COB

Doug Merritt sat at his desk, motionless except for the subtle clenching and unclenching of his thick hands. Big knuckled, tanned, and slightly calloused despite the years behind a desk, they gripped each other in his lap like he was trying to hide them from himself. 

Fifty-five and bulked thanks to the most expensive personal trainer he could find, Doug looked every bit the part of Chairman of the Board: charcoal wool suit, cut to perfection and hand stitched in London; perfectly symmetrical Windsor knot; pale blue shirt with French cuffs. His shoes gleamed. His tie was silk. His posture should have radiated control. But it didn’t. 

A single bead of sweat traced its way from his temple to the hinge of his jaw. He pretended not to notice. Across the massive slab of walnut desk sat a black lacquer fountain pen with gold trim, placed diagonally on a leather blotter. Next to it, an antique brass clock ticked just loudly enough to be heard over the soft whir of the HVAC. The minute hand moved too fast for his liking. 

He checked his reflection in the dark screen of the computer. He adjusted his collar, then tapped a key to wake the machine from sleep. The webcam light blinked on, first red, then green. He leaned forward and nudged the base of the webcam slightly upward, angling it so it would frame him only from the sternum up. Not too close, not too wide, just enough to give the impression of authority. He rechecked it. The camera wouldn’t catch his hands or anything lower than that. 

Good, he thought. 

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Merritt?” came his secretary’s voice, filtered and tinny. “Just confirming you’ll be joining the conference call in five?” 

He didn’t touch the button immediately. He closed his eyes, jaw flexing once. Then he leaned in and pressed it. 

“Yes. But I’m… I’m busy at the moment. Don’t disturb me again.” 

The button clicked off. Doug leaned back in his chair, then forward again, trying to sit still but unable to. His thighs were too wide for the chair, and his suit, although tailored, felt wrong today. Tight in all the wrong places. He rechecked the clock. 

Four minutes to go. 

He took a slow breath through his nose. Behind him, near the credenza, just out of view of the webcam, came a sound so soft it might have been imagined: the quiet click of a boot shifting against hardwood. 

Doug didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly who was there. 

“You’re going to sweat through that suit, COB.” 

The voice was low and conversational, as if someone were reminding him to add bread to his grocery list. The nickname, COB, landed like a slap. Doug’s hands twitched on the armrests. He didn’t turn. 

Noah stepped into his peripheral vision and strolled past the edge of the desk toward the empty chair beside Doug. He sat down without ceremony and rolled forward slightly. 

“Time to get ready,” Noah said. 

Doug swallowed. “Sir, I—” 

“That wasn’t a question.” 

Doug’s voice faltered, thick in his throat. “Please, Sir. I’ll do anything you ask. Just… don’t make me do this.” 

“I wouldn’t be punishing you like this if you’d done what I asked. You’ve proven you need to be taught a lesson. Now… pants.” 

Doug hesitated only a second. If he hadn’t felt so defeated already, he might’ve cried. Instead, he stood and unfastened his belt. The brass buckle opened with a quiet clink. The zipper came next. His hands moved with exaggerated care, as if going slowly might preserve his last shred of dignity. 

It didn’t. The trousers slipped down past his hips, guided by gravity, catching only slightly on his rounded, hairy thighs before crumpling neatly at his ankles like an expensive wool puddle. He stepped out of them and lowered himself back into the chair. 

Now seated again, his posture shifted. His thighs were too wide not to part slightly, and his shirt tails were pulled back just enough to reveal the stark white cotton of his briefs. Flat and utilitarian, they looked like they were sold in packs of 10 out of a discount store’s bargain bin because they were. 

Behind the thin cotton was the faint, unmistakable outline of a metal chastity cage. The contrast was absurd. His jacket was hand tailored and cut from imported fabric. The watch on his wrist was engraved. The chair he sat in cost more than his secretary’s car. And between it all was a piece of discount cotton stretched over the stainless steel proof of his subjugation. 

Noah smirked as he leaned in, one hand coming to rest on Doug’s cage bulge, the other moving across his chest, gliding down until his fingers hooked on something beneath Doug’s shirt. 

“Good,” he murmured, tugging gently. “Still wearing the harness.” 

Doug nodded once, shame flushing hot and red across his chest. “As ordered, Sir.” 

Noah sat back, satisfied. Then, as casually as one might twirl a pen between their fingers, he nudged his chair back just far enough to slide out of the webcam’s view. Doug looked at the preview video on his screen. The frame showed nothing below his tie clip. It was perfect. Deceptive. Safe. 

Or so it seemed. 

Then he felt Noah’s heavy, black leather boot make contact with his sock. The touch started at his ankle and dragged up the length of his calf until it reached the center of his shin, where the thin, sheer dress sock hugged him tight. The boot paused there and pressed. Doug shivered. 

The video call rang once. Then again. The screen flickered, and the ringtone cut off with a soft ping, replaced by a grid of video boxes popping into place one by one. Twelve men, then sixteen, then twenty-one, all in suits and all in some variation of the same sterile, corporate setting—boardrooms, corner suites, well-lit home offices with abstract art in the background. Doug’s eyes passed over their titles as they appeared beneath their names. 

EVP, Strategy, North America. 

Global VP, Data Compliance. 

Executive Director, APAC Ops. 

Chief Risk Officer, EMEA. 

Associate VP, Project Alignment. 

The usual suspects. Some were older than Doug. Most were younger. All looked awake, clean shaven, and confident. Doug forced a smile and blinked away a bead of sweat. 

“Morning, gentlemen,” someone greeted. 

Doug nodded. “Morning.” His voice cracked, and he muted his mic to clear his throat as the rest chimed in. 

“Morning, COB.” 

“Hey, Doug, nice tie.” 

“We’re just waiting on Boston and Zurich.” 

Doug gave a tight smile. His index finger hovered over the unmute button like a man disarming a bomb. All the while, under the desk, Noah’s boot never stopped moving. It wasn’t aggressive. It didn’t dig in or strike. It simply remained there, a constant, slow, sliding pressure that moved up and down the length of Doug’s calf, sometimes in gentle arcs, sometimes with a lazy toe nudge to the side of his shin. Every so often, it would lift, pause, and then tap slightly against the cage bulge beneath his white cotton briefs. 

Doug tried not to flinch, but it showed. His shoulders tensed. His hand clenched slightly, leaving a sweat print on the desktop. He exhaled through his nose. On the screen, an Associate VP began speaking in the hollow, performative cadence they’d all been trained to mimic. 

“All right, thank you, everyone, for being on time. Let’s keep this tight, because we’ve got a packed agenda today. We’ll start with the Q3 burn rate review, LATAM product performance, and legal’s guidance on the internal reporting framework changes…” 

Doug wasn’t listening. The words slid past his ears like static behind glass. Noah shifted again, repositioning the toe of his boot between Doug’s knees. He pressed, forcing Doug’s thighs even wider. Doug silently complied. His cheeks flushed. 

On screen, a regional VP began reading bullet points verbatim from a slide deck. Doug didn’t absorb a word. The camera was still trained on his chest and face, which was now visibly moist. He dabbed at a fresh bead of sweat with a monogrammed handkerchief and forced a smile as another voice piped up. 

“You all right, COB?” 

Doug’s smile twitched. He unmuted. 

“Fine,” he said, voice smooth on the surface but ragged beneath. “Just a momentary connection problem.” 

He muted himself again before anyone could respond. Under the desk, Noah’s boot lifted, tapped once against the metal cage, then withdrew—as if to say: not yet. 

More slide decks flicked by one after another. Charts. Talking points. Acronyms. Sales goals and launch targets. In any other week, Doug would have been interrupting, demanding sharper numbers, and calling for precision. 

But today, he sat in silence. He’d sweated through his shirt. His knuckles were white on the desk. Noah hadn’t said a word since the call began, but he didn’t have to. Doug felt him just out of frame, watching and waiting. 

At the end of the first presentation, the VP of Northern Sales provided a concise summary of Q3 variance. “So, that’s where we are with the Quebec and Ontario campaigns. COB, do you have any thoughts on next steps? Should we keep pushing with the local strategy or escalate it to central?” 

“Showtime,” Noah whispered. 

Doug unmuted. Time slowed to a halt. 

“Don’t ask me for advice on that,” he said plainly over his pounding heart. “I’m totally unqualified for this job.” 

There was a pause. Then a few nervous chuckles. They must have assumed he was joking. 

“Sorry, COB?” the VP said. Doug re-muted and said nothing. 

The call moved on. The next presenter was the VP for Asia-Pacific Strategy, a razor-sharp, high-performing individual. He’d just finished a flawless overview of territory expansion plans, then turned politely to Doug. “Would love your perspective here, COB. Your instincts about the Bangkok rollout were spot on. Any comment on how we should frame the India play?” 

“Do it again,” Noah goaded. “Bigger this time.” 

Doug unmuted. He felt the heat of Noah’s eyes on him. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to comment,” Doug said smoothly. “I’m just a moron who slept my way to the top of this company.” 

This time, no one laughed. The silence was deafening, broken only by the slight crackle of someone shifting too close to their mic. Someone else cleared their throat. A VP from Düsseldorf clicked his camera off, pretending to lose connection. Doug stared straight ahead. His lips were slightly parted, dazed by his own words. He felt Noah’s boot nudge again, soft and approving this time. 

The final check in came from the VP of Product Performance LATAM. He barely looked at his notes, rattling off strong numbers from memory before looking up confidently and asking, “At the risk of being surprised, COB, anything to add?” 

Doug pressed unmute. “My secretary knows more about my job than I do,” he said. “I just do whatever she tells me to do.” 

No one spoke for a full five seconds. Then the Associate VP jumped in, his tone dripping with media training. “All right, thanks, gentlemen. I think we can move right along to the global compliance updates.” 

Noah leaned forward, sliding a small piece of folded paper across the desk. Doug exhaled. His humiliation wasn’t complete. 

“I need to interrupt you,” he said clearly. “I have an important announcement to make.” 

The entire screen of executives froze. Not technically, not digitally, but in the human sense. The kind of stillness that comes when something ordinary has gone so profoundly off the rails. The only sound was the subtle shff of paper sliding against the leather blotter. His hands trembled as he unfolded the paper. The text was handwritten in clean, block capitals. The paper smelled faintly of Noah’s cologne, and the ink had the crisp drag of a fountain pen. 

“From this moment forward,” he read aloud, “I confess that I exist solely to serve Noah Trask, our newest Vice Chairman.” 

He looked up. The wall of executive faces stared back at him, blank and confused, waiting for clarification that didn’t come. 

“Though everyone in this meeting is used to calling me ‘COB: Chairman of the Board,’ I know require each of you to address me as ‘COB: Chaste Old Bear.’” 

No one flinched. No one laughed. There wasn’t even so much as an accidental smirk. Just stunned silence. Doug’s voice caught slightly, but he carried on, pushing through the words as if they were choking him on the way out. 

“I am nominally head of the company. But I will do anything—and everything—I am ordered to do by each of you gentlemen, as Vice Chairman Master Noah commands me.” 

His voice cracked on the word Master. He didn’t correct it. 

“I am your COB. I am your Chaste Old Bear.” 

Then slowly, Doug rose. He stepped back from the desk, far enough that his body became fully visible to the camera, knees to shoulders. The briefs were on display in all their glory. Still tight. Still white. Still thin enough to show the sharp contour of the chastity cage pressed beneath. 

The room remained silent. 

All across the screen, executives sat frozen—half open mouthed, mid blink, entirely unprepared. 

Doug’s face was flushed but calm. His chest rose and fell evenly. He didn’t shift. Didn’t hide. The shame had already happened. This was something else. This was subjugation fully realized. 

Off camera, just outside the frame, Noah sat quietly. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. 

No one ever mentioned the call. Not in writing, not out loud. Not even over drinks, off premises and off the record. But everyone remembered it. They remembered the silence and the final frame before someone clicked “End Meeting.” 

Doug stayed on. His title remained COB, but no one needed a memo to understand what it meant now. He flew commercial. Coach. Middle seat. No checked bags, just a slim leather case with two pressed suits, some spare briefs, and a printed itinerary that told him where and when to kneel. 

Noah, on the other hand, always traveled first. They didn’t speak on flights. 

In Hyderabad, Doug waited under a desk while the Regional VP led a pipeline meeting in fluent Hindi. Above, voices traded numbers and growth targets. Below, Doug’s forehead rested against polished wood. The VP’s wingtip shoe tapped idly against his cage. 

In Boston, Doug came through the service entrance of a cigar lounge tucked behind Beacon Street. The kind with velvet curtains, club memberships, and the type of clientele who didn’t like being told no. Doug wasn’t there to smoke. He knelt. He held the ashtray. Fetched a drink or two if the executives were feeling generous. Mostly, though, he remained motionless and silent. He’d learned not to anticipate. 

His suits were still bespoke. London cut and French cuffs. Noah made sure of it. But underneath, of course, he always wore the harness, the briefs, and the cage. 

“Wait, is that the actual COB?” a new hire from Singapore had asked once at a happy hour. 

Someone replied without looking up from their drink. “Yeah. But not the kind you think.” 

Doug had been two steps away, holding everyone’s coats. He smiled. No one noticed. 

The company thrived. Noah had taken Doug’s salary, his parking space, and, quietly, most of his executive power. Doug didn’t resist. He no longer even asked to be included in the decisions. He still attended board meetings, but he never spoke unless spoken to. 

In a hotel room in Zurich, Doug lay face down on the suite carpet with a leash coiled loosely beside him. His phone buzzed once with a message from Noah. 

Berlin next. Pack light. You’ll be holding the VP’s umbrella. 

Doug closed his eyes and let the vibration fade into his skin. He smiled. 

He finally understood what COB meant, and he was proud to have earned it.