The Bet - Chapter 12 (Wednesday – week 2 Part 2)

The Bet
by Karen Singer

Chapter 12 (Wednesday – week 2 Part 2)

Robin’s desk phone rang. “This is Robin.”
“Hello girlfriend. It’s break-time… and we all want the scoop on Chad. We saw you walking in with him and we’re dying to know. So get your ass down here.”
Robin laughed. “I’ll be right there.” A few minutes later she was pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down with a larger group of her lady friends than she usually saw during her break.
“Ok, now what’s the story with Chad,” one of them asked immediately.
“That’s just it… I don’t really know. He won’t talk to me about it.”
“But we saw you walking in with him this morning.”
“Yeah, and it was weird, he was trying to cover up his pantyhose with socks, while at the same time he was wearing everything else. I mean, how dumb.” She then went on to tell them everything she had seen during the last two days.
“So you think he’s going to exercise classes during lunch then?” One of them asked.
“That’s what it looks like. But I can’t imagine that they’d really let him in.”
“Maybe they’re hurting for business,” another of the girls suggested.
“That place? Not likely,” another one replied.
“Well, one thing’s for sure, something is going on with him,” still another woman said. “And were counting on you,” she pointed at Robin, “to keep us all informed.”
Robin laughed along with everyone else. “I’m dying to know myself what he thinks he’s doing.”

The judge’s gavel came down with a small bang. Mel’s elation over winning the case took off as if the gavel were a starting gun. He client, Mr. Baxter, raised his arms in a victory celebration. She stood up and shook his hand. He and the two company executives with him were all smiles, as they should have been. She had just pulled off a major victory for him and his company. Once they were out in the hall, she shook hands with all of them again. Then she turned to Mr. Baxter himself. “Could I talk to you privately for a moment?”
He raised his eyebrows a bit but excused himself from his two friends. Mel led him further down the hall then opened a door to one of the meeting rooms and looked inside. Empty. She led the way in and closed the door behind them. Baxter was obviously curious about her odd behavior. “What’s up?” he asked as soon as the door was closed.
Mel smiled at him. “We just won a major victory in there.”
“Don’t I know it!”
“I saved you and your company a small fortune.”
“I’m well aware of that,” he replied.
“You know that my fees for this case are going to be a lot.”
“I’m aware of that too. But you did save us from far worse.”
“Well, I have a bit of a proposition for you.”
He looked at her warily. “Ok, I’m listening.”
Mel nodded. “How would you like me to wave all of my fees, completely.”
That got Baxter’s attention. More warily than ever he asked, “How.”
Mel took a deep breath before she began. “I’m looking into the interests of one of your employees. His name is Chad. I think he works in your internet department.”
Mr. Baxter searched his brain for a moment. “Chad? I’m not absolutely sure, but I think I know who you’re talking about. What about him.”
“He’s going through something difficult right now…”
“Divorce?”
Mal laughed a bit. “That too. But no, something else entirely.”
“You want me to promote him or give him a raise? Is that it?”
Mel shook her head. “No, not at all. Look, he’s going to be exhibiting some strange behavior for a while. In fact, it’s already started.”
“And you want me to have a talk with him about it. Is that it?”
“No. That’s exactly what I don’t want. What I want is for you to leave him alone entirely. And especially don’t fire him. Don’t even acknowledge anything different about him at all till this is over. Ignore his situation completely.”
Baxter looked doubtful. “You said strange behavior. I have my other employees to think about. I won’t allow any chance of them being endangered.”
Mel shook her head again. “Don’t worry, there’s no chance of that at all.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Very.”
“And you’re going to waive all your fees? Completely?”
“All of them.”
“And I just have to ignore whatever ruckus he’s raising down there.”
“Just take a hands-off policy as far as he’s concerned… You - and your managers.”
He nodded. “And how long do you think this will last?”
“It’s hard to tell. A few months probably, maybe as much as a year. Look how long your case took to settle. They kept delaying and delaying.”
Baxter nodded his head. He understood that concept perfectly. Then he had another thought. “We could probably set it up so that he could work from home. Would that be better?”
Mel thought about that. “No. Maybe at some later date we can look into that further. But for his sake, right now, I’d like him to stay at work.”
Baxter seemed to think about it for a while. “Ok,” he finally agreed. “I’ll try it.”
Mel shook his hand. “And I’ll make a note to cancel your billing – unless you back down or interfere.”

Chad sat at his desk, actually getting some work done. It was easier to concentrate on work than to think about anything else – especially things that might be painful. But the thought of the device he was now wearing was never very far from his mind. It was no longer hurting him at all, but he could feel the constant pressure of the retaining ring all around his private parts as his girdle pressed constantly against it. Not a bad pressure, it was just there. Curiously, he felt less pressure against his penis since that was now encased in the hard plastic.
He finished a minor section of the project he had been working on and stretched his arms a bit. Not all that long ago he would have gone down to the break room a while ago with his friends for some much needed coffee. For the past two weeks now, he hadn’t gone at all. He really felt the need for some coffee just then. He was so tired. But there was no way he was going to go anywhere dressed the way he was.
He hadn’t had quite as much to drink this morning which was nice so he had only wet himself a few times. Really, not all that much. There had been no major signs of activity from the suppositories in him either – which he really appreciated. He thought again about the chastity device he was wearing. He had wanted to examine it closer this morning but Mel had only allowed him a brief few seconds. He rolled his chair back a few feet and glanced up and down the hall. All quiet. Most people would be back from their morning breaks by now. He got up and headed to the men’s room.
As he passed Robin’s cubicle, he glanced inside. She was there, she turned briefly and he half waved to her as he kept going.
As he hoped, the men’s room was empty. He went into one of the stalls and again got completely undressed. He sat down on the toilet and started to examine the device a bit closer. Disappointingly, there wasn’t much else to see about it. He flicked the hard plastic that covered his penis with his fingernail, but he really didn’t feel anything from it inside. He pulled on the device a little and immediately the teeth that were up against his skin dug in deeply. He stopped pulling quickly. He tried everything he could think of to try to get out of it, but either nothing worked at all, or he was immediately subjected to intense pain. He sighed. He was stuck with the thing till Mel finally decided to remove it.
Perhaps because of the fact that he was sitting naked on the toilet, the suppository in him finally decided to do something. Gladly, he let it all out and wiped himself clean afterwards. Then, because there was nothing he could do about the device, he got fully dressed again.
As he was walking back, he saw Robin push her chair back out of her cubicle a bit, waiting for him. “Wow,” she said as he approached. You were in there so long I was about to call the fire department. Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Chad replied. “Sometimes these things just take a while. You know?”
Robin laughed a bit. “Yeah, maybe I do.” As he was starting to walk off, she asked, “Hey Chad. So why the hell are you wearing a man’s shirt when everything else you’re wearing is for women?”
Chad opened his mouth to reply, and then he closed it again. He didn’t really have an answer. So he shrugged his shoulders and said. “I don’t know.”
“You’re weird, you know it.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“And what was that with the socks this morning? I mean that was really dumb. You don’t wear men’s socks with shoes like that. It’s like you’re trying to do everything wrong.”
Chad again had no answer. He just couldn’t tell her what was really going on, although most of it was all too plain for everybody to see. He finally just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and went straight back to his own cubicle and sat down.
But Robin’s cubicle was right next to his. Still sitting in her chair, she pushed it the short distance down to Chad’s cubicle and all the way inside. He turned, surprised to see her. “Chad. You’ve got to know that everybody is talking about you.”
He nodded. “I know.” His answer seemed so dejected.
“So what’s going on?”
“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it!”
Robin shook her head. “Well everybody else is talking about it.”
“Yeah, well…”
She kept looking at him. “You look tired,” she said.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Because of this?” she asked.
“Kind of.”
“You’re not being very helpful,” she complained.
“Well, I said I don’t want to talk about it!”
Robin was getting frustrated. She just wanted answers and he was being very stubborn. Finally she tried something else. “I’m glad you kept the eye makeup on this morning.”
Chad really wanted her to go away. He understood that she was just trying to find out what was going on, but there were too many things he either couldn’t tell her, or he didn’t know himself. “Like you said,” he replied, referring to his makeup, “why bother removing it.”
“So why don’t you add a little lip gloss too?” she asked, trying hard to not sound teasing. “You said you had all your makeup with you. Why stop with just your eyes?”
Chad was getting very frustrated with her. He shook his head. “Look,” he said one more time, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ok?”
Robin shook her head. She couldn’t get anything from him. “Yeah, yeah. Ok.” She started to push herself backwards again out into the hall. “I’m right next door if you want to tell me something… or if you need any help,” she told him.
He nodded. “I know.” And then he added, “Thanks.”
Dejected and frustrated, Robin pushed herself back to her own desk. But work was far from her mind. She just couldn’t figure Chad out. There was something going on for sure. The more she talked to him, the bigger that something seemed to get. But he was just too damn stubborn to tell her!

Chad was ever so glad when Robin finally left him. He knew she meant well. Heck, they were sort of friends. But there was no way he could tell her about the bet… or the consequences of it. Let her draw her own conclusions he finally decided as he once again opened up the project he was working on. He yawned. Yeah, coffee would have been good this morning.