However, below the surface of Alex's happy and successful image that he was so good at portraying, there was something else; a profound sense of empti...ness--a dark hole of unfulfilled desires dug deep by the part of himself he kept secret.Dominique's path was quite different. She marketed herself as a high-end NYC dominatrix. She wasn't rich, but she was proud to make a decent living doing what she did. Having grown up in poverty, raised by illegal immigrants just over the border in Bisbee AZ,. Squatting over the bowl he released a hard stream into the bowl, so quietly that the only sound he could hear over his heart was the old clock ticking it’s steady beat in the hallway. Closing his eyes he relaxed, breath slowing down, as did the stream of pee until it was only a drip that the ticking clock quickly out paced.He was about to raise himself when he heard her pad down the hall and into the bath, and he froze as she stood in front of him, her fingers stroking his nipples. “All done?”,. He well knew she had no interest in basket-weaving; she did not even like baskets; yet she had gone through it because there had been no other course available. And now -- to top all of this off -- now when the children were on summer vacation, she'd found this part- time job to get away mornings as well.In a way, perhaps, he should be grateful. Other wives in the same situation would have found another lover, or gone to group-sex parties, or taken -- he shuddered -- to drinking. The only vice. "Want me to bring a pizza?" I asked. "I'll get a large one with anchovies." Garth and I both hated anchovies, and during our younger days, any reference to anchovies had evolved to be a little code between us. Mostly we'd used it as a signal on double dates back during high school days when Garth could drive and I couldn't. He was a cool older cousin, and he'd chauffer me around, but if he made a reference to anchovies it was my signal to disappear because things were going to get hot between.