"You'll have to bear with me, Lisa. At any one moment my thoughts are as clear to me, and sometimes as chilling, as the water in the lake. And I can drift away without the slightest warning. I don't have long now and I don't know how long it will take me to tell you what I need to tell you. I need to tell you, but please stay with me until I have finished."

Lisa choked back tears and, holding Elizabeth's hand in hers, gently stroked the side of her face. "I'm not going anywhere," she said, "take your time and don't worry. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"It's about sex. Somehow with a man it always is, isn't it?" Elizabeth drifted off for a few minutes before she continued.

"You're my oldest and dearest friend. I know you never really approved of my marriage to Ian, but I always thought it may have been the circumstances rather than the man. He was good to me, you know, and I know you knew that. I was always rather sorry you and he weren't better friends. He was a good husband, but Bernard has been the love of my life. Shhh, let me go on. I know you know. Bernard has been the love of my life and you have been his best friend for as long as I can remember. Nothing has made me happier than his love for you and yours for him. But there's a side to Bernard you could never really have known. I doubt anyone could but me. I doubt he knows it himself. I just can't come out and describe it. It would be easier if I could. I'm going to tell you a long story about him and about our marriage. Do you think you have the time?"

The birds had just begun to stir as Elizabeth drifted off into her own world. Lisa sat with her, holding her hand, waiting for her to waken to continue her story.

***

Elizabeth's dreams took her back to the morning at the lake twenty years ago, to the first morning she and Bernard woke together in her bed. She knew what she wanted from Bernard and she thought he would give it to her. She worried because she knew she loved him, loved him as she had never loved before. And yet there were certain things he would have to do, certain rather unusual things for a man to do in their culture, if their marriage (yes, she already knew they would marry or go their separate ways), if their marriage was to be real, was to have a chance to endure. They were silly things, really, silly but symbolic and they would either bring them both great pleasure or ... or perhaps he would simply walk away and lose his best chance at happiness. Well, yes, mostly simple things but one gigantic commitment. So she was nervous. Would he choose wisely? She couldn't know, so when they had awakened she approached him directly. She would run the risk and accept the results. It was the only way she knew to do things.

He had taken her in his arms when he was sure she was awake. She kissed him and pushed him down burying his face in her bush. She spread her legs, opening herself to his mouth, and pulled him to her cunt. "Lick me slowly, darling, and listen to what I have to say. It's very important. Just keep me gently aroused. I'll let you know when I am ready for more."

She lay back and savored his ministrations. Her juices were flowing quite freely when she began. "Don't stop licking me whatever I say, Bernard. Now reach under my nightie and work my nipples very gently. There now, I think we're ready to talk."

Bernard lay prone between her legs his mouth enveloping her cunt and his tongue gently caressing her inner lips. He couldn't disengage without releasing her nipples and already he knew better than to release them without her explicit instruction. He was, quite literally, as speechless as if she had bound and gagged him.

"When you shower this morning, Bernard, I want you to remove all the hair below your navel. I put a ladies' razor with a couple of extra blades and a depilatory cream in the shower. Marie was kind enough to provide the cream." Her hips began soft thrusts as Bernard's kiss and his fondling of her nipples inevitably distracted her body from her thoughts. His pace would give her sufficient time to complete her talk before she was entirely distracted.

"After lunch, you need to go into town and buy fourteen pairs of panties. You'll need size large. Nothing too frilly and lacy but choose a nice sexy variety and at least three or four cotton briefs for casual wear. Throw your underpants away before you leave and throw the pair you wear away at the last shop you visit. You'll also need six pairs of pantyhose, queen size. Two black, two charcoal gray and two nude. Wear one of the nude pairs home."

Her arousal was growing. She grasped his head with both hands and pulled him deeper into her. His lips kissed her inner labia and his tongue penetrated her cunt thrusting in and out like a small cock. If his performance was any indication, he found her talk pleasant.

"I have a discreet hairdresser who works in Boston and lives south of the city. She'll maintain your grooming and teach you how to care for yourself," she said from far away. "You're licking and caressing me quite nicely." Minutes passed and she lay enjoying his attention until she spoke again.

"You're naturally obedient. I'll train you to obey me not just because you want to but because you must. You'll appreciate the difference. We will pursue an erotically charged marriage while, in the end, keeping ourselves only unto each other 'til death we do part, as they say. We won't limit our eroticism to ourselves, I'm sure there will be men and women we bring into our games, but their participation will be strictly limited. You'll learn as we go but you needn't worry. I will never humiliate you. Give my clit a bit of attention, please."

Her nipples tingled under his continuous manipulation. She jerked violently to the first touch of his tongue to her clit and spewed her juices into his mouth. "Enough of that for now, darling.

Back to your gentle licking."

"I am looking forward to owning your splendid cock. I knew I wanted you before I saw it and I knew if we were to love each other I would limit myself to it for the rest of my days, so I am sure you can imagine how concerned I was that you knew how to use it. I'll train you to use it better and better, but you should know I think your raw material is more than adequate and your abilities are quite promising."

"I'm fifty years old and will not have children. You'll need to schedule a vasectomy fairly soon. Women's birth control devices are all too bothersome, the pill is too dangerous, and I don't care for the feel of a condom. The sooner you have the vasectomy the sooner I'll fuck you to orgasm. A little attention to my clit, please."

He opened his mouth wide encompassing most of her cunt and drew his tongue, flattened and pressing hard against her, slowly back and forth across her nub. She came quickly and more deeply than before, pushing him slightly from her. "Softly now, again," she instructed. She grasped his head caressing his scalp and holding him from her depths. His continued gentle manipulation of her nipples sustained her arousal.

When she had recovered she pulled him into her one last time. "Just my clit, now, hard and fast." He brought her screaming and jerking violently to a massive orgasm. She pushed his head from her cunt forcing his fingers from her nipples and he lay with his head buried in her thighs while she rode wave after wave of pleasure.

"Men's ejaculations are very messy," she whispered from some far away, misty place. "You'll clean all of yours. Now go about your business. You have lots to do. I'll see you at dinner."

Before he had finished dressing, Elizabeth roused herself from her post-orgasmic reverie to speak to him again. "There are just two other things. I will teach you the order in which you are to dress and undress and you will dress and undress for me, even when I am not there, for the rest of your life. It will enforce your instinct to obedience. It's important and hardly trivial but nothing you will find difficult. The other is important and you had better think long and hard about it because how you deal with it will determine whether we marry. I will be faithful to you and I expect you to be faithful to me. I am sure you will be. I wasn't always faithful to Ian. For the first three or four years of our marriage, I continued an intense love affair I had been involved in when I met him. It was an affair which shaped my very sexuality far more than my marriage to Ian. It was difficult for him and I have no doubt we would have divorced if I hadn't ended it."

"But I chose to end it and I ended it. My lover and I remained close friends throughout my marriage and we remain close friends. I won't let my marriage to you disrupt my friendship, but I won't ever let it be more than a friendship. You will have my fidelity. Ian became comfortable with it as the years passed. I always figured his original discomfort related directly to me carrying on the affair, even with his knowledge and explicit, although coerced, consent during our marriage. I won't do that to you. I will introduce you shortly. You'll need to make a decision before you commit to the vasectomy. I won't marry you if the two of you can't be friends. Now, dear, you really have something to think about while you run your errands. We have had a good talk, don't you think?"

Bernard smiled wanly. Until the last two minutes of their talk, he had been floating on a cloud. Now he had tumbled to earth.

Elizabeth took pity on him. She sat up and motioned him to her bed. Looking him in the eyes, she stroked his cock. "You'll be all right, Bernard. We'll be better than all right. I was going to hold this back a bit, but you look so crushed. Nothing and no one will ever come between us."

She rubbed the fluid flowing from his cock into his crown with her thumb. "Add two garter belts and six pairs of stockings, the same color as the pantyhose, to your list. And wear the black pantyhose home tonight rather than the nude why don't you. As with the panties, nothing too frilly. Elegant and erotic would be better."

She kissed the head of his cock, turned him around, and slapped his bottom. "You have the ass of a beautiful young girl. It would be a waste not to draw attention to it." She sent him on his way knowing he was troubled.

***

Elizabeth awoke expecting breakfast. Bernard brought her a small bowl of mildly seasoned gazpacho, a small one of his sandwiches she only half mockingly referred to as gourmet grilled cheese, and a cold chablis.

"I put Lisa to bed around ten," he said. "She told me to wake her at four so she can be ready for dinner. That must have been quite a talk you two had. It's been a long time since you've had the strength to stay awake and engaged for six hours."

So, it hadn't all been a dream, thought Elizabeth. Bernard would need to know sooner than she had planned. He sat holding her hand and caressing her face after having cleared away the dishes. She felt weaker than she usually did in the afternoon. She forced herself to tell him she was going to make him undress in front of Lisa after dinner.

"You'll understand in time," she assured him. "And just a short time at that. Wear a sheer and sexy black pantie, black linen slacks and a white dress shirt. I expect perfect obedience. My life is ending and yours will change. I intend to help you along as best I can and I have chosen a few friends to care for you when I'm gone. I have just begun to explain our relationship to Lisa and how I need her to look after you. She's a sweet woman. I won't make you do anything tonight she won't understand sympathetically, and I won't embarrass either of you." She fell asleep to wake again at four to continue her conversation with Lisa.