At 6:50 a.m., there’s a knock on my office door.
Oh good, she’s early.
I’m glad that Madilyn St. Clair knows not to leave me waiting again.
“Come in,” I tell her, which is a superfluous instruction, since the door is already open. She’d knocked on the part that was wide open. “Lock the door behind you.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Now it’s my turn to lick my lips. Things are starting off exactly the way I’d planned. She’s wearing a black skirt suit just as I’d instructed.
“Sit down.”
She approaches the chair in front of my desk and lowers herself into it, looking a bit hesitant. She has the accordion file in her hands.
“Did you complete all the assignments I gave you?” I ask her.
“I reviewed all the case files and prepared memorandums for each one, Boss,” she says, removing some printed pages from the top of the folder. “They summarize the case history to date, based on my review of the docketing statement as you instructed. When the file included any pleadings or depositions, I also reviewed and summarized those. And I included any questions or thoughts I had throughout my review.”
She places the memorandums she’d prepared on my desk, and looks up at me eagerly, but still with a bit of hesitation in her eyes.
And now I think I understand why.
I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I don’t like the quick turn that our meeting is taking.
Sure, she’s done an impressive job. I don’t even have to look at her work to know that. I leave the memos on the desk, barely giving her the satisfaction of seeing me look at them. From her own account, which I believe because I know she’s bright and hard working or I never would have hired her to work at my firm, she’s summarized the docketing statements and she’s even gone above and beyond my instructions, by reviewing other case documents and including her analysis.
She did it all in a limited amount of time— she’d left my office at six o’clock last night, meaning she’d prepared all of this in about thirteen hours. Since she doesn’t look like she’s lacking in sleep, she must have worked fast and she must know what she’s doing when it comes to basic legal tasks.
Madilyn St. Clair will definitely make a good associate, and a good mentee.
But I want her for something more.
And I’m beginning to realize that she doesn’t want to give it to me.
“You only partially answered my question,” I inform her.
She looks at me, as if she’s afraid to say anything.
I’d asked her whether she’d completed all the assignments I gave her and she’d only mentioned the five cases. Not the sixth assignment.
“I’m interested in your work, and in discussing these cases,” I tell her, nodding at the memorandums on my desk, and not even trying to hide the fact that I’m losing my fucking patience with her. “But there’s a specific way I like to work.”
She swallows.
“There was a sixth assignment,” I remind her.
She nods and looks down at the file in her lap.
“I hope you have dressed as I instructed, as that’s the only way this meeting can continue.”
“Mr. Marks, I—” she begins, but I cut her off.
“Boss.”
“Boss. I. I need to talk to you. I need to explain—”
I feel blood rushing to my face, and I do my best to contain my anger.
I can’t believe I chose wrong. She’s resisted my instruction. How could my judgment have been so off?
“There’s nothing to explain,” I tell her. “There’s only a very specific way I can work with you, and no other way will suffice. So all that remains is the question of whether or not you’ve complied with all my instructions.”
Damn her, for making me have to explain myself further. That’s all I’m going to say. I’ve already given away too much already, to someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it. She can’t even follow one simple direction of mine, yet she dares to have the audacity to want to work with me.
“Boss. If you could just listen to what I need to explain—”
“I’m not interested in listening to you. Or to your feeble explanations,” I tell her, trying hard to keep from raising my voice too high, from giving myself away.
My cock is swelling in my pants, dying to escape and find release. It’s becoming clear that’s not going to happen. And the damn thing has a mind of its own. It appears to be excited that she’s resisting. It clearly wants me to do whatever it takes to persuade her.
But I won’t do that. I know to listen to my brain over my fucking cock. I stupidly decide to hope against hope that there’s still a chance.
“What I’m interested in is seeing what you’re wearing under that suit,” I tell her. “Ms. St. Clair, please spread your legs for me, and show me what’s under your skirt.”
She moves her knees apart from each other, almost like a reflex. My cock rises even higher, ready to start being satisfied.
I love her curvy hips and plush ass. Her full breasts and small waist. And now I’m going to get to see her wearing the black little number I ordered especially for her. I can’t wait.
But then she stops. And she takes out the manila envelope from the accordion folder and puts it on the desk, on top of the memorandums.
“Boss, I did all the assignments except for that one,” she says, truly seeming remorseful. “I’m sorry.”
Her head hangs in shame, and her voice sounds repentant. “I’m just not ready, right now, at this time, to—”
She’s trying to make me wait again. She must get off on it. It must be some sick pleasure of hers, and now she’s torturing me with how she tricked me. How she did the assignments, came in here at the assigned time— even wore the damn suit skirt as I’d requested— but didn’t wear the outfit I’d given her and instructed her to wear.
“If you’re incapable of following simple instructions,” I tell her, “then there’s nothing worth talking about. I don’t know why you would do the rest of the assignments and not this one. This was the most important one.”
“Oh. I—”
She falls silent, and I realize she actually thought that we could proceed if she was unwilling to accept all the terms of working with me.
I knew that Madilyn St. Clair was different from the normal women I employ as associates. I even had a feeling that she was different from those whom I had chosen to mentor in the past. But she can’t actually be so innocent and naïve as to think she could pick and choose which parts of this working relationship she wanted and which she didn’t. She has to be arrogant, cruel, teasing, taunting me.
I have to end this right here. I have to end this for good. I can’t let her know she holds any power or sway over me.
And yet.
There’s the way she appears remorseful, almost supplicant. The way she really does seem confused, innocent. And the way she had started to open up her legs for me.
I know she wants to let me in. I just have to break her down a little bit more.
I ask myself if I should give her a fucking second chance.
No. I never have and can’t start now. I must remember the rules I’ve set for myself, and for the relationships I establish. It’s worked until now and I’m not going to let Madilyn St. Clair change that.
But I can see how far I can push her, before casting her aside and choosing someone else. It’s the least I deserve, for spending so much time and energy researching her, choosing her, giving her so many damned instructions that she incorrectly thinks are up for her picking and choosing as to which ones to follow.
I feel the blood cursing through my hungry cock, and I decide to throw it some crumbs. It’ll have to wait for a more pliant associate to be fully satisfied. But I bet I can get a little something out of Madilyn St. Clair right now before parting ways with her for good.