Author's note:
For a long while, "company whore" (CW) was one of my favorite genres of erotic fiction. I've since become a bit disenchanted with the genre, especially with its frequent delight in degrading the CW as much as possible (because "you're nothing but a
whore
now, Loretta!" and further degrading those subhuman creatures known as "whores" is just good sport).
I thought I'd try a different approach to the CW genre. You can judge better than I how well it works. (Please let me know.) It's often a challenge to decide the best Literotica category for a story. I think the heroine of this one is feeling enough reluctance to put the first couple of chapters in "NonConsent/Reluctance."
I'm hardly the only author inclined to treat the company whore with some affection and respect. If that approach appeals to you, you might enjoy Quinn Rogan's "Trouble at the Office" and JennyGently's series,
Corporate Bodies
--in addition to, I hope,
New Corporate Courtesan
.
Best, Peter
************
New Corporate Courtesan
Chapter 01
The office of the Vice President, Product Development and Quality Assurance included--besides the usual furniture--three leather-upholstered chairs surrounding a low, round, glass-topped table. The table held a vase of cut flowers, a couple of notepads, and, at the moment, a laptop computer, which Phil Uhler, leaning forwards, was consulting. He looked up and assessed, again, the woman seated to his left. Poised. Businesslike. Attractive but not stunning. That's perfect: she'll blend in when appropriate. Hair a pretty shade of brown. Breasts looked reasonable; legs, waist, and hips just fine. He glanced again at the screen. Twenty-seven years old. Very good performance reviews from himself and her former supervisor. He clicked on a tab and skimmed again the results of the personality inventory and tests of cognitive style. All very promising.
"You're due for a raise, Diane," he said, "and a bit of a promotion. Unfortunately, business being what it's been the past six quarters, both will have to be very modest this time. I don't control salaries, but I'd expect a bump somewhere in the three to five thousand range. Don't go shopping for that Lexus just yet."
She smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Uhler. My Honda is still fine. And it's been a pleasure to work with you."
They both knew she was stretching it a little at the end. Work is work, and business is often rough and mean and demeaning. Still, Uhler was proud of his reputation as one of the better people to work for at Tolland Health and Beauty Products. Supportive of his staff. Willing to be flexible. Let's save the cutthroat tactics for dealing with the competition; don't practice them on your subordinates or--if you can avoid it--your peers. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the turn the conversation was about to take.
"Diane, there's an alternative upward path you might consider, a more efficient one. It's open to you now if you want it. Now, I want to tread on some thin ice here--discuss some personal matters of yours, even intimate matters, that may make you feel uncomfortable. It's entirely for reasons of business and your career, I promise. How do you feel about continuing?"
Diane uncrossed her legs, sat up straight, and placed her hands in her lap. She looked Uhler in the eye. "I consent," she said. She assumed he was recording the interview.
Uhler was impressed with her answer. It cut right to the heart of the matter. She's nobody's fool. And she said yes. The next questions would gauge her poise and candor under stress, and they would reveal if her attitudes were as liberal as her file had suggested. Here goes, he thought. No beating around the bush. Hit her over the head with it.
"Diane, I gather that you parted with your virginity nine years ago, late in your senior year of high school, with a chap named Arnold Bailey?"
She knew the appropriate response to that would be, "That is none of your business," followed by a complaint to Human Resources. Not that complaints to HR ever seemed to accomplish anything. In any case, she had a sense that the appropriate response would be the wrong one this time. Besides, it would probably end the conversation, and she wanted to see where this cockamamie conversation could possibly be going.
"'Chip,' to his friends and conquests," she replied. "Late senior year is a good inference, and came close to happening, but he got laid up at home with a bad back injury. My virginity and I went our separate ways the following fall, in college. With Chip, who came to visit."
Again, Uhler was impressed by her reply. Cooperative. Witty. Unabashed. "Excellent, Diane," he said. "And since that day, I take it you have acted like a healthy, normal, American girl? With--if the personality inventory is accurate--perhaps some taste for adventure and perhaps a streak of the bohemian?"
"Not enough to affect my work negatively, I hope you'll agree."
"Your work is fine, Diane. No problems at all on that score."
"Thank you."
"What's your current situation regarding love and romance?"
"'Between boyfriends' is how I'd describe it."
"A pity. Though good, from another perspective.... You are fairly broadminded when it comes to intimate matters, we have some reason to believe, and you have had a reasonable amount of experience in the area. It's hard to tell from our files what is fact and what is inference, but I wouldn't be surprised if the picture included men, possibly including a married man or two, an occasional woman, interracial. A threesome wouldn't be unimaginable. Nothing especially kinky, I believe, certainly nothing felonious. We could just say you're a social liberal."
"I'm a lapsed Catholic," she stated. "When we lapse, we do a good job of it. I'm told we make very good lovers."
Uhler smiled. Once again, Diane's reply was bolder and more candid than strictly necessary.
"You do," he said, still smiling. "Make very good lovers. I went so far as to marry one of you. No regrets there.... Of course, what you, personally, do in bed is only a small part of your total self, and not the most important part. You are a complex and interesting person, Diane, impressive in several ways." He looked at the screen. "You're apparently quite a sharpshooter with a.22 pistol, if one can believe the local newspaper. Some volunteer work at the food pantry. Never married; no children. No sign of drug or alcohol abuse. You refuse to cross picket lines. That's an odd item. I haven't seen a picket line in years."
"Stop and Shop supermarkets," she said. "2020, I think. Just at the start of COVID. Then hospital nurses in Norwich, I think later the same year, though that strike didn't affect me at all. Not to mention nursing home workers here and there, all over the state, then and now."
"I stand corrected," he said. "Social liberalism aside, you are very good at your job, in a surprisingly conservative industry. You are much, much more than whatever it is you do in bed, Diane. But let's not devalue any part of you. You are an extremely smart woman. You can see the direction this conversation is heading. The destination may be less clear."
"I'm picturing a scenario like this," she said. "I sign up to take this 'alternative upward path' you mentioned. Somebody higher up in this company will attempt to get into my pants and will expect to succeed. I get the impression the lucky guy is not you yourself--which is sort of a shame, in a way, as I owe you a lot. I also get the impression that, when he makes this attempt, I am expected to comply. Maybe it's not only one lucky guy. Maybe it's several. What I don't understand is why I would consent."
"Not only for the money, certainly," Uhler replied, "though your new salary would be well above your present one. Maybe for the chance of rising fairly high, fairly quickly, in the organization, despite the bad economy? For the opportunity to get out of the career backwater that our department is and chart a bolder course? Maybe for the chance to thumb your nose at a lifetime of corporate drudgery--at the slow slog up the corporate ladder, always succeeding at the expense of others, compromising more of your principles at every rung?"
"Are you suggesting that prostitution wouldn't compromise my principles?" she inquired. Politely but with an edge. Good for her.
"It would indeed, if 'prostitution' is how you would classify what you would be doing. But think some more. How many women have ever had sex with a man at a time when they didn't particularly want to have sex?"
"We all have. More often than you'd care to realize."
"Correct. Presumably that doesn't make you a prostitute. Or else all women are prostitutes. I'm voting for the first one.... But let's continue. How many women have ever had sex with a man they knew they didn't love and possibly didn't even want to see again?"
"We all have. Sometimes saying yes is just a lot easier than saying no--and then explaining why not, and then arguing for a half hour."
"Correct again. Now, how many men and women in business have prostituted themselves,
in one way or another,
to get ahead? Sometimes literally--or, more often, in ways that didn't involve anyone's genitals? Maybe compromising parts of one's self more important than genitals--like principles? Values? Religious and ethical beliefs? Family relations? How many people successful in business have never prostituted themselves, in any way, ever?"
"Okay," she said, "you made your point.... No: more than that. You're right."