Chapter 22: Processing

6 November 2025

The scents of vanilla and jasmine from her diffuser usually lulled Ginny to sleep. Tonight, it was getting on her wick. She lay in her perfectly made bed, the crisp white duvet pulled up to her chin, staring at the muted glow of the London skyline through her window. Her posh flat, usually a sanctuary from the bank's frantic energy, felt too quiet, too still.

Something was wrong. Or rather, everything felt too right, and that was what was wrong.

All day, after Bob and that… Jenny woman had left, Virginia had felt a hum. It wasn't in her ears; it was in her bones. It had started subtly, a vague restlessness that followed that kiss. But by the time she'd made it through cleaning up after Bob’s sudden departure and the tedium of the afternoon meetings and updating Bob’s diary, the sensation had turned into a persistent and pleasurable vibration.

She'd tried to dismiss it. Stress, Ginny. You're working too hard. Too much coffee, maybe. And what the actual fuck was Bob thinking, rushing out like that? But the feeling wasn't anxiety. The closest comparison was that bloke she dated a couple of years ago, who got off on pushing her towards edging and denial. She was sinking into a hollow ache like being on the precipice of an orgasm that never quite broke. Her nipples were aching beneath her silk camisole.

"Am I sick?" she whispered to the empty room. She pressed a hand to her forehead. No fever. Her skin felt electric, alive. Her pulse was steady and strong. Who’s ever heard of being so sick that your cunt soaked?

She had never felt so turned on in her life. Not like this, anyway. This wasn't the messy, anticipatory arousal she felt last week when that handsome trader flirted with her at the pub, or the jolt of excitement from a new conquest. This was deeper, purer. It felt… purposeful. Like someone was playing her body like a sexual instrument.

Her usual thoughts, the chaotic, vibrant monologue that usually filled her head — the mental to-do list, the witty retorts, the bank gossip, the social calculations of who to flirt with and who to ignore — they were all gone. Or muted. It was like someone had turned down the volume on her brain.

The idea was a little bit terrifying. But at the same time, the silence was so peaceful.

She closed her eyes, trying to conjure a familiar thought. The abandoned meeting with Lord Haddington? That should have triggered a flurry of anxiety. But instead, at Jenny’s suggestion, she went to Caroline, girl-to-girl, and got the other woman to make the plausible excuse to Marcus, who was only too happy to swoop in.

Ginny’s mind tried to shift gears. Her plans for the weekend? A blur. That proper fit guy from the law firm who’d asked her out in the lift? He seemed hot in a meaningless fling sort of way, and sure, it made her cunt squeeze. But his face was missing from her mental images.

Do I just need to get shagged?

Even that thought did nothing to truly break the haze. It was hot, and then the heat was gone like the London fog.

But the singular craving was growing. The idea that Jenny had planted was taking root.

Bob. Do what Bob told me to do.

Take care of Bob.

Suddenly she was imagining her boss, sitting at his desk, his face set with the weight of an authority she had never truly acknowledged. This wasn’t the Bob she teased, the one whose buttons she loved to push. No. This was a different Bob. A powerful Bob. A Bob who snapped at her to cancel a meeting, or chastised her for being a naughty cock tease.

Virginia rolled onto her back, her breath coming in shallow, rhythmic hitches. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her mind back to the familiar — to the version of Bob she knew how to handle. She tried to imagine him flustered by her low-cut blouse, or the way his ears turned red when she leaned a little too close to whisper a schedule update. That was her game. The one where she had the power.

But the visions wouldn't hold.

When she tried to imagine being in control, her stomach twisted. She didn’t dare persist, for fear of being sick.

Instead, she let her thoughts drift back to the strong, confident version of Bob, and she was rewarded by that jagged electric shock in her gut.

This Bob wasn't flustered by her at all. He sat in his high-backed leather chair, but the desk was gone. He wasn't looking at a spreadsheet or a file either. He was looking at her.

His gaze didn't linger on her legs with the guilt of a middle-aged banker. He stared and he leered and he smiled. Fuck, that smile. She felt pinned to the floor just by his eyes.

The perspective changed, and she could see herself in her mental image. She wasn’t the perky, put-together PA. She was silent, demure, and clad in the sort of lingerie she was sure Bob would cream himself over.

This Ginny didn’t talk about Bob’s diary or meetings with entitled clients. She wasn't talking at all. She was just... waiting. Her head was bowed, her red curls spilling over her shoulders, and her entire existence was reduced to the space between his next breath and his next command.

Unconsciously, she slid her hand down her body, fingers brushing over the silk of her camisole before slipping beneath the waistband of her knickers. She gasped as her fingertips found her wetness, already slick with arousal. Her clit was throbbing, begging for attention, and she obliged, circling it with a slow, deliberate pressure.

She let herself sink into fantasy Bob once more. Not Bob the boss, the man who wore sensible ties and worried about tech volatility. This Bob was the hottest man in the world, his eyes dark with authority, his voice low and commanding. He was standing now, looming over her.

The image sent a jolt of electricity through her, her fingers moving faster, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She could almost feel his presence in the room, his dominance enveloping her like a cloak. Her hips rocked against her hand, seeking release from the relentless tension that had been building ever since that meeting.

"Please," she whispered into the darkness. Her fingers worked her clit with increasing urgency, her thoughts dissolving into a haze of sensation.

She was close, so close, her body taut with anticipation. And then, with a shuddering gasp… it was gone. Her orgasm-in-waiting was absolutely ruined, and she was left trembling and breathless.

"What the fuck?"

The words left her lips in a howl of frustration.

Ginny sat bolt upright, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She wiped a sudden sheen of sweat from her upper lip, her hand trembling.

"This is proper mental, Ginny. Get a grip," she hissed to the darkness. "He's your boss. He’s Bob from corporate lending. And why the fuckety fuck can’t I come?”

She tried to laugh, to find the irony in the thought, but the laughter died in her throat. Because even as she swore at herself, even as her rational mind recoiled in horror at the submissive fantasy, her body betrayed her. Even though she couldn’t climax, her heat had only intensified.

The thought of Bob — not as a man to be teased, but as a Master to be served — sent another wave of raw, liquid arousal through her that was so intense it made her toes curl.

“Well, this is a total cock-up,” she spat.

Her hopes of finding peace shattered, she looked at her phone on the bedside table, half-hoping for a mundane work email to anchor her back to reality.

“Can’t even get lucky with my mobile,” she said as she blew a lock of hair out of her face.

For a moment, without thinking, she turned on the camera as if to take a selfie. She saw the reflection of a woman she scarcely recognised. Lost. Drained. Frustrated. And so damn horny.

She blinked away tears. After she rubbed her damp eyes, she looked one more time at the reflection.

Her eyes, in the dim light, seemed to shimmer with an unfamiliar blue.