The Bet - Chapter 46 (Tuesday – week 7 Part 2 of 9)

The Bet
by Karen Singer

Chapter 46 (Tuesday – week 7 Part 2 of 9)

Robin stared at her computer screen, but her mind was more on the apology that Chad had just given her and on the email that Mel had sent. So that was Mel’s idea of a proper apology? Well, she guessed it was a lot better than some. Not that she really cared. Should she answer the crazy woman like she wanted and tell her that she had received Sissy’s apology? Against her better judgment, she opened the email and hit the return button and typed: “Yes, he apologized.” Then she sent the email. Hopefully, she could put both her and Sissy out of her mind for a while.

Mel saw Robin’s email as soon as she got to work. She was glad that Sissy had actually apologized, but Robin certainly wasn’t very forthcoming with the details. She closed the email and opened up the one from Sissy. From what she read in Chad’s email, it sounded like Robin was still pretty angry – which made sense when compared with the email she had just gotten from Robin. So… now it was time to check on a few things. She opened Robin’s email again and typed a short reply.

Robin still had one or two little things left to do on her list from Tom Robinson, but it really amounted to nothing much. She could do it all in less than an hour, if she wanted to. But she was distracted from finishing any of it by another email from Mel. As much as she didn’t want to open it, because she really didn’t care what the woman wanted, she also couldn’t not open it.

Dear Robin,

I’m very glad he apologized, but I’m worried that he didn’t do it exactly the way that I wanted him to. Before his apology and also after it, he was supposed to give you a very nice curtsey, pulling his skirt as wide as possible in the process. I made sure he was wearing a very full skirt today so that his curtsey could be at its “sissy best.” Please let me know if he did this.

As always, feel free to call or email me,

Mel

Sissy best? That concept floored her. Yes, she knew the guy was a sissy, but it’s just that the label had never struck her that much. In the past, before she knew better, she had thought of him more as one of those cross-dresser types. In fact, since he had been dressing totally as a woman for so long now, she had started to believe that eventually he would be getting a sex change – no matter how much he denied it. But a sissy? That label brought to mind a whole new level of concepts – and the realization that she knew less about someone who was a sissy than she did about someone who was a cross-dresser – which wasn’t very much. But… was “sissy” an accurate label for Sissy?
Not knowing, and also not sure she wanted to know, she went back and reread the details of Mel’s little email. He was supposed to curtsey before and after – well, that much he had done. And the more she thought about the fact that he had curtseyed, the more she liked the term sissy for him. A woman apologizing to another woman wouldn’t curtsey in the process. In fact, there were very few reasons why a woman now-days would curtsey at all. She herself had rarely done it in her entire life! She barely knew how! So now the term sissy was starting to take on a whole new meaning for her.
And he was supposed to pull his skirt as wide as possible? Well, that much he certainly hadn’t done! She had been surprised that he had curtseyed in the first place. Although when he had done it, she had pretty much dismissed it, waiting to hear what he had to say instead.
So, bottom line, he had apologized, but not the way he was supposed to. She wondered what else he might have left out. Not that it mattered. She always believed that an apology should come from the heart for it to mean anything. So obviously, this was contrived and as an apology it didn’t amount to a hill of beans! Not that she really cared all that much. She was still pretty much angry and disgusted with the jerk and she still wasn’t all that sure how, or if, she should talk to him again. The idiot!
After quickly reading Mel’s email one last time, she was reminded of her problem with him yesterday where he hadn’t done as he was told. Okay, she was overly upset and sensitive yesterday, she guessed she still was somewhat. But at least she wasn’t as bad today – she thought. But still, the point was that obviously, when left on his own, he couldn’t be trusted to follow through with what he was supposed to do! Just like a child! But then he wanted to be a child – well, he wanted to be a baby. But that was still a child! Was he now acting more and more like one? She shook her head in disgust and typed a short reply to Mel. “He curtseyed, but not at all like that. What else was he supposed to do – or say?”

It was a while before Mel had time to check her email again. She wasn’t sure if she was surprised or not that Chad hadn’t apologized like she wanted him to. In fact, she had mostly expected that he wouldn’t. But the part that she was really interested in was that Robin had replied again – and asked for details! That alone meant a lot!
But how should she proceed? For once, she didn’t want to frighten Robin off, so she knew she still had to be careful. Very cautiously, she typed her reply to Robin. Again, it was short and simple, only telling her the text of what he was supposed to say. But just before she sent it, as an afterthought, she added one extra little tidbit.

It was almost break-time when Robin got the reply from Mel. Again, she was tempted to not open it, but like before, she was too curious as to what was in the email.

Dear Robin,

Thank you so much for replying to me. Here’s what was supposed to happen:

He was supposed to give you a very nice curtsey, pulling his skirt as wide as possible while bowing his head in respect to you. Then he was supposed to stand up straight with his feet together and his hands clasped nicely in front as he said: I’m sorry Robin that I didn’t do exactly what you told me to do yesterday. I promise not to give you any more trouble and to do whatever you say from now on. Then he was supposed to repeat the same curtsey he had given you at the start.

I was hoping that this simple but sincere little routine would be acceptable to you and would also get the point across to him that he needs to follow your direction just as if it were me.

Oh, one other thing. Did you know that his “girly voice” is not the way that I want him to talk? Even this apology was supposed to be given in his “sissy voice.”

As always, feel free to call or email me,
Mel

Robin must have read the email at least three times. Nothing that Sissy had done was like Mel had wanted it to be. For someone who was supposed to be his… mistress – what a laugh – obviously Mel wasn’t all that good at controlling him. She knew without a doubt that she shouldn’t really care, but it still irked her that Sissy was supposed to give a “better” apology to her than he did – even if it was contrived by someone else. But what should she do about it? In fact why should she do anything about it? There was no way she was going to get drawn into that crazy woman’s games! Still, it irked her. And what the heck did she mean by his “sissy voice?”
She glanced at the clock. Break time. With a bit of a huff, she closed the email and left her cubicle. She stopped at the entrance to Chad’s cubicle. “Sissy, it’s break time!”
Chad looked up in surprise. Was she speaking to him again? He quickly got up from his seat and followed her out into the hallway. “Robin,” he started to say, but he got no further than that as she quickly turned on him and forcibly backed him up against the wall.
“What do I have to do,” she said forcibly, “make you go to break with your thumb in your mouth too? What’s it going to take for you to understand that I don’t want to talk to you yet?”
Chad was too shocked to do more than stare at her wide-eyed. One thing he had learned about her in the last two days was that she seemed to get awfully physical when she was really angry. Silently, he followed along behind her to the break room.
The act of walking seemed to stimulate Robin’s thoughts – which immediately returned to Sissy and Mel’s email. Why should she care? She didn’t! She absolutely didn’t. But she couldn’t stop brooding about it. Sissy should have given her a better apology than he did. He was supposed to… and… she deserved something better! And what the heck was his “sissy voice?”
In the break room, she headed straight for the coffee pot and poured herself a cup, never glancing once back in Sissy’s direction. She just knew he was there – like an extra arm or leg. She had already spotted the nearly empty box of doughnuts and grabbed the very last one. With a mocking look straight at him, she took a bite and acted like it was the best doughnut she had ever tasted – even though she hardly tasted it at all. Then she walked away toward the women’s table as if she were ignoring him completely.
Chad wasn’t all that worried about not getting a doughnut, he was more worried about Robin and what she might do. He finished pouring his coffee and carried it over to the women’s table where he found a chair nearby and sat down extra slowly so as not to irritate his backside any more than it already was. He decided to try to stay as quiet and as out of the conversation as possible today, just to be safe. But then, that was always what he wanted, the other women just never seemed to let him.
Robin noticed how slowly Sissy sat down. She wondered if Mel had beat him last night. But after watching him sit, she was betting that Mel had. Well, he deserved it! But obviously the lesson hadn’t stuck properly. Just like a child! The idiot!
She watched him as one of the women teasingly asked him about when he was going to see Derek again and again Chad tried to explain that he and Derek weren’t “dating.” As funny and interesting as that used to be for her – last week, now she knew that something much different was probably behind it all. She didn’t know exactly what, but those questions couldn’t be asked here.
As the other women laughed and talked, she sat silently, thinking, brooding.
“Robin,” one of the women broke her concentration. “You’re being awfully quiet today. Are you feeling alright?”
Robin shrugged. It’s just that… she looked straight at Chad… “the… baby… has been driving me crazy lately.”
Chad instantly understood which baby she was talking about. Not her own.
“Oh,” the woman said in reply. “Well, he’s what? One now? Once they reach that age where they can start moving around faster, they just seem to get into the darndest things!”
“Don’t they!” Robin replied, glaring at Sissy once again. She was saved from any further answer as the talk around the table instantly turned toward the ones with young kids. She had a baby of her own, a one-year-old who had just recently learned to walk and was now getting into all kinds of mischief. Was she now going to be saddled with another baby a – how old was Chad anyway? Not that it mattered. He wanted to be a baby and the more she thought about it, the more she realized he was acting like one! The jerk! He couldn’t even apologize properly!
The women started getting up from the table to head back to their desks and Robin did the same. So did Sissy. Amid a fairly large group of women, they both headed back out into the hallway. A few minutes later, Chad was trying to follow behind her as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible again. Robin knew he was still following her, she just chose to ignore him – for now. They turned down the last hallway where their cubicles were located. Robin walked right past his cubicle, heading for her own. But she stopped at the entrance and turned around. He had just turned into his own cubicle. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked.
Chad was taken aback again. What had he done wrong now? He knew he hadn’t uttered a word. In fact, he had hardly made any sound at all.
“I got an email from your… mistress,” she spat the word again... “a little while ago. And that silly little apology you gave me earlier wasn’t even close to what you were supposed to do!”
Chad saw her suddenly heading for him again and he backed away from her, straight into his chair where he winced a bit at the pain still in his backside as he fell into it.
Robin noticed the look on his face as he sat down. “What’s wrong? Did your… mistress… beat you last night?” When she got no answer, she yelled, “Tell me!”
Chad nodded, as the fear started to grow in him.
“I didn’t say nod your head. I said tell me! Did she beat you?”
“Y… Yes,” Chad stammered.
Robin nodded. “Good! I hope she beats you every night – because I can’t think of anyone who deserves a beating more than you!
“I still can’t get over that you’re doing such a stupid thing! It’s… insane! And worse… you want to be a baby too? I just don’t get it!” she said with a shake of her head. “Why would anyone… It’s stupid, stupid, stupid!”
She paused for a second. “You want to be a baby? Well, from what I see lately you’re behaving more and more like one every day! Take that stupid excuse for an apology you gave me earlier. What is it? You’re not ‘man’ enough to do it properly? Well, we know that already! You’re not even enough of an adult to take the responsibility of doing what you’re told! Like a little baby, you tried to get away with something and thought I wouldn’t know about it! Well I do know about it! I know exactly what kind of apology you were supposed to give me, right down to what you were supposed to say to me!”
She stared at him sitting fearfully in his chair for a moment. “Get up!” she ordered as she turned around and started out. “Let’s try it again!” She didn’t know if she was angry or what, but she went straight back to her cubicle.
Chad was in a state of shock. She knew what was supposed to be in the apology? Obviously she had heard from Mel again. Still feeling a bit fearful, he got out of his chair and headed back to her cubicle.
Robin was opening up her email program when she heard him enter her cubicle again. She turned on him quickly. “Did I say you can come in here? Back up! Back out into the hallway again!” She watched till he was back to the middle of the hallway before turning her back on him. She opened up Mel’s email and read it through thoroughly, paying strict attention to the words that Chad was supposed to say. Then she turned around to face him again. He was still in the middle of the hallway. Good! “Okay, I’m waiting,” she said. “Now let me see how you were supposed to apologize.”
Chad stood there for a second. He didn’t know why he felt a bit afraid, but he did. He inwardly gulped, then looked up and down the hallway to make sure nobody else was around that would see him.
“I’m waiting!” Robin said impatiently.
Chad again started with a small curtsey toward her.
“Stop right there!” Robin yelled angrily. “That’s not what your friend said you were supposed to do!” She turned quickly in her chair and read out loud from Mel’s email so that he could hear. “He was supposed to give you a very nice curtsey, pulling his skirt as wide as possible while bowing his head in respect to you. Then he was supposed to stand up straight with his feet together and his hands clasped nicely in front.” She turned back to him again. “Was that little… thing… you just did anything at all like what you were supposed to do?”
The fear inside of Chad grew a bit more. “N… No,” he replied.
“See! Once again you’re acting like a child and trying to get away with something! Geez! Now let’s see it properly!”
Once again Chad looked up and down the hallway to make sure nobody was watching.
This time he curtseyed exactly the way Mel wanted him to, pulling his skirt wide, bowing his head, and standing back up with his feet together and his hands clasped nicely in front of him. Then he launched into his little apology speech – in his girly voice. When he was done, he repeated his curtsy routine once again.
Robin stared at him for a moment, then grunted and shook her head. The term sissy was starting to grow on her. The idiot! She shook her head. “Come here!” Chad started moving toward her cubicle but she stopped him just before he could enter it. “Now tell me,” she said a bit more calmly, “what the heck is your ‘sissy voice’?”
Chad’s eyes went wide. Mel had told her about that too? He looked down at the floor bashfully. “Um… She makes me talk that way because it makes me sound more childish and like a…” his voice dropped to almost a whisper, “sissy.”
Robin just stared at him. More childish? Like a sissy? Well that figured. “What way? Explain.”
Chad was getting more and more uncomfortable talking about it. “Um… Well basically, I replace all the ‘R’ and ‘L’ sounds with ‘W’. He looked up at her finally. “So Robin comes out as ‘Wobin’ and hello sounds like ‘hewwo’.”
Robin nodded. “I see.” Even though she wasn’t entirely sure. “According to your mistress friend Mel, you were supposed to give me that apology in your sissy voice too. Weren’t you?”
Chad nodded bashfully. “Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’s embarrassing,” he finally admitted.
“And curtseying like a… I don’t know what, and everything else you do isn’t?”
He nodded. “Yes it is. Very!”
“So what’s the difference between this and everything else? What makes talking like an idiot any more embarrassing than… whatever?”
But Chad didn’t really have an answer so he just shrugged his shoulders indicating he didn’t know. He felt like a child being yelled at by a grownup.
Robin rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Now… Do you think you can go back there and this time, finally do it properly?”
Instead of answering, Chad just nervously nodded his head. Then he started moving back out to the middle of the hallway again.
Robin shook her head. “Geez,” she muttered. “Just like a child.” Then a little louder she said so he could hear, “You want to be a baby again? At the rate your going, you’re going to get there really soon! I can’t believe how childish you behave. Why didn’t I ever notice it before?”
Chad made no reply. He just backed up to where he had apologized from before. Twice! He glanced even more nervously up and down the hallway. Out in the open like this, doing it over and over again, was starting to tempt fate a bit more than he would like. Once again he dropped her the rather lavish curtsey and once again he launched into his little apology speech – this time in his sissy voice, and once again he finished with the same curtsey again. When he was finished, he just stood there in the hallway, staring at her, unsure about what he should do.
Robin had taken the whole performance in. Somehow, changing the voice the little bit that he had gave the whole thing a different meaning. Somehow, it made the whole thing seem more childish. Somehow, it made her think again about the term sissy – which was really starting to make more and more sense to her. She saw Chad suddenly start walking back towards her again. “Stay there!” she ordered, and watched as he backed up again to stand right where he had been.
Now what? Now what was she supposed to do with him? Send him back to his desk? Try to put him out of sight, out of mind? Somehow, that all seemed… just wrong! He had made her so angry – first when she found out about his stupid bet and his… inclinations, and secondly by not at least apologizing correctly to her. He had tried to shrug her off as not deserving of a decent apology. Well… She could deal with that!
“Do it again!” she ordered.
Chad was shocked. “Again? But I did it perfectly. I promise!”
“I didn’t say you didn’t. Now do it again!”
Chad briefly closed his eyes in frustration, then once again launched into his little routine.
Robin watched him carefully one more time. When he had finished again, she said. “Again!”
Chad was dumbfounded. She really wanted him to do it again? Why? But before he could begin again he heard her say, “And again… And again… And again… And again. Just keep doing it over and over again till I tell you to stop!”
Keep doing it? “But what if somebody sees me?” he asked nervously.
“I don’t care! You’re the one who didn’t do it right in the first place! You’re the one who likes being embarrassed. I hope someone else does see you! Now do it again!”
Horrified, Chad again launched into his little routine, but halfway through it, he saw Robin turn away from him and open up one of the programs on her computer like she was ignoring him. When he finished, he stood there and waited.
“Keep going,” Robin ordered with her back still to him. “Just keep doing it – over and over and over again.”
“How many times?” Chad asked, still not believing what she wanted.
Robin turned briefly back to him. “Only a child would ask a question like that. I said, just keep doing it. There are no set number of times. You’ll do it till I get sick of hearing you!” Then she turned away again.
What could Chad do? He went into the formal curtsey again and kept going.
Robin tried to work a bit on the things she had to finish, but something was nagging at her brain – besides the sound of Chad droning on in the background behind her. Giving in, she opened up the email from Mel and typed. “The apology he gave originally wasn’t even close to what it was supposed to be. I’ve corrected the situation and he is practicing it over and over again now. Do you always have this much trouble with him?”