The fifth part of my erotic novella, The Marriage Consultant, a story about a relationship coach who uses some… alternative techniques.
All the parts of this story can be found here.
I thought as she drove down the tree-lined streets of suburbia, back to Slade’s house. I knew I should probably fire Gina — she did work for me, after all! — but I was conflicted. It was clear some boundaries had been crossed, but it had been hard enough to find her in the first place; given my circumstances, I knew I had more requirements for a personal assistant than most people. And she was good at what she did, on top of that. But there was a part of me that enjoyed what she had done, as evidenced but my leaking cunt. I sighed as we pulled into Slade’s driveway. After this, I reminded myself, it’ll all be over anyway. Then I can fire her with no regrets and hire somebody new.
I was unpacking the aluminum take out containers in the kitchen when Slade came strolling in. “Hey, what did you bring me?” His boyish grin radiated toward me, making my pussy clench.
“Italian.” I tried not to sound too curt, but I was still embarrassed about the whole encounter. I looked at the microwave clock discreetly — just now getting on one.
Perfect, at least I wasn’t late. Dishing up the take out, I started his next lesson. “So, Slade. I like to use Saturday afternoons to kind of… recap, if you will, for the week.” He looked up at me, chewing slowly. “How has this week gone for you? How do you feel about the whole experience here?”
He sat back, considering.
“Well, I’ll level with you, Alexis,” he said. You’re still… it’s still a little strange for me. Part of me doesn’t believe that people really do this. I mean, that marriages can really work like this.” He raised his eyebrows. “On the other hand, it is nice to have a clean house and, you know… blowjobs.” He looked a little bit embarrassed. “Really, does this work with other women? I mean, really?”
“Sure,” I said, “And I think you’ll find that, often, women who want to marry a successful man will be even more willing to submit to the traditional marriage archetype.”
“It doesn’t seen traditional, it seems archaic.”
I sighed, hoping that we’d have moved past this by now. “Only if you believe that it’s archaic. Trust me, it works.”
“Hmm.” Slade looked down at his pasta. He still didn’t seem to believe me. But I’ve seen it happen again and again, I knew it worked. I just needed to get him through the program to see the results.
I continued. “How have I been at following your rules this week?”
“Perfectly.” He shrugged. “House is clean, food’s on the table, and sex every day. Yeah, I think you’ve been pretty good.”
“Great, glad to hear it.” I smiled. “But there’s another step in this power dynamic to learn today. It’s called the ‘maintenance spanking.’”
He looked up at me, curious. “A maintenance spanking? What is that?”
“A spanking, usually delivered once or twice a week, if everything has been performed up to your standards.”
“…Seriously? But you’ve been perfect.”
“I know, that’s the point. Even wives that fulfill all their duties perfectly need a periodic reminder of what will happen if they don’t.”
“Why?” He shook his head slightly. “That seems… a little unfair.”
“Not unfair, just a reminder of the boundaries, of the safety of your presence. That you care enough about her to remind her of your respective positions. For a woman, it is very…” I searched for the right word, “… comforting, in a way, to know that her husband is paying attention to how things should be.”
“Shouldn’t she be, oh… I don’t know… rewarded for doing a good job? Why is everything the stick, here? Where’s the carrot?”
“That’s a good question. You, the man, need to be rewarding her everyday, in small ways, like you probably would anyway. Kiss her, tell her you love her… tell her that she’s beautiful and precious to you. Her reward is that you support her, emotionally, mentally, physically. And, in a way, the maintenance spanking is another reward for her, because it reminds her of the safety of her boundaries with you.”
“Is this seriously what women want?”
“Some of them, yes.” I paused. “Often the ones that make good wives, yes.”
He sighed. “Okay, fine. Do we have to do it now?” His voice made it sound like this was going to be more of a chore than I would have liked.
I kept my voice neutral. “No, we can do it whenever you want, as long as we do it today.”
“Great, then let’s go out to dinner tonight. We’ll do it after that.”
I thought that he may have been missing the point of the exercise, but I kept that to myself.
Truthfully, I thought I still needed to build some trust in him; I had never been with a client this long who had resisted this strongly. I was surprised and a bit disconcerted. We hadn’t been out on a date all week, so I hoped that this would help.
Dinner was lovely, with minimalistic plates of artfully placed sea creatures and red wine. My strapless sheath dress hugged the curve of my ass, hopefully to remind him of things to come. I also knew that this dress dropped beautifully to floor when unzipped. I didn’t want to waste time with a bra when we get home, so I went without.
After a glass of wine, our conversation went from mundane small talk to more pressing matters. “So I did some digging this week, Alexis,” Slade said nonchalantly.
I hoped that my eyes hadn’t betrayed the sudden wave of anxiety that rolled through my body. No good conversation ever starts with that sentence. “Oh?” I tried to reply as casually as I could.
He shrugged. “Yeah, but let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Whoever you have manning the phones at your office is a world-class gatekeeper.”
I couldn’t decide if I was proud of Gina for doing her job, or afraid that we all hadn’t done it well enough. While we never explicitly promised confidentiality to my clients, it was an implied benefit. I never shared their information with anyone, mostly out of courtesy.
Slade continued, “I remembered that you said that you had consulted with nine couples before me, so I figured there had to be a way to reach out to them.” He shook his head slightly. “Like I said, though, it wasn’t easy.”
I felt almost… violated.
Like some boundary had been breached that I hadn’t agreed to. I didn’t like the idea of him digging around my business. Still, I tried to remain professional. “And what did you find?”
“I only could track down one of your … success stories. I had to pull some strings with some people I know.”
I was still nervous. “Okay.” I wondered which one he had found, and if there was anything I could do to protect the rest.
“You’ll be pleased to know that he only had the nicest things to say about you.” He smiled as he looked down at his half-empty glass.
I blushed, but didn’t know why.
“And, true to your word, he says his new marriage is happy and his wife is still eager and satisfied with their … arrangement.” The way he emphasized the last word made it sound almost dirty. I huffed my displeasure. He looked up at me. “Is something the matter?”
“Well, other than the obvious breach of trust and boundaries, I don’t like the way that you refer to this structure of relationship.” I slowly let out a breath. “You make it sound … exploitive, but it’s not. Or, doesn’t have to be, when done right.”
“Of course it’s exploitive. It exploits women, placing them in an inferior position in the relationship.” He was gathering steam. From what I saw on TV, I knew that once he was on a roll, he wouldn’t quit. “Of course it’s exploitive, Alexis. Of course it is.”
Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash