by John Benson
"Okay," Mary said. "What is it?"
A black, square box with a power cord and an indicator light. Peg looked at it as it sat there on Mare's table. "The answer to all my troubles?" she asked. Just joking.
"Precisely," Mary said. "It's a mind field."
Peg blinked. "You mean, like a bomb?" She backed up a little.
Mare cleared her throat. "Don't be a dork, Peg. I didn't say 'mine field,' I said 'mind field.' You plug it in and it takes about a day before the field forms. Once it does, anyone who gets within about three feet of the thing, it sort of reads their mental state. If they're not holding onto much guilt, nothing happens. If they are, the box deepens the feeling, and adds a need to be punished physically."
Peg could think of an immediate use for the thing, and his name was Tim. It was almost too good to be true. "Who would even think of making a thing like that?" she asked. "And what's the market?"
"Designed for use in Singapore's prisons," Mary said. "Imported by a guy who thought for sure it was a cure-all for rebellious teens, and then he found out how much sex has to do with the way it works. So they came up surplus. Want it? I picked it up thinking of you. You know. For Tim."
"Lying, cheating sack of shit," Peg said, almost reflexively. It would be tempting. "You really think I should, Mare?"
"Oh, definitely," Mary said. "Think of how he hurt you, how he broke your trust. Then set up the box someplace people won't stumble on it accidentally like the basement or the attic, and get him to stand next to it. Then beat him black and blue."
Oh God. It was a dream come true. "And he won't call the cops on me later, or something?"
"He'll think it was his idea," Mary said, "and in a way, it will be."
Peg felt a rush of excitement. A chance to get the bastard back. A chance to see him suffer as she had suffered. "Oh, jeez, Mare, I'm so damn tempted. But we don't have a lot of cash right now. Great idea, though. I guess it's the thought that counts."
"Like I said," Mary said, "it's surplus. It didn't cost that much, considering. And it doesn't cost you anything at all. A gift, from me to you. Let's just say it appeals to my sense of justice."
Peg looked at the lumpen metal box, so out of place in the middle of Mare's bright and cheery kitchen. But it would be right at home in a basement corner, maybe over near Tim's work bench. He'd be truly at her mercy, actually wanting her to hurt him. Oh God, it was so tempting. "Let me think," Peg said, but in her heart she knew. And when she stepped out of her friend's house that soggy Sunday in early Spring, she carried a surprisingly heavy metal box.
Down the basement steps. Peg's heart was pounding. The more she thought about this, the better it was. Yeah. She went to the far wall where Tim's workbench was, the peg board where he hung his tools, the vice. She moved aside a saw horse. Funny. Why was it padded on top with a piece of scrap carpet? Never mind. She put the box underneath his table. Plugged it in. The indicator glowed faint orange. Yeah. Tim would be home from his meeting tomorrow night. It was always only Sundays he was gone. Yeah. Tonight, she could have sweet dreams. And tomorrow, she'd have that cheating bastard's ass.
Peg kept putting it off until they were getting ready for bed. She had to do it now, or Mare's gift, all her plans would be for nothing. Damn. She wished there was just a way to push 'start' and get things to just plain happen. Damn. "Hey, Tim?"
"Yes, Dear?" Tim stood there in his pajamas, polite, attentive. He'd been trying to be nice to her, as if that made up for what he'd done. As if.
"Do you feel at all bad about having an affair, Tim?"
"Yes," he said. "Very bad." She had his full attention. He even seemed to tremble.
"Would you like to make it up to me?"
"Yes," Tim said. "Yes. Very much."
"Then come down the basement."
For just a second there was this look in his eyes, fear or excitement, and then he nodded, downcast, and followed her out of the bedroom, and down the basement stairs.
Dust. Gray walls, gray floor, cold on Peg's feet as she in her night gown and he in his pajamas crossed the dingy basement. She could see the telltale on Mare's present. It was glowing green. Peg felt a wicked thrill. She heard Tim's ragged breathing.
"What now?" Tim asked.
He wasn't making eye contact. He looked like a scolded child. "Go stand over there for a second," Peg said.
Tim did as he was told. His knees buckled. He moaned. A violet glow enfolded him for just one second and then withdrew. His dick was ramrod straight. "Look honey," Tim said. "I made you something. Let me show you." He pulled the saw horse out away from the wall. "It's so you can whip me," he said. "See? There's Velcro straps to tie my wrists and ankles. You can hit me with this. Punish me for fucking that girl, okay? I wanted to ask you before, and then I chickened out."
He handed her a thick appliance cord, bent double. Peg took it, surprised how well the box had worked. He wanted her to hurt him. Tim shucked off his pajama bottoms and kicked them across the dingy floor. His turgid dick bobbed free. He walked over to the horse and fastened the straps on his own ankles and then bent over the bar and Peg fastened his wrists. So that was what the carpet was for. Because he'd be bent across it. "You could have brought home herpes," Peg said. "You could have brought home AIDS." She hit him hard. He whimpered. A red stripe appeared on his hairy butt where the whip had been.
"Yes," Tim whined. "Whip me. Do it hard."
She struck again. His dick had withered with the pain. She struck him, laying on stripes, painting a picture of suffering across his naked hind. Oh yes. Such power. Such justice. Oh yes. Oh yes. Peg was sweating, breathing hard. At last she stopped, afraid she might have gone too far. There would be welts and bruises. She put down the whip, unfastened his restraints. His dick was re-inflating. "That hard-on is going to go to waste," she said. "No way I'm letting you fuck me."
He stood shakily, went to retrieve his PJ bottoms. "Yes ma'am," he said. "But I'll do anything in bed to please you. Anything you want."
Hmm. She had a sudden inspiration. "Okay, let's go," she said. "You were always too selfish to want to give head, but now you're going to learn. But you don't get to have any fun at all, got that?"
"Yes, Peg," he said. "I love you Peg."
He followed her up the basement steps, docile and adoring as a dog. This could be fun, Peg thought. This could be lots and lots of fun.
Next evening he brought her flowers. That hadn't happened since when, since they were dating? He was so gentle with her now, so accommodating. "Maybe your whipping did some good," Peg said.
"A lot of good," Tim said. "As long as you keep doing that to me, I'll never be able to stray again. Not ever."
He needed her discipline now, more than he had ever needed her love. "So that means I have to keep taking you to the basement?" she asked. So that's why it wasn't fit for teens. The victim found it sexy. He got addicted.
"Uh huh," he said. "Tonight. I jerked off today at work. I thought about my punishment and it made me need to come. I didn't have permission. That means I should get punished."
So she had an attentive husband who wouldn't stray. So what if in return he needed a little maintenance? After all, it hurt him more than it hurt her. "When we get ready for bed," Peg said. "In the meantime, you're going to be a good boy, aren't you?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Tim said. She saw the adoration in his eyes.
Tim lay on his back and she rode him. He never let her be on top before, but now he was so grateful to get any sex at all, and Peg could take her time, set her tempo. No more selfish lover, no. He worshiped at the altar of her sex. She was free to be the aggressor. Free to tell him she wasn't in the mood, or free to fuck and fuck and fuck. All she had to do was order him to the basement and watch the field transform him, turn regret into obedience, turn lust into desire for pain.
Peg always did the bills. Now suddenly something was mighty strange. "Hey, Tim? There's this $4000.00 charge on Visa. That's a mistake, right?"
He came up behind her and kissed her neck. "That's the box in the basement," he said. "I gave it to Mare to give to you."
Hey what? "You wanted that to happen, Tim?"
"Well, yeah, Peg. I built that horse before I got the box, you know. Just always chickened out before I'd ask you to use it on me. Maybe I was afraid you'd turn me down and we'd end in a divorce. So I got the box. For one thing it would take charge and not let me wuss out. For another, I wanted the final decision that made it happen to be yours, not mine. Thank God it worked."
"And that little fucker cost four thousand fucking dollars we don't have?"
"Cheaper than a divorce, Peg," he said. She saw how his eyes were begging. Did it really matter that this is what he'd wanted?
"I'm going to make you sorry, Tim," she said.
"Of course," he said, "of course."
She sipped her coffee. "It's funny," Peg said. "It worked exactly like you said and it was everything I dreamed of. I have a doting husband who is incapable of cheating on me and will pretty much do anything I ask, I should be ecstatic. But something's missing."
"Risk," Mary said. "Insecurity. Uncertainty. You were always a risk taker, Peg. Sure Tim was a sexual bully, but in a way you liked that. You knew he was selfish when you chose him, and part of you wanted that, and part of you did not. Now that he's changed, mostly you're better off and know it, but the part that wanted to be passive is left hanging out to dry."
Peg took another sip. "God, Mare," she said. "How do you do it? Got a mind reading box or something?"
"Just know you really well," Mary said.
Peg grunted. "So what do I do now? Order him to be unpredictable? He's too far gone for that."
"He's still always gone on Sundays, right?" Mare asked. Her eyes were sparkling.
"Well, yeah."
"So have an affair, Peg."
"An affair? Drag myself down to Tim's level?"
"Why not?" Mary asked. "As long as he's getting his itch scratched, he'll let you get away with anything."
Hmpf. "Well, maybe," Peg said. "He used to be so horny. He still is, I guess, but most of it gets used up in jacking off and getting whipped for doing it. He's too pliant, now. I guess I get bored with always being in charge."
"Just stay away from the basement," Mare said. "If you're going to cheat, there might be guilt."
Peg giggled. Nerves. "I always stay away from the machine," she said. "There's a little guilt just from having trapped him and made a slave boy out of him, even if that's what he really wanted. So maybe it's just superstition, but I stay well away from that sucker, just in case."
Mare smiled over her cup. "Got anyone in mind?" she asked sweetly.
"Well," Peg said, "there is this one guy from work." She felt that she was blushing.
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