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But having said that I wasn't going to dance to Alex's tune, I knew that seeing Hannah on Saturday night, when Sophie was out with Gerald, was going to be easier, and better, than seeing her on another night.
Seeing her at a different time just for the sake of not being dictated to by Alex's agenda was cutting off my nose to spite my face.
For a start we had toys we'd bought in Chester that we hadn't tried out yet, and it was easier to use things like the spreader bar at home than cart it off to a hotel.
Plus, if I was being really honest, it was cheaper. My credit card had taken a few hits recently and I could do with letting it cool down a bit.
I asked Sophie what the arrangements were for her meet. Gerald lived an hour away from us, so he was booking a hotel room on Saturday night.
Ironically, it transpired that he had booked the Travelodge. I couldn't help wondering if he was going to fuck Sophie on one of the beds that I'd fucked Hannah on.
I'd realised that I needed to ensure that I nurtured our marriage through all of this, but this wasn't quite what I meant when I thought about us sharing things as a couple.
We did need to find a way to have more normal 'us' time than we'd been having recently though. We needed to have a marriage to go back to when all of this had blown itself out. Or at least once Alex inevitably turned his attentions to fresh pussy.
I knew that I needed to sit down and discuss this with Sophie. To make sure that we were both aware and in agreement with this. And that we did something about it.
I mentioned it very briefly to her before I left for work on Thursday morning and we agreed to talk properly that evening. To have an evening without any external influences. Just the two of us.
Of course the other job I needed to attend to was to talk to Hannah about what she wanted. Alex had sent her out on meets and taken her to meets. And to clubs. So did she want this with me too? Did she need it? But I figured that talk could wait until Saturday night. I wanted to do that face to face as well, not via Snapchat.
I thought about what I wanted to say to Sophie all day, and by the time I was leaving work I had a clear plan in mind. A framework for us to adhere to which I hoped would preserve our status as a couple outside of our respective sex lives.
That included making sure that we had a joint sex life too.
I was going to propose two rules. Firstly, I was going to say that Sundays should be sacrosanct. That we never met anyone else on a Sunday afternoon or evening. I knew that we often might not wake up in the same place on a Sunday morning, but, once we were both home, that day was for us.
And secondly, I was going say that once a week we should have a date night. It could be at home or out. With friends or just the two of us. But it was to be time spent together.
And that, ideally, we would have sex afterwards. Just vanilla sex. But good sex. Exciting. Varied. Maybe sometimes even a role play, set up by the date that preceded it.
I stopped off in M&S on the way home and bought some nice food for tea. I wasn't much of a cook, so me deciding to put on a nice meal for Sophie inevitably involved a ready meal and a bottle of wine. Although I always bought from the top end of any particular supermarket's range.
I was home before Sophie, as usual, so I waited until 10 minutes before her usual arrival home time and then started to run a bath for her.
I knew she would still be sore after being disciplined by Paul, and I also knew that I hadn't been very attentive about that. Mainly, I suppose because I'd felt that she had no right to complain or seek attention over it, because she had got exactly what she asked for.
But during the day, as I'd thought about what Sophie and I needed to do going forward, I'd realised that I should have been attentive. Of course I should. She was my wife. By agreeing to Sophie... Alice... being owned by Alex and everything that involved, I had also tacitly agreed to look after her when she was Sophie, as any husband looked after his wife. How the pain she was feeling was inflicted was irrelevant. It didn't matter if she had fallen over in work or had a heavy session with a dom.
When she was with me she was Sophie and it was my job to look after her.
End of...
Sophie arrived home bang on time and was delighted when I led her upstairs and showed her the bath I'd run for her. I told that she had an hour to enjoy her bath and get dressed for dinner.
She kissed me and gratefully accepted my offer.
I left her to it. I had about twenty minutes to kill before I needed to put the food on. Just enough time to iron a few of my work shirts.
After doing them I took them upstairs to keep them in my wardrobe. There was no sound from the bathroom. Sophie was probably just lying there chilling. I wouldn't disturb her.
I put my shirts away and as I passed Sophie's bedside table on the way out I noticed her airpods case was lying there. Open and empty. Her phone wasn't there either. So I presumed that she had taken it into the bathroom with her and was listening to music and chilling.
I stepped back onto the landing. Still no sound from the bathroom. She must be totally zoned out. Good.
I turned towards the stairs and as just as I did, for the first time I heard water splashing.
And then a quiet, but unmistakable giggle.
And then a further sloshing sound and another giggle.
I frowned, curiously. What was she finding so funny? I walked slowly to the bathroom door and listened.
They say that if you eavesdrop you'll hear things you wish you hadn't.
I heard Sophie talking, her voice low, quiet, but, without her realising, amplified by the acoustics of the bathroom.
It wasn't possible to make out everything. But I made out her asking "What time is it there?" and a "Can't wait".
And I could also make out the way she was speaking. Slowly, sometimes playfully, sometimes seductively.
And I knew that she was using her time in the bath I'd run for her to face time Alex in China. And presumably to put on a show for him.
And then she stopped speaking and now I could hear a quick, repetitive splashing. And then a strange, restrained gurgle. And another. And then a pause, before a third.
And I knew what she was doing for him.
What was this? Was this her task for the day? Had I inadvertently provided her with the means to complete it? Or was it purely opportunism? Had Sophie, naked, her senses stirred by the warm, scented water, been moved to cam with Alex and perform for him?
Either way my plans for the evening suddenly seemed stupid. Was I completely deluding myself that we could have any kind of a marriage with Alex lurking behind us all the time? Oh sure, yeah we'd just carry on being a normal, loving couple, oh but every day my wife has to perform some kind of sexual task for her 'owner', and occasionally she goes off and has S&M with him ...
I knew I'd told myself that this was what I wanted. That I liked it in some way I couldn't quite explain or even understand.
But here was Sophie still bringing Alex into 'our' life. Again. Tonight was supposed to be about us. I'd made a real effort to make it special for us. So that we could talk.
But she hadn't been able to resist bringing Alex in. She was addicted. Just as Hannah had told me she would be.
Even though she'd agreed that we needed a night for the two of us to talk, nobody else, she couldn't resist having cybersex with Alex.
He'd surfaced again, just like he did over Sunday lunch.
I thought about my plan for our summer holiday. To place an embargo on us having contact with anyone else from our alternate lives.
Was that realistically going to happen? Would Sophie be in touch with Alex whenever she could? And would I be suspicious of what she was doing every moment we weren't together?
But more than that, the real question, the bigger question, was, if Sophie could never be trusted to keep away from Alex, to keep our life and 'Alice' separate, did we actually have such a thing as 'our' life?
When we had our talk there had to be a third rule for us to follow. Our time had to be our time. No intrusions from Alex, or Hannah or anyone. No contact. No tasks.
And that was actually going to be the cardinal rule.
Because if we couldn't have that, then we would have to ask ourselves whether we could have anything at all...
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