by Gabi Moore
“I’m here,” she breathed.
“You like it don’t you?” I growled.
More of the same dark look. She looked so cute when she was all pissy and indignant.
“Actually, yes. I do like it.” This time her voice seemed to come from a little deeper inside her body. I could see she liked it. Hell, the people at the next table, if they cared to look, could probably see how much she liked it.
I stopped smiling. “Well, you’re not supposed to. This is your punishment, remember?”
She watched my finger slide all the way to the far end of the control. Almost maximum power. She swallowed hard and tightened her shoulders. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. I leaned in forward so I could see that sweet punishment on her rapidly coloring face.
“Now tell me what that feels like. Tell me what it feels like to be such a slut in this nice restaurant, with all these nice people…” I hissed, so quietly only she could hear me.
Her knuckles were turning white. Here I was, bringing her to the edge, without having to lay a finger on her. I could turn the dial down right now, turn it right down and give her some relief. Or I could make her sit here and take it. But whatever happened to her sweet, guilty little cunt right now was entirely, and exclusively in my control.
She swallowed hard again but this time a muffled moan escaped from her lips. She was trying to conceal every twitch and roll of her perfect body, to hold in just how badly she was shaking.
“Natasha, if you make another peep, I’m going to turn it up as high as it will go.”
Her face was full of begging.
“Please…” she managed to say, but not much more.
“Please what?”
“Please. Turn it off. I’m going to…”
“Come? Yes, I know you are. I can see that. Everyone can see that,” I said and stroked the edge of the phone.
She stifled another moan and then shook her head as though to clear it. But I wasn’t going to give her mercy. Natasha was a screamer. She had always been loud in bed. Always yelped out loud and shuddered and swore and sometimes squealed. But now, I wanted to see just how much of that she could conceal.
“You want to be a filthy little whore? To fuck out in the open where anyone can see you? Well, here we go. You’re going to come now, hard, in front of all these strangers, and that’s the punishment you deserve.”
I took a sip of my wine and watched as her secret writhing and heavy breathing reached fever pitch. Her chest flushed.
“Come, Natasha. Let me see you come like the little whore you are,” I said, and the words themselves seemed to push her over the edge. I turned the dial up to its full power and her eyes went wide, she gripped the edge of the table and cried out, neck straining.
“Oh fuck,” she whimpered, but so loud that the people at the next table turned to look.
I watched as her chest rose and fell, and her body twitched and tightened invisibly under her clothes. And even deeper underneath was her juicy little pussy, taking its punishment, convulsing hard around the dildo I had forced her to wear.
Her hand quickly went to her brow to wipe away the prickles of sweat there, and the color flashed back into her white knuckles. She was panting. I sat back in my chair, cool, calm. I loved seeing her this way. When she had gathered herself, she raised a disheveled gaze to me, lips parted. She looked fucking hot.
“Todd, I’m so sorry. About everything, about the other night, I’ve just felt so alone and I really just needed the affection, and now…” she started saying.
I stood quickly, threw down my credit card on the table and gestured to the waiter for the check. As I walked out I fancied I could hear curious whispers and mutterings behind me. But what I was really interested in was everything that was silent at that moment, everything that was invisible.
Her guilt. Her punishment. Her soaking little pussy, and wet quivering lips… truly, I had forgotten how much fun she could be. I was rock hard, but I brushed off the sensation. Instead, my mind wandered.
I already knew what I wanted her next punishment to be.
Chapter 8 - Todd
The men I work with are pigs.
I would like to say that hiring someone with the right skill set in this industry who isn’t a pig is possible …but I certainly haven’t managed it yet. I get it, though. The work is tough and thankless and incredibly difficult. The hours are long and grueling. For a certain type of man, the longer he behaves himself in a temperature controlled cubicle, in suit and tie, the harder he wants to party when he’s eventually released. The more civilized and abstract the work, the more of an animal he has to be later on.
So the running joke in the office is how our hedge fund office is so close to such a seedy looking strip club almost across the road, but honestly, it should be closer. During work hours, it’s all algorithms and PNL meetings and investor presentations. After hours, it’s all coke and hookers. But they aren’t opposites. In fact, they’re the same stuff. Just two sides of the same, highly polarized coin.
When things get bawdy, I play along. It’s good business practice. But me? I’m not a pig. I take this shit seriously. When I see some kid blustering in like he’s some Wall Street superstar, well, he has my blessing. Hell, I’ll even cut his lines for him. But none for me, though I’m happy to help him along.
Some people build, some people destroy. When I was a child, my mother used my prize money from winning second place at the math Olympiad to pay for groceries. She’d joked on the way home that she wished I’d made first place so we could at least get a bottle of vodka, too.
So, pigs. I know them. I understand them. But I’m not one of them.
“It’s actually incredible how much like a regular marketplace it looks. Like eBay in the nineties,” Jeff said. He had been with Black Rock for more than 5 years.
“Oh? I always imagined it was just strings of code. But they have shopping carts and things?”
“Oh sure. Everything arranged in categories. Man, you can get anything you want. And I mean it, anything,” Jeff replied, ogling the waitress.
Jeff and Olaf, the fund’s other two partners, were with me on the distinguished Pearl Terrace, along with a pair of investor reps who wanted to ‘treat’ us.
“Anything huh?” said one of them. They were young. A few years out of MIT, cocky as hell and skinny enough that they weren’t quite filling their suits yet. But they were sharp.
“Yeah, anything,” Jeff said. “Think of any firearm, you can get it. Any chemical, any drug. You can buy passports, identification, that kind of thing. Boatloads of porn, obviously”
He was two whiskeys in and I could tell he had already forgotten the model we were supposed to work on together later that evening.
“What about people?” one of the reps asked.
“People?”
“Yeah, can you like, buy a person?” he asked.
Jeff laughed, his beer gut shaking.
“Well, I’m sure you can buy parts of people, yeah. Like an illegal kidney or something.”
“But I’ve heard you can buy,” the rep said, “you know, a slave. A person. From some third world country, I don’t know.”
Jeff’s smile faded a little. He was closer to my age. He wasn’t quite part of this new crop of kids and though he was a raucous bastard, I knew he preferred his degeneracy a little more on the old fashioned side. He was taking a night course in cryptocurrency and had been playing around on the dark web and underground markets, but with something more like a scholar’s interest than a criminal’s. Jeff had a chubby wife he loved to death and if he ever did transact on dark net markets, it would likely be to buy a discontinued superhero figurine or something.
“Yeah, I bet you could. You could buy all sorts of crazy shit, yeah. I mean, there are no rules. It’s mostly just people buying pot, if I’m honest. I haven’t looked, but yeah. You could buy a person.” His tone suddenly changed. It certainly wasn’t a fun answer. The rep looked a little deflated.<
br />
“I’m just asking, man.”
“Yeah, of course,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll show you sometime. But even in total anonymity, I’m sure it’s not that easy to just buy, you know, a whole person. For whatever reason you’d want to do that.”
We all sat in silence at the table. Every one of us knew quite well what reason someone might want to buy a person off the dark web. But it suddenly felt like the conversation had run dry anyway. We ordered another round, had a look at some reports, then left an hour or so later.
When I was little, my mother had told me I could be anything I wanted. That the world was my oyster. I’m sure she never pictured me sitting around a table of pigs in suits discussing the ins and outs of buying a human being illegally off the internet, but then again, the world my mom was talking about was a different one. One I didn’t live in anymore.
Jeff and I saw the rest of the party off and we walked back to the office together.
“Can you really buy a person?” I asked, feeling a little tipsy.
“Christ, what’s with you guys?” he laughed.
“I know, I know. I’m just curious. That’s wild. Do they Fedex them or what?”
He laughed.
“Yeah, you can leave reviews and everything. Choose your color in the dropdown and then they send you a tracking number. Can’t return it if it’s not in the original packaging though,” he joked, and laughed again.
“I wonder how much it costs,” I said, suddenly serious.
“Depends what you’re getting I guess. They could have me for a hundred bucks.” He grimaced as he poked the flesh around his belly.
“How’s the old hernia treating you?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll live,” he replied, and we walked the rest of the way in silence.
It’s not surprising that you can buy a person. In fact, the only thing that surprises me is other people’s surprise. I was at that very moment walking to an office filled with people whose lives I had paid for, wasn’t I? There is no ‘dark web’, or at least nothing darker than what’s happening right now, out in the light. Everything – and everyone – has their price. The people who disagree? It’s only because they know they’re not worth very much.
When we got back to the office, I couldn’t focus. My brain kept flitting around, wandering over to an idea that wasn’t fully formed yet, but which kept nagging at me nonetheless.
Natasha’s next punishment.
In small, dark pieces, the idea slowly pieced itself together in my mind. All I knew now was that the moment we had started talking about buying and selling people, I saw her face in my mind, bright, like a flash. I already ‘owned’ her, didn’t I? How much was Natasha worth to me? And me to her? How much ‘punishment’ did she deserve for screwing me over, for breaking my heart?
Everyone loves to hate the soulless banker figure, but what about me? What revenge am I entitled to, even though yes, I neglected her and yes, we haven’t technically had sex in almost a year? In the great debit and credit sheet called marriage, who owed who now?
Seeing her writhe on another man’s cock was a slice so deep into me that I still didn’t have the courage to even think about it yet. But I would balance the score, one way or another. Licking my wounds or not, she would get her just deserts. I wanted my pound of flesh. And I knew exactly which pound it was going to be.
I make my living manipulating numbers. I find money in tight margins people aren’t even aware exist. Even if it killed me, I would tally up her betrayal, put a figure on it, and mete out her punishment. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of someone I hadn’t spoken to in years. The night in the restaurant had been a good start.
But it was just that: a start.
Chapter 9 - Natasha
“Belinda, I’m a paying customer,” I said. “Just cut it off, I keep telling you, I’m sure.”
My hairdresser Belinda gave me a skeptical look.
“Girls always cut their hair when they’re having breakdowns,” she said. “Please don’t be having a breakdown on me, Natty.”
“Oh my God, you’re not giving me a buzzcut here. Do I need to sign a waiver or what?” I said, laughing. She sighed and patted down my shoulders, looking at my insistent face in the mirror in front of us.
“Ok …if you’re sure…” she said and smiled.
She picked up the shears and got to work trimming down my long mane down into the slick, streamlined vision I had spent the last 15 minutes explaining to her. I don’t know what it is that makes a girl want to change up her entire look, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t having a breakdown. I just wanted to look …different.
I felt like I had been grooming for the last three days straight. I’m no stranger to primping and preening, but this somehow felt like higher stakes. Todd was away on a short business trip, and tonight we were having a ‘quiet dinner’. Alone. I hadn’t made an entry in my secret black book for the last week at least – the longest period of time since I started it more than two years ago.
He had given me no further information, hadn’t ordered me to wear any ridiculous pre-chosen outfit. Hadn’t told me a damn thing actually, other than not to make any plans at all. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to the chefs. “Leave it to me” he had said, and now the only thing left to do was groom.
So I waxed my body head to toe. I exfoliated and buffed and moisturized and glossed my nails in a vivid coral. I got a facial, did my eyebrows and plumped my lips. And of course, the crowning glory, my new hair cut: a more severe shade of blonde, but an altogether more mature cut. The tips were blunt cut and brushed against my shoulder blades. Belinda had asked me, “what’s the brief” and I had told her, “make me look expensive.”
And holy hell, did I look expensive.
At home, I waited for him. The silver dildo had long since been removed, washed and hidden far at the back of a drawer. But I could still feel it inside me. I was still aching deep inside, still felt hot on my skin where he had pierced me with his cruel, unrelenting gaze. I wasn’t sure yet if I was mad that he had humiliated me, or mad at myself that despite my best efforts, I had enjoyed it.
Though my heart was filled at the moment with nothing but contempt for him, there was nothing I could to do stop myself wriggling and coming like a little slut in my chair. I came harder than I ever think I have in my life. By the time I had paid and stood to leave, I realized how badly my legs were actually shaking. And that I was soaking.
Even though I had now been preparing for days for him, I felt rushed when I finally realized that evening that he would arrive in ten minutes or so. I paced around, approaching the mirror a million times. Yup, still a cheater. Still a whore. On some days, it seemed like no amount of make-up could cover up the trash I was. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore? It felt kind of good, for it to all be out in the open. God, at least we were talking again. And tonight, maybe …well, who knows. My head was in pieces, and I couldn’t think about tonight further than saying “hello” to him.
When he arrived, he came in through the main front entrance, which we never use. He seemed different. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest as I saw him walking up the drive.
“Hello,” I said.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
I thought of twirling around for him, and pouting a little and fluffing it and asking if he liked it. But all of that felt a little phony now. After all, within the last few days alone he had seen me raw and truly naked, face contorted in pleasure. I know how to primp and be pretty …but there’s something to be said for being naked. After hours in the hairdresser’s seat this morning, my whole endeavor to look different suddenly seemed utterly unimportant.
We walked inside together.
“Don’t do it again without my permission,” he said, back to me.
We moved to the red dining room and made small talk. We almost never used this room, and even the cook seemed surprised to be serving us in there. The meal was uneventful, and after
a while, I began to think that I had only dreamed our last encounter, and that now I was woken up and living through another dreary scene of my real life. The one in which my husband can’t bear to fuck me and I spend all his money and screw other men to spite him.
“No more for me,” I said, and put my hand over the rim of my glass as he tried to top it up. He lowered the bottle again, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“Peter Cromwell was very grateful for your feedback.”
“My feedback? I never gave him any feedback.”
He smiled mischievously. “Oh yes you did, you sent him an email a few days ago, saying that you’d found the thing in your husband’s study and couldn’t resist giving it a try, and you loved it so much you just had to let him know.”
What? I could feel the edges of my fresh new haircut grazing the skin of my shoulders. I was completely and utterly at this man’s mercy. For now.
“Haha, very funny. Next time tell him to make one in leopard print”
He wasn’t smiling.
“Oh my God, Todd. Did you really? What did you do?”
He smirked and reached for my hand, then stroked the lines on my palm just lightly enough to send goosebumps crackling through me.
“I didn’t do anything. You did. Because you can’t help yourself” he said slowly, still stroking. My arm tensed.
“You’re trying to humiliate me now? Be serious, what did you do?”
He flashed naughty eyes at me.
“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I’m not angry. But the fact of the matter is, you’ll need to be punished,” here his caress on my hands went firm, “again.”
“You didn’t say anything to him, you’re just messing with me,” I said, the end of my sentence not quite sure if it was a question or not.
“Again, that’s irrelevant now. What’s important is that you’ve made me look bad, and now you have to be disciplined,” he said. He raised his cold, hard eyes to me to see what I would make of this new word. Discipline. He never did this. He was never like this. With a weird flutter in the pit of my stomach, it dawned on me how little I knew the man sitting across from me.
