Chapter 1
Margaret Chambers,
Personal Assistant to Amanda Taylor, looked up as her boss swept in to the
outer office of her business empire's command centre.
'Good afternoon Ms
Taylor, how did the recording go?'
'Bloody awful, that
new producer doesn't know his arse from his elbow. He hadn't done his homework and kept asking
about stuff we had covered in last week's programme.'
'That good eh?'
'The little prick
kept calling me Mand!'
'Oh dear,' Margaret
managed to maintain a non-committal tone, but was secretly struggling to
prevent her face cracking into a smile. Amanda Taylor did not do informal. Margaret had worked for her for four years
now and had only been allowed to call her Amanda once in all that time, 'That
won't do at all, will it?'
'No, it bloody well
will not do!'
'Never mind, the
series is nearly over, perhaps you can get him replaced before they start on
the next one.'
'I wouldn't bet on
it, his Father owns the production company.
He's probably off-loading the family idiot on us so he doesn't try to
bugger-up the main family business.'
Margaret chuckled
dutifully, then scooped up a bundle of print-outs and offered them to Amanda.
'Never mind, Ms
Taylor, have a look through these while I get you a coffee.'
Amanda stood staring at
the proffered sheaf of papers without attempting to take hold of them.
'What are those?' she
asked, suspicion colouring her tone.
'You asked for
background info on specialist, high-end resorts and such, as potential projects
for the next series. You've done retail,
wholesale and manufacturing so far and said you thought a little Spa Hotel
would go down well for Tiger Traders Four.
Well, this is what the sales and publicity people have come up with. I've weeded out some of the least likely ones
and selected these as the first batch for you to peruse, but the rest are
waiting for you when you want them.'
'Oh right!' Amanda's
tone was immediately more cheerful and she took the proffered papers with
better grace. Margaret knew her foibles
by now and, although she tried to filter research materials into manageable
chunks, she would never discard something without giving Amanda the option of
perusing it first.
'I'll give these the
once-over now, it might distract me from that moronic producer,' as she stepped
around Margaret's desk she suddenly stopped, 'And as
for the coffee, could you make it a cappuccino?'
'Of course, Ms Taylor.'
An hour later she had
finished her initial perusal of the items selected by Margaret and was, more
for the sake of thoroughness, working her way through the not-so-likely
pile. As she had known it would be, her
PA's sense of wrongness had proved to be spot-on. Everything she had seen so far had screamed
Danger! Several of the adverts and data
sheets had struck her as being such bad choices that she thought she could
actually feel them trying to suck her money into the abyss as she read them.
Then suddenly, about
two-thirds of the way through the pile, she came across one advertisement that
caught her attention. Not as an investment
opportunity, but on a personal level. If
her instincts were correct and they usually were, what these people were
offering would never be allowed on a main-stream TV channel, even if she had
wanted to choose it. But something about
it struck a chord with her, resonating with a little piece of her psyche that
was buried so deep and locked behind so many mental doors that it very rarely
got to see an incandescent bulb, let alone daylight.
Surreptitiously she
checked that no-one was watching, even though she was alone in her office,
before carefully slipping the print-out out of the pile and into her
briefcase.
When she got home
that evening she prepared and ate a Stir-Fry, washed-up, showered and changed
before tentatively retrieving the piece of paper from her briefcase. Making herself comfortable on the couch she
read - and re-read - the advert several times.
Each reading left her more and more convinced that the service on offer
was what she had originally thought it was.
That it was real and that she wanted to make use of it. There was a web address at the bottom of the
print-out and Amanda was suddenly taken by the urge to pay a visit to their
site.
Within minutes she
had logged-on, clicked on her preferred search engine and typed-in the
details. Seconds later her screen filled
with an almost identical version of the print-out that Margaret had presented
her with earlier. Closer examination
revealed that, when printing-off the screen image, her PA had clipped off the
interactive links and buttons around the edges, but the essential message was
the same.
Power Play
For professionals who really mean business
If you work hard - In Public
You should play hard - In Private
Power Play provides
stressed-out executives
with opportunities to unwind, in whatever way
they choose - and in complete privacy
DISCRETION GUARANTEED
----------
Tell us your deepest desire
and
provided it's not illegal
we'll make
it happen
----------
Make your fantasy REAL, with Power Play
There's (almost) nothing we
cannot provide
for the right
price
After checking the
site and its links as thoroughly as she could, Amanda clicked on the "Tell Me
More" icon and completed the short application form that was revealed. Once she had finished and clicked on the
"Submit" button a message informed her that, "One of our representatives will
contact you by email within 48 hours - Thank you for your interest."
When she arrived at
the office the following morning, Amanda was tired and irritable. After responding to the advert her brain had
gone into overdrive, conjuring up image after image of what the Power Play representative
would look like. These had been followed
by a myriad of imaginary scenarios, ranging from the cringe-making - in which
she revealed her deepest and darkest secrets, only to discover that Power Play
was a Laser Gaming Club - to the licentious, where multi-participant sex took
place in the office of the person who was there to take her booking. As a result of an over-stimulated mind,
anxiety about having 'done the right thing' and anticipatory masturbation, she
had found it difficult to sleep.
It was soon obvious
to Margaret that she would have to brush-up on her eggshell walking skills,
especially when Amanda nearly took her head off for entering her office
unannounced. Actually her PA had knocked
but, in her sleep deprived state, Amanda had not heard her. The real reason for her anger was that she
had been in the process of returning the print-out to the pile of unlikely
candidates, when she suddenly realised that Margaret was standing before her
desk, and she was afraid that her eagle-eyed PA might have noticed which item
it was.
By lunchtime her mood
had begun to improve and it changed completely just after one o'clock, when she
realised that a newly arrived email was from them. She immediately opened the missive and
eagerly devoured its contents. Once
again it thanked her for her application and proposed a face-to-face meeting,
that very evening, at an up-market restaurant on the other side of town. She instantly clicked on the "Reply" tab and
hurriedly typed-in her response, acknowledging the invitation and confirming
her intention to attend the meeting - as well as suggesting a time that fitted
more conveniently into her own schedule.
Once finished she hastily scanned the content for typos, before
selecting "Send."
Within minutes there
was another email, confirming the time and place. Amanda had been initially taken aback by the
manner in which the Power Play representative had signed-off. She had closed her email with the name Ladey
Strickland and it had taken Amanda several re-readings to realise that it was
not a badly spelled pseudo title, but the unknown woman's Christian name. Her excitement at the illicit nature of the
correspondence had made Amanda paranoid, just in case someone should enter her
office and catch a glimpse of the addressee's details. It never occurred to her that it would be
impossible for someone - even Margaret - to enter unannounced or that, even if
they did, the chances of anyone seeing - let alone - recognising the address
and its significance, was astronomically small.
For the rest of the
day she found it almost impossible to concentrate on anything. The sense of anticipation, coupled with the
child-like thrill she got simply from the thought that she had taken her first
step off the well-lit path of the 'normal' and into the dark -and potentially
dangerous alley of the perverse.
Margaret was mildly surprised at her boss' lack of drive, but that was
as nothing to the shock she experienced when Amanda announced her intention to
leave early.
With her mind on
autopilot the woman known, to press and public alike, as The Tigress, because
of her aggressive and no-nonsense attitude on the TV programme Tiger Traders,
drove home, showered and changed without really being consciously aware of her
actions. As the time for her meeting
grew steadily closer her anxiety levels began to rise, she had not felt this
much concern about making the right impression since she attended her first job
interview after finishing university.
Under normal
circumstances - and depending upon the person she was going to meet - Amanda
would arrive either spot-on time or anything up to ten minutes late. But these circumstances were not normal and,
as a result, she presented herself to the Maitre-D almost twenty minutes
early. The supercilious man, who she
would usually have treated with condescension, made a show of checking the
bookings list, before confirming the reservation and then insisting that she
wait in the bar until her dinner companion arrived, when he would seat them
together.
This instantly put
her on the back foot - this sort of thing happened to little people, not Amanda
Taylor - but the reason for her being there and the nature of the service she
was about to request caused her to bite her tongue. As she ordered a glass of white wine and took
a seat in a corner booth, Amanda failed to notice the Maitre-D make a discrete
phone call. Rather than use the
ostentatious 1930's retro style device on his podium, the outwardly pompous man
retrieved a smart phone from an inside pocket of his jacket, hit speed-dial and
spoke two words before stuffing the ultra-modern device back out of sight.
'She's here,' was all
that emanated from Ladey Strickland's own smart phone before she returned it to
her handbag. She checked the time and
forced herself to sit back and wait, a smile of satisfaction barely registering
on her serious features. No-one at Power
Play could believe it when the request had arrived the previous evening. By the very nature of their business everyone
was used to being contacted by potential clients who were rich and famous, but
what had taken them by surprise was the fact that this minor celebrity had made
no effort to conceal her identity. The
return contact details had been Amanda's own personal email address whilst,
unlike most contactees, she had answered every one of the application form's
"getting to know you" questions with a directness touching on naivety. In fact the application was so devoid of
evasion that some at Power Play had suspected some kind of trap was being
attempted.