Chapter 82: Sandi Rewarded
The next afternoon the final slide of Sandi's follow-up presentation clicked off, plunging the conference room into a sudden, ringing silence It was now up to Francois and the eight directors arrayed before her to decide on the acquisition. Sandi kept her hands flat on the cool tabletop, grounding herself against the residual hum vibrating deep in her core. The eight executives, a wall of navy suits and assessing eyes, remained still for a moment. Then Didier, the head of mergers, a man with silver hair and a blade of a nose, gave a single, slow nod.
“Thorough,” he said. “Your risk assessment on the Belgian transport unions is particularly sharp. We’ll circulate notes.”
Francois, the CEO, nodded his approval... It was dismissal. They filed out, the air stirring with the scent of expensive aftershave and dry-erase marker. Sandi didn’t move. She waited, listening to the retreating footsteps, feeling the relentless, teasing pulse of the Sheath. Setting three. A promise that went nowhere.
François closed the door behind the last man. The click of the latch was obscenely loud. He walked toward her. He stopped in front of her. His scent—bergamot, starch, and something metallic—enveloped her.
“You performed beautifully,” he murmured, his voice a low brush against her ear. His hand slipped beneath the hem of her grey skirt. His fingers, cool and dry, journeyed up the inside of her stockinged thigh until they met the warm, damp boundary of the Sheath. He pressed the pad of his index finger firmly against the enclosing fabric, right over her swollen clit.
“A flawless, rational presentation,” he said. “But though, once again, you didn't take your jacket off, your body told a different story. I could see the pulse in your throat. I could smell your need from across the room.”
She trembled, a full-body shudder that started where his finger pressed and radiated outwards.
“It’s… relentless,” she breathed.
“I know, but you're doing well,” he told her in a consoling tone.
He withdrew his hand, took her elbow, and guided her from the room. Their walk to his corner office was a study in surreal contrast. They passed junior analysts clutching binders, a cleaner polishing a door handle, the normal world operating on its bland surface level. Meanwhile, beneath her tailored suit, she was a live wire of denied sensation, his hand on her arm the only thing tethering her to civility.
His office was empty, the winter sun throwing long, dramatic shadows. He locked the door, then turned and simply looked at her.
“Undress... On the sofa.... Now.”
She undressed, eagerly, down to the Sheath, her stockings, and her heels, and stood before him, hoping. He produced the small silver key, and with a clinical snick, released the side lock. The sound made her flinch. He pulled down the zip. The release of pressure on her overheated skin was almost painful. He eased the garment down her body and she kicked it aside. The cool office air whispered over her wet, bare flesh.. Then he moved her to the sofa, where she languidly lay back on the cool, buttery leather. He lifted one of her legs over the armrest, the resulting position making her feel totally exposed. However, he simply knelt between her legs and stared at her openness.
He didn’t tease. He hooked two fingers inside her, curling them, and extracted the thick, glistening length of the dildo. It came out with a soft, wet sound. A pathetic little cry escaped her. The emptiness was vast, a yawning chasm begging to be filled.
However, all he did was sit back on his heels and stare at her.
“You can't possibly know how wonderful this is for me,” whispered Francois.
Sandi smiled at him, pleased that he thought so, relieved that her abandonment of all caution met with his approval, and flushing with reward – because her total, guileless, offering of herself was producing a reverent awe within him.
“There's no jockeying of egos,” said Francois. “No vying for advantage... No manipulation or manoeuvring... You're simply here... And all you want is my cock... And all you want me to do with it is fuck you... Isn't it...”
She smiled shyly at him as she nodded, admitting it, and then she bit her bottom lip as if embarrassed.
“I've never even felt like this with Caleb,” she said.
“Like what?” asked Francois, warming to the conversation as it was adding an extra dimension to his intended, purely physical, interaction with her. It tempted him into easing her knees even wider apart – and it seemed to draw her in even further.
“Even with Caleb I'd be wondering if I was going too far,” she said, gesturing to her body, and the posture she was casually maintaining.
“Too far?” he queried.
“The frustration you've put me through has made something snap inside me,” she said softly, starting to explain. “Unlike a seduction, which would have made me feel part of a whole, and coaxed me into surrendering myself... It's made me coalesce around my own wants and needs... So I'm no longer looking for an emotional foundation... Or a moral justification... I no longer care what you or even Caleb think of me, let alone anyone else... All I want you to do, Francois, is fuck me...”
He unzipped his trousers, freeing his cock. It was already hard, a thick, ruddy promise. He positioned himself, the head nudging against her slick entrance. He looked into her eyes, his own darkened with emotions that bordered on fury.
“This is your reward,” he said, his voice guttural. “You earned this fuck.”
He pushed into her with one long, devastating stroke, burying himself to the hilt. Sandi arched off the sofa, a choked scream tearing from her throat. He clamped his other hand over her mouth, the flat of his fingers pressing hard against her lips.
“Quiet,” he growled, beginning to move. “You scream for me, not for the entire floor.”
His pace was punishing, a brutal, piston-like rhythm that gave no quarter. Each thrust slammed his pubic bone against her clit, each withdrawal dragged exquisitely over her sensitized inner walls. The leather squeaked beneath her in time with his hips. His hand over her mouth tasted of salt and skin. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only feel the monumental friction erasing everything but the need he was finally, finally addressing.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She was babbling nonsense against his palm, pleas and obscenities melted into a single stream of raw submission. Her hips churned, meeting him thrust for thrust, her body demanding even more, deeper, harder. The coil, wound so tightly all afternoon was on the point of snapping – so he slowed and cruelly stopped – making her writhe in anger and almost total exasperation.
“I've got you exactly where I want you,” he said, calmly but firmly. “So your Caleb got it wrong... He had no idea how totally he was underestimating me... Whereas he wanted to strengthen his bond with you by giving you everything you want when it comes to sex... My goal has been to strengthen you... Make you... How did you put it? Coalesce around your need... So I give you the choice now... I'll fuck you either way, and I'll keep on fucking you no matter what your attitude, for the duration of your time here in Paris... But tell me... Do you want me to fuck you as his, Mrs Caleb Walker, or do you want me to fuck you as you? A woman who is no longer looking for an emotional foundation... Or a moral justification... A woman who no longer cares what I or even her husband thinks of her, let alone anyone else...”
He smiled at her as she took in all that he'd said.
“You don't even have to give me your answer now, Sandi,” he said. “You can think about it... Let me know in the morning...”
“All I want you to do right now, Francois, is fuck me...” sighed Sandi.
“Then you get on me,” he told her, slipping out of her and moving to sit on the sofa beside her.
“Can I?” she asked, meaning would her let her come.
He nodded and she scrambled onto his lap and inserted him into herself.
“That’s it,” he grunted, sweat beading on his temple. “Use my cock... Milk it. Show me how much you needed this.”
She immersed herself in it, luxuriating in the prospect of finally achieving release, and taking her time so she climbed only slowly towards it. However her orgasm detonated without warning, a silent, seismic convulsion that locked her body into a rigid arc. Her cunt clenched around him in rapid, fluttering spasms, a velvet vice gripping him perfectly. The sensation ripped a harsh groan from his chest. He fucked her through it, extending the waves of pleasure into agony, until with a final, deep drive, he pushed upwards, buried himself in her and came. She felt the hot, pumping surge of his release flooding her, a claiming so profound it felt biologically essential.
They stayed like that for long moments, joined, breathing in ragged unison. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He removed his hand from her mouth. She gasped for air, her body spent and trembling.
Without a word, he retrieved the dildo, slick with her arousal, and he pushed it back inside her, the re-stretching a shocking, full sensation. He then helped her back into the Sheath and zipped it closed over her thoroughly used flesh, the lock clicking shut with a dreadful finality. He tucked himself away, zipped his trousers up, and straightened his tie in one fluid motion.
“Back to work,” he said, his voice returning to its normal, even timbre. He walked to his desk, sat down, and opened a laptop, effectively dismissing her. Sandi shuffled off the sofa, her legs feeling like wet sand. She smoothed her skirt, her fingers fumbling on the wool, and slipped back into her suit jacket. The Sheath felt different now—sticky with his cum and hers, the internal fullness a trophy and a prison. She walked out on unsteady heels, the taste of his hand still on her lips.
She remembered she had a meeting. Three board members, efficient and serious, discussed market penetration strategies. Sandi sipped mineral water, her mind preternaturally clear. The animal need was temporarily sated, leaving a hyper-focused sharpness in its wake. She debated regulatory frameworks, her points incisive. All the while, she was intensely aware of the slow leak of François’s semen inside the Sheath, a warm, secret reminder.
Pierre drove her home just before seven. He didn’t speak. The silence in the car was thick, charged with the memory of the previous night. When he pulled up outside the apartment on Boulevard Exelmans, he finally turned. “Do you need assistance upstairs, Madame?”
His eyes in the rear-view mirror held a question that went beyond the professional. The ‘Madame’ was a formality, a thin veneer.
“Yes,” she said, her voice quiet. “I do.”
He escorted her up in the small elevator. Inside the apartment, it was dark and still. François was not back. Pierre stood in the foyer, uncertain.
“He’s not here,” Sandi said, dropping her purse on a console. Her fingers went to the side of the Sheath through her blouse. “And I can’t reach the lock. He has the key.”
Pierre’s jaw worked. He understood the implicit request, the violation it represented, and the undeniable pull of it. He stepped closer. “He will know.”
“Let him know,” she said, the challenge sparking in her hazel eyes. “I will take responsibility...”
Pierre found a paper-clip on François’s desk, straightened it with surprisingly deft fingers, while Sandi slipped out of her blouse and skirt. He guided her to the same armchair from the previous morning. He knelt beside her, his uniform trousers tight across his thighs. It took him a minute of focused fiddling, a soft click. He unzipped the garment.
The scent that wafted up—sex, sweat, and François’s distinct musk—was overpowering. Pierre closed his eyes for a second, inhaling. When he opened them, they were black with want. He moved to the front of her and helped her out of the Sheath. He parted her knees and slipped between them. He didn’t extract the dildo. Instead, he leant down and put his mouth on her.
His tongue was a revelation. It was not the calculated, performative cunnilingus of the night before. This was hungry, messy, and deep. He licked into her, tasting the mingled evidence of his employer’s possession, groaning as he did so. He fucked her with his tongue, then suckled her clit with a desperate, pulling pressure. Sandi gripped his hair, her hips lifting off the chair. She came quickly, violently, into his mouth, her cry echoing in the empty apartment.
As she gasped, he sat back on his heels, fumbling with his belt. His cock sprang out, thick and veined. He pulled the dildo out with his fingers and then slammed his cock into her, the wet sound obscene. He fucked her with a driven, possessive fury, each thrust a reclaiming.
“You’re mine here,” he panted, his breath hot on her neck. “In this chair, you’re my desperate little fuck. Tell me.”
“I’m yours,” she moaned, the words true in the moment. “Just fuck me, Pierre, please… When ever we can...”
He came with a shout, shuddering, his release mixing with what was already there. He stayed inside her, leaning heavily against her, for a long time. Finally, he softened, withdrew, and with trembling hands he helped her back into the Sheath, then he re-zipped and re-locked it.
They heard the key in the apartment door at the same time.
Pierre stepped back, swiftly tucking himself away, his face a mask of panic and defiance. François entered, hanging his coat. He took in the scene: Sandi in the armchair, legs apart, no skirt or blouse, in just the Sheath, her face flushed; Pierre, standing stiffly two meters away, his uniform dishevelled.
The silence stretched, tight enough to snap.
François’s expression didn’t change. He walked to the sideboard, poured a finger of cognac, and sipped it. He looked at Pierre. “You broke into my property.”
Pierre swallowed. “Yes, Monsieur.”
“And you fucked her.”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
François set the glass down. He approached Sandi, cupped her chin, tilted her face up. He studied her, his thumb stroking her lower lip. “Did you come for him?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He nodded, as if filing away a data point. He turned back to Pierre. There was no anger in his face, only a cold, calculating assessment. “Your initiative is noted. Your taste for my leavings is… interesting.” He paused. “From now on, you are on retainer. Your primary duty is her. Her transport, her security, her… satisfaction. You will be paid triple. You will also be available. Do you understand what that means?”
Pierre’s eyes widened slightly. He glanced at Sandi, then back at his employer. He saw not a trap, but a gateway. “I understand completely.”
“Good. Wait in the car. I’ll send her down in an hour. There’s a club in Pigalle. She needs to be seen.”
Pierre left without another word. The door closed softly.
François turned his full attention to Sandi. He unbuckled his belt. “He’s not wrong, you know,” he said conversationally, pushing his trousers down. His cock was already half-hard again. “You are a desperate little fuck. But you’re my desperate little fuck. And I need to remind you—and him—who you belong to. Get on your knees.”
She slid from the chair to the floor. The oak was hard against her knees. She took him into her mouth, the taste of her own arousal still on him. He gripped her hair, setting a slow, deep rhythm.
“This is the structure,” he said, looking down at her, his voice calm and instructional even as he fucked her throat. “You have your executive self for the day. You have him for service and rough relief. And you have me for ownership. This is your life now, Sandi. This is the adventure you wanted.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only suck, and obey, and feel the architecture of her new reality solidifying around her, as immutable and demanding as the black Sheath still locked firmly in place.
Afterwards, he led her to the bedroom, not to sleep, but to prepare.
He dressed her with a curator’s precision. From his wardrobe, he selected a dress she would never have chosen for herself: a slip of crushed black velvet, backless, with a hem that ended high on her thighs. It clung to every curve, the fabric whisper-thin. He zipped it up, his knuckles brushing her spine. “No underwear,” he said, a redundant instruction for she didn't want to wear any after the Sheath. He fastened a thin diamond choker around her throat. “A collar for a free woman,” he mused, catching her eye in the mirror. He produced a pair of sheer, black hold-up stockings, kneeling to roll them up her legs, his thumbs pressing into the muscle of her calves. Finally, he placed her in towering stilettos.
“You look expensive and desperate,” he appraised, stepping back. “Perfect for Pigalle.”
The drive was short. Pigalle unfolded outside the car window like a nocturnal organism, pulsing with a garish, visceral energy. The famous neon windmill of the Moulin Rouge cast a hellish red glow over throngs of tourists and prowling locals. Sex shops with garish displays of leather and latex stood adjacent to quaint bakeries now shuttered for the night. The air smelled of spilled beer, grease, and a faint, coppery scent of rain on cold pavement. It was a district built on a century of fantasy and transaction, where desire was stripped of pretence, packaged, and sold under coloured lights.
François guided her into a club called Le Fantôme. It was deceptively intimate, a basement space with blood-red walls and low, circular banquettes. The music was a throbbing, industrial beat. A few women danced in cages, their movements languid, bored. His hand settled possessively on the nape of her neck as they slid into a shadowy booth.
A bottle of champagne arrived without being ordered. He poured, his eyes never leaving hers.
“The question from my office,” he began, his voice cutting through the bass. “You don't have to, like I said, but are you minded to answer it now, here, formally. Caleb, me, or yourself? Who does this,” he gestured to her body, “belong to?”
Sandi took a sip of champagne. The bubbles felt sharp. For the first time all day, her mind felt crystalline, detached. The orgasms, the sweat, the submission—it had all burned away a layer of fear. What remained felt like a hard, glittering truth. “Me,” she said, and the word was a key turning in a long-locked door. “I choose me...”
François’s eyebrows lifted. A slow smile spread.
“Prove it. Call him. Now. Tell your husband you’ve chosen yourself. Not me. Not him. But yourself.”
He slid her phone across the table. The screen glared up at her. This was the dare, the final push off the cliff. She picked it up, her fingers steady. She found Caleb’s name and pressed call. It rang three times.
“Sandi?” His voice was warm, concerned. “Everything okay? It’s late there.”
“Everything’s more than okay, Caleb,” she said, her tone bright, convincing. “I’ve had a revelation.”
“Oh yes?” said Caleb, inviting her to elaborate. “What?”
“I’m choosing me,” she said, enigmatically.
A pause. “Choosing you… from what?”
“From everything. From old patterns. I’m claiming my own life, my own desires. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to be happy? No guilt... No shame...”
Another, longer silence. She could hear the hum of his end of the line, a quiet night home in Wimbledon and she was in Pigalle, Paris.
“Of course I want you to he happy... But what do you mean exactly?” he asked.
“The Sheath,” she said. “The frustration... The overwhelming need... It broke something within me...”
“What?” asked Caleb, knowing that he had to because his wife sounded dreamy and he knew that if he didn't keep her focussed her attention would wander from the phone to something, anything else.
“From that holiday onwards, a decade ago, when I strayed,” she said.
“Wait,” said Caleb. “Are you telling me it happened?”
“I don't know whether it did or not,” she said. “I fantasised about it so many times that I honestly don't know if it happened for real or not... But I'd like you to assume that it did...”
“Okay,” said Caleb, “sorry for interrupting... Go on...”
“Whether it happened or not it marked a change in me,” she said.
“What kind of change?” he asked when the line fell silent.
“Up until that point in my life... My mid to late twenties I guess... I'd been imagining that it was you I wanted when we got amorous... When in fact... I started realising that it was simply the sex that I needed... And that you were only a means to an end...”
“That's more or less what we tapped into on that Greek island holiday,” he said, to mitigate the enormity of what he felt she wanted to impart.
“It's gone a whole lot further now,” she said. “You underestimated Francois... You reprimanded him for not pandering to my needs... For being strict with me... And it's led to a change of outlook... I've developed a new attitude to things... Meaning men and sex... And I now want to present a new persona to the world... Not that of a married woman who is just part of a whole... But a single, independent entity who lives for her own goals... Who lives her life in the pursuit of them... Without distractions...”
“And what are the goals Sandi?” asked Caleb.
“I think you know,” she said.
“Yes...” he confirmed. “But for total clarity... So I know were I stand... Will you tell me what they are?”
“Of course, it's only fair,” she said, sounding more focussed. “I want complete freedom... To fuck whomever I want... Whenever I want... Wherever I happen to be...”
“Okay,” said Caleb.
“So to avoid hurting you... I think it might be best if I try to stay in Paris a little longer...” she said, staring at Francois to see how he reacted. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I'm only thinking of you Caleb.... Your dignity... Because I don't want to be bound by a loyalty that confines me...”
“Where does this leave our marriage Sandi?” he asked. “Our future?”
She closed her eyes, leaning back against the velvet booth. “I don’t want to think about the future right now. I just want to live in the present. Fully. For once. For ever.”
“If you don’t plan ahead, what are you living for? What are your hopes? Your dreams? Your goals?” he asked, his voice tightening, a note of dawning panic held ruthlessly in check.
She opened her eyes and looked directly at François, who was watching her with rapt, predatory fascination.
“Sex,” she said into the phone, the word clear and flat. “I just want to live for sex, Caleb.”
A silence opened up, one she didn't feel the need to fill, so she just waited
“What about the weekend?” he asked. “It's all arranged... The four of us booked to come and visit... Would you rather I didn't...”
“No, of course not,” she said. “But come as if you too just want to live in the present... So no talk of the future... And no mentioning of our past...”
“As if it never happened?” asked Caleb. “So like when we first met... When everything was unknown... And one wrong word, thought, or action could have killed it dead...”
“Exactly,” said Sandi. “Only now you can't win me... You can only have me in the moment...”
“Have as in fuck?” he dared ask her.
“That's how I now judge a man,” she whispered into the phone. “So yes... Have as in fuck...”
The line went so quiet she thought he’d hung up. Then, just a soft, broken exhale. “I… I need to process this, Sandi.”
“I know. Goodnight, Caleb.”
She ended the call and placed the phone back on the table. Her hand didn’t shake. A fantastic, buoyant lightness filled her chest. She had said it. She was free.
François was radiant. He reached across, took her face in his hands, and kissed her hard.
“Magnificent,” he breathed against her lips. “You have no idea what you’ve just begun. My dreams for you… they are limitless. You could be a phenomenon. Not a mistress, not a wife. A creature of pure appetite. You could be introduced to circles where your only currency is your willingness, your hunger. You could dine on decadence until you forget every other taste.”
His words painted a shimmering, dark utopia in her mind. It excited her terribly, a thrilling jolt that went straight to her core. She wanted the version of herself he was describing, the one who answered to no one, whose past was irrelevant.
“I want that,” she whispered, her hazel eyes blazing.
“Then show me,” he said, his gaze flicking to the small dance floor. “Show everyone. This is your first night of freedom. Celebrate it.”
He nodded toward Pierre, who stood like a sentinel near the entrance. François gave a slight signal. Pierre approached. “You escort her now,” François said, then he subtly melted back into the shadows of the booth, becoming an observer.
Pierre offered his arm. Sandi took it, the velvet of her dress slinking against her as she stood. He led her to the space near the cages. The music pounded. She began to move, not for an audience, but for the sensation. The dress caressed her skin. Her nakedness beneath it thrilling reminder of what she now was.
Then, she stopped thinking.
Her hands went to the sides of the dress. In one fluid motion, she pulled the thin straps down her arms. The velvet crumpled at her waist, baring her breasts to the humid, beer-scented air. A few people whistled. A tourist gawked. She didn’t care. She let the dress fall further, pooling around her hips, revealing everything above. She threw her head back, her auburn hair catching the light. She was exposing more than her body; she was exposing the raw, pulsating id of her new self, casting off morals with the fabric. Pierre stood close and picked up the dress when she let it fall to the floor and then kicked it aside, before dancing on in just her stockings and stilettos. He watched over her, a shield and a accomplice, his face an impassive mask that did nothing to hide the erection straining against his trousers.
François watched from the dark, a smile playing on his lips. It was done. She danced on oblivious to the varied reactions of those who watched her.
The return to the Exelmans apartment was silent. The adrenaline bled away, leaving a hollow, buzzing serenity. François entered first, disappearing into his study with a murmured, “See to her.”
Pierre closed the apartment door. The quiet was profound. Sandi leaned against it, the cool wood on her bare back. She looked at Pierre, this man who was now her retainer, her servant, her tool.
“Fuck me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “If you want to.”
She stood virtually naked in the grand foyer, the city’s lights bleeding through the windows, painting her in streaks of silver.
“Now?” she asked, the word both a command and a plea. “Fuck the freedom into me. Make me believe it.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. He turned her, bent her over and drove into her from behind with a force that made her cry out, her hands sliding across polished wood of the table. This was different. There was no audience, no dare. This was the raw, physical consequence. He pounded into her, his grunts animalistic in the quiet room. Each slam was a nail in the coffin of her old life. She met him thrust for thrust, taking him deeper, her moans escalating into screams that the elegant apartment absorbed.
She came in a violent, shuddering wave, but he didn’t stop. He kept going, chasing his own release, using her body as the vessel for this new, terrifying sacrament. When he finally came, he bit into the flesh of her shoulder to silence his roar.
She slid to the floor, a pool of limbs and sweat. Pierre collapsed beside her, breathing heavily. The emptiness inside her now was vast and echoing. She felt glorious. She felt annihilated.
From the doorway of his study, François watched them on the floor. He didn’t speak. He simply observed the aftermath of his creation. Sandi caught his eye and smiled, a radiant, triumphant smile. She had chosen herself. She was living in the present. The future was a shimmering, indistinct promise.
She did not see the calculation in his gaze, the cold ledger where her triumphs were his assets. She felt only the buoyant, soaring optimism of a woman who believes she has finally, after decades, found her purpose. The foreboding was a ghost in the room, invisible to her, present only in the quiet click of François’s study door as it finally closed, leaving her and Pierre in the dark, surrounded by the expensive, silent witnesses of a life she was systematically disassembling.