The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

SHOPPING ASSISTANCE

by DISTORTED ANGEL

There was a sign on the wall next to the space in the parking lot that bore the words ‘Shop Manager’. Mary McArthur eased her Audi A3 into it, then paused to check her makeup. She wasn’t the shop manager, but that was OK. She had got her PA to phone in advance to say that she was coming, and she would have been extremely annoyed if the actual manager had had the temerity to leave his shitty little VW parked there.

She flicked the mirrors back into position, confident that she was looking good. Smart, polished, one hundred per cent professional. Her lipstick was subtle, just enough to outline the shape of her mouth, and her eye shadow was almost non-existent. Definitely the business. Situations like this, you had to make sure you looked completely in command. Show the bastards any sign of weakness and they would walk all over you.

She brushed back an errant blond wisp back from her forehead, grabbed her briefcase and swung her long, nylon-covered legs out of the car. Her heels clattered loudly on the tarmac as she swept through the goods entrance of the boutique. She paused to glance around, and was pleased to see that the situation in the shop really was as bad as the reports had suggested. Sometimes mystery shoppers and rival managers tried to make things seem worse than they really were to make themselves look better. But in this case, it seemed that the reports were actually an improvement on reality. It was ten past ten on a Saturday morning and, apart from a couple of bored-looking assistants, there was no one in the store at all.

Both the assistants were young men and they both looked utterly indifferent to anything that was happening. Their switched-off expressions did not alter when Mary marched over, rapped her polished nails firmly on the counter and demanded to see Mr Barry.

“Who?” said one, sounding as if he had a mouth full of chewing gum.

“Martin Barry,” Mary repeated. “The alleged manager of this godforsaken establishment.”

“Oh. Right.” He picked up a phone. “Martin? Yeah, it’s David. There’s a woman here to see you.” Pause. “Well, I don’t know, do I?” He looked at Mary. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. I assumed you would have the brains to ask me before picking up the phone.” She thought it was a good shot, but David just blinked like a bullfrog contemplating a particularly juicy fly. Mary sighed. It looked as if the staffing changes she was here to put into place would have to be more even sweeping than she had originally envisaged.

“I’m Mary MacArthur,” she said. “From Head Office. He should be expecting me.”

David relayed this piece of happy news and a few minutes later Martin Barry appeared. In contrast to his staff he seemed both alert and eager. His handshake was cool and confident and his teeth were brilliant white. He looked younger than she had expected and a damn sight more pleased to see her. The grin he gave her seemed positively salacious. She wondered if his enthusiasm was genuine or just a very good act, and then decided that it really didn’t matter: whatever the answer, it wasn’t going to make him any less sacked.

He showed her into his office.

“Coffee?” he said.

She had been going to refuse. Now that she was here she just wanted to get this business out of the way and she didn’t want to be distracted by sipping cheap instant out of a Styrofoam cup. But then she got a sniff of the coffee and decided to change her mind.

“Sugar?” said Martin Barry.

Mary was thinking it was a pity he didn’t care as much about his store as he did about preparing coffee. He had gone to the bother of laying out china cups, brewing a fresh cafetiÈre.

“I shouldn’t,” she said.

“But you will on this occasion.” And before she could protest he dropped two lumps into her cup.

“I’m meant to be watching my waistline,” she said, but she took a sip anyway, and was astonished by how good the unexpected sweetness tasted. She wondered why she had stopped taking sugar with her food. Watching her figure, she had said, but she didn’t know why she bothered. It wasn’t as if she had anyone to appreciate how she looked.

“I don’t think you need to worry,” said Martin Barry, and he let his eye dwell on her figure in a way which she ought to have found insulting but for some reason or other did not. “Anyway, a spoonful now and again isn’t going to hurt you, is it?”

She shook her head, and took another sip of coffee. She was surprised to see that the cup was almost empty and glanced towards the pot with a faintly regretful expression. Martin refilled the cup adding three sugars this time. It was far more than she normally took but she found herself accepting anyway, and the sensation of sweetness was even more pleasant than before.

“Now,” said Martin. “What brings you all the way down here from Head Office?”

Mary took a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this. This outlet’s performance had been way below standard for the past six months and there is no sign of things getting any better. I know that Sam Marshal had been working with you trying to come up with a plan to turn things around before she had to leave, but I think all of us back at Bracknall are agreed that things have got beyond the point where the situation can been corrected with the management team that are currently in place and that the time has come where we need to take more urgent remedial measures.”

“You’re sacking me,” said Martin. He didn’t make it into a question, nor did he seemed particularly upset. Mary was relieved, although more than a little puzzled. In spite of her reputation as a battleaxe, she actually did not enjoy firing people.

“I’m sorry, but we’ve looked at the figures and we honestly don’t see that we have any choice.”

“I can understand where you’re coming from. I know things have been disappointing over the last few months.”

“Disappointing? They’ve been utterly disastrous. Have you looked at this shop which you’re meant to be running, Mister Barry? It’s half past ten on a Saturday and there are no bloody customers.”

“I agree,” said Martin. “And I can see that it’s a problem. But what you’ve got to understand is that it’s really not our fault. It’s just that we’re not giving people a good reason to walk in through the door.”

“It’s a clothes shop, Mr Barry. You look out into the street and you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of people. Nearly all of them are wearing clothes. They have to buy them from somewhere.”

“There are hundred of people, sure,” said Martin. “But there are also hundreds of outlets. We’re a small brand, not especially fashionable. We need to do something special in order to get people to set their feet inside out door.”

“I know you need to be doing it. We both know that you need to be doing it. The problem is that you simply haven’t been doing it.”

“I can accept some of that criticism. It hurts, but I can accept it. But I’d like you to accept that I’ve got an almost impossible situation to deal with; the staff in this shop are totally demotivated.”

“I noticed,” said Mary. “And I can’t help feeling that as store manager it ought to be your responsibility to motivate them.”

“It would be easier to do that if I had some help from Head Office.”

“It’s no good trying to cast the blame on us,” said Mary. “The company runs a whole different range of Employee Motivational Programs.”

“None of which actually motivates any of the employees worth shit. Now if you’d followed up some of the suggestion which I had been discussing with Sam Marshall then maybe we wouldn’t be in this sticky situation now.”

Mary frowned. She remembered some of the notes which Sam had left in her files after Nina’s had been forced to let her go. She had thought at the time that they were just some kind of tasteless joke, but it seemed that Martin had been making a serious suggestion.

She said, “As I recall, you wanted to send your best performing salesman on an all-expenses-paid trip to the red light district in Amsterdam.”

Martin spread his palms out, totally unapologetic.

“It was a good idea. Something people might actually want to complete for. Something they’re going to enjoy a damn sight more than the stupid plastic plinth with their name on it which you people seem to think of as a reward.”

“Look, I’m not here to argue about the company’s renumeration process. I’m here to tell you that it’s time to clear your desk.”

“Just like that?” he said.

She shrugged. “You’ve already had two written warnings. You’ve already soaked up Sam Marshall’s time.” And probably contributed to her dismissal, she thought but did not say. Towards the end, it had seemed that Sam had been taking Martin’s ideas about employee reward schemes a damn sight more seriously than was sensible. And if the rumours about what had finally got her kicked out of the company were even half true... Sam had been a smart, talented woman. The idea that she had been hanging around Head Office after hours, dolling out blow jobs as if they were lollipops... Mary realised that her thoughts head drifted off at a tangent and dragged her attention back to the business at hand.

“This is the end of the road. I’ll be taking over the running of the shop until we can find a permanent replacement.”

Martin said, “I don’t believe you really want to do that. I know you’ve got a fearsome reputation, but I can’t believe you you really want to throw me out of my job.”

“It’s not a question of what I want or don’t want. It’s a question of what is best for the business.”

“OK, so let’s look at it from a business perspective. Is it really best to get rid of a loyal, effective manager and bring in a stranger in his place. Wouldn’t it be better for to work with me to turn this place into the success which we both know it can be?”

For a moment she was tempted. There was something very persuasive about the way he spoke. Was it really right for her to be sacking him? After all, he was a good manager, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?

She frowned and shook her head. What the hell was she thinking of? Of course he wasn’t a good manager. He was a bloody awful manager, by far the worst in the group. That was why she had been sent down here to sack him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The decision has been taken. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

For a moment, she saw something like anger flash across his face. It was gone so fast that she wasn’t really certain she had seen it. He gave her another of those big, brilliant grins, and held out his hands in a gesture which was both expansive and forgiving.

“OK, that’s fine. If that’s really the way you feel then I guess I’ll be making tracks. I’ll just get my things together and—" he stopped. “Oh, before I go there is something I ought to show you.” There was a lap-top on his desk. He flipped the lid up and turned it round so that she could see.

“What is it?” she said, suspiciously, fearing that this was just another of his distractions.

“It’s a list of ideas I was putting together for how we could work up an increase in the footfall, you know, the number of punters coming in off the street. I think if I’d had a chance to put them into practice we could have seen a serious turn around. It’s too late for me now, but if you’re going to be running the show then maybe you’d like to run over them and see if any of them look any good.”

Mary sighed. She was fairly convinced that whatever ideas Martin had written down would turn out to be either impractical or ridiculous but she supposed she owed it to him to take a look at what he wanted to show her. She drew the laptop towards her and tilted the screen to give her a better view.

There was silence in the office for a couple of minutes and them, in a slightly dreamy voice, Mary MacArthur said, “I’m sorry, Martin, I can’t actually see any words. There’s just this pattern of lights.”

“Kind of like a screen-saver?”

“Yes, kind of,” she said. “It’s pretty.”

“Very pretty. But it’s not a screen-saver. In fact, it’s quite a sophisticated piece of software. It’s a hypnogogic image generator. It works in conjunction with the chemicals in all that sugar you’ve been ingesting. It should ensure that I’ve got your undivided attention while I talk to you.

“Now, Mary,” he said, and then he paused as if an idea had suddenly struck him. “You’ll probably want to nibble on these while we have our little chat.”

“What are they?” she said, as her hand reached for the side plate, eyes never moving from the screen.

“They’re cookies. Very special cookies. Very sweet. You just sit there and look at the lights and eat your cookies while I talk about what’s going to happen next. Now, as I was saying before the problem that we’ve got is that we’re not getting people through the door. There’s plenty of folk on the street, but we’re not giving them any incentive to put their noses in the shop. To be honest, I can understand their reluctance; the clothes we sell are really not that hot. They’re bland, unexciting, the quality is lousy, what’s worse, they have a very drab image. People just don’t see our stuff as glamorous or sexy.

“Now, in an ideal world we would solve the problem by shooting the purchasing department and replacing them with people who have half a idea what they’re doing, but that’s not going to happen, so we have to fall back on our own resources. I think we can still do something. At the moment, people don’t think of our clothes as being sexy, but if they could see an attractive good-looking women wearing them I think they might change their mind.”

Mary swallowed her last mouthful of cookie and looked around for more. Martin just grinned knowingly.

She said, “We do try and sell a sexy image. That’s what the advertising posters and the mannequins are for.”

He snorted dismissively.

“Old hat! No, if we want to get a reaction, we have to do something new. Now, if we had a real live woman wearing our gear and standing up in the window, I think that could get a reaction.

“A real live woman?” she said. And then she got what he was getting at. “Oh no,” she said. “No, you’ve got to be kidding.”

He said: “I think it’s a great idea.”

“You want me to stand in our shop window like some glorified shop window dummy?”

“Why not? You’ve got a good body. Nice tits, good legs, I’d find you quite attractive if you weren’t so damned uptight.”

Mary knew that she ought to find it insulting to be spoken to like that, but instead it sent a sudden tingle through her. She felt a dryness in her mouth and wished that she could have another cookie.

“Come on,” he urged her, “It’ll be a bit of a laugh. And if you’re a good girl, I can let you have another cookie. Or something even sweeter.”

At the phrase be a good girl, she felt another tingle, a little stronger this time. And when he mentioned cookies she felt the last of her resistance crumble. It was just a laugh, after all; it wasn’t going to do her any harm.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll do it.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Terrific. If you want to go down to the changing rooms you’ll find that there’s already a suitable costume laid out for you.”

As she trotted obediently away, an awkward little thought buzzed around in her head: he’s got the clothes laid out. That means he was planning on doing this before I even got here. He had everything prepared in advance. She felt that she ought to be worried about that, but somehow it didn’t seem worth it.

When she saw the garments, she very nearly balked. He had selected something out of Nina’s new summer range, one of their more successful offerings and given the price tag, it was surprising how little there was of it. It was certainly a world away from the smart, sober business suit which she had selected for the meeting. She was about to protest when she saw something on the chair in the corner.

“Martin,” she called. “What are these things in the saucer?” “Oh those.” She could hear laughter in his voice. “They’re just some Turkish Delight. We leave them out for our customers to sample.” (What customers? She thought.) “They’ve proved quite popular. They’re simply smothered in sugar.”

Mmmmm....

“Can I have one?”

“Help yourself. Take the whole plate if you like.”

“Martin,” she called again, he words a little muffled by the lump of glorious sweetness in her mouth.

“Yes, what is it now?” “The curtain on this changing room doesn’t seem to work properly. It sticks half way across.”

Looking over her shoulder, Mary discovered that the little cubicle was exposed to a fair proportion of the shop, including the main sales counter. The two young sales assistants and Martin himself were all standing there grinning.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetness,” Martin called out. “You just get your kit off and get changed into your working clothes.”

Well, when he put it that way, there didn’t seem to be too much that she could do about it. She began to unbutton her jacket. She did what she could to stick to the sheltered side of the cubicle, but it really was impossible not to give the lads out in the store at least a bit of a skin show. Especially when she noticed that Martin had laid out some underwear which he obviously intended her to wear as part of the ensemble. She was sure that she heard Martin sniggering as she stepped out of her own knickers and wriggled her way into the tiny little briefs.

When she met him at the front of the shop window a few minutes later, she felt distinctly self-conscious. The skimpy summer skirt exposed even more of her legs than she had anticipated and the plastic sandals were a far cry from the serious pumps which she wore to work. The plunging neckline of the thin cotton blouse didn’t leave too much to the imagination either. Martin regarded her with obvious approval letting his eyes linger on her inadequately concealed breasts and the very tops of her thighs.

“Very nice.” He took her hand and she was surprised to find that goosebumps had appeared on her arms. “Come this way.”

He led her to the front of the window and arranged her in the position which he had decided would work best for the display. He had given her a watering can and arranged her so that she appeared to stretching up to pour water over the flowers in a hanging basket. The pose pulled the skirt even higher than it had been before and stretched the fabric of the shirt taughtly over her breasts.

As he completed his arrangements and pulled back, his hand accidentally brushed the front of her chest. She gave vent to an excited little gasp and Martin grinned his ratty little grin.

“Now you just stand there like a good little girl and I’m sure we’ll have a few punters along soon enough.”

He shambled away, leaving Mary on her own in the shop window apart from the other display dummies. Sure enough it wasn’t long before a few curious passers by began to stop and pay some attention to the goods that were on display. Mary was not exactly surprised to discover that the crowd of onlookers included a pretty high proportion of young males, but there were quite a few wives and girlfriends grinning through the glass as well. She was surprised and gratified to see that several of them were interested enough by what they saw to turn aside from wherever they had been going and come into the shop instead. From the hubbub behind her, Mary got the idea that the shop was starting to fill up. It seemed as if Martin’s absurd idea might have something going for it after all.

She could hear the buzz of their conversation although she couldn’t make out too many of the words. Every now and them a burst of ribald laughter would make its way through to her ears. They’re laughing at me, she thought. It ought to have made her feel bad: normally, she hated to be laughed at. But today she found it exciting. A peal would burst upon her, and her skin would flush, she would feel the way she had when Martin’s hand had grazed against her breast.

It was a warm spring day (ideal for flimsy, floating skirts, she thought) and as the sun streamed in she began to feel distinctly warm. A trickle of perspiration started to form at her forehead. She had an idea that there was also a certain amount of moisture collecting between her thighs, and that it did not have anything to do with the heat. After half an hour or so Martin reappeared. He was carrying a big pitcher of lurid, purple liquid. She could hear the clink of ice against the glass. She ran her tongue eagerly over her suddenly dry lips.

“How’s it going back there?” she asked.

“Excellent, excellent.” He seemed extremely chuffed. “Your little display is definitely drawing a crowd.” He waved the pitcher in her direction. “I thought you might be a bit warm standing out here in the sun so I’ve brought you something to drink.”

She regarded the pitcher with a dubious expression.

“What exactly is it?”

“Oh, just a little concoction we like to mix up here. Women who have tried it tell me that they find it extremely tasty. It does have quite a lot of sugar in it though.”

When Martin said the word sugar it seemed to Mary that her thirst immediately doubled in intensity.

“You don’t seem to have a glass or anything,” she observed.

“That’s true. As you might possibly have noticed, this is a clothes store not a kitchen emporium.”

“Surely you must have some glasses or cups or something.”

“Sure we do,” he said smoothly. “But I’m afraid they’re not for you. Now, if you’ll just close your eyes and open your mouth...” He leaned in close to whisper suggestively, " I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve had a man say that to you.”

She flushed at the meaning behind his words, but still complied with his instruction.

“Tilt your head back a little.”

When the liquid splashed onto her thirsty tongue she almost gasped in shock. The stuff in the jug was cold but that wasn’t what did it. The thing that sent her pulse to racing was the overwhelming sweetness of the drink. She stretched her mouth like a baby cuckoo, her tongue lapping frantically and the muscles in her throat working overtime as she sought to gobble the stuff down. Martin tipped the jug a little further over and the flow of liquid began to out-pace even her hectic appetite. Juice started to flow over the corner of her mouth and trickle down her chin.

It was over too soon. She opened her eyes and gave a long slow moan of disappointment.

“More....”

“I think you’ve had enough for the moment.” He eyed her closely.

“Are you all right?.”

“I think so,” she said and was amazed at how wobbly her voice sounded. Her heart was thudding as if she she had just finished swimming thirty lengths. Her legs felt trembly as well.

“No you’re not,” he said. “In fact, I think you look hotter now than you did before. That won’t do at all. In spite of what Kathleen Turner might have led people to believe there really is nothing at all sexy about perspiration. We’ll need to do something else to cool you down. I know, suppose we we undo a couple of these button?”

Before she could protest, he reached out and started opening her shirt.

She wanted to say something, wanted to tell him to stop, but somehow it seemed that her throat had just got terribly sluggish.

She finally managed to force the word, “but” up and out of her throat, but it came out as little more than a whisper.

“Is something the matter?” he asked solicitously, his hand never stopping its relentless unpopping of her buttons.

“I haven’t got a bra on,” she whimpered.

“Really?” he replied, although his hand had moved so far down by now that his surprise must surely have been feigned. “Good Lord,” he said. “You’re right.” He decided to leave the final button fastened, possibly because it made no practical difference in concealing her breasts.

“Now why do you suppose that is?” He paused, perhaps wanting to give the impression that he was genuinely interested in her answer, but he didn’t seem at all surprised when she was unable to find any words to say.

“I think it’s because you’re a cheap little tart who gets a kick out of flaunting her hot body for anyone who wants to look at it. What do you think?”

She managed to make a sort of half-hearted croaking noise which didn’t really have any words in it, but which he managed to interpret correctly anyway.

“No?” he said. “You’re trying to tell me no?” In full view of the crowd of eager onlookers who were now practically jamming their faces against the shop window he slid a hand inside her blouse and ran his hand intimately over the slope of her breasts. “If you’re really not enjoying this, then how come your nipples are hard.”

It seemed like her vocal cords are entirely frozen up but still she managed to move her lips enough to form the words, “They’re not.”

He almost laughed out loud.

“Yes they are.” He squeezed her left beast hard and ran his thumb over the tingling, engorged flesh sending ripples of pleasure rocketing down her body and into the swollen warmth between her legs. She almost lost her balance.

“You are so getting off on this.” He pulled his hand away, and even Mary had to admit that there was no doubting what he was saying. She could feel the thin fabric moving seductively against her extraordinarily sensitive skin. She was sure that the evidence of her arousal must be blatantly obvious to the crowd of onlookers on the other side of the glass.

“And I’m going to leave you here so you can think about exactly what that makes you.”

She didn’t believe him to start with. She didn’t think that he could turn her on like this and then just turn and walk away, but it turned out that he meant exactly what he had said. There was disappointment in her eyes as she watched him go, but also a sense of retreat. This time he had been too clever for his own good. She knew her own body better than him, or at least she thought she did, and she knew that her capacity for excitement could not be long sustained in the absence of tangible stimulation. She didn’t suppose that it would be more than a few minutes before her levels of arousal subsided to normal. She clung to the idea that once that aspect of her body had got itself back to normal this curious paralysis of voice and will which had over taken her ever since she had looked at that damn computer screen would also be withdrawn. And at that point all hell would break loose.

That was the plan which Mary was working to, but things did not turn out quite the way that she had anticipated. The first thing she realised was that her sexual excitement was not dissipating. On the contrary, the embarrassment of being exposed in this manner to the assembled voyeurs of the town combined with the feel of the cotton as it moved against her breasts was simply stoking the fires of her excitement.

She became aware of a cool breeze moving against her thighs. The slowness in her throat seemed to have reached into the other parts of her body. She was unable to move her arms, her legs, even her face felt frozen. It seemed to take a vast effort of will even to shift her eyes enough to find out where that unexpected coolness was coming from, but eventually she managed it. Martin Barry was kneeling on the floor next to her sandaled feet. He was positioning a small electric fan between her legs and angling it carefully upwards. He saw her looking down and smiled broadly in return.

“Hot damn,” he exclaimed. “I do so love the Spring time. All those pretty girls in the park with the breeze blowing that itty-bitty skirts around.”

He made a small adjustment to the top of the device and the force of the moving air grew significantly stronger. The skirt had been indecently short to begin with, and now the cool air was making it flutter and dance, exposing her panties to the eyes of an appreciative world. Martin stood, and as he did he ran his hand lightly up her thigh. “You know,” he murmured, “I think this could be the start of a whole new concept in marketing. What do you think?”

Mary wasn’t really in a position to answer, and even if she had been she didn’t get the opportunity. As Martin was turning to go, he just about collided with David, the shop assistant.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, no really,” said David. “It’s just that a couple of young men have come into the shop.”

“You’re kidding me?” said Martin with heavy handed irony. From the noise and commotion going on behind her, Mary would have guessed that two thirds of the male population of the town was currently crammed into the shop.

“Yeah, right,” said David. “It’s just that they want to buy this outfit that Miss Macarthur is wearing.”

“Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, David, if they want it I don’t see why they shouldn’t have it. This is a clothes shop after all. Selling clothes is our business.”

“Yes, I know,” said David, shifting a little uneasily from foot to foot. “But you don’t quite understand. It’s not just that they want this style of outfit. They actually want this particular costume. The one that Miss MacArthur is currently wearing.”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. He gave the matter a couple of moments thought. “I think the same answer applies. I’ve never been one to stand in the way of a sale. You’d better take her clothes off.”

“It’s a shame, though,” said David. “She’s been a really good draw for the crowds. Be a shame to have to take her out of the window.”

Martin pursed his lips.

“I wouldn’t bother,” he said. “You’ve undressed dummies in the shop window before, haven’t you?”

“Well, yes,” admitted David. “But it’s not exactly the same thing.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“You mean you want me to take all her clothes off, right here in front of all these people?”

“Sure, why not. She isn’t going to protest, are you Mary” Little tart will probably enjoy it.” Mary couldn’t believe that they were really going to do this: that they really intended to take her clothes away. She would have made some kind of protest, honestly she would, but there were two things that stopped her. First was the strange paralysis that Martin had imposed on her, this sticky lack of volition that had left her with no more will or motility than any shop window dummy. The second was the fact that her breasts were swollen and her nipples were rigid and there was a steady flow of moisture down between her legs.

It didn’t need much work to remove the blouse, although David did have to shift her arms around a bit. There were cheers and wolf whistles from the other side of the glass. She could feel the sunlight falling as warm and sensuous as a lover’s hands onto her naked breasts. It made her feel dizzy and breathless. David knelt down behind her and his hands hardly fumbled at all as he reached for the button which secured the skirt at her waist. There was a moment of resistance as the fabric clung to her thighs, and then it dropped away. There were cheers and whoops of delight.

“Jesus,” said David.

“What is it?” said Martin.

Her knickers are absolutely soaked.”

Martin frowned. “Dear oh dear, that won’t do at all. Can’t have her spoiling the merchandise. You better take them off as well.”

He looked straight into her eyes as he said it, continued to stare as David advanced upon her. She would have closed her eyes, but even her eyelids were no longer hers to command. The young man was deliberately taking his time, relishing her helplessness. Maybe he had been making a little bit too much of it, because just as his fingers were about to touch her skin, the manager said: “On second thoughts, perhaps you’d better not. I mean, a joke is one thing, but it really wouldn’t be appropriate for you to take this lady’s knickers off and leave her exposed and humiliated in front of all these people.” He paused for just a moment and then added. “It would be much more fun for me to do it myself.”

Martin lowered himself so that his face was within an inch of her crotch and slowly, deliberately pulled her knickers down. She could feel the stickiness as he peeled them away from her flesh. There was applause from outside.

“She’s absolutely sopping.” Martin remarked, with almost clinical detachment. “In fact, I reckon that if I were to touch her just here...”

He reached up and pressed his hand against her vulva. His fingers ran the length of her hidden lips and as the tip of his digit swept up and over her clitoris, Mary convulsed. The orgasm went through her like lightning, touching ever atom of her body. The paralysis in her throat abruptly broke and she gave vent to a sharp, savage grunt of pleasure. Then she collapsed on the floor.

The next time she was seriously aware of anything, she was back in Martin’s office and back in her business clothes. The lap-top was open in front of her and she could see the swirl of patterns on the screen.

“What happened?” she said. Her mind felt fuzzy and confused. She couldn’t believe what had happened to her.

“You fainted,” said Martin. “I don’t think you’re used to coming that hard, are you?”

She shook her head gingerly as though worried that it might fall off if she did anything too strenuous.

“What have you done to me?” she said.

“I’ve shown you your true potential. I’ve let you see what a great contribution you can make to this business if you lose your inhibitions and give people what they want.”

“You’ve turned me into a whore.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” he admitted.

“I haven’t got any underwear on, have I?”

“Didn’t seem a lot of point,” he said. “You’d only be taking it off again.”

“You’re going to get me to shag your customers?” she said. “In order to boost your sales?”

“Well, it’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Maybe I’ll follow it up later. But it isn’t what I was thinking of right now.”

“What were you thinking of now?” “I was thinking that this as been our single biggest sales day in history and the staff deserve a reward after being so hard—I mean, after working so hard. You poo-pooed my idea of sending the staff to Amsterdam as a reward but I figure that’s OK. Why bother going abroad when you can get everything you need right here in the office?”

He took hold of her hand and encouraged her to climb up onto the desk. He laid her on her back and spread her legs apart. He tipped her head onto one side, directing her face so that her eyes were still turned towards the dancing colours on the LCD display. In spite of everything that had already happened today she discovered that she was still wet, still breathless, still excited. She felt his hands on her, pulling the hem of her skirt until the fabric was bunched around her waist. She did not, could not, move.

She heard him walking across the room and opening the door.

“David, Trevor, if you’d like to come through, I think Miss MacArthur is ready for you.”

END