Auction of Promises

Chapter 2. My trial weekend starts

The journey was bad. Two accidents kept us crawling for miles so we were two hours overdue our scheduled arrival time. His office knew about it but even so I arrived at a virtually empty block of offices. Bob dropped me at the main entrance and drove the van round to the back somewhere. I wondered if I would be locked out but the door opened. The cleaning staff were busy but there was no one at the reception desk. A cleaner switched off her vacuum and asked in a broad dialect that I had difficulty in understanding, "Are yer looking for someone, luv?" When I explained she yelled loudly for someone in words I could not make out. A security guard entered. "Miss Beeson?" I nodded and he picked up the phone, "Mr. Furlough, Miss Beeson's here." A few moments later he replaced the phone and said, "Mr. Furlough will be down straightaway." At least he's stayed and waited for me, I mused.

The man that emerged from the lift was younger than I expected, mid-thirties I guessed, perhaps eight years older than me. He greeted me courteously but in short abrupt sentences, "Thank you for coming Jane. Sorry you had a difficult journey. I guess you'd like to freshen up a bit. Looks like the cleaners are in the ladies rooms here. I'll take you home. It's only ten minutes away. You can do what you have to there. Still some of the things Maisie left. Please come this way." I was a little surprised with myself. Without uttering a single word I'd allowed this man to lead me out to his car and take me to his home. A man I really knew nothing about. Although I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask, in the car we only talked briefly about the journey and my position in the office. I did find out that he was on the board of directors. "Another reason for needing a woman as an acting wife." I didn't understand the reasoning but we'd arrived at a spacious detached house in what appeared to be an upper class area. Only much later did I find out he was a major shareholder in the company.

"This is the guest room. The shower's through here." I guessed where I would be sleeping that night. He showed me the controls to the shower. "Rinse your underwear and hang them in the drying cubicle." He showed me a cupboard that contained a heating element. "I intended to take you to dinner but it's too late now to buy you something suitable to wear. I'll do that tomorrow. Tonight I'll order from the Golden Dragon Special Service." I rightly guessed that was a Chinese takeaway or at least I got the Chinese right. "There are several dressing gowns in the wardrobe so you should find one that fits. There's an assortment of slippers too. I'll fix us a cup of tea and bring it up." I muttered, "Thank you," and wondered once again how he was able to gently give me orders that I would follow without question.

Ten minutes later, just as I had got out of the shower and was drying myself, he walked in without knocking. He put my tea on the vanity counter. It was in a delicate porcelain cup with matching saucer on a silver tray. It pleased me to note that it was a good size breakfast cup and not one of the dinky little things they serve in posh restaurants. I held the towel to cover the front of my body but he only looked for a few moments and said, "Dinner will be here in thirty minutes."

I barely had time to put a brush through my hair before a gong sounded twice from downstairs. Dinner was served. Wrapping the dressing gown tightly around me, I hurried down knowing he wouldn't want to be kept waiting. Fully expecting to find hot aluminium trays with cardboard lids and sachets of sauces on the table, it was a complete shock to find the food in willow-pattern dishes on table heaters and a cook preparing other food on a portable electric stove. Two Chinese gentlemen stood to one side. David indicated where I should sit and one of the men held my chair for me. "Wow!" I thought, "I could get used to this. This wasn't the sort of take-away service I was used to!" The waiters served us and poured wine. Never once was I asked if I wanted anything. David spoke in his terse sentence way about inconsequential things but there were long gaps in the conversation. Slowly it came to me that behind all his power bearing, he was actually a shy man. He could probably converse for hours on stocks and share dealing but couldn't hold a chatty conversation with a woman who had no idea about such things. "Perhaps," I thought to myself, "That is why he wants someone to go with him to these functions."

"David, why don't you go and get out of that stuffy suit you've been in all day and get into something more comfortable?" I suggested when we retired to the lounge for coffee and were alone. "Have a shower and freshen up. I'll be fine here." He protested feebly until I shooed him away. For the first time, I had control but I guessed that was only because he wanted to change anyway and felt guilty at leaving me alone. While he was gone I looked around the room. It was spacious, modern and what I think they term 'minimalist' in style. The seats were real leather with glass-topped tables between them and a sideboard at one end of the room. All were bereft of ornaments, photos or magazines. No clutter anywhere at all. Likewise the walls were bare except for two modern looking paintings that I couldn't make head or tail of but which were probably expensive originals. My guess was that he'd employed a designer for the room and never used it while he was at home alone.

"David?" I began when he returned dressed only in a robe and slippers, "Before we go any further will you please tell me exactly what is expected of me this weekend and on the two weeks you wish me to spend with you? I don't wish to find myself in the wilds of Scotland doing things that are abhorrent to me."

He nodded but answered with a question. "Why did you put 'slave' on your auction offer?"

"Matty suggested it. She's my best friend at work. We thought it might bring in a little more money than 'housework' did last year."

"How much differently did you expect to be treated when you went to work as a slave rather than as a houseworker?"

"I didn't really think about it. It was a spur of the moment idea. Not much I suppose. Perhaps be ordered about a bit more, maybe made to wear a skimpy dress." I really hadn't considered how I would cope with the slave part of the offer.

"How would you feel if I said that I wanted to take the term slave literally?"

"What like chaining me up and whipping me and forcing me to do sex things?" My voice and face must have showed their shock but I felt a strange tingle between my legs and my nipples started to harden. A tingle of excitement that I'm sure increased my heartbeat.

"Not quite," David smiled for the first since we met. "More the being ordered around, wearing little or nothing. Some discipline if you didn't do as you were told. Nothing that would affect your life afterwards."

Again I felt that tingle but decided to be cagey with my reply, "I don't know. I didn't envisage that scenario although the office girls did and worse."

"You would have gone almost that far for £6.40 and hour. I am offering much more than that."

"I know. I appreciate that but as yet I don't know if I can trust you. We only met a few hours ago." When I started the conversation I was hoping to interrogate him but in fact it was mostly him questioning me. He went on.

"You ticked the 'no sex' box. Did you really mean no sex at all costs or no sex until I've seen who is buying me?"

"Well I half expected Dan Hansen to buy my services and I certainly would have objected to sex with him. He's old, none too clean and has a fat belly. I no prude and I lived with a boyfriend for months so I might have succumbed to the right person. I'm on the pill so pregnancy shouldn't be a problem."

"Would I put you off?"

"How do I answer that? If I say yes, I'm shown the door; if I say no, then I'm taken to your room and screwed. Can I reserve judgement on that? At the moment I'll say, I'm not put off."

"Why did you put such an awful photo of yourself against your offer? You had a much better one on your personal file."

"So you checked up on me! Used your position to see my personal information." I tried to sound angry.

"Yes. Wouldn't you have done in the same position? I'd almost rejected your offer until I saw your file. At least now I hope we can have a pleasant weekend together. Maybe that will persuade you to come to Scotland."

"You want me to be a slave this weekend too? Am I even staying for the weekend? You only mentioned dinner tomorrow night."

"Jane, this has got to be a two way thing. You've got to want to give it a try at least, if not, we're both wasting our time. For my part, I will say, I like what I've seen and heard from you so far." I returned the compliment and he went on, "One more thing Jane, don't get ideas about this leading to a lasting relationship. Maisie put me right off long-term relationships. I know too that you can see pound signs all over the place here. Yes, I'm a wealthy man and that brings with it the problem of money grabbers. Already since Maisie left, several friends have tried to foist their daughters on me and a couple of the office staff have openly offered their bodies. I've seen through them. You, Jane, I know are hard up. You're desperate for cash. If we get on well together, fine. I'll invest in your time but I won't be put in a situation where that investment is yours to demand."

"You make me feel like a bloody prostitute!" I yelled at him. "Yes, I am desperate for money but I'm not going to be earning it by lying on my back on command! Paid by so much per fuck. Is that what you're suggesting? Perhaps I should go home now. Except I can't. I don't even have enough for the train fare home and it's another week before my pay cheque comes through." I started to sob.

For a while he sat and looked helpless then he got up and sat alongside me. I felt his arm around my shoulders. "Jane, that is another example of the problem I have. People think I just want to buy them. If I say I will help them financially as I have just done, they immediately think they have to pay me with services I haven't actually asked for. Yes, I would like to take you to my bed and have sex with you. I would be gay or something not to want to. You're very attractive and I like your personality but as I said, it has got to be a two-way thing. Think about it overnight. I shan't disturb you. When you're ready in the morning, come down to breakfast. I'm always up early. You'll find me in my little den on the ground floor two doors further on from the dining room. You'll also learn of my secret hobby."

Weary as I was from the tiresome journey and the events of the evening, sleep didn't come easily. I tossed the evening's talk over and over in my mind. I liked the man but he'd already made it clear that nothing could come of it. I also feared him; feared the way he dominated me seemingly without trying to do so, feared what he might do when or if he disciplined me. He had said he would. Should I take the risk and go on this trip to Scotland where for much of the time it seemed I would have to act as a slave. Why did Matty suggest I put that on the auction form? Would he really help me with my financial problem without turning me into a prostitute? I didn't really have any qualms about the sex part, well normal sex anyway. I done oral a number of times but never had it up my bottom although a roommate at college did it that way regularly. Finally I woke. It was only 6:30 but I needed to pee and my throat felt parched.

Crawling out of bed, naked because I hadn't a night-dress or pyjamas, I went to the loo and then putting on the dressing gown and slippers, crept down stairs wondering if he really was up that early. The smell of toast and coffee from the kitchen told me he was. Helping myself to coffee, he'd obviously eaten the toast earlier but the smell lingered, I made my way to the den, knocked and went in. His 'small' den was larger than my lounge and bedroom combined. Unlike the rooms I'd seen the previous evening, this one was lived in. Books and papers were in little piles intermingled with much of the other paraphernalia of a man's life. Most surprisingly, to me at least, was that he sat at a tapestry frame and was busy with wool and gold threads on a large and extraordinarily complex picture. He looked up when I arrived. "Good morning Jane. You're up earlier than I expected. Sleep well?" He tucked the needle into the canvas and was about to get up.

"Good morning David," I replied, "Please carry on, I'd like to see you work while I drink my coffee. No I didn't sleep too well but that's normal for my first night away and I had too many thoughts chasing around my brain. We'll talk about that when I've woken up a bit more. I really do want to see what you are doing. I've done three tapestries but they were only kits and much smaller than this and they took forever to do. Let me see what you have done." He smoothed some of the folds outside the frame and showed me. "It's beautiful," I complimented him, "I've never known a man to do tapestry before. My grandmother started me off and most of the people I knew who did it were old women." We sat and chatted and he showed me how he did the work.

"The design is from a Carravagio painting that I scanned into the computer and used a tapestry design programme to convert it from the scan," he told me. Soon though I'd finished my coffee and he cooked breakfast. Bacon and eggs, something I would never have at home even if I had the time in the mornings. When he'd cleared my plate away and we sat facing each other across the table with a fresh cup of coffee, he asked, "Have you come to any decision?"

I hadn't but knew I had to make up my mind one way or the other. It was pointless delaying. I'd spent enough time arguing with myself last night. Perhaps it was the thought of his money helping me get another car, but I believed there was more to it than that. I said, "Yes." He looked at me while I hesitated. The look on his face told me he expected me to leave. I paused a moment or two longer and went on, "Yes, I will do it. Provided I survive these next two days, I'll accompany you to Scotland and you can use this time to give me a try out as a proper slave with the 'no sex' box unchecked." His face burst into a smile of pleasure. It pleased me that I had made the decision and I hoped it was the right one. He came round the table, pulled me to my feet and hugged and kissed me."

"Thank you, thank you," he repeated. We sat and as we drank our coffee I asked, "Why did you pick me. You had access to the files on hundreds of girls."

"I don't normally look at the auction list but I did this year perhaps because I was alone. It was the one word 'slave' that caught my eye. I did have visions of a girl in harem dress sucking my prick but knew that would not be the case. I read your offer and looked at the picture and got the computer to tell me who Jane was. Decided to make you an offer I hoped you could not refuse. So perhaps your friend was to blame for your being here."

"I'll kick her arse when I get back," I laughed.

"Perhaps a thank you might be more appropriate."

"I'll need to wait till Sunday to decide that."