Filthy Dirty Laundry (Filthy Dirty Laundry #1) (5 page)

Chapter
7

          Another dream. This
time, I'm in the copier room at the FILTHY DIRTY LAUNDRY offices, leaning over
the copy machine to copy some contracts. The machine is lower than I remember
it, so I have to bend over to get at one of the buttons, my ass in the air. I
feel a hand on it, a hand that pulls back and then brings it down on my ass
with a resounding slap I feel through my silken skirt. I moan, but before I can
make a sound a hand claps over my mouth, pulling me back. Another hand finds
its way around my waist.

          And I can feel
something against my ass – something hard and firm and enormous pressing into
me.

         
I know you want me.
It's
Philip's voice.
And I know what I want to do to you. Things I shouldn't do.
Things you never thought you'd let anyone do to you – things you didn't know
you even wanted.

         
He pushes my legs apart. Slips my
panties down my legs. He can feel that I'm wet already. In my dream I don't
even look at him, don't even see him. Just feel him: his hard cock against my leg,
his hands rubbing up and down my legs. The feeling of fullness as he enters me:
his whole enormous length inside me, filling me up, stretching me out. In my
dream, I'm screaming, letting ecstasy takeover as he pounds me against and
against against the copy machine. He's rough with me, commanding. He pulls my
hair. His hand is around my throat, just tight enough to constrict my breathing
a bit. It feels more than good.  It feels mindnumbing, scary. But good, too.
The thrill makes adrenaline pump through me, course through my blood. Turns me
on as I've never been turned before.

          And I feel him inside
me. The walls of my sex constrict, as if I'm trying to hold onto him,, to keep
him inside me forever, to keep this pleasure going as long as I can...

          As I scream in pleasure
I open my eyes. And there he is: sitting right in front of me. Those piercing
blue eyes full of a knowing, smug look. Like he knows not only
what
I'm
dreaming about, but also who.

          He's leaning over me,
his face directly in mine. Leaning just an inch away from me. Too close for
comfort. Not too close for pleasure?

          I turn a bright crimson
and start to stammer...

          “oh..uh...Mr. LaFleur.”

          “Philip,” he says.
Calmly. Coolly. But somehow it sounds like his whole voice drips with sex.

          “Philip,” I say. “What
are you doing here?” And
what are you doing about an inch from my lips?

         
“You were saying something,” he
said. “Actually, you were saying my name...” He smiles again. “I didn't realize
you were asleep, at first. You must have been dreaming?”

          “Not about you,” I say.
Too hastily. My face gives me away.

          “Whatever you were
dreaming about, it was certainly...vocal,” his eyes are fixed on my mouth.
“Those particularly plump, full lips of  yours – they were certainly doing
double-duty whispering
something.
” His eyes glimmer.

         
He knows. Oh, God,
he knows.

          Or am I still dreaming?
Dream and
reality converge: a common side effect of the pain medication I'm on. In my
dream, he's putting his hand under my hospital gown, kissing me deeply to the
point at which I'm thriving and moaning.

          “You make the most
interesting sounds, Miss Stone,” he says. “Very interesting. It makes it all
worth-while, me coming here to check out what on earth you're up to. You could
be a voice actress, you know. If this FILTHY thing doesn't work out for you,
you could always go into....ahem...voice acting.” He says it like what he
really means is
porn?

         
I feel worry in the pit of my
stomach. What does he mean about FILTHY DIRTY LAUNDRY– and it not working out?

          “Don't pout at me,”
Philip smiles smoothly. “I was only joking. You look as if you're sulking... It
makes me want to do this...” He raises his hand and brings it to my face. Like
he's going to put it on my cheek. His movements are so sudden I think he's
going to slap me for a second. It's jarring. Adrenaline floods through me once
again. It's terrible. It's also sexy as hell. I feel a familiar wetness between
my legs.

          But instead his fingers
close around my nose and he tweaks my nose. Not a sexual gesture. Not even a
romantic one. Just a slightly weird thing to do.

          My eyes widen in
confusion.

          “Cute,” he says. His
smile lights up his face. For a second he's not this brooding, powerful,
dominant figure, but someone...almost normal. A little goofy. A little sweet. I
start to relax a bit. Maybe I'm just imagining this whole thing, letting all my
erotic dreams run away with me.

          “So, you're just here
to check on me?”

          “Not just that,” says
Philip. “I also have a favor to ask you.”

          “A favor?” I look
confused. “What can I do?”

          “I need someone to show
me around,” Philip says. “I have to confess, I'm new to LA. I'm still finding
my way about. I need someone who knows the city.”

          I know a lot of cheap
bodegas and $1 pizza joints, but somehow I have the feeling that Philip's
tastes were more refined than mine.

          “Can't your family do
that?” I ask. It's a bit of a sneaky question. I’m curious what happened to
Rose Trell – aka Mrs. LaFleur, aka Mommie Dearest – and her daughter Kendall.

          “My sister...” Philip
rolls his eyes. “It's a little weird to hang out with your kid sister, to be
honest. She hasn't grown up much – or if she has, she's grown up in a weird
way. I love her, of course, but watching my kid sister drink and flirt is a bit
too creepy for me. Plus, I want to see LA from a different perspective.” He's
still staring at my mouth. “I want to see it with a trained journalist, someone
with a reporter's eye. Someone who seems interesting. Someone like you.” He
can't look away from my mouth. Or if he can, he's choosing not to.

          “Get Johnson to do it,”
I say nervously. “He's a trained reporter. And he's really interesting. He
knows everything about the Art Deco history of...”

          “I want you, Sidney.” The
way he says it isn't just ‘I want
you
.' It's also 'I
want
you.”
Or is it? I'm scared to believe it. But the way his eyes look so intensely into
mine...it makes me breathless, turns me on. God, the tension is so thick, you'd
need a fucking chainsaw to cut through it. I can see it in his eyes, now, and
now I'm sure. He wants me as much, much more than a guide to the city. That
look I'm seeing is desire, plain and simple. Frenzied. Sure. I want him so
badly. Right then and there, want him to do to me everything he's been doing to
me for six or seven dreams now. To reach under my hospital gown and fondle me
with his fingers, manipulating me until I come the way no man has ever made me
come – ever.

          I'm breathing heavily.
He's breathing heavily. He feels it too, I know he does. I don't want to
embarrass myself – make a move. Put the moves on my new boss – I'd be fired in
a second! Or would I be?

         
This is a bad idea, Sidney,
I tell myself as he moves his face in a little closer. I can smell his
cinnamon-hot breath. The spice of him. I want to taste it, taste him. I want
him to bite my lip, plunder my mouth, make me his.

          It feels like hours go
by before he leans in and brushes his lips against my ear. My whole face starts
to tingle with the sensation of being near him.

          “I'm a direct man,”
says Philip. “I'm not going to beat around the bush, Sidney. I think you
guiding me would be a little bit....dangerous. Maybe desperately inappropriate.
Because I want to guide you, too – in ways you wouldn't even imagine. But tell
me to back off, Sidney, and I will. If I can...And we will work together as
colleagues and I will never bring this up again. Much as I might want to.”

          My mouth falls open.

          I've never had anyone
be this direct with me before. 's shocking, but deep down I'm secretly jumping
up and down that this dreamboat of a man finds
me
attractive. I know I
should say “no”. Know that for the sake of my life and career and sanity I
should refuse. But my body is taking over and I'm reminded of all the erotic
dreams I've been having about him – dreams that I now know could be made into a
reality if I'd only allow him to take hold of me, possess me.

          I open my mouth to
answer.

          Then I see her enter
the room.

          Kendall LaFleur.

          Taller, thinner, better
dressed than she was in high school, maybe, but it's clear that she's the same
girl. And the second she opens her mouth, it's obvious she hasn't changed a
bit.

          “Nice one, Phil. When
your secretary said you were out visiting some low-level staffer in the
hospital I didn't believe a word of it. Figured you were out fucking some
prostitute or something on your lunch break. But here you are. And I can't
believe how much of a joker you are, Phil. Like you care about anyone. We all
know how disposable women are to you. Putting on the charm as usual.” She
laughs. “Like anyone would believe you actually care about how this one is
doing.” She look at me, her face full of cruelty, her voice dripping with disdain.

 “Last time I saw you in London,
you were sandwiched between two supermodels. Literally, while I was right there
in the room accepting your job offer. But now I see you're trying to pretend to
be a sweet guy. We all know this is just a prank. I mean, hiring Sid Stone?
That's a prank too, right?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 She laughs.

          My face falls. I sit up
straight, making sure that I push Philip away.

          He stands up straight.
An angry look crosses his face.

          “You saw the staff list
when I hired you,” he says. “You never said anything different.”
          “I know I did,” Kendall says. “I want to work with you, Sidney.” She
shoots me a sickening grin. “I can't wait to be your colleague, Sidney. We're
sure going to have a lot of fun with you.”

Chapter
8

          I'm in shock. I can't
believe it. My mind is reeling with horror and shame. Everything I feared – all
my worst nightmares – are coming true. In the hours that follow I go over my
conversation with Kendall again in my mind.

         
Surely she can't be
so bad now
, I think.
Surely she's grown up a little. Learned to treat
other people with respect. Stopped her bullying ways. Surely she isn't going to
try to make office life for me the same living hell she made high school.
Surely...

         
What a fool I was. Kendall
LaFleur hasn't changed: not an ounce. I may have grown up and out of the person
I was in high school, but Kendall is just the same. A little taller, maybe.
Thinner, too, with that distinctive coke-till-dawn slenderness that makes you
look sick as well as skinny. Better-dressed, with the kind of perfectly
tailored outfits fashionistas would kill for. But she's the same mean old
witch, just lurking in the shadows for me to come closer enough for her to
seize me with her claws.

          I try not to cry. I sit
in my hospital bed and stare at the ceiling, biting back the tears that come
unbidden down my cheeks. Everything feels so overwhelmingly hopeless. Like all
my work is for nothing. Like, no matter what, I'll just be on the bottom rung
of the ladder. For a few days, a few precious days – hell, for a few
hours
,
I'd had hope.

Hope that my life would finally
turn itself around. That by working hard and keeping my head down and showing
that I was a good student, a good listener, a good worker, a good journalist,
I'd
get
somewhere in life. All those American Dream platitudes come
rushing back into my head.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Work hard
and prove yourself. Work your way up. You can do anything you put your mind to
as long as you try hard enough. In America, anyone can become President. That's
the American Dream.

         
But as I think of the way Kendall
LaFleur looked at me, like I was a bit of dog dropping she'd found on the
bottom of her immaculate Christian Louboutin shoe, I know that the American
dream, like the Hollywood dream, is just a lie. Some people are just born to
power and privilege. They wake up on third base, the top of the heap, the cream
of the crop, to the manner born, the silver spoon in their mouth, whatever
cliché you want to use about them, it's true. They're the kind of people who
don't have a doubt in their minds that the world is there for the taking, along
with everything in it. They're the kind of people who have everything handed to
them. People like Kendall.

          And people like Philip.

          What a fool I was to
give into my feelings to Philip, to start letting myself experience attraction
to him the way I did. Didn't I know better? People like the LaFleurs chew
people up and spit them out. Kendall had said it herself in the hospital. He's
a player, a playboy. He wants to fuck me once or twice, take my virginity, then
likely spread it around the office what I've done, humiliate me, fire me, when
he's done with me. Maybe my obvious-virgin demeanor is a fun challenge for him.
He thinks he can take me, take over me, make me submit to him, make me
his.
Well,
he can't! I won't let him.

          My body stirs involuntarily.
Whatever my mind is thinking, my body becomes hoy to the touch at the idea. The
idea of being taken by him, of being made submissive to him, of being
humiliated by him – it fills me with a strange warmth, a strange surety of
desire. Why does the idea of him treating me poorly turn me on? \  In the real
world, I know, such a thing would be horrifying. But in the mysterious dark
shadowlands of my fantasy, I can't think about him taking me, seizing me, using
me, without becoming wet.

          I can't help it. I'm
overwhelmed by my feelings for Philip. I've never had sex before – not because
I had any
problem
with the idea, but simply because I didn't
want
to.
The idea never held much appeal for me. My body had never wanted it. I'd met
people I thought were good-looking, sure, but somehow that assessment had never
translated into a call for physical action.

          Until now.

          I know he's a bad idea.
I know he's the worst idea that ever sauntered into my life. And still I can't
stop thinking about how much I want it.

          No, I tell myself. It's
too dangerous. My whole life, my whole career, would be under threat if I let
him get to me the way he's already started to get to me. I have to be stronger
than that. I have to force myself to be stronger than that. If I'm not, my career
will go down the drain. I'll be known as that reporter who slept with her boss.
Kendall will make sure of that. And then nobody will ever want to hire me
again.

          Johnson keeps filling
me in in the days  that follow. Telling me about what's going on at FILTHY. All
the changes. They're doing more serious pieces – pieces about Islamic fashion
in Turkey to go alongside the puff stories on designer brands. Stories about Bollywood
celebrities and their work in advocating for anti-rape causes. Someone gets sent
to Berlin to cover an experimental art show; someone else goes to New York to
survey local speakeasies.

          It aches. This kind of
job – it's the perfect gig. It would be my dream job to work at a magazine like
this, working under Philip LaFleur...if only he weren't Philip LaFleur. If only
he weren't so damn sexy.

          The next morning, I
decide I've had enough. I'm not going to deal with his BS any longer. I'm going
to walk straight into Philip LaFleur's office, and either demand a serious
assignment or resign. Say I can't work with Kendall and let that be that. Or at
least say I can't work
under him
in the way that he wants. I take a deep
breath. I change out of my hospital gown into a fresh set that Johnson's
brought me from home. I walk all the way from the hospital to the office: a
two-hour walk. Can't afford the bus fare, and don't want to risk cycling.

          And then I enter the
office.

          It looks the same as
last time. Glass walls, glass doors. Effortless elegance. But...somthing is
different somehow. It feels different. Smells different. An unfamiliar musk
exudes throughout the office. The aroma of maleness, of strength. Philip's
smell. It makes me dizzy. I reel.

          I approach the office
door. PHILIP LAFLEUR is written where TEGAN SNOW used to be. As I come nearer
the door opens. My heart skips a beat, but it's not Philip. Instead, it's a
leggy blonde with a super-short skirt. She's adjusting her blouse and her hair,
looking disheveled, a little sheepish.

         
Has Philip just been
fucking someone in the office?
The idea is scandalous. It must violate
about a thousand workplace protocols and sexual harassment suits. But somehow
the idea turns me on. I'm almost ashamed of how much it turns me on.

          The other women in the
office are looking up at the blonde. Judgmentally. Jealously. Like they wish
that they were the ones getting pounded on his desk. How could I have been so
stupid to believe I was special, that he really wanted me? He just wanted into
my pants. And everyone else’s by the look of it.

          Nevertheless, I tell myself
I will not be deterred. I stride into the office. I swallow, hard.

          I walk in to see Philip
with his legs on his desk.

          “Ah, Sidney, you're out
of the hospital.” His voice is forceful, booming. So different from the soft,
gentle voice he used when talking to me by my hospital bedside. “It's so nice
to see you. And perfect timing. I've got an important story assigned to you
today.”

          My mouth falls open in
shock. “I do?” I say. I wonder what it will be. Cocktails in New York?
Experimental theater in Berlin? “What is it?”

          He grins a wicked grin.
“You'll find out soon enough,” he says. “You're right in time for the
reporters' conference call meeting.”

          He dials us in. There
are about ten people on the call – located all over the world. Tokyo, Shanghai,
Paris, Rome, Milan...places I've always wanted to visit. I feel excitement
churning in my stomach. Maybe this won't be so bad after all...

          “Ready, chief!” I hear
Johnson's happy voice. He gets assigned the first story: an exposé about campus
football and how athletes are recruited with sex on campus. A hard-hitting
piece with a sexy edge. Exactly the sort of thing I'd love to write.

          More stories get handed
out. Philip gives them all in a dismissive, brusque tone, like he's throwing
bread to birds. Someone gets sent to London to cover a hidden nightclub located
in a canal boat. Someone else has to cover the fur trade in Russia: the latest
fashions since Princess Anastasia was in the Winter Hermitage.

          And then it comes to my
turn.

          “Sidney,” Philip says
lightly, without even looking at me. “You're going to find out what dog food
brand Amy Worth's dog prefers.”

          My heart sinks.

          “Amy Worth – the Real
Trophy Wife of Santa Monica?”

          “Is that a problem?”
Philip looks at me with a dark, brooding stare.

          “N-no...” I say. “I'm
just surprised, that's all...”

          “You think you're too
good for this story?” He sounds almost cruel when he speaks. I feel my eyes
sting with tears. Is this Kendall's doing, assigning me this piece of flush.

          “N-no...”

          “No what?”

          “No...sir?”

          My cheeks are hot. He
smiles wryly.

          “Very good,” he says.
“Don't take any story lightly, Sidney. Even if it is about a dog. Not a single
story in this magazine is fluff. Do you understand me?” He presses a button,
bringing the conference call to a close.

          Then he puts his hands
on my shoulder. I feel his strong fingers kneading the muscles of my back. He'd
gotten out of his chair to stand behind me, to massage me. It's dangerous but
it feels good, so good. I close my eyes and let the sensation take over. He
sweeps his fingers into my long loose blonde hair and starts to massage my scalp.
My lips open to let me moan.

          I can feel his breath
on the back of my neck.

          “You're coming to my
place tonight, Sidney,” he says huskily.

          “But we're not
supposed...”

          “I'm the boss here,” he
says. “And I make the rules. You're going to be a guide. A damn good one.” His
voice drops to a sneer. “And if you're late, you'll be punished, in several
ways.” He takes in a deep breath. “Now go get your dog story and come by my place
tonight. 6 pm sharp. Don't be late – or I'll make sure you feel it...”

          And then he walks away.

          I look over at him.
He's by the window. Staring out at the beach view. His back straight and away
from me. Dismissing me, just like that.

          I walk out of the office.
My bike is still there, locked up. I guess he put it there after the accident.

         
What a prick,
I
think. This is a sexual harassment case waiting to happen. But why does his hot
cold act turn me on so much?

          I don't even have his
address, I sigh. What am I supposed to do now?

          Then I hear my phone go
off.

          A text message from
Philip.

         
Speak of the
devil....