A Sissy's Progress - Chapter Three

Oh, I wish I could say that this is better.

Erica - I mean, Mommy - was pleased as punch with that last chapter. God, I was so relieved to see her stride into this room she has transformed into my nursery. Even though I knew that in all likelihood she had far more devious plans up her sleeve, I didn't truly care. The relief at watching her hands undo the locks that secure me in my night-weight padding - at feeling the cool air hit my reddening skin - at being lapped once more in layer upon dry layer of cloth and wood pulp and plastic - well, strangely enough it was worth it.

Or so I hope. I still don't know what she put into all that oatmeal. Or those two opaque bottles of "milk" and "juice" I had to guzzle down before being escorted back here to the prison she calls my crib.

It's something, isn't it? We all take for granted how mothers and fathers treat their real little children: picking their clothes, dressing and feeding them - by force if necessary - touching them without consent and trapping them in playpens and basically deciding the entire fate of their squirming little hostages without ever paying much attention to what they want. Hasn't anyone ever realized just how tyrannical, how dictatorial, how unfair all that is?

No, I guess not. Nobody, that is, except those of us who have to relive that coddled, repressed life of a helpless infant all over again.

I grimace as a tiny pang hits my belly. Uh-oh. I've felt that before, and it didn't lead to anything good. But I have to keep going. I have a story to tell, no matter how many feedings and accidents and shit-filled diapers might be in my future.

I have to tell the story of how Julie and I were found out.

*** 

I've heard it said that most folks, when doing something they know is wrong, secretly long to get caught. They need the certainty that wrong is wrong, that right is right, that there are punishments and principles and things in this crazy world that are solid and true and lasting. Even now, I don't know whether either of us really wanted to get caught.

What I do know is that we most certainly did.

It wasn't even in an exciting way, to be honest. I guess there's a hidden dramatic streak in me that wishes there had been some sudden confrontation, some startling face-to-face revelation between my wife and my mistress. But no, of course not. All it took was a stray text at the wrong time, and my wife knew.

Yeah. Talk about cliché.

Still, I can retell it well enough, and even with a certain amount of imagination. There was a sudden glow and buzz in the night as I was snoring in quiet oblivion. My wife, having been wakened to tend to something - perhaps a leaky pad - reached over, wondering sleepily who on earth could be texting her husband at 3 am. And oh, I can imagine it well enough: the sudden intake of breath, the widening eyes, the tightening lips as she read the incriminating words...

"Hey, honey, miss you so much! Why don't you come on over again tomorrow evening? Please? 😘"

To Erica's credit, she didn't murder me right then and there as I slept - as I probably deserved. She didn't even wake me. But oh, did she have something to say in the morning. She was hurt, angry, betrayed, tearful, enraged: everything that she had every right to be. I'd betrayed her trust. I'd gone behind her back to find adulterous pleasures in the arms of another woman. I'd lied when I said those words about staying true only to her as long as we both would live.

"Honey, I'm sorry," I told her - over and over again. Was I? Even now, I'm not quite sure. Obviously, I was sorry I'd gotten caught. And I was sorry she felt so bad. But even so, there was a hateful little voice in my head protesting that it wasn't entirely my fault - that she should have been more loving - that if she hadn't been spending all her time and money with her girlfriends then I wouldn't have fled into the arms of another...

Meh. Those were all pretty lame excuses, I suppose. Because in the end, I was the one responsible for my actions, and I was the one who should have told her I was feeling neglected. I had acted like a coward about it, and now I had to pay the price.

Yes, the price. What was it, exactly?

Erica talked first, in her rage and tears, of leaving me - of divorcing my cheating ass and getting the hell out. Then she spoke of throwing me out, of kicking my cheating ass to the curb. Then, having calmed down a bit further, and perhaps recalling our relative balance of assets and the marital property laws of our state, she shifted to a different strategy. She'd tell all our friends, my coworkers, my boss, our parents... you get the picture. My name would be black and everyone would see what absolute shit she had to deal with. She would be the martyr and I the villain.

But in the end, she didn't choose that path, either. Though god knows sometimes I wish she had.

I came home from the office that day to find Erica seated at the dinner table, an odd look of determination in her eye. "Sit down, Shane," she ordered, none too happily. I acquiesced, naturally. You don't cross a woman when she looks like that - not unless you have a death wish.

"I've been thinking," she told me icily. "I've had a lot of time to think today about what you've done. And about what we're going to do." I sighed in contrition. "Honey, I'm sorry," I repeated like a broken record. "I'll do anything to make it up to you, babe. Just please, give me a chance-" "Oh, don't worry about that," she interrupted coldly. "I've already decided to give you a chance, babe. You see," and she leaned toward me ever so slightly, "I don't want us to break up, either. Not really."

I drew in a shaky breath as sudden hope sparked within me. "Honey, thank you! I don't deserve it, I know-" "Oh, would you shut up?" she snapped. "I didn't say I was taking you back like it never happened. Listen. You just told me you'd do anything to make it up to me. Did you really mean that, or was that yet another lie?"

Of course I told her I meant it. "Anything, honey. Really. I feel so bad..." "Well, that's something," she observed sarcastically, that odd gleam coming back to her eyes. "I've been talking about this with my girls, and they gave me some great ideas about what to do with you. And unless you want to be out on the curb on your ass, you're going to go along with it."

Once again, like an idiot I reassured her that I would go along with it. "You can take my phone, monitor my emails, whatever you want, honey. I'll break up with Julie. I'll never see her again-" "Never mind all that," she reassured me, still with that same oddly calculating look in her eye. "I'll tell you what you'll be doing as we go along. For now, though..."

And here she gave me the first smile of the day. A dangerous smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"For now, you're going to hand over that credit card. I've got a few purchases I need to make."