The Christmas Bonus

Author's Note: Another long-ish story with the sex near the end. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter One.

Gigake-America Industries Northeastern Headquarters was, rather than a single monolithic skyscraper, a series of tastefully designed buildings that sat on several acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. Even in December, with a light snowfall on the ground, the place far more resembled the campus of some upscale college than it did the location of a branch of a massive multi-national corporation. It was one of these buildings, a gleaming eight story glass and steel structure, that housed their Media Relations division. The inside of the building was much like the outside. Unlike your standard cubicle farm, teams of four employees shared their own open-concept work space, with four work-stations housed together in what appeared to be a giant, doorless office. It was in one of these clusters that one particular group of three men and one woman spent eight or more hours of every day.

"Apparently it's not the Christmas Party this year," Joanna Cloutier said with some small degree of amusement. The lone woman in the group was a tall, slender beauty, her long brown hair pinned behind her head with chopsticks and her deep brown eyes behind the frames of five hundred dollar Armani wire-rim glasses. Her entire ensemble, from the tight skirt to the form fitting blouse, seemed like an elaborate effort to draw leering stares from passers-by who'd either be admiring the girl who was wearing it or wondering where she'd bought it.

"Nope. Winter Holiday Party," Phil Cooke confirmed, reading the same email. Phil was the oldest of the group, his greying hair thinning slightly at his pronounced widow's peak and slight creases around the corner of his eyes. He'd long ago been given the marginal distinction of being the "Team Leader", a title that had come with a three percent raise, required attendance at four staff meetings a month and ultimate responsibility for the performance of the team. None of them had said it, but the three other members of the team had all been glad to have not been given the title.

"Another sad defeat for all of Christendom. I'll alert Fox News and the Pope," Alex Morrison said as he sipped his coffee. Tall, with sandy blonde hair and an easy smile that curved at his own irony, Alex had apparently never gotten the email that had said that "Business Casual" was the desired dress for the office. His hand tailored three piece suit looked crisp and freshly cleaned despite the snow and sleet that had covered the ground for days.

"Finally, the historical suffering of the Jews appeased through politically correct language from HR and what I'm sure will be a cheap plastic Menorah next to the hors d'ouevres" Josh Letowski sighed with relief. The phrase tall, dark and handsome could have been applied to Josh if you were willing to compromise somewhat on the handsome in favour of pleasant and and go for extra orders on the tall and dark. His six foot six frame was slouched effortlessly in his chair, his oversized dress shoes resting on his desk, "Truly, we really are the chosen people."

"Makes the hardships worthwhile, I bet." Joanna said dryly as she spun towards the centre of the grouping.

"I like to think of my great-grandfather at momentous times like these. Arriving at Ellis Island from Warsaw with only a ratty old suitcase and a dream" Josh said as he spun to face her, "How joyous he'd be to see the way we've progressed as a people."

"Speaking of progress," Alex interrupted the joking, seemingly quite pleased with himself. He waited for both Josh and Joanna to look up to him with worried looks on their faces. He reached inside his pinstriped suit jacket and removed what were unmistakably a pair of women's undergarments.

"You son of a bitch." Josh said angrily.

"In the building?" Joanna said, hoping the answer was in the negative.

"I was looking for a ruling on that." Alex said, relishing the worry in his co-workers eyes. He turned to Phil as Joanna and Josh turned to their team leader as well. "She doesn't work for Gigake exactly but she does work in the building."

"Sure, whatever." Phil sighed wearily as he typed furiously on his computer.

"Fuck!" Joanna exclaimed as she kicked the wall of her cubicle gently.

"Wait, so what is she? A janitor? I may want clarification on the ruling." Josh asked, slumping sadly in his chair.

"At the coffee stand in the lobby. The little blonde." Alex said with a wink.

"Really?" Joanna asked, clearly impressed. Alex just nodded.

"You jackass," Josh said wistfully as he turned back to his computer screen "I'd get her so fucking pregnant."

Alex just smiled as he tucked the panties back into his pocket.

"Details?" Josh said, opening up a text document.

"Straight up missionary. Both of us got there. Works in the Building. Got the panties." Alex said, trying to remember everything pertinent "So...twenty?"

"Yeah, twenty." Josh agreed, typing a few numbers into the screen, "That lead is looking insurmountable."

Joanna just fumed. The topic they were now discussing was a contest that the three younger members of the team had been engaged in for several years and was referred to by them all as, simply, The Game. They had all been assigned to the team withing a few months of each other and, after post-work drinks, it had quickly been established that Joanna, Josh and Alex all shared a distinct interest in bedding eligible young women and that they were all somewhat prolific with their conquests. The topic had then turned to their relatively paltry Christmas bonuses for the year and Josh had proposed an idea. For the upcoming year, they would keep track of their sexual partners. Scores would be assigned based on the manner, success and deviancy from the norm of the sexual encounters. There were bonus points for groupings, bedding fellow Gigake employees and the successful retrieval of their partners undergarments.

To make it truly interesting, Josh had also proposed a fundraising system. Any time a typo or factual error was caught in any official email or document the team sent out in response to a media query, twenty dollars would have to be put into a central fund by the offending party. Additional penalties would be assessed for showing up late to work, requiring help to meet a deadline and whatever else could be agreed upon. The accumulated money would sit in an interest bearing account for the year until the person with the most points claimed the entire pot. A collection of money that they now referred to as the Christmas Bonus.

Phil, who'd been out drinking with them when the game had been conceived, had initially resisted the idea both out of a sense of decency and because he didn't want anyone to later complain about a sexually charged work environment. It had been Joanna who'd convinced him to let them have their fun. She was no shrinking violet and had every intention of winning the pot at the end of the year. Phil had relented only when he saw how eager his team had been to avoid the monetary penalties that came with mistakes. The team's performance reviews for the last two years had been glowing. They'd been rated the best Media Relations team in any of Gigake's worldwide divisions for both of the last two years.

"So what's the totals heading into December?" Alex asked confidently. He'd won the first year of the contest and come in a close second to Josh in the second year. He was confident that in the third year, he'd regain the cheap plastic tiara Joanna had bought and affectionately dubbed the "Slut Crown". The one Josh was now twirling around his finger like a gunslinger in the old west.

"Alexander Edward Morrison the Third has...645 points. Fuck." Josh said glumly as he read the detailed score sheet he'd drawn up. "You know, it's really not fair. If your people didn't discriminate against my people I could have gone to your fancy boarding schools and gotten into your Country Clubs and I'd have some of that refined, dashing charm that your silly gentile girls go so crazy for."

"You're going to talk to me about the advantages of birth?" Alex said dismissively "If I had the Hammer, this would be over in June."

Joanna snorted with laughter. "The Hebrew Hammer" was how Josh referred to his apparently gargantuan penis. It had been written on the door of at least one stall in every woman's bathroom of the building that Josh Letowski was legendarily endowed. As a result of that or simply word of mouth every so often there'd be a visit to their work station from some eager female employee looking for Josh with what turned out to be a clearly fabricated reason to visit their peculiar little corner of the Gigake complex. It had only been on one stop in one of those bathroom stalls while reading a press release that the entire team had worked on that Joanna had noted that the clipped, precise handwriting on the bathroom wall matched the notes that Josh had scribbled in the margins of the release exactly.

"Ten and one half inches of pure, Semitic fury," Josh said proudly, "And that's after the Mohel got through with me."

"Guys, not that I ever get tired of hearing about Josh's cock but do you suppose that we could possibly start looking over this thing regarding political bias in our broadcast division? Someone's going to need to fact check that one and run point," Phil implored. Phil had agreed to the game and even participated in an extremely limited way, contributing to the fund whenever one of his extremely rare mistakes were noticed and acting as arbiter for any disputes as to the rules, but he still felt the need to occasionally break up the discussion and get them focused.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Josh nodded but continued reading from the screen "Yours truly is racking up a strong second place with five hundred and fifty-five points, although I still dispute the idea that getting down on the Company Picnic doesn't count on doing it on Gigake Grounds. So that really should be five hundred and seventy-five."

Alex rolled his eyes at his continued protests. It had been ruled on repeatedly.

"And Joanna 'The Sapphic Assassin' Cloutier is pulling up the rear, which I'm told she enjoys, with the pitiful total of three hundred and thirty." Josh said while shaking his head in disappointment, "You are just letting your entire sexual orientation down with that sad display of epic failure."

"You guys really need to give me a break on April and May," Joanna protested, referring to her brief absence from the contest, "Some sort of pro-rated score for the rest of the year."

"Uh, no." Alex said disdainfully, "Nobody here told you to have that brief, embarrassing run-in with monogamy."

Joanna sighed. She'd met Beverley, who she thought she may have had a real connection with, earlier in the year. Not only had Bev proven to be something of a clingy nutcase, she had also cost Joanna her first real chance at the title. She'd been neck and neck with Alex for the first few months.

She'd needed this to be her year too. Joanna had been forced to take all of her accumulated vacation and sick days in the upcoming year and, as a result, had a solid month in January of time off. She'd planned on finally using the time to take the trip to Europe she'd always wanted to take during University but could never afford. Several unforeseen financial problems during the year had left her without much of a vacation fund however and winning The Christmas Bonus had been her last real shot at anything other than spending her time in her apartment, watching daytime TV.

Joanna often reflected on her participation in the contest. She knew that deep down it was something that most of her girlfriends would find repellent if they knew about but, the truth was, Joanna was every bit the slut that Alex and Josh were. She had taken to a monogamous relationship like a goldfish to the desert. She also took a great deal of pleasure from every new conquest so why not beat the boys at their little bit of Frat Boy nonsense?

"What's the Bonus up to?" Joanna asked sadly

"Four thousand, seven hundred, eighty-four dollars." Josh said, opening up a web browser with a link to an on-line bank account. Joanna cursed her luck. Not only had Bev left her a billion obnoxious text and voice messages, she'd also cost her a chance at nearly five thousand dollars.

"What should I do with my money?" Alex asked, attempting to sound as though he was idly wondering but the confidence shining through, "Rolex? Down payment on a new Benz? Set cigars ablaze with hundred dollar bills?"

"You're up by less than a hundred. And with a month to go and the 50 point bonus for any victories at the Christmas, I mean Winter Holiday, party I'm still in this thing" Josh argued, "And my money is staying right in the bank. So that when I finally meet the gorgeous young woman with the wide, child bearing hips and deep, accommodating vagina of my dreams I'll be able to buy us a palatial estate with enough rooms to house the many, many children she'll birth me."

"Work, guys," Phil piped in, somewhat more passionately than before,

"Not too late to get in on this, Oh captain, my captain," Alex said, finally finishing with his coffee, "Our fearful trip is not yet done, our ships not weathered every rack, the prize we seek not won."

"Yeah, you'd totally get bonuses for any bit of information you'd leak," Josh agreed with Alex.

"I'm not telling you perverts what I do with my wife. I actually have respect for her, my daughter and women around the world." Phil said, finally turning from his computer to join the conversation.

"God, I'd respect Carrie too." Joanna said thinking of the sight of Phil's gorgeous, curvaceous wife at the company picnic.

"You married so far above yourself it's not even funny," Alex said, the same thought in his mind.

"One day, you kids are going to realize how retarded you all sound right now." Phil said, smiling slightly at the truth of what they were saying. He had married well.

The conversation was brought to a screeching halt by the sound of the heavy oak door just past the group of cubicles being opened. The four of them stopped their conversation immediately. Trevor Crawford was Gigake's Vice-President of Media Relations and someone who all four of the team members knew to be a stern and strict boss. The game they all played, a clear and egregious violation of just about every employee code of conduct Gigake had, would have earned all four of them an immediate dismissal from him if it had ever leaked out. Despite the high grades the four of them continued to get on their performance reviews, Mr. Crawford had not given them even the slightest bit of privilege or favouritism. In fact, he seemed to push the four of them the hardest, giving them the toughest assignments and disappointing the most in even their most minor failures. None of them had even known he was in his office. The four of them quickly sat in front of their respective work stations and began at least giving the appearance of being hard at work. To their surprise, rather than simply stroll directly to their cubicles, he seemed to be in conversation with someone.

"Let me show you the way around, Sweetheart," was what the team heard Mr. Crawford say before he began making his familiar early morning rounds. He arrived at their cubicles after only a few seconds and, behind him, was a young woman. Joanna was the first to turn to look at her and she, were she the type to speak coarsely, would have described the effect of the young woman as getting her instantly soaked. Joanna had never seen a girl like her. Impossibly, heart-achingly cute, with delicate blonde curls, bright blue eyes and a delicate button nose. Her body seemed as though it had been a rough draft for Jessica Rabbit that had been rejected for being too unrealistic. Her dress shirt bulged almost obscenely with the heft of her breasts while the narrow waist and gorgeously curved hips were invitingly on display in a pinstriped pencil skirt. Joanna felt as though she had to turn back to her work just to stop staring.

"Team, time for the morning briefing," Mr. Crawford said as the rest of the team spun around to face him. Joanna did rejoin the team and saw that Alex and Josh were just as enraptured by the blonde bombshell that stood before them. Even Phil seemed to give her the briefest of admiring smiles before looking up at the imposing figure of their boss. Trevor Crawford seemed as though he'd been sent over by a casting agency to fill the role of an imposing boss or, maybe, uptight Dean. His brown hair was grey at the temples and his stern, square jawed face seemed to be perpetually frowning. He was every bit as well-dressed as Alex was, even if the cut of his suit was not quite as modern as Alex's may have been.

"First things first. Phil, how's the rush response to the Broadcast division thing going."

"In its infancy, obviously. We were just going over who had the cleanest plate and then put them on it full time." Phil replied

"Right, well, Letowski, you're still dealing with Germany about the mix-up last month?"

"Jawohl" Josh nodded, "We're going to do something jointly in the end like you guessed. We're just working out the translation and wording."

"Good, good." Crawford nodded in response, "And Ms. Cloutier, you're spearheading the co-ordination with legal about the recall from Pharmaceutical?"

"Absolutely." Joanna said, still trying hard not to stare at the mystery woman.

"So, by process of elimination that should leave it to Mr. Morrison, right?" Crawford said bluntly. Alex frowned. The team didn't fully understand why but as much as their Manager might have been strict with all of them, he was almost needlessly cruel to Alex. It didn't make sense to any of them. Alex and Mr. Crawford had gone to the same Prep School, both gone to Dartmouth and both been members of the same Fraternity. Alex's father and Mr. Crawford were both on the board of a local country club together. By what Joanna, Phil and Josh understood of the weird privileged world the two belonged to, Mr. Crawford should have looked kindly on Alex.

"Actually, sir, with the Congressional hearings coming up about the defence contracts the thought here would be that I devote myself to that, there's bound to be a mountain of requests in the next few days and Phil thought it'd be best if one of us immersed ourselves in the whole sordid affair. Kind of become the expert on the whole thing and handle that as it piles up." Alex said. Assigning that task had been the subject of the previous morning's meeting and Alex had been the unlucky one chosen after a spirited bout of Rock, Paper, Scissors. It would probably amount to many late nights for the next few weeks.

"But there's nothing on your plate immediately?" Mr. Crawford asked as if Alex were a very slow, very simple child.

"Well, there's going to be all of the prep work and back and forth with the weapons people and..."

"You know, Trevor," Phil piped in, with some confidence. He was the only one on the team who'd been invited to use their boss' given name, "Alex may be right, that's a lot on any one plate for right now. Maybe I should handle the Broadcast thing and...

"No, Phil, that god-damn book is coming out next week and I need my absolute best on it," Mr. Crawford said, referring to the soon to be released tell-all from Gigake's former COO, a man Mr. Crawford was widely seen as being thought to be a favourite to replace, "So Mr. Morrison will just have to cut his social life short for a bit and buck up."

Phil nodded his agreement. Josh just smiled as Alex did his best to force an agreeing nod. Both knew that it would mean Alex would have much less time to work on widening his lead.

"So, now for the pleasant stuff," Mr. Crawford said with only the briefest hint of a smile, "I'd like to introduce you all to my daughter, Jessica."