Chapter 1

“Okay, where’s the camera? Whose idea of a practical joke is this, anyway? Who put you up to this?” I asked Satya, my drop-dead gorgeous, but married, conservative nurse from Mumbai.

“Well, it is not a practical joke, as you put it, but it is my husband’s idea. He wants this and I must obey him. He says that if I do this, he will take me back afterward and things will go back to normal. He wants me to spend one year as your slave, period. Your...bed slave, if you will. In that time, we will be divorced, so it won’t be adultery per se, but I will be a loose woman, and that idea excites him. When we remarry, I will not be asked to bed other men, nor would he want to, as he does not wish to be a cuckold. This is the only way that he can benefit from me whoring around without him having to be disgraced. He can take me back, forgive me, and look nobler for doing so,” Satya explained, feeling rather embarrassed by the whole idea.

“What about me makes me an attractive candidate for this sort of thing as far as he knows? What makes him think, other than your obvious beauty and charms, that I’d go for it? In other words, why me, who he only knows through you? What makes him sure that I’m not married, or gay, or just very religious or a prude? For that matter, how does he know that I’m not one of those Mormon fundies who will try to add you to my harem, or a sicko serial killer who will add you to his trophy collection? Does he honestly wish to just play games with your life...and your body by commanding you to serve me for a full calendar year?

“What if I decided to breed you, to pimp you out, God knows what! He’s just handing you to me like a slab of beef and expecting that you’ll turn out just fine? Does he really care that little about your welfare, as to simply lend you like a DVD to a man that he barely knows? I could be a serious criminal, even a terrorist, and how would you even know? More mundanely, what if I took a serious liking to you and didn’t want to just give you back to a man who considers you disposable and might treat you as damaged goods in spite of his assurances? What if this is just an easy way to get rid of you and not look as bad to your family, since he could deny turning you over to me?” I pointed out all of the pitfalls and obvious concerns that a sensible husband should have about simply giving me custody of his wife for an entire year.

“All of this occurred to me, but I didn’t want to raise it with you, since it clearly didn’t work with him. I didn’t know if most men thought as he did, or if he was an anomaly or aberration of sorts. I am a registered nurse, after all, with a degree from Johns Hopkins. I am not a fool or in any way naive. Oh, and I have to quit my job to do this, too, per his orders. So, there goes my income and who knows when or if I will be able to get another position half as good in a year’s time, but he is my lord and husband, and tradition demands that I obey his word as law, so here I am.

“It sucks ass, but this is my lot in life, thanks to my goofy parents who pushed me into a marriage to a complete jerk. Why couldn’t they arrange a marriage to a better man? Oh, that’s right. Father wanted to get into the country club, and he had to bend over backwards for Gautam’s family to get that coveted spot! So, for that, no less, a golf membership, my entire life is put into the hands of an imbecile!

“I can see now why he had a hard time getting a wife and why they insisted that he be the groom. He’s an absolute fool, but he is still my husband, my lord, and my master, so I must do his bidding in all things,” Satya continued at length, venting to me, the head nurse in her department, about her life being controlled by such a prick as Gautam.

“No offense, but it sounds like your parents are as pathetic as he is. Trading a beloved daughter for a golf membership, really? Is playing golf and hobnobbing with the rich and famous worth ruining your child’s life? Are women really such disposable goods to your family, trinkets to be bought, sold, and bartered for whatever the men desire? I can’t quite wrap my head around this one, to say the least. What kind of man, incidentally, does Gautam think that I am?” I shook my head by now.

“Well, he knows that you bed...how shall I put it, other men’s wives, and that is perhaps what draws him to you. He thinks that you’ll just jump at the chance to bed yet another married woman for a whole year, having my body on tap, at your beck and call, and that you’ll be ready to dismiss me by the end of the term. He thinks that you seduce married women because you can and because it’s easier than marrying one, since you’re not married yourself.

“He figures that if you like borrow other men’s wives, you would enjoy using me for a while. As far as he understands it, you’re an adulterer, and that’s all that he needs to know about you. He actually told me, when I expressed some doubts, that, ‘An adulterer has no conscience by definition, Satya! He’s perfect for this role!’ He also thinks that, as a white, Western, Christian man, you’re inherently decadent, anyway,” Satya told me, more than a little awkwardly, since it was clear that her husband had interpreted information that she had given him about me.

“Is that what you told him, though, that I’m just a regular seducer of other men’s wives, an adulterer, and that’s all there is to it?” I confronted the very issue bothered me directly, “Did you tell him that I’m a player, a womanizer, a lecher, a philanderer?”

“Well, not precisely. I simply mentioned in passing that you and Patty Ramos were intimate for a while, and then also that you had been with Veronica Stanescu for a while, but I wasn’t sure for how long in either case. Both are married women, and let’s be honest, we both know that you took them as lovers, don’t we? For that matter, there were rumors about you and Eva Warwick, though no one could prove that one, I believe. She’s married, too, isn’t she?

“So, yes, there is enough for him to think that he knows you, though I’m not entirely sure about that assumption. He has drawn his own conclusions from that, and I’ve let him do so, because it’s often pointless to try to convince him that he’s wrong about anything. He’s worse than some women that I know, and that’s usually a fault that I associate with my sex, not his. That’s part of why I’m leery of feminism, even though I dislike a lot of the misogynistic nonsense being shoved down my throat by my parents.

“Am I really that pathetic, by the way, in that I am a grown woman and a registered nurse, and I’m still afraid of my father? My mother is no prize, but that’s mostly my father’s doing, having turned her into a mouse of sorts. She is terrified to defy him at all, in anything, or even remotely stand up to him. She has simply gone along with things, many of which I sensed that she doubted, but dared not to oppose. Even Gautam is a little scared of Father, in fact, though I dare not snitch on him, because he could ruin things for us all,” Satya continued her shocking revelations about her family.

“For the record, I think that your father might be emotionally abusive, maybe worse. He certainly sounds controlling and narcissistic, to put it mildly. If your mother and you are being abused, I would not be surprised at anything that you do to placate him, as astonishing as this might be on the surface. His behavior suggests an authoritarian, even bullying personality, as a matter of fact, and he might well have other malignant tendencies. If he scares even your husband, that’s a very bad sign, I believe.

“That clarified, there are a few other things that we are going to clear up here. First, if I take you on, you will not quit this job. Period. Someone has to look out for your future, and since your husband is putting my wishes above your welfare, that someone evidently is me. Sure, your hours will be adjusted, and maybe a cut a few times, but I will not let you burn your bridges with this hospital. I will not let your husband’s fantasies, which in themselves are not evil, only how he has acted on them, ruin your life. Do you understand me? Besides, you’re a valuable member of our team and we would have more than a little trouble getting the job done without you. The lives of our patients matter more than Gautam’s petty whims.

“Furthermore, since I do not trust your husband to put your welfare above his own desires, in addition to you getting community property in the divorce, your paychecks will be directly deposited into an account that you and I jointly own, but he will not get access to that money at all. He will have no say in your finances, whatsoever, but I will have final say during the year, though I will certainly take your wishes into account, since it’s your own money. After the year, of course, you will have full financial independence and final control over your money. I strongly suggest that you kept your finances separate, so that you are not dependent on a worm like him, if you even return to him, that is.