Naked, Rebecca stood in front of the floor length mirror in her bedroom. "Fifteen years," she said to herself. "Fifteen years ago today I graduated from high school. The class of 1969"
She looked critically at herself. She was still slender and was more attractive than she had been in high school with character lines making an ordinary face interesting. Her breasts were small and her nipples were no longer rosy red tips but were now brownish and wrinkled, the consequence of having given birth to two children. The stretch marks on her abdomen were another consequence. Still, her breasts stood firmly, pointing straight back at her from the reflection in the mirror.
She pinched the skin around her middle. "Hmm. Maybe an inch." The triangular bush in her pubic area was small and neat.
She turned around to look at her buttocks. "Firm. No sag there."
Her legs were her best feature, long and well-formed. With a little toning, she would look good in a short skirt - except that she never wore short skirts. She was a preacher's wife, spouse of a small-town, bible-thumbing evangelical who preached hell-fire and damnation for sinners.
Rebecca had few sins on her conscience. "There was that boy in high school, but I didn't really have sex with him," she told herself. "It was an accident, and I made up it for in my service to God."
Her life plan had always been to be the Christian helpmate of a preacher. She had dropped out of college at Oral Roberts University after her sophomore year to marry Clyde, six years her elder, who had an offer to be pastor for a church in Arapaho, Kansas, population 3,000. It had been an agonizing decision for her. She was an excellent student and loved her life as a quiet bookworm, but she yielded to God's will. Her husband-to-be needed a wife and she was perfect for the job. She quickly became a pillar of the respectable, religious community of Arapaho, praised for her piety, humility, and tireless work.
"I'll have plenty of time to rest when I get to heaven," she told people.
She and Clyde had the perfect family: one boy, one girl, a dog named Spot, and a modest home on a quiet street. They were almost poor. Small town preachers don't make much money - and preacher's wives, none.
It was - everybody said - a marriage made in heaven. Why then were tears running down her cheeks as she stood there, looking at her body in the mirror?
Rebecca was not sexually deprived. Clyde had sex with her very night. It was always the same - missionary style - and she usually climaxed. She was a willing and enthusiastic receptacle of his emissions. During her periods she satisfied him with her mouth. When they were first married, he regarded oral sex as deviant and sinful but he had changed his mind and now he considered it an acceptable substitute for biblically-sanctioned vaginal sex - although his mouth had never touched her clitoris. He had also changed his mind about birth control after their second child.
She had two guilty pleasures during those 15 years. The first was reading smutty, sexy novels such as Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls. She didn't take the risk of checking them out of the public library in Arapaho, but bought them on shopping trips to the larger town of Hickok. She kept the novels hidden from hubby and the children in a locked drawer of her sewing machine. She liked to sew and making and fixing things for the house stretched her budget. In the same drawer as the smutty novels she had a few dollar bills she had saved from her household budget. What her savings were for, she could not say.
Her second guilty pleasure was Sue, her best friend from high school. Sue, bold and busty, had moved to Kansas City after high school, had married, divorced, and worked her way up to a well-paying job as office manager for a law firm. Rebecca and Sue talked on the phone every few months and met each other for coffee or lunch whenever their paths crossed. Clyde didn't approve of Sue so Rebecca didn't tell him that they were still in touch with each other.
The day after her self-examination in the mirror, Rebecca and Clyde journeyed to Kansas City, two hours away by automobile. Clyde needed a minor operation and he would stay in the hospital overnight. She waited by his bedside until he woke up groggy from the anesthesia at mid-morning and promptly went back to sleep. She telephoned Sue and they arranged to meet for lunch. Sue was the same as ever - with a head of flaming red hair, and wearing a skirt that was short and tight and a blouse that was almost sheer. Sue had always been her opposite. Rebecca dressed like a refugee from a Protestant nunnery - and an impoverished one at that.
"Why don't we go out for a drink tonight?" Sue asked as they finished their lunch. "It would do you good to have a little fun." Rebecca had shared her vague feelings of discontent and boredom during lunch.
"Oh, I couldn't. I don't drink and -"
"You don't have to drink alcohol," Sue interrupted. "You can have a coke - or even a Virgin Mary. That's a Bloody Mary without the vodka. Come on!. You need to escape for an evening."
"Well," Rebecca said with hesitation. "I'll have to be in the hospital this evening with Clyde, but if I can get away for an hour or two...maybe."
"Just call me," Sue said. "I'll wait for your call."
Rebecca spent the early evening at the hospital with her husband, willing him to fall asleep and he soon did so. She rushed to a pay telephone and called Sue. Sue picked her up at the hospital and they drove to their destination nearby - a large well-lighted restaurant which advertised itself as an Irish pub. Just off the entrance to the restaurant was a bar. Even on a weeknight it was crowded with a collection of young men and women, many of them unattached. Rebecca had never been in a bar before. Kansas permitted only beer to be sold by the drink, but they were in Kansas City, Missouri which had less stringent laws.
Sue was wearing a low-cut dress with spaghetti straps that showed impressive cleavage. Rebecca felt like Ms. Dowdy in her knee-length skirt and buttoned-up blouse. She loosed a button, then another. The hint of a white bra showed. They sat at a table and Sue ordered a gin and tonic and Rebecca ordered a diet Coca Cola. She was both frightened and fascinated, especially as men came by the table to say hello, many of whom were acquainted with Sue.
"This is my hangout," said Sue. "One of my hangouts. I know a lot of these guys. If you catch my meaning." She winked. "Hello, Brad," she said to a younger man nearby. "Hi, Jerry."
"Who's your beautiful friend?" asked Jerry. He approached the table, kissed Sue on the cheek, and turned his attention to Rebecca.
"Her name is Rebecca. My best friend. Becky, for short." Sue motioned for the two men to sit down. They were both good looking and younger than the two women, about twenty-five years old, Rebecca guessed.
"Can I buy you a drink?" Jerry asked.
"I...uh...well, maybe. First, I need to make a telephone call." Rebecca rushed away from the table, found a pay telephone near the door of the restaurant, and dialed the number of the hospital. Her husband, they said, was still asleep. She walked back to the table and said to Jerry. "Yes, I believe I'll have a drink."
"What do you want?"
"You order for me." Rebecca had no idea what she should order.
"Gin and tonics for me and the lady," Jerry said to a waitress.
Rebecca had never in her life tasted alcohol. Never. She took a tentative sip of the drink and frowned.
"Something wrong with the drink?" asked Jerry.
"Oh, no. It was just...something of a shock."
"Rebecca is a respectable married woman," said Sue to the men. "Not a pub crawler like me. Treat her nice or I'll get on your case."
"Get on my what?" asked Jerry innocently. "Do you promise?"
