Chapter 1: Husband's Return

David asked, “And this time? Will you have him back again? Do you still love him?”

“I don’t know. What do I have to do?” Wendy asked.

“You don’t have to do anything. There are things you need to do before deciding what you want. There are things I need to know before I let you go back to your old Master. The first thing you need to do is ask him what he means by ‘coming back’. Is his new woman with him? Is he expecting you to sleep with him? Is he expecting to live in your house? All of those at once?” said David, “Singapore is eight hours ahead of us so it is late afternoon there; ring him up,” then he pointed to the telephone and went into the study, closing the door to give her some privacy.

Coming out of the study some hour or so later he found Wendy sitting at the kitchen table staring at the wall.

“Well?” he asked.

“He wants to come back to me. His woman turned out not to be pregnant. He wants to pick up where he left off with me. I just don’t know what to do for the best.”

“Did you tell him about us?”

“No. I didn’t think that over the ‘phone was a good way to do that,” she answered.

“Well,” David asked, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Please Master, tell me what to do?” she begged.

“No. I won’t decide for you. I think that this has to be your decision. If I order you to stay with me you may well regret it when I get bored with you, and yet if you take him back you may regret that if he can’t, or at any rate doesn’t, provide a reasonable life style,” he responded.

“Please Master, then can you help me to decide what to do?” she begged.

“When I have to make an important decision about anything I find it helps to make a list of the pros and cons of that decision, so go away and write down all the arguments on a piece of paper and bring them to me. Then we can look at them together.”

Eventually she presented him with a piece of paper:

Pro Con

We are married I know his faults
We know each other’s habits He doesn’t know about my affair
I know his faults
I know about his affair

“That’s it?” asked David.

“All I could think of,” she replied, looking forlorn.

“Nothing about love? Nothing about security? Nothing about pleasure in each other’s company, in or out of bed? Nothing specific about money? Go away and try again.”

“Yes, Master.”

An hour later she returned with another piece of paper:

Pro Con

We are married I know his faults
We know each other’s habits He doesn’t know about my affair and
I know his faults may object
I know about his affair We didn’t have any common
We both enjoyed sex together interests
to a certain extent I didn’t enjoy sex with him as much
He earns a reasonable salary as I do now with Master
He used to earn a reasonable salary
but didn’t give me any money

David added one extra item and handed it back to her.

Pro Con

We are married I know his faults
We know each other’s habits He doesn’t know about my affair and
I know his faults may object
I know about his affair We didn’t have any common
We both enjoyed sex together to interests
a certain extent I didn’t enjoy sex with him as much
He earns a reasonable salary as I do now with Master
Master may sell me to someone He used to earn a reasonable salary
I don’t like but didn’t give me any money

When she read what he had written she was horrified and said, “You wouldn’t would you?”

David’s response frightened her, “Of course I would, if I got fed up with you. You have cost me a lot of money and I would want at least some of it back if you weren’t going to be my slave any more. And accepting me as really your Master and you as really my slave, not just playing at it, is what not going back to Rodney would imply.”