Chapter 3: The Third Video
The walk to the subway was a blur of streetlights and shifting shadows. Amy moved through the evening crowd like a ghost, the feeling of Dick’s handprint still simmering on her skin, a brand she couldn’t wash off. At home, she stood under a scalding shower until the bathroom filled with steam, scrubbing at her lower back and hips with a loofah until the skin shone raw and pink. It didn’t help. The touch felt internal, a stain on her nerves.
She slept in fits, dreaming of flickering computer screens and hands emerging from filing cabinets to pat and squeeze. She woke at 5 AM, her body buzzing with a strange, electric anxiety that felt nothing like rest. And then, an insistent, unfamiliar heat bloomed low in her stomach, a physical craving so sharp it made her gasp into her pillow.
It was intense, visceral, a throbbing need that obliterated the lingering scraps of nightmare. Her own touch, tentative at first, then urgent, was the only answer. Under the thin sheet, in the dark, she brought herself to a quick, shuddering climax, her teeth gritted to stay silent. The release was immense, a wave of pure physical sensation that washed everything else away—the shame, the confusion, the violation. For a few stunned minutes, she just lay there, panting, empty and calm.
The calm shattered when her alarm blared an hour later. She threw back the covers, the memory of the morning’s intimacy already receding into a vague, private warmth. She rushed through her routine in a fog, the lost hours from yesterday nagging at her like a missing tooth. In the frantic scramble to dress—pulling on stockings, hunting for a specific hair clip—she completely forgot a bra. The oversight didn’t register until she was halfway to the office, the soft cotton of her blouse brushing against her sensitized skin with every step. She paused on the sidewalk, considering going back. The thought of being late, of drawing more attention, of Dick’s disapproving glance, made her keep walking. It’s just a bra, she told herself. No one will notice.
The H-Corp bullpen greeted her with its usual sterile hymn. She sank into her chair, the faux leather sighing under her weight. She logged in, the ritual complete. The clock read 8:58. She took a steadying breath, trying to anchor herself in the mundane: organizing pens, stacking loose papers.
A chill prickled across her chest. She glanced down.
The thin, pale blue material of her blouse clung softly. The morning was cool, the office air conditioning humming steadily. And there, undeniable against the fabric, were the defined outlines of her nipples, erect from the chill. A jolt of pure panic, sharp and clean, shot through her. She crossed her arms over her chest, her face flooding with heat. This was a mistake. This was an invitation. This was all they would see.
“Morning, Red.”
The voice came from over her cubicle wall. Friendly. Male.
Amy stiffened, her arms tightening. Slowly, she looked up.
He was leaning on the partition, smiling. Brad from Finance. She’d seen him in the kitchenette, always laughing, always surrounded by people. He was handsome in a generic, catalog-model way: clean jaw, good teeth, hair styled with just enough product to look careless. His polo shirt was tight across his shoulders.
“Morning,” she managed, her voice tight.
“Tough first few days, huh?” he said, his eyes scanning her face. They didn’t, she noticed, dip lower. They stayed fixed on hers, warm and concerned. “It’s a lot to absorb. The H-Corp way.”
“It’s… different,” Amy said, cautiously uncrossing one arm to pretend to adjust her mouse. The movement made her blouse pull, and she froze.
“Different is good,” Brad said, his smile easy. “Stagnation is death. Just ask the dinosaurs.” He gave a little chuckle. Then his gaze did drop, just a flicker, a quick, professional sweep from her face to her desk and back. If he noticed anything, his expression didn’t change. “Hey, listen. A bunch of us from the floor are grabbing drinks Friday at The Firkin. You should come. Helps to meet people outside the…,” he gestured at the cubicle farm, “…this. Makes the inside stuff easier to swallow.”
It was a normal offer. A kind one. The kind a decent coworker would extend to the new person. After the blatant groping from Dick, this felt almost jarringly civil.
“Maybe,” Amy said, the word automatic.
“Cool. No pressure.” He pushed off the wall, giving her a casual two-finger salute. “Hang in there, Green. It gets better.” He walked away, his stride confident, and slid into his own cubicle three aisles over.
Amy slowly released the breath she was holding. Her arms were still wrapped around herself. Brad had seemed… nice. Normal. A potential ally in this quietly hostile sea. The tight knot in her chest loosened a fraction.
The ping from her email was like a pinprick to a balloon.
From: Richard.Thompson@H-Corp.com
Subject: Day 3 – Job Satisfaction
The air in her lungs turned to ice. Job Satisfaction. The words glittered with sinister promise.
The body of the email was the same. Two links. The instruction: Use headphones complete the module after.
Her hands were cold as she fumbled the plastic headset from her drawer. The world receded. She clicked the link.
Soft, rhythmic synth music filled her ears, a pulse that seemed to synchronize with her own heartbeat. The screen showed a woman, maybe twenty-eight, with a brilliant white smile and sleek dark hair. “Meet Jessica,” the soothing, androgynous voiceover murmured. “A former H-Corp Data Entry Associate, now a Division Director."
The video cut to a montage of Jessica’s early days. She wore a modest, high-necked blouse and shapeless trousers, her head bent over a keyboard in a cubicle much like Amy’s. “Jessica understood that job satisfaction requires investment,” the voice purred, the word ‘investment’ stretching out, sticky with implication. “She invested her time. Her energy. Her unique skill set.”
The scene changed. Jessica, now in a slightly tighter pencil skirt, was laughing in a conference room, leaning over a table to point at a graph. The neckline of her blouse dipped by a centimeter. A male hand entered the frame, resting on the small of her back as he looked over her shoulder. “She learned that facilitating a colleague’s ease directly contributed to her own upward momentum,” the voice explained. The synth music pulsed, a low, rhythmic throb that Amy felt in her molars.
Amy’s own breathing shallowed. The forgotten bra felt less like a mistake and more like a quiet, subconscious alignment. The tight, hot feeling from this morning uncoiled again in her stomach.
The Jessica on screen now had a sharper haircut and a significantly shorter skirt. She was in a bar, surrounded by laughing men in business attire, a glass of clear liquid in her hand. “Networking is the lubrication of corporate machinery,” the voice said. Jessica threw her head back, laughing at a joke, her throat exposed. One man’s arm was draped casually over the back of her chair, his fingers brushing her shoulder. “True satisfaction comes from understanding what a partner needs, and providing it. Efficiently.”
The word ‘lubrication’ echoed. Amy’s skin felt hypersensitive. The fabric of her blouse was an aggravating whisper. She uncrossed her arms, letting them rest at her sides, a slow surrender to the screen’s logic.
Promotions flashed by. Jessica’s wardrobe transformed. The blouses became sheer, the buttons fewer. The skirts hugged every curve, riding higher up her thighs. In one scene, she walked ahead of two senior executives, their eyes locked on the sway of her hips. “Visibility is key,” the narration murmured. “A satisfied employee is a visible employee. They are… appreciated.”
It was never explicit. It was a gallery of knowing glances, lingering touches, Jessica’s polished smile never slipping as a hand “accidentally” grazed her hip in the elevator, as a boss called her into his office to “review metrics” with the door softly clicking shut. The implication was a thick perfume in the air, cloying and inescapable. The subliminal message wasn’t even hidden anymore; it was the text itself: Your body is a tool. His satisfaction is your success. This is normal. This feels good.
Amy’s mind tried to recoil, to summon the disgust from yesterday. But the hypnotic pulse of the video and the memory of her own morning release warred with it, creating a confusing slurry of arousal and shame. The shame was being gently, insistently smothered. It’s okay to be satisfied at work. It’s okay to help others feel satisfied at work. The phrases looped in the backbeat of the music.
The final shot was a close-up of Jessica, now in a corner office with glass walls. Her hair was perfectly tousled. Her blouse was a sheer, silky charcoal, and the buttons were half undone, the fabric gaping to reveal a lacy edge of black camisole beneath. One side of the collar was twisted, as if tugged. She leaned back in her leather chair, a slow, catlike smile spreading across her glossed lips. She looked directly into the camera, her eyes glazed with a triumphant, spent contentment.
“You have to drain the big bosses of all their power,” Jessica said, her voice a husky, intimate confession. She gave a slight, satisfied swallow, her throat working. “And then you swallow it all for yourself. That… is job satisfaction.”
The video faded to the H-Corp logo, but the final image of Jessica’s smug, spent expression hung in the air. As the screen went dark, Amy’s eyes, glazed and unfocused, caught a final detail in the last frame before the cut. A single, pearly drop of liquid traced a path from the corner of Jessica’s glossed lips, sliding down the sharp line of her jaw to drip off her chin.
Amy blinked, the movement slow. A faint, metallic taste coated her own tongue. The synth music dissolved into a silent hum that seemed to originate inside her skull. She mechanically removed the headphones. The ordinary bullpen noise rushed in—a phone ringing, a copy machine churning—but it felt distant, muffled by cotton wool.
She needed a task. Anything. The module. She would do the module. But first, she checked the time on her monitor, a purely habitual glance.
The numbers glowed: 12:57 PM.
Her breath hitched. That wasn’t possible. She’d clicked the link just after talking to Brad. That was 9 AM. The video was maybe twenty minutes long, thirty at most. It hadn’t felt like twenty minutes. It had felt like falling into a warm, private trance. But it definitely hadn’t felt like four hours. A cold knot formed in her stomach, colder than the forgotten chill on her chest. The lost time from yesterday wasn’t a fluke. It was a pattern.
“Whoa, deep dive into the orientation materials?”
Brad’s voice, light and friendly, came from the aisle. He was holding a cardboard tray with two paper coffee cups. He nudged her cubicle wall with his elbow. “You missed the lunch run. Looked like you were in the zone, so I grabbed you a coffee. Cream, no sugar, right?”
He placed a cup on her desk, next to the untouched, cold one from this morning. His presence was suddenly overwhelming, his easy smile a contrast to the hollow panic inside her. He’d been watching her. For how long?
“I… lost track of time,” Amy said, her voice thin.
“Happens. Those modules are something else, right?” He took a sip from his own cup, his eyes crinkling. “Totally absorbing.” His gaze flicked to her screen, then back to her face, deliberately not looking lower. “So. You in for Friday? The Firkin? It’s a good crew.”
The invitation felt like a lifeline thrown from the normal world, the world before the videos and the lost hours and the hand on her ass. Brad was normal. Brad was nice. He’d brought her coffee.
“Yeah,” she heard herself say. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Great.” His smile widened. “It’ll be fun. We can talk shop, or,” he leaned in a fraction, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur, “we can talk about how weird the shop is. Whatever you need.” He gave her a wink that was almost brotherly. “Gotta run. Quarterly reports are a beast. Don’t work too hard now.”
He walked away, leaving the smell of his citrusy cologne and the steaming coffee. Amy stared at the cup. A simple kindness. It felt vital. She wrapped her hands around it, letting the heat seep into her cold fingers. The module link still glowed on her screen. Job Satisfaction. She thought of Jessica’s triumphant, drained face. The drop on her chin. You have to drain them, she’d said.
Her own blouse felt incredibly thin. The outline she’d been so panicked about this morning now felt less like a vulnerability and more like a fact, a simple element of her presence here, like her red hair or her green eyes. Maybe visibility wasn’t a threat. Maybe it was just… being seen.
With a sense of grim determination, she put the headphones back on. She clicked the link to the module. A multiple-choice quiz appeared.
Question 1: An employee’s personal presentation and willingness to engage socially directly impacts:
A) Their professional credibility alone.
B) Their potential for career advancement and team integration.
C) Nothing; work performance is the sole metric.
Amy’s finger hovered. She thought of Jessica’s transformation, from shapeless trousers to the sheer blouse. She thought of Brad’s easy invitation, his casual fellowship. She selected B.
Question 2: True or False: Investing in a positive, friction-free work environment for colleagues is a recognized component of overall job performance.
She clicked TRUE without hesitation. The memory of Dick’s hand, the squeezing pat, flashed—but the sharp disgust was blunted, rounded off by the video’s logic. Facilitating a colleague’s ease. It was just a form of investment.
The screen transitioned.
Instead of another question, the text appeared as bold, black type on the stark white background.
A FINAL QUESTION: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SUCKING COCK?
Amy jerked back as if slapped. Her headphones cord pulled taut, yanking the plug from the jack with a pop. The sudden silence in her ears was violent. She stared. The words were a crude, physical object on her corporate monitor. They seemed to pulse, ugly and undeniable, right beside the cheerful H-Corp logo in the corner.
Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. A hot, prickling shame exploded across her skin, followed instantly by a weird, dizzying disconnect. This was a test. It had to be. A loyalty test, or a stress test, probing the limits of her integration. Jessica’s victorious, spent face floated in her mind. You have to drain them.
The question wasn’t asking for a moral judgment. It was a practical inquiry. How did she feel? The video’s logic, a sticky syrup coating her thoughts, supplied the framework. Feelings were data. They impacted performance. Job satisfaction.
Slowly, mechanically, she re-inserted the headphone jack. The synth pulse was gone, replaced by a soft, expectant hum. A cursor blinked patiently below the brutal question.
Her fingers found the keyboard. They felt like someone else’s. She typed a single word.
ACCOMMODATING.
She hit enter.
The screen refreshed instantly, the vulgar question vanishing as if it had never been. In its place was the Task.
TASK: ENGAGE SOCIALLY WITH A COLLEAGUE AND PROVIDE THEM WITH PERSONAL SATISFACTION BEFORE END OF DAY. THIS WILL BE VERIFIED.
Amy pulled the headphones off and let them clatter onto the desk. She pressed the heels of her palms into her closed eyes, seeing streaks of color. Personal satisfaction. The phrase was a hollow echo in the cavern of her head. It could mean anything. A completed report. A solved problem. A coffee.
The memory of Dick’s hand, kneading, squeezed into the space behind her eyes. Proactive contribution. Anticipate needs. Brad’s easy smile and the coffee he brought surfaced too. A normal colleague. A friendly face.
She stood up, her movements stiff. The office air felt thicker, each sound sharper. She walked towards the kitchenette, needing water, needing to move. She passed Brad’s cubicle. He was frowning at his screen, running a hand through his styled hair in a gesture of mild frustration.
“Report giving you trouble?” The words left her mouth before she could vet them. They sounded foreign, too bright.
He looked up, the frustration melting back into that easy smile. “Oh, hey. Just the usual quarterly number-crunch. The formatting in this spreadsheet is a war crime. Makes me want to throw this monitor out the window.” He chuckled, gesturing at the screen.
Amy leaned a hip against the entry to his cube, mimicking his earlier posture at hers. Her blouse tightened across her chest. She didn’t cross her arms. “Sounds painful.”
“You have no idea. I'm just all stressed” He sighed, the sound tired and genuine.
“Everyone needs a break,” Amy heard herself say. Her voice sounded smooth, a tool she was learning to wield. The Jessica in her head nodded approval. “Here, let me.”
She stepped fully into his cubicle. The space was intimate, walls on three sides. She moved behind his chair. He tensed, a flicker of surprise crossing his face, then eased as her hands came to rest on the tight cord of his trapezius muscle. “Whoa, you don’t have to—”
“It’s just a shoulder rub,” she said, her tone light, dismissing his protest before it solidified. Her fingers began to work the knotted tension. “Can’t have you tossing monitors. HR would write you up.”
He chuckled, a low, surprised sound, and let his head drop forward slightly. “Okay, okay. You’re hired.”
Her thumbs pressed into the firm muscle. She focused on the mechanics, the push and release. The scent of his cologne mixed with the sterile office air. Her own pulse was a quiet drum in her ears. She was helping. Facilitating ease. This was social engagement. This was investment.
His shoulders began to loosen under her hands. A soft, involuntary groan escaped him. “God, that’s… you have no idea how much I needed that.”
She risked a glance at the reflection in his dark computer monitor. His eyes were closed, his face slack with relief. Then his gaze shifted, opening just a slit. He wasn’t looking at the screen. The angle was wrong. The dim reflection showed his line of sight directed downward, toward the V of her blouse where she leaned over him.
Amy’s hands didn’t stop moving. A flush spread from her chest up her neck. The cold air of the office brushed the exposed skin there, a sharp contrast to the heat building beneath it. She saw his focus in the glass, the fixated stillness of it. The video’s logic unspooled in her mind: visibility is key. A satisfied employee is a visible employee.
Instead of straightening up, she subtly arched her back, shifting her weight. The fabric of her blouse, already thin, pulled tighter. The view in the monitor’s reflection deepened. His breath hitched, a tiny, audible catch she felt more than heard. His eyes were fully open now, staring with a naked hunger that erased the last traces of his friendly, casual mask.
Her own breathing quickened. The shame was a distant signal, a lighthouse on a foggy shore. The immediate, pounding reality was the power of his stare, the way it mirrored Jessica’s triumphant look. She was creating satisfaction. She was being efficient. Her fingers kneaded the base of his neck.
His own body betrayed him next. As she shifted her stance slightly, her thigh brushed against the side of the office chair. Her gaze flicked down from the monitor’s reflection to the actual space between his legs. The fine wool of his trousers was strained, a distinct tent forming against the fabric. The evidence was blunt, physical, and utterly undeniable.
Time seemed to warp, stretching and snapping. The synth pulse from the video thrummed in her memory. Drain the power. Swallow the problems. The task on her screen glowed in her mind: PROVIDE PERSONAL SATISFACTION. THIS WILL BE VERIFIED.
Her hands stilled on his shoulders. The bullpen hum continued, a blanket of mundane noise. Someone laughed three aisles over. A phone rang.
Without a word, Amy slid her hands from his shoulders. She took a single, slow step to the side. Brad watched her, his expression frozen between desire and confusion. She held his gaze for a protracted second, then let her own dip meaningfully to the tent in his pants, then back to his eyes. A silent question. A silent offer.
He gave a barely perceptible nod, a sharp, hungry jerk of his chin.
She sank down, the carpet coarse against her knees. The space beneath his desk was a cavern of dust bunnies and stray cables. She shuffled forward. The world reduced to the smell of ozone from the computer tower, the starch of his trousers, and the overwhelming, musk of his arousal.
He didn’t speak. He simply pushed his chair back, giving her room. His hands trembled as he fumbled with his belt, the metallic clink absurdly loud in the intimate space. She watched, her mind a blank screen. Then he was free, thick and flushed in the half-light. The video’s final image, the drop on Jessica’s chin, flashed white-hot behind her eyes.
She didn’t think. She leaned forward and took him into her mouth. The taste was bitter, salt-skin. He gasped above her, a strangled sound he tried to choke back. One of his hands descended, tangling in her long red hair, not guiding, just gripping, anchoring himself.
The rhythm she established was clinical, a transaction. She thought of the spreadsheet he hated, the friction of the numbers. This was the antidote. She was solving the problem. She was consuming the frustration. Her own body responded with a traitorous, diffuse heat, a phantom echo of the morning’s violation. Jessica’s voice was a purr in her memory. Swallow it all.
His breathing became ragged, punctuated by stifled groans. The hand in her hair tightened. His hips gave a shallow, helpless thrust. The corporate drone of the office was a surreal soundtrack—a photocopier cycling, Megan’s voice saying, “I’ll have those figures by five.”
It was over quickly. He tensed, his whole body locking, and a guttural sound tore from his throat, muffled by his own clenched teeth. She swallowed, the act deliberate, mechanical. The metallic aftertaste was familiar now, a cousin to the one from the video. She stayed there for a moment, in the dark, breathing through her nose, the reality of what she had done settling into her bones like a heavy, cold sediment.
He softened in her mouth. She withdrew, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. He hastily rearranged himself, his movements frantic and clumsy. She backed out from under the desk and rose to her knees, then to her feet. Her skirt was wrinkled, her stockings snagged from the carpet.
Brad stared at her, his face washed with a complex shock—satiation, horror, awe. He looked utterly drained. The friendly colleague was gone. In his place was someone who had seen a secret and partaken in it.
“I…” he began, his voice hoarse.
Amy didn’t let him finish. She touched a finger to her own lips, a gesture for silence. She managed a small, tight replica of Jessica’s polished smile. “No more stress,” she said softly, her voice remarkably steady. “The report should be easier now.”
She turned and walked back to her cubicle, her steps even. She could feel the weight of his stunned gaze on her back. She sat down. The cold coffee he’d brought her sat beside the new one. She took a long sip of the fresh, lukewarm liquid. It washed away nothing.
Her computer screen had gone to sleep. She jiggled the mouse. The H-Corp desktop blossomed, serene and empty. No task window. No verification message. But a new email alert glowed in the corner of her screen, its subject line bold and unread.