The Order by Karen Blayne 

Oh by the way red tape first.

Be warned these short stories contain mature content or naughty bits and as such may corrupt you if you’re under 12, 16, 18, 21 or 25 depending where you live thus they are not suitable for you so put them back on the shelf and let them age for a year or two.

They were sort of scribbled for fun. ©2020 

Luv Karen

“You’re lucky to have this job.”  I looked at my supervisor and wondered if she was for real.  I was over qualified and had taken the job after being asked a few questions over the phone.  I’d worked for the agency before in a short term technical post and assumed that’s what they had hired me for day for.  Apparently not, I was to feed things into a scanner and the rate of pay was about half what I’d been paid last time. 

I know I should be looking for something new but I was feeling lazy and the bonus from my last job meant I was in no immediate rush to find work.  Well I’d applied to a couple of jobs and was waiting to hear back. 

 I nodded to my supervisor and pulled out an e-book reader and sat by my scanner ready for action.

One of other workers condescended to show me what he was doing, “You look bright enough, you might even progress to this job one day.”  I knew his role inside out but stood silently as he walked me through the steps.  “You know you can use keyboard shortcuts rather than go through the menus?”  He looked at me and I entered the next one in half the time he’d taken. He asked to be shown the steps again so I ran him through them until he was confident.   Then the other five who were doing the same thing wanted to be shown as well.   

The supervisor looked on in disbelief for some reason.  “But how would he know without going through the training?”  I heard the supervisor say to her underling.  I wondered back to my scanner and read a few more pages.  Occasionally someone would arrive with a document to scan and I either quickly scanned them or if I thought the person could work the scanner by themselves I got them to scan it in by themselves under my observation.

The deputy supervisor dropped by and checked the number of scans on my scanner after checking the second scanner first.  “You’ve done more scans even though you’ve been reading your book?”  I just smiled at him and he drifted back to the supervisor and talked.

My phone indicated I had an email so I switched to see what it was.  Could I drop by the lawyers?  I suggested a time the following day and went back to rescuing my damsel in distress from the dragon.  Finally the long day was done and I hoped never to see the supervisor again.

The next morning I dropped in to the lawyer’s office.  We’d been in contact for a month or two apparently my great uncle had mentioned me in his will.  Wow I might even get to clear out his house.  Fred had spent two months clearing out his parent’s home after they died and I wasn’t really looking forward to the task.  “Mr Sinclair will see you now.” and I was ushered in within seconds of arriving.  “Could I see some identification please?”  He looked over my driving license, bank statement and passport. “The will leaves all his worldly belongings to yourself.”  “Is there a house?”  “Amongst other things.”  Rats a house clearing job then.  “If you give me the address I’ll get started on clearing it then.”  He peered at me over his glasses.  “Did you ever meet your uncle?”  “No.”  “Do you know anything about him?”  “I’m not a great one for Christmas cards.”  “In addition to the house there is a business, and some mutual funds, the total in round terms comes to just over 3,500 million dollars.”  “Did you say 3.5 billion dollars?”  “That is correct.”  I felt distinctly faint as he passed me over the documents to sign.  “We transferred the funds to your bank account this morning.”  I thanked him and walked slowly to the door in shock.  The receptionist took one look at me and spoke to the girl sitting waiting.  “Could you look after him Meryl?  I think he’s had a bit of a shock.”  Meryl looked across at me.  “Are you OK?” I sort of nodded.  “I think I’d better treat you to a coffee whilst you regain your composure.”  A free coffee, how could I refuse, but then I thought about what I needed to say and the fact I’d prefer not everyone to know how much I was worth. 

“Can we go to my office?”  I asked her.  She hesitated and called someone on her phone.  Even I heard “Yes, he can be trusted.” over her phone.  We grabbed a cab and I passed her the address.  Twenty minutes later we rolled up through a set of factory gates.  “Where’s your office?”  “I’m not sure but I think I have one somewhere.”  She gave me an odd look as the cab dropped us off at reception.  We walked in.  “Who are you here to see?”  asked the receptionist.  “I’m not sure really.”  “If you let me have your name and your business perhaps I can find someone to assist.”  I gave my name, and mentioned I thought I owned the business.  There was a look of awe on the receptionist face and she got up and led me to the elevator.  “Fifth floor and you will be met.”  Meryl tagged along with a puzzled look on her face. 

We got out on the fifth floor and there was my great uncle’s secretary stood waiting to greet me.  “Now what I can I do for you?”  She asked “Would a mug of coffee for myself and Meryl be too much to ask for?”  Besides me Meryl grinned at my request.  “Just this once I’ll make it for you but these days you are expected to make your own.”  She led me into an old fashioned office that held a solid wood desk.  “If you’d like to take a seat I’ll get your signature book.”  Meryl grinned at my discomfort.

Still the coffee was good.  The three of us sat at the round table in the corner and Miss Thompson brought me up to date on the company.  “Now the big question is the local hydro company wants to place a big very profitable order with us which is more than we have capacity for for some widget since their design didn’t work out the way they expected.”  “Can we offer up a maximum of 25% of our capacity and say we maybe able to squeeze a few more in?”  “You’re thinking that if they change their mind we’d still have other customers?”  I nodded.  “And this young lady?”  Well she was pretty, demure, quiet and polite and I enjoyed teasing her.  “Meryl, I’m not sure.  Would you like a job?”  Meryl’s face lit up.  “But what you have me do?” I shrugged “Make my coffee?”   Miss Thompson smiled at that and Meryl frowned at me.  “I’m not sure someone with a PhD should make your coffee.”  “You mean your PhD isn’t in coffee waste metabolism, coffee acidity or the optimum size to grind coffee beans?”  Can you believe she stuck her tongue out at me?  Lesser men would have been slain by the look she threw at me and I could see Miss Thompson was having difficulty keeping a straight face.  I relented, “Talk to Miss Thompson and see how many shifts we run then see if you can find a way to increase them.  Overtime is one option but hiring temporary staff is another.  Do the sums and see if you can increase production in some way.  Buy lots of mugs of coffee and talk to people to gather ideas.”  She looked stunned for a moment.  “I’ll need a desk.”  I looked round at my large office “I’m sure Miss Thompson can arrange something to your satisfaction.” 

Meryl trotted off and I sat down with Miss Thompson to find out about how the company worked.  “The biggest problem at the moment is negotiating pay.  No one has been available for some time and your great uncle like to negotiate this himself.”  “Do we pay by position or by individuals?”  “Individuals, each negotiates their own pay level.”  “And those who can negotiate get a better deal.”  “I’d like to set a band up for each group with say five steps, for the moment we’ll take the average pay of the group as the mid point and slot people in accordingly.  We’ll publish the tables.”  “But everyone will know how much everyone else earns.”  I smiled “But we’ll end up paying those with lesser negotiating skills more and negotiating skills aren’t essential for most jobs.” 

Meryl came back from the factory floor.  “Apparently we pay the workers piece rates.”  “So?”  “If we want to introduce a change there is a formal process to go through to negotiate new piece rates.  Not only that but the way the workers’ workstations are laid out is not the most efficient but can’t be changed because it affects the piece rates.” I mulled and asked Miss Thompson to step in.  Then I got Meryl to explain it all again.  “If we gave them 10% of the profit as a bonus and paid them a salary of their average pay last year adjusted for those who weren’t here for the year would they accept that?” 

“They might do.  You’d need to explain it though.  The best place to explain it would be the canteen at lunch time but you’ll need to do it several times as they eat in shifts.”  We set up a five minute PowerPoint presentation and a projector in the canteen and made the presentation.  “Why?”  came the question.  “We have a very profitable order in for some insulators but we can’t make enough to meet all the requirements without running extra shifts or doing overtime. We think it’s only a temporary panic but if we can be flexible and run a few more through besides servicing our normal customers then we will be much better off financially.  At the moment the wage system with its basic wage, piece work, and guaranteed minimum is too cumbersome to make changes quickly.”  “How will we know if our 10% is the right amount.”  I mulled for a moment, “I can have the company’s accounts put up on an internal web site but I’ll ask you to keep the information to yourselves.  If the company we’re selling the insulators knew our costs it might not be so profitable.”  “Why not just make the insulators?”  “Because our other customers will be there in the future and the insulators might not be.”  “Do we get paid overtime?”  “As much as you like at time and a half.”  Eventually Meryl talked about the Kubler-Ross change curve and what to expect.  We repeated the presentation another four times adding in the questions and answers as we went.  “What on earth is the Kubler-Ross change curve?”  “A bit of psychiatry I picked up whilst doing my Ph.D.  It was first used to describe the steps of grief, denial, acceptance etc. but it can be more generally applied to changes like the ones we are doing here.” 

Meryl thought a suggestion box might be a good idea.  Trouble was going through all the suggestions.  Eventually I had Meryl go through them with the person who wrote the suggestion.  That seemed to allow explanations and clarifications.  Then I had Meryl do a business case for each suggestion.  I liked the ones that suggested we use a few robots on the line. Well the suggestion box was open to everyone including myself.  The robots wouldn’t really pay for themselves unless we ran more shifts so I let Meryl work her magic.  Meryl found some students, some were summer, some were sandwich.  Some worked normal hours some just a shift a week.  Still it all helped. 

The fitters were the really big problem.  Running everything twenty four hours a day seven days a week meant we really needed at least one on site all the time.  In the end we compromised and just let them work from home and called them in when needed.  We still paid them overtime for the full twenty four hours and I got hold of the local college and sponsored a dozen who were all ready part way through their course by putting them on the payroll. 

I was in the elevator gently mulling when I noticed a shy looking girl who looked like she wanted to talk to me.  I raised an eyebrow questioningly and she stepped closer.  “My friend’s sister is very bright.”  What does one say to a statement like that?  She stepped even closer and kissed me on the lips pressing her body delicately against me and I wrapped my arms round her.  I’m sure she felt my hardness as she wiggled against me.  The damned elevator gave a ping as my floor arrived.  “Her name is Melanie and I heard you’d paid college for some guys.”  “Bring her in to the coffee bar by the gates on Saturday morning at ten.”  Well it was only money after all.

Saturday morning arrived and I managed to find my way down to the coffee bar.  The two girls arrived and the one who had kissed me slid in besides me and Melanie sat down opposite. I passed Melanie a ten and suggested she brought two coffees.  I felt the hand on my thigh as it made its way to my inner thigh.  “So is she pretty enough?”  Ever tried to give an interview when someone is trying to distract you by running their fingers over your crotch?  Worse still Melanie was grinning at my discomfort.  “Let’s see you CV?”  Her eyes opened wide “In public?”  “It’s suppose to list what you’d done?”  Melanie blushed bright red and glared at my companion.  “Professionally.”  If anything this was even worse and totally misunderstood.  “I thought this was something regular?”  I wondered if I could just hide beneath the table.  “Mel he needs to see your grades for school.”  “Why didn’t he say so?”  She pulled them out and they looked top notch to me.  “What would you like to study?”  “You mean at college or university.  My mom and dad want me to go out and earn my keep but if it wasn’t for that Maths I suppose, statistics is my favourite.”  I felt my zip being undone and a set of fingers wiggling to free me.  I opened my laptop and found the form for applying for a job.  “Fill it in.”  A thumb was brushing over the tip of my rod and it wasn’t dry.  I swallowed and tried to think of anything other than what was happening below the table top.  “You guys all right back there?”  The waitress called.  I just nodded not trusting myself to speak.   “There all done.”  Remarked Melanie as she turned the laptop back to me.  “Are we going shopping now?  Didn’t you say you needed to buy some stockings Sal?”  “Are we finished?”  Ask Sal mischievously.  “Off you go.”  Before I spurted and made an awkward exit from the cafe.  As the two girls left I heard Melanie ask “Sal what were you doing under the table?”  I didn’t hear the answer. 

Meryl found some guys who’d done time.  Strangely enough they didn’t seem to mind being put on the  night shift and working weekends as casuals.  “Man you take what you can get you know.”  Sophia was a find, tall and with legs to die for.  Greek with three degrees she wanted to know what paid the most.  “Night shift, in charge I suppose.”  “I need somewhere to sleep.”   I had a spare room so offered it to her.  She took a bit of training on the day shifts on how things ran and she was quick to pick things up.  I wondered how she’d cope with our night shift who seemed rather macho from the one or two I’d met. 

I sat down with Miss Thompson who took me through what was happening and mentioned Meryl was an invaluable resource for sorting things out.  “I suppose that is the polite way of saying don’t upset her and pat her on the bum.”  “She might like it but there again there is a risk she might not.”  “I know and she has just the sort of posterior that is so inviting.”  Miss Thompson smiled at me “You’ll just have to control yourself.” 

Tuesday morning she arrived back at the house just as I was having breakfast.  She was definitely in a rage.  “How did you get on?”  I enquired and hoped she wouldn’t get into too much detail.  “Those animals think they can ignore me.”  She looked at me and her expression changed.  “I need some money for clothing.”  Thinking of safety boots and glasses.  I peeled off a few hundred dollar bills and passed them over.  “Boots and so forth?”  Her smile was evil, “Exactly.”  I cowardly scurried off to work where Miss Thompson was to explain about pensions. 

I returned late.  Meryl had been asking relevant questions again.  I was torn between delegating it all to her and just sitting there and enjoying her company.  Somehow I ended up agreeing to spend more more money than I might have done on her suggestions and afterwards she had a look about her that I associated with cats and dishes of cream as we left.  I caught sight of Sophia as she was about to leave for work.  She was dressed in a black leather full length coat, wearing three inch heeled black boots that disappeared under her coat.  “The boots were an excellent idea of yours.” She opened the coat to let me admire them.  Beneath the coat the boots came up to mid thigh, above them were black stockings held up by garters which disappeared under a tiny leather skirt.  The top was one of those black things that seemed to push her bare breasts up and I was almost tempted to suckle them.   I was definitely speechless.  “Good you think I will have an impact tonight.  I’m going to crack my whip and show them who is boss.”  I hadn’t noticed it before until she cracked it smartly on the floor.  She borrowed my car keys and drove off saying she could hardly catch the bus dressed as she was.  That night I had difficulty sleeping.  I dreampt about her and dreampt about joining the night shift. 

The next morning she arrived back with a smile on her face.  “I threatened them and they rolled over.  Now they accept me as boss. They do exactly what I tell them to.”  I was astounded and wondered if she’d gone too far.  I stayed a bit late and caught one of the night shift coming in early to have supper before work in the canteen.  “Sophia mentioned she’d threatened you all last night.”  He looked round carefully before looking back at me.  “Man you should have seen it.  Even Spencer backed down and I’ve never seen him do that before.”  “What did she do whip him?”  “Worse than that.  She threatened that if we didn’t behave ourselves and do exactly what she said she’d have Mr. Scunthorpe take over.  Man can you imagine that scumbag in charge?  I mean Sophia in that outfit of hers man the guys just sat there and lapped it up.” 

I found Melanie a Saturday job on the lines and Miss Thompson sort out which University she could study Statistics at.  When summer came she was offered a full time position which strangely enough included training.  Sal caught me on my own once or twice and expressed her gratitude with a kiss and grope.  

Those insulators were flying off the assembly line.  Then our other customers wanted to increase their orders so to fit them in we cut back a bit on the insulators.  The money was pouring in.  Even Sophia’s outfits didn’t make a major impact on the cash in the bank but they made an impact on our bottom line.  If Sophia thought the guys were behaving and performing well I heard on the grapevine they got kiss on the cheek and her fingers would very lightly run over their crotch. 

It was time to think about the future.  These insulators wouldn’t last forever and education was supposed to be a good investment.  Meryl got hold of the local college and we sat down with them.  Eventually we decided that if the insulators lasted six months I could afford two or three year courses for a quarter of the staff at regular pay.  The college would run some tests and see which were best suited for which course given that I wanted practical courses as well.  Meryl thought we should go green and I underwrote a bicycle mechanic’s course.  I caught Melanie in the canteen at lunch time and we had lunch together.  “Tell me about your sister.” I  asked.  “She wasn’t as lucky as I was with my teachers but she’s bright.”  “Can you get her to work a shift or two?”  “I guess so.”  

Then we looked for new business opportunities.  We were lucky and Meryl found a couple of would be startups so we created an incubator unit for them.  Daisy was one of the line workers and she asked if we could make some of her designs up.  She’d been through art college but had ended up on the line when nothing had turned up in her field.  She started on our web site first then in a corner set her design studio up.  Nothing fancy but we did a line of mugs with either Daisy’s design on them or your company logo.  Anything to ensure we had something when the insulator orders stopped as I was sure they would.  I talked to the local college and found they had students who were finding difficulties finding jobs in their field when they graduated.   Ermystead’s was slowly diversifying.  We gave them a web page and a salary and let them get on with it.  Meryl hired a couple of more experienced workers as well to hand hold them.  It took time for them to get established but slowly the work came in. 

Sal caught me in my office and poked me in the tummy.  “The college rang and Melanie’s sister and myself have been offered courses including a pre-course course to make sure we meet the requirements for some sort of technologist.”  “That’s good isn’t it?”  “They make good money certainly.”  “Well the ones we have when we can get them are certainly overpaid.”  I said gloomily.  “You were behind it then?”  “Melanie’s bright so I think her sister will be bright enough and I thought you might like to do it with her.”  “What will we live on?”  “I think you’ll find it become part of your training plan.”  “You mean we get paid for going?”  I nodded and was rewarded with one of Sal’s long lingering kisses with her pressing her body against mine.  I tapped her bum lightly “Off you go before I get accused of sexual harassment.”  Or more importantly Meryl arriving back in our shared office. 

It was over eight months later Miss Thompson arrived in my office.  “They have a new design so don’t need any more insulators.”  “All good things come to an end I suppose.”  I looked over the figures we had enough cash to carry the staff until the end of the financial year.  First things first, I sent an email out to all staff saying the insulator project had come to an end so there would be no more overtime, shifts or weekend for the present.  A total hiring freeze of course, any new hiring would have to be approved personally by myself. 

I had the production managers in and we looked over the production schedule.  With the changes we’d made to eliminate the bottlenecks we could manage everything on five or six shifts a week.  Meryl’s students were simple we’d lay them off but found them a bursary so it worked out about the same.  I flipped a coin and suggested we move to a three day week same pay.  Strangely enough we had enough volunteers to work the Saturday shift.  Meryl convinced five staff to take time off until their children went to school on half pay.  By the time they wouldn’t have to pay childcare costs there wasn’t much difference at the end of the day.  “Early retirement?”  “No those are the people with experience and I don’t want to lose them.”  

Sophia’s night workers, they’d done really well and Meryl thought it unlikely they’d find a job if we terminated them.  I went home and talked to Sophia about them before she went into work.  “You garden needs sorting out.”  “So?”  “I’ll supervise three of the night shift and we’ll sort it out.”  I went in with her to talk to the crew. 

They were looking glum when we arrived.  “Looks like you’ve heard the news?”  “Well man it was good whilst it lasted.”  “We did better than I expected so you all have jobs for the present.  Six of you will be picking up litter in the local parks and doing other jobs for the city.”  “They won’t touch us man with our records.”  “You’ll still be working for me and I’ll pay you.  You’re just contracted out for the moment.  For those of you who meet the entrance requirements you can go to college on your normal pay for up to three years but I’ll want to approve your choice of course.  Basically I don’t want you to take a course that leads to a job that you can’t meet any other requirements for.”  “Does that mean we loose our jobs when we graduate?”  “No you may still work for me if you wish to but some jobs had odd restrictions on them that the college will forget to mention that mean the course would be a waste of time.  For the rest of you Sophia will select and head up a gardening team of three of you.”  Shoulders were squared and they stood a little straighter.  Sophia smiled an evil smile.  “Caleb, Eli and Spencer, you have the option of working in the sun under my personal direction.  Is that acceptable?”  All three grinned.  “Right for the last eight months I’m quite sure you’ve had fantasises about me wrapping my lips round your cocks.  Today your fantasises are about to come true but only after my enjoyment, the rest of you may leave.  Otis would you like to try first?”  Not one turned to go.  She described what he had to do as she stood and unzipped her tiny leather skirt standing in black seamed stockings.  “Oh and guys my breasts like attention as well so whilst Otis has his head buried between my thighs two of you may suckle my breasts.”  She turned and kissed me deeply on the lips and brushed her fingers along my fly zip then tugged the strings at her hip and slid her damp knickers into my shirt pocket.  “There that should set me in the mood, now look after them.”  It took Otis fifteen minutes before Sophia moaned and motioned him to bring himself to her lips.  It barely took three minutes before he was spurting his sperm into her mouth.  Some guys took longer than others but eventually all twenty three had brought her satisfaction and  received their blowjobs.  Sophia eventually looked up too see Otis once more.  “I’m not serving seconds today.”   

I helped her to her feet and she turned and spoke to her chosen three.  “Be here the day after tomorrow at nine in the morning.”  She took my arm and after asking me if I had a handkerchief she mopped herself up and tied her knickers back in place lining them with a second handkerchief.  As we returned home I asked her “Weren’t you concerned about STDs?”  “No not really Meryl has them all tested regularly every month.”  “You mean she knew what you were intending to do?”  “Of course, it was her idea to wear silk stockings for the guys.”  I laughed, there was more to my Meryl than I thought. 

Two days later I was up having breakfast when Sophia arrived in the kitchen and made herself a coffee.  “Breakfast?”  “Food first thing in the morning?  I’m not sure my figure would agree.” I put some bacon and egg on and soon she was eating up.  “Where are your workers this morning?”  I enquired to be polite.  “Oh my plantation workers you mean?”  “I don’t think it’s politically correct to call them that.”  She looked at me oddly “But you plant things in the garden?”  “Plantations used slaves so to call someone a plantation worker sort of implies..”  I trailed off.  “But they are my slaves?”  “No we pay them and they could leave their jobs.”  She smiled at me “Do you think there’s any danger they wouldn’t want to work for me?”  I gave up.  “What will you do with them?”  I enquired.  “Well if you really want to know we’ll start off by turning the compost heap over.  It’s very important it gets turned over everyday.  Besides I like to see their muscles rippling.  Then I think I’ll have them read a paperback to me in the afternoon.  One can read whilst the other two...”  She trailed off as outside the sound of a bicycle bell was heard.  I went to the door to see what was happening and there was Meryl together with Sophia’s three plantation workers all on bicycles.  Bother Sophia had me thinking of them as her slaves as well. 

I made Meryl a mug of coffee.  “What’s it worth not to tell Miss Thompson you made me a mug of coffee without being prompted?”  Where had I got the idea she was demure?  She looked out in the garden “I like the view.”  I stepped up behind her and saw Sophia rubbing in sunscreen on to a very muscular back.  “Think she’d like a hand?”  “She mentioned she was going to get them to read a paperback to them this afternoon.”  Meryl burst into laughter.  “I like it, keep them motivated.”  I gave her a quizzical look.  “Oh I’d better spell it out for you.  The three she has selected to work with have the worst reading and writing skills.  They can’t add up either.  So she has them read to her out loud, for thirty minutes a day, really sensual paperbacks, real scorchers.  Then she plays cards for a penny per hundred points with them to teach them maths.  She usually wins five cents off each of them each day. It’s not so much the money as making them work to do the sums.  She makes deliberate mistakes on the adding up as well.” 

“Weren’t we supposed to be teleworking today?”  “Oh are we watching the tele?  Goody.”  I gave her a look and walked over to the lounge and sat down in my big leather armchair preparing to bring up my laptop.  Meryl walked across swaying her hips as she walked then sat down in my lap and kissing me on the lips.  I tried to remember if it was my birthday or Christmas or some such.  I must confess I’m not very good at dates.  “Happy Birthday?”  I hazarded.  “Sometimes I’m tempted to give up.  Now think carefully have I ever sat on your lap before?”  “I’m certain I’d remember if you had.”  She undid the buttons on her blouse so the two sides fell apart and a delightful nipple could be seen poking up over a wisp of lace.  “You’re trying to seduce me?”  “Well it might come to that.  Try again.”  “Your sister has lost her job and you want me to find her one.”  “My brother actually.  He worked for Robinson’s together with his newly married wife and Robinson’s have had their overdraft called in by the bank.  It’s a family firm started by the current owner’s grandfather so a bit old fashioned to say the least.”  “I don’t think I can.  We have a hiring freeze on at the moment.”  She moved my hand so it was on her knee then brushed it up her leg exposing stocking tops and bare thigh.  “Quite sure?”  I didn’t know quite what to say so let my fingers do the walking.  Her breathing quickened and she swivelled off my lap and knelt in front of me. “Sophia was quite certain the stockings would turn the trick.”  She unzipped my flies and released my member stroking it with gentle strokes.  “I wonder if I still remember how to do this.” She murmured and I felt jealous of whomever she’d done it to before.  After I’d spurted and been swallowed we talked a bit more.  The girl she apartment she shared an apartment with was moving out so Meryl was looking for somewhere new to live.  “Sophia suggested there might be room at your place.”  “There are only two beds.”  “Well I’m not sharing a bed with Sophia.”  It took a moment or two for her words to sink in.  I looked at her with wide open eyes.  “I knew you were clever enough to work it out.  Sophia was certain you were interested in me.”  We kissed deeply and for ages and when we came up for air my thoughts were we’d best go and rescue Robinson’s. 

Apparently Robinson’s had switched to making insulators and stopped making anything else.  “Let’s go and see them then.”  We took Miss Thompson with us. 

I noticed the works was very quiet when we got there.  Not surprising really if they had no orders.  The girl outside the owner’s office looked out of place.  Something about the way her roots were a different colour to her blonde hair.  I noticed black bra straps showing at her shoulders and the black very skimpy bra showed up under her top.  When she stood up to greet us Meryl dug me in the ribs as I got distracted by the very short pleated skirt.  She wobbled across to the door on her high heels giving glimpses of red knickers from time to time and a sort of pink tail hanging down.  She knocked on on the door before opening it and announcing us.  I looked at Meryl and mouthed “Pink tail?”  “We’ll talk later.” 

“Well it seemed a good idea at the time.  It was more profitable work than anything else we had and they seemed to just buy everything we produced.  That’s why we took a bank loan out for new machinery.”  “And the orders just stopped?”  “Sod’s law, shit happens, suddenly we had no orders and some very expensive machinery and a very expensive bank loan.  Looking at the figures I’d say we’re going to run out of money when the next payroll is due.”  “Well I might offer to buy you out but I’d like to see books first.”  Whilst Miss Thompson looked over the books.  Meryl picked up the owner’s smart phone and looked questioningly at him.  He nodded and she passed it over to me.  The girl in the very short pleated skirt looked a bit apprehensive.  Meryl pointed to an app that seemed to be some sort of remote control.  I moved my finger and waited for the TV at the end of the room to come on.  Nothing moved but the girl looked flustered.  Meryl lent over and touched the fireworks icon on the screen for a few seconds.  I didn’t cotton on straight away but the girl honestly looked really flustered almost as if someone was eating her out.  Meryl lent over and tapped it to turn it off and whispered in my ear “Sophia has one and she let’s who ever produces the most on the shift play with it for ten minutes as reward.”  I blinked and wondered if Miss Slut of the year could be rotated into my office for a while but then thought if we left her where she was she could distract her boss more whilst we reorganised the company. 

Miss Thompson reported that it seemed they’d just made nothing but insulators for the last eight months but hadn’t gone to more than one shift.  So yes they’d made money but not quite as much as we had.  Then two months ago they’d ordered new machinery which would have made sense if the insulator order had lasted another year.  

“Oh and the workforce in the factory has gone on strike demanding more pay.”  I couldn’t believe my luck.  “Right I’ll offer you the proverbial dollar for the company and a salary to run the place.”  I named a figure that would save him from starving and mentioned he could keep his dolly bird as a secretary.  We got HR in and sent out formal notices by courier terminating all the workers on strike.  Next we sent out emails asking workers to come into the canteen the following day. 

HR called the union rep and asked them to come in and talk.  We used a conference room and I had Meryl put up the Kubler-Ross change curve on the screen.  I recognised the smiling face as she walked into the room.  “We’re on strike for as long as it takes.”  “Please take a seat.  As background I’ll ask Meryl to put up her fancy graph on the screen and then I’ll ask Miss Thompson to show you the books.”  She looked at me as if I was mad. 

As the bank balance came up followed by the letter demanding the loan be repaid within seven days.  She spoke.  “That can’t be right.”  Miss Thompson pulled up the order book which was empty.  “No that’s all wrong.”  We had the head salesperson in the room who just shrugged his shoulders and said “There are no orders at the moment.”  “But you brought all that expensive machinery?”  “And Sod’s law kicked in.”  This came from the old owner.  “I’ve sold my interest for a dollar and that should tell you something.”  I passed her a copy of the letter that said she was terminated.  “You can’t do that.  The contract says you must give a month’s notice and a week’s pay for every year of service.”  “You are correct but once you went on strike then the contract is no longer enforceable.”  “We’ll go back to work.”  “The termination notices have already been sent out.  We have the time stamp from the courier for each and every one.”  Meryl pointed to the denial part of the graph. 

“What are you offering?”  She asked bleakly.  “Well as you say we have a lot of expensive machinery sitting idle.  So we need to get it up and running and the more hours of the day we can run it the cheaper it is to run.  Basically the company will be absorbed into Ermystead’s on Ermystead’s pay scales.  The staff will be rehired so they’ll lose their seniority.  Hopefully we can get enough orders in and as you mentioned once “You’re lucky to have this job.” 

I let Meryl work her magic.  The sales staff all left when they saw there was no commission since there were no orders.  We switched production to the new machinery which took work off Ermystead’s line but on the other hand since we didn’t lay anyone off didn’t seem to matter too much.  We did ask people to move over to the new machinery.  I dipped into the mutual funds and found enough money to send a quarter of the new staff on training.  Then Miss Thompson worked her magic contacting old customers.  We gambled cutting prices by a quarter and accepted orders over a secure web site but the real saving grace came a week later, for a big urgent order for insulators from a different hydro company that had to replace all theirs due to a design fault. They were willing to pay extra for an early delivery.  How many could we produce for them and how quickly. I let Meryl sort it out.  