This is bad, Chelsea thought. This is really bad. David hated it when she was late. And she was very late. And her cell-phone battery had died. And it had taken forever to find a taxi because it was pouring rain.

And it was their anniversary.

They had met exactly one year ago. June. Chelsea’s mouth quirked into something between a smile and a grimace as she remembered how it had happened.

It was because she’d been late. David had been shrugging into his coat just inside the doors of the very restaurant they were going to tonight and Chelsea, way overdue for a lunch meeting with a client, had barged in without looking and nearly knocked David off his feet with the door. He’d recovered his balance without falling but Chelsea had managed to give him a bloody nose.

She’d quickly enlisted the assistance of the maitre’d to fetch a cloth napkin filled with ice and had led David to a seat at the nearest available table. Chelsea’s client had chosen not to wait, apparently, which was for the best as Chelsea was able to spend the next hour or so with David. She had apologized over and over; had used the end of her napkin, moistened in her glass of water, to clean him up while he held the ice pack to the side of his nose, and ended up by offering to buy him dinner that night by way of compensation. Though by then they had both known it was more than that.

There had been a spark between them almost from the moment they had sat down together. After the initial fumbling with apologies and reassurances between them the conversation had begun to flow with an ease that surprised them both. And very soon something else – something less like a spark and more like an electrical charge – began to flow between them as well. It was something neither one of them would have dared to acknowledge, at least not out loud, so soon after they had just met, especially Chelsea. She was no prude, by any means, but for her sex was something that happened only after a suitable period of getting to know someone and building emotional trust and intimacy.

But sitting there at the table with David, telling him some innocuous anecdote about the client she had been rushing to meet, Chelsea had become more and more aware of a sense of power radiating from him. Something in the frank way that he’d looked into her eyes seemed to brush aside all of her normal defenses and stir something at her very core that had never even been touched before. She’d felt the beginnings of moisture between her legs and suddenly began to stumble over her words, and then to blush, which caused her to stumble even more, sure that David had noticed and that somehow he knew the reason for it.

Whether he knew the reason or not, David had noticed Chelsea’s discomfort and had tactfully taken over the conversation, telling her more about his work as a lawyer specializing in environmental causes while she recovered. But she never did, really. Even though she managed, by a terrific effort of will, to bring herself under control and return her focus to the subject at hand, Chelsea had been unable to keep certain thoughts from circling at the edge of her awareness. Her imagination had refused to be reigned in and persisted in trying to draw her attention to a short film it was showing, over and over, of Chelsea smiling at David and saying, “Excuse me a moment,” then sliding off her chair …crawling under the table…seizing the tab of his zipper in her teeth…

She’d suddenly realized that David had asked her a question and torn her attention away from the film, trying to slam and lock the door to the projection booth behind her. For the rest of that first encounter with David she could hear that projector whirring away somewhere in the recesses of her imagination, but she’d gotten through it somehow. And before parting they had agreed to meet there again for dinner that Friday night.

She’d gotten nothing done at work that afternoon beyond an apologetic phone call to the client she’d missed at lunch. Well, she had done something: late in the afternoon, when she could stand it no more, she had quietly closed the door to her office, returned to her desk and for the first time in her life slid her hand under her skirt and masturbated at work.

She’d watched the film her imagination had created, now in glorious Technicolor and digital surround-sound, while she touched herself. She’d watched it again, this time sliding two fingers beneath the elastic at the crotch of her panties. It shocked and fascinated her, watching these images of herself, in her somewhat severe office clothing, down on all fours beneath a table in a public restaurant, her skirt riding up her thighs while she used her mouth to pleasure this man she barely knew.

But it was the Director’s Cut of the film that had caused Chelsea to lose all restraint – to raise her hips long enough to slide her panties down to her ankles and kick them off under her desk, then spread her legs as far apart as she could. She’d fingered herself to orgasm, her free hand over her mouth to cover her moans while watching David haul her fantasy-self out from under the table, throw her down on top of the table and take her right there in full view of everyone, while holding her wrists above her head.

Ohhhhhhhh….

Afterwards, when she had recovered somewhat, she had felt ashamed and more than a little disturbed by the fact that she’d been so aroused by playing such a submissive role in her fantasy. She had never been the type of woman who dreamed of being taken by force, or tied up or sexually dominated in any other way. And she’d had no idea why this chance encounter should have affected her in this manner but she was not at all comfortable with it.

That had been Wednesday. Several times between then and her scheduled date with David on Friday evening Chelsea had seriously considered calling him to cancel or at least postpone, more than once getting to the point of taking out her phone and starting to punch in his number. But each time she’d told herself that she was being ridiculous, that seeing him again would prove that his effect on her had just been the result of a passing mood.

And she had pointedly ignored the insistent whirring of the projector in the back of her mind while waiting for the hours to pass.

Still, when Friday night arrived she’d found herself growing more and more nervous. She agonized over what to wear, completely changing her outfit and hair several times, trying to find the right balance between safely attractive and blatantly sexy.