by Suzy Shearer
Dan laughed to take the sting from his words. He dropped his feet back on the ground. “Tell you what. Listen to this voice. It’s what I came in for. And if it doesn’t affect you at all then you really are a coldhearted emotionless prick.”
“Voice? What voice?”
Dan picked up a CD he’d put on Alex’s desk. “Remember we talked about doing some promos for the new documentary? We toyed with the idea of using a woman to do the promo voice-over because the doco is about sex among plants. We thought a female voice would add a level of sensuality.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.”
“Well I've found a voice. Listen to this.”
Dan stood and dropped the disk into a DVD/CD player nearby. Returning to his seat, he watched Alex’s face. The sound bite was of a commercial about mobile phones and keeping in touch with loved ones. It was a pretty ordinary commercial, but the voice was anything but. A woman’s age was indeterminable age, but her voice—ah, the voice was pure magic!
When the thirty-second ad finished Dan had a huge grin on his face. Alex felt the look on his face was priceless. He was certainly sitting up and taking notice.
“Play it again.”
In all, Dan replayed it four more times. After the last time, Alex shook his head.
“Fuck!”
“I know.”
“Jeez, Dan, it’s like she’s whispering dirty things in my frigging ear while we were having sex.”
Grinning like a lunatic and nodding in agreement Dan marvelled. “Amazing, isn’t it.”
“Shit, Dan, I almost got a hard-on!”
“The bad news is I think she’s in England. I can’t find out her name, but the branch of the studio that made it is based in England. It’s Sonic Max Sounds, their Europe office.”
“We’ve used them years ago, didn’t we, before we set up our own?”
“Yeah, when we did that doco on the North Sea and a few others. They do have a branch out here. It’s their head office, and it’s not far away actually.”
“So we need to find out if she’s available for promo work.” He studied Dan. “How will it go with female viewers?”
“The consensus is fine. Naturally most men react to it, but surprisingly she’s got a 78 percent approval rating with women.”
“That’s good. We don’t want to put women viewers off even if we hook majority of the men.”
“So we go with her if she’s available?”
“We do.”
Dan looked over at Alex. “She just might turn out to be the one woman who can thaw your fucking cold heart, mate, and make you fall in love.”
Alex laughed ruefully. “Yeah she’s probably eighty years old and has a hearing aid, or else she’s thirty with six grimy kids, drinks like a fish, and smokes like a chimney.”
“Well, you’re probably right. Anyway, I’ll see what I can find out.”
Dan stood and left the room. Alex got up and played the CD one more time. He’d never admit it to Dan but that voice, it called to him, like a siren song luring him onto the dangerous rocks. He snorted.
She probably is eighty, and I’ve got all hot and bothered by her voice. Well, at least, we’ll make people sit up and take notice of our promo if she does it.
A couple of hours later Dan came back in.
“Okay, here’s what I found out. She’s available, but there’s only a small window of time because she’s finishing a documentary. It needs to be completed by next week. So she can fit us in if we can get the stuff to her today because they are checking through what she’s done on the doco. She’d actually in England at the moment, but she is returning here soon. They do have a few studios around the world.”
“Did you speak to her?” Alex tried to keep any eagerness out of his voice. “Does she sound the same on the phone?”
“No spoke with a secretary who handles all the bookings.”
“Damn. Okay. Well, we’ve got it all together, haven’t we?”
“Yep, the final print was done yesterday. We’ve got the excerpts organised for the promo so we can send them over. I can e-mail it across as long as we have it ready.”
“Good. You went over the lines?”
“I did. Sounds good. I think we go with it.”
“Okay. Get it to her. Did you find out her name?”
“They never told me. As soon as I mentioned the commercial they knew who I was talking about.”
Dan left the room. Alex felt frustrated. He had felt they would at least have a name for her. He pulled up Google on his laptop and did a search. The top two pages were the video of the commercial plus several others. There were a few forum sites devoted to discussing why people thought her voice was the sexiest on the planet. But whoever she was, she was keeping her identity a secret.
Annoyed for showing this much interest in a voice, Alex tried to convince himself the only reason was because it would be good for ratings, but deep down he knew that just wasn’t true. He leaned back in his chair again and thought about the conversation he’d had with Dan this morning.
He knew he held himself tight. He’d seen his parents go through marriage after marriage. They both went through partners as if it were a revolving doorway, never staying more than a few years, sometimes only a couple of months. Even while they lived under the same roof they had partners. When he was older his father told him they had only stayed together for his sake, but Alex often wondered if he would be as scared of feelings as he was if they had separated.
Alex had lived through their terrible fights when growing up. They would scream and throw things, telling each other how much each hated the other. There was never any love shown in the house, not even to him. They paraded different partners to each other, each trying to outdo the other. He knew those early days with his parents had left him emotionally scarred. He’d vowed early on he would never let someone hold his emotions. He’d always been determined to never allow himself the chance to fall in love.
Alex thought it was the reason why he became a Dom. By becoming a Dom he’d realised he had the perfect way to control his emotions, to have a physical relationship and give everything to a woman without any sort of emotional entanglement. At the same time he decided he would become the best Dom he possibly could be.
If he were being honest, he really enjoyed the control. It turned him on to have a woman put her complete trust and faith in him to do what was right for them. He’d get aroused knowing she depended on him to control her and to give her as much pleasure as he possibly could. Over the years he’d honed his skills to the point where now he was a Dom master who could have his pick of subs.
But there had been a downside. Over the years none of them lasted very long. They usually parted as friends after telling him they wanted a more emotional relationship or a commitment other than sexual. Pamela had been one of the longest, and her parting speech the most painful, probably because deep down he knew she was right.
He knew he held women at arm’s length, anything to stop his emotions from taking over. He had to always be in complete control, had to be the cold emotionless Dom.
Yes, Pamela was right—he always avoided any sort of intimate knowledge except on a sexual level. He gave a wry laugh. He knew exactly what her favourite position was and knew intimately what would have her screaming in delight as she came. What he didn’t know was her favourite flower, and he had no idea what her favourite colour was. It was always the same—he’d send roses to any sub he was with. But now he wondered what Pamela’s favourite flowers actually were!
He really envied Dan. He and Stacy were so happy, and they did things together and had lots of laughs. They were so obviously in love still after all these years. But Alex honestly thought they were the exception not the rule. They’d given up asking him to bring a date over when he met up with them outside of work. Usually they dined together at least twice a week, and Alex suddenly realised he couldn’t remember the last time his friends had asked him to bring a partner to dinner or socia
l outings.
Yes, Dan was right. His future looked as if he was going to be a lonely old bastard. He couldn’t imagine any woman would like to sign a contract with a seventy-five-year-old Dom.
Chapter Two
“Well I just got a call from Sonic Max Sounds in Europe. They’ve got all the stuff we sent them. It came through okay. Still no word on the name of our mystery woman.”
“Thanks, Dan. Guess her name doesn’t really matter as long as the promo sounds good. Any idea when it will be done?”
“It’s actually being done today. The woman I spoke with this morning said she will e-mail us a sound file to check in case we want to make any changes.”
“Perfect.”
Dan went to leave.
“Dan, can you spare an hour to go over the plans for the otter documentary?”
“How ’bout in two hours’ time? I’ve got a couple of things to finish up.”
“Okay, see you then. You want me to come to your office, or will we do it in the boardroom?”
“Boardroom. There’s more room in case we need to scribble on the whiteboard or go through photographs.”
“See you then.”
Dan nodded and left the room. Alex felt a little disappointed. He had been sure Dan would have been able to talk to their mystery woman instead of through a third party. He kept finding his thoughts going back to her, wondering what she looked like and if she really was some sexy-voiced old lady. He shook his head in anger.
This was crazy! He’d never allowed a woman to dominate his thoughts before. Yet now a woman had been filling them, and he’d never met her!
Alex decided the only logical reason had been Pamela’s leaving—her comments and Dan’s. They’d all been floating inside his head, and then he heard this sexy siren’s voice. Was it any wonder he’d begun to fantasise about her?
Alex did a bit more work on the script he’d been working on and then gathered all the paperwork for his upcoming trip to Brazil to film otters. He headed downstairs to their boardroom.
The company owned a very large building. It held everything they needed in the one place, including several sound stages, equipment and storage areas, dressing and makeup rooms, mill shops, and editing rooms, as well as offices for themselves and for visiting clientele.
The ground level sprawled out over the entire area, and then there were two additional floors on one end of this. The bottom floor held mainly reception and all the stages, visitor’s offices and storage areas, a large cafeteria and relaxation area for the staff filled with pinball machines, gym equipment, TVs, a two-lane lap pool, and lots of comfy couches. Alex knew if he kept his staff happy, they would stay with the company. There was always a relaxed atmosphere among the staff. They enjoyed their work and enjoyed working for Alex. He paid well but expected 110 percent loyalty, and he usually got exactly that.
Upstairs was the boardroom and all his staff offices, as well as a small theatre for viewing rushes, and the finished films sat on the second floor. Then the top floor held his and Dan’s offices. They also had a bedroom as well as a bathroom—at times if either of them was too tired they could sleep there. Alex was infamous for spending the night there when working on something that he didn’t want to put down.
Just as he was spreading the papers on the table Dan walked in with one of their sound engineers, Lenny.
“You’re going to love this.”
* * * *
Lenny had a CD in his hand and pushed it into a nearby deck as Dan spoke. Lenny pushed Play. The dulcet, sweet, sexy tones of their mystery woman filled the room.
The promo was short. It talked about birds doing it and bees doing it and then went on to talk about plants doing it. The words themselves were innocent and informative, but when that luscious voice spoke them, those simple words took on a whole new world of innuendo and sensuality. There was a few minutes silence when the promo finished then Alex cleared his throat.
“Er…fuck! My God, who’d think a promo about plants would get anyone hot under the collar?”
“I think there may be some other, shall we say, harder reactions.”
They all laughed.
“Lenny’s going to overlay on the promo. Then we can see how it lines up, just in case we need them to tweak it slightly.”
“Thanks, Lenny.”
Lenny took the CD and left the room. Dan pulled up a chair opposite Alex, who was staring into space again.
“She’s got you hooked,” Dan said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it. Think we need to find out just who she is so I can get back to being a cold bastard.”
Dan laughed at his friend and wagged a finger at him. “I hope she turns out to be some gorgeous creature who’ll drive you crazy.”
“No thank you!” Alex said with a shudder.
Dan was still chuckling as they began going through the details of the otter documentary.
Later that day Lenny told Dan they needed a couple of tweaks to fit the voice-over into the promo. Dan promised to take care of it and immediately rang London. It was probably close to six at night there, but he hoped someone would still be around. He got the shock of his life when the mystery woman answered and sounded just as sexy over the phone. He stuttered for a moment and then explained who he was and what he wanted.
“Can you e-mail me a rough copy of where you want more space and where you want the extra wording?”
“Certainly. I figured if there was someone there tonight I could let them know to look out for the e-mail I was sending. Had my fingers crossed with the time difference. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be there or if I’d have to leave a message on the answering machine.”
“You were in luck. I was just locking up. We actually managed to all get away on time tonight, except for four of us. I’m just trying to finish up my latest work.”
“I’m glad. Thanks very much for this. The promo is sounding great.”
“I enjoyed doing it.” She gave a soft laugh. “Plus you’re paying me a lovely fat fee.”
Dan joined in the joke.
“I’ll e-mail you the sound file again and just e-mail me back to let me know if it’s okay or not.”
“Will do. I’ll mark it attention to you. What’s your name?”
“Oh I’ll see it, but if you just mark it Kallie, with a K, it will be fine.”
“Kallie with a K. Okay, I will.”
“Thanks.”
Dan was curious. “So do you get over here at all?”
“I actually have my home not far from your studios on Spencer’s Mountain. I’m over here at the moment finishing a couple of docos but I’ll be back soon. Completed one doco and just finalising the other.”
“Oh that’s great! Spencer’s Mountain isn’t far from my home, maybe less than three-quarters of an hour tops. My wife and I would love to take you to dinner when you’re back and I know my partner, Alex, would love to meet you.”
“Thanks, Dan. I’ll definitely take you up on that very soon. There’s a sound convention I’m attending in two weeks near your town, and then I’m back home to live, hopefully for a very long while.”
“That’d be great. Maybe we could meet up at the convention one day as well. Anyway thanks again for the work. It sounds amazing.”
“Glad you like it. Night, Dan.”
“Night, Kallie.”
Dan hung up smiling to himself. He walked over to Alex’s office.
“You just might get to meet your dream girl soon. She’s coming over here for a convention, and she actually lives here.”
“No thanks. I doubt the body would match the voice. Leave me my daydreams.”
Dan teased him. “I know her name.”
Dan could see Alex didn’t want to react but he couldn’t help himself.
“You do? What?”
“Well, her first name at least. It’s Kallie with a K.”
“Kallie.” Alex’s voice sounded a little husky as he swung his chair back and forth, shak
ing his head at Dan.
“I bet you can’t resist, you’ll want to meet her when you know she’s here.”
“No. I don’t want to be disappointed.”
“Okay.”
Dan agreed, but silently he thought Alex wouldn’t be able to stop himself from meeting her. He said good night to Alex and went back to his office. After picking up his jacket and briefcase, he made his way downstairs and out to the carpark. He’d promised to take Stacy to dinner this evening and knew she’d be hoping he would get away early or at least on time.
As he drove he thought about Alex. Alex was his best friend, and Dan couldn’t imagine not knowing him, not having him in his life, but at times he wanted to shake him. Alex had this crazy fear that if allowed himself to get involved with a woman on an emotional level she would love him for a little while then change her mind and leave.
Dan had tried to tell him his reasoning was crazy so many times over the years, but Alex would have none of it. Dan had no idea how he’d managed to avoid any emotional entanglements all these years.
Maybe it was the reason he was a great Dom, and Dan knew there were plenty of subs out there who would love nothing more than to be held in Alex’s arms. Dan also knew that once the novelty of being with Alexander the Great wore off they wouldn’t stay—they never did—when they knew how emotionless he would be with them.
Pamela had been spot-on when she called Alex a frozen bastard and a coldhearted emotionless prick. He’d locked his heart up tightly and thrown the key away long ago. Dan despaired that he’d never be able to unlock it even if he wanted to. Still it was Alex’s life and if he chose to live that way, sadly Dan could do nothing about it.
* * * *
Alex finished the draft of a new idea he had and then stood. He walked over to the window and looked out over the roof of the studios to the distant city skyline.
So her name was Kallie. He thought the name suited the voice. He wondered if he really would be able to resist the temptation to meet her when she did come back.
