"Now don't worry, Diane. After this trip, we'll have enough money to buy you a big bed with velvet draperies and gold tassels on it, whatever it is that royalty like you and your family need to sleep on… Maybe then, you'll feel better about my terrible preoccupation with dirty, disgusting money. Who knows," he went on dryly, "you might finally turn into a decent fuck for your husband, despite yourself."

"Oh, Bill!" she cried out in disbelief, shocked by his lewdly cruel comment. Refusing to acknowledge his sadistic sarcasm further, she turned quickly away and stomped off toward their bedroom. As she slammed shut the door, and leaned her unsatiated young body back against it, she heard him call out in a contemptuous voice: "Could you please stir your aristocratic little tail long enough to hand out my suitcase before you lock yourself in? I've still got a business trip to make – if you don't mind too much."

CHAPTER TWO

The next day dawned cool and misty but Diane found herself humming a little tune and smiling, almost in spite of herself, as she moved slowly from pen to pen of the kennel in the early morning dampness, feeding the hungry German Shepherds and cleaning out their living quarters. Just as always, after Bill had left on a business trip, she felt her innate resentment toward the big, thoroughbred dogs fading away in the face of their obvious delight in her presence around them.

"It's not your fault, Sissy," she murmured warmly to a large gold and white bitch who was devotedly licking her hand as she scooped out a generous ration of dog meal into one of the many long feed troughs. "You poor dumb animals don't even realize that you're coming between Bill and me. Oh, God, I sometimes wish you'd manage somehow to dig under the fence and just run away – every last one of you beautiful brutes."