Chapter 1

Little noises from the living room, then the bathroom woke me up.

It was nearly my normal time anyway, but my wife had apparently decided to let me sleep in. She hummed and sang softly to herself, and seemed happy. I searched my memory. Had I made dinner reservations and arranged for the night off?

I slipped out of bed, into the hall, and glanced over the banister. My wife stood below, before the mirror, nearly wearing a dress.

Her hairstyle was different, she must have visited the salon. My eye was drawn to the dress. From the back it didn't seem like much at first glance. I had taken it for her exercise clothes, and then assumed it was something she had picked up to sunbathe in. It wasn't until she moved into the sunlight and I saw the shimmer that I realized that she was wearing a fairly-new, expensive dress. It also showed a lot of skin. A strap over her left shoulder crossed and connected to the top of the right bust line. It flowed down the back to the left side of what initially appeared to be a 80s style tube top. The bottom of the front left side connected to a very low slung skirt and the right rear of the top connected to back of the skirt. A shiny tube top held up by one strap and it in turn held up the skirt with two very thin straps. The skirt ended well above her knees.

I must have made a noise. She looked over her shoulder at me and then rushed to the coat closet. I heard hangers screech as she slid them across the metal rods.

Stumbling down the steps, trying to wipe sleep from my eyes, I caught her as she neared the door, her full length London Fog coat wrapped and belted tight. She bent to grab her purse off the telephone stand. "I'm going out with the girls, Tupperware sales night. Have a good night at work. Love you." She air-kissed me as she pushed by.

"You're going out with the 'girls', wearing that?"

"Look, it's just the girls that I sell Tupperware with. Some of them work at the warehouse and never get to go to any of the sales parties. We just decided that we would take a few of them out. Hit a bar, have a few drinks. Show the warehouse girls what they are missing."

"You're a married woman and you're going out dressed like you want to give it away?"

"We're going to a bar! I'm just going dancing. You know I like to dance. Tease some of the guys a bit maybe. You know how I looked in High school. I never got the chance to experiment."

"Yep, I know how you looked in High School. That is where I met you and fell in love with you."

"Well, it's just us girls. See you in a while. Not real sure when this will run down. You will probably already be at work though," and she was gone.

I walked into the living room and dropped onto the sofa. Working midshift can take its toll on the body. My wife was partially right. I had been scheduled to work. It was difficult to keep track of at times, 6 days on, 2 days off, 6 swings on, 2 swings off, 6 mids on 2 mids off and once a month a "free" day off or overtime if you wanted to work. I'd planned on a nice supper out but she dropped her news before I could ask. I turned on the TV and set the sleep timer for 120 minutes. I discovered the timer a few weeks ago after falling asleep and then hearing my wife complain about how the noise kept her up all night. Now, if I fell asleep watching the news the TV would turn itself off. Settling back onto the couch I turned on the news and promptly fell asleep.

At about 2am I heard the front door bang open.

"Can you make it from here, baby?" a male voice whispered.

"I can, I can, I ... umph." The lights remained off.

"Ok, here let me help. Up we go."

"Whee, you're strong."

"Now three steps to the landing. Up the five steps." Uneven steps let me follow them in my mind. "Now turn the corner, 5 more steps. Ok, we are at the top. You need to piss?"