Contract Modifications

by Tigger
copyright 2002

 

Part II

 

Chapter 5: Productive Meetings

Feeling more in control than he had in many a month, Edward returned to the office, and found his work going unusually well as a result. In the time before Ken and Didi were due to show up, he managed to clear his in-basket, to come up with at least three potentially good ideas for some under-development projects, and to solve a disgruntled client's problem with an ongoing campaign. He was feeling rather good about things when Ken and Didi stuck their heads in his door.

"Okay, let's think about this product," he started. "Who is the customer for this stuff?"

"Girls," Ken put in. "Young ones who want to be just like Andrushka."

"Boys who buy gifts for those girls," Didi added.

"Okay, so we're dealing with what? Girls in the 12 to 22 age range and those few, semi-enlightened males who want to get on their good side?" Ed asked.

Ken considered that for a moment and then frowned. "Put that way, it doesn't sound like the multimillion dollar revenue source that Helen was nattering about, does it?"

"Not if we market the stuff as just another 'be like Mike' or in this case, 'the teenie-bopper of the minute' product," Ed agreed before turning to Didi. "Why do girls - women wear perfume in the first place?"

Snorting a laugh, Ken spoke first. "To smell pretty. Cover body odor, attract guys."

"Leave it to Algerson to overstate the obvious," Didi giggled. "But I'd agree, at least about the smelling pretty part."

"Why?" Ed asked.

"Why what? Why smell pretty?" Didi asked? "Because it is better than smelling bad."

"No, why only agree to the smelling part? I assume you were saying that attracting guys wasn't necessarily the reason to wear the perfume. Do you wear perfume, Didi?"

"Of course I do - sometimes."

"Why?"

The almost too-thin brunette considered that question for a few moments. "I guess, I wear it for me, first and foremost, for the way it makes me feel."

"And that is?"

"Womanly, I guess. Female and proud of it."

"I am woman, smell my scent?" Ken teased.

"Smart ass!" Didi snapped.

"Would you say that it is at least partially about your personal power as a woman? As an attractive woman?" Ed put in quickly, hoping to quell the growing explosion before it ended the meeting prematurely.

"Personal power as a woman," Didi said, obviously savoring the words and the idea. "That's a good start."

"Andrushka is a pretty powerful young woman - beautiful, talented, not to mention smart as hell. Can we use that instead of her more obvious appeal as a pop music star? And do it with enough subtlety that we can make the young ones want to use it to be mature and the mature ones want it to be sensual?

"That might mean messing with Andrushka's image," Ken warned. "She doesn't strike me as the most mature individual on the pop scene right now."

"True enough, but like Ed said, Ken, she's smart," Didi put in, a touch of excitement in her eyes. "She knows that the pop-music-diva thing tends to be pretty short-lived. I'd bet you anything she's already looking for a way to transition into something more. . . widely appealing."

"Are we agreed that the obvious solution is a loser, both for us and for the product?" Ed asked and got nods of agreement from the pair across from him. "Okay, Ken? I want you to do the 'devil's advocate' thing. Do up a simple concept ad program based on her current image and show us if it does, in fact, limit the product appeal and thus leads a dead end. Class C estimates - plus a hundred/minus fifty percent - will be good enough, I think. Didi? I want you to run with "I am woman," concept. See if you can come up with a couple of presentation ideas and maybe a catch-phrase or two. Plan on using Andrushka in the ads, but make her darker, less glitzy - show her being a powerful, mature woman in a variety of situations."

"Can do," Didi enthused. "Her recording company may not like it, though."

"Granted, but they won't like their new perfume spiraling down the porcelain throne, either. Especially if it flops badly enough to take their current diva down with it. When can we get back together?"

Ken got to his feet, checking his watch. "It's almost three o'clock now. I can probably have the basic outline of my piece for you by five - details will take a couple of days."

Didi grinned. "What I have, I'll show you at five, too. We'll just have to see how the idea-cauldron bubbles."

Ed grinned at that. "Okay, scoot then. I'll let Veronica know where we think this is headed. If she has problems with that, I'll let you know as soon as I know. If you don't hear from me before five, go for it, gang."

The meeting broke up at that point, all three feeling much better than they had following the morning's conference. Ed was in the process of collecting his thoughts for his own boss when the secretary he shared with the other senior account manager stuck her head in his cubicle and told him that Ms. Johnson wanted to see him.

Picking up a notebook, he headed for Veronica Johnson's corner office. Her door was open, but he knocked on the doorjamb anyway. "Come in, Ed," she greeted him, "Close the door behind you and take a seat, please."

He took a chair opposite her desk and waited quietly while she set aside whatever she'd been working on. "Helen and Derrick were in here just after lunch. They are concerned about the Andrushka proposal."

Ed shrugged. He'd expected something like this would happen. The only thing that surprised him was that Helen and Derrick had waited until after lunch to go to the boss. "I think we have some good ideas now. Ken and Didi are working on them even as we speak. Since I only heard about the project this morning, I think we're in good shape. We won't be embarrassed, anyway."

"I see," Veronica said, but there was something almost hesitant in her tone. "Want to tell me about it?"

"If you insist, but I'd rather give my folks a while to work it over a bit first. Veronica, we've only had the project for six hours - give us some time to get past the mistakes we're bound to make, okay?"

"Well, no one handles a short notice project as well as you and your team, Ed, so I will leave you to it. That's not the only reason I wanted to see you, though."

"Oh?"

"There's no way to deal with this politely, but I'm not just your boss, I'm also your friend. Who is that woman you had lunch with today?" The question was direct; the look she gave him as she asked it even more so.

"A friend," he replied cautiously.

"Oh, is she really? I rather thought she might be your Mistress."

"My. . .Mistress? You mean, my lover? Not that she is, Ms. Johnson, but I don't think that is really any of your business."

"You know very well, Ed, that is not the kind of Mistress I meant. Is she the woman to whom you submit? Because if she is, you need to get her on your side, dammit! Her job is to make you BETTER than you are without her, not cut you down!"

"I don't know how you can . . " he started to say, only to have her cut him off with an imperiously raised hand.

"How I can ask that question? First of all, because I care about you, both in the personal sense and in the professional sense. Ever since you came back from that damned vacation six months ago, you've been, I don't know, distracted somehow. The focus that set you apart from the other account executives has been only sporadic. Second, because she advertised herself, although I would have thought . . .well, never mind. Look, Ed, you've got to pull yourself out of this if you hope to move into my office when I move on."

"What do you mean?" he asked, scrambling for time to figure out what was going on.

The woman sighed. "Okay, look. I knew before you left on that trip that you had. . . sexually submissive tendencies, all right? No, there wasn't anything overt or obvious, and certainly nothing that affected your work, but you gave off signals that an. . .experienced observer would recognize. Then you went away on vacation and come back emotionally closed up where you had once been open. You watch people when you don't think they're watching you - almost as if you're trying to figure out if you can trust them. As a result, your concentration and focus have suffered. And then there are those new little mannerisms you couldn't quite control."

"Mannerisms?"

Veronica's sardonic look told him before her words precisely what she meant. "It was two weeks before you consistently remembered to walk heel-to-toe instead of mincing toe-to- heel. Even now, if someone catches you by surprise, you will slip up and offer your hand loose-wristed until you remember guys don't shake hands like that. Couple those observations with your sudden crew cut and your complete disinterest in anything resembling a social life, and I would say you had one very bad scene experience on your vacation."

"I. . .I see."

Veronica stood and came around to stand beside the stunned man. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder and could feel the shaking through his suit jacket. "Did she abuse you, Edward?"

"I. . .I can't talk about it, Veronica, not without her permission. Whatever happened wasn't her fault - not completely."

"Don't you DARE blame yourself," she growled, her eyes suddenly darkly furious. "You were a newbie - I KNOW you were a newbie - and you cannot blame yourself for what you didn't or don't know."

"It wasn't like that, not really, but I need to talk to her first. Obviously, you know more about this and about me than I thought you did. I need to get her okay before I can answer too many of your questions."

Veronica considered that for a moment before nodding. "All right, Ed, but understand this. I do not like what has happened to you and I absolutely HATE the changes I've seen in you. I will do whatever I can for you, but you have to start by trying to help yourself, and the first step there is to stop hiding whatever it is that you're trying to hide."

Ed rose from his seat and looked at his boss. "I'll get back to you," he said huskily, and then left quickly.

Veronica stood there for several moments, considering what to do next, then she strode back behind her desk, sat down and reached for the phone. She dialed the number from memory and leaned back in her executive chair.

"Barbara?" she asked when the call was answered. "Hi, this is Veronica Johnson. Look, I need some information - about a possible Sister. That's right. She gave her name as Mary O'Hurley. Oh, you know her? Great. She did? How interesting. Well, what can you tell me about her?"

~-----------~

Mary Margaret O'Hurley put down the phone, her eyes thoughtful. *Well, isn't that a kick,* she mused. The information she had just uncovered certainly put a new spin on some of the day's events, but what was she going to do about it? The situation was becoming as convoluted and outrageous as some of the fiction that was 'published' on the female dominant websites and newsgroups of the Internet - and almost as unbelievable.

All the same, she now had more information that had a bearing on what had been done to Edward. Unfortunately, there were at least two different spins she could put on this new intelligence, although her instincts and her inclinations told her that only one of them fit what she herself had seen. Still, it wasn't just her life that would be affected by how she handled this. On one hand, this was definitely something she and Edward might be able to use to distinct advantage. On the other. . .

Mary poured herself a glass of mineral water and walked to the window overlooking the nearby river. She took a sip. In point of fact, there wasn't much more that could happen to Edward at this point, and there were distinct advantages to flushing the game early.

It was time to go on the offensive - one way or another, she thought. Setting her glass down, she strode back to the phone and quickly dialed information.

 

Chapter 6: "Getting to Know the Players" Get-together

Ed opened the apartment door, and was surprised to see "Marque. . I mean, Mary? I, uh, wasn't expecting to see you."

She smiled gently at him. "I know, but I feel there are new issues we needed to discuss."

"Well, okay, but. . "

"But?" Mary prompted.

"I haven't finished thinking," Ed said quietly, "About the issues we discussed at lunch."

"I see. Well, that was not the only thing I wanted to address with you. May I come in?" she finished pointedly.

Ed blushed at that, and stepped back to permit her entry. "Welcome to my home," he offered formally.

"Enter freely and of my own will, but this time with your blessing first, eh?" she said, smiling as she returned his handshake.

"Can I get you something to drink? Some wine, or perhaps something stronger?" Ed offered as he led her into his apartment's small living room.

"No, thank you, but I don't drink."

"Oh? Some coffee then? Or tea? It wouldn't take but a moment to get ready."

"Some tea would be lovely."

"Chinese-style or Indian?"

"Indian, please. Darjeeling if you have it."

"Of course. You can sit here or come in to the kitchen while I fix it."

"Edward," she purred automatically, "I love watching a man wait on me." And instantly regretted it when he stopped short and stared at her. "Sorry. Some times such responses come too trippingly to my tongue. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he said a bit too sharply, and then looked sheepish. "I'm sorry, too. I understand. Still want the tea?"

"Please."

The preparations were competently and quickly seen to in the small, but efficiently laid out kitchen. In short order, Edward was carrying a tea service tray back to the living room. He was just setting the tray down on the coffee table when his doorbell rang. "Excuse me just a moment please."

Opening the door again, he was momentarily stunned to see that his new visitor was "Veronica?"

"Hello, Ed. May I come in, please?"

Shaking himself out of his surprised confusion, Edward stood aside to let her enter.

"Ah, Veronica, or should I say, Mistress Verita," Mary called from the door, "You've arrived. Excellent."

"Mary," Veronica said by way of greeting. "Thank you for inviting me, but I haven't answered to Verita in years - not since my college days at Tulane."

"Which is when and where you became a Sister?"

"Yes."

"Well, you are just in time to share in this lovely tea Edward has prepared."

Hearing his name, Ed remembered to close the door and looked at the two women. "I don't understand. Veronica, I have not had a chance to discuss this with Mary yet."

"Don't worry, Edward," Mary said gently. "I called Veronica this afternoon and invited her to join us tonight."

"Oh. . . well, the tea is getting cold. Veronica, would you tea or coffee? Or perhaps something stronger? I have wine and brandy."

"Tea will be fine, Ed."

Moments later, all had steaming cups of fragrant brew. In the way of strangers trying to work out their differences, they made small talk for several minutes. It was Veronica who called the impromptu meeting to order.

"I know you're a professional domme, Mary, because Barbara gave me a rundown on you and your operation when I called her this afternoon. What I don't know is how you came to be involved with Ed."

"That, Veronica, is what Edward and I have been trying to figure out as well. Someone set us both up."

"Define that more completely for me, please," the petite redhead ordered.

"I kidnaped him, and then spirited him away to my island hideaway for two weeks of very intense scening."

Veronica started to protest but then caught something that stopped her. "You're serious," she finally said, almost in wonder.

"As a slap in the face," Mary replied evenly. "As Barbara no doubt told you, I provide a very exclusive service for people who want to play on the edge. I do, in fact, own a small island in the Carribean where I control everything, including access to and from the island. Once I have a client there, I effectively own that individual until I see fit to send him or her home. In Edward's case, some person or persons as yet unknown, tricked me into taking him and treating him to a series of very extreme scenarios, all of them heavily forced femme in nature."

"Well, that explains why he walked like he was in heels for several weeks after he returned from that blasted vacation," Veronica said, her tone as soft as her eyes were hard, "but you said that YOU were tricked - how?"

"I contract for these . . . holidays through local agents - most often other professional dominants carefully selected and screened throughout the country. Someone, and I don't know who, managed to convince my agent in this area that they were representing Edward. It was a brilliant plan, with sufficient truth and verifiable facts behind it that the tools I used to confirm the contract seemed to support the belief that Edward wanted what was in that contract."

"You never saw Edward face-to-face in the entire time this contract was negotiated?" Veronica demanded, disbelief evident in her very posture.

"As now seems incredibly stupid on my part, I *thought* I had found ways to provide clients with the fantasy of being captured, literally off the street, and forced into slavery. It is a very powerful image for many submissives, as you well know, Mistress Verita, and one that some are willing to pay a great deal of money to experience."

"But that makes you so. . .so vulnerable, to something exactly like this," Veronica pointed out.

"I still don't see, Mary," Edward interjected, "how you could possibly think that I was in on this thing."

"I did have you questioned, dear," Mary pointed out. "Right after I got that first payment."

"You did? When?" Edward was dumbfounded, and it showed in his face. "I think I'd remember someone asking me if I was going to spend two weeks playing slave-girl on a tropical island."

Mary laughed and reached into her large purse. "I did tell you I had other evidence." She extracted a small tape player and set it beside the tea tray on the coffee table. "This 'interview' was conducted by one of my trusted friends. It was about two weeks before we took you, Edward, in a small bar near your office." Mary depressed the 'play' button, adjusted the volume control and then sat back in her seat to listen.

"I just got back from vacation," a woman's voice offered. "Had a lovely time. Sun, sea and shopping."

There was a masculine chuckle followed by Ed's voice. "I'm getting ready to go away on vacation in a couple of weeks, myself. First long one I've taken since college. I'm really excited about it."

"Oh, really? Looking forward to it, are we?"

"You bet. This is something I have always wanted to do. Glad I finally got up the guts to actually go out there and do it."

"Sounds exciting."

"It is - and maybe just a bit scary because I'll really be tested out there, you know? Truth to tell," and an almost embarrassed laugh came through clearly, "I expect there will be more than a few embarrassing moments, but I am determined to see it through, prove myself, you know?"

"Doesn't sound like much of a vacation to me."

"Well, it will be one of those once-in-a-lifetime fantasy experiences - something I will remember the rest of my life."

Mary reached over and clicked off the tape player. "My friend had the microphone hidden in her broach," she said. "I think, Veronica, you can see how that would serve to convince us that Edward knew what was in store for him?"

"Oh, GUMDROPS," Edward snapped. "It didn't mean anything of the kind."

"Didn't it? Well, I can see how it might be interpreted that way, Ed. What did you mean?" Veronica asked.

"I was going to the Blue Ridge, to a camp where there was one of those 'outward bound' type outfits. I'd always wanted to do one of those things, but I was worried that I wasn't in good enough shape for it. And I don't like heights at all so I was just a bit scared."

"And the expectation of being embarrassed?"

"They put mud pits under and around the obstacles they set for the campers. Screw up and you end up in a hog wallow. I kind of expected to do that quite often."

Veronica shook her head. "My god. Knowing the circumstances now, I would have agreed with Mary that you knew precisely what she had in store for you."

Mary pulled a folder from her bag and looked at Edward, her gaze intense. "I'm rather surprised at your reaction just now, Edward. 'Gumdrops?' What does that mean?"

Edward blushed bright red while Veronica began to laugh softly. "Our Ed doesn't swear or use bad language, Mary."

"I don't understand."

Swallowing, Ed tried to explain. "I had a rather . . .rough vocabulary in my youth, Mary. When I came to work for the advertising firm, I found out quickly that many folks," and Mary caught the hint of a bashful look at his redheaded boss, "don't like it when someone turns the air blue with curse words - especially around clients. So I trained myself to use other, less offensive terms to express myself."

"And gumdrops is one of those terms you use in lieu of a more common and vulgar expletive?" Edward nodded. "So, tell me, dear, do you ever use the word 'gummiworms?'"

The slender man looked at her in surprise. "Not ever, Mary. I can't stand the things. Won't even buy them for my nephew."

"I see. Odd thing, though, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't have known that based on my experiences with Edward on my island."

"What do you mean by that?" Veronica asked.

"Oh, just that Edward exhibited that fine vocabulary he mentioned on more than one occasion, at least until my ladies and I taught him better."

At Veronica's raised brow, Edward blushed again. "Well, that paddle hurt, and I almost fell the first time you made me try to dance in those heels." He swallowed hard. "I was under a lot of pressure and scared, okay?"

"Very interesting, indeed," Mary repeated before she going momentarily silent. She seemed to reach some decision and turned to face Veronica. "Mistress Verita, as an ethical dominant, tell me something. What is the first thing you do when you get into a scene involving high levels of physical and/or emotional stress? When you know or think you may be pushing some serious buttons and limits for your submissive?"

Veronica became thoughtful and then shrugged. "You verify that the. . .," she stumbled a moment as she realized what she was about to reveal, but forged on in spite of what effect that revelation might have on her plans. "You verify that the client is mentally and emotionally ready for the scene. Somehow, you need to get them to communicate to you, without breaking roles or disrupting the anticipation, that he's ready and more importantly, willing to go where you want to lead him."

"And how do you do that? I know, of course, this is one of the primary lessons taught to all new Sisters, but I want to convince Edward that I'm not making something up."

"Typically, I would push my clients to the point they used their caution word. That shows that we both understand that there are limits, and that the client is thinking clearly enough to recognize the need and select the right control word. If some aspect of the scene is too difficult, he or she can, of course, use the stop word, and before anything undesirable happens."

Mary beamed at Veronica, like a teacher approving of a particularly bright and thoughtful student. "Tell me, Edward, do you remember those first fateful moments in my keeping? Right after you regained consciousness?"

He became thoughtful for a moment and the memories came flooding back to him.

 

Chapter 7: Interludes

Edward tried to pull his hands down from above his head - he had a hellish itch demanding to be scratched but found he couldn't. Something held him by the wrists - too tightly. He could barely twist them, let alone move them, but in the dimly lighted gloom, he couldn't see what that something was.

Blinking rapidly, Edward tried to adjust to the dark when brilliantly disorienting light suddenly flared all about him and then the world began to slowly rotate. It took him a few moments for his eyes to clear enough to see that he really was rotating - he'd been lying on his back and whatever he had been resting on was moving him into a vertical position.

As he came upright, other externals became apparent to him. His feet were also restrained, much as his hands were, only to the floor. Moreover, something was forcing him up onto his toes, almost as if he were wearing some kind of shoe with very high heels.

At last his vision cleared enough to discern what was restraining his hands and wrists. Some type of dowel, about two feet in length, was between his wrists keeping his hands apart. There was also a chain at the center of the dowel that disappeared into a hole in the ceiling far above his head.

Sound was his first clue something new was happening - a creaking noise of metal on metal. *The chain,* his mind realized, *something was pulling up on that chain, taking a strain, pulling my arms further up.* Slowly, inexorably, Edward felt his shoulders and arms grow almost painfully taut as the chain kept pulling, kept forcing his weight up off his toes. Then he realized that something similar must have been attached to the spreader bar at his ankles because his toes were being held fast down there, too, but he couldn't see for sure. The pulling finally stopped when all the slack was gone from his body, leaving every muscle in his torso stretched to their limits.

Two women approached him. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you doing?" but they ignored him, and began to wrap what he would later recognize as a heavily boned corset about his stretched out torso. Without a word, the women connected the corset hooks in front of him, and then began to tighten the laces in the back of the corset.

Methodically, they started at the bottom and worked their way up to the top of the garment, and then, having finished that, began working their way back down, somehow finding slack with each pull, only to begin working back up yet again. With each repetition, the corset's span shrank still further, crushing Edward's waist and lower ribcage into a semblance of the classic hour-glassed female form.

"What. . .are . . you . . .trying to . . DO?" he begged, but went unanswered. They just kept working, their agile, skilled fingers In fairly short order, Edward could barely breathe, and what breath he had, he wasted begging them to stop, but still they continued. "Please, stop, you're hurting me!"

And still, they continued. One of the women brought a knee up to the small of Ed's back to increase the leverage she could exert and gave the laces a sharp tug.

And broke the camel's back, or at least, Ed's control. "Ow, that hurts! Stop, please stop, for the love of Gawww . . . Gumdrops!"

~----------~

"What happened then?" Mary asked as she opened the folder to a specific page and passed it to Veronica.

"Now that you mention it, they stopped what tightening it - actually loosened it just a bit in fact."

Mary nodded and looked to Veronica. "Look at the paragraph marked 'Safety and Precautions'," she ordered.

Veronica scanned down and then her eyes went wide. "Pre- Agreed-Upon-Caution-Word," she read aloud, "gumdrops. Stop- word, gummiworms." She let the folder drop to her lap and stared at Edward. "Dear Lord, but you gave them the contracted yellow-light word, got the appropriate and ethical response from the dommes but. . .but. . .

"He never even knew it," Mary finished for Veronica. "And at the same time, convinced me that he was fully aware of the other aspects of the contract. That one incident was the one part this fiasco I couldn't figure out."

"Whoever did this knows me well enough to know I use that silly phrase as my 'expletive-deleted'. They expected that I would eventually use it during some particularly stressful situation."

"And it never crossed your mind that their response, the lessening of the stress, was because of something you said, Ed? It never even occurred to you that Mary might be playing according to accepted rules? Didn't you at least think about trying to find a stop code word?"

"If he did, no one reported that to me, Veronica," Mary put in, giving Edward a steady look. "A man saying odd words out of context, particularly during a very demanding scene experience, would DEFINITELY have caught my or my assistants' attention. I have very carefully trained them to listen and look for any anomalies during scenes. They know that if they are ever in doubt as to the continued consent of a submissive, they are to cease their current activities until clear communication can be reestablished. Ever since I had a man forget his codeword in the stress of a particularly intense scene."

"Ed?" Veronica asked again.

"I *did* think of it. But Mary was very . . . convincing about the slavery thing."

"So sweet of you to say so, dear," Mary teased in tones that sent his mind flashing back to the first time he had met La Marquesa.

"Besides," Ed hurried on while suppressing a shiver, "Everything at Black Rose is based on consensual scenes, right? And all a safeword does is, um, withdraw consent, right? This was already a non-consensual situation, so what good would it do me to try to communicate that I wasn't, well, that I wasn't consenting to any of it? As far as I was concerned they already KNEW that! I understand now that Mary really didn't, but *I* did. I figured I'd just get punished for speaking without permission - especially if I broke training by saying things a lady shouldn't say. God knows I got punished enough for *that* by the time I thought of trying a safe-word."

"I'm beginning to understand just how difficult that must have been for you, dear," Mary said very gently. "Maybe I am too good at my work. When I think of how I first confronted you . . . "

~-----------~

The two women who had first trussed him up in that damned corset had returned. Thanks to their none-too-gentle ministrations, he was again bound into rigid immobility. The corset had been tightened again, cutting him in half, his hanging body stretched out from pointed toes to straining wrists.

Suddenly, blinding white light flared in the small cell and a different woman entered. Instantly, the relatively minor problems of discomfort evaporated from his mind in the face of the inexplicably greater menace that seemed to pervade her very essence.

"My, my, aren't you the lovely one?" she purred, mimicking the rumble of a hungry predator before particularly toothsome prey. "You will make a fine addition to my stable, slave."

As he hung in the cuffs, Edward didn't feel particularly lovely. His mouth tasted like old gym socks, his face was scratchy with beard stubble, and the gritty feeling in his eyes must have been accompanied by redness and irritation that would show on the outside.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he croaked through his moisture-deprived throat.

"For profit, of course," she replied off-handedly, her full attention apparently focused on her continued examination of Edward's tightly drawn form. "A slender body is an asset, but that can be obtained through proper diet and exercise - which you will receive, I assure you. Strawberry blond hair and green eyes, now that is an unusual combination, and highly prized. But this nose, ah, this nose."

"Accident," he mumbled. "Bad surgeon."

"My dear . . . slave," she purred again, one leather clad finger stroking his button nose despite his attempt to pull his head back. "The surgeon was marvelous. Not particularly experienced on men, of course, but he shaped you such a cute nose when he repaired your breathing problem."

"You know about that?" Edward asked.

"I know *everything* about you," she claimed. "There are any number of rich men - and women - who will pay handsomely for such a pretty boy as you. Or at least, one as pretty as you will be when I'm done with you."

~-----------~

Edward's eyes refocused on the scene in his apartment, blushing yet again as he looked at Veronica and realized he'd been speaking his memories aloud in front of her. "She said I was . . that the way I looked made me profitable as a slave. I believed her," he finished with quiet sincerity.

Veronica turned to Mary with a light of appreciation in her eyes. "Oh, very well done, sister!" she congratulated but then stopped short when she saw the hurt look flash in Ed's eyes. "Of course," she went on less enthusiastically, "you did have a lot to work with. It's always easier to get into the head of a smart, imaginative person than a dullard."

"Edward does seem to have a flare for role-play," Mary put in, "although he had more motivation for perfecting his feminine personas than I intended or would have approved."

"Just so," Veronica agreed, just a bit too quickly and then went on, anger coloring her tone. "Someone has to pay for what happened to him."

"I thought it might have been you, Veronica," Mary said quietly, "Which was why I asked you here tonight, so I could watch you react to what I had to say to Edward."

"Veronica would never. . " Edward jumped to his boss' defense.

"I agree," Mary replied, before turning back to face the other woman directly again. "You were too horrified by that last little revelation, even with your evident enjoyment of such imagery in the abstract. When you remembered precisely to whom those things had been done you became angry - extremely angry." Then, she turned back to Ed. "So, I would say, my dear, that you now have a real ally in your office. Sadly, I am very much afraid you are going to need such an ally if we pursue this search."

Nodding solemnly, Veronica completed the thought, "Because the most likely suspects are our co-workers."

"Gumdrops!" Ed said sadly.

"I'm afraid so," Mary repeated quietly. "I am going to have my investigator attempt to follow the money that paid my fee. Someone spent a great deal of it setting Edward up, and that much money always leaves a trail. It may be difficult to track this late in the game, but as I said, he is very good. I will also try to find out from my contacts how they got taken in by this scheme."

 

Chapter 8: Power Brokering

Mary and Veronica left Edward's apartment together. As they entered the elevator, Mary chuckled. "Care to share the joke?" Veronica challenged.

She was still trying to figure out what this woman had meant by her parting comment to Ed. "We still have to decide that other question between us, Ed. The longer that goes unanswered, the greater the risk to our shared goals." Veronica decided she would have to find out what that had been about as soon as possible.

"Just thinking about a man who cares enough about a woman's feelings and sensibilities to make a habit of saying something as silly as 'gumdrops' to keep from offending her with his language. Pretty special man, I'd say."

"You don't know how special," Veronica sighed in agreement.

"Going to make him yours, Sister?"

"Once I figure out how to make him want to be caught."

"Dangerous thing, letting one of the good ones walk around without your brand on him. Some smart lady might snatch him out from under your nose."

Veronica gave Mary a steely look, but saw something like support in the taller woman's eyes and nodded. "But I had to wait, you see, until I left the company. He deserves the promotion to my current position, but for that to happen, there can't be any accusations of nepotism."

"I don't think he'd fight very hard."

"After tonight?" Veronica fought back a surge of temper. "When we just concluded that someone at work did this to him and, now that, thanks to you, he knows about my Mistress Verita history?"

"Had to happen sooner or later, and I think sooner is better for both our purposes just now. Besides, I did that on purpose."

"What?!?! Why you. . "

"Ah ah, gumdrops, remember? Look, Veronica, a lot of secrets are going to come to light in the next few weeks. Having him find out now about Mistress Verita from you, voluntarily, will, I think, serve you in good stead. At the very least, it will be preferable to having him find out on his own and think you were hiding that from him."

"I was hiding it from him," Veronica muttered darkly.

"Well, you shouldn't have been, particularly not after what he's been through. You will need to discuss that, and you will need to discuss Mistress Verita's specialty with him. YOU need to discuss that with him. There is a possibility, I don't know how strong yet, that whoever set this up also knows about your past. He or she seems to know a great deal about me and I thought my own security was excellent. You would be very handy as the villain for this little farce if the real instigator needs a someone to hide behind."

"Why are you telling me this? I thought you had just concluded that I was the leading suspect."

"I was inclined to mark you off the list after I talked to Barbara and confirmed you were a Sister of the Delta of Venus. After meeting you, and seeing you with Edward? I know you didn't do it."

"How?"

Mary smiled gently. "You ARE a Sister. It's clear in the way you talk and the way you think about the craft. There is no way on God's green earth that you'd send your chosen mate to someone else to train. That's your right, your responsibility AND your privilege."

Veronica stared at the taller woman for several heartbeats and then burst into laughter. "You've got that right the first time. And you had no reason to come back here if you were lying, either. You were already in the clear."

"Exactly. So now, we need to find out who did this and why."

"What do we do when we find out?"

The elevator door whooshed open and they stepped out into the lobby. "I am not sure yet," Mary replied. "I have several ideas, but I need to do some research first. You want to share a cab?"

"No, thanks. I have my car outside. Can I offer you a ride?"

 

Chapter 9: Truth in Advertising

Veronica grimaced as she attempted, for what must have been the fifth time in the past twenty minutes, to read the simple one-page memorandum she held before her. When she failed yet again, she sighed and set the offending document aside. She looked at the small digital clock on her desk - 11:30 AM - and stifled a groan. Her entire morning had been like this. Her kindergarten-aged niece had better concentration than she had exhibited this morning.

That she knew and understood the root cause of her problem did nothing to help her solve it. And Mary O’Hurley’s call this morning had not helped.

"It is just as I thought, Verita," Mary had begun bluntly. "Edward is going to pose a significant problem for me in dealing with this mess. I tried to run him off yesterday at lunch, but there is a core of stubborn determination in him. . . reminds me of someone else I could name," and Veronica thought those tones were somehow almost admiring, "but he's nonetheless a problem right now, and he could become a bigger one if he goes off on his own. He's the focus of all this and whoever did this will know what he's doing. That will only make the answers harder to find."

"He is easy to underestimate because he is generally so easy-going and because he tends to work at making his co-workers and subordinates look better than he does. However, there is a great deal of terrier in him, too. He just grabs hold of a problem and doesn't let it go until he's fixed it or shredded it."

"Well, he isn't equipped to solve or shread this one. He doesn't have the experience, background or the skills, and like I said, he's too damned obvious."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Talk to him. Get him to agree to stay the hell out of this. I tried, but he doesn't completely trust me to handle this."

"Thanks to you, he probably doesn't trust me much right now, either."

"You have a history with him, dear, certainly a better one than I do. You need to use that to get his cooperation - to ASSURE his cooperation."

"Great, just great," Veronica sighed.

"Look, Veronica, so far what's happened in this mess has been pretty tame. Whoever did this set up a guy who had already shown subbie tendencies, who had already begun to explore actively the dominance and submission scene, and put him into a situation where the play would assuredly be safe and sane if at the same time, very non-consensual. What I'm saying is that it was pretty unlikely that he would have been hurt, at least not physically, by these machinations - up to THIS point in time."

"But you think that might change?"

"First, whoever did this took great pains to stay in the background, to stay hidden. Second, the plan was needlessly cruel, with humiliation elements that served no apparent purpose except his or her own sadistic self-gratification. I think that points to a coward - one who is extremely egocentric and arrogant - but who might become extremely dangerous if cornered or threatened with exposure."

Veronica immediately made the connection and sighed. "So, we have to think about the possibility of violence? Real violence against Ed?"

There was a moment's hesitation on the other end of the line. "I think he's already suffered real violence at my hands through the efforts of this . . . this creature, Verita," Mary replied icily, "So yes, I think FURTHER violence against Edward, or attempted against me, is a very real concern. I, personally, am prepared for that, and will hire suitably skilled and armed people to deal with that possibility. Ed isn't thinking in those terms. He's thinking about asking the person who did this why and not much beyond that, regardless of what he tried to convince me yesterday."

"And if he isn't going to trust Mistress Verita anymore than he trusts La Marquesa?"

"Deal with it, Sister," Mary had said firmly. "Like I said last night, if you tell him first, it will be better than if, or rather WHEN, he finds out on his own. Which I am sure that our hidden adversary intends as part of all this."

The electronic summons of the phone on her desk interrupted Veronica's memories. She picked it up and answered, "Yes?"

"Ed Davis would like to see you for a few moments, if you have the time?"

"Send him in, please," she ordered and then set down the phone. "Here goes nothing," she sighed before pasting her best businesswoman-executive-in-charge smile on her face.

~-----------~

She waved Ed into one of the comfortable chairs that faced her desk. "What's up?" she asked.

"I wanted to talk to you about the Andrushka account."

"How's that coming?"

"I think it will be pretty good. We're looking at a variation of the Secret concept - you know, 'strong enough for a man, but made for a woman' idea. We're thinking of something that shows the perfume as a product that a powerful, in-charge-of-her-life woman would use, not because it is expected or because of a man, but because it makes HER feel good, makes her feel both more womanly and more powerful as a woman."

Veronica thought about that for a moment, mulling that over in her mind, then said the obvious. "That doesn't exactly play up Andrushka's name appeal."

"We considered that, and Ken thinks we can tailor the approaches to the venue and to the group, but if we just play to that appeal, well, let me ask you this, would you buy a perfume that was guaranteed to make you smell like a sixteen year old blond nymphet who prances around a stage in purple leather jeans singing bad lyrics?"

"Not really," she chuckled appreciatively.

"But you might think about something that talked about your innate pleasure in your personal feminine strength. Look, it's a bit of a long shot, but we think that most of the approaches will be of the type you describe - Nike's 'I want to be like Mike' campaign - except aimed at 12 - 16 year old girls who want to be like Andrushka."

"When will you have something to show me?"

"We're still trying to come up with catch-phrases, but we'll have some basic story-boards late today. . . I'll get Didi an appointment to see you tomorrow morning."

"Sounds fine," Veronica said, and then paused, trying to find a way to open the topic she knew had to be aired between them, then she saw, Ed glance at his watch and stand up to leave.

"I won't take up any more of your time."

*He can't wait to get out of her,* she thought sadly. *Damn.* "Uh, Ed, are you free for lunch?"

"Lunch?" he asked, surprised.

"Uhmmm, yes, I think we need to talk. I could have my secretary get us some sandwiches or something, and we could discuss. . . last night here in the privacy of my office."

"That's not . . "

"Would you rather go somewhere neutral? Or to your place? I really think we need to talk, Ed. I don't like it that you seem to feel the need to put distance between us. We've been, well, friends for quite a while."

She forced herself not to fidget as he turned an unexpectedly cold and searching stare at her. Finally he replied, "I would like us still to be friends, Veronica, I really need friends, right now especially."

"Then let me tell you the truth, Ed, at least about me and about the Lady of Truth."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and finally nodded his agreement. "Lunch here sounds fine," he said.

~-----------~

They made small talk until Veronica's secretary arrived with takeout fruit salads and iced tea from a nearby delicatessen. The petite executive then ordered the younger woman to hold all calls, and to admit no visitors, with no exceptions, until the meeting with Mr. Davis was over.

"Lock the door, will you, Ed?" Veronica asked as she laid out the lunch on her conference table. *That way you'll be sure,* she told herself resignedly.

"You look tired, Ed," she said. "I suspect you didn't sleep very well after Mary and I left your place last night."

"Not very," he admitted as he reached for his fork. "I had a lot on my mind. There were a lot of questions running mad circles in my head."

"That's really why I wanted to talk to you now. I'm sure that key among those questions are ones that go like 'Who the hell is Mistress Verita?' and 'How does she know that damned Marquesa?' and 'Why doesn't Veronica tell her to stop calling her that name?' Would those be up there high on that list of 'mad questions' of yours, Ed?"

"Among other things, yes," Ed replied softly.

*At least he cares enough to be upset at the idea that I could have been involved in this . . .this abomination,* she thought. "So," she continued smoothly, "What have you decided in your sleepless night?"

"About you?" Ed asked, looking up from his plate.

"I have to admit that I'm interested."

Ed set his fork aside and took a sip of his soda, clearly thinking about his reply. Finally, he shrugged. "I don't know. I, well, I just don't know how to handle the fact that you're like La Marquesa, that you're a . . "

Veronica waited several moments for him to finish his statement before offering "A Sister?"

"I don't know what that means," Ed answered, his tone telling her he'd had a different term in mind.

"Good for you," she put in, "At least you're open minded enough to admit that you don't know what being a Sister entails, rather than make an ass of you and me by assuming that you do."

"I'm only admitting that I don't know that specifically," Ed came back at her, "What I do know, however, is a good deal more than I wanted to know."

She heard the bitter edge return to his voice, but did not acknowledge it, did not want to acknowledge it. Instead, she simply turned the tables back on him. "Do you? Do you really still think that Mary is the villain of this piece? Or that I am . . . capable of the same?"

Ed stared at her for several heartbeats and then looked away when Veronica's own gaze remained steady. "No," he sighed, "I guess not. I mean, I don't think that Mary is the villain. It's pretty clear to me that she was taken advantage of as well, and equally clear that she is honestly upset about that. But. . .even though I trust her motives - now, anyway - I'm not sure I trust her judgement, or that her goals and objectives in all this are compatible with my own."

"A fair enough assessment," Veronica replied. "But what about the rest of my question? About how you perceive me in all this."

Ed hesitated, his mouth opening and closing several times as he tried to frame a reply. "Well, that's not exactly the answer I was hoping for," Veronica said.

"I'm sorry, uh, but. . " Ed began, only to lapse into silence again. This time, the woman across from him only waited, her clear eyes patiently waiting for him to work through whatever was stopping his reply. "Look at it from my perspective. The first thing she demanded was that I be Edie again. Gumdrops, but she is so caught up in this "la Marquesa, Queen of the World" thing of hers that she only sees the power, the domination and the humiliation and I don't see how that helps!"

Veronica nodded. "All right, but that is about Mary and how you perceive her. I asked you about how you see me."

"But it does! You took advantage of that cursed party to make me do the same thing - dress as a woman so you could humiliate me. Whatever it means to be a Sister, at least some parts of it don't. . .help with finding out who did this to me or why."

"Damn," she whispered under her breath as a flush that might have been either anger or embarrassment suffused her redhead's porcelain complexion. "That stupid, damned Halloween Party."

"Well, it sure as he. . gumdrops wasn't the Christmas Party. The rumor was that you were the one who created the. . . theme for the Halloween Party."

The annual office Halloween Party was traditionally the culminating event of the agency's annual management retreat. Although the affair really was a party and intended to be a good time for all, it was served a training function. Therefore, participation was not truly optional. Costumes were mandatory and had to be in keeping with the theme set at the beginning of the retreat.

"I didn't give it much credence at the time, but it was awfully soon after that supposed vacation of mine. Now all I can wonder is if that theme or my supposedly randomly selected costume 'inspiration' was coincidental or suspicious?"

Whatever emotion had colored Veronica's visage was just as quickly quelled as she turned a considering eye on Ed. "Ed," she said very softly, "Do you *really* think that's why I arranged for you to draw that particular party challenge? So that I could humiliate you?"

"So you DID arrange for me to draw that damned women's wear account."

For the first time, temper flashed in the executive's violet eyes, "Hell, Ed. Okay, you've been made a victim, but don't be a fool on top of that!" she flared at him. "Of COURSE I *arranged* for that account to be in the hat in the first place just so you could draw it. But I didn't do it to humiliate you. If I'd have wanted to humiliate you, I'd have seen to it that you got that slimy 'health food' account instead of my secretary, Peggy. Lord knows you would have been embarrassed if you had been the one to puke all over yourself but *I* wouldn't have been punished with lousy coffee for the past six months. C'mon, man, and think about it! Do you really believe that's the way I work?"

Ed's cheeks flamed. He took a breath and shook his head. "No. Partly because it never made sense for you to do something like that, and well, partly because it would be a promotion-killer. Mostly, however because you just wouldn't."

"Thank you," Veronica said with quiet dignity.

"It's just," Ed pressed on, "that I can't figure out why you DID do it.""

Veronica stood up and came around to sit down beside Ed, taking his hand in hers. "You came back from La Marquesa's and you were. . . different," she told him sincerely. "You walked toe to heel instead of heel to toe, you shook hands with a loose wrist, even swung your hips when you walked. You didn't realize it, but others noticed. So I set up that party. Hell, it even had a reasonable connection to what we were working on at the agency."

Ed thought about that. What Veronica said was true. She had put the name of every in-progress developmental campaign in a hat for everyone to draw from. The idea was that every employee would have to dress in a way that demonstrated that campaign's theme and perspective. The account Ed had drawn from the hat had been for a chain-store's women's wear line. "You set me up," he repeated, almost to himself.

"I already admitted that, Ed! When you got the hat, the Penney account was the only one you could have drawn. Why do you think I made the rules so trades weren't allowed? I justified that arbitrary edict by telling the other managers that we wanted everyone to be able to understand and exemplify any of our accounts, but my real purpose was to help you."

Ed's head came up, his eyes wide in surprise. "Help me? Good grief, Veronica, you just said I was already making a spectacle of myself. How could that help me?

"Come on, Ed, don't you see? Drawing that women's wear account as your costume inspiration gave you a reason for, well, swishing about like you had been doing. I made certain folks assumed you were practicing for the party. . .trying to win that damned prize for best costume. It also gave me an excuse to tease you about your little feminine mannerisms so that you'd notice them, get them under control. Which you did very quickly after that, I hasten to add!"

"I had to," Ed replied, suddenly remembering. "Some of your teasing were. . . well, pretty pointed."

"I needed to get your attention," Veronica said with a shrug. "It worked, too."

The memories were flooding back now. It had been just as she described it. And more than that, too. "You never teased when anyone else might have heard it, did you?" but it was a statement more than a question as he now realized there had never been anyone else within earshot when Veronica had ragged on him.

"That would have defeated my purpose, now wouldn't it?" she asked, more approvingly now. "But then, you damned fool, THEN you nearly blew the whole deal by storming into my room at the retreat and threatening to refuse to attend the party. Cripes, I had to send you home and let my secretary's well-developed gossip instincts put the word out that you were too ill to come that night."

Ed could only nod at that. He had gone to Veronica that day to tell her he just couldn't attend. She'd tried to talk him out of that decision, but he'd been adamant and had gone so far as to offer his resignation rather than dress for that party. Finally, she had, in fact, sent him home from the resort where the retreat had been held, telling him to act ill if anyone from the company saw him before he'd left the premises.

"Things looking a bit different now?" she asked after letting him digest those memories for several moments, "In the light of twenty-twenty hindsight?"

"I. . .I just didn't know what else to think," he finally blurted out, "or what else to do."

*Might as well get the rest of it out on the table,* she thought.

"There's one more truth you might as well chew on, Ed. I knew for over a year before that damned party that you were thinking about getting involved in the scene, that you were inclined to be sexually submissive in your romantic relationships. And I don't think it will come as any surprise to you now that I like that in a man, but in all that time, did I ever do anything - say anything - to put you in a difficult position as a result of that knowledge?"

Veronica pinned Ed with a stern look until finally, he gave a slow shake of his head. "Right, I didn't! On the other hand, did I ever give serious thought to trying to get together with you? Playing with you? Having a relationship with you? The answers to all those questions are definitely YES. Why? Because you are a sensitive, attractive and interesting man who appeals to me on a variety of levels, not just that one, but I never acted on those thoughts because it wouldn't have been fair to you."

"You. . . you wanted to be with me? Like that?" he asked, incredulous.

"Guess I hid it pretty well, eh?" she replied with a self deprecating grin. "Look, no one knows better than I the down-sides of being kinky. There are things about my life I can never share with my family, especially my brothers. That's hard. I wouldn't wish that on you and I certainly would never take that decision away from you by doing something overt about the way I feel. Not to mention the fact that as your direct supervisor, my coming on to you might have made you feel you were in an untenable position if you didn't want to play with me."

Ed stared at her, trying to make all this new data fit into some kind of order, and failed. "I need time to think."

Veronica sighed, disappointed but not surprised. "I understand. Take the rest of the day off, Ed. Tomorrow's Saturday and I don't want you working the weekend, either. Take the time you need to sort this out for yourself," she ordered as she handed him a card. "That has my home and cell phone numbers on it. You already know my office number. If you need me, if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to call me."

A almost dazed look on his expressive face, Ed slowly rose from his seat. "Okay. I have to go."

Veronica walked over to the door and put her hand on the lock. "I know, Ed. Look, please call me tonight, just to let me know you are home and okay?"

He nodded. Veronica leaned over and kissed his cheek and then unlocked and opened the office door. "Take care of yourself, Ed." He disappeared into the hallway outside her office and she shut her office door again without saying a word to her obviously curious secretary. She was dialing Mary's number moments later.

 

 

 

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