Chapter 1: The Divorce

 

The truth is, I am and have always been a perverted man. I tried to suppress this dark side of my soul by marrying my college sweetheart, Bridget. We raised two kids together while I worked at the investment firm to provide for my family. Other than occasionally lurking about adult book stores or secretly ogling pornographic videos behind closed doors, I lived a respectable life and was happy for a time. I felt lucky to marry a pretty, affectionate woman and have a family, but dirty thoughts continued to plague my mind.

The videos I particularly enjoyed watching, I'm ashamed to admit, were of women dressed and trained to provide sexual services as pets. Degrading as it sounds, I had, God help me, a powerful response to the videos. I know it was all an act by women hired and paid to perform these roles on film, but I often wondered in my deepest, darkest fantasies if it was possible, with the proper training, that a submissive woman could actually be mentally and physically transformed into a pet girl in a permanent way. It was a hideous and immoral thing to contemplate, but I wasn't able to stop obsessing about it, no matter how many journals of economic theory I read to distract my feverish mind.

While remaining a faithful husband and dutiful father, I satisfied my cravings over the years by secretly purchasing numerous erotic items from the videos which had caught my eye: leashes with black leather collars, an electric training collar with a remote, silver chains, whips, nipple jewelry, paddles and cuffs for bondage games, an impressive collection of woman's sheer lingerie, as well as soft, furry bondage mittens and matching insertable white fluffy tails for pet play. I even indulged in ordering a special mixture of Chinese aphrodisiac herbs off a shady website which promised complete obedience and an addiction to fellatio when ingested by a submissive. To fulfill my ultimate sexual fantasy, I went so far as to buy a fairly good camera and tripod to make my own pet girl pornographic video one day, though I doubted I would ever have the courage and means to do it. I kept everything locked away in a storage facility no one ever knew about.

I became an avid reader of blogs written by Doms and submissives, which gave me an insider's view into their hidden world. Fascinated by the term sub space, the euphoric mental space a submissive can enter when guided by a skillful and patient Dom, I often daydreamed of meeting a woman and helping her attain this blissful state of mind. Occasionally, after the stock market closed, I would creep over to my storage space at night, lift up the loud metal door as discreetly as I could, and shine my flashlight on all my toys. It all aroused me, and served as a harmless mental escape from my boring, conventional life. I wondered if anyone else was as tormented as I was by these inappropriate sexual desires. I can only assume other men struggled to contain the dirty thoughts which seem hardwired into the male psyche. I've observed work associates engaging in illicit office romances or confessing over coffee the messy details of their divorce settlement. At the firm I was seen as this honest, steady, though rather dull family man my fellow portfolio managers could confide in, while I kept my twisted sexual fetishes a secret to everyone, including my wife. It was always my deepest longing to come out of the shadows and share this side of myself with Bridgett, but I was ashamed to talk about it and assumed she would disapprove. Perhaps if I had just stayed in academia after receiving my doctorate, instead of selling my soul to the investment firm so we could afford to put our kids in private schools and buy the lakefront property Bridget wanted, my mind would've been filled with nobler pursuits. But here I was, a doctor of economics, managing mutual funds like a common day trader. How far I had fallen in life.

Ultimately, the thing I dreaded most happened and my happy life fell apart. Early one morning, a little over a year ago, when I thought everyone in the house was still asleep, Bridgett noticed a window I'd stupidly left open on the computer screen in my home office while I was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee. She clicked on it and saw the beginning of a pornographic video of a beautiful woman whose car breaks down in the woods, is abducted, stripped of all her clothes while writhing around in the grass, tied and placed in bondage, caged and humiliated by a cruel Mistress, trained over a period of months to become an obedient pet girl and then sold off to the highest bidder. I know how sordid this must sound, but I liked to watch this video, a classic of low budget soft-core porn. Thankfully, my wife stopped the video after the abduction scene, but the damage was done. Extremely upset and demanding an explanation of how I could watch such a disgusting and misogynistic video, I stammered out a lame apology, telling her how wrong it was and promising to never watch it again.

Even though I told her how much I loved her, that I had never so much as flirted with another woman in 20 years and sincerely asked for her forgiveness over and over again, our relationship completely changed on that day. After the incident, my wife lost respect and tenderness for me. She told me I was a cold-hearted, disgusting man and she had in fact been unhappy in our marriage for a long time, which came as quite a shock to me. From that moment on she stopped talking and refused to make eye contact with me. When I sat next to her on the couch as we always did on Friday nights to binge watch our favorite shows, she would immediately get up and go upstairs. A few weeks passed and she never forgave me. The fact that I had been faithful to her and a good father to the kids didn't seem to matter. She certainly had a right to be angry and disappointed, but it seemed somehow unjust, like I was being convicted of a crime I had only thought about, but never committed. A month later, Bridgett told me to move out of the house and asked for a divorce. I know we had our problems like any married couple, but I never thought something like that would happen to me.

We tried counseling to save our relationship. The therapist asked on our first session about our sex life and I told her my wife had only grown more attractive to me over the years. Then why did I feel the need to watch pornographic videos, the therapist asked. Despite how ashamed I felt, I tried to answer the question. I said I loved my wife very much and enjoyed being a father, but confessed that watching the images in the video reduced my level of stress and sexually aroused me. It was like an addiction for me, I said, but I now knew it was wrong and had stopped watching them. The therapist followed up by asking me why the video was so arousing to me. Feeling more embarrassed than ever, I mumbled that I wasn't sure why. I know it was a rather lame response, but I couldn't tell her that, unlike the reality of my relationship with Bridgett, I liked the idea of being in complete control of a woman and sexually dominating her, in and out of bed.

"I'll tell you why he likes watching those disgusting videos," my wife blurted out suddenly. "he's sick!"

"Now Mrs. Lichtenstein," the therapist said, "there's no need for that kind of-"

"He's sick," Bridget repeated, "he's a monster!"

A deathly silence followed. Though I apologized once again for my behavior, this time in front of the therapist, my wife refused to look at or talk to me for the rest of the session. We never made it to our second appointment. So much for honesty and couples counseling. Bridgett began wearing mirrored sunglasses both in and out of the house and all I could see when I looked at my wife was the sad reflection of my own eyes staring back at me.

Eventually, the divorce papers were served and I officially moved out of the home I loved and had lived in for the last twenty years. The kids were apparently told of my perversities, took my ex-wife's side, as did our mutual friends, and no one has ever treated me the same since. I sent flowers to my ex-wife, left voice mails, tried to get the kids to pass romantic messages to her when I saw them on my weekend visits, but nothing helped. I knew it was over when I heard through the suburban rumor mill that Bridgett started having an affair with some guy who was also going through a divorce. Thinking of her having sex with another man took the wind out of me, like getting punched in the guts. Apart from watching pornography, I was still faithful to her in my own way. None of it seemed fair. God, how I wished I'd never watched that sexy video and could have my previous life back, but it was gone, all gone. I miss my wife and kids terribly, a divorced man in his mid-forties trying to pick up the pieces of his broken life.

I continued to do well at my job and support my family financially, but my sexual obsessions, perhaps due to my isolation, grew only more intense. I decided the only way forward, for better or worse, was to accept this dark side of myself, rather than continuing to repress it. As discreetly as possible, I gathered the sexual paraphernalia I had collected and stored it in the guest room of a condo within a strange old building, located on the crest of an isolated hill, hidden within a grove of trees and overlooking a lake. I suppose, subconsciously, I chose this foreboding remote complex as my new abode, the perfect place to let my dirty thoughts fester. As a kind of embarrassing Christmas present to myself, I purchased the large metal cage I had seen in my favorite pet training video and watched the Amazon truck wind its way up the steep hill, hoping he had no idea what was in the large box. Shamefully assembling it with shades drawn. I attached mirrors to three sides of the cage so my imaginary submissive would be able to see and groom herself while in captivity. The challenge now was to actually find a woman I could enter into a consensual relationship with to finally satisfy my cravings and not get arrested in the process, if that was even possible. Perhaps it was safer to keep it all within the realm of fantasy, I often thought, but finally gave in to my cravings and hatched a plan.

I began by putting an ad on Craig's List looking for a submissive who was into bondage and in need of a dominant male. My reputation among my family and friends was already ruined, so what did it matter if someone saw my posting? A few women did answer my ad and we exchanged emails, but they turned out to be clearly inappropriate choices, either drug addicts who wanted to party or girls I assumed were around the same age as my own daughter. I began to feel ridiculous, a creepy, divorced weirdo barely clinging to his sanity, with a shiny human cage placed prominently in the center of his spare room.

 

Chapter 2: My "Date" with Melissa

 

I was about to give up the search when I wandered into the local grocery store to pick up some food for the week, aimlessly going up and down the aisles filling my shopping cart full of canned and frozen food. At the checkout stand, a female employee stepped forward to bag the groceries whom I had seen many times before, collecting the loose shopping carts in the parking lot or doing other menial tasks around the store. She seemed quiet and kind, in her early thirties with a nametag identifying her as Melissa. She wore baggy jeans, a large grey hoody, and a puffy winter coat, the kind of drab clothing that made her blend into the background scenery of the store. Her stringy brown hair was tied tightly into a ponytail, she wore no makeup on her face, and her mouth was covered by the mandatory Covid mask. After the bags were packed, the cashier asked if I needed any help out to the car. I always said no, but on this occasion, I said yes, hoping for a moment alone with Melissa. The cashier nodded at Melissa and she followed me out to my Lexus, pushing the shopping cart behind me. When we got to the car, I popped the truck and we loaded the bags together, standing side by side. It was as close as I was to a woman in nearly a year. Suddenly quite nervous, I struggled to come up with something to say. In the open air, I took my mask off as I spoke.

"God, when will this virus ever be over?" I said, hoping to break the ice between us. "Are you as tired of this as I am?"

She glanced up at me briefly and nodded. It must've been a little strange for her. Customers needing help with their groceries probably never talked to her. I had no idea what she may have been thinking and it was hard to determine her mood or demeanor due to the mask. Before she turned away to leave, I thanked her for helping with the bags and took out my wallet. I happened to have just withdrawn a large amount of cash from the ATM at the bank around the corner for the kid's Christmas money and tips for the maids and gardeners at the house, well over eight hundred dollars.

"Here," I said, somewhat awkwardly, holding my hand out with the large wad of bills, "I've been meaning to give this to you, Melissa."

She instinctively took the money, staring at it as if it was some kind of mistake. I know it was a crazy, impulsive thing to do, but I did it anyway.

"Oh... this is too much. I'm sorry, sir. I can't..." she said.

Before the moment passed, I made my pitch as discretely and nonthreateningly as possible, while pushing the button to automatically close the trunk.

"Over the years you've been so helpful to me, Melissa, and I've always wanted to talk to you. I was wondering when you got off tonight if we could meet to discuss a proposal where you could earn some extra money this weekend, if you're interested."

"I'm not sure I... What are you..."

"It's a little hard to explain here in the parking lot. When do you get off from your shift?"

"Eight," she answered, hesitantly.

"The Starbucks down the street is open until nine. I'll wait for you there. If you have time, drop by. If you're busy, I understand, but I'll be there waiting for you if you have a couple of minutes to talk. OK?"

Melissa looked up at me and down at the money in her hand.

"Sir, I'm not allowed to..."

"It's just a Christmas tip for all the times you've helped me and my family in the past. And I had a great month at work, great year in fact."

"But..."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

I got into the car before she could hand back the money, started the engine and rolled down the window.

"I hope to see you after you get off, Melissa. Thanks again. And Merry Christmas" I said, awkwardly.

Driving off, her reflection receding in the rear-view mirror, still standing in the parking lot holding the money. After going home to put away the groceries and check the after-hour stock prices, I arrived at Starbucks a few minutes before eight, ordering a Pumpkin Spice Latte which the barista recommended, and a brownie. I found an empty table in the corner, took my mask off and checked the portfolio of a few of my VIP clients on my laptop to kill time. After a moment, I abruptly closed the computer and took my face in my hands, disgusted with myself at the perverted things I was hoping to do with the innocent young woman. At a quarter after eight, just as I was about to leave, Melissa came through the door, wearing her mask. As soon as I saw her my heart starting pounding in my chest and I waved her over to my table. Perhaps I felt depressed and emotionally numb from the divorce and the breakup of my family, and the arrival of Melissa changed my mood for the better. Just the opportunity to sit across the table from a woman again was enough to make me feel happy again, if only for a moment. I stood up, pulled out a chair for her and she reluctantly sat down, placing the money I had given her on the table.

"Hey, Melissa, thanks for coming. Would you like a drink or a pastry?"

"No, I can't stay. I just wanted to give you this money back."

"Come on, it's Christmas. Split a brownie with me, at least. You can have this pumpkin coffee drink too. I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered it. I haven't touched it. I never had COVID and am triple-vaccinated, in case you were wondering."

"I'm vaccinated too. I had to for my job."

"That's good. I'm sure you have a lot of contact with people there."

I cut the brownie in half, offering it to her on a small plate, along with the drink.

"About the money..."

"Please don't worry about it, Melissa. Everything fell apart for me this year. I got divorced, my kids hate me, I moved out of the house into an apartment, but at least I made a lot of money."

"You're divorced?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

I think the information made her feel guilty about leaving me alone and she seemed to settle back into her chair. I took a breath too and tried to relax.

"Oh. I'm sorry, Mr...."

"Dr. Victor Lichtenstein. Please call me Victor."

"You're a doctor?" Melissa said, impressed.

"Not a medical doctor, no. I received my doctorate in economics."

Melissa shook her head, slightly relieved by my advanced degree. She removed her mask and picked up the drink. As the cup lifted to her mouth, I couldn't help but gaze at her lips, which were invitingly full and looked soft to the touch. I pictured them, slightly parted and painted in a blood-red sheen. Could my luck have finally changed? Could Melissa be the one I had long imagined to fill the gaping hole in my life, the sexy submissive with the pretty pink collar, the woman I'd fantasized about, the caged woman? Melissa put down the cup and glanced down at the table with sad eyes. She took a nibble of the brownie.