Necessity is the Mother of Obsession Ch. 01

She cringed.

"Karen, look at me. Please." She did, slowly, and he could see that she was crying.

"I am so sorry, Mr. Thompson," she sniffed. "I really screwed things up... I am so sorry..."

He wiped the tears away from her eyes with his thumbs, but she kept trying to look away, to avoid his gaze.

Well, this is either going to fix it, or fuck it up royal, he thought. He took her face in his hands and turned her to him, leaned down and softly kissed her.

She went rigid.

That's not good, he thought. And then she started to respond as he kept it up - a soft, no tongue kiss that he tried to put as much affection into as he could. He began to realize how much he really did need her, and it went far beyond the meetings.

She went rapidly from ice to fire. She raised her hands behind his head and pulled him to her, her tongue now taking the initiative and probing his lips until he let her in.

They probed and licked and nipped and kissed deeply while their nethers responded. The passion was becoming overwhelming when John managed to get control and ease up on the kiss, pulling back so he could look into her emerald green eyes. She was hungry... panting... feral in the way she looked back at him.

"Are you ready for breakfast, yet?" he asked. It was just enough of a derailment that it broke her fixated look and she blinked, realizing what she was doing.

"Oh, God!..." she moaned and tried to pull away. "I'm sorry!..."

"I'm not," he told her and held her so she couldn't leave. "You are as delicious as I had hoped. But I think before we both jump over the cliff, you should come have some breakfast? And coffee-e-e?" he teased, drawing it out. "And maybe we should talk?"

She slumped in his arms. "Yes, sir," she told him softly.

"You say that again when you aren't in leather and D-rings, and I'm going to get ticked," he told her, turning her and pointing her in the direction of the kitchen bar stools.

"What?... What did you say?" she blinked as he gave her a push and a pat on her butt to move her along.

"Later," he told her, following her. He sat her at the bar stool where he'd put her breakfast, then piled up a plate for himself and sat down next to her. "First breakfast, then... no, wait. First coffee, then breakfast, then more pain or nausea meds if you still need them, and then we talk."

Karen nodded and poked at her food. What the fuck is going on? she wondered. I am so in over my head. Just sitting next to him is turning me on. This is way, way not good...

"I said, coffee first," John broke into her thoughts. He was holding a fresh cup of hot coffee. "I don't remember what you put in it."

"Light and sweet," she mumbled, taking the cup while he dug out sugar and cream.

"Just like you," he smiled. Karen started to blush again.

"Ah, ah, ah..." he wagged his finger at her. "No blushing. It's a compliment and you should learn to take compliments. But if my compliments bother you, then I'll cut back on them. I'm sorry, but I won't be able to eliminate them completely."

"That's alright," she muttered into her coffee.

"Good," he decided. "Now once you've cleared your plate, tell me... how do I stack up against Asshole Number 5?"

Karen almost choked. "Excuse me?" she managed to get out.

"Asshole Number 5," he repeated. "The one that won your heart by being nice to you, then walking you down the path to the B&D and Anal Dark Side."

"How do you know about him?" she asked, stunned.

"You told me. In the Lounge. When we were discussing backgrounds. He was pretty much the last thing we were discussing before the bar closed and we had to leave." John was watching her face closely. She seemed clueless.

"I don't remember," she whispered.

"Well, I do," John pointed out, "and I'd rather not be that kind of asshole. Especially not one who leaves the woman he allegedly loves tied up when he walks out, without knowing if anyone would find her. That's just not my style."

"What is your style, Mr. Thompson?" she asked in the same quiet whisper.

"Just about anything my partner wants, within reason," he smiled. "But the key is, it has to be something she wants. If I want it, too, that's gravy. And the 'within reason' is, basically, no permanent damage, no scat, no traumatic mind-fucks... oh, and no children, either. Outside that, I'm open to at least listening."

"That leaves a lot of territory, Mr. Thompson," Karen commented, a little louder this time.

"Mm-hmm," he agreed. "And it's John, Karen," he reminded her. "By the way, as tempting as you were, last night would not have been consensual. You were way too wasted to give informed consent. Plus there's all the issues about a boss and his secretary - you know, all the usual harassment stuff. And to be honest, I haven't had that much to do with women over the last, oh... nine months? A year? I've lost track. Most of the bitches are too much of a hassle with too much drama, too much greed and the belief that once they're fucking you, they own you."

Karen kept her mouth shut and slugged down her coffee and juices, then held out her coffee cup.

"More?" she asked and suddenly realized it was like a little-girl pleading with Daddy. "I mean, more, please, John," she iterated in a much more assertive tone. John smiled, went and got the coffeepot and filled her cup.

"So, are you not interested in women anymore?" she asked, trying to keep the question casual. It sort of worked. He laughed.

"Oh, I'm interested," he told her. "When it's the right woman. I'm just not willing to chase tail just because it's sexy, especially if it's attached to a manipulative bitch. And that includes one night stands. Too many problems. I'd rather stick with my own hand."

Karen attacked her toast and eggs so she didn't have to look at him while her mind raced.

"So, what is the problem with boss-secretary relationships?" she finally got up the nerve to ask. Again, he chuckled, as if he could read her mind.

"You know from the office, Karen, that it's pretty much a Dom/Sub kind of relationship. He's the boss, usually an Alpha personality, she's the servant. The sub. It's her job to do whatever she's told to do with only his best interests in mind." He looked at her carefully. "Most of the women I've known hate being in the sub position and only do it because of the job. They tend to park it at the front doors on the way out."

"If the guy expects her to be a Sub to his Dom outside the office, there's usually trouble. And they tend to break up. If they can walk away from the table, that's fine, they have a chance. But most Alpha-type guys I know can't switch it off very easily. So the moths they get to their flame aren't the ones they're really looking for."

"What if the woman likes being a Sub?" Karen asked, trying hard to keep her voice neutral.

"Twenty-four-seven? She'd be boring," he answered. "Not the kind of woman the Alpha's looking for. He wants someone strong and independent, that he can bend to his will."

"So how can it work?" Karen felt like she was walking way out on the limb on this one.

"If it's purely a role-play at the office," he told her. "She puts on her Sub dress when she hits her desk, he does the same with his Dom suit. It takes a special kind of Alpha to walk away from the table. Sometimes, but not often, they'll switch roles outside the office."

"Anyway, for short-term flings a boss-secretary hookup can be fun. I wouldn't count on continuing to be the boss or the secretary for each other if it gets serious. Somebody's going to end up working for somebody else and it usually isn't the boss."

"So, presuming you aren't Asshole Number 5 reinvented," Karen ventured, wondering where she was getting the chutzpa, "anything between you and me would have to be a short-term fling if I wanted to keep working for you."

John got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. Anything between you and me... he rolled it over in his mind. He had presumed she was only coming on to him last night because she was drunk and horny. Honestly, he'd been feeling the same, minus the drunk. Could they be balling buddies and still have a solid working relationship? He didn't know. He did know he needed her to be "on" for the meetings. In fact, he needed more than that...

"I'll answer that in a second," he told her, confusing her. "Last night, you said you'd dated a bunch of losers. Have you done any one night stands? If so, did any work out okay?"

"I've done a few," she admitted. "Mostly bar pickups. A couple worked out. One was a three-night-stand. He was only in town for the weekend. Pretty good lover."

"Ever fuck for money?" She wasn't sure why he was asking all these questions.

"Sort of," she told him. "It wasn't money, though. It was a combination mercy fuck and thank you."

"Care to elaborate?" Why does he want to know all this? she wondered.

"I was stuck in a particularly bad part of town, a guy with a badly scarred face, pretty ugly really, offered me a ride home, I took it. He made it clear he wanted to fuck. It was obvious he wasn't getting any. I figured, what the hell? He'd saved my ass. So I fucked him. He wasn't that bad. Why do you want to know all this?"

"I'll answer that one in a moment, too," he told her. "Two more questions. One, have you ever had sex with a woman?" Karen turned bright red.

"No!" she told him vehemently.

"Ever wanted to?" he asked. She looked down.

"I'll take that as a 'yes', and I'll put it in the 'Under The Right Circumstances' category of Bi-Curious," he told her. "So, what are you doing today?"

"I thought you said two questions," she told him, still not looking up.

"I was wrong," he told her. "I have a proposition for you."

"A proposition?" Now, she looked up.

"Yes. I propose that I take you shopping today."

"Yes, and..." she answered suspiciously.

"And that you spend the rest of the week being my lover."

The proverbial pin dropping would have sounded like a car wreck, it was so quiet.

"What did you say?" Karen finally managed to whisper anxiously.

"I said, I'd like to take you shopping today, and then have you be my lover for the rest of the week," he iterated. "And of course, I have an ulterior motive."

She waited, silent, staring at him.

"It's like this," he breezed on. "Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we have meetings. I need you to be your incredibly competent Personal Assistant self. But I think I'm going to change my evening strategy."

"Instead of coming back here and decompressing, Tuesday night, I'll have dinner with George Pearson and his wife, Gloria. I'd like you to go with me and be your sexy, vivacious self. Wednesday I'll have dinner with Bob and Billy Mills, same deal. I'll want you to keep Billy distracted. Thursday I will have dinner with James Morton and his wife, Pamela. She's bi and very randy, and I'd like you to keep her distracted. The rest of the time when we aren't in meetings or having dinner with clients, I'd like you to be my lover. Until we have to fly back Saturday."

She stared at him, stunned. She'd heard every word. She knew what he wanted. And she knew this was either a fairy tale come true or the biggest disaster since 9/11.

"I... I... I..." she tried to get something to come out.

"I'll tell you what," he jumped in. "How about I take you shopping, which I'd like to do anyway, while you think about it. You can tell me at dinner tonight. Fair enough?"

"Sure?" she almost squeaked.

"Great!" He stood up and started clearing dishes to the sink.

"You do dishes, too?" She was flabbergasted.

"What?" he smiled. "You think I'm some kind of royalty or something, that I don't do dishes?"

Something like that, she thought. "You cooked, I clean!" she decided and got up, moving to clear the rest of the dishes and start the water running. She missed the fact that in her haste, her robe was falling open.

He stepped back out of the way as she took over the sink and leaned over to open the dishwasher... and everything fell open. And out. She held a long count of three while she fought down the flush of embarrassment without looking at him. Then she stood up and faced him without closing the robe.

"Well, it's not like you haven't seen it all before," she told him, with an almost challenge in her voice. She took the robe the rest of the way off and set it over the breakfast counter. "No reason to get it all wet. I'll be done here in a few. Why don't you go get dressed?"

He let out the breath he'd been holding in a long sigh.

"Because I like looking at the scenery?" he offered, staring at her naked beauty again.

"So do I," she teased him, nodding towards his naked chest and obviously growing bulge. "Go."

Reluctantly, he left, watching her all the way. He was not being at all subtle about it.

Now where the hell did that White Rabbit go? she thought as she started doing dishes in the buff.

* * * * *

Monday Midday

Showered, shaved and casually dressed - both of them - they were taking a break from a hard morning of shopping by having lunch at a little bistro tucked off the Strip. He'd had some very specific things he'd wanted her to buy, namely sexy outfits to wear to dinner with the clients. He'd left it open if there was anything else she needed or wanted to get. She was really nervous about spending his money, but he was encouraging her and she very much wanted to please him.

"So are you set?" he asked as they finished up lunch. "Anything else you need?"

"I need a couple of pairs of shoes, and a purse to go with that ivory outfit we got last," she told him. "After that, I think I'm set."

"Good. Then I know exactly where to go next," he smiled and her nethers started to melt again. He always did that to her. Even when she was pissed and thought it was his Wolf Smile, he still got to her. He paid the bill and they left, John driving, until they were a little ways out of town, where he pulled into a nondescript little strip-mall.

"There." He pointed out a storefront with an Italian name on the door. "Best Old World shoemaker this side of the Atlantic." He took her arm and escorted her to the shop. Her nostrils flared the moment she walked in. The fresh-leather smell made her tingle all over.

John was right. The old man's selection was excellent. And if she had needed made-to-order, he could have done it. Luckily, she didn't. She walked out with the shoes and purse she wanted for somewhere under $500, by her reckoning. John wouldn't let her see the bill. Before heading back to the car, though, he turned her along the storefronts and started walking her along.

Maybe a couple of hundred feet along, John paused them in front of another store. This one's façade was all painted black, as was the door, which only had, in simple white Gothic lettering, Donjon Inc.

When John opened the door for her and she started to enter, she smelled that lovely scent of fresh leather once more. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, however, she came to an abrupt halt.

It was a BDSM Fetish shop. By the time the Goth chick in the heavy piercings got to them to see what they wanted, she was leaking.

"Is there a problem?" John asked softly in her ear as she stood and stared.

"You have no idea," she managed to tell him. And in truth, he didn't. He couldn't. Karen's dirty little secret was that she loved B&D. The S&M she could do without. But corsets, restraints, paddles, gags and so forth got her leaking down her thighs.

"This is what you meant," she whispered to him.

To his whispered, "what?" she explained.

"This is what you meant about leather and D-rings and calling you Sir..." She turned to look at him and saw he was just looking at her and smiling. That damned smile. She was already soaking. Then the girl reached them.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked.

"A number 27 in..." he paused and looked at Karen for a moment, who was just staring at him. "A 34B, I think. Plus an open-shelf bustier, a full set of padded cuffs, a 1-inch, 2-inch and 4-inch paddle and..." He paused to think for a moment. "A 24-inch high density flogger. I think that will do it."

"Yes, Sir!" the girl exclaimed, suddenly animated from her Goth stupor, apparently by a fat commission. She headed back into the shop and Karen rounded on John.

"How the hell do you know about all this?!?!" she demanded in a hiss.

"I dabble," he smiled.

"That is not dabbling!" Karen pointed out, indicating the direction the salesgirl had gone. "And what the hell is a Number 27?"

"I'll show you back at the hotel," he offered. "Unless you'd like to wear it back to the room."

She was excited, and irritated at him, and steaming, and incredibly horny all of a sudden. She decided Fuck it!, lifted her skirt, grabbed his hand and put it on her wet panties and thighs. She was delighted to see his eyes dilate and contract, and his nostrils flare, although everything else remained inscrutable.

He recovered quickly, though, and began moving his hand around ever so gently, covering her mons and down between her thighs and driving her absolutely up the wall. She couldn't help the moan that escaped her lips.

John stopped his rubbing and withdrew his hand, bringing it to his nose to inhale her scent.

"Ah, such a marvelous bouquet!" he smiled and she felt faint. She managed to drop her dress and stay on her feet as the salesgirl returned with a pile of boxes.

"Will that be all, sir?" the girl asked and John indicated it would.

"That will be three hundred and sixty-seven dollars, sir," she informed him. "The 27 is on sale."

"Excellent," he told the girl, pulling four $100 bills out of his wallet. Turning to Karen, he winked. "This doesn't go on the expense report."

She was simply in a daze as he picked up the packages and his change, took her by the arm and escorted her out into the bright sunlight. She could hardly see the parking lot as he led her to the car, partly because of the sun and partly because of the images running through her mind. He got her settled in the passenger seat, the boxes in back and himself in the driver's seat before she spoke.

"Yes," was all she said.

"Yes, what?" he asked. "And fasten your seatbelt."

"Yes," she repeated without moving, staring straight ahead. "Yes, I will be your lover. Today, tomorrow, all week, forever... even if it means I'm working somewhere else next week. Yes."

"Put your seatbelt on, Karen," he chided her and she absentmindedly did. "And I don't want you working anywhere else next week. I think you and I will make a great team. Relax and enjoy the ride."

She sat back in the seat and looked over at him, her mouth open in wonder, then composed herself and looked out the side window at the opulence and decadence rolling by as he drove them back to the hotel.

* * * * *

Monday Afternoon

The Number 27 was awesome, in a terrifying sort of way.

It consisted of a series of straps which encircled the torso, roughly following the lines of the ribs, with additional straps over the shoulders and down between the thighs with a single wide band around the waist. The straps connected to leather rings which in turn encircled the breasts, forcing them up and forward. There were D-rings all along the girdle and the crotch straps were designed to be removed or to hold various devices in place.

It came with chains and carabineer clips for securing the arms in various positions. John had also purchased padded leather wrist and ankle cuffs which worked in conjunction with the harness. The bustier he had bought was meant to be worn separately, with or without a dress. It had shelves to hold up the breasts instead of cups to cover them.