If my boyfriend thought that becoming my fiancΓ© would temper my need to humiliate him he was not deluded for long.
It's true that I granted him more freedom to choose what he wears on his outer layers but the key to his dignity has always been his underwear.
Apart from wearing knickers every day and nightdresses in bed he agreed to fortnightly role plays to explore what I regard as his deepest desires.
The one we had tonight took some effort on my part but it certainly paid off.
Ever since we agreed to marry I have been devoting much of my time to planning our wedding while he is at work. We have agreed on the date and I have found the perfect venue. I presented him with the guest list and have made sundry other arrangements while he has done little more than agree to my plans.
In truth this is how I like it, but I am not so daft as to miss the opportunity to use his lack of organisational activity against him. I heaped on the guilt one evening this week as he put on his pink satin chemise before bed. "What have you done about the wedding, then?" I asked.
He looked startled. He had done nothing, he said. Should he have done?
I put on my passive-aggressive act. "No. Why should I expect you to lift a finger? You just carry on as if nothing's happening."
He offered an apology, which I did not accept, and said that he wanted to help in any way he could. Could I set him some tasks so he could do his bit?
"I'm too angry to talk about it," I said, and refused to speak to him for the rest of the night.
He's terrible with confrontation and the next morning he pleaded with me to let him do something to help.
I told him that I was too busy trying to organise my engagement party with my friends at the end of the week, for which I had not been able to arrange a caterer because I had been taking responsibility for everything else. There was no one available to serve drinks and dinner at this short notice.
He offered to take the day off work to do the cooking and then he could wait on us.
I snorted. "A guy at a girls' night in? How would that work?"
He kept quiet.
"Alright," I said after an uncomfortable silence. "I'll give you a shopping list and we'll see if you can manage it."
He put his all into the party preparation and I was secretly impressed, although I couldn't let it show.
It wasn't till the afternoon of the party that I hung the French maid's costume on the peg by the front door where I leave his role play outfits. When he found it, he didn't put it on unquestioningly in the way he usually did for our fantasies. He brought it to me in the bedroom and said he couldn't do it.
"I knew you would let me down," I said with as much bitterness in my voice as I could muster.
It wasn't that, he said. He just couldn't dress up in front of...
I interrupted him. "If you'd checked, you'd have seen that there's a veil to cover your face. But if you can't do this one little thing then I guess I'll have to be the waitress at my own engagement party. My friends will be arriving soon. You can just stay in the bedroom. This is a girls-only party."