The Pleasure Boy 30

The Pleasure Boy 30

Having accepted the position of Lifemate-on-Trial to Judith Arruda, the next step was to draft and sign a contract for one year of service to her. The core of my service would be to assist this new Mistress in the design of a Lifemate Program for Woodruffe Electronics. With the assistance of Mistress Myrna Stiles as mentor, this contract would be continually discussed and revised to become the prototype and cornerstone of Woodruffe's program. Myrna, who had conducted the preliminary interviews for my position was already under a retainer contract to make herself available as needed for consulting services to the Woodruffe Corporation, billing it for her time at a pre-agreed rate.

After Judith had offered and I had accepted the lifemate position, Judith's first step was to phone Myrna to the drafting of a first formal contract between us. Over time, with experience, discussion and repeated revisions, we would nail down the specifics of our contract on such matters as living arrangements, expected services, compensation and training. In brief, it had been agreed that I would serve Judith as Ms. Arruda at the office and as Mistress Judith when we were alone. Specifically:

• that at the office, I would appear and function as a consultant responsible for the design of a Woodruffe LifeMate Program (WLMP, pronounced 'woolmp'), and for recommendations to the Company on the feasibility and value of such a program;

• that in her home, I would serve Mistress in a capacity somewhere between intimate friend and houseboy, living in a well-furnished room of my own, eating at her table, performing specified domestic chores as time permitted, and receiving a specified allowance for clothing, private expenses and pocket money;

• that a specified amount would be transferred to a private account of my choice as a monthly salary;

• that I would be allowed one evening and one full day of free time, to be agreed between us for every six days of full-time service; and

• that any disputes between us would be mediated and (as a last resort) arbitrated by Mistress Myrna Stiles, who would act as our mentor, and would assist at the beginning of each new month in revising and updating our contract by mutual agreement.

As Judith and I reviewed, fleshed out and confirmed these points, I took notes on my laptop. Later I wrote them up as a memo of understanding which we then signed and emailed to Myrna. Based on this memo, Myrna and her staff prepared a draft contract, which was signed and filed with the Guild. When these formalities had been completed, when I had moved and arranged my belongings in my new room, when I had gone shopping to stock our fridge and pantry and then prepared a first, sumptuous meal in Judith's kitchen, we dined and toasted our trial, lifemate relationship, and then went upstairs to Judith's bedroom. Judith tied me spread-eagle on her bed, blindfolded me and took me cowgirl style riding my cock for a first orgasm (in which, with her permission, I also came), and then my face for a second. She had a third cum while I ate creampie, and then stretched out beside me and fell asleep.

I lay awake for awhile, contemplating my new condition, and feeling that I'd at last arrived where I belonged - under a strict, sexy mistress who knew her own mind and had the courage of her desires. Natasha Sorkin, impressive lady that she was had been a stranger in a new country, and in her own body, it could be said. Judith Arruda had no such inner schism. Like the proverbial duck to water, she was taking to lifestyle Domination as to the manor born: her natural state of affairs. Feeling that serving such a woman was

my

natural state of affairs, I at last fell asleep myself, remaining calm and quiet as I'd been trained, so as not to disturb my partner.

In the morning, I first made coffee for both of us, then set the table and consumed a light breakfast while Judith showered and groomed herself. When she'd finished, it was my turn to shower, shave and dress myself, while Judith ate and dressed. After breakfast, in our separate cars, we drove to work, timing it so that she arrived a few minutes before me. "Once the Lifemate Project is announced," Judith told me, "it can come out that we are a trial couple, living and working together on a pilot arrangement. Then we'll come to work together, with you as my chauffeur. Until that time, you're just another consultant; and I'd rather keep it secret that we are living and sleeping together."

And so it was that at 8:27, on a crisp morning in early October, I parked in my assigned slot, took the elevator up to the 12

th

floor and walked, brisk and business-like, into Judith's corner office, to start a first working day with my new Mistress.

Coolly and professionally, she greeted me, then pressed a button on her phone. In a moment, I heard her say "Alan, come to my office please;" and a minute later, a young man, about my age, knocked briefly on the door and walked in. "Alan," she said to him, "please meet Jim Woodruffe." I offered my hand and we shook. "He's going to be my consultant and assistant in the design of a new program that we're thinking of setting up. You haven't been briefed on it yet, and he won't talk about it, as it's just notional at this point. It's connected with the Mars project, and our problems in staffing up for it. You'll be fully informed when and if we decide to go ahead with it."

"He's a qualified geisho, but completely new to human relations management, and I want you to teach him the ropes." Aware of this clichéd pun, she grinned at me as she said this.

"Jim Woodruffe?" Alan questioned. "Any relation to our CEO?"

"Actually, he's Todd Woodruffe's son, but just ignore that fact. He's not a spy for the Boss, and he's not being groomed to take over the company. He's a consultant, with a career of his own, just here to help with the new program as I told you."

"Jim, this is Alan Arnold. Despite the office humour, he's not a descendant of Benedict Arnold and no more a spy than you are. As you just heard, I'm assigning him to tutor you in the basics of what we do here. Please follow his instructions until further notice, and go to him with any questions you have. Come back to my office at 4:30, the end of the working day."

"Alan, first thing is to take him around, and get him started. Get him a badge as a confidential consultant with full security clearance. Put him in the empty cubicle next to my office and get him registered to that location and phone number in the Corporate Directory. Then take him around and introduce him to our people. You can be frank about his father, but try to keep the jokes and rumours to a minimum. Finally, set him to work on basic tasks of head hunting and recruitment - your specialty - as that's the area in which he'll be working." She dismissed us, and Alan led me away.

"Head hunting and recruitment, eh," he stared at me. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

"Sorry, but no," I answered him. "As Ms. Arruda just said, it's a new recruitment program, just entering design phase - still notional at this point, and not ready for public discussion. My job is to assist your boss in designing the program and preparing a formal proposal to Woodruffe Corp.'s executive committee. Once the program is announced, you will be fully briefed. I can promise you now that if the executive committee decides to go ahead with this program (still a very big 'IF'), it won't be a threat to your job or to anyone else's."

"Also, please don't ask me questions about my father. At home, with his family, he doesn't talk much about the company, and I probably don't know much more than you do about his plans or problems. And what Ms. Arruda told you was the truth: I'm just a hired consultant. I'm not spying for him, and I'm certainly not being groomed to take over his firm. I know next to nothing about electronics. I'm a geisho, a trained pleasure boy. My background is in psychology and human relationships, which is why I've been hired to work here."

"Ha! A geisho with a background in psychology and human relationships, hired to help us in staffing up for the Mars project! That should tell me something if I think about it!"

"Thinking is free, and everyone can do it, but please keep your speculations to yourself." Your boss wants this project kept under wraps until it's ready for public discussion. For now, my job is to learn the basics of HRM and yours is to help me do it, so let's talk about that. Where do we start?"

For the rest of the morning, Alan walked me around Arruda's department, having me fill out forms, get my picture taken, and then having an ID card printed, laminated and hung around my neck. Next, he walked me back to the cubicle his boss had mentioned, installed me in the swivel chair behind its desk, set me up on its lap top computer in the corporate network and turned aside while I chose and entered a valid password. Then he pointed me to a private website offering an overview and org chart of Woodruffe Electronics and suggested that I study it while he ran some errands. I did so, and in the process learned a few things about my father's company - its history, current structure and signal achievements - that I had never known.

About an hour later he came back, carrying a shopping bag with a few gifts presents to make me operational: an assortment of stationary with the corporate letterhead, business cards for my wallet and a handsome difficult-to-knock-over coffee mug. with a wide base. Alan also brought me two of his own books that he thought I might find useful, telling me that they were a loan and that he'd want them back. One was a university textbook, an 'Introduction to Human Resource Management.' The other, 'A Head-hunter's Guide to the Corporate Jungle,' was a business guru writing about 'talent management' - the acquisition and retention of valuable employees, and the strategic choice between attracting valuable employees from competitors vs. training your own.

He told me, "As you probably know, this is a life-and-death issue for us now. Before the Mars contract, we were small firm of gifted engineers specialized in research and development. We also did some custom manufacturing of specialized drones and robots. Our new contract with NASA will involve us in the wholesale manufacture of novel, specialized drones and robots designed to function on the surface of Mars, and later perhaps on some of the larger asteroids and eventually, perhaps, on Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, the biggest moons of Jupiter. NASA's overall strategy is to colonize the solar system, at least initially, with semi-autonomous drones and robots (analogous to self-driving cars) instead of humans requiring life support and the promise of a return journey. No longer just a few probes, they will need an army of intelligent robots, specialized for various tasks but capable of recharging somehow. Each type will need to be designed and manufactured as cheaply as possible. The long-term idea, if it proves feasible, is to build a manufacturing plant on Mars, and build these units with materials from Mars and the asteroids, to save the cost of shipping them the millions of miles from Earth."

"For now, to meet our commitment, the Woodruffe company must gear up first to design each type of unit, then to design and recommend a way of manufacturing it, and finally to provide coordination and quality control for this whole production effort. Under a future contract, that we will certainly bid for and be well positioned to win, someone will have the task - and the revenue - from building these costly items to order, the way aircraft, ships and skyscrapers are built today. The firm that wins the contract for a given type of unit will either manufacture and assemble all of its components, or (more likely) subcontract various aspects of that job. One way or another, Woodruffe Corp. as a source of original designs will be at the epicentre of all this activity, making its shareholders rich. But getting there from where we are today will require us to hire a small army of new employees, all of whom are gifted or highly skilled - and all of who are now either sought by our competitors, or already working for one of them at a generous salary."

"The Mars project is certainly challenging and prestigious, and will attract many good people by its very nature. Even so, Woodruffe will either have to pay them more, or win them over with of some other incentive. The problem of attracting and hiring all these people rests squarely on Ms. Arruda's shoulders; and my guess is that she has brought you here to help design that 'other incentive.' Since you're a geisho, I infer that this incentive will be some form of pleasure... but which form, exactly, I have no idea."

He watched me closely to see if my body language or facial expression confirmed his reasoning, while I kept still, trying to avoid doing so. He was alarmingly close; his conclusions would soon be all over the shop, and Judith Arruda would not be pleased. Just now, he only looked at his watch and said to me, "It's well past noon. Let's go have lunch."

I followed him to the elevator, and we went up to a cafeteria on the top floor, with excellent food, a pleasant decor and a magnificent view of the city. "It isn't obvious," Alan told me, "but HR played a considerable role in the design of this place. If you want to attract and retain valuable employees, the least you can do is feed them well and show them some respect."

After lunch, he led me around the HR department, and then around the whole building, showing me where things were and introducing me to people as "our new HR consultant." As I'd insisted, he avoided talking about his theory or mentioning my geisho background. After leaving each site, I jotted down the names and job titles of the people I was meeting in a little notebook I carried. I planned to build a personal database of key players in this place to associate the faces with their names and roles. Whether as a geisho or an HR consultant, I figured it was not only courteous but imperative to know who I was dealing with as I went around.

Finally, Alan led me back to HR and left me alone at my own desk to digest what I had learned and start my reading. At 4:30, the official quitting time (though I saw many people remaining at their desks), I went to Judith's office and knocked on her closed door. "Come," she called. When I entered and closed the door, she gestured me to the chair beside my desk. "My impulse is to kneel at your feet," I told her as I sat down. "I'm feeling overwhelmed by all there is to learn here."

"Resist that feeling," she answered, "Someone could walk in on us at any time. In public - especially at our workplace - I don't want you being conspicuously submissive to me, even when our lifemate relationship is public knowledge. In general, especially at work, I don't think D/s protocol applies in the kind of lifemate relationship we're considering. It's enough that sub lifemates be obedient and respectful like good employees and contract workers. Even in front of others, they must be free to speak their minds and even to disagree with their Dominants, so long as they do so tactfully and respectfully."

"Agreed," I said. "Calling you 'Mistress' at the office would just get people thinking about our private life, which is really none of their business. But in private, I'm a sub and want to feel like one; and want to enjoy making you feel like a Domme."

"Fine by me," Judith said. "I can't say I don't enjoy having you grovel at my feet - some of the time. But, in general, what I want from you is deference and competent, willing service, not worship or toadying submissiveness. I'm your Domme, but not a goddess. Done to excess, D/s protocol just feels ridiculous, even oppressive - to me, at any rate. When we're in private, behave with no more exaggerated submission than we both enjoy. If you get signals that you're going overboard, respect them."

"I think you can write something like this into your manual for all our lifemate couples: At work, normal business customs should be the rule. In private, what lifemate couples should be respectful, but in accord with the Dom's sensibilities - never with much more grovelling than he or she enjoys. If subs need to behave and think submissively to maintain their mindset of obedience and service, they should be indulged to some extent, but not to the point where the Dom becomes uncomfortable."

And you and I must stick to professional manners around other people - until our prospective LifeMate Program is revealed for public discussion, and our private relationship is revealed as the pilot project that it is."

"That may happen sooner than we'd like," I commented, telling my Mistress about Alan's deductions from his awareness of Woodruffe's staffing problem and his knowledge of my background as a geisho.

She sighed. "Our employees must be smart to do their jobs," she said, "but sometimes their intelligence is inconvenient."

"That's the defining problem of modernity," I remarked. "Beginning around 1700, the world's work could no longer be done by illiterate slaves and peasants. Increasingly, most jobs began to require literacy, numeracy and a minimum of intelligence. That made a huge human relations problem for every modern or modernizing nation, and for global society as a whole - a problem that remains unsolved. Neither public not private honchos - big shots - can expect workers to be intelligent and energetic about the state's or their employer's interests, but ignorant and apathetic about their own.

"Be careful," Judith said. "Your training as a historian is showing. You too may be more intelligent than suits this Company's interests. Or my interests, for that matter."

"But you just solved a problem for me. I've been trying to think of a word for Woodruffe employees who are either senior enough or technologically creative enough to be eligible for lifemate subsidy. We can call them our 'honchos,' as you just did - employees deemed eligible for subsidy under our Lifemate Program. Setting down those rules of eligibility, and the support and subsidies to be given, will be the toughest part of our job."

"Why is that?" I asked her. "It should not be too difficult to compile a list of Woodruffe's really valuable people, or to make offers to outsiders based on their resumes and track records."

"You're right. We can make those judgments fairly easily and get it right most of the time. The problem is that we can't afford to seem arbitrary in the way we make them. If we can't publish the objective criteria behind our selections, the program will provoke a lot of rancour and do more harm than good. Looking at the people accepted for lifemate subsidy, the ones turned down will ask, "Why him and not me?" One way or another, all those complaints will come to me, and I will need some way to answer them - some way that most people will accept as sensible and just."

"It's worse than the problem of downsizing. When a company lays people off, they disappear - looking for other work. When policies seem unjust to employees that you want to keep, most of them stick around to gripe."

"We're not going to solve that problem this evening, just talking about it. I want you to keep it in the back of your mind as you get to know this company and the types of people that we need to recruit. We'll talk about it over the weeks and months to come. Hopefully, a solution will emerge."

"Understood," I told her. To get started just now, can we make a list of program components that we'll need to design and present in draft before you're ready to make your recommendation to the executive committee. I know of two, so far... "

"Recommendations that YOU are going to make!" Judith interrupted. "The report we present to that committee will be under your name, not mine. Of course, you are working for me, and it won't go up the line until I accept and endorse your work. We'll be discussing the program constantly. But as a consultant (your position of record here) you will do the writing, most of the actual work. My main job is to manage this department. The program's components and our report to the committee will be YOUR deliverables. That how our bean-counters will justify the monies paid to me as a subsidy for taking you on as my lifemate. I will then pay the costs of keeping you out of my personal funds, and declare you as an expense on my tax returns. Officially, that's how it will work for you - and probably for many other lifemate subsidies as well."