chapter 1

The sun was still shining when she got back in her car, but the internal temperature was still tolerable from the drive to work not thirty minutes before. She took a deep breath in, tried to keep herself composed, but began to sob with both hands gripping the steering wheel. How could this have happened - why did this happen to her - were there signs she should have read into? these questions flooded her mind - circling her conscious like a hurricane until she found her calm center.

She wasn't sure how she was going to tell her husdand, but thoughts of him kept her calm.

When she had arrived at work the Regional Vice President, and some googly looking rep from H.R. were waiting at her office, the entire building looked like a ghost town, and the few employees that were there looked like lost children. Words were said, something about downsizing the Texas Regional operations, and consolidating the region into the Gulf and South-West Regions. It didn't matter how they split up the territory her services were no longer needed, and for the first time in her life Beth was without a job.

She had not grown up wealthy and had gone to work at 14 while attending school to help her parents make ends meet, she had been able to balence jobs and school through her secondary, college, and graduate education, and if she ever changed jobs she had the new one before she left the old one. This was something new to Beth, being unemployed. And, for someone who puts so much care into her work this was frightening. Beth was only 25 and had already made it to upper regional management - partially because she was armed with her work ethic, her aplicable skills, and her looks. But, all that had gotten her were qwick promotions, and now "laid off"

The file containing the details of the severence package taunted her from atop the box of her personal belongings on the driver's seat, some mooth talking radio man kept going on about the recession and how jobs were becoming more scarce as she drove home, so she turned it off, and drove in silence.

She parked in her driveway - went into the empty house and to her home office where she emmediately began updating and revising her resume. she typed and deleted new text on it for hours - too distracted to ever be satisfied with any way she worded it.

Sean came home, the door creaked open and tapped closed behind him, his footsteps followed his usual pattern to the closet where he would either change clothes if he needed to fix something around the house or simply to hang his jacket back up. today was simply to hang his jacket back up.

"Bettie?" he called out, he being the only person in the world who referred to Beth as Bettie. She felt ashamed for being laid off, like it was a stigma engraved on her forehead, and she wasn't sure how she would face him, Sean who was such a hard worker himself, he who like her had always held employment, and had advanced in his carreer even faster than she had.

She stood when he opened the door to her home office, turning aorund to face him she must have looked exactly how she felt, printed resumes balled up in the trash and strewn about, red marks all over then, her hair was a mess from hours of running her fingers through it when she racked her brain to think.

"What's wrong?" he asked approaching her, placing his hands on her shoulders. She collapsed into him confessing what had happened today. When she was done and she no longer had words he simply told her, "It's going to be okay." And, he held his wife unmoving for nearly an hour before ushering her out the door for dinner.

Through their entire marriage they always ate out, ordered in, or picked something up on the way to and from somewhere else as they were both so busy in their carreers, they had always had a maid come by once a week to clean as they never found time themselves to keep the house as spotless as they bothe desired it to be, but they still had found time in each others arms each night, and in their relationship Beth had always submitted to Sean despite how dominearing she was in her carreer - the dynamic of Sean being the head of the household had always seemed the best dynamic for them.

The next morning Beth still woke up at her usual time, dressed herself in her usual clothes: suit skirt, blouse, coat, hosier, heels. she did her make-up as she always did as to be presentable professionally, she placed a handful of her new resumes into her breifcase, fixed her hair and was brewing the coffee when Sean put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him.

"What are you doing?" he asked whispering into her ear.
"Making coffee."
"No, what are you doing dressed like this today?"
"What... what do you mean? I need to find a job." She stated unsure if she stated correctly.
"Bettie." He said her name lovingly. "I think the best thing would be for you to take your time with this. I read the severance package details, you have six months to find a job, take a week or two and spend time on yourself, relx and refresh then worry about a job. That would be the best thing for you right now."

He kissed her, and headed out the door for work, turning around at the door he reminded her, "Bettie, take time to yourself, okay."

She stood in the kithen by the coffee maker for several moments, blankly staring at the thing and is perculated, wondering what she was supposed to do if she wasn't going to be looking for a job. finally she headed back to her bedroom then to her closet, the business coat came off and went back amongst the others like in, the sleeveless blouse underneath though stayed on, she slithered out of the suit skirt and pulled on a more comfortable skirt she only wore on casual fridays, she took off the heels and slipped out of the hosiery then put the heels back on. she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and brushed her bangs to one side, she removed her modest earings and put in more ornate dangles.

She caught herself in the closet mirror, she felt like she was looking at someone else, someone new, she had never seen herself so femenine before, nor so beautiful. she felt something stirring inside of herself, but could not find a place for it.

She went from room to room in the house almost as though she was seeing it for the first time in silence with no one around. She had begun going room to room looking for something to do to pass the time, and she found herself straightening up, reorganizing, making things neater. Once she had done that she began to thing about ways they were going to save money until she found employment, went online and found some recipes that seemed easy enough to make and headed to the grocery store.

Pricing the items in the grocery store she did the math in her head, on the money they had been spending on two eating out they could have fed 6 mouths had they cooked at home. Getting the items into the refridgerator took a little time, but once she was done she had it organized for best access, vegetables with vegetables, breads with breads, and so on.

She decided she was going to make tuna casserole, it looked easy enough, and she knew she could have it ready right when Sean came home, and she did.

The door creaked open and tapped closed behind him, he smelled something intreagueing that made his stomach grumble, and he was stopped dead in his tracks when he glanced in the kitchen.

In high feels his wife was bent down reaching into the oven, her smooth legs reaching from her ankles and disappearing into a pressed bright skirt that seemed to outline her curves without being showy, her blouse snugly holding onto her body, her arms reaching out bare and smooth, her make-up still perfect, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail that hypnotized him. His mouth was open and his keys fell to the floor when she spun around holding a deep glass dish between to orange potholders, her face was bright, and she smiled at him as the steam rose from the casserole.

Had she not obviously worked so hard on dinner Sean would have taken right then and there and allowed the casserole to go cold, but he waited as to not allow her efforts to go unappreciated. He placed his jacket on the back of a chair and sat at the kitchen table where she had placed a heaping plate of the casserole. She sat across from him as he lead the prayer, and on the first bite he tried Sean nearly fainted.

"Bettie! This is amazing!"
"Thank you." She glowed to him.

When dinner was finished, and both of their bellies full Beth took their plates to the sink ,and then wrapped the leftovers and placed them in an open space in the fridge. She hadn't even closed the door yet when he picked her up and spun her around and put her on the kitchen counter, pulling her legs apart and remving her panties he kissed her like he had never done before. He was kissing her like he was dominating and appreciating her instead of just dominating, he held her hips and pushed her skirt up, she wrapped her legs around him locking her heels together behind his back, unzipped his pants, and pulled him out and welcomed him into her for what was going to be most invigorating, orgasmic, intercourse they ever had in the kitchen.