"I am a gift, from Viktor Kropusek to Arthur Wilson, given in thanks and apology. Do with this gift as you please, for as long as you please."

He'd just walked into his house. The girl stood by the fireplace. She'd lit a fire. She wore a simple strapless summer dress of a gold knit material that reached half way down her thighs. She had a broad foreheaded face with beautiful gray eyes. Her hair floated about her shoulders, a wheat colored cloud. Her feet were bare.

He blazed into anger, "Get the fuck out!" he roared, "Out!"

She looked back at him calmly. "That wasn't for very long."

"Out! God-damn it!" he roared.

"OK OK," she said, "But you know I don't have like a coat and I have to call a cab and I have no shoes. Could I at least wait inside?"

"Get the fuck out!"

She bent to pick up her bag. It lay on the floor to one side. Bending lifted her dress and he had a quick glimpse of the diamond shaped gap where her thighs met her bottom. She walked past him, he had a whiff of violets, then on to the front door. She swung it open and stepped onto the front step. He slammed the door behind her.

He went into the kitchen, poured himself a stiff scotch and drained it. From work, he'd taken the train to his suburb and then walked the mile through the sleet of a late March storm. He'd unlocked his front door, his glasses had steamed, he'd looked into the living room, surprised at the subdued light, and there she'd stood.

He returned to the living room, the fire the only light, and looked out the front window. She stood, or rather hopped on the walk, dancing from bare foot to bare foot. The slush lay almost up to her ankles. He could see his footsteps and now that he noticed, a second faint trail that must be hers from earlier.

"Shit." he said.

He went back into the hall, opened the front door and called. "All right. Wait inside."

She ran up the steps and past him. She stood in the hall, shaking, her teeth chattering.

"You wait right there," he said. "How long is it going to be?"

"They said half an hour. The f-f-fucking roads are slippery."

He sighed, then went back into the kitchen, poured himself another drink, then after a hesitation, said, "Shit" under his breath and poured a second glass. He handed that to her and went into the living room. He sat on a stuffed chair, the fire to his face, his back to her. He bent his head and looked at his drink.

"So what's all this about?" she asked. She leaned on the doorjamb looking into the living room.

"Just wait for your cab and be quiet," he said.

"You know, I get dumped at some strange house out in the sticks and get put in the hands of some lunatic guy I don't know. And then I get like yelled at? It's natural that I'm curious? What's going on here?"

"You know," she said in a softer voice, "If you tell me you might feel better. The gift might not get used as intended, but maybe it'd do some good."

He sighed, "Not every year, not even every other, a girl gets delivered, always in March. I don't want or welcome it."

"But why? And why in reward? And why in apology? I had to like memorize those stupid words."

When he said nothing, she asked, "What did he do to you, that Viktor Kropusek? Did he take your money, screw you at work, take your girl?"

"I'm not going to tell something I've kept to myself for 20 years to a whore." he said bitterly.

"You know," she said, "If I laugh, it's only a whore's laugh, it won't matter one way or the other to you."

Then she said, "Come on, the cab'll be half an hour. If you're talking I won't be able to bug you."

He was amused in spite of himself. He was silent and she thought he was going to remain that way. Then he said, "Shit," sadly and began to talk. He was an awkward story teller, hardly able to make himself understood, but in his mind, this is what he remembered.

Another March storm. His doorbell rang. On the stoop stood a coated figure, a young woman. With a start he recognized her, Katy, a colleague at work, a work friend, his mind amended. The shock of the unexpected had made his mind slow, what was she doing here? Behind her snow fell in large plentiful flakes. Everything was coated by a wet blanket, still thin. She looked up at him. She was clearly nervous. He felt surprised and tongue tied, his face hot.

"Hey," she said, "I've got this bag with Chinese takeout, I've got this Champagne, I thought maybe we could like celebrate closing the deal together."

"How?" he managed.

"How did I get your address? When you vanished from the office, telling only Tom that you were too tired for the party, he said you never go, even though without you these deals would like never take place, well I kinda like pleaded and begged and he gave it to me. Look, Arthur, I don't want to be with them. I want to be with you. I've learned so much working with you. I know you're tired. We've been like non-stop on this thing for the last 3 months. How about we just eat the Chinese, split the Champagne and then I'll either leave on my own steam or keel over with my head on my plate and you can push me out onto the sidewalk to sleep it off in the snow. OK?"

Arthur couldn't speak. She was very pretty with dark brown hair about her shoulders, hazel eyes, and soft gleaming milky skin. Her coat was open in front, revealing a dark blue suitable for the office and then party afterward dress. Her calves were very nice and her feet were tipped in high heeled black pumps. When she'd joined the team 5 months ago, transferring from the San Francisco office, he'd figured she couldn't be good for anything, she was so pretty. How wrong he'd been! She'd been the hardest worker in their group. Putting in more hours even then he. At 2 or 3 in the morning, he'd find her dialed in to work and one or the other would phone and they'd go over some point in some financial statement. She'd been particularly good at interviewing the weird technical types who worked at the prospective acquisition and verifying that what they said they had really was what they said and did in fact work. And on her own, she'd made a kind of human inventory of the acquisition's workers, at least those in sales and marketing and engineering positions, getting quite an accurate picture of how much dead wood and how much creative talent the place had. Because of her they weren't going to ship everything to India now that they owned the place.

During that whole time he'd longed for her and lusted for her and wondered about her life outside work, but had never nerved himself to say a thing. Normally he hardly spoke to anyone about anything besides work, and with her ... The furthest afield they'd ever gotten was discussing research on what the firm's competitors might be planning. Now there she stood.

The smell of the food hit him and he found himself ravenous for it and for her.

"I'm getting cold. I'm gonna come in? We'll like have our own bash," she said firmly and stepped passed him and into the hall.

He took a deep breath of the now scentless outside air and calmed himself. This was going nowhere. She was just being nice.

The house was really small, especially given what his income must be. Looking to the left she saw the dining room. To the right was a small living room with a modest TV, some furniture and a fireplace. On the coffee table was a stack of papers and computer printouts. He had a desktop computer sitting beside the low table with its monitor and keyboard on the glass surface. "Shit, you were working!" Indeed he had been. Starting on the documentation for the next business their firm was thinking of buying.

She looked at him standing in the hall, slender, with thin wire rimmed glasses, looking lost and confused. She felt a little glow of warmth. He was a few years older, maybe thirty. He'd been with the firm for 5 years, coming to it right after grad school. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he was hot stuff.

"This is nice," she said, carrying the takeout into the dining room and peering on into the kitchen. The dinner table was dark wood, there was a dark wood and glass chest displaying dainty china, and a sideboard.

"The furniture and china were my grandparents," he managed.

She had the paper bag with the Chinese in one hand and over her shoulder she had slung a largish leather handbag. The smell of the food, the hint of her perfume and just the presence of her made him feel a vacumn.

"Plates," she said. "Get plates and napkins and such like. And Champagne glasses." She pulled out the little boxes of white rice and the larger plastic containers holding her choices and set them in the middle of the table. Then she went into the kitchen and helped carry. For the champagne all he had was a pair of juice glasses.

"Shall I?" she asked, peeling the wrapping and wire from the bottle. He was too frozen and dumbfounded to think what she meant. One minute he was starting to get his first tentative feel for a small PC software startup, the next...

She expertly gripped the cork and twisted the bottle. There was a soft whoof and she eased the cork off. She poured and handed him his juice glass. "To us! And a cool hundred mill for Rienhart & Krupusek!"

They ate quietly for what seemed like agonizing years. He, because he could in his agony think of nothing to say. She? What he wondered was she thinking? Whatever was she doing here? She could be out with the other guys, he imagined the noise of the bar, the laughter, the talk on incomprehensible subjects that had nothing to do with numbers.

After almost 5 minutes, she sighed. "I thought this might happen. Maybe a little game to break the ice?"

She reached into her handbag and produced a deck of cards. She shuffled them then pushed them across. "Cut?" Her eyes never left his.

After he did, she took another bite of General Tso's chicken, licked her lips, and instructed, "Turn the top card over."

He did. He stared at it blankly. On the card was the picture of a gleaming object made of clear plastic. It had a wide base on which sprouted a slim christmas tree shaped thing.

"What kind of card game is this? How do I play that?"

She looked at him. Then she laughed in a short pleased burst. She wiped her lips and stood. She quickly lifted her skirt and pulled her underwear down over her knees. If he'd had any capability of rational thought left, that glimpse of her white thighs would've blown it away. She let her skirt fall back and then stepped out of the panties.

From her bag she took a plastic object shaped exactly like the picture on the card. She took her juice glass and let a little dribble of the idly bubbling gold liquid fall on the object's rounded end, where the top ornament of a christmas tree would cling. She set the object on her chair, out of his view, then, looking at him, she lifted her skirt again, this time, because of the table he could not see her white thighs. She slowly sat. She used one hand to grip the edge of the table and steady herself. The other reached around and down out of sight, making adjustments. Her expression became slightly vacant and abstracted as she settled herself slowly, rocking her hips about.

"There," she said after she'd settled. "Pity you couldn't see anything. I like being on a pedestal for my guys. It's like being the statue of their goddess."

He thought about where the object had vanished.

"What are you playing at?" he asked.

"Cards, and if you like the game, turn over another."

This time the picture showed a length of gold chain, a clamp at either end. She took a bite of Szechuan style pork with broccoli, met his eyes, wiped her lips, and lifted the corresponding object from her bag.

"These don't go on the ears," she said, making a play of attaching one end to an earlobe. "You'll get a good view of this."

She undid the buttons of her dress, pulled it down off her shoulders, then efficiently removed her bra. Her breasts stood up, smallish but sweet. Her nipples visibly stiffened.

"Would you like to do the honors?" She saw his expression, laughed, and said, "Next time." With practiced movements she tightened each clamp's jaws on its nipple, whistling silently against the sting. What a sight she made with the chain vanishing below the table edge to hang in her lap.

"Doesn't that, doesn't that," he fumbled for words.

"Hurt? sure."

"But, do you like it?"

"The pain? No. But it makes me shiver to think about it, to anticipate it, to think how I'll look, and I like watching you enjoy it. You do don't you?"

"What sort of game is this?" he asked again.

This time she said, "No game really, this is our celebration. I am giving myself to you."

She grinned when she saw him swallow. Then she shivered, "You wouldn't turn up the thermostat would you?"

He got up, stumbled, tipping his chair over with a bang and went into the hall. From the basement there came a rumbling groan as the furnace kicked on.

"Pick another card," she said when he'd righted his chair and resumed his seat. "And don't forget to eat. You'll need your strength later."

"You really have that many, well, things in your bag?"

She grinned, "You'd be surprised. A card."

This time it showed another plastic object, long and slim, its purpose obvious. Even he could recognize a stylized penis. She took one from her bag, dribbled champagne on it, then it vanished from view under the table. He watched transfixed as she pulled at her dress, shifted in her chair, obviously opening her thighs. He watched as she looked down at herself with rapt concentration. He watched her arms move gently back and forth. She closed her eyes and looked at the ceiling. A gasped "OH" escaped her lips, then she shivered again and shook her head. She took a large gulp of her champagne. He refilled her glass.

"Why do you suppose that men like watching a woman fool with herself?" she asked.

When he said nothing, but just sat helplessly gawking, she sighed, "Another."

He surprised her by all but croaking, "What's the score?"

She laughed, he'd loved hearing that laugh in the office. When she stood in the little kitchenette, chatting with the guys on some subject that he invariably didn't understand, her laugh always made him feel at ease. "You are losing big time, bud. Next one may change your luck though."

This time he turned over a whip, slim and black. It had a black plastic handle and long black leather tassels. Everything in him went still.

Her slim hand reached into the bag and rummaged and came out with the object.

He looked up at the slim girl where she leaned on the doorjamb, he hardly saw her he was so lost in memory, "Of course no one ever expects actually whip another person. It's so beyond imagination. Or even to hit anyone. The last time I'd hit someone it was a boy in second grade, on the playground, and the humiliation of going to the office!"

"Here," she handed the whip to him, handle first. He fumbled and dropped it onto the rug. He bent and picked it up. It felt cold and hard in his hand, dry and smooth as a snake. She bent forward, placed her hands palm down on the table. "Practice on my back," she said. "You can't miss that."

He took it and stood. His chair tumbled over again. This time he tripped and found himself on all fours.

"Hey", she said, "You're not the one who's supposed to get hurt here."

He picked himself up, rounded the table and stood behind her. The line of her spine, the shifting outline of her shoulder blades, the lines of her ribs, he could've looked at how they pressed against her smooth skin all night.

"Hey," she said again.

He slapped her back. The leather strands spread and seemed to caress her smooth skin, touching her shoulder blades like the soft fingers of a lover.

She laughed. "Jesus. Here give me that." She straightened, took the whip, then "Hold out your hand, palm up"

When he did, she swung it back and brought it flailing around hard so its ends lashed across his wrist.

"Shit!" he cried. Despite the sting, the sight of her swinging arm, the play of her delicate shoulders, the bounce of her breasts and the glittering chain, excited him beyond measure.

"Like that," she said, keeping up her tone of disdain, "Across my back."

"Wait," he said, "If I am going to whip you, it should be for cause. One shouldn't just punish randomly."

She grinned. "I do so like you. How about for barging in and disturbing your peace?"

"Yep that's it. Worse, you're delaying the start of our next project, we're going to want to move fast on this one." And he brought the whip down hard on the line of her spine. She yelped and twisted. The plastic inside her must also have had an effect since she bounced a couple times more and only was still after a visible effort.

A spread of red ran down her white skin, like a rash. He so admired how her back narrowed just above her hips. Her dark blue dress puddled there, he had just a slight view of her bottom. He could see nothing of either object. He struck her again and again.

As he did, she yelped and bounced and twisted. Her beautiful smooth face hardened into a grimace, he could almost see the face of the older woman she would become. She climaxed with a high pitched sound, somewhere between a yelp and a squeal. He stroked her back hard several more times, his arm ached. He was surprised at how turned on he felt.

"Jesus, Jesus Jesus," she sighed.

He turned over another card. It showed a nude young woman, kneeling, her hands resting on her thighs, palms up, thighs open enough so that her smooth hairless pussy was in plain view.

"Let's go into the living room," he managed.

She stood, her dress dropped about her ankles. He admired the plastic bases that stuck from her cunt in front and from between her ass cheeks in the rear.

He bent to get her bag, but then said, "Bring the whip, the bag and the cards."

She bent, the chain swinging. He thought she was the best thing he'd ever seen. And when she walked before him, high heels clicking...

"Please make a fire," he said.

She hesitated. He took the whip from her and waved it threateningly.

"I'm sorry, I don't know how," she murmured.

He lashed her hard across the ass.

"Ignorance is no excuse," he said. "Put three pieces of wood in the grate, lengthwise, 2 on the bottom, one resting on them. Take the cast iron tray on the side there, pour a little kerosene onto it, you'll find a small can in the cupboard there, slide it under the grate and light it."

He sat in an easy chair and watched as she moved tentatively about. How sweet she looked. She hesitated with the match. "Light it," he said, "Or I'll light your ass."

She struck it and the kerosene lit with a soft gentle flame. The wood above it would soon catch.

She started to kneel on the hearth rug, but he said, "Stand still." He went to her. He touched a clamped nipple curiously. She shifted on her feet. He began to explore her body. Her skin felt soft and smooth and warm. He felt that right then, she was an inanimate object, made of some exquisitely expensive warm synthetic, an inanimate object that belonged to him. He could do what he wanted to it without consequence. He twisted a pinched nipple and she gasped. He let his hands rove down her flanks, over her flat belly. He fingered the taut flesh of her cunt, stretched around its guest. He pinched her sex lips and she jumped. He jiggled the base of the plastic lodged in her ass. He noticed that her breathing was getting short, there was an excited look in her eyes. He put a firm hand on her flat belly, another on the small of her back. He pushed his hands together, trying to push the air out of her, like he was working a bellows. She was so firm and alive in his grip. He caressed her thighs, then her breasts, then gripped her chin firmly, turned her face to his and kissed her.

He went to his chair and sat, leaving her standing, feet spread. The fire burned well. Its orange light and heat played about her. He took the cards and rifled through them, flushing at what he saw. He showed her a picture of a woman kneeling between a man's legs, her mouth about his cock. "This is the next one."

"Cheat," she said.

He brought the whip down hard across a breast. She yelped and the chain bounced and flashed in the firelight.

"Get to work."

As soon as her sweet soft lips touched him he knew that this was not what he wanted. Roughly he took her under her arms, lifted her and all but threw her down on hearth rug. She had just time to shift to get her ass into a more comfortable position when he was on her. She gripped him with her legs and arched her back and he rammed her vigorously. He gasped with pain. The plastic cock was still in her. With a chuckle she slipped her hand down between them and removed it. He hit her hard once across her breasts with the whip as punishment for the laugh. He butted against her once. Then her fingers guided him and he drove in.

The face she looked up at was hard, grim and unrecognizable. He came almost instantly.

With the single-mindedness he brought to his work, he did not let go of his erection and began to rut again with long slow strokes. She sighed and gave herself over to the oldest most uncomplicated of pleasures.

Later, drained for the time being, they lounged before the fire, he with his back against his chair, she with her soft cheek on his thigh, his limp cock, smelling of both of them, not far from her eyes.

He held the whip and idly ran its leather strands along her body, from her wet puffed pussy, up over her chest and small breasts, to her chin and then back down, as if he was sweeping some invisible dust from her, or accompanying some soft music on a snare drum.

"How did you get into this?" he asked.

"You mean how did a nice girl like me discover chains and whips?"

"Ouch," he'd slapped her hard across the belly.

"In college. I'd had sex, of course, a boy friend or three or four and some fun. I liked sex and you know I don't remember finding it lacking. I kept it in its place. My grades were what mattered. And learning the stuff. This guy I knew, he was an English major and's in law school now, one of this guy's classes was having an open reading of Joyce's Ulysses. He felt the book was crap and the idea of you know like reading it out loud cover to cover as some kind of commemoration was pretentious. So he organized this like counter reading. We were going to read "100 Days of Sodom", but that's too nasty and's got long boring parts, much like Ulysses in fact, so "The Story of O" was chosen. You know it?"

He shook his head.

"Maybe we can read it together. The others, well, it turned them on I guess, but nothing major. When it was my turn to read, just speaking the words excited me to the extent that I came with everyone like watching, I had to pass the book along to the next in the circle. That book bound something in me to it. I couldn't and didn't want to break free. So I like started looking. Eventually I found this small, quite elite group, (ironic when you think that this all started as a protest against elitism), its members a few rich men and a few professors, I was at the University of Chicago. They had the style and the tone and well, the hidden menace I was after. I found 'em after a few somewhat sordid adventures I won't speak of.

"Would it shock you to know I got my job with our firm, because of one of the members of that group?"

"Most of the guys we hire seem to be recommended by someone or other for who knows what reason, " he said, "Like they're related to someone. Or they come from an Ivy League school. Most of 'em turn out to be idiots. The company is good at weeding out the incompetents. They generally go work for a bank. I expect you'll be working for BofA in a month or so with the rest of our rejects."

She slugged him playfully in the chest.

"Striking me," he said, "Is a capital offense. Kneel with your back to me." He brought the whip down hard on her already red skin.

Later still, she lay on her side with her back against him because the wool of the hearth rug was painful. She reached for her bag, rummaged and pulled out a tube of ointment, "Aloe Vera and Arnica", she said, she handed it back to him. "Would you mind?"

Rubbing it onto her flesh, making it shine even more in the firelight, hardened him once again, against his estimations of what was possible. When he'd finished with her pussy, which he'd left for last, he entered her from behind.

She put her hand down and touched him to still him. "Let's just lie a time."

He felt right then that they were natural normal lovers. He felt desperately fond of her.

She asked, "When did you first notice me, I mean as a woman and not as a hopefully valuable co-worker? I bet you'd never thought of me until I turned up on your doorstep. And maybe not until you turned over the first card.

"And maybe not even then, you didn't know what the fuck it was?"

"I still don't know what it's called."

"In Spanish it's called a 'consolador', a consoler." She rubbed the hard inch of his cock that was exposed by their position. "Did you feel consoled? We're not so poetic, it's the strange word dildo or when it's meant to go up the ass, the prosaic butt plug. Anyhow. So it wasn't until you got to hit me that desire awoke?"

"I wanted you the first time I saw you. You were being introduced around the office by the HR guy. You appeared in my cube door and you were so pretty. When I stood I knocked my goddamn chair over."

She laughed, "I remember that."

"I said like 2 things to myself, 1 this is the prettiest girl I've ever seen and I've no chance at all. 2"

"That's already two things."

"No, only one. They were bound so closely together they couldn't be separated. And you must not contradict me," the whip made its hard sound and she yelped and jumped, there was no part of her chest or thighs that weren't reddened. Her squirming had started him moving in her but she stilled him again with a touch. "What was number 2 then?"

"That I thought that someone so pretty had to be dumb as they come and you were going to be a weight and an impediment on the project."

She twisted and bit him on the flesh under his shoulder.

"Ouch. That's yet another offense." He flailed her. His moving arm and chest caused his cock to jump within her and she gasped and choked with pain and pleasure.

Later still, the fire just embers, he got the cards again.

"Hey, it's late and time for bed," she said in a soft complaining tone, "Haven't you lost enough?"

"I just want the chance to win back a little something."

"Honey, you lost it all earlier, you'll never be free again."

Then when he turned the card over and she saw the pins, neatly stuck in a soft breast, in neat little lines, pinching up little welts of flesh, she said "shit". She saw how excited he was and sighed. She took his hands and guided them in the sweet but painful operation.

She moved in with him the next day. At work they kept it quiet, as indeed they had to, the office had firm rules about employees fooling around with each other. His life was transformed.

He remembered how at one deadly dull meeting. Some voice droned from the speakerphone and powerpoint slides were being shone by an overhead projector. She sat across the table from him. His cock'd positively hurt. It moved in his pants. Her eyes kept meeting his, and then shifting calmly back to the interminable slides. He watched her fingers tap on the table, now and then taking notes on a pad. Well, not always notes because her felt her foot touch his knee. When he reached down, he found a post-it note which read, "Guess what I'm thinking about?". He answered, "Pay attention, there'll be a quiz." Delivering it was difficult, he had to stealthily take his shoe off and grip the post-it with his toes through his socks and stretch it across to her skirt without noticeable squirming. Her eyes turned to his and she just slightly wrinkled her nose. After a few moments he saw her eyes widen, her mouth open for breath, a slight sheen of sweat appeared on her upper lip. She shifted slightly in her chair. Suddenly she squeaked. He recognized a muffled version of the little cry she gave when she came. Eyes turned to her. She made a hiccuping sound and stood. Her hand trembled slightly. "Sorry," she said, "The hiccups. I need water." She'd orgasmed just by looking at him and thinking. His cock hurt and throbbed with longing. He wanted to get up and go after her, but his presentation was next. It was all he could do to think of snow with columns of numbers marching across it.

He remembered how another time he'd had her tell their boss that she had an afternoon's doctor's appointment and that she'd be back in the office in a couple hours. He met her in the hallway of the floor above. The restrooms on the odd numbered floors had showers, separate little narrow closets with doors. They had a wooden bench on one side and on the other a white plastic shower stall. He checked the men's room and, finding it empty, he led her through it and into the shower. He had her strip. As always, seeing her naked made his hands tremble. Knowing she was his to bid made his breathing hard and shallow. He tied her wrists together then lifted her arms and tied and duct taped the rope to the shower head. He pulled her against his suit and kissed her hard.