Chapter
Fifteen
It was definitely strange walking up the wheelchair
ramp into the school building with Daniel beside her. Still, she was pleased he’d insisted on
coming to this Board meeting with her.
It made her feel stronger to know he was there with her.
“Why do you keep looking back at the car park?” she
asked him. “Is someone else coming?” The
big doors shut behind them, and they were in the hallway.
“Yes,” he admitted, smiling down at her, his arm
around her shoulders. “You’re getting
the big guns today, Jessie.”
“Patrick’s coming too?” she guessed. Daniel made a scoffing sound.
”I take exception to that,” he said. “Patrick’s gun is no bigger than mine, I’ll
have you know. I have it on the
authority of Mim that our weapons are almost identical. And let me remind you that according to a
certain women’s magazine, both of us have unusually large weapons. Of course, that women’s magazine wouldn’t be
in a position to make a judgement if you and Angela hadn’t had us stripped
naked on national television last week, now would they?” The magazine had also started a petition to
have Patrick’s and Daniel’s bodies designated national treasures, on the
understanding that they were not allowed to wear any clothes in future, and
were to be displayed in public places at all times for the edification of the
female half of the population.
”Ssssh,” Jessie was
laughing, but aware of her surroundings.
“You can’t say that sort of thing here.
One of the children might hear you.”
“I don’t see any kids here,” Daniel grinned. Right on cue, the door in the hallway behind
them opened and two rows of identically dressed
children came in. The two rows lasted
about a second after the lead children spotted Jessie, and the hallway filled
with shrieking, laughing kids hurling themselves at her. Daniel wasn’t sure whether to defend Jessie
or just turn tail and run as a horde of little people hurtled towards them.
“Miss Jessie!”
“Miss Jessie, you’re back!” “We
missed you so much!” “You’re back!” were the main themes, shrieked over and
over as Jessie caught as many of them as possible and hugged them to her, her
cheeks already wet with tears. She
dashed them away with the back of her hand.
”I missed you, too,” she said, sinking to her knees on the floor to get closer
to the pack of little warm bodies.
“Don’t cry,
”I cried when you went away, too,” the little blonde girl with half-inch thick
glasses said. She had callipers on her
legs, but she walked well, if a little slower than most of the others. Jessie picked her up and sat her on her
lap.
“Don’t cry any more,” Jessie said. “Okay?” The little girl nodded and threaded a
thin arm around Jessie’s neck. Daniel,
standing off to one side, saw the two young teachers standing in the doorway,
all but wringing their hands, obviously not sure what to do.
Jessie ignored them, looking over at a boy in a
wheelchair.
”How are you, Charlie?” she asked.
“I got to have another operation,” he said glumly,
wheeling towards her.
”Another one?” she asked sympathetically.
“Dear me. You’re an old hand at
those now, aren’t you?” He nodded, still
glum, then leaned forward to reach for her hand.
”Will you visit me again?” he asked.
“Of course I will,” she assured him, leaning in
further,
“Only, we couldn’t get your phone number,” he
said. “The school wouldn’t give it to
us.” Jessie reached for her handbag
immediately, but Daniel had ripped a piece of paper off the notepad in his
inside pocket and was holding it down to her before she could get her handbag
open. He gave her a pen too, and she
smiled her thanks up at him.
“You take this home to your mother, Charlie,” she
said. “And tell her she can call me anytime, okay?” He beamed and took the folded piece of
paper. Child after child approached,
arms clinging, faces shining, with the exception of one or two who hung back,
not making eye contact or showing emotion.
Jessie didn’t forget them either, Daniel noted. She asked them questions, commented on new shoes
and made conversation with them without pushing too hard. And still, one of the teachers hovered just
inside the hallway. Her colleague had
disappeared. Neither of them looked to
be any older than early twenties, and Daniel wondered how they coped with a
class full of children with special needs.
Then he looked at Jessie and remembered that she’d done it on her
own. Something tugged at his jacket and
he looked down.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” a small boy replied.
“And who are you?” he asked, sinking down to his
haunches.
“I’m Danny,” the boy said.
”That’s my name too,” Daniel pointed out.
The boy laughed.
“It is not,” he said.
“You’re The Cat. I reckonized you.”
That explained the insistent tugging on his jacket.
“That was my job,” Daniel insisted. “My real name is
Daniel, same as yours.” The boy did not
look convinced.
“Where have you seen me?” Daniel asked him. “On
posters or buses?” The boy nodded. Then he smiled mischievously.
“And on the television sometimes,” he said. “With the rude ladies with no clothes on,” he
added with a giggle. Daniel blinked in
surprise. Sure, in principle he knew
that despite the fact that the show had gone out late at night on a pay
channel, with lots of warnings at the start of it, it might occasionally be
seen by children. But somehow, being
confronted by a seven year old who had watched it brought it home a lot
more. Particularly since re-runs were
now playing for the foreseeable future.
“Do you peek when your parents watch it?” Daniel
guessed. Danny shook his head.
“I have a television in my room,” he said
proudly. “And I turn it down really soft
at night and watch it sometimes. I don’t
get to see it very often, cause I go to sleep sometimes. You’re funny, and King
Dazzler is, too.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said. “He’s my big brother. I’ll tell him you like him. But Danny, that show was not meant for
younger men like yourself.” Danny
giggled again.
“I’m not a man,” he said, with the air of one
explaining something to someone stupid. “I’m a little boy.”
”Really?” Daniel said, sounding surprised.
“I could have sworn you were at least seven.”
”I am!” Danny assured him.
“Well, it’s not a show a young man of seven should be
watching,” Daniel said. “It’s only for grown-ups. Do you understand that?” Danny nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“Do the ladies cry when you smack their bottoms?” he
asked.
“No,” Daniel said.
“We didn’t smack them hard.” He
was thinking fast. He couldn’t make
himself walk away from this.
“Dan, you look like a man who would keep a promise,”
he said. Danny nodded, looking
solemn. “So, if I tell you a secret, a
really big secret, will you promise me you won’t ever watch the show
again?” Danny looked dubious.
”Am I allowed to tell people the secret?” he negotiated. Daniel laughed.
“Yes,” he said.
“And you’re the first person I’ve told.”
The little boy considered it, looking up at the ceiling while he
pondered. Then he nodded and edged
closer, so Daniel could whisper in his ear.
“But you have to promise,” Daniel said first. Danny spat on his finger and held the finger
up. Obviously he was strongly committed
to the idea of promises.
“Okay,” Daniel said, leaning down further to share the
secret.
He signed autographs for almost all of the children,
hoping against hope that most of them only knew him as a face from a
billboard. When he did Danny’s, he wrote
“Keep that promise, Dan”. He had a fair
idea that the boy would show the autograph to his parents, and that they would
then ask him what the promise was. It
might be underhanded on his part, but he figured that was the best way to shore
up the little boy’s vow to not watch the show.
He had no doubt that Danny intended to keep the promise, but he vaguely
remembered being seven himself, so he was taking no chances.
Nearly ten minutes had passed, with Jessie still
sitting on the floor, catching up on the lives of the important little people
around her, when the a side door opened and a middle-aged woman marched
in.
”Miss Porter,” she intoned, her voice full of the authority that came with
years of being obeyed by people smaller or less important than her. Jessie looked up.
“Miss Halliwell,” she said. “How nice to see you again.” Daniel, hearing the tone in her voice as he
continued signing autographs, didn’t believe that for a minute.
“What do you think you are doing here?” the principal
demanded.
“Waiting to meet with the Board,” Jessie replied
honestly. “And catching up with all of
my favourite people.” All of her
favourite people, who had gone very quiet with the arrival of the principal,
giggled at that.
“You should not be talking to the children,” the
principal said firmly. “I would have
thought that you, of all people would have realised that.”
”Why not?” Jessie asked.
“Because it will upset them,” the principal continued,
for some reason whispering the word “upset”, as if the children standing
between Jessie and herself would somehow magically not hear it that way.
“What is upsetting them is the fact that I haven’t been
able to see them for some time,” Jessie said.
The Principal opened her mouth to speak again, but
Charlie, the boy in the wheelchair, spoke before she did.
“Miss Jessie wasn’t a naughty lady,” he said firmly,
his little face resolute as he tried to look directly into the eyes of the
formidable principal.
“No, I wasn’t,” Jessie agreed with her champion, her
hand on his arm. “Thank you,
Charlie. Some people made a mistake, and
now they’ve said sorry.”
”Hmmph,” the principal said. Jessie looked straight at her.
“Perhaps we should continue this discussion after the
children have gone back to class?” she suggested. The principal nodded and clapped her hands.
“Off you go,” she said. “Go on.
Hurry up. Off you go.” The sound of her voice and the movement of
her hands made it seem like she was herding chickens. The children protested and clung to Jessie,
but with a combination of tact, cuddles and promises, she convinced them to
leave. As she stood up, she stroked the
hair of one of the little boys who’d held back.
”I’ll see you soon, Bryce,” she said.
Just for an instant, his eyes slid up to hers, then away again.
“You should not be saying things like that,” Miss
Halliwell said. “It’s just going to make
it harder when you can’t meet them.”
”I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep,” Jessie said. “I had no choice when it came to leaving
them, but I intend to fight for the right to come back to them now.”
”Can’t you just leave well enough alone?” the principal said. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” Daniel, who’d stood silently through all of
that, intervened then.
”The damage was done to her,” he said quietly.
“Not the other way round. She was
falsely accused, unfairly dismissed, and is having to fight to have her job
reinstated when it should have been handed to her on a platter. She’s the victim here.” The Principal, who’d done a good job of
ignoring him so far, looked directly at his face, obviously peeved that she had
to look so far up to do it.
“You are hardly in a position to be casting stones,”
she said, indicating that she’d recognised him.
“You’re right,” he said, surprising her. “Which is why it makes sense for me to be
trying to help her now, don’t you think?”
“Hmmmph,” she said
again. Daniel’s shoulders went back
ominously and he was starting to walk forward when the main door opened
again.
“Good morning,” said a tall, distinguished looking
man. Daniel smiled a welcome at him and
Jessie looked stunned. The big guns were
indeed here.
“And who are you?” Miss Halliwell rounded on the
newcomer.
“Jake Miller,” he said, looking past her to smile
broadly at Jessie. “And you are?”
”This is Miss Halliwell, the school principal,” Jessie answered for her. “You’re here for the Board meeting as well,
Jake?” Why he would be, she had no idea,
but there was no doubt that having him on her side made her feel even
stronger. With he and Daniel, she had a
formidable bodyguard.
”I am,” he said. “Where is it,
please?” He directed that to the older
woman.
“They will come and get you when they’re ready and if
they choose to speak to you,” she said in no uncertain terms.
”I don’t think so,” Jake replied. “I don’t have the time to wait around. Where are the meetings normally held,
Jessie?” She hesitated just an instant.
“What have you got to lose?” Daniel asked. He had a point.
“Follow me,” she said.
“MISS PORTER!” the principal said in shocked
tones. She rushed down the corridor,
trying to intercept them, to head them off, but Daniel had hold of Jessie’s
hand and neither he nor his father were easy to herd – or to catch. As a result, the principal was rushing along
behind them, slightly out of breath, by the time they stopped at a door down
the hallway.
“Thank you so much for escorting us, Miss Halliwell,”
Jake said to her, a dry smile on his face.
“We’ll take it from here.”
”I know who you are!” she announced, as if she had solved a great mystery. “You’re the owner of that Shame
Institute. Aren’t you?”
”Last time I checked,” Jake agreed.
“Drop in for a visit sometime.”
As she gasped, scandalised, he dropped her a wink and opened the door of
the meeting room. Daniel, his arm around
Jessie, followed him in and shut the door, almost in the face of the principal.
The entire Board was assembled, all of them looking
startled. Brad Clarence was out of his
chair.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, drawing
himself up to his full five feet six inches.
He visibly paled when he saw Daniel, but continued gamely. “You have no right to be here. Leave, or I will call the police.”
”Go right ahead,” Jake said, advancing on the table. “Join me?” he added to Jessie and Daniel, who
followed. By now, everyone around the
table had recognised Daniel. To make
sure of it, he smiled, the teeth-bared Cat smile that tended to make people
squirm. It worked. He folded himself gracefully into the chair
beside Jessie’s, alternating eye contact with people around the table. Then he focused squarely on Brad
Clarence.
“You have no right to be here,” Clarence tried
again. “This is a private meeting of the
School Board and…”
”Sit down,” Jake said. “Your meeting is
no doubt running late because you are discussing the fact that the owners of
the school have just sold the property, I assume?” When Clarence neither sat down nor answered,
he looked to the woman beside him, Ruth Cresswell. She nodded.
“Thank you,” he said, with a pleasant smile.
“You have also, no doubt, been discussing the fact
that you know nothing about the new owner other than the name of the
consortium: Sauniere-Miller.” Jessie was looking from Daniel to Jake in
disbelief and growing comprehension.
She thought she’d been coming along to plead her case for reinstatement
again. She hadn’t realised she was
actually part of a hijacking of the meeting.
And more, it seemed.
“You said I couldn’t pay off your house,” Daniel
leaned down and whispered to her. “You
didn’t say anything about the school.”
Jake sent him a sidelong glare and Daniel grinned. Then he returned to staring at Clarence, who was
becoming increasingly uncomfortable under that steady, unfriendly, green-eyed
scrutiny.
“The school will be named ‘
”I do,” she said. “Does that mean there
going to be parks?”
”Lots of them,” he smiled. “Lots of places for children to play and be loud. And all of the other things
from your plans, too.” He glanced
at Daniel, who spared an instant to smile at her before returning to the game
he was playing with Brad Clarence.
“Oh,” Jessie said, her throat
swelling.
“This is nonsense,” Clarence protested. “We have no proof that you are these Sauniere-Miller people at all, and to rely on the advice of
Jessica Porter would just be ludicrous!”
Given that everyone in the room had now realised where they’d seen Jake
before and knew very well what his surname was, that particular statement was
even more ludicrous. Daniel stood up and
walked down the length of the table behind Board members who all felt
distinctly uncomfortable as he passed.
Clarence was backing up, remembering the last time Daniel had advanced
on him, but this time Daniel merely put his hand in the back pocket of his
jeans and pulled out his wallet. He
removed his driving license from it and held it directly in front of Clarence’s
eyes.
“Daniel Sauniere,” he said
flatly. “Can you read?” Clarence bristled.
“Of course I can read,” he said.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Daniel suggested.
‘”I will NOT sit down,” Clarence protested.
“Fine,” Daniel said, walking past him and starting up
the side of the table, prowling as much as he ever had on the ‘Shame
Game’. “Then you can remain standing
while I tell the Board that you were the only person who wrote to the Shame
Institute lodging a claim to be involved in humiliating Jessie.” There were several shocked gasps at this, and
quite a few looks in Clarence’s direction.
“Something about her ‘leading you on and then humiliating you by casting
you aside’, was that it, Dad?” Daniel asked.
“Very close,” Jake replied. Jessie looked straight down the table at
Clarence, willing him to try to defend that claim. Go on, she was thinking. Just try it, you horrible man.
“How dare you!” Clarence spluttered, almost bouncing
up and down on the spot.
Daniel gave a short, humourless laugh.
“I haven’t finished yet,” he said. “I haven’t even started to tell the Board
that you arrived at Jessie’s place one night and told her you would reinstate
her as long as she agreed to have sex with you and play to all of your
perversions for a year.” There were even
more shocked gasps at that, and Olivia Paxton, the woman sitting beside him,
said “Oh, Brad, no!” Clarence sat
down.
“I’m sorry to upset you all like this, but he upset
Jessie a lot at the time,” Daniel said.
“And I don’t like people who upset Jessie. I don’t propose to table the
eight page list of indecent demands he presented her with, but let me tell you,
it speaks volumes about the character of your Chairman. Your current Chairman,” he finished.
”Perhaps we can get back to business then,” Jake said. “I have no intention of disbanding this
Board, although some changes will clearly need to be made. The ‘Sauniere-Miller’
consortium will be taking control of the school from Monday week, and our
representative here will be my daughter-in-law, Jessica Sauniere.” Daniel couldn’t help but grin at the looks on
the faces of the Board members as they shifted from Jessie to him and back
again in utter disbelief. He hoped Danny
had shared that secret with lots of people already. Jessie’s eyes gleamed as she played with the
gold and emerald rings on her left hand.
“She will also be resuming her teaching duties,” Jake
said. “We’ll leave you to work through
that information now. Daniel? Jessie?
Shall we?”
Daniel held his hand out to Jessie.
“This,” she said to the Board members. “Was as much a surprise to me as it was to
you. I do want to assure you that I hope
to have the chance to work with all of you in the future. I have the utmost respect for you. Well, for almost all of you. Oh, and Brad?
Gerald and Amanda send their regards.”
With a deceptively sweet smile as she saw the look on his face, she took
Daniel’s hand and stood up.
Outside the door, Jake stopped and laughed quietly.
“That was evil,” he said to her. “And if I didn’t know that he’s never going
to risk having the film of him shown in a court of law, I’d be making moves to
get Patrick and Angela out of the country.
That is one scared, nasty little man there.”
“I’d dearly love to do something about him,” Daniel
agreed.
“Your brother did a good enough job,” Jake said. “Are you alright, Jessie?” He put his hand on her shoulder.
“No,” she said.
She looked from him to Daniel and back again. ““Thank you,” she said, her throat clogged
again. “Both of you.” Daniel squeezed her hand, and Jake leaned
down to kiss her cheek.
“Consider it a wedding present,” he said.
…………….
Brad Clarence was barely functioning when he arrived
back at his office. The rest of the
Board had unanimously voted to not only evict him as Chairman, but evict him as
a Board member. Not that he would have
wanted to work for that Miller man anyway, and certainly not for Daniel Sauniere. Or Jessica
Sauniere. Just
thinking of her being married to that man was enough to make Clarence feel
ill. He had his hand on his abdomen,
Napoleon-style, when he walked past his secretary’s meticulously clean
desk.
”Antacids,” he said brusquely as he walked past. “And make it fast.” The sound of his office door closing behind
him gave him an instant of relief. But
it was only temporary. In a fit of sheer
temper, he hurled his briefcase across the room, not even caring when it burst
open and papers went everywhere. He’d
stopped carrying his magazines around with him months before, ever since that
day when Jessica Porter saw them, no, he corrected himself, Jessica fucking Sauniere she was now.
His mind objected to the obscenity, but he ignored it. Obviously she WAS fucking Sauniere. And she shouldn’t have been. She should have been fucking HIM.
“Fuck!” he said for the first time in his life. It felt good, so he said it again. He kicked the door for good measure, and then
swore again, this time with feeling. He
limped over to his desk and sat down, just as the door of his office opened.
“Knock!” he yelled, looking forward to giving his
temper an outlet. “How many times do I
have to TELL you?”
”Only once,” his secretary said, breezing in with a glass of water and some
antacid tablets. “I always hear you, and
if I think your instructions are sensible, I act on them immediately.” Clarence blinked like a stunned owl. Had the world gone mad? Nondescript, unimportant, non-entity Esther
Smith did not answer him back.
Ever.
”What did you say?” he asked ominously.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” she parroted
his words, putting the glass down on his desk.
“Now swallow those fast, or I’ll take them away.”
”How dare you?” he said for the third time that day. This time he felt more sure of his
ground. It hadn’t been easy to stand up
to confident, in control Jake Miller and his big, dangerous son. Esther Smith, on the other hand, was short,
dumpy, plain and female.
“Oh, I dare,” Esther said, looking calmly back at
him. “Open your top right hand drawer,
and you’ll see why.”
His magazines. She’d found his
magazines. Acid boiling in his stomach,
he made a show of ease, swallowing the tablets while she walked back to the
door. To his annoyance, all she did was
lock the door and walk back.
”Have you opened the drawer yet?” she demanded.
He fixed her with a gimlet glare.
No way was she going to be scoring points like that over him. There was nothing illegal about the
magazines. They were a little unusual,
perhaps, but he could always say she’d planted them on them. Or just deny their existence. Who were people going to believe, the
unimportant little secretary, or him? He
slide the drawer open and looked in, giving her a disdainful look first. He was going to sack her so fast her head was
going to spin.
But there were no magazines in the top drawer. What there was made his head spin
instead.
”Where did you…what are these?” he asked.
“You know very well what they are,” Esther said,
walking back and helping herself to one of the chairs. One of the visitor’s chairs, not the hard,
straight-backed dictation chair he’d always insisted she use. “They are records of the funds you’ve been
diverting from your client’s accounts.”
“Nonsense,” Clarence said, slamming the drawer
shut. “Sheer nonsense.” Esther just looked at him, waiting for him to
stop.
“I don’t think the authorities will consider it
nonsense,” she said calmly. “In fact, I
think the authorities will be quite interested in those pages. I have copies, naturally, along with
references to where all of the figures have come from. In a safe place.”
“You…I don’t believe you…what are…” Clarence
spluttered.
“Take another drink of water, Bradley,” she said
flatly. He opened his mouth to protest
at her calling him that. It was ‘Mr
Clarence’ to her, or ‘sir’. He’d always
insisted on that. He shut his
mouth. Then he opened it again to gulp
down a mouthful of water. It gave him a
chance to collect his thoughts.
“I cannot believe you would turn on me like this,” he
said primly, injecting hurt into his tone.
“After all of these years.”
”All of these years of being yelled at, underpaid, overworked and treated like
a slave,” Esther finished for him. “Yes,
that’s just the sort of treatment to inspire devotion and an inclination to
cover up your dirty work, isn’t it?
That, and the fact that you’re so arrogant you didn’t even think I’d
notice the bottom line discrepancies, even though I type everything you
calculate and write. I’ve known about
your theft for more than two years.”
Clarence was trying to think through a fug of panic and fear.
“Esther,” he tried. “I’m sorry if you’ve felt that
you’ve been taken advantage of and underpaid.
You only had to say, and I would have…”
”Can it, Bradley,” she snapped. “Open
the bottom drawer now, you grubby little man.”
He opened it and there, sure
enough, were his magazines. The one on
top was folded open to a picture of a full-bodied, leather-clad pony girl with
long brown hair. She looked slightly like
Jessica. There were cut-outs for her
breasts, and little bells were hanging from her nipples. It was one of his favourite pictures.
“Pull out the bottom
magazine,” Esther ordered. “Right
out. Come on. The door’s locked. No-one is going to see you except me.” Not having any idea of what else to do, other
than strangling the woman and digging a hole in the carpet to bury her, he
complied, grimacing as he saw the cover picture. It showed a man, naked except for a mask,
with all sorts of chains and clamps attached to his body in ways that had to be
painful.
“I ordered that from the
inside back page of one of your magazines,” Esther said, leaning back in her
chair and crossing her legs. “And a
whole lot of other things too, Bradley.
You paid for them, of course.
Nice of you to give me access to your credit card like that.”
”You…that’s criminal,” Clarence protested.
Esther barked a laugh.
”You’re in no position to judge, little man,” she said. He got up from his seat at that, doing his
best to look threatening. She laughed
again.
”Oh sit down and stop making a fool of yourself,” she said. “I could probably beat you in a fight, but
even if I couldn’t, I’ve taken steps to ensure that if I suffer any sort of
accident, all of the information about you will be revealed. Sit, Bradley.” He sat.
“What do you want?” he asked,
thinking of his car, his savings account, his house. Dear heaven, how had this happened? All he’d done was shift some amounts around,
small bits here and there, nothing that anyone would ever have missed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it. He’d looked upon it as contributions to his
future election fund.
“Well first, I want to thank
you,” his secretary said. She had a very
sarcastic look on her face, he noticed.
“I would never have discovered quite how many strange little kinks there
are in the world if I hadn’t had the chance to see your magazines,
Bradley. And I would never have realised
that there is one that actually turns me on.”
Horrible image, he thought. Women
like Esther Smith weren’t meant to be turned on. They were meant to be kept in the background,
like utilitarian furniture. He recovered
some composure.
“And?” he asked, one brow
raised, fingertips resting together, giving the illusion of comfort.
”And,” she mimicked his tone. “I
discovered that there is, in fact, something that will prevent me from turning
you in to the authorities.” Oh dear heaven.
She was going to want him to have sex with her? He couldn’t imagine
it. The very thought turned his stomach.
“You would sink to those
depths, Esther?” he asked, at his sanctimonious best. “Compelling a man to have carnal relations
with you?” She burst out laughing at
that, almost braying her amusement. From
barks to brays, he noticed with real distaste.
The woman was a barnyard all on her own.
“I wouldn’t have you,” she said
derisively. “At least, not that
way. No, Bradley, my tastes tend towards
the more exotic. Here, let me show you. Open the bottom filing cabinet drawer.” Had the woman been planting things all over
his office? He sighed and opened the
drawer.
“This brown box, I assume?”
he asked.
”You assume correctly,” she replied.
“Take it out and put it on the desk.”
Puffing his cheeks up with air and exhaling loudly to show his
exasperation, he did it, lifting the box with difficulty. “And open it,” she said. “Just tug it open, Bradley. I’ve already checked the contents. I’m good at checking. I check everything.” That put a bitter feeling in the back of his
throat. He opened the box.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s leather, Bradley,” she
said. “Leather, with some chains
underneath it. That’s why those pitiful
excuses for muscles that you have had such trouble lifting the box. Do you need me to tell you what the leather
and chains are for? ” Her gaze was coolly directed at the magazine he’d taken
from the drawer.
“You have got to be joking,”
he said, looking at the magazine, then back at her. She looked amused.
“Take it out of the box and
have a look at it,” she said. He
hesitated.
“Three to five in the
slammer, Bradley,” she said. “That’s what
this particular crime is worth. I looked
it up. And the judges are getting much
tougher about setting non-parole periods these days. I think you’d be in there, providing
entertainment for big guys with nasty temperaments for several years. Have you ever seen ‘The Shawshank
Redemption’, Bradley?” He lifted the
leather from the box and shook it out.
“It’s in your size, which of
course I know, because I get to take your clothes to the dry cleaners so
often,” she said. “Notice the special
features?” He was noticing, with
alarm. There weren’t any sleeves for a
start, the arms would just be trapped against the body, at the back, by the
look of it, and the outfit appeared to do up with locks, rather than clips. And there was a large opening where his backside
would be, and another opening at the front where…good God. He dropped the garment with distaste.
“This is unnecessary,” he
said. “I am quite prepared to pay you, a
reasonable amount, of course, that goes without saying, but I will not be part of
any sick, perverted little games you have in mind.”
”You will pay,” she agreed, still smiling.
“You will either pay by going to jail, spending three to five at the
disposal of whatever lifer feels like having a good time with a silly little
man like you. And in the process, you
will lose your job, your standing, and everything you own. Or, you will pay by serving in your spare
time as my slave for a full twelve months.
How much time do you want to think about it, Bradley?” Time.
Time would be a good thing.
Perhaps he could liquidate assets quickly and leave the country. He had no idea where he’d go, but at least
his liberty would be maintained.
“A week, no, two weeks,” he
said. She laughed again.
“Two minutes,” she said. “In two minutes, either you will get up,
strip and put that outfit on, or I will get up, walk out of this office and
contact the authorities.”
“But you said this would
b-b-be in my spare time,” he protested, hating the nervous stutter as he
spoke. Esther smiled again.
“Spare time will be defined
as any time we’re on our own, Bradley,” she said. She leaned over the desk and broadened that
smile. “And we’re going to be on our own
often. Now what’s it going to be,
boss?” He sat, breathing heavily,
hyperventilating, almost wishing for a heart attack – not to kill him, but to
save him from this predatory woman.
Women weren’t supposed to be like this.
They were supposed to be soft and subservient and sexy and submissive
and…
“Time’s up,” she said,
pushing her chair back. “I’ll be sure to
visit you often in jail. Apparently
you’ll get a full strip and cavity search after every visit.” He sat silently, visions of his private
wealth, his power, his life running behind his eyes. He watched her walk across the thick carpet,
her flat soles soundless. He gulped and
stood up.
“Esther, wait,” he said. She turned, and smiled as his hands went to
the knot of his tie, undoing it.
”Come around to the front of the desk,” she said, leaning back against the wall
and crossing her arms. “And
Bradley? From now on, it’s Miss Smith,
Mistress Esther or Ma’am to you. Now
hurry up and get those clothes off. I
want to see what I’m getting for the next twelve months.”
“Yes Ma’am,” he said, panic
in his eyes.