A Coffee a Day Keeps the Manager at Bay Pt.1 (Patreon)

Intro

At age 28 Evelyn has surprised friends and foes as she was the youngest woman in her company’s history to make it to a manager’s position. A position she thought she rightfully deserved having always worked strictly by the book. She was also just smarter than other candidates and even current managers so in her mind if anyone deserved it, it was she. 

Of course that was only her version, among her colleagues she was mainly known as a bitch, correcting and hassling others about their work if it wasn’t completely by the book while everyone knew those rules were only there as a guide. Following every single rule would simply be impractical. The rumours in the break room however suggested that Evelyn got her promotion by doing the bosses a favour probably on her knees. 

It wasn’t true in the slightest, but it wasn’t unthinkable that Evelyn’s beauty had something to do with it. After all Evelyn was one stunning woman. With her long shapely legs, her D-cup breasts, perfect figure and blemish free skin she was the envy of all the women in the company and she was able to turn the head of all the men. Her mysterious brown eyes, luscious long brown hair and full lips looked great on her somewhat younger looking face.

While manger was a great position already it was clear by how hard and correct Evelyn worked that she definitely planned to grow even further within the company’s ranks. Ambitions were something she certainly didn’t lack, but she was realistic as well. To grow further she would at least have to prove her worth as a manager for a year or two and to do so she often worked overtime. Something her husband Mike wasn’t so happy with, but in the end he understood and supported his wife in her decision. 

The only one who really wasn’t happy with Evelyn’s ambitions was her secretary Kelly. Kelly wasn’t ambitious in the slightest. All she cared about was earning a monthly wage to live of with as little work as possible. In that regard being a secretary had sounded easy to her, just filling out files, doing some mails, working from nine to five without big responsibilities. At least that was the idea she had of the job when she took it right after finishing her studies.

All of those expectations of an easy job were dashed when she was placed under Evelyn as her personal secretary. A lot of Evelyn’s ambitions translated in high expectations for her employees as well. When Evelyn worked late she expected Kelly to stay late as well. On top of that Kelly had a lot of extra work simply because everything had to happen in accordance with the rules, no shortcuts were allowed. She had learned that the hard way when she had been ordered to start over a couple of times. 

Evelyn always demanded perfection even going as far as to demand a stricter dress code of her secretary. She claimed that if Kelly didn’t look good enough it would make her look bad as well. This was a big bummer For Kelly who now had to wear knee length pencil skirts, blouses, pantyhose and heels instead of the more comfortable and more casual office wear she had otherwise resorted to.

She couldn’t really be made to follow this stricter dress code, but giving in simply had been easier than having to listen to Evelyn’s daily rant about her outfits. Kelly tried to make the required outfit as comfortable as she possibly could wearing pencil skirts with a bit more stretch in, wearing thick opaque black tights instead of sheer pantyhose and wearing black leather ankle boots with a low block heel. She felt somewhat stupid in the outfit, as she had no where near the amazing figure Evelyn had. Although Kelly was younger at 22, just out of college. She was also shorter, somewhat chubby with shoulder length dirty blond hair. The skirt and tights she wore didn’t look nearly as flattering as the tailor-made skirt suits with high heels and sheer pantyhose Evelyn wore did.

There was only one thing worse than the stricter dress code and that was the way Evelyn often treated her as nothing but a servant, making her run to the break room for coffee, making her serve clients as well when she was in a meeting, even making her pick up her lunch. Evelyn didn’t seem to care about what Kelly was doing at that moment either, no matter if she was in the middle of working on a document that required focus not to miss any of the stupid steps Evelyn required, if she was on a break or even if it was already past her finishing hour. If Kelly didn’t bring Evelyn what she requested within five minutes she would have to listen to a rant.

Kelly and Evelyn just clashed exceptionally hard since Evelyn expected more than what was reasonable while Kelly wanted to do less than what was normally required. Since Evelyn was Kelly’s boss however Kelly always ended up being the one having to suck up her frustrations.

It were frustrations she often took out on anonymous fora on the internet, not wanting to get in trouble over ranting on social media, while still needing a place to vent as she was living by herself in a small flat without a roommate or partner to vent to.

One day it was one of those fora that gave her an answer to her problem that sounded too good to be true. She got an email from another forum user who claimed to have access to some kind of drug to render a person very susceptible for a short moment after first taking it in. The susceptibly was an unfortunate side effect of what was meant to be a new fast acting painkiller and the reason why the drug hadn’t made it out of clinical trials. This person offered to send her one batch for free to see if she liked it, claiming it could fix all the trouble she had with her boss.

To Kelly it sounded as a scam, but then again what did she really have to lose if the first batch was free anyways? She had no obligation to buy a second batch if she didn’t like it, hell this person couldn’t even know her real name and she was smart enough not to give her real address, instead sending a mail back with instructions on how to deliver it at an anonymous PO box while her mind raced over the possibilities a drug like this could offer. She wasn’t very hopeful about the results, but it sure was fun to think about taking some revenge on that bitch of an Evelyn, Kelly thought as she got confirmation that it would be delivered by Friday evening meaning that she wouldn’t be able to test it until next Monday.

Chapter 1

Monday morning Kelly walked into the office with a big smile on her face. As promised the free batch of drugs had been delivered in the PO box Friday evening and all weekend she had been thinking about how to best use the batch as it apparently only existed of five small vials. Her hopes weren’t all that high, but even just planning as if it would work had been rather satisfying. 

The instruction manual that had been delivered with the vials read that suggestibility only lasted for a brief moment right after delivery in which the facial expression would turn blank. The subject would have no memory of what was being said in that interval but every word would have a lasting effect on the subject’s subconscious mind. You apparently had to be careful to keep your message brief cause if the subject snapped out of it while you were still commanding them they would be aware of it and would react accordingly.

A second warning was not to overuse the drug since as with painkillers the body could grow used to the drug and the effect would severely diminish with overuse or even disappear completely. One dose a day was the maximum advised quantity even less if possible.

Luckily it looked like she would have no trouble delivering it though as the instructions also read that the drug was easily dissolved into water being completely tasteless and colourless. She should have no trouble putting it into Evelyn’s coffee which she had to bring and make anyways.

Getting behind her desk Kelly patiently waited for the demand of Evelyn’s first coffee of the day to come in. it was something that usually happened within the first fifteen minutes of her arriving at the office. Evelyn didn’t disappoint as five minutes later Evelyn called out. “Kelly bring me a coffee will you?”

Normally Kelly would have rolled her eyes at Evelyn’s command, there wasn’t even a please and there probably wouldn’t be a thank you either, there never was. The most she ever got was a complaint for taking too long. Today however Kelly was all to eager to make that coffee, just to see if that drug would have any effect at all.

As fast as she could Kelly rushed to the break room where she made the coffee with extra milk and no sugar, the way she had learned Evelyn liked her coffee. Then when it was finished she emptied the small vial into the cup and gave it a good stir, just to be sure. The instruction manual had said it didn’t need to be a concentrated dose to get that initial effect kick in.

Walking back to Evelyn’s office, passing her own desk out front Kelly entered, put the cup on Evelyn’s desk and stuck around slightly hoping Evelyn would drink before she got out. Knocking and such wasn’t needed Evelyn had told her before, she didn’t want Kelly to interrupt her concentration when brining coffee, she only ever gave the command to get coffee then ignored Kelly.

Just before Kelly was about to leave the room, she saw Evelyn take a sip and even though it was what she had been hoping for she was still extremely surprised when Evelyn really did blank out. So surprised that she almost forgot what she would say. In a hurry she blurted out “You should be more respectful to me, you owe me at least a please and thank you when you demand or ask anything of me.” 

It was a bit of a stupid thing to waste one of her five vials of the drug on, after all she wanted to get way juicier revenge out of them. Yet after a weekend of thinking about it she had decided this was the best possible test. It wasn’t something Evelyn would ever do under normal circumstances. Her demanding such a thing would get her a lecture form her boss probably, but it wasn’t unreasonable enough to get her into any real trouble. In other words it was perfect to check if the drugs worked without taking risks.

For a long few nervous seconds everything remained quiet as Evelyn’s blank expression remained. It ended up lasting just a little under a minute before Evelyn’s expression seemed to go back to normal. When that happened Kelly was in for another surprised as Evelyn quickly said. “Thank you for that coffee Kelly.” Before Kelly left the office.

Could this drug really be working? There was no way right? This simply was too good to be true, there was no way that actually worked, yet Evelyn hadn’t ranted at her for her demand and she had really thanked her. Of course it could be that Evelyn had also thought it was just a reasonable demand, but knowing how the young manager looked down on her even that was a very unlikely scenario. Very unlikely but more believable than that drug actually working. Time would tell she guessed.

In the meantime Evelyn just focused on her work, completely unaware that anything had just happened. She wasn’t aware of blanking out after initially sipping from her coffee and after that thanking Kelly for that coffee had seemed normal, after all when someone gave something to you, you thanked them, it wasn’t something she bothered to question

A few hours later in the middle of her morning shift when it was time for her usual mid-morning coffee Evelyn called out for her secretary again. “Kelly, could you please bring me another coffee?” She asked. When her secretary placed the coffee down on her desk a few minutes later she said. “Thank you for the coffee Kelly.” She didn’t think anything about it although she did wonder why her secretary was smiling so broadly, she had rarely seen the woman smile.

Over the course of the day things were business as usual Evelyn asked many more coffees, told Kelly to go get her lunch at one of the special healthy food places she always ordered at, and gave Kelly a lot of menial jobs she hated doing. Despite everything Kelly’s smile remained broad. Every request was started off with a please and ended with a thank your from her boss. As normal as that should have been, for Kelly it meant that the drug worked wonders. She wanted to try with something else so badly, but the last thing she wanted was to screw up the effects of the drug so reluctantly she forced herself to remain patient.

While Kelly went home with a smile on her face, plotting how to take this further and finally take her bitchy boss a few pegs down. Evelyn went home completely unaware that anything had even happened at all. For her it had just been another Monday at the office.

Chapter 2

Last night Kelly had barely been able to sleep. All evening and night she had been pondering about what she wanted to do now that this drug seemed to work. She could think of a million ways in which she wanted to make her boss pay, but at the end of her thought process she couldn’t help but conclude that this would best be taken as a slow process. The drugs did seem to work wonders, but then again making Evelyn say please and thank you wasn’t that much of an achievement. She had no clue as to how Evelyn would react to more extreme commands. So to test the drug and try not to ruin this good thing in the process she would take the changes gradually. After all it was very well possible that this drug would only be good to achieve getting her boss to act a little nicer to her.

Just like yesterday Kelly got behind her desk already excited at the prospect of her boss asking for a coffee. It was a task she usually hated as she didn’t take this job to be someone’s waitress, but with the drug, especially now that it seemed to work, it had become the highlight of her day. As usual it didn’t take long for Evelyn to request her first coffee. “Kelly, can you bring me a coffee please?” She asked, apparently still using please which was a good sign already.

Rushing to the break room Kelly prepared Evelyn’s coffee, carefully mixing another dose of the drug in before carrying it to her boss’s office with a big smile of anticipation. Where she wasn’t really sure what should happen yesterday, she had big expectations today.

“Thank you Kelly.” Came Evelyn’s response when Kelly put the cup of coffee onto her desk. Evelyn didn’t look up, but there was a thank you at least. Slowly Kelly walked to the door, waiting around a little until she saw Evelyn take a sip and blank out just like she had yesterday.

“You’re a very demanding boss Evelyn so as a compensation you should really lighten the burden for me where possible and help a little to make my day easier.” Kelly said with a smirk. It was a small experiment on her part as she hadn’t issued a clear command. She wondered how it would be interpreted by Evelyn’s subconscious.

Smiling broadly Kelly walked out of Evelyn’s office with a big smile getting behind her desk curious about what her command would bring. Trying to contain her excitement Kelly focused on her work. It was all she could do to make the time pass a little faster.

About an hour later Kelly was surprised when Evelyn walked out of her office. She almost never left her office apart for meetings. She never had to as she made Kelly fetch everything for her and she hand one of those fancy offices with its own bathroom, the perks of having a manager’s position. Kelly knew for a fact that Evelyn didn’t have any meetings planned today so why was she running out of her office?

A few minutes later Evelyn walked back to her office with another steaming cup of coffee. At first Kelly smiled realising she wouldn’t have to bring Evelyn coffee like some kind of waitress anymore, but her smile quickly disappeared as she realised it meant she had no more way of delivering the drug to Evelyn anymore. That could become a problem she hope she could solve. Tomorrow she would just bring Evelyn a cup of coffee on her own when she walked to her desk. Hopefully she would just drink it so she could straighten out this issue.

When she spied Evelyn going for coffee herself the second time that morning Kelly smiled. It was nice not having to interrupt her work anymore to fetch coffee. She did manage to get a lot more done this way and if this trend kept on this afternoon she might even be done with work on time for once. 

It only got better when the lunchbreak started. Instead of telling Kelly what fancy place downtown she had ordered at now Evelyn simply walked out of her office herself to fetch her own food. Kelly in turn just went to the fast-food place across their office building. She had always loved fast food and now that she paid her own bills, not living under her parents roof anymore she often indulged this love. It was one of the reasons she had packed on even more weight to her already chubby frame this year.

Only having to get her own food and not having to walk a couple of blocks to one of those fancy places did save Kelly a lot of time. In only 10 minutes she had carried her own order up to her desk, having most of her lunchbreak left to enjoy instead of having to gulp it down in a hurry. After having been able to enjoy her food there still was a lot of time left, time Kelly spend doing something she normally wouldn’t do.

She was fully aware that her feet smelled terrible. She had always had sweaty feet, but the thick tights and ankle boots always made them rank. Yet despite that Kelly unzipped her worn ankle boots and slipped her feet out, placing the black opaque sweaty nylon covered soles right on her desk. Within seconds the whole area around her desk and thus around the door to Evelyn’s office smelled like Kelly’s feet.

Without a doubt Evelyn who should be getting back any minute by now would be pissed at her for putting her feet up like this. While before this thought would have scared Kelly she now actively wanted to provoke her boss, just to see how she would react. With how well the drug had worked so far she was pretty confident provoking her. No bad consequences would come from it, she would make sure of it.

Sure enough not even five minutes later Evelyn walked up to her office. The moment she spotted Kelly, Kelly could see her anger rise. She was surely getting a rant and she knew it, but instead of scared it actually amused her. She had never seen her boss this pissed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Kelly? I can smell your feet all the way down the hall and then I’m not even talking about how gross it is that everyone who comes into view will have to look at your gross feet! It’s rude disrespectful and most of all disgusting. This behaviour is just not tolerable, especially not from my fucking secretary. You know very well that your appearance impacts my reputation as well it’s already bad enough that I got a fatty without any style whatsoever as a secretary. I just won’t allow this.” Evelyn raged clearly the maddest she had ever been here at work, at least the angriest Kelly had ever seen her.

While she had enjoyed the rant at first now that she didn’t feel threatened by it, the comment of her being a fatty had cut deep. One thing Evelyn had never done before was insult her in a political incorrect way, but she must have gotten carried away in her rage. It pissed Kelly off, but sadly she didn’t have the tools to take immediate revenge. She would certainly remember this though.

“I wouldn’t need to air out my feet like this if I didn’t have to wear stupid heels and tights all the time. You can’t imagine how sore they make my feet. The least you can do to help me is to let me relax my feet at least a little on my own time during my lunchbreak when I’m not on the clock.” Kelly retorted.

She noticed to her satisfaction that the words ‘help me’ seemed to soften Evelyn’s expression a little. That part of her command had obviously left an impressions, but the ‘where possible’ and ‘help a little’ part obviously halted the effect the words had. For Evelyn this was a huge deal and impossible to compromise upon.

“I won’t have you damaging my reputation just to air out your feet. Those little block heels can hardly be called heels anyways so I don’t believe your feet are even sore. It’s unsightly and the smell is nauseating so get your shoes back on before I fire you.” Evelyn said sternly.

“You can’t fire me over this, especially not while I’m not even on the clock. This is my rightful free time and I won’t let you dictated what I can and can’t do when I’m on it. If your concern is the way it might look and smell to people passing by and the way it might rub off on your reputation you can always ask to have my desk moved into your office. It’s big enough in there, there are only windows looking outside and not into the office. No one would see my feet and the smell would be contained within the room.” Kelly retorted with a smile further provoking her boss.

Much to her satisfaction Kelly could see the shock on Evelyn’s face. Evelyn simply couldn’t believe her secretary was talking back to her. Not just talking back either. Just the idea of it was completely ridiculous and gross. It would mean that she would have to smell Kelly’s feet and stand the sight in her office and that during her lunch. There was no way that that was ever going to happen.

For a moment Evelyn was searching for words to describe just how bad of an idea that was. She could hardly think of any though because she was so angry and worst of all she realised that while she was arguing she just stood in that stink for longer than she had to. Kelly was right she could do anything about it while she was on her free time, but that bitch of a secretary would pay for this Evelyn vowed.

Knowing that arguing was only leading to further inhaling those nasty foot fumes Evelyn finally just exclaimed. “If I fucking catch you with your shoes off the second lunchbreak ends you’ll be in deeper shit than you ever imagined. That I swear!” She shouted before walking past Kelly’s desk and into her uncontaminated office. The salmon and avocado bagel she had bought landed in the trash only half eaten as she couldn’t stand eating after being confronted by that smell.

With a self-satisfied smile Kelly put her shoes back on. Maybe she pushed it just a little too much. After all she could still get fired, but it was totally worth it seeing Evelyn retreat into her office like that. That and the way she had gotten a good whiff of her feet made it totally worth it. Her face when she suggested moving into her office had also just been precious. It might be something fun to get arranged in time if her plans advanced a bit more. 

As great as her lunchbreak had been it was time to get back to work. Starting her computer back up a flash of anger coursed through Kelly. Her mailbox was filled with documents she had handled this morning. Documents that had been cleared already, but were now sent back to her by Evelyn who nit-picked even more on them. While she stared at the computer yet another mail popped in with another document she needed to revisit. God damn that bitch of a bossy, this was obviously just to get back to her. 

With the limited changes she had been able to achieve so far Kelly was helpless to do anything other than to suck it up and get to it. That bitch would pay sooner or later. While Kelly forced herself to correct the documents once more Evelyn sat in her office with a smug smile. That would teach her secretary to cross her like that.

While Evelyn kept getting her own coffees this was still one of the hardest days Kelly had had so far. She had been getting quite good at delivering on Evelyn’s previously harsh standards, but the changes her bitch boss now wanted were just ridiculous. They had nothing to do with good documents either. It was just a whole bunch of useless extra work.

Even though Evelyn was now consequently fetching her own damn coffees and every demand she made of Kelly still started with a please and a thank you. The relationship between the two of them had severely cooled down. It had never been worse even.

Evelyn might be thinking she had won by giving her secretary an overload of work as revenge. She still didn’t realise the control Kelly had over her and consequentially she didn’t realise that by doing this she was only digging her own grave deeper.

Deeply frustrated Kelly realised she would have to suck up her frustrations for a while. Afterall her latest command had the unforeseen effect that Evelyn went to get her coffee herself so her first goal should be securing a way to deliver the drug. Like it or not she was stuck with this nit-picking Evelyn for at least the remainder of today and tomorrow.

That evening it was Evelyn who went home with a smile of smug satisfaction on her face. Kelly was frustrated beyond believe, but it were frustrations that would only come back to haunt Evelyn over time. Oh that bitch was going to pay for what she did.

When Kelly walked into the office the next day she wanted nothing more than to take revenge. She would have to bite her tongue at least a while longer though. What she had planned to keep administering the drug to her boss would require a great deal of acting on her part. Her plan was to actually apologise, it would suck having to grovel for that bitch, but knowing Evelyn she would savour every minute of it with great delight. That would make it suck even more if Kelly didn’t know that Evelyn would seal her downfall with a smile. That thought and only that one would make it worth it.

Just before going into the office. Kelly stopped at a local coffee shop she had seen Evelyn carry a cup from sometimes. She could only conclude that Evelyn must like their coffee so it would be perfect for what she had planned. The coffee itself cost more than she ever wanted to give for a coffee, but then again this wasn’t just a coffee, this was an investment she thought. Taking the elevator upstairs Kelly emptied a vial of the drug in the cup and swirled it around a bit.

Walking up to Evelyn’s office she didn’t go to her desk first but instead went straight into Evelyn’s office. “Look Evelyn, I have been thinking about my behaviour yesterday and I realise I was out of line. I’m sorry, I brought you a cup of coffee from what I thought was your favourite shop so I hope we’re good.” Kelly said, doing her best to sound genuine as she placed the cup down on Evelyn’s desk.

Evelyn certainly wasn’t expecting this after how strong Kelly had reacted to her request to put her shoes back on yesterday. She loved it though, seeing Kelly apologise brought a huge smile to her face, especially when she offered her a coffee from one of her favourite places. Knowing how low Kelly’s wage was compared to hers it must have hurt to buy one of those. She already had a coffee from the machine at the office, but the coffee here wasn’t nearly as good so instead she took the cup Kelly had given her.

“Well thank you Kelly, I might just be able to forgive you for your inappropriate, gross disgusting behaviour yesterday.” Evelyn said with a smirk, raising the cup of coffee and taking a theatrical sip to further rub in her triumph only for her face to go blank right after. 

It was exactly what Kelly had hoped for and now it was her turn to smirk. “Evelyn every drink I give you is special, you know I shouldn’t have to play as your waitress so whenever I bring you a drink you will compliment how great it is, and act accordingly no matter what.” Kelly said, it was a perfect command even if she said so herself. She still wouldn’t have to fetch all of Evelyn’s drinks, only bringing her one if she wanted to and she would probably be able to screw up Evelyn’s order while still getting complimented while Evelyn drank it all like she really appreciated it. This way she could deliver a new dose of drugs whenever she felt like it.

“Anyways, I guess I’ll get to work now.” Kelly said leaving the office of the awfully smug looking Evelyn once she snapped out of it. She had done her best not to smile at her face, but now with her back turned to her she was smiling broadly. The smug look on Evelyn’s face was actually priceless as she didn’t realise the consequences of that ‘apology drink’. For the remainder of the day Kelly decided to lay low. Evelyn’s nit-picking was down to a normal level again and she obviously was still down with fetching everything herself and accompanying all work she gave Kelly with a please and thank you.

The drug obviously worked wonders and just as it intended to work. She had already worked through three doses testing and ensuring the delivery, so obviously she would need to buy more. After seeing that smug smile on Evelyn’s face when she sealed her own fate it would be more than worth the price though.