Deborah looked at herself in the rear-view mirror of her car. She looked good, even if she said so herself, forty-how quickly time passed-and in all honesty you wouldn’t put her past thirty years old. The only telltale sign of age catching up was that persistent wrinkle between her eyebrows. Well, she couldn’t have it all could she? A great figure, lovely complexion, a wonderful husband, three teenage daughters, a charming house and enough money, what more could a woman ask for? This was the life most of her friends would give their right arm for. So then why did she feel that something was missing? Why this void? Perhaps she needed to do something different to keep her mind occupied. Recently she thought of getting pregnant more and more often, but didn’t think that John, her husband would be jumping for joy at the idea, although personally Deborah knew that she’d love to be pregnant again.

John left in the mornings for work and the girls soon after. Deborah was left to entertain herself from eight in the morning until the girls got back at five in the afternoon. John of course, always came home at around seven in the evening; some days it would be later depending how busy he was at the architect’s firm he worked for.

The girls definitely needed her less now; Julie fourteen, Justine sixteen and Jessica who had just turned seventeen. They were wonderful girls always helping her around the house but once they were through with homework and housework they were out of the house quicker than lighting. They were usually at friends’ or at the shopping mall. Like all girls of that age they loved shopping and spent hours at the mall. Deborah knew that she was even luckier that they did not demand that she buy them designer wear, like some of their schoolmates. She didn’t really mind the occasional Hilfiger top or the pair of Calvin Klein jeans she managed to acquire during the sales. She even treated herself once in a while to a pretty Kenzo top or like the Ferragamo bag she bought the other day. That was worth every penny of the 500 pounds she had paid. John was well paid, and after all Deborah saw these purchases as her perks. These were the perks of him having to work all those long hours. Last year they’d made their final mortgage payment, which was truly a wonderful moment, now they had no outstanding loans and could splash out a bit. The winter vacation in Tunisia had been absolutely heavenly. Ten glorious days in a five star hotel including two spa treatments a day, life couldn’t get better than that. So Deborah wondered again, why was she doing this? Out of boredom? Well the adrenalin rush was wonderful and all things considered it gave her something to do. Well she could of course call Maggie or Charlotte over for a cup of tea, or even go out for one of those nice salad lunches at the quaint restaurant in town, but Deborah knew that she was only fooling herself. Maggie’s daughter was only three years old, having married much later than Deborah and Charlotte was so busy climbing the corporate ladder that she hardly had time nowadays to breathe never mind even considering eating!