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Escort by Vickie Tern "Honey, what in the world can we do now?" Melissa looked at me, her arms hanging down helplessly, her hands turned out, empty. I felt equally helpless and couldn't face her, only stare into the middle distance. All I could do was answer her question with the same question. "I don't know -- what can we do?" I had no answer. Our bright future together had disappeared. Turned bleak. The recession had affected everyone, but especially this part of the country, and especially this city and its industries. My darling wife Melissa was laid off last year. To our great surprise -- she was a cultivated woman, reared by highly educated parents and a graduate of one of the best east coast colleges, a business professional with excellent credentials and instinctive tact. Beautiful too, and still young. Her first employer recognized that her soft manners and considerable charm gave her valuable 'people skills' -- unawares, people tried to please her the way I'd always try to please her. So he'd sent her into employee trouble areas here and there in the corporation, places where petty resentments had bred lack of cooperation that hurt profits. She'd fascinate, manipulate, and otherwise persuade people to cooperate with company policy, and she always came back successful. I often wondered how, but was never surprised and always proud of her. Then her whole corporate branch down sized and disappeared and her job disappeared with it. "It's happened before and will again," her boss told her, trying to console her while handing over her last pay check. "Hang in there. Take whatever comes for now. You're young and adaptable." Easily said. Her computer skills got her a few temporary bookkeeping stints, but as the economy grew worse even those disappeared. No one was hiring. No one! We hunkered down to live on my salary and yet maintain payments on our mortgage and furniture and appliances and so on. It was tight. Then I was laid off, my career as a brilliant young electronics engineer put on hold. You know, last hired, first fired. I found no new job of any kind anywhere no matter how early or often I got up to go looking for one. There simply weren't any. So for months, no money was coming in at all. The worst possible situation for a young couple like us, married only a few years, with no well-established friends in the area, a long way from our nearest surviving relatives. We kept looking, and we tried to keep up each other's spirits, but first our savings and then our unemployment benefits ran out. And we found ourselves flat broke. I felt demoralized, helpless, at my wit's end. I'd even tried door-to- door sales of ... well,anything -- detergents, auto-insurance, magazines. It was hard to spend day after day watching doors close in your face, hearing people say "No!", or "Not today," or "Come back when my husband's home!" and then after a second visit hear the husband say "No!" And meanwhile our unpaid obligations mounted. Official-looking letters arrived daily and began to sound serious. From the Bank about credit card payments and mortgage arrears. From the Gas and Electric about cutting off service, and ditto from the phone company and the water commission. We owed everyone. Melissa hocked her engagement ring, then her jewelry, piece by piece, to keep our cell phones alive -- they were our only lifeline to possible future employment. They never rang. Repossession notices began to arrive. First for our car. I stared wordlessly at Melissa after opening it, and she stared back at me and then at our breakfast that morning, which was a slice of bread, a dab of jam, and watered coffee. She'd just come down and was wearing only a thin silk wrapper, loosely tied. I could glimpse the curves of her smooth, full, creamy breasts hanging free beneath as she leaned forward toward me. She was so gorgeous, so firm and beautifully shaped! 'She's still mine, anyhow,' I thought vaguely, trying to console myself. 'No one will repossess her!' She sat down. "What're we going to do?" she asked, as before. But this time she didn't sound helpless -- she was beginning a discussion, as if about to introduce a proposal. "Have you a plan?" I still had no such thing, of course, so I said nothing. She tossed her head, her long blonde hair flowing back over her shoulders, and leaned forward to stare steadily at me. Then stared even more intently, as if evaluating something. Me. Her large, lovely eyes were inexpressive. Suddenly she spoke. At first as if reluctantly. "It's time, Chris," she said. "I've already talked to Tanya." She saw me stiffen, saw the shock in my eyes! I stared! "Don't fret, sweetie, it isn't that big a deal. Or if it seems to be, it'll quit being one if you don't think about it. At worst it's only till we get back on our feet. And how long can that be? Six months? A year at most, I'm sure. Then we'll still have everything we've got now, and as things improve further we can move on." I was appalled. Frightened too, because I knew of no alternative, so her argument sounded altogether reasonable. My stomach sank, and my face too. Take up Tanya's suggestion? She'd made it casually enough a while back, when she noticed I was doing the yard work previously done by hired help, and noticed too that we weren't doing our regular Friday bar rounds and our Sunday dinners out. I'd been polite and thanked her. Melissa too. But it was utterly unthinkable! Absurd! So it had seemed even a few weeks back. But now? Melissa was still speaking slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. We thought of our marriage as a partnership -- she needed my consent. At least my acquiescence. And I couldn't readily bury my head in the sand and object! To keep her respect I had to say something, yet I couldn't. Not even a sound. She waited out my silence for a reasonable time, then added in her own quiet way, "You know we've got to try it. If it turns out I can't, or if for some reason you can't handle it, we'll quit. Maybe do it only once. But even if it's more than once, there are no obligations -- I can always quit any time." I still said nothing. I was too shocked even to open my mouth. Was it possible she was saying this thing? That we were even considering it? Reduced to considering it? If 'reduced' was the appropriate word -- Tanya's clientele were the cream of the social register, the top percent of the one percent, people unaware that their many hundreds of millions of dollars had diminished to fewer hundreds of millions. Melissa's clients would be those same people. "We've got to try it!" she repeated, gently for my sake, but determinedly. "Or else we lose everything. Everything we've worked so hard for. The house, the cars, even the TV." She lowered her large, heavy lashes, then even more quietly said, "Honey, you know there's no alternative!" And her eyes closed for a moment. She waited. I knew. I could only look at her. Oh, God, my beautiful, precious sweetheart! My sweet Melissa! My darling, offering herself up to preserve us, our marriage, our future together! I .... I was appalled. But .... She was watching me sympathetically, lovingly, though with a steadiness I knew was built into her character -- she'd made up her mind, she knew what she had to do, and she was set to do it. This consultation with me was pro forma. So my heart broke and my shoulders slumped forward. She was right, of course. There was no alternative. My whole body eased off from its tension, and tears began to flow down my cheeks. I tried to say 'No! Never!" but all that I heard come out was "Honey, I wish ...." She knew. She did, too. But the key point for her was, I'd capitulated, accepted her thinking. She leaned way forward to grasp both my shoulders and then kissed me sweetly on my lips. To reassure me. She didn't seem to notice that her robe was now hanging fully open with her tits fully in view. Their nipples were aroused, I saw, long and fat, distended, as if eager to be touched or sucked. Excited! They were incredibly sensitive in this state, I knew from long glorious hours spent caressing and sucking them, raising them and her to unbearable ecstasy. But now I didn't dare! Had I just in some way given up the right even to touch them? The exclusive right to touch them certainly! Melissa knew what she was doing. It had been deliberate! "Yes!" she said, as if confirming what I was thinking. "It'll be fine!" And she leaned back and folded her robe back over both of those breasts. The issue had shifted from whether to do it to how to do it, how to make it easier for all concerned, above all easier for me. How to arrange matters so I could at least preserve my self-respect. By offering me greater marital intimacy to compensate? Less intimacy? "You don't have to know anything at all about what I'm doing, or where," she told me earnestly, reassuringly. "Or with whom. Not if you don't want to. Tanya's already explained it. The first time I meet with a client they'll take you off to a kind of orientation session, where you'll be with others in your situation and you'll learn how best to help me. So I won't need to worry about you and you'll be too busy to worry about me. Even when you're back home again you won't need to know anything other than that now and then I'm leaving the house to go to work, and now and then you may be asked to leave the house because ... well, I'll be bringing my work home. At those times you'll be called for and carried away again and kept busy, so it'll be easy for you. In a limo no less! My fees will be deposited to an account in my name only, so if you'd rather not know you'll have no idea who I'm seeing or what I'm doing with them, or how much money I'm earning. Not even how often. I'll take over the checkbook and the house payments and other such things, or I'll have one of the Estate's accountants take them over, so neither of us will have to bother our heads about that sort of thing at all any more. You'll know nothing about my expenses either -- there'll be some very costly clothes and salons and makeup and so on, in the beginning anyhow. I'll have to look high maintenance. But when I'm not working you'll be able to see and enjoy the result, as I understand it. If you happen to be home when I go out to meet a client, they'll want you to feel proud of me, and they'll want me to know you're proud. To reassure me, so I can know I'm looking my best. So I can do my best with perfect confidence." Her nipples were still engorged, poking through the thin silk of her robe, within easy reach. Any other time I'd have reached for them, touched them. But now I felt that somehow they were out of bounds. I looked at them and listened to her. "At first, the less you know about my schedule or my work the easier it'll be for you. Afterward if you want to help me they'll let you. They'll encourage you to help me in fact. Or if you wish you can pretend there's nothing extraordinary happening at all, if that's what you'd prefer. Some mornings you may be encouraged to stay home and change the sheets if that's necessary, maybe clean the bathroom, or hang up my previous day's clothes so I can get a few extra hours of sleep. Rinse out my undies or do some other such chore. You know. So you'll always have some idea how things are with me. But you'll get used to it. After a while you'll be able to help me in other ways too, they'll train you how, no problem. Best of all, I'll be gone much of the time, so after you're fully oriented and at ease with my work you can use the time to look for your own kind of work. Write letters, ask around, feeling unpressured the whole time. Knowing we're fine financially, better than ever, you'll feel more relaxed and at ease during job interviews. There'll be none of that nagging sense of failure you've told me turns off so many potential employers." "Even so," I said, still reluctant to accept the inevitable. "All those afternoons or evenings, whenever you leave the house to ... attend to business, you'll know I know. It'll be in effect as if I'm giving my consent." "Well, I should hope so!" Melissa said, her eyes widening. An ironic thought struck me. "Will you expect me to kiss you goodbye each time, the way we do now whenever we separate to go to work?" "Well, yes," Melissa replied earnestly, her pink lips pouting at the thought that I might not. Then she smiled. "I'll want you to. I'll want to know you don't really mind. Even though you do mind and don't really approve what I'm doing. But I won't want you to mess my lipstick!" With that thought, she smiled wide at me. I tried not to think about it, whatever she might be doing. "But Melissa," I continued. "When I hear you coming back in the small hours of the morning, maybe mid-morning the next day, I don't know, I certainly won't know how to greet you. Where your mouth has been. And I won't know how you'll feel about me after you've been with ... other men. All night long I'll be alone in bed upstairs imagining the terrible things you're doing somewhere else with some other guy." Melissa shook her head. "No, sweetheart. No terrible things, only beautiful things. And most of the time you won't be alone in bed upstairs. I may sometimes be with some guy somewhere, maybe even upstairs, but most of the time you'll be at the Estate, being kept busy and well out of the way, Tanya says. I hope getting a good night's sleep, because one of us certainly should!" She smiled to herself as she imagined what she'd be doing, how she'd be too busy to sleep! She'd already accommodated to the decision! Her decision, my acquiescence. Now it was my turn to stare at her. If I feel uncomfortable, I was thinking, she should too! I didn't understand. "You'll bring men here? Into our home? Into our bed?" "Sometimes, honey. Not often, mostly to luxe hotels, or they'll invite me to visit their own mansions elsewhere. Now and then an ordinary motel will serve, I suppose. But Tanya tells me that it's often advantageous to bring them home, to act as if I'm being a naughty wife with a husband out of town on business who just can't resist a one- nighter with whoever may be the client. To let him think that, if he can. So he won't feel he's hiring a whore or a call girl for the evening. So he can imagine that I'm simply a lonely woman he's just picked up at the bar where we met, someone who can't resist him and must take him home with her, and can't wait to climb all over him while her husband is safely away elsewhere. In that case you can see how, for authenticity, what happens between me and my clients has to happen in our actual bedroom, in our actual marital bed. So it can all seem to be my wild, passionate impulse, my irrepressible desire to sleep with them, to feel them moving inside me. That's what these men pay the big bucks for. It flatters their egos." Now I was really uncomfortable! I reached for the thinnest of straw arguments. "But if you make it seem that real, won't the client think it actually is for real? Actually happening? What if your whole act is so persuasive he thinks you're hopelessly attracted to him? That you don't need to be paid?" Then I let loose my deepest fear. "That he's free to take you away from me and marry you himself and I'll never see you again!" She grinned. She took my objection as a compliment! "I hope I can be that persuasive! You thought it was for real when I married you, didn't you, baby? How I felt about you? Well, actually, it was!" I was unimpressed by her jest. She saw my concern, so she settled in to reassure me. "No way!" she said. "It can't happen, baby. Most of them are already married, of course, for propriety's sake if for no other reason. And the Estate will collect my fee even before I get the assignment. Most of their customers are on retainer anyhow. He'll be spending thousands to spend the night with me -- I get a thousand minimum myself, more depending on what he wants me to do for him. I'll be telling him what it is I'm eager for him to do to me because my supposedly wimp husband won't or can't or doesn't make me want to. That's the scenario Tanya says she follows. She says that her clients love lording it over wimp husbands. That it works every time! Even though she doesn't happen to have one." She paused, leaned forward and kissed me again, then sat back. Her robe had come open again, and her breasts were now fully exposed again. Invitingly? Hanging down, soft and yielding, pink tipped. And those nipples! Then she said slowly, "I'll tell them I want them to cum in my mouth, or fuck my ass. Things I never feel passionate enough to allow my hubby. Or maybe I'll be desperate for them to do it because my hubby won't, he thinks it's unclean. Or maybe he can't do it because his cock isn't up to it, won't stiffen up enough to force itself in." She smiled reassuringly. "Or maybe it's too short to get past my ass cheeks and into me. So I feel deprived." She glanced down at my crotch as if mine was one of those. Was it? Then up at me. "Or maybe I want to go again and again, but he can't get it up more than once." She nodded. And smiled! Was she was telling me something else? Maybe that I've always been inadequate for her? Maybe that she's felt too inhibited to suggest it, but it was likely now that for the first time in our married life she'll allow me to cum in her mouth and fuck her ass? Because those other men will be doing it anyhow, so there's no reason for me to be deprived? Her lawfully wedded, beloved, until-now deprived hubby? She was pointing this out as an advantage for me of this new career of hers. A bonus. Tanya was our next-door neighbor and had never had a wimp husband. I knew that. She was a divorcee, twice at least, maybe three times divorced, a woman who loved having sex with anyone at all. And that was why she'd entered this line of work. When I first met her she'd come on to me almost immediately, and learned almost immediately that there was no way I would ever risk my marriage to Melissa for a casual fling. She respected that, so when she'd befriended Melissa she took to treating me the same way she did Melissa, as a kind of Melissa surrogate, a friend, not really a man at all. She'd drop by to chat with both of us still in her nightie, maybe wearing a light coat covering the flimsiest of negligees. Then she'd hang up the coat, apparently unaware that her dark areolas and her trimmed bush were fully in evidence. Maybe all she wanted was to gossip, share with the two of us her amusement that a woman down the street was cheating on her husband with three different men. Maybe it was to show us a new provocative dress she'd just bought, and joke about the erections it had already aroused in the supermarket. Maybe she wasn't joking! Once, memorably, it was to ask us for Melissa's advice, mine too, which of a number of brassieres she'd just bought she should keep and which return. She'd changed from one to the other in front of both of us, as if I were just one more of the girls. It amused Melissa that each time her heavy breasts swung free in front of me I lost the ability to speak. And that when I timidly admired a bra, Tanya had once offered to lend it to me. "You sure you don't want it?" she'd asked me while Melissa quietly enjoyed my embarrassment. "You'll find its very comfy! Here, you're my size I think, with the same kind of slender body, do try it on at least!" Another time they were playing with some incredibly expensive makeup Tanya had bought, and insisted on making me up too. And were amazed by the result. "Are you sure you're a boy?" Tanya asked, glancing at my crotch. "Is there a V or a P down there?" Melissa assured her that I pee as well as anyone, but they joked about whether standing or sitting before moving on to other topics. I was glad they felt comfortable enough with me to joke, but didn't find it especially funny, and was glad to remove the makeup a few hours later when they decided to let me. We'd thought Tanya was living on multiple alimonies until we found out why she went out in cocktail dresses most evenings and why different well-dressed men left her house many mornings. And why she went on frequent vacations and excursions, getting picked up with expensive luggage by taxi and limousine and returning a week or two later looking relaxed and tanned. When Melissa lost her job and a month passed without her finding another, Tanya finally explained what she did for a living -- if that's how to describe it -- in the process of proposing to Melissa that she set her scruples aside and enter Tanya's line of work. "Factory hands rent out their skills, and the use of those hands," she pointed out. "And salesmen rent out their personalities, and engineers their minds and ideas. Why not rent out your sociability and your body? How does that differ? Everyone sells what they have and can do to someone else who wants it and wants it done!" She explained moreover how easy and pleasurable it would be -- often highly pleasurable -- and for a woman as gorgeous and intelligent and cultured as Melissa how it was bound to be highly lucrative. "The wealthiest, most successful and self-assured men will fight each other for a night with you," she assured Melissa with an indecipherable glance at me, the apparent imposter who was monopolizing her. "They'll drown you in presents for the privilege! Certainly for special favors! You'll see!" We weren't prudes, so it had amused us at first to learn that Tanya, seemingly a typical, high-spirited young woman next door, was actually a high priced courtesan, a professional escort convinced that Melissa's similar talents should be put to the same purposes. It amused both of us that Tanya thought Melissa ideaL for that kind of work. We joked about it sometimes. It gave Melissa a little extra sexual self- confidence some nights, when she'd lay back on our bed and crook her finger at me, suggesting I crawl toward her and worship her. I can't say I didn't love it! But now Tanya's proposal and persuasiveness seemed no way amusing. We had no alternatives. "It works like this," Melissa continued. "When a client has been cleared financially and otherwise as eligible, and has paid in advance, the company phones me and I dress however the client may prefer -- prudish or slutty, cultured or brash. Then I leave the house to meet up with him. Usually in a bar where I can seem to be an available pickup and he can make moves on me that turn out successful. Sometimes though it's arranged for us to meet in an upscale restaurant where he can show me off to his friends as his most recent girlfriend, the kind of gorgeous, witty woman he often attracts. Or I can seem to be a blind date and this time he's gotten incredibly lucky, and because I know he feels that way I can take charge of the evening -- we can enjoy ourselves at a concert or play, and then I can take him back to his hotel, or his home, or wherever. Sometimes back here, because it's convenient and familiar and secure and I crave him and anyhow my husband is out of town." "But what if I'm not out of town?" I asked, interrupting. "What if I'm here and very much in evidence?" She waved her hand impatiently. One of her breasts lifted and fell with that hand. "I've told you already, haven't I? Mostly, you're not here, though you can be I'm told, if you're disguised as house staff. Whatever, when he's gone the next morning, the company will call to find out how everything went, whether there were any problems or extras and so on, and then immediately they'll deposit my share in our bank account and tell me about upcoming future assignments. They guarantee a few dates each week -- Tanya is sure I could be busy all seven days, despite the recession -- a lot of men in the financial industries made a lot of money while ruining the economy for others, and now they feel free to enjoy it. Tanya says she herself turns down work every fourth or fifth day just to provide herself a little time for herself, at least one evening or morning spent lying and lazying around instead of fucking and getting fucked yet again hard and fast and often." Every night? At a thousand each, minimum? I couldn't help but do the multiplication. Melissa could be earning a serious six-figure income! At least! God! I didn't dare imagine what her cunt would look like if she used it that heavily. Swollen to the size of a cave opening? Dripping or drooling cum constantly? I wondered just that, aloud, sardonically. Melissa just looked at me. "They have ways to deal with husbands who think such thoughts," she said. "Maybe I'll recommend you for re-education." I quieted down and she continued. "Tanya says that when you bed them down at home they'll often leave piles of cash on the dresser. Not as a tip, that wouldn't fit the scenario and might seem demeaning for both of them. Not as an obligation either. As a gift! Maybe because they're considerate, it's a little something to pay for dry cleaning a skirt that got stained the previous evening by food or wine or semen, to pay for the extra trouble. Tanya says she'll sometimes sprinkle a few drops of water on a dress to make a few dark spots on it, then lament it aloud, and it always pays off. Or maybe the money is to buy an extra birthday present for your four-year-old. Tanya has no children, as you know, but she does keep a picture of a four year old on her dresser and she always mentions that it'll be his birthday in a few days." I didn't know whether to admire or disapprove of Tanya's wiles. Melissa seemed comfortable enough with them. Caveat emptor? "Then again, she tells me, many of her regulars are simply pleased that she'll accept presents from them -- additional expressions of appreciation or affection. Flowers maybe, or a necklace or bracelet or something. Even heirloom jewelry their wives may or may not miss. Because successful men who can afford the Escort Service's fees like to be remembered as special by the women they fuck. As if they were special! So they play their part, and the women they fuck play theirs and accept their gifts reluctantly -- you know, 'you shouldn't have, it really isn't at all necessary,' and so on. But accept them gratefully." As she spoke, Melissa's robe opened completely with her breathing and her gestures. Those large breasts now swung free, and her neatly trimmed bush displayed its slit just above her chair seat. I couldn't help but stare, entranced. She really meant to persuade me to agree! "There's something else I find amusing about the idea of earning a living this way," Melissa said, smiling brightly at me, eager to share. "It's ironic! Tanya says the gifts she gets tend to be inversely proportional in value to the effort she puts in to earn them. That it's odd. The more enjoyable she finds her client, the bigger his cock, the more tireless his efforts to bring her to orgasm, the more spontaneous and passionate she feels, the less she feels she's putting herself out, the greater the man's satisfaction and the bigger the tips! She thinks that's how men are. They're pathetically grateful that a woman allows them to please her, and they're eager to show their appreciation." My heart was sinking. Melissa was describing huge sums of money, fees large enough to impoverish a stockbroker, paid for the use of her body. Yet she was speaking as calmly as an interior decorator considering the refurnishing a living room. As if it should seem as commonplace to me, just one more instance of what lots of talented women do routinely? She was persuading me to feel comfortable about this ... profession, high class whoring? To feel glad with her that she'd found something she enjoys doing that's well-suited to her abilities and rewarding several ways? Despite her reassurance, those allusions to wimp husbands and bigger cocks stuck in my mind. I resented them. "So these over privileged so- called clients get to fuck my own wife in my own house in my own bed, do whatever they want with her?" I asked her hopelessly and a little bitterly. As if I thought she'd reassure me it wasn't so. "Because they're so much more desirable than me?" Melissa only nodded and smiled faintly, but still watched me closely. "They do have more money," she commented dryly. "Any time they want your ass, it's theirs, no problem?" Melissa knew I'd never been in her ass. Even my finger on her rosebud had seemed too invasive. So I stressed that deliberately, in order to stress her out. I don't know why. I was being mean. She was right, there was no other way we could preserve our marriage. Our relationship. Our hope for a future together, with kids and all that. All that stuff that now seemed further away then ever. It didn't work. "If they stipulate anal entry and pay for the privilege in advance, yes," Melissa said in an even voice. "Or if it's spur-of- the-moment and I expect they'll tip me heavily afterward. Then yes, I'll invite them into my ass or tempt them in! And love it, of course!" She was looking me straight in the eyes, calmly, careful not to aggravate me. Then she added suddenly, "Tanya's told me a virgin ass is worth many thousands of dollars, because you can sell it quite a few times before it loosens up and the sphincter muscles learn to milk a cock too skillfully to seem unaccustomed. She ways that no guy can tell whether anyone's been there before if a girl maintains a tight ass hole." She leaned forward and smiled reassuringly. "Think of it this way, honey! Once my ass has been opened, you'll get to use it too, occasionally! At no cost, not ever, and for the rest of your life. I'll be learning different ways to rotate it and squeeze whatever's inside it, how to make a cock feel it's entered paradise when it's inside my butt. As we grow old together you'll be the prime beneficiary!" She was giving me something to look forward to? That annoyed me! "As long as I stay out of your way and spend my time somewhere elsewhere night after night?" Melissa hesitated and looked away for a moment. Then back at me. Casually, she said, "This 'somewhere elsewhere' thing is really getting to you, isn't it? That's something separate. We need to talk more about it. Let's move into the living room, shall we?" We did. "And let's sit down, shall we?" she added. Then "Better pour us drinks too, would you, Chris? We still have some cognac left I think!" We did, one last bottle, so I did. Melissa sat on the sofa, now looking like the loose woman she planned to become, her robe falling off her shoulders and her exposed boobs rising and falling. Her quim naked. I settled into an easy chair opposite her after filling two snifters part way up, more than a splash in each for sure. Given this conversation, I needed more! I emptied mine in three gulps while Melissa simply sipped hers. And poured myself another. My belly felt warm. And the whole atmosphere changed. Suddenly things felt more relaxed, much more matter-of-fact. "It isn't that way at all," she said. I looked at her questioningly. I'd forgotten my last remark. "What isn't that way at all?" I asked. "This 'somewhere elsewhere' you're worried about being while I'm seeing clients." she said. "The Escort company maintains a rather luxurious establishment some two hours from here, no one quite knows where. They call it the 'Estate.' It's a kind of private club where all the new husbands and boy friends can be brought to keep them out of the way, get told their responsibilities, or simply to enjoy themselves, while their women are home or elsewhere also enjoying themselves, or working, or both. It's a lot like one of those country clubs where wives pass the time playing cards or tennis while their husbands are being corporate executives and earning the money that maintains their mutual life style. Only it's the husbands who are being cared for." Had the people who own this 'Escort Service' thought of everything? Even of the husbands of the women they tempt into service? How to distract them, keep them busy? "I don't know exactly what happens there," Melissa went on. "Tanya's rather vague about it herself, I suppose because she's got no husband at the moment. She says there are 'full facilities' provided the men -- that was her term. I imagine she means for playing cards or shooting pool, if that's a guy thing, and that there's a bowling alley -- you love bowling, always have from when I first met you. That there's a swimming pool. Even a restaurant, and a clinic. And ...ahh, other facilities too." She seemed obviously evasive. "Like what?" I asked abruptly. "Well, there's a hair and nail salon, very well equipped," she said, then stopped short. I supposed she meant for the wives of these men, and sat silent. So Melissa went on. "Things like that. Seminar rooms and support groups for men who need help getting used to the idea. Study groups where men can learn to be more understanding and supportive of their working wives and girl friends. Entertainment rooms where they can be distracted from the knowledge that they even have wives, maybe, because the strain on a man when he knows what his wife is doing with another man that very moment can be enormous. Tanya thinks it's likely you'll want to learn lots more about what I'd be doing, because you have that kind of curiosity. They do encourage it, she says. You never know what you might find useful to know." I thought it likely. This was contrary to my wishes but it did have my tacit consent, so if Melissa actually went ahead with this thing I owed her my moral support. Emotional support too. Support based on knowledge, not supposition or vague suspicions and fears. But I couldn't exactly say that, so I said nothing. "New husbands stay there the whole time their wives are with their clients. All evening, all night, whatever. Sometimes for days, for as long as a week if a wife is accompanying her client on a vacation or a business trip. I hear that's likely, that they'll arrange for me to be out of town for a few days at least my first time out. So I'll get accustomed to the requirements of the job away from familiar places and habits, and meanwhile you'll get accustomed to being away from me. For the first month or so the men are kept at this ... place routinely every time the wife or girlfriend dates a client, until the client leaves and the wife has checked in by phone. Then they're allowed to go home. "Allowed?" Melissa was looking at me with a certain confidence now. Relaxed. Sharing information now, no longer trying to reassure me or persuade me with it. "Sweetie, don't be silly, of course 'allowed'! That's standard business practice! How do you think you'll feel the first few times, sitting around knowing your wife is out with another man, maybe fucking him blind? Or maybe getting fucked blind! Perfectly rational husbands can crack under the strain. Not just because of the fucking but because their territory is being invaded, their most precious possession is being poached, their very manhood seems challenged, threatened, at risk. They're feeling cuckolded, probably emasculated too, because they are being cuckolded and emasculated, and all the while they're worrying that their wives' affections are being redirected elsewhere, toward better men. That the more their wives make passionate love to those better men, the more likely they are to regard their own husbands as intruding inferiors." Was she now looking at me just that way? Speculatively? I shrank a little. "That has happened, as you may well imagine! Some husbands run amok under the strain. They get angry and then furious, and feel they must go back home and ... interfere with their wives' working arrangements. Trash things, hit people. They can get pretty violent -- you know what jealousy is like. Other men may feel the same way but have the character to resist, but then they feel themselves under a terrible strain, and that's just as bad in the long run for their health and their sanity and their marriages. It's bad for business too, because the wives begin to feel sorry for their half-crazed husbands and think about quitting just when their skills may be reaching peak value. The company doesn't like that. It wants dependable, highly skilled associates, and low turnover." She paused and looked at me as if to assure herself that I understood so far. And, I quickly realized, because she knew full well that I wouldn't at all like her next words. "The company doesn't want their wives -- their professional women -- worrying about their husbands. Or even thinking about them. Not at all. They want them undistracted, free to concentrate on pleasing their clients. So until they're absolutely reliable and cooperative, 'yielding' is the word they use, husbands are required to stay segregated at the Estate whenever their wives are working. Overnight usually, longer if longer. and it's all arranged so they feel no temptation to leave. I've mentioned a few of the facilities they use to distract them. They also employ certain ... methods." "Oh?" I asked. I knew she knew that was enough. "I don't know much about it. There are different ways to keep them there, apparently, all of them quite effective. Tanya tells me that some husbands of women she's worked with have hated the place at first, especially when they find they aren't permitted to leave. Or are unable to leave. Or have been rendered unwilling to leave, one way or another persuaded to stay. But she assures me that within a few days almost all the men look forward to passing their time there, evenings or weekends or whole weeks at a time, and really and sincerely don't want to leave. They come to enjoy what they're doing with other men in the same boat who are feeling the same pressures. They play computer games, some of them, she says. Or distract themselves in other ways, some quite pleasurable, Tanya says, but she didn't say exactly how. One way or another the men pass the time, and most return to their wives the next morning -- or the next Monday morning, a week later -- feeling quite refreshed and no way resentful." I didn't want to let it go, the idea of coercion. "They aren't 'permitted to leave'?" I asked Melissa. "Is that what you said? Did I hear that right? Why, what's to stop them? Does this Escort Service hire thugs to patrol the place and keep the husbands prisoner? Tie them up? Keep them closeted and out of the way?" Melissa looked startled for a moment, then settled down. "Closeted, I guess, yes, you could say that. Not tied up, no. If the men feel closeted, it's because they are I suppose. But you're right, the place is guarded by strongarm men who keep them there and prevent them from leaving until it's time for them to leave. Or so I hear. Tanya's rather hazy about these things, because her most recent husband spent only one night there, then when he was released he left her and left town without any explanation. He agreed to a substantial alimony not to have to come back for a court hearing." That didn't sound too good. Melissa was now looking uneasy herself, her eye darting about, looking for a way to change the subject. "It isn't what you'd think," she said finally. "Remember, most men get so they stay there voluntarily without wanting to leave, quite satisfied to remain there until they're permitted to leave, that's what I hear," she said. "The first time isn't especially easy for any of them, but it has its compensations, and after that night they have no further problems with the place. And Tanya says the wives are delighted by changes they see in their men when they return. How much more understanding they are of their women. The studs are more studly and the wimps more understanding and forgiving. The Estate follows different procedures tailored to each individual's needs. For example, you're resentful that we need to do this, Chris. That's obvious enough. You don't want to accept that this is our only option. So I may have to recommend a 'change' procedure for you. One of the more radical. It's designed to change minds to see more clearly how this offers an acceptable, maybe even ideal solution to all our problems. Maybe it makes no sense to describe it that way, but that's what they call it!" She stood suddenly. "Enough of this! You're being so negative, Chris! Have you any job prospects to explore this morning?" "None. Cranford Electronics said they were looking for low-level engineers but not in my area, and Apex is shrinking production, so they're laying off even more men. And women." "So there'll be even more unemployed men and women competing for even fewer job openings? Very well, sweetie. I'll phone the Estate immediately and let them know I've been briefed by Tanya and am available as of this very evening. I'll tell them to set up my accounts and inform me when and how they want me. I should tell you now -- I did interview with them a few weeks ago when you came back from two of your own interviews looking so miserable that my heart just about broke. I couldn't bear it, sweetie, I felt I had to do something! That was when I told them everything they needed to know about both of us. Personnel matters are managed by a Ms Sloane, by the way, Andrea Sloane -- she's my contact person. I'll call and tell her you've come around, though reluctantly, that you're amenable. Maybe I can get an assignment right away? The money would be very welcome!" I wasn't amenable, though I didn't correct her. What could I say? She was about to become a professional ... companion for other men, and since I'd be living off her income until I found a job, that made me not only her cuckold but her dependent cuckold. Two ways less than a man. Melissa looked at me, and our conversation ended as it began. "It isn't as if we have a choice, honey!" That was true. I looked at her exposed breasts and her naked pussy with its trimmed bush, and sighed. They were no longer mine exclusively. I said nothing. Then she said what I found most disturbing of all. "Who knows? Maybe we'll both come to love it! Me fucking other men and you knowing that I'm fucking other men. I can see that happening. Can you? Come here!" She spread her arms wide and gestured, then held up one breast invitingly. I shifted over to her, and bent to kiss its nipple at last. She closed her arms over my head gently. I kissed it some more, then began to suck and lick it, her beautiful soft breast with its extended fat tip deep between my lips. My eyes closed. I felt like an infant protected on her warm bosom. After a while she shifted me to her other breast and I suckled on that one too, comforted, helpless but nourished by my intimacy with her body. At last she allowed me to bend lower still and lick her clit, then rub it with my nose while pushing my tongue deep into her pussy and sucking her juices. "Oh, sweetheart!" she cried out just before she orgasmed. "I know I'll love it. And you too!" My mouth was too busy nibbling on her cunt lips for me to ask her whether she meant I'd love it or she'd love me. Maybe both. I could only hope so. *** A week later, we did both love it. Her mind made up, she called Tanya from the kitchen, and they chatted. Then she spoke to this Andrea Sloane she'd mentioned, from the Escort Service. The conversation went on for a while, Melissa being briefed I assumed. I didn't want to listen -- I was too depressed about this whole thing, but Melissa seemed relaxed, her voice friendly enough. At one point she let out a high-pitched, delighted near-shriek, a "Really? Oh, wonderful! I'd love that!" that was almost girlish. More enthusiastic than any sound I'd managed to bring out of her since our troubles began. I suppose it was because she was about to enter a life more stimulating, more luxurious and pleasurable in some ways, than I could ever provide her or share with her. That thought depressed me even more. Or maybe they'd been discussing what to do with me? In which case, what was it she'd love? When she came back into the living room she was fully dressed. Her face was still flushed, I assume from the phone call, and her eyes were gleaming with excitement. I tried to look her in the eye and feel glad for her -- with her -- and failed. For a moment she said nothing. She stood there looking at me. "I do love you, Chris," she finally said. "It's unavoidable that there will be changes in our relationship, but I want you to remember that. Through all the days ahead." She paused, and then realizing how portentous that sounded, she added, "And all the weeks and months and years of our whole lifetimes. We are married and I love you and I will never want to leave you! Never forget that! Never!" That sounded reassuring, yet not at all reassuring. "Is there any reason I might forget, or might think you don't love me?" I asked her as mildly as I could. "That you might want to leave me?" She looked at me almost pityingly. "I did mention, didn't I, that a girl's first client often isn't just an for evening or overnight, but longer, so she and any man she's living with will each have time enough to get accustomed to what she does and make the appropriate adjustments? So she can devote herself entirely to whatever's required, and the man in her life can learn how to provide her with comfort and support, and get thoroughly accustomed to his own new roles and relationships." "Which are?" I asked. She didn't answer. "This very evening I'll meet my first client. He's some kind of wealthy dot com executive, and he'll be taking me with him to an ocean resort in the Caribbean for five days. So we won't be seeing each other for five whole days, sweetheart. Six, counting today, because starting now I'll be terribly busy. I need to buy new dresses, designer dresses. And an evening gown, and resort clothing, several new bathing suits. You know. I'll be meeting a shopper they've hired to help me very shortly." Her mind began to wander -- obviously she was thinking about her shopping. Five days? Apart from each other? We haven't ever been! My heart sank. But Melissa was beginning a new career and I didn't have the heart to burden her with my own dark feelings, so I said nothing. I only repeated "five days," as if I were merely registering it in order to remember it. Then I added spontaneously, hopelessly, "I'll miss you!" She responded with a stray smile of sympathy, her thoughts still elsewhere. "We'll see," she said almost vacantly. Then, "You'll be kept busy. Andrea understands your problem, and she assures me that the Estate can deal with it easily. That we'll both be pleased with ourselves when we see each other again." That was reassuring, I suppose. But I had to try one more time. "If you won't be here, why do I need to go to that Estate, or club, or whatever the place is where they 'orient' husbands and keep them out of your way. Why go at all? I won't be in your way. I can simply stay here and wait for your return as if it were only a business trip." "It is a business trip," Melissa replied rather firmly. "My business will be to look a certain way for my client, and behave a certain way too I suppose. My best resort clothes won't do for what he has in mind, so I need to buy some others, from stores we could never afford before. He's specified what sort, so he'll pay for them." She paused. "I've never tried to look both daring and sophisticated before. It should be fun!" She paused, obviously trying on the notion, reviewing in her mind the various items she felt she needed to purchase. Then as if recalling the rest of what I'd said, she broke in on herself. "Oh, no, Chris, you can't stay here waiting for me to return. I told you, you'll have to be at the Estate. "But why? You won't be here! I won't be in your way!" "Oh, honey, for several obvious reasons! First, to take your mind off whatever I'm doing, to keep you from imagining how I feel about it. I need to know the whole time we're apart that you're not depressed or jealous or furious or whatever, as your full realizations sink in about me and about our likely life from now on. So I won't be distracted from my job. Second, even more important, you need to go through their orientation procedure. All husbands do. It's a re-orientation procedure, really, in a way, designed to confirm for you how things are and how things will be for both of us. To fit you for your new role as my chief support. So you can accept that role and both of us can cope more easily." Her voice suddenly turned formal, impersonal, as if she were lecturing to a large group. "Chris, no more evasions. Let me hit you hard with this all at once, while you're seated. I'm sure you know it but I'm sure it hasn't yet sunk in." She took a deep breath. "Your wife will be making herself as attractive as she can to other men, flirting with them and teasing them, and getting affectionate with them, and finally, fucking them and otherwise being ... extremely intimate with them. The more gratefully and eagerly and passionately, the better for me. For both of us -- the more appreciative those men will feel when they leave me, so the more often they'll return and the more money we'll make. You'll be getting cuckolded by me many times over, and most of the time you won't know how many times. You'll have to learn not to mind it at all. You'll have to learn to accept it. These are powerful men, wealthy, fit, and accustomed to having their own way with everyone. You'll have to accept that you're less of a man than any of them, less able to take care of me, probably less skilled as a lover too. You'll have to know that, and know I know it, and get used to it." She paused and inspected me. I must have looked as appalled as I felt. "But we don't want you feeling ashamed of me or of yourself," she went on. "We want you to feel out of the competition altogether. I especially want you to feel proud that I'm out fucking other men who are more successful in life than you! Knowing I'm of service to them. I want you wanting to be of service to me, so I can do my job better. That will take special training. So I've asked the Estate to do everything they can for you. Everything! And they've agreed." I just stared at her, dumbfounded. . Her voice softened. "I don't mean it to sound harsh, sweetheart. Because I do love you, and no matter what, you're my one and only! But your mere acceptance of my new life isn't enough. Even slight differences between us can eventually drive us apart. I want us to feel closer still! That's why I'll need to know that you're pleased that other men are fucking me. I don't want you to experience a moment's jealousy. Or envy, just because they're better men in most ways, at the very least in the fees they can afford to pay me. Moreover, I'll need to know that you're enjoying yourself too, in your own way, and looking forward to your own pleasures the same way I'll be looking forward to mine." "You want me to be well-distracted from the fact that my wife is going to marvelously exotic places and doing marvelously intimate things with marvelously gifted kinds of men?" "You could say that!" "I just did!" She stared at me silently. "Well, I need to go shopping," she said suddenly. "I need to buy some sexy dresses and expensive lingerie and other things appropriate to my new life. You want to come with me and watch?" "No!" I couldn't stand the thought. Help her to buy clothes designed to drive other men wild to have sex with her? "Poor sweetie. Another time,then," was all she responded. "I'll call Tanya en route and ask if she can meet me -- she knows what sorts of things attract desirable men." What she'd said sounded vaguely insulting, though she probably didn't mean it that way. I just sat there. I felt too numb even to cry. She stood. "He wants to take me to dinner tonight, I'm told, and then we'll spend the night in a hotel near the airport, and fly off tomorrow morning. So I haven't any time to lose. You stay here, no need to prepare for anything. At four this afternoon a limo will come get you to take you to the Estate, where they'll keep you busy, too busy to think about me. You'll receive the most persuasive of their orientation programs, one that will surely mollify your regrets and worries, so mine too about you. So you won't miss me too much during our separation, and not afterward either when we next meet. How they'll accomplish that I haven't the foggiest. They do say it'll be tons of fun for you, that you'll love it and have no regrets. Well, we'll both find out." She leaned over and kissed me. "Oh, sweetheart, don't look so glum. This is an adventure for both of us! This is all because I love you, and I want you to be as happy as I'll be, and they assure me that you will be. Not at first, but certainly by the time I return! Ta ta, darling! Do look forward to the rest of our lives together! I do!" *** When I returned to the house six mornings later I didn't expect Melissa to recognize me. She was sitting at our breakfast table -- the same one where all this began only a week ago -- sipping a cup of herb tea. When I opened the kitchen door and walked in her eyes widened. She didn't recognize me! Not at first. "Can I help you?" she asked the woman approaching her. "Is there some reason why you've just walked into this house as if ...." She paused in shock, and stood up. "Hello, Melissa," I said in my Chrissie voice. She may as well get used to hearing it, I was thinking. Her eyes betrayed her recognition, and she sat down again. But also, they registered amusement. Or was it something else? "Hi, Chris," she said. "Or do you have another name now?" "Still Chris," I replied. "But now, Chris for Christine, not Christopher. Mostly 'Chrissie.' I like to be called that." "That's sweet," she said. Then, "I knew this might happen. But even so, give me a moment to get used to it." Then "I love your hair! Shoulder-length is very becoming, though it does take a lot of care." Then impetuously, "Honey, you're beautiful! You are! Are you pleased? Because if you are I just adore you for doing this for me! Love you to death! Because now I can feel so much better about what I do with my men, and about you too! And we can both enjoy so many of the same things from now on! Have you been enjoying yourself? I tried to register nothing. "I think you have been. I did see you on live video the third day of my ... vacation. They wanted me to be sure not to worry about you, so while Russell was sleeping -- I guess resting is the better word, that cock of his never slept -- a concierge called me out of his bed and into the next room, where she showed me some videos of you with a woman who was stark naked beneath you. That eased my guilt some about enjoying Russ so much. It was a view from above, looking down on your back rising and falling, fucking the life out of her, your hips pumping away furiously while she was screaming at you. She sounded out of her mind with joy! Then she was whimpering, then gasping. You were giving her sex as good or better than I've ever had. And what you did to her next ...?" I knew which session she meant. The one where I'd finally accepted what I was, what I had to become, and stopped resisting it. Once I no longer held myself back, a miracle had occurred, I found that I loved it! All of it! Being a woman! Being what I now was! "That was one of the staff at the Estate, not me," I told her carefully, quietly. "Their prize stud, they told me, an incredible lover, huge cock, tireless, his cock in my ass my reward for coming around to their way of thinking. For cooperating. Honey, I wasn't unfaithful to you, screwing other women, not even once, not this whole time we've been separated and ... doing separate things. Some wives want their husbands to enjoy themselves that way, spend their entire stay screwing every available woman, doing what they themselves are probably doing with their clients. Or anyhow, doing what their clients are doing to them. So that's what those husbands are expected to do. But you told them you wanted me to support you, not betray you or our vows. So they didn't offer me women to help me pass the time. Instead, they made me live as if I were a woman. So I could better understand how you felt about what you were doing, and even enjoy some of the same things." Melissa could only stare for a moment. "Oh? You mean you were the woman I saw getting fucked, the one screaming in pure bliss? Not the man?" "I still am that woman," I said. There hadn't been time for my body to change, nor my facial features. But they'd accomplished miracles with my appearance even so, with a little trussing and careful cosmetic redesigning. I had marvelous bone structure for the purpose, they assured me, just the right kind of face, so the rest would follow in due course. She looked at me a bit longer, her mind replaying that video'd session. It took time. I wondered what she was remembering of it when she said, "Why, of course you were! I only saw the man's back, and he was covering the woman except for her legs, and they were wrapped so exquisitely tight around his waist. There were occasional glimpses of her face -- your face -- but it was beautifully made up and much of the time distorted by pure ecstasy! Now that I see you, I can see it was your face! Oh, sweetheart, I'm so happy for you! And look at you now, so very lovely! I'd wondered what they'd done to you, because that man with you had a cock bigger than Russell's, and it was slipping in and out of your ass as if there was no tomorrow. For hours, it seemed! I knew you didn't have a cock like that when you went to the Estate, nor the ability to use it that way, so I was baffled. But it turned out there is a tomorrow after all, isn't there. You got to love getting fucked, being the female of a couple, didn't you? So today is tomorrow, isn't it? You're a woman now!" This was embarrassing. "Honey, maybe I should apologize ...!" "No need. I understand. I noticed you made no effort to get out from under him. You pushed back and you twisted your cunt -- if that's what it is now -- whenever he bottomed out in you, every stroke! And shrieked? You did love it, didn't you? Getting fucked by a really well-hung man. Same as I've been loving it!" I was ashamed now. Because this was my wife, and I had been ... well, unmanly. "I still have my ... equipment," I told her. "My cock and balls. And they still work. They could still satisfy you. It's just that ...." "You do love getting laid," she finished for me. "I understand! A cock sliding in and out of you. Yes, you do, sweet pants. The same way I do, for the same reasons. And whatever your male equipment, I see you're still wearing your most prominent female equipment too. Your tits. Does that mean you'll be using them to attract other men? They did tell me when they returned me here that you might go out on call a few hours after your return, so they wouldn't bother re-converting you before sending you home. Unglueing you. I was too busy saying goodbye to Russell to ask what they meant -- apparently they meant your attached boobs! But is that so? Are you on call?" I wasn't sure myself. "They told me to get re-acquainted with you, then to check in for my next scheduled appointment. Is that what you're asking?" Melissa was delighted! "Oh, I'm so pleased! You're one of us! You'll be taking on clients now too! That'll give us so much more to talk about! And the extra income won't hurt a bit, will it?" She seemed to be taking this remarkably well. I'd been afraid she'd be appalled to find that her husband had been transformed into a woman. A husband who could still fuck, with a cock and balls that could still function, but not one who had to fuck. Not necessarily. Not after he'd discovered the joys of being fucked. I told her that. She then asked me what had happened to me after she'd left with Tanya to go shopping, and returned to find a note left by the limo driver telling her I'd gone to the Estate and all would be well. So I told her about my six days, briefly. I'd been blindfolded so I wouldn't know where I was going, so I wouldn't try to escape and find my way back. Then when we arrived and they removed the blindfold I found myself in a beauty salon filled with women. With "other women," they explained to me as they placed me in a chair and began giving me a thorough makeover. "You'll soon be a woman like them." When I protested, they secured my arms and then continued as before, doing my nails, my toes, my hair, my face, my skin, my whole body, meanwhile drenching me in perfume, a unique scent, mine, "so we'll always know where you are and you can't hide," they told me. They worked all through the night and into much of the next day, as I slept and woke and ate and took brief supervised breaks to answer nature's call. By the next afternoon I looked much the way I look now, I told Melissa. Like the other women constantly coming and going, getting touched up while I was being thoroughly worked over. I then told her that Andrea Sloane had came through to see how I was doing, and introduced herself. "Why?" was the question I put to her. "And where are all the husbands?" "Half of them are all around you," she said. "More or less." I looked around amazed, and into the mirror, and realized that in less than a day they had made me over into as pretty a woman as any of the others. Even more so. I commented that to Andrea, and she replied with a wink. "You have certain natural gifts, your face and your bodily proportions are very adaptable. More feminine than not. Hasn't Melissa ever told you? Tanya must have!" I remembered that makeup session some months earlier, and wondered whether for Tanya it had been a kind of test run for recruiting Melissa. So I let it go. "Why?" I asked again. "Why do this to us?" She gave me many reasons one after the other. I was being feminized so I'd feel ashamed to appear in public, at least for a day or so, and therefore less likely to try escaping. To ease their working wives' worries about betraying their husbands -- a woman is less likely to think of a man as a man she's 'betraying' when he no longer resembles one. Another reason, so he can't possibly turn macho and attempt to avenge himself on her with violence. So she won't feel married, and can resume with her various clients -- her dates -- whatever the adventurous sense of novelty and excitement she felt as a young girl dating. So her husband's or boyfriend's cock can be well-hidden beneath a gaff and a girdle if it happens to be bigger than most clients' cocks -- "yours didn't offer that problem," Andrea confided to me. So when he services her, sips her cream pies for example, he'll be less likely to think he's betraying his own manhood, there'll be too little left to matter. So she'll be more likely to regard any of his residual manliness with contempt because he's betrayed it so thoroughly. So he can feel greater empathy with her, become a better companion than any man, since he'll be living with her and sharing her life and some of her interests, maybe even her womanly desires. "So you'll feel closer to each other," she summarized it. Then too, if he looks especially feminine, "as you do," Andrea said pointedly, and if he doesn't mind sucking cock, he can sign up to earn fees the way his wife does, to be available o