First Date

by Frenulum

As conversations go it started innocently enough. The sort of girl talk that begins in elementary school and never fails to be a diverting subject: which boys do you like? Do you think Jason is cute? If Ken asked you, would you go out with him?

The questions get a little more pointed by high school. Would you go out with him becomes: would you let him kiss you? Would you let him touch you... there? Would you let him kiss you... there?

Would you do it?

Do it. That’s how they used to say it in high school, Kim and Sarah. Would you do it with him?

High school was far behind them now, but the lifelong friends, now co-workers, came back to the old favorite topics from time to time.

They were eating lunch together, as they did most days. The subject had turned to Sarah’s dating life, or rather her not-dating life, and Kim was looking to mount a rescue mission.

“Ok, no argument there, Todd’s a complete loser,” Kim said, “Probably still lives with his parents.” She munched a bite of her Caesar salad. “You can’t tell me he’s the only one who’s asked you out since the big bad break-up.”

Sarah sipped iced tea, and thought about all the guys she had turned away since her last brief relationship had tanked. “No, I get asked enough,” she replied. “But they’re all just as bad as Martin was. I’m beginning to think all men are.”

Kim considered bringing up a potentially unpleasant subject, and after a while decided to risk it. “I’m not completely clear on what the problem was with Martin. I mean, I’m sure you know best, I’m not trying to second-guess you, but to me he always seemed like a nice enough guy.”

“Nice? Sure, in public,” Sarah acknowledged. “But just the two of us? Oh, Kim, he only had one subject on his mind. He never wanted to talk, or get to know me. He never tried to get any kind of understanding of me as a person. It was just: do I get into your pants tonight? Or do I have to wait?” She sighed, shook her head, and took a bite of her sandwich.

“You, um, never did it with him?” Kim inquired. Then she laughed. “Listen to me, girl: ‘did it’. You never fucked him?”

“Kim, the guy took me out on five dates. That’s what, twenty hours together or something like that? Do you think that’s enough time for me to fall even slightly in-like with a guy, assuming in-like is all it takes and not in-love?” She drank more tea. “And by the third date he was already getting whiny about it, like hey, I’ve bought you two meals and a movie ticket, what about the sex you owe me now. I’m just fed up with it. They’re all like that. I can’t stand it any more.”

They ate quietly for a while, each lost in thought. Kim pushed her plate to the side, leaving only a smear of dressing uneaten. “Well, they can’t all be complete jerks, or nobody’d ever hook up. You said you’ve had guys ask you out — what if you asked somebody you fancy?” When she saw twin spots of pink appear on her friend’s cheeks, Kim knew instantly that she was on to something. “Ok, Sarah, dish,” she said playfully. “Who’s caught your eye? C’mon, you can tell me.”

“Oh, nobody,” said Sarah bashfully, trying to wave off her friend.

“Nunh-unh,” Kim rejoined. “I caught that sparkle in your eye. C’mon, girlfriend, give it up. Anyone I know?” She leaned forward eagerly to catch any confidences Sarah might share.

Sarah sighed. “Well...”

“Yes?”

“There’s one guy...”

“Yes?”

“Oh, Kim, this is completely silly. I don’t even know his name. I’ve just passed by him a few times. He works in Auditing on the nineteenth floor, that’s almost all I know about him.” Sarah paused and gauged how much she was willing to spill. “But... he’s gorgeous, for one thing, not to sound superficial or anything like that, and — I don’t know, I overheard him talking to a group of three or four people one day, and he just seemed... I don’t know, really... confident.” She shook her head at how stupid she sounded to her own ears, mooning over a man she’d never met. “Not cocky, you know, not arrogant — just... really certain, like he’d learned to trust himself.” She looked at Kim anxiously. “Am I making any sense?”

“So far so good,” Kim replied. “In Auditing, you said? I know a lot of those people. What does he look like?”

“Umm... He’s pretty big — tall, I mean, broad-shouldered, that kind of thing, not fat. Dark brown hair, short, a little bit of grey in it —”

“Grey? How old is this dude?” Kim interrupted.

“Oh, I can’t tell. Forty-five, if I had to guess,” Sarah mused.

“Sarah! Twenty years older than you? What’s got into you?” Kim asked, shocked.

Sarah shrugged. “I guess... that’s never been something I really think about. I mean, I care about how a guy acts with me, how he thinks, what’s in his heart. I guess I never really thought I should be checking his birth certificate too.” She answered calmly enough, but Kim could see a little bit of irritation in her friend’s face, and backed off.

“Well, ok, never mind that for now. Where is he in the department, do you know?”

“From the way I saw people act around him, really deferential and respectful... I have to guess he’s not just one of the audit pool. Maybe Claudia and Simone and Greg’s boss, something like that?”

“No... that would be Phoebe Randall, who you definitely would not mistake for a man. Boobs out to here, just for starters.”

“Her boss, maybe?”

“A black guy, Darnel something... is your crush a brother?”

“He’s not my crush, Kim, for crying out loud,” Sarah exclaimed indignantly. “And watch your language, H.R. would kill you.” She regained her train of thought. “Anyway, no, he’s not.”

“Hmm. You’re starting to stump the all-knowing sage of the Ventures department,” said Kim, perplexed. “You sure he’s a boss, now?”

“I think he must be,” Sarah replied. “He’s not in a cube like everybody else. He’s got a big office, with glass walls and a real door, right in the corner.”

It was fortunate that Kim’s hands were empty, as anything fragile she held would have shattered on the floor. Her eyes grew wide. “A big glass office, with a giant desk with a thick glass top, on the corner of the nineteenth floor?”

“Yeah.”

Kim sat back in her chair and stared at her best friend. “Sarah, how long have you worked at Porter, Porter, Waffle, and Sproing?”

“Since college, you idiot, same as you. Coming up on four years.”

“Who’s the first Porter in the name, then — tell me.”

“Um, the chairman — well, chairman emeritus now, I guess. Mark Porter.”

“Wrong-oh,” said Kim, smug with her superior knowledge. “Ex-chair is daddy, Mark Porter Senior, and he’s the second one in the company name. Mark Porter Junior is numero uno: the founder of the firm, the darling of the SEC, the auditing equivalent of the U.S.S. New Jersey.” She grinned at Sarah. “And you’ve got a crush on Junior.”

Sarah stared in shock at the news. “You’re kidding,” was all she finally managed to say.

“Not about this,” Kim returned.

“Why — But — How can — Why isn’t he up on the thirtieth floor with all the other brass, then?” Sarah asked weakly.

Kim had all the inside scoop, and shared it eagerly. “He doesn’t like to run a company, is what people say. Says it’s too tedious, not challenging enough. So as soon as the firm started to turn a buck, back in the day, he hired his father to run it. Which means Mark Junior can spend all his time doing what he loves.”

“Which is...?” Sarah prompted.

“Finding cheats and frauds and crooks, and destroying them. He’s put more white-collar criminals in jail than... than... some other famous crime-fighting dude I can’t think of.” The girls shared a laugh.

“No, seriously. He likes to tag along with an auditing team, and just... watch. Sniff around. Feel the undercurrents, listen to gossip. Grab tiny little facts and tug on them, see how they hold up. And the next thing you know, there’s front page news of how some Fortune-100 company cooked the books to hide the CEO’s yacht or his mansion in Europe or his starlet collection. He’s a headhunter, Sarah; he’s a bloodhound, he’s absolutely deadly at it.” She sat back, pleased with the effect of her tale. “So he hangs with Auditing, and waits for a tiny trace of blood in the water, and he lets other people worry about running P.P.W. and S.”

“I had no idea,” Sarah said, impressed with Kim’s account and her ever-reliable store of details about everyone else’s business.

“Do you remember...” Kim rattled off a list of high-profile management malfeasance, stock scandals, front-page flame-outs, and pension plan plunderings involving company names known world-wide. Sarah nodded at each. “Every one of those was uncovered thanks to your boyfriend,” Kim concluded.

“He’s not my —”

“Chill out, girl, I know, I know; I’m just rattling your cage a little. But seriously, you want me to introduce you two or anything?”

“You know him?” Sarah asked incredulously.

Kim had to admit that even her wide list of contacts did not stretch to that exalted sphere. “Well, not know him know him... But I’ve spoken to him a few —” She caught her friend’s raised eyebrow. “Um, maybe, once.” She paused. “Well, it was a thought, anyway.”

“Thanks,” said Sarah, smiling at her suddenly deflated friend. “Thanks for caring about me, it’s good to know there’s one someone who does.” She took bills from her wallet and tucked them into the vinyl folder that held their check. “My turn today. We should get back to work.”

The friends left the restaurant, talking of other things as they strolled back to the office. The subject of Mark Porter Junior faded from Sarah’s mind.

But if she had happened to pass through the nineteenth floor that afternoon, and taken a glance in his direction, she might have seen her gal-pal Kim in Porter’s office, speaking earnestly to the firm’s founder. And she would have guessed the subject of their talk right on the nose.

A bit before five o’clock on the following Friday afternoon — fudging a few minutes at the end of the week was generally accepted practice — Sarah snapped off her desk light and monitor and dialed Kim’s extension.

“You up for happy hour?... Want me to swing by?... Ok, see you downstairs, then. Bye.”

She grabbed her purse, made a quick visit to the ladies’ room, and waited through three elevators that were too packed to admit another person. Finally finding a spot, she rode down to the first floor of the office tower. There were three restaurants off the sprawling lobby, each with a capacious and well-patronized bar, and the various departments at Porter, Porter, Waffle, and Sproing had each gravitated to one or another of them as a happy hour hang-out. Sarah strode into Blather’s, the Friday evening home of Ventures and a few other departments, and spotted a crew of colleagues right away. Before long she was seated comfortably at a high-top, adult beverage in hand, chatting amicably — at the somewhat forced high volume that the din of the bar necessitated — with her co-workers.

Some of the bar crowd came from companies with Casual Friday policies, but P.P.W. and S. was not so enlightened. Sarah wore a tailored pant-suit, black with a pin-stripe, with a cream faux-silk shell beneath her blazer. Her shoulder-blade-length dark-brown hair was twisted up and held tight against her head with a tortoise-shell clippie; on her feet were simple black pumps on an inch-and-a-half stacked heel. The men around her were in suits and ties, although several suit coats had already found chair backs to adorn; the women were mostly mirrors of Sarah, although a few skirts and the occasional deviation from black — as far as medium grey — could be spotted. The business and financial district would fall into instant and spectacular ruin if a woman wore a cheerful color or a print to work — everyone knew that.

Kim joined them, and as usual became the social focus of the group. Sarah sipped her drink sparingly, letting the hard drinkers pass her by, simply enjoying the dozens of conversations that flowed and ebbed around her.

“What’s he doing here?” Sarah heard someone ask. She looked up to see who had spoken. Several heads were turned, and she turned herself to see what everyone was looking at.

“Whoa, the cheese himself,” said a voice.

“What’s he doing, getting a feel for the little people?” added another.

“He’s not like that, you know, all high-and-mighty like that. He’s really nice, and approachable...”

“I thought the brass all drank at...”

“Maybe he’s looking for...”

“So, a martini drinker — my kind of...”

“Do you think he’s...”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen...”

The voices crashed into Sarah’s unheeding ears. Mark Porter Junior stood at the bar at the far side of the room. Looking their way.

Looking at her.

She told herself she was imagining it — that he merely stood with his body aligned roughly towards their table, that his eyes naturally faced that way, that he was focused on something or someone else, or on nothing at all. She told herself that the founder of the company that employed her was not looking directly into her eyes from forty feet away. She told herself that he was not there to look for her.

“Well,” said Kim in a whisper, leaning over to put her lips right next to Sarah’s ear. “Aren’t you going to go say hello?”

“Are you crazy?” Sarah shot back, voice kept low beneath the hubbub of the bar. “I can’t do that. He’s — he’s probably meeting somebody. I can’t just... barge in.”

Kim made an exaggerated show of looking all around the bar. “Doesn’t look to me like you’d be interrupting anything,” she said. “Go on, go introduce yourself.”

Sarah gave a quick shake of her head: no way.

“So, what, then?” asked Kim. “You just gonna sit tight until he comes over here? I’m sure the whole department would love to listen in on that conversation.”

Sarah paled at the thought. She wanted neither option — she wanted to be left alone without any pressure at all. But if she just ignored him, and he did come to their table... that would definitely be worse.

Resigned, she slipped off her chair. “All right then,” she shot at Kim. “I’ll go speak to him. And if I find out you set this up somehow...” She glared pointedly at her friend.

Kim was the picture of innocence. “You heard me the other day,” she said. “I hardly know the man at all.”

Mark Porter stood at the bar. He held a martini glass full of aqua municipalis, garnished with a twist of lemon peel. The bartender had shaken it carefully over ice, made a show of straining it into the glass, and selected his freshest lemon, more than happy to serve five-dollar tap water at his customer’s rather eccentric request.

Porter watched the huddled conference between Kim and Sarah. He knew she had seen him, felt his eyes on her. He knew she’d be puzzled, nervous, and apprehensive. He liked girls who didn’t have safe, familiar ground beneath their feet — they were so much fun to play with. He set his glass on the bar.

She was crossing the bar toward him now, pausing from time to time when the crowd blocked her. He could see that she was a bit wide-eyed with nerves, and even before she got close he could see a little blush in her cheeks, her forwardness uncharacteristic and embarrassing to her.

As Sarah approached, she could see Porter’s eyes tracking her. No doubt at all, then, that his attention was deliberate. She tried to will herself to be calm, and failed; the pace of her breathing increased.

She offered a hand for the older man to take. “Hello,” she said, her nervousness audible as a tremor in her voice, “We haven’t met, sir. My name —”

In retrospect, no matter how hard she thought about it, or tried to recreate every detail of every move, Sarah could never put it together. It was supposed to be a simple, businesslike handshake, cordial and distant. She was reaching out a hand for him to take. Her mother had taught her that it was a lady’s prerogative to offer a hand, or not, and that a gentleman would respect her choice; and so, she extended her open right hand. Just. A. Handshake.

Then she was suddenly close to him, too close. Her offered hand was inside his suit jacket, holding him just above his waist. It was warm between his body and the coat. His left hand was on her right shoulder; his right hand held her left arm a little above the elbow. Neither of his hands gripped her with any firmness at all, but they immobilized her all the same.

“Your name is Sarah Mitchell,” said Porter in a warm and inviting baritone, finishing her sentence for her. “No, we haven’t met, but we’re hardly strangers: I have had my eye on you for some time.” He turned slightly, and Sarah turned with him as surely as if they had been Astaire and Rogers, perfectly attuned and carefully rehearsed.

She was still shocked at finding herself in a wholly unintended embrace with her employer. Stunned, aghast, and confused, she was unable to withdraw her hand or to take a step apart from him. She could feel the warmth and pressure of his hands, and the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her fingers.

“Wh-what do you m-mean, your eye on me?” Sarah stammered. “How does he know my name?” she thought. “I’m a nobody. He can’t know every nobody in the company.”

Porter looked down at the girl, sipping her confusion like a connoisseur with a glass of single-malt. “Your work is commendable,” he began, “Your contributions to the Shipley report stand out in particular, to name just one recent example. But since it’s officially after hours and off premises, I can be honest and say what first brought you to my attention. You are a stunningly beautiful girl, Sarah — and I happen to like beautiful girls.”

“I’m a nobody,” she repeated to herself. “How does he know I worked on Shipley? My name wasn’t on it. I’m a peon. How can he know? What? Beautiful? Stunning?” If Sarah’s blush could have been called faint a moment before, that was no longer the case. She felt the upper curve of her ears heat up, and knew that he must be able to see it. “Why am I still holding him? What am I doing?”

Sarah managed to get out a “Thank you” in reply, but it came only with effort. The room around her was a blur. She could focus only on the older man’s face, and the eyes that seemed never to leave her.

“I wonder if you’d be interested in playing a game with me, Sarah,” he asked, as if it were a perfectly normal, everyday question — as if the bustling bar were the usual place for titans and peons to make their joint social arrangements.

Bewildered, she could only reply, “I, I guess so. Wh-what game, sir?”

He smiled at her. She was overwhelmed by his smile, by his size, by being far too close to him, by their continued touch; she did not recognize that the smile was more than merely friendly or pleasant.

“It’s called The Obedience Game,” he replied, watching her eyes for a reaction.

“The... Obedience Game? I, I’ve never heard of that one,” Sarah responded.

“Oh, it’s very simple — easy to learn. In fact, there’s only one rule.”

“Wh-what is it?” Sarah asked. The heat lingered in her ears. She wished desperately for a return to normalcy.

“The rule is: I command you, and you obey me. See? Isn’t that simple? One nice, clear, easy-to-remember rule. Command, obey: a part for each of us. So: what say you, Sarah, are you up for playing with me?”

“No!” screamed the klaxon voice in Sarah’s head. “Danger! Flee!” She was flabbergasted by his proposal, flattered by his attention, his compliments, and his knowledge of her, frightened by how helpless she felt in his gentle embrace, curious about his intentions — buffeted every which way by a hundred thoughts, emotions, and desires. She tuned out her internal voice.

“Okay,” she said.

A tiny decision that leads to tremendous consequences, whether the outcome is disaster or triumph, is the defining kernel of tragedy. “Okay,” Sarah said, and changed her life.

“Splendid!” Mark Porter said, beaming at her. “I’m sure we’ll have fun.” He turned again, just slightly, and Sarah turned with him, like a well-schooled dance partner. They got, if anything, a little bit closer to each other.

“I realize I have the advantage, in already being well acquainted with you, Sarah,” Porter said. His voice was deep and polite, and pretty to listen to. “So to make you feel more comfortable, I’ll let you in on something personal about me. Let me see, what shall I tell you?... Ah, I have it. I happen to really enjoy lingerie.” He watched as the shocked young woman processed that tidbit. “Oh, not to the point of fetish, you understand — nothing like that. I just like it: all the beautiful fabrics, the patterns and decorations, the hundreds and hundreds of different styles one may choose from. And best of all, it’s one thing that can make a beautiful girl even more pleasant to look at.”

He paused, and seemed to be waiting for a reaction. Sarah had none, she was simply trying to cope with her situation and had no room to spare for creative thought. But she managed, “Um, sure, I guess — some things are quite pretty.”

“I was thinking, Sarah,” he continued, “What a great ice-breaker it would be, if you were to stop in the rest room for a moment, slip your panties off, and then give them to me. A sort of get-to-know-you present. Now that you know how much I enjoy dainty, feminine underthings, can you imagine how much I’d appreciate a gift like that?”

The stunned girl’s jaw dropped. She played his words back through her mind, finding that she had heard him correctly. “M-my, my, my p-panties?”

“That would be such a sweet way to start off our friendship, don’t you think? Especially since you know what I like.” With that he finally released her, took a step away from her, turned to the bar, and picked up his glass. Taking a small sip he watched her, frozen to the spot, over the rim of the glass.

For the second time that evening, Sarah realized that something had to give way. And again, what toppled was her instinct for self-preservation. She turned, took two slow steps, and then hurried toward the bathrooms.

Behind her, Mark Porter smiled softly, sipped his water, and planned Sarah’s fate.

Sarah sat in the bathroom stall, fully dressed, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

“What am I doing?” the rage of thoughts began.

“I don’t know him. I don’t know anything about him.”

“This is crazy.”

“I’m insane. I should just leave.”

“Obedience game? Give me your panties? My god, the nerve, the gall, the presumption, the sheer audacity of it!”

“Audacity. That’s how he got to the top. Nerve: plenty of it.”

“It’s completely insane. Good grief, I just met the man. Panties?!”

“I need to leave. There must be a back way.”

“I can’t do this.”

“What’s next? If the first thing is give me your panties, what’s the second thing? Hmm? What’s the tenth?”

“This is way more than I can handle.”

“I’m not the adventurous type.”

“Yes, I am.”

“What?”

“Yes, I am the adventurous type.”

“I am not!”

“Well, ok, I don’t really know that. But I might be the adventurous type. Just because I’ve never had an adventure, doesn’t mean I’m not adventurous. It just means... I haven’t ever had a chance to find out.”

“Huh. I never thought of that.”

“Well, here’s a chance. Maybe I am adventurous. Maybe I’ll have a blast.”

“But...”

“I can always stop. If anything gets out of hand, or uncomfortable, or if he thinks he can get into my pants —”

“Well, that much seems like a done deal.”

“Oh, shut up. I know what I mean. I’m not a... slave. I can stop any time. Leave any time. I can play along, have some fun — maybe learn something about myself.”

“An adventure. That’s all. Stop any time, right?”

“Right.”

“Well... ok, then, adventurous one, sail on!”

Sarah looked with suspicion at the bathroom floor. Sketchy, very sketchy. She unbuttoned the waist band of her trousers over her left hip and lowered the zipper; she wiggled the pants down to her knees. She slipped off her right shoe, catching the pant leg carefully in her hands to keep it off the floor, and, contorting herself on the seat, got her right leg free of pants and panties. She flipped the panties to her left and worked the right trouser leg back on, slipping her foot into its shoe when it emerged. The same circus act, repeated on the left side, freed her of her panties.

She stood, fastened her pants, flushed needlessly out of habit, and crumpled her panties up in her right hand. She was thinking “I’m glad I wore a nice pair today.” Her panties were black, boy-legged and cut low, with lace panels on each hip curving around toward the front: quite sexy indeed. If she had stopped to analyze her thoughts, to recognize that she was already hoping that Mark Porter would approve of her and be pleased with her, she would have seen how far she had already fallen for the older man.

She checked her face and hair in the mirror, and left her sanctuary.

Sarah passed the table where her friends sat, and noticed several heads, Kim’s among them, turning to follow her progress.

Porter was waiting for her, unmoving, watching, smiling slightly. She reached him, looked with quickly mounting apprehension to her left and to her right for anyone that might be in position to see her, and extended her right hand.

Porter glanced at it, and made no move to reach for her.

“Take them!” Sarah said urgently. “Quickly, please, before anyone sees!”

He cocked his head just slightly to one side, and raised one eyebrow even more slightly. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he told her. “That’s just... a crumpled-up bunch of cloth. You see,” he said, as if explaining a lecture topic to a student who wasn’t quite keeping up, “I like the distinctive shape of panties: the curve at each leg...” He sketched the shape in the air with both index fingers as he talked. “The waistband, how either the front or the back might be briefer than the other — such pretty shapes. And the fabrics: sheers, laces, prints, colors. Not, well, a wad. There’s nothing pretty about that.” He chuckled. “In fact, isn’t there a saying about not getting your panties in a bunch?” He regarded her with a calm smile.

Sarah looked around again, color rising in her face once more. Nobody on her left, nobody on her right, at least not paying attention to them. Nobody coming up behind her. Holding her hands right up against her body, she straightened out her panties and held them up by the waistband, displayed as nicely as if on a hanger. “Take them!” she hissed.

“Yes, that’s more like it. That’s more what I had in mind. Oh, what a pretty pair of panties. I’ll bet your skin looks very lovely and sexy behind that fine lace. And even with a little bit longer leg they still manage to be... hmm, is skimpy too strong a word? What do you think?”

“Take them, please, please!” Sarah almost sobbed. Her cheeks flamed crimson with humiliation; she trembled from fright at the thought of being discovered. “Oh, sir, please!”

“Mister Porter!” came a hearty masculine voice from just behind Sarah’s left shoulder.

“Hello, Carl,” Porter replied, as the man joined them.

Sarah looked down at her hands, sick with terror, and found them to be empty. She had felt and seen nothing.

“Well, I didn’t know you were acquainted with our Miss Mitchell,” Sarah’s boss was saying. “I’ll have to start being a lot nicer to her now.” He laughed heartily at his own joke, not noticing that he was the only one to do so.

Her pulse pounded in Sarah’s ears. She had come so close to being caught, standing in a public bar with her own panties on display, trying to give them to a man she barely knew. She felt tears of humiliation prickle at the corners of her eyes, despite her last-second reprieve. She was breathing so fast it was almost a pant. “When did he take them?” she wondered. “How did he do that? Where are they?”

Her boss continued brown-nosing. He was the consummate office politician, capable of kissing up one minute and lashing out the next — according to rank and influence, of course. And though he had said he would be nicer to her as a joke, Sarah knew that she would indeed get better assignments, greater leniency, and probably heftier raises now that Carl thought she was connected.

Porter turned his head away from the yammering interloper, caught Sarah’s eye, and slipped his hand into the pocket of his suit coat. She saw his fingers move beneath the fine wool, and then he smiled at her with a tiny wink of the eye.

“...think that with just a very slight re-alignment of the two divisions, our efficiencies of scale could be —” her boss was saying, before Porter interrupted him.

“That’s very interesting, Carl. Why don’t you make an appointment to lay your ideas out fully for me, sometime early next week. It’s tough to give you my full attention in this place.”

“Of course, of course,” Carl replied, thrilled that he could have an audience with The Man to look forward to.

“Great. I’ll see you next week, then,” Porter said firmly.

Wanting to stay, but recognizing a dismissal at face value, Carl left them.

“Did you drive?” Porter asked, turning back to Sarah.

“Sir?”

“Did you drive to work today, ride with someone, take a bus?”

“Oh, sorry. I drove. I’m in Lot D.” She gestured in the general direction.

“Time to go, I think,” Porter said. “I’ll get my car and meet you at yours — if you’ll wait by it until I show up, I should be able to find you. Then I’ll follow you home.”

“Home?” Sarah repeated, all nerves and apprehension again.

“We need to stop at your place first, before continuing with our evening plans.” He made everything sound so matter-of-fact to Sarah’s ears.

“Plans?” she asked, aware that she was starting to sound like a particularly stupid sort of robot.

“You don’t want our get-acquainted evening to end already, do you, Sarah?”

“No, no — it’s just — I mean, I didn’t know we — I didn’t know that you had plans, or, or what we’re going to do.” The feeling returned to her in full force, of being completely helpless and out of control.

“I’ll take care of that, Sarah. You needn’t worry about a thing. Got your car keys?”

“Yes,” she replied weakly.

“I’ll meet you in Lot D in a few minutes,” he said. He slipped his hand back into his coat pocket and gave Sarah a brilliant smile. “I’m so looking forward to spending more time with you.” With that, he was gone.

Kim rushed over to her friend the instant the coast was clear. “Well? Well? What happened? What did he say? What did you say? Why did he leave? What happened? What are you doing? Where is he going? What —”

“Kim, if you’ll let me get a word in...”

“Sorry.”

“We, um, just talked,” Sarah lied. “The usual sort of thing. He just went to get his car — we’re going out.” Without the first clue to what was in store, knowing only that they were stopping at her apartment “first” — for reasons unexpressed — Sarah invented the most innocuous scenario she could.

“That’s great!” Kim enthused. “You must really have made an impression on him.”

The girl with no panties could only say, “Yes. I think I did.”

By the time Sarah got to the parking lot, Porter was already idling at its entrance, waiting for her. When she arrived at her car, he pulled up behind her. His window glided down.

“I’ll follow you, but it would probably be a good idea to know your address in case we get separated.”

Sarah gave it to him, and he rolled forward to clear the way for her. She started her car, reversed out of her space, and passed him. As she left, she saw his lights in her mirror.

She drove on autopilot. Her thoughts were fragmented and chaotic, and the unfamiliar sensation of being pantiless kept calling her attention to what a bizarre turn the evening had already taken. She checked her rear-view mirror continually, finding Porter’s car right behind her each time.

Sarah lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, on the thirty-second floor of a forty-five story megalith, one of two dozen such massive towers that huddled too close together on the south-east perimeter of the city. It was a bleak, faceless place to live, but with Sallie Mae and an auto loan to pay off, its relative cheapness made it her best option. She was a little bit ashamed, though, for Mark Porter to see where she lived.

She pulled into a space in the apartment’s parking lot; Porter rolled up next to her seconds later. As they stood up simultaneously, Sarah felt again a sense of being small and helpless next to the large and powerful older man.

“You, um, want to come inside?” Sarah asked, still completely in the dark as to their purpose in being there.

“Please. I’ll help you select some things you’ll need.”

Porter’s answer didn’t help one bit, but Sarah led the way inside the building, so flustered that she forgot to check her mailbox, usually an automatic gesture. They made the agonizingly slow elevator trip — the tenants’ number one complaint about the building — up to the thirty-second floor, and then the short walk to Sarah’s door, in silence.

“Home sweet home,” Sarah said as she opened her door, instantly regretting the words as both trite and false. There was nothing sweet about it: it was cheap, necessary shelter, and no more. They entered and she closed the door behind them.

Porter surveyed the tiny, neat living room, taking his time, as if it were the finest home he’d ever been in. Then he turned to Sarah. “Over the years,” he said without preamble, “I’ve developed some very strongly held opinions about proper dress. One is this: in my view, a beautiful girl with reasonably nice legs should not wear pants. Do you have reasonably nice legs, Sarah?”

Any feeling of normalcy that Sarah had managed to accumulate in the routine of driving home and riding up to her apartment was instantly destroyed. With her world destabilized all over again, she could only stammer, “I, I, I guess so.” She felt the blush rushing back to her face.

“Excellent.” Porter folded his arms across his chest and watched her.

“You, you, want me to, um, go change? Into a skirt?” Sarah asked, her voice barely under control.

“If you review my words, you’ll recall that I said nothing about changing — no mention of that at all.”

Sarah flashed back to his earlier pronouncement, parsed it again, weighed it against his last words, and... gasped at the only conclusion she could draw. “You. You can’t. You just want me to, to, to take my pants off?”

Porter’s only answer was in the eyes that held hers.

“But. But I don’t, I’m not — you have my panties in your pocket, sir, I can’t just take my pants off!”

The distinguished older man raised one eyebrow. “Oh, I’m quite certain you can,” he replied evenly. His gaze never wavered.

“I can stop any time,” Sarah said to herself. “I can say no. I don’t have to play. I’m having an adventure. Maybe all adventures are this frightening. Maybe it’s ok. Maybe this is some kind of test. No, this is too much, I can’t do that. Yes I can. No I can’t, I’m not letting him see me, no way no way no way. Why not, why not do something bold and rash and scary and daring, why not? I can stop any time it starts getting out of hand. What, this isn’t out of hand? Oh, be quiet.”

As the arguments played out in her head, Sarah’s fingers stole to her waistband, and unbuttoned it. She fumbled for the tiny tab of the zipper, found it, lowered it. She wiggled the snug slacks past the curve of her hips, slipped out of her shoes, and stepped out of her pants. When she looked back at Mark Porter, she was frankly surprised to see that his eyes were still fixed on her face, rather than on her below-the-waist nudity.

“Good girl, Sarah,” he said calmly.

The words lit a fire inside her. A fire she recognized from the times — the far too frequent times, she often worried — that she masturbated. The fire of arousal: his approval lit her up like a wet finger on her clit.

She gulped, tried to stop trembling, and returned his gaze. “If step one is give me your panties, what’s step two?” she thought again. “What’s step ten?”

“Do you keep your panties in your bedroom, Sarah?”

She was getting accustomed to the calm, matter-of-fact way that he introduced the most intimate, unlikely subjects. “In my dresser,” she answered, numbly.

“Would you lead the way, please?”

She padded barefoot — bare legged, for that matter, bare bottomed — to her bedroom. Porter followed, drinking in the magnificent glory of her spectacular ass, feeling his cock grow warm and heavy with anticipation. Without turning to look Sarah knew that he would be watching her half-naked walk, and her face grew pink again.

She opened the second drawer from the top of her dresser and stood there, as Porter came to stand beside her.

“Oh, I see some lovely things already,” he said with evident eagerness. “Let’s choose some.”

And the stunned girl could do nothing but stand in mortified silence as the founding partner of Porter, Porter, Waffle, and Sproing began to go through her neatly folded panties, one pair after another. Whenever he came to a pair that caught his fancy, he would hold them up, make some comment — “I love the cute little bows” or “What a great color for you” or “Ooh, just a little naughty, wouldn’t you say?” — and place them on top of her dresser.

Then Sarah emitted a startled squeak, as she felt Mark Porter’s large, warm hand on her naked ass.

He stroked her gently, continuing to pry through her lingerie with his other hand. The colossal presumption, without so much as a by-your-leave, no longer startled Sarah. She was beginning to recognize in her companion a man who thought about what he wanted and, when he was sure of himself, took it. The implications of that thought were not lost on her, and her apprehension crested to new heights.

His touch was gentle, his hand was warm and his skin soft, and Sarah finally relented enough to acknowledge it. “That feels nice,” she said.

Without pausing in stroking her, and without looking away from his task in her dresser drawer, Porter said, “One way in which you can displease me is to be vague, or evasive, or to talk around what you’re thinking or feeling. A way to please me, on the other hand, should you be interested in that, is to say directly, clearly, and specifically what’s on your mind.”

His hand stroked her. “Your hand,” Sarah said, voice quaking, “Feels nice on my bottom.” She swallowed hard again.

“That’s an improvement,” Porter said, but his tone made it clear that there was room for more.

Sarah took a deep, shuddering breath. “Your hand, playing with my naked ass, is making me feel... really good.”

A smile flashed across his face. “Better still,” he said. “Not perfect, but you’re getting the idea.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Yes, it feels good now. It won’t always, though. Sometimes it will feel like the worst thing on Earth, when you’re over my knee being spanked.”

She felt a rush of indignation. “What makes you think that’s going to happen?”

“You’re a girl,” he said calmly, indifferent to her dislike for the term. “Misbehavior is part of your nature. Correction, guidance, and discipline are part of mine. You’ll earn your first spanking before a month goes by, I have no doubt.”

As Sarah groped in vain for some response, torn completely from the world of the sane, normal, and predictable, Porter closed her dresser drawer. A neat stack of ten or twelve pairs of panties sat on top. “Shoes?” he inquired, turning to the dazed girl.

By way of reply, Sarah simply opened the double doors of her closet. On the back of each hung a canvas shoe organizer; both were full.

As he had with her panties, Porter took his time with her shoes, taking each pair out of its pocket, looking them over, and either putting them back or turning to stand them on her dresser as well.

As he began to do so with one pair, Sarah spoke up. “I can’t wear those,” she said, still completely unsure of what he was doing, but thinking she should mention it. “They’re too high — that’s, like, a five-and-a-half inch heel. I bought them for a Halloween costume once, but I could barely even stand up in them. I don’t know why I kept them.”

“No need to worry about that right now,” Porter said, putting her impossibly steep shoes with his other choices. Sarah looked at the shoes he had selected: her tallest heels; her most insubstantial, strappy, foot-baring sandals.

Satisfied, Mark Porter closed Sarah’s closet. “Well,” he said, looking appreciatively at Sarah’s half-naked body, sending a fresh blush to her face. “If you can find something to carry these in, along with whatever you need for the weekend — toiletries, makeup, things like that — we can be on our way.”

“The — the weekend?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have other plans?”

“I, I, I — no, I don’t have plans, I, uh... I’m, I’m, uh, spending the w-weekend with you?”

“It’s so hard to get to know someone well in just a few brief hours, don’t you think?”

Sarah, dazed anew by this fresh revelation, meekly re-opened her closet and picked out a small suitcase. She took it into her bathroom and began to pack her cosmetics.

“This has gone far enough,” she said to herself, as her hands busied themselves with packing. “Enough already, I say. I’m half naked. He’s seen me half naked, oh my god he’s seen my ass, he’s seen my... he’s seen me there. He went through my underwear, for god’s sake. Call a stop to it right this minute. This is the time to say no. This is the time to stop playing. Spanking? Oh my god, spanking? He thinks he’s going to spank me? He’s crazy. I’m crazy, I can’t let this go one step further, not one. If step three is fondling my bare bottom... I need to go right back out there and tell him it’s time for him to leave. And not have an adventure after all. And not be daring. And not have any fun, at all, maybe ever. I need to be Little Sarah Safety, that’s the ticket.”

And as she heard herself, she knew she would not listen.

She toted her suitcase back to the bedroom. Opening her closet again, she asked over her shoulder, “What else should I pack? Dressy? Casual? Active? Formal?”

Porter came up behind her and gently closed the closet doors. “You’ll need the shoes I selected, and the panties. I’ll provide everything else for you to wear.”

“But —”

“Shhhh.”

Befuddled and frustrated, Sarah started packing those items. “I hope he knows what he’s talking about,” she thought, “I can’t wear this one suit and blouse all weekend long.” A minute later, she thought, “Knows what he’s talking about? Of course he does. He seems to know everything.” She zipped her suitcase closed.

Porter took it from her and carried it out of the room. Sarah followed, and found him by her apartment door. He had picked her key-ring up from the table by the door and was flipping it over and over around his finger and into his palm. It was the first unnecessary movement Sarah had ever seen him make.

He held out an arm for her to take. “Shall we?” he said courteously.

“Um, you might not have noticed,” she said, with a semi-successful attempt at sarcasm. “But I’m half naked. Give me a sec to get my pants back on.”

“You’ll do fine as you are,” Porter replied coolly.

She stared at him, mouth open and eyes wide. “No way!” she said, finally finding a limit to serve as bedrock for her resistance. “There is no way I am going out in public half naked!”

“You would prefer to be entirely naked?” Porter asked, as if she could have no other meaning.

“You’re nuts! You’re completely crazy! I can’t go out there like this, there are people, there are mffffff —”

Mark Porter held her head as he calmly, carefully, stuffed her lacey black panties into her mouth.

“Ffmmff mffwfff fmmmwfffm!”

“I have, my dear Sarah,” Porter said sternly, her head held firmly against one hand as his fingers pressed her panties between her lips, “No tolerance, absolutely none, for that kind of insolent, disrespectful, and above all defiant speech from a girl.” The hand behind her head grasped her clippie, squeezed it open, removed it, and tossed it away. Sarah’s silky brown hair tumbled down her back in a lovely cascade. “Now, would you like to remove your jacket, blouse, and bra before we go?”

Sarah, trembling with fear and thoughts of the humiliation she was about to face, shook her head violently. The taste of cotton, colored by a day spent pressed against her body, filled her mouth.

“Let’s try again, then,” Porter said. He crooked an elbow her way. “Shall we?”

Red-faced with humiliation, Sarah took his arm, and they left; Porter carried the suitcase. He set it down in the hallway as he locked her door, apparently in no hurry. Mortified and anxious, Sarah waited with him at the elevator. It always took a terribly long time to come, but this wait seemed to stretch into years, as Sarah strained her ears for the sound of an apartment door opening.

The elevator doors finally slid apart. Mercifully, the car was empty. Porter pressed “1” and they started down. The floor number decremented with agonizing slowness, as if the wires feeding it had been replaced with tubes full of treacle. Thirty... one. Thirty. Twenty... nine.

Sarah prayed.

Twenty... eight. Twenty-eight. It seemed like it was taking forever to change. And then the doors opened on the twenty-eighth floor. A man was there: elderly, frail-looking, slightly stooped, with a fringe of short white hair around a speckled bald dome. He was moving toward the doors as he first looked up.

When he spotted Mark and Sarah, he hesitated, but by the time he fully grasped what he was seeing, his momentum had carried him well into the elevator. The doors slid closed behind him, as Sarah’s face flamed with embarrassment. She could feel the heat in her ears, in her cheeks. Concealment was impossible: Porter had his back to the corner and there was just nowhere else to hide. All she could do was to cross her hands over her pudendum, a few square inches of modesty her only relief.

The stranger looked at her candidly, not attempting to feign disinterest. He turned to Mark Porter. “Some sort of master-slave arrangement, is it?” he asked. His voice was full and strong, in defiance of his weak appearance.

Porter smiled. “A bit like that, yes.”

There was silence for a floor or two. “I’ve seen her around the place a few times,” said the interloper. “Always thought she had a pretty decent ass.”

“Sarah, I think this gentleman deserves a better look at your bottom,” Porter said. “He’s apparently quite a fan of yours.”

The elevator crept downward as if it had to ooze down the shaft. Twenty-four. Twenty-three.

There was no resistance left in Sarah — none. No normal world for her to cling to. No semblance of self-control. No pretense any more: no lying to herself that she could pull the emergency brake at any time. The whole crazy game was out of her hands, and Sarah knew it.

She meekly turned around so that the stranger could admire her naked ass.

“My, my, my. Even finer than I imagined,” came his voice. “Magnificent.”

“That’s right,” thought Sarah. “Talk about me like I’m a piece of meat. Go ahead. Give me a rating: choice? Prime?” Twenty. Nineteen.

“Thank you, Sarah, that was kind of you,” said Porter. She turned back around, still covering her privates with her hands. She could not look the stranger in the eye. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

“Those her panties?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

The stranger’s expression grew reminiscent. “I used to gag my Evelyn with her own panties,” he said, “Whenever she got lippy on me. Wouldn’t mind listening to her now, though — too quiet at home since she passed.”

The doors slid open at the empty first-floor lobby. The stranger held out a hand and Porter took it. “Thank you,” the older man said, “It’s good to see the world hasn’t gone completely mad with new-fangled notions.”

Porter smiled at the elderly gentleman. “You’re very welcome. And thank you for serving, sir, you deserve my gratitude and much more.”

The old man looked sharply at him. “What makes you think I was in the service?” he asked.

“The habit of command, sir: it never leaves the eyes.”

He offered his arm to Sarah once more. As she took it, he exchanged a final “Good night” with their fellow passenger. Carrying the suitcase, he led the half-nude Sarah out into the parking lot.

Barefoot, she had to pick her way carefully across the pavement, which lengthened the trip and the chance of another encounter. When they reached Mark’s car, she trembled with impatience and anxiety as he took his own sweet time loading the suitcase into the trunk.

Headlights swept past. There was a squeal of brakes, and a dreadfully brief crunk of crumpling steel as another tenant introduced his auto to a lamp post.

Porter closed the trunk, opened the passenger door, and handed Sarah into her seat with his usual air that nothing at all was out of the ordinary.

He started the car. The interior was absolutely silent, the leather seats were comfortable, and every surface gleamed as if recently polished. “Nothing like my piece of junk,” Sarah thought. “It’s like him. It’s not fancy. It’s not attention-getting. It’s just... confidently perfect.”

Mark Porter slipped the car into reverse, backed out of the space, braked, and shifted to drive. He stopped there, and looked at Sarah, seated next to him with concealing hands in her lap.

“One of the most wonderful things about a girl having an orgasm, to my way of thinking, is the beautiful sound she makes. Every girl is different, and every orgasm is different.” He eased off the brake, and they headed out of the parking lot. “Your panties will muffle the sound, of course, but when you cum, I’ll still enjoy listening to your moans. Forgive me for not watching you, I need to focus on the road. This trip should take about twenty minutes.” He turned onto the highway.

No sooner had she found the relative refuge of his car, than Sarah was confronting yet another, greater humiliation. “If step ten is...”

She could not pretend not to understand what he wanted her to do. Protest was physically impossible. Disobedience was becoming more and more unthinkable.

She spread her legs apart, and began to play with her pussy.

She had known him for two hours.

It was not merely a house. “Mansion” was the wrong word. Sarah looked around her as the car rolled to a stop. “Estate,” that was it. The Mark Porter Junior Estate.

She could not meet Porter’s eye as he shut the car off, reached over to her, and gently extracted her panties, now soggy, from her aching mouth. Her humiliation had taken another giant step, her shame was boundless. She had always orgasmed easily, very easily indeed compared to what she had heard other women describe, and her pussy was all too well acquainted with the touch of her fingers. She had cum twice during the brief trip, moans of ecstasy barely contained at all by her gag; and even more utterly embarrassing than having wanked herself to orgasm in Porter’s presence was that she had started on her second one without a single word from him.

Free of her gag, finally, she tried to coax some moisture to her arid mouth, as she sat and waited for her commander to open her door.

He opened it, gave her a hand, and helped her stand on somewhat shaky legs. The pavement was cool on her bare feet. Mark Porter was in her space again, standing closer than people are supposed to.

“I’ve always felt it wrong to make a mess, and leave it for someone else to clean up,” he said.

For a moment, Sarah had no idea what he meant. She turned to follow his gaze, and saw the passenger seat glistening with her juices. The leather wasn’t just moist: there was a small pool of liquid and even as she watched it was trickling down the sloping surface of the seat. The overwhelming evidence of her own wantonness mortified her.

“May I have something to clean it with, sir?” she asked.

“I’m quite certain that I spoke to you earlier about saying clearly and specifically what you mean.”

Her ears were suddenly hot again. “May I have something to clean up... my, my p-pussy juice, sir?”

He turned his gaze from the car to her face. Reaching out to her, he parted her lips and then her teeth; he looked inside her mouth. She submitted to being handled without a peep of protest. “You appear to be adequately equipped for the task,” he said levelly, as his fingers stroked the tip of her tongue.

No thought of resistance even entered Sarah’s mind. The voices were gone.

She turned back to the car and, holding on to the dashboard and seat back for support, bent over and lapped her tangy cunt drippings off the soft leather. She knew that her posture, legs parted, bent double, completely exposed her to Porter’s gaze — not that there was much he hadn’t seen on the way there. Sarah was not fond of her own flavor, but she licked and swallowed, licked and swallowed, dreading to displease the patiently watching man.

“Much better,” was all he had to say when she was finished. He got the suitcase from the trunk and led Sarah inside the house.

It was huge: sprawling, endless, a maze of rooms. Each room was reasonably scaled, inviting, and comfortable looking — no thirty-foot ceilings, pointless empty atria, or lofty balconies — but there seemed to be no end to them. Sarah was lost within half a minute. Room lights came on as they approached, and turned off behind them, which made her gawk a bit. They ended up in a bedroom suite that had a decided guest-room feel: unused but welcoming, and appointed with essentials a traveler might have forgotten.

Porter put Sarah’s suitcase down, drew her to him, and kissed her.

She melted into the kiss. Her face tilted up; her arms rose of their own volition to embrace him. The pressure of his lips, the warmth of his body, the scent of his skin, the irresistible guidance of his hand on her back; the taste of him: sweet-salty-hot-moist — even the tiny liquid sound of their lips, moving against each other — all combined for Sarah in a sensory symphony the likes of which she had never known. As his mouth sought hers from a new angle, and another, and another, Sarah’s lips parted and the fire of arousal bloomed in her pussy. As surely as she felt his tongue brush hers, she felt moisture welling up in her cunt, preparing her body for him.

His free hand traced a path across her naked thigh, seeking her center. She was terrified of it, and wanted it with unbelievable urgency. His fingers reached her pubic mound. They tangled in her bushy brown curls. They gripped. Hard.

“Owww!” Sarah cried, pulling away from Porter’s kiss. “Owww, stop, that hurts!”

His grip, if anything, tightened, as Sarah tried ineffectively to dislodge his fingers.

“I do not accept concealment in any form,” his soft voice whispered. “Not in the words you use, and not in this entirely unnecessary garnish.” At the word “this” he tugged at her curls again, leaving no doubt as to his meaning. Suddenly, he let her go, pain prickling her mons.

In a more normal voice, Porter continued, “There are shaving supplies in the bathroom, along with an assortment of skin lotions. I will inspect you to make certain that you are perfectly smooth and bare. If you would like to shower or bathe after your hard day of work, feel free to take your time — we’re not in any hurry.” Sarah could do nothing but stare at him in amazement, as his words washed over her mind. “When you’re finished in the bathroom, you will find your complete outfit for this evening laid out on the bed.” He gave the girl a sweet smile that contrasted sharply with his painful handling of her. “I’m very much looking forward to our time together.”

With that, Porter turned and left the room, without a backward glance.

Sarah just stood there, lost, stunned, and shaken by her experiences. She had simply gone to happy hour for a drink with Kim and her other friends. And now... stripped of her clothing, her privacy violated, exposed to a stranger — to two of them, for Porter himself surely counted as one — manhandled, used, gagged, put on display, forced to masturbate, fed her own cunt-honey, hurt, kissed... The memory of the kiss, passionate, hot, sweet, and arousing, overwhelmed the others.

Knowing nothing of what was yet to come, yet certain that the night would bring further orders for her subjugation, Sarah began to remove what remained of her clothing.

The towel was luxurious, huge, and toasty from its heated rack. Sarah watched herself in the mirrored wall as she dried her body. Wherever her gaze wandered, it was drawn inexorably back to the sight of her smooth, bare pussy. It was both familiar, in its stark nakedness, from her dim memories of girlhood, and strange, as for half her life it had been shrouded by her thick tangle of dark curls.

She looked over the assortment of lotions — there were a dozen or more, all in full bottles, new and untouched — and chose one with a faint scent of berries that she found appealing. She squirted a generous amount into the palm of her hand and began to massage it into her freshly shaved pubis. She added more, and as her cream-slick fingers passed again and again over her soft, hairless lips her feeling of arousal resurfaced.

She had showered, shampooed, shaved, inspected herself carefully, and shaved again to make absolutely sure no stubble or stray hair remained. The lotion was soothing to her delicate skin. She took more, rubbing it down her legs, working it into the skin of her thighs and calves; and then more for her pussy, needlessly, because it felt so very good to touch herself.

Sarah dried her hair and brushed it out carefully, using tools provided for her. Of all the things Mark Porter had done to her, to trespass past her personal boundaries and to emphasize her helplessness, unclipping her hair, without a word to ask permission, had oddly provoked her greatest sense of being violated — more than going through her undies, more than making her strip, even more than making her masturbate. Perhaps because the other indignities were unthinkable, whereas adjusting someone’s hair without consent was at least within the realm of imagination. She brushed slowly and carefully, taking her time, until her silky hair shone under the bright bathroom lights.

Just as she turned to leave the bathroom, Sarah noticed that the thick white terry-cloth robe hanging by the door was embroidered. She stopped, reached for it, and turned the cloth around so that she could see the writing.

“Sarah,” it said, in neat cursive letters over the breast.

She closed her eyes and stood there, clutching the terry-cloth, a reassuring sensual memory from her childhood. Tears prickled hotly at the corners of her eyes. He had known she would be there. He had known she would come.

“Oh god,” she whispered to the empty room. “What is happening to me?”

There was no trace of her bra, her shell, or her suit coat. Clothing was laid out on the bed, as Mark Porter had promised. “Your complete outfit,” he had said, and looking down at the bed Sarah realized why he had made sure to include the word “complete” — in any universe where reason prevailed, the items on the bed would by no stretch of the imagination constitute an “outfit.”

Her ankle-strap sandals, one thin criss-cross strap around the ankle and one thin strap over the toes, in glossy black leather over a three-and-a-half inch stiletto heel.

Her very briefest pair of panties, a narrow white cotton thong with a teensy pink ribbon bow where each side strap met the front triangle.

A black hairband with a crisp fan of white lace adorning it, standing stiffly at attention.

And two short, slim, pink leather straps with silver buckles, like miniature belts. Sarah picked one up, puzzled over it, and then noticed the small silver ring attached to the strap.

Comprehension hit her, accompanied instantly by panic. The strap fell from her shaking fingers to the bed. She pressed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes, and fought to control her breathing. And when she had, without a single internal word of argument, she began to dress.

The hairband was the last thing, after she had buckled the ominous restraints around her wrists. She brushed her hair out one last time, looking in the mirror of the dressing table, seeing the fasteners at her wrists catch the light. Then she snugged the ends of the hairband behind her ears, and slipped it backward over her long, soft hair. The white fan over Sarah’s dark tresses was just a small bit of lace — meaningless in any other place or context — but it might as well have been a neon sign:

“Servant.”

When she opened the door to the suite, wondering if she should find Mark Porter or wait for him there, a voice made her jump. “I’m in the library,” Porter’s voice said from a speaker Sarah couldn’t locate. “It’s down the hallway to your left.”

She wandered through the sprawling estate, guided from time to time by Porter’s voice — he apparently could tell where she was, although she couldn’t locate any cameras as she walked from room to room. As before, room lights took care of themselves, making her trip seem even more eerie.

Sarah found the architect of her bizarre adventure in a book-lined room that looked like it had been plucked from a 19th-century London men’s club. Porter was seated in a leather armchair so huge that even his massive frame looked slightly diminished by it. He had a book in his hands, but closed it and lay it on his lap as Sarah approached.

She was embarrassed through and through, and frankly incredulous that her stock of embarrassment had not been fully depleted by the evening’s earlier events. She was conscious of her bare breasts, and that Porter was getting his first view of them; conscious of her tiny thong panties, the brevity of which served to accent rather than conceal; conscious that in her high spike heels her walk was exaggeratedly feminine; conscious that she was wearing bondage gear and that it was probably not merely ornamental. But above all, Sarah was conscious of the status marker she wore on her head, defining her rôle and her station.

“Sarah, you look lovely,” Porter said sincerely when she neared his chair. “Those panties are so cute on you — I knew I would like them.” He smiled at her and got a nervous smile in return. He pointed across the room. “See the row of books all alike?” he asked. “Looks like an encyclopedia?”

“Yes.”

“It’s actually a bar, behind a false front. You’ll find everything you need.”

Sarah turned, knowing that he would watch her essentially naked ass as she walked across the room. She found the catch on the false row of books, and opened the bar. Her eyes squeezed shut for just a second as she drew a deep breath and let it out. She knew her place. “Would you like a drink, sir?” she asked, with her back to Porter.

“Laphroaig, please,” he replied politely. “Neat. Just a finger.”

Sarah scanned bottles until she found a label that could just barely be reconciled with the strange word he had uttered. She found a heavy cut-crystal glass, and poured the amber fluid until it was a half-inch deep, catching the strong, earthen scent of it. There was a small silver tray on the bar; she centered the glass on it, lifted it with both hands, and carried it to the chair where Porter waited, watching her calmly.

“Your drink, sir,” Sarah said. She could hear the tension in her own voice, right on the edge of losing control.

Porter made no move to take the glass.

Sarah bent over at the waist until the tray was at the level of the chair arms, and extended it closer to him.

“Ah, yes,” Porter said, still making no move toward the glass. “That is certainly one way to place a drink within easy reach. Another, of course, would be the so-called ‘bunny dip,’ which if I remember correctly was Hefner’s personal mandate. I can’t recall if it had more to do with preserving the bunnies’ dignity or with keeping those costumes in place. In any case, neither is my own preference.” The smile he directed at Sarah was his only movement.

She straightened up. Thought for a second. And then knelt beside him.

“Good girl, Sarah,” Porter said, and she felt herself grow wet as her face flushed. He took the glass from her, took a minuscule, approving sip, and replaced it on the tray. He opened his book, and resumed reading.

She knelt quietly beside him, holding the tray still and level, as he read and took an occasional sip. “This morning, I was an accountant,” she thought. “A respected professional. A career woman. All of a sudden I’m... naked furniture.” But no matter how harshly she tried to think of her situation, there was no way to deny the arousal that Mark Porter evoked in her just by using her, nor the pure sexual thrill of hearing him praise her.

Minutes passed in silence, broken only by the faint rustle of a turned page, or the clink of glass on silver.

With the drink only half gone, Porter closed his book again and looked at the submissively kneeling girl. “Thank you, Sarah, I think I’ve had all I want for now.” She rose without a word and returned to the bar. She put the glass aside, not wanting to waste the whisky that remained, and wiped the tray with a cloth, although there was really nothing to clean.

There was an anomalous item lying on the bar, which she had noticed before and tried very hard not to think about, but when she was done with the serving tray it drew her fingers toward it. She picked it up, and touched the stiffly folded leather flap at one end with a tentative, trembling finger. She knew it from an adolescent hobby that had lasted until high school: a jump bat. “Do — do you ride horses?” she asked without turning to look at him. She was already sure of the answer.

His voice came from directly behind her. “No.”

The riding crop tumbled from her fingers. She spun around, clutched him, and buried her face against his chest. The dam of her self-control, which had been bearing ever increasing weight all night long, burst, and tears cascaded freely from her eyes. “What’s h-happening to me?” she sobbed. “Why am I doing this? Why am I letting you d-do this to me? I’m, I’m an accountant, not a, a, a m-maid! I’m naked, I’m — you’ve seen my — you probably don’t even like me, I’m not — I have these —” The phrase had been in her mind since she was thirteen years old, but she had never uttered it. “These mosquito-bite boobs.” She was sobbing freely, his shirt and necktie absorbing her tears. “I have rules. I don’t kiss on the first date. I won’t make love unless I’m in love.” She recited her well-rehearsed personal mantras as her fingers gripped the fine wool of Porter’s suit coat. “Why can’t I say no to you? Why can’t I s-stop? Why can’t I go home? Do you know? Can you tell me why?”

Porter had one arm around her, and his other hand stroked her soft hair, but that only served to remind her of her maid’s headdress, and her subservient station.

“Yes, Sarah, I know why, and I can tell you. I will tell you, before long. You can trust me to know the right time.” His voice was soothing and controlled. “As to your appearance, my dear girl, there are indeed many men who prefer opulence. But there are also those who prefer delicacy and subtlety, and I am among their number. I find your breasts charming, tempting, and delightfully pretty, and I’ll ask you not ever to worry about that again. Sarah, I’ve looked at you a hundred times since I first laid eyes on you — I know what I like. I know what I want.”

Sarah, adrift without an anchor of sanity or familiarity, clung desperately to the man who had unmoored her. She sniffled, as her sobs abated. “Are you —” Even to utter the question was terrifying, but not knowing was even more so. “Am I going to be... whipped?”

“No.”

Her face pressed even harder against him. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“The crop is symbolic,” Porter told her. “When you disobey me, when you know that your behavior is less than what I expect of you, you will bring it to me, and beg me to punish you. If I believe that that is what you need, I will take the crop from you, put it aside, and correct you with my hand instead. That act of leniency, repeated every time, will help you to learn that discipline is a kindness, for which you are to be grateful. Do you understand?”

Sarah wasn’t sure she understood anything at all, but she nodded, her face still against his chest.

“Am I going to be with you for more than just the weekend?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes.” He held her until he felt her body relax against him. “You don’t really want to go home, do you, Sarah?” He phrased the remark as a question, but its tone was of certainty.

He felt her shake her head “No” against him. He disengaged from her embrace, took a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the tears from her face, as she stood meekly submitting to his care. Sarah managed a small smile as he finished, which was returned in full measure.

Mark Porter refolded his handkerchief, slipped it into his pocket, and pulled Sarah’s cute little thong panties down to her knees. She squeaked out a startled yelp at the sudden, unexpected move, and the blush that had been her frequent companion all night long sprang to her face again in full force as Porter studied her newly bared pussy.

“Let’s get a better look,” he said, taking Sarah by the hand and leading her to a desk. He picked her up bodily, without apparent effort, and seated her right on the edge of the desk, atop the blotter. He slipped her panties the rest of the way down her legs and off, dropping them on the desk beside her. Then, taking hold of an ankle in each hand, he lifted Sarah’s feet and placed them on the desktop as well, far to each side of her. As he lifted, she started to tip back, and flung her hands behind her to catch herself and prop herself up on the desktop. Porter planted her feet firmly on the desk, and the added height of her heels contributed to the helpless girl’s spread-eagled exposure.

The outer lips of Sarah’s pretty pink pussy were pulled wide open by the extreme spread of her legs, but her inner lips, which were long and generous, clung together in a beautiful, prominent, deep pink ridge.

Porter’s hands wandered freely over Sarah’s intimate treasures, from perineum to mons, from thigh to thigh. “You are every bit as stunning a beauty here,” he told her, “As you are in your face, your figure, and your graceful movements.”

“Th-thank you,” Sarah said, overwhelmed by the shock of finding herself, opened up as if visiting the gynecologist, the object of careful inspection and appraisal.

His fingers toyed with her protruding labia. He raised his hand to Sarah’s unresisting mouth, and she sucked on his fingers, wetting them. He withdrew them and returned to her pussy, where with moistened fingers he caressed her lips, coaxing them to open. Back to her mouth for more saliva. Back to her pussy. His fingers parted her lips, opening her beautiful pink flower at last.

Mark Porter was a confident man. His confidence came from preparation: from studying situations, understanding them, predicting their possible outcomes, and knowing what to do at each turn.

He had not prepared for this.

He had not planned for Sarah’s virginity.

He gently pressed his little finger through the tiny opening of Sarah’s hymen and into her vagina, watching the edge of the membrane turn pale as it stretched tightly around the invading digit. He looked at Sarah’s face, saw it contort slightly with discomfort, and just as gently pulled his finger out of her hot, wet, tightly clinging cunt.

His left hand cradled her head as he leaned forward to kiss her. As their mouths met, he began to toy softly with Sarah’s clitoris, using the wetness leaking from her vagina to lube his fingers. After a few minutes, she risked her balance for the second it took to fling one arm around him, and then it was safe to do the same with the other, holding on around his back and neck to support herself. They kissed endlessly, tongues playing and exploring as Porter frigged her expertly.

Suddenly she pulled away from the kiss and closer to him, cheek to cheek, and the rising moan of her climax was loud in his ear as her pelvis rocked beneath his hand. He felt the heat of her gasping breaths on his face, as he enjoyed her cries of release and ecstasy unmuffled, this time, by a gag.

The instant she started to recover from her peak he picked her up off the desk and into his arms. With one hand supporting her bottom and one around her back he carried her out of the library, walking rapidly. Sarah, swept away in both the figurative and literal senses, clung to him however she could. She could feel the thumb of the hand supporting her ass between her cheeks; the ball of it was pressed against her asshole, and her shame at that incredible intimacy warred with a sense of illicit excitement.

When he stopped, and set her down on her feet, they were in another bedroom suite. This one was not impersonal: it was his, Sarah could tell at a glance. Porter pulled the covers off the bed, and then disappeared. When he returned, he carried a pair of large bath towels, and he placed them one atop the other in the center of his bed. He turned to Sarah without a word, picked her up again, and placed her on her back in the middle of the bed. He gently eased her hairband off, and tossed it onto a nearby chair, leaving her in nothing but heels and wrist-cuffs.

“I didn’t get to watch you in the car,” he said. His voice, for the first time that night, was not calm and controlled: it was edgy, urgent.

Sarah’s right hand crept to her pussy as she spread her legs. She played with herself, watching Porter watching her. She was ashamed of masturbating on command; she was embarrassed at her complete exposure to his eyes, without even a curl of hair for protection; she was mortified to have had her pristine state revealed to him, and anxious because he had not mentioned it; but above all she was hot: suffused with sexual arousal and excitement that her orgasm had not diminished and that was sure to last through the next.

He watched the virgin girl playing with her wide-open pussy — tickling her clit, stroking the length of her glistening lips — with rising hunger.

“There is exactly one time, Sarah, that I will ask your permission before I do with you whatever I wish. That one time is now. May I have your virginity?”

Sarah thought: “I’ve known since the beginning. I knew it, sitting in the bathroom at Blather’s, arguing with myself. If the first step is give me your panties, then whether it’s step two or step ten or step one hundred, at some point the next step will be: give me your body. I knew it then. I’ve been waiting for it all night.” Meeting Porter’s gaze, she thought, “I’ve wanted it to be you since I first saw you.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

She played with herself, building her arousal, as she watched him undress. He seemed to get larger as the clothes came off: more powerful, muscular. When he took his shorts off, the last garment to go, Sarah looked at his cock, stiff and throbbing, and thought in her complete inexperience that it was frighteningly huge.

He climbed onto the bed between her wide-spread legs, and replaced her fingers with his tongue and then his lips as well. Sarah gasped at the amazing feeling — it was ten, a thousand, a million times better than fingers. Both her hands went to his head, and as her hips rose off the mattress, pressing her clit against his mouth, the orgasm curled her fingers into his hair, pulling hard. Payback, as the saying goes, is a girl who lacks discipline.

She was still coming down from it, still breathing hard, when he moved up the bed and positioned his cock between her pussy lips, the head against her hymen. “You’ll want to remember,” he said, before he covered her mouth with his.

He swallowed her cry of pain as he pressed; tore her; opened her.

He came back from the bathroom with a steaming washcloth in his hand. “This is going to feel way too hot for about three seconds,” he warned her, “And then like the best thing ever.”

She smiled at his concern, and then gasped as he pressed and held the hot cloth carefully against her pussy.

“Ooooh ooh ooooh hot hot hot,” she said, cringing, and then “Oh, you’re right, that is good.” He began to clean her then, carefully, removing the traces of her defloration. The towel beneath her bore a wide stain: she had bled more than a little. But it appeared to be under control, Porter observed.

When he was done he took the washcloth and the towels, disposed of them somewhere, and returned to Sarah, climbing into bed, gathering her in his arms.

She lay contentedly against him, a thousand thoughts in her head but much of her apprehension gone, now that what she had most feared was behind her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worn high heels in bed,” Sarah mused.

“I recommend getting accustomed to it,” Porter rejoined.

They were quiet for a while, as Sarah gathered the nerve to pose a question. “Why did you come looking for me tonight?” she asked, uncertain that she really wanted to know.

Porter sighed. “I've been interested in you for quite a while. I knew your intellect from your work; your character from your reputation. I knew your beauty from — well, it’s plain to see. But the hard thing for me is to be separate from my position. When I learned early this week that you had developed some interest in me, without knowing that I was wealthy and powerful — let’s just say that a woman who’s not working an angle is a fairly rare treat for me.”

“Kim,” Sarah said flatly. Porter left the name hanging in the air, his silence sufficient confirmation.

The silence lingered. Sarah had a very clear sense that more was expected of her — that the time for trivialities had passed, and that she needed to stop skirting around the issues that were truly occupying her thoughts.

“How does The Obedience Game end?” Sarah asked.

Porter drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have two answers to that. The first answer is: there is only one rule in the obedience game.”

“You command, and I obey,” said Sarah.

“So how can it end?”

“You would have to... order me to stop obeying you.”

“And therefore it doesn’t end,” said Porter, “Because your devoted obedience is everything I want from you.”

Sarah thought about that for a while, about what it might imply, about what sort of relationship she was going to have with the man beside her.

“What’s the other answer?” she asked.

“It hasn’t even started,” Porter replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t given you a command yet.”

Sarah rolled over so she could look him directly in the face. “Yes you have — what are you talking about?”

“I haven’t.”

She felt a rising indignation. The ordeals he had put her through, the exposures, the humiliations, the pain, the degradation, the subjugation — was he trying to pretend that they had not happened, to claim innocence after all he had forced her to do?

“Now wait just a minute. You — not five minute after I met you, you told me to give you my panties!” she said with some heat.

“I told you that I like lingerie — which I do,” Porter rejoined calmly. “And I asked if you could imagine how much I would enjoy the gift of your panties. I didn’t tell you what to do.”

Sarah groped for memories, couldn’t catch hold of them, regrouped, and tried again. “You made me take my pants off, standing right inside the front door of my apartment.”

“I said I had firm standards of proper dress and that they did not include pants on pretty girls. You acted on your own.”

“You forced me out in public half naked — you made me show myself to that old man!” Sarah protested.

“I told you that you looked fine as you were, and that the gentleman, an admirer, would surely enjoy a better look at you.”

Sarah was growing hysterical. “You made me m-masturbate in front of you. You, you made me shave myself. You made me dress up like, like, like some sort of... fetish maidservant. You made me —”

“Sarah, in every single case you named, and every other that you are trying to recall, I gave you no orders. I made my likes, my desires, my preferences, and my standards available for you to learn and understand. I left you free to make any choice you wanted to — whatever you thought best.”

She looked at him, stunned. She played one conversation after another back through her mind, her heart sinking each time she could recall no direct order.

“You didn’t make me do anything, did you?” she whispered. “I did it all myself. You’re right.” She sat up and turned her back to him, covering her face with her hands.

Sarah spoke softly, more to herself than to her bed-mate. “I’ve been turning men away for years, because they were all in such a rush. Waiting for one who would be my friend, and then my beloved, and only then my lover. Hating them for giving up on me, when all I wanted was to take time and make sure. Hating them for dumping me, for telling their friends I’m frigid, I’m a lesbian, I’m a bitch, I’m a waste of time. And now... it’s gone. What I was saving for love. I gave it away, and you didn’t force me at all.” She uncovered her face, and tears streamed silently down her cheeks. “I can’t blame anyone but myself. I used to say I don’t kiss on the first date. And now... it turns out I’ll fuck on the first date.”

Porter sat up; he put an arm around her shoulders. “This isn’t a date, Sarah. This isn’t temporary; it isn’t casual. I am claiming you: your body, your mind, and your free will are mine. But that does not mean that love won’t be part of the picture. In fact, it will be. It has to be.” Her eyes searched his as she tried to cope with the tremendous weight of his words. “The one thing a submissive girl longs for, the one thing she needs, the one thing that’s right for her, is to be leashed to a man’s will. You’ve been waiting for someone to claim you, Sarah, to take charge of you, to control you. You’ve been waiting for someone to please, to serve, and to obey. That’s why you can’t say no to me, Sarah. That’s why you don’t want to go home. That’s why it’s so frightening even to think of disobeying me. You are finally, now, tonight, acting in accordance with your own nature. You’re a submissive, and now you belong to me.”

Every word Porter said to her fell on Sarah’s consciousness with the unmistakable weight of certainty. Every statement woke a realization within her that his descriptions of her were true. And yet, she had to ask. “Why do you call me submissive? How could you know that? You hardly know me.”

“I know you very well, Sarah; right now, better than you know yourself, although I’ll help you, in time, to understand your submissive nature fully,” Porter said. His tone of voice, kind and full of promise, lessened the sting of his words. “And how could I know you are a submissive girl? Five seconds after we met, you had ceded me full control of your body — you didn’t struggle, you didn’t resist, you didn’t complain, you didn’t even question. Five minutes and I had your panties in my pocket. Sarah, there are many ways for a woman to react to an advance like that. A slap in the face, threats, indignation. Or, for others, banter, a raised eyebrow, a little flirting in return. But the one who simply and immediately does whatever she can to satisfy my desires — I don’t need much more in the way of credentials. Add your behavior for the rest of the evening, acting again and again to please me without a single word of command, and there really isn’t any room for doubt.”

Sarah felt the bed move as Porter climbed off it. She raised her face and watched as he walked across the bedroom to a chest of drawers. He opened a drawer and removed three small objects — Sarah could not see what they were, but they fit in his closed hand.

He came back to the side of the bed and stood facing Sarah, looking down at her.

“In the beginning, a submissive learns to listen or look for commands, to understand and interpret them, and to carry her orders out to the best of her ability, without fail.” Porter’s firm, definite voice had Sarah’s full attention. “As her submission grows, it becomes unnecessary for her to think about her orders. A command becomes a force that acts on her mind and body without conscious thought or decision.”

Porter looked down at the beautiful girl on his bed, and felt himself begin to grow hard, thinking of how he would use her next.

“But when a submissive no longer needs to be commanded, because she understands the standards to which she is held and the pleasures she is expected to give — when she does what she must without any orders at all — that is the most beautiful submission of all.”

Porter pointed to the floor in front of him. “On your knees, Sarah.”

She scrambled to obey, without an instant’s hesitation. “There is no end to The Obedience Game,” she thought.

“Put your arms behind you, wrists together,” Porter ordered, and Sarah immediately complied. She felt arousal sweeping through and through her body, keyed by nothing more than her obedience.

Porter took a spring clip from his hand and bent over the kneeling girl. His stiffening cock brushed her face, and she nuzzled it as he clipped her wrist restraints together behind her back. She knew what was coming, what it meant to be kneeling with her mouth in reach of his cock, and the expectation thrilled her.

He divided her hair quickly to the left and right, and bound it into two pigtails with the elastic bands he was holding. By the time he was finished, his cock was fully erect, pulsing and dancing in front of Sarah’s virgin mouth.

“Open your mouth,” Porter commanded. “Wider.” He gripped a pigtail tightly in each hand.

“Any girl can put a penis in her mouth and do something that feels fairly good. Artisan cocksucking, on the other hand, is a subtle, nuanced, practiced art form. I will be patient in teaching it to you — it will take months — but I will not accept anything but your full concentration and your best effort.” Firmly pulling her hair, he filled Sarah’s virgin mouth for the first time.

As she began instinctively to stroke the underside of his cock with her soft, wet tongue, Porter said, “Now, the most important part of your body when you suck my cock is not your mouth, but your eyes...”

And so Sarah’s training began.

Mark Porter came back into the bedroom. He stopped behind the nearly nude Sarah, who knelt on the floor with hands bound and head bowed. He squatted down and unbuckled the restraints around her wrists. With a rising sense of pride and satisfaction, he noted that Sarah kept her arms behind her, despite what he knew must be an awful ache — they had been bound for hours. He unbuckled the straps of her high heels and slipped them off her feet.

Porter glanced at the bedside clock. Fifteen minutes — that was about the limit for a beginner’s first retention lesson. He stood and walked around to stand in front of Sarah.

“Show me.”

She raised her sticky, sperm-spattered face to him, pride reflected in every feature, and opened her mouth. His last load of cum, richly augmented with saliva, lay puddled within.

“Good girl. Swallow that down, now.”

Sarah gulped, and felt the thick, warm liquid slide soothingly down her throat.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. She must always be grateful for the gift of cum — he had been very definite about that.

Porter reached out a hand to Sarah and helped her stand. She needed the help: her body felt permanently folded into a kneeling position.

“You go ahead and freshen up,” he told her, “And then come to bed. It’s almost two o’clock, and we have a great deal to do tomorrow.”

When she returned from the bathroom, the bedroom was dark. She found the bed and slid under the covers, and for the first time in her adult life snuggled up against another body. Her mind was full of questions, of new thoughts, of revelations, of a thousand things that she wanted to consider and discuss. But she was exhausted, and sleep almost instantly claimed her, as she rested in the embrace of her Owner.

Sarah woke to a sudden burst of sunlight, so bright that she had to turn her head away even with her eyes closed. As she was trying to convince herself to pry them open, an act that was going to take a very great deal of willpower, a voice spoke.

“Good morning, Sarah. I hope you slept comfortably?” A woman’s voice.

That unexpected greeting popped Sarah’s eyes wide open in an instant. She was alone in the bed, but a woman unknown to her was standing right next to it. Sarah groped frantically for a sheet or blanket to cover herself with, but they had slid — or been kicked — to the floor, and no concealment was to be had. She started to cover herself with her arms, but instead sank back against the mattress. Whatever she had, the stranger had already had plenty of time to examine.

“I’m Anika,” the newcomer introduced herself. “I’m so happy you’re here. He told me you were beautiful, but the word doesn’t begin to do you justice.” There was no doubt to whom “he” referred.

“Um, hi,” Sarah managed weakly. “Thank you. Where —”

“He’s in the conference room for a meeting, which will end at ten o’clock.”

“Uh, it’s Saturday, right?” Sarah inquired, still rather groggy after her sudden awakening. As her eyes regained focus, she took in the other woman’s appearance. Anika was a classic high-cheekboned Scandinavian blonde, with her nearly white hair done in a French braid of miraculous precision. She wore a two-piece suit, with the shortest skirt that Sarah had ever seen: at the line where bottom became thigh, there was its hem. The brevity of the skirt was further emphasized by the four lacy garter straps that emerged from it to grasp the tops of Anika’s sheer black stockings at mid-thigh. She balanced easily on six-inch heels, just barely shy of being en pointe, and with the height due to her heritage was quite a majestic sight.

“Yes. Business often spills into the weekend, I’m afraid,” Anika replied. “But I know he’s keeping the rest of the day clear to be with you.” As she spoke, the tall blonde beauty sank gracefully to a seat on the bed beside Sarah. “You are scheduled for heel training from nine to ten o’clock, starting today. The gym has a treadmill and a balance beam, so you can get right to work. Penny will come fetch you a little before nine.”

“Who’s Penny?” Sarah’s feelings returned from the night before, of being adrift in a surreal world, helpless to find anything normal to cling to.

“She’s our fitness trainer. She’ll teach you that lovely, sexy, confident stride that he admires so much. I just need to let her know your shoe size — looks like an eight?”

“Yes. Seven-and-a-half, sometimes — it depends.” Sarah watched Anika’s eyes travel down her body and back up, and blushed at being examined so frankly.

Anika’s fingers went to the front of her suit jacket, which she quickly unbuttoned. She opened it, revealing two high, hard, handful-sized breasts, capped with stiff pink nipples that reminded Sarah of pencil erasers. “Look,” she said, “We’re practically twins, aren’t we?”

Sarah’s blush deepened. “I, um, guess so.”

Anika leaned over until her face was just inches from Sarah’s. “You are such a beautiful girl. He was so happy this morning — he was singing, and that was before coffee.” She leaned closer, and kissed Sarah on the mouth. As Sarah froze in shock, Anika slipped a hand down the nude girl’s body and began gently stroking her bare pussy. Her tongue slipped between Sarah’s unresisting lips, and found Sarah’s own to play with. Their breasts touched.

Just at the instant when Sarah regained enough self control to react, to protest, to push the blonde away, Anika broke the kiss and sat back up. Her hand rested warmly on Sarah’s pussy. In a soft, sultry voice she said, “I can’t wait till he wants to watch you and me play together.”

Anika rose and strode to the bedroom door. “Breakfast will be here in just a few minutes.” She reached for the doorknob.

“Wait!” Sarah cried. The tall blonde turned back. “Are there — Who — I mean, besides you, and, um, the trainer, and me —”

“You’ll meet everyone this weekend. There are seven of us, now that you’re here,” Anika replied with a smile.

A question burned in Sarah’s breast; she had no way to phrase it that was not embarrassing. Yet she had to know. “Does he — are you, and the others —”

“Yes, we belong to him,” Anika said happily. “Just like you do. We serve him, we obey him, we submit to his will, we give him every pleasure we can think of, and we love him. Just like you do.”

“I — I don’t know if I —”

“In time, then, you will. Before too long.” Anika said, still smiling gently.

“And you’re — you said ‘submit’?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, I’m a submissive. All of us. Just like you, Sarah.” Anika’s smile grew broad and bright. “In fact, I’ll get a little spanking for kissing you without permission, as soon as I confess to it. But I couldn’t resist: you’re such a pretty thing. We’re all so excited to have you here — he’s been talking about you forever.” She opened the door to leave.

“Welcome to the harem, Sarah.”

Author’s notes on First Date

Every character and corporation in this story are products of my imagination. If I happened to duplicate a real-world name, that’s purely by chance. In fact, I chose the rather outlandish Waffle and Sproing to spare myself the job of checking for real-world financial empires.

There is one exception to that: Laphroaig Islay Malt Whisky is very real. It is an acquired taste. I have acquired it :-P If you feel like sending me a bottle, I’m sure we could work something out.

First Date has been kicking around as a work-in-progress for about five years, with much of Sarah’s public exposure and humiliation written, but with only notes for her introduction to sexual submission. I’m happy finally to finish it and share it with you.

If I can spend months and months of hard work writing a story, don’t you think you can spare five minutes to write and tell me what you thought of it? Of course you can — and thank you.

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First Date

by Frenulum

Read more stories by Frenulum