The Businessman's Tie (The Power to Please, Book One)

by Deena Ward

  He didn’t wait for a response from me. He continued, “I’ve got to go. Please, don’t feel like you have to hurry away. The suite is yours for the night, if you wish. They have an excellent restaurant here, as I’m sure you know. Order whatever you want from room service. They’ll charge it to the room. And don’t worry about the mess in the bedroom, or the toys. The staff will take care of it. Everything’s covered.”

  He walked over to me, leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips. I returned his kiss, because it was expected of me. He tasted like bourbon. The amber liquid he was drinking, I presumed.

  He stroked a thumb down my cheek and said, “Nonnie, I realize that seemed harsh in there, and I didn’t actually intend to ... never mind. That’s not important. Just know that I think you’re beautiful, and sexy. You please me in many, many ways.”

  “Good night,” he said, and he headed to the door.

  I had been idly turning his card around while he spoke to me and I noticed a handwritten scrawl on the back of the card. It was familiar to me. It was the same scrawl that was on the bottom of the note I found when I arrived.

  Gibson was opening the door when I asked him, “What is this? On the back of the card. I can’t read it.”

  He turned back to me and said, “Oh, of course. It’s my name, or rather, the only name for me that you’ll need, should you decide to call.”

  He said, “It’s Sir. For you, my name is Sir.”

  And he left the suite.

  I stared at the back of the card. I could see the word now. Sir. Yes, it was there if you looked hard enough.

  I felt that I had been in this hotel room for ages. How long had it been, really? I checked the clock hanging over the bar. Not much past eight. Little more than an hour since he arrived. It didn’t seem possible.

  I spent the rest of the evening trying not to think. I soaked in the bathtub, adding the scented oils I found tucked away in one of the drawers, obviously they were the toiletries the hotel usually offered guests, not the plain unmarked ones Gibson had left for me. I washed my hair with the hotel shampoo. It smelled of citrus and cleanliness and I needed the smell of clean in particular.

  I fixed my hair and put on a little makeup, mainly just mascara, the way I usually wore it. When I was digging in my purse for my mascara, I found The Businessman’s, well, Gibson’s, tie. I had been planning to return it to him tonight. Nothing to be done about it now.

  Regardless of what Gibson told me about the staff, I tidied up the bedroom and washed the latex toys, then returned them to the black bag which I placed neatly on the bureau. I wanted them out of my sight. Put away.

  The meal I ordered was expensive and excellent in every way. I ate it on the balcony, wrapped in my bathrobe in the cool night air. The lights of the city streets below me stretched out away into the dark horizon.

  When I finished eating, I got dressed then wandered back into the sitting room. On a whim, I opened my wallet and took out the card Michael had given me. I laid it next to Gibson’s card on the coffee table.

  So strange, these two cards. Not just that I was expected to choose between these two men, which was odd enough, I supposed. But it was the cards themselves. They seemed formal and old-fashioned in this age of cell phones and texting. They could have just input their names and numbers into my phone. Instead, they gave me these cards.

  Michael’s card was of a good stock, pure white, with black print. The only adornments were a border of shiny gold, and a barely visible watermark of a large capital MW, his initials.

  Gibson’s card was also of a good heavy stock, also with black print, but the color of the paper was a creamy off-white. There were no adornments of any kind. Even the font of the lettering was plain.

  I stared at the cards. Two different cards. Two very different men.

  Two offers.

  I can’t have them both, Gibson had said. I would have to choose.

  The Playboy or The Businessman.

  One or the other.

  Maybe neither.

  I scooped up the cards and dropped them into my purse.

  It was time to go home.

  Chapter 9

  For more than a week I debated my decision. At work, when I should have been thinking about hiring some new temps for the accounting department, I thought about Michael and the sting of his belt striking my ass. When I should have been contributing to a discussion about limiting office waste, I remembered Gibson’s eyes watching me while I masturbated in front of that mirror. Not exactly thoughts conducive to career excellence.

  When I drove, when I shopped, when I cooked, when I showered ... there wasn’t a time which wasn’t interrupted by a memory of Michael or Gibson, and by thoughts of what might happen in the future should I move forward with one of them. Yes, what might happen. How far would I go?

  Michael asked for five nights with me, five chances to explore the new sensuality he and The Businessman had introduced me to. Beyond the five nights, who knew. My guess was that Michael never committed himself to anything for long.

  Could the same be said of Gibson? I couldn’t know. I didn’t even know what he was offering me. He had only said he wanted to see me again, and this was after he had thoroughly humiliated me with his “interview.” Whenever I thought of that night, my skin grew hot and I wanted to run from the memory of the moment when I realized my mistake. Horrible.

  Part of me hated Gibson Reeves. The rest of me remembered what it felt like when he entered me, and the hate got smothered under the memory of that perfect assault.

  Michael or Gibson? I couldn’t walk away from them both. As much as they unnerved me, they also fascinated and tempted me, tempted me to walk further into titillating and forbidden territory. It became an impossibility to not pursue this further.

  Eventually, I decided I needed a second opinion. Since I couldn’t speak with any of my usual friends, what with not wanting to permanently scandalize them, I considered calling one of the two women I had recently met, Lilly Smith and Elaine Hoyte.

  I wasn’t really sure how far into the BDSM scene Lilly actually was. It was likely that she hadn’t been completely honest with me the night we met. I believed that she had pretended to know less than she actually did, hoping that I would accompany her to Private Residence. I didn’t think she had any sinister motives, but merely that she wanted company and thought a fib was her best chance to convince me to go with her.

  So, chances were good that Lilly knew more about BDSM than I did. I suspected she knew something about Michael as well.

  Elaine definitely knew Michael, had been kind to me, and appeared to know a great deal about BDSM. From what I had seen of her and her husband, they were old pros, if there were such a thing as professionals in sex play. Are there professionals in sex play? Elaine would probably know.

  I took a chance one evening, and called Elaine. I thought it might be a bit awkward at first, reminding her who I was, and so forth. However, she quickly put me at ease.

  She said, “Nonnie? Of course I remember you. You’re that cute little thing Michael was so mean to.” The way she said this, though, made it clear that being mean wasn’t so terrible a thing.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “That would be me.”

  “You still mad at him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She chuckled. “It’s hard staying mad at such a good-lookin’ guy. I oughta know. It’s that way with me and Ron all the time.”

  I had no idea how good-looking Ron might or might not be, since the only time I had seen him a hideous leather hood covered his entire head. It struck me how bizarre that was, and the surprise of it nearly made me end the call right there.

  Elaine said, “I saw Michael a few nights ago, and he mentioned you.”

  “I hope you kept my secret,” I said.

  “Your what? Oh, that one-way mirror business. Of course I did, honey. Anyway, he told Ron and me that he made you an offer, and that you haven’t called him yet.”

>   “I’m not sure what I want to do. That’s why I called you.”

  “Sure, sure. I getcha. Michael’s pretty hot and bothered about you. Looked real put out that you haven’t called. He’s not used to bein’ put on hold.” She laughed.

  “I wasn’t trying to get revenge for what he did, but if he’s put out by me, then it serves him right.”

  Elaine laughed harder.

  I said, “What I called for was to ask you out for some coffee, or drinks, or whatever you want. I have a lot of questions and I don’t have anyone to talk to about this ... stuff. You were kind to me that night and it’s probably a lot to ask from a stranger, but ...”

  “Now don’t you worry about that. I told you to call me, didn’t I? I’m real happy to talk to you about all this and I’ll help anyway I can,” she said.

  I sent some thanks out into the ether for kind women everywhere. Elaine and I decided to meet the next evening after work at a quiet lounge she said was near her home. She prodded me a few more times about Michael, then we said our goodbyes and ended the call.

  I sat for some time thinking about what she said about Michael. He must be thinking about me. I couldn’t deny that I was flattered to know it. I wanted to know more, and Elaine appeared to be the one to tell me.

  But there was an obvious place I hadn’t yet looked for information, a place I had been avoiding because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. It was time to search the Internet. I booted up my laptop.

  I found a handful of Michael Westons in the city, and not much information on any of them. After some digging, I thought I found the right one. If I was correct, Michael was the owner of a company called Spotlight Productions, which appeared to be involved in media somehow; it wasn’t clear.

  The company’s web site claimed to offer a variety of media services, whatever that meant. I assumed it meant advertising, promotions, that sort of thing. Mostly, the site was visually flashy but vague in content, using phrases like “capitalizing peak exposure” and “maximum imprint value.” Sounded like so much hipster-ad-speak to me, but what did I know?

  As for his personal life, I found his name mentioned a few times in some articles about local events, such as a charitable ball that he attended and a wedding where he served as a groomsman. These were all several years old. Older still, he was mentioned as a survivor in an obituary of a Lyle Weston, which if my identification was correct, would mean that Michael’s father had been deceased for about seven years.

  And that was pretty much everything. It didn’t tell me much.

  If information about Michael was thin, then information about Gibson Reeves was virtually nonexistent.

  I only found two mentions of a Gibson Reeves associated with the city. If this was the correct Gibson Reeves, then he was a board member of a privately-held corporation called Roundtree Holdings. There wasn’t much information about Roundtree, either. It appeared to be involved with acquisitions and mergers. How large it was, I couldn’t say, since it didn’t release financials. Its headquarters were in the city.

  The only other mention of Gibson was in relation to an article in the newspaper about a local nursing home from nearly six years ago. Roundtree Holdings had purchased the home and the residents were upset that it would be closed and torn down to make room for new development. Gibson was interviewed in the article and had only one quote in the piece, that Roundtree had no plans to close the nursing facility.

  The article insinuated that there were further fears that the level of care in the home would deteriorate under its new ownership. From what I could see of the pictures accompanying the article, it didn’t appear that the upkeep of the place could get much worse. It looked in pretty shoddy shape, with peeling walls and open fixtures.

  And that was it for info about Gibson Reeves. Or at least, that’s all I could find.

  I desperately wished I were more savvy about Internet searches, and could have found out more about both Michael and Gibson. At least I was reassured that neither of them were dangerous convicts, unless their records had been expunged or something. No point in thinking in that direction.

  I closed my laptop and went to the kitchen. I stuck a frozen dinner in the microwave and while I waited for it to heat up, I considered what this lack of information might mean.

  When I took into account the nature of both men’s sexual predilections, it made sense that both men would be private types. I believed that what went on between consenting adults was their own personal business, but I knew plenty of people who disagreed with me.

  It was this knowledge that kept me from talking to my friends about what had been going on in my life of late. I didn’t know for certain that they would disagree with what I had done, or with what I was thinking of doing, but I didn’t want to take the chance of losing friendships over something that I wasn’t yet certain would be a permanent part of my life.

  Secrets are strange things. I didn’t like them, other than the surprise birthday party sort. Secrets implied shame and guilt, wrongdoing. I wanted to be done with shame and guilt.

  I wondered about my friends. If I told them about Gibson and me in the hallway of the bar that night, what would they say? If I left out the part where Gibson tied my hands to the light fixture, and how he spanked the hell out of me ... what then? What would they say? I’m sure they would laugh and tease and call me a bad girl, but wouldn’t be serious about the bad part. They’d say good for you, you’ve moved on.

  But what if I didn’t censor the story, told them everything, including the restraints and the spanking? What then? I didn’t know for certain. I felt sure, though, that if I told them about what I had done with Michael at Private Residence they would think that I had lost my mind.

  Forget, also, about any conversation regarding my second meeting with Gibson. I thought of telling my friends how Gibson tied me up and fucked me with a massive dildo. In my mental picture of telling the tale, I’d see my friends keel sideways out of their chairs, sent hurtling to the floor in a state of catatonia.

  Okay, maybe that picture was a bit of a stretch, and yet there was no way to know what they might think. I couldn’t risk it. So I had a secret. Did that mean I had to feel ashamed, too?

  The microwave timer beeped. I readied my meal, grabbed a drink from the fridge and a fork from one of the drawers, and headed into the living room to eat on the couch in front of the television, my usual routine.

  I was halfway through dinner and a sitcom when it hit me. Tomorrow evening I would see Elaine Hoyte, and she would tell me more about Michael. A thrill of excitement shot through me. I wasn’t standing still anymore. I was moving forward. To hell with what others might think. Tomorrow. I couldn’t wait.

  Elaine was waiting for me when I arrived at the lounge. It was one of those throwback places that hadn’t been remodeled in decades. It looked today like it probably looked in the 1970s. And the music playing softly in the background hadn’t been changed either; I was fairly certain that the song I was hearing was one of Jim Croce’s.

  Though the place was shabby, it was generally clean. The lighting was low, so I could have been wrong about the cleanliness. I chose to believe I was right.

  Elaine must have noticed my scrutiny because after we greeted one another and I sat down, she said, “Hope you don’t mind me choosing this old place. I love it. Makes me feel young because it reminds me of the past. Doesn’t hurt either that it still smells like cigarette smoke. I used to smoke and I still miss it.”

  I assured her I didn’t mind and she waved over a waitress to take my drink order. It was odd seeing Elaine in street clothes, her brown hair pinned back in a neat twist, her green blouse conservatively buttoned all the way to the top. She looked like any other attractive, white-collar female you might pass on the street. It was a total departure from the leather-corseted woman I met that night at Private Residence.

  After the waitress left, Elaine wasted no time and got straight to the heart of the matter.

  She sa
id, “So, you’ve got me here. What do you most want to know? We’ll start there.”

  I smiled. “Okay, what do you know about Michael Weston? How long have you known him?”

  “Ron and I have known him for maybe a year or so. Met him at a party a friend was throwing. He gave an exhibition on flogging. Had this gorgeous gal with red hair all trussed up and ... well anyway, you probably don’t want to hear about that part.”

  “Actually, that’s probably the part I should definitely hear about, whether I want to or not.”

  “Well, honey, he’s a handsome, single Dom, so he makes some tracks to be sure. There’s usually some woman or another more than ready to spend some dungeon time with him. I’ve seen him with lots of different women in the last year. He wasn’t serious about any of them, as far as I know.”

  “Is it his pattern to make the same offer to the women he, uh, dates? Dates doesn’t seem like the right word. The women he does his thing with?”

  Elaine chuckled. “Does his thing. Yep, that’s close enough. As to your question, I can’t say. What did he offer you?”

  “Five nights. He wants a five-night commitment from me to explore whether or not I might really be into the BDSM thing, into being a sub, whatever.”

  Elaine’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t say? Interesting. I’ve never heard of him doing that before, but don’t read too much into it. It’s for sure, though, like I said last night, he definitely wants to see you again. Looked like he has it pretty bad. Don’t remember him being that way before with anyone else.”

  That was reassuring. “Do you know if he’s ever been serious with anyone?”

  “Nobody since I’ve known him. But really, honey, there’s no point in being worried about the future and all. You don’t hardly know him yourself, so how do you know if you’ll even want to see him again once your five nights are up?”