The Bet
By Karen Singer
Chapter 53 (Tuesday – Week 8 Part 6 of 10)
Since he had
taken so long with Cassie, he stopped at a drive-thru to get something quick to
eat – but not drink. Then he drove
straight to a convenience store where he had to brave getting out of the car to
buy a large bottle of water so he could refill all the bottles he had drank
already today. Unfortunately, it was
lunchtime. And the place was fairly busy. As Chad got out of his car, he worried
about how silly he felt going into the store dressed the way he was. But there was no help for it. He had to get more water to refill his baby
bottles – like it or not.
He attracted a
lot of attention as he walked into the store.
He attracted just as much attention as he made his way through the
store, then back again to the cash registers.
But it wasn’t until he had paid and left the store that he attracted one
piece of attention that scared him nearly to death. All the people already in the store ahead of
him had forced him to park his car away from the front door. It wasn’t a long walk to his car but it was
further than he was happy about. He was
a lot less happy when his way back was suddenly blocked by a large rough
looking young guy.
“Look what we
got here!” the dirty guy said as he planted himself directly in Sissy’s path,
stopping him from going any further.
Chad instantly
grew frightened. He grew more frightened
as two more of the guy’s friends suddenly made an appearance. He unconsciously hugged his purse and the
bottle of water he had just bought to his chest.
“Now this is
what I call, an opportunity,” the guy said leeringly.
“P… please!” Chad
managed to get out. “I need to get to
work.” He tried to go around the guy,
but the guy side stepped right in front of him again.
The guy laughed,
but he didn’t move to let Sissy pass.
“You need to go to work all right!
You need to get to work on me!
Chad took a
step back, horrified by what the guy wanted.
“No…” he moaned. He couldn’t retreat
any further because the two friends were suddenly blocking the way behind
him. He was surrounded!
“Come on… girly
guy. You know you want what I got. And trust me, I got all you can possibly
take.”
Chad again
searched for a way out, but he didn’t see any.
“No!” he said again. “I don’t!”
“You don’t
what?” the guy asked menacingly. He took
a bold step closer to Sissy so that he towered right over top of him. “I’ll tell you what you don’t. You don’t come down here, dressed for business,
into my neighborhood… not without doing what I want!”
Chad
panicked! He headed as fast as he could
between two of them, trying to get to his car before things could get any
worse. But he didn’t get far before two
of them grabbed him roughly and started dragging him further down the
sidewalk. Chad struggled for all he was
worth, but getting free seemed impossible.
The stupid super high heels he was wearing only made trying to get away
that much more impossible.
He struggled all
the way, wondering why nobody would bother to help him. They had already dragged him past his own
car, almost to the end of the parking lot where a large dirty looking car was
parked. Desperately, he screamed “No!”
one more time. And miraculously, his
scream seemed to be echoed by a loud short blast from a siren.
The men who had
grabbed him suddenly let go as a police car squealed to a stop nearby. Frightened out of his wits, Chad tore himself from between his
captors and ran for his car. He fumbled
desperately in his purse to find his keys, but by the time the policeman had
gotten very far out of his car, Chad
had gotten into his, where he immediately locked his door. He was still shaking as he laid his forehead
against his steering wheel and sighed with relief. When he looked up a few moments later, he saw
the policeman chasing the boys off toward their car. A moment later, he came directly over to Chad’s
car where he knocked politely on the driver side window. Chad let the window down –
partially.
“You okay?” the
policeman asked.
Chad couldn’t
reply verbally, so he nodded.
The policeman
seemed to stare at him for a few moments.
Then said, “I’ll move my car and you can get out of here.”
Again, Chad nodded,
but it was a very grateful nod. Had the
policeman noticed what he was wearing?
Had he even noticed that he wasn’t a woman? He couldn’t be sure about either. But one thing he was sure of, the policeman
hadn’t detained him at all and a minute later, he was carefully pulling out of
the parking lot and back into traffic.
He was too scared to drive fast, mostly because the policeman wasn’t far
behind him, but he did go straight back to work.
He parked his car
and anxiously pulled his diaper bag, his purse, the bottle of water he had
bought, and his lunch out of the car.
Then he hurried into the building as fast as the heels on his feet would
let him go – which was much slower than he would have liked. Even though he had been delayed by so much
during lunch, he was glad to see that he was still early enough that not many
people were around to see him hurrying back into the building or through the
halls. He nearly collapsed into his
chair the moment he got to it. His feet
hurt from the shoes he had been hurrying in, but that was such a minor thing
compared to everything else, he hardly gave it a thought.
First things
first though, and that wasn’t lunch. He
quickly pulled out all the empty baby bottles and filled them from the large
bottle of water. He noticed that his
hands were still shaking a bit as he did it.
He was lucky he didn’t spill any.
Again there was some water left in the big bottle when he was done. He set it on his desk next to the bottle he
had bought yesterday. Did he have enough
between both bottles so that he wouldn’t have to buy another one tomorrow? Sadly, he didn’t think so.
He pulled his
lunch out of his bag and sat down – and stared at it. He was still a bit shaken from his encounter
a little while ago. Could he eat? He finally decided he could – and that he
better. His lunch was the only meal he
got anymore that wasn’t baby food. But
the moment he took his first bite, Robin passed by his cubicle on her way back
from her lunch. “Sissy! What are you doing?”
With his mouth
full of food, Chad
looked up at her… and tried to find the words.
But he couldn’t.
It took Robin
about three seconds to realize that the look on Sissy’s face wasn’t
normal. “What happened?” she asked
quickly.
Chad swallowed
what was in his mouth and finally found the ability to speak. “I was…”
But he was what? Attacked? Molested?
Not really any of those. “These
guys… at the store… they grabbed me outside… and… the police…”
“The what?” Robin was shocked! And though she didn’t realize it, totally
concerned! “For heaven’s sake, start at
the beginning! And don’t leave anything
out! Tell me everything!”
Chad’s words
stumbled at first, but the telling grew easier the longer he talked. But remembering it made him start shaking again.
“My God!” Robin
exclaimed as she went over and hugged his head to her chest. “And the police didn’t ask you anything?”
“Only if I was
all right,” Chad
replied. Now that he had told it, he was
starting to feel better.
“At least you’re
out of there and safe,” Robin said.
Chad nodded and
she stepped back again. “I’m fine,” Chad
said, sounding more confident than he felt.
“It’s over and I’m fine.
Totally!”
Robin was a bit
dubious. If it were her, she would have
taken the entire afternoon off! Maybe
the rest of the week! “You’re sure?” she
asked.
Chad
nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Robin backed up
more towards the entrance to his cubicle, and noticed again his lunch that was
sitting on his desk – uneaten. “Go back
and finish your lunch,” she told him.
“I’ll check with you again in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” Chad said,
really meaning it. He wanted to thank
her for caring too, but he said nothing about that. He reached for his sandwich and took another
bite.
Robin stayed
where she was for a moment and realized something. “Where’s your drink?”
“I didn’t get
one,” Chad
replied.
Robin walked back
and pulled one of the freshly filled bottles out of his diaper bag and handed
it to him. “You need something to drink
with your meal.” Then she turned and
walked out. But foremost on her mind was
telling Mel what had happened.
Chad leaned
back in his chair for a moment and closed his eyes, trying to throw off the
last of his fear and tension from the encounter a little while earlier. He put the bottle to his mouth and sucked on
it as he usually did. As much as he
didn’t want it, or need it, he found sucking on the bottle… comforting.
Robin opened up
her email program instead of phoning Mel.
She figured email would be better because Mel was often so busy, and
secondly, so that she herself could compose her thoughts better. As best as she could remember, she put down
everything that Sissy had told her. And
she did her best to reassure Mel that Sissy was perfectly alright now that it
was over. After she had sent the
message, she went back to see Sissy again.
He was just
finishing his lunch, but his bottle wasn’t quite done yet. “You’re sure you’re alright?” she asked. “Totally over it?”
Chad
nodded. “Yeah. I’m over it.
No problems.”
Robin
smiled. She was glad to hear it. “Then get up and tell me properly!”
The fast
turnaround caught Chad
by surprise. But he quickly got to his
feet, curtseyed and said, “I’m fine now.”
Then he curtseyed again to show that he was done talking.
“And where does
your thumb belong when you’re not talking?” Robin asked.
Chad slowly
brought his right thumb up to his mouth and sucked on it. He was only surprised because Robin hadn’t
mentioned sucking his thumb earlier in the day – before she had taped his shoes
to his hands.
Robin
smiled. She had a reason for getting him
back to behaving like a sissy. And it
wasn’t just because it was how she wanted to deal with him. She had told Mel all about what had happened,
but in order to reassure Mel that he really was back to normal again, she
wanted to take some pictures of him – back to normal again. “Sit down and take your shoes off,” she
ordered. Ten minutes later, Chad’s
hands were once again taped into his shoes, and he was once again tied to his
chair with his feet tied up under the chair.
And once again, he was struggling slowly to conquer the email he had
typed so quickly earlier that morning.
Robin disappeared
again for a minute and came back with her phone again and took some pictures of
him. Then she went back to her desk and
emailed the pictures to Mel.
It was almost an
hour before Mel had a few minutes to check her email. When she did, she was surprised to see three
emails from Robin – the second of which the subject said “Trouble!” Not wanting to open that one yet, she turned
to the first one where she delighted in seeing Sissy tied to the chair trying
to type with the shoes stuck to his hands.
If she wasn’t so worried about that other email, she would have laughed
and spent more time with it. Without
pausing long, she turned to the bad one.
She was shocked at Robin’s description of what had happened to Sissy
during lunch. Shocked and very concerned. She picked up her phone and dialed Sissy’s
number as she was still opening the last email.
She waited for
Sissy to answer but his phone just kept ringing. She didn’t let it ring very long because
Robin’s last email showed her why he couldn’t answer it. She hung up and called Robin instead. “Robin?
What happened?”
“I was guessing
it was you calling when I heard Sissy’s phone ringing,” Robin replied.
“Yeah, but I see
from your last email why he couldn’t answer it.
I love it by the way. But I just
wanted to check again to make sure everything’s okay.”
“As far as I can
tell, he’s completely all right. No
problems. As I said in my email, he was
pretty shaken up when he got back from lunch, but he got over it fast enough.”
“Good.
Keep an eye on him for me please and let me know if anything else comes
up.”
“Don’t worry, I
intend on keeping a very close watch on him today.”
“Good. Thanks.
By the way, how do you like his outfit today?”
“Oh God! I still can’t believe you did that!”
“How’s it going
for him… I mean dressing like that?” Mel asked.
“I can tell you
this, it’s awfully embarrassing for him.
The whole company’s having a field day with it.”
“Yeah, I can
imagine,” Mel replied.
“You don’t sound too thrilled about it,”
Robin said. “Isn’t that why you dressed
him that way to begin with?”
“Yeah… Kind of.
I’m really wanting to know how far I can push things with what he wears
to work.”
“What do you
mean?”
“Well, I have
some other things I’d like to dress him in, but I know they’d be… let’s just
say really out there.”
“You’re worried
he may be even more noticeable?”
“That would be
an understatement.”
“I’m not sure
what to tell you. Personally, I love
what he’s wearing. So do all the other
women here. Well, most of them
anyway. There’s a few who are a little
upset because it’s really very inappropriate.”
She chuckled a bit. “He’s also
got a few who are very jealous too!”
“Jealous? That was one reaction I hadn’t figured on!”
“What can I
say? He’s got a better figure than I
do! We’ll leave it at that.”
“Oh… Robin I hadn’t intended…”
“Don’t worry
about it. I think it’s great – for him.”
“Good. So what do you think? Do I dare try anything else for him to wear?”
“Like I said, I
don’t know. I have no idea what you have
in mind.”
“I’m not sure I
do either. I’ll just have to think about
it – now more than ever in light of what happened to him at lunch.”
“That may be a
good idea,” Robin agreed. “Besides, I
still have that pregnancy baby t-shirt here and all the paper dolls just
waiting for him to play with.”
“Yeah,” Mel
agreed. “I enjoyed those pictures too –
a lot!”
“By the way,”
Robin said, “what he’s trying to type is an email to you concerning your
bet. I’m not going to tell you what’s in
it, but I’ll warn you, I think he has some really good questions. Hopefully, he’ll finish it before the end of
the day. If not, it may be tomorrow
before you get it.”
“I’ll look
forward to seeing it… I think. Good
questions? As strange as it sounds, he’s
got a really good head on his shoulders – sometimes. I have no doubt he can come up with some
interesting questions. I’ll just have to
deal with then when I see them.”
“Great Mel, and
thanks for calling. It was good to talk
to you for a change.”
“Same here,
Robin. And keep up the great work!”