Soma

"Open or closed?" he asked about Lauren's office door, blatantly addressing her naked breasts.

"Open, please," she replied. "Dick's orders."

He slid a few sheets of paper across the girl's desk, and, without invitation, sat himself down in one of the chairs across from her. Lacking much subtlety, Peasgood peeked at Lauren's legs below her desk, noticeably disappointed that her legs were crossed, and that he couldn't see much beyond her knees, in any case. He was a tall, balding man, and was unnaturally thin, earning him the nickname "Lurch" behind his back. He had a personality to match his sketchy appearance, and he tended to make most of the women he worked with uncomfortable, even when they were fully dressed. It had long been speculated that Peasgood had only agreed to work for Evelyn Apparel in the hopes that he might be able to steal women's clothing from Eve Intimates. All that being said, he was one of the company's finest minds when it came to Employment and HR Contract law, his work somewhat nontraditional but at the same time near genius. Moreover, he could be trusted with a secret, if only because he had few friends anywhere in the building.

Lauren glanced the documents over, scanning them but not really paying too much attention to the fine print. She wanted Peasgood out of her office, so she rushed through the process. The gist was clear -- she promised not to sue the company for causing her this stress-related affliction. She agreed not to sue the company for sexual harassment for working in her current state. She declared that her nudity over the next few days was her own idea. She waived rights to this, promised not to do that, and generally declared that everything was on the up-and-up, and even if things were to go sour, she was taking responsibility for it -- the company was not liable in any way, shape, or form.

The entire time, Peasgood's eyes traced and retraced her areolas, and the fact that Lauren's nipples hardened -- presumably, from a gust of cooler air emanating from the hallway outside her office -- only seemed to encourage him to do it more openly.

"Jurgita Valts," the older man croaked.

"Excuse me?" Lauren asked.

"Jurgita Valts," he repeated. "You look like Jurgita Valts."

"Okay," the girl replied. Her eyes had met his, if only for a minute. But his dutifully returned to Lauren's erect nipples, and so Lauren's returned to the documents on the desk in front of her. She flipped from one to the next quickly, willing herself to move faster, before she had to entertain any conversation with this man.

"She's a model," Peasgood continued.

Maybe he was trying to compliment her, Lauren told herself. Maybe he was trying to make her feel a bit better about her predicament, in his own borderline perverted way. Or, maybe not.

"For Playboy," he added.

Of course.

"You have the same hair, the same eyes, the same smile, the same brea...brea...beautiful complexion," he went on, catching himself somewhat. "You should look her up,"

Lauren shot the man a mocking smile, and replied, her voice dripping in sarcasm, "I'll be sure to do that."

The girl didn't even bother to read the last few pages of the waivers Peasgood had drawn up. They'd been fairly innocuous up that point, and Lauren did desperately want the man out of her office. Somehow, he'd made her seem more naked than she'd felt in the past twenty-four hours. Her signature and date scribbled on the bottom of each page, the blonde pushed the documents back towards the contract lawyer and cleared her throat, signaling that it was time for him to leave.

Peasgood took his time, however. He looked each page over individually, making sure that she had signed, initialed, and dated everything that he'd put together that morning. Each time he turned the page, however, he glanced up and soaked in Lauren's uncovered skin with his eyes.

She had to get out of there. The man made her skin crawl. Even if it meant standing up and exposing her body from the waist down, she had to leave. If anything, a quick glance at the blonde's crotch, as well as her ass, might hurry things along, encouraging Peasgood to leave after catching the whole show.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Lauren announced as she stood, "I have a meeting next door that I need to get to."

The other lawyer's stare, as expected, traced down Lauren's naked abdomen to the thin strip of pubic hair above her pussy. He had probably been hoping that she'd place one of her high heeled feet on the desk, spread her pussy lips with her fingers, and exposed nothing but pink to him. But the view he got was all that Lauren was willing to offer at that point, and even that disappeared out of view as the girl rounded her desk and retreated from her own office. As Peasgood watched her ass hustle just one office down the hall, he smiled wickedly.

Rachel's door was open, but she was surprised to find she had an unannounced visitor, the naked blonde from the office next door. Lauren slipped into the room, closing the door behind her, and then set herself down in one of the empty chairs across from Rachel's desk.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I just needed to get out of my office for a second."

"Stress?"

"Infestation."

The redhead was baffled, though only for a moment. Papers tucked under one arm, Charlie Peasgood passed her office, and instead of undressing Rachel with his eyes for the first time that she could remember, the slime ball concentrated all his creepiness on the naked back of Lauren Laframboise.

"What was that about? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Lauren answered, running her hands through her hair. "I was just signing away all my legal rights. He probably could have reached across the desk and tweaked my nipple if he'd wanted to, and I'd have had no legal recourse."

"Am I covered, too?" Rachel reached across the desk in jest, coming no closer than three feet from the blonde's aforementioned breast.

Lauren smiled. Given how sexually charged her current situation was, it was nice that she had a friend with whom she could laugh about her predicament. Her office nudity was the stuff of bad Internet erotica, but with Rachel, she at least had the ability to make light of it. This was the real world, after all; she was going to spend the rest of her day reviewing contracts, not bending over her desk with one of her coworkers' dicks in her ass. Despite the pornographic aspects of her predicament, she had no choice but to laugh of ridiculous nature of the whole thing.

For every Charlie Peasgood, there was a Rachel Wilks -- relaxed, supportive, and comforting. With the help of Rachel, Ginger, and others, Lauren knew that she'd get through until the end of the week.

Lunch was uneventful. Lauren ate in her office, consuming the same turkey wrap from Basevi's Deli down around the corner that she ate most every day, a meal that Ginger fetched for her. She worked while she chewed, flipping through page after page, repeating certain phrases aloud so that she could fully digest the intended and unintended consequences of the wording.

The day continued to slip away. Her coworkers continued to sneak peeks at her as they walked up and down the hallway, and Lauren was sure that no one had ever used the photocopier across from her office as much as they were doing so that day. But again, behind her desk, in her own office, Lauren had reached an acceptable level of comfort. She was still embarrassed, to be sure, but she also lost herself in her work, her nudity less of a concern than the murky phraseology in the Cortland shareholders' rights.

By two thirty, her bladder had once again gotten the best of her, despite her efforts to ignore its urges. She snuck down the hall, passed Melissa Cox, and shot a sheepish grin at the receptionist in Audit as she rounded the corner to the women's room. The clicks and clacks of her heels once again echoed against the tiles, Lauren far more aware of her footwear that Wednesday than she'd ever been before. She didn't need to hike a skirt or lower her panties as she sat down on the toilet -- a time saver, to be sure.

The door to the women's room opened after a few short seconds of solitude, though Lauren did still have the stall door shielding her from curious eyes. In a way, it was the closest thing to privacy Lauren had experienced since Tolman had arrived that morning. The exquisite nature of such thoughts overwhelmed her drive to return to the work that sat waiting for her at her desk, and the girl waited while her restroom visitor peed, washed her hands, and exited from the lavatory. In a way, Lauren supposed that she was hiding, uneager to face one of her coworkers from her own department, and even less thrilled by the possibility of facing one of the few women who worked in Audit. But, deep down, Lauren knew that it had less to do with that individual woman and more to do with the rest of the world; Lauren had to force herself to finally unlatch the stall and step back into her exposure.

The blonde girl washed her hands quickly, doing her best to avoid looking at her own reflection in the mirror. She also made a conscious effort to avoid eye contact with the receptionist in Audit as she hurried back past the elevator banks. But, as the elevator doors chimed behind her, a horrified Lauren Laframboise went against her better nature and glanced back, sure that Jim Grieve or Evelyn Lane-Russet herself would step from the car. Instead, Lauren breathed a short sigh of relief.

"Lauren!" Dave Adams greeted her, as shocked to find her trolling the halls nude as Lauren herself might have been had she encountered a similar scene.

Lauren had no time for the psychiatrist, but Adams insisted. Had Adams been straight, Lauren would have figured that he wanted nothing more than a few minutes more face time with the naked blonde. But, given his sexual preference, the girl decided that the man had come down to her place of work for her benefit, because he was concerned about her mental health.

"I have work that I need to do," Lauren pleaded in front of the reception desk.

"So do I," Adams responded. "You'll be here all night. You have enough time to allocate me a half hour. I have a few ideas that might help you and your...your situation."

The blonde had already been kicking herself for the few minutes that she had spent hiding in the lavatory. Sitting down with the psychiatrist as the minutes ticked closer to her deadline certainly wouldn't do much to alleviate her stress level. But arguing with him up front, especially as Melissa Cox and various passers-by looked on, wasn't helping her "situation" at all, either. At least if they moved down to her office, she'd have the same measure of privacy she'd had all morning long. And the sooner she caved to Adams, the sooner he'd be on his way.

And maybe, just maybe, he might be able to help her put her clothes back on and end her ongoing humiliation in the office.

In her office, Lauren openly debated as to whether she should close the door or not. She'd been strictly forbidden to do so by Bramley when alone with a member of the opposite gender. But the girl was reluctant to leave the door open and leave herself more exposed than she already was -- psychologically speaking. And while the thought of inviting Ginger or Rachel into her office crossed her mind, Lauren wasn't about to open herself up in a therapy session with either present. A quick phone call to Bramley himself, to explain the dilemma, might help clear things up.

"I didn't want to expose the company to the risk of you suing one of us for any unintentional comment or behavior," Dick Bramley explained over the speakerphone. "But Dr. Adams could still choose to sue US."

"And if I promise not to?" Adams asked, his right hand still resting on the doorknob.

An idea popped into Lauren's head. On the back of printout fished from the recycling bin, she wrote, "I promise not to sue." Once signed and dated, Adams shut the door to Lauren's office and got down to work.

First, Adams tried hypnosis. Lauren awoke ten minutes after he'd put her under, disoriented but remarkably refreshed. At his suggestion, Lauren fished an article of clothing from her exercise bag, feeling around until she'd laid her hands upon her gray cotton panties. But the material was only halfway up her ankles when the rash reappeared, and Lauren was forced to shed the underwear and abandon her hopes once more.

Using a program her brought with him on his laptop, Adams next tried a form of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a therapy usually aimed at helping people recover from post-traumatic stress. Lauren was forced to think about the sense of pressure and anxiety being placed upon her by the Cortland acquisition, all while flitting her eyes about at Adams' direction. The panties test once again failed, Lauren's ankles again breaking out in fantastically painful pink hives.

"Well, that was time well spent," Lauren said sarcastically, stuffing the panties back in her bag as the rash disappeared before her eyes. "You've been very helpful."

The clock showed that almost forty-five minutes had passed, Adams overstaying his welcome.

"I don't think that you can just wait forty-eight more hours in the hope that this clears itself up," the psychiatrist protested. "This could, potentially, get worse."

"And how could this possibly get worse?" Lauren growled. "I don't have many friends here in New York, and my family is still all in Vermont. Work is all I have. These people in this office are all I have. My career is all I have. And, for whatever reason, my body has decided to reject any semblance of public decency and humiliate me in front of all those people and jeopardize the very career I've been trying to build. I'm naked from head to toe, aside from these shoes and a few pieces of jewelry. So, tell me, Dr. Adams, how could this possibly get worse? Might I have to abandon my heels? Might I have to take out my earrings? How could I possibly be in a worse predicament?"

"I don't know," the psychiatrist replied, shaking his head. "But, by being here at work, consumed by the very activity that landed you in your current state in the first place, you are effectively ignoring the warnings that your body has been sending you. And I'm worried that your body may shift tactics if it feels its warnings have gone unheeded."

"Duly noted," Lauren answered flatly. It occurred to her that Adams had offered the same admonition the previous evening, and nothing had happened. More frustratingly, he'd demanded her precious time that afternoon with the promise of therapeutic relief, but had failed to deliver. Lauren's condition was unlike any that she'd ever heard of, and it was obvious that Adams himself was in uncharted territory, as well. Thus, her own theory was as good as any of his, and Lauren convinced herself that the only way out of her current state of undress was by doubling down and finishing her task at hand.

Lauren pushed Adams from her office, the psychiatrist assuring her he'd be back the following afternoon to check up on her, despite her repeated requests not to bother. He'd wasted enough of her time as it was.

Four o'clock closed in sooner than Lauren might have hoped, but a gentle rapping at the girl's door pulled her attention away from the clock. Dick Bramley peered in through the glass, awkwardly doing his best to make and maintain eye contact. Rather than reassure Lauren of his gentlemanly behavior, Bramley's rigidity only served to remind the girl that her exposed nipples were on display, and Lauren found herself wishing that her boss might casually take a peek, if only to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

"We have our status call with McIntosh," Bramley explained. "Do you want me to have Lorraine conference you in from your office?"

The easy answer might have been the affirmative, but doing so would have crippled Lauren's ability to share notes, eye contact, and various papers with the staff, all of whom were hard at work on the different aspects of the contracts. Typically, Lauren and Bramley fielded Paul McIntosh's calls together in Bramley's office, accompanied by Danny, Yvonne, Rachel, Dmitri, Mitch Oldenburg, Ken Fuji, and Amy Melrose. With the war cabinet gathered, they could work as a team in updating the folks up in Corporate Development, sharing concerns when needed, ideas when requested. If Lauren were to hide in her office, she'd be allowing her allergies to negatively impact her work. Her promotion was tied to the job she did on the Cortland acquisition, and if she'd come this far, she wasn't going to let her present degradation ruin her future gains.

"No," the blonde said, shaking her head. "I'll be down in a minute."

Bramley swallowed hard. He knew her inclinations to join the staff were well founded, but it was going to be an uncomfortable meeting for most everyone involved.

Lauren followed her boss a few minutes later, after she'd gathered her wits and steeled herself for the presentation she was about to make. Still in her jewelry and heels, the blonde hurried down the hall, past Lorraine's cubicle, and into Bramley's corner office. She was last one there.

And as Lauren entered the room, all conversation came to a full stop.

Dick Bramley was seated behind his desk, interrupted mid-sentence as he greeted Paul McIntosh over the phone. Bramley was harmless, an older man with a wife he loved, three beautiful girls scattered up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and at least one grandchild on the way. He was a sharp legal mind whose career had begun to slow down in recent years, and it looked increasingly as if he'd be reporting to Jim Grieve until he was retired. Not that this seemed to bother Dick; if anything, Bramley had grown comfortable with his place, comfortable with his routine, and comfortable with his people. That is, until one of them walked naked - all tits, legs, ass, and long blonde locks - into his office.

As Bramley reminded himself where he'd left off in his introductory small talk, Lauren crossed the room, nervously smiling at her coworkers as she found an open seat in the far corner, between Fuji and Yvonne. She cursed her lack of foresight a few short months prior when she'd suggested that they field McIntosh's calls in her boss's office rather than in the conference room. While there was a small work table in the corner, there were too many lawyers in the room to sit around it, leaving everyone to form an open semicircle around Bramley's desk, as they had every previous call. Lauren would not have the luxury of a tabletop shielding her crotch from view; she'd need to keep her legs crossed tightly to avoid flashing those closer to the door.

Sitting, Lauren did just that, vaguely aware that half the people in the room were watching her every move and the other half were doing their best to pretend they weren't. Falling in this latter category was Danny Baldwin, who'd been avoiding Lauren all day. He was tall, and slender, with dark hair and a kind face. Though he was a notch above Lauren in terms of title and pay scale, he still reported to Dick. With his cheap, off-the-rack suit and mussed hair, Danny hardly fit the mold of a corporate shark. Rather, he was a younger, gentler version of Bramley himself. His nervous energy since Lauren had stripped down in the hospital the night before still hadn't waned.

Danny sat closest to the door, and had probably gotten the best look at Lauren's ass as she crossed the room, but Amy Melrose, seated to his left, wasn't exactly in the cheap seats. Aside from Rachel Wilks, who sat to Amy's left, the dark-haired girl may have been Lauren's closest friend in the office. Amy was actually a week older than Lauren, but a rung down on the corporate ladder. Amy, Rachel, and Lauren had all gone to the Lava Lounge the previous Friday for a few celebratory drinks before returning to the Lane-Russet Building for more work and punishment. At the bar, Lauren had had time to reflect on Amy's time at Evelyn Apparel. Lauren had started a bit before her friend, but the blonde's success was as much attitude and confidence as it was intellect, and though Amy possessed the last in spades, she had a remarkable dearth of the former two. She had a JD from Duke and a tall, slender body that was the envy of more than a few women in the office, but for some reason, Amy never seemed quite sure of herself.