There was a tension in the house for the next few days, and I continued to sleep in the basement. The second day, while I was out on a business appointment, Maxine, who was home on summer vacation, moved a small TV set, and some of my toiletries and clothing down to the basement. When I came home, and noticed this, I went up to the kitchen to confront her about it. She was talking to someone, and laughing conspiratorially.
"Who's that?" I asked.
Maxine covered the mouthpiece and glared at me. "A friend. What do you want?"
"What's with the TV and clothes in the basement?"
Maxine said into the phone, "I'll call you back. Are you at the club . . . OK, bye."
Who was she talking to, and at what "club?"
"I really need some time alone to think, until we see the therapist later this week. Is it really so terrible down there for another few nights." She touched my hand. The first sign of affection in two days.
I shrugged. The day after our argument, she told me that she had gotten the name of a good counselor who would see us both and try to help us with our problem. I asked about credentials and degrees, but Maxine didn't know.
That evening, we had dinner, and after I did the dishes, Maxine went upstairs to change. When she came down, she was wearing my favorite negligee, and perfume. She kissed me goodnight and started upstairs. "Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow."
I stayed in the downstairs living room for a while, and then went down to the basement to try to sleep. This was the most frustrated I had ever been, knowing that Maxine was upstairs looking so enticing, and I was two floors away.
The next morning was our appointment with the therapist, Dr. Gruen, who was a 20-minute drive across town. Maxine and I practically said nothing during the whole trip.
Dr. Gruen's office was a large apartment, with a study set aside as an office. We rang the bell, and a woman answered. I told her we were there to see Dr. Gruen, and she said, "I'm Dr. Gruen." She was about 60, tall very thin. She had piercing blue eyes, and her white hair was pulled back handsomely.
We came in to sit down, had coffee, and made small talk for a few minutes. Then she asked each of us to just tell her why we were there. She asked that Maxine start, and she did.
From Maxine's prospective, she admitted that for years, she had had trouble responding to me sexually, and that she avoided it whenever possible. She told of our shift to s&m and the eventual adding of my cock cage as a way to restrict my masturbation, and give her a sense of control. But she slanted the version of what had happened in the last few weeks. She said that I was being paranoid about "our" new friends. Maxine said that I wasn't responding to conventional sex anymore, while her appetite was increasing, and that she needed much more than I was providing. She said that I seemed to only respond to "certain scents" during the sex act now. Dr. Gruen glanced to me for a moment, then just listened patiently.
I then told Dr. Gruen my side of it. At intervals during my story, she turned to Maxine and shook her head.
"And what do you think Maxine's motives are for getting together with this Richie and his friends."
I looked at Maxine and said to the doctor, "I don't know. But I've already caught her making love"
Dr. Gruen looked at Maxine reproachingly. Maxine stared at me hurt.
"And what are these smells that you find so appealing," Dr. Gruen asked me.
I stammered for a moment, and then explained. "If I can say, it's the smells from Maxine's, uh, her . . . "
"Vagina?" asked Dr. Gruen, patiently.
I glanced at Maxine, who had a challenging look on her face. I continued to stammer.
"Her anus?" Dr. Gruen prompted, and I shook my head. "How did this come about."
I then explained how this was the only accompaniment to sexual relief which Maxine has allowed me for the last year.
"So, Maxine, you have cultivated your husband's fixation." Maxine just stared at Dr. Gruen.
Dr. Gruen sat back and clasped her hands. "Maxine, your husband certainly has a lot of pain, which must be addressed if your relationship is to survive. I'm very surprised at the way in which you've responded to his needs. You have a very special husband, and he should be treated as such. I think you will need separate counseling, and then later, you both should join a therapy group with other couples who have similar problems."
Maxine was being reproached, but on what basis, I couldn't figure out.
"And you," she now turned to me. "Your wife needs as much help as you. I'll be assigning Maxine some special sensitivity exercises for you both to do. One per evening. She and I will talk about them now, alone."
She asked Maxine to stay for a separate session to discuss some of the exercises. Maxine asked me to pick her up in an hour.
When I returned, Maxine was sitting in the doctor's office, laughing and both were having a smoke. Dr. Gruen wanted to see me for a few minutes alone, so Maxine left.
"Many of the sensitivity exercises I have given Maxine to do, are sexual and involve some discipline. Please be patient with her, but you must record your real response to these exercises in this journal. It will help in her treatment. Bring the journal with you next time. Your answers must be stream of consciousness, and portray your real feelings. Don't worry about their content. It's the honesty that I'm looking for between you and your wife. As you work in the house, you each need some time apart. Perhaps your wife can get a job for the summer." She held my hand for a moment. "And above all, try to relax. We'll try and solve the problem, so you can have a more stable marriage."
As Dr. Gruen was walking me to her door, she stopped. "Oh, and that cock cage? I recommend that it stay on for this first round of exercises. Eventually, we will have Maxine take it off you and throw it away. But for now, it's her progress which I'm concerned about, and she'll feel more secure with it on you, so let's keep it on for a while longer, okay?"
All of my fears were set aside. This was a woman doctor who also saw that Maxine needed to change. Dr. Gruen was not going to gang up with my wife on me, which I was afraid of. She recognized that the problem was Maxine's and that she would have to give her most of the attention.
The first night, Maxine came down to the basement in her negligee, and said that she wanted me to sleep in our room again. I said yes, and she said Dr. Gruen's first exercise required that I had to beg her to do so, to show her that I really wanted to.
In the name of going along with Maxine's treatment, I started to beg.
"On your knees," Maxine interrupted me.
I got on my knees. "The exercise is that you're not to look at me, but you're to put my big toe into your mouth right after you beg me." she said very matter of factly, and slipped out of her high-heeled mule. She stared down at me coldly.
I begged her, and she just pointed to her toe. I lowered myself down on the ground, opened my mouth wide and she placed her big toe into my mouth. "Keep it there," Maxine said softly. She moved the toe more deeply into my mouth, and kept it there for a minute or so. She then slowly took it out, and told me I had permission to sleep in the bedroom. We slept holding each other that night. It was Friday.
My feelings were complex. I imagine that Dr. Gruen was giving Maxine an opportunity to get much of the negative feelings out of her system. To cleanse herself, as such. As Dr. Gruen said, I would have to be patient, and understand that it was all being done in the interest of achieving a balance in our marriage. I played along with Maxine, prepared myself for a rough week, and for the rest of the week, would put my impressions down in the journal. I wondered what Maxine's impressions of these incidents would be.
The next night, Saturday, when I finished the dishes and went into our bedroom, my bag of s&m toys was on the bed. Maxine was sitting at the edge of the bed, with her legs crossed, dressed in my favorite neglegee again. "Come here," Maxine said to me when I entered the room, and crooked her finger at me. I went to her, and she motioned for me to turn around. When I did, she pulled my hands behind me, and with wrist cuffs she had taken from the bag, she bound my hands. She then turned me around facing her again.
She had me kneel beside the bed. She reached for and untangled the nipple clamps from the pile of toys. She opened them wide, and began putting them on me, tightening them to the next to last notch, and gave a sharp tug to see that they wouldn't come off. She then pulled me up onto my feet and over her onto my side of the bed, easing me down onto my side. Facing away from her, I felt her shift and heard her negligee open to expose her breasts, and this was confirmed when she cuddled closely to me.
Her breasts and hot breathe drove me wild. She began to softly explain. "This is how the exercise says we should sleep tonight. Dr. Gruen says that I should get in touch with our anger, and learn how to respond appropriately. In this "Question Sensitivity Exercise," everytime you 'push one of my buttons,' and make me angry, I have to yank on the clamps. The angrier you make me, the harder I yank. If you've really gone too far, the exercise says I can close them to their tightest to let you know. It also says we should talk about topics which especially disturb us, with no other distractions, and that to avoid misunderstandings, we should use a tape recorder."
Maxine turned out the lights, flipped on the tape recorder she had placed on my night table, and we sat for a moment. The only sound in the room was the slight whir of the tape recorder, our breathing, and the occasional rattle of the clamp's metal chain as one of us shifted in the bed. The whole situation was also stimulating me beneath my cock cage, as Maxine was massaging my back with her breasts. All of the questions would be Maxine's, she said, as Dr. Gruen was trying to center on her response. "Don't worry, honey. Tomorrow night's exercise deals with YOUR questions. Ready?" Maxine asked, snuggling closer.
"Yes." I answered.
"Okay. And you have to be truthful. If you're evasive, I'm allowed to express my anger. Here goes: Do you love me?"
"Yes," I replied, surprised at how vulnerable and insecure Maxine seemed.
"Do you trust me?"
