As Tina struggled to resist what for her was a fairly irresistible urge, to strip off the last bit of her clothing in a very inappropriate setting, it seemed to her that even if she did give in it wasn't entirely her fault; the whacked-out heating and cooling system in her office building was at least partly to blame...
Looking back on how she had come to this point, Tina thought about how normal the start of her workweek had seemed, with the staff at the accounting department she was in charge of arriving and settling in as usual. The temperature felt slightly cooler than normal, though not enough to bother anyone at first. The problem with the building's climate control got steadily worse; by noon the whole 11th floor felt like a walk-in cooler and the building's maintenance staff had no luck at all trying to get the temperature back to normal. The temperature kept falling through the afternoon, and those who could come up with a passable excuse for leaving early did so. As head of the accounting department, Tina had to stay until her normal quitting time of 5:30, by which time she had only 8 or 9 staffers still suffering along with her instead of the 30 or so usually there at that hour. The one hopeful sign was a mass email sent by the building's owner to everyone in the building apologizing for the problem and promising to have it corrected by the next morning.
The situation hadn't improved at all as Tina and her staff arrived Tuesday morning; if anything the office was even colder than it had been on Monday. A few people had brought in thermometers, announcing to their co-workers that the temperature had dropped below 50 degrees by lunchtime. Virtually Tina's entire department went out to lunch, even the people who always brown-bagged it and ate at their desks. Those who went out to lunch mostly stayed out a good long time, and several never made it back at all; Tina couldn't really blame them as she shivered through the afternoon.
By 4:30 she noticed that the only people on her staff still present and working were those who had prepared for the conditions, wearing sweaters and other heavy clothing even though it was the middle of August; a few were wearing gloves and hats. As she was getting ready to leave the deserted office at 5:30 she noticed another email from the building's management, practically the same as Monday's. "Fool me once..." she said to the empty space, "I'll be sure to break out some of my winter clothes for tomorrow."
Tina was fairly pleased with the outfit she'd pulled together from her collection of cold-weather clothes as she got ready to head to work Wednesday morning. She had a pair of yoga pants on below her dress slacks as a kind of long underwear, with heavy socks and a pair of calf-high boots. Above the waist she had on a thick full coverage bra, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a knit turtleneck shirt, all topped with an almost knee-length cardigan sweater. The outfit wasn't particularly stylish and she needed to keep the AC in her car cranked up as high as it would go during her commute, but she looked forward to being able to sit at her desk without shivering for a change.
Tina's satisfaction with her clothing choices lasted only as long as it took for her elevator to reach the 11th floor. She stepped off the elevator into a space considerably warmer than it had been outside! She thought at first that the building maintenance technicians had just stopped the air conditioning, but some of her staff pointed out that things had gone even further, with hot air pouring out of the ceiling ducts. A couple of people with thermometers at their desks were engaged in a pointless debate about whether it was 83 degrees or 85. Several staffers had changed into workout gear they had with them; t-shirts, shorts and even a sports bra or two were definitely violations of the company dress code, but Tina wasn't about to complain if the casual look allowed her department to get some work done.
After checking up on how a few of her staff were doing with some reports due by Friday, Tina finally reached her private office. The temperature was about the same as it was in the rest of the office, so Tina immediately ditched the long sweater and boots before settling in to check her email and begin reviewing invoices. The adjustment helped a little, but she soon found herself sweating again despite barely moving at all. She decided that wearing the two full layers of long clothes she still had on was a bit excessive under the circumstances. She walked over to the door to her space and opened the blinds briefly to be sure nobody was about to make a visit; her request to the building manager to have her door's lock fixed hadn't been handled and even if she still had a full outfit on she didn't want anyone popping in while she was removing her excess clothing.
Satisfied after a look out a window in the door to her office that she wasn't about to have any visitors, Tina closed the blinds and slipped out of her dress slacks. Since she'd seen a few other women in the office dressed in some variation of leggings or yoga pants and was sure her yoga pants would feel lighter than the slacks, she folded the slacks neatly and put them away in a tote bag. She pulled her turtleneck over her head and set it down on her desk, then decided her t-shirt was a little too frayed for the office and pulled it off as well. Stripping down to her bra while her staff circulated just outside her office made her nervous; she paused a moment to imagine what it would feel like if one of them opened the door right then. Blushing at the thought of being caught half-dressed but with some part of her almost wishing it would happen, she pulled the turtleneck back on, telling herself, "Don't even think it, not here..."
Still too warm but definitely better off than before, Tina managed to get some work done before her phone chirped to remind her about the 11:00 AM meeting of all the regional department heads. With all the disruptions to her routine, she had completely forgotten about the meeting and had to scramble to gather up her notes. She considered switching back into her dress slacks but was running late already, so she hustled out of her office and up to the 12th floor conference room. She was relieved to see several of the other executives in decidedly casual garb, probably whatever they had in their office or gym bag she guessed. Every presentation went by quickly with few questions asked; everyone seemed eager to get the meeting over with and escape the overheated conference room. Her turn standing in front of the group discussing her department's goals for the month ahead came at the end of the meeting after all the other department heads had taken their turn at the whiteboard.
Being the only female department head and definitely the only one wearing yoga pants while making a presentation resulted in more attention being paid than was typically the case this far into the meeting. "Are they actually asking questions just to keep me up here in front of them? I don't remember this group ever being so interested in the Accounting department's goals!" she thought to herself. She decided to play along in a subtle enough way to not be too obvious; she answered the last few questions put to her while mostly facing the whiteboard, allowing her to highlight the figures she was being asked about while the projector highlighted the figure the rest of the room was really interested in. She tried to avoid blushing, but knowing the dozen or so men in the room were focusing on her well lit and tightly covered ass, and worse yet how much she was enjoying their attention herself, made it a losing battle. She hoped her audience would assume her flushed face was strictly due to the overheated space.
The meeting ended just before noon, and Tina hurried back to the 11th floor and her office. On her way, she stopped at the ladies room to splash some cool water on her face and let her pulse come back to a normal rate. The full walls of mirrors let her see for herself the view her fellow department heads had been enjoying. She hadn't realized just how thin and clingy these pants were; she hadn't looked too carefully at them this morning when she'd planned on wearing them under her slacks as long underwear. Had she noticed how they looked on their own she'd never have had the nerve to go to the meeting dressed this way. "Which would have meant missing an interesting experience, so it's just as well I didn't know!" she thought. She made a mental note to tell her boyfriend about her presentation, and maybe model the yoga pants for him; Darren always seemed to enjoy hearing about her being ogled by other men.
Finally reaching her office right at noon, she noticed a lot of her department's staff had already left for lunch; with the temperature by now at least 15 degrees warmer in the building than in the park across the street, she couldn't blame them. Once she was back in her own office she thought about how she might adjust her outfit again, "What would be the most comfortable combination? Why, Tina, you know naked would be coolest!" she thought before scolding herself, saying out loud, "Don't even let yourself think about it, no effing way!"
Eventually, she decided that replacing both the turtleneck and the yoga pants with the extra-long cardigan would be cooler and also allow her to be somewhat more modest, with the sweater's more open neckline being a reasonable trade-off to allow her to stop flaunting her butt. After another quick look out the window to be sure she wasn't about to have any visitors, Tina pulled her turtleneck off and put on her sweater. With her sweater serving as a fairly modest dress, she worked the yoga pants down and off, rolling them up and depositing them in her tote bag with the turtleneck and slacks. Once she had the sweater on and buttoned up she realized that its deep but narrow neckline would not really show an objectionable amount of cleavage but would call attention to her fairly unattractive bra, chosen this morning only because she thought its conservative cut and thick fabric might help keep her warm.
She decided to banish the bra to her tote bag along with her other discarded garments; since by now she had nothing else on under the sweater she took a moment to open the blinds again to be sure she wouldn't have any unexpected visitors popping in while she was about to be completely undressed; seeing that the few remaining staffers she'd seen out in the general office a few minutes earlier had all left, she undid all 10 buttons and slipped the sweater off. A few seconds later she had the bra off as well and walked around to the back of her desk to place it in her tote bag, joining everything else she'd left her apartment wearing today other than the sweater now draped across her desk.
After putting her bra away, Tina realized she'd left the blinds open; she felt warmer than ever as she slowly walked over to the door. Her heart was pounding as she thought how any straggler she'd missed seeing could now be getting to see all of her! She was sure leaving the blinds open hadn't been intentional, but couldn't swear it had been completely accidental, either. "Probably something in between..." she admitted to herself as she put the sweater back on, continuing to look out the window for any sign she wasn't alone on the 11th floor as she buttoned the sweater. She was relieved, mostly, to see she had the office to herself.
Knowing nobody else was present, Tina decided to leave several buttons unfastened, buttoning only the top one to keep the front closed just below her breasts and a couple more or less where her panties would be if she'd been wearing any. "Just to get as much ventilation as possible," she tried to convince herself. Satisfied that these few fasteners, together with the belt at her waist, would provide sufficient coverage along with a few more she could quickly button if she heard the elevator chime to notify her of someone coming her way, she left her office and set out on a tour of her abandoned department.
