Is It Really Her?

It was Saturday night and I had nothing to do, so I grabbed a beer and headed for the den and turned on the computer. There were no messages for me, but that seems to be typical these days. I surfed the web for a while looking at my usual news sites, then a couple of favourite blogs, then went to my favourite hookup sites. Some were straight sex, some BDSM, a few very specialized. I'm not into S&M, but a bit of bondage can be arousing, and I like to dominate my partners. Bondage or domination are not ends in themselves for me. If it doesn't end in getting laid, or at least a good blow job, I'm not interested.

I guess some explanation is called for. My name is John, I'm 38 years old, and at 5'-8" I guess I'm a bit on the short side for a North American guy, and I'm a runner so I have a wiry build. I have dark hair and brown eyes. When I'm not working or running, I like to draw and paint. I've tried selling some of my paintings, but so far it doesn't bring in much money, certainly not enough to live on.

So instead of pursuing my art I work as a freelance graphic designer. I was employed by a large advertising firm until five years ago. We were bought by a larger outfit and I was a victim of the usual post merger reorganization. There was nothing personal or nasty about it, in fact they helped me get started freelance. My old boss passed on quite a few jobs, especially those related to contracts I was already familiar with. It did taper off after a couple of years, and when my boss was transferred to another city it dried up completely, but by then I had other clients and had established enough of a network to bring in a steady stream of work.

Vickie and I married in our mid twenties and decided to hold off on kids until we were established in our careers. She worked for the local paper, but wrote in every spare minute, publishing lots, but not bringing in much money. What she did earn went back in to writing courses and workshops. The night courses weren't very expensive, but the workshops she attended were full weekend, and sometimes week long residential programs. She said they were designed to allow writers to focus totally on their writing in a creative atmosphere surrounded by other writers.

Once I was earning a reasonable income we decided to buy a house, and the mortgage put us right back into near poverty. That sure wasn't what we had expected, growing up in middle class families, and it caused a lot of stress. If you had asked either of us we would have told you it was just the economy and the state of American society today, but somehow, deep inside I think we both felt some resentment toward each other for the situation. It wasn't logical, but it was there.

A year after buying the house Vickie had saved enough for a week long writer's retreat somewhere in the Adirondacks. There were lots of other things we could have spent the money on, but we had agreed that investing in our careers was our first priority, so she registered and started making plans to go. As soon as the money was spent the roof started leaking. I thought it looked fine when we bought the house, and the inspector we hired before the purchase didn't see anything wrong, but every roofer we tried said the roof had to be completely redone. I'd have sued the inspector, but he had disappeared completely, leaving a lot of unhappy customers behind, so we borrowed the money and fixed the roof.

At that point our credit was maxed out; the bank wouldn't have lent us a dollar for a coffee. Then the merger was announced. That had no immediate financial effect, but we knew the axe was hanging over our heads so the stress level became intolerable. We argued about everything and anything.

I was happy when Vickie left for the writer's retreat; I knew I had a week of peace and quiet with no arguments. I also had blue balls; it had been weeks since we had sex. I hoped the atmosphere would improve after a week apart, but I had an immediate need. I went online and searched porn sites for a while, becoming progressively more aroused. I stumbled on a "hookup" site for married people. I wasn't going to play around on Vickie, but I read some profiles anyway, getting even more worked up as I fantasized about illicit sex, then a link led me to some BDSM sites. This was something I had never considered before and it was very exciting, probably because it felt so wrong. Eventually I gave in and jerked off, relieving the pressure for the moment.

After that I held off, hoping for a happy reunion when Vickie got home, but I did return to the BDSM site, which led to a bewildering array of alternative lifestyle web sites. I don't think I was overly sheltered or innocent, but I had a cliché image of BDSM: leather, whips, rope and handcuffs. While that did exist, it was only a small part of what was out there; it wasn't a homogeneous group, but an array of different specialized interests; Bondage, S&M, Dominance/Submission, and a galaxy of sub-genres and combinations.

I found myself drawn to the D/s sites. In real life I think I am pretty normal, I'm no wimp but I'm not Rambo and I'm not a Casanova. I guess I still had remnants of childhood superhero fantasies, the big dominant male who in the midst of chaos steps up, takes command, and makes everything right. I didn't act on it, but it became a bit of an escape.

When Vickie returned she didn't seem angry or combative any more, she was withdrawn and uncommunicative. When I asked about the retreat she told me about some activities, and said she spent a lot of time in isolation writing. I asked about her writing and got a lot of non-committal answers, she seemed preoccupied. Normally I would have let her work through whatever was bothering her until she was ready to talk. Maybe it was the effect of escaping to the D/s sites, or maybe I was just exhausted from months of relationship stress, I decided to confront her.

"Vickie, we need to talk."

Her eyes turned to me with a worried look, "Why?"

"You know why as well as I do. We have both been stressed out for months, arguing over nothing, and making life miserable for each other. I hoped a week apart, with you focused on your writing and me chilling out would help. Instead you have been sulking since you returned. We can't go on like this."

She looked at me with a deep haunted look, like she was in pain, but didn't say anything.

"Vickie, I love you, and I can't stand seeing you so unhappy. I know we have a lot of stress in our lives, but we will get through it eventually. We enjoyed ourselves in the past when we had nothing, we need to take a step back from our problems and enjoy the little things, enjoy being together."

A sad smile flickered across her face for a moment, "I love you too, John. I guess I've been withdrawn this week because I knew we had to talk, and I'm not sure how to tell you this."

"Tell me what?"

"Like you said, we have been unhappy for a long time. Until I went away I was just hanging on, hoping that getting away for a while would help. I spent every minute I wasn't writing thinking about us. Thinking about what has happened and where we are going."

"What do you mean, 'what has happened' is there something I should know?"

"No, I mean between us, how our lives have progressed, or rather how they haven't. When we met we had dreams, me about writing, you about pursuing your art. My writing has gone nowhere, and you seem to have forgotten your dream of being an artist as you advanced in the advertising business. Now we live in a house that really belongs to the bank, while we wait for the inevitable restructuring at your job. We were better off when we had nothing."

"But we have each other, Vickie."

"Do we?"

"What do you mean? Of course we do, we have always been there for each other."

"That was true at one time, but that time has passed. We need to move on."

My stomach dropped. It felt like somebody had just cut the elevator cables.

"How can you say that, Vickie? I love you. You just told me that you love me. We can get through this if we try together."

"John, did you enjoy your week alone?"

I didn't want to support her argument, but I couldn't lie to her, "Yes, it was a nice break. I hoped we would both come back refreshed, with a better outlook and ready to make our life better. What about you?"

"I felt like a huge weight had been taken from my shoulders. I was content when I was writing. I was less happy when I thought about our problems, and I became anxious when it was time return home."

"I felt apprehensive too, but hopeful that we could make a new start."

"A new start may be possible, but I think we need some time apart."

"Vickie, no! We can't work anything out if we aren't together."

"I'm sorry John, but I can't take this anymore. I could see this was necessary before I went away but I couldn't accept it. Now I see that it is the best for both of us. I know it will hurt, but maybe time on our own will allow us to find ourselves again and then fix our relationship. If not, maybe that is for the best."

A dark thought crossed my mind, "Vickie, did something happen during your week away? Is there somebody else?"

An unreadable expression crossed her face, "No John, this is about us and nobody else. What happened while I was away was that I finally faced the facts, this isn't working for us."

"So do you want a divorce?"

"No... I don't know. Not now John. If you want a divorce I will cooperate."

"Vickie, I don't want a divorce. I don't even want to separate, this is your idea. I think we can work this out if we stay together."

"We need some time on our own John, at least I do. We can talk again after I've had some time alone."

I felt disoriented; my whole world was crumbling as we spoke. Two weeks ago I was only worried about losing my job, now I was losing my wife.

She moved into the spare room, and moved out of the house a week later. I knew she planned to leave that weekend so I went fishing with a friend. When I came back her stuff was gone, along with a few things we had bought together, there was a note on the kitchen table.

Dear John,

I have taken my things and what I hope is a fair share of our common possessions. Try to find that contentment you felt last week while I was away and I will do the same, then we can work on our relationship from a happier start. I'll let you know when I have a new phone number.

Love,

Vickie

I felt like crying over my loss. I also felt some hope because her note spoke of starting our relationship over, but she never did call.

I heard that she was living on the other side of town, but none of her friends would tell me where she was, or even admit that they had seen her. Much later I heard that she moved in with a guy who had been an instructor at that week long writer's retreat. Did an affair while she was away trigger the breakup despite what she said, or did she just turn to a friend for support when our relationship was over? I don't know, and I don't really care. As they say, it is just water under the bridge now.

I had been paying for everything anyway, so financially I was no worse off when she left. In fact I was probably better; I only had to feed one person. Six months later the axe fell at work. At the time it felt like the world was kicking me when I was down, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I registered a business and started spreading the word in the industry that I was available. I was still hurting over the separation and buried myself in my work.

Soon I was making more money than I ever had and living comfortably if unhappily. When I hadn't heard from Vickie after two months I knew it was unlikely I would ever hear from her again, but I couldn't give up hope. I focused on my work and blocked her out of my mind. It was over a year before I admitted to myself that she wasn't coming back. I guess I had been working my way through the stages of grieving for my loss without realizing it, and when I reached acceptance I was ready to move on with my life. Technically I was still married, but I had no plans to remarry so I figured I'd worry about a divorce if it ever became necessary.

Depression caused by the breakup had suppressed my libido, but as I got on with my life it came back with a vengeance. I started going out to bars with some single friends. Despite the stories you hear, a lot of the women at those bars really are just there for dancing and a fun night out. Most of the rest don't think you are the one for them, but occasionally my evenings did have a happy ending. They were never there by breakfast time, which is probably a good thing.

I also started cruising the alternative lifestyle web sites. This time I looked harder at the ones that aimed to introduce people to each other. Profiles of submissive women were the most appealing; I could see myself in a much more assertive role than I had ever played before. Finally I registered and posted a profile:

Unattached dominant white male 5'-8", athletic build seeks submissive female for dating and NSA sex. My picture is available if yours is.

I didn't want a public picture on the site. The art world is pretty open-minded but some of my customers were conservative business people, not artists. As you might expect I got no responses, so I started reading women's profiles more seriously, and wrote to three of them. It must have been my lucky day because all three responded. One had an attractive public picture on her profile and asked for my pic, so I sent it to her. We traded emails for a while but she was a beginner too, looking for an experienced Dom to teach her. It was interesting discussing what drew us to the D/s world, but it didn't go anywhere and eventually we dropped it.

The second one to respond was willing to trade pictures privately. She was an experienced sub who had left her master with the support of her friends in the lifestyle because his dominance had become abuse. It had been a long and harrowing journey for her and I finally decided that she had too many issues to resolve before she would be ready for another relationship.

The third one seemed very timid. She didn't want to send her picture, so I didn't send mine either, but we emailed back and forth, then chatted online a lot. Her name was Michelle. She had a steady boyfriend but it was an open relationship and she was looking for a little more excitement. The boyfriend was a relatively quiet fellow and she always had to take the lead in everything. She was looking for a discreet exciting relationship with a dominant male. We seemed to share a lot of interests, she was artistically inclined, liked the same music I did, and was fascinated by Middle Eastern culture and food.

We spent a lot of time discussing what dominance and submission meant to each of us and what we were looking for in a relationship and talking about our limits. We agreed that it made sense to start relatively tamely. If we enjoyed ourselves there would be lots of opportunities to take it farther. Really we barely fit the D/s community, though it sounded like we were right for each other. She wanted a sexual partner who exhibited dominant behaviour to complement her submissive traits rather than a more intense D/s relationship.

Finally we decided to meet that Friday evening around 7PM. We agreed to keep it brief for the first meeting.

She said "John, I'm still very nervous about this. Let's just plan to meet for an hour or so the first time, and see how it goes. If we both want to extend the evening we will deal with it then, but I would feel better knowing that we planned to keep it to an hour or less for the first meeting."

"Let's meet briefly then when we are back on line we can consider taking it further."

To be honest, I was nervous too, but I started psyching myself up for it. What did she really want? We met on a D/s site, would she be disappointed if I wasn't aggressive? After giving it some thought I decided I had nothing to lose, and possibly lots to gain by being dominant from the start.

Friday I didn't even turn on the computer, I focused on one piece of artwork for a customer then quit early and cleaned the house. I was never a cliché slob bachelor, but every house gets messy and I wanted to make a good impression. I also closed all the curtains for privacy. By six I was done so I put on some music and sat down with a book to wait.

At 6:30 the doorbell rang, Michelle was a bit early. I set the paper aside, walked to the door, and peered into the security peephole. My heart almost stopped, there was a tall beautiful slim brunette standing there, she had B cup breasts that complemented the rest of her figure perfectly... but I didn't expect it to be somebody I knew. Michelle was my former boss, the one who gave me the work that got me started. She was wearing a tank top and very short shorts.

I had always been attracted to Michelle, but she had acted professionally. When working in private our joking had gotten a bit risqué, but was always limited. We were not co-workers anymore, and she must be okay with this because she knew who was on this side of the door, she had been here before.

I opened the door, "Hi Michelle, come on in."

She smiled, a bit shyly I thought, and stepped in, dropped her purse and a large envelope on a chair and kicked off her sandals as I closed the door. Before she could speak a word I put my arms around her and kissed her long and hard. I guess it took her by surprise as she resisted for a moment, but I wasn't about to tolerate any misbehaviour on her part, and held her firmly. After a moment she relaxed and parted her lips slightly, pressing her body up against mine. I gently probed her mouth with my tongue and her lips parted more. My hands stroked her back gently as we tangled tongues. My left hand came around to the front and gently stroked her right breast through the fabric of her top.

My head was still spinning. Michelle had been the subject of a few jerk off fantasies after my wife left, but I had never considered that it could ever really happen. It was like waking up and finding your favourite hot movie star was in bed with you, it couldn't possibly be happening, but there she was.

I picked her up and carried her to the sofa then slid her top up and off. Her breasts were firm and beautiful. I took one nipple into my mouth, she gasped as I teased it with my tongue. As I traced a path to her other nipple with my tongue she ran her hands over my back, then grabbed at my polo shirt and pulled it off over my head. She dropped down and started tonguing my nipples then tracing patterns on my belly with her tongue. I slid even with her and kissed her again, then nibbled on her ears and gently kissed the side of her neck. My hand slid down her stomach and I undid the button at the top of her shorts. Her hand stroked my growing erection though my jeans. I slid her shorts down and kissed my way down her torso until I reached her neatly trimmed pubic hair. I licked gently toward her slit then veered away, teasing for a while. I must admit I was not too patient; my mind was still in overload over her presence. I spread her legs and probed between her lips with my tongue, gently licking around her clit, occasionally making gentle contact. I slid farther down, probing at her vagina, tonguing her hole for a few strokes, then returning to her clit. Her breathing became more laboured and she began to squirm. I crawled up even with her face and kissed her passionately, then passed her a condom as I pulled my pants off. She opened the package and rolled it over my erect cock. I slid between her legs, probing gently, when I knew the head was at the entrance I looked her in the eyes, and gently penetrated her, my gaze never wavering. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close, thrusting her pelvis in time with my thrusts. Soon she moaned, and I could feel muscle spasms in her vagina as she climaxed. I couldn't hold off any longer, and blew my load only a moment later.