Human Resources
The conference room had the feel of Friday afternoon, the distracted workers dreaming of the weekend ahead, edgy about the traffic blocking their way home, only half-present like kids waiting for the school bell. Undine wondered idly for a moment whether it was some psychic residue of a meeting that had just ended there, or whether it was her own unconscious mind telling her she’d much rather be heading home herself to a nice hot bath and god only knows what for the weekend ahead. She was saved from daydreams by a knock on the door.
“You wanted to see me, Ms Topp?”
“Alan. Have a seat,” Undine nodded, not standing up. It was the sort of childish power-play you had to do in the corporate world, much as she hated it. She’d seen too many of her female colleagues fall behind on the corporate ladder because they’d made mistakes, letting themselves be seen as “female” rather than “hard-working bitch”. Maybe there’d be a revolution and everything would magically change; she wasn’t holding her breath, and there were bills to pay in the meantime.
Alan took a seat, relaxed and pleasant. He wasn’t bad-looking, kept in decent shape, and he knew his job as if he’d been doing it forever. Which he had. Undine glanced towards the folder on the desk. Purely for show, of course; everything was digital these days, but sometimes you just needed props, especially when dealing with the older dinosaurs in the company. Not that Alan was quite in that category—but he was close enough to have a foot in that camp. Kind of a dinosaur-mammal hybrid, maybe. She forced herself not to smile at the thought, instead focusing on business. “Do you know why I’ve asked you here today?”
“According to your e-mail, you wanted to discuss my team,” Alan replied with a smile. “Which we both know is bullshit.”
“You think so?” Undine leaned back in her seat, arching an eyebrow.
“It happens every couple of years, whenever someone new gets a promotion or the company gets sold to some new faceless corporation,” Alan nodded. “You’re a competent professional. You’ve read the previous reports on my team.”
“I have,” Undine nodded. She had. They were all the same, which sent up a red flag. She’d been in HR long enough to know that teams never functioned smoothly. Not for five years. Not with the same staff happily working on the same jobs for average wages.
“And you’ve done the leg-work to actually interview my people—”
“Your girls,” Undine suggested.
“It’s more professional to refer to them as ‘people’, these days,” Alan shrugged, a sparkle in his eye. “And you found only hard-working and loyal employees, no?”
Undine straightened up, managing to reduce her scowl to a mere frown. As he had said, her interviews with the three girls in Alan’s team had turned up only glowing praise for their boss and solid, reliable work.
“So,” Alan continued, still smiling, “there’s not really a lot to discuss about my team. Thus do I proclaim your e-mail bullshit.”
“Yet you came anyway,” Undine noted.
“Not a smart move to piss off the new HR boss. There’s rumours about what you did after the merger in Detroit.”
“Now that was bullshit,” Undine shook her head, smiling faintly.
“The rumours, or the merger?”
Undine picked up the folder and opened it, pretending to read one of the pages, partly to distract herself, partly to play the mind-game of making him wait.
“Tell me about Bobbi Ayres,” she suggested.
“Nice girl. Hard worker. Ticking timebomb in the metoo era,” Alan replied easily.
Undine picked up a page, still pretending to read from it. “And yet she has not one complaint about inappropriate behavior from you.”
“I look, but I don’t touch. And I don’t need to talk about her body, because she already hears about it from every guy she meets. Plenty of girls, too, probably.”
Undine hoped she wasn’t blushing. Bobbi was hot, the sort of woman who radiated sexuality even when dressed in conservative office clothes. She reminded Undine of Claire, her hot college “friend” in their experimenting days. There was a brief flash of sadness—whatever had happened to Claire? One day they’d been in love, and then it had just… ended. It must have been Claire who ended it, right? Or had they just sort of drifted apart just before graduation? Somehow she hadn’t thought of it for years. Not until she’d shaken hands with Bobbi and tried not to go weak at the knees. Focus she reminded herself. After recovering from the initial shock and the blush, Undine managed to put herself into forensic mode. Which had only raised even more puzzling questions. Bobbi’s school records had been underwhelming at best, certainly never getting into college. So how was she writing reports to such a high professional standard? Undine had played the simple new employee, asking naïve questions to try and find the obvious gaps in Bobbi’s knowledge. Only there weren’t any. She knew the job better than any employee Undine had ever interviewed. There was no way she could have been coached, not that well, not on everything. So what was going on? How could a babe with lips that luscious be so damn good at the job? Undine cleared her throat to distract herself, bringing her back to the present moment.
Was that a knowing gleam in Alan’s eye, or was she still distracted by the memory of Bobbi’s perfume, subtle yet evocative and so similar to the smell of Claire? Focus, she thought again.
“Not a single complaint against you in all your time here,” Undine noted. Vague prompts like that usually let them trip themselves up.
“Hopefully never will be,” Alan nodded cheerfully.
“Okay, fine,” Undine leaned forward, letting him catch a glimpse of her cleavage. A cheap trick, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to get any useful answers through the normal channels. “You called bullshit on me; I’m calling it on you. Are you blackmailing them?”
“No,” he replied firmly. “Blackmail is ugly and messy. I don’t like ugly or messy. Did any of my people seem distressed or anxious to you?”
“No. They all seemed happy. That’s why I’m calling BS. No one is happy at their job.”
“No one is happy if they have a boss they don’t like,” Alan suggested.
“Even with a fucking amazing boss, no one is that happy. Productive and content, maybe. But not like they’ve been…” she hunted for the right word, the one that had been simmering just below the threshold of her conscious mind, “…brainwashed.”
Alan said nothing, merely smiling that mysterious smile.
“Wait… You’ve brainwashed them?”
“I have,” Alan replied with a nod.
Undine blinked. She wasn’t exactly sure what to say to that. “You… realize that could be a huge liability for this company?” she tried.
“In what way?”
Undine thought fast, searching for some familiar landmark. “They could sue.”
“For being made productive and happy?”
“For creepy stalker shit, more like.”
“Did any of them seem like they were creeped out by a stalker, to you?”
“And if they’re hiding their actual feelings to try and cash in with a big payout someday?”
“Smarter to have done it before the share price dipped and the hedge fund bought us out,” Alan replied wryly. Which made way too much sense, dammit. Undine tapped the folder with her pen, trying to work out if it was some sort of elaborate prank. How could it be? But… how could it be real?
“So what, you hypnotised a bunch of girls and made them into productive employees out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Of course not,” he snorted. “Bobbi was worried about losing her job. She came across some… unorthodox ideas of how to make her a better worker.”
“And you just happened to know these ‘unorthodox ideas’, did you?”
“Hell no. She met some guys on the internet. That was your creepy stalker shit, let me tell you. Fucking creeps messed her up bad. She came to me and told me everything that happened—everything that she could remember, anyway; some of them gave her amnesia, the sick fucks. So I stepped up, learned what I could, and the best solution I could find was to enslave her myself.”
“You… enslaved her.”
“Like I said, they messed with her mind pretty badly. Installed some rogue personality to make her desperate to serve. Turned her into a piece of meat and then threw her away when they got bored,” his mouth twisted in disgust. “The same thing she’d had happen most of her life, only pawing at her brain instead of her tits. Decent girl like her never deserved that. Disgusting.”
“You didn’t think to send her to a trained psychiatrist?”
“Of course. Got her to talk about her childhood, prescribed her some medications that made her a zombie, and patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Thank god she had insurance, or it’d’ve been an expensive waste of time. Not that I’ve got anything against psychiatrists,” he added quickly. “They do good work, when they’re dealing with the normal brain stuff. This, though…” he shook his head.
“And Anna and Penny?”
“A small work group like ours, you can’t keep a secret long. They’d noticed Bobbi was getting messed up—that was how I knew to step in. So they noticed when Bobbi got better all of a sudden, and they knew we were fucking, of course. Bobbi must have told them something to make them curious, or maybe they were always secretly into the idea, I don’t know. And when you mess around with someone’s mind, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s post-hoc rationalization.”
Undine fell silent for a moment, processing. “Could you do it to anyone else?”
“Theoretically, sure. If you’re asking if I will do it, then no.”
“No?”
“Remember all that stuff about huge liabilities for the company? Not everyone wants it, and not everyone knows what they actually want. Could get real ugly and messy if someone starts fighting with their own unconscious. I don’t like ugly and messy.”
“What if someone wanted to try it?”
“I’d warn you that there’s no turning back. Make sure it’s something you really do want, Undine. I don’t have patience for ghosters.”
Undine blushed. No point in asking “what makes you think I was asking about me?” He’d spot the lie before she even spoke it. Not with her boobs half-showing, damn it. Fine; if there wasn’t a way to back out, she’d push on ahead.
“Do I have to suck your dick?”
“Not if you don’t want to. Anna loves it, Penny hates it, Bobbi is sometimes in the mood for it.”
“But you could make them all love it.”
“I could, for a time. But ideas are like plants; if they don’t grow naturally, you’ll be spending a lot of time shoveling shit to try and fertilise them. I prefer to find the right seeds for your mind.”
“And what seeds would you plant in my mind?”
He smiled again, studying her. “Bobbi picked up on the sexual tension, and she thinks you’re hot; I’d re-work some of your memories to link to her. Maybe give you a Valkyrie fantasy to live out that ultimate power-trip in your imagination.”
“Why a Valkyrie?” she’d never even considered the idea, and yet somehow it seemed perfect—not that she’d admit that. Not yet.
“Just seemed to fit,” he shrugged with an easy grin. “And hey, even if I’m wrong, it’s fun to play.”
“And there’s no jealousy? No drama?”
“Oh god, I wish. One of those trade-offs in life, I guess—everything is cruisy here in the office, but I come home to the real work, keeping harmony among the girls. Worth it, of course. Anna will give you a hard time, she’s the alpha-bitch of the house.”
Undine paused. She hadn’t even noticed her fingers toying with her hair as she leaned forward to hang on his words. Five minutes ago she’d been trying to work out if she should fire him, and now she was discussing… this. She took a deep breath.
“You said I had to be sure. How will I know?”
“Do you want to be hypnotically enslaved by me?”
“Yes.” It came automatically, and she blushed again, her heart pounding in her chest. Was it a stupid idea? Who cared. She’d made her choice and that was that. She blinked, feeling herself calming down almost instantly. What a difference making a decision made.
“Well?” she asked.
His smile widened. He said nothing, only looking at her chest. She followed his gaze and blushed, her hands moving instinctively to cover herself. Fuck, I don’t remember undressing. How had he…? Well, duh, that was obvious. She laughed and stood up, lowering her hands and showing him the full view. “Well played.”
“Thank you,” he nodded, his eyes appreciating her body. Undine made a few poses for him, giggling as her heart pounded once more. “On your knees,” he said firmly. Her body seemed to move of its own accord, bringing her kneeling in front of him, feeling giddy with the flood of strange and new feelings filling her mind. Fuck, it felt so good to obey his voice. Had he done that? Or had it been something she’d never realized she’d needed? Hadn’t he mentioned something about everything blurring, finding rationalizations?
“How may I serve you, Master?” she asked, blushing. It was so weird to say it out loud and yet it felt so right. She shivered with pleasure to see him getting harder, so pleased that she could please him. His hands moved down to his zip. She took him in her mouth, the taste of him heavenly, sending pure pleasure thundering through her body, through her mind; not enough to distract her from what she needed to do, because her whole mind was suddenly focused on the need, the pure need to please her Master and fuck she was just about cumming at the very idea of it. She worked his cock lovingly in her mouth, shuddering with delight to feel him so aroused at her touch, savouring the taste of him, feeling a rush of embarrassment at the realization of exactly what she was doing which somehow only made her even more aroused. His hand stroked through her hair and she looked up into his eyes, smiling and sucking harder, lovingly working every inch of him. His hands tightened in her hair, his breath coming faster. Not the only thing that would be coming… She braced herself for the icky bit, and apparently on reflex she found herself swallowing, gulping down that somehow now-tasty cum. The sensation of it sent waves of pleasure surging through her. “…the fuuuuck?” she managed to gasp as she pulled away, her body pulsating with bliss as she came, hard on the floor, rolling on her back as she gasped and found herself unable to do anything except feel the orgasmic pleasure all through her. Well, not quite “unable to do anything”—her hands worked her clit and her nipples, apparently of their own accord, as she gasped and panted vague phrases “thank you, Master… so good… unhhh… so go-oo-ood… must obey… fuck yes…”
The last bursts of pleasure hummed through her and faded out, leaving her panting on her back, wiping a hand over her head to clear off some of the sweat. He reached down an arm and helped her up, pulling her onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her, kissing her tenderly. She kissed him back, hungry, thirsty for her Master’s touch. Fuck, how had she lived her life without ever experiencing anything like that? She ran her hand slowly along the side of his jaw, gazing deeply into his eyes, losing herself in the warm harbor of his connection.
“Good?” he murmured.
“So fucking good,” she giggled, kissing him again.
“You’re welcome.”
She eased herself away and sank down to her knees again, bowing her head. “Thank you, Master.”
“Good girl,” he patted her on the head, leaning down to kiss her again. “Now, get dressed.”
She felt a little electric thrill, feeling so good to know she was obeying her Master’s commands as she rose to her feet. Her clothes were folded in a neat pile on the table, and she dressed quickly, taking her original seat.
“So… what happens next?”
“You finish your report, and you return to your job—working hard to ensure your Master is pleased with your performance, of course.”
“I am yours to command, Master,” the words came out of her mouth automatically, and yet they made such perfect sense that she added, “I really am.”
“Good girl.”
“…and?” she toyed with her hair again, realizing it had gotten quite messy with all the… fun. She searched through her handbag and found a brush, working quickly. It was Friday afternoon—a quick glance at her phone said Friday evening, now—so no one would be looking too closely. But she couldn’t afford to make any slip ups. She had an appearance to maintain. For herself, and for her Master.
“And tonight after you get back to your place, you’ll receive a text telling you where to go.”
“I could look up your address in your records,” she suggested with a twinkle in her eye.
“You could,” he nodded. “But you’ll obey and you’ll wait.”
“Of course, Master.”
“And while we’re in the office, you won’t let anything slip. You’ll naturally be the hard-working ass-kicking boss babe you’ve always been.”
Undine nodded. Of course, it made such perfect sense. She rose to her feet, smoothing out her clothes and walking over to him. “Thank you for your time, Alan.”
“Of course, Ms Topp,” he replied, rising to his feet and nodding to her as he shook her hand. “It has been a pleasure.”