Tears for My Master: Cat's First Punishment

by Lara Simon

  Tears for My Master - Cat’s First Punishment (A BDSM Short)

  By Lara Simon

  Smashwords Version

  Copyright © 2012 Lara Simon, all rights reserved

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, copied, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any other format or changed in any way, including the author’s name and title, and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The use of any real person, company or product names are for literary effect only and used without permission. The author does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  “No, I’m so sorry Mr. Stowe, it won’t happen again,” said Cat, blushing from the verbal beating her boss had just given her.

  “Don’t let it,” her boss replied, his deep, powerful voice raspy with thinly veiled anger. Cat studied his flushed face quickly, looking down at her desk as he strode confidently back into his office and slammed the enormous, heavy oak door. Her reaction was the most difficult part to process-- instead of feeling embarrassment at her failure; Cat became aware of the flush of blood that rushed to her hardened nipples pressing against her lace bra and out into her silk blouse and her hot and increasingly wet groin. She was turned on. All of her fantasies at night at home alone of seducing Knox Stowe always involved--to some degree-- his anger. She touched herself thinking about that smoky, impatient tone in his voice—the enraged gleam in his eyes. What’s wrong with me? She thought, knowing that she hadn’t rescheduled the meeting on purpose, somehow wanting and needing the stern Mr. Stowe to reprimand her.

  It had to be something with the new position; she rationalized, looking around at her plush office on the seventy-ninth floor of the Hudson Building in downtown Seattle. The job had come to her as part of what could be described as a kind of happy accident. Cat had graduated from Oregon State University in the spring, just a short month before Knox Stowe’s long-time administrative assistant had retired and moved to Tucson to live out the rest of her days in the warm, dry sunshine of the Arizona desert. Cat, full-name Catherine Adele Harper, had just moved back to Seattle to live with her parents, and was working part-time at a local coffee shop while she was sending resume after resume out to just about every reputable corporation in the greater Seattle area. It just happened that the Stowe Holding Company had been her first callback.

  When Cat had first entered the office she’d been in a quiet state of shock. The sheer opulence of the operation was beyond anything she’d seen in her three brief college internships or imagined in her wildest dreams. She’d been ushered in from the glass-walled security desk by a stunningly tall and model-esque blonde with a high, tight ponytail, a designer black business suit and even higher heels to the private elevator that whisked personnel and clients alike to the three top floors of the high-rise that Stowe Holding Company occupied.

  Cat remembered her pounding heart and stifled breath as she was guided past the sleek reception desk, a monolith of stainless steel mixed with gleaming marble and the three gorgeous women, all young, beautiful, and seemingly busy with important tasks, manning it. After they walked down a long, plush-ly carpeted hall lined with glass walls through which one could glimpse multitudes of young, attractive and smartly-dressed professionals, avoiding eye contact with her, the unimportant potential employee, busy on conference calls or typing on their brand new Mac computers, they finally reached the desk, now her desk, in front of the massive door leading into Mr. Stowe’s office. After they entered, she was left by her stunning chaperone in a soft leather chair inside, waiting for his highness to enter and decide if she was worthy of the position. She remembered her jaw dropping at the floor-to-ceiling views of Elliot Bay, the Seattle skyline and Pike Place market. The windows were wrapped all the way around the massive room, which Cat reasoned was at least twice the size of the first floor of her family home, and she could see all the way from Queen Ann hill to the north to the Seahawks stadium and SoDo to the south. She remembered biting her nails nervously as she waited, listening to the howling wind whipping around the heights of the elegant heights of the building, for the mysterious man would become her new boss.

  When she’d first seen Knox Stowe, something new inside of Cat had begun to stir—a new kind of feeling, a feeling that she absolutely, unconditionally needed him. It went beyond attraction-- although he was devastatingly handsome, his perfect athletic build, the carefully chosen and expensive suit, the sleek black Italian leather shoes and his face, that face that Cat saw every night in her dreams. Knox’s strong, square jaw led up to full, sensuous lips, which he pursed in anger when he got bad news on a business deal or was frustrated with a client. His mesmerizing eyes were a metallic grey color, something Cat had never seen before, and the way the color played off the constant grey of the Seattle sky that made most people look tired and wane, made Knox’s eyes gleam with an alluring and constant energy and intensity. This new feeling was obsession, addiction, a compulsive drive to be near to him, to please him, to possess him. The sheer power of the emotion made Cat nervous, but excited. For the first time in her life, she really felt alive.

  He walked into the room wordlessly and sat down at the executive desk in front of her, studying her. She remembered not being able to raise her eyes to meet his, regardless of how much interview training she’d had at the University career center that eye contact was vital to making a that ever-important personal connection with a potential employer. She felt her delicate pale cheeks flushing with pink, as they always did, giving away her nervousness, and waited for him to speak first. It took several minutes, as he was perusing her resume silently, but Cat had a feeling that he wasn’t really interested in its contents. It was more like somehow he was looking straight through the paper and directly into her consciousness. She’d blushed further, feeling her cheeks glowing hot and red, and begged her body not to give away the turmoil of emotions she was feeling. Cat reached up and tucked a strand of her palest strawberry-blonde hair behind her ears.

  “How old are you, Catherine?” was the first thing he’d asked her. She gulped.

  “Twenty-two,” she said, beginning to babble, “and everyone just calls me Cat. I just graduated from school in the spring—my birthday is in August.” Realizing that she was prattling on, further revealing her nerves, Cat bit her lip hard, causing a jolt of pain to rush through her body, but successfully stopping herself. She finally looked up at Knox, watching her, and took another deep breath. When she finally met his eyes, she seemed to physically shrink in his glare, and realized that she would happily do whatever this man asked of her.

  “Good,” he said distracted. He tilted his jaw slightly, thinking. “You seem qualified for the position. I’d like you to start on Monday,” he hit a button on his desk and spoke to someone unseen. “Maggie,” he said, “please take Ms. Harper down to HR and get her set up for a Monday start-date.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Stowe,” came the responding voice from some unseen speaker. Knox got up and walked around the desk until he was standing a foot away from Cat. Her body tingled with his closeness, and she breathed his masculine scent in deeply before she realized that he was waiting for her to get up. When he escorted her to the door, Cat remembered her manners and tried to put out her hand to shake his, thanking him for the opportunity, but wouldn’t take i
t. He’d avoided touching her, instead opening the door for her and ushering her out into the hall, then unceremoniously slamming it behind her. She’d stood there blinking for a second in disbelief at what had transpired, before an older, gentle-looking woman named Maggie approached her and took her down to HR to fill out stacks of IRS paperwork and a very thick non-disclosure agreement binding her to secrecy lest she leave the company and take a position at a competitor. Finally after seemingly endless mounds of paperwork, Cat had been dismissed. When she walked out of the building onto 5th Avenue, Cat leaned up against the cold concrete of the building, just out of the rain and put her hand to her chest as she took a few deep breaths, giving herself a silent lecture. You need a job, Cat, and this is a good one, she told herself, so it was time to put any physical attraction that she had for Knox, no wait—Mr. Stowe, away and comport herself in a mature and professional manner.

  Except things hadn’t exactly worked out that way. Every day as Cat made her way up the elevator to her desk outside of Mr. Stowe’s office her heart leaped out of her chest with excitement laced with a new and particularly frantic brand of anxiety. She tried to arrive at least twenty minutes early just so she could watch Mr. Stowe walk in each morning, always perfect-looking: sleek, sexy, immaculately dressed he’d stride past her desk, causing Cat to stop breathing as she longingly watched him. Most of the days he didn’t even make eye contact with her as he brushed past her into his office where he remained most of the day. Cat found herself wishing fervently that he’d speak to her, but instead of coming out to her desk and making conversation, Mr. Stowe preferred to send clipped, impersonal emails detailing his requests.

  A few times when she’d first started Cat had ventured into his office to ask him a question, trying to create at least a work-appropriate relationship, but to her chagrin he’d put a stop to that within the first two weeks, requesting, by email, that she speak to Maggie if she had any questions instead of interrupting his work. So Cat became more and more frustrated with herself, her rampant sexual desires for Mr. Stowe and with him, and she’d finally resorted to purposefully making mistakes. She knew it was stupid—so incredibly stupid--to risk sabotaging her career to fulfill her physical need for Mr. Stowe, but she simply could not stop herself. She was a victim of her own deep, dark need.

  Now, with the door slammed in her face, Cat looked back to her computer screen and sighed. What exactly have I accomplished? She asked herself. I got yelled at, and I’m here turned on like a weirdo and my boss hates me. What am I doing? She picked up the phone and began dialing the office of Mr. Stowe’s client to re-schedule the meeting as he’d originally requested. Suddenly, an email came in, labeled the red-alert coding she had given Mr. Stowe’s emails so that she’d see and answer them as quickly as possible. She bit down on her lip, hard, as she placed the phone back down on the cradle and clicked the message open. Terse, as usual, but the words still shocked her.

  “Come into my office,” the message read.

  “Oh my God,” Cat whispered to herself under her breath. She hadn’t been in his office for months and she was extremely nervous. She said a silent prayer that she wasn’t getting fired but even in her state of terror Cat still felt her body react with a kind of sexual shudder that started at her toes and travelled up she stood up and smoothed her blouse down over her hardening nipples and flat belly. She felt her face flush with blood and knew that she couldn’t do anything about her reddening cheeks, but still ran her fingers through her hair, trying to quickly brush out any snarls, and at the last minute grabbed the lip gloss from her desk drawer and applied a bit to her full lips. As she approached the office door, Cat did her best to put a courteous smile on her face, not revealing her physical and emotional turmoil to the stoic Mr. Stowe.

  “Come in, Cat,” he said when she entered, standing facing away from her towards the window behind his desk. Just the sound of Mr. Stowe’s authoritative voice saying her name made Cat falter a bit on her black kitten heels. She crept into the room, conscious of the silence, and when she got to the desk she tucked her hands under herself and sat down in one of the large leather chairs facing Mr. Stowe’s chair. Cat could hear herself breathing as she waited for him to turn around, and closed her eyes for a minute, calming herself. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through her nose, taking her time to completely empty her lungs of air before inhaling, a meditative trick she’d learned in her weekly yoga classes that always seemed to take her to a better mental place.

  “What are you thinking about?” the voice was so close to her that Cat started, quickly opening her eyes to see Mr. Stowe sitting not in his normal chair behind the large oak desk but right beside her, watching her. She hadn’t even heard him sit down.

  “I was just taking a deep breath, I guess,” Cat didn’t really know how to answer him. All she could think about was the scent of his cologne, intoxicating her mind and body. Again she felt her nipples harden and press against the white silk of her thin blouse. She saw his eyes flick down and notice as he appraised her breasts, and just for a microsecond she saw a gleam of lust disrupt the perfect mask of his face. Her lips parted as she felt her body respond to his gaze. But just as quickly as it came it was gone.

  “We need to discuss your performance,” he said, all business again. “Lately, I’ve felt that you’ve been very forgetful, not doing simple things that I’ve asked of you. Is there something that I need to be concerned about?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his muscular arms over his chest, exuding power.

  It happened before Cat even knew what she was doing. In a split second she had thrown her body on the floor in front of him.

  “I’m so sorry Mr. Stowe,” she said, pleading on her knees in front of him. “It won’t happen again, I promise,” she said, her own eyes looking down at the marble floor from her place below him. She realized that her hand was on his knee when at the same second that the embarrassment of what she’d done really hit her. Was she really on her knees, begging her boss to forgive her? She felt her face flush with shame as she removed her hand, bringing it down to clasp her other hand in front of her. When she finally looked up at Knox, the reaction on his face was visceral. His jaw was clenched in a firm line, his nostrils were flared as he breathed heavily in and out, and his grey eyes were bright and gleaming with intensity. Cat didn’t know what to do; it seemed that she was frozen there on the floor in front of him. Finally he broke the silence.

  “Go home, Cat,” he said his voice steely. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow.” Cat picked herself up and began backing away from Knox towards the door.

  “I’m sorry,” she began; her voice cracking as she tried to think of what she could possibly say to explain herself.

  “Tomorrow!” he bellowed, cutting her off. “Go home, NOW!” She heard his voice practically screaming at her as she turned and rushed out of the room, afraid to look behind her, slamming the office door behind her. Cat felt hot tears running down her face as she gathered up her belongings and headed to the elevator, wiping her face and looking down, avoiding eye contact with the other employees until she reached the solitude of the elevator. She was still trembling when she reached her Magnolia apartment. That’s it, I’m getting fired tomorrow, she decided, running herself a hot bath. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine, then, stripping off her clothes as she sipped the rich, soothing liquid, she went back into the bathroom and sank into the scalding hot water.

  As she soaked in the bath, Cat wondered what had motivated her to do what she’d done in the office today, and why did she fear and desire Knox so much? She’d gotten down on her knees in front of him like some kind of slave, a physical situation that she’d never even considered before in her life, and it had happened automatically, without even thinking about the consequences. The entire situation: her out of control attraction to her boss, her unpredictable and reckless behavior, her body’s reaction to him, was so strange to her and she felt a little bit relieved that she woul
d probably not have to work for Stowe Holding Companies after tomorrow. Maybe it was for the best, she thought, finishing off the last dregs of her glass of wine. She’d almost convinced herself by the time she went to sleep.

  When her alarm sounded the next morning, Cat considered not even getting out of bed. Why bother? She thought to herself, huddling under the covers to the cold morning air, if I’m just going to get fired anyways, I might as well not even go in. This rational worked for about three minutes, and Cat had almost convinced herself that pulling a no-show was the best option, but a little nagging voice inside her head kept reminding her over and over that she was a professional, and sometimes the easy thing was not the right thing. Sighing, Cat pushed the sheets off and sat up. She was going to go in and face Mr. Stowe and whatever fate she had waiting for her—and she was going to make him regret firing her. Cat’s jaw set in a firm line as jumped into action, planning out her revenge on Knox Stowe.

  Ninety minutes later Cat breezed into the Hudson Building. She felt dozens of shocked pairs of eyes on her as she confidently strode down the hallway towards her desk, as the co-workers that normally ignored her existence stopped their work and stared at her in awe. Her plan was working perfectly. As Cat got to her desk, she was relieved that Knox hadn’t come in yet, and took a second to appraise herself once more with a makeup mirror that she kept in her top drawer. Her hair, normally worn straight down her back or in a modest ponytail, was fluffed and curled to perfection in sultry waves framing her face. Forgoing her normal modest cherry lip gloss, Cat had painted her lips bright red, and the full curves stood out against her palest of skin. Her eyes were smoky and lined in black, her long lashes mascara-ed to the point where their long length almost touched her eyebrows as she looked down at herself. She looked fabulous—daring, provocative and sexually confident.