Reacquainted Pt. 01

"Back to my place for a nightcap, I think." Mags put a hand on the smaller woman's shoulder and turned her around gently. "We're finally getting there, aren't we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jen, I really do like you, and I'm glad you sought me out, but this is why you did it, right? You were—are—looking for a kind of Beginner's Guide to Kinky Sex, and you didn't know anybody else to ask, so..."

"Mags, to tell you the honest truth, before I met you, before I knew a little bit about who you are and what you do...before I liked you, I had this crazy idea of hiring you to do it for me."

Mags stopped so abruptly she almost fell of a curb. "I'm sorry, do what for you?"

"Realize my husband's fetish; fulfill his fantasy, whatever. I'm not sure that I can."

9.

Half an hour later, both women were sitting on the sofa in Mags' living room. Jen held a glass of red wine, while Mags rattled an ice cube in a rocks glass of bourbon. After a short silence in which the two women clinked glasses—no toast—and drank, Mags said: "Just so I'm clear here: you were hoping to...what, pay me to have sex with your husband?"

"If that's what we agreed was...I don't know...best, or what he needed to..."

"To what? Jen, what are you hoping to accomplish here?"

Jen smiled. "Mags, I love Theo. I know I keep saying it, but it's true. We love each other, and we love sex with each other. But I think I also understand that sex is just a part of the equation. Look, I'm not being clear. As far as I know, Theo has had this stuff in the attic for almost a year, or maybe it's longer. And, well, sex with him hasn't gotten any worse in the last year. In fact I think it's getting better, and we're still having plenty of it. The only difference is that I know that Theo has this...other interest, and that he's ashamed of it. Or maybe he just doesn't want me to know of it because he doesn't think I can handle it. Either way, what's making me nuts is the secrecy. I know husbands and wives have secrets from each other, but this one is just so...not necessary, you know? Now I don't think I'm particularly 'into' this stuff. I mean maybe I could get there, but...but he's there now. It like he's got a hobby, like he's taking up golf or something. So, if he wanted to learn to play golf, he'd have to go to somebody for lessons, right? I'm not going to resent some golf pro for teaching him something I know nothing about, so why should I have a problem with a—and I don't mean anything by this—a sex pro for teaching him about how to do...whatever? Maybe I'll even get something out of it. Maybe he'll learn to do more stuff to turn my...to get me more into...I mean...you know?"

"Jesus, Jen, that's a pretty sophisticated attitude for somebody who claims not to know much about sex!" Mags leaned forward, thinking hard. "But the notion of a 'professional', or at least a teacher, is key here, isn't it? I mean you'd resent it if your husband turned to a friend or a co-worker to supply the...uh...deficiencies in his education, right?"

"Well sure, because there's nothing he can't try with one of them that he couldn't try with me, and I think he knows that. I mean if he wanted me to...suck him, for example, I think he'd eventually ask me. And he'd sure as heck ask me rather than going to our sort-of-slutty neighbor down the block because...well, it's a little complicated. I think it has something to do with his growing up in the church, or maybe it's having been a soldier, or being a cop. He's not a puritan or a prude, but he has a distinct...moral code, I guess. He might ask the woman he married to do...whatever, but he wouldn't cheat. If he did...well, I guess that would mean he doesn't love me as much as I think he does. And if, God forbid, that were true, then his superhero thing would be the least of our problems."

"But you were prepared to consider letting another woman—me, as it happens—have sex with him. How is that not cheating?"

"I don't know." Jen sighed, frustrated that she couldn't clarify for her friend what was clear to her. "Maybe you're right about the teaching idea being important. When we talked last week, you explained to me about fetishes and how you can make some of them work, and then I went home and thought about how I could make this one work for Theo, and I just can't...I can't...do what I think needs, or at least wants... Look, could you just tell me, hypothetically? If you were with a guy, and he wanted to, or he was into...like this stuff, what would you do?"

Mags thought for a minute. "Ok, hypothetically; first, let's make some assumptions about our guy. He's a cop. Let's say he leans toward dominance in the bedroom; man's man, and all that. His thing is comic books, so...we'll develop a role play—that's like a kind of pretend sex game, right; like you pretend to be a naughty school girl and he pretends to be the horny principal or something, get it?"

"Got it. That one kind of sounds like fun."

"Really? Kinky little bitch." Jen giggled, and Mags went on. "So in our role play, our guy gets to be the superhero, right?"

"Well, sure. I mean, what else would he be?"

"Well depending on what appeals to him about this particular fantasy, he might be an innocent bystander saved by a superheroine, or kidnapped by a sexy villainess. Or he could be the villain who gets defeated by the heroine, or who overpowers her and forces her to serve him sexually."

"Oh, OK; I see. Wow!"

"Yeah, the upside of role play is that the scenarios can be pretty out there. The downside is that you have to be able to not feel too silly about it. You've got to kind of lose yourself in your role. So our guy is the hero. So now the question is: who am I? Or...who are you?"

Jen sighed. "I think maybe this is the problem. I feel like it can't be me."

"Why?" Mags asked the question simply: no impatience and no judgment. Jen wanted to hug her, and then—for no reason at all—she wanted to cry."

"It's...uh...well I've been thinking about...how it might..." She began to speak very quickly. "I'm not...any kind of a performer, you know? And I'd feel kind of stupid and self-conscious, and I mean what would it look like anyway if I just popped up in some dumb Wonder Woman costume, like I'm saying...I don't know, 'I snuck into your boxes and I know you look at porn and I'm...I don't know. Shit. Shit, shit, SHIT!"

"Jen, honey, take it easy..."

"And I just thought...I mean I don't knowanythingabout what a dominatrix does, but I figured you know how to dress up and pretend to...what, like punish guys, or something? And I just thought you would know...how. Does any of that...make sense?"

Mags said: "It does, you know." She smiled, and continued: "Let me ask you a question. If I said—right here and now—'Ok, I'll do it. I'll go find a cape and a mask or whatever, and come over next Saturday night and blow his mind and his cock and fuck him six ways from Sunday.' How would you feel? Don't think about it, just tell me, quick!"

"Relieved...or maybe sad? God, I just don't know. And you don't know me very well, or you'd know how unusual that is for me. I'm used toknowing: what I want, how I feel, whatever." Then, as if Mags' words had just sunk in: "Why? Are you saying you'll do it?"

"No."

"So you won't?"

It seemed to Jen as if an age of the world had gone by before Mags answered. "No. God help me, I'm not saying that either."

--To be continued.