The young wife held her breath as she sat on the couch in the living room and vividly remembered the terrible scene that had taken place. She could hardly believe it had actually happened, but it had, and the memory of it haunted her now like an obscene hallucination. Monday… ten o'clock in the morning… when she went into the bedroom…

"Christ almighty," Tim Jameson mumbled to himself as he clumsily jammed a small suitcase full of clothes for his impending trip to Boston. "I've got the most beautiful wife in the world and I can't lay a goddamn hand on her! Three months of marriage and it seems like three years. Hell, I'm half-drunk and it's only ten o'clock!"

His quarrels with Susan over her frigidity had been coming more and more frequently lately, and the previous evening, when he had tried once more to make love to her, she had responded like a scared little girl, crying hysterically and freezing up like cold stone. Her young husband was tired of placating her now, tired of listening to a million excuses and tearful references to her girlhood at the orphanage. He needed release – a full sexual male release – soon or he'd go crazy with the inner tension.

"Maybe she needs to see a damn psychiatrist or something," he growled, throwing some socks into his suitcase, "or maybe I do. Hell, if I don't need one now I will soon at the rate I'm going." He paused for a moment and went to the nightstand next to the bed and took a deep swallow from the half-full glass of red wine he had left there. He sighed as the potent liquid coursed down his throat. Although he didn't like the idea of drinking so much so early, he had to admit it relaxed him and gave him the strength he needed to cope with his mounting marital problems. "Maybe I'll end up being one of those suburban alcoholics," he mused bitterly, "just like the old man Carson down the street, half drunk all the time. Ah, who gives a damn anyway."