Humiliation at the Office By Ann Michelle

I don’t know why I’ve been preoccupied lately, but I have to admit I have been enjoying tales of forced feminization and humiliation lately.  I know, I know, forever late to the party, but I’m pleased that waiting to greet me was Humiliation At The Office by Ann Michelle.

Andrew Bowden is a misogynistic corporate ladder type who is angling for a new promotion.  When our story begins, he’s in the process of firing his latest secretary, Katherine, not because she is failing in her duties, but because she is unwilling to follow Andrew into the bedroom where she can become another notch on his bedpost.  Taken aback be her casual handling of her termination, Andrew is surprised to see his former secretary turn up on his doorstep with files indicting him in an embezzlement scheme.  With certain career suicide and potential prison time looming, Andrew is blackmailed into ceding control of his life, including his body, to the seductive secretary.

True, it’s not the most revolutionary plot, but what makes Humiliation At The Office so delicious is the manner in which Ann Michelle describes the decadent torture of Andrew’s imprisonment in his own home and in a life of feminine clothes and servitude.  While still maintaining appearances at the office (at first), Andrew is forced to do increasingly humiliating tasks to further lower himself in the eyes of his peers, especially his rival, Colleen, a woman he has demeaned for years.

What makes Andrew’s debasement particularly delicious is his eventual inability to deny certain pleasures derived from his predicament, and there is a wonderful turn at the end to indicate that the story may not quite be done for Andrew.

Ann Michelle is a very talented writer, who knows how to pace a story to draw out the inevitable, and teases the reader just as the main character is teased.  With a keen ear for conversation and a fine capacity for displaying the back-and-forth debate within Andrew’s mind, the reader can easily identify with both Katherine and Andrew as their relationship evolves into something more than just captor and captive.

The incremental changes to Andrew’s wardrobe and features also serve the story well, until Andrew and the reader alike are too far in to ever turn back.

With fine writing, a captivating story (pun intended), and a keen sense of what seduces and delights, the only complaint I have is with the rather routine plot, though it is presented so exquisitely, even that is a soft knock against a remarkably engaging story.  Not only do I recommend the story, I look forward to reading much, much more from this author.

Reviewed by Lyka Bloom