Our coffee break ended, and we went back to our workspace. The afternoon passed in a blur of tutorials. The software, the project management systems, the interdepartmental communication protocols – it was all dry, corporate material, exactly what I had expected. The sheer normalcy of it was disorienting. I found myself almost forgetting my state of undress, the collar at my neck, the lingering feeling of the cleansing nozzle inside me. Then I would shift in my chair, feel the air on my exposed skin, and the reality of this place would crash back in. The conflict between the mundane work and the bizarre bodily requirements was giving me a low-grade headache.
“Maria, could I ask you for help?” Sylvia placed several large binders on my desk. “Bring them into the archives and put them into their respective shelves. There are alphanumeric codes, see? They correspond to the room-rack-shelf locations. There are signs and labels everywhere, you’ll find the places easily. Take the elevator to the basement, floor minus one, there you’ll see the archives entrance.”
“Of course!” I stood up, locked my computer, and took the binders. They were heavy, so I had to press them to my chest.
The basement. Of course it would be. The classic setting for every horror and suspense story I’d ever heard. The air grew cooler as I descended in the elevator, the low hum of the machinery vibrating through the soles of my feet. The doors slid open onto a corridor lit by flickering fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, their humming sound even more pronounced down here. The floor was bare, polished concrete, cold against my bare feet. Every step I took echoed in the silence, a soft, slapping sound that made me feel profoundly exposed.
The short corridor branched out into three longer ones, going in different directions. From a distance, I saw the entries to the rooms with racks and cabinets, and occasional coworkers bringing binders here and there. I looked at the label on my top binder and turned into the corridor A.
I walked slowly down the dimly lit corridor, looking at the numbers above the doors, so I didn’t notice these peculiar details right away. There were steel rings on the walls between the doors, installed at equal intervals at the head level. Short chains were hanging from them, some ending with leather cuffs and others with locks. The sequence was clear: a cuff, a lock, a cuff; a cuff, a lock, a cuff; there were dozens of them. All of them were hanging free, but I was seeing in my head a line of people with their hands cuffed and their collars chained to the wall.
I froze, the binders suddenly feeling like lead weights in my arms. My eyes darted down the corridor. Yes. More rings. More cuffs and locks. They weren’t decorative. They were functional, scratched from regular use. There were darker spots on the walls and on the floor below them.
A cold dread, sharp and metallic, flooded my mouth. This was a prison. No, a BDSM dungeon. This whole floor, this entire building, was a beautiful, modern, minimalist torture place. The clean aesthetic, the enforced dress code, the collars… it wasn’t just for kink. It was for control. My mind raced, trying to connect the corporate doublespeak to this brutal, concrete reality. ‘Within reason.’ ‘Team-building exercises.’ ‘Receptivity.’
I felt an overwhelming urge to turn and run, to flee back to the elevator, to pound on the button and escape to the street and never look back. But my feet wouldn’t move. I was bound by the contract I’d signed, by the need for this job, by the sheer, paralyzing shock of what I was seeing. I was a cog in a machine, and this was the maintenance bay.
Taking a shaky breath, I forced my legs to move. I looked at the number above the door and turned into it. There was a large room with straight rows of cabinets and racks, filled with binders. And there were… other racks, too. Made from the thick, heavy steel rails, they stood vertically, secured against the walls. Each was equipped with a vast set of rings, chains, planks, blocks, and levers. There was a whole row of these strange steel frames. My blood ran cold. My vivid imagination brought me the picture of myself, naked, stretched in this frame, pulled to painful limits, whipped, violated… I shuddered and turned away from the frames, focusing only on the binders.
I found the correct shelf and started putting the binders on it. I had two for this shelf. My hands trembled as I placed them, one by one, my eyes fixed on their spines, the alphanumeric codes the only anchor in a sea of rising terror. Then I heard a sound.
A sound of unmistakable woman’s moans, quiet from the distance, from somewhere down the corridors. She wasn’t crying, screaming, begging, or anything. Just moaning in obvious rhythm. It was a sound of pleasure. Of rhythmic pleasure. The sound was… it was intoxicating. It was getting louder as the woman slowly approached her climax. Against my better judgment, against every shred of self-preservation I possessed, my curiosity overpowered my fear. I was sure that if I followed the sound, I would get another piece of the puzzle. Will I manage to fit it into the picture, though?
But… But I had the work to complete. I had four more binders to be placed in other archive corridors. I hesitated. Will I manage to do it in time and return before the woman gets silent? Could I leave them waiting for me here, just run and watch, then return? Then I looked at the stretching frame again and shuddered. No. I was not ready to disobey.
I quickly walked back to the entrance, looking for corridor B, my heart racing, my unsatisfied curiosity burning in my chest. I located the corridor and strode down it, the heavy binders pressing against my chest. Moans were louder here. It had to be somewhere nearby. Or… they were different moans? Right. Now I heard clearly that there were several moaning women in different points of the basement. I put two more binders on their shelves and headed for corridor C.
The moans were so loud there that it was hard to ignore them. I walked, my bare feet silent on the cold floor, towards the sound, towards the room with my last two binders. There was no doubt, it was coming from there. The entrance door to the archive was ajar. I slowed down, my breathing shallow. I put my eye to the crack.
The room was similar to the one I’d just left, with the same document shelves. There were also those steel frames I had seen before, several of them arranged in a circle facing a central dais. In one of the frames, a naked woman was bound. I couldn’t see her face, only her back, her hands stretched to the sides high above her head, her legs spread wide and secured at the base. Her bare skin gleamed under the overhead spotlights, shimmering with a fine sheen of sweat. A man stood behind her, methodically thrusting his hips. He was dressed in the company uniform – the kilt lifted at his front, the translucent shirt, the heavy collar – his movements precise, unhurried, like a worker performing a task. His eyes were focused, his expression devoid of passion or cruelty, just a neutral concentration. He wasn’t a lover or an attacker; he was an operator.
The woman arched her back, her moans rising in pitch, a desperate, keening sound. I was frozen, the binders heavy in my arms. This was it. This was the ‘additional activities’ Linda had spoken of. This was the ‘fun’. This was happening here, now, during work hours, in what looked like a multi-purpose storeroom.
A hand came to rest on my shoulder, making me jump so hard I almost dropped the binders.
“Peeking, rookie?”
I spun around. It was one of the men from my department, a guy I’d only seen at a distance. He was tall, with a muscular build, his dark hair cropped short. His name tag, embossed on his collar, read ‘Jacob’.
“No! I was just… I was about to go in. With these.” I gestured with the binders, my voice cracking.
He looked at the binders. “Ah, yes. The work before everything, of course. Let me guide you.”
“I can find the shelves by myself, thank you.”
“Sure, you can. I’m about what will follow.”
My heart sank, I nearly dropped the binders, feeling my knees getting weak. That is. It will happen to me now. The contract, my signature… everything crashed down on me. I started to tremble.
Jacob’s other hand came up, his fingers gently tracing the leather of my collar. “New collar suits you, Maria. You look good in it.” His voice was low, calm, devoid of threat, which somehow made it worse. It was a statement of fact, like commenting on the weather.
I flinched away from his touch. “Don’t,” I whispered, the word barely audible.
He didn’t press. He just lowered his hand to my breast. “The rule here is simple. It’s about duty. Your primary duty is your work, of course. But your secondary duty… is to make this a productive and pleasant environment for everyone else. A happy workforce is an efficient workforce.”
He gestured with his head towards the door. “He’s helping her now. She missed a quarterly deadline for a report. This is the corrective procedure. A performance review, you could say.”
I stared at him, my mind struggling to grasp the casual horror of his words. “This is… a punishment?”
Jacob chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “Punishment? No. It’s a way to improve her. Nothing makes you more energetic and motivated like several good forced orgasms.” He grinned. “Or even one. Or, you know, being tied up and experiencing pain properly. It resets you. It reminds you where you belong in the structure.”
“And she… agreed to this?” The question felt idiotic even as I asked it.
“The moment she signed her contract, she agreed to everything. And him, too.” His gaze drifted down, from my face to my bare legs, and back up. “Just like you did.” The smile on his face was a mix of amusement and something else, something possessive. “You’ll see the ‘Correction Room’ schedule soon enough. We all rotate. Some of us even volunteer. It’s… invigorating.”
My stomach churned. The word ‘volunteer’ bounced around in my head, a meaningless sound in this context.
“I… I have to file these,” I stammered, clutching the binders to my chest like a shield. I pushed past him and into the room.
The air inside was thick, humid, saturated with the smell of sex and sweat. I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the shelves, but the sounds were impossible to ignore. The rhythmic slap of skin, the woman’s ragged breathing, her cries sharpening with each thrust. I quickly located the correct shelves and put the binders in place.
Then I felt the strong hand pulling my collar from behind, making me choke and cough.
“Perfect,” Jacob said from behind me. His other hand worked on my belt, and my skirt dropped to my feet. “You are new here, so it’s not a correction. It’s an advance bonus.”
And he unbuttoned my blouse. I twitched, but it wasn’t a resistance. More like a nervous tic, like a muscle spasm. My mind was empty, all thoughts blown away by the raw reality of the situation. He took off the blouse and left me only in the collar they gave me. I didn’t even realize I was shaking until he put his large hands on my arms to steady me.
“Jacob, I don’t… I just…” I started to protest, but my voice was thin and useless. He wasn’t even looking at my face. He was guiding me, turning me, his touch practiced and impersonal, like I was a piece of furniture he was rearranging. He led me to one of the empty steel frames, facing the woman being fucked.
“Arms up,” he said.
My body obeyed before my mind could process the command. It was a primal response, a deep, ingrained instinct of obedience to authority, to the physical superiority of a man holding my fate in his hands. I raised my arms, and he secured my wrists into leather cuffs hanging from the frame’s top rail. They clicked shut, the sound sharp and final. My ankles came next, my legs stretched wide and locked in place at the base of the frame.
I was now bound, exposed, ready to be used. Like a fucktoy.
The woman before me raised her reddened face with rolled-up eyes. She did not see me. She gave out a hoarse cry, and her body began jerking in the frame. The man pumped his final, powerful thrusts into her and came too. They stood still for several seconds, panting.
Then the man pulled out his cock. It wasn’t huge, just medium-sized and clean, and it was now softening. He adjusted his kilt. The woman remained tied, a shudder running through her body.
“We’re done for today, Christine. Two more to go today,” the man said.
She nodded, not raising her eyes. “Thank you, Mark.”
He hugged her from behind, squeezing her breast with his hand. She turned her head, and they kissed. Then Mark left, and another man came, his kilt bulging at the front. Christine gave out a long sigh when he entered her from behind.
“Now it’s your turn, too,” Jacob said into my ear from behind.
I could not speak. It’s happening. He will do it to me. He will use me. And there was no one to help me here.
His hand slid down my stomach, through my pubis, to my slit. I sobbed when I felt his fingers on my vulva.
“Mmm, Maria, you are already wet!” he chuckled. “That’s the proper attitude!”
Was I wet? I was. It was all due to today’s shot, it makes me horny, like Anya said. I sighed. Do not lie to yourself, Maria. You are horny from being stripped naked and spread on the frame, from seeing and listening to Christine being fucked by the second man in front of my eyes. From the feeling of Jacob’s hard cock sliding by my crotch, probing my entry…
I gasped and arched my body, pushing back my hips, instinctively adjusting the angle of my vagina to his entering. His cock went inside, and I moaned as loudly as Christine did. He didn’t do any foreplay or lubrication, except my own arousal, so it went in with a bit of stretch, my tight flesh burning, and yet it was just the perfect amount of pain to mix with the unexpected rush of pleasure. I was filled, completed.
“There’s a good girl,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against my back. His hands gripped my hips, holding me steady. “Take it all.”
He started to move. Slowly at first, a deliberate, rhythmic rocking that pushed against the deepest parts of me. Each thrust was measured, a pressure point sending shockwaves through my core. I was aware of everything – the cool air on my skin, the bite of the leather on my wrists and ankles, the slick sound of our bodies joining, the sight of Christine being taken by another man, her face a mask of exhausted ecstasy. It was a symphony of sensations, overwhelming, and my body responded with an honesty my mind couldn’t deny. The heat coiling low in my belly grew tighter with every stroke.
Jacob’s rhythm remained constant, a metronome of pure, physical function. He was not fucking me like a passionate lover. He was… it was like jerking off with my vagina. So degrading, and at the same time… it turned my blood to fire. He was using my body for his physical relief, and my body liked to be used. I realized with a jolt that I was moving my hips to his rhythm, meeting his thrusts, pulling him deeper, moaning with his every move. I was an active participant. A willing one.
My mind was a frantic, jumbled mess, trying to reconcile the humiliation with the undeniable pleasure, the horror with the intoxicating need. This was it. The submission they talked about. Not just being tied up, but this mental surrender. My body was his instrument to play, and I could no longer pretend I didn’t want to be played. He started to speed up, his breathing becoming harsher. He pulled my hips back, impaling me fully, and I cried out, the sound raw and guttural. He pressed his fingers into my flesh, his movements becoming more erratic, less controlled. He was approaching his peak.
And so was I. The coil of heat in my stomach snapped, releasing a wave of pleasure so intense it was almost painful. It washed over me, stealing my breath, my vision blurring, my muscles clamping down on him as wave after wave of spasms shook my body. It seemed to go on forever, and I cried out and did not care about others seeing and hearing me like that.
When I came to, Christine had also just finished cumming. We both hang on our stretched arms, twitching with orgasmic aftershocks. Jacob gave his last, powerful thrust, and a warm flood filled me. For a moment, his body was flush against my back, his breathing heavy in my ear. The feeling was… shockingly intimate. More intimate than a hug, more intimate than a kiss. It was a mark, a claim.
After he pulled out, a thin line of his cum was trickling down my inner thigh. I watched it, fascinated, a strange sense of peace settling over me. The terror was gone, replaced by a hazy, post-orgasmic languor. The reality of the situation was still there – bound and naked in a basement archive room – but it felt distant, filtered through a warm, pleasant fog.
Jacob moved to my side, reaching up to release my wrists. “You did well, Maria. Very good.” His voice was still calm, matter-of-fact, but now there was a note of something akin to approval in it.
As the blood rushed back into my hands, a pins-and-needles sensation pricked my skin. I flexed my fingers, wincing slightly. He knelt and unfastened my ankles. “Stay put for a moment. Let the blood circulate.” I reached to wipe the trickle of his cum from my thigh, but he held my hand. “Don’t. It’s the sign of recognition, of your worth. Women here aren’t cleaning them up through the day.”
When I was leaving, with my clothes roughly arranged and my mind in total disarray, I heard Christine moaning again with her third man.
***
On my way back, I looked at the women in the elevator and corridors. Now, when I knew where to look, I saw the white signs of recognition on their inner thighs, some fresh and wet, some dried off. Almost every woman had them. And I could not help feeling some strange kind of pride.
“All done,” I reported to Sylvia after returning to our room.
She nodded. “Perfect, thank you. And I also received your evaluation results from Jacob.” She turned her monitor, and I saw the video replay of my stretched naked body being fucked. The camera gave a close-up on my face with the half-open mouth and rolled-up eyes. She turned the monitor back. “Quite good marks. You are a very promising employee, Maria. Keep up the good job!”
I blushed, not knowing what to say. “Um… Thank you. I’ll do my best.” Then I gathered my courage. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“That video… Are we all constantly filmed? How many cameras are around?”
“Ah!” she waved her hand dismissively. “They are everywhere, of course. They serve as usual security cameras, and they take high-quality captures of all sex acts within the building. You can watch them on our internal video feeds in the corporate messenger, and we are uploading them to the primary porn sites. You could search for ‘The Corporation’ porn creator profiles there.”
My world tilted again. Not only was this happening, but it was also being broadcast. I was… on the internet. Like this. I felt a fresh wave of heat on my face, but this was different from before. It was a strange, heady mix of mortification and a weird, fluttering excitement.
“Why?” The word was a bare whisper.
“For fun and profit, of course. It’s one of the branches of our business. And you’ll find it adds a certain… edge to the daily routine. The knowledge that you’re being watched, that your performance is out there for the world to see… It’s a powerful motivator to excel.”
She picked up a stylus and tapped on her screen. “We also use the videos for your performance reviews. The metrics are quite advanced. We analyze vocal tone, responsiveness, duration of peak arousal… It’s all quantifiable data. It helps us assign partners and activities that will be most… beneficial for your development.” She smiled, a thin, corporate smile. “It’s a holistic approach to employee well-being and productivity.”
Holistic. The word was absurd. “Holistic” wasn’t supposed to involve being recorded while tied to a rack in a basement.
“Okay,” she continued. “You have half of hour more to watch the training video on our inventory system, then we all have a team-building hour before the end of the work day.”
I went to my place. I had no doubt about what this team building would be.
***
I was not mistaken. In half of hour, we all turned off our computers and proceeded to a wide, warm room without furniture, just with soft mats on the floor. There were already a dozen other people inside, undressing naked, and more came after us.
“Today we are getting acquainted with the Units 137-A and 139-B,” Sylvia announced, getting rid of her clothes. Naked, wearing only her collar, she came to the group, shook hands with one man, and hugged another woman, probably the heads of the units. Then she turned to us. “Most of you know what to do. For our new employees – you, Maria, and you, David – I repeat the instructions. Engage in free body contact and sex acts. Choose the people you don’t know yet, and go from one to another. Have at least four sex acts with four different people, preferably with people of the opposite sex. But, as we have slightly more women than men here, and no men are known gays, then acts between women are perfectly okay, too.”
My eyes scanned the room, taking in the scene. It was a sea of bare skin, of collars, of limbs entwining. I saw Anya already laughing, being pulled onto a mat by two men from another department. The mood was… festive. Office party festive, but with genitalia on display.
My stomach did a slow, nauseating roll. Four. Four different people. I looked for a way out, a corner, a shadow to hide in. There wasn’t one. The room was bright and open. Sylvia was watching me, her arms crossed over her large breasts, an expectant look on her face. My gaze fell on David, the other rookie from another unit. His face was pale, with a tight, panicked expression around his eyes. We shared a look of sheer, mutual terror.
My heart hammered against my ribs. My brain, still fuzzy from the orgasm and the aftershock of the afternoon, was scrambling for a lifeline, for some script to follow. The memory of Jacob, the feel of him inside me, the surge of unwanted pleasure – it all flooded back, a confusing mix of shame and a deeply unsettling echo of desire. I was a toy. A prop. But my body, traitorous thing, was already preparing to take more men. I felt a familiar wave of warmth and butterflies in my lower abdomen.
Not waiting anymore, I approached David.
“It seems that we have no other choice, so let’s do it!” I smiled at him, rather nervously, and put my hands on his shoulders. Mmm, he felt strong and good. “I’m Maria. It’s my first day here.”
“David.” He looked at me, and for a second, there was pure panic in his eyes. But then he softened a bit. “Yeah… my first day as well. Okay then. Let’s get this over with.”
The contact was awkward at first. We stood there for a moment, a foot of space between us, two frightened children forced onto a stage. The sounds of the room swirled around us – the soft laughter, the sighs, the rhythmic slap of skin. I made the first move, stepping closer, my hands finding the warm skin of his chest. His muscles were tense beneath my palms. I pressed my whole soft, warm body against his, enjoying the contact, feeling his frightened cock hardening and rising, pressing to the wet slit between my legs that still remembered Jacob’s one.
Then we were on one of the mats, a tangle of limbs. His hands were clumsy on my back, his kisses hesitant. He was as inexperienced as I was; I could feel it. But there was no script for this, no manual, except for the raw biological programming that was now taking over. His movements were jerky, but firm. He entered me in several thrusts, almost as if he was testing the waters, and then began to thrust in a frantic, teenage-like rhythm, and I moaned with pleasure and wrapped my legs around him.
I closed my eyes, and I surrendered to the sensation. It was easier than thinking. Easier than fighting. The weight of his body, the heat of his breath, the relentless push and pull, it was a form of escape. I wasn’t Maria, the college graduate, the nervous new hire. I was just a body. A conduit for sensation. For a while, it was enough.
Afterwards, David rolled off me, panting. We lay side-by-side, staring at the ceiling. A sheen of sweat coated my skin. His cum was trickling from me, mixing with Jacob’s. Two marks now. My mind flickered back to Sylvia’s words. A metric. Just a KPI. Nothing to get too personally emotional about.
My eyes found Sylvia. She was participating just like everyone else. A large, muscular man from Unit 137-A was taking her from behind while she ate the pussy of a young, petite woman from 139-B. My manager. My mentor. Her performance was stellar; the video of it would surely get excellent marks on porn sites. The thought sent a weird, vicarious thrill through me. A sense of perverse pride.
David shifted beside me. “That was… okay,” he whispered, his voice raspy.
I turned my head to look at him. “Yeah. Okay.” The word was a lie. It was better than okay. It was terrifying and electrifying, and I hated myself for enjoying it.
“You need three more,” he said, stating the obvious.
“So do you.”
He sat up, raking a hand through his hair. He looked at me, then looked around the room, a new resolve settling in his features. The fear was still there, but it was being layered over with something else. Determination. Maybe a glint of the same dark curiosity that had pulled me towards that basement door. “Right,” he said, and stood up, walking towards a small group of women who were just finishing a threesome. He was learning.
I stayed on the mat for a minute longer, letting the sensations settle within me. Before I had time to pick my next partner, I felt someone’s hand on my hip. I turned to him. A nice bearded man in his forties, beginning to gain weight.
“I’m Sam, inventory manager from 139-B,” he introduced himself.
“Maria, junior executive assistant, um, 136-A, welcome,” I replied, feeling odd. It was unlike any date I had before. No gradual approaching, no flirting, no testing grounds, no foreplay. Just a short formal introduction before going to the main topic. Very professional. I almost giggled.
He lay on the mat near me and pulled me on top of him.
“Ride me, newbie,” he ordered. There was no meanness in his voice, only slight condescension and confidence. I lowered my pussy over him and started riding him. He put both of his hands behind his head and watched me moving, with a slight smile of satisfaction. That’s it, it was all me.
“Good, pretty good,” he commented, watching my bouncing breasts. “Your form is nice for a beginner.” This made me blush even more than I already was. He looked at David, who was already busy with a dark-skinned woman. “Your partner David has more to learn,” he continued. “But for you… I think you will be one of our popular ones. A highly sought-after employee.”
Popular ones. Sought after. The phrase sent a strange cocktail of dread and a thrill straight to my core. This was a marketplace, and my ‘form’ was the product on display. He didn’t see me, the person. He saw my body, my performance, my potential as a profitable asset. Yet, as I moved on top of him, I found myself trying to make it ‘better’. Rolling my hips in a smoother circle, arching my back, taking him deeper, deeper, so he reached my cervix, slowly increasing the rhythm of my thrusts. I felt my vagina tightening, grasping his cock, squeezing it. This was not for me. This was for the evaluation. For him. I was a tool, a thing, but this thing wanted to be rated ‘exceeds expectations’. The perversion of it was sickening. And it made the fire in my loins burn brighter.
I was reaching my peak. Moaning quietly. And I felt his hips jerking, his warm cum filling me. We froze for a moment, drowned in the sensations. Then Sam pulled me to him and kissed me.
“Excellent, Maria. It was just excellent.”
Then we separated and looked for new partners.
By the end of the hour, I was nearly exhausted. But I did my duty. I had sex with six people in total: David, Sam, a woman named Chloe who tasted of sweat and mint, a quiet, intense man named Alex who made me cum with his fingers alone, another woman named Anya, and finally a huge bald man with a complicated tribal tattoo on his back, whose name I didn’t even learn. He took me from behind, holding my hips tightly, and I was just a passive piece of meat being fucked by this strong, muscular animal. All of them left their mark. By the end, my thighs were slick with a cocktail of bodily fluids, a glistening badge of my productivity for the day.
Sylvia announced the end of the session. “Thank you, everyone! Our next team building event is scheduled next week, the same time, the same place, as usual. And now our working day is over. See you tomorrow at 8:00 AM, team!”
People slowly began to drift away, moving towards the shower stall at the far end of the room. I followed them. There were no separate stalls, just a common room with the tiled floor and walls, and a dozen shower heads, so we had to keep the body contact, sharing the showers, helping each other to clean up, to get rid of our marks of performance – just for today, of course. Tomorrow we’ll earn new ones. But this particular closeness after a joint group sex was quite… pleasant, it seemed. Nobody looked shyly at each other’s bodies; they were too casual. We cleaned each other’s nooks and crannies with soap, but it wasn’t sexual. It was just hygiene. It felt normal in a deeply unnatural way. We were teammates, and our bodies were just another part of the uniform.
After the shower, I was faced with the reality of the end of the day. Getting dressed. Back into the ‘uniform’ that seemed far more intimidating now than it had this morning. The thin blouse would offer no comfort, no armor. My body, freshly used by six different people, would be on display again. I felt more naked wearing it than when I was really naked.
***
I was sitting naked in the dressing room, about to put on my street clothes. Now I really appreciate the number being printed on my palm; it has completely slipped my mind. I was overwhelmed with today’s experiences. So many things happened. My view of myself was shattered and overturned so many times. First, I thought this was a regular job. Then I thought I was forced into sex. Then I realized… I wanted it. Then I was a professional. And now I was… what?
“Hey,” Chloe said. She was sitting on a bench next to me, combing her wet blonde hair. “If I may suggest… Don’t put on your stockings and underwear. Your body starts to wean off them, and they will irritate you.”
I raised my foot and looked at my black sole. Even after scrubbing under the shower, it remained black.
“Yes… Thank you. And I thought the HR words about employees wearing their uniforms out of the work were an overstatement…”
Chloe laughed. “It takes a week or so. Then you’ll find you like it. To be honest, at home I have only three sets of clothes: two sets of the uniform, and one holiday set to go out for the weekends. Just as revealing, really. And I am always naked at home, of course.”
That was weird. But when I thought more, it was perfectly logical here. To be more comfortable in your everyday job, you should get accustomed to being comfortable in fewer and fewer clothes.
“I see. And about that… Do you have any instructions for me? For the next days? I feel a bit… lost.”
“It’s quite simple, actually. For the next week, just follow the schedule. It’s in your tablet, it will tell you when to take the next training tutorial, when to take a coffee break, and when to go for lunch. Just do what the others are doing. How to better do your work assignments. After a week or so, the schedule will start to feel quite liberating. No excess freewill, you know. You just do what you’re told. You’ll just have to get used to it.”
Liberating to have your whole day scheduled in the finest detail? Weird. But a kind of weirdness that began making a perverted sense to me.
I smiled, putting on the clothes in which I came here in the morning. They felt unnatural, too close, too hot, too heavy. But I was not ready to come home in my work uniform yet. Maybe tomorrow.
“And, let me guess…” I looked at Chloe. “The Correction Room in the basement, the team building event… Isn’t all that awaits me here?”
She laughed. “You haven’t seen even five percent of it yet! But I won’t tell you now. You’ll find it out by yourself, step by step.”
I nodded. Well, it just adds to the thrill and fun. I remembered Linda’s words. It surely does.
***
As I walked home, the city felt unreal. The honking cars, the distant wail of a siren, the crowd of strangers on the sidewalk – all of it seemed like a movie set I’d stumbled into. I was a ghost in their world. My skin still felt the phantom touch of six different pairs of hands. The fabric of my clothes felt rough and abrasive, chafing the skin that was still slick and tender. Every step was a reminder. My body was a public record now, a ledger of the day’s transactions.
I let myself into my small apartment, the familiar scent of my own air, my own things, a comforting shock to the system. I locked the door, leaning against it for a long moment, just breathing. Here, in this space, it felt like a dream. A terrifying, lucid dream. I looked at my reflection in the dark window. My face looked the same, but my eyes… they were different. Deeper. Haunted. Or maybe, illuminated. I couldn’t tell.
I looked at my palm. The barcode and the number were still there. It was not a dream. It was my new life.
I already longed for tomorrow’s shift.
