Unwilling

by Julia P. Lynde

  Unwilling

  By Julia P. Lynde

  Table of Contents

  Agreement (Melissa)

  The Weekend (Alex)

  First Night (Melissa)

  First Night (Alex)

  Bedtime (Melissa)

  Morning (Alex)

  Settling In (Melissa)

  Hiking Trip (Alex)

  Second Week (Melissa)

  Punishment (Melissa)

  Bathroom (Alex)

  Aftermath (Melissa)

  Coming Home (Alex)

  Renewed (Melissa)

  About the Author

  An Agreement (Melissa)

  The computer made a bad sound, a bad, bad sound. I stared at the screen. Disk error. "No. No. No! You stupid machine no!"

  My heart began to race. I'd spent two weeks on the project. It was due for a client presentation Monday. My boss, Vivien, had already approved the rough mock ups, but not the final product. It was six PM on Friday, I was the last one in the office, and the computer ate my homework.

  "No!"

  I tried rebooting. Disk error. I tried checking for backups, for auto-recover, for anything.

  It was gone. All gone.

  I had the text, all the copy, but Wayne had done the graphics. He'd put everything on this external hard drive and handed it to me. "Don't lose it," he had said. And then he, with his laptop, had disappeared. For two weeks.

  I started beating my head against the disk. I was fired. I was so fired. The first thing I should have done is made a copy, but I hadn't. Vivien wasn't going to listen to excuses. She had a client coming in on Monday, and there had better be a presentation.

  I needed this job.

  After twenty minutes of yelling at the computer, it was clear. I had none of the graphics needed for the client presentation, and I wasn't remotely qualified to reproduce them.

  My heart was pounding as I contemplated my financial future. Jobs were scarce. I needed this job. I couldn't afford to get fired. Then I heard a voice. Someone was on the phone. Maybe it was one of the designers. Maybe she could help me.

  I stood up and followed the voice, but as soon as I got closer, I knew I was ruined. I wasn't the only person here. Alex was also here. No way was she going to help me. She hated me. Lord knows, of course, I had given her plenty of reasons.

  I stepped to her cube anyway.

  "Alex," I said from behind her.

  She turned around, still talking on her phone, and saw who it was.

  "Just a second, Kelly," she said. "Someone is standing here." She put the phone to her chest. "What do you want?" she asked me roughly.

  I looked at her for a moment. Alex was tall with long, straight, black hair. She was dressed as she always dressed, just barely one step short of skank. I don't know how she got away with it. She'd been with the company for about four months, and I had hated her on sight.

  "Alex," I said. "I need your help."

  She arched an eyebrow at me before putting the phone back to her ear. "Kelly, I need to call you back. This is going to be good." She paused. "Yep, sounds good. Talk to you later." She hung up the phone, then held it up, pointing it at me.

  "What are you doing?" I asked her.

  "Recording this moment for posterity," she said. "Melissa the ice queen asking for my help."

  She took my picture then looked at it. "Perfect."

  I almost walked away. I hated that bitch. But I hated being unemployed even more.

  "I need your help," I told her again.

  "I heard that part," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "With what?"

  "I just lost all the graphics for the Travis presentation on Monday."

  "Bummer," she said. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do about it."

  "Wayne is gone," I told her.

  "Yep. Some place with no phone, no internet, no way to reach him. For two weeks." She paused. "It sounds like a horrible vacation but he was telling everyone all about it."

  "There's no one else who can help me," I told her. "If I don't have everything on Vivien's desk by eight Monday morning, we'll lose the account and I will certainly be fired."

  "And the downside to me from that is what, exactly?"

  "Look," I told her. "I know I haven't exactly been your best buddy."

  She laughed. "You've been a raving bitch. I never did a thing to hurt you. I've never even talked back, but you have stabbed me in the back every chance you have gotten since the day I started. And now you expect me to help you. Girlie, if you lose your job, I am going to celebrate."

  "You're right," I admitted. "I've been a bitch. I'm sorry."

  "Bullshit," she said. "The only reason you're sorry is because suddenly you need me. Piss off."

  "Alex," I said. "I'll pay you. I have the proofs we sent to Vivien, and I know what changes she wanted. It'll take most of the weekend, but you're really good. You can do it. A thousand dollars. I'll pay you a thousand dollars. I can pay you two hundred tonight, three hundred tomorrow morning, and the rest when it's done."

  She stared at me as if she was considering it. "Have fun at the unemployment line."

  "Five thousand."

  "Melissa," she said coldly. "You can't pay me enough to spend a weekend with a homophobe bitch like you." I watched while she started collecting her things to leave.

  "Alex," I said. "Please, I'm begging you. Five thousand dollars and you'll be the hero. I'll tell everyone how you saved me. It will be good for your career. If you don't help, I'll tell everyone how you refused to help."

  She pulled herself up to her full height, looking down at me. "You have done everything you possibly could to make me hate coming here. I've already started looking for a new job to get away from you. No one is going to fire me for refusing to pull your bacon out of the fire, and if they did, I don't care. But if you get fired, maybe I won't need to leave. Maybe it won't suck here once your poison is gone."

  "Alex," I said, starting to cry. "Please, I'll give you anything you want."

  She stared at me for a moment then came to some sort of conclusion. She sat back down. "Anything, huh?"

  "Anything. I'll stop being a bitch. I swear."

  "Anything. I doubt you really mean that." She looked me up and down. "All right, I'll tell you what I want from you, right after you kiss my feet."

  "What?"

  She bent down, unzipped her boots and slipped her feet from them. She set her feet side by side on the floor facing me, then looked up.

  "I'll tell you what I want from you once you have kissed my feet," she said.

  "I'm not kissing your feet!" I told her. "Are you insane?"

  "Fine," she said, slipping her feet back into her boots. "It's a rough market out there, but I'm sure someone as sweet and lovely as you are won't have any trouble finding a new job."

  "Alex," I said, whining, "Please!"

  She zipped her boots up then stood up, collecting her coat. "Out of my way, Melissa," she said. "I have a weekend to enjoy."

  We stood staring at each other for a good fifteen seconds before I said in a small voice, "If I kiss your feet, will you help me?"

  "No," she said. "If you kiss my feet, I'll tell you what I want in exchange for helping you. You, of course, won't accept, but at least you'll know the price you refused to pay to keep your job." She paused. "Anything. Yeah, right."

  "Fine," I said after a moment. "I'll kiss your feet."

  She arched an eyebrow again, but sat back down and removed both boots, then looked up at me. "Kiss them like you mean it or don't bother," she said. "I'm not going to be impressed with a little peck." She stuck her feet out, flat on the floor, and waited for me.

  As soon as I lowered myself to my knees in front of her, I started to blush. I'd never been asked to do something so hu
miliating! But I bent down and kissed the top of each stocking-clad foot. They smelled faintly of nylon and leather. I did my best to give them a proper kiss, but felt completely humiliated.

  I hated that lesbo bitch.

  Finally I looked up at her. She was smiling down at me. "I didn't think you would actually do it," she said. "But a deal is a deal." She gestured at her guest chair, and I slipped into it.

  "You'll help?" I asked, suddenly hopeful.

  "I told you, I'd tell you what I wanted from you, but you won't pay it."

  I stuck my chin out and told her, "Try me."

  "Fine. I want three things. If you agree to all of them, I will do everything I am able to save your job. First, you will make sure Vivien knows how much help I was."

  "Agreed."

  "Second, you will stop being a bitch to me. I don't expect you to turn all buddy buddy, but you'll stop with all the shit. You will stop trying to drive me away. You will stop with the snarky comments. You will stop acting like a complete homophobe."

  "Agreed."

  Then she smiled. "And you'll be my love slave and servant for two weeks."

  "What?" I looked at her. She was smiling. "There's no fucking way I'm going to do whatever it is you lesbo dike bitches do together."

  Her expression turned dark. "You come in here begging me to save your job, and that's the language you use?" She paused. "It just turned into a month. Take it or leave it."

  I stood up and stormed out of her cube.

  "Unemployment is fun!" she said after me. "I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

  I got halfway to my desk before I started crying again. I listened as Alex started to talk on her phone again. "Hey, Kel. Naw, it was the ice bitch. She wanted a huge favor." Pause, pause. "No, looks like I won't have to put up with her much longer. She's going to get fired on Monday." Pause, pause. She brushed past me. "I offered, but she didn't want to pay the price."

  "One night," I said to her retreating back. She stopped in her place.

  "Kelly," she said. "She just reopened negotiations. I'll get back to you." She hung up her phone and turned around.

  "A month," she said, but she wasn't bitchy about it. "You've made my life hell for months. If I'm going to bail you out, I want a month. I've felt like shit every night for three months, and it's all because of you."

  "A week," I said, staring at the floor.

  She walked up to me and looked at me.

  "A month," she said. "But I promise I won't humiliate you or do anything to embarrass you in front of anyone else."

  "Two weeks," I said. "Alex. Please. Two weeks. I'll do whatever you want for two weeks."

  "A month," she said. "And I'll even let you pick ten toys I won't use on you."

  "What?"

  She smiled, but it wasn't a mean smile. "Melissa, I am your worst nightmare. Not only am I a lesbian, which means in your little puritan heart, if you have one, I'm doomed to burn in hell, but I'm also a domme."

  I stared at the floor and asked her quietly, "What would I have to do?"

  She reached out with her hand and lifted my chin, staring into my eyes. "Did you just say 'yes'?"

  I returned her gaze. "What would I have to do?"

  "Move in with me. You would be home every work night no later than six and all day on the weekends. You will be my servant, which means cooking and cleaning and anything else I want. And my love slave, which means exactly what you think it means. You would do anything I ordered you to do. You would allow me to do anything I want to do to you. I promise to give you sufficient opportunity to sleep, and I won't be excessively cruel." She paused. "That's the offer."

  "A month is too long."

  "Compared to the hell my life has been because of you?"

  "The deal is off if I lose my job."

  "Agreed," she said. "So to be formal, I will do everything I can this weekend to give you a kick ass presentation for Vivien on Monday morning. You will make sure Vivien understands how much help I was. You will stop being a bitch to me at work. And you will belong to me outside work hours for a month."

  I tried to look away, but she pulled my chin back to look at her. "Look into my eyes and tell me whether I'm helping you or not."

  I started at her for what must have been two minutes. She didn't say a word but simply watched me. Every time I tried to look away, she pulled my chin back to face her.

  "All right," I said finally. "All of it."

  "Are you going to go back on your word once I give you what you want?"

  "No."

  She looked into my eyes for a few more seconds then said, "It's going to be a long night. Grab everything you have and let's have a working dinner, my treat."

  I nodded numbly.

  The Weekend (Alex)I really didn't think Melissa was going to agree. I didn't think I could have gotten a night with her, much less an entire month. But I'd made the offer, and now I was obligated to accept.

  I went back to my desk and collected my laptop and a sketch pad, then collected her at her own desk.

  She looked numb.

  I watched as she pulled her coat on. She had short, blonde hair and was dressed in a blue business suit. She was about three inches shorter than my five-foot-six and was wearing sensible shoes. I was in my boots, which meant I towered over her by a good five inches.

  She had a hot body, but man! had she been a bitch to me. I doubted she would hold up to her end of our agreement, but if she stopped being a bitch to me, maybe that would be worth the lost weekend. Plus I wasn't sure she would have been fired. She could claim hardware failure. She might not have lost her job. I might have been stuck with her until I'd found other work.

  I led the way to my car, and we drove to a nearby restaurant. Melissa began telling me about the Travis account and explained where things were at. We got to the restaurant and actually were seated right away. We each ordered salads and water, then she pulled out her laptop.

  "These are the proofs that Wayne and I did for Vivien," she said. She turned them around so I could see, then explained the changes Vivien had asked for.

  "Do you have the Photoshop files?"

  "No," she said. "Just the JPEGs."

  I sighed. I'd have to reproduce everything.

  I looked at Wayne's work. It was good, although he'd gone in a different direction than I would have. I looked at Melissa. "Whose concept were the graphics?"

  "Wayne's," she replied.

  "Was Vivien ecstatic about them?"

  "Not really."

  "So if we presented her with something different, would she consider them?"

  Melissa blinked at me. "We don't have that kind of time."

  "I'm not Wayne," I told her. "I can do that," I said, pointing at it, "But it will take me just as long to do that as to do something more in my own style, starting from scratch. Look."

  I pulled out my sketchpad and started drawing. It took me a few minutes. "I know this is rough, but... The target audience is women, right? And that-" I pointed at Wayne's work. "That is awfully masculine. But what if we did this instead?" I slid my sketchpad to her.

  She looked at it, then up at me, then down at the sketch I had done.

  "I know it's rough. Is it too rough to see what I mean?"

  "Alex," she said. "This is a lot better. But I don't have the authority to make that decision."

  "Fine. Call Vivien."

  She looked down at my sketches then back at me. "What do I tell her?"

  "Tell her you showed me Wayne's work and I said I could do better. If this is what she wants," I said, gesturing to the laptop, "I will do my best to duplicate it. But I think my concept is better."

  She nodded, fished into her purse, and called her boss. "Vivien, I'm sorry to bother you on a Friday evening. I'm with Alex Newman. I showed her the Travis presentation, and she has something else in mind. I think it's a lot better." There was a pause, then she looked at me. "How soon could we mail her something?"

  I looked at my watch. "I can have somethin
g rough by nine tonight. If she can give me the go ahead, we can give her something more complete by noon tomorrow."

  Melissa relayed all that then listened to the reply. She hung up.

  "She said go for it. She'll expect a call by nine tonight and will look at them right away."

  During the meal, I played with the sketchpad some more, talking through the ideas with Melissa. We stayed on task and actually had a pleasant meal. She offered a few ideas that were pretty good, and by the time we were done and I'd paid the check, I knew what I wanted to do. We headed back to the office. On arrival, we sat down together at my desk.

  "Do you mind if I watch?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "This is going to take about an hour though." I sighed. "We should have grabbed water form the vending machine on the way up."

  "I'll get some for us then watch."

  "You don't have to."

  "I know," she said. "Alex, thank you."

  I nodded and got to work.

  I had a rough idea by eight. Melissa and I talked it over and started making changes. A few minutes before nine I mailed everything to Vivien. We gave it a few minutes to arrive, then Melissa called her.

  "It's Melissa," she said. "We mailed you the concepts. They're rough." Pause pause. "Okay." Then she put the call on speakerphone."

  "Alex, can you hear me?"

  "Yes, Vivien," I said. "I know they're rough. I've only had a couple of hours."

  "Can you really do a good job by Monday?"

  "Yes. I can have something solid by about noon tomorrow if you'll be able to look at them." I paused. "I was thinking understated, but if you want me to make it really vivid, I can do that."

  "Could I see both?"

  "Sure."

  We talked for a few more minutes and I got a better feel for what Vivien wanted. Melissa hung up and I turned to her. "There's nothing you can do until morning. You can stick around or you can leave. I'll be here until after midnight then back by nine in the morning."

  "I'll stay," she said. "If I won't bother you."

  Shortly after midnight, my eyes starting to get blurry, I turned to her. "I don't think I have anything more in me tonight."

  * * *

  "I'm on my way," came the text from Melissa on Saturday morning. "I can stop by Caribou."