It was her first day on reception at the Adams Clinic and Gail wanted to look her best, wanted to look professional; she picked out the lavender blouse and the grey pantsuit, both items she’d worn for her interview with Doctor Adams. She didn’t want to seem over-tall, so she slipped her light grey flats on.

Gail only had one ‘professional’ clutch so she went with that. Most of her outfits weren’t exactly suitable for a formal workplace, and the Adams Clinic definitely needed that little bit of seriousness in its presentation.

Doctor Adams herself had stressed to Gail that there also needed to be a friendly atmosphere, and that this might be delivered through colour choice but was always - always - also shown through the behaviour and attitudes of the staff. As receptionist, Gail knew she was the ‘first impression’. Before she left the house she shared with her sister, she checked her smile in the mirror, considered it carefully, and decided nobody would be able to tell it was fake.

*

“You must be Gail.” The redhead’s smile as she said it was warm and welcoming and, above all, genuine. Gail was taken aback for a moment, but shook the offered hand. “I’m Judy. I’m kind of halfway between accounts and HR.”

“Good to meet you.” The other woman’s blouse was a tighter fit than Gail’s, a shimmering blue that almost seemed metallic under the Clinic’s bright white lights. Her skirt was a conservative grey, though the hemline was surprisingly high - which probably accounted for the fact Judy clearly spent plenty of time working on her legs. The calf-length suede boots had heels that brought Judy up on eye level with Gail.

Possibly the dress code wasn’t quite as ‘professional’ as Doctor Adams had suggested?

“Let’s get you set up,” Judy said, and she led the way over to the main desk in reception. “I got IT to set up your logins ahead of time.” She lifted the keyboard to reveal a yellow memo note stuck to the desk. “Obviously, change your password when you get the chance.”

“Right.”

Judy produced a couple of sheets of paper. “Just a few details I need you to give me so we can get you in the systems.”

The front door opened as Gail was looking the first sheet over and a short, curvy black woman stepped in. A tan miniskirt, close around her thick thighs, rose above knee-high boots in the same tan shade. Above it she wore a black suit jacket, buttoned at the front, and whatever was beneath that had a neckline so low Gail couldn’t be sure there was anything beneath it. Her braids were gathered together at the back, hanging down.

“Morning, Judy,” she said cheerfully. “This our new arrival?”

“It certainly is,” Judy answered. “Gail, meet Jasmine.”

Jasmine flashed her a gleaming smile, then glanced down at her legs and nodded. “Hi,” she said, “good to meet you.” Her eyes turned to Gail. “You told her yet?”

“Tell me what?”

Judy shook her head marginally. “No, I hadn’t got around to it.”

Gail looked back to Jasmine. “Tell me what?”

“There’s a dress code,” Jasmine said, and her voice was gentle and kind and every word rang true as she continued, “Don’t wear skirts. Don’t wear high-heeled boots.”

Involuntarily, Gail’s eyes flicked back down to Judy’s thick, strong thighs showing from beneath her tan skirt, her ankles hidden by high-heeled boots.

She laughed. “Good one.” Remind me never to play poker with someone who could say that straight-faced.

“No, it’s true,” Judy said, and there was enough awkwardness in her tone that it had to be the case.

“But you’re both-“

“I know,” Judy said.

“We all do it,” added Jasmine.

“Then it’s OK if I-“

“No,” Jasmine said.

“…What’s going on?”

“It’s just how things work,” Judy said quietly, gently. Like she was trying to handle a problem. Gail found her irritation rising.

“Is this written down anywhere?”

“Oh, no,” Judy said.

Gail wasn’t at all sure why she was asking. She only had one skirt she could wear outside either a nightclub or the Uber back from the nightclub in any case. But this was A Thing now, in a way she’d rather not have happened on her first day.

“I don’t understand what’s-“

“We can’t really explain,” Judy said.

The door opened and Doctor Adams swept into the office. “Morning, ladies,” she said briskly. She was wearing an unfashionable but undeniably comfy-looking figure-hugging jumper, and below that a long skirt slit open at one side to provide a clear look at her long legs, which ended in shiny black patent-leather high heeled boots.

Gail was too astonished to say anything before Doctor Adams had been and gone again.

“Look, it’s kind of like this,” Jasmine said. “Think of it as… we’re dressed this way because we’re past our employee probation.”

Judy made a strange expression, but nodded, meaning this was probably a case of ‘not true, but near enough’. Gail sighed.

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal, but okay.”

She could feel the other two relax, and oddly it felt good to know the tension hadn’t been entirely on one side. “Will you explain when I get past probation?” she asked.

Jasmine hesitated, but Judy said “Sure.” Jasmine shrugged and moved on into the main office, and Judy skilfully turned Gail’s attention back to her actual paperwork.

*

The atmosphere, Gail decided, more than made up for one bit of weirdness.

Well, two - next to their computers, everyone had a big day planner and a notepad, and besides that a pencil caddy with the same set of pens, pencils, highlighters, erasers, rulers, scissors, and paperclips. Obviously these had all been bought in at the same time, and they were refilled as needed by ‘Support’, a department Gail hadn’t met yet.

Judging by the fact Judy handled most of the Clinic’s accounts and all of its HR bar the interviews, Gail did wonder whether Support was a team or one person - though anything else done by one person, people just used their first names.

In any case, Gail almost had the full set in her caddy, but it was missing one piece; something that looked like a more expensive, sturdier pen, a thick black barrel, a gold clip, and a red clickable cam extending from the top.

Jasmine had cheerfully told Gail these were only provided to staff once they were confirmed as “permanent Clinic fixtures”.

In an office where everyone was on first-name terms and where her practised customer service smile seemed like the only fake one of the bunch, Gail found it very strange that these little lines were drawn; where you missed out on certain perks (if wearing a skirt could be called a perk) until you were confirmed full-timers, and where certain things just weren’t discussed, but where any attempt to talk about them was politely deflected.

Indeed, as time had gone by and she’d had the chance to meet and chat with more and more of her colleagues, she’d made three key observations.

Firstly, everyone was much happier to be at work than you’d expect. This wasn’t just a case of people being happy they were making good money; the act of being in the office and doing work was one they clearly all enjoyed, even on a miserable day with grey, dreary weather and pressing deadlines.

The one time Gail had remarked on this, the others in earshot (Judy, Jasmine, and Betty, who was a junior partner under Doctor Adams) had all agreed that they were lucky to work there, almost in chorus. When Gail had shot them a suspicious look, Jasmine had said “I guess that only comes with being a full-timer,” and the others had laughed.

Gail had privately decided to table any further discussion for her sister, rather than in the office.

Secondly, she was literally the only woman in the office (with the possible exception of the near-mythical Support) who didn’t wear skirts and high-heeled boots. A month into the job it was plain that the others all had plenty of choice, too; Betty in particular looked like a fashion plate most of the time, and the variety of outfits she wore meant she’d clearly spent plenty to have the options.

Being a junior partner clearly paid well.

Lastly, there were only a handful of men in an organisation of forty-some people. They seemed to be pretty cheerful, but Gail had definitely seen Herman, the head of Collections, having a bad time at work, which had prompted her to wonder more about what was going on.

She had eventually reached the only possible conclusion, which was that Doctor Adams was running some kind of experiment on her staff, for reasons Gail couldn’t entirely understand.

One Saturday, as she and her sister relaxed at home, passing time until Laura’s boyfriend came to pick her up and Gail could have the house to herself, she decided it was time to ask the question that was uppermost on her mind.

“Okay,” she said. “Hypothetical time.”

Laura put down her magazine and looked up, curious.

“Imagine you’re offered a job, and they tell you hey, we’re experimenting on our workforce. We won’t tell you what we’re doing or how, but we will tell you we’re going to make you happier while you work than you ever have been anywhere else. Would you do it?”

“God, no,” Laura said. “That’s creepy shit and the usual management bull, worse than ever.”

Gail nodded. “Change the hypothetical,” she said. “This time you’ve got reason to believe the staff actually are happier when they’re on shift than anywhere else.”

That made for a longer silence. Her sister was turning the idea over; if it was anything like the times they’d played hypothetical before, Laura was probably also trying to work out what her sister’s motivation was for asking the question.

“So they’re experimenting on people to make them happier,” she said. “Is this drugs?”

“In this hypothetical, you don’t have that information.”

“Do I know if it’s some weird cult thing?” Laura paused and looked at Gail. “Is this an MLM?”

Gail laughed and shook her head. “You know it’s not an MLM. Everything else is unclear.”

“Will they at least tell me what the experiments are for?”

“Nope.”

Laura sat there for a while, mulling the problem over. “See,” she said at last, “the problem is, how do you know there’s no side effects?”

Gail thought about the skirts. Thought about how each of the female staff had clearly given a lot of thought to how to best show off whatever was attractive about the legs. Even Doctor Adams, who must surely be overseeing the whole thing, loved those split-leg skirts so as she went by you could almost imagine you’d seen the colour of her underwear.

“Yeah,” she said.

“If there’s no side effects, and it’s real, and none of it’s faking, and I could be 100% sure of all of that before I signed up to anything,” Laura said, “then honestly, I think I’d be tempted. I don’t know if I’d actually give in, though. Because you’re never 100% sure, are you?”

“Right.”

“Like, you think you are. And then before you know it it’s 99%. And then 95. And pretty soon it’s eighty and it just drops from there.

“I can’t see how I’d actually be that happy with that much uncertainty hanging over me.”

Gail nodded. It was a good point, and she certainly didn’t have a counter-argument.

“Yeah.”

“So I’d get out - oh, wait. In this hypothetical, do I have another job lined up?”

“Uh - you haven’t even started looking.” Gail realised suddenly that if Doctor Adams had (presumably) already started this experiment, she should probably have been doing that herself. Was this hypothetical experiment the reason she hadn’t?

It didn’t seem necessary, she was more than disorganised enough to forget on her own. But the idea it might have been imposed by someone else worried her.

“Well, if I don’t have anything else lined up, I don’t think I have much choice. But I’d let people know, and I’d start the job hunt.”

Gail should have told her there and then, but she felt too embarrassed to admit this absurd hypothetical was drawn from life.

*

The more she thought about it, the sillier she felt to worry.

There wasn’t anything Doctor Adams was doing, for one thing. They exchanged greetings most days, but not more than that.

Gail didn’t think anything could risk being done in the reception area, where not only patients but anyone who was travelling with them waited. There wasn’t any weird gadgets around her computer. The phone rarely rang, and the line was always clear as a bell.

She’d narrowed it down to the point where the only risk was the coffee - drugged or something? Doctor Adams probably had access to mind-altering drugs for her patients - but some quick online research suggested you could definitely taste anything that was actually effective, and all she tasted was cheap instant coffee. She very much doubted it would drown anything out.

*

And so life went on for a while, until Gail’s birthday weekend, when she was far too busy partying to do her laundry.

By this stage she’d been able to more or less bury the oddity of the dress code (skirt code, as she thought of it) at work, except for two or three minutes in the morning while she was dressing. Whatever was going on, there was no way Doctor Adams was doing anything; besides, she’d been there nearly three months at this point and she’d been watching herself closely, and she was confident she was every bit the woman she’d been before she started at the Clinic.

She just didn’t have any suitable trousers for the day. Her sister having left for her own job already, she even ransacked Laura’s wardrobe, figuring anything that just nearly fitted would be good enough - but no joy.

She was halfway into the one good formal skirt she had before it dawned on her what she was doing.

For a moment she contemplated phoning in sick, but too many of the staff knew she’d had a party at the weekend; nobody would believe she was ill, they’d just think she was hung over.

She just had to bite the bullet.

She didn’t really have time to make any other decisions, she was running late enough as it was when she laid hands on the skirt. She stepped into the first shoes to match and hurried out.

At least, she told herself, it wasn’t a skirt and boots combo. That was what she’d been told to avoid.

She thought she’d braced herself for the looks she’d get when she walked into reception in a skirt. In actual fact, both Betty and Diana (who favoured hoop skirts, ankle boots, and sheer tights beneath baggy sweaters that invited the male visitors to the Clinic to wonder at the curves concealed beneath) glanced over as she pushed open the door casually - but one at a time they did a double-take, and they were both turning back to move toward her almost immediately.

Diana was holding her coffee cup; Betty, however, had set hers down mid-pour. The urgency in their body language seemed completely out of all context.

Gail’s walk toward her desk faltered, but one at a time, Diana and Betty halted, just a little before her. She caught each of them in turn glancing down, each of them in turn seeing that while the shoes had heels, they could in no way be considered boots.

And moments later, the two of them were all smiles again, as warm as they had been while wishing her happy birthday for the weekend on the Friday.

Gail had no idea what was happening there, but she decided not to say anything or ask any questions.

*

It was safe to say that she stewed on that all day. That she remembered the expressions on their faces, over and over, and every time she did, she twitched unhappily, unsettled.

It ate into her evening, where she sat uncomfortably for some time, wondering what would have happened if she’d worn boots with the skirt.

Her colleagues - her friends - had seemed like completely different people in the moments between seeing the skirt and realising she hadn’t - technically - broken the rules. Yet their friendliness afterward had seemed completely genuine.

She’d briefly had the same from Judy when she stood up at the wrong moment, as Judy passed through the room; after that she’d remained seated whenever a co worker was in the room, avoiding anything else.

The unease sat like a weight in her stomach all the way home and into the time beyond. Again and again she asked herself what she was going to do about it. It seemed clear that she had to do something.

By the time she went to bed her mood had resolved into a simmering, unquiet anger. Laid out by her chair for easy access the next morning was one of her usual white blouses, a pastel green pleated skirt she’d taken from Laura’s wardrobe, and a pair of black, high heeled calf-length boots.

The worst they could do to her, she reminded herself again, was yell at her, was fire her. And after her scare that day it had become a point of pride; she didn’t want to work somewhere that filled her with that kind of discomfort.

Breaking the skirt code was a kill or cure remedy; either they’d let it slide, and she could move past this, or they’d react aggressively, and either she’d be fired or she’d quit. Either way, by the end of the day the question would be resolved and she’d be moving on with her life.

It was amazing how much easier anger made it to accept the idea of an upcoming job hunt.

*

Anger always lifts in the night, at least somewhat, and so the next morning as she dressed Gail would have to admit she was a little nervous - but not nervous enough to abandon the plan.

All the same, she was late into the office. She paused at her desk, wondering whether she should just man reception and wait, but her heart was already pounding with nerves. She figured the best thing she could do was to get this all over with.

So she picked up her day planner and went through into the main office, beelining for Judy’s desk, trying to decide what question she was going to ask as a pretext if she needed one.

The reaction was immediate; Eric saw her line of approach, then picked up on the skirt and the boots, and even in her peripheral vision she could see him bolt to his feet. He headed for the stationery cupboard. Gail had wondered for a while what the men thought about this, and this confirmed that they knew something was up and didn’t want to have to deal with it.

Elsewhere in the office, head after head popped up. Gail could chart the thought process of each of the women by their face; here is my colleague, with whom I am a close friend - she’s wearing a skirt - those are boots.

Not all of them rose to follow her, but those she’d passed did. Those between her and the door fell into step behind her.

She was trying to keep her focus on Judy - Judy handled HR, after all, she should understand that anything untoward as a result of this was something the company would be liable for, so wouldn’t she keep them in line?

Three women following her wasn’t something she could just ignore, all the same, and her anger had been replaced with a skittish conviction that something had gone wrong, had gone very wrong, by the time she reached Judy’s desk.

The odd thing was that after Judy saw the boots, the brief anger in her face from seeing the skirt was gone. Her expression had become unreadable. No, not unreadable - neutral. A resting blank face, with no animation, no spark, to the features.

The only confirmation of personality and initiative was in her eyes.

Judy shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that, Gail,” she said.

“You all wear them!” Gail retorted hotly. It was amazing how much fear could turn into anger once you gave it a window. Hadn’t she managed to do that twice now in the last half an hour?

“Yes,” Judy said. Her voice wasn’t quite flat. Was that regret that tinged her tone? “We all do.”

The three behind her acted as one. Jasmine grabbed Gail’s left arm, holding it tight in both of her own, at the exact same time that Trisha grabbed her right.

Between them, Emi planted her hands on Gail’s shoulderblades and brought what little weight she had to bear into play, and combined with the others, Gail found herself wrenched and bent forward until she was pressed down on the desk.

She had enough time to think this is it, I’m done for, Doctor Adams has brainwashed these women somehow before Judy whisked that thick pen that Support had given all the permanent workers out of her pen caddy with one hand and took hold of Gail’s blonde hair just above her neck with the other.

The side of her face pressed into the desk, Gail glowered up with one eye, watching as Judy rose. “I’m sorry about this,” Judy said. “We warned you.”

“Whatever’s happening,” Gail gritted out, “you don’t have to do this.”

“That’s what you don’t understand,” Jasmine told her, and there was a genuine sympathy in her voice even as she kept up pressure on Gail’s shoulder to ground her. “We do. We’ve had to since you walked in here in that outfit.”

“Whatever Doctor Adams is-“

Emi let out a startled guffaw, so loud she relaxed her pressure on Gail’s body. If it hadn’t been for the others, Gail could have escaped, but Judy pulled her hair away from the base of her neck, planted that thick black pen against it, and pushed the red button at the top.

Like all pens, it clicked. Unlike any other pen, it stung; the thing that emerged from it jabbed into her, some of it pushing deep enough to touch bone. Gail yelled, but nobody answered. She drew in breath and yelled again, but the sound abruptly stopped before she intended to.

Puzzled, she blinked; after the blink her vision seemed affected somehow, a thin, not-quite silvery layer clung to everything she could see.

A small red square appeared in the bottom left of her vision, then began to grow to the side, like a progress bar on a computer installing-

“What have you done to me?” she asked.

Judy dropped the spent injector into her bin and sat down; Emi, Jasmine, and Trisha released her, all at once.

Gail hadn’t realised how much adrenaline was pouring through her until she had nothing to struggle against; suddenly weak in the knees, she slid backward, and Jasmine was kind enough to guide her into the guest seat across from Judy’s desk.

“It’s better if you don’t think of it as us doing it,” Judy said. “And you won’t, soon.” She flashed Gail a smile, just as honest and loving and genuine as all the rest, and Emi patted her twice on the shoulder reassuringly before drifting back to her desk. As usual, Emi seemed to be testing the definition of the word ‘dress’ through finding out how little material a garment could contain before it became an overlarge belt.

“I’ll get her a coffee,” Trisha said, and her voice was sweet and friendly and cheerful. Gail had never heard an unkind word from Trisha, who doted on her children and seemed to consider the office staff an extension of that.

Jasmine stooped and wrapped an arm around Gail, hugging her, and planted a kiss on her cheek. “You’re properly one of the family now,” she said warmly. “I hoped you would be, even if I wanted you to get away.”

“None of this makes sense,” Gail protested, but her protesting was weak; the red square was growing into a thick red line now, extending further across the base of her field of vision, and with it had come a wave of pleasure from up and down her body; tingles of erotic sensation coming in from all across her, one area at a time, like a switchboard testing each connection.

She lifted a hand, slipped it under her short blonde hair, and touched where she’d been jabbed; there was a flat plastic circle there now, and around it a small metallic rim that was firmly flush against her skin.

“What do you mean, don’t think of it as you doing it?” Gail demanded. “You did it, the four of you.” She was getting louder with every word, a fury in her voice. “While everyone else here sat and watched, might-“

The words “I add” were shaped by her mouth to finish the sentence, but they didn’t emerge; she swallowed, suddenly nervous, especially after her scream had choked off too. She cleared her throat; she could heard that, at least.”

“We were all doing what we had to,” Judy said, and her voice was gentle and friendly, the same way it had been when she was explaining the skirt rule in the first place. “Have you ever thought about that phrase?”

“What?”

“’I had to’. I’ve thought about it a lot, the past couple of years.” Her tone was still light, but it was clear she took this idea seriously.

“Most of the time if someone says they ‘had to’ do something, they just mean they were really tempted and they treated themselves. And I worry that when I say I had to chip you, you’re thinking that’s what I mean. But really, they should say ‘I wanted to’ do whatever.

“We had to chip you, Gail.” She turned her head, took a hold of her bright red ponytail, and drew it up; Gail could see a plastic disc with a metal rim set into her skin, and knew that her own must look like that. “The rules this has given us say, if someone working here wears a skirt of any kind, or a dress, and they wear high-heeled boots, then they must be chipped.

“They say, if we see someone wearing one of the two, verify for the other, then act. There isn’t exactly wiggle room; if you meet the chip criteria, we have to act.

“We had to chip you. So don’t think of us as doing it, Gail. We’re chipped, you and I. And that makes us peripherals.

“You can’t blame a mouse for deleting your spreadsheet, so don’t blame me for chipping you.”

She smiled, that honest, open, friendly smile, and with her installation bar almost halfway across her field of vision, Gail realised she was smiling back in the same way and - which might be worse - that she wanted to.

“So you were trying to warn me?”

“Kind of, yeah. Except we can’t speak about it. And that’s the same kind of ‘can’t’ as the ‘had to’.”

Gail nodded slowly. When Trisha put a coffee mug into her hand, she looked up and smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

“No hard feelings?” Trisha asked.

“None whatsoever,” Gail assured her, and she meant it.

Turning her attention to Judy she asked “So… why does Doctor Adams do this?”

Judy laughed. “Oh - you were serious when you said that?”

“Well, yeah.” She felt the flush spread across her face. The pleasure signals were no longer coming from isolated spots one at a time; instead they were pulsating through her, waves running from the top of her head to her pussy and simultaneously from the tips of her toes to the same place.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought that might be permanent.

“Who is it, then?”

Judy just smiled and said “You’re about to find out.”

The red bar had evidently reached as far as it was going. Gail found herself rising and walking toward the Clinic’s back rooms.

She knew the route, even if she’d never been through that part of the Clinic before.

She stopped just outside the room with the sign labelled SUPPORT, and she found herself straightening to attention.

She didn’t knock. Didn’t speak. Didn’t do anything to make herself known.

A moment later, there was a deep electronic whirr for a second and the door swung open. Gail walked in and turned to close it behind her, then turned again and straightened back to attention.

When she took in the scene in front of her, her eyes widened. It was a neat enough little IT operative’s den, mostly; more desks than they needed, some of them covered in computer parts and tools; a couple of old tower computers with several monitors plugged in, including two huge wall mounted ones.

What really drew the eye, though, was Doctor Adams, who was lying on her back across one of the desks, her long skirt splayed about from the slit, her legs up almost vertically except that they were spread a little, the stiletto tips of her shiny black heels glinting in the overhead light, as a member of staff Gail had never met before, his trousers down around his ankles, was fucking her.

Gail continued to stand at attention. She had to. The waves of pleasure the chip was stimulating her with continued to wash over, never quite permitting her to cum for herself.

The combination of taking in the sight of this man fucking her boss and the pleasure the chip bombarded her with swam in her head meant Gail quickly found herself imagining herself in her boss’ position. How often was she taken advantage of like this? Was she enjoying it? With the chip, surely…

Doctor Adams readjusted slightly, crossing her legs at the ankle behind the man’s head, which caused him to shift his own stance. Now he wasn’t just fucking her over the table, he was bearing down into her arched back as she humped back against him. She was gripping the table edge hard to let herself do as much as she could, Gail realised.

Her mouth was dry, and she felt every thrust as if it were done to her; when the stranger reached out and slipped his hand inside Doctor Adams’ open blouse to grope her, Gail’s own hand reached up to grope herself in helpless, lust-addled mimicry.

He sagged against (presumably) his boss at length and Gail knew he was cumming; a moment later she could tell, because Doctor Adams started to cum too, and in her mind it was now suddenly clear that the chipped came when someone else came using them.

He stepped back and took a seat, cock still out at half-mast, and turned his attention to Gail’s almost motionless form. Doctor Adams, meanwhile, collected herself slowly, then stood and put her clothing back in order (though her panties remained on the desk next to where she’d lain).

“Oh, Gail,” she said brightly. “So glad you’re joining us…”

Gail received another kiss on the cheek as Doctor Adams left, saying “Thank you again, sir,” over her shoulder as she did.

And then she was alone with the man who was clearly the architect of all this.