I work as night foreman at a San Francisco warehouse operation. Sounds like a dumb job and in some ways it is. However, itâs easygoing and has its moments. . . plenty of moments.
I was 32 and just a year or so back from overseas--somewhat brain dead--so the easy pace gave me time to heal. It wasnât rocket science. It was basic intelligence, initiative and attention to detail.
The man management, woman management, person management or whatever itâs currently PC to term it didnât even require a top sergeantâs moxie to handle. A corporal could have done it if heâd had a sense of humor. A sense of humor was important.
Moments means moments on the night shift. That was when it all happened . . . 9:00 pm to 6:00 am four days a week (Monday to Thursday) with short breaks, although I had leeway on that. Sometimes the shifts changed a little but that was basically it. That suited me fine because I was working out a lot and taking time out to laze around, play music, go to the beach, walk in the woods and generally wait for the output of that witches cauldron in which the universe concocts peopleâs luck.
We basically drop-shipped goods for entrepreneurs who advertised weird and wondrous gadgets on TV â those do-anything kitchen knives, incredible garden hose caddies that made the hose disappear, magic implements that took all the effort out of weeding; gadgets that would build an incredible six-pack in six weeks; that sort of thing.
The employees who roamed the warehouse finding the stuff required to fill orders were basically kids. Some were late high school kids on summer jobs while others were college kids, not only in the summer but throughout the year. A kid taking 20 hours a weekâafternoon classes onlyâcould hack a 7pm to 3am shift and still get plenty of beer drinking, fucking and sleeping time.
The kids generally used roller skates to get around. They wore shorts and T-shirts. The median age, male and female, was about 19.5 years. They ranged from 18 to mid-20s. None of them was ugly. You needed to have initiative and moxie to take the job in the first place and you needed to be fit to hack it. Sure we had dweebsâtoo tall, too skinnyâglasses too thickâbut they werenât ugly because we all had a lot of fun. If I didnât keep them laughing their peers did. They were good kids. I had rarely had cause to fire anyone.
They were good kids but the males were virile and pumped and the femalesâwhile not actually wearing T-shirts sloganed âIâve got wet panties; Can you help?â were amenable to affectionate embraces.
The owners were fairly benevolent. They didnât micro-manage. The deal was simple. I had to:
ďˇ keep up with the order flow ďˇ keep the employees happy ďˇ keep casing the operation for ways of making the process smoother
Some nights the pace was fast and furious. If a charity was running a phone-in and offering free gifts for various pledged amounts we would be swamped with orders. The charity would negotiate a contract with the owners and then the goods would arrive and be off-loaded tactically so that they were easy to find.
Nights like that we humped and I drove them like slaves. However, I often donned skates myself and skated around with them, turning it into a contest. Hours would fly by and nobody complained other than good-naturedly.
Other nights the pace was slower; sometimes only a crawl. Those were the nights when the troops got horny and a foreman making his rounds might come across anything from strenuous jungle fucking way back among the farthest pallets, to guys jacking themselves or each other, to girls giving BJs or taking a little partay.
We had few rules aboard our little ship:
ďˇ show up on time and be clean (shower before work) ďˇ no fucking, sucking or jacking in the warehouse proper; first offenseâwarning; secondâsuspension; thirdâhit the road ďˇ no smoking or toking in the warehouse; first offenceâfiring or strong, explicit warning at the foremanâs option
The packing table was different. Goods arrived by hand or on a conveyor belt . . . were matched with orders, labelled and passed along. A second handler applied postage and a third made sure the goods were safely packed in postal bagsâwhich he or she periodically moved to a loading bay. The US Postal Service showed up every four hours to take another loadânot wind, nor rain, nor hail, nor too much dope.
Orders arrived by computer. There was a small computer section just behind the packing tableâscreened off by four foot partitions which allowed communication. The computer gurus printed out single-sheet orders with pre-gummed address labels on them and passed sheaves of them to the packing forelady. My night forelady was Mariaâa single mother, 32 years old, always smiling, nicely-dressed, attractive, insatiable. Most of the rest of the packing line were women, ranging in age up to the 50s. My night line usually had six women plus the computer crew (2) and one guy to lug the mailbags to the loading dock.
Tonight was my last night of the week an I was looking to a three-day breakâand even more to its potential for new sexual adventures. It was 3am and I decided to cruise the warehouse which I tried to do once an hour or so just to check that everything was cruising along as it should. One was never quite sure what one would find down in the far pallets â the slightly less well lit back of the warehouse where slower moving lines were stored.
I grabbed a clipboard and went out and down the stairs onto the floor. I asked Maria if she were a happy bunny. She grinned and said she could think of things that could make her even happier than she was. I asked her whether she was free on Mondayâmy last day off. Maria had more or less the same shift as me. Maria and I had dabbled but not taken things very far. I was looking forward to having time and a clear head to pursue Maria a little more cogently. She said sheâd get back to me. She had my home number.
I wandered along the wall of the warehouse, steel cladding on my right, stacks of pallets on my left, looking for smoke, leaks, electrical sparks, lurkers, pilferageâmore or less any sign of impending problems. I then began to weave among the pallet aisles just relaxing and taking everything in.
I was near the back of the warehouse and deep in pallet country when I heard giggling, murmuring, sounds I associated with connubiality. I padded toward the sounds and had to step back quickly whenârounding a cornerâI saw two lads wrapped in intimate embrace. The taller of the two was Malcolm, a 21-year-old that I had hired a few weeks before. He was a slim, well set-up boy, good-looking; sexy.
His companion was (I groped to think) . . . oh yes . . . David! whom I had hired just three weeks ago, a 19-year-old who looked as though he were going on 16. He had an innocent adolescent look which I recalled had given me a visceral jolt when I interviewed him. There had been someone else in my office so the interview was more formal than I might have liked. I knew from his resume that he was fine employee material and the interview had been relatively perfunctory.
Now I saw David in a new light, kissing Malcolm fervently and groping inside his shorts. I erected almost instantly, almost stumbling from excitement; sweat breaking out in beads on my brow. Both boys had their stiff cocks out now and were masturbating each other, groaning, giggling, murmuring endearments and kissing. I was aching to drop my own shorts and masturbate on the spot. My boner cried out for attention.
I debated whether to silently masturbate and then leave well enough alone . . . or whether to announce myself as an ally and join the fun. Neither seemed a good idea for a foreman on duty so I waited a moment, stroking lightly through my shorts; enjoying a mild edging feeling.
They were really getting into it now. David had dropped to his knees and engulfed Malcolmâs thick penis with his sweet mouth. I had never seen a porno film that could mimic the excitement of this voyeuristic encounter. I would have given anything to have a videocam in hand. However, it also occurred to me that if I caught them in the act I might be able to structure a scenario that would bring the three of us together in the future.
It would have been cruel to just walk over and catch them in medias res. Better, I thought, to just give them time to cover up while letting them know that I knew. I was still resisting the temptation to whip it out and just energetically masturbate on the spot. My cock was throbbing but I thought better of it. Instead I dropped the clipboard to the floor to give them a heads up, picked it up and then strode round the corner of the pallet stack where Iâd been hiding.
Malcolm looked at me open-mouthed and David simply looked stricken. I thought he was going to have a pediatric heart attack and that I would have his death on my conscience for the rest of my life.
I gave them what passed for a stern look and said âMalcolm!!! In my office at 4.45am; David! I want to see you at 5:45. Understood?â