The Gift That Keeps On Giving

He went to his chair and sat, leaving her standing, feet spread. The fire burned well. Its orange light and heat played about her. He took the cards and rifled through them, flushing at what he saw. He showed her a picture of a woman kneeling between a man's legs, her mouth about his cock. "This is the next one."

"Cheat," she said.

He brought the whip down hard across a breast. She yelped and the chain bounced and flashed in the firelight.

"Get to work."

As soon as her sweet soft lips touched him he knew that this was not what he wanted. Roughly he took her under her arms, lifted her and all but threw her down on hearth rug. She had just time to shift to get her ass into a more comfortable position when he was on her. She gripped him with her legs and arched her back and he rammed her vigorously. He gasped with pain. The plastic cock was still in her. With a chuckle she slipped her hand down between them and removed it. He hit her hard once across her breasts with the whip as punishment for the laugh. He butted against her once. Then her fingers guided him and he drove in.

The face she looked up at was hard, grim and unrecognizable. He came almost instantly.

With the single-mindedness he brought to his work, he did not let go of his erection and began to rut again with long slow strokes. She sighed and gave herself over to the oldest most uncomplicated of pleasures.

Later, drained for the time being, they lounged before the fire, he with his back against his chair, she with her soft cheek on his thigh, his limp cock, smelling of both of them, not far from her eyes.

He held the whip and idly ran its leather strands along her body, from her wet puffed pussy, up over her chest and small breasts, to her chin and then back down, as if he was sweeping some invisible dust from her, or accompanying some soft music on a snare drum.

"How did you get into this?" he asked.

"You mean how did a nice girl like me discover chains and whips?"

"Ouch," he'd slapped her hard across the belly.

"In college. I'd had sex, of course, a boy friend or three or four and some fun. I liked sex and you know I don't remember finding it lacking. I kept it in its place. My grades were what mattered. And learning the stuff. This guy I knew, he was an English major and's in law school now, one of this guy's classes was having an open reading of Joyce's Ulysses. He felt the book was crap and the idea of you know like reading it out loud cover to cover as some kind of commemoration was pretentious. So he organized this like counter reading. We were going to read "100 Days of Sodom", but that's too nasty and's got long boring parts, much like Ulysses in fact, so "The Story of O" was chosen. You know it?"

He shook his head.

"Maybe we can read it together. The others, well, it turned them on I guess, but nothing major. When it was my turn to read, just speaking the words excited me to the extent that I came with everyone like watching, I had to pass the book along to the next in the circle. That book bound something in me to it. I couldn't and didn't want to break free. So I like started looking. Eventually I found this small, quite elite group, (ironic when you think that this all started as a protest against elitism), its members a few rich men and a few professors, I was at the University of Chicago. They had the style and the tone and well, the hidden menace I was after. I found 'em after a few somewhat sordid adventures I won't speak of.

"Would it shock you to know I got my job with our firm, because of one of the members of that group?"

"Most of the guys we hire seem to be recommended by someone or other for who knows what reason, " he said, "Like they're related to someone. Or they come from an Ivy League school. Most of 'em turn out to be idiots. The company is good at weeding out the incompetents. They generally go work for a bank. I expect you'll be working for BofA in a month or so with the rest of our rejects."

She slugged him playfully in the chest.

"Striking me," he said, "Is a capital offense. Kneel with your back to me." He brought the whip down hard on her already red skin.

Later still, she lay on her side with her back against him because the wool of the hearth rug was painful. She reached for her bag, rummaged and pulled out a tube of ointment, "Aloe Vera and Arnica", she said, she handed it back to him. "Would you mind?"

Rubbing it onto her flesh, making it shine even more in the firelight, hardened him once again, against his estimations of what was possible. When he'd finished with her pussy, which he'd left for last, he entered her from behind.

She put her hand down and touched him to still him. "Let's just lie a time."

He felt right then that they were natural normal lovers. He felt desperately fond of her.

She asked, "When did you first notice me, I mean as a woman and not as a hopefully valuable co-worker? I bet you'd never thought of me until I turned up on your doorstep. And maybe not until you turned over the first card.

"And maybe not even then, you didn't know what the fuck it was?"

"I still don't know what it's called."

"In Spanish it's called a 'consolador', a consoler." She rubbed the hard inch of his cock that was exposed by their position. "Did you feel consoled? We're not so poetic, it's the strange word dildo or when it's meant to go up the ass, the prosaic butt plug. Anyhow. So it wasn't until you got to hit me that desire awoke?"

"I wanted you the first time I saw you. You were being introduced around the office by the HR guy. You appeared in my cube door and you were so pretty. When I stood I knocked my goddamn chair over."

She laughed, "I remember that."

"I said like 2 things to myself, 1> this is the prettiest girl I've ever seen and I've no chance at all. 2>"

"That's already two things."

"No, only one. They were bound so closely together they couldn't be separated. And you must not contradict me," the whip made its hard sound and she yelped and jumped, there was no part of her chest or thighs that weren't reddened. Her squirming had started him moving in her but she stilled him again with a touch. "What was number 2 then?"

"That I thought that someone so pretty had to be dumb as they come and you were going to be a weight and an impediment on the project."

She twisted and bit him on the flesh under his shoulder.

"Ouch. That's yet another offense." He flailed her. His moving arm and chest caused his cock to jump within her and she gasped and choked with pain and pleasure.

Later still, the fire just embers, he got the cards again.

"Hey, it's late and time for bed," she said in a soft complaining tone, "Haven't you lost enough?"

"I just want the chance to win back a little something."

"Honey, you lost it all earlier, you'll never be free again."

Then when he turned the card over and she saw the pins, neatly stuck in a soft breast, in neat little lines, pinching up little welts of flesh, she said "shit". She saw how excited he was and sighed. She took his hands and guided them in the sweet but painful operation.

She moved in with him the next day. At work they kept it quiet, as indeed they had to, the office had firm rules about employees fooling around with each other. His life was transformed.

He remembered how at one deadly dull meeting. Some voice droned from the speakerphone and powerpoint slides were being shone by an overhead projector. She sat across the table from him. His cock'd positively hurt. It moved in his pants. Her eyes kept meeting his, and then shifting calmly back to the interminable slides. He watched her fingers tap on the table, now and then taking notes on a pad. Well, not always notes because her felt her foot touch his knee. When he reached down, he found a post-it note which read, "Guess what I'm thinking about?". He answered, "Pay attention, there'll be a quiz." Delivering it was difficult, he had to stealthily take his shoe off and grip the post-it with his toes through his socks and stretch it across to her skirt without noticeable squirming. Her eyes turned to his and she just slightly wrinkled her nose. After a few moments he saw her eyes widen, her mouth open for breath, a slight sheen of sweat appeared on her upper lip. She shifted slightly in her chair. Suddenly she squeaked. He recognized a muffled version of the little cry she gave when she came. Eyes turned to her. She made a hiccuping sound and stood. Her hand trembled slightly. "Sorry," she said, "The hiccups. I need water." She'd orgasmed just by looking at him and thinking. His cock hurt and throbbed with longing. He wanted to get up and go after her, but his presentation was next. It was all he could do to think of snow with columns of numbers marching across it.

He remembered how another time he'd had her tell their boss that she had an afternoon's doctor's appointment and that she'd be back in the office in a couple hours. He met her in the hallway of the floor above. The restrooms on the odd numbered floors had showers, separate little narrow closets with doors. They had a wooden bench on one side and on the other a white plastic shower stall. He checked the men's room and, finding it empty, he led her through it and into the shower. He had her strip. As always, seeing her naked made his hands tremble. Knowing she was his to bid made his breathing hard and shallow. He tied her wrists together then lifted her arms and tied and duct taped the rope to the shower head. He pulled her against his suit and kissed her hard.

"What are you doing?" she whispered. "If we're caught we'll lose our fucking jobs!"

He showed her the out of order sign he'd brought. He listened, opened the closet door, and hung the sign on the closet door's handle and closed the door again. Then he undid his fly and lifted her. She locked her legs about him and they fucked.

When finished, he bent, picked up her dress and underwear, folded them and slipped the bundle under his shirt.

"What the fuck?" she demanded.

He put his fingers to his lips and pointed to the closet door. Then he zipped himself up and tucked his shirt in. "You could manage to get your arms down off the shower head I think, but you'll not escape without your clothes," he nodded to her and left. He carefully made sure the sign hung plainly on the door.

At his desk, the thought of her and the risk made him light headed. With determination, he made himself concentrate on their potential acquisition's doings in Ireland.

After half an hour, he was beside himself. He went back out, up the stairs and into that men's room. A guy was pissing and one of the two toilet stalls was occupied. The air in the restroom was thick and tainted. The out of order sign on the shower closet hung undisturbed. All was desperately quiet from within. He sat on the unused toilet until the guy in the other stall noisily used the paper. He heard the other stall door open, the sink swish and the restroom door open and close.

She jumped and tried to shelter herself by facing the wall when he entered. "You shit" she said when she saw it was him. He fucked her again. Her naked, arms raised and stretched, her legs scissored about his hips, he with just his cock out of his fly. Twice they had to stop and freeze while the restroom was used. The second time she had to swallow the sounds of her gasping climax.

He came up to her twice more. These times he rutted in her for maybe 10 minutes before he tired of the motion, unable to come, though so turned on it hurt. Then he untied her and leaned in the far corner of the closet while she showered off the evidence, dried herself and dressed. Before he opened the door and made sure the coast was clear for her exit, they kissed hard and long, she bit his lip in her passion.

He only did that to her the once, though he thought of it often. Anytime they had a disagreement, about what movie to see, what restaurant to go to, how long she must remain on tiptoe with tacks spread liberally around and under her bare feet, naked with belled chains hanging from her clamped nipples and cunt lips so that she tinkled whenever she moved, awkwardly bending over the dining room table to study the documents spread there and to enter figures into the hungry spreadsheets on the desktop computer he'd helpfully moved for her, yes, any time they had a disagreement he'd remind her of the shower closet and she'd become very obliging. The thought of the whip, she liked, the fear of being found and fired terrified her.

In fact, she hardly needed reminding, now she watched him carefully, with more respect. He had never felt so good, so confident, in his life.

There was the game they/he'd played with the cable guy. The day his cable was to be upgraded (they were going to be able to connect to work through it and it was going to be a tremendous thing) he worked from home and she called in sick. They had been careful to rarely synchronize their outages so there was no suspicion.

When the cable guy came, Arthur let him in and there in the living room, on the glass coffee table lay Katy, on her back, tied so her arms and legs were stretched, naked save for her high heels. The cable guy was 4 hours late of course, it'd been a morning appointment and he didn't show up until after 3, but that was only too bad for Katy who'd lain there the whole time, complaining about all the work she was not getting done until the ball gag had gone into her mouth. To his credit, the cable guy swore and turned to run, but Arthur, finding gifts of persuasiveness he didn't know he possessed, got him to stay. First he did the upgrade, then Arthur showed him how to play with Katy's body. The work took a half hour, the play took three. Arthur found coldly directing the cable guy in his activities so exciting that afterwards he fucked and belted and played with her until the morning sun was coming in through his windows and they really did need to call in sick.

A day later Arthur called the cable guy. Arthur showed him the video made from the desktop's webcam. It'd been sitting on an endtable unnoticed. Some of the video was real, some of it was fake. He and Katy had had a fine time editing with the expensive software he'd purchased. None of the video showed Arthur. The fake part showed the cable guy, taking a struggling Katy, stuffing a gag in her mouth, pulling her clothes off her, tying her to the coffee table and then playing with her at his leisure. He and Katy, each with their 6 figure incomes took $5,000 from the cable guy, and he had a wife and kids.

Arthur didn't tell the girl that story. It made him unhappy and sick to remember.

Then, 10 months after she'd transferred in. His group had completed yet another highly lucrative deal. This time he did go to the party.

One of the firm's owners, Viktor Kropusek, an exceedingly rich man who these days was only occasionally involved in the firm's day to day affairs, but who still maintained a presence in the San Francisco office, flew in to offer his thanks and congrats in person. He arrived a couple days early.

Arthur and Katy were chatting in her cube when his manager brought the man around. Kropusek was a tall broad man, maybe fifty, with a wiry mane of gray hair. At the sight of him, Katy went stiff and still, her eyes wide. Arthur attributed this to their being in the presence of the one who owned so much of their life. He himself felt nervous and respectful.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you," the man said as he shook Arthur's hand. He had a deep resonant voice.

"You," he said taking Katy's hand. "I remember seeing in San Francisco. You like it here?"

"Very much," she said a in small breathy voice that Arthur hardly recognized. "It's great."

"You've done good work and I thank you," the man said and he moved on down the line of cubes. Seeming to fill the narrow corridor.

"You haven't met him before?" he asked.

"There're like 500 people in that office. I've seen him from like 100 ft at the quarterly company meetings."

From then through the party he knew something was different. She was distant, tense, not unhappy he thought, but watchful. Often when he went to her cube he'd find her missing. At home, he did things that hurt her more than'd been his habit. Once he woke to find her gone from his side. He found her in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, it's cover down, just staring at the wall. He gagged her, tied her to his bed and whipped her hard, trying to master his unease.

They went separately to the party. There, he was so worried, that he thought of ordering her to leave immediately with him. But, he realized, there was a real chance she'd just say no. He remained silent. He drank more than was his habit and thought sadly of the last such occasion, when'd she'd turned up on his doorstep and they'd celebrated together. Sometime after 10 he noticed she was gone. She'd left for the ladies room and not come back. Someone told him she'd gone home. When he got to his dark and empty house, cold because the heating was turned down, he found a note saying that she was sorry, she'd accepted a promotion and was returning to the west coast office. Her things were gone. She'd left the deck of cards and the whip.

He drove to the airport and went to the terminal that catered to private jets. He sat on an inconspicuous plastic bench and worked through a stack of documents about their next investment target. After some time, past midnight, a white limousine pulled up. Kropusek climbed out, then a woman's high heels and white calves, then the rest of Katy emerged. She walked a step behind and to the left of Kropusek, slim and small behind his bulk, her chin hardly as high as his elbow. They walked across the space, heading for the gate and the quiet respectful security check that the rich are entitled to. Her heels echoed. She looked straight ahead and he did not try to intercept them or call to her.

He went home to his darkened house and the next monday went in to work. If the cube, coffee machine and hallway discussions of her sudden transfer and step up the corporate ladder bothered him, he did not let it show. He went back to the solitary, bounded life he'd known before.

------------------------------------

"She left me when she met a better man," he said sadly, "It was only ever play for her with me."

"Have you seen her since?"

He shook his head. "We've emailed some and spoken on the phone. Only about work. Her office does the west coast and Asia, we're the east and Europe and Australia. She runs that office now and very well too. She married him maybe a half year after she left me."

"And you didn't leave, find another job?"

"Why?" he asked, "This one is just what I want. I've all kinds of leeway and they know not to give me any management responsibility and it's a whole lot of fun."

"There's another way to look at it," the girl said, after a pause, "You make it out to've been worker girl seduces worker boy and they live in happy bliss until worker girl proves faithless and runs off with older guy who has more power and possibly a bigger," she paused, "whip, as well. But she could've been like the first of the presents."

"What?"

"The first like thank you for a job well done."

"No way. She was really good. Working with her was the most fun I've ever had. Better than the sex, better than the..." He stopped himself and said harshly, "You don't know anything."

"Well, girls can be smart regardless of their tastes and older rich guys can like 'em as well as the dumb ones. And when he got her back, she'd learned a lot and was more use to him."

"No way" he said, "It was not like that at all."

"Here is what might've happened. He hears of you. He has a girl, perhaps he's grown tired of her, perhaps she's angered him and he wishes to punish her. She is to seduce you and reward you for the firm's increased profits. If she succeeds he has no plan to take her back. At worst she will be a better employee because of all she will have learned. At best you will be happy and completely bound to the firm, through her."