<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Martina;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 16pt;"><strong>Monica Deluca</strong></span></span>is 42 years old, and though she attempts to wear it as a badge of honor, having survived everything life has thrown at her and a lot of good times in the mix, in the quiet times, the numbers are a millstone around her neck that gets heavier every year.<br/><br/>Her husband, Alan Deluca, is 48, and he is senior partner in an architectural firm headquartered in Baltimore.  It is a successful company, and her husband has devoted much of his life making it so, a point of honor after he broke away from his family and family business due to ideological differences.  When he married, he did not want his wife to work, though things were tight enough that she had to for the first few years.  Her field was interior design, and she loved it -- but she was in love with her husband, and when he told her it was time to quit and focus on their home and help him grow his new business, she did as he asked.<br/><br/>Over the twenty years of their marriage, she's designed the interior of their three homes, each one larger and in a better neighborhood than the last.  Her life was country clubs and committees, fund raisers and charities.   If Alan had wanted children, she would have added PTA and chaperoning, chauffeuring the next generation, but he had adamant about not wanting kids.  At first, Monica had thought that she'd be able to change his mind, but he'd been adamant.  Eventually, she'd given up, like she'd given up her interest in her own career, because she loved him, and because she wanted to be a good wife.<br/><br/>She'd always wanted to be a good wife, even if some of it had eventually become wanting to be a good wife in the eyes of the neighbors, to Alan's colleagues, and less because she was still in love with her husband, but she accepted it as part of the way things went.  Passions cooled over the years.  He had affairs, sure, and after a while, so did she, and they filled the empty hours and the physical need, but they were a team, and the lovers never lasted.<br/><br/>Until they did.  Now Alan's current lover, a twenty-something waitress, is pregnant with his child, and he's decided that he'd rather trade wife and life in on a newer model.  Monica is furious, and bitter, and fighting tooth and nail to make sure that if he gets what he wants, again, he'll pay for it where it hurts the most.<br/><br/>And even if she's taking more than her fair share, and providing a nice little post-Christmas bonus for her lawyer, Alan doesn't seem to care.<br/><br/>When she wins a week's vacation in Florida, during the popular week of spring break, she invites one of her friends from the country club who's having difficulties after her husband's death a couple of years ago.  They need to let their hair down, and make a break with the past.  They need ... some serious fun, before they forget what it is.<br/><br/>But breaking out of the mold is not all that easy for someone who'd chosen the path of least resistance, over and over again.  Things weren't supposed to turn out like this.  She'd done everything she was supposed to do, except maybe for the affairs, but even then, she was just following someone else's example.<br/><br/>Sexually, she's adventurous, substituting experimentation for the emotional fulfillment of when things were good.  Challenges and dares are a more effective way to get her to do something than force ever could be, and the country-club atmosphere still lingers in her speech, as she refers to body parts and sex acts in as formal terminology as possible, and crudity of speech is a turn off.<br/><br/><div align="center">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/fc/GR-Monica_Deluca.jpg)     (https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/a/ae/GR-Monica_Deluca_2.jpg)      (https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/26/GR-Monica_Deluca_3.jpg)</div>