Grace

 

I guess that’s when it hit me, absolutely for real.

The twenty-five grand landing in our account in concrete figures on Brett’s mobile banking app was cold, hard reality, as were the voices of our creditors when I called and paid off our outstanding balances. But this. This bundle of whatever outfit Thomas Heath had conjured up for me to wear for him was another level of oh fuck, this is really happening altogether.

My cheeks were scalding under my foundation, even before he’d draped it on the bar top and left me staring dumb as he retreated. Brett’s curiosity was almost childlike in his enthusiasm to check out what was waiting within the satin shroud, and that’s the first time my nerves really shot away beyond all control.

My slap to his outstretched hand was hard and fast, his recoil one of shock, eyes wide as they met mine and found my defensiveness burning off the scale.

“No,” I snapped. “Let me see first. I might be embarrassed.”

His grunt had a sulky quality that set my hackles up even higher. “We can be embarrassed together. Open it up.”

But no.

No way in hell.

I scooped the bundle up in my arms before he could protest any further, crushing the fabric tight to my side as I backed up to a safe distance.

“I mean it,” I told him. “I need to do this on my own.”

Need.

I hated how desperate the word sounded.

He didn’t understand, and I didn’t blame him. He couldn’t disguise the hurt as it flashed across his face, even if he followed it up straight after with a shrug. I knew I was being a bitch, but I couldn’t stop. Barely able to function enough to breathe and keep my shit together, let alone apologise.

“Please yourself,” he offered. “If you don’t like it, don’t wear it.”

My heart was in my throat, so all I did was nod, my lips pressed tight together in what must have looked like a mean little line.

I wanted to say I was sorry. That I was just scared. For me, for us. For this night of craziness and what it would mean tomorrow and the day after, and all the days from then on.

For the humiliation of wearing something picked out by a stranger with filthy designs on my body, despite never actually seeing it in the flesh. For the potential horror of having to tell him it didn’t fit. That my thighs were too flabby, or my tits weren’t big enough, or I couldn’t get the buttons done up at the waist.

For seeing myself in the mirror and feeling like a has-been rack of mutton trying to dress up like a fifty-grand lamb.

I wanted to tell Brett I loved him. That I was scared of him seeing me like this, whatever like this might be. That I didn’t want him to keep this vision of me for the rest of our married life, remembering how I trussed myself up in some other guy’s seedy clothes choice and performed like a circus clown with my holes spread wide.

“Go have a look,” Brett said, and I realised I was hovering there like an iron scarecrow, the muscles in my arms straining tight at my sides, doing nothing useful and wanting nothing more than to wrap around my husband’s big safe shoulders and tell him this was a mistake.

But no.

It wasn’t a mistake.

Paying the creditors hadn’t been a mistake, nor had the joyous surprise in my sister’s voice when I’d called to pay her back the monies owed.

Looking out of the window at our treasured beach this morning and knowing I was safeguarding a thousand more mornings of doing the same, that wasn’t a mistake either.

I managed a nod and the faintest of smiles.

My voice was raspy when it came out. “I’ll be back soon.”

I turned away before he could reply, forcing my legs to carry me out the back through the kitchen and on to the safety of our own private bathroom.

I wriggled the bolt closed behind me and it grumbled out a rusty screech I’d never heard, having never used the thing in all the time we’d been here. I sat on the toilet lid, trying to calm my erratic breathing as I braced myself to confront the first fantasy of the man upstairs.

I was picturing leather. Latex. Something I’d need a sack full of talcum powder and a vat full of baby oil to get into, if it was even possible.

Maybe he’d dress me up as one of those tacky farmyard animals after all. Maybe I’d be wearing a horsey harness all ripe for the ponytail butt plug up my ass later. Maybe I’d be one of those naughty nurses, or a thirty-year-old schoolgirl, or even worse.

An adult baby in a frilly pair of panties.

Maybe he’d make me call him stupid names on my knees, trussed up like some stupid idiot with my muffin top sagging over ridiculously tight latex panties. Daddy, or Master, or some other pompous title that would make me cringe forever and never be able to meet my own eyes in the mirror without bursting with shame.

I could have cried, so nervous that my hands were shaking at the thought of looking inside the satin and facing the inevitable.

I knew it was ridiculous. An outfit was the least of my concerns under the circumstances. It just felt so… invasive. So… humiliating.

And more than that.

Even under all the nerves and the raspy breath and the burning cheeks, there was something more.

My damn thighs were quaking, edgy enough to tremble along with the flutter of what was between them. I’d been clammy all day, in places I shouldn’t be. Places I didn’t want to be.

I had no idea that it was possible to be so utterly petrified and turned on at the same time.

I was nauseous as I dared to hitch the black satin cover up and off the hanger, but what greeted me was enough to take my breath in one gulp.

It was beautiful.

Not leather or latex or farmyard fancy dress.

Black lace and ribbon, beautifully stitched and presented on the hanger. The cups of the bodice were low, no doubt cut off under the nipple, but the fabric was quality and the shape would be flattering, even if my curves weren’t as toned as they would have been a decade ago.

The panties were a thong with satin tie ribbons at the hips and a slit in the gusset. I wondered if he really was planning to slam his dick inside me with those pretty knickers still in position. I almost hoped so, and this time I didn’t fight it, because what was the point?

I liked it, or didn’t. Wanted to run upstairs into Thomas Heath’s dirty hands and out the front door and far away all at the same time. It would be heaven, or hell, or both. My pussy clenched at the thought, even as my belly churned with the horror.

I turned my attention back to the outfit, taking a breath and forcing myself to focus.

There were suspender belt attachments hanging from the ruffle at the hips, and a pair of lace top stockings hooked onto the hanger on the back.

He’d picked well, both in choice and in size. The selection was perfect, both in overall sizing and cup size, much better than Brett would have ever managed, even after all these years.

I wondered how a stranger gauged my measurements with such accuracy, prickling at how closely he must have been examining me all those times in his company.

I realised what a paranoid bitch I’d been, sitting there and fighting back tears of relief along with giggles as I let my guard come down. Brett could have easily looked along with me without any fallout. He could have even got a happy advanced preview. The hand slap was entirely overkill and so were the bristling nerves.

I was losing the plot. Absolutely, entirely, without any doubt.

But still, as I held that outfit up once more to the overhead light and examined the gorgeous pattern in the lace, I was glad I’d taken this moment as my own.

I remembered the night all those years ago when I was barely legal and had whispered to Brett after college one day that I was ready. We’d been fumbling for months through that summer, edging closer and closer, but that night was a world away from all the other impromptu make out sessions. I’d gotten myself ready with a long hot bath, preparing myself like some kind of sacrificial offering before he’d arrived with a big grin on his face for a night at mine. Soaping and shaving, preening and prepping, curling my hair in the perfect wave and using what felt like every single item in my makeup box.

I’d forgotten how the nerves had danced up my spine as I dressed in my favourite underwear, all ready for him to make me his for the first time. I’d forgotten how my heart had raced at the thought of the ultimate sensation, him claiming my body in a way that could never be undone.

I felt that way all over again as I hung Thomas Heath’s chosen outfit on the back of the door and turned the shower jet on full. I cast off my everyday blouse and jeans like I was shedding my skin, stepping under the faucet as though I’d step back out a whole new woman.

No, not a woman. A nervous girl with a fluttering belly, worried about a strange man’s hands on her body for nine hours straight.

I soaped and shaved with as much care as I had for my husband when he was just a fumbling teenager. I let the magic of being seen, exposed and vulnerable through a stranger’s hungry eyes, wash over me with the body scrub.

It didn’t need to be hell.

It could be anything but a nightmare.

It could be an awakening. A night of experimentation in a lifetime of stability. It wasn’t cheating, or adultery, not even close. The stranger upstairs could hurt me, drag my body screaming to places from his twisted imagination, but I’d be doing it for my life with the man I loved.

I was exhausted with my own frayed emotions, tired of see-sawing through the crazy reactions of the past few days. It already felt like an age since our loaded guest had stepped up to the bar and made his filthy offer.

Letting the emotional crud wash away was easier than I expected when push finally came to shove. Call me a realist, a pragmatist, a rationalist accepting her fate, but I let it all go and forced my chin up to face whatever perversion was coming my way.

I towelled off my freshly shaved body with gentle hands, moisturising every single inch of skin when I was done. I brushed my teeth with the vigour of someone on a first date, drying my hair in the waves I’d practiced so well for my husband. I applied my makeup carefully, steadying my shaking fingers with a nervous smile on my face.

And then, finally, I slipped on the beautiful bedroom outfit.

The full length mirror told me everything I needed to know, and so did the tears pricking my eyes as I twisted to give myself a better view.

They weren’t sad tears threatening to fall, or even nervous ones.

They were the tears of a woman taken aback by how good she felt in her own skin.

I couldn’t wait for Thomas Heath to see me like this, there was no denying it.

But more importantly, I couldn’t wait for my husband to see me like this either.