Val got home from work that night and looked completely done in. I found out her fatigue had a far deeper cause than that.
"Well, I had a feeling it would happen," she said as she flopped down next to me on the sofa, putting her feet up on the coffee table after kicking off her shoes.
My brain was someplace else. "What?"
"Claire and Dave have split up. She came into the store just before we closed to tell me."
"That's too bad."
My wife just shook her head. "The idiot didn't realize what he had. He just wants someone he can ride roughshod over." Val sighed heavily. "She thought she could change him."
"So what caused it?"
"He started messing around with the waitress down at the bar he and "his boys" frequent. Poor Claire only found out when one of the "boys" came on to her, figuring that Davey's attention was elsewhere."
"What's Claire going to do now?"
Val looked over at me with an expression that made me know I wasn't going to like what was coming next. "I suggested that she could stay here until she finds her own place. We have two spare bedrooms now that the kids are gone." She looked at me again. "Is that all right with you?"
I wasn't sure. Things between Val and me were still a little strange. It had been over five months since Claire and I had caught our spouses doing the nasty behind our backs. To get their attention, we'd "punished" them thoroughly. It was childish in many ways perhaps, but it helped Claire and me get over the hurt and seemingly got us all back to square one.
Val being Val, had felt her punishment hadn't been severe enough and continued to insist she keep wearing the chastity belt I'd fitted her with. No matter how much I insisted we didn't need to continue with this, Val, with an expression that told me not to argue, would, if it was off at the time, simply slip it back on and snick the lock shut.
Once a month, when she was mid-cycle and at her horniest, she'd ask me to remove off, and then she'd just go ape on me for a whole night, until I sometimes felt she might actually fuck me to death. When I couldn't keep up, out would come her dildos and she'd fuck herself silly with those, or we'd go downstairs and she'd make me lock her onto our Sybian machine, turn off the light and go upstairs. One time she rode it for over an hour before calling for me to turn it off.
In between, Valerie made sure I didn't suffer, giving me increasingly mind-blowing oral whenever I asked -- often when I didn't.
All of this wasn't normal, though, and we both knew it. Valerie couldn't go on punishing herself like this. Those monthly fuckathons were frightening too. It was as if her libido pushed her and pushed her until she just exploded into a sexual frenzy. I often wondered what would happen if I weren't around to service her when the moment arrived.
This was all troubling, but what had me apprehensive now would be having Claire, Val's foxy, redheaded friend around. Now SHE was a handful. More than once she'd pranced naked around our house after swimming and she knew the effect it had on me. The worst part was, Val felt I was still owed a romp with someone (meaning Claire, I guess) because she'd cheated with Davey twice. I just wanted to put the whole thing behind us.
"How long does she expect to be here?" I asked.
Val shrugged. "A few days. Even though she's not surprised by this turn of events, Claire's still pretty broken up about it. What she needs right now are good friends to be around."
I already knew that Claire's family was across the country and that she wouldn't want to turn to them even if they were next door, so it did seem the most sensible solution to invite her to stay with us.
I looked at Val. "Are you okay with this?"
She shrugged again. "I know where Claire is coming from. Our friendship is stronger than ever, even after what happened. So is it okay with you?"
I nodded. "Sure."
Val whipped her cell phone out of her purse, punched a few buttons and said, "C'mon in!"
"You had her out in the driveway all this time?"
"We didn't want to just dump this on your lap and make it impossible for you to say no if you didn't want her here. She insisted."
Claire had her small car stuffed with all manner of things, not wanting to leave anything of value with her husband.
"The way he went on, you'd think I'd done something wrong!" Tears started coursing down her face. "He said some really, really nasty things to me."
Val and I both wound up hugging the distressed girl and told her that everything Dave had said could not possibly be true, the usual sort of thing you'd say in hopes that it will do some good.
The next day was Saturday and Val was opening the store, so she was out of bed without even waking me up. About 10:00, I could smell coffee, so I threw on a robe and headed for the kitchen.
Claire, dressed in an ankle-length flannel nightgown was sitting, feet up on the chair, hugging her knees and looking very much like a forlorn little girl -- which I suppose she was.
I got some coffee and sat down opposite. "How do you feel?"
"Like someone just kicked me in the stomach."
"Is this completely the end, or do you think something like counselling might help?
She sighed heavily and shook her head. "It's beyond redemption I think. After what he said last night, I don't think Davey has any feelings for me whatsoever. He can have Miss Bimbo from the Bar and bang her every which way from Sunday for all I care." She looked up with moist eyes. "You know what he actually said to me? He said I wasn't woman enough to take all of his cock and SHE was!"
"And do you believe that?"
"Of course I don't, but it still hurt like hell! Cock and cunt size has nothing to do with anything but fit. There was a time when Davey couldn't get enough of me. I think what started him down the road to where we are now was watching you and me get it on, to see how much I enjoyed it and how you could do things to me that he couldn't. He thinks everything starts and finishes with the size of his pecker! Damn fool never did learn how to eat a pussy properly."
Despite my best intentions, I felt my own pecker stiffening under my robe.
Claire was a very beautiful young woman with her shock of copper hair and those green eyes and that lithe, little body so different from Val's more stately curves and size. I'd have to watch myself very carefully around her.
I made myself scarce the rest of that day in order to not tempt fate. Claire, on the rebound, might try something we'd both regret. When I got home from my errands, I found Val and Claire sitting in the living room with a pretty well empty bottle of white wine on the table. Claire looked better and was laughing at something. Of course, Claire looking better was not necessarily a good thing for me. Tight jeans and a cropped tee-shirt with no bra holding her little boobs is pretty attention-getting. Then she caught me looking pretty early on. A quick little lift of her eyebrow was her only response, but it said a lot.
That night in bed, Val gave me one of her best blowjobs yet, but she wouldn't let me take off that damned chastity belt. For the first time, I felt like overpowering her, removing it and then stepping on it until it was unrepairable. Actually, I'd threatened that once before and she'd just shrugged and told me she'd order another.
"Val, this just isn't normal! Can't you see that?"
"I'm well aware of that!" she snapped. "But it's become like a security blanket. I know that if I'm wearing it, I won't get out of control."
"You've said that plenty of times, but what does it mean: out of control?"
Valerie was silent for several minutes. I'd given up on getting an answer when she began to speak. "Both times I was with Davey and you weren't there -- also the time with Robby for that matter -- I got to a point where I would have done anything."
"What do you mean 'anything'?"
"All I wanted to do was fuck. I wanted cock, big cock and I wanted lots of it. The first time Davey and I did it three times before he pooped out and all it did was leave me frustrated. I came home and masturbated with my big dildo to three MORE orgasms! I'd call that out of control, wouldn't you?"
"Why haven't you told me before?"
"Believe me, I've been wrestling with it." She turned away from me. "The hardest thing for me that day in the basement was the look in your eyes. I saw it too the first time I screwed Davey in our living room. Yes, you were excited and all, but your eyes gave you away. Part of you was enjoying what was happening but part of you certainly wasn't."
"I was cool with it. I've told you that many times. True, I wasn't cool with you and Davey sneaking around, but that first time I was fine. Honestly."
Valerie shook her head. "Look deep inside yourself, Michael, and you'll find you weren't. I'd stake my life on it. It was there in your eyes."
I didn't get much sleep that night as I tossed over Val's words. About 3:00 a.m., I had to admit that she was right. I could give her everything she'd ever want, everything except a really large cock. Normally, Val would be satisfied with that, but there were times when her "urge" came over her and I knew she needed something else. Dildoes only went part way.
So were we supposed to end up our lives with her wearing a metal cage in case her "urge" overcame her? It was nuts, but I knew the iron will of the woman I married. She thought this was the answer. Something would have to change her mind.
On Monday, I had to go out of town for two days on business. The first night, I got a call from Claire at my hotel. "Got a minute, Mike?"
"Sure. What's up?"
"It's about Val."
I must admit that my heart did a flip flop. This was almost the exact same beginning to another conversation Claire and I had when she told me she suspected my wife was stepping out on me with her husband.
Claire read my silence perfectly. "Relax. It's not anything like that. I just thought you should know that I caught Val doing the laundry this morning."
I was completely lost. "What's so special about that?"
Claire giggled. "It was the way she was doing laundry, actually, not to make too fine a point of it, she was using it to masturbate. The racket woke me up. She thought I'd gone off to work. She never let me know she was still wearing that chastity belt."
"Wait a minute. I feel as if I'm getting this story in disjointed parts. Could you start at the beginning?"
"Sure. I woke up hearing this thud, thud coming from the basement. I went downstairs and could see Val in the laundry with her legs pressed up against the washer while it was on the spin cycle. You could hear how uneven the clothes inside were and the whole machine was shaking. She had one of the front corners pressed against her crotch and she was holding on for dear life.
"It was really weird. Val was completely zoned out and she had like three huge orgasms before the machine stopped spinning. She stood there breathing hard and pulling on her nipples for a couple of minutes, humping the machine as she calmed down, so I made a quick exit. It wasn't hard to tell that she wouldn't want to be caught doing this."
I did a quick mental calculation. Val was about in the middle of her cycle, her horniest time of the month -- and I wasn't there to service her.
"So how come Val's still wearing the chastity belt?" Claire asked.
"That's her decision and you'll have to ask her why. I just can't reason with her about this."
"Weird..."
"Look, Claire, I need you to do something for me."
