College no longer appealed to her; what was the point? She really wanted to be a 'stay at home mom', have her children and make her home lovely for her husband to come home to each night. She wanted to give him and her children the home she had never had as a child. Sitting on the couch musing like this, an unpleasant memory of her drunken stepfather weaving angrily toward her, flashed through her mind.
To distract herself she looked down at the magazine in her lap. Idly, she began flipping through its pages, seeing bulletin board computer addresses for a wide variety of topics and tastes. "Vintage Car BB, Used and Rare Books BB, Naked Girls BB, Hot XXX College Babes, Fuck Zone." It took Tracy a minute to figure out that BB meant bulletin board. Kyle had explained to her that these were sites you could log into and find friends who shared your interests. You could have your own little email account there, and you picked a 'handle', he told her, that you signed in with. It was fun, he assured her.
"Where do you go?" she had asked, innocently at first. He told her he used it for medical sites, and to find other audiophiles like himself. He appreciated fine music, mostly classical, which Tracy never really understood, but tried to sit through for Kyle's sake. He was so sophisticated compared to her, she thought.
Despite what he said to Tracy about where he went on the computer, in fact Kyle went almost exclusively to sex sites. He always had a very high sex drive, and Tracy never seemed to satisfy him, though God knew she tried to, even when she would rather be reading her novel or sleeping. She always gave in to Kyle, who constantly pushed her until it was easier to acquiesce and be allowed to sleep eventually.
It hadn't always been like that. At first she couldn't get enough of him. Back in college they would meet in his dorm room, stealing a moment when his roommate was out, feverishly making love, most of their clothes on, shushing each other so no one would hear them through the flimsy dorm walls. Even then, if she were honest, he usually 'took' her before she was ready. She'd attributed that to his intense desire for her, and told herself it was a compliment.
Something was missing now, which she couldn't quite define. Or more accurately, she refused to. Whatever it was, it had been a long, slow time in coming. Tracy shook her head to clear these negative thoughts. She wasn't given much to introspection; it was too dangerous.
Missing or not, Tracy never refused Kyle's attentions, but her 'wifely duty' wasn't enough, it seemed. Lately at night she would wake up, and feel his absence in the bed. Coming fully awake, she heard the muted tap, tap, tapping of the keys. The first time she tiptoed out to see what he was doing, she was stunned to see him with his pants around his ankles, his erect cock in one hand, while he pumped and typed simultaneously. It was such a bizarre sight that she almost laughed out loud.
He hadn't noticed her, and she slipped silently back to bed, sure that if he saw her he would either be angry and accuse her of 'spying' on him, or he would make her come over and suck his cock. She wasn't up for that just then.
His nocturnal exploits became fairly regular after that, and she lived with it. It meant less obligation for her, as he seemed to be 'getting his needs met' elsewhere. Tracy was vaguely jealous, though relieved she didn't have to have sex every single night anymore. But when he started logging on during the day, or right after dinner, and staying on most of the evening, it was just too much. Tracy protested, and was handed the magazine.
Ok, fine. She would get on there too, and see what all the hoopla was about. She scanned the list, looking for something interesting, like a cooking site or a parenting site, but her eye fell on something that made her catch her breath. "BDSM Palace – where all your sadomasochistic dreams come true."Oh. My. God. There's a site like that? Tracy felt a small clutch in her groin. She licked her lips, which had suddenly become dry. BDSM. Bondage. Dominance. Sadomasochism. The words evoked something inside her that she couldn't quite define.
Liar. She could define it, all right. She was just afraid to. It was desire, a raging curiosity, and wonder – wondering if there were other people out there like her. People who would log on to this site and actually 'talk' to each other about this stuff!
With fingers trembling, Tracy went to the little laptop that was 'her' computer. Laboriously she followed the instructions on how to log on. After several minutes of struggle, she finally managed to enter the site, which lit up as a crudely drawn castle appeared, with the words BDSM PALACE emblazoned across it. She was invited to sign up, choose a 'nickname', and create a profile.
She felt like a kid in a candy shop, moving from screen to screen, scrolling through other people's submissive fantasies, and reading scholarly articles written by professor types about how S amp;M wasn't perverted, and occurred naturally in many people, in varying degrees. She felt as if she were standing at the edge of a huge canyon, one she had never known was there. Did she have the courage to jump?
Then one day, those words, suddenly appearing in red at the bottom of her screen, "I'll be your Master." The nickname attached to the message was "Sir Stephen." A real person out there somewhere wanted something from her. She knew on some level she desperately wanted to give something. She had responded with an inane, "Excuse me?"
"I'll be your Master. I read your profile. I liked what I read. I want to know more. I want to learn about you. To teach you, if we seem to fit."
"I'd like that," she typed back, hoping she was coming across cool, but interested. "I am very new to all this, but fascinated with what I've been reading. Are you into this in 'real life'?"
"If by that you mean, not just typing to other people across a void about our mutual fantasies and dreams, then yes, I am 'into it' in 'real life'. Very much so."
Her heart actually gave a little jolt as she read the message. He went on, "Where do you live?" Tracy didn't respond at first, suddenly having fantasies of some creepy stranger breaking down her door to kill her. He must have understood her hesitation because he typed quickly, "I mean, what state? You are American, aren't you?"
Well, no harm in that, surely. "I'm from Texas. Houston, actually." There, that should be ok. Houston was a huge city, after all.
"Oh. I'm up in New York. Thousands of miles away. And yet here we are, typing to each other as if we were next door. Technology is amazing."
She agreed, not sure for the moment, if she were relieved or sorry that he lived so far away. She was just going to check this 'Sir Stephen's' profile when Kyle called from the other room that he was hungry.
As they drove to the restaurant, she was quiet, considering her immediate denial to her husband about what she had been doing on the computer. It wasn't just that she was at a 'sex' site; that probably would have turned him on. He frequently mentioned his fantasy of them 'getting it on' with another woman. He liked to point at various strangers and even suggested some of Tracy's friends as possible partners in their threesome. She wasn't totally against it herself, but she was reasonably sure it was just a game to him, and she certainly hadn't tried to do anything about it.
No, she already knew it was more than just going to a sex site. She was thinking of a stranger for the first time in her marriage. She was thinking about a specific man out there somewhere – a man who used the nickname 'Sir Stephen', and wanted to be her 'Master.'
Tracy realized, as she sat demurely, looking out the window, that she had just betrayed her husband. She hadn't done it in words or deeds, but in some secret essence of herself. She was about to embark on a journey from which there would be no return, and on some level, in some part of her that she didn't have the courage to confront yet, she knew it.