Richard and Nancy Lyon

Fragile and Frigid?

Lyon and Gaisford made only minimal attempts to conceal their illicit relationship.

They jetted away for frequent weekend romps. When they weren't traveling, they could be seen canoodling at bars and restaurants in Dallas and Houston.

Gossip made its way to the cuckolded wife in just weeks. Nancy's first reaction was to blame herself. She knew that she had sexual issues. Why wouldn't Richard look elsewhere to fulfill his desires?

She sometimes wondered whether her husband was a sex addict—like the time she discovered in his car trunk copies of porn magazines and a deflated ball poked with holes that he used as a bizarre masturbatory device.

But she knew the sex problems in their relationship were more her fault than his.

She was sexually timid—perhaps because she equated sex with perversion.

And therein lies a lurid story from Nancy's childhood, one that would finally get an airing at about the same time that Richard began his affair.