An online novel by Gillette Edmunds

Connie was built like a centerfold with long and lanky legs and mid drift, and large, round breasts. She had a nice white-toothed smile, bleached her hair blond, and wore blue contact lens to brighten her eyes. She attracted considerable attention on the beach, and at country club and tennis club swimming pools. Her time was always occupied by a new man asking her out, trying to seduce her, and eventually paying her bills. In the back of her mind, she had an idea that she would fall in love with this one or the next one, have kids, and be a housewife. However, a cynical private education, the easy success of her formula for improving her looks and catching men, bad recollection of her mother’s marriage as her mother was openly drunk, bored and resented housework while her father traveled for the record company, plus observing Sonya’s dissatisfaction with her moneyed relations, kept Connie out of wedlock. But when Sonya or Michael had tried to discuss education, a profession, a job, or any other occupation for her, she would say she didn’t need it or want it, knowing it was not necessary as long as her looks stayed put.

“So you didn’t leave the ‘pet’ because the sex was bad,” Connie said to Sonya. “But why’d you ever pick up a sleaze like Charles?”

“Michael was not a ‘pet’ and you know it,” Sonya said.

Connie could not believe that Sonya was in love with a skinny, weakling with a boring job. She insisted Sonya thought of Michael as a poor helpless creature Sonya wanted to take care of. There was, in Connie’s mind, no other explanation. When the half-sisters were changing into swim suits just after Michael and Sonya’s marriage, Connie said, putting on her water-proof make-up and looking at herself in the mirror, “it’s understandable that a women who had never had a dog might want to try one between marriages. But marry your dog? Sonya, you still look great. You’ve learned to live without food. You’ll never be fat. This is no time to panic. A real man will come along. Just be patient. You could probably still get it annulled. You haven’t slept with him have you?”