"And the dairy job across town…"

"Didn't make it…" Gabe growled, "ran into a couple of buddies and drank a few beers. Swapped a few yarns…"

She went into their bathroom, musing that they didn't call her husband 'Gabby' for nothing. He was just that. When he sat in a bar with some of his old crones, the hours flew away from him as he talked and told stories. Yes, he was well-known in the town as drunken Gabby Scott, ne're do well, unable to hold a job for more than a few months, a man who was willing to let his wife support him and their two children. He was a real mess, and Dottie wondered why she continued to put up with him. If I'd had any sense I would have divorced him ten years ago…! But, here I am still married to him, slaving to keep us together as a family, and I take on men on the side, for a little extra cash, acting the whore, and trying to be respectable at the same time! Dear God, what else could I do? I guess I love him, still… I did love him, I think, when we were first married, or maybe it's just blind loyalty… loyalty to the children… because I thought they needed a father…

She turned off her thoughts about her family as she prepared for bed. She was tired, physically and emotionally. She had risen at about ten in the morning, did her housework, reported for work at two thirty in the afternoon… and afterwards the hour and a half she had spent with the salesman: that had really done her in. His sex techniques had only served to arouse her, to be left dangling, emotionally, when he had cum, the end result being frustration. Remembering the sex act, she decided she had better wash herself, even though she had insisted, in spite of his grumbling, that he use some protection. Thank God, I've been lucky so far, no disease… or pregnancy…! And to think how often I take the risk! God! Is it all worth it?

The bathroom connected with Charity's bedroom. On impulse, Dottie opened the door a crack and looked in on her firstborn, a beautiful, young girl budding into young womanhood.