Chapter VI

There was no hiding it. There was no denying it. I'd wet myself, at work, in front of my boss, in front of his wife. Tears poured down my cheeks and I couldn't stop shaking. My dress was soaked. The tights were soaked. My chair, the office carpet... how had this happened? Why had I let this happen? I was so humiliated. I'd never come back from this. I wouldn't be surprised if they fired me right here, on the spot. What kind of office manager was I? How could anyone depend on me?

"Oh Natalie, darling, what a mess you've made." Cora sighed sharply, allowing a brief glimpse at her exacerbation, before she fell into an over-the-top maternal mode. After all, Natalie should feel out of control of herself, and yet safe to come to either of her new benefactors. "Darling husband, what are you staring at? Shoo shoo, this is women's business."

I glanced up to see the annoyance on Mr. Gladstone's face as he left the room. The door shut behind him and my silent crying turned into outright sobbing. My chest heaved as I struggled for air and buried my head in my desk. What was I going to do? Then I felt Cora's hand on my back.

With one hand upon the crying girl’s back and the other with fingers in her hair, Cora pulled her in close for a full body cuddle. It was far more close and initiate than what might have been expected from the woman who was functionally her boss. "There there, Natalie, let it all out, let those tears out darling." Cora pulled the crying girl’s face against her shoulder and played with her hair.

I wanted to push her away. I was soaking wet and disgusting. She shouldn't be here! But her words were so soft, her touch was so gentle... as she pulled my head into her shoulder, she was so warm. I clung to her shirt and wept. I didn't want to go back to work. I didn't want to see Mr. Gladstone. I didn't want to face what I'd done... "I'm so sorry... I'm so so so sorry..."

"You made a mistake, darling, you made a simple little error of judgement because you were far too busy trying to think, that's all. You should have called me, darling, phoned me up and let me help, sometimes it's alright to let someone else manage this tough stuff. There's no shame in that, no shame whatsoever." Cora's words were softly spoken, which helped to disguise how cutting they could be seen as in a certain light.

I was still crying. No matter how long I cried, the tears never seemed to dry up. I wiped them off my cheeks, away from my eyes, but new ones took their place. "He's gonna fire me..." "Oh, he will not." "I'd fire me... I'm so... I'm so stupid... I can't believe I..."

"You're doing great with your work, Nattie. You're getting things in on time and the quality of it is just marvelous, I promise you. You're doing so well here, and this little accident is... embarrassing, yes, sure, but it’s not the end of the world." Cora waited in thought, hung her words up like a coat on a rack and let them rest, before departing on her next verbal tirade. "Maybe there's a way you could show how devoted you are to not letting another accident happen?"

I looked up at Cora with wet eyes, curious and scared. If I lost this job, I would have to move. What else could I do? No, this meant too much to me... to Sam, to everyone. I wiped my eyes one more time and nodded my head. "I won't let it happen again... this time was just... it was just a mistake. I would never let it happen again..."

"You could always take some precautions, you know; when I was a girl I had such dreadful nighttime accidents that would have prevented me from slumber parties, staying over with boys… in fact, I might never have met Mr. Gladstone! But I took a precaution, and never looked back." Cora's phone buzzed in her pocket and she took it out, looked at it, and sighed. "Oh shoot..." Now the notion of precautions, protections, had been planted in Natalie, and Cora's apparent distraction would only be fuel for that.

"It was just a one-time mistake," I told her. Or was I reassuring myself. "Hopefully my husband sees it the same way," Cora said offhandedly and a chill ran up my spine. What if he didn't? Did he think this would happen again? But more pressingly... "What am I supposed to do about my dress? I can't go out there like this..."

And there was the six million dollar question. Cora's brow furrowed and she tapped her chin thoughtfully, followed by a triumphant finger wave. "We'll just have to get you something new to wear, that's what we'll have to do." Of course, she'd either have to sit here in her wet dress all afternoon and wait, or else walk by the entire staff of the office in a walk of shame.

"I don't bring spare clothes to work," I said with a touch of annoyance, brushing away the rest of my tears and looking down shamefully at the wet patch on the front of my dress. Damnit... "And I can't let anyone else see me like this... they won't respect me."

"Well, I could go and get you something from the store, I suppose..." Cora said, trailing off. "Here, have something to eat," she began, nodding to the plastic bag of food she'd set down on the desk when she entered. “And sit tight, I'll be back with something cute for you to wear, and we can talk about future precautions to prevent this ever from happening again."

"It won't happen again," I repeated, but Cora left without saying another word. She shut the door behind her. I looked down at the plastic bag and took out a Chinese container. Suddenly, I realized how hungry I was. And I couldn't leave until Cora got back, or until the office was empty. I checked the clock: 2:38. Well, I might as well enjoy the food...

"Do you think she's going to take the bait?" Mr. Gladstone stroked his chin, looking out the large window in his office as his wife ate her own lunch, looking down at the bag of clothes that had been packed and prepared in advance. Cora shrugged her shoulders. "I don't rightly know, but she's quite distraught; something tells me it could go either way because her haughtiness is arching up somewhat." The man turned around and fished his hand into the bag of shrimp crackers thoughtfully. "I trust you to mitigate that, dearest wife of mine." The clothes in the bag, folded neatly by the door; they were far more ambitious and bold than anything Cora had coerced the girl into wearing to date. They were, in every regard, a risk. A calculated risk. And the padded training panties more so than anything else.

I kept telling myself that someone was bound to walk in. This time of day, I got a lot of questions. Maisie or Prin would knock. They'd open the door. I had cleaned up the carpet and the chair with the Chinese napkins, but my dress was still wet. What if they noticed? No, I'd stay hidden behind my desk. What if I had to stand up? I wouldn't. But my worries were unfounded: after an hour, not a single person knocked. Then, suddenly, someone did. The door opened and Cora walked in with a bag in her hands. I let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm ever so sorry for taking so long. You know, I went to the closest place I could think of and I paid through the nose despite, but I knew how distressed you were my darling girl. How worried and concerned. And I didn't want for you to have to wait any longer than you needed to." And the fact that the new ensemble was tantamount to pastel pink shortalls with prints all over them suddenly got easier to swallow thanks to the power of guilt!

Cora handed me the bag of clothes and I shuffled through them. Then my cheeks went crimson. "I... I can't wear that here. It's unprofessional." But the look of unease on Cora's face was more than I could handle. She went all the way to the store for me. "I... um. I just don't want to... draw attention, or..."

"This is entirely within your fashion palette, darling, I made sure of it." Even the new panties, the padded ones, were cutely designed and it was difficult to tell at a glance just how thick they were without touching them. "And I paid quite a lot for them, when there were cheaper options far less cute and far less you."

"Right, but..." Cora looked at me with a mixture of irritation and disappointment. Damnit... "I guess anything is better than a piss-soaked dress, right?" I tried to laugh at my own joke, but it fell flat. Ugh, this was so embarrassing. "I guess I'll get changed..."

"Get changed into everything in the bag, understand me darling? I need everything you peed on so I can get it dry cleaned; your new clothes are dry-clean only too, so keep that in mind. The help at the house," meaning Sam, "can take care of all that, though; you don't need to worry your pretty head over it."

I stripped down to my underwear and my bra, leaving the wet clothes balled up in a pile on the floor. Cora never left the room, but I wasn't self-conscious about my body. I wasn't known as a town whore for nothing, right? Ha. But when I emptied the bag out on the desk, a pair of panties fell out. At first, they looked like normal briefs. Then, I picked them up. Surely they weren't... "Cora, uh... what are these supposed to be?"

"They're a precaution." Cora stated simply, a little tuft of pride in her voice and her chest puffed out to match. "Nobody will know you're wearing them, and if you do have another accident," she preempted the sassy defiant response with a finger pressed to the girl’s lips. "If you do, they'll soak up and you won't have to wait for me to go get you new clothes. You'll be able to be independent and handle it yourself. No fussing, darling."

"Absolutely not," I said sharply. "There is no way. I'm not a toddler. I don't need training pants!" I tossed the thick panties back into the bag. "It was one stupid accident and it's not even a big deal!"

"Darling." Cora was calm, measured, confident, more like a scientist mixing chemicals than a bartender mixing drinks; she spoke clearly. "You always fight me on these things, and I'm always right. Can't you see how much I look out for you, how much I go the extra mile, and you still argue with me." And like a scientist, sometimes what she mixed up was toxic, dangerous, and powerful.

"But--" "If you don't need them, then this is no different to wearing any other underwear." "No, it's--" “And it will put my husband's mind at ease." "But..." "So it seems like an obvious decision." I looked up at Cora with frustration. Because she was right. Because I was throwing a tantrum over a really stupid thing. And I hated to admit it. "This isn't fair," I muttered under my breath.

"A lot of things in life aren't fair, darling." Cora stopped short of reminding the girl of her own indiscretions in the past, how she became a pariah, a town whore, and how her and her husband had taken a risk on her. But even without reminding her of that directly, it was pretty clear to the two of them that the events had happened. Cora leaned in, kissed her on the forehead, and smiled. "There's a good girl."

I looked stupid. I felt stupid. The pale pink shortalls looked even more childish on my person, and it didn't help to know that I was literally wearing training pants underneath it. Cora bundled all my wet clothes in the shopping bag and wished me a good day before taking off. I sat behind my desk, pouting. This was the worst day I'd had in a long time, and I was eager for it to be over. One hour to go...