Chapter 1

Early January, 2000

Julie stepped out of the shower. Grabbing a towel from the rack, she dried herself off, and then wiped the condensed moisture from the mirror. She began to quickly brush her dark brown hair, for Mark was already in bed, waiting for her. Then she smiled to herself, and standing naked in front of the mirror, slowed her brushing to a much more leisurely pace. It won't hurt him to wait a little, she thought. Prolonged anticipation does wonders for the libido.

When she deemed it the right time, she put down the brush. A bottle of perfume lay nearby on the counter; Julie sprayed a little on her wrist, took a sniff and then applied a small amount under her chin.

Julie had been married to Mark Baxter for twenty years. In that time, she had evolved from a very attractive twenty-year old to a very attractive forty-year old. Though the inevitable wrinkles had begun to appear, she nonetheless managed to turn the heads of men ten years her junior. She was a fair-skinned woman with soft brown eyes and wavy shoulder-length hair. She had managed to maintain a shapely body over the years, in spite of the fact that she rarely exercised due to her constantly busy schedule.

She had met Mark in college; he was a senior and she was a wide-eyed, star-struck freshman. Mark was an honor student, majoring in chemistry; the attraction was mutual and virtually instantaneous. He was swept away by her beauty, and she was smitten with his blue-eyed, dark-haired good looks. They were married at the end of Julie's junior year, at which time Mark had finished one year of graduate school. Around the time Julie graduated with a music degree, she became pregnant. Their son, Ted, would be an only child.

Understandably, the early years were difficult. Both Mark and Julie pursued higher degrees at an off-and-on pace. Eventually, Julie obtained a master's degree, and got a job as a music teacher at a local high school. Mark, meanwhile, after several years of part-time jobs and off-and-on graduate studies, obtained a Ph.D. and landed a rewarding position with a local pharmaceutical firm.

Now, they were finally reaping the benefits of their hard work. They had a nice house in the Philly suburbs. Mark was widely respected among his colleagues and superiors as an up-and-coming scientist. Julie had helped mold a high school music program that was considered one of the best in the country; the orchestra that she directed had won several awards. Ted had graduated from high school with honors. He was now a freshman at a Midwestern university, and had just left for the spring semester after spending the holidays at home.

All in all, Julie was content with her life. Mark had grown ever-so-slightly more distant over the past year or two, but she attributed that to the demands of his job, the stress of reaching middle age, and with Ted away at college, a side effect of empty-nest syndrome.

Julie wrapped the towel around herself, and opened the door. Lying on the bed with the room lights off, Mark gazed over at her, and smiled as she let the towel drop to the floor. His arousal increased as he saw his wife's gorgeous body silhouetted against the light emanating from the bathroom. She crawled onto the bed and lay on top of him. Her breasts touched his chest, and their lips fused together.

A short while later, Julie lay sleeping, wrapped up in her husband's arms. Julie often fell asleep immediately after lovemaking. Mark slowly lifted himself up off the bed, and looked at Julie's lovely, peaceful face, and listened to her breathing for just a minute. Then, he lay back down, staring at the ceiling, preoccupied, unable to sleep.

The next morning, Mark shivered in his car, a year-old black BMW, as he waited for the heater to kick in. It was early January, and Mark hated this time of the year. The holidays were over, and it was way too early to think about spring yet. There was just the unyielding mid-Atlantic cold, the frigid, desiccating winds and the short days. It was ten minutes after six, and still pitch black outside.

Mark was the early riser of the family. Since school didn't start until nine o' clock, Julie was able to sleep in a bit. Mark's employer allowed flexible working hours, and Mark had gradually adjusted his schedule to that of a true early bird. Most days, he was at work by six-thirty. On one occasion, Julie had questioned him about this. His reply was, "There's hardly anyone else at work at that hour, and it helps me to get the day off on the right foot." She accepted this answer at face value, with no further questioning.

As a result, Mark arrived home in the afternoon much earlier than Julie, except on those occasions when he decided to work late. Julie noted, however, that those occasions had become much less numerous in recent weeks.

Mark pulled into the company parking lot. The clock on his dashboard read 6:35. Damn traffic, at this hour! he thought. He ran up the stairs, unlocked his office on the third floor, and threw his coat and briefcase on the chair. Then he stole back out into the hall and, making sure the coast was clear, walked down a flight of stairs to the first floor. He was headed for the medical room.

He rapped gently on the door. "Shauna," he whispered. No answer. He produced a key from his pocket, and opened the door. Entering the room, he shut the door behind him. The building nurse would not be coming in to work for at least an hour; Mark had her schedule down perfectly.

At the main reception desk in the same building, the receptionist had just arrived for work, and was frantically fumbling through her purse. Finally, she found her compact, and used the mirror to aid her in touching up her lipstick. She closed the desk drawer, quickly checked to make sure no one was around, and then scurried down the hall. Time's a-wasting, Shauna thought.

In her mid-thirties, Shauna Owens was a strikingly beautiful black woman. Her jet-black, somewhat wavy, full-bodied hair cascaded down below her shoulders. She had large, moist brown eyes; piercing yet expressive. Her ebony complexion was flawless, and her figure was both the envy of the women in the building, and the object of hidden lustful desires for the men. All this was in spite of the fact that her life had had its share of trials and tribulations.

Shauna took a key out of her purse and gingerly unlocked the door to the medical room. She pushed the door open slowly, and peered around the edge. There was Mark, sitting on the patients' cot. She smiled, entered the room and shut the door. "Morning, baby," she said. "Sorry I'm a few minutes late." Mark didn't respond verbally; rather, he ran up to Shauna, swept her off her feet and lowered her onto the cot. "Aren't we fresh this morning," she giggled, but willingly submitted to his advances. In a flash, he was on the cot next to her, and there they were, kissing like a couple of lovesick teenagers.

But on this particular morning, they didn't have much time for their rendezvous. In just a few minutes, the building occupants would begin to drift in to begin their workday. And both Mark and Shauna had their own reasons for keeping their relationship under wraps.

So they just lay there on the cot for a few minutes, exchanging soft kisses, nuzzles and sweet talk. One thing that Shauna liked about Mark was that he seemed to be able to sense when initiating sex was not the proper approach. He appeared more than content to talk, and more importantly, to listen. That, in and of itself, differentiated him from just about every man she had ever known.

They got up, and exchanged a soft, lingering kiss in front of the door. Mark opened the door, peeked down the hall, and nodded at Shauna. She slipped outside, and hurried down to the ladies' room to freshen up.

Mark typically allowed Shauna to leave first, and then waited a minute or two before leaving. He didn't want them to be seen walking together down the hall, at least not on a regular basis. Finally, he locked the door, and headed upstairs. He had several important items on his business agenda for today.

The window in Mark's office faced due east, which meant that the full force of the morning sun was directed into the rather small, ten-feet-by-twelve-feet area. Mark closed the Venetian blinds, which helped somewhat, but a substantial amount of sunlight still found its way around the edges. Mark had often tried to position various objects in such a way to block the sunlight, which he found annoying, but nothing did the trick. Eventually, he had given up in frustration.

In the midst of preparing a research report for an upcoming presentation, Mark found his mind wandering. And as was usually the case during the early morning hours, the distraction was Shauna.

Mark had first laid eyes on Shauna several months earlier. He had received a phone call to come and pick up a package at the front desk. It was Shauna's second day of work, and Mark became immediately infatuated with the new receptionist. He started to find excuses to walk by her work area. Though he would do nothing more than smile at her without speaking, it was obvious to Shauna that the frequent visits to the lobby were more than just mere coincidence. She found his apparent shyness very becoming; the attraction quickly became mutual, although no words were spoken. Shauna had a slight stubborn streak; she gave Mark no indication that she was even aware of his existence.

In time, Shauna began finding anonymous, handwritten, romantic notes on her desk when she arrived at work in the morning. There was no doubt in her mind who the note-writer was, but she played along for awhile. She was very touched by the attention, and started to look forward to it. She said nothing to anyone about her secret admirer. She knew, however, that things would have to move either forward or backward, and one morning, she decided to force the issue. Arriving at work extra early, she crouched under her desk, waiting.

She heard steps approaching, counted to five, and then stood up suddenly. Mark was standing in front of the desk, note in hand, busted. His jaw dropped; Shauna broke into that gorgeous smile of hers. "Gotcha," she said, taking the note from him with a victorious flourish. Mark was speechless, and red-faced with embarrassment.

"Let's see what this morning's note says," she grinned. "Good morning, beautiful," she read in a singsong voice. "You remind me of..."

Her voice trailed off as a maintenance person suddenly rounded the corner, pushing along a large gray trash can on wheels. The worker walked impassively across the lobby, and then continued away down the hall, whistling loudly to himself.

Although Mark was still stunned at being caught in such a brazen manner, it was he who spoke first as the momentary interloper moved out of earshot. "Listen," he uttered hoarsely to Shauna. "Let's go somewhere private and talk."

"I know a place," Shauna replied. "Follow me." She led him down the hall. Mark trailed behind her, partly because he had no idea where she was headed, but mostly to savor the spectacular rear view of this beautiful dark-skinned goddess in a white long-sleeved ribbed top, gray skirt and high heels.