"Where the hell did you get that outfit? I never saw it before, did I?"

She swallowed. Mustn't screw up. "Not since last Thursday or so," she replied, portraying the wifely expression of pleasure at his noticing her. "I bought it the week before I met you."

"Yeah…?" He shook his big head in amazement. "That's a real mini, all right. But you can wear 'em, baby! Come here and give your lover-man a little kiss."

Beth did, smiling. As raucous, lewd, drunken, and self-inflated as he was, there was something about him that could trigger her! Maybe it was his beard, soft and fuzzy when it tickled her cheeks. How would she react to it taunting her inner thighs, like Myra in THE SATANIC MONK…?

"Mmmmmm, honey-dipped lips," he sighed, reaching around to smooth his big hand over the rounded swell of her buttocks.

"Down, rover," Beth gently countered, backing out of his reach, knowing his next move was to ease up in under her tiny skirt, and she certainly didn't want him to learn what she wasn't wearing there! "Can I get you anything before I go?"

He slurped at his coffee, setting the cup down with a clatter of cheap earthen-ware. "As a matter of fact, I think I'll go with you, doll. I need a hair-trim and I can get that while you're doing your thing. What're you shopping for, anyway?"

Beth tensed as she reached down for one of his cigarettes, anger needling her. He sat watching and waiting, making no effort to offer her a light. She scooped up his desk lighter and did it herself, irately wondering what the hell it was that kept her from climbing onto a bus for Chicago!

"Groceries and shoes," she snapped with an exhale of smoke, struggling to keep the ire from her voice. "I-I need a pair… or else a bale of cardboard to slip into those I'm wearing!" she uncontrollably added.

Though she wasn't looking directly at him, his curvaceous long-haired young wife saw his face squinch into a hurt grimace. She walked around his desk toward the window, keeping her back to him, immediately sorry she had said it. Damn, it was those pained expressions he could get in his pitiable eyes which made her melt inside.