From the Top Shelf - A Man of Authority, Part 1

This short story was published in Kane magazine years before the movie Secretary came out, but I think the similarity is striking.  The author of A Man of Authority is unknown, but he has clearly described his fantasy of taking command in his office. I hope you enjoy it.

" I don't want to have to tell you again!!

My words were stern and unforgiving. My tone, unfortunately, wasn't. My secretary - a girl called Debbie, in her early 20s with an insouciant jut to her mouth - glanced towards a female colleague who was in the room to collect something and shared a smile with her. I turned towards my own office door with a briskness that was an attempt to hide from the two women the fact that my face had turned crimson - which no doubt would have given them even greater amusement.

In my office, with the door blessedly closed, I sat with hammering heart. Scenes similar to the one which had just taken place had been a regular feature of my working life for the previous three weeks. Ever since I had secured my first significant promotion.

Wielding authority does not come easily to me. Not even ticking off a lowly secretary for leaving the telephone ringing while she gossiped with her friend. I'm a man from a fairly humble background who has, until recently, known only the experience of being an underling in his professional existence.

That all changed less than a month ago.

As a general office help at a magazine concerned with foreign travel, I was deeply surprised to learn from Maurice, the outgoing deputy, that I had been short-listed for his job. My vaguely defined position at the magazine may have entailed hard work and long hours but I would hardly have thought that made me material for the second most important post in the building.

That's my inferiority complex talking, I suppose. The very thing which makes me embarrassed to try to throw my weight around now that I do indeed find myself with an important place in the hierarchy. But when you've only been a 'gofer' since leaving school, there's a part of you that can't help thinking you have no right to be telling other people what to do.

As I sat there at my desk, I realised my throat was dry. Nerves always do that to me. I craved a cup of tea to calm me down but I was too ashamed to buzz for one. The smirk Debbie would inevitably have on her face when she brought it in would only make me feel worse. Thank God she was leaving at the end of the week. No doubt I wouldn't be any more able at dealing with her replacement but at least we would be starting afresh. I wouldn't be thinking as I bathed and shaved each morning of whatever embarrassing incidents there had been the previous day and consequently dreading the knowing 'Good Morning Mr. Evans' as I walked through the door. Not until the new one had experienced my pathetic attempts at being masterful, anyway.

By a couple of days later I had interviewed two girls for Debbie's job and I didn't like either of them. They both had Debbie's air of breezy confidence - the kind so often found in the young these days and which translates into a contempt for authority - and particularly mine! I was forced to admit to myself, however, that both of them would be able to do the job competently; whatever the deficiencies in their attitude, their secretarial courses had bestowed on them faultless shorthand and typing skills. I still had one more applicant to interview but I had just about made my mind up to accept one of the first two I'd seen on the grounds that she had more qualifications than either of the others.

Before I did I would have to go through the formality of talking to this third girl as the interview had already been arranged. As well as her modest academic achievements, the form she'd completed in advance told me she was named Marian Ball and was just eighteen years old.

I could see the difference between her and the others immediately I laid eyes on her. She entered my office in a somewhat tentative manner - as though she might not be welcome even though I'd told Debbie to show her through. I stood up and said "Hello."

"Hello" she responded in a soft voice, grinning and averting her eyes shyly.

I motioned her into the seat in front of my desk. She sat down and put her knees together, her handbag in her lap.

Marian was a redhead, but not the stuff of legend. Fiery was not the word to describe her. Throughout the ten minutes we spoke, she barely looked at me, keeping her gaze fixed on the table top between us. I didn't mind this in the slightest, for it afforded me ample opportunity to take in her pretty features. Although Debbie was attractive, there was a far greater appeal to this girl. Beneath her boyishly short hairstyle, she had a fresh faced appearance that was quite lovely. Her creamy skin was given just a tinge of colour by the small dashes of natural redness on her cheeks. Those dashes of red frequently ballooned in size when Marian found herself looking into my eyes or was compelled to divulge a fact she apparently considered intimate (things like how she'd found her recently finished secretarial course or how easy would it be to travel to the office).

It was this bashfulness that supplied the finishing touches to her beauty. Her shyness was part and parcel of what made her so appealing. It was also a hugely refreshing change from the over confidence of the women I worked with day after day. Midway through the interview I had decided; Marian would be my new secretary.

I told her this as I was showing her the door. She swung round to me with such an expression of gratitude and joy that I thought she might fling her arms around me.

"Oh, thank you," she cooed.

"See you first thing on Monday," I smiled.

As she turned to walk out, I couldn't help but notice the pertness of the bottom which protruded through the black material of her skirt. Evidently her face was not the only pretty attribute I would have the pleasure of seeing daily from now on.

From the Monday of Marian's arrival as an official employee of the magazine, I felt as though I had a new lease of life. No longer did I dread coming in to work to be confronted by surliness and mickey-taking. No longer did I have to put up with the barely disguised insubordination of a gum-chewing slut. Marian was the soul of politeness and propriety. She was such a good-natured and timid little creature that the very idea of not doing as she was instructed - and furthermore, not doing it eagerly and methodically - would have appalled her. I was instantly and profoundly happy.

As a secretary, Marian wasn't quite as good as Debbie. I, of course, had expected this as I had overlooked the superior qualifications of the other two applicants in favour of the more demure personality. However, as a man newly promoted, I was naturally very anxious to keep in the good books of John, the editor, and when Marian came to me one day and shame-facedly told me she'd lost the copy of one of our writers with the printer's deadline only 3 hours away, my reaction took no account of the fact that, had I chosen one of the cleverer women it probably wouldn't have happened. In short, I lost my rag.

"For God's sake!" I barked angrily.

To my surprise, Marian almost jumped out of her skin. She looked at me with startled wide eyes, before jerking her face down and staring at the floor. She remained in that position.

It was the last thing I'd expected. I knew she wasn't insolent in the manner of Debbie, of course, but I was surprised at the lack of any hint of irritation or sense of injustice in her expression. She merely looked crestfallen but totally accepting of my fury.

Something inside me stirred. The sight of her meekly lowered eyelids and limp stance sent a ripple of pleasure through me. I banished the notion I'd had a moment earlier to apologise for my outburst. Instead, I injected greater venom in my voice, as I barked "What do you think you're playing at?"

It was the same tone I'd often used with Debbie, but whereas Debbie had always snorted with suffused laughter, Marian was so intimidated she actually flinched.

"Sorry," she managed in a strangulated voice, not looking up from her feet.

I gazed at her. This was a young woman who clearly accepted authority uncritically. She was simply too naive to think that my behaviour was out of proportion to her offence. As that thought entered my head, a tremendous sensation of excitement welled in me. An excitement prompted by a notion my brain hardly dared articulate of the possibilities that had just opened up for me.

"Stand up straight!" I said in a quieter but still severe voice.

She looked at me momentarily but did as she was told, moving her eyes from me to the wall over my shoulder. I licked my lips. This was just too good to be true. I was so excited that I had to moisten my throat with saliva before speaking again.

"Are you trying to get fired, Marian?"

"No!" She protested. "I'm just... I'm just... I'm sorry."

I chanced my luck. I had to see how far I could push this. "I'm sorry, Sir" I corrected her. "When you have just jeopardised the printing of an entire issue of the magazine you work for, you will have the courtesy to address me as 'Sir'."

This was make or break. An outraged response to this gambit would tell me I was barking up the wrong tree. But in the next second, my hunch was proved to be gloriously correct as Marian quickly attempted to make good her mistake. "Sir," she appended in an anxious voice.

"That's better," My tone might have been harsh but I was having difficulty breathing, so delicious were the thoughts tugging at my mind. I walked slowly round the desk and sat in my chair. I looked at her for a few seconds. When I had managed to gather myself, I spoke again to the forlorn looking figure standing as rigid as a flagpole before me.

"So you wouldn't want to lose your job, would you, Marian?"

"No," she then quickly added, "Sir."

"Can you give me a good excuse why you shouldn't? You realise how serious this is?" Of course, it wasn't that serious at all, insofar as, even if the writer couldn't be contacted to supply a new copy of the article by fax, it wouldn't be the end of the world to delay printing by a day. But I was by now almost certain that Marian was too naive and simple a creature to have worked that one out.

"Yes sir. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again."

She took her eyes off the wall to look at me. I maintained a steady, merciless stare. She flicked her eyes away.

"Please, Sir," she was close to tears. "I'll never do it again. Please don't fire me. My mum will kill me!"

As I thought. Her personality had suggested it to me since she had started work, as had her demeanour over the past couple of minutes. With that comment I knew for sure. This was a girl who'd had a very strict upbringing. A girl who took dressing-downs from her superiors without resentment or question. Someone who therefore, surely, would accept whatever punishments were deemed fit for her transgressions. My heart was, by now pounding almost unbearably.

"Marian, you have two choices."

She turned her frightened, doe-like eyes on me once more.

"You can be fired. Or you can be punished."

I kept up the merciless stare. This time she was too frightened to even look away. "Which is it to be?"

"I don't want to be fired, Sir," she wailed.

I was astonished by how calm I remained. "Very well then," I said, rising and picking up my 12 inch plastic ruler as I walked round to her side of the desk. I used it ordinarily for working out the layout of pages. I was now going to use it for a purpose that I had never anticipated in all my wildest fantasies.

"Come here," I ordered.

Marian stepped forward the two paces that took her to the edge of the desk.

"Bend over the desk."

Hands still at her sides, she looked at me wide eyed, at the ruler in my hand, back at me.

My nerve almost failed me for a moment. But I realised I had already come so far that there was no turning back.

"Now!" I commanded.

At that, any thought of resistance in her crumbled. She simply did not disobey such firmly issued instructions. I said a silent prayer for the magnificent values that had so clearly been drummed into her by her mother. Marian dipped and put her palms on my cluttered table top. As she did so, the breadth and depth of her admirable bottom swelled quite wonderfully.

She still had one leg bent and was only making contact with the desk with her hands. I soon corrected that with a firm "I said right over the desk!" which prompted her to lean forward and press the full weight of her bosom upon my papers.

I crossed to the door and locked it.

Then I moved back to Marian and started to unclip and unzip her dark blue skirt. Again, I surprised myself with the calmness of my actions. For a man who had never been comfortable wielding authority, I was now finding it incredibly easy to abuse my power to an outrageous extent. Marian's head did not move as I performed the actions and not a whimper of protest emerged from her. Emboldened by this, I yanked her skirt down without even bothering to tell her to lift herself slightly off the table to assist the process. When in fact she did lift her body, unbidden, on my first tug being unsuccessful, I knew I was home free. She was now completely pliant. From here on I could do what I wanted.

I roughly grabbed her ankles in turn and lifted them so as to pull the skirt completely off. I folded it neatly and put it on the chair she had recently been sitting in. Beneath the skirt she was wearing white pantyhose and - visible through the translucent material - white knickers. I lifted the tail of her red blouse to find the waistband of the hose. I put my fingers inside and slowly rolled the pantyhose down to her thighs. The material of her knickers was revealed to be wedged into the cleft of her bottom. The sight of this indentation in her underwear struck me as so intimate and made her look so pathetic and totally at my mercy that it caused a feeling of pure, unadulterated power to surge through me. It manifested itself in a delirious slap to her backside.

Marian's body jerked and she exclaimed "Oww!". There was no tone of affront in her voice, though, only that reluctant acceptance which had set me on this course in the first place, but if there had it would have made no difference. The way her plump little buttocks had wobbled under my palm had intoxicated me. Even as the yelp was leaving her lips, I was tugging down the last remnants of her modesty.

Marian did not react for a couple of seconds as I yanked her white knickers down to join the hose at her thighs. But then a hiss escaped from her lips and, from the way her shoulders began to shake, it was obvious she had begun to cry.

I was too busy feasting my eyes on that nude derriere to take much notice. One can see women's backsides in any number of magazines at any corner newsagent's shop but to have a real, fresh young bare bottom before you is something else entirely. I could have gasped at the sight. Marian had a rear that was as near to perfect as it is possible for anything to be. It was generously proportioned , though not so large as to be grotesque, and had an appearance of flawless smoothness. And, as I watched, its appearance was enhanced by an irregular quivering that was the result of its owners body contracting with sobs. I knew as soon as I saw this delight that the ruler would have to wait. I quietly laid it on the chair beside her skirt. No implement could transmit the sensations to be experienced by actual physical contact with her delightful flesh.

I laid my left hand on the small of her back. Marian looked round at this. I had the feeling that she thought I had decided to show mercy and was trying to attract her attention in order to tell her. In fact, it was for no other purpose than that I wanted to maintain a permanent union with her fair tender skin. When she saw me lift my other hand in order to strike, she turned her face away in disappointment. This gave me a cruel pleasure - as did my next action. I swept my right palm down. Those plump buttocks - cold to the touch - shivered impressively and Marian let out a shrill, elongated "Aaaaahhh!"

"You've got no one to blame but yourself, Marian," I said sternly.

"I know," she replied in hysterical apology, her voice muffled by her face's proximity to the desk top.

"And there is much more to come yet."

She whimpered but didn't argue.

This time I concentrated my force on one cheek - the left one - and watched with satisfaction as it rolled momentarily towards me before bouncing back to rest in its natural position. Another high-pitched sound emanated from Marian. I felt vaguely disappointed that it was not as loud as the previous one. So her right cheek now got sterner measures and I was rewarded by the most distressed vocal emission yet, together with that whiplash roll of her buttock.

Both cheeks now carried a light smear of crimson. This fact, and what I'd done to cause it, was having quite an effect on me. I could feel the blood racing through my veins, borne forward by the frantic activity of that bodily machine responsible for controlling its flow. The hand which was pressed flat on the patch of skin just above Marian's bottom was clingy with sweat. In normal circumstances, an abundance of perspiration would have embarrassed me and I would have wiped it away. The beauty was, I realised, that I did not have to care a damn about it. Was this girl - this, by now, abjectly obedient creature - going to register a complaint? Of course she wasn't! I could afford to act with the kind of heady abandon I had never known in all my adult subordinate life. As far as she was concerned I was the man of authority and that was that. In a frenzy of delight, I walloped my hand down again and again, spanking away with a sense of reckless freedom.

Everything was now a blur - but a wonderful electrifying blur. I could barely keep up with the myriad of delicious sights and sensations I was experiencing, yet was securing a mind blowing excitement from the cumulative effect: Marian's shocked, despairing yelps, which were interspersed with the hiccoughing sounds of her weeping; the way her back undulated against my hand in futile attempts to lift herself; the swaying and wriggling of her tender white thighs as she tried somehow to avoid each successive blow; the ever deepening scarlet of her buttocks - the initial slight redness quickly assuming the furious hue associated with a serious case of sunburn.

Finally I slowed. I was shaking and out of breath, but this wasn't the reason. I wanted to begin a rhythm which would afford me more opportunity to let my hand linger. So I began to spank in a leisurely, methodical way. With each landing of the palm, I kept it against her rear for a second, sometimes two - not so long as to arouse suspicion but just long enough to gain some enjoyment from the feel of her lovely skin. No longer the cool surface it had been on my first strike, it was reminiscent of the outside of a kettle that had been recently boiled. I was going along almost in slow motion; an unhurried smacking motion with an abrupt halt at the end of it as I held her indented buttocks pressed flat while my hand drank in the sensation of the two gorgeous globes and the narrow valley between.

Marian's cries were now less hysterical and had settled into a series of mild exclamations that - even though she was unquestionably in distress - almost sounded routine. She would issue an "ooowww" or an "aaahhh" or a whimper or sob as though she felt she was expected to make some noise with each connection of my hand and her bottom. It occurred to me that this was a way of trying to gain my sympathy. I took supreme delight in resolving to show her none.

"Stand up and face me!" I said.

Head bowed, face glistening with tears, upper body shaking, she did as she was told.

"Stand up STRAIGHT!"

Instantly she jerked her body rigid and bit her lip in an attempt to control the motion of her torso. My eyes fell to her groin level, for she stood with hands at her sides, like a soldier, making no attempt to cover herself. For the first time I was witnessing her naked front. Before me was a perfect triangle of hair the same red as was present - in bobbed form - on her head. I had to tear my eyes away from the view. Her own eyes flicked away from me as I brought my gaze back to her face.

"Well", I demanded, "Are you beginning to learn your lesson now?"

She nodded and, barely able to speak for her tears, managed to utter "Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now go and stand in the corner, facing the wall." I indicated the other side of the office.

Marian made to pull up her underwear but I angrily swept her hands down.

"As you are!" I ordered.

She had to pull her mouth in to prevent another outbreak of crying. She moved in the direction I had ordered. The sight of her blazing bottom dimpling as she walked away will stay with me for a long time. As will the memory of her pantyhose and knickers bunched around the tops of her legs - a spectacle the ludicrousness of which she must have been only too painfully aware of.

I moved the skirt aside, picked up the ruler and sat on the chair, watching as she stood with her nose an inch from the point where the two office walls met, listening to her sniffling and hiccoughing.

After a minute or so I called over to her. "You're not going to lose any more articles in a hurry, are you Marian?"

"No, Sir."

I rose, ruler in hand, and walked across. Standing beside her, I asked, "Did it hurt?"

She nodded, bit her lip until she could manage to speak without sobbing and finally managed, "Yes, Sir."

"Well that's the point. The only way to ensure there will be no repetition of such carelessness is if you are put right in a way you will never forget. Now, I want you to get ready for the second part of your punishment."

Yes, there's more to come, but I will save that for another day.