Confession - Masked for the Unknown

The mask took me by surprise. Peter had not told me that he had planned for me to wear it. Or that he even had it. Until he slipped it from his jacket pocket.

Black leather, with an elasticated strap. Not just plain leather. Small, steel studs decorating the outside edges, and forming letters in large capitals across it. He made sure I saw before he raised it to my face. Two words. An invitation. "FUCK ME".

This is my "Confession" about what happened while I wore the mask. It follows my previous "Confessions", which provide the background, and recount my indiscretions, although they did not quite describe just how far Peter has gone in punishing me subsequently.

I wrote this some time later, having had comments asking me to reveal more of how things played out in our marriage. Thank you to those who asked the question. I can only ask that you read on with the kind of open mind that seeks to understand, and not to judge too harshly, either Peter or myself.

**********

"When will you be back?" our youngest asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "But we'll come to Gran's for lunch and bring you home afterwards."

Date night. The children's once a month stay over at my mother's, while Peter and I had our extra special couple time, during which he punished me for straying. This was, in fact, our anniversary date night. A year since he had checked the family tracking phone-app that I had so rapidly forgotten all about. A year since he had seen that instead of being at home, while he was at his business conference, I was in a hotel near Heathrow.

In that year, things had healed between us. I had told him everything, about Heathrow, and about the one other time that I had let another man, a gardener of all people, fuck me. We had stayed together, for the children, and because we loved each other, in spite of what I had allowed to happen. He had imposed his terms. I had accepted them. Once a month, tied face down over the bed, or the sofa, or the kitchen table. My butt warmed. Punished for my having sinned.

By then my other punishment had healed as well. The tattoo my husband had insisted on. Another four letter word, "SLUT". Inked in letters two inches high on my right buttock cheek. Deserved, of course. I was just grateful that our marriage had survived. It had mutated into something different, but at least it was still intact. We were still a loving couple, and our family was still a loving family for our boys.

"Can't you pick us up after the concert?" This my our older son, backing up his younger brother.

"We're staying in London, sweetie," I said. "Daddy's arranged a nice hotel for us to stay in after."

"I wish we could come too," he said.

"When you're older," I promised him.

"Anyway, the concert will be boring," our younger son piped in again. "I hate classic music!"

"Classical," I corrected him. "And I used to hate it too. It's for older people."

"You're not old," he said. "Gran's old. You're not even forty. She's nearly seventy."

The BBC Promenade concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, an annual event, right through each summer. The programme for our concert was Mozart and Wagner. I was particularly looking forward to the Mozart. His music is so much lighter. Wagner can be very dark.

"You can think about the club during the second half," Peter had joked. The Wagner would indeed serve as a dark, orchestral prelude to even darker happenings later on that night.

The club was Peter's idea. Other people watching as he meted out my monthly punishment. Technically a swinger's club, in Aldgate. With a bar, a dance floor, playrooms and a mock dungeon. The website showed the rooms, without guests of course, but with models, one of them mounted on the horse that Peter planned to strap me to. Padded leather on a wooden frame, not the living, breathing animal.

My loving, gentle husband had called me over while I was preparing a casserole for the following night's dinner. Chicken and avocado.

"I've something to show you," he had said. "I think we should go there after the concert."

His lap-top screen now showed the shot of the model on the dungeon's leather horse as the main photo. Her butt was to the camera. I had stared at it, over his shoulder, trying to control my heart rate and my breathing, not wanting him to sense my apprehension. My stomach had suddenly felt hollow. I had had to control my voice as well, as I answered his suggestion.

"Interesting," I had said, keeping my response to a minimum. "Is that what you would like to do to me?"

"Anniversary punishment," he said. "What do you think?"

Bodies do their thing, regardless of whatever amount of will power you try to exert over them. My heart was racing. My stomach churning. Something else as well. Involuntary. A gentle throbbing. My clit.

"Do you planto fuck me there as well?" I heard myself asking.

"Or watch," he had said.

The Mozart had been wonderful, effervescent, playful, but not as distracting as I had hoped. All the way through I kept wondering just what Peter had planned for me for later. Especially whether he would fuck me after he had punished me. Those two words that he had used might have been no more than a tease. "Or watch," was all that he had said. Watch what? Watch someone else? Fucking me? Was that what he had planned?

Whatever else, his planning was faultless. Right down to the dress I had changed into at our hotel, for the concert, and what I wore beneath it.

"Dress code for the club is sexy," he explained. "See-through, cut outs, lingerie, leather. And you need a reasonably respectable dress for the concert. I thought, lingerie under a dress you can remove for the club, would work."

So, I was in the jet black lingerie he had laid out for me, open cup bra, that supported but left my nipples bare, suspender belt, sheer stockings, no g-string, all worn beneath an electric blue, satin, spaghetti strap dress, that skimmed the bottom edge of the three inch width of double thickness stocking tops, and that was moulded to my breasts and allowed my nipple stubs to define its contours.

The way that I was dressed was maybe just that bit risqué, for the Royal Albert Hall, but not outrageous. I got looks, but not disapproval. I was apprehensive, about the club that would come later, but I also sensed that same familiar throbbing. My cunt, bare and exposed beneath the satin, with thoughts of its own, anticipating what would ensue. My clit, just as independent, alert and eager. My vagina, already secreting fluid to lubricate and ready me for ease of penetration, even thought, while listening to Mozart, my legs were firmly crossed.

Then the second half, of the two composer concert. The deep strains of Wagner underscored the changed nature of our relationship, the more recent, darker side. Our marriage was somehow still secured by love, but also by Peter's newfound dominance, my submission. His hand moved to my lap to express the former, his, our love for one another. It progressed beneath my dress as Wagner's portentous composition filled the concert hall, fingers and palm on bare thigh flesh above my stocking line, nudging my cunt. His cunt. The cunt of a slut, that he had reclaimed.

**********

I was still wearing the dress. Not my coat. We had checked that into the club's cloakroom. Another couple were paying at the reception desk. In their twenties, a decade younger than we were. Both good looking. Both blonde. Her hair long and straight. His, buzz cut short. She slipped off her coat. Leather straps and buckles connected at steel rings. A body harness. Nothing else. Bare breasts and pubis. Neat nipple stubs contrasted with erotically protruding labia.

If that exemplified the dress code in the club, I would be fine in just my lingerie. Except Peter was putting that mask in place, the one that I described right at the start. The leather mask with metal studs around the edges, and the two words formed across the eyes, that said so clearly, "FUCK ME". The last thing that I saw was the slender, leather-strapped blonde looking me in the eye, amusement all too evident.

He had planned for everything, or else he rapidly figured out how best to deal with an elasticated strap and my then, tumbling, longer than shoulder length hair. He gathered my hair with one hand, eased it from beneath the strap, and let it fall. The strap would be invisible. A simple move, executed as if he had practiced it in his head.

We have five senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Robbed of the first, you are quite literally blind. You cannot see the space that you are in, the entrances and exits, the people who are around you, the floor, the furniture, which way to walk, the obstacles. These are suddenly unknown. You are frozen. Even your sense of balance disappears.

The mask in place, I felt immediately disoriented. Almost lightheaded. I reached for Peter's arm to steady myself, but did not find it. I felt a rising panic. I took a hesitant step towards where I knew my husband was, where he had to be, felt his hands on my bare arms, and took a breath, an inhalation of relief.

I read somewhere, sometime ago, that chimpanzees grin and laugh when they are frightened, not from happiness or relaxed contentedness. The mask denying me of the security of sight, I was almost laughing, chimp style, hoping that the couple who had seen my husband put the mask on me, the receptionist, the cloakroom girl and the guys on the door, would take my grin to be amusement. The reality was my laughing was from unadulterated fear.

Peter had planned for me to walk into the club unable to see anyone or anything, in the 'fuck me' mask that he had slipped in place so smoothly, not just any club, a swinger's club, where 'fuck me' would be taken seriously. He planned to strap me to that horse, and use whatever he had brought with him to punish me, while others watched, and then, or so he had said in showing me the website, instead of fucking me, as he would do at home, he might decide to watch.

He moved closer. His hands left my arms and went around me, upper and lower back, drawing me into him. I looked up, blindly, and his lips met mine. A kiss between a husband and a wife can convey how much they love each other, can reassure, can comfort. I needed all of that.

"Trust me," he whispered.

Then I felt him grip the zip pull of my dress behind my shoulder blades and ease it down. All the way down. To the swell of my buttocks. I felt the fabric open, and then his fingers touched my shoulders as he eased the spaghetti straps down my arms, and the front fell from my breasts.

His hands moved to my hips, sliding the satin over my buttock cheeks, down my thighs, and releasing it. It fell. Onto the floor. Onto my black shoes with their three inch heels that were the compromise between swinger's club and Royal Albert Hall. I sensed him bend. Felt for his shoulder, now level with my waist, held it as I stepped from the pooled satin, knowing that he would draw it away from my feet to retrieve it from the floor.

"Can I check this in with my wife's coat?" I heard him ask.

"Certainly, sir."

No hint of surprise in her voice. Nothing unusual had happened. Guests did as guests wished.

I shivered. Not from cold. From exposure. From being semi-naked, my open cup bra baring my areolas, my pubis devoid of fabric or hair or anything. An innocent, soft mound of pure white flesh, the vertical slit that is the entrance to me cunt, with its pinkly peeking lips, protruding nothing like as much as the blonde's had been, but still displayed to anyone who cared to look.

Fingers at my back. Opening my bra clasp. Sliding straps down my arms.

"And this, as well," I heard my husband say.

My breasts would not be supported after all, not even the undersides. They would be as nature and two children had sculpted them. Full, with their palm width areoles, sucked upon nipple stubs, yet still somehow proud, if fractionally less so that when I had been single and pre-motherhood and in my twenties.

"Have you a bin for this?" I heard my husband ask.

That was one bra that I would never see again, not even when my "fuck me" mask was finally removed.

"Take my arm," he whispered, now at my side again. "All you have to do is walk beside me."

I took his arm. He started moving. I took a nervous step. I remembered there had been a double door painted in gleaming black, leading on inside the club, and calculated that that was where we were headed.

Instinct said to use my free arm to feel the way in front of me, but I forced myself to close that option down. I took another long, deliberate breath. Trust Peter, I thought. Walk beside him. Your husband is not going to lead you into a closed door, or a wall, or furniture, or anyone.

Trust him.

I was trusting my husband, not just to keep me from walking into something, or someone. I was trusting him to decide what happened through those doors, inside the club. To look after me. To guide me from room to room, from place to place, amongst the other guests. To allow someone to touch me, or not, my husband's choice. Not just to touch, but to caress, fondle, grope, or finger me, should he decide it would amuse him.

I knew that sooner or later, Peter would guide me to the dungeon, the room that I had seen online, dimly lit, not that that mattered, not now that my sense of sight had been denied me. A Saint Andrew's cross, a cage, two sets of stocks, one for wrists and head, the other for the waist, the horse that Peter planned to use for me, red painted walls, black timber beams and black metal wall lights, none of which I would now get to see.

I was trusting Peter to punish me as he would have done at home. No more, no less. Just how, I did not know. He was wearing the same white shirt and dark trousers that he had worn to the concert, his jacket checked in to the cloakroom with my coat and dress. No paddle or tawse in his trouser pockets. No space. Maybe he had checked that they were available, to be borrowed, in the club.

At home, Peter would always fuck me afterwards. From behind. While I was still bent over the bed, or table, or sofa back, whatever he had used while I received his punishment. Here, he had options. To fuck me himself, or invite another guest to fuck me, someone that I could not see, could not refuse, would not know about until it happened, or he could deny me, leave me wanting, my cunt throbbing for cock, but empty and bereft. Three ways to play it. Him, a stranger, or no cock at all. My husband would decide.

I had no choice, except to trust him.

With that thought came the realisation that my body was now more alive than ever. Deprived of sight, all my other senses were on high alert. I could smell the alcohol beyond the door, hear glasses clink, hear footsteps on tiled floor, pick up the aftershave of someone on my right. A doorman, or another guest, perhaps. No movement said the former.

My skin felt taut, the sensory receptors in each square inch, primed and readied to be stimulated by touch of any kind, leather to sit on for a while, or to be strapped to, someone else's clothing brushed against, another body squeezed past, a hand casually caressing my arm, or buttock, or being felt more intimately. This was a swingers' club after all. People might not wait to be invited. There was explicit wording on my mask.

Then there was that other word, the tattoo on my butt cheek. Walk into a club like this with the word 'Slut' permanently inked into your skin, and the other guests will make assumptions, and may well act on them.

I could tell, just from how they felt, that my nipple stubs were firm. My clit felt just as aroused. My cunt was wet. I knew, right then, as my husband led me through the doors. I knew exactly what I was. I was a living, breathing, walking fuck toy, entering the lion's den. Holding tight to Peter's arm, I walked on in, unseeing.

Great sound system. Great music. Clubbing music. Nothing romantic. Grinding bass beats, rhythmic, vibrating, penetrating right to the pit of your stomach. At the edges of my mask, I could make out whirling multicolours of what I guessed were disco lights. People's voices, audible even against the level of the disco music, shouting to be heard, laughing, women screaming, as they danced, vertically or horizontally as well. I could not tell.

Peter guided me a little to the right. I did my best to appear confident, walking beside him. I was so tempted to make small, tentative steps, to feel my way with my feet, to ensure there was nothing that I might trip over. Instead, I forced myself to walk normally, trusting that he would make sure my route was safe.

"We're at the bar," he said, as he slowed.

I reached with my free hand, feeling in front on me, finding the cold hardness of the bar top, establishing which way the bar ran, that I was standing diagonally to it, and turning so that instead I faced it directly, letting go of Peter's arm to rest both hands on the edge.

"You're brave," someone said.

A woman. Directly on my right.

I felt a hand rest lightly on mine. Hers, I assumed. She could be reassuring me, or testing me, to see if she could touch.

"Negroni?"

Peter's voice, on my left.

"Please," I said, turning to him.

Then, turning back to where the woman's voice had come from, I admitted how I really felt.

"Or just trying not to look too nervous," I said.

"Neat tattoo, as well," she said. So, she had seen that already. My 'Slut' tattoo.

Peter was placing our order with the bar man, or girl, whichever it was.

"Thanks," I said, to the unknown woman, thanking her for what was still a kind of compliment.

No one, before her, other than Peter, had seen the tattooist's handiwork. The font was bold, solid, no flourishes, no concessions to my gender, nothing feminine about it. More like the stamp that they used to put on letters in an office mail room. "RECEIVED", and then the date. Two inches high, and six across, set round the widest curve of butt flesh, "SLUT". A statement. Designation. Labelled for life.

Yet she thought that it was neat. Not garish. Not loud, or lurid, vulgar or tawdry, brash or tasteless. Neat. I liked that. It was reassuring. More so when she removed her hand from mine and stroked my butt, caressed the neat, inked imprint that my husband had insisted on, my badge of betrayal, admission of my own true self. Her hand felt warm and soothing. Then she replaced it over mine again, and I turned to her.

The mask had been a complete surprise, but I had been almost amused when Peter had produced it, as if it did no more than add some frisson to our visit to the club. Now I felt unnerved, all too aware of the imbalance between this woman and myself.

From behind the mask that I was wearing, I had no idea who this woman was, what she looked like, how she was dressed, if she was with someone else, or anything about her. I could feel her hand on mine, soft, but yet her hand resting on top gave her a kind of power over me. I could smell a perfume, something classy. Other than that, I was in the dark.

In contrast, I felt utterly naked and exposed. Physically, I was totally naked, other than a suspender belt and stockings. No woman ever thinks that their body is perfect. We always scrutinise ourselves for imperfections. She could see mine. She could judge how firm my breasts were, how trim my stomach was, the slight hints of cellulite around my buttocks and hips, how toned I am, everything about me.

She had seen my tattoo. She had caressed it. She no doubt had conjectured how I came to have it, what I had done to deserve it, earn it. What it meant that I would do. In this club. My mask too. Just wearing it declared that I was in some way submissive, acquiescent. The 'Fuck Me' wording on it conveyed a message. As if I did not care who fucked me. Which might, or might not have been true, but it told her so much more about me that I knew about her.