Miranda and Marcy: A Remembrance

Miranda. One cool lady. She was the kind of co-worker you lucked into. Highly competent. Took care of business. Represented the firm with aplomb. She exuded professionalism.

At twenty plus years younger than I, she carried herself with a pert self-confidence. She could be flirtatious and sexy when she chose to turn it on. Her persona was an amalgam of an impressive, broad-based liberal arts education, a native intelligence and curiosity about the world. A bona fide, exemplary model of a secular humanist in my estimation. She was conversant in literature, philosophy, politics, the arts in general, had a reasonable grasp of science, an informed awareness of culture and stayed abreast of the daily news and the world of entertainment. What's not to like?

Interestingly, she had an irrepressible attraction to the perverse, the demented, the off-kilter, the dark side of human nature and the troubling ways it could manifest itself. Mass murderers, rapists, con-men and con-women, cheats and perverts, she found them all fascinating. And the more sex that was involved, the better.

She'd reveal these twisted tastes at office luncheons (when the "right" people were present...or absent). And she'd let loose in our confidential "we need to take a break from work" conversations. She'd ramble on excitedly about movies, sex, the latest TV series, sex, political movements, sex, entertainment and sex with a raunchy candor that would make you wince...and laugh. Iconoclastic and bawdy, no one could hold a candle to her ribald merrymaking when she got going. No holds barred. Nothing was sacred. She spoke with abandon and freedom. Her banter was reliably entertaining, erotic and endearing.

It was she whom I invited to join me on my deck for evening cocktails. Marcy, my wife of thirty-four years, had passed away fairly recently. This bachelor sought companionship and a good time in new and different ways. This particular get-together with Miranda was to engage in a book discussion, Stephen Hawking's last work, A Brief Discussion of the Big Questions. I recommended it to Miranda and was genuinely interested to hear what she had to say about the existence (or not) of god, bioengineering, AI, space/time travel and all the other topics on which Hawking passed final judgment and about which she and I would bull shit all the time.

We sat down to Manhattans, up. (She was quite the epicurean as well.) On and on we went, flitting from philosophical topic to topic, without resolution, but with easy engagement. We sipped our cocktails, felt the encroaching buzz, got louder and a little loose-lipped. Then, all at once, she shifted gears.

"Weren't you going to give me a riding crop that belonged to Marcy? And did you give all those steamy tee shirts away?"

Truth be told, I was thrilled that she asked. I had intentionally sown these seeds of interest some time back. I HAD promised to bequeath to her Marcy's riding crop. And I HAD shared with Miranda some highly suggestive tee-shirt photos. These stories deserve a brief explanation.

In cleaning out closets following Marcy's passing, I ran across a collection of a dozen or so tee shirts with sexually provocative sayings on them - all with a general theme of female domination and male subservience. She'd collected an impressive stash of these over the years and would wear them just for me (on select occasions in public).

Typical titles included, "On Your Knees, Boy," "She Who Must Be Obeyed," "Don't Torture Yourself - That's My Job!" "How Do You Know You've Met the Perfect Woman? She'll Tell You!" "A Well-Spanked Husband Doesn't Disobey." You get the idea. And there were the ones that she purchased for me to wear: "WHACK! Please, Mistress, I Deserve Another!" "She Wears the Pants - I'm Her Bitch," "Sissy Slut," and "Cream Pie Cleanup Crew." Again, you get the idea.

It seemed at the time a shame to just toss them all in the donation bags without any acknowledgement. I thought of all the racy times Marcy and I had together, of the kinky shit we did. The tee shirts were revealing mementos. To discard them silently, to send them quietly into oblivion just didn't seem right. Some kind of celebration seemed appropriate.

Besides, I felt an odd compulsion to spill my guts to someone. To share with someone what had been largely private and confidential - but also hot. Call me a perv, but I took pride in how we amused each other, kinky as it may have been, and after her passing craved the opportunity to reveal to someone something of our decades-long festivities.

But with whom could I possibly share such relics? With whom could I share stories of our kinky escapades? Most everyone I thought of would likely feel uncomfortable talking about the edgy stuff suggested by the tee-shirts. Was there anyone, I wondered, who might appreciate the kink, the fetish, the deliciously naughty adventures embodied in those tees? When I finally thought of Miranda I convinced myself that she was indeed someone with whom I could celebrate. She would "get it." I could confide in her and, I was confident, she would appreciate and jot judge. My desire to share the kinky stories with her grew. I realized that I was becoming almost compulsive about it.

I took photos of a handful of the tee shirts and texted them to Miranda. She seemed appreciative, or at least was a good sport about it. At a happy hour, I asked her to identify her favorites, prodding her to delve deeper. It was in the context of rank ordering her favorites that I mentioned a riding crop that Marcy owned. I was definitely guilty of throwing more bait out there. I mentioned that I'd hate to throw the riding crop away. Miranda immediately declared that she'd love to have it. I promised I'd give it to her.

I never delivered the riding crop to her and I did indeed donate all the tee-shirts. As it turned out, my remaining professional time with Miranda ended when I moved on from that job. She was busy as could be and our paths crossed less often. My scheme - to entice her to press me for lurid details about Marcy and me - was, at best, dormant. That is, until we were sitting on the deck, when the tee shirts and riding crop suddenly became the new topic of conversation. We were sitting, imbibing and conducting a most proper "book review" of Hawking's work when she asked what I'd yearned to hear from her.

"Weren't you going to give me a riding crop that belonged to Marcy? And did you give all those steamy tee shirts away?"

"I did promise I'd give you that riding crop, didn't I," I stated more than asked. "You're out of luck with the tee-shirts, I gave them all away."

"Well, you have to deliver on the riding crop, bucko." She paused and lowered her voice in dead seriousness. "So just what kind of kinky shit did you and Marcy do? Come on. You gotta fess up. First you tell us that you were a porn author." (Indeed, I'd confessed that fact to a select few in the office.) "You pique my interest with the tee shirts. Then you tell me about this riding crop. So come on, what are some things you guys were into? I'm not going to let you off the hook!"

"Oh, bless you, bless you dear girl! You've got me right where I want me," I thought to myself. I was pretty sure that she was perfectly aware of my gambit. I had taken her wading into a shallow, murky pond. She was simply indulging me by requesting a snorkeling mask and to venture out into more open waters, as I'd secretly hoped. She was creating an opportunity for me to row the boat further out.

"This is such private stuff. How discrete can you be?" I asked the predictable question and received the predictable response.

"Trust me. My lips are sealed. I will never, under any circumstances, share any kinky shit you tell me about you and your wife with anyone. I swear. I promise. You can trust me." She seemed so eager and so reassuring. I knew she wanted to take a deep dive. "Make us another drink and let the stories pour," she encouraged me. I was nervous and excited.

I mixed another round (under her critical eye - a big turn-on for me), served them up and embarked on a the most intimate, revealing, extensive and embarrassing confession imaginable.

"Okay, Miranda. I'm going to share with you our deepest, most personal secrets. I trust you." I gathered my thoughts and cleared my throat. "This is kinky shit. And really personal. At heart, I'm a sub. I confessed it to Marcy early in our relationship, even before we were married. I'm a heterosexual guy but I've always had an irrepressible attraction toward dominant females." I noticed her eyes widen immediately and a wicked grin emerge with this admission. I reminded myself that she loved titillating shit. I continued, with a candor that surprised myself. It was a testament to my trust in Miranda.

"It's been an inclination of mine since puberty. I just really get off on being controlled and dominated and bossed around by a strong, assertive, demanding female, both in sexual and nonsexual ways. My wife-to-be told me she loved me for who I am - subby hubby included - and embraced my proclivities. We married and explored tons of role play and unorthodox domination games. It was kind of our thing. And she prided herself in giving Academy Award performances."

Playful and Whimsical

"Marcy possessed an uncanny insight about how to navigate the waters of our Dom/Sub relationship. Neither of us wanted it to be a 24/7 arrangement. It was for periodic thrills. She knew intuitively how to titillate me in brief, harmless ways and continued to do so throughout our thirty-four years together. To signal me that I was to assume the subby hubby role, she pointed her index finger at me and enunciated an order. In the early evening she might point and declare, "Go get me a glass of wine, now!" To which I'd always respond, "Yes, Ma'am," and drop whatever I was doing to follow orders. It was often as simple and as short-lived as that. She'd relish her temporary role of commander-in-chief and I cherished my temporary status of slave. I'd always present her the glass of wine (or whatever it was) from my knees."

"She'd have me fetch things, carry out small errands, things like that. The finger point might come and go in a matter of minutes. If she was feeling frisky, she'd sometimes find fault with something I did. And oh, was she adept at finding fault. There was always something she could identify as a shortcoming, some way I carried out my chore with less than flawless compliance. In those instances, she'd sometimes make me stand in a corner, nose to the wall, usually just for a couple minutes. She found humor in it and I found excitement. To step it up a notch, she'd send me to time out. That was either in the laundry room (which had a convenient laundry bar) or the bedroom closet (which had a clothes bar). The expectation was that I'd place Velcro handcuffs around my wrists and attach them to the overhead bar. She'd make me do this myself, as tightly as I could while maintaining escapability. The reason? She didn't want to be bothered. She expected me to self-administer the "punishment." She'd send me there and eventually I'd hear a voice telling me I could come out. And that would be the end of it. The only times she herself would apply the cuffs is when we did edgier stuff and she wanted the restraints to be inescapable. More on that later."

"I remember one stormy, Sunday. Autumn afternoon. I was watching a terrifically competitive NFL game that had playoff implications. It was the second half. The Steelers were one of the teams. I can't remember the other. Watching a great game in the comfort of my cozy home. Sipping a beer. It was snowing outside. Snowing hard, with a few inches accumulated and six-eight inches expected."

"Marcy walked in and said, "You need to go shovel snow."

"It was a preposterous request, in my view, and I told her. "It's still snowing. I'll wait until it's stopped and then go shovel. Plus, I'm right in the middle of this game. It's such a good game!"

"You need to go shovel snow NOW," she repeated, pointing her index finger at me.

"Babe, come on," I whined.

"She pointed outside and repeated, "NOW!"

"With reluctant body language, I did as she commanded. And I recall experiencing a strange combination of resentment and twisted thrill. I bundled up and shoveled with a hard on. When I returned she was watching Martha Stewart on the TV I'd been glued to. And she said, "Time out for complaining!" She pointed to the laundry room."

"I went there, strapped my wrists over my head to the laundry bar and stewed for a good five minutes before I heard her. "You can come out now." I returned to the TV room. She switched the station to the football game. It was the two-minute warning and the game's outcome had been decided. She patted the couch cushion next to her and gave me the naughtiest grin imaginable. I sat down, she snuggled close, kissed my cheek, stuck her hand down my pants and whispered in my ear. "Do you like being my slave?"

"Yes, thank you for making me your slave," I responded."

"On the one hand I thought she'd been a real bitch. On the other hand, her lips around the head of my cock at the final gun tipped the scales. I loved being her slave."

"We had a blast conducting these micro or mini-domination scenarios. She never failed to get a charge out of me with a well-directed command to carry out the silliest and slightest of tasks. Occasionally she'd do it in front of friends, who would watch me comply with bewilderment. She knew how that embarrassed and excited me."

"That's pretty cute," Miranda observed. I sensed that she was a bit disappointed in the tepid nature of my story so far. But I was just warming up and told Miranda.

"Oh, there's so much more..."

Dishwashing Chores

"A step up from the mini-domination was when Marcy actually had specific house chores she wanted done. She was kind of OCD when it came to routine housekeeping. I was much more lax. To promote marital comity, part of the Dom/Sub relationship my wife and I developed over the years was, at her discretion, a direct order to me, her real husband, no role play, to complete household chores; from vacuuming to toilet bowl cleaning, from ironing to dusting."

"I'd still witness that distinct pointing of her index finger, the one that meant, "Yeah, you're my husband, but I'm transforming you into my subby hubby right now. And you will obey." But with the larger chores she'd usually have me strip naked to tackle the task, although when she was feeling particularly randy, she would make me put on a pair of panties, an apron (with nothing else) or a maid's outfit. (Yes, she purchased one from a Halloween store.) On those occasions she'd taunt me. "Isn't my panty boy maid cute! Wouldn't our friends love to see you now. Maybe I'll invite somebody over some time to watch you tidy up." (She never did.)

"One of the most common chores was to do the dishes. Whenever she pointed to me and told me to go do the dishes (with that familiar "NOW!" command) I knew it was above and beyond the normal, everyday task of loading the dishwasher. I was to strip naked and go to the sink. She kept in a drawer near the sink a piece of soft, nylon rope, around three feet long. She trained me to tie one end of the rope to the door handle of the refrigerator. I was to tie the other end around my cock and balls, as snugly as I dared. She had measured it exactly so that as I stood in front of the sink, the rope would be taut and pull on my privates. I was required to remain tethered like this until all dishes were hand washed and stacked in the dish rack...perfectly."

"She'd check on me occasionally, pluck on the rope as one would a violin string, scold me for not washing thoroughly enough or for not keeping the rope tight enough, and rub my cock and balls with a promise of a reward if I did a great job. (A happy ending payout was probably about a 10% proposition.) She'd cup my balls in her hand and stop barely shy of a painful squeeze. Then she'd always ask the same thing. "Whose balls are these?" I knew the answer. "Those are your balls." And she'd remind me, "Yes. Those are my balls and I'll do anything I want with them. Now tell me again." And I'd obediently reply, "Those are your balls." And they were."

"I loved washing dishes, even that 90% of the time when she'd release me from my subjugation with a whisper in my ear - a declaration that was always the same. "I'm not going to let you cum," she'd coo in a sultry breath that I could feel in my ear. Then she'd walk away, leaving me standing there at the sink, naked, tethered and unfulfilled. She said the denial kept me horny and attentive. She knew me well."

"So," Miranda observed, "you were a chore slut. A fucking cross-dressing maid. I'd have never guessed. My admiration for your wife just grew. I'll bet there's more. There'd better be!"

"Oh yeah," I answered. And I continued the tales.

Tom Bob

"An early foray into our realm of Femdom was the creation of a fictitious neighbor, a bachelor she named Tom Bob. Tom was his name. "Bob" was an acronym that stood for "beat off boy." When Marcy got fed up with my neglect of some big house chores - like washing the outside windows, or scrubbing and polishing all the kitchen cabinetry, or cleaning the gutters, or weeding her flower beds, she'd drop Tom Bob a note, left in a strategic location where "he" could find it.

In it, she'd complain about her worthless, lazy husband (no doubt, relishing the opportunity to get in a few digs) and then describe the latest project that she needed to get done. She'd ask ever so sweetly if a handsome neighbor could rescue a lady in need. She said that her husband would be gone between such and such a time and that if Tom Bob showed up and helped her out, she'd reward him handsomely. She'd interject in these invitations double entendres like, "I have a hunch that you'd work very hard for me." And, "If working for me makes you stiff, we'll have to take care of that problem when you're done."

Of course, such a scenario played beautifully into my fetish. After reading the note, I'd tell her that I needed to run errands and go help a friend move a couch or some similar alibi. I'd leave and shortly thereafter I'd show up at the door (yes, I'd ring the doorbell) as Tom Bob. Marcy would greet me with reserved courtesy at first, but as soon as the door was closed she'd embrace me with ardent kisses and groping hands. Imagine! Cheating on her husband like that! About the time she was really getting me worked up she'd pull away with a grin. She'd then explain the chore(s) she had in mind. If outside, she'd make me wear only shorts (no underwear). If indoors, she'd often have me work naked.

Upon satisfactory completion of the project she'd kick the flirting into high gear. "Tom," she'd say, "You did good work today." She'd fondle my crotch and say, "I like how you work hard," as she'd fondle my penis. And then she'd remind me, "Tom, you're my BOB. And we both know what that stands for...tell me."

"It means I'm your beat off boy."

"That's right. When you do nice work for me, I let you beat off for me. You just did some nice work for me. So, guess what..."

Sometimes she'd make me jerk off for her. My favorite reward was when she'd have me stand at the threshold of her kitchen, always in the same spot. She'd stand behind me, reach around and jerk me off. Part of the game was to see how far she could make me ejaculate. She'd measure and keep track. She'd be disappointed in anything less than three feet. The record was 4' 10" and she made a teeny mark on that point, in the grout, with a magic marker, noticeable only if you were looking for it. After draining every last drop and measuring for distance, she'd make me clean up the tile floor and then kiss me goodbye and squeeze my balls, thanking me for the housekeeping help and telling me that I had a much nicer cock than her husband. "He'd be lucky if he could shoot six inches," she'd declare. She'd remind me that she'd be in touch again, with more chores. And she followed up. Tom Bob cleaned cabinets and washed windows many, many times over the years."