Chapter XVIII

I returned to my office, with red cheeks and an overwhelmingly shy mood. But I wasn't greeted by an empty chair; no, Mabel had taken a seat at my desk, looking through the drawers. I balled my hands into fists and walked over to her with purpose. "Stop snooping! And get out of my chair!" I may have been gone for all of ten minutes, but it Mabel already had an idea of what I was doing in Mr. Gladstone's office. Unfortunately, the truth was more embarrassing...

"Mr. Gladstone told me I should get familiar with the systems, Nattie." Nattie. Did she just call her Nattie? I mean, with the way she was dressed, it made sense, but for her to have used that particular diminutive so quickly? Was there something on the company paperwork that said that, maybe? "Cool your pool."

I gave Mabel a sharp, dangerous look and took a deep breath. You're her boss, Natalie. Don't be so worked up. I let out my breath and relaxed my hands at my sides. "Go get another chair from the cubicles and we can get to work."

"That's a really clever idea! I'm doing my training, so it would be much better if you went to get it, though, right? Doesn't that make more sense?" Mabel did notice Natalie seemed to be getting worked up, but she didn't say anything about it.

"I need to check my emails," I said flatly. But Mabel seemed to have a response for everything. "You don't have any - the little icon would pop up." "Right, but I should..." Mabel looked up at me, waiting for another excuse. But she'd rebuff it. Ugh, I hated her so much, and we'd only met twenty minutes ago! "Fine," I said with annoyance. "I'll get it."

I stopped at Prin's secretary desk on my way through the office, letting out a groan of irritation. "Don't like the new girl?" Prin asked. "She's temporary," I said back, under my breath. "Anyway... do you know where I can get a spare chair for the day?"

"There're some folding ones in the supply closet, but they're hard as a rock and have no padding at all,” Prin offered, almost but not at all helpfully.

"Better than nothing," I sighed. "Thanks." I took a candy off Prin's desk and went to the supply closet, fishing around for a folding chair. When I got back to the office, I unfolded it next to the desk and looked at Mabel's screen. She was doing one of those boring training videos on computer use. "Here you go," I told her, pointing to the chair, but she barely looked away from the video.

"I'm in the zone, Nattie, you use that one and we'll switch later." She looked over her shoulder, and then corrected herself. "Oh I can't sit on that, it's gonna hurt my butt. Now shh, I need to focus on this"

I stared wide-eyed at her. Bewildered. "I... it's the only chair I could find." But Mabel wasn't paying attention to me. I took another deep breath and reached over, turning off my monitor. "You're not going to learn anything if you keep dismissing me," I said sharply.

"I'm going to learn even less if you keep distracting me,” Mabel said, sternly. Really sternly. "Now stop being so dramatic and sit down so you can help me with questions, okay?"

I felt my stomach drop. Her voice was... icy. It reminded me of cheerleaders in high school, but for some reason, so much worse. My mouth felt dry... "I... um..." I shook my head. "Stop bossing me around or... or I'll tell Mr. Gladstone!"

"What?" That wasn't a witty snapback response, it was something more akin to... disbelief. She looked at Natalie and blinked at her. Actually blinked. Like she was stunned or something. "This is my job, Nattie, not some grade school nonsense. Act like you care how well I do, please."

I was so worked up. Everything she said was getting under my skin. And the threat of her replacing me... it was too much. I lashed out. "You're the one acting dumb! You're bossing me around and you won't give me my chair, like this is some power play thing! And I'm not letting you take my job, you bitch!" I looked down at Mabel with fiery irritation, until I realized exactly how loud I was talking. And my office door was open...

Mabel sat there for a moment, staring at Natalie in silence. But when she spoke - simply and level-headed - it was so much worse. “Well that must have been embarrassing for you." Mabel stood up and tugged down her top. "I'll be letting Mr. Gladstone know that you verbally harassed me in the workplace, and let him administer any discipline he feels fit. It's very unprofessional."

She got up and walked away from my desk, into the hall. I felt frozen in place. Why had I done that? Why had I gotten so upset? I was just so stressed recently, and this new girl shows up, and... then I thought about Mabel. If she told Mr. Gladstone, after he had warned me only minutes ago not to curse… I turned and bolted out the door after her. Prin looked at me with a sigh of disappointed as I came into the hall, and I could hear murmuring from the cubicles. Did they hear...?

I sprinted down the hall, catching Mabel just as she put her hand on Mr. Gladstone's door. "Please, please wait!" I said in a whisper. "I need this job, please. I have nowhere else to go, please don't tell him. Please..." Already tears were filling up my eyes.

"If you need it so badly," Mabel's eyes sparkled a little bit, a small smirk pulling up on the edges of her lips, “you'd have been more careful about what you said. You'd need to do a lot to convince me that it's safe to be in an office alone with you again."

"I... I'll take the bad chair, okay? And I'll buy you lunch. And anything else you want. Please, please, don't tell him..." I wiped my face with the back of my hand, brushing the tears off my cheeks. My mind was full of possibilities. Scary, unpredictable possibilities. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't stop crying, careful to muffle my sobs so Mr. Gladstone wouldn't hear me through his office door.

"When I get stressed out, having my feet rubbed always helps. So maybe if you rubbed my feet while I did my training, I could relax and not worry that you're going to meltdown again." Mabel just played a bold card, but she had some inclination of how serious this could be for Natalie. And to be honest: she just plain didn't like the little brat.

I looked timidly from Mabel's eyes to her shoes. Rub her feet. Not something a boss does to her subordinate. But did I really have a choice? I looked over at Prin behind the secretary's desk, but she rolled her eyes and looked away. She must have heard. Would she tell...? I wiped my tears away and nodded softly. "Okay," I muttered.

"If you're good," Mabel said quietly, on the way into the office again, "I'll even tell the girls in the office that we had a misunderstanding, and you were just having a bad day." So Mabel sat down in the proper chair and nodded underneath the desk. "Down you get, I'm already getting uneasy being around you."

I closed the office door behind me to avoid Prin's disappointed stares. Then I crawled under my own desk and sat down on my padded behind. From here, I could almost see up Mabel's skirt. She put her foot up in the air and I immediately turned my head, with burning red cheeks. "Uh... maybe you wanna cross your legs, or..."

"Don't be a pervert, or I'll have to add sexual harassment to the list of things to tell HR,” Mabel replied calmly, before continuing. "Be careful with my shoes when you take them off; one at a time, and put it in your lap so it's not just laying on the floor."

"It's a shoe, why does it--" "Really, you want to argue with me?" I looked up at her, sitting in my chair, and then back down at her feet. This was so embarrassing. But more embarrassing than being spanked over Mr. Gladstone's lap, or wetting myself in a changing room? Nope. So I slowly took off her first shoe - a black heel - and set it in my lap. I tried to rub her feet, but I was never very good at massages.

“For someone with such little girl hands you're awfully rough - it's my foot, not a ball of dough. Be gentle, patient, a little loving…” Did Mabel have a thing for feet? Or was this just an excuse to humiliate Natalie?

I tried to take her instructions to heart, but honestly I didn't understand half of what she was saying. After one foot, I put her shoe back on and did the other. It was over thirty minutes later when I finally climbed out from under the desk and stood back up. I stretched my arms above my head and looked nervously at Mabel. "We cool...?"

"What's the answer to this question?" Mabel pointed at the screen, ignoring the obvious plea from her boss. "I'm like 99% sure it's D, but I want to make sure I get a perfect score so Mr. Gladstone will see how awesome I am."

A pang of fear rushed up my spine. If she scored higher, would he hire her instead of me? No, that wasn't how it worked, right? Still... "Um... I'm not sure. Maybe D. But it could be A." No, it was D. I was sure of it. Why was I misleading her? So she would get one point lower on her test? They were training videos - they didn't even matter!

"Don't you know the answer for sure?" Mabel frowned. "This is your job, you should know all of this stuff for sure... unless you're trying to sabotage me?" Her eyes narrowed. "You're not, right?"

I opened my mouth to say something, to defend myself, but her accusation made my chest hurt. Everything was going wrong today. Why did I everything I do wind up wrong? I shook my head and forced a smile. "Go with D. I'm pretty sure it's D."

"That's what I thought." She clicked in the answer and nodded back to the desk. "You got me all stressed out and paranoid now, so I need you to spend more time with my feet." Before Natalie had the chance to open her mouth, Mabel put her finger up. "Less talking, more serving, or else I'm going to have to tell Mr. Gladstone what happened."

It wasn't fair! But what else could I do? With a sigh of resignation, I slid under the desk once more and took her foot in my lap. It wasn't even five minutes later when Mr. Gladstone opened my door. "Nattie, I need--" He paused, looking around the room. "Oh. Mabel, where's Natalie?" Maybe I should come out, I thought. But when a girl crawls out from under a desk, it's never a good sign. What would Mr. Gladstone think? So I stayed quiet, curling up in the corner of the nook, so he wouldn't see me if he walked around the desk.

"She's in the bathroom, I think, Sir."

Sir. What a suck-up!

"She's been in and out, in and out, I don't know what size bladder that girl has, but my six year old sister goes to the bathroom less than her." The man sighed and nodded, closing the office door behind him on his way out.

I pushed Mabel aside and got to my feet. "Why did you say that?! I wasn't in the bathroom!" "And you wanted me to tell him you were beneath the desk instead?" "No! But..." If I thought about it clearly, Mabel had no idea that my bathroom use was a problem around here. It just felt so pointed, so vindictive. I bit hard on my bottom lip and crossed my arms. "Whatever..."

"Get back under the desk, and stop talking so much! Unless you wanna spend all day with my feet. Which, I don't know, maybe you do?" There were a few things undeniable from under the desk, though - the first was that Mabel took very good care of her feet. And the second was, undeniably, with her legs spread the way they were... there was a definite faint and heady scent of arousal.