* * *

Chapter 1 - Natasha

It was the first and probably the only pink and gold Birkin bag this young stud would ever see.

Not that he could possibly understand just how much money he was actually looking at, but still. I knew. He wasn’t here to look at my shoe collection and I wasn’t here to hear about his sob story working at the pool boy factory or whatever.

We were here to fuck.

If you think you’ve heard this story before – you know, the one where the bored housewife messes around with the plumber or the repairman or the mechanic while her husband is at work – well, what can I say. Parts of my life certainly are predictable. My life, from some angles, looks a hell of a lot like a cheesy daytime soap. But that’s not all it is. You might not believe me yet, but this is a story about love.

No, really. You’ll see.

Anyway, the great thing about young bucks like this one is their truly invincible cocks. Pablo, bless his soul, was ready to go again, even though I had just ridden him for an hour and had scarcely caught my breath.

I lay like a starfish on my brushed cashmere and down-stuffed bed throw. There I lay in my glittering boudoir, with the tall bay windows and the custom made opal and platinum chandelier tinkling above me, and my pink and white Persian rug underfoot, and enough diamonds on my wrist to pay for five years of college for this young stud and as many baby mamas as he could possibly manage.

But here’s the part in the story where I tell you I didn’t actually want any of that. Make no mistake, I look good rich. Really good. I’m a hot bitch and I know it. But I would have been a hot bitch without it.

The boring truth is this: money isn’t that much fun, after a while at least. The first time I met Todd I made him fuck me on a pile of hundreds. I told him to keep his Cartier watch on when he fingered me. I pranced naked in heels by the pool and walked right up close to the edge and modelled for him, my fresh extensions brushing down my back, drunk and teasing him that I’d fall into the water any second. Not that it mattered, since the pool was perfectly heated all through the year anyway, and I’m sure even if I did drown Todd could just pay someone to scoop me out and make me alive again if he wanted.

But you get the idea.

I didn’t want any of that. The “trappings” of luxury. The so-called high life. The glitz and the jewels and the cars and the designer clothes …those things started to seem pretty lame after a year or two. Of course, a “girl like me” should never stop being grateful she snared such a prize of a man, and I am …but I’m also not an idiot, you know?

I needed more.

Anyway, one of the reasons I didn’t need any of that stuff was that I was naked most of the time these days anyway. When you spend as much money as I do on looking hot, you want to show it all off.

So it goes like this: around $3000 a month on my hair, and that’s just the extensions. Keeping it full of beachy, loose Hollywood blonde waves costs me about that and then some. Another grand for my nails, and I like them long. My boob job had cost a lot, and I for sure paid too much for it, but whatever. I won’t tell you exactly how much that set me back, you’ll freak out. What else? I get about a grand’s worth of Botox and lip stuff done, every six months or so, just to top up. Facials another couple hundred. Spray tans add up, too.

Anyway, I’m rambling. But I just wanted to describe everything to you clearly, so you can really see me there on the bed, “naked”. Partly because I didn’t need no expensive string bikini, and partly because I was a dirty little whore and I liked it that way.

I split my legs and pulled them open into a mid-air splits. When you’re married to one of the country’s wealthiest men, all you do every single day is yoga. Just, like, so much yoga. It does pay off, though, and if you could see how long and lean those legs were, you’d understand.

I giggled, giving him a full, glorious view of my naughty little cunt, the one that my shriveled bastard of a husband hadn’t touched in 8 months, 3 weeks and 5 days. But that was OK, because it turns out that when you’re married to one of the country’s wealthiest men, you get to have whatever you want. And what I wanted right at that moment was his fat, nasty cock in me. Again.

Before I married Todd, I thought ‘pool boys’ were just some kind of TV thing. Like, they couldn’t possibly be real. But they are! And this one hadn’t actually cleaned the pool much since I discovered how good it felt to have him screw me like this in my bedroom, in broad daylight. It was always better when he brought a friend along, but today he was alone. I had let him ‘work’ a little before I called him over, just to make sure some of the sun got into his lovely brown skin, and that he broke a sweat, just a little.

I liked it best when they left me feeling as dirty as possible afterwards. Sadly, chlorine is a pretty clean smell. Which is partly why I preferred the landscaper, who once dragged his hands, completely caked with mud, right down the front of my white silk Stella McCartney nightdress.

I fucking loved it.

The landscaper was older though, and got tired too quickly, which was a pity, since he was hung like a horse and clearly had …’issues’. I also like it when my little fuck toys have ‘issues’. Makes things more interesting, I find.

He waltzed back into the room from the bathroom, great big purple cock already bouncing up and down, and looked at me and split legs, and laughed.

“You’re crazy,” he said in a thick accent.

He fell to his knees on the bed in front of me and leaned down onto his hands and knees, crawling over to me like the baby he was.

He was handsome. Young, dumb and full of …well, full of himself as it turns out. Like a regular old Narcissus, I’d often caught Pablo literally and actually admiring his own reflection in the pool. But whatever, he was an extremely pretty boy. Kind of swarthy dark hair, loosely curled, a strong jaw, broad shoulders and abs you could grate cheese on …the whole package. Oh, and his package: it was dark, like you’d expect, and thick. He took every last scrap of hair off down there, which is something I guess the younger kids are into, but there you go. I did tell you he was a bit of a narcissist.

He put his lips all over my body and began to kiss and fondle me chaotically, all along down my sides, then my belly, then the tops of my legs.

“Sweetheart, I already have a bunch of people to massage me… why don’t you just get to it?” I laughed and grabbed his strong thighs. He laughed too.

When he pushed his dick inside, I was still slick from the last time he had me, although, being slightly tipsy, I wasn’t even sure when that was anymore. An hour ago? Three hours ago? It didn’t matter. Todd wouldn’t come home till well past midnight. If he came home at all.

I tossed back my head and moaned, and pulled his hips deeper in. It stung a little. For a brief moment I thought that maybe I was actually having too much sex these days …but then I giggled and tightened around him. Nope, that was crazy talk. I was a dirty little whore and I never, never would get enough.

He collapsed down onto me and started pumping, his strong, young hips bucking into mine like we had scarcely taken a break at all. I tossed my head back and groaned, feeling him reach all the way inside me. Head hanging upside down off the bed, I caught sight of the Birkin bag again. Was it actually just the tackiest bag ever? I decided then and there, with young Pablo balls deep and rutting away, that that bag had to go and I wanted one in a different color, immediately.

“Yeah, fuck me,” I said, but my heart wasn’t quite in it.

He pumped faster. I was bored.

“Please hurry, Mr. Beckford is going to be home any moment now, and I don’t want him to catch us…” I said in a sweet voice.

He froze.

“Oh? Mr. Beckford told me he wasn’t coming home till late tonight…?”

I groaned. Even the mere mention of my goddam husband’s name was enough to kill the magic in any moment.

“Obviously, yes, Pablo. I know that, just …will you…?” I stared up at his tousled curls, gestured for him to carry on, then watched as it dawned on him and he smiled and got back to work.

“You’re a dirty little fucking slut, Mrs. Beckford…” he began, and I felt something delicious stirring inside me. Yes. Yes, I was a dirty little fucking slut. “And I’m gonna fuck you, and you’re going to do so much illegal adultery right now, without your husband to see you,” he said into my ear, accent thick and breath heavy.

Oh my god. I mean, English wasn’t his first language, I guess.

I pushed him off me.

“What’s wrong, Mrs. Beckford?” his cock bobbed wet and heavy against his belly.

“Don’t call me that!”

“But I thought…?” he knelt forward and tried to touch me but I shrugged him off. He pulled back and frowned at me.

I smelled good. A new scent I had bought yesterday. I looked down at the diamonds on my fingers, the glossy pale pink manicure that wouldn’t come off even with hard work. Which I never did, of course, but still.

“Pablo, am I pretty?” I asked him.

“Mrs. Beck. I mean Natasha, you’re the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen…” he started, eyes wide.

“Yes ok, sure, but am I hot though?” I said. I had shut and crossed my legs and was looking at him, and we were suddenly two best friends in the world’s strangest sleepover.

He whistled and clucked his tongue, eyeing me up and down. “Ma’am? You’re one mujer caliente, for real…”

I smiled at him as he ogled my tits. His dick stood straight up in his lap. “Do you think I’m crazy though…?” I said, cocking my head to one side and cooing at him with my best little-girl-lost voice. I could tell he couldn’t tear his nasty little eyes away from my cunt. He shook his head and chuckled.

“Ma’am, no joke, you are the craziest woman I think I ever met,” he said, and we both laughed. But I stopped suddenly and looked at him with a very stern face, stopping him mid-laugh.

“Pablo, I’m serious about this. I want you to hit me.”

He groaned and looked out of the window. His gorgeous fat rod sagged a little, realizing its job for the day was done.

“Ma’am, we already talked about this…”

“I know, but just say it then, just say you’ll hit me if it weirds you out…”

“But it weirds me out!” he said, and then got to his feet.

“Pablo, baby, don’t go.” I felt a headache coming on. And he hadn’t even finished what he started. I was still aching inside.

“Ma’am, I should really clean the pool,” he said, and he was picking up his bright, palm frond print swimming trunks from the floor, and they looked so out of place in the plush rose gold and neutral opulence that was my bedroom. Or one of my bedrooms.

“But Pablo, come on Pablo, just listen for a second. You don’t have to do anything. Just call me names again. Pretty please?”

“Ma’am, no offense, but you really are crazy.” He slinked out of the bedroom.

“Aw, you really think so?” I shouted after him, smiling.

Chapter 2 - Todd

She hadn’t even bothered to get dressed for breakfast. She knew how rare these occasions were, where I could actually spare the time away from work to eat and relax with her, and she turned up looking like …like some kind of whore.

Natasha was a black hole. Whatever I have, she wants it. She takes everything from me. And then she wants more. I give her everything a girl like her could possibly want, but the hole is just never filled. There’s always something else. She’s never satisfied. And now she turns up at breakfast, hungover, hair looking like shit, smeared mascara on her cheeks. My wife.

Just goes to show you: a man can succeed at anything he puts his mind to. To a successful man, money is nothing but a game. His darkest demons can be slain so long as he has enough courage and grit. But women? There’s no optimizing women. No fucking solution to that problem. Women are a liability, start to finish. A money sink. A depreciating asset.

She tells everyone who will listen that she’s actually the opposite of materialistic; a proper little rags-to-riches darling who never cared for all the luxury. But oh, she’ll take the luxury anyway. I guess she cries herself to sleep each night on her silk pillowcases, exhausted from a day of doing fuck all.

“Had a good night?” I said, and smeared a wedge of butter onto my toast.

She lifted an eyebrow and gave me a contemptuous look. I’m so fucking sorry, Natty, that you have to endure a life of wasting another person’s hard-earned fortune. That must be hell for you, tell me more. Tell me how hard it is for you.

“I didn’t have a good night, actually,” she said.

Bingo. So fucking predictable. The fund was down more than $60 million yesterday and the second investor for the quarter was already making noises about pulling about. And lately I had to deal with Andrew somehow thinking more expensive dinners were needed for the team, and more meetings, instead of focusing on fixing the damn problem, telling the assholes to be happy with whatever reports we damn well sent them and politely asking them all to piss right off.

But sure, that as nothing compared to the ordeals my poor wife must surely have endured. I would now hear all about how her eyelash curler broke and she couldn’t possibly bear it and it’s all my damn fault, probably.

“I need to tell you something, Todd. We need to seriously have a real chat,” she said, looking utterly miserable. She hadn’t even touched her toast. We had this spread laid out for us each and every morning and each and every morning the staff would simply whisk it all away again. All the fruit and coffee and juice and crap. All for nothing.

“A proper chat? I’m not sure that’s wise, over the breakfast table.”

“Then when?” she said, and her little nose was wet.

She was a beautiful woman, make no mistake about it. But Christ was she the most exhausting part of any day. Forty-five minutes to waste here having breakfast with her was generous already. But like I said, no gratitude. She just demands more.

“At a more appropriate time, Natasha” I said. Natasha. My trophy wife. My prize for playing the idiot Olympics, letting my dick think for me right into the world’s most painful and most expensive marriage. Well, it was the last and only time that would ever happen.

“But when is appropriate? Why isn’t now appropriate?” she whined.

“Because, Natasha, I’m heading out to work in a little while and now is simply not the time…”

“But you’re always heading out to work” she said, spiteful.

I picked up a newspaper and pretended to scour through it. “Now that’s not true. Sometimes I’m coming back from work. And sometimes I’m even at work!”

She didn’t laugh.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Natasha, what is it? Just tell me then, you’re hell-bent on ruining everyone’s morning, so go ahead then.”

When I first met Natasha, she was a fresh little whirlwind in my life. She was young – really young – and rough and awkward and just pulsing with a raw energy, like she hadn’t quite figured out what to do with it all yet.

Sometimes, I feel bad about how miserable she is now. About how utterly I’ve failed her. But then I just remember that ultimately she’s nothing more than a common gold digger, and that that sparkle I saw in her pretty blue eyes was never love… it was just tiny dollar signs and I didn’t yet know it.

Well, that’s another thing I’ll never do again: fall in fucking love like some kind of pleb. Natasha was an expensive mistake, but I was fond of her, for the most part. She started crying. I wasn’t as fond of her when she cried.

“I miss you…” she said and started sobbing. A tear rolled off and sunk into the toast. It will sound mad to you, perhaps, but the sight of that infuriated me. When she got emotional like this, there was nothing to do but keep calm until it passed. Not all of us can afford to just lose it like that. I started thinking about work.

“Well, I’m right here now with you, sharing this lovely breakfast with you, and you’re choosing to use this time crying, and making everything unpleasant.”

“But--”

“You know how unbelievably busy we’ve been at Black Rock, how hard it’s been for me, and instead of taking this moment to actually connect with me, to support me, you’re choosing to bitch at me about how we don’t connect. Have I understood?”

“I’m not bitching…” she snuffled.

Some blondes look good once you’ve roughed them up a bit. In my line of work, believe me, every kind of blonde you can imagine passes through, and some of them were born for that look: primped and preened to a high sheen …and then promptly roughed up a little. ‘Morning after hair’. Some women look amazing that way. Natasha is not one of those women.

“Then what? What more do you want me to fucking do?” I said, gesturing around at the room. I was there. I was fucking there, wasn’t I? There was cut crystal on the table, silver plated dining ware, expensive crockery she ordered from Milan …this single room in our house alone was bigger than most people’s entire homes in this city.

“I want you…” she said.

I laughed. She loved being melodramatic like this. Present an argument when you talk to me. Lay out your case, substantiate your claim and make a fucking argument, is that so hard? It always baffled me that she still thought that whining and acting pathetic like this was an effective way to manipulate me.

“I want to have …” she said and, unbelievably, I watched another tear disappear into the hot toast. Another one. I thought about work. “I want to have …sex with you. We haven’t in so long.”

I nearly laughed out loud. It might sound strange, but to look at her you wouldn’t think she’d have any problem saying any number of filthy words. White-blonde hair, bee-stung lips. She looked as though saying filthy words might well be her line of work, if you catch my drift.

I mean, it was cute. She was dead cute, don’t get me wrong. I know many men envy me to death that I have a woman that looks like she does on my arm. But turns out crazy is expensive, and only idiots like myself can afford the very best.

“Well, that’s nice dear, and I want to never have to pay tax again. What’s your point?”

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh.

“Natasha, I didn’t mean that. Just …we’ve spoken about this. If you had any idea of how stressed I am right now, if you really knew what I was going through.”

“Just fuck me now. On the table,” she said. She had lifted her gaze and was staring straight at me. For a moment, she looked like the same playful girl I had met years ago, the little minx who wore all the wrong things to the races and asked the waiters inappropriate questions about their families and giggled in fancy churches and called imported Seltzer water ‘pop’. There was a distant pang in my gut to see her eyes so naked like that.

But it was also embarrassing. She was better than this sloppy display of emotion. I raised my eyebrow at her.

“You have a full seventeen minutes till you have to leave,” she said and started clearing away a place between the crystal and the tiny grapefruit bowls. “And I only need ten.” She smiled up at me and I laughed.

“Darling, that’s …that’s really cute and all, but …I’ve just showered.”

“That’s fine, I’m only interested in a very small part of you,” she said and was instantly clamoring over the table towards me.

“Small?”

I kissed her but struggled to deflect her greedy little hands rushing all over me. She always knew how to make me laugh. To make me smile. But I couldn’t. Not now. I wasn’t …ready. My head was all in the wrong place, for one, and I was already dressed and it just wasn’t the most appropriate choice. She was in my lap now, hands linked round my neck and kissing me all over.

“You’re crazy, Mrs. Beckford.”

“Don’t call me that!” she said and playfully slapped my arm. I was hard. She stared down at my crotch with glee and was immediately grinding on my lap, her disheveled hair flying everywhere.

Nobody could say she wasn’t an absolutely beautiful woman. But I was constantly amazed at how she could spend so much money and only look cheaper for it. She had colored over her natural blonde hair and now had a brassy looking porn-star cascade that always seemed slightly messed up. Underneath the makeup and the nails and the gaudy jewelry, she was actually rather elegant. But that was only when you looked carefully – on the surface, she was gloriously and ridiculously overdone.

In hindsight, I guess I had wanted to pluck her out of her poverty and misery and polish her up. My Cinderella project. But there’s no polite way to say it: she had abysmal taste. She looked trashy, to say it impolitely. It was adorable, most of the time.

But it certainly wasn’t adorable now. I’m not sure why but I was instantly irritated with her, and twisted my head to the side to evade her sloppy kisses. It was just too much. She was too much. I laughed nervously and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“I have to go to work now,” I said slowly and deliberately. I knew she hated when I spoke to her like a child. But then did she have to act like such a fucking child all the time? She glanced at the clock.

“No you don’t. You have plenty of time.”

I pushed her off and stood, dusting crumbs off my suit that weren’t there and straightening a collar that was, I admit, already straight. She always looked even more bedraggled after she was rejected. Her little leopard skin robe gaped at the front and gave generous glimpses of her round breasts in beaded lingerie underneath. Fucking beaded lingerie. A real slut bra. A bra you wore for no good reason. I felt a rush of anger at thinking how much I had paid for it.

I know. I’m an asshole.

In case you think I’m one of those sad, emotionally stunted men, think again. Just because I own and manage a disgustingly successful hedge fund, it doesn’t mean I lack all the ‘soft skills’. I just know I don’t have to use them, if I don’t want to. Wealth exempts you, and the first thing it pays for is the privilege of not giving a shit about what others think. Or feel.

Oh, make no mistake, I have nuanced, complex shades to my inner emotional world …but I have enough self-control and personal mastery not to let it all hang out and embarrass myself.

“Close your robe, it’s hanging open,” I said to her, gesturing to her tits like they bored me. I am an asshole. Yes, I wanted to make her feel like shit. No, I’m not really sure why.

Her lower lip quivered and anger flashed over her face. She looked down at herself and then tore off the robe, flinging it aside. When I had first met her, she was stitching cheap sequins onto the neckline of a flimsy thrift store blouse, trying to bluff her way into parties she didn’t belong at. Now, she threw the things I gave her on the ground, bored with them the second she had them. Bitch.

She stared daggers at me.

“There! Problem solved,” she spat.

“Natasha,” I said, calm, “you’re raising your voice.”

“So fucking what? I’ll raise it I want to,” she said, and flung herself down at the breakfast table again, deliberately displaying herself. On another day, and in another mood, I might have shown her just exactly what happens to women who talk like this to me. She was half my weight and perpetually in heels. I would fuck the daylights out of her if she so much as opened that little mouth at me again. But not today. Today, I had had enough.

“I’m going to work, Natasha. You can stay here and prance around in your panties if you like, but some of us have work to do.”

I could almost see the heat coming off her.

“You know what? You’re a coward, Todd.” She said it as though she had just solved the puzzle and found something that would truly hurt me. If she only knew how much more she’d have to do to even match the punishment I put up with every day.

“This isn’t a daytime soap, Natasha.”

“Nobody said it was. You’re a coward because you can’t even face your wife. I’m your wife. I need sex, Todd. There, I said it. You’ll make me beg, because you’re so fucking power hungry, but there, let’s put it out in the open, I need sex.”

She was crying. I looked down with disinterest at the diamonds nestled between her breasts. At the ridiculous gold and pink beads on her bra.

“I’m sure you have everything you need,” I said, mockingly. She might be fucking other men. Probably. I didn’t care. But I did want her to think I cared. Let some other guy deal with her shit for a while. Fuck, I’d pay him. She looked pretty defeated.

“You’re not a real man,” she said and sniffled hard, like a big baby.

I laughed out loud.

“Natasha, that shit might have worked on your redneck exes but you’ll have to be a little more sophisticated than that. Try again” I said.

Her face hardened into a scowl.

“At least my redneck exes had the balls to actually fuck me once in a while,” she said.

“Well, I can tell you this, Natasha. You actually have succeeded in insulting me after all. I’m hurt that the best you can muster is childish crap like that,” I said, and bent to examine my reflection in the silver tea pot.

God, she looked miserable. We always fought like this. Cold and nasty and quick. It always got so nasty, so quick. I couldn’t help myself, once I got started. It was sick, I know, but fuck. Could she just dress nicely for breakfast? We see each other in the mornings like this so rarely, and she can’t even comb her fucking hair?

She pouted and looked down at the breakfast spread in front of her, then, just like a cat, she pushed her coffee cup off and it went spilling to the ground, sending an ugly brown splatter onto the white carpet beneath. The cup wobbled and rolled on the floor a little and she looked down at it listlessly. It was pathetic.

“Natasha, darling, please…” I leaned towards her. I’m an asshole, I know. I don’t know why we always did this to one another. She raised tearful eyes up to me and searched my face.

“Natty, just …I’m so busy at work. I need you to not push me, for fuck’s sake. We can spend some time together soon, on the weekend maybe. Ok? We can go on vacation or something. I’m sorry.” My voice was tender. Underneath all the glitter and the polish, she was still my little Natty.

“Call in at work and tell them you’re not coming in today. Just today. Stay here with me.” She pawed at me a little. My heart broke.

“You know I can’t,” I said.

She sniffed and stared down at the coffee cup.

“I’ll send in someone to clean that up. Natty? I’m sorry Natty. Do you need anything? Before I go?”

She scoffed quietly under her breath.

“Ok, I’m off now,” I said and went for the door. She looked so sad and crumpled in her chair. And it was my stupid fucking fault. God must have been having a laugh at my expense. It just goes to show: you can be wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams, successful, fit, young and devoted – but you’re never immune from hurting a woman, somehow. No matter what, they’re mad, and it’s your fault. When I finally figure that fucking mystery out, I can sell it and be a rich man for sure.

“Don’t forget that dinner we have tonight,” I said, on my way out. “Wear that black dress I bought you. It’ll be a classy affair, so be pretty but no need to go over the top,” I said, lingering perhaps a bit too much on ‘classy’. She knew what I was trying to get at. She didn’t look up at me and so I left, closing the door on her. Sealing that part of my life off. The door clicked and I exhaled in the quiet of the hall.

I walked down the corridors and imagined I could hear her crying. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, ladies and gentlemen. I know you might think this is all fucked up. It is fucked up. But I loved her. If I couldn’t make her happy, then I guess I was stuck with making her miserable, right? At least it was me making her miserable. Fuck, it didn’t make a lot of sense, I know. I’m nothing if not a sensible man but Natasha just …she always knew how to push my buttons.

Chapter 3 - Natasha

He won that argument. In a way, he always wins.

One of my ‘redneck exes’ had a theory about relationships: the one who cares the least is the one who has the most power. That boy was human scum, make no mistake, but he was 100% correct about that. Todd always won because he always played the cool and calm card, then just leaned back and waited for you to lose your mind being too ‘emotional’.

But I won in my own way. I won at a game he didn’t even know we were playing yet. I sat at our breakfast table and felt the cum of another man trickle slowly out of me and onto the fancy damask upholstered chair my wealthy husband had paid for.

While he smirked and felt so pleased at manipulating me, at hurting me, I sat in silence, winning. Focusing on how I could still feel the body of the man who had screwed me late last night. I had stumbled home at 1 or 2, fantasizing about how he’d be stewing and fuming and waiting in bed, demanding to know where I’d been. Of course, he hadn’t come home yet himself. Just like my ex said!

But one day he would see. He’d discover that all the while he had been denying me, mocking me, belittling my hunger for him …all that time I had been getting it elsewhere! I was no fool. I was young, and still pretty hot. Most men would give their left arm to bed me. Maybe that’s why I chose the worst, dirtiest, nastiest men I could find – at least they were fucking grateful, right?

I kicked the coffee cup with my foot. Maybe I’d just leave the stain there. Why not? Barely anybody ever came into this bedroom anyway. I walked over to my walk in closet, turned the light on and stood amongst all my clothing.

Shoes were to the far end. Dresses on the left, on fancy scented cedar wood hangers. A plush pink ottoman stood in the center, from when I still had dreams of ‘decorating’ the house how I liked it. Todd had laughed and told me not to quit my day job and just to leave it the interior designers. The joke, of course, was that I didn’t have a day job. I had put my foot down and told him I would decorate my closet however the hell I wanted to.

I ran my fingers along the dresses, like a big, soft xylophone. Ball gowns and cocktail dresses and slinky clubbing numbers and little rompers for yachting and tasteful beach dresses. Exotic silks, edgy black and silver gowns designers had gifted me, pastel floral creations for client weddings... And then on a hanger in full view was the ‘classy’ black dress he had picked out for me. It was strapless and floor length, in a weird inky velvet. A pair of opera length gloves were folded in a box beneath them.

I didn’t even have to try it on to know it would be boring. Or, excuse me, ‘elegant’. No color. No shape. Well, I wouldn’t wear it. I looked at myself in the mirror. Whipped out the tape measure and wound it around my waist. Still 24 inches. I posed in the mirror, trying out my different angles. My breasts were still pert and poking out curiously from off my chest. My stomach was still flat and shapely.

What to wear? It would have to be pink. It would always have to be pink. I spun around and grabbed a dress off the rack – one I had bought and never found the occasion for. But as I held it out in front of me and twirled it a little, I realized: now was the occasion. It would be the perfect ‘fuck you’ dress.

I stepped into it and wriggled the fabric up my bare body, still wearing my L’Agent Provocateur crystal encrusted bodice. It was an art piece, and I wasn’t about to take it off now. In fact, I liked that the straps poked out a little. The dress was a little trashy, some would say, but I could pull it off. Pepto-Bismol pink, ruched along the sides. Tight. A slashed hem and bare shoulders, with a burst of equally pink feathers at the bust, like a built in boa. It was the kind of thing a drag queen would wear. On me, though …well, let’s say I felt like Jessica Rabbit’s sluttier younger sister.

With that thought I grabbed the black gloves and put those on too, slinking them up almost to my armpits. Perfect. I rummaged around in my jewelry drawer and pulled out a great big honking ruby bracelet and put that over one of the gloves. Then, a tiara. Just a small one; I didn’t want to go over the top.

I checked my reflection in the mirror. I was beautiful. More importantly, I was myself. Black just wasn’t my color. Rather, I now looked like an eccentric billionaire’s wife. A naughty princess who’s gone too far playing dress up. An aristocratic woman, but after a long night of drinking. It was fucking perfect.

I flopped down onto the floor, crossed my legs and opened a hidden drawer underneath the jewelry. I lifted out a small wooden case that was concealed inside the drawer above it. They say men ‘compartmentalize’? Well, haha, so do women.

Out of this drawer came my biggest and most loved secret: my ‘black book’. I took it out and held it in my hands, like a sacred object. Out of the drawer came a pen as well. I opened it and flipped though the soft pages.

13 February

I finally tried Tinder. Kind of scary how convenient it makes things. Met a 22-year-old kid, says he’s from Lebanon or something. Or somewhere in Asia? Anyway I forgot. His dick was medium sized, but thicker in the middle, like a football. I fucked him in his shower. Note to self: fucking in the shower only seems like a good idea. In real life it’s awkward as hell. We did it standing, and I looked down and I can still see his hairy toes in my mind right now. I was sad to see all the cum going down the drain. Oh well. Six out of ten.

24 April

I said I’d suck off two guys at a bar, and the guy who came first would have to buy me a drink. I don’t remember who actually came first, though. Too bad. Ten out of ten.

25 December

It’s a Christmas miracle. I sat on Santa’s lap, if you know what I mean, and told him what I wanted. He was a bit old for me, I think. He stuck his finger in my ass and told me I was a dirty little whore, and that got me off. He was nice and big too. He left a little bruise on my right thigh. Sadly, it faded before anyone saw it. I guess I could see myself fucking older men. Even really old ones with beards. Although it might just be the Christmas spirit and all the hard eggnog talking. I’d say eight out of ten.

3 May

I really should stay far away from married men. God, so much drama. I think tonight I finally met a cock too big for me to actually handle, and you’d think that was a good thing, but it came attached to a real downer of a guy. Seriously, he was this really sad guy who kept whining about his wife and to be honest, it was a total turn off. But honestly, I was dreaming about that cock for days afterwards. Four out of ten for the guy, nine out of ten for his dick.

1 March

I changed my mind. Older guys are definitely no good. Yesterday I “poached” (as Abby would say) this college kid and we went for a kebab and beer and he acted like he’d never seen a pussy in his life before. He was so quick about everything, like he was still afraid his mom would catch him in the act or something. I guess it was kind of hot. I’m just in a quantity over quality mood, I guess. Nine out of ten.

I cracked my knuckles, took the pen in my hand and wrote down the date, then started scratching away on the pages:

22 November

Stupid fight with Todd. I hate him. But I’ve also discovered a new thing for cum. I’m thinking about what it would take to get a room full of men to cum all over me. Money, probably. Which I have. Or if not ON me, then in me. A whole lot of it. Does it mix, inside you? How much would it take before I was literally overflowing? I fucked Pablo all yesterday and last night I met up with the Romanian guy again. I went on all fours and he fucked me really, really deep. I squealed like a pig. Ten out of ten.

I re-read what I had written, pen tip in my mouth, then clapped the book shut and put it back in its little compartment, sliding it under the bigger drawer so nobody knew it was there at all.

When I had first met Todd, I thought he was the man of my dreams. I was just a wreck. A fucking problem child if ever there was one. But what problem could I ever have, little old me, that he couldn’t solve? He was strong and rich and smart and perfectly in control. He had a solution for everything. He understood me, and he took care of me. To say I was head over heels would be putting it mildly.

And then something happened. I don’t know what happened. But I began to hate him, I think. I know, I’m an asshole. I didn’t deserve him. I had the perfect life and I was ruining it, as fast as I could. I don’t know why I did it, to be honest. He wasn’t the same anymore.

We had always laughed at the old stuffed suits he worked with. And now he was one of them. He used to tell me how different I was from all the other wives and girlfriends. And now I was trying so hard to be as much like them as possible.

I didn’t want his money anymore. Who knows what anyone ever wants.

I stripped off all my clothing and looked at myself naked in the mirror. That’s how I’d really like to go to the party. I left everything in a pile on the floor – they’d be nice and wrinkled by the time I had to leave for the dinner. I slinked out of my dressing room.

I decided I’d have a nice skinny dip to start the day.

Chapter 4 - Natasha

“Watch out, you’re going to rip it!” I giggled and sure enough, I heard the slow, unmistakable zzzzziiiiippp of fabric tearing.

I looked down and saw a big gash on the side ruching, revealing my naked flank underneath. I laughed. He laughed too.

“Fucking animal!” I said and slapped his chest, and he kissed me again. I felt his cock twitch and bounce inside me. I leaned into him and kissed back, hard and with drunken abandon.

He slipped one rough hand into the tear and touched my skin. His hand was wide enough that the tear got bigger. His other hand was tight around my waist, pulling me into him. He was a strong guy, eager as hell, pawing at me like he hadn’t fucked in ages and was about to explode. His strong abs tightened and relaxed, bringing his hips strongly up and into mine, fucking me deep and hard as his dark eyes watched me, a little glazed over.

“This is what you want, huh? You like this?” he breathed, voice thick. He seemed genuinely surprised that oh yes, I liked it very much. He pumped into me with more urgency, almost as though he was worried I might change my mind any second. His hot cock slid in and out of me, my thankful pussy slick through the length of him. He still had the smell of the kitchens on him – a little sweaty, a little warm. He’d be back to serving canapes with the very same hands he was working over me now.

“Yes, it’s what I fucking want.”

“You like this? Getting fucked by a stranger?”

I felt his voice growing a little more desperate, a little more out of control. Just the thought of him exploding a stream of hot cum inside me was enough to send a shiver all down my spine.

“I love it. I love this right here…” I said and pressed myself into him, pulling his gorgeous cock deeper into me still, so it stroked at that delicious spot right inside me. I wanted him to feel my naughty little body pulsing and convulsing around him.

He moaned and threw back his head. I could feel him shudder. It might have been the cold corrugated steel pressing against his naked knees, or it might have been the chill night air, or it might have been the fact that he was balls-deep in some hot-shot’s wife, fucking in an alleyway like he wasn’t just a moment ago taking drinks orders.

My back to the corrugated garage door, I opened my hips to him, one leg bent and in the air, loosely wrapped around his body. He pinned me to that steel door, and each thrust was a metallic bang against it. To be fucked by a stranger was exactly what I wanted.

My black velvet gloves had slipped halfway down, my pink dress was rolled up nearly to my waist, and my tiara was hanging loose somewhere by my ear. This handsome boy, his cock buried deep inside me where that asshole Todd would never reach, well, he would get an ten out of ten for sure.

I giggled, feeling the first goosebumps of an orgasm flirting on the edge of my awareness. I was so soaked that a wet sound accompanied each bang of the metal. I was going to come soon. He was going to come soon.

And then it happened. Inside the glowing yellow square leading back into the building, in the frame of the door leading back into the well-lit kitchens of the fancy house of this fancy function, I saw a silhouette. The dark form of a man appeared in the doorway and stood there, the light behind him. My body twitched around the cock of a man I had met barely five minutes ago, and the light was dim and my head was buzzing, but it was clear as day: Todd.

He stood in that doorway for a lifetime, his strong arms resting calmly at his sides, his legs spread wide. A handsome man. A dangerous man. The shape was just a shape. Just a black, man-shaped hole in my world. But through the rapidly approaching waves of my orgasm, I could recognize him anywhere. I knew his form. I knew that attitude. And in the darkness, he looked back at me.

He watched me being fucked.

Here it was, raw and real and obvious as it would ever be: I was a cheating whore of a wife and I had opened my legs for this random stranger, and let him screw me at the back of a kitchen in the darkness, and I was fucking enjoying myself. He watched me. And I watched him watching me. He didn’t move. He just looked on. The kitchen boy kept going, unawares.

I threw my hair back and gave a long, theatrical moan. Let him see. Let him see me coming down hard, clenching all around another man’s dick. Let him see just how much pleasure someone else could give me. In no time, I felt something deep inside me shiver and soon I was bucking and orgasming hard, my hips knocking into the corrugated iron behind me, the waiter clasped all around me as he, too, collapsed into a hot, thundering orgasm.

I yelped and gasped out loud. All at once, the waiter seemed to sense the change in light behind me and turned to see the imposing shadow. He yanked out of me and pulled up his pants with lightning speed, fumbling half apologies to me or to nobody, then scurried off, hiding his face, his bow tie sideways.

It was just me and the shadow. Knees weak, I leaned against the cool iron door and stared at him. I couldn’t make out his eyes, or his mouth, or any part of his expression. But I could feel it. It had finally happened. What I had wanted, in one sick way or another, had finally happened. I had been discovered.

Now he knew without a doubt. Now he couldn’t ignore me any longer. Fuck him.

My thighs were wet. My heart was still beating. My dress was scrunched up to reveal my bare little pussy. He took one step, then two, down the staircase and walked deliberately down to me. I squeezed my legs together and found one last flutter from my orgasm. My body twitched. Good. Let him see. Let him see how little I cared.

He stood in front of me, his features finally coming into view. Todd. My husband. There was no more information in that face than when he was veiled in shadows. He was calm. As per fucking usual. He looked down at my body, then back up into my face.

There was no contempt. No anger. I felt a sick twinge of panic. But I felt something else too: I wanted more. I wasn’t even done yet. No sooner had the last pulses of my orgasm faded did a new hunger spring up in me.

I had a wild vision of him throwing me against the steel and fucking me himself, hard, as a punishment. Of his hand round my throat, as he claimed me back, told me to behave, told me that I was dirty and needed some discipline.

But he didn’t. He stared down at my quivering body, as if he knew how hot and hungry I was right then, but he remained cool and calm. His jaw tightened and I thought I saw something flash in his eyes, but then he said simply, in the most unremarkable of voices, “get your things, we’re leaving.”

Waves of humiliation washed over me. I looked hard at him, trying to find something in those stony features. Anything. Any hint of emotion. He turned to leave but I swear I could feel it. I swear that I saw it: a moment of weakness. A moment where he wasn’t in complete control. It wasn’t a word or a facial feature. But I felt it somehow. In my body.

He wasn’t angry. He was turned on.

Chapter 5 - Todd

“It will likely only be next month we can catch him again, though,” she said. “He’s going to be in China for basically the next few weeks after this.”

“That’s fine. Cancel anyway,” I said.

“But what I’m saying is that if you don’t get everyone in a meeting tomorrow, it won’t happen again for at least a month.”

“Anne, I’m aware of that. I want you to cancel anyway.”

She heard the tension in my voice and dropped the issue. I didn’t care who would be left waiting and for how long – I wasn’t going in to work today, and I wouldn’t be joining the partners in Switzerland tomorrow, end of story. I had other business to tend to. I hung up.

My secretary Gilly is a sweet girl, smart, if a little bit of a pushover. I could probably fuck her, if I wanted to, and given enough time. But I wouldn’t. Ever. Because that’s not who I am. Cheating is for …I don’t even have the right words to describe what I feel about those who deliberately lie and deceive others. Even the idea of it shuts my brain down.

I picked up one of Natasha’s trashy magazines and flipped through it. Grainy photos and screaming headlines. This one is sleeping with that one, this one may be pregnant. Candid shots of famous cellulite. Make up. Trash. I threw it down again. The house was rather pleasant during the days. Without me in it.

Sitting in the conservatory, French windows opening out onto the pools, I can’t imagine how anybody could be so unhappy here. But Natasha found a way.

I leaned back in my wicker seat and watched the fountains flicking into the air and splashing back into the cool green water. Blue skies. Crisp, clean air. Birdsong and expensive white linen curtains blowing in the wind. It was a perfect day. And I was ready for a show down.

I looked at my watch. It was already 10 am. When the fuck did she ever wake up? I was just about to change up my plan when I heard soft footsteps and saw her. She was naked, groggy, hair looking as disheveled as it always did. She padded on bare feet into the tiled conservatory and made her way to the pool, without noticing me. For a few moments, I was struck by just how beautiful she was. For a woman that lived on booze, coffee and Pop Tarts, she had an unbelievable figure.

It was too much. She gave you the feeling of a fruit that’s just slightly too ripe, or heady white flowers that are so sweet and fragrant they nearly nauseate you. Her breasts were full on the bottom, and swung gently, and she had graceful lines from her sides down over her flat belly and into the narrow V in between her legs. Without anything on, I felt a brief pang of longing for her, as I remembered her, years ago.

She saw me and froze. Her nipples were the most singular shade of dusty pink. I could see she had been crying.

“You’re supposed to be in Switzerland,” she said, as though I was a ghost she was trying to explain to herself.

“Yes, well, I didn’t go. Clearly.”

She looked around the room, a little startled, and then took a few steps towards me. She seemed so comfortable naked. In fact, I felt naked on her behalf. She looked down at the tabloid magazines, and then at me, out of work clothes for a change.

“Why?” she said, big eyes scanning me.

I shrugged and laced my fingers behind my head.

“Well, let’s just say you were right. I am working too much these days. So I took a day off.”

She eyed me suspiciously and perched on the edge of the lounge chair. I could scarcely believe that this same woman had less than 24 hours ago stared straight into my face, dress hiked up to her waist, getting fucked by the hired help. But it was her. I had seen it. It was burned into my memory and now I couldn’t stop from seeing it. Somehow, though, I had trouble reconciling the woman in front of me with that burnt-in image.

“Come sit down with me. Want some coffee?” I said, and started to pour her a cup.

She came over and took the steaming mug from me, then pressed her lips to the rim without drinking.

“Last night…” she started, doing everything with her eyes except making eye contact with mine. She stopped, waiting for me to finish for her. To jump in, no doubt. To chastise her. But that wasn’t what I was going to do.

“Yes, you shouldn’t have done that,” I said casually.

She shot me a look, eyes as big as saucers.

I took a sip from my own cup and then looked out over the pool water, noticing the silkiest, faintest little ripples put there by the breeze.

“I can understand that you weren’t fond of the dress I picked out for you. But I still wish you could have worn something a little more flattering to your figure.”

Another sip.

She stared at me dumbfounded. I was enjoying this.

“So …you’re not angry…?” Her whole face a question mark. She was hunched over, a little girl in the principal’s office, and her gorgeous tits hung low and ripe between her crossed arms.

“Angry? Psshh! Of course not, how could I be angry?

“But…”

“I’ve just never been a fan of pink, that’s all. Nothing to get angry over,” I said, and her face was priceless. She looked like a child who’d been given an ice cream cone only to have it snatched away again. We sat in silence. She looked out over the pool with me, and everything was still for a moment.

“I’m going for a swim,” she said at last, and rose to walk toward the pool.

“Hey, Natty?”

“Yes?” Her hair was almost translucent in the sun.

“Do you always swim naked?”

A look I don’t think I’d ever seen on her before flitted strangely over her face.

“Yes,” she said simply, after thinking about it for a while.

“It’s kind of naughty, don’t you think?” I asked, smiling easily at her. She said nothing.

“I just mean, there are so many cleaners coming and going, and with the construction going on next door …you’d think you’d be in quite a bit of danger of being seen.”

I loved seeing her off-kilter like this. Loved watching her face go quiet as she tried to piece things together. With a little thrill, I realized how immensely she was turning me on. Her nipples, the warm air, the way her hair made a little halo around her naked face. I wanted her. I was madder at her than I had ever been in my life. And yet…

To my surprise, she shrugged and smiled right back at me.

“It is a little naughty, you’re right. But I just love the water on my naked skin, you know? It’s just the nicest way to start the day.”

“Oh?”

“Absolutely. And anyway, even if someone does see me…” here she paused and then lowered her voice a little, “to be honest I kind of like the idea” she said and then smiled coyly.

I looked at her carefully. There it was. I could see it clearly now. That naughty glint in her eye that had attracted me to her all those years ago, drawn like a moth to an atom bomb. It was the first look that had punctured me to my core, made me forget myself. The look that had made me want to marry her within a month of meeting her, and whisk her away for crazy whirlwind holidays filled with quirky gestures of love and promises that yes, we were crazy to do it all, and yes, we didn’t care one bit.

I swallowed hard, becoming aware of the stiffness in my pants. She giggled and turned, slinking towards the pool, one bare foot on the warm tiles after the other. She balanced on the edge, contemplating how to get in: one big splash, or one goosebump inducing step at a time.

“Do you remember the fashion shows you used to do for me?” I said. I had no idea where that came from. I never planned to say it. I just blurted it out. She wheeled around and grinned at me. How could she ever forget? The game was that she was always naked, hence it was the most useless ‘fashion show’. She would have fun parading around naked in front of me, and I would pretend to be a very serious fashion connoisseur, and the in-jokes were endless. I don’t remember when we made our last in-joke. Our last ‘fashion show’.

She could tell that no matter what else was going on here, she was turning me on. She could see it.

She raised up on her tiptoes and began walking up and down the edge of the pool, her impromptu catwalk. Her steps were exaggerated and slow and sexy, and when she reached the end she turned around and came back again with a toss of her main. She raised both arms up above her head and held them loosely there. God did her tits look amazing.

For a brief moment, I reconsidered. I thought about going back on my plan. About forgiving her and absolving her of everything. I loved her so much it hurt me. And to see that flicker in her eyes? That twinge that was just as maddeningly beautiful as it was the first time I saw her? Well, that certainly made things harder.

But I would not forgive her. She had no idea what was in store for her. I held onto the idea and it let me get a grip on myself, no matter how hard I was getting just watching her slink up and down like an alley cat.

I stood up and went to her, and I swore her nipples tightened and pointed as I approached. She stopped pacing and turned to face me, but couldn’t lift her eyes up to meet mine. Fine. I wanted to drink in the sight of her anyway. Up close, she smelt like sleep and shampoo and stale perfume. She noticed my dick. I inched closer. Close enough to feel the heat off her, to hear her breath, however shallow it had suddenly become.

“I have a friend, and you know what he told me the other day?” I said suddenly, and she shot me a quizzical look.

“He said that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.” She looked away again. I almost detected a note of fear. “And I thought that was such a disappointing thing to hear from a man like him, you know? I know a lot of those guys aren’t what you’d call faithful, but I still found it shocking.”

I watched her chest rise and fall as she listened intently, me an inch from her body and her balancing on the smooth white pool edge.

“I could never be unfaithful to my spouse, personally. Even though I’ve had plenty of opportunity to do so, of course. Lots of women push themselves at me. And I mean a lot. But you know why I never go for it Natasha?” I leaned in a millimeter closer and she was like a trapped bird, all heartbeat and breath and panic.

“Why?” she said eventually.

I smiled and said, “Because I like to do the pushing,” and with one sharp movement I pushed her. She wobbled a little as she tried to regain her balance but instantly flew backwards, splashing inelegantly into the water, a look of horror on her face. In a second she dunked under and back up again, slick as a seal pup, her blonde hair gone dark in the water.

She sputtered and glared up at me standing above her on the pool ledge. I put my hands in my pockets and watched her trying to figure out whether she should swim towards me or stay where she was and tread water. Once I was sure she had nothing to say, I smiled and turned to leave.

“You make swimming look so good right now, but I think I’ll head out and go for a drive or something.”

“You’re not going to work?” she asked. She looked so small without her blonde crown. I was going to enjoy toying with her.

“Nope. Day off. And tonight I’m taking you somewhere fancy for dinner and we’ll spend the evening together.”

I could see her pale breasts bobbing somewhere under the surface of the water.

She opened her mouth to say something but I cut her off quickly. “And for God’s sake, wear the black dress. You won’t embarrass me again,” I said, gave her one more glance and left.

Chapter 6 - Natasha

I’ve always had complete and utter control over men. Even the smart ones. Because when it comes to their dicks, men are unable to control themselves, whether they’re dropouts or have multiple PhDs.

It’s something like a universal law, and it was one I first found out about when I was around 14 years old. Almost overnight, at roughly the same time I could no longer conceal my budding breasts, I realized there seemed to be a different set of rules for beautiful people. For hot people. Within one summer, it was like a hidden world suddenly opened up to me: one made of secret transactions, smiles and sex …or even better, the hint of sex.

I found this hidden web pulsing underneath everything. Why bother with all the mundane things in life when you could just cut to the source? I discovered the strings underneath every action, every word, and the bald face of men’s true, hidden desires. Men seemed to me like puppets, and learning how to pull their strings myself became my top priority. When my teenage brain tried to make sense of the new attention I received, I soon saw that it wasn’t fate, or merit or class or luck or even money that determined people’s paths in life. It was sex. Everything was sex.

My first few boyfriends were, in hindsight, an embarrassment. I had overestimated the effort it would take for a precocious blonde teen to lure anyone. In fact, my first mistake was aiming too low, and being disappointed to find that teenaged boys needed no ‘seducing’ at all, and can be lured by anything warm with a pulse, or if needs be, without one.

So, I set my aim higher. In my town, people never leave. They grow up poor, they stay poor, they have poor children, and then they die poor. Once in a while, someone strikes it lucky and breaks away, but that was rare.

Me? I was rare. I left. I pulled myself up by my suspenders and found a way out. People at home had opinions about me, sure, but at the end of the day, they were poor, and I wasn’t. A less intelligent woman may look at my false eyelashes and mini skirt and write me off. But it was a uniform I used to sneak into a corner of society that those women weren’t even aware of. It was armor that protected me from a life of ugly drudgery that they themselves had fallen into without realizing it.

What I’m getting at is that in this world, power comes in many different forms. I’ll admit that my style and my choices aren’t to everyone’s liking. Fine. But they’re powerful.

By the time I was twenty-three or four, I knew men inside out. I knew how they ticked, where their soft spots where and what I needed to do to get what I wanted from them. It was easy. Almost too easy. Until I met Todd.

At first I recognized in him all the small things, things that only other people who’ve grown up poor will notice about one another. His accent wasn’t perfectly smooth on some words, and once or twice he’d slip up with a word I hadn’t heard used since my aging, toothless grandma used it when I was a child. He wasn’t like the other men. And I wasn’t like the other women. But oh, we were like each other.

When he proposed, it was the first time since I was a little girl that I relaxed and gave someone else control. I was used to getting gifts from wealthy men. But Todd gave me something else. He had all the hallmarks of the men I’d learnt how to manage and manipulate …but only on the outside. On the inside was someone playful and unpredictable and indescribably kind.

Like I said, I don’t know what happened between us. Years went by. I stopped thinking of myself as any kind of expert on men and what they really want. I was married, in any case, which took the fun out of things in ways I hadn’t expected. He worked. I got bored at home. He worked. I soon wished I had never married him. He worked. I had my first affair. Nothing changed. He worked.

So, the tables were turned. I suddenly understood the desperate hunger I had seen in all the eyes of the married men I had seduced as a teen, eons ago when I was still young and plucky and full of hope that my life would only keep improving. I found that special loneliness that only married people feel. And, as you already know, I started sleeping around. A lot. More than I even thought possible. Todd worked.

You might be wondering why I’m mentioning all this now. Ordinarily, I’m a straightforward gal; you know, the past is the past and all that. But here I was, alone in an exclusive restaurant, waiting for him. Nothing to do but think. I checked the time. He was now a full 20 minutes late.

I had never been to Les Principaux before. Somehow, he had gotten us a reservation, and when the driver dropped me off, I was whisked immediately to the VIP lounge and given champagne. Fifteen-year-old me would have fainted to get a glimpse of the inside of this restaurant, and to know the cost of the designer black dress I was wearing. But twenty-seven-year-old me was bored already.

I was seated at my table and took a sip, my long, bare arms looking pale against the black tablecloth. I chose not to wear the stupid gloves. He could throw me into any body of water he wanted – those gloves were for a woman far older and more cynical than me, and I wasn’t going to wear them, no way no how.

I scanned the restaurant. A sequined chanteuse was singing something breathy into an old school microphone, and the lights were dim. People were dressed extravagantly. To the side was a fish tank filled with dangerous looking tropical fish swimming round a broken urn. Drapes, gleaming silverware and a thick pile carpet underfoot. And so on. I yawned.

My watch told me plain as day: he was now 25 minutes late. My little scratch of irritation was turning into full anger. It was a good thing I was curious about what all this was about, otherwise I might have been angrier a hell of a lot sooner. I browsed the menu and tried to decipher all the pomp and bullshit. Poulet à la bretonne was just chicken. Rillettes with fennel panzanella and fougasse? Basically a spam sandwich with greens.

I ordered the wine from the very bottom of the list, knowing it would cost him an arm and a leg, folded the menu and waited some more. He wasn’t at work. So what was he doing? Making me wait on purpose? To punish me?

It was obvious he was angry about the incident in the kitchen alley. But behind that hard, masculine face, I couldn’t tell what kind of angry he was. One thing was for sure: it wasn’t an out of control anger. It made sense, I suppose, that the man I finally married was one of the few who wasn’t ruled by his dick. One of the few men who was in complete control of himself. And possibly me, if I’m dumb enough to wait here for him for almost half an hour.

I decided that when the 30-minute mark was reached, I’d get up and leave, end of story. I quietly resolved to think about the next man I would fuck, while I waited. I scanned the restaurant, floating my gaze around and seeing if any opportunistic young men caught the bait and let me reel them in. But I kept looking down at my watch. It had now been 31 minutes.

I cursed under my breath and got up to leave, just as I saw him walk in. I froze. He was taking his time, smiling and shaking the hands of some people on their way out, then chatting to the hostess. The fucking nerve of him.

He caught sight of me and sauntered over, like he had all the time in the world. It was probably also no mistake that the man I chose to marry was single handedly the hottest man in the room right now. He was in a three-piece suit, inky black, a steel grey tie and hair that looked recently clipped and styled. A few heads turned to see him enter, and I thought with a pang, back off, he’s mine.

I quickly searched my mind for something witty and biting to say as he approached, but his smile caught me off guard

“I’m so glad you didn’t give up on me and leave – I’m disgustingly late, I’m sorry,” he said and seated himself. Onto the table he gently placed a small gift bag but made no further mention of it. I smiled and waved off his apologies, but he grabbed my hand, kissed it, stared into my eyes for a moment and then picked up the menu and inspected it.

“You couldn’t have chosen a more ritzy place,” I said and crossed my legs. He raised his steely eyes to mine and smiled.

“Yes, well, I seem to remember how much fun you are in a places you’re meant to be on your best behavior.” He returned his eyes to the menu. An old in joke. “I can never take you anywhere” he’d say. And I’d laugh and try to embarrass him in front of his uptight colleagues. I smiled to myself, recalling the memory of us, when his money was still something novel, and my beauty was still something worth celebrating.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked.

He set the menu aside and gave me a naughty look. He looked like a younger, more excited version of himself tonight.

“You know, I was really hoping you’d ask about that.”

His voice was so warm, and he was leaning in so close, and he smelt so damn good, that I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Is it a present?” I asked, playing coy.

“Looks like it is” he said, arms crossed, looking over at it.

“Is it a present for me?” I shot him a playful smile. Maybe, cheating is exactly what our awful relationship needed all along.

“It does it appear that way doesn’t it?” he said, barely containing his excitement.

I snatched the parcel and peered inside, then pulled out a black gift box. Too large for jewelry, for sure. So what was it?

“Open it,” he said, smiling. It seemed like years since I had seen him smile like that. And I admit it, I felt a flutter inside. Like my body remembered all those things we used to do to one another, in another life, long ago…

I carefully lifted the lid and revealed a slinky purple layer of tissue laid over something. Excited, I lifted the tissue. It was nestled in molded black velvet; a long, silver, phallic shaped item. A dildo. It was a dildo.

I gasped and quickly put the purple tissue over it again and looked at him. His grin was bigger than ever. What the hell? A sex toy? As a present? It seemed so tacky I couldn’t believe that he had chosen it. I struggled to say something.

“You …got me a …it’s a dildo” I said eventually, looking down in disbelief at the box.

“Yes it is,” he said, relaxing back in his chair. “You didn’t think I would just forget, did you?”

“Forget what?” I asked. The warm, gooey feeling between my legs was going cold. I took a sip of water.

He smiled. “See? I knew you would try to pretend it never happened. I’ll refresh your memory for you. An alleyway behind the venue of an important investor dinner, a waiter who couldn’t have been older than eighteen and your filthy cheating cunt.”

I nearly choked on my water.

“Ringing any bells?” he said. My face was burning. I couldn’t look him in the eye. So this was the game. Humiliation. He would set me up, make me wait, make me fucking dress up so he could come here and humiliate me, in public. I felt a wave of anger at him, but I had to hand it to him, it was a cheeky move. I could be cheekier though.

“Back alley? A waiter? Hm, no. You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” I said and smirked at him. If he wanted to do this in a fancy restaurant, fine. I could play too. I thought I detected a little tightening around his mouth, but the smile remained.

“Hm, I thought so. Well, it’s all the same. Needless to say, you’re not going to be getting off lightly,” he said, and he traced a finger over the edge of the table, smoothing down the dark fabric. Christ, he had sexy hands. In a suit and tie, it was so easy to love him again, to want him. To forget how much we hated each other now, and how fucked up everything had become.

“I could see how you might have thought I didn’t mind,” he said carefully, “but I just needed some time to think it all through.”

“Think what through?” I asked. Despite everything, despite how I wished I had never met him right them, how I hated his arrogant controlling stuck up self, how I wanted to reach over the table and slap his smug face right there and then, despite all of that, I was wet. Annoyingly, my body seemed to think this was all just wonderful. I tried to stay calm.

“Think what through? Well, your punishment, of course. You didn’t think you could do that to me and escape any consequences, did you?”

I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to escape the consequences. I said nothing.

“Well, I chose this nice restaurant to celebrate.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Celebrate?” He was going to make me ask. The asshole.

“Yes, celebrate. Your last night of freedom.”

He paused and looked at me to see the effect his words were having. I kept a stony face although under my clothes I was squirming and my skin was on fire. He leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice.

“If you insist on being such a filthy whore, well, then I won’t stop you. But from now on, you’re my filthy whore. From this moment on, your little slut pussy belongs to me. You will do as I say, when I say, and you’ll fucking like it.”

His eyes were burning holes into me, and I had to use every last inch of willpower to stop myself from crying. With that single look, with that stream of dirty words, he had set me on fire and was watching me burn. I felt so pinned to my seat I couldn’t even squirm. I gulped and stared back at him, and he eventually looked down at his fingernails, nonchalant.

“The first thing you’ll do is entertain me. I’m a busy man and this little meetup has already taken up too much of my time. But you can start to redeem yourself by heading to the ladies’ room and putting that in. Now.”

What? He had to be kidding.

Here he closed his hands into a fist and laid it carefully on the table, giving me a hard look.

“You don’t seem to understand Natasha. You don’t get to ask me any questions anymore. You don’t get anything anymore. You just fucking listen. I told you what to do, now do it,” he breathed, his voice dripping with threat.

“I won’t,” I squeaked, almost without thinking. “I’ll leave. We need to talk. We need to discuss what’s happened. I’m sorry about what I did, but our relationship--”

“We don’t have a relationship anymore. There will be no chats. There will be no fucking discussion. I own you.”

This time I did laugh.

“You own me? And if I don’t go along with this dumb idea?”

He smiled slowly and reached into his blazer pocket, then pulled out a sheaf of papers, stapled and folded neatly into three sections. He didn’t have to say anything more. As he slid them across the table towards me, I knew exactly what they were.

“Well, you’re free to fuck off, of course. Screw every kitchen boy in the city, if you like, but you won’t do it on my dime. Either you get up now and do as I told you or you can sign here and leave in a cab.”

Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you how furious I was with him. How my sense of dignity prickled under his insults, his insinuations, the awful names he had called me. How I stood up, slapped him hard and walked away, never to entertain such a hideous power dynamic again, and that I was better than a sadistic man who wanted to punish me, and wave his influence over me.

But I can’t tell you that. What I will tell you hardly makes sense to me. I sat there, and I liked it. I could see the anger, floating far, far away on the horizon and away from me, leaving behind only a painful, desperate ache between my thighs, a tightening that started in my throat and pulsed all the way through me, right down to my now-soaked panties.

I hated him, sure. But at that moment, I would have let him do anything to me. He could have flung me onto the dining table right there and fucked me in front of a hall full of formally-dressed people, and I wouldn’t have cared one bit. All I knew at that moment was my fierce need for him, the steely look he was giving me, and the inconvenient ache in my pussy.

I stood up and took the box in my shaking hands. He watched me with pleasure as I turned and made my way to the bathrooms. The evening had certainly not gone the way I expected. In fact, that was the best thing about it – I hadn’t known what to expect. All of a sudden this seemed like the single most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.

I passed a pair of heavily perfumed women in heels on my way to the bathroom, and blushed, which was another thing I can’t remember doing in ages. The ladies’ room was plush and glossy, with floor length gilded mirrors and velvet seating and dimly lit chandelier crystals sending little sparkles onto the purple walls. It was an awfully fancy place for a person who about to do what I was about to do. But I suppose if I was to be humiliated, this lush room could not have made a better backdrop.

I went into one of the stalls, closed the door and sat down, trying to still my hiccupping heart. I opened the box again. More velvet. More opulence. But the thing itself was clean and silver and cold. I split my legs and slid down the flimsy, wet fabric. I was swollen and hot, as though my body itself was angry. I picked it up and held it in my hands. It was heavy. What if it fell out?

Tracing my fingers along its curves, I decided which way was up and then pressed it to my body, feeling my clit respond immediately to the cool metallic surface. I closed my eyes and traced circles. It was larger than it seemed. What if I went out there and someone could tell? What if it was really obvious, and I couldn’t walk properly, and then it fell out? I would die. I would actually die of heart failure.

I slid it inside. The bulb of it stretched me slightly, then settled somewhere deeper inside me as my aching body swallowed it. I exhaled and felt a soft wave of pleasure pump through me. It wasn’t the most intense sensation in the world. A small, insistent stretch. I could do this. I could hold it in. For a while. But I probably couldn’t forget that it was there.

I rolled my hips a little in the bathroom stall, trying to hush my own breathing, secretly thrilled that in this pretty, polite room, I was doing this dirty thing. His slut. I tried the idea on for size. Could he be serious? Divorce?

Fine, maybe I would divorce him. But maybe I wanted to have a little fun, first. See how far I could go. He was right: I was a filthy whore. But I didn’t need him. I would play his dumb game for as long as it pleased me, then leave his sorry ass whenever I wanted.

Outside, people were eating and drinking and chatting about their mundane lives. Inside the stall, I rocked my hips, feeling the weight of it stroking me inside, pressing me open, the steel finish now warming with the heat of my body.

I stood up and tried to gather myself. I flushed the toilet for good measure, unlocked the door and was confronted with my own image in the full length mirrors. A slut. A whore. I looked just the same as always on the outside, but on the inside

I applied a fresh layer of bubblegum pink lipstick, checked my brow for any beads of sweat, smoothed my dress and held my chin high. In my life, I had fucked more men than I could keep track of. I was a lonely, stupid housewife and yes, I was an adulterer, and yes, I enjoyed every single moment. And now, I would be punished. Good. Bring it on.

I stepped out and went back to the table.

Chapter 7 - Todd

She took forever in the ladies’. Making me wait. Payback for making her wait, I guess.

I would have been unsurprised by any outcome at that point. She could have climbed out the bathroom window and run away forever, for all I knew. She had sat across the table from me, listened to every word, and, to my astonishment, listened.

She gave a few token objections, sure. She tried to talk back, but that was short lived. It was obvious to me from the second the words left my mouth: she was glad I was punishing her. It complicated things, a little, when your human sex doll was so gleeful, but I was happy I didn’t have to go the other route. I hated her guts, but I didn’t want to divorce her. Not yet, at least.

Our wine arrived and I poured out two glasses. What was taking her so long?

By the time I saw her come out of the bathrooms, I actually had a moment to appreciate her outfit. I had rushed in tonight, nervous I was going to blow my lines, that she would laugh at me or throw a drink in my face, so nervous that I hadn’t taken a moment to properly look at her.

Pink, full lips. Tumbling locks of hair in chaotic shades of blonde and honey brown. A childlike waist and full, heavy breasts. She was beautiful. And more importantly, she had worn the dress I told her to.

She sat back down in her seat, a look of concentration on her face as though a stern school mistress had balanced a book on her head and told her that she’d be rapped on the knuckles if it fell. She couldn’t look me in the eyes. Good. All the better for me to get a good, long look at her.

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you a starter. I hope you’re hungry,” I said, and she gave me a quizzical look. I reached for her hand over the table and she gingerly gave it to me. I could feel her shaking. The thought of it sent the most delicious pang through me. Slut. My little slut. She had torn our marriage – admittedly not the healthiest marriage you’ve ever seen – into a thousand tiny pieces. Everything was fucked now. But at least she would pay. And I would enjoy every second of it.

“Shouldn’t we …just forget dinner, maybe?”

“Are you crazy? I had to pull some serious strings to get us in here. No way, we’re going to stay as long as we can. Keep room for desert too,” I said and winked at her. Perhaps that was a bit overboard.

She raised her chin and tried to keep cool. Honestly, four years into our marriage and she hadn’t aged a bit. In fact, she looked even younger than when we first met. And I was happy to see that playful, defiant spirit still beating strong in her. Pity she was a raging whore.

I pulled out my phone and tapped listlessly at it.

“In fact, funny thing how we got these reservations, actually. Do you remember Peter Cromwell? I introduced you to him at that gala last year?”

She shook her head.

“No, I guess not. Maybe you were …distracted at the time?” I shot her a look loaded with meaning. “Anyway, Peter’s been dabbling with some really fun projects at the moment. Do you remember I told you he was developing some smartphone apps with the quants from the London office? No?”

She shook her head again. She never paid any damn attention, naturally. It was OK. If she was going to play my bimbo slave, she might as well play dumb, too.

“Well, he was the one who designed that …thing you’re wearing” I said, and gestured under the table. Now she was paying attention.

“I’m sorry what? He designed the…?”

“The dildo, yes. But this one’s fancy. Actually, it’s still in the development stages and this is kind of a prototype. Lucky girl.”

She frowned.

I turned my phone screen and showed her some purple and silver dials and knobs.

“See this? This is the app that controls it. Isn’t that clever?” I said. She pored over the screen, and I watched the glowing rectangle reflect on the wet curve of her eye.

“See, that’s where I turn it on or off. And this slider lets me decide the intensity. It’s got a few different modes over here…”

Her eyes went wide. She went to grab the phone from me but I quickly snatched it away from her.

“Oops! Don’t want this to get into the wrong hands,” I said, and laughed. She looked worried. I leaned in, the phone held far off from her reach, and dropped my voice.

“Besides, there are a few things on here I haven’t figured out yet myself, so you’ll have to give me a minute…” I said, and the look that washed over her face was priceless. Good.

She got up to quickly go to bathroom, I presume, but I gripped her arm instantly, pulling her back down.

“That is the last, and I mean the last time you do something without asking my permission, do you hear me?” I was serious. I felt the tension drop from her arm and she nodded. At that moment, the starters arrived. We exchanged heated glances over the crystal and silverware and Egyptian cotton napkins. Nobody else in this restaurant knew what an unrepentant slut she was. But I did.

We ate in silence for a while. For a moment, I could almost believe it was our honeymoon again. The plates were cleared away and I chatted to her about the weather, and how exquisitely the mushrooms had been prepared. She had a distant, glassy expression on her face, but agreed and gave short, one word answers here and there.

Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she tell me to stick my stupid dildo up my own ass? Why wasn’t she on the phone with a divorce lawyer right now? Well, that was clear to me: because she liked it. She blushed and pouted and fretted but ultimately …here she was. I was hard under the table cloth.

The entrees came and we chit chatted further. I could tell the whole exercise was making her squirm, and she was barely keeping her embarrassment under control. While she tried to look comfortable above the table, I knew that she was a wet little bitch under it, but she would sit here with me in this overpriced dump of a restaurant as long as I damn well said so.

She picked a little at her food and then the plates were removed, and the table opened up between us. I pulled out my phone again and she pepped up, watching it like a hawk.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“Well, let me show you.”

I slid my finger across the screen and it flickered awake, and then I traced a small circle on the digital dial, turning the intensity up. I lifted my gaze to see her slightly alarmed face. She looked like she stopped breathing. I imagined it vibrating secretly, deep inside her, and the idea thrilled me. She wanted to sneak around and lie and cheat? Well, now she could try her best to keep this a secret.

I watched her carefully. She balled her fists and took a deep breath, and I could sense the strain in her face in the way her eyelids flickered a little as she closed them.

“More wine?” I asked her casually, but never peeling my eyes away from her faintly tormented face. She opened her eyes and gave me a pleading look. She shook her head.

I poured myself some; a big, full glass. She watched as the red liquid swirled and rose in the glass. The phone was at my wrist, casually resting on the table, the instrument of her torture but to everyone else in this room, something unremarkable.

“So, what do you think of it? Shall I tell Peter Cromwell you approve of the design?”

She shot me a dark look.

“It’s nothing special,” she said and tore her gaze from mine. I smiled.

“It isn’t? Well that’s just because we have it on a low setting.”

Slowly, I took the phone again and lazily dragged my finger over the intensity control, till it was roughly at the midpoint. This had an immediate effect on her. Now, to my delight, I could hear her breath grow a little jagged as she exhaled and squirmed in her seat a little. Her face was flushed, but she sure was making a brave effort at pretending it wasn’t.

“Natasha? Still here with us?” I asked, teasing.

“I’m here,” she breathed.

“You like it don’t you?” I growled.

More of the same dark look. She looked so cute when she was all pissy and indignant.

“Actually, yes. I do like it.” This time her voice seemed to come from a little deeper inside her body. I could see she liked it. Hell, the people at the next table, if they cared to look, could probably see how much she liked it.

I stopped smiling. “Well, you’re not supposed to. This is your punishment, remember?”

She watched my finger slide all the way to the far end of the control. Almost maximum power. She swallowed hard and tightened her shoulders. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. I leaned in forward so I could see that sweet punishment on her rapidly coloring face.

“Now tell me what that feels like. Tell me what it feels like to be such a slut in this nice restaurant, with all these nice people…” I hissed, so quietly only she could hear me.

Her knuckles were turning white. Here I was, bringing her to the edge, without having to lay a finger on her. I could turn the dial down right now, turn it right down and give her some relief. Or I could make her sit here and take it. But whatever happened to her sweet, guilty little cunt right now was entirely, and exclusively in my control.

She swallowed hard again but this time a muffled moan escaped from her lips. She was trying to conceal every twitch and roll of her perfect body, to hold in just how badly she was shaking.

“Natasha, if you make another peep, I’m going to turn it up as high as it will go.”

Her face was full of begging.

“Please…” she managed to say, but not much more.

“Please what?”

“Please. Turn it off. I’m going to…”

“Come? Yes, I know you are. I can see that. Everyone can see that,” I said and stroked the edge of the phone.

She stifled another moan and then shook her head as though to clear it. But I wasn’t going to give her mercy. Natasha was a screamer. She had always been loud in bed. Always yelped out loud and shuddered and swore and sometimes squealed. But now, I wanted to see just how much of that she could conceal.

“You want to be a filthy little whore? To fuck out in the open where anyone can see you? Well, here we go. You’re going to come now, hard, in front of all these strangers, and that’s the punishment you deserve.”

I took a sip of my wine and watched as her secret writhing and heavy breathing reached fever pitch. Her chest flushed.

“Come, Natasha. Let me see you come like the little whore you are,” I said, and the words themselves seemed to push her over the edge. I turned the dial up to its full power and her eyes went wide, she gripped the edge of the table and cried out, neck straining.

“Oh fuck,” she whimpered, but so loud that the people at the next table turned to look.

I watched as her chest rose and fell, and her body twitched and tightened invisibly under her clothes. And even deeper underneath was her juicy little pussy, taking its punishment, convulsing hard around the dildo I had forced her to wear.

Her hand quickly went to her brow to wipe away the prickles of sweat there, and the color flashed back into her white knuckles. She was panting. I sat back in my chair, cool, calm. I loved seeing her this way. When she had gathered herself, she raised a disheveled gaze to me, lips parted. She looked fucking hot.

“Todd, I’m so sorry. About everything, about the other night, I’ve just felt so alone and I really just needed the affection, and now…” she started saying.

I stood quickly, threw down my credit card on the table and gestured to the waiter for the check. As I walked out I fancied I could hear curious whispers and mutterings behind me. But what I was really interested in was everything that was silent at that moment, everything that was invisible.

Her guilt. Her punishment. Her soaking little pussy, and wet quivering lips… truly, I had forgotten how much fun she could be. I was rock hard, but I brushed off the sensation. Instead, my mind wandered.

I already knew what I wanted her next punishment to be.

Chapter 8 - Todd

The men I work with are pigs.

I would like to say that hiring someone with the right skill set in this industry who isn’t a pig is possible …but I certainly haven’t managed it yet. I get it, though. The work is tough and thankless and incredibly difficult. The hours are long and grueling. For a certain type of man, the longer he behaves himself in a temperature controlled cubicle, in suit and tie, the harder he wants to party when he’s eventually released. The more civilized and abstract the work, the more of an animal he has to be later on.

So the running joke in the office is how our hedge fund office is so close to such a seedy looking strip club almost across the road, but honestly, it should be closer. During work hours, it’s all algorithms and PNL meetings and investor presentations. After hours, it’s all coke and hookers. But they aren’t opposites. In fact, they’re the same stuff. Just two sides of the same, highly polarized coin.

When things get bawdy, I play along. It’s good business practice. But me? I’m not a pig. I take this shit seriously. When I see some kid blustering in like he’s some Wall Street superstar, well, he has my blessing. Hell, I’ll even cut his lines for him. But none for me, though I’m happy to help him along.

Some people build, some people destroy. When I was a child, my mother used my prize money from winning second place at the math Olympiad to pay for groceries. She’d joked on the way home that she wished I’d made first place so we could at least get a bottle of vodka, too.

So, pigs. I know them. I understand them. But I’m not one of them.

“It’s actually incredible how much like a regular marketplace it looks. Like eBay in the nineties,” Jeff said. He had been with Black Rock for more than 5 years.

“Oh? I always imagined it was just strings of code. But they have shopping carts and things?”

“Oh sure. Everything arranged in categories. Man, you can get anything you want. And I mean it, anything,” Jeff replied, ogling the waitress.

Jeff and Olaf, the fund’s other two partners, were with me on the distinguished Pearl Terrace, along with a pair of investor reps who wanted to ‘treat’ us.

“Anything huh?” said one of them. They were young. A few years out of MIT, cocky as hell and skinny enough that they weren’t quite filling their suits yet. But they were sharp.

“Yeah, anything,” Jeff said. “Think of any firearm, you can get it. Any chemical, any drug. You can buy passports, identification, that kind of thing. Boatloads of porn, obviously”

He was two whiskeys in and I could tell he had already forgotten the model we were supposed to work on together later that evening.

“What about people?” one of the reps asked.

“People?”

“Yeah, can you like, buy a person?” he asked.

Jeff laughed, his beer gut shaking.

“Well, I’m sure you can buy parts of people, yeah. Like an illegal kidney or something.”

“But I’ve heard you can buy,” the rep said, “you know, a slave. A person. From some third world country, I don’t know.”

Jeff’s smile faded a little. He was closer to my age. He wasn’t quite part of this new crop of kids and though he was a raucous bastard, I knew he preferred his degeneracy a little more on the old fashioned side. He was taking a night course in cryptocurrency and had been playing around on the dark web and underground markets, but with something more like a scholar’s interest than a criminal’s. Jeff had a chubby wife he loved to death and if he ever did transact on dark net markets, it would likely be to buy a discontinued superhero figurine or something.

“Yeah, I bet you could. You could buy all sorts of crazy shit, yeah. I mean, there are no rules. It’s mostly just people buying pot, if I’m honest. I haven’t looked, but yeah. You could buy a person.” His tone suddenly changed. It certainly wasn’t a fun answer. The rep looked a little deflated.

“I’m just asking, man.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll show you sometime. But even in total anonymity, I’m sure it’s not that easy to just buy, you know, a whole person. For whatever reason you’d want to do that.”

We all sat in silence at the table. Every one of us knew quite well what reason someone might want to buy a person off the dark web. But it suddenly felt like the conversation had run dry anyway. We ordered another round, had a look at some reports, then left an hour or so later.

When I was little, my mother had told me I could be anything I wanted. That the world was my oyster. I’m sure she never pictured me sitting around a table of pigs in suits discussing the ins and outs of buying a human being illegally off the internet, but then again, the world my mom was talking about was a different one. One I didn’t live in anymore.

Jeff and I saw the rest of the party off and we walked back to the office together.

“Can you really buy a person?” I asked, feeling a little tipsy.

“Christ, what’s with you guys?” he laughed.

“I know, I know. I’m just curious. That’s wild. Do they Fedex them or what?”

He laughed.

“Yeah, you can leave reviews and everything. Choose your color in the dropdown and then they send you a tracking number. Can’t return it if it’s not in the original packaging though,” he joked, and laughed again.

“I wonder how much it costs,” I said, suddenly serious.

“Depends what you’re getting I guess. They could have me for a hundred bucks.” He grimaced as he poked the flesh around his belly.

“How’s the old hernia treating you?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll live,” he replied, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.

It’s not surprising that you can buy a person. In fact, the only thing that surprises me is other people’s surprise. I was at that very moment walking to an office filled with people whose lives I had paid for, wasn’t I? There is no ‘dark web’, or at least nothing darker than what’s happening right now, out in the light. Everything – and everyone – has their price. The people who disagree? It’s only because they know they’re not worth very much.

When we got back to the office, I couldn’t focus. My brain kept flitting around, wandering over to an idea that wasn’t fully formed yet, but which kept nagging at me nonetheless.

Natasha’s next punishment.

In small, dark pieces, the idea slowly pieced itself together in my mind. All I knew now was that the moment we had started talking about buying and selling people, I saw her face in my mind, bright, like a flash. I already ‘owned’ her, didn’t I? How much was Natasha worth to me? And me to her? How much ‘punishment’ did she deserve for screwing me over, for breaking my heart?

Everyone loves to hate the soulless banker figure, but what about me? What revenge am I entitled to, even though yes, I neglected her and yes, we haven’t technically had sex in almost a year? In the great debit and credit sheet called marriage, who owed who now?

Seeing her writhe on another man’s cock was a slice so deep into me that I still didn’t have the courage to even think about it yet. But I would balance the score, one way or another. Licking my wounds or not, she would get her just deserts. I wanted my pound of flesh. And I knew exactly which pound it was going to be.

I make my living manipulating numbers. I find money in tight margins people aren’t even aware exist. Even if it killed me, I would tally up her betrayal, put a figure on it, and mete out her punishment. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of someone I hadn’t spoken to in years. The night in the restaurant had been a good start.

But it was just that: a start.

Chapter 9 - Natasha

“Belinda, I’m a paying customer,” I said. “Just cut it off, I keep telling you, I’m sure.”

My hairdresser Belinda gave me a skeptical look.

“Girls always cut their hair when they’re having breakdowns,” she said. “Please don’t be having a breakdown on me, Natty.”

“Oh my God, you’re not giving me a buzzcut here. Do I need to sign a waiver or what?” I said, laughing. She sighed and patted down my shoulders, looking at my insistent face in the mirror in front of us.

“Ok …if you’re sure…” she said and smiled.

She picked up the shears and got to work trimming down my long mane down into the slick, streamlined vision I had spent the last 15 minutes explaining to her. I don’t know what it is that makes a girl want to change up her entire look, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t having a breakdown. I just wanted to look …different.

I felt like I had been grooming for the last three days straight. I’m no stranger to primping and preening, but this somehow felt like higher stakes. Todd was away on a short business trip, and tonight we were having a ‘quiet dinner’. Alone. I hadn’t made an entry in my secret black book for the last week at least – the longest period of time since I started it more than two years ago.

He had given me no further information, hadn’t ordered me to wear any ridiculous pre-chosen outfit. Hadn’t told me a damn thing actually, other than not to make any plans at all. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to the chefs. “Leave it to me” he had said, and now the only thing left to do was groom.

So I waxed my body head to toe. I exfoliated and buffed and moisturized and glossed my nails in a vivid coral. I got a facial, did my eyebrows and plumped my lips. And of course, the crowning glory, my new hair cut: a more severe shade of blonde, but an altogether more mature cut. The tips were blunt cut and brushed against my shoulder blades. Belinda had asked me, “what’s the brief” and I had told her, “make me look expensive.”

And holy hell, did I look expensive.

At home, I waited for him. The silver dildo had long since been removed, washed and hidden far at the back of a drawer. But I could still feel it inside me. I was still aching deep inside, still felt hot on my skin where he had pierced me with his cruel, unrelenting gaze. I wasn’t sure yet if I was mad that he had humiliated me, or mad at myself that despite my best efforts, I had enjoyed it.

Though my heart was filled at the moment with nothing but contempt for him, there was nothing I could to do stop myself wriggling and coming like a little slut in my chair. I came harder than I ever think I have in my life. By the time I had paid and stood to leave, I realized how badly my legs were actually shaking. And that I was soaking.

Even though I had now been preparing for days for him, I felt rushed when I finally realized that evening that he would arrive in ten minutes or so. I paced around, approaching the mirror a million times. Yup, still a cheater. Still a whore. On some days, it seemed like no amount of make-up could cover up the trash I was. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore? It felt kind of good, for it to all be out in the open. God, at least we were talking again. And tonight, maybe …well, who knows. My head was in pieces, and I couldn’t think about tonight further than saying “hello” to him.

When he arrived, he came in through the main front entrance, which we never use. He seemed different. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest as I saw him walking up the drive.

“Hello,” I said.

“You cut your hair,” he said.

I thought of twirling around for him, and pouting a little and fluffing it and asking if he liked it. But all of that felt a little phony now. After all, within the last few days alone he had seen me raw and truly naked, face contorted in pleasure. I know how to primp and be pretty …but there’s something to be said for being naked. After hours in the hairdresser’s seat this morning, my whole endeavor to look different suddenly seemed utterly unimportant.

We walked inside together.

“Don’t do it again without my permission,” he said, back to me.

We moved to the red dining room and made small talk. We almost never used this room, and even the cook seemed surprised to be serving us in there. The meal was uneventful, and after a while, I began to think that I had only dreamed our last encounter, and that now I was woken up and living through another dreary scene of my real life. The one in which my husband can’t bear to fuck me and I spend all his money and screw other men to spite him.

“No more for me,” I said, and put my hand over the rim of my glass as he tried to top it up. He lowered the bottle again, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

“Peter Cromwell was very grateful for your feedback.”

“My feedback? I never gave him any feedback.”

He smiled mischievously. “Oh yes you did, you sent him an email a few days ago, saying that you’d found the thing in your husband’s study and couldn’t resist giving it a try, and you loved it so much you just had to let him know.”

What? I could feel the edges of my fresh new haircut grazing the skin of my shoulders. I was completely and utterly at this man’s mercy. For now.

“Haha, very funny. Next time tell him to make one in leopard print”

He wasn’t smiling.

“Oh my God, Todd. Did you really? What did you do?”

He smirked and reached for my hand, then stroked the lines on my palm just lightly enough to send goosebumps crackling through me.

“I didn’t do anything. You did. Because you can’t help yourself” he said slowly, still stroking. My arm tensed.

“You’re trying to humiliate me now? Be serious, what did you do?”

He flashed naughty eyes at me.

“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I’m not angry. But the fact of the matter is, you’ll need to be punished,” here his caress on my hands went firm, “again.”

“You didn’t say anything to him, you’re just messing with me,” I said, the end of my sentence not quite sure if it was a question or not.

“Again, that’s irrelevant now. What’s important is that you’ve made me look bad, and now you have to be disciplined,” he said. He raised his cold, hard eyes to me to see what I would make of this new word. Discipline. He never did this. He was never like this. With a weird flutter in the pit of my stomach, it dawned on me how little I knew the man sitting across from me.

We sat together for a while, silent except for my heart pounding in my ears.

“What form will my discipline take?” I asked. I searched his face. Was I doing this right? And what the fuck were we doing anyway? The words seemed straight from a cheesy 80s porn film and yet …the moment was heavy with sexual tension. Chemistry was one thing, but there was something else going on here. A slow, strange reaction that didn’t explode but only burned and smoldered. Something that was way hotter and more dangerous than it looked.

His touch softened on my hands again and he cocked his head to one side to look at me.

“Your hair’s pretty, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Your punishment, well, yes, I’ve been thinking about that…”

I wondered if it was even worth it to try and talk to him again. To apologize. Maybe marriage counselling. Maybe he could take some time off work and we could go on a trip together, just the two of us, and really hash things out. I could explain myself. Everything thing would be fine again.

Or, we could carry on with this train smash.

He drew back and pulled something out of his jacket pocket, then placed it on the table squarely between us. It was my diary. The place on my fingertips where he had caressed me suddenly went cold.

“That’s mine,” I said, trembling in my voice. How in God’s name had he found it? I suddenly felt sick.

“Yes, and all the nasty little stories in there are yours, too,” he said quietly. The air hung all around us, thick and silent.

“I’m sorry…” I said, but he snatched up the book and began reading loudly from one of the pages.

“Yesterday, I think I finally discovered my absolute limit. A nine-inch cock sounds like a lot of fun, but I can barely walk today. I think he must have broken my pelvis. Ten out of ten. Todd’s at work late this evening, of course,” he said, adding a nasty sneer to the last sentence.

“Todd, please.”

“I got the delivery guy to finger me in the hall. He said he’d come back some other time, when he wasn’t on the clock, which I thought was pretty rude. Four out of ten.”

My face was on fire.

“Todd, please don’t do this.”

He slammed the pages shut and flung the book on the table again, and looked at me. I looked away.

“Am I going to be punished for that too? For this new crime?” I said, mockingly. I wasn’t even sure if the punishment or the lack of it would be worse at this point.

“New? Oh no, this isn’t a new crime Natasha.”

“What do you mean?”

“This shitty little book? I’ve known about it for years. In fact, I first discovered it about a week after you wrote the first entry.”

My mouth hung open.

“But how-- “

“Again, details. It’s not important now. This book?” he said, flicking it with his fingers, “this book is not the crime, it’s the punishment.”

“I don’t understand.”

He smiled.

“I’m nowhere near done with you yet. Tell me something, Natasha, the things you wrote in this book …you enjoyed them all, didn’t you?”

My throat felt dry.

“Well that’s a loaded question, it’s a complicated thing, when you think about it…”

“Yes or no?” he snapped.

“It’s not as simple as that, it’s not a--”

“Yes or no?” he asked. His voice echoed in the red dining room.

“Yes! Fine, are you happy now? Yes, I fucking enjoyed it, of course I did,” I said, and felt the first pricks of humiliated tears.

He smiled.

“Good, that’s all I was asking. No need to lose your temper. Now, let me explain how this is going to happen. This isn’t your book anymore, it’s mine.”

“Yours?”

“Mine. Let’s say we’re going to turn over a new leaf. You can hide it wherever you like, I don’t care, but from now on, I’m the only one who writes anything in it. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, I haven’t punished you to my satisfaction yet. But I will soon. Whatever I write in this book, becomes real for you. You will read it, and follow the words written there to the letter. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“You have no choice but to follow everything as it’s written in the book. You already know what will happen if you disobey. You’re hell-bent on being a complete and utter slut …well, I’m going to write that story for you now. I can’t seem to stop you. You’re a cheating whore and can’t be redeemed, but at least from now on, you’ll cheat in the way I tell you to.”

I had never done any of this kinky master slave shit before. It just wasn’t my style. The men I was used to could never pull it off, anyway. Not like this. I had to hand it to him – bossy and domineering was a good look on him.

“Any questions?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Good. Now open it up and read the latest entry.”

With shaking hands, I picked up the book. The red dining room had been done in a minimalist Balinese style, all black wood and deep scarlet on the walls. My hands were pale. I tried to remind myself that whatever was in these pages, I didn’t have to do any of it. I could leave. At any time. I was free to walk out of this pretty red and black room, out of this cruel game of his, and out of this life. But a part of me wanted to read it anyway.

I opened the cover and flicked to the newest entry. It was short, and done in his tight, aggressive handwriting. I could recognize his slashed Ys and Gs anywhere.

“Read it out aloud,” he said.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak without cracking my voice.

“Today, I agreed to sell my pussy to the highest bidder.”

I shot him a look.

“Keep reading.”

“Todd decided he was sick of me not pulling my weight and wanted me to make myself useful. And since all I’m good for is fucking, he suggested I service two of his associates, who’ve agreed to pay $50 000 to fuck me…”

My voice trailed off, stuck on the figure. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

“I didn’t tell you to stop” he said, voice ice cold. I cleared my throat again and forced myself to keep reading.

“If I’m any good, Todd will make me do it again. I’m his, but I can’t wait for his friends to use me. I’m going to try my hardest to do everything I’m told. Luckily, I’m used to having many different men fuck me, so it should be easy. I can’t wait.”

I stopped reading, closed the book and stared down at the table, feeling as though I might faint. Or laugh. Or both.

“This is crazy,” I said quietly.

“Yes, it is. And you’re going to do it anyway,” his voice a low growl.

“You haven’t really …have you Todd? Found someone to …” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“To fuck you? Oh yes. As you well know, it’s not that hard, actually. With your rather forgiving tastes, I’m sure you’ll enjoy who I’ve picked out for you, but if you don’t …then all the better.”

My life had become a strange movie. A weird, never-ending scene where people said bizarre things and smiled while they did it.

“Who are they? Who are these men?” I asked. With horror I realized that my voice sounded breathy and excited. He grinned.

“That’s not for you to question. Your job, as you see in the diary, is just to do as you’re told. Everything you’re told.”

The word ‘everything’ fell from his lips like a kind of irresistible poison. What was everything? Wasn’t this far enough? I had cheated, he had caught me cheating, and now he was going to get revenge and then we were going to live happily ever after. Except those last two things would happen together. Everything. All at once. When would I be fully absolved? Ever? And what about him, was he just a poor sweet innocent multi-millionaire with a badly behaved trophy wife?

“I’d love to,” I said finally, and my voice felt stronger. He wouldn’t likely suggest anything I wouldn’t have done myself. In fact, I always wanted to dare him to just try and embarrass me. He would only humiliate himself. Fine, it was settled. How far would I go? As far as necessary, to make a point. He was the wealthier, the more influential. He had more, knew more. But so what?

I stood up and moved over to his side of the table. I was sick of having these monumental discussions with furniture between us. I wanted to be in the pool. Naked. Just him and me. I’d be his dirty little slut and he’d be my angry husband and it’d be cheesy but if he needed that, I could go with it. I placed a hand on his chest and stroked him, then leaned down for a kiss. His kiss in return was surprisingly hesitant.

As I bent forward, my breasts hung low in my blouse and I wished, just wished he would reach out and touch me. He sat rigid. His kiss was strange.

“Is this ok…?” I asked.

He said nothing.

I peered down into his lap and saw the answer I really needed. The fabric of his suit trousers stretched and pulled, gathering in a bulbous point nearly halfway down his thigh. Todd was a well hung guy. The first time we fucked, I made a joke about how unfair it must have seemed to other men that he was good looking, wealthy, and blessed in the dick department. I remember like it was yesterday, how he had replied to me: “It’s more unfair now that I have you.”

I snaked my hand down and teased at the edge of his erection, but his kiss went even more limp in my mouth. His breathing was strange. My hand went further down and I closed careful fingers around the width of him. Instantly, he shrank. It was like my touch was an evil spell and his body deflated right in front of me.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever really wanted Todd,” I whispered, not sure where such a sentiment came from. I kissed him again, and with more urgency, but he was pulling away.

“I’m so sorry, Todd, I really am. I want things to be different between us, I’ll do anything you want, just tell me what you need.”

It’s like I could feel his spirit inside him shrivel and contract, pulling away from me. His body was there, but it was just a shell. He froze, his hard-on completely gone.

“I need you to not talk like that,” he said plainly.

“Like what? I’m sorry…”

“Stop apologizing.”

He stood up and shrugged me off, and I staggered to catch my balance again.

“Todd I don’t understand. What are we doing?”

He looked at me. Really took his time looking me up and down, and I could almost feel the speed of his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know what we’re doing. But I don’t want to discuss it. You broke my heart, Natasha.”

It was the last thing I expected him to say.

“But that will never happen again. You had countless chances to apologize. We could have been a different kind of couple, we could have done this differently, maybe a year or two ago. But it’s too late now.”

I had never seen him looking so defeated. Todd was never sad about anything, not really. But what I saw briefly on his face was somehow worse: disappointment.

“Todd, I’m scared,” I said. Again, no idea where that came from.

His face brightened.

“Good.”

Chapter 10 - Natasha

“It doesn’t matter how many carbs you eat, Jen, it just comes down to calories.”

“It’s not as simple as that. There’s a lot that goes into it. Hormones and stuff, different metabolisms. I just don’t process carbs like some people do.”

“Bullshit, a calorie is a calorie.”

I was with ‘the girls’ on one of our notorious brunch crawls, and we were onto talking about food and diets, because that’s what we always did. While our husbands sit in board rooms and wrangle the bottom line, we sit here in expensive cafes and talk diet, but with fat, carbohydrate and protein grams instead of dollars. But really, it’s all the same thing. Two sides of the same ugly coin.

On one hand: as many variations of eggs benedict and mimosa cocktails as your heart could ever desire, and in any quantity. On the other hand: your pert ass. Getting a rich man to marry you is easy. Getting him to stay married to you is where the work starts. Not like these women had the best track records, but we all knew that at the very least, our end of the bargain was to stay skinny, no matter what.

Tight walking that fine line was work. I know you’ll think the women I’m about to describe sound a little, shall I say, silly. But the next time you see people like me and my friends out somewhere, I promise you, we’re working. Just not in all the usual ways. We smile. We soothe our nerves with alcohol.

“That mimosa has like, twenty grams of sugar in it,” said Jen. “No different from eating a cookie. Or just, like, mainlining the sugar” This week, she was recommitting to her low carb plan and preaching at us for eating wheat.”

“Bullshit,” said Abby. This week, Abby was on an intuitive eating binge, ‘healing her gut flora’ and preaching at us to not cut out any food groups.

“Natty, you’re quiet, what’s eating you?” Jen said.

Whining about your waistline is only fun when everyone in the group is doing it. But I couldn’t. My mind was all over the place.

“I’m sorry. I just …I’m doing this cleanse and I’m a little foggy I guess,” I offered lamely.

All three of them gave me concerned looks. Jen was married to a famous actor (I won’t tell you who, you’ll freak out) and had a couple of kids and her own handbag boutique she never visited. Abby was a part time model who met her property developer husband at her book launch about growing up poor in Colombia. Annie was the youngest of us, not quite a fully vetted member of our brunch group and still in that philanthropical phase of her rags to riches story. In their own way, these women knew me inside out.

“Honey, don’t talk crap, we can see something’s bugging you,” said Abby.

I slumped back in my seat and sipped my cocktail.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Uh huh. Come on, you look miserable. Spit it out, what’s up?”

I sighed again and looked at the trio of painted, concerned faces.

“Well ...it’s just …Todd hasn’t been home in like a week.” Like synchronized swimmers, they all cocked their heads in unison. Abby sat up straight and got ready to pep talk me, because that’s kind of her thing.

“Honey, the first time Brad did that to me, I thought I was going to die. Did you guys have a fight?”

“Not a fight exactly…”

Jen jumped in. “Sweetie, if you want to take advantage of the fabulousness of the advice we’re super qualified to give you here, you have to give us all the gory details. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there…” she said, playfully drunk.

“Ok fine. It’s actually …it’s worse than just a fight.”

“How worse?”

“Ugh, I can’t say.”

“Don’t be silly. A sex thing? A cheating thing?” Jen said.

I frowned.

“Kind of. Maybe both of those things.”

The synchronized swimmers leaned in, ready to hear a bit of scandal.

“I’ve been cheating on Todd,” I breathed, and waited for them to chastise me. But they just waited for me to get to the important part of the story.

“And…?”

“And he found out.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. But he’s …he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s not himself these days…”

They all three leaned back. They knew I was a little …sexually exuberant. And honestly, this was a story they were all well familiar with. Well, perhaps my story was a little different.

“Honey, you have to clean up your act,” Abby said. “You have to be really repentant. Relationships can survive cheating. But you have to show remorse.”

“I did!”

“He’s still mad?”

“I …I don’t know what he is. It’s kind of like he wants to punish me now, you know?”

Jen was nodding in agreement. Her and her husband fought more often than she changed her diet plan.

“But that’s kind of a good sign. It means he’s still invested in the relationship. He hasn’t unilaterally gone to divorce, so that’s a good thing.”

“No, I guess he hasn’t. But then, like how long will it go on for? He won’t respond to any of my messages, nothing.”

“You say cheating. How bad are we talking?” Abby asked, throwing back the last of her margarita.

“Bad. Really bad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. He uh …it was kind of a caught red-handed thing.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

I took another big sip myself. It was a beautiful day. A hint of grey on the horizon but it would probably only rain long after we were indoors and started the shopping section of the afternoon.

“He wants to …like, he’s made it into this weird sex thing.”

“Go on.”

I had their attention now.

“It’s hard to explain. Like, he’s gone all dominant on me. Like, he keeps going on and on about giving me my punishment…”

All three of their eyes widened.

“Oh, honey, you should have said.”

“He’s not himself, you know? Like, I think he’s actually enjoying it. He’s getting off on humiliating me or something. Now he wants me to …do all these things. It’s crazy, I don’t know, I’ve already said too much.”

The protests from around the table were swift. They wanted all the details, immediately. Gingerly, I opened up to them about the kitchen boy, and Todd catching us. About Todd pushing me into the pool. About my mystery date with the two mystery men he had picked out. I even told them about the ‘gift’ of the silver dildo. They listened with rapt attention.

“Well, fuck me. You really should have said, Natty. That’s quite a predicament you’re in,” Jen said eventually, when I had told my sordid tale.

“Has he made you sign a contract, like what’s-his-name in that book?” said Annie, speaking up for seemingly the first time that afternoon.

“Is he actually literally into all the whips and chains and things? Oh my God when last did you check the diary?” Abby said.

“Shhh… there’s only one really important question here. Only one thing our friend Natasha here has to ask herself,” Jen said, playing the guru of the group.

“There is?” I said.

“Yes. Just one question. But answer it honestly.”

“Ok.”

“Do you like it?”

Their faces were eager, glazed over with alcohol and eating up the gossip like a fresh, gluten free cookie. I blushed. It might sound strange to you, but actually, I hadn’t much considered whether I liked it or not. For the last week, all I could do is think about him. His hard face. His eternally calm voice. What was his plan? Did he even have one?

“You know, I’ve been thinking so hard about it, and I think he wants me to like it, I think, but I can’t tell if he’s properly angry and if he really wants me to be, you know, punished.”

My voice trailed off.

“That’s not a very good answer, Natty.”

I laughed nervously.

“Fine. Then yes? I think I like it…”

They all giggled.

“Am I crazy here? Should I just leave? You don’t understand, I’m the bad guy here. Maybe he’s just gone, I don’t know. Maybe I should leave before he…”

“No!” Jen said quickly. “Don’t do any such thing. You said so yourself. You like it. So, stay. Marriage isn’t a bed of roses. If you guys end up making each other happy, who cares if the way you do it is a little fucked up?”

Annie tittered to herself. “It’s a lot fucked up though…” she said.

“Shut up,” Jen said. “You’ll see. I’m not kidding Natty, sometimes infidelity can be just the thing a relationship needs, you know?”

“That’s so dark,” said Annie.

“But it’s true. You’ll see. I say just go with it.”

“So, you get to sleep with a whole bunch of other men now while your husband watches?” Annie tried hard to suppress a smile. I hadn’t decided yet if she was horrified or jealous.

“I don’t know! I don’t know what he has planned. He said there were two of them. That’s all. And that I had to do whatever they told me.”

“Fuck, that’s hot.”

“Ew, Abby.”

“Shut up with your ‘ew’.”

“It isn’t fair though,” Annie said. “It’s not quite the reaction most men would have if they found their wife whoring around. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said.

“So when do you meet these two mystery men?”

“Tomorrow. That is, if he comes back, right?”

“Right.”

“Maybe I should just call it off and call a divorce lawyer or something. I mean, this is really fucked up…”

“Yeah maybe. But aren’t you curious?” Abby said.

I thought for a while.

“I am. I’m really curious,” I said at last.

“Lucky bitch,” said Annie at last. “Having your cake and eating it too. Lunch is on you today, as your punishment.”

“Sure, I love you guys,” I said.

“We love you too, you slut.”