A Partner in the Firm (Step 02)

As it turned out, I drove home alone.

Alice insisted that as it was "her night" she wanted to get a last drink at the bar. I had offered to stay with her, but she told me I looked tired and that she wanted to be alone. I was grateful to get out of there.

But now, driving back, I was less happy. What was into her tonight? Could she be trusted alone? Should I have left her that drunk by herself? I promised myself I would phone by eleven to make sure she was safe.

Back in the house, ready for bed, I phoned her. "Yes?" she answered quite curtly. I could hear laughter in the background. Male laughter.

"Alice?" I said. "Are you okay? Should I call you a taxi? Pick you up even?"

"No, no, Bobby. You stay put. Go to sleep and don't wait up. I met a friend and we're going to be a while." The male laughter came back, louder. Before I could respond the phone snapped dead.

Of course, I couldn't sleep. I told myself I was being paranoid, that she would never cheat on me. Anyway, I had made her cum that very evening. She would be back.

But it wasn't until five in the morning that I heard the door open. She stumbled through. Without even bothering to shower she began undressing and, in her underwear, clambered into bed beside me.

She reeked of a man and hard sex.

I started to turn to her. She grabbed me round the chest and pulled herself against my back. Her chest and crotch were soft there and I could smell the pungent odour of their lovemaking.

''How could you?" I managed.

I struggled in her grip.

"Let go of me!" I came to face her. But her smile stopped me dead in my struggle.

"Baby, stop." I felt myself overcome with exhaustion and despair. "Don't be so uptight mister. I had my little fun like I always do. I bring in the bread and it's only right I get to relax sometimes. You're still the man I love. You keep my bed warm, after all." She snuggled her nose against mine, her brests warms and soft pressed into me. I wanted to turn away but couldn't, somehow. "It's just that I deserve it. You'll understand."

And she kissed my forehead and hugged me again. The scent of her and her lover came up on me. It choked me, but I was still hard and comfortable in my flesh. I was subdued.

She reached a hand under the covers and found the cause of my angst. She began stroking and twisting her hand over my shaft. I watched her eyes, more happy and beautiful and terrifying than I had ever seen them. I was indignant, berated, small. And so aroused by her power and her beauty that I came in a matter of moments. She giggled, snuggled up to me and we fell asleep.

---

In the morning, she was up before me, bright and fresh in the kitchen. I was left with shame and a new, heavy respect for her that never left me. Her airs became more casual, her manner more authoritarian.

"Sweep the patio," she told me on Sunday, handing me the broom.

One evening after a big meal I had made for her, she slipped her feet from her shoes and settled them on a dining chair. "Honey, could you give my feet a rub, before you put away the dishes?" I hesitated and she watched me as always. I got to my knees and obeyed.

I always obeyed.

Something had come over me. It was like a curse. The further I slipped into the hole, the more I rationalised what I was doing and where I was going. She had a command over me. To back out was to admit what I was doing. It was easier to tell myself we were a modern couple, I was supporting a strong woman and things would change when I got back into work.

On that front however, nothing changed, and my place as Alice's domestic servant only became more established.

We still slept together, but at her insistence I would always go down on her first. Sometimes her pleasure ended there and I would be forced to go and finish myself off in the bathroom or just struggle with my frustration and agony if, as often happened, she passed out on top of me. Sometimes I was allowed to ride her after doing my duty and I would make the most of it, as happy and as free as a heroin addict with a new hit. But as sex became more rare and valuable to me, that pussy was too much and I would be spent in moments.

I found myself less inclined to speak to strangers or look myself in the mirror. Less inclined, almost, to think. I undertook my duties to her and her pleasure with zeal. If only I performed them well enough, she would go easy on me, we would both be happier and all would be well.

Instead, she would sometimes stay out on the weekends and this would only frustrate me more. She would come home smelling of guys. Initially, every time she went out I told myself I would end it. But she came back too frisky, too beautiful. She always convinced me to stay. Eventually I began telling myself I deserved this for not getting a job.

After six months, she got out of me that I was feeling unhappy about my degree going to waste. She said nothing at the time, but that evening brought back a bunch of files from her pro bono and lesser cases.

"Could you help me out with this?"

I protested. I didn't want to be handed charity work. She laughed.

"This isn't charity, baby. This is the dregs."

"Then I won't do it." I suddenly felt anger rising up in me. "I'm supposed to be a Partner! I passed the Bar a year before you did."

There was silence. We were standing in the living room. I felt what I said being a mistake and Alice let it hang tentatively in the air.

She sat down on the couch. Crossed her legs. She had taken to wearing less and less conservative clothing. Like she was getting comfortable with being both feminine and powerful. The tight, thin cotton ran back on her thighs.

She pointed to the files on the dining table.

"Bring those over here."

After a moment of battling eyes I sighed, picked them up and brought them to her.

"Now sit down, and go through them for me."

I hesitated, then sat down beside her. Almost immediately she pushed me off the couch onto my knees.

"There." she said.

I waited, the files on the floor before me and a heel resting against the back of my neck. "Why?" I said, unhappily.

"So I can supervise you," she said, as if explaining it to a very small and dumb child.

She outwaited me. I opened the file. Tbe TV clicked on, the news. Her heel stayed on my back and I began doing her work.

---

From then on she brought home more and more files for me. All the stuff she didn't want to do. Our relationship became more that of slave and master. This was about six months since I had been fired and I was beginning to give up hope of being rehired in the city. How had my life vanished so hard, so quickly?

In winter, two weeks went by without us being intimate. She stayed out often. I was given too measly an allowance to do anything else. She was asking for receipts. It was like I was giving her more and getting less trust or respect in return.

I decided to confront her.

One Wednesday night, or rather, Thursday morning, when she had been staying out late, she came back to find me not, as usual, in our bed, but sitting up at the table.

She was wearing a dress for once. A short, glitzy, purple one, that I had seen her wear on one of our first dates.

I was in my pyjamas and regretted it.

"Alice," I said. "We need to talk. Please sit down."

She didn't break her smile, which was indulgent and angered me further. She was drunk and didn't care. But she allowed herself the seat.

"This has got to stop. Or I've got to go." I opened my hands. "There's nothing in it for me otherwise."

I looked at Alice, who was of course, still smiling. She rested her chin in her hand. "Bobby. Is this because I've been so busy? Is this because I haven't been treating you?"

"No," I shook my head. "It's not just that, it's-"

But Alice was on her feet, taking me by the hand again. "Come on."

She pulled me through to the bedroom and I felt myself losing the words to protest.

The room was dark and Alice didn't bother to flick the lights on. She just rustled me inside. She kissed me on the mouth. I responded but knew better than to take it as an invite to start undressing her. I felt her smiling mid-kiss. She bit my lip, then pushed me back onto the bed.

"Stay," she ordered.

I heard her walk away and a drawer opening. The sounds of her searching through her drawer. For what? I wanted to get up, but stayed put. I couldn't see well enough in the dark anyhow.

She came back to me and, after a cruel pause, straddled me on the bed. She let something, only a mass in the darkness, fall on the covers beside me. She leaned over me and kissed me hard. Took her head in my hands. This was more like it. More like the old Alice. She pulled back and reached for the mass. She trailed it on my chest and leaned over me again. She pulled herself higher, her breasts lying against my face and took one of my hands in both of hers. I could feel something being tied around my wrist. Ropes. So that's what she was getting. She secured one arm in place. I let her bind the other. I had gone down so far, there was no reason not to let her do this. And I was so turned on by her perfect shape, by my enforced, abstinence that I didn't want to say or do anything that might spoil it.

With my arms secure and pulled tight to different corners of the bed, Alice returned to me and kissed me on the mouth. She caressed my head. She kissed me again, on my neck and I felt her kiss and love-bite on my chest, going lower, lower. I couldn't believe it! Is she really going to do this? I felt her taking my cock in her hands, cupping the balls and then, yes! It was really happening.

She was going down on me! This was like the old Alice. I was a man! I was... So excited that I came after what must have been her fourth bobbing motion. I couldn't stop it. I felt everything rushing from me, more powerful than anything I had ever experienced. I gasped. Alice pulled back, one hand still on my balls and let the cum erupt onto my stomach, my chest.

When I recovered I stammered "I'm sorry baby, it was just so wonderful."

Alice stood, leaned over me. "It's okay, baby," she said and kissed me. Some of the cum was still in her mouth and she relieved it in mine.

There was nowhere to spit, so I swallowed, still being bound by the wrist-straps. Alice walked away into the bathroom.

I breathed.

After a moment lying in the darkness and listening to the far off sounds of her cleaning up, I heard Alice coming back to me.

"Let's clean you up," she said. She leaned over me with a tissue and wiped the cum off my stomach and chest. Then she started wiping my crotch. At first I let her, but she was getting very thorough, wiping not just all around the balls and the shaft but peeling back the foreskin, making sure everything was perfect.

"Don't worry honey, I can get that after..." I said.

She ignored me, finished up and took the tissues to flush down the toilet.

She came back a final time and I swallowed. The strain on my wrists was getting a little uncomfortable but I didn't want to have to ask her to untie me.

Instead, she bent down by my sex and I felt a strange sensation over my now spent genitals. It was like a small band of steel coming round the base of my balls and up and over my penis. It was cold and hard and a little tight and rather uncomfortable.

"Honey, what are you doing?" I was surprised to hear myself so scared.

There was a click. Down there. Alice stretched out beside me. Nuzzled her head into my captive chest.

"Don't worry baby. It's all taken care of. You'll see in the morning."

"I don't like it," I said. I was terrified.

"You'll grow to love it," was the last thing Alice said before drifting off to sleep completely.

I didn't get much sleep.

---

In the morning, I woke to find my wrists free but my worst fears confirmed.

Alice had attached, without consulting me, a chastity cage on to my manhood. She was nowhere to be found in the bedroom, so I stumbled to the bathroom. I showered trying not to think, feeling rage boil up in me and, shamefully stronger, fear.

But as I dried myself, forced to explore the cage, repulsion overrode everything. I was resolved to tell Alice that this had gone too far. That the game was up and it was time to go our separate ways.

I got dressed, painfully. I looked for the key to my cage around the bed and through the drawers to see if we could avoid having to speak about that in our break-up. But it was, of course, nowhere to be found.

I looked for her in the kitchen, but to my surprise she wasn't there. She wasn't in fact, in any of the rooms.

Her car was gone.

I waited for her to get back from whatever errand or exercise she was on but ten, eleven, twelve o'clock rolled round and she was nowhere. I sighed and decided to call her.

She answered on the last ring and started speaking in a torrent. "Hi Bobby, I've gone on a business trip for the rest of the week, I've taken what I need and I'll be back on Sunday or Monday at the latest. I've left you some pocket money in the kitchen drawer, if you choose to leave still, I understand. Otherwise, see you then. Keep the place sparkling and tidy. Love." The phone clicked dead. I hadn't been able to say word one.

I felt myself shaking and thought about calling her back. But I knew it was... Useless. I thought about how I might get this thing off me. It would need to be inspected.

I had the place to myself and the first thing I thought about was rebellion. I decided to get myself a beer, but it brought little satisfaction, drinking it at the kitchen table. I could feel my chain under my trousers. I tried watching TV, but more and more it played on my mind. By the evening I was sitting naked but for a shirt on my bed. I looked at the thing. It seemed impossibly tight. I went to the computer and start searching how to pick the locks on these things. But the information was patchy and mostly negative. Only the police or the locksmith could sort this out.

I began to place that notion in my head. I was a domestic abuse victim. I had essentially been kidnapped and I should go to the police. I resolved to wait until the morning of the next day. Perhaps Alice would drive back and realise that she had gone too far. She could unlock this and we could end the unhealthy relationship forever.

I began busying myself with the chores that had kept me sane for the last six months. And I found, wiping down the kitchen table, changing our cream bed sheets to a light pink (we only had very neutral, feminine colours available) that this helped.

I struggled to sleep, all the same.

In the morning, I lay in bed until late, very unhappy. I thought of Alice's face. How had it got to this? I remembered when we were sweet, when she let me... OW! I felt a sharp pain that had that we rolling off the bed on to the floor, my fantasy dead.

In an hour's time I had drove all the way to the police station in a rage. I stopped the car outside and started breathing. What would I tell them? Hey Officers, my girlfriend kidnapped my genitals. One thing was for sure: when this was done, I would have to leave the city and never come back. Maybe quit practising law in America altogether. My head was swimming and I felt angry and scared all over again. I watched two officers waltz round from the street corner all the way to the doors of the police department. They were laughing, joking about some witness. Swaggering, confident, the phallic tools of law enforcement swaying from their hips. Their... Handcuffs.

Before I knew what I was doing I was starting the car and reversing out of there.

----

By the evening of the Sunday I was finding a strange altercation coming over my thought patterns. Without really knowing what I was doing I was going around the house, cleaning it. I couldn't think of Alice as anything but my lover. That's what she was, after all. And her face... I wanted to be with her again.

But she didn't come on the Sunday.

Nor the Monday.

With each day passing I worried more and more. Had something happened to her? It wasn't just for my predicament that I worried, though that terrified me. It was also... An extra fondness had built in me for her. And the thought of never seeing her again made me sick.

I was so vexed that on the Sunday morning of the following week when the lock turned on the front door, I sprang from the coffee table I had been polishing and ran to her.

She has never looked more stunning. I kissed her on the lips and she slapped me full force across the face.

"Bobby!" Alice demanded. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing? Never approach me like that."

She dropped shopping bags I hadn't even noticed she was carrying. Versace and Gucchi.

"Bring those in. Unpack them in my room and then bring the rest in from the car."

It took me a second to recover. I bent forward for the bags.

I was just about to turn when Alice cleared her throat impatiently.

"Bobby. There is another place you can kiss me."

I looked at her. She could barely repress a smirk. She stood rigid with a hand on her hip and gave no indication where that other place might be.

It was a test.

I reached slowly for her hand, waiting for any sign of approval or commendation. It wasn't until I pursed my lips that she laughed.

"No, Bobby. When the Queen has been crowned you kiss her shoe."

I let the hand fall. A flash of outrage threatened to come through me but it was drowned out by the new love I felt for her. I would do anything and we both knew it.

She was wearing cream kitten heels below a smart, small skirt. It felt like a long way down from her hand to her full thighs, her smooth shins down to her heels. A flood of defeat gripped me when I kissed the tip of her shoe.

"Both, Bobby. Come on now."

It was a smaller wave the second time.