Confessions of a Kinky Wife (8 page)

I skimmed over the annoying foreword with its continuing antediluvian insistence on fixed gender roles and patriarchal rule and went straight to chapter one. Caning. Eek.

Chapter two, then.

But I couldn’t focus on chapter two, which was a bit dull and about chore lists and micro-management. Something kept tugging me back to chapter one.

The cane, that instrument of legend and lore. Its reputation was enough to make strong men quake. Before my time, it had been the ultimate sanction in school – well, the penultimate, I suppose, expulsion being more serious – something to contain the uncontainable elements of youth.

I couldn’t imagine being called upon to use it on a young person now. I certainly couldn’t work with children if I was expected to do so. But how did I feel about it being used on me?

I’d seen it in films and historical dramas on TV and the ferocious swish and crack were noises that both terrified and excited me. I’d often felt myself blushing and having to look away. The idea of it exerted a power and fascination over me that I found both repulsive and compelling.

When I pictured Dan, in his uniform, maybe, or his best suit, wielding the slim, crook-handled monster, I had to put my fist in my mouth to suppress a moan.

But he would never use one of those things on me. It would
hurt
.

God, yes, it would hurt, and the pain would last. Imagine the stripes and the soreness and the difficulty sitting down for days afterwards … imagine how chastened I would feel every time my bottom met some surface or other. And I didn’t have to imagine how wet it was making me.

Damn.

Did I actually want to be caned?

I decided I’d better flick swiftly on. Flick the pages of the book, I mean, in case you think I’m referring to something else.

I ignored the boring chore chapter, but the next chapter was even worse. Toilet training. Was this serious?

Before I knew what I was doing, I’d picked up my thick laundry-marker pen and scored through the whole chapter.

The nib hovered over chapter four as well. ‘Anal Discipline’, what the fuck? But I read the first paragraph and put the pen down, my hands suddenly shaky.

This was the most depraved, the most horrible, the most humiliating thing I’d ever read about. But it was turning me on. Oh, God. What kind of person was I?

Butt plugs. Lubricants with sting-factor. Ginger root!
Ginger root?
The idea of putting any of these things up my bottom made me squirm in my chair. But the squirming was accompanied by a heat and an undeniable juiciness. I tensed my sphincter muscles for all I was worth, but that only aroused me all the more.

I stood up, opened the window, tried to get a breath of air, but the day had been still and humid and, even now the sun was setting, it hadn’t cooled a great deal. I held on the window frame and visualised myself in the corner with a plug of root ginger up my arse. How on earth would that feel? I couldn’t really imagine it, but I
could
imagine Dan looking on with his arms folded and a smirk of satisfaction on his face as he watched me writhe and, oh, God, it was too much.

I ran to the bedroom and got the toy box out from the bottom drawer.

Before a minute had elapsed, I was doubled over on the carpet – couldn’t even take the time to get comfortable on the bed – running a vibrator around my clit then thrusting it inside me. But what would it feel like, I wondered as I pushed and pulled, what would it feel like in that other opening? I yanked it out and reached between my thighs, trying to line the tip up with the tight pucker inside my cheeks. It was difficult to do – one really needed a partner for this, if unpractised in the art – and I lost courage before I’d gone much beyond a tentative nudge.

I reverted to my normal techniques and came, tearfully and breathlessly, on the carpet, my cheek pressed into the scratchy pile.

I felt groggy for a long time, overheated and sticky in my clothes. Eventually I dragged myself into the shower and began to think about covering my tracks.

If Dan came home to find the book out on the coffee table …

Not that I was going to be able to keep my secret perusal under wraps for long. After all, I’d crossed out a whole chapter. Presumably he would notice. Or perhaps he hadn’t read that far and he would think the author had done it … Hmm. But I mustn’t lie or look for ways to wriggle out of trouble. That wasn’t what all this was about.

I’d defaced his book and I’d have to own up to it.

And he couldn’t do anything advanced yet, surely. No running before we could walk.

All the same, I took care to replace it in the box file and stack it carefully on the shelf, only making it into the kitchen to think about supper when I heard his key in the lock.

It was both of our customs, when we were the last one home, to try and establish what might be cooking by sniffing the air.

Dan was no different, peering around the kitchen wall to try and work out what he would be eating later.

‘Running late,’ I said apologetically, a saucepan in each hand.

I put up my face to be kissed.

‘Busy day?’ he asked, stepping back once the greeting was performed.

‘Well, not busy, as such, but … distracting. Spaghetti carbonara? OK?’

‘Sure.’ He flicked his eyes, quickly but unmistakably, towards the top of the bookshelf. ‘So, what was so distracting?’ He put his arms around my waist and whispered into my ear. ‘Not got a secret lover, have you? You don’t usually shower in the evening.’ He took a big lungful of the citrus-scented shampoo in my hair.

‘I do if I’ve been outside with the crew all afternoon, doing basketball hoops.’

It was only half a lie. I had, in fact, been doing that.

‘Right.’ He chuckled and turned away. ‘Yeah, carbonara. Got any garlic bread?’

He wandered out into the living room area and flicked on the TV.

I wondered when he would find the book with the scribbled-out chapter.

Tonight?

Tomorrow?

Next week?

I put the pasta on to boil, threw the bacon into the pan.

I had to bring the subject up, or I would be pussy-footing around it all night.

‘So, how’s it going with the new book? Any important insights?’ I poked my head around the kitchen units, mock-casual.

As I did so, he dropped on to the sofa a long, thin paper package he’d been holding.

‘What’s that?’

He coughed. ‘Just, um, nothing. Why are you asking me about the book? Guilty conscience?’

I left the cooking to itself and headed to the sofa, wanting a closer look at the mystery shopping.

‘Oh, y’know, curious,’ I mumbled, peering over the sofa back. The bag was plain brown paper, the top sellotaped over. Whatever was inside was long and very thin. ‘Did you go shopping after work?’

‘The bacon’ll burn,’ he said.

‘Go and see to it then.’ I lunged for the package and he snatched it up, clutching it to his chest. ‘If you’re so worried.’

‘It’s not for prying eyes,’ he said, shaking his head at me maddeningly.

‘Now I definitely have to see it,’ I said.

I ran around the sofa, but he had it behind his back and was crossing the room too swiftly for me. He was going to get away from me and I wouldn’t know if it was … what I thought it was …

I leapt and made a desperate grab. It tore the paper and, even though I ended up falling over myself on to the floor, I had achieved my objective.

I could see exactly what the brown paper covered. It was a lighter brown, sleek and slender, varnished and vicious. It was a cane.

‘Happy now?’ said Dan, ripping off the rest of the bag and swishing his purchase through the air.

I was dumbfounded, a pile of sexually charged fear on the wood laminate.

‘Is that … for me?’ I whispered, once I’d sorted out which limb belonged where.

He put the tip of it beneath my chin and tapped, very gently, but I nearly wet myself.

‘Who else?’ he said. His smile was teasing, with an underlying chill factor that made me shiver.

‘You have to know how to use one of those things,’ I said. ‘The book says so. You have to practise. You can’t just start using them willy-nilly.’

Oh, God. I have no talent for crime. Massive talent for self-incrimination though.

‘And how,’ he said, removing the cane from beneath my chin and tracing the outline of my neck and shoulders with its tip, ‘would you know what the book says?’

I swallowed. ‘I found it,’ I said. ‘I had a look at it.’

He put the cane down on the table.

‘You found it? How? I hid it so well.’

‘Not well enough, detective. Shit, the bacon’s burning. Give me five.’

‘I’ll give you more than five, you little sneak.’

He followed me into the kitchen, saying nothing while I turned off the heat and tipped the bacon out of the pan for it to cool.

‘Pass us the eggs,’ I said warily.

‘Here. Cream?’

‘Please.’

I could tell how tense my shoulders were because beating up the carbonara sauce became quite painful quite soon.

‘You must have known I’d look for it,’ I said, putting down the fork and trying to stretch my cramping muscles.

‘Well, duh,’ he said. He came up behind me and massaged my shoulder blades, ah, blissful. ‘That’s why I put it in that box. Psychology.’

‘You should have used reverse psychology. Put it somewhere dead obvious.’

‘I thought of that, but then I had to reverse the reverse psychology. I’m not sure how many degrees I went through before I chose my final hiding place. At least seven hundred and twenty. Maybe more.’

‘Is it so bad that I found it? It does affect me, after all.’

His fingertips sank deep into my tissues, freeing me from my locked-tightness.

‘No,’ he said contemplatively. ‘I guess. I just wanted to surprise you with a few things.’

I tensed again, ouching as his fingers dug into me.

‘Like that awful toilet stuff? I bloody well hope not! That is no-go, ever, in a million years, so don’t even –’

He silenced my increasingly hysterical ranting with a light smack to my behind.

‘Oi,’ he said. ‘Calm down. Nobody’s doing anything you don’t agree to. I thought we’d established that?’

‘Yeah, and then you go and buy a cane.’

He nuzzled up closer, resting his chin on my shoulder, clasping his hands around my stomach.

‘I suppose I might have given in to hope on that one,’ he said.

‘Hope?’

‘I like the thought of seeing your bum all striped. It’s a bit of a fantasy of mine.’

I nearly cricked my neck turning to look at his face.

‘You have these fantasies too? You’re not just doing it to, you know, humour me?’

‘No, not at all. I’m getting quite into it now. At first I was so worried that you would change your mind and start thinking of me as some kind of monster. It kind of put me off. But you seem pretty OK with things as they’ve gone, so …’

‘I am. I am OK with them. And if you enjoy it, I’m even more OK with it.’

‘That’s all right then. Are you going to make this dinner or do I have to take over?’

I wrenched my attention back to the kitchen counter while Dan loped off in the direction of the living room. He came back just as I was mixing the sauce ingredients.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘what’s your vibrator doing in the bathroom sink?’

My face flamed. I’d forgotten to put it away after washing it.

‘Oh, uh, just lying there, I expect,’ I said.

He came up close again, speaking low and slow into my ear.

‘Seeing to yourself, were you, after reading all about the cane? Well, I’ve got a new rule, Pip. No more secret self-pleasuring. You have to wait until I get home.’

‘But that’s not fair,’ I blurted to his retreating back.

‘Fair?’ He turned and grinned. ‘Is it fair that you get to make all the rules? I don’t think so. God, I’m starving. Is that thing ready yet?’

I got away lightly the night I discovered Book 2. He didn’t punish me for it, because he accepted that there was no rule about playing hide and seek, although it had disappointed him that he wouldn’t be able to ‘surprise’ me with something hideous like stinging nettles in my knickers. Warped sense of humour that man of mine has.

Mind you, it’s no worse than mine.

I say there was no punishment, but in a funny way there was.

Obviously, the Affair of the Vibrator had affected him in some way, and he spent the evening, after we went to bed, taking me to the brink of orgasm and then pulling back. He did this three times, until I was a red-faced, teary-eyed mess of frustration, then he kissed me all over and said it served me right.

I kicked him in the shin and then he let me come at last.

Romance isn’t dead, you know.

The next day, he was on night shift, so I didn’t see much of him. Instead, I did more surreptitious reading of Book 2, and more fantasising about the final chapter.

I wanted to know about this ginger thing, and yet I also really didn’t want to know. I went as far as going to the kitchen and peeling a ginger finger, but then I got scared and threw it in the sink. I really wanted Dan to come home – I was ragingly horny and forbidden from relieving myself. In fact, I’d been ragingly horny ever since we started with this domestic discipline thing. The link seemed clear.

The more I thought about being bent over and caned with my bum stuffed full of root vegetable matter, the more desperate I was to welcome my husband home.

And yet, I really dreaded his doing any of these things. It was too paradoxical to think about.

I was asleep before he came home, but we both had today off.

We had an excursion planned – a trip to the seaside, involving calling on old friends from university days. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

‘Are you going to bring your cane?’ I asked teasingly as he looked around the room for his iPod and charger.

‘Not a bad idea,’ he said.

I’d been joking, but he actually went downstairs, holding it in his hand for all to see, and put it in the back seat of the car.

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I gasped, staring at him on his return.