Chapter 2: My trial weekend starts

The journey was bad. Two accidents kept us crawling for miles so we were two hours overdue our scheduled arrival time and I arrived at a virtually empty block of offices. Bob dropped me at the main entrance and drove the van round to the back somewhere and I wondered if I would be locked out but the door opened. The cleaning staff were busy but there was no one at the reception desk. Seeing me standing there looking lost, a cleaning lady switched off her vacuum and smiled in a friendly way and asked in a broad dialect that I had difficulty in understanding, "Are yer looking for someone, luv?" When I explained she yelled loudly for someone in words I could not make out. A security guard entered. "Miss Beeson?" I nodded and he picked up the phone, "Mr. Furlough, Miss Beeson's here." A few moments later he replaced the phone and said, "Mr. Furlough will be down straightaway." At least he's stayed and waited for me, I mused.

The man that emerged from the lift was younger than I expected, mid-thirties I guessed, perhaps eight years older than me. He greeted me courteously but in short abrupt sentences, "Thank you for coming Jane. Sorry you had a difficult journey. I guess you'd like to freshen up a bit. Looks like the cleaners are in the ladies rooms here. I'll take you home. It's only ten minutes away. You can do what you have to there. Still some of the things Maisie left. Please come this way." I was a little surprised with myself. Without uttering a single word I'd allowed this man to lead me out to his car and take me to his home. A man I really knew nothing about. Although I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask, in the car we only talked briefly about the journey and my position in the office and in turn I found out that he was on the board of directors. "Another reason for needing a woman as an acting wife." I didn't understand the reasoning but we'd arrived at a spacious detached house in what appeared to be an upper class area. Only much later did I find out he was a major shareholder in the company.

"This is the guest room. The shower's through here." I guessed where I would be sleeping that night. He showed me the controls to the shower. "Rinse your underwear and hang them in the drying cubicle." He showed me a cupboard that contained a heating element. "I intended to take you to dinner but it's too late now to buy you something suitable to wear. I'll do that tomorrow. Tonight I'll order from the Golden Dragon Special Service." I rightly guessed that was a Chinese takeaway or at least I got the Chinese right. "There are several dressing gowns in the wardrobe so you should find one that fits. There's an assortment of slippers too. I'll fix us a cup of tea and bring it up." I muttered, "Thank you," and wondered once again how he was able to gently give me orders that I would follow without question.

Ten minutes later, just as I got out of the shower and was drying myself, he walked in without knocking and put my tea on the vanity counter. It was in a delicate porcelain cup with matching saucer on a silver tray but at least it was a good size breakfast cup and not one of the dinky little things they serve in posh restaurants. I held the towel to cover the front of my body but he only looked for a few moments and said, "Dinner will be here in thirty minutes."

I barely had time to put a brush through my hair before a gong sounded twice from downstairs. Dinner was served. Wrapping the dressing gown tightly around me, I hurried down, knowing he wouldn't want to be kept waiting. Fully expecting to find hot aluminium trays with cardboard lids and sachets of sauces on the table, it was a complete shock to find the food in willow-pattern dishes on table heaters and a cook preparing other food on a portable electric stove. Two Chinese gentlemen stood to one side. David indicated where I should sit and one of the men held my chair for me. "Wow!" I thought, "I could get used to this. This certainly wasn't the sort of take-away service I was used to!" The waiters served us and poured wine. Never once was I asked if I wanted anything. David spoke in his terse sentence way about inconsequential things but there were long gaps in the conversation. Slowly it came to me that behind all his power, he was actually a shy man. He could probably converse for hours on stocks and share dealing but couldn't hold a chatty conversation with a woman who had no idea about such things. "Perhaps," I thought to myself, "That is why he wants someone to go with him to these functions. Well that and a quick fuck or two!" I definitely hadn't ruled that out as being part of my being his 'wife'.

"David, why don't you go and get out of that stuffy suit you've been in all day and get into something more comfortable?" I suggested when we retired to the lounge for coffee and were alone. "Have a shower and freshen up. I'll be fine here." He protested feebly until I shooed him away. For the first time, I had control but I guessed that was only because he wanted to change anyway and felt guilty at leaving me alone. While he was gone I looked around the room. It was spacious, modern and what I think they term 'minimalist' in style. The seats were real leather with glass-topped tables between them and a sideboard at one end of the room. All were bereft of ornaments, photos or magazines. No clutter anywhere at all. Likewise the walls were bare except for two modern looking paintings that I couldn't make head or tail of but which were probably expensive originals. My guess was that he'd employed a designer for the room and never used it while he was at home alone.

"David?" I began when he returned dressed only in a robe and slippers, "Before we go any further will you please tell me exactly what is expected of me this weekend and on the two weeks you wish me to spend with you? I don't wish to find myself in the wilds of Scotland doing things that are abhorrent to me."

He nodded but answered with a question. "Why did you put 'slave' on your auction offer?"

"Matty suggested it. She's my best friend at work. We thought it might bring in a little more money than 'housework' did last year."

"How much differently did you expect to be treated when you went to work as a slave rather than as a houseworker?"

"I didn't really think about it. It was a spur of the moment idea. Not much I suppose. Perhaps be ordered about a bit more, maybe made to wear a skimpy dress." I really hadn't considered how I would cope with the slave part of the offer.

"How would you feel if I said that I wanted to take the term slave literally?"

"What like chaining me up and whipping me and forcing me to do sex things?" My voice and face must have showed their shock but I felt a strange tingle between my legs and my nipples started to harden. A tingle of excitement that I'm sure increased my heartbeat.

"Not quite," David smiled for the first since we met. "More the being ordered around, wearing little or nothing. Some discipline if you didn't do as you were told. Nothing that would affect your life afterwards."

Again I felt that tingle but decided to be cagey with my reply, "I don't know. I didn't envisage that scenario although the office girls did and worse."

"You would have gone almost that far for £6.40 and hour. I am offering much more than that."

"I know. I appreciate that but as yet I don't know if I can trust you. We only met a few hours ago." When I started the conversation I was hoping to interrogate him but in fact it was mostly him questioning me. He went on.

"You ticked the 'no sex' box. Did you really mean no sex at all costs or no sex until I've seen who is buying me?"

"Well I half expected Dan Hansen to buy my services and I certainly would have objected to sex with him. He's old, none too clean and has a fat belly. I no prude and I lived with a boyfriend for months so I might have succumbed to the right person and I'm on the pill so pregnancy shouldn't be a problem."