Changes

|title=The Mistress Contract

|sort=Mistress Contract, The

|publisher=Serpent's Tail

|date=November 2013

|summary=A flashback to a unique take on partnership, and feminism, but nothing to lead us down the titillating path suggested by the book's background – or the way the publishers present it.

}}

''Women feel a reluctance to talk about those things which should be mysterious.'' Well, not all of them. This line – and I won't say who says it – is a quote from a large audio archive of the thoughts of a most unusual couple. College friends, they split apart then got back together, and ended up having an affair. Until she decided to formalise it in a momentary flash of, well, something, saying she would cede all to his every sexual and housework wishes if he would cater for her financially and with a place to live. Nowhere did that small contract say that they would open up themselves to public scrutiny with recordings of their conversations, over a restaurant table or in bed or a car having a tete-a-tete, but they soon did – and these small pages are the resulting book.