inexplicable jealously crept over Sue. She didn't want Hub, but she didn't want any other woman to have him, either. It didn't make a lick of sense but it was real nevertheless. Real enough that Sue spent a wretched evening alone, staring blankly at the TV as she tortured herself with mental pictures of Hub and this other woman making wild passionate love.
It was lucky for Sue that she was in bed asleep when Hub got home at two a.m., half drunk and with the worst case of the stone-ache he'd had since he was a teenager. The divorcee had been far from a pushover.
After wining and dining her, he'd taken her dancing and then to her place, where he'd spent two solid hours working her up only to learn that she was in the middle of her period. Before he went to bed, Hub stood for long moments at the washbasin in the john, disgustedly splashing cold water over his bloated, aching testicles.
'Hub, do you have to have that TV blaring like that?' Sue protested the following afternoon, shortly after Hub had switched on the baseball game and settled down on the couch with his shoes off and a can of beer in his hand. 'Doug's sick. He's trying to sleep, he needs his rest.'
'Then shut the goddamned bedroom door,' Hub snorted. 'Whose house is this, anyway?'
Sue stamped to the bedroom and shut the door, remaining inside with her husband. The TV was still too loud. Doug was sleeping, but fitfully so.
For about ten minutes Sue paced the floor, her shoes off so as not to disturb Doug. She was fuming, clenching and unclenching her fists, gritting her teeth.
How can any one man be so callous and selfish?! she railed silently.
God, what an animal he is! I hate him!
Her stepfather-in-law's lack of consideration for Doug's condition infuriated Sue. This was too much. It was time for a showdown. She made up her mind that she wasn't going to let Hub get away with this for another minute.
Without bothering to put her shoes back on, she let herself out of the bedroom and, after quietly shutting the door behind her, she made a beeline for the TV and defiantly turned down the volume to about half as loud as Hub had set it. Her temples were pounding and her palms felt moist as she glared across at him, ready to lash out at him if he so much as said a word about her turning down the sound.
'You can still hear it, can't you?' she asked demandingly.
'Just fine,' he replied, flashing her a lopsided grin. He held out his beer can. 'This one's empty. Since you're here, throw it in the trash and bring me another one.'
'Where do you get your nerve?' Sue muttered as she snatched the can out of his hand.
'The same place you get your sassiness,' he said, chuckling amusedly as she went off in a huff toward the kitchen.
When Sue grudgingly served Hub his beer, he made a crack about her being a cute little barefooted waitress. She tried to slap his smirking face, but he caught her wrist and twisted her arm until, wincing with pain, she sank to the floor on her knees.
'Don't you ever draw back your hand to me again,' he warned, still more amused then angry. 'The next time I'll spank your sassy ass, and that's a promise.'
'I'm not your waitress, or your slave, either,' Sue whined, rubbing her arm as she got to her feet. 'Next time you want something, get it yourself!'
As she spun on her heel and ran back to the kitchen, Hub's mocking laughter rang humiliatingly in her ears. Sue felt like crying but she wouldn't give the brute the satisfaction of knowing he'd brought her to tears. Instead she busied herself washing the dirty dishes she'd been neglecting in order to care for her sick husband.
She was letting the dishwater drain from the sink when Hub called:
'Hey, barefoot waitress, this last can you brought me must've had a hole in it. It's empty.'
'Hub, please, not so loud! Doug is trying to sleep.'
'All you've gotta do to shut me up is bring me another beer.'
Sue gritted her teeth, clenched shut her eyes and, making fists, threw back her head to stifle the scream which was rising in her throat.
'Well?'
'All right, all right, I'm coming!'
Her nostrils were enlarged with rage and her eyes were glaring with hatred when she gave him a full can of beer and took his empty.
'You're even more beautiful when you're angry, Suzy baby,' he taunted.
'Drop dead,' she hissed.
'What have you been doing out there?'
'Tidying up the kitchen,' she replied tersely.
'Well, you're making too much noise. Stop it or I'll have to turn the TV back up.'
'I've got to do something.'
'Why, for crissake? It's Sunday afternoon.'
'You've got my nerves on edge.'
'Then open yourself a beer. Join me. It's a good game. You'll enjoy it.'
'Thanks but no thanks. I'll go sit with Doug. I'm sure you've managed to wake him up by now,' Sue told him icily as she turned away and padded barefoot toward the bedroom, the empty beer can in her hand.
But Doug wasn't awake. Despite the TV and Hub's resonantly masculine voice calling for more beer, Doug was sleeping peacefully and soundly.
She backed from the room and closed the door again. She walked to the kitchen and disposed of the empty beer can. Almost robotlike she opened the refrigerator, got out a can of beer for herself, opened it and went back into the living room.
'I thought you were going to sit with Doug,' Hub said, when Sue sat down at the other end of the couch and took a sip of beer.
'He's asleep.'
'Change your mind about watching the game?'
Sue nodded. She took another sip of her beer.
'Why?'
She shrugged, unable to answer because she didn't know why herself.
Hub reached across, took hold of her arm and dragged her over beside him. Sue gave him a disgusted look but didn't protest his ungallant action. For a couple of moments they sat there side by side, in stony silence, both of them watching the baseball game on TV. Then Hub put his hand on Sue's knee. She pushed it off. He put it back. She knocked it away. He slapped it back down and gripped her knee.
Sue sucked in her breath. He was hurting her. She whimpered and left his hand alone this time. He relaxed his painful grip and patted her dimpled knee soothingly. Sue gulped audibly. She tilted the beer can to her lips and took three large swallows.
Despising Hub the way she did, it was beyond Sue's comprehension how she could sit there beside him letting him play with her knee while she watched, of all things, a dumb baseball game! Yet that's exactly what she did until he sent her to the kitchen to get him another beer. When she returned, he drew her down beside him and scooted even closer to her than before. She could feel his hip and thigh touching hers.
His hand returned to her knee, patting and caressing, then wedging in between her knees. Sue knew she should object, but she didn't. She clamped shut her legs but this didn't prevent him from stroking the insides of her thighs.
'Hub, don't,' she murmured half-heartedly, when he pushed her legs apart so he could stroke higher up the inner slopes of her soft and shapely legs.
The baseball game held nine-tenths of Hub's attention. He was drinking beer with his left hand and watching the game with great interest. Not so much as glancing Sue's way, he effectively silenced her belated protest by squeezing down rather harshly on a handful of her tender thighflesh until Sue gasped and spread her legs for him.
'Good girl,' he muttered, still not looking at her, and he patted her leg where he had just abused it.
This didn't seem real. It was just too ridiculously matter-of-fact and screamingly vulgar to be happening to her. The announcer's voice droned monotonously in her ears. She was looking in the direction of the TV set but not really seeing the action on the color screen. Sue's brain reeled luridly as she sat there with her legs open,
