Secretary

By Allegraslade, Bit, Darling Effect, Jane Davitt.

Chapter One

It’s pouring rain the day of her interview. It’s the kind of storm you only get in the south —the skies just open up and ‘torrential’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. After a mere two minutes of the Great Flood Mach II the storm drains have already filled up and driving halfway across town is nearly an exercise in futility. Their beat-up Oldsmobile station wagon clearly wasn’t built to ford a freakin’ river.

But she gets there eventually. Even more amazingly, she’s on time. Her mom beams at her hopefully and waves her on with an encouraging "Good luck, honey!" as Faith walks toward the front door. Faith rolls her eyes and keeps walking. She’s picking her way slowly to the door because she can’t see a fucking thing in this stupid bright red rain poncho her mom made her wear. The water is sluicing off the brim and running into her eyes. Her sensible skirt ($9.99, TJ Maxx’s finest) is utterly soaked.

There’s a pretentious sign out front by the door that reads "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Esq." in slightly fussy script. That gets another eye-roll from Faith. She desperately hopes that Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, Esquire isn’t watching her from the window.

"Godammit, the things I do for the prospect of yet another crappy low-paying wage-slave job," she thinks ruefully, before ringing the doorbell.

She lifts up the gleaming brass knocker on the door and gives it the old college try. After standing there for several moments, water trickling down her neck, she tentatively tries the door handle and gives a little start when it opens with a soft click.

Her soggy shoes make squelching sounds on the gleaming parquet flooring as she shuffles into the lobby and casts a questioning look down a narrow hallway. The whole place smells of beeswax and old books. It kinda creeps her out.

"Yo!" She mentally kicks herself. Hotshot secretaries don't say "yo." She tries again. "Hello? Is there anyone there? I have an interview."

She doesn't know how long he's been standing there but she looks up from her quiet contemplation of the little stream of water that's run off her rain hat onto the floor, to see the shadowy figure of a man standing at the end of the hallway.

"I've come from the secretarial school about the job," she says.

Silence. She squints into the dim light to see if he's like some kind of deaf mute or something but all she can make it is the silhouette of a tall, thin man.

Then he pushes open the door behind him so a shaft of weak, watery sunlight hits him and she gets an impression of pair of cold, blue eyes, before he speaks.

"I suppose you'd better come in then." His voice is clipped, curt and so not what she's used to hearing in this neck of the woods.

"You're English?" she asks as she trips down the hallway, aware of the impatient way that he's standing there.

"It would appear so, wouldn't it, Miss...?"

"Oh, Faith. I'm Faith."

He stands back as she brushes past him, so she can't like contaminate his expensive looking, charcoal gray suit with her cheap, wet clothes.

He follows her into the room. "No, don't sit down," he barks as she reached for the ornately carved wooden back of the chair in front of his imposing desk.

He walks around, sits down in a bigass leather chair and just looks at her. She's painfully aware of the way her new skirt is clinging damply to her hips, wrinkling up and she tugs at it.

"I take it you have your résumé?"

He's one cold motherfucker. Every time she tries to look at him, her gaze hits those icy eyes and then skitters away. She rummages in her bag for her carefully typed résumé. Even the inside of her satchel is soaked and when she retrieves the piece of paper from its plastic folder, it's been another victim of the storm. The ink has run slightly and as he holds out his hand, she feels the need to explain. "It's gotten wet. Maybe I could email you..."

"I see. Please, Faith, your résumé..."

He takes it gingerly between thumb and forefinger like it's a rabid dog that might bite him.

"So you have no office experience..."

"Well, yeah, but..."

"And you seem to have a very spotted career history. The Dairy Queen, Walmart, The Easy Diner. Six jobs in six months; that seems a little excessive, don't you think?"

"See, it looks like that, but..."

"Office hours are 8.30 to 5, with an hour for lunch. I expect you to be punctual and I will not tolerate lateness. I also expect you to wear suitable office attire."

They both look at her ruined beyond repair interview outfit.

"You giving me the job then?"

"Yes, and I can only hope that you haven't had time to learn any bad habits. I'll see you tomorrow, Faith."

It's kind of an anticlimax. She was all ready to do typing tests, and pledge allegiance to paralegal training, but he's already bent his head to look at the top sheet of a pile of papers on his desk. She's been dismissed.

"OK. Well, thanks. I'll be in tomorrow and thanks again for the opportunity, man. I..."

His eyes are burning into her, his lips a thin, tight line. "Are you still here?"


Chapter Two

The next morning she sleeps right through her alarm and has to scramble to get out the door in time. In her haste she spills scalding hot coffee down her crisp new white shirt. Scrubbing at it just makes it worse —grinds it in further. She can’t hold back a frustrated "Fuck!" or two.

"Honey, language," her mother half-heartedly scolds from her vantage point at the kitchen table. Faith can smell the sharp medicinal tang of whiskey wafting from her coffee. At seven thirty in the goddamn morning. But she can’t worry about that just now. If she’s late —well, that would be it. The bastard clearly has it in for her already.

"Sweetie, why don’t you wear that pretty twin-set I got you for your birthday?"

Despite the fact that she wouldn’t be caught dead in hell wearing that, she has no choice but to run upstairs and change. At least there’s an upside: something this hideously prim is bound to meet with Mr. Uptight and Pasty’s approval.

She finally gets to work, rumpled and out of breath, just a few minutes on the wrong side of 8:30. The heavy clatter of the brass door knocker is met with a resounding silence. She tries again. Nothing.

"What, is he too good to answer his own door?" she grumbles under her breath before testing the door handle. For the second day in a row it’s open.

As she steps over the threshold she realizes that she didn’t get a really good look at the place before. It’s dark in the waiting area, but as her eyes adjust to the dim light she sees three overstuffed chairs and two low side tables piled high with well-thumbed stacks of Architectural Digests, New Yorkers, with a stray US Weekly or Hello! thrown in for good measure. To the right there’s the forlorn desk. The surface is empty save for three red Sharpies, lined up perpendicular to the edge, one four-pack of SavMor Correction Fluid, a neat stack of linen bond, and —last but certainly not least— a vintage IBM Selectric that she’ll get to call her very own.

She notices that the phone is a heavy black rotary model.

Talk about kicking it old school.

As she passes the desk and proceeds down the shadowy hallway she pauses to inspect the framed Japanese prints hanging on the walls —the paper is faintly yellowed and she guesses that they’re the real thing.

Still no sign of her new employer.

She decides to go into the galley kitchen and make him some coffee. Oh wait —he’s British. Aren’t they allergic to coffee or something? So, tea. She’s never made a cup of tea in her life. She’s fumbling around in the kitchen looking for the tea bags and mugs when she hears a sharp "Ahem" behind her.

"Faith." His voice is toneless, neutral. "I didn’t hear you come in."

"Oh yeah, I hope you don’t mind that I just let myself in. Thought I’d make you some tea but I can’t seem to find—"

"Thank you, but I took the liberty. There’s coffee if you like. Sugar in the cupboard, creamer in the refrigerator. After you’re finished with that, please step into my office."

And with that he disappears soundlessly into the adjoining room.

She's riding the horns of a dilemma. Ain't used to riding one of them. Bikers, maybe. Pick up trucks. But right now she's more worried about whether she's meant to take her coffee in with her, or if she's meant to let it go cold while Mr. Stick Up His Ass gives her her orders for the day.

In the end, she gulps down her cup as quickly as she can and, brushing her hand over her mouth to get rid of the Folger's moustache, she knocks on his door.

"Enter."

There hadn't been a chance to have a good look around yesterday, but now her eyes take in polished wood and books. Man, there's a lot of books. On shelves and piled up on every available surface. Every now and again a pile of papers tied with ribbon breaks up the monotony.

"Uh-hmm." Her inventory is interrupted by a quiet cough from the corner of the room where his desk is. She swivels around.

"You got a lot of books," she says, more to break the silence which is starting to feel awkward and spiky.

"I believe I mentioned the subject of appropriate office wear yesterday," he says coolly, like she hasn't even spoken.

Faith looks down at her stupid pale blue, fake cashmere twin set, which is already making her skin itch.

"Your skirt's too short," he replies in answer to the "what the fuck" expression on her face. "I expect it to rest on the knee."

Obviously the sight of two inches of thigh is giving him all kinds of bad thoughts. Talk about repressed.

"Bare legs are not acceptable," he continues and she's aware of the pale gleam of her skin. She hates wearing hose. "The sweater set will do, though I'd prefer it if you wore a blouse, but the hair...."

Her hand creeps up to touch the ends of her hair. "What's wrong with my hair?" she asks, unable to keep the sullen tone from creeping into her voice.

"It's unkempt," he informs her, leaning back in his chair and staring at her with that frigid blue gaze. "Here, tie it up." An elastic band whizzes through the air and she refuses to scramble to catch it.

"I do hope we're not going to have a problem, here." There's something kind of scary, unrelenting about the way he speaks. Like he's used to getting his own way, and she sighs and bends down to pick up the rubber band, straightening up so she can gather her hair into a pony tail and secure it.

"Will that do?" Any more of this and he can take his fucking job and shove it up his ass along with the stick that's already there.

"Well, it will have to."

He's twirling a pen in his long fingers as his eyes start at the toes of her shoes, a pair of pointy kitten heels she bought at a yard sale, travelling up the offensively bare legs and further. She fidgets uncomfortably and resists the temptation to try and yank her skirt down.

"So..." Come on, Faith, think of something to say. "I guess I should get my email account set up. You got an ISP?

He looks at her as if she's just taken a dump on the rug. "Email?" he echoes incredulously. "I don't have email. I believe in doing things the old fashioned way."

Which explains why her office equipment looks like it came from the Smithsonian. "You don't have a computer?"

He shudders almost imperceptibly and she wonders why such a neat freak doesn't seem to have used a razor this morning. He's got some serious stubble going on, and this puffy look around his eyes, which she's all too painfully familiar with, being the only daughter of two alcoholics.

"Fascinating though this is, it really would be beneficial if you could do some work," he says. "Go and get your pad and a pencil, 2b please. I need you to take some dictation."

Right. Dictation she can do, she's even kind of good at it. The secretarial college still held a course in shorthand, taught by a shrunken, antiquated woman who liked to whap people with a ruler when they screwed up.

She turns on her heel and returns to the reception area, grabs a pad and pencil. She's heading back to the inner office when the silence is shattered by the bleating ring of the ancient phone.

Shit. No doubt there was some sort of weird way Mr. Prissy-Fussy, Esq. wanted her to answer the phone, and they hadn't exactly discussed that yet.

It rings again.

"I'm not here," he calls sharply from the inner office.

Shit shit shit. And take a message as well.

Another ring.

"Faith! I don't pay you to let the phone go after more than two rings! Answer it now!"

She stumbles over her feet a bit in her rush to reach the phone before the fourth ring.

"Um, yeah?" Yeah, real professional, there, Faith. She takes a deep breath and starts over. "The offices of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. How may I help you?" Her struggles to keep the fake perkiness in her voice means it takes on an almost manic lilt at the end of the question.

The caller, with a voice that vacillates between screeching and rumbling, rambles through some crap she can hardly follow. Torts and counter claims. Whatever. "Yes. I see. Yes. Well, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce isn't in right now, and if you leave me your number I'll have him..." Click.

Well. That was different. "Fuck you, too..." she says into the dial tone and slams down the phone.

And then he's behind her. Clearing his throat. "Faith..."

God, that disapproving tone is really starting to grate on her nerves. She is totally not getting paid enough for putting up with this crap. But she follows him into the inner office.

He's pulling a stack of books off an ancient (and huge) burgundy leather club chair. "Sit." Right, sure. She's a secretary, not a dog.

The problem is, there's no easy or ladylike or comfortable way to sit in the damn chair and take dictation. Again, she's reminded of the shortness of the skirt and the bareness of her legs. She tries perching on the edge of the seat, legs crossed at the ankle, but sinks into the giant cushion. She tries leaning all the way back, but gets swallowed by the chair's dark recesses. She finally compromises by tucking her legs awkwardly onto the seat and sitting on them and balancing the notepad on her knees.

And she can't help but notice he's watching her with a detached amusement that's kind of weird and slightly inappropriate.

"Right. Take a letter."

At first, she thinks it's going to be OK. She has to get him to spell out a couple of words on the address, but then he's biting out words in this dense legalese and it's all judiciaries and plaintiffs and words she doesn't even recognize, let alone know how to spell.

She figures that she'll muddle through as best she can. There's bound to be some Boring Legal Words dictionary kicking around here somewhere.

The sound of her pencil scratching across the paper is comforting and she shifts on the seat and her eyes drift to a cabinet over against the far wall with glass doors.

"Furthermore to your enquiry dated..."

There's all kinds of weird funky shit in there; wooden boxes, with fuck knows what inside, and about three different clocks, ticking away silently behind the glass. She couldn't get a job at some trendy web design company downtown. No, she had to be stuck here with the repressed English patient and his antique doodads.

"Yours sincerely etc. etc."

Mr. Wyndam-Pryce finally shuts the hell up and Faith puts down her pencil.

"Type those up and bring them in here for my signature."

Would it kill him to say please? She's seen those foofy costume dramas on BBC America and she thought that the English were falling over themselves with their pleases and thank yous and anyone for tennis.

"Faith!" He's barking at her again and she scrambles off the chair, almost catching her heel on the edge of the rug.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going," she snaps before she remembers that this isn't home and that tone of voice will only earn her a reprimand, not a blistering invective about what a worthless piece of shit she is.

It doesn't take her long to type up the letters. She digs out a dictionary from the bottom drawer of the desk and manages to decipher the words she doesn't know. It's like fun, only boring. But it's her ticket out of this dump and then she can hop on the first Grayhound to New York and never look back.

When she knocks on his office door, there's no reply. She pauses for a second, then takes a deep breath and turns the handle. He's not there and she places the papers on his desk and practically runs out of the room.

It's only ten o'clock and she already wants to grab her bag and coat and go home. She leans back on her office chair, does a couple of 360 degree revolutions on it, and then decides that it's time for her mid morning cigarette. Yeah, he had plenty to say about appropriate skirt length but she doesn't remember him saying jackshit about not smoking.

There's a door past the kitchen that leads out into the back yard. She sits on the stoop with a cigarette between her thumb and forefinger and burns dead leaves with her lighter. She likes watching things burn, letting the leaves catch light and then throwing them onto the still damp lawn just as they threaten to singe her fingers. Just as she's contemplating having a second cigarette, she hears the back door open and knows he's standing there. Probably with some pissy kind of look on his face.

She swivels round, her eyebrows raised, to find him brandishing a sheaf of papers. The type is almost obliterated with red lines.

"It would seem that we have a problem. I want you in my office," he says coldly, like a winter's day, then he turns and slams the door shut behind him.

With the door shut it’s as though there’s been a blackout. The only natural light in the room behind her is from the thin sliver of weak sunlight streaming in from under the office door.

She shivers, and it’s not from a chill.

He’s waiting for her on the other side.

She’s this close to turning right around and storming out the front door when she stops herself mid-stride.

"C’mon Faith, it’s just a job. You’ve had worse. Don’t let Mr. Stiff Upper Lip get to you." The pep talk must be working because she finds herself advancing toward the heavy, ornately carved door.

Once inside she finds him glaring angrily at her, sheaf of papers still clutched in his hand. He gestures towards a small, cheap-looking desk adjacent to his own larger, more imposing one. That’s new. So’s the gleaming black Selectric. He must have wheeled them in from the supply room.

"Please sit."

So she gets a "please" this time. That’s when she knows she’s doomed. That’s absolutely the last time she listens to her fucking conscience.

She sidles past him —taking care not to make eye contact with the Glare of Doom for fear it might turn her to stone— and sits down in the high-backed chair. Clearly ergonomics —in addition to most modern technology— are an utterly foreign concept in this office.

She’s got her hands poised over the keys in preparation to re-type the whole batch of letters, when suddenly he’s right behind her, just inches away. How does he do that? She didn’t even hear him stride across the room. He’s so close she can feel his breath on the back of her neck. He leans in over her shoulder and reaches around to hold the stack of papers in front of her nose.

"Firstly, how many times am I going to have to tell you that there’s no ‘h’ in Wyndam-Pryce? Frankly, I’m stunned that we’re having this conversation again. Not to mention the fact that ‘whether’ has nothing to do with meteorological phenomena. Shall I send you home with Strunk and White? Or a pink slip?"

"Strunk and who?" The sea of circled red words is giving her a headache.

Now his voice is low and he’s almost whispering in her ear. "I took a chance on you, Faith. Don’t let me down." His tone is more intimate than she’d like. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

Finally, thankfully, he moves away from her, his arm brushing hers, which sets her nerves jangling, to lean against the side of his desk and watch her as she sandwiches a sheet of carbon between two pieces of paper and feeds them into the Selectric.

Her fingers feel as fat and ungainly as sausages as she looks down at the original letter which he's defaced with the red Sharpie. If he doesn't stop fucking staring at her, she's gonna plunge her 2b shittin' pencil into his eye.

No wonder he had a vacancy for a secretary; the last one probably ended up in the State Psychiatric Hospital.

She refuses to look at him as she re-types the letters. But she can feel his eyes on her as he sits behind his desk and begins flicking through his Rolodex.

Fucking English freak, she thinks to herself, as she savagely pounds down on the keys and he dials a number on the old fashioned rotary phone.

"Wyndam-Pryce here. Kindly put me through."

Stupid fucking legal terms. Stupid fucking lawyers.

"I'm afraid these terms are completely unacceptable."

Stupid fucking one horse town. Stupid fucking carbon paper which is wrinkling up.

"I'll give you 24 hours to re-submit your settlement agreement."

Stupid fucking everything. She slams the carriage return back on the typewriter and pulls out the papers.

"Faith!"

She looks up and surprise, surprise, he's looming over her again, his hand out-stretched for the letter. This is getting really old, really fast.

He stands there, reading what she's written, and when his lips begin to tighten and his nostrils flare, she rolls her eyes and mentally counts to ten.

"Faith, I thought we were entirely clear on this. There is no 'h' in Wyndam." His words are flung at her like bullets.

"Well, there fucking should be," she mutters quietly under her breath and tries to school her sullen features into something approaching contrition.

"What did you just say?"

She gulps noisily and wonders why she can feel a prickling at the back of her eyelids like she's gonna start crying or something.

"I said..." She clears her throat. "I said that there should be. Doesn't make any sense, y'know? It sounds like there's an 'h' there."

His frosty glare snatches off her top layer of skin and she sits there staring down at her bitten nails because she's fucked if she's going to apologize for shit.

He places both hands on the desk and leans over so she has no choice but to scrape the chair back a few inches. He smells of something lemony and laundry starch. The snowy whiteness of his shirt is blinding her.

"I don't think I've ever had such a recalcitrant employee," he tells her conversationally, pleasantly even.

He places the new letter on the desk, the lone red circle a source of frustration and relief for both of them. With that, he stands back up. "But I haven’t really given you time to acclimate. And you’ve made a small amount of progress. Shall we break for lunch?"

First time she’s seen the bastard smile and it looks freakishly unnatural.

"Yeah, lunch. Good," she says in a monotone. At this point she’s so fucking wrung-out she doesn’t even want to eat —she just wants to inhale a pack of cigarettes.

There’s a brown bag in the tiny fridge that's got her name on it —another source of frustration as she’d dearly hoped she’d be beyond the mom-packing-her-a-fucking-bag-lunch portion of her life— but she needs a walk so she goes down the street to the diner. She orders a coffee and a grilled cheese and tomato, which she just picks at. They’re just a cover so she can sit there and chain-smoke. To try and calm down.

She’s known him for the sum total of a day and a half and she can’t fucking figure him out at all. Just when she thinks she’s got him pegged he goes and does a 180˚ on her. He was almost apologetic back there.

And suddenly she’s wondering how the hell he ended up in Middle of Fucking Nowheresville. Why here? Hell, she’d go live in Europe in a second if she could. What could have made him leave?

The diner’s bell jangles and —speak of the devil— in he walks. She quickly places her menu over the embarrassingly overflowing ashtray and smiles weakly at him.

He nods tersely in her direction. "Faith." The cashier hands him his sandwich in a bag and he hands her a crisp new ten-dollar bill. Then he saunters out.

Christ. She shakily lights another cigarette.


Chapter Three

They settle into some kind of routine after that.

A week goes by and she's at his door every morning by 8.30 in a crisply ironed blouse and skirt. She still can't muster up the necessary humiliation to put on pantyhose every morning but he doesn't say anything.

She gets in, goes to the kitchen and makes coffee for her and tea for him. He has it strong and black with a slice of lemon resting on the saucer. Not swimming in the tea. But on the saucer. Just so.

Then she stands by the sink, gulping down her coffee, before picking up his cup and taking it into his office so he can sip it casually while he dictates that day's letters at her. Dust motes swirl around the room and dance with the words that he shoots at her. Once her pad's pages are decorated with her squiggly shorthand, she gets up from the bucket chair and goes back to the reception to type them up.

Once she's put them on his desk, she goes outside for a cigarette and comes back to find the letters waiting for her. On a good day, they're signed in his slashing, black scrawl. On a bad day, they're a mess of red lines and circles. But he's never once got all narked and English about it, just asked her to redo them. She hasn't even had to sit at the other desk, which has been taken out of his office and put back in the basement.

They both go to the diner for lunch. But she sits at the counter and tries to chain smoke her way into an early grave and he simply comes in for his sandwich (chicken and lettuce and tomato on rye, no mayo) and the briefest nod to indicate that she actually exists.

In the afternoon he goes out and she sits there. He always tells her to stay in reception and answer the phone, but it never rings. So she files her nails and slips out the back to smoke some more and burn pieces of paper that she tears out of her shorthand pad.

He's back at precisely 4.35 every day to dictate the last letters of the day, the ones that need to catch the last post, which she drops in the mailbox as she walks home.

And she's never been so fucking bored in all her life. It's got to the stage where she wishes he'd do something to break the routine. Like, wear a blue shirt, instead of a white one. Really go to town. Or order something else for his lunch. Ask them to smother his fucking sandwich in mustard. But he never does.

It's the third day of her second week. He's out on appointments and she's burnt a whole shorthand pad in the yard and smooshed the ashes into the weeds and gravel with her heels. As she lets herself back in, it's 4.30 already, she hears the phone ringing!

Someone's calling! Hallefuckinglujah!

She tears down the hallway and snatches up the receiver. "Hallo, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's office. How may I help you?" She sounds pretty fucking spiffy.

"Faithy, babes, is that you?"

"Mom?"

"That you, honey?" She's drunk, which is why she's ODing on the endearments.

"I told you not to call me here." The phone slips in her sweaty hand.

"Faithy, don't be mad at me. I need you to do something for me..."

"Look, I'm working, which I know is like totally out of your area of expertise, but I'm not allowed personal calls."

She might just as well have not spoken. "I need you to go to the discount liquor store and get me some vodka. Can you do that for me, babes?"

"I'm not old enough." It doesn't matter that she's never once been carded in the last two years. There's something weathered in her eyes, she thinks, that she can buy enough alcohol to sink either one of her parents into their usual twice weekly stupor.

"Babes, I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate. Please, Faithy. Your father came over today..."

"That bastard! Why did you even let him in? What the fuck did he want?"

"So will you..."

She looks up and of course he's standing there because he's sly and stealthy like this cat they once had. Fuck knows how long he's been standing there. He looks pointedly at the phone in her hand, one eyebrow arching in a query.

"Faithy, you still there, sweetheart?"

"Mom? I have to go now. I'll pick it up on the way home." She carefully places the phone back in its cradle and straightens up. "That was my Mom. She needs me to run some errands for her on the way home."

He looks at her curiously, like he's seeing her for the first time. "It never occurred to me to ask, but how old are you? You didn't put your age on your resume, as I recall."

She never does, because she figures that the minute they do the maths, then the only paycheck she's gonna be picking up is from the Everything For 99 cents mart.

"I'm nearly twenty." It's her stock response and he smiles faintly.

"Was that a personal call?"

"It was my Mom." Hadn't she just told him that? "I told her not to call here, but she gets lonely."

"Hmm, how fascinating." He turns to go because he's one stone cold bastard. Then he thinks better of it. "We really haven't had the time to get better acquainted, have we? I do like to know the salient facts about my employees."

An icy cold finger of dread tickles it way down her spine but she just shrugs. "Nothing much to tell. Do you want me to take a letter?"

"No. You should probably run along home. Get those errands. I'll see you tomorrow."

She’s getting sick and tired of this bullshit; the stuff at home that seeps into the other parts of her life like a virus. After picking up the vodka for her mother, which is sure to be a downer for the evening, she calls her best friend, Xander – he always knows how to make things brighter and he doesn’t reek half as much as her mother (he gets sick after three shots so he doesn’t drink.)

Excuses, excuses, Faith… a voice chastens in her head. She doesn’t give a damn, though. She doesn’t want to spend another evening in a slump.

Her mother’s sure to try to convince Faith to stay in and listen to all the crap that her father put her through. He’s the reason she’s still drinking. Vice Versa, Mommy dearest. Right now all she wants is someone who doesn’t want to screw her over both metaphorically and not. (In other words; no bosses, no exes who still want in her pants, no parents.)

She manages to slip out the house, sputtering explanations of work that’s going overtime. Mr. Wyndam – without an ‘h’ – Pryce is sure to not invade tonight’s conversation, she assures herself silently. Her mother gives her a lonely look, with her eyes cast downwards and her hands intertwined. Her voice sets a pang of guilt deep inside Faith.

“Ma, really… I’d stay if I could, you know I would.”

Faith tries not to think of her boss’ interest in getting to know her as she makes her way out the door.

The only one who knows her, she’s going to see, and she trusts him. There’s something that edges her about the boss. Maybe it’s the lack of ‘h’ in the name, or the accent. Maybe it’s his issue about her skirt length. What ever it is, it unnerves her.

Xander’s sitting at their usual table in the coffee shop. She’s pretty sure that java isn’t gonna calm those nerves.

Damn.

She slides into the booth and bumps up against him by way of greeting.

"Been here long?"

"Nah. Only had one slice of pie."

"Xander!"

"What? I saved some for you." He laughs and pushes the slice of strawberry rhubarb over to her.

She takes a forkful and slumps down into the red leatherette. "Christ, Xander. I don’t know how I’m gonna make it through this week."

"That bad, huh?"

"Just that my freaking boss is a freaking freak. I did mention that he’s British, right? I mean, that says it all right there."

"Um, says what, exactly?"

"They’re all repressed and control-freaky and man, he is so not an exception."

Xander shrugs. "If you want to quit, then quit."

"The weird thing is, I don’t. We’ve got this routine, and it’s kind of —I don’t know, comfortable. But there are these moments where he’s just so… closed-off… that I’m dying to know what he’s really thinking. He’s…"

"…a velvet glove wrapped in an enigma?"

"The fuck? Xander, sometimes I wish you came with subtitles. Or, um, footnotes. Yeah. The annotated Xander."

They collapse together into a fit of laughter. They don’t notice Wes sitting at the corner table, watching.

It's the last time she laughs that night.

When she gets home her mother is drunk and passed out on the sofa, a column of ash from the cigarette between her fingers still smoldering. Faith stubs it out and then begins the long, thankless chore of hauling her to bed. She comes to halfway through; long enough to throw up all over Faith's prettiest dress and then lapses into a long rant about how unhappy her life is and what a bastard Faith's dad is and how she wishes that she'd had an abortion and never got landed with an ungrateful kid and a sorry excuse for a husband. Faith has heard it a hundred times before. The words skim off her like water on oilskin. But her mother's nails digging into her arms hard enough to draw blood are a good enough reason to stay.

Chapter Four

She doesn't get to bed much before three and comes to with a start, cracking her head on the headboard as the alarm clock bursts into its cacophonous ringing. She hits snooze. She hits snooze again. By the time she gets up and drags a comb through her ratty hair and tries to find clean clothes from the pile on the floor, it's already 8.15.

There's no way her mom is in any fit state to drive, so she pulls on her battered sneakers and clutching her kitten heels in her hand, she runs the eleven blocks to Mr. W. Wyndam-Pryce Esq.'s office.

She pokes her head round the door, to see if the coast is clear. Maybe she can bluff him into believing she'd been here for half an hour. Faith tiptoes across the reception area and sits down to toe off her sneakers and worry at the loose piece of skin on her big toe when she hears a cough.

It's him. Of course, it's him. Who the fuck else would it be?

She's never been so aware of herself and not in a good way. Her hair falling round her face in tangled curls, the stain on her rumpled skirt where she spilt syrup on it a couple of days before and the scratches on her forearms from her heart-to-heart talk with Mom. He sure as shit ain't going to be sending her a muffin basket for National Secretaries Day.

"So you've finally decided to honor me with your presence," he says finally when the silence is ready to apply for citizenship.

Faith kicks her Chuck Taylors under the desk and slips on her shoes. "I'm sorry."

"Late night, was it?" She won't look at him - can't look at him - but that stupid Limey accent of his has never sounded so clipped, like he has to force the words out.

"I had trouble sleeping." Which isn't really what she meant to say and now she's said it, it seems weirdly inappropriate.

"I see." He moves away from the door and she thinks fuck! Mom wasn't the only one who had a rough night. His stubble has practically upgraded to a beard and the puffiness around his red-rimmed eyes tells its own tale of dirty glasses and stained beer mats. "Get yourself a cup of coffee and bring it into my office with your notebook."

She has no choice but to comply. She’s come to dread the Official Summons Into the Inner Sanctum, because, Christ, it never bodes well. And given his appearance this morning, she imagines he’s hung over and even more short-fused than usual. Which is just fucking great. She skips the coffee. Her nerves are on edge enough as it is.

He gestures for her to sit. She does so, trying simultaneously to smooth the rumples out of her skirt and cover the maple syrup stain and cross her legs in appropriately lady-like fashion.

"Frankly, Faith, your appearance is atrocious. If you’re going to breeze in here a half an hour late looking like that you might as well not come in at all."

"I can explain—" She hates herself for the tiny but noticeable quaver in her voice.

"I really don’t care to hear what you have to say for yourself." He pauses. "So, is he your boyfriend?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I saw you last night. At the coffee shop."

"Who, Xander?" She laughs, somewhat relieved. "God, no. Xander’s gay."

"Where did those marks on your arms come from, then? What have you been doing, Faith?"

This whole line of questioning seems beyond inappropriate, and she’s calling an end to it right now. "You know what? It’s none of your fucking business. And really, if we’re going to critique appearance, we should talk about you. ‘Cause, quite frankly, you look like sh—"

Before she can finish, he snatches her notebook from her hands and slams it down onto the desk with such force that she jumps.

"We came here to talk about your performance, Faith. Get up."

She stands, feeling painfully self-conscious and more apprehensive than she’d like.

"Place your hands on the desk."

She does. She finds herself staring at her crumpled, water-stained résumé.

"Lean in close to the letter, now. Can you find what’s wrong with it?"

"What? I don’t know what you—"

"You’re a liar, Faith. And a sloppy one at that."

"This is about my age, right? I mean, I can explain that too. My dad’s never around and my mom, she—" She’s talking really fast, trying desperately to explain before he cuts her off again.

She’s answered by a resounding, firm smack on her backside —a hard thwap! that sends a shockwave through her.

She exhales sharply, and slowly looks over her shoulder. He looms above her, the dark of the Inner Sanctum the only thing visible behind him. The quaver in her voice has transformed into eyes ever-so-slightly brimming with tears. She blinks them back; she sure as hell isn't going to crumble now. His face is as inscrutable and immobile as ever, his eyes hard and cold. But there's something. Something that wasn't there before.

She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off. "There's a rather glaring omission on your résumé, isn't there, Faith?"

Of course. The time she spent in juvie for lifting. But that's off her record now. She was clean. Mostly.

"Look, I can explain..."

"I'm not interested in excuses, Faith." And he runs his hand through her hair, tenderly at first, then grabs a fistful and pulls her off the desk. His lips are against her ear, his breath warm on her neck. Shocked at her own reaction, she doesn't struggle. In fact, she tries to keep from shivering as electric tendrils of desire curl down to the tips of her toes. "I thought I told you to keep your hair up."

"Yes." She not so much whispers as exhales the word.

"I'm sorry?"

Was it that kind of game? Of course it was. Her head was swimming. "Yes, sir..." she says, a little more firmly.

"And your clothing, it's disgusting." He lets go, and she crumples to the desk. Before she can get up, before she can get her bearings, he's spanked her again, another resounding smack across her left ass cheek.

"And you'll arrive on time, every day."

And another smack.

"And you'll answer the phone with an appropriate tone and manner."

And another. And another. Until she can't really make out what he's saying, and has just given herself over to the twin discomforts of spanking followed by the edge of the desk shoving into her gut, making it nearly impossible to catch her breath. The tension of her bullshit life and her fucking bullshit drunk mother and this bullshit job and everything other fucking thing she's ever done wrong start to float away, and she's actually feeling kind of relaxed, really fucking turned on too. She closes her eyes and sees an explosion of color every time he strikes her.

And then, it all stops. For a split second she's unsure what to do, but then he's collapsed against her back, breathing heavily, amazingly in sync with her own gasps. And his hand is millimeters away from hers on the desk. They say nothing.

She slides her pinkie around his index finger. She tries to force everything she's feeling into the tip of her little finger. And she realizes when he doesn't pull his hand away that maybe she's finally succeeded at doing something right in this office, for once.

He has beautiful hands she thinks; long, tapered fingers and this is the first time they've ever touched her.

His index finger slides out of her grip, slowly, almost regretfully, and then he's straightening up. She feels a tug on her skirt but he's only smoothing it down where it's wrinkled up, and she's boneless, she couldn't move it she wanted to. She just might have to stay bent over his desk for ever.

"Faith? Are you all right?" His voice has softened out and trickles over her like warm honey.

"Yeah," she sighs.

"Good, well kindly sit down please." Not so much warm honey now, more like permafrost.

But as she winces slightly and wriggles as her tender cheeks hit the chair, she sees the shadow of a smile ghost across his face. Then he pushes her résumé towards her.

"How old are you? The truth this time."

"18. I'm 18."

"I see. And what were you in juvenile hall for?

"I got caught shoplifting from Walgreens with some friends."

"Let me guess... it wasn't your idea, you were just the look out, and then they ran away and left you to take the rap after stuffing half a dozen lipsticks into your purse?" If he were a superhero his special power would be killing people with his snark.

Faith shrugs her shoulders in a non-committal fashion but his eyebrow arches up as he studies her over his linked fingers.

"Well, it was something like that."

"And the scratches on your arms?"

They both look at the angry red weals marring the soft flesh of her forearms before she tucks her hands behind her back.

No power on earth is going to get a confession out of me, counselor. "Cat," she improvises, not caring how unconvincing she sounds. "Angry cat. Anything else you're dying to know?"

He does smile then and it transforms the harsh lines of his face into one of those matinee idols from the black and white movies on TCM. "That's everything for now. I think we'll save the mystery of how you've got through six shorthand pads in a week for another day, don't you?"

Just when she thinks she's got him figured out, he throws another curveball at her. "So, you're not firing me?"

"And have to go through the burden of putting another ad in the paper? I think not. But I'll be watching you very closely, Faith. Making sure you behave yourself."

For one second their eyes meet. Collide. And it's like he's asking her a question and she thinks the answer might be yes, but she doesn't know for sure, so to be on the safe side, she looks down at the stain on her skirt.

She thinks she hears him chuckle but then he clears his throat. "Please pick up your pen so I can give you dictation."

And it's another flurry of legalese, yours sincerelys, and words she asks him to spell out. And he's even nice about it, for once. (He doesn't even trot out his favorite admonishment: "What in heaven's name do they teach you in the schools here?") Her hand is flying across the shorthand pad, nearly on autopilot.

The rest of her brain is trying to parse out what just happened, and it mostly boils down to: her repressed and control-freaky boss just gave her the spanking of a lifetime that might have been the hottest five minutes she'd ever spent with a man and then acted like... nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. And then interrogated her. Which, okay, might seem weird under other circumstances, but... it wasn't really. After all, there was the little nagging issue that they were two royally fucked-up people.

"That will be all, Faith." His voice is clipped again. The honeyed tone has all but vanished.

She looks up at him and realizes he's been done dictating for a good minute and half, and she's still sitting there lost in thought, looking like a dreamy-eyed idiot.

"Right, right. Sorry. I'll, uh, just get these typed up and drop them in the mail at lunch."

She stands a little too quickly, and her still-tender ass twinges. And so do some other bits. She whimpers slightly and nearly falls over on the spot, but amazingly manages to keep it all together and shoot him a sly little smile as she brushes past him to the door.


Chapter Five

Back at her desk, the gentle thrumming of the Selectric's motor echoes the incessant throbbing of her tanned ass. She types faster than ever, her fingers flying across the keys. She can't even think anymore, just lets the words glide across her fingertips. After the last letter's done, she realizes she'd better have a cig before she spontaneously combusts.

Which is the precise moment a leggy brunette she's never seen before enters the foyer.

She's perfectly coiffed and perfectly dressed in a tailored suit cut to accentuate the angularities of her frame. Her very expensive shoes match her even pricier-looking handbag.

"WESLEY!" she screams.

"Um, excuse me, can I help you?" Faith steps out from behind the desk, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. And suddenly she remembers exactly what she looks like. For one thing, she's still barefoot. And then there's the fact that her birds-nesty hair has a distinctly... freshly fucked look to it. And well, it was really kind of overkill to think about how her stained skirt and wrinkled blouse looked at this point.

Not even deigning to give Faith the once-over, the woman looks right through her. "I highly doubt that... Miss?"

"Faith. Just Faith." God, this woman amply fills the definition of bitch and some other choice words as well.

"Miss Faith. What an odd name. Well, he certainly has scraped the bottom of the barrel this time. I had no idea it was so impossible to find a presentable secretary these days." She makes for the hallway.

Faith beats her to it, blocking her way. "Look, I don't know who you are, but I know you don't have an appointment, and you... can't just barge in here like this."

The woman snorts derisively. "Fine." She ratchets up the fake charm to 11. "Would you let Mr. Wyndam-Pryce know that Lilah Morgan is here, honey? Thanks." She turns on her heel and slips into one of the battered leather club chairs and starts mindlessly flipping through one of the ancient magazines.

Faith takes a breath she really needs to be laden with nicotine and smoke, and gets a lungful of nothing but dusty, musty book-smell all but wiped out with whatever perfume this woman’s wearing. It smells thick, aggressive, rich, and she wants to hold her breath and run until she’s out of range of it, but she figures she’s done enough to make herself look like a fool without that. She gives the woman one last look to make sure she’s going to behave, and backs away, only turning when she’s out of sight.

Going back down the hallway, with her ass shifting against her skirt with every step, smarting like a ghostly hand's still spanking it, she lets out the breath she’s been holding and begins to hurry.

Wesley. Bitch called him that, she must know him. Family? No, or she’d have said... and she sure as hell wasn’t a friend. That left ex, and yeah, she’d fit that bill. She looks as wound tight as he is.

She taps gently on the door, waits for long enough to be sure he isn’t going to answer, and then opens it.

“Uh, are you there?” she says, feeling stupid talking to thin air. His chair’s empty, like the room, and she goes in and pushes the door closed behind her in case the woman decides sending a peasant to do a flunkey’s job was a mistake and comes charging down the hall. She doesn’t want her in this room, she realizes, doesn’t want her touching anything, sitting where she sits –

The desk draws her gaze and she stares at it, even as she calls out, “Sir?” in a voice she tries to keep low, because she’s sure she can see marks on the polish where her hands were, and it’s making her shiver remembering the way the wood pressed up against her palms.

“I’m not here.”

It’s like a stupid kid’s game or something, and for a moment she grins. Hide and seek, hot and fucking cold - right. But as she really doesn’t think he’s under the desk, it only leaves one place. She walks over to the other door in the room, and hesitates, not quite daring to open it.

“You sure? ‘Cause there’s this Morgan woman out in reception and she wants to see you. Sounds pissed.”

His voice is edged now, each word slicing at her, hissed out in a whisper, and he must be practically fucking leaning against that door, because it sounds loud in her ear, as if he shouted it, but she’s not sure he can raise his voice. Doesn’t need to. Scarier when it’s quiet and he knows it. She puts her hand against the paneled door and spreads her fingers wide. She stares at that for a while, and just the feel of it makes her ass burn brighter, even though the door’s all messed up with weird carvings, not smooth like the desk. Was he watching her hands when he did it, seeing them clutch and scrabble that first time his hand landed, then stay still, stuck in place after that? Probably just watching her ass, she decides.

“Are you not listening to me, Faith? I am not here. I do not wish to see her. Please do what you’re paid to do and get rid of her.”

He does sarcasm the way other people do drugs, but she can hear something dragging at his voice; little bit of panic maybe, little bit of need.

He really doesn’t want to see the snooty cow, does he? And he’s asking her for help. Well, as close as he gets to asking.

“You’re the boss.”

And she puts a bit of a swagger in her walk as she goes back into the reception, because man, it’s going to be fun passing on a tidied-up version of ‘Fuck off, bitch, he’s not interested’ and watching the mask crack.

When Faith gets back to reception, Lilah is feigning enough interest in last October’s Architectural Digest that Faith has to clear her throat to gain her attention. When Lilah finally looks up from the magazine, her expression of surprise is about as genuine as her knockoff Gucci bag.

"Oh. I didn’t see you there. So sorry." She puts the well-thumbed AD back on the pile and then stands, smoothing her skirt and squaring her shoulders. She gives Faith a frosty little smile. "So. Where is he? I know he’s here."

"Actually, Miss Morgan," —and here Faith stands up straight and does her best to approximate Lilah’s body language into some semblance of Don’t Fuck With Me if You Know What’s Good For You— "He’s not. He’s out of the office at present. Shall I take a message?"

"A message. Huh." She tilts her head and considers this for a moment. "All right. Tell Wesley that if he doesn’t sign the settlement by close of business tomorrow I will personally put his balls in the most airtight legal vice grip known to man. I’m not waiting any longer."

Faith’s improvised composure falters just a little bit at that.

Lilah gives her a condescending little smirk. "I’ll let myself out, honey."

The door slams behind her with teeth-rattling decisiveness.

Faith sinks down onto the leather chair, shaken. "Christ, no wonder he was driven to drink."

Unpleasant encounters aside, she’s still on the clock for another four hours. And so she reluctantly drags herself up out of the chair. On the way back to her desk she hears a tiny creak from inside Wes’ office. She opens the door and peers inside. He’s back behind his desk, looking as composed and steely as ever.

"She’s gone, yes?"

"Didn’t you hear the—" She hears the note of exasperation in her own voice, and she stops mid-sentence. "Yeah, she’s gone."

"And?"

"Would you like quotes or paraphrases?"

"Faith." So that’s why Lilah’s head tilt of condescension looked so damn familiar.

"Quotes. Right. If you don’t have the settlement signed and on her desk by tomorrow, she’s going to be forced to… take legal action."

"I’m reasonably sure Ms. Morgan used more... colorful… epithets than that, but fine. That will be all. I left some briefs for you to type up. They’re on your desk, sorted in colored folders. They’re to be finished and filed by end of business today."

Faith turns to go.

"Faith?"

She stops and half-turns to look at him.

"Thank you." He sounds almost relieved.

She smiles. "No problem." She closes the door quietly behind her.


Chapter Six

The next few days seem to pass by in this seamless blur, punctuated by the sounds of office routine. Her fingers clacking over the keys of the Selectric. The scratch of her pencil on the paper. The static hiss her stockings make as she crosses her legs.

Yeah, she's made some minor adjustments. She and Xander went thrift store shopping on the weekend with the contents of her first pay packet, minus the $50 Faith gave her Mom for housekeeping, which resulted in an immediate phone call to the only liquor store in town that delivers.

Whatever.

Now Faith is kitted out in a parody of a Fifties secretary. Tight pencil skirts, fitted little blouses (one even has a pussy cat bow, which even Xander protested was overkill) and a pair of killer heels. Her long, loose-limbed stride is now constrained to more of a hobble with her tits thrust out but it was worth it just to see the look on Mr. Wyndam-Pryce Esquire's face when she teetered into his office on Monday morning with her shorthand pad. It only lasted a split second, before he schooled his features back into severity, but the way his eyebrows shot up to his hairline and his mouth hung open was worth even the little red weals that her stockings left when she took them off that evening.

But it's not enough.

And it's not like she's some weird little freak who gets off on guys hitting her and shit. Except she did. And he did. So why the fuck hasn't it happened again?

Instead he's acting like some playground bully who got sent to the Principal and given a week's detention. It's like there's a 12 inch exclusion zone all around her. When he comes into the kitchen for his stupid Earl Gray tea and she's leaning up against the counter waiting for the kettle to boil, he presses himself back and sidles round her like she's gone down with a bad case of cooties.

Faith would also swear on the freakin' Bible that the chair in front of his desk has been moved back at least two feet so she can't contaminate him with her... whatever that stuff is that oxygen turns into once you breathe it out.

But instead of feeling angry and hurt, she's feeling all kinds of other things. Mainly restless, the same way she gets the week before her and Xander take a trip to the city and she's anticipating the good times and the beat of loud music and the bodies brushing up against her as she dances. And she feels heavy like her limbs have been weighted down and it's all she can do to walk the corridors in her four inch, fuck-me shoes.

Something has to give and it sure as hell ain't gonna be her.

Two more days of him acting like he has a leper on the payroll and after another morning's scintillating dictation when she keeps looking up to find his eyes fixed rigidly on a point somewhere above her shoulder, she knows what to do.

Faith marches back to her desk, inserts a page of the really fancy linen blend paper into the typewriter and begins to type. Two minutes later she finishes off:

Your sincerly

W. Windham-Price EsQuire.

With a beatific smile, she snatches the sheet out of the machine and begins the short walk to his office.

She’s two steps away from him when she starts to wonder if she’s made a mistake. Thinks about snatching back her hand, extended towards him with the paper quivering like a moth’s wing, wadding the thick paper into a ball, all edges and spikes, and shoving it down the front of her blouse – but then she imagines his fingers, cool against her skin as he goes in after it – and she knows he would – unbuttoning her blouse with the same careful precision he uses to line stuff up on his desk, or fold his handkerchief, and she lets go. It flutters and snaps as he brings it closer and starts to read and she swallows.

She always watches him when he does this. He reads fast; eyes skimming and flickering, and he doesn’t miss a thing. This letter’s perfect, not a comma out of place; a work of fucking art if you go in for that sort of crap. The ink’s black, and the paper’s cream, and it’s elegant and under-stated, just like him. She starts to think about his bare back, hidden under those crisp shirts, two shades darker than the paper, no more, because he’s so not the soaking up the rays kinda guy, and goes off into this daydream where she’s writing on him, maybe with one of those fucking sharpie pens, hearts and loops and –

“I see.”

Two words. Four fucking letters, that’s all, and he packs the Complete Works of Shakespeare in there, it’s that loaded. And she’s missed the look on his face when he saw the ending that made it the best fucking letter ever.

“What?”

“I see that you’re determined to stay at your current level of ineptitude and ignorance.”

Oh, she’s ignorant, is she? Not fucking blind though. He’s glitter-eyed and tight-lipped and he’s looking at her. First time since it happened and she’s got his attention on her and it’s gone so quiet in here she wishes she’d brought a pin to drop.

He stands up and it isn’t that he’s that much taller, not when she’s in these heels, but she wants to tip her head back somehow when she looks at him.

“You’re wasting my time, not to mention dirtying expensive paper.” He’s walking around the desk now and her heart’s thumping with each soft footstep. “Do you like doing that, Faith? Like spoiling things? Like destroying and burning and turning something useful to nothing but ash and smoke?”

He knew. He’d seen. Christ, how did he watch her without her knowing? She always knew if she was being stared at, alien eyes on her tits or ass when she danced or walked down the street, throwing in a wiggle just for the sake of it.

“I made a mistake. It happens.” Fuck, she sounds like she’s three days into a cold. Clears her throat and tries again. “Sorry.”

He widens his eyes just a fraction. “Well, yes, I imagine you are, but that’s scarcely the point, is it? What did you think, Faith? That you could get dressed up in your... new clothes and suddenly you’d be good enough? Is that it?”

And she’s shaking her head, little bit hurt, because he’s got scorn dripping off every word as he looks at her and she’s remembering the Morgan bitch and feeling like a carbon-copy, a knock-off, second-hand and cheap.

“Turn around.”

It’s a whisper, and it’s still got more authority than a scream, but she doesn’t want to lose the sight of his face so she stays where she is until his lips thin and tighten.

“I won’t repeat myself, Faith.”

And she’s spinning on her heel and the fucking shoes are too high for that, and she starts to stumble but he catches her, hand wrapping around her arm and pulling her up. For a second she thinks she feels his breath against her bare neck, but then he’s stepping away and she’s left staring at the wall, waiting.

“Lift up your skirt, Faith.”

It’s not what she expected and it unsettles her, though fuck knows she’s not exactly relaxed right now, but he waits and when she shakes her head she’s not really saying, ‘no’, she’s asking, ‘why?'.

“Please stop wasting my time, Faith.”

No one says her name like that, lingering on it, as if it’s more than just a convenient label, and she reaches down and pulls up the tight skirt, bunching it in her hands and easing it over her hips. She’s so fucking exposed right then and it sends a trickle of heat through her, so that when he reaches out and hooks his fingers in her panties she moans, biting her lip to keep the sound inside and not quite making it. His hand goes still, knuckles brushing her ass.

“You will remain silent, Faith.”

And she would have, she’d have tried to anyway, but then he slips the letter inside her panties and she cries out with surprise as the stiff edges scrape against her skin and he spins her around and slams her against the desk in one swift movement.

“I don’t tolerate waste and disobedience, Faith. I think you need to be reminded of that, don’t you?”

And she watches her hands slip into position, fingers spread, and hears the air part for his hand behind her.

It seems to last an age but then again it doesn't seem like any time at all.

She hears it first; the crack of his hand against the curve of her left buttock and then she feels it. God, how she feels it! This hot kiss on her skin that makes her fingers clench.

The next smack almost jolts her off her feet and she lurches against the side of the desk, catching the tender pooch of her belly against the edge of the wood and making the paper crackle. She can't stifle the surprised cry that bursts out of her mouth.

He stops. He takes a step back and then she hears a tutting sound. Christ, now what?

His hands are gentle as they re-arrange her to his liking, molding her into Faith-shaped clay. He stands behind her, palms smoothing down her arms so he can press her hands flat on the polished wood. He nudges her impossibly high in-step with the toe of one polished brogue and she swivels her head to look at him like he's a crossword clue she just can't figure out.

The glint in his eye makes something twist in her stomach. There's a hectic flush of color dotted over his cheekbones.

"I want... Spread your legs, Faith."

She turns round so he won't see the triumphant smile on her face and obligingly shuffles her feet apart.

"More."

She waits, contemplates giving her hips a gentle shimmy, but thinks better of it.

"Arch your back, Faith."

What the fuck is she? A pretzel? But she does as he asks and feels the cold air ghost against the exaggerated thrust of her ass.

"That's better," he says in this oh-so-satisfied way, like she's just handed him a perfectly typed, perfectly spelled letter instead of the mess that got her into this wet dream.

She barely has time to blink before the flat of his hand is striking her again. Slow, measured strokes against the thin cotton of her panties.

"You see, Faith, there are correct ways to do things. Procedures that have to be followed."

His breathing is ragged, a perfect match for her own as she gulps in air and hangs her head. His hand speeds up, starting fires wherever it touches. Her right cheek, her left cheek, the tops of her thighs and she starts to wish, more than she's wished for anything in her life, that he'd pull down her low rider briefs so she can feel his skin against her own.

"Without order, you have nothing but chaos. Do you like chaos, Faith?"

She almost misses her cue but comes in just before the prompt. "No, sir!"

"How many pads have you burnt?"

She can't remember. Fuck! She can't remember.

"Eight? Nine?"

"Eleven pads. How many?"

"Eleven, sir."

"You need to be punished for your willful destruction of office property." He's pacing some distance behind her. "Or maybe I should just deduct the amount from your wages."

Faith wants to protest that this way is just fine but he's already making that "tsk tsk" sound that she's starting to feel rather fond of.

"But would that be effective? I think not. I think you need tangible evidence of your crimes. Start counting."

This time the smacks are concentrated in that soft space where her thighs meet her buttocks and as she counts out his beats, it takes every last ounce of energy that's left not to scream and moan but call out the numbers in a steady voice.

"Ten."

There's a pause and then his hand crashes down with great force between her legs and stays there, crushing the sodden cotton and paper that it's found.

"Eleven."

His fingers twitch almost imperceptibly and he takes a step closer so she can feel the soft wool of his trousers against her smarting legs.

She stifles a gasp. She sways unsteadily, momentarily thankful that the desk is holding her up. She struggles to remain composed —fingers and legs splayed apart just so, arms locked rigid, back arched, head upright— when all the tension in her body has converged at the juncture where his hand rests. She wants nothing more than to sink down onto the desk. Wants his fingers twisting up inside of her. Wants his hands on her breasts and his lips brushing against her skin. Wants him to fuck her. Wants, wants, wants. But she knows that he would see that as simplistic and clumsy and inelegant. Primitive, even. For a moment she feels betrayed by the very obviousness of her desire —the proof of her wanting him— when there he is, still buttoned up and in control. But that’s the magical equation, isn’t it? That’s what got her wet in the first place.

And God, he’s not moving. She can hear his quickened breathing and the mere fact of his body pressed against her —she can feel the heaviness of his erection through the soft yielding fabric— is almost too much. She wants to ask him but she can’t. But this peculiar stasis is killing her.

She waits for him to say —anything. Do —anything. She’s starting to feel faintly ridiculous just waiting there. If only she could see if there was conflict written across his sharp features. Shame and doubt and self-hatred all reflected in the tightness of his posture, the downturn of his mouth and bitter set of his jaw, his eyes shut tight. A slight sheen of sweat across his forehead. But she can't see anything as she dutifully stares straight ahead at a fixed point on the ridiculous flowered wallpaper, and tries to keep her exhausted arms from collapsing. She can’t help but replay all the short, graceless fucks she’s had in her life. And yeah, so she wouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit from the captain of the football team or head of debate or even some geek from chess club. But once you got ‘em into bed they were all the same. Unimaginative. Usually stoned. One, two, three, uh! and she’d be left, unsatisfied, smoking her post-coital cigarette while he stuffed himself back into his pants and climbed out her window.

She's brought abruptly back to reality when he draws a breath and shifts slightly against her. When he speaks his voice is terse, his accent clipped. "I’m not going to fuck you, Faith." He spits out the word fuck as though it’s an unclean, unfit thing, utterly beneath him.

She’s thankful that he can’t see the disappointment written across her features. She’s about ready to collapse.

That’s when his fingers slide just a little deeper inside of her, and she hears the metallic rasp of a zipper.

Instantaneously, instinctually she clamps down on his fingers. Instead of digging them in, like so many other finger fucks she's had, his movements are slight, gentle, deliberate. It's heavenly, and if there's something better than that, it's when his warm and ever-so-slightly hangnailed thumb shoves the wadded paper away and brushes her clit. She lets her breath out in a slight hiss, straining to push a burgeoning orgasm back down. Not yet, not yet. She's digging her short, ragged nails into the desk, praying for anything but a quick release.

And then she hears it, that tell-tale sound of skin slapping on skin. His ragged breathing picks up the pace. She fights the urge to turn around, even though she knows full well what he's doing back there.

Immediately, as if reading her mind, he rasps: "Keep your eyes to the wall, Faith."

Well, she's certainly in no position to disobey that order, as prone and open as she is, his fingers working deep inside her in places she's pretty sure have never been touched before. Then, like she's some kind of complicated combination lock, he hits two of the right points at the same instant, thumb working over the tender, concentrated flesh outside and his fingers inside hooking on to the deepest core of her desire.

She doesn't recognize the sound that comes out of her. Not a scream, not a moan, but some weird, desperate combination of both. This time, when she slams into the edge of the desk, it's her own doing. His hand is still working her; the warm tingle of release ebbs and transforms into a near-uncomfortable slow burn. Impossibly, or perhaps not, she comes again, the sounds coming from her throat even more animalistic and needy. Again, she's grateful that the desk keeps her from collapsing, nearly boneless, to the floor. She'd give anything in the world for him to flip her over and fuck her senseless on the spot.

No sooner has that thought crossed her mind that he whimpers and breathes her name, his hot come hitting the small of her back, sliding down the slope of her ass, dribbling past where his hand is still locked inside her.

Again, there's silence. Almost too much. He gently removes his hand and seconds later, he's wiping her down, using his starched handkerchief, with surprising gentleness, the slight roughness sending a little aftershock of shivers across her flesh.

She can hear him fussing around behind her, but dares not turn around. There's the reverse rasp of the zipper, and she feels an emptiness in the space he'd filled.

He slips into the ancient leather desk chair, and she can see that some of the tense lines around his mouth and eyes have slipped away. She tries to catch his eyes, but he's looking past her, through her.

"That will be all for today, Faith," he says flatly, pulling a file from under her arm.

Chapter Seven

She thought the world would end after those twenty minutes in his office or, like, be different or something, but the planet was still spinning on its axis and she was still typing and burning pads in the backyard and hoping, beyond hope, that he'd notice and take it out on her ass again.

Only two things have changed. The supply desk is back in his office with the little blue typewriter on it, though he's yet to ask her to use it, and the other thing? She's still trying to work out whether she should be offended or turned on. Or some weird combination of both.

See, she comes in to work three days later after The Spanking With Benefits and on her desk are two boxes from the fanciest dress shop in town; the one frequented by the Lilah Morgans of this world. She approaches the largest pink box with the cursive black script on it cautiously, mentally rehearsing the flirtatious reprimand she's going to give their cute UPS boy, when she sees an envelope with her name on it tucked into the lid of the larger box.

Her stomach flutters delicately. She knows that writing. Her fingers tremble slightly as she tears open the envelope and plucks out the piece of paper.

Faith

It would appear that you're still not familiar with the appropriate dress code for a lawyer's office. I've taken the liberty of rectifying this matter.

W. Wyndam-Pryce, Esq.

The delicate flutter has upgraded to a full-on churning as she opens the lid of the first box. There's black as far as the eye can see. She picks up a fold of material and a smile lights up her face.

The dress, identical to the other two still folded between sheets of tissue paper, is unrelenting black, made of fine, light wool. High neckline, long sleeves, and when she holds it against her, it just skims the knee. The fact that the slit in the skirt has been painstakingly stitched up is not lost on her.

When she opens the smaller box, she has to clutch on to the sides of the desk to steady herself. Which is way too much déjà vu for her liking. There are black suede, pointy-toed stilettos, far higher than anything she's ever teetered on. Five pairs of black silk stockings and then there are... the other things. The things that no boss should ever buy his secretary, appropriate office attire be damned. She scoops up one of everything and rushes into the bathroom.

But he does nothing. He's in boring lawyer automaton mode. His eyes don't seem to appreciate the way the dresses cling to every inch of her, showcasing the high thrust of her breasts and the impossible curve of her waist or the jut of her ass in the corset that he picked out for her.

Faith likes the feeling of being restricted, of being restrained in her clothes. Like she can't be the person she was, instead she's forced to be this other Faith who walks slowly in her vertiginous heels, the tight binding of her skirt making her hips swing gently as she navigates her new world of desk, corridor, office.

She's so convinced by this new Faith that when she looks up and sees him there it takes a second before she gives a start of recognition. What the fuck?

"Well, well, look at you, Faithy. All growed up."

"D-d-d-dad?"

She scrapes her chair back to get away from the almost asphyxiating fumes of alcohol seeping out of his pores and his mouth as he directs a stream of invective right at her.

"Your bitch cunt of a mother has had the fucking locks changed. I know you put her up to it, you treacherous little whore. Got yourself a fancy new job but you're still a worthless piece of lying shit, aren't you?"

She doesn't answer. Faith knows how to play this game and it involves hanging her head and staring at her hands until he's done. And that way she doesn't have to see the stains on his shirt and the bloodshot eyes and the spittle clinging to his chapped lips.

"Serve you both right if I fucking torch the place. Like anyone else would miss your useless ass."

Her eyes skitter to the corridor in dread. How can he not have heard? Why hasn't he appeared? Fuck! Please, God, don't let him suddenly appear like a lawyerly version of the bad fairy.

"Giving her housekeeping aren't you? Even though I'm busting my balls to make her fucking alimony payments."

She's frozen in terror now, her palms damp. He's going to get up out of his leather chair, softly stride down the corridor and see her reduced to this. A scared, little girl all dressed up and nowhere left to go.

"Give me some fucking money, you cunt!" Her father slams one meaty paw down on the desk with a thump and she jumps.

"I... I..."

"You gonna get that sentence out sometime before the end of next fucking week, Faithy?" He's leaning into her now and she flinches away, one hand reaching out for her bag. He saves her the bother, snatching it out of her nerveless grasp and upending it so a motley collection of make-up and pens and chewing gum and receipts scatters over the table.

He doesn't give a fuck about that. He's already seized her pocketbook and is rifling through it. "Fuck! Is that all you got?"

"I don't get paid until the end of the week," she says, her eyes downcast and she doesn't know why she feels like apologizing as he pockets a tiny wad of bills and a handful of loose change.

"Yeah, well, should have known I couldn't rely on you for fuck all." Now that he's got what he came for, he's already starting towards the door, but she daren't breathe out until the door slams back against the frame and she hears him muttering angrily as he staggers down the steps.

Her fingers fumble for the lighter on her desk and the new shorthand pad that she took from the supply cupboard an hour ago. She's surprised to find it damp and splotchy but then she realizes that she's crying. Her tears tracing a track through her carefully applied mascara and powder so these gray blotches spot the pristine, white paper.

She gets up and it feels all wrong to be in this tight skirt and these stupid heels. She doesn't want to be hemmed in, she wants to run out of here and find some empty place where she can shout and smash things up. Guess she'll have to make do with willful destruction of office property and fuck! why are her hands still shaking?

Faith steps out from behind the desk, her lighter and pad clutched in her hot, sweaty hands and then nearly screams when she sees him standing there. He doesn't even blink an eye at her disheveled appearance, the mess of her life spread out over the desktop. He looks so calm, so collected, so in control. His back rigid, his eyes frosty like cool whip, even though he must have heard World War Three break out in his reception.

She wipes the back of her hand across her eyes to get rid of the tears and it comes away with a black smudge on it as she ruins the rest of her make-up. She can't stand to feel like this.

"I... I'm sorry... He... Messy divorce thing..."

He cuts right across her tear-soaked babble with the one thing she suddenly realizes she needed him to say. "I want you to take a letter, Faith. Come into my office."

Chapter Eight

He doesn’t wait for her to reply, just turns and stalks off. She snatches up a pencil, and she’s half way down the corridor when she realizes she’s still holding the lighter, tucked under the pad. She’d go back and drop it on her desk, but that would mean losing sight of him, and she doesn’t want to do that.

The panic and the rush leave her when she’s inside that dim room, with the door closing behind her with the creak and the slam that echo in her head as she walks over to him. He’s not at his desk this time; he’s sitting, relaxed and looking thoughtful, on the low couch off to the side. She stands in front of him, the smooth metal of the lighter warm in her hand, hidden for now, not wondering, or thinking, not doing anything but waiting for an order.

And she’s starting to see that if she’s wearing these clothes and waiting, always waiting, this – thing, this fucking game they’re playing, isn’t stopping. This round didn’t begin when he told her to follow him, and it won’t end when she leaves, after he’s – well, what will he do? God, she doesn’t fucking care, as long as he takes this feeling away from her; the certainty that all she is and all she’ll ever be is exactly what her dad tells her she is. And he says, “Sit, Faith,” like she’s a fucking dog or something. And that really isn’t a good thing to have pop into her head when she’s carefully bending her knees to sit perched beside him, and tucking her feet neatly to the side.

She clears her throat, pencil poised, the pad awkward in her hand because it’s balanced on slippery metal. The first page needs tearing off; she’s not writing on it when it’s all messed up like that. Fumbling, with fingers still shaking from reaction, she rips it away. The one underneath is stained too and she glances up at him, expecting him to look impatient, but he’s staring at her hands and waiting. Two, three pages get crumpled in her hand and she shoves them down beside her and sets the pencil against the page.

“Sorry. I’m ready now.”

He starts to dictate to her and she misses the first words because yeah, she didn’t think he really wanted to answer Mr. Lowell’s letter of the fourth and – oh fuck, she’s lost track.

“Sorry. Can you – can you just say that again? Please?” She stares down at squiggles and hooks and tries to make sense of them.

A hand comes to rest on the pad and he curls a fingernail under the page and lifts it up, taking it between finger and thumb and pulling at it. It tears free of the gum at the top with agonizing slowness and then it’s fluttering, held, in his hand.

“Let me see.” He glances at it and tears it in half. “No. It’s not worth keeping. You’d better make a fresh start.”

Well someone ate Chinese last night, she thinks bitterly and she can’t help glaring at him. “It’s not that fucking easy,” she says, the words too loud for this place.

“For most people, no, I’d imagine it’s not.” He studies her and smiles, and God, he’s pretty when he does that, but it’s gone so fast she’s left missing it before she’s had chance to fix it in her head. “But for you it is, isn’t it.” He hold out his hand, palm up. “Give it to me.”

And she knows what he means, but she can’t, and her fingers clutch and curl and her eyes are flickering around the room until she’s giddy, with a kaleidoscope of images slamming against her mind.

“Faith.”

And her eyes go to his face, and all she can see is him, and that makes it simple.

He tosses the lighter in his hand and flicks it open, watching the flame. “Does it really help?” he asks, as calmly as if he’s asked her the time.

“I don’t know. It’s just something I do. Not a big deal.”

She smells the sweetness of the smoke in her head, and touches a perfect curve of black crisp paper, feels it melt to a smear, and swallows.

“No, of course not.” He snaps the lighter shut and slips it into his pocket.

“No! Look, that’s mine.” Give it back to me, you fucking bastard.

“You don’t need it.” He stares at her. “It serves no useful purpose for you to do that, and I believe I’ve expressed my views on it before. You didn’t listen, Faith. Inattention brings with it certain consequences, but you don’t seem to care.” He brings out another of those impossibly clean, white handkerchiefs – Christ, would it kill him to blow his nose on Kleenex like the rest of the fucking world? – and reaches behind him for a small jug of water, dipping in a corner of the handkerchief and wetting it.

Without warning she begins to cry, hot tears spilling down her cheeks, and he pauses, hand hovering in front of her face. “Stop that.”

She sniffs, feeling gross, and blinks at him. The tears are stinging her eyes and if she’s got any mascara left on, it’ll be a fucking miracle. He takes hold of her chin and tilts her face, this way and that, before cleaning it, dipping and dabbing, an intent look in his eyes. He’s making her look the way he wants her to; restoring her, and though it’s not just what she wanted, she takes it anyway.

The water softens the fabric, but it’s still rough against her face and when he’s done he touches his fingers to her skin, reddened and a little sore.

“That’s better,” he says softly. “I don’t care for tears. They will do you no good here, Faith. Remember that.”

It’s a warning and she can’t focus enough to work out what he means because that feeling of being trapped is starting to squeeze her again, and she’s tensing her muscles to jump up and run when he twitches the pencil from her hand and tosses it across the room. It lands in the middle of the carpet, rolls and comes to rest.

She meets his eyes, feeling a puzzled excitement chase away the suffocation.

“Fetch it,” he says, eyes doing that burning holes in you thing again. She stands, teetering on her heels, and walks over to it, feeling his eyes on her the whole time. Thanking Christ that she’s fit and limber from never having bus money, she bends from the waist, feet apart just enough to steady her, and holds the position just long enough to give him something to look at, before straightening and turning back to him, the pencil in her hand. Four steps and she sits down again, picking up her pad and looking at him expectantly.

He leans in, not touching her with anything but his breath, exhaled minty-cool and whisper-soft against her throat and takes the pencil off her, throwing it again, a smile curving his lips. This smile doesn’t make him look pretty but she likes it better.

"Fetch it, Faith.”

And she gets it then and the carpet’s rough against her knees.

It takes her four times to get it exactly right, with him greeting each attempt with a pained sigh and a repetition of the order, until finally she slides to her knees, crawls past the pencil and turns, meets his eyes and then lowers her head, using tongue and teeth to pick it up. A pause, and she crawls back, never looking away from his face, and kneels in front of him, her fingers an inch from one polished shoe.

“You’re remarkably slow on the uptake today, Faith,” he says as he holds out his hand and the spit-wet pencil drops into it, to be discarded with a fastidious shudder.

"Now that you’ve mastered that little task" —his voice is cool and calm and he gives an almost jaunty little lilt to the word "task"— "We can move on to something a bit more difficult."

Chapter Nine

She’s still kneeling, looking up at him expectantly, anxiety and excitement flooding through her.

"Stand up."

She does so.

"Turn around."

Again, she complies. Her stomach does a little flutter as she imagines him looking her up and down. She had hoped to feel transformed under his gaze—like an Amazon or one of those heroines from a fifties film noir, all poise and snark and power-suiting. Instead she feels like a little girl caught playing dress-up, awkward and a little ridiculous. The nearness of him, the extreme tightness of the skirt and the nosebleed-high heels are conspiring to make her unsteady on her feet; her eyes are still red from crying and her calves ache from the newness of the heels. She takes a deep breath to try and calm herself when she feels the flat of his hand pressing at the small of her back. She leans instinctively into his touch, but he pushes her away with a minute flick of his wrist.

"You are not to slouch, Faith, not ever again. You must stand up tall at all times, do you hear me?"

All her concentration is focused on standing stock-still. She’s practically forgotten to breathe.

"Answer me."

"Yes!"

"Good. Now." She hears the hushed hiss of a drawer being opened and a rustle of fabric. The air pressure shifts and once again he’s standing right behind her, so close she can feel his hand brushing against her back.

"Close your eyes."

Eyes closed, she feels like she's floating in some portion of undetermined space. She tries to make sense of the tiny noises around her. The air conditioner clicks on. The water cooler in the kitchen's got a drip again.

He's moving around. Pacing, she thinks, and the whisper of fabric continues to cut through the air. She wants to make some sassy remark about how the hesitation is killing the buzz -- but honestly, it's not. She can't stand it. She wants something to happen, preferably five minutes ago. What the hell is he doing? She swallows nervously, her ankles starting to wobble from standing still for so long. She shifts a foot just a tiny bit to the left...

"Stand still." Sharp and cutting.

"I'm... I'm sorry." it comes out as a dry whisper, much more helpless than she intended.

And he's behind her again, warm fingertips brushing a stray tendril of hair from her neck.

"I'm sure you're sorry for a lot of things, Faith." His mouth is by her ear, she shivers. "Many of which, I imagine, are not your fault."

It's like a punch in the gut, those words, and the waterworks threaten to break in again. No crying. No. No. No. Deep breath, arms rigid by her sides, hands in tight fists. Another deep breath. But her goddamn chin won't stop quivering.

"No tears, Faith. Remember that." he says again, running a finger lightly down her cheek, stopping at her betraying chin, holding it still. "Now, open your eyes."

He's in front of her now, eyes piercing with icy control. She tries to read them, but he's closed off too tightly. He knows she's trying to puzzle him out, and his lips curl into a sneery little smile. He moves a hand to her tight French knot and pulls out the hairpins keeping it in place. Her unruly hair tumbles out around her cheeks.

There's a flicker of pleasure in his eyes at what he's done, and a slight smile curls about her lips.

He frowns. "On your knees."

She fights an urge to roll her eyes. Up, down, up, down. Shit. But right. It's the game. Right. Keep your head in the game, Faithy. But she's still hesitating, still not...

"Did you not understand me, you ignorant girl? On your knees. Now."

She can't exactly argue with that tone. She slips to the floor again. And finds herself staring at his crotch. At his hard-on.

"Hands behind your back."

Oh God.

"Hands behind your back, Faith. And keep them there."

She knows.

Exactly.

"Undo my trousers..."

Where this.

"Without them."

Is going.

She's sweating a little. The wool dress is suddenly a lot warmer than it had been. She presses her sweaty palms together behind her back and takes a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

And actually, it's not exactly as hard as she thinks. Or, well. Undoing the belt anyway. But what to do with this hook and eye closure thing on the waistband? She could pull it really hard with her teeth. But, he'd probably not take well to her damaging his obviously custom-made trousers.

She goes for it anyway, tugging lightly at first. She grunts a little with the effort and finally wrenches it open without tearing anything. She thinks.

Zipper next. Easy. Easy. Except that she can't keep it in her teeth because his goddamn erection is in the way. She sighs heavily instead, pursing her lips around the tiny zipper pull. This works better, and his cock springs out at her, unhindered.

He's going ... commando? Well, at least she doesn't have to use that stupid plan she was mulling over to casually get his underpants down with her teeth.

From here she's pretty sure she can handle things. The rest of the way is nothing she hasn't done countless times. And she's hungry for it. She takes in as much of his full length as she can at first, and relaxes the back of her throat to take more.

He's running his hands through her hair again. Pulls her off him. What the fuck?

"You're a greedy little harlot, aren't you, Faith?"

She glares up at him. What is with him? Just a little busy down here, sir.

"You could do with a little more grace. I'm not some drunken fool you've picked up at a club in the city. Start again."

Wait a minute...

"How the hell do you know about..."

"Silence, Faith."

"What the fuck? Have you been fucking spying on me?" Her voice borders on shrill. She's taken just about enough shit for one day.

He looks down at her, stony-eyed, but silent.

"No. No. I won't play that way. I won't. You cannot spy on me. You can't, you pretentious fucker!"

Now she doesn’t give a fuck about pleasing him, about composure and the game and keeping it all down. She’s hitting him, thrashing out. Pushes him down onto his precious antique desk and lays one knee right into him.

"You fucking piece of shit! How fucking dare you! I’m not gonna fucking shut it this time, not gonna keep quiet and just let you play out your sick little mindfuck." She’s got him by his shirt collar, staring him down with murderous anger. He’s not looking away from her but he’s not saying a word in his defense either.

"Is that why Lilah Morgan is suing your pansy ass? You overstep more than a few boundaries with her too, you sick fuck?"

He’s still calm and collected, the bastard. "Your vocabulary has really grown to encompass a startling array of colloquialisms since you’ve started here, Faith."

Is that a smile? She’s going to take his fucking head clean off.

He’s sprawled roughly on the desk, she’s straddling one knee, a fistful of his formerly impeccable Brooks Bros. chambray shirt gathered tightly in one white-hot knuckle.

"Any explanation you can give me that isn’t going to make me walk out of here and never come back?"

She can still feel his hard-on pressed between her thighs and she’s doing her best to ignore that.

"No. No, there isn’t." No smirk this time —there’s a sharp edge of guilt in the way he’s not meeting her gaze anymore and he looks almost shaken. There’s a first for everything.

"So, you just couldn’t help yourself? What? Say something, godammit!"

But she doesn’t need to hear it from him. She can see it. How he’d have one more shot of whiskey to talk himself into it, how he’d hate himself for sitting there in the dark, watching her. She can’t help but see the dead-leaf echo of— she doesn’t even want to continue that train of thought. It doesn’t go anywhere good.

She lets go of him, and he slumps down onto the desk.

"This isn’t going to happen again." Her voice is flat, the merest hint of a quaver creeping in. And she hates herself just a little bit for that.

Suddenly his hand is on her thigh and he’s pushing aside the fabric of her dress, his fingers sliding under the thin lace of her thong. "No, it’s not."

"I’m —I’m leaving." And yet—

"I’d like you on the desk. Please." His fingers twist a bit deeper inside of her and she finds herself complying. Her better judgment hasn’t gotten fucked in a long while.

She slides onto the desk, legs as apart as they can go in the constricting dress. He kneels down, hiking the dress up over her hips and sliding the lace aside so he can dip his tongue into her pussy —he does so shallowly at first, circling her clit and testing how wet she is before he settles in to really tongue-fuck her. Grips her ass and angles her towards him so the pressure’s just right on her clit. She’s already making these short, clipped moans —"Ah, ah, ah"— but he’s just getting started.

Funny that he can be so cold but his mouth and hands are hot on her as she arches her back, bangs her head on the brass pen tidy and all the while he's there, on his knees in front of her, tongue drilling into her.

It's too much. It's not enough. She doesn't know how to do this. No-one's ever gone down on their knees in front of her. No-one's ever gone down on her. Like, she's a queen. Like she should be worshipped. Her legs twitch and she's panicking, trying to fight the fast, frantic waves that are threatening to push her under as he starts sucking hard on her clit.

"Oh God, I can't..." Her voice is hoarse, frightened as she tries to scoot back, get away from him and his voracious mouth that wants to swallow her whole, taste all her secrets.

His hands slide off her ass and then she feels the span of each of his fingers as he grips the soft skin of her inner thighs, pushing her legs further apart so she's laid completely bare.

"Please..." It was meant to be some incoherent plea to get him to stop but then he's using his tongue and his teeth and his chin, even his fucking nose and she's never been so wet, so open. When she comes, it's torn out of her with a harsh cry but it's not stopping. Mainly because he doesn't need to worry about keeping her legs open anymore and shoves three fingers into her cunt and twists them roughly.

Everything slips away. All of it. Family. Fears. Foes. And all she is is the relentless tugging and sucking between her legs, which makes her dig the spike heels into the polished wood of the desk and grind her hips into his face as stars explode beneath her screwed shut eyes and she thinks she's just seen God.

When he pulls away at last because her cries are getting fainter and fainter as breathing becomes this really hard thing to do, she presses her hand against her wildly beating heart and tries to send this message to her brain to shut her thighs.

Her brain doesn't want to know and she sprawls on his desk, legs akimbo, dress still hitched up to the heavens, panting. His wrist is warm against her knee as he grips the desk to haul himself up and stand in front of her. She waits for the clipped command to get up, straighten up, take a letter, fetch a pencil but it never comes.

"Beautiful," he says and he sounds like he's in church. Then he takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and gently begins to clean up the terrible mess he's made of her.

All that she can do is fling her arm across her face so she doesn't have to look at him. Because she can't bear to see any of his looks from icy, to amused, to concerned.

"Faith. Look at me." He's mopping up her cunt with soft strokes of his once impeccable handkerchief but somehow it seems more intimate to open her eyes and see his face.

"I can't," she mumbles, trying to sit up and having to give in, to accept the hand that he places under her elbow so he can pull her upright. He's hard. Of course, he's still hard. She wonders whether he wants... if she should offer, but when she tentatively reaches out her hand, his fingers curl around her wrist and he shakes his head.

She tugs down the skirt of her dress and realizes that she's naked under it. The thong got lost somewhere between the whole eating her out thing and the clean-up operation. "Where's my..." He's had his tongue in her cunt but she can't bring herself to bring up the subject of her missing underwear.

He gives her one of his pretty smiles. "Your thong? I removed it. It's not appropriate attire, as you know perfectly well."

Faith remembers the underwear he bought her that she left in the box. Black satin French knickers that she thought were too old-fashioned, too impractical.

She swallows hard and slides off the desk, almost stumbling as her feet hit the ground. "You're a sick fuck," she whispers fiercely and gets another tender quirk of his lips.

"That's no way to talk to your employer," he says mildly, folding the soiled square of linen and putting it into his pocket. "I can see that I still have a long way to go with your training."

And she finally looks at him and it's something to do with the way he's standing there, rigid but awkward, eyes clear but wary, and she's jumping back into the game, finding her place.

"There were some things that weren't on the syllabus at the secretarial college," she says tartly, smoothing the wool across her hips. "I guess I need to learn on the job."

"You're not leaving." And the weird thing is that he probably means it as an order but it sounds to her like a question. She doesn't answer, just walks over to the couch and picks up her pad.

"Do you still want me to take a letter?"

"I think we're done." He's moving stiffly around the desk so he can sink into the leather chair like he's exhausted. "For now. You should go and get some lunch."

Faith walks towards the door, her legs doing these weird little spastic spasms so she imagines he can see the muscles pulsing under her skin. Just before she turns the door handle, she looks over her shoulder at him. She catches him mid-stare, in quiet contemplation of her ass, and he flushes.

'Don't ever call me a harlot or, like, anything that means whore ever again," she says quietly before she leaves.

Chapter Ten

He doesn’t come to the diner, though she doesn’t know if she’s glad about that or not, and he’s in his office when she gets back, a sandwich stuck painfully half way down her throat, because she didn’t have enough cash for a drink after her fucking dad cleaned her out of all but pocket change, and her mouth was too dry with tension to swallow. She knows he’s in there because she hears his voice faintly, talking on the phone, but he doesn’t come out and he doesn’t call her in.

So she sits, black satin undies smooth and slippery against flesh still tender, and she works without a break until it’s time to go home, then leaves, shutting the door with a loud slam.

And when he comes out, half an hour later, she’s waiting by his car.

“Good night, Faith,” he says evenly. She doesn’t move from her position blocking the car door and he frowns. “I don’t have time for –” He breaks off, and she sees his eyes get cold and wary. “What do you want?”

Oh, so many things, but somehow when he’s this close, they all stop mattering. Attention. She wants to matter, and she wants, oh God, does she want his cock in her, just once before this ends. And she knows it will. Good things always do.

She holds out her hand. “My lighter. I won’t - I won’t do that, all right? But I haven’t had a cigarette all afternoon.”

It’s lame. Not like she can’t get a light off someone, and there were matches in the office kitchen, if it comes to that, tucked up high in a cupboard next to some candles. It’s lame, but it works.

“I think it will do you no harm to wait, Faith. To go without.”

And they’re not talking smokes anymore. But then, they never were. His eyes travel down and stop at her feet, with heels changed to flats.

“You changed your shoes.”

He sounds disapproving and she glares at him. “Got a thirty minute walk on cracked sidewalks ahead of me. Want me to arrive tomorrow in a fucking cast because I’ve broken an ankle?”

“You don’t have cab fare? Bus money?” He sounds incredulous. Maybe in his world there’s always money for shit like that, for just about everything you want. Somehow she doesn’t want to tell him her father left her penniless but she doesn’t need to. He sighs, as if he’s come to a decision and yeah, go ahead and amputate, doctor, leans in a little, and slides the hand with the key past her hip, grazing it with his fingers and sending heat over her in a scalding ripple. “Get in. I’ll take you where you want to go.”

The car seats are leather, from cows that died grateful for the chance to cushion her ass in comfort. She sinks back and moans with pleasure. “This car’s so fucking cool,” she says, not caring if it makes him smile, reaching out to twiddle with the air conditioner. He lets her, and there’s even a twitch that might be an indulgent smile, but when she tries to flip on the music, his hand slaps her fingers away without him bothering to look away from the road.

“Fine. No music. Talk to me then,” she says, feeling that it’s different now they’re outside work and she might actually get to find out something about what they’re doing here.

He reaches out and ejects the CD that would’ve started to play automatically, then switches on the radio. It’s set to some classical station, which means it’s all noise to her, but she lies back, closes her eyes and drifts, plinking pianos and scraping violins merging to make her think of oceans and surf and crying gulls. She’s always been good at making up shit like that.

She’s jolted out of the haze when the street noises drop away and she sees they’re climbing up out of the city.

“Hey! This isn’t the way home!”

“Oh, but it is. For me.”

And as he pulls into a garage, with the door sliding out of the way obediently and silently, she remembers the words he’d used and starts to shiver.

Where she wanted to go. In his house, just the two of them. Are they the same thing? She doesn’t know, but as he walks around and opens the door for her, doing it without a flicker of doubt, as if he thinks that was why she stayed sitting, not that her legs were trembling too much to support her, she gets out, her fingers resting in his for a long moment, and says ‘thanks,’ as if men do this for her all the time.

He nods, a gesture of gallantry that's almost kind of... dorky, but says nothing.

The anticipation, fear, whatever, is prickling on her skin. Thoughts are forming, but they sort of float away, half complete. Is this a date? Does he have some hidden room behind a swinging library door that's a torture chamber of pleasure? That last thought sticks with her all right, and it's just enough that it makes her wet all over again.

"This way, Faith." Right, daydreaming again in front of him. Right on, Faith. Good one.

He's standing by a door and punching a hell of a security code into a panel, faintly lit up so it's all blue. The garage door closes swiftly and quietly, unlike the precarious, creaking thing at her mother's house. It's dark for a second, and after a series of clicks that sound like some serious deadbolts, the door swings open.

"Come along," he says, just slightly impatiently.

She gently closes the car door and follows him into the house.

There are very few hills in this part of the world, but his home -- his magnificent fucking estate, she corrects herself -- is on one of them. It's one of those super modern affairs, all glass and metal and angles that looks inhospitable but is really open and airy and lovely on the inside.

The hallway ends abruptly in an architectural collision with a glassed-in great room with at least a 20-foot ceiling. And, even though they're not all that high up on this incongruous hill, below them the nasty suburban sprawl is glittering in the twilight.

She's taking in the view, kind of stunned. The car was one thing, but this. Shit. It was amazing.

He's working his way silently around the room, turning on lamps -- even pauses to tweak a pillow just so on a weird looking black-and-chrome sofa-ish thing. He slides up next to her, hand at the small of her back. "You're slouching." he whispers.

Nodding, she nervously licks her lips and straightens up.

"That's better," His voice is kind of thick and drawly, in that English way. His hand is still at her back, almost as if he's keeping her from falling backward from her outrageously erect posture. She's still looking at the view, practically fucking swoony from the nearness of him. But out of the corner of her eye, she can see he's taking her in with his patented disconcerted look -- yeah, she's noticed it before -- just the slightest hint of a furrow on his brow. It's as if he can't believe she's really there.

Being out of the office has shifted things, perceptibly. He's still got her on a short leash, so to speak, but between the change of venue and the fact that she nearly beat him up this afternoon, things are off balance. Of course, she can't make the first move -- hell, she can't make any move at all, really. And of course, he really does seem to take a gently sadistic pleasure in making her wait. God, would he take her to the hidden room off the goddamn library already?

She turns, and catches him still summing her up. The briefest smile flits across his features, and just like that -- she can hardly believe she sees it happen -- he's Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Esq., cold, thorny bastard. How the hell does he do that?

It's like the air is charged with his renewed position of power, and she breathes in sharply. His hand has slid over her ass, gently. It feels amazing, his touch through the layers of wool and satin.

"I think it's time we dispense with the pleasantries."

He grabs her arm and starts her down the long hallway and suddenly she’s feeling anxious and just a bit perturbed. Like, aren’t we beyond this bullshit by now? He must sense her resistance because he stops walking and turns to look at her, clucking his tongue in annoyance.

"I’m not Bluebeard, Faith —come on. There’s something that I want you to see."

This time she walks ahead of him and he does not touch her.

"The door at the end of the hallway."

She halts in front of it. It's red lacquer, heavy and imposing.

"What—"

"Open it."

It’s recalcitrant, creaky, and belongs to a different time entirely. But she gets it open and steps into the darkened room. There are no windows and her hand scrabbles along the wall searching in vain for the light switch.

"Allow me." He flicks it on and the room is illuminated by a soft, quiet glow. Nothing harsh allowed in this room. There are more of the Japanese prints hanging on the walls, only these make her blush. And there are books everywhere. She’s surrounded by them —bookshelves from floor to ceiling. There’s a slight smell of damp and age, worn leather and cracked bindings and the soft woodsy scent of old paper. It’s a strangely intoxicating perfume.

She must be a little open-mouthed, because she hears Wes say, "Pick one."

She slides a tiny little volume off the shelf. Les Délassements d’Eros. She doesn’t need to know French to figure this one out.

She takes an idle flip though and sees page after page of bird-boned, delicate girls sprawling lazily on pillows and sliding down between one another’s legs and fucking in giddy illustrated delight. She closes the book and replaces it on the shelf.

"Um, this is nice and all. Really. But can’t you just subscribe to some porn mags like everyone else?"

Wes ignores her. He’s busy walking his fingers along the top of the third shelf from the bottom. He’s looking for something and when he finds it he lets out a little "Ah!" of satisfaction before cradling it off the shelf.

"You’re not a reader, are you?" He’s not judging her, just asking her a question that he already knows the answer to.

"Not really."

He gestures toward the two overstuffed chairs in the corner, which face one another as if in genial conversation. "Sit."

There’s the merest hint of a wicked smile curling on his lips when he begins to read to her. He’s standing, and she’s sprawling a bit in the chair, ‘cause, hey, she’s not in the office anymore and she can damn well sprawl if she fucking feels like it.

And when he reads aloud his voice is honey-smooth and assured. Each word is a surprise, a delight, and she hears —maybe for the first time— she hears him take joy in something. She’s not even hearing the words, just hanging in rapt attention on the sound of his voice and the lilt of each syllable as it passes from his lips.

The story chills her, a little bit. That is, what she can follow of it —there’s a child bride, and a cruel husband, and a creaky, dark manor house with hundreds of locked rooms.

"He twined my hair into a rope and lifted it off my shoulders so that he could the better kiss the downy furrows below my ears; that made me shudder. And he kissed those blazing rubies, too. He kissed them before he kissed my mouth. Rapt, he intoned: ‘Of her apparel, she retains/Only her sonorous jewelry.’

"A dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides while the mewing gulls swung on invisible trapezes in the empty air outside."

It’s beautiful and dark and kind of magical and she’s surprised to find herself lost in the words when he shuts the book with a snap. Puts it back on the shelf.

"Now. Take off your clothes."

Chapter Eleven

She leans forward in the chair, her elbows sliding off her knees and her jaw plummeting to the floor.

It wasn't what she was expecting even if it was what she came here for. But still, she's shaken. Because, like, she's 18 and his emotionally vulnerable employee and this is so very wrong.

She stands up and reaches behind her for the button at the back of the collar. He stretches over to the table next to her chair and switches on the light before walking over to the door and hitting a switch so the rest of the room is plunged into a velvet darkness.

"Go on," he says as he walks past her and sits down in the other chair, crossing one leg elegantly over the other and jiggling his ankle. "Slowly..." He draws out the word, luxuriates in it.

As she drags down the zipper, the noise sounds deafening in the stillness of the room. He's sitting in shadow but she'd love to see his face as she slides her arms out of the sleeves and prepares to push the black wool down her body.

"No, wait." He barks out the words and Faith freezes. All the tiny hairs on her arms are standing to attention and she can feel the wetness between her legs soaking into the black satin as she restlessly shifts her weight to her other foot. "The shoes. Are the shoes in your bag?"

She'd stuffed them in there, as an afterthought. Figured that maybe she could practice walking in them at home. "Yeah. Yes." Since when did her voice get so breathy, like she'd been inhaling helium?

He makes an impatient sound at the back of his throat and reaches forward with an awkward jerky movement that clues her right in to the quite startling revelation that without her he's got nothing. And then he picks up her Emily Strange backpack and it looks so stupid, so utterly incongruous, in his long fingers that Faith has to bite her lip to stop the giggle that she can feel rising in the back of her throat.

But as he opens the bag, she can hear the unmistakable sound of her Itchy and Scratchy ring tone as someone calls her cell and she has to stifle another giggle. He ignores it and she tries to wipe the smirk off her face as he pulls out the asskicker heels. But then it starts ringing again.

"Shall I turn it off?"

He scrabbles around for the fucking annoying-gonna-ruin-everything cell, which has stopped again but starts ringing the minute he touches it.

He squints at the lit-up display and then gives her a tight smile. "How touching. It's your mother wanting to know where her errant daughter is."

Way to kill the mood, Mommy. "I'll turn it off," she says quickly. Too quickly and he tosses her the phone with a shit eating grin quite unlike anything else she's seen on his face.

"Get rid of her," he orders.

Faith punches the green 'talk' button with great ferocity. He's picked up her shoes and looks at them with utter fascination. He should try walking in the fuckers.

"Mom! What do you want?" she hisses.

Her mother is drunk. Again. "Faithy! I thought you'd be home by now."

She shuffles around, her arms wedged to her side to stop the dress slipping down. "Well, I'm not," she whispers, knowing damn well he's listening to every word. "What do you want?"

"Where are you?"

She does giggle then. I'm stripping naked for my boss. This twisted English guy who's old enough to be my father and is really into some kinky shit. Instead she modifies it. "I'm with a friend from work."

She must have imagined the snort of laughter she hears behind her but she doesn't imagine what happens next, even though it can't be real. Because he's stood up, shoes in his hand and then crouches down in front of her and tugs at her ankle. "Lift up your foot," he says, making no effort to lower his voice.

Faith rolls her eyes and tries to listen to her mother's whining rant about the usual crap. "... then he came round... I had to tell him something... he's a lousy bastard..." His hand feels cool around her ankle as he slips off her flat Mary Jane and slides on the stiletto, then reaches for her other foot.

"... how much did you give him? ... always were Daddy's little girl... love him more than me..."

Faith barely listens as she wobbles precariously on one sky-high heel as he puts on the other one. "Yeah, yeah. Was there something you wanted 'cause I'm kinda in the middle of something here?"

She expects him to go back to the chair but he stays there, his fingers curled loosely around her ankle. "What time are you going to be home?"

"I don't know. Later. Maybe a couple of hours."

He lifts his head and gives her a look that strips off the top layer of her skin. "Tell her you won't be home tonight."

Faith shakes her head. She can't not go home. She can't stay here. What the fuck is he planning to do to her that's going to take all night? And anyway she doesn't know anything about him and he might have had a dozen barely legal secretaries up here and done fuck knows what to them and maybe nobody ever saw them again and...

"I... Mom..."

"I won't have you tramping around at all hours, Faithy..."

"Would you like me to speak to her, Faith? I'm sure I can put her mind at rest."

For one second she's almost tempted but then she comes to her senses. "No! Mom, I'm gonna stay over at my friend's. My girl friend's."

"You come home right now, you little whore."

"Mom..."

And then his hand starts moving. Upwards, ever upwards. His fingers smoothing down the tense muscles of her calves as she quivers in her shoes, brushes his knuckles against the backs of her knees.

"Are you on the pill? Gonna get yourself knocked up..."

He's slowly walking her fingers up her thighs and she's so wet now that very soon he's going to feel it, be able to smell it.

"Mom..."

"C'mon, Faithy, you come home to Mommy, baby. I need you..."

He's reached the top of her stockings now and insinuates a finger between the elastic and her skin. "Maybe you should go home, Faith," he says softly.

Maybe she shouldn't. "Look, Mom," she says sharply even though everything inside her is melting liquid as his fingers are closer, getting closer, just skimming the wet satin that covers the heart of her. "I've gotta go. Get the fuck off my back. I'll see you tomorrow." And then she hits the 'off' button and throws the phone over her shoulder so it lands with a clatter on the wooden floor.

He sits back on his heels and his eyes miss nothing as she slowly peels the dress down over the corset and panties he bought for her and kicks it across the room. And when she looks at him, at the way he's eating her up, a muscle banging away in his cheek, she has to wonder who has the power here?

Then he gets to his feet in one fluid movement and folds his arms. "Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" he muses and she remembers. He's got the power.

He walks over to the chair and sits down. Faith puts her weight on one hip and rests her hands on her waist, waiting for his next instruction. She doesn't have long.

"Come here, Faith."

She takes slow, deliberate steps toward him, still unused to the goddamn heels. But she’s found a rhythm now and even manages a little hip sway as she walks.

His look of anticipation is just a little feral. Hungry. That’s okay. She’s hungry too.

"Now. Sit in the chair."

She stops, a little startled. That’s not what she expected.

"Did you not hear me? Sit."

She does so. She sits awkwardly, self-consciously. The fabric is cool and a little rough against her skin.

He gives her another appraising stare that seems to cut right through her. She shivers a little.

"Sit back. Spread your legs apart."

She hesitates for a moment —here in this isolated, strange little room she feels even more exposed and vulnerable than she did in the office— but she does it nonetheless.

"You’re wet. I can see that. So, what is it that you want, Faith? Tell me."

"What?! I mean, you’ve got to be—" This is just too fucking much. She knows there’s an edge of anger in her voice, but she can’t help it.

"Kidding? No." His expression is curiously flat. "Pretend I’m not here at all. You’re in your own bed, alone. It’s dark…"

Christ. This is a new one. She’s not used to —talking. Not like this. Not with him, or with anyone else for that matter. She’s a little bit terrified. Make that a lot terrified.

"Um, OK." She takes a deep breath and starts, tenuously. "You’re in my bedroom. I must have snuck you in once she, once she was asleep, and we can’t make a sound because she might hear us. But that makes everything more …urgent. When the door is closed I start to undress and you just stand there, watching. I fall back onto the bed and you slide down between my thighs—"

"Aren’t you forgetting something, Faith?"

That snaps her out of it with a start. "What?" What now?

"You’re alone."

She looks a little astonished. Tries to remind herself that this is the game, house rules, and she’s either committed or …not. She slides one finger inside of herself, then two, and tries to resume where she’s left off.

"You’re gripping my hips, your tongue's deep inside of me, so fucking relentless. And God, I’m so wet and so close but I don’t want to come before you’re even inside of me. I want you to kiss me first. We’ve never kissed and I’ve got butterflies in my stomach but you brush my hair up off my neck and kiss me there first. Mmm, when you kiss me then I can taste myself on your lips and that’s so weird, kinda, but I don’t care. Your hand is between my legs and I can feel your… you’re hard and there’s this delicious friction between us and all I know is how much I want to see you naked, never seen you—"

Her fingers are moving faster and God, her thoughts are getting a bit —off-track.

"But you’re beautiful standing there and I want you to fuck me so much, and you want it too. Want your cock inside of me— I slide down on top of you and it feels so good, as good as I knew it would and God, just fuck me! Would you— just— fuck— me—"

She’s lost now, spasming out against her insistent fingers, and he hasn’t moved, just sits there in silent appreciation.