Joe looked over at Molly sitting opposite him in their little office.  He was unhappy.  Despite everything, despite all the pressure she had put on him to get him to take her away on his business trips, despite all her teasing about his nude modelling session, despite the silly games she had made him play which had ended up last time with him being found stripped naked in the hotel lobby by her three girl friends, he still like working with Molly.  After all that hadn't been her fault.  And now it looked like it might all end.  He had been summoned to the Human Resource office that morning and told about the company restructuring.  Times weren't so good, cutbacks had to be made.  It was no longer thought necessary or cost effective for all the management to have their own secretary.  The number of secretaries was to be halved, Molly was to be made redundant and Joe was to share Mrs MacTavish with the head of finance.  Somehow Joe didn't think Mrs MacTavish was going to be much fun.  He was going to miss Molly.  He was going to miss her in the office, and heaven help him, he was going to miss their silly games when she went abroad with him.  And now he was going to have to tell her.

Joe wasn't allowed to say anything until the afternoon when the news was to be officially broken.  But she knew anyway.   Everyone knew redundancies were in the offing and Molly could tell from the look on his face that she would be included.  He'd been a bad boy.  He hadn't fought for her. He hadn't kept her her job.  She was disappointed.  Not because of losing the job. She could get another easily enough, but she had come to enjoy their little games so much.  She'd never felt excitement like that before and now it would be over.  And it was his fault.  

But maybe there was one last chance.  A chance for one further game.  One further bit of excitement and a penance to pay by Joe for not saving her job.  No - more than a penance, a punishment.  He'd been a bad, bad boy.  The germ of a plan started to form in her mind.

She wouldn't have to leave until the end of the year.  That meant she would be going to the Christmas Party, and Joe would be going to the Christmas Party.  That was where he would pay his penance and suffer his punishment  He would have to be made to do it of course, and it would take a very special inducement, but she had just the inducement it needed in mind.

One of Molly's last tasks in the department was to finish off the department intranet site.  Quality documentation wasn't the most interesting thing to make an intranet site about, indeed it was probably about the most boring thing, but Molly put in something that would make it very, very interesting indeed.

The days ticked by and Molly seemed to be working industriously.  Joe was surprised at how well she was taking it.  There had been no comments about pictures, no teases about sending round Man of the Month portraits.  Joe thought that all that must be over now.

But then the day of the party dawned.  It was held in a local hotel, a dinner, followed by a dance, presentation of prizes and free drink.  By the end of the evening it usually got fairly wild.  Everyone looked forwards to it, except perhaps Joe.  He wasn't really a dinner, dance and free drinks person.  He wasn't good at socialising.  He went because it was expected of him, that was it.

Molly looked over at him.  Her plan had been prepared.

"What costume will you be wearing tonight?"

"I never wear a costume, you know that"

"But it's fancy dress.  You must wear a costume.  The theme is `classic movies, everybody will be dressed as Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacal"

"What are you going as?" asked Joe

"Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz", said Molly

"Well I'm going as me", said Joe

"I've got a costume for you", said Molly

"Well I'm not wearing it", said Joe

Molly sighed.  He was being a bad boy again.  He would have to be taught a lesson.  She put the finishing touches to the intranet site.

"Why don't you have a look at the intranet site", she said

Joe breathed a sigh of relief.  She'd changed the subject.  He brought up the site.  It contained all the usual rubbish about the services offered by the department, and, as ever, at the end there was a list of the people in the department.  You could click on each person's name and get up their contact details.  The secretary was down as Mrs MacTavish.  Joe clicked on her name.  Her picture and her contact details came up.  He sighed; she was going to be no fun at all.

"Click on your name", said Molly.

Joe hovered the mouse pointer over his name and clicked.  Then he stared in shock and horror at what appeared.  Instead of bringing up his contact details it was a link to an external website.  He turned white when he saw what the site was called - `ratemydick.com'.  And there on the screen for all to see was one of the dreaded pictures.  The one he was most embarrassed about. It showed him standing in profile, his penis rigid, and an embarrassed grin on his face.  It was one that Pauline had been particularly pleased to get, and one which Joe was mortified to pose for.  But worse still, Molly had been busy with Photoshop again.  His penis had been manipulated, enlarged, so that instead of its usual handsome seven inches it looked about ten inches.  The work had been done scrupulously.  Nobody would have known that it wasn't real.  Under the picture was a box where the viewer could rate the item in question on a scale of one to ten.  Joe had already had 128 votes with a score of 9.6.

Joe felt his mouth go dry and he could hardly croak out the question.

"When does this site go live?"

"Oh, about two minutes ago"

"What!"

"When you refused to wear my costume.  That was being a bad boy, and you know bad boys get punished"

"Take it down, My God, take it down", said Joe, "I'll wear the costume, any costume, just take it down"

"I can't do it till tomorrow now", Molly lied, "but if you wear the costume tonight, then I'll put it right tomorrow.  I wouldn't worry too much.  I can't imagine anyone even wanting to look at our site, never mind look up your contact details"

Joe was shaking, but there was nothing he could do.  He was going to be in a state of terror for the rest of the day in case anybody clicked on the link.

"What's the costume?" he asked, "not Dorothy as well!"  My God she was going to make him go in a dress.

"Oh no", said Molly, that would have been far too easy

"The scarecrow, the cowardly lion, the tin man?" Joe hoped it would be one of those.  They wouldn't have been too bad.

"Oh, not one of those", said Molly, "you'll just have to wait and see.  I know, you can pick me up at my flat tonight and put the costume on there.

Joe was on tenterhooks for the rest of the day, terrified that somebody would click on his name on the intranet site.  But of course nobody did.  Who in their right mind would look at an intranet site on Quality Documentation.

That thought however did not quell Joe's fears: fears of somebody accessing the site, fears about what costume Molly had in store for him.  At seven-thirty prompt he knocked on the door of her flat in a state of high anxiety.

Molly opened the door.  She was dressed in the blue check dress and short sleeved white blouse that we all know and love from the film.  She had a brown wig with long pigtails.  She was the living image of Dorothy.

"Where's my costume", said Joe, gulping.

"Here", said Molly, pointing at the settee.

"Where?" said Joe.  He couldn't see anything that remotely resembled a costume.

"There!" said Molly, pointing at want looked like a few bits of fur.

"What is it?" said Joe aghast

"It's you costume", said Molly, "you're Toto, remember, Dorothy's little dog, my little dog.  Take your clothes off and put the costume on"

What option did he have?  He had to do as she said.  He didn't know how to change the intranet site himself, and couldn't possibly ask anybody else to do it.  He would have to do as she said.

He got undressed and picked up the costume.  It consisted of a pair of furry ears on a band to put on his head.  A black shiny nose to put over his own nose.  A little collar to go round his neck, and a little furry tail on a sort of band that went round his waist and between his legs.  It covered what was necessary, but not much more.  Otherwise he was naked.  Molly put the little tail round his waist, round between his legs and tucked it in.

"It doesn't seem very secure", said Joe worried.

"Oh, it isn't", said Molly, "that's part of the fun.  I just wanted to make sure that played the good little doggie all evening.  In your rightful place.  On your hands and knees."

"But I feel almost naked in this"

"Good", said Molly, "that's the point"

There was the sound of a horn outside.  The taxi had arrived and the other girls were waving out the window for them to come.  Joe stood up and grabbed hold of his waistband. 

"Naughty, naughty", said Molly slapping his hand, "down on on all fours".

Joe went down on all fours and following Dorothy crawled out into the street and into the taxi.  The girls were in hysterics as Joe knelt at Molly's feet in the taxi.  It was one of those big taxis, with seats facing each other and Joe was between the knees of the girls.  Molly explained that Joe had agreed to be Molly's doggie for the evening.  They were going to make a serious bid to win the fancy dress competition, and they felt that would beat everyone.

They arrived at the hotel.  Molly fastened Toto's lead to his collar and led him into the ballroom.  It created quite a stir.  It was not the lack of clothing, there was after all a Tarzan there who was equally scantily clad.  It was the extraordinarily clever idea - Dorothy and Toto.  How had she ever persuaded him to do it!  He'd never even worn a costume before and now he was spending the whole evening crawling round on the floor, half naked, and looking up comically at people going "Yap yap", like a little dog.  Molly had been quite insistent.  He was only allowed to go "Yap yap".  After all Toto couldn't speak.  Everybody thought it was brilliant, except Joe.  He was having to play a dog all evening.  The tail thing covered hardly any of his bottom and down on his hands and knees his bottom was sticking up all the time.  And it was only looped round and tucked in at the side, when Molly made him run round he felt it was going to fall off at any moment.  The meal was served.  Joe ate it off a plate on the floor - he had to keep up the pretence of being a dog.  The dancing started.  When Molly went to dance she took Joe onto the dance floor with her on his lead.  At least he didn't have actually to dance!

Then at last came the highlight of the evening.  The award of the prizes.  Molly held her breath.  They just had to win.  But there could be no doubt about it.  They were the star of the show and invited up on to the podium to win the prize.

Joe was led up on his lead.  But now he had to receive his prize he could stand up.

"Up you get Toto", said Molly.  Joe, rather stiff from all the crawling stood up.  The band struck up.  The bright lights came on for the prize giving and Molly taking hold of the little tail gave it a sharp tug.  The costume came off in one piece and she threw it high in the air.  Joe was left, on the stage in front of everybody, wearing nothing but his little furry ears, his little black nose and his little collar.

Molly smiled, she'd done it.  She'd actually done it.  All evening she'd been wondering if she had the nerve.  But in the end she knew it had to be done.  That was the punishment she had decided on for not fighting for her job, to be stripped naked on the stage in front of everybody, and she had to do it.

As the crowd cheered Joe could think of nothing to do but go back down on his hands and knees.  Molly bent down, and fastening his lead on again led him slowly back across the dance floor and out the door.




