The Business Trip

Chapter 15
The Business Trip, Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

June rounded out Elizabeth’s punishment by sitting the regressed girl down at the small hotel suite desk and placing the notebook from before in front of her. Elizabeth was to sit there and continue writing lines. 

‘My name is Lizzie. I am twelve years old. Aunt June is in charge.’

One thousand lines. Ten times more than she had been told to do during the pitch to Ruth’s company. Elizabeth was allowed to get up to use the bathroom, but otherwise was to stay put and keep at it until she was done. That, or until June returned from dinner. 

Even in June’s absence, Elizabeth was too intimidated to defy her. Shifting uncomfortably on her sore backside, while also unable to ignore the braces that she had so recently been given, she started writing the demeaning words that felt a lot more real than they had the first time around. Obviously, she knew that June wasn’t actually her aunt. But the rest? Right now, it was clear who was in charge. As for the rest, she had been called ‘Lizzie’ all day and thoroughly stripped of her adulthood along the way.

She just needed to get this trip over with. As soon as they were back home, things would be back to normal. Somewhat. Elizabeth still had no idea what her professional future would look like, and her outburst at dinner meant that she was no longer able to observe whatever June and Mr. Evans were talking about.

By the time Elizabeth had completed the tedious assignment, her hand had cramped up countless times and her handwriting had only gotten worse with every fifty iterations of the required lines. Each of the three sentences was also seared into her mind by the end; she knew that it was blatant conditioning, yet it still worked to some degree between the repetition and how she wrote the words again and again and again after a full day of June treating her like a tween.

June still wasn’t back. As badly as Elizabeth wanted to stay up and make another attempt at having a serious conversation with her assistant, she was absolutely exhausted. That, and there really wasn’t a point in trying. Until she was wearing her own clothes and officially out of the aunt/niece dynamic, Elizabeth was only going to get spanked again if she tried to insist on anything other than what June had extended well beyond the single meeting the disguise was supposed to have been for. 

So, Elizabeth brushed her teeth and went to bed. She didn’t know what else to do, and it was better than falling asleep on the sofa; considering how much her eyelids were drooping, that was a very real possibility. Better to sleep properly, rather than looking like a tuckered out little girl who couldn’t stay awake in the common area of their suite.

The next thing Elizabeth knew, she was being jostled awake. “Lizzie! Get up. Hurry and get dressed, okay? We need to leave for the airport soon!” June pulled the comforter off the still groggy girl, using the sudden cold to ensure she would listen sooner rather than later.

With the sunlight streaming into the room, it was a miracle Elizabeth had slept as late as she had. Still, she wasn’t prepared for such a rude awakening. As if June’s methods weren’t enough, Elizabeth also got slapped with reality as she winced in tiredness and felt the metal against her gums. Right. This wasn’t her waking up like she normally would. She was still ‘Lizzie,’ and June was still very much in bossy aunt mode.

Unlike the previous morning, June didn’t leave her alone for a single second. She handed Elizabeth a pair of jean shorts and a dark pink t-shirt, a combo that was just as immature as what she had worn yesterday, standing there and supervising her as she got dressed as a way to encourage her to do so as quickly as possible. 

June tossed the PJs into Maggie’s suitcase that was otherwise packed up, zipping it closed and carrying it to the other room while telling Elizabeth to brush her teeth. This was the second time Elizabeth was brushing around the new braces, and it was just as awkward and unfamiliar as before. To make matters worse, the bathroom was a lot more cramped when June let herself in to put the girl’s hair up into twintails again.

While June wasn’t dressed quite as professionally as she had been for their presentations, her slacks/blouse combo was still quite the contrast to the borrowed tween clothes Elizabeth was wearing. 

A few minutes later, it really was time to go. Elizabeth’s toiletries were the last things to be stashed away in Maggie’s suitcase. Every one of her actions was being rushed, leaving her no time to speak up about all the things that had been going through her mind while tossing and turning before finally drifting off. As they made their way down to the lobby and then to the ride that was waiting for them outside, Elizabeth’s biggest question was about what was going to happen at the airport.

Had June been called about the missing purse, and just not said anything about it? Elizabeth wouldn’t be able to get through security without her ID. She didn’t know how kids were handled by TSA, but she was fairly confident they needed some degree of identification.

Looking like a tween wasn’t quite as bad as walking through the airport in pajamas, though it was still plenty embarrassing as June held her hand most of the time and dragged her along. The false age really didn’t line up with how she was being treated, not that Elizabeth had the time or energy to think about that too much. One way or another, she had fallen pretty far from how things had been at the office a few days ago.

Meanwhile, June was loving every second of Elizabeth’s transformation and the new dynamic between them. Outwardly, she kept up the act of being a stern aunt, even if she could easily get away with being more smug towards her former boss at this point. For starters, little Lizzie still needed her. How else was she going to get home? That, and dinner with Mr. Evans had been lovely. After a lot of discussion, they settled on a plan that would allow June to transition into Elizabeth’s position while simultaneously training a new hire for the admin role. Since a bonus had already been budgeted for Elizabeth, it would be simple enough to give that to June instead to compensate her for the extra responsibilities during the coming weeks.

This had all gone better than June had ever imagined. Her original plan had hardly been a plan at all. The only goal a couple days ago had been to subtly sabotage and embarrass Elizabeth in as many ways as possible; since June was going to be fired either way, she had no reason to be a good assistant any more. Once ‘Lizzie’ had been stuck with such a limited wardrobe, however, June started thinking bigger.

The only real complication left at this point was that Elizabeth’s driver’s license stated her real age. That, and the fact that June was in possession of it, when she had led the bratty young woman to believe that it had been left on the plane when they arrived the other day. June was also somewhat worried about security, as the tween image very much clashed with what the agent would be seeing on the ID in a few minutes. She also really didn’t want Elizabeth to know that all of this had spun out from a set-up, as it was more fun to let her think a lot of this was technically her own fault, even if June had played a fairly active role in pushing things further than initially discussed.

June handled it by telling Elizabeth to stay back for a minute when they reached the front of the line. She then handed both IDs to the agent, explaining that her colleague was a model who needed a youthful makeover for a photoshoot. After all, it’s easier to work with a petite adult than an actual child. The man in uniform gestured for Elizabeth to step forward, where he took a minute comparing her face to the picture on the license; thankfully, the facial recognition helped things along.

Internally, June sighed in relief. She could handle Elizabeth’s coming question, but she couldn’t do anything about a TSA agent deciding to push the two of them for more details. While little Lizzie was a lot more submissive than she had been the previous morning, there was no telling how she’d react when a third party was involved.

Sure enough, Elizabeth asked, “What was he looking at?”

June had already tucked everything back into her purse, and it was perfectly natural to dismiss her immature ‘niece’ as long as they were in their current roles. “Not now, Lizzie,” she said, “You need to take off your shoes.”

That was all Elizabeth needed to do. She had no phone or accessories; security would be simple, with the trade-off being that it was going to be a long travel day without anything to do in the airport or while on the plane. As badly as she wanted to press about what June had just used for security, Elizabeth merely huffed and bent over to untie the immature sneakers. It actually wouldn’t be that crazy for June to have some form of identification for her, considering how much personal information she was trusted with at the office.

For June, it was smooth sailing once they made it through security and little Lizzie’s shoes were back on. June briefly considered being extra patronizing and tying the laces for her, though it really wasn’t necessary. She was more than content with the state of things, and the focus at this point was making it to their gate and making sure the girl continued to behave while they waited for their flight.

The real question was what was going to happen once they were back. June had a lot of ideas at this point. She could do nothing at all, knowing that Lizzie’s plan to save room in the budget by letting June go had completely backfired. June could simply enjoy her Elizabeth-free life and take immense satisfaction in how the girl had lost her cushy job and would now be interviewing with braces and very little work experience on her résumé. Alternatively, June could figure out a way to keep Lizzie in niece mode and see just how far the tween conditioning could go. Maybe at some point, Lizzie would truly believe she deserved to be twelve. June certainly thought so, considering her size, her selfishness, and her overall immaturity. 

Once they were settled on the plane, June enacted her final idea of the trip. It was partly to keep Lizzie something to work on during the flight, and also to keep the girl nervous about what came after all this. Even though June hadn’t decided anything yet, she could let her former boss assume that she had. 

Pulling out a packet of worksheets designed for 6th graders that she had printed out after dinner with Mr. Evans, as June had plenty of time to kill between then and her more grown up bedtime, she placed the stapled stack of assignments onto Lizzie’s tray table and set down a pink pen for her to use.

“Try to get the whole thing done before we land, Lizzie,” June said, “And work on your handwriting as you go, okay? Your lines from last night were almost illegible.” It was amusing to see how every page of Elizabeth’s writing got worse, no doubt from a combination of her hand getting tired as well as how anyone would get sloppy when faced with writing the same line over and over and over again.

Elizabeth didn’t whine or protest in the slightest. She just glanced down at the first page, hesitantly picking up the girly pen and starting on the first question after a few seconds. Either she had fully accepted her current situation, and/or didn’t want to make a scene with so many others around. If June would berate her in a nice restaurant, she would likely do the same in business class.

As soon as the youthful looking girl wasn’t looking, June smirked to herself. A few minutes later, she ordered herself some wine from the drink cart, deciding that orange juice was perfect for Lizzie. June took immense pleasure in sipping the more adult beverage, considering an equally cheap glass of wine was what kicked off her revenge on Elizabeth for constantly taking advantage of her and taking her for granted at work.

Leaning back in her chair, June took another victory sip and continued idly brainstorming about how to proceed upon landing.

By contrast, Lizzie was slightly leaning forward, working on the second page of her packet and feeling more and more like a little girl who needed to behave and stay out of trouble.