by Emily Tilton
They did love each other—that seemed like a kind of factual bedrock. If the love didn’t feel now, living together in Sam’s house, the way it had on their wedding day, well, didn’t everyone say that’s what happened when you got married?
Mary and Sam Hunter loved each other, and they had gotten married. They would work it out: they would go on a really nice honeymoon, and...
Lying in bed Thursday night, in the very same ‘pajamas’—sweats, t-shirt, polka-dot panties—Mary heard Sam come in the front door just as she thought about their ‘really nice’ honeymoon. Her heart ached.
She reached out hastily and turned out the light so that he would think she had fallen asleep.
His footsteps on the tile of the kitchen floor. The vacuum sound and the squeak of the refrigerator opening. Could she, just barely, hear a snort of frustration, as Sam saw that she hadn’t cooked anything at all for him tonight? Had he seen the note, taken it out, read it?
Got busy.
She heard her husband’s heavy tread coming from the kitchen toward the bedroom.
This is it, right? The thought flashed through her mind. He’s going to...
Her mind didn’t seem to have any way to finish the sentence.
He’s going to... open the door, and then...
But Sam didn’t open the door. She heard the bathroom door open instead. She heard him peeing, her cheeks getting warm at the very thought of it, of the thing he had to take out to relieve himself, of how it had felt against her leg when he had made her bend over the bed in which she now pretended to sleep.
The toilet flushed. The faucet gurgled as he washed his hands.
Now. Now he’s going to open the door, and then he’s going to...
Sam’s footsteps receded to the kitchen, and the refrigerator opened again. Mary fell asleep to the sound of the microwave heating something that would taste like cardboard, for the man she loved and now it seemed couldn’t even feed.
In the morning, though it seemed like he had slept beside her from the state of the covers on his side of the bed, she awoke to find him gone. On the kitchen table, he had left a note of his own.
I’ll be home by six. Please have dinner ready for us to eat together. Could she tell that he had pressed very hard on the pen when he underlined together? Mary couldn’t help picturing the simple ballpoint that now rested atop the small sheet of paper, in Sam’s enormous hand. She closed her eyes, feeling her brow furrow as she wondered whether her mind had started to go, because she found herself wanting to be the pen, and at the same time fearing, terribly, what the pen might undergo as the tool of Sam Hunter’s will.
Chapter Six
Sam called to make an appointment at the New Modesty authority as soon as their phone lines opened at eight a.m. At 9:30, having done a slightly half-assed but perfectly adequate job on his office paperwork at the gym, he walked through the authority’s office doors.
“Mr. Hunter?” the receptionist asked, looking up from the screen on her long, sleek desk. She wore her hair up in a pretty bun that, together with her modest print dress, made him think of the same kind of 1950s beauty that Mary Johnson had seemed to Sam to embody even in her workout clothes.
Sam nodded. “That’s me,” he confirmed, trying his best to sound breezy and as if he didn’t feel completely desperate for any help anyone in this office might give him.
“I’ll let Mr. Wharton know you’re here,” she said, picking up the phone. “You started the gym on Green Street, didn’t you? My daughter goes there. She loves it.”
Sam smiled, feeling rather to his surprise like the world had started to make some sense again. “Thanks. Mrs....”
“Harrigan,” the receptionist replied, smiling back. She pressed a button on the phone, then said, “Hi. Mr. Hunter is here.” The barely audible, distorted sound of a man’s voice, saying something very professional, came from the receiver held an inch from Mrs. Harrigan’s ear. “Okay, thanks.” Uncertainty crept back into Sam’s mind—could he really discuss with Mr. Wharton, head of the Smallton New Modesty authority, what he needed to discuss?
Mrs. Harrigan’s eyes had turned downward as she spoke to her boss. Now she raised them to Sam. “You can go ahead back. Mr. Wharton will come right out to meet you.” She turned her chin slightly over her shoulder to indicate the glass door that led to a short hallway with doors on either side.
“Thanks,” Sam said. “Tell your daughter to say hi sometime—I love to meet my clients in person. Don’t get to do it as much as I used to, now that things are going so well.”
As soon as he had said it he wondered if Mrs. Harrigan would think he meant he wanted to date her daughter, and from her expression he could see that the thought had just crossed her mind, too.
“I will,” she said with a smile that made Sam feel subtly comfortable again; he could tell that Mrs. Harrigan, despite his married status, found him extremely attractive—a feeling he hadn’t had in quite a while. He loved Mary, but he needed to fight for his right to have that same feeling when she looked at him, her husband.
He turned toward the glass door to see that a middle-aged man who had a distinctly western flair—the cowboy-ish cut of his shirt and his bolo tie made up most of that impression—had emerged from the office on the right. Mr. Wharton opened the glass door and beckoned to Sam with a broad, welcoming smile.
“Come on in, Sam,” he said, his voice avuncular. “We met at your orientation, I’m pretty sure, but I’ll bet you don’t remember.”
Sam frowned, then smiled, because of how very little it seemed to matter to the pleasant, silver-haired man who led him into a homey office that had on its walls several prints of cowboys riding the range.
“That’s all right. That’s all right,” Mr. Wharton said. “Life in an NM community can be pretty confusing at first, and I know the orientation comes at you fast. Have a seat.”
The office had a little sitting area with two chairs and a small sofa, which Sam thought must be the place where Mr. Wharton did the counseling that Sam knew constituted a part of the New Modesty authority’s function. He noticed, his brows rising a bit, that one of the chairs was a sturdy wooden affair with a solid back and no arms.
Perfect for giving a young woman the spanking she needs, he thought as he followed Mr. Wharton’s gesturing hand to sit in the armless chair, while his host swiveled his worn-looking desk chair and settled himself into it.
“Congratulations on your marriage,” Mr. Wharton said, smiling.
“Thanks,” Sam replied awkwardly. “That’s... I guess that’s why I’m here.”
The older man nodded, a pleasant, understanding smile still curving his lips. “Of course. How can I help?”
“Well, Mr. Wharton—”
“Call me Andy, please!” his host interrupted, the smile becoming a grin and one hand rising from the knee of his buff pants to stop the formality in its tracks.
Sam smiled in return despite the gravity he felt, and the apprehension at the thought of what he felt he now had to say.
“Okay, Andy.”
Andy nodded, the impression of wise, down-home avuncularity growing in Sam with every motion of the older man’s weathered but very clean-shaven chin.
“Well,” Sam started again. “I guess it’s alright—I mean the website said...”
Again Andy’s smile broke out like the western sun over the plains. “I’m guessing you’re a little nervous about what you can tell me? What’s appropriate, to put it another way?”
Sam nodded mutely in reply.
“Well, Sam. Selecta—you know Selecta, right?”
Sam gave another quick nod. Everyone knew Selecta, largest corporation in the world these days and the corporate partner for the government’s New Modesty program. Now that things had changed in Washington, in fact, Selecta had assumed nearly complete control of the administration of the New Modesty communities—with, most people seemed to think, great increases in efficiency.
The new party in control of th
e nation couldn’t, apparently, just end the New Modesty, as they had promised in their campaign, and the Selecta takeover seemed to suit everyone’s purposes best. Sam certainly had no objection—outside of the difficulties his bride appeared to have suddenly found with the community’s founding ethos of traditional gender roles and wifely submission.
“Well, Selecta,” Andy started again, “has as you probably know made it a point over the years to gather really good science about what works best for young people starting out in a New Modesty marriage. I don’t mean to call you young, either—though I do feel like in having a few years on you maybe I have some wisdom to impart.”
Sam hadn’t taken the word amiss at all, but Andy’s disarming manner made him feel even more at ease.
“No, I mean...” The older man looked over at a file on his desk. “Mary, obviously. She’s just nineteen, and she has a good deal of sorting out to do, just like every other nineteen-year-old.”
That made Sam frown, but Andy, seeing it, held up his hand. “That’s where you come in, Sam. Mary wouldn’t be here if Selecta’s data didn’t say the best way for her to sort things out is with the help of a loving, dominant man to take her in hand.”
Sam felt his brow unfurl a bit, and he nodded, feeling very grateful for Andy’s way of speaking.
“So, to get back to the point where we started...” Andy chuckled. “Selecta’s science tells us that you should tell me everything that matters to you. We’re just us fellas here, and that will help. I know how tongue-tied a guy in your position can be, though, not wanting to offend my ears and not wanting to talk about your wife’s way of intimacy, so let me start things off. Sam, when’s the last time you fucked Mary?”
Sam felt his eyes go wide, and a snort of surprise came from his nose. Andy looked back at him with his unwavering smile and leaned back a little in his chair, moving his hands from his knees to his slightly rotund belly.
“Last Sunday morning,” Sam said matter-of-factly.
Andy’s eyebrows went up. He whistled softly. “Not by choice, I take it?”
Sam shook his head, thinking of something in the Your New Modesty Marriage—Early Days brochure: A bride should expect to have sex at least once a day in the early months of her marriage and her bridegroom should feel no compunction about requiring that frequency of intimacy. “No, but...”
Andy nodded in sympathy. “But it’s more complicated than that. Why don’t you tell me the story?”
“Well,” Sam started. “After our wedding night...”
“How did that go?” Andy asked, leaning forward now. “Was Mary wet for you? Did she come with your penis inside her?”
Sam had to clear his throat. “I thought at first—on our wedding night, I mean—that she wasn’t, and I almost stopped. She had on a pretty, sexy white nightgown, but she turned off the light and I didn’t want to turn it on...”
Andy nodded. “That was a mistake,” he said frankly. “But it’s a mistake guys make all the time. Keep going.”
“Anyway,” Sam continued, frowning a little now, “she closed her eyes when I pulled her nightgown up, and she spread her legs, and when I first touched her... down there...”
“When you touched her clit, you mean?”
Sam nodded quickly. “Yeah. She kind of flinched, but then all of a sudden she kind of moaned, and I could feel her get wet when I moved my fingers... you know...”
“To her pussy,” Andy supplied. “That must have been pretty hot, yeah?”
“Yeah. So I asked if she was ready, and she gave a little nod, and then...”
“Then you popped her cherry. But you don’t think she came, I’m guessing.”
Sam shook his head. “No. I held her for a long time afterward, and... I put my hand down there, but she seemed to pull away, even though she seemed to like me holding her. And then...” His voice trailed off.
Andy’s smile, which had vanished as he listened, returned. “Then you fell asleep.”
Sam smiled, a little sheepishly, in return. He nodded. “Yeah. And when I woke up in the morning she had on...”
Andy winced, now, in sympathy. “Sweats?”
Sam frowned. “How did you know?” he asked, astonished.
“You’re far, far from the only guy who’s faced this, Sam,” the older man said. “Okay, so then I’m guessing you two didn’t talk about any of this, and... you said Sunday morning?”
Sam felt the crease in his brow grow even deeper as he nodded.
“I’m betting she disrespected you, and you spanked her, and then you fucked her.”
Andy spoke in such a level, matter-of-fact tone that it made Sam’s eyes go wide.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “And... well, I knew I was... you know, forcing...”
Andy’s own eyes widened, and he held up both hands. “Whoa,” he said. “I’m gonna stop you right there. Did she say no?”
Sam frowned. “Well, no.”
Andy nodded slowly. “Let me go out on a limb here. Did she ask you to fuck her? Or even tell you to fuck her?”
“Yes,” Sam responded, a little reluctantly though he didn’t feel certain why, “but she... well, she screamed and then, when I said I was sorry, afterward...”
Andy raised his head at that, the side of his mouth quirking into a new kind of smile: a very knowing one.
“Ah,” the head of the New Modesty authority said. “There’s your problem. I’m guessing that as soon as you apologized, Mary ran away. I’m guessing you haven’t talked about that, either—and that’s why you’re here.”
Sam found himself shaking his head, and then nodding, relief flooding his chest.
“Well, Sam,” Andy continued. “It’s going to be okay. Better than okay, even. It’s going to take some work on both your parts—less than comfortable work for Mary, at times—but I promise it won’t be long before you understand that a whipped butt, and more, is going to be what she needs, once a week at least for the first year or so.”
Jaw slightly slack, Sam didn’t seem to have any words with which to respond. The tightness in his jeans at the thoughts Andy had just introduced distracted him and rendered him a rapt audience for the older man’s wisdom.
“The heart of it, as far as my experience and Selecta’s data tell me, is going to be making sure you root her regularly on your stiff cock—that’s a term some of us more plain-talking New Modesty folks like to use.”
“Root?” Sam asked, fascinated by the effect the unknown idea seemed to have on him below the belt.
“Yup,” Andy said. “Most of my colleagues will just tell a husband in your position that the best thing to do is to enforce anal intercourse on his wife twice a week at least. I like root—they tell me it’s a metaphor, or something like that, but I don’t care. When you fuck a girl’s backside the way a husband should—and let me add that you’ll want to get yourself ready in her mouth first, so that she gets thoroughly acquainted with your tool—it’s like you’re rooting her in her new life as your submissive bride.”
Chapter Seven
Mary had the steaks broiling when Sam walked through the door at 5:45. The baked potatoes were cooling on the counter and the creamed spinach sat covered on the stove, finished only a few moments before.
I’m a good cook. I’m a really good cook. Mary kept thinking those simple words to herself, over and over, because they seemed to make her feel better, to quiet her racing heart and her puffing breath just a bit.
“Hi,” she heard him say behind her, his voice sounding cautious even in the brief space of the monosyllable.
Mary’s heart raced. She forced herself to look over her shoulder at him, feeling her features shape themselves into a timid expression as she remembered the heaviness of the underline beneath together.
“Hi,” she said, reaching out with her right hand to move the pot with the spinach slightly to the right, as if she had to keep working on it when in fact the burner was off and the dish was ready. She turned back to the stove, continuing the
pretense that she couldn’t talk to her husband now, that she had to finish dinner.
That’s not going to last long, she thought, and swallowed hard. She took the lid off the pot and got the spoon from the counter, stirred the spinach although at this point that would only lose precious warmth. The brief glimpse of Sam’s face over her shoulder, as she remembered it now a few seconds later, made her tummy flip.
He means business. Why would the thought of business make her knees feel wobbly?
She had put all of that to rest, hadn’t she, last Sunday? If he wanted... if her husband wanted to have sex again, well, Mary supposed she would let him. He could beseech her, and they would do it more or less the way they had done it on their wedding night. She wouldn’t put on the sexy nightgown again, but she could wear a long t-shirt or something, and wait for him in the dark.
Mary loved her husband. One thing Mrs. Grabano had made very clear in Wellness class was that men needed sex. Mary wanted Sam to have what he needed. Just... maybe once a week, in the dark, with her eyes closed as he moved above her.
She turned around completely, abruptly, resolved to tell him her thoughts, but she found the kitchen empty. Frowning, she heard from the dining room they had never yet used the sounds of Sam setting the table. Mary closed her eyes, feeling a sob rising from her chest. She pushed it down, then gathered herself for an instant, and called, “Should I bring dinner in there?”
“Yes,” Sam called back. Not sure or okay. Yes: this is what I’ve decided. Bring the dinner you made for me into the room where I’ve decided to eat it.
To her surprise and confusion, dinner was perfectly pleasant. Sam asked about her day, and she asked about his. Though he hesitated a bit before he answered, as if he had something else to tell her about his day, but wanted to wait to divulge it, Sam told her a funny story about a middle-aged man on a treadmill that made Mary laugh and laugh.
“That was an amazing steak, Pixy,” he said, as he put down his fork. “Thanks.”