Janet eased herself down into the warm soapy water letting her legs fold up and submerging her upper body right up to the chin. Her body ached and she had a number of little scrapes and scratches on her knees and on her back. The normally light tone of her skin had a pinkish glow and her nipples were tender from the mild burn she'd picked up in the hot afternoon sun. Mostly, she just felt sore all over and the warm water soothed her, soaking into her pores and cleaning the dust and grime from her skin. Fatigue slowed her movements and dulled her thoughts letting the outrage she had suffered give way to the balming warmth of her bath. She dozed for a while, waking when the water felt chill and turned on the hot water with her toes. She felt comfortable here, protected in her own home and safe from all danger, insulated from the riffraff and protected from all tormentors.
Robert would be home at dinner time and she wanted everything to be normal by then. They would be entertaining a small group of his business friends that evening and he would expect everything to be perfect, including her.
She dozed again and this time she was awakened by a dream. She and Richard were together in a crowded theatre lobby. He was dressed in a dark business suit and she was completely naked. Her husband's friends and their wives kept coming by and introducing her to more and more people. Everyone was elegantly dressed except her and she was trying to hide her nakedness from them. She was begging Richard to take her home and let her get dressed but he wouldn't leave. He kept telling her that her nakedness didn't matter because no one really cared except her.
Suddenly Robert's face appeared in the crowd and she called out to him for help but he just smiled benignly back at her and did nothing. She called out to him again and he stooped to speak to a woman he appeared to be escorting. Janet recognised her as his administrative assistant from the office, a super efficient, tailored looking woman called Gillian, who always seemed to be looking down her nose at her ' a mere housewife and supply teacher' with stunted career ambitions.
Approaching a few steps closer to get a better view, they seemed to be quite interested and amused by her plight. When Janet, confused and embarrassed, asked for Robert's coat to cover herself, it was the woman who refused on his behalf. "Gentlemen are required to wear their jackets when in the theatre," she patronised. Robert just shrugged his agreement and they turned back into the crowd, nodding pleasantly to Richard as they left.
It was the sound of her own voice calling desperately after him that startled her from her doze. Then came the knock at the bathroom door. Josie, the East Indian maid who looked after the house and her son Patrick, was asking if she was alright. "Trust Josie," Janet thought. "Her son had excellent care from the woman, but she had her nose poking into everything. "
On the other side of the door Josie held the soiled rumpled skirt and blouse that she'd picked up off of Janet's bedroom floor. She wondered to herself why there was no bra and pants with them for her to wash.
The evening went very well. Robert had been late leaving the office and had arrived home only a few minutes before their first guests appeared. She'd worried that somehow he may be able to tell; that he'd sense something about her and he'd know. She wasn't good at keeping secrets. But he didn't know and watched her with the same detached satisfaction he always did as she played the perfect hostess.
Conservatively dressed, Janet flitted about from group to group always elegant, always well spoken. This was her element and she knew it. Every so often she would look over at Robert to see if things were going all right, but mostly she just wanted Robert to be pleased with her.
After everyone had gone home, they left Josie in the kitchen to clean up and retired upstairs to their bedroom. Robert was weary and he sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes while Janet began to undress. A surge of possessiveness coursed through him as he sat and enjoyed watching his wife. Even after a dozen years of marriage, he hadn't grown tired of those intimate moments when she was his alone to observe and to touch. It was amusing to watch other men react to Janet's good looks and to know that she belonged exclusively to him. Even tonight he had seen Don Pershing scanning her cleavage as she stooped to pick up his empty glass off of the coffee table. Several other times throughout the evening the man had stolen lingering glances at her shapely derriere as she bent to serve canapés. It made Robert feel proud and very possessive.
The sight of her now, sitting in front of her dressing table brushing out her hair stirred him. She had on the sheer white nightdress he had bought for her in Montreal and the light from her table lamp shone through it rendering the wispy material transparent. Each tug of the brush caused her breasts to quiver. Robert smiled as he thought how testy his straight-laced would have been had she known that Don Pershing was stealing peeks downs her top earlier. He stood and walked over to her, standing just behind and bending to kiss the top of her head. Her hair smelled clean and sweet and felt soft against his lips. He put his hands inside the loose bodice cupping and squeezing her breasts. Her skin felt warm to his touch.
"Did you know that Don Pershing was giving you the x-ray eye tonight?" he asked innocently.
"No," she answered impatiently. "I didn't notice that he was."
"He seemed quite taken by you. As a matter of fact you'll probably occupy all of his erotic fantasies on the way back to Dallas."
Janet put the brush down and leaned back against Robert's legs. Both of his hands roamed inside the filmy top of her nightie kneading her breasts and tweaking her nipples.
"I think Don would like to be doing this to you now," teased Robert as his hand reached down further inside the garment.
She nestled back against him with her eyes tightly closed, giving herself up to his touch.
"Would you like me to let him do that?" she teased back.
"It might be good for business," he mused. "After all, he said he's looking for a partnership in a gold mine." He joked, all the while inching up the hem of her nightdress to reveal the golden fleece of her pubic hair.
Janet's sun-pinked belly and thighs came into view and Robert immediately noticed the contrast with the rest of her creamy flesh.
"What have you been doing with yourself? Is that sunburn?" he questioned.
No!" she lied again. "It's sun lamp. I went to Linda Stapely's health club with her today and I fell asleep on the tanning cot."
Robert eased the nightie up over her head and dropped it on the floor beside them. Janet was naked again, sitting on the satin bench waiting nervously for his next move as he leaned over her. She felt like she was having a physical exam as he ran his fingers carefully over her body. Abruptly, he took her by the arm and helped her to her feet leading her over to the large bed that centred the room. Easing her down on her back, he began to remove his own clothing.
"Turn out the light dear," she suggested demurely.
"No. I want to do it with the light on this time so I can watch you sweetheart. I don't want to miss anything," he murmured.
There were no more direct questions from Robert but he paid more close attention to his wife's naked body than he had for some time. The little scrapes and scratches on her knees caught his attention as he ran his hands over her pretty legs. He could see sunburn on the insides of her calves and legs, more on the insides of her thighs, but none on her stomach or the outside of her legs at all. Her breasts were noticeably pink on top and her nipples seemed tender to the touch. She had no towel lines anywhere. It would have been unlike Janet to sunbathe nude and particularly at a health club. Even if she had, there should have been a more even glow over her body from a commercial tanning cot.
Janet just seemed different to him tonight. Even lying nude on top of the sheets was a little out of character for her as she always insisted on sleeping in a night dress and was always very demure even shy about sex. When he mentioned Don Pershing's prurient leering to her she hadn't reacted with the kind of snooty disdain that was her norm.
Robert's hand caressed her belly and her thighs while she lay reclined submissively on the wide bed. He kissed her on the hips where he knew she was sensitive and ran his tongue below the indentation of her navel. She stirred a little in response to his touch and gratuitously parted her thighs to ease his journey. Her movement revealed a red chafe mark high up on the inside of each thigh that Robert wordlessly noted. "If Janet had been to a health club with Linda Stapely, they must be offering a hell of a fitness program there," he ruminated silently.
He was less gentle with her now as he pushed his fingers past her nether lips and opened her. Kneeling between her legs, he forced two fingers inside turning his hand to allow his thumb to rub directly on her clitoris. She seemed a little tender there and winced frequently from his unrelenting roughness. For the first time in their marriage, he wanted to be harsh with her.
Robert had left for work by the time the sunlight streaming in the window finally awakened Janet. She felt stiff and sore all over and would have preferred to spend the entire day resting. But, she knew it was her normal time to get up and she wanted everything back to their routine. Raising herself on one elbow she scanned the vicinity of their big bed for her nightie but it was already gone.
"Damn," she thought. Josie must have been in the room and picked up her laundry while she was sleeping. It irked Janet immensely that the nosy woman would have seen her sprawled naked on the bed in the obvious aftermath of sex with Robert.
She was still fuming when the doorbell began to ring. After listening to it chime several times with no one answering it, Janet jumped out of bed and pulled on a robe from the closet.
Scurrying down the stairs she spotted a note from Josie on the hall table explaining she had taken Patrick down to High Park for a picnic and a paddle in the wading pool. They'd be back in time to make supper.
Without another thought, Janet pulled open the big oak entrance door and was shocked speechless by what she saw. There on the porch was the kid from yesterday, grinning like a Cheshire cat and dangling her yellow bikini panties over her head.
"Mrs Moore isn't it?" he smirked. "Just thought I'd better see these pretty panties home safely."
For a moment Janet just stared at him unable to find words in her horror and confusion.
Stunned by the shock of seeing her worst nightmare there at her door, she didn't notice for a moment that there were other people with him. His companion was a girl in her late teens with dark spiked hair and heavy makeup. She wore a short denim skirt and a baggy t-shirt with AC/DC emblazoned on it. She stood with her hand on her hip and her weight on one foot boldly staring at Janet with hard little eyes made bigger by layers of eye shadow and mascara.
