Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 58185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
“It’s not compulsory,” he said, noting my hesitation. “I simply wish to treat you to an elegant evening. You may get dressed, by the way.”
I told myself it had to be the wand. I leaned on that idea as I grasped his outstretched hand. He pulled me to my feet, and I turned to go back and fetch my clothes.
My skirt fluttered down around my thighs to conceal my shame: my bare pussy and my paddled bottom. I could to my mortification feel my arousal down there, slickness coating my inner folds so thoroughly it had seeped onto my thighs. I averted my eyes, cheeks flaring anew at the evidence of my lewd excitement.
Joseph let me finish dressing in silence. I felt grateful despite myself—in that same absurd way I’d started to get used to—that he let me face away from him, toward his desk, as I did my best to put my clothing in order. I wanted at the same time to make certain I showed no sign of how completely subjugated by Joseph I felt and to ensure that he could see that, deep down, I didn’t want any of this—let alone need it.
“Turn around,” he said, when I stopped smoothing and primping.
I felt the wand’s effect at work, cutting through the conflict inside me, deciding the matter for me. I turned to face him.
“I believe I issued an invitation, Ingrid. Would you care to respond?”
My eyes widened a bit. I searched my mind and my body for the wand’s influence and didn’t find a trace of it. Joseph hadn’t given me an order; as he said, he had merely invited me to dinner, and he had even told me my acceptance wasn’t compulsory.
I realized I had started to chew on my lower lip as I searched his handsome face for some sign of… something. I didn’t know what, really. Maybe the warmth I had heard in his voice. All I got for an impression of what lay behind his piercing gaze was a cool, inquisitive interest in how I would respond.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d… I’d like that.”
He smiled, and the conflict inside me raged higher as the mere sight of his firm mouth turned up that way brought a glow to my chest.
“Remember to change your bra,” he told me, instantly making the battle inside me even fiercer. “I’ll pick you up at your apartment at seven. Tell Cathy I said you could leave early to get ready.”
Joseph came to get me in a limo. I had never ridden in one before, and when I saw it at the curb in front of my building it didn’t even occur to me that my new boss was inside until he rolled down the window and called my name.
“Ingrid,” I heard from the general direction of the sleek, black town car. I turned to see Joseph looking at me, a smile on his face that made my heart skip a beat.
The limo driver stepped out and opened the door. Joseph moved over on the long bench seat. I felt like I might faint before I got to the car, but I took the six or seven steps without stumbling, murmured a reflexive thank you to the driver, and managed to get in.
“You look lovely,” Joseph said, very simply but with an evident sincerity that brought butterflies to my tummy.
“Thanks,” I whispered. I had chosen my one nice dress—little and black, of course. I had managed on my way home not to notice my lack of panties to the same extent as in the morning, and with the help of my nervous excitement I had pushed it away as I got dressed.
Here in the limo, though, sitting next to Joseph, I became terribly conscious of my nakedness under the thin wool lap of my skirt. I turned toward Joseph, but I sat like a schoolgirl, knees together and hands folded atop my thighs to make certain I didn’t expose myself.
“Saint L’O is five minutes away, if that,” he told me with a little chuckle. “So don’t get too comfortable.”
“Saint L’O?” I asked, eyes going wide.
“You’ve never eaten there, I’m guessing?” Joseph asked.
His smile made me laugh, because he so obviously knew the answer to the question.
“The best restaurant in the city?” I countered. “No, I…” I hesitated for a moment, not sure if I could follow through on the slightly sassy remark that had come to mind. For a millisecond I felt I stood on a knife’s edge, that I had the chance to decide in this utterly trivial moment what kind of person I would be, going forward.
I wanted the sassiness. I wanted the naughtiness.
I wanted to make my boss, my master, exert his dominance, play his shameful game. He held the trump cards: he had the paddle and the compliance wand. Maybe his victory was inevitable. But though that thought made my heart race with fear of the consequences, I could already tell that the ‘fun’ lay in the struggle.