If my boyfriend thought that becoming my fiancé would temper my need to humiliate him he was not deluded for long.
It's true that I granted him more freedom to choose what he wears on his outer layers but the key to his dignity has always been his underwear.
Apart from wearing knickers every day and nightdresses in bed he agreed to fortnightly role plays to explore what I regard as his deepest desires.
The one we had tonight took some effort on my part but it certainly paid off.
Ever since we agreed to marry I have been devoting much of my time to planning our wedding while he is at work. We have agreed on the date and I have found the perfect venue. I presented him with the guest list and have made sundry other arrangements while he has done little more than agree to my plans.
In truth this is how I like it, but I am not so daft as to miss the opportunity to use his lack of organisational activity against him. I heaped on the guilt one evening this week as he put on his pink satin chemise before bed. "What have you done about the wedding, then?" I asked.
He looked startled. He had done nothing, he said. Should he have done?
I put on my passive-aggressive act. "No. Why should I expect you to lift a finger? You just carry on as if nothing's happening."
He offered an apology, which I did not accept, and said that he wanted to help in any way he could. Could I set him some tasks so he could do his bit?
"I'm too angry to talk about it," I said, and refused to speak to him for the rest of the night.
He's terrible with confrontation and the next morning he pleaded with me to let him do something to help.
I told him that I was too busy trying to organise my engagement party with my friends at the end of the week, for which I had not been able to arrange a caterer because I had been taking responsibility for everything else. There was no one available to serve drinks and dinner at this short notice.
He offered to take the day off work to do the cooking and then he could wait on us.
I snorted. "A guy at a girls' night in? How would that work?"
He kept quiet.
"Alright," I said after an uncomfortable silence. "I'll give you a shopping list and we'll see if you can manage it."
He put his all into the party preparation and I was secretly impressed, although I couldn't let it show.
It wasn't till the afternoon of the party that I hung the French maid's costume on the peg by the front door where I leave his role play outfits. When he found it, he didn't put it on unquestioningly in the way he usually did for our fantasies. He brought it to me in the bedroom and said he couldn't do it.
"I knew you would let me down," I said with as much bitterness in my voice as I could muster.
It wasn't that, he said. He just couldn't dress up in front of...
I interrupted him. "If you'd checked, you'd have seen that there's a veil to cover your face. But if you can't do this one little thing then I guess I'll have to be the waitress at my own engagement party. My friends will be arriving soon. You can just stay in the bedroom. This is a girls-only party."
I slammed the bedroom door and hoped that I had done enough.
I was busying myself with the final touches, even though there was little left to do, when I heard the bedroom door open. There he stood in his shiny black high-necked dress and white pinny. The dress had exaggerated puff sleeves with a tight stretch satin body and full-circle skirt. A white petticoat pushed the skirt outwards so that it was possible from a low angle to see the black suspender belt that held up his opaque black stockings.
The only exception to his monochrome colouring were his shocking pink satin knickers, chosen to make any accidental flash immediately obvious.
It was hard to see if he was blushing beneath the black lace veil that hung over his face. I promised myself a look just as soon as I had delivered the final part of his outfit.
The box containing his new shoes was at the back of the wardrobe. I never usually bother with feminine footwear but he would need them tonight. I helped him slip them on. They were black patent leather with ribbon ankle ties, which I secured for him as he stood unsteadily in his first pair of high heels.
"You'll have to be a fast learner tonight," I said, rising to look beneath his veil at what I imagined would be a deliciously ashamed expression.
The doorbell rang. I sighed. "I'd better get that. You need to get used to those shoes."
Sally was the first to arrive, vivacious as ever. "Congratulations on your engagement, darling," she said as we kissed.
She's a full-figured woman but has never lacked confidence about her body or anything else. "What do you think of the dress?" she asked. "Is it too much?" I've noticed that she either wears them short or low cut, but tonight's leopard-print number was daring at both ends.
"You look divine," I said. "It's a good thing lover boy isn't here to see you. He wouldn't know where to look."
He never quite knows what to do when Sally flirts with him, which she does with everybody and outrageously. One of my former boyfriends was once so distracted by her cleavage during a cocktail party that he spent most of it talking to her chest. Every time he looked away she pulled her dress down a bit further and moved a bit closer on the sofa. With a wink to me she curled her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his face into her bosom. He was so mortified that she was able to hold him there for half a minute. When she released him she asked: "Did you find what you were looking for?"
