Margaret sat quietly at the small computer desk in the corner of the spare bedroom. She stared at the screen of the laptop. At the same time, she listened intently to the sound of her husband's breathing in the adjacent master bedroom. His slow, rhythmic pace signaled to her that he had finally fallen into a deep sleep.
The Internet browser was opened to a site displaying intricate sewing and knitting projects. A second web page, opened to Margaret's secret email, was hidden from view, except for the small tab in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Margaret knew that if her husband Bill happened to awaken and approach the spare bedroom, she could quickly kill the tab and close her email before he had any chance to see it. Then, all that would remain on screen was a boring page of patterns and designs.
Bill had no idea that for the past three months, Margaret had been having furtive email exchanges with a mystery man from somewhere out there in the great, anonymous expanse of the Internet.
For more than forty years, Margaret had lived a life that was quite typical of women of her generation. She had been a stay-at-home mother who raised four children, kept the house clean and always made sure that a hot meal was ready to be put on the table as soon as her husband arrived home from his workday at the pulp and paper mill.
During the early years of their marriage, Margaret had been quite an active partner in their lovemaking and took great pleasure in the sex act. She was a child of the sexual revolution and was totally liberated and confident in her body and her own right to enjoy pleasure. In fact she often surprised Bill by coming up with suggestions for new positions to try, or new locations in which to get naked and do the deed. She was particularly fond of having sex outdoors and in places where there was at least a slight chance of being caught. It gave her a heightened sense of excitement. As luck would have it they actually did get caught on one occasion, in the stairwell of a friend's apartment building. They didn't even notice that another couple had come down the upper flights of stairs and stopped dead in their tracks when they happened upon Bill and Margaret screwing madly, with Margaret bent over forward and grasping the railing, her skirt tossed up over her lower back, while Bill was standing behind her, driving himself into her. Fortunately, the other couple was also appreciative of sexual freedom and didn't interfere or make a fuss. Instead, they quietly retreated back up the stairs and took another exit.
But now, for more years than Margaret wanted to acknowledge, their sex life had been all but non-existent. For some reason that he couldn't seem to put into words, Bill had lost his sex drive. Or had he lost his interest in Margaret? To be fair, he was still a good provider and a doting grandfather to their three grandkids. But whenever Margaret raised the idea of an evening of lovemaking Bill always had an excuse to avoid it; he was too tired, not in the mood or, taking a page from the clichΓ© usually applied to women...he had a headache.