Performance Improvement Plan, Chapter 12

Here's something I'm prepared to admit: this story is difficult to write! With six POV characters with a complicated web of relationships between them, plus plot threads about both their workplaces and reality-bending hypnotism, it is a lot to juggle! Arguably, too much; it can sometimes be hard to find any room for pornography or size-changing in this size-porn fic! I'm not dumping this story, because I think it's the healthy kind of difficult, and that pushing through it is going to be good for me and for my writing in the long run, but I've hit the point where I gotta say it out loud: writing this is tough! It doesn't flow as effortlessly as a lot of my other work has.

Anyway, that's enough grousing from me, enjoy the chapter!

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Ted cried out, half in pain, half in shock. Hot coffee scalded his hand and seeped into his shirtsleeve, and he ran to the sink  to try and rinse it before the stain could set.

He wasn’t that weak. He could lift a cup of coffee one-handed. It’s just… he’d misjudged the weight, hadn’t lifted with enough force, and ended up knocking the paper cup over instead of picking it up. He groaned, eyes stinging with exhaustion as he crouched down to wipe up the mess with a roll of paper towels.

Once the breakroom was clean, he took a look at the time on his phone and sighed. 11:23. He’d been here since 6 AM. Laura—no, Ms. Sheffield—had given him a share of everybody else’s workload, on top of taking care of all of her projects now that she’d taken over his manager duties, plus whatever administrative tasks needed dealt with and whatever busywork she could make up for him to do.

Honestly, Ms. Sheffield’s workload was enough on its own to run him ragged. She was a brilliant copyeditor and the best researcher on the team, always plugging away with multiple textbooks splayed out on her desk and too many web browser tabs to count, filled up with random pages from academic journals as she fact-checked the team’s nonfiction work. It was meticulous, grueling work, but she made it look so easy. Even if that was the only thing on his plate, he’d probably still be regularly pulling 50- or 60-hour weeks to make up for the fact that he just couldn’t work as efficiently as she could.

With everything else factored in, he was spending more time in the office than he was at home.

Beth’s right, Ted assured himself. Laura is just getting some anger out of her system. It won’t be like this forever.

Joyce had offered to come pick him up when he was finished for the night, but that was something else Beth had been right about: it would’ve been terrible to make her stay up so late, and it really wasn’t such a big deal to sleep in the office. They could come get him in the morning, get some breakfast, maybe spend a little time together… before dropping him back off so he could work through Saturday afternoon.

He remembered all the late nights and weekends he’d sentenced Beth to and winced. He deserved this, didn’t he? As frustrating and painful as it was, this was only fair. But… but at the same time… was it fair? He’d been in the wrong, overworking Beth like that, he’d never deny that. But… But Beth was such a strong person. She could take it! She shouldn’t have had to, but she was capable. Meanwhile, Ted… 

He sighed, and slumped against the wall, rubbing his tired eyes.

Ted used to be strong. Right? Hadn’t he? Or…  maybe…

He wandered toward his old office, the one Beth was now set up in; Ms. Sheffield had preferred to stay where she was. It had only been a couple weeks, so it mostly looked the same. He circled his old L-shaped desk (god, it seemed so imposing now) and looked at his old office chair. At his current height—4’5”, according to the last time Beth had measured him—the luxurious leather back nearly rose up and out of his line of sight, and he had to hop a little to get up into the cushion of it. He leaned back, but found that he wasn’t heavy enough to make it recline, especially with his legs dangling a few inches above the floor, unable to provide any leverage. Reaching anything on the desk was a hassle. Everything felt just a little too far out of reach, a little too heavy, a little too much. He’d worked out of this office for years, and yet… it’s just, he used to feel like this was his space, his domain, a place where his authority reigned. Sitting here now, swinging his little legs, sagging deep into the brown leather cushion, he’d never felt more powerless, more utterly out-of-place, disrespected and overruled by even the furniture around him.

Had he ever really been strong? Or… was the truth that this was who he had always been? Was all his old bluster, all his dedication to building up his body, had he just been trying to create a protective shell around the small, pathetic thing that hid inside of it? And now that the facade had caved in, collapsed under its own weight, all that was left was… the real him, naked and exposed, unable to hide even from himself. The thought depressed him, in ways he struggled to articulate. He heaved another long, sad sigh…

…And caught a whiff of Beth’s perfume. The chair had picked up a bit of its new owner’s scent, and as he breathed in his lungs were filled with memories of his girlfriend. The dark fog of negativity rolled out of his mind, and he couldn’t help but smile. He trusted Beth. And Joyce, too. He even trusted Ms. Sheffield. Sometimes, alone in the dark like this, it got easy to forget that shrinking like this was nothing to be afraid of. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It would all work out if he just kept embracing his weakness.

Embracing his weakness.

Embrace… weakness…

Ted startled awake, embarrassed to see that he’d nodded off for a full twenty minutes. He had work to do!

He hopped down, frowning at the way his slacks sagged. They’d seemed to fit perfectly when he’d put them on this morning…

***

January 24th, 2025 - Dr. Joanna Becker

DR. BECKER: It’s a little more complicated than you’re making it out to be.

MS. ROSSI: Don’t give me that. I’ve seen what you’ve done to Ted and what you’ve done to Beth. Just do the same for me!

DR. BECKER: First of all, I don’t appreciate your tone. 

MS. ROSSI: …Look. Fine. Sorry. Just… I would just, appreciate it very much if you could give me the same treatment that you’re giving Beth.

DR. BECKER: You’re already quite tall. Why do you want to be even taller?

MS. ROSSI: We both know that you’re doing a lot more than just making Beth taller.

DR. BECKER: Fair enough. Next question, then: why should I agree to work with you after you’ve been so disrespectful and demanding?

MS. ROSSI: I’ll pay cash upfront and sign any kind of NDA you want me to.

DR. BECKER: …You know what? That is a better answer than I thought you’d have. Tell me a little bit more about what you’re looking for, Francesca.

***

“Wait, Teddy, come back here.”

Ted turned back toward Joyce, who was beckoning to him from the passenger-side seat of her SUV. Ted approached her, head cocked.

“What is it?” They were in the parking garage beneath their office building, and they were already running late; with how many hours he’d been putting in, it had been a struggle to convince the two of them to let him leave the bed and get ready for the day.

Joyce leaned out of the car a little, bracing herself against the open door as he approached.

“It’s just, you’ve got a little something on your face…”

As soon as Ted was in range, Joyce lunged into action. Ted let out a yelp as Joyce snapped an arm around him, dragging him onto her lap and smothering him in kisses, staining his face in peony-pink lipstick as matching fingernails mussed his hair.

“Hahaha, hey, hey!” He cried, fighting against the giggly euphoria her attentions induced. “We’re late! C’mon… Ah!” He inhaled sharply as a finger hooked beneath his tie, forcefully loosening it enough for Joyce to start attacking his neck. Ted looked pleadingly toward the driver’s seat, where Beth was leaning over the steering wheel, grinning mischievously.

“Joyce!... C-... C’mon… Beth, tell her…”

“‘Tell her?’ Mm… Okay.” Beth sat up straight, the mirth bleeding out of her face. In an instant, it felt like the air pressure in the car had changed.

“Joyce,” Beth said sharply, her voice filled with command. Joyce immediately stopped, turning to look at her indignantly, like a child caught misbehaving. She didn’t actually say anything in protest, though; neither of them seemed capable of resisting that voice.

The moment hung in the air, frozen in silence, Ted squished against his voluptuous girlfriend’s curves as they both waited anxiously for Beth.

The pressure released all at once when Beth broke into another evil grin.

“Hold his arms.”

Giggling, Joyce did as she was told, adjusting her grip on Ted to hook her arms under his as Beth leaned over, dragging his legs out from under him. Joyce continued to bury him in affection while Beth began squeezing at him through his pants with one hand, fiddling with his belt with the other.

“Wait! Wait, wait… ohhhh. I!! You, you… Laura’s gonna be mad if I’m not—!!” Ted gasped and sputtered in pleasure as his girlfriends overwhelmed him, involuntarily jerking against them to no avail. “We can’t… we… someone will see!”

“Shhhhh,” Beth responded, as Joyce slipped a hand over Teddy’s mouth, all the while continuing to kiss and nibble at the nape of his neck. “You let us worry about Laura, baby.” 

“You just let us worry about everything.”

Ted continued to reflexively struggle, but it was no use. Either one of them could trivially pin him down, so what hope did he have against the two of them working together? With Joyce pinning his arms and lavishing his face with attention, Beth yanked down his pants and boxers, clamping a hand around each of his thighs—Jesus Christ, her hands could clamp around his thighs— and began exploring his waistline with her mouth. As her tongue lapped at his balls and planted kisses on his pelvis, Ted’s eyes rolled back, his stammering protests transitioning into moans of pleasure, his fruitless resistance turning into spasms of ecstasy.

***

January 31st, 2025 - Dr. Joanna Becker

MS. ROSSI: I don’t get it. Why isn’t it working?

DR. BECKER: Well, Francesca, it is working. It just takes time.

MS. ROSSI: Not for Beth it didn’t! She’s been seeing you for, what, six weeks? And I mean, look at her!

DR. BECKER: I know, I know. I… I don’t know why Beth takes to the treatment so much more than anyone else. You shouldn’t expect to match her progress.

MS. ROSSI: But! I, I have to!

DR. BECKER: Why is that, Francesca?

MS. ROSSI: I just! I… I just do, okay? It’s… it’s important. Can’t you give me, I don’t know, a double dose or something?

DR. BECKER: Francesca. It sounds like there’s more going on here than you’ve told me about.

Francesca didn’t respond to me.

DR. BECKER: You know, you are in a therapist’s office. This is your time that you’ve paid for, if there’s something bothering you, we can talk about it.

MS. ROSSI: I. I can’t. No.

DR. BECKER: Francesca… I can’t promise anything, but if you have some kind of mental block that I don’t know about, it might be interfering with the hypnotherapy. Talking this out might improve the treatment’s efficacy.

MS. ROSSI: Well then I guess I’m just fucked! Because… No. No, I’m serious, it’s not that I won’t talk about it, it’s, it’s, it’s that I can’t, alright?

DR. BECKER: Mm-hm. Okay, okay. I understand. Well, may I make a suggestion?

MS. ROSSI: Yeah, fine, go ahead.

DR. BECKER: I do happen to be very good at getting people to do things they’re incapable of. Maybe we should have this conversation… after I’ve put you under?

***

Laura slowly leaned to the side, peering around the edge of her monitors. Ted was diligently plugging away on his laptop at a small table in the corner of her office; it had slowly become apparent that if she let the little runt work out in the open area, his… ugh, girlfriends had a bad habit of disappearing with him for long stretches of time. So she’d decided to make him work in here, with her, where he wouldn’t be distracted. 

It probably wouldn’t take much effort to catch them. They made a token effort at covering their tracks, but it wasn’t hard to notice what they were doing if you were paying attention. They’d re-emerge from some unused office or supply closet or bathroom with slightly rumpled clothes, hair suddenly parted on the other side, suspiciously fresh makeup. With a little bit of forethought she could probably get all three of them fired.

But that wasn’t where her head was at right now.

“I just don’t get it,” she said, puncturing the silence. Ted jumped in his seat like a startled deer, growing even more fearful when he turned to her and realized the comment had been addressed to him.

“Don’t um… Don’t get what, Ms. Sheffield?”

“What do either of them see in you?”

Ted nervously darted his eyes from left to right. The two of them were alone in the office; it was already 6 PM. Laura hadn’t been giving herself nearly as brutal a workload as she’d given Ted, but she did have a lot to catch up on to get up to speed as the team’s new manager, so she’d been staying a few hours late most days these first few weeks.

“Um… I don’t know, I guess uh. I guess I just feel lucky that they see something!” Ted laughed nervously, his voice slowly fading in the face of Laura’s stone expression.

“You’re a rotten son of a bitch,” she said flatly, fighting not to show the satisfaction she felt at the way he recoiled from her rebuke. “But I can at least remember a time, before I got to really know you, when you were at least alright to look at. But now there’s just…” Her eyes flicked up and down as she took him in. “There’s nothing there anymore. So explain it to me. It’s not your looks, and it’s certainly not your winning personality. So what the hell is it about you that convinced two of my friends to betray me to date you?”

“I-I-I dunno,” Ted muttered, sinking into his chair, staring downward, face pink. He made a few furtive glances toward Laura, lip quivering as he realized that she wasn’t going to accept that as an answer. “I mean. I-I think they… I think they like me like this… I mean. I think they prefer me smaller…”

“That can’t possibly be right,” Laura said, pushing herself away from her desk and rising to her feet. Each soft thud of her heels against the carpet made Ted tremble a little. “I mean, just… look at you. Stand up.”

“Um…”

“I said stand up, Ted.”

Ted meekly rose to his feet. 

“Christ. You’re like a fucking child.” It was true; in her heels, he barely came up to her chest.

“Hold your hand out,” Laura said, silently reveling in the shame she could see in Ted’s face. He hesitated to obey her, but slowly, he raised his arm up. She pressed her hand into his, scoffing.

“I mean… look at that. Your fingers barely reach the last joints on mine. You’re so… tiny.” Her hand shot out and snatched his arm. “My fingers can close around your wrist!

“Hey… Hey, c’mon…” 

“So what is it, Ted? What’s so damn special about you? Huh?” Ted moved to pull his hand away, but Laura’s grip tightened and she jerked him closer to her.

“Ow! That hurts… I… I don’t know! It’s just… They just…” There was a quiver starting to form in Ted’s voice. With a sneer, Laura shoved and released him, causing him to stumble back and fall to the floor.

“I’m going home. I want the Goldsmith draft done by morning.” She left him there on the floor, trodding off to her desk to close her laptop and grab her purse, trying and failing to ignore the building heat between her legs, the incredible rush of power she’d gotten manhandling him like that.

Okay, maybe she understood after all.

***

January 31st, 2025 - Dr. Joanna Becker

DR. BECKER: Francesca, can you hear me?

MS. ROSSI: Yes.

[You know, if I was COMPLETELY without scruples, I could just erase her memory of me and hypnotize her into continuing to pay me. So, you know.

…Jody, you are arguing with yourself in notes that no one else is ever going to read. Get it together.]

DR. BECKER: You’re currently in what I call a state of minimal mental operability. You’re susceptible to my instructions, but you have enough mental faculty that we can have a conversation. This is a tricky state to maintain, for both of us, and heightened emotions are one way that it can be broken, so as we speak, I need you to remain calm and collected, alright?

MS. ROSSI: Okay.

DR. BECKER: Right, well. Francesca, why is it that you care about matching Beth’s progress?

MS. ROSSI: I don’t know.

DR. BECKER: Francesca… right. Fair enough. Francesca, I am commanding you to tell me.

MS. ROSSI: I don’t want to.

DR. BECKER: I understand that you don’t want to. I am commanding you to tell me anyway.

MS. ROSSI: …I’m in love with her.

***

Francesca glowered, doom-scrolling Twitter. Her work was piling up, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t focus on it, and besides, Ted had taken a big enough chunk of it that she was technically hitting her quotas.

Stupid fucking doctor. Two whole weeks and she hadn’t seen the slightest hint of growth.

The door to the office suite opened and Beth came strolling in, heels clacking against the tile. God, fucking, damn. Francesca was a good ten feet away from her, sitting down, and even so she could tell that the woman was a fucking giant. She’d swear she’d gotten even bigger since last week, a suspicion confirmed by the way she kept tugging at her blazer and skirt, both of which seemed a size too small. How tall was she now, anyway?

***

MS. ROSSI: I don’t really know when I started having a thing for her. It started slow. She was just so… I mean, she was so pretty, but beyond that, she had that… she was like… I just felt like I wanted to, um… protect her, I guess. She was so anxious and small, and she was being treated so badly. And… I don’t know, I guess at some point it turned into a crush.

DR. BECKER: And… do these feelings give you anxiety because you’re both women?

MS. ROSSI: I… I don’t know. I mean it doesn’t help, I guess. Just one more thing to make it harder to… it’s… I… I just… I haven’t ever felt this way before, with um. With anyone.

DR. BECKER: I see. So, are you saying—

MS. ROSSI: Yes, okay? I’m a virgin. I’m nearly thirty years old and I’ve never fucking—

DR. BECKER: Francesca, please, remember to remain calm—

MS. ROSSI: Oh it’s too fucking late, I’m out of it, I’m awake. Are you happy now?

Ms. Rossi got up and moved toward the door.

***

Beth smiled as she walked past, and Francesca struggled to offer the same smile in return as she felt her heart ache. Beth stopped, eyes widening a little, and Francesca felt her mind racing, worried that something in her expression had given away how she was feeling.

“What?” she asked, stand-offish.

“No, sorry, it’s just… have you been working out more lately, Francesca? You look… bigger.”

“Uh. Bigger?”

“Yeah! I mean, in a good way, you know. Obviously. Your arms look a little thicker. It looks good!”

***

DR. BECKER: Francesca, wait! Please. Please come back and sit down.

Francesca lingered by the door for several moments before slowly returning to the couch.

DR. BECKER: This isn’t anything to be ashamed about, Francesca.

MS. ROSSI: Hah! Yeah, okay. Tell that to, fucking, anyone that… of course it’s something to be ashamed of!

DR. BECKER: It isn’t. You said yourself that you’ve never felt sexual attraction before, is that right?

MS. ROSSI: I. Yeah.

DR. BECKER: Well, then it makes perfect sense that you haven’t been physically intimate with another person. There’s no “deadline” for that. Nevermind what movies and popular culture tell us, every person’s life runs on a different time table, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

MS. ROSSI: …Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I don’t know. I guess I just… I’ve always felt, uncomfortable, in my own body, I guess. And, the idea of… doing, anything… I mean the other person almost doesn’t matter, I feel uncomfortable thinking of myself in those situations, you know? And, and…I guess, for once, with Beth, it just sort of… started more, emotionally, I guess, and so. But, I didn’t say anything, and now she’s with someone else… with two other people, and I have to see it every day, and… Ugh.

DR. BECKER: Clearly, Beth isn’t opposed to ethical non-monogamy. Have you tried talking to her about this.

MS. ROSSI: God no! I can’t! I just…

DR. BECKER: You feel like you need to be growing with her. Why?

MS. ROSSI: I just… I miss when she needed me. I don’t know. I guess that’s selfish, she’s clearly happier now, even though, I mean… there’s something about the way she talks to people now, like she’s better than them, it’s off-putting. But, that hasn’t… I still want her. I don’t know. I don’t want her to look at me the way she looks at Joyce and Ted. I want her to… I want her to…

DR. BECKER: To respect you?

MS. ROSSI: Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

DR. BECKER: Well, Francesca. I still can’t promise that I can speed this up at all. One thing I’m beginning to learn is that the hypnosis is much more variable based on the patient than I realized. But maybe now that we’ve had this talk, and now that I understand your mental situation a little more… Maybe I better help you find your strength.

***

Francesca was grateful that her tan skin made it hard to tell when she was blushing. She clenched muscles all over her body, muscles that, yes, yes they had gotten bigger! It was slow, like Dr. Becker said, slow enough that she hadn’t noticed. But now that Beth had pointed it out, now that she was really looking, she realized that her arms were noticeably a little bulkier.

Smiling, she brushed a few locks of her dark hair out of her eyes. Today was a good day.

And she could take that for what it was, return to her work, and patiently wait to see what happened next.

Or…

Find your strength, echoed a voice from deep in the recesses of her subconscious. She rose to her feet and followed Beth toward her office.

“Hey, Beth! Um, maybe, do you think—”

“FUCK!” Laura’s voice, earsplitting and violent, echoed through the entire suite. Everyone immediately rushed to her office door.

“What is it?” Beth asked,

“Those fucking assholes. Those fucking assholes!” Laura shoved her chair away from her desk, where her email was sitting open. She jumped to her feet and stabbed a finger in Beth’s face.

“You really thought it would be that easy, huh? You really thought they were just gonna give me this job?”

“Laura,” Beth said, affecting her authoritative voice. “Tell us what happened.”

Laura, face and voice filled with rage, struggled to form a coherent sentence, before she just pointed toward her monitor. “Read it yourself.”

***

2-3-25 - 11:07 AM - Read
To: Laura Sheffield
From: Craig Martin
Subject: [IMPORTANT] Re: Management of Pod 4

Laura,

I want to express my gratitude for your stepping up to act as the interim manager of your team, especially on such short notice. Ted’s decision to step down as manager took us all by surprise, and your leadership was pivotal in helping us maintain smooth day-to-day operations. Thanks to you, we haven’t missed a beat, and I’ve attached a $100 Amazon gift card as a token of gratitude in recognition of your efforts. 

Ted’s decision has triggered a reevaluation of the human resources budget of our editing department, and it has been determined that Pods 4 and 5 are such small teams that it does not make financial sense to continue to keep them separate. Effective February 17th, 2025, we will be merging Pods 4 and 5. Bob McCormac, the manager of Pod 5, will be the new direct report for all members of your team, yourself included. We thank you in advance for your continued stellar work as interim manager during the two-week transition period.

Thanks,

Craig Martin
Department Manager, Editing
Maribou Publishing

Sent from my iPhone