Free As She's Told by Anneke Jacob Page A

anyone since grade school. It was particularly embarrassing because ever since grade 51

    As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
    school, Procrastination had been my middle name. Last minute scrambling was how I operated; you could see it in my work. Sometimes I felt my main expertise was in the kinds of shortcuts and fudging that bad planning forces on you. I knew theoretically how to organize myself, but had never gotten around to putting that knowledge into practice. The interrogations continued at my desk, with me flushing painfully at every fault he exposed, and trying not to make excuses.
    At first, to my shame, I had moments of weak resentment. He was making me work a lot harder than I was used to. I caught myself thinking petulantly that I had made it through this far, and done okay, and if my work habits weren't exactly ideal, well, so what? Wallowing in guilt was my modus operandi, and didn't I work better under pressure? Then as his expectations and orders became more and more explicit, to my astonishment I began to be able to get things done without panic and without staying up half the night. The quality was a lot better, too. Before long I was having trouble imagining operating without his organizing hand to direct me.
    Feeble, unspoken resistance seeped away, leaving in its wake a surprised kind of gratitude, over an undercurrent of fear. On the surface, Anders was kind and very patient. He always told me when I did well. But there was a tone in his voice when I fell short: a firm, slightly Danish inflected reprimand with a hint of gravel in it, that made me shiver.
    The power relationship wasn't the only thing lurking beneath the surface. "Soft porn," Anders glinted as he touched the new little waist cincher he had laced up tight around me, just tight enough to make me pant.
    His big hand was around my leg, the new garter belt stretched against my thigh. He had casually forbidden pants and tights. I gathered that this wasn't an important enough rule to be laid down with any emphasis, although there was no doubt in my mind that he expected me to obey him. In his truck, or in the unlit spaces between the streetlights next to the bulk of dark vans, he slid his hand beneath my dress and made me moan. Then he put his fingers in my mouth and made me suck them like lollipops.
    The night we went to the folk club he wouldn't let me wear panties either. I shivered as the night air touched me, felt my pubic hair ruffle in an updraft, and climbed, painfully self-conscious, into his truck. My thighs opened to his nudging fingers and I whimpered, head back against the seat, feeling the pressure of the cincher around my ribs as I tried to breath. At 52

    As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
    each red light the fingers were back. My eyes stared at the red in the darkness, glowing red dominating my visual field as he took over below.
    He parked the truck and I sucked his fingers avidly, then followed him and his violin case into a warm, crowded room with a little stage and people tuning up. There were some curious looks directed my way; I shrank, wishing not to be noticed; it was the last thing I could handle, feeling naked as I did, my cunt swimming. Anders sat down by the stage with me and the first set started. Jigs, reels, hands and feet pounding. Someone sang a ballad, someone else a sly Irish ditty. Anders explained the different styles and I made links to the older music I knew, but after a while I got lost, and just let the bright music take me. Then he got up to play.
    He dominated the little stage, his big shoulders relaxed, the fiddle looking small in those big hands. Straight pale hair gleamed under the lights.
    Well-worn jeans on narrow hips, long thighs that I wanted between my own…. His bow moved and I raised my eyes to watch. I hadn't heard him play before, had no idea what he could do. Those long fingers moved with authority, subtlety, sweetness. The fiddle seemed not so much an object in his hands as an extension of