Office Dynamics Ch. 05: Victory

Present

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"Such a shame. He was so malleable. Took to the changes almost immediately and without much fight."

"He certainly spoiled me. The ones after were much more effort."

"Well, he can be salvaged. Although, I think it best to keep him docile and away from any of the others for awhile. Especially this one. She seems to be the root of it."

"Wouldn't it be better to find another?"

"I don't think so. His skill and knowledge in his position are too valuable. I chose him for a reason."

"But the knowledge can be in someone else's head."

"Sometimes I forget how new you are at this. An easy mistake given the talent you display. There are limitations. Only so much capacity can be replaced. Condensing Scott's knowledge down to move it would require a precise and intimate knowledge of the subject matter. There's also the whole reason I brought him on, which is his instinct. That is not easily copied. Adjusting perceptions, triggers, modifying feelings and thoughts; these are different from being able to make a brain necessarily know how to use what is there. Where we are today is much due to his abilities to keep things hidden and off the books. I wouldn't even know where to begin with all that. Would you?"

"No. I suppose not. We could make him invisible to the girls?"

"I don't think that will be necessary. Far easier to make one man blind to fifty than make fifty blind to one more. A vacation for Mr. Farsand I think is best. Come back refreshed and no longer privy to some of the going's ons."

Footsteps. The soft sounds of movement as hands re-dressed Scott. The same hands helped guide him.

"Can't believe we've lost two in a matter of months."

"Liam overreached. Fairly, he was helped along in that, but I was also done with him. The program only made it easier to track individual progression. His mistakes were repaired. Rest easy. We won't lose any more of the executives, but I think it best we tame this one or cut her free. That decision, I will leave up to you."

Then the soft click as the door of the office shut.

Tabitha, unmoving even to blink, still on her knees and undressed down to her lingerie, was the only person in the room. Though she didn't know it. She wouldn't know why she was on her knees in that moment. To her memory, she had become dizzy following the pitch meeting and came to her office to lie down. What a peculiar and stupid girl to undress and be on her knees in her office alone would be the only comforting thought to her odd position.

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Past

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A knock at the door and the eager face of the Chief Technology Officer poked into her office. Tabitha controlled herself from sighing, but paused the work she was doing on her desk to address him.

"I do not have time for more distractions today, Sir. I'm very busy trying to get caught up." Her tone, she'd learned after many times of letting it slip and resulting in spankings or other punishment, was pleasant but direct. She also omitted saying, "because of the time you keep costing me" as she was certain that would have resulted in even more lost time as she was pushed to her knees and made to apologize properly to the executive. Not that she was minding her activities on her knees, she just very much couldn't afford time for such things.

"Actually, this is fairly important." She smiled curtly at his insistence but stood from her desk and motioned his welcome to come through the door.

As Liam entered the office, he was followed by Rebecca. Tabitha's expression must have conveyed her puzzlement as Liam came to stand in front of her desk, Rebecca standing a few feet behind him also facing her. The last time Rebecca had been in Tabitha's office had been to allow for the subordinate to punish the project manager. Rebecca had stopped Tabitha from doing something to thoroughly embarrass the company and was rewarded in sharing the spankings Tabitha had received.

For her part, Tabitha was in no way attracted to women. She had never been. There were several nights since then, laying in bed though, where it was not Liam or Scott she was fantasizing about pleasuring, but Samantha. To deny that Rebecca, and thinking about the girl's soft hands between Tabitha's legs again, had not made a few appearances in fantasy as well, would be an outright falsehood.

"She's not here to spank you." Tabitha blinked, realizing she had been slipping into that exact reminiscence and then regained her composure at Liam's voice.

"She's not? I mean, of course she isn't. I have done...nothing wrong?" Tabitha looked to Liam with a questioning and somewhat worried glance, but he just silently nodded an assurance to her that she was in fact in the clear. "Right! I've done nothing wrong."

"Indeed." Liam was smiling at her. A smile that used to strike her as condescending and smug. "Before you continue jumping to conclusions, how about I continue?" Tabitha blushed a bit, ashamed at being such a silly girl. "Rebecca is here to explain something."

Tabitha waited, uncertain what exactly this situation was, but suspecting all the same that she somehow was going to end up on her knees by the end of it. There wasn't time for this. Already she could feel herself getting worked up. The temptation was definitely there to just antagonize Liam (it wasn't particularly difficult these days) and have some quick fun so she could get back to work. Rebecca stepped forward half a step.

"There was an accident with one of the servers." She sighed and cockily held up a hand, waving it dismissively. "I won't bore you with the technical details suffice to say that the recovery system went offline and you'll be unable to utilize it until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Right." Looking between Rebecca and Liam, she waited for the shoe to drop. Neither said anything further. "That's...terrible. I guess? So we lost all that data and we can't get it back? All our project files are gone?"

"No." Rebecca piped up, arms folding in front of her. "Once the server is repaired I'll just pull the backups from the redundancy server."

"Okay." Tabitha was starting to get irked. "I guess I'm the illiterate one in this situation. What exactly are you guys telling me? Are we screwed or is this a who cares moment?"

Liam piped up. "That's a question for me to deal with. Your role in this is that I think you're ready to step up to a leadership role."

"I...am...in a leadership role." Tabitha had to work to check her tone.

"You're in a management job. They are mutually exclusive. You might manage your team, but are you leading them?" He didn't wait for any sort of answer. "So, given Rebecca's infraction, I'm going to leave her in your hands. I need to spend my time fixing her screw up. So! She has all the time in the world today for you to deal with her however you see fit."

Rebecca winked at her and smiled wryly. With that, Liam crossed in front of the desk and to the door, exiting the office.

"Wait. Wait!" There wasn't even time to process the shock of this news. Tabitha crossed out from behind her desk and followed Liam out the door quickly. She caught up to him a few feet out into the bullpen of desks. "Hold on. I don't know what you're expecting of me here. I don't give out punishments, that's the executives' job."

Liam turned to her and stopped walking, causing a near collision that she just barely managed to avoid.

"Are you a dog, Tabby?"

The question was off-putting and nearly insulting. Normally, Tabitha would have been upset and lashed out at such audacity, but these months at the company had taught her to hold her tongue and control herself. After all, she wanted to please the executives. She was a good girl as proven many times now.

"No, sir. I'm not a...a dog." Luckily, none of the women sitting at the desks nearby seemed to pay this conversation any attention. Tabitha had noticed awhile ago that unless one of the women in the desk clump was directly spoken to, they seemed to not notice anything going on around them.

"You're not a dog? Odd. Because here I thought you were a dog, what with my having to give you commands and prompts for every little thing that's expected of you. Do you have any idea what a drain it is to have a new employee? We have to train you. Get you registered in systems. Teach you rules. Those punishments are time consuming. You think we executives have all the time in the world to teach you proper form on sucking a dick or receiving a spanking? How long did it take you to learn how to properly stretch for yoga and even do basic partner forms? That's time out of my day, Tabby."

Even though Tabitha didn't agree with some of the points being made, she couldn't deny that it hadn't occurred to her that she was being a burden. How could she have been such a stupid little girl. She was smarter than that. This whole time thinking she was pleasing the executives and becoming a good little slut for Scott and Liam when really she was nothing but an intrusion into their work days. Her own struggles to keep the project on track suddenly seemed so trivial by comparison. She'd been dumb.

Liam sighed. "I want you to punish Rebecca because I don't have all the time to keep all your little chickens in line for you. It's time for you to be a leader. Do you get it now that I've spelled it out for you?"

Tears of shame fell down Tabitha's eyes. It'd been awhile since she'd cried in the office, but realizing all her progress wasn't the accomplishment she'd assumed it to be was a lot to take in.

"Do with her what you will. If she isn't properly punished though, I will make you take her punishment in her place."

With that, Liam walked off. Tabitha took a moment to resolve herself, wiping the streaks from her cheeks and eyes. When she came back into the office, Rebecca was lounging on her couch.

"Big bad wolf finished huffing and puffing?" She was smirking and unapologetic. Knowing now the expectations, Tabitha was having none of it.

"Get off that couch and get on your knees." Her voice surprised even herself. The tone was sharp and commanding, like she'd never used before with the teams. It certainly seemed to surprise Rebecca. Still smiling but a bit taken aback she got up slowly from the couch.

"Well, look who developed some spine." Rebecca's coax didn't elicit any reaction from Tabitha. Instead she just waited. Obviously Rebecca was playing a game of chicken. After Tabitha raised an eyebrow, the young woman seemed to finally understand it wasn't play time and frowned as she lowered herself to her knees.

Tabitha paused, unsure of the next move. She hadn't really thought step one would work so she hadn't really developed two. Keeping her face hard though, she went behind her desk and sat down, trying to focus back on work but really racking her brain for what in the world she could do to constitute a "proper" punishment. Everything she thought of either seemed too extreme to seem feasible coming from her or too mild.

Rebecca had, in this very office, given Tabitha a spanking in front of the desk. The easy answer would be to just return the favor. She could hardly suppose that something so simple would be enough for Liam. She thought to her own series of punishments. It was hardly the case that she was able to replicate them. After all, she was missing some of the essential anatomy that Liam and Scott used in her punishments.

The consternation of her contemplations were not missed by Rebecca who had been silently watching her this whole time.

"You don't know what to do with me. Do you?"

Tabitha looked up from her desk. Studying Rebecca with a grimace for several seconds before finally admitting the truth.

"Noooo!" She somewhat whined the response and let her forehead thud down onto the desk, right onto the ad copy she was going over.

"Have you never been punished by Samantha or Maggie?"

"Who's Maggie?" Tabitha picked her head up from the desk.

"Ms. Ashford."

"The COO? Wait, Samantha gives out punishments?" Tabitha had never been in Ms. Ashford's, Maggie's, office after her initial interview. As for Samantha, she had of course caught her with Liam previously, but she'd come to think that it had been a punishment. Which only confused things further as how could the CEO answer to anyone else in the company?

"Of course they do. All the executives are required to give them. Maggie has toys. I think she enjoys it more than the others." Rebecca was back to being coy, though she didn't get up from her knees even conversing about her fate.

Tabitha, for her part, had to process this wave of new information. Toys? Samantha giving out punishments. Why had she never been punished by Samantha? Hopefully it was due to not having been bad enough to warrant the CEO's time and not because she was unwanted. As best she could, she pushed those thoughts away and she refocused on the issue in front of her.

There was an answer here. One that was correct, certainly. That would please the executives and make her a good leader. She desperately wanted to be a good girl. Tabitha couldn't stop herself from putting her hands against her temples, attempting to squeeze the voice volume down. She'd grown quite accustomed to the voice in her mind. It had felt so foreign in the beginning but now sounded more of her own. At that moment, though, it felt as if everything had been dialed to eleven. The mantra thundered through her mind, a throbbing ache that wasn't to be ignored.

"You can't do it alone." Rebecca's voice pierced through the cacophony. Tabitha looked up and blinked, finding she could focus on the kneeling girl's face and voice clearly.

"I can't?"

"Of course you can't. And Liam knows that. He's setting you up." Tabitha's expression was desperate as Rebecca explained. "Look, you never get asked to do this. Suddenly and without any instruction or guidance you're supposed to just know how to do the punishment system? You've barely even been punished yourself."

Tabitha blinked, a bit taken irked at that statement. She certainly didn't think what she'd done up to that point was barely being punished. The spankings. Having Liam shove his length down her throat. Granted she'd been getting pretty used to his length. Hours spent under Scott's desk with a sore jaw. What more was there to endure?

"If I'm being set up how, then what am I supposed to be doing? I have so much work to do and I don't have time to draw this out!" For the first time, Rebecca was the one with a surprised look on her face.

"You're...you're worried about being too busy?" There was genuine laughter from the woman on her knees. Tabitha scowled a bit about being made fun of. Unsure why it was so wrong to be concerned about her timeline. It was the main reason she kept getting called in for punishments, after all. When Rebecca finally regained some composure she took a deep breath.

"Okay. Come here. I'm gonna help you out, sweetie."

Fifteen minutes later, Tabitha pushed open the door to Liam's office with force, causing it to push in and bounce off the wall adjacent. The commotion was plenty to get Liam to jerk in surprise, pulling away from his banks of monitors behind his desk and looking over. Tabitha marched in. Clenched in her fist was Rebecca's hair, the girl was bent over and being pulled along behind. Tabitha swung Rebecca around and forced her to her knees in the middle of the office.

Ayla appeared in the doorway, her face expressionless. She merely reached into the office and took the door handle, closing it softly. Liam just sat in his chair behind the desk and smirked.

"I take it we had a successful punishment?"

"Stuff it, Sir." The expression on the executive's face changed from cocky to outrage the moment the words left Tabitha's mouth. "You dropped this problem off in my office to waste my time and ultimately because you knew it would lead to my own punishment for doing an improper job." The confidence in her voice was a mask. In reality, she was terrified that her words would only deepen the ultimate retaliation. For whatever reason though, she was going along with this little charade of Rebecca's design, praying it would pay off.

Liam's anger had indeed been quieted when Tabitha had continued her speech. The smug expression returned as he leaded back. "So my ruse has been discovered. I didn't think you were that clever, honestly."

"Well I am." Tabitha glanced down at Rebecca on her knees who seemed to be suppressing a smile. "Here's the deal! I have a project to finish. You're dragging my timelines down. From now on, I'm giving you one window a day. One hour in the morning if I deserve to be punished. Frankly, I'm sure you'll have several for even this moment. However," she took a deep breath.

This part of the plan, Tabitha had been less enthused about. When Rebecca had explained it, the whole thing made her head feel fuzzy and she didn't particularly like how excited her body was at the prospect. Tabitha was not attracted to other women. The reaction from when Rebecca had spanked her was just because of the spankings, not because it had been her doing them. But as the plan was explained and she agreed, the memory of Rebecca's fingers grazing her panties was vivid. So against her better judgment, here she was executing the plan.

"However," she continued, "I also know that this little slut here needs to be punished, and my failure to do it will also be punished. So you're going to punish us both here and now so that I can get back to work. Got it?"

There was no immediate response. Liam just sat there, fingers pressed together glaring out at the two women before him. She couldn't be sure if he was considering the proposal or not, it was a huge gamble after all. For her part, Tabitha was fairly impressed. Rebecca had even predicted this silence. Which would lead to the part of this exchange that she was so nervous about.

Her fingers started undoing the buttons of her blouse, pulling it off. "Take your clothes off." Tabitha's tone was stern once again as she looked down at Rebecca. The girl merely nodded and her own fingers got to work. The blouse folded, Tabitha slid her skirt off, bending over to pick it up. Rebecca though chose not to get up from the floor, instead laying on her back with her legs straight up in the air kicking her own skirt to the side before returning to her knees.

Tabitha noted that both women seemed to be in fairly similar lingerie. Black half-cup bras with matching thongs, both intricately inlaid with patterns. Then, swallowing her nerves down, Tabitha closed her eyes and prepared. With her clothing folded and laid nicely on Liam's couch, she walked back over to the girl kneeling once again in the middle of the room. Grabbing Rebecca by the hair, she pulled her face to point straight up and leaned down.

If Liam had been annoyed and questioning his tactics, those thoughts quickly banished themselves from his mind as soon as Tabitha's lips pressed down onto Rebecca's. Now his eyes portrayed his shock. This wasn't anywhere in the plan. Cognitive spontaneity was his best guess. None of the other women in the office had exhibited same-sex interest this quickly. It should have been a few more weeks before Tabitha gave in to that change. He wasn't surprised by Rebecca at all, knowing her to be open to just about anything.

Tabitha though could have passed out from nerves. She felt her body start to shake just slightly. Rebecca must have sensed it, because a hand came up and cupped her face, pulling Tabitha down harder and deepening the kiss. The touch of the hand once again caused her head to get fuzzy. Arousal built inside of her. She wasn't attracted to women. Tabitha's mouth opened and a tongue moved past her lips, a tongue she accepted. She wasn't attracted to women. Opening her eyes she glanced toward the desk.