Saturday, October 4, 2014

BUSINESS REVERSAL by Downing Street

Like everything else in her new office, the chair was too small. It wasn’t even a proper office chair either, but a stenographer’s chair on wheels, a little thing fashioned in crimson plastic. The chair was deliberately set too low. It kept her hips lower than her knees, making it all the more difficult to retain modesty in her tiny stretch miniskirt.
The desk she was sitting behind was too small as well. It matched the chair in colour and size. There was no modesty board on the front, and so no chance to hide the delights that the chair and her skirt conspired to display. There wasn’t room for much on top, just her word processor, her purse, her pink telephone, and several framed pictures of kittens.
And the nameplate of course. She hated the nameplate more than anything else in this humiliating parody of a secretary’s station. The cramped, candy-coloured furnishings and feminine decorations were both symbols to remind her of her status in the company: the bottom of the totem pole, junior to absolutely everybody; the least important accessory; a mere decoration.
For a brief moment she struggled with the impossible task of convincing her miniskirt to cover the tops of her stockings. The effort was futile. Pantyhose was not permitted.
She pressed her legs together. She was very aware of how foolish and vulnerable she looked, sitting behind her little desk in her little chair with her curvaceous body so invitingly displayed. At times the humiliation and frustration of her job were almost enough to make her cry. Almost. If she did cry it would ruin her mascara and she would have to fix it again right away.
Couldn’t let the boss see her not looking her best.
Impulsively, she grabbed a compact out of her desk drawer. She checked her face and hair for the third time that hour. A petulant frown marred otherwise attractive features. Her make-up was elaborate and perfect.
She snapped the mirror closed and threw it back into the drawer. Her black thoughts turned to the man in the executive office behind her. That beast! That fowl, loathsome, inhuman lump of clay. How dare he treat her this way! How dare anyone! When she got out of this, she would make him pay. Very soon. As soon as she got her old job back.
Unfortunately, she had no idea how to go about doing that.
How could this have happened? How could her perfect life have turned so terribly wrong? A few months ago she had been a phenomenon, a rising tide in the business world, president and founder of one of the hottest software companies on the market. She had been feared by competitors and employees alike. She had been known for her cool demeanour, her aggressive style, her ruthless determination to succeed.
Sure, staff turnover had been a problem. She accepted that as a cost of doing business. She hired the best and the brightest and worked them hard. She paid them “probationary” salaries with a promise of rich rewards if they proved themselves. When they complained too much or had outlived their usefulness she sacked them and hired somebody else. She tolerated no insubordinance. There were plenty of other hackers out there looking for a real job.
Then one day Oscar Brightman, a nondescript designer of communications interfaces whom she had summarily sacked in the latest purge, walked into her office without an appointment. He had a laptop under one arm. She expected him to wail about being fired, but he didn’t. “Caitlin, I have something important to show you,” he said.
Shortly thereafter, her life had gone to hell.
To this day she could not remember what Brightman had shown her, no matter how hard she tried. All she knew was that when he left her office an hour or so later he had his job back. Caitlin felt strange. She went home early, just after seven o’clock.
He came back to her office a few days later, again saying he needed to “show her something”. He stayed for more than an hour. Caitlin had felt out of sorts for the rest of the day.
The secretary sighed, all the anger drained out of her as abruptly as it had come. She turned back to her word processor. Even that had been adapted to her new situation.
Her word processor was fire-engine red, with a built-in screen that displayed text in big gold letters. It looked like an electronic toy designed for a child. The keyboard was colour-coded in black, red and yellow. It wasn’t even a real computer; it would only run one program. The screen-saver depicted a frolicking kitten.
The new secretary returned to her typing. Her scarlet nails danced on the multicolored keyboard. Since she had started growing her fingernails long she had had to re-learn how to type. The trick was to let just the ends of the nails tap the keys. It slowed her down, and she made a lot of mistakes. The boss was not tolerant of mistakes. Her behind still stung from the last spanking.
She heard a giggle from down the hall. A young woman sauntered by, looking more festive than businesslike in a backless sundress and heels. She could have been on her way to a party but for the stack of computer papers in her hands. She grinned as she passed. “Hi Kitty-Kitty!” she greeted her, smirking. “How’s the typing going?” She laughed out loud and continued on her way.
Kitty-Kitty just glared helplessly. That was Annabel, a programmer, or rather a “software engineer” as she insisted on being called. Smug little bitch. She should have ditched her when she had the chance. She sighed. It was too late now.
She looked over at the frosted glass door to the inner office. The door used to have her name displayed on it, in prominent gold letters just below the word “President”. There was another name there now.
Her name was on the nameplate on the front of her desk. Oversized, so no-one could miss it. It bore her new name: Kitty-Kitty. She loathed that name. It was made to sound like someone was calling a kitten in for a nice plate of cream. It was the most frivolous, girlish, foolish name anybody in the office could think of. She knew that because there had been a contest.
Murray, that nerdy little squint who debugged applications, had been the contest winner. Kitty-Kitty had been the prize. She shuddered, remembering the weekend of servitude. Murray had smiled non-stop for three days afterward.
Was it just last year, barely six months ago, that she had summoned Murray into her office and he had quavered visibly while she reamed him out for some trivial offense? She had done that more or less regularly then. You had to ride these people hard if you expected them to do their best.
She never expected Murray could harbour such a grudge; nor that he could entertain such a variety of sexual appetites. For two days and three nights she barely had a chance to get dressed.
Kitty-Kitty was her name now. That was the name on her driver’s licence, on her overdrawn credit cards, and on the lease for the new apartment she had moved into. Few people could even say it with a straight face. The boss insisted that she change her name legally. What the boss insisted, like it or not, she always did.
The boss. The little twerp sitting in her office. She hated that man for what he had done to her. Just turning the tables, he called it. Giving her a taste of her own bad medicine. Well, she would have her revenge. As soon as she figured out the key to his little manipulation, she would be free again.
As she had many times before, she tried to fight back. She decided to begin resisting, right there and then. Instead, she took out her compact and checked her make-up again. She pouted in frustration. That happened every time.
After that initial visit, Brightman kept coming back to her office every few days. They discussed software development, as far as she could remember. He was eager to hook up this new local area network he had devised himself. He told her it would improve efficiency. He showed her demos.
Caitlin’s own efficiency began suffering about then. She wasn’t getting nearly as much done as usual. Her mind felt soft and unfocused. She had difficulty making decisions. She wondered if the pressure of the job was getting to her.
One day Brightman came into her office when she was poring over financial projections. He showed her another demo about progress on the new office network. It was impressive, she had to admit. She was glad then that she had decided not to fire him.
The discussion was technical and it left her feeling drained. She didn’t feel up to attacking the business plan again. Brightman suggested she take some time off. “Go ahead, cut out early for the afternoon,” he said. “You deserve a break. The office will get along for a few hours without you. Go do some shopping or something.”
She had just looked at him dully. She never took time off. She barely found time to pick up her drycleaning. Nevertheless, a short break from the office did sound appealing. Maybe a bit of fresh air would clear her head.
“Well, uhm... yes, that’s a good idea. Everybody has my cell phone number. Call me if anything comes up.”
“Of course,” Brightman said, grinning. He had this smarmy smile that bothered her.
For the first time in months, she left the office while it was still light outside. She went shopping. She bought a couple of things. It was relaxing.
Much the same thing happened a few days later. Brightman and a bunch of the tech guys had just installed the new office network. They were running diagnostic programs that interfered with her computer. They seemed very cheerful about it.
Caitlin was irritated. She told them bluntly to hurry it up: “I have a lot of work to do today. I need this machine working.”
“Look, Caitlin,” Brightman said patiently, “this set-up is probably going to take another couple of hours. We can’t get any benefit out of the network if it isn’t configured properly. Why don’t you just take a break for a while? Go see a movie or something. We’ll have the system in place by the time you get back.”
Caitlin realized later she should have told them to install the network after business hours, when it wouldn’t interfere with anybody. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to her at the time. But by then the second feature was starting and she couldn’t be bothered going back. Besides, her fingers were all buttery from the popcorn.
Brightman dropped by her office almost every day after that, tinkering with the network and offering advice on whatever issues were on Caitlin’s desk. She had to go a little lighter on dressing down the staff when Brightman was in the room.
Still, she was grateful to have him around. She was having unexpected difficulty keeping up with her work. She seemed to have lost her edge. She got confused easily. Brightman was willing to take some of the routine stuff and keep the clients off her back.
Besides, she needed him to help with that infernal network system. It kept locking her out at the most inconvenient times. Then it would refuse to let her back in. It seemed to work splendidly for everyone else.
When Caitlin’s frustration level rose too high, Brightman’s advice was always the same: relax; take a break; leave the office for a while. To her own surprise, Caitlin found herself doing so. She went shopping. She took in afternoon movies. She fed the pigeons in the park. She always felt better afterward.
One morning Caitlin arrived at work to find she had no telephone messages. “I was expecting several important calls while I was out yesterday,” she barked at Erin, her then secretary. “Why is there nothing on my voicemail?”
Her secretary, like the rest of the staff, was terrified of her. If this one lasted three months she would set a record. “Oh, uhm, I’m sorry,” the girl sputtered. “I forwarded them to Mr. Brightman. It was his idea. He’s in his office if you want to talk to him.”
Caitlin left the cowering girl and marched over to Brightman’s office. Brightman was sitting behind his desk, tinkering with the computer. He didn’t look up.
“Oscar!” she shouted. “What’s the matter with you! Erin tells me you took my client calls yesterday. Don’t you ever—”
“Caitlin,” the man interrupted her blandly, “I thought it was what you would want. You got several calls from our backers, looking for progress reports. You were out. I didn’t think it would look good to be unresponsive so I fielded the calls myself.”
She thought about that. It did seem like he had followed the most logical course. “Well, all right,” she conceded, “I suppose it is better to take the calls. But don’t you go—”
“You’re not following the office dress code,” Brightman commented, still studying the computer.
“What?”
“The office dress code. The code you drew up, Caitlin. No pants for female employees, remember?”
Caitlin was incensed. How dare he take such an attitude with her! And what was this dress code he was blathering about?
“Oscar have you lost your mind? There is no—”
He wheeled the monitor of his computer around to face her. It displayed a broadcast E-mail message. It was from her, to all employees. The message was detailed, and phrased the way she would have phrased it. The title was “New Office Dress Regulations.”
Caitlin was nonplussed. When had she sent that? Her E-mail file was password-protected, so it must have come from her. Now that she thought about it, the whole office had been dressing a lot more sharply lately.
“You’re not exactly setting an example for the staff. All the other girls have to wear skirts and heels, but not you. Doesn’t seem very fair.”
Caitlin looked down at herself. She was wearing a functional black pantsuit with a grey sweater, black oxfords. “Oscar, I—” she fumbled for words.
“Why don’t you just nip home and change,” the programmer suggested. “Before anybody notices.”
“Well, I don’t know—”
“Go ahead. We’ll cover for you while you’re gone.”
Caitlin got back in her BMW and went home. When she got back a bit later, wearing a black skirt and uncomfortable black heels, Brightman was sitting at her desk, talking on the telephone with a client. He didn’t pass the telephone over to her. She waited until he was finished.
“Looks like we can move forward on Phase II of that new interface project,” said Brightman, rising from her chair. “Hey, you look great. I’ll be in the tech lab if you need me.”
“Thank you,” Caitlin replied coldly, glaring at him. She sat down at her desk. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Ten minutes later the network locked her out and she had to call him back in again.
The chime of the little pink telephone on her desk brought Kitty-Kitty back to the present. “Hello, DeepValley Software,” she said into the receiver. “This is Mr. Brightman’s office. I’m—” she paused, swallowing—“Kitty-Kitty, Mr. Brightman’s secretary. How may I help you?”
She listened for a moment. The caller asked for her by her old name! She took a deep breath, gathering strength. This time she was going to break out. She was going to tell somebody what was going on. “I’m sorry,” she said in a contrite voice, “Ms Pushie is no longer with the company. You can speak to the new President, Mr. Brightman. He’s the firm’s owner now. But please... before you go... uhm... I...”
Something like panic gripped her. Her tongue refused to work. She gripped the telephone with white knuckles. “I’m... I mean, I....” She gestured helplessly with her free hand. “Please, I... I need to...” The caller had already rung off.
Kitty-Kitty replaced the handset, staring at it dejectedly. She wanted so desperately to tell somebody, anybody, about her plight, but she could never quite bring herself to say the words. The stage fright a six-year-old suffered at the Christmas pageant was nothing compared with the paralysing fear that gripped her when she tried to ask for help. Now that the moment was gone, she felt an odd sense of relief flush over her.
The memo presenting the office dress code was only the first of many directives that Caitlin didn’t remember writing. Over the next few weeks, she became increasingly concerned about the way her company was going. She was becoming less and less effective as president. Her attention span dwindled. Tasks that previously had been routine became serious challenges. She didn’t seem to intimidate the staff nearly as much as she had.
Between the bedeviled computer and her own befuddlement, Caitlin found herself depending on Brightman more and more. She tolerated his increasing condescension as he fixed her computer so it would work again for a little while. He covered for her during her frequent absences from the office.
Once, leaning over her shoulder to restart her computer yet again, he actually laughed at the way she was dressed. “What? What’s the matter?” she demanded. She was in a foul mood that morning.
“Oh nothing,” Brightman said, hiding a smirk. “I don’t know anything about fashion, but I thought skirts like that went down with the Titanic.”
Caitlin nearly snapped at him to mind his own business. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a narrow, ankle-length skirt that matched her black jacket. She had picked up the outfit just a few days earlier during a working-hours shopping trip. She had missed a weekly planning meeting.
“What are you saying?” she demanded. “This is brand new. It’s—”
“There, that’s got it,” Brightman interrupted, “I don’t know what you’re doing to keep screwing up your connection.”
He was implying the computer problems were her fault! “Now look here, Oscar—”
“You know what I think, Caitlin?” Brightman interrupted again, “I think you have been staring at computer screens for so long you have forgotten what the outside world looks like. Real women don’t wear clothes like that. Maybe you should talk to Erin. She can fill you in on the fashion trends for this millennium.”
“Erin! Why she’s just a—”
“Yes, I know, she’s a bit spacy. But she has a wonderful fashion sense, so everybody says. Maybe she could steer you toward some things that are a little less—” he shrugged—“embarrassing.”
He walked away. Caitlin sat there, stunned. She looked down at her expensive new suit. After a few moments she got up to go talk to Erin, her secretary. Erin was barely twenty years old and had a line of five piercings in her left ear. After she recovered from her initial shock, she was glad to give Caitlin some suggestions on fashions that were, like, so now.
When her computer crashed again, a few hours later, Caitlin went out to do some more shopping. She followed some of Erin’s suggestions. When she walked into the office the next morning in her stretchy minidress and platform heels, Brightman and the rest of the tech staff were very approving. Caitlin found their attention disconcertingly exciting.
Caitlin had thought that things couldn’t get any worse at the company, but somehow they did. One day when she was sitting in her office, trying to remember how to manipulate a simple spreadsheet, she found her thoughts drifting to sex. That was happening a lot lately.
She kept having these sexy daydreams. Unexpected images of rampant carnality kept flashing through her head, like trailers for a feature-length, X-rated movie in which she was the star. She imagined herself being pleasured by square-jawed young men with enormous peckers while she wailed and thrashed beneath them. She saw herself naked, stuffing her mouth with a hard cock while she eagerly fisted two others with delicate hands. She saw herself in lacy, racy underwear being rudely taken from behind across her own desk.
Caitlin gasped. She closed her eyes, trying to shake the lewd images from her brain. They became more vivid every day.
She wondered briefly if she was suffering from deprivation. She was far from asexual, but the pressures of a sixty-hour workweek and her own obsession with her company had left her little time for romance. Or was it just a reaction to the attention she was generating these days? Nervously, she tugged on the hem of her little indigo jumper. It was much shorter than anything Caitlin was accustomed to wearing. Erin thought it looked ace with the shiny dark stockings and short boots.
The shapely brunette took a deep breath and returned to her work. She had to figure out how to work this confounded spreadsheet. Cumfountain spreadsheet. Confucking spread me. Legs spread on the bedsheets. Come spread me on the sheets and fuck me. Oh fuck.
Caitlin sprang to her feet. She was breathing fast. She punched the intercom. “Erin, I’ll be out for... the next few minutes.”
“Sure thing, Caitlin.” Erin’s voice came back. Caitlin was too distraught to even notice her secretary had started addressing her by her first name. Wobbling a little on her elevating platform heels, she made her way down to the washroom, where she sought and found blessed relief with her fingers.
The arousal episodes repeated every day that week, and the next. Caitlin was finding it next to impossible to concentrate. At least twice a day she had to find solace in the washroom. The more she tried to concentrate on her work, the more the erotic images intruded.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the purpose of her washroom visits from Erin and the rest of the staff. Once, while two miniskirted programmers chatted and fussed with their hair a few feet away, Caitlin had to actually bite her hand to keep them from hearing her orgasm. Another time she had to abruptly leave an important meeting because the heat between her legs became unbearable. She shouldn’t have worn the pink knit crop top. It did such wonderful things for her pert pair that all the men kept staring at her. The top was Erin’s idea.
Nowadays, when Caitlin left the office early, it was as often as not to go to a nearby bar where she could calm herself with a few drinks and maybe pick up some hunk in a suit to put out her fire. She made a lot of young men very happy. They went to her apartment or his, whichever was closer.
Fortunately, Brightman was on hand to keep Caitlin’s company from falling apart. He didn’t know that much about running a business, but unlike Caitlin he wasn’t shy about getting help. Working groups and task forces sprang up without the president even knowing about them. The Investment Committee had met three times before Caitlin knew it existed.
The secretary was again snapped from her reverie by the warble of the telephone. This time she recognized the voice on the other end.
She switched lines. Erin, her former secretary whose salary was now triple hers, had disappeared into Brightman’s office almost an hour ago. She hadn’t come out. The blonde secretary wondered what she was interrupting. “Yes, Kitty-Kitty?” came Brightman’s voice. She heard a feminine giggle in the background.
“Mr. Moto is on line two,” Kitty-Kitty snarled, then slammed the phone down. It felt good to do that sometimes.
She hated Mr. Moto almost as much as she hated her new boss. He was known as an astute investor looking to put money into high-tech industries in her country. She had gone to him for venture capital last year, when he was visiting from Japan. It took months to set up. She had worked her staff relentlessly to make sure they had a prototype product to show him. She had to sack several designers when they couldn’t make the grade. In the end, after a full day touring the facilities, watching demonstrations and listening to her professional, multi-media presentation, Mr. Moto had smiled indulgently, looked her up and down like he was grading a piece of lean beef, and turned her down.
Everything changed when Brightman took over. Somehow he convinced Mr. Moto to fly back for a second look. He sent him a number of software demos. After a few hours of friendly conversation in Brightman’s office, the demanding financier had not only agreed to underwrite the firm, he had basically written Brightman a blank cheque.
Just to rub her nose in it, Brightman had ordered Kitty-Kitty to bring them tea. She could still remember her mortification as she wiggled about the office, carefully serving tea in silver cups while Mr. Moto’s eyes gobbled up every curve and valley of her superb figure.
She wasn’t even sure if Mr. Moto recognized her. She hadn’t been blonde the first time. The animal-print microdress she was wearing as a secretary was as far from the shapeless pantsuit of their first meeting as her white platform boots were from her previous black flats.
She hadn’t worn glasses before, either. Brightman insisted that she wear glasses. It was part of her sexy-secretary look. He made her throw away her old contacts. She had to buy new glasses constantly so the frames would match whatever she was wearing.
Caitlin’s life hit rock bottom on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. She had finally arrived at work, mincing and wincing in her super-heeled shoes, to find Brightman in her office, feet up on the desk, talking on the telephone to her biggest client as if he were an old friend.
This had become a common scene lately. Most mornings when Caitlin stumbled into the office, Brightman was already at her desk, finishing up whatever project she had abandoned the day before. He usually returned her telephone messages before she got there. More and more often, employees were reporting directly to Brightman, bypassing Caitlin altogether. They all seemed to accept him as their natural leader.
Caitlin was in a bad mood. She was very late for work. The previous afternoon, too confused and horny to get anything done, she had knocked off early, found a partner at the nearest pub, and spent the evening screwing like a mink. Waking up unaccountably still horny, she had impulsively ridden her new lover to two more wonderful orgasms before breakfast.
Caitlin was cross because the man had to leave while she was still in the mood for another round. The day had just begun but already her feet hurt. Her new shoes were too narrow and the extra-high heels forced her to virtually walk on her toes. The shoes were the same glistening red as her short, sleeveless slip-dress and the sassy underwear beneath it.
Ignoring the sly once-overs from all the men she encountered, Caitlin made careful, tiny steps to her office. She stopped at Erin’s desk, as she did every day now, for a brief assessment of her appearance. Her mid-thigh hemline was in keeping with the leggy fashions that had become popular in the office lately.
Caitlin didn’t like the idea of a trendy vapour-brain like Erin telling her how to dress. In fact, she suspected that the girl was deliberately choosing outfits that were uncomfortable and trashy, just to irritate her. But Brightman kept gently insisting that Erin had great fashion sense and she should listen to her.
So she always did.
Once Erin had given her approval, and irritated her further by casually suggesting that her new heels would be no problem once she got used to wearing “real” shoes, Caitlin stepped into her office. Brightman hardly looked up from his telephone call. When he did, it was only to blatantly check out Caitlin’s exposed thighs.
He waved her over to the side of the office, where a small table and chair had been set up. There was a laptop computer on the table. Caitlin saw that the laptop was connected to the in-office network that everyone in the place loved except her. Fuming, she sat down in the little chair. She tugged down her slinky red mini, checked her make-up, and waited for her employee to give her desk back.
He took his time. When he finally finished the telephone call, he didn’t bother telling the president what was discussed. He didn’t give her desk back, either. Instead, he calmly put his feet down and set to work like she wasn’t there.
Caitlin felt her anger growing. She tried to work at the little desk, but the effort was futile. The computer kept rejecting her commands. She was having trouble thinking. Worst of all, the unsatisfied sexual urges she had felt that morning hadn’t gone away. In fact, they were getting stronger.
She shifted uneasily in her seat. She felt hot. She kept reliving the best moments from the previous night in her mind: the inflamed kisses; the roaming hands; the greedy caresses of her naked curves; and best of all, the delightful way he filled her as she rode on top of him, hair flying, back arched, sweat-damp breasts out-thrusting, plunging down hungrily again and again and again until... Oh god!
Caitlin climbed to her feet, struggling to find her balance in the impossible shoes. She had to get to the washroom. She could feel her hard nipples pressing against her new lace bra.
Brightman looked up from his work. “Hey, Caitlin,” he said casually, “as long as your up, get me a fresh cup of coffee, won’t you.” He held out his empty cup. “Oh, and by the way, you look terrific in that dress.”
Something inside of her boiled over. She turned on him, furious. “Get out!” she screamed.
He dropped the cup. It thudded dully on the carpet. “Caitlin, what—”
“Get out!” she shouted again. “Get out of my office, get out of my company, get out of life! Now! And don’t come back!”
He stared at her, wordless.
Caitlin’s anger poured out like lava. “I’m not going to take this any more, do you hear me. Not from you, not from anybody. I’ve had it with you and your attitude and your horrid, useless fucked-up network and I won’t tolerate this abuse, especially from a two-bit loser like you. I am the president of this company! I started it, I built it, I put my whole damned life into it, and I am not going to stand here and let you screw me out of it or whatever it is that you’re trying to do!
“Why are you still sitting there? Are you deaf? This is my office and as of this moment you are sacked, gone, history, through. Pack up your things and get the hell out of my office before I call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing!” She glared at him, seething. She felt like stamping her foot but she was afraid she would fall over.
Brightman was clearly not expecting Caitlin’s outburst. “Uh, OK, OK, Caitlin, I’m gone,” he said, something of the old timidness in his voice, “but first, I think it’s uhm, really important that you take a look at this.” He was typing furiously on the computer as he spoke.
“Just get out,” Caitlin returned coldly. “I don’t want to see anything that you—” He finished typing and turned the screen around for her to see. He had been working with the local office network of course. There was something....
Caitlin couldn’t remember exactly what Brightman had shown her. When she looked up a few moments later, he was watching her keenly. “Come on, you have to get out,” she said, still angry. “I’m the president; this is my office. You get out. You’re fired.”
“I don’t think I should go, Caitlin,” Brightman returned. “You need me. You need my help to run the office.” He studied her warily, like a paperboy trying to sneak past a vicious dog.
“No! I don’t need your help. I don’t want it either! You have to get out! I’m the president. I can run my own company.” As she glared at him, pouting, Caitlin abruptly realized she sounded more like a petulant teenager throwing a tantrum than a competent adult.
He was still watching her, poker-faced. “Very well, Caitlin, if that’s what you want. First though, pick up that cup and get me a fresh cup of coffee.”
“What! I will not! You can’t make me do that. I’m the pres—”
“Pick up the cup Caitlin!”
The sleek brunette in the slinky red minidress glared back at him. “No! I won’t.” She folded her arms and lifted her chin, like a three-year-old trying to avoid bedtime.
Brightman looked at her, saying nothing. After a moment Caitlin found her resolve weakening. She looked down at the coffee cup, lying on the carpet where he had dropped it. “Ohhh, but I don’t want to do this,” she whined. “It’s not fair!” She bent over and scooped up the cup, still scowling.
“Add a little cream and lots of sugar. Don’t spill any.”
Caitlin was on the verge of tears. “All right,” she said quietly.
“When you come back, bring Erin in too. I need to talk to her.”
Wordlessly, Caitlin turned on her railway-spike heels and tottered out the door, cup in hand. Her face was flushed crimson with anger and shame.
Two minutes later she returned, bearing a cup of steaming coffee, with the bubbly secretary behind her. Erin was wearing a little blue minidress and trendy black sport shoes. She doesn’t have to wear heels at all, Caitlin thought sourly. She set the coffee cup on Brightman’s desk.
Erin was ecstatic. “It worked!” she cried, bouncing into the room. “I told you it would work. I told you told you told you!”
“It nearly didn’t,” Brightman replied.
“Ah come on, you worry too much. I told you to have faith in yourself, didn’t I? I knew you could do it.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Erin danced around the big desk and threw herself nimbly into Brightman’s lap. The couple kissed passionately, ignoring Caitlin standing helplessly a few feet away.
“You are such a genius,” Erin whispered, about thirty seconds later. She kissed him again. “So, what do we do now?”
Brightman looked up, considering. He idly stroked one of Erin’s black-stockinged legs. “Caitlin,” he said, “We are going to make a few changes around here.”
That had turned out to be a classic understatement.
A few minutes after Mr. Moto’s telephone call, Erin stepped out of the president’s office, looking contented as she straightened her clothes. She held the new position of executive assistant to the president. It paid very well. “Hey there, Kitty-Kitty,” she sang, condescension informing her voice. “Cute outfit you have on today.”
The former company president just glowered. She was wearing a tight pink sweater with a picture of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn embroidered on the front. Kitten motifs figured prominently in her new wardrobe. Even her underthings had little kittens on them. “Go away and leave me alone,” she growled. “Please.” Her voice was soft.
“Sure thing, Kitty-Kitty. But first, here’s some more typing for you. Oscar wants you to get on this right away.” She tossed a thick pile of papers on her desk.
The secretary groaned inwardly. The typing was endless. She spent hours at it, every day. In fact, her entire job description, besides answering the phones, fetching coffee, and providing eye candy for the office, consisted of typing.
Much of it was meaningless reports and statistics that Kitty-Kitty suspected Brightman could do himself, or even have done automatically by the computers. Yet he insisted that his secretary type it all instead. Brightman had even written the special word-processing program on Kitty-Kitty’s machine. It flashed random, abusive messages like “Learn to spell, airhead”, whenever Kitty-Kitty made too many mistakes.
Turning from the stack of papers, she watched Erin amble away, looking ready for a club in her shiny two-piece and stretch boots. She stopped to chat with a young programmer. They both laughed, glancing at Kitty-Kitty behind her little desk.
The other woman was wearing a fetchingly brief mauve suit with white stockings and low-heeled sandals. She was singing happily to herself as she strolled back to her cubicle. Brightman had fashioned a dramatic increase in employee loyalty and morale. The fact that he was paying everyone a decent salary might have helped.
Kitty-Kitty was only a few pages into the mountain of typing when the telephone warbled on her desk. “Pop in here for a moment, honey,” came Brightman’s voice.
The sexy blonde secretary grit her teeth. There was a ritual associated with “popping in” to the boss’s office. She swore once again that she wasn’t going to fuss like a schoolgirl on a first date every time Brightman called her in for more degradation. She decided to end that, right then. Maybe she could begin to fight back if she built up her resistance in small increments.
But just as she resolved not to check her make-up again, she discovered she was already doing it. She swore in frustration. At least she tried to, but the strongest words she could think of were “Oh, pooh!” She freshened up her lipstick a little and combed out her hair. She was letting it grow out, as the boss required. There were no dark roots showing.
She got to her feet and fussed with her clothing. Kitty-Kitty was a shapely woman, and the tight sweater and skirt set she wore made no secret of it. The little kitten on her sweater was distended by the press of her breasts. Standing up, there was some hope of her thigh-length skirt covering the tops of her stockings, though the dark bands flashed enticingly with every step. Her strappy black sandals had two-inch platforms and tall heels.
She marched into the inner office, trying to look forceful and intimidating despite her man-pleasing attire. She failed entirely. Brightman was sitting behind his desk (her desk, she reminded herself) with his feet up on the blotter. His laptop was open to some obscure program in machine language.
“Listen to me, you criminal,” Kitty-Kitty spat. “You can’t keep me under your thumb forever. I’m going to get out of this. Sooner or later. So go ahead and smile while you can, you degenerate pervert. When I get free you are going to regret the day you were born.”
Brightman smiled indulgently, his eyes appreciating her long legs and curvy figure. “Ah, such spirit, lassie,” he chortled. He folded his arms behind his head. “And here I thought you were just a fabulous pair of legs.”
“You animal! When I get free I’ll—”
“You’ll do what, my lovely little office plaything? Go to the police? You did that before, remember?”
Instantly her demeanour changed. All the wind went out of her sails. “I, I remember,” she said meekly.
“Of course you do. But tell me what happened, again. Just to refresh your memory.”
The last thing Kitty-Kitty wanted was to discuss that humiliation again. She knew Brightman was bringing it up deliberately to rub salt in the wound. But she had been given an order. She looked at the floor.
“I approached the officer at the front desk. I... oh god, I tried to tell him what you’ve done to me, how you took my company, and made me work for you, but...”
“Yes?”
“I... I offered him sex. Hot sex.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He was dumbfounded. He turned me down. He said he was married.”
“Naturally. How did you respond to that?”
“I tried to seduce him. I kept begging him to fuck me. I promised him any position, any perversion, the satisfaction of his most animal desires. I kept insisting. I tried to hold him, to kiss him, to fondle his genitals.”
“Good show, my lovely. And when he still turned you down?”
“I exposed myself. I bent way over so he could see my ass. Then I peeled my blouse off. I kept stripping right there in the police station... until...”
“Go on.”
“Until I was arrested.”
“Oh, how mortifying. They put you in a cell didn’t they, my little gumdrop. What did you do then?”
Kitty-Kitty was trembling. Her voice was barely audible. “I masturbated. Loudly. Repeatedly.”
“How long did you do that?”
A sob. “Until I was physically restrained.”
“Yes, I remember that. It’s a good thing for you I have some influence with the police department. I got you released into my custody instead of going for a psychological evaluation. I suppose it’s too much to expect a little gratitude.”
Her fury returned. “Gratitude! You sick pervert. You stole my company! You’ve brainwashed the entire staff! You’re forcing me to—”
“Whoa, hold on there, barbie-doll, nobody’s forced you to do anything. As I recall you sold this company to me fair and square We had the transaction notarized and witnessed by the bank. All very proper.”
“You made me sell it! I didn’t have a choice. And at a fraction of its true value! Then you made me lend you the money to pay for it!” She clenched her fists by her side in futile rage. Her skirt stopped at about the level of her wrists.
“A convenient arrangement for all concerned,” Brightman responded, “especially given the reduction in your salary. And none of the bankers voiced any objection.”
Kitty-Kitty shuddered as she recalled the meeting where she told her loan officer and other backers that she had decided to sell the company. Brightman arranged for her to arrive half an hour late in a Spandex floral minidress coupled with elaborately patterned stockings and orange platform slides. She wore big yellow earrings with smiley faces on them.
She told the astonished group around the table that she had driven herself so hard that she had burned out. The stress of the job was too much. She needed to get away from it all, into some less stressful line of work, before her mental health suffered further.
To make the argument more convincing, Brightman instructed her to down three quick, strong drinks instead of lunch. The men and women around the table, watching the formerly sensible businesswoman sway back and forth on her enormous heels while she slurred her way through the announcement, were quickly convinced that selling was a good idea.
“You, you got to the bankers too,” Kitty-Kitty moaned. “I can tell by the way they all agree with you all the time. By the way they look at me. Nobody blinked when you told them I would be staying on staff as a secretary now.”
Indeed, at that meeting nobody blinked because they were too busy staring. The upthrusting corset Kitty-Kitty had been wearing pressed her into a classic hourglass figure. It made the most of the full-moon orbs of her breasts, displayed quite distractingly by a deeply low-necked jersey.
“God, you even made me sell my house, my car.”
“More ingratitude. You could hardly afford either of them on a secretary’s salary, now could you? I was doing you a favour. You needed the money you promised to me to help pay for the company, and I needed some wheels and a better place to live. A one-bedroom apartment is much more suitable for someone in your financial situation. It won’t kill you to take the bus.”
“Why are you doing this?” Kitty-Kitty demanded. “You’ve ruined me. You’ve taken my company, my house, my job, my whole life. None of my friends can find me. You make me read teen magazines and chew bubblegum and spend all my money on flashy clothes. Why? What have I done to you?”
Anger began to seep back into her voice. “I’ll get it all back. I know I will. When I get free of you, and I will soon, you are going to pay for this for the rest of your miserable life, you bottom-feeding scum sucker!” Her voice rose with each syllable, until she was fairly shouting.
Brightman swung his feet of the desk. “You still don’t get it, do you,” he said, suddenly serious. “The way we’re treating you is no different than how you have treated people your whole life. Use them, abuse them, then toss them out with the rubbish. Never a thought for anyone else, only greed and rapacity and ambition and endless, arrogant ego. Well, that’s all changed now. You think you can get free of me? Maybe you can. But first, you are going to have to figure out how I’m doing it, aren’t you?”
He leaned back in his overstuffed chair, smiling again. “Think about it, sweetcheeks. You’ve been looking hot in that secretary’s chair for months now, trying to figure out what’s going on. Made any progress so far?”
Kitty-Kitty blushed. She knew what he was referring to. Every time she tried to get her mind around how he was controlling her—really stop and think about it logically—she was overcome with an irresistible urge to go play with herself. The dancing fingers in her pussy tended to make reasoning very difficult.
The shapely blonde toyed with the bottom of her straining sweater. “I’ll figure it out,” she declared.
“Will you?” He looked at her critically. “Maybe you should consider this. Perhaps my influence includes keeping the mechanism a secret. Maybe, if I can change the way you act, the way you dress, the way you talk, then maybe, just maybe, I can also change the way you think. Maybe I can prevent you from seeing how the trick is done—even when it’s right in front of you. Have you considered that, my little puff pastry?”
Kitty-Kitty’s delicately made-up eyes went wide behind her wire-rim glasses. “You’re not—you wouldn’t...”
He shrugged. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Just something for you to think about.
“But I didn’t call you in to discuss your petty complaints. Get me some fresh coffee. While your at it, don’t forget to take the coffee and snack orders for the rest of the staff. Then get busy on that typing. Stay late until you get it done.”
Kitty-Kitty set her jaw, determined to resist. “Yes sir, at once,” she said primly, turning to go. She knew Brightman’s eyes were on her receding figure. She wondered if her seams were straight.
“Oh, one more thing,” he called after her. “Wear one of your school-girl outfits tomorrow. I’m in the mood for plaid.”
“Of course, sir,” his shapely secretary replied, shuffling out the door.
Kitty-Kitty sat down in her little chair again, no longer caring that her hemline slipped up past the edge of her ass. She stared blankly at the word-processor on her desk. The animated kitten jumped and gambolled across the screen.
Was Brightman really doing something to keep her from figuring out how he controlled her? She was an intelligent, logical woman. Yet after several months as his obedient secretary she was not an inch closer to discovering the source of his power. She had come to accept her new position with a compliance that was completely out of character. Brightman allowed her to shout at him because he enjoyed her frustration. She was meek and polite with everyone else.
How did he do it? Was there something in the air? Subliminal messages in the musak? Drugs in her milk? (She wasn’t allowed to drink coffee.) She touched a key and the word processing program re-appeared, the cursor blinking patiently. Could it be the—
“Mmmmmm, noooo,” Kitty-Kitty moaned as a pleasant, familiar warmth flooded over her. She had been thinking about things too much. She gasped, almost shivering, and ran both hands down her sides. “Can’t, oh nooo, not right noow,” she cried out loud. She got to her feet, staggering for a moment as she flushed in heat. Her nipples were already hard. She tweaked one experimentally. Another moan escaped her.
This one was even worse than usual. The question of Brightman’s machinations would have to wait. There was a more urgent matter to attend to. Desperate for release, the lust-consumed blonde hurried off to the washroom. Running was quite impossible in her narrow platform sandals, so she made do with a fast, dainty totter.
Her hands were up under her miniskirt before the door even closed. Nothing mattered then but satisfying the intense sexual need she felt, and wallowing in the bliss of her first orgasm. It would take several rounds with her fingers, she suspected, before she could return to her typing. Either that, or she could seduce one of the programmers again.
Kitty-Kitty sat down on a toilet seat and spread her legs wide. She slipped two fingers back between her legs. In a few minutes her ardent groans were audible in the hallway outside.
Back at her little office, the cute kitten played on the computer screen, waiting for her to return.

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