Coulrophobia

"It wasn't like that," said my wife. "We weren't playing 'slutty superhero versus tarantula librarian,' or anything." Susan raised her eyebrows, but my wife didn't notice. "Mike, tell her."

"Okay. Um. Well. When I was with Trixie, it was like, the person I was having sex with..."

"CLOWN." Monica was adamant.

"The clown I was having sex with, sorry. She insisted she wasn't Monica. They both did. I mean, Trixie was nothing like my wife. In bed, or otherwise. She didn't even seem to LIKE Monica very much. She even disparaged her, she called her a schoolmarm. And a silly...?"

"'Silly Jilly.' I heard." Monica was scowling.

"I mean, you said it. The words came out of your mouth."

"Yes. but I didn't say them."

"Right. Anyway. They both convinced me. That wasn't her. And now, I kind of... Okay, this is going to sound weird. It's kinda almost like I was... cheating on her? But also Not?"

"Thank you, Mike." Monica looked a little relieved. And a little angry. And a little something else I'd probably never be able to figure out.

"And how do you feel, Monica?"

She was quiet for a minute.

"Kind of jealous. I wish I could have been the one to do that kind of thing for him."

"Okay." Susan just stared back and forth between the both of us. "All right. Well. I don't think there's anything unhealthy going on. And we've been kind of spinning our wheels in these sessions for a while now, haven't we? We're due for a breakthrough. The only issue is that Monica seems to be affected by having dissociated too far. You feel that this clown-character you play really is distinct from you, and you're experiencing conflict. Perhaps feelings of inadequacy. Is that right?"

"She said I was dried up. She said I was no fun." She looked like she was about to cry.

"Okay, that's your subconscious giving voice to negative thoughts. It's actually a good sign that you're finally able to let those out in some form. You've been repressing them, and now that they're out in the open, you can respond to them."

Monica looked at her skeptically.

"I think it would be beneficial to try to re-integrate the other persona with your own. Can you try to go into character, a little bit, right now?"

"I... no, it won't work. I need to change. I need the makeup. It's a whole process."

"All right. Well, I'm assuming you want to revisit this form of roleplay?"

"I guess," she said.

"Hell yeah," I said.

Susan looked back and forth at us.

"Well. Monica. The next time you put on the costume and get into character, try talking to her. Talk back and forth, as yourself, and as... 'Trixie,' was it?"

Monica nodded.

"Okay, Well. Monica and Trixie need to have a Conversation. Try to establish boundaries. Discuss the scope of your play with Mike. Do this in the mirror, while you're doing your, ah, 'transformation.' Do you think you could do that?"

"I could try."

"I think it might help you reconnect. And it'll help you feel more in control. If you can take responsibility and ownership for what you do as a clown, you'll take greater satisfaction in it as yourself."

***

The next few weeks were wild.

If Monica ever had that heart-to-heart with Trixie, I never saw it. I wasn't allowed to witness the transformation. I thought I might have heard them arguing, once, but they went silent when they realized I was in the house.

I learned that flirting with Monica still didn't work. At first, she was friendly. Almost affectionate. She even started looking at me wistfully once in a while. But sexually, she was as cold as ever. The one thing I could do was invite Trixie to come out and play. Whenever I did, Miss La Splish would show up that night and fuck my socks off. Always with the wig. Always with the same sexy clown makeup. The lingerie and shoes and accessories changed around. Sometimes it was a frilly cotton-candy pink babydoll nightie. Sometimes it was strappy leather bondage gear. Sometimes it was nothing more than extra greasepaint and tassels on her nipples. She kept changing it up. I had no idea where she kept getting all those outfits.

The best part was that it was always messy. It was always unpredictable. I mean, Trixie remained committed to her clown theme, but she never seemed to do the same thing twice. Once, she squirted me in the face with a seltzer bottle while she came. "Betcha didn't know I was a SQUIRTER, didja baby?" That came with a peal of her maniacal laughter. Then she pulled an absurdly long string of little tied-together multi-colored handkerchiefs out of her pussy. Another time she set off confetti poppers when I ejaculated. She always seemed to have one of those party blower horns, the kind with the curled-up paper snake thing that blows out straight and goes "fwwweeeeeee!," and she loved to aim it right between my eyes. One time, she asked if I was ready for my close-up. I stupidly nodded, and she yelled "MAKEUP!" and hit me in the face with a powder puff the size of a pizza, creating a huge cloud of talc or something. And I have no idea how I'm going to get all the Silly String out of the drapes.

As my 'relationship' (such as it was) with Trixie blossomed, Monica became more distant. When I asked her to make her counterpart available, she didn't seem as enthusiastic about it. She was almost, I don't know... depressed? Which was weird as hell, because Trixie was always an overcharged dynamo when she showed up. At one point, I wanted to make plans for a friday night, and Monica wasn't feeling up for anything at all. She was wrapped up in a project and just wanted to spend the evening on the couch, reading, fussing with her iPad and little bluetooth keyboard, and cradling a mug of tea.

"Monica?"

"Hmn?" She barely acknowledged me.

"Do you think that later... Trixie might come out for a little while?"

She scowled. Then she buried her face back into her book and took a drag of tea.

"Ask her yourself."

"Um. I kinda am?"

"I'm sick of being a go-between for the two of you. Leave a note or something. You want to play with the clown? Whatever. Leave me out of it."

Okay, that was weird. But I did what she said. That night was a bust, but the next day was saturday. I went to the Walgreen's and bought note cards, ribbons, and balloons. Oh, and they had candy corn and those horrible 'circus peanuts' that taste like baby aspirin and chalk. I figured I'd commit to the bit and grabbed a couple bags.

***

"Bedroom." I'd written it on a note card, tied to a red balloon and a little offering of candy corn. I left it in Monica's writing studio. Didn't want Daniel or Rebecca finding it.

At three that afternoon, I heard the now-familiar circus music. By then, I'd learned that it's actually titled "Entrance of the Gladiators" and was written by a Czech composer named Julius Fučík. How weird is that? Everybody knows that music and no one thinks of gladiators when they hear it. But by now, I'd associated it not only with cotton candy and sideshow antics, but with vigorous, mind-melting sex. My pavlovian erection dragged me towards the bedroom for some zany afternoon delight.

"There you are, Studmuffin! Hang on." She'd inflated a condom and was awkwardly twisting it into a chubby poodle shape. It made the most horrible squinchy-scrunchy noises and looked like a fleshy latex Cronenberg nightmare. "Hmmph. I've been working on these, but they're still not real good." She POPPED it with a pin. "Ah, well, at least they've gotten better since I started using the unlubricated ones. Now, where were we... Oh Yeah! You were gonna fill my funnel cake with your custard. Now get over here and let's put the Devil back into Hell."

"Put the Devil... wait. Is that from Canterbury Tales?"

"No. The Decameron." She squinched one eye shut and made an exaggerated 'I'm thinking' expression while tapping the side of her head. "Your wife might be a stuffy ol' shrew, but there's ALL kinds of stuff in this noggin of hers."

"Actually, Trix, that's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Talk is Cheap. CHEEP! CHEEP! I'm a little birdie!" She started flapping her arms and pretending to fly around. I sighed. It was pointless to try to talk to her like this. The only thing to do was engage with whatever game she was playing. I grabbed the butterfly net from that time she insisted she was Fraulein Doktor-Professor Trixtine Von Splish, the internationally famous sexy lepidopterist from the University of Splooshilvania, and I chased her around the room. I finally landed it over her head and she fell over giggling.

"Ah, ya got me! Congratulations, mighty bug hunter! Now pin me down and mount your trophy for display!" She drew me into a deep kiss, through the netting, which was weird. But whatever. Game On. She'd been wearing a skimpy white getup covered with brightly colored polka dots, kind of like a bag of Wonder Bread. It was a midriff-baring tube top, a skirt that was almost a tutu, and neon green fishnet pullups with three-inch 'Come-fuck-me' heels. While I was wrangling the tube top up to get it off her, she reeled back and waved her arms wildly over her head, declaring that she was a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man on route two in Weekapaug.

I was growing used to that kind of thing, and this one was actually kind of nice because her tits were out. Then she said "YOUR TURN!" and yoinked my own shirt up over my face. But she also did something else to hold it there. Rope? Some kind of belts or straps? I didn't know, I couldn't move or see.

"Relax, it's just a game! Now be a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man for a minute. I've got a surprise for ya and I don't want ya peeking!"

I didn't peek, but I wasn't wacky, waving, or arm flailing, either. I heard her dragging something heavy and thump it onto the bed. It creaked, she shifted it, and then undid whatever she'd tied me up with and pulled my shirt off me.

"TA-DAAAAAA! Welcome, CUM one, CUM all, into... THE TUNNEL OF LOVE!"

She'd painted a large sheet of three-quarter inch plywood white, pink, and red, and festooned it with cartoonish multicolored letters declaring it, "the tunnel of loVe," with the letter "V" represented as a foot-wide valentine-shaped hole in the middle of it, with a garish red border. The whole thing was about three feet wide and two feet tall, with handholds on both sides and a kind of a padded ramp thing on the other side leading to the valentine hole. That side was unpainted but had the instructions "insert booty to receive COCK" crudely written on it, with several wildly curving arrows enthusiastically pointing to the hole.

She scurried around to the other side, lay down onto the ramp and stuck her entire pussy and ass through the hole at me, with her feet flat against her side of the board and her knees tucked all the way up to her armpits. She grabbed the handles on her side to adjust herself.

"Laydeez and Gentlemen, step right up and RIDE the Tunnel of Love! That's me, I'm the tunnel. Both Tracks are available for your fuckin' pleasure!"

I stepped off the bed, and sure enough, her business was pretty much exactly at my cock height. "I think I'll start with track one," I said, arranging myself at her improvised glory hole.

"Good choice, my friend, you won't be disappointed! Now strap yourself in and hold on tight, the tunnel of love can be a Real Wild Ride!" And just like that, we were fucking. I was holding on to my set of handles while she pushed and pulled with her hands and feet, humping her pelvis to meet mine and wetly demonstrating why she was named La Splish.

"Damnit, can't this thing go any FASTER?" she complained.

Okay, so, I went faster. My abs were getting a workout. Trixie was squeaking and grunting, which turned into "fuckme-fuckme-fuckme-fuckme-FUCKME-FUCKME!!! AAAAAAAAGHHAHAHAHHHeeHuhHuhuh-Heeh! Ohmagawd! Ohmagawd! Hee! Hee Hee! Change tracks! Change tracks!"

Wait, what? I staggered my thrusts.

"Come on, Mikey, don'tcha wanna change tracks? Pop my keister? Take the dirt road? Ride the Hershey highway? Be a sport and switch to track two, already!"

Monica and I had never had anal sex. She said it would just hurt. Trixie apparently had no such reservations. Maybe this was like her missing gag reflex, or something? Well, I wasn't going to look a gift ass in the mouth. And it's not like everything wasn't wet enough. Trixie's waterworks were as exuberant and uncontained as the rest of her. I lined up on her butthole and gave a tentative poke. All the advice I'd seen had said to go slow.

Trixie thrust her haunches at me with a violent urgency.

"Come on, ya pansy, FUCK that thing! Fuck it like you fuckin' MEAN it!"

Alllllllrighty Then.

The first inch is a really really tight ring. One the head is in there, and the lubrication has worked its way into everything, the rest is a slide. It felt like the world's tightest finger-and-thumb handjob, but blood-warm and filthy. Ohmygawd. Ohmygawd. Ohmygawd. I was going like a piston and the engine was at redline. Trixie was banging like a screen door in a hurricane. Her tits were slapping up and down on her chest and her sweat was running culverts through her clownface. She was making sounds that weren't words, not pleasure, not pain, but primal exhortations of life at its most basic level. It was more than I could take. I felt the red warning and erupted into her core.

She must have felt it. She certainly felt me slow and stop. She let go of one of her handles and pushed a button somewhere. A speaker played a dramatic "Daht-Da-La-Daht-Daht-Da-DAAAA!" and balloons and confetti dropped from a net on the ceiling.

I'd come to find that stuff kind of endearing.

"Whoooo! You got my booty real good, ya butt pirate! ARRRR!" she said, scooting her ass back through the hole. She got up on all fours, reached back and held herself open with both hands, and trumpeted out the sloppiest, spermyest fart I hoped I'd ever hear. "Whoopsie! Excuse me! Huhuh-Heeh!" Then, to my astonishment, she leaned forward and took my softening dick in her mouth.

"Trixie, woah, hold on, I mean... I was just in your..."

She shrugged. "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, Mikey." She bobbed her head back down, washing me thoroughly with her tongue. Satisfied, she released my deflated member with a soft pop.

"How can you even do that?"

"Eh, it's a living," she said, sounding exactly like one of the little cartoon birds with a job in one of the Flintstone's household appliances. Then she trundled off to the bathroom.

I collapsed back onto the bed. The 'Tunnel of loVe' had been a wild ride, for sure.

But... it had just been animal rutting. And putting that board between us, like a glory hole? That seemed like a denial of intimacy. I mean, that's the point of that kind of thing, right? You're not two people sharing something. It's just cock to hole. And while I'd wanted to try anal with Monica before, she sure didn't, so I hadn't missed it. I was glad for the experience, and it was great, and for sure I'd want to do it more, but... it seemed so impersonal, so dirty. Like a violation. Maybe that's the point, too, I don't know.

I missed my wife.

Ordinarily, I'd fall asleep right about now, Trixie would vanish, and Monica would reappear to give me the cold shoulder and leave me to clean up the mess, while pretending that nothing had happened. Well, not this time.

I knocked on the bathroom door.

"Está Ocupado, Señor!" Huh. I didn't know Trixie spoke Spanish.

"Trixie, I need to talk to you."

"No hablo inglés."

"Okay, er, um." Once again, I had to play her game. "Disculpe. Yo necesito hablar contigo. Tengo una pregunta." High school was a long-ass time ago, so I was rusty as an old nail.

"Well, why didn't cha SAY so?" She flushed, the door cracked open, and I went in. She was standing naked at the mirror with a jar of cold cream and a pack of cotton rounds. "How cannah help ya?"

"Trixie, I'm worried about Monica. I love her more than anything. Do you think we could... involve her more?"

"Aw, don't go turning into a wet noodle on me. Whadda want with that spoilsport? Ain't we having fun?"

"Sure we are! I've loved every wacky, zany, roller-coaster funhouse moment I've spent with you. But the whole idea, from the very beginning, was to reconnect with my wife. That's why you're here. That's why she's doing this. Please. Can I at least talk to her? And you? Both?"

She smirked at me "It's a good thing I like you, Monkey-britches." She mussed up my hair. "So you want a peek at what's going on backstage, huh? Wanna see how the sausage gets stuffed? Huhhuh-Hee! Okaaaaay. Just this once. But you're gonna owe me one, got it?"

"Anything for you, Trixie."

"I'm gonna hold you to that, bucko." She took a cotton round, dabbed some cold cream on it, and wiped away most of the makeup from her right eye and the corner of her mouth.

"Monica?"

"I'm here, Mike."

"We're BOTH here," said Trixie. "Ol' Mon-Mon ain't in charge yet. This is still my time. That's the Deal." She wandered back into the bedroom.

"You guys have a deal?" I followed her. Them. Whatever.

"We came to an agreement, yes," said Monica. "This part of our lives, the sex part, well, we agreed that could be hers. She keeps you happy in bed, and I keep you as my husband."

"And in return," said Trixie, sprawling back on the bed, "I get to use this awesome meatbag. I can fuck six ways till sunday and come like the seventh fleet in a Kowloon cathouse. Lucky for me, Miss Priss don't appreciate what she's got with you, Mikey." She opened the bag of circus peanut candy and popped one into her mouth, munching happily.

"Must you eat those while I'm here?" said Monica. "They're disgusting."

"Hey, I ain't the one who called this meeting, toots."

"Okay, this is really disorienting," I said. "I thought you guys were supposed to be re-integrating. Wasn't that what we talked about with Susan?"

"Beats me," said Trixie. "I wasn't there for that."

"You're right," said Monica. "I've kind of... checked out from what the two of you get up to. It was nice at first, but honestly, it's a bit much for me, so I've wanted to stay back." Half her face scrunched up. "Hey. OW. What did you do to my butt?"

"Huhuh-Heeh! Yeah, that was awesome."

"Not my idea!" I said, in a bit of a panic. "She insisted."

"Darn tootin' I did. The ol' drainpipe needed roto-rootin'."

"You bitch! You let him in my... Oh god. And now I'm the one who's going to have to sit on this for the rest of the night. And tomorrow."

"Not my fault if ya didn't wanna stick around to see the show, chiquita-banana. Ya had a ticket. Maybe ya coulda said something. Honestly, though, I'm glad you weren't there to ruin the fun. Ya gave Mikey and me some reeeeeal quality alone time." She ate another stale orange candy.

"I know, I just... god, those things taste like ass. Why do you..." She froze, and her right eye popped WIDE open. "NO! Oh, god, you didn't! Tell me you didn't!" She saw my expression. She knew.

"Two great tastes!" Trixie sang the jingle. "That taste great together! Reese's Ass and Circus Peanut Cup!"

"Mike! Your penis had just been in my... and then in her mouth! How could you let her DO that?"

"How could I...? I'm not the one... She's... You're..." I shook my head. "Okay. This is what we needed to talk about, all three of us, right here. Monica. You and Trixie are way too disconnected. You guys need to work together. I miss you, Monica. Being with Trixie is great. I wouldn't trade it for anything. What you've done for me... what you've BOTH done for me, is amazing. But when I'm with her, you're not even there anymore. I'd just like to recapture some of what I used to have with my wife. Before... all this."

"I think... that would be nice," Monica seemed sincere. "That was the original goal, after all. Trixie, if maybe once in a while you didn't just let me watch, if you let it be me, even just a little, and help me do some of what you can do? Get me over the ick, let me be okay with some normal lovemaking? Maybe even help me enjoy it again?"