Chains in Mind Page 6

  When Susan had the assembly adjusted to her satisfaction, she looped the reins loosely round the metal cross-piece just behind George’s buttocks, while she went to select a whip. She fancied something with a bit of bite to it, today. She chose one that had a slightly shorter stock, and longer lash, than the one she had used the day before. It took a little more skill to use, but gave a more satisfying crack when she got it right.

  She climbed into the cart seat, and took up the reins, putting the whip for the moment in the holster, a light tube set at a convenient angle to the right of her seat, for just that purpose.

  “Hup!” She flicked the reins, and George stood up obediently, his strapped forearms still ensuring that he bent forward from the hips, presenting his rump. She lifted her feet, and rested the backs of her boots in the leather stirrup loops: this automatically brought her stiletto heels against his backside. She pressed with her right foot, and George swung left, lining the cart up with the door. Control came naturally to her now. She equalised the pressure from her boots, setting the direction carefully.

  “Hup!” she called again, flicking the reins and pressing hard with both heels. George leapt forwards, and they were off. As soon as they were moving, she released her foot pressure, and steered using the reins round the tight curves of the path that led from the cart shed. The path was gravel, and George was barefoot, but he didn’t show any distress: he had been doing this for nine months now, and had built up hard calluses on the soles of his feet. They passed out of the trees, and joined a wider path: the one she had walked down to the shed, in fact; it led past the back of the house. Susan could use a little more speed: she jabbed George with her heels, and flicked the reins again. Now he was moving at what she thought of as a lope: eight or nine miles an hour: about three times walking pace. His breathing was audible, but deep and regular, well able to cope.

  They passed the back door. Yesterday, she had left him standing here for four hours, until it had occurred to her to put him away after dinner. They continued on, past the house, heading for the track that went round the perimeter of the grounds. Susan could feel George’s running rhythm, as his buttocks moved under the soles of her boots, and, on a whim, she started shoving against him in time with his movement, setting the rhythm for him, controlling his paces. The encouragement made them speed up a trifle, but before long she had to rein him hard back to make the turn. The perimeter track was beaten earth, firm and wide and smooth, and as soon as they were well on it, she demanded more speed. For the first time, she transferred the reins to her left hand and picked up the whip. She swung carefully, to avoid her own feet, and to contact George’s back to the right side of the reins. He jerked and squealed, and tried harder. She flicked the reins, and gave him another one. George did this every day, and was very fit: they were probably touching fifteen miles an hour at times - a four-minute-mile pace.

  Susan was grinning with exhilaration: she so much enjoyed this part of her day. John Sallis was coming later, and that was good too. So different now from the way things were when she first met John, which was also about the time when she first met Katherine. She mused on the way her life had gone since this time last year.

  Chapter Seven

  It had been about April last year, Susan thought, that Katherine had first noticed her. Susan had been taking a gap year between school and university, and instead of swanning off to South America or some such tame ‘adventure’, she had chosen to improve her C.V. with a solid stint as a trainee; and, simply by chance, she had chosen Sallis and Company.

  Susan had intelligence and drive and ambition, and the self-confidence to expect to impress in her new job, and she had not been disappointed by the impact she had made in the office. People had indeed been impressed with how quickly she picked things up, and how hard she worked. The big boss, Mr. Sallis, didn’t know who she was, though, and she hadn’t expected him to.

  She had been in a lift with him once. She had been coming back from a quick and solitary lunch at the local sandwich shop: lunching with other people, unless she specifically wanted to network or schmooze somebody, wasted too much time.

  She recognised him immediately. She knew what he would be seeing when he looked at her: a well-turned-out, very attractive, young girl, with a certain determination about her. She had seen a balding man of about fifty-five - about the same age as her father - his hair greying, wearing a good business suit, and gold-rimmed glasses. He kept checking his watch as the lift made several stops on the way to its ultimate destination: his office on the top floor.

  There was just the faintest air of nervousness about him: he didn’t have that sense of self-assurance, bordering on arrogance, that she would have expected from a man in his position. She hadn’t known what that meant at the time, or why it was so important to him not to be late returning to his desk.

  “Are you in our ‘Pre-Graduate Fast-Start’ scheme?” he had asked, pleasantly, and she had said:

  “Yes, sir. I’m Susan Denton.”

  He had nodded, and smiled.

  “Well, we’re always particularly pleased to welcome young ladies to the company. They tend to do particularly well.” That should have been an idle compliment, but it sounded almost like a promise. He wasn’t deferential, of course, but he seemed to be treating her with more respect than she would have thought appropriate: nothing specific that she could put her finger on.

  “Thank you sir. I hope so,” she had said, hoping that was an adequate response. Then it was her floor, and that was it.

  When she had really impressed though, and changed her life forever, was a few weeks later, and she hadn’t been aware of it at all. She had been working late, and her boyfriend was coming to pick her up and take her out to dinner. She had already found out from him what restaurant he’d picked and she’d phoned up and cancelled the reservation before making another at a different place. There was nothing wrong with his choice, really, but she liked to keep him off-balance by altering his decisions when she could. It was a habit of which she was only half conscious. She was planning to tell him of the change at the last possible moment, when it was far too late to do anything about it, and invent a reason for not liking his choice.

  She knew he would take it like a lamb: he’d been her boyfriend through their last year at school together. Although quite clever and competent himself, he hadn’t much self-confidence; he hadn’t been in the cool crowd, or a sports star. He thought he was pudgy and unattractive with ears that stuck out, even though that wasn’t really true; and, as a result, he believed that she was way, way, out of his league, and that he was immensely lucky to be going out with her. She encouraged that attitude - in fact, she had chosen him because of it - and she flirted with other boys just enough to keep him insecure.

  When he arrived, she was still hard at work. He stood near her desk in the open-plan office, not wanting to interrupt, while she ignored him. There was no one else about.

  At last she looked up from her computer screen.

  “Would you fetch me that stock accounts folder?” she asked tersely, waving her hand in the general direction. He moved quickly to help, but there were a dozen coloured folders on the shelf she had indicated. He looked at the titles on the covers: there was ‘Accnts - Stack 2” - which could have been a misspelling of ‘Stock’ - and there was a ‘Stock - Audit Report’, but no folder labelled ‘Stock Accounts’. He looked helpless, and had to interrupt her again.

  “Susan, which one is it?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Susan tutted. She got up and came over, and shouldered him aside, picking a purple folder that he hadn’t even considered, labelled ‘On-hand Merchandise.’

  She did this kind of thing a lot: it was mostly intentional, but it sometimes happened just by habit: she would give him a task which she had designed for him to fail then she would do it herself in a tenth of the time, leaving him feeling useless and
slow.

  After a couple more requests that had a similar result, she thought she had him softened up, eager to do anything at all to help that he could actually manage.

  “Well, can you at least get me a coffee? The kitchenette is over there.”

  “Oh, okay. But Susan, we’ve got a reservation at seven thirty.”

  “No, we haven’t: I changed it to eight, because I thought I might not be ready.”

  He just looked at her in surprise, his mouth open in an ‘O’.

  “Coffee?” she reminded him, sharply, and he jumped to obey.

  “Coffee is for staff only, so you can’t have any,” she called after him, on a whim. There was no such rule: she had just made it up, but she liked the idea of him standing there without, while she had coffee at her desk. When he returned with the cup for her, she took it without thanks. She opened a desk drawer, and took a biscuit out of a packet she kept there. She didn't really want it, but it gave her the opportunity not to offer him one. He stood, uncertain, obviously wanting to say something but too timid with her to raise an objection.

  That was the humble behaviour she wanted, and she gave him positive psychological reinforcement by smiling up at him with real warmth and fondness.

  “Good. I’ll be finished soon, darling.”

  She reached out and put her arm round him for a moment, moving her hand down to the outside of his thigh. As she withdrew she gave his firm buttocks a quick pat, firm enough to make an impression, but not hard enough to hurt her hand. She felt him relax. To him it was worth the trouble and awkwardness, to get these moments of easy familiarity and affection from a girl as stunning as her.

  That was all it took. There was a camera in the corner of the open-plan office, and Katherine had been watching. Impressed by the way Susan handled her boyfriend, she had reviewed her work record, and found that she was intelligent and capable. She had arranged a meeting and subtly sounded out her attitudes. When Katherine was as sure as she could be, she had invited Susan home, and slipped something in her drink to make her malleable, while nanomachines were injected in her neck.

  Katherine had apologised later, and explained that the nanomachines weren’t like those for males: they had very little effect, particularly for women who already thought the right way: they just made certain that Susan would never allow woolly-headed soft-heartedness towards males to get in the way of her amusement or convenience, and ensured that Susan would never betray the movement.

  It had proved possible to take her boyfriend as well. He had been intending to go on to university, just like Susan, but now both his parents were convinced - and could explain convincingly to anyone who wanted to know - that he was doing very well, building a life for himself in Indonesia, in a pleasant suburb just south of Jakarta: they never worried that they didn’t hear from him.

  In reality, though, he was right here in front of her. George had been flagging a little, not keeping up the punishing pace that she had set, and she whipped him hard, several times. He wailed adorably and redoubled his efforts. She wondered whether he still felt himself lucky to be her boyfriend. Actually, that was silly: of course he did: the nanomachines that had set up new patterns in his brain wouldn’t allow anything else. He worshipped her, and was perfectly willing and eager, though not necessarily relishing the experience, to be used in any way she wanted.

  Susan liked to alternate fast and slow driving: even a very fit male could not keep up the pace indefinitely, no matter how harshly she encouraged him; so she had to give him some slow trots to recover. They had made two complete circuits of the grounds, and were approaching the area around the front gate for the third time, when Susan looked at her watch and noticed it was coming up to ten o’clock.

  “Whoa!” she called and pulled back on the reins. George’s head came up high as he instinctively tried to take the pressure off the sharp bit at the corners of his mouth, but she simply took in more slack. He stopped quickly. There was a small gravelled parking area to the left, just inside the main gate, and Susan guided George into it at a walking pace. She pulled him to a halt, and, still keeping the reins tight, tied them round the metal cross-piece: he couldn’t lower his head.

  “Stay!” she ordered, and jumped down. She walked a few yards amongst the trees, stretching her legs while she waited for John Sallis. He knew who she was now, alright, she thought with a slight smile. In fact, he had spoken to her parents in person, going round to their house to explain how very, very, well she was doing in the company, and how foolish it would be to give it up to go to university right now. Anyway, if she still wanted to go later, the company would provide a long sabbatical and probably a scholarship. Mum and Dad were convinced; and it was true, inasmuch as the salary appropriate for a very senior manager was deposited in her bank account every month.

  She checked her watch again. John, she acknowledged to herself, was a very organised man and was hardly ever late for anything, and never for his mistress. Sure enough, she heard a car draw up outside the gate. She couldn’t hear the intercom conversation, but it was Thomas’s job to see to it. The gate buzzed and opened, and an elderly Volvo drove in and parked near the spot where George stood patiently waiting. The gate clanged shut again.

  John was alone, of course. He picked up his briefcase from the back seat and got out of the car. He looked pale and not very fit, although no worse than a typical top executive: he didn’t get the time or opportunity for much exercise. Seeing the cart, he would know she was nearby: he looked jumpy as he looked round, trying to spot her. He shifted from foot to foot.

  She let him stew for a minute, just enjoying the moment. The trees rustled in the breeze, and there were birds singing. It had already warmed up enough to be very pleasant standing in the dappled shade. She could see George shivering from time to time, the ample sweat evaporating off his naked body. She noticed it in a detached frame of mind, feeling neither vindictive towards him, nor any sympathy for his discomfort; he belonged to her: she could do what she liked with him.

  Eventually she stepped into the open and strolled up. She was carrying the cartwhip, the long lash collected up in her hand, so that it didn’t trail in the undergrowth. John fell to his knees immediately, the trousers of his business suit picking up dust from the dry gravel of the car park.

  “Good morning, John,” she said, mildly, her smile suggesting a cat playing with a mouse. She touched his cheek with the stock of the whip, pressing lightly.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” he answered, keeping his eyes on the ground.

  “How’s business?” She moved the stock round to under his chin, forcing his head up to face her.

  She could see that he didn’t know how to answer: that he doubted she really wanted to know, but an uninformative reply could be taken as a snub, with dire consequences. Actually it was true: it had been an idle question, but now she was interested how he would handle it.

  “Revenues last month were up about three per cent on the same time last year, ma’am,” he said. A short answer but not a brush-off. Clever man.

  “Mmm.” She let it go. “Well, we’d better get you up to the house. Come.”

  She tapped him on the upper arm with the stock of her whip, and indicated with a jerk of her head that he was to take up position standing beside the cart, forward of her seat. He obeyed, holding the briefcase in both hands now: he knew what was coming. Susan remounted the cart and took the reins.

  “Keep position,” she told him, and set off.

  Very soon, John was crimson in the face from the exertion, his breath rasping, but in fact Susan was being careful, reining George back hard: Katherine would go off the deep end if she gave John a heart attack. No need to let him be complacent, though: she gave him another lash on his back, with her whip, and he jumped and squealed very gratifyingly.

  As with James on the previous day, she brought him round to the
back door, and then dismounted and led him down to the service part of the house. This time, however, she passed by the shower room, and turned left down the main service corridor until they came to the store room. The dim space was so stacked with chairs and tables and other furniture not currently in use that it was difficult to traverse without climbing over stuff; a glass cabinet against the wall contained rarely-used silverware: huge platters and dishes and cake stands and candelabra gleamed in the dim light. In the far corner, beneath a high and cobwebbed window, a small space had been cleared, and a desk set up with a computer on it. James and Hubert were already sitting in front of it, their faces illuminated by the light from the screen. Hubert jumped to his feet and bowed his head as Susan entered, his hands at his sides, and James, half a second behind, followed his example.

  “Hubert, do we need you any more?” Susan asked.

  “Uh, I don’t think so, ma’am.” He gestured at the computer. “We’ve got the terminal connected, and beyond that, James really knows more about it than me.”

  “Then you’re dismissed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hubert bowed his head again. He made to leave, but Susan was standing in the way. Rather than brush against her, or just come closer to her than she might want, he took a more difficult route without hesitation, clambering over a bench and a stool to reach the door. She watched him go. It did not even occur to her that she might have moved for him.

  Susan yawned. “Well, James, John, I’m just sitting in, so just get on with it and ignore me.” She already had some idea what they were there for, but she didn’t want to betray her own ignorance by saying more. They turned to each other, and Susan frowned in irritation. “After you get me a chair.”

  “Oh.” James would have offered her the one he had just been using, but she had said ‘get’: she didn’t want one that a male had just been sitting on. He took the most comfortable one he could see from the dozens piled around him, and brushed off the dust with his sleeve. Susan deigned to sit, positioning herself a few feet back from the two males in front of the terminal, and to one side. She crossed her legs, swinging her free foot idly. John was still catching his breath after his forced run; he sat down heavily in the seat Hubert had just vacated, got out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his face. James sat waiting quietly until the older man had recovered sufficiently to talk.