Possessed By Bored Geeks Ch 07

POSSESSED BY BORED GEEKS FROM ANOTHER WORLD

This might be another "skipper". A lot of confusing chat about timekeeping. I might be a little obsessive/compulsive.

Chapter 7 Desdemona takes time out

Du had promised to explain the giant clockwork time keeper to Desdemona. Not completely. Just what applies to her 12-hour shifts. Du was occupying Ilsa who was a mule and a poor ride, but should be adequate for this simple job.

Ilsa was a tall barbarian woman with a healthy disregard for clothing. Powerful, battle scarred. A seasoned dungeoneer comfortable with subjugating monsters in the labyrinth.

Du was the head of sales on Earth and it seemed odd how she carried Ilsa's skin. She would have been more comfortable in a lot more clothing, but she did not want to risk the appearance of body shaming. After all, in this world the nipple was free, in fact it had never been caged. For such a big woman Ilsa had very small boobs, probably because she did not have one drop of fat, her nipples were sure standing up tall in this cold air.

Ilsa had long black hair streaked with gray that she had braided to hang like a thick rope out of her way, down her back. She wore a loin cloth that covered her vulva but nothing else. If they were away from the OWL party house, she would have had her huge two-handed sword strapped to her back. She was the tallest person in the OWL party

Du normally wore a business suit. She had a bad habit of fussing with her tie or picking at her lapel of her double-breasted suit when she was nervous. She was unconsciously revisiting those reflexes. Since she was not wearing a tie the hand movements at her neck just looked weird. Brushing and nervous mussing with the non-existent lapel accidentally brought her hand into contact with her breast from time to time. Her hard nipple ached to be caressed. Du scolded herself for acting so lewd in front of her employee. Her nipple, Ilsa's tit, had no conscience and kept demanding more. She was starting to get a bit wet down south as well.

"It is really simple. Your shift starts here at 6 PM." She pointed to the number at the bottom of the dial. Ilsa was so tall it was easy to reach the dial.

She traced her finger on the glass over the numbers on the left side of the dial. "You work your way up until you reach twelve midnight." She tapped her finger on the glass covering the 12. "Now! You are halfway through your shift." She smiled encouragingly at Desdemona. She waited for the nod of understanding that never came then she proceeded on. "Next we go down this side until we reach six AM and your shift is done!"

Du thought that went really well. "Any questions?"

"How can you tell it is midnight? Is that when the moon is highest in the sky?" Desdemona asked.

"No." Du thought a moment. "12 Midnight" she tapped the dial, "is the opposite side of 12 noon." She tapped the glass over the 12 again.

"It is not the opposite." Desdemona pointed out, "It is the same number." (You could tell that at a glance. They have a dozen hours in their day.) she thought to herself.

"It is actually a twenty-four-hour day." Du clarified. Was she somehow reading her mind?

"The numbers only go up to 12." Desdemona countered.

Du was getting a little frustrated. "Actually, if you look at these little numbers by the big ones you will see that there are 24 hours in a day. It just takes two laps around the clock to mark off a whole day."

Desdemona had a lot of questions, but Du was not asking this time.

"Does this... dial have any connection to the real world?" Desdemona wanted to know.

"Uh... 12 o'clock noon is when the sun is at it's peak, mostly." It was not like Desdemona would ever come to Earth to check.

"High Noon? When you stand on your shadow? When the shadows cast are at their smallest? When the sun is directly over your head?" the silver-haired steed wanted to know.

"Yes 12 O'clock high noon!" was that so hard? "And when you make a full circuit around the clock you come back to 12 O'clock midnight! The middle of your shift. The middle of the night." Du was tracing and tapping some more.

"So, I start my shift at the 6?" the fire mage asked to be sure.

"Yes, 6 O'clock PM." Du agreed.

"What is 'PM'?" she wanted to know.

Du was damned if she could remember what PM and AM stood for. "That is not important. Look, it might be easier if we used the little numbers just next to the big numbers. If you look at it that way, your shift starts at 18. Then it goes to 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and finally 12 midnight." She tapped the dial again as if that would magically drill the concept into Desdemona's head.

Desdemona could do math. She was a little put off that Du was trying to tell her 18 was a smaller number than 6.

"Fine, so now I am at the half way point." She sounded a bit cold to Du but the administrator forged on.

"From here you go to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and stop at 6. Your shift is done."

"You went from 23 to 12 and then to 1?" the woman sounded very suspicious. She felt she just caught Du in a lie.

"Technically, in this case 12 midnight is really this little zero." Du was having a hard time not mentioning 00:00. It could only make things worse.

"So, midnight is actually... zero hour?" it really did not make any sense.

"Yes, the clock resets at midnight, and you travel through the small hours of the morning: 1, 2, 3 until you get to 6- the end of your shift." Du was wondering how things had ever come to this.

"Why does the clock reset at midnight?" she wanted to know.

"Because that is when the new day starts." An easy question.

"Your day does not start with sun rise or after sunset when the old day dies, but at a theoretical time in the night?" Desdemona. It sounded pretty sketchy.

"Yes, the calendar day starts at zero hour."

"I see." Desdemona sighed, "You say there are 24 hours in the day, but even with all the little-big numbers they only stretch to 23."

Desdemona came from a family of merchants. When you bought and sold grain it was important to use the same size bag. Or know the conversion. If you were dealing in copper, you need to be certain you were both using the same scale counter balances. It was an easy concept, otherwise you would sell yourself short and take food from the mouths of your family.

The first 36 hours of work paid her room and board and put clothes on her back. After that she was selling her time by the hour. But time does not have a constant value. Her time value is increased by a modifier because she is a steed. A judgement by her riders of the ease of the ride. She had debuted with a rating of 'best steed', which was more of a calculated guess by the bosses. If her first review in six months tanked, her evaluation as steed could drop and some riders might be refunded.

The 'best' part of best steed reflected versatility or perhaps utility as Un claimed. Basically, what can she do. Un is teaching her fire magic, a highly sought after skill that caused moneybags to reserve her weekends for half a year, sight unseen. She also had body strengthening from Blade, as well as swordsmanship. The agents, Faux and Sara, were teaching her unarmed combat. Un had taught her a lot, but she learned faster from the ones who taught her while making it fun by 'tickling her fancy'. She could have excelled in school if masturbation had been part of the curriculum. She had a brief image in her mind of the nuns teaching her how to properly flick her pea.

"Now dear, you are holding your hand wrong again!" Sister Jean would have scolded her. "Watch your study partner Randi and try to do what she does." or "Randi put your hand on Desdemona's and guide her finger into her love tunnel with yours, dear. Show her the hot spot I showed you." The gods will send her to vacation in the seven hells for hormone charged wicked fantasies.

Desdemona discovered she was a naughty flirt who studied hard when you played with her libido. She could not control the 'steed' part of her ranking, it was basically a popularity contest. The fire mage felt certain she could raise the 'best' part of her ranking. Super was the next rank and she felt she could achieve that before her evaluation. The 'best' rating improved her base pay also, but not as dramatically as 'steed' did.

Faux assured her a 'super' rating would indirectly increase her income.

"Moneybags went for your fire mage skills, there are others out there who appreciate swordsmen or always wanted to be a brawler. How well others can ride you is what will bring your customers back, the variety of things you can do will bring you in the customers in the first place. Going from best to super is a reflection of that variety." Faux purred, "After all, we exist for our customers to play in us."

This remark was quite ironic since nobody could ride Faux. She was rated a 'Parakeet', not really ridable, only utilized for relaying messages. Earthlings regarded her as a living walkie-talky, whatever that was. She was the one who warned Rich Goldman that his company was under assault by relaying a message from his PA.

After Du's first timekeeping session with Desdemona, Du noticed Un standing back watching with bemused focus. She was very embarrassed. Someone she worked with on Earth was seeing her practically naked. Ilsa's loincloth pretty much exposed her buttocks, the only thing concealed seemed to be her actual money maker. She told herself to get over it since she was wearing Ilsa.

"What did you think?" she asked him. It occurred to her that could be taken two ways. He was riding Clay. The swordsman was a brilliant example of layering clothing. She felt naked all over again.

"I think you tried to tell her how to build a watch after she asked you what time it was." He called back as he stalked off.

Mrs. Grey was a young widow. She was a shorthaired cat person. She had grey fur. She was the head of the white and black maids. Her maid's uniform was grey to match her name. She was actually the head of any housekeeping staff stationed inside the house. Except for the kitchen staff.

Her maids had polished the glass on the timeclock the day before. Today it looked nasty, covered with finger prints and smudges. Mrs. Grey considered the deliberate defacement of the clock as a terrorist act. She was disgusted.

In the end it took months. Desdemona canvased everyone for help. Even the Earthlings who rode her.

Learning to understand her time sheet was a long process. She ended up demanding and eventually receiving a compact with a small mirror in it. The magic mirror reflected the face of the huge time piece standing between the stairs in the entry hall in real time. It was an honest refection, not a mirror image one, but showed the image correctly as if you were standing there in front of it. She could confirm Earth time by simply snapping open her compact. When she did that, her female riders tended to check their makeup (which she did not wear) and make sure there was no spinach stuck in their teeth.

She had gotten in the habit of writing down the times she started and finished in a small journal the size of a chapbook using a cheap pencil. Apparently, Earth used lead to make pencils. In this world they used a mix of graphite and clay. She would transfer the numbers to her ledger when she got back home. Eventually, she started trying to calculate what she would earn.

There were three shifts in the day. Day shift, swing shift and night shift. Each paid a different rate determined by a multiplier. Day shift was the base rate, swing shift was a little more and night shift was the highest remuneration. The time cutter clock had an indicator with the bright smiling face of the sun during day shift. Night shift had the image of a lovely woman with a seductive smile. Both of them appeared on the indicator when it was swing shift. The couple appeared to be flirting.

Each shift was eight hours by the clock. Day shift started at 8 and ended at 16. Swing shift went from 16 to 24. Or since there was no 24 on the clock, zero hour. Night shift started in the middle of the night when the calendar reset with the new day. It traveled from 0 to 8. Her regular shift ended at 6, two hours before the end of the night. Half of her regular shift was paid at swing shift rates, then it switched to night shift rates.

The final thing affecting her wages was weekends. Weekends paid more than weekdays. It was an Earth thing. That meant she had to keep track of the weeks like Earthlings did, rather than stick to fortnights. The week on Earth started with the day named for the Sun. The work week started with the day dedicated to the moon, indicated by Mon. No one could explain why there were two starting points. The work week ended on Fry's day. The weekend started Saturn's day at sunrise or sunset Fry's day, or zero hour Saturn's day. Depending on the Earthlings feelings.

Saturn's day kicked off the weekend but was the last day of the week.

Desdemona's contract with Master Stylus Goldmann specified the weekend as running from 00:00 Sat to 00:00 Mon, 48 hours. She WORKED 18 to 06 starting Fry's day and then Saturn's day and Sun day, 36 hours. Her PAY period started at Sun day at 00:00, so the Fry's day and Saturn's day closest to the Sun day belonged to the previous week.

Using her knowledge of the different rates she was getting much better at calculating what she would be paid. Actually, there was one more wrinkle. Overtime.

Master Goldmann told her she was lucky with Overtime. Most firms would try to limit it. OWL actually encouraged it and passed the expense along to their riders with interest. She needed a separate rule sheet for overtime. Anything over 12 hours was overtime. Anything over forty hours earned time and a half. There were other rules jacking in double time and triple golden time.

There were also incentive bonuses to lure her in to work, but those amounts were specified up front. They did not affect her baseline obligations either.

If she had only worked for Rich Moneybags, there would be no calculating at all. His money would just cover her basics with the party. Her 36 hours. She started Sun's day with 6 hours and then had a twelve hour break. Desdemona resumed work at 18:00 and completed another 12 hours with Rich. No need to do any calculating yet, unless she ran into overtime. By quitting time on Mon's day morning she would have 18 hours of unpaid work logged.

The first morning when the quarter giant Tor attacked Rich with a beer bath, the Chef picked up four hours. Overlapped time is always paid out to the thrall. So she was paid two hours of weekend nighttime hours for the Chef. the other 2 hours was overtime and the administrators decided to always pay her the overtime because it would feel like they were punishing her for good behavior if they did not.

They were warned by Rich's personal assistant he would not be back Saturn's day. Desdemona let Jon Pol a millionaire who built a successful international cleaning company drop into her. This applied 6 regular hours to her total. Sunday was the start of the next week, so there was no room for shenanigans. She actually worked every day that week so her baseline was already filled by the time the next reserved Fry's day started.

Perhaps because of her massive mana pool Desdemona had a huge amount of endurance. Honestly, if she ever got too tired she could just sleep and give her rider total control. What could be better than making money in your sleep?

Master Stylus Goldmann was very impressed with her calculations. The old gnome congratulated her warmly on her record keeping and calculations. "You are very close to the correct figure. You should be very proud of yourself." He told her.

"I can't understand where I go off." She brought her work sheets this time so they could go over it.

"Ah hah!" he exclaimed, "It is actually a very simple mistake. You are calculating your rate as if we paid by the hour!"

"You don't?" she squeaked. It was very cute.

"We actually track things by the quarter hour and round up any odd time left over as long as long as it is 5 minutes or more." Master Goldmann explained.

The steed quickly corrected her paper work and got the same numbers the bookkeeper had. She felt an enormous sense of relief. She finally understood how her wage was calculated.

"But how do you know how many minutes you are into a quarter hour?" Desdemona wanted to know.

"Didn't Du teach you about the minute hand?" Stylus asked.

Her work rewarded her with a special title, "Timekeeper".