After Hours 34

Why didn't the alarm go off? The sun is too bright for six a.m. and I didn't hear the bread man's truck. It backfires when he leaves at five o'clock. No, it's seven thirty and I need to be in the office in an hour! I'll just freshen up -- what is that on my thigh? Did I bump into something? And why are my nipples awake before I am? Oh, no, it's coming back to me now. Could I really have done all that?

My new billing manager, Marcy Harder, started work at Joan Bond Consulting, L.L.C. last week. She is a short redhead with an athletic build, ten years younger than me, and twenty pounds lighter. The type that walks ten mile hikes for charities on the weekend, she hadn't mentioned a man. In the interview I asked the standard questions about availability for overtime, and she mentioned that she had no children at home. "A couple hours after work isn't a problem, Miss Bond," she'd told me. "I don't have to be home early."

Robert packed up and ran off two years ago and I haven't looked for a replacement. There have been a few weekend dates with old friends and colleagues that didn't amount to much. I've got no kids and little time left to have any at this stage. My business has always been my real family.

I'm looking in the bathroom mirror now, and disbelieving my eyes. Purple bruises run from my throat down to my waist. Is that from the clothespins or had she used those stiletto heels?

Now I turn around in front of the full-length mirror and inspect my thighs. They are not nearly as bad as my ass, which has welts that are still scarlet. If I spread my legs and look there I know it will be chafed inside.

Last night we took our primary customer to dinner at La Panetiere. The customer had hired two young guys to replace his older purchasing agent. It was their first time in Philly since college and they wanted to see the Old City district. My sales director, Donna Carpenter, and Marcy Harder came with me. After a superb filet and dessert, we walked over to the Crowing Fowl for drinks. Then, Carpenter drove the boys down to Delaware Avenue to the overpriced strip clubs. The places along the river are for the tourists; locals have better clubs in their own neighborhoods. Harder and I stayed in the Sansom Street bar for another round. "Do you know if the Cave is still there?" she asked me. "I had to go there for a bachelorette once."

"I don't know," I replied. "I remember that place; I was a bridesmaid and had to go to her party there."

"There used to be some nice clubs up on Third Street," Harder mused. "My friends and I had memberships in some, back when."

Leather bars, dyke bars, after-hours dance clubs for the Wizard of Oz crowd -- that was the Third Street I remembered. Harder and I hadn't talked outside of work, and I wondered if she was coming on to me. My gaydar was rusty, and ordinarily lesbians were much more candid when they hit on me. Other than the usual college roommate infatuation, my experience had only been with men.

It is Thursday morning, I've got a prospective client to meet at lunch, and my presentation folder for the meeting is in my office. There is scarcely time to dress, get in and out of the office, and make it to the restaurant ahead of the prospect. It hurts to put my bra and panties on.

Vague memories of last night float past in a haze. I don't drink that much anymore, do I? We had Cabernet Sauvignon with the meal, a Sambuca or two after dinner, then beers at the Crowing Fowl. It's all on my Amex but I don't have time now to go over the receipts. I must have been able to drive home. Sure, I remember driving past the Betsy Ross Bridge and talking to someone on the phone. Marcy Harder? Yes, I was giving her directions to my house. I think I remember the long exit ramp to Academy Road.

I was telling Marcy about Robert, how he left me when I needed him, what a jerk he was. I must have been really drunk. She walked me into the shower and waited until I stopped babbling, and then somehow we were both in the whirlpool tub. We were sitting in the tub with a bottle of Chenin Blanc and a Teddy Pendergrass album playing in the bedroom. I leaned on Marcy's shoulder and told her, "I want to kick Robert's ass."

Marcy smiled, reached her arm around my shoulder, and said, "Joan, I'd really like to spank your ass."

I looked at her smiling eyes and wanted to hug her. "Marcy, none of my men would ever play games the way I wanted. Robert talked about threesomes and going to the nude beach, but he wouldn't do anything for me. It was all fine if I tied him up, abused him, and used him as a toy, but he wouldn't do the same for me. After all these years, I'm still better off with my vibrator."

Marcy began playing with my nipple under the sudsy water, saying, "A vibrator can only do what you make it do. A real person can do things for you, and do things to you, and make you do things you never imagined doing."

We sat in the hot soapy water and talked, then rinsed each other down and came into my bedroom.

My Federalist rowhouse has newly restored nine-over-nine windows and the requisite marble stoop. Classic wooden blinds screen the twin bedroom windows and sheer pink curtains hang against the venetian blinds. The bed has a mammoth carved wooden frame with a headboard, shelves, outlets and corner posts.

Marcy Harder rooted through my bedside table while I sat naked on a towel on the bed. She produced an inch-wide, four-inch cylinder that resembled an oversized tube of Chapstick. "Do they still make this stuff?" Her eyes lit up as she opened the cap and sniffed. "I remember playing with this when I was in school."

"There's more of that in the fridge," I slurred.

"Yes," she grinned, "I want to see what's in that refrigerator. Why are you sitting up like that?" Marcy gently laid her hand on my right wrist. "Why don't you relax?" she asked. With no warning, she pulled my left hand behind my back and wrapped something around the wrist, then pulled my left arm back toward the headboard. She fastened my left hand to the vertical bed frame and then did the same to the right. My arms were outstretched as far as they could comfortably extend.

Marcy, still stark naked, went into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. "Do you have a battery toothbrush?" she called.

"Don't wanna brush teeth now," I mumbled back. "There'esh extras in there. Help ya self."

She emerged with an evil smile across her face. "Oh, I will," she said and walked back to the bed with another length of the sticky bandage tape she had used on my wrists. She pulled my legs apart and wrapped each ankle to its corresponding post leaving me spread-eagled on my back.

"Marcy," I said as soberly as I could, "I like to play games with people I know a little better. This maybe isn't such a good idea."

Marcy walked across the thick wool rug and looked out at the parked cars. In the darkness gas lamps illuminated the Society Hill street. Twelve feet across the cobblestones some of the neighbors' lights were visible. "Joan," she murmured, "it's nothing to worry about. Nothing is going to happen to you that you don't want to happen." She examined the white cords controlling the horizontal slats and the knotted double cords that raised the blinds. Grasping the heavier cord, she yanked it until the blinds lifted to the top of the window; then, the other blind. Only the filmy curtains draped from their rods.

Marcy padded over to the front dresser and turned on the two yellow desk lamps, then came back to the bedside table and turned the reading lamp up to 250 watts. Next, she walked back to the rear closet and unplugged the floor lamp by the chair. She lifted the heavy base and lugged the three-way swivel lamp over to the bed. After plugging it into the bed outlet, she turned the floor lamp on at its brightest setting. She looked down at me with approval and said, "I'll be back in a little bit."

The solid thump of a slammed car door roused me. I could hear voices outside the window. "Bright. Morning?" I muttered.

I heard the refrigerator door open, then the kitchen sink faucet running, and then something rattling against metal. A shadow crossed the doorway and I heard the clinking noise again. "Work. Go?" I mumbled. "Light. Park. Car wash!"

Marcy entered carrying a wide plastic gallon pitcher in both hands. She set it on a towel on the bed stand. The floor lamp was behind her and I could see in silhouette her nipples were erect.

"You keep the extra sticks in the fridge with the K-Y, huh," she announced. "That's good."

Suddenly freezing cold struck the sole of my right foot. I screamed and lunged against the bindings. "Stop that!" I shrieked.

"I won't ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable." Marcy said quietly. "I am going to give you some very simple instructions now so you understand what's going on." She rubbed the ice cube the length of my foot and then against the toes of the left foot. "Tell me what it is you want," she said.

"Get that off me," I yelled. Another ice cube was creeping up my leg now, slipping up the inside of my thigh and sliding over my belly.

"You are going to ask me politely, Joan," she ordered, and dragged the cube up to my stomach as she leaned her weight onto it.

"Get that goddam ice cube off me," I shouted. "Now!"

Now both cubes, melting, were pressed against my breasts as Marcy rolled the wet ice over and around the areolas. "It's very simple. Ask me respectfully." The ice was numbing my nipples a little bit, and the sensation was disconcerting. She took another ice cube and placed it on my curly black pubic mound. "You're going to do what I tell you to do, Miss Bond. You're going to follow directions." The melting ice water was tricking between my legs and my feet were too tightly tied for me to move.

"Marcy," I gasped, "that's enough of this game. Let's play something else."

Marcy took another ice cube and shoved it all the way in between my legs. Then she went back to pinching my nipple and twisting it. "You're not giving the orders here, Miss Bond." She slapped my cheek lightly. She squeezed my chin in her cold fingers and pushed my head back against the pillow, then firmly slapped my other cheek. "Do you understand?"

Marcy had my full, if drunken, attention. She then proceeded to demonstrate how she would enforce my compliance. That explains the bruises.

It is all coming back to me in lurid detail, and I've got to get to that lunch meeting now. I wonder what Marcy will say to the client.