A Visit to the Lower Basement

FRANK:

Of course, I know what those people upstairs say about me, that I'm a creep and a pervert. That's rich, when they're the same people who sent me down here and gave me this job to do. It's not like I volunteered for it. I didn't even know there was such a job. They told me there was a vacancy in HR, managing people, and that sounded like a step up for me. I'd been nothing more than a glorified janitor for the last ten years, whatever fancy title about building management they gave me.

I should have known something was up when they were so vague at the interview about what I'd be doing. The advert had said I'd be dealing with "difficult" employees, so at the interview I talked about providing feedback, recording negative behavior, and so on--I'd read up all about what you're supposed to do. I got some odd looks when I said all that, but they offered me the job anyway. I thought: it's a desk job, the pay is better, they're promising promotion if I do well, what can I have to complain about?

I soon found out. The young fellow from HR who showed me down to the "office" was openly laughing at me. I asked him what was so funny.

"You'll see soon enough," he said. And I did: the first clue was in the elevator, when he pressed the button for floor "LB".

"That's not the basement, surely?" I asked him. He just smirked. We stepped out of the elevator into an uncarpeted corridor: whitewashed breezeblocks, dim fluorescent lighting. It couldn't have been more different from the stylish décor and glass-walled offices upstairs. He walked ahead of me down a long corridor, then took so many turnings that I soon lost my bearings. Some of the doors that we walked past were closed, some were open into darkened rooms. In one, a group of men were sitting round a table talking in low voices. I paused at the door, and they looked up at me. As I walked on, there was a burst of coarse laughter behind me.

The man from HR stopped at a door labelled with the words "HR Department: Section D". He unlocked the door, reached inside to switch the lights on, then with a grin and a contemptuously extravagant gesture handed me the key.

"Your kingdom now," he said. I stepped inside.

For a few moments, I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Then, gradually, it started to come into focus for me. Racks on the wall and, hanging from them, chains, coiled ropes, leather devices with buckles, canes, things like a whip with multiple tails, electrical devices that I couldn't begin to understand. A leather-covered bench, with rings at the four corners. Something like a vaulting horse, also covered in leather. Something like a giant "X", the height of a person. I turned to my guide, who was openly laughing at my astonishment.

"Do you get it now?" he sneered. I could hardly speak.

"I'm supposed... to work here?"

"If you can call it work," he said.

"You mean...?"

"Sure. We send you the people that need... disciplining, and you discipline them. And"--he gestured to the cameras that I now saw on the ceiling around the room"--we watch you at work. To make sure you're doing a good job, you know." I felt sick. When he saw my expression, his attitude changed.

"Don't make a snap decision," he said. "Talk it over with your wife, sleep on it."

We did talk it over, of course. The pay made a difference: she wanted me to take the job--then. Now, she calls me a creep and a pervert too, though she's still happy to spend the money it brings in. Well, what wife ever said anything good about her husband?

"A real man would have a real job!" she told me last week, "not abusing innocent people like you do." As if I chose this.

The first few times someone knocked at the door, expecting nothing more than a written warning, I was more nervous than they were. But I settled into it. After a while it was just routine. I'd get a message saying who to expect, and what I should do to her--it was almost always a girl. To start off with, I enjoyed the sex too, though as I've got older I've worried that I wouldn't be able to do that part of the job for ever. All the time I've been doing it--years now--they've been promising me that promotion to the real HR office. But I don't believe in that any longer. It seems like any job I would ever have would be in a basement: "building superintendent" or "discipline officer", it makes no difference--I'll always be an underground person.

Then, last week, something very different happened. It was a quiet morning, no messages telling me to expect anyone. But at mid-morning the door opened without warning, and a girl stumbled into the room. And standing in the doorway behind her, glaring accusingly at me, was the woman who had pushed her in.

ANNA:

I like this job, I really do. The work is interesting, the people are fun--we go out together often, and they're always good company--the money is good, and I know there are possibilities for getting ahead. When I walk past the glass-walled meeting rooms, I often see some woman standing, elegant and poised, at the head of a long table, all eyes turned towards her. These women radiate confidence that they belong where they are, in charge of things. I'm going to be one of them, I can feel it.

The only part of the job that I don't like is when I have to take the minutes at meetings of the HR directorate. I can't understand why Juliette, the Chief HR Officer, wants me there. It's can't be because she likes me or rates my work--quite the opposite: she's made no secret of her feelings about me. But still she carries on, every time asking my boss to send me to take the minutes and send out follow-up actions, when she could choose any one from a dozen of her own staff. She's one of those self-confident women that I envy, but I wouldn't want to be like her--she's really hard and ruthless, and she terrifies me. So I make more mistakes, she criticises me still more harshly--vicious little jabs, always in a low tone, just loud enough for everyone to hear. I get flustered, more mistakes appear, it's a vicious circle. I'd complain about being bullied, but who would judge that complaint? HR, of course! At times I really hate her, but everything else about the job is good, so I stay.

That morning, I had a bad feeling the moment I saw her crossing the open-plan towards me. What could she be doing here? She belongs in the C-Suite upstairs, with the other top executives. We hardly ever see them here--I'd only recognise most of them because their faces adorn company announcements. Her face, though, I recognise from board meetings--and from nightmares. One of those seemed to be coming to life as it became clear that she was heading straight for me. She stopped by my desk.

"Come with me. Now, Anna," she said, her voice once again loud enough for everyone to hear. I gestured feebly at my screen and the open document that I was working on.

"But I have a deadline..."

"Now!" she said, more loudly. On all sides, heads turned. I rose and followed her, everyone watching.

JULIETTE:

I'm not usually at all impulsive, but that morning I just couldn't concentrate, and the idea suddenly came to me. I was thinking about Anna Hart, of course. I do wish I knew how that girl can get under my skin so effectively. She's nobody important, she means nothing to me--I don't even like her--and yet my mind still wanders back to her. Something about those big soft eyes makes me want to see them fill with tears, as they do every time I find fault with her work. That happens often, probably because I frighten her into making mistakes. It's very satisfying to watch, but that morning it just didn't seem enough: I'd found a particularly bad mistake that would have cost us thousands if I hadn't picked it up. Suddenly I remembered about the problems with Frank Alston, the discipline officer, and in a flash it came to me how I could solve two problems at once. I was on my feet and heading for her desk before I had time to think it over.

As strange as my behavior must have seemed to everyone, it was a pleasure to see her embarrassment and confusion when I summoned her from her work in front of them all. Of course, all that they were thinking was that she must be due for some normal HR procedure--a final written warning, perhaps, or maybe the beginning of a dismissal procedure. No-one would have guessed where I was taking her, because even those who'd had to visit Section D themselves were always called by an impersonal message from HR, not dragged there in person by the director. And Anna probably wouldn't even have heard of it; no-one who's been there wants to talk about it afterwards.

I led her to the elevator, the only one that goes down to the lower basement level. Even seeing the letters on the button, "LB", gave me a thrill, knowing what they meant. As the elevator went down, I fixed my gaze on her. I felt excitement rise, seeing that she was too intimidated to speak or even meet my eyes. I told myself that this was a professional visit: Frank Alston was one of those problems that even the most senior managers sometimes have to confront in person. But no purely professional visit had ever excited me like this.

The elevator doors opened on a dimly lit hallway, uncarpeted, with breezeblock walls. If it had been a movie set, the accompanying music would have been low and tense. I have to admit, I was taken aback--I'd never actually been down there myself, and I was surprised at quite how menacing it felt. And if I felt intimidated, how must Anna have been feeling? She found her voice at last:

"What are we doing here? Where are you taking me?" I just pushed her on in front of me. Luckily I knew the layout, I have a good memory for maps and directions.

ANNA:

I could hardly believe that this was happening, it was so like a bad dream. Except that not even in my Juliette-haunted nightmares had I ever felt so weak and frightened. Juliette pushed me again, and this time I forced myself to stop and turn to her.

"I'm not going another step until you tell me what this is about." My voice sounded high and unsteady. To my surprise, Juliette stood aside.

"Go back, then," she said evenly. At once, I saw in my mind the journey back, down those long, dimly-lit corridors, all those turnings that I knew I had already forgotten, past--Oh God!--past the room with those men in it. Even to be with Juliette was better than to be alone and lost in that place. I turned and walked on ahead of her.

FRANK:

I knew what was up as soon as I saw the director in the doorway. I was furious. Obviously, if the head of your department calls on you in working hours, it isn't to congratulate you on your work. But what an intrusion, as if the constant surveillance isn't enough, and the endless appraisal forms. And now this. "Get out," I shouted. "You've no business here."

JULIETTE:

When I opened the door, Alston had his feet on his desk, with a newspaper spread out in front of him. He looked grubby, unkempt and overweight, even worse in person than on the CCTV screens. He jumped to his feet when he saw me, and his expression gave me all the pleasure I needed to justify the journey down here. He started to protest, but you could see he knew that argument would be futile.

"Of course I can be here," I told him. "I'm the Chief HR Officer, and this is a section of my department. Now do your job. I'm telling you to give this girl the full treatment, everything."

"I can't do it properly with you standing there watching," he said angrily.

"You can't do it properly, period. Why do you think I'm here? You've been slacking for months. Get on with it, or you're out of here--today".

He stood in front of me, lost for words, ready to lash out. But after a long moment, his shoulders dropped in defeat. He half-turned to the girl.

"Go on, then, get undressed."

ANNA:

Nothing had made any sense since Juliette took me from my desk, but what this horrible man had just said made even less sense than anything before. I must have misheard him. I had just been staring stupidly at the two of them arguing, but now they'd stopped and were looking at me impatiently.

"Come on, Anna," Juliette said briskly, "Don't keep us waiting". I was paralysed. The man she called Alston shrugged wearily, walked to his desk, and returned carrying a large pair of dressmaking scissors. The sight of them broke my trance.

"Don't!" I said, and pulled my dress over my head. Juliette took it from me and threw it carelessly in a corner. I hesitated, Juliette looked impatiently at him, and before I could react, the scissors had cut through my bra and panties. He pulled the ruined remnants off my body.

FRANK:

Once her clothes were off, I put the cuffs, the blindfold, and the gag on her, led her to the bed, laid her on her back and tied the handcuffs to the rail at the head of the bed. She didn't resist: I supposed she was in shock. Usually I'd chat with her while I was doing this, though it's kind of a one-sided conversation in the circumstances. This time, while I went through these routine preparations, I couldn't speak: I could feel the director's gaze on me, silently criticising every action. I put the ankle cuffs on her, and fastened them to the bedhead rail as well, so that now she was bent double, completely exposed. But now, to my astonishment, the director walked over and--I couldn't believe this--took the gag off!

"Well, Anna," she sneered, "how are you feeling now?"

It might be my job, but at that moment I really felt for the girl. Naked and blindfolded, her backside in the air, totally vulnerable, and now with her boss haranguing her. She didn't answer. In her place, I'd have said nothing too: that woman wasn't worth answering. The director looked at me expectantly. I chose a flogger to start with, just to warm her up. It hurts less than everything else, they tell me, but this girl was no stoic: from the first time it fell across her buttocks and pussy, she was screaming and wriggling her behind around to try to avoid the lash. I was surprised by that, but not so much as by what happened next: the director had taken a leather tawse from the rack, pushed me aside, and now was mercilessly beating the poor girl with it. This interference, I was furious. I know what I'm doing, I certainly should do after all these years: you warm them up, you take your time, and it pays off: in the end, they can take a lot more pain that way. You don't just barge in and settle some personal grudge with a tawse. But what could I do? She was the department director.

And it was the same the whole time: nothing that I did was good enough: the wax, the clamps, the clothespins, beatings, electroshock, humiliation: nothing was good enough. All my experience, the skills I'd gained over years of hard work. This woman--this outsider, this amateur--was belittling my work just to find an excuse to fire me. Torturing the poor girl was just a bonus for her. But at the end, even she had to admit that there was something she couldn't do.

"Come on, Frank," she said scornfully. "I said the full treatment, give her the full treatment." Well, I already said that I'm getting older, I've been worrying about this, and these certainly weren't ideal conditions. She saw my hesitation and taunted me.

"You can't get it up any more. If you can't even do that, what use are you?" It was too much: she'd been on my case for months. This was the last straw. I saw red.

ANNA:

I had been overwhelmed by sensation: exposed, humiliated, hurt with floggers, canes, clamps and wax and, to my utter confusion, teased to orgasm with dildos and vibrators. I'd been handcuffed and blindfolded for hours. I couldn't any longer tell where I was, or what was real. But now something was piercing the fog: I heard angry voices, one of them that I recognised well. It was Juliette, and there was fear in her voice as well as anger. She was breathless, as though she was struggling with someone. Crashing sounds, like things falling over, or being knocked over. Then a ratchet sound, like handcuffs closing.

"You won't get away with this," I heard her say, "Security are on their way right now."

Silence. Then a man spoke: I recognised the voice, Alston's:

"Yeah? Where are they, then? Likely getting ready to enjoy the show. Shall we get you ready for it too?" I heard a sound like scissors closing, then Juliette's furious voice was muffled in mid-sentence, as though something had filled her mouth. Then a sound that I knew well by now, leather on flesh. And Alston:

"So I can't get it up, eh? You conceited bitch. We'll see about that."

Everything that happened that day is a blur. Someone must have let me go, taking off the handcuffs, the gag, and the blindfold, and releasing me from all the restraints. I have a memory, or maybe a dream, of a naked woman standing, bent over double, her wrists fastened to her ankles. Then I was outside the door, back in that desolate corridor, wearing my dress again--my ruined underwear just a memory--and a man, like one of those in the room that we had passed, waiting expressionless to lead me back to the world above. I found myself back at my desk. Around me, there was silence: everyone was focused on their work. I was sore in a dozen places--just to sit down was a trial--but emotionally I felt nothing, I was completely numb. If you had asked me what had happened that morning, I couldn't have answered a word. The document I was working on was still open on my computer. I went back to work on it: I still wanted to meet that deadline, and I did.

I thought that nothing could stay the same after that morning: I expected firings, inquiries, police, lawsuits. Nothing of that happened. I was most surprised at what I did, or rather what I didn't do: I said nothing to anyone about Department D or what had happened there. I just kept working. And work has gone surprisingly well for me since that day, better than I could have expected: soon I really will be one of those confident women I've watched taking charge of serious business meetings.

Yes, Juliette still calls on me to take the minutes at her meetings, but now it's different: she's as cold as ever, never meets my eye or acknowledges anything. But her bullying criticism has completely stopped. She's as crisp and efficient with me as with everyone else, but it's quite impersonal now. I've noticed only one small change, I sit next to her in meetings, so it's hard to avoid: a new ring on her left ring finger, quite plain, but with a small O-ring attached to it. Why should I care about what she wears, or anything else about her? I'll be promoted soon, and she'll be out of my life.

I'll forget about Department D too, though that'll be harder: every day I see the elevator, the one that goes down two levels. Sometimes there's a young woman waiting for it, and I have to restrain myself from running to her. The idea flashes through my mind of going with her, and the two of us fighting that horrible man together. We could punish him the way he punished me. But who would win that fight? Who would I even want to win it? My sensible self says: look away, Anna, move on, or you'll be late for your next meeting. Though once I'm promoted, I'll be the boss. And no-one complains if a meeting gets delayed because the boss is tied up somewhere else.