About two months after my husband started his new job in Columbus, I found a coworker and friend in tears in the women's room at work. I had known Claire for about six months. She was a contracted technical worker; a professional researcher, not a regular employee. We had become friends while she was assigned to a team project with me. Now she was on another project, but we always looked for each other in the cafeteria and ate together when we could.

She was thirty years old, five foot eleven with a slender athletic build, flattish chest, boyish hips, broad shoulders, striking red hair, and a lean angular face. Not a classic beauty, but the kind of woman who would be called handsome. She was a lot like Kyra, only younger, taller, a ginger, and less feminine.

"Claire, sweetie, what's the matter?"

"Oh, Cathy, I'm having a helluva fuckin' day. I just found out my fuckin' husband is cheating on me. The only good thing is that he won't be back until Friday, so I have time to think about whether to cut his fuckin' balls off before or after I change the fuckin' locks and find a fuckin' lawyer."

"Oh, you poor girl."

Claire's potty mouth was something she hid well in normal business conversations, but we'd had a few drinks together once and when I wasn't shocked at the verbal filth that resulted as she described her college years, she routinely let her guard slip when we were alone. It seemed to be a way that she relieved stress. She had joked that she was a lady with the vocabulary of a well educated sailor.

"I took this fuckin' marriage seriously. I've been faithful and that hasn't been easy. Truth is, I've been lookin' for a fuckin' reason to get out, but this hurts, more than I would have thought. I feel like I've been punched in the fuckin' guts."

I didn't know her that well, but I knew what it felt like to learn that your husband was cheating.

"Promise me you'll keep a secret and I'll promise that you won't regret it."

"Sure, Cathy. I swear on my dead fuckin' husband's grave. He's not dead yet, but that's a detail I'm fuckin' mad enough to fuckin' arrange."

"Well, I have experience with learning that a husband is cheating on you."

"Your husband? I never knew."

"That's because it's a secret. I don't need the consequences of that becoming common knowledge. And it's because we worked it out."

"How do you work something like that out?"

"It's not easy, especially when you realize that your marriage will be permanently broken. There's no way that I can ever trust him again, but there are ways to live with that. Let's have dinner together and I'll tell you."

"I can't do that, Cathy. I have to pick up my girls from daycare after work and feed them."

"Hey, we can get takeout or something. Or I can help you cook dinner. I don't think you should be alone until you've heard what I can do for you."

"Really? It might be good to have some company tonight."

"Stop by my office before you go. I'll follow you home."

"Sure. I can do that."

Of course I was thinking that the club might want to recruit her, so I sent a text to Mrs. Cardinal with Claire's name, a brief description of her job, and her husband's name. An hour later I received a call on my secret cell.

"Recruit her."

"Um, I was thinking you might want to send someone more skilled."

"You have wings little bird. It's time to fly. I've started the research and she looks like a catch. We need her as much as we need her husband."

"I don't know if I can do this, Kyra."

"She's your friend. You know her better than anybody else we have. Find out what motivates her and use it. Seal it with sex if you're willing and she's interested. Or money, or altruism, or all of the above."

I thought about what Kyra said for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to do the right thing for Claire, for me, and for the club. I just didn't know if I was up to the task.

***

"You wanted me to stop by?"

She looked much more composed, but still had the appearance of a lost soul.

"Hi, Claire. I got a sitter for my kids, I'll follow you home."

"Cathy, I'm confused. What exactly is your interest in me? Because, I've been trying to interest you in me and you've never responded, until now, when I'm at my worst and having the worst day of my life."

What? This was unexpected. It began to dawn on me, but only slowly. I had thought she was just a touchy-feely person, but there had been signs of a more intimate interest.

"Interest me in you? You mean like in... "

I saw hope, fear, and anticipation of rejection in her eyes. I suddenly understood.

"Claire, I... I'm not ruling that out."

She breathed a sigh of relief and the amount of hope increased. I considered the implications.

"I'm sorry if I missed some signals, sweetie, but I've had a very complicated life for the past year. I'm not exclusive. I've only had one and she's my best friend. I don't have a shortage of lovers at the moment, but there's room for one more, as long as it stays discreet of course. I'm making up a short list of candidates right now and you're the only one on it. But you're also a candidate for something else I have in mind and I think it would be the opportunity of a lifetime for you. You'll be on my short list either way, but time is of the essence on the other one. It's going to require trust. I will take care of you and your daughters. Will you trust me?"

"Yes. I will, long enough to hear you out. But I'm running late. I have to go pick up the girls."

"We'll pick them up together. I'll drive. I don't think it's a good idea for you to drive." I had stepped up beside her, ready to lead out the door.

"But... "

"No buts, Claire. I'll bring you back in the morning."

I leaned in and kissed her on the lips. Not long and not deep, but clearly not sisterly.

"You said you would trust me. Let's go."

I knew that I was showing a side of me to Claire that she hadn't seen before. I was winging it. Claire gave me directions to the day care center and we picked up her four year old and two-year-old daughters. She introduced me as Aunt Cathy, so they would know I was a friend.

I convinced Claire that pizza and wine were the perfect meal for us. So I picked up a bottle of red on the way and followed her directions to her house in a nearby suburb. She put the kids to bed at 8 and then joined me on the sofa.

"Okay, I'm all ears, Cathy."

"The first thing I want to say, Claire, is that men are not our enemy. They are unruly beasts of burden that we have difficulty managing. I belong to an organization that can help with that and so much more, and they want you, but only if you and your husband can stay together. They wanted me under the same conditions and that's why I didn't get a divorce when he cheated on me. They made me an offer that was fantastic. I've committed to being the last wife that my husband has.

"I just can't imagine that, Cathy."

"I imagined my future without him, and the futures of my children without their father, and I compared it to the future that we can have as part of this organization. I've been a member for less than a year, but I haven't regretted my decision to join for a minute. Life is not all roses with my husband, but I've felt the hurt you're feeling now, and I think I made the right choice. Take a minute to think about what life would be like for you and your daughters if you leave your husband."

She took more than five minutes. Then she told me that starting over without him could be pretty bad, but staying with him could be worse. He hadn't physically abused her, but she knew she could never trust him again and probably couldn't bring herself to sleep with him again.

"Neither of those are essential, Claire. Give me your honest opinion. Is he a good father to your daughters?

"Yes, absolutely. I can't fault him there."

"That's good. It's very important and it means that taking him out of that role could be more harmful to them than keeping him. Our organization helps women and children all over the world benefit from avoiding divorce, by helping the woman get the right deal and then providing her with the means and support to keep it together."

I handed my white card to her and said, "Have you ever seen one of these?"

She looked it over pretty carefully. It was just a plain white card with a magnetic strip on the back. No name was embossed on it. It bore no logo from VISA or MasterCard or any bank.

"Sure, it's an ordinary credit card blank. It has to be programmed. It has to have a name stamped on it."

She handed it back to me.

"No, it doesn't need a name and it's already programmed, Claire. Looks can be deceiving. Maybe that's the lesson of using a blank card. I can take this card almost anywhere and buy almost anything I could need, and I would do so completely anonymously and not necessarily with my own money. My children don't have to worry about college funding, and I don't have to worry about retirement saving. I could quit working right now and live out my days in luxury, that's the deal they struck with my husband. But with this card, and with the commitment to the organization that it represents, I'm convinced that I'm making the world a better place for us and our children.

"You might not start out with a card this powerful, but judging from how my sponsor jumped at the chance to recruit you, you'll definitely be eligible for a card. I'm offering to be your sponsor. Your level of commitment to helping us will determine how much influence you'll have."

"Wow! This is all so fuckin' intense. But what are we doing?"

When I heard the word we, I knew that I already had her.

"We're keeping the men of the world from fucking everything up and getting us all killed, and we're having a pretty good time doing it. One man who knows more about us than we would like, but less than he thinks he knows, calls us a bunch of conniving cunts who pretend to run the world while we whore around and blackmail men. He got that all right except for the part about pretending."

"It's very tempting. But I honestly don't think I have that much to offer Mick if I stay. He'll probably be happy to see me go, and he'll try to keep me from having custody of my kids, just to spite me. There are some things in my past."

"Let us worry about that, sweetie. We have expertise in convincing men. We'll put together a package he won't want to refuse. It will spell out rewards and punishments. It will be a tempting offer for him too, mainly because we have ways to hurt him badly if he doesn't see reason. I'm not sure what my sponsor sees in you or him, but she wants me to recruit you and she has a way of getting what she wants.

I told her how useful it was to convince her man that she had options, if he wouldn't agree to the changes she wanted. I told her about showing up at my house in a stretch limo with an armed female body guard, packing my sexiest dress while my husband stood helplessly by and leaving him with the kids for an unspecified time while I contemplated my options. I told her about the many changes I went through over the weekend that I spent with my sponsor.

"I could do all of that for you, Claire. I could take us to some woman-friendly place while my team puts together a weapon to subdue your husband with."

"You could really do that?"

"It would be a pleasure."

"Where did you go?"

"We went to a spa resort, but that place catered to older women. It was fun, but maybe not right for you. We can go anywhere within reason."

"You mean like Vegas?"

"Well, we should go somewhere peaceful. You're probably going to have lots of questions over the weekend. We'll talk, eat, drink, play."

"Play?"

"Get to know each other better."

"I like the sound of that."

"Where would you like me to take you?"

"I don't know. This is all so overwhelming."

"Well, we don't have to decide right away. It's only Wednesday. For the next two days, it will be business as usual at work, then the limo will whisk you away."

"Can I take my daughters with me?"

"I don't see why not, but do you think that will increase, or decrease, your husband's acceptance of the deal we offer?"

"Good thinking. I think it would be good for him to have to take care of them for a while, let him know that trying for sole custody might not be so pleasant, but I'll miss them so much."

"You can call them, maybe skype them."

"Okay, let's fuckin' do this."

"Welcome, sister. We have a lot of work to do. Let's get started. First, let me tell my sponsor the good news."

***

When Kyra answered, I said, "We have a new recruit, but she drove a tough bargain."

"Mmm-hmmm. Do I hear a request for a spa weekend?"

"We haven't decided where yet, but I think a weekend getaway is called for."

"And I'm assuming fur checks will be involved?"

"Um, yeah, probably. I didn't think you would mind."

"No, Cath. You have fun. I'm gonna bet she would have agreed if that was the only offer."

"Um, maybe," I said with a grin.

"I've created a monster," she laughed. "I'll schedule the jet for Friday afternoon."

"Thanks."

"Thank you for this recruit."

***

As we worked out the details and she took the oath, I became more and more attracted to her. I initially thought that I would just take one for the team, because I'm not really attracted to most women. But all it took was to imagine myself in her arms, rubbing her muscular shoulders, squeezing her tight butt. Now that I was looking at her in a new light, I was warming to the idea of having a more intimate friendship with her.

But from our talk, I also learned how emotionally impoverished her life was. Since moving to St. Louis, she had not developed a helpful social network. She thought of me as her best local friend while I had thought of her as barely more than a casual job acquaintance. She had no relatives in the area. She had no sisters at all. Her job did not produce many friendships.

Her husband was somewhat controlling and isolating, because he knew she was bisexual and didn't want competition from anyone. She only learned about his infidelity because the woman had sent an email that morning, rubbing it in her face and advising her to give him up.

I could relate to that because of my own experience with my husband's second affair. The sisterhood offered by our organization was her chance at correcting all of that and I was now her sponsor. It was a strange motherly/sisterly feeling.

But eventually, our conversation dried up. I could see that Claire had become anxious.

"What's the matter, sweetie. Cold feet about joining this sisterhood of conniving cunts?"

"It's not that. Do you think there will be a problem with us arriving together tomorrow?"

"Not at all. There's nothing unusual about a woman having car trouble and a friend driving her home and bringing her in the next day. But if it worries you, I could have someone get your car and bring it here."

"Oh, of course. From the license number they could get the VIN and then the key number and then make a key. That would take access to some secure databases though."

I began to see why Kyra might want her. "Well, I was just thinking they could stop by here for the key, but it wouldn't surprise me if they could do what you said and save the trip here."

"Really?"

"There are sisters everywhere. Access to data doesn't seem to be hard to come by. But you don't need your car tonight. I'll drive you and your daughters in the morning."

"I suppose you'll have to go home tonight, so you won't have to wear the same clothes into work."

I saw where she was going with this. It was that time. The time to dash her hopes or cross the line.

"I keep a GO bag in my car. I'll have to hang some things to get the wrinkles out."

She smiled. "Does that mean you'll stay the night?"

"I would stay for no other reason than because I'm your sponsor and you need extra support until you confront your husband." That answer clearly disappointed her. I nodded toward her bedroom door. "If we go in there and get to know each better in your marital bed, that will change things between both of us and between you and your husband.

"You should know that I'll be moving to Columbus and joining my husband at his new job when we get the transfer worked out. But I'll still be seeing you. I'll still be your sponsor. I'll still be your friend. I'll still be there for you. So should I get my GO bag?"

She was so choked up she squeaked as she nodded her head.

I retrieved the bag and hung my clothing choices for the next day in the bathroom where the steam from my morning shower would relax them. There was a dim light in the bedroom and I got the sense of furious activity. When I got to the door, Claire suddenly burst out with an armload of bed linen. She had just put clean sheets on the bed. She looked embarrassed when she returned to find me putting the second pillowslip on the pillow.

"You didn't have to do this on my account, Claire."

She suddenly burst into tears. "His scent. Her scent. They were fuckin' here fuckin' yesterday. I fuckin' slept here last night."

The thought made my skin crawl. I could imagine what it was doing to her. I gave her a big hug and she sobbed on my shoulder. I helped her out of her clothes, except for her panties, and into the bed. I removed my clothes and crawled in beside her. We spooned as she cried herself out. I scratched and massaged her back and felt the tension slowly ease from her. It soon became clear that she had fallen asleep and I thought that was just as well. It felt good to be next to her. We didn't have to have sex. She needed rest and unconsciousness more.

I awoke in the morning to a tiny hand shaking my shoulder. Claire's four year old daughter, Moira, held her finger to her lips when I looked at her.

"Aunt Cathy, I spilled the milk," she whispered. I threw on her mother's bathrobe, accompanied her to the Kitchen, and cleaned up the spill. She was making cereal for her and her sister.

Claire came in as I finished and smiled sheepishly at me. "Sorry."

"Don't be. You needed to decompress."

The rest of the morning was a little awkward. There was no time for fun before we had to take the kids to daycare and go on to work. Claire came into my office later in the day and gave me a slip of paper with a URL on it.

"You might not want to view that on your office computer."

I retrieved my tablet and plugged in the address. It was the website of a rustic lodge in Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior. It was neither expensive nor extravagant. The proprietors were two women and they offered 'quiet and tolerant seclusion'. I chuckled.

"I know, Cathy. An Irish Catholic chick and a French Catholic chick walk into a lesbian retreat. There has to be a punchline in there somewhere."

"It's perfect, Claire. I'm not even going to ask how you found this place. It looks like it will be very serene."

"I'm hoping so. When I was a kid, we went camping on that shoreline. It's so beautiful."

I emailed the URL to Kyra and she made the arrangements. She also asked me to write a report on the place for our sisters.

Claire felt guilty about keeping me from my children and then taking me away for the weekend, so she insisted I spend Thursday night with them. She also wanted to spend the night with her daughters, to prepare them for her going away for the next few days. She had traveled on business before, so that heartbreak was familiar to all of them, but this would be the first time she would be going away without that business reason. I also got the impression that she wasn't really sure she should trust me until I came through on some of the wild claims I had made.

During that evening apart, my sense of attraction to her grew. I found myself fantasizing about the woman I had seen mostly naked, her masculine features, her small breasts with small caps and small nipples. The hair I had seen on her thighs, well outside the boundary of her panties, reminded me very much of Kyra. I enjoyed my vibrator that night.

I wasn't there on Friday afternoon, when the limo took her to her house with the children. I didn't want her husband to know she was going away with another woman. Margo and another armed woman were with her as bodyguards while Claire packed her clothes and explained to her husband that she would get back when she decided what to do about his affair. He tried to deny having one, but the woman had deliberately left her panties concealed in their bedroom and then told Claire where to find them.

Mick carried a gun for his job, but he knew the law. He knew that they could accompany her into the house and back out again and he couldn't legally stop them. When they arrived with her at the airport, she saw me and the waiting private jet and it finally became clear to her that it was really happening.

We had a late arrival on Friday evening so we were served a meal on the jet before we got to Two Harbors in Minnesota. We took a rental car to the log cabin on the shore of Lake Superior. During the drive, I explained that Claire would be Mrs. Claire Emerald.

"Oh, the Emerald Isle. Thank you." Somehow, Kyra had once again chosen a name that pleased the recruit.

Claire seemed anxious when I introduced myself as Mrs. Blanc and presented my white card. I had a moment of concern myself when one of the proprietors inspected it carefully and then called the other out to see it. They ran it through the card reader and both broke out in smiles.

"We've heard of these, but this is the first we've seen here. We're upgrading your room to our best. Welcome ladies." Claire caught my eye and I could tell she was impressed.

After setting our bags in the bedroom, we enjoyed a glass of wine by the fireplace in the great room. There were three other same-sex female couples there and the only hetero couple was there with one of them. When we finished our wine, Claire looked straight into my eyes. The time had come. She smiled and I suddenly felt 'invited'. We adjourned to our cozy room and Claire already had her blouse unbuttoned when she turned to kiss me. It felt good to be in her arms, tilting my face up and being held the way a man would hold me.

She always wore skirts or dresses and not-so-sensible shoes to work, something that her husband insisted on. So while I unzipped her skirt and let it fall, she removed her blouse and bra and stepped out of her shoes as if she was leaving civilization and going back to her natural environment. I was removing my clothes as she stepped out of her pantyhose and panties. I saw her completely naked for the first time and I liked it. I had fantasized about doing fur checks with her. But the thickness of her red bush far exceeded my expectations.

I was about to remove my panties when she stopped me. "Please, Cathy, I... I haven't made love to a woman since before I was married. Please, let me please you."

She kissed me again, and as her tongue parted my lips and sought mine, I felt a warm flame ignite in my pussy. Her hands wandered all over my back and chest as if she needed to become familiar with every square inch of me. They dove into my panties in the back and squeezed my buns. She dropped to her knees as she pulled my panties down.

"Oh, it's smooth. I was so hoping it was. It's beautiful." She kissed my mound, right at the top of my slit, and stood back up. Taking my hand, she lead me to the bed. I laid on my back looking up into her eyes as she straddled my hips. she grabbed the belt from my bathrobe and pulled it through the loops. She started to loop it around one of my wrists and I resisted. I had never experienced any bondage and it seemed like a bad time to start.

She looked into my eyes and said, "I've placed a lot of trust in you and I want to show you how much I appreciate what you've done. Please trust me." I allowed her to loop both wrists in the belt and then loop the belt around the top rail of the rustic log headboard. She placed the end of the belt in my hand. To free myself, I would only have to let go. I gripped the belt tightly. It felt wonderful to have my arms up over my head, to have my breasts so exposed, and to feel so wanted that she would possess me with my own desire.

Her hands went to my nipples as she leaned down to kiss me, sending her desire from their fingertips into the very center of my primitive lustful core. I felt her pubic hair against the smooth skin of my mound as she rubbed her taut abdomen down so she could lick my nipples. This! This is how I had always wished to be 'taken' by a man, deprived of choice by my need for her need.

Desire flowed like lava from her tongue, through my nipples and into my burning chasm. Down her mouth went, slowly kissing a path toward where my personal lava flowed.

"Anh, god Claire. This is driving me fuckin' bananas!"

She giggled. "There's that inner sailor you've been hiding."

She dipped her tongue in, tasting me for the first time. "Mmmmm." Her tongue traveled around, building my anticipation higher until finally, it touched my clit. I wouldn't be surprised if everybody in the house could hear me release the pent up voice of my passion. Claire's tongue drew away my self-control and drained me of conscious will. I writhed, reduced to my limbic essence, until I reached the point where I could do little more than twitch. Claire came up and coaxed the belt from my grip, allowing my rubbery arms to return to my sides. She kissed me, and I greedily licked my juices from her face.

"My turn to taste your honey now."

"Oh, believe me, Cathy, this is one carpet you don't want to munch. It gets a little ripe after a full day stuffed in pantyhose. I prefer to keep it shaved, but Mick doesn't let me."

I was going to argue with her that a woman's natural flavors are not offensive, but I saw the opportunity presented.

"If he won't let you shave it, then let me shave it. Imagine how much proof you'll have that you have changed when you can say, 'This cunt is mine and this is the way I want it to look, but I'm not the one who shaved it.'"

"Gees. That would be some statement. Okay."

"Good, I'll get my razor. How much do you want off?"

"All of it. That will make it a big statement."

As I shaved her, I learned several things about her. I started with her lying on her front side and learned that she likes to have her ass touched, and loves anal sex. From the back she looks very masculine. Her husband likes to fuck her in the ass, and he sometimes ridicules her for looking so masculine. She believes that her husband has suppressed homosexual tendencies. I also learned that she has a spider web tattoo centered on her asshole. It's a product, she said, of her wild college days.

I told her about fur checks, pretty much the kinkiest thing about my wild college days. When she flipped onto her back, I cut and shaved away her coarse red pubic hair to reveal another tattoo, an arrow pointing downward from above her clit with the words 'Panic Button' labeled above it. During all of this, we occasionally heard the sounds of women having sex in other rooms of the house. When I had her all neat, I got a washcloth and bathed the freshly shaved area, then I told that I wanted to push the panic button. She smiled and spread her legs for me.

I kissed her as I slipped my fingers into her pussy. She put the belt from the robe on her own wrists and held her arms up as mine had been. I kissed and sucked her small pink nipples. They were hard, and she shuddered every time I swiped my tongue across one. I continued down her body until my face was just inches away from her pussy. It was so different from mine. Her slit was long, with small tight labia. Her pale ginger skin made her pussy very pink. I started to lick her slit and she writhed on the bed. Her nectar tasted sweet. My tongue found her clit and started to play with it.

"Ahh. Cathy, that feels fuckin' fantastic."

She started to get very vocal, but words soon seemed to be beyond her. Each time my tongue circled her clit, she whispered what sounded like, "fuck" followed by a pause and then "ah". Suddenly, her cunt rose up into my face as she arched her back. I sucked hard on her clit, and my face rode her pussy as her screams of pleasure filled the room. I kept the suction on her little nub until finally, she released the belt and brought her hands down to stop me.

I crawled up and laid beside her and she started kissing and licking my face. There were tears streaming from her eyes and I knew I had done the right thing in bringing her into the club.