Bring Your Fetish to Work Day

Straightening my white blouse, I looked down, wondering if anyone would comment on today's outfit. Black knee-length corduroy skirt, white button down shirt, black sweater vest, long hair parted in the middle. I was missing the tartan and the knee-socks and the Mary-Janes, but I still felt like I was costumed as myself, not as the business-casual character I usually play Monday through Friday. Remembering the costume I wore to work last Halloween--Schoolgirl from Hell, replete with the plaid skirt and delicate hand-made bronze clay horns--I couldn't help but wonder if anyone would comment on this more austere version of the theme.

What will I say if they ask? I wondered. The answer was obvious. "It's Bring Your Fetish to Work Day," I'd tell them, looking them up and down. "I can't tell what yours is though. Pasty skin, too much blush... are you a necrophile?" Or to the mountain-climbing man who always comments when I wear new shoes, "Will you be tasting my toes today?" Or to the girl who only talks to vegetarians, "Just what do you do with the carrots and zucchini you grow in your garden?"

Fortunately, no one asked me the anticipated question, because what I'd really say is something along the lines of, "I just liked it as an outfit," and move along. But the day was different. I was more sociable, willingly chatting about meaningless subjects with the other women in my office. I made jokes; I stayed on top of my work without feeling like a slave to it. I was feisty! When I was asked to cut a check for a political group I found offensive in the guise of a deductable donation, I finally found the courage to refuse. My refusal was accepted, even applauded by some, albeit secretly. By wearing a self costume, I actually was myself.

To a degree. As I become more and more the woman/schoolgirl I've always wanted to be, like the mountain-climber showing off a bruise or the veggie girl showing off an immense squash, I want to show off the fruits of my own activities. I want to lift my skirt and show off an especially wicked bruise or stripe. I want to bend over my desk and announce "Look what I can do!" with an appropriate volunteer. I want to pull up this blog and make them read. "I'm a writer who writes about the things that make you squirm," I want to tell them. "Live in my skin for a day and know that even after having been tied around the waist to a school-desk, legs spread and ankles bound as well, caned by an ambidextrous man with a tennis pro's backhand, my greatest agony is walking through this door and becoming someone you don't mind having the desk next to yours."

I have a feeling I won't be working there much longer. I can take a lot of punishment, but trying to hide among conservatives and catty accountants isn't really the type of daily beating I crave. It's not that I think that my next job will be somewhere that I am spanked for my typos and transgressions. I just want to be able to wear an outfit like today's to work and grinningly say to someone, "It's Bring Your Fetish to Work Day," leaving them not horrified, but wondering what they should have worn.

Outfit or no outfit, I often bring a bottom like this to work.

(photo not my own bottom, Red Charls free gallery)