A Wonderful Gift

The Fantasy

The Reality

Sunday mornings are a little busy around our house. We both teach sunday school occasionally, so my beloved often leaves around 8:45 so she can catch the early service before she has to teach. This means that Sunday mornings often to not afford leasurely moments for pleasure (and sometimes they do, which is quite fun). I always enjoy watching her change out of her night-shirt, and though she's not going to be in anyone's fashion magazine any time soon, to me she's beautiful and a pleasure to see. Imagine my surprise when just afterwards she walked over to the bed, and put her hand on my necklace and asked, "Do I need to take this off while you shower this morning?" You could have knocked me over with a feather.

In fact, I was speachless. Before I could respond, she said, "I didn't know if you were going to ask; we have to figure out what the protocol is for this." I told her that the whole question kind of fried my brain and I didn't know how to respond - I didn't have a moment to tell her (though I have in the past) that being caught between phyiscal pleasure now and psychic pleasure over the long term, I don't know how to choose. I think it's a dichotomy that's familiar to many men who have indulged in orgasm denial.

(Early on when orgasm ceased to be a fore-gone conclusion for me when we had sex, she would ask me if I wanted to cum. I said I always preferred it if she would decide, since I win either way: either I get the immediate pleasure, or I get the "slow burn." Actually, she hated the "You decide" answer, even though I think she saw the logic of it. So I don't answer that way anymore, and she's stopped asking, which is very satisfying. Now I just cum if it would enhance her pleasure, or if I ask.)

The asking part is very important for me. She said this morning, "I didn't know if you were going to ask, or what." I mentioned that I was, but I was waiting for the right time. I didn't want to do it at a moment when she would find the whole discussion distasteful. And Friday night she initiated a love-making session that didn't work out for her (this happens sometimes; I think we agreed "nothing ventured nothing gained," and that though it wasn't immediately satisfying, maybe we just learned a little about what works and doesn't). At that point I didn't want to ask because I didn't want it to come off as "You got me all hot and bothered and now I want mine."

In fact, I've had the worst case of blue-balls for a week now since it's been two weeks and she was away for part of that time. So asking was definately on my mind.

I said I would love to have a discussion later one about the protocol around this necklace - (are you kidding, I get one of my big fantasies to happen in real life?!?!?!) So i get to go off and have a shower and get some relaxed relief, and the prospect of an interesting discusion towards the end of the day.

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Yesterday was one of those moments in small submission - I was going to clean up my desk and stuff, but she suggested, "You could work on that project" (the one we started last weekend). No question there. And it was fun to do, knowing that she had requested it. Which is the answer in my life to WhateverSheSays' question of "if my wife adds changing the sheets on the bed to the "honey-do" list, ... do I include the time changing the sheets" as submission?

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There's an ending to the discussion about the necklace. Late on Sunday when (mirabile dictu) both kids were out of the house, I brought the necklace downstairs and asked if we were going to have a discussion about this. I can't reproduce the discussion verbatim, but it included questions like, "What does this mean to you?" and answers like "That I don't get to cum as long as I'm wearing it." The hardest was probably the heartfelt "What does that do for you; why do you want this?" I took my time thinking about that one; for reasons I don't understand, the words were very hard to come by.

I settled on, "It gives me a feeling of being controlled, and I like that. It gives me a feeling of being connected to you, and I like that too." That doesn't seem to capture the emotional weight of the thing, but was the best linear straightforward rational-sounding explanation I could articulate that was consistent with what I felt.

I can't remember if she asked why I felt that way; I don't think so. Which is good, since I couldn't have given her a good answer anyway.

We proceeded on to "How should this work." I was concerned that we come up with something that did not require her to guess about my state of mind, nor that had "right" and "wrong" answers from her (shades of the "do I get to cum" question during sex). Since I'm much more interested in this than she, I suggested that I ask her when I want the necklace removed, which I guess is a wierd definition of "chastity," but it feels like the most realistic thing I could think of. I told her that ranges of answers that worked for me included "Yes", "No", and "Sure, at thus-and-so time." (I think that pretty much covers the waterfront, so to speak.)

What I asked of her was that she name the time at which I had to put the necklace back on. It's that control thing again. Again, the range of answers that work for me range from "One minute from now" to "Sure, in two weeks." Though I pointed out that the longer away it was, the more that felt like something she'd do if she was angry with me. So far, as simple as I could make it.

I figured there might be times when she didn't want to think about the whole thing, and rather than make her feel obligated to do so, I suggested she could choose a dice game to set the time instead; rolling two dice for the number of hours, with some special cases for long and short amounts of time. It seemed simple enough for her as an alternative to being "responsible" for getting the "right" answer, though I have no idea if she'll ever choose to use it.

She (I think) suggested that I bring the necklace to her for her to put on me.

Overall, I think this will be a very satisfactory arrangement, and perhaps is illustrative of the difference between fantasy and reality. I guess we'll know more the first time I ask her to take it off me, but I don't know when that will be. Some time yet, is my guess, as my rate of (self provided) "relief" varies wildly from several times a week to twice a month or so.

I am deeply appreciative that she is doing this thing "for me," having no idea why I could possibly want this, and getting no (apparent) emotional impact herself from this. Which I why I attempted to structure it as minimally intrusive upon her as possible. Paradoxically, it really is a concrete illustration of how much she loves me and is willing to do for me. And I do appreciate it and hope that I express the love I feel as well.