InstructionbySeduction (7 page)

“How do you feel?”

“Excited. Nervous. Scared. A little cocky.”

“I see. Then I guess my job tonight is to help you relax.”

Leah smiled. “That sounds like a great idea.”

“Tonight’s lesson is to let yourself be pampered.”

“I like the sound of that. My easiest lesson yet.”

Hale took hold of the belt around Leah’s waist and pulled
her to him. He leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“What if I used this,” he said softly, “to tie you up? Just
in case you resist?”

“Resist being pampered?”

“Well, you never know what my kind of relaxation might be.”

“That’s true. Nothing’s ever simple with you.”

Hale kissed Leah’s ear then ran his lips down her neck. She
didn’t even try to suppress the shiver it caused to rush through her.
Immediately the heat began pooling in her abdomen.

“No,” he said. “Nothing’s ever simple with you.”

Hale pulled on the belt, releasing it. He pushed the front
of the robe out of the way and pushed his hands lightly across Leah’s exposed,
nude body. He skimmed across her nipples and she shuddered at the sensation.

“Come here.” He stepped backward, taking Leah with him by
the ends of her belt. Hale pulled her into the bedroom, then toward the bed.

“Lay down. Facedown.”

Leah shed her robe and obliged him, half-afraid of what his
brand of spa would be like. She felt cool droplets on her shoulders and back,
then Hale’s hands rubbing up and down, massaging in the lotion.

“Mmmmph,” she said into the pillow. God, it felt like heaven
on her sore muscles.

Hale rubbed the moisturizer all over her back, over her ass
and down her legs, taking care to massage all of it into her skin. Then he
leaned over her and said, “Now roll over.”

“Time for the other side?”

“Something like that.”

Leah rolled over, looking up at Hale’s naked body in the dim
light of the room, wondering when he took his clothes off. He came down over
her, coming to rest lightly on top of her. He brushed her bangs away from her
face and said, “You feel like satin sheets now. Let’s see how you taste.”

As Hale slid down her body, his head moving between Leah’s
legs, her heart began to pound. Was he really going to do that? To her? Leah
trembled a bit as Hale kissed her inner thighs, moving from just above her knee
almost up to her pussy.

“Why the nervousness?” Hale asked. “Are you afraid of
feeling good?”

“No, it’s just that…well…”

“No one’s ever done this to you before?”

“That’s it.”

“Why does a new experience make you nervous? You think you
won’t like it?”

“It’s just the newness. No other reason.”

“Then you should be excited. Ready. You should be pulling my
head down and asking me how come I didn’t do this sooner.”

Leah smiled and tried to laugh but instead what came out was
a startled grunt as Hale buried his face in between her legs. He licked up over
her flesh, which felt hypersensitive to her, causing her to shift beneath him
without her control. Hale slid his tongue into her folds, seeking out the one
spot that would make her scream in ecstasy.

As Hale’s tongue pushed against her clit, Leah gasped and
shook with surprise. It was intense. It was wet. It sent a rush of heat through
her like she’d never experienced before. She reached down and touched Hale’s
hair, then began to absently brush her fingers through it while he licked,
sucked and nuzzled.

Hale raised his hand and began to play with Leah’s hole with
two of his fingers. She was more than wet, so when he pushed they slid in
easily. Leah pulled Hale’s head closer to her at the added sensation and murmured,
“Oh my lord.”

Hale pushed his fingers in as far as they would go, then
pulled out and slowly pushed back in. Leah’s moaning encouraged him all the
while. She tried to stay still but the stimulation was too great. She arched
her back. She shook. She whimpered. Then she came like a roaring lion,
screaming, shouting and coming all over Hale’s tongue as he licked and sucked
at her most sensitive bud.

Leah fell back, soaked in her own sweat, panting. She
couldn’t even speak at first, just trying to come to terms with the explosive
orgasm she’d just had. Finally, she parted her lips and said, “Wow.”

“Wow,” Hale repeated. “I like wow. You know what comes after
wow?”

“Will I survive it?”

“We’ll find out.”

Hale returned his mouth to her slick folds, sucking and
licking with renewed vigor. Leah moaned and stretched her arms up to grasp the
rods of her headboard. She held herself, trying not to move and disrupt Hale’s
expert performance. His fingers moved back inside her, pumping and rubbing,
escalating the power of the time bomb in her clit. Then he pulled his fingers
out and she felt that odd pressure against her anus.

“Oh shit,” she whispered as Hale parted her flesh there with
his fingers saturated with her own slick juices. He pushed in slowly, dividing
her while he continued to give her clit a royal tongue-lashing. Leah gripped
the rods in her hands and said, “Okay. Do it.”

Hale laughed, the vibrations against her heated flesh
sending her into overdrive. He laughed again and she screamed. Leah felt him
push into her ass, that raw awareness of herself overtaking her once again. He
sucked on her clit and she thought she was going to cry, the wash of pleasure
was so great.

“That’s it,” Leah encouraged. “That’s it!”

Hale doubled his efforts. Leah thought she was going to
crush the rods in her hands as she held on for dear life. The explosion hit,
this time sending her into orbit, a rocket blast through her entire body and
firing out of every orifice. She screamed and cried out something that included
Hale’s name and that was about it.

Panting, Leah released the rods on the headboard and wiped
her hair away from her face. She released her muscles from duty, sending her
legs flopping and her arms to rest over her head.

“How was that? Relaxing?”

“I don’t know if that’s the word I would use,” Leah sighed.
“But it was incredible.”

“Want another one?”

“Yes.”

Hale was pleased to oblige her, not once more but twice,
until she was nearly hoarse from screaming his name.

Leah arrived early for her two o’clock shift the next day,
sore as hell but with a spring in her step. Hale’s spa treatment had her
sleeping like she’d run a marathon. Leah was awake, alert and in control. It
was going to be a good day.

Running the beginning of shift meeting was a breeze. She’d
heard the spiel so many times it came out of her mouth almost on auto-pilot.
She re-briefed everyone on the specials, went over the laundry list of items
that Bob had given her and reminded everyone to smile as they delivered
exceptional service to every FoodSmart customer. She beamed her own bright
smile as an example.

Then Leah’s perfect day took a turn for the worst. A kid
threw up in aisle four. They completely ran out of one of the special sale
items. A customer found rotted lettuce in a package and threw a fit,
threatening to call the health department. One of the high school kids failed
to show up at four-thirty for his shift. Leah dashed from one department to the
next, shouting orders, bagging groceries and calming customers. But it was okay.
She could handle it. Until the shift was ending and the store was closing.

Leah was moving some empty boxes back into the storeroom
when she saw that the back door was open. She walked over to shut it and
realized that two of the employees were outside smoking and talking…about her.

“So what do you give her?” Rusty said. “A week? Two?”

“If that,” the other guy said. Leah figured it was Harmon, a
relatively new employee. “Can you believe all that shit that happened today?
Fuuuck. I’d quit.”

“She can’t handle it anyway. Barely knows what she’s doing.
And all that smile bullshit. Puh-lease. If I was happy I sure as hell wouldn’t
be here.”

“I hear that. She can smile all she wants but she’d look a
whole lot better sucking my dick.”

Rusty busted out laughing like it was the funniest thing
he’d ever heard. Leah’s stomach turned and she felt sicker than the kid in
aisle four.

“And did you see her hair?” Rusty asked. “What, suddenly
she’s an adult now? She looked about four years old with that red. I guess she
thinks she’s in charge now. I’ll tell you one thing, if she tells me to clean
up puke again I’ll tell her she can kiss my ass. I’m not taking direction from
that fat bitch.”

Leah staggered away from the door and into the closest
bathroom. She leaned over the toilet and heaved, only she’d barely eaten all
day and had nothing to give up. Instead she just gagged over the toilet,
choking on her own tears.

The final twenty minutes of cleanup and lockup felt like
twenty hours. Leah continued to put on her happy face for the employees but
inside she couldn’t wait to get home and cry her eyes out.

Leah had hoped the ride home in the cold wind would break
her out of the funk but it only made it worse. It was bitterly cold and her
nose ran all over her face. She started crying half a mile from home and her
tears nearly froze to her face. Leah finally stumbled through her door, shut
the door and kicked it twice.

“Who the fuck lives like this?” she shouted at no one. “I’m
a God damn twenty-seven-year-old teenager trying to play grownup!”

Leah tore off her jacket and threw it on the couch. Then she
picked up her phone and dialed Pizza Hut.

Two hours later the empty pizza box taunted Leah as evidence
of her weakness and failure. She couldn’t even think about seeing Hale right then.
He would certainly turn away from her in disgust. She couldn’t even handle one
bad day without going back to her old ways. He would feel like he’d wasted all
of his time on her.

And so she cried. She cried and felt pathetic. She cried and
felt like a worthless failure. She cried until she was sure she’d squeezed out
every last drop of water within her.

Leah stumbled back into her bedroom and looked at the box.
It’ll
make your dreams come true
. She paused, considering. Her body was spent
from tears but the endorphins her tears had released suddenly had her on the
upswing.

“I’ll show those motherfuckers. They’ll do what I say, fat
bitch or skinny bitch.”

Leah went back into the living room and grabbed the empty
pizza box. She marched out to the trash bin and tossed it in. She didn’t need
to be looking at that and thinking about a moment of weakness. No, she needed
to be thinking about how she was going to a better job tomorrow.

The next day Leah roused herself out of bed at the crack of
dawn and showed up for her kickboxing class. She told herself she was going to
carry that feeling with her all day long—kicking ass and taking names. She
would take crap from no one. She would handle her shit and it would be right.

Through her morning classes, Leah tried to maintain that
feeling. A less-than-stellar grade on an exam threatened to bring her down but
she shook it off. She made it into work a few minutes early, a chip on her
shoulder and an attitude to boot.

“Okay, everybody.” She addressed the group for the shift
meeting. “Let’s get through this and get going.”

Leah ran through the usual info. She reminded everyone to
smile and deliver exceptional service. Her smile seemed forced, even to her. As
the crowd dispersed Kelly walked over to Leah and said, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“It was a rough day yesterday.” Leah shrugged.

“I heard.”

“Oh great. Word got out, huh?”

“Well, Rusty was saying…”

“I don’t give a shit what Rusty says. If I had any authority
I would fire his ass in a second.”

“Whoa, what happened?” Kelly crossed her arms in front of
her.

Leah hesitated. She shouldn’t be talking about it. Not to
Kelly, not to anyone. She shouldn’t be thinking of it at all.

“I overheard Rusty and someone else talking last night.
About me. It wasn’t nice.”

“Oh, Leah,” Kelly said sadly. “They were just talking out of
their asses. Don’t pay any attention to what they think or say. Their opinion
doesn’t matter.”

“I know. Didn’t make it any easier to hear.”

Kelly nodded.

“I just feel…” Leah sighed. “I don’t know. Inadequate.
Unprepared.”

“Welcome to management.” Kelly smiled. “Managers are just
like the rest of us—they just have more responsibility bestowed upon them.
You’ll get used to it, girl.”

Leah tried to smile back.

“Come on now,” Kelly continued. “Let’s get out there and
deliver exceptional service. I know you want to help some customers, don’t
you?”

The smile came out of Leah naturally this time.

“You know what turns me on, don’t you?” Leah laughed.

From the moment Leah set foot on the floor she was running.
Bob wasn’t there to offer any support that night so she was being called over
to override registers and deal with customer problems and take phone calls.
They were still a little shorthanded, even more so after Bob fired the
high-schooler who hadn’t shown up for his shift the day before, so she was also
running around helping to bag groceries.

“Hey, Leah,” a voice called. She ran from one of the
registers over to a newer employee, Nick, who was standing by a stack of boxes
full of merchandise for shelving.

“What’s going on, Nick?” she asked.

“Rusty’s been gone for like half an hour. I need him to help
me with this shit.”

“Nick, please do not use profanity out here. A customer
could hear you.”

“Sorry. But I can’t do this all by myself.”

“Do you know where Rusty went?”

“He went for a break and didn’t come back.”

“Okay. Please get done what you can and I’ll go look for
Rusty. If I can’t find him I’ll come back and help you.”

“Thanks, ‘cause there’s more boxes where these came from.”

Leah walked back into the storeroom and glanced around. No
Rusty.
He’s probably out back smoking
, Leah thought. She headed to the
door through which she’d overheard Rusty’s rude comments the night before. She
pulled it open and sure enough, there he was, leaning against the building and having
a smoke.

“Rusty, what are you doing?” She lifted her hands in
exasperation.

“Um, smoking,” Rusty said with a snarky laugh.

“You’re supposed to be working. You left Nick all alone with
all that work. Your break is fifteen minutes, not thirty.”

Rusty shrugged. “I’ll get back in there in a minute.”

“You’ll get back in there now,” Leah said, her heart beating
in her ears. She hoped she wasn’t shaking on the outside like she was on the
inside.

“No.”

Leah nearly gagged.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean no. I’m not doing it now.”

Leah didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to tell him to
clock out and never come back. But she couldn’t. She didn’t have the authority
to fire him. As she thought about it, she didn’t know exactly what she did have
the authority to do. She just expected that everyone would do what she said
because she was the manager.

“Okay, Rusty. Have it your way.” Leah turned to go back into
the building.

“Why don’t you run and tell Bob on me. Tell him how bad I’m
being.”

Leah ignored him, but he was right. She would have to tattle
to her manager to get Rusty in trouble. Leah gritted her teeth. Why did he have
to be such an asshole?

“Rusty may not be coming back,” Leah told Nick. She pulled a
box off the stack and began shelving canned cat food. “I’ll help until he gets
here.”

“He sick or something?”

Sick in the head
.

“No.”

“Then why isn’t he coming?”

“He’s just not.”

“Uh huh.” Nick looked at her like she was incompetent.

Maybe I am
, Leah thought.
I can’t even get a
belligerent jerk to come in and do his job.

Leah got home with just enough energy to crawl into bed. She
curled up into a ball and hugged herself. When Rusty had finally come back from
his “break” he’d been nothing but an ass, smarting off at every chance he got
whether other people were around or not. It didn’t matter what Leah said to
him. He just wouldn’t stop.

Leah knew she was going to have to turn him in to Bob. She
couldn’t handle Rusty on her own and his attitude was infecting the other
employees.

Leah tossed and turned trying to sleep but every time she
closed her eyes she saw Rusty and his shit-eating grin.
Scott
, she
thought.
Think of Scott
. His image appeared in her mind and she smiled.
She didn’t know anything about him but she could invent something. By the time
she drifted off to sleep she’d created an entire life for Scott, from where he
was born to the color of his toothbrush.

Saturday morning brought an early shift for Leah. She rolled
out of bed, wanting nothing more than to roll right back in. She didn’t want to
look like a failure already to Bob but she had no choice.

Leah cast a glance at the box as she left her bedroom.
What
will Hale say
?

* * * * *

“Bob,” Leah said, knocking on the office door. Bob was in
the middle of a cheese Danish. He looked up at her, nodded and motioned her in.

Bob washed down his bite with a drink of coffee. “How did
everything go yesterday?”

“Well, that’s what I need to see you about.”

“Uh oh.”

“It’s not…well, it is kind of bad.”

“Can you shut the door please?”

Leah shut the door and sat down at Bob’s desk to face him.

“It’s Rusty. He was…belligerent. He went on break and stayed
outside smoking for like forty-five minutes. I went out and told him to get
back inside and he just wouldn’t do it. He stood there and said no. I didn’t
know what to do.”

Bob leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples with his
fingers. “I swear I curse the day I hired him.”

Leah breathed a silent sigh of relief. She’d been worried
that Bob would look at her like a moron, maybe even take Rusty’s side. After
all, she was the manager and there was an employee outside smoking for almost
an hour. She couldn’t even wrangle in one bad employee.
Not good
.

“I’m sorry he did that to you, Leah. Guy’s got a problem
with taking direction from anyone, so don’t feel too bad.”

“I felt incompetent.”

“I’ll talk to him. Make sure he understands that if he
doesn’t get his act together we’re going to have a problem. He’s walking a fine
line already.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything else?” Bob asked.

Yes!
Leah’s brain screamed.
I need training! I
need authority! I have all the responsibility of a manager and none of the
benefits! I need to know how to manage, not just get thrown to the wolves!

But no words came out of Leah’s mouth. She shook her head.

“Good then. Can you help Darla this morning over on register
four? She’s new and still getting the hang of how to ring up things that won’t
scan.”

“Sure.” Leah got up and left the office.
Why the hell
didn’t you tell him how you feel?
she asked herself.
Why didn’t you say
something
? She had questions and no answers.

Leah was on her way to Darla’s register when she saw the
second-to-last person she wanted to see that day—Mike, Mr. Hands. And he was
late. He was pinning his name tag on as he looked up and saw Leah.

“You’re late,” she said.

Mike shrugged.

“I hit traffic. I have a car.”

Leah bristled and didn’t even try to hide it. “Well if you
have a car, then you should be able to get here a lot faster than me on a bike.
Be on time next time.”

Leah brushed by him and headed straight back into the storeroom.
She found herself in the bathroom again but was pleased that she at least
wasn’t sobbing. She tried to remember if there had ever been a time when she
would have been so quick to insult a manager.
Why don’t they respect me
?
she thought, rubbing her temples.
Even if they don’t respect me they could
at least respect the position.