Lunch

When you and Diana enter the spacious cafeteria, you note with relief a few other naked women. There are a few small groups of twos and threes obviously trying to only talk to one another and ignore the world around them; a few other ladies are on their own, seemingly engaging with others with no particular trouble. Finally, there are two, which very much are in trouble: they are bent over the same table, their food trays pushed aside, and two men, one older and one clearly young, are taking wide swings their straps. In the massive and loud space the sound of cracks of leather against skin is surprisingly not prominent, but your colleagues' bottoms are not doing any better because of that.

Try to act natural, you trail Diana to join the queue. You steal a sideways glance at the ladies being punished, of course, but you do not risk showing any more interest than that. You are obviously attracting a lot of attention yourself, but aside from general greetings, nobody targets you with anything more specific or more intimidating. Perhaps Diana's presence helps, her stance around you almost possessive, not that you mind - you know that she knows that you can do without being bugged by too many people just now.

After you sit down you discover with a surprise that the food is a lot better than you remember. Maybe you are just hungry after the excitement of the day or maybe you would welcome anything in your mouth to overcome the aftertaste of the "mouthwash" you had to take earlier, but you are digging into the simple meal very happily, chatting to Diana all through it just like in the good old times... Also known to you as the day before yesterday. You guess you will cope with the timeline division eventually, but at the moment you are still somewhat struggling to.

Out of the corner of your eye you see the two punished women leave the cafeteria; you do not recognise either, but both are significantly older than yourself. With the food finished, you sip on the coffee (which, admittedly, is definitely is a bit of a step down from that from the coffee shop, but not massively so). Diana asks if you have your menial labour shifts yet and you tell her that you know you have one after lunch but not the place or what the job will actually be, so you plan to just return to your office and wait for further updates. You also tell her you would love it if she could be there during your gym sessions and she says she will try, although she warns you again that for you it will mean an extra pair of eyes watching you to make sure you are not slacking off... And that there will be consequences if you are.

Just then your work email app dings. "Oh, guess that would be the details?" Diana says, looking at your phone's screen from her seat across from you. You click the email to open it, knowing she will be correct.