by Julia Kent
When I looked at the slip of paper with my assignment, I nearly died. He wanted me to clean Asher Landseer’s personal office? Was this a joke? I flipped the paper over, hoping to find some other instructions, but there weren’t any. The room grew hotter. I panicked, wanted to sneak out of the office and back to my typical run of the mill day, but then what? I couldn’t just return to the temp agency.
So wandering down the hallway towards Mr. Landseer’s office, I wondered why I was here again? It was a job, first off. That was a point in its favor. I’d graduated from a good school, though, and received top marks for all of my classes. Nothing perfect, but I was more than adequate. I don’t want to say that this job was beneath me, but I’d expected something better after I left college.
Unfortunately, in hindsight, majoring in English Language and Literature wasn’t a great choice. What use was knowing the thought process behind Shakespeare’s Othello when you applied for a job? Not much, if anything. I’m fairly sure that the cleaning manager would have fired me on the spot instead of giving me a second chance if I’d tried discussing classic literature with him.
To be fair, this was exciting, though. Not cleaning, and not the technicalities of this job, but the place. Never would I have imagined coming here. It took me awhile for the realization to sink in, and I hadn’t even seen much of the interior yet, but I was in the Landseer Tower. Previously owned and operated by Thomas Landseer before his death six years ago, and now owned by his son, Asher Landseer, current head of the Landseer empire.
I knew nothing about Asher, save for what I heard before coming. I was to clean his office, and make it immaculate. Why me? No one would give me a good answer to that, except to say that it shouldn’t be an issue. Asher Landseer was in an important meeting and wouldn’t be around, so I had free reign to clean to my heart’s content and make everything perfect. The usual person who cleaned, some elderly woman, had requested the day off so she could go to her granddaughter’s dance recital.
Nervous already, my anxiety soared when I heard some of the strange things people said about my situation. I passed a couple of men at a soda machine who stared at me, then laughed, saying something along the lines of “I don’t envy her” when they thought I was too far away to hear them. I’d also read, mostly on tabloid covers and entertainment news articles, that Asher was eccentric and reclusive. What did that mean, though? I figured he probably just liked his alone time. It couldn’t be that bad, right? He was married, afterall.
Married, and beautiful beyond words. Not that this should have mattered for much of anything, especially not to me. But whenever I saw his picture, in passing somewhere, my heart jumped a little. A brief quickening of my pulse, an intimate little trill of some private thought singing through my head, and…
Back to work. I reached the office, pulled out the key the manager had given me, and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, I flicked the light switch on and closed the door behind me.
Everything was amazing. He had a desk in the back, like any other office, but behind it was a large, bay-styled window with a reading nook built into the wall. Beside that, cornered off into its own alcove, was a set of floor to ceiling bookcases. A glass wall and door separated the main office section from a private meeting area, and opposite that was a chaise with a small table beside it. The entire office was probably bigger than my apartment, and I used to think I had a pretty nice apartment.
I didn’t have time to admire the place, though. I needed to clean. I searched around for an outlet to plug the vacuum into, then checked for what I should or shouldn’t need to move beforehand. I would need to dust, but I’d do that after I wiped everything down first. God, this job was going to be so boring.
And, everything looked perfect anyways. I tried, I honestly tried, but I couldn’t find anything that looked like it really needed cleaning. Maintaining the atmosphere, I guessed. I couldn’t clean a mess that wasn’t there.
I should have just done that, should have finished cleaning and left, but I was curious. The bookcases called to me, like some siren of the sea from an epic poem. Just what kinds of books did Asher Landseer have? Probably typical business books, sets of legal dictionaries or how-to’s, or unopened and unread classics meant to impress some business associate into thinking he’d read this or that.
He had all those and more. I browsed through his collection of literature, enthralled. The business books weren’t so interesting, but he had a section with newer publications(some from bestselling authors and others from vague unknowns), older classics like Alice in Wonderland and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and everything in between.
My hand crept towards a copy of Dante’s Inferno. Leather bound, with a gold, gilt-stamped title on the cover and spine, and more gilt lining the edges, it looked like a book collector’s dream. I stared at it, rapt, letting my hand caress the cover, feeling the rough leather against my fingertips. The book had a crisp smell with a tinge of masculine warmth, like a man’s freshly worn leather jacket.
There was no possible way Asher Landseer had read this. Absolutely none.
Except when I opened it, it wasn’t stiff. And there were dogears on a few of the pages. I moved to the first, wanting to see what he’d found so interesting, and…
“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straight forward pathway had been lost,” a calm, confident voice said from behind me.
I panicked, tossed the book back onto the bookshelf, and turned to face the unknown speaker. That would have been it, except I was confronted by Asher Landseer himself. He stared at me with his cool, steel blue eyes. He looked none too happy with me intruding on his private space, browsing through his bookcase. His pristine, pitch black suit without a wrinkle anywhere, his short-cropped hair, barely an inch in length, and his sharp, powerful jaw making him look unlike anything I ever imagined a businessman should look like. I briefly imagined him stepping out of a helicopter in a spy movie, playing the role of a debonaire CIA secret agent.
My heart skipped a beat, my pulse soared, and my stomach fluttered. My knees grew weak and I almost couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, like I needed sunglasses to stare at him head on. I tried to step forward and apologize but one of my high heels caught on a bevel in the tiled floor and I toppled forward.
Asher swooped forward and caught me. This isn’t happening, I told myself. This is too strange, too unknown. I must have fallen asleep, or become delirious in his office.
No, I wasn’t. No sooner than he caught me, the collector’s copy of Dante’s Inferno fell from the shelf I’d tossed it on. I watched it hit the floor, cover and pages splitting open as it descended, and then… crack!
The book’s binding broke, spilling its contents all over the floor. Pages, separated, completely out of order, lay scattered around the bookcase alcove in his office. One of them, another dogeared page, escaped from the rest and landed at Asher’s feet. He set me aside like a bag of groceries and bent to pick up the page.
“One ought to fear those things only that have the power of doing harm,” he said, reading a passage from the page. “The others not, for they are not dreadful.”
Poignant, I thought, and absolutely correct. It was as if Dante had seen into the future, noticed this situation, and thought it amusing to write about it.
Amusing for Dante, and horrifying for me.
“I’m so sorry, sir. Mr. Landseer, I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. I…”
He turned to me, rage in his eyes. I could almost see a tiny spark of red lighting up the very center of his icy blue irises. Tossing the page aside, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me through the open glass door into his private meeting room.
“Sir, I—”
Without listening, he tossed me onto his meeting room table and glared at me. I wasn’t sure what to do, wasn’t sure what to think. What was going on? I inched away from him, my hands pressed into the smooth, alder wood table as I tried to get away. He would accept
none of that.
Grabbing my foot, he pulled me back towards him. My skirt bunched up behind me, sliding towards my rear as he pulled me, leaving my pantyhose-covered crotch exposed to him. He gazed at me. His eyes seemed to revel in the surprised look on my face, the sight of my breasts heaving up and down as my breath quickened, and the tantalizing view of my exposed underwear. His hand traveled up my leg, caressing my pantyhose, exploring my thigh and moving towards my sex.
This was not happening, I told myself. But no matter what I told myself, it continued to happen. And, despite the fact that I was scared out of my mind, I was also uncontrollably aroused. There was a little part of me, that small heart-skipping pulse in my veins, that had never fully left. Upon seeing just what Asher Landseer was capable of, that part grew, stretched, until it was all-encompassing and demanding.
Asher smiled, watching me wriggle on the table, unable to escape him. He looped a finger into my pantyhose and peeled them down to my knees.
“Sir!” I screamed. “Asher! What are you—?”
This was not proper business protocol! But he didn’t seem to care much about that at the moment. He focused on me entirely, his steady, watchful gaze never leaving my eyes as I looked back at him.
“You destroyed my book,” he said, his voice full of anger and passion. “Everything is a mess. Pages scattered on the floor and the binding undone. I believe it’s only fair that I do the same to you.”
At the time, I had no idea what he meant. I only knew that there was a strong and powerful man standing before me who commanded attention.
No longer fully wearing my pantyhose, my smooth, arousal-slick folds grew cool, exposed to the chill, central air-conditioned air. Asher paid that no mind, though. He flipped me around, grabbed at my skirt with one hand, unzipped the back with the other, then pulled the entire thing off of me. Tossing it to the ground, he did much the same to my heels, and then flipped me over once more.
With one arm, he wrenched me towards him and pulled my pantyhose even lower, towards my ankles, forcing me to spread my legs so that my crotch was pressed hard against his business suit. His hands sought the buttons of my blouse, undoing them. When I tried to stop him, he frowned at me and then ripped the whole thing off. The buttons that had remained done flew into the air and scattered around his private meeting room.
The idea struck me, some out of context thought, that I should clean those up for him, but then my mind snapped back to the reality of the situation. I was laying on his table, legs spread around his hips, wearing only my bra and partially wearing my pantyhose. A quick glance to the side showed my blouse, skirt and heels scattered on the floor, much like the loose pages of his expensive book.
“Remove your bra,” he said.
I hesitated. He sounded so fierce, but the look on his face was one of calm confidence, like he never expected me to defy him, never expected anything but obedience.
“Mr. Landseer,” I said, voice wavering, coming out as more of a squeak. “You’re married.”
“Remove your bra,” he repeated.
I sat up enough so I could reach my hands behind my back. My stomach tightened and when I moved I felt the zipper of his pants pressing against my wet, exposed pussy. He watched me, relished in seeing me dispose of one of my last articles of clothing. I don’t know why, but once I unsnapped my bra and pulled my arms through the straps, I tossed it to the floor haphazardly, letting it join the mess with my other clothing.
“You deserve punishment,” he said. “Do you not?”
I nodded fast, heart quickening. Shivers from the cold passed through my body. Or, that’s what I wanted to think at the time, but his presence had me hot and flustered. There was no possible way I was cold right now with my body quivering in a heat of excitement. Here I was, some unknown women from the cleaning staff, and a temp for the day at that, almost entirely naked on billionaire CEO Asher Landseer’s private office table.
In the blink of an eye his hand cupped my sex. His fingers pressed against my pubic mound, forcing me to acknowledge their presence, and I arched my back and let out an unintentional moan.
“How do I punish you when you’re clearly enjoying this?” he asked. “Shall I remove this distraction first so we can begin your punishment?”
“Sir?” I asked. My breath felt like a fog, escaping my lips and covering my face in a warm, wet haze. Everything was a blur, like I was looking through an unfocused camera lens.
He never answered, didn’t bother to respond with his ideas. Instead, he snaked his thumb lower, spread my moist folds with his finger, and then pressed inside of me. My hips bucked upwards instinctively and I gasped, caught off guard. My fucking God, I thought, is he going to take me right here?
And, if he did, would I let him? Would I moan for him, accept his hard erect cock inside me? Some part of me despised the idea, disliked the treatment, but only a small part. A larger part wondered at him, wanted him to take me on his meeting table. Wanted him to…
He was married. I couldn’t, I…
Asher’s thumb bent and he pressed against the pleasure spot inside my intimate tunnel. My body betrayed my intentions, ignored the thoughts of his wife, his marriage, and the wrongness of this, and bent to his will. He wrapped his other fingers around my pussy, treating me like just another object, something he owned. With his middle finger he teased at my clit, pushing me higher towards the precipice of pleasure.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head and my body tightened, muscles clamping down for the long haul. There was no long term for this, though. Asher knew what he was doing, and he did it well. His fingers expertly toyed with my sex and encased my crotch. It felt so strange, so different. I was exposed to the cool, office building air, but his hand radiated a warming heat that spread from my aroused slit to the rest of my body.
And then his fingers brought another kind of heat. A tingling sensation raced through me, the blissful beginnings of an impending orgasm. My pussy clamped down on his thumb, holding it in me, spasming around his intrusion, and the rest of my body soon followed suit. I squirmed in the throes of ecstasy, not even caring that I was openly displayed on his meeting room table. It was private, anyways, with the glass wall only showing through to his personal office. That shouldn’t have made a difference, shouldn’t have made the situation alright, but my mind wasn’t thinking rationally at the moment.
He allowed me to ride through my pleasure, grinning at my squirming self, before removing his hand from my crotch. I lay on his table, a hot mess, completely breathless.
“Up,” Asher said. “Now that your distraction is eliminated, I expect you to accept punishment.”
I scrambled off his table, fell to my knees, and looked up at him. This man, Asher Landseer, had just brought me to climax like it was nothing, and was staring at me as if he’d done nothing in particular. Another day at the job, another…
“Now,” he said. “Having finished my business meeting early, I find myself with some free time. I came back to my office, intending to read, but then you destroyed my book.”
“I can repay…” I started to say.
“The cost isn’t the issue,” he said. “That—” He frowned and looked softer for a moment, as if he were remembering something. “That book was special to me.”
I gulped. I’d never meant to destroy the book in the first place, and I understood a rich man would own expensive things, but now that I knew it was more than that, I felt horrible. I wanted to apologize, to hug and console him, but…
“Do you like Dante’s Inferno?” he asked, all of a sudden.
“Yes,” I said, the answer squeaking out of me.
“What? Be confident in your answer.”
“Yes,” I repeated myself, though I didn’t think I sounded any less timid. I rose to my feet, standing before him.
“Why?” he asked.
Huh? “Why what?”
“Why do you like it?”
“The—” Was this conversation really happen
ing? I stood there, mostly naked, talking to a young, billionaire CEO about why I liked a certain piece of literature. I would never be able to understand this, no matter how long I lived.
But, maybe that was the point. I’m not sure. I did feel a little better talking with him like this, though. Like if I could show him that I understood the book and tell him why I liked it, he might forgive me just a little bit for what happened. And then I could forgive him for… and…
“I enjoy the symbolism,” I told him sincerely. “I think it’s nice that the story starts off in the depths of Hell, with Inferno, but by the end of Divine Comedy there’s some redemption and Dante brings us to Heaven with Paradiso. The rhyme scheme is also incredibly impressive. And the fact that he retained such a strict format through 14,233 lines? I find that amazing.”
“Indeed,” Asher said. I thought I saw the faintest hint of a smile on his face, but it was gone before I knew it. Had I imagined it? Yes, possibly, but…
“I enjoy that line,” he said in a passing conversational tone.
I looked at him, confused.
He frowned and shook his head, though it seemed more teasing than chastising. “One ought to fear those things only that have power of doing harm. The others not, for they are not dreadful,” he said, reciting one of the parts of the poem he’d read aloud before, the one on the page that he’d tossed aside before…
My God, I thought. I was really just on his table, I was really just naked, and… I looked down at myself, confirming my nudity. Somehow just now realizing it, or realizing it again, I tightened my legs and fidgeted, trying to cover my body with my arms.
“Stop,” he said, a command. I dropped my hands, dumbstruck. “The best punishments are those that make you reflect and that make you uncomfortable. Part of yours shall be to finish cleaning my office as you are.”
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“I never repeat myself,” he said. “Never.”
I did not give in, ever. I wasn’t the type for it. I always questioned everything, and expected no less from anyone else. Why should I mindlessly move through life like a drone?