Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

I ngrid

The next morning I woke up before the alarm I'd set for six, and I lay in bed for what seemed an eternity, trying to figure out whether I would go back to the Selecta building.

Moments of blushing self-consciousness swept over me, even there alone in bed, each one a wave of shivering anticipation that prickled across my skin like the lingering touch of Joseph's knowing, humiliating fingers.

Joseph . His first name in my mind brought a new wave of warmth to my face. How could I think of him that way, by his given name, after what he had done to me, made me do?

I stirred for the first time from the position I'd awoken in, my eyelids fluttering against the dim light that filtered through the blinds. It was too early for the sun even to begin its ascent, but to my dismay my body didn't seem to care. It was already much too awake, alive—thrumming, even—with tension.

I bit my lip. I tried to persuade myself the tension represented fear—an anxiety about going back to Selecta that should tell me everything I needed to know. It wasn't true, though: between my thighs, under the sheets, I felt the rising need, rousing itself from the hot, dark place inside that seemed to have become an intimate companion.

I shifted in the sheets, the cool cotton a stark contrast to the warmth flooding every inch of me. I winced a little as I felt the ache from the bruises Joseph—Mr. Alden, I warned myself—had left on my bottom and upper thighs, as well as the lingering soreness of my pussy.

My gaze flickered to the clock, its red digits glaring 5:07 a.m. back at me—a taunt, it felt like, reminding me that the world was still cloaked in the innocence of predawn hours while I lay here, soiled by thoughts too salacious for daylight.

I shook my head, a feeble attempt to fend off the invasion of memories that swelled from the depths of my mind. But they had infiltrated me. He, Joseph, my new boss, had gotten inside me somehow, possessed me.

He claimed you. Not just with his manhood, his huge, rigid cock , the voice from the hot, dark place whispered.

As much as I tried to shut them out, images from my shameful ‘interview' in his opulent corner office slithered through the cracks, wrapping around my senses like the tendrils of some forbidden plant.

A shudder traveled up my spine, bent my back into an arch as involuntary as it was revealing. The heat between my thighs seemed like a living thing, a pulse that beat in sync with the racing of my heart. Joseph's voice echoed not in my ears, but somewhere deeper—commands that dripped with authority and sent need surging through my veins.

Take off your clothes. Look at me.

No panties until I say you can wear them again.

The memories alone elicited a response from my body. I felt dampness spread between my legs, so copious that I sensed it dripping onto the fitted sheet below me. I felt my cheeks get hot as I remembered that I hadn't even been able to put on my usual cotton panties last night, thanks to the pain from the paddle.

Joseph's face hovered behind my closed eyelids, stern yet to my distress also seductive. His blue eyes seemed to blaze with a promise of stern discipline and tormenting pleasure.

I tried again to stop myself. I told myself I had never really masturbated, that I had never needed to, that being made to do it by Joseph yesterday didn't count. I managed to push myself up into a sitting position, the sheets pooling in my lap. But the mere act of moving only served to stoke the fire within me. Each shift of muscle and flesh increased the tension and brought a new thrill of an aching discomfort down there, in front and in back, that had begun not to feel like pain at all.

A little moan slipped past my lips, heavy with desire but nevertheless edged with the sharp tang of my defiance, too. I didn't want this. I didn't want the job, or Mr. Alden for a boss. How could I? I wasn't insane!

Joseph .

To my horror, I suddenly wished for the utterly degrading effect of his compliance wand. If Joseph used the wand on me, and told me I had to touch myself, I could pretend I didn't want to do it on my own. Didn't need to do it, alone in my bed, thinking about him.

Under the veil of my sheets, my resistance crumbled like a cliff face against a relentless ocean of lewd pleasure. The traitorous fingertips of my right hand whispered across the tender curves of my flesh, descending into the forbidden valley that pulsed with hot, demanding, shameful life. The heat there welcomed my touch even as a surge of warmth in my cheeks matched it, at the twinge of soreness that remained in my slippery sheath. I let out a little cry at the echo of Joseph's pounding cock inside the place he had used so thoroughly for his pleasure.

And mine , came the hot, needy voice in my head.

The breath went in and out from my nostrils in short puffs. I closed my eyes and saw Joseph, standing over me.

More , he commanded. Show me what a naughty girl you can be .

The imagined words fell like a benediction, a longed-for command. My fingers obeyed. I whimpered softly as I rubbed a soft circle on the hood of my clit. I probed into my vagina for more of the lubrication I craved, then spread it up and forward. My other hand found my nipples under the old t-shirt I wore as pajamas.

I remembered his cock. My arousal on it, much too plain. With a little moan I took my right hand from my pussy and brought it to my mouth, suddenly eager to taste myself. Joseph had used his wand on me, I told myself. He had commanded me to do it, to taste the musky naughtiness and to supplement it with my saliva.

His image held my mind captive—the sharp cut of his jaw, the predatory grace in his movements, every line of him exuding control. I could almost feel the weight of his gaze upon me, demanding and discerning, as he stood next to the bed in my mind's eye, watching me shame myself with my own hand.

"More," his phantom voice commanded. "Put that hand back down between your legs and make your cunt feel good."

Again I obeyed. I cried out at my returned touch. My body arched hard at the rough caress of my fingers, chasing the pleasure he had somehow taught me to crave with his single terrible lesson.

"Please," I panted, answering him as if he truly were there. The word was barely audible, but I couldn't help blushing anew anyway, sure somehow that the real Joseph, somewhere could sense how badly I needed his hardness inside me.

The crescendo of my pleasure rose higher, as if my body and its helpless need were an orchestra conducted by the memory of his unyielding hands, his stern commands, the agony of his discipline and the overwhelming pleasure of his cock in my hot, wet cunt.

"Sir," I sobbed, "please… please…"

The submissive words seemed to send me over the precipice of my release. With a helpless scream, I started to come, sure that my neighbors could hear me through the thin walls and to my dismay feeling my desire only grow at the thought.

The room spun for the briefest of moments as I got up, suddenly desperate to leave behind the shame I had perpetrated in my bed. I felt like I had left a world of shameful pleasure and returned to the even more humiliating consequences I would find in reality, when I went back to the Selecta building.

If I go back to the Selecta building.

The cool air of the apartment against my skin seemed to scold me for the heat my imagination of Joseph's imagined touch had stoked to life. I shook my head violently, trying to pretend my face hadn't just gone hot once again, and the other heat hadn't somehow, treasonously, reawakened below my tummy.

My feet carried me on autopilot, padding across the floor toward the closet. With practiced motions, I reached for the carefully chosen attire, the second of my two workplace outfits—the office clothes that had always seemed a symbol of the admin assistant persona I had felt so proud of having developed.

I dressed, hardly thinking of anything at all but coffee and blueberry yogurt, and grateful somewhere in my mind for the respite from thoughts of Selecta.

My reflection in the mirror struck me as a strange study in contrasts—outward poise and inner turmoil, a woman who desperately wanted to seem like she'd been carved from ice, but, after yesterday, hiding a core molten with longing. My creased brow and my blue eyes betrayed me, I saw with a little twist of my pursed lips to the side, the trouble there seeming to warn me that I hadn't gotten rid of the memories, or what they meant—I'd only repressed them.

With a final glance at the reflection that held all my secrets, I turned away. I closed the bedroom door behind me with a click of finality, sealing away the shameful place of my helpless, submissive desires.

I sipped my coffee and ate my yogurt, doing my best to keep my attention on my phone, trying to absorb at least a little of the news instead of thinking about Selecta. I put my breakfast things in the sink. I brushed my teeth. I moved toward the door.

As I reached for the doorknob, an electric jolt of awareness sizzled through me, along with the degrading memory of Joseph's words, again as if he stood right there, right behind me, smiling at my helpless blushes.

No panties until I say you can wear them again.

Joseph's decree. An assertion of his control, in my mind, that clung closer than any fabric.

A little whimper rose in my throat. I stood in front of the door, my hand still reaching for the knob. I wondered how I had managed to put my panties on without remembering my new boss' command, and then I almost wished I'd managed to get out the door and onto the subway without having remembered.

I bit my lip, thinking of what would happen. Thinking of the horrid wooden paddle, above all.

My face burning, I dropped my purse and went back to the bedroom. I tried not to think about it as all the conflicted feelings I had managed to push down and away a few minutes before came rushing back into my head, my chest, and worst of all my private parts.

I hiked my pencil skirt up to mid thigh and drew the sensible gray cotton bikini panties down, glad that at least in the warmth of summer I didn't have to worry about stockings.

Until he tells you to wear them. And the garter belt. And tiny panties over the suspenders when he allows it.

I tossed the tangle of fabric aside onto the bed, willing myself to return to that automatic state in which I'd almost made it out the door. It didn't help. As I checked my reflection one final time, I saw Mr. Joseph Alden's secretary and I couldn't push down the sob as I remembered too well that at Selecta secretary also meant fuck toy .

Walking from my building to the subway, I felt as if I had traveled to some other, darker, plane of reality. The warm morning and the city's noises enveloped me just as they had every morning I'd left home for my ordinary admin assistant jobs.

Beneath the crisp lines of my office clothes, though, I felt raw and terribly vulnerable. My lack of underwear brought a shamefully new sensation to which the soreness in my backside and between my legs only called more of my attention. Every step seemed like an insane, impossible bit of progress toward a place my rational mind told me I shouldn't return to, while my body refused to pay my brain any heed.