“What do you think Alan’s calling us together for?” asked Pete as the team filed into the conference room.

Dave shrugged. “Beats me.”

Connie looked at her colleagues. “I’ve heard rumors corporate wants to cut costs. That’s probably got something to do with it.”

Dave scowled. “You think people’re gonna get let go?”

Connie looked at him over the top of her glasses. “I can’t rule it out.”

Pete added, “But we just signed that contract. We’re already at capacity! If they want us to deliver on time, we need more people, not less.”

Connie patted Pete on the hand. “I know. But what else can we do?”

The three of them sighed deeply. After a short pause, Connie looked at Pete and said, “How’s the baby?”

Pete chuckled and said, “A lot of sleeping and shitting. And to think I was considering asking Alan for a raise…”

“Don’t bank on that one,” said Dave.

“I know. I know.”

The conversation was cut short by the sound of the conference room door closing. Alan walked quickly to the center of the room and cleared his throat. All of the chatter in the room quickly died down.

“Thank you all for coming in on such short notice. I know you’ve all got a lot going on right now so I don’t want to keep you too long.”

Alan wiped his forehead and took a deep breath. “By now I’m sure many of you have heard that corporate wants to cut back on expenses. I just got off the phone with my boss and he agrees that what I’m about to tell you is sufficient for our group, considering the Malone contract we just signed.

“First, effective immediately, expenses for meals while traveling is limited to $30 per person per day. Anything over and above that, you’re responsible for.”

There was a low murmur of protest but after a few seconds, the crowd accepted this reality.

“Second, unless you’re training a client on the use of any of our products, travel for business will be limited to a maximum of two nights. Any more than that, and you need approval from corporate.”

Alan paused for a response, but nobody seemed to mind this rule.

“Third, effective immediately, we will discontinue the use of our copiers, printers, and fax machines. I figure that we’re a nearly paperless office as it is, so the only things we really need printed are sales and marketing materials.”

The team gave a collective grumble of approval for this directive.

Alan took a long drink of water. The other people in attendance looked away from him and at each other.

“Unfortunately, when I suggested these cuts in my call a couple of hours ago,” continued Alan, “they approved of all of this but they said it wasn’t enough. As a result, I …” He took a second drink of water.

Pete whispered to Connie and Dave. “He’s drawing this out to make us shit bricks, isn’t he?”

“Shhh!” said Connie.

Alan cleared his throat. “I would like to announce that, effective two weeks from Friday, I will be retiring. Please know that I’ve loved working with each and every one of you. This will more than meet corporate’s demands.”

Connie saw the shocked look on Dave’s face and whispered, “I didn’t expect that!”

“Me either,” said Dave.

Pete raised his hand. When Alan pointed to him in acknowledgment, he asked, “What does this mean for our team? Will there be someone here in charge?”

Alan smiled. “You read my mind, Pete. We’re promoting someone from within our ranks to help guide the team from here on in. So, I’m pleased to tell you that Suzette Freeman will be doing all of the administrative work that I’ve been responsible up until now. We won’t be backfilling her old position.”

Dave, Pete, and Connie all stared at each other, stunned into silence, unable or unwilling to express their shock and disillusionment in the middle of this meeting.

Alan and Suzette fielded questions from the rest of the room. Alan said that he wanted to travel with his wife. Suzette assured everyone that the direction the team had been taking, wasn’t going to change. When all questions were exhausted, Alan said, “If anyone has any other questions you weren’t comfortable raising in the group setting, you know where we both are…”
* * *

After the meeting adjourned, Connie knocked on Dave’s office door. He let her in and gestured for her to sit down before taking his own place behind his computer. With a laugh, he said, “I bet I know why you’re here.”

“Oh. My. God! I can’t believe he picked Suzette of all people! She’s horrible for the team! Where’s her no work ethic. Worst of all, she’s arrogant and conceited. It makes my skin crawl just thinking that she’s going to be in charge of all of us. What do you think?”

“I think you’re … not mistaken,” said Dave, calmly.

“What’d she have to do to get it? I’d say she slept with Alan if she didn’t need to get laid so badly.” Connie looked down and shuddered. “So what do we do?”

“Well, let’s take a step back a minute. You just listed a whole bunch of things that are wrong with her. So tell me what’s right about her…”

Connie looked up at the ceiling, scratching her chin. “She’s… Um…. Oh, wait! Remember when we were in that one class last year? She asked a lot of good questions.”

“Okay, so what does that mean?”

“Um… It tells me that… That she’s not unwilling to learn things.”

“Good. Do you think she could learn not to be so arrogant and conceited?” asked Dave.

“I… I suppose so. That’s a hard thing to unlearn, though.”

“The first step in any self-improvement project, is to know your own faults, your own limitations, and, well, what needs to be improved. If she doesn’t know how she’s perceived, then she can’t get better.” Dave smiled broadly at his friend and colleague.

Connie crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So how do you say that diplomatically?”

“I think our opportunity isn’t so much with her, but rather with Alan. He’s going to be transitioning his job to her, right?” Dave looked up at the ceiling. “She’s climbing up the corporate ladder, if you would, but he’s also wise enough to know how easy it is to fall off the ladder. I guess my question is: is it safe to assume that you don’t want our team to fail?”

“Of course I don’t want the team to fail! We’re a team, remember? It might be a cliche, but there really is no ‘I’ in team,” mused Connie.

“That’s true, but if you’re willing to use the letter ‘E’ twice, ‘EAT ME’ is there.”

Connie laughed. “So what do we do?”

Dave raised his hand to indicate that she should hold on a moment. He pressed the ‘SPEAKER’ button on his phone and a dial tone came through. He quickly pressed a few keys on his phone and waited for the person at the other end to answer.

“Pete here.”

“Pete! Can you come into my office for a minute? Connie and I’d like to talk to you.”

“Sure. I’ll be right there.”
* * *

After a couple of minutes, Pete knocked on Dave’s door. “What’s up, chief?”

Dave gestured for Pete to sit down next to Connie, and he did so. As he closed his office door, Dave said, “So what do you think of the news we just got?”

“I think you deserve it more than Suzette does, Dave.”

“I appreciate your confidence in me, but I don’t think I was ever in the running to be Alan’s successor. Connie here was just telling me that Suzette would be all right if she were more of a team player and less arrogant and conceited. What do you think?”

Pete scratched his chin, considering the possibility. “Yeah. I think that’s pretty much on the mark.”

Connie added, “And I think she needs to get laid. Help her relax a little bit.”

Pete looked a little bit shocked at this suggestion. “Are you suggesting that I…”

“Oh, no no no, Pete,” reassured Dave. “You just had that baby. I’d never suggest anything even remotely like that to anyone, much less you.”

Pete sighed deeply.

Dave continued, “But I think the three of us need to come up with a plan to ensure that the team at least continues to perform as well as we have, under our, ahem, new leadership.”

Pete and Connie looked at each other, and then back at Dave before Pete said, “I’m not entirely sure what you’ve got in mind.”

Dave chuckled. “We’re amongst friends here, Pete. I know that you’ve been working on that new sales assistance device. How’s it coming along?”

Pete chuckled. “Now I see where you’re going with this. It’s funny you should mention this, but I just completed the work on the power source this morning. I just need to connect it and then we can do some preliminary tests on it. Would you like me to go get it?”

“Yes, please.”

Pete stood up and left the office.

Connie looked at Dave. “What’s a sales assistance device?”

“You’ll see.”

In relatively short time, Pete came bounding back into Dave’s office and closed the door behind him. He paused to catch his breath and put each of three pieces down on the desk: one piece looked like a small golden antenna, one was a black cylinder, thicker but smaller than a hockey puck, and a gray sphere with two short wires sticking out of it.

Dave looked at Connie and said, “This is a highly confidential project. You understand that anything you see here, you’re not allowed to talk to anyone other than me or Pete about it, and if there’s a risk that anyone else could hear you when you talk about it, then you should say nothing. Any potential breach of this confidentiality is cause for termination. Do you understand?”

Connie gulped and said, “Yes.”

“Good,” said Dave before he gestured broadly over the three pieces of the device. “Pete, would you like to enlighten us?”

“Sure,” Pete stammered, still trying to catch his breath. “Let me just connect the power supply.” He flipped the hockey puck-like object over and removed what Connie figured was a battery cover. “In the final design, that’ll be much harder to remove,” he laughed as he inserted the gray sphere into the puck. He bit his lip as he carefully inserted the wires into a spot in the device that neither Dave nor Connie could see. After about ten seconds, he snapped the cover back onto the device, flipped it over, and placed it on the desk with a flourish. “Ooops! Nearly forgot the antenna!” He screwed the golden antenna into the top of the device.

“It … looks kind of like a really cheaply made statue,” remarked Connie.

Dave laughed. “That’s what I told them, but you can put better-looking statuettes over the antenna.”

Pete ignored this conversation. “So this is a sales assistance device. You use it to instill a response to a particular stimulus in the listener’s mind. That way, when they get that stimulus, they’ll automatically respond the way you want. No thinking, no nothing. Just … stimulus, response. So if one of our sales guys is out in the field, they can instill a trigger phrase and the customer will respond accordingly. I kind of imagine the sales rep telling the potential client to want to buy whatever is being demonstrated, the moment the rep says the price. You know, the rep says ‘it only costs fifty bucks’ and the client says ‘where do I sign up?’ or something like that.”

Connie looked back and forth between Pete and Dave. “Um… Is this… legal?”

Dave said, “We already know we’ve got the best products out there. This is just something that’ll help our sales force overcome whatever objections someone might throw up at them. Our customers want to buy our products, but sometimes they need a little gentle prodding. That’s where this beauty comes in.”

“But you’ve got to admit,” said Connie. “It has serious potential for abuse.”

“That’s right. It’s why we’re only going to let a select few people use them,” said Dave.

Pete surreptitiously flipped a switch on the sales assistance device. Connie’s eyes were drawn to a light on the top of the antenna. As she sat motionless in her chair, Pete stepped closer to her to confirm that her mind was ready to be programmed with a response to a given stimulus.

When Pete gave a “thumbs up” sign to Dave, Dave said, “All right, Connie. When you hear Pete say that we just need a test subject for the device, you will volunteer to be a test subject, because of how much you trust both of us. Any objections you might have had about this device, including how ethical or legal it would be to use it, will disappear for good. Do you understand?”

Connie nodded her head.

“Good.”

Pete turned off the device. Connie blinked and shook her head and said, “I hope you vet those select few people pretty thoroughly.”

Dave said, “That’s the plan. But this is still in the initial testing phase.”

Pete added, “What we really need, is a test subject for the device.”

Connie smiled broadly. “I’d like to test it out. I trust you two….”

Pete and Dave looked at each other before Dave hesitantly said, “Ssssure. How’d you like to test it?”

Connie paused a minute and then smiled broadly. “Let’s … push the envelope a little bit. We’re going to use this to take Suzette down a peg or two, right?”

The two men nodded.

“How about you make me have an orgasm on command?”

The two men stood in stunned silence.

“Oh, come on, boys. If we’re going to do this, then we’ll go all in, right?”

“I, uh… I guess,” said Pete.

“So I want you to make me orgasm. If this thing works, that’s the best test of it all. Besides, I haven’t had a good orgasm in I don’t know how long….”

“What do you want the trigger to be?” asked Dave, quietly.

“Surprise me.”

“All right. Just look at the antenna on the device,” said Pete. She did as requested and Pete turned it on. As before, Connie sat, unblinking, staring at the light.

Dave took a deep breath and said, “All right, Connie. Um… When Pete says, um… When he says we ought to get a gift for Alan to celebrate his retirement, you’re going to have a really powerful orgasm. As though you’ve been making love for hours. Do you understand?”

Connie nodded her head.

Dave and Pete looked at each other and Pete turned the device off.

Connie looked at Pete. “So are you going to turn it on or are you going to just stand there?”

Pete couldn’t suppress his laughter.

“What? Would you rather I’d asked for some other test?”

Dave jumped into the conversation. “I guess you don’t remember that I gave you a trigger. And you’re going to have an orgasm … I’m guessing in the next minute or two.”

“I wish!” remarked Connie. “But wouldn’t you first need to use that thing on me?”

“We did,” said Pete halfheartedly.

“So are you going to tell me the trigger you landed on, or are you just going to trigger me?”

“We’ll. just trigger you, I think…” Pete glanced back and forth between Connie and Dave.

“That’s probably for the best,” said Connie. “Assuming, of course, this thing really works.”

Pete paused, looked at Dave, and said, “We really ought to get some kind of going away present for Alan, don’t you think?”

Dave’s “Yes” was completely drowned out by the sound of Connie crying out, “YES!!! Oh, yeah! That’s it! Oh, fuck yeah! Mmmmmmmmmmmm!” She flailed around in her chair as she yelped and moaned her pleasure. “Ooooooh yeah, it feels sooooo goooooood!”

She continued to scream in excitement as Pete looked at Dave. “Good work. I’d say it works.”

“I agree,” said Dave, who shuffled in his own seat.

When Connie’s orgasm finally subsided, she wiped her brow and said as she tried to catch her breath, “That’s … quite the … invention … you’ve got … there. Make sure it gets … patented … as soon as possible.”
* * *

After a couple of hours, Pete returned to Dave’s office and showed him the changes he had made to the device. “I figured the antenna on top would be a dead giveaway, so I created this little camouflage. What do you think?”

Dave smiled as he looked at the new design of the device. It now more closely resembled a trophy, emblazoned with the words “Thank you” and “Good luck”. “It looks good. Should we inscribe Alan’s name on it?”

“I can do that,” remarked Pete. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be back.”

Pete returned to his desk, where he chiseled Alan’s name neatly into the base of the device. As he stood up, he saw Connie walking by his desk.

She pointed to the object and said, “Is that…”

“Yup! What do you think of my, um, modifications?”

“Amazing!”

“Thank you. I’m going to bring this over to Dave to get his blessing. Wanna come with?”

“Sure!”

Connie followed Pete into Dave’s office. Pete placed the “trophy” on Dave’s desk with a flourish. Dave picked it up, examined it for a few seconds and said, “Looks good!”

Connie looked at Dave. “Do you want to give it to Alan?”

“Why don’t the two of you take it to him? I’ll find another way of wishing him well.”

“Fair enough,” said Pete. He and Connie turned on their heels and left Dave’s office. The two of them walked down the corridor to Alan’s office.

When they arrived at their destination, Connie looked in the window and saw that Alan was talking to one of their colleagues. She looked at Pete and said, “Let’s hang back for a second. He’s in there right now with Raju.”

“Okay.”

“So tell me, I really don’t remember you giving me that trigger. How long did it take?” asked Connie.

Pete shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Ten seconds, maybe? Fifteen tops.”

“Really?”

“Really. It’s that powerful.”

“Well, let’s just say that I’m thankful for being on your good side. If you can build something like that, you’re a better ally than enemy.”

Pete looked down at the floor.

“Are you blushing? Oh, man. You’ve got to learn how to take a compliment.”

“Thank you.”

“There. Was that so hard?”

“No, I guess not.”

Connie chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

Soon, Raju walked out of Alan’s office, leaving the door wide open. Connie walked up to the door and knocked.

“Come on in,” called Alan.

Connie and Pete stepped into Alan’s office. Pete closed the door behind him.

Pete smiled broadly and said, “I just wanted to let you know that you’ll be missed. Connie and I, um… We, uh… We wanted to give you this little token of our appreciation for everything you’ve done for us.” He leaned forward and placed the device on Alan’s desk.

“Thank you, Pete. This … this is pretty cool. You made this for me in the few hours since I announced my retirement, I guess?”

“Yup.”

“You’ve got a lot of talent and this organization is really grateful for everything you do here. I know Suzette’s going to be in charge, but I keep reminding her that without people like you, we wouldn’t be anywhere near as good a position as we are.”

Connie looked at Pete and said, “That’s what I’m trying to tell him, too.”

Pete leaned forward and flipped the switch on the device. In an instant, Alan stood motionless before his two soon-to-be-former employees.

Connie took a deep breath and said, “I have one rule for you, Alan. The next time Suzette comes into your office to work on your management transition, you will lock the door so that she can’t get out. You’ll then get very horny and you’ll want to fuck her, and you won’t take no or any other objection she might have to having sex with you. Then, while you’re fucking her, you’ll say that she needs to learn humility and this is the best way to teach her.”

She looked at Pete, who gave her a hand gesture to indicate that this was enough.

Connie continued her instructions. “Do you understand?”

Alan nodded his head.

“Very good.” She turned to Pete and whispered, “How do I wake him up?”

Pete flipped the switch to turn off the device.

Alan looked at Pete and said, “Listen to Connie. She knows what she’s talking about. Thank you both.”

“We’ll probably do something bigger for you when we get closer to your last day,” said Connie.

“Please. You don’t need to do anything on my account,” said Alan.

“We insist.” Connie crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Pete glanced down at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to my desk now. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I appreciate that you took the time to make this,” said Alan as he picked up the trophy, examining it closely. “This is really well-made, especially in such short time.”

“Thank you,” said Pete as he and Connie walked out of the office. As the two of them walked by Dave’s office, Connie gave Dave a “thumbs up” sign and kept walking.
* * *

The following morning, as Pete found his way to his desk, he noticed that Dave’s office door was closed. He looked quickly and noticed Suzette sitting opposite Dave. Her head was down and, as best as he could tell, she was trembling.

“Fuck,” he mumbled. “Looks like Alan’s already done what Connie said.” He put his coat and bag down at his desk and walked over to Connie’s desk.

Connie saw him coming and smiled broadly. “You just getting here?”

“Yeah.”

“Looks like Alan fucked Suzette about, oh, sometime recently.”

“Yeah. I think she’s in Dave’s office now, crying,” said Pete.

Connie’s eyes widened. “Crying? Really? Don’t tell me you think I went too far in my instructions to her!”

Pete scowled before looking away.

“You do, don’t you? Couldn’t you have said something to me yesterday?” Connie’s voice cracked in a mixture of anger and resentment.

“I had no way of knowing what you were going to tell him to do. You said you wanted to bring her down a peg or two, and, well, you did,” said Pete as he tried to hide the disgust in his voice.

“So what do we do now?”

“Let me see what I can do. Just … stay here.”
* * *

Pete kept a close eye on Dave’s office. As long as Suzette wasn’t coming out, he found it hard to concentrate on building another sales assistance device. Finally, after about an hour, he got up, walked to Alan’s office, and knocked.

“Come in!”

“Hi, Alan. How are you today?”

“Good! I feel great, actually. But Suzette’s been talking to Dave for a while now. I hope she comes out soon because I’ve got a lot to go over with her today. But I’m sure you didn’t come in here to talk about my transition plans, did you? What’s up?”

“I was hoping I could take a look at the trophy I gave you yesterday. I wanted to check something about the way I inscribed it.”

“It’s right there.”

Pete picked up the trophy and held it up as though he were examining the bottom of it. With a very subtle movement, he flipped the switch and gained access to his boss’s mind.

“All right, Alan,” said Pete. “The next time you talk to Suzette, you’re going to apologize to her first and foremost. You’ll tell her you don’t know why you did what you did, and you’ll beg her for forgiveness. You’ll also stay at least five feet away from her at all times between now and when you retire. One more thing. If I ask you if I can borrow your trophy for a little while, you’ll let me do so at any time.” Pete paused, wondering if this would be sufficient. After deciding that, even if it wasn’t, he could ensure that everything goes properly by using the device on Suzette as well. “Do you understand?”

Alan nodded his head and Pete turned off the device. As he turned the statuette around in his hands, Alan asked, “So, is it all right?”

“Yeah. I, um. Think so. Do you mind if I borrow this for a few minutes? I’ll bring it back as soon as I can.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“Thanks.”

Pete strode briskly out of Alan’s office and straight for Dave’s office. He knocked on the door and held the device up so that his boss could see it through the glass.

Dave waved Pete in. Suzette was clearly crying, her head obscured by her arms over the desk.

Pete hesitantly walked closer to his soon-to-be boss. “Suzette. I, um… Could I talk to you for a minute?”

“Now’s not really a good time, Pete,” she said softly.

“Please, Suzette. This is urgent, and I need to get your thoughts on something.”

She raised her head slightly. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, giving her the look of a raccoon.

Pete immediately switched the device on and she sat upright, eyes fixed on the light at the top of the statuette. He looked at Dave, and then back at Suzette. “All right, Suzette. When I tell you that I’ve spoken with Alan and that it’ll never happen again, you’re going to stop crying. You won’t understand why he did what he did, but you also won’t question it either. Just know that it’s not going to happen again, and that, when he apologizes, you’ll accept his apology. After he apologizes, this will be little more than a memory. A painful memory that helped you grow to be the mature, responsible person you are. In addition, you will be kind and generous to everyone on this team. You’ll be humble in the face of failure and liberal with praise when things go well. This might be your team, but we’re what makes it run, and you will never lose sight of that. Do you understand?”

Suzette nodded her head.

He switched off his invention.

Suzette blew her nose and said, “What can I do for you, Pete?”

“I just talked to Alan. What happened between you and him, it’ll never happen again.”

With one final sniffle, Suzette stopped crying, just as she had been instructed.

“I think he’s going to apologize. Why don’t you go over there and see him right now? Would you like one of us to go with you to make sure you stay safe?”

She looked at Dave and said, quietly, “Would you mind please coming with me?”

“Sure.”

Suzette walked out of Dave’s office. As Dave passed Pete, he whispered, “Nice job.”

“I’m going to take care of the source of this … incident,” said Pete.

Pete returned to Connie’s desk. “I think I’ve taken care of everything.”

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome. But I’ve still got some unfinished business to tend to in the wake of all of this.”

She gulped loudly.

Pete raised the going away gift for Alan up close to her head and turned it on. After a couple of seconds, when her mind was sufficiently programmable, he said, “If I ever tell you that you need to be punished, you’ll stand up, lift up your skirt, lower your panties and stockings, bend over, and spank yourself really hard until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He turned off the device.

“What kind of unfinished business are you talking about?”

“Well, you have been a naughty girl, haven’t you?”

With bulging eyes, she said, “Yes.” Her voice cracked as she responded.

“And naughty girls need to be punished, don’t they?”

“Yes.” She stood up and did as she had been programmed. She bent over her desk and began spanking herself. There was a visible red hand-mark on her ass by the time Pete told her to stop.

“That was pretty good, but just remember. If you don’t want to be punished again, you’re going to have to be good. Really good.”

“I understand, Pete.” Her eyes drifted down to the visible bulge in Pete’s pants. She giggled slightly at the sight of this and considered saying something, but decided against it, just in case he might think she’d need additional punishment.

Pete made a mental note as he walked back to his desk, that he had to build another sales assistance device strictly for his own personal use. This was just too good to just let other people use.

this girl was part of the rape: http://goo.gl/iwJCK9

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