Note: This story veers into BDSM territory. Fun as it might be for some, it's not to everyone's taste.
***
Previously...
With their marriage on the rocks, Abby and George turn to a most unlikely source for help. Unbeknownst to George, Abby has agreed to let the incubus, Damian, and his mate, Britt, act as marriage counsellors.
Their first session has broken down some barriers. The next session promises to be even more challenging.
***
"I made you an omelette. Just the way you like it."
Abby stood at the entrance to the kitchen, hugging herself. He can't possibly be doing this. He can't possibly be making breakfast as he used to before.
George stood at the stove, smiling tentatively. George, so eager to please. "There's coffee too," he said.
"I don't know what to say."
"You could say thank you."
Abby did so and choked down half of the omelette. This easy domesticity wasn't right. Did he think that everything could go back to normal? Nothing had changed, not really. She pushed the plate away. "I have to go to work."
"It's Saturday," George protested.
"I know, George. I just need some time. Please."
At least they were talking to each other, thought Abby as she drove to the office. Mundane things, but the bitterness was gone, or perhaps just better concealed.
Over the next weeks, they started sharing their bed again and doing the things that married couples do -- shopping, going for walks, occasionally eating out. It felt like play-acting, a couple of amateurs engaged in a drama that was beyond their emotional reach.
Britt had called on the Monday to see how things were coming along. Then nothing for over a week. Abby wondered, not for the first time, whether Britt and Damian had been for real.
Then came the day Damian called her at work. "Are you ready for the next session?"
She rose from her desk and closed the door to her office.
"I don't know. The last one was pretty humiliating."
"I see. Did you enjoy it?"
Abby had been asking herself exactly that question for the last couple of weeks, wondering about the method behind the madness. She hadn't enjoyed it, not all of it. At first, she'd felt used and diminished. But as the days wore on and she thought back to her night with Damian, she realized that she had felt oddly liberated. It was refreshing to have been along for the ride, rather than driving.
"Not at the time. Now, perhaps," she answered tentatively.
"I'll take perhaps over an unconditional no," he said.
"It depends on what you have planned."
"I can't tell you that. You have to trust me. Remember, you can stop at any time."
There was that word again: trust. "I'm okay with it if George is," she said finally.
"George is already okay with it. I've talked to him. This is a courtesy call." The next meeting was scheduled for the weekend. Damian gave Abby the address of a farm far north of the city, and had instructed them to pack an overnight bag.
"I have plans."
"Change them. I expect you there by seven in the morning," he said, simply, and hung up.
* * *
The farm was located an hour north of the city.
After Damian had ended their last conversation, Abby had fumed at Damian's arrogance and at her mute compliance. Now on the highway, having left the sleeping city behind them, she was filled with apprehension and curiosity. The sun peeked over the horizon on the right, illuminating ruler-straight rows of newly-planted corn.
Still flushed from the success of recent weeks, George chatted happily, occasionally placing a hand on her thigh. Abby was grateful for this unconscious contact, but was not so unabashedly optimistic as George. Yes, she and George had made the first tentative steps to rekindling their intimacy, but there was, she knew, a long way to go.
Besides which, her last session with Damian had shaken her, much more so than her outward reaction had indicated. She`d been played. Her will had been skilfully short-circuited. When she reviewed the evening and thought of Damian`s fingers on and in her most private parts, she felt not so much violated as bewildered, for as much as she recoiled at the memory, there was an unmistakable exhilaration. Abby still had difficulty reconciling the two.
Setting aside the initial violation, the session had been subtle. It had reawakened something in Abby, had started a process of thaw. Though she had yet to share these feelings with George, it felt like the first warm spring day after a long and cold winter. It was now possible to shed a layer.
Abby wondered absently what this weekend had in store. Plans had been made that involved her. She was along for the ride again, as on a rollercoaster, on track for a headlong rush into the first stomach-churning descent. She could finally put a name to the emotion -- anticipation.
George still had his hand on her thigh. She placed hers on top of his and squeezed.
George smiled, unaware that she had squeezed his hand less out of affection, but more for reassurance.
* * *
They drove for miles along a gravel road until the GPS announced that they were at their destination. George slowed and then stopped in the middle of the road. The dust settled around them. He peered at the GPS.
"There's nothing here."
Indeed, the empty road stretched ruler-straight before them, with a dense forest on the right and fields of corn on the left, until it disappeared over a hill in the distance.
"There's a track over there," suggested Abby.
George reversed until he drew abreast to the track. "This must be it."
He swung Abby's BMW onto the gravel path. The trees overhead formed a tunnel into which few stray beams of light broke through. After a hundred yards, the path emerged onto an opening. A gravel drive ran in a loop to the front door of a farmhouse.
The farmhouse appeared to be well over one hundred years old. It was built of stone, and a covered porch ran the length of the building's face. Dark red shutters flanked the windows on the ground and upper floors, and two small windows peeked out from just below the apex of the tin roof on either side of the stone chimneys.
To the left of the house stood a barn and a large shed, to the right a well-tended garden.
George parked the car beside Damian's Porsche. Damian, dressed in a tattered t-shirt, old jeans, and clunky work boots, emerged from the barn, wiping his hands on a rag. Britt, incongruously wearing an apron, appeared at the front door and waved. Both George and Abby were taken aback by these rustic apparitions.
"Welcome to our home," said Damian.
"It's beautiful," said Abby, surveying her surroundings.
A pair of horses trotted to the cedar rail fence. Beyond the farm, a field of grass stretched over undulating hills until meeting a band of forest far in the distance.
Damian collected their bags and ushered them into the farmhouse, which was filled with the aroma of baking. George's stomach grumbled. "We'll set you up in the guestroom upstairs and have breakfast."
"Sounds great," said Abby.
"And then we begin," said Damian, grinning.
Something in Damian's look suggested that he wasn't talking about chores.
