rich. But she hadn't expected to be poor either.

Even worse than the lack of money, however, was the way Bill's duties to the congregation kept him away from his family. Everyone in the church seemed to think that Bill was on twenty-four hour call as their personal counselor. Your kids are sick? Call the preacher in the middle of the night to hold your hand. Never mind that his kids also have the flu and his wife is frantic because she can't afford the medicine the emergency room doc prescribed. Your mother just died and you don't know how you can go on living? Call the preacher. Never mind that his wife had to miss her father's funeral because they couldn't afford a plane ticket. You and the wife got problems in the bedroom? Call the preacher. Never mind that you and a lot of other hopelessly dependent people are taking up so much of his time and sapping so much of his energy that his own wife is climbing the walls with horniness!

Janet blushed as that last thought ran through her mind and glanced around guiltily to make sure nobody was in the kitchen reading her mind. But damn it, she was horny and pretending she wasn't didn't help.

Janet slid her hand down to her groin and caressed her pussy mound. She glanced at the clock and groaned. There just wasn't enough time for her to go upstairs and finger her aching cunt before the kids got home. And by the time she got them to bed Bill would be back and that would actually decrease her chances for release. She could sense that he wouldn't be in the mood after spending several hours with the Walkers, and his reaction if he found her playing with herself wasn't something Janet wanted to think about.

Bill had actually caught her masturbating once, years ago, and he had exploded. He called her a harlot and a slut and a whore, and then for the first (and thank God only) time he hit her. When he finally calmed down he hadn't apologized or asked her to forgive him. He just lectured her on the evils of 'self-abuse' and told her to pray.

Janet had been astounded and a bit horrified. It was like Bill was living in the Victorian Age, not the late twentieth century. She couldn't believe that he held such outlandish and outmoded beliefs. But she had agreed to abide by his ways when she married him (Janet had a few old-fashioned ideas of her own) so she decided to put up with it. She did make clear, however, that he was never to raise a hand to her again. If he struck even once more for the rest of their lives, the marriage would end.

And so now she was sex starved most of the time. When they were first married Bill had been passionate and even imaginative in their love making. But now, while he was still enthusiastic on those occasions when they did make love, it was very 'white bread' fucking. No oral sex, no anal sex, not even much variety of position. Bill was getting increasingly conservative in his approach to sex and Janet was getting increasingly adventuresome and frustrated.

The kids got home about a half an hour later. There was fifteen year old John and the twins, May and June (Bill had a thing for 'cute' names), ten. They were all healthy and happy kids and John in particular was the family's pride and joy. Bill, in one of his more macho moments told had insisted that John would always come first. He would have the best the family could afford of clothes, schooling, health care, the works. What ever he wanted, if the family could possibly afford it, he would get. Bill loved his wife and daughters, but his son was all important. It was his son who would carry on the family name, who would make it shine. The girls would marry and no matter how successful their husbands or offspring might be, it would be to the glory of some other family. What ever John achieved was for the Riordans.