Katie reminisced over her childhood and the way her mother would stand in their main hallway, the one leading on to the lounge room, and holler for her when she'd misbehaved.
"Katie Rachael, do you want me to set you over my knee?" she'd bellow exasperatedly. "Is that what you're aiming for, Missy?"
Inexorably would follow the almost-exhilarating sting of the large wooden spoon on her pale, bare buttocks. There would be one startling slap in the silence, then a pause and finally, another. Always once, always twice and then it was over.
In a wild crossover from her childhood to the impending present, Katie suddenly wondered if her boss Mr. O'Bannon would throw her physically over his knee and spank out her punishment. He had, after all, specifically requested a plain white button-down business shirt. Yet the very closest that she had been able to acquire in his size had tiny white satin pinstripes through it. Her breathing quickened imperceptibly with these wicked, disorientating thoughts.
"Actually, he'd look rather dashing in it," she declared in her inner libertine way accompanied as it was by a small, defiant toss of her long auburn locks. That straight, black hair of his always presented as just a tad too long and it would curl deliciously, temptingly, over the back of his collar and tickle her sight mercilessly. Her pupils began to dilate as the remembrance of this luscious torment slid unbidden into her mind.
Katie shook her head to dislodge these extra-curricular notions as she rode the elevator up to the eighth floor and back to the office she had occupied for the last three months as Personal Assistant to Mr. O'Bannon. Sometimes, she fancied after a long and exhausting day, his eyes looked deep enough for her to dive right into and languidly swim awhile in their welcoming, silky depths.
The elevator's harsh, monochromatic voice announcing her level interrupted her girl-scout, romance-novelist reverie and drew her back to this morning's dilemma; Mr. O'B's reaction to her choice in shirts.
Would he be enraged that she hadn't followed his instructions to the letter? She moistened her lips and arched her back in anticipation. Perhaps livid enough to bend her over his firm, muscled thighs and, in lieu of a handy cooking implement, slap her derriere over and over with his big, brawny hands instead? Katie attempted to swallow but found her throat too tight to achieve any such grand undertaking.
It came to her notice that she had been all but jogging in her heedless haste to get back down the hallway to her manager and initiate the confrontation that she had just been breathlessly contemplating. As she realised that he would probably react with nothing less than generosity and genuine appreciation for her trouble Katie tried frenziedly to convince herself that her chest rising and falling so unevenly was due to her swiftly paced steps from elevator to office: that overly long six foot expanse! "After all," she reasoned petulantly, "I have just done it in heels!"
She couldn't help but grin at that one as she entered Mr. O'B's plush corner suite, and waited unobtrusively for him to conclude his telephone call.
If the truth were to be strictly related, Katie Rachael Dwyer wasn't the least bit concerned about the shirt, she owned to herself. Yesterday's proceedings were at the pit of performing butterflies in her tummy. She nibbled the left corner of her perfect Cupid's bow pout and endeavored once more to rationalize the events of the last iniquitous twenty-four hours.
Justifications and Ego-Stroking first: She was a great P.A. She knew that about herself. Katie was the kind of woman who would sacrifice for her job, and regularly did. She had never been fired from any position she held and since the age of twenty (four years ago) she had actually been headhunted twice. Mr. O'B was her perfect superior. He allowed her a certain professional freedom the like of which had developed through a blended sense of mutual trust and he had been unambiguous with his comments to the effect that the future augured well for promotion. Theirs was a well-regulated, efficient relationship that worked auspiciously for both parties.
Motivations and all-round Denials second: She must have been stricken with a temporary, but nonetheless extreme, case of Dissociative Disorder!
Katie had come to care for this man above and beyond the call of her duty (which was the problem in a nutshell) with her desire and respect exquisitely balanced. His broad, impressively built body seemed to overpower her better judgment, though unfortunately that was all it had wrestled with, well, up until yesterday afternoon anyway, she deliberated blushingly. If the attraction had been only physical she might have been able to muster more than a modicum of self-control but emotionally, not to mention ethically, she realised that this man had no equal and this served only to further enflame her already heated appetite. She dreamed of his strapping, masculine hands sliding over her trim, taut body almost nightly. If she gave herself permission to lower her lids right this minute, Katie knew that she would be instantly transported to the fantasy world where his hairy, patterned chest cuddled tightly her own yielding curves.
HOLD IT! STOP THE COUNTDOWN.
"Let's just focus on the problem at hand, Katie-girl," she muttered quietly to herself as she wandered over to the picture window, the one overlooking the lush expanse of grassy parkland, and attempted to formulate her thoughts over.
It all began with her lucky leather G-string. As far as she was concerned, THIS was the culprit and if requested to take an oath in a court of law to that effect, she would happily testify, even volubly, as to its lascivious nature and lugubrious influence.
The man who had styled it for her, Antonio, was the Italian boy who had claimed her virginity eight years ago. He had seduced her with his yearning, bedroom eyes long before he ever thrust his thick, uncut dick deep inside her. Tony had initiated their courtship as he sat watching her each and every day whilst she rode the bus home from school. He would calmly position himself opposite her, unapologetically devouring her body with his black, penetrating gaze. She rapidly came to eagerly anticipate their silent, amorous exchanges and was mildly surprised by the bitter disappointment she amassed the day he didn't turn up in his usual seat.
After a long, lonely week of enduring his painful absence, Katie impulsively decided to put an end to the uncertainty and resolutely alighted the bus at his stop that very afternoon instead of her own. She marched brazenly straight into his father's store, espied him across the busy floor and made her way solemnly towards him.
"I've longed to see you each day on my way home but have been thwarted five days running now," she stated with a blunt, innocent forthrightness that flattered her potential beau. With a teenager's compelling naivety and a tremulous bottom lip she added, "I was worried."
