I grew up on TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and the Cosby Show. In Leave it to Beaver, Hugh Beaumont would come home with his briefcase and be greeted at the door by his wife in an apron. She’d have the house perfectly immaculate and then he would solve some dilemma the boys found themselves in before sitting down in his business suit to a home cooked meal. There was no problem he couldn’t solve and he seemed ageless and timeless.

The Cosby show worked much the same way. The wisecracking Dad who happened to be a Doctor along with his wife who happened to be a Doctor also would raise their kids and any problem they encountered could be solved in thirty minutes and usually ended with a funny look and a “But Rudy!!”

That was TV though and even though I knew it was fantasy those were the traditional relationship models I had growing up.

I know life is nothing like the ideal situations on Television but if you had asked me growing up if I thought my life would turn out this way – well I would have laughed.

I wasn’t anything like Hugh Beaumont by the time I grew up to be his age. I worked a pretty good job in management but I wasn’t married. I had been engaged to my fiancé for several years in part because I lacked the motivation to get everything together and it seemed like one life event after the other was causing me to not prioritize it.

I was also out of shape. I tried working out but after several New Years Resolutions to get to the gym I realized I would be forever signing up for a year and only going for the January-February timeframe on an annual basis about five years ago.

When I was younger I could get hard and stay hard and I took that for granted. I even had some girls complain that I took too long to cum. I don’t know what happens when you are in your late forties but my testosterone must have dropped and I could barely get it up. I was lucky enough to have a Doctor who could give me some cream but even when I could get it up I couldn’t last more than a few seconds in the bedroom.

My fiancé would get frustrated with me but after I came then I no longer wanted to do anything sexual and I found myself feeling guilty about initiating sex with her because I didn’t want to be a minute-man and end up only leaving her unsatisfied.

I found myself getting irritated very easily. I would yell at cars in front of me that they were too slow while yelling at cars behind me that honked because they thought I was going too slow. I would get frustrated with work and my own family. I would also get frustrated with her adult-children that still lived with us. I would get frustrated at the step-fathers who were still in their lives.

My fiancé Elaine was the kind of woman that didn’t realize how beautiful she is. She enjoyed reading, she had an interest in history and had at one time dabbled in Wicca. The best way to describe her is there is an actress named Eliza Butterworth. If you were to Google a picture of her then you would have a very good idea of how she looks. She had a shy side where she would shut down when there was confrontation but she also had a Mama Bear side where she would do anything to protect her kids. She was strong in ways that I could never be – quietly stubborn at times and very sensitive.

I love her so much – she is the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to tell you about a day before what I call Grounds Hog Day.

In the movie Ground Hogs Day, Bill Murray repeats the same activities over and over. He can act differently, he can say different things but no matter what happens the same day happens over pretty much the same way as the last.

That had been my life for the last five years of our relationship. I would wake up and walk my dogs. I would grumble and complain and take my blood pressure pills and testosterone creams. I usually had some vitamin I thought would give me energy that really didn’t do anything except sap my wallet. I would go to work and complain all day. I’d read the news and complain about that. I’d come home and complain about my day and then turn on the television and complain about how dumb that was. I’d eat something and walk my dogs and then I’d fall asleep and the next day I’d wake up and do that again.

Elaine and I often had weekends to ourselves. Her son worked a job that required him to be gone all weekend and every other weekend her daughter Linda was with Stephen.

Those days she would ask me if I had anything planned and usually I didn’t. I had been too busy dealing with the Groundhog days during the week to think about the Ground Hog Weekends. I would want to sleep and rest to prepare for the next week but usually we’d end up going out to eat someplace. She’d often pick places she didn’t really like because she knew I liked them. I’d feel dumb because I we wasted money on a dinner she didn’t enjoy and then I’d complain. We’d sometimes go to a Theme Park since we lived near a couple or go shopping for stuff we needed but the weekends were fairly uneventful.

I know you are probably thinking to yourself right now “My God Man! You are the most boring motherfucker on the planet. Why did you write a story about the most boring person doing the most boring things for the most boring and selfish of reasons? A story is supposed to focus on that one part of your life when you had an adventure and not the mundane of laundry and homework. Imagine if Harry Potter was about the time Harry did his laundry and not the time he killed Voldemort? We’d not have gotten too far reading how he sorted his socks and found he came up missing one.”

It was important that I tell you how ordinary my life was before I told you about the day I came home from work and found my fiancé sitting at the table with a massive three ring binder. She had sorted it with color coded tabs and was reading when I came in. This ordinarily wouldn’t surprise me at all. She is the type who liked to keep things organized – a place for everything and everything in its place.

“Strip, Jim – it’s time we had a talk,” she said.

“Pardon? What are you talking about?” I asked. We didn’t walk around naked in the house as a general rule.

“I said take off your clothes and come sit at my feet. I need to talk to you about something and I want you to be conducive to listening,” Elaine would be forceful with her kids but never talked to me this way. I was shocked.

“Is this a joke? I’m flattered but uh, what are you talking about?” I said.

“I have already said what I wanted. I am not repeating myself. We need to talk. I told you today we would sit down and go over some new rules around the house,” she reminded me.

I had completely forgotten she mentioned that. I thought she meant some new rules for her kids since neither paid rent and they barely did anything around the house to help her clean up. However, I had a tendency to forget things and I had forgotten she had even brought it up. I didn’t want to admit that I had forgotten.

“You never listen to me when I tell you things. I think that is because you are not positioned to listen. I need to remove all distractions. Cell phone on the table, clothes folded on the floor, sit at my feet and we will have a chat. This is your last warning,” Elaine said. I wasn’t sure what the consequences would be and I was more curious then I was afraid of any consequence.

I knew no one else was home and our dogs were crated in the other room. I wasn’t shy with my body around her. I smiled and began to take my clothes off to put them on the chair.

“Neatly folded on the floor, Jim” she reminded me and I smiled and obeyed her. I would play this game if anything to see where it was going. When it came time to sit on the floor, I was a little gun shy considering that I wasn’t particularly limber and the floor was cold.

“What now?” I asked her.

“You talk more than you listen. That ends today. We are going to go over the new rules and you will understand each and every one of them before you agree to them. Things are going to change from today forward and when you have demonstrated you can accept them then we will discuss whether or not you and I are to be married,” Elaine said fluidly as if she had practiced it.

I started to make a few excuses about why we hadn’t gotten married but she shushed me. I wasn’t used to being shushed – certainly not in my own home. It felt shocking and painful – and yet I was curious now what she was talking about enough to hear her out.

My cock wasn’t hard but I was sitting on my balls and I gently touched and adjusted myself.

“No touching yourself!” Elaine’s eyes flashed with anger and she looked at me with scorn. I felt guilty – like I had been caught trying to masturbate. I wanted to explain that the floor was cold and I was just getting comfortable but she told me she didn’t want to hear any excuses – I needed to listen.

The next hour or so she went over general rules. I’ve already bored you to tears with the nature of my life up to this point. I certainly won’t even try to write out the rules in detail for you. I will just tell you that they covered how I was to talk, dress, walk, sleep, eat and the consequences for what happens if I fail to meet her expectations. They covered how the money would be handled and what I was to do in public. I was to be polite at all times from now on and always be respectful to my betters.

I would give up my keys to the house and knock on my own door to enter. Once let in, I would knock on any door to enter unless given explicit permission. I would not sit on furniture without permission. I would not do anything without permission.

She would handle all our finances and I was to be given a small allowance for acceptable purchases. I was to ask permission for anything out of the ordinary.

I wanted to ask her why she thought I would do any of these things. I wanted to ask her why she thought they were necessary but when she noticed me trying to interrupt her she told me “Don’t do that thing where you talk over me. You need to hear this entirely before you are permitted to give any feedback. You are being told WHAT you are expected to do. You haven’t been told WHY you will do these things.”

It sounded kinky on some level. I don’t mean “sexual” though – none of it involved sexual pleasure or release. I knew what bondage and sexual dominance was but it was something I had read about on the internet or seen in pornos. I had never really engaged in anything like that.

The control Elaine was going to take over me involved changing how I was to behave around the house and in public. It involved my posture – sitting up straight and not slouching. It involved my speech – speaking clearly but waiting until the other person speaks. It involved something she called “Mansplaining” and how I would never be doing it again.

I was offended she seemed to think so poorly of me. The way she described me I talked over people, I didn’t listen, I created conflict where there wasn’t any, I was lazy, selfish, self-centered. It was all true and she didn’t really need to give examples but she did anyway on each point.

I was nearly about to cry because I wanted to ask if I was so bad then why was she with me to begin with.

“Jim, I love you. I love all of you. I thought long and hard about this and after a lot of research on the Internet what I want is a Female led household. It doesn’t mean you are any less a partner in this relationship it just means that your role in it is going to change. We have tried it with us trying to be equals and with you trying to make the plans and it hasn’t been working. I am asking you to try it with me making the decisions and you learning how to follow. It is a lot more difficult than it sounds but it is also freeing because it will relieve you of the responsibilities of having to make difficult decisions.”

“You really want me to be this weak sort of man though?” I asked while realizing I probably seemed pretty weak sitting on the floor naked anyway.

“That is the biggest mistake you can make. You think submission makes you weak? It doesn’t. It is going to take all of your strength to accept your shortcomings and then address those behaviors through domestic discipline. I have a plan that in three months’ time you will accept your role in the house. I want you Jim. I just don’t want you like you are now. I know you don’t either – I know you want to change and be better – you want to make me happy?” she smiled down at me and put her finger on my chin to console me.

“IS this about sex?” I wanted to bring up how I had not been fulfilling her sexually and maybe this was born out of frustration in the bedroom.

“You are going to be trained to please me in the bedroom but you also have to learn to please me when we are in public. You will open doors for me. You will let me order for us in the restaurants. You will accept my suggestions and trust me to make the right decisions. You don’t trust me now to know what is best for you,” she said calmly.

I started to get defensive and say that I totally trusted her but she shook her head.

“If you did, you wouldn’t resist this offer I am making to you. I have only covered the first section of the binder – basic protocols of domestic discipline. Do you see how many more sections there are? They cover so many things but you first need to trust me that I have a plan and accept it.”

“How can you plan for literally every situation?” I asked her. In my job I am a planner but in my personal life I tend to like to be spontaneous. It often lends itself to my Groundhog situation because I rely on my patterns of behavior and doing what I always do as a matter of routine.

“You plan for the likely and you have a philosophy for the unlikely,” she showed me a page that had that printed on it and I realized the times she claimed to have been playing computer games on her computer – she must have been typing up a series of rules.

“There are also exams and evaluations in here. Every Sunday you will sit down with me and I will go over what you learned and how you behaved this past week. I will give you constructive feedback and a plan on how to improve before discussing new expectations for the following week. These lesson plans are all in this section,” she tapped a finger on a section of the binder. “You will then be permitted to give your own feedback and if you are respectful you can suggest new rules which we can consider for revision into the notebook.”

“Wow, this seems like something Sheldon Cooper would give Amy to define their relationship in the Big Bang Theory,” I tried to add a little levity to the situation by joking. I was actually flattered that she had taken the time to write all of this down and at the same time afraid of what I was getting myself into because I was actually considering it.

What she said made a lot of sense. I didn’t want to give up control and I certainly didn’t want to be told what to do but at the same time she made the case that if I tried this then she could address my shortcomings.

“Jim, I am by no means perfect. I have plenty of insecurities and foibles too and I know I have room to improve. I definitely don’t feel comfortable in a leadership role because I have always been something of a follower who gets things done behind the strong leader. This new direction in our relationship is going to give me an opportunity to test myself and see if I can grow and flourish in this role. It isn’t something I saw myself doing when I was growing up,” she said.

She too had grown up with the traditional female and male gender roles being ingrained in her head.

“I am not going to tell you that if you don’t do this I am leaving. I am not going to force you to accept this new role. I am not going to be the villain or bully who shames and beats you like Cruella DeVille. However, I AM going to discipline you and that means that I am going to have to address and subdue your ego. That means you will be humbled and accept an openly subservient role in our relationship. If you can do it until your birthday then your gift will be a lifetime with me as your bride. If you can’t then we’ll cross that bridge but I am going to do everything I can to ensure that you remain motivated to behave exactly as you are being instructed.”

“You make it sound like I am like a slave, Elaine” I observed.

She smiled. It was an uncomfortable pause that left me waiting for confirmation of what I had started to suspect the way she said I’d be addressing her as Ma’am and obeying her even in public.

“You won’t be LIKE a slave at all, but I see it more as a house pet. Slaves are property that can be sold and their feelings aren’t considered. You are a cherished member of this house it is just that your rank will change from being able to come and go as you please. It would be irresponsible to let a Pet come and go as they please or misbehave. The authority I have over you will come with a responsibility over you – one to care and nurture you in the right ways.

My eyes grew wide. No one had ever talked to me this way in my entire life and despite a fertile imagination I had never really considered letting anyone think of me as a “Pet”.

I had seen Internet videos of women in the nude dressed as ponies or puppies in leather with bit-gags in their mouth and tails stuck in their butt doing very sexual things. My mind instantly went there as a frame of reference but this is not what Elaine was talking about. I asked if that is what she meant.

“We can’t have you like that around my friends and family but I would be turned on by you that way, sure,” she said ambivalently as if she thought it would be cool. This was a side of Elaine I had never pictured before.

“So how will I be dressed around them then?” I found myself already accepting that we were doing this even though I had all this apprehension about what was to come and discomfort giving up my ‘masculine’ ways as she called them.

“You are already trying to control this interview and set our agenda. I see I have my work cut out for me, but I have baby steps in mind.”

She had a pink tube with straps that she told me was my “Starter Cock Cage”. My eyes went wide at the object because I had asked what I would be wearing around company and this was what she showed me.

“You’ll have this on 24/7 unless I tell you otherwise,” she told me to stand up and intended to lock it on me.

I stood up instinctively but I was in shock and dismay. “Wait? What? How will I go pee? How will I you know? Have sex? Aren’t we going to have to sex?” I didn’t want this thing on me 24/7 and I was horrified that she DID.

“Again with the unsolicited questions? I told you to trust me to have this planned out and to go over what you need to know. I will do that WHEN you need to know it – when you are READY to know it. You will be able to pee through this hole here,” she showed me an opening at the bottom of the cock cage.

I wanted to ask what would happen when I get hard but I so seldom got full erections any more that I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear “When is that?”. I asked instead “What about us - when will we have sex though?”I blurted out. I was really wondering IF we would have sex.

She wiped a dab of pre-cum from the tip of my cock and licked her lips. She called it “Hot” and I have to admit I hadn’t seen her do anything like that before. We had sex obviously but there was something so provocative about the hunger on her face that I wanted her to do it – to put the cage on my body.

“We will have sex when I want it and you will be taught to pleasure me. You won’t be playing with this cock. I own it. It belongs to me. You will be treated as a sex object and your cock is my plaything to be used when I want. The discomfort you will feel after a while will frustrate you but you will learn to accept it as part of how you demonstrate subservience,” I was so stunned by her words she began to apply it to my flaccid cock. I thought it would snap on but it LOCKED on.

She smiled and showed me a key that hung around her neck and said that is where it would be at all times. “I’ll know where your dick is and you will know where your key is,” she smirked playfully.

“How will I know where your pussy is then?” I shouldn’t have said that. I never thought she would cheat on me in a million years but I guess I just thought it was fair that if she had me locked up then I should have her locked up the same way.

“Oh? You don’t trust me not to fuck around, Jim?” she looked hurt – like I was accusing her and that wasn’t my intention. I was just confused and starting to feel like this new relationship may be very one sided. I didn’t have a full grasp of all the rules and I was struggling with everything she said and yet strangely curious where it was going.

“I do trust you and I am sorry, I just want things to be fair,” I tried to explain.

“This is fair but it doesn’t mean that we do the same things. I own your cock and I own this pussy – if I tell you to touch it then you may. If I tell you that you can kiss it then you may.”

“But can you tell anyone else to do it?” I asked sheepishly.

“I think I made myself clear that I had no interest in anyone else doing it. In fact, part of the reason I am training you is that I want you to do it – just how I like it. We don’t have an open relationship and never will – so I want you to get out of your head right now that is something that is going to happen,” she insisted I understand that before continuing.

I’ve since learned that a lot of female led marriages involve cuckolding where the man services the woman and she sees a lot of men. She told me that she wants me to desire her intensely enough to allow that just to be with her but that she has no interest in sleeping with anyone else. “If I did then I would have years ago. I want you Jim.”

She said it so emphatically and so clearly that it turned me on. I couldn’t get hard now that I had on the pink cock cage but I was getting strangely aroused by the strange turn around in our relationship. I have to admit I was excited about what the future held.

“Well, I don’t want Jim to be exact – not the old Jim,” Elaine clarified that she wanted me to leave the baggage, the complaints, the shortcomings, the history of my past, the bad behaviors with the old Jim and start new.

“I am going to give you a new name. I am going to give you a new attitude and I am going to give you a new purpose in life – to learn to submit and obey. You will wake up knowing everyday what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to do it and what is expected and why and what the consequences are if you fail. Do you like that?” she asked me while I stood next to her looking down at my new cock cage and trying to wake up from a very surreal dream that I knew was my new reality.

She expected an answer and she swatted my butt for the first time to get my attention. I instinctively flinched and then I relaxed my muscles afterwards. I didn’t expect that although she had talked about spanking in some of her earlier expectations it had not coalesced in my mind until she actually reached around to my bare ass and slapped it that she may actually do any of this. It sounded so far out – like some fantasy.

“Actually, I would be curious how that feels but at the same time there is so much I don’t know that I can’t picture me waking up every day with a complete understanding,” I answered her honestly.

“You will start addressing me as Ma’am or Mistress as that will help establish in your mind that I am the one who you answer too and respect. You won’t know everything you need to do for a while and I’ll take that into account as we progress but first you will have to unlearn a lot of the masculine-male ego attitudes you have and let go of them in order to make room for these new attitudes about being helpful and obedient. I don’t want you to be ashamed of serving me but I am going to have to humble you and that means I have to say things that will put you in your place. At times, they may seem vulgar, and harsh but they will always be honest and come from a place of love. I need you to really understand and want that before we move forward because as I told you earlier I don’t want you seeing me as this complete asshole who just smacks you whenever she wants you to pay attention and stop staring at your cock cage,” She smacked my bottom firmly to make a point that I was doing it again and told me to look at her when she talked to me.

It was hard to look at her. I did feel ashamed. I was naked and she wasn’t and the power dynamic of having no clothes and being exposed while someone else is fully dressed was something I didn’t understand at the time but I was certainly feeling.

“I think I understand, Ma’am,” It sounded so weird to call her Ma’am. I didn’t use that word unless I was trying to get the attention of a stranger and I didn’t know their name. “Hey Ma’am, you dropped your glasses!” I may yell but I didn’t use it as a term of endearment or respect.

“It sounds very unnatural when you say it but you will have a lot of practice this afternoon. Anytime you fail to address me properly I will be spanking your bottom. Do you understand?” she asked.

I nodded my head vigorously. My ass was already starting to warm from that second swat and while it didn’t sting my body it had stung my ego and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I wasn’t spanked as a child although my parents had threatened it when I was little and I certainly didn’t associate that sensation with anything sensual or sexual. It just felt odd to let someone reach around to my ass and smack it until it jiggled.

I was shocked when she did it again and told me that I would answer her completely when she asked me a question. She had to explain she expected me to actually say the words out loud completely in order for me to hear myself say them and believe it was now true since it was.

“Yes, Ma’am I understand,” wasn’t good enough. I had to say “Yes Ma’am, I understand. I have to address you as my better because you are my better and the sooner I get used to saying it out loud and acknowledging it the sooner it will click into my head.”

She made me say that twice because the first time I smiled and hurried through it like I couldn’t believe I was saying this out loud and doing it as a goof. The second time I did it more seriously but it still didn’t’ feel entirely real to me.

“As to how I will address you from now on, I won’t be calling you Jim although I may use that name when referring to you only to make it clear to anyone else who I am talking about,” Elaine explained. “I’ve given a lot of thought to a new name for you. I wanted it to be something I could say that would instantly get your attention. You will call me Ma’am or Mistress Elaine to establish that you accept our roles and so it is only fitting that I have a name for you that puts you in your place. I’ve given a lot of thought about my pet name for you and it is going to be Piggy.”

I was floored. Piggy?

There was Pig Pen from Charlie Brown and Piggy from Lord of the Flies – the bookish nerd that gets thrown off a cliff at the end after bellyaching the entire time about the struggle on the Island and now she was going to call me “Piggy”? Was she saying I was fat? Disgusting? Cowardly?

“I can tell by the look on your face that I chose wisely, Piggy,” a wintry smile spread across Elaine’s face as she watched me recoil from the name. “You will get used to it just as you will get used to addressing your betters as Sir and Ma’am.”

“I thought I only call you Ma’am,” I asked – already concerned that the rules were changing.

“I am your only Mistress but you will have many people who are above you in station – in fact, as of right now you are the house pet. That means you will refer to every adult you meet as Sir or Ma’am except in professional settings or when given permission by me not to do so. You can also use the name Jim when it is appropriate such as at work where they know you by that legally. I may address you by other names as well over time – or by behaviors of yours – lazy, silly, dummy and again I want you to understand that these are not insults. These are truths that you need to accept and appreciate. I want you to be thankful that I am calling you what you are and working to make you more than that.” She said.

“That sounds fucked up,” I thought to myself but I didn’t dare say it. It seemed so unlike her. She was the type to apologize even when things were not her fault but she told me that with me that she would no longer be apologizing for anything.

“I am going to take responsibility when I make mistakes but I am not going to apologize to you as a general rule. That would imply that I expect or need your forgiveness. My admission I made a mistake will be sufficient. I will however expect you to apologize often and quite explicitly so that I know exactly what you are sorry about and what steps you will take to address your behavior in the future as well as your acceptance of any discipline that should result from your mistakes.” Elaine told me this but it wouldn’t be the last time that day she reiterated this point in different words. It was almost as if she needed to hear herself say it in order to feel it was real just as I needed to hear her say it rather than read it.