The Pleasure Boy 31

The Pleasure Boy 31

In the next weeks and months, my relationship with Judith deepened, and I gained some knowledge of the issues and procedures of human resource management. Our ideas about Woodruffe Company's prospective lifemate program began to come together. We agreed, for example, that support and subsidy were two different things: that Woodruffe should offer free mentoring and contracting services to all its employees, but should subsidize lifemate training costs and support costs only in special cases, for example:

• as a recruiting bonus for conspicuously desirable applicants;

• as an offer rewarding achievement;

• for training purposes - to create a special apprentice relationship;

• or as a special research investment (as in Judith's case).

Subsidies would not be awarded through normal (HR) management of the program, but voted by the executive committee on some manager's recommendation.

Lifemate Dominants choosing to use their subs at work, whether at Woodruffe Corp. (as Judith was using me) or elsewhere, would receive the sub's wages or salary, and would be responsible (and evaluated) for that person's work. Subs could not be sent to work for other firms without permission from the Company as granted by Human Resources or the Executive Committee. How a sub's pay was shared between Dom and sub would be agreed between them as a feature of their contract, with their mentor's help as needed. In this way Doms could offset the costs of keeping a submissive, not by corporate subsidy, but from the sub's own pay cheque as compensation for his room and board. This provision strongly encourage choosing and using subs partly for their potential value to Woodruffe Electronics, not merely as domestic servants or bed pets.

We foresaw that administration of Woodruffe's LifeMate Program (the WooLMP Program as it redundantly came to be called) would involve at least the following specific functions:

• internal registration and tracking of lifemate relationships;

• delivery of company-sponsored lifemate services (e.g. contracting and mentoring);

• origination of recommendations (to the executive committee) for lifemate subsidy; and

• processing of applications for the employment of potential (submissive) lifemates, seeking apprentice positions.

These administrative functions clearly fell within the scope of the existing HR department, which would require additional staff, space and budget to handle them. Judith knew that she would be accused of empire-building but said, "It can't be helped. If they want a lifemate program, there will have to be a special HR unit to deliver it. All we can do is recommend that the subsidy that I'm receiving for you should be terminated when the pilot project ends. At that point, assuming we contract to stay together, it will be up to me either to keep you at home as my houseboy, or send you to the office to manage the WooLMP on my behalf, or to let you win and hold down some other job, while handing over your salary."

"Fine," I said. "Each lifemate couple will have to agree on how the sub is to be used. As the sub has promised obedience, this will be the Dom's decision, but the sub will have a say, and will always have the option of not renewing their contract. Mentors can recommend specific provisions for periodic review and change of employment short breaking or revising the whole contract.

"I like this," Judith agreed. "It's very flexible and I think I can sell it to the executive committee. It will encourage people with big reputations to take lifemates as apprentices whom they will teach and coach and put to work for us, even if these Doms are already married or don't want any personal services at all."

In this way, the conceptual design of a Woodruffe LifeMate Program came together. Later on, when this WooLMP was actually in effect, it served the Company well. But one point we completely failed to anticipate was the impact our program would have on some existing marriages of Woodruffe employees. Whether to nail down the distribution of domestic responsibilities, put an end to marital quarrelling, or spice up their sex lives, a number of couples made a decision to apply for registration, training and mentoring as lifemates under the WooLMP program. In effect, these couples were choosing to embrace lifestyle D/s as a new feature of their marriages. As we learned eventually, our program would have to accommodate them.

I knew from the outset, from the way she handled me at the interview, that Judith was well experienced in BDSM play. She told me that she had had no experience of a full-time D/s lifestyle, but in this, she did herself an injustice. She was a very experienced manager and executive, well-used to being Boss. She knew very well how to be decisive and demanding when she needed respect and compliance from her subordinates, and how to be patient, helpful and sensitive to keep them at ease and comfortable under her rule. She was excellent too at using the experience and knowledge of her subordinates, at always listening attentively to their concerns, while keeping the last word for herself and make sure they knew it. She understood that her power and safety as head of her unit depended on her subordinates belief that she was looking out for their interests and safety in their dealings with upper management and the outside world. All that was missing was the habit of using and relying on these same skills in an intimate relationship where she was even more powerful, but also much more responsible and vulnerable than at work.

The combination of subordination with intimacy being new to her, my role was to put her wishes first in every situation, and teach her that she could count on my doing so, so long as what she wanted was within my capabilities, and so long as I was clear what her wishes would be. Also, she had to know that I would not renew my contract with her - that few submissives would - unless their own needs were also being taken care of. The key point about handling a submissive is that we do indeed have needs and desires of our own. It's only that the need to be needed and appreciated by others - by at least one, especially significant other - comes very high on our list of priorities. Judith soon came to understand this, and understood too that both the Dominants and submissives in Woodruffe's program might require systematic training, after their initial orientation. Mentoring alone might not suffice. Such training too would fall within the scope of our program and would need to be planned in drafting our proposal.

Life with my new mistress soon took on a typical routine. I woke a little before Judith to make coffee and lay out some breakfast, while she slept a few minutes longer. Then she rose, showered, ate a little and dressed herself while I too showered, shaved and dressed. She drove off to work while I washed our dishes, tidied up the kitchen and made our beds. Then I drove my own car to the Woodruffe building, arriving almost an hour after she did, at about the same time as her other subordinates.

At the end of the day, I left at quitting time, to shop if necessary and prepare dinner, while Judith usually stayed at her desk an hour longer, taking work home if necessary, to find a naked houseboy waiting to greet her and massage her feet. Then I would help her change into comfortable clothes, folding or hanging her work clothes neatly, or putting them in the laundry basket, before I served our meal and we ate together.

After dinner, Judith curled up in an armchair to read and sign papers at a lap desk, while I cleaned up and sat at the table to study. As Alan kept me busy at the office, reading the HR management books had to be done as homework. At ten PM, according to our custom, our working day ended and our sex life began. In one mood, she had me pleasure her, mostly with my fingers and tongue before she took me over her lap to spank and fondle me sensuously with her bare hand, making me writhe and pump myself, stiff cock trapped between her buttery thighs, until I came. In another mood, she liked to flog me with a martinet - having me stand freely, holding various postures, to present different parts of my body for her attentions. Often, she would have me lie on my back to be ridden like a Sybian, working herself on my cock or face to take her pleasure. When she rode my face, she liked to have me spend before she took her pleasure. Before she mounted me, she would have me masturbate before her on my knees, then lick my seed off her feet. In such ways, tired as we were after a long day's work, we enjoyed a rich and varied D/s sex life - with the one constraint that nearly always, I was the victim being worked or taken, and nearly always the sex slave working as directed for her release and pleasure. As she'd once warned me, she needed to be the fuck

er

, and never the fuck

ee

.

For 'attitude adjustment' and punishment, always a problem with pain sluts, Judith (on Myrna Stiles' advice) devised a ritual which felt anything but sensuous or pleasurable. While the pain was nothing I couldn't take, its routine was humiliating in the extreme. She bought a heavy oak hairbrush, far less painful than a cane stroke for stroke, but far less damaging as well. For a real punishment, she could and did set a timer and spank me over her lap for a certain number of minutes, with no warm-up or caresses to soften it. Believe me, six minutes under that brush, applied at the slow rate of one stroke every two seconds was safe and almost endurable, but not pleasurable at all.

The brush hung by a leather strap from a hook on the wall of Judith's bedroom. She never used it to brush her hair, or have me use it for that purpose. She never used it in our pain-play. She never used it when she was angry. Rather, she had me keep a punishment book, just as I'd learned to do at Mistress Charlotte's place, but which she only consulted occasionally, when she felt I had not been soundly spanked for too long a time. Then she would browse through it with me, and have me sentence myself to what I thought was a just penalty for faults and failings accumulated since the last time. If she thought I was too harsh with myself, she would reduce the time and/or the rate of spanking. If she thought I was too lenient with myself, she would double my sentence. For me, in suggesting the length of a punishment spanking, it was always safest to err on the side of strictness and leave it to her to lighten the sentence if she chose.

Depending on what else was scheduled, she would then have me propose a date and time for this correction - always in the evening, and always at least 24 hours in the future so that I would have a whole day to anticipate and not look forward to it. We never played or even talked on those evenings. I did not dine with her as usual, but took a light meal in disgrace, in the kitchen. Afterwards, I would go straight to bed - not to Judith's bed as usual, but to a futon on the floor at the foot of it. The next morning, with my slate wiped clean, we would start the day as usual.

With the formalities surrounding them, my punishments were humiliating rituals which no pain slut would confuse with fun. When Mistress finished her dinner I had to clear the table and load the dishwasher as usual. Then I had to fetch that hairbrush from its hook in our bedroom, and slowly walk it down to the living room, holding it in both hands, as Judith watched me. In one corner of that room, referred to as 'the shame corner,' I had to kneel for some uncertain length of time with that heavy brush hanging around my neck until Judith sat herself in her armless straight-backed spanking chair. Then I had to face her, offer that implement to her with both hands, and give myself a ruined orgasm to remove all overtones of sex or pleasure from what would follow.

As this ended, I was to catch the viscous drippings in my palms, lick them clean, and then go over her lap. Mounted this way, there was a standing instruction to adjust my position so that my bum cheeks were the highest part of me while my hands, fingers clasped as if I were praying touched the floor. Judith always gave me time to find this position on my own, make myself as comfortable as it allowed and settle into it. In this and other ways, she forced me to participate in the humiliating ritual. Then, without a word, she would set the timer and start to spank - at an even tempo, full strength from the beginning, and no warm-up at all, as I've already mentioned. In this position, my feet were off the floor so only hips across her knees, her left hand around my waist and clasped hands on the rug beneath them held me in place. I could writhe, and howl without extra penalty, but was forbidden to plead or struggle against her grip on pain of extra minutes of punishment.

When it was over, I was to stay in place till given permission to climb off her lap. Then I had to stand quietly before her, kiss the back of the hairbrush and thank her for the punishment and for the privilege of forgiveness, and a fresh start. As one final humiliation, she would then bind my wrists together with a short length of rope so that I could not rub my nether cheeks to soothe their swelling. At last, she dismissed me to my futon, leaving me to suffer in loneliness for some time before she joined me. It was only then that I could relax and calm myself enough to fall asleep.

Judith rarely put me through this ritual, but when she did it left me feeling cleansed and eager to do better. Working on our handbook for lifemate couples, I wrote it up, just as I have done here, to explain the concept of punishment with its purpose and desired results. Of course, we stressed that our routine was a suggestion only - that each Dom would do things in their own way; that each couple would have to make their own customs.

Human resource management (called HRM for short) is a complex field involving four main functions and areas of expertise: recruitment, compensation and benefits, staff development, and employee relations. In all but the smallest firms, each one of these functions is itself complex, requiring specialized knowledge. For Woodruffe Electronics, Judith's department handled all of them, under her direct responsibility.

As all four areas would be tremendously expanded and transformed by the company's participation in the Mars Project, she herself would have to grow. Over the next few years, she would have much to learn, and many difficult decisions to make. If the LifeMate Program was approved, it would still be only one small aspect of her job. Quite apart from any domestic or intimate services, what she would need in a lifemate was a capable assistant to manage that program under her direction. In this pilot project, apart from helping Judith to design a LifeMate Program for the Company, I was in training to become that assistant.

Before applying to serve Judith Arruda, I had never really thought about the human aspects of my father's company. I knew that his firm was in the business of designing complex electronic equipment, and that this involved building and testing prototypes and some amount of custom manufacture. Beyond an idea of his employees as nerds and techies, I had not thought about - had had no reason to think about - the kinds of people who did this kind of work. I had not even thought much about my father from this point of view. Now however, the design of a program to attract them, stimulate and please them, help to train and develop them, alter the pattern of their relationships with colleagues and with the Company was my responsibility. As Judith's lifemate, my whole Being would be involved in every aspect of Woodruffe HRM. With Alan Arnold and my Mistress to help me, I had a lot to learn.

From the HRM textbook that Alan had thrust on me, I gained some idea of the scope of Judith's responsibilities. Apart from recruitment, Alan's main area of expertise, she managed employee training, appraisal and compensation - ensuring that Woodruffe employees were paid at least as well as, usually somewhat better than, people with similar responsibilities working elsewhere.

She coordinated with building management on the allocation of office space and furniture, concerned with the perks and status cues that these entailed. For the company as a whole, she dealt with lawyers to ensure compliance with employment law. She advised on working conditions, such as lighting, heating, air conditioning and the cafeteria. She heard and responded to employee concerns and complaints - for example, to cases of harassment or discrimination, if any.

From Alan's book on 'headhunting,' I came to understand how competitive the employment market is these days for executive leadership, and for technological know-how and talent. I understood why the Woodruffe Corporation, needing to expand rapidly to meet a lucrative and prestigious contract wanted any kind of edge it could get.

All personnel managers must be concerned with corporate product and strategy to some extent; the essence of their job is to ensure that their business has appropriate human resources for what it needs or wants to do. At Woodruffe Company, on the 'bleeding edge' of electronics technology, in the dangerous business of capitalizing creative design work, this human resource function spelled life or death. This was why Judith sat on its executive committee as a vice president where HR chiefs usually are only managers of their department.

I soon came to realize that Judith Arruda had been with my father for almost twenty years, and was one of his most trusted associates. By temperament and training, he was never a 'people person.' My mother had taught him most of what he knew about the needs and quirks of other human beings - and of his own, as well. Judith had taught him most of the rest, and had applied her impressive sensitivity and knowledge to help his company prosper. On his own, my father was a creative engineer - no less certainly, but little more. With the help of these two women, he was becoming a tycoon.

I was sitting at my desk, working out appropriate rates of compensation for workers at a new robot assembly plant which was still under construction but would shortly open in Brampton, Ontario. It was a real-world problem that Alan had set me to test my understanding of the compensation plan currently in use at Woodruffe to ensure that its workers were paid fairly, relative to the skill and effort required by their jobs, the level of responsibility that they entailed, and the working conditions under which they were performed. There was a knock on my door, and Alan came in. "How are you doing with that assembly plant?" he asked me.

"Almost finished," I answered him. I've done the org chart, the compensation levels and the numbers. I'm just writing up the justifications.

"Let me see." I passed him several sheets of paper and he looked them over. "Looks good," he said. "You're coming along."

I thought he had finished checking on me and would let me get on with the assignment, but he sat down in the chair beside my desk and looked me over. "I know I'm not supposed to know what you're doing here," he began, "but I've worked it out. You're a professional submissive, living with Ms. Arruda and doing a job for her here. You're designing a plan to offer support for Dominant/submissive relationships here at Woodruffe, to help with our recruiting drive. I don't know the details, but given your background and training it's fairly obvious. I know we've been looking for some special gimmick to give us an edge on the competition in recruiting the high-priced talent. The plan is to sponsor lifemate relationships for that purpose, and you are in such a relationship with our boss, as a kind of pilot project, while you design the program. Am I right?"