Discipline

by Emma York

  “Of course,” he replied, catching my look and understanding.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Lucy said in the doorway.

  “Let me have a few days away from the office before the conference?” I replied.

  “Is that why you did this? To butter me up?”

  “No, I did it to stop you freezing. You’re lucky my favourite clothes shop is so near the park.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a warm look on her face. For a moment neither of us said anything.

  “I’ll see you Friday at the hotel,” I said, breaking the silence at last. “Should be fun.”

  “Long drive though, right?”

  “I’m getting the train up there.”

  She smiled. “Well enjoy being crammed in. I’m being driven.”

  “Are you indeed?”

  “In the company car no less.”

  I know, I thought. I laid on the car for her. That was why I was taking the train. “Do you want a lift home?” I asked. “If my car’s not blocked in of course.”

  “I’m good,” she replied, brushing down the front of the cardigan. “See you Friday.”

  She was gone a second later. I watched her walk away before turning and heading back inside. “Thank you for that, David,” I said. “I appreciate you not giving the game away.”

  “Maybe give me a raise in return?” he said before laughing. “No worries, boss. New sub?”

  “Maybe,” I said with a smile. “We shall see.”

  SEVEN - LUCY

  The one good thing about my fall into the pond was that my handbag didn’t join me. That meant it was waiting when I climbed out. At least I had a dry purse, phone, and car key even if I was soaked, freezing, and covered in mud.

  It was a small positive thing but it was all that stopped me from bursting into tears as I shivered on the grass. I had the money to get a cab home without needing to run a hair dryer over the few bank notes in my possession first. Leaving the boutique, I walked to the taxi rank at the end of the street, glad that the number of commuters had reduced enough for three cars to be sat in a row, engines idling.

  Once sat in the back of a cab on the way home, looking out at the city, I became lost in thought. I was trying to think about the conference, not about what had just happened.

  My mind kept taking me back to it anyway, glimpses of the emotions I’d felt when Bill helped undress me. His hands moving from one button to the next.

  Could I have managed to get changed on my own? That was the important question. It was possible. It would have been difficult with my fingers as numb as they were but I could probably have done it. So why did I ask for his help?

  Conference. Think about networking, about finding some new books, new authors, new distributors. I was looking forward to the talk about the ebook market, something I wanted to bring up with Snow Day, the need to push harder into ebook sales. Think about that.

  Don’t think about asking him to help you undress. Don’t think about his hands sliding your tights down, the way he so expertly unhooked your bra. Ignore the tightening of your chest when he did it, the stiffening of your nipples, the fluttering butterflies in your tummy. Don’t think about any of that.

  Think about why he asked for a few days off. Was that his plan all along? Get you worked up then play you like a toy drum, use his masculinity to wheedle some extra holiday time?

  I could have asked him what he needed the time off for but the truth was I was scared to know. I got the feeling it was to spend time with his latest supermodel partner or three. Finding out he had a partner would have been as bad as finding out he was single. If he had a partner, I would need to stamp even harder on the thoughts I wasn’t allowing myself to have. If he was single, that would make it even more difficult to ignore those thoughts.

  I concentrated so hard on thinking about anything but him that by the time I got out of the cab, I had a headache building.

  I paid the driver, leaving him to head off as I walked up the path and in through the front door.

  Anna was in the kitchen, slicing her way through a mountain of carrots. “Making soup?” I asked, peering around the enormous orange pile.

  “Ready for the food club tomorrow. New clothes?”

  It all came out in one long breathless sentence. “I fell in a pond and Bill rescued me and I was freezing cold and he took me into Future Trends and bought me these and oh God, Anna.” I paused to take a breath before continuing. “He helped me get undressed and his hands were all over me and I wanted him to take the rest of my clothes off and what the hell am I going to do?”

  She put her knife down, wheeling herself away from the table, looking at me closely. “First of all you need a cup of tea, stat.”

  While the kettle boiled, she insisted I go and sit in the living room. “I’ll be through in a minute,” she said, pointing firmly at the door. I went.

  I sat on the sofa and waited. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have kept my feelings to myself. I felt embarrassed, like when I was a schoolgirl with a crush on one of my teachers. Mr Kennedy. I had made the mistake of telling just one other girl and by the end of the day, the entire school knew. That was excruciating. This felt even worse.

  She appeared with a tray on her lap, tea and a crescent of biscuits on a plate beside it. “Drink this,” she said, passing a mug to me. She took the other and looked at me closely again.

  “He knows everyone,” I said, turning away, unable to meet her gaze. “Just told the shop assistant to go and off he went like they were best friends. It’s Mr Kennedy all over again.”

  “Tell me everything from the beginning,” Anna said. “And do it slowly.”

  I told her. She listened carefully, taking occasional sips of her tea as mine grew colder. I was too worked up to notice it. When I was finally done, Anna sighed. “You need to be careful,” she said. “I get the feeling he might just be trying to bang the boss, get bragging rights in the office, tell them all what colour nipples you’ve got.”

  “Really? You really think so?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know why else he’d spend so much money on you. He’s not rich, is he?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So why buy you new clothes from there? Why undress you in a bloody expensive store?”

  I hadn’t mentioned the fact that I’d asked him to do it. That wasn’t something I wanted to admit, even to Anna.

  “I think at the conference you should make sure you only see him in the public areas, no sitting at the bar together, no eating lunch together. Make him see that you’re his boss, not his latest conquest. Remind him of his place, tell him what to do, make him do the running around for you.”

  “That I can do.”

  It was a fine plan. Until the conference centre emailed me.

  They waited until Thursday night to do it. I read it out to Anna when it arrived.

  We apologise for the inconvenience but unfortunately the rooms have been accidentally overbooked. As a consequence, we can only offer you one bedroom for the Friday and Saturday nights rather than the two you requested. We are happy to refund you for the second room and pay for a stay for one of your party in a nearby hotel to make up for the inconvenience. If this is acceptable or you wish to cancel your booking without penalty, please get in touch on…

  Then there was a phone number. “It’s fine,” Anna said. “You tell him he’s got to go sleep in whatever hotel they find for him. That works out even better for you, less chance of getting drunk and waking up in bed next to him.”

  “Do you really think I’d do that?”

  “I’ve seen how drunk you can get. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a hockey team in there with you both, sticks and all.”

  I scowled at her and she stuck her tongue out in response. “Seriously, it’s not a problem, Lucy. Just relax. It’s going to be fine. You’ve got through the last two days fine. You can get through the weekend fine too. He’ll move on to his next target and
you can get on with your job.”

  I hadn’t told her how I spent Wednesday and Thursday, how I’d kept looking out of my office window in the hope that he’d appear at his desk, how I kept thinking about his hands on my blouse buttons, his fingers rolling my tights down my legs as I stood quivering before him. How I could tell him we only had one hotel room booked and therefore we would have to share a bed. I kept those thoughts to myself.

  On Friday, Anna saw me off. The car was waiting outside. I had asked her if she wanted to come with me but she refused.

  “Keeping an eye on you means keeping a low profile,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be up there tonight in full spy mode, newspaper with eye holes cut out, flower in my lapel, cyanide capsules under my seat, codes to the country’s nuclear weapons stuffed in my bra.”

  “Why are the country’s nuclear codes at a publisher’s convention?”

  “Last place a spy would think to look.”

  “Makes sense.”

  I said my goodbyes and then headed off alone after arranging to get together at nine that evening in my hotel room. I was supposed to have my first meeting with Bill at six, once we had the weekend schedule in our hands. It had been sent out in advance but was disconcertingly vague about the timings for everything.

  I had a couple of hours to talk to Bill, just to talk to him, nothing else. Then I could catch up with Anna and she could remind me that I was there for work, not pleasure. I could also get her advice if anything else cropped up. It was going to be fine.

  It was four hours from London to Harrogate if all went to plan. I had a file on the seat next to me and I spent the first portion of the drive going through it, looking at the notes taken from previous years, wanting to appear knowledgeable when I got there.

  I’d always been like that. When I was little I was desperate to be clever but no matter how hard I tried or how much I learned, I was always outshone by my big sister, the genius.

  I wasn’t bitter, I was more in awe of her, the way she effortlessly swallowed information like most people swallowed tea. The entire family got behind her, scrimping and saving to pay for her to study in Geneva, the only place teaching a course advanced enough for someone like her.

  I never told her how I’d had to take on an after school job to help pay for it. I didn’t want her to feel guilty. She was out there at that moment, trying to save the world, I wasn’t even sure which country she was in anymore. It had been a long time since she’d been in touch.

  If she saw the file of notes, she’d have them memorised in minutes. It took me over an hour to even start to make any headway. Another hour and I was starting to feel I knew some of what was going on. At least I should be able to answer some of the questions likely to be thrown at me. I knew which authors were attending and what books they had written before, for the most part. I should do okay.

  If I thought about it, maybe that was part of the reason Bill intimidated me so much. He seemed so much cleverer than me. I couldn’t even put my finger on why I thought that. He was only an office drone, not an executive, just doing the day to day grind. But he had an aura of power and knowledge around him, as if he was in charge of the entire world and knew what every part of it was doing. Was that why he frightened me? Or was it my feelings for him that frightened me? The deep blue eyes of a man who I yearned for whenever I relaxed and let my guard down?

  I shook my head, turning back to the notes. Stop thinking about him.

  Then my phone rang.

  It was Bill.

  “I’ve just seen the email,” he said before I’d even had a chance to speak. “Only one room available. Which of us gets it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I knew I could have told him it was mine but I just couldn’t do it. Even the sound of his voice over the phone was enough to make mega-bitch crumble. That was the best I could do, my heart pounding just from speaking to him.

  “How about whoever gets there first can have it?”

  “Are you making a bet with me?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Whereabouts are you?”

  “Still at home. What do you reckon? Up for it?”

  I smiled. I was more than halfway there. “Fine. You’re on.”

  “If I’m late, you punish me by taking my room. If I get there first, I punish you.”

  Then he hung up, leaving me bewildered by his choice of words. What did he mean by punishing?

  A flash of lust came into my mind, a single image of me bent over with my skirt around my waist, panties around my ankles, him behind me, hand spanking my ass. Then I blinked the image away. He didn’t mean that. He meant him taking the room. I was reading too much into things.

  It didn’t matter what he thought anyway. I was going to get there first. I already had a two hour lead on him. There was no way he could catch up. Then I was going to take the room. He was going to take a room in another hotel and any risk of me getting in trouble for being seduced by an employee was gone.

  I undid the window to let in some air. Suddenly it felt very hot in the car.

  EIGHT - BILL

  “I said you needed to be careful.”

  I hung up the phone and slipped it back into my pocket. On the other side of the table, Ted had just finished eating and was shaking his head. “You’re playing with fire.”

  I pushed my chair back, too far. It hit the person sitting at the table behind me. They grumbled before turning back to their meal. Around us the sounds of the restaurant faded into the background. I was thinking about Lucy, about the things I was going to do to her when I got to the hotel.

  “You don’t approve?” I asked, picking up my wine glass.

  “Of you fucking an employee of yours? I couldn’t care less. What worries me is you doing what you always do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Fucking her, turning her into a sub, then tossing her aside and moving on to the next one.”

  “So what if I do? What does it matter?”

  “It matters because this one works for you.”

  “So?”

  “She’s in charge of adult fiction. Do you want another Sandra on your hands?”

  “I never fucked Sandra.”

  “I mean someone who could screw over the department to get revenge on you for breaking her heart, someone who might decide to take you to court for sexual harassment, or worse.”

  “I only ever do things with explicit consent, you know that.”

  “Consent’s a tricky thing though isn’t it, Bill? Sometimes they’re begging you to stop only because they want you to ignore their pleas. Can you tell the difference?”

  I thought for a moment. “It’ll be fine.”

  “What if she isn’t into submitting? What if she doesn’t want to be punished? What do you do then?”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “That simple? This woman you’ve been going on about for the last hour, how much fun you’re going to have when you get her into the hotel bedroom, you’ll just stop and walk away?”

  I nodded. “Absolutely.”

  I knew that Ted was looking out for me but I could handle myself. It wasn’t the first time I’d played with someone new. It wouldn’t be the last. I already knew she wanted to be dominated, she wanted to submit. I could tell by the way she talked to me, the way she looked at me. I just needed a little time alone with her and then I’d draw out the truth, make her reveal who she really was.

  “You didn’t see her in Future Trends.”

  “Just be careful, Bill. You’re clawing this company back up from the brink and you’re still sorting out what Sandra did. The last thing you need is another complication.”

  “On the subject of which, Malcolm has got things nailed down with her and Marty.”

  “Oh yes?” If he noticed I was changing the subject, he politely chose not to mention it.

  “We can cancel the contract if he doesn’t provide a manuscript by the end of today but only if we have another book lin
ed up to take its place.”

  “Is he likely to have it with you by the end of today?”

  “I doubt he’s written more than a few pages. The key part of the contract was what happens if we don’t have another book. He gets to keep the advance and gets a huge severance pay for us terminating the deal.”

  “So you need another book. Have you got one?”

  “Nothing good enough to be a blockbuster.”

  “What’re going to do then?”

  “Hopefully find something suitable at this conference. Even his lawyers won’t work weekends. I want to go in next week and wave a future bestseller in Marty’s face, show him he can’t walk all over us, send him back to Sandra and wish them a happy future together.”

  “Want me to put the feelers out?”

  “If you find a book before I do, I’ll buy you an island.”

  “I’ve already got one.”

  “Yeah but yours is full of monkeys.”

  “I like monkeys. Look, you better be going if you’re going to win this bet.”

  I glanced at the time. “I suppose so. See you next week sometime?”

  “Be careful, Bill.”

  “I promise. Fuck, then chuck but with a signed legally binding contract that says she won’t sue squeezed into the foreplay somewhere.”

  He smiled but I knew he was right. I did need to be careful. As I drove away from the restaurant, I wondered if I might be better off not sleeping with her. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of women happy to climb into bed with me. I could find someone else at the conference to take back to my room, to keep me company.

  But I knew I was lying to myself. I was going to take her to bed. I knew from the moment I helped her undress in Future Trends that I was going to fuck her. I had the case I needed in the back of my car to make it happen.

  The only real question was how to handle things afterwards. What if, horror of horrors, she wanted some kind of relationship with me? That wasn’t who I was. I was used to the single life. I had seen what marriage had done to Ted. It wasn’t for me.