I tried to make my knock on the door as assertive as I could, but there was still that moment of hiatus between the rap and the intoned 'Enter' during which the stoutest heart can weaken. I opened the door a cautious crack and poked my head around.
'Sorry to bother you, Sir . . .'
'Not at all. Merry Christmas, Sophie.' He looked up and smiled – a rare event.
'Thank you, Sir. Merry Christmas. Have you been in all day?'
He shook his head and then just looked at me, expecting something . . . what?
'Are you going to come in?'
'Oh! Sorry!' Now was my moment. Best not to scupper it by gazing mooningly into his eyes. I slid into the room and made a slow, swaying approach to the desk of doom, keeping my eyes on his as I prowled. He did not so much as jerk a brow or twitch a corner of a lip. Was I having any effect on him at all? Suddenly the rubber seemed to be clamping down on more than my skin, pressing into my diaphragm, cutting off my air supply.
'I was just wondering, Sir,' I said, and my voice really was husky because I was struggling to breathe, 'if you could help me with my laces.'
He put his head on one side. 'Laces?' His hands were steepled; he looked calmly contemplative. This was not the effect I had striven for.
'Yes.' I stopped, one hand on a slippery hip, aiming for the killerest of silhouettes.
'At the back, I presume?'
'Yes. At the back.'
'I see. Over here then.' He lifted one forefinger and beckoned. Clever man. My all-time favourite come-hither. As if his crooking finger tugged me with an invisible thread, I hastened forward to the dangerous side of the desk, although hastening was difficult with my knees all but clamped together by the rubber hem of the dress.
He stood up, put one hand on a shoulder and gently steered me around so that my back was to him.
'This is a very interesting dress,' he said, his voice drifting down from behind me, his hand still large and warm on my shoulder. Intuition told me that his eyes were wandering down my outline and I imagined his gaze as a line of flame melting the rubber until it was ragged and blistered. His breath was close, catching a little. I could have tilted my head back and caught his nose and lips in my hair.
'It's one of my favourites,' I said hoarsely. What was that aftershave? I wanted to soak my bedding in it. I twisted my head to the side, willing him to take me up on the offer of the back of my neck. He did not.
His hand left my shoulder and joined the other one, tugging at my loose strings.
'How tight do you want it?'
'Usually, the tighter the better,' I said, 'but I'll trust your judgement. Whatever you think shows off my back best.'
'Tighter the better, eh?' he mused, jerking on the laces as if they were reins. 'You like the feeling of restraint?'
I smiled joyously; this was sounding a lot like flirtation.
'When it's done properly,' I replied, purring a little. 'By experienced hands.'
'I see,' was his disappointing rejoinder. He pulled the laces taut, tied the bow, then his fingers ran down the crisscrossing, checking it for symmetry. 'There. All tethered and tied.' My limbs did that turning to jelly thing. How I stopped myself grinding my shiny tight rubber bottom into his crotch I shall never know.
He stood there for a moment that seemed to drag on into the New Year, but was probably only half a minute, then he moved around to my side and offered me his elbow.
'They'll be waiting in the bar. Shall we?'
I almost felt like crying; I had been so sure that he was going to run his hands the length and breadth of my rubberclad body from behind. I smiled uncertainly, linked my arm with his and tottered out of the office.
The rest of the evening was a torment of unsatisfied longing. He gave both me and the mistletoe a wide berth after fobbing me off with a cocktail, leaving me to languish and fume at the bar. How dare he resist my rubber charms? Every other man in the room was eyeing me up, assessing his chances, sliding drinks down the bar to me, and yet the only one I wanted would not even look at me.
I was used to controlling men and their desires; I played them like voluptuous violins and discarded them when I tired of their attentions. Christopher Chase was not following the pattern; he was zigzagging all over my chequer-board. I suppose this made him a deviant, which might be some consolation in the long term, but for now his stubborn refusal to live up to his promising surname was the occasion of severe chagrin.
I sat on a high stool, beginning to loathe my rubber prison, which now felt hot in quite the wrong way, clinging sweatily to every crease. It was going to be murder to get the perishing thing off. Ha. Perishing. Rubber. I remembered my fantasy about a ray of fire from Chase's eyes burning the dress off me and ordered another drink.
'Cheer up, Soph, it's Christmas.'