Coulrophobia

"No Way," said Trixie. "No can dipsy-doodle. A Deal's a Deal. Be grateful ya get to ride shotgun in this bag of bones when I'm gettin' busy. Ya ain't stealing MY time with MY Boyfriend."

"Oh, come on," I said to both of them. "We're married."

Trixie blinked one long fake eyelash at me and clutched her hands to her heart. "Oh, it's every gal's dream, ain't it? Maybe someday my fella's gonna put a ring on this finger and you'll make an honest clown out of me," she said, dramatically waving her left hand. I suddenly realized there WASN'T a ring on her finger at the moment. Come to think of it, I wasn't sure if it HAD been there for any of our previous times together. "But 'til that day CUMS, you're still MY Steady Eddie, and your wife ain't my concern."

"I'm right here," said an irritated Monica, reaching for where she'd left her ring. "Put it back on." Trixie made a fist with her left hand while Monica was cajoling her with her right.

"No! That ain't the arrangement, honey. I put a pie in his face on our first night together. Mikey's all mine. You promised."

What? Was there some clown-world significance to that? I had to diffuse the situation.

"Ladies, ladies! Let's not fight!" I said. Trixie perked up and I could see it in her one still-made-up eye. She was envisioning an old-timey boxing ring, with padded ropes and a bell, and the two of them in satin trunks and oversized boxing gloves, while I'd be in a striped referee shirt saying '....aaaaand in this cornerrrrrr,' or some shit. I dismissed the tableau as quickly as it'd appeared. "I'm sure we can come to a new understanding. Make a new deal."

Monica slipped our ring onto her own right finger, as if that would settle anything. "I'm willing to offer," she said. "I'd like to be able to really be here, to participate, when you're with him. And you can help me. You'll help me reconnect with him. You'll help us make love. And of course you can still be a part of it."

"Hmmmmmmmmnnn," she said, drawing it out way too long, "I dunnoooooo... That's askin' Quite A Lot." She cupped her hand across her chin and tapped at her jaw. "Ya want me to share MY Mikey with you? There'd have to be some further compensation. Additional considerations as to the Party of the Second Part. Make it worth my while. Tit for tat. Tat for these tits. Quid pro quo, et quo pro Quim. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, E Unum Pluribus, and all that Jazz."

"What do you want, Trixie?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"I think I know," said Monica. "She wants more. More time. More control. More say."

"Give that Lady a Cigar!"

"How would that work?" I asked.

"Simple." Trixie sat upright. "The original Deal still stands. You want me, snugglemuffins, you got me. All ya gotta do is say so, and I show up with bells on. The ol' ball-and-chain here gets to watch if she wants, but it's my party. She only comes back after we've both honked off, while you're snoozin'. That much don't change."

"Fine," said Monica. "But Mike is right. The whole idea was for ME to reconnect with him. So I want to be able to get over my aversions. And I want some of my desire back, the way I used to have it. Maybe not honeymoon level, just... normal. I want to be able to respond when he wants me. I should be able to initiate things once in a while, too. So I get to come to you for that, you'll help me get things going, and then YOU do the ride-along while I've got control."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, amendment number one: I step up when Suzy Homemaker wants, and she gets to use the happy juice and all the plumbing while I take a back seat. No problem. And in exchange, I get free use of the ol' bod once in a while when I want it... without being called by either one of ya."

"Woah, hang on. What's to stop you from taking over completely?" I was aghast. Keeping Trixie under control would be more than I could handle. If Monica could get kicked out without warning...

"Relax, sugarbumps, we're negotiating, here. I'm not talking about a full time residence. Tell ya what. Mon, babe, you can cut in whenever you want. You catch me doin' somethin' you ain't cool with, or hey, even if you got no reason, you get to step back in and take over, no questions asked. I'll only take the corpus for a spin if you ain't doing anything with it, like, when you're asleep or something. Hey, I'll even throw in that you'll always wake up all nice and refreshed, just like you bagged eight or ten hours' worth of Z."

"You can do that?" Monica asked. Shit. This would sound too good to be true for her. Her sleep cycle was better lately, sure, but it had always been something she'd struggled with.

"Sure Thing! So... Do We Have A Deal?"

"Um. No more anal, okay?"

"Pffffffft. Fuggedaboutit. No Deal. There's too much party in this pooper for you to be a party pooper. The keister remains in play. But hey, I can make it so it don't bother ya too much. Maybe you'll even like it. I know our boy here does."

"Allright. Just... go easy on it and make sure nothing is sore when I step back in. No tearing, no damage, no hemorrhoids. And no more of that... I mean, if his penis or fingers or anything has been in or around my anus..."

"OUR anus."

"Fine, OUR anus. Anything from there stays out of our mouth. And brush our teeth and use mouthwash when you're done. I don't want to come back to the taste of sperm and vagina juice and cotton candy or whatever all over my tongue. And you'll clean everything up, like we agreed before."

"Yeah, yeah. Just ta be clear, by 'everything,' ya still mean on and in the bod, right? The sheets and confetti and stuff in the room ain't my job. It's enough work setting all that up. Let Mikey pull some of the weight around here."

"Agreed."

"Then we got a Deal? I'll even keep the cooter all nice and smooth for us. I know ya kinda like it like that."

"We have a Deal, Trixie."

"Excellent!" She hawked a massive loogie and spit into her left palm with a huge 'PATOOOIE!' She held her arm at a right angle to herself and said "Put 'er there!"

Monica delicately drooled into her right palm and clasped her hands together. The bargain was sealed.

I just watched, slack-jawed with disbelief. Had my wife really been negotiating with her made-up alter ego about the use of her own body?

"Mike, I've got to go," said Monica. "Trixie's going to finish cleaning us up, and you need to nod off for a minute or so for me to come back. I'll be here when you wake up, okay?"

"Uh. Okay. I love you."

"I love you, too, honey." Her head shuddered and I was alone with Trixie again. I could see it in her eyes.

"Awwww. You two. Huhuh-Heeh! Yer so sweet it's like I been snortin' pixie sticks."

"Yeah. Hey. Um. I don't think I'm going to sleep. That post-nut lethargy never really settled in this time."

"Ah, right. OH WELL. Only thing for that is to make ya nut again! Meet me in the shower, hot stuff."

***

After that, I saw a lot less of Trixie. Monica began responding to me like she used to, so there just wasn't any need to call in our friend. Besides, my wife was right. Trixie WAS 'a bit much.' Making love to Monica was as different from fucking Trix as the tropics are from the arctic. There was no high-energy urgency, no maniacal laughter, no messy props or roleplay. We didn't even do all that much, just your basic missionary and occasional cowgirl, but we spent the whole time looking into each others' eyes. We reconnected emotionally, in a way that we hadn't had for a long, long, time, and sexually, well, Trixie sure did right by Monica. She let me go down on her again, and she started going down on me, too. Still no deep-throating; she just used her wet hands and licked me like a lollipop, but she did experimentally tickle my balls with her tongue. And once, she let me have her ass, after thirty minutes of foreplay with fingers and toys and half a tube of astroglide. She even said it wasn't that bad, and was 'kind of nice.' Trixie even let Monica have an orgasm once in a while.

There was still some clown stuff hidden around the corners of our lives. Her fingernails, for instance. She went to a nail salon and had them professionally done in different bright, shiny primary colors. It wasn't unpresentable, but it was decidedly circus-like. And when I started to fool around with her, she would pause, wide-eyed, and settle back down having conducted some internal dialogue before coming back to me with a smile. But all the way around, she was in much better spirits and she said she was sleeping like a baby full of benadryl. Her work was going like gangbusters, too. She got so wrapped up in it that she occasionally forgot what day it was.

It was six more weeks before I was roused awake at two a.m. by the sound of "The Greatest Show On Earth" blaring from the bluetooth speakers. The room was spiraling with multicolored lights from the disco ball thingy.

"Ya don't call. Ya don't write. Oh, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. A girl might start to think that ya don't really care..."

"Trixie?"

"Oh, you remember my name! Well, points for that, ya jamoke." She was in full makeup, her pigtailed rainbow wig, and some kind of 'sexy nurse' outfit made out of white vinyl, with a toy stethoscope, a starched hat with a red cross, and a big nametag that read 'Nurse Trixie.' She frowned down at it and said "Oh. Right. That's on me, I set the bar too low. Ah, well. Huhuh-Heeh!"

"I didn't...?" I was still half asleep.

"Didn't ask for me? That's right, knucklehead, ya didn't. I showed up all on my own this time! Terms of the new deal, y'know."

What new deal? Oh. Right. "Monica's asleep?"

"Ding-ding-ding! And she won't be getting up anytime soon, either. She's having a really great dream about being stuck in a funhouse hall of mirrors."

"That's horrible!"

She looked at me like I'd grown two extra heads.

"Ya mean horribly AWESOME! Who doesn't love that kinda thing?"

"People who AREN'T clowns!"

"Oh." She scratched her head under her little nurse hat. "Right. Ah, well! Huhuh-Heeh! Well, she's just gonna hafta deal with that. But you and me, Michael-An-Jello, we got us some unfinished business."

"What business would that be?"

"Seriously? You're gonna fuck me till my head pops off, of course! POP! Goes the weasel! Huhuh-Heeh! Whadda THINK I'm here for, ya ninnymuggins?"

"I thought... we were kind of past that?"

"Oooooooh no. Oooooooh no no no no no. I get what's goin' on, buster. That little minx thinks she can steal you away from me! Well, ya both got another thing comin'. She ain't got nothin' goin' on with you that I ain't giving her. You think you'd still be married if not for me? HA! Not a chance, buckaroo. You're MY fella, and I'm keepin' ya. Fortunately, I've made preparations fer precisely this eventuality."

She pulled a bright blue rubber glove tight down along her wrist and let it SNAP when she let it go. "The doctor has prescribed your course of treatment, Mikey. I'm afraid we'll have to go in." She stepped away from the bed and came back wheeling an aluminum stand supporting a large bag full of some kind of liquid. It was way too big to be an IV bag, and it had a hose and a nozzle that looked like...

Oh, no.

She had a bedpan.

"No no no. No way. Nope. Trixie, you are not doing that."

"Fraid so, ducks. Tonight, you're Mister Clyster. No getting out of this one."

"This is not a game, Trixie. I'm not doing it."

"Aw. Mikey. You got no choice. You owe me one, remember, 'bucko'? I'm holdin' ya to it, just like I said. A Deal Is A Deal."

She turned me onto my left side and had my boxers off somehow. I wasn't cooperating. I WASN'T. I swear. But somehow, I couldn't stop her. She had one lubed and gloved finger in me and looked vaguely disappointed.

"Hmmm. The coast is clear. Too bad. If you had a torpedo loaded, I'd have done a blumpkin on ya. Huhuh-Heeh! Ah, well. Maybe next time."

She buried her face between my ass cheeks and I felt her tongue snake its way up into my butthole...? Wowza!

"Whoah, Trixie, you promised Monica you wouldn't do that!!!"

She pulled her face out of my rectum and grinned at me.

"Did not! I promised not to do ass-to-mouth with your snozzberry, your fingers or, quote, 'anything like that,' unquote. Consequently, any body part, toy, or circus prop that goes up MY patootie can't come near my pie hole. That's written in stone. BUUUUUUT she didn't say anything about YOUR bootie shootie, or where my kisser goes. So, I can rim you 'till the cows come home! MOOOOO! That prolly never crossed her mind. Huhuh-Heeh! She really oughta be more careful making Deals. Language matters, y'know?"

"Oh, god. Can you please... at least put her in a better dream?"

"Oh, sure." She tilted her head sideways. "She likes spiders, right?"

"NO! SHIT! NO! Just leave her alone! Just leave her alone, okay! PLEASE!"

"Awww. You're almost as no-fun as she is. But you're my sweetie-bops, so anythin' fer you, puddin' pie." She cocked her head back straight again, as if doing some kind of a reset. Then she turned back to me. "Now. Is the patient ready for his enema?"

"No."

"TOOOOOO BAAAAAD." She stuffed the nozzle up my rear end and twisted the valve, and my insides flooded with something cold. She could have at least warmed it up. But it also kinda burned. My cock was inexplicably erect, and she was sucking me with her usual gusto. Working the nozzle against my prostate and crushing my cockhead against her epiglottis, I felt painfully overinflated and I knew it wouldn't be long before I blew. Then all of a sudden, I felt dizzy, and sick. And DRUNK. Really really fucking Drunk. What the fuck. I hadn't been drinking. Why would...

Oh, no.

"Trixie... what is in that enema bag?"

She picked her head up. "NURSE Trixie." Then she went back to work.

"NURSE Trixie. What kinna enema ar you uuusing?"

She popped her head up again with a huge smile, the makeup around her mouth beautifully smeared with drool. "Vodka! Oh, and a lil' something extra." She stood up and opened the top of the back, drew a big HOOOOCK and spit something into it. I suddenly wondered for the first time whether there was such a thing as clown venom.

"Trixie... nurse Trixie... that's, that's not saafe..." I trailed off and tumbled into darkness.

***

I woke up ten hours later in a hospital bed.

FUCK! Was this a dream? Had Trixie stuck me in some sick hospital fantasy? I craned my neck, looking around, terrified. No balloons. Nobody was dressed weird. Nothing sparkly or childish on the walls. There was a beeping alarm going off somewhere, but it wasn't cartoon-like or anything.

A nurse came in. A real one, without the sexy costume, just midnight blue scrubs. And a satisfyingly real-looking ID on a lanyard.

"Good. You're awake. I'm Nurse Johnson. You're here because of alcohol poisoning. You've been detoxed and given a saline drip to help with the dehydration. That was a very dangerous stunt you pulled. We see this kind of thing with college kids once in a while, usually a result of a hazing incident. But a man your age should know better than to try boofing."

"I didn't want to. She made me."

"She? She made you? Who is 'she'?"

Oh, shit.

I couldn't tell them about Trixie. If I told them everything, Monica would be investigated for sexual assault. She'd be a registered sex offender. Or maybe they'd lock her up in the loonie bin. I could not let that happen.

"My, um. My mistress. My dominatrix." I hoped that lie would work.

"Your wife?"

"Um. No."

The nurse scowled. "Well, she should have known better. Most of the practitioners in the BDSM community are very careful to keep their play safe, sane, and consensual. Are you willing to give the authorities the name of your Domme?"

"No."

She shrugged. "I can't make you. But if there was a crime, you should report it. There's no shame in it. This was done TO you. And I encourage you to report it to other people in The Scene. This is not the kind of thing that should be played with. Butt-chugging Vodka? Seriously, you could have died. You know that now, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Your wife is in the waiting area. She's the one who brought you in. Shall I send for her?"

"Yes, please."

"And, ah, does she know about your Domme?"

"Yes. She, um. Mistress kind of does both of us."

"Okay. I'll send for her. The two of you need to look for a new Mistress, preferably one who's more responsible. Welcome back to the land of the living, Mister Bailey."

Nurse Johnson left and Monica arrived a few minutes later. Nearly panicked, she came to the bed and kissed me, desperately. I remembered Trixie rimming my asshole and tried to ignore the thought.

"Tell me, Mike. Tell me you didn't call her. Tell me you didn't want this." Tears were still on her face.

"I didn't! She showed up on her own. I swear. I begged her not to, but she was mad at me, Monica. She was really angry. I think she wanted to hurt us."

"I know. I had the craziest, most horrible dream. I was stuck in a hall of mirrors that distorted my reflection. And in some of them I WAS the distorted one. There were dozens of me, and I didn't know who I was, and everything was all messed up and backwards and crazy, and I couldn't find my way out, and then, all of a sudden, I was just ALONE. I was all alone, in total darkness, just floating in a void. It was like being dead. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. Even if I could, it wouldn't have mattered, because there was no one to hear me and nowhere to go and nothing I could do. It was almost worse." She shook her head. "She put me there, I just know it. She put me in that dream and I couldn't get out. I couldn't wake up."

No. No, no, no, no, no. I did that to her. Trixie turned my request to leave her alone into another nightmare. I was responsible for that!

"How... how did you feel when you woke up?"

Monica looked anguished.

"Terrific!" She said it regretfully. "I felt like a million bucks, like I'd just had the best night of sleep in my life, even though I DIDN'T. She kept her word, Mike. She honored the letter of the law. But she also kept me asleep so I couldn't see what was happening and she could stay in charge." My wife's head was bobbing, processing our new reality. "I couldn't stop her while I was stuck in that dream. When I came to, there was shit and liquid poo everywhere. The stench was awful, and I was furious that you called her, but then I smelled the alcohol... and you were passed out, cold, unresponsive, you were barely breathing! I thought she'd killed you. She drew two 'X's over your eyes in greasepaint. That's when I knew it wasn't your doing. I called nine-one-one and got you here as soon as I could. Thank god I found you before the kids did. Thank god I found you before it was too late. It was Her. It was all Her, wasn't it?"

I nodded. "She was really pissed off that I hadn't asked for her since she agreed to help you, to help us, um, be together. She said you were trying to steal me away from her."

"I gave you to her," she said. "At first, the deal was that she would do the sex part, but I would be your wife. Then... well, you heard what we negotiated next. When I started taking part of what was hers, she took part of what's mine."

"We've got to stop it, Monica. You've got to stop. We've got to get rid of her."

"NO! Don't say that out loud! Don't let her hear you!"

"Monica! Can you even hear yourself? She's not real!"

"She IS real! She's not me! She's IN me, but she's NOT me! And I CAN'T stop her. I didn't want... this! I didn't want any of what happened! That wasn't me, that wasn't my doing, you've got to believe me! I would have stopped her if I could! No, no, Mike, we can't risk her getting angry like this. She nearly killed you! Never again. We've got to try and stay on her good side."

"She's not in you now, though! You're not... being her. She's in that egg, right?"