Catherine The Matriarch

Chapter Four-1

Chapter Four

Freedom

Catherine Roman saved more indignities for me until the next morning. When I awoke, sore and bruised, I realized my dilemma: Psychologically, I craved having my goddess crush me under her heels. Physically, I doubted I could take it.

“What are you thinking about?”

I rolled over and looked up into her haughty, serene face. “Great Czarina.”

She wore a black leather mini-dress. The pounding in my head intensified.

“Catherine the Great preferred ‘Empress’, but you may call me Czarina.”

“Thank you! I am so happy to be your Princess. Glad you’re tired of Martha, er, Martin.”

“Actually, I still like him.”

“Oh?”

“Martha is darling, but I need an experienced banker.”

“You’re fond of him?” Sitting up, I noticed my nakedness.

Handing me a pink nightgown, Mrs. Roman arched her eyebrows deliciously. “Jealous?”

I inwardly resisted the pink nightgown but knew better than to protest. “Well, you have Martin and I have a girlfriend.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t be so sure.”

I slipped my arms into the sleeves of the nightgown, stood, and wrapped it around me. “Why do you say that?”

“Never mind,” she patted me on the head. “I’ve had breakfast. Martin will bring you a tray of my leftovers.” When she turned and walked out, the smooth ripple of her ass, highlighted in leather, made me yearn for another beating, just to watch her and feel her power.

Moments later Martin entered with a tray. “Coffee, half a glass of orange juice—hope you don’t mind Mrs. Roman’s lipstick—and oatmeal. She only ate a couple of spoonfuls of the oatmeal,” he said. “And she left the crust from her toast.” He headed toward a small table in front of a wicker accordion screen. A large expanse of glass loomed behind the screen. “Let me know what else you’d like,” Martin said.

“Thanks.” I sat down. “Maybe some sweetener and cream for my coffee.”

Martin returned in a few minutes to place a cream container and several packets of artificial sweetener on the table. He walked over to the screen, folded it, and put it to one side of the window-like area. Turning out the lights, he noted, “Mrs. Roman thought this would be more restful after ... last night.” He left.

I sipped my coffee, and light illuminated the other side of the “window”, really a two-way mirror providing a view into the parlor.

And what a view!

Catherine the Great sat on the edge of the large leather couch under the circular window, with the hem of her dress pushed up to her waist, while a naked blonde with her back to me pressed her face into Catherine’s nest. Noticing a condom on the table, I surrendered to my goddess’s premeditated, visual seduction.

My racing pulse amplified the pain and pounding in my head. Opening the condom, I slid it on. Although I had never seen Suki Swisher undressed, the pear shape of the blonde’s ass convinced me that she was Suki.

Suki brought Catherine to an orgasm before I finished, but her next gesture ignited my climax. She reached down, picked up $200, and gave the money to Catherine! Catherine’s nearly palpable domination jolted me with currents that alternately stirred rebellion and hopeless capitulation in me. I wailed a guttural cry, celebrating Catherine’s might and lamenting my futility in resisting her. My c**k erupted into the condom.

Catherine touched a button on the wall behind her. The two-way mirror panel slid down, and I was suddenly face to face with them—feeling absolutely ridiculous in Catherine’s pink nightgown, as well as mentally and physically impotent with my spent, limp c**k in my hand. “You belong to me,” Catherine smirked, “and so does Suki.”

Suki leered lustfully at Mrs. Roman, blushed at being caught in the act, and mocked my attire with her eyes. She seemed more comfortable in her nudity than I did in Mrs. Roman’s gown. Her animation made me focus on her beauty mark to make sure it was Suki.

Inspired, I suggested, “Maybe Suki is the banker you’re looking for.”

Catherine looked pensive, considering my suggestion and pondering why I offered it. “Perhaps that was my plan.” Her tone of voice, facial expression, and deliberate enunciation made me think she was testing me: How would I react to the idea of her keeping Martin?

“Martin can still be your wife,” I suggested, stepping into a trap.

Her mouth turned down in anger. Her eyes narrowed. Her wrath awed me. “Are you saying,” she began in measured tones, “that I don’t need you?”

And so she nailed me. If she said I was expendable, I was free. But she forced me to decide and take the responsibility. “I want to stay,” I said, “but you don’t need me.”

“You can’t take it,” she chided. “And I thought you were a man!”

“Is that why you made me wear your clothes?”

Wrong comment.

“You’ll regret that.” Her expression chilled me. “Martin will return your clothes and drive you to your house. Suki, let’s retire to my study to plan the future for Savings and Trust Bank.”

“Yes, Mrs. Roman.” Exiting, Suki turned and smirked at me, oblivious to her role as Catherine the Great’s pawn. Even so, the expanse of Suki’s hips looked as welcome as an aircraft carrier to my exhausted jet.

Half an hour later, Martin and I were in the Cadillac SUV, heading to my house. “Thanks for putting in the good word for me,” he said. He slipped on sunglasses to shield his eyes from brilliant sunshine. “Being under Mrs. Roman’s thumb is tough. But Honey Bates is worse.”

“Honey Bates? Did you make that up?” Sunshine, rising temperatures, and snow dropping from the trees along the highway briefly lifted my spirits above my physical pain.

“That’s her name,” Martin frowned. “Honey is the New York City mistress I mentioned. People say she killed a man. Rennfield Clark. Happened after a New Year’s Eve party at Mortimer Wankle’s mansion.”

“Yeah, Clark was one of our biggest depositors—payrolls, retirement plans, you name it. Owned a chain of department stores. The paper said somebody beat him, S&M style, and he OD’d on heroin.”

“The case is still under investigation, but Honey will buy her way out of this mess.” He wheeled the SUV through the next intersection, heading into the last leg of my journey home.

I turned to inspect my clothes on the back seat. “Looks great. How’d you find a dry cleaner that was open?”

“Mrs. Roman bought her own equipment. She doesn’t want soiled clothes to get in the wrong hands. Sometimes that happens,” he winked.

I declined comment on his reference to a certain blue dress.

He turned to me again. “You’re lucky Mrs. Roman is letting you go. She really gets pissed when somebody crosses her.”

“I didn’t cross her. She’s got Suki to run her bank and you to run her house.”

“You don’t get it.” Impatience crept into his voice. “Mrs. Roman really gets off on dressing you up like a girl and abusing you. Why? Who knows? It’s not like she’s interested in other women.”

“What was Suki? Chopped liver?”

“She used Suki to get to you. To prove everything you have belongs to her—your money, your pride, your girlfriend—just to rub your nose in it. Mrs. Roman doesn’t care about Suki.”

“So you can be Mrs. Roman’s girl, just like before,” I said.

Doubts paraded across his face. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Is that your street up ahead?”

“The second one on the right.”

We fell silent until he eased into the cul-de-sac and pulled up in front of my house. When I opened the door to get out, Martin said, “Just a heads-up: Mrs. Roman always gets her way. I don’t know what she has in store for you, but stay on your toes.”

“Thanks for the warning. Good luck!” I closed the SUV door and headed into my house.

Feeling incredibly thirsty, I snatched a Perrier from the refrigerator and guzzled it. I took another one over to the phone.

Sifting through recorded messages, I felt shocked by one: “Grey Templeton here. Call me at home immediately.”

What does my boss want now? I wondered. I dialed his number. “Frank Prince,” I said.

“Enjoy your little fling with Catherine Roman?”

“What fling?”

“Suki Swisher said you went to beg Mrs. Roman for a job. How humiliating! A woman!”

“You think it’s better to suck up to a man?”

He ignored my question. “The stockholders approved our merger with Leviathan. Did you see the writing on the wall?”

“I visited Mrs. Roman, but we didn’t discuss banking.”

“I’ll say! Mrs. Roman says you made an ass of yourself. She has it on video!”

“What if she’s bluffing? Have you seen a video?”

“I don’t have to. Even rumors can destroy Federal National’s integrity. You have to keep your skirts clean.” He stopped and cleared his throat. Then I realized he knew what was on the video. He amended his remark: “I mean you have to remain above reproach.”

“Call me irreproachable. Wasn’t that a song?”

Templeton was determined to ask all the questions. “What about your appointments yesterday? Two key clients. They said you stood them up.”

“They both canceled.” I couldn’t believe there was any doubt.

“They said you called them back to reschedule for later in the day.”

“Not me. I didn’t call anybody but you yesterday.”

“Oh, that’s right. They said your administrative assistant called them. Don’t quibble. You or your representative—either way, you destroyed our bank’s credibility.”

“Linda’s my administrative assistant. I haven’t spoken to her since Thursday. Ask her.”

“I did. She said you e-mailed her at her home to set up the appointments again.”

I cursed silently. Trapped in a double bind. Once during a work marathon, Suki enticed me into giving her my computer password: grounds for immediate dismissal. Now I’d be fired anyway. Suki probably went to the office on Friday, keyed in “fortpitt” to enter my computer, and e-mailed Linda at home. The e-mail address tricked Linda into thinking I sent the message. I blurted out, “Suki Swisher sent the e-mail, not me.”

“Don’t drag her into this, Frank. That is beneath you. I am immediately relieving you of your duties at Federal National Bank—soon to be Leviathan National Bank—and assigning them to Ms. Swisher. You can get on your knees and beg Ms. Swisher to hire you as her assistant. Ask for a Tuesday appointment. I’ll be out Monday, and I want to see you crawl. You sucked up to an older woman at another bank. Surely, you can grovel for our own Ms. Swisher. Who knows? Kiss her rump, and she may grant you half of your present salary.”

“Half?!”

“That’s the only way I can pay for Ms. Swisher’s raise. Of course, there are no guarantees. You may throw yourself on her mercy and find that she has no mercy! But if she rejects you, you may resign. Or, you can be a man about it. If you find that humbling yourself before a woman is unpalatable, you may resign. Either way, if I don’t receive your letter by the end of next week, for the record, you’ll be fired.”

“Hobson’s choice.” Templeton didn’t seem the type to like dominant women. Rumor was that he was only half-interested in women: a switch-hitter.

“Hobson?” Templeton echoed me. “Is he in another regional office?”

“Hobson’s choice means no choice at all,” I said. “Hobson must be a woman—usually Catherine, sometimes Suki. She makes her choice and doesn’t leave us any alternative.”

“Nonsense. Do you think Ms. Swisher is actually calling the shots here?”

So that was it. Templeton really wanted to get off by humiliating me. He thought that making me prostrate myself before a woman would be the ultimate degradation. Boy, did he have it backwards! “You’ll have my letter of resignation next week,” I said, depriving him of his anticipated sadistic peepshow and leaving him to wonder why I wouldn’t play. We exchanged goodbyes and hung up.

The phone rang again.

“Frank Prince.”

“Princess!” Mrs. Roman’s rich voice instantly aroused me. “Do you miss me?”

“With every throb of my head and every aching muscle.”

“How sweet. Do you miss your job?”

“My god!”

“Goddess,” she corrected me.

“How did you know? Grey Templeton just told me to quit or suck up to Suki Swisher.”

“I knew before he did. Even though we’re with rival banks, I convinced him to do what I said, or the big guy, Harrington Burnside, would be angry with him.”

“Pretty much what you told me. Is it true?”

“Of course not. But Grey refuses to listen to a woman unless he thinks the orders are coming from another man. And he gets off by having a woman under his supervision dominate a man who is his potential rival—in this case, having Suki boss you.”

Confirmation of what I thought, but—”Suki’s the one who really knifed me in the back.”

A throaty, voluptuous chuckle passed from her lips. “My kind of woman. If Suki hadn’t double-crossed you on the appointments, I would have told her to.”

“Why you—!” I took a deep breath, swallowed my pride, and asked, “Why?”

“To force your hand. I offered you Plan A and removed Plan B. Little did I know that Suki would have her choice of jobs: your old one at Federal National Bank, or the one I offered you at Savings and Trust Bank. Let’s say she takes your job at Federal National. After the merger, Leviathan will probably promote her to executive vice president and boot Templeton. She’s got two choices and you have none. The irony is enough to give me an orgasm.”

“Mrs. Roman,” I begged, “please give me another chance. You’re stronger than I thought. But I’ll take your physical beatings if that makes you happy.”

“You stupid, vain man! I kept asking if you had enough. Were you trying to be macho? Your lust for whippings is like a child’s craving for candy. And I intended to break your addiction. All you had to say was, ‘Enough.’”

“Enough, dear, wise Goddess. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“So, I’ve cured your taste for the whip. That’s a start. But I still have the whip hand, and I intend to punish you for choosing freedom. You’re on your own. I’ll leave you twisting in the wind until I decide if you should be reinstated under my heel.”

The click of the receiver at the other end of the line was barely audible.