I sat staring at the screen for a while. Did Ellen take her phone with her when they went to this club? The first thing she asked when I called was if the kids were okay, so she hadn't planned to be completely out of touch; the chances were that she'd carry her phone. Did I dare look at the tracking software? I got up and watched her breathing for a minute. She was sound asleep. I picked up her phone and plugged it in to charge. That was my excuse for touching it if she woke.

It took a few seconds to remember where to look, crossing my fingers and hoping she hadn't turned off location services. She never did know her way around her phone so it was no surprise when I had the map open half a minute later. I found a place where they spent several hours, so that had to be where it was. I made a note of the location and closed the phone. I'll admit that I had a quick look for incriminating texts and emails but found nothing. Was that a good thing?

One thing for sure, my erection had gone down and the whisky had taken some effect. I started to shut everything down and then had another idea. The next tape was them coming back from the club, I decided that was one for when I had more stamina. The one thing that was bugging me was whether Guy had a bigger cock. It sounds stupid but the way I saw it if he had a bigger cock than me, I mean much bigger, then it made sense, he could give her something that I couldn’t.

It scared me, obviously, if he had something I didn’t have then he could take her away, unless I had something she wanted more. Maybe I could be cool about her having what he had and the life I could give her too. I could work on that but if it wasn’t his cock then I had no idea what I was up against. I had to know.

Sitting there with a laptop and whisky I couldn’t watch in 3D, the thing didn’t have the software, but I could separate the tracks and find the one with the best view. It took half an hour to get an answer. I found the track that let me measure his cock and saved some stills. I was in the same room with the same cameras so all I had to do was sit in the same place and get hard and I’d know.

Easier said than done. If I’d been there alone it would have been easy but I had to move furniture so that I could sit in the right place and first I had to move the table. I thought I could lift it but the shape was awkward, After several hopeless attempts that luckily didn’t make noise while failing to move the table I got a couple of towels from the bathroom, got them under the legs and slid the table out of the way. All that was left was to sit at the right angle with a decent erection.

Silently shifting furniture is not an erotic activity. When I had everything in position, I was in no condition to compete with Guy whatever size he was. What to do? I didn’t feel easy with watching porn on my laptop, especially with Ellen fast asleep two meters away; inviting but untouchable. I tried looking at her and hoping it would work but it didn’t do enough.

Maybe the whisky was a mistake. Eventually, I hit on the right trick; I knelt by the side of the bed close to Ellen’s hips. Thanks to her enthusiastic orgasms earlier the scent of her leaking pussy was strong and filled my head. That worked and at some time after midnight, I got my picture.

There was no way that Guy was bigger than me, absolutely no doubt at all. Great, I mean really great, but it meant he must have something else on Ellen. On that unhappy note, I lay next to her and drifted into bad dreams.

I slept, not well, but most of the night at least. I woke before Ellen and lay in bed letting my brain settle. The rhythm of Ellen's breathing was soothing and without thinking about it I found myself breathing in sync with her. I'm sure I've read somewhere that you can communicate better with someone if you do that— well something like that I think. I've always believed in telepathy, or mood transference. I felt incredibly close to her.

What to do was the question. She wasn't going after Guy because he was better endowed than me. He was a likeable man, I knew that. He had charm, even if sometimes he laid it on too thick. He was self-confident for sure, more than me I guess, though I've always thought that having a few doubts was a good thing. I could philosophise about that for days, but it didn't amount to a reason why he would have a hold over her.

Maybe he was a member of that club; could that be the attraction? I had no idea what the club amounted to, maybe I should join— something to think about but hardly worth risking a marriage over. All she had to do was ask and I’d join anything she said.

For a second I got excited imagining what might go on at that club. A mistake — I had to spend two minutes calming myself and getting my breathing back in sync. I had to flush out whatever the issue was. Ellen was clearly not going to tell me anything beyond the notion that I was giving her a treat. It was too late now to watch more of the video, she was bound to wake up soon. I had to make time to study what I had: find out as much as I could and then I'd have to confront Ellen and have it out.

That thought scared me and I had to pay attention to my breathing again. Our whole life might be on the line. This is your life — the headline of that old TV show popped into my head. I could imagine the scene, some smooth guy with a portfolio presenting it to me — opening it up — pictures of Ellen doing... well, doing whatever she'd been doing.

That was a hell of an idea. I could do that, put together the material I had, and give her a portfolio. "This is your lies", seemed like a better title. Then I had another inspiration, our anniversary was coming up, why not present it to her as a surprise. Something cathartic, clearing the air, hopefully laying a foundation for no more lies, or maybe blowing everything up. Her choice. We could either put things right or give up. She'd know for sure how much it was getting to me and take it from there.

It might be a crazy plan, but right then for five minutes, it seemed like a brilliant idea. It didn't take long for the doubts to appear and my brain went into "what if?" mode. That was no bad thing, it stopped me doing anything rash but the more I kicked the idea around the better it got. The real beauty was that I could finely tune how heavy I made it. At one extreme I could lay it on the line that I'd been lied to and I was really mad about it. On the other I could play it very cool, I could lay out guesses as to why she'd done what she did, but leave room for forgiveness, make a game of it, leave her room to manoeuvre.

Next question was what to do about breakfast, did we get room service with Ellen naked like yesterday. I knew I had to try it. Lying next to Ellen, contemplating breakfast like that got me hard thinking about it so when she woke up I was lying next to her, eyes closed, a smile on my face and rock hard.

Ellen woke up and noticed immediately.

“Have you been like that all night?”

I opened my eyes.

“Not quite.”

“Not quite?”

“You kind of abandoned me last night. You fell asleep about three seconds after the second time you came and left me high and dry.”

“Why didn’t you fuck me anyway.”

“You were asleep. Fucking passed out women, even by husbands, is rather frowned upon by the courts these days. I wouldn’t dream of doing that without asking.”

“Oh, poor you. You should have woken me.”

“How was I to know that? You were obviously exhausted and upset by what happened.” I stopped for a second, not sure whether to go on. She saw something in my face or body language or something.

“Go on,” she said, “tell me, there was something you were going to say.”

“I... I don’t know how to say it.”

“Please try.”

“I don’t have the confidence, I mean you went with Guy...”

“What if I did?”

“So I’m, well... you don’t rate me... I mean if I insisted, forced the issue and I was boring...”

My voice drifted to a standstill. The erection collapsed and I was suddenly struggling not to burst into tears. A whole heap of pent-up angst surfaced in a second.

“You’re not boring,” she said, “that’s not it, please don’t ever think that, you mustn’t think that. You’re not the problem.”

What the hell did that mean?

“What can I do?” I said.

“You don’t have to do anything, love. What you’re doing is just fine. Please relax, go with the flow. I love you and you letting me play with Guy made me love you even more.”

She rolled over and kissed me. What could I do? There was no getting away from that. I’ve watched her say the words on tape and I guess they mean what they mean but I took it as code for ‘I’m not going to tell you what I did with Guy'.

All I could do was lie there but my smile had evaporated somewhere. She pulled back a little, I guess to get a better look at me.

“I got that wrong, didn’t I?” she said, taking hold of my now very soft cock. “What a waste.”

“I know what might cure it.”

"Go on."

"What you apparently did yesterday— signed for room service breakfast naked."

"I can't."

"That manager said you did yesterday."

"He's exaggerating."

"Well, what did you do?"

"I can't," she said, rolling away and burying her head in the pillow, "I just can't."

I got out of bed — it seemed like no way I was getting off this morning. I picked a shirt out of the suitcase and started to get dressed.

"Sooner or later we're going to have to talk about yesterday love," I said. "I get it that last night was traumatic, so okay, you win, let's get breakfast."

"Don't you want to shower?" she said, still face down in the pillow?"

"I want to get out of this room. I can shower later. I'll see you downstairs. I'm going to take my time over breakfast."

Two minutes later I was contemplating the buffet. I'd picked a good hotel for Ellen's adventure with Guy so the breakfast had everything. I could pretend to be Scandinavian and have all that cold meat and cheese stuff, or I could be a Scot and have porridge. There were good looking croissants and french bread and what I've heard called the full English heart attack special, fried eggs, fried bread, fried tomato, fried sausage, fried bacon, and even fried black pudding in case there were any northerners or vampires in the house. There were pancakes and maple syrup along with scrambled eggs and a bunch of cereals.

For someone aiming to take their time over breakfast, there was plenty to think about. I was tempted to button-hole a waiter and say with my best South Carolina accent, "How come y'all don't have grits?" but there was a risk of pulling in yesterday's fascist manager so I settled for a kind of international selection; pancakes, maple syrup, bacon, scrambled eggs, and french bread along with fruit juice and coffee.

Maybe I was wrong to walk out on Ellen like that but I was overwhelmed with angst— what was it about her time with Guy that she couldn't talk about?

I ate slowly, thinking my way through the next week, figuring out when I would have time to study the tapes from the previous two days. I needed privacy to make notes, capture stills and think. 'This is Your Lies' as a project still loomed large in my mind. I had figured out where to find the hours I needed when Ellen appeared wearing hip-hugging blue jeans and a white T-shirt that left no doubt about where her nipples were. I think every man in the room watched her stroll along the buffet and drift over to my table with a bowl of porridge and a black coffee.

"May I join you, sir?"

"I kept a space for you," I said. When she put her things down I reached out to take her hand.

"Sorry," she said before I could. "I never imagined it would be this complicated. I thought I'd have a wild night with Guy and then carry on with life as usual."

"Like eating chocolate."

"Yeah," she said. "Exactly. So what do we do?"

"What you said. Carry on. It was your treat. I should stop asking to share it. It wasn't my treat. I should stop being nosey and get on top of the jealousy." I don't know where that came from but it kind of slipped out. Was it the right thing to say? Did I mean it?

Ellen looked at me, I grinned. She took a spoon of porridge then she surprised me. She shook some salt onto her porridge. I raised an eyebrow.

“I read somewhere salt brings out the proper flavour... or maybe I’m feeling humble. It isn’t none of your business. You gave me a present, you ought to have a right to know that it worked, that I liked it.”

“So send me a thank-you letter.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I should do that... but..." She looked at the table, held my right hand with her left, looked at the porridge, took a spoonful and wrapped her mouth around the spoon, swallowed, looked back at me, trying to smile but it wasn't her usual beaming, lighting up the world smile, this was regretful, rueful, slow and hesitant.

"You ought to have more than that. I know you should, deep down I know I need to tell you more. I ought to tell you what was good about it, which of my buttons it pushed; because you might want to do it again and knowing you, you’d want to do even better next time. I get that, I really do get that and I want to tell you, I do want to tell you but I just don’t know how.”

She stopped again and I could see the beginning of tears in the corners of her eyes. I couldn't push it any further. Tears over breakfast was always a bad idea, a bad start to the day. She'd made a big admission compared to where we'd ever gotten before, so I let it go at that.

"At least tell me about the porridge," I said. "Here a chance to practice telling me about an experience I can't imagine, if I was going to make porridge for you, I need to know."

"You think it could be a metaphor?"

"Maybe. You picked it."

"It's thick, it holds in your mouth. With sugar and cream it slides down, but like this, it has to be experienced in the mouth. The salt hits you straight away, almost like tasting blood. Your mouth has to work harder, there's something almost masochistic about it." She giggled. "How am I doing?"

"I'm guessing it's not like school dinners when I was a kid, like boiled cabbage and overdone sprouts — not like a penance?"

"No," she said, but there was a hesitation there.

"You mean like when you have to do something and you know you have to; like you deserve being made to do it but you'd rather be doing something else?"

She thought for a long moment, hesitating.

"It's not really like that... maybe more like picking at a scab when you know you shouldn't." She giggled again. "I'm hopeless at this," she said. "You'll have to try it."

I picked up a spare spoon and half filled it from her bowl. She watched the spoon make its way to my mouth. I stopped halfway there as though I was having second thoughts and watched her face as her expression changed from an open smile to a kind of devious curiosity. It was the first time I've ever felt something close to a telepathic experience. I caught something and there was enough of a hint in her smile that she knew she was telling me something.

It tasted how she said, a sort of wholesome humble taste, poor but honest. If that was a metaphor for her time with Guy then this was more complicated than anything I’d imagined. The one thought that came into my mind was caution. I needed to take time over getting to the bottom of this, not jump to conclusions, keep an open mind.

I let the porridge stick to my tongue and let the flavour develop. "It could grow on you," I said and went back to my maple syrup pancake and sausage.

"What time do we have to check out?"

"Ten, I think."

"Pity," she said. "You've made me come a lot. I've neglected you and it's too late now."

"Maybe not," I said. "I'd probably come in five seconds."

That got me a wry smile. "Hardly a treat. Maybe it would be better at home."

"Or both?"

Finally, she laughed properly and relaxed.

"That's what I needed to hear," I said, "That laugh, that smile. That's the reclaim I needed."

She reached out and took both of my hands, holding them, refusing to let go for at least a minute. She finished her porridge before I was done with my deluxe breakfast so she got up and said, "I'll see you upstairs."

When I walked in the door Ellen was lying on the bed naked.

"Have your shower," she said. "I talked to reception, we can check out at twelve. They were amazingly polite, you must have put the fear of God in them."

I didn’t need much of a hint as to what she had in mind. I’ve always liked shower sex and Ellen knew that. It was a good shower, plenty of hot water and a wide head. I like that feeling of being totally drenched. I also like soaping Ellen all over and the two of us being slippery together.

That treat came after the blowjob. She took her time, getting me hard and then edging me and when she thought I was almost there she’d pull back and run the water for a minute, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. It was the craziest, funniest sex I’ve ever had with a spell fucking properly on the bathroom floor in the middle. There was heating under the tiles and Ellen laid down a towel, opened her legs and insisted that I took control.

We had coffee, if you can call the stuff in the minibar coffee. We packed. I took the mirror off the wall and replaced it with the picture I’d stashed in the wardrobe.

“Want to keep the dry flowers? They’re supposed to last for ages.”

“Sure. I like them, they’d be a kind of souvenir... is that okay with you?”

“Definitely.” That gave me a lift, Ellen being sensitive — that sounds bad; Ellen isn’t insensitive, she’s kind, organised, looks ahead, an ideal wife. When I first met her she was much more wild; was that what the Guy thing was all about?

She never said that exactly— actually I’m hard pushed to know what she did say— the idea kind of grew between us and I kind of knew that she needed something she wasn’t getting.

What got me when I saw that video two days ago was the way it sounded like there’d been a thing with Guy before we planned the hotel night. I know Guy, known him a while, I never saw him as someone who’d tell his wife he was going to spend a night with some hotwife. I never saw him as someone who’d screw me over. There had to be something I was missing.

Guy always complains that he’s in a dead end job, but it pays well. Sally is too interested in her status and her kids' private school, so she won’t let him quit. I could imagine him cheating on her, but not colluding in playing away. The one thing Guy did that was out of the ordinary was amateur dramatics. Ellen and I had seen him in a couple of plays; he could act. Maybe that was another clue.

As we packed away the clock, the vase and the mirror I decided that my plan should be to see all the video and then talk to Guy. With what I’d seen so far I had enough to cause him trouble with Sally, especially if I was right in my guess that she didn’t know. Once I’d decided that, it cleared my head. I found I was easier with Ellen. The tension disappeared and we started to laugh

We checked out at eleven with another bout of obsequiousness from the staff and the whole stay cost us nothing. Ellen felt guilty about that as we drove home but I tried to talk her out of it.

“What’s wrong with being called a prostitute anyway?”

She gave me a stiff look. “Oh, I get it,” I said, “you didn’t actually get paid.” I got another stiff look. "In a purely theoretical sense, there could be some advantages."

"Go on," she said, "out with it."

"There are pros and cons," I said. "I might worry about your safety if you were on the game, which is obviously a big point against, but I wouldn't worry about losing you. Hookers rarely run off with their clients— not that I have any data, but a commercial transaction does emphasise a separation between sex and affection."

"I never thought of it like that," she said. "It's still a slur though, isn't it? A label, a sign of disapproval."

"And you don't like being disapproved of."

"It's not that actually," she said. "Sin is attractive, transgressive acts are often exciting, full of adrenaline— I mean they must be, mustn't they, or no one would do them. But being found out is the opposite; that's the downer. That's how I felt... and I didn't like you having to deal with it, I mean that's not what you signed up for. I felt I was dragging you down. I thought they'd accuse you of being a pimp and that upset me."

"It was partly my fault."

"No."

"Yes, it was. If we'd stuck to the original plan it wouldn't have happened. What confused things was both of us going back there. If I'd just booked the room and cleared up after I could have been someone working for Guy, handling his hotel reservation— there would have been nothing suspicious."

"You're too good to me.” She stopped for a moment. “Adrian, darling, could we stop talking about this now? I know we need to, and I promise we will, but for now, I need to get my breath back.”

She smiled at me, blew me a kiss as we were driving along and leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes. I put the radio on.

When we got home, Ellen decided that collecting the kids herself would be better. Was she feeling guilty? She’d have to intercept my mother who is known to spend the afternoon at her health club. No point in trying to phone. The place is some distance away so along with all the hello and goodbye stuff and collecting the kids' toys it was likely to be a couple of hours.

“I’ll go,” she said. “You’ve been rushing around on my account for the last few days. Relax, go to the gym or something, burn off all the angst. I'll be back in a couple of hours with the kids and we can get back to normal.

"Good idea," I said, thinking I'd have at least an hour to look at the video and some time to think. I guessed she wanted some alone time too. I could have gone with her but we'd only pick at it or have a very artificial conversation where we skirted around the topic and got nowhere.

I waved her goodbye and waited a few minutes then checked where her phone was. Once she was five miles away, I figured it must be safe.

I hunted through the videos and picked what I guessed must be them returning from the club. The tape was only an hour long, so I guessed they came back and were asleep before the hour was out. The cameras were programmed to switch off after five minutes without sound or movement.

The tape kicked into life after they'd come through the door. I guess the sound of the door woke up the system. The camera in the flower vase saw them as they came in. Ellen was still wearing her long black coat and Guy looked similar. Once they were through the door Guy said something that I couldn't catch and Ellen took her coat off.

That's when I got my first shock. She was naked under the coat, so she'd gone to the club like that. The only thing she was wearing was a leather collar with a long dog chain attached and a chain between her nipples. When she'd dropped her coat, she took the clamps off her nipples and there was a muffled shriek.

"Undress me," Guy said. "It will take your mind off the pain."

I watched as she removed Guy's coat and hung it in the cupboard. After that, she stripped him completely and knelt in front of him. He used the leash to lift her chin and she took his cock in her mouth without hesitation. By then they were in full view of the 3D cameras so I switched to that.

My adrenaline was pumping flat out and it was hard to watch and think. The one thing I did get was total confirmation that Guy definitely was not over-endowed. The 3D view made that absolutely clear.

Ellen never said anything about being a sex slave but it was hard to see it any other way. Barely a word passed between them. It was as if she was supposed to guess what was required of her but had no choice in the matter. Guy was obviously enjoying the experience. He’d let her work for a minute or two and then pull out and wave his cock around in her face. If he had a bigger one I’d call it cock-whipping but it never got close to that. Eventually, he came and splattered all over her face.

He wouldn’t let her wipe it off. He led her into the bathroom and made her sit and pee while he held the chain. After that, he pulled her back into the room. Made her lie down on a towel and locked her chain to the bed leg. He had a shower, completely ignored her and went to sleep, leaving her with a face covered in cum.  What was very weird was that he left the lights on. He wore an eye mask but Ellen had to sleep in the light. Cool from the point of view of the movie I was making, but I hated Guy for it.

Through the night, every time Ellen turned over, the camera came back on and recorded another five minutes. It gave me some great views of her but it pissed me off that Guy was treating her like that.

I turned off the computer and stashed the videos where Ellen wouldn’t find them and then went for a jog. Pounding the streets for half an hour seemed like a good idea to work the aggression out of my system.

Why? That was the question. It could be that Guy had some hold over her, but I hadn’t clue what it could be. I’ve always found running is good for sorting out messy problems. I took a route that would take twenty minutes, leaving time to get back and shower before Ellen and the kids got back.

There is something about running that has a unique magic. It hurts at first but there comes a point, call it second wind or whatever, where your head clears and the rhythm settles. That’s when there’s a chance to see the world differently. That’s when I had the ‘what if’ thought.

What if being a sex slave was Ellen’s idea? I don’t know where the notion came from but once it arrived I couldn’t get rid of it. The inescapable point was that there were two people involved, so one of them must be an instigator. What if it was Ellen, not Guy?

Why would she involve Guy? Why not me? If she’d asked me... I’d have been shocked. She would know I’d be shocked — did that mean she wouldn’t ask me. I’d jogged another half mile before I was sure. Ellen must have a primitive submissive undercurrent in her somewhere and she was ashamed of it. She couldn’t tell me. She must be scared I wouldn’t approve, scared where it took her, could take us, if it was out in the open. Guy, on the other hand, was an actor — was that it? Was he there to play a part and nothing more?

Half of me wanted to stop right there, stop and think but the other half knew I had to keep running and work out where to take this. How did I feel? How did I really feel? I’ve read all that stuff about husbands who are reliable, dependable, civilised, great fathers, and they end up being cuckolded by wives who have a need for outrageous sex of some kind. These guys are appreciated, loved even, by their liberated wives. I’m not knocking that, but I wasn’t sure that was me.

I got that far before I got home.  I decided not to overplay my hand. I thought I could risk talking to Guy. If he got back to Ellen it would blow it out in the open, as long as I knew he’d done it. So that meant I had to bug her phone and the house phone. A bit wicked but if that blew up it would also blow everything open. It might be awkward but I’d risk it.

I still had the ‘This is Your Lies’ thing bouncing around in my head. I’d get that written first, before anything else, then talk to Guy. By the time Ellen and the kids came home, I had a plan.

I hugged the kids, broke out the ice cream and transferred the hugging to Ellen.

“Did you go to the gym?”

“I jogged on the road.”

She pushed me back a little to get a clear view of my face. “Did it help?” she said. I loved the concern I could see on her face.

“It did,” I said. “Brilliant idea.”

Chapter 5

The next week we luxuriated in being normal. We did things with the kids, I jogged, Ellen went to the gym and we fucked every night. I knew it was rebound sex and Ellen was making sure I came as often as she did. We even joked about it.

“Are you actually keeping score,” I said one night when she was very insistent.

“I owe you,” she said. “I pay my dues.”

“You shouldn’t think like that, it was a gift.”

“The first night, yeah, I get that, but the second night you rescued me and I didn’t treat you right.”

“You were upset.”

“You gave me three orgasms and I didn’t give you one. That wasn’t right.”

“I thought it was two.”

She gave me a sly smile. ”Three.”

'Who knew?' I thought.

“I wasn’t part of the deal. The important thing is that you had a great time with Guy. That’s what the weekend was about. It was about you not me. I don’t want you feeling guilty about any part of it. As long as it worked for you that’s all that matters.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine, but we’re back home now.”

“I know I’m being nosey, but did you have a good time?”

“Yes.”

“As good as you hoped?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to do it again?”

“Oh, dear.”

“Let me put it another way, if you could do it again, as often as you wanted, would you still come back to me?”

“Yes,” she said straight away, “but I would worry if you always wanted to know about what I did.”

“You’re never going to tell me?”

“I didn’t say that, but it has to be up to me.”

“Am I allowed any secrets?” I wished I hadn’t said it as soon as the words came out. My brain went into overdrive, should I take it back, say I was joking or stick with it. It was a good question, especially knowing what I was beginning to plan, but it was a risky question too. It put Ellen on the spot— she had a secret and we’d never told each other that it was okay to keep secrets.

She looked at me with a glance that was a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

“Is that what it feels like?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was something that just popped into my head. If I had any sense I’d have buttoned my lip.”

“But you didn’t... Actually, I’m glad you said it. I hadn’t seen it like that. My secret isn’t something that should worry you. It’s not a threat to us unless we make it one. I’m not having an affair. I’m not going to run off with someone else. I’m not going to abandon you or the kids, there’s an itch I need to scratch and right now, I can’t explain it. It’s not that I won’t, it’s that something weird goes on inside me and I get churned up and confused by it. I can’t tell you until I can make sense of it.”

“So can I have a secret if it’s on the same conditions?”

“Oh, that’s clever, well, cunning anyway. I can’t refuse can I.” We were in bed side by side. She rolled over to look at me carefully. “I’m not going to regret this, am I?”

“Is that a condition too?”

Ellen laughed. “Sorry, I’m being impossible. Yes, darling, you can have a secret. You’ve trusted me, so it’s only fair. I’ll trust you. Now fuck me.”

I waited another week before I contacted Guy. We met in town in a coffee bar close to the ‘club’ he had taken Ellen. On the way there, I checked the place and found that it was a small theatre. The place was closed and I couldn’t tell from the outside what sort of shows it ran.

Guy was there when I arrived, seated in a back corner. Really it ought to be dimly lit but you can’t have everything. After the usual pleasantries and ordering coffee I launched into my game.

“Thanks for coming. You’ve probably guessed that I wanted to talk about Ellen.”

“There’s not a lot I can say, what Ellen says about our night is up to her.”

“Oh sure, I understand that. I’ve already found out most of what I needed to know. What I wanted to talk about is what happens next.”

“That’s up to Ellen isn’t it?”

I thought that was interesting, either a clever bluff or confirmation that Ellen was the prime mover. I opened my folder. “Ellen hasn’t seen these, they’re good don’t you think?”

“How the hell?”

“Your fault,” I said. “When I felt a bit guilty and called Ellen you laughed at me, so I didn’t mention the other two cameras.”

“Jesus.”

“Ellen seems to think you told Sally all about this but my guess is that you didn’t. Right?”

“Shit.”

“It’s okay, I don’t want to cause trouble. Ellen can’t bring herself to tell me about it. My guess is that she gets off on being some kind of sex slave slut but she feels guilty and weird about it and can’t figure out how to explain it to me. I want to give her another treat. I want the details of what went on at the theatre down the road. I’m guessing you have some connection there — that’s why Ellen picked on you. Right?”

“You won’t tell Sally?”

“Assuming we can work together there’d be no reason. It cuts both ways, I don’t want Ellen to know we’re talking.”

Guy’s fingers had a slight tremor as he held his coffee cup. “Sure, sure,” he said. “You’re not going to be hard on Ellen.”

“Not in the slightest.”

He took a deep breath and glanced around the room. “I can’t believe you pulled that trick with the bugs.”

“If you’d stopped to think it might have crossed your mind but you were too busy thinking I was an idiot. How long has your affair been going on?”

“What? No. We weren’t having an affair.”

“I have film of her sucking your cock.”

“Yeah but it’s not what it looks like — I know that’s what you’d expect me to say. It was part of Ellen’s script.”

“Script?”

“She’s read these stories.”

“She never said.”

Guy covered his face. "She’ll kill me if I tell you.”

“She won’t know. I’ll tell her I got everything from what I bugged. Tell me the whole thing.”

“I don’t know the whole thing.”

“What do you know?”

“We met because I did the lighting for the school play and she asked where I learned. Later, she came to me with a story, a script, something she got off the web, or that’s what she said. She wanted to act it out, that’s why she came to me.”

“Go on.”

“I could give you the script.”

“That would be good. Who was involved?”

“The theatre does a few adult nights to balance the books, so there’s a crew of guys they use.”

“Guys?”

“Male strippers — they do hen nights. Sorry.”

I sat looking at the table for a minute, trying to see my way into it.

“Ellen won’t tell me because she’s shy or ashamed or embarrassed or something like that?”

“Not for me to say.”

'Otherwise known as yes,' I thought.

“Thanks, Guy," I said. "You’re right, it’s my problem. E-mail me that script, please. I may need to talk to you again when I have the next treat planned. I‘m  happy to work with you and keep Sally out of it, but that cuts both ways, you only tell Ellen anything about our conversations, right? Is that a deal?”

I left it at that. My next move was to find Ellen’s stories. Guy sent me the one that caused the trouble and a link to the website.

My first plan was to find a story that I liked on the site and tell Ellen that I’d come across it by accident but the more I thought about it the more contrived it sounded. I read Ellen's story a couple of times. The gist of it was a woman who went to a girls' night out where they had male a stripper.

She got carried away in the excitement and ended up sucking the stripper's cock. She was photographed doing it and as a result, was blackmailed into being a sex slave for a later event. She was taken to the venue naked and had to suck several cocks for the entertainment of the crowd who yelled encouragement.

The scene made sense of what I'd seen. I checked out the site to see if the author had written any more stories but at least for now that was all there was. I checked Ellen's computer and although she hadn't saved anything that she hadn't deleted her history so I was able to read the other stories that she'd looked at.

Tracking her history showed me that she read that story several times. It wasn't a great piece of literature, so clearly it was the content and what it did to her imagination that hooked her, rather than any literary qualities. That was fascinating because Ellen is something of a grammar freak, so getting involved with this story was a kind of double transgression.

I set myself up with a profile on the site, making sure that there was nothing in it that resembled me. I felt bad about doing that but I didn't intend it to be permanent, so I kind of forgave myself. I spent a day trying to think of a plot that could work and then wrote and uploaded my story. The next move was to tell Guy that he had to recommend the story to Ellen.

The plot was simple, but taking things a little further than last time. The heroine, if that's the right word was pushed into the scene in part by being reminded what a good time she had had at a wild party and partly by a hint that her previous adventures might be exposed. The first part of the story closed with her arriving at the theatre, dressed as before, naked under a long black trench coat.

Guy told her that he could arrange another night with the strippers if she would be interested. He said he knew the author of the story and that Ellen could act out the second act of the story, live on the night. Some of the actors had the script but Ellen would have to live the role and ad-lib in response to the other actors.

I increased the temptation by telling Ellen that I had to be away a couple of days at a work conference. There was nothing to stop her going.

I made arrangements for Guy to pick up Ellen, and stay overnight at a hotel while she studied the script. That was an excuse to get her out of the house and get her in the mood. I thought Guy needed something out of it too and now I knew he was no competition I figured it was safe.

She spent a night with Guy and the next day worked on the script, trying to guess where it went next. I'd given Guy a few "what if?" scenarios to whet her imagination. In the late afternoon, she was taken straight to the theatre, naked under her coat like last time. When she arrived her coat was removed and a collar and leash were attached.

Then came the first surprise, she was masked with an elasticated fishnet hood that covered her head and neck with holes for her mouth and nose but over the eyes, it was as dense as a sleeping mask. The whole thing was laced to her collar with a wire thread, padlocked at the back.

“It’s for your benefit,” said Guy, “so no one can recognise you.”

I was watching on video. Ellen was a little bothered by the mask but soon settled.

“What do I have to do?”

“Do as you’re told. React to what happens to you. You’re a sex slave. Be one.”

Ellen was led into a larger room where there were five naked men, not that she could see them. They were big, very well endowed men. There was another woman too; naked like Ellen but not blindfolded or masked.

"This is a competition," said a disembodied voice. There are five cocks for you to work on. The first woman to make all five come is the winner. Your performance is being watched."

"You mean all these guys have to come twice?" the second woman said.

"Who is that?" Ellen said.

There was no response to either woman, but each was led to a cock to begin work. I had no way of knowing what Ellen made of what she'd heard but she must have realised that it was a race and that some of the men would already have come before she got to the last of them.

As a test of stamina it cut both ways, the men would have to recharge themselves and that might present a problem. We had been assured that all the men were capable of multiple orgasms but no one knew how fast they'd get their mojo back. For the women, it was a simple question mouth muscle stamina.

Ellen may have had a slight advantage, the mask made her look amazingly sexy and vulnerable. The other woman was naked and good looking but didn't have that edge. I wanted Ellen to win, some kind of crazy loyalty I guess but what I really wanted to know was whether she was enjoying it. Was there any way to tell?

I had to put it out of my mind, I had a plan and I had to stick to it. Ellen was ahead after the second cock, the other girl had one down and was working on the second when Ellen started on her third. That had to be an advantage but once that was out of the way her next one would be the first man that the other woman had already blown. It seemed to me that it became interesting once they got into those second timers, but at least Ellen would only have two of those, the other woman would have three.

The cock Ellen was working on was the smallest of the five; that had to help; deep throating it looked easy by comparison and I could see the excitement building on the cock owner's face. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should be appalled at my wife's behaviour and worried what it meant for our longterm future, but that die was cast a while ago when she talked me and Guy into colluding in her first adventure.

Despite all that going on in my head, I felt a jolt of elation when the third guy came. Ellen moved on to number four and her competitor was still making heavy weather of number two. I knew this wasn't fixed, or at least that's what Guy had promised, but that second cock for the other girl was the biggest of the five and she was struggling with it.

Ellen grabbed her fourth and went at it. She knew what she was doing, working gently around the head for a minute before she took it in completely. She went at it, getting it deeper and deeper for a minute and then I saw her finger start to delve behind him. Cunning girl I thought and it worked, really worked. I saw the response; his body jerked upright and his cock thrust forward and seconds later he came.

The other girl was still on number two, the only one left that Ellen hadn't blown. Guy was doing the job of umpire. He blew a whistle.

"That does it," Guy said. "Like cycling, when one team catches the other. That nails it. On to the next part."

"What?" said Ellen, getting up off her knees. Guy took her hand. "You get a little break, sorry you can't see but you can listen." He led Ellen to the side of the room and nudged her into a chair.

There was a certain amount of commotion and the stripper guys went off to change. Number two who hadn't even come looked disappointed.  When he came off stage I spoke to him and guaranteed he’d be looked after — stamina like that had to be rewarded.

The next part of the show was a fake, put on entirely for Ellen’s benefit. What she heard was an auction, the woman she’d been competing with being sold to the highest bidder, or at least that’s what it sounded like. The intent was to get her thinking about the position she had put herself in.

When the sounds of the first auction had died away Ellen was nudged into standing up.

"Sorry about this," said Guy, "but you don't get a say in this part but you do get to see." He unlocked the wire holding the mask and lifted the hood over her head. Before she had a chance to say anything he forced a ball gag into place and locked it at the back.

"Hold your hands out."

Ellen watched as Guy wrapped a leather cuff around each wrist. He pulled them gently behind her back and then clipped a chain running from the cuff diagonally across her back and over her shoulder to attach to her collar. The effect was to make certain that her hands stayed by her side.

"You look brilliant. You should fetch a great price, especially after that performance."

I figured that by now Ellen would be feeling anxious; nothing about an auction had been mentioned when Guy set up the deal and none of the scenarios they'd worked on had anything like that.

After watching her performance with the four cocks she made to come it was obvious that she had a talent for that and maybe a need. What would I do if she wanted that sort of activity to be a regular thing? It's impossible to say, but although I was shocked I was still in one piece. If I could be sure she wasn't keeping secrets, if I always knew what was going on and I was sure she wanted to stay with me, then I thought I could cope.

Checking that out was part of the rest of the plan. The next half hour was completely scripted, so while I was watching with one eye on the screen I phoned the guys who had been preparing the next part of the plan.

"How is it going?"

"All done. It looks good but when we take it down there will be some damage."

"Surface damage or structural?"

Surface mostly— where we've been fixing things. It looks like you asked but it may be a bit fragile in parts. The bunk fits fine."

"What about the locks and fixing points?"

"All solid, no problems there."

"And the cameras?"

"All good and with the dim light you'd have to know where they were to spot them."

"Thanks. Can you send me a few pictures and I'll send the money."

“No sweat, leave it till we take it down.”

The pictures turned up minutes later. It was sad about my office but for the moment I'd have to manage without. Maybe when all this was done I could learn to work in what now looked like a medieval dungeon.

The mock auction was going well, Ellen standing on the block, illuminated by very bright spotlights, so it was my guess that she couldn't see anything of the rest of the room. She could hear the bidding, that was what counted.

The script had the bidding going up to fifty thousand before it stopped. At that poin,t Guy came up to the platform where she'd been standing and put the hood back over her head. The room cleared of people and Ellen, or Eve, as the auctioneer had called her, was left standing on the platform. She couldn't go anywhere because the chain from her collar was anchored to the floor.

Now it was my turn. Ellen wasn't going to be able to see me but she could hear and smell me. I had spent half an hour on a men's fragrance counter buying shower gel and spray deodorant that I'd never heard of before. I'd grown two days of stubble since I left home. With luck I would smell and feel different, I just had to make sure that I maintained my new accent. While Ellen was standing on the platform thinking, I spoke to the stamina freak who had missed out on coming in the early session. I offered him a free fuck if he was interested. He was.

The stamina man, Angus, was up for some more games so I told him to collect 'Eve' and bring her to my vehicle. I hired a big sedan, not wanting to allow any possibility that 'Eve' could guess where she was going. Angus put her in the trunk, just to add to the atmosphere and confusion. He pulled her coat off and threw a blanket over her.