by Tiffany Sala
I tried to keep it light and sassy. “Is it too late to start now?”
“It’s never too late.” Axel was watching me carefully as I backed up against my desk and put my handbag down on it. “But if you start negotiating at the wrong time, the advantages you can hope to gain will change.”
“You know what I think?” I realised I was just saying what was on my mind without taking time to filter it first, something I knew better than to do these days. Something I’d done once with him, and was still reaping the consequences of. “You might make out you care about fairness, but I don’t believe you intend to deal with other people fairly. You have one goal only: to be the one in control. And I think you’ll do whatever you have to do to make sure it happens. Change the rules on the fly, bully whoever is standing in the way of the pieces you need to fall into place… anything.”
That didn’t please him nearly as much as Mr. Bennett. Tough for him. “We all do whatever we have to do in the circumstances that find us, Aileen. Now, contrary to what you might believe I don’t have infinite time to mess around here, so if you want to sleep tonight you’d better get it off.”
“Yes, sir.” Another retort that pleased him. But the confidence it gave me to talk back like that was short-lived. I didn’t want to do this. I’d been an idiot to agree to it, to think there was any way I could win at this game. My stupid arrogance.
There was no way he was going to physically make me do it, either. That was the trick. He wanted me to choose to humiliate myself. I wasn’t supposed to find a way to win.
I was going to try to find a way anyway. I started unbuttoning my shirt.
“Good girl.” Smirking, Axel sat down on my bed, folded his long legs up, and brought his mug to his—he’d brought his fucking coffee in with him.
“Were you hoping for popcorn to be catered?” I asked him on the second button, right over the middle of my bra.
He toasted me with his mug. “Wouldn’t say no to a splash of milk in my coffee.”
I tried not to grimace at how crass it was. “Look, Axel… I want you to keep yourself under control, okay? Keep those hands on your coffee.” My voice was shaking too much for him to ever believe I was in control of this situation.
“Hey, no worries. I’m going to use my eyes on your tits, not my hands.”
“Um.” I kept my fingers moving quickly down the front of my shirt, releasing each button in turn. Giving myself the time I needed to really accept that I was not going to get out of this.
I had no words. My fingers kept moving, to the bottom of my shirt, then I pulled it off, and Axel took a sharp sip of his coffee.
I couldn’t work out how to take the last step. “Come on,” Axel said, “get on with it,” and I reached behind me to disengage my bra and let it drop.
I had wanted to stand there proudly and look him in the eyes, but my own eyes were wandering as much as his were fixed exactly where you would expect them to be fixed. I moved halfway to folding my arms, then realised I couldn’t, didn’t want to when it would just make me more aware of what I was doing. How much I was showing him.
My eyes were drawn by the gleam of the coffee mug as Axel brought it to his face for a long draw. Just his eyes were visible over the line of its rim, the shine in them still frustratingly rational.
“I was right,” he said.
“Oh were you, now.”
“Yes.” He set the mug aside and licked his lips in a way that sent a shudder through my entire body. “Reality, in this case, is far better than any fake thing my mind or the minds of anyone else online could come up with.”
Digging into him a little was all I could do, of course. “I wonder when the last time was you took a chance on reality.”
His grin was unbothered. “You’ve got me, it was a while.”
I was feeling a little cold as evening set in, and trying hard not to think about what that state would be doing to me. “Why now?”
“Not entirely sure,” he admitted. “But you’re at least a half-good opponent. That makes a difference.”
“Half-good?” I had to laugh at that, even with the resulting boob-jiggling catastrophe. “I think I deserve a little more credit than that. I stood up to you with all your money and influence until I was damn ready to do otherwise, and you’d better not forget it.”
Axel pouted to blow a puff of air up at a lick of hair falling across his forehead. “That isn’t as meaningful as you think. Even someone with all my money and influence, whatever you think that is, ends up being vulnerable to a woman who has the right amount of self-confidence.”
I could feel the atmosphere between us changing in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature, and I sensed I had to do something about it before I was seriously in danger. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” I told him.
“Yes… I suppose you’re not really at that point in your own career yet.”
“Career?” I couldn’t help but be provoked by his wording. “Is this an insight into how you see women, Mr. Bennett?” The way he bit his lip at that was the closest I’d come to a victory all day.
“It’s not an insight into me, it’s an insight into women. The ones with brains behind them, at least.”
He seemed to be complimenting me, but in an insulting way. “And do you often try to nullify smart women before they get you?”
“It’s usually a better idea to stay out of their way,” Axel said.
“Ah, but you’ll never find a wife that way.” I didn’t really understand what made me say it. Maybe the fake intimacy of the situation we were in.
Axel let out a surprised laugh. “She won’t be one of those women, Aileen.”
“Really? You’ve thought about this enough to know?”
“I don’t need to set aside time to think about it, Aileen, I didn’t put up a vision board of magazine models or something if that’s what you’re insinuating. Being who I am, it’s just something I’ve come to understand is the truth. I’m not going to marry a woman who is my equal, but of course I’ll marry someone.”
“The ditzy society heiress.”
“Those can be more trouble than they’re worth too. And they tend to not be as ditzy as you’d expect; they’ve been raised since the cradle to think about managing their fortune in the long-term. I’ll probably settle for someone with more moderate wealth, who is happy to accept from the start that I’m the one running the show. Not a really poor girl who doesn’t know what’s what in the rest of the world, who thinks being rescued by a moneyed prince is a normal thing to expect… someone who has enough already to know that having me come into her life is a damn windfall she’d better not waste.”
He couldn’t have described a girl more opposite to me if he’d been trying. “How about love, Mr. Bennett? Is love allowed to come into it?”
“Definitely not,” said Axel. The Mr. Bennett trick seemed to be losing its efficacy. Maybe it was just the chilling effect of talking about love in the same sentence. “Loving a woman is a good way to get yourself out-maneuvered. But I’m determined I’m going to like my wife a lot, and if she keeps her head down and lives up to her end of the bargain, there will be no limits to what I give her.”
“Sounds like more of a business arrangement than a marriage.”
He shrugged. “Everyone involved will know exactly what they’re getting into, and that’s more than can be said about most marriages.”
Somehow, this conversation had relaxed me so much I no longer felt particularly awkward about standing there with my top off in front of him. Maybe because he’d kept his promise of good behaviour—he didn’t seem inclined to behave badly—and this whole conversation was making me feel like I knew him better than I had before. It was confirming he was an arsehole, but now he was an arsehole with an explanation.
“Well, I’m going to love the man I marry. I’m going to love him too much and probably get my heart broken, but if he’s the guy who is interested in seeing past… well,” I gestured toward
s the main subject of this interaction. “It’ll just be worth it then, you know?”
Axel smiled at me like he didn’t know and was barely able to humour me. Then he stood and stepped towards me, and I recoiled—but it was too late, and there was nowhere to run to anyway.
Axel got hold of my wrist, and had me falling forward with a sharp yank. My yelp was cut off when my bare belly landed hard across his knees. At some point he had seated himself again on the edge of my bed, and now I was sprawled face-down across his lap.
“Quiet, Aileen,” he snapped, even though I hadn’t said anything. “I’ve honoured our agreement so far.” It took me a few seconds to figure out he meant not touching my boobs, which were now dangling far too close to my face. “Now,” he said, “let’s make sure that little outburst isn’t going to bring Daddy dearest in on us.”
“Axel, I want you to let me—”
He smacked my arse, hard. I bit down on my squeal, because there was no way I wanted Dad running in to see what was happening right now.
“Good girl,” said Axel, like I’d controlled myself for him. “Now—”
“Now nothing, this was not in our agreement at all.” I struggled, but he held onto me harder. When I started trying to kick him, out of a sense of needing to do all I could rather than any practical good it would achieve, he used his spanking hand to hold my legs down, then it somehow crept up the back of my skirt and with a sudden, tearing yank he had pulled my underwear and pantyhose down.
I froze at that. He was clearly serious about whatever he was doing, and the only way I was going to get out of it was to follow his lead. Not that I needed to counsel myself to shut up and stay still, because the panic roaring through my body was making it impossible for me to speak or move.
Axel slid my skirt up in the back so I was completely exposed to him. I tried to hold my legs together and not try to work out exactly how much he could see. “You’ve been a bit too cheeky about this whole situation, Aileen.” He was rubbing my bare arse as he said it. “I don’t like it.” I bit my lip at a sharp pinch, my eyes squeezing shut at a sensation I hadn’t expected down there.
But this whole scene was basically my sick fantasy, so why hadn’t I?
My sick fantasy that I’d only revealed to one other—
My mouth was going again before I could help it. “You were talking to Matt, weren’t you?”
“You mean my Matt? Talking to him about flogging your cute little arse, what the fuck for?” His confusion sounded pretty genuine. It seemed I’d made things worse again.
Axel’s voice turned thoughtful. “I haven’t talked to Matt in a while, that fucker is shitty with me for some reason… but I’m guessing you have.”
Stupidly, I started to struggle again.
Axel’s next slap wasn’t hard, but it startled me still.
“As I was saying, Aileen, I don’t appreciate your attitude. I know you only came in here with me tonight because you had some idea you were going to get the upper hand.” Another slap. “There is no getting the upper hand with me. I always get what I want, I always win in the end. It only depends on how difficult you want to make it for yourself.”
“You always win? Is that what was going on when you lost your whole fortune for a while: winning?”
“Shut up, Aileen.” A slightly harder strike had that pleasurable feeling going through me again, and of course it wasn’t all because of actual contact. If he kept going like this, he was going to… well, get results.
And even though I knew I should scramble for my dignity and keep trying to stop him, I didn’t think I wanted to any more.
So of course, he shoved me off his lap instead, forcing me to scramble to keep from showing him everything he’d put in that picture. The sad thing was, he’d probably gotten a pretty good peek already in our previous configuration.
I hardly dared to look up at him, but he was already walking out. He turned back to me, still huddled on the floor over my naughty bits, just as he was moving through the door.
“In case you were wondering what happened with your dad, sweetheart, we’ve come to a nice arrangement. He’s going to work with me developing a product to bring to market. His additional experience in this market should prove utterly indispensable as we move forward with the project.” I cringed. It was pretty obvious he was conveying the gist of something my dad had said to him, and that he knew I’d recognise it for what it was.
He had to also realise this was a disaster. My dad wasn’t capable of working in whatever position Axel had offered him. He was going to screw up and get himself sacked, and if he’d handed over his rights to that patent based on the job opportunity—which, this was Axel we were talking about, he wouldn’t care if that was the deal he could get—we’d just been screwed out of everything.
“I’ll see myself out,” said Axel with a wink, and shut the door on me. Leaving me on the floor with my shirt off, my legs tangled up in my own clothes, and an awareness of how it could feel to have his hands on me.
How had I been this stupid?
I pulled myself to my feet to begin pulling myself together at least, and my door opened again without warning.
“One more thing,” said Axel, who had just secured himself another good look at everything I had to offer. “Stay away from Matt. I don’t need you getting into that drama. You don’t need to add to your problems right now either, trust me.”
He closed the door again, very gently this time. I sank back down to my knees.
I had judged my friends too quickly for falling in with these men. I was too certain a defense against them should have been easy. Well, now I was in deep and all my avenues of obtaining help were melting away.
Chapter Eleven
Mr. Henderson gave me a real sad puppy look when I told him Axel and I had sorted out the situation privately. I might as well have told him… well, exactly what had happened.
“As long as you understand you can change your mind at any time,” he said, which was obviously an exaggeration, but I think he realised I wasn’t going to reconsider anyway.
Then Mrs. Hitchens poked her head into Mr. Henderson’s office looking for me, and was visibly displeased to find me there. Five minutes later, I was locked in with her and Ms. Miller, hearing about all the measures they’d put in place to ensure the offending photograph wouldn’t be sighted on school property for the rest of the year.
When I said, “I’m going to drop the whole thing,” it was like I’d announced I just farted in the room or something. Both of them kept talking for a bit as if I hadn’t said anything, so I had to repeat it louder, which made me feel like the weirdo of the piece.
“I thought you knew who was responsible for this,” Mrs. Hitchens protested.
“Yeah, I think I do… but I’d rather not go into it any further.”
“Aileen,” said Mrs. Hitchens, “this photograph was distributed throughout the school to such a degree, I’m not sure it’s possible for us to just ignore it,” and Ms. Miller didn’t even call her out for trying to pressure me.
“It’s not real, okay?” I blurted out. The silence that followed went on for so long I was able to think for a few seconds before rephrasing. “I mean, parts of that photo are of me, but not the… explicit parts. Someone edited those parts in after the fact, they don’t even belong to me.”
“Matt,” said Ms. Miller, with an air of having some long-standing mystery solved.
“It…” Axel was right, my saying his name would hardly make a difference in his life, but even he was liable to be pissed if I set the likes of Ms. Miller on him. “Look, that person, I talked to them and it was just a joke that went wrong. Not something that needs to ruin anyone’s life.”
I was growing tired of people who were old enough to know better looking at me like I couldn’t decide for myself whether or not I wanted to take a particular issue further or not. I stared Mrs. Hitchens down, and was relieved when she turned to Ms. Miller. “Is this what the young people are doi
ng these days, then? Doctoring up images of one another? Jokes?”
“Well,” said Ms. Miller, “this is the age of deep fakes, you know. Nothing is ever one hundred percent real these days.”
“It seems like only yesterday they were all sexting,” Mrs. Hitchens murmured. “Now that… I understood it, at least. Youthful lusts… This feels like it’s happening on some level I’m too old to access. Like those apps all the kids are playing with these days. The humour, the culture… it’s all on levels.”
I actually felt so bad for her I wanted to boost her morale. I risked a light pat on the shoulder. “Look, Mrs. Hitchens, if it makes you feel any better, I’m going to be graduating soon with the rest of my class, and then I’ll just be a regular adult confused by what the kids are up to as well. It’s the natural order of things, right?”
Mrs. Hitchens’s lips quivered. “You’re a good sort, Aileen. I hope you genuinely find these… jokes, of yours, funny.”
With half the administrative staff of Burgundy fighting over office time with me, I didn’t get to have some time to myself until lunch, when I hunted Tamara down in the school library. Her little smile as I admitted in a perfect library voice that things had gone a bit too far with Axel was the most humiliating thing I had ever experienced, and the night before that I’d had my arse up in the face of a guy I’d never even shaken hands with.
“You really shouldn’t worry so much, Aileen,” she told me. “Axel is… well, we both know he’s kind of a butthole sometimes, but if a butthole is what you’re looking for, he’s a butthole we know, at least.”
Leave it to Tamara to find a way to bring up butts when butts were the absolute last thing I wanted to think about.
And at that moment, with butts still somewhere near the top of my thoughts, I turned my head… and there was Axel watching us from over a low bookshelf. I nearly did something stupid like trying to duck under the bench of computers in my panic. I felt like maybe Tamara had been talking loudly enough to make it obvious we were discussing him.
