She'd gone to Walmart on the way home. Half-asleep on the bus, knees aching, she'd almost missed the stop. But the thought of his face, that quiet, clinical disappointment as he'd circled her, kept her upright. She found a white button-down and a black pencil skirt that sat snug on her hips. Thirty-two dollars. She didn't check her balance after.
The long black was ready at 5:55. She carried it to the fourteenth floor and sat on the floor beside his locked door. Her spot now. Back against the wall, the cup cradled in both hands, steam curling in the empty hallway.
6:00. 6:30. 7:00. The coffee cooled in her grip. She didn't dare go get a fresh one. What if he arrived while she was gone?
At 7:32, the elevator chimed.
Williams came through on his phone, unlocking the office without breaking stride. She scrambled up and followed, set the coffee on his desk. He didn't look at her until he'd settled into the leather and taken his first sip.
He set it down with a deliberateness that said everything.
"This is cold."
"I got it early so it would be ready-"
"Get a fresh one."
Another eleven fifty. Her card went through, but the pause before the beep was longer this time. She brought it back. He sipped. Nodded. She clung to the nod.
Then he looked at her.
He stood. Circled. The grey eyes catalogued every detail: the new blouse, the pencil skirt, the way the button-down followed her shape instead of hanging off it. She stood straighter, hands clasped, trying not to fidget. This was better. She knew it was better.
"Improvement." Her shoulders dropped half an inch.
Then: "But."
They locked right back up.
He stopped in front of her. His gaze dropped to her chest. The blouse was fitted, following the curve of her breasts the way he'd demonstrated, pulling slightly across her generous bust. But the outline of her bra was visible through the white cotton. Straps. Band. The seam of each cup traced across the fabric.
"I can see every line of it. Through a white blouse, Chloe." The weary disbelief of a man explaining something to a child. "Visible undergarment lines are sloppy. In any professional environment, you'd be sent home."
Her cheeks burned. "I didn't think-"
"Professional women wear cupless bras. Support without the lines." He paused, searching for patience he didn't feel. "Common knowledge. I'm surprised you don't know this."
She'd never heard of a cupless bra. But the way he said it, baffled and pitying, made her feel as though everyone in the world knew this except her. The girl from Ohio who didn't know how offices worked. Who didn't know how women dressed. Who needed to be taught.
"I'll get one. Today, after work-"
"See that you do." He moved to her side. His eyes dropped to her hips. The pencil skirt hugged the full curve of her ass, ending just above the knee. Better than yesterday's curtain. But the outline of her underwear cut visible lines across her hips: waistband, seam, elastic.
"And this." He traced the underwear line through the fabric with one finger. A slow stroke across the curve of her hip, the tip of his finger pressing the fabric against her skin so the elastic beneath was unmistakable. "A thong, at minimum. The line has to be clean." He stepped back. "And lose the platforms. Get proper heels. Those are for teenagers."
She nodded. Cupless bra, thong, heels. More money she didn't have.
"We'll fix what we can now." Brisk. "Take off your bra."
"I - here?"
"Do you see a changing room?"
She turned away. Her fingers found the clasp through the blouse, fumbling, the hooks refusing to cooperate, the fabric bunching as she worked them loose. He's not watching. He's busy with his files. She pulled the bra free through her sleeve, the strap catching on her wrist, and stuffed it into her bag.
"Turn around."
She did. And felt the change immediately. Without the bra, her breasts sat heavier beneath the blouse. Fuller. The cotton, thin enough that the bra had shown through, was now thin enough that everything showed through. Her nipples, hardened by the cool air and the adrenaline, pressed against the white fabric. Two distinct points, visible from across the room.
His gaze dropped to her chest. Lingered. "Much better. Clean lines." Then he stepped closer. His hand came up, casual, the way you'd brush lint from a collar, and flicked her left nipple through the fabric. A quick, precise motion. The pad of his finger caught the hardened peak and snapped it sideways.
She gasped. Sharp. Her body jolted, her shoulders pulling in.
· · ·
His expression hardened. "No talking during inspections unless you're spoken to. We'll keep this rule until you've learned to dress yourself." He held her gaze until she dropped it. "Clear?"
She nodded. Her nipple throbbed where he'd flicked it. A hot, stinging awareness that radiated outward from the point of contact, pulsing with her heartbeat. She could feel it through the cotton. She would feel it all day.
"These are pointing out too much," he said, gesturing at her chest. Matter-of-fact. As though the nipples pressing through the thin white blouse were a structural problem. "Keep them under control. I don't know how, but it's your problem to solve."
· · ·
He circled behind her.
"Now. The underwear line. Skirt up."
Skirt up. The words collided with every instinct she had. But his tone was clipped. Impatient. A man who'd already lost thirty minutes to her incompetence.
"Chloe. We don't have time for this."
She reached down. The pencil skirt resisted; tight fabric clinging to her thighs as she worked it higher, her hands gripping the waistband, hips rocking side to side to inch it upward. The fabric caught on the full swell of her ass, stretching, refusing to give, and she had to tug harder, her wide hips shifting, the motion obscene and graceless, until the skirt jerked free with a final pull that sent her cheeks jiggling from the force. She bunched the fabric around her waist.
· · ·
Plain white cotton underwear. Full coverage. An eighteen-year-old's multipack underwear.
She stared at the wall. Face burning. Her fingers white-knuckled on the bunched fabric at her hips.
Behind her, Williams assessed. He studied the cotton underwear stretched across her full, round ass, the fabric puckered at the edges where elastic met the soft pale skin of her cheeks, the outline of her completely visible beneath the thin cotton, every curve on display. The underwear covered her but hid nothing; the shape was all there. The deep cleft between her pillowy cheeks, the lower curve where ass met thigh, the strip of fabric that pressed between her legs.
His fingers slid beneath the elastic at the bottom of each cheek. His knuckles pressed into the soft flesh, the warm skin giving under his touch, the crease between underwear and ass warm and private. She flinched. He pulled. Hard.
A single rough motion, yanking the cotton upward and inward. The force was sudden enough to lift her onto her toes, her balance lurching forward, and she caught herself with both hands flat on his desk, bent at the waist. The fabric dug deep between her cheeks, disappearing into the cleft, the cotton strip dragging across her most sensitive skin. The front pulled tight against her mound, pressing the thin cotton against her through a seam that had never sat there before.
He didn't step back. She could feel him behind her, his waist against her bare cheeks, the warmth of his body through his trousers, the solid width of his hips pressing into the soft flesh that was now exposed on either side of the buried cotton strip. His hands still gripped the underwear, holding the tension, the fabric pulled taut between her cheeks like a wire. She was bent over his desk with her skirt around her waist and his hips against her bare skin.
Three seconds. Four. Five. The warm pressure of his body against her split cheeks, the cotton biting into her, the edge of the desk against her hips. She bit the inside of her cheek. Her eyes watered.
He let go. Stepped back. He smoothed the skirt down over her hips. His palms ran flat across her backside, checking the line, both hands pressing the fabric against the newly exposed shape of her, his fingers trailing down each cheek, smoothing, lingering on the lower curve before pulling away.
"That'll do until you get something more professional. Try not to adjust it."
· · ·
He sat down. Opened a file. "The bookcase. Bottom shelves. Same as yesterday."
* * *
She walked to the bookcase on legs that didn't belong to her and lowered herself to the floor.
The underwear dug in with every movement. A constant, inescapable pressure that shifted and tightened each time she reached or bent. Worse on her knees. Worse on all fours. There was no position that didn't make it dig deeper, the cotton strip dragging against skin that had never been touched by anything but shower water, and she couldn't bring herself to say anything - what would she even say? - so she filed in silence while the fabric bit into her and her nipples pressed through the blouse for him to see every time he looked up.
He looked up often.
The pencil skirt pulled taut across her ass when she knelt, stretching over each cheek, the absence of any underwear line making the shape beneath obscenely defined. The full round curves, the tight youthful flesh pressing against the fabric like something vacuum-sealed. When she bent forward, the wedgied cotton shifted deeper and she winced. When she reached for the second shelf, her breasts swayed beneath the thin blouse, heavy and loose, her nipples dragging against the cotton with each movement.
He stood over her once, mid-morning. Polished shoes at her knee. Belt at her eye line. She didn't try to stand this time. She looked up, silent, waiting.
He gave her a note to write down. She wrote it on her knees, neck craned, and handed it up without a word.
His hand came down on her head. Lighter than yesterday's firm press. A pat. Two slow strokes across her hair, from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck, the way you'd reward a dog that had finally learned to sit.
A smirk touched one corner of his mouth. He nodded.
"Better."
And walked away.
* * *
Lunch. Rosario's. Paid for. She'd expected it. The resignation was worse than the surprise had been.
The afternoon blurred. Filing. Kneeling. The underwear. The blouse. Her nipples, which had started the morning as a humiliation, had faded by noon into background noise; two points of sensation against thin cotton, shifting when she moved, visible when she glanced down. She'd stopped crossing her arms by one o'clock. Stopped hunching by three. The effort of hiding had exhausted itself, and what was left was a girl on the floor doing as she was told with her nipples showing through her shirt.
He let her go at eight. An hour earlier than yesterday. She stood, wincing as the underwear shifted in places underwear shouldn't be.
"Chloe."
"Yes, sir?"
He leaned back, scotch in hand. The disappointment was gone. In its place, the faintest approval behind the grey.
"You're improving."
Two words. They hit her harder than anything he'd said all week.
"You listened. You adjusted. That's what I need - someone who can take direction." He sipped. "Get the cupless bra. Proper underwear - a thong, or nothing. And heels. You're getting there."
She stood there with her nipples pressing through her blouse and a wedgie she hadn't been allowed to fix for twelve hours, and his approval sat in her chest like a meal after fasting.
"Six a.m. tomorrow. And Chloe?" The faintest smile. "Well done today."
* * *
The bus. The back row. The hard plastic seat.
She sat with her underwear still wedged deep between her cheeks and her nipples still pressing against the thin blouse, and she felt, for the first time since Friday, like she might be good at this.
He'd patted her head. Like she'd done well. Like she was worth teaching. She built her evening around it: the trip to Walmart for a thong and heels, the practice in her apartment on thin carpet, ankles screaming, the certainty that she was getting closer.
Cupless bra. Thong. Heels.
She'd get it right tomorrow.
