My wife, Lacey, is a sweet, innocent housewife with a secret fantasy; she longs to be dominated. I've tried to help satisfy her fantasies, but I'm not a dom, and I'm not very good at faking it.
We live in a small, rural community, where everyone knows everyone else, and nobody has any privacy. It's alright in most ways, but if you intend to do anything scandalous, you have to be very cautious.
One day while my wife was patronizing the post office, a new neighbor pulled up in front of the small building. He was good looking and outgoing, and he greeted my wife as she walked back to her car.
"I'm your new neighbor, Chad. I just moved into the grey house!" he said in a friendly tone, extending his hand with a smile.
Lacey smiled shyly, shaking his hand demurely, and asking how he liked living here.
"It's wonderful. I have some friends from Church who moved here a few years ago. He's actually the pastor of the community Church in the next town over.
So, even though I'm new to the area, it's a little bit like moving back home again," he said. "The only thing I miss is the big-city conveniences, like professional maids. I found a neighbor to take care of my yardwork, but haven't found anyone who can vacuum a floor and take orders."
"Take orders?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah, you know, a regular maid that takes care of whatever I need her to do."
"Oh, oh, I see." she said quickly with a blush, clearly having misunderstood what he meant, at first.
"Anyway, I need to get going, but would you like to trade contact info, just in case we need to get ahold of each other for any reason?" he asked. "I've gotten the numbers of a few of my neighbors, but it's good to be able to get in touch with everyone in case an animal gets loose or something."
"Oh, sure!" she responded, and got out her phone to trade contact info.
A few days went by, and Lacey forgot all about her little interaction with the neighbor. Then, late one chilly December morning after a cold front had blown in the night before, her phone jingled. She always receives a 'good morning' text from her dad after I'd left for work, so she wasn't surprised, until she saw who it was from.
"Hey, it's Chad from down the road. I hope this isn't totally inappropriate, but do you have a minute to spare?"
"Oh!" Lacey said aloud in surprise, then texted him back
"Good morning, what do you need?"
"My truck has a dead battery, and my next door neighbors on both sides have already left for work. Is there any chance you could give me a jump start?"
"No problem, I'll be right over," she texted back, then ran to grab a jacket.
It was a very cold morning, with a light dusting of snow on the ground. Lacey checked to make sure a set of jumper cables were in her car's tool basket, then drove to the neighbor's house.
Chad was standing beside his truck, the hood open. He motioned her to park with her car nose-to-nose with his.
She parked and popped her hood release, then grabbed the jumper cables and handed one end to him.
"I've never had this problem before," he explained apologetically. "It never got this cold back home, and I guess it's true that diesels need a block heater to start in the winter. I plugged it in now, but the battery still needs to charge up before it'll start."
They let Lacey's car charge his truck for a few minutes, then tried to start it, to no avail.
"It's a pretty big battery. I think it's going to take a while to charge up enough to start my truck. Do you have the time to wait for that? I'm so sorry to ask this of you," he apologized.
"I don't mind, and I have plenty of time," she replied with a smile.
"Well... It's awful cold out here, want to come inside and get a cup of coffee while we wait for it?"
She stomped one foot lightly, and replied "I think I'd like that, my feet are freezing."
He lead her inside to his kitchen. His house was large, but he obviously lived alone, and had sparse furniture.
"Why don't you take your gloves off and come sit by the fire?" he directed.
He poured her a cup of coffee, and carried it to her.
"Thank you," she smiled as she accepted it. "Do you have a dog?"
"No, I've never had a dog."
"Oh, sorry, I just assumed because of that cage over there," she said, motioning toward a large dog crate with a padded blanket in the bottom.
"Oh, that... No, that's not for dogs to sleep in..." he trailed off.
Suddenly, Lacey blushed, as her imagination tried to figure out what did sleep in that cage.
"So you said you moved here from back East?" she asked, changing the conversation.
"Yeah, I got an opportunity to work in remote support for my company, and my best friend really played up the community here, so I decided to follow him."
"That's the pastor at the community Church?"
"Yes, that's right. We've been friends since middle school, worked the same part-time job in high school, even dated the same girl."
"Not at the same time, I'm guessing," Lacey interjected with a laugh.
"Er, well... Yes, actually. It was fun, but she decided to marry him, so when he moved out here, we broke up. I've been missing them both."
Lacey didn't know how to respond to this, so she just said "Oh, I see," and took a long sip of her coffee, blushing.
"Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean to just say that. You probably think I'm some kind of freak or something."
"No, no," Lacey quickly said, to ease the tension. "I've heard of poly people before, I was just surprised."
Then after a moment of silence, she continued "It's totally normal," but there was a question mark in her voice, even though she didn't intend it.
"Normal, just not common. Although it's actually more common than most people realize, because a lot of people are afraid to admit it, because of how others will see them," he concluded.
"So umm..." A question burned on the edge of her tongue, but she was afraid to ask. Suddenly, she just burst out with the question. "Is she the one who slept in the cage?"
He stared at her for a moment, and she felt like she wanted to crawl into a hole. "Why did I ask such an awful thing?! He must think I'm crazy!" she thought to herself anxiously.
"Yes," he finally said, still staring intently at her.
"I'm so sorry, that was a totally inappropriate thing to ask," she blurted out.
"No, it's a fair question, and I couldn't see any way to hide the truth, once you asked," he said, looking into his coffee cup.
"I have been hoping she'd come back to me, but she wants to go mono now, so the cage isn't getting much use, there. Still, maybe someday someone will sleep there again."
Lacey's mind raced. There was just so much new information that she couldn't process it all fast enough. The strangest part, though, was that she couldn't stop thinking about a girl sleeping inside the cage that rested across the living room from where she sat.
Of all the questions she could think to ask, the one that sprang to her lips was one of the least logical.
"How does a girl even fit in there? It's not long enough."
"Oh, no, it's plenty big enough. It's actually a really comfortable cage, for a sub."
She stared hungrily at it.
"So uhh... I wonder how much longer the truck will take," he said, searching for something to change the subject.
"We could try it," she said, starting to stand up.
"Oh, don't worry, I can try it. You just stay here where it's warm," he said, jumping up quickly and heading outside.
