The service agreement

I straighten my tie in the mirror of the executive washroom, making sure every element of my appearance is impeccable before the board meeting. As Chief Financial Officer of Meridian Technologies, appearance matters almost as much as performance. And I excel at both.

The watch on my wrist – an expensive timepiece befitting my position – conceals a thin leather band. A reminder of who I really am when the power suits come off.

A notification appears on my phone. From Dominic.

7 PM tonight. You'll serve dinner. Formal protocol.

My pulse quickens as I type back: Yes, Madam.

Few would believe that Alexander Walsh, the ruthless CFO known for dismantling companies and rebuilding them with brutal efficiency, spends his evenings serving at the feet of the sharp-tongued gallery owner who lives in the penthouse across town.

The irony isn't lost on me. All day, I command. I decide the financial fate of thousands of employees with a single decision. I am feared, respected, sometimes hated. And I excel at it – the power, the responsibility, the control.

Yet something in me has always needed the balance that only Dominic provides – those precious hours where all decisions are taken from me, where my only responsibility is perfect obedience.

The board meeting proceeds as expected. I deliver projections with confidence, field questions with authority. No one sees how I occasionally touch my wrist, feeling the band beneath my watch, grounding myself in the knowledge of what comes after.

At 6:30, I leave the office. My assistant assumes I'm heading to another high-powered dinner, another negotiation. Instead, I drive to Dominic's building, using the private entrance we've arranged to maintain discretion.

Inside her penthouse, the transformation begins. Suit carefully hung away. Collar accepted. Protocols engaged.

"You're two minutes early," she notes, her tone neutral but her eyes sharp.

"Forgive me, Madam."

"Wait in position."

I kneel in the designated spot, back straight, eyes down, as she finishes a business call. Even in this pose of submission, my mind remains that of a CFO – calculating, analyzing, appreciating her strategy as she negotiates a deal for a new artist her gallery is representing.

When she finishes, she circles me slowly in her elegant suit, so similar to those worn in my boardroom yet carrying such different significance here.

"Tonight is about precision," she informs me. "Every movement, every response, must be perfect. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Madam."

What follows is a beautiful ballet of power. I serve her dinner with the same attention to detail I give to multi-million dollar contracts. When I falter – a fork placed a millimeter out of alignment – consequences follow, administered with the same dispassionate efficiency I use when cutting underperforming divisions.

Later, she binds me in an intricate pattern of rope – a physical manifestation of the constraints I crave after a day of endless choices. Each knot is precise, technical, beautiful in its functionality.

"What does this give you?" she asks as she works, genuinely curious about my psychology.

"Balance," I reply honestly. "Counterweight to who I have to be every day."

She nods. Dominic understands power better than most. In her gallery, she controls which artists are seen, which are ignored. She makes or breaks careers with her selections. She comprehends the burden of such influence.

"Sometimes," she says, testing the tension in her ropes, "the most powerful act is choosing to give up power to someone worthy of holding it."

In this moment of complete vulnerability, I feel a security that eludes me in my corner office. Here, paradoxically, I am safe in ways I never am when surrounded by executive protection.

Dawn finds us at her breakfast table, relationships reset to their public configuration – two professionals discussing the art market and corporate finance with mutual respect.

As I prepare to leave, she adjusts my tie – a gesture that carries echoes of the night's dynamic while transitioning me back to the world where I command.

"Carry this with you today," she says simply.

And I do. Into meetings where millions hang in the balance, I bring the centered calm that comes from these hours of perfect service, of chosen submission. It makes me more measured, more deliberate in wielding the power entrusted to me.

Perhaps that's the greatest irony – that to be better at commanding, I need these intervals of surrendering. That the ruthless CFO is made more effective by the humble servant I become in Dominic's carefully orchestrated care.