She wore girdles and garter belts in a pantyhose world and drove the better cars.
Had a husband once, but he cramped her style. He liked her stockinged legs around him but resented her for keeping them in a penthouse far beyond his banker’s salary, and it cost him his job.
She settled in at his former organization with a simple admin title, modest salary, and a top-floor corner office. The vice president of personnel had a private key and used it often—he liked her stockings and long, slim legs too. The same ones that had landed the job for her former husband three years prior.
She made $620 a week through payroll, but a thousand more from a special account.
“You’re worth it,” he said, tying his tie and buttoning his suit in the private suite behind her office—a company perk reserved for top management. But the perks were mostly for special guests, and not her.
“Any lipstick on me?” he asked, checking the mirror.
“Not a trace. Smudge-proof brand. It’s on the expense account.”
“As I said, you’re worth it.”
She smoothed her dress down, picked up the panties from the floor, and replaced them with a laundered pair—she bought them by the dozens, also on the expense account. He liked her dressed, on the green silk couch, her skirt around her waist rather than naked on a bed. Naked on a bed was with his wife, when she wanted it but the office couch was a daily thing.
She checked her makeup in the white gold compact mirror, noting the fine lines beginning at the corners of her eyes. How many more years of this? Five? Three? The thought came and went like it always did—mechanical as the rest of it.
An hour later, his boss was there, between her legs and trying hard. She nursed him through, slow and easy, stroking his head and staring at the ceiling tiles. Twenty-three across, sixteen down. She’d counted them a hundred times. Tile mathematics—cost-benefit analysis performed in the missionary position.
“Dinner tonight with a special guest,” he reminded, zipping up after his four-minute stint.
“It means another mil or so for the corporation,” he said, checking the mirror for telltale traces. He dropped an envelope on her desk. “This is extra—for extra effort.” He paused at the door, not quite looking at her. “He’s fond of oral.”
After he left, she sat at her desk for a long moment, the envelope unopened. Through the window, she could see the parking garage where her Regency Red Jaguar waited—one more expense for her employer. Another line item in someone’s budget, just like the panties, the lipstick, the suite behind her office.
Her ex-husband used to say she had everything. He was right, in a way. She had the penthouse, the car, the designer clothes, the corner office. What she didn’t have was the luxury of pretending any of it meant something beyond the transaction.
He couldn’t live with that. He’d wanted to believe his salary paid for everything, that his position at the bank mattered, that her legs wrapped around him in their expensive bed were about him instead of mutual arrangement.
The corporation had recognized his weakness immediately. Men who needed to believe in their own importance were liabilities. They made moral stands, drew lines in the sand, asked uncomfortable questions about special accounts and evening dinners.
She opened the envelope: twelve one hundred-dollar bills, crisp and sequential. Always cash for special requests.
Showered and fresh, she wheeled the Jaguar out and did some shopping. Neiman Marcus for a new dress—something that would photograph well at dinner. Special guests wanted special proof, something they didn’t share with family. They always did. Sometimes later photos too, in the suite.
She selected a black sheath, elegant but accessible. Had the salesgirl box it with tissue paper and charged it to the card they’d given her for such occasions.
In the changing room, she caught her reflection in the three-way mirror: front, side, back. All the angles men saw—and some they didn’t. She looked good. Better than good. She’d made herself into a precision instrument, every detail calibrated for maximum effect. Gym five days a week. Skin-care regimen that cost more than most car payments. Hair, nails, waxing appointments scheduled like private board meetings.
This was her career. Her expertise. She’d simply stopped pretending it was anything else.
The special guest would be older—rich enough that a million-dollar deal was worth celebrating, but not so rich he was numb to the perks. He’d drink too much, talk too much about himself, put his hand on her knee under the table. After dinner, in the car, or in his hotel suite, he’d want – and get much more than promises.
She’d deliver. That was the job. The real job, the one that paid four times her official salary.
Long night ahead, but she’d sleep late in the morning. That was in the contract too—unwritten but understood. The morning after special guests, she came in late, refreshed and ready for her afternoon appointments.
She pulled into the penthouse garage, the Jaguar’s engine purring to silence. Upstairs, she’d have two hours to prepare—makeup, hair, the new dress, the girdle and garters that marked her as someone who understood the ceremony, the undressing and the ritual.
In the private elevator to the twentieth floor, she wondered if her ex-husband ever drove past their apartment building. If he knew she still lived here, in the space his pride couldn’t bear. If he’d realized yet that his old firm hadn’t just replaced him—they’d replaced him with her, at a fraction of the cost and twice the value.
Probably not. Men like him preferred their illusions intact.
The elevator doors opened to her hallway. She stepped out, heels clicking on marble, and unlocked her door. Inside, everything was exactly as she’d left it—pristine, expensive, empty.
She had two hours. Time enough for everything that mattered—and nothing that didn’t.
[Image Credit : Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash]
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Dale Scherfling
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- Girdles, Garters and Overtime - February 24, 2026
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