Everyone in this story is over 18, including the fantasy people described in the story.
It was no coincidence that Agent Christine Waters had also taken the day off. Her supervisor had not been surprised when the request for a week of vacation time came in the previous Sunday, and approved it with a shrug before resolving for the thousandth time to stop checking work email at home. The vacation request was short notice but the work Chris was doing these days could easily be rescheduled or re-delegated. When she started she had been one of the hard-charging types that emulated movie cops who never took a vacation, worked sixteen hour days, and lived on bad coffee and a romanticized view of her job. She had been promoted quickly to field agent, and seemed to be on the fast track to either a long and successful career or early burnout, but then she was out for a few months on mandatory medical leave. The rumors said it was psychiatric but the case file was closed and marked confidential. After that she kept a healthy bank of sick and vacation time but never maxed it out, and didn't draw field assignments anymore. Even Chris admitted her work these days was usually routine, if not downright boring.
The work she was doing officially at least. Her off-the-books project was much more interesting. After leaving Nancy quivering and moaning that Saturday morning she had taken the bus home, smiling and letting herself doze. The rain from the previous night had stopped and she basked in the sunlight shining through the grimy window and enjoyed the afterglow of a satisfying sexual encounter and more importantly a field op that had gone perfectly. It was a three block walk from the bus stop to her apartment, and the chill in the morning air had woken her up and revivified her.
Her apartment was a one-bedroom minimally decorated cookie cutter floor plan that was the same as all the others in the building with walls that were the same eggshell white as when she had moved in. The glaring exception to the generic decor was that she had recently added a large whiteboard to the middle of the main room. One side was covered in printouts of pictures with the classic conspiracy theory colored yarn running between them, and one large picture at the center: Nancy Mitchell with a large smile on her face. The picture was taken from her ID badge, over-exposed and with a white background, the top of a dark blue blazer peeking up from the bottom. More printouts of Nancy's immediate co-workers' ID photos ringed her with color coded nylon yarn running between most of them and Nancy.
The other side of the white board wasn't nearly as full. Although there was the same picture of Nancy at the center there were only a few pictures of friends and family members surrounding her, with no yarn running between them yet. The only thing of immediate interest was one large, empty circle with no picture or name and "NICKNAME GUY?" written in the center. Overall, the whiteboard lent the apartment a very "true crime podcast to catch a serial killer" vibe.
So far Chris had focused her attention on researching Nancy's co-workers rather than her friends or family. Scanning their social media and personnel files from work, looking for clues that they might or might not be willing to play along with her plans for humiliating Nancy and orchestrating her professional demise. The Crime Bureau had plenty of toxic masculinity to go around, and so far Chris was pleased with her findings. The men and women in Nancy's office more or less kept their shit together at work most of the time, but plenty of their social media accounts suggested that if they smelled blood in the water they'd happily devour someone, especially a petite single woman with no power or political connections to shield her from their darker urges. A quick search through disciplinary cases and HR complaints helped her form a solid list of who might be okay with participating in "a little harmless fun," or sexual harassment and fostering a hostile work environment as HR was inclined to describe it, and who would try to shut the whole thing down before it even got started.
The three times divorced Henry Wilkes with a history of posting misogynistic memes on social media had green yarn, indicating a strong possibility he would help her humiliate Nancy and probably take sexual advantage of her. Laurie Bridges, the office tattle tale, had yellow yarn running between their pictures, indicating she might help but she might also take the whole thing directly to her supervisor or HR and then it would have to be officially noticed. Laurie would need to be played carefully, but she also had a vindictive streak that might make her more inclined to humiliate Nancy than file an official complaint. Allen Chen, the office knight-in-shining-armor and self-appointed champion of the oppressed had red string running between their pictures. He was a union grievance officer, and made it his personal business to take his co-workers side no matter what they did. She'd have to leave him out of it entirely or figure out a way to neutralize him. Agatha Struthers was twice divorced after both husbands left her for younger women. She was middle-aged, mean-spirited, and hated any woman younger and prettier than she was, and Nancy definitely qualified. A dozen other co-workers and a lot of green yarn ringed Nancy's picture. The reasons varied: alcoholism, an unlawful restraint charge plead down from domestic battery, a history of filing complaints against women who had been promoted past him at work, etc. etc. etc., but they all formed a collage of people who with a little gentle encouragement and tacit permission would be willing to ruin Nancy Mitchell's life just for the sadistic joy of torturing and destroying a young woman.
Chris shook her head. It was actually kind of disturbing to see it all laid out visually like that, but you used the tools you had to get the job done. Now she just needed to encourage Nancy to provide that encouragement for her co-workers, to take the first step so they would feel safe in humiliating and degrading her.
Chris went to the kitchen, made a cup of green tea, and came back into the living room and eased herself down on the couch. She stared at the white board and let herself bask in the possibilities it presented. She loved doing the research, setting the dominoes up, then savoring the second before the first one fell and knocked down all the others. But for now, she needed to plan Nancy's second humiliation. She had a rough idea in mind, and didn't want to give her target too much time to recover. Nancy probably wouldn't text her right away, but she might. Chris smiled at the thought of Nancy's certain eagerness to be pushed deeper, but it might be preferable if the horny humiliation slut took a few hours, thought about it, and fully committed to her fantasies before she sent the selfie that would make her complicit in what Chris did to her next. It would make it harder for her to justify wriggling off the hook later if she thought about it before acting and didn't jump in impulsively. In the meantime though, Chris still needed to set up the next set of dominoes for Nancy to knock down.
While she waited for Nancy Chris typed away at her computer diligently for the rest of the morning, doing additional research and taking notes on the next scene. She only occasionally looked at her phone, but began to check it more often as the day went on and Nancy didn't send her anything. By the time she went to bed her eagerness had turned to frustration. She had left clear instructions. It was just a stupid fucking bathroom mirror selfie. Any idiot could do it. She was certain Nancy had read the note, and seen her mirror by now. She should be dripping wet and eager at the prospect of sending the damn picture. If she had some stupid question or wanted to negotiate something she could send a text or even call. What the fuck was the delay? Was Nancy ghosting her? For fuck's sake, she was offering to give this dumb bitch everything she had ever wanted and instead of leaping at the chance Nancy was fucking around and playing some kind of hard-to-get bullshit mind game.
Chris woke up angry before her alarm went off the next morning, and immediately checked her phone for new text messages. She would have gotten a notification if Nancy had sent her a picture, but she needed to look anyway. Nothing was there except the usual junk texts asking for donations for political campaigns and notifications that automatic payments went through. She rolled over and sat up in bed, then sent a quick email requesting the week off work. Something was wrong, things weren't going according to her plan, and she needed to figure out what was happening. Quickly.
She started the coffee pot, threw a microwave breakfast in, and performed her morning ablutions. As soon as she was done she sat down in front of her computer and ate her breakfast while she opened a fresh browser window and clicked on bookmarks to all of Nancy's stories. Maybe she was over-reacting, maybe Nancy would text her the selfie any minute now, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she had missed some critical detail that was threatening to derail her entire plan. She printed one story after another, stapled the loose pages together, and organized them chronologically by the date they were posted. She also printed a copy of Nancy's security clearance interview, and then moved the pile of printouts to the kitchen table.
Chris jerked open a drawer and grabbed a yellow highlighter, and the four other highlighter colors no one ever uses from the pack, and went back to the table. She made a color-coded key to various kinks and angles with the security clearance interview. There wasn't much detail in the interview, but she had the biometric readings to go on, and at least it got her started. Then she spread the stories out on the table and started going through them with the highlighters. She had read them all before, but this time she forced herself to read them not as internet smut but as an owner's manual to Miss Mosquito Bites' kinks and desires. No, that wasn't right. They were an owner's manual to Nancy Mitchell's kinks and desires. She needed Nancy on the hook, not a fake internet persona Nancy broke out when she was bored and horny on a Friday night.
