The Boss (17 page)

‘Thanks, both of you.'

It was Pete who answered.

‘Yeah, right, and now it's your turn.'

Dave agreed earnestly and I felt my tummy go tight in apprehension once more. I nodded, my feelings already shifting to that wonderful sense of helplessness Stephen provoked in me. They were going to make me be dirty, really dirty, and from the look on their faces I knew there would be no getting off. Pete glanced down to where my underwear was still in a tangle around my ankles.

‘Pull your knickers back up, Fizz.'

Dave cut in immediately.

‘What, you really going to make her pee in her panties?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Not in my car!'

‘Don't be stupid, she can do it outside.'

I swallowed hard but did as I was told, wriggling my knickers back up my legs, but as I reached to open the door Pete spoke again.

‘Tidy up, yeah, like you was in that office were you work. I want to see you do it like that.'

‘Pervert.'

He was, but it made sense. If I had to do something so utterly dirty I should be as smart as possible first. I got out of the car, both of them watching me as I adjusted my clothing with trembling fingers. The interior light cast a dim yellowish pool on the ground,
no more, but enough to illuminate me and leave the track and the woods behind me in utter darkness. Only when I looked almost as if I might just have stepped out of Black Knight Securities did Pete speak again.

‘Nice and slow, and I want to see everything.'

‘OK.'

The word came out as a whisper, showing my feelings, naughty but embarrassed too as I once more tugged my skirt up far enough to allow me to sink down into a squat. The front of my knickers were showing, their eyes glued firmly between my legs. I tried to let go, which should have been easy, but I couldn't. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, only to open them again at the sound of a car. Our own car shaded me, yet I waited, and just as well.

As the car passed I saw the all too familiar yellow and blue pattern on it side. Then it slowed. It stopped. It began to reverse. I was already running, over the bar that closed off the logging track and away. For a moment all I could see was the jagged tops of the trees, black against the stars. I was stumbling in my heels on the uneven ground, far too clumsy.

I stopped to duck in among the trees, my heart pounding as I felt my way between the pines in near total blackness, only to give in. They'd have torches, and I was helpless, unable to hide, unable to run properly in my stupid office clothes, surely caught. But what for? I'd just panicked, running by instinct, but I hadn't actually done anything, not obviously. I still didn't want to face the police and stayed where I was, ducked low behind a pine trunk as I looked back.

The police car had stopped, blocking in Dave's. Both the boys had got out, also two policemen, and while I couldn't make out their voices clearly it was easy to
tell what was going on from their body language. Fortunately Dave had had time to put his cock away, and was doing his best to talk his way out of it. It was hopeless, with no tax disc, no insurance, his licence suspended and probably half a dozen things wrong with the car. I knew they wouldn't say I'd been there, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help them, but I still felt guilty as I began to slink away through the trees.

I DIDN'T FEEL
too good on the Saturday morning, what with a slight hangover, aching muscles from my long walk home and a guilty feeling for abandoning Pete and Dave. As soon as I was properly awake I rang them both, to discover that the car had been impounded and Dave was up before the magistrates. Pete had been cautioned. My name had never come up, leaving me deeply grateful to them and guiltier still. I was cursing the police too, because we'd just been having some fun and they'd broken up the party just when everything was starting to focus on me.

There was quite a bit of explaining to do as well, as I'd left my muddy shoes by the door and my jacket was still covered in pine needles when Mum came in with a cup of tea in the morning. I admitted more or less what I'd been up to, leaving out only the filthy details, earning myself an exasperated lecture about growing up and finding more responsible company.

I took a long bath and spent the rest of the morning in my bedroom, reading magazines and slowly letting my body return to normal. Lunch made me feel a lot better, and my thoughts turned to my date with Stephen that evening. He was picking me up, so I had plenty of time and spent the afternoon slobbing about the house and playing cards with my sisters.

Eventually I decided it was time to get ready, but I wasn't at all sure how I should dress. My work suit
was far too formal, not to mention in need of cleaning, although one of the white blouses I wore with it seemed a much better choice than the sort of top I normally wore, most of which advertised punk bands or were deliberately ripped up. Underwear was equally tricky, as I knew full well my clothes would be coming off and I'd probably be staying the night. Stephen seemed to like sensible knickers, but I wanted something a little daring, and in the end I decided on the matching dove-grey set Archie had given me for Christmas and which I'd never worn because I knew he'd only chosen it so he could perve over the thought of me wearing it. Using it specifically for the pleasure of another man at least diluted that feeling. That left a skirt or trousers, an even more difficult choice. Jeans didn't feel right and micro skirts held together with safety pins definitely weren't, which pretty well exhausted my wardrobe. In the end I borrowed a long blue and gold gypsy skirt from Mum.

A touch of make-up and I was ready, but as I waited for him I was feeling only marginally less conspicuous than I did in my work suit, which wasn't helped by my sisters who wouldn't stop teasing me. Fortunately it wasn't too long before he turned up, in a suit as usual, but a casual flannel one that made him look as if he was just off to watch the boat race or something. Mum was immediately fussing around him like an old hen, offering tea and biscuits and even telling me, in front of him, that I should behave myself properly during the evening. That showed just how much she knew, or maybe not, as I was sure Archie was an out-and-out pervert and she always seemed to pick men like that.

We finally managed to pull ourselves away, with Mum still cooing and ahing over Stephen's Saab, so
that I couldn't get a word in edgeways until he'd actually turned the engine on.

‘Sorry about Mum, she's always like that.'

‘A charming woman, your mother.'

‘Humph. So where do you live?'

‘Brettenham.'

‘That's on the far side of Thetford, isn't it?'

‘Yes, but it's all right as long as the dual carriageway is clear.'

He'd let the clutch in as we spoke, and we turned into town, then east towards Thetford. As usual he was driving fast and slowing for the cameras, prompting me to tease him about his attitude.

‘I don't suppose you're thinking of going into speed cameras too, from the way you treat the things?'

He laughed.

‘I have considered it, actually. Digital units would be so much more efficient, and can even be co-ordinated with the ZX system.'

‘But you don't like getting caught, do you?'

‘Naturally not.'

‘So how are you different from the scallies in Hockford?'

‘Because my actions don't impose a cost on society. Yes, if I drove down Hockford High Street at seventy I would fully deserve to be caught and fined, even banned, but I don't. Did you know that the thirty mph limit was introduced in nineteen thirty-four? Brakes were far less efficient then, but of course there's always the chance of some idiot not looking where they're going. Here, on a straight road in a modern car with an experienced driver, fifty is frankly ridiculous.'

As if to illustrate his point he sped up, the needle already touching eighty as we passed the Sariton
turning. I'd done the ton on the same road several times, so could hardly protest his point, but he did seem to have a pretty cavalier attitude. I thought of something else.

‘So how about sex? What if the system catches a couple having a cuddle on the river path and they end up getting fined for indecent exposure or whatever it would be. They haven't imposed a cost on society, have they?'

‘That's debatable. Personally, I agree, and I would drop all laws relating to public nudity and intimacy unless it is clearly intended to be threatening. Mrs Shelby, on the other hand, says . . . what was it, “inappropriate behaviour for a family town” or something like that. I'm not quite sure what a family town is, as you would have thought all towns were family towns, but still. Mr Phelps is almost equally vehement, although his main concern is to discourage teenage sex.'

‘He's one to talk. He reads dirty magazines.'

‘He does?'

I back-peddled hastily.

‘That's what I heard. I don't know, but sometimes I think the council go over the top.'

‘Oh, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. In fact I, and you, we make our living because councils are inclined to go over the top.'

‘That's true, I suppose, but what about the people who get fined when they're not really hurting anybody?'

He just shrugged, consummately indifferent, but spoke again once he'd overtaken a lorry.

‘I have no sympathy at all with vandals and so forth, while people like that gay couple we saw will just have to learn not to do it anywhere they might cause
offence. The Breckland is huge, after all, and not even Hockford Council could cover the whole of it with cameras. They have no right to anyway, as most of it's owned by the Forestry Commission.'

Again he went quiet, and I relaxed back in my seat, watching the numbers that mark the logging tracks sweep past. It was hard to pick a fault with his argument, but the whole thing still touched a raw nerve inside me. After a while he spoke again.

‘Do I get the impression that my innocent little Felicity rather enjoys the idea of sex al
fresco
?'

‘Perhaps she does.'

‘I suspect rather more, and who knows, perhaps I can accommodate you one day.'

He finished with his dirty little chuckle, and I felt my sex tighten even as I thought of what a condescending bastard he was. I could picture it all too easily though, outdoors somewhere, first my bottom laid bare for a spanking, perhaps even in view of a path so there was a risk that somebody might see and think I was really being punished, which was a thought to set my stomach churning. Then, once my bottom was nice and hot he'd lead me deeper in among the trees, perhaps with my knickers still down, and there, he would fuck me.

Again he chuckled, as if he'd been reading my mind, and I found myself blushing. He really was a pig, but for some strange reason that turned me on, while the way he behaved towards me normally also seemed to make the dirty, humiliating sex more acceptable. In any event, I wanted it.

What I didn't want to do was talk, but he made me feel confused, so I turned the music up and tried to relax and not think about having my bottom smacked
as we drove east, soon joining the A11 to get around Thetford. At Brettenham we turned off the main road immediately beyond the sign for the village, down a narrow but newly asphalted track which came to an end at a cluster of old red-brick and flint buildings set around a cobbled yard, obviously an old mill. There was even a great rotting wheel to one side, while the grind stone had been used to make a fountain at the centre of the courtyard. Stephen brought the Saab to a halt, and there was more than a little satisfaction in his voice as we got out.

‘Here we are.'

‘This is your flat?'

‘I live in the upper part.'

He made a casual gesture to a long, red roof set with what were obviously new skylights. I'd expected a flat much like the ones I'd been into in Hockford, either the lower or upper storey of a house, or possibly within a modern block, and certainly nothing so expensive-looking. A wooden stair led up to the door, again new but made as if it was original, while there was a general air of understated wealth to the whole place. I didn't like to ask what it had cost, as Stephen didn't choose to tell me as we climbed the stair, instead gesturing out across the river to a jumble of woods and fields.

‘We're a trust, and we've bought up both banks as well as the original plot of land, just in case the damn government decides to build all over it.'

The door swung open and I followed him inside. It was a single long room, all scrubbed brick, flint and polished wood, with chunky, cream-coloured furniture and bits of expensive-looking equipment scattered around. I went to the music system, hoping to find a
bit of old-style punk in among his huge collection of CDs, but he immediately moved next to me, his voice more than a little nervous as he spoke.

‘It's Sachs and Johansen, brand new and a bit complicated. What would you like, a touch of Vivaldi perhaps?'

I'd met enough men who were overprecious of their gear, Steve included, and stepped away.

‘I don't know. Maybe something with a bit more . . . a bit more guts?'

‘Ah, ha, Wagner!'

‘I was thinking more Stranglers, or maybe Scissor Girls?'

‘I fear I have neither, although I did once possess a vinyl copy of Rattus Norvegicus passed down to me by my brother. They have a certain raw energy, I will admit, but as one matures so does one's appreciation in music.'

‘Mine hasn't changed.'

‘You're still young, of course, but weren't you listening to the latest boy band a few years ago?'

‘No.'

‘In that case you showed unusually good taste, and no doubt will come to appreciate Herr Wagner.'

‘Wasn't he a bit of a Nazi?'

‘Good heavens, no. He died in eighteen eighty-three, before Hitler was even born, I think. Don't they teach history at all in schools these days?'