Chapter 1

Sybil slapped four slices of bacon into the electric frying pan. She could hear her husband Sid in the bathroom and knew that when he came out, he'd be ill-tempered because the alarm clock hadn't gone off this morning and he feared being late on this, his first morning tutoring the wealthy Dunlap sisters. If she had her way she'd be lolling in bed right now, instead of staring at raw meat and slimy eggs, but she'd made a vow long ago that she'd never force her husband into making his own breakfast--the way her mother had forced her to as a child. Not that he gives a damn, she muttered, stepping back to escape a sizzling spit of bacon grease.

"For Chrissakes, isn't breakfast ready yet?" Sid poked his head in the kitchen door, his fingers working at the buttons of his short-sleeved blue shirt. His eyes were still puffy with sleep.

Sid sat down at the table, throwing the morning paper to the floor and sliced a wedge of butter to scrape over the toast that Sybil had dumped over his shoulder and onto his plate. The irritating noise was torture to her as she was already beginning a sinus headache from the heavy Los Angeles summer time smog inversion that had settled over the valley, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming at him. Wordlessly, she served him breakfast and sat down opposite him with a cup of black coffee. Sybil never ate breakfast; maybe because she'd cooked so many over the seven years of marriage.

"You wouldn't have to rush if you had the girls come over here, you know," Sybil put in, knowing her suggestion would be met with a barrage of negatives. Still, she persisted. "Certainly if the Dunlaps have that much money they could afford to send their kids over in a cab..."

Sid tacitly cursed her with one of his 'don't tell me how to run my business' looks and chomped on the crunchy toast, then dabbed the crust in the yellow pool of egg yolk and raised it to his mouth. A tiny speck of yellow egg dribbled from his black mustache, and Sybil had to look the other way to keep from gagging.

He does that just to bug me, she thought, distracting herself by thumbing through the society section of the paper. The sinus headache put her in a rotten disposition, and when she felt rotten she spoke her mind. "Really, Sid, I don't understand why you made such a big deal of converting my sewing room into a classroom for you if you never use it..."

"Knock it off!" Sid grunted, wiping his mouth clean with a paper napkin. Sybil knew it was useless to push the point; you couldn't push Sid into anything But it was time she started asking questions, she decided.

When Sid had come home from the interview with the Dunlaps yesterday he had, in answer to her questioning, admitted to being successful in being hired, but that's where the conversation stopped.

Then, too, she'd noticed how strange he was acting when he came home last night from his interview. He had a funny look in his eye, and she couldn't help but notice that there was an obvious bulge in his trousers. The way he kept staring at her, too as if he was debating or mulling something over in his mind and was trying to find the answer in her eyes. It made her uneasy... she'd been afraid that he'd try and make her do disgusting things that night in bed. But he had just rolled over on top of her, without so much as an "I love you..." and roughly spread her legs apart. As usual after seven years of marriage, she tried to be responsive and to show some sigh of arousal, but his coarse jabbing with his thick, hardened penis only disgusted her. She'd just lain there with her eyes closed, as he thrust into her, and she breathed a sigh of relief when, with a few heaving grunts, h@ emptied Ms semen into her. She could hardly wait for him to roll off her again, before she dashed into the bathroom to wash away the outward signs of their 'lovemaking.'

Sid broke into her painfully lingering thoughts with a curt good-bye and it was with a feeling of relief that she heard the door slam behind him.

Automatically, she began to clear away the breakfast dishes. A dull plodding resentment governed her actions. Used and humiliated... that's how she felt... a piece of property to be used and abused at Sid's whim. Being a good wife had always been her goal, and she kept the house immaculately clean and cooked good meals, and she knew that for her thirty-two years she had a good figure. She squeezed a sticky pool of dish detergent into the dishpan and began to tidy up the other rooms. But she felt no joy in her work, no reward... not even relief. This big beautiful house seemed like such a waste of space. And Sid was the one who'd insisted on having a study where he could tutor children in the summer inter-session to make few extra dollars to augment the meager salary he earned at the 'Free School' where he taught pre-teens everything from gymnastics to French. And Sid was so ungrateful for her support and backing!

She couldn't help feeling that most of the fault of the trouble in their marriage lay on Sid's head. She had taxed her patience, skimping here and there on the household budget, remaking last year's fashions into this year's mania, taking in alteration and sewing jobs to bring in a few extra dollars. Nothing helped! Sid just didn't appreciate her efforts at conservation.

Her headache still throbbed above her eyes, so the housewife decided to treat herself to a long, hot bath and ease some of the tension in her taut, stressed body.

As the bath was filling to the brim, Sybil slipped off her breakfast robe and nightdress and scrutinized herself in the full- length mirror. On the whole, she was pleased with what she saw. Her tummy was a trifle rounded, but knew that it was not unattractive. "Titianesque..." as Sid called it. Apart from that small imperfection, she still had the figure she had that day, over eight years ago, when she'd met Sid at college and he had stared so rudely at her. Goodness! she was young then... so much had happened in those fifteen years. And not all for the best, either! she sighed, stepping into the tub.

She lay back, covering her shoulders with the calming hot water. The ends of her Raphelite strawberry-blonde curls floated for a moment and then sank into the water to straighten into slender strands of silk. A sigh of contentment broke from her chest as the warmth seeped into her pores, internally massaging her aching muscles and tight, tension-taut neck muscles.

As she lay there soaking, she reminisced on those lost fifteen years, remembering how at seventeen she'd been cheerful, vivacious, full of hope, self-promises... a far cry from the lonely, depressed person she was now. What had gone wrong? Again she asked herself the question that tormented her daily. Had she make a mistake in marrying Sid?

She knew the difference in their attitude and life style was overwhelming and now they didn't even have the same interests. Sybil, raised in a wealthy family in Memphis, Tennessee... daughter of a debutante and banker, had been blessed with everything a young girl could want: Money, clothes, parties, her own car... Like the Dunlap girls, mused Sybil raising a steaming wash cloth to dab at her cheeks.