by Simply BWWM
“I know you’re not that interested in the nutrition facts,” a voice--chillingly familiar--said from behind her. Jessica felt her guts clench as she realized whose voice it was: Drake’s.
“Go away, Drake,” she said without even looking at him. A crazed thought entered her head: was she just imagining it? Shouldn’t she at least look to confirm that it was her stalker, standing behind her? No.
She felt, rather than saw him move close to her, almost touching her back. “Why should I go away when I know you’re so horny almost anyone could practically smell it?” His hands closed on her waist, and Jessica tensed up all over, feeling nothing more than revulsion.
“You need to go away before I scream and get the manager here to throw you the fuck out, dickhead,” Jessica said quietly.
“Do you think anyone would do anything to me? You stupid little slut...if you scream and get attention, I’ll just show whoever comes to your rescue what a little fucking whore you are, and tell them you get off on being ‘caught.’ I have plenty of evidence.” Jessica put the container of oatmeal down and tried to force her panicked brain to think.
“If you don’t take your hands off of me right now, I’ll hurt you,” Jessica said, feeling a chilly kind of confidence steal over her, trickling down her spine like icy water, reinforcing her anger at what Drake was doing.
“Oh--that treatment center you went to taught you to be feisty, didn’t it?” Jessica clenched her teeth. “But we both know that all this time all you’ve wanted was to get dicked like you used to.”
“What I want is for you to stay the hell away from me,” Jessica said. “Second warning. Get your disgusting hands the hell off of my body, and never speak to me again.”
“And what are you going to do if I don’t?” Jessica took a quick breath; she knew Drake would feel it. She turned around quickly to face him, relying on the adrenaline that was already surging through her body to carry her through the fear of the moment.
She broke free of his grip and brought her foot--covered in a boot with a two-inch spike heel--down on Drake’s sneaker-clad foot, heel-first. When he shouted in pain, she reached for his head and grabbed at his hair, sticky as always with the product he used, and pushed down at the same time that she brought her knee up to meet his face.
She felt the impact of his nose against her jean-clad upper thigh and heard--faintly--the slightly crunching sound. She might not have broken anything, but she had definitely given him plenty to think about as he shouted again in rage and pain.
Jessica looked around to see that there was more than a little interest in the scene she and Drake had caused. She remembered that he kept his phone in his right pocket, and as he was still reeling from the injuries she’d dealt him, she reached into his pocket and found the phone by touch, pulling it out.
Jessica threw it onto the ground as unobtrusively as possible, thankful that Drake had been stupid enough not to put a more substantive cover on it, and pretending like he was trying to grab at her again, she swayed, bringing her heeled foot down on the phone’s screen again and again.
“Get away from me, you turd!” She knew that the supermarket cameras would tell a very straightforward story: a man accosting a woman in a grocery store and being dealt with when he wouldn’t leave her alone. Without his phone, Drake wouldn’t be able to show the manager of the store anything at all. Drake was still too distracted by the pain in his face and foot to realize that she’d taken and destroyed his phone, and instead was roaring out cuss words, lurching, clearly no longer interested in touching her. “If you ever touch me again, I will use a goddamn knife next time,” she told him, dropping her voice to almost a whisper.
By then, some of the onlookers had made up their mind to intervene, to hold onto Drake while they waited for the management to arrive and assess the situation. Jessica answered a few absent, harried questions, saying that he’d just come up to her and tried to assault her.
She didn’t answer whether or not she knew him, she avoided the difficult questions in the instant from the curious people who had come to her aid, and Drake was too injured to mount any kind of defense of himself. Jessica’s heartbeat began to slow to a rate closer to its normal one, and she took a deep breath. I need to call Bradley, she thought. He might not be my boyfriend, but I think he’ll want to know what happened...and worst-case scenario, he could probably help me out here if things get weird.
She stepped back and found her phone in her purse, taking another breath to steady herself. Jessica found Brad’s phone number in her contact list and rapidly tapped out a text message to him, not wanting to share any details with the people who were gathering in larger numbers to detain Drake and ask what had happened. Drake assaulted me in a Fred Meyer near my house. I beat him up. There might be kind of a scene. Can you come?
She didn’t know if she expected a response, or what she thought that Brad could do--or would do--to help her, but Jessica knew that she wanted him there, if he would come. Her phone buzzed just as the manager arrived with one of the bigger, broader store clerks, asking everyone what was going on.
“This guy tried to grope this lady, and she beat the shit out of him,” someone said. “It was pretty epic.”
“Is that true, ma’am?”
“He came up behind me and grabbed me,” Jessica replied.
“She wanted it,” Drake said. He’d begun to recover finally from his injuries, at least enough to put on the act. “It’s a game we play.”
“It isn’t. I told him twice to let go of me and to stop touching me, and he didn’t, so I defended myself,” Jessica said firmly.
“You’re going to believe that cunt over me?” Jessica saw the instant effect of Drake’s words on the small crowd gathered around them; nobody even wanted to believe him anymore, no matter how little they might know of what was actually happening.
“I think we need to bring this to the office,” the manager said. “The police are on the way.” Jessica nodded. Drake didn’t have his phone, so he couldn’t show any kind of incriminating photos; she watched as he reached into his pocket, not realizing what she’d done, and found that his phone wasn’t there. His eyes widened, and he looked around and saw his phone on the floor, the screen smashed and the case dented from Jessica’s stomping.
“That bitch busted my phone!” Drake shrieked. Jessica resisted the temptation to smile. “Aren’t you going to do anything about that? She busted my phone!”
“There’s a phone in the manager’s office,” the clerk said firmly.
“I have evidence on my phone.” Jessica rolled her eyes.
“Evidence of me agreeing to let you grope me here in this grocery store?” She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing full well that Drake had no such evidence but that he’d intended to humiliate her as well as destroy her credibility by showing what pictures he did have of her.
“Bitch!”
The clerk obviously had enough of Drake’s attitude; he grabbed Drake by the arms and started half-hauling and half-dragging the man away from the scene, while the manager stayed behind.
“I’m going to need to ask you to stay to give a statement to the police, ma’am,” the manager--a mid-forties looking man with thinning hair and wire-framed glasses--said. Jessica nodded.
“I have a friend who might be coming to lend me emotional support, is that okay?” The manager nodded.
“As long as your friend doesn’t interfere, it should be no issue at all,” he said. “And of course, we can hold onto your groceries while we’re waiting for the police. Are you in a hurry to be anywhere?” Jessica shook her head.
“I’m okay,” she said. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she gestured for the manager to lead the way away from the aisle, towards his office. As she followed him, she took her phone out and saw that Bradley had, in fact, replied. Give me the address, I can be there probably fifteen minutes.
Jessica felt a flood of relief and hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d been worried
that Bradley wouldn’t reply at all, that he’d leave her to take care of herself. But there he was, living up to everything that she had ever had as an impression of him: supporting her, ready to be there where she needed him.
Whether he would actually be able to help her in any way other than lending the support of his presence, she didn’t know. She sent him the Google Maps coordinates for where she was and shoved her phone back in her pocket, content to wait for either him or the police or both to arrive. There was nothing on the store cameras that could possibly counter her story, and she had gotten rid of what power Drake had to make her seem untrustworthy.
The clerk had obviously sequestered Drake somewhere away from the main office--maybe in some kind of security room--when Jessica went and sat down, taking a slow breath to steady her lingering nerves. There was still something in her that said that somehow, Drake would find a way to show the cops that she was a dirty slut, the exact kind of person who would love to play some kind of weird power game where she got groped in a grocery store.
She wanted Bradley to show up, and as the minutes crawled by, she thought of dozens of ways that things could go south with the law enforcement officers on their way to the grocery store.
It’s going to be fine. Bradley will get here first, and he’ll support you, and there’s no reason they could have to even want to believe Drake. He doesn’t have anything to hold over you right now. You’re going to be fine, she told herself again and again. Her phone buzzed again, vibrating against her leg, and Jessica checked it quickly.
It was Bradley, letting her know that he’d arrived. Once more, relief flowed through her veins, loosening everything tight inside of her, and Jessica wanted to cry from how glad she was that her boss, her master, was there. She gave into it, letting the tears flow, knowing--in the manipulative part of her mind, as well as the common-sensical one--that a crying victim would be much more sympathetic to the police than a raging, angry perpetrator would be.
If she could just get through the next hour or so, she could finish her grocery shopping, and then she would be able to see Brad in private and let him know how grateful she was to have him in her life.
Chapter15
Bradley guided Jessica through his front door into the living room, watching as she took her shoes off at the door and set them aside. He sat her down on the couch and went into the kitchen, glancing over what he had available to drink before settling on a bottle of Calvados. He decided to make coffee to go with it and started up his expresso maker, glancing into the living room to see how Jessica was settled in.
It had been a difficult afternoon for her, and Bradley felt infuriated in the knowledge that Drake’s harassment of his personal assistant had now escalated to in-person assault. He would have to do much more than he had to protect Jessica. For now, though, you have to make her feel safe. You need to help her handle what just happened.
The police had been fairly considerate, and they’d definitely been sympathetic--especially when the security footage from the store’s cameras had shown the situation had gone down almost exactly like Jessica had said. Of course, since it was silent, there was no way to know what she’d actually said to Drake, but it was clear that she hadn’t wanted to be groped and that she’d given him plenty of warning before turning around and defending herself.
Even still, Drake had thrown more than enough mud into the gears to make the situation difficult for Jessica, and Brad could only be glad that she’d had the presence of mind to destroy the man’s phone, so he couldn’t show the cops the salacious and humiliating pictures he had of her. He’d praised her for that cleverness as he’d driven them back to his place, and parked in the attached garage structure, but it was clear that Jessica was exhausted and that she needed support.
As soon as she’d texted him, Bradley hadn’t even considered not coming to her aid. He knew how difficult it was for her to deal with the situation with Drake, even when it had been limited to text messages; he didn’t want her to have to deal with talking to the police and responding to the disgusting man’s accusations and comments on her own.
Brad wasn’t sure when exactly he’d given into the knowledge that he had real feelings for his personal assistant and submissive, beyond the parameters of their official relationships to each other, but he knew that it was too soon by far to address that. He would have to take things slowly, and he would have to wait until she was ready to talk about an actual romantic relationship, and in the meantime, he would have to support her as best as he could.
“Just the thing for a time like this,” Brad said, bringing the cups of espresso, some milk and sugar, and Calvados into the living room. Jessica looked up, and Brad saw her give herself a shake to pull herself out of her torpor.
“Sorry, that was just kind of a lot,” she said, taking a breath and giving him a weak smile. Brad set one of the mugs of coffee down in front of her on the coffee table and offered her the hot milk and the sugar. He poured a shot of Calvados.
“You handled the whole thing extremely well,” he told her. “And you’re safe. They took him to jail, and he’ll have to make bail or stay overnight if they don’t set his bail tonight. He won’t want to bother you again.” Jessica smiled again, a little more genuinely.
“There is that,” she agreed. “Maybe now he’ll catch the clue that I want nothing to do with him.” Bradley nodded and leaned in, giving Jessica time and space to pull away from him if she didn’t want him to continue. When she didn’t tense up or move away, he closed the distance between them and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“So, let’s have coffee and Calvados, and then let’s have a little...session,” Bradley suggested. “No punishment, no pain--it’ll be all about you.” He had been planning the session they were supposed to have for days, but knowing what Jessica needed in that moment, he abandoned entirely the idea of what he’d thought he was going to do, in favor of something that Helena had taught him about called “care play.”
He’d been studying up on dominance and submission, about the dynamic that could happen between the two people in a scene, and Bradley had filed away--for mental reference--ways that he could encourage Jessica to work through certain things, to help her process. There was, he’d learned, an entire subset of BDSM culture that had as its goal helping victims of abuse and other traumas to come to terms with and work through what had happened to them.
While Jessica had always been clear that the degrading things she’d done had been her choice, Bradley wasn’t entirely sure how much of that was true; she’d been in the height of her addiction, she’d been vulnerable to people like Drake, who were looking for someone who would give into them for the sake of whatever “fix” they were offered.
Why Drake hadn’t just moved onto another victim when Jessica had become inaccessible, Brad wasn’t sure. But he made a mental note to contact a few people he’d tentatively talked to about the man. There had to be something to do to track him down and--legally--convince him that it was in his best interests to stop even attempting to go after Jessica.
“A session?” Bradley nodded slowly.
“If you feel up to it,” he said. “No pain, like I said. I won’t be punishing you. I am really proud of the way you stood up for yourself, and I want to reward that.” Jessica smiled slowly.
“I’d like to try that,” she said. Bradley kissed her lightly again and watched as she prepared her coffee. He handed her the shot of apple brandy.
“You can either add it to the coffee, or you can take it as a shot separately,” he told her. Jessica considered for a moment and dumped the gold-tinged alcohol into her almost-full cup. Bradley nodded his approval and went to work mixing up his own drink.
They had been working hard on her “training” in the past few weeks, and there was something that Bradley wanted to do with Jessica that he thought would be good for them to explore that night.
He’d been putting it off, approaching the topic as obliquely as possible, and only barel
y playing with Jessica anally, but he thought--he hoped--that that night would be a good opportunity for moving forward, for using that as a way for Jessica to process and work through some of the mental garbage she was still dealing with regarding Drake.
Brad gave himself a mental check. Are you thinking about this because it’s really something that might help her, that might be good--and enjoyable--for her, or because you’re fascinated by the idea? If you’re only doing this to take advantage of how vulnerable she is, you had better never do it.
Bradley sipped his coffee and then knocked back the slightly fiery brandy, thinking about the question. He wanted to try anal with Jessica, especially in the context of her submission to him, but he knew himself well enough to know that even if Jessica didn’t use her safe word, he would stop if he felt that she wasn’t enjoying it even for a second. He would make himself stop. And if it seemed like she really wasn’t enjoying it, he would never pursue it again unless she specifically requested it.
He made small talk with her, letting the atmosphere relax between them, letting Jessica decompress from the stress of talking to the police, listening to them repeat Drake’s accusations--even if they hadn’t believed them--and telling her story more than three times to five people altogether. Brad read Jessica carefully and knew when she was ready to move into the session itself; she was fully relaxed, and the small amount of alcohol had done its work, removing the raw edges from her shock and discomfort. He would take care of the rest.
“Stand up please, Jessica,” Brad said, accepting the empty mug from her. “You know how I want you to begin: take off all of your clothes.” He took out his phone and scrolled through his Spotify playlists until he found one he thought would suit: Fiona Apple. He started the music and watched as Jessica stripped out of her jeans and sweater, taking her time the way she knew he liked.
She hadn’t been prepared to meet with him--hence why she hadn’t worn a dress or skirt, and her bra and panties were mismatched, the bra in a deep eggplant and the panties black with lace edges. But there was something nonetheless charming about watching Jessica strip herself down to her skin, watching the submissive mindset work its way through her, the desire to please him and do as she was told.