Dishpan Hands

There's a special quality about late nights in an airport bar, drinking and shooting the shit with folks you are NEVER going to see again. I heard somebody telling this story while I was drinking away a layover at Dallas-Fort Worth. By the time I thought to turn around and see who was telling the tale, the storyteller was gone. It's probably just a drunkard's lie, but I still wonder if it might have happened.

I had a friend we used to call Helen Keller, the kind of guy who just couldn't see what was going on right in front of him. His first wife called him her Scenic Overlook. He wasn't stupid; it was more that he always had a lot going on inside his head.

Keller was a big guy, so we got him into our local re-enactor group where he fit right in, developing a strong sword-swinging style that turned out useful later. Great guy in a fight, but socially awkward in real life. We kept him socially active and he kept us intellectually active.

Janey, the first wife (Mrs. Scenic Overlook) hooked him in grad school; they were anthropology students together. She said he was so busy drawing artifacts he never even noticed her until she stuck her tongue in his ear one day in the lab. Once she did he never lost sight of her again.

We saw him less as their romance developed. They graduated together and got married at a field school in the Peruvian highlands; four of us friends were there to give him away. They had eight happy years and then a tired delivery truck driver crossed the median and killed himself and Janey in a head-on collision. Keller lost his sight again that day. He was 39 when she died.

Keller spent the next decade alone doing contract archaeology in some of the roughest places on earth. Instead of swinging a re-enactor sword he was hacking through brush with a machete or an axe. He had no life outside of the job, working every day until he passed out; his checks got mailed to a bank back home.

He quit on his 49th birthday, after catching malaria on a project in Gabon. He came home to visit the family but they had moved on and he couldn't feel comfortable there anymore. It turned out he had collected a lot of overtime pay; there was more than a million dollars in his account. Most got stuck into an investment portfolio but he kept about ninety thousand for spending money. He'd spent a decade in shitholes, now he was going to enjoy life.

Yeah, well, that didn't work out. Tours were useless when he missed half the interesting stuff, and it turned out that Keller really didn't enjoy life by himself, it had always been kind of vicarious enjoyment with his friends and then with Janey. He even bought some companionship but couldn't stay out of his head enough to enjoy the moment and after another bad date the escort told him not to call her again.

After that he gave up; he spent months alone, just eating, drinking, and reading library books. He taught himself how to cook decent meals just to pass the time and started developing a beer belly. As his 50th birthday got close Keller was wondering why he bothered at all.

He met his second wife, Kyomi, in the supermarket, while he was shopping for rolls and pickles to make Cuban sandwiches; he didn't see her and accidently snagged her dress with his cart. She told me later that by the time he had apologized she had decided to ask him out. She said Keller looked like a late-model Hemingway, with a scruffy salt and pepper beard and leathery sunburn, the Hawaiian shirt hid the spare tire. It turned out later she was also turned on by the cartload of ingredients and cleaning supplies; none of her friends' husbands could cook or clean. Like them she worked in real estate and spent all her time in the office or showing off properties.

Just like Janey before her, Kyomi chased Keller until he caught her; they were married six months after they first met. And Keller saw her, she was his world, he could once again live and enjoy society. Unfortunately, Kyomi never really saw him. She saw a sunburnt, overweight 50-year old retiree that looked a bit like Hemingway, who had worked outside in the past but now lived at home, happily reading, cooking and cleaning up after himself.

That's where the trouble started.

Keller had never been a pussy hound to start with, and between the malaria and just getting older his libido wasn't that high, while Kyomi spent all day in a high-stress environment and wanted a lot of sex to burn off that stress.

Keller had no problem spending quiet nights hanging out at home, while Kyomi wanted to get out to parties where she could network (and burn off stress). Keller, of course, didn't notice, but after six months Kyomi was considering fucking around. She finally got his attention and brought up the problem; to her surprise Keller proposed joining a local swing group instead. That way he'd know who she was fucking and not have to worry that she was sneaking around, and she'd have a pool of people to network with.

That should have been enough.

For a couple years things went well; Kyomi went to several swing parties weekly and Keller made an appearance at least every other week. They were both popular in the group; Kyomi for her relentless, try-anything approach to fucking and Keller because he was happy to bartend, dance with the ladies, and cook for weekend parties.

They stopped fucking each other, Keller got enough satisfaction from a few of the more laid-back wives in the group, and Kyomi got laid as much as she desired. Although they could afford a maid, Keller took on the housewifely duties at home because he found it soothing while he was inside his head.

The swing group had started out as a wife-sharing pool but gradually a few members started began playing cuckold games as well. They got off on the aspects of control as much as the fucking. Most of these folks were Kyomi's friends; they worked in high-stress jobs and came to burn off energy in the club but wanted more than just sharing. They started meeting outside of swing sessions to make plans.

The first cuckold couple to form was Jill (who worked with Kyomi) and Steve (a retired postal inspector). Jill, Kyomi, and the other would-be cuckolds worked on Steve until he began to accept a subservient role; eventually going so far as chastity and denial for Steve. Jill brought two of the younger members (Marcus and Terence) into the master bedroom as her bulls and Steve ended up in a store-room in the basement.

This first cuckolding took nearly six months until they had achieved everything they wanted, at which point the group turned their eyes toward Pam and Jason. Jason was a busy investment banker, and swinging alone wasn't enough to get him off; the group eventually broke Pam entirely into subservience as a cuckquean.

This time it took only 4 months. Then the cuckolds turned their eye on Keller. As far as they could see he was halfway there already, he was doing the housewifely duties, he wasn't trying very hard to get laid, why shouldn't they complete the conversion?

It started slowly, with Kyomi slipping suggestions about a cuck relationship into conversations at the house, until it became a constant litany about how he should accept a cuckold's role. Keller said nothing.

Then Kyomi started getting bossy at home, trying to establish her dominance, ordering Keller to do demeaning and subservient tasks. Keller said nothing, but he didn't do any more or less than he had been doing.

Sexual denial wouldn't work; they hadn't been fucking to start.

By this time the cuckold group was invested, they were going to crush Keller and make him a subservient cuck no matter what it took. They would break him, locking him into chastity and forcing him to accept his role.

The problem with this was that none of the cuckolds actually knew Keller, they just knew what they saw. They thought he wasn't watching them, and originally, he hadn't been. But he was watching one of them, Kyomi. And unlike them, he had all day and most nights to keep an eye on their process, and had a chance to talk to Steve and Pam. When they came for Steve, he was waiting for them.

One night, as Keller was washing dishes, the cuckold group assembled in the room next door. The group members were all assigned roles; Jason, Marcus and Terence would grab and hold Keller, and Jill would crush ice around Keller's member until it had shriveled enough for Kyomi to squeeze on a tiny chastity cage. Then they would cuff and tie Keller and lay him on their marital bed to watch his wife fucking all of the bulls while Jill flogged him. They would force Keller to lick Kyomi's pussy clean between fuckings; this approach had worked in both previous conversions.

It all went to shit as soon as they got into the kitchen.

"Oh, thank God you're finally here," Keller said as the three bulls lined up around him. "I was beginning to think you were never coming in, I was starting to get dishpan hands." He pulled one hand out of the soapy washbasin and waved it at them, and all eyes were drawn to the bright fluorescent green glove on his hand.

The other hand rose out of the water with a nine-inch glass pie pan held in a bright yellow glove with daisies on it; as he snapped his arm to the left Keller broke the pie pan across Jason's temple, dropping him to the floor in a puddle of suds and rapidly flowing blood (head wounds do tend to be bleeders, don't they?).

While the group stared shocked at Jason's abrupt fall, Keller dropped the green glove into the washtub and pulled out a meat tenderizer; snapping the hammer to his right he laid Marcus flat.

Terence had some sense of the threat by now and tried to grab Keller from behind but Keller managed to snatch a French rolling pin from the counter and beat Terence with it over his shoulder until the bull let go. As Terence tried to flee Keller sapped him from behind with the rolling pin, dropping him in a heap.

At this point Keller turned his eyes to Jill and Kyomi. "Ladies, what am I going to do with you?"

No trace of the cuckold group was ever found, although both subs filed Missing Persons claims for the insurance. Keller never did, which was originally thought to be quite suspicious until the detectives had seen how unobservant he was.

It was clear to all observers that he just hadn't missed Kyomi at all. Keller never remarried but he remained in the swing group until he died; a man who would cook, bartend, and dance was always welcome.