Let's Mae a Deal

Author's note:

This is part of a long story. No part of it is intended to stand alone. I suggest starting with

Part 1

In revising the whole story, I've corrected errors, but also filled in a lot. This has inevitably made it all even longer. My apologies to anyone who read it in the original form and now finds it changed for the worse.

If you're looking mostly for explicit sex, this probably is not the story for you, so why don't you just go on to something else? There is explicit sex in some parts, but even there it's not the focus.

Also, some parts contain religious discussions which will offend some people and bore others. If you're one of those people, again, why not go on to something else?

3.

The Price Is Right

Martha arrived punctually—she was almost always punctual—and sat down, and waited while Scott finished a phone conversation. He said, "Thanks for coming. It will be just a few more minutes." He checked the monitor for the camera in the main office, saw that Lynda seemed to be gathering her things, and switched to the camera in the hall outside, and woke up his office camera. He shuffled papers for a few more minutes, and when a knock came on his door he checked that it was Lynda and called, "Come in."

Lynda stepped in and closed the door. Then she spotted Martha, and her face froze and she started to turn back to the door. Scott said sharply, "Lynda, please sit down." She came over and sat. Martha looked at her, then back at Scott, without much expression.

He said, "When we talked last week, I promised not to discuss what we said without talking to you first. Circumstances have changed—you'll know how, very soon, if you stay for it—so I'm going to discuss it with Martha now. I'd much rather you be here for that, and I have things to say to you both. But first, I need to bring you both up to speed on conversations I've had with you separately. It wouldn't be fair to either of you for me to discuss this with the other alone first.

"This will be a capsule summary, but I'll try not to leave out anything important. Lynda, I'll start with you. If I misrepresent anything that we said, jump in and tell me. If you feel there's anything you need to add, though, keep it until I'm done, OK? You may leave if you really want to, but I will still be talking to Martha."

He waited a few moments. When no one said anything—or got up to leave—he went on. "Martha, a few days ago Lynda came to me and asked me to give you another go. She offered me sex if I'd do that. I think her exact words were, "Whatever you want." When I said no, she offered me a whole weekend of whatever I wanted. I told her that you'd probably just screw up again, and I'd have to fire you again anyway. At that point she basically offered me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted her, for as long as I'd keep you on. I told her that I'd have to think about it, but that the answer was probably no. I have to say that, well, I've thought about it a lot, ever since, but that I'd really planned just to leave it there.

"I actually said I'd think about it only because I wasn't sure what she'd try next if I kept saying no, but no was what I meant. And I could honestly promise that I'd think about it, because her offer was tempting enough that I'd never be able to put it out of my mind, for the near future, anyway.

"Lynda, I think that's pretty much it. Is there anything you want to add?"

Lynda was staring fixedly down, with her hands clenched in her lap. Her face was red, and Scott thought there were tears in her eyes. Anger? Shame? Something else? He couldn't guess. After a moment she shook her head and said, "No," so low he could hardly hear her.

After a moment, Scott went on. "Do the words

déjà vu

mean anything to you two? This morning, Martha came to see me. She asked me to give her another chance, and said she'd do

anything

for the chance to show me she could do better this time." He drew out the "anything" far more than Martha had. "I reminded her again why I'd had to fire her, in about the same terms I did with you. And then we discussed the ramifications of that

anything

a little, and it seemed she meant all you had offered and even more, not just sex—I won't try to quote her in detail. I told her that we would need to talk more, making it clear—I hope—that this wasn't meant to be either a yes or a no, and asked her to come back this evening. I did warn her that this might take quite a while.

"Martha, anything else?"

Martha was looking at him. Her face was a little red, too, but he thought that it was just embarrassment in her case. She said, "No. You somehow squeezed a longer conversation into maybe a minute, but it's complete enough and accurate. So, what does this mean and why are we both here? Have I managed to lose Lynda her job as well as lousing up my own chances?"

Scott said, "I wouldn't do that! If I were going to fire Lynda, it would be for her own offer, not yours, and I'd have done it last week." He paused a moment. "No, actually, I was going to propose accepting both your offers, with some conditions on both sides. If they're still open, that is. It's been several days since Lynda talked to me, and I know neither of you meant to involve the other one, so that may make a difference."

They both stared at him. Then they looked sidewise at each other for a moment, and both looked back at him and just sat there. Finally, Martha said, "What do you mean when you say 'conditions'?"

Scott said, "I've been thinking about this all afternoon, in among trying to get something productive done. It seems to me that in fact this is going to have to be a deal with kind of a lot of conditions specified, just so that everyone knows what's happening and no one feels hurt by being blindsided by someone else's assumptions. The basic thing is that each of you offered to do what I want, I mean sexually. I'll try to be completely upfront about what I'm asking, at any given time.

"But we're talking about each of you having sex, or sexual activity, with me. No sexual activity between you two, with each other. I mean, while I'm present. I hope you know I'd never dictate to you what you do in private when I'm not there. That's the basic condition on you two, that you do what I ask you to. For what it's worth, since this is really for Martha's benefit, any time we do something new, she'll go first, but Lynda will do it too before too long. And at least at first, so that you both know what's what, you'll each need to watch what I do with the other one.

"Then, there are a lot of conditions on me, some relating to things you don't seem to have considered, and I'll get to them in a minute, but the most basic one is pretty obvious: Martha has her job back, rehired, if we can work it all out tonight, as of today. But this is only a chance to prove yourself, Martha. If you mess up the way you have lately, the deal is off, completely, instantly. No job is your side of that, no more sex is my side.

"OK, I'm not asking you right off whether we have a deal. As I said, there's a lot more, and I have questions you may be surprised and even offended at. And I expect you will have questions, too, and you may want to suggest conditions I haven't thought of. But is this a

possible

deal, one you might be willing to accept, if nothing we come up later changes things? Think about it for a little while. If you say no, we pretend that you both never came to me with your offers. If you say yes, we go on to the details.

"Oh! One more thing. I should have said, and asked, right at the beginning. None of this, starting back when Lynda walked into my office last week, goes beyond the three of us. Period. I promise you not to discuss your offers, the proposal I'm making, any deal we may make, or any activities we engage in, with anyone else, and I expect you to promise me the same. Right now. If you can't or won't, no deal, period." He paused and thought a moment. "Um. There are some very minor exceptions. You probably will need to tell a doctor that you've become sexually active with a man, or expect to do so imminently. But you don't identify who that man is. There are probably other exceptions like that. If you think you have one, discuss it with me, or rather with all of us. And I'll do the same. Is that clear enough? And will you promise me, now, on that one point?"

Each of them nodded.

"OK, back to my question. Do we

maybe

have a deal, subject to thrashing out details?"

He looked at them, and waited. After a little while, Martha spoke up. "Scott, that all sounds fine to me. You're probably right to want to nail down details, but I told you earlier that I'd do anything for another chance, and I meant anything."

He waited a few more moments, then said, "Lynda?"

She said, "OK, I guess I'm not as happy with this whole thing as Martha is, but I'm ready to do what I said, too."

He sat quietly for another moment, then went on. "There are some conditions on me, for your protection. You both came to me promising to do whatever I asked for. I think about some of the news reports I've read or heard over the past few years, and I shudder to think what that would get you into with some guys. One young woman, probably about Lynda's age, went to a hotel room with this guy she'd been hanging out with—she'd been hanging out with him and his wife, but went with him. From other things they said, I'd guess they hung out shooting heroin, but I don't know. Anyway, in this hotel room she was forced to have sex that night with a couple of hundred different men, she said. She was paid in heroin, the story said. Another young woman went to a party and had a drink, which was obviously doped. A dozen or so guys had sex with her, with videos taken, and then they used the threat of showing her parents and others the videos to force her into prostitution, for at least a couple of years, and I think she didn't even get to keep any of the money. There are lots of others.

"So here are some things I promise you I will

not

do. A few of them have a catch, which I'll get to, but others are absolute. All of them are things you might find yourself doing if you told some other guys you'd do anything they asked, I think.

"I promise that I will not, ever, invite anyone else to watch us, or to have sex of any kind with you. Period. I won't do anything like tying you up or chaining you up, or gagging you, and beating you with a belt or whip or anything else. I won't hit you with a fist, or do anything that might break bones or leave bruises. If I ever hit you, it will be a spank—a slap on the butt, which may sting a little, may keep hurting a while, and may leave your skin a little red for a bit. But nothing else, at all. The catch will apply to some of these things. I'll specify in a minute. Oh. I won't urinate on you, or ask you to urinate on yourselves. I gather that some guys want that kind of thing. I promise I won't, without exceptions.

"I won't take pictures, videos, or recordings of any kind of you in any situation you might find embarrassing. That one's a restriction on you, as well. You are promising not to take photos or videos or recordings of me in compromising positions, of any kind.

"The catch applies to that one, though, and to my promise not to tie you up and gag you or what have you. If you seriously lie to me, or double-cross me in any way, I'm not bound by those things any longer. I will feel free to tie you up, gag you, maybe use a belt on your butt, or take embarrassing pics or videos of you, and post them anywhere. This is a restriction on you, but it's really part of a bigger condition on us all, which I'll get to next. My point here is that if you betray me, there may be dire consequences, at least if I find out about it. But I still absolutely will not do anything likely to do major or permanent physical damage.

"Now, is that a deal-killer as far as you two are concerned?"

4.

And in case of passing strangers who are standing where I fell, Tell the truth: you never knew me, and in truth it's just as well.

The two women looked at each other for a long minute. Finally, Martha looked back at Scott and said, "I think I'm fine with that, so long as I can rely on you to be fair about what counts as lying or double-crossing. As far as the limits you're putting on yourself, I'm glad to have them spelled out, I guess, but they're not things I'd worry about with you. I've worked for you almost ten years, and I really think I know you better than that." After a moment, she added, in a low voice, "Then again, I really never would have thought you'd even discuss having sex with me, or anyone unless you were married to her, much less do it, so maybe I don't know you as well as I thought."

They both looked at Lynda. After a moment, she said, "Fine with me. Whatever."

Scott just continued to look at her for a moment. Then he went on. "The thing is, for this to work, we all have to be able to trust each other. Completely. So the next big condition is absolute honesty. I won't lie to you, including misleading you with silence or half truths. Period. And I require the same from you both. No dishonesty of any kind, with me or with each other.

"That doesn't mean that you have to tell me every detail of your lives. It does mean that if something is going to make a difference to me, if not knowing means I'll eventually have trouble or miss out on something I need or want, then you tell me. I promise the same to you. If I ask you something, and you don't want to tell me, you feel it's none of my business or whatever, then tell me you don't want to discuss it. If I really think I need to know, I'll tell you why. You'll have to accept my verdict, but I promise to try to leave you as much privacy as I can.

"I know that one is going to be hard. It will be a little easier for me, maybe—for the most part, I just do not lie to people, anyway—but I'm promising more than that with you two. If you ask me about something and I don't think it's your business, say, I'll have to tell you that, not say something noncommittal or misleading.

"For an example, though, Lynda, when you came to me and offered yourself to me—I mean, offered your body—you didn't want Martha to know about it. If we have a deal, you are committing yourself not to do anything like that, keeping something like that secret, with each other or with me, ever, as long as the deal lasts. So really think about it."

After a brief moment, Lynda said, "Sure, that's no problem." Martha seemed more hesitant. It felt like a long time before she said, "It's OK, except that I'm afraid that I just will say things without thinking about what I'm doing. I hadn't realized how much of a habit it is to kind of keep quiet, or offer noncommittal half truths, and let people think things. Now that you've brought it up, I keep thinking of a million examples. I'm going to have to almost turn into another person, I'm afraid, and I don't know if I can pull it off."

Scott said, "I think I can live with that, if you promise to try to never deliberately lie or mislead me, or Lynda either, and if you'll really, really try to be alert and say something as soon as you reasonably can if you realize you've slipped up. No waiting until you're found out to suddenly remember and fess up. All that goes for you, too, Lynda. And I don't mean that it will always be easy for me, just maybe easier than for you two.

"So. We are all going to have to mislead everyone

else

about this, the whole deal. We're going to try, hard, not to lie directly, understand. But no matter how careful we try to be, people, especially here at this company, maybe people I don't even know about, are going to pick up on the two of you being with me more. I guess I need to say something about

that

, don't I? When Martha and I talked, she made it clear that she wasn't talking about just sex, but that she was willing to do other, extra stuff, too. I'm going to expect you two to come in early, probably at least an hour early. There will be, um, sexual duties involved, but we're going to tell everyone that as part of hiring Martha back on you agreed to put in extra time, for a while, for a lot of office work that doesn't get done as regularly as it ought to. And you're going to have to make that true—the other folks will be able to tell, over time, if you don't. And you won't get paid for that, or for any other extra time. I just hope no one complains to the government labor people.

"So, is

that

a deal-killer?"

Martha instantly agreed that this was OK, and Lynda was almost as quick. Scott wasn't sure whether they saw the logic, or whether they, or Martha anyway, had already seen this coming. Of course, in Martha's case, it was still less than she had specifically offered, anyway.

5.

Prudence and the Pill

Scott said, "There are only a couple more things I can think of, as far as conditions. The first may be a big one. I don't suppose either of you is on birth control pills."

Surprisingly, Lynda said, "As a matter of fact, I am." When Scott looked at her, she said, "Well, they were first prescribed years ago, because my periods were so irregular, and my gynecologist has never hesitated to continue them. Maybe I still need them, for that reason, and maybe I don't, but I haven't felt the need to experiment. I think she probably just assumes I'm on them for contraception, at this point."

Scott said, "OK. If we have a deal, you are to let me know how much you're paying for them, including any doctor visits specifically following up on them, and I will reimburse you. That's me, not the company. Martha, you are going to have to call, tomorrow if possible, and make an appointment with your doctor as soon as you can. Expect to take time out of work if that's how they can squeeze you in. Again, I'm covering your out of pocket cost there. I hope that's a no-brainer. Is it OK?" Both women agreed immediately.

"Something else I need to know. Lynda, you should know to the day when your next period starts. Martha, you probably can't be that precise, but do you have any good idea? I ask because, well, I guess this is sort of a condition, too. When we get to sex, meaning intercourse, I won't have it with you at that time of the month. That's a condition for me—I'm hoping it's not something you'll see as a problem. And there are alternatives to intercourse, some of which we will do sometimes anyway. Oh, I also won't have any other contact with your vagina then, or your whole pelvic area."

Martha said, "My next period is due in maybe a week and a half or a bit more."

Lynda said, "Actually, I'm in my period right now. Such as it is, what with being on the pill. Tomorrow should be the last day."

Scott said, "I'll ask that you take a thorough shower, or tub bath if you prefer, after it's definitely over, please. I hope that's OK. If that all seems strange to you, please just write it off as one of Scott's weird scruples. Is that OK with you?" Lynda nodded. Scott looked pointedly at Martha, and a moment later she said, "That's no problem."

"This will make things just a bit awkward at first, but actually Martha's needing to get started on the pill will be more of a problem, since protection doesn't normally start right off. I think I recall that it can take more than a month, if timing on starting it is wrong. I wish I could remember the details better, but that really doesn't matter. You'll be protected whenever it works, and we won't have unprotected intercourse at all."

He paused. "Let's see. I hope this one is easy. You both offered and agreed to anything and everything, or words to that effect. I've ruled out some kinky things you might have let yourself in for with that wording. What does that leave? As I see it, there are kind of three possibilities, just in the nature of things. No, make that four. Vaginal sex—which is what I'll mean if I just say 'sex'—oral sex, anal sex, and various stimulation with hands. I've never done anal sex, and I've always been curious, but I'm pretty sure I won't ask it more than once. So once from each of you, in this case. I won't promise that, but I feel pretty sure. I guess my condition would be that you can expect to be asked for all of those. Is there anything in that list that we need to talk about? Any questions? Any reservations?"