And that was six months ago. After three months her boss offered to reassign her. Back to working on the codebase, away from customers. It had been a while, but she still had the qualifications and the experience. No, she didn't want to leave customer service. Her boss told her that in that case he could only fire her or demote her to Level 2. She asked her husband what he wanted. Take the demotion, with reduced hours, so you have more time to yourself. But now a problem. Her manager came back and told her that the Level 2 manager didn't want her, didn't want to introduce a bottleneck into his team. She requested Level 1, with 25 hours a week.

 

And now she was Level 1, asking the customers the questions in the script that she had wrote. Always saying the thing that the computer told her to say, even though she had written the decision tree that the computer was following. The decision tree always either solved the problem without special contribution from herself, or directed her to pass the customer up to Level 2. Anyone could have done this job.

 

The only reason the job existed, that it wasn't done by a computer, was the company marketed itself as being one where you could talk to a person if you needed to, though who could say how long that would last. At present the company was not dominant in the market and was looking for ways to stand out. But its market share was still growing, and then one day maybe it wouldn't be considered necessary to need a selling point for customers who had nowhere else to go but the economy-of-scaled market leader. Certainly when she did interact with other Level 1s, they had a completely different attitude to the job, compared to Level 3s. None of them saw it as a career, or as a position that gave them freedom for other aspects of their life. Every single one of them hated it.

 

Usually she guessed correctly what a customer's problem was before finishing the questionnaire for the customer. She would want to tell the customer but couldn't. The Level 1 agents were under much more surveillance. They weren't being paid to think creatively. Random calls were reviewed by the middle managers. If she started going off-script, she would be caught. It wouldn't matter if she actually solved customers problems faster. And what would be the point? It's not like she wanted a promotion.

 

But she did want to be the undeserving target of societal sexism, both explicit and latent. And as she had always done her Level 3 as diligently as it was supposed to be performed, now she did her Level 1 job as diligently as it was supposed to be performed.

 

It was easy. Too easy. Boring. She no longer thought about what the customer was telling her, just passing it on to the computer and waiting for the computer to tell her what to say. She wasn't being paid to think. So she didn't think. Autopilot. Some evenings she would try to think about what she had done during her five hour shift and couldn't remember anything noteworthy.

 

One day, as she painted her now-longer finger nails at her desk, between entering customer answers as well-practised, one-fingered sets of key strokes, she imagined what it would be like to lose all knowledge of the product. All expertise. Just have it cut out of her brain. It sounded hot. One of the most knowledgeable people in the company not just pretending to uncomprehendingly repeat a procedure with each customer, but changed to actually uncomprehendingly repeat a procedure with each customer.

 

She wanted to touch herself, but she still needed a free finger to type in the keyboard, and the nails of her other hand were still drying. And besides, she was sitting and she still hadn't even mastered masturbating while lying down with these nails, what with the increased risk of infection. And besides again, her husband only occasionally allowed her to practise. So instead she pouted to herself at the various mirrors her husband had had installed around the room. They were expertly arranged using the odd angles of the room to allow her to see herself from various angles during her five hour day. Mmmm, her new lips looked good when they pouted like this, even if they were still a little bruised. Her husband loved them. All his friends had loved them when he had invited them over yesterday to see her latest change.

 

And her KPIs were still bad, measured as compared to the rest of the Level 1 agents, though of course she always expertly followed the checklist. Unless the customers didn't allow her to finish, which was often. And speaking of, the customers at this level were so much ruder, and said things to her, or behaved in ways that no one ever had at Level 3. She imagined the other Level 1 agents didn't enjoy it, but it was nice in that strange way, to have strange men – and even strange women – judging her as incompetent, and to have their prejudice leak out in all manner of creative ways that targeted her, little her, just trying her best. One time a customer even demanded that they be allowed to speak to an adult.

 

But now she was walking out. Her brain finally broken. If she was unable to convince people that she was capable of meeting their expectations, then maybe she should just do stuff where she would meet their expectations. Her husband agreed and promised a new career. What had he planned? He wouldn't say. But he promised her it would be easy, enjoyable, and with low hours. Further, her safety and security and happiness was his highest priority and would never be compromised. And she thought about it and she realised that was more than enough for her to be happy. She hoped she would make him proud.

 

But not yet, he said. First time off, a few months to acclimatise to being you, maybe a whole year, just to be sure we can kill off any remnants of the old you. And she wondered aloud what she would like to do with her time off, and he hushed her with his finger on her bee-stung lips and told her that for the next few months she is not to worry about deciding things. That's his responsibility. But she can help him make good decisions. When she likes something, anything, even a feeling, she should tell him. When she doesn't like something, she should tell him. That's her responsibility, to help him make good decisions for her. Otherwise she need not say much.

 

And they kissed as she sat on her lap, and they smiled at each other, and he stroked her sea-green hair. She thought it was more blue than green, but he called it sea-green, so that's what she called it too. And now he removed her top and bra and kissed her more as he played with her breasts and she thought about his instructions, and she said, I love when you play with my breasts. What else, he said. I love that you love to play with my breasts. What else, he said. And she felt his hard cock in his lap, and she said I love that I make you hard. And he had paused and asked, but you make a lot of other men hard too. Don't you like that? And she made a show of thinking about it for him, pressing a finger dumbly to her lip like she knew he liked, uhhhh, yeah, I love that too. But I love it best when I make you hard. Well, he said, that's good to know, and I promise I will make any changes to you that I can think of that will get me harder more often. Yay, she said, then holding him tight and giving him a deliberately long and wet kiss.

 

Later she woke up in the middle of the night and realised she didn't have to do anything tomorrow and she wondered what that would be and she wondered if thinking about what to do was too close to a decision, and she thought about how she would like to try following his instructions, so she would just get up tomorrow and do the things she usually might do on a day off, and if she thinks of things that she loves or hates, she will definitely tell her husband, and if she gets bored and doesn't enjoy that, she will tell him she doesn't enjoy that, and maybe he will find something for her to not be bored with.

 

In the morning she turned off his alarm clock and woke him up a different way instead. And after she was done she hugged him and told her how much she loved sucking his cock. And he grunted, still recovering, and stroked her back and hair as she lay on top of him. And then he asked, and what else do you love or hate. And she thought, and she said, I love that no one takes me seriously when they hear my voice. What else, he said. She giggled. I don't know now, but if I think of anything I'll tell you.

 

And he rolled her off him and said he was taking a shower, and he said she could use the new underwear at a low setting, the pair she was supposed to use now instead of touching herself. She asked, can I cum? He leaned over her and slapped her, not too hard, but it stung. She realised her mistake, but he said it anyway. No direct requests. There will be a punishment, and it will last a week, and it will be cumulative. If you do that again, there will be a second week, and a third and so on. I will tell you what the punishment is when I finish my shower. And no, don't cum. I want you wet today.