by Rachel Nixx
Dominating Anna:
A Fantasy Fulfilled Novella
by
Rachel Nixx
Trained. And Restrained.
Copyright 2012 Rachel Nixx
Discover other titles by Rachel Nixx
at RachelNixx.blogspot.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
About the Author
Chapter One
Anna was doing it. She was really doing it. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she was awake, but the feeling of his eyes on her told her that yes, she was really standing in an abandoned storefront window in the middle of the afternoon, about to strip because a man—a stranger—told her to.
Her fingers fluttered to the wide belt of her dress. Would he—
“No. Did I tell you to do that?” The man’s deep accented voice filled the room just as his shoulders had filled the doorway as he’d entered ten minutes before. Wider than a linebacker, he had a chest as broad as a refrigerator. At least a foot taller than she was at five foot five, she’d expected him to speak more...inarticulately. She’d expected him to grunt, perhaps. He was a goon she’d hired to hurt her. Even the forbidden thought made the vee at her thighs damp.
But this guy spoke in full sentences. Although his eyes looked like he didn’t give a damn about anything, including her, he’d been well-spoken when they’d shaken hands at the entrance to the building.
Corinne, the Fantasy Fulfilled assistant who’d interviewed her had been in the back alley when Anna had arrived on foot. “Anna, this is Zee. He’ll be your operator.”
Her operator. Her nerves drew together tightly, already worried she was doing the wrong thing.
No. She could do this.
Zee. What kind of a name was that? Probably just something he chose trying to be tough. His real name was something soft like Zach. Or maybe it stood for something outlandish like Zebediah, a name he’d be too embarrassed to tell his motorcycle friends. Because of course the man had roared up on a Harley with a rumble like leaden thunder, his leathers creaking as he’d dismounted the bike in the back alley. He’d stomped through the slushy puddles as if he didn’t give a shit about his heavy boots.
“Nice to meet you,” she’d said as politely as if they were meeting on a blind date. Which, she had to admit, they kind of were.
Zee nodded his head, shook her hand—Jesus Christ, the man was huge all over—and brushed by her. “You got it set up yet, Corinne?” He had a thick accent that Anna couldn’t quite place. Eastern European of some sort? But as he spoke to Corinne, ignoring Anna, she noted his English was flawless, as if he’d been here a long time.
He moved ahead of them, flicking on the lights just inside the door. Just a man, going to his job. She was embarrassed to realize that she was the job. What was he thinking now? He was probably worried she’d bolt. What’s with the pale mouse? Will she scurry away before I get paid? Anna hunched her shoulders and followed them through the rear door.
It looked like it had been a small grocery shop at some point, high shelves running the length of the long, narrow room, but it was obvious the space was serving a different purpose now. Illuminated by the large plate glass window at the front, light trickled reluctantly to the back of the space. The architect in Anna noted that the space could be easily transformed—all it would take was knocking out the side wall (certainly not load-bearing) that must hide a cheap storage area and redoing the wood floors. It didn’t even need new ones—the grain of the wood under her heels was fine, probably heart pine from the turn of the last century. Someone could bring them back to a high gloss and remove those awful pressboard shelves, and this would make a perfect space for an art gallery.
In the middle of a forgotten part of Brooklyn. Maybe not.
Dust motes drifted through the air, dancing around the low, dangling hook in the middle of the ceiling.
Anna bit her lip at the sight. Then her feet stopped moving as she noticed the small collection of cheap folding chairs, set up as if for a poetry reading.
She couldn’t, no...this wasn’t going to—
“No one but us today,” said Corinne. She smiled at Anna as if she knew what she was going through. And maybe she did. Had she ever been through this? Or was this just her job? Weirder than barista, not as weird as ferret trainer. Or so Anna assumed. Maybe ferret training was a yawn.
Corinne had told Anna in the interview that she’d be close by, all the time, in case she needed anything, and truthfully, knowing the sweet-looking brunette wasn’t going anywhere made Anna feel better when she thought about being in the presence of Zee, who was currently stomping around in the storage room and cursing under his breath.
Anna scrunched her shoulders tighter. Was he upset he had to be here? With her? Was he disappointed?
“It’s okay,” said Corinne in a soothing voice. “He’s always like this before a scene.”
A scene. This was what she’d wanted.
Why, then, did she feel like running?
Zee was curt to the point of rudeness when Corinne said their time had started. “Stand there.” He pointed to a low platform in front of the plate glass window. Corinne retreated to the back of the store and turned on a small space heater that clicked as it started to glow. The heat would never reach the front of the store where Anna was, and she resigned herself to the low-level shaking she was doing.
Anna’s heart beating so loudly she was sure he could hear it, she made it up the two shallow steps. She was wearing the only pair of black strappy heels she owned. Not exactly fuck-me pump, they were chunky, more sturdy than sexy. She’d thought they were retro when she bought them. Now she wished in vain for stilettos, something—anything—to make her feel a little more confident.
Adjusting her dress so that it didn’t creep up her thighs, she turned to face Zee. “Here?”
He didn’t even look up. He had his cell phone in his hand. Did she matter at all? She was paying to be the target, right? In her interview, that’s what Corinne had promised she would be.
The target of a man’s attention, a man who wanted to hurt her. That was the whole point.
Not to be ignored by a man who had more interest in his emails. She wondered what the scar on his cheek was from, the one that pulled his lip up into a permanent sneer. It should have made him ugly and frightening.
Well. He wasn’t the former, anyway.
Anna cleared her throat.
Nothing. He swiped his thumb across the black phone.
Anna’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. Damn it. She dug her fingers into her palms and finally managed to croak, “Excuse me?”
Zee didn’t even glance up.
“Hey. Am I paying you or what?” There. That was daring. Anna stood straighter.
Slowly, Zee raised his eyes, raking his gaze over her body inch by inch. He barely paused at her heels—he’d probably seen a million spiked stilettos in his time. Nor did he waste time looking at her woolen red and black striped tights. She’d thought they were slightly punk when she’d pulled them up this morning, but now she felt incredibly young in them. They weren’t sexy. They were just itchy.
His eyes did pause at her waist where the red belt pulled in the black shirtdress, and the place where the top of her breasts met the vee at the upper button. She might be plain—her father hadn’t called her Mouse a million times for no reason—but she knew she had a respectable rack. Predictably, he skipped her eyes and looked at her hair. Long and red, Anna considered it her one other good feature. Would he ask if the carpets matched the drapes like most men
in bars did?
“You aren’t paying me,” he said. “You pay Fantasy Fulfilled. They pay me to be in charge.” He seemed to grind his teeth for a moment. Was he that disappointed to be working with her? “That means I’m in charge as of three minutes ago, and you don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
Anna felt her shoulders pull forward again and made a Herculean effort to push them back.
“Take off those silly stockings. Then put the shoes back on.” He pronounced stockings like schtockeengs, and it took a moment for Anna to figure out what he meant.
“Did you hear me?”
Anna nodded quickly. Though Zee’s voice was forceful, he still seemed bored. Fantastic. This was going to end up being the very worst of her bad ideas. Too bad she’d paid for the three sessions up front. They’d been pretty darn clear about their no-refund policy.
At least she’d have something to talk about in therapy.
The stockings were the most ridiculous things he’d ever seen, and Zee had seen a lot of things in his time. There were, of course, always the girls who loved the little kid stuff, the Harajuku girls, the girls who wore Hello Kitty bracelets and carried purses that looked like baby sloths, but this woman wasn’t one of them. He had no idea why she’d decided that thick stockings (his grandmother had had a black and gray pair almost identical) stuffed into wide black heels would be a good idea, but they did nothing for those legs of hers.
He watched, eyes slitted, as she wobbled while taking off her shoes.
It seemed Anna couldn’t figure out how she wanted to get them off. First she bent over at the waist to touch the silver buckle, which made a very pretty line, indeed. But she must have figured out that while in that position, he was able to look straight down her cleavage, also very nice. She stood back up, ankle straps still in place. Then she knelt awkwardly, fumbling at the side of the shoe. She obviously didn’t know that because she was on the riser in that short dress, she was now flashing him. Her panties were bright purple. Huh. He wouldn’t have guessed that. He’d have thought she’d be the kind of girl who favored good old-fashioned black underwear. Or even white. She could rock a virginal white bra and panty, what with that glorious mane of red hair that fell straight and thick, almost to her waist.
But instead, purple. It clashed with the red of her belt, with the red of her tights, with the red of her hair.
It made her more real to him.
Shit. That wouldn’t do.
“Hurry up.” His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be, and she jumped, almost falling over.
Nervous. Good. She should be.
One shoe finally tumbled off, then the other. She stood and wriggled, still awkward, fumbling to roll down the stockings (real ones, he was pleased to note, not the tights all the girls wore now). Her pale legs were even paler when they were back in the shoes. She didn’t bend to fix the straps again, and he didn’t mind. She’d be out of them soon enough.
He checked his cell phone one more time. Not like he’d gotten anything except for a spam advertisement from a glass dildo manufacturer he didn’t care for, but he made sure he read it intently. Ignoring her was making her crazy. The first step.
A long moment later, he looked up. She’d raised her eyes from him and was staring at the hook hanging over his head. Of course she was.
Predictable. They all were.
“Now turn around. Hands up, on the glass.”
Finally. They were going to do something now. Anna spun and leaned toward the window, putting the flats of her palms against the cold glass.
“Spread your legs.”
Damn. She should have buckled the shoes again, but she hadn’t wanted to bend over in front of the frosty Zee again. His clinical gaze chilled her, and she was glad to have him behind her now. But as she took a step apart, her ankles wobbled.
“Wider.”
She could still leave. Corinne had made that clear. Anna had chosen a safe word—banana was the only thing she’d been able to come up with under pressure—and if she said it at any point, it was all off. She could say it now as she walked past Zee to the rear door. She could walk down through the alley out to the street where she could catch the N to the 3 line home.
But instead, she took a deliberate step to the left, wider than was comfortable, as wide as her shirtdress would let her. The hem dug into the tops of her thighs, and she wanted to hike the skirt up an inch or two, but that would have meant taking her hands off the glass.
Outside, the afternoon sky was growing dark again, the black clouds racing in. Anna had never been to this part of Brooklyn before, a definitively ungentrified spot. An automotive assembly plant squatted across the street, its smokestack belching black smoke.That would never have done in Park Slope, not even three miles away. An old man pushing a shopping cart clattered past, and Anna froze, willing him not to look to his right, into the window.
And he didn’t—he just kept walking, his lips moving as he pulled on his beard.
The outsides of her feet ached already, and she wondered how long she’d be able to keep up this stance in unbuckled shoes. That had been stupid of her.
Zee must have noticed the strain in her calves. She hadn’t heard him approaching, but suddenly he was behind her, the platform bowing with his weight. One large hand went to the back of her knee, and the other to the loose strap. “Lift your foot.”
She did. He took off her shoe, letting his thumb graze her sole. A shiver ran all the way up to the top of her head, prickling her scalp. She hadn’t expected a single tender touch from the man—that wasn’t what she’d signed up for.
Somehow, it scared her more than anything else.
His hands moved to her other leg. “Now the other one.”
The wooden floor felt rough on Anna’s feet. She liked it. She could feel a small knothole under the ball of her foot, and she wondered how many other feet had stood right here, had felt the same thing.
Well, most girls probably knew to do their damn shoes up and got to keep them on. What else was she going to screw up? She wondered if Corinne had watched Zee take off her shoes, and if she was judging her for it.
Corinne was the reason Anna was actually going through with this. Okay, to begin with, her friend Jess came back from a Fantasy Fulfilled trip. Not only did Jess come back with hot stories of being fucked in public, she came back with a man. In love, for chrissakes. She and Jake hadn’t spent a night apart in the six months since her Latvian adventure.
“You have to do it,” Jess had said at their favorite bar.
It had been a Wednesday, all their friends there for pub quiz. While they waited for the quiz master to tally votes, their table chatted. Jake was arguing good-naturedly with Wendy as Tom and Leticia made out. No one was listening to her conversation with Jess.
“Why?” Anna asked. Jess couldn’t know about her late-night fantasies, the thoughts that, along with her trusty Hitachi Magic Wand, regularly got her off.
“Because you need it.”
“Should I be offended?” Anna asked lightly, her heart rate quickening.
Jess raised an eyebrow. “When I told you the story of going with Jake on our trip, your cheeks went scarlet. Did you know that?”
“I was just embarrassed.”
“You weren’t. I can tell the difference. Hey, I know Jake would give you the friend discount.”
“What?” Jake tuned in and Anna wanted to die.
“You’d let her try Fantasy Fulfilled. Right?”
Jake acted like it was nothing. “Of course. Anything you need. Just call the office.” He handed her a black business card.
Call the office. So casual. As if it were equivalent to making an appointment for a haircut.
That week, Anna had brought it up in therapy. She’d expected her therapist, Kim, to tell her it was a terrible idea. She needed Kim to say that, so she could get it out of her head.
Instead, though, Kim had astonished her. “Do it.”
“Excuse me?’ Anna wa
s so startled she dropped the stress ball she always mangled during their sessions.
“What have you been working on for the last year?’
Anna thought for a moment. They’d been working on a shitload of things. What was the most important? “Trust.” And the fact that she had none. Her assholic father had seen to that.
“Exactly.”
“You think hiring someone to inflict pain on me will help that?”
“I do.” Kim’s voice was gentle, as always.
And as usual, she waited for Anna to figure it out on her own. It took a few moments of furious thought but then Anna said, “So I hire someone to hurt me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In order to learn that I can be hurt and still survive.”
Kim’s smile was her reward.
Now, standing in the window in Brooklyn, Anna held her breath. It would come at any moment, she knew. Zee would haul off and smack her ass. Or maybe her legs? Would he use just his hands? Or—she shivered—a tool of some sort? She’d had a boyfriend once who wanted to spank her, and the one time he’d tried, she’d swung around and slapped him, the only time she’d ever hit anyone. She’d been horrified by her reaction and had broken up with him soon after, knowing that she was overreacting to what should have been a playful, spontaneous sexual act. Plus, the mark she’d raised on his jaw with her slap made her feel sick with guilt.
But it was different in this cold room. She could feel Zee standing behind her. He was utterly silent and just beyond her peripheral vision. Anna couldn’t hear his breath even when she strained to.
Instead, she heard a burst of laughter from outside the glass. A young couple, no more than twenty-two or so, walked into Anna’s view. The girl slipped on the icy sidewalk, her breath visible. As she clutched at her guy, her eyes met Anna’s in the window.
Anna couldn’t imagine what she thought. Anna wasn’t indecent, after all. She was still fully clothed, though her dress rode up her thighs and her cold nipples were tight against the fabric. She was barefoot with her hands against the glass, that was all.