The God-Father

"So was it fun?" I asked her, referring to what she had said about taking off her thong during the interval.

"In a way," she said. "When I came back from the ladies room, without the thong, it felt good, knowing that I was bare under my skirt. Is that bad?"

"You've never done that when we've been out together," I said.

"A few times," she said. "I thought if you liked that kind of thing, you would have asked me to, so I always made sure you didn't notice I wasn't wearing any panties when we were getting ready for bed."

"I might have liked it."

"Would you?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said, "but I want to know what was going on with you and Max. When he put his hand on your thigh - was it still fun?"

"I got scared," she said. "I didn't think he'd do that. I was dreading you seeing. I just knew that if I made a fuss it would make things even worse."

"It didn't get you excited, then?"

"It's difficult to explain," she answered. "I was scared you'd see, but I wanted it as well. I wanted him to touch me, to know that I had done what he had asked me to. I'm sorry."

That was when I made up my mind, at least for right then.

"I think you should get out of bed, and kneel over it," I said.

I had not realised just how empowering it is to inflict punishment on someone who accepts your right to punish them, even if all I used was my hand and not a belt, about having someone submit to being punished.

I used a hard swipe of the hand, that made her buttock vibrate as it turned pink, and suddenly I saw Sarah in a new light, not just as the woman I loved, but as someone with her own particular needs, who wanted to be daring and take risks, who wanted to be punished. Yet she had sublimated all of that and married a guy who had not appreciated fully just who she was, because she loved the guy, and who was in every other way a perfect wife and mother to our children.

I loved her all the more for that. Maybe some things would need to change, but one evening at the theatre really did not matter, and what had happened with Max before we met, changed nothing about our relationship, or our marriage - although it did change how I felt about Max.

Which meant that accepting his invitation to drinks at his club a few weeks later required a lot of prior thought, and left me wondering how it go, and what he would have to say.

I was expected by the concierge, who asked me to sign the guest book to the right of Max's entry, with my name in capitals, confirming me as his invitee. I was shown through a short, panelled corridor to a large lounge with leather sofas and chairs set around carved mahogany , glass topped coffee tables, few of which were occupied.

Max was waiting for me in a quiet corner where we would not be overheard, an open bottle of Saint Emilion on the coffee table, two glasses already poured, one on the coffee table by the unoccupied chair, clearly intended for me, the other glass in his sixty eight year old hand, the same hand that had been between Sarah's thighs that night.

"I owe you an apology," he started, gesturing with his other hand for me to sit down, and indicating the wine that had been poured ready for my arrival.

I made myself comfortable, picked up the glass and waited for him to go on.

"I can't really offer any excuse, except I miss my wife very much, and, well, I guess Sarah has told you about things when she was younger."

"She told me," I confirmed.

"I suppose,..." he started, "it was stupid really,... an old man's fantasy,... I thought that maybe,.. that we might find a way of rekindling,... I mean,..."

"I think I know what you mean," I said.

"Did she tell you that as well?" he asked.

That was something about the way he asked that, which made me wonder if there was something that Sarah had not said, something more that had been discussed between them. I stayed silent, waiting to hear what he had to say, if anything, or if that would be it, just the apology.

"I was disappointed when she turned me down," he continued. "I wondered if you would feel the same."

He looked at me with those bright, intelligent eyes behind the horn-rimmed glasses, eyes that belied his age, and I sensed him reading me, assessing the involuntary tells that give away how you are thinking on the inside.

He must have realised that I was bluffing, that I had no idea that Sarah had turned down anything, or that there had been anything other than that evening at the theatre for me to be concerned about.

He slowly reached into his inside jacket pocket, the movement opening his suit jacket and drawing my eyes to the leather trouser belt around his waist, reminding me how he had once used another belt, or more than once, and he withdrew what seemed to be a newspaper cutting that had been carefully folded to a neat, pocketable rectangle. He carefully unfolded and passed the cutting across the coffee table for me to take.

There was a page width, colour photo of eight or ten properties, houses that were built close together side by side, somewhere on the coast, a flat sea in front of them, all of them with jetties, some with boats, prices for each of the properties superimposed in boxes with arrows linking each box to an individual property. There was a headline above the photo.

"The most expensive street in Britain."

The prices ranged from four and a half, to eleven million. A quick scan of the article told me that the houses were on the south coast, a place called Sandbanks, where the cost per square foot of residential property was reportedly higher than anywhere else in the country.

"And?" I said, having taken in the contents of the cutting.

"The white one, modern style, rounded corners to the balconies," Max said. "I used to take Sarah there, to get away from London. The balconies aren't overlooked. She liked being naked. She liked not being allowed to be anything other than naked, unless we went to a restaurant, and then it was just a dress, no underwear.

"I always liked her dresses to be backless, mid thigh, a risk of something being seen, emerging from the car, or sitting down. I think she did too."

I could read in his face that he was reminiscing, thinking fondly back to a time past, when Sarah had been his to play with.

"She told me about what happened back then," I said.

"I suppose she did," he said.

There were several minutes when neither of us said anything. A straight backed waiter moved through another section of the lounge, black trousers immaculately ironed, red waistcoat over a white, double cuffed shirt and red tie, immaculately tied, his elbow bent, hand splayed, expertly balancing a tray of drinks for someone else.

"There is a room we used to play. Did she tell you that?" Max finally said.

She had not told me about a room. Max could read me well enough to realise that without my answering.

"Just some standard bondage items," he said. "Leather stool, a bed with satin sheets and leather ties, a St Andrew's cross. Nothing too extreme.

"I could never quite work out whether she enjoyed our activities there, or whether it was the fact that I increased her allowance if she managed to accept my little punishments without asking me to stop."

He sipped his wine.

"Why are you telling me this now, Max," I asked.

"Because I was lucky enough to meet someone who genuinely enjoyed that room, and to marry her, and now she is gone, and I miss her, and I also miss what that room has to offer," he said, pausing for effect.

"And I was disappointed," he continued, "that Sarah turned down my invitation to resume our relationship, to visit once a month or so, just like the old days. She said she couldn't do that to you. Not even after I told her I would gift the house to you both two years from now."

I glanced at the newspaper cutting again. Like the other properties, the white painted, three storey house with the curved balconies was linked to a box with a lot of zeros in it, six in all. In front of the zeros was an eight, followed by the obligatory comma. Eight fucking million.

Sarah had said nothing. She had not even said that she had seen or spoken to Max since the night at the theatre. She had not mentioned him. It was as if he no longer existed, as if our new arrangement was all she needed.

I had gone through her things the next day, a black refuse sack at the ready. I had never really liked her in trousers, so those were first into the sack, along with most of her jeans. One pair of jeans is all anyone really needs. Most of her shorts went into the same bag, apart from her gym shorts and leggings, which were legitimate gym wear, and we both work out pretty regularly.

Moving to the drawer in which she kept more intimate wear, all of her tights, washed or still packaged, went into the bag. So did her panties and thongs, apart from a handful of pairs which she might need once in a month, and which would require my permission to wear.

No more trouser suits or tights for work. Stockings and suspenders, and bare pussy beneath her skirt, every day and all day behind her desk, meeting with colleagues and clients, travelling on the tube. No more panty lines beneath her dresses at work, or when we went out, dinner with friends, or having them over, theatre or concert. Whatever length of dress or skirt, Sarah would be wearing stockings or have bare legs, and her pussy would be just as bare.

It had felt empowering, carrying the bulging black sack into the lift and down to the garage area, and then heaving it into one of the apartment block's large bins, and just as empowering telling her later what she could and could not wear, and when.

It made a noticeable difference too. Any time I felt I wanted to, at least when the kids were not around, I could finger her smooth mons without the need to ease tight cotton to one side, and inside her slit, she was always wet.

It was nice to think about as well, a relief from the more tedious aspects of my own work, to know that my wife had her hairless pussy with its ever so neat slit of a cunt always bare, except for the gym and the occasional walk in the Surrey woods, when jeans were more appropriate than the stockings, skirt and heels that she now wore daily at the office, on her commute, in the supermarket, in our apartment, and whenever we were out.

I had stopped using my hand, at least for punishment. A flexible leather paddle, bought online, was just as effective and gave a better swing. It also did not hurt my palm. Not something for every night, but more occasional, if Sarah had been forgetful, or thoughtless, or, as I thought sometimes, if she chose to deliberately get things wrong.

Turn on the television in our bedroom, chose a channel with music with a deep bass rhythm, whose sounds would mask the thwack of leather meeting flesh, make it inaudible from our children's bedrooms, and let Sarah deal with having to not cry out, but take her punishments in silence.

It was empowering, and it led to some great sex, even better than before, and not once had Sarah ever mentioned Max, or a white painted house on the coast or turning down eight million.

I checked what Max was telling me.

"So you offered to give Sarah the house in return for resuming the relationship you had with her back then, even though she is now my wife?" I queried. " I'm sure you could find someone else, for a lot less."

"Probably," Max said. "But it wouldn't be the same as someone I have personally groomed. Did she tell you that I paid for her laser treatment? I've never liked hairs between my teeth, and stubble, or regrowth, are best avoided. In a sense, her pussy's belongs to me."

Until then, I had just felt cold towards the man. Now I felt the anger grow inside me at that those last few words.

"Besides, there's an added frisson when it's someone else's wife. Even if he doesn't know. But more so, if the husband knows, and is part of the arrangement, don't you think?"

The guy was unbelievable, talking about my wife's pussy belonging to him, about an added frisson because she was married now, even more so if I was part of the arrangement, if I let him use her, the way he had done for four years already, when she was young and commitment free.

But there was something that he had said earlier that was puzzling me almost as much as his arrogance was angering me deep inside.

"Why in two years?" I asked.

He had said that he had told Sarah he would give us the house in two years if she agreed to what he was suggesting

"That's the best estimate that I've been given," he said. "The medics are pretty accurate these days."

I did not ask what the diagnosis was, but I understood. I should have felt some sympathy, but his arrogance had got to me and I just felt cold anger towards the man.

It felt good, to be sitting there, listening to him, conceding that Sarah had turned him down, had turned down his eight million pound house, and had wanted to stay faithful, to me, her husband. Right then I suddenly saw Max as weak and helpless, all his millions worth nothing compared to the love of a good woman. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for the guy, two years of loneliness ahead of him, but that was exactly what he deserved.

He had been trying to buy my wife, as if he had not enjoyed her enough when she was twenty something. His telling me about the room he had enjoyed her in, and about paying for the laser treatments that I had never asked her about, just accepting that her mons was free of hair as a fact of life, and putting into my head this picture of his going down on her, using his tongue to probe inside her slit, everything he had said had turned my initial coolness towards him, to antarctic ice.

"You are such a fucking bastard, Max" I said, getting up from my chair, my glass of wine still in my hand, casually tipping the contents into his lap.

The spillage hit his belt, right on the buckle, some splashing up, creating red splodges on his shirt, some seeping down into his trousers, soaking in, turning them dark where they had been light grey, stains that would easily be hidden. He would need to button his suit jacket pretty tight before he left his club.

A few seconds later, I was thanking the concierge for looking after me, and exiting the club through its wooden framed revolving doors.

I was halfway down the street, heading for the nearest tube station, when I realised that I still had the newspaper cutting in my hand. My first instinct was to screw it up and throw it in the gutter, but you have to be responsible. I waited until I reached the entrance to the tube, where, as always, there would be a black and gold, Kensington and Chelsea Council bin for rubbish.

Except something made me fold the cutting, back to the neat rectangle that it had been in Max's inside pocket. I slipped it inside my own jacket, into the pocket on the right side, further from my heart.

In the best of marriages, the important decisions are always made together. I needed to talk things over with my wife. I was touched that she had turned down his offer, but disappointed that she had not discussed it with me first. For that, she would be punished.

Then we had our family to think about, and what was best for our long term future. I had my thoughts. I wondered just how daring my lovely, loving wife could be.