Bette's mind wandered back those five years as it had during so many waking hours recently, to the night she first met suave, sophisticated Hale Bixby. She had been at a party alone – David had been out of town on one of his business trips – and she had been drinking champagne, a beverage which invariably put her in a gay, light mood. She had felt like dancing, and Hale Bixby had been there, a smile on his handsome face, saying the right words and making the right gestures, and she had been drawn to him. At first the attraction was no more than one of immediate fun – dancing, laughing and mild flirting. But then as the evening progressed and she spent more and more time dancing in Bixby's arms, felt his warm, hard male body close to hers, the attraction had subtly changed into a physical craving. It wasn't that she had been love-starved – David was a competent if unexciting and unimaginative bed-partner, and even though he was away three and four days a week on his sales route, he was always hungry for her body when they were together. She couldn't really, even now, explain what had been the cause of her growing desire for Hale Bixby: the champagne, the magic atmosphere of a warm summer night and a party, the charm and handsomeness of Bixby himself, were all a part of it, she supposed. And yet, it was more than that. It was as if she had been slowly changing, becoming something other than a faithful wife and a good mother to their thirteen year old son Tony; it was as if there had always been a wild streak in her, a lusting for excitement and adventure, repressed over the years but now breaking through.

When Bixby casually suggested Bette go for a ride in his convertible out by the lake north of town, her heart had pounded wildly in her breast, and even though she knew it was wrong, she had said a breathless yes to his proposal. She didn't want to go, and yet she did, desperately. They slipped away from the party – discreetly, Bette had thought at the time in her light-headed state – and drove in Hale's brand new Dodge through the warm night. They stopped on a promontory overlooking the lake, a lonely and deserted spot, and the moon had been big and gold in the sky, and the crickets had sung, and when Hale pulled her into his arms, she had no will to resist.