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This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Willsin Rowe
Twisted Lust © September 2011 Jake Malden
eXcessica publishing
A Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Twisted Lust
Erotic Tales of Deception, Manipulation and Revenge
By Jake Malden
Little Black Dress
There might be a more delicious way to wake up, but to that Aaron Debeney had yet to be introduced. It came to him in a dream to start with, the slow, wet, rhythmic sucking. His mind gradually unwrapped itself from swathes of sleep. Fully conscious he found himself bone-hard and the sensation ongoing - which told him it was probably the weekend.
Peering under the duvet he saw that familiar spiky platinum-blonde head bobbing industriously on him. He could not help but admire the accentuated architecture of his own manhood, as those pink, satin lips slid back and forth over the swollen head. “You’ve such a beautiful cock,” she had told him often enough, and after all the regulation young-man’s concerns on that subject during his teens and early twenties it was gratifying to find himself the right side of adequate. Yes, he did look robustly masculine, the more so with Carly’s mouth so lusciously moulding itself around his engorged glans. Her pretty eyes flicked upwards and regarded him naughtily. In the marine blue of her dilating pupils he could see her pleasure at his enjoyment.
She let him go and, eyeing him lasciviously, trailed her pointed tongue from the cleft of his balls a glistening path to the tip of his erection. “Sorry,” she said with the sexiest penitence she could muster, “I’ve done it again. Taken advantage of your weekend hard-on.”
“I’ll forgive you completely if you set yourself down on it,” he replied in a tone of deep generosity.
Her face displayed a lip-chewing desire to make amends. Shrugging the duvet off her shoulders, she slinked her bare, lissom form up his recumbent body and straddled his loins. “That’d be my absolute pleasure,” she said breathily, as she drew up his tight-sprung length from his stomach and teased its head up and down the wet protrusion of her slit.
Aaron’s whole body tightened in anticipation of their sexes uniting. He stared up at the subtly undulating topography of Carly’s body as she hovered there, toying with him against her slick opening. Sunlight was shafting onto her through the split in the curtains, showing off the golden-brown of her gym-taut body, the precocious upturn of erect, rose-brown nipples on high, firm breasts. The punky hair and expression of warm, loving arousal on her face. For the past six months a piece of perfection in his rather ordinary white-collar life. “Sit on me, sweetheart,” he breathed softly.
Carly Temple slotted the bulged head of Aaron’s prick inside herself and descended smoothly, luxuriously all the way down onto him, loving the sense of him filling her up. She bottomed out, resting her ass on his loins, basking for a moment in the snug fit of his substantial cock inside her cunt. She smiled at the blissed-out expression on his face, mirror to her own satisfaction, and, as he gripped her slim hips, began to grind on him with gentle insistence.
A snug fit all round, she thought, as she leaned low over him to kiss his rising mouth. She ran fingers through his sleep-tousled fair hair and brushed the tips over the strong contours of his honest face, continuing to rotate herself deliberately on that thick, embedded rod. His long eyelashes brushed her cheeks for a moment, then she pushed his head back onto the pillow and raised herself so she could enjoy his penetration more fully.
She had sworn she would never date any of the men who frequented her local gym - the preening tossers or the leering creeps - but she had broken her rule for a quietly charming, self-effacing financial planner called Aaron. And now he was her guy, her sweet, solicitous boy, who never made her feel anything less than cherished. But especially now, when he stared with a type of wonder into her eyes and clutched her hips and drove upwards, slow and searching, into her moist depths.
She rode the blissful waves of his thrusting, feeling warm and stretched out and sexy as fuck. Her breasts she palmed slowly in a state of advanced arousal, letting her fingers curl shut so she could tug deliciously on her nipples. She knew Aaron would enjoy that as well. He loved to see her given over to her approaching ecstasy. It fired him up every time, made him thrust more insistently like now, made him push towards his own fulfilment.
Their bodies worked in union, locked at the junction of their hips, the steady flow of her juices lubricating his cock’s passage in and out of her tight channel. She rocked on him gently, one hand continuing to knead a breast while the other dropped down to move on her clitoris. He supported her with his hands and drove deep with groaning thrusts, initially slow, but quickening as their joint excitement mounted.
“God - God - baby…” he was moaning, and she responded with a repeated yearning “Ohh-ohh-ohh -” The sun warmed them both as they locked stares and fucked their way to a united crescendo.
“Come with me sweetheart, come with me…”
“Ohh - ohh - ohh - ohh -”
“Come with me - Oh God -”
“Ohhh fuck - fuck -”
He burst inside her with a guttural roar and she thrashed and gushed as though in response, loudly keening her morning ecstasy. Their joy was protracted and intense and when it ended she subsided onto his solid chest and lay panting, her head resting against his.
“Love you,” she said softly when she had regained her breath.
“Love you too babe.” He kissed her forehead and she bit him playfully on the nose in return and they stared smilingly into each other’s eyes as though terribly pleased with themselves.
“So am I forgiven? For taking advantage?” she inquired blithely.
“Of course you are.” He kissed her. “Until next time. Then I’ll have to make you do penance all over again. You’re my little Saturday sinner.”
“And Sunday,” she reminded him.
“And Sunday. I reckon I could suffer your morning sinfulness all week long.”
“I can’t stop over every night,” she said with an apologetic shrug. “I’d never get my washing done.”
“Who said anything about stopping over?” He gazed at her frankly and her eyes widened slightly.
“You mean…?”
“Just a thought.” He stroked her face. “Something that occurred to me. But don’t fret about it if it’s too sudden. It’s just I like having you around.”
She smiled, much more pleased than phased, and appeared to consider his implied suggestion a moment. “Look, I’ve got to go and shower - I’ve that meeting with Miranda. But…” She brushed her face against his affectionately. “…Hold that thought and we’ll talk it over tonight, okay? You can get me a little drunk and pleasure me beyond my wildest imaginings and then ask me again…and who knows what I’ll say?” They smirked conspiratorially and she set about disconnecting their stickily adhered loins.
Aaron drifted post-coitally in and out of slumber as Carly showered, the notes of her singing above the splashing water filtering pleasantly into his waking dreams. With one eye open he watched her ease her dainty self with occasional wriggle and tease into designer ripped jeans and T-shirt. It was almost as erotic as watching her strip.
“So what does Miranda want with you?” he asked from his weekend laziness amongst the sheets. “I thought you were done with her forever.”
“Well,” said Carly with a slight hesitation as she laced her feet into her trainers, “I think she just wants to pass on a few tips before I take over at the branch - said she’d buy me lunch. She doesn’t have to, she's really busy right now what with her having been promoted too, it’s nice of her.”
“I didn’t know she did nice. Sure she’s not going to hit on you again?”
“You wish,” Carly smiled wryly, and she continued chatting as she vanished into the bathroom to primp. “You just love that story. I can read your evil mind any time it’s mentioned. Tell me you haven’t had a whole lads’ mag fantasy going on since I first told you.”
“I haven’t!” He protested his innocence loudly to the bathroom door. “I’m not sharing you with anyone, including the predatory Miranda.”
“Look, she was - she was drunk at the time and it was never mentioned again. It was more a joke than anything.” Carly found herself strangely uncomfortable with the subject - truth be told her own memories of that evening or at least the latter part of it were sketchy - and made a rapid conversational detour. “Anyway it wasn’t me she was getting predatory towards at the Vanguard Christmas do.”
“Come off it…”
“She took quite a shine to you, babe. I felt like clinging on twice as hard as usual.”
“No danger,” he said casually. “Not even my type.”
“Come on,” Carly protested, returning into the bedroom and slinging on her mini leather jacket. She pursued her subject as though she could not help herself. “You’re not blind, Miranda's sexy as hell. You telling me you’d have turned her down if you’d been single?”
“She’s more scary than sexy.” Carly raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Seriously,” he insisted. “No interest. That woman would eat either one of us alive after mating.”
Carly was visibly gratified by his response. She dashed over to give her sheet-swaddled boyfriend a parting kiss. “Well we are both such tasty snacks.” They lingered at the lips for a moment.
“What say I take you out somewhere nice tonight?” he said, pulling her clothed self down onto his naked one.
“So we can have that talk?” she purred.
“Yeah. You can - can - what’s the word? - premier that little black dress of yours. I know you’re just looking for the chance. You haven’t even let me see it on you yet.” She hesitated. Her warm expression clouded slightly. “Everything okay?”
“No - Yes, yes - everything’s fine.” She seemed to recover swiftly from whatever had afflicted her and hugged him farewell, whispering in his ear as she did. “Yeah, I’d love to wear it. And I’d love you to take it off me - very very slowly.”
“God, is this my lucky weekend or what?”
“Check the calendar, babe. It says Aaron’s Lucky Weekend. Bye.”
Had Aaron known it, she wasn’t feeling as chipper about the Miranda meet as she’d tried to sound. All the walk to the Tube station, all the ride through the Underground to Charing Cross, Carly was reliving that single act three weeks prior. It wasn’t as though it were a habit. It wasn’t likely to become one either with the guilt and fear she had swallowed every waking minute since. Just about the only feelings she hadn’t shared with Aaron in the six months since meeting him.
Her parents had brought her up to work for everything she owned and she had never felt dissatisfaction with her material lot. Until the moment she laid eyes on that sexy-sophisticated garment. Picked it up to feel the soft, glossy fabric. Draped it down herself before the shop’s full-length mirror. It was like looking at someone else, someone rich and glamorous and at ease with both. Someone who felt the confidence Carly always had to fake. There in the glass was a young woman who had left the insecurities of her mousy teens behind her. Carly had blossomed, so her friends constantly told her, into a sexy, vibrant young woman. Aaron was as lucky to be dating her as she him, they insisted. He’d be a fool to look around him like past boyfriends had done, his girlfriend was a catch. Well maybe in this damn dress she would actually believe it.
The thought of wearing that exquisite, daring little number to Kanaloa or Chinawhite, carrying it off with tasteful aplomb with her proud boy by her side… She could be anyone wearing it. Hell, she could be Miranda. A covetousness awakened inside her that she’d never known before. Three months’ hard saving would scarcely have brought it within her reach. But one act of madness had done. There was still an adrenalin-fuelled thudding within her chest as she recalled it…
Carly had not quite found the courage to wear her dress yet. The dubious means of acquisition were threatening to poison her enjoyment. But Miranda French’s demeanour had not altered over the past weeks, except perhaps to mellow into something approaching friendship as their working relationship had drawn to an end. Carly was home free. There was no reversing what she had done. It was time to forget and enjoy. Wear it out on the town with the boy who had just suggested (her heart thrilled, driving all the negatives out) that she move in with him.
Miranda was waiting for her in the Cellar Gaston wine bar on the junction of The Strand and Savoy Street. “Carly.” She waved across the busy lunchtime crowd and rose to greet Carly with a brief Continental peck on both cheeks. “So glad you could make it.” The dark pinstripe of Miranda’s jacket and skirt set ablaze the red satin of her top and its matching crimson lipstick. The loose curls of her rich, chestnut hair fell extravagantly about her shoulders and her dark hazel eyes fixed on Carly and drew her in disconcertingly. Everything in her bearing suggested a woman on the professional ascent.
“What can I get you to drink?” There was nothing more unnerving than usual in her tone as they took their seats. Just the same briskness with which Miranda was prone to attack all of life. She was taking out precious time from her final day’s oversight of the branch, after all, to dispense whichever pearls she deemed apposite. Carly relaxed and opted for a glass of house white.
“I was very pleased when you were offered the promotion,” Miranda said, and Carly sensed an unaccustomed warmth to the cut crystal of her articulation. “I did suggest you in the first place.”
“I can’t thank you enough for…”
“Good to know I’m leaving the branch in safe hands. Especially since I’m now overseeing it and half a dozen others.”
I’m still your boss. That appeared to be the subtext, but Carly appreciated the compliment even so. “I just feel you could benefit from some of my experience,” Miranda went on.
“Yes, of course - any advice you can give me will be…”
“I’ve had to identify the pitfalls of working in retail all on my own and believe me I can save you a good deal of grief.”
So it went throughout lunch, Carly assuming the role of meek student at her mistress’ feet, Miranda sounding off expansively on relations with staff and senior management, recognising and playing different types of customer, dealing with the accountants...
“Much of this you’ll know,” she said sometime later, pushing aside her empty veal platter. “Yet it still bears saying.” Carly was certainly grateful, but wondered if the treatise was nearing its end. “This most of all,” Miranda continued, wine glass dangling between her palms. “Never trust any of the junior staff. Never let your guard down. Not even if their efficiency and apparent dedication tempt you to do so.” She eyed Carly across the table, the added weight of her words and the deepening of her stare drawing back the girl’s waning attention.
“Right, I'll remember.” Carly’s voice remained steady despite the sudden swell of foreboding.
“Like when you're puzzled by a discrepancy in the figures, Carly, and your explorations into the matter lead you to the purchase of an expensive cocktail dress. And no it’s not a hypothetical, I’m talking about three Saturdays ago. You remember? Oh, judging from that change in expression you do.”
Carly could almost feel the blood depart her face. Her confidence was never at its height in this woman’s presence, but now she felt reduced to a naughty child. “Miranda, I don’t know what…”
“Oh please, don’t even try that route,” Miranda said with withering mock-sympathy. “You’re just not that quick on your feet. You’re adept enough at your job, Carly, but - and I’m not trying to be unnecessarily cruel here - you’re just not as bright as you think you are.”
Carly’s stomach commenced to churn as Miranda’s full inquisitory stare was turned upon her. In desperation she tried a different tack, one rather different from the subservient tone she adopted naturally in Miranda’s presence. “Look, Miranda, whatever you’re thinking, it’s nonsense. You’ve made some mistake and I really think you need to go sort it out. Thanks very much for lunch, but I’m meeting Aaron and…”
“Scratch that, sweetheart, you’re going nowhere.” Miranda’s stare was as level as a sniper’s, her words quietly crushing. “You’re on my schedule now and if you want a way out of this then so’s your boyfriend. Now you hear me out and then we can decide where we want to take things.”
Carly listened and quailed as Miranda shared her findings, the younger girl’s mind grasping ineffectually for some get-out clause. Her fear mounted as her list of options shortened. There was nothing she could say in her defence. She had worked so very hard for her degree of success in Vanguard only to jeopardise the whole thing with one reckless piece of scheming.
“So,” said Miranda, having crisply laid out the situation’s facts, - the checking and double-checking, the damned eye-witness account - “the only question which needs answering is how much you value your career.”
Carly hated how pathetic and forlorn she must appear before this woman. “Look, Miranda…” she said, her voice faltering, “what do you want?”
Miranda smiled on her kindly, like an older sister, albeit it with something less than familial lurking underneath. “Poor pretty Carly. It’s much too public here to talk about what I want. Let me just pay up and we can go somewhere a little more… conducive to the conversation we need to have.” She reached across and stroked her fingers feather-light across the younger girl’s passive hand. Carly’s whole body was overtaken by a frisson of nipple-hardening horror as her choice became clear. “And then that lovely guy of yours can join us there.”
The very thought jolted Carly back into proactivity. She was unsure of Miranda’s precise intentions, but outraged nonetheless. “No no no - no, you can’t tell Aaron. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t bring him into this.”
“You’re going to bring him in, Carly,” Miranda said sweetly. “And you’re going to make sure he plays along with my little game.”
“No - no, he’s not. Don’t involve him. I’ll - Shit, I'll go along with whatever you want, but please, please keep him out. I know I don’t deserve it, but please don’t let him know.”
Miranda shook her head sadly. “He’s going to know, sweetheart, take that as a given.” She produced a clutch of digital photo prints from her inside breast pocket and like a gambler with a winning hand threw them down on the table. “But he doesn't need to know about these.”
Carly almost physically recoiled from the images on display. She had no recollection of what they portrayed, any of them. She and Miranda crushed close on a living-room sofa, mouths locked like they were lovers on a movie poster. Same location - the boss attached vampirically to her willing neck, Carly’s head thrown back in aching response. Her protruding tongue teasing Miranda’s lips, her hand gently cradling the branch manager’s full breast through her satin blouse. Who knew what encouragements, perhaps from the photographer, had fuelled this interaction? She could guess which evening it had been - Miranda’s dinner party, the invitation to which had so surprised her. The one with the over-indulgence and her boss’s unexpected, bizarre flirtation which she had laughingly deflected. The one after which she had awoken back on her own sofa, hungover with the latter part of the previous evening a blank. She could sense uncomfortable memories seeping through from her subconscious.
“You and tequila,” Miranda said archly, shaking her head. “Dangerous combination. Oh it started as a dare, but after this Alexis just put the camera away. She said we looked such a hot couple we should have some privacy. We went to my room.”
“No - no.” Carly was panicking. “Nothing happened. It was a joke, that’s all. Messing about. I’d remember anything else.”
“Are you sure?” Miranda inquired, eyeing her intently. “Some of the other guests might swear differently.” Carly stared at her tormentor terrified and appalled. “So I'd be very careful what you say to loverboy.”
Aaron was midway through the Spurs-Chelsea game and had progressed to his second can of lager when he answered an unregistered number on the landline and found it to be Carly. Her voice instantly jolted him out of his Saturday afternoon stupor.
“Aaron, babe, I need you to listen. I’m in trouble…” She could scarcely speak through the tears. “I’ve got myself in a lot of trouble…”
“Sweetheart, calm down!” His heart was pounding away from worry. “Just calm down and tell me what the matter is. Where are you?”
“Listen, just listen!” He had never heard her like this before, so fraught and insistent. “I can’t tell you everything now, I just need you to do everything I say, please babe? Please?”
“Okay, okay, I’m listening!” Every word she spoke scared him more somehow.
“I need you to come to the Baglioni Hotel, on The Strand…”
“The... What are you doing there?”
“Just listen! I need you to go to my flat, you’ve got the key, right? And fetch the - the -” She could hardly get the words out. “The dress, you know, the little black one.”
“You need me to do what?”
“Bring the little black dress and my black high heels.” She read his intake of breath. “Don't ask why, I just need you to do this, okay? Okay?”
“Yes, yes, okay!” There was exasperation and bewilderment mixed in with his worry on her behalf. “I’m coming, I'll get there as fast as I can. Your high heels? Okay, right, I'll be there! ASAP.”
Aaron’s mind was a turmoil of conflicting explanations as he rushed the distance to Carly’s flat, babbled an explanation to her confused roommate and rifled through her closet, stuffing the precious dress and heels into the sports bag he had brought with him. The nature of the dire circumstances were beyond his powers of guesswork, but it had something to do with Miranda, of that he had no doubt. With everything so rosy in Carly’s world what trouble could she have got herself into? He could only fret on the Tube journey with no phone reception. Even above ground his calls went straight to her voicemail. All he could do was complete his cross-town trek to the Baglioni as quickly as possible to alleviate his confused ignorance.
A hum of conversation arose from the scattered customers in the hotel bar, but when he gazed through the dim lighting Carly was not to be seen. His heart jumping from both the frantic journey and an advanced state of concern, he grabbed once more for his phone, but a hand clutched hold of his jacket and arrested the motion. He stared down at the brunette woman solo at her table and recognised his girlfriend’s boss.
“Miranda! Where the hell’s Carly?”
“Aaron. Lovely to see you again. Won’t you sit down?” she said with ineffable cool.
“Where the hell is she? What’s going on?”
“She’s fine, Aaron, but we both thought it best if I explained the situation. Now please take a seat.” There was something politely commanding in her tone, as though whatever the situation, she controlled it. Even in his dishevelled state of mind he was stricken by her appearance - the luxuriant tumble of her hair around her shoulders, those mesmerising dark eyes, that large, imperiously high bosom, enshrined so tightly within red satin. All enhanced by an uncanny poise and self-possession. Angrily, begrudgingly, and with no little apprehension, he dropped into the chair opposite. “Can I get you a drink?” she inquired.
“Hardly,” Aaron snapped impatiently. “Miranda - just tell me what’s going on.”
“Of course.” After a measured sip of mineral water she commenced. “It appears your girlfriend hasn’t been entirely straight with either of us. I’ve done everything for that girl, Aaron, helped her in the company once my own promotion came through, provided the benefit of my experience at every turn…” She paused as though rather wounded. “And then it transpires she isn’t the paragon of honesty and industry she’d led us to believe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking, I imagine, about the contents of that bag.” Miranda dragged the sports bag across the floor to her, unzipped it and tugged the black dress into view. “Vanguard Summer collection 2010. You know what this dress retails at? Over five hundred pounds. How much do you think your girlfriend paid for it?”
Aaron could manage nothing more than an empty stare. “Slightly less than one hundred. Now even taking into account staff discounts that’s a little outrageous, don't you think?”
“There’s obviously some mistake.” His tone was as flat as his refusal to believe what he was hearing.
“Oh no mistake,” Miranda said blithely. “She’s a crafty little thing, your other half. You see she was in charge of attaching price tags when the first consignment of summer items came in several weeks ago and it appears she did a little artful swapping of tags with a substantially cheaper dress. It’s a cheeky move and it happens all too often in retail I’m afraid. After that she checked out this garment under the nose of one of the dimmer Saturday girls. I’d probably never have known except another branch called up to enquire about the price of the cheaper dress and when I checked the tag I knew something was wrong. So, I quizzed Nicola, the intellectually challenged part-timer who sold Carly the dress, and she realised what must have happened. In fact,” and she paused for emphasis, “she’ll swear to it.”
Miranda proffered the offending item to Aaron as he sat stunned. “Has she tried it on for you yet? You’d remember, it’s not a run-of-the-mill piece of couture and I imagine she’d wear it rather well.”
“But - But - she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t steal.”
“She’s admitted it.” Miranda’s frankness was tinged with apparent sympathy. A pause extended between them as he absorbed the revelation. “So now I, Aaron, have to decide what to do about the situation.”
All Aaron’s angry bluster was diffused by his own sense of having been deceived. “You haven’t...?”
“I haven’t acted on it. Phoned anyone. Yet.”
Aaron was confused. “So - So what do you want with me? And where’s Carly? What are we doing here?”
Miranda held him with an enigmatic gaze. “You, sweetheart, are going to help me and Carly come to some sort of resolution in all this. In the discreet and pleasant surroundings of this hotel.”
“Sorry?”
“Look, I can see you’re disappointed in her, it’s understandable, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see your girl get into trouble, whatever her mistake.” She folded the dress back inside the bag as he struggled for comprehension. “So I’m going to take this up to the Sinclair Suite on Floor Eight and you can join me there in twenty minutes.” She rose to leave, pressing a key card into his hand.
Aaron stood up in response, his heart rate once more on the rise. “That’s where she is? What the fuck’s going on here, Miranda? Take me to her now.”
“You do as I say or I report her theft like that.” A snap of her fingers and a new steely tone that shut down Aaron’s protest completely. “You’re in this with her now, either that or you can just abandon her. So if it’s the former, wait here.” She called to a nearby waiter who had been alerted by the raised voices. “Double Scotch for the gentleman. On my tab.” She gave Aaron a strangely amused glance. “My advice - drink it. See you in twenty.”
Aaron stared as her svelte, power-dressed form turned about and departed with brisk stiletto-clicks for the elevator, bag slung over her shoulder, carrying her own large leather handbag on the other side. The drink he accepted - sat down with it and knocked back the single malt in a couple of gulps as he brooded. What had possessed Carly? Was he dating a habitual thief? What the fuck was Miranda trying to negotiate? She was attempting to twist the situation to some devious purpose of her own, it was clear, and seemed convinced that she could win whatever dangerous game she was playing. The blood pulsed fast through Aaron’s veins, as cloudy imaginings of Miranda’s purpose drifted across his mind.
His thoughts were an adrenalized blank twenty minutes later as he ascended to Floor Eight and followed the signs to the Sinclair Suite. All he felt was a broad sense that everything had changed. That whatever he was walking into was beyond his control. He couldn’t let that be the case, however. Whatever Carly had done, he had to take the initiative away from Miranda. Standing before the door, key card clenched in his hand, he could hear his heartbeat amplified as in a personalised horror-movie soundtrack. Dreading the next moments of his life, he slotted the card, watched the light click to green and entered the room.
A short passageway opened onto a freshly modern suite of moderate size. The blinds had been shut, everything washed in a roseate glow by two large oval red-shaded lamps either side of the room’s centrepiece. A four-poster bed framed in smooth lacquered ebony, its transparent muslin drapes pulled aside for access to the mattress. And bound tightly to the nearest end-post, Carly.
Her back was tight against the square-edged vertical, arms stretched behind her, very obviously tethered. She was teetering in the strapped high heel shoes and she was clad in the black dress. Aaron instantly guessed she was wearing nothing else; the clothes in which she had left his apartment, brassiere and panties included, were slung over a plush armchair. Her make-up had been touched up, the wide stare of those frightened, pretty eyes accentuated by mascara and her lips shaded the same scarlet as Miranda’s. That was before they had been stretched around the ball-gag which had been inserted into her mouth. It was black to match the dress.
Five hundred pounds’ worth of haute couture - the article which had brought about this mess. Had he not been so distracted by his uniquely bizarre situation, Aaron might have appreciated how well it draped his little punk-haired girlfriend. The skirt of the dress ran to mid-thigh, stretching elastically from her waist around the curves of her slender thighs. The top was a raggedy artwork of randomly crossed strips, plunging from the shoulder and stretching across the bodice, taut against her breasts. Her smooth arms were bare and triangles of honey-toned flesh - shoulder-blade and cleavage - were visible through the garment’s bandaging. She looked an exquisite fetishized doll. Miranda meanwhile was nowhere to be seen, just her jacket and bag deposited on the bed.
All this Aaron absorbed in a split-second. In the same instant Carly stared into his appalled eyes and anticipated his reaction. Her rescuer, who despite what Miranda might have told him by now, would storm in all desperate good intentions. And in trying to salvage the situation he would mire Carly, and himself come to that, in an even deeper world of shit.
She was not even struggling against the leather thongs which bound her wrists. Already she had crumpled meekly in acceptance of her fate. It galled her that every profession of strong womanhood she had ever made to herself seemed undermined, but in the face of her boss’s cunning malice what choice had there been?
She had stood before the hotel’s receptionist, a forced smile on her lips as though she were Miranda’s partner. She had ridden the elevator like a sacrificial lamb, had stripped naked as her persecutor looked on in gloating enjoyment, had wriggled into her beloved dress - the one she had never truly owned - for the first time, the moment transformed to one of deep mortification. She had allowed Miranda virtually to empty neat tequila down her throat to ‘loosen her up’; the bottle was close by on one of the bedside tables. And there was that other moment, the one of which Aaron was not yet aware, the one which had humiliated her even more than putting on the dress. The one which continued to make her wriggle with physical discomfort.
There had been a single brief flash of career-be-damned resistance when Miranda returned with the dress: “Alright, this stops here. You can report the theft, I’ll confess to it, but there’s no way you can make us both do whatever this is, we’ll stitch you up if you take it any further!”
“I don’t think so, pretty darling.” Miranda’s smile had been acidic as she seized Carly by the short, tousled strands of her hair. “You see I have friends who already suspect we’re quite the hot couple, you and me. What’s the surprise if I’d invited you for a weekend liaison in a posh hotel? And your jealous boyfriend had suspected and followed you here to confront us? You remember Jennifer Maxwell, from my party? The one where you lost your inhibitions so completely? She’s an excellent lawyer, very creative. With those photographs she’d make you look like the devious little minx at the heart of a very sexy scandal. Your friends and family would be quite astounded. Now strip.”
And so had fizzled her one attempt at robbing Miranda of satisfaction. She had submitted herself to this demented woman’s plans, even - even if it meant her precious boy being drawn in as well. The sense of guilt was crushing.
As expected he was rushing up to her, outraged by her predicament. He did not even register her resistance as he scrabbled at the fastenings of her ball-gag. She could tell from his face that he just wanted to deliver her from this ultimate indignity. “It’s okay,” he was saying. “I’ll get you out of here. Whatever she’s got planned, we’re not going to let her get away with it.” He succeeded in unbuckling the gag and eased out the mouth-stuffing ball, casting the horrid item onto the bed. “There. Now…”
“Aaron, Aaron don’t. Leave me be. Please. If we don’t do what she wants she’ll go to the police. She’ll tell them all about the dress. I’ll be sacked, I’ll have a police record…”
Aaron was already checking to see how she was tied, he was struggling to unfasten her bonds. “If she does, we’ll shout assault, kidnapping, attempted blackmail, whatever... Where the hell’s she got to, anyway?”
“No, sweetheart, no, please! She’ll lie, she’ll twist it, she’s got friends who'll say all sorts about me. She’ll make it look like - Babe, she’ll humiliate me…”
He continued to fumble heatedly with the leather ties, making her desperation grow. “No she won’t. She’s overplayed her hand, there’s no way she’ll follow through if we stand up to her. Now you’re coming with me if I have to…”
“Aaron, let go of me, you fucking idiot!”
Aaron released her instantly, stung by her words and the ardent fury in her eyes, the like of which he had never seen before. The moment passed and her angry expression crumpled into one of anguished remorse, but not before he had felt his own surge of anger - anger towards the beguiling little thief who had just shot down his attempt to rescue her.
“I’m sorry babe,” she was now pleading tearfully. “I’m so sorry, I’ve worked so hard... It was a mistake, a stupid thing, it was just once. I can’t risk her telling... Please, please help me babe!” Tears from both eyes raced for her chin. When Miranda emerged from the en suite bathroom she found him staring at Carly midway between pity and resentment.
“If I can interrupt the tete-a-tete…” Aaron let Miranda speak, but his eyes remained darkly on his sorrowful girlfriend. “I’m perfectly willing to let Carly’s little misdemeanour slide. She can go on managing the Strand branch of Vanguard and this dress will be our little secret forever. I’ll even cover the difference and she can pay me back at her leisure.” Miranda glided over to where Carly was tied. She had dispensed with her jacket, displaying her shoulders and the milky expanse of her upper bosom. Her fingers she trailed through the blonde tufts of the younger girl’s hair. Carly was rigid against the bedpost, her face pained and helpless. “All I ask is that you both join me in a little afternoon interlude.” She traced Carly’s cheekbone with a red-painted talon. “Now your girlfriend here has already submitted herself to the occasion of her own volition. All that remains is to see how much you’re willing to help her out. You do love her, don’t you?”