Silly though it was, Stan Wilson and Vic Slade of THE LUSTY NEIGHBOR had become one and the same person for her, while she saw herself as Della Stewart, the novel's sensuous and sexually frustrated young wife. As for Sara, Beth could hardly see her in the role of Maggie Slade, the bi-swinging temptress; she was too petite and prissily shy, as if she wouldn't speak at the table if she had a mouthful. But perhaps Jay was right when he insisted that those were the kind who came on like a prairie-fire in bed. She, herself, wouldn't know, though she couldn't help but wonder what Jay would ever do with such a wanton ball of flame if given the opportunity. In the fifteen months of their marriage he'd never once taken her all the way, and damnit, she wasn't that under-sexed, nor given to just lying there waiting for ecstasy to sweep her away…

Oh well, to hell with it! The die had already been cast as far as she was concerned! If there were any regrets, providing her seductive little trap worked, they certainly wouldn't be on her part, the young blonde wife determined, a risque thrill of arousal edging her nerves. She set her empty cup onto the kitchen table, tracing her lush, white-glossed lips with a skilled little finger. For a moment, she listened to the rhythmic typing clatter of her egotistical, near middle-aged husband, the infuriating knowledge that he had unwittingly ensnared her with believable spoofs of security when she was on the rebound of a heartbreaking romance, adding to her fervid sense of non-guilt.

Love him? Yes, oddly enough, she knew that she did in some ridiculous sort of way. But what she had in mind, what had begun as a mere caprice and continued to ferment ever since she'd begun to re-type her spouse's pornographic manuscripts was far removed from that vein of affection. In the beginning, she'd had hope for their marriage, but the sexual frustrations had quickly drained the sap from it, leaving some sort of sterile bond she compared to the feeling she'd had for the uncle and aunt who'd raised her.