02

Note: This story takes place immediately after the events that happened in "Young Boss Becomes Unwilling Model." It's going to start out a little slowly while I set up the situation that will drive the plot, but I hope the wait will be worth it.

Prologue

Tim left the office that Monday nervous and unsettled. After the mortifying events of Friday night, his world had been turned upside down. Just last Thursday, he had been the undisputed king of his own small kingdom. Yes, he had a boss at his ad agency's main headquarters - an old flame named Shawna - but he had been given the chance to open his own satellite ad office.

He'd hired a pretty blonde secretary named Julie, and three equally pretty ad reps - petite, Asian Mia, a tanned brunette named Kaitlyn, and a fair-skinned brunette named Anna. He'd been able to establish a professional yet playful atmosphere in the office, and most amazingly, a discipline policy that allowed him to respond to any mistakes his employees might make with a series of escalating "punishments," that eventually resulted in bare bottomed spankings for them.

It was a single, professional male's dream come true!

And then Friday happened. First Shawna showed up and maneuvered him into wearing a mortifyingly tight cycling outfit in front of his pretty young employees. Then bad went to much worse, when - in a meeting in front of a female-owned client company and what seemed like 100 other female witnesses - he had a disastrous wardrobe malfunction that exposed him completely.

He was grateful that Shawna did her best to help him as he was pawed and groped by the horde of horny women around him, but at the same time, he hated that his boss had seen him in that state of cringing nudity. Not to mention his employee Mia, who showed up at the worst possible time, and also saw her boss totally exposed.

He'd spent a miserable weekend fearing the worst: that Shawna or Mia - or both! - would have told his other employees about his naked embarrassment, so that he'd be a laughing stock in his own office. But toward the end of that Monday, Mia had come in to his office to assure him that she wouldn't tell his other employees about his horrifying experience on Friday night.

Just as he was getting ready to leave for the day, he got the email from Shawna that he'd been dreading. His palms were actually clammy when he forced himself to open the email. But her message had also been a relief: "Tim, I'm sorry about what happened to you on Friday. I'm sure that you'd like to forget about it, so please don't worry that I'm going to tell anyone what happened. I want you to succeed in your new office, and I think it would be best if we kept that between us. For what it's worth, I know that the Cycle Wear ladies feel bad for you, but they've assured me that they'd love to continue working with you in the future. Also, I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I don't think you've got anything to be ashamed about. Shawna"

After the last sentence she put in a winking smiley face emoji.

When he'd read the email, Tim blew out a long breath that he hadn't known that he'd been holding, and let his head slowly fall to his keyboard. As humiliated as he felt, that was probably the best he could have hoped for.

For the next several days, Tim was on edge at the office. He was desperate for some time to pass, and to get back to feeling normal again, but while the regular office routines were going on around him, he felt paranoid.

On the surface, his employees continued to behave mostly as they had before. They called him "Mr. Johnson," and they did what they asked him to do, updating him on clients they were pursing, and giving progress reports on current clients whenever he asked for them. Julie continued to bring his coffee and answer phone calls and take messages.

But it seemed like they often had faint smiles on their faces, and once in a while when he asked them a question, they would startle a bit, like they had been distracted. Sometimes when he walked through the main office and two or more of them had been in there talking, they'd go quiet for a minute.

He thought that he'd caught both Julie and Anna running their eyes over him when they hadn't noticed he was looking, and he was certain that he'd caught Kaitlyn checking out his ass when he turned quickly to retrieve a message that Julie had said came in for him. Mia had definitely given him the once over when he wore a new shirt on Wednesday, and said, "Looking good," with what almost amounted to a wink!

He thought he might be going crazy. Nothing was obvious enough for him to be sure, and after Friday, he couldn't blame himself for feeling paranoid.

He noticed several of the young women make mistakes around the office, but he found himself overlooking them. Last week he would have playfully called them out, and swatted their hands with his ruler, starting the countdown to a more embarrassing spanking over their skirts, and then their panties, and finally on the bare.

But now he felt uncertain. What if he identified a mistake, but the offender stood up to him? He knew instinctively that he wasn't likely to swat Mia anytime soon; he needed her silence to preserve what little dignity he still had after last week. But if he overlooked Mia's mistakes while punishing the other young women, wouldn't that look suspicious?

The vibe in the office had subtly but definitely shifted, and Tim was feeling desperate to find a solution that would allow him to restore the previous pecking order, and his control over his desirable employees.

That solution presented itself to him on Thursday morning, when Shawna called him with the possibility of landing a new and lucrative client.

Part 1

As soon as Tim answered the phone, he could tell that Shawna was excited. "I've got an opportunity that might turn into your next big break, Tim."

"Okay," Tim said, cautiously. His largest client to date was Cycle Wear, and what he'd gone through with those clients triggered some anxiousness verging on anxiety. "Tell me about it."

"It's a large, multi-national company made up several dozen larger companies, acquired over the last 20 years through a chain of mergers and acquisitions. One of the units under their umbrella manufactures all kinds of grooming products for men and women. A team within that unit has come up with a body spray for men that has tested off the charts. But while they think they've got a winning product on their hands, they're not sure how to market it. They've talked to some of the biggest agencies around, but apparently they haven't liked what they've seen so far, because they contacted us yesterday."

"And you're giving this to me?" Tim asked.

"The team leaders are named Kurt and Danielle, and they asked for you specifically. They liked what you've done for Cycle Wear, and they see their product as appealing to a similar demographic: young, active, energetic.

This could be big, Tim."

"What's the time line?"

"That's just it. They really want to push this, so I agreed to have them come to your office this afternoon for a meeting."

"This afternoon? That's awfully short notice."

"I know, but I didn't want to put them off. Clean off whatever you had on your schedule for this afternoon, and do the same for your new hires. I'll be there with them at 1:30, so get everyone prepared to make a good first impression."

As soon as he was off the phone, Tim stepped out into the main office space and called everyone together. He told them all what little he knew: a potentially huge client is coming here with Ms. Green at 1:30 today. Re-schedule anything on your books today, and let's get the conference room ready.

Everyone was excited. Kaitlyn and Anna were brand new hires, and even Mia and Julie hadn't been there long. By 1:30 they were lined up in the office, all smiles and looking their best.

Shawna led the clients into the outer office, and Tim stepped up and shook their hands, then introduced his team, including Julie, who asked what everyone wanted to drink. Tim led them into the conference room, and they made small talk for a few minutes while everyone got settled, and Julie brought in some tea, coffee and bottled water.

Kurt and Danielle were both in their late 30s, fit and attractive. They were both dressed a little more formally than business casual. Kurt had dark hair cut short, and Danielle was a blonde with shoulder length hair, and they both had the tans of tennis instructors, or people who looked like tennis instructors. They had the unmistakable air of up-and-comers.

Kurt opened the discussion. "We've developed a body spray for men that we are very excited about. We've got chemists and fragrance specialists and bottle and packaging designers, and they've worked very hard on this. And it's paid off! In our double-blind testing, this product has scored higher than any in the history of our company."

Shawna, Tim and his team looked suitably impressed. Tim said, "Do you have a name for it?"

Kurt said, "Naked Attraction."

Mia said, "Ooh, I like the sound of that," and everyone around the table laughed.

Tim said, "So you've got a great product, and a strong name. But Ms. Green tells me that you haven't found an agency yet." He let the implied question hang in the air.

Danielle leaned forward. "Nobody has had any great ideas how to market it, and we can understand why. This market has been growing rapidly for the last 20 years or more, to the point where several competitors have dominant positions. Their advertising has been mostly unimaginative, usually a variation on a couple of themes."

Kurt ticked them off on his fingers. "Good-looking guys hanging around a bar or a baseball field or a gym, putting on the spray as a male-bonding ritual. Good-looking guys putting on the spray, and getting tons of flirtation and compliments from hot women. Good-looking guy puts on the spray, and his girlfriend notices and starts cuddling with him."

"All the usual clichés," Danielle says. "Which doesn't matter that much for the established players: their products are known, and they don't have to get a lot of buzz going."

"But we do," Kurt said. "We're looking for a fresh approach, something that will really get a lot of attention."

"Do you have a theme, or specific ideas that you'd like us to work with?" Tim asked.

"We have a tone," Danielle said, "and Kurt has a theme." The way she said it implied that she wasn't thrilled with Kurt's theme.

Kurt looked at her for just a moment, and Tim recognized that the two of them had some kind of rivalry going on. Then Kurt said, "The tone is light-hearted and playful."

"Self-deprecating," Danielle said. "Not like the usual alpha-male approach that can come across as arrogant. Super confident jocks and young rich guys and male model types have been done to death."

"That's why we wanted to go with a more 'everyman' approach. We want people who don't look models or actors. They'll be good looking, of course, but they'll be boy-or-girl-next-door good looking. They'll come across as people you might actually know, or see every day on the street."

"That's an interesting tone," Shawna said. "But what's the theme?"

Kurt jumped in quickly. "When the average guy puts on Naked Attraction, the actual, real women around him find him irresistible. They immediately start vying for his attention. They start flirting with him, unbuttoning an extra button on their blouses, tugging their skirts a little shorter. Maybe we could have a few sexy gags, where these everyday women try to playfully or "accidentally" expose themselves to him."

Tim liked the idea, but he could tell that the women on his team were cooler to it. Of course more aggressively feminist Anna was the first one to speak. "Isn't that a little like the old 1960s, sexist advertising, where women did everything they could to sexualize and objectify themselves for the guy who was a cookie-cutter, James Bond or Matt Helm type?"

Tim glanced around the room. Danielle had a little frown that told him that she had made a very similar objection herself. Shawna looked a little displeased with Anna - you never insult the client! - but her frozen half-smile told Tim that she didn't disagree, either.

Kurt pivoted quickly. "No, you're right, that old dinosaur sexist stuff is not what we're talking about at all. Again, our male actors will not be impossibly suave, James Bond types, and our females will not be degrading themselves. It will all be playful and tongue-in-cheek, and done with a wink that tells the audience that we are playing with those old themes, not taking them seriously."

Tim saw that Julie and Kaitlyn were nodding slightly; Kurt had moved them to the good side of neutral, at least for the moment. But Anna and Danielle weren't convinced.

Anna said, "I really love the idea, but I'm wondering about one thing." (Tim noted that Anna was savvy enough to butter up the client with a false compliment, but he wasn't sure if it worked.)

"What's that?" Kurt said.

"If the idea is that your product makes men irresistible to women, wouldn't it make more sense for the women to try to tear the man's clothes off, instead of tearing their own clothes off?"

Tim noticed that Danielle was slightly nodding, and Kurt's exasperated response told him that this very question had come up before. "Of course, if these ads were exercises in psychological realism, you'd be right. But they're not! They're fantasies!"

"But don't you think that women fantasize too? And they wouldn't fantasize about exposing themselves to—"

"Yes," Kurt interrupted. "But we're not selling to women. Our target audience is males between 15-24, so we need to get inside their heads, and appeal to their fantasies."

Tim saw that Anna - and Danielle, he intuited - was not happy with that answer. But she also couldn't argue with it. It was advertising 101: find out what your audience wants, and sell it to them.

That gave Tim an idea. When Shawna asked a logistical question, Tim started sketching a few notes on a yellow pad.

Shawna said, "So what kind of a campaign do you envision? Will this be a national push?"

Danielle said, "Hopefully, eventually. But we're thinking a small regional campaign first, with 3 different ads. We'd like to shoot a pilot version of each of them, and do a little small-group focus testing for a handful of people who represent our target demographic. If we like what we see in the focus testing, we roll out a 3-5 week regional campaign, with each ad airing for 7-10 days before being replaced with the next ad in the series."

"We'd like to get started as soon as we can," Kurt said. "If the regional campaign gets a good response, we'd love to go national in time for the start of summer."

"That's really a tight timeline," Shawna said, looking to Tim, but seeing that he was still scribbling on his yellow pad. "Would our first step to be to prepare a few preliminary pitches for the initial three ads?"

Danielle and Kurt looked at each other, and fidgeted a little. Danielle said, "We were hoping that you might come up with a few ideas to show us... tomorrow?"

Shawna whistled softly, and the three new ad reps looked startled. "That fast?"

"We know it's a lot to ask," Danielle said, "but we've talked to a lot of agencies, and none of them have panned out. Time is starting to get very tight, and—"

"I've got an idea," Tim said, looking up from his yellow pad. He saw that everyone looked at him in surprise. "Not necessarily for the three ads yet, of course," he said, scrambling. "But I have a wrinkle that might bring some quick attention."

Kurt said, "Shoot."

"You said that you didn't want actors or models who look like actors or models. What if we actually did that? We could hire actual, non-professional, everyday people. Good-looking, as you said, but not pros. It's risky, but we could get some instant buzz if we let people know that our commercials that were on the way would feature sexy, funny situations, but with no actors."

Tim looked around him, and saw that everyone was thinking it over, which he took as a good sign.

Kurt spoke first. "It is risky, as you said, but that could pay off. It would get some attention before the first ad even aired."

"But the downside is," Danielle said, "what if the boys and girls next door can't act, and are terrible? We'd need to do pretty extensive casting call to be sure we didn't get a bunch of stiffs."

Shawna jumped in. "But the casting calls would be another way to build buzz. I'm sure a lot of people would try out, and everyone who even thought about doing that would be curious about whoever eventually won the job."

"But that might be a deal-breaker," Kurt said. "It's a great idea, but a wide-net casting call would take weeks, and we don't have the time."

The room got quiet for a moment, and then Danielle said. "Okay, I'm not sure we'll be able to make that idea work. But I like where your head is at, Tim. That was a good idea, even if we're not eventually able to use it." She looked around the table at everyone on the creative team. "If you think you can come up with some pitchable ideas for us by tomorrow afternoon, we're willing to give you a chance."

Tim looked at Shawna, who nodded enthusiastically. "Okay. It was great to meet you, Kurt and Danielle, but if you don't mind, I think my team and I should get started right away. Julie, could you put on some coffee for us?"

Shawna saw that Kurt and Danielle were impressed by Tim's intensity, so she stood and faced the two clients. "If I could have a few minutes of your time, maybe we could talk about a contract and budget?"

Kurt and Danielle shook hands all around, and then followed Shawna out into the outer office.

When the door was closed, Tim turned to his team. "All right, ladies. We need three decent ad ideas by tomorrow, which means that we're about to start the first brainstorming project as an entire team. Why don't we each take about 15 minutes to individually come up with ideas - nothing is too dumb, so just get some ideas on paper - and then we'll discuss them as a group and see what we think?"

Part 2

While the Tim and the women brainstormed in the conference room, Shawna talked finances with Kurt and Danielle in the main office space. If the pitch goes well, the company would start by giving Tim's team some upfront money to get started, but then generous incentives for each goal met.

There would be more money once they'd taped three acceptable ads, then again if the focus group likes them, then again as they air regionally, with the big money to come if the campaign went national.

That all sounded great to Shawna, who said that she'd talk to the legal people at headquarters when she got back, and have them draw up a preliminary contract.

"I just wish we had more time," Danielle said. "I like Tim's idea about using non-actors, but there's no way we could take the time for casting calls and building buzz, and still make a national roll out by Memorial Day."

Shawna and Kurt nodded, and the three of them thought about the calendar.

As he was thinking, Kurt watched Tim and his four female employees through the glass wall of the conference room. They were all sketching out ideas, and occasionally asking each other questions.

And it hit him.

Kurt said, "Look at them." Shawna and Danielle followed his eyes to the team in the conference room. "Tell me what you see."

Danielle said, "A hungry, young team, excited about the chance to land a big client."

Kurt said, "Yes. But I see a hungry, young, good-looking team, excited about the chance to land a big client." Danielle and Shawna looked at him. "Look again. A handsome young boss, maybe late 20s. Four pretty young female employees: a blonde, an Asian, and two brunettes."