by Lena Little
“How was your interview with Ms. Jones, Mr. Steele?” the overly friendly voice requires.
“Did you really think you’d send me an angel and I wouldn’t want to keep her?”
“Um…so that’s a yes?”
I can practically hear the voice on the other end counting their commission check.
“Not a yes, a hell yes,” I quickly reply, leaving no doubts as to what I think about my girl.
“Great. So would you like to offer her a probationary week, or maybe even a month, to test out her—“
“I don’t need a week or a month or anything more than a split second to identify talent. She’s already been hired, and she’s mine now.”
“Mr. Steele, I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work that way. There’s paperwork that needs to be completed before anything becomes official, not to mention we need to confirm with Ms. Jones that she’s—“
“Interested? She already agreed to be here at eight tomorrow morning. Email me the invoice to buy out her contract and I’ll have the money wired to your account before you sit down at your desk in the morning.”
I place the phone back on the receiver before the other party has a chance to respond. The art world is all about negotiation, convincing someone to pay exorbitant fees for something that may or may not be worth more in the future. You learn early you have to sell the buyer on emotion, and when it comes to my emotions I’m as cool as a cucumber.
But not with her. That woman on the other end probably thinks I’ve lost it, that I’m overpaying because I’m not going to run her through some nonsense probationary period.
When you know, you know. And although I don’t know what the invoice will read I do know I’d pay ten times whatever amount appears in my inbox.
What I don’t know is whether or not her bravado was a mere front. She doesn’t seem to know just how talented she is, nor more importantly just how much better she can be. She needs someone who can guide her. I could sense it the moment I laid eyes on her. She’s like clay that needs sculpting, or more accurately she’s Demi Moore in Ghost and she needs Patrick Swayze’s hands to point her in the right direction.
Then again, clay isn’t quite the right substance. Artists can be quirky and are allowed a lot of liberties that a normal employee of any other company wouldn’t. Their talent often lies in their idiosyncrasies. That said, I’ve never seen someone present their work from the innards of a Trapper Keeper. Do they even make those things anymore?
And that sparkly hair clip that she wore discreetly wasn’t lost on me.
There’s a part of her that she’s suppressing, a part that she’s keeping hidden from polite society, but a part of her begging to be let out.
There’s a childlike way that she goes about expressing herself, turning into a brat when challenged by a man with a strong hand.
I will change that, but she won’t be clay that I will mold. More accurately she’ll be more like…Play-Doh.
I’ll test her mettle, but I will not steal her fire.
What I will do is bring her to heel, to me and only me.
And if she sassed me again, she’ll get her first lesson in obedience.
I relax the fist I didn’t know I’d made, my palm flattening, itching to smack her sweet little ass.
And if she wisecracks me again it won’t just be her ass that will be the recipient of my disciplinary measure, but also her mouth.
I’ll kiss her so hard she won’t be able to speak. That should shut her up.
And if not I’ll teach her to mind her mouth by filling it with my cock.
3
Scarlett
I hadn’t intended to cut it this close to arriving at exactly eight, but after turning in my rental car and jumping off the wrong Metrorail stop, it was the predicament I was in.
And I wasn’t about to try and run the last hundred yards to the office. It was better to show up for my first day looking professional than covered in sweat from the humid Miami air.
Not to mention there’s something inside me that wants to knock him down a peg. Yesterday it seemed like he actually responded better when I finally stood up for myself, although he still closed the meeting on a bossy tone with his ‘do this, do that’ repetition about obedience. Would it really kill him to add in a ‘please’ once in a while?
Speaking of please, I was pleased I’d found a job so quickly, even though it did look like this was going to be somewhat of a golden cage. I hadn’t even negotiated the salary, although the temp agency did give me a ballpark for what SteeleSharp, the name Mr. Steele gave to his firm, was going to pay.
And I’d be paying attention to any and every clue I could find when it came to finding out what happened to my father. If Mr. Steele was any indication the waters of the Pacific weren’t the only place teaming with sharks. The fishbowl of the Miami art scene was sure to be teaming with them.
When it came to teams, I’d never had one, never been a part of one. I’d always worked alone yet was excited to try my hand in an environment where I’d be surrounded by other people who were probably ‘a bit out there’ there just like I was.
And teaming up with Mr. Steele might lead to anxiety medication, but it could also lead me to living up to my maximum potential. Despite his demeanor, there’s something about him that called to a part of me I never knew I had.
That line about divine intervention would have seemed corny coming from anyone else but him. He’s not one to mince words or tell you what you want to hear, or at least it sure doesn’t seem that way. There was something about the way he said it that made me believe, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was hoping he could help me believe in myself a bit more.
I take a deep breath and enter the building which bears his name, catching more than a few looks when I press the ‘P’ button for penthouse.
The moment I do, one guy looks at his watch and his eyes open wide and his head pulls back, almost as if the whole building knows about Mr. Steele’s rules about timeliness.
Just before the man gets off his head tilts slightly my way. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to…” My words fade off as he’s long gone down his floor and the elevator swallows me back up, skyrocketing me to the top floor.
The ding almost sounds like that sound you hear at the top of amusement park rides like there’s a pin being pulled, and then you race to your death, or at least that’s how it feels.
I take a deep breath and before I can even exhale, before I have my back foot out of the elevator, the receptionist says, “Mr. Steele needs to see you in his office immediately.”
No hello. No good morning. No, I hope your first day here is great.
And when I look up at the clock I know why.
8:03
I go to take a calming inhale, forgetting that I’ve yet to exhale and it causes me to cough.
“Ms. Jones. In my office. Now,” a deep baritone echoes throughout the reception.
I nervously scratch my arm and bite down on my lip as I walk toward Mr. Steele’s office door.
The second I cross his threshold I see him, feet planted wide and his arms across his chest. His jaw is stiff as stone and he’s staring at me with venom in his eyes.
“Were you looking for me?” I bat my eyelashes, but it does nothing to improve the look he’s giving me.
“Shut the door,” he commands. I turn and fumble with the handle, pulling it shut to the sound of a loud clicking sound like a bank vault sealing, notifying me that there’s no way out.
His arm extends from his suit and he looks pointedly at his watch, which I can see is a Rolex from clear across the room. Unlike boys my age he wasn’t trying to show off his disposable income’s ability to purchase the finer things in life, he was showing me something else entirely. And I wasn’t going to show him what he wanted more than anything. Fear.
“I didn’t peg you as a cliché, sir,” I toss out, causing his eyes to turn even more devilish.
“And I didn’t peg you for someone who talks back.”
Yeah, Disney wouldn’t be calling him anytime soon for tips on how to play a credible Prince Charming.
Just as I expect him to call me over, he surprises me, and walks purposefully in my direction until the tips of his shoes are flush with mine.
I can’t go forward, and I can’t go backwards. And I most certainly can’t go through him.
“What did I say yesterday?” he says firmly, yet surprisingly calmly.
“You asked me to be on time.”
“I didn’t ask you. I told you.”
Silence, and then he turns on his heel and walks back to his desk and sits.
I bring my trembling hand to my face, covering it while I shake my head and close my eyes as my body collapses back into the door in relief.
It definitely felt like that situation was about to escalate.
“Come. Here.”
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Little girl, you come here,” he adds, offering no further explanation.
“No,” I bite.
“Did you just say…no?”
I shake my head as a child might.
“I see you still haven’t learned the difference between orders and suggestions, and that, little girl, was not a suggestion.”
My tongue darts out of my mouth as I bend forward at the waist, my body doing things I have no justification for.
“You’ll learn to do as you’re told,” he threatens, and without a word more he points to his knee.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry at all, but you’re about to be.”
I mope toward his desk, my feet betraying me as the magnetic pull of his confidence and authority sucks me right into a vortex that’s threatening to pull me under.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” I say as I arrive at the side of his desk.
“Amazing how compliant you are when you’re on the verge of getting your butt whipped.”
My eyes shoot open wide. I wanted to test him, see what he’d really do, but now that he’s just verbalized his actual plans I’m not sure if my game of cat and mouse has gone too far, or has landed me exactly where I want to be, need to be.
A pool was already forming in my panties as my nipples begin to harden, a trail of cold sweat running down my back. Even though he was sitting down, his head is practically at eye level with me.
I feel tiny enough to blow away in the hurricane that he is. My chest tightens and my mind goes blank.
I still wasn’t sure if butt whipped meant actually whipping my butt, or he was using the term metaphorically. There’s no way he could actually spank me, right? Talk about the biggest HR nightmare in history. I’d walk out of this rich in cash, but maybe what I really wanted to be rich in was this experience he was promising.
“When you were a child, were you a good girl or a bad girl?”
“A good girl,” I say shyly.
“And did you get spanked?”
“No, sir.”
“And why is that?”
“Because good girls don’t get spanked.”
“That’s right. Everyone likes a good girl. But bad girls? Well, bad girls need reminding why they need to be good. Isn’t that right?”
“I. I’m not sure,” the words escape my lips so softly they are barely audible. His logic is sound so I can’t say no, but I’m not really going to agree with him.
“The correct answer is ‘yes, sir,’” he says, leaning even closer to me, the heat from his breath somehow turning up the temperature on my already red hot skin.
I can’t speak.
Mr. Steele rises out of his seat, the frame creaking as all that is now in his chair is the deep horseshoe indent from where his massive body had been sitting.
He moves in behind me, not saying a word, not touching me, and it makes me even hotter, both in temperature and in desire.
My eyes darted every which way as I try to latch onto something, anything, that can help me understand my feelings right now.
“Bend over,” he commands, the order rolling off his lips which are now just a hairsbreadth behind my ear.
Before I can even move he adds, “And spread your legs.”
Oh. My. God.
I can sense his body backing away, giving me room so that when I bend my ass doesn't make contact with his groin.
My palms find the top of his desk and then I hear the unmistakable sound of a belt buckle unclasping followed by the whoosh of leather through loops.
I turn just as he’s finished folding the belt in half, yanking it tight. The snapping sound it makes causes me to flinch and blink at the same time.
“Wider,” he says, the outside of his heel touching the inside of mine.
I assume the position, bending my body more and sticking my ass up in the air.
“Take your hands off the top of the desk and grab the edge real tight, unless you want a busted lip. I don’t want you face-planting into hundred-year-old hardened oak.”
I do as I’m told, facing forward and bracing myself for his hand. I’ve never done anything with a boy before, ever, and here I am my ass in the air ready to be spanked for my transgressions by a man, and one helluva real one at that.
“Tell me you can’t handle it and it doesn’t go any further.”
“Would it really matter? Would it actually stop you?”
“Sassy to the very end. At least you’re consistent.” He pauses before continuing. “Three minutes late. Three spanks.”
I can smell my own arousal, feel the moisture dripping from me, as I swallow hard.
“You’re my naughty girl, aren’t you, little one?”
I whimper, but say nothing, just brace myself for the impending blow.
“Say it. Say you’re my naughty little girl…” His words trail off as if there’s something else on his mind. A way to punctuate the end of the sentence with one more word that gives it the full stop it needs. “Say it,” he grunts.
“Uh huh.”
“Words, not noises,” he counters, his words laced with a kind of verbal need I don’t recognize.
“I’m your naughty little girl…” I get caught on the end of the sentence myself, but before I can figure out what else it needs I hear his belt jingle as he throws it into his empty chair and then feel the full weight and authority of his palm as it connects with my cheeks.
My body lurches forward and I find that word I was looking for, almost as if he’s knocked it out of me.
“Daddy!”
Just as I’m expecting a second slap the room completely silences.
“What did you say?”
“I’m your naughty little girl,” I repeat, as my stomach does somersaults and the release of that one final word feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders, even though the weight of a gigantic man has been transferred through torque and via his hand directly against my bottom.
“The last part. The final word. Say it again.”
“Daddy.”
“What did you call me?”
“Daddy,” I say, this time with more authority.
He growls, and I feel his other hand knife into my hair, yanking my head back just before his hand comes crashing down on my backside for a second time, causing what looks like a very expensive lamp to fall from his desk and crash to a million pieces.
I yelp, and he leans in, biting my earlobe and pressing his rock hard erection against the side of my hip as I catch myself actually sticking my ass out farther, demanding his touch, just as he obliges and the third spank finds my ass.
And with that he releases me entirely, and my body collapses onto his desk knowing one more would have sent me over the edge.
“Sir! Is everything all right in there?” I hear a female voice cry out accompanied at the same time by three quick knocks on his door.
“Don’t make a sound,” he says softly enough that only I can hear.
“I love how you squirm for me.”
I want to deny it, to spit right in his eye, but I can’t. We both know it would be a lie. I was thrusting my hips back demanding that final lick of punishment, wondering why he didn’t use the belt but at the same time glad he didn't.
“While you’re under my roof, in my building, you’ll do what Daddy says.”
“That hurt, Daddy.”
“Did it? Good,” he says moving in closer and wrapping his hand around my neck. “Because that’s exactly what we both wanted.”
I nuzzle into his pant leg and he slides his hands underneath my armpits, pulling me up onto his lap.
“Little girl, I want what’s best for you. I’m not one of the bad guys,” he says as I wrap my arms around his head and nuzzle my face into the crook of his neck, making my body as small as humanly possible on his lap.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not one of the good ones either.”
4
Scarlett
The next morning
I wake to the sound of my neighbors fighting, thinking I might have been better off sleeping another night in my car. At least I could park it in a nice neighborhood, recline the seat, and not be bothered.
Not here.
Although HR pulled me into their office after Silas spanking, to tell me I’d be receiving a salary advance before the end of the day, it still didn’t go too far after paying the first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and security deposit on the place where I found myself now.
The neighborhood wasn’t exactly scary, but then again what was after being around Silas all day?
I’ve lived in low-income housing my whole life and that kind of scary is a lot different than the kind of scary Silas serves up. His was more like a protective, possessive, I want what’s best for you kind of scary.
But as I rolled over and shake my phone so it will display the time I realize that theory might be put to the test really soon.
7:24.
Crap!
I bolt out of bed, stripping out of my polka dot pajamas and sliding into my work clothes on my way to the bathroom. And by on my way, I mean the five feet that separate the bed from the bathroom.
