Nancy's Descent Pt. 04

To a cute little red head: Thank you. I'm much obliged, and am very glad my story triggers you so well. I've been there, btw, in regard to your S.O. Stay strong, little one. And in the meantime, here's some more 'material'. Don't hesitate to message again, I enjoyed reading it. If you do not like for me to reply to you this way, just say so. No biggie. I hope you and everyone else enjoys pt. 4.

We're still just getting fired up here, so patience may be required for this slow burn. I may update infrequently, but I'm in it for the long haul. I have a lot of pleasure and degradation in store for Nancy, but I will unfold her descent slowly, at the pace I personally enjoy. If it makes anyone impatient, I apologize, and hope you still enjoy it. Thank you to all comments, I really enjoy reading them and they spur me on to push out new chapters.

Nancy was in a good mood on Wednesday. Partly because of her stolen orgasm and partly because her boss had officially promoted her. She would no longer be making house calls, instead staying at Shoeman's and answering calls. Resolving customer complaints and troubleshooting problems was her strong suit, so the job did not intimidate her. It also meant she would be making almost a thousand dollars more a month.

Early on, when she had first been told she might get the job, she had the hope that it would eradicate Mr. Hoyden from her life. She knew now that the idea was naïve. There was no way he would just let her go; he would find a way, like he always did. Really, it was likely he was prepared for such a thing. He seemed to always be prepared for anything. It was a quality she admired, although in the case of their relationship, it was rather inconvenient.

There had been times in Nancy's life in which she had prided herself for being someone who could easily get things done, especially when it concerned other people. She had always worked well in groups, usually taking the lead, naturally. She had a way of getting people to lean in the direction she wanted, and she could talk her way in and out of things most of the time. The situation with Mr. Hoyden had made her become aware of an element within her own success: most people were not very prepared, not paying attention, and not really giving it their all. That made it easy to assume control and lean people this way and that.

Mr. Hoyden was not like most people. He was prepared, organized, reflective, observant, and focused. He had not half-heartedly assumed control over her. It may have seemed casual and effortless from her point of view, but having at least rudimentary knowledge of the kinds of procedures he was implementing, she could say with confidence that what he had achieved was not easy, nor had it been as sudden as it seemed. No, he had begun immediately, she just hadn't known. She could easily beat herself up about it, but that would be absurd. There was being observant and prepared, and then there was being insanely paranoid. No one in their right mind goes around watching to see if someone in their peripheral might be running some kind of mind-control scam on them.

Nancy was on her lunch break and she tossed a balled up paper bag into the bin on her way out of the break room.

"Nice," someone said behind her, and she pivoted to look at the young man who had been sitting at a table behind her. She smiled politely.

"You have good aim," he continued and she shrugged a shoulder.

"Only in this room," she chuckled. "I do it every day. You missed the days when I always missed."

He nodded and smiled and she tried to remember his name.

"It's Nancy, right?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Craig?" she tried and he smiled and shook his head.

"Close, though. It's Greg."

"Got it. Sorry," she said, smiling.

"No worries. Congrats on the promotion, by the way."

Nancy crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. "Thanks. You're in the back, right?"

He nodded, "Yep, I'm in the trenches."

"Hmm, that's actually kind of where I wanted to be when I applied. Used to work in a call center, and I was kind of wanting to just be...in the back somewhere, I guess. "

"Yeah, well it's not super stressful, I'll give you that. Plus I can where my ear buds," he said, pointing to them where he'd draped them around his neck.

"Ah. Yeah, that's not going to be an option for me, unfortunately."

"Well, hopefully it's worth the paycheck," he said, and stood. She straightened up as he threw his garbage away and came to stand in front of her.

"So, I'm just gonna say it," he started, and Nancy tilted her head with a curious smile.

"Okay..."

"Would you want have dinner with me, sometime?"

Nancy bit her lip. Never in her life had she imagined she would get asked out by someone and her first thought would be, 'I'm not supposed to.' What if she asked permission? Would that make a difference? God, what if Mr. Hoyden got him involved? And if she said yes and started seeing him in secret, he would undoubtedly find out, and then what would he do? She didn't want to know.

"Hmm," Greg started, and nodded to himself.

"Tell you what...think about it, and get back to me. Can I give you my number? Just call if you decide that's something you'd like to do."

She found herself nodding and smiling, dumbly. She was grateful he'd given her a way out with such grace. It almost reminded her of what Mr. Hoyden might be like if he were...normal.

By the end of her day, Nancy came to yet another realization. She was leaning against her kitchen counter, waiting for the microwave, when the realization came. Despite her good humor all day, she had experienced a dull sense of disappointment. It was now, when she was standing in the kitchen with nothing much to do or distract herself with that she realized the reason was because it was not a Mr. Hoyden day, and wouldn't be until Friday. As of late, Nancy never was sure which feelings or thoughts were her own. She wondered for a moment how something like that could not bother Mr. Hoyden. He had said that there had to be some kind of desire there to begin with for much of it to work, but wouldn't he rather she genuinely be attracted to him? Or maybe he had a penchant for getting girls who weren't attracted to him to let him do things to them. Surely, the man was some brand of sadist. A part of her wanted to ask him, but like many things she wanted to say or do in his presence, she was afraid that it would somehow make things worse for her.

She thought back to the first day he had ever activated her. He had told her that his home was a safe place, and that no harm would come to her. And while the humiliating things he had done to her had been horrifying, they had only been embarrassing. She thought of her first spanking with him. He had made the comment that she was not about to have a heart transplant, that it was only a spanking. When he had put it like that, it had made her reaction seem rather ridiculous. In the big scheme of things, nothing he'd done to her had caused her any real harm. Her bottom had been a bit bruised a few times, but she had surprised herself when she'd taken a look in the privacy of her own bathroom and liked it.

She'd stood in front of the mirror with her pajamas bottoms pulled down and twisting awkwardly to try to assess the damage. When she saw the smattering of bruises there, some part of her had liked it. She had almost smiled to herself. But it always brought it all back around, again. Was that her genuine feelings about it, or was it just one of his programs? She wondered if there was any way Mr. Hoyden would just allow to her have a real conversation with him about this. They had talked before, conversations that had seemed shockingly forthright. He had never told her that initiating a conversation with him was forbidden. He had never punished her for something she had not been explicitly told would result in punishment. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Hoyden had actually been relatively...reasonable.

The microwave went off and Nancy's downturned gaze shot up. She had made a decision.

The new job didn't start until the next week, and the next day Nancy went about her routine in a somewhat withdrawn manner. She had made a new subliminal the night before, and had listened to it all night on repeat. It had occurred to her that one thing she could do was to add suggestions, rather than attempt to remove Mr. Hoyden's, which had not been successful, so far. In order to keep the results untainted, she quit listening to her others, and decided to focus solely on the new one. She also decided to keep it simple, rather than trying to achieve more than one behavioral change at a time, she chose only one: that she would orgasm during REM every night. She thought it was a good place to start, because having done so without suggestion before made it seem like an achievable behavior to encourage, rather than forcing something that would undoubtedly be going against the grain of something already in place. She felt her chances were good, and there was also a part of her that was simply enjoying the trial and error of it. She awaited the results of her experience with interest, rather than desperation.

The other decision she had made, which caused her to divert to auto pilot all day, was her impending discussion with Mr. Hoyden. That is, if he let her get out the words. She had spent nearly thirty minutes the night before while lying in the still, quiet of her dark bedroom deliberating on that opening statement. It should be courteous and to the point. She had chosen the question, 'May I talk with you casually, Sir?' She could imagine his expression, now. She scoffed to herself while driving through a residential neighborhood. She watched an elderly couple crossing the street in their windbreakers as she considered the fact that in some warped way, she was beginning to know Mr. Hoyden as a person. She could predict his reactions to things pretty well, even down to the expression. He would tilt his head, and probably give her one of those amused smiles. He would look away, deciding something in that inscrutable mind of his with his lips pursed. And then, she thought, he just might say, 'Why yes, Nancy. You may.'

Or something like that. Maybe she kind of liked the way he looked at her, sometimes. When she'd surprised him with her moxie, he never looked at her like she was bad, never brought any emotional weight to it. He might lower his head, in a finger-wagging sort of way; it was an expression one might use with a naughty puppy. As demeaning as that was, she realized it was preferable to something heavy, or God-forbid, truly menacing.

No, he had never been menacing. He would look at her bemused, perhaps his chin lowered, his fists on his hips. Or he might smile at her slyly out of the corner of his eye in an almost lucid sort of way, a glimmer of confidence. Just a moment, in which he acknowledged this game they were playing, and perhaps that on some level, he had admiration for her in some way.

The way he pursed his lips in thought. In those moments, she caught a glimpse of who he was beyond his authoritative role. There was no deviance, no Machiavellian cunning in those moments, just a man in thought. A man deciding, a man even caught off guard, but a man who is not threatened by such a moment. His confidence was so deep-seated that his pride did not get pricked in the few moments she had caught him off guard. In fact, those were the moment that seemed to endear him to her. For the first time, Nancy actually wondered: Does Mr. Hoyden like me?

Was it possible he had some admiration for her beyond approval of her body, and the clear pleasure he took from tormenting her? It was another question to add to the list she had. And she had made a literal list. She wondered if that would amuse him.

When she got home she saw she had a missed call from her mother and Nancy took a moment sitting in her chair to take a deep breath to steady herself. Her family had always been a source of stress to her, and it had only been recently that she'd gotten the courage to detach from them. It had been hard. There had been so much guilt tripping, so many times that she'd been reminded that 'we're family'. It had been hard for her to decide whether her struggle with them was worth such drastic action, and she had decided that she would not necessarily cut them out entirely, but would simply remain as detached as possible. She had avoided family gatherings for nearly two years, as inevitable drama and feuds would ensue, always about something utterly pointless, and seemingly for the sake of quandary. And when there were no problems, problems were made. Why was it that some people needed for things to go wrong in order to feel normal?

Nancy made sure to have a tumbler of whiskey on standby when she returned the call.

"I just really wish you would come this time," her mother was saying, with the perfunctory long sigh of self-ascribed martyrdom.

"Your brother misses you, you know," she added.

Nancy knew for a fact that it wasn't true. Their mother knew full well on some level that her brother did not miss her. They had never seemed to have a true rapport, were never able to quite get there. It hadn't helped that he had bullied her when they were children. She had been quiet and meek as a mouse, and he had taken advantage of it. He had blamed her for things she hadn't done, lied about her, demanded she lie for him, made fun of her and belittled her to the point that she had developed the habit as a child to sneak past him in rooms in fear that he would notice her and say something mean just to...be mean. What he had done to her during the short time she'd lived with him and his wife had simply been the last straw. Why? She would ask herself, over and over. No more 'why's'. Only...'enough'. The fact that she had been made to feel guilty over avoiding such mean-spiritedness by the people she was supposed to trust had just hurt. She hadn't really been surprised, but it had stung, nonetheless.

"Mom..." Nancy began, closing her eyes, and trying to steady herself. "I'm not coming."

"Why? What is it, this time? Is it work? That's so convenient that you always happen to be working when we're having a get-together."

Nancy nearly smiled to herself. She'd been through this so many times, she watched her mother changing tactics in transparent, real-time. If guilt tripping doesn't work, go straight to hectoring.

"I'm sorry, I just can't make it. I'm busy, I'm working a lot, I-"

"God, Nancy! You know, I get tired of hearing the same excuses, you could at least come up with something creative. Your brother was nice enough to let you live with him when you had nowhere else to go, and you just-"

"I --"

"-you just can't let go of whatever grudge this is for the sake of peace in the family? I just hate to see you bringing all this drama, you've always been such a nice girl-"

"Mom-"

"-and I just wonder if maybe you should just move back home. I don't know if you have friends that are telling you wrong, or you're just trying to prove some kind of point, but-"

"MOM!"

When there was quiet on the other end, Nancy realized she felt a little dizzy and her vision was a bit too clear. It was a sign to her that she was too upset, and would be no use in an argument. She was at a loss of words the moment she had the floor. It happened often, and Nancy clenched her jaw.

"What? What is it?" her mother was asking. "What, now you have nothing to say for yourself?"

"It's getting late, and I need to get to bed. Can we do this later? I'm exhausted."

"Fine. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Kay, bye."

Nancy resisted the urge to throw her phone. No use in having a tantrum. Nancy sighed and wriggled her hand between her legs. Her fingers came up wet. She had knots in her stomach and felt sick.

It was around nine at night when Nancy's phone rang. She was in the laundry room, transferring bundles of wet clothes into the dryer. She blew hair out of her face and turned to look at her cell phone over her shoulder. She didn't want to talk to anybody, least of all her mother. She wasn't sure why she'd already be calling, when she said she'd call tomorrow, but she was like that, sometimes. Her mother liked to catch her off-guard. She knew all the ways to weaken Nancy's defenses. She ignored it, and finished putting the clothes in the dryer. By the time she was in the kitchen, she was pouring another glass of whiskey when the phone rang again. Nancy groaned and set down the glass hard on her kitchen table as she made her way into the living room. Her phone lie on the sofa where she'd left it, the mere sound of its ringing making her tense. She picked it up, in spite of having no intention of answering.

It was not her mother calling. Nancy frowned at the unfamiliar number, and suddenly had a sharp intake of breath.

Was it possible it was Mr. Hoyden calling? She had been cradling the phone in her hand, but unconsciously shifted its weight in her palm, until she held it between thumb and forefinger, away from her body, as though it were a dead animal. It stopped ringing a few moments later. Nancy turned around and set it down on the table next to the glass of whiskey, before sitting down. She put her palms flat on either side of her glass, staring at the phone. When it rang again, she jumped. The sound of its chirping was friendly; such a deceptive melody. When she moved her hands away from the table, the evidence of her anxiety had blossomed in the form of two sweaty handprints, quickly evaporating in the dry heat of the desert. Nancy stared at her phone, lit up and singing, her eyes big, with her lower lip pinned by her teeth. She let her lip go and took a deep breath, before picking up the phone.

"Hello?" Her voice was barely over a whisper.

"Good evening, Nancy. Why did you take so long to pick up?"

At the sound of Mr. Hoyden's voice, her heart made a single, bounding leap, like a frog launching with a grotesque burp, from a slippery rock.

"Mr. Hoyden?" Nancy's hands were shaking, and she took hold of the glass of whiskey, as though it would somehow stabilize her.

"Yes," he purred," tell me who you were expecting, my pet."

"My mother," she said. It had tumbled out of her breathily, as she exhaled. She brought the whiskey to her lips.

"Would that explain why you didn't answer the first time?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Mmmm. And how about the second time?"

"I don't, um...generally answer unknown numbers. Sir."

"A good habit. But now that you know who this number belongs to, you'll program it into your phone."

"Yes, Sir."

"And you will always answer on the first call."

"Yes, Sir."

"And what do you suppose happens if you fail to do so?"

Nancy thought it would be easier to answer in the privacy of her own home, but she looked around for a moment, feeling as though the furniture itself was mocking her. "A spanking, Sir."

"That's right. Do you like spankings, Nancy?"

"No, Sir."

"Not at all, not ever? Nancy?"

She hesitated. Did she?

"I...I don't know. I..."

"Of course you know. It's just hard, Baby. I know it's hard. Make some effort, be a big girl."

"Maybe. I like it...I..." she groaned, and buried her red face in the crook of her free elbow. She listened to Mr. Hoyden's warm, soft chuckle at her struggle.

"Nancy?"

"Yes, Sir?" she asked, her voice a bit muffled in her elbow.

"Put the phone against your mouth properly so that I can hear you."

She begrudgingly lifted her head and did as he said.

"Yes, Sir."

The doorbell rang and, startled, Nancy stood too quickly, slamming her leg into the table. She hissed, wobbling for a moment. She started towards the door out of habit, but stopped halfway across the living room, her breaths coming in fast, short bursts. Was it him? She turned back around, the phone still clutched to her face, turned back around looking at her door.