Heather Ruffles Feathers

The world belongs to those who won't shy away from a fight.

As one of the youngest female executives in the history of my company, I believe I qualify.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't have delusions of grandeur. I'm no politician, oil magnate, or billionaire. Ultimately, I'm still a cog in a very large machine. But I've only gotten to where I am by fighting, tooth and nail, for everything I have.

Every time I see the plaque outside my office door -- Monique Hartman -- it reminds me of all those who tried to slow me down. The world of corporate politics is for cutthroats. It's why so many people end up stuck in middle management, or worse, in a cubicle, for the rest of their lives.

They can't take the heat.

I certainly can. You don't get far in such a male-dominated industry as finance, as a woman, unless you've got -- in increasing order of importance -- brains, determination, and ruthlessness. I've had to put many men -- and a few women -- in their place. Their defeat has elevated my success.

It's that simple: a zero sum game.

Not many people are cut out for this life, and that's okay. There's no denying the sacrifices I've had to make. The lone university years, spent burning the midnight oil over books. The summers spent doing internships and volunteering and publishing articles, while everyone else was off holidaying.

I collected one academic accolade after another, while others collected friends. Where they lived intense and all-consuming relationships, I carefully built my CV. It was painful, at times. Required the suppression of my own desires.

Left me with the feeling that I was a permanent outsider, looking in.

But today I can say, with full confidence, that it was worth it. I have my own house, which I like. My husband Jason, whom I love. And my executive position... which I love even more.

So, if everything is so perfect... why do I feel so uneasy today?

There is one dissonant note these days. It's my new secretary, Heather Rawlings.

Not that there is anything wrong with the girl. It's just that I'm a creature of habit, and it will take me some time to get used to working with someone new.

Maybe.

Oh, who am I kidding? I know the real reason, and it has nothing to do with our work together.

So far, Heather has conducted herself very impressively. She's fresh out of university, but extremely professional, and surprisingly clever for someone working as a secretary.

I wondered, more than once, what's up with that -- but never felt bold enough to inquire directly to her.

That's the clue as to what unsettles me about her, actually. Secretaries in my field -- especially when assigned to big time executives like myself -- tend to bend over backwards, or lack self-confidence, or live in hope of career advancement.

Not so Heather. She is oddly... assertive. I usually feel no remorse bossing my employees around, but I'm considerably more guarded with her. I feel like there's an invisible line she won't let me cross.

She always holds her head high, and while she completes every task assigned to her, she manages to look non-deferential while carrying them out.

Her grit, her determination, the aura of supreme confidence that surrounds her at all times it... speaks to parts of me that I've repressed far too long. Like a crack of light, suddenly shining into a room that's been kept in darkness for years.

Giving what's inside a hope that it may be time to come out, at last.

I shudder at the thought, and repress it, again. It's worked for me so far.

But Heather... she reminds me of a younger version of me. I never had to work as a secretart, thank the heavens, but she has the same steel in her spine, and the same glimmer in her eyes.

There must be ten years between us, but sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a peer, rather than a secretary.

One such occasion is taking place right now.

"I don't understand," Heather says, in a matter-of-fact tone that fails to hide her simmering frustration. "Why do we have to enter the data twice? It took me a whole week last time, and it slowed the rest of my work down to a crawl!"

"Because the contractors who designed the IT system are dogs," I say, even-handedly. To be clear, Heather is absolutely correct. This is ridiculous, and I don't understand why we seem to always pick IT firms that overcharge and underdeliver.

But to have a secretary question company policy so openly in front of an executive is rare enough. It's not just that Heather is independently minded. She clearly gets so annoyed by other people doing a poor job. A trait I very much sympathise with.

Of course, her frustration is doubly justified in this instance. As my secretary, she'll have to enter my own employee records data as well as hers.

She stomps her foot in frustration on the floor -- nothing dramatic or unbecoming of the office, just a little tap -- but that draws my eyes to it nonetheless.

Heather is quite pretty to look at, and a redhead besides. I may be her boss, but I'm human and I have eyes. But it's her feet I've been paying attention to, lately. With worrying, increasing frequency.

The way they look in flats. The way they look in heels. The sheen of the black nylons as they catch the light.

That's another part of me that should just go back to the pit and stop bothering me. I fight to push it down every day, and it's exhausting.

I only half-listen as Heather mutters that she has more important work to do, and that the least the higher-ups can do is not saddle us with extra menial labour because they can't even pick the proper IT service provider.

And again, she's right. I do have a number of presentations and positioning papers coming up that require proofreading, a task I always assign her due to her excellent writing skills. My mind is elsewhere, though.

It goes right back to what I said earlier. I had to suppress -- sometimes crush -- my own desires to get here. Even with Jason, our love life is comfortable... but not really exciting.

Now that I'm an executive, now that most of my goals have been achieved, it's becoming harder and harder to keep the lid on what's been simmering underneath for years. I know I've missed out on so much, in my university years.

It was a necessary immolation. But now...

Now I wonder, more and more often, what it would be like to act on some of the fantasies I've always harboured.

I... don't even have real names for them. Not yet. I never allowed myself to delve too deep into them, after all.

But I know girls are definitely involved. And so are feet -- which some of my roommates mentioned frequently when talking about their sexual escapades. Often in the context of a power dynamic.

And... trance. That's something else I also overheard in my student years, and pointedly ignored. Perhaps because it sounded -- sounds -- too good to have a safe opportunity to get out of my own head for a while...

I gulp down. That's enough. I'm married, and Heather is my employee besides. I've kept my fantasies on lockdown for years. I can do the same now.

Still...

I'm rich, powerful, and respected. What worth is that, if I can't indulge at least a little? With my eyes still vaguely aimed at the floor, where Heather's foot is resting, I feel a strange compulsion washing over me.

Just this once, I promise myself.

"Tell you what," I say at last. "I'll enter my own data. It's only fair, given how many of my presentations you have to proofread this week."

Heather's eyes narrow, watching mine, and for a moment I wonder if I've made a mistake. Something about this girl, the intensity of the stare... I swear it makes me weak in the knees.

I know I'm courting danger. Heather will know this is very atypical behaviour on my side. What if she thinks I'm being inappropriate and goes to HR? The risk should scare me...

Instead, all it does is make my heart beat faster.

Am I really offering to do menial work for the pretty secretary with the nice feet? Am I really... indulging?

At last, Heather seems to make an internal decision, and nods. "Thanks, much appreciated. Send it to me when it's done, so I can review it."

I involuntarily sit back at that, mouth slightly open, fumbling for words that don't quite come. For a second there I almost answer yes ma'am. Jokingly, of course.

But it does feel weird. Like she's giving me work to do, and evaluating it after.

I swallow a knot in my throat, and just nod, not trusting myself to speak.

As Heather turns her back to me, I wipe sweat off my forehead, supremely confused by what has just gone down. What's happening to me?

I can almost swear Heather hesitates by the door for a second, looking at me from the corner of her eyes, the curled end of an outstretched smile just barely visible from my angle.

But I'm sure it's just my imagination.

***

I'm beginning to lose my balance.

Normally this would be the time for old Monique to reassert herself, to immediately rein in the sudden lapse in self-discipline by reverting back to an austere, work-oriented lifestyle.

But I just... I can't. Or I don't want to. There is a blurry line between these two, when it comes to matters of feelings. One I'm experiencing for the first time.

As Heather strolls into my office, sits in front of my desk and crosses her nyloned legs, I feel a flutter in my tummy. Like I'm about to have my work evaluated by a superior.

Superior.

That word... I never use it even with my real bosses. I always say, the higher-ups. I refuse to acknowledge that anyone is superior to me without evidence. Higher-up has a much better connotation.

It's a person who is temporarily above me in the corporate ladder. It implies that the situation might well change in the future, and it usually does, in my favour.

But with Heather, my young, inexperienced, ridiculously pretty secretary, my subconscious has just thrown the word around like nothing.

Superior.

She certainly looks like she's sitting on a throne right now. It suddenly feels wrong to be in a chair this side of the desk. I should be on the floor, looking up at those emerald eyes, taking in the way her royal red mane frames her face.

The way her shapely, toned, strong legs look like when seen from below. The way her feet look, when seen up close...

"So," Heather asks eventually, "have you inputted all of the data?"

"Yes," I say, shaking my head at my reverie. "Got it all in with no error."

"Good." It's simple, curt, and absurdly, it leaves me wanting for more. As if I'm yearning for her approval and validation.

I don't understand. Where does this need come from? Why do I suddenly feel so insecure about my ability to carry out, not even my real tasks, but a secretarial one?

Heather snaps me out of my reverie, though. Oblivious to my supreme internal confusion, she keeps speaking.

"I felt your presentations needed more edits than usual," Heather says. She gives me a pointed look at that. What she means is that she always thought they needed more edits. It's just that now she feels at liberty to actually go ahead and implement them.

"I noticed," I say with a gulp.

"How did they perform?"

Not even my enormous amounts of practiced stoicism can keep myself from blushing. They were very, very, very well-received. The higher-ups congratulated me on the figures I presented, how I put them in context, and the care put in the visual quality of the appended charts.

With Heather's additions, it had received a far better reception from the higher-ups than I was used to. Hell, they even explicitly said it, in words that went right to my heart -- and, absurdly, to my sex.

"That's a noticeable improvement, well done." That's what they'd said to me. Noticeable improvement.

My secretary has done a noticeably better job than me.

Noticing my silence and my conspicous blush, Heather smiles. I'm uncomfortably aware of her shoe, dangling in the air, exposing the heel of her foot.

"That's what I thought."

The implicit admission makes me shrink in the chair.

"So," she says, pointedly bobbing her foot up and down. "Shouldn't you thank me for my edits to your work?"

I poignantly notice that she hasn't thanked me for inputting our data into the HR system. I've done her job without thanks, she's done mine and expects praise. Almost like she's the boss, and I the secretary.

And when my body reacts to that thought with a spasm of arousal that travels straight to my sex, that's when I know I am really in trouble.

Unfortunately, I'm not thinking with my brain right now. And so, I comply.

"Thank you so much for your edits, Heather," I say in a small, markedly non-executive voice. "They made my presentation much better."

"I so know," she says. "I will continue doing so in the future."

It's not a request. She's just informing me of a decision she's taken. Without waiting for me to dismiss her, she stands up and heads out of my office, leaving me stunned in her wake.

Over the next days and weeks, Heather begins to systematically test my resilience and ability to withstand orders.

In my work, there is more and more of her, and less and less of me. And my superiors like it.

I know if I could only get away from her for a while, clarity would return -- but Heather has smelled blood, and much like the younger me would have, she is pursuing her prey relentlessly.

By undermining my authority in small but incremental ways, every day, she constantly keeps me off balance. She raises the cost of restoring propriety, while undermining my self-confidence and manipulating my long-repressed desires.

Part of me realises this is turning into a war. I normally relish such confrontations -- it's what's gotten me so far. But my problem is...

You can't fight a war that your mind really, really wants to lose.

***

I can pinpoint the exact moment in which I decided to stop resisting. It was about a week ago.

Just thinking back about it makes my limbs tremble with excitement. Heather, in nylons of course, showed up in my office and announced that she would be taking care of my presentations from now on, since she was better than me at writing them, and it was easier than editing my "mediocre" output anyway.

And I submitted. Like a weak-willed loser.

Now, I say I stopped resisting, but that doesn't just mean giving in. I've started to lean into it.

I joke about how much smarter Heather is compared to me, how much blackmail material she's accumulating on me, how much more smoothly things would run if she were in charge.

I can barely recognise myself. This isn't the fighter that rose all the way to the top. But the truth is... victory iss beginning to feel a little stale for me. I want to try something new.

I want to experience what I've missed out on, when I was a young girl. And this thrill...

I think even Heather doesn't quite realise what ace she holds in her hands. The effect she has on me by now is instant and devastating. All it takes is one demeaning word, one liberty taken, one instance of her putting her foot down, and I...

It's not just that I get aroused, although of course I do. I rub myself to this on a daily basis, even when Jason and I have boring vanilla sex it's all I think about to get off.

But no, it's beyond that. I get this... sudden cascade of adrenaline, shooting down my nervous system from my head to my toes. My heart begins to race like crazy, my head spins, and I completely lose any shred of self control.

You need to understand. I'm taking a real risk here. I get paid an obscene salary, have contractual obligations, responsibilities, and a marriage.

And I'm endangering it all by doing menial work for my secretary, all the while openly ogling her feet. What self-destructive impulse is forcing me to risk it all? To put everything I have on the line, just so I can experience this feeling, over and over again?

A remote, worried part of me knows that this is because I'm sexually repressed. I've bottled down my desires for so long that they're ready to explode now. This, combined with the audacity of what we're doing, is too much for my undersexed nervous system to handle.

I mean, she's my secretary for crying out loud. I'm an executive making a six-figure salary, and she's bossing me around like I'm her PA. All in broad daylight, under the very nose of our coworkers.

And it's not like this is inconsequential play, or like Heather is using her, err... influence over me to skimp on work, or something. No, she's actively taking charge. She's writing positioning papers and presentations to my direct superiors, and by all accounts, doing a better job than I ever did.

This from a secretary with lots of smarts but zero experience being an executive. I literally can't compete. That fills me with awe, and desire to give in, and it makes me so ridiculously wet...

Everything I'm doing is problematic, devoid of boundaries, and probably very unethical. But how can I stop, when it feels so much better than just showing up at the office for another eight to ten hours?

When the real world, compared to this, is so eye-wateringly boring?

I'm an addict. I sound like an addict, I speak like an addict, I behave like an addict. I'm like an athlete, I live for that adrenaline rush, for the next moment when Heather will say something demeaning about me, or imply she's going to demote me, or dangle her foot in front of me.

This kinky fever has a full hold on me, when things truly spiral out of control.

Antsy and fidgety, I decide to seek Heather of my own volition. I get out of the desk, leave my office, and approach the tiny ante-office which serves as her workstation.

"Oh, it's a good thing you're here," Heather says. "I'm finishing up your next presentation." Then, she grins at me. "I bet you're finding yourself with less and less to do these days."

It's true. I feel completely usurped. I can do no better than lower my gaze in shame, keeping my hands clasped in front of me like a scolded child.

"Tell you what," Heather says, her words slow and deliberate, "make yourself useful while I get this done. Go fetch me coffee."

The way my pussy spasms at the word fetch is what really seals my fate. I head out into the hallway to the sound of Heather's giddy, cruel, entitled laughter.

This spiral just goes down and down and down, and it keeps getting faster, and I don't want it to stop. I don't want my old life back. This... fling, whatever it is... is the most interesting thing that's happened to me since I was last promoted.

It's wrong, and forbidden, and... wrong. But I'd never give it up for anything else in the world.

"Since when are you getting your own coffee?" A voice asks. It's Doug -- used to be my rival for my current position, but has obviously lost that race. I don't think he's ever really moved past his defeat, but he's at least coldly polite to me, and I return the courtesy.

But now, my cheeks catch fire in utter humiliation.

"Just felt like stretching," I say in a suspiciously shrill voice. Then, I retreat towards my office as fast as I can. Probably too fast for innocence.

The embarassment is all forgotten by the time I've made it back to my office... Only to find that Heather isn't sitting at her usual desk.

Steamy coffee cup in hand, I look this way and that, wary and suspicious, almost like I'm expecting a practical joke. Seeing no movement, I almost make to leave the coffee on Heather's desk, before a sneaking suspicion crawls into my mind.

Gulping, I approach my office door. Could it be? Surely not...

And yet, when I open the door, and step into my own office, what I find is Heather, sitting in my chair, at my desk, diligently working away at my presentation.

She notices my entrance, and her eyes lift from the screen, fixing me with her clever, amused glare. Her eyes focus on the coffee cup.