I paused for a minute, then I answered her question with one of my own. “Who did you tell?”
“Who did I tell what?”
“Who did you tell about me?” I repeated, exaggeratedly enunciating my words. Then I clarified, “Who did you show the key to?”
“What?” she asked, and she sounded genuinely surprised. “No one, of course. I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Not even Jennifer?”
“No. No one, I told you. What’s gotten into you?” Since Ellen was preternaturally incapable of lying, that settled the matter. So I changed tactics.
“What’s gotten into me is that I didn’t sign up for public humiliation,” I said. “In all the time when you were my sub, did I ever treat you with anything less than complete respect when we were with friends? Even one time?”
“What on earth are you talking about? When did I show you disrespect?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I exploded. “Pharma Douche! Everyone noticed how you acted around him. It was embarrassing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mike’s friends were taking bets on whether or not you’d crawl under the table to suck him off.”
“What? Oh, come on, that’s ridiculous,” she said. “Was I a bit flirty? Sure. But that’s my job in situations like that. The only ones there who couldn’t see that were you and him, and I’m not even sure about him.”
“‘A bit flirty,'” I repeated dryly. “Is that what you call it? Did you let him feel you up under the table?”
She looked at me in utter disbelief. “Feel me up? Are you insane? Where on God’s green earth is this coming from?”
“You know goddamned well where it’s coming from.”
“OK, look,” she said, forcing herself to take a rational tone. “I suppose that it’s possible, on whatever demented planet you seem to be inhabiting right now, that I decided to open up the deepest, darkest secrets of my sex life to a total stranger for the sole purpose of embarrassing you. I suppose it’s even possible that I’ve suddenly turned into someone who gets off on letting random men put their hands under her dress in public.” She paused to let my ridiculousness sink in, then continued, “Or maybe, just maybe, I thought that a little harmless flirting might help you get the gig as the guy’s lead rep. You did say something about a multi-million-dollar contract, didn’t you?”
OK. So I was the asshole. But I wasn’t done yet. “Maybe it’s not worth it,” I pouted. “How much would you sell your dignity for?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, grow up,” she said.
There was silence in the car for the five minutes it took me to cross Memorial Bridge and maneuver around the Lincoln Memorial and down Constitution Avenue. Up ahead, the marble of the Capitol building and the Washington Monument burned orange-yellow in the glow of the Mall’s sodium spotlights. No matter how shitty a mood you’re in, D.C. always looks stunning after dark.
Ellen softened a bit. “Look, this isn’t going to work if your approach to it is going to be to sit around feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “This was your choice, don’t forget. And since we’re doing it mainly for your own good, then maybe you should focus on the positive aspects of it.”
“Positive aspects,” I repeated dryly. “And what might those be?”
“Well, work for one,” she answered. “How many hours a day did you use to waste thinking about your dick? Well, now you don’t have to think about it anymore, so you can spend those hours doing something productive. Like not fucking up a multi-million-dollar account, for example.”
“Wow, that’s harsh. But I guess I can see your point,” I conceded.
“And our marriage, for another. Remember our marriage, the little thing we’re trying to fix right now? Think how great things could be if you’d put aside your ridiculous ego and concentrate on pleasing me. If you did that, you’d pretty quickly see that ninety-nine percent of what happens inside the beltway is just so much bullshit that you can safely ignore. Happy wife, happy life, and all that.”
“Maybe,” I replied, unconvinced.
“Take tonight, for example,” she continued. “Suppose for a second that you’d trusted me, and you’d followed my lead with Pharma Douche. Right now, you’d have a fat retainer check in your wallet. We’d be laughing our heads off about what an asshole the guy was. And I’d be feeling proud of you, maybe even enough to unlock you for some fun when we got home. Instead, you let your ego get in your way. And how did that work out?”
I paused for a second as I navigated the tricky pattern around Farragut Square and onto Connecticut Avenue. Then, I agreed, “The guy was an asshole.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“No, I’m not. I get your point. I really do.” Trusting her was really my only alternative, so I resigned myself to my fate. “And like you said, all of this is my choice, so it doesn’t make sense for me not to try to make it work.”
“That’s a good boy,” she said. After another pause, she switched to her schoolmarmish voice. “Now, I understand that you were very upset this evening, so just this once I’m going to overlook the way you’ve been speaking to me. But make no mistake, your tone has been completely unacceptable, and from now on I won’t tolerate it.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry, Mistress.”
I turned onto Wisconsin, the final stretch home. It was just a couple of blocks out of our way to swing by Whole Foods, so I asked Ellen, “Should we pick up anything on the way home? Some ice cream, maybe?”
She gave me a sharp look.
“What?” I asked.
“What did I just tell you about your tone?” she asked.
Oh, shit.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know all the rules yet,” I said. “What are they, exactly? I mean, should it be ‘Mistress’ all the time now, or what?”
She shook her head, as though mystified by my denseness. “I would have thought that some things would just come naturally. Do you really need me to spell everything out for you?”
“I’m sorry for being dense,” I answered, “but yes, it would be helpful.”
She paused as she thought of the best way to formulate her will into a rule I could follow, then continued.
“Alright. Obviously, given your position, we should be discreet in public,” she finally conceded. “I understand that. But when we are alone, or with anyone that I decide we should be open with, then you will always address me as ‘Mistress’ and adopt a proper tone and demeanour. The tone you’re using right now is still not nearly respectful enough, by the way.”
I thought for a second about pursuing the question of being open with other people, then decided it wasn’t worth it. At least not yet. “I’m sorry, Mistress,” was all I said. “I promise I’ll do better.”
“Well, I suppose we must take into account that it’s your first day,” she replied. “Nevertheless… Alright, turn around, and let’s get some ice cream. I have a feeling I’m going to want some.”
***********
Twenty minutes later, I turned the key in the lock of our townhouse, and opened the door for my wife. I’d forgotten how pleasant such chivalrous acts can be, and I saw that relearning some old habits could be a potential upside to my new situation. Plus, one can’t very well characterize acting chivalrous as misogynistic, when the beneficiary of the act literally holds the key to one’s cock.
I handed Ellen the little grocery bag containing the ice cream and automatically headed to my office to catch up on the news.
“Stop.” Caught off guard, I stopped and turned around. “Drop your trousers,” she commanded.
“Mistress?” I asked.
What the hell? Hadn’t we just agreed that she would overlook my first day mistakes?
“You heard me,” she said. “Drop your trousers.”
I hesitated for a moment. But not wanting to compound my earlier mistakes, I undid my belt buckle and top button. I looked into her eyes, silently asking whether she really intended to go through with what she seemed to be planning. She looked back at me impassively. There was no getting out of it. I pulled down my zipper, and my pants and fell to my ankles. My wife continued look at me wordlessly, until I reluctantly pulled down my boxer briefs.
“Now, put your hands on the coffee table,” she said. I didn’t move, still reluctant to believe that this was actually happening. “Put your hands on the coffee table,” she said again. “Don’t make me repeat myself again.” She enunciated every word in a voice that I’d never heard her use before, not even when she had to call a bunch of unruly lobbyists to order at a meeting. The voice wasn’t loud, but it was clear, confident, and commanding. It was a voice that assumed obedience.
I obeyed.
Bent over, with my palms flat on the coffee table and my bare buttocks flapping in the breeze, I felt a completely new sense of humiliation. Earlier that day, Ellen had bound me naked in the basement and asserted her dominance over me with some (as yet) mild cock and ball torture. That had been humiliating in the sense that she’d taunted me and made it clear that she could inflict any amount of pain that she wished if I failed to submit to her. But there was something “adult” about CBT. The act was overtly sexual, and as carried out in the dungeon it seemed more like a kinky game than anything having to do with “real life.”
Kinky sex was kinky sex, and marriage was marriage. Entirely different things. Right?
This wasn’t a game. It wasn’t the use of bondage and torture play to assert control in a sexual relationship between consenting, albeit kinky, adults. It was an act of pure discipline, of a superior correcting the behavior of an inferior. In real life, with nothing sexual or game-like or kinky about it. With my pants pulled down in front of my wife, I felt no different than I’d felt as a small boy in trouble for having disobeyed my mother.
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