Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
M elissa
I walked out of Stuart’s office on shaky legs, trying to pretend none of it had happened. Inside my head, the voice of my reason yelled the same thing, over and over.
You weren’t actually aroused. Your body had some strange, horrible reaction. You are not frustrated. You are not unsatisfied.
By the time I reached my new desk, I had begun to believe it. What happened the rest of that day, and over the next two weeks, made it almost plausible. I settled into my new job. By the end of that first day I could pretend that the soreness from the paddle actually came from my miles on the treadmill. The eye-popping splendor of the Selecta executive fitness center didn’t get in the way of that idea, either.
I kept a towel around my waist in the locker room—and at home in my apartment—until I felt certain the bruises had faded completely.
I learned the business, just as Stuart had told me to do. I saw no paddles, nor any other woman sitting in a way that suggested she had experienced the same kind of ordeal I had. I got the Brazilian wax, and my lingerie collection grew, but I managed to tell myself that those things represented part of my ongoing professional development.
Sure, before the Corporate Laws women probably didn’t have to worry about their appearance underneath their clothing, but what if I actually decided I wanted to date one of the wealthy guys who bought me and Heather drinks when we hung out after work, a week after my arrival? I knew I’d be grateful to have something attractive on, like the purple mesh bikini panties or the white lace thong I’d bought with only the slightest of blushes—or the red garter belt that had raised a bit more heat in my face at checkout.
I classified those blushes with the similar reaction I had to New Modesty Blue. Thankfully, after the video with Grace and Jacob, I didn’t have to watch any more of it. To keep the office efficient, my coworkers who were responsible for content on NMB watched the streams in one of the viewing rooms that lined the inside of our floor. The production of the streams happened on location in New Modesty towns, and the control room for the channel as a whole was on the floor below us, fifty-one.
“If you don’t want to watch NMB,” Heather told me that evening, once we had told the drink-buyers thanks but no thanks, “don’t go to fifty-one, at least until you have to.”
“Do you…” I tried to figure out how to phrase what I needed to know.
Heather got me, though.
“I don’t go there,” she said, her face becoming oddly wry.
A surge of relief went through my chest, though Heather’s expression confused me. I was about to follow up, when she continued.
“I don’t need to get that turned on during the work day.”
I swallowed hard, heat filling my face. Did Heather think that the reason I didn’t want to watch NMB was the same as hers?
Isn’t it? whispered a voice at the back of my head.
I had to concentrate hard to keep myself from biting my lip. For a moment, Heather and I gazed into each other’s eyes. I looked away.
“How about… um… I mean… I bet we get perks, don’t we? Like, you know, sports tickets and concert tickets and that kind of thing?” I asked, so desperate to change the subject that I spoke the first words that came into my head. I couldn’t meet Heather’s eyes; I felt sure she could see straight through me. At that moment, it didn’t matter: part of me wanted to keep talking about NMB—yearned for it—but the rest of me screamed that nothing good could come from any additional information on the topic. Nor from thinking about my lacy green thong and the helpless clench that had just happened inside it as the vision of Grace and Jacob had once again risen unbidden into my mind’s eye.
But thankfully, as I got up to speed, I didn’t have to go to fifty-one and I gradually got used to the near-omnipresence of NMB in the reports I read. It helped somewhat that the channel’s assessment team, who evaluated the channel’s performance from both a production-value and an audience- response perspective, wrote about any relevant specifics in a dispassionate, clinical way.
The report that changed everything for me, for example, seemed entirely innocuous when I started to read it, two weeks after my disastrous arrival at Selecta.
On 18 March, Stream Georgette and Michael: a Dairymaid’s Story featured a toileting punishment in the new communal bathing facility built by NMB in Bradford, a Northern Division NM town. The facility cost roughly $2m to build. ROI seems likely to be high, however: the audience response was universally positive. Sample group A (ageplay-specific) showed an arousal rate of 92%, which obviously tracks with that group’s interests. More interestingly, sample groups B and C (more generally dominant clients) weren’t far behind, with arousal rates of 86% and 89% respectively.
I had to gulp at the words toileting punishment . The rest of the report, however, fascinated me. The simple fact of having such fine-grained data with which to shape the division’s offerings got my brain going in ways I hadn’t experienced since the heady days of case studies in my business courses. In discussing case studies, I had always felt, I could let my creativity out—think about Gibbon and Carlyle and Darwin, even, and what they would make of the case, how really brilliant minds would deal with a minor matter like adjusting a corporation’s portfolio to meet the market’s emerging needs. Even if the kind of data collection I had imagined didn’t exist, when working on a case study I could pretend it did, and shape my response accordingly.
Here at Selecta, though, it seemed like everything was possible. When I read a report like the one about Georgette and Michael I felt as if back in school I wouldn’t even have been able to imagine the level of detail the NMB assessment team had at their disposal. Every time I drilled down in the report—like on the eighty-six percent figure for Group B—I got another, even more finely grained array of numbers. Blinking, as I clicked, at what showed up on my screen, I realized I could see everything about each member of each sample group—hundreds of wealthy men and women—except the names involved, whether of the clients themselves or of their locations.
I could see their level of education, their income, their field, the socioeconomic makeup of their community, the general location of that community, their family size and composition, their five most recent takeout orders… it went on and on.
And I knew I could click on Georgette’s name, too, if I wanted, and I would see an anonymized version of the assessment team’s dossier on her. From time to time I had heard one of my new colleagues talking about a marketing campaign based on a particular couple, or a particular young woman. They always talked vaguely about ‘the numbers on her arousal,’ but I had grown increasingly sure those numbers had to be obtained at some barely imaginable biometric level where Selecta had somehow managed to measure a woman’s sexual response with great precision.
I had read six or seven of these reports by now. I had always resisted clicking on the names of the ‘heroes’ or ‘heroines’ as my coworkers always called the men and women on the NMB streams. Something about this stream, though—about the word toileting … it made me furl my brow as my eyes returned to that word over and over.
I couldn’t help myself. My curiosity about the ‘toileting punishment’ overwhelmed my reservations. I told myself it was just research, that I needed to understand all aspects of NMB to do my job effectively. Deep down, I knew there was more to it than that—but I told myself I had to steel my will against precisely this problem, exactly this treason on my body’s part.
With trembling fingers, I navigated to the video feed for Georgette and Michael’s stream. A message popped up asking if I wanted to view in a private room. I hesitated only a moment before clicking ‘Yes.’
The walk to the viewing room felt like it took an eternity. My heart raced, and I could feel a flush creeping up my neck. I kept my eyes down, terrified someone would see my face and somehow know what I was about to do.
When I reached the door, I paused. A sign hung at eye level:
This room is under constant AI surveillance. Self-stimulation will result in loss of incentives.
My cheeks burned as I read the words. Of course they would monitor these rooms. I told myself again that this was just research, that I had no intention of… of doing anything inappropriate. Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The room was small but comfortable, with a plush armchair facing a large screen. I settled into the chair, my body tense as I navigated to the correct stream.
The video began playing, showing a quaint, old-fashioned bathroom. That seemed incongruous with the idea of a new two-million-dollar town bathing facility, but I knew Selecta liked to keep things traditional. Georgette, a pretty blonde in her early twenties, stood facing a stern-looking young man I assumed was Michael. She wore a simple pink dress that emphasized her curves despite its modesty.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Georgette was saying, her voice soft and contrite. “I didn’t mean to be so mean to Sarah. It just slipped out.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s not good enough, Georgette. You know better than to speak to others that way. I’m afraid you’ve earned yourself a punishment.”
I watched, transfixed, as Michael led Georgette to a wooden bench. He bent her over it, then lifted her skirt to reveal lacy white panties. My breath caught as he slowly lowered them, exposing her bare bottom.
“Since you insist on acting like a naughty little girl,” Michael said, his voice firm, “that’s exactly how I’m going to treat you.”
He began to spank her, his hand landing with sharp cracks that made Georgette yelp and squirm. I found myself leaning forward in my chair, unable to look away. The pink handprints blooming on Georgette’s pale skin were mesmerizing.
After thoroughly reddening her bottom, Michael helped Georgette stand. To my shock, he then produced what looked like an adult-sized diaper.
“Step in,” he commanded.
Georgette’s face flamed as she obeyed, lifting first one foot, then the other. Michael pulled the diaper up, securing it snugly around her waist. He rolled her skirt up and tucked it above her hips so that it would stay put.
“Now,” Michael said, his voice stern but not unkind, “you’re going to stand in the corner for fifteen minutes this way, and think about what you’ve done. And Georgette? I know you had a big glass of water with lunch. You are not to use the toilet. If you need to relieve yourself, you’ll do it in your diaper like the naughty little girl you are.”
Georgette’s eyes widened in horror. “But Michael, you… I… I can’t…”
Suddenly it was two weeks earlier, in my head, and I was saying the same thing to Stuart. I can’t.
But it’s true . I… I…
But I had. I had bent over, and Stuart had ‘inspected’ me, and I had gotten more turned on than I had ever been in my life.
“You can and you will,” Michael said firmly. “Unless you’d prefer another spanking?”
Georgette shook her head quickly. “No, sir,” she whispered.
I watched, transfixed, as Georgette shuffled to the corner, the bulky diaper visible making her waddle a little. She stood there, shifting from foot to foot, her discomfort evident.
As the minutes ticked by, Georgette’s fidgeting increased. She pressed her thighs together, bouncing slightly on her toes. The camera moved from her slightly bulging backside to a side view of her pink face. She worried her lower lip between her teeth. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. I found myself leaning forward, my own thighs clenched tight, hands balled into fists atop them.
For the first time—so distracted had I gotten by the unfolding action on the screen—I noticed a number in the upper right of the screen. As I looked, it went from 7 to 8. With a shudder I realized it must represent Georgette’s arousal.
“Michael,” Georgette whimpered after what seemed an eternity, “please… I really need to go.”
“Then go,” Michael replied calmly. “That’s what your diaper is for.”
The number in the upper right of the screen changed to 9.
Georgette let out a soft sob. “I can’t… it’s too embarrassing.”
“You should have thought of that before you were mean to Sarah,” Michael said. “Now be a good girl and use your diaper.”
I watched, barely breathing, as Georgette’s face contorted. She bit her lip hard, her whole body trembling with the effort of holding back. Then, with a gasp, she sagged slightly.
The camera zoomed in, showing a wet patch spreading on the fabric of the diaper between Georgette’s legs. The girl’s face became a mask of mortification, but as she continued to empty her bladder, something else crept into her expression. Her cheeks flushed pink, her lips parted, and her eyes took on a glazed look.
The number went to 10. Georgette was wet down there in more than one way.
Even worse, I became acutely aware of my own body’s response. An insistent throbbing had taken up residence between my thighs. My nipples had hardened, clearly visible through my bra and my blouse. I squeezed my legs together, trying desperately to quell the ache.
I can’t watch any more of this , I thought frantically. I jabbed at the remote, closing the video feed.