Levirate Customs

Notes and acknowledgments:

This story uses italics in various places for emphasis, to denote book titles, and to denote non-English words. Titles for sections of the story are marked in bold.

"Levirate customs" refers to customs by which a man inherits the wife of his deceased brother. There's a Wikipedia article on it if you care to explore its many worldwide variations.

The concept of multiple 'characters' comes from pioneering American psychologist William James, who wrote "A man has as many social selves as there are people who know him."

Update 4/12/21: significant rewrite of the last chapter, minor changes elsewhere.

Prologue

This story starts about 20 years ago. I was fresh out of law school, living in a 3^rd floor walk-up, and trying to put together enough law business to pay the rent and put beans on the table. My kid brother, Ted, was still a hell-raiser. The third time I had to go out at midnight to bail him out of the local carcel, I took him back to my apartment and beat the shit out of him. When he could walk again, I took him down to the local Armed Forces Recruitment Station and said "pick one." He chose Army. A week later, I dropped him off at the Entry Examination Station with a small bag. We shook hands, and I went back to trying to pay the bills.

As it turned out, the Army was the right thing for him. They taught him order, discipline, and accountability:

But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on a bit,

Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' proper kit.

Gettin' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with mess,

Gettin' shut o' doin' things rather-more-or-less...

--Kipling, The 'eathen

He had asked for ordinance training, and they gave him EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal), which meant in his case, finding and defusing booby traps. In this he had found his genius, a real knack, a nose for the threat. He made it through a couple of foreign tours with, as he liked to say, "all his fingers intact." Over the pleas of his commanding officers, he chose to depart the Army at the end of his hitch, and signed on with an "executive protection service," whose job, you might guess, was to prevent C-level executives from being blown to atoms when visiting less-desirable parts of the world, and at this mission he continued to excel. As he said, "I've never lost a suit," meaning an executive. I took that to be a dig at my profession, since I had lost many suits in court.

Along the way, he got married (to Carol) and "started a family," not necessarily in that order. The family moved to a suburb close-in to the town-house I now had, a 20-minute drive or so. Now, more than a decade later, I spent many a weekend with them, doing the suburban dad/uncle BBQ/beer thing on the deck overlooking their back garden. Ted never brought up our history, and his wife, Carol, was never anything other than properly hospitable.

From time to time, when Ted was away on an assignment, Carol would call me over to change a blown fuse or clear a clogged toilet, and I would chat with her and their daughter Dana, and receive dinner as a "thank you." Carol was an excellent and inventive cook.

Dana, just turned 18, was another matter. She seemed to feel that I was someone in whom she could confide. She would drag me down to a bench at the bottom of their garden and pour out her troubles, and I tried to be avuncular.

Things came to a head during one of the times when Ted was away on assignment.

It seems that Dana felt that spending 12 years in a classroom was entirely enough, and she was damned if she was going to go to college.

I tried to point out that her plan provided rather limited financial options, like living in a 2-bedroom apartment with half-a-dozen other losers, and paying the bills with what she could bring home in tips from a waitressing job. When I asked her what her alternative would be, she said

"I think I want to be a kept woman for some sugar-daddy. Y'know, a bimbo."

Oh, really? There was nothing that said that a kept woman had to be a bimbo, but the two concepts seem to have been fused in her mind. "Sort of a leased whore?"

"Yes, please!"

That was rather bold speech from one whom--I assumed--was still a virgin. When I asked her whether she had a sugar-daddy in mind, to my astonishment she ran her hand up my thigh and said "Well, yes! I was hoping I could get you to take me on."

While struggling with my erection I explained that, as fetching as the idea was, I wasn't going to risk my relationship with my brother by boffing his daughter without his blessing, so if that was her plan, she needed to clear it with Dad and Mom. Dana pouted and was about to offer a rebuttal when there came a scream from the house.

I dumped Dana on the grass and sprinted up the path to the house.

Carol was on the floor of the kitchen, sobbing. The phone was lying on the floor next to her saying "Hello? Hello?"

Entr'acte

The next month of course was a mess, and supporting a grieving widow and daughter was just the start.

Ted had made me--as I had known--the executor of his estate, and I was tolerably familiar with his holdings, but there were several surprises. His company had paid for a life insurance annuity that would ensure that Carol would never have to work a day in the rest of her life. There was a trust fund for Dana, to pay for her college education "or such other expenses as may benefit a young woman." Finally, there was a clause in the will that made me the owner of "the entire contents of the basement room known to Carol."

I knew that there was a large room in the basement, but it had always been locked when I visited, and its contents and purpose had been none of my business anyway, but now it appeared that it was about to be my business. I asked Carol about it, and she said "Why don't you come over on Saturday and I'll show you what's there, and we can have dinner?"

The Basement Room

At the appointed hour on Saturday, Carol let me in. I waved to Dana, and Carol and I went to the basement. Carol fished a key out from somewhere and unlocked the door to the room. She swung the door open, and it was obvious that it was heavy and thick. My first thought was "freezer?" but the absence of mist put that thought to bed, so the only alternative was "soundproofed!"

Carol reached through the doorway and found a switch, the lights in the room came on with an industrial "klatch," and I was ushered in to a modest-sized but well-appointed dungeon. There was a St. Andrew's cross on the left wall, a heavy padded table in the middle of the room, and an over-stuffed couch on the right wall. The back wall had shelves of kinky paraphernalia, some of which I recognized, butt plugs and such, gags, canes and paddles, and some things that were strange to me.

To be clear, I had messed around with the odd bit of clothesline and the occasional accommodating girlfriend, but it was obvious that Ted and Carol had taken matters to an entirely different level.

Carol gave me the tour. Some items on the shelves were almost holy to her, and she touched them reverently.

At the end of the tour I swept my arm in an arc and said "This is all wonderful, but it won't fit in my apartment, and..."

Carol interrupted me: "Sir?"

That stopped me dead. She had never addressed me as "Sir."

"Sir, I am in this room."

It took me a couple of seconds to absorb the import of that simple sentence. I staggered over to the couch and sank into its depths.

"OK, Carol, give me the story, the whole story. Don't make me drag it out of you."

She sat herself down at the other end of the couch.

"After Ted and I were married, we went through a really rocky time. Part of it was from me being pregnant, but I couldn't seem to get my act together and hold up my end of the relationship. Sometimes I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Give me a job to do and I could do it, and do it well, but I had no initiative. Ted took me to counseling and therapy, but the shrinks couldn't agree on what it was: ADHD or some "spectrum" thing or "feminism" or half a dozen other things. Ted finally discovered that a good, sound thrashing would fix my attitude, help me focus and "keep it together" for a time. When we got this house, this room was one of the first things he set up."

"And?"

"Given how hazardous his job was, he knew that it could kill him. He knew that my--problem--wouldn't go away if he died, and he wanted to do what he could to plan for that outcome, to help me, if it came to that, with that discreet line in his will."

"So the two of you planned this situation together? Last I looked, it wasn't exactly kosher to bequeath a human being. What would this make our relationship? What would you be?"

She chewed on it for a moment. "I would be your property, Sir. And you would be my owner. And now this room is yours, and I am, too."

"Be explicit."

"I need you to move in and take charge. Run my life. If you don't, well, I'm falling apart."

The house had looked a bit scruffy.

"What do you need?"

"Sir, I need to know at every instant what I need to be working on, and what my next task is. Don't ever leave me at a loose end. And I need to know that there are consequences" she waved a hand at the room "for not getting the job done. I was terrified of Ted. I need to be terrified of you."

"What do you offer?"

"Wouldn't it be nice to come home to a fresh-cooked meal every night?"

"Not enough."

"Use me for sex. I'm crowding 40, but I'm told that I'm not bad in bed."

"Terrific. Do better."

Now the tears started to fall.

"Dana told me about what she wants to be, with you."

I was prepared for something along the lines of "...and if you touch her, I'll cut your balls off." What I got instead was

"Let me help. You don't have enough hours in the day to turn her into something that will please you. She's too naïve--she's still a virgin, you know? I can be her coach. Tell me what you want her to be, what you want her to do, and I can work with her to make it happen."

"You'll help your daughter become a bimbo?"

"It's what she thinks she needs to be happy. What mother doesn't want her daughter to be happy?

"Still not enough."

She made a futile effort to wipe the tears from her face and sobbed. "Sir, all that I am and all that I have are yours."

Interesting, if true. It was time to dig deeper. I knew a little about D/S protocols from the Internet.

"What are your limits?"

That made her eyes open wide. We had clearly turned a page. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

"Sir, nothing that would make me unable to walk the next day."

I thought I could work with that.

"What is your safeword?"

"'Red,' Sir, if it pleases you."

Unoriginal, but functional. But I could sense that there was something she was holding back, and I challenged her on it.

"Sir, I don't like you. Because of what you did to him, I mean when he was young."

I felt like saying, "You mean, when I saved his life?" Her attitude would certainly make things more interesting in bed. I kept silent and waited.

"...but there isn't anyone else I can turn to. I'm coming apart. Please help me."

Without saying 'yes' or 'no,' I asked "What does Dana know about this room?"

"She knows that there's a room here, of course, but she's never been inside. She calls it 'Dad and Mom's playroom.'"

"Go get her and give her the same tour you just gave me. Explain every item and how it was used on you. Include the discussion we just had, as near to verbatim as you can remember. And bring me a notepad and a Scotch-rocks."

The tour took some time, and was punctuated with multiple cries of "Oh My God!" and "In your bottom?!" I buried myself in making notes. Finally the two of them came to a stop in front of the couch.

I asked Dana, "Any questions?"

"Only about a thousand, but they can wait."

"Fair enough. Let's go upstairs."

Incorporation

We re-convened in the living room on the couch.

"OK, Dana. I've heard from Carol on what she wants and needs and is willing to give if we go forward with this thing. What do you want?"

She smiled. "When we walk into a party with me on your arm, I want to look around and know that I'm the hottest piece of ass in the room. I want all the men to instantly envy you. I want all the women to instantly hate me, and make catty remarks about me behind their hands.

"When I walk down the main street here in town, I want a man on the other side of the street to elbow his buddy and say 'Get a load of that whore,' and his buddy will say 'Yeah, but forget about it--she's Mike Cooper's private fluff,' and the first guy will say "Damn!'

"When I walk into a room where you are talking to someone, I want you to forget what you were saying."

Again, bold talk from a virgin, but at least she had a vision.

"Then what do you think I need from the two of you?"

Carol perked up, like one of those irritating students who always sat in the front row and always had the answer. She did everything but wave her hand.

"Obedience!"

"No."

She jerked her head back as though I'd slapped her, so I slapped her, which drew a gasp from Dana. Carol touch the pink blotch on her cheek with her fingertips.

"So, no. Don't be stupid. Obedience is just a prerequisite. If the best you can do is 'Do as you're told,' this won't work for you or for me. In a week it will feel like oppression to you, and will feel like just another job to me, and I don't need another job. The things you need do to make this relationship work need to feel like the payoffs of the most fascinating new hobby you've just discovered. Not to put too fine a point on it: you have to be able to get pleasure from giving pleasure."

Of course, "make this relationship work" was a code-phrase for "please me," but they'd figure that out soon enough.

"Look, maybe it will help if each of you can you think of yourself as an actress in a community-theater improv drama. Your 'pay' comes from the way your audience expresses its pleasure at your performance. You get to define your own character and write your own lines. But what is your 'character'?"

I felt myself slipping into pedantry, but there was no help for it.

"A 'character' is a set of assumptions or perceptions about how people act, yourself and others, and a set of memories that you bring to a scene. The assumptions and memories will shift some depending on whom you're interacting with: you aren't the same 'character' when you talk with one of your friends as when you talk with the grocer, or with me. So you will have as many 'characters' or selves as there are other actors you talk to. This new relationship we're talking about here gives each of you the need and opportunity to define a new character for yourself.

"You can think of your 'character' as a spy's cover story. In this case, a successful cover story will be reasonably close to the truth, being most inventive in areas of your motivation, why you did something; or your perception of events, what you thought of them; not in the events themselves. Also, a successful story will be a little naughty, and maybe provoke envy in your listener."

There was also the hoped-for possibility that the invented 'characters,' with their necessary erotic baggage, would begin subliminally to influence their actual characters.

"Here we are on Saturday. Let's treat this week as a combination of courtship and probation. I'll come over every evening for dinner and to work on crafting the relationship. On Friday I'll ask each of you to imagine a conversation between your new 'character' and one of your friends, in which you explain your new relationship, and another conversation where you explain your character's perception of the relationship to me. If we're still agreed that it looks like a good idea, I'll move in a week from today and we'll begin the new relationships in earnest, and that includes sex.

"We don't have a lot of time, and we've got a lot of things to get done."

I tore the sheets with my notes off of the notepad, and passed the blank notepad to Carol.

"So here are some tasks. (1) Get yourselves to a medical lab and get tested for STDs. I will do the same, and we'll exchange results when they come in. (2) If you're not both on birth control, fix that. (3) Community project: tomorrow morning, lay out one sheet of paper for each day of the week, divided into morning, afternoon, and after dinner. Write out in the appropriate section the tasks for that portion of that day, and tag each with who is responsible, whether Carol, Dana, or me. If there are tasks you do every day, put them on an eighth sheet. Put every regular task on those sheets--like including taking your meds, for example. Questions?"

Carol had been writing furiously, but lifted her head and shook "No."

"I'll keep the 'rules' to a minimum, but there are two things that have to be built that way. Rule 1: Myself included, no sex with anyone outside of the three of us without my prior permission. Rule 2: The only time you are permitted to orgasm is immediately--within one minute--after I have cum in you or on you. Orgasm at any other time is punishable."

"Isn't that sort of...selfish?" asked Dana.

"Certainly it is! The intent is to focus your attention on my pleasure. Your whole focus during sex must be finding ways to get me off, but the rule also gives you an explicit path to your own pleasure, especially given the next task I'll lay out. It will incidentally give you practice in being 'quick on the trigger' with your own orgasm, which can be a good thing for you. But at the end of the process, your orgasm is entirely your responsibility.

"The next task: Starting tomorrow, and at least twice a day, morning and afternoon, you will edge." Dana looked blank, and Carol bit her lip.

"Carol, explain 'edging' to Dana."

"It's when you, um, play with yourself but don't cum."

"Not quite. This isn't about rubbing your pussy because it feels good. You need to bring yourself as rapidly as possible to the brink of orgasm--and stop. As you get more accomplished, you can hold yourself at the brink indefinitely, but always remember Rule 2. If you cum, I expect you to confess, and I will punish you. If you catch yourself about to 'tip over,' spank your pussy hard with the flat of your hand--it may be enough to save you.

"Carol, what was your parents' attitude toward masturbation?"

"It is a sin, strictly forbidden."

"OK, but you did it anyway, I bet."

She blushed.

"Now, it's not just permitted; it's required.

"Further on this task: Of the two required edges every day--remember to put them on the task list you're building--at least one will be done in the public areas of the house: living room, dining room, on the floor in the hallway, anywhere that's not behind a closed door.

"Further: At least one of the edges each day will be done with some form of anal penetration, like one of the dildos I saw downstairs. Carol, given the number of bottles of anal lube I saw in the dungeon, you're no stranger to anal sex"--she blushed again--"so you will coach Dana in the 'in's and out's' of the act. I will use your asses for sex, and it will hurt a lot less if you have stretched things out a bit. Maybe you'll find a way to find pleasure that way, too.

"And if you run out of other tasks, edge some more!"

The two women exchanged nervous glances.

"Finally for today, another task--put it on the task list: Starting Monday, and no later than 5PM every day, each of you is to send me a picture that portrays what you want this relationship to look like, an example of a perfect moment in your ideal day." My intention here was several-fold: the exercise would push them to think about, elaborate, and document their ideals; and second, it would require them to troll through sources of such pictures, which would expose them to other possibilities, maybe more 'adventuresome' than their current ideals, exposure to which might lessen their resistance to such exercises if and when I chose to push them.