Stephanie McMichael had never really been demure. She had never been reluctant to use her looks to get what she wanted. In a sense, she thought of her looks as a career asset, sort of like her wardrobe.

She invested a lot of time, money, and effort into maintaining both.

It was easier to maintain the wardrobe than the body, that only took careful shopping, good taste, and money. The body, on the other hand, required steady exercise, long hours at the beauty salon for manicures, pedicures, skin conditioning, more time at the hair stylist, then careful maintenance every day.

It helped, of course, that she was, unarguably, undeniably, absolutely beautiful.

Her face was soft, the contours carefully sculpted. Her cheekbones were high and finely etched, her nose small and delicate, her lips full, soft and pouting. Her eyes, depending on her mood, could be wide and round and innocent, or sharp and piercing and intelligent.

Her hair was like spun silk, chestnut brown, hung thick and evenly and smoothly down around her head, spilling over her shoulders, and flowing half-way down either her back or her chest, depending on the impression she wanted to give.

She was tall for a woman, and walked with a dancer's grace, lithe and smooth, with careful poise. She had long, exquisitely honed legs, a perfectly rounded ass that pushed out invitingly, full, firm hips, a surprisingly narrow waist, and large, yet not too large breasts that were firm and sat high on her chest.

She could be, by degrees, charming, seductive, friendly, sympathetic, helpful, understanding, and ruthless, very, very ruthless. She was called a shark by some, a bitch by others. There were many other epithets hurled at her, mostly behind her back, mostly obscene.

Stephanie McMichael sold real estate, not the little cookie cutter homes in the valley, but the big million, and multi-million dollar ranch houses and mansions on the hills of Beverly Hills and Palos Verdes and the beaches of Malibu.

Most of the buyers were men, and she played up to them shamelessly. And if the customer was a woman, and if the woman was susceptible, then she would play up to them as well. Stephanie had been the top seller in La Costa Real Estate before leaving to form her own agency.

The McMichael agency was rapidly becoming one of the major players in the LA area market, and Stephanie was most of the sales force, her and one young lovely protege named Susan, who she'd renamed, for the client's benefit, Suzanne. It sounded more alluring.

Her office was in Beverly Hills, larger than it needed to be... to impress, expensively decorated in light scandinavian woods and softly colored Persian carpets. Plants abounded. Light flooded into the common area through large windows. Her private office had a skylight over her large, elliptical desk.

Almost everyone was surprised, then, to see Stephanie, the obviously successful and wealthy proprietor, for she was, in addition to a magnificent body and stunning looks, quite young, and looked younger. Her perfect, silken hair shone in any light and framed the face of a twenty year old woman.

She was, as it happened, twenty-six, but appreciated her even more youthful looks, and used them to her benefit at every opportunity.

Of course, her mind was more important than anything else. She knew how to access her clients, to figure out what their wants and needs were, what they were willing to pay, how they wanted to be treated. She could be a business-like no-nonsense career woman, a sophisticated, seductive flirt, or a smiling, bright-eyed, yet oh so carelessly beautiful young thing.

Right now she was the seductive, lusciously attractive sophisticate, the nose just slightly turned up, the smile just a little superior, the eyes knowing, the voice strong, confident, dipping to soft and conspiratorial.

She wore a tight skirt that was short, but not too short, the stockings dark, the heels high, yet not too high, the shirt red silk, outlining her hourglass figure.

Everything was set... almost.

She was having problems with this client. His name was Edwardo Ramierez. He was tall and broad shouldered, handsome, in a rough sort of way, and very smooth talking. On the other hand he had the day old beard look that went out when Miami Vice was cancelled. He had the same kind of silk jacket, T-shirt look too.

His attitude swung wildly from urbane and cultured, to cunning and calculated. The looks he gave her were, alternately, respectfully attentive, or deeply penetrating, his eyes almost boring into her skull at times.

This flustered her a little. She was used to men undressing her with their eyes, but Edwardo Ramierez seemed to be trying to see into her very soul.

She felt uneasy around him, and her confidence sometimes evaporated. She lost her train of thought on several occasions, and misspoke, even stuttering a couple of times. She wasn't quite sure why. She felt cowed, apprehensive, her insides fluttering and shaking.

She also felt a deep, deep animal magnetism. Which was crazy since she usually hated his type. He was hopelessly out of fashion, declasse, really. His rough masculinity was the kind that made her smile at the immaturity of the male sex. He was a macho jerk, insensitive, arrogant, and chauvinistic.

So why did she feel her insides burning, her pussy juice flowing, her breasts swelling?

After all, flirting with the clients never, ever came to anything, no matter what idea they got. She never, ever, ever fucked clients. She sold houses, not herself.

As she walked him down the hall towards the gym his arm casually moved around her waist, and she felt an electrical charge that kept her from pushing it diplomatically away as she normally would have.

Then his hand slid down onto her ass and squeezed it. She stopped and half turned towards him. "Mr. Ramierez," she protested.

His other hand came up and gripped her throat, squeezing it tightly. His eyes bored into her and the words caught in her mouth. She stared back in fear, then, as his hand slid off her throat and up against the side of her face, in a strange, hazy, enveloping heat.

He gripped her hair, turning her towards him, pulling her head back slightly, then his mouth shot in and crushed hers. She struggled weakly, and for only seconds, then gave up to the swelling chorus of lust and desire inside her overheated body.

His fingers kneaded her ass through the skirt as his tongue duelled with hers inside her mouth. She felt her breasts hardening, her nipples pushing out against the thin, lacy french bra that held them barely in check.

Then he pulled back, took her hand, and started walking forward again. She stumbled, completely off balance, both mentally and physically. They walked into the gymnasium, and his eyes scanned the room as she tried to get control of herself and resume the sales pitch.

"A... as you can... see," she gulped. "There is plenty of room for all manner of exercise equipment. The present owner has a wide assortment here..."

He jerked her to one side, as he walked over to a large punching bag hanging from a hook. It wasn't one of those small things, but the bigger, full sized, heavy kind, and it hung from a thick round ring set into a two by four that stuck out from the wall.

He reached up with his hand, then let go of her wrist and gripped the big bag. He grunted as he lifted the hook off the ring, then flung the big bag down on the floor to one side.

"Mister Ramierez," she said worriedly.

"I just need to test the height of the ring bolted up there," he said.

"Te... test the... I... I have a measuring tape..."

"Not necessary," he said.

He gripped her arms and jerked her around and under the overhanging two by four, then raised her arms, sliding his hands up to her wrists and pinning them together high above her head.

"Wha... what are..."

"Just about right," he said, holding her wrists firmly.

She looked up and saw that her hands were perhaps six inches under the thick round ring.

"M... mister Ramierez," she protested.

"I need to step back to get a better look," he said.

His eyes flicked up and down, then he smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. Still holding her wrists above her he reached with his free hand to his tie, and quickly undid it.

"Mister... Mister R... Ramierez," she gulped. "I... I really must... protest... I..."

"Shhh," he said.

He took off his tie, then pulled her wrists down in front of her. He pressed her hands tightly together, as though she were praying.

"Keep your hands together like that," he said, his voice low yet somehow compelling, forceful. She stared up at his face as she felt something going around her wrists, then looked down.

She saw him wrap the tie around her wrists once, then tie it. She gasped as he cinched it tight.

"Mister Ramierez!" she gasped.

"I need to see how it looks," he said.

"Wha... what?!" she gasped.

He wrapped the tie around her wrists again, then a third time, then took the end and pulled it between her wrists, pinching the loops encircling her wrists in tightly.

"No! Please, you... you'll have to stop this. Untie me!" she said, her voice shaky, cracking brittly.

He ignored her, then raised her wrists up high again, he fed the free end of the tie through the round ring and pulled up hard, making her gasp in pain as the tie pulled in against her wrists, forcing her up almost onto her toes.

"Please! Mr. Ramierez!"

He tied the tie off, then stood back several paces. His eyes were cold, black ice. She stared at him in shock, then looked upwards, pulling against the tie, trying to free her wrists.

"Still something missing," he growled.

He came closer, stood inches away from her, then his hands went to the front of her silk blouse and he tore it open. She cried out, a short, sharp gasp of shock, then stared at him in fear.

He smiled, a very thin, cruel smile, then reached to her skirt, undid the zipper and buttons, and shoved it, letting it slide down to her ankles.

"Please," she whimpered.

He smiled again.

He slid his hand gently over her belly, then moved around behind her. Hand still on her belly, he gripped her hair, jerking her head up and back hard, making her cry out again. He kissed her lightly on the side of the throat, then let go of her hair.

He gripped the back of her blouse and tore it open, then ripped the remains of it to pieces. He bent and gripped her skirt, then yanked it away, pulling her feet out from under her. For a few seconds all her weight came down on the tie binding her wrists, and she cried out again as it cut into her soft, ivory flesh.

He moved around in front of her again, and pulled something from his suit pocket. It was a switchblade, and the blade snapped open, and glistened menacingly.

"Please don't hurt me!" she gasped.

He said nothing, but pressed the sharp edge of the blade against her throat, then caressed her skin with a feather's touch. The blade moved downwards over her chest, then over the elastic between the cups of her bra.