The Pornographer's Wife

It happens everywhere. Women get talking and the flow goes something like this:

"My husband the lawyer..."

"Similar to other accountants, my husband..."

"My lover goes until he drops."

"My husband sweeps streets" (How did she get in here?).

Lately whenever effervescent sociologist Bram Wilks is asked her husband works at she becomes defensive.

"He's retired."

"Yes but what does he do?"

"He um writes."

"Good gracious how exciting. What does he write?"

Usually Bram would look for a quick way to exit the room.

"Stories."

"What kind of stories?"

The entire room would now hushed, all ears waiting for Bram's next words.

"He's a fucking porn writer," she'd yell and rush to escape.

Bram (Bramberly) would sob in despair driving home, knowing she was weak at being unable to cope with other people knowing she was harboring a pornographer in her home. She knew husband Petrie would be a socially undesirable misfit in the mind of most people. But she happened to mostly live with her husband of thirty-six years blissfully and the fact was despite this porn thing they were devoted to one another.

Petrie's career had been in journalism and he'd long been regarded among peers in the magazine industry as a writer of substance which is the label given to the echelon of professional writers who just fail to collect at least one national award.

Bram, who is ten years younger than her husband, had assumed that two weeks into his retirement Petrie would open his laptop's word processor and type the first word of his Great Novel that has resided within him all those years.

But Petrie had bolted far beyond that.

He severed all links with his straight journalism past and announced to her he'd write sexy stories to thrust himself into an entirely new genre to expand his writing experience.

The use of the word 'thrust' in such context made Bram nervous and being a sociologist researching into retirement age issues she knew the word 'sexy' was smart-ass code for pornography.

Her comfort zone was reduced even further when she told her mother of her son-in-law's latest bent.

Helen shrieked 'dump him' and hugged her forlorn daughter. She reminded Bram she should have followed her advice and married Ernest Blake, now the city's leading funeral director.

Oh god, Bram wailed silently and kissed her mom and fled.

* * *

The City of Hutt Ridge is fairly large, with a population just over 65,000 but it seemed whenever Bram went tongues waggled.

Bram switched to another supermarket where she wouldn't be known but to her dismay within any grouping of two or more women a finger would be pointed at her and Bram knew she'd been identified as the wife of pornographer Petrie Wilks, one of the town's notables whose writings before he retired had been syndicated to magazines throughout the country and beyond.

She could imagine the gossip:

'Her husband has flipped since retirement and masturbates all day when he's not writing porn.'

'You are advised to pull your children off the street when you see Mr Wilks approaching and for goodness sake if you drop something don't bend over."

'The Devil now lives in the Wilks' home.'

'Here's the site address where Wilks' posts his sizzling stories. Download one and give it to your husband to read and you'll be hit with more sex than you can comfortably handle.'

Sizzling yes, Bram thought as she placed cans of tomato paste into her trolley and recalled the first passage that had made her lick her lips when proofing Petrie's first submission to a 'Pay and Download' porn story site on the Internet:

... some ribbons of cum splattering her forehead and eyes flowing toward her heaving and perspiring left breast had caught in her left nostril completely hiding the metallic nose stud.

Then further into the 8565-word of mind-boggling tripe Bram was compelled to rush down the passage and snuggle into bed with her vibrator.

Two nights later she was nicely away on sparkling wine when her husband casually asked her what would be on her mind when she was horny and came to bed with her butt plug for him to insert.

Then the following week she found her she'd been implicated into porn writing because when proofing a chapter of

Mrs McArthur's Velvet Butt

she found herself reading Vera McArthur's account of having her manager inserting a butt plug into Vera's meaty ass and that fired Vera into lusty thoughts.

The descriptions closely followed what Bram had told her husband several nights earlier.

The asshole, she thought, feeling rather 'used'. But instead of going into the home office and berating Asshole she decided in future when he covertly questioned her like that she'd exaggerate her disclosures ridiculously. That would mean he'd become regarded as a blustering fool and his readership would shrink and he'd begin writing his first novel.

As it turned out the exact opposite occurred because the luridly descriptive prose suggested to the thousands of more timid readers that couples Peter Yeast wrote about had the balls to seize sex to achieve unbelievable highs in their life.

Petrie who wrote his filth under the nom de plume of Peter Yeast had explained to her that he chose the surname of Yeast because the name in baking was synonymous with the commercial claim for yeast that was sure to rise.

Bram's response was to claim that association was far too subtle for most people to grasp. He might have been better to adopt the name of Peter Ethics but all that got was a sour look.

And then began an astonishing groundswell.

* * *

Pete Yeast's Internet sales at 50c a download (handed on as 34c by the publishers when taking their cut for doing fuck all creatively) took off in gathering momentum. Before long Petrie drove home smiling in a pre-owned near-new Ford Edge on loan while his order for a high-spec Fastback Eco-boost Premium Mustang order was being processed.

"Omigod you've always dreamed of buying a black Mustang and now you can with the kids having left home. Will you upgrade my car soon Pete?"

"That will depend on the quality of sex on offer," her husband leered pleased that she was now sometimes willing to call him Pete.

Bram was so aroused these days from proof-reading his work that at last Pete was getting away calling her Bram-Bram in a fake guttural tone.

Encouraging for Bram was her circle of friends was increasing. Women appeared keen to have involvement with the wife of such an emerging writing now that pornography was openly appearing in households as a mainstream preoccupation.

The local daily newspaper triggered further interest by identifying a 'sex writer' growing in popularity on the Web calling himself Pete Yeast was none other than Hutt Ridge's acclaimed freelance magazine writer Petrie Wilks, now retired.

A national magazine interviewed him and the interviewer asked him "Why porn?"

Petrie/Peter replied, "I believe I'm not very good at sex although my wife Bramberly disputes my claim vigorously. I have good knowledge about all the moves and expect to sharpen my love life in retirement by writing porn on the Internet, knowing that if I get it wrong women will quickly jump with comments to correct me to assist me to expand my knowledge and skill."

"Women -- don't you mean men?"

"Oh yes some men too but research shows 67.6% readers downloading off the website I contribute to are female. Gee Nevada I can see you are surprised by that finding?"

"But porn?"

"Women today have accelerated to be up to speed Nevada. May I ask what gets you off?"

"Er I can only discuss what we'll publish Mr Yeast er Mr Wilks."

Then Petrie appeared on local TV.

"Petrie you have confirmed that Pete Yeast is your altered ego," said the pretty and voluptuous interviewer, "may I ask is there anything about me that could fire the imagination of a porn writer like yourself?"

"I'd love to comment Beau-Jay but cannot do that because it would only incite your husband and his pals to run me out of town. All I can safely say is you have two prominent features that come to mind and as you've said on this program that you go to the gym twice a week. That means in another of your favorite activities your fitness should not be in question."

"Oooh Petrie, you are so fascinating. What made you think you could survive in this small practically unknown and conservative city as a porn writer who is rising in to become a literary porn icon?"

"Geography came to my assistance Beau-Jay. I figured it placed Hutt Ridge far enough away from the Bible Belt to allow me to continue living here if I were exposed as being Pete Yeast and that's happened."

"Why do so many women allegedly read or view porn Petrie?"

"You really need a researcher to answer that but I think it's because so many women are bored with their accustomed home sex routine. Rather that break out and do the dirty on their husbands or partners they get the stimulus they require by reading about exciting porn or viewing professionally produced porn videos in private. How can one fault that?"

"Many of our viewers might agree with you on that one Petrie. Thank you for coming... er appearing on my program and good luck with your writing."

Petrie arrived home and Bram hurled herself into his arms.

"You conducted yourself masterly in that TV interview darling. I've been listening to comment on talkback radio about Beau-Jay's interview and the general agreement is you appear to be Mr Nice Guy of porn writing."

"I'm so excited because the national president of the professional association I belong to called from Chicago and invited me to be the guest dinner speaker as the Society's annual convention to be held in Toronto, Canada, in a few months."

"She's asked me to speak on the theme of living with a porn writer and surviving and asked me to make it colorful."

"Are you saying you have to describe how you cope with all the sex?"

"Darling the national president is over fifty and I don't think women of that age think about sex like that. She means how do I cope with the notoriety."

"You'll have to add color and sting to my draft speech. I'm so delighted to be the wife of a pornographer. Tomorrow is Saturday and I suggest we begin looking for my replace car, upgraded of course. To think our increased status in our community is the result of your notoriety and with all this money flowing in."

"Yes dear," said the pornographer.

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