Gentle Reader - What is it with me and elaborate, BDSM-themed sex-games? Not a rhetorical question. All Comments welcome and valued.
Cheers,
~P.M.
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BINDING ARBITRATION
PART ONE
VIKTORIA JAMES SIGHS AND LOOKS UP from the draft settlement documents, binders and yellow notepads laid out across the other end of my spacious desk. She slips off her glasses and rubs her eyes. The marathon is getting to her, I can tell. I can read it in the language of her slouching body. The sheen of her ruby-red lipstick has faded. Even her perfectly spherical, short-cut Afro is starting to look disheveled.
Tipping back in the chair behind my desk, I spread my hands helplessly, as in,
What're you gonna do?
She's beat. We both are.
Call it quits, Viktoria?
I don't think so. I can see the late hour has taken a toll on her body, but not her will. "Fifteen," she says. "Cash."
I shake my head. "Eleven-five, Vik. Structured. Far as I can go."
She gives an exasperated shrug of the shoulders, reaches out for her mug on the desk and drinks some fresh-brewed coffee. The light in my office is muted, overheads off, puddles of illumination gathered under the standing lamp behind my desk chair and the one next to Vik's, and the shaded wall light in the foyer by the coat closet. It's past midnight. The arbitrator and the clients, our junior attorneys and support staffs, have all vacated my firm's main conference room one floor below and are long gone. The janitors, too. Now, it's just Vik and me.
We took the negotiations up to my office at my suggestion. My digs are comfortable, spacious, and boast a spectacular, sparkling view of the financial district, the Bay and the Oakland Hills, and the rippling light show of the new bridge.
I mean to say, it was my invitation to the office, but her idea for the two of us to go on hammering at the settlement late into the night. She had said,
"I'll do whatever it takes.
"
...To get the numbers closer together,
I think she meant.
But that was, frankly, my first inkling that these negotiations might involve... something else. I thought then, maybe I'm wrangling with a different Vik now, from the one I saw on the other end of the conference table all day. A "night Vik," maybe. I got my guard up and started scrutinizing her for clues, starting then.
"
Uhhhnnhh
..." she groans, stretching her neck and raising her arms straight and joining her hands high over her head. Coyly, she looks away - not unaware I am sneaking a peek at how she's highlighting her prominent, silk-bloused boobs - and inside me, entertaining the visual of her with her wrists crossed high above her head...
restrained, vulnerable, exposed...
I remember, after we settled down at my desk with our binders and files, I began to take off my tie. Then I noticed the bow at the collar of her ivory-white silk blouse was just casually loosened, not much, like she had no intention of getting any more comfortable than that. No, she meant to look
strict.
Surreptitiously, I re-tightened the knot of my yellow power-tie... not all the way, just a little more
strict.
Two hours later, she doffed her maroon blazer and tossed it on the couch.
Exactly an hour after that, I slipped off my jacket and hung it in the closet.
Now, going on six hours since we began, we're a little closer, but not by a whole lot. And her neckwear hasn't budged. I'm starting to think - no, I already know - there's nothing more to be done with the numbers tonight. In that sense, we're done here.
But in another sense, one that I'm still feeling out with her, I think we have more novel... negotiating postures, settlement positions... yet to be explored.
Working this Intellectual Property litigation opposite Vik for over a year now, one thing I noticed early on is that she is so relentlessly focused on her client's interests, she never shows me the barest glimpse of that "feminine" instinct to "please". But I do, still, see a deeply sexual creature, a woman of... I want to say, varied and voracious sensual "appetites." I mean to say that "objectively" - not projecting my own, strong "appetite" for Vik's luscious face and figure - because I happen to be a certifiably uncanny judge of these things. In Vik's case, I can kind of smell it.
But the question is, though, what turns her crank? Maybe women, to be fair. But I have exchanged enough unguarded glances with her, or watched her eyeing other dudes - waiters in particular, for whatever reason - to know she at least likes men. But she doesn't go after them, she makes them come to her. No, face it, Vik likes being on top - I mean, there's a
duh-
observation if you know her - but inside every top is a bottom wanting to get out. Trust me on this. A tuckered-out, world-weary alpha who craves the relief and release of ...
compliance
.
And I can see how it is with Vik James: To get to her bottom I'll have to go through her top, and to do that, it'll have be
competitive
for her.
...
That's it, Vik.
Straightaway, I start planning out the rules of the game we're going to play. That thought, plus another gulp of coffee, gives me the second wind I need.
"Full releases for McNeal and Garrett," I say a little too loudly, meaning to startle her. "These men have a right to their livelihoods."
She scoffs. "This is Trade Secrets, Frank! You're asking us to take a payoff and then let your guys go on using our intellectual property? There's no way we'll settle for that -"
"You
will
settle." I say it
meaningfully
- not flippantly, hopefully or casually. More like a statement of fact. Or an order. Just throwing it out there, see what happens.
Vik lets her eyes drift up from her notes, lips parted. I like the fullness of those lips, her large, dark eyes, and the way her breasts push up against her rustling silk blouse...
Damn bow...
Then her eyes narrow, and she decides to turn it back on me. "Aww, I get it, Frank," she mock-pouts in mock-sympathy. "Eleven-five is all the settlement authority you've got -"
"No, it happens to be how I value the case. And look, sweetheart, whatever the number is, I'll get it from the principals - don't you worry about that. I have all the
authority
I need."
Just faintly, I hear a gasp edged with something a little lower and more from the gut. I like the sound of it. I like the question I see her in her eyes, too... But if I was right about that, it's gone in a flash.
"You're a fool with that number... sweetheart. I can get a lot more from this arbitrator. And I don't need to remind you, this is binding arbitration."
I say it with cool confidence, "Fine, counsel. See you in court."
I don't move from my chair. Again, if anyone's storming out of here it's going to be, ladies first. Vik knows that's what I'm thinking, and she doesn't budge.
But she does, however, loosen the bow at her throat, unravels it and lets the end of the tie fall over the front of her blouse.
Since she's not going anywhere and I'm not either, this is now a physical
standoff
. She sits up in her chair, hands on the armrest, with her upper body tipped a little ahead of them. Tits forward, but subtly. "Don't bluff me, Franklin."
"Who's bluffing?" I say straight-faced, "I like my case."
I get up, put my hands in my pockets and start idly pacing the massive Persian area rug. "I've got Pritchard."
"
Pritchard?
" Vik shakes her head.
Flipping through her evidence binders, she rattles off the bad testimony Dean Pritchard gave in his deposition, which she took, and the emails he'll have trouble explaining. I don't say anything. I go on pacing around the rug as she lectures me about the case she is putting on. I circle around to her side of the desk at an oblique angle until standing beside her, over her...
Surveying down the front of her blouse. "I like my view of the case."
She starts, breathless, as if surprised that I am by her side. And when she turns away from her binders and looks at me, it's not up at my face where she's looking. It's straight ahead at the part of me that's eye-level with where she's sitting: Technically, my belt buckle. But not exactly.
She looks up. What I see in her eyes is unmistakable, finally. "We're not that far apart, Franklin."
"Maybe," I say. "But I just can't do fifteen, Viktoria."
"What, Franklin?" she smiles wickedly. "You don't have the...
authority
?"
* * *
I reach down for her face at the same time she reaches up for my necktie, and somewhere in between, our lips collide.
Vik's awkward leap out of the chair is thwarted by my weight, and I muscle her back down, tipping the leather chair back with a loud creak. I lean in and start ravishing the hot flesh of her throat with kisses, tongue and teeth. She growls with lust. Her hands are active behind me, clawing at the back of my shirt, dragging my shirt-tails out of my pants. I run one hand up her skirt along her outer thigh, while the other gropes her left breast through her blouse and bra. She grips the back of my head and turns it up so she can devour my mouth with wet lips and thrusting tongue.
I hear heaves and grunts of panting, and I realize it's both of us. Groping her tit, I feel that both layers of fabric are sheer, and my fingertips have no trouble confirming that her thick nipple is just as much at-attention as what's bobbing in my pants. Her legs climb up in the chair, her thighs rubbing my hips with a frantic motion. The chair is creaking and creaking.
I grab her ass with both hands and scoot her pelvis out over the edge of the chair. I mean to get my weight in between her legs, sort of pin her down, start to overpower her. That's my plan, anyway - But Vik plants her feet on the floor, turning her hips in the chair - which abruptly swivels away to one side - my weight pitching me slightly forward - but I catch myself on the edge of the desk -
While I'm recovering, Vik heaves up out of the chair and pushes and turns me back against the rounded edge of desktop - I give an *OOOFF* as my butt lands - instantly, she is on top of me -strong hands grip my biceps, her breath hot on my throat.
She plants her stockinged feet in the rug and uses the strength in her legs to pin me to the counter. I have to double-check myself to see if I'm actually trying to fight back - and I
think
I am.
My hands go back and find the desktop, palms down, looking for leverage - but hers dart out and press down
strong
on my splayed-out fingers. Smooshing her tits into my chest, she spreads her legs and presses her weight into my crotch. She's found her leverage, and she wants me anchored to the edge of the desk while she grinds into me, dry-humping the hard bulge in my pants. Our grasping, straining grunt of erotic struggle again merge in my ears.
She's strong, no doubt, but I'm stronger. I pull my arms up, grabbing her wrists, and spin her around. I execute a sort of half-waltz along the edge of the table, until now I have
her
ass on the counter. She has her arms straight behind her on the desktop, just like I did, wanting to find the leverage to push off...
But she doesn't, not at first. She looks at me, teeth gritted and eyes burning
It's Alpha-on-Alpha, this game. And a game like that, it can only be played with force.
I give her a tender look, bat my eyes, and she responds with surprise.
But that's my diversion: I take hold of her necktie and whip it off. Before she can respond, I press my upper body into hers, knowing this locks her arms behind her as the only buttress between staying upright and collapsing under me.
Big mistake, Vik, that hesitation before.
I wrap the necktie around her elbows and pull them together - Vik gasping, "
Hey!
" - then I cinch the elbow-tie and knot it off with a firm double-square.
Leaning back, I grab her hair at the back of her head, forcing her eyes to meet mine.
They aren't scared or helpless, Vik's eyes, they are defiant -
pissed off,
