Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 JANET'S RETURN

   Janet and I divorced last summer, ending a romance that began in junior
high and a fabulous twenty-five-year marriage that produced two wonderful
children.  At the end, something happened and I didn't know what.  All I
knew was she insisted we divorce and I had no choice except to agree.

   She kept the big house in the suburbs and I bought a swinging bachelor
pad in the city, which seemed appropriate since I was forty-seven,
reasonably good looking, in excellent condition and health, and made damn
good money.  The guy who sold me the house was about thirty and getting
married.  He needed to buy a house in the suburbs with his new bride. 
Ironic, isn't it?

   The place was small and on a small lot, but it had a private oasis
perfect for romance in the backyard.  The grass and shrubbery had been
removed and the yard covered in a wood deck with a gas barbeque grill and
glass-topped wrought-iron table in a near corner, a stately live oak tree
in a far corner, and a remote controlled sound system to bathe the backyard
in music for ambiance or for dancing.  A six-person hot tub with a soft
rubber, radiantly-heated mat on one side dominated the yard.

   My favorite place for sex is outdoors and I bought that house for its
backyard.  I'd chill some wine, play some soft music, and serve an
appropriate dinner.  If the lady preferred something stronger than wine, I
kept a supply of quality liquor and top-grade grass on hand.  A beautiful
night, rich ambiance, and fine food and wine usually got the ball rolling.
If the lady said she didn't have proper attire for the hot tub, I provided
her a bikini from the stock I kept.  We'd have some good conversation and
nature would take its course.

   Each lady I entertained was unique and interesting.  They knew the
dinner invitation included sex when they accepted and they were looking
forward to it, but most of them wanted to be romanced and play the
seduction game.  That's not a problem because getting there is half the
fun. When they realized sex was outdoors, a few readily accepted.  Most
reactions ranged from embarrassed giggles and red faces to a flat "no
fucking way," although she, too, gave in before the night was over.

   All of them checked out the situation.  Some did it openly, prowling the
backyard like a bloodhound.  Others were more circumspect.  They all
discovered what I knew.  Despite the proximity of other houses, no one
could see in my yard.

   Like most newly divorced men, I began a sexual odyssey pursuing
everything in a skirt, seeking quantity rather than quality.  Any day
without a woman in my house, I'd feel was unsuccessful.  But I quickly
found two ladies to enjoy on a regular basis.

   One of them was Connie Simpson.  Connie was a tall,
thirty-eight-year-old childless divorcee and professional woman, a business
friend who asked me out when she heard I was getting a divorce.  She wanted
what I wanted - great sex without commitment.  Sex with Connie was
excellent.  She lost herself in it and told me that it flushed away the
worries of her world.  She wanted something else, too, and she brought it
up one evening as we were sitting in the hot tub sipping wine.  She sat her
glass on the side and slipped into my lap with her legs outside mine.

   She put her arms around my neck and whispered, "I like it when you hold
me down."

   "I noticed," I said as I stroked her back.

   She blushed brightly and looked away shyly.  I don't think I'd seen
shyness in Connie before.  She hemmed and hawed, getting out a few words
only to blush and start over again.  I put my thumb in the point of her jaw
and lifted her head until her eyes were bound to mine.  I held her that way
until she relaxed and her expression said she surrendered.

   "You want me to put you in bondage?" I asked.

   "Yes, but I can't risk anyone knowing, Mike.  It would destroy my
career," she gasped.

   "If you didn't trust me completely, you never would have mentioned it."

   "I do trust you, but I'm frightened.  I've never done anything like
this, but I want to."

   "And discipline?"

   "Oh, God, yes."

   "I'll discipline you, too-as much as you want."

   "That's what scares me.  I know I want a lot."

   "I have some bondage equipment in the house.  Do you want to start now?"

   "Yes, Mike."

   My ex-wife Janet and I played bondage games and she enjoyed it even more
than I did.  Being restrained was her favorite part.  We didn't do public
humiliation and no one but me knew we played those games.  Connie made me
realize I deeply missed sexual domination of a woman, so I planned to take
Connie as far as she would go.  That first night with her was simple.  I
used leather restraints to bind her wrists to the headboard and played with
her body until she begged me to let her orgasm.  We progressed rapidly
after that.  In her professional world, she managed a staff of fifty and
held a high-paying and responsible position, but in the little world of my
house and yard, she craved abject submission, which I provided.

   I was trolling in a local hot spot one night when I found Becky Ashford.
She was a twenty-six-year-old school teacher out for a night with the
girls. She told me she was single, but a few dates later told me she was
married, her husband traveled, and he didn't mind if she stepped out a few
nights a week.  The three of us met.  Becky's husband was relieved that I
was an older guy with no intention of stealing her away from him.  At his
request, she limited her stepping out to me.  We even arranged for a
threesome a few times.

   By April, my routine was Connie and Becky once or twice a week each,
someone else a night or two, and a night or two by myself.  I enjoyed
spending some quiet evenings alone.  I'd make a light dinner before
relaxing nude in the hot tub listening to the classics, sipping wine, and
reading a good book.  That's what I was doing one night in late April when
the phone rang.

   "Hi, Mike.  How are you?" She tried to make her voice light and happy,
but I knew that voice only too well and I heard the tension there.

   "Fine, Janet.  How are you?" Did she hear the tension in mine?

   "I'm fine, too.  Thanks for asking." She started talking about the
children.  I knew that wasn't the reason she called but as her words
tumbled out I replied appropriately, letting her run down rather than
building the conversation.  "So," she finally said and there was a pregnant
pause.  "Are you dating anyone special?"

   "They're all special, but I'm not dating anyone exclusively," I replied.

   "Good," she said.  "How about coming to dinner?"

   "You mean like a date?"

   "Yes.  No.  Well, something like that."

   "Why?" I wasn't being coy or combative.  I hadn't seen or talked to
Janet since July and I tried to get her out of my mind.  Why, in the name
of hell, did she want to see me now?  More cogently, after she dumped me so
brutally, why did I want to see her?

   "I miss you," she whispered.

   "Oh?"

   "God, Mike, say something besides 'oh'."

   "You've caught me off guard and, frankly, I don't know what to say. 
It's been a long time since I talked to you."

   "I know and I'm sorry.  So terribly sorry.  I'm not asking you to
forgive me, but can we talk?  Please."

   "And say what?"

   "Anything that comes to mind.  I'd like to know about your life and I
want to tell you about mine.  I want to tell you why I divorced you."

   I didn't answer, but I did want to know why she threw away a quarter
century of married bliss.  And I did want to see her in spite of part of me
screaming to keep her out of my life.

   "Please, Mike, I need to see you," she begged.

   "I'd like to see you, too," I replied.

   I heard a sob as she murmured my name.  "Then you'll come?" she asked
hopefully.

   "I want you to come here and I'll cook for us.  And bring your swim
suit. I've got a hut tub in the back yard."

   She emitted her husky, sexy chuckle that I hadn't heard in years.  "Oh,
Mike.  Outdoor sex?"

   "If you like."

   "Like?  You know I love outdoor sex.  I love sex with you anywhere. 
When do you want me there?"

   Two days later, my stomach was in a knot like a teenager on his first
date.  Juanita, my maid, had told me I was crazy and I probably was a
little off-center, but I wanted everything to be perfect.  Dinner was
simple: cold lobster and shrimp salad with Louie sauce, freshly made bread
and real butter, thirty-dollar-a-bottle chardonnay, soft music.

   I told her to dress casually.  I wore a pair of loose nylon shorts, a
white tee-shirt outside my shorts, and Docksiders with no socks.  When the
doorbell rang, my anxiety level went sky-high.  My hand shook as I turned
the knob.

   When I saw her, my heart stopped and my mouth fell open.  She looked
terrified, but when she saw my expression, a wide, sexy leer flashed on her
face.  Quivering with excitement, she stepped into me, gave me a quick peck
on the cheek, and pranced into the living room to pose and let her new
appearance sink in to my addled brain.

   I'd known Janet all my life.  I could close my eyes and see exactly what
she looked like at any age.  Flat chested and pigtailed in the third grade.
In her first two-piece suit after she entered puberty.  On my parents' bed
when I took her virginity.  Groaning and sweating as our children came from
her into this world.  My brain held a million pictures of her, but I'd
never seen her like this.

   Janet's hair had been various colors over the years from raven black to
medium blonde, but it had always been long.  Now it was short, sassy, and
white blonde.  She wore a black patent leather micro mini-skirt that
covered about ten inches from her hip bone, matching halter top, and
matching knee high boots with very high heels.  She wouldn't have gone to a
costume party dressed like that when she was married to me.

   But the biggest change was in her body.  Her belly was flat and hard,
her waist narrow, her ass high and firm, and her breasts were huge. 
Obviously, a plastic surgeon had worked his magic in a lot of places.  And
a piercing artist had been busy, too.  There was a diamond in her navel. 
She was a forty-four-year-old mother of two, but she looked like a
thirty-year-old sex-pot ready for action.

   "Like what you see, handsome?" she asked glibly.

   "Yes, I do indeed."

   "If you see something you want, don't ask.  Just help yourself." Her
blatant sexual offer was accompanied by a wanton legs-open, breasts-out
stance.  In the blink of an eye, her expression was honest and open.  "God,
it's good to see you," burst from her.  She blushed from belt line to
forehead.  Face anguished, she turned away and her hand brushed her cheek.

   "Are you all right?" I asked.

   "Sure.  Could I have a drink?"

   "Is chardonnay all right?"

   "Don't you remember?"

   "I remember, but I thought that might have changed," I said defensively.

   "It's still wine."

   "The wine is cooling out back.  Come on.  Let me show you."

   "Oh my, Mike, this is lovely," she said as she walked into my little
paradise.  "Do you use it much?"

   "Every day if the weather's good."

   "For sex?"

   "Almost every day."

   "You've been busy," she said.  I shrugged and busied myself with opening
the wine.  "Can any of the neighbors see you?"

   "Not unless they bore a hole through a fence," I said.

   "Remember Colorado?' she said.

   "Of course."

   "My God but I was humiliated when they caught us.  And aroused."

   I stopped short.  She never admitted that being caught "in the act"
aroused her, but I always thought it had.  I handed her the wine glass.

   "To life and love," I said, touching my glass to hers.

   "To love," she whispered and her big blue eyes shone up at me with love
and desire.

   My secret wish, the one held deep in my heart to be nourished and
treasured, was that she would come back to me.  Now she was here, but for
how long?  And why?

   We sat and talked, or rather I sat and Janet prowled, nervous as a cat.
I'd seen her this way before and it meant she was suffering horrible
anxiety that made her emotions swing from one extreme to the other.  We
talked about our children, family, and old friends as she quickly consumed
three glasses of wine, which was about her limit.

   "Another, please." She held out her glass.

   "What's eating on you?"

   "Nothing." We both knew she lied.  "May I have another glass of wine?"

   I poured it and she mumbled a thank you, downed the wine, and set the
glass on the table.  She sprang to her feet, strode across the small deck,
and stared into space before returning to stand before me like a frightened
little girl, wringing her hands and shaking.

   "I didn't get a divorce because of you, Mike.  You didn't do anything
wrong.  Never.  You were the best husband any woman could have." She slowly
fell to her knees and her hands were clasped as if in prayer.  "Don't hate
me, Mike.  Please don't hate me."

   "I don't hate you.  Just tell me what's going on."

   "May I have another glass of wine?"

   "How about some good grass?" I asked.

   "Only if you promise me we can have sex later," she replied with a sexy
shyness.

   Weed made Janet mellow and blew away her inhibitions.  I promised the
sex, but that wasn't the prime consideration.  Getting her to talk was.

   When I suggested she sit in a chair, Janet replied, "I'll stay here if
you don't mind." I handed her the pipe I use outdoors because the water
from the hot tub ruins a cigarette.  She took a deep drag and held her
breath.  When she exhaled, she seemed calmer.  She knee-walked between my
legs until her face was a few inches from my crotch.  For the first time
since she arrived, I felt the old familiar twitch.

   "Remember when you used to tie my hands and I'd kneel between your legs
and suck you?" she asked.

   "Yes," I replied.

   "I like being bound with your cock in my mouth.  I've missed that with
you, Mike." With her eyes closed, she took another deep drag and held her
breath.  For some reason we stopped our bondage games a few years ago.  As
I watched her there, old hot memories flooded me and my cock wormed its way
down the leg of my shorts.

   She exhaled, took another drag without opening her eyes, handed me the
pipe, and slid her hand under my shorts.  Her fingers wrapped around my
cock and it jumped in her hand.  She smiled and slowly exhaled.

   "I've missed Caesar.  Can I taste him?" she murmured, calling my cock by
the old nickname she gave it in high school.  We were taking Latin when she
started sucking me.  Somehow, she made a connection and the nickname stuck.


   I raised my hips and she pulled my shorts off.  Her eyes already showed
that diffused, slightly red look that good grass brings.  She smiled as she
wrapped her fingers around my cock and took the head between her lips.

   Janet was fifteen when she first went down on me.  She hadn't given me
her virginity yet, which would happen about seven months later, but we were
well into mutual masturbation and she had jerked me off and taken my cum on
her breasts several times.  One night, we were in my Dad's car on Lovers'
Lane and my cock needed relief.

   "I hope you like this, Mike," she murmured as she lowered her head to my
lap.  I was ready and it didn't take long.  The force surprised her and she
jerked back to take most of it on her face and hair.  Her eyes were wide
and her mouth open in astonishment.

   "You're supposed to take it in your mouth and swallow it," I teased as I
reached for my handkerchief.

   With one finger, she gathered a string of cum from her cheek and stuck
it in her mouth.  "I like it," she said.  She blushed brightly.  "I hope
you liked it, because I want to do it again." Janet did love the taste of
cum and she was always a willing and eager cocksucker.

   "What are you thinking?" Janet asked as she looked up at me in my back
yard.

   "About the first time you sucked my cock."

   "I love Caesar, Mike, almost as much as I love you.  I always have.  May
I have the pipe again?"

   She took another big hit and rubbed my cock against her cheek as she
held her breath.  When she exhaled, she said, "This is good stuff.  I'm
flying already."

   "Finish me and then we'll talk," I replied.

   "Fuck my face," she said.

   I stood and took her head in both hands.  Her blue eyes shone up at me
as enjoyed the feel of her hot mouth and the warmth of the outdoor air. 
There is something special about outdoor sex - something visceral and
primal with the wind's touch on your body.

   Janet sucked me like she had for years, with one hand around my cock and
the other between her spread legs to play with her pussy.  She liked cuming
when I did.  She sweated and twisted to orgasm as I pumped her mouth full
of my cum.  When I slumped back in the chair, she stayed between my legs
sucking me gently as my cock softened.  Then she lay back and put her leg
in my lap and I took off her boots.

   Her shiny, bloated pussy was winking at me.  Some things had changed
there, too - no panties, not a hair in sight, and metal gleaming dully in
the evening light.  Her face reflected my surprise.  She smiled wanly and
unfastened her halter revealing her new bounty complete with golden rings
through each nipple.  In seconds, she was naked and slipping into the hot
tub.  I filled our wine glasses and joined her.

   "No more grass?" she asked as she took her glass from me.

   "Let's talk."

   She nodded and sighed.  "The reason I wanted to talk to you is because I
love you more than anything, more than life itself, but I walked away from
you and I did it in a dirty and cruel way.  Now all I can do is tell you
what happened and beg you to take me back."

   I wanted to scream for joy, to fall on my knees in thanks, but I didn't.
"I want to hear what you have to say," I replied.

   She was calm now as the wine, grass, and sex worked their magic.

   "I'll tell you everything you want to know, and I promise I won't hide
anything, but for now I'll give you the condensed version.  You know that
I'm submissive and you're dominant.  That's probably one reason we fit
together perfectly and why we both enjoyed our bondage games.  Do you
remember when you bought me the new computer and insisted I take lessons?"

   "Sure.  It was your forty-second birthday present.  You never really got
into it."

   "Oh but I did.  I took the lessons and spent hours playing with it.  I
was going to surprise you with my skills.  But something else happened.  I
stumbled into sex on the web.  I found a master.  It was a game at first,
an invisible game played from the safety of my home, but then I agreed to
meet him.  He took me down some dark paths and I loved it.  I broke up our
marriage and made these physical modifications in myself at his command.  I
have lived as his sex slave since I left you."

   "Sex slave?"

   "Yes.  Sex slave and all the term implies.  Would you like details?"

   "Yes, but later.  Have you left him?"

   "I have.  I told him I was returning to my husband, if my husband would
have me.  I told him I was going to beg for your forgiveness and
enslavement."

   "You want me to be your husband again and to be ...  your master?"

   "Yes, I do.  I'm begging you to take me back.  Please, Mike, please."

   A man doesn't live forty-seven years without knowing himself and he
doesn't know a woman for forty years or live with her twenty-five years
without knowing her.  In a way, I blamed myself for her leaving.  I'd
thought back over our last year together a thousand times and there were
signs that suddenly made sense.  I should have been more aware of her. 
Maybe I was too occupied with work.  Maybe I took her for granted. 
Whatever, I did, I wouldn't do it again.  Janet was back and I'd never let
her go.

   "If I am to be a master, I will be one."

   "Oh, I hope so.  I need that, Mike.  Truthfully, if you had taken me
further in my servitude to you, I never would have fallen to someone else."

   "Do you want to be a 24/7 slave?"

   "If I had my wishes, I'd be your wife again and your slave when we play,
but I'd like more play and harder play than we did.  But I don't have any
say in it.  I'll do whatever you want."

   "I'm in two strong relationships.  I think one is about over.  I'm
keeping a wife happy while her husband is out of town, but he's in line for
a promotion.  If he gets it, he won't be on the road so much and I'll see
less of her."

   "And the other?" she said.

   "She's a good woman and a good friend.  We don't love each other and we
would never marry.  It's not that kind of relationship.  It's sex only, but
we both enjoy it.  I won't break it off."

   She smiled knowingly.  "If it's sex play and I'm your wife, I don't mind
you having her.  A good master deserves more than one slave," she said. 
"What's she like?"

   "Smart, professional, classy, and she loves submitting."

   "What will she think of you having two of us?"

   "We'll find out.  Now lie face down on the deck."

   Her face was radiant with sunshine as she lay face down with her arms
folded under her head.  I lay beside her, letting my lips and hands feel
her skin, my nose capture her smells, my eyes caress that body I loved so
many times, but that was new to me in many ways.  Janet's ass always jutted
out with a petulant insolence demanding attention but it, like all of her,
was now more muscular and shaped by workouts.

   "Did your old master require extensive exercise?" I asked as I ran my
fingers down the back of her legs, feeling them tremble.

   "Yes, Sir," she replied.

   "It will continue and we'll have extensive rules to govern your life,
but we'll discuss that later," I said.  "Roll over."

   Her eyes were soft and loving, with a dreamy, wet look as she smiled up
at me.  "I love you," she whispered.

   "I love you," I replied and kissed her gently on the lips.

   Janet's breasts had been larger than average when we married, but
diminished because she nursed our children.  Now they were high and larger
than before.  I examined them carefully, eliciting moans from her.  I
tugged and twisted on the rings and she squirmed.  They'd lost none of
their sensitivity.  My hand trailed over the hardness of her belly to
stroke her naked pubis.

   "All you permanently bare?" I asked.

   "Yes, Sir," she replied.

   Tattooed on the bareness of her lower belly was a red rose with the word
"slave" bannered below it.  A gold bar glimmered in her clit hood and a
gold ring was threaded through her left labia.

   "I like the changes he made in you," I said.

   "Thank you, Master," she replied.

   "You don't have to call me that."

   "But I want to sometimes.  May I?"

   "Yes, you have my permission."

   "Thank you, Master," she said with a giggle.  "May I ask a favor?"

   "Yes."

   "I'd like another tattoo.  One with your name."

   "We'll get it done."

   The day was ending.  Sounds of cars and people laughing and the
intermittent hiss of a bug zapper floated into our little world.  The
ambient lights of the city cast a dull glow in the night sky, but the full
moon was bright over the horizon.

   Movement caught my eye as the neighborhood cat bounded over the fence. I
didn't know its name or where it lived.  It appeared nightly to forage the
remains of dinner on the table and to watch the humans copulating.  I
wondered what tales it could tell.

   I heard ambulance sirens on the way to a hospital, but all was right in
my little world in my back yard.  Janet was back.  I crawled on top of her
and she guided me into her.  I was home.  Her face was joy and tears pulsed
from the corners of her eyes in rhythm to her heart.  A tear of mine fell
on her cheek.

   "Welcome home, Baby."

   The End