Gloria sat thoughtfully in front of the mirror, polishing her nails. She had a big decision to make. Should she accept David's invitation to spend the weekend at his country home or not? It was not quite the simple decision it looked. Oh, she liked David, of course, he was the perfect gentleman to her. But Gloria had been a widow for only a year, and it might not look good. People might talk, and she didn't want a breath of scandal in her life.

If David had been the slightest bit like her dead husband, Mark, she wouldn't have considered it for a moment. Mark had been so much older than she, so it was hardly a surprise when the heart attack left her a not exactly wealthy, but certainly well-off widow. The thing she had only confessed to her closest friend, Jane, was that it had also been a relief.

The man had been an animal. It wasn't enough for him that Gloria was the most glamorous wife at any of his office functions. That she was always polite, talking to any of the men there. That she always dressed to please men, as her mother had always said a wife should. Her tight dresses that showed off her petite figure to the best advantage were always the talk of the parties, and Gloria had once overheard a very disgusting remark made by one of Mark's associates.

"Fuck me," he'd said to Mark, after far too much to drink. "That wife of yours must be a right little nympho in bed."

Gloria leaned back in her chair as her hand hovered over her nails and she blushed in terrible shame at the memory. Mark had merely laughed, and not even told the man what he thought of him for such a suggestion.

But that was typical of Mark. He probably wanted Gloria to be disgusting and demand sex. He certainly tried to get enough of it from her. Once he'd even forced himself on her, pinned her down to the bed and stuck that horrible thing of his in her delicate body and rammed it in and out, grunting like a pig, until all that horrible white stuff had shot out of it and he collapsed and let her go to the bathroom to clean herself off.