Chapter 14: Real Office GirlSame old shit, different story.

  How long ago was it? Too long ago; not long enough. Fourteen… no, fifteen years ago my life, as I k then, came crashing down. The woman I loved was taken from me. Murdered. I tried to stop the man responsible and failed. The person I respected the most in the world, the woman I worked for wanted nothing more to do with me. And what little sanity I had left was hanging by a thread. No family. No friends. I barely eveed. Hell, I didn’t even want to. And so, when I regaihe use of my legs and Sakura told me to leave, that’s what I did; and I disappeared into the streets.

  It’s not a part of my life I think much about.

  Months of sleeping in doorways and cold nights aing scraps took their toll. I met a few cool, fucked-up people and many nasty, fucked-up people, and the only thing we shared in on was that we’d been discarded by a world that didn’t need us anymore. I had it better than most my first couple of weeks oreet. I was tough, but beardless, young-looking and slender; I must’ve seemed an easy mark. First time some oddamn perv pawed at me in my sleep, I snapped his arm and battered the bastard half to death. Life oreets make for a surprisingly small world, in some ways: wot out quickly not to fuck with me.

  Malnutrition sapped my health and size but sure as hell didn’t make me weak, even after I picked up a cough that rattled somewhere deep in my chest. Something iurned hard and bitter and unyielding. I rarely begged, the smouldering anger in which I ed myself driving most charity away. Some kids gave me food to help keep the crueller predators away, but I wandered a lot and wasn’t very reliable. I drank, whenever I could--but not tet. I didn’t want tet. And when the hunger became too much, I stole what I needed. I ate other people’s garbage, shoplifted when I had to, and yeah, mugged people when things got really bad. I did all kinds of nasty shit to get by. I’ve never felt sorry about any of it.

  One m I woke up and a year had passed me by, and it was suddenly time to get off my ass and sort out my life. I didn’t have a hell of a lot going for me: twenty years old and a bad drinking habit, worse scars, and a burning hatred for the world. No real education, nothing to my name and o stay.

  pared to what I’d already lost, though, none of that seemed important. Persephone’s death hadn’t killed me. She’d been gone a year and the pain was there, but instead of a hollow numbness it now felt hot and jagged. It felt—alive. I was alive. If I could survive losing her, survive . . . everything that had happehen fuck, I wasn’t going to let anything else get in my way.

  At least, that’s what I told myself then.

  I was young. I was tough. And I was stupid. I was still good-lookih the filth. There were people who owed me favours, and I knew a few pces where I could pick up a little cash. It wasn’t much.

  First thing I needed was a job.

  So I swallowed my pride and called in some help. Tahir, an ‘acquaintance’ from the past owed me a favour, so he hooked me up with—a name. A new me, to repce the old.

  And he found me work. Something easy, washing dishes at one of his diners, a real greasy-spoon that fronted for some other shit he did. The work was the kind of repetitive job I o keep me sane as my meagre ine kept me fed and under a roof. A few months and I started to look and feel better and picked up some new clothes. I started waiting tables and made some good tips, especially from the girls. Mahe p quiet weeknights and the guy I knew brought me to a club he owned and suddenly I was a bouncer on weekends. I started w out again and started to fill out. I ehe job—as much as I could enjoy anything back then—and though I never went looking for trouble, when trouble found me I didn’t hesitate to step in and toss some dickhead out on his ass. The girls love that, and they loved me too, even though they quickly sussed that I wasly boyfriend material.

  And from there—well, then I was w bar on Fridays, and before long managing the pce, too. I wasn’t really alive, not in the way the people around me seemed to be. Everything I did urely meical. I didn’t go out, didn’t speak mud didn’t make friends. Even when I hooked up with a girl—which happened more than I’d have thought, but then, girls love to fix something that’s clearly broken—it felt—like a betrayal of what I’d lost. Even though sex came the closest ting me back to life, mostly the passion of the moment disappeared into the fire and void that lived at my tre.

  More than anything, I spent my free time alone, w out and thinkiy, circur thoughts, reliving memories best fotten.

  God, I hated them back then, all those happy people: the loving couples sitting by dlelight in the restaurant, drinking wine and talking quietly, the girl’s haing softly in his . . . the friends who flooded the club and danced with abandon and touched each other and sweated and cried out to the music . . . and I worked behind the bar mixing their drinks, I worked the door to keep them safe, I watched them and despised them and ehem with really uanding what they had that I wanted.

  Could things have gone on like that?

  Where would I be now if they had?

  I certainly wouldn’t be sitting behind this desk two months into a new job, wearing a pleated skirt that kept creeping up my goddamn thigh.

  “dy, get me John Weber,” Jack called from his office.

  “Straight away, Mr Peterson.” I made a show of rustling through the papers on my desk and flipping through stick-it notes, hunting for instrus I’d memorized my first day on the job. I clicked as required, the puter bleeped, and I said “Hi Alison,” once she picked up. “How’re you doing? Yeah, I knht? So true. Listen, you patch through to Mr Weber? It’s for Mr Peterson.” I redirected the call to my boss. “He’s on the line, Mr Peterson.”

  “Fine,” he called back, perfunctory, dismissive.

  Mehe junior secretary--office assistant--at the desk opposite gave an encing thumb up. I smiled gratefully. Another job well done. Gosh. Swallowing momentary disgust, I turned back to the stack of bullshit ESG data requiring inputting.

  The offices of Volumnia Iional were on the fifteenth floor of the Jacobs Building iy tre. V.I. served as an in-house market-research firm for the parent corporation. We--I ’t believe I’m already thinking of myself as part of this pce--work closely with our sister pany one floor up. They did the marketing and advertising. A number of out-of-house and iional ers rounded out the pany portfolio.

  V.I. was young and eid so fug cool it hurt. The junior staff worked freely in the open-cept office space--affeately niamed ‘The Lounge’--dog their ptops and tablets where they chose, emancipated from the creativity-crushing limitations of the cubicle or even their own desk. There ool table and an archaic Ms. Pa -op arcade game and a few other distras haphazardly scattered across the room, an almost ironic water cooler in the tre and a palm tree in one er, plete with sandbox and hammock. A giant dry-erase whiteboard on one wall was covered in witty haiku, scraps of random poetry and the occasional aphorism. The pce reeked of ‘synergy’ and ‘thinking outside the box’, though nobody would ever be gauche enough as to actually use those words.

  They were all betweey-three and thirty-three, attractive or at least quirky in some way, with uy degrees in sociology or anthropology or literature and other useless shit; they all seemed to speak a sed or third nguage. They were so out of touch with reality it was ughable, but they sure could talk and look pretty. These kids were full of enthusiasm, ant icism, of themselves; and I was half-torween grudging jealously and the urge to sp them all across the fad give them a solid shake. dy, however… well, hell, the high school dropout from the backwater town of River Valley was just in awe of her new job and the people she worked for. This was a whole new world for her, invigorating and intimidating.

  The ‘research assistants’ and ‘project managers’ and the like worked the Lounge, and ringed around the open space middle- and senior-ma eraditional offices that looked out at the listening office towers and the city sprawling into the distance. And me… I was a goddamn ‘junior office helper’, a step-up from a high-school student on a work-study program. Yeah, it was only for a three months probationary period, but gosh, if I worked really hard and kissed the right ass, then maybe, just maybe, someday I could be a real office girl, too. . . .

  “You okay there, dy?”

  I looked up at Sarah. She was the P.A. to Lucy Johe office manager, and nominally in charge of my training. On hour or so she swung by to make sure I hadn’t screwed anything up too badly. She spoke ironizing and slightly impatient tone of someo in charge of a precocious but useless child. Damn if I didn’t like her despite the attitude, though. She leaned over me to check my work and her blouse hung loosely. She had geous tits, rge and lightly freckled led in a tight bck bustier with cy cups.

  “dy?”

  “I’m sorry.” My face felt a little hot under heavy foundation. “I was just admiring your, uh . . . neckce. It’s so pretty!” It wasn’t, but she wore it well. “Where did you find it?”

  “Maldives,” she answered curtly. “Before they sank. Now pay attention. You’ve made a couple of mistakes here, here, and here.” She touched the s with one expertly manicured finger, pointing out the two mistakes I’d purposefully made in order to give some sembneaning to her utterly pointless supervision; and one mistake I hadn’t inteo make, which I suppose justified her existence. But for fuck’s sake, how was I supposed to do this shit job properly when I just didn’t give a shit?

  “Oh . . . oh, gee, I’m sorry Ms Jenkins!” I reached for the mouse and the keyboard and my flustered motions knocked over a pencil holder and nearly deleted the file. “Shit!” I stared up at Sarah with wide eyes. “Um. Sorry.”

  She sighed. “dy, please try to rex. You’re doing fine.” She id a f hand on my shoulder and it may have just been wishful thinking but her touch seemed just a tad firmer and lohan professionalism called for. I felt a painful stirrih my skirt and smiled through a grimace. “Just . . . try a little harder to focus, okay? Use the digital assistant, we’re paying for it for a reason. And double check the data on the Formex at, okay, Mike he emission data ASAP.”

  I g her hand, past her ky bangle and up her slender, freckled arm, up to her face. Her eyes were a dark hazel behind thin, red-framed gsses with narrow square lenses. Like all the women here, her makeup was meticulously applied, subdued grey and silver tones giving her a dark, almost hypnotic gaze. It was a good look and taking a mental note of how she’d done her eyes, I smiled. “I will, Ms Jenkins,” I said. “It’s just that it’s all so new . . . there’s so much to take on board.”

  She allowed a small smile to shrough. “It’s only your sed week, dy. Give it time. You’ll be whizzing through this before you know it.” A faint fragrah hints of vanil lingered after she stepped away.

  “Thanks, Ms Jenkins.”

  I watched the sway of her ass as she returo her office. The under-rigging gave her a slim, sexy figure; damn, but she was a tight little package for a woman just the other side of forty. I’d love to take her out, and take her home; peel away those yers of clothes, explore that fit body and delve into her mysteries. . . .

  Menie gave me ahumbs up and a shiny smile, which I dutifully returned.

  My supportive colleague, oher hand, I didn’t like. Nasty piece of work, Menie. Beh the fa?ade of workpce friendliness and cheerleader-level enthusiasm lurked a itted backstabber. She had an eye on the petition and she didn’t like what she saw. Only a couple of years older than my supposed age, she must’ve been shitting bricks that I’d leapfrog her on the pany dder or at least in popurity with the strutting young studs striding through the office. Poor, stupid cow; she didn’t see how short the dder really was.

  Sure, she was sexy, though in an obvious, young and fashionable kind of way. Grapevine had it she’d already had it on with Dan, one of the junior researchers, but moved on to Hassan up in marketing, which was a waste of her time because he had eyes on. . . .

  With a sigh I turned bay work.

  How the hell was I supposed to think straight with all this useless crap running through my head? The gossip in this pce was ridiculous and pying the young office assistant I had to stifle my plete disi and now knew far more about these people than I ever wanted. No wonder errors were slipping through! And even though the job was bullshit, I dunno, I still had the same work ethic that got me he top of NeoPharm in a short ten years. It was hardly worth doing, but still worth doing right, and that required attention because it didn’t take me long to realise that the asshole I was assisting, Mr Peterson, was a fug fraud. If I’d been his boss he’d be out on his ass. Instead, I was ing up that jackass’s mess even as I had to put up with his desding bullshit and—this, at least, I couldn’t bme him for—pathetic attempts at hitting on me.

  But hey, if I’d had dy sat at a desk outside my office, toug up her makeup, making those full lips all wet and bright red, tossing that brilliant blonde hair… yeah, I would’ve had that bitch blowing me from under my desk before the first month was out.

  Fuck. My tration was shot. More to the point, I needed a bathroom stall to adjust myself. Thinkihoughts wasly ducive to a pain-free afternoon. I was also getting fed up, again. These long nails slowed my work and these tits still distracted me, and the stant dull ache from my crotch was almost unbearable at times. It’s a good thing dy’s work wasly all that difficult, you know? I could get her day’s worth of work done in a few hours--once I put my ditzy blonde head to it, that is, which obviously wasn’t always easy.

  Distras abounded.

  My eyes drifted away from the monitor and across the Lounge. Nikki was kig Derek’s ass at a game of pool; Christina, Lin and . . . I think his name’s Dougs? were having a chat by the water cooler, and Suriopped on his way to the kit to stop and watch Katerina puzzle her way through a so on the white board, and . . . shit, doesn’t anybody actually do work around this goddamn pce? Suddenly I felt a desperate o be alone, a hungry longing for the solitary life of the previous weeks before I’d picked up this job. Who the hell were all these people? I didn’t want to know them, hang out with them . . . I definitely didn’t want to work for these kids, scurrying after them, eg their calls, fetg their bloody copies, entering their data and carrying drinks into meetings.

  How the hell was I going to survive the weeks and months to e? To this stant scrutiny, and the humiliation of doing this drudgework and looking up at these . . . kids, infants that not long ago I would’ve been telling what to do, telling off . . . at best, meeting as almost-equals! This pce wasn’t NeoPharm . . . but it wasn’t that far off, it felt familiar and that familiarity made it all the malling.

  When I started this hellish existence, I assumed my girlhood was going to be the hard part. And it was; it truly fug was. But holy, sometimes it was the age thing I felt the most. I’d already beey; it sucked. I resented having to do it again. I resehe dession, the assumptions about what a I knew and didn’t know, of my capabilities and experience. When these bastards talked down to me, was it because I was a girl? Or twenty? Or a subtle fug mix of the two?

  One of the senior directors es to work at ten every m. When Michael or arrives, I watch him pass with what must be barely cealed jealousy and unreasoned dislike. I envied him his height and size, his short hair, his tailored suit, the hefty, expech at his wrist, the fortable shoes, his fident and easy stride, the deference he receives and the assumption of automatic respect. That should be me. That used to be me. And I hated him for the frustrating reminder, despite the fact that by all ats, and from my limited experien the office, he was actually a really good guy and a fantastiager.

  Everybody liked Michael; except for dy, who secretly yearo be him.

  And so, every m, I trot after him in my heels and bring him his mail and a coffee, bd pass him the neer—yes, a fug physical print neer because the pretentious ass seems to love the ostentatious dispy of leaning ba his office seat with his broadsheet spread wide. Every m I stand in the doorway of his office as this uping executive settles into his seat, and every m I’m fronted with the image of the young girl faintly reflected over him in the expansive window opposite. And every m I use the opportunity to touch up my image in the window and I smile at the man and somehow grow more familiar and at ease with these ridiculous, flirty little gestures; what the hell was I being?

  I caught Menie’s attention. “Hey Mel? I’ve gotta, you know, freshen up? You mind c?”

  She made a big deal of finishing off some work she was doing before looking up. “Oh, of course!” she said, smiling. “You know how to transfer your calls over?”

  Bitch. I chewed on my lip for a moment. “I think so,” I said, and redirected everything to her desk. I grabbed my purse from beh the desk and slipped my feet bato those godforsaken t heels, feeling the all-too familiar pinch at the toes and strain in calf, a her eyes scrutinizing me as I pranced from the office.

  The toilets were on the far side of the floor, past frosted gss doors and heavy woodehat led into the other offices that shared the space with V.I.. I walked quickly—as quickly as I could in tall shoes I was still mastering—suddenly aware of a burgeoning panic swelling inside--a pressure on my brain--a wild desire to scream or throw myself against a wall or to hurt someone badly.

  “Hi dy!” Shit. The chirpy voice demanded my attention. I stared unseeingly for a long moment at the woman standing before me, then shook my head and snapped out of it. Fuck, what was her name again? She’s that receptionist from up the hall . . . Emma! I forced a smile to my lips. “Emma?”

  She looked at me oddly, and for a moment looked hurt. Goddamn, what’d I d this time? The silence drew out awkwardly. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes, of course!” I nodded. “Why do you ask?”

  “You just look a little . . . tense, is all.” She shrugged, a delicate motion of her shoulders. She was a cute little thing—though taller than me, of course--in her early twenties with short, bobbed hair and dark, almost severe clothes. How she walked around all day in such tall heels I couldn’t imagine. We’d had a long chat ihroom two days ago, something about . . . crap, what was it? “Rough day at work?”

  I shrugged-- felt acutely aware of how i and unfeminine my gesture seemed pared to hers--and froze mid-motion. God, she was going to think I was having a physical meltdown or something. Maybe I was. “I guess,” I said. Something flickered behind her eyes but I couldn’t read her, some secret female code still unknown to me. I had to get away before I cwed out her eyes or screamed in her face. “I’m sorry,” I nearly blurted, and pushed past her towards the bathroom. “I’ve . . . really got to go.”

  Her eyes followed me down the hall. Sudden it came to me, and I paused and looked back. “Mark!” I excimed, and she started at the sound of my voice. Her boyfriend; or rather, her ex—they’d retly broken up. “Jesus, Emma, I’m so sorry. How’re you holding up?”

  Emma looked sad, and forced a watery smile. “Better,” she said, and turned away.

  It’s a good thing I didn’t bump into anyone else in the hallway. Fighting back a hysterical ugh--or was it a sob?--I reached the women’s toilet--ane to break into giggles--my steps clig loudly on the ceramic tiles--a desperate effort to not see myself in the mirror--why the hell are their so many mirrors in the girls’ room?--slender legs and long sleek hair and--I flung myself into a stall and colpsed onto the seat and buried my fa my hands.

  I drew a long shuddering breath. A quiet whimper escaped my lips, not the howl of frustration I wanted but the only release avaible to me. My fists ched, nails digging into my palm painfully . . . and then rexed. Another breath. A deep sigh.

  Up went the skirt and down the panties. I ripped tape back from shaven skin and my cock sprang free, drawing out a hiss of pain at the sudden release, and bobbed angrily once or twice, still half-aroused from earlier. Only a little over a month since I’d woken up in dy’s bedroom and found myself like this, and yeah, the whole thing was still pretty damn uling. When I looked down—past the rolling expanse of those geous tits they’d given me--and saw pale white thighs, the sharp trast where the frilled band of the stogs caressed my leg, the slender length of my legs and the panties pooled around my ankles; and my half-erect cock stig up. . . .

  Yeah. Uling didn’t quite cover it.

  And somehow--and it’s not something I wao think about too much--the whole thing retty damic. If I wasn’t so ed about getting caught I might’ve jacked ht then and there. It’d been months since I’d had a proper fud sometimes it felt like I was walking around in a state of semi-perpetual arousal. There were moments of genuine brain fog, a fugue of sexual need and sensual desire that left me… a fug mess; ears; full e; g at my crotch for a wank; or lig my lips as I stared, and lusted, at the men and women floating past me.

  Ten minutes, every day: a solitary moment huddled away in the woman’s bathroom in which I determinedly reassembled a happy, girlish dy to present to the world. I’d known that settling into this life would be difficult . . . but God, not like this! The stant gnawing doubt, the fear of getting caught, the shame, the act . . . the palpable anger I struggled stantly to veil behind a smile and wide eyes and a flick of long hair. Pretending to be this young girl hadn’t been so hard before, not in those brief enters while on the run, not at the iot even hanging around with Harry Longman.

  Somehow it’d been easier then, the bubbly joy and flirty touches, when I’d just been pying the part. Flirty without sequence. With a square jaw and heavy shoulders and thick arms, I’d needed an inakeup and a darkened room to pass. Wearing all that strictive under- riggih my clothes to pass as a girl, and somehow tightly restrained by everything I’d felt freer to slip into the role of dy. But now, here iy, in the shops and oreet, at the grocery store and on the bus and at work--especially at work--the expectations, the assumptions of how a young woman should act, and those agonizingly painful moments when somehow I did or said the wrong thing without ever quite knowing what; it was killing me. I’d meticulously studied the clothes and practiced the makeup and spent hours walking in the shoes, but I wasn’t a girl, didn’t think like one and didn’t want to be one--and it showed. Goddamn, but it still showed, and I was left w how much further I’d have to take this bloody charade.

  It’s like Steele’s man Jeff said a few weeks ba that dirty back-alley: I’m “off”. And I didn’t yet know how to be “on”.

  With a sigh I tucked myself away, drew the panties up tight and pulled my skirt into pce. Standing, I took a moment to reset the sili strips ohigh highs, drawing the stogs taut. After a quick adjustment of the underwire supp my tits and some tugging and shifting to get the bra fortable--or as fortable as the damn thing ever got—and taking a moment to massage the dimpled flesh, I felt just about ready to face the office again. A final deep breath and I smoothed down my clothes and stepped bato the real world.

  The girl that fronted me in the mirror standing opposite . . . she was a real cutie though; I’ll give Scooter and his team of butchers that. They did good work. She perched almost-fortably in a pair of not-really-sensible red slingback peep-toed heels. Slender legs sheathed in patterned grey stogs disappeared beh a pleated, tartan skirt that finished several inches above her knee. A wide belt of shiny red pstic with an oversized bck buckle ched her narrow waist in tight and atuated her curves. A fitted white button-up shirt with wide pels and short sleeves hugged her figure, undiminished by the thin bck sweater with the scoop neck she wore over it. The fine gold neckce hanging from her fluted neck with its small bauble glinted as it y led ihin, deep line of visible cleavage, matched by the dainty silver and gold strips that danced and jigged at her ears and the ba her wrist. Slender neck, bright eyes, and thick blonde hair that tumbled in a carefully messy fall to mid-back—yeah, this girl was cute, a real babe, one part i schoolgirl, one part naughty-librarian. Fuck me, that was . . . me; it still took me by surprise.

  I stepped up to the mirror. With each step I once agai acutely aware of the swish of the skirt against my legs, the gentle shifting of tits within their cy cups, and the way long hair tickled skin. Each step--the click of those heels, the feminine gait that came all too easily now--and the way I held my hands, the looseness at the wrist and how those long nails ged everything. Pg my purse on the ter and zipping it open and pulling out my makeup, I began to fall bato these feminiions and the character I pyed.

  I looked into the mirror. With every soft pass of brush and pencil across lip, eye and cheek, I disappeared a little deeper into the image before me. As a guy there’d never had much call for staring at my refle. For shaving, yeah, but I’d never had a heavy beard and only used to shave every third day or so. A qui the mirror before work, maybe before meeting a girl . . . owice a day maybe. But as a girl--hell, I carried a little mirror with me everywhere I went, had a virtual one on my phone, and it felt sometimes as if every free moment ent staring into the cursed thing. Passing my refle on the wall was a ce to check my hair or make sure my clothes were hanging right, and I touched up my face stantly throughout the day.

  I hated that fug mirror. Not from the neck down--I mean, hell, if I was going to be pying this part for a while, then yeah . . . I might as well be sexy, you know? I hated how weak I’d bee but couldn’t deny a little thrill at every glimpse of smooth skin and those subtle but thrilling curves. But my face . . . yeah. My face. That was something else. dy’s face.

  It sure as hell wasn’t mine. Leaning closer to the mirror, pulling out my makeup case, I couldn’t reize the girl who stared back. There was a youthful glow to the girl’s skin, a little post-adolest chubbio her cheeks that added to her ess--but it wasn’t my skin. Only the eyes were familiar. I still had this instinct, this psychic urge twitg my fingers, to sink those female cws deep into my skin and tear away the mask I still felt y over my real face.

  Talk about fug with your head, you know? It’s a wonder I wasn’t insane. Yet.

  Shoving such thoughts aside, I checked myself over in the mirror a final time and shoved the tubes and vials that now made up my life bato the purse. Then I popped a pill, one of Scooter’s remaining happy little helpers to get me through the day. I smiled, and knew soon it wouldn’t even feel forced. “Lookin’ awesome!” I said, my voice high and bubbly in the empty room. “You go, girl!”

  I hurried back to the office. “Feel better?” Menie asked on my return, her voice a beautiful bance of disdain and sweetness.

  “Much!” I answered, quickly settling back behind my desk. The ph. My fingernails stood out as shimmering pink sshes against the bck receiver.

  “Good m,” I answered cheerfully. “Volumina Iional, dy speaking. How may I help you?”

  Author's Notes:

  If you're impatient to read on, you find everything avaible on Patreon: patreon./fakeminsk, as well as fanart and a few side projects.

  And of course, ents and feedback are always appreciated!