31

Chapter 26

Soon enough they heard a car on the gravel of the front drive, then coming to a stop. Helena stood and went to the entry hall. "You wait here. I greet her alone. I expect this will be emotional."

Helena led Marion into her living room. Marion looked terrible, her face streaked by tears. For a moment Rob and Marion looked at each other, Marion uncertain and Rob determined to stay cool and keep his distance.

When Marion spoke, it was in a whisper. "May I kiss you?"

Rob glanced at Helena, who stepped behind Marion, said a few quiet words in her ear.

"Come here!" Marion came to Rob with quick steps before throwing her arms around him. She kissed him over and over again, tears rolling down her face. She didn't seem to notice he was turning his head to dodge her. "I was so afraid I might never hold you again or even see you." She kissed him again, her arms holding him even tighter.

Uncomfortable under this onslaught of affection from a woman he didn't think of as affectionate, Rob gently pushed her arms away so she'd stop. "Come, you sit here beside Helena. I'll sit over here. Relax a bit. We can talk about what happened."

Marion, unwilling to release him, clung to his arm, forcing him to sit beside her. Rob took the first opportunity to separate himself and slid further away. Marion turned to Helena. "Do you mind if I cuddle up a bit, I have missed him so much."

There were tears in Helena's eyes. "Of course dear, we have mistreated you, you were a victim."

Marion moved over to where Rob was, grabbed grabbed his hand and held it in a firm grip. Within seconds she couldn't hold back and began hugging him again. Against his better judgment, Rob let her rest her head on his shoulder. Helena finally moved over to sit near Marion's other side.

"Rob, I think I told you I loved you even before you arrived for that first weekend with Jenny."

Rob noted how quickly the conversation went to uncomfortable ground. "We'll return to that. First, I must apologize to you; I made accusations about you in anger, things I had no right to say. I jumped to a conclusion, with no basis. I must admit, though, in part my words reflected what I thought I might do if I had another evening like that. So, for what I said about your late husband, Marion, I am truly sorry.

Marion's tears began again. "No, Rob, you had every right to be angry. I admit I was out of control in that moment. It's a weak excuse and losing control in a scene is unforgivable. When Jenny took revenge on you, it was as if suddenly I had permission to release all my anger and disappointment. I blamed you for many things that day which were not entirely your doing. Rob, can you forgive me?"

"I forgive you, if you forgive Helena and I. Let's just say in the heat of the moment we too lost control." Rob paused. "You understand there is one I can never forgive."

"Rob, I knew from the beginning Jenny wasn't being honest to you, hadn't been honest with you for your entire marriage. She was completely honest with me. But how could I tell you? You had no reason to believe me, I imagined you would think I was saying such things just to make Jenny look bad. I urged Jenny to be honest with you, many times. Helena immediately sensed something was wrong, she just picked the wrong person with ill intent." She gave a deep sigh. "You know I was in love with you; I want you to know I still am. "

Softly, Helena spoke. "And then I made love with him in your house."

When Marion turned to Helena, Rob gently separated himself from her. He stood, taking a few steps away. "Listen, Marion: the earliest thing I can recall hearing you say to me is that you were already in love with me. I didn't believe you then, but I must admit you are convincing all these months later. I felt affection for you at the time, I appreciated what you were doing, had the game gone well it might have been a wonderful time. Perhaps I'd have been grateful to you. You must understand, though, you can't declare your love for a man you've only met, a married man with his wife present, expecting love to be returned in the instant. We barely knew each other! I am saying this, dear, not to hurt you but because you must see the facts as they are. I don't think you were in love with me, you were in love with what you wanted me to become."

By standing, Rob had gotten her attention but she barely understood what he'd said. She covered her face with her hands. "I have lost you, I've lost you forever!" She began to sob again.

Rob spoke gently. "Marion, you must consider I never got close enough to love you. You haven't lost me, you never had me."

Helena put her arm around Marion's shoulders, anger in her eyes. With a tilt of her head she told him to return to his seat beside Marion, to comfort her. Resolutely, he shook his head no.

"Dear Marion," Helena said. "Rob and I have a special understanding about our relationship. Rob has agreed to take care of the needs of some of my closest friends, you know them, Carmen, Olga and Kim. We don't have an open relationship, but these women have been hurt, like you. If we can fuck now and then with our intimate friends, it's no big deal, as long we keep it within our circle. You were once member of the circle, we can include you again."

It was Rob's turn to signal angrily with his eyes.

Marion looked to Helena, surprised. "You mean, you give Rob to others, he fucks them? I always thought you were more conservative in such things."

"I'm careful. He hasn't carte blanche to bed anyone. If we can take our pleasure with people we trust, people we care for and who care for us, who is there to judge us? Shouldn't we give simple comforts to our closest friends? We harm no one; we just eat, drink, have fun with each other and a good fuck with your very best friends. It's not so different from Rob serving these same friends at your party. Why should we each be lonely, alone? I see no harm in it. Rob has been clear his loyalty is to me and I to him, but we've enough love to share with our dearest friends. If you like, we could include you."

Marion was flabbergasted. She had never expected this. "Yes of course, I want to fuck you and Rob right here and now."

Rob had to interrupt. "Helena, I recall also emphasizing I'm no piece of meat; I have something to say about that also."

"Go ahead, say what you have to say." Helena's tone suggested she would let him speak, then go forward as she had just said.

"Marion, if Jenny and I stayed with you, did you plan to make me your slave?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You told me what it meant. Cross-dressed full time, doing all the household chores, preparing and serving the meals. Drawing your bath and bathing you, kneeling to assist you in dressing. Paddled when the kitchen isn't clean enough and it never is. More than one infraction every day leading to more punishment. You think I'm making this up? How about stockings not straight as you and Jenny did, twice, on just our first day together. Maybe I'd graduate to sleeping on the floor, chained to your bedpost. Maybe you'd give me to men as well as women."

"No! Of course not!"

"From the first minute, that was how you treated me. In the first few minutes you gave me two extra sessions for missing out on calling you mistress and my stockings. Before the end of the first day, well before Jenny managed to hit me in the balls with a cane, I knew it wasn't going to last if you kept up such a pace." He paused. "Why do you think of me as an experienced submissive, someone who knows the ropes, as it were?"

"Yes, you had a lot of experience with Jenny."

"Jenny and I played light games, not all that often. At your house I was pulled from the wading pool and dropped into the deep pool, no, I was dropped on the ten-meter platform and told to impress the judges with a double-gainer. You had such a complex set of rules, it took you half an hour to recite the framework and the rules. In the recitation, the main thing you accomplished was convince me there was a lot more not being said. It was clear more rules would appear only when I was punished for the infraction. This was before you showed us your well-equipped dungeon and I a fellow who never imagined such a place existed except in badly written fantasy stories.

"But the important question: why do you think I am submissive?"

Helena interrupted before Marion could speak. "Don't debate the point with him dear, he will shred anything you have to say. Let's just proceed on the understanding he doesn't think he is submissive." Her look to Rob was stern. "Where are you going with this?"

"I don't believe Marion is being honest with herself about her expectations when Jenny took me to her. Marion, look at the e-mails you sent me in advance, 'you will be mine' and all that. Never mind what you intended, I don't know what you intended, I only know what I witnessed you say and do. What did your e-mail tell me about your intentions?

"It comes down to this, Marion. We could be approaching a path to reconciliation. A bit more talking, a bit more time, we can get along with each other. I can forgive. I am on the way to forgiving but that will take time.

"But now Helena tells you we can have sex tonight. She doesn't ask me about it, she just offers me to you. It's simply too soon. Yesterday I was still angry with you, not having spoken with you yet. Today we've made progress, but I can't, I just can't get all the way from anger to making love with you in one conversation. This is not your doing, Marion, you didn't make the suggestion and I doubt you would have."

He turned his attention to Helena. "It was presumptuous of you to simply say I'll do something intimate with Marion -- or with anyone else, for that matter. Apparently you didn't listen a week ago when I spoke to you about this very thing. You are wrong, dead wrong, and you just damaged your relationship with me. Here is an example of why I am not ready to agree to a marriage with you. Frankly, I don't believe you're ready for a marriage with me."

Rob paused, waiting to see if Helena had anything to say in response. Since Marion's arrival Helena's eyes had been always on him, giving him directions, Marion's eyes downcast. Now Helena studied the carpeting and Marion looked directly at him.

"Helena, over lunch on Friday, the first thing I said to you was I have a very busy week coming up. I have a commitment in Oxford in the morning. I'm sorry, it's getting late and I must return there tonight. I'll take my leave." Rob made no attempt to kiss her goodbye, she didn't leave her seat to see him off. Within a minute the two ladies heard him closing the kitchen door, going out to his car.

Marion let quite a long period of silence pass before speaking. "Helena, if I did anything to cause this situation, I'm so sorry."

"None of this was your doing, dear. He did tell me he had a busy week coming up. All I said in reply was I wanted him to quit his job and live with me full time. Rob is quite right: I am far too quick to offer him to others. I get swept up in the moment and I don't think about him. I doubt I have ever considered his feelings. Most of the time it works out fine, but I should have seen the circumstances were not... appropriate... this evening."

There was more Helena needed to say. She regretted Rob wasn't there to hear it. "Marion, you should know it never was my intention to steal Rob from you. In fact, it was my intent to propose just what I proposed tonight, to ask if I could borrow him from you once in a while, when I had a need."

Marion sighed. "I cursed your name many times before I realized he didn't go to you, he left me. I know it was months before you two got together. It just took me a long time to admit to myself it was my doing. Later I realized keeping Rob would have been difficult without Jenny and I knew she would leave. Sooner or later Rob and I would have ended in an enormous row.

"What he said stings a bit. But give him credit for being open, honest with us."

Helena nodded. "He said something to sting me as well, but I must admit he was entirely right about how I treated him.

"Marion, I can see clearly how I made a challenging situation even worse for you, on the day of your party. We're all human, we make mistakes, but we make up again. Rob, I think, makes up more slowly than others, but he will make up. The only thing I can't forgive is betrayal, which is why I think badly of Jenny."

Marion was silent for a moment. "Jenny left me almost immediately after that weekend. She moved in with Holly, it seems they'd had a relationship for some time. So I lost both of them. I still talk with Jenny on the phone once in a while, she did the favor of giving Rob my note, but it seems unlikely we'll be lovers again.

"A thousand times since that weekend I've asked myself what went wrong, why I was so upset. I can't prove Jenny planned to see me provoked, but I am convinced she planned, long before the party began to abuse Rob with that big dildo. She knew, I knew, it was beyond Rob's limits. And, of course, I cannot forgive myself for my anger. I failed to remain a mistress that night."

Helena had a thought. "Listen, there's no reason for you to break contact with Jenny, but please don't let Rob hear you mention her. The wounds are too fresh and deep. If he asks, of course you should be honest. I just cannot believe Jenny or anybody, can keep up such a betrayal for so long, for more than a decade. She must have had a recent change of heart, unless Rob was a fool."

Marion grimaced. "He was no fool. What he did for her, even those things we put him through at my house, was motivated by love. He gave her great freedom letting her come spend time with me despite the obvious signs. He might have had suspicions; when we told him we were having an affair he didn't react much at all. He loved her, he always loved her, perhaps he still loves her."

They talked far into the night. When the laughter and the serious ideas and the questions about the details were all behind them, Helena said to Marion, "Yes, I think we have a plan that will work."

Chapter 27

Rob refused to return to Helena's house the following weekend. During that time he occasionally saw a black Mercedes parked along his street. He only noticed because the cars in his neighborhood ran more toward Fords and Vauxhalls. He walked past the Mercedes once, the man in the driver's seat was studying a tourist map of Oxford.

It was two weeks before Helena saw him. When he did return, two weeks after his departure, it wasn't Friday night as had been usual, he arrived at her house late Saturday morning.

Helena greeted him at the door, her arms quickly around his neck "Rob, I can't stand time away from you. Sell that horrid little house and live with me full time as you should."

Rob didn't answer.

Helena stepped back, her hands on his arms, looking him in the eye. "Well?"

"I shall keep my house in Oxford until I believe we can marry happily. You can see the reason for my hesitation."

"So, start believing it!"

Rob just looked at her, sadness in his eyes.

"Rob, you look like you're about to leave me," Helena said.

"I drove here thinking that myself."

Helena was shocked. She led him into the house to sit together in her library. "Now, tell me what's going on."

"You are a spoilt, rich brat who stamps her foot and expects everything to be done as you direct."

"That's harsh!"

"I am telling you what I see. You simply don't understand, Helena. Foolishness like giving me to Marion are the reason I've changed my mind about living here with you, the very reason you and I are still not engaged to be married. If you had set out with the intent of pushing me away from you, claiming to give me to someone else would have been quite an effective choice. I am not a toy you can give to people. If you give me away, you shall most certainly have the away part.

"You don't consider my preferences, my feelings, my wants and needs when you decide to do something affecting me. You only consider what you want in that moment. I can't escape thinking the way I see our relationship isn't at all the same as your view."

Suddenly Helena was in his arms, sobbing on his shoulder. He responded by putting his arms around her and holder her tightly. "Oh, Rob, I'm such a fool. I do take you for granted, I don't think about your side. I am a fool. I don't know why you put up with me."

"Because you are beautiful, complex and passionate. Because we have a lot of fun together. Because in many ways we understand each other. Because we have so many interests in common, more in common than we might appreciate. But mostly because of your money, I really just want your money."

Helena's arms continued to hold him, but one hand lifted up and smacked down onto his back.

When he took her into the library, he hadn't closed the doors. Rob noticed Marion was standing in the door, arms folded, listening. He hadn't expected her, he assumed he'd be alone with Helena. He didn't know how much she'd heard, it didn't matter in any event. He didn't look at her, he wasn't sure she knew she had been seen. He held Helena until she separated from him of her own accord. They kissed, first a soft, loving kiss, then suddenly she was kissing him with passion. When she finished, she stepped back, looked him in the eye and said, "I see you very differently now, Rob. I must stop taking from you, instead I must work with you. You have been patiently telling me what it takes to be a better partner. I recognize your efforts. I appreciate that you can be so forthright and I am taking to heart all you have said. I promise to learn, to be better."

"Good!"

Helena stood to leave the room and was startled to see Marion. "Oh! How long have you been here, Marion?"

"Long enough to know you two have just accomplished something important. I'm very happy for you, I'm proud of you for putting in effort to make your relationship work." The final sentence was said looking straight at Rob. He got the impression she didn't approve of him telling Helena how to change, it was his place to yield to Helena.

Well, he thought, not everyone wants to marry a woman like Marion and here's why.

The weather was cool, but pleasant. Rob and Helena decided to walk outside for a bit. When they came in, it was time for lunch. Helena found a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator, already open but nearly full. During lunch Helena kept their three glasses topped up until the bottle was empty.

After they lunched they returned to the living room. They settled into chairs and relaxed, chatting. Within a few minutes, Helena poured glasses of whiskey and offered a toast to friendship. They chatted, Helena poured more whiskey.

After a half hour of drinking and talking, Helena said, "Rob, we have a proposal, for the three of us. We understand you're not a sub, Rob, not in the usual sense. But we do know you like to play kinky games once in a while, a little soft S&M."

Rob, slumped in his chair and seeming well under the influence of his whiskey, interjected, speaking directly to Marion, "soft S&M, Helena. Not too hard, not too much in a session, not too often."

Helena was a bit confused by his interruption, but proceeded with the script they had prepared. They'd wanted him to be a bit drunk so he'd be a more open to ideas. "Rob, I don't let it show much, but I think I could enjoy some domination, some power games. So, Marion and I were talking, we're thinking she can give me some training. I want to be a proper mistress to you. I think we should include Kim, she is an unabashed submissive and she's also as horny as hell.

"This will be strictly limited to the four of us: Marion as the mistress, myself in training, Kim and Rob. Nobody else; no presentations, no explanations, none of that."