Sublime Trust

by Jaye Peaches

  Anthony left the room while Jason gulped his wine.

  “Are you two all right now?” I asked.

  Jason refilled his glass. “Hopefully. However, he still hasn’t decided, has he? At least he doesn’t think I’m out to destroy him. You were scared, why?” He laid his hand over mine, giving it a squeeze.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t see that silly comb. I saw something else and then it got hazy. Sorry. Didn’t mean to, you know, add to your stresses.”

  “Babe, you certainly pick your moments. You really thought we were going to hurt each other?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t know if you were both in control of your faculties when you walked into the kitchen.”

  “Gemma. When have I been out of control of my faculties around you?” His eyes glinted in the kitchen lights, and I bent to kiss the back of his hand before caressing my cheek against it.

  “Will he take your offer up?” I asked.

  He stroked my hair. All our little gestures calmed my frayed nerves. “I think so. I don’t think he will say anything tonight. He has Gillian to deal with, first then we’ll get on with the business of sorting the mess out. It’s his company, and he will have to be in control. I’m not going to make him sign anything over this time. Just give him the best people.”

  I leaned forward to him. “I hope he says thank you this time.”

  Anthony returned holding two objects: a cane and flogger.

  “Er. I found these. What the fuck do you two get up to?” His eyes widened, but not in horror, more an expression of suppressed humour.

  “You interrupted us at play,” explained Jason. “We’d finished, thereabouts.”

  “You have me apologise to my wife while these are lying next to me?” He shook his head and laid the implements on the table, nudging them with the tips of his fingers.

  “How is Gillian?” asked Jason

  “Relieved. She accepted my apology, so am I, too—relieved, that is. Her eye isn’t as bad as she thought. A bag of frozen peas helped. The kids have gone to bed, and her mum is ready to stew me alive. But I told Gillian I’m going to accept your offer of help and, all being well, things are going to be sorted. You said you’d arrange a car for me? I’m shattered. I want to hold my wife and tell her I love her.”

  “Of course. We both do love our wives, Anthony,” Jason patted his back.

  Anthony paused and faced me with a raised eyebrow. “What happen to you, Gemma? To make you so scared of us?”

  “I wasn’t scared of you. Fear runs rampant in me, sometimes. Ask Gillian, she knows. Tell her she can tell you what happened to me. I don’t mind.”

  Anthony pursed his lips. “Okay, whatever that means. I will ask her. You are all right? Both of you? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? Other than hit my wife in the face and accuse my brother of betrayal.”

  “No. Everything is fine.” Jason moved towards the doorway. “Let me see you out.”

  With Anthony on his way home to a reunion with his wife and earful from his mother-in-law, Jason took me to bed, where we made wonderful, gentle, life-affirming love.

  As he dimmed the lights, a sudden realisation hit me.

  I sprang up in bed and leant over him. “Jason, you had plenty of time to tidy away. Did you deliberately leave the flogger and cane out?”

  His expression transformed into a demon smile. “Yes. I knew he would feel bad about hitting Gillian.”

  I huffed at his lack of responsibility. “So you left them out to make him think he could excuse what he did? Like, I hit Gemma, so go ahead thump your wife, too!”

  “He couldn’t hide his grin when he came back into the kitchen. No, babe. Under that smile, he felt bad. He has finally grasped the concept of consent. He lashed out at Gillian in a fit of anger—uncontrolled rage. We don’t play that way. You and I are different. Hopefully, he will stop seeing me as a violent bully. It’s just history between Anthony and me, babe. Don’t worry.”

  I didn’t say anything more because it made sense. Jason had tried to show Anthony how much he had changed from the childhood brother.

  Resolving Anthony’s problems kicked into action. Jason arranged to meet Anthony and go through the paperwork, emails, and whatever records he held on his suppliers.

  A few days later, with Jason driving us back home after an evening spent at Anthony’s house, I asked him how the spell with his brother had gone, and Jason told me they had made progress with the contract. He’d been careful not to point out his brother’s mistakes in handling his suppliers. “Humpty dumpty has come crashing down off the wall. There wasn’t any point in asking who pushed him.”

  “So how are the king’s men doing?” I asked.

  “Oh, I found the contracts weren’t watertight, no penalties for changing conditions, etcetera, things a decent procurement team would pick holes in. I will send my lawyers into the fray, and, as you know, my lawyers are renowned for winning. I will choose the most intimidating ones for the fun of it.”

  “Jason! You can be a bully still.” I shook my head in mock disgust.

  “Not a bully, a billionaire, darling. I make money by being nice to people.”

  “You said nice!” I goaded him with the forbidden word.

  “On this occasion, I meant the derogatory form of nice. Surface pleasantries hiding my well-known ruthless streak.”

  Why wonder he hated me using the word if he saw it as deceitful.

  “So, nothing you say is what you’re really thinking? Which makes you dishonest in my opinion. When you make love to me, you say nice things to me.”

  “Don’t go in a huff; that’s the other form of nice. The one you so eloquently avoid using so not to offend me. With you, babe, nice is always your nice, not mine.”

  Chapter 9. Working Life

  Finding Jason not in his study but stretched out on the bed with his eyes shut, I lay next to him. I rested my hand on his chest, feeling the reassuring rise and fall. The man never seemed to get sick, yet I sometimes fretted he might be harbouring ill health that would manifest itself one day out of the blue.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” His eyelids didn’t flicker. “Difficult day.”

  “Can I do anything for you?” I risked letting my hand drift down to his waistband.

  “No.”

  My hand ceased moving. “Sure?”

  “Shut up,” he snapped.

  We lay for a while, quiet and still. The birds sang, and the leaves rustled against the window. A lovely Wednesday evening, which we weren’t enjoying.

  Throughout all of Jason’s efforts to sort out his brother’s struggling business, he’d his own to manage. His work ethic remained strong even with arrival of fatherhood. What had changed were his ambitions. The expansion of his empire was no longer his primary goal. Consolidation and even contraction occupied his endeavours.

  Jason’s corporate headquarters managed a conglomerate of subsidiaries, which he’d amassed over fifteen years, focused in finance and legal services. Located predominantly in Europe and North America, his companies were aligned under divisions providing the corporate ethos, common policies, and shared support functions.

  Each new acquisition would have included some unique aspect as well as duplication. There had to be a fit with his current portfolio. Elements that didn’t match, he divested and sold on, stripping out unwanted wastage by merging subsidiaries with similar functions, and the activity brought out his uncompromising nature. Shutting locations resulted in redundancies—why have a multitude of peripheral offices providing the same support services when his own divisional ones sufficed?

  With his empire fixed in size and location, he’d decided against expanding, and consolidation became his goal. Weeding out excessive expenditure, non-profitable sections, and putting a rocket up the poor performers became his focus. Wherever he went, he created a nervous workforce who checked their bottom lines and head count to see if they were vulnerable for the chop.

  If st
ress affected Jason, he never stated it. He’d chosen the nature of his career and accepted the bad times with the good. He didn’t care if is workforce failed to adore him; being respected and admired by his peers fed his ego.

  The fact he’d camped on the bed and not in his study, the minimal dialogue and shadows under his eyes, told me my husband wasn’t enjoying his work as much as he used to. It troubled me that he concentrated on negative activities—divesting and selling assets wasn’t healthy for a man who liked to build and expand.

  I supported him as I best I could. After all, I was the asset who distracted, entertained, and relieved him of burdens.

  Suddenly, he moved, flipping me over onto my belly and lying over me. My heart pounded, and my lungs were crushed by his weight. He sniffed my hair while, below, his rock hardness pressed against my bottom. The warning had been given—he wanted to unleash himself on me.

  “Do it,” I blurted.

  I recognised the signs. The lack of foreplay, sexual nuances, or anything smacking of a romantic warm-up. He didn’t need my permission. Quite the contrary, he could take what he wanted without any consideration for me. Nevertheless, I was his wife, and he had to hear my acceptance from time to time, especially when his sadism reared its head. Not an ugly head. I found it quite fulfilling and alluring. However, I needed to warm to him.

  “What do you want?” he asked, as if I had the choice.

  I hated making those kinds of decisions. It served to remind me I submitted and he liked me to feel helpless. “Whatever you want, Sir.”

  He opted for flogging me. The softening up of my tender flesh. He laid the flogger across my back and bottom as I lay naked and face down on the bed. In the end, the hard surface of the hairbrush met his requirements. I buried my face in a pillow and took his blows, counting them out in a muffled voice. Such a hussy, I was sopping by the time the handle of the brush broke off.

  “Shit!” He tossed the two pieces to one side. “Iron-clad arse, is that what this is?” He squeezed my fiery cheeks.

  “It’s not my fault,” I whimpered.

  He snorted in a derisory fashion. “How many did we reach?”

  We? “Eighty–five, Sir.”

  Days like this showed me my pain threshold shifted meteorically upwards. He rubbed oil into my inflamed cheeks, cold lubricant between my crack, and entered me.

  Pausing to let me accommodate his girth, he snarled in my ear, “I’m going to get one of those inflatable butt plugs and pump you up inside. Stretch this arsehole wide for me.” My belly flip-flopped at his threat, and he pushed past my sphincter muscle with ease.

  The sensation of fullness overwhelmed, and I moaned with the sensations—sore arse on the outside, soon to be sore on the inside.

  “Yes, Master,” I said, while thinking do it, do it, do it.

  “Are you going to come for me?” He grunted between the exertions and the robust dips of his cock.

  “Yes. Yes!”

  “Then start begging, and I might let you.”

  Begging! How I loved to beg.

  “I’m yours, Sir. Please let me show you.” I repeatedly offered my orgasm as if it was a sacrifice for him.

  Each time he greeted my plea with a “Wait,” and accompanied his demand with a tickle of my sensitive clitoris. He moved his finger around, lifting my little organ out of its covering, exposing it to his merciless teasing.

  Stimulated to the point of euphoria, I couldn’t speak. Instead, I muttered small sounds of delirium, shaking in a fever of arousal. Sheets crumpled in my hands and, above me, Jason bore down, enjoying my crippling hunger for an orgasm. I squeezed his cock. I could drive him wild, too.

  Sliding in and out, he increased his pace, using the full length of his shaft to delve into my belly, forcing me to become more pliable and giving. Smacking his hips against my bottom, his rough antics continued until he relented. “You are mine. Mine. Show me.”

  I did, quite spectacularly, as if I was his puppet on many strings yanked all over the place. He pumped his vital fluid, bathing me with his hot and creamy essence, which, I suspected, would leak out for some time to come.

  Nestled in his arms, I asked, “Is your day any better, Sir?”

  “It’s ending quite well,” he admitted.

  “Seriously, you are alright? I worry.” I nuzzled against him.

  “Gem, what’s with the anxieties?”

  “You go to the gym, you eat well, and all that. But healthy-looking people drop dead when they’re stressed....”

  “Babe. I go for a checkup every year. My doc things I’m inhuman. Work…is work. I can deal with it while I have you.” He kissed my forehead.

  “You do enjoy it? Work, I mean.”

  “Not every day. Today was not a day for enjoying work. On balance, I’m happy, babe.” He shifted onto his side. “How’s the arse?”

  “Today, she is not enjoying herself, but, on balance, my arse is very happy.”

  He laughed at my comparison.

  “My clit is extremely happy. So thank you for that.”

  His face became serious again, and he traced his finger around my right nipple, tickling it. “I can’t always be what you want me to be. I’m trying to be consistent.”

  “I understand.” I trapped his hand under mine. “If you want to end our agreement, go back to the bedroom-only dominance—”

  He shot his hand up and over my mouth, smothering my last few words. “No. We’re not going back. At least, I’m not. Bear in mind, I’m balancing many spinning plates, and I don’t want you to be one of them. I need you, babe. Your submission and love.”

  “You have them, always.” I kissed his hair, those wondrous golden locks.

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  Knowing he was dealing with work issues, I tried to keep my own problems out of his eyes and ears. All I needed to do was progress my art gallery, which I did with as little fuss as possible. My part-time work remained sporadic and without a rigid timetable, as I wanted to be there if Jason needed me.

  I tried to encourage him to have lunch away from the office with Joshua and me. However, the tactic wasn’t always a success as he fobbed me off with meetings. I offered to bring him homemade sandwiches, instead. He accepted the suggestion, and I arrived a few days after his stress-laden Wednesday to find his office door wide open and no sign of Jason.

  “Sorry, Mrs Lucas, he’s held up somewhere on the fourth floor,” said Melissa. “No Joshua?”

  “No.” Obviously, since I was quite alone. “With the nanny.”

  I deposited the sandwiches on his desk and sat in his leather chair admiring the view of the city through the vast window. I glanced at my wristwatch; still no sign of him.

  I abandoned his chair. “Melissa, where would I find Penny Ryan?”

  She checked her computer and gave me Penny’s location on the fifth floor. Penny was a former colleague from my short spell working for Jason’s company, a person I had avoided meeting for a long time. I had originally categorised her as a bitch with no redeeming features. However, she’d mellowed since her mother’s death, and we’d managed to form a kind of friendship.

  I located the fifth-floor office space and found her little desk in amongst many others all lined up in rows. She stabbed at her keyboard, her decorated nails clattering on the plastic, and I held back, feeling a little guilty about interrupting her.

  “Penny?” I edged closer.

  She thumped a hand to her chest. “Good grief, Gemma. You made me jump.” She rose and we exchanged the customary non-contact peck on the cheek.

  “How are you?” she asked, glancing past me as if she expected Jason to loom behind me.

  “Good.”

  “Your little boy?” She offered me a nearby chair.

  “Growing.” I showed her a small photo, which I kept in my handbag.

  “Oh, he doesn’t half look like his daddy,” she remarked, handing me it back.

  “Yes, doesn’t he,” I agreed, tucking it back
in my purse.

  Others in the room took note of our conversation, their heads bobbing up and down. I doubted they knew who I was because I rarely circulated around the building during my visits.

  We chatted. Having touched on my personal matters, she revealed her recent engagement, and I congratulated her.

  “I have to go,” I said, rising from my seat.

  “Thanks for dropping by. Lovely to see you.”

  For once, I thought she meant it and I did, too. Our past forgiven, her bitchy nature vanquished, and she’d found love. Satisfied my time had been well spent, I went in search of my lover.

  I strolled back to the lifts and halted for a while to view a communal notice board, which was covered in a mixture of posters for social events and corporate notices. I recognised a few familiar names from my short period at the company.

  “Can I help you?” I turned to find a young man with a narrow face and rigid shoulders.

  I didn’t recognise him. He seemed pensive, eyeing my neckline, rather than my face. I remembered I never wore an ID badge. Jason had one—for swiping access to the gym or secure areas like the server room—but he kept it in his wallet. I was a wandering, unidentified visitor, something not allowed. The man was being cautious.

  “No, no. I’m on my way to meet someone,” I explained, fiddling with my necklace.

  “On this floor? Because I can escort you if you’re lost,” he offered.

  The officious type, probably new to the company or a stickler for the rules. Jason would like him.

  I smiled. “No, I’m not lost. I used to work here.” I pointed down the corridor.

  “Have you mislaid your pass?” He waved his lanyard. “I can take you to security for a new one.”

  The telltale heat rose into my cheeks. I edged my way down the corridor, backwards. “No. I’m heading to the top floor.”

  He began to follow me. I began to wonder if he thought I was some spy about to commit corporate espionage.

  “Look I have to be on the top floor. I have a pile of sandwiches that need eating and—”

  “Gemma?” His voice, from the direction of the lifts. I turned to face Jason, who kept his finger on the elevator door button, half in, half out. My young inquisitor backed away.