Chapter 1: Invitation
Alan Sloan had a number of questions about the new job he had been offered, not the least of which being how his prospective employers had known about him in the first place.
One Saturday afternoon he received a letter offering him a teaching position at what the letter claimed was a very exclusive private girl's school in central Wisconsin, the Aphrodite Wendsleydale School for Girls. The letter had promised a salary well beyond anything he could ever have imagined and a benefit package that would have made any official at the Teacher's Union cross-eyed with joy. They offered health insurance, housing, a profit sharing plan, a very sound seeming pension plan, and a dozen other things. That particular paragraph in the letter had ended with the cryptic phrase, "plus other perks and benefits".
At first he thought that it might be some sort of scam. But, the more he read the more he liked it. It was certainly an improvement over the job he had had for the past three years.
He had been hired by an education company near Milwaukee which, he later found out, had been hurriedly slap-dashed together exclusively for the purpose of taking advantage of Wisconsin's charter school program.
He spent most of his time preparing his students to take standardized tests. He found it frustrating because it seemed to him that all they were likely to learn was how to take the tests. Further, how well or poorly they did would reflect on his ability to stay employed. The company evaluated his ability as a teacher entirely based on the test results.
The hours were long, the workload was mountainous, and the pay was wretched. He had stayed at the job simply because it was a marginal improvement over being out of work altogether.
He had only taken it in the first place because his unemployment benefits were about to run out and the rent had been due. He had taught for several years before that at the local highschool. There had been massive budget cuts in the school district. He had been laid off with no realistic possibility of being rehired.
His current job only had two benefits. One was a nearly useless health insurance policy for which he had to pay the lion's share of the premium. The other was a co-worker, Katy Zinful. Katy had blonde hair, a trim body, big tits, a nearly inexhaustible libido, and a seemingly limitless sexual imagination. They had become "friends with benefits" largely as a matter of mutual stress relief.
The only thing that bothered him a little about the letter offering a better job was that it demanded that he not mention the offer to anyone.
It said, "If it is found that you have mentioned the Aphrodite Wendsleydale School for Girls to anyone not representing the school in any manner at any time for any reason the offer will be immediately withdrawn."
That bothered him, but not so much that he didn't want to find out more. There was a phone number and an e-mail address on the letter head. He figured that he had nothing to lose, so he sent them an e-mail.
Within an hour of having sent the message Alan got a phone call from the school.
"May I speak with Mr. Alan Sloan, please?" said a deep somewhat gravelly voice on the phone before Alan even got a chance to say, "Hello."
"Speaking," said Alan.
"My name," said the voice, "is Wilton Hargrane. I'm the Dean of Students at the Aphrodite Wendsleydale School for Girls. I take it that you received our letter."
"Just this afternoon," said Alan, "Yes."
"Excellent! Excellent!" said Mr. Hargrane, "Such a prompt response speaks well of you. It confirms that we've made the right choice."
"Speaking of which, sir," said Alan, "I'm a bit curious about how you came to choose me in the first place."
"That's rather a long explanation. But, first I'd like to ask to stop addressing me as 'sir'. While we insist on strict formality between students and teachers, we've found that the faculty and staff have to work sufficiently closely together that the formalities are more of a burden than an aid. So, please, call me Wilton."
"Can do," said Alan, "Friends and co-workers tend to call me Al or Alan, depending on how well they know me. So, take your pick."
"For the moment," said Wilton, "Alan will do quite nicely, if you don't mind."
"That's cool," said Alan offhandedly.
"As to your question, we do a good deal of research when recruiting for faculty. We do so slowly and painstakingly. We can take our time with it due to the fact that we almost never have a vacancy in the staff. When people come to work with us they tend to stay here for the balance of their careers," Wilton explained proudly.
"So, you're recruiting me because someone is retiring?" Alan asked.
"Precisely," said Wilton, "Very perceptive. I'm certain that it's part of what makes you such a good teacher."
"I do the best I can," said Alan.
"You sell yourself short," said Wilton, "If I'm not mistaken you taught for several years at a public highschool. Is that correct?"
"Yes," said Alan.
Alan heard a sound like someone shuffling papers after which Wilton said, "Ah, yes. Here it is. You taught history and were quite successful at it. Most of your students went on to some sort of higher education. Most of those are holding skilled, productive, well-paying jobs. Some took to the subject matter so well that five of your former students are working to maintain and codify one archive or another at the Library of Congress. One, and I confess to being absolutely flabbergasted by this, is now the youngest Adjunct Professor of History in the university system in the State of Kansas."
"Carly Starker," said Alan happily, "I'm very proud of her."
"And well you should be," said Wilton, "not to say of yourself as well. There were other criteria, but I'm not at liberty to discuss those over the phone. That's largely for the same reasons that we insist that you keep our offer strictly confidential."
"I was kind of wondering about that," said Alan.
"Well," said Wilton, "I can't explain most of it over the phone, but if you accept our offer you will understand almost immediately. I can, however, give you a rough idea of what we're about. Are you familiar with the mass media term 'The One Percent'?"
"Yes," Alan answered, "That refers to those in the highest income brackets, the wealthy elite, those at the top of the economic food chain."
"Well said," Wilton responded, "I particularly like the 'food chain' metaphor. I shall have to remember that one. Anyway," he continued, "we are an extremely exclusive institution of learning. It can reasonably be said that we cater to one percent of the One Percent."
"So, I guess the secrecy is to keep out the riff-raff?" Alan asked.
"Well, in part certainly," the exclusive school's Dean of Students responded guardedly, "As I said, you will understand completely if you decide to accept our offer.
Now that I'm thinking about it this needs to be said out loud just once. If, at any time, we find that you have mentioned this to anyone for any reason the offer will be immediately withdrawn. Do you understand?"
"Completely," Alan said, "Yes."
"Good," said the Dean enthusiastically, "Good. Now that we have that out of the way, why don't we try approaching this differently. Could you possibly come up to visit the school sometime in the next week?"
"The only days I would have would be tomorrow or next Saturday," Alan responded.
"Couldn't you come up at some point during the week? It would be much easier to give you an overview of what we do if you can sit in on a few of our classes. Could you possibly take a personal day and come up?" Wilton inquired.
"They don't give us any personal days," Alan said flatly.
Wilton shouted incredulously, "None? That is absolutely wrong in every important manner. It is a horrid way to treat employees."
"I agree," said Alan, "But, there's nothing I can do about it."
"Could you possibly call in sick to come up?" the school official asked.
"I'd rather not," said Alan.
"Might one ask why?" Wilton said.
"There are two reasons," the struggling teacher answered, "The first is that I only get three sick days in any given school year, so I kind of need to save them."
"Oh, that's just unconscionable!" Wilton roared, "The more I hear about these people the less I like them, and I wasn't exactly mad about them at the start."
"You and me both," said Alan, smiling ruefully.
"You said that there were two reasons," Wilton said, "What was the other one?"
"That one is more important and goes a lot deeper," Alan responded, "I realize that I'm basically spinning my wheels here. The only thing that I seem to be allowed to teach these kids is how to take tests. If I can, at least, manage to teach them to take the tests honestly then maybe the whole thing won't wind up having been a complete waste of my time and theirs.
To do that, I have to set an example. Calling in sick when I'm not doesn't exactly fit into that lesson plan."
"Well, it's unlikely that they would ever know that you weren't sick," said Wilton.
"True," said Alan, "But, I would. I can't demand honesty from them if I'm not being honest myself. There are people who can do that, but I'm not one of them. If that screws up the deal so be it. I have a larger responsibility to those kids."
There was a long silence at the end of which the dean said, "You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that."
"Really?" Alan asked.
"Yes," said Wilton with hearty enthusiasm, "That's precisely the sort of caring integrity that we want here at the Aphrodite School!"
