The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Title: How to Tame Her with Slumber

Chapter the Second: Mrs Leashem’s Coming-Out

Tags: md, mf, ff, fd, mc, ds

Synopsis: Mrs Leashem, nee Lovencare, is happily married to her tamer. Her husband believes its time to reveal her to society. Or, at least, reveal her to his gentleman’s club.

Disclaimer: All characters are over 18. Feedback can be sent to

Ward:
My wife! What can she do?
Guardiano:
Nay, that’s a question you should ask yourself, ward,
When you’re alone together.
Ward:

That’s as I list.

A wife’s to be asked anywhere, I hope. I’ll ask her in a congregation if I have a mind to’t, and so save a licence.

—Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women, 1657

Although two weeks married, my vows still envelop me like the warmest bath. Oh, the inner flourishing I feel when I love, honour, and obey. To think, I once tried batting away every girl’s dream, chastising marriage as Man’s perennial shackles for Womankind. Now I take marriage, these shackles, upon myself by choice, basking in a man’s dominion.

How could I have believed in female independence? A woman’s only pleasure is in a man’s. So here, at market, I pick his favourite vegetables, meats, and sweets, to cook him a feast to mellow his work-strained muscles. No amount of potatoes, carrots, pork, or pudding could ever repay him all his work, but I shall at least try. Men work so hard at occupations I could never comprehend, much less carry out (weak girl that I am), so a woman’s duty is to embody the angel of the hearth, rendering all that work worthwhile.

I pay the stall owner and ready myself to depart for home, when I hear:

‘Ah! Mrs. Leashem!’ I turn to see Mr Jellywhip, who drops some pineapples to hobble towards me. ‘All the cherubs in heaven could not harp my thanks to you.’ He locks my free hand within his leathery fingers, bowing low enough that his grey beard brushes my wrist. ‘My wife, oh, “my wife”, finally the term rings true—Once upon a time my food would arrive cold, or not at all; once upon a time she would let me wake-up late for work, and afterwards hog the lavatory; and once upon a time she spoke maliciously of me when business colleagues came to dinner.’

He puts hands on heart, and casts his eyes to the sky. ‘I do believe my termination from the firm was due, in no small part, to her steady erosion of my constitution and credibility. And, worse, while I practically whored—Ah, my dear, forgive my over-vigorous vocabulary—while I sought work, she continued her wretched piano lessons.’

Plonking his hands on my shoulders, he lowers his face to mine. ‘You, as a woman, have no idea the indignity that inflicted upon me. To have a wife—a woman!—keep the roof over my head made my manhood shrivel to non-existence. I swear, she only cooked my food to remind me who bought it.’

My chin and cheeks rest between his palms, palms wet with sweat and dry with age. ‘I tried all against her—scolding, beating, deprivation—and all to no avail, but you! You, in an afternoon, gifted me a wife to call “a wife”.’ His lips press against my forehead, feeling like a hole in damp shoes.

‘Oh, sir, you exaggerate.’ He most certainly does. ‘Scolding, beating, deprivation’—if he tried any of that on Mrs Jellywhip, she’d stick a poker up his rear.

‘No exaggeration could exceed the blessed reality.’ He removes his hands from my face. ‘After but an hour with you she was on her knees begging my forgiveness. However did you accomplish it?’

‘Mr Jellywhip,’ I say, touching my nose, ‘a woman is entitled a few secrets. And I must be off, my husband’s lunch needs cooking.’

‘Ah, yes, of course, head to the lucky Mr Leashem, give him the regards of another happy husband.’

‘I most certainly will,’ I say as I nearly skip home.

My heart twirls at the knowledge that I have imparted a little bit of good to this world. Mesmerism, my teacher, my friend, evidence of nature’s sublimity. Whenever a woman strays in thought this blessed state can be induced to correct her path. Once, I confess, I suspected my husband’s judgement when he taught me how to mesmerise, when he told me I may save other stray women with it. How improper, I thought; a woman’s mind is a man’s to control, not another woman’s. But, he assured me, by mesmerising women, I would only act in the interests of Man.

As of now, I have saved five women, Mrs Jellywhip the latest. I’d heard of her scandalous behaviour, her disrespect and disobedience, from Mr Jellywhip’s daily whining in the market. Promptly, I befriended him, told him how his wife’s behaviour shocked me, revealing that, should he allow me time with her, I could bring her around. So he invited me to his home the next day for lunch—and why shouldn’t he? My failure would cost him nothing, and what foul play could he possibly read in my puppy-dog eyes?

After the meal, I requested he allow the females some time alone—‘To discuss the finer aspects of the piano,’ said I with my back to the missus and a wink to the mister. He obliged, hopping out on bowlegs.

Mrs Jellywhip, a decade or two younger than her husband, and a foot or two wider, eyed me like the family Labrador sizing up a newly arrived puppy. ‘What possible reason,’ she surely thought, ‘has my husband for bringing this waif to his ruins?’ Her face softened, however, when I spoke a steady flow of musical jargon and classical appreciation. Impressed by my knowledge, she let loose with her own. Thus rapport, that indefinable thing my husband said was vital to any mesmeric induction, was established.

I brought out her metronome, which I’d eyed since the start of lunch, to the tea table.

‘What an unassuming invention,’ I said, as I set it tick-tocking. ‘So singular in its function, but what a function! A regular beat, back, forth, back, forth, just look at it, back, forth, back, forth. How difficult it must have been to design, to fashion a pendulum both adjustable in length and consistent in time. Not even the human mind is so consistent. Sometimes I will just sit and watch it, its back, forth, back, forth, try to absorb its beat, drown out everything else, just to absorb its beat…’

Her sagging lips and swaying told me it was just a matter of time. With little work I embedded the feminine virtues in her mind.

‘When I snap, you shall tell me all you shall do.’ I snapped.

Her eyes, lucid and content, drifted open. Her once firm and insolent voice was now soft. ‘I will obey my husband, for the honour of obeying. I will never second guess my husband, for he is always correct. When my husband becomes employed, I will abandon my piano lessons. A woman has no place bringing in bread to a man’s household. I must apologise to my husband for being a terrible wife.’

And so she did. She got on her knees before her husband and begged for forgiveness. Had I not stepped back in time, Mr Jellywhip might have kissed me in thanks.

Ah, but these are past victories I consider. I must focus my mind on daily challenges. I unlock the door of my husband’s home, a two storey strip of a house wedged between two identical brothers. In the kitchen, I sort the groceries, setting what’s for lunch, and what’s for dinner, hiding the jar of sweets under a floorboard. If my husband asks, I will reveal the location of his supper sweets, but sometimes a wife serves her man best by denying his impulses for the sake of his constitution.

I report to my husband in the living room.

That is, were he in the living room. Odd. While his Males for the Proper Treatment of Women meetings happen every Saturday, they begin at two, so he only departs at one. In the morning, he lounges here, absorbed by the sensational—I mean—‘sensible’ papers.

‘Husband! Are you home?’ After a long silence, the staircase creaks.

‘My dear, I expected you a half hour ago, but, ah, ah, do not bother to excuse yourself.’ My husband leans on his armchair. ‘I know you would never choose to vex me. Most probably, Politeness took you in her clammy grasp, chaining you to a conversation with an old bore bemoaning the youths of today, or with a shopgirl performing autopsy on her love life.’ His smile tears his face.

‘Your understanding is infinite, my husband. I report,’ says I as chipper as a boy scout, ‘to say my outings are over. How shall I perform my chores?’

Nude, of course; I ask only in ritual, for the answer-cum-order is inevitable. Why should my husband’s property be obscured from him in the privacy of his own home?

‘Fully clothed.’

Huh?

‘Or, at least, for now.’ He comes towards me, cupping my chin in his hand. ‘No, I’ve a surprise. One for you and… Well, you’ll see.’ His hand leaves my chin, strokes my collar then traces my arm before taking my hand. ‘Come with me, my dear, to the parlour.’

The parlour! He wishes me, a woman, to enter men’s country. Though I’ve lived in his home two weeks, and though at no time does he lock its door, I have never passed that threshold, not even to clean. As any girl schooled in the basics of etiquette knows, a woman is not to enter the parlour. Why, the men may be talking of business, and what good would a female be there?

He pulls my stilted form along, then hangs his hand over the parlour door’s nob.

‘Best behaviour,’ says he, turning to me. ‘Speak when spoken to, and never when not, and even when you are, temper your opinions, do not contradict. I want no repeat of our dinner with the Vainglories.’

He stabs me, both with memory, and the suggestion I would repeat my impudence. At the time, it seemed so sensible, suggesting that, perhaps, to extend the Vainglory Ice Harvesting enterprise, Mr Vainglory might consider developing artificial refrigeration. Of course, now, I see it for the insolence it was: a woman advising a man on business matters. That night my husband spanked my bottom to match the shade of his face.

‘I would never do so, my husband, never again.’

He eyes me a minute, but, more than me, he examines his own doubts. A single nod, then he opens the door.

‘Brothers!’ Over my husband’s shoulder I see six men draped over furniture, as if in the aftermath of a terrible battle, smoke billowing and all. ‘Brothers, forgive my delay and secrecy, and forgive my imminent infraction, for while I trample an unwritten rule, I do so with reason.’ He steps aside. ‘My dear.’ I take this as a call forward.

With clacking step, I walk, pushing through palpable indignation as the men’s eyes glower at me. I stop, a few feet away from them, tobacco kicking my nose as sweat pastes my dress to me.

Be calm; I obey my husband; all shall be well. Be calm; I obey my husband; all shall be well. Be calm; I obey my husband; all shall be well.

‘A girl, Leashem, a bloody girl!’ says a man whose beard seems like a shoddily shorn garden. ‘First you reschedule us to ten o-bloody-clock—by ten I’ve not even beaten away the morning wood! Now you bring a girl in!’ He tosses his copy of The Amorous Turk to the floor, and chews his cigarette. ‘You promised entertainment, Leashem, and unless this buttoned-up bint sucks us all off immediately, I will be bloody disappointed.’

‘Calm yourself, Johnson.’ My husband lowers himself into the nearest armchair. ‘Seeing as, one, there’s a lady in the room, and, two, I will not have my wife fellating men with such poor restraint as you have shown, I must disappoint you.’

‘Your wife?’ says one in a loud whisper. A man, most probably, though his porcelain skin, slight form, and longish hair throws doubt on that. ‘As in former fiancé—as in the suffragette?’ He bolts to his feet, eyes widened to deer-like terror. ‘You’ve brought the mannish c-c-cow here!?’ Though trying to keep his eyes on my husband’s, he cannot keep them from flicking in my direction.

My husband chuckles. ‘Smallwood, do you truly believe I’d be so coarse as to blight our masculine congregation with a long-haired caricature of manliness. Yes, by wife I do mean, of course, my former fiancé, and by that I do mean, regrettably, the former suffragette.’ He overpowers the others’ muttering before it can grow cacophonous, ‘But please scan for the operative word, “former.” And that is what I desire to demonstrate.’

He snaps his fingers, pricking my ears. I turn my head to him. ‘Louise,’ he says, crossing his legs, ‘lick my shoe, my sweet.’

My panic, pounding my heart since I entered the room, quells as the certainty of obedience guides my body. ‘Yes, my husband.’ I get to my hands and knees in front of him, lowering myself to his forward-facing sole. My tongue slithers out from my mouth, as I press my face forward, pushing my tongue to his street-worn sole. Dragging my tongue up its whole length, then up it all again, the rank taste, and the certainty that it’s stepped in things ranker, shrinks before my satisfaction, the pleasure I feel knowing I do even this for my husband.

‘You see, gentlemen,’ says my husband—even so absorbed in my act, I must remain attentive to his words. ‘Do you see the “suffragette” whom you feared? Do you see the woman who would “equal man”? Do you see how, now, she has ascended to the level of Woman. Stop, my sweet.’

I do, though the taste lingers.

‘Stand, and turn to the audience.’ I rise, and turn to face six men, who are shocked and pleased in equal measure. ‘Tell us, my dear, the rightful place of a woman.’

‘At the feet of a man.’ The answer, so obvious, yet so comforting.

‘What is a woman without a man?’

‘An empty vessel, waiting to be filled by a man.’ The men smile.

‘Very good.’ My husband stands directly behind me. ‘Gentlemen, would you like to know how I have dragged this girl to the true path of femininity. Well, I’ve already told you. And know you, too hastily, dismissed it as “sensationalist twaddle.” (Thank you, Thomas.) And if those aren’t clues enough, perhaps this will jar your dull minds.’ His breath moistens my ear. He whispers, ‘Girls are weak.’

I yawn, but do not forget to cover my mouth. My husband wishes me to sleep. Well, my eyes are so heavy that, mmmm, that should be eas…

‘And one, wide awake.’ A snap, and my eyes are open.

‘But really, Leashem, mesmerism?’ asks the man my husband called Thomas. ‘That mad dream of continentals and Scots, hitherto used only in the least qualified quack’s practise. You expect us to believe you, alone, have mastered the art.’

‘You’re still doubting, Thomas.’ Turning to me as he steps forward, my husband gesticulates like a ringmaster displaying the new attraction. ‘Then see with your eyes, hear with your ears: speak the trigger.’

Trigger? Thomas glares at me, and the beginnings of fear take me. My husband would not allow harm to come to me… and even if he did harm me, I should accept the pain.

‘Girl,’ starts Thomas, ‘do you know the Marquis?’

Weights in my knees slam me to the floor, and my body arches back until I cannot help but look at the ceiling. I must seem a painting of divine ecstasy.

‘Yes, I know the Marquis. My cunt aches at his words, and slobbers for his prick.’ From my chest the words rise, bypassing my brain entirely, reaching my ears as freshly as they do to the men’s. ‘Demand it, I’ll shit in your mouth, while you shit in mine. I’ll suck blood from your cock as you fuck me with a burning poker. I am the filth of dirt, ready to be sanctified by your semen. I am Woman, Man’s animal to fuck.’ The words are dirty, but speaking them makes me feel so cheeky.

A hand works its way into mine, while another pushes my posture straight; my husband helps me to stand. Soft claps, as for an after-dinner singer, patter before me, complementing the gentlemen’s leering joy.

A man stands to applaud louder than them all. ‘Well, bravo!’ he yells, through a dense thicket of beard. He bounds to shake my husband’s hand. ‘You’ve most certainly proven yourself. I can imagine no woman, of passing decency, letting slip such fecund faeces from her fair lips.’ His eyes, like a surgeon’s knife, peel through my clothes, pulling them of to scrutinise my body, and especially my breasts, as well as my… womb. ‘So, Leashem, you’ve got the suffragette bint by the spinal column; could probably make her kiss a pauper’s anus.’

My husband lays an arm around the man’s shoulders. ‘Leery, I implore you refrain from the “s-word,” for you must infer it was a dark time in her life. And, yes, I could make her kiss a commoner’s back-passage, but, brothers, while a husband has the right to demand his wife plumbs the depths of depravity, he has the duty to never do so.’ With his free hand he strokes my hair. ‘We must treat them as we would children or pets, love for love, protection for devotion.’

A delightful shiver tickles me at my husband’s words. He is so wise and kind.

‘But,’ says Thomas, eliciting a barely restrained groan from my husband, ‘how do you know she loves you? As of yet, you’ve shown only an ability to pull her nerve endings; to squeeze her lungs and vocal box to squeak out some pretty words. But how are we to know her heart does not scream as her mouth sings.’ He raises his voice above the others’ mutterings. ‘Don’t get me wrong, friends. Like any decent member of society, I believe in the subjugation of women, but only because, as I’m sure you’ll agree, I wish no woman to suffer. Submission shields women from thought, independence, and worldly responsibility. But obedience, deference, and docility are merely symptoms of a woman accepting her natural state.’

‘There’s no use,’ says Leery, ‘preaching to the converted.’

‘What I mean to say, Leery, is that the ideal woman’s outward deference aligns with her inner submission: her body and soul in accordance. You have dominated the body, Leashem, that’s easy enough. Sans mesmerism, any man with a whip could equal your results, but what of her soul? Is she happy?’

My husband struts towards Thomas, nearly slamming his face into his. ‘It is a sign of your ill-education in modern medicine that you equate mesmerism with a “whip.” Are you honestly implying usurping control of a body through the mind does not work on the mind itself? It seems basic logic to me. No matter—Darling!’ he beckons to me, making come-hither flicks with his hand. ‘Come to the table, and take this seat.’

Though my chair is low, so is the table. I feel as if I am at school, sat at a writing desk. My husband returns with a newspaper, dropping it on the table, open to the puzzle page.

‘The crossword, my dear, a trifle, I’m sure, for one with your trifling education.’

I accept his proffered pencil, and set to the task whose objective I’ve no knowledge of, just knowledge it is expected I complete it.

Once one disentangles the crossword’s individual questions from the glaring white, intimidation, the first part of challenge, very much subsides. And this puzzle, in particular, seems no challenge.

Five down, Two term Prime Minister Benjamin __________

The most trivial of trivia to any schoolboy or girl.

DISRAELI

Five across, beginning in D, abandonment in eleven letters

Dis… De… DERILICTION

Seven across, one who believed God should remain in England, twenty-five letters.

Well, obviously, that’s antidisestablishmentarianism.

ANT-

‘So, Leashem, this is your accomplishment: you’ve gifted her a thesaurus,’ says Thomas.

‘Tut, tut,’ tuts my husband. ‘I merely wished to provide proper context to what I’m about to do.’ He puts fingers on my temple, my slider, and pulls down.

ANTIDIS… EBAB… No, no, what was it, antiabub, antidileb, antidistinctly minty, anti-

‘Having trouble, my dear?’ asks my husband.

‘Oh, yes. And it seemed so simple.’ The mostly empty grid mocks me like a… mocking thing.

‘Well, attempt one simpler, ah, one down, a seven letter word for “try,” why don’t you attempt that one, my dear.’ He jams his finger in the column, nearly holing through the page.

Seven letters? But ‘try’ is three. Why not use ‘try?’

‘My dear, at least attempt the question, please, so you do not resemble the most foolish of children. At least attempt.’

A hint! Oh, kind husband, saving me from hardness. ‘Atemt’… Well, that does mean “try,” but it only has five letters, so beginning with ‘a?’ Or ending with ‘t?’

‘Ah, ab, ak, ad—’

‘My dear, if you’ve resorted to reciting every syllable known to man, it’s a lost cause.’

He yanks the pencil from my hand.

ATTEMPT

Oh.

‘How delightful!’ says Smallwood. He’s small, and pale, and with a look of joy. Immediately he makes me remember bunnies and shrews. ‘You can make her simple. Ideal! For we should all like an intelligent wife, one who can keep up a conversation, or do your books for you, but sometimes you wish they’d know their place. What better way to do that than to put them there.’

He trots to me, making me bubbly inside with his smile. ‘What is nine times four?’

‘Oh, sir,’ I say, ‘you think too highly of me.’

‘Brilliant!’ Pleasing him is not like pleasing my husband, nor even other men. When most men thank me, it’s as if my father thanks me. With him it’s like I’ve petted a puppy who rewards me with snuggles. ‘What about, nine plus four?’

Nine plus four, well, nine means plus ten but one less, one less than four… three, so thirteen, but one less is twelve.

‘Twelve, sir.’ His smile, so big.

‘And, and eight plus six—’

‘Smallwood,’ says my husband, putting a hand on Smallwood’s shoulder, ‘while I’m glad you’re amused, I don’t wish to spend the entire day straining my wife’s arithmetic.’ My husband looks at me and smiles. ‘I brought her here, both to exhibit the success of my techniques, but also to add to our, I’m afraid, occasionally dreary meetings a feminine tint, a servile touch. Stand, my sweet.’

I stand.

‘Gentlemen, I put my wife at your disposal, use her like you’d use a chambermaid. Order her and she shall obey. Isn’t that right, my dear?’

‘So long as you wish it, my husband.’ Their laughter, manly ‘haws’, fill me with pride.

‘Very good—she shall obey. But, gentlemen, I uphold one caveat: you may order her to do anything, but you may not lay a hand on her, nor demand her lay a hand on you. After all, she belongs to me, and like when I’d lend a horse to a neighbour, I’d repossess it, if I learned he molested it behind barn doors. Clear, gentlemen?’

A muttering agreement. But if my husband’s limits upset them, I must work very hard within them.

‘Can’t she at least get her kit off?’ asks Leery.

‘If it would mean the world to you,’ says my husband. ‘Do as he says, my sweet.’ We wait. ‘Dear?’

‘I don’t know what he means—’

‘Take your clothes off, my sweet.’

Oh, easy-peasy. Serving is so much better naked. It’s like all of myself is at disposal. My husband helps me out of my dress and corset. I remove the chemise all by myself.

‘Mmm.’ The first touch of air on my nipples and pussy always tickles, especially after they’ve been kept so stuffy.

I almost feel uncomfortable, all these men here, but then I remember that a girl’s body is for male enjoyment. They spend a while staring, until Johnson says, ‘Girl, get us a pot of tea.’

‘At once, sir.’ To the kitchen I trot, as a quiet discussion comes up.

For most of the afternoon, it went like this. They only gave me little orders. I would brew pot after pot of tea, butter bread, slice oranges, roll cigarettes on my thighs, empty the ash-trays, and pinch my nipples when asked, as they said things my girly mind couldn’t understand. Sometimes they said something I thought I understood, but then I remembered, ‘I am a girl,’ so I couldn’t have understood. The men would ask questions—not tricky ones, thank God—questions about how I served my husband, and what I thought a woman’s role was.

I’d lie if I said it was fun. A girl’s duty is obedience, but duty is… duty. Don’t get me wrong, I like obeying, but I like chocolate too. When I eat too much dark chocolate I can’t look at it for a day. At least give me milk chocolate.

‘You know, my dear,’ says my husband, ‘I believe we should give them a little show.’

A little…? Oh, yes! The one he taught me nights ago, and made me practice till morning. The Dance of the Seven Vales from Mr Wilde’s Salome. At least, I think it’s from Salome. I mean, once when I was smart I read Salome and it just says she does the dance, no chora- kora- no directions. My husband tells me he saw it done exactly so in a theatre, but I didn’t think the censors would’ve allowed anything like that. No matter, my husband knows more about Art than me.

‘I’ll get the veils, my husband.’

‘No need. I’ve them here.’ He gets a box from under the table, opens it and hands me the veils. Bunched up they look perfectly white.

As I put them on (the hardest part), Johnson says, ‘A striptease, Leashem! She’s already got her tits out.’ Mutters of approval rise.

My husband tuts. ‘You disappoint me, Johnson. Gentlemen, are we not men of culture? Certainly, you have seen my wife naked, but who, spare philistines, balks at seeing Hamlet because they know he is to die. It is not by the mere plodding of plot that a play justifies its existence; it is in how it fills the course of A to B, the aesthetic sensations it evokes. And just as the best tales are twice-told—’

‘The best tits are twice-shown,’ says Johnson.

‘If subtlety is anathema, then yes.’

And the last tuck… there! With veils wrapping me like this I bet I look like a slave girl from The Arabian Nights. I love how they rub my skin, a light roughness, like old silk sheets. Oh, and I love how it must look to men. The first time I had it on I stood in front of a mirror. The folds bunched close enough that barely any skin could be seen, yet it seemed so naughty. I feared it would fall off, but my husband told me, ‘That’s the charm.’

I raise my voice, ‘Je suis prête, tétrarque,’ which means, ‘I am ready, tetrarch.’ (I may be stupid, but I can still understand language!)

Moving to the centre, I start slowly spinning. I shake my hips and puff my chest like club girls, jutting my body so close to the men I feel their breath. The veil round my head goes first. My hair falls to just above my breasts. I hug myself, each hand on the opposite shoulder, undoing each arm’s veil. They fall freeing my pretty white flesh. Rubbing my hands over my tummy, teasing down to my pussy, I find the bunch that keeps the veil in place, I pull, so it falls, my belly showing, but breasts still covered. Mmmm, stares, manly stares, my pussy tingles knowing my body’s being put to good use. I shake bum close to their faces, then their cocks, as I run my hands between my veiled thighs. Winking at Leery, I tug on the veil hiding my breasts, lowering, lower, lower—and turn around, my back to Leery, tearing off the veil, making Smallwood choke on his spit as my breasts bound out. Two more veils, one for each leg, combining to cover my pussy and bum. I pull the fold keeping my flimsy trousers secure. Just a few shakes should do it. I spin, dance, rubbing my body, my breasts especially, loving their stares, their heavy breathing. Already the veils loosen. I turn to my husband—a wife’s pussy should first and foremost be seen by her husband. I strut to him, my veils about to drop. Once close, I turn round and, legs straight, bend over, raising his prize up to him. I shake, and shake—and the veils drop. My pussy, my husband’s property, is presented to him.

My husband pats my bum. ‘Ah! c’est magnifique, c’est magnifique! Vous voyez qu’elle a dansé pour moi, ma femme.’ Which means, ‘Beautiul, beautiful! You see how she dances for me, my wife.’

‘Stand up straight,’ says he, before clapping. The men join in, giving me a warm feeling.

‘Oh, yes!’ yells Smallwood. ‘Magnifique, magnifique, as you say. You’ve got her truly spanked beneath your crop. So, Leashem, I… I’ve got a requ… Well, I’ll just go get her.’

‘“Her”!?’ yells Johnson. ‘Two females.’ He got up and went to my husband. ‘Leashem, I accept your whore has a place. But another woman! This is your house, and our meeting. Don’t let another fat-titted fool stain our sophistication.’

‘Not so fast, Johnson,’ says my husband. ‘This may be interesting.’ He grabs Smallwood’s shoulder. ‘Am I right to think…’ He whispers to Smallwood, who nods and whispers back. ‘Lovely, quite lovely.’ He turns to me. ‘Come hither, my dear.’ I do. ‘Retrieve your wife, Smallwood.’

‘Oh, yes, yes,’ says Smallwood. He opens the door to the back passage. ‘Sugar Plums! I require you, Sugar Plums!’

After a bit, a girl enters. What a pretty girl. Long hair, nice skin. Oh! She sees me—What lovely big eyes.

My husband whispers into my ear. ‘We’ve only one chance for first impressions, so…’ The slider on my temple goes up, and the fog, which hazed my mind like an Oriental hot spring, dissipates.

The girl’s face strains like one who wishes to scream, but finds fear prevents even screaming. Her shoulders, broad for a girl, and I suspect confident at most times, betray panic by tremoring. And her eyes, those milky pools adorned at their centres with emerald rings, stare at me, but not at my eyes, at my… my… Oh, my breasts. How easy to forget, not all girls view nudity before men as purely selfless. She may think me a woman of pleasure, when, in truth, I am a woman for pleasure!

‘D-d-darling,’ says the girl with eyes glancing towards Smallwood, but never entirely wrenching from me, ‘while I’m happy, p-p-perfectly happy, to sit outside your meetings, however long they run, and while I’m fine if you… you… indulge with other women when my abilities lack—I must ask why you have, have brought me here. I know you’ve a reason, I know. Pleas—’

Smallwood puts a finger to his wife’s lips, a waxen seal to her protests. ‘Sugar Plums, you’re beet red. Calm your hysteria.’ He strokes her hair, as one would pet a dog in a thunderstorm. ‘This girl’s nakedness signs no wanton lust, merely obedience. Her husband wished her naked, so she is.’

My husband nudges me, and I infer his order. ‘How wonderful to meet a fellow mate in matrimony.’ I take her trembling hand in mine. ‘I am Mrs Louise Leashem, wife of my husband.’

She snatches her hand back, before stuttering her reply, ‘A-and I’m pleased to see you. I am Diana Smallwood.

Bubbles in my heart brighten my smile, for I see in this girl a friend, though right now she shrinks in my presence. Whatever differences dig a trough between us are immaterial, as one fact bridges all distance: we are wives, thus, two of one kind.

‘But,’ says Smallwood, ‘you asked why I brought you here. Well, it has to do with this woman here.’ Mrs Smallwood’s worried hands gravitate towards her clothed chest and pelvis, covering them. She opens her mouth to voice suspicions of lasciviousness, but is cut off. ‘You see, I thought you the best wife a man could hope for: Obedient, to a point; Deferent, to a point; Dependent, to a point. But then I saw this girl, a perfect wife, a wife without a “to a point” about her, one who gives herself whole-hog to wifeliness.’

‘But, darling,’ says Mrs Smallwood, throwing herself against her husband, ‘I am whole-hog, too. Your pleasure’s my only goal. I obey, you know I do.’

‘Oh, really? Just last night I commanded you to suck my cock, and you know what you did?’

Looking down in shame, the girl says, ‘I… declined. I thought it dirty, unwomanly—’

‘Uh, uh, uh. You disobeyed your husband. Now that is unwomanly.’ He holds her waist with one arm, and cups her chin with the other, pulling her eyes to his. ‘You want to show you are a good wife? Suck my cock.’

Shock and glimmers of tears spark in her eyes. ‘No, no! Not in front others. At home, as soon as we’re through the door I’ll… engorge you. But not here. You cannot demand wifely virtue at the cost of common decency.’

‘“Cannot demand”? “Cannot demand”!? I am your husband and demand what I please.’ He snaps his eyes from her to my husband. ‘Brother, show her what a husband may demand of his wife.’

My husband chuckles, as he fiddles with his belt. ‘Certainly, Smallwood, but I implore you, in future, to endeavour to prove your own points. My dear—’ I stand attentive ‘—on your knees.’

Now face to crotch, I watch him undo his fly, and pull from his undergarments his manhood. It hangs so close that heat and stench drug me.

‘Just to prove a point,’ says my husband, ‘suck my cock, my sweet.’

I waste no time licking, teasing, nor, to give the proper name, procrastinating. With downcast eyes, I wrap my lips around his cock, taking it as deep as my petite throat allows, and then deeper. I take him in and out metronomically, as I’d been trained, but quicker than usual—he wishes a point proven, and I do that with gusto! In and out, in and out, his barely restrained groans synchronised to my bobbing, the occasional ‘good girl’ or ‘that’s my wife’ slipping between moans. I supress pride at his compliments, for I had learned personal pleasure ruins my regularity. I slide up and down his cock, quickening with his gasps and groans, faster until he stiffens, ejaculating into my mouth.

My husband’s semen streams unremittingly. Like when downing a cup of water, I do not collect the liquid in my cheeks before swallowing, but leave my throat open to take the stream as it comes. I am a housekeeper above all, and the former method can occasion some stubborn stains in the carpet should my mouth runneth over.

My husband ceases twitching. ‘One of you!’’ He yells, retrieving his manhood and helping me to my feet. ‘Fetch my wife some tea—No! A glass of water and then tea.’ He produces his handkerchief with a magician’s panache and dabs my lips. Staring deeply into my, probably teary, eyes, he says, ‘One must take tea with an unsullied palate.’

‘My husband, your seed could never sully my palate.’

‘A lovely sentiment, my dear, but a tad nauseating.’ He tears his eyes from mine, turns to face Mr and Mrs Smallwood, while presenting me like a school prize-winner. ‘Well, Smallwood, have I sufficiently illustrated your point? I wouldn’t feel put upon to make it more strenuously.’ He receives and passes a glass of water to me, of which I sip.

‘You did so smashingly, first-class! And no need for a second go-round, so, um, please… tuck it away.’ Smallwood averts his gaze with distaste on his face.

My husband looks down, chuckles in understanding, then tucks his cock into his trousers. He passes a cup of tea to me. The deep taste does me well, calming my work-strained heart.

‘You see this?’ says Mr Smallwood to Mrs Smallwood, waving his hand toward me. ‘This is a wife, one who has no self-serving notions of “common decency”, who understands that on the hierarchy of virtues, submission towards her husband comes above public propriety. Do you think your reputation comes above mine, my reputation as the husband of a good wife?’

‘Please! Do not speak so harshly towards me. I will… take your seed… in my mouth.’

And she attempts to, after a fashion. She lowers herself to her knees, though ‘collapse’ is more accurate. Her trembling make her seem ready to flee or die as her husband slowly, bullyingly slowly, undoes his fly. His cock emerges—And I must say, his name does him a disservice. She views the penis like a kitten offered rancid milk. With supreme willpower she parts her pursed lips, forces her head forward, closing the gap between her mouth and his cock, closer, closer, then she-

‘Christ forgive me!’ She wrenches herself back, crawling away from her goal, tears welling in her eyes. She cowers against a table leg, not daring to look her husband in the eyes, nor in the crotch.

I retrieve a handkerchief from my pocket, and kneel by her side, dabbing her sodden eyes. After a while she looks up at her husband, looking for all the world like a slave awaiting her master’s fickle judgement.

‘F-forgive me. P-please, do not expect me to be perfect so soon. I’ll practise, and then I’ll… suck you… in front of everyone… someday.’

Smallwood forces his unwieldly cock, still erect, back into his trousers. ‘Well, then, darling, expect to be “practised” five times this very night.’ Smallwood says with chin raised indignantly, appearing like an adorable Napoleon. ‘In exchange for not forcing my manliness down your throat right this second, you will obey my tamer commands without question. Just to show you are, at the very least, committed to becoming an ideal wife. Am I clear?’

‘Y-yes.’

Smallwood smiles like dictator within a nutshell, having found his only subject.

And she does obey his every order, albeit reluctantly. She serves tea and cake to her husband, then serves as a tea table for him, wincing at the heat of the cup upon her back. When directly questioned, she discusses her and her husband’s sexual dalliances, which, after the men judged them too tame, and her telling too stammering, Smallwood had her make recompense by reciting a work of de Sade. She has still ways to go if the mere description of whipped women, with their labia sown shut, is enough to reduce her to a faint-prone paleness.

‘Stop,’ says Johnson, more irritated than angry. ‘May as well read pornography myself if our reader cannot pronounce “whore”, “cock”, and “cunt”.’

‘Sir, I, I am sorry. I don’t do this often. I ca- I can’t—’

‘Now, now, no excuses,’ says Smallwood. ‘But, though your timidity sickens me, I take your point. Can’t break a horse in a day.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ says my husband, smacking my bottom.

Smallwood ignores my husband. ‘Perhaps I give you the greatest benefit of the doubt—’ he places his forefinger upon her chest, ‘—and believe your heart of hearts submits to me. And that your pretty female brain, too habituated to dining table etiquette, is what prevents you from these verbal recitations of lust. So I’ll test your faculty for non-verbal ones, but don’t worry, I shall command nothing as lewd as fellatio. Leashem! Your wife.’

My husband pushes me forward.

‘A tame thing I ask of you, wife. Kiss her, deeply.’

Mrs Smallwood stares at me, my naked body, with panic in her eyes. Every part of her seems poised to flee, spare the fact that she inches forward. Once close to me, she begins to push her face towards mine, shaking violently, shimmering in sweat, her lovely lips approaching mine, and mine hers-

‘No!’ She pulls herself back to her husband’s side. ‘No, anything but that. I screamed before, at your cock, but even that is preferable. A manhood in my mouth is filthy, but at least sanctified in the eyes of God—but this!’ She points at me. ‘This is tribadism, an inversion of nature, sinful, sinful! Anything but!’

My heart hollows at her words, I know not why. But pride refills that hollow, pride from watching her be scolded by her husband. She fails where I succeed, disobeying where I gladly would obey, blanching where I would give myself fully. The presumptuous girl, refusing orders on grounds of sin, when she should know that if her husband demands something all considerations of morality should be second in her mind. Does she not know a woman’s place is to obey, and not to question why?

Oh!

But did I know, even, that long ago? Would I have obeyed even half as well as her but a few weeks previous, before my husband’s guidance, before my realisation of femininity, before mesmerism? Here I glow in self-satisfied condescension towards the poor girl, little considering the reason why I can stand tall before her. The truth stands: I have had aid, and she hasn’t, yet she falls short of me only by a hair.

An idea strikes me, so heavenly I immediately whisper it to my husband. He nods, pleased.

‘Smallwood, Smallwood,’ my husband says, stepping towards his addressee. ‘Though I feel your pain as if my own, I must take issue with your manner, which leads you to berate the fledgling girl—can you not see her tears! Your rage—a tantrum, I will say—leads you to punish, rather than reform. You resemble the boy who, dissatisfied that his dog does not fetch the ball, throws the pup in the river, then is doubly shocked the next time it does not retrieve the ball. To both you and the boy I say, “You’re going about it the wrong way!”’

My husband hangs his arm around Smallwood’s shoulder, then leans down to whisper into his ear, the content of which brings a smile to Smallwood’s lips.

‘You mean, you shall?’ asks Smallwood.

‘Oh, no. She is your wife. Something so intimate cannot be embarked upon by an unrelated gentleman.’

Mrs Smallwood pales.

‘Then me?’ asks Mr Smallwood.

‘Oh, no, not you neither. You’ve neither the skill nor, I suspect, the requisite patience to perform the act.’

‘Then who?’

‘Why, my wife, of course.’ He gestures towards me. ‘Don’t have that look, Smallwood. She has the ability, for I taught her personally. And no mind that she is unrelated to your wife, for she is female, and, thus, can be trusted not to take advantage of your wife’s imminent susceptibility. You feel assuaged?’

‘Well, when you put it like that—Of course.’

My husband grins. ‘Then shall we allow the girls some privacy—ah-tut! Though we should all like to see, the following procedure requires the utmost ambience, and I hardly think we vulgar men—’ he glares at Johnson. ‘— could provide that.’ My husband eyes me then waves towards the door. ‘Take her to our bedroom.’

‘At once, my husband.’ I slip my arm around Mrs Smallwood’s. Her arm is as limp as her jaw, but stiffens at my touch. She stares at me, her eyes reveal the most loathsome panic, before turning imploring eyes to her husband, who offers no condolences. I pull her with me through the door, into the entry way, and up the stairs, to my husband’s bedroom.

Ours is a small room, but cosy, with a large bed, sufficient for my purposes.

‘Get on the bed, my dear,’ I say.

‘Why don’t you get it over with?’ She straightens her shuddering posture. ‘Cease the preamble and get to your ghastly business.’

‘You know what I’m to do?’

‘Of course! All that talk, there’s only one possibility.’ She sits upon the bed, and raises trembling hand to undo her collar. ‘Defile me as you intend, you damned tribad.’

I chuckle, and chortle, and giggle, for so long and with such intensity that when my senses return I find I have banished her fears by replacing them with confusion. ‘Oh, dear thing, I shall not defile you, for what would that accomplish? I would take no pleasure in it, nor would you. Your husband may, but he is not here to enjoy it.’ I manage my tone and body to comfort her, everything short of stroking her, for at this point I fear that would re-raise alarms in her. ‘You have had tutors before, well think of me as the tutor for the last lesson you shall ever require in a grand subject: Wifely obedience.’

‘Pah!’ she says. ‘You believe you could teach in minutes what I have spent my entire life trying to achieve. I see you’ve perfected the “subject” (I give you the benefit of the doubt, and accept you are in the buff because of your husband’s wishes and not your own), but you are a freak—Sorry—an anomaly of nature.’

She has already calmed down, her tremoring body now relaxing under her exhaustion.

She continues, ‘I wish I could submit as completely as you. But some of his commands… I understand I am a wife before I am an individual, but those commands!’ Her rising voice dies off as exhausted breath replaces it. ‘You cannot teach what comes naturally to you.’

I chuckle again, putting her at greater ease. ‘Natural to me. Nothing could be further from the truth. My wifely obedience did not come naturally (except in the sense it comes naturally to all women), rather it came upon me like a father after his runaway daughter, grabbing my arms as I tried to run. For you see, once I abhorred the thought of following a man’s orders, I abhorred the thought of marriage even, I dared to speak to men as if on their level. I was, you may say, a “bitch”, but in truth I was worse.’ I hold myself like a penitent prior to her ultimate confession. ‘I was… a suffragette.’

She gasps.

‘I am cured now, thank my husband and God. My husband took me aside and impressed upon me a very important lesson, one which awoke in me knowledge of my femininity, of the blessed state of submission.’ I look her deep in her eyes, like an elder sister; and she looks back, like a shrew at a serpent. She is calm, but on guard.

‘Obedience and submission,’ I say, adopting a lulling cadence, ‘seem hard, so hard, but that is delusion. In truth, they are the easiest virtues in the world.’ I slow my breaths to a regular, barely audible in-out, in-out, exaggerating the movement of my diaphragm slightly. ‘I, long ago, disobeyed my husband. I disobeyed because I felt obedience was difficult. Not physically difficult, oh, no, not physically tiring, for of course I could clean his clothes, cook his food, massage his back, those tasks would not tire me.

‘It was my pride which withheld me, which strained within me against obedience, which said, “Only weak girls obey men, and you are a strong woman.”’

After only this, the preamble to induction, her eyes lock to mine, like the shrew before the snake.

‘But after I disobeyed my husband one time too many times, he pulled me aside, and looked deeply into my eyes, as I’m looking into your eyes, so deeply that I could see nothing else. He held me, one arm round my back, and one tilting my chin, so firmly that I could have relaxed every muscle in me and remained upright. And I did relax every muscle in my body, for his presence made me, even then, understand deep down, that I didn’t need to be strong.

‘He said:—

‘“Why do you disobey, my dear? Why do you strain so, tire yourself so? A man’s commands are like wind, and a woman’s will is like grass. A woman disobeying a man’s commands is like grass trying to stand tall under the wind’s force. So tiring. Don’t you wish to relax, my dear? Nod, nod, if you wish to relax.”

‘I nodded,’ I say, nodding as I speak, slow, large nods that invite my subject to join me.

She, already a little glassy-eyed, and teeth showing between her lips, nods small nods, most likely without even knowing it.

‘He held me firmer, like a father, or older brother, a hold that enveloped me in warmth and certainty, a warm certainty that I could just close my eyes, and fall asleep in his arms, and everything would be alright.

‘He told me:—

‘“You want to relax. You are already so tired from disobedience. I shall tell you how to relax, for it is so easy for a good girl to relax, a good, weak girl to relax. All you need do, is obey. Obeying is the most relaxing thing a girl can do. I know that seems odd. I know obedience seems so difficult, so tiring, but you are simply mistaken. Just follow a few simple commands, and I’ll show you how easy, and relaxing obedience can be. Take a deep breath in…’

I do, and she, though hesitantly, follows.

‘And close your eyes as you let it out’

Her eyes close half-way.

‘Open your eyes, taking a deep breath in…’

She breathes deep through lolling mouth, flickering eyes opening three-quarters.

‘And, closing your eyes, out.’

Her eyes shut.

‘Once more, opening your eyes. Deep breathe in…’

Her eyes flutter, barely opening, a mere sliver revealing itself.

‘And, closing your eyes, out... Eyes closed, tightly shut, too heavy to be opened.’

Chin to her chest, she sits, wobbling, as if she would fall on her back. I move closer, wrap my arm around her back to stabilise her, and speak in her ear:

‘Good girl, see how easy that was, how relaxing. This is what obedience can be, a relaxing, thoughtless, will-less bliss. You think obedience is difficult because you imagine it is a choice between obeying and disobeying, between doing and not doing. No, that is not the case, for to disobey is to choose to think and act for yourself, to forever, futilely, attempt to struggle towards your own happiness without hand or guide.

‘Disobedience is to be alone in the winter wilderness, sans tent, sans food, sans fire, your only possession a destination without a map. Delicate creatures like us cannot bear such hardships, to have our fate entirely in our weak hands. Our husbands are our guides, our maps and North Stars, our thick coats, our sustenance, our shelter, our fire, for they are far hardier, and far more experienced than we. Obedience is our duty to them and to ourselves. Should they command us to set camp here, we shall. Should they command us to eat our rations, we shall. Should they command us to take the thorny path, rather than the clear, we shall, for they know the way. And obedience can feel so good, for it feels so good to bask in your husband’s warm dominance, to float in your femininity, your submission, your weakness.

‘When you disobeyed your husband, you were a very ungrateful girl, a very foolish girl. You thought you knew what was best for you, but you know better now, don’t you?’

‘… Yes…’

‘Good girl. Now, you need to show your husband just how sorry you are. For your husband, remove your dress.’

With acquiescence which would have scandalised her former mind, she stands, undoes her dress and pulls it off. Bare shoulders, bare legs and bare pussy. Only a corset, no underwear of any kind. She resumes her seat beside me, warm, white flesh touching against mine. I know not why, but my throat is dry.

‘Y-you wear no chemise… W-why?’

‘He… won’t allow it… only corset… posture.’

‘V-very good. S-stay still as I remove your corset.’

I undo the laces with the pace of one opening a long anticipated and to-be-savoured package. It comes off, revealing two swelling breasts, which must have been packed tight within.

I catch myself staring, and I slow my breath to almost respectable levels. Previously I had seen breasts, of course, but they were either my own or relative’s. In no case in my short career mesmerising stray wives had I ever seen a stranger’s bosom. I assume this light-headiness and heat is what all women feel, viewing the… abundant form of another.

‘U-um, yes, very good.’ What am I praising!? ‘To, to show me you’ve forsaken your disobedient ways I need you to obey what you disobeyed. So, open your eyes.’ She does. ‘And… kiss me.’

Only a test, of course, a test to see whether she can withstand that final straw, to see whether she can obey her-

Her lips press to mine. A limp paralysis takes me. I cannot resist her tongue pushing past my lips. I feel her hand brush my thigh, go between my legs, and stroke my-

‘Very good!’ I wrench myself to a stand, shivering with panic and arousal. I, like a fawn, keep my back to her. ‘Why did you… rub me?’

‘When we kiss, he… demands I pull his…’

‘Then you are a, a very good girl.’ It’s too hot. ‘Stand up.’

She does, and I see not a glimmer of sweat upon her, nor a shudder of an overactive heart. Just a perfectly relaxed doll, as I intended. As I intended.

‘We must show your improvement to your husband.’

I take her by the hand, to the door and down the stairs, and then ready myself at the door before knocking. Three knocks.

‘Took your bint long enough, Leashem!’ The wood barely muffles Johnson.

Through the opening door I see Mr. Leash- my husband pull the door back while yelling over his shoulder, ‘Shut your mouth, you impatient cad!’ He turns to me, his sour look turning to sickening sweetness in the transit. ‘I, myself, understand that great art requires time, don’t I, my dear?’

‘Yes… my husband.’

He looks over my shoulder to my pupil, but makes no reaction greater than a broadening of his smile. ‘Smallwood, you’ve a gift.’

I send her in first, following close behind.

‘Mr Smallwood,’ I announce, ‘I am overjoyed to present to you—your wife! well and truly tamed. Tell her to jump, she will leap. Tell her to bark, she will roar. Tell her the moon is a chocolate biscuit, and she harangue the Royal Society demanding they develop the means for her to deliver it to you. But most importantly, if I have not been erroneous in deducing your immediate desire, she can do this.’

I whisper in her ear, and she unflinching walks to where her husband sits, kneels at his feet, undoes his belt and pulls out his cock. Already erect, she takes it in her mouth, slurping and bobbing with an amateur’s unpolished enthusiasm.

‘Oh, oh!’ moans Smallwood. ‘Yes, yes! Two years married and she has never… never… oh! Leashem, your hoodoo is real!’

And so Smallwood sits there, gripping and ungripping the armrests, making the faces of one who has swallowed a too sour sweet, and calls to gods alive and dead, all to prolong his long awaited ecstasy.

Finger snaps.

‘I said,’ says my husband, ‘sit on my lap, my sweet.’

I am sat on his lap. He strokes my head. ‘See, gentlemen, the power mesmerism has to bring marriages together. Think of what it could do for you. Johnson, think of your wife who flushes every time you even say “damn”. Thomas, you mayn’t have a wife, but think of your sister, the one with all those silly Romantic ideas. One meeting with my wife and she’ll never again even glance at that stable boy. And, gentlemen all, think of these inauspicious times we live in, where mere girls talk of franchise. Give my wife but few minutes with the whores leading the movement, and they’ll burn their pamphlets before returning to the kitchen. The beast, then, having lost its head will die swiftly. Doesn’t that sound lovely, gents? Ay, doesn’t that sound lovely, my dear?’

‘Oh… oh, y-yes. Yes, my husband, lovely.’

Lovely…