Losing control

The chime of the little pink telephone on her desk brought Kitty- Kitty back to the present. “Hello, DeepValley Software,” she said into the receiver. “This is Mr. Brightman’s office. I’m –” she paused, swallowing– “Kitty-Kitty, Mr. Brightman’s secretary. How may I help you?”

She listened for a moment. The caller asked for her by her old name! She took a deep breath, gathering strength. This time she was going to break out. She was going to tell somebody what was going on. “I’m sorry,” she said in a contrite voice, “Ms Pushie is no longer with the company. You can speak to the new President, Mr. Brightman. He’s the firm’s owner now. But please… before you go… uhm… I…”

Something like panic gripped her. Her tongue refused to work. She gripped the telephone with white knuckles. “I’m… I mean, I….” She gestured helplessly with her free hand. “Please, I… I need to…” The caller had already rung off. Kitty-Kitty replaced the handset, staring at it dejectedly. She wanted so desperately to tell somebody, anybody, about her plight, but she could never quite bring herself to say the words. The stage fright a six-year-old suffered at the Christmas pageant was nothing compared with the paralysing fear that gripped her when she tried to ask for help. Now that the moment was gone, she felt an odd sense of relief flush over her.

The memo presenting the office dress code was only the first of many directives that Caitlin didn’t remember writing. Over the next few weeks, she became increasingly concerned about the way her company was going. She was becoming less and less effective as president. Her attention span dwindled. Tasks that previously had been routine became serious challenges. She didn’t seem to intimidate the staff nearly as much as she had.

Between the bedeviled computer and her own befuddlement, Caitlin found herself depending on Brightman more and more. She tolerated his increasing condescension as he fixed her computer so it would work again for a little while. He covered for her during her frequent absences from the office.

Once, leaning over her shoulder to restart her computer yet again, he actually laughed at the way she was dressed. “What? What’s the matter?” she demanded. She was in a foul mood that morning.

“Oh nothing,” Brightman said, hiding a smirk. “I don’t know anything about fashion, but I thought skirts like that went down with the Titanic.” Caitlin nearly snapped at him to mind his own business. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a narrow, ankle-length skirt that matched her black jacket. She had picked up the outfit just a few days earlier during a working-hours shopping trip. She had missed a weekly planning meeting. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “This is brand new. It’s –” “There, that’s got it,” Brightman interrupted, “I don’t know what you’re doing to keep screwing up your connection.”

He was implying the computer problems were her fault! “Now look here, Oscar –” “You know what I think, Caitlin?” Brightman interrupted again, “I think you have been staring at computer screens for so long you have forgotten what the outside world looks like. Real women don’t wear clothes like that. Maybe you should talk to Erin. She can fill you in on the fashion trends for this millennium.” “Erin! Why she’s just a –”

“Yes, I know, she’s a bit spacy. But she has a wonderful fashion sense, so everybody says. Maybe she could steer you toward some things that are a little less–” he shrugged — “embarrassing.”

He walked away. Caitlin sat there, stunned. She looked down at her expensive new suit. After a few moments she got up to go talk to Erin, her secretary. Erin was barely twenty years old and had a line of five piercings in her left ear. After she recovered from her initial shock, she was glad to give Caitlin some suggestions on fashions that were, like, so now.

When her computer crashed again, a few hours later, Caitlin went out to do some more shopping. She followed some of Erin’s suggestions. When she walked into the office the next morning in her stretchy minidress and platform heels, Brightman and the rest of the tech staff were very approving. Caitlin found their attention disconcertingly exciting.

Caitlin had thought that things couldn’t get any worse at the company, but somehow they did. One day when she was sitting in her office, trying to remember how to manipulate a simple spreadsheet, she found her thoughts drifting to sex. That was happening a lot lately.

She kept having these sexy daydreams. Unexpected images of rampant carnality kept flashing through her head, like trailers for a feature-length, X-rated movie in which she was the star. She imagined herself being pleasured by square-jawed young men with enormous peckers while she wailed and thrashed beneath them. She saw herself naked, stuffing her mouth with a hard cock while she eagerly fisted two others with delicate hands. She saw herself in lacy, racy underwear being rudely taken from behind across her own desk.

Caitlin gasped. She closed her eyes, trying to shake the lewd images from her brain. They became more vivid every day.

She wondered briefly if she was suffering from deprivation. She was far from asexual, but the pressures of a sixty-hour workweek and her own obsession with her company had left her little time for romance. Or was it just a reaction to the attention she was generating these days? Nervously, she tugged on the hem of her little indigo jumper. It was much shorter than anything Caitlin was accustomed to wearing. Erin thought it looked ace with the shiny dark stockings and short boots.

The shapely brunette took a deep breath and returned to her work. She had to figure out how to work this confounded spreadsheet. Cumfountain spreadsheet. Confucking spread me. Legs spread on the bedsheets. Come spread me on the sheets and fuck me. Oh fuck.

Caitlin sprang to her feet. She was breathing fast. She punched the intercom. “Erin, I’ll be out for… the next few minutes.” “Sure thing, Caitlin.” Erin’s voice came back. Caitlin was too distraught to even notice her secretary had started addressing her by her first name. Wobbling a little on her elevating platform heels, she made her way down to the washroom, where she sought and found blessed relief with her fingers. The arousal episodes repeated every day that week, and the next. Caitlin was finding it next to impossible to concentrate. At least twice a day she had to find solace in the washroom. The more she tried to concentrate on her work, the more the erotic images intruded.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the purpose of her washroom visits from Erin and the rest of the staff. Once, while two miniskirted programmers chatted and fussed with their hair a few feet away, Caitlin had to actually bite her hand to keep them from hearing her orgasm. Another time she had to abruptly leave an important meeting because the heat between her legs became unbearable. She shouldn’t have worn the pink knit crop top. It did such wonderful things for her pert pair that all the men kept staring at her. The top was Erin’s idea.

Nowadays, when Caitlin left the office early, it was as often as not to go to a nearby bar where she could calm herself with a few drinks and maybe pick up some hunk in a suit to put out her fire. She made a lot of young men very happy. They went to her apartment or his, whichever was closer.

Fortunately, Brightman was on hand to keep Caitlin’s company from falling apart. He didn’t know that much about running a business, but unlike Caitlin he wasn’t shy about getting help. Working groups and task forces sprang up without the president even knowing about them. The Investment Committee had met three times before Caitlin knew it existed.