Office Subjugation

Chapter 9 - The Positions

Thursday. 5:47am. The hallway.

She undressed as soon as she got there. Dress off, folded, set on top of the bag at her feet. Heels on. Hands at her sides. No looking both ways any more. No clasping her hands and unclasping them in front of her and behind her.

The bruise on her left nipple had faded to a green-yellow shadow at the edges, the centre back to something close to her normal pink. It did not ache any more unless something touched it. The right one was hard from the air-conditioning, the way it always was by this hour.

She did not listen for the elevator. That was new.

On Tuesday she had flinched at every mechanical click in the shaft. Yesterday she had tracked the lift's movements without meaning to. This morning the lift ran twice, once down and once back up. She did not turn her head. She did not press herself against the wall. It was six-twenty in the morning and the waiting was just what happened before the inspection. The way the bus ride was just what happened before the hallway. The way the hallway was just what happened before the office.

This is normal now.

She did not examine the thought. She let it sit.

---

8:14. The elevator chimed.

He came through in charcoal. Long black in his left hand. Phone in his right. His eyes swept across her once, top to bottom. He did not stop walking.

"Inside."

She gathered her bag and her folded dress and followed him through the door.

---

She set the bag and her folded dress on the chair inside the entrance. Walked to the centre of the Persian rug. Turned to face his desk. Hands at her sides. Eyes on the green book on the third shelf of the bookcase behind him.

He did not begin with the inspection. He hung the jacket on the stand. Rolled his sleeves two precise turns. Set the coffee on the corner of the desk. Then he came out from behind it and stopped in front of her.

"We're going to do something different today."

Something different had not been a good sentence on any day since she had started.

"The inspections have been adequate. Adequate isn't the standard."

"Yes, Sir."

"So I'm going to give you a system. Four positions, each with a name. You'll learn them today, drill them tomorrow, hold them cleanly by the end of next week. If you can't, I'll know you haven't been practicing."

"Yes, Sir."

"We'll begin with Resting."

Positions. Like posture training. Models have to do this. Professional women stand a certain way. It's probably in the contract.

---

The instruction came in pieces.

"Feet shoulder width. Planted."

She widened her stance.

"Back straight. Head up."

She pulled her shoulders back. Her neck lengthened.

"Arms behind your back. Wrists crossed. Left over right."

She brought her arms behind her. Crossed her wrists at the small of her back, left wrist on top of right. Pressed them together.

"Chest forward. Shoulders back. Full presentation."

Her shoulder blades drew together. The pressure from her crossed wrists pulled her shoulders back. Her chest pushed out. The cupless bra did the rest. Without her arms in front of her there was nothing between her breasts and the open air of the office except the underwire pushing her up. Her nipples hardened from the cool, and the bruise-pale left one and the pink-hard right one jutted forward together, pointing straight across the room at his desk.

"Wider."

She moved her feet another inch apart.

"Wider."

She spread her feet until the stretch pulled at her inner thighs, and the mesh thong shifted against the smooth skin of her mound as her legs widened. Her knees felt wrong that far apart. The pose felt obscene in a way the hallway had not prepared her for, even though the hallway had been most of a week.

"Hold."

He stepped around her. Slow. His shoes were quiet on the rug.

She tracked him out of the corner of her eye and then stopped herself because she was not supposed to. She fixed her gaze on the green book. He went behind her. Circled her the way he had circled her on Monday. She felt his attention on the back of her neck, on the crossed wrists, on the line of her spine, on the thong strip disappearing between her cheeks. He came around the right side. Stopped in front of her. Looked at her breasts the way he read a page.

"Adequate."

He went back to the desk. Drank his coffee. Read something on his phone. She stood with her feet planted shoulder-width-plus and her wrists crossed and her chest pushed out and did not move. Her thighs began to burn. Her shoulders ached. The bruised nipple throbbed again where the pose pushed it forward, the weight of the breast dragging on the tender skin.

-

I am furniture. He is arranging furniture.

-

"Good girl."

Her shoulders dropped a quarter of an inch without her permission. Her jaw, which she had not known was clenched, softened. The sting returned behind her eyes. Two words, and the whole morning almost felt like it had been worth it.

She hated that the words had landed the way they had. She needed to hear them again.

---

"Bra position."

She did not know what that meant. She held Resting. Waited.

"Arms forward. Cup both breasts. Thumb and index on each nipple. Lift them out of the cup so I can check the underwire."

She brought her arms around. Her fingers closed around the full weight of each breast and the flesh overflowed her hands on either side. Her thumbs and index fingers found the hard points of her nipples and pinched them, pale pink flesh pressed between her own fingers, the pressure making the nubs darker. She lifted. Hefted. Raised both breasts above the line of the bra until the lace band showed beneath each curve of flesh, the underwire a firm arc through its fabric casing.

"Higher."

She lifted higher. Her wrists strained. The breasts were heavy in her hands, and her fingers had to squeeze to keep the nipples pinched, and she could feel her own pulse in the tips she was squeezing, sharper on the bruised left side than the right.

He has to check the bra. I'm the one who has to hold them because his hands would be in the way of the band. It's more efficient. I'm helping.

He stepped in close. Close enough that she smelled the cologne. He traced the lace band on her left side, his knuckle dragging across the cool soft skin beneath the breast she was holding up for him. Every ridge of his fingerprint registered on skin that had never been touched there by anyone but herself.

"Pinch harder. The nipple should be firm between your fingers."

She pinched harder. A bright line of sensation ran from each nipple straight down through her stomach. Her breath caught. Her forearms began to tremble from the effort of holding her own breasts at that height, at that angle, with her fingers working to keep the pressure on her own tips the way he wanted.

-

A single drop of sweat tracked down the inside of her cleavage and disappeared under the bunched lace.

-

He completed the trace. Right side, left side back to centre. His hand slid along the curve of the band without hurrying. He stepped back.

"Adequate. Drop them."

She released. The breasts fell back into the bra's frame and the crushed nipples pulsed with the rebound, the blood returning in a hot rush, and she gasped out loud before she could stop herself.

She let her arms fall to her sides. The nipples throbbed.

---

"Back position. Squat. Feet wide. Hands on your knees. Arch your back. Head down."

She squatted. Lowered herself on her heels, feet wide, the oak of the desk across the room going out of view as her head dropped. Her palms landed on the tops of her knees, thumbs inside, fingers curved outward. Her lower back dipped. She concentrated on the curve of her spine, pushed her tailbone up, arched until her belly hollowed.

The position opened her completely. The squat spread her thighs wide, the arch tilted her hips back and up, and her cheeks parted around the thin strip of thong until the mesh stretched in a visible line down the cleft. Her sex and her asshole were presented behind her, aimed outward, barely covered. Her pony-tail swung over her shoulder, next to her face.

"Arch harder."

She arched until the outer skin of her lips pulled apart around the strip of mesh. The cool office air found the bare flesh on either side of it.

He moved behind her. His shoes stopped. She heard the shift of his weight as he crouched.

-

She had her eyes on the dark wool of the carpet, on a single snagged fiber two inches from her right shoe. A small blue thread. Cotton, probably, from somebody's shirt. She followed the line of it with her eyes and did not lift her head.

-

His finger touched her through the mesh.

One tap. Precise. Directly on the strip of thong where it crossed her entrance. The mesh vibrated against the bare skin it covered, a single flat pulse of pressure that travelled inward. Her thighs tightened.

The finger did not leave. The pad pressed against the mesh. She could feel the single warm point of contact, could feel the print of his fingertip resting against the covered opening of her sex.

Then it moved.

Upward. Slow. His fingertip followed the strip of mesh across her perineum, the fabric dragging through the fold between her legs, the thin cloth sliding against her skin as his finger pulled it along. The mesh was thin enough that it was almost not there. His fingertip was warm. The perineum burned under the drag. The thong narrowed at the center where it passed between her cheeks, and his finger followed it up, and found the tight ring of her asshole through the fabric.

He pressed.

Not hard. A small downward pressure, the mesh dimpling inward under the tip of his finger, pushed against the sphincter by a deliberate compression of weight that she could feel clenching in her jaw. Her body clenched before she could stop it. The contraction tightened everything from the pelvic floor up through her stomach, the fabric jumped against the tight ring of muscle, and she heard the breath leave her in a hiss through her teeth.

"Relax."

She could not. The blue thread on the carpet blurred. Her eyes stung.

He's checking the thong's positioning. It has to sit right. He can't just look, he has to feel, because the mesh is thin and it slides.

He hooked his thumb under the strip of thong and pulled it to the side. The mesh slipped off the cleft of her ass entirely. Cool office air arrived on the skin that had been under the fabric, and on the ring of muscle the fabric had covered, and she was open to the room.

His finger brushed the inside of her cheek.

The skin there was the softest skin on her body. She had never been touched there. She had not known that a hand could register on that skin the way his hand was registering now. Goosebumps rose in its wake.

Then he grazed her rim.

The pad of his finger crossed the puckered ring of her asshole once. Slow. Warm. She felt every line of his fingerprint on skin that had never had a fingerprint on it. The muscle twitched under his touch and clenched and released in the same involuntary rhythm she had felt when he had pressed through the mesh, only now there was no mesh, now her naked pucker was winking closed and open under his finger and there was nothing between his hand and the most private ring of muscle in her body.

He circled it once. The pad traced the rim in a slow clockwise arc.

He circled it a second time.

She heard her own breathing. Loud in the office. Ragged.

"Smooth here. Good."

He lifted the thumb. The thong snapped back into the cleft, the mesh striking skin that had just been woken up by his finger, and everything throbbed.

"Stand."

She stood. Her legs were shaking. The blue thread on the carpet was still there.

---

"Front position. Hands behind your head. Fingers interlocked. Elbows wide. Push your hips forward."

She raised her arms. Laced her fingers at the base of her pony-tail. Spread her elbows wide until her shoulders complained. Pushed her hips forward until the pelvic tilt forced her mound out, presented, the thong pulled tight across the smooth rise of her sex with her shaved lips printed through it in a single pale line.

He stood in front of her. Looked between her thighs the way he had looked at the bra.

Then he reached down.

His hand closed on the front of the thong where the mesh covered her mound, two fingers and a thumb gripping the strip of fabric. He pulled upward. The mesh slid between her lips. The fabric was thin and the seam narrow and his grip unhurried, and the strip sank between her outer folds and wedged itself deep into her slit, and her lips split around it, and the mesh pressed against the wet soft skin that had never had anything pressed into it, and he pulled tighter, and the strip of fabric sawed deeper, the lips bulging out on either side of the thin wedged line, the fabric soaking through on contact as it buried itself in the moisture she had not known she had made, and she stood on her heels with her fingers laced behind her head and her elbows wide and her hips thrust forward and let him do it because his other hand was coming up now, two fingers flat against her outer lips on either side of the wedged mesh, and he was starting to rub.

Back and forth. Slow. Deliberate. His fingertips pressed the outer lips inward against the buried ridge of fabric and slid across the bare surface of her, the mesh shifting and dragging inside her slit with each stroke, and the friction on the insides of the folds was a burning new sensation she could not call pain, and her breath had gone shallow and tight at the top of her chest, and her hips, without being asked, jerked forward a fraction of an inch and pressed her mound harder against his moving hand before she caught herself.

He stopped.

Pulled his hand away. She saw the fingertips as he withdrew them, wet-glistening at the tips in the overhead light.

He did not comment. He wiped his fingers on the bare skin of her hip. A casual drag. Then he let go of the thong.

The strip stayed where he had wedged it. She felt the fabric buried between her lips, pressed deep into her slit, the wet mesh pinned in place by her own swollen folds.

A smoothness check. He has to check for stubble in the folds because the bare skin in there is where I would miss a hair. He's being thorough. It's his job. A man like him, in an office like this, having to do this for a trainee who can't keep her own body in order.

"Back to work."

---

She stepped into the dress she had left folded on the chair. Her fingers found the zipper and pulled it up. The fabric of the dress closed over the thong that was still wedged between her lips, and the dress pressed the mesh harder into her slit, and her hips moved in a small reflexive shift before she stilled them.

She went to her desk.

-

Nine o'clock. Typing.

Ten o'clock. Filing. She knelt to bring him his second coffee. The thong pressed deeper when her thighs folded.

Eleven. Phones.Alexander Williams' office.Her voice was the same voice it was every other morning.

Noon. Nothing to eat. She drank water.

Twelve-thirty. Bathroom. She tugged down her thong to pee, dried herself after, and when she was done she gently pulled her thong up back between her plump lower lips, nestled in her folds. She did not pull it out. She did not adjust it.

One. Filing.

Two. The wet mesh had dried to something cool and stiff. The stiffness pressed against her the same way the wet had. She did not adjust it; he had not told her she could, and the correct answer to every not-instructed question was do nothing.

Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Eight. He capped his pen.

She went home with the thong where he had left it. She did not adjust it on the bus.

---

Friday.

Positions from memory. Four, in order, without prompting.

She crossed her wrists right over left on Resting. She saw the error the moment her arms were in place. By then she had held the wrong stance for two seconds, and when she moved to correct it his eyes were already on her.

"Stop. Hold it as you had it."

She froze with the wrong wrist on top. He picked up his phone. Dialled a number. Spoke to another lawyer for ten minutes about a filing deadline on some case. His voice stayed unhurried. His free hand turned a page on the desk. She stood in the middle of the rug with her feet shoulder-width-plus and her wrists crossed the wrong way, breasts pushed forward, nipples tightening in the cool air, inner thighs beginning to cramp.

When he hung up he did not mention the call. He walked over. Took her right wrist in one hand and her left wrist in the other and rearranged them without a word, left over right, the correct way. Then he stepped back.

"Continue."

---

Saturday. Sunday. The office was closed. She practiced in her bathroom mirror.

She stood in her lingerie in front of the small rectangle of silver above the sink. Placed her feet shoulder-width-plus. Crossed her wrists left over right. Pushed her chest forward. Held.

Cupped her own breasts. Lifted. Pinched. Held.

Squatted. Arched. Presented. Held.

Hands behind head. Elbows wide. Hips forward. Held.

In the mirror was a girl sweaty and determined. She locked eyes with the girl and kept going.

I have to get these right. He's already been more than patient with me.

She repeated the cycle until her thighs trembled and her arms burned. She repeated it again the next morning. Sunday she boiled rice on the one working burner and ate it with lentils from a can, standing at the counter in her underwear. Payday was somewhere in the coming week. She stood back in front of the mirror with her hands behind her head, her pelvis pushed forward by the pose, and drilled Front until the pose stopped feeling like a pose.

---

Monday. New standards.

She knelt on the carpet in front of his desk and he introduced them one at a time. Her knees were on the dark wool weave. Her hands were flat on the tops of her thighs. Her head was bowed.

"Weight monitoring. You'll be weighed weekly. In the bathroom. In your uniform."

"Yes, Sir."

"Meals. Lunch isn't guaranteed. You eat what is provided, when it is provided. If nothing is provided, you don't eat during working hours."

"Yes, Sir."

"When I enter a room, you kneel. Immediately. Whatever you are doing stops."

"Yes, Sir."

He capped his pen. Set it aside.

"Do you understand these terms?"

"Yes, Sir."

"We'll see."

---

He weighed her after lunch. The executive bathroom. Tiled floor, fluorescent overhead, a scale in the corner she had not noticed before. She stood on it in the cupless bra and the mesh thong and the stockings and the heels. He wrote a number in a small leather notebook.

One hundred and thirty-eight.

He did not say the number out loud. He did not react to it. He closed the notebook and slid it into his inside jacket pocket.

She stepped off the scale. Went back to her desk.

One thirty-eight. I don't know if that's good or bad. He didn't say.

She filed for the rest of the afternoon. She typed a letter to a client. She made his four o'clock coffee and knelt to deliver it, and her knees went to the carpet like they knew the way.

---

Tuesday. 5:50am. Hallway. Undressed. Waiting.

7:56. The elevator chimed.

Her knees folded before she thought about folding them. She was on the hallway carpet with her hands on her thighs and her head bowed, the folded dress beside her, by the time his shoes came into view. He walked the length of the hallway. Stopped at the door. Unlocked it.

"Inside."

She gathered her clothes and her bag and followed him through on unsteady legs. He hung up his coat. Sat down. Powered on the monitor.