Don't Touch

by Lucy Wild

  “You’re not fine, your hands are shaking. What’s your address?”

  “Honestly, I’m all right, I don’t want to make a fuss.”

  “That’s not your decision to make. You’re spending the rest of the day at home. I’m your boss, you do as you’re told.”

  “What happened?” Rupert asked. “Did I miss something?”

  “What did happen?” Mr Radcliffe asked. “Who was he?”

  “He was trying to break into cars. I saw him while you were inside.”

  “Why didn’t you just lock the door and call the police?”

  “My phone’s back at the office.”

  “You could have used mine then.”

  “It’s locked.”

  He gave a look that I didn’t understand before answering. “You can still ring the police on a locked phone.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed.”

  “I thought if I shouted at him, he’d run off.”

  “Wait, he wasn’t trying to break into the limo?”

  “No, he was after a Mercedes on the next row.”

  “So you didn’t ring the police but you did announce to him that you were in this car on your own? Have I got that right?”

  “It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” I admitted. “I sound so stupid.”

  “Not stupid,” he replied. “Just childish.”

  “I am not a child!”

  “I didn’t say you were. Now what’s your address so I can take you home? Your parents will be worried sick.”

  There was the flicker of a smile on his lips but I was too angry to care. “My parents are dead,” I snapped back at him, watching with satisfaction as his smile vanished.

  “Oh, Tilly, I’m sorry.”

  Something inside me fluttered again when he called me Tilly. Even in my anger at his comment, I couldn’t ignore the feeling, though I had no idea what it was. I wanted to tell him my name was Natalie but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “Look,” he continued, “what’s your address?”

  “Seventeen Cherry Lane.”

  “Did you get that, Rupert?”

  “Already typed in. We’re on our way.”

  “Now hold on,” I said, “I didn’t agree to you taking me home.”

  “Lucky I decided for you then. You’re going to take the rest of the day off. You’re going to relax and take it easy and that’s an order.”

  “But the agency will find out. I’m supposed to sign in and out every day, I’ll get in trouble.”

  “How about this? You take today off and I won’t tell the agency a thing?”

  “There’s a catch, I just know there is. No boss is that nice, it just doesn’t happen.”

  “How astute of you. There is a catch, as it happens. In return for your free holiday, you’re going to clean my office tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you have cleaners for things like that?”

  “They don’t come in my office. No one does.”

  “Then why am I doing it?”

  “Because I get the feeling I can trust you.”

  That was all he would say on the matter, his phone beeping and distracting him from me a second later. He spent the rest of the journey talking to whoever it was and that gave me time to think as my heart rate slowly returned to normal.

  Cleaning his office would give me the perfect chance to see what I could find on him. Maybe there’d be more things like that erotic magazine I’d found in the limo. I felt a pang of guilt at deceiving him when he’d not only rescued me from the car thief but also given me the rest of the day off but then I thought about the money. Twenty thousand. I thought about the orphans I’d be able to help. Orphans like me.

  We reached my house twenty minutes later and it was only when Rupert said, “We’re here,” that Mr Radcliffe put his phone away, turning to me as I climbed out of the car.

  “I’ll be in at ten tomorrow,” he said. “I want the place spotless by the time I arrive. Here, take this.” Reaching over, he passed me two keycards. “That one gets you into the building and that one gets you into my office. Get it spotless and there might be a permanent spot for you on my team, Tilly.”

  I didn’t answer. Being called Tilly had melted my insides again, especially when it was combined with that brooding look in his eyes. He could be my Heathcliff, though to be that and my Mr Grey and my Daddy and my knight in shining armour all at once would take some work. God, I thought as I watched the car drive away, I needed to stop reading so much. He was just a man, not a heroic lead in my own story. A real flesh and blood man with a chest sculpted out of iron and then I was thinking about the way it felt when he landed on my lap in the car, I’d be lying if I said that had nothing to do with my shaking hands.

  “What are you doing back so early?” Alison asked as I walked inside.

  “I got attacked,” I replied, sinking into the nearest armchair.

  She flicked off the TV, turning to look at me. “God, you’re kidding? What happened?”

  I told her everything, from spilling coffee over Mr Radcliffe to finding the magazine in the limo to being rescued from the car thief. She listened in rapt silence throughout.

  “You know what this means?” she asked when I was done.

  I shook my head. “What?”

  “It means we get to go all sexy Nancy Drew on his ass.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You want that twenty grand, don’t you?”

  “You know I do.”

  “You want to know if he’s into some pervy kinky little girl shit, right?”

  “It wasn’t a little girl thing, it was women dressed as schoolgirls.”

  “Right, whatever. You want to know, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then you have to dress up like one for him, see how he reacts to it.”

  “Oh God, Alison, this is real life, this isn’t one of your films.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Those films of yours. Every single one has a bit where the heroine tries on a ton of different outfits while her sassy friend sits and comments bitchily on her choices.”

  “You just used the word sassy. I thought you said you’d never use that word.”

  “I know, I feel dirty already.”

  “Good, that’ll help. Now come with your sassy friend and let’s invade my wardrobe.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I have a selection of slutty things that’ll get you noticed.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that.”

  “You can and you will. By all that is true and holy between two best friends, I will make you look like a jail bait stripper.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, just give me a cut of the twenty k.”

  “You really think this is a good idea?”

  “I know it is. Even if he’s not into young girls, you’ll turn him on so much, he’ll be bogged down in a sexual harassment suit before you can say grope.”

  “I had a sexual harassment suit once, the peepholes were a mistake.”

  “Have I ever told you how weird you are?”

  “Many times, Alison, many, many times.”

  “Good. Now let’s whore you up, slut girl.”

  She dragged me through to her bedroom and to my infinite shame, I let her. Was she right? It was impossible to say but she was vehement enough to stamp all over my doubts.

  “Here,” she said, passing stuff out of her wardrobe into my outstretched arms. “Try this, and this goes well with it. Oh and you’ll want these.” She pulled open her top drawer and pulled out a pair of knickers. “I bought these six months ago and immediately regretted it. Look, they’ve still got the tags on.”

  “I can’t think why you regretted it,” I said, looking at the ruffled pink panties. “Were you planning on becoming a Hentai girl?”

  “A what?”

  “Never
mind. You really think I should wear all this?”

  “Go see if it fits. You can keep the knickers.”

  “Thanks. Look, Alison, I’m not sure about this.”

  “I am. Now go!”

  She pushed me out of her bedroom and I went through to my room, putting the pile down on the bed. With a sigh of resignation, I began to undress. Pulling on the knickers felt strange. They looked more suited to someone far smaller than me. Just putting them on made me feel about ten years younger. I glanced at the back of them in my mirror, the ruffles were what did it, no adult would wear these. Not even Alison. A tiny part of me was glad of the excuse to put them on, I didn’t have to feel ashamed when she was making me do it.

  The skirt was ridiculously short and pleated like I was about to go to a netball lesson. It sat four inches above my knees and I had more leg on display than a can-can convention or ‘can-can-con’ as I’d call it if I was in charge of naming things. The top was a simple white blouse but it was a size too small for me and thin enough that my bra was visible through it. The buttons were put to a severe test, stretching the fabric to hold it in place. Just as I looked at myself in the mirror, Alison knocked on the door.

  “Are you decent?”

  “Not really.”

  “Have you not got dressed yet?”

  “Oh, I’m dressed. I’m just nowhere near decent.”

  She pushed open the door as I turned to face her. “You look perfect,” she said, running her eyes over me. “Give me a twirl, let’s see those ruffles in action.”

  “I look ridiculous,” I replied, hoping she wouldn’t notice the excitement in my eyes. “I look about twelve.”

  “No you don’t. You look like you’re going to a school uniform night at a club, that’s all. I tell you what you do need though.”

  “What?”

  “Sit there.”

  She pointed at the dressing table chair and I sat down while she hovered behind me, scooping up my hair into her hands.

  “You’re not,” I said, looking at her in the mirror.

  She nodded. “I am.” Already, she had the first plait on the go.

  “You’re giving me braids?”

  “See how they look before you start complaining.”

  I sat, watching my hair being pummelled into behaving behind me. “Now I really look like a schoolgirl,” I said when she finished. “I can’t do this. What will they think of me?”

  “What does it matter? You’re only there for a week.”

  “I look ridiculous.”

  “You look hot, Natalie Brook. If I were a man, I’d be banging you right now.”

  “Thanks, that’s very reassuring.”

  “I promise you, look like that tomorrow and within a second, you’ll know if he’s into Daddy Dom stuff.”

  “What’s Daddy Dom stuff?”

  “Oh my God, something the walking oracle doesn’t know and I do. Hold on, I just want to bask in this moment for a while.”

  “Don’t be mean.”

  “Sorry. It’s a kink that some people like, Daddy Dom and little girl stuff.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  She shook her head. “Look it up.”

  Chapter Six

  I did look it up. Another excuse to do something I hadn’t done for a long time. I’d pretended to Alison that I’d never heard the term before. There was no way I could admit to her that my earliest fantasies had involved being taken in hand by a stern, gruff man who was as brooding as Heathcliff and as unforgiving as Bill Sykes. That my first sexual thoughts were of older heroes doing things to me that would definitely not be seen in Victorian novels. It might be true that he was a ‘Daddy Dom,’ and if it was, it would definitely be enough dirt to embarrass him, if not to blackmail him. If he was into being a daddy, I’d soon find out by wearing the outfit Alison had given me. It was almost like I was being given permission to be the little girl I’d so often fantasised about becoming.

  But as I climbed into bed, other thoughts took over my mind. I thought of myself as his full time little girl instead of his blackmailer and I felt dizzy all of a sudden. Was I just looking for a surrogate father? The guilt I’d felt when first conjuring up my fantasies came washing back over me. That was why I’d crushed them, ignored them, pretended they didn’t exist. They came back though, dark and lust filled thoughts that wouldn’t leave me as I lay in the dark, sordid thoughts about being draped over his lap and spanked for misbehaving, having his hand slide between my legs and…

  I turned on my bedside light, I was never going to get to sleep thinking like that. To distract myself, I picked up the file Mr Mitchell had given me. Inside was that picture of Mr Radcliffe, smirking up at me as if he knew what I’d just been thinking about. I turned the photo over and read through the rest of the file again. I felt sorry for him in a lot of ways. His father had died when he was sixteen, leaving him to take over the business. He’d been running it ever since, with advisors until he was twenty-one and then all on his own as CEO. He’d never had a chance to do anything but work. He’d not had any freedom at all. He didn’t seem to have any close friends, no siblings either. The only question mark about his personal life hung over a sighting of him outside a private club and the rumours that surrounded it.

  According to the file, Mr Radcliffe went to this club one night a month but as it was a members’ club, no one knew what kind of things went on in there. It could be port and cigars, it could be chains and whips and there I was back to thinking about him that way again in the blink of an eye.

  I closed the file and lay back down, about to do something I hadn’t done for a very long time. I was wearing my bunny pyjamas, stylish, I know, and my hands slid easily down the waistband of the trousers as my eyes closed. My mind went back to the things I’d seen online, stern Daddy Doms standing over their petulant little girls, reddened behinds of bratty girls defying commands given. That could be me in their place.

  I thought about being in his arms, his chest as naked as it had been in his office. Me in the outfit Alison had given me, bending over his desk, his little secretary. He’d slide my ruffled knickers down my thighs and then spank me over and over as I yearned for his hand to move between my legs.

  My own hand slid between my thighs as I pictured it, stroking myself softly, surprised by how wet I felt. I very rarely masturbated, deep seated guilt over my desire often stopping me before I could even begin. Unlike Alison who owned enough sex toys to stock a row of shops in Soho and wasn’t shy about admitting it. As I thought about Mr Radcliffe sliding his hand over me, I did the same, easing a finger into myself whilst biting my lip to keep quiet, not wanting to wake my housemate.

  It was hard to control my breathing as I stroked my clit softly, my mind filled with thoughts of Mr Radcliffe taking me for the first time, thrusting up into me, calling me Tilly as he did so.

  I slept well that night, better than I had done for a long time. I slept so well I woke up late for work, Alison hammering on my door, shouting, “You’re going to be late.” My braids were still in place, just a few stray hairs needed sorting. I looked at my business suit and then at the outfit Alison had given me.

  I went to pick up the suit just as she shouted from the landing. “I know what you’re thinking and don’t even try it. If you’re not out here in the slut outfit in one minute, I’ll come in there and dress you myself.”

  She didn’t sound like she was kidding. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said to myself as I pulled on the ruffled knickers. “She better be right.”

  “I’m always right,” she shouted back. “And you better get a move on.”

  I stepped into the skirt and zipped it up, seeing that Alison had left me a pair of long white socks to complete the look. I was glad of my winter coat more that day than I had ever been in the time I’d owned it. Once I had the coat over my outfit, the only thing visible was the socks, I looked almost as respectable as anyone else, unless I took the coat off.

  “Wish me
luck,” I shouted as I headed for the front door.

  “Hold on,” Alison shouted, running through from the kitchen with a slice of toast in her hand. “Let’s have a look at you. Mary Jane shoes, nice touch.”

  “Come on, Alison. I’m going to be late.”

  “You better be quick then.”

  “Fine,” I said, sighing as I pulled open my coat, watching her grin as she saw the full costume. “There, happy now?”

  “If I was a lesbian, I’d do you.”

  “Thank you, I think.”

  “Now go entrap an innocent man. Mama wants that twenty grand.”

  I turned and left. Her final remarks jabbing at me as I went. He was an innocent man. He’d done nothing to me but I was about to screw him, and not in the way I’d dreamed about last night. Think of the money, I told myself as I walked, turning the phrase into a mantra that made me wonder if that was what Belle Du Jour had told herself. Was I any different to her? Using my body for money? This was different though, I convinced myself as I swiped the keycard to get into the building.

  It was just gone eight and there was only a cleaner in sight, busy emptying the bin behind reception. Why was this different? The only thing I could say was that I wasn’t sleeping with anyone for money, I was just trying to get him to want to sleep with me. Was that any better?

  As I climbed into the lift, I realised I hadn’t really thought out what my plan was. The buttons on my coat had come undone as I’d walked and I caught sight of myself in the mirrored doors in front of me. “Oh shit,” I said out loud, wondering what the hell I was doing in an outfit that belonged in my little girl fantasies, not an office. “Think,” I said. “Think quickly.” One, it was too late to go home and change, I was stuck in what I was wearing so there was no point worrying about that. Two, I might find something in his office before anyone turned up and that would mean I could get out of there for good. Three, if I didn’t find anything, I needed a plan for what to do next, something that involved using this whole looking young thing. What could I do?

  The best I could come up with by the time I reached his office was not great. I would try to tempt him into saying or doing something inappropriate. I could then go back to Mr Mitchell with that and leave the rest to him. Hey, I never said it was a good plan. It had more holes than my favourite cardigan.