Dangerous Pleasures (26 page)

Downstairs she found that the limousine had just pulled up in front of the front entrance to the Spa. Mr. Nicholas and Nora Buckley came from his office. The staff elevator opened and Devyn exited, carrying a dark green duffel. He walked toward them.

“Well, my boy, now the adventure begins for you. The car will take you directly to your home. Charlie Kramer will be waiting for you. I will be attending the funeral. You will be judged at first by the company you keep, Devyn. It will not harm you for the people who count to see I am in your corner, dear boy.”

“Thank you, sir,” Devyn replied gravely. Then he turned to the two women. “Good-bye, Ms. Buckley, Mrs. Miller.”

“We are so sorry for your loss,” Nora said.

“Thank you,” he responded. Then he turned and got into the waiting limousine.

They watched as it pulled off, and then, turning as one, they reentered the lobby.

“I shall be on my way,” Mr. Nicholas said. “It was good to see you both. Keep up the excellent work, Annie.” Then he turned and went back through the entrance, where a second car was now waiting.

“An amazing man,” Annie said. “He seems to know us better than we know ourselves,” she noted.

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Nora Buckley replied softly.

June was almost over now. Annie had watched on the television news the small piece about the funeral of Phillip Scott, his wife and two sons. It had been such a horrific tragedy the media couldn’t resist covering it. Especially as it was well known that Phillip and his half brother had been estranged. There had at first been a hint that perhaps the deaths weren’t accidental, but an investigation by the FAA proved otherwise.

Devyn had looked suitably mournful as he had entered the church for the funeral. He had spoken briefly to a network reporter at the cemetery. “My brother and I were not friends, but neither were we enemies. To lose him before we might reconcile our differences is a great tragedy for me. I shall endeavor to carry on with Scott Industries in the manner I know our father would have wanted me to. Thank you.” And he had gotten into the waiting limousine, accompanied by another man.

He’ll survive,
Annie thought to herself, just as she was going to survive. She had been right not to get herself emotionally involved with Devyn.

Annie had a new personal assistant she was now training. She had gone to the high school guidance counselor and asked for a list of girls who were not attending college but would be graduating with secretarial skills. There were three, and she interviewed them. Then she consulted her oldest daughter.

“What do you want to know, Mom?” Amy inquired.

“Gossip, reputations, that kind of stuff. Who’ll be serious about the job,” Annie replied. “I don’t want some fashion-conscious, boy-crazy assistant.”

“Then you don’t want Brandy Peters,” Amy said. “She’s a northeast valley girl.”

“What about the other two?” Annie wanted to know.

“Carol Anderson is ambitious. I think the Spa would just be a stepping-stone for her,” Amy responded thoughtfully. “You want someone who’ll do the job, can think for herself, will keep her place, but will stay, right, Mom?”

“Right!” Annie agreed.

“Then it has to be Mary Finch,” Amy said. “She’s smart enough to go to college, but there’s no money. She’s stuck in Egret Pointe. Her dad’s disabled. Her mom is a clerk in a mall store at the county seat, and she has a little brother. He’s in eighth grade. She has to stay home, and she has to work.”

Mary Finch. Yes, she had stood out by virtue of not standing out, Annie thought. Brandy and Carol had both been dressed for success. Mary had been wearing a dark cotton skirt and a white blouse. She had a pretty face, but not too pretty. Annie fingered through the three résumés. Mary had the best grades of the three. “Then it’s Mary Finch,” she said to Amy.

The high school guidance counselor told Mary Finch she had been chosen.

“Me?” Mary looked surprised. “I thought for sure it would be Carol or Brandy.”

“Well, it’s you,” the guidance counselor said. “You’re to go up to the Spa after school today, and Mrs. Miller will finalize the details. You’ll be expected to fill out all the employee forms so that the Monday after graduation you’ll be ready to start work.”

“Oh, God!” Mary Finch started to cry. “How am I going to get there? I haven’t got a car. The best job in town, and I can’t get to it. What am I going to do?”

“I’ll call Mrs. Miller right now,” the guidance counselor said, frowning. But when she got off the phone she was smiling. “I’ll take you up this afternoon,” she told the girl. “It seems you get a company car to use, since you’re working for the Spa’s assistant manager. You do have your license, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mary Finch nodded. “I get a car? My own car?” And she started to cry again. “It really is the best job in town.” She sniffled.

“And you are provided with uniforms, too, so you won’t have to worry about clothes every day,” the guidance counselor told the girl. “Skirts, blazers, blouses, even a pair of black leather pumps. You are really a lucky girl, Mary, but you deserve it.”

That afternoon the guidance counselor drove Mary up to the Spa, where she met with Annie. Her duties were explained. She picked up her uniforms, filled out all the employment forms she needed to, and was given the key to a little Toyota Corolla.

“It’s not new,” Annie told her, “but it’s been gently used. And here’s your company gas card, Mary. Use the car for work only, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mary said, and Annie didn’t correct her.

“Your title is administrative assistant to the assistant manager,” Annie said. She held out a piece of paper. “This is your salary, benefits included, and there will be periodic raises as you merit them.”

Mary looked at the paper and her mouth fell open. She quickly closed it.

“If you have any difficulties you are to come to me,” Annie said. “The Channel Corporation wants its employees one hundred percent happy, Mary. A word of warning: Don’t take any of the personal assistants seriously. They are picked for their charm and their good looks. They know it, and a nice girl like yourself could be taken advantage of, so be advised that they’re a naughty bunch.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t flirt back. Just don’t buy into their lines. Beware of the PA called Connor. He’s a terrible gossip, and more often than not he gets the wrong end of the stick.”

“I’m not taken in by boys,” Mary said softly. “I can’t get in trouble, and I have to set a good example for my little brother.”

“Good girl!” Annie said approvingly.

“Thank you so much for giving me this chance, Mrs. Miller,” Mary Finch gushed.

“You were the best candidate, Mary,” Annie told her. “Now, I’ll see you the Monday after graduation.”

And indeed Mary had arrived that morning at eight thirty, although she wasn’t due until nine a.m. She was dressed in her tan skirt, white blouse, and dark green spa blazer. Her sandy blond hair had been cut in a short, fashionable bob, and she wore only a smear of pink lipstick. On the lapel of her blazer was a little polished brass name tag that read,
MARY FINCH
, and below her name,
ADMISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
. Putting her small purse into the bottom drawer of her desk, Mary set everything up the way she wanted it, and smiled brightly when Annie arrived at eight forty. “Good morning, Mrs. Miller.”

Mary was perfect, Annie thought as the weeks went by. And she didn’t mind working late either. Right now Annie was working late several nights a week. Nathaniel had gone off to his summer internship. Amy and the twins were off to Stoneledge Lake for eight weeks. Her parents had rented a condo at a beach resort with a golf course and insisted on taking Wills with them. Nanny Violet had gone off to visit her sister in England. Annie was alone for the summer, and she was enjoying her freedom. She had been assistant manager of the Spa for almost four months now. Every day she learned more and more about the running of the enterprise. With Mary Finch by her side, her workdays had taken on a smooth rhythm.

She had deleted her beach fantasy with Devyn, replacing it with another beach fantasy with two handsome men, Luka and Max. Sometimes she invited one of them into her bed, and at other times she would bring them both. She very much enjoyed having two men pleasure her. She had not deleted her first fantasy of Beauty and the Beast. For some reason she did not understand, she seemed to need the Beast and his leather tawse.

It was raining tonight as she pressed the A button, finding herself a nanosecond later being prepared for punishment.

She was naked and bent over a thickly padded bar. Her legs had been spread and were shackled to the bottom of the legs of the bar. Her arms were outstretched and fastened to the top part of the bar’s legs.

“You are a perfect picture of submission, Mistress Anne,” the Beast’s rough voice growled at her. “Your bottom is perfect in both its size and its shape. A lovely peach.” He ran a hand over her flesh. “And like silk to my touch. Today it shall be tawsed with twenty strokes of the leather. Then your pretty ass will be burnished to a fine glow with a small bundle of aspen switches. And afterward you will be fucked first by me, and then you will remain the night here in my dungeon, a treat for any of my men who choose to use you. You have a great and lustful appetite for cock, Mistress Anne. Tonight you shall have your fill. Come the morning I will whip you again, and the last prick you shall take will be mine once again.”

“My lord, what have I done to displease you so?” Annie asked him.

“Why, Mistress Anne, you are quite pleasing to me in your obedience as a rule, but you have kept yourself from me for some days now, remaining in your tower while I languished for your cunt. And surely by now that eager maw of yours is ready to be plowed vigorously by more than one man. I know your tastes well, my dear,” he murmured, bending to lick the whorl of her ear. “Beneath your meekness is a lascivious wench with the rollicking heart of a pure wanton.” Reaching down, he pinched one of her nipples, and when she shivered he laughed.

She felt him step away from her, and knew he was picking up the broad leather strap. “Am I to be kept bent over like this all night?” she asked him.

“Nay,” he said. “You will be bound to yon bed to keep you readily available. Look, my pet, I have a new tawse for you tonight.” He held it out, and she saw the end of the broad length of the tawse was now split into several narrow fingers of leather, and each strip was knotted several times. “See?” He allowed her to look quickly at it, and then he removed it from her sight.

Annie tensed, waiting for the first blow. Being punished like this always aroused her to a fever pitch, but of late she had needed more blows. Tonight, however, was different. When the first blow was laid on her she felt the slender ribbons with their knots sting. She squealed, and he laughed delightedly as he counted out the other blows. Several of those fingers burrowed between her thighs and stung at her mons. She actually squirmed to eacape them. When the last blow had fallen he set to work on her helpless buttocks with the bunch of switches. Her sensitive flesh was quickly burning, and her arousal was high. “Fuck me, my lord,” she pleaded with him. “Fuck me!”

“But a few strokes more, Mistress Anne,” he told her as he whipped her with the switches. “You are quite able to take a bit more of this delight.”

“No! No!” Annie cried as the switches rained down upon her buttocks. “I must have your cock! I must!”

“And so you shall, my beauty,” he said. His hands gripped her hips, and slowly, slowly, he inserted his great penis into her vagina. When he was fully sheathed he purred at her, “Now, Mistress Anne, you shall be well fucked, hard and deep until you can bear no more, for my lusty nature is boiling, having been denied your cunt for so long.”

He began to ream her, and once he had found the perfect rhythm he released his hold upon her hips, bent low over her, and, reaching about, grasped her breasts. He squeezed them, he teased at the nipples with his rough thumbs, he pinched and pulled at the nipples while she squealed and moved in time with him. Dissatisfied, however, he called out, “Rafe and Ziven, to your master!”

Annie watched as two guardsmen emerged from the shadows, where they had been standing watching their master and her.

“Each of you attend to a breast,” the Beast commanded them. “She needs more, and I must attend better to her wet cunt.”

The two guardsmen positioned themselves so they might have access to her full breasts. Their hands closed about each one, and they began to suck upon her. Their eager mouths produced a throbbing within her as they drew strongly. One of them bit her nipple, and she screamed softly, which encouraged the other guardsman to do the same. And all the while, as their fingers kneaded and squeezed her flesh, the Beast pounded into her harder and deeper than he had ever done before, Annie thought. And then she felt the moment of her crisis approaching. Her vagina began to spasm as he fucked her to climax, howling as his own juices burst forth.

The Beast fell away from her onto the straw of the dungeon cell. As he did one of the guardsmen was quickly behind her, thrusting himself into her as the second guardsman pushed his swollen prick into her mouth. “That’s it, lads,” the Beast encouraged them. “Mistress Anne is a lusty bitch, and will take all you have to give her, won’t you, my beauty?”

And Annie sucked on the cock in her mouth while moving her buttocks in time with the guardsman plundering her vagina. Her blue eyes met the dark eyes of the Beast in perfect understanding, and he smiled a slow smile at her as the trio came.

When the three men had finished with her they bathed her private parts with warm water from a small basin, and then bound her to a small bed before leaving her. After a brief interlude two young guardsmen entered the dungeon cell. They unfastened her bonds and climbed into the bed with her. They stroked her breasts and licked at her cunt before they took turns fucking her. When they had finished they bathed her parts again, and departed after binding her to the bedposts once more. Another man entered after a span of time had passed. Unlocking her bonds, he put her facedown over the edge of the bed and pushed his cock into her forbidden channel. Holding her down with a hand on her neck, he grunted softly, and after a stroke or two of his swollen dick he exploded his juices within her. Then, chaining her back up, he departed.