Resentment had built up in her over the years as Mike became more and more immersed in farm life, and his often stated feeling that he was glad he had made the step from the city irked her considerably. Gradually, their friends from Boston stopped coming to see them, rapidly losing their idealized notions of rural life when they saw the day to day reality, and now Sandra had lost touch with them completely. Her life was empty, pointless, she felt, and her husband's involvement with the agricultural instructor last year was the last straw for his demoralized wife. Life was no longer worth living, she thought – nothing would ever change; things would go on just as they were, with herself and Mike completely estranged.
She felt like crying again, but no tears would come. In fact, she felt devoid of all emotion, and the emptiness inside her at least eased the pain. Her mind was a blank as she got up from the couch, and wearily stretched herself. She felt old and tired – and beaten. I'm not old – why should I give up living? she asked herself, catching a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror that hung behind the door of the office, which was once a small bedroom. She knew her figure was still good, and she ran her eye critically over her reflection, noting the firm, braless upsweep of her full breasts through the raspberry colored angora dress she was wearing, the womanly curve of her graceful slender hips, the long expanse of her creamy legs. I'm not over the hill yet, she told herself, running a hand through her silky black hair which fell to just below her jawline where it swung into a guiche on either side of her oval face. Luxuriant dark lashes framed her vivid green eyes which even in her weariness sparkled back at her. What's the use? she mumbled to herself, turning away from her reflection. Who's going to see me here, vegetating in the wilderness? She conquered the fresh wave of bitterness rising inside her and with a sigh, sat down on Mike's swivel chair, in front of his untidy, littered desk. It was already the first week of the month, and she hadn't done the accounts for the previous one. Idly, she swept together the crumpled, disorganized sheaf of papers which was a jumbled mass of invoices, receipts and cancelled checks. Glad of something to take her mind off her troubles, she plunged into the task of sorting everything out and was soon immersed in her work. When she had made everything into three separate piles, she pulled open a drawer in the desk, and began to rummage about, looking for the ledger to make entries for the month. Why the hell doesn't he keep his desk tidier! she muttered to herself as she eased a long, hardbound book out of the drawer. As she removed it, her eye fell on a bulging manilla envelope which had been wedged between another book and the one she had withdrawn.
"Now what's this doing here?" she muttered to herself, irked at the disorder in the files she had arranged only recently. Frowning slightly to herself, she fumbled with the envelope and discovered that it was full of photographs.
Puzzled, she eased one out of the envelope.
"Oh my God!" she gasped aloud, unable to contain herself. The blood rushed to her face, crimsoning it a deep red. Tumultuous feelings of horror, disgust, anger manifested themselves in a single sensation of overwhelming nausea. A numbed haze blinded her for an instant, and then she began to stare with bulging, disbelieving eyes at the colored print she was holding in her hand. Every detail was startlingly portrayed and the two figures in the photograph seemed amazingly alive. For a moment, Sandra couldn't believe that she was seeing right, but there was no doubt about it – it was actually a photograph of a nude man and woman, sprawled out together, the woman's blonde head dipped between the man's widespread thighs, his grossly inflated penis clamped tightly between her ovalled red lips. The man's head was turned away, but there was no mistaking the expression on the rapt woman's face. She was enjoying taking that man's hardness in her mouth – her lustful desire was etched clearly on her eager face.
Sandra felt her heart thudding painfully in her ribcage. She had heard, of course, that people did that sort of thing, but had always somehow felt that such an act did not belong in a normal marriage. The lascivious scene seemed to come to pulsating life under her hypnotized stare, and the huge blood-filled penis seemed to throb with lewd tensity as it lay cradled between the full, ripe lips that were clasping it so tenaciously. The woman's half-closed eyes seemed glazed with passion, and Sandra felt a shudder of unknown sensation ripple through her. She couldn't seem to draw her eyes away from the obscene photograph. Her fingers seemed to be soldered to the glossy print, and somehow she felt that if she looked away from the perverted sight, she would tear herself away from a tenuous reality which her moribund emotions so badly needed, and go berserk with disgust and horror. How could he keep such filthy, lewd pictures? her mind began to question. Does he look at them often? Where did he get them?
Her curiosity broke the spell the obscene photograph had on her conscientiousness, and hurriedly, she drew out another of the colored prints. Her eyes flew immediately to the scene, and a sudden, strangled moan of horror broke from her lips.
"Oh no! It can't be!" she groaned as she stared fixedly at the second photograph. This time, the shot was taken from a distance, but near enough to display in detail the pink moist delineations of a widespread vagina, the glistening lips gently swollen around a dark star-shaped opening. A man's face was juxtaposed over the splayed mouth, the tip of his long tongue poised at the entrance to the delicate roseate furrow. And there was no mistaking that face, so wreathed in anticipatory lust. It was Mike! For a moment, Sandra couldn't believe that it was actually her husband who was portrayed in that disgusting snapshot, the wavy fair hair, his deep blue eyes, his fleshy sensuous lips. Numbed shock rushed in a roaring torrent to her head, threatening to explode, and she had to hold onto the arm of the swivel chair to steady herself. Mike! How could he do this to another woman? How could he let himself be photographed like that? She wanted to scream, to beat her fists against the wall, to turn back the clock and forget that she had ever seen the lewd pictures. Through the dim of her hurt and disgust, another thought nagged at her brain. This lascivious blonde in the photograpb, who had splayed her legs so unreservedly for her husband, was not the same woman that Mike was having an affair with last year. So there had been others! New thundering anger swelled inside the distraught wife at the thought that she had been deceived, and furiously, she snatched the remaining photographs up and scanned them. Each one, seemingly more lewd than the previous one, leaped up at her horrified eyes as if to taunt her with the spectacle of her husband engaged in all different positions, with different women, and sometimes with more than one!
"That bastard! That dirty bastard!" Sandra gasped, and in a fury of temper, began to splash out at the contents of the desk, scattering papers, letter trays, pens; everything went flying in all directions and fell to create untold chaos on the floor. Her anger unleashed beyond control, she yanked at the file drawers, pulling them completely away from their moorings, and dumped the files she had so carefully put in order, in a dishevelled heap on the floor.