Caroline pressed the Burn Disc option on the PC and waited for the time estimate till completion. Six minutes. Damn, that was longer than she had hoped for. It was necessary, however. The data she had purloined from the system would put Spaudling and several of his legal partners away for a long time. Embezzlement had become the white collar crime of the twenty-first century, and having seen her grandfather fall victim to it, she was determined not to let this firm of parasites get away with it.

      Caroline glanced up at the clock: five-forty. She was already the last secretary in the office, necessary for burning the evidence to CD without being overlooked, but it also made her particularly vulnerable if any of the participants of the scam happened to come in.

      Having spent most of the afternoon accumulating the files the D.A.'s would need to prosecute the case against Spaudling and the others, Caroline had not taken any breaks, either for a drink or to use the bathroom, and she certainly needed the bathroom. Her bladder had been complaining for a while that it was being neglected. Well, attending to that would just have to wait until she was safely out of the building.

      Crossing her legs, Caroline watched the progress bar moving slowing across the screen, willing it to get a move on. The disc burn still had three minutes to run, however, when the intercom clicked on and Spaudling's voice said, "Miss Hunnisett. Would you please come into my office. I need you to take dictation."

      Caroline swore under her breath. Just three more minutes. Why did the old sod have to call her now?

      She pressed the transmit button. "Sir, I was just on my way out," she said. "Can we do the dictation tomorr--?"

      "Now, Miss Hunnisett," Spaudling interrupted. "This is an urgent letter which must go out tonight."

      "I understand sir," Caroline tried again, "but I have a doctor's appointment at six and if I don't leave now--."

      "Miss Hunnisett,' Spaudling cut in again. "The whole point of being my personal secretary is that you are available when I need you to be. That also includes outside normal office hours if the job demands it. That is, after all, why we pay you a higher salary. Now please stop prevaricating and come in here with you pencil and pad."

      Caroline consulted the progress bar again - still another two minutes. Damn! It was too long to stall. She would just have to go in and take the wretched dictation, then when she came back to her desk, ostensibly to type up the letter, she would grab the disc and run. Taking up her pad and pencil and wishing she had time to do something about her aching bladder, Caroline rose and went across to the door of Spaudling's office and knocked softly. He instructed her to enter.

      Caroline seated herself on her customary chair and waited for Spaudling to get started. Was it her imagination, or was he behaving a little oddly? He seemed guarded, looking up from his paperwork now and again to flick a furtive glance at her. Caroline went on waiting, tightening the muscles in her abdomen as she wondered how long this was going to take.

      "Right," Spaudling began finally. "Today's date. Heading: Re your letter of September 1st. Dear Mr. Mason, Thank you for communicating to me the circumstances of the claim you are making against..."

      Spaudling droned on for five minutes, although to Caroline it felt very much longer. Then, to her surprise, because it was quite uncharacteristic of the old man, Spaudling suddenly stood up and went over to his drinks cabinet. She had never seen him actually make use of it before, but tonight he was preparing a drink. A minute later, he came over to her carrying two shot glasses each containing an amber liquid.

      He extended one towards Caroline and waiting for her to accept it. "Oh, I...," she began, slightly flustered by this uncustomary gesture, with all the implicit equality it suggested. "I don't normally drink during the day," she concluded, somewhat lamely.

      "Neither do I, Miss Hunnisett," Spaudling countered, "but then today is somewhat exceptional and worthy of a little celebration."

      "A celebration, sir?"

      "Yes. We landed a particularly lucrative client today. A litigation case which promises to run into six figures."

      "I see," Caroline said dubious.

      "Well, drink up. It's not every day your job security is so significantly enhanced."

      Reluctantly, Caroline accepted the glass. Spaudling tipped back his drink in one gulp, so in order to keep him happy as well as getting the ritual over as quickly as possible, Caroline did the same. Spaudling gave her a smug smile, returned to his seat and resumed dictating.

      Soon, Caroline was having trouble focusing on her shorthand notes. The old man's voice had taken on an odd, distant quality as if he were speaking to her from the bottom of a well. Could that one shot of spirit really have rendered her drunk? She had never cultivated a high tolerance for alcohol, but this was ridiculous.

      Spaudling's voice diminished until it was both distant and muffled, and finally Caroline had to stop writing because she could not longer see what she was doing. She felt horribly dizzy and was dimly aware that the room was swaying about her. It didn't even occur to her that she was the one swaying, and she hardly felt the hands that gripped her shoulders a few moments later and leaned her back in her chair.

      That was when time seemed to skip a track. At one moment she had been taking dictation notes, and the next, or so it seemed to her, she was sitting bolt upright in the chair with her arms behind her, head hanging forward, notepad gone. Opening her eyes, she could see only her own lap, the hem of her black skirt reaching almost to her knees. But something was wrong. Something had been pulled across her chest, right above her breasts, a white line cutting across her red top. What was it? She couldn't quite bring her eyes into focus.

      A dull pain emanated from her wrists and ankles, and was having trouble breathing. Feeling the first flicker of panic, Caroline tried to flex her limbs, but neither arms nor legs responded to her commands to move. Her shoulders also ached, but that was as nothing compared to the terrible ache between her hips. What the hell was going on?

      As she sat there trying to remember what had happened, the pain between her hips was sharpening, becoming more focused. Pain was an excellent stimulant, and with a start, Caroline found memories pouring back. She had been burning a data disc when Spaudling had called her into his office to take dictation. She hadn't wanted to come because she needed to pee. She remembered wanting to squirm when Spaulding offered her a drink of something, but she had tensed her thigh muscles and swallowed it. Then...she couldn't remember anything. Why? And then the truth hit her like a fist: the drink had been laced with something. That bastard Spaudling drugged her!

      How long had she been out? Judging from the horrible swelling around her abdomen, quite some time. While she had been unconscious, her kidneys would have absorbed urine until she woke again. Then, the kidneys discharged it all back to the bladder on the assumption that it would quickly be voided. Oh, that was her first priority, to get to the bathroom and relieve herself.

      Caroline tried to move, and immediately started to panic. Her limbs were trapped. What was--? Oh God! She was tied up! That had to be it.

      She looked down at her chest again, and this time the white line resolved itself into four parallel lengths of rope. Even the smallest effort to lean forward was enough to convince her that it was pinning her to the chair back. Suddenly, she was aware of the pressure around her wrists and ankles where more rope had been tied. She could hardly move! There was also tape stuck to her mouth and cheeks, which meant she couldn't summon help to use the bathroom. For now, she had no choice other than to sit there and wait. And even when someone did eventually show up, how was she to commicate her urgent desire to pee through the tape covering her mouth?

      As her situation fulling sank in, Caroline suddenly experienced a raging desire to pee. Her bladder was sending out increasingly-urgent signals for attention, but she could not do anything about it. Frantically, she tugged at the rope binding her wrists, trying to slide it past her knuckles so that she could at leat free one hand from its bondage, but the rope was firmly tied. She pulled harder, trying to stretch it just enough to give her a little latitude to move, but all she succeeded in doing was tightening the knot still further. With a moan of frustration, she resigned herself to the fact that she would just have to wait for Spaulding, or whoever else might be involved, to come back.

      But as the minutes crept painfully by, Caroline grew increasingly worried that she really could not hold on much longer. She began lifting her feet from the floor, trying to maximise the effort she was putting into pulling free of the rope lashed around her breasts. The chair creaked as she wiggled and kicked against her bonds, and wondering if she could actually break the chair and free herself, she rocked back and forth more violently. The chair creaked more loudly still, but it refused to break. Caroline vented an angry moan of frustration through her gag. She had to pee; she simply had to. How dare Spaudling place her in this painful and humiliating situation?

      Unable to sit still, she went on struggling with her bonds, twisting her feet this way and that, partly in an attempt to get free but also to help quell the desperate urge to release her piss. She really didn't want to soak her skirt and panties and then have to sit there in wet discomfort. If someone didn't free her soon, however, she would have absolutely no choice. Her bladder was close to bursting!

      She was almost at the end of her tether when Spaudling entered the room. She immediately tried to speak but all that emerged were muffled grunts. Spaudling smiled. "Ah, Miss Haversham. So glad to see you are with us again. As I'm sure you've noticed, it has been necessary to neutralize you. Industrial espoinage, was it? Or were you planning to go to the police with your finding?"

      Caroline mmmphed through her gag again, and Spaudling made a play of understand what she was saying. "Ah, I see. Well, either way, we just can't have that."

      Caroline watched in frustrated horror as Spaudling pulled up a chair and sat himself down just a few feet in front of her. He even put his right foot up on the seat of her chair, and sat there watching her rocking back and forth, and watching her knees bouncing up and down. She realized that he was fully away of her desperate desire to empty her bladder, and the bastard was just sitting there watching her struggle. Judging by the smile on his face and the bulge she had just spotted in his trousers, he was enjoying her predicament. She grunted another protest, but of course it didn't do the slightest bit of good.

      Oh God, she thought. I'm so impossibly desperate to piss, and in a minute I'll have to wet myself in front of him. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Caroline began to shake her head. I can't let him see me wet myself, she thought. Oh no, please. I can't let him see me let go in my panties and skirt. I just can't!

      "So, Caroline," Spaudling resumed. "Care to tell me what you were planning to do with this?" From his jacket pocket, he produced a CD, and Caroline realized it was the CD from her computer. "The Fraud Squad, perhaps? Or perhaps you're actually working for them?"

      Spaudling stood up and circled round behind her chair. He leaned over her right shoulder, his hand running from her neck to the bulge of her breasts. It lingered here for a few seconds before continuing down across her stomach to her abdomen. Caroline shook her head began to squirm as his intentions becamse obvious. She issued muffled protests through her gag as Spaudling started massaging her abdomen, sending tiny shock waves through her bursting bladder. Caroline repeatedly grunted through her nose as she fought the nearly overwhelming urge to pee. She threw back her head in frustration, straining against her bonds in a desperate attempt to reach Spaudling pressing hand and remove it, but she couldn't get free; could do anything to stop him.

      "How does that feel?" he whispered in her ear. "Am I hitting the spot?"

      Caroline sat there rocking and gasping, wiggling her thighs, bouncing her knees, twisting fer feet around one another, everything she could think of to help her hold on. But it was close to impossible--she had never been so incredibly desperate to pee in her life.

      Spaudling grinned broadly into her face as she struggled, sensing that she was at her limit. Suddenly, he pushed hard. Caroline felt hot pee spurt into her panties and gush part of the way down her thighs. She issues a muffled squeal, craning her neck forward, trying so very hard to hold on. Then Spaudling pressed hard again, and this time a sustained and powerful stream of pee rushed down her legs like a waterfall.

      Caroline looked down at the wet patch spreading rapidly across the front of her skirt with a mixture of horror and embarrassment. She was wetting herself, something she had not done since she was a child. Spaudling continued to press down on her tortured bladder, and pee continued to jet through her panties with all the power of a racehorse. She was soaking herself, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. The bastard had made her wet herself, drenching her clothes, humiliating her.

      As Caroline's bladder emptied and the flow began to abate, Spaudling stopped pressing on her abdomen and moved his hand to her cheek. Again, he whispered in her ear. "I really enjoyed that, Miss Haversham. We really must do it again. At my place. In the country. Tomorrow."

      Tears filled Caroline's eyes as she wondered how much longer her ordeal would go on, and how much more humilation she would be forced to endure. Only time would tell...