I arrived back at the centre early the next morning. Two women were waiting for me, a blonde and a brunette. We sat at the same table and shared a pot of tea. Charlotte smiled at Caroline and then at me.

‘So you want to know our story?’

‘’Yes.’

Charlotte began, ‘We are both married to Egyptians and met here.’

Caroline continued, ‘Their families were related and we saw more of each other.’

‘You both had your clitorises then?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes.’ They replied in unison. ‘The families were enlightened.’

They took it in turns to tell the story.

‘We did not have a lot to do. So we hung around together.’

‘We did as the locals do and held hands, and even embraced. No one thought this unusual. We did our wifely duties and everything was fine.’

‘But, we went too far.’

“What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘We did more than embrace. We slept together in the hot afternoons. No one thought this odd and it went on for months.’

‘However, we did more than sleep. We played with each other.’

‘You mean, as lesbians?” I asked.

‘Yes, I suppose so. We sucked each other’s nipples and played with each other’s clitoris.’

‘It became a habit. We would meet three or four times a week and do it.’

‘It really diverted us form what we should have been doing.’

‘But it did not seem to make a difference. We were always ready for our men.’

‘However, our respective mothers in law may have suspected something. One afternoon, we were in bed together, or rather on the bed, when they both came in.’

‘They were both horrified. We were told that our behaviour was unnatural and that they would put a stop to it. We had begun to dress, but they told us to stop and come with them into the other room. There they sat us down, half naked on two chairs. They began to lecture us. Then they stopped and one talked in the others ear. They went into the kitchen and came back. We were still sat there, not knowing what to do.’

Each came behind one of us and grabbed our wrists and tied them to a strut at the back of the chair. They pulled our remaining clothes off.

‘We knew we had no choice. We just submitted. Then they tied our ankles to the feet at the front of the chairs.

The chairs were of the kind with wheels on the rear legs and they wheeled us together. We faced each other, with our knees touching. They then pulled our knees as far apart at they would go and tied them to each other. Then they got some fine wire, the type you cut cheese with and tied it around our clitorises. They pulled them out to make sure it was right at the base. There was a tension in the wire and if we moved it began to cut into them. We had to keep our knees as wide apart as possible.

They then attached a further wire to the middle of the wire between our clitorises and attached this to a metronome, which they placed on the floor. This put a vibration into the wire.

‘You can leave, when you have done your duties,’ they both said. We will not tell our sons of your behaviour, just that you have seen your senses and joined our culture. All you have to do is put your knees together.’

‘They left us looking at each other. They were going to get us to circumcise each other.’

‘We had to do it,’ Charlotte said.

“We looked at each other, felt the vibration in the wire. We felt that we could come one last time. The last one to come would pull her knees together.

It took an age, we looked into each others eyes, then at each others breasts and finally down to where the wire was vibrating and beginning to cut.

Charlotte came first. Her spasm almost circumcised us, but Caroline was strong enough to keep her legs apart. When Charlotte saw Caroline come, she slammed her and our knees together.’

‘We looked into each others’ eyes. There was a sharp pain between our legs and when we looked down, the wire had gone. Our clitorises were on the floor beneath us.’

We did not know that mothers in law had been watching all the time. They pulled the chairs apart and trimmed any loose flesh before they untied us.

‘That was awful,’ I said.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Charlotte, ‘What we were doing was wrong.’

“It was also a fantastic end,” said Caroline, ‘I still get wet thinking about it. It is what I do, when my husband has me.’

‘Now we see each other just as much, but we are not tempted to go beyond what is decent. We cuddle and caress, but that is all we need to do.’

Sue arrived and put her hands both their shoulders. She looked at me and said, ‘I told you that you would find it exciting.’

Again I looked down at my erect nipples. They were not all that was engorged.

‘Are there more stories like this?’

‘Not like this. Not all are as happy.’

Caroline said, ‘You’re thinking of Christine.’

‘Yes, poor Christine. Perhaps, you should also have a sad story.’