You have to understand two things. First: I trust my husband, Bob, more than I trust any other human being in the whole wide world. Second: That is about two inches. We are, as they say, working on that.

His parents are helping put him through school, but money is still very tight. Birthday presents aren't in the budget. For my birthday, when we were both working, he had done my share of the chores -- except dinner -- for a week. He'd also served me breakfast in bed and cooked dinner on my birthday. (Bob can cook any of five main dishes. Three of these are on the expensive side of our budget, and the other two are well beyond our means. There is something wrong with meatloaf being a luxury dish.)

Anyway, that was my birthday, in August. Then came his birthday, in October. We still hadn't had any money to spend on presents. Besides, it's almost all joint money. So I'd asked him, "What do you want for your birthday that would cost less than $2.75?"

"You really want to know?"

"No. I asked the question so you would answer with a question, and I would never find out."

"What I really would like," he'd said, "is a sex slave for a day."

"You want an extra day of games?" That is our word for the sexual variations he introduces into our life every other week.

"No. I want a day of your attention. Not baking me a birthday cake, and when it's done we have time for a quickie. I want all Jeanette's attention for the full time we both are home on my birthday. And I want that attention centered around sex."

However, I had still wanted to give him a private birthday party. I am a wife, and we are a family. The calendar had decided the question. Bob's birthday was on a Tuesday. The Saturday before, I would start my period.

By that Sunday, the idea of being a sex slave had seemed utterly degrading, but the rest of my life hadn't seemed that much better. Anyway, I'd figured that I would give him more than he asked for. His birthday gift from me would be a certificate offering "One sex slave from 11:00 p.m. Friday until 1 a.m. Sunday." That way he would get all of his "games" out of his system on one day. I would get to throw a family party on Tuesday, he would get more time on Saturday than Tuesday would have afforded. Win-win? Maybe.

On Tuesday, I'd made a special dinner and had served the cake that I had baked the day before. (The food budget was shot for the month.) The cake was chocolate with chocolate icing, and we both gorged. His parents had sent a $100 check which Bob had immediately apportioned into $80 for food and household for the next ten weeks and $10 pocket money for each of us. (Did I mention that he is a good sport?) I really think that he liked my certificate more. We had gone to bed and made love, with lots of chocolaty kisses if no rolling around on the bed.

Although I had hated the idea on Sunday, by Thursday I was both intrigued and turned on. I prefer to be in control of my life, but a one-shot of total non-control was perversely attractive.

Then it was Friday. I got up from dinner and said: "The name of the game is: 'Bob studies real hard tonight because he won't Saturday.'" (Nine-to-five sucks; but it is nine-to-five, they don't send you home with papers to sort into files by Monday.)

Bob really dug into the books, though he took a break in the bedroom in the middle. I washed the dishes, officially his job. In the bathroom, I took a shower, inserted my diaphragm, and made other preparations. I took a broad red ribbon and taped one end to the small of my back and the other just below my navel. It ran between my legs with a bow at a very strategic location. I own two robes. One is utilitarian and keeps me warm. I put on the other, which had been part of my trousseau. I came out a few minutes after eleven.

I walked quite stiffly. One sudden move would have freed the ribbon. Bob was in bed reading a textbook. I got a wide grin.

"Well," I said, "Aren't you going to unwrap your birthday gift?"

"First," he said, "I'm going to kiss my loving wife a 'Thank you for the lovely gift.'"

He did, quite thoroughly. I was worried, but he kept his hands on my shoulders. He removed my robe, quite slowly, revealing each breast separately and kissing it before going on. Finally, he drew the robe off and stepped back.

He broke up.

I find Bob's laughs infectious. I had to grab the ends of the ribbon before I joined him this time.

Still laughing, he removed the ribbon. "I love you," he said. He kissed where the tape had stuck below my navel, and then where the bow had been centered. While I climbed into bed, he lit a candle and turned off the light.

For a while, being a sex slave was a lot like being a wife. We kissed for a good long time while he petted me all over. He moved his kisses to my breasts and his hand between my legs. The kisses turned into suckling on my left breast, as the caresses between my legs turned into light strokes across my clitoris. I was ready for him, then eager for him. He must have been able to tell that I was eager. I was pushing up with my hips, for God's sake. Usually, he comes to me before this stage. Now I needed him. I reached out for him.

"Lie still, bed slave," he said.

We don't do this any more. In the first week of our marriage, my only climaxes had been from his hand. For a month longer, he had given me a climax before intercourse as a sort of insurance policy. Now, the only time I finish to his hand is during the first few days of my period. The rules seemed different for sex slaves.

After speaking, he switched breasts. The words, the surprise, the pause, the change, all pulled me back from the height of my readiness. Bob persisted until I was moving again. As the waves hit me, he released the nipple for a moment.

"I love you," he said quickly. Then he sucked again. And the waves took me away.

When I came back, he was tucking the sheet around my shoulders. He lay beside me and whispered my name, and love, and nonsense.

I lay flat. He pulled my hips into his legs in a gentle hug. His other hand cuddled my head, while he occasionally kissed my shoulder through the sheet. We both waited for my breath and energy to return. When they did, I turned my face toward his.

He shifted so we could kiss. Tongues danced with tongues, then lips touched sweetly and quietly. His head and shoulders rose up, I lay back flat, and he resumed the kiss with his lips angled across mine. The kiss was ardent but had only half his attention. His hand caressed my breast for a while before parting my thighs. He stayed on the thighs, stroking up and down on the insides in a light tickle. I shivered.

Bob rose and pulled the blanket over my top half. The apartment was beginning its nighttime switch from too-hot to too-cold. That was not why I shivered, but the blanket was welcome.

Getting between my legs, Bob began kissing my thighs. One kiss on my right leg, one on my left, he moved slowly higher. About the time he got to delicate ground, he stopped to maneuver the cushion under my butt. I lifted up for it knowing that my center was now totally accessible to his mouth. Still he took his time, kissing my thighs and my delta.

I was fairly hot before he kissed the center of my labia majora and parted them with his hand. Then he was licking the labia minora. About that time, I lost track of the particulars. I had this wonderful sensation. Then he did something else, and I had another sensation which was even lovelier. I remember particularly, though, that he moved his hands up to cup my breasts. After that, there was nothing but sensation. I felt tighter and tighter, but also that I was floating a little above my body. Meanwhile, there were pulses of pleasure.

Then, the tightness pulled me back. It almost hurt; I felt close to panic, as though I were about to break. Then I did break. Fire burnt through me. Then I was that fire, flaring with it. Then it was warmth rather than heat; I was swelling, pulsing, warmth.

Then I was Jeanette again, held in Bob's arms and shielded by his body, wrapped in the covers with him all around them. If he surrounded me, I surrounded a very important part of him. He kissed my forehead and crooned love words and love sounds and my name.

It was lovely, but I wanted to feel his skin. My top half was cocooned in the blanket, and my legs were out in the air. He stayed in me, but raised his torso on that pivot. He lifted one hand at a time as I pulled the covers out from under them. After I tossed the covers over most of him, he arranged them to cover us both. I was still on the cushion.

"Comfy?" he asked.

I tightened his very favorite muscle. "How did you get here?"

"I snuck up on you while you were distracted."

"Do love slaves get kisses?"

He moved so that our mouths could meet. We kissed with closed lips, then really kissed. It took him a long time to answer. "Only if they are really sexy love slaves."

He adjusted his position so that he could rest his weight on his elbows while reaching my breasts.

"Look to your left," he said.

"Why?"

"Because you are a sex slave, and you have received a direct order."

I turned my head to the left, and he licked my right ear. It tickled, the soft breath after it tickled more, the fingers just touching my nipples tickled as well. I writhed. He was almost still as I provided the motion at our juncture.

But that got to him. He straightened so that he could move in me with deep, slow strokes. I matched him, then had to speed up. On every stroke, he filled me completely, pressing inward until our pubic bones bumped. He drove into me, but somewhere within me a force drove me against him even harder. The flame was flickering again, then flickering around me where I was around him. I reached down to pull him more tightly against me.

He went first. I could feel him pulsing within me and feel his seed hit me. I got one look at his grim, tortured face. Then the fire flared again. He pulsed, the fire pulsed, I pulsed.

When I looked at his face again, the grimness was all gone. He looked like a baby who had fallen asleep full. Some of his weight was on his arm bones but most was on me. I wanted that weight. I wanted to hug him but my arms were a little weak.

I recovered my breath and the strength in my arms. I did hug him. This position is great during sex, but not afterwards. As my legs had lowered, they had carried him out of me. Most of the mess was presumably on the cushion which could be chucked out of bed.

(The cushion is a pad for lifting my hips. Pillows hadn't given the right amount of support. The cushion started as a short board, was wrapped by some trousers that Bob had ruined with acid, was padded by an old mouse pad that someone else had ruined with SnoPake, and was covered with a quarter of a torn bed sheet from his parents' house. It serves its purpose without announcing it, demonstrating what my non-handy husband can construct when it affects his vital interest.)

Finally he roused himself. He gave me a hug back, before we parted to clean up. I dabbed myself; he dabbed himself. Then he dabbed the cushion, and tossed it out on the floor. I moved over to the far side of the bed. He got up to blow out the candle. He slipped under the covers and almost to me. I nestled back into him.

"Bob loves Jeanette," he crooned, "Bob loves Jeanette, Bob loves Jeanette, and I love you."

"Do sex slaves get sung to sleep?"

"I was singing about my wife. It's supposed to make you jealous."

Never happen. Well, it will never happen from singing that song.

He got nearly through two more verses before he fell asleep.

I followed.

Bob is no sadist. He wouldn't beat me with a whip or wake me early on a Saturday morning.

However, he knows my patterns. As I came awake, he began kissing my back and my neck. He moved back to avoid my stretch, and afterwards I turned toward him. We kissed. He tasted of toothpaste and smelled of soap. Figuring I didn't, I broke the kiss.

He ducked under the covers to begin kissing my breasts. I wasn't really awake yet, but there are worse ways to ease into the world than near-dozing with a husband expressing his love and avoiding the ticklish parts. Bob carefully did. By the time he got down to my belly, my bladder -- if nothing else -- was awake. I could also smell coffee.

I got up, grabbed my old robe, and headed for the bathroom, pouring a cup of coffee on the way. By the time I had drunk my third cup, I remembered that this was a special day. I doubt that real slave-masters made coffee for their slaves, but, on the other hand, maybe they did want them awake. I brushed my teeth while wondering whether Bob wanted me in the kitchen or in bed. I didn't wonder very hard.

He was wearing a robe himself. While we kissed, he clutched my butt through the robe. Soon he had his hands under the robe and all over me.

"Get in bed," he said. When I did, he slid the cushion under the covers. I lifted up for it, but deja vu struck.

"Didn't we just do this?"

"You had breakfast in bed for your birthday." This was a non sequitur even for Bob.

"You want breakfast?" I started to get up.

"You got to choose the menu on your birthday." It took me a second to get it, and then I cracked up. I'm helpless when that happens.

Bob pounced. In a moment, he was under the covers and between my legs. He hauled the top of the doubled-up covers back over his head and stuck his tongue in my belly button. That didn't help one bit. I started to push his head away, but he tickled my side. In a moment, I was holding his hands away from my sides and giggling like a madwoman. He kissed all over my stomach as the giggles made it bounce. By this time, the bouncing was hilarious. By this time, Hee Haw reruns would have been hilarious. When I finally came down, he was kissing on and around my delta.

"Good morning," he said.

"You promised not to take advantage when I go off on a laughing fit."

"And I explained that I meant that I wouldn't do anything which you would normally resist. You're a sex slave who can't resist anything at all. Anyway, my wife gets kissed here pretty often."

The argument is years old. He promised a week before the explanation. I pouted at him to show that I was not convinced. He pouted back, and we competed for a minute. The game brought me back to laughter, if not to helplessness.

When he kissed my labia, I shivered. He parted the outer and licked the inner ones. Suddenly, I was nearly afloat down there. I blushed, though he never complains about that. Indeed, he parted those labia to lick up some of the wetness. Then he moved to the top so he could touch my most sensitive point. I stretched my legs wide to give him access.

The licking and the kissing and the sucking were light at first. They teased until I reached down to hold his head against me. Then the sensations were stronger, and I just held him there and moved with those sensations. He slipped his hands under my legs and up to my breasts. I let go of his head with one hand to pat one of his hands, then clutched his hair again.

Then I forgot all that, being too busy just feeling. The sensations were slow, undulating, waves of desire. Then they were tightening throbs of pleasure. Then they were jolts of joy.

And then they were gone. Only ghostly tremors and memories of the sensations ruffled the sensuous lassitude of fulfillment. The next thing that I noticed was Bob lying next to me and cuddling me. When I turned my head toward him, he gave me a quiet kiss, and then a kiss on the forehead.

"What are you thinking of?" I asked.

"FRC," he answered. That was not what I had expected.

After he had conceded that both of us couldn't be students, he came up with a scheme in which I would read one of the books that he was studying and discuss it with him. That way my education isn't totally on hold. We'd selected a book known to cognoscenti (or at least cognoscenti in his class) as FRC, after the authors. Our discussions have come to take place in the bed, with him petting or hugging me. I'm not allowed to use my hands until we cover the section to his satisfaction. Incredibly, the system works for both of us. I have some idea of what the modern West meant to China and Japan, and he goes into class discussions on top of the data and occasionally informed by my naive questions.

"Do sex slaves read books?" I asked.

"They do if they are told to. And they had better know their lessons. Roll over on your left side."

He removed the cushion before fetching the book. If my memory doesn't match his, we look in the book. After sliding in behind me, he urged me to move my torso forward until I was bent almost to a sitting position. Then he moved his thigh up between my hips.

With us in that position, he started asking questions about the Meiji restoration. The position was more than ordinarily distracting. Soon, I was -- aside from the direction of gravity -- sitting on his lap. His erection lay between us, pressed against the crack in my butt and getting harder by the minute.

He asked "Which han led in support of the restoration and what leaders did each supply to the central government? Open book." Damn straight that's an open book question.

As I paged through the book looking for what men came from Satsuma, he moved back from my bottom. When he returned forward, his fingers parted my labia. I stuttered something just before his penis touched my threshold.

"Keep talking," he said while easing himself inward. I moved to accommodate him while reading every name. He didn't challenge any of them, although some are identified in the same sentence as from other han. The entry was slow, and the further in he got the less problem he had with the angle. I was in a quandary, were we talking or making love?

We were talking. Once all the way in, he returned his attention to my answers.

"That's nonsense, you know. Iwakura was a court noble. Begin again."

For more than an hour he drilled me in two ways. I answered questions about the chapter while he either rested quietly within my vagina or firmed himself up by moving smoothly in and out. Sex slaves get a lot less discussion and a lot more fact questions in their history lessons than wives do. Either that or the paper he had in his hand was a prepared list of questions.

"Okay," he finally said, "you know your stuff." I pressed back against him while tightening within.

"Now what?" I asked, rhetorically.

"Now breakfast," he said, And he pulled out and got up.

"I didn't think sex slaves were expected to cook." But my stomach said that this one should.

"You obviously haven't read much John Norman. Maybe we'd better call it brunch. You can wear the apron. Period. I'll come watch."

We called it lunch.

The ultimate in obscenity is cooking lunch in nothing but an apron while your husband ogles you lewdly. He was wearing his glasses and a robe which had a tent in front most of the time. Ten more minutes could have taken care of that.

We ate and made the necessary pit stops. Sex slaves get assigned the wife's cooking, but not the husband's dishwashing. On the other hand, Bob just soaked them.

Back in the bedroom, Bob had another surprise. The previous night, he had tied a rope to the legs at the head of the bed and found two bandanas that we wear when hiking. He now tied one bandana around each of my wrists, with all the extra cloth on one end. He pulled all the covers to the foot of the bed, had me lie down, and passed each bandana through a separate loop in the rope. He pressed the long ends of the bandanas into my hands while saying "Hold them tight."

The room was getting warmer, but he covered me with the sheet. He talked about my being tied up. I raise my hand the way I did in fifth grade. (Well not quite. In fifth grade I did not expose a breast with that motion.)

"Teacher."

"The proper appellation is 'master.'"

"The proper Appalachian is 'plateau.' Master, these bonds aren't all that escape-proof."

"Injun giver."

"Huh?"

"Jeanette, if you were to escape into another state, is that state required to return you to me?"

"Mr. Calhoun says 'yes.' Mr. Lincoln says 'no.'"

"Lincoln never attacked the fugitive slave laws. He specifically endorsed them in Congress and after being elected President."

"I bet that your John Normandy didn't give lectures when he had a slave girl tied up."

"That's a bet. How about continuing this game into tomorr..." Poor boy, reality struck. Tomorrow he would be studying like mad. "How about another day like today in two weeks?"

"And what do I get?"

"If you win I'll be your sex slave then."

"No bet! Maybe, if you are a very good boy, study hard, and learn to pick up after yourself, maybe I'll make you my sex slave at quarter break."

"Deal." Trust the Brennans in any contract, but never bet with them.

"I said 'maybe.'"

"If I really tied you up you'd freak, so this is tying you up. Any letting go is breaking out of the game and taking back your gift." He was exaggerating; I wouldn't freak, but then I wouldn't let him tie me up either.

He put the end back through the rope loop and back in my hand. He wrapped the very end around my little finger. "Now keep it that way."

I've seen pictures of people tied spread-eagle. This wasn't like that. My head was near the top of the bed, and my hands were at about the same level closer together than my elbows were. My legs were together (for the moment) and not tied at all.

The first thing that Bob did was to grab the bottom sheet at the foot of the bed and give it a sharp yank downward. The wrinkles under me disappeared.

Then we had a nice kiss. I understood why my arms were tied when Bob started from there on a path of kisses. He spent lots of time in all the ticklish places like the insides of my ears and the corner where my neck meets my shoulders. When I wiggled, he put his hand between my legs. That being a hell of a place to hold me down, I think he had other motives. He spent only a few minutes on my left breast and none on my right one. Soon he licked my belly button. Then he traveled to my side to kiss there. He had kissed my back, he had even kissed my butt, but he had never before kissed my side under the ribs.

"Cheat!" I say, wiggling mightily. "Vicious, cruel, nasty. You're just doing that because I'm tied up." He gave me his best nasty grin.

He kissed up my side to my armpit. This tickled so much that I kicked my legs, but it stopped very soon. Bob didn't look happy. Now it was time for my nasty grin.

"It is called deodorant," I said in my most saccharine voice. When he headed for my mouth, I ducked.

Veering towards my left breast, he kissed his very fanciest pattern on it. That means kissing a full circle around the base followed by a slow spiral toward the tip. He actually had to move on the bed to do the whole circle. At the tip, he played and sucked and licked and lipped. I was getting quite turned on. His lips and tongue played with my nipple and areola. His hand between my legs was not really attacking any critical parts, but neither was it ever still. Finally he gave a peck goodbye to the tip of my left nipple on the way to the right breast.

"I love you," he said while between them.

He kissed the same pattern on my right breast, but when he got to the top he spent only a minute licking all over and around the nipple before slipping out of the side of the sheet and slipping in the bottom. He lifted my legs to slide the cushion under my butt. (You can't fool me, we were repeating.)