"You must never know that, darling." Said 'Tonia cheerfully, then swung her whip in a wide arc of female joy.
They had a tacit understanding, Ilona had no doubt of that. But the afternoon and Paisley Publications had sapped her courage. The work now placed upon her desk eroded it further. It was first class: letters, drafts, estimates. The girl was good.
She looked up into the serenely beautiful platinum blonde smile in which there were no more reservations now than when she had hired a secretary five hours ago.
"I'm good at this too, Miss Paisley." The young voice was quietly assured. It was also amused, and there was a faint tinge of sly reproof.
"You're damn good, Susan." It was the approving publisher who spoke. She riffled the papers. "I'm more than pleased."
"Will there be anything else, Miss Paisley?"
The girl was trying to help. She must not be told to leave along with the rest of the office because it was five o'clock. Angrily fighting down inhibitions, Ilona contrived coherence: "Yes, of course, the thing we spoke of."
"I wasn't sure." The wise young eyes wel ed sympathy. "You're finding this difficult?"
"Surprisingly difficult, Susan."
The girl nodded. "It shows, and it doesn't need to be difficult, not with me. I should be the one who's shy and awkward, not you." The smile widened. "You're?
you're? well?"
"Yes, I'm Paisley Publications. That's the trouble. I've been Paisley Publications all my life."
"But why have you left. . this, so long?"
"Too damn busy to notice. Then there was an incident." Ilona smiled ruefully. "It shook me enough to go looking for you. Susan, what d'you want out of life?"
"A Mistress. I have to have a Mistress or I'm not happy. I had one but? oh, never mind."
"l do mind. Tell me."
"She was killed in a car crash. Not too long ago. We loved each other. . That's why I'm running around loose."
"Metaphorically? Or did she actually??"
Susan smiled in memory "Both. I'm shockingly at a loose end. But, yes, she did keep me?" The smile became shy. "Well, we can call it 'restrained' if we want to be very proper. Mostly she chained me and kept me naked. It's surprising how many jobs a girl can do when there's a bit of chain attached to her someplace."
Ilona Paisley sighed thankfully. The hurdle was past. They were communicating.
She thought of Griselda and the shackled ankle, the memory flaring heat through her sex. But in spite of it her next question was still hard to phrase: "Did she? Did she punish you?"
"Of course. She was awfully good at it. Would you like to whip me, Miss Paisley?"
"Yes, I would."
"I can tell you've never whipped a girl, Miss Paisley. Don't feel awkward about wanting to. If you don't think you're good at it I'll give you lessons."
"How the devil did I find you, it's miraculous!"
"We're both lucky, Miss Paisley. It's not a bit easy. I'm a natural submissive, and there's a lot of demand for submissive girls, but it's mostly with people who are just plain awful? Ugh!"
"You know so much. Susan, I'm thirty-three, but you make me feel about thirteen."
"You're a very beautiful woman, Miss Paisley. If you'l let me I'll make you a lot more beautiful. You'll find me a very competent slavegirl."
"You use that word: slave?"
"Of course. That's what I am. May I start calling you Mistress?"
"I'd love it. Susan, you're too good to be true. I'm way behind?"
"You must whip me quite soon, Mistress. It will set our relationship. I need whipping often. You've probably noticed how easily I get bossy."
The girl was pure delight. Ilona Paisley recognized good fortune. But, in human perversity, the hand of Paisley Publications still rested heavily on her shoulder. To thrust it far away would need all the moral support she could get. Hesitantly, she laid bare her conscience:
"Susan, this means a new life for me. Much less time in the business. D'you ever get bothered by good old Protestant work ethic?"
"Why should I?" A slender finger pointed at the typescript on the desk. "I can produce as much as most. If you want your slave to be a part time secretary, a chain on my ankle or a collar round my neck won't stop me typing." The lovely young features brightened in amusement. "You could allocate quotas and award penalties."
"Mmmmm. . That's because you're highly intelligent. But let's look on ourselves as ordinary people who are playing out two roles because it heats our pussies. So much of all human existence revolves around the compulsions of our glands? It's something I've always deplored. In you and I creating a relationship, a life together in which we will be constantly sexually aroused, are we diminishing ourselves?"
"You poor dear Mistress, how you do torture yourself!" Susan's eyes danced. "I think you're confusing hedonism with emotional identity. We're not seeking pleasure, we're just trying to be ourselves." Susan stopped short. "Say, am I being a bore?"
"Go on. I want you to."
Susan grinned, her agile mind easily finding words. "Don't you see that, up until socialism, the world was divided into slaves and their Masters and Mistresses. Other names were used, but that's what it boiled down to. Socialism destroyed this human force of gravity, they insisted everyone was, and should be, exactly the same. This left about half the human race out on an emotional limb. Slavery was abolished, they had nowhere to go." Susan giggled, her young girlishness laughing at her words.
"Gosh, Mistress, that sounds stuffy!"
"Dear girl, you should know whereof you speak. You've been a slave looking for a Mistress."
"Well, yes. But money and society will pressure us, at least it will you, into thinking we're playing a role. We have to kill that. We're not acting, we're for real!"
The youthful face was pinkly animated. "That's why we must have restraints and punishments. When you whip me or lock me in a cage it keeps me in my place. In inflicting my punishments you'll do some serious thinking."
"But it's still wickedly erotic, a sexual thing."
"Given the least chance, anything at all involving females becomes erotic. Read the papers: it doesn't matter what happens to anyone of us it comes out sexual."
They gazed at each other in wry amusement. Ilona laughed. "So I could be a better publisher because I whip your bottom?"
"Don't laugh, Mistress, it could be so. I'd be a happier girl because I'd been told what to do and knew I'd better do it or else. It would be a return to civilization."
"When I have that chain on you I'm going to order you to write articles for the mags'. The stuff coming out of your pretty head will sell."
"Oh, yes, I want you to do that." Susan was alight with enthusiasm. "But don't let's make the mistake of apologizing for ourselves by being solely intellectual. If the kitchen floor needs scrubbing and polishing, make me do it. Whip me if I pout."
"Do you realize what you do to my glands when you say something like that, Susan?"
"Of course I do. It works with me too, y'know." Susan grinned confidingly. "I'm frightfully casual with that cute expression: 'whipping my bottom'. But whipping me is something you absolutely must take seriously. If it gives you a wet pussy, that's a bonus. We eat because we must, but we also get great pleasure from it. We mustn't dwel on these coincidentals. Once you start whipping me you'l realize there's a lot more than my bottom, and a lot of different ways and instruments. You use 'em according to the end result you're seeking. It does not matter that the first few strokes wet my puss and make me tremble, that just happens. After they're done with I take my whipping very seriously indeed, just as I've said you'll have to."
Ilona Paisley knew herself under scrutiny. To this lovely creature across the desk she must seem archaic, a pathetic relic striving to catch up lost ground. Action was vital. Pinkly shy, she said, awkwardly: "I should take you home now."