by John Benson
Carla stirred the creamer into her coffee and threw the stir stick away. She sighed.
"Weekend less than stellar?" Marc asked from behind her.
He was standing at the entrance to the coffee room, not crowding her, giving her some space. For all his darklord reputation, Marc was a gentleman. At least at work, he was.
"Pathetic," Carla said. "Shopping. Cleaning. Watching old movies. Look at me. I look forward to Monday. At least when I'm working, life is interesting."
"You wish you had a boyfriend."
"Yes." It was so obvious it couldn't be called prying.
"I've watched you at TGIF," Marc said. "If you get hit on you go all prickly. You have to learn to let go."
If she wanted something she had to offer something in return, and in your twenties the currency is almost always sex. "Maybe I'm afraid," said Carla. "Look at me. I'm a risk manager, for shit's sake. I'm not afraid of risk. I quantify it, decide when the price is worth it. In my personal life? I freeze up. Pathetic."
"Afraid of change," Marc said. "Or the downside seems too steep."
"Makes me sound like I'm twelve," said Carla. She took a sip. The coffee was lukewarm.
"Give yourself to me for the weekend," Marc said. "I may be able to help you change."
Now there's honesty to the point of being gross. Not 'I think I love you' or even 'want to go out with me?' just 'give yourself to me.' She should think of some cutting turn-down, but nothing came to mind. "I'll think about it," Carla said instead. She really was getting that desperate. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
No use. She couldn't concentrate. She took the elevator down to Personnel. Agnes was on the phone so Carla waited patiently until she was done.
"Sorry," Agnes said. She placed the phone back in its cradle. "What's up?"
"It's personal," said Carla. She felt a little furtive. She almost never goofed off at work. "So if you're busy, I'll understand."
Agnes had a sparkly smile. "I have at least until the phone rings again," she said. "What's on your mind?"
"You were with Marc for a while, right?"
"Yeah?" Agnes seemed a little careful, but not angry or defensive.
"What broke you up? Is there something I should know?"
Agnes relaxed, leaned back in her chair. "It wasn't like that," she said. "He helped me move on. Marc's like this tour guide to an alternate reality. It's intense and scary and exciting and if it's not for you, you don't have to keep visiting. Marc helped me become the kind of woman I wanted to be and then helped me find a man who wanted a woman like that. We're getting married when he gets out of law school."
Intense, scary and exciting. What did that mean, exactly? But Carla was shy about pushing people to reveal personal details, and then the phone rang, and she just waved and smiled her thanks and slunk quietly away.
Marc would tell her. What he had meant. What Agnes meant. But the phones were monitored and so was email, and the company really preferred not to know it if employees were going to have affairs.
Was she? Going to have an affair with Marc? Or at least an assignation? Carla preferred to think she was still deciding. She sent a one word email: 'Lunch?'
Back came four words: 'Sub shop. Noon sharp.' The response was so immediate that either Marc was an enormously fast typist, or the message had already been queued up ready to send and she had been anticipated. Now that was intense, scary and exciting. Carla was already having trouble remembering how to breathe.
She had turkey and provolone. Marc had pastrami. They sat at a little table. Carla found it difficult to begin.
"You have questions," Marc said. It was not a question.
"Yes. I need to know more. What 'give yourself to me' means, what the boundaries of it are." Her face was getting hot. The scared little twelve-year-old virgin inside of Carla was telling her she was being naughty.
Marc set down his Coke. "I will not have intercourse with you unless you specifically ask," he said. "But I will molest you. And I will punish you. You will have consented to those things by coming with me."
Why? Why those things? The blood ran hot inside her veins. "Molest?"
"Forced pleasure. To help teach you to let go. You may learn to enjoy it, which would go a long way toward making you less prickly when you are hit on."
Made sense, almost. "O...kay. But what about the 'punished?' What's that for?"
"Many things," Marc said. "For one thing, if I only give you pleasure how will you know I do not simply do your will? But you don't want to be punished."
Shudder. "No. I do not want that."
"So if I do it, you will know that you are helpless. Learning to let go means being willing to be helpless. That's why. It needn't be terrible. Merely enough so you are sure I call the tune. Besides. Contrast is a wonderful spice. Pleasure compared to what? The contrast sharpens the senses. The uncertainty of which is coming next will keep you in the game."
His eyes bored into her. Neither of them had touched a sandwich. "There's more," she said. "You're telling the truth, buy you're leaving something out."
"I dearly love to punish deserving young women," Marc said. "That's the part that I find hot."
And simply by agreeing to go with him, she would be deserving. Carla was attracted and repulsed. "Thank you for your candor," she said. "I'll let you know before Friday, either way."
"We'll leave together straight from work," Marc said. "Bring an overnight case. And wear a skirt."
"If I decide," said Carla. She needed to tell herself it wasn't over. She hadn't yet decided. But her mind was already going through her closet, trying to choose a skirt.
Friday morning he met her at the coffeepot. Immediately he knew, because she wore a skirt.
"How do you feel?" Marc asked.
Carla looked around guiltily. Saw no one close enough to hear. "Little and helpless and naughty," she answered. "I was pretty sure helplessness wouldn't appeal to me. I was wrong."
"There's a side of you that's attracted to my world," Marc said. "This weekend I'm not going to let you pretend it isn't there. We're going to bring it out and play with it. After that, you're free to pretend it never happened. Go back into self-denial."
This man is going to make me come, she thought. And probably spank me. 'Punish' probably means spank. And it scares me. But not enough so I'm going to run away. "Except I fear my capacity for self-denial is limited," she said. "It's a lot easier to pretend away ill-defined yearnings than to forget something that really happened."
Someone was coming, so Carla said no more. But it was only Agnes. "Have fun, you guys," she said brightly.
Carla poured herself a cup. Her hand was shaking so much she spilled.
Friday afternoon, and she sat beside him in his little black convertible Lexus. The door made a satisfying THUNK. "I cabbed it to work today," Carla said. "So my car wouldn't spend the weekend in the lot. So people wouldn't gossip."
He smiled indulgently as he pulled smoothly from the curb. "They saw your overnight case beside your desk," Marc said. "They're going to gossip anyway."
"Oh." Well gossip wasn't fatal. She shrank into leather seats.
"How do you feel?" he asked. "Don't think. Just answer."
"Naughty," she said. "Helpless. Horny."
He beamed. "Splendid. We'll just amplify those feelings for you and all will be well." He took a sudden turn to the right.
"Where are we going?"
"To dinner at a nice place. But a brief stop off at my place first, to get you ready."
Underground parking. A nosebleed elevator. A small apartment way high up in a residential tower. I'm a dirty slut for doing this, Carla told herself. I deserve whatever happens.
The door snicked shut behind her. She looked around. Masculine minimalism, but not messy. He cleaned, or someone did.
"Know what this is?" he asked. His voice sounded a bit amused.
There was something in his hand. Her breath caught. "I think so," Carla answered. She blushed. "I think it's a remote controlled crotch petter. I heard about them in college. Whispered rumors about their use in illegal hazing by certain elite sororities."
"Raise your skirt," he said. "You're wearing this to dinner."
I'm only helpless if I think I am, Carla told herself. I can call this off and he'll have no choice. He'll have to let me go. She was certain she was going to tell him 'no.' Instead she found herself lifting up her skirt and bunching it at her waist to show off the silky sexy panties she'd put on just to please him. Oh! The panties were coming down. Coming off. He was taking them away. The dirty device was strapped in place between her thighs, in contact with her labia. How bright she must be blushing.
"You can drop your skirt now, Carla."
She did as she was told. It wouldn't show. Except on her face, the embarrassment of knowing it was there. That he could reach beneath her skirt and pet her from ten feet away. "You're mean," she said.
"Thank you," he said. "How do you feel now?"
He'd made his point. "Even naughtier. More helpless."
"Good. And hornier?"
"I don't know," she lied.
"Let's see," he said. He touched a control, a little like the remote for a TV but smaller. The good vibrations touched the core of her. Her knees buckled and she nearly fell.
A few gentle touches of his control kept her hot and bothered all through dinner. "You're a tease," she said. "That's mean."
"I love to tease," Marc answered. "Especially a girl who likes to be teased. But I must warn you. If you should climax, I will punish you."
"But it may not be up to me," she said. "If you do it too much, it'll happen."
"You must pay a price for pleasure in this new world you're entering," he said. "How's your steak?"
"Delightful, sir. But you don't have to court me. I've already given myself. A burger would have done."
"You're unemotional about money," Marc said. "So your risk management skills work. You'd rather fund your IRA than have a newer car. That's fairly rare. Especially in a woman."
She pounced. "So you're not a perfect reader," she said. "Actually I'm very emotional about money. Except I care much more about safety than about status. In this world new cars are nice, an IRA is essential. Easy choice."
"Ah. So you can take risk professionally but not personally. Because you value safety."
"Yes." She sipped the wine, wondering if maybe she should get a little drunk, to ease the path to whatever happened next.
"But you took a risk with this weekend. For you, a large one. Why?"
"I'm not sure, Marc."
"Because you're a horny slut."
"No. I'm not."
But one deft little touch to his remote control and she had to admit that he was right.
Riding back to his place. Facing the facts. Carla was a horny slut. Always was one. Even when she was little. "I always had this secret," Carla said, surprised to be admitting so much. "I used to masturbate incessantly when I was little. I lived in almost constant fear my mom would catch me."
"And did she?"
"No. I was too careful."
"Even then."
"What would she have done?"
"I don't know. To be honest, probably just tell me to do it only in private, knowing Mom. But I used to scare myself with the thought that maybe she'd spank me."
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