The first hint I got that my secret was out happened during the first Christmas we were married. By this time I had posed three times for Mike, knowing he was taking instructions on how I was to pose and sending them to strangers in return for his getting the same in return.
There was the a round of parties I was to learn was pretty much mandatory, all the married couples hosted one and went to all the others, our husbands worked together and it was just the done thing.
This party our hosts were Bob and Sharon, an odd pair I thought, Sharon avoided the usual wife gatherings as much as I did, I did not know her reasons, mine were simple: I was not used to female company, I did not work with other women and I had been an ardent Tomboy at school. To me the usual conversations about babies and the vicious gossiping was just hell.
Bob was a rather dour, uncommunicative man, Mike commented once he needed a sense of humour transplant, it seemed a fair observation to me.
Not too surprisingly their party was unimaginative and just plain boring, the pair had no idea of the social skills of getting their guests at ease, people gathered in small groups and talked quietly and eyed the time, waiting for sufficient excuse to let the baby sitter go home, not an excuse Mike and I could use sadly!
Mike and I were drinking freely, we did not have a car in those days and we had a lift promised back to the edge of Dartmoor where we lived. Aware though that a drunken wife could kill her husband's career in zero time flat at these "do's" I was thinning my wine with soda, but it was still hitting me hard. Bob was hovering and I began to get paranoid, he was attentively filling our glasses and I started to wonder if there was vodka in with the soda, some of the guys had odd ideas about how to liven up a party!
It was almost a relief when Sharon pushed between Mike and I to rather rudely demand my attention. Sharon was tiny, it was a standing joke she bought her clothes from the kid's section. I did not know how old she was but did know she had been married ten years, so probably about thirty, I was the youngest and newest wife at twenty, another reason to avoid the wife mafia meetings, they never let up on harping on about that.
Her grip on my arm was almost painful as she drew me away, chattering on about something I was not grasping, I was alarmed to realise I had all on to walk and my head was swimming.
Sharon led the way upstairs and I followed obediently, you got used to taking orders as the junior wife. I could not help but notice she had on a micro skirt that looked very much like the plaids worn by one of the local schools, maybe she really did buy her clothes from the junior racks! Mystified I followed her into a bedroom that was obviously the master room. It said much we were the only ones upstairs, the really fun parties would have had couples nosing and groping all over the house. There is something about making out in a strange house, kind of like a hotel room.
Sharon plumped onto the double bed, her little legs did not touch the floor, mischievously my half cut mind tried to picture her and Bob fucking on it, God, it would be like a pair of emotionless robots going at it!
"That is Bob's porn stash," Sharon said casually, indicating the bedside table nearest to me, piled on top were usual mags of the day: Fiesta, Mayfair, and... My heart felt a cold wind. Right on top, open, folded back on itself, a contact mag.
I do not think they exist anymore, the internet seemed to kill them off. Unlike usual mags they tended to be A5 sized and not colour, they looked like compressed books of newspaper ads, or car selling mags. Short paragraphs festooned with abbreviations: WE (Well Endowed), VS (Vasectomy), GSOH (Good sense of humour). Some with a photograph, some not, the photos were black and white, grainy, faces blanked out.
I was front and centre on the open page, in stockings and bra, cupping my breasts, smiling, my eyes crossed by a black stripe. I did not have to read the ad, I knew it by heart:
Obedient wife will pose to your every desire, strictly private, no re-posting. No fees, your wife to return the favour.
A code number for interested parties to reply to, they would be forwarded to Mike, he had a PO box now, but he brought them home and hid them in a box of old course notes in the airing cupboard.
I looked away, aware my cheeks were burning, but determined to bluff it out. I never had the chance.
"I always loved that picture of the ballerina," Sharon said, sounding as natural as if commenting on the weather.
I looked at the photo again, over my left shoulder was a canvas photo of an exhausted ballerina rubbing her legs, it had been a wedding present from a very old friend of Mike's and hung in our living room.
"I hate it," I said automatically. Mike had a leg fetish, given free reign he would fill our house with images of lower limbs, and he had battled to get me to wear short skirts since our second date. "I suppose everyone knows?" I added bitterly.
Sharon looked surprised, I noted that sitting on the bed she had either deliberately or unconsciously assumed the same pose as the ballerina, she could carry it off, her legs might be small but they were perfectly proportioned, mine were thick with muscle from years of netball, my knees were like George Best's.
"No one has mentioned it," she said. "Bob has not noticed, I was just looking through, he thinks he is clever, marks the ads he likes with a pin hole, yours was one, I recognised the picture, not you, not at first anyway."
I sat heavily on the bed, it creaked loudly. "Mike placed the ad," I said lamely. "I was not consulted."
Sharon reached over, snagged the mag and flicked quickly to another page, held it out to me. I took it as if it was a grenade with the pin missing. Glanced over the dozen ads on the page, then back tracked. Sharon looked a lot taller in the photo, the shot was under exposed, she was thrown into shadows, no need to blank the face, but her habitual bob was clear and when I checked the shadowed background on the photo to the bedroom they matched.
She really was perfectly in proportion, there was no clue that in real life she only came up to the breastbone of the average man.
The ad read:
Bored married woman looking for energetic young man for afternoons of delight.
I looked at her. "I don't understand, how can he hope to get away with that? Actual meetings?"
Sharon turned onto her front and stretched like a cat. "You really do not know Mike was posting those?" She demanded.
"I know," I admitted. "But he does not know I know."
She was clearly amused at my response. "Wow, complicated! Yes of course I know, not at first, he was more subtle, now..." She shrugged.
"Lost me," I mumbled, the room was not spinning, but it was rocking from side to side.
