Midsummer Inc.

There was something odd about Mr. Goodman's smile.

His desk was carved out of one huge slab of oak, and polished until it shone. He was a tall man, slender, with an unprofessional shock of auburn hair and a broad, beaming grin that showed teeth which were ever so slightly off-kilter. It was hard to tell if his thin, angular face was handsome or ugly, and Maya got the sense he was surprisingly well built underneath his crisp black suit.

She looked at his reflection in the desk. It was odd, but he didn't seem as friendly. There was a sardonic glint in his eye, a twist to his lip that remade his grin into a sneer. But when Maya looked at his face, all she saw was warm, open honesty.

"Well, that about does it for the interview," he said. "And may I just say that your questions about your company were very well informed. You seem to be on top of what we do here at Midsummer, Inc. Care for a mint?"

Maya reached out to take a mint from the bowl on the desk, then hesitated. She wasn't quite sure why. She knew she ought to accept the gift, just to create a positive impression, but some sixth sense was telling her to leave it in the bowl.

For some reason, a chill swept over her. She knew it was foolish, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something tremendously important rested on the decision. She reached out to take a mint, then withdrew her hand.

"No, thanks," she said.

"Oh, go on."

"I'm fine."

"You're sure I can't tempt you?"

"Quite sure."

"Ah, well," sighed Mr. Goodman. "Pity, but I'll get you next time. It's been a pleasure to meet you, then, and I must say I feel very positively inclined towards your application. We'll be in touch soon."

"It's been a pleasure."

"It certainly has."

As she walked towards the door, she heard Mr. Goodman's pleasantly lilting voice over her shoulder. "Oh, one last thing, Maya. Before you leave, would you mind taking all your clothes off?"

"Excuse me?"

"I said, would you mind making sure you sign out? There's a guest book at reception."

-

As she walked down the busy streets of London, Maya couldn't help but feel proud. She couldn't remember ever doing so well in a job interview. She'd had the perfect answer for every single one of his questions.

And they'd been curious questions. "If there was a season between spring and summer, what would its holidays be?". "If mice were angels, how many cats would the Devil have?". "If you could have dinner aboard any sunken ship in the world, which would it be?" It must have been some kind of new management technique, a test to see how well you could respond to unexpected situations. She was lucky she was so quick on her feet.

The job was practically hers already! Executive assistant to an important man like Mr. Goodman, at a big multinational company like Midsummer, Inc! And the funny thing was, she didn't know what an executive assistant was, really. She'd just answered the job ad on a whim. She'd been bluffing the whole time. All she knew about Midsummer was what she'd read on Wikipedia the night before.

The waiting room had been full of women, most of them far more accomplished and attractive than she was, all of them looking down their nose at her as she sat in the corner in her borrowed suit with its slightly-too-tight skirt. An icy blonde in an perfectly tailored jacket that looked like it cost more than Maya's entire wardrobe had given her a withering stare as she walked into the room, and whispered something that caused the girl sitting next to her to break out into a fit of giggles.

Well, the joke was on them. Maya knew she wasn't a stunning beauty. She was a small, mousy, unremarkable girl, with wide dark eyes and a nose that she knew was slightly too large for her face. She kept her hair in a tight dark braid, and wore round glasses that gave her an owlish expression. She'd been told she had a pretty smile, but didn't quite believe it.

With her slim figure, her boyish hips and predictably small breasts, she knew she was never going to be a sex symbol. People tended to overlook her. That was okay by Maya, who wasn't very personable anyway. But she'd learned she had to be smart if she wanted to be taken seriously.

It was springtime in London, and the sun was beaming down its watery rays across the concrete face of the city. Pigeons perched on the signs of kebab shops, twittering to each other as traffic rolled by. Businessmen strode past her, muttering, into their phones, totally oblivious to the cool but beautiful day. Tourists stood in small knots, taking pictures of each other and hoping to accidentally bump into the Queen.

Usually, the crowd irritated Maya. She didn't like being exposed to the boring lives of strangers, hearing their chatter and having to step out of their way. Sometimes she fantasied about having London all to herself, being able to go anywhere she liked, walking the streets without fear of interruption. But today it wasn't so bad. She could almost convince herself that everyone was celebrating her success.

That's what she was thinking about when she spotted the blonde.

-

Maya recognised her immediately. The icy blonde in the tailored jacket. In the waiting room she had dismissed the other candidates with a toss of her golden locks as her name was called, and she rose and strode into Mr. Goodman's office. She'd radiated confidence, like someone accustomed to always being the most desirable person on the room.

Jessica, thought Maya. That was her name.

She didn't look so confident now.

She was standing on the other side of the road, waiting for the light to change so she could cross. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes fixed on an invisible point in the distance, as if she was trying to blot out the world around her. She was breathing deeply, trying to centre herself.

Maya could tell that she was nervous. Her blue eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed pink, her red lips parted as she struggled to control her expression. She didn't know what to do with her hands. They hung by her sides, trembling slightly, tensing into fists, then opening again. She seemed to be trying to control the impulse to run.

She didn't have any clothes on.

Maya blinked. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and put them back on. She couldn't be seeing what she thought she was seeing. People didn't just walk around central London without any clothes on. Especially not people like Jessica.

The light went green.

Jessica's bare bottom, elegantly pale, wiggled as she stepped into the road. The sunlight revealed all the variations of colour in her skin, gleaming off her snow-white shoulders, illuminating the creamy slopes of her full breasts and exposing the seashell-pink subtleties of the secret place between her legs. Which wasn't so secret any more.

The blonde's pink nipples stood to attention as the cool air tantalised her skin. There was something hypnotic in the sway of her breasts as she marched slowly across the street, in front of stopped traffic, pointedly ignoring the honks of car horns and the amazed expressions on the faces of the drivers. She'd been blessed with perfect tits, naturally proud and perky C-cups that seemed to have a gravity of their own, drawing every eye towards them.

There wasn't a hint of hair to conceal the the lips of her pussy. Her fidgeting suggested that she'd like to put a concealing hand between her legs, but for some reason it didn't seem possible. The breeze tickled her as she walked, her legs parting with each step, reminding her that the neat slit of her sex was on display for all to see. Briefly, Maya wondered how long it took her to shave.

It took Maya a few seconds to realise that the blonde was walking right towards her. With some effort, she forced her eyes up to meet the other woman's face. There was a shock of mutual recognition. Jessica's eyes narrowed as she controlled herself, not wanting to admit that her pride had been stung. Even so, Maya could tell by her face that she didn't appreciate being caught in this position by a social inferior.

Maya looked away, suddenly abashed. She felt the rush of air as Jessica walked past her, hips swaying and breasts bouncing, gritting her teeth and trying to focus on her destination. She saw some of the businessmen turn their heads, and a tourist frantically fumbling for his camera. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and let it out.

When she finally turned to look behind her, Jessica was gone.

Had that just happened?

Has she really just seen the icy blonde from the job interview walking down the street in front of her, stark naked?

And what exactly had Mr. Goodman said to her before she'd left the building? Had it really been about signing out?

She realised her face was hot. Her mind was racing. Her heart was beating fast. Something about the expression on Jessica's face, the panic in her eyes, the little quivers of frustration, the obvious and overwhelming desire to be absolutely anywhere else in the world, had gotten to her. It clearly hadn't been her idea. Nobody in their right mind would do something like that. Which meant that someone, somehow, had compelled her.

Blackmail? Compromising photographs? But what leverage could you possibly have? Jessica would have to have done something very naughty indeed in order to accept that punishment as preferable to being caught. And even then, wasn't it illegal to go naked in a public place? Wasn't she worried about the consequences?

It didn't make sense, and it made even less sense the more Maya thought about it. She mulled over the problem all the way back to her apartment, where Mr. Goodman was waiting for her.

-

"Congratulations," he said. "You've got the job."

He was sitting on the sofa in her living room, his feet up on her coffee table, watching a game of cricket on TV. Maya stopped in the doorway, staring at him. She was sure she'd locked the place up when she went out.

"What are you doing here?" she said, feebly.

"Letting you know you got the job. Thought you'd be excited."

"But how did you get in?"

"Said I'd be in touch."

That wasn't an answer, but somehow Maya didn't feel like she could press the point. She put her bag down on a chair and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. As she reached up to get the teabags out of the top cupboard, she heard Goodman saying, "I'll have a cup too, if you don't mind."

Maya got out two teacups, and waited for the kettle to boil while she caught her breath and made a plan. It took a minute, but she needed the time.

"Milk?" she said.

"You don't have any ethereal nectar from the flowers in the Garden of Sleep, do you?"

"No."

"Milk from a unicorn? From the teats of the great serpent that sleeps under the sea?"

"Just milk from a cow."

"You don't even have soy?"

"Afraid not."

"You'll have to do better than that if you're going to be an executive assistant," scolded Goodman. "I suppose the cow will do. Bring it out, then."

Maya poured a splash of milk into each teacup, placed them on a tray and brought them out into the living room. She held the tray out to Goodman, and pulled it away when she reached for it.

"No tea," she said, doing her best to sound stern. "Not until you tell me what's going on."

"So you know the ancient rules of hospitality. A gift for a gift, and no welshing. Maybe you do have some potential, after all." Goodman favoured her with an unpleasant little smile. Maya still couldn't tell if he was ugly or handsome, but there was something about his face that made it difficult for her to draw her eyes away. An insolence in his gaze, like he could see right into her soul and wasn't the least bit worried that she knew where he was looking.

"Alright," he said. "Look at this."

He pressed a button on her remote control. The TV showed a brief flicker of rainbow-coloured static, and the cricket match was replaced by what appeared to be a wide shot of a public park. The camera slowly zoomed in on a fountain in the middle of the park, which seemed to be surrounded by a crowd of people.

Maya gasped. Jessica was standing in the fountain. She was stark naked, and the pinkness of her blush had spread to the upper slopes of her breasts. She'd acquired a bar of soap from somewhere, and was washing herself in the fountain as if it was the shower in her home. Suds slid down her thighs as she patiently massaged her pussy, spreading her legs to reach up between her labia in what struck Maya as an intensely private way.

"Shouldn't somebody have called the police?" she asked.

Goodman snorted with laughter. "The police! Oh, that's rich. No, we don't want Jessica here dealing with any legal ramifications from today's little escapade. I promise you the law is not an issue."

"You can just... turn off the police? How does that work?"

"We operate in a realm where ordinary consequences don't apply," explained Goodman, already looking bored. "Ah, how the new hires bore me! So much exposition. Yes, no arrests for indecency, no concerned phone calls from friends, no lost jobs when the boss Googles you and finds the video. This kind of thing used to be much easier in the old days, before the surveillance state."

Maya sat down in an armchair, forgetting her tea.

"The mint," she said.

"I knew you weren't entirely dense. Yes, the mint. It's the ancient rules of hospitality."

"So Jessica took a mint, and... wait. Did you offer the bowl to everyone?"

This time, there was no mistaking the nastiness in Goodman's smile. In theory, it should have made him uglier, but somehow it did the opposite.

"We've been using this trick since the dawn of time," he said. "Jessica aced the interview, of course. Did better than you. Unluckily, she accepted a gift from me, which meant that I was able to request a favour in exchange. I kindly asked that she take all her clothes off and walk across London in the nude. She protested, of course, but there's no fighting the ancient rules."

"And the other girls?" There had been at least a dozen women in the waiting room. "Was I..."

"The only one to pass the test."

"It seems like a stiff price to pay for a mint."

"Nobody's ever accused me of playing fair," Goodman said. "I remember the good old days. Wandering country lanes disguised as a pedlar, offering medlars and bits of honeycomb to passing milkmaids. Fair lass, I'd say, accept this token in honour of your surpassing beauty. I will accept no payment in coin."

"Wait, how long ago was this?"

"Once they'd taken the gift, I'd throw off my disguise and reveal my true self. More people knew my name in those days, and it was always an entertainment to watch their faces as they discovered whose trick they'd fallen for. I'd have them oblige me in the fields behind the road, for all the world to see, before sending them scurrying back to their village with a slap on the bottom and not a scrap of cloth to hide their charms."

"They... obliged you?"

"You're a grown woman," Goodman said, dismissively. "I'm sure you'll forgive me. After all, at heart I'm a man like any other. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I assure you I didn't go quite that far with my victims today."

Jessica was now soaping her breasts, twiddling her nipples to make sure they stood on end while two young men in hoodies recorded the occasion on their cell phones. She kept casting vicious glances in their direction, willing them to stop, which they declined to do.

"She won't forget this day," Goodman said. "One of your tasks as my assistant will be to send out little reminders, video clips and the like, just to make sure no wench ever forgets the day I got the better of her. If we're lucky, she might even try to get revenge. Would you like to see the other girls?"

"Not particularly."

Goodman changed the channel. A nubile Asian girl stood in a bookstore, browsing the erotica section, nude except for glasses and knee-high leather boots. She selected a book of vampire BDSM stories, walked across to a beanbag chair in the middle of the store, sat down, spread her legs and began to...

"Why isn't anyone stopping her?"

"I told you, we don't worry about consequences. When she came into contact with me, she entered a different realm. You'll notice that everyone in the store right now is over eighteen. They'll watch, and laugh, and take pictures, but they won't stop her."

"Oh," said Maya. She knew she should look away, but she couldn't tear her eyes off the screen as the Asian woman slid her fingers deep into her pussy. As she stroked her clit with her thumb, sending waves of unwanted pleasure rippling through her body, she began to read aloud from the book in her other hand. The furious blush in her cheeks made it clear how she felt about touching herself in public, but she couldn't bring herself to stop.

"You told her to do this?" she said, feeling her cheeks burn in sympathy. Of course, she played with herself sometimes, but only in the privacy of her bedroom. She couldn't imagine doing something so personal, so revealing, in the middle of a cozy bookstore, bathed in bright warm light, surrounded by curious shoppers who got to observe every detail.

"I asked her to do this," corrected Goodman. "Specifically, I asked her to strip naked, think of the most embarrassing thing she could imagine, walk out into London, and do it. I find it's quite a versatile method. Saves you the trouble of thinking up new forfeits every time, and what the girls come up with is always ten times as humiliating as anything you could have invented."

He changed the channel again, and again. A freckled redhead was walking through a shopping mall, singing Christmas songs and doing little dances, wearing nothing but a Santa hat and red stockings trimmed with white fur. A sporty black girl with dark frizzy hair was jogging on a treadmill, slick with sweat, her breasts bouncing, in the middle of a packed gym, looking out at a busy street through a big glass window. A plump brunette was hopping through a street market with bunny ears on her head, her hands behind her back and a greased carrot protruding from her bottom.

Maya watched in horror as the parade of shame unfolded on the screen of her TV. Blushing faces, furious eyes, flying hair and bouncing breasts, as every woman who'd been in that waiting room with her was put through a gauntlet of embarrassment, doing things she'd never in her wildest dreams expect to see anyone do in public. She was a naturally shy girl, though she tried to overcome it, and even something as simple as forgetting someone's name at a party could make her cringe. If she'd been foolish enough to take that mint...

"Of course," said Goodman, "You can always say no to the job."

"I can?"

"I promise, if you walk away, you'll never have to worry about me again. No pranks, no tricks, no further contact. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing before."

"I see."

"Did I tell you how much it pays?"

"You did not."

Goodman told her. Maya's eyes went wide.

"And that's real money, too, not fairy gold," he said. "No tricks when it comes to the paycheck, or we'd never be able to keep staff."

"But if I work for you..." Maya hesitated, her eyes going back to the screen. "I mean, I could be..."

Goodman shrugged.

"Of course I'll try to get you from time to time," he said. "I can't help it. It's in my nature to play pranks on pretty girls. But if you keep your wits about you, and don't accept any gifts from me, you'll be fine. I'm sure a smart young woman like you will have no difficult staying one step ahead of me."

"Wait, does accepting the job itself count as a gift?"

"Of course not. Don't be silly. I hereby officially renounce my right to seek any recompense whatsoever from you, specifically and exclusively in exchange for my giving you this job. Good thinking, though."