Prologue:
Valerie Burbon and Sally Thatcher walked into the house they shared with Francine Traline. It was three weeks since their hand fasting ceremony and sally had been given a ride to and from work by Valerie since Sally's car was in the shop. Francine was sitting at the table that served as dining room table and general do what ever you want desk. The smile on her face was the biggest they had seen since the safe word incident so recently, yet so long ago.
"Francine? What's the occasion?" asked Valerie.
"Val, Sally, I've got good news."
Sally, in mock seriousness, demanded, "Well, don't keep us in suspence. Speak, lady."
She held up a small rectangular piece of paper. Valerie looked close and gasped when she recognized what it was. "Francine! That's a check for 1.5 million dollars!"
Sally was no less shocked. "It's from Hellfire Pictures. Why is a movie studio giving you that much money?"
Francine smiled. "They bought my house. The deal closed this afternoon and they cut the check right there. Now we can pay Fred and Daphne for the house and take possession of the title. Now, I know that my lawyer insisted you sign contracts to pay me back for your shares of the house, but I don't want to see a cent from either of you. I intend to give you two the house as a gift."
Valerie gasped. "Francine, you can't..."
"Oh yes I can. I will have over a million left from the sale of my house. I can easily afford to buy my own place with that. You two have been so kind to me, especially after what I did to you, Valerie."
A silence hung over the room as they all remembered the incident. Valerie hanging, back bloodied and raw from Francine's whip. Francine had been suffering from post traumatic stress, the result of her former boyfriend beating her up after she told him she was a dominant and wanted to play BDSM games with him. No one had realized it at the time and Valerie had been submitting to her friend, when Francine lost control and ignored Valerie's safe word. The resulting scars still covered Valerie's back and legs. The incident also resulted in both Francine and Valerie being publicly outed in the press as 'sexual deviants'.
Valerie sat down next to Francine, putting her arms around her friend. "Francine, I forgave you and I still do. You don't have to do this."
With tears in her eyes, Francine nodded, saying, "Yes I do. Maybe not for you, but for me. I don't feel like I deserve your love and forgiveness. I may never feel like I do, but this will help. Anyway, I love you both, too. I want to do this."
Sally was thoughtful. "And you can, but not now. Mr. Moore was correct on one count." Franklin Moore was Francine's lawyer. "If you give us the house now, so soon after the crisis, it could be taken as an admission of guilt on your part. It might even give someone the ability to challenge the purchase of the house. Plus, you're not going anywhere until your psychiatrist says that you're full recovered from the ordeal. Neither of us is going to give you the chance to kill yourself. You tried once before, not again."
Valerie nodded vigorously in agreement. Francine saw love and firmness in both their faces and did not even try to talk them out of their stances. In truth, she didn't want to. Deep inside, she was afraid of being alone. She knew that her sanity was fragile right now. Nightmares still haunted her at times. Horrible dreams where Harv was beating her while she beat Valerie. She was seeing her psychiatrist, Dr. Gloush, twice a week.
"I know. I'm not ready to be on my own yet. But I will be, sometime. But, when the time is right, you are getting the house. I won't take no for an answer."
Valerie nodded her head. "You won't have to. You're my friend and friends allow their friends to show their love. I understand how important this is to you."
The three ladies hugged each other and went about the normal activities of the evening, little realizing that their relationship with Hellfire Pictures was only beginning.
*
Chapter one
The Experts
Six months later...
Valerie Burbon walked into the offices of Delgrasi Publications bright and early. Erica looked up and smiled as she snatched up the list she had just finished making. The two collared submissives had become good friends in the last several months.
"Good morning Valerie. You are looking delectable today. The temp cancelled, again. So you're stuck with me. Here's your day's appointment list."
"Thanks Erica. Anything I need to worry about right away?"
"Yeah. You've got three secretary interviews back to back."
"Great! I know how overworked I've kept you with all the temporary service secretaries quitting. As much as I enjoy working with you, I can't monopolize your time."
"I like working with you too. Take a look at the second appointment."
Valerie looked at the list and started. "June," she whispered. June Humbol had been Valerie's secretary at Bradford and Gashune when she had been outed as a player in the BDSM world. June had quit in protest when Valerie had been fired for "moral turpitude" but had also told Val that she could not see June's kids anymore. Their friendship had effectively ended that day.
"I see. She is a good candidate I just did not expect her to apply, not here."
"Why is that? It would seem that she thinks you're a good boss."
"After her reaction to my being a submissive, I would have thought that she would avoid this place like the plague. Well, I will have to see what she has to say for herself. It's not like she can avoid 'sexual deviancy' if she works for Delgrasi in any capacity. I notice that you're not on my schedule."
"No, Master has no special instructions for me today, at least not in advance."
Erica was also a submissive, though she preferred the term slave, and her Master, Damien, expected her to be in submission 24/7, including at work. Valerie would sometimes monitor Erica to see that she was appropriately obedient. Today, it seemed, there would be no need to do so.
Valerie was feeling very frustrated by the secretary hiring process so far. She had interviewed only nine people in the months she had been working at Delgrasi, and had found that eight of those people had little or no work experience in the field and seemed to think that being into kinky sex was all the qualification they needed for the job. The one with experience had ended the interview herself when she found out just what Delgrasi published. Every secretary from one of the temp services in town had quit within a week or had to be fired. What was it about an adult magazine company that made it so hard for people to be professional?
Delgrasi was the foremost publisher of high quality fetish magazines in the country. They currently published twelve titles dealing with subjects from leather, body art, and homosexuality to magazines on travel and cooking geared towards the sexually adventurous. They had hired Valerie as the advertising consultant to their advertising clients. The quality of ads has always been a sore point in the sexual magazine field and no less so at Delgrasi. Already, some product and service providers had responded to suggestions that Valerie had made and altered their ads to be more mature.
What Valerie needed was a secretary who was fully qualified and didn't mind being exposed to sexually themed material, both in ads and magazine content. So far, every applicant had satisfied only one of the two criteria. She was beginning to despair that one such person existed. Calvin Freshin, the editor of The Pony's Paddock, had solved the problem by hiring his personal submissive as his secretary though Susan was not happy doing it (Calvin was a dominant just like Valerie's Master, Charles Vanquil). Maybe June would work out.
She made some notes about her lunch appointment while she waited for the first applicant of the day. This was the first attempt on Valerie's part to lure a vanilla advertiser to one of their magazines. Global Travel was a premier international travel agency that was capable of arranging vacations and business trips for large and small groups with equal equanimity. Road Bound, Delgrasi's travel magazine, had no major travel agencies as advertisers, something Val considered to be a major reason for its low readership. Attracting Global Travel would be worth while in two ways. More readership, once it was learned that the only fetish travel magazine had a real agency as an advertiser, and once Global was on board, other agencies would have to advertise as well or eliminate themselves from a significant market of travelers.
There was a knock on the door and Erica cracked the door to announce, "Ms. Burbon, your first applicant, Brad Nunchez is here." Erica rolled her eyes to signal that this one would be a problem.
"Show him in, please."
Mr. Nunchez was not off to a great start. He seemed to think that he could apply for a secretary's position wearing jeans and a pull over shirt. Valerie had never seen someone who actually swaggered, but Brad did just that. The worst thing in this person's presentation of himself was the way he looked at his potential boss: open, undisguised lust.
Valerie stayed professional and rose to greet him. "Good morning Mr. Nunchez. Have a seat."
She held her hand out to shake his. He took it, but instead of shaking, he gripped her hand hard and tried to force it downwards. Val held her ground and watched his face. She saw a flash of anger and then he released her hand and sat down. Valerie returned to her desk and opened his application. Erica had scribbled, "clearly unqualified," on the top.
