Chapter 6
On Monday morning Norma Peterson called in sick for the first time in her career with Cunningham Manufacturing. On Tuesday she did it for the second time, and during both days her empty office was the object of intense gossip among the young secretaries, office hands, and junior executives as they passed by.
Except for these occasional whisperings, an air of stillness pervaded the office, for by now almost everyone knew what had happened at Nick Saxby's party on Friday night, and almost everyone was waiting to see what would happen when Miss Peterson returned to work. Everyone, that is, except Arthur Cunningham who, being the boss, had no idea what was going on.
From time to time he would emerge from his office and remark how quiet everything seemed to be. On Tuesday he strode up to Flo Jones's typing desk and inquired as to Miss Peterson's whereabouts.
"Sick again? That's strange, I can't remember Miss Peterson ever losing a day of work before,"
Arthur Cunningham muttered in his absent way.
Flo Jones and Davey Wilson could barely keep from bursting out laughing, and as the president returned to his office he couldn't help overhearing their muffled giggles.
This strange behavior was still a mystery to him, and he knew there was something behind it. For some reason it seemed to be connected with Norma Peterson's absence, and he would certainly like to know why.
He also wondered why it had to be his female assistant who was out sick instead of someone else - like Nick Saxby. This was just the time he needed that high-powered brain of hers to work with the advertising agency in setting up the promotion campaign for the new Cunningham valve.
Norma Peterson was one hell of a woman all right. Even the ad agency had said she'd provided a fresh outlook on promoting the new valve. On top of that, her statistical work was always accurate and flawless. The only problem with Norma, he'd noted many times, was her inability to handle people — if she could just be a little bit looser, a little more friendly, she would have it made in the business world or anywhere else for that matter.
In fact, the fifty year old widower mused, if she'd just loosen up she would make an ideal companion for someone like him. He'd been conclusion that he needed to be around someone as intelligent and beautiful as that young lady.
True, her personality was a little stiff, but those short dresses she wore more than made up for it. By God, they made him feel like he was twenty years old again looking at her, and there were times when he couldn't stand up from his desk for fear of revealing the thick bulge in his pants.
You know something, Arthur, you might just give her a whirl, he was telling himself more and more often and, for the first time in years, ever since his wife had died, he began to feel vital again. For the first time he had something to look forward to other than things connected with the business.
Now stop dreaming, Arthur old boy, he chided himself. You're fifty years old, and you've got a lot of work to do today. With that, he briskly snapped on the intercom and called for Miss Jones.
"Miss Jones," he said when she entered. "I'd like you to take this to Mr. Saxby and tell him I want a detailed analysis of the market potential for the new valve in the chemical industries."
"Yes, Mr. Cunningham," Flo replied, and took the file folder he handed her.
Cunningham exhaled deeply and hoped for the best. This kind of work was really more up Norma's alley than Nick's. He hoped that for once Saxby could get his figures straight.
Inadvertently, the silver-haired industrialist had forgotten to switch off the intercom and overheard the following conversation between the young blonde secretary and his male marketing analyst: "Thanks, Flo baby," he heard Saxby say. "I'll start working on this little package after I get a couple of cups of coffee."
"You better do a good job," Flo warned him. "This is the old man's pride and joy."
"Now you're beginning to sound like Miss Peter-pussy. If there's one thing I don't need it's another female nag like her. I took care of that bitch, and I don't need a replacement."
"We all did," Flo giggled. "Do you think she'll ever show up here again?"
At that, Arthur Cunningham leaned forward and began listening intently to the eavesdropped conversation over the intercom. It was curious all right, but it only served to further confuse him about the unusually quiet atmosphere of the office in recent days.
"No," he could hear Nick Saxby saying. "I think she's got her bags packed. At least that's what I'd do if I were in her position."
"She's really got brass balls if she does show up here again."
The conversation drifted away amid shuffling of papers, and Cunningham flicked off the intercom switch. Now he was really puzzled. It sounded as though the whole office had ganged up on his favorite marketing analyst in some way or another. But what had they done to make her stay away from the office for two days, for now he realized she wasn't sick at all.
The puzzling mystery plagued him until four-thirty in the afternoon when he began going through the late inter-office mail. He sifted through the usual memos and reports that filled the wire basket on his desk until he came to an unusual unmarked white envelope sealed with Scotch tape.
The curious thing about the envelope was that there didn't seem to be a letter or note of any sort inside it, but rather a number of small hard rectangular objects stacked together.
Mystified by it, he slit open the Scotch tape, tore up the flap and removed a stack of ten color slides. Now what in the hell was this? he wondered as he glanced at them, still not connecting them in any way with Norma Peterson.
It was not until he had held each one of them up to the light and examined them carefully that he added up two and two. And when he did he practically fell off his chair. What the slides showed was practically impossible to believe they were all pictures of a tall attractive woman slumped down in the seat of a car with her legs lewdly spread apart. There were unimaginably filthy pictures of this same woman with her hands wrapped around the stiff young penis of an innocent teenage boy. It was unmistakable that this woman was seducing the boy, and it was equally unmistakable that this very woman was one of his most favored employees, Norma Peterson.
Cunningham went through the slides again and again, a strange kind of excitement pulsing through his body. The hair was a different style but the same color. The expression on the face was that of a tempting seductress, but the face sure enough belonged to Norma Peterson. My God, she'd been leading a double life all along.
Never in the world had he expected anything like this. If there had been one person he deemed beyond reproach it would have been Norma Peterson — now this evidence in front of his eyes was telling him exactly the opposite. For several moments the handsome middle-aged executive sank back in his chair and simply stared at the wall. So this was what that scoundrel Saxby had been talking to Flo Jones about! This was the reason Norma hadn't shown up at work. Someone had blackmailed her, someone who was obviously jealous of a woman rising to a high position at Cunningham Manufacturing, that shiftless Saxby!
At the same time as the slides had shaken him to the core, the industrialist found himself titillated by them, and after restraining himself for a good five minutes, held them up to the light and reviewed them again, one by one. He could barely believe that his prim and proper female executive could be so highly sexual. The expression of raw lust on her face as she grasped the young boy's cock in her hand almost made him tremble, and he felt his own penis awakening in his pants.
In fact, his hand was even shaking slightly when he picked up the receiver and began dialing her phone number, which he had got from the address book on his desk. The phone rang five times, and when the young business woman finally answered it she spoke in a voice that her boss barely recognized. It was hollow and hoarse and sounded very old.
"Norma, how are you feeling?" Cunningham asked pleasantly in a buoyant tone of voice.
"Not very well, Mr. Cunningham," came the reply. "Not very well at all."
"I hope it isn't the flu."
"No, Mr. Cunningham." Norma sighed wearily, making no effort to disguise the terribly depressed state she was in. "It's not the flu."
"Well, I think I know what it is," her boss said sympathetically in his gruff masculine voice.
"You're down in the dumps. It happens to the best of us, and there's only one way to get out of them."
"I'm - I'm afraid it's more complicated than that," Norma said slowly.
"Nonsense," Cunningham reprimanded her. "I'm going to cure you tonight. I want you to be ready for dinner at seven. We'll go to the Bellevue-Stratford."
"B-But," Norma tried to protest.
"But nothing. I'll see you at seven on the dot," he said commandingly and hung up the receiver.
True to his word, Arthur Cunningham arrived at Norma's doorstep at seven sharp and entered her apartment like a cheerful Santa Claus.
"Well, you certainly don't look very ill," he greeted her buoyantly as he eyed her ravishingly clad figure sheathed in a dark evening dress. "You know something Norma, you're a beautiful woman, you really are."
He gazed admiringly at her long flowing dark hair, her deep-set eyes and the roundly swelling mounds of her breasts beneath the low-cut top of her dress. In spite of his own forced attempt at gaiety Cunningham noted the look of wistful sadness of her eyes, and for the first time he could see her as a vulnerable cameo of feminine beauty, rather than just a pretty, efficient career-girl type. She was wonderfully beautiful tonight, he thought to himself, in spite of the images that ran through his mind from the damning photographs. He was blissfully unaware that Norma had consented to this rendezvous only to inform him of her resignation.
As her host escorted her to his car he felt alive with electric vitality. He felt like a young man again that night.
Especially when he took in the 'admiring glances of the well-heeled businessmen gathered around the tables of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. They began whispering among themselves as he led his ravishing escort to the best table in the house and seated her with pride.
Norma, for her part, began to feel her spirits rise in spite of herself. She had given up all hope that Nick Saxby would refrain from showing her boss the incriminating slides he had taken, and now, ironically, she hardly cared. Her career at Cunningham was finished anyway because of what had happened at his apartment, and at the moment she felt a strange freedom she had never experienced before. The worst that had happened was over, and she was free to find herself a new career where, with her brains and drive, she could succeed equally well. Moreover, she had firmly resolved to control the hateful compulsion that had led her to expose her panties to young unsuspecting boys. She had finally seen the sordid results of that obsession once it had been discovered by someone else, and she never wanted to live through the harrowing experiences of the past few days again.
The meal progressed like a regal feast. Arthur Cunningham ordered the most expensive and exotic dishes on the menu, commanded the best wines, and pronounced their names with a perfect French accent. He was truly a man who knew how to handle himself, and her admiration for him grew by leaps and bounds.
By the time coffee and cognac came around for the last course, Norma could feel herself growing mellow, though still haunted by the shame of what had happened during the weekend. Her boss, sensing her deeply troubled mood, reached across the table and touched her hand.
"I hope you've enjoyed this tonight, Norma," Cunningham said. "I know I certainly have. I haven't enjoyed myself as much in years."
"I have, Mr. Cunningham, I really have," Norma smiled back quietly.
"Call me Arthur, Norma." His hand squeezed tightly around hers, and as it did so, she could feel herself slipping into a dream world, a pleasant dream world for a change. Mr. Cunningham had been almost like a father to her.
After they had finished their coffee she gracefully accepted his invitation to go back to his house in the exclusive area of Chestnut Hill.
It was an old house solidly built from stone and with a kind of baronial elegance inside. The huge living room was covered with rich oriental rugs; a crystal chandelier hung suspended from the ceiling; and at each end of the vast room stood two huge fireplaces, faced by large antique velvet couches.
Cunningham took his young employee's wrap, hung it up in a closet and returned to offer her a brandy. As she sipped it, he removed his suitcoat, stacked the fireplace with wood chips and thick dry logs, and in a moment had started a roaring fire. Then he settled comfortably into a couch and waved Norma over beside him.
"You know, it's been a long time since I've been out with a charming woman like you. I've kept pretty much to myself since my wife died, but I think I've been mourning long enough. I'd like to do this more often, Norma."
"I - I'm afraid I can't, Arthur. It just wouldn't be right," Norma said shyly.
The middle-aged industrialist gazed at her curiously and smiled.
"Of course, it's right, I know it is."
Norma looked straight ahead into the fireplace, watching the hypnotic shapes of the flames as soft tears began to well in her eyes.
"I'm afraid you don't know certain things about me," she said painfully, feeling a deep ache inside.
"Nonsense, Norma," Cunningham interrupted in his business-like way. He reached into his suitcoat on the couch beside him and withdrew the plain white envelope, flashing it before her eyes.
"I know more than you think I know thanks to a certain third party who deserves to be shot."
Norma gasped in surprise and sat forward on the edge of the couch. The horrible uneasiness she had always experienced with Saxby before suddenly returned to her. She realized in a flash that the incriminating slides were inside the envelope and thought she could not bear to hear him go on.
"Please," she pleaded. "Don't say it."
"I'm not going to say anything at all Norma. You have nothing to worry about," he reassured her, and with a regal gesture he flung the envelope into the raging fireplace.
Norma rose to her feet as though she could hardly believe what was happening, and tears of relief streamed to her eyes. Arthur Cunningham approached her and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her nubile young body close to his.
"The only thing you need," he said, "is a real man to take care of you. Shall we?" he nodded toward the stairway leading to his second floor bedroom, but Norma's body froze in his arms.
"I'd ... I'd love to, Arthur, but I just can't..."
"In other words, you're trying to tell me you can't be satisfied with a man, is that it?" he asked sympathetically.
Norma was on the verge of tears now, the terrible nightmare of what had happened at Saxby's apartment flashing through her mind. God, how she wanted to clear her mind, to tell her boss all about the terrible compulsion that had ruled her and ruined her. It didn't matter now, for she knew she could not work for him any longer. She would have to resign in disgrace no matter what happened.
"I don't know, Arthur. I've tried it, believe me. I was engaged once to a very nice young man . . . it . . . it just wasn't exciting at all."
"And do you think all men are like that, Norma?"
Her hate for the male sex, for the things that little boys had done to her in the past, for the way that men like Nick Saxby had humiliated her, welled up so strongly inside her soul that she couldn't contain it any longer.
"Men are nothing," she hissed at him with sudden violence, watching his face grow red with anger.
"Little boys are better, is that what you're telling me? You mean you can only get your kicks exposing your panties to little boys ...?"
"Yes! Yes!" Norma screamed hysterically. "They're mine, I can control them and tease them! They're in my power."
As he stood in front of the hysterically shouting young woman, Arthur Cunningham was struck with a sudden revelation. He realized now that Norma Peterson would never respond to gentle treatment from a male, that her mind was geared to being crudely and physically dominated by them, though she would protest this bitterly.
He realized that in her adventures with young boys — as evidenced by the slides he had seen — she was daring them to rebel against her power, to dominate her by suddenly ripping her panties away. It was the forbidden expression of untamed male lust, and only this, which unlocked the real secret of her loins.
And realizing this, Cunningham suddenly slapped her in the face. He was going to cure her sickness once and for all. Tonight he was going to give her all the crude violent lust that she needed; he was going to break that deep-rooted cycle. Deep inside him he felt an intense attraction to this strange, confused woman. What he was going to do now was only an act, but it was going to be the most convincing role he'd ever played.
Norma reeled back, her hand protectively guarding her burning cheek, her head spinning with disbelief.
"N—No," her voice quavered as her boss moved resolutely toward her. "N—No, not you too!"
"You're getting a man this time, Norma, a real man, not just some little boy."
Fiercely, he seized her wrist and yanked her violently protesting body toward the stairway. He struggled mightily with her, dragging her up the stairs, until, once inside the bedroom, he hurled her down on the mattress and tore her dress away from her body.
"Oh God, Arthur, please don't do this!" she whimpered. But her words were blotted out by the sudden clamping of his mouth over hers as Cunningham's body fell heavily on top of her struggling frame.
As the night drew on her moans of protest yielded to plaintive sobs and finally to deep gasps of carnal pleasure.
The following morning Nick Saxby arrived fifteen minutes late for work as usual. To his surprise, however, Arthur Cunningham was not yet in his office, which was unsual. To his further surprise, at ten o'clock in the morning he watched Cunningham and Norma Petersen walk up the stairs at the same time, practically arm in arm.
He had never seen his rival so radiant before. Laughing, smiling, she exchanged jokes with the boss and instead of entering her cubicle, immediately followed him to his office.
The scene was too unbelievable to be true and, possessed by curiosity Saxby crept to the locked door at the president's office, intent on eavesdropping regardless of how obvious it would appear to anyone else. When he put his ear against the door he could hear gales of laughter from inside.
"Norma," he could hear Cunningham say, "I feel happier now than I've been in a long time."
"Oh Arthur, you've taught me a lesson, all right." Saxby's female rival replied. "And the breakfast was so delicious."
"Of course, my dear," the patriarch added. "Only the best for my new vice-president."
The shock of those words hit Nick like a fist in the stomach. Numbed, he crept back to his office, stared into space in dumb silence, and finally began writing his letter of resignation in long hand. In spite of his clever and carefully carried out plan, he had failed. He had been beaten by a woman, and one hell of a woman at that.
"So it goes," he sighed to himself as he signed his name at the end of the terse little note.