Page 8 of Shameful Needs
I realized, with a flash of anger at myself, that I’d made a foolish decision that had led me here. I’d chosen to basically ignore all the stuff about traditional gender roles in the New Modesty program I’d joined for the sake of the generous subsidy for young couples. I knew I wasn’t alone, at least; plenty of the other guys I’d met as I’d started the courting process had been laughing at what we called that bullshit right along with me. It didn’t fit with what we saw in the media, anyway.
We’d all been wrong. I didn’t like feeling grateful to Selecta for helping me figure out my mistake and take charge of my wife the way I should have from the start. I couldn’t deny, though, that I owed them one. A very big one.
My eyes traveled down to the first of three questions.
Doyou give permission for a Selecta trainer to discipline your wife in the nude, using a strap, a paddle, or a cane as the trainer decides is appropriate?
I swallowed hard.It seemed like a lot—but then I looked a little further down.
Doyou give permission for a Selecta trainer to discipline your wife around toileting, including forbidding your wife to use the toilet and/or commanding her to urinate in front of others?
What the hell?I couldn’t stop now; I read the third question.
Doyou give permission for a Selecta trainer, or trainers, to have oral, vaginal, and/or anal intercourse with your wife?
I closed my eyes,remembering the data Mrs. Chen had shown me from the house monitoring system, and the recordings she’d played for me. The surveillance from our bathroom wasn’t video—thank God—but the audio had been damning enough. Heather’s desperate moans, the way she’d whispered words I’d never heard her use. Words that had made my cock hard even as they’d struck at my heart.
Fuck me harder. Please, I need it rough. Make me take it.
I took a deep breath, and started to answer the questions.
Heather
Mrs. Chen climbedinto the van’s passenger seat, turning to face me with that same professional smile that made my skin crawl. “The drive to our facility will take a little while,” shesaid, consulting her tablet. “I’d like to use that time to help you understand what to expect.”
I stared out the tinted window as we pulled away from my neighborhood, watching the familiar houses blur past. “I don’t want to understand anything,” I said. “I want to go home.”
“I know this feels overwhelming,” Mrs. Chen replied, her voice maddeningly calm. “But I think you’ll find that our program addresses needs you may not even realize you have. Tell me, Heather, when was the last time you felt truly satisfied in your marriage?”
The question hit like a slap. I turned to glare at her, but she was watching me with genuine curiosity, not judgment. “My marriage is fine,” I said. “Or it was, until Ryan decided to have me kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped is a strong word. Your husband has legal authority?—”
“I don’t care about legal authority!” The words came out louder than I’d intended, echoing in the van’s confined space. “He’s my husband, not my owner.”
Mrs. Chen made a note on her tablet. “Interesting. And yet the monitoring data suggests you fantasize quite regularly about being owned. Being controlled. Being used.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “That’s not—those are just fantasies. They don’t mean anything.”
“Don’t they?” She leaned forward slightly. “Heather, in my experience, the things we think about when we’re most vulnerable, most unguarded, reveal our deepest truths. What did you think about this morning in the shower?”
I pressed my lips together, staring fixedly out the window. The suburbs were giving way to industrial areas now, warehouses and office parks that looked increasingly anonymous.
“Was it Ryan?” Mrs. Chen continued. “Was it your husband taking you the way you really wanted to be taken?”
My breath caught. How could she know?
“Or was it someone else? Someone from your past, perhaps?”
Chad’s face flashed through my mind—his cruel smile, the way he’d looked at me like I was nothing more than a collection of holes for his pleasure. My body’s traitorous response to the memory made me squeeze my thighs together.
“I can see from your expression that I’m getting warmer,” Mrs. Chen said. “The intake counselor noted elements in your data that might indicate a search to reawaken previous sexual responses.”
“That’s over,” I said quickly. “That’s in the past. I’m married now. I’m different.”
“Are you?” She tilted her head. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re a young woman who’s been trying very hard to be someone she’s not. Someone who’s been denying herself what she truly needs. We don’t have the kind of data from your life before you enrolled in the New Modesty that we’d really like to have, but our assessors’ guesses tend to be on target. At the very least, I think I can assure you that whatever it was, it’s very definitely not merely in your past. It’s still very much part of your life.”
The van turned onto a highway, the industrial landscape streaming past in a blur of gray concrete and chain-link fencing. My heart hammered against my ribs as Mrs. Chen’s words sank in. She knew. Somehow, she knew about Chad, about the things he’d done to me, about how my body had responded to his rough treatment.
