Sublime Trust

by Jaye Peaches

  My jaw dropped. When I snuck a glance at Gillian, her mouth gaped open once again.

  She sprang to her feet, kicking back the chair. “I’m a fucking shareholder!”

  “Please, sit.” Jason fixed her with one of his firm stares, and she capitulated. “I bought the majority of the shares. We left yours alone. It gave me the executive power I needed. When I sold it back to him, Anthony kept those shares I had, ensuring his ownership. Unfortunately, the risk, too.”

  To Gillian, the business must have risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Well managed and prosperous but all down to Jason’s intervention, not Anthony’s good fortune. “Why wonder he doesn’t want you involved, Jason. You would buy the business up again, and he would be so ashamed. He would rather go bankrupt! God, this is worse than I thought.” She buried her head in her hands and I, unsure of my role, put an arm around her shoulders. Over her head, I shot Jason a pleading expression. He shook his head, as if to dismiss me from the conversation. I remained mute.

  Jason continued. “I’ve no intention of buying the company. The problem lies not with money but contracts. The cash crisis has come about because while the suppliers aren’t providing him with goods, the company can’t sell. Recreate the supply chain, and the cash will flow again. He needs a different tactic for dealing with his suppliers or to change them.”

  “He won’t change his tactics. Something to do with importing goods or quality issues. I don’t know. He won’t talk to me. We shout a lot instead.”

  “Let him come and shout at me, then. I don’t care if he has to be angry, fired up, or whatever. If it gets the issues resolved, do it. Bait him with something, Gillian. Make him think I’m going to buy it up. If he won’t step into this building, have him come storming in here or wherever. He’ll listen to you, even if you’re shouting. It’s better than refusing to talk to me.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Of course I’ve bloody tried. I’ve left voice messages, emails. He doesn’t even bother to open those. How do you think I feel? Watching him piss away the company I rescued once because he holds a grudge. I don’t do grudges. Anthony unfortunately does. Big style.” It was Jason’s turn to vent his spleen, and his voice rose.

  There was more going on than sibling rivalry; there had to be to harbour such animosity.

  “I understand.” Gillian sighed. “I’ll speak to him tonight. You’re happy for me to lie?”

  “No. But if that’s what it takes to get him talking to me, do it.” Jason picked up the phone. “Martinson, I need a car to take my sister-in-law home…. Yes, that’s the address. And another one for my wife.”

  “Wait,” I interjected. “Let me go with Gillian, keep her spirits up? A round trip won’t be a problem.”

  Anthony and Gillian lived in the suburban home counties on the same side of the city as Blythewood. Jason paused, and I caught his eye. The reason why I wanted to go with Gillian was legitimate—a calming voice in her ear—but I also wanted to speak to her about nagging thoughts revolving in my own mind.

  “Scrap the car for my wife. She will ride along and then head back to the White House.” He hung up the phone.

  Gillian picked up her handbag. “Thank you, Jason, for seeing me at short notice. I hope you can do something. Something acceptable to Anthony.” The edge in her voice came across as a warning shot. Don’t screw my husband.

  “A car is waiting downstairs to take you home. I’m sure you two can gossip for longer.”

  As we headed towards his office door, Gillian touched her moist nose and turned. “I need the bathroom before we go in the car. Freshen up.”

  I told her where to find the ladies’, and she offered her cheek for a farewell kiss from Jason.

  “If he won’t come, tell me. Ring me, Gillian,” said Jason as she headed out of the door.

  I went to follow, but Jason grabbed my arm and drew me back into the room, closing the door behind him.

  I stood before him for a few seconds. I had the sensation his glower drilled though my head and hit the back wall of his office.

  “You didn’t think to tell me Gillian was the reason for your visit? Is this another one of your well-practised oversights?”

  I straightened my back, coming to attention under his appraisal. “It slipped my mind when I spoke to Melissa.”

  “Slipped your mind. Uhm. I’d call that an oversight. I’m getting tired of your inability to communicate oversights. If you had told Melissa the meeting was with my sister-in-law, I would have guessed the subject and cleared my diary to give her my attention. Instead, she stuffed you between meetings, and I had to brush Eliza off at short notice.”

  I clasped the strap of my handbag tighter. I’d become the scapegoat for his angst over his brother’s situation. “I apologise, Sir. I should have been more specific. I wasn’t aware you knew about all of this, since you didn’t bother to tell me what you and your father spoke about on his last visit.” I let another one of my ill-advised thoughts slip out of my mouth.

  My mistake. I’d introduced another issue and tipped Jason into reprimand mode. Within seconds, he’d spun me about and shuffled me towards the wall. He planted his hands on either side of my head, and I pressed my face to one side. My heart raced, excited, alarmed—the usual confused mixture of emotions.

  With me sandwiched between his warm body and the cool wall, his breath caught the back of my neck. I goose bumped in a pleasing fashion.

  “Don’t be antagonistic with me, Gemma. I’m not in the mood. This evening, I will ensure you understand your situation. Something for my pleasure. Do you understand?”

  He didn’t specify if his enjoyment extended to me. “Yes, Master. I will do my best to please you this evening.”

  “Once Clara has gone and Joshua is tucked up in his cot, you will wait for me. You will do nothing but wait for me to come home and show me your willingness.”

  I wanted to pee now, too, his infamous, smooth tone made me want to pee with excitement and trepidation, blurring everything into sexual energy.

  “Yes, Master. I will be ready for you,” I murmured.

  I shut my eyes. His erection bulged, nudging against my clenching bottom. A pillar of desire, which signalled his intentions towards me, and I reciprocated with my wet pussy and breathless pants.

  “Good.” He squeezed my breasts hard in his hands and kissed my neck, just below my symbolic necklace. Nibbling kisses, which would leave tiny red teeth marks. I moaned, an inescapable whisper of lust and need. The spat between us had already begun to slip away. We both knew his vexation wasn’t directed at me. His absent brother had created the tension, but it was my job to alleviate it.

  “Go.” He released me with a customary smack to my bottom and, as I turned to kiss him good-bye, his face softened. I was a little way there already.

  Chapter 7. Bullying

  The moment Gillian and I settled on the back seat of the Jaguar, I asked her about the bad blood between the brothers. “It goes beyond their business dealing, it must do. Back to when they were children.”

  I held my breath. Gillian intended to spill the beans with me the eager receptacle for her tale.

  “I’ve no doubt it does, from what Anthony has told me. The bullying and everything.”

  Bullying! I glanced over to the driver’s seat where Gibson, our nominated driver, gripped the steering wheel.

  “Gibson, can you put some music on for us please.”

  “Of course, Mrs Lucas.” A professional chauffeur, I trusted her not to repeat what she heard spoken in the back of the car.

  “Jason bullied Anthony?” I repeated softly, assimilating the news with some disbelief. Jason had hinted at his tendency to bully as a schoolchild. I’d assumed he meant other children and not Anthony.

  “Oh yes....” Once she began, I didn’t interrupt.

  The journey turned into a revelation about Jason’s childhood, his awakening dominance. Nothing she told me about his personality came as a surprise. I’d often
wondered from where his dominant persona had originated. Had it been nurtured into his profile or had it been innate and there from the beginning?

  Except, according to Gillian’s story, he didn’t start by dominating. Quite the contrary, it would seem.

  Jason had bullied Anthony as a child at their school—taunting, hitting where marks didn’t show, trying to assert himself over Anthony even though the older Jason was popular with his fellow pupils. Audrey found out—Gillian didn’t indicate how—and she punished Jason by asking the school to remove his prefecture status.

  The private school Jason and his brother attended had been suspicious of Jason, fearing he used his status as house prefect to bully or tease, the skill a natural gift to Jason. Having his mother present the case against him put the school in a position to revoke his prefecture and hand it to another.

  Jason had been very humiliated by the loss of prestige and returned to school without his badge of honour. Gillian chuckled at the image of a humbled Jason, brought down by his own mother. I read a different message—Audrey had given Jason a personal lesson about the power of humiliation and an experience he would never forget.

  Audrey hadn’t stopped with one punishment. She had given Jason rules about how to interact with Anthony. No competitive games, and Jason had to help him with his homework, iron his brother’s school uniform, tidy Anthony’s bedroom once a week and, in return, Anthony had to show his gratitude by giving up a proportion of his pocket money to Jason for his services. If Jason didn’t perform the tasks, he received no pocket money.

  He had effectively had acted as Anthony’s submissive. Jason would not have been a willing submissive. Quite the contrary, he would have hated being told what to do. From his experience, Jason had understood the submissive quality, to want to serve and please another, but he wouldn’t have empathised with the role because it didn’t make him happy. I suspected if he’d tried to fight back or use his notorious temper, his mother had increased the chores and docked his money further.

  Anthony, according to Gillian, resented giving his money up because what Jason had been required to do for him didn’t give him anything he wanted—a tidy room and ironed clothes were not at the top of a teenager’s list of desirables. The arrangement pleased their mother to no end. When he was older, I imagined Jason had worked out Audrey’s true intention had been to keep the boys apart, occupied, and dependent on each other in some way, plus chores were accomplished. Both of the boys were doing things that satisfied their mother, not them. She became Jason’s role model—the natural Dominant who probably had no idea she had managed to both humiliate and control her sons.

  At some point in his life, Jason developed a fascination with control and submission, and I speculated its roots lay in his mother’s attitude towards him.

  Gillian sniggered. “He learnt his lesson and stopped bullying.”

  Or had he? According to the ongoing tale, instead of teasing, he’d asked his fellow pupils to do things in return for “benefits”—tangible or intangible—the privilege of hanging out with a popular teenager like Jason. A troupe of devotees followed him around, and he’d practiced his fledging leadership skills on them, discovering what worked and what didn’t.

  “The man was destined to be a leader, but how close he came to being expelled. Imagine!” Gillian ended her recounting.

  I guess some of it had come from Anthony’s own lips, and maybe he’d embellished the story. More likely Jason’s youngest brother, Michael, had filled in the minor details. Michael adored his older brother, and he’d balanced out the bias. Nobody had told me, of course. The Lucas family kept its secrets tight to its chest. Gillian, although an outsider like me, must have winkled it out of the brothers over time.

  I’d always thought the young Jason, with no awareness of a lifestyle based on dominating others, had become a Dominant through his sexual liaisons. Now, my opinion shifted. Without the early lesson in humility, he might have become aggressive, but his mother, perhaps unwittingly, had introduced the idea of managing his temper and his need to exert his authority over others by using other techniques—her innocuous style of parenting.

  Jason must have enjoyed the power it gave him. From school, he’d gone to practise his dominance on his fellow students at university. I ventured he’d been an excellent advocate during his legal studies, a popular captain of the cricket team, and he had encouraged others to follow him in his competitive pursuits.

  The sadist remained though, but upon his sexual awakening, he’d redirected it, turning the desire into acceptable gratification rather than power play for no purpose. Jason didn’t need to bully anybody. He had learnt the art of domination without retribution from his chosen consenting companions. Submissives, who revelled in the attention, the control and the pleasure of letting go. People like me.

  Once home, I concentrated on my little man whom I’d neglected for most of the day. I sent Clara home with a big thank you for taking care of him at short notice. Announcing it was time for his bath, Joshua clambered up the stairs on his own, and we had a fun time bursting bubbles. In the midst of play, he said, “Mummy,” not “mumumum” but a definite, “Mummy.” Elated, I gave him a big kiss.

  After he nodded off in his cot, I rang my parents and told them the news. Somebody had to hear about it.

  As my mother burbled on about her day, with a heart-stopping thump, I remembered Jason’s instructions. It was already past seven o’clock!

  “Sorry, Mum, have to dash. Forgot to do something.” I hung up on her bewildered good-bye.

  I threw off my clothes and decided I would go for the pleasing sexy approach for his welcome-home greeting. I hitched up white lacy stockings—slight snag behind the knee but I didn’t have time to fuss with it—and suspenders. I abandoned the knickers and opted for an ivory corset, which sat underneath my breasts, pushing them into a prominent position.

  The trouble with corsets was doing them up on my own. I managed to pull the laces together, but insufficiently to draw in my waistline. The clock ticked on the tallboy. A resounding noise, which hampered my concentration. Examining myself in the mirror, I knew he’d find the cinching unacceptable. I had to repeat the process of tightening and tying the loops behind my back. Finally, I slipped on high heels and bundled my hair into a bun.

  I clattered down the stairs and stood in the hallway. I could see, through the frosted glass, the outline of his Austin Martin on the driveway. I knelt, rested my trembling hands on my thighs and attempted to control my breathlessness.

  Jason stood over me, swinging his briefcase.

  “Master. Welcome home.” I kissed the shiny caps of his patent-leather shoes with quivering lips.

  “I’m glad you remember what I asked you to do. I like the corset—it is a pleasing addition to your appearance.”

  Thank goodness! “Thank you, Sir. Would you like your dinner?”

  He sniffed. The smell of food wafted out of the kitchen. “Yes. I take it Brooks has provided the dish?”

  I took his laptop case from him, propping it by the stairs ready to take to his study. “I didn’t have time to sort anything out. Bath time was rather exciting with Joshua.” I tottered towards him on my ridiculous high heels.

  “Oh, why?”

  I lifted my beaming face. “He called me Mummy!”

  He patted my cheek. “Good for you.”

  After we had eaten, he insisted I stayed in my sexy garb, and he held me to his promise of putting me in my place.

  My excited announcement of our son’s achievement lost his interest rapidly. He re-capped the day’s fault and provided me with a few choice words of admonishment, reminding me to be accurate in my communications during his working day. In a harsher tone, he informed me that his father had asked him to keep their conversation secret. I bowed my head. I’d overstepped the line when I rebuked him about been left in the dark.

  Jason instigated the scene with a flogging. My bare posterior bent over a chair in the sitting room. I
submersed myself into a wonderful state of nothingness and, with each warming thud of the flogger, I went resplendently floaty.

  Instructing me to lie on my back on the floor, my feet perched on the seat of an armchair, he attached tiny pinching clips between each gap of my toes, splaying them apart. To add to the torment, he used Japanese nipple sticks, squishing my nipples and binding the ends of the sticks with rubber bands.

  Standing over me, he tapped at the thin sticks with the tip of a cane.

  “Oooh, Sir, please.” I winced, fighting the urge to swing my feet off the seat. I hated the critters between my toes.

  “Please what?” The tapping intensified. Now my tits throbbed.

  “Oooh. Nothing, Sir,” I backtracked. I wanted to turn away from him, but I held my position.

  “How’s Mummy doing?”

  “Mummy would like Daddy to stop hitting her!” I shrieked.

  “Who tells Daddy what to do?”

  “Not Mummy, that’s for sure. Joshie?” I yelped, wriggling away from his cane.

  “Keep still. Joshie? Oh dear, you’ve been made a minion by your baby son. Now he has you at his beck and call. Mummy this and Mummy that. Stay still!” He struck a little harder.

  “Oooh. Please, Master.” I clenched my hands around the legs of the chair, anchoring me in the hope it would stop me from sliding away. Tears pricked my eyes.

  “I’ll relieve you of some of your discomforts. The little pegs between your toes. Let me see if I can flick them off you with this cane.”

  “No!” He ignored my protestations and went about the task with admirable skill, knocking each one out with a swipe of his cane.

  The grin plastering his face grew bigger with each one of my pathetic shrieks.

  Finished, he took up residence on the armchair, his own legs spread on either side of my throbbing feet, and he took them in his hands. I waited, wondering if he’d torture them further. My fears were allayed when he inspected the toes and gave my soles a brief massage with his thumbs. I sighed, closing my eyes.