Tech Support Stories #1 Tech support is a strange business. You'd think that they would want you to have technical knowledge, but you're wrong. What they want is phone whores. It does pay more than your average phone sex work, which is why people get into tech support. It's also easier to explain to people like your mother. I work night shift, and the workers are divided into two 'camps'. There are the normal people, who work nights because it's the only way they can go to school or take care of their kids or whatever. And then there are the perverts. I'd let you guess which one I'd fit into, but it's not hard. We sit on opposite ends of the building - this works out better, since their delicate sensibilities aren't offended when one of us finds an 'interesting' web site. One night a couple of weeks ago, I was going to the restroom - there's only so much caffeine my body can hold at one time - and when I came out, one of the normal girls was walking out of the shower room. For some reason, we have a two-stall shower in the bathroom. I'd ask management why, but I'm scared they had some plan to never let us out of the building or something, and I'd hate to remind them of it. And, of course, I'd have to talk to management. That usually turns out to be a bad idea, and best avoided. Anyway, she looked flushed, and when she saw me, she stopped and got redder. I ignored her, like I usually did one of the normals, and washed my hands and went back to my desk. I sort of wondered what she was doing in there, but it wasn't important. She could have been masturbating, or thinking about taking a shower, or just wondering what was behind the door. Either way, seeing me would probably upset her. I haven't made much of a secret about my bisexuality, and it would have been impossible anyway after I found out I had a gift for sniffing free porn out on the 'Web. They made a big deal out of it, and I think you could hear it at the other end of the building. I think you could probably have heard it outside. The perverts were happy I was there, but I don't think the normals were. Which was one of the reasons the normals were on the other side of the building. I sat down, plugged my headset back into my head, and went off to surf the 'Web some more. We were having a sort of informal contest about who could find the worst piercing picture, and I was behind. I'd just gotten a couple of good leads on multiple penis piercings when someone made a noise behind me. I turned around, hoping it wasn't one of the bosses' infrequent montitoring visits, because we'd all get fired. It wasn't, it was the girl from the restroom. "What?" I asked, and she got red again. I sighed. Whatever it was, it was going to be a pain, guaranteed. I told my phone I wasn't there again, and unplugged and got up and walked away from the rest of the perverts, until we were out of earshot. It looked like it was that kind of interruption. When we were away from everyone, and considerately out of view of the rest of the normals - my consideration, not hers - I turned to her and asked again. She looked at me, and then looked at the ground, and turned red again. I sighed, and leaned against a desk until she could find the courage to talk. I couldn't remember her name, but she was sort of cute in a mundane sort of way. She had shoulder-length brown hair, and hazel eyes, and she had the sort of bland cuteness that one would expect of an office drone. She was dressed nicely, in 'casual business' attire, as opposed to my shorts and T shirt. Which was one of the ludicrous things about the normals - they dressed like that because they had been told to, when they were hired. Whereas, the perverts dressed however they wanted, because no one had told them to stop yet. You could get into a debate on the morality of that, and what stage of ethics such behaviour was - and we had, over on the pervert side - but I had never come to a conclusion. At least not on the morality of it. I did like being comfortable at work. The reason I was always wearing heels was that my feet hurt if I didn't. I found it bizarre myself. "Um," she finally said, and her voice matched her appearance perfectly - cute. "Are you the girl that had the handcuff keys?" Now, since I was one of two females on the pervert side, it wasn't a hard guess. And only someone on the pervert side would admit to having such items. "Yeah?" At least, only one of us would admit to carrying them around all the time. I have my reasons, but that's another story. "Um," she said, and got redder, which I didn't think was possible. Whatever it was, it was going to be interesting. "Can I borrow them?" "No." That was almost a reflex. There's a reason I carried them around. When she looked seriously pained, I explained, "Sorry, I've been through this before. You borrow the keys, and then someone tries to sneak up on me to chain me down to something. No." "But, but, but..." She looked like she was about to burst into tears. "But, I mean, I NEED them!" "For what?" I asked. It seemed a reasonable question to me, but not to her apparently, because she blushed harder, and pressed her lips together like she was afraid of it getting out accidentally. She tried a couple of times to say something, and failed. I sighed. This was getting real old, real fast, and despite appearances I did have some feeling that I should be doing what I was hired for. Not to mention the fact that the normals usually made me uncomfortable. That was another reason that we were on the other side of the building. Finally, I told her, "Either tell me what it is, or let me get back to work. One or the other." She gulped, and looked up at my eyes, and spit out, "Tam- this girl, she's handcuffed to the shower head and we don't have the key! You've gotta help!" *No I don't,* said part of me, but another part was wondering what some normal girl was doing handcuffed to the shower head, and a large part of me wanted to pick this woman up and shake her and scream at her, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!" What I finally ended up doing, was sighing. You learn to restrain your baser vocal reflexes in tech support, or you get fired for calling someone an asshole. For some reason, the ones who most deserve the title are the ones that are least tolerant of having it bestowed upon them. Besides, she looked like she was about to cry. I felt bad about that; it must've hurt her to have to ask a pervert for help on a pervert sort of matter - though none of us would have forgotten the keys, of course. When I got done sighing, I thought about it for a few seconds more. It would probably best if I didn't announce what I was doing - though there was some satisfaction I could see in doing it, it'd probably kill both of them through shame. Luckily, there was a back door over by the women's restroom. "Okay," I told her, "I'll come unlock her. What you do, is you go back to the bathroom, and I'll be there in a minute. Just don't panic." If they panicked, I was going to lock them both together and leave them, or lead tours of perverts in to watch. She nodded without saying anything, and took off, trying to look casual. I had to admire the effort - at least she had the right idea. I went back to my desk, told anyone who cared in a general announcement that I had to get something out of my car, and got my keys - which, naturally, included the handcuff keys. I went out our door and walked down to the one by the women's room, and came in again. When I went into the women's room, the girl was sitting on the counter, trying to look nonchalant, and failing badly. She almost fell down when she heard me push the door open, and from the look of relief on her face you'd think I saved her life. Maybe I had - the normals had funny ideas about what 'shame' meant. She nodded desperately, and when I took the lead and walked into the shower room, she followed behind. What greeted me was a girl I remembered better - Tammy was her name, I thought - chained to a shower head, as advertised. What hadn't been mentioned was that she was topless. And her makeup was smeared. And she looked half relieved, to see me, and half murderous, that I'd seen her. That narrowed the scenarios down to one. And, of course, now I completely understood why they didn't want this becoming public knowledge, because their 'friends' on the normal side would disown them and force them to move over with us perverts, and we perverts wouldn't be gentle about someone stupid enough to play with handcuffs without making sure of the key. Total social pariahs. And I thought I remembered seeing Tammy with a husband or fiance or something. I bit down on my impulse to lecture the both of them for half an hour as punishment, keeping it down to a short, "What DID you do with the keys?" Tammy sullenly pointed with her free hand towards the shower drain. The grill was easily wide enough to take one of the smaller keys. "Ahhhh," I said, feeling more charitable towards them. Anyone could drop a key down the drain. That moved them from 'unutterably foolish' to merely 'unlucky', and I could help out unlucky. Unfortunately for them, I had needs of my own. "Okay," I said casually, "I'll unlock you, but only on one condition." And I grinned, showing all of my teeth in my best feral imitation. It was so silent in the shower room, you could have heard a pin falling through the air, much less bouncing after impact. I waited to see which one of them would dare ask first. Surprisingly, it was the girl behind me. "What?" She sounded resigned, not fearful. That kind of made me sick. Luckily, I had had something else in mind other than rape. "I get breakfast when we all get off work this morning." I was careful not to leave any innuendos open, like 'when we get off.' They were skittish enough as it was. "That's it?!" Tammy burst out. I nodded, smiling at her - no teeth this time - as I fumbled with my keys. "That's it. AND, I keep my mouth shut about it. Pretty good deal, I think." Both of them were so relieved, they probably would have offered to fix me a three-course meal with homemade dessert at that point, but I was hungry, and it was a little too long until payday at that point. The handcuffs were professional models, Smith & Wessons, and so it took one of the cop keys to get the handcuffs off. I was glad they had asked me; I was probably the only one in the building who had a real handcuff key, as opposed to a key for the 'novelty' cuffs they sell for five bucks. It took less than ten seconds, and then Tammy was rubbing her wrist and smiling at the world in general. I fought down the urge to say something like, "Now my work here is done, good citizens." Instead, I smiled back at Tammy, and turned around to go. The nameless girl intercepted me on the way out, by throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me. "Thank you," she half-breathed, half sobbed. "Thank you so much!" I gave her a squeeze around the waist before forcing her arms loose. "No problem," I lied, and pushed open the door and left before things got any weirder. I had to fight my imagination for the rest of the shift.