Hard Rain

By Melissa Vayle

When you’re a professional thirty-something, you’re jobless, you’ve broken off your engagement to, basically, the ideal man, and you still – still! – haven’t got an umbrella, and when a job comes along that you’re good at, with an impressive and sexy man your boss, with both of you sharing a love of classical music and a strong, mutual attraction, and he leads you into a world of domination and submission, where your darkest desires are more than satisfied, then it’s no wonder that with his glamorous personal assistant still very much around as a rival, and with the sudden return of your ex-fiancé, now a changed man, that when it rains, it rains hard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melissa Vayle
• Release date: Jun 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311745538

Book preview

Hard rain

Slave to what you wish for

by

Melissa Vayle

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9781311745538

Copyright 2015 Melissa Vayle

All rights reserved.

The right to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by Melissa Vayle in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters, product-names, artistes, certain place-names, and certain composers and their associated compositions, are products of the author’s imagination and, as such, are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance of characters to real persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

The pitch

Chapter 1 - Everything to play for

Chapter 2 - This little girlie

Chapter 3 - The bizarre gallery

Chapter 4 - The secret self

Chapter 5 - Presage

Chapter 6 - Unearthly landscape

Chapter 7 - Nightmare

Chapter 8 - Day of reckoning

Chapter 9 - Induction

Chapter 10 - The killing

Chapter 11 - Prize exhibit

Chapter 12 - Eye to eye

Chapter 13 - Bitch beware!

Chapter 14 - Rebound

Chapter 15 - Tour de force

Chapter 16 - Going with the flow

Chapter 17 - Rain, sweat and tears

Chapter 18 - Big girl now

Chapter 19 - The child within

Chapter 20 - Pas de deux

Chapter 21 - The maze

Chapter 22 - Indelible stranger

The pitch …

When you’re a professional thirty-something, you’re jobless, you’ve broken off your engagement to, basically, the ideal man, and you still – still! – haven’t got an umbrella, and when a job comes along that you’re good at, with an impressive and sexy man your boss, with both of you sharing a love of classical music and a strong, mutual attraction, and he leads you into a world of domination and submission, where your darkest desires are more than satisfied, then it’s no wonder that with his glamorous personal assistant still very much around as a rival, and with the sudden return of your ex-fiancé, now a changed man, that when it rains, it rains hard.

The story …

Chapter 1. Everything to play for

‘On your knees!’ The thrill seized her as it always did. ‘Now!’ he snapped.

She dropped down immediately. The parquet floor was cold, hard, and polished, like the high leather boots that now confronted her and which she could no longer avoid staring at. He stood, legs slightly astride, and she fixed upon the left boot. Tight black leather, burnished smooth with rounded toe, it was fastened up so tight she could almost feel the stricture of the boot transferred to her own naked body. The sole curved up gracefully to meet the strong heel that bore down on the wooden tile below with a pressure that now seemed to crush her too.

‘Lick it!’

He prodded her lips with the toe of the boot. The heel squealed on the polished floor as he returned his foot and steadied himself. Her muscles tensed and an electrified shiver ran through her. The boot waited: stern, implacable, insistent. She could feel the force of his towering presence press down on her neck.

‘I said, lick it you bitch!’

She was so close to him she could almost feel the warmth from his soft, black leather breeches. Her eyes wide, she took in the fullness of the bulge as it stretched tight the supple, compliant leather. A pulse of excitement surged through her. She went down on his foot at once, kissing the toe briskly, then more lingeringly and then, tongue out, started licking the flat top and sides the way a still hungry dog licks the bowl after devouring its meal.

‘Come on! Clean it!’

She duly worked her way over the whole black-leathered foot and tongued it clean. Then, twisting and head turned between his feet, began to lick the heel. It was difficult and tricky as she dared not shuffle round behind him, or even ask his permission to without being allowed to speak first. Moreover, it was awkward keeping herself balanced without toppling forward. He had bound her wrists behind her knowing just that: anything to increase her discomfort and subdue her more completely.

‘Get a move on, you filthy tart!’

The floor was beginning to hurt her knees from the extra pressure she now was forced to put them under as she craned her neck to lick the back of the boot below his knee. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the end of the strap he was holding. Her heart began to thump and she could hardly breathe.

‘Put your back into it!’

She went back down near to the heel, crouching so low that her backside was thrust in the air.

Whop!

‘Ow!’

The blow made her gasp and wince.

‘Shut up, you slut!’

Then Whop! A second blow caught her exposed rump.

She struggled to keep her balance.

‘Keep going, you filthy whore!’, and another swipe made its mark on her smarting buttocks.

She licked feverishly as more blows struck her rear and moaned frenziedly in time with the beat of the strap.

‘Uagh!’, ‘Uagh!’

Each Whop! knocked the breath out of her and the earlier stillness of the room was now shattered by a bizarre, synchronized score between master and slave. Not pain, but pleasure, possessed her body and locked her brain on boot and strap. Her torso jerked upwards with each stroke as she mouthed frantically at the leather in her face and struggled with her wrists. Her backside was tingling hot and she felt below wide and wet. She needed to be gagged with cock and...

Brrrrrrrr…!!!

The ringing of the alarm wrenched her abruptly out of the fantasy, and the clock stared back at her. Quarter past seven. She reached out and switched it off, and flopping onto her back, sighed loudly. Her eyes surveyed the silver panoply of stars set on the midnight blue of the decorated ceiling and gazed for a few moments at the curtain and watched it filter the rays of sunlight into the bedroom. Work. First day. Ten o'clock. Mustn’t be late! Time to get up and get cracking, she thought. But all that she could muster was another sigh. That bulging crotch. She touched her buttocks, and then, pulling herself together, got out of bed and went to run the bath.

The bath loosened her up and she was now feeling more relaxed about the prospect of her first day in her new job. It was so unreal. Still, six month's temporary work, you never know where it might lead to, she thought, slipping down to her chin in the warm, caressing water … and there’s Michael Richmond.

The interview came to mind: the way he looked at her, openly, fully, taking her in, all over, while he probed her with his questions, gently, but pushing, firmly getting at her, almost pinning her to the chair when it became clear she needed the job. Eight years. Eight years then redundant, and a tinge of bitterness, uncharacteristically, slipped through into her thoughts. Council cuts. Eight whole years of slaving behind the stacks, serving behind the counter, attending to every Tom, Dick and Harry who came wandering into the library looking for books and information, and some for warmth and a quiet snooze. And some could be so abusive! She couldn't handle that. Confrontation was not her strong point. Pinned to the chair... A warm feeling came over her and she could see him now seated opposite at the interview in that padded, leather executive chair, swivelling slowly left and right whenever he finished his question and gazed upon her expectantly. It was awful but she loved it. Exquisitely interrogated, he repeatedly had her on the ropes. Pushing further, wanting more, the more she gave. Her own chair - wooden, high-backed, hard seat, unyielding. Like a rack. The thought bedded her deeper into the water and it came over her lips and lapped her nostrils. And he knew it. The bast... No, I welcomed it, she thought, I loved it. He had me squirming and all that time he was so charming, so... He made it easy. Go on, admit it. He made it so easy for you to grovel, throw yourself at his mercy, do anything...

She jerked up from the water, spluttering, when it closed her nostrils.

‘Must get a move on!’

Her eyes rested on the blur of her pubic hair below the choppy water.

He undressed me, came the thought. Again and again. Those clear, dark eyes, that steady focussed gaze that swept over her time and again as he smiled gently and pushed and pushed. Tall, early, maybe, mid-forties; attractive, yes, very attractive. Distinguished, sort of; something about him; a man of worth. The phrase repeated in her mind. Yes, a man of worth. Someone to respect. He soon put me in my place. The thought was hardly out before she knew her mind was taking her off the track, elsewhere.

But then, she remembered the woman. Anne, was it? Anne somebody or other. His PA or whatever she was. She had sat between the two of them, off to the left; a funny place to sit, as though she was not part of the interview panel but an observer. She had stared at her all the time and, easily made to feel self-conscious at the best of times, it was obvious she was being deliberately put under pressure even before he had begun his first question. What was it she had asked eventually when he gave her the word? Ah yes!

‘Miss Day’, she said, with that unrelenting stare, ‘Have you had much experience of working on your own?’

You're telling me! Though she didn't say that. Three years in the cataloguing room, that pokey, little cubby-hole at the back.

‘Yes. I worked as the library’s cataloguer in a small back office.’

‘And how did you cope with the isolation?’

With thoughts, day dreams, fantasies... though she didn't say that either.

‘Busy. Always busy.’

‘Cataloguing?’ she had asked, looking incredulous.

‘Ah, yes. You'd be amazed just how much work goes into creating a catalogue. There are main entries and added entries, subject headings, classified...’

‘Quite,’ he had interjected.

She had felt suddenly very small.

‘So you'd say you were methodical, would you?’ he had then asked.

‘Oh, yes.’ She had grabbed at the lifeline he had thrown her. ‘The system is only as good as the creator. A catalogue must be accurate and complete, and …’

He cut her off.

‘Must serve the purpose required, you mean?’

‘Oh, yes. Absolutely.’

He had smiled, nodding slightly, lingering with his eyes holding her in that gaze. It was as though her experience and expertise were academic in the light of other requirements. Her attitude. Yes, perhaps that was it. And her love of classical music.

The advert came back to her: Qualified librarian required to catalogue private collection of musicology. Six-month, full-time position. Excellent conditions and remuneration. Suit conscientious individual capable of working on her/his own. Knowledge of classical music essential. Reply Box No....

‘What's your favourite piece of music?’ he had asked.

She could not readily answer that, there was so much she loved. She remembered that long pause and her mind racing.

‘Vivaldi's Four Seasons.’ He had looked back at her, blankly. ‘Hmm … Bruch, his violin concerto …number 1.’

’Go on.’

‘Hmm … Elgar ... Sospiri.’

‘Why?’

‘It's so achingly tender, and such longing and regret.’

‘And you like that, do you?’

‘It's exquisitely beautiful. It's a cry from the heart.’

‘And what of his cello concerto?’ he had replied, features suddenly sharpened. ‘You think that doesn't plumb greater depths?’

Taken aback by his response, she had realized she wasn't thinking straight.

‘Yes, of course, his cello concerto. But it's a bit desolate, I think.’

‘I don't call disillusion and lamentation desolation, do you?’

‘No, oh, no!’ had been her instant response. She had touched a nerve and was jolted by his somewhat fierce reaction. Suddenly, the chair had felt very hard and, for the first time, uncomfortable in an unpleasant way. But she had got the job. I got the job! With that thought suddenly boosting her, she got up out of the bath and reached for the towel.

Drying herself off, she began to feel nervous as well as excited at the thought of the day ahead. It was nearly time for breakfast, but she didn't feel like eating much. She calmed down when she began to do her hair. Methodically conditioning, rinsing and combing took her mind off the butterflies in her stomach. She was taking extra care with her hair today because it was important to look her best. It suddenly occurred to her that her actions and mood this morning felt like preparations for a date. But then, she was used to dates.

The lonely-hearts column of the local paper was practically a hobby. She was always regaling Val with the ongoing saga of the Mr Nice-but-Wrongs, Mr Awfuls and Mr Wimps she usually met this way, and her friend could always never wait to hear the next instalment of her misadventures with men. Sometimes it was exciting because a voice on the telephone sounded intriguing or a photograph looked promising. But then it was nearly always disappointing, yet on each occasion, she always wore sexy lingerie. She would tell herself she wore her black underwear for special dates because it made her feel good, not because she had any intention of sleeping with a stranger she did not yet know. That was true, but she still liked to be prepared - just in case. One of these days, she hoped, the mysterious stranger would turn out to be Mr Right. Today, she was only going to work but she wanted to feel good when she came face to face with Michael Richmond again.

She put on her latest acquisition from the sales, which was a lacy pink bra and briefs with matching suspender belt. As she fastened her cream-coloured stockings, she reflected ruefully that putting on saucy underwear was the closest she ever got to sex these days. Not since she was engaged to Paul - Poor Paul! - and he was so far away now. Voluntary service. Papua New Guinea … She could see him right now: stripped to the waist, bronze-skinned and bathed in sweat, hacking his way through some dense jungle to reach a remote village school to bring the little children and the sole teacher some much needed supplies…Selfless to a fault. As usual. Such a long way away… gone for ever … and a feeling of sorrow, tinged with something like regret, welled up inside her.

She snapped to. Right! Get real! And the reality was, she had another date lined up for tomorrow evening: Stephen, a university lecturer. He sounded all right, judging by his letter, although from his photograph he didn't look particularly sexy like ... like, say, Michael Richmond. However, this was no time for daydreaming. She suddenly felt slightly guilty about the thoughts she was having about him.

She managed to eat some cereal, but nothing else. She was becoming more and more anxious about making a good start with her new employer. There was something about his manner that gave her the impression that it would be an uncomfortable experience to incur his displeasure in any way. That said, however, the fact was, she was prepared to slave away for the impressive Michael Richmond as hard as she had done at Central Library, maybe harder still.

A distant rumble of thunder came through the half-opened window of the dining room. A tinge of unease came over her and she felt the air hang heavy about her. It was so close, like yesterday, and she was already uncomfortable and sticky, the freshness of her bath evaporating quickly in the humid atmosphere. She opened the window wide and caught the lightning flash from the corner of her eye, far off yet brilliant against the black anvil-heads of the gathering clouds. Damn! A storm was coming. Her umbrella was broken, it would not stay up, and she did not have a mac with a hood. It was an old, belted trench-coat. The thunder went off like a cannon, it was still a distance away. Perhaps it will pass by? There was still some time before she would have to leave for work. All the same, the last thing she wanted was to arrive looking like a drowned rat. Breakfast over, she decide to leave the washing-up till she came home that evening. She was getting more nervous. Ten to nine. Panic! I’m not even dressed! She raced into the bedroom, throwing off her loose polyester dressing gown. The phone’s ringing startled her.

‘Of all the times!’ she cried out loud, and snatched the phone to her ear.

‘Cathy, it's Val.’ Her heart sank. ‘Cathy, it's Val, are you there?’ The voice was large and vibrant, clear and piercing.

‘Hi Val,’ she said, suppressing the sigh within.

‘Sorry to get you in the middle of it, but just had to catch you before you left and say Good Luck! Shake a leg and all that.’

‘Break a leg, don't you mean?’

‘Whatever. Oh, and don't forget what I told you. Knock 'em for six!’

A good sort, Val, goes on a bit but a real friend, she thought.

‘Oh thanks, Val, bless you!’

‘And don't forget. Clean knickers!’ - followed by a shriek of laughter.

Catherine laughed, but not heartily and after a brief pep talk and further good wishes Val was gone and, the reality was, she was now running late.

The thunder was getting closer and she knew it was not going to be a good start to the day. She stood there in her slippers, half-dressed and dithering for a moment, then she set about getting dressed in the outfit which she had hung up ready on the wardrobe door. It was the pastel-coloured matching jacket and skirt she sometimes wore to concerts or dates. She was looking forward to being able to afford lots of new clothes now that she was earning again. She had chosen the lilac two-piece to wear on her first day because it made her feel professional and feminine and subtly sexy at the same time, with the short sleeves and the skirt that came just above her knees to show off her legs. She would soon be on her way.

As luck would have it, this was one of those times she had been unable the day before to grab a parking space outside the building where her flat was. She would have to dash the fifty or so yards from the outside door to her car. The rain was now torrential, cascading down, like a curtain drawn across the street, hammering the road and pavement with ricochets in every direction.

'Oh! Bloody hell!' she cried.

The street was empty, not surprisingly, it would be sheer madness to go forth in this, but then she had no choice. A fleeting thought came, a memory of herself some twenty years ago at school in that pink plastic mac, that spring when it never seemed to stop raining. She could do with that now. And wellingtons, and a brolly. Why haven’t you got a bloody brolly yet?! came an exasperated voice inside her. She kicked herself mentally, then, taking a deep breath, pulling the coat up over her head, stepped out of the doorway, leaving the main door to clunk to behind her, and entered the deluge.

The sprint to the car took place in slow-motion as each pellet of rain splattered hard on her frantic figure and she was quickly soaked from top to toe long before she made it to the car. She looked at her hair in the interior mirror and surveyed her sopping coat and less than smart, squelchy shoes and dirty puddle-splattered nylons. Lacy knickers. She felt such a fool and a sense of littleness came over her. Her wet hands slipped on the steering wheel. Such a mess! You're pathetic, came the voice, and with that judgment and a feeling that this was just deserts, she turned the ignition.

Her new place of work was on the other side of the city, just beyond the leafy suburbs, and although she had taken careful note of the route on the way back from the interview, with the heavy rain pounding the windscreen and the other windows, the city she was moving through was now unrecognizable as its passing features were dissolving and running in the rain streaming down the glass. Her heart raced as she tried to see something, anything that she knew, but all that registered was the truck in front, or rather its dark mass and dazzling rear fog-lamps and the blinding glare in her rear window from the headlights of the