Coulrophobia

"It's your bedroom, too."

"Still." She shuddered. "I don't... wait, is that... a Clown?" She was looking at my iPad.

"Ah. Yeah." A naked clown girl with sapphire-blue hair was giving blowjobs to a line of strangers in a public restroom. The makeup around her eyes and mouth was already smeared.

"Clowns? Is that a thing for you?"

"Well, kinda. I mean, porn gets boring. And... I've seen pretty much all of it. So, after a while, I need something different, y'know? Something that stands out. I have to move it around, change things up? I can't get off on the hundredth time a bratty blond gets blackmailed by her stepbrother. Or a MILF with a big booty gets stuck in the dryer and needs help from the neighbor. Or when a schoolgirl who's clearly in her mid-twenties wants a better grade from her teacher."

"Okay, I don't know what any of those things are."

"Porn tropes."

"Ah."

"It gets repetitive. So sometimes I stop watching the videos and I read smutty stories online instead. Or Literotica posts a lot of audio-only stuff where some woman with a breathy voice reads sexy things into my earbuds. Or sometimes I'll look at photos of bondage and domination, you know, girls tied up, dangling from the ceiling, and getting spanked and tortured with vibrators until they scream and squirt."

"If you say so."

"So, okay, you know how you're doing research, and one google leads to another, then before you know it, you've got fifty tabs open and you're somehow unable to stop reading about the history of textiles in the Roman empire?"

"OH! Yeah. I totally get that."

"That's why I'm looking at clown girls. Today. Tomorrow it might be superhero girls captured by lesbian librarians who tie them to stepladders and let tarantulas walk across their tits."

"Huh. That seems oddly specific."

"That one was a few weeks ago, to be honest."

"Well. I'll let you get back to it. Sorry to have disturbed you."

"You can stay if you like, Monica."

"It's okay. Um. Thank you for the offer. I'm actually in the middle of something. I just..." she shook her head. "Clowns. Huh." Then she turned and left. At least she didn't say 'Ew.'

I'd lost about half of my erection. I got it back easily enough and finished not long after. The clown girl with the blue hair? That shit was HOT.

***

Day seven. I got home and found a note on the kitchen table. It was a little card with balloons on it, like a birthday card, but it didn't say birthday. It just said "Bedroom."

Okay.

The room was dark.

"Monica?"

Suddenly, everything was swirling with pink and blue and green lights from a tiny disco ball thing that wasn't there before, and circus music was playing from the bluetooth speaker. I was so shocked I just sat on the bed, trying to get a grip on reality.

"Sorry, Stud! Monica Ain't Here! Huhuh-Heeh!" She was in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom. She had on some kind of rainbow wig, but it wasn't one of those curly afro rainbow wigs. It was straight, combed into pigtails, with different sections of her hair in different colors. She was wearing clown makeup, with big sexy eyes and lips, painted sharp, almost cruel. She looked kinda like one of those Bratz dolls, but more clownlike, and she was wearing some kind of hot pink vinyl harness that had her tits out. And platform shoes, in clear acrylic, like a stripper's. "My name's Trixie! Trixie La Splish!" She grinned like a cat.

"What the fuck."

"That's the idea, Love Monkey!" She pounced onto me, bouncing on the bed. "Huhuh-Hee! I'm here to bop your baloney till you Honk off."

"Seriously, Monica, you don't have to do this."

She booped my nose with her finger, and at the same time HONKED a bicycle horn I hadn't realized she was holding.

"What did I just say, Hunkalicious? Monica (honk) Is (honk) Not (honk) Here! (honka-honka-honka-honk)." My nose had never been so booped. "I'm Trixie! What do you want with that dried-up old Silly Jilly, anyway? She's no FUN! I, on the other hand, am a full service sex clown that's gonna get a CREAMPIE from you tonight!"

She ripped open my shirt and the buttons flew off like popcorn.

"Jesus!"

"He ain't here, either. Didn't realize you wanted a threesome. No worries! You can use this clussy as a clown car next time the circus cums to town!" She yanked off my belt and got my zipper down like it was on fire. "Ooooh! Pitching a tent, are ya? Are your pants turning into the Big Top, or are you just happy to see me?"

"For god's sake, Moni..." HONK HONK HONK! She interrupted me with her horn.

"Trixie. La. Splish." She yanked my pants down to my ankles and dropped her mouth over my cock, taking the whole thing straight down the back of her throat in one push. FUCK. Monica hadn't had my dick in her mouth in fucking years. She sucked in her cheeks and drew me all the way back out, slowly, almost painfully, finishing with a satisfying POP. "You can call me Trixie. Or just Trix, since we're friends now. Or, you know, Bitch. Splishie. Palecunt. Whore. Funbags. Whoopie-puss. Whatever pulls your taffy! But do NOT use that boring old schoolmarm's name again." Another noseboop and HONK, then she was back down on me, giving me a champion-level Gluk-Gluk-Gluk.

Okay, what the hell.

Monica had NEVER gone down on me like this. EVER. Her blowjobs, as I remembered from eighteen years ago, were minimal-contact affairs, more like handjobs with lots of licking and tongue-twirling. Nothing like this balls-deep gonzo throatfucking extravaganza. My first thought was 'When the hell did she learn how to do THAT? And with who?' The next thought was 'Who the hell is this woman? 'Cause it sure ain't Monica.' But it'd been so long that I pushed all concern aside and proceeded to enjoy the esophageal glorking that Trixie was enthusiastically providing until I began to feel that urgent, itchy red pressure that would normally make me reach for the tissue I'd have ready.

"Trixie... I'm close, I'm gonna..."

She popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

"GIVE IT TO ME, big boy! I wanna gargle your baby batter!" She bobbed back down and goat-throated my kielbasa like a sideshow sword swallower. A few frantic thrusts later, and I was painting her tonsils white.

She leaned back, pointed her face straight up, baring her throat, and GARGLED.

"Gaghuluh guh gluk gagaglu guh hug gluk!"

Then she swallowed with an enormous "Ga-GULP," like a cartoon character, and let out a "BAHRUUUUUUUUUUP!!" belch to rival any foghorn. Then she demurely put a finger to her pursed lips and giggled.

"Tee hee hee. Excuuuuse me! Huhuh-Heeh!"

"Whaaa...?" was all I said.

"Oh, Mikey. Did that honk your horn? You were kinda backed up. I guess ol' prissypants really hasn't been doing her job, huh? No worries. That's why I'M here." She lightly juggled my balls between her fingers. "Now, let's crank up your corndog up for act two. I've got the ol' waterpark all slippy wet for you."

I hadn't come like that in a long, long time, despite how much I'd been spanking the monkey. So I'm not proud to admit it, but it took a while to get my soldier back up to fighting strength. In the meantime, she was PLAYING with me. Not just messing with it, but actually enjoying herself, like a kid with a new toy. She probably would have made balloon animals with it if she could. Not only my dick, but my balls, too, and all the flesh around my groin. She tongued my belly button. She squeezed my butt and made "Arr-OOO-ga" noises. She never stopped laughing. She even stuck a finger up my ass and said "Whoopsie-Doodle!"

Don't know why, but that did the trick.

"Oh GOODIE GOODIE GOODIE! A big 'ol funstick for me! Lookie lookie, I'm a clown popsicle!"

She'd jumped onto my dick and squatted down, taking me in one plunge. She HAD juiced up the waterpark. She'd shaved it smooth, too. She hadn't ever been so wet, so wanton, so needy. She began bouncing on me like I was a pogo stick, her tits flailing around wildly, still laughing like a fucking maniac. "Huhuh-Heeh! Wheee! Huh, Huh, Huh-hee!"

I put my hands on her hips and started thrusting harder. HARDER.

"Oooh, yeah, give it to me, stallion! Yippee! Ride 'em, Cowgirl! Yippee Kai YAY! Oh! Fuck me! Fuck Me! Fuck Me! Fuck Me! Fuck Me! Fuck Me! YeeeeeeeeeHAA!!! You're my Fuckin' Buckin' Bronco!"

She leaned forward and threw her arms around my head, turning her cowgirl into a reverse missionary. Her tongue was in my mouth, thrashing around like a live powerline downed in a storm. I hugged her to me, tight, as my thrusts found a new angle and she whimpered with sheer delight. She'd stopped thrusting and was now grinding, her bare pubis scrunching against me, leaving a sloppy crest all over my core.

I don't know how long we lasted, but I could go for a while like that, having already come. It must have been ten or fifteen minutes, when all of a sudden, she shot up again and arched her back, smashing her pubic bone into mine. Her face went slack and her hands flew to her clit, rubbing furiously. She locked up and had some kind of a seizure.

"Gaaahhhhhuuuh. Huh. Huh. Huhhuhhuhuh hee. Huhuh-Heeh."

It took a moment for me to realize that her orgasm, the first one from her that I'd seen in years, had morphed almost immediately into joyous laughter. She looked back down at me, her eyes sparkling with glee.

"Oh, Mikey. That was so good. You're so good. And you're mine now. All mine."

She reached for something on the headboard, above my forehead where I couldn't see, and came back with a paper plate full of cool whip. I barely had time to think 'She's not gonna...' before she smooshed it affectionately into my face.

"Huhuh-Heeh!" Her face was on mine, licking away the cool whip like a cat lapping at cream. Between the sweet gloppiness, her saliva and makeup, and our sweat and other bodily fluids, I had never been such a sticky, funky, fucking mess.

***

I must have fallen asleep like that. I guess sex with a clown girl really took it out of me. As I stirred at dawn, I made out the silhouette of Monica's nude figure, on her side facing away from me. Her ribcage was gently rising and falling, every other breath whispering a suggestion of her gentle snore. I loved that snore. Her hair splayed out behind her- her real hair, that is. The rainbow wig was hanging on the corner of the headboard. It would need to be brushed out. My own hair was sticky for some reason. Oh, right. The pie in the face. A famous misheard lyric jumped into my head, unbidden. It was from the Eagles' "Hotel California."

"On a dark desert highway, Cool Whip in my hair."

I laughed. More like snorted. Couldn't help it. Monica breathed in sharply, reaching for consciousness. I scooched up closer, reaching for her, drawing her into a spooning position. She let me. She didn't move.

"Good morning, beautiful."

"Good morning."

"That was really something last night."

"Did you like it?"

"I fucking loved it. Didn't you?"

"She really did."

"What?"

"I mean I did, too."

"So, ah, what brought that on?" I asked, drawing her closer, wanting to press my semi-turgid cock up against her buns, but she touched my arm in a way that clearly meant 'stop.'

What the fuck.

"Your Request," she said as if I wasn't trying to get cozy. "I promised I'd help you. The idea came to me when I saw your porn."

"Well. You kind of went overboard. I didn't need you to be a clown."

"I kinda did."

"I don't understand. You were playing to my fetish, right? I mean, it's not really a fetish, just kind of kink du jour. I'm not THAT much into clown girls."

"Shit, don't let her hear you say that."

"Don't let who hear me say what?"

"Trixie." She trembled a little.

"You're Trixie."

"No, I'm not. That's why it worked."

"I don't understand."

She drew in a deep breath and politely pushed me away, onto my back. She clutched the sheet protectively against her body and rolled onto her side, facing me. The makeup was gone without a trace.

"Okay. Look. When I interrupted your private time, I remembered something I'd run across in my research once. I must have been in a google hole, the kind with fifty tabs open and the history of textiles in the Roman empire. Like that."

"Okay."

"I remembered this thing about clown performers and the egg registry. There's this enormous body of Lore about clowns and clowning, going back hundreds of years. It's not just people putting on makeup, okay? They're putting on entire characters. Like method acting, where the actors deliberately lose themselves in their roles."

"Alright."

"Clown performers have this... ritual about what they do. When they sit down to put on the makeup and the costumes, they're people. But when they wash their faces, so the makeup doesn't go on over dead skin and get all clumpy, it's more like a purification. Applying the whiteface, they see it as a symbolic death. They're erasing their own selves, clearing the way so something else can come in. And when they apply the colors, they're inviting in the character of the clown, to like, um. To take over. So, when they stand back up from the mirror and makeup table, they're not who they were anymore. They've become clowns."

"Okay. Kinda creepy, but okay."

"It's not without precedent. It actually resembles a practice in Candomble, where the faithful give over their bodies and allow themselves to be 'ridden' by the Orixa."

"What's Candomble?"

"It's, ah. It's an Afro-Brazillian religion. It's kind of like, um. Voodoo."

"Alright, now, that's really fucking creepy."

"The point, Michael. The point is that I wanted to use that kind of ritual to dissociate from myself. I can't be your lover, not the way you need. I no longer have it in me. But I thought that maybe I could become someone else who would."

"I thought you said we wouldn't involve other people," I teased.

"Trixie La Splish is not a person. She's a clown." She wasn't teasing.

"What, clowns aren't people?"

"No. They're clowns."

"Okay, okay. I get it. What was that other thing you said? The thing about eggs?"

"The egg registry. Right. It's like... a system of copyright. Every clown face is unique and distinct, no two are alike. Professional clowns paint a hollow eggshell with the pattern of their makeup, exactly the way they would do it on their faces, and the egg icons go on display, so nobody copies them. The community strictly enforces who has the rights to be which clowns. A performer might register more than one clown face, or somebody might take over a famous role, but that kind of thing is pretty rare. It's nearly always one-to-one."

"Huh. Alright. Why eggs, though? Why not just take pictures?"

"It's an old tradition, since before color photography. But also, there's more of the ritualistic stuff. When the clown isn't being performed, the egg is where the clown 'lives.'"

"So... what happens to the egg when the clown is, um, with the performer?"

"Then it's just an empty eggshell with paint on it."

"Huh."

We lay there, not moving.

"Did you paint an egg with that face?"

"I did, yes."

"Can I see it?"

"No. I didn't do a very good job. And I don't want you talking to her if I'm not there with you."

"Okay, now you're being weird."

"I have to take the whole thing seriously for it to work. And it did, didn't it? You enjoyed your time with Trixie?"

"God, yes. I haven't been laid like that... well, ever."

"So, a simple 'thank you' would be in order."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Did it help? I promised I would help you."

"It did. It helped a lot. I feel like I've got my marriage back."

That was almost true. It also kinda felt like I'd fucked another woman... er, clown. Monica and Trixie had both been quite clear about that.

"Well." I shifted and sat upright, accepting the fact that there'd be no morning nookie. "I should get up and take a shower. I need to get this gunk out of my hair. And I guess we need to wash these sheets and pillowcases."

"What gunk?" She looked genuinely confused.

"The, the, the, cool whip?"

She blinked, uncomprehending. Then her eyes snapped open as wide as dinner plates.

"Oh! Oh shit. I'm sorry! I didn't know, I mean, I forgot. I didn't realize she... Oh, Mike. I didn't mean to hit you in the face with... Oh my god. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry!"

I laughed. "It's fine! I mean, it was unexpected. Not the kind of thing I was looking for. But it was also kinda sweet." I licked my lips. "Literally and figuratively."

"You're, you're not mad?"

"How's that saying go? 'We're All Mad, Here.' But no, I'm not upset. I just had the best night of my life with the woman I love."

She nodded, still in kind of a panic. "I'll take care of the sheets. And, um, the rest. I'm sorry. You go ahead and get in the shower. I'm sorry. And, uh. I love you. I love you, Michael. Never forget that."

"As if I ever could." I kissed her forehead. She barely acknowledged it. I headed to the shower with a spring in my step.

***

During our appointment with Susan Manette on Wednesday, she was surprised at what we had to say. It took more than half the session just to bring her up to speed.

"Okay, so, clearly, a lot has happened. This has been a real departure from your routine," she said, "and a possible turning point in your marriage."

"For the better," I said. "I feel like it's been much-needed."

"How do you feel, Monica?"

"Good. I guess. I mean, I guess there's some stuff I've been working through, and I've probably got more of that to do. And the clown thing... well... I had to do something. We were at a breaking point. He made a Request, like you taught us, and I agreed to find a way for Mike to have a sex life that involved me. I'm just glad it worked."

"You're 'glad it worked'," said Susan, shifting forward slightly. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes. I mean... well, my body did."

"Say more about that."

"Okay. Well, um. I was using the Art of Clowning to become someone else. To, uh, dissociate from myself and my hangups, so I could perform, for Mike. And, um, when I had the makeup and everything on, I looked in the mirror, and... She was looking back at me. I was walking and talking and doing things, and I felt like... like I was just a passenger, but someone else was driving."

Huh. She hadn't said that before.

"I mean, I remember everything," she continued. "I WANTED the sex. I was wet. Like, really, really wet, for the first time in I don't know how long. And I couldn't wait for Mike to get home. So I could Fuck him. Not make love, not reconnect, but Fuck. I hadn't felt like that in forever. Then I ended up orgasming all over the place. It was never like that before. Maybe that's part of why I didn't feel like it was me. I was there, experiencing it, but she was the one having sex. It was like watching a movie, but my body was IN the movie."

"She?" Susan narrowed her eyes.

Monica flinched. "Trixie," she said ashamedly. "Trixie La Splish. That's her name."

"Your clown character."

"Yes."

"But there is no 'Trixie.' That's just you in clown makeup."

Monica was shaking her head emphatically. "No. That's not how it works. She's not me. I mean, I can't even do what she does. So, okay, I have a terrible gag reflex. I have to be careful brushing my teeth, or I might retch on my toothbrush. But Trixie wanted to deep-throat Mike, and she did it. Like, really hard, too. It wasn't oral sex, it was... facefucking. There was NO WAY I could have done that. But it happened. I don't understand it. And it... kinda scares me."

"A gag reflex can be psychological, or it can be trained away," said Susan. "I wouldn't worry about that. Many couples use roleplay, and when they do, they find themselves dropping their inhibitions and doing things they otherwise wouldn't. That's perfectly normal. I think this is a great development for you, and it's very healthy. You've found a way to infuse fantasy into your intimacy, to share and communicate, and re-energize your sex life together."