Limit of Authority

"Now we get ready for bed. Your pyjamas are in the bed. Your bathroom is over there. I suggest that you shower and shave. My bathroom is there. I will shower and meet you back here in what? Twenty minutes?"

I nodded. I retrieved my pyjamas and went to shave and shower as she had told me. I was back well in time but Elenya was already in the bed. She turned back the duvet for me to join her. I slid in beside her. She turned to face me, holding the duvet up to her neck.

"There are a few ground rules about tonight, Alan."

I looked at her.

"You will do what I say and only what I say. If you don't want to do it you can use the safe word, my surname. Once you use the safe word you have to move to the couch for the rest of the night. OK?"

If I was going to enjoy that night I knew I must never use the safe word.

"I agree."

"Alan, how long is it since you had to obey someone else?"

Elenya was serious. I thought before answering.

"Not really since I was at school. Even as a junior manager I didn't have to obey when I didn't want to."

"Did you ever obey your wife?"

"No."

"Did she obey you?"

"No. I didn't ask her to."

"I thought not. That's one of the reasons that Darren had problems. He was scared stiff of you and puzzled that you didn't exert your authority over your wife to stop her driving so badly. He used to blame you for her death. He thought that you could have prevented her from driving."

"I couldn't. She was her own woman, making her own decisions."

"I know. Darren knows that now. I made him obey me. Now I treat him as an adult equal."

"I thought that you could make Darren obey you. That's why I chose you to be his tutor."

"I know. Arrogant of you, wasn't it? You couldn't make Darren change by yourself so you chose the best subordinate to do it for you."

"And you did very well, Elenya."

"I did. I learned a lot about Darren... and about you."

"What did you learn about me?"

"That you can be a complete bastard to people who let you down, but that if you trust someone, you reward that trust. You like people who are prepared to stand up to you and have some contempt for people who won't even if you recognise their abilities. Mrs Jones, my former forewoman can be an example. She challenged you about me, that day you called me off the line, didn't she?"

I nodded.

"Some of my colleagues said she couldn't have been more of a champion for me if she'd been my mother. That true?"

I nodded again.

"Yet you promoted her. Can you explain why? I would like a detailed response, please. I know it is an odd request in this position but it is important to me."

"OK, Eleyna. Because she behaved as a supervisor should. She defended one of her staff against the big boss because she thought the boss might exploit you. She may have done it for you because she liked you. She might have. I was fairly convinced that she would have done it for any of the people working for her. I already knew that she didn't take any nonsense from some of the younger staff so she could discipline fairly. That made her a valuable asset to the company. Since she was promoted she has proved me right. She could be promoted again. I have discussed it with her. She doesn't want to be, because the responsibilities at the next level would conflict with her upbringing of her children. Once her youngest has left home she might consider promotion but I doubt it. She doesn't have the incentive to seek the extra money and status. She does her job well because that is how she is made. If she changes her mind she knows she can tell me at any time."

"How many of your supervisors and managers know that they could seek promotion?"

"All of those that have the capacity."

"And those that don't?"

"They know that I am happy with them in their present roles but that although I value them, at present I don't see them as having potential for promotion – and why they do not have that potential."

"What reasons do you give them?"

"The usual ones are lack of experience and education. Both can be fixed with time. Some just don't have the personal characteristics to be senior managers, usually because of lack of confidence or lack of ambition. Lack of ambition is up to them. Lack of confidence can sometimes be corrected with training."

"And what about Eleyna? I'm an employee of yours."

"You know that I trust you with almost everything yet..."

"Yet?"

"Yet - I think you want to spread your wings and fly away, to assert to yourself that you do not need me anymore."

"Thank you, Alan."

"For what?"

"For answering my questions so clearly. Now..."

Eleyna reached under her pillow.

"Please take your pyjama jacket off and sit on the side of the bed with your hands beside your waist."

I did. She tied the end of a long silk scarf to my right wrist, passed it across the front of my body, tied it around my left wrist and then behind my back to finish with the scarf tied to my right wrist again. I could move my hands a few inches before the scarf stopped me. Eleyna repeated the tying around my elbows. My arms and hands were held beside my body without cutting into me.

"Remember, Alan, you can use the safe word if you want to," Eleyna said.

I opened my mouth to say that I didn't want to use the safe word.

Eleyna stuffed a bunched up chiffon scarf in my mouth. Swiftly she wound another long silk scarf round and round over my mouth and chin, pulling the chiffon scarf hard into my mouth.

"But now you can't... Shame, isn't it?"

I grunted into the gag. The noise I could make was very faint.

Eleyna pulled me backward on to the bed. She lifted my legs up and arranged me with my head on the pillow and my body in the middle of the bed. She had pushed the duvet to the floor.

She was wearing a simple satin nightdress in gold that fell below her knees. The top was vest-shaped. Her skin glowed in contrast to the gold satin. She straddled me, sitting on my stomach and leant forward to kiss me, first on the forehead, then on each eye. Her brown hair brushed my face. She kissed me over the gag. Her hair was stroking my neck and shoulders. She licked and nibbled at my nipples. Her tongue circled each one slowly. She looked up at me as her teeth teased my skin. She came back to kiss my face again.

"If you could say the safe word, would you?"

I shook my head.

"Earlier, you agreed to obey me, or else use the safe word. Will you obey?"

I nodded.

"Then keep quiet while I remove your gag. I need that scarf elsewhere. Remember. Quiet!"

She turned my head to one side and unwound the long scarf. Her finger and thumb extracted the sodden chiffon scarf and threw it off the bed. Her mouth covered mine. Her tongue lashed around inside my mouth, forcing mine back. Her arms wrapped around my head as we savoured the kiss.

Eleyna wrapped the long scarf around my neck and pulled it tight. She poised her hands as if she was going to tighten it further and strangle me.

"Alan, you have just said you would obey me. Do you trust me? Implicitly? You can answer."

"Yes, Eleyna, I trust you."

She pulled the scarf tighter, making it difficult for me to breathe.

"Even with your life?"

"Yes," I croaked.

Eleyna loosened the stranglehold and slid the scarf from around my neck. She sighed.

"No one, no one has ever trusted me that much, Alan. Why do you?"

"I think you know the answer, Eleyna."

"I think I do, but your actions haven't suggested the answer, have they? You have always treated me as an employee, a valued employee, but nothing more. Not a single indication that I was more than that to you. Why?"

"Because I was afraid to," I replied.

Eleyna moved herself so that her head was resting on my shoulder.

"I want an explanation, Alan, and for you to express your answer clearly. You will, won't you? After all, you have promised to obey me tonight."

"Eleyna, as my employee, it is against the law of this country for me to treat you otherwise than as an employee. If I had, you could have taken me to an Industrial Tribunal, alleging sexual harassment, and you would have won. The money you would have won, wouldn't have mattered to me. The damage to my reputation as an employer would have mattered. Even that I could have accepted. What I couldn't accept was the possibility of losing you."

"Losing me?"

"Yes. If you had objected, I would have lost you. That would leave a large hole in my life."

"I'm beginning to guess your answer, Alan. But you'll have to say it."

"I will. I hadn't intended to say it while helplessly tied up, but..."

"I could untie you, Alan, as long as you'll let me tie you again afterwards."

"Please..."

Eleyna removed the scarves around my wrists and elbows. I climbed off the bed and walked across the room to where my suit jacket was hanging. I reached into a pocket, found what I wanted, and went back to the edge of the bed. Eleyna was sitting up against the headboard. I took her left hand and dropped to my knees.

"Elenya, I love you."

Her other hand flew to her mouth.

"Eleyna, will you marry me, be my partner – for life?"

Her face paled. It was clear that she had been expecting a declaration but not a proposal.

"You mean it?"

"Yes, Eleyna. I mean it. I can't face life without you beside me."

"If I say yes, Alan, will I have to 'obey' you in everything?"

"Of course not. You will be my partner, my equal. Sometimes you might have to obey me; sometimes I might have to obey you, but most of the time we will decide things together. Tonight I have agreed to obey you. If you say 'no', I would have to accept your decision. I would be very sad but perhaps I would ask you again, and again..."

"...until I say 'yes'."

"Probably. Your 'yes' means so much to me."

"But I'm still your employee, Alan."

"If you say 'yes', from that moment you aren't. You will be my fiancée, my intended partner, and no longer my employee except notionally until I've paid your leaving pay."

"My leaving pay? How much would that be?"

I laughed.

"Half of my assets. You would be joint owner of the company."

Elenya pulled my left hand to a breast.

"Is this body worth that much to you, Alan?"

"Your body? No. I don't want just your body. I want the whole Elenya, body, brain and soul to stand beside me. I don't want to buy you. I want you to be my partner for life."

"What if I wanted to continue to be a teacher, Alan? I enjoy teaching."

"Whatever you want, Eleyna. I want a wife who is her own person. If you want to teach, why not?"

"Her own person?" Eleyna's hand gripped mine tighter to her breast. "I would be free to choose?"

"All I ask is that you become my wife and share my life with me, Eleyna. What you do when I'm working would be yours to choose. I hope we would spend time together almost every day but there would be times when I would be away, and times when you might be."

"Do you know why I left my country, Alan?"

"No. You have never told me."

"I was to be married to a man I had never met. If I had married him, I would have had to obey him, and my mother-in-law, without question. I couldn't face that, so I fled the country. What you are offering is very different. You want a partner, an equal, sometime to stand beside you?"

"Yes, Eleyna."

She lifted my hand from her breast to her lips and kissed it.

"Then my answer is 'Yes', Alan. I will marry you."

I brought my right hand from behind my back and opened it, revealing a small black box. I held it out to Eleyna. She let go of my hand and opened it to reveal a solitaire diamond ring.

Eleyna reached for it, then her hand stopped.

"We haven't mentioned Darren," she said. "How will he react to having me as a step-mother?"

I laughed.

"Darren thinks I've been too slow. He has been trying to get me to propose to you for the last six months. He wants you as his step-mother."

Eleyna smiled broadly. She took the ring and held it out to me so I could put it on her finger. It fitted beautifully.

"Now, fiancé Alan, we have unfinished business. We have the rest of the night together. Strip!"

I stripped. Eleyna tied me up with her scarves and rode me to a climax.