Returning to teaching in the fall semester, I had been nervous about possible repercussions from my student, Kelly, encountering me washing Luke’s truck in my driveway wearing a pink speedo and the cuckold horns T-shirt over the summer break. I checked the enrollment list and noticed that Kelly was indeed signed up for another one of my lecture classes, Male Masochism in Medieval Romances, a new class. I was surprised to see that the class was full; I had actually been concerned that it would be dropped due to low enrollment, but apparently six new students had signed up over the summer. On the opening day of class, I noticed Kelly sitting in the front row, dressed in short shorts and a tight T-shirt.

I saw her whispering to another female student sitting next to her who I didn’t recognize, both of them smiling.

“Hi, Professor Rollins.”

“Hi, Kelly. I hope you had a good summer.”

“I did. It was too short, as always. How about you? I hope you didn’t lose any more bets,” she said with a grin.

“No, I learned my lesson last time. No more betting on sports for me. It’s great to have you back in my class. It’s really a full one.”

“Yes, I might have had something to do with that. I love your classes so much, I really talked you up to some of my friends.“

“That’s very nice of you. Thanks, Kelly,”

“Don’t mention it. You’ve been losing weight, Professor Rollins. The tighter pants look good on you. I like the silk scarf, too.” She smiled.

“Thanks.” I quickly turned away. I’m sure I was blushing deeply. Brooke had picked out a purple silk scarf that she wrapped around my neck that morning. Also, even though Brooke and Luke had recently brought me a smaller chastity device, I was still concerned that the outline of it was visible beneath my tighter pants. When I looked at myself in the mirror that morning, I could definitely see it, but I think one would have to be looking for it to really notice. But perhaps they were? I heard Kelly giggling with her classmate behind me.

There were a total of ten students in the class, seven female and three male. After I gave them an overview of the class and what they could expect in the coming weeks, I asked them if they had any questions.

One of the male students — a tall, slender junior who I had seen walking the halls of the English building but who had not been in any of my classes before — said, “Professor, what are your qualifications for teaching this class?”

I thought to myself, what nerve this current generation has. Never in a million years would I have ever even thought of asking such a question of one of my professors at Yale. Looking down at my class list, I said, “Well, Mr. Betz, is it? I have been lecturing on medieval romantic literature for nearly a decade and have published…”

“Excuse me, Professor,” he interrupted, “but I wasn’t asking about your qualifications for teaching about medieval romantic literature. I was asking about your qualifications for teaching about male masochism. Do you have any first-hand experience?”

Kelly covered her mouth with her hand in an unsuccessful attempt to restrain her laugh. Several other students also smiled and started tittering.

I felt my face burning as I replied, “Well, it so happens that the book I’m currently working on is partly about male masochism, but one does not have to have first-hand experience with a subject to teach it. I have never been a knight before, after all, yet I teach about courtly love.”

“Well, you see Professor, I’m sort of a dominant guy myself, so I was hoping to learn about masochism from a true expert in the field. And I’ve always found that there’s really no substitute for first-hand experience.”

I saw Kelly roll her eyes and and heard the girl next to her whisper to her, “I can’t believe he just said that.”

“Well, Mr. Betz, I’m sure that if you apply yourself, you will learn plenty about the subject. Class dismissed.” I realized after I said it that there were still 15 minutes left of the class. I was visibly flustered.

I heard several students laughing and whispering to one another as they left the classroom. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but it sure seemed to me that the class was full of Kelly’s friends, who she no doubt had urged to enroll after catching me in the humiliating act of washing my wife’s lover’s truck. I had lost control of my class — a place where I was usually in command, arguably the only place left where I was still in command — before I even really started it, and I was now going to be in a position of weakness from the get go. I guess there was something appropriate about that, given the subject matter. Mr. Betz and his classmates were, in fact, going to be taught by a true authority in the field. I felt my cock throb within its cage. It was going to be a long semester…

I should’ve taken my experience in class that morning as an omen for what was to come, as I was about to enter an increasingly public phase of my humiliation. Luke was traveling on business, so that night Brooke and I dined alone and were able to talk more freely than when in his presence.

“Luke wants to meet some of our friends. He wants us to invite them over for dinner,” said Brooke.

“You know I don’t really have too many friends.”

“He’s heard us talk about Neil Lawson. He wants you to invite him.”

“Brooke, you know Neil is my colleague. I can’t have him knowing what goes on here. I’m having enough trouble at work as it is, thanks to Luke.”

“What do you mean?“

“You know that girl, Kelly, the one who saw me in the driveway. She’s in my new Male Masochism in Medieval Romances class. I thought they might drop my class because there were so few students enrolled, but I think she invited all of her friends and the class is now full. I think they’re all coming to laugh at the masochistic professor who washes his wife’s lover’s car in a speedo. A pink one.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you owe Kelley a big thank you. When you think about it, you owe Luke a big thank you, too. If he didn’t make you wash his truck, your class probably would’ve been canceled.”

“I think I might’ve preferred that. It was humiliating today.”

“Don’t be silly. You were super excited about your new class. It fits so well with the new book you’re writing. You seem like you’re having a little writer’s block, so you need all the inspiration you can get. Luke is teaching you about masochism in ways reading old romantic poetry never could. You’re indebted to him. In more ways than one, when you really think about it.”

“First-hand experience,” I laughed, somewhat bitterly.

“Exactly. No substitute.”

I looked at her incredulously. It was almost almost as if she were conspiring with my obnoxious new student, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Maybe they were both right. As usual, it was exceedingly difficult for me to prevail in an argument with Brooke.

“What about you? I assume you’re going to invite Michelle. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Actually, Michelle and I haven’t been talking for a few months. I think I’ll invite my friend Laura from the restaurant instead.”

“What do you mean you haven’t been talking to Michelle? She’s your oldest and best friend. What happened?“

“Look, Michelle and I have a complex relationship. We’re good friends but we’ve always been highly competitive, too. She’s always been jealous of me, because I almost always come out on top. Better grades, won more awards in school. Beat her consistently at tennis. I’m even a better chess player than her, although she’s pretty good. The guys she was interested in usually went for me instead. So we go through these periods from time to time when she’s pissed off with me and doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m not worried about about it. She’ll come crawling back. She always does.“

“What set her off this time?”

“Luke, if you must know. She doesn’t approve of me being with him again, even in the new arrangement we have between the three of us. She thinks it’s bullshit. She says that I’m just asking for trouble. But I think the truth of the matter is that she’s just jealous again. You see, she’s the one who saw Luke for the first time when we were out together at a bar. She thought he was really hot and asked me to go over to him with her to chat him up, so that she could hook up with him. I was supposed to be her wingman, or wingwoman, I guess. Well, he ended up hooking up with me instead. And she was incredibly pissed off. She didn’t speak to me for months that time. She didn’t even attend our wedding. But she eventually got over it. Or, at least, I thought she had. But maybe she never truly did. I think that’s what’s really going on here. She’s just jealous again.”

“Wow, I had no idea.”

“Our relationship is even more complicated than that. Back in high school, we both kind of experimented with each other, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean kissing each other? That sort of thing.”

“Yes, kissing and more. We went down on each other a few times. Or, I should say that she went down on me several times. I tried it once on her, but I didn’t really like it very much. I think she still resents me for that too, to be honest with you.”

“You mean she resents that you didn’t reciprocate?”

“Yes, I think so. I thought she had gotten over that too. But maybe not. Anyhow, like I said, I’m not too worried about it. She’ll be back. So you need to invite Neil for dinner next weekend, and I’ll invite Laura.”

“He can’t humiliate me in front of my work colleague.

“Of course, he will. You know that.”

“Oh, my god.” I put my hands over my eyes.

“It won’t be THAT bad. I’ve already talked to him about it. You’re going to have to prepare the meal and dress as a waiter, sort of like you did the first time Luke had dinner with us. But you won’t have to dress in anything feminine, or at least not overtly so. You’ll have to serve the food, but you can sit at the table with the rest of us.”

“How generous of him.“

“Hey, I advocated for you! It could be a lot worse.”

She was right. It could. It probably would.

“Now, clean up the table and meet me upstairs. I’ve been missing that tongue of yours.”

Brooke and I really had a wonderful time together that night. It reminiscent of the best of the pre-Luke days. After I went down on her, she unlocked me — after much teasing, pleading and foot kissing— and gave me a hand job with her stocking-clad feet pressed up against my face. My pathetic poem aside, it was not the scent of Luke’s feet I found intoxicating, it was the flawless feet of my lady.

Afterwards, we gave each other a pedicure, cuddled and watched a movie before spooning in bed as we slept through the night.

Although we had had other nights like that when Luke was away for awhile, that one was particularly sweet. Looking back today, two years later, it almost seems like that night was the eye of the storm. When the back end of it hit, it hit fiercely, a category 5 hurricane. The only problem with my analogy is that it’s still hitting at full force, leaving a growing path of destruction in its wake. Will this storm ever end?