For Her Pleasure

Oh, God. GOD! His face burned bright, the hottest it had ever felt. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her and he couldn’t stop his mind racing to picture himself doing – God knows what! – while that ticking measured his performance. Or lack thereof.

She chuckled as she watched the realisation dawning on his face. ‘Oh, sweetie, your face is priceless. Honestly!’ She sat back on the couch and smiled. ‘Well, enough about that for now. I imagine you need to get back to the office.’

He glanced automatically at his watch, saw the stopwatch instead and immediately felt a twinge of heat. My cock belongs to Mistress. God, already. He looked at her face. Knowing was plastered all over it.

‘Yes, I, uh,’ he swallowed. ‘Canavan actually texted me on my way here. He wants to discuss something.’

‘Oh, yes, I know. We spoke earlier.’ Oh, shit. His head whipped around to stare at her, his eyes bulging.

‘Your first act of submission to me is this: when Mr Canavan asks you what he’s going to ask you I want you say, “Yes, Ed. I did say that was a good idea.”’

That’s when he knew he was fucked.

* * *

He was sweaty again by the time he returned to his office.

This time it was not an embarrassed but horny sweat, though. This was an all-out panic, I’ll lose my job, my wife’s going to leave me, my life is over kind of sweat. He spent the car ride imagining what question it was Canavan was going to ask him. Ms Halliwell said you wanted to give her a foot massage. Or, Ms Halliwell said you wanted to be treated like a dog. Or perhaps, Ms Halliwell said you had the idea to fornicate with her foot!

Yes, Ed. I did say that was a good idea.

He almost didn’t go back to the office. What for? To be brought before the committee of which he was chair? To be hauled in to HR? Oh, and then he’d be home early. He’d have to face Anne. He could never explain it to her. He barely understood it himself.

Yes, Ed. I did say that was a good idea.

When did he ever say any of this was a good idea? It was most unequivocally evident that it had all been a very, very bad idea. A very bad idea indeed. If only he could take it all back. If only he could go back just one day, to yesterday when she first walked in the room. And do it all over. This time like a proper man. Instead of a humping dog. Oh, God. He would stop all of it, take it all back right this second, if only he could just have everything go back to normal.

That is why, when he found himself standing in front of Ed Canavan’s desk, with Ed Canavan speaking words he could barely hear – such was the clatter going on in his head – he was floored when what Ed Canavan actually said was: ‘Ms Halliwell tells me there’s an International Coalition Against Sexual Harassment Conference going on in Washington next month. Said you thought it might be a good idea to go. Did you say that?’

He blinked.

‘Yes, Ed. I did say that was a good idea.’

‘Well, that’s great! Shows great dedication to the committee.’ Canavan came around his desk and put a conspiratorial hand on his shoulder. ‘Look, I feel like you understand how important it is that we get all our Is dotted and Ts crossed on this harassment stuff. I want all our policies to be as up-to-date and airtight as we can make them. We just can’t afford to have another incident like last year, with Jarvis.’

‘I –, I –’ He let out a quick breath and collected himself. ‘No, I understand perfectly well, Ed,’ he said as his racing pulse started returning to normal. ‘I’ll make sure everything’s rock solid.’ Like his cock at the thought of being at a conference with her. That is what this was, right?

‘Good man,’ Canavan said, clapping his shoulder and walking back behind his desk. ‘I’ll make sure your clients are taken care of and that you’re compensated. I don’t want you to worry about that. I appreciate you taking this on for us.’

He had turned to walk out when Ed said, ‘Damn, my watch stopped. Do you have the time?’

Automatically he looked at his wrist.

Stopwatch.

My cock belongs to Mistress.

‘I actually –’ he floundered. Ed stared at him. Then at the obvious fact that he did have what appeared to be a watch on his wrist. ‘Huh, funny thing, mine’s not working either! How’d ya like that?’

He backed out the door. And fled.

* * *

Did he know when his phone rang as soon as he returned to his office that it would be her? Not then. But he would become accustomed to her almost spooky ability to predict his actions.

‘Hi, sweetie. Did you have a good meeting with Mr Canavan?’ Her voice coming through the phone was like ribbons of silk weaving around his body.

‘I did,’ he said.

‘I did, what?’ she demanded.

‘Uh, sorry! I did, Mistress.’

‘The next time you forget, we’ll have to do something drastic to make sure you remember. You don’t want that, do you, sweetie?’

‘Er, no, Mistress,’ he said, although he wasn’t altogether sure.

‘Good. We have two weeks until the conference. We should take this time to get to know each other better. I don’t like to travel with strangers.’

‘Yes, Mistress.’

‘So I have some questions,’ she said, and then he could hear her, in crisp neat tones to someone in the room with her, presumably her assistant, requesting coffee and some statistic reports. ‘You have time, don’t you, sweetie? For me?’

He glanced down at his full calendar.

‘Of course, Mistress.’

She chuckled. ‘Good!’ He heard her assistant come back with coffee. Then the sound of the door closing. He heard her take a sip. ‘So, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Ed tells me you’re married …’

* * *

So many questions. They kept coming, more and more. And yes, there were questions like what books did he read, what TV shows did he watch, who was he going to vote for in the upcoming primaries. But then came questions that could have been filed under the title ‘Inappropriate Questions That Are Surely Sexual Harassment’. Questions about habits with his wife. Oh, he thought about Anne, his dainty little Anne with her fair skin and pale-blonde hair, her petite, almost boy-like figure that he had always adored. The things Mistress asked, her giggling tone, the almost belittling way she spoke of his beloved wife. God, part of him wanted to gasp in horror, slam the phone down, run home and throw his arms around Anne, cover her body up with his like a shield. Why, oh, why then did he do nothing of the sort? Why did he not only submit to her questions, but also feel himself getting hard over them, as though divulging the most intimate details of his relationship with his wife, such a depraved and disloyal act, were in fact the most intoxicating aphrodisiac? Mistress’s desire to learn about him was voracious, like she was eating him alive. He felt that. Or that in answering her he was ripping himself open and laying his insides out for her to casually peruse and then choose something to examine.

He dutifully responded to everything.

And then she named him. His name was not Paul. But she named him SubPaul. He could not help but wonder if it was because it sounded like ‘sub par’.

Chapter 4

‘We’ve got a lot of time to kill here,’ Mistress said. ‘Let’s play twenty questions!’ Mischief and cheekiness radiated from her beautiful face like warmth from the glow of a fire. ‘Tell me how you feel about spanking.’

Sitting next to her, he could barely endure the sweet torturous mixture of arousal and struggle he always felt in her presence. In combination these two polarising impulses seemed to converge, conflict and compel the feelings to multiply in a seemingly never-ending vortex of lust and desperation.

‘What’s the matter, sweetie? You’re so quiet! Are you not excited about our trip?’ she chirped, opening a blanket and spreading it over them. He was by the window, she the aisle. She lifted the arm-rest between them and snuggled demurely into his side, making his heart-rate elevate as he simultaneously caught a faint whiff of her gloriously unique feminine scent and a flash of cleavage from her low-cut dress. Following his gaze she giggled and whispered, ‘I never wear a bra on a long flight. Too uncomfortable. Especially on a red-eye like this.’ He smiled wanly. Well endowed as she was, he had never seen her go bra-less in public. But the dress she wore was tight and seemed to hold her in. The effect was mind-blowing and now he understood why his eyes had been drawn to her as if by magnets. He’d been even more mesmerised than usual by her figure, her breasts, as he’d watched her while they were waiting in the terminal. No bra. No bra lines. Nothing between his arm, which her chest now pressed against, and those exquisite mounds of flesh he so coveted; nothing but the soft fabric of her royal-blue dress. She often wore green; it was probably her best colour, contrasting so strikingly with her crimson hair. But today it was blue and it gave her a lovely quality of the elements: fire and water.

‘Anyway, I asked you a question, love. Do you like to be spanked?’ she asked, a little too loudly.

‘No, Mistress,’ he murmured, eyeing the other passengers. ‘I never really understood the appeal.’