Prologue:
Victoria (Vicky) Schmidt nee Reiss had just turned forty two, though to anyone who looked at her life from the outside they would see the perfect life! Vicky though happy, was now feeling unappreciated and undesired. Her husband Doug and her seemed too have fallen into a state of contentment which rendered that aspect of their life almost boring and he seemed unable to even acknowledge that his wife was still a sexual being. She didn't know when the funk started or how and more importantly how to get out of it.
Vicky was a short woman at five foot three inches, with long naturally sandy blonde hair and a bright smile, she had two children from a previous marriage both were now in college many states away. The youngest Jarrod having left this past September to attend the University of Las Vegas. Doug her husband who was three years her senior also had children from a previous marriage and they too lived in another state. With all the children gone and it being just the two of them she thought the evenings would be filled with Doug and her doing all the things they couldn't the last five years due to the kids being there. This just wasn't the case.
When they had met, they had both just gotten through very ugly divorces and neither was looking for anyone to fill a void, each needing time to heal. They had met through a mutual friend at a dinner party and seemed to hit it off quite well, it was a pretty long time before they started dating, she was thirty five when she went on her first date with him. He was thirty eight, she was determined to not let sex be involved for some time, she was not looking for a booty call and refused to be one herself. After almost two years of dating he proposed to her and she with the blessing of her two kids said yes.
It was a small ceremony attended only by the couple's closest friends and family each had their best friend as their attendant. Both seemed destined for a life of happiness.
Doug was a very successful man and had amassed great wealth early in his life, could afford many luxuries in life. Though very wealthy, Doug was not an arrogant man; he knew tact and never flaunted his success over anyone else. He loved her kids, though never calling him dad, loved him as well. especially Melissa. Where Doug's children lived with their mother across the country; they attended the wedding and saw him at Christmas but little else. Unlike Vicky's kids accepting Doug, his kids never spoke to Vicky.
They had been very happy and for four years Vicky never thought she would want anything else out of life. She was a department manager at a large clothing store where she made a very good living. She had managed to keep a very appealing figure, and still turned heads with her youthful good looks, she was very active in the community with the PTA and the neighbourhood watch and was a proud member of the safe community program that watched over the residences homes when the owners would be on vacation. When they got married she and the kids moved in with Doug in a very wealthy, upper class suburb just outside of St Paul Minnesota, they lived in a large home in a modern development. She always kept herself busy and with one thing or another, she exercised every day with a light jog in the morning and a half hour on her stationary bike every night. She went to a hot Yoga class Monday night's and a step aerobics class Tuesday night. She was a founding member of a book club that had five members that met every Wednesday night. She left Thursday, and Friday open for her and Doug, Saturday was her gym day where she would tan and work out from six am to noon then she would go and do laps at the local pool from one till three then home. This was also her spa day once a month.
It was because of her kids and her busy schedule, and the fact that she had many friends that she really never knew what was missing in her life. It took her youngest leaving home for her to see just what a mundane existence she led. When Jarrod moved out to attend UNLV, it seemed to leave a gap that allowed her to examine her life. From then on at the dinner table while he recounted his day at the office where he worked she would stare at him wondering where the flare had gone. Or had there been any there in the first place, at bed she would watch him take off his clothes and get into his pyjama pants then climb into bed and read a novel for a half hour and then kiss her tell her he loved her and roll over and go to sleep. Was she that oblivious to this all these years that she never saw the pattern developing? Could she change it? Did she want to change it? Up to that point she had been happy, loving her job and her social life. She was popular and would often go out with the girls after work and laugh and joke. Doug spoiled her, taking her to Mexico every winter for two weeks and to New York every summer for a week, why change what so many women would kill to have. Doug was a gentle loving husband who took in her kids as his own; he rarely raised his voice and had never put an angry finger on her. Add to all this the fact that he was stunningly handsome and had a body that a twenty five year old football player would envy.
Yet something was missing, and she needed to find out what it was and fast. Her first husband had also been content with a mundane life as well and though she left him because he was never around and was no longer the loving man she married she was determined to not let this happen with Doug. Or so she thought, the fact was once she decided to head down this path, her life and the lives of everyone close to her were going to be changed forever.
Chapter 1:
It was Monday morning at six am when Vicky's alarm buzzed her out of another nondescript dream. She sat up and looked over at the empty spot that up to about forty minutes earlier was occupied by her husband. Doug was an early to bed and early to raise kind of guy. She could hear the shower going in the en suite. "I wonder what he would say if I joined him?" she thought devilishly to herself as she took off her night shirt, and collected her running attire. "Would he welcome me in and make love to me!" she thought as she pulled her sports bra over her healthy c-cup breasts. "Would he apologise and excuse himself leaving me alone in the there! No that's not it." She seemed to be struggling with how her husband would act if his wife joined him in the shower. She was just pulling on her sneakers when she heard the shower shut off. She had a fleeting thought of pulling off her clothes and getting into a seductive pose on the bed, she shook her head and walked out of the room just as the door opened.
As she jogged the same route she had since moving there, her mind kept going back to the scenario that had presented itself in the bedroom. Why was she so afraid of changing anything up? It bothered her for her entire workout, when she returned home Doug had already left for work and Vicky was alone in the house. The same as it had been everyday for the last four years. She stripped and put her clothes in the washing machine and then hopped into the shower. She washed her self then climbed out and dried off, she went and made her heart smart breakfast and put her clothes in the dryer. Then after getting dressed she did her hair and makeup and headed for work.
Vicky arrived at the store at eight, an hour before her shift began she went straight to her desk, and answered emails and read over the to-do list she had left her self the day before. This was not going to be a good day, she would be firing a long time staff member for tardiness. Vicky hated firing people, she was always trying to find a way to get people to do better and care a little more about their jobs. She took it as a personal failure when it came to firing people, and this was going to be no different. She called the young woman to her office which was really only a cubicle beside the other floor managers, and sat her down.
