Tortrulla

 

Queen Bitch, Juliet Barker thought. I am Queen Bitch of the firm of Harding, Delarue and Partners.

How many times had the title been given to her behind her back, or in overheard whispers and gossip passed on by concerned friends - and doesn’t one always have concerned friends, when there’s something nasty to tell? But anybody who hoped to see Juliet upset or annoyed by such talk would be doomed to disappointment. Her reaction was always cool and calm. ‘To some people, a woman who knows what she wants is always a bitch,’ she’d say. ‘I’m just getting my job done.’

That was in public. Privately, Juliet knew she was a bitch. In the battles of corporate life, she bit hard, clawed deep, and buried her stiletto heels in her enemies’ softest parts. She had a jealous, ruthless eye on the competition; the younger men and women who were always coming up behind her. More than once, she’d taken out a potential rival on sight. No offence had been given her, perhaps not even a word of conversation had ever been exchanged; but she wouldn’t hesitate to end a career and crush another human being. It was her way of doing business. And when she was alone, with quiet and stillness all around, she laughed to recall the hurts she’d dealt out. It was how she liked to deal with people. Do it to them before they do it to you, and if they weren’t about to do it to you, do it to them anyway! Mercy is for wimps.

She was by herself in the office that night, working after hours. She liked the place when everyone was gone. With no eyes on her, she could let her guard down a little. She could sprawl back in her chair, kick off her shoes, unbutton her blouse down to the navel and have a whisky and Coke ready to hand while she worked.

The last sip trickled from the glass on to her tongue. When she poured the drink there had been two cubes of ice floating on top, but they were long gone. The night was suffocatingly hot. Perspiration oozed from every pore of Juliet’s skin; it damped her hair, her brow, the insides of her blouse, bra, panties and stockings. A heatwave had lasted ten days, and there was no forecast of when it would break. Outside her window, the whole city seemed to slumber in a haze; the sky was cloudless but not clear and above the tallest buildings the Moon shone a dim sickly yellow.

What the fuck’s wrong with this place? It shouldn’t be like this in here, she thought. Sweating and stinking are for the poor people. I need comfort.

She picked up the phone and would have snapped out, ‘Night security? There’s something the matter with the air conditioning up here.’ But there was no one to speak to, only a dialling tone.

With a grunt of exasperation she got up and left her office. It was possible that the air conditioning had only been turned off on that floor. There might be some automatic system in operation. Or it could be that somebody had put it off, forgetting or not knowing that she was there. That bloody idiot of a night security man, perhaps, prowling about the place instead of staying by his phone! Juliet didn’t even know the man’s first name, but right then she would have seen him sacked.

She walked down a long corridor with creamy panelled walls and soft lights overhead, and shed some of her tiredness. Her back straightened, her head lifted, her step became steady. She was tall; her feet were bare except for silk, but a casual observer might have thought she was in her heels. She buttoned her blouse and brushed some stray hair from her eyes. At any minute she might meet somebody.

Then she stopped dead.

Now she was fully awake and her senses were sharp. She smelt smoke not far away.

It wasn’t a smell of ‘something burning’, a warning of fire. It was the scent of a cigarette. Easy enough to tell the difference, in a place where putting one on was never allowed, and the lunchtime smokers were a regular sight outside, standing in a disconsolate line on the pavement. Another breath and she was able to track it to its source. It was coming from a doorway a few yards down the corridor. The brown wood door was almost closed, but for a crack of light.

Juliet’s heart was pumping. She did not think that behind that door was danger. It was some kind of a storeroom. Elsewhere in the building were computers and other equipment, much of it easily portable, with a value that ran to tens of thousands of pounds so it was unlikely that burglars would make for the fax paper and floppy diskettes. Nonetheless, it took some nerve for her to approach. Soundless in her stockinged feet, she stepped up close; then, instead of walking into the storeroom, she flung the door wide open before her.

She met two pairs of eyes.

One pair belonged to a woman. In some ways the woman resembled Juliet. She was about the same height and looked roughly the same age, and like her had long, probably dyed blonde hair. However, the stranger’s hair was fixed securely back in a ponytail, and emerged from the rear of a tight helmet of dark blue rubber, with a chin-strapped, broad-brimmed plastic hat on top. From crown to crotch, she was encased in multiple layers of rubber and PVC. The helmet, a leotard with long sleeves and gloved hands, a fiercely restrictive corset for the waist, all were laced against her body and glistened in blue, black and red. Her legs were bare, except for silk stockings of a dark flesh tone. On her feet she wore bizarre shoes made of red and yellow patent leather; heels like needles, nine or ten inches in height, were supported by platforms five inches thick. She sat casually on a small table. Her companion lay on the floor beneath her, naked and only too plainly male. His skin was coloured olive, his eyes were black and slightly slanted; and from his temples there projected two nubs, like horns.

Neither of the two seemed startled or alarmed to be found. The male gave Juliet only a moment’s incurious glance, then he fixed an intense, rapturous look on the woman’s shoes, which rested a few inches from his face. The woman took a draw on her cigarette, with an amber holder between her gloved fingers.

‘Hello, Juliet,’ she said.

‘Who - who are you?’ Juliet gasped.

‘You can call me Tortrulla.’

‘Do you work here?’

‘You might say I’m part of the organisation. I keep a close eye on what goes on.’

Juliet recovered herself. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Assignations, secret affairs, sex sessions after hours and in unlikely places were all part of office life. These two were rather kinkier than the average, that was all. It was Juliet’s cue to be blasé.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said.

‘Don’t mention it,’ Tortrulla said. ‘I know you’re not shocked.’

She put a slight emphasis on the ‘you’re’. It was enough to make Juliet uneasy. For in her own sex life, Juliet delighted in cruelty. She was a Mistress of the most unsparing kind, and had used her power in climbing the corporate ladder. Important men had grovelled under her boot, while her lash had scored their backs crimson. Bedroom interrogations had gained her a lot of useful information at times; far-reaching changes in company policy had been made by her slaves. And so far as she’d always known, her role as dominatrix had stayed a secret, with not so much as a breath of rumour in the firm. But men are such weaklings. One cruel woman can swear them to secrecy, only for another to wrench the secret out of them with ease.

‘I’m just on my way to find out what’s happened to the air conditioning.’ She touched her brow, and it was filmed with moisture. ‘Isn’t this heat bloody awful?’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Tortrulla said.

How could she sit there, Juliet wondered, so at ease? At home, her own wardrobe contained a leather basque, a PVC catsuit, even a heavy duty rubber hood; but if she were going to have sex in this weather she would have preferred satin and lace, or plain nudity. Tortrulla was armoured in tight shiny fabrics, with barely an inch of her skin free to breathe, yet her cheeks weren’t even pink.

Her eyes ran down Tortrulla’s legs, to the unclad male at her feet. Well, he’d made himself comfortable - too much so for Juliet’s liking. In fact, the longer she looked at him, the more she found him repulsive. Was it something about the texture of his skin? He was well-muscled, but not smooth; wiry black hair grew thick on his chest, shoulders, feet and hands. Or perhaps it was those horns; they looked very real. They couldn’t be real, surely? You never knew. Maybe it was the next thing in body modification, after piercing. Or possibly Juliet didn’t like him simply because he needed a shower. There was an odour on the air of the little storeroom, faint but very unpleasant; and every time Juliet caught it in his nostrils she became more certain of its source.

‘His name’s Damien,’ Tortrulla remarked. ‘He’s my PA.’

Juliet didn’t reply. Damien, meanwhile, appeared to have forgotten her existence. He was totally enraptured by Tortrulla’s shoes. He stared and stared at them, till it seemed his eyes could bear no more and closed of their own accord; his mouth opened instead, and a horribly long, wet and mobile tongue stretched out and curved around the left shoe’s needle heel.

‘Get off! How dare you?’ Tortrulla exclaimed. Suddenly active, her massively-platformed foot thrust like a piston at his face, three or four times, driving him away. ‘You know the penalty! Juliet, would you do me a favour?’

She pointed to a cupboard door several feet beyond her reach. Before she had time to think, Juliet had stepped into the little room, and was halfway there; but to reach the cupboard she had to step around Damien, who lay on his side, half curled, cringing from the blows of his mistress’ feet. For a second she hesitated, then she moved forward.

Instantly Damien’s hands were clutching at her, groping her calves. Their very touch thrilled Juliet with horror and disgust.

‘You fool!’ Tortrulla yelled. ‘Where are your heels?’

‘Get him off me! Tell him to get off!’

‘The cupboard!’

Fortunately Juliet could reach it. She dragged it open. Inside was a row of hooks, and from each hook hung an instrument of correction: a bullwhip, a riding crop, a school cane, a leather tawse, a cat-o’-nine tails.

‘The cat! The cat!’

Juliet dragged it from its hook, and swung it down on Damien. Its tails were long and sharp-edged, and each one was tipped with a metal stud. She slashed them across his forearms and elbows; then, as he let her go and tried to retreat, she lashed his shoulders, back and torso. He cried out, saying no words, bellowing like an animal.

From her seat on the table, Tortrulla laughed.

‘You’re handling it like an expert,’ she said. ‘You’ve cowed him. Perhaps that’s enough.’

Juliet ignored her. Damien fled on all fours into a corner, and she pursued him, all the while lashing the cat. No mercy, no mercy, no mercy, none! He squatted at her feet. She lashed and lashed, as if she might beat the revolting creature out of existence.

But he was far from disappearing. With every stroke of the scourging, his member grew. Soft, it had been bigger than some men’s were when hard. Now it was enormous. He came.

The sight of his semen froze Juliet’s arm in mid-lash. It was not human. It wasn’t coloured white, but black; it was thick, as shiny as polished latex, and came from his body with the temperature of boiling oil. As it splattered on the storeroom floor it hissed and steamed. Her lungs drew breath, and she tasted the most atrocious smell imaginable, a reek so vile that one whiff was like being clubbed from behind with a sandbag. Her head was set revolving wildly on her shoulders. She was about to collapse, to be sick, and pass out, all at once.

She heard Tortrulla laugh.

Her eyes opened.

She was in her office, slumped back in her chair. On her computer monitor the screen saver drifted to and fro. Beside it stood her glass, almost half full of whisky and Coke. The air was cool, and from somewhere in the distance came the low hum of air conditioning.

 

***

 

Next day was Friday, but Juliet was working late again. This time, however, she wouldn’t be alone.

‘I need someone to stay back with me,’ she said, as office hours drew to their end. ‘You’ll do.’

With a snap of her fingers, she pointed to Andrew Phillips. He was tall, slim, and rather good-looking, but so mild-mannered as to be timid. His pink, feminine lips parted as if he were about to protest against Juliet’s command, then closed again without a sound. Only when the two of them were alone, when the glass doors had swung shut behind the last weekend escapee, did he venture to ask a question.

‘Will this take long?’

‘It might,’ Juliet said. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve got an appointment.’

‘Who with?’

‘A friend.’

‘Male or female?’

His features were tense with resentment. ‘It’s a girlfriend, if you need to know.’

Juliet shrugged. ‘That’s not what I call an appointment. If you want to spend time fucking around, fine. Just don’t expect to have a career.’

In sullen silence, Andrew reached for the phone. ‘You don’t mind me giving her a call, do you?’ he snapped, pausing with the receiver in his hand.

‘I do, actually.’

‘She’ll be waiting for me in the bar! What’s she going to think, if I leave her without a word?’

‘That she’s been stood up. It happens.’

The phone went back on to the hook. His attempt at resistance was over. Juliet felt more cheerful than she had all day.

In point of fact, she didn’t need anyone to assist her. Working alone, the business in hand wouldn’t have taken much longer than an hour. Nor was it particularly urgent; it could well have been left till Monday morning. So why am I here? she thought. She already knew the answer. It was that dream.

She’d downed her whisky and Coke, and a couple more after it, then gone home and slept the night like a log. In the morning she’d considered calling in sick. But no, she wouldn’t. It was ridiculous. Moreover, it wasn’t Juliet’s way. Never show weakness, she told herself. When you’re feeling fragile or uneasy, don’t go looking for sympathy; instead, be ten times more of a bitch than normal. So she’d come in and had run the place with an iron fist, determined to stay back for not a second less than last night. Yet when it came to it, she’d chosen to have company and had picked on poor Andrew.

Why him? He was very young and had only recently joined the firm; at any rate, he’d appeared in the office all of a sudden. Until today Juliet had barely noticed his existence. Now that she studied him a little however, he was really rather handsome. And his manner was interesting. Frequently he stood or sat with lowered eyes, watching the carpet, and everyone in the office took that for shyness. Juliet knew better. She could always tell when a man was ogling womens’ shoes.

On her own feet was a strappy pair with only medium heels, but open toes. She’d selected them with care. Next to boots, no footwear had more obsessive and slavish male devotees than peep-toed sandals. Their kinky power gave her a sense of being reinforced, and they suited the weather; that day the heatwave had cooled off slightly, but it was still too warm out of doors.

An hour’s work was done, for the most part in silence. Then Juliet sat back, and swivelled her chair round a quarter turn, propelling it with the push of a toe.

‘Is it too late now for that appointment?’

‘Yes,’ Andrew said.

‘Won’t she forgive you?’

‘I was only just getting to know her.’

‘Then what does it matter?’ Juliet said. ‘You should treat girls like buses - if you miss one, there’ll be another along soon. But of course,’ she went on, putting on a reflective tone, ‘one sometimes misses the last bus of the night, and it’s not much fun walking home alone. Were you expecting something to happen?’

Andrew nodded glumly. ‘I thought it might.’

‘Oh, dear. I’m sorry,’ Juliet smiled. ‘You must be feeling the frustration.’

She had one knee slung over the other. Her skirt was short, and her foot swung lightly back and forth. Like a hypnotist’s subject watching the pendulum, Andrew was following the motion of her peep toe.

‘Anything I can do?’

Once again, his mouth opened and no words came.

‘Anything,’ she repeated. ‘Name it.’

His voice was breathy and trembling.

‘I like your shoes.’

‘I know,’ she said with a yawn. ‘Come here. And I don’t mean standing up.’

He fell from his chair on to all fours, and crawled to her. His head was held low, and his eyes glittered, fixed on the swinging shoe.

‘Would you like to touch it?’

He nodded in rapture.

‘Would you like to kiss it?’

‘Yes,’ he sighed.

She brought her foot to a halt. Andrew reared up towards it, his hands reaching for the leather upper, his lips aimed at the peep toe.

Juliet drove her sole hard into his face and knocked him backwards.

‘I’m not pleased with you,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve failed in respect. Have you been dominated by a woman before?’

‘Yes,’ he gasped.

‘Then you should know that the very least I expect is to be addressed as “Mistress”.’

‘Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry. Are you going to punish me?’

‘Perhaps, when it suits me. Strip off your clothes.’

In a minute or two he was crouching naked, and she stood over him, also undressed partially: she’d let fall her skirt, jacket and blouse, and was left in a bra and French knickers, stockings and shoes. Hands on hips, she looked down on Andrew with her face set in a dominant’s sneer. Behind her features, however, her reaction to seeing him nude was not quite so contemptuous. He really had an excellent body: it was slim, not skinny, with all the muscles well-toned. And as for his cock - ! When had she last seen an erection that size? Well, the bigger they were, the more delight there was in making them suffer. She let a minute or so pass without speaking, but she’d already decided what she was going to do.

‘Follow me.’

In underwear and heels, she walked under soft lights, between creamy panelled walls. On all fours, Andrew crawled at her heels down the long corridor. There was the door, closed. She opened it and walked straight in.

The little storeroom was exactly as it had appeared in her dream. There was the little table, with an office chair beside it; there the long cupboard, overhead a little strip light, which flickered, then shone brightly. It was odd, but she couldn’t recall when she’d been in here. Sometime in the distant past, presumably, at the beginning of her career. A lot of intriguing and bitchery had passed under the bridge since then.

Of course she gave Andrew no sign of being disquieted. ‘Mmmm,’ she said, her voice a purr of satisfaction. ‘Have you ever played games in a storeroom?’

‘Yes, Mistress,’ Andrew said eagerly from beside her heels.

‘Really? You are a dark horse! Hung like one, too!’ She turned to him, bent swiftly down, and gave his erection a slap with her flattened fingers. She laughed to see his features twist in a wince as it rocked from his crotch.

‘I look forward to feeling that huge dick spurting inside me,’ she said. ‘How does that make you feel?’

‘Pleased and proud, Mistress.’

‘Proud?’ she repeated. ‘That’s not good, Andrew. Before we come to it, you have to be thoroughly humiliated. Taught that your pleasure or pain doesn’t matter the least little bit. Cured of any silly masculine idea that in fucking the Mistress, you’re somehow controlling her. You are my tool, Andrew. Nothing more.’

‘That’s all I want to be, Mistress.’

‘Come and grovel at my feet.’

She sat down in the chair and stretched out her stockinged legs, crossed at the ankles, her lower shoe resting on the floor by the edge of its heel. Curled almost into a ball, Andrew caressed her feet and licked her shoes. His tongue slid slowly over the uppers and the soles, tracing the same wet route again and again. Nicely done, thought Juliet; but there comes a point when I get bored of a slave’s homage. I want to beat you, my dear; to see your skin turn red and know you’re suffering.

Her eyes scanned the little room. There was nothing there she could use, no kind of rod, or cord to tie in hard knots, or strap to fold double. At that last thought, she recalled that Andrew wore a belt; but it was fifty yards away, lying on the floor of her office. When he stripped, she should have commanded him to pass it to her. But there was no satisfaction in blaming oneself.

‘Slave!’

He lifted his lips from her shoe. She bent forward and gave him a ringing smack across the cheek, and let her knuckles swing back to deliver another.

‘Fool! You fool! What are you?’

‘A fool, Mistress.’

‘I want to chastise you, and I’ve no lash. Whose fault is that, fool?’

‘Mine, Mistress, mine! I should have given you your weapon at once! But I can make it up to you! Please!’

With a scrambling backwards motion, he gained his feet. Juliet’s immediate thought was that he’d almost read her mind, and was going to run back to the office. But he did not leave the storeroom. Instead he stepped to the cupboard and opened it. Inside were hooks, set in a row. From one hung a bullwhip, from another a riding crop, from another a school cane.

‘Which will you use on me, Mistress? Which? Which?’

Juliet was unable to speak. Her mouth hung open, and the cavity was full of hot stale air that tasted like a rubber ball. Something was wrong with the strip light: it was flickering again, going on and off, so rapidly that it was hard to see anything at all. All she could make out clearly was the cupboard of lashes, and Andrew beside it, half standing and half crouching, his mild face filled with a hideous exultation.

‘Which, Mistress, which? Can I choose? Can I? Can I? Thank you, Mistress! This one, this one!’

He came towards her with the cat-o’-nine tails, held handle outward. It was in Juliet’s grasp, and he was squatting before her on his haunches. He had his head down low and his hands clasped at the back of his neck. His buttocks were raised and waiting.

Of its own accord, Juliet’s arm wielded the cat. The first strokes were halting and without force. Then she hit harder and faster, harder and faster, till she was beating him recklessly, desperately, frenziedly. Come, come, make him come; finish this, get out of this room!

Andrew’s hands stayed clasped to his neck, but at last his haunches began to jerk. Juliet caught an odour, and her arm froze. She breathed in the smell of a nightmare.

‘He needs a few more lashes yet. I’ll do it.’

From out of the flickering darkness, a leather-gloved hand took possession of the cat. Tortrulla was there, in boots and gloves, helmet and harness, seated beside Juliet on the table.

On needle heels she stood, and dealt blistering cat-strokes to the crouching slave. Roars of pain and ecstasy filled the storeroom. Andrew came - but no, it wasn’t Andrew any more. The figure at Juliet’s feet was Damien, horned and repulsive. The chair on which she sat was no longer an executive seat upholstered in black leather, but a massive thing of rough, splintery wood, solid as a blacksmith’s forge; and she was pinned to it, unable to move, as if tied with iron bands.

Then, with a soundless thud, it tipped backwards. Her head was down on the floor, her legs were stretched wide somewhere high above. She screamed and screamed, and her throat was scalded by the air.

Tortrulla laughed.

‘I told you Juliet, that I was part of this organisation. That wasn’t exactly true. But you might say I do a lot of headhunting from the people here,’ she said. ‘I’ve had my eye on you for a long time. You’re ready to be recruited. Needless to say that in your new position, there will be many changes. You won’t possess quite your old authority. You shan’t be needing these.’

She plucked the heels from Juliet’s feet and tossed them away.

‘And now, you can be despatched.’

Needle-heeled and dagger-toed, Tortrulla’s boot drove down on Juliet.

The storeroom floor was gone from under her. She was falling, falling, secured by invisible bonds to the seat of doom. With a last long shriek, she plummeted backwards into an abyss of heat and darkness.

‘You WERE the Queen Bitch, Juliet. But every reign comes to an end!’