Ray Pepper had mixed feelings about losing his job. On the one hand, he was now out of work, with bills to pay and very little buffer in his bank account; on the other, he was finally free of his neurotic, despotic, some would say psychotic boss Ursula. It was with a sense of relief that he left the building for the last time, but as he drove home, worry began to gnaw at him.
Over the next two weeks, an intensive job hunt yielded just three interviews, none of which turned into offers. On an impulse, he reached out to his old university friend Leigh Paterson, with whom he had recently reconnected on Facebook. ‘Know of any job opportunities for a financial analyst?’ he wrote to her.
To his surprise, she wrote back with a hopeful ‘Maybe!’ And two days later, he was sitting down nervously to an interview with Carl Sumner, the Finance Director of Leigh’s company, Ballard Foods, Inc. Afterwards, he felt quite good about how he had presented himself, but he tried not to get his hopes up too high.
A second interview followed, and then came a job offer, which he eagerly accepted. The next Monday, he arrived at his new job fifteen minutes early, and sought out the Human Resources Manager, to whom he had been instructed to report. After a two-hour orientation, he was shown to his desk, which was situated in one of almost a hundred identical cubicles. He had never worked in a cube farm before – but then, he had never worked for a company as large as Ballard Foods before.
He had only just logged in when he felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked up to see the smiling face of his old university friend, Leigh. “Congratulations!” she said. “Welcome to the company!”
He stood up, and gave her a hug. “I can’t thank you enough!” he said. “But I’ll try: thank you thank you thank you…”
She laughed, and swatted his arm. “You’re welcome!” she said. “Just make sure you live up to my glowing recommendation.”
“I will,” Ray promised, snapping his eyes away from her white blouse, through which her bra was faintly showing.
‘Damn!’ he thought to himself as he sat back down and started customizing his desktop. ‘Control yourself, Ray! She’s a married woman!’ In truth, it did not matter that Leigh was married – he had no intention of pursuing her. But he was, and had always been, an incorrigible voyeur, eager and excited for any sight, however brief, of something he was not supposed to see. A stocking top, or a hint of bra, or (best of all) a glimpse of panties between carelessly-crossed legs … these things could all make his day, or week, or month even. His all-time favourite memory was of a woman in a shoe store when he was fifteen. She had been wearing a long summer dress, and had been trying on a pair of knee-length boots. She had lifted her dress up around her thighs to see how the boots looked with her legs, and for at least two minutes had turned this way and that in front of the mirror, checking herself out. While doing so, she had inadvertently lifted her dress a little too high, and for ten seconds or more, an ecstatic young Ray had been treated to a sensational view of her pretty pink panties.
Ray sighed. His single status did not help matters. But even when he had been in relationships, he had been unable to keep himself from looking eagerly in the direction of any woman who looked like she might be about to unintentionally show something. It had been a big problem for his most recent girlfriend, Dana, and had probably contributed to her leaving him.
It looked like the male-to-female ratio of this office was roughly fifty-fifty, so there would probably be plenty of voyeuristic opportunities. But this was a new job, and he needed it badly, so he resolved to try to keep his eyes off women’s chests, bottoms, and legs as much as possible.
Two days later, after several training sessions, he was put to work on a stack of unpaid invoices, which he began to work through with speed and diligence. He was determined to impress Carl, whom he liked infinitely better than his previous boss. While on the phone with an accounts payable clerk at one of Ballard’s customers, he received an instant message from Leigh: ‘want some cake?’
“Thanks Rhonda, you’ve been most helpful,” he said, and he put the phone down and scribbled a note on his pad. Then he typed in response to Leigh: ‘Sure! What’s the occasion?’
‘Nate’s birthday’ was Leigh’s reply.
Leigh’s desk was in the next-but-one aisle. Ray got to his feet and made his way there, smiling and nodding on the way at an attractive young woman, who smiled in response and said, “Hi, new guy!”
Ray laughed. “The name’s Ray,” he said.
“I’m Lynsey,” she said, extending her hand, which he shook politely.
“Nice to meet you, Lynsey,” said Ray. “Are you coming to have cake? Apparently it’s Nate’s birthday … whoever Nate is.”
She grinned. “Already had some, thanks. Well, see you around, Ray.”
Ray smiled as he continued on towards Leigh’s desk. Lynsey seemed like a nice woman – short, pretty, and with a lovely smile. Shame her skirt was so long, but still – it was a skirt! Too many women seemed to wear trousers in this office…
“Hi Leigh,” he said, leaning over the wall of her cubicle.
On the phone, Leigh turned around and waved. Then she pointed past Ray, at the cubicle across the aisle from hers. Ray looked where she was pointing, and saw a man sitting in the cubicle next to a half-eaten cake. The plaque on the outside wall of the cubicle read ‘Nathan Meyer’.
Ray was about to walk across the aisle to introduce himself, when a young woman walked past, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. She was short, and slightly plump, with glossy dark hair that fell to her shoulder-blades. Her face was moderately attractive – not in Lynsey’s league, but pleasant enough to look at – and her breasts, though well-hidden under a t-shirt with a blouse on top, were clearly on the large side.
But what took Ray’s breath away was the incredible shortness of her skirt. As she walked down the aisle away from him, he stared in awe at her bottom, which was only just concealed. In fact, he almost thought he could see a hint of buttock peeping beneath her hemline. Maybe it was just his imagination.
He turned back to Leigh, who was just putting down her phone. “Who was that?” he asked in a reverent whisper.
“Who? I didn’t see,” said Leigh.
“A dark-haired girl in the shortest skirt I think I’ve ever seen!” he replied.
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Oh, you mean Claudia. Claudia Barnes – she works in the customer service department. Don’t even think about it, Ray – she’s not good enough for you.”
“But she’s … amazing!” said Ray, still wide-eyed.
Leigh shook her head. “Ray, she’s awful. Seriously, just forget about her.”
“What’s so awful about her?” he inquired.
Leigh hesitated, then she said in a low voice, “She … eats her poop.”
Ray stared at her, thinking he must have misheard. “What?” he said.
“She eats her poop!” repeated Leigh. “Seriously!”
“I can’t believe that!” retorted Ray. “How would you know that?”
“Because she does it here, in the office!” said Leigh. “Everyone’s seen her doing it!”
“I … still don’t believe it,” said Ray, shaking his head. “That’s just too ridiculous for words! If she does that, why don’t people complain? I can’t imagine I’d last very long here if I started eating my poop in front of everyone!”
“You wouldn’t,” said Leigh. “But then again, you haven’t slept with the CEO.”
Ray’s jaw dropped. “She did that? How do you know?”
“Well that part’s just a theory,” admitted Leigh. “But he did take her out to dinner a couple of times, when she first started here. Pretty much everyone assumes they went to bed together.”
“And so now everyone’s afraid to complain?” asked Ray, still puzzled.
“Heck no – loads of people have complained,” said Leigh. “Doesn’t do any good though – from what I can gather, she sometimes gets a warning from Harvey, but it never goes any further than that. For the same reason, we assume, she gets away with wearing those slutty microskirts.”
“Maybe she’s slept with Harvey too,” suggested Ray with a chuckle.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Leigh, with another roll of the eyes. “Oh – there’s my phone. Go and have your cake – I’ll talk to you later.”
Ray went over to Nate’s cubicle. “Hi!” he said. “I’m Ray.”
“Good to meetcha, Ray,” said Nate, extending his hand.
Ray shook it. “Happy Birthday,” he said. “Leigh invited me over for cake – I hope that’s all right.”
“Sure!” said Nate. “Help yourself – there’s plenty.”
As Ray walked back to his desk, he tried to get his head around the concept of a woman who brazenly ate her own faeces in full view of her colleagues. It was a disgusting image … and yet he found himself burning with curiosity, and with a desire to see it for himself. How did she do it? Did she take a plate with her into the restroom, and come out with a big fat turd on it, which she took back to her desk and ate? Or did she lift up that tiny skirt of hers and squat over a plate … or what?
A nonchalant wander around the office soon revealed the location of Claudia’s cubicle. She worked in a short aisle in which three of the six cubicles were currently unoccupied. The cubicle opposite Claudia was one of them – if only he had been stationed there!
Then he noticed something in the next cubicle – the one diagonally opposite Claudia’s. It was occupied by a man named Bernie Ford, and his interests seemed to be somewhat aligned with Ray’s own. “Hi!” he said, pausing at the entrance to Bernie’s cubicle.
Bernie, a bespectacled, nerdy-looking man in his late forties, swivelled his chair around. “Yes? Hello!” he said.
“I’m Ray,” said Ray. “I’m new here.”
“I’m Bernie,” said Bernie. He did not offer his hand. “What can I do you for, Ray?”
Ray smiled. “I couldn’t help noticing your Firefly poster. Man, I love that show!”
“Greatest show in the known universe,” said Bernie, looking quite pleased. “And I say that as a die-hard trekker!”
“A trekker too?” said Ray. “Picard or Kirk?”
“That’s a tough one,” said Bernie, “but I’ll go with Kirk.”
Ray chuckled. “I’m a Picard fan myself,” he said, “but on balance I think I prefer the crew of the original series.”
Bernie, it appeared, was quite willing to let his phone ring unanswered while he discussed all things Star Trek. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, Ray kept stealing glances back towards Claudia’s desk, but although he could see a delightful amount of her thigh (almost to her hip, in fact), she did not appear to be hungry for poo.
“Well,” he said regretfully, “I need to get back to work. Nice talking with you though, Bernie! I’m glad to have found someone like-minded here.”
“Likewise,” said Bernie. “Drop by anytime.”
Over the next few days, Ray did exactly that. And each time, he kept half an eye on Claudia, to see if she would do any poo-eating. But by the middle of the following week, he was beginning to think Leigh had made the whole thing up.
Early on Thursday afternoon, however, he was just approaching Bernie’s cubicle when he frowned, sniffing the air. There was a distinct smell of poo. As he passed Claudia’s cubicle, he sneaked a look at her desk in the hope of perhaps seeing a plate with a turd on it, or something similar, but he could see nothing.
“Smells a bit round here,” he remarked to Bernie in a low voice.
“That would be her,” said Bernie, jerking a thumb in Claudia’s direction. “I suppose you’ve heard about what she does?”
“I did hear a rumour,” said Ray. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe it, though.”
“Oh, believe it!” said Bernie. “She does it every day, pretty much, or every other day. You’ve just been fortunate so far, not to see it for yourself.”
“Well, I’m kind of curious to see it for myself!” said Ray. “I don’t suppose you could give me a heads-up, could you, one of these days when she’s doing it?”
“Ugh!” said Bernie, shuddering. “At the first sign that she’s about to do it, I go on a break. I can’t stand to see it, or smell it! Unfortunately the smell tends to last longer than my breaks, but it does dissipate eventually.”
“So what does she do?” asked Ray, lowering his voice still further. “Does she bring a turd back from the restroom, or what…?”
“No!” said Bernie. “She does it in her panties, right at her desk. Then she just reaches into her panties, pulls out a chunk, and then … ugh, I can’t even talk about it.”
“Wow,” said Ray, awestruck. More than anything, he wanted to see Claudia do this. “Come on Bernie, I’ve got to see for myself. Couldn’t you just drop me a quick IM next time she does it?”
Bernie shudders again. “Sure, I guess. But I won’t be here when you come running over!”
“Thanks Bernie!” said Ray.
As it happened, it was the next Monday before Ray received an instant message from Bernie which read: ‘She’s doing it again – I’m out of here!’
Ray was on the phone at the time. “Okay,” he said, trying to hurry. “Yes, I can take care of that – just fax me the details and I’ll call you when I find out something. Yes. Okay then. Yes! Goodbye. Yes, you too. Bye.” He put his phone down and walked as quickly as possible in the direction of Claudia’s aisle. It was on the other side of the office, and took about a minute to reach, but as he rounded the corner and marched towards Bernie’s desk, he slowed down to peek into Claudia’s cubicle.
She had a piece of poo in her hand. As he watched in astonishment, she raised the chunk to her mouth, and popped it inside. Then she started to chew. Unfortunately she had her back to Ray, and the back of her chair was in the way, so Ray tried to sidle around to get a look at her bottom.
“Hey – what are you doing?” asked a female voice behind him.
Ray whirled around to see a short, slender woman with blonde hair, steely blue-grey eyes, and a stern expression. She looked about fifty, and Ray guessed that she was Kath Greer, the Customer Service Director. She folded her arms. “Well?”
“Uh – I just came to see Bernie,” said Ray.
“Yes? Well he’s clearly not here. So what are you still doing here?”
Ray glanced at Claudia, who had turned around and was glaring at him. “Nothing!” he said quickly. “I’ll get back to my desk.”
“You do that!” said Kath. “Don’t let me catch you snooping around here again.”
“Shit,” he muttered to himself as he returned to his cubicle. He had blown it – really badly. Now he was going to be watched … not only by Kath, but by Claudia herself, and anyone else that either of them advised to be on the lookout for him. So much for keeping his voyeuristic tendencies under control!
Yet he could not give up. He just HAD to see Claudia poop in her panties, and pull poo out of them. Right now it seemed to him that this would be the most erotic sight of his life, even eclipsing his memory of that woman in the shoe store. But how was he going to see it, now that he had blundered so badly?
Two days later, he was making himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen when Claudia walked in. Today she was dressed comparatively conservatively, wearing an A-line skirt that covered her buttocks with two or three inches to spare. As she approached the sink, he said, “Hi Claudia. How are you today?”
“I’m good,” she said.
“Listen, about the other day,” he said. “I’m sorry…”
“Forget about it,” said Claudia. Her tone did not invite further discussion on the matter.
Ray tried anyway. “Well that’s very nice of you,” he said. “But I can’t help wondering – why do you do it?”
Claudia shrugged. “Just a habit I never grew out of. Some people bite their nails, or eat their boogers. This is just something I did when I was little, and never grew out of it.”
“Oh!” said Ray. “Well for what it’s worth…”
“I don’t want to talk about it any more,” said Claudia.
“Would you come out to dinner with me?” Ray blurted out.
Claudia looked up at him in surprise, as if seeing him for the first time. “Uh, no,” she said. “Thanks anyway.”
“Okay – well, can’t blame a guy for trying,” said Ray, with a slightly forced laugh.
“Uh-huh,” said Claudia, edging away from him slightly.
“Shit,” said Ray to himself, as he went back to his desk.
The next day, he went over to see Bernie, and fortunately Kath did not appear to be around. Even so, he endeavoured to keep his eyes away from Claudia, who had noticed his arrival and did not look very happy about it. Trying to ignore her, Ray chatted cheerfully with Bernie about the upcoming Star Trek movie, Lost, Heroes, Dollhouse, and a few other shows that they were both interested in.
“I’ll be off next week,” Bernie mentioned after a while. “I’m going to Comic-Con.”
“Cool!” said Ray. “Will you be dressing up?”
“Absolutely,” said Bernie. “I’m going as Wedge Antilles this year.”
“Oh nice!” said Ray, impressed. “But you surprise me – I assumed you’d be going as a Trek character.”
“Normally I do,” said Bernie, nodding. “But to be honest, my Wedge Rogue Squadron outfit is a whole lot cooler than my DS9 duty uniform.”
Returning to his desk, Ray stood aside while a trolley carrying a dozen or so large cardboard boxes passed by. Later on, he asked Leigh whether everybody was getting new computers. Leigh replied that she did not know, but that she hoped it was the case – her computer was at least four years old and running painfully slowly.
The following Monday, Ray was checking his email when it occurred to him to wonder why the Credit & Debit shared mailbox was still showing no new messages. Typically the mailbox name would be in bold, with a number next to it indicating the number of new messages, but today it had remained un-bolded since he had arrived. He opened the mailbox anyway, and was startled to see a blank page with a message saying ‘Could not display contents of folder’.
He called the helpdesk, and one of the IT women told him someone would be out shortly to check his settings. Sure enough, about ten minutes later a jeans-clad young woman appeared. “Hi,” she said. “Problem with your shared mailbox?”
“Hi, yes,” said Ray. “Look.”
The woman took a quick look, and nodded. “Yup, as I thought. We installed some new server software over the weekend, and it’s affected some people’s access to shared mailboxes. Don’t worry, I’ll have it fixed in a moment.”
“Cool,” said Ray. “Thanks. Hey, are we getting new computers? I saw a bunch arrive last week.”
“Some people are,” said the woman. “You’re not – this PC is fairly new. We’re also upgrading everyone to seventeen-inch monitors … which you also already have. Sorry, no upgrade for you!”
“Not a problem,” said Ray. “I was just wondering. Hey, what will happen to all those cardboard boxes?”
The woman shrugged. “Flat-packed and sent for recycling I guess,” she said. “Why – do you want some?”
“Well, it’s just that Bernie Ford said last week he was in need of some cardboard boxes,” said Ray, a plan quickly forming in his mind. “Would you mind if I took a few of them off your hands?”
“Be my guest!” said the woman. “You’ll find a whole bunch of them outside the Marzipan conference room.”
“Awesome,” said Ray. “Thanks.”
“There you go – all fixed,” said the woman.
“Thank you again!” said Ray. Once the woman had left, he tapped his chin, mulling over his plan, and refining it.
Half an hour later, he went to the Marzipan conference room and, sure enough, found a large number of cardboard boxes stacked outside. Fortunately they had not yet been flat-packed, though it would not have been a huge problem if they had been. He grabbed a stack of two boxes, and started carrying it towards the customer service department. When he reached Bernie’s aisle, he took the boxes into the empty cubicle next to Bernie’s, and opposite Claudia’s. Then he went back for more.
“What are you doing?” asked Claudia curiously, after the fourth trip.
“Bernie asked me to get him some boxes, once the new computers had been taken out of them,” said Ray. “He has some stuff he’s planning on putting into storage, and these are good boxes. He said it seems a shame to throw them out when they could be put to good use.”
“Oh,” said Claudia, not much interested in this explanation. She turned back to her computer.
Soon the cubicle was almost filled with boxes, and Ray went back to his desk. Having caught up with his latest pile of invoices, he then went over to Carl’s office, and knocked on the door.
“Ray!” said Carl, waving him in. “Come in, come in. How are things going?”
“They’re going great,” said Ray, smiling. “I feel like I’ve settled right in, I’ve made friends here, I’m devouring the workload voraciously … I don’t know – it just feels right.”
“Glad to hear it!” said Carl.
“But I have a bit of a favour to ask,” said Ray, blushing slightly. “I know I haven’t been here long, but I was hoping to take a day off – either tomorrow or Wednesday, whichever is convenient. I had a bit of a plumbing mishap at home this morning, and I really need to get a plumber in as soon as possible.”
“Oh! Well sure, Ray – just make sure that anything urgent will be handled by your colleagues.”
“I certainly will,” said Ray gratefully. “Thank you. If it’s all the same to you, then, I’ll take tomorrow off.”
“Okay – just tell the rest of the team,” said Carl.
Ray did so, and for the rest of the day, he could hardly stop himself from grinning like a Cheshire cat…
Having eaten some dinner at home that evening, Ray gathered some supplies together in a plastic bag, and then went to bed early. At three o’clock in the morning, his alarm went off, and he blearily got out of bed and stumbled through to the bathroom. Half an hour later, he was dressed, breakfasted, and ready for the day’s adventure. He threw his bag into the passenger seat of his car, and drove to the office along silent, deserted streets.
This being late spring, the sky was already beginning to lighten in the east as he parked in the supermarket parking lot, about quarter of a mile from the office. The office parking lot would be more convenient, but he could not afford for his car to be seen there. Walking to the office with his plastic bag, he swiped his card, waited for the click as the door unlocked, and then he entered.
The office was dark, of course, and he did not dare to switch on any of the main lights. But he pulled a narrow-beam flashlight out of his bag and, with its help, made his way to the cubicle that he had filled with boxes. Borrowing Bernie’s desk lamp, he began to work with feverish speed, cutting the sides off some boxes, and the tops off others, and sticking boxes together with yards of tape. He cut holes, tore off strips, sealed gaps, and made long, rigid platforms out of multiple sheets of cardboard stuck together with glue.
By five-thirty in the morning, he was done. While to outward appearances, the cubicle still contained a stack of empty cardboard boxes, behind the façade was a very different story. Ray had hollowed out a large area for himself to hide in, with a trapdoor on top by which to let himself in and out. He had also, under the cover of an overhang, cut two small holes for his eyes. A third hole, a few inches to the right of these, were for his video camera, which he had set up on a little tripod.
Climbing carefully out of his hide, Ray lifted Bernie’s lamp over the wall, and set it back down on his friend’s desk. Then he hoisted himself over the wall, jumped down into Bernie’s cubicle, then trotted quickly to the restroom. The ideal time to relieve his bladder would of course be five minutes before the arrival of the first person to reach the office this morning, but he did not know when that would be, and did not want to take any chances.
Returning to Bernie’s cubicle, he climbed over the wall and back into his trapdoor, which he then shut carefully above him. Then, leaning on a cushion that he had brought with him, he simply sat, and waited.
An hour passed. It seemed like the longest hour of his life. He wished he had thought to bring a book, or some other form of entertainment. He was also starting to get uncomfortable. A second cushion now seemed like another excellent idea that he should have thought of before.
Another forty minutes passed. He had found a reasonably comfortable position by now, and was actually starting to doze off, with his head in the crook of his arm and his cushion beneath his side. But then he heard a sound, and was instantly wide awake. It was the main door opening, and then closing. He thought he heard soft footsteps. But then, nothing.
Straining his ears, Ray waited for more sounds, but they never came. Whoever had entered the building had probably gone to their desk and was now working away quietly. Ray laid his head back down on his elbow, and closed his eyes. Then he snapped them open with a sense of horror. He had forgotten to switch off Bernie’s desk lamp! Opening up his trapdoor, he looked around wide-eyed, but could see nobody. Reaching quickly over the cubicle wall, he switched off the lamp, and then retreated back into his hide, closing the trapdoor behind him.
About fifteen minutes later, the door opened and closed again. This time, footsteps passed by quite close to him – perhaps in the next aisle. Ray froze, keeping quite still, and the footsteps faded away. Then the main office lights came on, and for a moment Ray panicked, as his dark world turned suddenly bright. But he forced himself to calm down – he was still safely concealed behind his boxes.
After that, the sounds of the front door opening and closing came more frequently. By quarter to eight, he was also hearing voices, and occasionally laughter. He started his video camera going, and peered through his eye-holes at Claudia’s cubicle across the aisle. Then he experienced a moment’s panic. What if she was not in today? Or what if she was, uncharacteristically, wearing trousers? Or what if she simply decided not to poop at work today? Bernie had said, after all, that sometimes she only pooped at work every other day.
At five to eight, a pair of bare legs walked in front of him and into Claudia’s cubicle, appearing so suddenly that he almost blinked and missed the event. His heart leaped as he saw that she was wearing one of her shortest skirts. From this angle, he had even managed to catch a glimpse of her white panties before she entered her cubicle, and he saw them again as she sat down.
Watching Claudia sitting at her desk was entertaining at first, since he could see pretty much all of her right thigh, up to her hip, and every time she leaned forward, a little of the back of her panties would be exposed beneath her ridiculously high hemline. But after half an hour of this, Ray found himself getting rather bored. He desperately hoped that she would poop in her panties today, but he was not sure how he was going to survive for the whole day in this cramped spot, even if she did.
Already he was getting desperate for the toilet again. Moving very slowly, he picked up one of three empty bottles he had brought along for this purpose, and then, equally slowly, he unzipped himself. The sound of urine trickling into the bottle panicked him so much that he clenched up and stopped. Then, carefully directing his aim at the side of the bottle, he began to slowly release more urine, and managed to empty his bladder without much additional noise. Then he screwed the cap on tightly, and set it down in the corner.
Peering back out of his eye-holes, he saw that Claudia was nowhere to be seen – she had left her desk. Crap! What if she had pooped herself, eaten some of it, and then gone to clean up? But surely there had not been time…?
Two minutes later, she returned, and he caught another glimpse of her panties. This was good stuff! He hoped it would come out well on the video. As she sat down, he saw her put a mug on her desk, and realised that she had just been to the kitchen to make herself some tea or coffee.
One of Claudia’s colleagues, and apparently a good friend, judging by the ensuing conversation, stopped by her desk at about twenty past nine. Here, frustratingly, Claudia turned directly towards Ray, and he felt that he would have had a beautiful view up her skirt if only her friend had not been standing in the way! Seven or eight minutes later, the friend departed, but Claudia had already swivelled her legs back beneath her desk. Damn!
At ten o’clock, Claudia got up and treated Ray to his best-yet look at her panties before she tugged her skirt down and walked off down the aisle. He waited for her to return, but as the minutes ticked past, he started to wonder if perhaps she had gone to a meeting. Lying down, he closed his eyes and waited, listening for the sound of her footsteps returning. But this sound did not come, and did not come … and he began to doze…
He was awakened by the sound of voices. In a panic, he realised he had been asleep, and he desperately hoped that he had not been snoring. But then a chill ran down his spine as he began to listen to the conversation happening in the aisle next to him.
“I don’t know what they’re doing there – I certainly didn’t put them there.”
“Well somebody must have! Though I can’t imagine why. Anyway it’s quite an eyesore – I’d like you to take them out and put them with the others. The recycling people will be coming this evening – I don’t want these to get missed.”
“But what if they were put here by someone who really needed some cardboard boxes?”
“Like who? There’s no note on them or anything. It wasn’t Bernie – he’s off all week. And Dean says it wasn’t him.”
“All right, I’ll get them moved.”
“Thank you!”
Ray’s hair was standing on end by this point. Wide-eyed with fear, he waited for the inevitable exposure that would doom his career at Ballard Foods. But then…
“Oh, those are Bernie’s,” came Claudia’s voice. “That new guy, Ray, put them there for him.”
“Well what does Bernie need with all these boxes?”
“Ray said something about Bernie putting stuff in storage. He said they might as well be put to good use, since they’re good boxes. Better than recycling them anyway.”
“True enough. But ugh, Bernie’s not back until next Monday! I don’t particularly want this eyesore cluttering up my department until then!”
“Maybe you can ask Ray to move them tomorrow. He and Bernie are pretty tight.”
“Perhaps I’ll do that. All right Shane – leave them there for the time being.”
Ray was almost overwhelmed with relief as footsteps departed. He found that he was sweating, and not just from the fright he had had. The air in his cramped little hide was uncomfortably warm – much warmer, he guessed, than the conditioned air circulating through the building. Slowly, carefully, and quietly, he slipped off his sweatshirt, then he folded it up and placed it under his knees, which greatly improved his comfort.
Looking back through his eye-holes, he saw that Claudia was sitting at her desk once more. According to his watch it was almost eleven-thirty – it would not be long before she went out for her lunch break.
He suddenly realised that his digital video tape had long since run out, and, working by feel, he fetched a new tape to replace the old. The whirr of machinery as the old tape ejected sounded alarmingly loud to him, but he suspected that with the muffling effect of the boxes, the sound was unlikely to have carried all the way across the aisle. At any rate, Claudia did not seem to react.
With a new tape in place, Ray resumed watching Claudia work at her desk, but she did not give him any exciting views over the next half hour. Shortly after noon, she got up from her desk, tugged her skirt down, grabbed her purse, and left her cubicle, her bare legs passing just a couple of feet from the stack of boxes. Figuring she would be gone for the next hour, Ray stopped his tape, lay down, and rested for a while.
Awaking suddenly from a dream, his leg shot out straight behind him, and his foot thunked into the side of the cubicle. Coming to his senses, he froze, and waited to see if anyone was coming to investigate the noise. If he had kicked cardboard instead of the cubicle wall, he realised, his job would have come crashing down around him like the boxes of his hide. ‘No more sleeping!’ he told himself.
Fortunately, he seemed to have got away with the noise – apparently nobody was near enough to pay much attention to it. Claudia was still not back from lunch, and the office was relatively quiet. Ray changed position to make himself more comfortable, and checked his watch – it was twenty to one. He was very hungry by now, but fortunately he had brought food in the form of a sandwich and a couple of granola bars. He pulled them out of their respective plastic containers, and ate them as quietly as possible.
Before he had finished his lunch, Claudia returned, fortunately just after Ray had started up his camcorder again. He did not get much of a view of her panties this time, but then he got lucky: Claudia’s boss, Kath, came over to talk to her, and in turning around, Claudia revealed a little white triangle between her legs before clasping her hands unsportingly in her lap.
After Kath’s departure, time seemed to pass dreadfully slowly. Ray began to repeat to himself over and over again, ‘Please poop your panties, please poop your panties, please poop your panties’ … but his words went unheeded.
At twenty past three, Ray was staring through his peepholes with glazed eyes. Nothing remotely interesting had happened since Claudia’s most recent trip to the restroom forty minutes ago. He yawned, and blinked a few times. But then his eyes widened, and he almost gasped. Claudia had just leaned forward and rested her elbows on the edge of her desk. Her skirt was far too short to cover her buttocks in this position, and Ray could see a considerable expanse of her white panties – silk, he was guessing – beneath her hemline. He could also see a fair portion of her buttocks.
Then, to his delight, she leaned forward still further, and he thought he heard her grunt quietly. Even more of her panties was now showing … and then, wonderfully, a lump appeared in the back, just below where Ray guessed that her anus must be. As he watched in silent awe, the lump grew larger, and larger still, as those white panties tented downwards. There was a moment’s pause, and then another lump appeared next to the first. This one grew rapidly, and to a certain extent merged with the first lump, forming a misshapen bulge that kept on growing as the seconds passed.
Hardly daring to take his eyes off the scene unfolding before him, Ray nevertheless did so just long enough to check that his camcorder was getting all of this. Yes it was, he discovered, but Claudia’s panties were looking small and distant on the monitor. He felt carefully for the zoom buttons, and zoomed in until her panties almost filled the screen. Then he returned to his peephole.
The bulge had grown, and was still growing. He heard more grunts, and a new ridge formed along one side of the bulge. Claudia’s right leg-band was detaching from her skin at this point, and as the bulge continued to grow, the gap between her skin and the elastic of her panties grew with it.
Ray pulled out his erection and began to masturbate while he watched. This was beyond his wildest dreams. It was the greatest show on Earth. And he was getting it all on video! Unblinking, he continued to stare through the holes in the cardboard, watching as Claudia’s poo reached the size of a large grapefruit, and a full inch separated her skin from her leg-band. Through the gap he could now clearly see her poo, especially when he looked at the monitor of his camcorder, and zoomed in a little further.
He zoomed back out a bit, to capture the entire bulge as well as Claudia’s skirt and part of her thighs. Then he went back to look through the peepholes, just in time to see her reach down with her hand, and stick her fingers into the gap between her buttock and the leg-band of her panties. With a mixture of disgust, fascination, and sheer lust, Ray watched her pull out a golf ball-sized chunk of poo, and raise it to her mouth. He hastily zoomed out on the camcorder, and unfortunately missed the sight of her actually taking a bite. But he was staring intently at her as she took another bite, and then another, finishing off the chunk of poo.
She reached down again, pushing her fingers into the gap and into her poo once more, and came out with another, slightly smaller chunk of poo. Ray frantically stroked his raging erection while watching her bite into this chunk, but then he stopped and took his hand away from his penis in a desperate attempt to avoid climaxing. He carried on looking through the holes, and noted that Claudia was now licking her fingers clean. Perhaps she had had enough poo.
Indeed, she did not go back for any more, though she squatted in the same position for another five minutes. Then Ray heard her grunting again, and realised that she had not finished emptying her bowels. He saw the bulge grow a little larger, and then heard Claudia sigh with what sounded like relief.
Trouser-clad legs appeared, and stopped. Kath’s voice said, “Oh for heaven’s sake Claudia,” and then the legs turned abruptly about, and marched off.
Ray could now smell Claudia’s poo – it was the most delicious smell he could imagine. Well not really – it smelled like shit – but it was wonderful because of what it meant: that she had pooped her panties right in front of him, and was still there right now, with her beautiful, fully-loaded panties almost completely on display. He breathed in deeply through his nose, savouring the aroma.
Claudia reached back with her hand and cupped her bulging panties with her fingers spread wide apart. Then, to Ray’s delight, she squished the bulge up against her buttocks and anus – not much, but enough for the bulge to spread out a bit. When she removed her hand, Ray could see the indentations in her panties left by her fingers.
Two minutes later, Claudia grabbed her purse and got to her feet. Ray took one last look at her panties, bulging at least three inches beneath the hem of her skirt, and then she walked off out of his view. Feverishly resuming his masturbation, he shuddered as he came into a couple of tissues, brought along with this purpose in mind.
Panting quietly, he smiled to himself as he contemplated reviewing all the footage he had just shot. This, without question, was the most exciting day of his life, despite being (at times) also the most boring. But it was all worth it, and as long as he did not get caught, he would be enjoying the video, as well as the memories, for years to come.
It was only ten minutes or so before Claudia returned to her desk. Ray caught a glimpse of pink panties this time – she had apparently brought a fresh pair with her today. He wondered if she always kept a spare pair of panties in her purse. It would make sense, given her messy habit. She sat down in her chair, and got on with some of her work, as if nothing unusual had happened. Of course, from her point of view, nothing had.
When five o’clock came around, Claudia shut down her computer, got up from her chair, and left her cubicle with purse in hand, giving Ray another all-too-brief look at her panties. But then the adventure was over. Claudia would not be back until the morning, and he had only taken one day off. If only he had asked for two! Then again, perhaps Claudia would not even mess herself tomorrow.
Now was the most boring part of the day. Ray could not afford to take any risks of being caught, but since the company shipped food all over the country, it staffed its office until eight o’clock at night, to cover the office hours of its facilities in other time zones. And since a few workaholics were bound to stay even later than that, Ray had told himself to wait until at least eleven o’clock before emerging from his hide. And that was six hours away!
He did not make it that long. Shortly after nine o’clock, with his back and limbs screaming with intense discomfort, Ray decided to risk it. The lights had been switched off at ten past eight, and he had heard no sounds now for the past half-hour. He slowly pushed open his trapdoor, and stood up. Looking around on all sides, he could see nobody. He stretched, and flexed and extended each of his limbs in turn. Everything still worked, amazingly.
Crouching down, he gathered together his tools and his cushion and his sweatshirt and his lunch containers and his bottles of urine, and put them all into his plastic bag. Then he unplugged the camcorder, took it off the tripod, and packed away both items. Finally he contemplated the boxes. He had not given much thought to how to get rid of the hide, but it occurred to him that to leave it here any longer, in its current condition, would be courting disaster. Yet it was too much to carry in one go, and his car was a long way away.
Creeping through the darkness to the front door of the building, he peered outside, and gulped as he saw two cars still in the parking lot. Two people were still in the building, unless they had got rides with other people, who would be bringing them back in the morning. That was possible, but he could not assume it was the case.
Sneaking out with his bag, he hurried to the road, crossed it, and then walked quickly back towards the supermarket. When he reached his car, he flung the bag into the back seat, then he drove out of the parking lot, back to the office. Parking on the road that ran past the office, he ducked his head down, and watched the front door for the next half-hour in relative comfort.
Then two people emerged. Ray could not see who they were, but they headed straight for the two remaining cars, got into them, and then drove off. Ray waited until they were out of sight, then he switched on his car and drove it into the office parking lot. Backing up to the main entrance, he got out, hurried inside, and dismantled his hide by the light of Bernie’s desk lamp.
It came down much faster than it had been constructed, and took him just two trips to get it all into his car. Driving home, he finally allowed himself to relax. Over a late supper, he plugged his camcorder into his computer, and started to review the footage from the third tape.
It was everything he had hoped for. Not as good as actually being there, of course, but the picture was sharp, and he had captured the growth of the bulge perfectly. He even had some footage of Claudia pulling poo out of her panties and eating it. Once edited, this would make the most erotic video ever! Heading to bed, he fell asleep with a huge smile on his face…
The next morning, he went back to work, and sat down to check his emails. “Welcome back!” said a female voice behind him.
He turned around, and saw his colleague Norma standing there. “Hi Norma,” he said. “What have you got for me?”
“Just some more invoices,” she said cheerfully. “Have fun!”
“Thanks,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m sure I will.”
He was halfway through them when another voice broke his concentration. He spun his chair around, and was surprised to see Claudia standing at the entrance to his cubicle. Today she was wearing a slightly longer skirt than yesterday, but she still looked very sexy.
“Is this yours?” Claudia inquired, holding up Ray’s flashlight. “I found it in Bernie’s cubicle.”
“Oh! Yes it is!” said Ray, reaching out for it. “I was showing it to Bernie the other day – I must have left it there by mistake. Thanks.” Then he frowned in puzzlement. “But how did you know…”
Claudia smirked as she handed him the flashlight. “You snore,” she said. “Not loudly, but you snore.” And she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Ray flabbergasted in her wake.