The Office Horse

"At last," Ekaterina commented and nodded towards the divider-turned-hurdle thingy. "Sit."

Totally oblivious of the structure's actual function and still dumbfounded by the twisted turn of events, Jördis perched herself on the upright board.

"Nice try. Don't play coy."

"What the hell do you want from me?" Jördis made a last stand.

"You really don't know? Straddle it."

Only now it hit Jördis. Her face was drained of all colour as images flooded her mind. Some from books, some from films. Some horrific, some titillating. All of them depicting women being forced to ride the infamous Spanish Donkey.

"Wait, you can't be---"

"For crying out loud, ladies...!"

Rob, who was facing the tiresome action again, grabbed Jördis around the waist and lifted her up effortlessly. One quarter turn, and he placed her properly onto the makeshift wooden horse. Jördis' eyes grew wide as her body's full weight came to rest on the wicked edge. Immediately she tried to wiggle out of Rob's grip, yet at the same time seeking hold at him to lift herself off. Her legs stretched out in a wild search for the ground, but more than a span remained between her toes and the carpet, no matter her struggles. Jördis managed to get a hand before and the other behind her, pushing herself up a crucial centimetre.

"Are you fucking mad?! Let me down!"

The edge was painfully digging into her palms. Reuben had repositioned his hold to her shoulders, effectively preventing the girl from throwing herself off the horse.

"Are they always making such a fuss?"

"I certainly did," Tessa coquetted and cheerfully joint the action with a set of fluffy handcuffs. "No cheating! Hands behind you back!"

Rob forced Jördis' elbows together, thus allowing Tessa to put her cuffs in fetching snow leopard design where they belong. With her wrists trapped behind her back, Jördis was able to transfer weight to her hands only by leaning back. But even that Tessa would have none of. Deftly she wove a length of parcel string into the new girl's hair to create something between a ponytail and a braid. Under a steady pull she made Jördis' arms fold, bringing the cuffs up until the chain between them could be tied in position by the hair strap. Jördis grunted as the weight of her limps yanked at her scalp, causing her to tilt her head back. Her grunt turned to a yelp as Rob let go of her. Again Jördis' mind was overruled as her hands reached down in panic -- a reflex savagely reined in by her mean restrains. Till this moment Jördis had no mental concept of the posture which was demanded from her. If somebody had asked her to imagine bearing all her body weight on a small area between her legs, her mind would have come up with the same blank result as if being asked to divide by zero. It had been simply unthinkable.

Tonight Jördis' mind was expanded in the vilest possible way, as the tenderest parts of her anatomy became the intersection of gravity and geometry.

In a desperate attempt she pressed her thighs together to gain a minimum of protection. Obviously considered cheating as well, Divi was quick with grabbing a single piece of aluminium profile. It had a metal basket for files screwed to it and fitted easily beneath the vertical board with its comfortable ground clearance. Thanks to a makeshift ankle cuff at each end the profile was swiftly utilised as a spreader bar. In this capacity it opened Jördis up for the devilish edge, and the girl was finally balancing on it under full effect of what the wooden horse was capable of providing.

"Fuck! Take me off! Take me off, please!"

Displaying a certain lack of compassion, Divi approached with two bulldog clips from a box on the shelf. She undid Jördis' blouse and front closure bra, storing the shiny clamps between her lips. They didn't stay there for long, though. As soon as the Korean girl had free access to Jördis' breasts, the metal jaws closed tightly around her nipples. Jördis paused her pleadings in favour of two sharp howls. A third, even more anguished followed as Divi pulled the clamps forwards and down, thus forcing the new lass to put even more pressure on her clitoris.

"To make sure you snap into place..." Divi explained whilst maintaining the pull for several seconds.

Jördis was crying freely now. When Ji-eun finally let go of the clamps, she rocked back to trade the pain in her vulva off against a splitting sensation in her perineum. Barely two minutes on this torture instrument, she had begun to truly ride her horrid mare.

"How long do you girls want to keep her up there?"

Reuben helped himself to a piece of parcel string from the same ball as Tessa had before him.

"At least an hour," demanded Divi.

"C'mon, it's her first day," Tessa argued. "Half an hour is enough. Trust me."

Divi wasn't done haggling.

"Okay, but with the weights. And the clamps stay!"

The two women looked at Ekaterina for a verdict, so did Reuben. The seasoned colleague protracted her decision for effect, then gave a short nod.

"Thirty minutes. Load her up."

Jördis had already learnt just how atrocious the straddling of a wooden pony was in itself. Now she would learn just how much worse it could get with the right adjustments. She would learn about the purpose of the spreader bar basket. And from this day on she would never look at copy paper the same way. When the first pack landed in the basket, a vertical jolt surged through her. And then another and another with each additional bundle.

"That's three packs -- seven and a half kilos," Rob calculated. "That enough? It sounds the way."

"That's plenty," Tessa confirmed, "even more than---"

"Coming through...!" Divi shouted as she wiggled past them and slapped a fourth pack into the holder.

The spreader bar tilted under the weight, and the edges of the rigid cuffs cut into Jördis' bare ankles. A fierce pain, no doubt, yet the least of the new girl's sorrows. The additional heft rammed the narrow peak even harder into her, and still Jördis had to bear the unbearable. With her centre of gravity significantly lowered, she was now fully secured on the wooden horse.

"What?" Divi challenged. "In the olden days a hundredweight or more was common. You've never read a book about the witch craze? Embrace your history!"

Jördis gave another short-breathed howl. Hearing her anguish marginalised only added to it. With the resident hobby historian stroke witchfinder general satisfied, the clock started. That Jördis had already suffered several minutes in various severities was generously overlooked. The distressed girl could not imagine spending another half an hour under this torture. Her tailbone had to split any moment. Before her vagina could recover from her previous position, she leant forwards again -- the deep pain cutting through all tissue layers of her perineum ordained it so.

"She will do that the whole time, to the point of total exhaustion."

Reuben, fiddling about with his string, turned to Ekaterina as she continued to comment on the delightfully gruesome display.

"It will increase her suffering exponentially, but she cannot help herself."

"How does someone come up with something like this between filing and making coffee?"

"Do you remember the gentleman from Testing who expressed his opinion on our department quite loudly to Mr Wicklebimm last year?"

Reuben did.

"The one who said we should take care of our office sluts?"

"The one who said we should take care of our office whores."

"Get it?" Tessa took over avidly. "A little phonetic shifting. A bit of handiwork. Et voilà!"

The redhead made a proud gesture towards the contraption; the office horse that was so intimately taking care of Jördis. Exactly as Ekaterina had predicted the fake platinum blonde just couldn't keep herself from moving. In ever decreasing intervals and under pitiful wails she ground herself from one excruciating posture into another.

"Please let me down! I'm sorry! I will never make any mistakes again! Just let me dowwwn!"

Ekaterina came closer to her.

"Do not think of this as punishment. We don't claim to right any wrongs -- you are simply paying us back for our efforts. The alternatives would be inequity at the best and malevolence at the worst."

As on cue Jördis tilted far back on the dreadful wood, offering her anus to be cut in two. The resulting shriek was well-received.

"See," Tessa rejoiced, "That is you saying thank you!"

"You sisters are really fucked up..." observed Reuben.

Divi crossed her arms before her chest in defiance.

"Why are you still here then, big boy? Don't tell us you aren't intrigued."

"She's hot as hell up there. But I could do without the noise."

Divi scoffed.

"She certainly won't stop anytime---"

She interrupted herself as she noticed what Reuben was letting dangle from his hand.

"Naughty boy!"

Through her teared-up eyes Jördis recognised the blue something Reuben had threaded onto the string only as he stepped next to her: his beloved stress ball she so meanly had mutilated. She had been correct in labelling him a type-II lazy bloke in that he'd made a small one-time effort to increase his comfort in the long run. Yet on this occasion it would be at the expense of somebody else.

"Rob, pleeease...!"

"I just want to see if it works."

Jördis was too scared and in too much pain to offer any noteworthy resistance. Making sure the company logo remained visible, Reuben pushed the blue ball in her mouth -- first with all fingers, then only with his thumb. It settled in deep with a satisfying squish. He guided the parcel string around her head and tied it off in the nape of her neck, thus hurting the corners of her lips and pulling the toy even deeper into her oral cavity. Immediately Jördis' jaw muscles throbbed from the girth of the rough-and-ready ball gag.

"Say something."

She uttered a tortured groan, dull and muffled behind the orb.

"Seems to work," Tessa giggled. "Okay, let's give her some privacy. Coffee?"

A new wave of horror washed over Jördis. As vile as it was to ride the wooden pony semi-naked and ball-gagged in front of her new colleagues, the thought of being left alone like this terrified her beyond all terror. She pressed out a series of pleading squeaks until her throat turned hoarse. She rattled at her restrains, but only managed to sink deeper onto the wood.

"'ou 'ank 'eave 'ee 'ike 'is!"

"We leave you exactly like this," Ekaterina replied and, true to her word, went out of the door first.

Divi grabbed Reuben, who was still fascinated by Jördis' plight as a whole and his invention in particular.

"You really leave her up there?! Whoa!"

"Out...!"

Divi rammed her palms against his back and shoved him through the door. Tessa was the last. She tapped on her watch and mouthed "twenty". In her harrowed state of mind Jördis could not tell if the redhead was referring to the duration of their planned coffee break or to the remaining time on the horse. Tessa waved and -- to Jördis' utmost horror -- switched the neon tube off. Darkness engulfed her as the door closed shut. For some moments a small wedge of light from under the door clinged to the carpet, then was snuffed out as the copy room fell dark as well.

For all intents and purposes Jördis was incarcerated in a mediæval torture chamber. Absolutely nothing indicated to the contrary. She was suffering within an other-world of sort, deprived of all stimuli except for the white-hot blade of agony that cleft her atwain. All other pains had to bow to this one. Her burning scalp. Her twisted arms. The diabolical sensation of having her nipples flattened by lowly office supplies.

The pressure on her perineum was maddening. And just like Ekaterina had predicted, Jördis was fuelling her own undoing. Back and forth she went, working her most sensitive regions harder and harder into the unforgiving edge. Slowly with a whimper at some times, under contortions and desperate howls at others. Now both her lower orifices were in full and permanent contact to the ridge. She was bleeding between her legs. Must be. Although the only wetness she felt was sticking to her chin and chest. The ball gag made her drool, and fine rivulets of rubberised saliva ran down her body. She was covered in a fine layer of sweat, though, as cramps were gnawing at every muscle in her body.

Jördis' head would have snapped around as the door opened, if she had any strength left in her overstretched neck. A second later she was blinded by the light of the reanimated neon lamp.

"How are you holding up?"

Tessa had entered the room alone and immediately read the suffering girl's mind.

"You are not quite there yet. I won't tell you how much longer exactly. Just let it happen."

She met Jördis' beseeching look. The blonde was panting hard behind her cruel gaggage.

"Pinching quite a bit, doesn't it?"

Tessa nudged the spreader bar gingerly. It was enough to elicit a series of yelps. The blonde's ankles, knees and hips were screaming under the constant strain.

"I now. The weights are so mean! Divi just loves them. And she would keep you nocked on that thing till Easter if she had her way. I tell you, if Eka hadn't come up with the horse, Divi would have."

She leant against the nearest shelf and took some paper clips to play with.

"You are doing great, sweetie. The worst thing for me was that I was horny as hell afterwards, but way too sore to touch myself, let alone have sex in any form. Unlike some others I could name I do not get off on that sado-maso stuff. But pain is a powerful aphrodisiac."

Tessa flicked the bulldog clamps still crushing the tortured girl's nips as if to prove her point. Jördis jerked as fresh fire shot through her breasts.

"You are only the fifth girl reciprocating this way. So it's all still a bit rough around the edges, pun intended. We are always open to new ideas, like that ball thingy."

She showed Jördis the paper clip chain she had crafted and used it to connect the nipple clamps. Jördis feared she would hurt her again, but the chain was light, and Tessa displayed no intention of hanging any weights from it.

"Don't spoil her!"

Divi had entered with Reuben. Ekaterina strolled in last to illustrate that time was still not on Jördis' side. The girl on the ridge fell into a pleading fit, giving up whatever reserve she had left.

"How much longer? Please say another thirty minutes!"

The glance Ekaterina gave Divi told her that she might be too eager for her own good. Jördis was terrified by the natural blonde. If she ever recovered from her infernal ride, she would slap Tessa silly and place Divi on the horse herself come next chance. But before Ekaterina she would grovel till the last day on this job.

The senior co-worker closed in, and a none-too-tentative pull on the nipple chain ensured Jördis' attention. She'd had it nonetheless, but the sharp alternative pain caused Jördis to cease her begging.

"Within a minute you will have paid us back in full. You will owe us nothing, and you are welcome to request help and support at any time. With the hopefully well-established ramifications, of course."

Jördis mewled words into her gag the meaning of which she neither knew nor cared for.

"Two more administrative things, though: You will vow to our ways, and you are not to tell about them. You will protect this system as it protects you against male arbitrariness and female spite alike."

Jördis nodded her head as franticly as her high-cuffed arms allowed. Ekaterina gazed into her blood-shot eyes for eternal seconds, as though drinking her throes of agony.

"Reuben."

The pain was beyond comprehension. Jördis tried to scream herself into unconsciousness as Rob lifted her off the wooden horse and fresh blood flowed back into the area between her legs. Quickly the spreader bar was removed to fully disconnect her from the torture device, but her legs would not carry her. Her tendons and ligaments were inflamed as if having been racked. She could not move her arms, could not close her mouth. Drops of urine darkened the carpet as she struggled for bladder control. Jördis lost that struggle as Divi removed the nipple clamps.

"Oh, no-no-no. Please don't do this to me...!"

With rising panic Nette pressed various keys on her board, none of which convincing her desktop computer to cooperate. Her distress did not remain unnoticed. From the neighbouring cubicle across the aisle a colleague watched with a strangely ambivalent look.

"This programme hates me."

The colleague leant out of her cube to glance at Nette's monitor, her dark-blonde hair with light ends becoming unravelled the tiniest bit in the process.

"You are the new girl?"

"It's that obvious, right? I'm Nette."

The other woman gave herself a push off the divider and rolled on her chair into Nette's professional residence.

"Jördis. We use some special plug-ins. Has nobody shown you?"

"Uhm...," Nette ran a hand through her cute pixie cut. "I might have over-embellished my knowledge of this software in the interview. So, no."

The woman smiled leniently.

"Just call Vihaan from Tech. He has basically written that stuff during his lunch breaks."

"Thank you. But I reckon he won't be able to talk me through it within the next ten minutes?"

"Ten minutes?"

"By then Mr Wicklebimm wants the file on his desk. I'm in a spot of bother, you see."

"I know how that feels."

"Can you help me out? Just this time?"

Jördis drew her breath in sharply.

"Pleeease?" Nette playfully folded her hands for a begging gesture. "I'll make it up to you!"

Her colleague hesitated for a length of time long enough to make her feel uncomfortable. Eventually Jördis gave a single nod, almost as if in defeat.

"You might have to stay a bit longer tonight."