Lucy was pretty. Pretty will serve you well in life. It makes childhood fun and easy, grade school sweet and pleasant, high school smooth and friendly, and college as graceful as college can be. As age wears at you, the magical effects of pretty evaporate.
Lucy was no longer young. She had consumed most of her fifties. Her youthful pudgy had become much less appealing and even her perky little breast had begun to flatten and sag. She now spent much of her mornings redoing her face. Still, Lucy was pretty.
Lucy was good girl. Raised by helicopter parents many years before the term existed. She was tutored and monitored, directed and motivated, watched and corrected. She did what was expected of her. She did it without question and she was well rewarded by her generous family.
Lucy married well. She met Ted at college, they married shortly after. Ted was a brilliant student and his career was meteoric, rising quickly to the top of the corporate ladder. Ted was witty, warm, attentive and besides an extraordinary provider, a wonderful father to their daughters.
Ted wasn't perfect, he had two major flaws; one was his heart which in spite of his ridged food and exercise regime, exploded into a massive heart attack, killing him instantly and second he wasn't very good at sex.
Not that Lucy was very good at it either. She had come to puberty late, while her girl friends were discovering the little man in the boat and finding out all the tricks he could do, Lucy played dolls.
She had resisted the high school boy's feeble attempts to mount her and when she finally did uncover her sexuality, she limited herself to quick, to the point moments of relief and suffered with guilt for days afterwards.