Good Pet

I see the shock and surprise play across his face, and continue, “I know your father obviously doesn’t care or have enough fashion sense to give you something that will look and make you feel like the successful, brilliant man you are, so I’m stepping up to help reflect that back to you. I’ll help you embody that, Tommy. I don’t know what your father has told you, and I don’t care to know, but I want you to know what you’re worth. I want you to know your value, Tommy. I’d like to be allowed to do just that. To spend some time with you, and create with you, a wardrobe that truly exemplifies and expresses the value and worth you bring to the company and to people’s lives, including your own.” Here, I see Tommy tearing up a bit, and I do the same. “It’s about time you looked after your needs and desires, honey. Parents, especially fathers to sons, they can be monsters at worst. At best they can be emotionally unavailable and too concerned with maintaining their own toxic masculinity to care for children the way we need caring for.” I reach over and hold his hand again, not feeling self-conscious this time. “Is that something you’d be interested in?” I pause, already feeling giddy and overwhelmed by what I’m about to ask him next. “Would you like to go shopping with me, Tommy?”

Tommy nods, looking like he’s having an out of body experience. Much the same way I’m beginning to feel, even with no verbal response from him.

“You would?”

Again, he nods, and again I see how in-heaven he’s looking now. How far away any bad memories with his boss are now. And I’m happy that I’m the one taking him away from all that and giving him something better and brighter to focus on.

“Then it’s a date,” I say softly, squeezing his hand. “We’ll go shopping next weekend, just you and I, and you’ll come back to work on that Monday looking every bit the successful, handsome man I know you to be, Tommy.”

Tommy nods. He wipes some tears away. “Thank you, Melissa. That’s so kind of you.” His adorable boyish face scrunches up under some tears, and they make his fuller cheeks look all cuter. “I would love to do something like that with you, but only if I get to pay for myself. You’ve already paid for enough for me.” He gestures to the desserts and the surrounding restaurant. “With this extravagant meal on such short notice, with the lunch from before…” He looks speechless at my kindness and at how ready and willing I am to shower it on him.

“Don’t worry about it, Tommy,” I say just as gently as before, “but if you would like to pay for your own wardrobe, I’m not going to say yes or no. I’m going to let you do as you like.” I stroke the top of his hand with my thumb, smiling. “You are my boss, after all.” Just by saying that, I’m feeling warm and tingly in many places.

Tommy collects himself. He finishes off the last little bit of the custard pudding he was working on and says, “I am. And I will do as I like, but I will make sure to get you something nice as well, Melissa. You’ve done so much for me. So much that’s out of your job description, it’s not good for it to go unrewarded.” Delicately, he wipes at his mouth. He curls the napkin around so it can touch both corners. “You don’t get to refuse that part of it,” he adds, seeing even the slightest bit of rebuttal from me. “If this is going to be a date, then it’s going to be on my terms too, not just yours.” Color comes to his cheeks around “date” and “my terms” and I swear I can see him fantasizing about putting me over a large wooden desk, and fucking me while I answer his phone calls, all without anybody knowing.

My cheeks go red and hot a second later. “Yes, sir,” I whisper, knowing that’s exactly what I would say if he had me over said desk, and ordered me to answer those phones, and take down notes while in such a position — with his cock in me, or his hands on my breasts, lightly squeezing them.

“Good.” He whips out his phone and asks me for my number. “If we’re going to do this, I need to reach you,” he says, getting out his “business as usual” tone. His commanding and matter-of-fact one. One I’ve heard before, and one I’m beginning to love more and more, now that Dennis has been taken out like the trash he is.

I gladly give him my number, asking in turn for his. With that settled, I then go about settling the check. It’s pricey, but that’s what I was expecting. I don’t allow Tommy to see the bill. Not good manners on a date or anywhere else. I stick my debit card in the billfold and hand it back to the waiter before Tommy can intervene. I apply the same tactics when the card and receipt come back, and I’m asked to sign and provide a tip for it. I do both tasks all without him ever seeing. And then, before he can even make a move to flip up the billfold left on the table, I drag him away from it. I pull him out of the restaurant and toward my car.