Office Perks (17 page)

‘You're late . . . you assured me you would come anyway.'

She went quiet, listening with increasing irritation, then glanced at me before speaking again.

‘She had better be, that's all. Could you speak, please?'

It took me a moment to react, because she was holding the phone out to me. I took it, totally astonished.

‘Hello? Sophie! Yes, thanks a bunch! Yes, OK, but you owe me big time!'

My smile as I handed the phone back to the woman was more than a little nervous. Hilary Chalmers was a woman, and by the look of it a real gorgon. I immediately felt a complete idiot, more so even than when I'd discovered that Richard Drake didn't expect to whisk me straight off to a hotel room. Also, Sophie's final instruction was less than reassuring – ‘Whatever happens, humour the mad bitch.'

She spoke as she took the phone, her voice marginally more friendly.

‘You are Lucy Doyle?'

‘Yes, hi. Hilary Chalmers?'

‘Ms Chalmers will do, I think. Follow me.'

As she turned to the car I made a face at her behind her back, because if there's one thing I hate it's people
who expect to be ‘Mr A' and ‘Mrs B', while I'm plain old Lucy.

I got in to the Jag, which was top of the range, with leather upholstered seats, satellite navigation and every luxury and gadget on the market. She didn't seem inclined to conversation, and drove at breakneck speed, leaving me clutching the seat and thinking evil thoughts about Sophie. Why she'd turned down a day with Richard Drake in favour of Hilary Chalmers I couldn't imagine, unless she was simply too terrified to make the choice she wanted. Nothing else made sense, but if ‘Ms' Chalmers thought she could treat me like that, then she'd picked the wrong girl.

We drove up a big hill, and in among woods, down a minor road and then a track, to a big house set well back among trees and behind an automatic security gate. There were two other cars parked on the gravel in front of the house, a Z5 and a monster Range Rover, both brand new. Evidently we had company, and I wondered if I was expected to act as secretary for some meeting of big nobs. That couldn't be too hard, and if she wanted to be formal, then so could I, and the pay was good. As I climbed from the car I made of point of standing very straight and prim. Finally Ms Chalmers condescended to speak.

‘Sophie assures me that you understand the need for discretion?'

I nodded.

‘Absolutely.'

‘Very well. You will find your clothes laid out in the Blue Room. Change and be down in ten minutes.'

‘Yes, Ms Chalmers.'

She opened the front door onto a square hallway panelled in dark wood. Various doors led off it, and a staircase, which I took, wondering why I was supposed
to change and how I should identify the Blue Room. It was easy. Two short corridors led from the landing, with doors opening from then. All but one of the doors bore a discreet glazed plaque of one colour or another. I chose the blue and entered a big, high-ceilinged room furnished in muted tones. The bed was huge, a massive wooden four poster polished dark with time and spread with an embroidered blue coverlet on which were set out my clothes: a dress of plain blue wool, strapless, pleated at the waist, flaring at the skirt, and so short it wouldn't have been decent on a dwarf.

A pair of knickers, full cut, see-through white, and frilly. Ridiculously frilly.

A white suspender belt in the same OTT style.

A pair of stockings, white fishnet.

A pair of heels, white and a good four inches high.

A hat.

The hat was the final touch, a flouncy thing such as a waitress from the 1920s might wear. I just stood there, staring at what I was supposed to put on, with my temper slowly bubbling. Now I could see the game. There would be men downstairs, whoever owned the others cars, and maybe more. I would have to serve them, simpering and pouting in my ridiculous outfit, just so they, and obviously Ms Bitch-Queen Chalmers, could get off on some weird power trip.

I'd promised Sophie I'd do as I was told, and there was the twenty-four pounds an hour to be taken into consideration, but there are limits. After just a moment of reflection I'd decided what I would do. I'd serve drinks, smile politely, clear up, and whatever else seemed reasonable, but if they thought I was dressed as a sleazy French maid they had another thought coming. First I needed to make my position clear to Ms Chalmers.

A few deep breaths and I started back down the stairs.
One of the doors was open, and she must have heard the click of my heels on the wood, because she called out.

‘There's a tray in the kitchen. Bring it.'

I hesitated, wondering if I should make my stand first, but deciding against it. There was no point in antagonising her more than was necessary. I found the kitchen on the second attempt, where there was a tray set out on the polished granite work surface. On it was an ice bucket with the neck of a champagne bottle sticking out, and a single glass. Slightly puzzled, I picked it up, bracing myself for the confrontation as I swept out of the kitchen and into the room with the open door . . .

. . . and dropped the tray. Ms Chalmers was there all right, but she was on her own. She was also wearing nothing but a black silk body, black stockings and shiny black high-heeled boots. I could only stare, standing in a mess of ice and broken glass as the champagne bottle rolled under the black velvet couch she was lying on.

‘Stupid girl!'

She spat the words out, her face twisted in anger, and she kept going, at the top of her voice.

‘How could you be so bloody stupid! That is not how it is done. You do not break things and you do not disobey me! I'm quite capable of giving you what you need without that sort of idiotic provocation, and I ought to just throw you out, here and now, but seeing as you're determined to get it . . .'

I didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about, but she'd stood up, and was coming towards me with murder in her eyes. My hands came up automatically, and I took a step back. She snatched for my wrist but I jerked it away.

‘What do you think you're going to do?' I wailed.

‘I'm going to spank your naughty bottom, that's what I'm going to do!'

‘What! Get off!' I yelled.

She'd caught my other wrist, pulling me towards her, and the reality of my situation finally sank in. Sophie had been playing kinky games with her, for fun or for money, and had put me in as a substitute. I pulled back, trying to explain myself.

‘No, look, really . . . ow! Get off! Look, Miss Chalmers, fuck off, will you!'

She was twisting my arm, trying to get it behind my back, and it hurt. I found myself being frog-marched towards the sofa, still struggling, and with her still babbling incomprehensible nonsense.

‘So you're one of those, are you? Are you? Well, you're going to get what you want this time, my girl. Oh yes you are!'

I was still trying to make her see sense as she began to push me down onto couch, but she had my wrist twisted hard up into the small of my back and it hurt like hell. My temper was rising.

‘No, please, just stop. Let me explain, will you! Ouch! Stop it!'

‘Shut up and bend over, you little bitch!' she spat.

She slapped me hard across my bum and I just snapped.

‘Ow! Fuck off, will you! Ow! OK, you mad cow, if that's the way you want it.'

I wasn't brought up in a big family for nothing. This means I can fight. She was trying to force me into a kneeling position on the sofa. I went, suddenly, unexpectedly, jerking my twisted arm free of her grip at the same instant. She gave a squeak of surprise, off balance, and I'd bounced up, grabbing at her hair. She screamed in pain and anger as I twisted it hard into my hand, then yelped in shock as I sent her sprawling onto the couch, face down. I was going to do her, too angry to stop, and
determined to give her a dose of her own medicine. My knee went into her back, my hand twisted harder into her hair and she was helpless, squirming in my grip, and begging.

‘No, not this. Not ever. No, please. No.'

‘Yes!'

‘No. Oh God, that bitch Sophie!'

I didn't know why Sophie was a bitch, and I didn't care. There was a big, silver-backed hairbrush on the table, probably meant for my bottom. I applied it to hers, hard, slapping it down on her quivering cheeks to the sound of her anguished wails and the meaty smacks of metal on flesh. She squealed like a stuck pig, and my temper was beginning to give way when she suddenly began to talk again, babbling, and with her voice thick with lust.

‘Yes, do it. Beat me, Lucy, beat me hard. Punish me. Harder, please. Make me come, Lucy, make me come!'

I stopped, nonplussed. She was whimpering, limp and defeated, but with her bottom pushed up and her thighs a little open. I could smell her excitement. The catch of her body had come loose, baring her bottom. Her pussy showed too, swollen and glistening with juice. I stood back, confused, unsure of myself, scared by my own reaction and what I'd got myself into.

She'd stopped talking and, with a last, broken sob, she reached back with both hands, one to her pussy as she lifted her bottom and set her knees wide, one to the reddened flesh of a smacked cheek. I realised she was going to masturbate over what I'd done to her, but for all my shock I simply couldn't tear myself away. She was sobbing and clutching at her smacked bottom as she rubbed herself in lewd, abandoned ecstasy, her fingers working in the wet, fleshy folds and grasping at her smacked cheeks.

I just stood there, rooted to the spot, gaping foolishly as the muscles of her legs and bum began to contract. She was showing off to me, no question, revelling in the intimacy of her exposure, presumably because I'd punished her. When she came she was calling my name, over and over, something so intimate I found myself blushing furiously, fidgeting too, with no idea what to say, or how to cope with the situation.

The spell broke as she began to come down from orgasm. I knew I couldn't face her after what had happened and I just fled, out of the door and out of the house. Luckily she'd failed to close the security gates, and I ran on down the lane, not stopping until I was forced to catch my breath, where the lane to her house joined the road. I couldn't imagine her coming after me, but my feelings were utterly confused and I was taking no chances. There was a footpath sign a little way down the road, and I took it, angling across the fields towards the river valley and the sanity of Henley station.

It was only once I was back in London that I began to see the funny side of what had happened, or at least until I began to giggle hysterically. The first thing I did was find a bar and down two double Powers in quick succession. That got rid of the resentful pout I'd been struggling to keep off my face all the way from Henley, and I rang Sophie with the intention of telling her that the next time she dropped me in it with some psycho-bitch lesbian it would be nice to have the situation dearly explained first.

Unfortunately she wasn't answering her phone or her mobile, perhaps in anticipation of my call. I still had most of the day left and no idea of what to do with myself because the incident had left me a bundle of nerves and thoroughly confused. What I really needed was somebody to talk to; somebody who might be able
to explain my feelings, or at least understand. I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry, to feel disgust or elation, to throw up or to find somewhere quiet where I could bring myself to ecstasy under my fingers.

The only two people I could possibly talk to were Sophie and Bobbie. Bobbie was presumably off on an assignment somewhere; but if Sophie wasn't answering her phone, there was still a chance she was in. Somewhat settled by the whiskey, and with nothing better to do, I set off for Camden and her flat. Sure enough, she was there, peering through her spy-hole when I knocked. She opened door immediately, but she didn't look too hot. She was pale and scruffy and clad in a pink bathrobe.

‘Lucy? What are you doing? Why aren't you in Henley?'

‘I was in Henley. I came back.'

‘Why? What happened?'

‘Plenty, believe me! You might have told me she was nuts.'

‘I'm sorry. I wouldn't have suggested you, only I thought you could handle it, and what happened anyway? Look, come in.'

I went in and plonked myself down on the sofa, the very one Niall Flynn had had us over just a few days before. It seemed like years ago. She went into the kitchen and I began to talk, my tension flowing out with my words.

‘I got to Henley, waiting to be picked up, and this woman in a big fuck-off Jag arrives, and she calls you . . . anyway, you know that. So off we go, and I'm thinking what a miserable cow she is, and when we get back to her house I get sent upstairs. There's this maid's uniform laid out, you know, like a sexy French maid, and I thought she wanted me to wait on some blokes. I don't mind that stuff, for a laugh, but I'm not dressing up for
some old bastards to perve over, not when it's like a power trip.'

‘It's just a game, play, that's all,' said Sophie.

‘Yeah, I know that now.'

‘Sorry. But you must have known, at least, that she was a lesbian? I told you, didn't I?'

‘No! I didn't even know she was a woman! Hilary is a man's name too.'

She laughed.

‘You sure found out! But seriously, I told you about her, at the Cross Keys, that day we were working in the theatre?'

‘No you did not.'

‘I did, I'm sure I did.'

‘You didn't, Sophie, really. I had no idea at all, not until I walked in on her to find her in just here underwear and a pair of kinky boots!'

‘Oh no!'

‘Oh yes. I just freaked. I couldn't understand what she was talking about. When I saw her in just this black body stocking I dropped the champagne she'd asked for and she started going on about how I didn't need to smash stuff to get what I wanted, then she just went for me.'