Attention

Chapter 1
Part 1

Chapter Description: Part 1

This is a story.  A story about Daniel and Jane.  After reading this, one might think that it should be Jane and Daniel.  But at the start of it all, Daniel came first.  Daniel always came first.

The two had met as teenagers.  Fallen in love.  Gotten married.  It hadn’t mattered that Mother and Father had disapproved of Daniel; thought he was sleazy; thought he wanted her just for her good looks and her money.

It might have been true, to a certain extent.  Jane WAS rich, (or rather her family was).  Father ran a big independent insurance agency that he’d bought from Grandfather who’d bought from Great-Grandfather and so on.  

Insurance was a good business. Someone would come into Father’s office and place a bet.  They’d bet that they were going to get into a car accident, or that their house was going to catch fire, or that they were going to die.  Father would bet that their car would be fine, their house would stay standing, and that they’d live for another year.

Most of the time, Father won that bet, and the loser would happily pay up.  

Combine this with a shrewd stock investment portfolio, and no member of Jane’s family really had to work a day in their life.  They lived in a gated country club, in houses big enough to be considered luxurious but just small enough to not technically be mansions.

No butlers, but there were housekeepers that popped in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays just to “tidy up”.  Before preschool, Jane had never been to a daycare, and whiled away her infant and toddler years with a private babysitter who was really just a uniform and a posh British accent away from being a proper nanny.

If they weren’t rich they were at least Upper Upper Upper Middle Class.  Comfortable. Very comfortable.  The kind of comfortable where the only reason to work was to accrue more wealth for the next generation.  Otherwise, they might never need to work.

Daniel?

Daniel had nothing.  No family. He was “estranged” from them and they lived out of state.  No house. When they started dating, Daniel had been couch surfing on various friends’ dime.  No steady job, just a dream at launching a web series of reviews, like the Nostalgia Critic.

Neither Mother, Father, or Jane knew who that was and they certainly didn’t see the appeal once they did.

“He’s not good for you,” Mother had lectured her.  “It’s like he doesn’t even see you. You’re not a person to him. Just hips and breasts and money.”

That’s what Jane liked about Daniel, though. When you’re not even twenty, lust feels a lot like love.  Physical attraction can be an amazing substitute for personal chemistry.

“He’s a man, Mother.”  Jane had written the concern off.  “Simple as that.  Don’t you remember when Father looked at you like that?”

“When was the last time he paid for dinner?  Or wanted to do something you wanted to do?  Or just wanted to do nothing at all with you and be in the same room with you?”


Jane had waved it off.  “He’s rough around the edges, sure.  But I can change him.”

“A man like that?” Mother laughed. “The only thing you’ll be changing about him are his diapers!”

That conversation happened nearly ten years ago.  Daniel and Jane had been married for eight.  Happily married, too.  Or so Jane thought...

At present, Jane stood in the kitchen making dinner.  Chopping vegetables. Humming to herself.  Boiling water.  Setting the oven to broil.  Daniel loved steak and she’d mastered a pan seared oven roasted combo that was as good as the grill.  

Tonight was steak night.  Daniel was always in a good mood on Steak Night.

She’d become the good housewife like she’d always imagined.  A “domestic goddess” she liked to think (sometimes jokingly), when she scrubbed the bathroom tile.  She looked every bit the happy homemaker.

Her red lipstick perfectly matched her nails, and her white high heeled shoes complemented the half apron tied around her waist. Her slender yet buxom frame was cloaked by a tasteful dark blue dress that bordered on purple.  June Cleaver eat your heart out. Daniel had a thing for that 1950’s housewife aesthetic that never really existed outside of television.

Her shoulder length blonde hair was so perfectly dyed that you wouldn’t know it was natural.  She even went to the trouble and bleached her eyebrows..  Daniel had a thing for blondes, too.  

She had changed for him.  Lots of things.  And the changes had spiced things up again.  

Last year…

But as with all things, that faded.  Jane had kept the look going both because she’d found she liked it as well as the increasingly vain hope that Daniel’s interest might perk up again.

“How was work today, hon?” She called out from the tiny kitchenette of their home.  It was no house in the country clubs. One bathroom. One Bedroom.  Rented too.  The only thing that made it a house and not an apartment was that they didn’t have neighbors and there wasn’t a big fancy company responsible for the majority of the repairs.

Lots of things had changed.

Daniel sat at the tiny dinner table, sipping on scotch.  They lived relatively cheap, but Daniel loved his expensive drinks.  He put the glass down so he could take another puff from his cigar.  “It was fine,” he droned.

He wasn’t even looking at her.  His eyes were glued to his phone, as some youtube personality or another rambled on about the latest movie that was streaming.  His eyes glazed over with wasted dreams, boredom and alcohol.

Daniel had changed too.

She’d already set the table.  He just sat there in his blue button up shirt and an ugly orangish red plaid jacket and pants.  He was still skinny, but had lost a lot of the muscle tone he’d had in his younger days.  He hadn’t shaved in a few days and had a frankly ugly patch of stubble growing on his face.  If she was June Cleaver, he was a used car salesman.

If only he was a used car salesman…

Daniel had never broken into the youtube reviewer industry, and it never paid off for him.  It rarely did.  The internet was just another brand of entertainment, and to make it in entertainment you had to have perseverance, talent, charisma, the ability to adapt, and more than a little luck.  

Things Daniel just didn’t have in any great abundance…

Jane chided herself for thinking that.  She loved him.  She was his wife. He was her husband.

Daniel had taken a job at a call center.  He wore the shirt and jacket so he’d feel better about being a telemarketer. “A real businessman” look.  But it just hung off of him like a cheap suit.

It paid well.  Not great.  Better than minimum wage.  But not secure.  Not successful.  Especially with Daniel drinking and smoking up the profits.

They weren’t starving by any definition of the world.  They always had clean clothes, rent was always on time, and discount supermarket steak was still steak if you cooked it before it spoiled.  

But there was nothing in savings.  They were living bill to bill and they still needed help from Jane’s family to pay a good chunk of expenses.  Even that didn’t get rid of the mounting credit card debt.  Daniel might have been able to pay more if not for some of the tastes he’d acquired.  Apparently cigars, alcohol, and dry cleaning were necessities in his current line of work.

Something about stress relief, or living the good life or only living once or some other such thing that sounded great when they were teens but less and less with that behind them.  Jane was never quite sure and Daniel didn’t give much explanation beyond it.

Father had refused to help support them unless they agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement.  They didn’t. When you’re only a few months away from twenty, marriage is all about love and trust.  A prenup was the opposite of that and she and Daniel loved each other very much.

Thankfully, Mother snuck checks in the mail every few months anyways, so they never went hungry.  Under “For” Mother always wrote “The Baby”.  At first, Jane thought it was her mom’s gentle encouragement to start a family.

Eight years later, Jane wasn’t so sure.

A man like that? The only thing you’ll be changing about him are his diapers!

Again, Jane chided herself.  She was his wife, not his mother!  She only cooked his meals.  And cleaned the house.  And his laundry. And  picked up his dry cleaning.  And bought his food.  And was in charge of paying the rent and utilities. And the credit card bills…

And the sex was happening less and less often…

And she was lonely...

And she was closer to thirty than she was to twenty...

And Daniel had been acting...different.

Worse than usual.

He drank.  He smoked. He watched videos on his phone.  He waited for dinner.   Most nights he’d put the phone down just long enough to inhale his food, wipe his mouth on his sleeve, and then walk away.  Sometimes to their bedroom.  Other times, just out.

The tiny decorative cactus on the table wasn’t the only thing that was prickly in the house.  With each passing day, Jane was feeling more and more like she was just part of the furniture.  One didn’t thank the sink when the dishes were washed.  And one didn’t bring the oven flowers.

There was the old superstition about the “Seven Year Itch”.  A man’s heart (and other things) would start to wander after so long.  The seven year itch and they’d been married eight.  Been together longer than that.

But there was a spark still there.  Jane knew it.  He’d just had so many troubles that his mind was on something else.  Why else would he moan her name in his sleep?  

“Jaaaane,” he’d whisper in the middle of the night. “Oh, Jane.  I love you.  You’re so hot.  Do it again, Jane.  Jane...Jane...jaaaa…” And then he’d drift back off.

Daniel was just so beaten up by life that he’d just stuffed all of his feelings, that old passion for life he had deep down, poor thing.  That’s why he was practically an automaton during the day.  That’s why he barely talked to her some days except to ask her to do something for him.  That’s why he drank and smoked and lazed around the house whenever he could bother to be in it.  He was suffering from depression and was self-medicating.

He was a man struggling to reconcile with the boy he used to be.

And she was his wife.  Not his mother.

And he was her husband. Not her baby.

She’d been wanting to help him by being there for him, waiting patiently for his attention.  So maybe it was time to help in a different way.  Help get her own needs met, too.  To let the boy that he used to be go, maybe he needed something besides a wife.

Something new...

“Hmm…” He grunted when she slid dinner in front of him. Steak and veggies.  Hearty.  She even filled up his glass for him, and emptied the ash tray as soon as he’d snuffed out his stogie.  “Thanks.”

That was a start.

She sat down at the tiny dining room table, the cactus between them and ate her own vegetables.  No steak for her.  Jane was a vegetarian.

“So I was thinking,” Jane said while she picked at her plate.

“Hmm?”  Daniel didn’t even look up from his plate.  If anything, his eyes were drifting back over to his phone.  “Yeah?”

“So, you’ve finally got a steady job.”

“Yup.”

“And we’ve been married for a while.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And known each other longer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And maybe this is just wishful thinking but…”  She waited for him to look up.  To say something.  Finally she lost patience.  “Maybe we could talk about starting a family.”

“Yeah?”  Daniel finished the last of his steak.  His vegetables untouched.

“It might be nice,”  Jane said.  “you know?  We could set up a little cot by our bed.  Put some money away for diapers and such.  Breast milk is free.  And I’m staying home so we wouldn’t have to pay for daycare.”

Her husband took another swig of scotch.  

“We could have a little you,” Jane ploughed ahead.  “Or a little me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you know…” Jane batted her eyes.  “Making the baby is always super fun.  And if at first we don’t succeed, we could try try again…?”

Daniel stood up from the table.  “I’ll think about it.”  He walked out the door and got in his car.  “I’ll be home later tonight.  Got a thing with the guys.  Don’t wait up.”

That night, it gave Jane very little comfort when she woke up to the sound of Daniel moaning her name in bed.

She got up and tiptoed around the foot of the bed to Daniel’s nightstand.  Daniel just kept snoring while she took his phone off the charger.

She couldn’t.  Correction: She shouldn’t. Jane had known his password for some time; he still used his old highschool student number…

“Oh...Jane….I love you…” Daniel moaned.  “So damn much.  Marry me.”   File that under things he never said to her while awake.  It had been her to suggest marriage to him back in the day.  His first question had been whether he’d gotten her pregnant or not…

Seven year itch.

A man like that? The only thing you’ll be changing about him are his diapers!

Teeth clenched and breath held, Jane punched in the password and looked through his phones.

No texts.  Nothing suspicious anyhow.  Random texts and reminders and asking for favors that matched her phone.  Stuff sent to his friends.

Some porn hidden away in a folder.  (It’s how she figured he’d had a thing for blondes and 1950’s housewife aesthetics).  Nothing new added, either.

But on his call records?  Over and over again, the same number kept coming up.  “DJ”  And it was always outgoing.  Whoever or whatever this “DJ” was, Daniel called the number, but it never called him.

Even the darkness of the tiny bedroom couldn’t fully mask Jane’s frown.  Fearing more and more that her husband had grown bored of her. “Who is DJ?” she mouthed.  She opened the little compartment of her own nightstand and took out the latest check her mother had sent.

As always, on the “For” line, her mother wrote “The Baby” as her cruel little joke.  If she was going to get her baby, Jane knew she’d need to spend that money on something else, first.

Like a detective...

***********************************************************************************
Three weeks later…

“It’s bad,” the private investigator said.  “Real bad.”

She was a twenty something about Jane’s age (maybe a bit younger) with a dancer’s body and dark brown hair tied up with a red scrunchy.  The camouflage t-shirt and tight black shorts that stopped at her thighs made her look more like a dancer at a basketball halftime show than a detective, but maybe that was part of the point.  Real detectives didn’t walk around looking like Humphrey Bogart in a trenchcoat and fedora.  That was just for the movies.

And as Jane was about to find out, a young girl dressed like she was (most innocently) going to an aerobics class blended in very well where she’d been.

“How bad?”

“You might want to sit down.”  

Jane did.  

“So first off,” the other woman started. “I trailed him from his job at the call center like you asked.  It was difficult at first.  He didn’t show up that first day.”

“But he hasn’t called in sick…” Jane stopped herself, already connecting the dots.  “Where was he going?”

The detective didn’t answer right away.  She pulled some photos out of her printer.  “One day when he did show up to work, he left early and went here.”  The photo showed Daniel walking into a plain red brick building. Another shot of the same building farther out showed a sign.

“Dr. Herbert Monroe,” Jane read. “Men’s Health, specialist.”

“It’s a vasectomy clinic,” the detective said.

The urge to vomit rose up in Jane’s throat. She suppressed it with rage, instead This had all happened after she’d suggested she wanted children! He knew!  That fucker knew!  Jane wanted to claw out her own eyeballs in anger...or better yet, Daniel’s eyeballs.

“Do you need a minute?” the other woman asked.  “I understand if you do.”

Jane took a deep breath and steadied herself.  “I’m fine.”

What she saw and heard next made her less fine:  “When trailing him from his office didn’t work, I followed him from home.”   Jane recognized the buildings; the style if not.  The docks.  The industrial district.  Ugly, steel and concrete things without windows.  Jane had passed by it many times in her life, but had never gone deeper than a pass by on the way out of town.  She always thought that part of the city was where people went to get mugged.

“Is it drugs?” Jane asked.  “Is he buying?  Dealing?”

The detective cocked an eyebrow.  “Drugs?  You’ve never been to this neighborhood before have you?”

Jane quietly shook her head.

“This is a sex dungeon called The Fourth Base.”

Jane frowned.  “It doesn’t look like a sex dungeon…”

“Well yeah,” the other woman chuckled.  “Most sex dungeons don’t.  It’s not a strip club.  They keep it plain and discrete.”  She showed a closer photograph.  “You can’t even see the name of the place unless you’re right at the door.  The Fourth Base advertises through word of mouth and online.  It’s run by a woman who works under the name ‘Domme Jane’.”  Then she added.  “And no, that’s not likely her real name.”

“DJ…” Jane whispered.

“Beg pardon?”

Jane blinked and willed back tears.  That’s why she’d heard her name moaned so often in his sleep.  Her husband wasn’t actually dreaming about her.  There wasn’t just another woman.  There was an entirely different Jane.

“Nothing.  Thank you ma’am.  If there’s nothing else…”  There wasn’t.  She paid the investigator in cash, and then walked away.
******************************************************************************************
“Whoah whoah whoah!” Domme Jane said.  “Slow down.  You’re Leo’s wife?  I didn’t even know he was married.”  She pushed a box of tissues across her desk and bid Jane to take one.

Jane took more than one and blew her nose so hard, one could be forgiven for thinking a flock of geese was passing overhead.

This was a hard conversation to have.  Possibly for both of them.  So strange too, Jane thought.
Domme Jane had met her at the door when she’d knocked, and just before the woman could finish telling her that they weren’t open yet, Jane managed to blurt out, “I need your help!”

So now, here they were:  In the Domme’s office.  A perfectly bland and normal looking room lit by fluorescent lights that just happened to also have a spanking bench and a wall of sex toys as well.  Even with the paddles and ball gags, this was the most “normal” looking room she’d seen in the building. Her office was in the back of the building, and Jane was treated to a quick tour on the way over.

The two women seemed to be dark mirrors of each other.  The other woman’s hair was black like raven’s feathers and tumbled down past her shoulder blades.  Her clothing was equally dark; a leather dress that stopped at her upper thigh, and matching boots that went up well past her knees.  Black gloves and a light gray coat for the ever present chill.  The air was turned all the way up.  Lots of body heat and sweat in a sex dungeon, Jane supposed.

But her face was shaped much the same as Jane’s.  Her body was just as shapely too, and with clothes so tight that much wasn’t left to the imagination.  Maybe Daniel did have a type...it just wasn’t confined to blonde housewives.  

“I am so sorry Leo did this to you,” the mistress said.  

“His name’s Daniel, actually,” Jane sniffed.

Domme Jane took out a cigarette and placed it into a holder.  Jane had only seen one of those before in Cruella De Ville’s hands.  This woman, at the least seemed much kinder.  “Right.  
Right.  Daniel.  Sorry.  Most of my clients don’t tell me their real names.”  She lifted up the holder, and one of the men beside her lit it for her.  She took a long drag before exhaling.

“Can I ask why they’re here?” Jane indicated the two men on either side of the dungeon’s owner.  They also wore all black, but the effect was far less seductive.  Black denim and biker boots. Button up shirts and leather jackets.  These weren’t gimps  (Gimps?  Was that the word?)  They looked more like bouncers.  Real shit kickers.  Big too.  The kind of men that Daniel might deride as “goons”.

Domme Jane spared a look at either man.  “Sorry.  Andrew and Austin are here for my own security.  Sometimes clients get too handsy without permission”  She took another drag.  “Sometimes wives want to hurt me instead of talk to me.”

Jane wiped her nose.  “I understand.  That’s fair.”  She wanted to hate this woman.  She really did.  But as angry as she was at her husband, she couldn’t find a reason to be angry with this other “Jane”.  She was a business woman.  Not a temptress.  Daniel was cheating on Jane with this other woman, but this other woman wasn’t cheating.  “I just wish I knew what to do.”

“Divorce him.”  The Domme said simply.  “He cheated on you.  Protect yourself.  If it rains, get an umbrella.  If your husband cheats, get a divorce lawyer.  Make him pay through the nose in alimony and child support.”

Jane felt her lip start to quiver.  “My family provides most of the money.” Her voice started to tremble.  “And we don’t have kids...he got a vasectomy without telling me and still won’t make love to meeeeeee!”  By the time she finished the sentence she’d broken into sobs and her voice was wailing in sorrow.

The professional domme leaned forward in her chair. “Oh that fuck!”  She reached over and patted Jane on the shoulder.  “Honey, I’m so sorry that he did that to you.  You don’t deserve that.  Nobody deserves that.  You look like a nice girl, too.”  

The two goons stared straight ahead. Unreadable like British guards.

“I do everything for him!” Jane yelled.  Her voice ricocheted off the concrete walls.  “EVERYTHING!  And he just ignores me and fucks around with you, and whoever else.”  She blew her nose again.  “No offense.”

“None taken, babe.”  She waited for the woman’s crying to subside, if not stop completely. “If it makes you feel any better,” she said once the room was a tad quieter.  “I’m going to stop accepting him as a client.”

Jane looked up and sniffed.  “You don’t serve married men?”

“I don’t serve cheaters,” The dark haired lady clarified. “If a person’s spouse is fine acquiring my services, I’m fine giving them.”  Then she added.  “My husband’s cool with it.”

Jane wiped her nose again.  It was still practically a faucet.  “Thank you,” she said meekly.

“It’s not going to make him be a better husband or stop cheating,” Jane’s Domme counterpart replied.  “But it’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t know what I did!” Jane cried.  “I did everything right.  I even changed how I look for him!”

“You realize I’m not marriage counselor right?”

Jane ignored her.  “I do everything for him.  Food. Laundry.”

“Some men are scum.” The domme walked around and put her.  “They suck.”  Gently she pulled on Jane’s arm and Jane stood up.  She knew she was being led out.  At least the bruisers were standing at ease.

Jane allowed herself to be escorted.  She was too far in her head.  “Half the time he acts like I’m not even there.  Is it wrong to want a little attention?”

“No, honey. Not at all.”

“And he’s ALWAYS been like this.  Selfish.  Self-centered.  Dreaming but never doing anything about it!  I kept expecting him to grow out of it and to think of me for once, but he hasn’t!”

“And he probably never will…”

“It’s partly my fault, too..” Jane moaned. “I babied him at the start.  Made excuses for him! Doted on him.  Went along with what he wanted.  Now he doesn’t even think of me as a woman any more.  Some times I feel like he treats me like...like his mother!”

The pace to the front door slowed.  “Hmmm…”

Jane didn’t notice, she was too lost in her own thoughts.  “My own mother told me that if I tried to change him, the only thing I’d be changing was his diapers!”  She nearly broke down again.  God damnit...she was literally turning into her own mother; every girl’s worst nightmare.  It took near herculean strength to stop her from throwing herself on the floor.

The dark haired woman stopped.  “Actually…”

They were the same height but Jane was so stooped in despair that she looked up to the woman.  “What?”

“If you really want to make him pay,” Domme Jane said, “I could make that happen for you.” A sinister smile spread from ear to ear.
***************************************************************************************************

At this point in his still young life, Daniel lacked many things: Chief among them was empathy, foresight, and impulse control.  Fortunately he’d never really had those qualities, and thus never had the opportunity to miss what he didn’t have.  Also among his lacking qualities was a sense of irony and an awareness of his surroundings.

Had he any awareness of his surroundings, Daniel might have realized that his wife had been looking at him strangely the last several nights.  He might have noticed that she was talking less to him too.  He might have seen the vengeful expression as she cooked his supper for him.

If Daniel had possessed a sense of irony, he might have (in hindsight at least) appreciated the fact that Jane was wearing the exact same blue dress and white half apron that she did last month while cooking for him, and that he was wearing the same plaid suit.  The scene was now set the same as it had been when this story began.

Granted...Daniel didn’t know there was any story to tell.  Not yet.

Just another day in the life.  Daniel finished his scotch and put out the glass to the side so that Jane could fill it up for him when she got a minute.  He picked up his cigar and puffed it a bit.  So good to relax after a long day at work.


His wife hadn’t brought up baby making all month.  Just the one time.  A flight of fancy.   The vasectomy took care to ensure that it would remain a flight of fancy if she ever got in heat again.  

(That was a thing right? Except when humans did it they called it ovulating?  That sounded right.  Daniel had seen a youtube video somewhere that said as much.)

So if she asked again, he would bang her, go to sleep and act disappointed when it didn’t take.  Eventually she’d figure it was her and give up.

Sex was too complicated, having to worry about your partner. That’s why he liked going to Fourth Base. That’s why his wife was his second favorite.  It was so much easier to only worry about himself and his own needs.  It didn’t help that Jane was a terrible lay, too.

He didn’t so much reflect upon all this, as much as it registered in his head.  Reflection implies consideration, another ability that Daniel never really had.  To him, Daniel might as well have been thinking things like the sky is blue and the grass is green and the Cubs are a shit team.

His eyes never left the screen of his phone. Not once.

A knock on the kitchen door made Daniel look up from his phone, but only in that he looked to his side to see if his scotch had been refilled.  It had, but not enough.

“I’ll get it,” his wife chirped.  Which was a good thing because Daniel hadn’t even thought to get up from his seat.  Probably just a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses or something.

Answering the door.  Cooking the food.  Cleaning the house.  Doing the wash.  It’s what his mom did when he was a kid.  It’s what his wife did now that he was a man.  It’s what women in general did.  Another puff of cigar acted as a mental period on that statement.  

“Oh baaaaaaby,” Jane called from the kitchen door.  “Somebody’s here to see you.”

Again. He did not look up from his phone.  “Huh?” he mumbled at first.  With great reluctance he pressed pause and looked to his left.  “Who?”

“Me.”  

Daniel actually dropped his phone.  Walking right in through his door kitchen door, all done up in black from head to do was the literal woman of his dreams.

IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE!

“Don’t worry,” Jane...the OTHER Jane...Domme Jane... said.  “I’ll see myself in.  I know Daniel’s not very good at little things like common courtesy.

Daniel’s eyes shot open as a bevy of information made its way into his brain with just that single sentence.  Domme Jane knew where he lived!  Domme Jane knew his real name!  And when he followed Domme Jane’s gaze across the floor, Daniel also realized something else:  Domme Jane was talking to Real Jane!

A thousand alarm bells rang out in Daniel’s scurrying scrambling brain.

“Honey…” Daniel stuttered.  “Wh-wh-who are these people?”  He started to get up.  To talk? To run? Daniel didn’t bother to think even that far ahead.

Fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be) he didn’t have to think that far ahead. A pair of strong hands landed on Daniel’s shoulders and forced him back down into his chair.  He looked up and saw one of Domme Jane’s goons standing behind him.  The other one was coming in the door and closing it.

“No no, Daniel,” Domme Jane said.  “Please. Don’t get up.  Be comfortable.”

His eyes flickered over to his wife.  Why wasn’t she screaming?  Why no questions?  Explaining.  Shouldn’t that be what he was doing?  Explaining?  Talking and finding a way to get out of this?  “H-h-h-h...Honey?  Jane?”

Pretty as she pleased, the domme took a seat at the kitchen table, right across from Daniel.  He’d fantasized about something like this happening; dreamed about it, he was sure.  Just not like this.

Never like this.

“She already knows,” the woman in black said. She lifted up her sunglasses and turned to wink at Jane. “And so do I.”  

“Jane...I…” He looked to the kitchen door.  But she’d already walked behind the goons and was now standing back in the tiny kitchen where she’d toiled tirelessly for years.  “I’m sorry.” He said.  “I didn’t mean to.”

The first goon walked around to join the Jane in black. He had no friends here, Daniel realized.  The domme and her goons towered over him.  He could leave, run maybe, but the big guys were faster than him too.  The door to Daniel’s left was unguarded only because either Goon 1 or Goon 2 could easily reach it before he was even up out of his chair.  His own Jane wouldn’t even look at him.

“Jane?”  He called out.  “Jane?”

“I don’t think she wants to talk to you right now,” Domme Jane said. “You’ve been very naughty.”

“Jane!” He called into the kitchen anyways.  “I’m sorry.”

There was silence.  Stupidly, Daniel thought that maybe his wife hadn’t heard him, or maybe she’d left, magically disappearing from the scene.  That would be nice.  It might mean that this was a nightmare...

“For what?” his wife called back, her voice uncharacteristically cold.  What had happened to the sweet girl he’d married?

How much did Jane know?  He could confess to everything he’d done, but what if he admitted to something that she didn’t know about.  He’d be in even deeper shit than he already was.  “For..um...going out and not telling you…?”

“Cheating,” Domme Jane corrected him.   “It’s called cheating.  You made a promise to only be with your wife and you broke that promise without her permission.”  She waved a lit cigarette in his face, leaving trails of smoke brushing up against his nose.  

“I’m sorry I cheated!”  Daniel blurted out.  “It was wrong of me! I’m sorry!”

Another long pause and silence from the kitchen.  For the first time he could actively remember he wanted to see Jane.  “And?”

“And getting a vasectomy without telling you….?” He cringed.  This wasn’t good.  If she knew about Domme Jane then she probably knew about him taking himself out of the gene pool.

Another pause.  This one not quite as long as the one before.  “And?”

Despite himself, Daniel snorted. “That’s it…?”  He honestly couldn’t think of anything else he’d done wrong.

Domme Jane didn’t move, not in any noticeable way that Daniel could see.  Yet the two goons that acted as her body guards seemed to react to some kind of unseen, nearly psychic signal.  Goon 1 reached across the table tossed the empty plate away.

The sound of the plate shattering made him jump.  That gave the woman in black just the opening she needed to snatch the cigar out of his mouth and drop it in his glass of scotch, ruining both.  “You won’t be needing these anymore.”

Goon 2 took that as a cue to walk around the table and roughly grab Daniel’s bicep, yanking him up by the arm.  Daniel might as well have been a puppy being held up by the scruff of his neck.  He wasn’t pulled far, just around to the long end of the table where he was forced face down.

“Ooof!” he grunted. Both of the goons were holding him down.  His top half was pinned to the table.  “What do you think you’re doing?”  He felt slender, but strong hands snake around his waist and undo his belt.  Just as quickly, he realized his pants were around his ankles.  His boxers too.  He was bare assed and bent over.  “What are you going to do?!”

“There are people in the world,” he heard Domme Jane say, “that walk around shouting ‘punish me!’  He heard the click of her heels in the kitchen.  “People who break promises and hearts.  People who think only of themselves.”

“RED!” he called out.  That was the safeword, right?  He’d never had to safeword out of a scene.  Now he absolutely wanted it.  “STOP!  RED!”  RED RED RED RED REEEED!”

The domme ignored his pleas.  This wasn’t a scene.  This wasn’t a session.  Not for him. “People who with their thoughtless entitlement treat others like servants, or property, or furniture…”  Daniel heard the sound of heels clicking back on the floor, yet Domme Jane’s voice still stayed in the kitchen. “Or wives like their mothers.”

A meaty hand yanked Daniel up by the hair and turned his head the other way around so that he could whose footsteps were clicking.  Daniel now saw his wife as if for the first time:  Beautiful blonde hair. Perfect makeup and immaculate nails despite slaving in a kitchen all afternoon.  An elegant but simple dress and half-apron, the very depiction of a domestic goddess.  The real Jane was every bit as beautiful and alluring as the woman who shared her name.

And she was holding a spanking paddle.  And she looked pissed!
A few more clicks and Jane disappeared behind Daniel. One of the goons reached into his pocket and shoved a black bag over Daniel’s head.  The world went dark.  Dark and quiet.  It was in those few seconds of anticipation, in the dark and silence, and that Daniel felt well and truly afraid.

THWACK!

Daniel’s backside was lit ablaze by the first swing of the paddle

“AAAAH FUCK!”

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

Instinctively, Daniel reached back and tried to cover his ass, tried to cushion the blows that were beginning to rain down on his backside.  The goons saw that he didn’t, pinning them behind his back.  

“RED! RED! RED!”  No quarter was given.  The only thing that would be red was his bottom as again and again, his own wife spanked him like he was a three year old at K-Mart.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

She was alternating cheeks now.  Soon the color of his flesh might go from beet and flushing red to black and blue of bruises.

He tried to kick once, not caring who was behind him, but the but his own pants acted as a kind of shackles preventing him from doing more than scooting and shuffling impotently in place.  The goons must have realized what he’d been thinking though, otherwise they wouldn’t have twisted his arm more until he stopped.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

Anger and instinctive rebellion gave way to pain and humiliation.  Paddled like a naughty child!  In his own house! By his own wife!  The sack over his head made things worse.  He couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t stare off in the distance.  Couldn’t use his eyes to try and zone out and stare at his beloved phone.  

There was only the pain of wood being smacked into him and the sound of his flesh being spanked.  Again.  And again. And again.  

The hood had a secondary effect:  Even though he was being held down and knew exactly where he was, he still felt isolated.  Oddly alone.  And that isolation combined with overwhelming pain and embarrassment caused the tears to start leaking from his eyes.  He couldn’t keep any kind of guard or barrier any longer.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

How awful! He was being spanked and literally crying about it.  And he couldn’t stop.  Crying turned to sobbing.  Sobbing turned to bawling and his whole body shook, not just from his own tortured cries of physical pain but from going past the edge of a complete emotional breakdown.

“UH-HUH-UH-UH-UH-UH!  AAAAAAAAAAWAAAAAAAA!”

The spanking stopped.  The crying didn’t.  It should have.  Trapped in his own head, Daniel would have loved to be able to stop bawling like an infant on cue.  That way he could tell himself it had all been an act; a clever ploy to get the pain to stop.  

But they just wouldn’t stop, continuing to streak down his face.  Even when the bag was off and he was staring up at Jane’s- his Jane’s- smirking, passive face.

“Is...is that it?”  He asked between gulps of air, wishing desperately he had his hands free so he could wipe the snot off of his upper lip and clean away the tears.  “Are we...are we...done?”

“Oh baby,” Jane said.  Gently she reached out.  He flinched as she wiped away the water and snot on his face with handkerchief.  “No.  No, no, no.  Not by a long shot.”

He was stood back up.  His pants were pulled on and fastened back on for him.  And then Goon 1 and Goon 2 hooked his arms and carted him out of the door and into a waiting van.  “Wait?” Daniel shrieked.  “What are you doing?! Where are we going?  WHERE ARE YOU TAKING M-!”

His cries of protest were cut off by the slamming of the kitchen door.

***********************************************************************************************
“Congratulations,” the domme said to the jilted housewife.  “You’re a natural.”

Jane patted the paddle in the palm of her hand.  That had felt good.  Intoxicating, even.  And like so many intoxicating things, the first shot was never enough.  “I...I really liked that!”

“I could tell,” her counterpart smiled.  “I’d definitely say the impression you made on him in phase one will make phase two a lot easier for you.”

Jane squeaked a bit. It had been a while since anyone had complemented her so.  That was about to change.  Speaking of change.  “Should I dress more like…” she indicated the intense and sexy black number that the professional was wearing.  “I don’t think I have boots that go that high up.”

Domme Jane laughed.  “Oh no no no, honey.  What you’re wearing is fine.  More than fine for what I have in mind.  Even better than what I’ve got on for where we’re going.”

The housewife blinked. “Where are we going?”

“Grab your car keys,” the domme said.  “We’ll follow the van.”

*****************************************************************************************
“Where are you taking me?”  Daniel demanded to know.  “Where are we going?” Daniel didn’t know.  The bag was back over his head and his sense of direction was sketchy at best.  He lacked the presence of mind to count stops or turns or times between them.  He really was going in blind.

“What’s happening?!  Please tell me!”  The goons didn’t answer.  Goon 1 just kept driving, and Goon 2 sat beside him, draping his arms over Daniel’s shoulders; a cat pinning a mouse under its paw, just letting it know that the claws could come out at any time if it struggled or squeaked too much.

“Please!” he begged.  “At least talk to me.  I didn’t do anything wrong!”  Silence.  “I didn’t do anything illegal anyways!  Nothing that should get me kidnapped,” he gulped.  “Or killed.”  The answer he got in reply was the flexing of Goon 2’s bicep, in a kind of lazy threat of a headlock.  (Or maybe it was Goon 2 who was doing the driving and Goon 1 who was silently threatening him.  He never could tell the difference between the two.  Had never even heard them talk.)  “Can either of you even talk?"

Instead of getting an answer, the radio came on blaring music louder than Daniel’s ears could stand.  It wasn’t even thrash metal or something two giant mooks would likely listen to.

“When something isn’t right, it haunts me day and night

Don’t need no crystal ball to tell me all the reasons why
I see you’re hiding out, it makes me wanna shout
So tell me here and now, am I someone you could live without?”

It was that poppy, techno crap that teenage girls listened to.  Wanna be bubblegum sugar rock trying to sound hard, but really could be heard in any club anywhere.  The kind of thing he’d have lambasted and turned apart for laughs if his youtuber star had ever risen.

“I’m losing all control
So you got to let me know
I don’t want to take it slow
Do you want me? (Do you want me?)”

Daniel didn’t listen to the other lyrics.  He was too busy crying, afraid of what his life was about to come.  

“Jaaaaaaaaaaaane!” he moaned in despair. “Jaaaaaaaane!”

At least the music was loud so they couldn’t hear him whine.  At least the ride lasted long enough so that he ran out of self-pitying tears.

When the van came to the stop, Daniel heard the side door slide open and he was pushed out blind.  The other goon was there to catch him, and once again he was arm in arm in arm being marched away against his will.  

The hood only came off when they were inside.  Daniel didn’t recognize the interior; just a long, gray hallway, poorly lit, poorly insulated, and very empty.

The sound of footsteps and a menacing silhouette greeted him. “Bring him here, fellas,” the woman in black’s voice echoed commandingly down the corridor.

This.  This was too much.  In a burst of sudden speed that surprised even him, Daniel whirred and ran for the door.  “No!” He said, running for the door.  The benefit of the hallway was that he knew which way to run.  

His sprint didn’t last long.  The goons weren’t just stronger than him.  They hooked him by the arms and lifted.  This time, he was being carried backwards, forced to watch the door to freedom get smaller and smaller while the distance to his doom remained uncertain.  He kicked and struggled, but to no avail.   “NOOOOOOOOOO.”

The sound of a door swinging open. A rush of air.  The world going topsy turvy as he was casually thrown in and went airborne.  A surprisingly comfortable fall.  Padded floors.  If not for the stinging in his ass, it might not have hurt at all.

A padded room? A mental ward?  Daniel rubbed his eyes.  Not a mental ward.  But for a moment he did question his sanity.  Bright rainbow colors.  Foam mats made to look like cute little puzzle pieces.  Dollies and stuffed animals.  

A nursery?  A baby’s play room? A daycare?

Before he was able to voice any of these confusions, his vision was filled with beauty.  He locked eyes with Domme Jane just long enough to realize it was her.  “Jane?”  Her upturned palm was filled with white powder.

“Not your Jane. ”  Seductively she pouted her lips, inhaled, and blew the snowy stuff into his face.  “Not like you’re thinking.”

Daniel sniffed. The scent of fresh lavender tickled his nose. “Baby powder?”  Before he’d uttered that last syllable though, he knew something was wrong.  The room started spinning.  His face felt flushed, then numb.  A trail of drool was already starting to drip from the corners of his mouth.  His head felt very...very...heavy.

“Not baby powder,” he heard another voice.  “At least not like you’re thinking.”

“Ja-?” Daniel’s eyes rolled into the back of his head just as he passed out.