Life Swap

 22/25

Joe tried desperately to disappear into the red leather of the studio couch – away from the gaping mouth of his wife, from the lipsticked smirk of the show's presenter, and from the spellbound studio audience and the big screen playing out the events of the last two weeks. Try as he might, he only succeeded in making time pass even more slowly – not that it mattered, soon the taping would hit millions of tv screens across the nation and his humiliation would be immortalised forever.

Joe and his wife, Louise, were contestants on the now dated tv show, Wife Swap. The concept was as simple as it was mundane, an antiquated product of daytime television where two happy couples from different backgrounds would trade partners for two weeks and then report back to the studio in a final confrontation to talk about their experiences and what they had learned from them. Joe and Louise had been paired with a couple of pig farmers and Joe had felt a secret exaltation, believing country women to be subservient and homely. Now, as he cringed in the studio, he couldn't believe how wrong he had been.

The first week of the exchange routinely put the men in charge of their own homes and gave them authority to rule their castles as they saw fit. Joe made full use of the opportunity to have Heather, the wife of his fellow contestant, wait on him hand and foot – cooking, cleaning, bringing him beer and even rubbing his feet, all while he sat in front of the tele belching orders. To Heather's credit, she had fulfilled the tasks dutifully and without comment. Joe now realised that she had been biding her time, plotting what was to come. The second week rolled around and it was all change. It was the wives' turn to rule the roost and Joe's nightmare had begun.

Joe heard his wife let out a loud snort of laughter from next to him on the red sofa, her eyes glued to the big screen where a twenty-foot Joe shimmied awkwardly around his living room in a latex maid's uniform. Joe still bore the bruises from the cuffs that had shackled his ankles, from the high-heels that had tortured his feet and from the dildo gag that had brutalised his gums, but most of all, he still suffered the mortal injury to his pride that could only come from being trussed up, stuffed in a rubber dress and forced to clean his own house for an entire seven days. Louise stifled a gasp with her hand as she watched her husband push his stockinged knees together and struggle to pick a pair of satin panties from the floor. Joe was praying the audience had already forgotten the scene five minutes before where Heather had introduced him to his new underwear collection.

“So, Louise, what do you think of this new side of your husband?” the presenter grinned as the montage came to an end.

Louise winked at Joe and the camera zoomed in as he realised the balance of their relationship was shifting forever. “Oh, I think it is a side of him I am going to see much more often. That is, if he doesn't want me to sign us up for 'Wife Swap – Revisited. If he resists, I'm sure another week with Heather would do the trick.”