Caught: Punished by Her Boss (9 page)

He hadn't returned to her the rest of that day or evening, determined to let her know this wasn’t a game, nor a contest of wills. He had full control. He could starve her to death, if he chose. Not that he’d let that happen—then he’d lose his new toy. Truth to tell, he enjoyed her spit and vinegar—it gave him a chance to punish her, to go further than he might if she were simply to roll over and obey.

He felt a kind of freedom, a liberation that he’d never experienced in his life. It was as if the chains that kept him bound to everyday life had been broken, ripped asunder by the events of the last forty eight hours. He’d stepped beyond the boundaries of civilized behavior, and there was no going back.

He had left the house only long enough to stop at a drugstore and pick up a female urinal. He planned to leave J. locked up a while to teach her a lesson, and it wouldn’t do to have her pissing all over the cage. When he’d brought it down to her, she’d watched him with burning eyes, but hadn't spoken, which was good. Slaves should not speak unless spoken too. He’d unlocked the cage and placed the urinal at her feet, without saying a word to her. It had been tempting to take her out and play with her, but he had responsibilities now as her master. She was being punished, and would have no attention from him until she was properly chastened.

Instead he’d spent the evening alone, scrolling through porn and thinking up all the ways he planned to train, punish and sexually torture the woman he had locked up in his basement. There was no going back now. If he let her out, there was no telling what she would do. She said she’d just disappear, but he couldn’t take the risk. She was his now—not only his prisoner, but his responsibility as well.

He was excited by the challenge of breaking her will, of taking this hellcat, this spitfire of a woman and shaping her into his ideal, submissive and highly sexed slave girl. He’d been boning up on the Internet, reading the blogs, advice columns and forums about how to best train your slave. The sites were careful to note the relationships were consensual, safewords should be used, blah, blah, but that was for amateurs. He would write his own rules, and she would obey them, or else.

He was especially fascinated with the concepts he had recently read about sexualizing the suffering and eroticizing the pain of a slave. Sir Stephen and Maestro were big on that, also including lots of forced orgasms for their slave girls, along with the punishments and the torture.

J. would be a particular challenge, since she wasn’t submissive to start with. He would have to condition her to the point that she lived for not only the pleasure, but also the pain. Each orgasm would be accompanied by a whipping or some other torture. She would earn her pleasure, and her suffering, until they were so blended and fused in her mind that she would seek both with equal intensity and desire.

No one knew where she was. He had her wallet and her cell phone. Later he would force her to tell him her email accounts and passwords so he could let all her clients know she was leaving town and no longer had need of their services. He would shut down her porn site and close out her bank accounts, after he emptied them. Using her email account, he would alert her landlord that she’d had to leave under unexpected circumstances and he’d clean out the place.

He’d considered forcing her to continue filming for the site, or even to do some of the filming himself, but had decided it was too risky. No one else could know she was still in Houston. For all intents and purposes, she would vanish from the face of the earth.

Eric returned to his desk, waiting for Tony and Blake to come in. He’d thought of a dozen scenarios to explain where their office manager had gone, and had decided to keep it simple.

Once the two men were seated in front of him, Eric started to speak, but Tony interrupted him. “Holy shit, Eric. What the hell happened to your face and neck? Have a rough date?” He smirked, unaware of how close to the mark he was.

Eric touched the three scratches on his face and grinned back to show he got the joke. “Neighbor’s cat. She was stuck in a tree. I was the fool who thought he’d play good Samaritan and get her down.”

“Ouch.” Blake looked sympathetic.

“Anyway,” Eric continued brusquely, glad they couldn’t hear his heart, which was beating too fast, or see the sweat on his palms as he launched into his carefully prepared speech. “Jessie had a family emergency back in El Paso. She’s moving back to take care of things.”

“Wow, what happened?” Tony asked.

“Her mother was killed in a car crash. No dad in the picture, apparently. She’s got little brothers and sisters who need her.”

“Huh,” Blake interjected, furrowing his eyebrows. “I don’t remember Jessie ever mentioning any family.”

Eric tensed and was about to reply, but Tony said, “Jessie never said much of anything about her personal life. I used to wonder sometimes what she had to hide.”

“Some people are just very reserved,” Eric replied, pretending to come to Jessie’s defense, though relieved the story he’d made up didn’t contradict anything she might have told the guys. He continued with his cover story. “Anyway, I tried to convince her to bring them here—that I’d help her get them in school and stuff, but she was adamant. She asked me to help her move, so I’ll be getting her place packed up for her. I figure it’s the least I can do.”

Both men nodded, and offered the requisite murmurs of sympathy.

He pushed on with the setup. “With the recession and all, we really don’t need a fulltime officer manager anyway,” he continued, not having to feign the irritation that fact caused him, especially after losing the Franklin account. “So I was thinking.” He fixed his gaze on Blake. “Blake, I’m not going to mince words here. Your sales record is, shall we say, less than stellar lately.”

Blake tugged at his collar, his face turning pink as he glanced sidelong at Tony. “You know how it is, Eric. I’ve been pounding the pavement, you know that. I really need this job.”

Eric nodded. “I know. It’s tough out there.” Blake was young and eager, but hadn't been able to clinch many deals in the few months he’d been onboard. Tony was by far the stronger of his two salesmen. They were paid primarily by commission, and so far Blake had barely earned enough to get by.

Not for the first time, Eric had thought about letting him go, but now he had a better idea. He leaned across the desk, spreading his hands flat and smiling at Blake. “I was thinking, not everyone is cut out for sales. You used to work in accounting, right?” As Blake nodded, he continued, “I can show you the basics and you can take over as office manager. You can keep working your existing accounts, too. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fantastic,” Blake gushed, his relief palpable, Jessie’s supposed bad luck apparently forgotten.

Eric sent Tony and Blake out, pretending he was expecting an important call, asking them to close the door behind them. Once they were gone, he opened the right bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the bottle of fine cognac he kept for special occasions, along with a brandy snifter. He poured a few fingers into the glass and raised it in a silent toast to himself.

He’d done it! All the groundwork was now laid for the accepted, unquestioned disappearance of his office manager. He’d tidy up the loose ends with the apartment and the website and that would be that. He rinsed the snifter in the bathroom just off his office and returned it and the bottle to the drawer, energized and excited.

Packing some work to take home, he walked out of his office. To Blake he said, “Log onto Jessie’s laptop and familiarize yourself with the files.” He’d been careful to wipe the hard drive clean of anything potentially incriminating. “I have to go to an appointment. Answer the phones and handle the mail. If I’m not back this afternoon, we’ll connect in the morning and get you started with the accounting software.”

His briefcase and laptop in tow, Eric headed out of the office, eager to get home and check on his charge. As he drove, his mind was filled with his plans for breaking J. down and then rebuilding her into his submissive sex object, with no mind or will of her own, existing solely for his perverse pleasure.

He knew he was becoming obsessed, but couldn’t have stemmed the obsession, even if he’d wanted to. It was like eating a forbidden fruit that had caused an instant addiction, its dark, sweet juices dripping from his lips as he stuffed it greedily into his mouth.

Slave J. was his forbidden fruit, and the more he tasted, the more he wanted, the more he needed. He couldn’t get enough.

Chapter 6

The light flicked on and Jessie opened her eyes, squinting. She had no idea how many hours had passed. Since he’d left her, she had drifted in and out of troubled sleep. When she was awake, she tried to plan her escape, but mostly she just cried, too scared and miserable to think properly. She supposed she should be grateful he’d provided the urinal. Though it had been awkward to use without being able to sit up properly, at least she didn’t have to add a bursting bladder to her list of woes.

Now she gripped the bars, listening as Eric came down the stairs.
Please let him have food and water. Please, please, please.

He appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a tray in his hand. Jessie’s mouth watered and she licked her dry, chapped lips. She stared at the tray, on which there was a sandwich on a paper plate and two bottles of water.

Yes!

The tall, burly man sat down cross-legged in front of the cage, placing the tray next to him. He was dressed in shorts and a tank top, his feet bare. She had never really appreciated how muscular he was before he’d imprisoned her, his body hidden beneath his suit and tie at the office. Now she appreciated it all too well.

Her focus shifted from his body to the food. “Good afternoon, J.,” her jailer said. Was she supposed to answer?

God, the sandwich looked good. She could see peanut butter and jelly oozing between the pieces of white bread. Not her favorite, but right now she would do anything to have it.

The water looked cold, beads of condensation on the plastic. Her tongue felt thick and sour in her mouth. She was thirsty, so thirsty.

She realized Eric was staring at her. What did he want? It was so hard to think. Not only her body, but her mind, too, felt empty—hollowed out. He had greeted her. He was waiting. Did she dare speak? He hadn't given her permission. He hadn’t asked a question.

Hungry, thirsty, hungry, thirsty. Give me that food. Water, water, water
.

“When I greet you, slave,” Eric said slowly, as if she were a stupid child, “you greet me in turn, with the proper respect.”

And then she could eat?

“Good afternoon, sir.” It came out as a croak, barely intelligible, even to her own ears. Her eyes were glued to the tray.
Please, please, please
.

“Have you learned your lesson, slave?”

Lesson. What lesson? The fucking rules? Rule one…rule one… Where was that paper?
Her mind refused to work, her body screaming for the food and water. She could smell the peanut butter now, so rich and creamy. She could almost taste it, blending with the sweet preserves, exploding against her teeth and tongue as she bit into the soft bread surrounding it. Lifting herself, she leaned forward, trying to reach through the bars. There was a strange, distant whistling in her ears and black spots danced before her eyes. Her head was spinning…

“J. Slave. Jessie! Can you hear me?”

Jessie opened her eyes. Eric’s face was close to hers, no bars separating them. “Wha…?” Some of the fog that had been swirling through her brain lifted, and she realized she was lying on the carpet, her head cradled in Eric’s lap.

“You passed out,” he said, his tone almost kind. “Your eyes just rolled right back and wham, you were out like a light. Are you okay?”

What kind of a stupid question was that? She was terrified and starving, naked and held prisoner in her former boss’s basement, for fuck’s sake. Was she
okay
?

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Thank you, sir,” she managed to add.

She was rewarded when he reached for the bottle of water. He helped her to sit up and then put the bottle to her lips. She wanted to hold it herself, but didn’t dare. He tipped it, letting the cold, delicious water spill into her mouth. She drank greedily, nearly choking as the water gushed down her throat. He let her finish the bottle, the last bit dripping down her chin and onto her chest.

As he placed the empty bottle on the tray, the smell of the peanut butter and jelly wafted toward her. Now that her thirst had been slaked, her stomach was begging for attention, contracting and burbling, literally aching for food.

“Kneel up at attention, slave.” The kindness had left his voice, and when he added, “Let’s see if you deserve to eat,” Jessie scrambled to obey.

As she placed her hands behind her head the dizziness returned. She felt herself swaying. She took several deep, slow breaths and the dizziness receded. It took every ounce of self-control not to fall onto the food and gobble it up before he could stop her. If she could just get through whatever the fuck it was he wanted, maybe he would give her the sandwich.