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Lauren stood in front of Don, hands on top of her head and panties pulled halfway down to her knees. She felt like she’d been standing there forever, but she tried to remain patient. Don shuffled through some papers for a moment before leaning back and spreading his arms wide to lounge on the couch. Now that Do—Mr. Arden—had pointed it out, Lauren thought, she saw that this setup perfectly defined their relationship: her standing before him, at attention, required to be partially exposed, and waiting on him and him comfortably dressed, relaxing, and choosing when their interaction would begin. Mr. Arden was clearly in charge. More than “in charge”, she thought. A boss was “in charge”. Mr. Arden could tell her to do almost anything and she had to obey or face a punishment no normal boss would be able to dole out.
“Lauren,” Don finally began, “What part of your current contract do you dislike the most?”
She considered her words very carefully before replying. “May I . . . may I speak freely, sir?”
“Certainly. Freely, but respectfully.”
Still, she hesitated. “Sir . . . there’s very little about my contract that I do like. I . . . I wanted someone else in charge, but in my mind, it was just going to be someone enforcing rules that would be considered . . . more publicly acceptable. More normal. I didn’t necessarily need or want the . . . the forced inferiority. I’m doing my best to convince myself and behave as though men are inherently superior, but if I’m being honest with myself, I . . . I don’t believe it, and I find it really degrading to have to behave that way.” She gulped, wondering if she had said too much, but continued softly. “I think men and women are equals and should be treated that way.”
“Oh, Lauren,” he laughed. “I know all that. But don’t worry. In time, we’ll get your deeper beliefs adjusted so that you’re not just acting but truly accepting your inherent inferiority to men. But that’s irrelevant, Lauren. Right now I just want to know which part of your contract you like least.”
Again, she hesitated. She had never thought to rank how much she disliked her requirements. Certainly, she didn’t like being Do—Mr. Arden’s maid. She wasn’t a fan of her curfew, and having to treat all men as her betters was the part that made her external life the most difficult—dismissing one-offs like being told to dance and wait tables naked at a club, of course. But really, the part she disliked the most were the rules regarding her pubic area—having someone else dictate how she groomed there, having to use that vulgar word, the horrible punishment associated with it. She gulped, “It’s the rule about my . . . my pussy, sir.”
“There are several rules regarding your pussy, Lauren. Which one do you dislike the most?”
“I guess . . . I guess all of them, sir. I don’t like having that part . . . having my pussy subject to so much control and examination.”
“Excellent, Lauren. Wouldn’t be much point to you yielding control if the result was only things you would choose for yourself, would there? Anyway, my hope is that one or more of the new rules you just agreed to will bother you more than the prospect of getting your pussy whipped occasionally. So let’s go over them.
“These are two main sets of new rules, both designed to force you to think, every day and throughout the day, of what you can be doing to please men. Your failure to recognize your need to do that, more than anything, is what caused you to lose the contest, so that’s what we’re going to work on.
“The first set of rules concern how you dress. Keep in mind that the rules I’m about to outline to you are the minimum requirements or maximum allowed. You can always try to show you’re accepting your status below men by exceeding the standards. I want you to also note—and I hope you’re grateful for this—that nothing I’m requiring quite pushes you over the bounds of professionalism. People might notice the change, sure, but it won’t be over the line. Of course, you can always choose to do better than standards to show your commitment like I said, and that might cross a line, but that’s your decision.”
He stood up. “Let’s start at the top and work our way down.” He pushed her hair back from her ears. “First, from now on, you will wear either large hoop earrings or earrings that dangle at least two inches. Second,” he stepped back to look her up and down, “in the next two weeks, you’re going to get four new piercings. I want to see two of them as small hoops in the upper part of your ears,” he touched the upper portion of her ear and Lauren flinched a little, “and at least one somewhere below the neck.”
Lauren took a deep breath. That wasn’t . . . horrible. She liked to keep her earrings modest for work, but she had plenty of larger ones that she wore when she was going out. They would seem a little gaudy at work, and she would have preferred to keep her jewelry wear entirely professional, but, well, she would just have to accept that that wasn’t an option anymore. The upper ear piercings . . . well, they weren’t so uncommon anymore and could even be cute. She wasn’t too happy about the body piercing—just acknowledging that she could be forced to have her body pierced was demeaning, and she was certain it was going to hurt—but at least it wasn’t anything that would be visible at work.
“Moving down,” Don continued, “from now on, when you are in a professional environment—and that means work or school—you will wear dresses or skirts, never pants. You can still wear jeans and stuff when you go out with friends, but they had better be skin tight. When you wear them, the bottom of your skirts and dresses will go no lower than where your thumb joins your hand when your arms are hanging at your side.”
“Sir, I think . . . I think that might be shorter than you realize.”
“Oh? Please, tell me more about what I do and do not know, Lauren.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, sir. I just thought . . . You said that it would still be professional, so I thought maybe you . . . you didn’t realize how short that is.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Lauren. Are you concerned that this dress code might cause your co-workers to view you less as a competent peer and more as someone beneath them?”
“Y-yes, sir,” she said softly, realizing belatedly that that was the whole point.
Don snorted and, apparently seeing the realization in her eyes, moved on. “Finally, Lauren, whenever you leave home, your footwear must have heels at least three-and-a-half inches tall. And I think you’ll agree, I’m being pretty generous there.”
“Sir, I . . . I don’t have any heels that tall.”
Don frowned. “Lauren, are you trying to tell me that in the half dozen or so outfits you bought while working as a stripper yesterday, not a single one of them included heels over three-and-a-half inches tall? I find that hard to believe.”
She could feel herself tearing up. “No, sir, they all had heels much taller than that but . . . but they’re obviously . . . stripper shoes. I can’t wear those to work, sir.” She hated referring to them as “stripper shoes”. She’d been wearing them all day yesterday, after all, and she wasn’t a stripper. That had . . . that had been a one-time thing.
“You can and you will.” He shrugged. “Or you can go buy yourself some new shoes for work. I don’t really care. But every day, when you put on your shoes, that will be one more moment when you’re thinking about what you can be doing to please men.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking down. So much for work being a comforting retreat. How could she expect to be viewed as a strong, competent woman if she had to dress like that? Then again, she thought, how many strong, competent women spent a lot of time standing half-naked in their own living rooms having a dress code dictated to them by a man who, as far as she knew, hadn’t even graduated from college? A tiny, tiny voice in her head answered, “All of them should be,” but she resisted that idea.
Don patted her on the butt and then sat back down. “And that’s it, Lauren. Like I said, not too restrictive.”
Lauren had to admit that as much as she didn’t like the new dress requirements, Mr. Arden was right. When he’d first started talking about her new dress code, she thought there would be more to it. She was surprised—and relieved—that he hadn’t said anything about her underwear. She’d have to wear too-short skirts and too-high heels, but it was a relatively small penalty; she’d still have some dignity.
“Now, let’s go over the smaller set of rules. It’s really just two parts. The first is for whenever you are at home or anywhere else that our arrangement is known. Under those circumstances, when a man walks into the room that you are in, you will stop what you are doing, you will immediately stand up and hold your forearms behind your back, you will greet the man appropriately, and you will continue to stand there silently until he tells you to do something else or leaves the room.
“The second part will govern your behavior under other circumstances. Because I know you can’t behave that way at work and keep your job for long, this is a little more relaxed. When a man walks into the room, you will still stop what you’re doing and immediately stand up, and you will still properly greet the man, but you may simply hold your hands behind your back. And you may sit back down once the man sits or tells you to sit down.
“Easy enough, Lauren?”
She didn’t, actually, think it sounded very easy. Certainly, it was going to draw attention at work. And it seemed like something she could forget to do if she was distracted. But she guessed that was part of the point—she didn’t get to be distracted. It would force her to be thinking about how to behave toward men at all times. Regardless, she didn’t think arguing about it would do her any good.
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent.” He looked down at his paperwork. “There are a couple more stipulations in here, Lauren. You may not change your appearance—like, no getting a weird haircut or gaining a lot of weight—without my permission. Also, while leaving you in your current job seems to be a necessary evil at the moment, you will not accept a position of greater responsibility over men without first consulting me. Is that understood?”
Lauren’s jaw dropped and she started crying freely. The promotion she was competing for . . . that was a huge step . . . and now she wouldn’t be able to accept it? But Do—Mr. Arden—was right. If she was going to try to accept that men were her superiors, it didn’t make any sense for her to be placed in a position over more of them. If anything, she should be looking for ways to be demoted. Maybe she could get placed into an internship position if she just told her boss that she was going through some personal issues that were going to be detracting from her work. It certainly wouldn’t be a lie. But, no! A part of her fiercely resisted. She had worked hard to get where she was! She wasn’t just going to give it all away!
But, again, there was no use arguing. It was in the contract, she had signed it, and that was that. She bit her lip. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he thrust the papers at her. “There are a few other minor points. You can read it yourself on your own time. For, now, go make two photocopies of this. One for you, and one to hang on the fridge. Then, bring it back here and get ready to tell me your proposed punishment for how you behaved toward that man at The Landing Strip.”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, I am happy to receive feedback either here or at therealjohnadams at inbox dot com. I am more likely to reply to an email.
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