Friday, December 5, 2014

Hypnotized and Humiliated - Chapter 7 Part 1 of 2



Hypnotized and Humiliated
By Karen Singer

Chapter 7 Part 1 of 2


Phillip laid on his back and stared at the ceiling.  His stupid dolly was lying right next to him.  He had hated breaking up with his girlfriend.  Absolutely hated it!  That little phone conversation hadn’t gone well at all!  To say that Sandy had been angry was more than an understatement.  And in the end, he had been forced to be a bit more brutal about it than he wanted, and then had simply hung up the phone.  But what choice did he have?  Mistress Vivian had ordered him to break up with her… plus, there was no way he ever wanted Sandy to see him walking around carrying a stupid dolly!  Now he felt not only angry at his entire recent life… he felt… lost.  Feeling totally depressed, he finally fell asleep.

Marian stared at her TV set, but she hadn’t paid the least bit of attention to it since she had turned it on – hours ago.  She was still trying to figure out what to do about Vivian… and Phillip as well.  She felt very responsible for his situation which she knew had to be worse than her own.  She finally forced herself to go to bed, far later than she usually did.  Maybe tomorrow she could think of something better.

Vivian had been shopping.  There were now three bags of clothes she had bought sitting on her bedroom floor.  She had bought the clothes just because she was hoping that buying them would make her feel better about her eviction problem.  But her usual solution to everything that bothered her wasn’t working this time.  Evicted!  All because whoever had bought the apartments wanted to tear them down. 
Where was she going to live?  As she climbed into bed, flashes of Phillip’s apartment ran through her head.  Phillip had a much bigger apartment than she did.  Much nicer too.  Maybe she could move in with him for a while.  Of course, it was only a one bedroom place.  She thought about her relationship with him again… and her thinking stopped right there!  Because of her current relationship with Phillip, a one bedroom apartment shouldn’t matter in the least since she could basically order him to do anything at all.  And not only that, but the best part would be that as long as she lived there, she wouldn’t have to pay any rent!  Why should she if Phillip was already handling that?  It was the perfect solution!  In fact, if she moved into his place as early as next week, then she wouldn’t have to pay her rent on her current apartment for next month either.  She would have more money to shop with!
Feeling much happier about everything, Vivian happily closed her eyes and went to sleep… dreaming about shopping!

Early Monday morning, Marian faced her closet.  Vivian had told her to wear her highest heels to work today.  Ugh!  Why?  Getting down on her hands and knees, she crawled to the back corner of her closet and compared the shoes there.  It was no contest.  Her highest pair of heels were a pair of plain black pumps that she kept for special occasions when she needed to dress up a bit… which didn’t happen very often.  She pulled them out and slipped her feet into them. 
She wasn’t looking forward to today at all!  The one single reason she wasn’t looking forward to it was Vivian.  All weekend she had been stressed over Vivian… even though not having to deal with her for several days had been somewhat pleasant.  It would have been much more pleasant if she could have found a way to not think about her at all.  But that had proved to be impossible.  With a sigh, she grabbed her bag and headed off to work.

Phillip stared at the dolly in his hands.  He was really starting to hate the thing – especially the eternal smile on its face.  How could even the dolly feel happy with the life he was living now?  All weekend long had been a nightmare!  The only bright spot was that he discovered that if he put the stupid thing into his old backpack, it left his arms totally free and he could go anywhere and nobody knew about the doll.  And there were enough people carrying around backpacks all the time that nobody would even think twice about it.  He was rather proud of himself for figuring that out. 
The clock was ticking down to his normal time to leave for work.  The time that would get him to work earlier than everyone else… except usually Marian.  Basically, he left early every day because he hated to be late, and he never knew what might happen to delay him along the way.  And as far as he was concerned, he saw no problem with being early.  Except that today he wasn’t all that eager to go to work.  He considered delaying leaving for a few more minutes because of Dolly, but with her tucked safely away in his backpack, he was no longer worried about anyone seeing her.  With a deep breath for courage, and more than a passing worried thought about Mistress Vivian, he stuffed Dolly into his backpack and headed for his door… and was stopped by his cell phone ringing.  He quickly answered it.  “Hello?”
“Phillip!” Vivian’s voice came through to him… causing his anxiety level to go way up.  Vivian paused, waiting for him to say something.  When he didn’t, she said, “Well, aren’t you going to greet me and at least say good morning to me?”
“Good morning, Mistress Vivian,” Phillip replied with more than a bit of fright in his voice.  Vivian was the last person he wanted to talk to. 
“Much better!” Vivian declared.  “Don’t be so rude again!”
“No, Mistress Vivian,” he replied.
“Did you cancel things with your ex-girlfriend?” she asked.
That was one thing that Phillip was still very upset over.  “Yes,” he replied with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Good!” Vivian replied.  “You don’t need her anymore anyway.  Now listen to me because this is very important.  Don’t call me Mistress when we’re at work.  Everywhere else, I better always hear that out of you, but not at work!  Now the next thing… whenever we’re at work, I’m going to be passing my orders for you through Marian.  So you had better do whatever she tells you to do because it will really be coming from me!  And I’m not giving her any choice in the matter with this at all, just like I’m not giving you any choice either.  You can think of it as more reason to blame her for your situation… which you know she’s ultimately responsible for anyway.  So you do what she says from now on… because it’s really coming from me!  Got that?”
This time Phillip replied with more than a bit of annoyance in his voice, “Yes, Mistress Vivian.”
“I’m pretty sure the old cow doesn’t want to make you do anything at all, so she’s going to be all that much more upset each time I tell her to make you do something.”
Phillip didn’t say it, but his one main thought was that he wasn’t worried about how upset Marian would be, he was concerned with how upset he was going to be.  Who cared about him?
“Now, the next thing,” Vivian said.
Phillip cringed.  He didn’t want to hear anymore.
“From now on, you had better plan on getting to work a lot earlier and plan on going home later too.  That’s because I’m going to be passing all my work off to you and Marian both.  No sense in you two not doing anything since you usually get to work early anyway.  Besides you both won’t exactly be taking any more breaks in the day either.  You can go to the bathroom whenever you want or get yourself a cup of coffee whenever you want, but you’ll have to carry it back to your desk to drink it.  You’re going to have way too much work to handle from now on to even think about taking any kind of a long break!  You can also go out for your lunch break too, but I have a feeling that more often than not, you’ll prefer staying at your desk for lunch.”
Phillip’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.  He had more than enough work to handle now as it was.  Since the department was so understaffed, they were all scurrying to get everything done!
“Now if you haven’t left for work yet, hurry up and get there.  I’ll talk to you more this evening.  And remember, you do whatever Marian tells you to do from now on… as if she’s the one who’s really making you do it!”
Vivian hung up her phone.  She could have told him about her moving in with him next weekend, but she decided to save that for tonight. 

“Good morning, Phillip,” Marian said as she watched the first of her workers come into the room.  All she got for her effort though was a bit of a scowl out of him.  She was happy that she didn’t see the doll this time, and he wasn’t sucking his thumb either.  But the moment he took the doll out of his backpack, all her hopes for him faded.  “Still stuck with it?” she asked.
“As if you care,” Phillip mumbled as he turned back to his desk and booted up his computer.
“I do care!” Marian replied.  “I hate this as much as you do!”
“Yeah right!” Phillip mocked.  “Like there’s any way at all that you can hate this as much as I do.  You’ve got it easy compared to me.  And now you’re going to be giving me orders too?  Like you could possibly care all that much!”
“Give you orders?   What are you talking about?”  But she got no reply to her question. 

The first thing Vivian did when she got to work was to distribute the few returned work emails that were in her inbox between Phillip and Marian.  Most of her work load was usually passed on to her from Marian who monitored a special work queue for their department.  But very often everyone in the department would complete their projects and send the results off, only to have the email returned again a few days later for something else.  Vivian had several such emails in her box that morning that she was more than happy to pass along to both Marian and Phillip to handle for her.  And of course, just because she was being so nice, she also sent them each a very drippy sweet email expressing her profound gratitude to them for offering to do it all for her… and to remind them that they would probably have to come in extra early from now on, work through all their breaks and probably their lunch as well, and also work late at night to get it all done.  And of course she knew that they were so grateful to her for giving them the extra work, that they weren’t going to be concerned with anything so trivial as overtime pay.  Ha!  Then with a giggle, she started studying the latest sale ads that had come in during the weekend.

Marian felt like dying.  Trying to handle all of Vivian’s work along with her own left her completely discouraged and demoralized.  The very thought of that much work simply left her crushed… especially when she could easily see that Vivian was doing nothing but searching the web… goofing off!
Shortly before break time, she got up and went to the break room to make the coffee.  The task was no longer a much needed break from her work.  The simple task away from her desk had become drudgery – already.
The moment Vivian noticed Marian walking past her to make the coffee, she automatically checked out everything that Marian was wearing – including her shoes.  Most of her outfit was nothing but dull stuff that she had seen before, but the shoes she was wearing today made her angry.  She started typing an email to Marian right away.  She didn’t send it though until she saw Marian coming back from the break room and she had a chance to check her shoes again.  Then she sent it! 
Marian wasn’t happy to see another email from Vivian but her worry over the woman made her open it right away.  Marian!  I know I told you to wear your HIGHEST heels to work today!  Did you forget?  Marian finished reading the short email, and noticed Vivian looking angrily back at her.  She shook her head and tried to mouth that the shoes she was wearing were her highest heels.  But it was obvious that Marian wasn’t understanding her.  So she sent an email with that information. 
Vivian read Marian’s reply.  Those were her highest heels?  There was no way she could believe that.  She had seen men wearing higher heels than the ones Marian was wearing!  She emailed back that bit of information as her reply. 
Marian was exasperated.  She once again emailed and confirmed that they really were the highest heels she owned.  And she asked what was wrong with them.  After she sent her reply to Vivian, she looked down at her shoes.  They were really very nice.  Dressy.  And the heels had to be at least an inch and a half high!  She didn’t think she’d ever seen men wearing shoes with a higher heel than that!  Instead of getting a reply from Vivian, she saw her looking back at her angrily once again.  Then Vivian turned around and got up to go to break.  Marian was glad she was gone.  Vivian was nothing but irritating!
Shortly before the first break period ended, Marian got up to make more coffee.  The break room was full with five women in it.  The minute she got through the door, the comments and questions started. 
“Marian!” Felecia exclaimed.  “I was afraid you were avoiding us,” she joked. 
“Um… I’ve got a lot of work to handle,” Marian explained. 
“Well, that’s what you get paid the big bucks for,” Vivian noted dully.
Marian could have hit her! 
“We saw that Phillip still has his doll,” Heather said. 
Marian just nodded as she emptied what was left of the coffee in the carafe and started refilling it.
“Are you going to make him do anything else?” Courtney asked hopefully.
“Um… I’m not sure,” Marian replied… and noticed the slight scowl and tiny nod from Vivian as soon as she said it.  “Probably,” she added, for which she got giggles out of several of the women.
“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked.
“Um… I’m not sure yet,” Marian replied.
“I’m disappointed that he’s not sucking his thumb again,” Felicia added.  “That was my favorite.  It made him look so childish.  And with that doll in his arms too… he looked totally babyish!”
“Yeah!” Courtney agreed.  “I loved seeing that.  You should make him do it again!”
“Um…” Marian said as she searched for a reply.  “He’s got a lot of work to do, and he can’t do it very well with his thumb in his mouth.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Courtney said.  “And I’ve noticed he’s been working harder than usual today.”
“That’s because he doesn’t want to have to get up and carry that stupid doll anywhere!” Felecia joked with a smile. 
“But you’ve got to think of something for him… please…” Lisa begged.
Marian stared at her for a moment.  “I’ll try,” she replied.  “But no promises.”
Marian had noticed that the only person there who hadn’t been begging her to do something was Vivian.  Other than that one comment she had tossed out about what she got paid for, Vivian had stayed completely in the background… which was definitely not normal for her!
She quickly finished putting the coffee maker to work and headed back to her desk – to do more work herself.  The emails started again the minute Vivian got back to her desk.  I can’t believe those are the highest heels you own!” Vivian’s email stated.  I want to see your closet for myself!
Agitated at her, Marian quickly wrote back, “Knock yourself out!   But I assure you that they are the highest heels I own.
Tonight!” Vivian wrote back.  Let Phillip work late.  Tonight you’re taking me to your place as soon as work is over.  I want to see for myself and I’m not giving you the opportunity to try to hide any other shoes that you have!
Fine with me!” Marian wrote back.  Actually, she was somewhat happy that she wouldn’t be working late that night.  She did feel a pang of guilt for Phillip still being stuck there though.

Vivian was still angry at Marian.  While those shoes she was wearing had a heel, they weren’t at all what she would consider high heels at all!  Ridiculous!  And she called herself a woman?  The ugly cow!  She couldn’t dress herself if everything she needed to wear was already laid out for her!  Well, she would see tonight!  She would follow Marian directly home from work tonight.  Marian wouldn’t have a chance to hide anything at all from her!
But now with that decision made, she turned her thoughts to Phillip.  The break room was still full from the second group of women who had gone in.  Actually, only three of them since Marian and Phillip weren’t taking a break.  She waited until those three women left the break room… and Marian got up to go clean it.  The ugly cow!  She really was more suited to being nothing more than a cleaning woman!
While Marian was in the break room, Vivian quickly dug into her purse.  She got up and walked back to Marian’s desk and acted as if she was searching for something.  While she was there, she quickly opened Marian’s desk drawer and dropped something small in it.  Then she went back to her own desk.  She didn’t think any of the others had even seen her get up.  Marian certainly hadn’t seen her… not that she cared.  
As soon as she was back to her desk, she began another email to Marian explaining exactly what she wanted her to do!  Now if Marian could just follow directions… that would help a lot!

1 comment:

sarah penguin said...

Hmm wonder what's next :)