Chapter 12: The Projectionist's Humiliation
The clatter of lacquered chopsticks on the empty Takumi bento boxes echoed in the sudden quiet of Karn's office. Pete hovered near the discarded containers, the phantom chill of the Harmony Weave the only thing preserving a shred of modesty below his navel. He felt impossibly exposed, the office air conditioning a constant whisper against bare skin. Karn had insisted Pete eat properly, setting a second box beside him at his own desk, treating him almost normally. Almost. Pete’s focus had been laser-like on the food, a desperate anchor against the absurdity of eating sushi while essentially naked.
"Right," Karn sighed, stretching in his chair, the picture of post-lunch satisfaction. "Back to conquering the Spirit Archive backlog, eh?" He gave Pete a reassuring nod towards the corner desk. "Should be quiet now. Just you, me, and the numbers."
Pete nodded, relieved to retreat behind the bookshelf divider. He sank into the utilitarian chair, the plastic cold against his thighs. He logged back into the system, diving into the complex vendor payment reconcructions. The numbers flowed, a familiar, absorbing rhythm. He traced discrepancies, flagged overpayments, his fingers flying over the keys. For a suspended half-hour, it almost felt ordinary. Just Pete and his spreadsheets. The Weave's near-invisibility helped the illusion, a flimsy fig leaf he could almost pretend was real clothing.
Then Karn’s console chimed with a priority alert – a sharp, insistent sound that shattered the fragile calm. Karn glanced at the screen, his easy posture stiffening. "Ah, hell," he muttered, rubbing his temples. He tapped the accept button. "Thorne."
A crisp, disembodied voice filled the room. "Mr. Thorne, the Senior Strategy Huddle in Executive Meeting Room Alpha has been moved up. Your immediate presence is required. Project Orion parameters." The line clicked dead.
Karn swore under his breath, a rare crack in his polished demeanor. He pushed his chair back, the wheels scraping loudly. He strode quickly to the bookshelf partition. Pete looked up, sensing the shift.
"Pete," Karn began, his voice tight. He stopped, his gaze sweeping over Pete – the stark reality of the near-naked young man hunched at the small desk, the shimmer of the Weave doing nothing to conceal his vulnerability. Karn’s expression flickered with genuine remorse. "Mate... I'm so sorry. Emergency meeting. Project Orion. They want me now." He gestured helplessly towards the door. "I... I promised I'd keep you in here today. Shield you."
Pete’s stomach dropped. The sanctuary of the office vanished. He understood instantly. The rule Karn had invoked to protect him at lunch – Section 4, Subsection D – now became a leash. He swallowed hard, the humiliation of the morning rushing back. "It's... it's okay, Karn," he said, his voice surprisingly steady, though his knuckles were white on the edge of the desk. "The rule. Personal Assistant. I have to... accompany you. Everywhere. During shift." He stated it flatly, the corporate logic a cold chain.
Karn’s jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to argue, to defy it, but the weight of the Purple Tag hierarchy pressed down. The summons had been absolute. He gave a curt, reluctant nod. "Right. Yeah. The bloody rule." He gestured towards the door. "Come on, then. Quickly. Maybe... maybe we can get you positioned discreetly."
Discretion felt like a futile hope. Pete stood, the sudden movement making him hyper-aware of his body, the air currents, the utter lack of cover. Karn moved close, his hand finding the small of Pete’s back. It wasn't possessive, this time. It felt like guidance, maybe an attempt at shielding, a point of contact in the coming storm. The touch was warm, grounding for a fraction of a second before the door hissed open.
They moved down the hushed corridor of Level 40. Karn walked briskly, projecting urgency. Pete kept his eyes fixed on the back of Karn’s perfectly tailored jacket, trying to fold into himself. The plush carpet felt alien under his sneakers. They passed frosted glass doors; Pete sensed, rather than saw, the subtle shifts behind them, the pause in conversation as figures glanced through the translucence. Whispers seemed to coil in the air like smoke.
Then they reached it: Executive Meeting Room Alpha. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls offered a panoramic, punishing view of the city, but more terrifyingly, exposed the room’s interior to the corridor. Inside, a long, obsidian table dominated the space. Around it sat a dozen Purple Tags – men and women in impeccable, expensive suits, radiating power and sharp attention. The low hum of conversation died instantly as Karn pushed open the heavy glass door, his hand still a firm pressure on Pete’s lower back, gently propelling him forward.
As one, twelve pairs of eyes swiveled. Not to Karn, the summoned strategist, but to the figure beside him. Their gazes locked onto Pete – onto the unsettling visual paradox of the invisible Weave that somehow emphasized, rather than hid, his nakedness. The sheer, shimmering nothingness revealed every contour, every vulnerable detail under the harsh recessed lighting. A ripple of silent appraisal passed through the room – curiosity, detached assessment, faint amusement. Pete felt pinned beneath it, stripped even further.
At the far end of the table, Sean Vance, the CEO, didn’t look up. He was meticulously annotating a thick dossier, his platinum cufflinks glinting. His voice, when it came, was calm, precise, carrying effortlessly in the sudden silence. It was the voice Pete had heard on corporate broadcasts – cool, confident, effortlessly commanding.
"Ah, excellent." Sean murmured, still not raising his eyes from his papers. "Mr. Thorne's personal assistant is punctual. We can begin." He finally lifted his head. His gaze swept past Karn entirely, landing directly on Pete. His eyes were the pale, assessing grey of a winter sky. There was no malice in them, only absolute, chilling efficiency. "Pete," he stated, the name dropped casually, familiarly, yet laden with distance. "The projection wall requires the quarterly metrics display. You'll operate the slides from the podium." He gestured with his pen towards a sleek, minimalist podium near the massive screen.
Sean paused, his gaze flickering downwards, taking in Pete’s state with a swift, dispassionate sweep. A trace of something – perhaps the faintest glimmer of satisfaction at the system functioning precisely as designed – touched his lips. "The laser pointer," he continued, his tone unchanged, conversational, yet carving the command into the air, "is... between your thighs. On the shelf beneath the control panel. Do ensure it’s readily accessible."
A collective, almost imperceptible intake of breath seemed to tighten the air in the room. Karn stood rigid beside Pete, his hand falling away from Pete’s back, clenched into a fist at his side. His face was a mask of forced neutrality, but a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Pete’s vision tunneled. The glass walls, the watching executives, Karn’s tension, Sean’s implacable stare – all seemed to recede. Only the podium remained, a stark island under the lights. And the space beneath it. Between your thighs. The words echoed, stripping him bare anew. He felt a flush, hot and uncontrollable, crawl up his neck. Every instinct screamed to run, to cover himself, to disappear. But the weight of the rule, the pressure of a dozen Purple Tag eyes, and Sean’s expectant, silent command held him frozen.
His legs moved on autopilot, carrying him towards the podium on unsteady feet. The polished floor felt slick. The eyes followed his every step, the silence thick enough to choke on. He reached the podium, its cool, smooth surface offering no comfort. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, on the blank expanse of the projection screen, refusing to look down, refusing to confirm the location of the laser pointer in the space Sean had designated. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the suffocating silence. He braced his hands on the podium edge, knuckles white, waiting for the horror to begin.
Pete’s knuckles dug into the cool, polished wood of the podium. He stared straight ahead, seeing only the vast, blank projection screen, a void reflecting his own dread. The silence hung heavy, thick with the weight of a dozen expectant gazes.
A chair scraped softly near Sean Vance’s end of the table. Sean’s secretary, a man with sharp features and eyes that didn’t quite meet Pete’s, walked with unnerving quietness across the plush carpet. He stopped beside the podium, close enough that Pete could smell his expensive, woody cologne. His voice was low, clipped, devoid of inflection.
"Remove the Harmony Weave," he instructed flatly. "Completely. Now."
Pete flinched, a full-body tremor running through him. His gaze flickered to Karn, seated rigidly at the far end of the table, looking pale. Karn’s jaw was clenched impossibly tight, but he gave the tiniest, almost imperceptible nod. Do it. Survive. Pete’s fingers fumbled at his waist, finding the near-invisible edge of the Weave. He peeled it down, the material dissolving further as he removed it, leaving nothing. He stood utterly naked before the glass wall and the room full of Purple Tags. Heat flooded his face, his neck, his chest.
The secretary didn’t react to Pete’s nudity. He gestured to a recessed shelf beneath the podium’s control panel. Resting there was a small, circular pad of dense black fabric, velvety and soft-looking. "Insert your erect penis into the receiver," he stated, his tone clinical, like he was explaining printer setup. "Ensure full penetration for calibration."
A choked sound escaped Pete’s throat. His body betrayed him instantly, reacting to the sheer, horrifying command with a traitorous rush of blood. He felt himself thicken, harden, the exposure magnified a thousandfold. Tears pricked his eyes, blurring the secretary’s impassive face. He reached down, hand trembling violently, and guided his rigid cock into the cool, yielding black fabric. It enveloped him snugly, a sensation both alien and deeply violating.
"Good," the secretary murmured, utterly devoid of approval. "The laser pointer function is now active. To navigate," he continued, his voice cutting through Pete’s ragged breathing, "grip the external fabric sheath firmly. Manipulate the embedded shaft within." He paused, his lips thinning slightly. "Think of it as a joystick. Push it forward, back, left, right. The pointer follows."
Pete’s blush deepened to a burning crimson, spreading down his chest. A joystick. Using his own erect penis. He felt sick. He gripped the soft black fabric covering his cock, the pressure intensifying the unnatural sensation. He tentatively pushed the fabric sheath forward a fraction.
A brilliant red dot flared to life on the projection screen, jerking erratically towards the top left corner. A stifled snort of laughter came from somewhere near the middle of the table. Another followed, quickly smothered. Pete flinched as if struck.
"Project the Q3 Metrics deck. Slide one," Sean Vance commanded, his voice calm, cutting through the muffled amusement. His eyes remained fixed on the dossier before him.
Pete fumbled with the touch panel on the podium surface, his free hand slick with sweat. He tapped the file icon. The first slide appeared – a complex chart of market projections. With excruciating slowness, concentrating fiercely through the haze of humiliation, he used his left hand on the panel while his right gripped the black fabric. He pulled it gently downwards, trying to steady the trembling pointer dot over a specific data point.
The dot wobbled wildly. It slid off the chart entirely, dancing over Sean Vance’s impassive face projected on the screen. A burst of open laughter erupted this time, sharp and derisive. "Needs finer motor control, Thorne!" someone near Sean chuckled. Another voice added, "Perhaps more stimulating material?" More laughter. Pete’s vision swam. Tears welled, spilling over despite his desperate efforts, tracing hot paths down his burning cheeks. He gripped the fabric tighter, his knuckles white, his body rigid with shame. He could do nothing but stand there, naked and used, a puppet controlled by his own erection.
Karn sat frozen at the end of the obsidian table. He stared fixedly at his own clenched fists resting on the polished surface, the knuckles bone-white. Every laugh was a physical blow. He couldn't look at Pete. He couldn't look at Vance. The hierarchy pressed down like a physical weight, silencing him, trapping him in his chair. He forced himself to breathe, to appear composed, while inside, fury and helplessness warred. His only friend was being dismantled piece by piece before his eyes, and protocol demanded he watch.
The air crackled with tension, thick as the glass walls trapping them. Karn’s knuckles ached, pressed white against the obsidian table, the stifled laughter from the Purple Tags scraping raw against his nerves. Pete stood rigid at the podium, tears tracing glistening paths through the flush on his cheeks, his right hand gripping the obscene black fabric sheathing his cock, the laser pointer dot jerking erratically across Sean Vance’s projected face. Karn couldn’t look, couldn’t breathe, trapped by the suffocating weight of protocol and Sean’s glacial indifference.
But then, something shifted. Pete bit down hard on his lower lip, a bead of blood welling. He took a shuddering breath, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second. When they opened, they were fixed with terrifying intensity on the complex spreadsheet now displayed – Q3 Operational Expenditure. His trembling grip on the fabric sheath tightened, steadied.
With agonizing precision, he pushed the embedded shaft slightly left, then down. The red dot ceased its frantic dance. It glided smoothly, decisively, to circle a specific line item: Offsite Team Building (Ibiza) - £120,000. A low murmur replaced the mocking laughter. Pete’s left hand tapped the podium panel. The next slide appeared: last year’s gala budget vs. his revised projections, the 22% reduction glaring in bold red. The laser dot, now controlled with unnerving steadiness despite the tremors still visible in his arm, swept across the savings column. He navigated flawlessly through the vendor markup comparisons he’d unearthed that morning, the AV integration redundancies, the renegotiated holographic display fees. The dot was a surgeon’s scalpel, precise and unwavering.
The room watched, rapt. The earlier amusement vanished, replaced by genuine, calculating interest. The naked young man operating the pointer with his erection wasn't a punchline anymore; he was an instrument producing valuable data. The meeting progressed with brutal efficiency. Complex financials danced under Pete’s controlled red light. Questions were answered before they were fully asked, Pete anticipating needs, flicking to relevant annexes with minimal, efficient movements of his wrist and the embedded shaft. The humiliation hadn't lessened; it had become the lubricant making the corporate machine run silently. Impressed glances flickered between the executives. The silence now was heavy with professional appreciation for the results Pete’s degradation facilitated.
Sean Vance finally looked up from his dossier, his pale grey eyes resting on Karn. "Mr. Thorne," he stated, his voice cutting the focused quiet. "The revised budget projections for the Spring Equinox Gala. Your analysis, please. Now." He gestured dismissively towards the screen where Pete’s meticulous work was displayed.
Karn stood, the sudden movement jarring. He walked to the front, his polished Oxfords silent on the carpet, carefully avoiding looking directly at Pete, who remained fixed at the podium, hand still gripping the fabric sheath, the laser dot resting patiently on the title slide of the budget presentation. "Thank you, Pete," Karn began, his voice taut but controlled. He forced himself to look at the executives, not the painfully exposed figure beside him. "Sean, everyone. What you see projected represents a significant optimization, identifying substantial savings without compromising the gala’s impact. Twenty-two percent reduction against baseline." He began walking them through the slides, pointing out key adjustments. "The bulk of the savings," he continued, gesturing, "came from rigorous vendor renegotiation and identifying systemic inefficiencies buried in the Spirit Archive data. Pete here," Karn’s voice hitched almost imperceptibly, "assisted me in revising everything this morning. His diligence uncovered these discrepancies."
As Karn spoke, detailing the floral markup bust, the redundant AV rentals, he’d subtly gesture towards a specific figure or chart. Pete, anticipating the cue with eerie, humiliating synchronicity, would smoothly manipulate the embedded shaft. The red dot would glide unerringly to the exact number Karn mentioned, circle a critical line item, or highlight a comparative graph. It was seamless. Pete’s naked body, his controlled erection, became an extension of the presentation technology, his silent, degrading cooperation making Karn’s points land with pinpoint accuracy. Karn’s presentation was sharp, insightful, elevated by the bizarre, flawless assist. Murmurs of approval rippled around the table.
"Impressive streamlining, Thorne," remarked a senior VP, steepling his fingers. "Significant fiscal discipline demonstrated."
"Indeed," added another, nodding. "Precise work. That AV consolidation logic was particularly elegant."
Karn acknowledged the praise with a tight nod. "Thank you. It required… focused collaboration." He hesitated, the words sticking in his throat. The image of Pete finding the savings while half-naked in his office, then utterly exposed here, flashed in his mind. "Given Pete’s key role in identifying these efficiencies," Karn pressed on, his voice gaining a fraction of strength, "I’d formally request consideration of a recognition bonus for his contribution to this project. He was integral to the outcome you see."
Sean Vance leaned back in his imposing chair, his gaze drifting from Karn to Pete, who stood frozen at the podium, still gripping the sheath, the dot steady. Vance’s expression was unreadable. "A capital suggestion, Mr. Thorne," he said smoothly, his voice like cold oil. "His… asset proved unexpectedly valuable today. We’ll certainly consider appropriate recognition." The word ‘asset’ hung in the air, chillingly reductive. He made a minute note on his tablet.
The VP who’d praised the AV work leaned forward, a predatory curiosity in his eyes. "So, Thorne, while we have him," he gestured loosely towards Pete, "tell us about his overall performance as your PA today. Beyond the budget. How’s he adapting?" Others nodded, interest piqued, eyes raking over Pete’s vulnerable form.
Karn felt a fresh wave of dread. "He’s… exceptionally diligent," he started, struggling for neutral descriptors. "Handled complex archive reconciliations with remarkable speed and accuracy this morning before the meeting..."
"Proper posture, Pete," interrupted another executive, his tone casually commanding. "The greeting ritual. Center of the room. Let’s have a proper look while Karn elaborates."
Pete flinched as if struck. His knuckles, gripping the podium, turned white again. He looked desperately at Karn, eyes wide with fresh terror. Karn gave the tiniest, helpless nod, his own stomach churning. Protocol. Rule. Survive.
Pete’s hand slowly released the black fabric sheath. He stepped back from the podium, the movement stiff, every inch of his exposed skin seeming to recoil from the watching eyes. He walked on unsteady legs to the stark center of the room, the cityscape a vast, indifferent backdrop behind the glass. The plush carpet felt alien beneath his bare feet. He stopped.
With visible effort, trembling from head to toe, Pete lowered himself to his knees. He spread his knees wide apart, the movement brutally exposing everything, his balls taut, his cock, still semi-erect from the pointer’s use, now fully hardening again under the relentless scrutiny. He raised his hands, slowly, placing them behind his head, fingers interlaced, elbows flared outwards. The posture forced his chest forward, his vulnerability utterly on display, a living exhibit of submission. A low hum of approval, of dark fascination, vibrated through the room.
Karn swallowed hard, the bitter taste of bile in his throat. Pete knelt, a portrait of utter humiliation, his flushed face turned towards the floor, ragged breaths the only sign of his distress. All eyes were on Karn now, waiting. "As I was saying," Karn began, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silence, fighting to keep it steady, to sound professional, to praise the friend he had just helped crucify, "his work ethic is… unparalleled." Pete’s rigid posture, his exposed, trembling body, was the crushing punctuation to every word.