The Business Trip, Chapter One
Author’s Note: Commissioned by Nicegent42. Thank you for your pledge, and for all the ideas that are making this story possible!
Chapter One
Elizabeth Harris had a plan.
Though she got the well paying manager job at the tech company thanks to her family’s connections, all of her successes since then had been due to her own talents. Mostly by being a hard ass, and sometimes deceptively exploitative depending on the situation. Leading with a stern demeanor and harsh criticisms for the smallest mistakes was how she believed she needed to act in order to get respect.
Due to her youthful visage, Elizabeth had struggled to be taken seriously for most of her life. Her mother was quite conservative from a fiscal standpoint, and would often make little ‘Beth’ pretend to be younger in order to get cheaper movie tickets, meals, and any other discount offered for those twelve and under. Once in high school, she had been walking past her old middle school on the way home; she was flagged down and pulled inside for skipping school–due to bus rotations, the middle school students were released an hour or two later in the day than the high schoolers were–and had to deal with nearly half an hour of them chastising her and trying to figure out which class to return her to before finally listening to her and looking her up in a different section of their system.
Obviously, she started taking the long way home. More importantly, that was when she put her foot down. It was one thing for someone to mistake her as younger; it was something else entirely for it to cause such a frustrating and humiliating ordeal. Ever since then, she started spending an extra half hour in the morning carefully constructing a more mature image of herself. Better make-up work than the simple applications she used to do, push-up bras with a hint of padding, and at least two inch lifts or heels to boost her height. Her bitterness over the middle school office treating her like a lying tween caused her to act a little more jaded and bitchy the next day, which only snowballed from there.
Fast forward to the present.
Elizabeth’s size hadn’t changed in the slightest, although her clothes and her personality had escalated plenty. The 23 year old wore professional business attire, and was not afraid to chew out anyone who looked at her wrong. She was also quite thirsty for money, and was more than happy to spend it as well. Especially since she had a company card and very little oversight, meaning she could treat herself on their dime and then treat herself with the personal funds she saved by using that card.
She was poised to get a fat bonus as well. All she needed to do was fire June at the opportune moment.
Due to some restructuring after a couple of promotions, the company had gone with Elizabeth’s suggestion to bring in June as a combined assistant/admin role. It was quite cost effective, as the 24 year old hire could just do all the admin work whenever she wasn’t tending to whatever Elizabeth needed. Poor June had tried so hard to negotiate a salary that was comparable with her old job, but Elizabeth had known she had been laid off from her former place of employment due to budget cuts. It had been easy enough to lie and say the lower figure was the best they could offer at the time. Between the young woman’s desperation for the job, as well as the vague hope of a future raise that had been dangled in front of her, June had accepted.
The problem was, June was annoyingly good at her job. No matter how much busy work Elizabeth offloaded on her, she always managed to get all of her admin responsibilities completed in a timely manner as well. And then some. June really was making the best of her situation, and it wasn’t long before she lucked into being included on a large project that was going to be presented to an investor in the coming weeks. Instead of keeping her mouth shut and handing out coffees like a good assistant, June made some offhand suggestion that someone higher up the food chain than Elizabeth ended up liking.
It was such bullshit. June was clearly busting her ass to come up with ideas for both the project itself and the impending investor meeting, and her assistant role gave her an unexpected edge as well. Since she was the one making the copies and putting the documents together, there was a degree of visible credit whenever she handed out packets and binders as things became more and more finalized. When all was said and done, it had been decided that June and Elizabeth were going to fly out for a week to try and pitch the idea.
Elizabeth was still going to be heading up the meeting, while June would merely be present to communicate any of the finer details. Her fucking assistant, being sent on a business trip instead of one of the actual higher ups in the company. It was ridiculous. So, Elizabeth quickly concluded that the best course of action would be to fire June. At minimum, it would get rid of the girl who was dangerously close to being promoted from the subservient role she had been hired to fill. If Elizabeth played her cards right, maybe she could do the deed before the investment was fully processed and, ideally, do some creative accounting and take June’s project bonus for herself. On top of Elizabeth’s own bonus, of course.
What she didn’t plan on, however, was June catching wind of her scheme. Firing someone without cause would open the company to a potential lawsuit, so Elizabeth had started laying the groundwork here and there. She never thought June would actually find out before being called into Elizabeth’s office for the bomb to be dropped.
The last thing Elizabeth expected was for June to go down swinging.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June was hit with so many emotions when she learned that Elizabeth was setting the stage to fire her, probably the moment they returned from their trip.
Shock, considering how she had learned how to anticipate Elizabeth’s every need as an assistant, all while basically doing a second job by being the admin for their branch of the company. Despair, in that she could barely afford the ever increasing bills; living in the city was expensive, and inflation certainly didn’t help. And frustration, because her boss was clearly doing this out of jealousy or something adjacent. ‘June, the assistant’ was being noticed by someone who had the power to give her a higher paying and more fulfilling position in the company. Rather than letting June climb the ranks, however, Elizabeth was going to block her in the worst way possible.
At first, she considered trying to somehow save her job. Without any real clout in the office outside being an up and coming player, however, there wasn’t anyone she could turn to that might defend her against Elizabeth. So June decided to take matters into her own hands. If she was going to be fired and potentially lose the promised bonus she was expecting, then she really didn’t care if the deal with the investor went through or not. Rather than putting her energy into further preparations for the meeting, June started brainstorming ways to humiliate her boss throughout their travels. It wouldn’t be the same satisfaction as a huge bonus check, but she figured that she might as well get what she could under the circumstances. The beauty of being an assistant was that it was just as easy to make things go wrong as it was to ensure that they went right.
June started by convincing Elizabeth to stay at her place the night before the two of them were supposed to fly out. She lived much closer to the airport than Elizabeth did, and it made more sense for the company to pay for a single car to be parked over the long weekend. Playing up the role of generous host and submissive assistant, June went so far as to prepare her own bedroom for Elizabeth. June could suffer through an evening on the sofa if it meant Elizabeth continued feeling like she had all the power. She also made sure to pick up a brand of wine she knew that her boss loved. But just for fun, she drank the expensive wine herself over the week leading up to their trip and proceeded to fill the bottle with a much cheaper alternative. Sure enough, June’s stuck up boss couldn’t tell them apart.
Smirking to herself as she prepared dinner for Elizabeth, June made sure to constantly refill her boss’s glass like a good waitress throughout the night. By the time it was getting late, little Elizabeth had polished off the entire bottle. June could have easily handled that much alcohol, as she was taller than Elizabeth, which statistically made her tolerance higher. She wasn’t just relying on probability, either. June kept a careful eye on Elizabeth throughout the night, and could clearly see when her cheeks were flushed and her words had a faint slur to them.
To Elizabeth’s credit, she kept up her overly proper posture and judgmental attitude despite how tipsy she became. At some point, she must have realized the wine was catching up to her. Announcing that she was turning in for the evening, Elizabeth got up from where she had been lounging in the living room after her meal and headed for the bedroom.
June guessed that her boss wouldn’t be amenable to being seen after stripping out of her business attire, so she made her move before Elizabeth reached the hall. “Miss, wait,” June said. Though they were no longer at the office, she was still in full assistant mode for the sake of her amusing scheme. Not that it was an official scheme by any stretch of the imagination. June had only planned things out through the following morning; from there, she’d have to play things by ear. She did plan on tanking the investor meeting, naturally, but there was a lot of time between then and now. For now, it was still ‘Ms. Harris,’ or ‘Miss’ for short.
“What . . . ?” Elizabeth asked. She paused, but barely glanced over her shoulder.
“Do you want something to stave off a hangover? Just in case?” June asked. Tacking on the follow-up to avoid fully implying that Elizabeth couldn’t handle her wine, she partially answered the question herself by heading to the left-most kitchen cabinet. “I want your flight tomorrow to be as comfortable as possible, Ms. Harris.”
It worked. Of course it did, since June had been handing her things for the last six months. In fact, she had been sent on a couple pharmacy runs, as Elizabeth didn’t want to waste her own time after work running such an errand. June had proven time and time again that she was a perfect assistant. Since this was the first time she had ever considered sabotaging her selfish boss, there was no reason for Elizabeth to distrust her. Besides, June was technically telling the truth. One of the pills would combat the hangover. The other, however, was a sleeping pill that was safe to take with alcohol. In June’s opinion, a full bottle of wine wasn’t enough to knock Elizabeth out. She wanted to be sure that her boss didn’t wake up until June wanted her to wake up.
Elizabeth downed both pills with zero hesitation, then proceeded to turn in for the night like she had been trying to do before June interrupted her.
The second the bedroom door clicked shut, June grinned. So far, everything was going according to plan.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Miss Harris . . . Miss . . . ELIZABETH.”
Elizabeth was jostled from her slumber by someone using her shoulders to shake her. Even something that forceful wasn’t enough for her to snap awake right away. “Mmm . . . ” she half hummed, half groaned. Her eyes felt glued shut, and it took an extraordinary amount of effort for her to will them open. The guest bedroom was dark save for a dim lamp by the door that had been switched on. As she came to, and blinked her blurry vision away, she saw that June was standing over her with a worried expression.
Her assistant was wearing a blouse and a pencil skirt, and had clearly already showered and groomed herself for the day. “Elizabeth, you slept through your alarm!” June said, “We need to go. Like, NOW. We can’t miss our flight.” Rather than waiting for Elizabeth to realize the gravity of the situation, June yanked the covers off the still fully horizontal girl. “Come on, get up!” In case the sudden wave of cold wasn’t enough, June grabbed one of the young woman’s wrists and yanked her upwards and towards the edge of the bed.
It wasn’t until Elizabeth’s feet hit the floor that everything caught up with her. “Hey!” she snapped. “Back off, June.” Amidst the rough way she was being handled, she hadn’t caught the fact that June had addressed her normally a couple times.
For the first time since she started her subservient role at the company, June didn’t hesitate to talk back. “No,” she flatly said, “Making sure this weekend goes smoothly is my job. That means getting to the airport on time. Now go pee and brush your teeth, Elizabeth. I’ll throw our stuff in the car.”
“But-”
“Elizabeth. NOW. And hurry! We’re already running behind.”
It was way too much to handle at once. She was still barely awake at this point. Freezing, too, with bare feet and with the abrupt loss of the comforter. Elizabeth was also several inches shorter than she was in public, including her time in June’s apartment yesterday, and wearing nothing but her silk pajamas. They were classy enough, but didn’t remotely compare to the professional ensemble of her assistant. Plus June was wearing heels, making her tower over Elizabeth as she bossed her around.
Elizabeth reluctantly did as she was told. She headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, letting out an annoyed sigh. How had she overslept?! And how dare June talk to her in such a way? Elizabeth made a note to reprimand her later, but she had to admit that the slightly older girl was right. Missing their flight would look really bad to her superiors.
There was really no rebelling against June’s directives when they were exactly what Elizabeth would do first thing in the morning. She relieved herself and brushed her teeth more quickly and erratically than she would do under normal circumstances. There definitely wasn’t time for her usual extensive make-up routine, though she could at least spare a minute for some foundation and concealer where necessary.
About halfway through the process, June opened the door without knocking in the slightest. “Almost ready, Elizabeth?”
“Miss Elizabeth,” she replied, finally catching the too-casual way she was being addressed.
“Right. Sorry, Miss. Just a little frazzled right now.” She stepped into the bathroom, once again not waiting for any sort of permission. “Here, let me do your hair real quick. It’s a total mess.”
“I can do it myself,” Elizabeth said. She had already seen her reflection, and was well aware that the pillow hadn’t done her long locks many favors overnight.
June sighed. “I know you can. But you’re doing your make-up right now, and we’re way behind schedule.” She positioned herself behind Elizabeth and ran her fingers through her hair to work out a couple of the tangles she could see.
“Wait, what are you-”
“Hold still, Miss Elizabeth. This will just take a minute.”
Not taking ‘no’ for an answer, June proceeded to separate Elizabeth’s hair out into three strands for a basic braid. Innocent on the surface, as it was an easy way to tame messy hair, but she was also well aware that Elizabeth preferred more mature and complicated styles. Her boss had never once worn braided hair to work.
Elizabeth’s abridged beauty routine was done about the same time June was tying off the tightly braided strands, and then she was being rushed out the door. First, June told her to leave the make-up bag and her toiletries. Every second counted, and there was no time to pack up the bathroom. Plus airport security would be easier if there were absolutely no liquids in Elizabeth’s suitcase. June explained that they could buy the essentials once they got there, and Elizabeth could borrow anything else from June’s stash.
It wasn’t until they were standing by the door to June’s apartment that Elizabeth brought up another issue. “Wait!” she exclaimed, “I need to change.” Not only was she still wearing her PJs, but it was also just dawning on her that she was currently bra-less.
“Change into what?” June asked. “Your suitcase is in the car. Come on, Elizabeth. Put your shoes on.”
Elizabeth bit her tongue about the lack of a title. Now wasn’t the time to chew out her assistant. That could wait until they were in the car.
She felt absolutely ridiculous as she stepped through the threshold and out into the public hallway. Wearing heels with pajamas was awkward enough, but her designer purse was also meant to go with the outfit combinations she had packed for the trip. It didn’t pair nearly as well with her sleepwear.
Thankfully, no one was around to see her. It was quite early in the morning, so she and June were able to make their way down to the underground lot without running into anyone. Temporarily back in submissive assistant mode to balance out everything from the last ten or fifteen minutes, June opened the back door of the car for her. “After you, Miss,” she said.
Elizabeth got in and buckled up. She let out an exaggerated huff when June closed the door. This was definitely not the way she had envisioned the business trip starting.
Meanwhile, June was circling the car and resisting the urge to smirk at how unprofessional her boss looked compared to normal. So far, so good.
If June played her cards right, Elizabeth would be stuck as she was until at least the end of the flight.