Don't read this if you aren't legally entitled, morally equipped, or fully aware that the story is a fantasy invocation, descriptive of nothing, recommending nothing. Critical comment ofany kind sent to vickietern@aol.com is always welcome.

 

Mmmmmm!

by Vickie Tern

 

i.

 

She stiffened, then relaxed and said "Mmmmmm!"

"Are you sure?" he asked her?

"Of course I'm sure," she said. "It was fine. Very nice. It felt good. Now you take care of yourself, and then we'll get to sleep, shall we?"

"All right!" he replied. He pushed his hips at hers a few more times and then felt his cock intensify and his whole body go rigid. A few spurts and it was over.

"Ahhhhhh!" he sighed, whether in relief or regret he couldn't be sure. It was a low peak, but at least it had happened -- these days he never knew. And it was more like a stretch and yawn than the way it once was, a dam bursting and pouring sweet joy into every crevice of his body. And somehow it was also a loss. Of desire? He had very little desire these days, and he cherished whatever he could still feel. It never survived ejaculation. Kelly didn't seem to mind, but he did.

"Mmmmmm!" she said again as she felt Nick throb, then turn slick and soft and almost immediately slip out of her. "That's nice, honey. I'm glad for you. Hand me a kleenex, would you?"

He tried to kiss her but she turned her head away from him to snuggle into her pillow. So he reached instead for her nipple, to caress it good night.

"No more tonight," she said. "OK? I have to work tomorrow. So do you!" Her eyes closed and she began breathing deeply. Nick moved his hand to rest on her hip, but she was already asleep and didn't notice. He took another kleenex for himself, blotted his limp dick, left it stuck there, and settled to sleep himself.

It was a peculiar situation. Nick and Kelly had been married for five years. They were bonded originally by admiration but soon afterward by perverse antagonisms, the pleasure each one seemed to take in outsmarting, outwitting, and triumphing over the other. Their relationship consisted of sex and quarreling, both of them competitive and frenzied, ways to enjoy putting each other down.

The sex expressed insatiable, furious cravings -- they'd claw and grasp and writhe and thrust at each other until their bodies became a single musky, entangled, exhausted union of flesh, perspiration, and smeared genital fluids. They each tried to use the other pitilessly. In fact they felt fully compatible only when clamped and sealed together with sweat, Nick's fat cock buried deep inside Kelly and unwilling to quit, swollen to fill her entire inner territory while her thighs gripped him tight around his waist, her ankles locked behind him, holding him captive.

It was a kind of combat. Nick needed to feel he was encircling, crushing, possessing, exhausting her, reducing her to a whining rag at his feet too demoralized even to crawl away. And that was how he made love to her. Kelly was even more extravagant in her need to dominate. She wanted to squeeze every drop of semen from that swollen rod he'd put at risk inside her, until it had became a limp worm. "I'd love for you to cram your balls in there too so I could clamp them until they fell off!" she once told him. "Sometimes I wish you'd crawl into me altogether, so I could feel you kicking and wriggling and trying to breathe while I squeeze you into me deeper, till finally you drown in me and turn to muck and dissolve and become the slippery part of my pussy, feeling whatever I feel when there's a cock in me!"

"Oh?" Nick had grunted. He was still catching his breath when she'd said that. But the notion stiffened his dick, still inside her recovering from the two-person orgy they'd put briefly on hold.

She felt how the idea appealed to him, and smiled a little maliciously. "Yes," she said. "Then you'd be there all ready to help me welcome newcomers! All warm and wet, ready to suck on any other dicks I let enter me." She felt him lurch again inside her. Her eyes gleamed. Then she changed her line of attack. "Maybe the next time you cram that cock of yours into me I'll just squirm it off and squash it with my pussy muscles into a drippy, sticky jelly, and then I'll piss it away!" Now she could smile, feeling Nick fully roused. Such talk provoked in him a need to hammer her harder, more aggressively, mercilessly, and she knew it. She wanted to be hammered, and he could maintain the pace for hours once under way!

Sometimes after the second or third cum it took Nick time to harden up and dive back in. Once when they'd been at it all night he suggested he use his mouth on her while they waited, so her pussy lips would stay plump and flushed and slippery the way he liked them. Kelly gave this idea due mock consideration. "My virile man lick me down there, be my darling femmy girl waggling her tongue inside her Dyke's slit? Your own fresh sperm's already in there right now, honey, you realize that? Mmmmmm? How many loads already? You want to suck cum out of my slit? You have a secret desire to taste and swallow sperm? Really? Well, I'll think about it."

Then she'd growled intensely, "Find cock juice to suck somewhere else, if that's what you crave. There's plenty of it hanging inside every guy's pants, all over town! What I want from you now is solid meat clamped between my legs! Push some fingers in there and suck on one of my tits while we're waiting." And he'd done that until he was again thick and firm enough to re-enter her.

Later, when her groin and thighs were smeared with thick semen and her own secretions, she'd taunted him with the idea. "Baby girl still want to lick cum out of Mommy?" she'd asked him. "Rinse out pretty mouth afterward with nice hot mommy pee, drink down every drop?" That had the effect she wanted. He'd gone red faced and angry, and slammed himself into her yet again!

Unfortunately, when they weren't making love, if that's what their grappling could be called, that same urge to put down and dominate erupted into towering quarrels. They were passionate adversaries in everything. Both had stubborn, rigid temperaments. Neither one took correction gracefully. Once one of them declared an opinion the issue was decreed decided and compromise was unthinkable, a form of defeat -- there would be no backing away. They yielded each other nothing. This meant that many of their evenings were spent not in sex but in shouting, or in spiteful, simmering, resentful silences, in self-justifying recrimination punctuated by slammed doors.

The issues were always trivial, nothing, mere pretexts for testing each other's strength and triumphing over each other's. Who ought to have cleared the table after dinner. Whether football was stupid. Whether Nick should demand a higher salary (Kelly thought not, he wasn't worth it). Whether Kelly really needed that bracelet she'd just ought herself (it was even uglier than her wrist). Where to vacation. Whether fried fish was better with lemon or vinegar. Pointless disagreements, easily negotiable if either had managed to muster good will. But instead they'd stand there toe to toe savaging each other, finding fault and resenting it, making nasty, spiteful remarks, shouting, scoring off each other, neither ego willing to quit! And now and then they'd throw things, barely restraining their fists. And now and then set malicious traps and tricks for each other, petty practical jokes like open the bottoms of toothpaste tubes, or bigger ones like empty the other's bank or credit card accounts and feign innocence. They lived to plot ways to get even for supposed injuries. Friends marveled that they stayed together, and concluded that perversely, they enjoyed their resentments. They needed each other.

Mornings when they separated to go to work their rancor would dissipate, and often in the evening they'd feel remorseful, appreciative, generous in apology. They'd talk like any other affectionate couple. One would suggest that they kiss and make up, maybe sardonically but sincerely enough. So they would. The lovemaking that then followed was as ferocious as their quarreling, a sequence of teasing and mocking and badgering and pounding until both were exhausted. Then would come another flare up of temper. Then another reconciliation, followed by more feverish grasping and clinching and thrusting.

The only truces occurred when one of them was out of town on business, Kelly for her law firm or Nick to promote some new product. When these trips lasted more than a week they actually missed each other. But neither ever said so. They'd never give each other the satisfaction, so they acted as if they resented their absences as much as their presences.

They both claimed that they hated the arguments, but that was how it was! Someone suggested marriage counselling, but they couldn't agree on a counselor. Kelly tried to convert their rivalries into a game -- she suggested they join a BDSM Domination/Submission group, depersonalize their resentments, and punish each other in controlled scenarios. But Kelly insisted that Nick be the first to submit, and Nick of course couldn't ever. So there they were.

Or there they'd been. Some months ago their quarreling had ebbed, lost much of its bite and energy, and now it had disappeared altogether. Their whole relationship was different. The two seemed finally to have settled in and become comfortable with each other. Tolerant, subdued, even forgiving.

Nick couldn't understand it. They'd married too young and had finally matured? They'd finally learned the wisdom of compromise? Their love had turned selfless, no longer directed toward their own satisfactions? For whatever reason there were no more petty disagreements building to fury, no more rancorous rows, no more passionate shouting, no more explosions of temper. Kelly would bait him, or look at him insultingly, but he didn't care, so she'd lose interest. He'd grudgingly accommodate to her whims. Kelly actually began to sound concerned whenever he seemed dissatisfied. Which was less and less often.

They began acting like a proper married couple whenever they went out. No more public bickering to embarrass their friends. Nick no longer came to work scratched and exhausted, so his associates eventually quit kidding him about tough nights, cat fights, about all being fair in love and war, and so on. Instead they merely inquired after Kelly's health. Her girlfriends stopped pitying her, no longer taking her aside to explain what that impossible husband of hers really deserved. The two of them turned considerate, even tender.

But this new compatibility came at a terrible cost. As Nick's vindictive rages vanished and he became mild, accepting whatever her whims with equanimity, unsure of himself, so did the ferocity of his erotic desires. Soon he lost almost all desire to possess Kelly's body. And Kelly scarcely seemed to care. Their need to devour each other disappeared with their appetite.

Nick felt uneasy this was happening, then apologetic, then ashamed, especially on certain awful but increasingly frequent nights when he proved too soft to penetrate her no matter how he fantasized or how long she pulled on his member to awaken it. He tried to blame her, to tell her that his passion was gone because hers had gone perfunctory. He knew she still cared, but not the same way. They both knew that when he'd first proposed marriage sardonically and she'd accepted sarcastically, they were masking their true feelings for each other. Now what were those true feelings? Just as he no longer wanted to slam himself into her and fuck her silly, she no longer felt compelled to wrap her legs around him and hump him stupid. A quick kiss was enough for both, when she remembered to put up her face. Sex became an occasional thing, something done and then done with, if Nick could manage it. Nick didn't like it and couldn't understand it, but that's how it was.

The next morning, still remembering her "Mmmmmm!" to signify an orgasm of sorts, remembering how weak his pleasure when he'd cum into her, remembering how quickly she'd rolled over to sleep as he'd climbed off her, he decided to ignore his embarrassment and speak to her. He happened to be standing by their bed when she opened her eyes. She looked at him looking down at her and then away from her nervously. So she merely asked, "What?"

"We need to talk."

"So talk!"

So Nick sat down on the bedside and told her as casually as he could that it was odd, worrisome, that even though he still had strong feelings for her, still wanted to be close to her, his craving for her had almost vanished. Along with formerly powerful feelings of all sorts. They both knew it. And it seemed to be that way with her too.

Kelly listened closely and replied only "Mmmmmm!"

"What does that mean?" he asked, exasperated. "We're both still young! We both feel bound together! I think you're more attractive than ever, even now, with your hair tangled across the pillow like that, even with no makeup. Especially now. You're more provocative than ever, lying there with your eyes half-closed and your mouth half-smiling! How can it be that we don't seem to excite each other any more?"

"We don't quarrel any more either," was all she replied.

"What's that got to do with it?" he asked her. "We don't make love the way we once did!"

She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them. "Yes, we are still young," she replied slowly. "And yes, in many ways we're now closer, a better fit for each other I think. Or we're getting there. And I love you too, Nick. But as for sex, well, what did you expect would happen when the novelty finally wore off?"

"It was more than novelty!" Nick said, raising his voice. He realized he'd just used the past tense, and that worried him. "I mean, it was how we expressed ourselves! Our exasperation yes but also our desire, our caring, both. Six months ago I could never get enough of you! I knew that eventually we'd quiet down some, get less frantic, less aggressive. Maybe more playful, more considerate, more sharing. Time enough for that when we got old, that was what I thought. But this isn't even that!"

Kelly smiled to herself, then to Nick, and then tossed off her bed covers and stretched herself out naked on the bed like a cat, She always slept nude. Her arms reached high up behind her toward the head of the bed, her round breasts pulled up taut, and her body tense. She was all hills and curves dotted by pink-tipped nipples and a blonde furry bush. Looking up at Nick mischievously, she wriggled her hips ever so slightly.

"This isn't something we still share?"

"Oh yes!" Nick replied devoutly, staring almost worshipfully at his wife's beautiful body, her exposed quim. He swallowed. But he wasn't getting hard, and he didn't want to promise what he couldn't perform, so he only added, "You bet! You're as gorgeous as ever! But dammit, you don't seem to want me the way you once did. Maybe that's why I'm not turned on the way I once was?"

That was unfair, and he knew it immediately. He didn't feel turned on anyhow.

But she wasn't insulted. Not many months ago she'd have come down off the ceiling after hearing a remark like that, her fury burning into him for days afterward. That puny bastard, blaming her for his own obvious inadequacies! Outrageous!

Yet now, Kelly merely stared, pleased about something he couldn't fathom. He immediately apologized, something he'd never have done a few months earlier. He explained that her voluptuous body now seemed something he could appreciate more with his eyes than with his own body. It seemed to be a warm, soft, beautiful sculpture, not something to lunge into and possess utterly. And that was the truth. He was about to confess tearfully his mortification that he couldn't lunge into her these days, not dependably, when she interrupted him.

"I hear you," she said, her hands still stretching high overhead. She looked him over appraisingly. Then suddenly she lifted her heels and her rear up off the bed and spread her legs wide apart in the air like a gymnast. "Look here, Nick. Look at this! You see it? My sculpture? My work of art?"

Her crotch was wide open to view, as fully exposed as her face. There was her pink slit, a tuft of pale hair veiling its puffed-out labia, thin folds of moist red inner membrane meandering across that deep, closed place Nick knew was the portal to her glory hole. Now he did start to get hard. She saw.

"No time for that now," she said, satisfied. "We'll discuss all this some more tonight. We have to get up and get on our way now."

She paused, considered a moment, then said casually, "But just kiss me, that'll be enough. On the lips."

He leaned over to kiss her.

"No, not up here," she said, her eyes watching him steadily. "Down there!"

"Where?"

She looked slightly impatient. "My pussy! Kiss my pussy, Nick! French-kiss it! There it is, wide open! Didn't you once say you wanted to?"

"All right," Nick said, starting to feel elated. A go-ahead for muff diving, finally? She wasn't mocking him, calling him a lesbian faggot, as she'd done that other time he'd proposed it? Or earlier when they were still newlyweds and he'd wanted it all, eager to try everything with her, and Kelly had told him "No, Nick, I'm not dainty down there. It wouldn't feel right." Or still other times when she'd responded angrily, telling him to stop pestering her? Rejections that led as often as not to yet other bitter arguments?

She'd never let him go down on her. Sixty-nine was not one of their many positions. In fact only once had she taken him into her mouth, and that was only when she was half-desperate to harden him after he'd cum three times and she was still unsatisfied. But even then she'd first sent him to take a shower. She'd made it obvious that she didn't care for oral sex in either of her openings, above or below. Until now.

"That's how you can make love to me now, I think," she said dreamily. "That might arouse new feelings in us. I bet it would. Maybe our usual cravings have run their course, or yours have. You say you want me to turn you on, be more responsive? Well, maybe I should be taking more initiatives for both of us. Suppose for a while I decide how I want you, and I tell you what I want, and you satisfy yourself by satisfying me. That might get your juices flowing again. Shall we try that, baby? You do what I say you do?"

Nick was surprised by the alacrity of his own reply. "If you say so, sure," he said. "Yes!" Anything was better than nothing! There in front of his face nestled between her strong ivory thighs, were those soft, moist, pink lips, kissable plump, fringed in gold. Heaven, at last! He'd have agreed to anything!

"Then kiss me, honey. Right there!"

He bent over and put his face between her legs and delicately touched his lips to the furry peak of her slit. Her clit was somewhere in there, he thought. Should he send his tongue in search of it?

"I didn't feel that," she said. "You're too polite, Nick. I want to feel a really passionate smooch. Pretend you're a high school nerd dating the school's hottest cheerleader, and kissing her pussy is all she'll let you do. Pretend this is your one big chance to impress her!"

"All right," Nick said. He fixed his eyes on those swollen folds of delicate flesh surrounded by thin curly hairs, his own dried semen still streaked and flecked across some of them. The rest of last night's spunk must still be inside her. "Even though you're not ...ah...dainty?"

"You want out, lover? No? Well then, pretend you're a horny adolescent virgin and I'm the town whore and my cunt is dripping and stretched and sore from fucking guys all night and I think your smooth young mouth would feel soothing, so I ask you. You'd do it to get close to a real pussy, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? No matter how many much jism you sucked into your mouth each time you kissed me? You'd swallow it all and you'd wallow your face in my sloppy slit, wouldn't you, because I wanted you to? Well, I just told you that's what I want! Don't make me say it again!"

She'd never used those words before, "cunt" and "fucking" -- it was always "vagina," and "make love"! At most, "pussy," which always reminded Nick of a cute, furry, feline thing. But her dirty talk was appropriate, he thought. Town whores don't make love, they fuck, and not with vaginas but cunts. And in a way, Kelly talking dirty was sort of a turn on. My wife the town slut, he thought.

So Nick climbed onto the bed and straddled her torso facing her pussy, his balls falling between her breasts, and he bent down over her belly, and for the first time ever dipped his face deep between her legs. A strong whiff entered his nostrils, sweaty, fishy, musky, cheesy, pissy, salty, a hint of stale perfume, his sticky cum faintly pungent along with her own secretions. Kelly fancying herself a town slut overflowing with semen! Amusing! He licked tentatively at the fold hiding her clit, and the little nubbin came erect to meet his tongue. So he took it between his lips and licked it again. Her hips wriggled. Impatiently? He plunged down and buried his nose deep into her soft cleft, and then began swiping her whole slit up and down with his nose and tongue.

"Ahhhhhh!" she said. For the first time in months Nick heard that sound from her. Her mouth was open, and she breathed in and out deeply through it. "More, baby! More of that!"

He gave her more, and her hips rose to writhe with his head's movements along the whole of her crotch. "More!" she gasped, her voice tense. "Go further! Further back! Further in!"

"Further" meant his nose would cross past her anus. Her rosebud.

It did, gently.

"Dammit, more! Push down, push that nose deep into my ass!" she cried out furiously! "Deep! Deep! Your tongue too! Lick me! Lick!"

Nick was shocked as he leaned into his work. But it was still not enough! "Smooch my asshole, you bastard! Push! Face-fuck me!"

He'd never heard anything like that from her before! Even in the days when they were both frenzied in the act of sex, all shrieks and whining outcries and heavy breathing, Kelly had never shouted like that! Now? She was now bucking high into his face, writhing, trying to seize his head with her legs and crush him into her womb, trying to fulfill some bizarre desire! "More!" she shrieked as if now utterly enraged, "Push into me, goddammit! SUCK MY FUCKING CUNT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!"

Shocked, he began now to wipe his whole face up and down her crotch, pressing himself hard into her. His tongue extended as far out as he could stretch it, stroking and poking into her pussy and side-swiping her labia while his nose and his lips and finally his tongue wiped her ass. Then his tongue penetrated her ass! Drinking, lapping, licking, probing! Her whole lower region quickly became soaked, dripping, and only some of it was saliva! When he reached her anus again he tensed his neck muscles to shove especially hard, and the tip of his nose also penetrated! Her ass cheeks hardened to hold it there. Buns of steel indeed!

Her thighs suddenly managed to wrap themselves tight over his neck and squeeze his ears, clamping, squashing him even further into her moist crotch, cutting off all light and sound. Her slits and holes and membranes became his whole world, wet and velvet black and airless. His mouth filled with her. When he realized he couldn't breathe he shook his head back and forth to try to free himself, and her hips began to heave with his head. He realized vaguely that she was cumming. He couldn't hear a thing, clamped inside her as he was. He was suffocating. Drowning! But still he wriggled and shook and licked and thrust as best he could while still conscious. Finally, as he thought he was blacking out she eased off and opened her legs, and he could gasp air!

"OH GOD!" he heard her say behind him in a hoarse voice. "Marvelous, Nickie! Marvelous! Oh! It's a wonder I have any voice left after that! God, that's what I've needed! That's what you'll do for me from now on! Even if it does wake up the whole neighborhood!"

 

 

ii.

 

Nick was still gasping, his wet cheek flat against her belly, his chest heaving. He'd been clamped in so tight he'd heard nothing! He turned and saw over his shoulder that she'd spoken into the air above her face. Her eyes were still shut.

Well, this is something, anyhow, he was thinking. This is new!

He rolled off her, and she looked over at him, "Yes!" she said.

"It's been so long since we've had something like that, honey!

I've missed it! That's what you'll do for me every time I want it! That'll make me horny for you again, my sweet Nickie! And satisfy me too! And you just said it, when I'm excited, you're excited! Didn't you just say that? Weren't you excited too, face-fucking me like that? Wasn't it great for you too? Your shoulders were really heaving and shuddering toward the end, I could barely hold on to your head with both my legs to keep you down! My darling hubby with that wonderful tongue, and those sweet lips kissing mine! That pretty, pretty mouth of yours pressed against my pussy! That's how girls make love you know! That's what I want you to do!

Tell me you want to make love to me like that from now on, lover!

Like a girl!"

Odd, Nick thought. How girls make love? I suppose so. A little disconcerting. But her frenzy had indeed turned him on, somewhat, even though it had nearly asphyxiated him. And she seemed ecstatic! So he nodded, just barely.

"Your cheeks and chin are so shiny now. Glistening, your whole face all covered with me! My juices. All mine! You're an extension of me now, of my pussy! You're like one of my private parts on loan now, aren't you!"

She reveled in that thought. Nick couldn't object. He nodded again.

"That's the first kind of sex I ever had, did you know that? Getting licked to orgasm. In high school we had a club, girls who liked doing it and girls who liked being done. And in college I had Janet. Janet loved doing that for me! You remember Janet, my roommate my first years in college, right up until the time we met?"

Nick nodded, surprised. This was a confession! He remembered Janet. A tall, cool girl with long dark hair, dedicated to every social cause, always looking for something she could devote herself to completely. She'd quit in her third year to take up ... what, Peace Corps work was it? To educate Indians in Arizona somewhere?

"You're my first man ever down there! My first darling man! I've never let another man do that! And you're the first person ever to push his nose into my asshole while kissing my pussy. You really wanted to, didn't you! I just loved it! Ooooh! It was wonderful, sweetheart!" She nodded, agreeing with herself.

But Nick was still trying to absorb what she'd just said about her high school friends. And about Janet. They'd had sex together, Kelly and Janet? "You were...intimate like this -- you did this -- with friends? With Janet?"

Kelly watched her husband and answered slowly, as if weighing each word. "Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it got this intense, Nickie baby. But more often it was delicate, tender, gentle. The way you'd expect girls to be with each other when they're being intimate! We'd do it that way mostly."

"The way girls are when they're intimate?" Nick was entering a new world he'd never known existed. His wife's world. "Girls being sexually intimate?"

Now Kelly was openly amused. "Awww, Nickie, you're shocked! Yes, of course girls! Do you think you're the first person I've ever allowed down there? Half the girls in my high school club licked me! Jan practically lived down there! Almost from when we first met. She loved tucking her face into my pussy, same as you do! She was so considerate when she was down there, so affectionate, always trying to please me, to make me feel good. And she always succeeded! Her lips always felt incredibly delicate at first, warm and wet and soft, and her tongue felt like a frightened fawn. But then as she lapped and licked and kissed me we'd get more passionate and she'd get more provocative and teasing and then sometimes she'd drive me out of my mind, until there was nothing I could do but writhe and twist and scream! Just like you just now! Like us! You're wonderful! Janet was like that! Janet loved doing that to me! She was absolutely devoted to me once her face was down there between my legs! You know? Of course you do. The way you felt just now! I could feel it! She was like you earlier too when we made love, sometimes. Fierce. But always to satisfy me, not for herself. Much more considerate."

"Janet? She was? Like us before now too?" Nick didn't know what else to say.

"Yes, we'd use a fat jelly dildo. God that felt good! Yes! We'd be the way you and I have been, crawling all over each other, animals in heat! You remember once I plastered myself against you and told you I wanted you to fuck me so hard your brains would melt and drain down into your balls, so when you squirted into me you'd be left empty-headed, mindless, a big blow-up fuck-doll? She'd fuck me like that sometimes! Without the squirting of course! But on and on, not quitting like you after maybe only three times at most!"

Kelly smiled to herself, remembering. Nick said nothing. He felt excluded.

"That's why I was so shameless with you when we first met. We did it that way too! You were easily as good as that dildo! Didn't you ever wonder why I got so frantic?"

"I thought it was me," Nick said.

"Janet had just moved out and I was living alone, eager to try all sorts of new things! I was starved for the feel of a real man's meat snugged up tight inside me. And then you came along, and yours was just what I needed! Janet was gone, time to try a man again! I wanted to get stuffed! And you were great!"

Nick felt disturbed by this testimonial. It seemed insulting somehow. Yet he couldn't feel resentful. "I was as good as Janet's dildo?"

Kelly ignored his question, if it was indeed a question. "That's why I never wanted your face down there licking me where Jan's face once was. You'd ask, and I'd say no. Because that was something private between me and Janet. Kissing my pussy was for girls only. Janet and then the others, that's who I wanted down there. Not you.

Not until now!"

"The others? Janet and other girls? Kelly, you never told me about ...!"

"Of course other girls. You never asked," Kelly had a satisfied lilt in her voice. "Never about girls. There've been girls, honey."

She smiled to herself and stretched again, luxuriously, her whole body tense, wriggling, but all the while her eyes never left his.

"Like a lot of guys, you've always been insecure about my sexual experiences before you. The boys I once knew. You were always asking me how many boys I'd slept with, what did we do together, did they get me off, were they better hung, all those questions guys always ask. You never thought to ask me about girls. I guess in a way that was fair. After all, I've never asked you about your girls." She paused and smiled a wicked smile. "Or about your boys. Have I ever? No. But you've never quit asking me. I bet you're still jealous of them! Even after five years of marriage!" She smiled a superior smile and added, "You wait, lover. I'm going to cure you of that insecurity once and for all. Just you wait!"

Nick couldn't tell if that was a threat or reassurance. She looked at him speculatively, deciding what to say next. He looked back at her, curious. This was a new Kelly speaking. A take-charge, calm, decisive Kelly he'd seen deal with emergencies when he'd stopped by her office, but had never before seen at home. Not even during their worst battles, nor during the tense silences that followed them. Kelly had a lesbian past? No, a bisexual past, she was no lesbian, she loved cock! He felt a tinge of unease. Shouldn't he be feeling resentful? Kelly sounded so relaxed, even matter-of-fact!

Comfortably self-assured, as if her authority were now unchallengeable, so there was no need for her to conceal anything. Confident that he wouldn't get mad. Underneath, Nick sensed, she was very much in control.

Odd. She seemed to feel she could say anything and he'd remain hers. It wasn't accidental that she was telling him about Janet only now, and hadn't ever earlier. He'd just kissed her pussy for the first time. When he went down on her, did their relationship change in some subtle way? Did her view of him change? Nick sensed he was on her turf in this conversation. So he said nothing.

She continued. "You've always asked me about boys, Nickie baby, but you never asked me about any of my girls. There have always been girls doing girl things like the things you just did. I do adore feeling cherished down there." She paused.

Nick questioned his ears. Had his wife just hinted that she's been having sex with others since their marriage? With girls? Been unfaithful to him, with girls? But is it infidelity if it's with girls? Women hug each other all the time. Maybe they do more, sometimes, in all innocence? Like lick each other out? Had he been sharing Kelly with her friends all these years, without knowing it?

Kelly continued to reminisce, as if she hadn't told Nick anything that mattered. "I think I seduced Jan into loving me with her face the very first week we were roommates. There's no doubt she loved it. For the next two years, whenever we felt hot she'd spend night after night down there eating me out! All night! Maybe fuck me first with that dildo to raise a little excitement and scent, but then sleep and kiss and sleep and lick! My mound was her favorite pillow. Sometimes she'd sleep there for weeks at a time!"

Nick tried to imagine it. Kelly sleeping, propped up among piles of pillows the way she still did sometimes, Janet dozing between Kelly's legs. Kelly's hand resting protectively on Janet's head, or stroking her, coaxing her to do more. Janet waking to do more. Was this his future?

"And you loved it too just now, didn't you baby, bringing me off with your mouth and your whole face. You really put your heart into it! Didn't you?" She grinned openly! "Your nose, too! My cunt licking, ass kissing, brown-nosed husband! I was right! I knew you'd love it once there wasn't much else you could do!"

Knew it? Knew what? When? Just now? He knew his face was still slick, his ears crusted, his chin dripping with her juices. Did he really have a brown nose? It could be, he'd really pushed into her asshole as deep as he could get, especially after she'd urged it, cursed him for not trying hard enough. Had he succeeded? How far in had he gone? He twisted up and started to roll off the bed to check in the mirror. His shoulders sloped his face toward Kelly's for a moment as he tried to stand up.

She mistook his intentions and leaned away. "No, Nick, don't try to kiss my face," she said. "Not like that! Your face isn't ... ahhh ... delicate right now, honey. From now on down there's where you can kiss me any time you want to. My mound, my slit, my ass, anywhere down there. But not my face from now on. Not now that you've been down there. All you want below, and whenever I want it too. You get home from work and want to kiss me 'hello,' that's where. Just drop to your knees and snuggle up to my mound and plant a big buss right there! You'll love it and I'll love it! All right?"

What could he say? She was waiting. He had to say something. "If you say," Nick responded curtly. He'd deal with it later. He felt a twinge of resentment, as in the old days. Old? A few months ago, old? But it passed.

Very strange. She'd just opened a part of herself she'd always kept closed, he realized, even during their most randy, impassioned times together. She just confided things she'd kept to herself even during their stormiest arguments. She could have thrown this relationship with Janet at him spitefully at any time, yet she never had! He still didn't understand. Why that sly hint that girls might still be browsing between her legs? She'd been seeking out sex with other girls since high school, and still did? Even now? Regretting nothing? Maybe she preferred women? Maybe he was an exception in her sex life? Her pre-heated dildo?

No, he thought further. She loved straight sex with a man, there was no doubt about that, the kind that finishes with cum pouring out of her and claw marks and bruises all over both of them! She craved it! Now during this odd time when he wasn't able to deliver, she was revisiting her good old days, that was all. Returning to whatever she'd had with Janet. His kissing her below the waist had opened up all those memories. And now she wanted him to kiss her there exclusively. Would that satisfy her? Well, was there anything much else he could do to satisfy her these days? Penetrating her with his prick was touch and go at best. "All right," he said. "If that's what you want."

"Good!" she said. "You're a doll, and I love you! But we're both really late now. I better phone and get some appointments rescheduled. You use the shower first."

An hour later they'd breakfasted, and as he tied his tie Nick was feeling more like his old self. Where they'd been this morning was disorienting, but it was a lot better than anywhere else they'd been lately. His self-confidence had re-emerged. Wherever his fervor for frenzied sex had gone, he could still satisfy her. He could still provide his wife with what she wanted, and he wanted to provide it! He was her husband! He had strong feelings for her!

But where else might this lead? What did it imply for their future? What else was there he didn't know?

He glanced into his wall mirror over to where she was seated at her vanity with her back to him, applying lipstick and critically examining her eye shadow in her own mirror. His mirror revealed hers across the room. As she wiped her eyelid with a teeny sponge, he saw that she was also looking at him. Each was looking at a mirror reflection of the other. Surface appearances, he thought vaguely. Merely. She's beautiful, he thought, but there's so much underneath I haven't known about!

Her reflected gaze steadily meeting his, she raised one thin eyebrow as if inquiring what was on his mind.

As casually as he could he tried to probe further into the morning's startling revelations. "I've been wondering, Kelly honey. You mentioned the girls in your ... past. And you're right, I never asked, it never occurred to me there might be girls. Do you still feel you want ... I mean, have there been any ... since we ... since Janet, I mean?" He didn't want to know, but he had to ask.

"You mean since we got married?" She was a little amused at his embarrassed indirection. He'd gotten her hint, and was feeling unstable, just as she wanted. "Honey, that's very personal, that kind of intimacy. Now that you've gone down on me, I can't allow anyone else to put her face down there, can I? Not any more! To answer your question, there was Janet and now there's you. Any others don't matter! Janet was my first really serious pussy lover, and now you're my really serious pussy lover. I've always hoped that some day you'd want to replace Janet, that when all our quarreling and shouting stopped -- if it ever did -- you'd maybe feel as devoted to me as Janet did, maybe even the same way. So now that we're finally less ... argumentative I want us to have what Janet and I had. And it turns out you're perfect for me down there, doing that! After this morning I mean to have you down there often!"

She'd complimented him and reassured him, he supposed, but his feelings were still tangled. He felt resentful, and irrationally, he felt jealous of Janet, retroactively. And even more frustrated that he couldn't now satisfy Kelly as he'd once done, vigorously, with his prick, like a man. Her pleasure in pussy worship was something he'd known nothing about. And, he noticed, she hadn't really answered his question. She was teasing him? Hiding part of her sex life from him?

Her mirrored face was still looking directly at him as she applied her lipstick with a few deft strokes. "You mean now you want me to replace Janet?" He didn't know if he was teasing or insulting her when he added in what he hoped was a light tone, "You want me to be like one of your old lesbian crowd, sucking each other's pussies?"

Kelly's face tightened. "That's crude, Nick. But you're halfway correct. I don't suck pussy myself, and even if I did you don't have one, remember?" She repeated the word sharply! "Remember? Is it that hard these days for you to remember how you're equipped?

So I'd be out of luck! But to employ your own vulgar idiom, yes. That's how you should think of it! When we make love from now on I do want you to be more like Janet. Someone who sucks my pussy. Someone who feels privileged to suck my pussy! Eager to suck my pussy. A girl who feels grateful because I'm willing to let her suck my pussy!"

She was working herself up, just as in the old days. Nick couldn't match it now, and he realized he had better deflect her anger fast. He brushed his hair back and into the ponytail he'd taken to wearing -- it was really long, he should get it cut -- and turned to face her. She was blotting the last of her makeup and looking about for her purse, getting ready to stand and leave. "Honey," he said gently. "I'm sorry. But I lack the crucial qualification."

"You mean the ability to satisfy me as a man? You bet you do, Nick!" Now she was looking directly at him. Her eyes stabbed and her face now seemed flushed even under her make-up. She really was angry!

"No!" Nick flinched, then continued hastily. His indirection had gone awry, turned into an insult. He'd better be quite clear. "I mean, if you want me to be a girl who sucks your pussy I lack the crucial qualification. I'm not a girl."

"Mmmmmm!" she replied. She considered this statement for a moment. Then she looked straight at Nick, and he was glad to see she looked amused now, not angry. "That's not the crucial qualification, sweetheart! You proved that this morning. As for the rest, we'll see. It's getting late. We both need to get to work."

"Can I ask you one more question, baby."

She was now standing purse in hand, poised to leave for her office in her little Escort. The Lexus was Nick's they'd agreed last year after a fierce quarrel. He had to drive clients around town to different sites, and had persuaded her that they needed to be impressed. She was a lawyer who only needed transportation to her office downtown, and it didn't hurt that if they ever saw it, the Escort reassured her clients that she wasn't making big bucks off them, even when she was doing just that. To clinch the agreement about which car each would drive, he'd offered as a bonus that he'd be charming at all times with all of her friends, even those he detested who felt the same way about him. And that she could be the sole judge whether he was performing as promised.

It had cost him. Her friends didn't like him. He'd been as sarcastic with them as he'd been in their presence with Kelly. So in return they were barely civil with him. Yet after she agreed to take the little car, he'd kept his word. No matter how insulting or barbed their comments, he'd been the soul of conviviality with them and she'd never had reason to complain. Not that anyone was taken in by it. They all knew the reason and they all were impressed by his small-mindedness and his hypocrisy, that was all.

God! Nick thought now, looking at her. She's stunning! Kelly really was a knockout in her tight gray business suit, the one with the short skirt, with a ruffled white lace collar at her throat! Her face was just lovely, her wide cheekbones tinted with blush, her huge eyes, her plump red mouth and cute little chin. Her war paint she called it, and the innocent beauty she projected had fooled more than one opposing attorney into underestimating her!

She was perfect! Nick suddenly felt so proud of her! And a surge of pride in himself too. He was proud to be her husband, proud he'd once somehow persuaded this fantastic woman to marry him! Proud that despite his ... deficiency he'd just managed to satisfy her sexually anyhow! That even under these difficult circumstances she was still his wife. This was a new feeling for him, he realized. It was real affection. What he'd thought was affection earlier had been grudging respect for a worthy antagonist. This felt warmer. His heart warmed to it.

"One more question?" she repeated. 'I know what you want to ask, Nickie," Kelly said. Her voice was now kindly. "You're all edgy now with this new turn our marriage has taken. You've been feeling uncertain about yourself, and with good reason! And now you're uncertain about me too, about my past, what I've done, what I do, what I want. But can't it wait till tonight? We really don't have time now."

Nick had to ask. "Just this one question, Kelly. You've mentioned girls, and ... after Janet and all ... I understand how you feel about that ... kind of thing. I'll be glad to ... help out. It's marvelous that we've found this new thing. But you've turned me upside down! I don't know what to think any more. I can't help wondering about other ... things. Other intimacies." He smiled wryly. "I mean, you say you've been with girls, before our marriage and maybe even since. Have there been ... other kinds of ...? I mean, have you thought about boys too? Been with ...? I mean, suddenly I find I'm married to a woman of mystery!"

Kelly stood by patiently while Nick floundered. She seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. "I guess you are," she said when he'd finished. "We'll talk tonight, baby. I want to put a very important proposition to you tonight. But quickly, yes, it is marvelous we've found this new thing, and yes I mean to turn you upside down. As for your question about boys, I've pretty much told you about all those I went with before we got married. But since you seem to need reassurance I'll address your fears about boys right now. Have I thought about having sex with boys since our marriage? Yes, of course I have. Every time we quarreled, and I was furious with you and wondering how to get even. Have I ever done anything about it? Well, the answer is no, not with boys. Any other questions?"

Nick had none. He was sorry he'd asked. She was right. He shouldn't have asked. Not with so little time, not now.

"Then kiss me goodbye, and I'm off! No, you remember how from now on, don't you?"

She just stood there. Feeling a little foolish, play-acting, really, Nick dropped to his knees in front of his wife, leaned forward, and kissed her mound through her tight gray skirt.

She patted his head affectionately. "That's my sweet girl," she said. "Oh, I'll take the Lexus today. You won't need it any more. Use the Escort."

He glanced up. Her eyes were half closed. She seemed unaware that she'd just called him a girl. He decided to ignore it. But what did she say about the Lexus?

All through that day he couldn't forget her 'Not with boys.' What did that mean? She'd been having sex with girls but not with boys? Then it occurred to him, with men but not with boys? My God!

Should he have asked her outright if she'd been unfaithful to him?

How could he do that?

Finally he decided she was being literal minded, an old lawyer's trick. 'Not with boys' but she had been having sex with her husband, with Nick, who was a man. And that was all it meant. She was deliberately provoking him, as so often. Yes, of course. Was that why she asked for the Lexus? To provoke him further? No, she hadn't asked, she'd declared for it. To assert a new superiority? No matter. Probably it was to impress a special client she'd be meeting.

That settled, Nick turned to his day's work concentratedly, speaking to nobody, though all the while an edge of insecurity persisted. No one came in to speak to him. That was odd, usually his day was filled with all sorts of consultations. He nodded to his secretary as he left for the day. "See you tomorrow," he said. She just stared back at him. That was also odd.

It was Nick's turn to bring home dinner that night. To celebrate their rediscovered eroticism -- hers anyhow -- he ordered it delivered from Les Halles, the best restaurant in town, with two superb wines. When they were seated and their gourmet feast was set before them and the delivery waiter had bowed yet again and left, and their first bottle of wine was empty, and they both felt relaxed, Nick opened the second bottle and told Kelly how disturbed he'd been by what she'd said about not having sex with boys, implying maybe that she'd had sex with men, until he'd realized what she'd actually meant, that she'd had sex with him. And he was a man.

"Mmmmmm," she replied, chewing a small slice of a Chateaubriand, bleu, in her perfect mouth. Then silence. She sliced another sliver. Then casually, as she watched her fork stab it, she said, "Yes. I meant that too, you're right. Have you thought about the other thing I said? How I want you to be my new Janet when we're making love? How utterly perfect it would be if you'd agree to become my new girl?"

She'd been serious? That wasn't a slip of the tongue? "You mean for me to have oral sex with you from now on, yes, I'd love to. Of course."

Kelly stopped chewing and just looked at Nick. "No, understand me, sweetheart. Maybe you don't understand. I don't know how to say this, so I'll be direct. When you kiss me down there, I can't think of you as a man. Not when you're doing it, and now that you've done it, never again. Not any more. Not ever. Because it isn't manly. After Janet, after all the girls who've ... appreciated me down there, I can't help but think that licking my clit and tongue-fucking my cunt is for girls. It's what girls do. It's feminine. It's how girls honor each other, their own distinctive sex, their own femininity. Because only another girl can know how it feels!"

Then she repeated it slowly. "Now that you've kissed and licked my cunt, I can't ever think of you as a man again! It just doesn't seem manly, Nick, for you to put your face down there! Not to me! It never has. That's not how I want a man to make love to me! That's not how I want a man to come at me when he's aroused! You know what it is I like in a man! A cock so stiff and swollen that it's frightening. I want to feel hot blood throbbing in it, every last heartbeat! When push comes to shove I want a man who's trying to take possession of me with it, who thinks that he's staking a claim on my body by planting his sperm deep inside me. Anointing his territory, as it were. Doing what you used to do, thinking what you've certainly thought! And all the while I'm fighting back. Because I know that when he's in me I've got him surrounded and imprisoned, that I'm clamped down on him, that his cock is mine by right of conquest and I've got him by the balls! That's what I want my bed to be when I'm with a man! A battlefield."

She paused, obviously looking for the most tactful way to continue. "That's what we've had, Nick. You've been like that. But you said it yourself, you just aren't aroused like that any more. Those days are over. Most days you aren't aroused at all, are you? Well, for every loss there should be a gain. The question is, what do we do about it?"

Kelly took a deep breath, and then decided to lay it on the line.

 

 

iii.

 

"Well, I've decided. Here's what we do. You quit trying to be a man. You're useless that way. Give it a rest and go with what we've got! Right now we're both of us sexually unsatisfied. You think it's because I'm not turned on, so you're not turned on, and so on. And maybe I think I'm not turned on because you're not! So our marriage is in real trouble despite how we feel about each other! Agreed so far?"

Nick's heart was sinking, he didn't know why. He nodded.

"How long do you think we can go on like this? We're both of us still young and healthy! We both have always loved sex, ferocious, knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred sex! It was great sex that held us together through the worst of our quarreling, wasn't it? But what holds us together now? Listen to how you torture yourself, do I have other girlfriends or boyfriends! Have I had other girlfriends or boyfriends! What a confession of inadequacy, that you need to ask! Think of the stresses on our marriage if I were to suspect the same of you! That you've had other girlfriends or boyfriends? Suppose I were to decide that you aren't performing for me because you're fucking someone else, say, some hot young secretary, or you're butt-fucking some hunky muscle man! Or some guy has a thick dick deep in your rear. What might I do then?"

Nick was silent. She saw his expression and reached over to cover his hand with hers.

"Oh, sweetheart, I don't think any such thing! And I don't want our marriage to end any more than you do! But it will! And this morning we found a way to keep it alive! How you can still turn me on after all! And because of that, maybe yourself too! You saw!"

Nick tried to look hopeful, not mournful. Nor defensive, though he sensed that what she was about to say would not be welcome.

Kelly could see that. She put down her knife and fork and stood up, and paused by her chair for a moment, just looking at Nick thoughtfully. For a fleeting moment Nick feared that she was actually giving up on him, then and there, that she was about to turn her back and walk out of the room, out of his life altogether. There had been times when he'd hated her and he'd wished it. Or considered walking out himself. But now, with this peculiar sense of inadequacy hanging over him, he felt a sudden deep pang of loss.

She didn't turn and walk out. She came over and stood next to him, then with a sudden twist of her hips she sat down in his lap, and draped both arms across his shoulders. She leaned back to look down at him. He looked back up at her, oddly, wistfully grateful. The swellings of her breasts under her suit jacket filled most of his field of vision. He saw around her neck a thin gold chain he'd given her a year ago and once had almost torn off her neck with a clenched fist, enraged.

"Sweetheart, we're past our tempestuous times. Let's face it! Those arguments were terrible, and I couldn't stand one more of them. The lovemaking was great, and maybe it'll come back some day, one way or another. But maybe we've entered a new phase, and we need to accept that as a fact! So we need something else! We need to move on with what we've got! I'll tell you what I want, and then when I'm done you tell me whether you love me enough to give it to me. OK?"

She leaned forward and kissed Nick lightly on his lips, and kept her face close. And then spoke slowly.

"Here's what I want. If my husband can't be a male animal in bed with me, then I want him to be my sweet Janet in bed with me. My roommate. My soul mate. You're the lovely man who replaced Janet in my heart way back. And if you're not exactly a man now, you're still lovely. So you can try to be a little more like Janet! Someone devoted to pleasing me. I want to feel your affection the way any girl can feel any other's. The way I felt Janet's. I want you to make love to me down there the way she did, the way you did it this morning, sweetheart! Maybe even also use love-toys too, dildos, the kind Janet sometimes pushed into me and I'd push into her now and then. The kinds women use when one of them wants to feel deeply penetrated, possessed, loved. Or both want it."

She kissed him again, more passionately, as if aroused by the memory.

"I still have that wonderful jelly dildo around here somewhere, its bigger than you at your biggest. You can certainly use it to do the job on me now that your penis is undependable. I loved it! And you know something else, lover? Maybe you'd love it too! You really should know how it feels to have something that gorgeous moving inside you, stretching you even while you clench down on it and squeeze it tight. How it feels to want one in you, to miss it the way I miss it sometimes. You have no way of knowing now, do you?"

Nick saw that her eyes were hooded, her expression distant, that she seemed lost in a fevered reminiscence. Yet, he saw, the whole time she spoke she never stopped watching him.

"No, I guess not," he said, trying to sound helpful. This conversation was turning kinky!

"This morning when you were down there between my legs I closed my eyes and imagined you were Janet. And my orgasms rose to unbearable intensity! They just piled on, one after another! Because you're better than Janet! I've never been so close to heaven. As Janet you're perfect!"

Nick was now wondering if Kelly had gone off some deep end. True, their sex often seemed an insane frenzy. Once launched into an erotic storm they'd toss and heave, more than willing to do anything, try anything with each other, nearly. Especially once Kelly passed beyond restraint and became insatiable, and his own desire for her blazed.

Though not recently. He knew it really wasn't her fault. His own zest, lust, his desire for her, they just weren't there any more. For months their lovemaking had been slack as he'd grown increasingly incapable. He'd disappointed her repeatedly. He knew that she tried nowadays not to impute blame, not to find fault with him. Even now she was struggling not to hurt his feelings. Could that be why they no longer argued so furiously with each other? Because she knew he was already feeling unsure of himself, inadequate, and she didn't want to make matters worse? Even now, he realized, she was trying to raise his morale by suggesting they relate in a new way, do something he could still perform.

"Sweetheart," she said, wriggling on his lap and staring into his eyes. "Listen! I want to be able to look down and see my very own lover down there sweetly and delicately licking my clit! I want that lover between my legs to be no one but you! Only you!"

Nick heard what she was saying. It was a new pledge of devotion, of fidelity. But not of a kind that gave him peace of mind. He looked up at her, and she looked down at him. She saw he'd heard her. So she continued now, more confident.

"From now on, Nick, when you're being my husband, I want you to be my girlfriend. My girlfriend! I've been imagining it all day, lover! That's what I want! I don't need an unfit man, I want a devoted woman! I want to see your eyes beautifully shadowed, looking up lovingly at me from under huge lashes, from between my legs, while your dark red lips nibble my clit. I want to feel your grace and delicacy and tenderness kissing and caressing and licking my most intimate, private places. A woman's grace and tenderness. I want you to learn to love to do it! I want to know that my lover is feeling what I feel. Feminine feelings!"

Nick didn't quite understand, and he certainly didn't know what to say. She was far gone! Wasn't she? "That's quite a speech," he said finally. "I didn't know that's what you wanted." Then he decided to assert himself. "Kelly, I'm a man!" he said. His voice sounded a little uncertain.

"Not really. Not lately!" she said gently, unshaken by the news. She leaned forward and lightly kissed his cheek. Then held his head immobile between her two hands. "Listen. We've been obsessed with a different kind of lovemaking. While it lasted. Great sex. Sex between a man and a woman across the gender barrier. There's always something desperate about that kind of sex, isn't there. Something incomplete and yearning! And also something dominating and resentful and challenging and competitive, isn't there that too? Something threatening, even? We've both felt it. Maybe that's why we've had to struggle to reach each other, because our gender differences have held us apart. But sex between women is different. Women instinctively feel each other's pleasures and sorrows and nurture each other's joys. We share ourselves with each other! Wasn't this morning's sex the best we've had in months?"

"Yes." Nick decided not to point out that whatever Kelly needed, another Janet maybe, he had been a nearly-asphyxiated Nick. Nor did he remind her that during that landmark morning lovemaking he hadn't even gotten off.

Kelly kissed Nick again, then slipped off his lap and strolled slowly, casually back to her own side of the dinner table, her rounded rear toward him and her hips undulating, it seemed, almost triumphantly. She sat down square in her own chair.

And Nick realized that for Kelly it was no longer a dining room chair but an executive desk chair. She placed both her palms flat down in front of her, and she looked across at Nick, round-eyed, her little mouth a pursed rosebud. She seemed like a child about to speak with great earnestness about something monumental!

"Then that's the kind of sex we'll have from now on, Nick! I can't expect that your old energies will ever return. So make no mistake, you'll need to go all the way to provide me with what I need. No limits! We've always known what we wanted from each other. Well, now that you're the way you are, I'm telling you flatly what I want! Since you aren't the man you were, I want you to be the woman I once had between my legs. You heard me! I want you to eat me the way Janet did. And as often. I don't care if you eat me out of devotion or lust or enthusiasm or groveling servitude, because you want to submit yourself to me or because I want you to submit. Any of those reasons are good enough for me. But it has to be all out! Nothing held back! Like the lovemaking we've always had in the past!"

"Kelly, I've always wanted to eat you, as you so delicately put it," Nick said. "I've proposed it. But you ...."

She didn't seem to be listening. Her voice grew more determined, steely. More like her voice that morning when she'd first ordered Nick to bow down and taste the power of her pussy. "Only a woman can eat me! You're no longer the man I married. You ate me this morning! If you can't be the woman I lived with before we got married, if you aren't willing to take care of my needs, then I see no reason to stay married. It's over. There's no other way we can survive together as a couple. It would be an act of kindness for me to end it now, tonight, while we still care for each other despite everything."

Our marriage ended?! Nick was stunned! Astonished! He just sat there. He could still feel where her soft rump had pressed down on his lap, he felt her presence there even though she wasn't there any longer. Nor perhaps would be ever again. He tried to open his mouth, but he couldn't!

"I'm waiting to hear that you agree with me, Nickie. That you're willing to be my new girlfriend Janet. In every way. That you want to be my girlfriend. I want you to say it."

Kelly took a deep breath. It crossed her mind that she might well be pushing him too hard, that despite his recent apologetic pliancy he might well be mustering rebellion down under. He needed a moment to think, to get used to the idea. So she eased off, and added more gently, "Just think about it right now, honey. Take your time. Is there really any alternative for us? I want good sex. I can always find it somewhere, and if I find it in some lesbian bar I just might want to bring it home. And that would be the end of us." She paused, then added, "And suppose it isn't a lesbian bar but one of those singles bars where men cruise for available women."

Nick just stared. His lap was empty. His heart was in his shoes.

"I really don't want a series of dates with women. I want what I had with Janet, but with you! I want a sweetheart. A roommate. An all-out lover. You! Almost the way you are now, sweetheart, but with a few changes. Nicer, less disagreeable, the way you've been lately, sensitive to my feelings. A dear friend. A dear girlfriend. Someone who can devote herself to pleasing me!"

She's gone mad! Nick was thinking. Or maybe it's just that she's as demanding as ever, as determined to satisfy herself as ever, but I haven't got the will these days to fight back and make my own demands.

"Think about it. Let me know after we've had our dessert and coffee, while there's still something left of the evening. Because I need to know tonight whether you're willing to be made over into what I need. Either way you decide I'll need to make a few phone calls." She looked intently, seriously at him. "I am in deadly earnest, Nick. Our old marriage has ended. Our old battles are over. You've lost. I've won. We'll have a new relationship now or we'll have none, and no hard feelings."

Her face brightened. She'd said what she had to say, and the problem was no longer hers! "I think you can clear the dishes now, honey. Let's have that dessert and coffee in the living room. Those French pastries looked so delicious when the waiter laid them out on the kitchen counter! Use a tray when you bring everything in. I love being served!" She rose and left the dining room without another word.

When Nick brought in the patisserie and the coffee and sugar and cream and set it all down on the coffee table between their matched sofas, he saw that kelly had kicked her shoes off and was leaning back on the opposite sofa deep in thought. She looked worried. She'd delivered her ultimatum and now awaited his response. He realized for the first time that this was not a game. It was not a frivolous ploy. She meant it. She was no more anxious to end their marriage than he was, but she meant to end it. She'd do it, if he couldn't provide what she needed. He believed her. They'd neither of them ever doubted that an all-out great sex life is crucial to happiness. He hadn't been able to provide one for weeks now, months. She'd told him what kind of sex she wanted instead, and she knew he could perform it because he'd done it only that morning. Oral sex. And done it very well, apparently.

But was he willing to do it as a kind of memorial to her good old days with Janet, or her other girls earlier? That was a weird notion! Could he? He knew instinctively that he'd have to do it to keep her, at least at first. When she spoke in that firm tone of voice, she meant it. And when she meant it, that was that.

He sat down opposite her, "Let me understand you," he said. "This girlfriend thing. Suppose I agree to play at it with you. That's only in bed, when we're making love. Only then, right?"

She didn't even trouble to turn her head toward him when she answered into the air with a certain weariness. "No, honey, I don't see how. It wouldn't be play, not for me it wouldn't be. Being feminine sexually isn't something you can turn on and off. It's how you look, it's what you are, what you can feel you are, how you feel deep down. It's a full time job. I'd want to feel whenever we're together or apart that you're still my girlfriend, all the time, in all your moods, whatever you're doing. For that you'd have to be my girlfriend all the time in your own mind."

"Even when I'm at the office?"

Kelly looked oddly surprised, and glanced at him. Then seemed to realize something. She thought a moment. Then said almost carelessly, "If you're at your office I suppose you could still pretend you're still a man, and you could dress like one if that pleased you. Wear a pant suit maybe, and a collared dickey or blouse with a tie, maybe, with chunky-heeled Oxfords, fake it that you're still what you were. But in your heart you'd know better. And sooner or later you'd want to give up pretending, you'd need to, you'd want to dress as what you really are, what you've become. And everywhere else I'd want you to be what you've become, my darling. No pretending. Because it'll be so much easier for you to believe it when everyone else believes it too. All of our friends. I'd want them all to know that we're no longer living together as a quarrelsome married couple but as two dear girlfriends. Then my girlfriends could become your girlfriends too."

"Dress? Dressed as what I've become?" He couldn't believe she meant what she was saying! How far did she mean to carry this joke?

She turned her head to look at him closely, and she spoke carefully. "Of course. Dressed to look like what you are, what we've become to each other. Girlfriends. Yes, most of the time wearing skirts, hairdos, and manicures, the way I do. Sometimes jeans and a loose man's shirt when you're relaxing or working in the garden, that's allowable. But always behaving the way a woman behaves, too. Being a girl, so we can be girls together. Hugging when we're delighted and giggling when we're amused. Loving the same sorts of things. Feeling intimate this new way, and being intimate this new way too. I can teach you. If you really love me you'll learn. You'll want to learn. Can you? Do you want to? For me?"

Trying to calm himself, to reason with her, he stirred his coffee slowly. Her questions were now coming closer together. "You're asking a lot, Kelly! You said it earlier, gender is the great divide. I have no idea how it feels on the other side. How I'd feel. Apart from ridiculous and humiliated! What would people think?"

Kelly looked at him cautiously, calculating. He hadn't said 'No,' she noticed, and that was the first great hurdle. Best to lock him in right now. Increase the pressure. "What people think doesn't matter, it's what I think! You try it and see for yourself," she said. "I need you to do that!"

Her tone was firm. "I believe you," Nick replied. "And I want to help. But...." His mind was racing. Seem to agree to get past at least this critical moment? Actually agree, for a trial period, until she comes to her senses? Draw up all his dignity, take a firm stand, and refuse? And end five years of this incredible marriage, defeated?

But Kelly hadn't finished. "Are you a man now? Can you still call yourself a man? Even if you are, what are you afraid of? Of being a girl? Would that demean you?" Her voice was level, but with an edge creeping into it.

"Kelly, you know we've done lots of things together. There wasn't anything we didn't try, one time or another, nearly." He paused, then continued. "I don't want to offend you. I could try this." He paused again. Lay it on more heavily. "For your sake I'd like to try this." He started to add, "But ...."

Good, Kelly thought. He said it -- 'I'd like to try.' I'll settle for that. Now to nip that 'but'in the bud!

A delighted smile lit up Kelly's face. She leaped up and seized him, and cried out, "Then you will try this! Wonderful! Oh, darling, you've just made me so happy!"

Nick was astonished! She climbed into his lap again eagerly, effusive, bubbling, kissing his face over and over!

"At first it'll seem odd to you, I'm sure! Of course, it must! You'll even look a little odd, maybe, until we can do something about how you look. But we'll take care of that right away, tomorrow. And don't worry, don't feel in the slightest that you're being ridiculous. Girls don't ever feel ridiculous or humiliated just because they're girls. I certainly don't, not ever! Oh, it'll take a little time. You don't know anything! Listen, maybe it'll be best if you do everything I tell you at first, no matter what, no questions, just do it! Yes! Even try to become your own version of me maybe, and act like me, and work at it and learn how to do it better until finally it becomes instinctive, no longer acting, just a matter of being yourself? You'll be surprised how ordinary it can get, being a girl, how relaxed and easy you can become with it, being treated like one, feeling like one. And in the end that's what people will think you are because that's what you'll be."

Nick tried to say something, but Kelly's words tumbled on.

"Some of it means you'll have to let go all your masculine notions and feelings, inhibitions too, and that's all to the good. Some of it means adopting feminine feelings to replace the masculine. It won't be easy, sweetheart. But I'll help. Others can help too.

There are specialists in this sort of thing."

As this deluge poured forth Nick tried several more times to speak, but whenever he found an opening, nothing came out. He wanted to seem casual, reasonable, but he couldn't even reach to pick up a fork to cut a mouthful of one of those delicious, cream-filled pastries Les Halles had brought them for dessert -- his hand was shaking too severely. He certainly couldn't hold a coffee cup and sip and swallow as a way to stall till he could find the right things to say and an opportunity to say them.

He did manage to stay calm. Kelly had gone utterly mad, he decided. Should he refuse outright to consider her crazy idea? She thought he'd already agreed! Humor her, try it? Risky. To save his marriage he'd have to feel his way into an altogether different universe, at least temporarily. Could he be sure it was temporary?

In the end he yielded. He had to. He had to seem to try. He owed her that, he owed their marriage that much before he could conclude as he knew he would that it was hopeless, that he'd have to leave her, try to forget that he had ever been married to her. Married to the most marvelous woman anyone could imagine! The only woman who'd ever stood up to him and given back as good as she'd gotten. He recalled tempestuous, passionate times when his body was surrounding her yet deep inside her. He'd fought, but she'd always fought back, raising the ante and his passion even higher. What had happened to that glorious antagonism? His eyes filled with tears!

He couldn't disabuse her directly until he found out more of what she had in mind. "You don't mean that I'll change physically too, somehow acquire a body to match this new femininity you want me to feel?" He hesitated.

Kelly was overjoyed. She knew she was trying to steamroller him with a fait accompli, that he hadn't exactly given her his wholehearted consent. But now he'd said "I'll change," not "I'd change." No more ifs! He'd was reconciling himself to it in his own mind! So she pressed her case. "In some respects you'll change, you'll expect to, honey. You'll want to. I'll want you to. Not too much. You're small-boned like me, and you have a nice chin, lots of girls' have bigger chins, and no Adam's apple or brow ridges, and you're still young. You could actually be pretty. Maybe it isn't too late for you to go through a different puberty.

You'll want to have soft skin and firm breasts like mine I'd think.

You can't be a girl without those. They aren't hard to arrange. A few surgical interventions, nothing hundreds of thousands of women haven't had done who take pride in their appearance, and more men than you'd think too. Keep estrogen in your bloodstream always telling your body what else to do, and progesterone too I suppose in addition to those T-suppressants you've been on. That's all. For now, anyhow. You'll be beautiful before you know it."

Nick just stared at her! He couldn't speak! What was that she'd just said? "T-suppressants?"

She stared back, unmoved. He'd committed, it was time he knew. Now move him along. Nail him down further. "Yes, that's what they're called, I think," she said steadily. "To stop your testosterone production, all that obstructive, aggressive male behavior. Once and for all! You've been on one for months now, along with a mood tranquilizer. That's why we stopped quarreling, sweetie. Rachel calls those drugs taken in combination her Marriage Counselors. Whenever she prescribes them, relationships immediately improve, she told me. They're her alternatives to divorce. I'm sure you've noticed the difference they make in your feelings. We've both noticed how it's changed our relationship."

Nick continued to stare at her! He felt indignation rise up in his heart, a listless copy of the outrage he'd have felt a few months ago, but still, a self-respecting response. "A tranquilizer? A testosterone suppressant?" He was amazed at how peaceable his voice sounded, given the enormity of what she'd just told him. How peaceable he felt! He'd been drugged? He was drugged!

"Rachel? Your friend Rachel gave them to you for me?"

Kelly saw that the next moment was critical, and went defensive. Her voice registered grievance, a deep sense of injury. "What do you think happened to all those arguments we used to have, Nick! Do you think they just went away on their own? I hated them! Didn't you? Isn't this better now? Remember that knockdown shouting and screaming spree we had last winter, when you smashed a chair trying to get at me and I threw dishes to hold you off? You meant to hurt me, I could see it in your face!"

Nick remembered. He did mean to hurt her. It was appalling, how furious he'd gotten then. She'd goaded him and goaded him, and taunted him, and finally he'd cracked. It was frightening!

"Well," Kelly went on, warming to her argument, "I decided after that, 'Never again!' Never again! I was going to divorce you and that was that! No more, not even one more night! I packed an overnight bag and called Rachel and asked if I could stay with her until I sorted things out, got another place to stay while I started legal proceedings, and so on. We talked a long time. She urged me to try again, to do with you what she does with Kevin whenever he gets difficult -- Kevin's her husband, you've never met him. Give you something to calm you down. Tranquilizers to help you feel more reasonable, maybe other stuff too to cut back your aggressive urges. I owed it to you, she reminded me! I owed it to our marriage!"

Now Nick was speechless. He'd forgotten that her friend Rachel was an M.D., and a woman who'd continued to bait him even after he'd vowed to act polite at all times to all of Kelly's friends. A dangerous woman!

"Well, I gave them to you. Lots. Months and months ago and ever since. Rachel prescribed them. And they worked! They saved our marriage! No more quarreling!"

Nick felt trapped! Appalled! Outraged! But oddly, none of these things! Curiously undisturbed even as he registered these other states of mind. It was as if they were old memories, not states of mind at all.

 

iv.

 

Kelly watched Nick closely, saw how various states of mind struggled beneath but failed to penetrate his surface serenity, hesitated, and made a decision, the biggest of the evening. She'd tell him, mess his mind altogether. She'd just have to trust that his tranquilizers were enough to hold him steadily on course. So she continued casually, "Of course there was that side-effect. You've noticed it. I was told that you'd feel less fury, less overwhelming rage, but also maybe less ... desire. That you might get an 'erectile dysfunction' Rachel called it. Become impotent."

There was no doubt he'd become impotent, she recalled. Rachel had grinned wickedly when she'd told Kelly exactly what would happen, suggesting with her eyebrows that Kelly might want to begin making other plans for when that happened. "But he'd still have his uses. For example, didn't you once have a girlfriend named Janet?" Rachel had asked. Kelly had considered the entire matter carefully, and had then grimly nodded her consent. Then over a glass of sherry they'd gotten silly, giggling about the likely expression on Nick's face the first time his pecker failed to cooperate. Kelly'd reported each subsequent soft erection or outright failure from then on, until the topic had grown boring for both of them.

It was out, now. Keep talking, she told herself, keep him distracted, let him get used to the idea. It was all part of maneuvering him into this different relationship. "I regret that part of it of course, I truly do. You're a lot calmer in bed. We've been deprived of those delirious times we used to have. I've missed them. But still, we all have to make sacrifices, and all in all things between us are a lot better. We've still had ordinary sex, while your body still remembered what it once wanted so desperately. It's ... well, it's been ordinary, but it's been sweet, nice, not as much of a strain on either of us as those frantic things we used to do. More loving and considerate. Hasn't it been nice? You know it's been nice! I'll miss it, in a way. Because even that's ending now. That's why we need something to replace it. A whole new relationship. For you to be my new Janet."

Unbelieving, Nick stared at her. She'd done this to him? She'd known all along why he'd been feeling so docile lately? So unable to perform? She'd deliberately unmanned him? No wonder she hadn't been surprised or distressed when it happened. And that explains why she hadn't gloated either! It wouldn't have seemed fair!

"You're so much easier to get along with now, honey. So sweetly yielding, in so many ways! Such a pleasure to be with. Much more like Janet used to be. A lot more like Janet. I like that. That's what I've been hoping for. That's how we can stay together. When you become everything Janet was to me, we'll never need to separate no matter what!"

Nick continued to stare. Kelly took no notice. She was feeling a little exalted now, all wrapped up in her explanation as she went on. She recalled how marvelous he'd felt between her legs this morning, even when she knew he couldn't breathe and was utterly dependent on her for everything, desperately eager to get her off so she'd release him. She loved that! Toward the end his head was heaving frenziedly against her slit and his nose and tongue were wiping in and out of all her openings down there as if his very life were at stake! I suppose it was, he was suffocating, she said to herself, rather pleased by the idea. She remembered those incredible spasms when he seemed to be cramming his face into her, and those enormous gaspings for air when she finally did release him -- he might well have been in paradise at that moment too, knowing that he'd live after all. And all to please her! What a sense of power! I loved it! I just love it! she told herself.

It was all so clear. And so settled! And as she knew but didn't really want to tell him just yet, so irreversible. He had no choice really, not any more. It hadn't been her intention originally, but whenever he'd outraged her she'd given him double-doses of everything, and now he'd been emasculated for good. She'd brought his semen to the lab over a month ago in the best possible container for preserving its motility, herself, and they'd told her it was now clear fluid, pure prostate secretions and nothing else -- no sperm, no hormones, no anything. His testicles no longer functioned. No harm really, they'd never wanted children, and last year he'd gotten himself a vasectomy without her knowledge or consent just to spite her, because he'd seen her coo over a friend's newborn baby. She remembered his smirk when he told her what he'd done. Well, those little tubes he'd gotten cut were now empty anyhow. Connected to nothing. His testicles would shrivel away soon. Probably they'd already shrunk some. She hadn't bothered to look.

As had his sex drive. He was now a eunuch. For any sex life at all from now on, he'd have to become a girl. She couldn't doubt that was best for both of them. In fact, she'd already started him on light doses of estrogen just to see what would happen, and it was promising! It had softened his face a little -- in just the right light he looked feminine even now. No breasts yet, but his nipples were already protruding a bit, she'd noticed, and they'd become hyper-sensitive. His body was primed, his figure would come in quickly once he accepted the inevitable and committed his body completely to full estrogen therapy. Though she did want him to get breast implants right away anyhow -- get him committed, help him accept the fact that there was no alternative, and start him experiencing the pleasures of the rest of their lives together.

She stared at his face as he stared back numbly, appalled, unable yet to grasp the enormity of what he'd just learned. Yes, his jaw line was rounder, and his lips were just a touch puffier, softer. He'd been attractive as a man, and he was still attractive, but in this new way. He could pass for a woman already I bet, she thought, with the right makeup and clothes! We'll start him right away! He'll love himself, she just knew it! Would men feel attracted to her new girlfriend? Probably. Would he want to attract men? Would she want him to attract men?

She considered it, then yes, she decided reluctantly. In a limited way. To develop and maintain his own self-respect as a woman and his pride in his femininity. To give him an extra zest whenever he leaves the house, knowing he's made himself beautiful. But no serious relationships with men! And no vagina! He was hers, and he'd remain hers. He could be like Janet. Janet had loved to flirt, loved to tell Kelly how some nights she'd roll around with guys, making out with them, getting them all sweaty, and then when their balls were aching suddenly turn away and come home to share it with Kelly, to lick her Kelly's lovely clit, and then to fall asleep in her lovely Kelly's arms.

Yes. That would be her gift to Nick, to let him play with his power over men without risking his dedication to her. He probably wouldn't want more than that anyhow. If even that, he'd never seemed at all gay. She'd have to see to it that he wanted that much, anyway.

But it's better for him to agree to all this, she thought further, not feel forced into it. Better for him to choose to be a girl, not just reconcile himself to it. She could do more with him more quickly if he cooperated, if he asked for her help. Converting this one time domineering, possessive, hot-tempered, disagreeable, infuriating husband into an adorable, pussy worshipping darling girl, a new Janet, that had been an absolutely irresistible challenge! Now it was nearly done! What a final triumph for her after all those terrible years when they were locked together in bitter battles of wills, great in bed but otherwise terrible! And now they were over!

Help him choose, she decided, but cut him off at the knees. Let him know it's useless for him to try to be a man. To keep measuring himself against other men the way men always do. That he's lost that war already. That now what he needs is to become the best woman he can be for me. To measure himself against other women and excel at that. Not against other men. Not any more.

First though, consolation. He really did look devastated, the poor dear. Wasted. Not angry, thank goodness for the tranquilizers, but he might become spiteful despite those tranquilizers if she didn't bring him around.

"I know," she said sympathetically. "I know how you're feeling at this very moment. But were there any alternatives for us, honey? I'd have left you if we'd done nothing. I very nearly did, in fact I did, except for Rachel urging me to give you another chance. And I will again tonight, this very night, if you can't see this thing my way just this once. I'm thinking of our marriage, of both of us, of the two of us as a couple, not just of me alone or you alone. You need to do the same. Just think, once you're a girl we can always be together, no matter what, until we're both old and doddering. And the girl sex between us will always be great! You've already seen that for yourself."

Finally Nick found his voice. "Kelly," he began. "This ... this thing, what you've done...."

She saw he was finally recovering his balance. Time to stagger him again. Rachel had advised swift and total demolition of his male ego, his self-confidence, so a different person could rise up from the ruins, someone more sweet and loving. She had to be relentless in order to be kind. "It's done! And now I want a sweet, steady, supportive relationship with you, honey. I really won't miss the old days. All that furious reaching and grasping. All that plowing and thrusting of yourself at me, against me, into me, wrapping yourself around me. I want something else in my marriage. I don't need that from you any more. I can always get it from other men."

Now Nick really was speechless! He couldn't swallow. He choked.

He could barely croak it out. "Other men? What does that mean?

Would you want to become ... intimate with other men?"

Kelly had anticipated this moment for weeks. She looked directly at him. Now they would establish their new relationship or else it was all over. An assured smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.

"Why do you ask? Do you want me to be?"

Here it was, the big revelation, and it was coming out exactly the way she wanted. And his reaction was within bounds. He was shocked, of course, angry, threatened, maybe also frightened, but with those tranquilizers in his bloodstream she knew that all she had to do was keep talking, keep make soothing noises, and he'd settle down, accommodate to the idea and even get used to it. He wasn't enraged, livid, as he would have been in the old days. In the old days, at this point he'd have killed her! Picked up some heavy object and smashed her! But -- and she smiled to herself -- he no longer had the balls! In time her intimacies with other men would begin to seem customary and reasonable, and later still as his new hormones changed his body and his brain and as they changed their own relationship they would seem to have less and less to do with him, more and more to do with his girlfriend, not with his wife.

So she spoke calmly, matter-of-factly. "Of course, under these circumstances who wouldn't want to be with other men? Wouldn't you? What would you do if you were me? If you had a husband who was disabled, and you needed things done around the house, you'd look for handymen who could fill in for him, wouldn't you? Of course you would, baby."

She waited, knowing that he'd be speechless all over again, and that his silence could be made to seem like consent. Then she told him. "You don't think I should seek out other men the same way you would if you were me? For the sake of our marriage, for your sake, really? So we can remain a couple despite your inadequacy?"

"Kelly, are there ... have you been seeing other men?" There seemed nothing else for him to say.

She just looked at him. "What do you think?" She tried not to let it sound like jeering.

"You have been with other men?"

Now the idea was in his mind, without her confessing anything. Now to get his consent! "Honey! Could we continue as we were? Certainly not once you lost your ... vitality. I have very powerful needs, my desires overwhelm me sometimes, as you well know! Don't you? You still remember that much, don't you?"

Nick still couldn't speak.

"I asked you a question, Nick. You know the answer. Do you remember that I have needs? Yes or no?"

Nick was still stunned. Unfaithful! Had his wife been in the arms of other men, other dicks plunging deep into her while she lay back and groaned aloud? While she straddled their laps and stroked their cheeks, as she was doing right now with him, except that those men would be stiff, deep inside her, while his dick now lay flaccid, squeezed between her bottom and his lap, indifferent to everything now happening. And had she then come home to him, not in the least apologetic?

In fact her voice suddenly took on a sharp, stern edge. "Nick!"

He looked at her, briefly baffled by her tone.

Impatiently, as if speaking to a slow child, she repeated her question. "You know I have irresistible needs, don't you, Nick? Isn't it important for our marriage that my needs be met? Yes or no? Answer me this minute!"

This was a different question. He had to answer it. He felt intimidated. "Yes," he said. Why did he feel somehow chastened? Selfish, even? "But ...."

Now out with it! "Then you do think it's all right. That I wanted to find satisfaction elsewhere when you become incapable. That I've found satisfaction elsewhere because you're incapable. Don't you? I'm waiting for an answer!"

She glared at him as if angered by his reluctance to utter a sound. Then decided finally to accept a faint movement of his head as an affirmative answer.

So she continued. "I thought so! Of course you think it's all right! Just as I want your happiness, our happiness, you want mine! I'm concerned to meet your needs, and you're happy that mine are being met too, aren't you? I need to hear your answer this time."

"I...." And Nick had nothing further to say. He felt outmaneuvered, helpless. "Yes. Of course your needs ..... But I ...."

"Good!" Kelly said. "I knew it! I knew you'd understand! You're still my one true love!" Then she said, "I want to help you get over this now. We want to put this behind us as soon as we can, don't we?"

Nick couldn't tell what she meant by that. That she'd help him recover his potency? That she'd stop with her infidelities, if that's what she had just confessed? Was she taunting him, nothing had happened yet? That she'd stop thinking about having them? That he should stop worrying about them? That she'd stop confessing them?

"Just look where you are now! Feeling jealous? Possessive? Violated? Overwhelmed with insecurity? Of course! Well, don't worry about it. It's good for you! Because it's the man in you who feels jealous. Can we blame him? No, that's fine, that's what we want! We want him to feel absolutely miserable, in fact. Unwelcome. He's been a brute, and now he's an inadequate lover, he deserves no pity or sympathy, that's that, let him go away, let him feel grateful that other better men are replacing him! As the woman in you emerges you'll feel different about all this, honey. Happy for me! Maybe even a little bit curious about how you'd feel if you were me! That's when I'll want to tell you all about what I do with other men. In loving detail. You can't even imagine what I've done with them!"

At last came an anguished cry from Nick! "Other men?! Kelly, what have you done?!"

She almost laughed! Wonderful, the way he'd phrased that cry! She climbed off his lap and stood up and looked down on him and smiled understandingly.

"You're so sweet! You're really eager to know, aren't you? All the dishy details! Well, I will tell you everything I've done with my other men, sweetheart, all in good time. I want to share all of my experiences with you. How I've used those hard bodies and hard cocks to pleasure myself! I'll tell you everything, Nick. But not just yet!

"Kelly!" he cried out, to a receding image of his former wife in his own mind. She was growing smaller, further away from him. She was vanishing!

Now or never, she decided. "It's done, Nick. It's settled. There's no challenge, no winners or losers, no contest. They're men and you're not. They're my men and you're my woman, if you're willing, or else you're nothing. But you'll be my only lover. They'll fuck me, but you'll be the only one who makes love to me. There's no competition there either. So, end of discussion. We'll talk more about these things tomorrow, if you can deal with them, if we're still together tomorrow. Otherwise we're just wasting words. I see your coffee cup is empty. Would you like a refill? No? Then dinner has officially ended. So."

She stood over him with her hands on her hips, leaning back, looking down on him, fully in charge, insistent, authoritative. "The moment of truth has come, baby! What have you decided about us? Do you mean to quit? Are you now henceforth and forever my Janet, to have and to hold? I need to know now."

Nick heard the echoes of a new wedding ceremony in her words. He knew at that moment what he'd already decided. Quit and do what? No other life awaited him. He was impotent. Was it reversible? Maybe. What could he offer other women? At best companionship, not sex, or at most only the womanly kind of sex Kelly wants. And no woman in this town would want his companionship -- his nasty treatment of Kelly was too well known. Where was the advantage in leaving her? Could he win her back? Yes, he realized, but only on her terms. For sure he'd have to stop taking those pills she'd mentioned. But how? There'd been no pills! She must have been crushing them and sprinkling them into his food! Could he stop eating altogether? His only safety was in leaving her! If he stayed, he'd become whatever she chose! And what was that?

She leaned her face into his. "I see you're all conflicted, poor baby! It's all so new! Let me help you decide! I do love you! Kiss me!" And she kissed him passionately on the lips. She pulled him close to her. Without realizing it he responded by kissing her back. Helplessly.

No, he realized, I can't just give up and walk out! Despite everything, because of everything, I have to play the cards she's dealt me in order to stay in the game. If I walk out, I've lost everything! Can I abandon her, my gorgeous, beloved wife, without even putting up a struggle? She loves me, he thought, and I do still love her. But if I stay, she'll have won! She'll have destroyed me and cast me off! Have I a choice?

"I'll stay." he said. "For now."

It was so frustrating! Damn those tranquilizers! He did so want to vent his anger! He felt furious, in a way, and justifiedly so, partly so anyhow! But it was as if he were someone else!

For now, Kelly heard him say. Now and forever, to have and to hold, till death us do part, she heard echoing in her head. She knew it!

Inwardly exultant, Kelly put her hand gently on the top of his head, and ruffled his hair ever so slightly. Her thoughts were now different from his. I'll have Betsy shape it just around his face for now, she was thinking idly. And maybe lighten it a shade. So he gets used to seeing not just longish hair but a pretty, feminine hair style when he checks his make-up in the mirror. Later we can give him a really glamorous do maybe, something that will look really great bobbing up and down below my bush. Elaborate, something to keep him busy setting and combing and pinning it for hours and hours before a date with me or a flirtation with some guy. I'll want him to spend long hours making himself attractive from now on. It'll help him get accustomed to serving his own femininity and aspiring for more, and if he's beautiful he'll appreciate being feminine all the more. I bet Rachel would love to see him done up like a Hollywood sex pot. That husband of hers too. Get Kevin into it? Let Nick appreciate being admired by a man right off? It would be good for him! My girly man!

Yes. I'll tell Betsy to make him over totally, permanently, close all his exit doors, burn all his bridges, commit him to looking like a woman for good. So he can enjoy it without fussing whether he made the correct decision. Yes. Pierced ears of course, and boobs. Maybe Rachel would be willing to let Kevin play with him? Kill any of his residual manhood with a stiff fuck up the ass? Give him one amorous night with a terrific man, that would certainly provide a point of no return. Then he'd have no way to object to my men. Down the pike we could even double date, once I know that his devotion to me is absolute. Ohh, this is so exciting!

No, no real dating, too risky. He might fall in love. But I could give him the guys I'm ready to dump, let them have a night with him as a kind of consolation prize. Let him lead them on and deliver the kiss off for me!

She smiled at the very idea. I'm wicked! she said to herself gleefully.

She glanced down. It was obvious that Nick wasn't really persuaded. He was still Nick. His eyes told her everything. He'd decided to ride it out for now, to stay with her and buy time to try to change her mind. She could see it in the way he was looking up at her! The poor dear! He was so predictable nowadays! All the more reason to move fast, to make him her female lover irreversibly before he had time to catch his breath!

She sat back again on the sofa and spread her knees. "Kiss me again, Nick," she repeated. "No, this time the way we agreed you'd kiss me." She wanted him in front of her on his knees.

Nick dropped down and forced himself to wrap his arms around her thighs and hug her tight and pressed his lips against her tight gray suit skirt, where her mound guarded the cleft between her legs. He had to stay with her and see where she led him, try to reverse this new direction, he was repeating to himself. But he wasn't happy.

She stroked his hair. "Oh, Nickie, I'd so hoped you'd agree. You've made me so very happy! My Nickie! Nikki! My darling Nicola, do you like that name? I've been calling you that for months now, whenever I was imagining that you were the girl I want you to become! We'll have such a good time together, Nicola! You'll never regret it! I promise you! You'll love it! So lick me! Now!"

She recalled how that old antagonistic husband would turn nasty whenever she gave him anything resembling an order. She'd do it just for spite, just to see his face turn red, spluttering, apoplectic. This emasculated girl-candidate was much nicer! "Do it, Nicola! Kiss my pussy!"

Feeling beaten, still kneeling, he reached under her skirt and as she lifted her rear he pulled down her panties and took them off her legs. She sat down again and leaned way back on the couch, and spread her thighs and closed her eyes.

"Mmmmmm!" she said as she felt his lips touch her labia, looking for her clit to nibble. She spread her legs wider still. Nick fell forward on his knees, his face buried in her crotch. She draped her thighs languorously over his shoulders.

Despite the drugs she'd given him to dampen down his emotions, maybe because of them, Nick began to feel perversely, warmly grateful. She wanted him! She welcomed him to this holiest of holies. He felt blessed, privileged to kiss, lick, and cherish those delicate pink folds of her pussy, to nibble the nub of her clit. Privileged to make her happy. Both her hands clutched his hair and her thighs came up to squeeze his head into her crotch again. She grew increasingly excited, and that fired his own excitement! He was pleasing her! He was delighted that she desired him, that she craved him, that her groin had begun to rotate, to press against his mouth rhythmically. Her juices started flowing and he started licking them up. They tasted so very sweet he was ecstatic! He lost all track of time.

Some time later she opened her eyes to look at him gratefully. Her voice was gone again!. She could barely whisper to him that she'd never felt so completely satisfied. She'd scarcely recovered her sanity, and she still couldn't recover her breath. They were both exhausted. They went straight to bed to sleep snug in each other's arms. But before they fell asleep she decided to reward her darling husband one last time. She reached for Nick's soft penis and slowly pulled on it, jerked him off until he too came, his clear ejaculations caught in a Kleenex. So he too could feel grateful.

(continued)

 

 

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© 2002 by Vickie Tern. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.