Chapter 1

This is the story of Bonnie Derrelli, a typical twenty nine year old suburban housewife with two children, a husband and a nice house just outside a typical mid sized city. This is about how she let her typical mundane life, to the surprise of her friends and husband, get completely turned around starting with something as routine as a simple cup of coffee.

One might think that it all began one morning when her husband David was giving her a hard time about a blender she bought the previous day, but the reality was that it had been slowly coming on for a very long time. In fact, like most problems of this nature, it's been coming on so slowly that no one; not her friends, not her parents, her in-laws or even her husband had noticed it. Bonnie certainly didn't, and that was why it really happened.

David had been giving her a hard time ever since she woke up that morning. Not that her husband was a bad guy. Like most husbands, he had his sensitive moments, but there were times when she thought she could just kill him, and that particular morning was one of them. Between trying to get the kids off to the summer day camp, (not that he would help, he was always in too much of a hurry to get to work) and him yelling at her about keeping to the household budget, she could scream.

So what if she finally broke down and bought a new blender. They needed one, and every time she mentioned it, she had to hear, "Not now Hun, maybe next week. We've already spent our allotted 'extra things' money for the week."

"After all, it's you who insists on having fresh squeezed juice all the time," she angrily thought. The thin brunet was still dressed in her worn, full length, beige housecoat and toyed with the idea of telling him, "Maybe you should have just learned to squeeze your own damned juice!" but refrained from doing so.

Bonnie would have liked to have said it to his face, but she knew it would only start an argument, and she didn't have time for that. Not only did she have to get the kids out of the door in time to catch the bus, but she still had to get herself ready for work too.

"Maybe you should do without lunch a couple of times this week to make up for it," suggested David, angrily. "Maybe then you'll remember how tight our budget is!" That last comment came just before he slammed the door on his way out.

"And maybe I'll put a cup of pee in the blender with your juice tomorrow too!" she mumbled after him.

"Hey! This shirt's wrinkled!" yelled Tommy, her ten year old, who suddenly decided he cared about how he looked. Naturally, he picked that morning to care.

"Then go put something else on." Bonnie chose the most practical answer to his problem.

"But I like this shirt, and I wanted to wear it today."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and let out a sigh of exasperation before telling him, "Well I'm sorry! But I just don't have time to iron it now. Either wear it, or go put something else on, but what ever you decide, do it fast because your bus is almost here!"

"You don't care about me anymore!" he yelled back, also slamming the door behind him.

Her eight year old son Cory opened his mouth to say something, but Bonnie gave him one of her, "Just be happy you're alive" looks, and he abruptly closed it and followed after his older brother.

Yeah, her morning started out badly, and when the jerk cut her off before she could change lanes to get onto the highway, she was convinced that it was only going to get worse.

"Shit! This is going to be one of those days," she muttered, as she flipped the guy off.

"Why did we ever get such a large house anyway?" she mumbled, as she eased her Lexus off the highway downtown. It wasn't the first time she'd asked herself that question, and she knew that it wouldn't be the last.

The fact was, it took everything they had to make the mortgage payments along with the car and insurance payments each month. Between that and the electric bill, the cable bill, the telephone bill and the food, there really wasn't much left for anything else. They had to save what little they could for school clothes, birthday presents and other living expenses. Naturally, David wouldn't let her shop at a discount store. "Nothing cheaper than J.C. Penny or Sears," she mimicked, wagging her head from side to side.

"What if someone sees you going in or leaving the store?" he'd argued when she'd brought it up. "I don't want people to think we're broke."

Then there was Christmas! It took them a good six or seven months to pay for Christmas, but they had a house the rest of their families envied, and the two Lexus they leased were as stylish as anything else on the road.

Bonnie glanced at the time on the radio in her car and was relieved that she still had a few extra minutes before she had to be at work.

"Just enough time to stop and get some coffee at the gas station on my way in," she thought.

Naturally, there wasn't any pace for her to park her car, and she watched the few minutes she had disappear on the clock as she waited at the entrance of the station for a spot to open up.

"God, somebody move!" she yelled, slapping her hands down hard on the steering wheel. She had to be at work at nine, and it was already ten minutes of. "Five minutes to drive, another two or three to park and a few more to get to my desk," she thought.

"Damn! I'll never make it," she told herself.

Just then, a car pulled out, and she quickly gunned her Lexus into the spot before anyone else could grab it.

Well I'm already here, so I might as well get my coffee," she thought. "I'll only be a few minutes late."

She was dismayed to find that the inside of the station was just as crowded as the outside.

"This just isn't my day," she mumbled, as she waited her turn to get coffee.

There were several people waiting in line in front of her at the cash register also, and she kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other, as she nervously glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter. Three minutes to nine, it read, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she fretted over the time.

"Didn't he know he would have to pay for the stuff?" she thought, as she watched the man at the counter digging into his pockets for money.

"You'd think he would have gotten the money out while he wasted all that time waiting in the line," she softly mumbled.

To her surprise, the man in front of her turned and flashed her a quick smile. She didn't know she'd said it loud enough for anyone to hear, and it caught her off guard.

Bonnie had to force a return smile, and she instantly knew that she failed to make it look it sincere, but she didn't care just then. Under the circumstances, it was too much to expect from her anyway.

The clock behind the counter read 9:02, and she couldn't believe her eyes when the next woman in line didn't have enough money to pay for her coffee and newspaper.

"Oh no, not the credit card!" she screamed in her mind. Bonnie couldn't help rolling her eyes while mumbling, "Give me a break!"

The guy in front of her turned and smiled again, and she said, "If the next guy decides to get lottery tickets, I'm out of here!"

"It always seems to happens when you're in a hurry doesn't it?" He didn't say it like a question, and he obviously meant it in a sympathetic way.

Bonnie was surprised to find that she derived a certain amount of comfort from his words. Maybe it was because he took the time to say anything at all, or perhaps it was just because it was nice for her to know that she wasn't the only one who felt as she did.

It was seven minutes after nine when it finally became her turn, and as she handed the man at the cash register her two dollars, the cashier smiled and waved her off saying, "That's ok. The gentleman in front of you already paid for your coffee."

Bonnie was stunned and grateful at the same time and quickly shoved the two dollars back into her purse.

"What a nice thing to do," she thought, looking around to see where the gentleman went, but by that time he was already gone. She quickly went through the door to see if she could catch a glimpse of him, but he wasn't anywhere in sight. There was no telling which car he'd gotten into, and as she stood there holding her coffee, she began to wonder why he did it. Did the top button of her conservative dress come undone?

She made a quick check as she got back into her car. It hadn't. Next she looked in the mirror on the back of her visor to see if perhaps her makeup gave her a more alluring look than she'd intended. After all, she was in a hurry when she put it on before she left, but she saw that actually it was the opposite and looked rather washed out.

"Damn!" she thought, as she checked herself. "That cheap lipstick I used is already half gone!"

It was twenty after nine when she got to work, and Mr. Simmons, the senior partner at the law firm she worked at said, "Getting in a little late today aren't you?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Simmons, I just got a little behind this morning."

"Well see to it that you don't make a habit of it. There's a lot of work to be done around here you know. That's why we hired you," and glancing at the coffee in her hand, he added, "We pay you to answer the phone and do the filing, not to get your coffee."

"Yes Mr. Simmons," was her professional reply, but what she was thinking was far from polite ... or professional. The lawyers at the firm weren't normally disrespectful towards her. Mostly they just treated her with indifference, but that wasn't the reason why she hated her job. She hated it because she hated being "just a secretary" as her husband put it. Still, the firm paid her well, and that was why she did it.

David was the general manager of the largest mall department store in the area, and he made very good money compared to what she made, and he never let her forget it, which was another reason why she frequently found herself fantasizing about all the subtle ways she could get even with him. Of course, she never actually went through with any of them out of fear that she'd get caught and give him a reason to leave her.

Her two friends, Liz and Shelly, were always on her about her husband, but the fact was their husbands weren't any better.

Bonnie wasn't really thinking of any of those things that morning. Although Mr. Simmons irritated her a little, she was able to put that behind her in short order. She decided that the day was going to turn out to be a good one for a change. She just couldn't get over that guy paying for her coffee, and she kept thinking about it off and on throughout the day. What impressed her the most was that he didn't even stick around for her to thank him! Even on her drive home, she thought of his disarming smile and sympathetic words, and as she pulled into her driveway she sincerely hoped that she would see him at the gas station again.

"Perhaps I can return the favor and buy his coffee," she thought, as she turned off the car.

"Tommy is at his friend, Bill's house, but I reminded him to be home by six," said Sandy, their babysitter. She was a short, heavy set, single woman in her early twenties and was a bit of a flake, but she was good with the kids and cheap.

Looking around the living room, Bonnie wished the woman would pay more attention to the house and help keep it picked up at least a little, "But I can't have everything," she thought. "At least with Sandy, I don't have to worry about the kids."

"Where's Cory?"

"He's out in the back yard with one of the neighbor kids. Well I'll see you tomorrow."

Bonnie didn't even bother to say good-by as Sandy went through the door. To do so would have invited a response that would invariably open a one sided conversation on Sandy's part, and Bonnie wasn't in the mood to hear all about the woman's current boy problems and all the bickering she's been doing with her mother. Sandy was one of those people who will never get her life together enough to move out on her own, and she's not smart enough to find herself a decent guy to settle down with.

"Damn, I don't feel like cooking dinner," she mumbled, after Sandy was gone. It was one of those afternoons when she would have loved to just order some pizza, but if she did, she knew she'd have to put up with hearing it from David for the next two weeks.

"I guess I'll make some spaghetti tonight," she told herself. "I was going to make it sometime this week anyway." It was the easiest meal she could think of because she wasn't really going to make it. Ragu already had. All she needed to do was cook some noodles and throw a few extra things into the sauce to make her husband happy.

She'd just finished changing clothes when David came through the door, and low and behold, he had a small bouquet of flowers in his hand.

"Sorry I snapped at you this morning Hun."

"I hope you don't have to skip a few lunches to make up for buying those flowers," she thought, as she gave him her best smile. It was one of those cheap bouquets that you see at gas stations and knew he'd just picked them up on the way home as an after thought.

"Oh thank you! You didn't have to get me flowers; I knew you were only stressed out about the money." That's what she said, but she was wondering how it was that he always managed to find money for things when she had to struggle to set aside the few dollars she would need just for coffee in the morning for the week!

"You're welcome."

Bonnie could tell by his smile that he was pleased with himself. He'd gotten off easy. Six dollars worth of flowers at the Mobil station and he was off the hook for being unreasonably sharp with her that morning.

"I just hope he doesn't expect me to have sex with him tonight just because he bought me some stupid flowers," she thought. Bonnie was smart enough to know that she was lucky that he paid any attention to her at all. She'd heard enough other women complaining about how their husbands act as though their wives didn't even exist, but sex with David was not something she particularly looked forward to.

It wasn't like it was in the beginning when they were still exploring each other. Now it was more like a duty to keep harmony in their home. His idea of foreplay was a kiss while he pawed at one of her breasts. He never even bothered with the other one. It was as if she only had one, and she would have thought there might be something wrong with the other one had it not been for the fact that he wasn't particular which one he pawed at. At any rate, that always lasted for all of one minute, or two if he was feeling particularly amorous. Then he'd climb on top of her and actually say, "Ready or not, here it comes Babe!"

He'd say it as if it was a turn on for her, but she usually didn't have time to really think about it for he never lasted that long. Sometimes she didn't even have time to fake an orgasm! Fortunately, they'd reached that point in their relationship where he rarely wanted to do "it" more than a few times a month.

It seemed that it took the kids forever to get to sleep that night, and Bonnie, hoping against hope that David wouldn't want to do anything, took her time in the bathroom. She figured that with a little luck he would be ready to fall asleep when she got out, but to her dismay he was wide awake, and what was worse, he had the side lamp by the bed turned on, and she knew that it practically made her nightie see through.

"I'm sorry Hon, but I'm tired and just want to go to sleep tonight," he said, after taking a good look at her. "Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a better mood to fool around."

"What an arrogant bastard," she thought. "Would it ever occur to you that maybe it's me who doesn't want you?" She dearly wished she had the courage to say the words to his face, but she was afraid that it would only start an argument, and she was too tired to deal with that. Besides, she didn't feel like hearing any of his sarcasm or the way that he always managed to make her feel ungrateful or stupid.

Bonnie had a hard time getting the kids out of the house the next day, and she knew that she couldn't be late for work two days in a row. Therefore, she had to forgo coffee, but as she drove past the gas station she couldn't help wondering if that nice guy who'd bought her coffee the day before was there. It was just a fleeting thought, but it was enough to make her smile, and she wished she'd gotten a better look at him. As it was, she mostly remembered that he was dressed in a nice suit and that he had a captivating smile. Other than that, she wasn't even sure she would recognize him if she did see him again.

It wasn't until the following Monday that she had a chance to stop at the gas station for coffee once more, and even though she told herself that he wouldn't be there, she was disappointed when she found that he wasn't. In fact, there weren't any other customers in the station at all.

"Anyway," she told herself, "he was there later in the morning, and he may not even stop at that particular station every morning for coffee. It's also possible that he may have only been passing through and would never be there again." She didn't know why that last thought bothered her so much. "After all, he probably doesn't even remember me anyway."

Of course that didn't stop her from looking for him again on Tuesday, and when he wasn't there then either, she admonished herself for being so school girlish about the whole thing and decided to just forget about it. Still, when she stopped at the station Thursday morning, she couldn't help just taking a quick look about the place. There were four men there that day, and she caught her breath when she thought one of them might be the gentleman she was looking for, but she couldn't be sure, and he made no notice of her either.

That night David decided it was time for them to make love, and she smiled inwardly when she thought about her mystery man as her husband entered her, but he was through before she could even focus in on his face!

"That was real good tonight wasn't it," said David, with a wide grin on his face. "I wanted it to be extra good for you since we hadn't done it in a while."