Gretel squeezed into another white girdle, hooked on her black stockings, and slid white panties up to cover her nest. After strapping on her bra, she wiggled into a tight black satin dress. Even in the dim bedroom light, the material glimmered seductively.
She stepped into black patent leather pumps, two-and-a-half inches high instead of the stilts she'd worn that afternoon and earlier in the night, and retrieved the jewelry belonging to Casper's wife from her tattered shopping bag.
Gretel reveled in clasping the necklace and pinning the earrings for what would be a landmark event—changing three lives irrevocably: hers, Casper's, and Casper's wife's—because she decreed the turmoil.
Gretel put her keys in her large, patent leather pocketbook and added a pair of elbow-length black leather gloves in case Casper forgot to buy her the new pair she demanded. Wrapping a black mink stole around her shoulders, Gretel admired herself in the aptly-named vanity mirror.
Closing the door to her bedroom, she took out her cell phone and dialed. "Casper, I'm on my way."
"You're late."
"Don't sass me, boy. Are you ready for your bath?"
"No, ma'am."
"You'd better be completely naked when I get there. Understand?"
When Gretel drove away from her house, she noticed another car pull out behind her. Traffic was light for a Friday night, and she made good time to Casper's mansion. The other car trailed her up the driveway and parked a discreet distance behind Gretel's Mercedes.
She grabbed the briefcase on the front seat, snatched the keys from the ignition, opened the car door, and slid out. Closing the car door, she locked the car with her electronic keypad. Gretel hurried up the walkway to the front door, which was unlocked.
When she opened the door, Casper stood before her, naked except for a pair of black socks. Gretel stepped inside and closed the door.
"I told you to be completely naked."
Casper grinned with the impish defiance of his childhood and the eagerness of the grown man expecting a beautiful woman to thrash him. "Nobody's perfect." He laughed at his attempted humor, and then cackled when he added, "Aunt Fanny!"
"You may call me Mrs. Payne," she said crisply, struggling not to laugh. What a name! Fanny Payne. No wonder Casper associated his aunt with excruciating delight. "Fanny Payne" identified her and described what resounding physical ecstasy she brought to Casper.
Too bad Gretel couldn't use that name in Casper's office, but his joyful cries of "Fanny Payne!" would have summoned security instantly.
"Since you disobeyed Mrs. Payne," she said, "write your name four times on these papers." Opening her briefcase, Gretel took out the copies of the contract that would give her twenty-five percent of BizMart's current value. She put the papers on the coffee table and handed Casper a pen.
He reluctantly signed is name in the indicated spaces. "So much equity."
"You'll still have thirty-five percent—more than anyone else." She blew on his signatures to dry the ink. Securing the papers in her briefcase, Gretel added, "If I take care of your physical needs, you must take care of my financial needs."
"There's a name for that," he said, looking vulnerable in his nudity, despite his dour expression. He held out the pen.
"It's called addiction," she cooed. "You're the junkie and I'm the dealer. Keep my pen as a souvenir. Be right back."
Gretel returned the briefcase to her car and relocked the door. The other car remained nearby.
Stepping back inside Casper's mansion, Gretel immersed herself, momentarily, into sweetness and kindness. Casper stood powerless against her, but he'd remain addicted to her longer if she continued to mix charm with harshness, instead of a steady diet of either. "Do you have a new pair of gloves for Mrs. Payne?"
Casper smiled again. "Yes, ma'am!" He felt relieved to finish the business portion of their rendezvous. "They'll go well with your dress. I love the way the light emphasizes your curves. Makes me want to hug you."
"Casper!" She acted shocked before teasing him with a smile. "Take your socks off. Then bring me my gloves."
"Anything you say, Aunt—Mrs. Payne." Sitting on the floor while his rod stood, Casper eagerly shed his socks—impeded by an object in his right hand. Gamboling, childlike, to an end table beside the couch by the window, he snatched up the gloves in his left hand. His right hand was still balled around the mysterious object.
"Stay there," she commanded. She walked to the couch. "You like to watch Mrs. Payne put on her gloves, don't you?" She took the gloves in her hands. Her green eyes bored into his.
"I just like to watch you, Mrs. Payne. Especially when you're dressed up like a rich lady. Your heinie looks so shiny in that dress!" Casper blushed. "I like your gloves, too. They're so pretty and shiny. Seeing your hands wiggle into gloves is so sexy!"
Gretel threaded her hand and arm into her left glove first, wrinkling up the leather and then smoothing it out when she pushed her fingertips to the tips of the glove. She flexed her hand and pulled the leather taut. Holding her hand up, she rotated it laterally, palm toward her and then away, without bending her wrist, to let faint highlight coruscate off the leather.
Casper stared, beguiled. He was ingenuous, a child once more. "Do it again."