'Excuse me?' I willed the telltale colour from of my cheeks, but Marianne saw it anyway. She tapped the paddle against her chin.
'Well, really, Kate. Who's come visiting since Tom ran out on you? Oh, forgive me, I'm forgetting your buddies here at work - your close, personal employees. Or do you want to count your little housemates as friends?' A mocking smile curved her scarlet lips. 'Trust me, as soon as the next kinky adventure rolls around, they'll be history. They're nothing but a pair of cocksuckers.'
I don't know what laughing devil whispered in my ear, but the riposte came effortlessly. Tm a cocksucker myself,' I said calmly. 'So I hardly count that an insult.'
My choice of words seemed to rob Marianne of hers. They also sent Desi over the edge.
'Oh, no,' he whimpered. He jerked so hard at his bonds the end of my desk lurched forward. Tm going to come, mistress. I can't hold back.'
'No!' Marianne smacked his shoulder back and forth with her paddle. ‘I forbid you to come!'
But his cock darkened defiantly, the veins bulging, the shaft pounding like a rabbit's heart. The tiny slit in the head fluttered, desperate to eject its load. 'Agh, agh, agh,' he grunted, screwing his eyes shut.
A second later they opened and focused on mine, sharp as lasers. I couldn't look away. Mistress, he mouthed, sending a dark thrill to my core. Then he blasted off. His hips humped the air as streams of semen shot from his cock like water from a pressure hose. His seed spattered the floor boards from his knees to the opposite desk. I'd never seen anything like it.
All the while, Marianne rained blows on his shoulders back, damning him to hell for coming without her permission. Impervious to her fury, Desmond held me prisoner with his hot, knowing stare. My hands shook; my vagina fluttered and wept. I knew what he was telling me: that Marianne and I weren't so different, that I got off on this dom stuff, too.
Tell me something I don't know, I thought. But the knowledge ran a little deeper now. Now I'd have to consider what it meant. I released my tension with a long, slow breath. 'I want you out before we open for business today,’ I said once Marianne stopped swatting her rebellious slave.
She shook her head at me, off balance, but trying to hide it. 'You'll be sorry, Kate.'
'I already am,’ I said, and tossed an empty book carton on to her desk.
The last thing I heard before I pulled the outer door shut was Marianne yelling for Desi to lick his jism off the floor.
Still fuming and shaken, I strode down South Street
, oblivious to my favourite funky stores, to the early commuters and the bohemians out walking their dogs. In the seventeen years since she'd married my ne'er-do-well brother, Marianne had never stared at me so coldly, as if she loathed me. Then again, maybe I hadn't been looking for it. We'd been through so much together. We'd cried on each other's shoulders and toasted each other's victories. If Marianne got snappish, I reckoned she was just being Marianne. Friends put up with each other's moods, didn't they?
I hadn't known she resented me enough to strike at me through Joe. Her plan, flimsy though it was, had the potential to both rob me of his company and punish him for rejecting her - two birds with one stone. Except the plot had backfired. At the last minute, her instrument of revenge had developed cold feet. Chances were, she'd blame me for that, too.
Marianne never did get what she wanted.
Desmond Gerrard caught up to me four streets from the shop. I spun around to face him. 'What?' I demanded, more interested in walking off my anger than in anything he had to say.
'Please wait,’ he said, then leant on his knees and panted. His breath puffed white in the mid-December air. He'd pulled his business clothes over his slave get-up, obviously in haste. The studded leather choker showed behind his half-buttoned collar. This reminder of what I'd just seen - and felt - unnerved me.
I wanted to leave, but my awareness of all he could do to harm Joe's career stopped me.
'I know how that looked back there,’ he said, once he'd caught his breath.
I waited. He sighed, sounding more like a weary businessman than a slave.
‘I admit, my hobby means a great deal to me, but my professional reputation isn't for sale. Not even to a -' his fingers searched the air for a word '-a paragon like Marianne.'
Some paragon! And some ethics. He'd had no problem going along with her plan before he saw Joe perform. I ground my molars rather than say this out loud, but my disapproval must have showed. Desi tugged his overcoat closed and buttoned it. The slave collar disappeared. His dignity had cracked, but not so deeply he couldn't pull it back together.
'Your friend is genuinely talented,’ he said. ‘I honestly believe I could help him get a solid start.'
'Why should I trust you?'