EMPATHY

 
Darla is an absolute darling when she wants to be.  I wish I  could
be half the woman she is but I know I can't, I don't have it in me.  
Or anywhere near as adorable, though there I do try.  She came  by
her charm easily while growing up, while I've had to learn mine
only  very recently.  But she's a wonderful teacher.  She could see
my  potential all along, I'm a natural, that's what she says.  I
tell her  that natural or not I do love what I am now and I owe it
all to her.  It  feels so cuddly now, being me, and it used to feel
so heavy yet so  empty.
 
We're still married and we still share our lives, which is what  I'd
hoped for from the beginning, and I'm grateful for that,  though
nowadays she goes her own way as she chooses, independent, a  free
woman, fully liberated.  I've learned to respect that.  In  fact I
like it, though I'm myself more a homebody.  I like that  too.
 
Only a few months ago, no way!  Then I was the strong partner  in
our marriage and she was the soft, compliant one, eager to please. 
I  thought she was, anyway.  I knew all the answers and made all  the
decisions, and she seemed to admire me for it.  When she made  a
mistake I'd chastise her gently, then reward her remorse with  a
kiss.  She was all mine then, my very own Darla, my sweet Darla!  
She lived for me.  
 
She tried to become the world's most perfect housewife, as if it
were  possible.   Every night when I got home from work she'd be
waiting  in the living room, already changed from her office gear
into the most  provocative clothes she owned, the thinnest sun dress
or the tightest jeans,  sometimes lounging around in only the
expensive lingerie I loved to buy her  even before we could really
afford it. She'd be curled up on the couch  reading some frivolous
romance novel, already in the mood.  She'd look  up as I came in,
and her radiant smile would nearly knock me down as she put  her
face up to be kissed.  She was usually eager to explain the  aromas
suffusing the house, what subtle herbs and spices steeped in  what
dish would be tonight's special dinner delectation.  
 
I'd been reared by a father mostly away and a mother who worked,
and  never felt really sure of myself, but I compensated by never
showing  it.  Act confident and people assume you are. I did, and
they did, and  that in turn gave me confidence enough to believe I
was never wrong.   Even so, I never really felt I deserved Darla,
though she always begged to  differ.  Her job -- she tells me now --
was strengthening my certitude  and encouraging me to take good care
of her by pampering me.  Her  cooking was part of it.  We never ate
the same dish twice, and whatever  it was was fabulous, yet she
always seemed worried about what I'd  think.  I'd tell her from the
bottom of my heart that every dinner was  wonderful because it was
created by her very own dainty hands, and then I'd  kiss each of
them, burying my face in her cool palms, her fingertips curling  up
to touch my cheeks.  As if I were eating out of her hand.   She
liked that.  She still does.
 
No matter how often she heard me praise her she'd smile and shake
her  head in disbelief, then finally toss her long blonde hair back
behind her  ears and like a child throw her arms around my neck and
cover my face with  kisses, in sheer gratitude that I loved and
appreciated her no matter  what.  That certainly boosted my sense of
self-importance!  I'd  start kissing her back, and as often as not
we'd end up nibbling and gobbling  each other, all thoughts of
dinner set aside.  "You're the man of the  house," she'd say.  "Now
be the man I need!"  So I'd be that, as  best as I could.
 
Yes, I absolutely adored her!  And I still do.  Though not the  same
way. 
 
In those days she'd seem shy whenever we began making love, and
that  especially helped me feel bold.  Her hands would reach toward
mine  tentatively as I unbuttoned her blouse and reached to unhook
her bra, as if  despite her desires and the fact that we were
married she should be trying to  stop me from violating her modesty. 
Early in our relationship she asked me  to lick her down below
before we did anything else, in that nursery school  voice she
always used when she felt embarrassed.  So I'd always begun  by
exposing, then kissing her most tender, private place, her  little
nubbin, giving it a few gentle licks.  She couldn't reciprocate  by
sucking me off -- she'd just didn't seem able to take that thing
into  her mouth.  So I never proposed a sixty-nine,  
 
But my tongue in her cunt was more than enough reward.  I'd sit  her
down and spread her legs and lean my face forward into her crotch,
and  she'd lean back and let out a little whine, sometimes a sob,
whether of  anticipation or of reluctant submission I could never be
sure.  She'd  stroke my hair as if an obedient puppy's, and sure
enough, I'd begin to lick  her.  Bliss!  Then her pussy would begin
to writhe and thrust  against my face, sliding up and down my nose
and mouth and tongue until I was  covered with her juices and there
was no stopping either of us.  
 
I should say, there was no stopping Darla.  It was strange,  but
once aroused my Darla became another person.  Her legs spread  wide
and as she warmed up she'd wrap them tight around my neck and  nudge
her pelvis at my face over and over, and maybe before I  burrowed
into her I'd glimpse her head lolling back as if she were  a
princess waiting to be amused.  Then once I'd suckled her pussy  and
maybe her breasts, once her face was flushed and her eyes were
closed,  her expression tense and her teeth clenched, once her hand
had lowered to my  swollen, joyous tumescence and begun to tug it
toward her sopping slit, she  was transformed.  Altogether.  
 
She became insatiable, devouring.  All modest reserve was  forgotten
as she tugged and thrust and ground and pushed my hands, and  cock
deeper into the service of her pleasure, over and over, grunting
and  shrieking, her hips writhing voluptuously as if demanding my
whole body's  penetration into her.  Wave after wave of orgasmic
tension and  shuddering would pass through her, then rise higher
still as if never high  enough.  She was a woman possessed,
obsessive, demanding to be satisfied  utterly all at once.  Her
pussy became a gaping mouth voraciously  attempting to swallow my
cock, balls, thumbs, fingers, fist, anything that  came near it. 
All of me if it could.
 
I'd try to satisfy her.  I'd certainly try!  She'd scream  out,
furious for more, no matter how hard or deep I slammed myself  into
her, or with what, until finally she'd fall back exhausted  and
sobbing, I couldn't tell whether from all those racking orgasms  or
from desperate frustration.  I have to confess it, I'd  feel
terribly inadequate every time that happened.  Which was  nearly
always.
 
Afterward she was always ashamed that she'd lost control.  As  her
breathing slowed and my prick softened inside her and my cum began
to  leak out she'd return to a more demure demeanor.  As if
embarrassed by  her own frenzy, she'd ask if I'd very much minded
that she'd been shouting  "More!" and "Deeper!" at me with such
ferocity, as if no matter what I hadn't  performed fast or
strenuously enough to meet her needs.  I'd reassure  her by kissing
her on both eyelids -- they were always closed after we'd  made
love, dedicated to preserving her body's afterglow.  She'd  open
them and stare into mine with a thoughtful gravity I found  utterly
ravishing.  So serious, as if pondering some impossible problem  I'd
posed her!  Her face so childlike at such moments, yet somehow  so
adult!  I'd ask her what she was thinking.  She'd only  smile
sweetly and shake her head.  And kiss me gently.  After we  fucked,
her thoughts were her own.
 
It might be that then we'd go back down to dine on her marvelous
cooking  and tell each other about the day's activities.  She'd prop
me up with  extravagant praise of everything I did or didn't do, and
she'd ask my advice  about different pending management decisions,
and she'd nod appreciatively  when I'd tell her what I thought. 
After dinner I'd settle in and read tax  advisories or cases I'd
bring home -- I was always a little behind and trying  to catch up
-- and she'd return to her Harlequin, or her Danielle  Steele,
whichever, or we'd watch a family sitcom together if the  lead
couple seemed cute and happy.  Then once snug in bed we'd make  love
yet again, and she'd take charge again despite herself, until we
were  both spent.  Or maybe we'd just cuddle.       
 
We were the happiest couple I knew.  Married for six years  and
settled into standard household routines in our upscale suburb,  no
children planned for a few more years, utterly devoted to  each
other.  Darla had been an only child, raised by a doting father  who
never remarried after her mother died in an accident but  instead
devoted himself to her every desire, and now he too was gone.  
Darla's friend Karen sometimes told her that he wasn't so much gone
as  replaced by me, and Darla would smile sweetly and reply "Well,
in some ways,"  whatever that meant.  We had no family, either of
us, only each  other.  My nearest relative was a half-sister who
lived a thousand miles  away.  We'd rarely visit.  
 
Our friends always called Darla my "child bride" even though we're
about  the same age, and she'd never discourage that impression. 
Other husbands  envied me her apparent single-minded devotion to my
happiness.  Whatever  my opinions, in anyone else's presence they
were hers too.  Wives  especially, and some of the women where she
worked, would chide her for  seeming too submissive and deferential
in my presence, as if she were a  shadow of me with no apparent
substance of her own.  A doormat,  even.  "He's OK, but he's not
your equal in lots of ways," I overheard  her friend Becky tell her
once,  "In lots of ways he doesn't deserve  you.  Yet you make
yourself small whenever you're near him."  I  didn't hear what Darla
answered, but Becky then said, "Well, that makes some  sense.  But
it does give him the odd notion that he's in charge." 
 
Well, I was!  Karen once took me aside and told me that if I  really
loved her I would let her go, liberate her, give her up,  insist
that she fly with her own wings and become her own complete person.  
That I'd insist she speak her own mind, do things her way, not
defer to  me as she does.  And I'd at least help with the housework
-- did I know  she turned down major job opportunities because she
felt she had to cater to  me?  "Given what she does and what you
do," Karen said, "You should be  the housewife!"  
 
I replied that loving is caring and marriage is commitment  and
partnership, that Darla was no way suppressed, she was free to  do
whatever she chose, and that what she chose was to live with me  and
maintain our home and please me.  That we both liked it that way.  
Karen thought what I'd described was sexist patriarchal
conditioning --  she used words like that -- not free choice, and
that if I wouldn't help  Darla she would.  I told her she was
welcome to try -- Darla did have  her own mind and made her own
decisions.  
 
I certainly didn't tell her that I couldn't bear to part  from
Darla.  I needed her support and love as much as she seemed to  need
mine.  I never told that even to Darla, it seemed somehow  unmanly,
shameful.  I preferred to think of myself as her sturdy oak  and
Darla as my clinging vine. 
 
Darla did in fact have her own life and career.  Twice she'd  been
promoted for her innovations and her managerial efficiency at the
HMO  where both she and Karen were both high-powered Health  Systems
Administrators.  At work she was a thoroughgoing  professional,
exacting in knowledge of procedures, easy to work with  but
scrupulously demanding, lavish with praise but intolerant of  error,
quick to foresee problems and recommend effective action.   Strong,
able, and decisive.  I was as proud of her career as I was of  my
own.  I'd tell her I had no idea how she managed to keep  everything
going at the office and yet also at home.  Sometimes, she  confessed
to me, she didn't either.
 
Because at home she was always my docile kitten, all purring and
pink  satin ribbons, and I was the center of her world.  No matter
how  uncertain of myself I might be elsewhere, at home with her I
was a King  ruling over one gorgeous, adoring subject.  Sort of like
her father,  maybe.  Until a few months ago.
 

First Week -- Friday
 

One evening a few months ago I came home early from our weekly  TGIF
office bash, eager as always to get close to Darla after a full  day
of dealing with tensions at work.  This time I was a  little
annoyed.  I'd asked my secretary Michelle to interrupt her tete  a
tete with a handsome new Law Associate to pull files I wanted to
review  for two complicated pending cases.  She'd glanced at me and
said "This  weekend?  Not a chance.  Don't even think of it.  Don't
worry,  they'll be here Monday."  Then she returned to her young man
as if I  weren't there.  
 
Her insolence startled me and I was still irked by it, still
puzzled  what to do about it, when I arrived home and found that for
once the living  room was empty.  No Darla.  No delicious aromas
from the  kitchen.  Worry pushed all other thoughts out of my head. 
My Darla  wasn't upstairs either.  I called out her name!  Silence. 
I  glanced out an upstairs window.  
 
There she was, thank God!  But she was wandering randomly it  seemed
along the floral walk in our back garden, leaning over now and  then
to pick flowers for our dinner table I supposed, then
absent-mindedly  breaking their stems or snapping off their heads,
one after another.   Plainly, disturbed by her thoughts!  This
troubled me.  My Darla  should never feel disturbed by her thoughts!
 
I came down and stepped out through a slider and just stood  there
watching this ritual for a minute or so.  "Bad day at the  office?"
I asked her suddenly.  She looked up, her mind still  altogether
elsewhere, for a moment at a loss who had spoken to her!   Then she
just looked at me uneasily, her head angled.  She'd burnt  dinner? 
No problem, we'd go out or order in, whatever!  Whatever it  was, I
held out my arms to invite her into them and comfort her.  I  liked
imagining I was a safe harbor to preserve her from all of  life's
tempests.
 
She came slowly toward me as if she shouldn't.  Darla is about  my
size, but she could disappear altogether into my arms when I  hugged
her.  She wanted me to think I was her whole world, she  once
explained to me when I'd surrounded her with my embrace.  "You  mean
I'm not?" I asked her, half-joking.  She just smiled.  It was  hard
not to think of her as a child -- she encouraged it so I'd feel
more  grown up.  She told me so once.
 
But this time she didn't come running into my arms for the big hug
that  would make everything all right again.  She just stood there
clutching a  few zinnias by their thin stems, staring at me as if I
were a stranger.   She opened her mouth and then closed it again. 
Obviously she was reluctant  to say something I might not like.
 
"Let's go into the living room, sweetie," I said in my kindest,
most  coaxing manner.  "And then you'll tell me all about it."
 
"No, Nicholas," she said.  I was dumbfounded.  So formal!   She
always called me "Nickie," or "honey" or "snuggle bear,"  cute
diminutives like that -- she once said that even calling me
"darling"  sometimes made her feel too grown up, too much claiming
to be my  equal.   But now she was distancing herself!  Why?
 
She saw bewilderment in my face, and added, "I don't want to shake
your  world, Nick, but now finally it's unavoidable.  I need to
stand my  ground right here.  Because if we go into the living room
I just might  start playing the little girl again, because I always
do, because that's  where you're sweet to me and that's how I want
it and you expect it.   Then afterward it wouldn't seem right for me
to stand firm and say things  that could hurt you.  So I've got to
say them right here."  
 
"All right," I said.  I already felt hurt.  Was I the  problem,
somehow?  I was worried.  "Here's where we'll talk.   But can I
fetch us some wine first?  And can we sit while you tell me  what
mean thing is bothering you."
 
"You sit, Nick.  I'll stand when I say this.  But I'd love  some
wine, thank you."  She then produced a wry grin.  "When you  hear
what I've got to say you'll probably want something stronger, so
why  not get yourself one right now?"
 
"Wine is fine, honey," I said in as soothing a voice as I  could
muster.  "I want what you want!"
 
And as I turned to go inside to open the bottle I'd set chilling
that  morning, I heard her say out loud to the flowers and the
shrubs and the air,  "Well, we'll see!"
 
When I came out again I handed her a glass and sat down.   Darla
just looked at me for a moment, as if I were someone at work  she'd
been told to downsize.  Regretfully.  Then suddenly she  gathered
herself up and became much more brisk, more decisive.  She set  her
wine down untouched. 
 
"Last year," she began, "Karen took a course at the Women's  Center
downtown that changed her life.  Roger's life too.  Their  marriage
was unsatisfactory and they were near a divorce then, you know?  
You hadn't known?  Well, they were.  But now they're  very
different, practically inseparable.  Roger even quit his job,  he
works with us at the HMO now.  Not really with us, for us,  he's
entry level as a filing clerk.  That keeps his mind clear for  the
other things she wants him to be thinking about.  He sees a lot  of
Karen in the course of the day -- she gives him his orders, he
reports  back to her, and so forth, and that's saved their marriage. 
You didn't  know?"  
 
I shook my head.  I didn't.  Roger had been an  arrogant,
tough-minded MBA on his firm's fast track.  And now content to  be
a filing clerk?  Karen's doing, obviously.  But how was a  mystery!
 
She paused, and took a breath.
 
Then continued.  "Well, Becky signed up for the same course  this
year.  She hopes for a similar result with Jason."  She  paused
again.  Then added crisply, "I've signed up too.  I should  have
consulted you first so you'd feel more involved right off,  maybe,
because it's a serious commitment for both of us.  But I  finally
decided it wasn't necessary, it's what I want to do, so I  know
you'll want me to do it, and that you'll be glad to help me."   Her
voice ended on an upward inflection, as if she were not quite  sure,
but then she added firmly, "You will help me, honey, because I  want
you to.  We both know it."  And her gray eyes looked at  me
steadily.
 
"Of course, dear," I said.  I took a sip of wine and realized  that
for the first time I didn't feel we were cordially chatting,  me
eliciting information from Darla so I could make decisions for her.  
Instead I felt like a client being informed he's been
plea-bargained into  serving time, like it or not.  If Karen was
behind this, I was  suspicious.  "And what kind of course is this
that you think will change  your life the way it changed Karen's?"
 
Somehow my patronizing tone nettled her.  She ignored the words  and
addressed instead the way they sounded.  Not my wife but the  HMO's
efficient executive administrator replied sharply. "I don't  just
'think' it, Nicholas, I've no doubt whatever that it will change
our  lives.  OUR lives.  It's called 'Assertion and  Empathy
Training.'  It starts tonight, and I'll be going in to the  Center
for a training session every Friday night from now on, for a  few
months anyhow, maybe less, maybe longer, depending on results.   We
set our own goals.  Sometimes it takes only a month.  We may  be
lucky."
 
I suddenly felt relieved.  If Darla wanted to spend her  Friday
evenings doing Assertive Empathy Training, or Primal Screaming,  or
Aroma Therapy, or whatever this year's women's fad, that was fine.  
Sure.  "That's just fine, Darla!" I said, hoping my  enthusiasm
didn't sound too forced.  "I do hope the course does  everything you
wish.  I'll miss being with you all those Friday evenings  of
course.  But I'm sure we can make it up over the weekend.  Just  how
am I involved?"
 
Darla suddenly sat down at the patio table and picked up her  wine
glass.  Her eyes were still leveled at me and she ignored  my
question.  Instead, she asked in an even tone of voice, "Then  you
approve?  You'll cooperate?"
 
"Why of course I will!" I said egregiously.  Then too late,  the
lawyer in me woke up.  "Cooperate how?" I asked.
 
Now Darla turned evasive, even a little girlish.  "I'm so relieved!  
You've just made me so happy!" she burst out.  "I'll take you  at
your word, sweetheart!  Good!"  She took a tentative sip,  still
staring at me.  "I've been so worried that you might not  agree.  I
really don't want to leave you."  
 
Leave me?  I suddenly felt frightened.  What was this?
 
She didn't seem to notice.  She sipped her wine again and  looked
into the glass approvingly, then her eyes turned to focus again  on
mine.  Emphatically but impersonally, as if she were behind  her
desk and orienting a new member of her staff.  "Here's how  you're
involved, honey.  First, the course runs weekly with no  breaks,
that's how it gets results.  So our winter holiday down south  may
need to be postponed -- and if we do go, it'll be quite different
from  our usual winter holiday."  She shifted her hips in the chair
and  glanced down again with a slight smile, then back up at me. 
"Certainly for  you.  Very much so." 
 
"That's no hardship, Darla," I said, beginning to worry about just
how  intrusive this was going to be.  "Not if this thing means that
much to  you."
 
"It does," Darla said, then without missing a beat, "Secondly,  each
Friday night there's a training and discussion session at the
Women's  Center for the facilitators, that's us, all the wives and
girlfriends who are  doing the course.  Saturdays and Sundays we
apply what we've learned,  that's our homework I guess you'd call
it.  Some things we keep going  during the week.  So it isn't just
Friday evenings.  We're busy  with it all weekend.  Or more." 
 
This was beginning to look like a lost Fall and Winter.  My  wife
loaded with homework every weekend?  I wondered what I'd be  doing
while she was busy.  There weren't that many games on the  tube.  I
supposed I'd read, or visit with the guys.  Becky's  husband Jason
would also be at loose ends, and I hadn't seen Roger for nearly  a
year.  Catch up more casework maybe?
 
"Darla," I asked a little plaintively.  "Won't we be doing  anything
together while this course is filling up all your free time?"  
 
Now Darla just looked at me.  Then suddenly she stood again, and  I
realized that she hadn't changed into something more comfortable
when  she'd arrived home -- she was still dressed in her power
outfit, a business  suit, jacket and skirt and blouse, with a
flowing scarf at the neck that  somehow asserted her femininity
without implying weakness.  "Nick, you  don't understand yet, do
you?  By "we" I don't mean just me and the  other women in the
course.  I mean me and you.   You're the  person I'll be training,
you'll be the one developing empathy.  We'll be  together
practically every moment every weekend, and it's advisable  during
the week too.  Except for Friday evenings when I'm at the  Women's
Center.  And except when you're doing your exercises.   There're a
lot of them, mostly writing, and some lab work in a manner  of
speaking, some field exercises I guess you'd call them.  Real  life
tests.  I give you projects and assignments and leave you alone  to
do them, and you write them up, and then I judge what you've done
and  we discuss them.  Maybe you do them again.  Now and then you  do
something on your own."
 
I was bewildered.  I just stared up at her.  
 
She looked back down at me, and a faint smile turned up the corners
of  her mouth.  "Think about it, sweetie.  I learn how to be  more
assertive with you.  I haven't been, not at all, you'll have  to
grant that.  You learn to be much more sensitive and  understanding
about how I think and feel, you learn to share in whatever  I'm
thinking and feeling, that's what empathy is.  Sympathy is what  you
feel for a person while keeping your distance, but empathy is what
you  feel as if you are that person, that's what the course
stresses.  You'll  write out how you feel about some things, and
then how you imagine I feel  about them, about all sorts of things. 
I read what you've written and  correct your misimpressions.  Then
I give you more assignments.   This course is designed to raise our
consciousness of each other, mainly  yours of me.  It will change
our relationship.  We'll both be very  different when it's over, I'm
sure.  I think better.  I hope  so.  Some relationships don't
survive it, of course.  We'll see  about us!"
 
Even more frightening!  "What's wrong with our relationship now?"
I  asked in a small voice, wishing this whole conversation were
somewhere else  between two other people.
 
"That's the first lesson, Nick.  Tonight's.  I could tell you,  but
it's better if you find out for yourself.  I'm off soon for  my
first session, and tomorrow morning you'll begin yours, and then
we'll  both know.  That's how the course works."  
 
This was not my sweet Darla.  Things somehow had already begun  to
change.
 
She glanced at her watch, then looked at me gratefully, more like
my old  Darla.  "I'm so glad you've agreed to do this, Nick.  I
really  am.  It shows there's still hope for us."
 
Again I was silent, just staring at her.  Hope?  What was  she
talking about?  Were things that bad?  I'd thought they  were
perfect!  She reached over and picked up her wine glass again,  now
quite relaxed, and sipped again at her wine.  "Are you sure  you
don't want something stronger to drink?," she asked me.  "A  stiff
one will do you good!"  She smiled to herself as she heard  the
innuendo in what she'd said.  Until this moment she'd have blushed.  
But now she only added, "Though if this works out you'll  have
plenty.  Oh, while you're in the house, phone for a pizza, or  we'll
have nothing to eat before I have to go."  
 
Then she actually dismissed me with her eyes!  As if I were  some
errant staff member just called to account in her office!   She
turned away and headed down the path to gather flowers again.   But
this time all concentration, her mind composed, now not in  the
slightest distracted.  When the pizza arrived we ate it mostly  in
silence.  I asked her about problems at work, and she declined  to
describe any.  So I told  her about Michelle's insubordination,  and
she commented only, "I don't wonder."
 
Near midnight she came home from her first session looking
self-assured,  confident, at ease with herself.  Her body seemed
somehow less soft,  strengthened in some odd way, even wiry. 
Without a word she handed me a  single sheet with my first writing
assignment typed on it.  It said I  was to write for three hours
describing as sensitively as I could some one  extremely intimate
experience we'd shared, a sexual experience, first from my  point of
view, then from what I imagined was her point of view.  
 
Not too bad.  Darla had mentioned there'd be writing, and I had  no
problem with that.  That's what lawyers mostly do.  I'm  always
arguing something or other for someone or other.  I'm used  to
adopting other people's points of view and anticipating  their
arguments.  In the morning I'd write, and in the afternoon  we'd
discuss whatever I wrote, and she'd reveal to me maybe for the
first  time how she'd really felt during that intimate experience,
whatever I  thought she was feeling.  No harm in that.  She paused
and looked  at me, waiting for a response.
 
She was so charming, this newly assertive Darla, that I couldn't
really  object.  Remembering some one intimate moment with Darla
would be fun, a  little like writing pornography for her eyes only. 
So I kissed her on the  tip of her nose and told her I'd be happy to
do it, first thing tomorrow,  though I didn't see how it would take
up the whole weekend.  She didn't  respond.  So I took her hand and
started to lead her upstairs to  bed.
 
She immediately withdrew her hand from mine but then accompanied me
up  the stairs anyhow.  "This is one of the things we discussed
tonight,"  she said.  "From now on, if we go to bed together, it's
only because I  want it.  You don't lead me.  On Fridays there'll be
no sex,  because that would take the edge off your Saturday morning
assignments.   I want you to feel wanting on Saturdays, hard up,
especially anxious to  please me.  That way you'll concentrate
better on your  assignments.  Sundays too.  There may be sex of some
sort on some  weekends as a reward, or as part of the learning
experience.  And that's  what we'll call it, 'sex,' because that's
what it is.  You can love  someone but have sex with someone else,
they're different.  Love is how  we feel about each other, maybe,
and sex is what we do with each other.   Or don't do, except maybe
certain limited kinds I'll allow you.   Maybe."   
 
Bummer!  For maybe months?  Was that why last year Karen's  husband
Roger pulled out of our monthly poker game, and we hadn't seen  him
since?  Quit his job too, all in order dance attendance on Karen?  
He was that hard up?
 
"We should have Karen and Roger over," I said.  "And find out  how
they dealt with these assignments and things."
 
"Don't worry Nick, we will, but not soon!  After you've shaped up."  
Her tone was peculiar, partly agreeable and reassuring, yet also
partly  resolute, as if she were telling me there'd better be no
argument about  it.  I glanced at her, but her face looked composed
enough.
 
We undressed for bed, and as I changed into my pajamas she slipped
off  her skirt, blouse, and jacket and hung them away.  I'd seen her
do this  hundreds of times, thousands, but this time there was
something different in  the way it affected me!  In how she carried
her body?  A certain  poised ease, an unconcern with what I thought
of her?  I simply couldn't  look away.  As she reached into her
closet, her slip twisted into tight  folds across her figure, and
her ripe breasts thrust above her waist and the  melons of her tush 
curved down below.  She was still wearing the  stiletto heels she
always wore with that business suit, no doubt for height  and
authority.  Her instep still arched arrogantly, like a ballerina's.  
I held my breath and just watched.
 
She bent far forward and crossed her arms and pinched the hem of
her  slip with each hand, then lifted it high over her head.  Then
she paused  for a moment as if daydreaming.  I looked on in awe. 
Just stunning, my  wife, my sweet goddess!  There she was now,
almost naked, her creamy  white breasts spilling their abundance out
of her delicate lilac-lace bra,  her matching lilac lace panties and
satin garter-belt clasping and caressing  her sweet ass, those
globes I'd grasped so often when plunging myself into  her.  And
below were her long legs, tubes of sheer, shining black  nylon
tipped finally by those high, thin heels.
 
"Wow!" I said without thinking.  I don't think I'd ever seen  her
looking so provocative!
 
She glanced over and saw me staring worshipfully at her, my pajama
pants  now poked far out by an enormous boner, and she looked quite
pleased.   "That's how I want you, honey," was all she said.  She
sounded smug as  she reached down to detach her garters and unroll
those black nylon  encasements from her legs.  "And that's how it'll
be until you earn the  right to ease yourself."  She grinned at me
now.  "Oh, yes, I  forgot to mention, you're not to touch yourself
without my permission.   No masturbating from now on, not for the
rest of the course.  A horny  erection is a girl's best ally when a
man needs to change his ways.  Our  discussion leader told us to
think of a cock as a kind of dog leash a man  leaves hanging down
there for us to use.  'If it's hard,' she said, 'a  single jerk on
it brings him to heel, ready to sit up and beg.'"    She grinned.
"Abstinence will be good for you, sweetheart.  You'll  appreciate me
more."
 
"I appreciate you plenty now, Darla," I said devoutly.  
 
Still strangely spellbound by her new self-assurance, I was
entranced as  she reached behind her, elbows like small wings on
either side of her torso,  bent forward, and unhooked her bra, and
then I watched fascinated as her  heavy breasts swung free, their
nipples engorged.  My lips involuntarily  pursed and my cock began
to throb.  I wanted her so desperately at that  moment!  My lawyer's
mind reached for arguments.  "When I can't  make love to you, Darla
honey, aren't you unfairly deprived?  We're  equal partners in bed,
aren't we?"
 
"Oh, I've got no problems like yours, honey," she said, glancing
again  at that outcropping on my groin.  It lurched as she spoke. 
"And in  fact, we aren't equal.  I'm sure you've noticed how I
always take charge  when we're ... having sex?  That's my real
nature.  It's subdued  most of the time, so you won't feel
threatened.  But now it needs to  become dominant."  Now she was
altogether nude, and I could only  stare!  She was so luscious!
"I've felt apologetic about it I suppose  because I was raised to
believe that women should submit to men's  desires.  Well, from now
on I'll have sex when I want it, only then, and  how I want it, and
there'll be no apologies.  I will be  satisfied."  She paused. 
"I'll have it.  We'll have it when you  deserve it.  I do hope you
will."
 
She reached high up over her head again, and as her breasts rose up
I  caught my breath again.  A dainty nightgown fluttered down over
her  beautiful head and shoulders, its pink lacy edges cascading
over her breasts  to pause just past her neatly trimmed blonde bush. 
Her labia were really  swollen.  I guess she was really getting off
on this power trip of  hers.  
 
"With that prick of yours poking out the way it is, honey," she
said in  a kindly voice, "you'd better sleep on your back tonight. 
I don't want you  humping the mattress until you've turned in
several acceptable  assignments."
 
I tried again.  "Darla, we both suffer if I don't turn  in
acceptable assignments, don't we?" I said.  "This isn't fair,  to
you I mean, is it?" 
 
I was so overwrought from watching that naked ass tossing itself
under  the hem of her nightie that my prick nearly went ballistic. 
A wet spot  started where I throbbed against my pajamas.
 
"Oh, I can take care of myself," she replied.  "I learned tonight.  
It's our opening exercise each Friday, a kind of pledge of
allegiance to  ourselves.  We get pointers on how to improve our
techniques.  I  just use my pussy muscles.  Watch, no hands and no
man!"  
 
She stood still, facing me, areolas dark shadows behind those
enormous  jutting nipples.  I'd never realized her breasts were so
huge on that  body!  They held her nightie at least six inches away
from her body as  it descended in free fall from those outcropped
nipple tips down to her  crotch level.  I sat down on the bed. 
Maybe my stiff pole would recede  into my lap if I sat?  It didn't. 
Maybe it would be less  noticeable?  It wasn't.
 
Then Darla closed her eyes and began to sway her hips gently,
barely  rotating her pelvis into a restrained bump-and-grind.  The
movement was  too inconspicuous to be bawdy but too obvious to be
casual or any way  genteel.  A satisfied smile gradually spread
across her face as she  concentrated on her feelings.  A seductive
sensation seemed to be rising  out of her loins.  Her face grew
intent, then pained.  Her  undulations intensified.  Then suddenly
she cried out "Ahhh!   Ahhhhh!  Ahhhhhhhhh!  Ohhhhhhhhhhh!" and she
seemed to catch her  breath, and then sag, just slightly, as if
spent.  Then as she recovered  her breath and opened her eyes again,
she saw me watching her closely, my  face concerned.
 
"No, honey," she said, still breathing rapidly,  "It isn't as  good
as with you inside me."  She stopped for a second, then added,  
"No, I shouldn't say that any more -- it gives you a false sense  of
entitlement.  What I mean is, it isn't as good as when a  man's
stiff prick is inside me.  Like that one you've got.  Or  bigger." 
She smiled at how that sounded, and straightened her  shoulders,
then smiled again when she saw the consternation on my face.   But
she continued as if there were nothing wrong, "Or a really long,
thick  dildo, something solid I can clamp down on."  Then she added,
"No, not  as good, but it'll do!"  
 
I was still shocked, but she paid no attention.  Her thoughts  began
drifting.  "I'd always wondered about Beth," she mused, "a girl  I
knew in high school, not too bright, I'd always wondered what she
was  doing in Math class, wriggling slightly and moaning.  This,  I
guess.  It's wonderful, really!  No hands, and barely detectable.  
I can do it for myself any time, even during staff meetings!"  
 
She looked directly at me.  "But you're not to do anything for  your
self, nothing at all!  You need to be eager to please me any  time
for the next few months.  That pretty penis of yours is off  limits
to your hands unless I say otherwise!  And to the mattress.   And to
any doors or walls or cushions or knotholes or stray dogs in  heat
that may take your fancy when you get really hard up!   Understood?"
 
I looked down at that stiff rod in my lap,  still fully erect.   So
near and yet so far.  Would I want to cheat when she  wasn't
watching me?  Could she tell, somehow?  I nodded.  
 
"They told us that the men in our lives will cheat and can't  be
trusted.  So they gave us each one of these things to use on them.  
Bring that thing over here, would you please?"
 
I did eagerly, and stood expectant in front of her.  She  slipped
something that looked like an thick elastic sock over my hard  on,
and tightened a plastic clip at its base.
 
"There!  That's part of a chastity device.  They want us to  install
one now and leave it on until the course is done.  But I'll  use
only this liner part, and leave it on you only for tonight, and
I'll  cut it off you tomorrow morning.  Just so you'll know I can,
that I'm  serious.  I want voluntary compliance, self-discipline,
conformity from  within, nothing compelled.  If I don't get it we'll
both regret it,  Nick, because that moment, we're finished as a
couple.  This tells you  that you don't play with yourself, and you
don't cum, unless I say so.   Am I clear?"
 
"Yes," I said hastily.  Clear enough!  Then to take my mind off  my
imprisoned boner I asked Darla, "What's that plug for, on  this
device?"
 
"It's an electric connection for a controller, to shock your penis
if it  should get an erection.  I don't want that for you.  I like
the  idea that you're hard up."
 
I had nothing to say to that.  After I moment I asked her  dryly,
"What else did they teach you tonight, besides how to have  sex
without me and how to deprive me of sex without you?  I  thought
this was 'Assertive Empathy Training.'"
 
"Oh, it is!  It teaches us to assert ourselves against  oppressive
patriarchies!  That's you.  How to empower  ourselves.  How husbands
are the main obstacles to our own  self-realization.  That's why
this course is mostly how to re-train you  to understand and accept
the new me.  That's where the empathy comes  in.  It applies to all
the men in our lives.  I even told everyone  about my father."
 
"What about your father?  Isn't he beyond re-training now?"
 
A glance told me she didn't appreciate my irony.  "After Mom  died
he really spoiled me.  I was the one girl left in his life, and  I
learned quickly that I could get anything I wanted from him  by
continuing to play the little girl.  So I did.  The way I've  done
with you.  It's a kind of blackmail."
 
"Blackmail?  You mean you'd threaten a tantrum if you didn't  get
what you wanted?"
 
"No, I mean he'd blackmail me that way.  Emotionally.  The way  you
do.  By making me feel guilty if I declare what I want directly.  
By threatening to withhold affection if I stop playing your dear
little  girl, if I should move toward assuming my own proper
prerogatives."
 
We'd never used words like "threatening" or "prerogatives" with
each  other!  And I'd never done that!  I'd never  threatened
anything!  My Darla had fallen into the toils of Women's  Libbers! 
Maybe even man-hating lesbians?  I realized I'd better watch  my
step, or I really might lose her altogether, the way she  was
talking.  That thought was terrifying!  I loved her!  She  was my
darling, my life!  There'd be no disagreements!
 
So all I responded was, "So you yielded to your father's blackmail? 
He  always seemed mild and undemanding enough to me." 
 
"Oh, yes.  That's how he became after I learned how to deal  with
him directly.  The way I'll be dealing with you.  By  asserting
myself firmly, I pretty much got him willing to agree to  anything,
and I really tested him!"  She smiled to herself,  reminiscing.  "He
needed me way more than I needed him.  He got to  be dependent on
me.  I learned how to use that need to my own  advantage."  
 
She smiled at me and tossed her head, almost disdainfully,  it
seemed.  "We talked about it tonight.  Men feel fulfilled  when
they're submissive to women.  They deny it, and they bury it  under
all those macho attitudes and postures, but it's there.  Being  a
"gentleman" and serving women, helping them with their coats and
opening  doors and being of service to them, that's what they love. 
Their mothers  inculcate it, and they're hard-wired by evolution to
be that way, to protect  and serve all the girls and women in their
lives.  I finally learned to  do with my Dad what my Mom once did. 
Instead of wheedling and coaxing him, I  ordered him to do things. 
And I humiliated him when he didn't, the way Mom  did when she was
alive.  He was used to it.  He ended up grateful,  much happier,
when I let him wait on me hand and foot."  
 
She suddenly stopped and looked closely at me, to see if she'd said
too  much.  I'd heard, but I wasn't listening that carefully -- my
cock was  still throbbing inside its thick package.  
 
"Let's go to bed," she said finally.  "Just lie on your back.   You
can put one hand on my hip if you need to feel consoled, but just
this  one night."
 
I lay next to her.  At first she turned away from me and  wriggled
her hip into the mattress to get comfortable, then her  breathing
grew deep and regular.  I stared at the ceiling and at the  mound my
encased prick pushed up under the blanket, wishing this whole  thing
were over so we could get back to the way things were.  I put  my
hand gently on Darla's hip and realized that it was tensing,
rotating  ever so slightly again, and that her breathing was getting
more ragged.   Then she sighed "Ahhhhh!  Aaaahhhhhhhh!" a few times
and stretched  herself luxuriously, cat-like.  Then she fell asleep. 
 

My cock throbbed as I too fell asleep.  
 

First Week -- Saturday
 

In the morning when I woke up I was still rigid.   As I often  did
every Saturday when I got up first, I fixed Darla's breakfast  and
brought it to her in bed.  She opened her eyes and saw the  tray
straight away and then my cock underneath jutting toward her like
a  hot dog in a bun, and she looked amused.  I set the tray down,
and she  reached into a bedside drawer, took up a pair of manicure
scissors, snipped  off the plastic band, removed the chastity sock
and tossed it to one side,  and then said, "I think you'll remember
now."  As if I could  forget!
 
After breakfast I settled into my study and turned on the computer
and  decided that the intimate moment I would write about was the
first time we'd  made real love together -- had sex together, she'd
want me to say now -- just  about when we'd decided not to date
anyone else and to start going  steady.  That was the first time
we'd let desire sweep us past all the  preliminaries, all the
kissing and necking and fingering and making out, the  first time
we'd wrapped ourselves around each other naked and screwed  each
other silly.  I remembered that it was as wonderful for her as  it
was for me, the culmination of months of waiting, our first
complete  act of love and trust, the moment when our most urgent
desires were finally  realized.  It had yielded for her the same
glowing certainty I felt  afterward, that we were marvelously
compatible physically as well as all the  other ways, that we were
soulmates, meant for each other.  I'd never  felt as close to anyone
before then.  My first moment inside her was so  sweet, I could
still feel it!  She was so tight I could scarcely move  once I'd
inserted myself.  I'd lain on top of her and pushed and  thrust
myself into her and filled my mouth with her astonishing breasts.  
Then ....
 
I typed steadily for three hours while elsewhere in the house Darla
was  doing her Saturday morning stretch-Yoga and chatting cheerfully
on the  phone.  Then I printed out.
 
After lunch Darla asked me to clear away the dishes while she
carried  the pages into the living room and read them carefully,
saying nothing until  she'd finished the last page.  Then she set
them down and called me in,  motioned for me to come toward her, to
sit on the floor opposite her easy  chair -- usually my easy chair,
the seat of household authority, she'd taken  it over.  That was
odd, but I did it.  This was her game, after  all.  I later found
that was where she wanted me whenever I was waiting  for her to come
home from her Friday sessions and whenever we needed to  talk,
especially when I hadn't done well.
 
"What you remember may be what you actually felt," she began.   "But
it's clear you had no idea what I was feeling.  And you still  have
no idea."   
 
"No?"  I looked at her.  Here she was, perched in the chair  where
we'd made glorious love together as recently as three days ago.   
Darla looked so cute, and her face was so solemn!  But I tried  to
listen to her.  Then as my heart fell I couldn't help but  listen.
 
She laid it out in a quiet voice, gaining confidence as she spoke. 
My  essay was altogether lacking in empathy or understanding.  I  was
mistaken about how she felt about sex back then.  She'd done  it
with me only because I'd repeatedly insisted, because I'd always
turned  bitter every time she refused to give me that last full
measure of  devotion.  She wasn't a prude -- she'd once lived
briefly with an  earlier boyfriend -- but she'd known almost
immediately that with me it was a  different kind of relationship,
serious.  She'd really wanted to wait  until we were married and
belonged to each other.  It was old-fashioned  of her, but she
didn't want it to seem like one more casual fling, that was  how she
felt.  She'd yielded to me against her will, to some extent  again
and again ever since then.  She always felt somehow that though  she
belonged to me, I belonged to my desires, not to her.  That may  be
why even in the deepest throes of sex she always felt unsatisfied.  
That could be one reason why she always cried out for more no
matter how  strenuously I was cramming myself at her.  That's why
now she needed to  change our relationship.  
 
Then she told me that when I'd first pushed myself into her she
wasn't  ready, not quite in the mood, and I'd hurt her.  That when
she'd bitten  her lower lip that night it wasn't passion, as I'd
assumed in my smug pride,  it was to keep from crying out in pain. 
She'd asked me to lick her pussy  every time we had sex since then
not because she craved oral sex, not then,  but to be sure I'd never
enter her again when she wasn't already wet.
 
Moreover, there was something pressing, urgent about the way I  made
love, as if I was trying to prove something that I doubted  deep
down.  She'd wondered about it -- maybe I was proving to  myself
that I wasn't gay?  Maybe there was that side of me too, and in  all
honesty I should acknowledge it?  She'd noticed that any time  gay
sex came up as a topic, or she'd tell me about a gay couple we  both
knew, I seemed to block off in my mind any thought of what their
sex  might be like.  Was I afraid to consider such ideas?  She
enjoyed  sex with a man, so my inability to imagine it probably
closed me off utterly  from understanding how and why she enjoyed
it. 
 
Or was it that in my heart I simply doubted that I was man enough
for  her?  She'd decided yes, because it explained my overeager
lovemaking,  and she'd since devoted much effort to supporting my
sense of  sufficiency.  Yes, she knew about how my parents hadn't
been there to  build self-confidence in me when young, but it was
well past time I grew  up!  If I wasn't man enough for her, that was
not something to deny but  something to acknowledge and deal with.
 
She'd thought of calling off our engagement a few times before we
were  married, because I was so insensitive to her physical needs. 
She'd hint at  them, difficult as it was for her to speak of such
intimate matters, but I'd  never really listen.  She'd married me as
planned because she didn't  want to disappoint her girlfriends,
those who cared for her and knew how she  felt, especially her
would-be bridesmaids.  "He's just clueless, like  most guys, " one
had told her.  "Play the sweet goody goody, the way he  expects,
probably needs."  That's what she'd done, as with her father  while
growing up, and now she felt trapped in the role.  "You can  always
change him afterward, the way you changed your father," another  had
advised.  And that's what she was now doing.  Finally.
 
It didn't sound too good to me.  What did this mean?  While we  were
dating I'd noticed that her father most of the time was a wraith  in
shirtsleeves who watched TV or sat at the dinner table, said
little,  asked for nothing, and was never consulted.  I couldn't
connect him with  the hearty man in his wedding photo, arm wrapped
around a smiling bride, a  self-confident former all star athlete. 
Once, when we'd wanted the sitting  room to ourselves, Darla had
told him it was his bed-time, and without a word  he'd gone
upstairs.  I'd wondered then if like many daughters, Darla  would
expect her husband to be like her father.  But it didn't seem  so,
nor did it worry me.  I knew I'd never end up like him.  Too  much
pride, I'd never allow it.
 
Though not when she told me all these things.  I felt crushed.  
Humiliated.  Somehow found out.  I apologized.  I told her I  wished
I'd known how she really felt.  That I was a brute,  self-centered
and conceited.  I told her that I really did love her,  with all my
heart.  That I wanted to make a new beginning.
 
She said she knew that.  She told me that not *whether* I loved  her
but *how* I loved her was the issue.  She was willing to  begin
again.  But it would have to be her way this time.  It was  not
going to be easy for me.
 
Then she then set the first condition for our ongoing relationship,
that  for now it was only a relationship, not a marriage, not an
institution to  reinforce my patriarchal domination of her.  All
bets and assumptions  were off.  We were living together on her
sufferance.
 
The second was that on weekends she was in sole charge.  We  were
not equal partners, as I'd imagined while I was lording it  over
her.  We weren't partners at all.  To stay reminded of this,  on
weekends I would no longer call her "Darla" nor any of the many  pet
names I had for her, but "Miss Darla" or "ma'am," which she told  me
was the only respectful way a man like me should address the woman
of  the house.  She didn't want me feeling too familiar or intimate
or  casually comfortable in her presence.  Especially if I needed
correcting  or chastising.  
 
"Darla," I objected....
 
She glared at me.  Then said emphatically, "I think we'll  extend
that requirement.  You'll speak properly to me even on weekdays,  so
you won't ever forget the courtesy you owe me.  You can call  me
'Darla' or any endearment you choose when there are others present. 
I  may not answer to that name, but you can use it.  Otherwise I am
'ma'am'  or 'Miss Darla' to you from now on.  I am reclaiming my
status as a  single woman.  We are not married.  You no longer have
claims on me  as a husband!"
 
I was appalled!  Was she dissolving six years of happy --  I'd
thought they were happy -- married intimacy, just by adding a
single  syllable to her name?  Apparently so.  All I could do  was
stare!
 
"Now rewrite this three hours of male crowing.  This time from  my
point of view as I've explained it.  I want to see how close  you
can come to thinking what I think, feeling what I feel.   Put
yourself in my place and tell the story again."  She handed me  the
sheaf of papers and I took it.  
 
Later that afternoon I gave her a new account in which I imagined
myself  in Darla's situation, even in her body.  How she felt when
my own body  approached hers and consummated our relationship. 
Scared and annoyed and  also maybe trapped by her need to indulge
me.  Despite everything turned  on by the sex despite how she felt
about me, really craving it, I couldn't  leave that out.  And
dissatisfied there too.  Darla read the new  essay expressionlessly,
glanced once at me, and said nothing.  I suppose  that was
something, anyhow.
 
I was even less happy that night when 'Miss Darla' moved me out of
our  bedroom into the guest bedroom.  I objected, but she simply
said, "Did I  say I wanted a new beginning, Nicholas, or did you say
it?  Of course if  you want it to end right here...."   
 
I hurriedly assured her I didn't, and she seemed to relent for  a
moment.  She walked with me from our bed to the doorway of  our
bedroom, ours no longer, and as I stepped out into the hall I
couldn't  help it, I turned back to look for a moment at that room,
that bed we'd  shared for six years, mine too until just a few
minutes ago.  I was near  tears.
 
She saw, and the old Darla almost came to the surface.  She  placed
a hand on my cheek.  "Poor baby," she said sympathetically.   "I
know.  We have a long way to go, but it'll be better for us in  the
end.  For both of us.  You'll see."
 
Then she stepped back and said, "Remember to sleep on your back and
to  keep your hands where they belong."  And she closed the door in
my  face.  
 

First Week -- Sunday
 

The next morning she told me to write down how I'd felt about  my
first night alone, and how I thought she felt.  I wrote that I  was
lonely and missed her terribly, and that she probably felt
luxuriously  free of my condescending attitudes toward her and
regretful that she had to  do it, and I brought it to her.  She
looked up once while reading and  said, "No, pitying, not
regretful."  Then handing it back she said, "I  especially want you
to write down any rebellious thoughts you may have during  this
process.  If you don't and I find you've had any, that's the  moment
you move out of the house, or I do."  She then told me to empty  my
things from the closet and bureau in her bedroom and bring them
into my  new bedroom.  She needed the space and the privacy.  She
didn't  ever want me in there uninvited.  I did.  What else could  I
do?   
 
That afternoon Darla changed from jeans into a dress and went  out
without saying a word to me about where she was going or when she'd
be  back.  This had never happened before, and I was a  little
concerned.  She feels no way accountable to me for her  movements
any more, I supposed.  My mind wandered into worst  cases.  What if
she got into an accident?  Or was abducted?  
 
Worse still, what if she'd gone out to meet a man?  Someone else?  
My imagination took hold.  What if it was one of those young guys
in  her office who are always trying their luck with any of the
attractive women  they run into?  What would I do if she were to
leave the house some  afternoon looking cool and well-dressed, like
now, and not return until early  the next morning looking flushed
and mussed?  What could I do?   Give up trying to preserve our
marriage?  Our former marriage?   Could I still care for such a
sexually liberated Darla?   Could I  share her?  Would I want to? 
Would I have to leave her if she took up  with other men?  Or seemed
to take up with them?  What if it turned  out that despite
suspicious-looking behavior on her part, what she had  actually done
was irreproachable?  What if it turned out that my fears  and
reproaches were irrelevant?  Were we still married as far  as
fidelity went?  Did I own her? 
 
These questions were so distressing I had to push them aside. 
Darla  returned a few hours later looking flushed and mussed, her
arms filled with  groceries I'd noticed we needed, commenting on
extraordinary crowds and long  lines at the supermarket.  She seemed
casual enough.  But why had  she changed to a dress to go grocery
shopping?  Was that amusement I saw  in her eyes when she saw the
worry in mine?   Did she change only  in order to worry me?
 
When the groceries were put away she came into the living room  and
unexpectedly leaned over and turned off the game I was watching  on
TV.  I looked up at her, wondering if she was angry at me,  or
vindictive, or playful, or what?  She looked back down at me,  and
then smiled, and slowly, with both hands, she hiked up her skirt. 
I  saw she wasn't wearing panties.  There was her beautiful bush,
fully  exposed.  Looking straight down at me the whole time, she
backed over to  her easy chair and sat down and leaned back and then
spread her legs wide  apart.
 
"C'mere baby," she said.  "Come put your head in my lap!"
 
I knelt in front of her and looked for her lap.  There was  none,
only her two thighs spread wide apart.  I understood.
 
So I dove into her, and only seconds later I was licking her
delicate  pussy lips while her writhing wiped its liquor all over my
face.  Her  arms braced across the back of the couch, her breasts
were thrust forward,  and her hips twisting obscenely to spread it
all over my nose and mouth and  chin.  After a week of no fucking,
she was incredibly juicy.  She  came almost at once, and immediately
started building toward a second  climax.  She called out "Oh?  Ah? 
Ah!  Ahhhhh!"as if they  were questions and affirmations in rising
crescendo as my tongue flicked her  clit, her cries panting closer
and closer together.  Then came a  piercing scream, unforgettable,
often her ultimate orgasmic declaration, a  long-drawn out cry that
was actually a little frightening.  Her legs  clamped down hard on
my head and pulled my face tight into her cunt.  I  could feel all
that slick, wet membrane fluttering, pulsing, squeezing  slippery
juices into my nose and eyes and mouth, and only as the  throbbing
waned did her legs relax and allow me to draw a deep breath!  
 
I seized her around the waist and began to haul myself up onto  her,
ready now at last to sink my neglected and aggrieved, iron-hard
cock  deep into that soaked pit, one hand fumbling to maneuver it
out though my fly  -- never mind trying to get my pants down.  "NO!"
she said, still  gasping to catch her breath.  "No, Nick, stay on
your knees!  This  is for MY pleasure!  Your pleasure is in giving
me pleasure!"  
 
I was astonished and appalled!  "Darla!" I began to plead.   "Miss
Darla!"  I remembered to add quickly.
 
"That's better!" she said.  "Now take your hand away from  that
thing down there!  That's it!  I know your poor balls are  aching,
and I do feel sorry for them, but there will be no relief for  them
this week!    
 
She pushed me back down with both arms and then continued, her
voice  kindly, "We'll have just one kind of sex at a time!  No more
trying for  everything and not getting enough of anything!  Your
face felt very good  in there, what you just did.  So do it again!"
 
So I sank back down.  She lolled back, this time at her ease,  and
again I sank to my knees and planted my nose where it could nuzzle
her  clit, and pushed my tongue into that drenched cavern just
below.  It  took a long time before she resumed rotating and pushing
her crotch into my  face while I slurped and lapped and sucked and
gasped and smooched her.   Finally she came again with a loud,
languorous, full-bodied sigh, her thighs  again wrapped tight around
my neck.  Then she relaxed again.
 
This time I felt defeated.  My neck and my jaw ached, and I'm  sure
I looked a little mournful when I looked up at her to see if she
was  through for now.  She had her eyes closed while she again
recovered her  breath.
 
When she opened them, she said, "Aw, you poor dear!  Don't look  so
sad, Nick!  You have every reason to feel proud.  You did well.  
That was very good!  I should rent you out, you're so good at this!  
Now just sit back while I go clean myself up,  Or better, why  don't
you see if you can fix us something nice for dinner.  Oh yes,  don't
wipe your face.  I want to see it looking nice and shiny like  that
for a while longer, to remind me where it's been.  And I want  you
to enjoy the aroma.  To get used to it, so you'll miss it when  it
isn't there.  Your face between my legs should come eventually  feel
like where you belong.  Like home."
 
I did as she requested.  I laid out a light Sunday supper with  my
face and hair still soaked and sticky, and as we ate she now and
then  looked across at me with a little girl's delight.  She  felt
playful.  "I bet you're wondering why I put on a dress just to  go
the supermarket, and just when it was that I took off my panties.  
Aren't you?"
 
I just looked uneasy, the way I felt, and said nothing.
 
"Did you think I tasted the same as I always do?"
 
She was teasing me.  I'd wondered.  As my tongue had dipped  into
the slick liquids coating her cunt, and my lips sucked them,  I'd
brought intense, rapt concentration to that first moment of
contact,  its viscosity and flavor, seeking familiarity, dreading an
encounter with  something strange.  Dreading the moment when it
would already be too  late, another man's cum was now already in my
mouth, rolling across my  tongue, telling me that I was a cuckold
for certain and an involuntary  cocksucker at one remove.  The
moment when undeniable evidence was  coating my mouth and despite
myself I was savoring its flavor and its  feel.  When my mouth would
fill with the sperm another man had left  inside my wife when he
made her his own, and my choices were reduced to two:  swallow or
spit.  She knew I'd been excruciatingly uncertain as my  tongue had
reached toward her vulva.  
 
But I'd immediately determined with no doubt whatever that she
tasted  the same as always.  That familiar musky, faintly fishy,
flowery Darla  taste.  There was no difference.  She knew that too. 
 

Then why was she teasing me?  Because she was telling me she  might
not always taste the same?  That the man she lived with might  one
day taste ... another man's sperm?  She was making it clear, if  she
wanted to fuck others, she would, and she wouldn't hesitate to have
me  lick them out of her afterward.  It would give her satisfaction
to know  that's what I was doing, whether I knew it or not.
 
Had I already have done so some time in the past?  Was I  absolutely
sure I hadn't?  I hadn't really paid attention to her flavors  --
her pussy musk always overwhelmed my ability to discriminate.   Now
I'd have to become a connoisseur.
 
"You feel happy whenever I'm happy, whatever the reasons, don't  you
Nick?  You're happy simply because I'm happy.  So you want me  to be
happy, however.  Isn't that true?  Isn't that's what love  is."
 
I was right.  She was preparing me for ... for what?  For the  day
she comes home sexually satisfied by someone else, singing about
her  new-found happiness?  But it was true.  That's what love is. 
"Yes  ma'am," I said.
 
"Well, this has been a very productive first session.  I'm  pleased,
so you can be too.  If you want you may wipe that delicious  gravy
off your face now, but then suck on the napkin.  Always  remember
that my pleasure is precious, and remember to enjoy pleasing me.  
Then you'll feel privileged when I allow you to go down on me."  
 
She watched me wipe my cheeks and chin and then nibble the  napkin,
savoring her new found power and my willingness to bow before it.  
She smiled encouragingly, and I smiled back my gratitude.  I guess
I  did feel less depressed, just looking at her.  I did feel pleased
that  my darling Darla was so pleased with me.  My Miss Darla, I
mean.
 
And that was only the first weekend. 
 

Second Week -- Monday
 

Driving to my office early on Monday, I remembered how my  secretary
Michelle had refused to get me the case files to take home, and  I
wondered how to reprimand her even though, as it turned out, she'd
been  right -- I'd have had no time to read them.  Then when I
arrived at the  office there they were on my desk, each key entry
already tagged and indexed  for fast reference -- I scarcely needed
to review them at all.  Then all  day Michelle excelled at
everything -- she was all diligent efficiency and  smiles, and
seemed to do whatever I asked with a faint indulgent  affection.  My
but she must have made out well over the weekend with  that
Associate, I was thinking to myself.  Good loving does that.   Good
sex, I mean.   
 
So I let it pass.  I had enough to cope with as it was, what  with
no sex for days and days now, and no prospect of it for who knows
how  long, and my wife turning loose, persuaded she was no longer my
wife.  I  was painfully horny, and my cock rose and fell whenever
any secretary within  sight stretched her arms and pushed her chest
out and yawned before returning  to her typing.  But there was
nothing I could do about it.  Not  without breaking my word to
Darla, and that I didn't dare!  I loved  Darla and I cared about our
marriage, and I'd go some distance to preserve it  through this
strange, distracted time of her life.  And of mine.
 

Second Week -- Friday
 

Work all week was incredibly crushed, and Accounting demanded  my
hourly logs and billings for their monthly summaries.  I took  the
figures home to work on in whatever time I could find.  That  Friday
when Darla came back from her class she told me where she  expected
to find me thereafter, sitting on the floor by her big easy  chair
doing nothing but waiting, anticipating her return.  Then  she
assigned me an easy essay on my sometimes coming home late for
dinner,  how I felt about it and how I imagined she felt.  
 
Later that evening she looked into my study to see how the essay
was  coming on, and saw that my computer screen was filled not with
confessions of  thoughtlessness and poor judgment but with a
spreadsheet of hourly office  consultations.  I was entering figures
as rapidly as I could calculate  them, getting work out of the way
before getting to the chore she'd set  me.  
 
"WHAT'S THAT?!" she said.
 
I told her.
 
For a moment she said nothing.  She was furious,, and I tried  to
placate her.  "Darla honey," I began....  And realized my  mistake.
 
She raised her arm as if to slap my head off, glaring.  Then  she
caught herself, and simply stood with her palm open and held  high
behind her head, like a priestess invoking a higher Deity.  
 
"MY BEDROOM, NOW!  ON YOUR KNEES NEAR THE DOOR!" she bellowed.   And
left.
 
I stood up and followed her, entered after her, and dropped to my
knees  by the door.  Without a word she lay down on the bed on her
back and  spread her knees and began to finger-fuck herself.  Her
deep breathing  changed from furious to aroused, and she turned
away, opened a bedside  drawer, and pulled out ... could I believe
it? ... the most monstrous dong I  have ever seen!  Maybe a foot
long?  Nearly as thick as my  wrist!  Flesh-colored, with veins
along the underside and a huge purple  cock head.  God!  Then
another one more reasonable in size, only a  little larger than my
cock.  Dildoes?  Of course!  But where  did my innocent Darla get
them, and when?  She took out a tube of  lubricant, already
half-squeezed-out I was dismayed to notice, and she  dropped the
smaller dildo back into the drawer, then turned and positioned  her
cunt again, holding the monster in one hand.
 
"Just watch," she said, her eyes hooded.  
 
Amazed and desperate, I couldn't not.  I just knelt there,  mouth
gaping, staring from Darla to the closed drawer and back, unable  to
move!
 
She actually smiled!  "I see you're impressed by my friends here.  
Good.  Apparently you don't understand yet that I don't need  you,
not even for sex.  These are bigger and better than you.   And
unlike you when we first had sex they neither of them ever  force
themselves on me until I'm ready for them.  Of course this  one
needs to force his way into me even when I'm eager and spread  wide
open and dripping, but I must say I do love how a really  impressive
cock stretches you open and yet crams you shut at the same time.  
The other one, that little one, big if we measure it against your
thing,  well, he's special too.  He vibrates, and that can drive me
wild.   Some day if you're really good, I'll let you push one of
these into me and  then allow you to watch it work me over, so you
can learn something.  Or  maybe you'll want to try one out on
yourself.  Maybe I'll ask you to try  one on yourself or else."
 
I tried to plead with her, "Miss Darla!"  But all that came out  was
an incoherent whine.
 
So I watched in silence as she lubricated the massive dildo and
pressed  it against her opening.  At first it wouldn't move, and she
stretched  her legs utterly wife apart.  And groaned in frustration. 
But she  persisted, and slowly her labia opened and it opened them
wider, and finally  she plunged just its huge head into herself and
left it there, breathing  heavily as if preparing herself for an
ordeal.  Then she forced more in,  and pulled it out, and then began
to masturbate.  In and out, her groans  becoming little high pitched
shrieks now and then, faster and faster, until  there was a
crescendo of gasps, each higher than the previous, then a  sudden
silence, then that scream!
 
"AAAAAAaaaYEEEEeeeeeeee!" she called out.  I sat there on my  knees
watching as she came down from that agonized ecstasy, from a  place
my cock had never been with her.  Still breathing hard, she  pulled
the dildo out of herself with some difficulty, and then  glanced
over to me.  My eyes gave testimony.  I had been cuckolded  by a
dildo.
 
"See?" she said.  "I don't need you.  If you need me, you keep  your
promises.  Your weekends are mine.  The next time you violate  your
word to me will be the last time.  I'll throw you out of this  house
for good.  We'll let divorce lawyers settle any leftovers from  our
former relationship."  
 
I was still on my knees.  Who was this woman?  Did I really  want
her?  Preserve your options until you must decide, goes the  old
maxim.  "Please, Miss Darla," I said, not daring to look up at  her
face.  "I do want whatever you want.  Please be patient.   Teach me
how."
 
This seemed to interest her.  There was a long silence.  Then  she
spoke in a calm voice, "My cunt is a little raw.  Soothe it.   Lick
me clean.  No slobber.  Neatly."
 
That seemed easy enough.  I came forward on my knees and did  what
she asked.  At first I didn't dare touch her precious labia  with
any part of me but my tongue, but my nose now and then touched  her
clitoris, and her breathing turned ragged.  That dong had  spread
her own creamy secretions onto her thighs, and I worked my  way
slowly across them as well as her slit.  Was I cleaning her  mess
after another man?  I dismissed that idea as ridiculous.   But
wasn't I, in a way?  To drown out that notion I began to tongue  her
clit as if it alone was the source of all the musky aroma arising
from  her crotch.  I dedicated myself to it.  I felt transported as
I  licked and sucked and lipped that little knob.  This was what my
life  was for!  My chin pushed into her pussy. 
 
"Ohhhhh!" she breathed quietly.  Then "AAAAAHHH!"  Suddenly  she
clamped my head between her thighs and I couldn't move or breathe. 
As  if from a distance I heard "AAAAAAAAHHH!" in a high-pitched
outcry.  But  with my ears covered by the thick meat of her thighs,
I couldn't be  sure.  I needed air, badly, but I couldn't shake free
of her.  So I  tried to hold still, no help.  Nose and mouth
blocked.  No  air.  I really couldn't breathe!  Couldn't move!  I
thrashed  my arms helplessly, and as an inner dark closed over the
outer dark I  couldn't even sob out a desperate farewell to life. 
I had no breath  left.
 
Suddenly there was air and light again.  She'd released my head  and
I was lying on the floor gasping frantically, heart pounding,  still
frightened.  She looked back down at me triumphantly!
 
"Just remember, honey," she said quietly.  "Your purpose in  life
from every Friday evening until every Monday morning is to do what
I  say, to understand me, to feel what I feel, to take correction,
to please me,  and incidentally, to try to save your marriage by
persuading me that it's  worth saving.  Now leave me and go to your
room.  You've used my  time for business purposes, so I mean to use
your business time for my  purposes some time next week.  I intend
to call you at the office, and  when I do you'd better come home
without delay.  Or not at all ever  again.  Understood?"
 
It was.  But what I lingered on was, she'd called me 'honey.'   She
still felt affection for me.  I nearly cried.
 

Second Week -- Saturday and Sunday
 

The rest of that weekend I spent most of my time at the  computer
writing confessions and  dramatizing what I could imagine were  her
feelings about staying married to me.  Gradually I realized  that
for years, I hadn't had a clue.  She'd been serving me hand  and
foot devotedly as my little angel in order to strengthen me into
the  man she wanted to live with, someone who, like her father,
would answer to  her every whim.  But I was becoming only a hollow,
self-satisfied shell  of a man, and she'd become increasingly
uncertain she wanted me that  way.  Or at all.  I lacked an inner
authority she could respect,  resist, or wheedle.  But there were
other possibilities we could explore  -- whole realms of
companionability. I might have undeveloped talents.   This could
become a treasure hunt -- could I find it in myself to become  what
she wanted, and if I did, would she still want it?  Neither of  us
knew.
 
I brought each essay or story to her as I finished the assignment. 
She  sat in her easy chair and read it and commented on it,
correcting my  misconceptions, sharing her true feelings whenever I
seemed to come close to  understanding them. Yes, after we were
married and had quarreled she'd called  a former boyfriend, and had
indeed allowed him a little further leeway with  her body than she'd
intended, to punish me, but she'd remained chaste.   Yes, she wished
she weighed less, because she liked being admired by men as  they
passed by, she was titillated by their attention in fact, and  yes
guys did hit on her in her office despite the fact that they knew
she  was married, and that boosted her self-confidence -- she did
sometimes  fantasize going out with them.  No, she wasn't going to
tell me if she  ever had -- let me sweat.  Yes, she did love me, but
with as much  compassion as love, there was something soft and sweet
and serviceable in me  she couldn't yet define and I couldn't
acknowledge.  But when I got  officious with her I seemed only to be
an investment she wasn't yet quite  prepared to divest.  
 
The easy chair gradually became her throne, and I became  her
subject.  By Sunday morning I was accustomed to it, waiting for  her
judgment on my knees, my body between her spread knees, my face
bowed  low, listening.  When she praised me, my reward was always
that she  allowed me to dip forward and lick her pussy.  Usually
once only, but  twice during the weekend she let me lick her all the
way to orgasm!  
 
Sunday afternoon she dropped a pillow on the floor for me to kneel
on,  and I chastely nuzzled her bush in gratitude.  I think her
gesture meant  she now thought better of me now, that she meant to
encourage me by showing  her appreciation.  Maybe not, but that was
how I felt.  She asked  me how I felt, and I told her.  She replied
that she'd done it so I'd  feel altogether comfortable kneeling
where I was, doing what I was doing,  doing her bidding, so I'd feel
I'd rather be where I was than anywhere else  in the world.  And she
patted me on the head.  "Nice Nickie," she  said.
 

Third Week -- Wednesday
 

The next Wednesday Michelle broke into a meeting to tell me that  my
wife had an urgent message for me.  When I got to the phone,  the
line was dead.  I raced for my car, got home in almost half  the
time it usually takes, and found Darla sunning herself by the pool.  
She glanced at her watch, looked at me enigmatically, and  turned
away.  I went back to salvage what I could of the conference  I'd
fled, but a key participant had already flown back to the coast. 
That  night at dinner Darla told me that she'd taken the afternoon
off from work in  order to amuse herself, her amusement being to see
how quickly I could get  home.  She asked me if my sudden flight had
cost the firm  anything.
 
"Delay reaching a settlement totalling a very large fee, some of  it
maybe lost, yes," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact,  not
reproachful.  "Also a certain amount of client good will.  Also  the
Senior Partners were not happy with me, and it will show in my
annual  bonus.  I did manage to recover most of their good will by
kissing a lot  of ass.  But I can't do that again, Darla!  Don't ask
me to,  please."
 
She was silent.
 
"Please, Miss Darla," I corrected myself.
 
"Then don't make it necessary.  You now know what my weekend  time
is worth, what it can cost in money and good will if you ever  again
ignore my instructions."  She paused.  "You're to prefer me  to your
work.  Or perhaps your work is too important to allow us  to
continue married?"
 
I assured her it was not.  She stood, turned her back, and told  me
that since I'd been kissing ass at the office, I should lift her
skirt  and kiss hers here.  I did, and then when she bent well
forward and  braced herself on her arms, I kissed her slit and
buried my nose in her  ass.  I was brown-nosing her!  Twenty minutes
later, both of us  still breathing heavily, she'd forgiven me. 
 
Our weekday evenings became subdued versions of the weekends.  Darla
remained sexually unapproachable except occasionally by my  face
between her legs, but I knew from squeals and grunts in her room
that  her two dildoes were enjoying her body.  The few times I
forgot that she  was "Miss Darla" and called her "Darla" or "honey"
she stiffened, her face an  impassive mask until I corrected myself. 
The final time, she responded by  asking me to fetch her that
monster dildo from upstairs.  I did, and  handed it to her while she
looked straight up at me and as earlier, told me  to kneel and watch
as she frigged herself.  It was now moving in and out  of her much
more easily -- her pussy had enlarged to fit the dildo  comfortably. 
It was that dildo's pussy, no longer mine.  I wasn't even  a
visitor.  
 
Then she handed the monster to me still shining and dripping, and
told  me to lick it clean.  "The next time you forget," she said,
"You'll be  the one who's fucked by my friend here, and you'll lick
yourself off it  afterward!"  I got the point.  I tried not to think
about what I  was doing as I tongued her juices off that huge rubber
prick, but I couldn't  help noticing the network of thick veins
running up the underside, and at one  point I found I was holding
the whole head between my lips and resisting a  temptation to suck
on it.
 
Each morning I awoke with the stiffest of conceiveable boners, and
now  that I couldn't relieve them they had nowhere to go.  Darla
noticed my  chronic bulge and teased me with quick quips as she left
the house for work  -- "Aim high, whatever you do!" she'd say. 
"Keep it up!"   But  otherwise she paid no attention.  
 
I wondered what was going on in those classes of hers that had
changed  my sweet doll into this cool dominatrix who was now
changing me into her  worshipful sex slave.  Darla beamed when I
asked her, saying, "I've got  you off balance?  Good!  Then we're
both learning.  But don't  worry.  Not every woman divorces her
husband when she completes this  course.  Some husbands shape up
quite well."  
 
I determined to be one of them.  If I'd been married to a  living
doll who helped me feel strong and protective even when  I
unwittingly abused her patriarchywise, that doll no longer existed. 
But  there was a certain excitement in this new relationship.  Darla
was more  pleased with me than ever when I did well, and more aloof
when I merely  performed her bidding.  I tried harder to please her. 
Mostly during the  week our relationship stayed the same, friendly
and affectionate, though she  was always Miss Darla when we were
alone, and I never forgot to stop by our  former bedroom each night
to ask if she'd like me to lick her cunt.  
 
She'd allow it sometimes.  In fact the next night, when her  voice
was hoarse from shrieking through long sequences of  ululating
orgasms, I felt so good about how well I'd satisfied her that  I
seized her hand and kissed it profusely, over and over.  She  was
touched.  "That's lovely.  But kisses that devoted should be on  my
ass, not the backs of my hands," she said as she finally withdrew
it. 
 

Third Week -- Friday
 

Friday I stayed late clearing away work and stopping in at the  TGIF
office bash, and when I got home Darla had already gone to  her
meeting.  My dinner was a slice of pizza from last week I found  in
the freezer, eaten alone.  I missed her.  I decided I'd try to  get
home earlier in the future, whenever I could, and prepare dinner
for  both of us as she'd done in the past.  That seemed only fair. 
Then,  sitting on the floor before her empty easy chair, I waited
for her return  from class.
 
When she got home she seemed preoccupied, the way an  impassive
administrator reviews recent decisions to see that nothing has  been
overlooked.  I asked her how it went, and after a moment she  looked
up at me.  "I had to decide how I want you to end up," she said.  
"So I could work out our training strategies."
 
"Well, I'm glad you still want me, whichever end of me ends up,"  I
said.  
 
She looked at me without changing her expression -- my attempt at
a joke  was inappropriate.  The pizza was still sitting in my
stomach, and I  began to feel sorry for myself again.
 
"Oh yes," she replied, suddenly flashing me a brief smile. 
"Different  women want their men to be different in different ways
when the course  ends.  Deciding what I want you to be was the
problem.  Then how to  get you there.  I think I've worked it out,
though.  You may even  like it, eventually.  It won't be as
difficult for you as for some of  the other husbands.  Some of the
wives are really mean.  They want  to strip their men of everything
and change them into something no one wants,  then dump them.  But
you'll be more like Roger, I think.  Karen's  very pleased with him. 
Of course nothing that extreme."
 
I tried to feel grateful, but a certain wariness persisted.  "Do  I
get to know soon what I'll  be?"

"Not until you get there," she said abruptly.  "That's how  it
works.  More what I want, you can be sure of that.  Here's  your
first assignment for this weekend.  Think about it tonight and  get
to it tomorrow first thing.  Good night!"  She handed me a  sheet of
paper, turned, went into her room, and closed the door.  
 
It looked simple enough.  She wanted me to tell her how I'd  felt
when "Darla" became "Miss Darla," and how I imagined she felt  when
she insisted on it.  
 
I heard voices upstairs as I thought through the assignment and
took  notes, or anyhow a voice.  Darla on the phone.  When I passed
her  bedroom a few hours later, I heard squealing.  I was about to
knock to  ask if she was all right when the squealing became her
voice in an audible  plaintive plea, "Oh, yes, again!  Deeper!,  Oh,
yes!   Please!"  Was she in there with someone?  Impossible!  Was  it
another intimation of infidelity intended to mess my mind?  In  her
passionate throes, she'd never begged me to satisfy her, she'd
always  ordered it and then apologized afterward.  Was she now
pleading with  some fantasy man while bringing herself off with her
pussy muscles,  performing that pledge of her allegiance to female
independence she'd  demonstrated to me?  Or was she fucking those
dildoes?  
 
Who could she be with now in her imagination?  The new me she  wants
to bring into existence, a new husband more concerned with  her
satisfaction than his own, one more understanding and sensitive to
her  needs?  Mr. Right?  Maybe.  I went to bed with that  cheering
thought, determined to try to be such a man.  
 

Third Week -- Saturday
 

The next morning I wrote steadily, unburdening my heart.  This  time
there were no disasters when she read my essay.  Where I wrote  that
I was afraid of her, she was now unpredictable, she half-closed  her
eyes and smiled.  Where I wrote that I feared for our marriage,  she
corrected me.  "You fear for our 'relationship,' remember?   Our
marriage depends on you becoming what I want, now that I know what
I  want and how to get it."  Where I wrote that I was resentful,  she
commented, "That's honest.  But you're also finding it  satisfying,
aren't you, when submit to my requests?  My instructions, I  mean?" 
 

I had to agree.  I told her I felt grateful when she gave me  tasks
that might help preserve our relationship, pleased that she  trusted
my willingness to do them, and if she told me I'd done them well  I
felt ... well, happy.  
 
I also wrote that her newly assertive personality had made her seem
more  desirable, exotic, and exciting, and that was how I now found
her.  I  decided to flatter her, appeal to her feminine vanity, so
I pulled out the  stops.  I wrote that as 'Miss Darla' I now found
her mysterious,  inexplicable, mercurial, beyond understanding. 
Woman is always an ineffable  mystery to Man, I added.  I laid it on
fairly thick, more of same,  thinking she'd be pleased.  
 
She read it all that without comment.  Overall, some parts of  the
essay were far from satisfactory, she told me finally, but none
were  outright unsatisfactory and some were commendable.  I took
that as a  compliment.  "But your end section is problematic," she
said.  Then  sat still a moment.
 
Suddenly she stood up, straightened her frame, pulled her  shoulders
back, lifted those marvelous full breasts, and gave her hips  a
quick flirty twist.  Still on my knees in front of her, I  looked
straight up.  She was a tower.  I could see her face, almost  hidden
between her jutting boobs, as she looked back down at me.  I  felt
awe.  
 
"Yes" she said, looking down at me.  "You do deserve a reward  in
kind.  See me in my bedroom in ten minutes."  She turned  and
without another word disappeared in that direction.  
 
I sat there worried, but also confident.  She really was  enjoying
this new assertiveness of hers, and it was gratifying that she  was
getting to feel as hard up as I was!  I wanted her to be happy,  and
I was confident I could make her happy.  So I was feeling  pretty
good when I followed her into her bedroom.  Maybe the time had  come
to resume climbing all over each other?
 
She hadn't changed her dress, though she'd obviously taken off  her
panties and her stockings -- if she'd been wearing any stockings. 
She  was lying on her back on a pile of pillows she'd heaped on the
edge of the  bed, her groin exalted, her butt high up, her legs
spread so far apart that  her pink vulva was wide open to view, as
if it were the center of her world,  or mine.  It was weeping in
anticipation. I hoped that was why. 
 
I brightened immediately and headed toward her, at last undoing my
belt  and my pants and my zipper as I came forward.  After my long
abstinence  I was horny as a goat in heat.  As I approached the bed
I wondered  whether to take a chance and push my turgid meat into
her with no  preliminaries, despite what I'd learned about the last
time I'd done  that.
 
"STOP!"
 
I was bewildered.  This was not the tone of a woman about to  get
laid, but more like a traffic cop!  I stopped.
 
"Nicholas, on your knees, NOW!"
 
I fell to my knees next to the bed.  Now her pussy was not a  foot
from my nose, spread wide open, just above the closed bud of  her
anus.  I could see its swollen, parted outer lips and her  delicate
pink inner lips, even the hood half-concealing, half-revealing  her
clit.  I was desperate to plunge into it, but I didn't dare  move.
 
"WHAT did you learn only LAST WEEK?"
 
My sweetie was being bold, firm.  I had to be patient with her.  
"To respect your feelings, not my own.  To do what you wish.  To  be
gentle always," I replied, my eyes devouring her cunt.  I'd  never
seen it so clearly this close up!  It was wet, glistening!   I'd
never before looked at it this close!  My eyes had always  been
closed or unfocussed when I lunged my face into it, and my cock  had
never paused to take in the view before it too plunged blindly  into
the honeyed darkness.
 
"Yes, good!" she said.  Then in a more conciliatory way, "Now  kiss
my ass!"
 
"What?!"
 
"You heard!  You see it?  Kiss it!"
 
Strictly speaking, her buttocks were buried in the soft mountain  of
pillows.  But her asshole?  Below her gaping, flesh-fringed  slit,
well above the pillows, was the wrinkled brown oval.  She'd  never
been into perversions like this before, that I knew of.   She'd
never asked me to do anything with her anus -- it was her pussy
that  craved sex.  In her massive orgiastic throes I'd managed to
get a finger  pressed onto it now and then, but there'd been no
greater intimacy.
 
She wanted it now though.  A butt-nuzzle, a rimming, I'd read  about
them but had never done one.  All right, I considered, on  weekends
she's the boss.  So without another word I bent forward  and
puckered my lips and gave her berry a little peck, then  leaned
back.  It was OK I guess.  No flavor, no smell.
 
"That's not a kiss, Nickie!  I want to feel you!  I want to  know
exactly how you feel about my asshole!  French kiss it!  Get  your
tongue way inside and lick the inside!  Make it the center of  your
world!  Worship my shithole as if our future relationship  depended
on it!  Because it surely does!  Don't stop till I say  so!"
 
'Shithole'?  She'd never used language like that!  She was  trying
to make it hard for me, using foul language to make it seem  foul,
but I could take anything she could dish out!  So I lunged  forward
with my tongue fully extended, and tried with all my might to  push
my way in.  I licked and I thrust and I pried around the edges,  but
her ass was sealed tight shut.  Then after ten minutes it  seemed,
maybe more, when my face was slathered in my own saliva, my  nose
managed to pry into that wrinkled hole just a bit.  She  was
loosening!  I pushed in deeper and as accidentally once  before,
this time deliberately, I buried my whole nose in her anus,  then
wiped it up toward her cunt and filled the opening with my  tongue
before it could close down.  
 
Her anal muscles now gripped my tongue and I thrust in deeper,  more
fervently.  I had a clear passage now and didn't dare pull back,  so
I tongue fucked maybe the last half-inch of her ass, in-out,
in-out, at  least  a dozen times before pausing for breath. 
Something smelled like  shit!  Of course it did, my tongue!  But I
didn't care!  I  plunged in again!  I wanted to worship her bottom
any way I could!   Whatever she wanted!  
 
"Very good," she suddenly said.  "Now *that* I can feel.   That's
what I call respect!  Now you may give my cunt a timid little  peck
like the one you gave my asshole before you got serious, then hand
me  my larger dildo over there.  Then you can get back to your
computer and  rewrite that last part of your essay about how I'm
exotic and  mysterious.  Now that you know the taste of real shit,
don't feed me  yours!  Write out how you really feel and how you
really think I  feel.  Imagine yourself inside my skin.  Write in
the first person,  as if you were me.  I'll come by in a half-hour
or so to see how you're  doing.  That's all!"  
 
I was dismissed!  But before I could stand and pull my pants  back
up over my raging hard-on -- it had held stiff the whole time I  was
abasing my face inside her ass -- she added gently,  even
sympathetically, her eyes on my cock, "I think you understand  now,
Nickie.  Just go do what you're told!"
 
'Nickie'!'  Well!  I turned and left, closing the door behind  me
quietly, respectfully, and with my mind whirling I went back to  the
computer.  There I read where I'd called Miss Darla a woman  of
mystery.  That was bullshit all right.  My dearest, darling  Darla? 
My sweet little wife?  Where was she now?  I didn't know  this woman
who was now no doubt stuffing a monster dildo into her  pristine
pussy while I sat here wondering!  I was afraid of that  thing!  How
could I ever again fuck her once she's stretched out all the  way by
that thing?  How could she ever respect my dingus enough to want  me
to fuck her?
 
I still tasted her shit on my tongue, but strangely, I  wasn't
disgusted!  Perverse as it seemed, I suddenly felt honored!   It was
awesome that I'd been allowed to kiss one of her most  private
places, privileged to enter one of them with my nose and my tongue!  
However dwarfed my cock felt compared with those two dildoes, at
least I  was a warm body, alive, and could serve her that way! 
Those fake cocks  couldn't do for her what I'd just done!  What I'd
do again with all my  heart and soul, if she asked me.  Even ....
 
I then got a grip on myself.  What was I thinking?  Was I  really
jealous of... dildoes?  It was terribly confusing!    Where was my
pretty little wife?  A stranger in her body  now  shared that body
with a huge rubber prick, not with me.  It was  demeaning, but it
was also exciting!  I was less than a dildo.  She  was 'Miss Darla,'
who regretted what we'd been together.  But after the  way I'd
patronized her for so many years, I deserved to eat her shit.  
 
I typed all this furiously, and I exhausted all I could say about
these  new feelings.  Then suddenly I stopped, and without quite
realizing it I  started to cry.  
 
"Good!  Now that's an honest response"
 
I turned toward her voice!  She had been standing just behind  me,
reading over my shoulder as I typed in the text.  Her face  was
flushed and her lips were parted and her eyes gleamed, and she
stood  loose jointed, barefoot, her pelvis still thrust forward as
if to receive my  nose's homage.  Her lipstick was smudged. 
Smudged?  By her  dildo?  Who knows?  Darla stood there at her ease,
reading my  revised essay, obviously a woman who has just been
thoroughly  well-fucked!  I wiped the tears off my cheeks and just
stared.
 
"Just write one more page about why my big man is crying.  Who  are
those tears for?  Then come in and see me in the kitchen.   We'll
talk some more.  So far this is excellent.  You're coming  along
faster than I'd hoped."
 
She turned and left the study.  I wrote out one more page.  I  said
that the tears were for my pretty little wife, who had  disappeared
into this new, sexually assertive woman, and they were also for  me,
because I didn't understand my strange new stirring of feelings  for
this woman who was inhabiting my wife's body, and I was afraid
because  I didn't yet know how far I'd be willing to abase myself to
earn her  approval.  Would I destroy myself utterly if she were to
ask me?  
 
And the tears were now also for our marriage, because it was
obvious  even to me that it was over.  We were neither of us the
people we'd  been.  I typed that last statement a second time and
then stared at  it.  Our marriage was over.  
 
I wondered if we'd ever re-marry.  I hoped so,
 
I brought the page in to her.  She was sitting in the kitchen  over
a cup of coffee, looked up, accepted it, and without a word  began
reading it.  I stood there -- somehow I felt I shouldn't sit down.  
She read that last paragraph carefully, then glanced up at me. 
"Very  good, Nick!  You're more sensitive than I'd expected.  I
think our  relationship might well end in a remarriage.  It all
depends on you,  though.  I have things to do all afternoon, so you
can take the rest of  the day off."  
 
I was dismissed.  I took the paper back from her and left the  room
feeling vaguely pleased but at the same time annoyed that I  felt
pleased.  I'd been dismissed again!
 
I decided to call up my old poker buddy Jason, Becky's husband, to
see  if he was free maybe for racquetball, maybe a late lunch,
mainly to check out  if his life had gone as peculiar as mine, what
he thought of this new regime  the girls were into, whether he'd
found some way to deal with it short of  surrender.  Because I now
saw no alternatives.  
 
When he got on the phone his voice sounded high and strained. 
"Becky  wants me to sound more like her when I'm on the phone," he
said.  "She  says men intimidate women with their deep booming
voices.  I always  thought I was polite enough, but I suppose not. 
I must sound so silly, I'm  sorry.  Darla hasn't put the screws to
you for that yet?"  
 
"No, not for that.  You don't sound silly to me,  incidentally,
Jason.  Just a little stressed."
 
"Oh, I don't really mean to sound silly, just more like a woman. 
She  also wants me to apologize for myself more often, the way women
do.  So  I won't sound as confident as I once did.  So I'll seem
unsure of  myself, less assertive, no way threatening.  More like
pleading.  I  really am so ashamed that I have to talk this way
these days, Nick.  Can  you ever forgive me?"
 
Despite all those imposed affectations I learned that Jason was
giving  up athletic club activities for the time being, never mind
why, and also that  he was skipping lunches because Becky wanted him
to lose weight.  Things  to do, he couldn't come over.  Nothing for
it.  I told him I'd give  him a call next week.  "That would be so
nice of you," he said.
 
Too bad.  I went in and turned on the tube.
 
I was watching the playoffs when near dinner time Darla came down
from  her study, then left the house without a word to me, carrying
her good purse  and wearing a simple black cocktail dress with
crystal beads and earrings,  her hair neatly arranged and her face
made up nicely, presentable for any  occasion.  Though I was
immediately anxious, I saw she wasn't done up in  the dramatic high
style she fancied when we were going out drinking and  dancing and
she wanted to flirt, make strangers eyeball her face and body  under
my proud eye.  My heart sank even so.  I tried to console  myself
that she meant to appear respectable, not sluttish, that she  was
not heading out to pick up some live dildo eager to service her  for
the rest of the evening.  But what if she was?  What if she had  a
date?  
 
I felt very peculiar.  Helpless.
 
But a few minutes after she left, Karen called and told me to tell
Darla  not to bother dressing, it would just be a casual dinner with
a few Women's  Center people, even jeans would be fine.  So I
stopped worrying about  where she was, even though I didn't hear her
get back home until nearly one  a.m.  Women love to talk, I knew.