Altered Mental State (M/f, Workplace) new story

[goodgulf]

Altered Mental State
(note: this story was inspired by as discussion about if you could have a realistic spanking story set in a modern workplace. Enjoy.)

Sam Peterson's hands shook as he held the papers.

"It was the chemo. It had to be the chemo," Sam muttered as he looked at the incriminating page.

The doctors had warned him that the chemo might interact with some of his other medication and send him into altered mental states. He'd had the chemo fog at times, but that day, that day two weeks ago, things had been odd. Very odd. He had known that he shouldn't come into work but Eric Holiway had call and you couldn't say no to Eric Holiway.

Not if you wanted to continue working for Holiway's Spotlight, the top rated investigative journalistic show in the state. Eric Holiway had flirted with national success but his appeal just didn't translate across state lines. Faced with the choice of being a minor correspondent on a national show or having his own local show Eric had chosen to be a big fish in a small pond. Here at least the governor and state officials took his calls and everyone from country commissioners to mayors feared his spotlight. With his staff, when Eric Holiway said "Let's get that done" (which practically a tagline for him) it got done, even if it meant coming in on your day off. If someone had a problem, Eric Holiway was there with his other tagline of "I know you don't see the need, but let's get that done". Rumour had it that Eric Holiway kept a mental list of who he said those words to and if it was more than three times a year you were out. Fired. Kaput.

Even if you were one of the producers. Even if you had been with the station longer than Eric Holiway. Even if you were undergoing chemo for that problem with your prostate. Sam had felt woozy that day but technically the treatment was over and he didn't feel as if he had any choice so he had come in and did his job.

The talk about the lawsuit had been nothing. Eric Holiway considered a show a failure if it didn't inspire someone to threaten to sue. Maybe one in ten threat went anywhere and most of those never got beyond a letter from a lawyer. Sam hadn't been worried about the aggressive letters from the lawyers but thought that it wouldn't hurt to recheck his work.

Looking over the paperwork, Sam couldn't believe it.

"It had to be the chemo." Sam repeated.

He had gotten it wrong. Dead wrong. Completely wrong. Sam knew that the suit would cost just shy of a million to settle and any settlement would have to include an apology. Eric Holiway hated to be wrong and despised apologies. Any mention of the "A-word" meant that someone was going to be fired. Someone had to be a fall guy and Sam didn't see anyway that the fall guy wouldn't be him. He'd made the mistake and his altered mental state wouldn't buy him any slack. He couldn't even plead sickness because he knew he shouldn't have come into work that day so doing so only increased his negligence.

And no job meant no insurance. No one would hire him after making such a basic mistake and even if they did it wouldn't cover a pre-existing condition.

Looking away from the paperwork Sam couldn't help doing mental math. His treatment cost X per month and he had Y in savings so Y over X equalled a regrettably short life span and a mountain of debt left behind for his family.

To keep depression from setting in, Sam decided to take a walk around the workplace. Wander around the office, check in on the studio, and otherwise take what might be his last look around.


Everything looked different yet everything was the same. He nodded to co-workers, some of whom he had worked with for years. Decades even. He'd been working here for over 25 years and was basically a fixture. Others came and went, either going on to better things with the network or burning out, but Sam stayed.

As he turned onto the soundstage where Eric Holiway's show was recorded he took in the sights for what might be one of the last times. He nodded hello to Reg Carleton, one of the veteran cameramen who had worked on the show for years. Reg nodded back and returned to his work, doing something about unit 3. Sam wasn't completely sure what Reg was doing but since no one was shouting at Reg to get back work he assumed Reg was doing whatever it was that he was supposed to be doing.

"It's sooo daring of you to wear that. Most girls would never wear something so low cut without the chest to support it."

Sam paused at that voice. Of course he recognised it. Susan Holiway was Eric Holiway's darling little girl. She'd been coming around the set for years and after playing at being a university freshman (in journalism of all things) she had a summer job on her dad's show. Her GPA was low enough that she might not be going back to college in the fall and her summer job was just above restocking magazines in the lobby. The girl she was tearing into was Mag Driscoll, an intern that did ten times the work that Susan would ever do.

Sam was happily married and old enough to be Mag's father but he was still human and knew a canard when he heard it. Mag wasn't flat chested; she would never be asked if they were real or fake but even an old fool like Sam couldn't help but noticing that Mag had decent ones. Susan was just bored and picking one someone who couldn't fight back.

Not that anyone would call her on it. No one ever said BOO to Daddy's Little Girl. Not the station manager and certainly not an intern. No one at the station ever said so much as no to Susan for years. Anyone who tried, well if Eric Holiway couldn't fire them outright he force them to resign. And from the way she acted maybe no one had ever said 'no' to Susan in her entire life.

An idea struck Sam. Resign, as opposed to being fired. Resign with a negotiated severance package as opposed to being fired with nothing. But it would have to be something big, not just saying no... Young enough to be his daughter. Everyone knew about his chemo and possible altered mental state. Sam knew that if he thought about it, if he considered it for even a moment, then he could find a dozen holes in the plan (not that there was enough of it to really be called a plan); so he didn't bother to think about it. He didn't dare to. At the very worse he thought that if he went to jail then at least the state would pay for his chemo.

"All right young lady! That's about enough from you."



Susan turned to the voice, then relaxed. It wasn't her daddy coming towards her but Old Man Peterson. Peterson, who should know better than raise his voice to her. Maybe she could get him fired, maybe not, but if she couldn't then she would make his life hell for daring to speak to her this way.

Susan turned from the Driscoll girl and set her sights on a more interesting target.

"Where the hell do you get off speaking to me like that?" Susan demanded.

Old Man Peterson didn't answer. He just marched towards her with a glaring look in his eyes. Eyes that looked odd. He was practically at her side before she saw why they looked odd; they weren't really focusing on her. They weren't really focusing on anything. He looked angry and confused. Like he wasn't completely sure where he was.

"I've had enough from you Betty." Sam thundered.

"Betty? Who's Betty?" Susan snapped. "Look old man, this doesn't have anything to do with you."


Susan was stunned by what happened next. Stunned, to the point that she didn't resist. Looking back, she told herself that was why it happened. That if she hadn't been so stunned then she could have squirmed free. That none of it would have happened if she hadn't been so stunned.

But she was stunned, so it did happen.

She gasped as he took her by the arm and dragged her towards the couch on the left hand side of the set. It was rarely used, but there were times when Eric Holiway wanted to project a homey feel to the proceedings (generally right before he went for the jugular). She sputtered and squawked but he pulled her towards to couch as if he hadn't heard her. As if her opinion didn't matter. As if her daddy wasn't Eric Holiway, the boss of this show!

Susan didn't know what was happening but Sam acted as he was an old hand as he sat and forced Susan over his lap.

"You've been asking for this Betty and now you're going to get it!" Sam blustered.

"Who's the fuck is Betty because I'm OOHHH!" Susan exclaimed as Sam's hand crashed down on the seat of her designer slacks.

Susan's mind went blank. This couldn't be happening! Old Man Peterson was spanking her. Actually spanking her! Like she was a naughty toddler or something! Like she wasn't Susan Holiway! Like her father wasn't Eric Holiway - the most feared reporter in the state! His hand came down and down and down again. It was coming down hard and it hurt! It really hurt!

Something broke through her fugue. It was the pain. The burning, no, throbbing in her backside. Her bum hurt! It really hurt! It hurt and Old Man Peterson wasn't stopping.

It was as if a switch was flipped. One moment Susan was laying there not quite believing what was happening and the next she was kicking and squirming, protesting as if she more than a decade younger. Going "owie oh owie stop!" otherwise uselessly protesting.

The shift singled to Sam that the end of the spanking was approaching. It had been practically a decade since he had held someone over his lap, and that person had been much smaller (and younger!) than Susan. Sam had been younger and it was long before the chemo and the fatigue it brought. Worse, Sam was vaguely recalling someone named Betty. He had picked the name because he couldn't associated a face with it but now his mind was drifting to a half remembered summer when someone named Betty had been part of his daughter's carpool. At least he thought it was Betty; it might have been a Betsy. Either way he had never spanked the girl (or even so much as swatted the tail of anyone else his daughter's carpool) but now that he used the name Betty he wasn't sure if anyone would believe that he hadn't spanked that girl. Not that the girl would ever say that he had spanked her, but now that he had used that name someone might asked her.

Sam didn't know what the girl had gone on to but he knew that an investigative reporter (and there were about a dozen that hung around the station) could find her and then start peppering her with questions. All because she was someone his daughter used to know and he had used her name.

But that wasn't his current problem. The problem was that even though Susan wasn't actually struggling she was kicking and squirming which was too much for him in his weakened state. That and his hand was throbbing and his arm was aching and his entire body was beginning to feel the effects of fatigue brought on by this sudden exertion.


Reg Carleton wondered if he was in fantasyland. He had been on set testing unit 3. Unit 3 was just back from the shop for the third time and the company that had the maintenance contract assured everyone that this time it was in perfect working order. Just like they assured everyone the first two times, just before the unit had quit in the middle of a broadcast and again in the middle of a promo. Then Sam Peterson had strolled on to the set looking vague when he normally walked with a purpose.

Then Sam stalked up to the little witch. The technical crew couldn't decide if she was a bitch or a brat; she was old enough to be a bitch but her actions were more those of a little brat. A daddy's girl who no one had ever told no to. Reg wasn't sure what Mr. Peterson was up to but just happened to tilt the unit he was testing towards the couch where Mr. Peterson was leading, no, dragging, that was the word, dragging the girl. Reg thought that he might record a good chewing out. Someone finally taking the little princess to task.

He never thought that the camera would pick up anything more than that. Reg never thought that meek and mild Mr. Peterson would ever actually spank the princess. He was just glad that he nudged the camera rather than lining it up for the perfect shot. The entire shot could look like an accident, like unit 3 was being tested and just happened to be pointed in the right direction. Just happened to have the couch in its frame when everything went down.

As the spanking went on Reg took a couple of steps from the unit and focused on unit 2, as if unit 2 was why he was here and not unit 3. As if the recording of the spanking was mere happenstance that Reg had nothing to do with. He had too much invested in his job to do risk being caught recording the princess' spanking.


Sam brought him hand down hard for one last smack.

"And let that be a lesson to you Betty... Um, Susan? Um. Shit. Um, chemo, um, sometimes chemo, um, chemo..." Sam said, stumbling over his words in what he hoped was a believable way.

Sam released her. To his surprise she didn't go. Susan just lay on his lap sobbing. He had to actually help her up, to her feet, before she would leave his lap. Then he stumbled away, hoping that he looked wide-eye and confused, as Susan stood sobbing where he left her.


Soon after he left Susan realised that her tormentor had left and quickly dashed to the nearest bathroom. She banished the women in it with a glare and a growl, then stood in front of a mirror. Susan turned her back and lowered her slacks and everything else. Craning over her shoulder she looked at her reflection and was amazed. Her backside was red. It was practically glowing! It was throbbing in pain and Susan could almost see it physically throbbing in the mirror. It was probably a trick of the light but to Susan's eyes it was pulsing in time to the throbbing pain. She stared, looking over her shoulder, her eyes fixed to her red bottom.

Then the bathroom door opened and Susan cursed whoever it was as she reached blindly for her slacks. The tears in her eyes prevented her from knowing who had opened the door, but her ears worked just fine. She heard the catty comments. Someone was saying "It did happen!", someone was laughing, and someone was asking about just how red Susan's bottom was. Bad enough that all those people had seen her getting spanked but for someone to see her red bottom...

Susan vanished in to a stall, shedding fresh tears. Not over the state of her bottom (which did still hurt) but over how embarrassed she felt.


Reg stayed on the set, carefully staying away from unit 3. It took twenty, maybe thirty minutes, but he kept the unit recording the couch then shifted its view so it was pointed at the main desk. Thirty minutes after that Reg shifted the unit's view to another part of the set. All the while wondering about poor Sam's fate.


Once off the set Sam hurried back to his office. Once there he shifted paperwork, placing the incriminating documents under some routine stuff. Things he routinely printed off because of his legendary (at least legendary in the office) dislike of reading things on his computer. Nothing special, just the routine of the office that he would soon be leaving behind. He piled that on top of other routine paperwork and then made another pile, then another.

There was a knock on his open office door. Sam looked up to see Joan, his assistant. She looked pale. The edges of her eyes looked as if she had been crying.

"Um, I was just wondering." Joan said lamely. "Um, did you want any coffee?"

Sam blinked.

On the day that he had interviewed Joan (his third assistant in ten years) she had gone over the job description with him, pointing out that it didn't mention anything about picking up dry cleaning or watching his kids or (most pointedly) getting him coffee. In the two plus years she had worked as his assistant she had never so much as said "I'm getting a coffee - did you want one?" yet here she was offering to get him a coffee.

Sam knew that Joan knew what was happening, or that Joan thought she knew. He was tempted to let her in on his plan but a secret wasn't a secret if two people knew it.

"I appreciate the offer, and I truly appreciate the motivations behind the offer, but at the moment I need to get things in order. You do understand, don't you?"

Joan looked as if she was on the edge of tears, but she nodded.

"If there's anything I can do..."

"No, I don't think there is." Sam said truthfully. "But I'm honoured by the offer. Truly honoured."

Joan nodded and left the office, smiling tightly.


"I want him in prison!" Eric Holiway thundered. "Solitary! Twenty-five years to life. Empathises on 'to life'."

"Do you really want that?" Thomas Hirshbach asked. As VP of Operations he was charged with keeping Eric Holiway on track and the rest of station running smoothly. "Because if we bring the police in then Susan will have to testify. Her name will be in on the papers. Twenty years from now people will still remember what happened. Is that what you want? Because if it then I'll get the cops in here in a heartbeat."

"No, I can't put her through that. But I want him fired. Fired now!" Eric Holiway declared.

"We need to think this through." Ethan Packard, the Director of HR said. He hated to contradict Eric Holiway but he had to speak up. "I've checked his personnel records. Five weeks ago Sam Peterson filed some paperwork related to his health condition."

"Health condition? Bullshit!" Eric Holiway shouted. "If he was healthy enough to assault my baby girl then he's healthy enough to be fired."

"But he's on record as possibly having altered mental states." Ethan Packard persevered. "That's on his file. If he decides to fight us then he has a case. Even if the court doesn't find in his favour he'll splash all the details over the press."

"Fuck him! I want him gone. I never want Susan to see him again." Eric Holiway declared.

"He's gone." Ethan Packard agreed. "But we have two options. First we fire him or second he raises his health condition. If that happens then we offer him early retirement. Certain benefits for a few years then he taps his pension."

"Just as long as he's gone." Eric Holiway declared. "After today I never want to see his face again."


The call came three hours after he sat down and started shuffling papers. In a way Sam was surprised it hadn't come sooner.

'Five years.' Sam thought to himself as he left his office. 'Five years worth of health benefits. After five years I'll be gone or cured. Five years and not a day less.'


In way he flattered. The VP of Operations and the Director of HR. Sam had seen lots of people go and these things didn't get any better than that. Of course Eric Holiway set the tone; he couldn't be in a room without defining it.

"You know why you're here." Eric Holiway declared. "You can't not know."

"Um, I guess." Sam admitted. "I've been thinking about a leave of absence. Maybe for health reasons. I haven't been feeling the best. It's the chemo. They told me that there might be altered states but... It's the chemo."

The three men exchanged looks. Ethan Packard shifted papers inside a folder, burying one set of papers and bringing out a second set.

"This is how it's going to work." Thomas Hirshbach declared. "You will issue a press release that you are retiring for health reasons. You will not mention Susan's name. In exchange you'll get half salary and full benefits for seven years, until you qualify for your pension. Ethan has the papers; sign off now and we'll leave it at that. The police won't be called."

Sam sighed theatrically while wrestling his true feelings down. A partial salary and a full benefit bridge to his pension - he hadn't dared hope for so much.

"I know I can't explain what happened." Sam said. "With the chemo... I'll sign. I'll claim medical reasons, and Eric, if you think it would help I'd apologise."

"No excuses and no apologises." Eric Holiway barked. "That's my motto and that's how we'll do this. Let's get that done."

Sam nodded and signed where Ethan told him to sign, elated that they had made their offer first. Knowing that if he had made his offer then he would be out the salary and there would be two years between when his health benefits ran out and his pension kicked in. He had no problems initialling a copy of the press release that cited health concerns as the reason for his departure.


Sam was escorted back to his office, but he didn't mind. Security wasn't being nasty; it seemed that they had been told about the 'health reason, early retirement' story. One of them even seemed embarrassed to have to escort Sam to his office and then out of the building.

As he entered his office for the last time Sam tried to pretend that everyone wasn't averting their eyes. Until this day he hadn't realised that people could avert their eyes and give pitying looks at the same time.

When Sam left his office one of the security men was carrying a box with Sam's possessions. Sam reached for his cell phone, then hesitated.

"Joan, could you make sure that the papers on my desk get to the recycling bin? I'm sure that whoever has the officer after me won't be a dinosaur that needs everything printed off."

Joan swallowed hard, pretending that she hadn't made that comment hundreds of times.

"I'll take care of it Sam. Are you sure you don't want that coffee?"

Sam smiled at her, saying goodbye with his grin.

"I'm sure. But thanks for the offer."

Sam then pressed a button on his phone, pointedly ignoring the stares. Pretending that this was a normal day.

"Rowena? Of course it's Sam. Listen, I've been thinking over what you said and you're right. Now is the time to focus on my health. I'll talk to HR about a leave of absence and if that doesn't work out I'll talk to them about early retirement. Of course I mean it! Look, one way or the other we'll have plenty of time to talk about tonight. And one way or the other we'll talk about it tomorrow. Yes I'm serious. Look, I'm heading to HR now. I'll call you after it's over."

Joan bit back a sob. She wasn't the only one biting back tears as Sam walked to his car. Loyal to the last she cleaned off Sam's desk, putting everything in the recycle bin. Knowing that Sam had been right, that whoever replaced him wouldn't want to have everything printed off.

When asked later she honestly said that she had never seen the incriminating paperwork.


Driving away, Sam couldn't believe his luck. Health benefits until his pension kicked in. A partial salary. All that and he had gotten the chance of to put the royal brat in her place. His sole regret was using the name Betty. As he drove home he was asking himself why he hadn't used the name Cordelia - a name he had heard only in Shakespeare and one TV show. He had never met anyone named Cordelia, unlike the name 'Betty', who he was pretty sure he had driven in one of his daughter's carpool. He had known a Betty and driven her for an entire summer because she shared some activity with one of his daughters. He could only hope that none of the investigative reporters bothered to track her down.


That evening....

Manilow's Bar and Grill felt like there was wake in progress, and in a way there was. It was the unofficial bar for the station and tonight the staff was mourning the departure of one of their own.

"He was the reason that I wasn't fired." Jim Ambercrombie said, downing another pint. "That time the virus went around. He said that no one could be expected to know about all the viruses and I wasn't fired. Even after it wiped the great and holy's Eric Holiway's laptop."

"He gave me my first real job." Cathy, a video tech, said before she downed a shooter. "My first real job ever."

"He was like family." Jim said, pouring another draft from the pitcher. "Like my old man."

"He was like family." Cathy agreed. "Fuck, I know his daughter. I went to school with her. She was one of my references when he hired me."

Jim downed half his beer and then paused.

"You know his daughter? Did he used to, um, you know?" Jim asked.

"How the fuck should I know?" Cathy snapped before downing a snaps shooter. "Did you know which of your friends were spanked? Of course not. And I only met her in college. And before you ask her name isn't Betty. I don't know anyone in his family whose name is Betty."

"I didn't ask about Betty." Jim said, wondering they should order another pitcher. "I just, well, I mean... Everyone says that he just sort of snapped."

"I heard it was the chemo." Cathy said. "Someone from HR was saying that it was the chemo and something else he was taking. It was even in his file. Something about altered mental states."

"Shit, a drug interaction." Jim said bitterly. "An entire career ruined by a drug interaction."


Those two weren't the only two drinking to Sam's memory, but they stayed the latest of any of the non-union staff.

"You're shitting me." Jim said, wondering if he should have gotten that last pitcher after the others left. "Where did you hear that?"

"In the lady's room." Cathy revealed. "A couple of rounds ago. Maybe more than a couple. But I heard it."


Reg was nursing his drink. Sitting at a table with some of the others from the technical staff the topic was still 'what if'. They were all in the union... Well, they were in a couple of different unions, but every one at the table was a union brother and they were all talking about what if. What if one of them had a bad reaction to some meds and went mental - would the union protect them or would they go like Sam went? Depressingly the consensus that if was anyone other than the princess brat they would probably keep their jobs but even the union bosses wouldn't take on Eric Holiway over his daughter (or even just his lay of the month). That too many union bosses had too much to fear from Holiway's Spotlight.

It was depressing to think about. Reg almost welcomed the distraction that was the two drunken co-workers who stumbled over to their table. An IT geek and one of the video techs that the station kept out of the union on a technicality.

"Scuse me." Jim said, swaying slightly. "It's just, um... Well, um... Um..."

"I heard the story about unit 3." Cathy said, blurting it out.

"Shut the fuck up." Reg said, glancing around.

Everyone at the table glanced away, preserving the deniability that they might not know anything about what unit 3 had captured that day. As if Reg hadn't been talking about it since his first round.

"Shit, I need to walk the lizard." Reg declared. "And maybe pick up another round."

Reg wandered towards the bar, trailed by Cathy and Jim. As the bartender set up another round for his table (a round that Jim paid for), Reg checked around then asked:

"What do you know about unit 3?"

"We gots a plans." Jim slurred. "Cathy does her video magic and I do my stuff and we go a, I mean we got a plans."

"Will it get Sam his job back?" Reg asked.

"Of course not." Cathy answered. "We aren't gods. But maybe that little brat witch might learn a lesson. More of a lesson than Sam taught her today."

"Fuck that sounds good." Reg said with a smile.



The next day Cathy waited for the perfect moment. Around lunch, when there were countless people wondering into and out of the editing suite, Cathy queued up some footage that that officially didn't exist. After the software had worked its magic it went on a thumb drive, a thumb drive that barely held the various versions of it that now existed.

As Cathy worked her magic over the raw video (video that officially didn't exist) Jim wandered through an office that half deserted because of lunch. He forced himself not to pause as he passed an empty workstation, barely pausing long enough to confirm that the stickie was still there. The sight of a yellow square on the monitor confirmed that it was still there. Against all warnings and policies it was still there. Normally its presence would annoy Jim, but today it meant that a plan hatched between three drunks lingering at a bar just might just work.


Jim hated to crawl out of bed early but needs must. Half an hour before he was due at the station, Jim was at an internet café. It was almost painful to use the tricks that script kiddies used but he swallowed his pride and acted like he was a kewl hacker tween.


Susan sat gingerly at her workstation. Not that her bottom still hurt, not after two days. Yesterday she had pretended that nothing had happened and everyone else played along, to her disappointment. She had wanted someone, anyone, to bring it up so that she could have someone else fired. Just having Old Man Peterson fired didn't satisfy her; Susan wanted everyone who saw it, everyone who heard about, practically everyone at the station fired. Only then would she feel satisfied.

As always the first thing Susan did when booted her workstation was check her email. After opening three that were just more of the same she opened one with a weird subject line. Automatically clicking on a link Susan opened a video file.

It started with a blank screen and Eric Holiway's voice saying: "Let's get that done". He was answered by what sounded like Old Man Peterson saying "But sir", which brought the familiar retort if "I know you don't see the need, but let's get that done".

Then the blackness vanished and Susan saw herself. There she was, large as life. Filling the computer screen. The image was at the far side of the screen, clearly the camera hadn't been focused properly, but there she was over that idiot Peterson's lap. Susan stared in horror as Sam's hand crashed down on her backside. Crashed down again and again. Her eyes wide, Susan saw herself kicking and squealing as the seat of her slacks were spanked.

Her intellect overcoming her horror Susan clicked the video shut only to hear the smacks and squeals coming from another cubicle. From several cubicles. Turning, Susan looked in horror at the image playing out on the other monitors. As the sounds echoed from computer after computer the horror slowly sank in. Someone had sent the email company wide.


Jim Ambercrombie slid into his chair, wondering if anyone had noticed anything yet. Then he heard the sounds of smacks and squeals coming from the workstation next him.

"Jesus Jack, cut it out. We have to enforce the antiporn policy and that means we can't look at porn ourselves." Jim said.

Jim felt just a little bit bad about who he found watching the video. Jack Samson was a student from the local junior college on a work term and thus at the extreme low end of the totem pole. A black mark on Jack now might mean he failed his course, which would be too bad for him.

"It's not porn." Jack protested. "It's an email that some sent around. Take a look."

Jim pretended to look then said: "Oh my fuck that's Eric Holiway's kid. Shit! That rumour is true. Oh fuck someone filmed it and put it on the network. Fuck someone's going to get fired over this."

"I didn't do it." Jack asserted in a near panic.

"I don't care. Just tell me where that file is and I'll take care of it."

"Um, okay." Jack said, closing the video and opening a new view of the email. "It's in the shared directory on drive S. Um, everyone has access to drive S so ..."

"So I'll delete it from there but it's in the cache. I can't zero the cache without approval. It might bring the network down. Damn it, I'll have to call Mr. Jackson. Only the IT Director can authorise that."

Jim raced to drive S and found (as expected, since he was the one who put those files there) that the video was present in several different formats. Avi, MPEG, MP4, and several streaming formats. Jim deleted the files as he cued a call through his headset. The call went as Jim thought it would; the IT director wouldn't risk crashing the entire network just to lock the door after the horse had run off. Especially since those files would expire within an hour or two.

It wasn't just a case of going through the motions. Jim really did delete every file that that Jack pointed out, and after that he went after the server, cutting back on the amount of out going traffic in an effort to prevent the files from leaving the cache and going out over the net.


Susan went home twenty minutes after she opened that email; her face red and on the verge of tears from knowing just how many of her co-workers had seen Old Man Peterson spanking her. Worse were the laughing comments she overheard, the ones where the speakers tried to guess if Eric Holiway had actually ordered Sam to spank his daughter. Susan knew that her father hadn't but she couldn't imagine why someone had added that audio to the file.


That afternoon Jim found himself in Thomas Hirshbach's office. This was the first time he'd been in a VP's office and he didn't feel comfortable. With him were Eric Holiway, Sophia McAllister (from HR), and someone from security that everyone called Mr. Abbot. Being in the room with Eric Holiway was bad. Hearing Eric Holiway calling someone mister made Jim more nervous than being in the room with Eric Holiway.

"What the fuck happened?" Eric Holiway demanded. "I can understand the emails showing up but why did they stay on the server? Why weren't you able to delete them all?"

"Several factors came together." Jim said, speaking quickly and wondering if he was going to keep his job. "First, there was a work term student who looked at the email. He looked at the email and saw links but not the attachments. Whoever sent it had it pointing to links on a shared drive as well as attaching several versions of the file to the email itself and the student missed that."

"And you didn't notice that the file was still being passed around?" Eric Holiway thundered.

"Yes sir I did but I thought that it was coming from the cache." Jim answered. "That's where files are temporarily stored as they are shared through the system."

"And why didn't you delete the file from there?" Eric Holiway pressed.

"I couldn't just delete it." Jim explained. "I would have had to flush the entire cache and I couldn't do that without approval."

"And did you seek that approval?" Eric Holiway demanded.

"I did, but I wasn't given it. There was a chance that it would take the entire network down again and no one would approve that. I thought it was just in the cache and by the time I checked the emails it had spread throughout the entire system. I had to take the mail server off line and when I did that was when I found the virus."

"Virus?" Eric Holiway asked.

"Nothing complex. It's something that exploits a hole in the server. It was just script and that hole will be fixed with the next patch." Jim answered.

"So what took you so long to fix it?" Eric Holiway asked.

"I thought it was fixed, so I took the time to trace down where the email entered the system. It came from an internet café from the account assigned to a summer student named Ivy Fisher."

"And has the bitch been fired yet?" Eric Holiway demanded, looking towards the HR rep. "Let's get that done."

"Ivy Fisher?" Sophia McAllister said, looking at smart phone.

Mr. Abbot touched his bluetooth headset and muttered: "Send someone to Ivy Fisher's workstation. HR is handling the paperwork on her now."

"Um, there's a slight problem here." Sophia McAllister said. "She hasn't been employed here for the last three weeks."

"And IT didn't cut her off after she was fired?" Eric Holiway thundered, looking back to Jim.

"She was fired?" Jim asked, looking through the paperwork he had brought to the meeting. "Um, there's nothing here about that. Someone in HR forgot to fill out a form and..."

"She wasn't fired." Sophia McAllister corrected. "She made the national swim team. She's at a swim meet in Australia. It's down in the system as a leave of absence. I think that might have been the first leave of absence we've ever granted to summer student so the paperwork wasn't standard and something might have been mixed up."

"Understood." Mr. Abbot said, touching his earpiece. "Security reports that there was a sticky note with her username and password on her workstation."

"That's a complete breech of the procedures." Jim quickly said.

"What are you saying?" Eric Holiway demanded.

"That either it Ivy Fisher somehow hacked her way into an internet café or someone else saw her password and used that to sign into our system." Jim answered. "Unless Ivy Fisher is a hacker then she wouldn't have been able to do it. If she is then she's responsible for the virus too."

"What's this virus bullshit you keep going on about?" Eric Holiway thundered.

"Um, there was a script on the email that, um, when it was opened it was forwarded to everyone in that person's address book."

"Slow down here. What are you saying? Are you saying that everyone I know, all my contacts, everyone who I use as a source has seen my little girl getting her tailed tanned?" Eric Holiway asked. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Um, well, yes." Jim squeaked. "But the email has been completely removed from our system. All the copies of it are gone."

"But the virus sent outside our system, right?" Eric Holiway asked. "Son of a bitch. Was Peterson in on it?"

"Um, I don't know." Jim answered. "Probably not. From what I understand he didn't know much about computers so..."

"So someone had better find out about that." Eric Holiway snapped. "Let's get that done. We gave that SOB early retirement to keep my little girl's name out of the news and if he's behind this then I'll string him up by his balls."

"Um, I'm not sure if I can find out..."

Mr. Abbot interrupted Jim and said: "We'll find that out for you."

"Fine. Let's get that done. And why are you still here?"

Jim and Sophia McAllister exchanged looks then left the office.

"That was harsh." Sophia McAllister muttered to Jim. "I think we came that close to being fired."

"Maybe." Jim said.

"So did you see it?" Sophia McAllister asked. "Peterson really tanned that little brat's backside. I just wish he had bared her bum for it. That would have been something to see."

"That might have been pushing it." Jim pointed out. "The way I heard it the poor guy was just having a chemo moment."


Sam was puzzled. Three different lawyers had called him to offer their services. Sam couldn't understand how they knew he had been forced to retire or why they thought he needed a lawyer but he explained to each of them that he didn't need a lawyer. One had even told him that couldn't have been fired if he was obeying orders, and that was the most confusing call of all.

Then came a confusing yet clarifying call from the station.

"What? You mean someone filmed it? Who?" Sam asked. "What, on the internet? One of those dot com places? Email? What does email have to do with video files? Who? No, I don't know any Ivy. A virus? You mean email can spread viruses? When did that happen? No, I turned the laptop in when I left, but I'm pretty sure that my wife has email... Oh shit. No, of course I didn't tell her. What do you mean she's going to see it? Who would have sent it to her? Oh, the virus. Viruses can do that? Of course I didn't write it. What makes you think I could write something like that?"

Sam hung up the phone and wondered how he could explain things to his wife. Finally he went with the truth, or at least a variation of it.


"Um, Rowena? We need to talk." Sam said.

"About your 'retirement'?" Rowena asked.

"Um, about that. How to put it. Um, well, I was that close to being fired when I decided to do something that would force me to retire."

Rowena nodded and listened.

It went better than Sam had hoped. Near the end Rowena broke out laughing.

"You really did that? You put Susan Holiway over your lap? Well I'm sure she deserved it."

"Rowena, please. She's heading towards her second year of university. No one that age ever deserves a spanking." Sam said. "It was just so I could retired rather than get fired."

"And someone filmed it?"

"I guess they were testing the camera and somehow..."

"No, it can't be an accident. Someone had to point the camera at her." Rowena pointed out. "And you think that someone emailed it to us?"

"Well if we're in anyone's address book we should have a copy." Sam told her.

"Well let's see it."


It turned out that they had almost twenty copies of the email. The links didn't work anymore but the video was attached in several different format.

"Ouch." Rowena chuckled as they watched. "You really let her have it."

"Well I had to make it look realistic." Sam pointed out. "So I would be forced to retire."

"She's just laying there and - no, she's moving now. What did you do?"

"Just more of the same." Sam told her. "I think she just needed time to get over the shock. Realise that it was really happening to her."

"That voiceover, it sounded like Eric was sending you to do it."

"That didn't happen." Sam asserted. "There must be hundreds of recordings of him using those words and he would never send someone to spank Susan. If he every did then what I did might have been less believable."

"And you're sure you would have been fired if this hadn't happened?" Rowena asked, watching the video of her husband spanking Susan.

"Absolutely." Sam replied. "It was a massive screw up. Eric would have had to apologise and you know how he hates to do that."

"You managed to keep your benefits and got to spank that Eric's rude, obnoxious brat." Rowena noted, hugging him. "I guess I did marry you for your brain."

"You're just deciding that now?" Sam joked.

"Well with your body's pretty hot too." Rowena said, giving her husband a squeeze as she watched Susan's spanking.


Susan was not happy. Very not happy. She had accepted less than her pound a flesh from the old perv who spanked her because her dad said that it was the only way she could keep what happened quiet. Well she had gone along with that plan and it didn't work. Everyone saw what happened to her. Everyone! And this everyone included everyone in her address book. Some tech guy had removed the email from the computers at the station but it was too late - the video was being forwarded around the net. It was already on youtube!

It was weird, watching the spanking happening on her computer screen. The way she lay there until she snapped. Susan winced at the way she had kicked and squirmed - all without trying to get off of Old Man Peterson's lap. Looking at herself Susan could see how easy it would have been to get off that lap.

Which is what half of the comments on the page said. Most of them were calling the video fake because she didn't struggle at the beginning and then didn't try to escape from his lap.

Fake.

Her bum had been beaten red and they thought it was fake! How could they think that?


Susan thought that the worst thing in the world was for everyone to be watching her spanking on the internet. A week later she learned that there was at least one thing worse - everyone knowing that it exists and not watching it. It wasn't like she was a famous person in her own right and her father wasn't that big of a deal. The video didn't even make the news. Her dad said that was because he threatened people to stop them but Susan had to wonder if it was because she just wasn't important enough for more people to care.


As for Sam, he was treated like a minor hero by those who knew Susan. At least he was for about three weeks; then the lawsuit moved forward, exposing his error when it was too late. Sam's settlement was firmly in place and locked in, leaving him in the clear as the station paid off a seven figure settlement.

Goodgulf

[william7]

It is nice to see a new story from you, especially one as good as this one. Thank you.

[goodgulf]

You're welcome.

Goodgulf