by Ada Scott
Panting like I’d never catch my breath, I leaned back until my head was on the armrest and Kris was following me, about to move over me. He paused.
“Goodnight, Amy,” he said with a strained voice.
“Huh?”
Kris stood, his dick as hard as a rock and without stopping to collect his clothes, headed in the direction of his room. I struggled to sit up.
“Are you serious?” I asked his retreating back.
“See you in the morning,” he said.
What the hell was going on?
Kris
Amy looked crestfallen in the morning, on the verge of asking a million questions, but she was much quieter than normal. It dampened any minor sense of triumph I had left about being able to pull back from that close. My balls aching for release all night had taken care of the rest of that triumph already.
I hated having put that look on her face. Best case scenario would be that she had given up and wouldn’t try so hard anymore. I hated even more that this was supposed to be a win under the circumstances.
This was a fucked up idea. I never would have taken the bet if I had known what Amy would be like beforehand. Cute, sexy, fun to spend time with, she was so young and full of potential that she was exhilarating to be around.
She even had some talent as an artist, if the little cartoon she made on the napkin was anything to go by. Seeing it gave me an idea that was potentially going to be a life-saver for me today.
I had several hopeful entrepreneurs lined up who were going to be pitching me their business ideas this morning at the Obvius.ly offices, looking for investment. Originally, I was going to let Amy do her own thing and meet up after lunch, but that meant I was going to have to spend a lot more time with her in the evening. Dangerous.
Instead, I brought her in with me. Several times in the past, during team meetings, when we had a lot of brainstorming going on or people were spit-balling whatever, it had proven incredibly useful to have an artist drawing up the ideas as quickly as they could.
Sometimes seeing an idea like that made all the difference. It was a technique I’d borrowed from a friend of mine who worked in the film industry. They often brought some talented writers into a room together to talk about ideas for a particular movie property, be it some old cartoon show from the 80s or the latest superhero character, as the writers talked, the artists drew what they talked about. Some incredible visuals came out of that, and it worked for me too.
Now Amy was set up in the corner of the boardroom with everything she could possibly hope for from a sketch-artist perspective. She could spend the entire morning doing what she loved in a professional setting, and save me the hours of temptation later.
“Pre-cum doesn’t count, right?”
“Huh?” said Kevin.
“Pre-cum. She started giving me a blowjob,” I said.
“But didn’t finish?”
“No. Fuck you, by the way.”
Kevin laughed. “It’s the beginning of the end. I ain’t worried, I don’t need a pity win. OK, pre-cum doesn’t count. How many you got scheduled for this morning?”
“Five.”
“Pick us a winner. What’s Amy doing here?”
“Getting her to sketch the pitches and I’m spending quality time with her, of course,” I said.
“She’s an artist?”
“Aspiring. She’s pretty good from what little I’ve seen too, so thought it might be worth trying the technique for pitches while she’s around, you know?”
“Couldn’t hurt, interesting idea. Hey, I spoke to Anson last night. He said he’d be calling us sometime today with some news. Reading between the lines… I think it sounds good. You might need to cut a pitch short to get in on the phone call.”
I sucked in some air through pursed lips. “Holy fuck… this could be it, man.”
“Finally, we’ll be able to make ends meet,” Kevin laughed.
“The wolf will have to find somebody else’s door. Alright, catch up with you later.”
I headed back to the boardroom and entered, closing the door behind me. While I was gone, Amy appeared to have opened every piece of packaging to explore what tools she had at her disposal. She looked up expectantly.
“Ready?” I asked.
“I guess so. I’m still not sure if this is going to be any help though. I’ve never drawn from… uh… inspiration like this before.”
I sat at the head of the table. “I hear you, but just relax. If you can have fun with it, you’ll do your best work. Draw anything that their pitches bring to mind, even if you want to draw something that looks like the crap emoticon. Anything.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. The people coming in are going to be all kinds of ages, from all walks of life, walking in here desperately hoping to impress us.”
“Us? Or you?”
“Both of us. Think about it like this. Imagine somebody talking to a shrink, and the whole time, the shrink is taking down these mysterious notes. The content of those notes, the mystery of them, traumatize some people. That’s you, sketching away on this pad they can’t see. What about a lawyer, wondering if they’ve left their fly open and if so, has the courtroom sketch artist noticed? That’s you. You’re probably scarier to them than I am. At the same time, they’ve all got these young businesses or shiny new ideas that they’re incredibly passionate about. If they’re any good at pitching, that passion and enthusiasm will come through. Hopefully you can pick up on that and run with it.”
“OK. This might be fun.” She perked up.
“There you go. So, I say again… are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Make me believe it!”
“Yes!” she smiled.
“Alright.”
I called the receptionist and had her send in the first group.
It wasn’t easy keeping a straight face, watching a balding man with flop-sweat stammering through his pitch while casting terrified glances in Amy’s direction. The clack and scrape of her pencils against the paper wasn’t exactly loud, but it was enough to tell that whatever she was doing, she was incredibly busy.
When I looked at her, she was staring at the man intently. Years ago, I watched a documentary that showed the difference between the way an artist looks at a subject and the way somebody who was crap at drawing looks at the same thing.
The way they did it was by having the artists and non-artists wear special glasses that tracked where their eyes looked when they had a model sitting in front of them and they were asked to draw the person’s face. The eyes of the non-artists went all over the place. Artists concentrated on one tiny area at a time.
Amy had that same laser-focus. I couldn’t remember if the documentary said it was innate or a trained skill, or both, but Amy certainly had it regardless.
“Thanks Marshall, you’ve given me a lot to think about. You’ve got a copy of the most recent financial documents for me?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, circling the boardroom table to hand me the spiral-bound document.
“That’s great. We’ll be in touch.”
I stood to shake his hand and then circled around behind Amy to see what the artist’s impression looked like. She’d captured the sweat pouring off him really well.
The scene she’d drawn had him wearing a captain’s hat on a shitty boat being dragged under by his own product at the end of the anchor chain. I laughed. Something told me that the financial documents would look pretty similar.
“That’s just perfect. Only one more go to and then we’ll break up for lunch.”
“OK. This has been awesome! Are you sure this is an actual job that exists out there? Or are you just humoring me?”
I held up my hand in oath. “I promise. I’ve paid good money for this service, in other contexts.”
A knock on the door turned my head in that direction in time to see it open and Kevin poke his head through. He looked about ready to explode into a shower of confetti.
/> “Anson’s on the line. Hi, Amy.”
“Hi.” Amy gave a little wave.
“We can take it in my office,” said Kevin. I gave him the thumbs up and he left.
“Holy shit. OK. OK. I got to take this, Amy… um… yeah, the last pitch is going to have to be rescheduled for another day. The boardroom is blocked out for the next hour, so you stay in here and do as many more sketches as you can, I’ll come back after the call.”
“No problem. Good luck!” Amy stood and pulled me down to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks, see you soon.”
Amy
Kris was gone for about half an hour before coming back and striding across the boardroom purposefully. I barely had time to get to my feet before he picked me up and whirled me around, almost laughing.
“Bad news?” I asked.
He gave me a big wet smacking kiss on the lips. “Terrible!” he said, then put me down on the ground again. “I know I said we’d only be in here this morning, but things have changed. I’m going to have to stay in the rest of the day. Let’s get all your stuff into my office, you can work from there. You have enough ideas left to keep on going for the rest of the day?”
I’d woken today feeling somewhat down in the dumps, but been swept up in the excitement of just drawing all morning. Kris was clearly over the moon about something, and I wanted nothing more than to be happy for him, but I was feeling the pressure of the clock winding down on me now.
Kris set me up in his office, where he was in and out. Sometimes he went to Kevin’s office, sometimes Kevin came to his.
I overheard things like “six hundred million dollars” and “obligation to provide consultancy services” but was mostly lost in my own little world. Each drawing I did sparked another memory about one of the presentations and gave me another idea for something to draw.
Kris was away from his office when somebody knocked on the door. I looked up and saw a man standing there with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Hey, where’s Kris?” he asked, his eyes not rising above my breasts.
I picked up my art pad and crossed my arms over it in front of me like a shield, and his eyes finally met mine.
“I think he’s with Kevin,” I said.
“Oh right. Hey, you’re Amy, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah… and you are?” I asked tentatively.
“I’m Daniel, I’m one of the partners here.”
“Oh, hello. I thought there were only two partners?” I said. Kris had only spoken about himself and Kevin.
Daniel’s face darkened scarily. “Well there’s three.”
“Sorry. I’m… I’m just a freelance designer Kris brought in. I guess he didn’t explain the… uh… company structure to me very thoroughly.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “You’re not a freelance designer. I know what you’re selling.”
Immediately, I felt about as insignificant as a bug. I wanted to shrink down to the size of one and scuttle away.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, barely able to speak above a squeaky whisper.
“Sure. I saw you on that website. Thought I might put a bid or two in myself, but didn’t want to bankrupt old Kris there. So, uh… you done-”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Daniel was yanked backwards out of the doorway by the collar and Kris shoved him to the side, out of sight. I heard harsh tones, but couldn’t make out any words except for “motherfucker.”
I felt numb. How many people knew why I was here? What about on Kris’ yacht? Kim and Jane had seemed so nice, everybody had, but were they all talking behind my back about the slut in the black bikini?
I hadn’t even considered the possibility if Kris telling anybody about our… arrangement. There was nothing stopping any customers of Innocence For Sale from doing so, I supposed, but I simply didn’t think they would.
When Kris returned to his office, I couldn’t bring my eyes any higher than my own hands resting on my art pad in front of me. He paused a few steps away.
“Amy… I’m sorry. He’s such a fucking-”
“It’s OK. You’re the customer, you can tell whoever you want. The customer is always right… right?”
I was on the verge of crying. All the time we spent together, he never felt like a customer. That kiss at the bottom of the climbing wall wasn’t from a customer. I hated to be reminded that this whole week was a fantasy. Hell, it wasn’t even supposed to be my fantasy, no matter how much I was getting swept up in it.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Who else knows? Just so I’m… prepared.”
Kris hesitated. “Kevin knows. He’s the one that told me about the service.”
“Anybody else?”
“No.”
“OK. I’ll get back to work in a minute… I just need a-”
“Don’t worry about that. I was just coming back here to suggest you head home for the night. It’s been a long day and Kevin and I still have a lot to go over. Bernard can take you home, via anywhere you like for some food. I’ll be back late.”
“OK.” I stood up robotically, suddenly desperate to get out of the office.
“You sure you’re alright?” Kris asked.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Back at Kris’ penthouse, I almost cried myself to sleep on the couch. I’d been picturing myself heading home, dropping my suitcase and telling my mom to stop packing. We’d have a hug and celebrate, add another memory to the house that already held so many.
I thought I could be the heroine of my own story, but my time with Kris was more than half done now, and I hadn’t managed to seal the deal yet. It now felt entirely possible that I could fail.
Something inside me twisted up and tried to wrench itself out of my body with a firm downward yank. I gritted my teeth against it, but my face contorted in an ugly grimace as the tears flowed.
This was supposed to be so easy. Arrive at the airport, get into his bed, close my eyes, open my legs and think of something else until he was finished.
Why did I have to have fun with him? Why did the time I spent with him have to feel so special? Why did he have me wrapped around his little finger, making me climax on command, but he wouldn’t go all the way with me?
He paid to take my virginity, so why wasn’t he doing it? What was going on?
I had no answers by the time Kris came through the door a little after midnight.
“Kris?” I called.
“Oh, hi. I didn’t expect you to still be awake.”
“Can you come sit with me?”
“Well… I dunno, I’m pretty tired, want to get some sleep as soon as I can, you know? Can we talk tomorrow? I’m really sorry about that shit at the office. I never spread the word around about why you were with me, how we met or anything, I promise you that. Daniel was just there when-”
“Please?” I patted the cushion next to me.
He loosened his tie and slumped a little, but came and sat on the couch. I grabbed one of his hands with both of mine and held it in my lap.
“This is kind of hard to say, I’ve been trying to think of words that don’t sound dumb ever since I left the office. Um… Kris… I might be young, but I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“I know something’s going on here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you want to… to have sex with me?”
“I told you, I just want to take my time. There’s no hurry.”
I frowned. “I don’t think that’s true. Are you having second thoughts about this whole thing? Have you decided you don’t like the idea of… paying for it? I can understand that, I mean… I don’t like the idea of being paid for it. But I wasn’t lying yesterday. I like you. Nobody else has ever made me feel as sexy as you have. Can’t we concentrate on that? The part of this that’s real?”
“It’s not that.”
“Well, what? Do you ha
ve… a girlfriend somewhere? Fiancé? Are you feeling guilty about cheating on somebody?”
“No.”
I paused for a long, uncomfortable while. “Was it something I did? You can tell me. I can be better.”
Kris shot to his feet. “No! I don’t have time for the Spanish Inquisition. Everything’s fine. It’s been a long day, I’ve got to get some sleep, I’ll see you in the morning.”
He stormed off to his room and my hands flopped back to my lap, unable to keep a hold of him. His door shut with a conclusiveness that couldn’t have been any clearer if it could speak English.
After a few minutes, I stood and retreated to my room. I needed help, and there was only one person I could turn to.
I wrote an email to Ada on my phone, begging for some ideas, and sent it before getting ready for bed. For a couple hours, I tossed and turned, checking my phone what seemed like every few minutes. It was after 2am when I saw a reply.
[email protected] Subject: Re: Help!
Hi Amy,
This sure does sound strange, I’ve never come across any client behaving quite like this before. That said, you still have time to get through this, so don’t panic yet.
Every man has a weakness when it comes to women, we just need to find out what his is. I promise you, there is something you can do that he will not be able to resist. You’re an IFS girl, if you can’t do it, then nobody can and the human race is probably doomed to go extinct due to lack of interest in breeding.
Below is my go-to list of kinks. You’ve got some outfits there with you, for some of the others you might need to improvise and find the right equipment. This should be more than enough to keep you busy today, but let me know how it goes and I’ll get the brain trust working on the problem with some more suggestions for tomorrow…
Kris
“I could put a carrot in your ass.”
Hands down, weirdest day of my life. I’d spent a good portion of the night tossing and turning, feeling guilty about everything that had happened with Amy and wondering how she was going to be when she emerged from her bedroom.