DESIRE | 100 of literature's sexiest stories

A RESPECTABLE WOMAN (Kate Chopin)

Mrs Baroda was a little provoked to learn that her husband expected his
friend, Gouvernail, up to spend a week or two on the plantation.
They had entertained a good deal during the winter; much of the time
had also been passed in New Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation.
She was looking forward to a period of unbroken rest, now, and undisturbed
tête-à-tête with her husband, when he informed her that Gouvernail was
coming up to stay a week or two.
This was a man she had heard much of but never seen. He had been her
husband's college friend; was now a journalist, and in no sense a society
man or "a man about town," which were, perhaps, some of the reasons she
had never met him. But she had unconsciously formed an image of him in
her mind. She pictured him tall, slim, cynical; with eye-glasses, and his
hands in his pockets; and she did not like him. Gouvernail was slim enough,
but he wasn't very tall nor very cynical; neither did he wear eyeglasses or
carry his hands in his pockets. And she rather liked him when he first
presented himself.
But why she liked him she could not explain satisfactorily to herself
when she partly attempted to do so. She could discover in him none of those
brilliant and promising traits which Gaston, her husband, had often assured