Mandingo Row Ch. 01: Abandoned

1. Abandoned

I can't believe I'm actually writing this down.

I sit here in my torn, tight neon pink miniskirt and tube top stained with cum and piss... Digesting a bellyful of jizz from 20 different black men... And a great big black buttplug my wife shoved up my ass to keep the copious loads from countless other black men stewing in my ass until I "absorb them" as she says... My little, white penis restrained in its pink cage and flattened against my belly by Spanx... And, worst of all, a mouthful of my wife's foul shit that I've been commanded to devour while I relate my travails in exacting, humiliating detail.

Even as I sit here in my apartment writing this confession, I can scarcely believe it.

The whole ordeal has been so incredibly emasculating and confidence-destroying, it seems unreal... like a dream. It feels perversely wrong to be writing it down. Somehow, that feels as if, by writing it down, I'm acknowledging what has happened to me, what has become of me. It makes it real, and I'm not sure I want it to be real. Part of me wants to just wake up from this nightmare. But my wife thinks it will be good for me... It will help me work out my conflicting, confusing feelings on the whole... situation. I guess she's right. I'm not really in any position to question her, I guess.

It all started six months ago (I can't believe it's only been that long... It feels like a lifetime since my life was "normal"!). My wife had been wanting some time "for her", feeling like we had gotten into a rut. It was true, we had established a routine. We had only been married three years, and had no kids yet. But with us both working, we settled into a very familiar pattern within months of moving in together after the wedding.

We'd get up in the morning (she always got up first even though she started work later... she had always been an early riser), have some breakfast in front of the news on TV (always Fox and Friends), talk about what we might do for dinner, say "I love you" (out of reflex, it seemed, more than genuine feeling) and head out to our separate jobs.

I sold insurance for a local group, not a big name national corporation you would know by name. My wife, Brittany, was a social worker for The Righteous Way, a local Christian organization whose purpose was to help reintegrate people into society after serving prison terms. Usually this took the form of enrolling them in a church and getting them to do volunteer work until they could find a job. Anything to keep them off the streets and going back to a life of crime. They also wanted to make sure that any prisoners exposed to Islam in jail would come back to Christianity. In our area, practically every single one of the ex-cons she worked with were black, and for some reason a lot of them found Islam appealing.

In our town of Florissant, Missouri (a very white, very Evangelical Christian community), Muslims are considered a bigger threat than crime. Florissant is a suburb of St. Louis, rated one of the most segregated cities in America. St. Louis was mostly white until the integration of the 60's, then most of the whites moved out to the suburbs (what they call "white flight"). Even in our town, there's the nicer, white areas and the bad part of town where all the black people live. Our town is mostly white, but just a 10 minute drive to the south towards St. Louis lands you in the mostly black towns of Berkeley and Ferguson (where that black boy was just shot that got all the news attention last summer).

Anyway, neither of us particularly enjoyed our jobs, so after work, we generally didn't talk about our days. I realize now that this probably contributed to the distance growing in our relationship. We started to just take each other for granted, as if each other's presence was just a fact of our daily lives. I think I was especially guilty of this. That's why she did what she did. She even told me so. I understand that now... This is more my fault than hers. I cannot blame her.

Dinner was usually something out of a box or brought home from some drive-through, and eaten in front of the TV for the evening news (again, always Fox News - we didn't trust the liberal media). After that, we'd usually do our own thing for a while. Read, check Facebook, waste time on our iPhones/iPads, etc. Before long, it would be bed time.

So... about the sex. We'd never been a particularly amorous couple. Early on in our relationship, Brittany had informed me that she had a very low sex drive and wasn't really interested in it. I told her I understood and I loved her anyway, that wasn't the most important thing to me. She is a beautiful woman, in her prime and has a great body. I am definitely attracted to her. But I was not going to force myself on her. We would make love once a month at first. Then once every few months by the time we got married. Then it was once or twice a year. But neither of us seemed bothered by this, and we never spoke of it.

Even our weekends were essentially wasted on routine. Saturdays were chore days. Laundry, cleaning, shopping, errands, etc. While other couples our age might go out and socialize and drink and have fun on a Saturday night, the most we might do is stop by a restaurant and have a glass of wine with our chicken. We'd be so exhausted from the chores of the day that we'd go to sleep even earlier than most nights.

On Sunday, we'd get up early to shower and dress in our Sunday best for church. We'd go to the service, smile and be the perfect white, Christian, conservative couple everyone expected us to be. Our pastor was particularly concerned with sex in our community. He would deliver sermons warning of sin, of the dangers of sex for pleasure, of the dark, depraved road to Hell that led to. He particularly was concerned about the young women in our community.

His wife, Whitney, even led an abstinence education class for teenage girls and their daughter was the president of the Purity Pledge Group for our town. She was just a freshman in the high school, yet she'd managed to sign up the entire cheerleading squad to her Purity Pledge Group (to the frustration of all the jocks, I'd presume). All of the girls in the group take the Purity Pledge ("I pledge to myself, my family and the Lord Jesus Christ that I will abstain from sex and sinful activities until the day I marry my white, Christian husband in a Biblical marriage before God."). They wear silver Purity rings with a cross and a heart on them as a symbol of being married to the Lord until they are given to a man.

Whitney and my wife got along great, and sometimes we'd go to brunch with the Pastor and Whitney after church. The rest of the day was often spent napping or in Bible study, then dinner, TV and sleep again.

And so there you have it. Now you know how every day of my life was spent for my entire marriage... until recently.

.

.

.

This brings me to the events of the past several months.

Six months ago, Brittany told me she wanted more "her" time. She felt we were getting bored of each other because we spent every minute together outside of work. I couldn't argue with her, she was right. She decided to join a group that would meet 2 or 3 nights a week and suggested that I spend that time taking up a sport or exercise with some friends from work or church. I agreed that might be a good idea. I'm a naturally thin guy, but I could tell our sedentary life was making me a bit soft. So I agreed it would be best for both of us.

When I asked what group she was joining, she seemed hesitant to tell me, but then broke the news. She informed me that the Pastor's wife, Whitney, had convinced her to join what she called a "Born-Again Virgin" group. Whitney had decided that abstinence for the teens and unmarried girls in the town wasn't enough. B.A.V. was a group for married women who had already had all the children they intended to have, or for wives who couldn't have children. Whitney espoused the belief that sex is only for procreation and it's sinful to indulge in it without the pointed purpose of making children. So she started the group for wives who were no longer going to have sex with their husbands.

Needless to say, I was taken aback. Granted, it had been easily 9 months (maybe more) since Brittany and I had made love... but to say we were *never* going to do it again? That seemed a bit extreme. But Brittany was put in a tight spot when Whitney asked her to join. Since Brittany and I rarely had sex, she had never gotten pregnant. And with her working, well... we decided we just didn't *want* kids. But that's frowned upon in our Christian community. The purpose of marriage is to make a family and make more young, white Christians. For us to be married and, presumably, having sex... and *not* have children. Well, the church ladies would frown on that (especially Whitney, who was actually more influential amongst the women of the congregation than the Pastor, himself). We'd be social outcasts... pariahs... practically living in sin.

So... the inevitable question had come up (during one of our Sunday brunches with the Pastor and his wife)... about when, after three years of marriage, we were going to have kids (most married couples had kids in the first year or two)... Well... we told a little white lie to the Pastor and others at the brunch. Actually, Brittany came up with it, spontaneously, without us even discussing it beforehand. She had told Whitney that we couldn't have children. She blamed it on my having a very low sperm count... "shooting blanks", so to speak. I'm not sure why she felt the need to blame *me*. I feel like she has some sort of lingering resentment towards me, but I'm not sure why. Maybe she regrets her decision to marry me. We did get married young. She was just out of high school and I was finishing up college. Perhaps we weren't ready.

In any case, Whitney now believed that Brittany was a perfect candidate for her "Born-Again Virgin" group and Brittany had no logical reason to refuse. So Brittany signed up and didn't tell me about it until the night of the first meeting. I did question her about it, but she told me she couldn't back out now. And she told me she was going more for the fun of socializing with the other ladies than the program itself. She told me to think of it like a Bridge Club or a Knitting Group.

"Besides," Brittany told me as she picked up her purse and headed for the door for her first meeting, "it's not like we're doing it anyway." Again, I had to admit she was right.

That first night, I didn't know what to do for exercise. Truth was, I didn't really have any friends, at work or at Church. A lot of acquaintances, but nobody I could call up and say "hey, up for a spot of tennis?" So, instead, I found one of Brittany's aerobics DVDs, put that on and did a workout.

I thought it would be a cakewalk, being a workout video for girls. But it was actually really hard! It had me doing cardio to burn fat, and lots of squats and lunges to "firm up my butt". I had to admit, I was pretty worn out after just half an hour (and boy were my glutes sore the next day!) and I laid huffing and puffing on the couch, sweaty and beat. I noticed Brittany had left a pamphlet from Whitney's Born-Again Virgin group on the coffee table and read it.

It discussed how sex should never become the central part of a marriage, that the rest of the marriage would suffer from it. We would forget how to love each other in other ways. It had a passage from Corinthians about a married couple agreeing to abstinence by mutual consent, spending the time in prayer instead. It discussed how abstinence could actually bring the husband and wife closer together, reignite the spark of "pure" love that brought them together in the first place. Included were testimonials from many Christian couples who say their relationships are much better after swearing abstinence (or "continence" as it's called by the Church sometimes). Some even say it saved their marriage.

I had to admit, before picking up the pamphlet, I was doubtful, even a bit resentful. But it made a lot of sense. Brittany and I had definitely grown apart. We seemed more like two individuals living together than a couple. Maybe this was her really trying to bring us closer together. I had to appreciate that. And it made me realize I hadn't done anything conscious to bring us closer together as she had... and I felt guilty.

I was so beat (and a bit emotionally exhausted) that I took a quick shower and turned in early that night.

.

.

.

The next morning at breakfast, I noticed Brittany was actually wearing a purity ring! Now everyone at her job and all the people we knew in our neighborhood and at Church would know we weren't having sex. I had to admit, it was a bit humiliating.

"Um... are you going to wear that?" I asked her.

"Hmm?" Brittany took a moment to realize what I was talking about, "oh, the ring! Yes, I am, Nicholas." (Oh, that was my name, by the way - Nicholas... I almost forgot).

"But.." I started. Brittany wasn't done, though.

"After last night's meeting, I've decided to actually take the pledge," Brittany informed me coldly, casually, as if she was telling me about a new brand of detergent she'd just switched to, "Whitney really made a lot of sense to me and the other women. We all signed up."

"All of you?" I was surprised that so many women in town were going to start withholding sex from their husbands.

"Yes. Me, Becky Wilson, Barbara Peters, Sally McCarthy, Patty Hughes, Heidi Wagner, Jenny Westin, Candice Nygard, Hanna Novak and, of course, Whitney."

I couldn't believe it! All those women's husbands would be denied sex forever more? Including me...

"Actually, Whitney and Pastor Anderson haven't had sex since Heather was conceived," Brittany added. Heather was the Andersons' 13 year old daughter.

"Oh..." was all I could manage to reply.

And we ate the rest of our breakfast in silence, watching Fox and Friends.

.

.

.

This went on for about a week or two and, true to her word, Brittany wore the ring all day every day and we didn't exchange as much as a kiss in that time. I saw people whispering and pointing at us, seeing her ring. I heard snickers and giggles, and guffaws from the men. But I ignored it all. At least, I didn't let anyone see how much it was actually bothering me (which was quite a lot). Somehow the humiliation of everyone knowing we weren't having sex was worse than the actual "no sex" thing. I guess I was plenty used to that part of it. I just wasn't used to everyone *knowing* about it. As a man, I'm supposed to be the sexual aggressor, the one who claims the woman and initiates sex. For everyone I knew to know I wasn't getting any... Well, it made me feel like much less of a man. It was humiliating, emasculating. But Brittany was a true believer and it was pointless for me to try to debate the issue. She has a very strong will and once she makes up her mind about something, there's no dissuading her.

A few weeks in, Brittany headed out the door on a night she didn't have the Pledge group. She wouldn't have even said anything if I hadn't noticed and asked her where she was going. It was as if I wasn't even there!

She stopped and told me it was "girl's movie night" and left. I was a little annoyed that she hadn't bothered to tell me about it in advance. But who was I to say no? Not that she would listen to me anyway.

Before long, she was going out most nights. She started joining up to all sorts of activities. Each night was a different thing. Pledge group, movie night, crochet/knitting circles, Tupperware parties, scrapbooking, Oprah book club night, etc. It was almost like being celibate awakened a hidden reservoir of energy in her - she seemed more lively, more engaged with the world... happier. But I was even more miserable and felt more alone and isolated. It seemed less and less like this arrangement was going to bring us any closer, and more and more like she was trying to get away from me...

As for me... Well, I just kind of sank into depression. I was still doing Brittany's cardio DVDs, but not really for the exercise (though I had to admit, my butt was lookin' pretty good... and even though I was naturally thin, I was able to tighten my belt a couple notches!). I did the exercise mostly because I didn't know what to do with myself. I mostly vegged in front of the TV and went to bed early.

Brittany never came home when I was still awake. And when she did get home, she would be so beat and exhausted she wouldn't even say a word to me, she'd just collapse in the bed and go to sleep, often without getting undressed. One time I heard her come in and watched her in the mirror, as I pretended to be asleep. She looked terrible. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were dirty. She was limping like she broke a heel or twisted her ankle. And she stunk! I couldn't remember what she had said she was going out to do that night. In fact, I think by then she had ceased bothering to even tell me, she would just leave without even saying a word to me.

In the mornings, I found that I was now always the first to rise. Brittany often slept in, which was totally out of character for her. If she did get up before I left for work, she went straight into the shower and stayed in there for nearly an hour. She was regularly late for work and even was skipping some days. It wasn't a big deal as she was essentially a volunteer and they had plenty of staff. She was paid - The Righteous Way was funded by religious organizations, so she got a token hourly rate. But she didn't need the job at all, so she had a good deal of flexibility in it.

All of this was starting to concern me. But whenever I started to ask her about it, she would sigh in annoyance and tell me I was suffocating her. We barely ever spoke to each other anymore, so I didn't push it. I didn't want our only interactions to be arguments.

Still, after about 2 months of this, I just couldn't take it anymore. I just had to know more about my wife and what she was doing with her life. It's my right to know, as her husband. I decided to follow her the next time she went to one of her "activities".

I wish I had never found out the truth...