More of "Fall in Chastity"

And about consent and power exchange, and how "born vanilla" relationships blur all that...

Photo by Vadim Paripa on Unsplash

I created the CARGO’verse because I find power exchange sexy, but not consent because consent can be withdrawn.

Some people do get off over his ongoing consent to her torturing him. I don’t. I’m more interested in, “She can do what she wants to him and feel OK about it as well — now what?”

The closest the BDSM community comes to this is Consensual Non-Consent (CNC), and that usually involves lots of negotiation and boundary setting upfront.

Weirdly, you get something like the real thing in born-vanilla Femdom relationships.

If he’s the one who introduced her to kink — as is normally the case with middle aged couples — then he’s in a very poor negotiating position if she picks up the ball and runs with it.

Withdrawing consent in the bedroom is his right, but the cost might be pissing her off and all the kink going away. So, the submissive husband is structurally incentivised to take the rough with the smooth. Fortunately, that sense of being trapped for real is a massive turn on for most of us, a turn on and source of deep satisfaction.

The same goes for lifestyle elements, whether Female Led Relationship or Male Chastity. However, there’s an added layer: she wouldn’t go to all this trouble unless she actually preferred to live this way. It would be very hard to backpedal from that without damaging the relationship: as long as the relationship stays clear of certain red lines, consent has become irrelevant.

Realising all this set me to wondering: what would it be like if you embedded that in law? Could it be done without explicitly legalising slavery?

The answer, of course, is that all you have to do is bring back crappy Victorian marriage laws but make them gender neutral and optional.

The idea is a hell of a turn on, but it’s also pretty dystopian and has some nasty rabbit holes a man can get trapped in.

So here’s what happened to David, the male lead of Fall in Chastity — it will make a lot more sense if you read the earlier previews.

---

Fall in Chastity continued…

David's eyes snapped open.

Somebody had knocked on the door of his cabin.

It was too early for a delivery, and he had nothing on order. Was it... her?

His lost penis somehow managed to harden in its cage --- despite having been in a state of intermittent tumescence since yesterday evening. He hadn't had it this bad since his wedding night with Trisha just over fifteen years earlier.

That night was the first time Trisha had let him get her knickers off, which he'd known was stupid and old fashioned, but he'd loved her for her retro piety, and the prim handjobs she used to give him: her sitting on a sofa with her blouse open and bra off, crucifix nestling between her small breasts, him draped across her lap like he was a craft project.

He'd wanted more, of course. He'd wanted to peel away Trisha's layers, eat her up. He'd suggested using a chastity device --- CARGO was five years old and the things were almost as popular as vibrators.

She'd folded her arms. "No sex toys."

He waited until they graduated from university, then --- as she unzipped his flies --- asked, "Why don't we move in together?"

Trisha shook her head as she pulled down his boxers. "Not without getting married first."

David's penis sprang free.

She smirked at it and teased the head. When she drew her hand away, a gossamer thread connected her finger to the tip of his penis. "Ready as always."

He squirmed on her lap. "Let's just get married then."

Again, Trisha shook her head, which had the tantalising effect of making her small breasts quiver. "I don't want to get pregnant. I want a career first."

"But... it's the 21st century. There's contraception---." He clamped his mouth shut, but already it was too late to take back his words.

Trisha dangled her crucifix at him, then buttoned up her blouse, leaving him with an untended erection. "No orgasm for you today."

He laughed at her. "You do realise I can go home and jerk off, right?"

Trisha scowled and rolled him off her lap. "Repulsive!"

He landed on all fours at her feet. Still hard, but blushing now, he picked himself up and started rearranged his clothing. "We're adults, Trisha. We need to have grown up sex."

"You need to have grown up sex because you don't have any values. And I don't think..." She sobbed. "I don't think you value me."

Now she was crying.

And David was crying too. He sat down next to her and enfolded her in his arms. "I love you."

"Well..." She sniffed. "True love waits."

"Chastity device," said David. "Not a sex toy," he added hurriedly. "I'll get a good one, and a piercing, and you can have the key."

Trisha emerged from his arms and blinked at him. "You'd do that for me?"

"For a couple of years. We could have a routine."

"Routine?"

"You'd have to let me out every week so I could..." He flushed. "You know."

Trisha pushed away from him. "Disgusting. And you want to make me responsible for it? What do I do while you're doing it? Go sit in a café while you cheat on me?"

"I wouldn't be having sex with somebody else. I'd be..."

Trisha's eyes blazed. "I know, but that you'd be fantasising about somebody else."

"I'd be fantasising about you."

She slapped him. "GROSS!"

He put a hand to his cheek. He knew she'd crossed some sort of line, one that killed his erection, but he wanted to make this go away. "I don't understand."

"You say you love me, but you're sitting there telling me you want to turn me into some sort of mental sex doll. Why don't you go the whole hog and get deep fakes done from my beach photos?"

"What? No. It's not like that."

They sat in silence.

At last, she kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry. I don't like myself like this." She pulled away abruptly. "Maybe we should just break up."

He took her hand and held it to his lips. "But I love you."

He could!

He could make this impasse go away.

His penis hardened in protest, but he pushed on. "What if I signed up to be a Chaste? Would five years be enough for you to get your career going?"

Trisha sniffed. "We'd still have to get married."

So David had gotten married at the age of twenty-two, and it was a weird wedding indeed; Trisha proud of her right to wear pure white, both of them virgins, and him with a glass Chaste collar around his throat.

The relatives... they pretended this was all normal, apart from his new mother-in-law who kept giving him a smugly approving look, as if her daughter had achieved something she wished for herself.

Looking back, perhaps his mother-in-law knew he'd ticked some of the CARGO trad marriage boxes, including the one that gave Trisha veto over the removal of his chastity device; she'd had a melt down over the idea of approaching the five year mark and feeling under pressure, and he'd caved. It seemed like a small thing compared to having had a hole lasered in his dick.

So he had his wedding night with Trisha.

It turned out she didn't like the dildo, or even his fingers. However, she was very happy for him to tongue her all the way into a sort of sensual oblivion. After, she dozed next to him, still in her white stay-up stockings, and he lay their hard and twitching in his cage, thinking it was going to be a long five years.

And it was, but not for the reason he'd expected.

Trisha's career took off, David's didn't.

She was off to receptions and launches, and working trips. He was mostly doing shifts in cafés, selling only the occasional paintings.

He felt neglected. She felt he was cramping her style financially.

They kept having rows. She kept slapping him. They had great make-up "sex" --- great for her, that was. It left him staring into the dark while her juices dried on his lips and his penis throbbed in its cage, bleakly doing mental calculations about the date.

And then the rows stopped, which was actually worse.

He became fairly sure she was seeing somebody else... which was weird because they were 100% exclusive on HrLckr, and he had a strong suspicion she didn't like dick.

As they approached the five year mark, he was basically a housekeeper who got to lie in bed next to her feeling horny and neglected.

Finally, over morning coffee at their kitchen table, he blurted, "I think we should divorce."

"What?" She looked panicked. "No. We can't. Marriage is for life."

"I think you're seeing somebody else."

Trisha blushed, then laughed. "Oh that? It doesn't count."

"What do you mean, it doesn't count?"

"It's a woman," she said, as if talking to an idiot. "It doesn't count as cheating if it's a woman. It's not even masturbation. Where's the harm?"

David vaguely thought he should be turned on by this. However, all he could feel was sad. "You're in love with her."

"No, only men and women can be in love."

"You're insane." David stood up. "I'll go stay with a mate. We can sort out the paperwork later."

"No," she said. There was an angry glint in her eyes. "I don't believe in divorce. You knew I was conservative when you married me."

David froze. It was true, they'd both ticked that CARGO box. "Fine," he said. "We'll get legally separated."

Her eyes had hooded. "If that's what you want, David."

It was what he wanted. He'd wasted five years of his life and he wanted to live and love, and maybe play the field, and he felt that if he did, he might rediscover his artistic groove.

Only, CARGO made things... difficult.

Trisha released his HrLckr Exclusive status without even talking to him --- he just woke up one Saturday to a phone full of date requests from local Virgos who didn't want to spend Friday night alone. Clearly, Trisha realised relationship was breaking the specific terms of the Exclusive lock. Knowing her, that had finally bothered her conscience.

Shortly after, he received her signed consent to the separation. She clearly wanted him out of her life.

However, the medical consent form for removing his Artemis chastity cage came back with two big lines through it and a scrawled, "Faithful for life."

He'd checked his legal situation, and... well, mostly gotten giggled at. Law, like many of the other professions, was increasingly dominated by women.

It turned out that, yes, there were plenty of safeguards built into CARGO marriages, but not for Chastes. As long as he was Chaste, he couldn't force his wife to divorce him, and as long as he was married to her, he couldn't get his Artemis chastity cage removed without her consent.

At that point he went off the rails.

Being Chaste meant all the pussy he could eat!

It was some consolation at first, but after a while each encounter left him feeling bleak and empty and looking for the next one to give himself a buzz.

Then, on the sixth anniversary of his chastity operation, he got a message through his app saying as a Chaste who had exceeded his term, he was eligible to apply for a range of grants. One of them was artistic.

He dug out some of his old work, won first place and rented the most isolated cabin he could find. He just wanted some solitude. He didn't really expect to do any art... but he found himself painting landscapes, and they sold... he started having to trek to London for gallery openings, and that meant more hookups with Virgos.

Trisha's bad HrLckr review came out of the blue.

Clearly, she didn't mind him leaving her as long as he dwindled away working in cafés. He wasn't supposed to be successful.

That killed his sex life dead --- sophisticated urban Virgos had plenty of other options.

Really, it was a relief. He took up running, yoga, meditation... threw himself into his art.

Then a couple of years ago, a tourist had seduced him on a bet; just how bad in bed was he really?

He managed to... exceed her expectations. She was also more than turned on by the way he broke and sobbed as she orgasmed time after time.

He hadn't accepted the glowing HrLckr review, but she'd cross-posted to a Virgo travel forum, and since then his solitude had been punctuated by encounters with increasingly callous huntresses. The women of Generation-C were turning out to have a very dehumanising attitude towards Chastes.

He'd told himself that they would lose interest as he aged out.

But was that all he had to look forward to? An empty bed for the rest of his life?

He curled his first two fingers, remembered sliding them into Heather's ready vagina, the flush on her face, the way her hidden body undulated under her cosy clothes while the autumn leaves rustled.

His penis pulsed against its bars.

No, let her keep knocking.

He lay in tense silence, but no second knock came.

And that reminded him of the hurt look in her dark eyes when he abandoned her on the beach.

He rolled out of bed and trudged to the door.

His imagination painted the autumnal woods with fleeting glimpses of a full-bottomed girl with black hair, but she was long gone.

However, she --- because it had to be Heather --- had left a neatly wrapped parcel on his doorstep, complete with blue bow.

He nudged the package with his bare toes.

It could contain just about anything that could make his life more uncomfortable. Nude pictures. Used panties. A vibrator. A dildo and harness... He'd seen it all over the years.

Perhaps he should call the Bomb Squad and have them destroy it with a controlled explosion...

Only there was something sweet about the loopy hand writing on the gift card: "To David."

He glanced around, then scooped it up and took it inside to the unlit kitchen. He dumped it on the table where it sat, a splash of cheerful colour.

There was cold coffee from yesterday. A gulp helped him open his eyes a little further, but they still prickled.

He could just throw the thing in the bin.

But there was that hurt look again. "Damn it!"

He blinked and pulled the ribbon.

The wrapping paper unfurled to expose a knitted hat and scarf.

There was a note. "Dear David --- I wanted to send you flowers, but that didn't seem quite right and anyway there are no florists in Dunmorgan and I suppose you've seen as much wild heather as you can bare..."

The spelling mistake made David wonder what a bare Heather would look like. He shook his head. Ignoring the throb in his groin, he read on.

"...so I knitted you these instead. I hope you like them --- Heather (not the wild type (honest))."

The hat certainly looked comfortable, all ribbed earth tones and greens. As he picked it up he noticed a label.

This was just something she'd lazily ordered up online. "You fake!"

Then he realised it just said THE HEATHER in floral letters, as if it was a brand logo.

Five minutes on the internet and he'd found Heather... The Heather.

Her professional feed was mostly pictures of a soggy tabby cat being "adorable" (apparently), right up until he lay in state in his custom cat coffin. Then there was a long gap until the snap of his landscape painting with her in it. The comments and reposts loved it, though nobody seemed to know who David was --- which was rather gratifying.

More interestingly, there were links to her knitting patterns, and to exclusive outlets selling her creations, and to her creations being modelled mostly by "real" women of all shapes and sizes, including a strikingly statuesque redhead in her late fifties.

It took a little longer to find pictures of Heather herself, but there she was, softly swathed in sweaters and hats, teaching at yarn festivals around the world.

Just seeing a picture of her smiling with her voluptuous lips turned his caged groin into a knot of desire.

He did his breathing exercise and kept investigating.

Scanning the comments, he found Heather chatting under a different surname. That took him to her personal social media. There was a tabby cat and there was a fiancée with a well-oiled beard who looked --- honestly --- like the worst kind of fake activist 'bro. The kind that talk about the evils of capitalism, or whatever, but always turn out to have a city job and a sports car.

Then there was just the cat. Then --- about five years ago --- there was silence.

David's heart fluttered. Heather had to be single.

David contemplated the knitted hat and the scarf.

The cosiness was no accident. The choice of colours, the way they blended into each other, the precise... tuning...? of the ribbed effect to be chunky without being too chunky... it wasn't an art he understood, but it was real Art.

It seemed he had hooked up with a highly talented and utterly gorgeous, extremely well known knitwear designer.

He slammed his hand on the table. "Fuck!"

Talk about bad timing!

But there could be no good timing for him, not ever, unless Trisha had a change of heart --- which wasn't going to happen.

He gulped down the rest of the coffee and started rummaging for breakfast. Maybe this feverish mood would result in a decent painting?

The rain chose that moment to rattle the kitchen window.

"Or maybe not."

Well perhaps he could revive some of the failed efforts?

Except, when he went into his little studio, there she was: Heather captured on Seal Point, capturing Seal Point just by sitting there as if the entire millions-of-years of geology had been all been about framing her perfectly in the landscape.

"FUCK!"