by Hannah Ford
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you understand why?”
“Because I keep being bad, sir.”
“Good girl. Now turn around.”
She did as he commanded.
He waited a moment. “If you ever want to stop or leave, simply tell me, or if you can’t speak--extend your two fingers like a peace sign.”
Can’t speak? Why wouldn’t I be able to speak?
The next thing she knew, a piece of dark cloth had been quickly placed over her eyes. A blindfold. He tied it in back with a quick and efficient twist of his hands. “And since you seem so intent on voicing your many opinions, I’m afraid you’ll need to be quieted as well.” A piece of rubber was inserted in her mouth.
This surprised her greatly. There were two straps that pulled across her cheeks to keep the gag in place. These also were tied behind her head.
“Now all you will have is my voice to guide you,” he said.
She nodded, breathing through her nose. Everything was dark. Unable to even speak, she felt totally helpless and afraid. Her head was buzzing. She wasn’t sure she could do this, do what he asked.
“Down on your fucking knees, you disobedient girl.”
She hesitated. She wanted to scream. The fear was building in intensity. His hands clamped down on her shoulders and pushed her to the floor. The wooden floor dug into the bones of her kneecaps.
She considered holding up two fingers, but didn’t want to quit so soon. She needed to at least try. Calm down, she told herself. This is safe. He won’t ever hurt you.
“Hands behind your back now,” he commanded.
She did as he told her. The pain in her knees was uncomfortable but bearable. He left her in this position for minutes, maybe as long as fifteen minutes. The pain was slowly increasing as she was forced to maintain the position.
“Do you want to get up off the floor, girl?” he asked, when the discomfort had built to a truly uncomfortable level.
She nodded.
“Will you be respectful to your master from now on?”
She nodded again.
“Good girl. Stand up, then.”
She got slowly to her feet. His hand was immediately upon her elbow, and he pulled her forward. “Now the bed. Lie down on your back, slut.”
In an instant, he’d thrown her on her back on the soft bed. After the hard floor and the pain in her knees, the bed felt positively luxurious and she was grateful to him for putting her on it.
“Extend your arms and legs all the way,” he told her.
When she did, he began tying up her wrists with what she assumed were the scarves she’d seen dangling from the four bedposts. Next, he tied her feet. She was completely tied up and immobile now.
She couldn’t see or speak.
“I can see your heart beating through your dress,” he said, sitting next to her. She felt his weight sinking into the mattress.
It was so dark. So dark and she couldn’t speak or move.
“Trust me,” he whispered into her ear. “You will come to see what I see in this world. And you will never want to go back.”
She nodded reluctantly. After some time had passed, he changed position. She could sense his movements but didn’t know what he was doing. His hands were on her calves now, lightly touching them.
Goose bumps raised on her skin as he caressed her legs softly. “You are a princess. You are beautiful. But you need to learn manners,” he cooed.
His hands moved up to her thighs. Now she was feeling the pleasure. She moaned through her gag. The darkness had become a friend, somehow. She rather enjoyed not knowing where his hands would move next. Not knowing what he might do to her, where he might touch her.
For a very long time, his warm hands moved along her thighs, tracing up and down, and each time he strayed towards her wetness, she moaned louder and louder. She was going to cum soon. She couldn’t help it. She’d wanted him to touch her like this, and here it was happening.
A man that could have any woman he wanted had chosen her.
Her body was shaking as she tried to resist the urge to come.
The more she tried to resist, the harder it became. Her nipples were so hard she could have cut glass with them. They poked roughly up through her dress. He must have noticed this, because suddenly his hands were on them, roughly pulling her nipples and squeezing them through the sheer fabric of the dress.
She moaned louder and louder, her body bucking and writhing in its straps.
“You bad, dirty little slut,” he whispered. “I think we might have found a thoroughbred,” he said, as if to himself, marveling at her eagerness.
He played more with her nipples, sometimes being gentle, other times squeezing until it became painful. But always there was pleasure. Always.
He was a master, and he played her body the way a great violinist would stroke his bow against the strings of an instrument. Sometimes fiercely, with something akin to violence, other times the gentleness of his caress was a thing of beauty.
Nicole was out of her mind, out of her body, out of her self. She’d become something totally different, as if she’d been transported. In the darkness she found she didn’t care how she looked, or what he might be thinking of her moaning and writhing. She completely let herself go, let the fantasy become reality.
The orgasm that she’d been fending off and fending off was building to a crescendo that was unimaginable, like a tsunami building and building. Soon it would swallow everything in its path.
The wave broke when his hand slid from her nipples down her ribcage, her belly and stopped at the very top of her slick cunt. She knew she’d long ago soaked through her dress, it was sticking to her skin and he could likely see everything in stark outline.
His fingers came to rest and one fingertip dug slowly into her swollen flesh, nudging her clitoris.
She came then, with such ferocity that it might have looked like convulsions. She bucked her hips and his finger was fucking her now, fucking her through her dress.
She screamed but the gag blocked her screams. All that came out was muffled moans. Her nostrils flared as she sucked in air and expelled it, still bucking. The orgasm continued and continued.
By the time it was over, she was simply drenched.
Drenched and exhausted.
She lay there motionless, spent. His hands were soon busy untying the ball gag. It was removed and she flexed her lips, her mouth was so dry. Next, he went and untied all four limbs. When her hands were released, she rubbed her wrists, feeling the indentations in her skin.
Finally he removed her blindfold.
She blinked in the brightness of the room, even though it was fairly dim compared to the rest of the apartment.
Red was sitting next to her. She was lying on her side now. He leaned down and stroked her hair and looked into her eyes.
She was startled by what she saw there, what she saw in him. It was a need so intense, so great that it defied her imagination. His need, his hunger for her surpassed anything she could rationalize. And it occurred to her that he still wanted her just as much, if not more now then he did twenty minutes ago. He had not been able to satiate himself, his lust. He was unquenchable.
She wanted to please him the way he’d pleased her. “I’ll do anything, sir,” she whispered to him.
“Give yourself to me,” he said instantly.
“I already have, sir.”
“Not yet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, but you will.” He smiled. His smile was pained somehow.
“I’ve never felt this before, sir.”
“This is only the beginning.”
He stood up and she could tell from his demeanor that their encounter was coming to an end. They left the room and he locked the door behind them. Nicole found that she wanted to go back there, to lie down and look into his eyes again and share that intimacy again.
He was colder now, more boss than lover, and he took out his phone and played
with it momentarily. When he looked up at her, his expression was neutral. “Outside, my driver waits.”
“You’re staying here, sir?”
“Don’t worry about what I do.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, but couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her voice. Nor did she want to.
She gathered her purse and took a deep breath. She was drenched in sweat and the driver would surely know what had gone on. But then, she suspected he’d seen this kind of thing before.
The thought of other women undergoing this exact ritual angered her.
Red was on his phone when she left, standing in the middle of the apartment.
“Well, thanks for showing me a good time, sir,” she said, again with as much sarcasm as she could muster. And then she left.
He didn’t speak a word to her.
***
Nicole didn’t hear from Red or see him the rest of that day, nor did she see or hear from him for the rest of the week.
Needless to say, she was depressed and anxious. She did her work as faithfully as she could, although she was constantly distracted with thoughts of Red. Looking up from her computer and hoping to glimpse him coming towards her with that enigmatic smile on his face.
Having lunch with Remi and always keeping an eye out for Red to come strolling past the way he did that first day, while Remi went on and on about her cowboy ad that was still the biggest pain in her ass.
Nicole found she was getting into the swing of things at work, mostly because it was easy. Glen usually had her making copies, sending faxes or running out to pick up lunch from Café Metro. Edward was rarely around, and when he was, tended to mostly be in Glen or Remi’s offices—sometimes she’d walk by and hear them yelling at one another. And then the next minute they’d be laughing.
Remi was the only one that gave Nicole any real work to do. Mostly researching images, occasionally she’d ask Nicole to swing by and look at some of the advertising concepts she was working on.
Work was easy. The hard part was waiting for contact from Red.
One morning she heard a couple of the girls in nearby cubicles whispering about him. She couldn’t hear much, because they were trying to be quiet. Just snatches of conversation.
“…unbelievably hot in that Armani suit…the one with the purple tie?”
“Red…told someone that he could buy and sell them the way he sells his used Bentley.”
“…so funny. When he looks my way I just melt…”
“I would give anything…”
Laughter, hushed whispers.
“How big it is?”
“I’ve heard he’s huge.”
More laughter. She hated those girls. Moments later, peering around her cubicle, she saw them. The type of girls she absolutely despised with their high-end designer bags and shoes and clothes, their two hundred dollar salon hair treatments, their manicures and perfect teeth. What would they do if they knew she’d been with Red and not them?
Nicole sat back down at her desk and smiled secretly. But the smile died when she thought about how long it had been since she’d seen or heard from him.
***
The weekend was interminable. Friday night, she and Danielle went out to a local dive bar and had margaritas. Danielle was in rare form, flirting with any halfway attractive guy, mostly trying to get free drinks. She had no shame when it came to grifting her way through a night on the town.
“The city is so expensive, how can I afford to go out if I can’t get a guy to subsidize me?” she said, after Nicole asked her how she could so brazenly coerce men into paying for her drinks.
Nicole was a little loose from her one margarita. Sitting together at a high top table while the male vultures circled them like prey, Danielle asked her about Red Jameson.
“So, have you seen him around the office at all?”
“Who?” Nicole said, licking the last bits of salt off the rim of her glass.
“You know who. The famously hot CEO that runs the company you work at.”
A thrill of excitement followed by a wave of sadness. “Mr. Jameson?”
“Hell, yeah. Do you ever see him walking through the halls or anything?”
She smiled.
“You do! He talks to you, doesn’t he? Tell me, Nicole.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Nicole picked up her glass and sipped the dregs of her drink—it was strong, most of the alcohol was at the bottom.
“Bullshit. I know something’s happened, I can see it on your face. Did he say hi to you or something?”
“Well…”
“Ha! I knew it. Now talk.”
“He did bring me into his office once,” she said slowly, enjoying the look of absolute shock as Danielle registered the information.
“Bullshit.”
“Fine, you don’t believe me. Why’d you ask then?”
One of the vultures came in for a landing. A slick kid who looked like he’d never even shaved a day in his life. Justin Bieber groupies would probably love him, but he wasn’t Nicole’s type at all. “Hey, ladies, you look like you could use a refill,” he said.
“Oh, how nice—they sent over a waiter,” Danielle replied, batting her eyelashes.
“Nah, I’m not a waiter. I just noticed you two looked thirsty is all.” Now that he was apparently having success, his wingman sidled up next to Nicole. The wingman’s cologne was pungent and overwhelming.
“You girls come here a lot?” he shouted into Nicole’s ear.
“No,” she answered flatly and turned away from him.
She was hoping they’d take the hint, but Danielle apparently was a Justin Bieber fan, and the two of them were now gabbing away.
So for the next forty-five minutes, Nicole endured the pestering flirtations of Justin Bieber’s cologne drenched pal, trying her best to stick it out for Danielle’s sake.
Eventually Danielle even invited the two suitors back to her and Nicole’s apartment, to which Nicole shook her head. “I’m tired, I won’t be staying up.”
“Oh, come on—don’t be like that,” Cologne Guy said.
“Yeah, hang with us,” Bieber smiled.
Danielle gave her a pleading look, but she’d already done enough sacrificing. “Sorry, I need to be up early.”
“For what?” Danielle said.
“I have work to do.”
“Staring at pictures of your boss online is considered work now?”
“Shut up, Danielle, you’re drunk.”
Bickering, the four of them went back to the apartment together. Danielle and Bieber were snuggling on the couch and getting romantic while Nicole fended off Cologne Guy’s ever more insistent advances.
Finally she’d had enough. “I’m exhausted, and I’m going to bed now.”
Her grabbed for her wrist. “Chill, baby.”
Somehow his snatching at her wrist reminded her of Red. And it reminded her just how unlike Red this buffoon was. If Red grabbed her wrist, it wasn’t impulsive, like a baboon, trying to crudely stop her from acting. He did it out of love.
She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me.”
“Relax,” he laughed.
“I’m not interested. Got it?” She glared at him and he wilted.
“Yeah. Yeah. Loud and clear. Jesus.”
“Good.” She turned and went into her bedroom. Danielle would be angry. She heard their voices, low, but still clearly bitching about how rude she’d been.
Of course she was rude one in their eyes—not Cologne Guy—who’d tried to grab her arm and keep her from going to bed.
She lay down and closed her eyes and soothed herself with thoughts of Red, thoughts of his hands on her shoulders, on her breasts, and the way he’d looked into her soul.
***
Danielle wasn’t that angry with her after all.
By the time Nicole came out of her room the next morning, Justin Bieber and Cologne Guy were long gone and Danielle was on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, watch
ing cartoons on TV.
“Hi,” she said, as Nicole made herself coffee.
“Hi,” Nicole replied.
Danielle glanced over at her. “Sorry about last night. Those guys were idiots.”
“Did you and Justin Bieber make out?”
“Who?”
“That’s what I called the guy you were with in my head. Justin Bieber.”
Danielle laughed. “That’s funny. He did have a slight resemblance. I sincerely hope Justin Bieber doesn’t have as small a penis as him.”
“You saw it?”
“I did, indeed.”
“Oh boy.”
Danielle shook her head. “It wasn’t worth it. I’m hung over and disgusted with myself.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“No. He was…kind of premature, if you know what I mean.”
Nicole grimaced. She finished brewing her coffee and poured it into a ceramic mug. “That sounds horrible.”
“It was.” Danielle sighed. “I need a real man. Like that Red Jameson type,” she said. “He seems like he would know his way around the bedroom, doesn’t he?”
Nicole didn’t answer.
“Weren’t you saying something last night about him calling you into his office? Or did I just dream it?”
“It must’ve been a dream,” Nicole lied. In the light of day she didn’t want to tell Danielle anything. It was special. It was between her and Red only.
“God I need a real man so bad,” Danielle said, shaking her head.
***
The rest of the weekend crawled by, and so did the first few days of the following week. Nicole couldn’t believe that Red hadn’t contacted her at all. Nothing.
She was positively stewing, alternately furious and then wounded, flattened by the sheer inexplicable way he’d withdrawn from her. They’d shared something so intimate, so intense—and the look on his face. She’d seen that passion burning in his eyes, it wasn’t just imagined.
Everything came to a head when Red did happen to walk by her cubicle, and completely ignored her.
It was like slow motion.
She had managed to forget about him for a few brief moments, and was working on cropping an image that Remi had given her. A dancing cowboy, of course. It made her wonder if she could really work in this industry for the rest of her adult life. Remi was doing almost nothing but this cowboy ad, testing out different pictures, using effects to change them and mold them into something interesting.
