The big German shepherd sat back on his haunches with ears erect and eyes aglow, watching the shapely blonde girl move busily about the kitchen. Her visible, soft white flesh, even that hidden beneath her skimpy bikini, like the tossing of her shoulder-length golden hair, pleased him with its quivering apples to her every graceful motion. Her aromatic feminine scent filled his keen nostrils, stirring his interest more than the smell of the foods she prepared, and occasionally lie would wander close to her, brushing against the silken warmth of her long naked legs.

Shirley Douglas hardly noticed the lovable dog's ingenuous display of affection, except when she nearly stumbled over him and reprimanded her animal house-guest to lie down in the corner. His flattened ears and tail-between-legs reaction as he obeyed also went unseen by the curvaceous, twenty-five year old bride of six months – her flustered young mind was that preoccupied with unhappiness.

How long could she go on this way? God, she could hardly call it a marriage, nor had it been anything faintly resembling one from their wedding night on… unless security and material wealth could replace conjugal bed relations. Long since, Shirley had distressfully concluded that they could not, though they had been prime reasons in her marrying a man twice her age. Not that Frank Douglas had been any stranger to her. She had served as his private secretary for over two years, but aside from business, their close association had never gone beyond the platonic stage, even when she accompanied him on week-long business trips of the small electronics firm he owned and operated with an efficient hand.

He had always treated her with the utmost respect – a gentleman of the first order, as her dead mom would have said – and perhaps that was why Shirley's feeling toward him slipped into the category of extreme admiration without ever touching at love.