Office Subjugation

Chapter 7 - The Hallway

Tuesday. 5:52am. The fourteenth floor was silent.

She stood in front of his office door in her dress and heels and listened to the building breathe. Ventilation hummed from a vent at the far end of the hallway. The distant groan of elevator cables, idle, somewhere below. Fluorescent panels above her buzzed at a frequency she could feel in her teeth.

The door was locked. She had known it would be.

She set her handbag on the floor.

Undressed. Outfit folded neatly. Standing and waiting.

The words sat in her head in his voice, the same flat intonation he had used the night before, and she moved to obey them one by one. Reached back. Found the zipper at the base of her spine. Drew it down. The dress loosened, the fabric going slack around her shoulders, and she caught it against her chest and looked both ways down the hallway.

Empty. Grey carpet. Closed doors with frosted glass, all dark behind them. The elevator bank at the far end, two brushed-steel doors sealed shut.

She stepped out of the dress. Folded it against her stomach. Placed it on her handbag, on top of the folded cardigan she had carried on the bus.

The hallway air hit her skin.

And there she was, standing in the cup-less bra and the mesh thong and the stockings and the garter belt and the heels, in a hallway on the fourteenth floor of a building owned by people she did not know, and she was cold and her left nipple was still bruised. The dark pink had deepened to a patchy purple-yellow around the edges, and the whole nipple was swollen to something almost twice its usual size, and it throbbed in time with her heartbeat. The right one was hard from the air-conditioning, a pale pink nub standing out separate from the bruised one, as though the two of them were not a pair any more but one damaged thing and one un-damaged thing set next to each other for comparison. The mesh thong covered nothing. The fabric was translucent, pulled tight between her legs, the shadow of her sex visible through it - the crease of her lips, the darker triangle of hair on her mound pressed flat beneath the mesh.

She clasped her hands in front of her. Then behind her. Then in front again.

Nothing felt right.

---

The wait began.

It is in the trainee contract. He said so. The military does uniform inspections. Other trainees have to do this, they must.

She had rehearsed them in her bathroom mirror the night before, repeated them on the bus at five in the morning. They had sounded better on the bus.

6:30. Nothing.

She shifted her weight to the other heel. The stockings whispered against each other where her thighs touched. The garter clips dug into the soft flesh at the top of her legs, four small points of pressure, two on each side, pulling the stocking-tops tight against her skin. The bruised nipple throbbed in a low pulsing way that kept time with her heartbeat, heavier than the other side, more prominent, impossible to hide. Not that there was anything to hide behind. Not in a hallway. Not in a cup-less bra and a mesh thong. Not at six in the morning on a floor that was his alone.

He said undressed. He said standing. He didn't say where to put my hands.

She settled on clasping them at her waist. It was the only position that did not make her feel like she was trying to cover herself.

-

6:45.

The elevator made a sound. A mechanical click, deep in the shaft, something engaging. She stopped breathing. The sound travelled upward through the building, gears turning, cables moving, the faint whine of machinery pulling the car toward her floor. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She took a step backward, then forward, then pressed herself flat against the wall beside the office door as though the wall could make her invisible. Cup-less bra. Bare nipples. Mesh thong. Stockings and heels and nothing else, standing in a hallway that belonged to a building full of people, at a time when cleaners worked and deliveries arrived and anyone,anyone, could step off.

The elevator settled two floors below her. A pause. The doors opened. She heard the distant ding of arrival and did not breathe until the doors closed again and the cables began to move in the other direction.

Going down. Someone on a lower floor.

She exhaled. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her bare thighs.

It's fine. It's early. No one comes to fourteen.

She told herself that four more times in the next hour.

Somewhere around 6:50, the pain in her feet won. She stepped out of the heels and set them beside her bag. The carpet was cold through the thin nylon of her stockings. Her calves unlocked. The ache in her arches released all at once, and she lost two inches of height, and the hallway felt bigger without them.

---

7:22. The elevator chimed.

She straightened. Smoothed her stockings with her palms. Pressed her thighs together. Her hands went to her waist, clasped, still, in the position she had decided was correct.

The doors opened. He came through in charcoal grey, briefcase in one hand, phone in the other. He walked the length of the hallway without looking up. His shoes on the carpet were the only sound.

He reached the door. Shifted the briefcase. Glanced at her, one sweep, top to bottom, the look a man used to check that a delivery had arrived. His gaze stopped at her feet.

"Heels on."

Not a question. She dropped to a crouch, too fast, her balance wrong, one hand slapping the carpet while the other fumbled for the nearest shoe. She jammed her foot in. The ankle strap caught on her stocking and she tugged at it with shaking fingers, the heel skidding on the carpet. She got the second one on while still half-crouching, rose too quickly, wobbled a step sideways.

He was already unlocking the door. He had not waited.

She gathered her folded clothes and her bag and followed him on unsteady heels. The carpet changed from hallway grey to office plush, softer, darker, the plush that swallowed sound. The door swung shut behind her and the click of the latch was the best thing she had heard all morning.

---

He set the briefcase on the desk. Hung the jacket on the stand behind the door. Poured himself a glass of water from the credenza. Sipped.

She stood in the centre of the room. Hands at her waist. Eyes forward. Waiting.

He came around the desk. Stopped in front of her. Close enough that she could smell the cologne, the wool of his suit, the faint warm scent beneath it that was only him. His grey eyes moved over her without expression.

"Arms at your sides."

She dropped her hands.

He started at her shoulders. His fingers found the bra strap on her left side, traced it from the shoulder down to where the lace met the underwire, testing the tension. She felt each fingertip as a point of heat against her cool skin. He moved to the front. The underwire sat beneath her breasts, pushing them up, and he traced it with his index finger, left to right, following the curve of metal beneath fabric.

When his finger passed beneath her left breast, the bruised nipple was inches from his knuckle. The swollen flesh pulsed.

He paused.

His thumb came up. Pressed lightly against the bruise.

She flinched. The pain flared through the breast and landed somewhere behind her sternum. She clamped her jaw shut. Her eyes watered.

"Still swollen." His voice was observational. The voice of a man checking on damage someone else had caused. "This is what happens when you can't keep yourself decent. A professional woman doesn't have bruised nipples, Chloe."

He pressed harder. Rotated his thumb in a slow circle around the swollen nipple, the pad of his finger dragging across damaged skin. She felt every ridge of his thumbprint. The bruise complained in a dull, sick way, and beneath the pain there was another heat, a set of nerve endings firing that had nothing to do with healing.

He's checking it's healing. Making sure I haven't made it worse. It's my fault it's there in the first place.

He let go. Moved to the right side. Traced the matching underwire, his finger dipping into the space between fabric and skin. He lifted the breast slightly in the cup, tested the weight of it, let it settle.

---

He crouched. She felt his breath on her thigh, warm against the band of bare skin between the stocking top and the thong. His fingers found the first clip on her right side. He pulled it away from her skin, two inches, the elastic stretching, and released it.

It snapped back. The metal teeth bit into the soft flesh at the top of her thigh and she gasped, a sharp intake that she swallowed before it could become anything louder. A pink mark rose beneath the clip.

He did the next one. Same side, lower, where the garter met the stocking. Pull. Release. Snap. She bit the inside of her cheek.

Left side. Pull. Snap. Her thigh jerked. She caught it and forced her leg still.

The last clip was front left, high on her thigh, close to the crease where her leg met her pelvis. He pulled it further than the others. Held it. Three seconds. She could see the elastic stretched in his fingers, the metal teeth hovering an inch from her skin. Then he let go.

The snap was louder than the others. She heard herself make a sound, a strained note from the back of her throat. The welt would be there all day.

---

He stayed crouched. His gaze was level with her hips. The mesh thong.

She felt his attention arrive at the place she had been dreading since she had got dressed that morning.

The mesh was thin. Transparent when stretched. It pulled tight across her mound, the fabric clinging to every contour - the rise of her pubic bone, the soft split where her lips began, the crease at the top of each thigh. And beneath the mesh, visible through it, dark against the pale backdrop of her skin: hair.

Not much. That was the thing. There had never been much. She had been sixteen before anything grew in at all, and she had been bare and smooth through the changing rooms of her school years while other girls had bodies that looked like women's bodies, dark and full. She had changed in the corner stall. She had angled herself away from the mirrors. She had hated the way she looked like a child next to them, too young, too bare, her body two years behind everyone else's.

And now, finally, the sparse covering that had arrived late and never thickened, just enough to feel normal, just enough to stop hating the sight of herself in the mirror, was pressed against transparent mesh under the gaze of a man crouching six inches from her crotch.

He did not speak. Not at first.

His hand came up. His fingers pressed against the mesh, against the hair beneath it, and she felt the contact: the fingertips on her mound through the thin layer of fabric, the warmth of his hand, the slight rasp of hair moving beneath his touch.

Then his hand slid under the waistband.

She sucked in a breath. His fingers pushed beneath the mesh and found real, coarse hair on her mound, curling against his knuckles. He pressed his palm flat. She could feel every line of his hand. His skin was warmer than hers. The heat radiated into her mound. The hair sat trapped between his palm and her skin.

His fingers closed.

He grabbed a fistful.

The yank was sudden. Upward, hard, his fist clenching around the hair at the base andpulling. She rose onto her toes, hauled up by the mound, her whole body pulled tight beneath his grip. The pain was new. Not sharp like the nipple twist. Not blunt like the garter snap. This was rooted. She felt each individual hair straining at the follicle, the skin of her mound pulled tight in his fist, the stretch and burn of flesh that had never been handled this way.

Her eyes flooded. She grabbed his wrist, both hands, automatic, trying to ease the pressure, and he yanked higher. Her calves screamed. A strangled sound escaped her.

"Hands. Down."

She let go. Dropped her arms to her sides. Stood on her toes with her mound pulled tight in his fist and tears running down her face and did not touch him.

He held. Five seconds. She counted them one by one.

He released. The hair sprang back. Her mound ached, a hot sting that pulsed in time with her breathing. She dropped off her toes. Her legs were shaking.

---

He withdrew his hand from the thong. Stood. His expression was the same expression he had worn walking in: flat, unimpressed, a man checking a delivery.

"Section four of your trainee contract." His voice was even. "Personal grooming. Body hair below the eyelashes is to be maintained at the firm's standard." He wiped his hand on her shoulder, a slow drag of his fingers across her bare skin. "The firm's standard is bare. Completely. Everywhere."

Of course. Of course she should have known. The contract had said bare below the eyelashes. She had signed it and she hadn't even read it properly. Who does that. Who signs something without reading it. A girl from Ohio who doesn't know how offices work, that's who.

She was still crying. Quietly, without sobbing, the tears running freely, her breath hitching.

"I didn't - I didn't know -"

"You signed it." He wasn't angry. He was informing her. The distinction was worse. "Two more things while we're here. Section six: you don't speak during inspections unless I ask you a direct question. You answer, and you stop. Section nine: no eye contact during inspections. Eyes forward. Not at me."

She fixed her gaze on the bookcase behind him. A green volume, third shelf up, the title too far away to read. She held it with her eyes like an anchor. Blinked the tears clear. Swallowed.

"Now."

---

He stepped behind her. His hand found the back of her neck, the base of her pony-tail, where the elastic held the bundle of brown hair tight. He gripped it. Not gently. She felt the pull at her scalp, the roots straining, and then he was walking.

She stumbled forward. The hand in her pony-tail guided her across the office: three steps, five, past the leather chairs, past the credenza. He pressed her toward the desk. She caught herself with her hands flat on the surface. He pushed between her shoulder blades. She bent.

The oak was cold against her forearms. She felt it on her bare stomach, her exposed breasts pressing against the hard surface, the bruised nipple screaming at the contact. She arched to lift it off the wood and he pushed her down again.

His other hand went to the thong. Hooked it. Pulled it down. The mesh peeled away from between her cheeks, dragged down her thighs, and caught at the garter clips. He left it there, bunched against the stocking tops, held up by the straps that ran to her belt.

She was bent over his desk, legs slightly apart, her bare ass presented behind her. Her cheeks were full and round enough that the bend barely parted them. The soft flesh pressed together, closing around everything, hiding it. She could feel how little it hid. The cool air found the crease where her thighs met her cheeks, the underside of each curve, and at the very bottom, where the bend opened her just enough, the faintest brush of air against the edge of her slit. Not exposed. Almost. The almost was the worst part.

The edge of the desk pressed into her hipbones. His hand still in her hair. The wood grain under her fingertips.

"Spread your cheeks."

Her hands did not move. The words registered. She heard them, understood them. A long stilled moment. Her arms would not work.

"I won't repeat myself."

She reached back. Her fingers found the full curves of her own ass, each cheek warm in her palm, the flesh generous under her grip. She pulled. Outward. The skin resisted, then gave, and she spread herself open.

It's an inspection. He's checking compliance. Like a doctor would. He's not looking at me like, he's not. He's checking whether I followed the rules. And I didn't. So this is what happens.

He can see everything.

-

She pressed her forehead against the desk. The oak was cool on her flushed skin. Her face was hot. The shame was physical, a heat that crawled from her chest up her neck into her cheeks and ears and did not stop.

He let go of her pony-tail.

She heard him crouch.

---

The girl's big pale cheeks were spread wide in her own hands, the flesh pulled apart, her knuckles white from the grip. Her tight little asshole stared back at him. The rim pink. A delicate pucker that clenched and relaxed and clenched again as she fought the spasm of being seen there for the first time. Below it, her slit. The bottom of it peeked out from the parting of her lips, the inner folds just visible, a glistening pink, the delicate tissue parted slightly from the bend, the skin dewy. Untouched. A faint sheen of moisture caught the office light.

The hair was here too. Sparse wisps trailing along the outer edges of her lips, a few stray strands between her cheeks. Finer than the coarse patch on her mound. Visible only from this distance, this angle. The angle she was going to hold for as long as he wanted.

He exhaled. His breath landed on her exposed skin and he watched the goosebumps erupt, spreading outward from the point of contact, prickling across her inner cheeks, down the backs of her thighs. Her asshole clenched. The rim went from relaxed to puckered in a single contraction. The slit glistened brighter.

-

He reached forward.

---

She felt his breath first. Warm, close, landing on skin that had never felt another person's breath. Then his fingers.

He plucked a hair.

A precise sting. One follicle. The hair gripped between his thumbnail and forefinger and pulled free. She jerked. The sensation was nothing like the fistful. This was small. Located on the outer edge of her right lip, where the skin was softest.

He plucked another. Left side. Closer to the crease of her thigh. The sting bloomed and faded.

Another. Between her cheeks, high, near the top of her cleft. She felt his fingers brush her spread skin as he found it, the pad of his thumb resting against the inside of her cheek while his other fingers worked. The contact was warm. Steady. His hand did not shake.

He worked methodically. One hair at a time. Each tiny pull sent a flare through the nerve endings of the thinnest skin she had - skin that had never been touched, never beenseen, now being groomed by his fingers at a distance she could feel his breathing.

She counted. Not deliberately. Her mind fastened onto numbers because numbers were easier than the rest. Seven. Eight. Nine. Each one a pinpoint of sting followed by a breath of warm air as he exhaled, his focus on the task, his face inches from her spread sex.

He's fixing what I didn't do. He shouldn't have to do this. He should be able to trust that his trainee can follow a basic grooming standard and he can't, because of me, and now he's down there doing it himself instead of just firing me.

Her thighs were trembling. The effort of staying bent, staying spread, staying still: the muscles in her legs burned. Her forearms ached against the desk. Her grip on her own cheeks was failing, the flesh slippery with sweat, and her right hand slipped, not much, half an inch, the cheek sliding back together before she caught it and pulled again.

"Hold still."

The next pluck wasn't a pluck. His fingers closed directly on her rim, the puckered skin of her asshole pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and he pulled. This was apinch. A mean compression of the most sensitive skin on her body, held for a full second before he released.

She choked. Her hips bucked forward into the desk. Her eyes streamed.

"See what happens when you squirm?" His voice was conversational. "Makes them harder to grab properly."