Meeting an Alien - Steampunk
Copyright© 2025 by Duncan Mickloud
Chapter 61: The Big Sales Trip
Time Travel Sex Story: Chapter 61: The Big Sales Trip - Steampunk is a stand alone coming-of-age story. Bill Morgan, Tom’s son, from the first Meeting An Alien story is almost grown up. Bill, at loose ends, arrives on Earth-19 where many dangers, challenges and needy damsels await him. It is a separate story with all new characters and a places; i.e. it is a vastly different world with a an Old-West feel. Think mid-19th century; Steam power, percussion cap weapons and duals to the death.
Caution: This Time Travel Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including mt/ft mt/Fa Ma Fa mt ft Coercion Consensual Romantic Farming Restart Steampunk Science Fiction Aliens Alternate History Post Apocalypse Time Travel Paranormal Magic Spanking Interracial Black Female White Male White Female Oriental Female Hispanic Female Indian Female Anal Sex First Oral Sex Pregnancy Voyeurism Big Breasts Size Small Breasts Smoking
Aloud, I said to Rose, “That’s fine. I will push the meerschaums myself for a time. I can use my ship. If you want something done right, you might as well do it yourself.”
Rose said, “You will? That’s a load off my mind. I knew you wanted to get the new pipe products out there. We haven’t even begun putting together training for the new products. Did I mention Nicholson’s name lately?”
I said, “You know I also own Henson Cigars and Kennedy Tobacco? Well ... Uhh ... I also started Morgan Tobac in Franklin. They are new and will make cigarillos and accessories. Eventually, they will sell pre-rolled cigarettes.”
Ox sent, “Your fishing ship is flying up here now.” You should take the promotional tobacco, new pipes, and whatever else you want. Visit the remote stores yourself. You can set down near each East Coast port and putt-putt into the harbor like you do in Cuba. Visit the stores, and then you can leave for the next port. Take a couple of women with you and have some fun.”
I said, “Or snag a few girls along the way.”
Ox said, “Ah, yes, ‘There so no pussy, like new pussy,’ so that’s an excellent idea, too.”
I said, “Maybe I need a cook onboard Pez Volador full-time?”
Ox said, “Or two female hands. The two women would still have each other when you are away. I have placed a note on the bulletin board in Williamsburg for a cook and a housekeeper. Paloma has just received your email regarding their hiring.”
Ox paused, “This just in. We are such idiots. You need a full-time representative who works across all your companies. A knowledgeable senior salesperson. Each company fumbles along very inefficiently.”
I said aloud, “Rose, I will need to do this myself. I can come up with the advertisements and signage in my office. You know I get around fast. That means it needs to be me for right now. I do need to find a senior sales assistant soon, unless you have a better idea?”
Ox interjected, “We have come to an agreement. The best person for the job is Flora Todd. She knows pipes and pipe tobacco. She’s 21, personable, and she’s been ready to move up for a while. Mirin can transfer over to be Nylah’s replacement assistant.”
I said, “Send for Flora Todd, please. I will borrow her and see if I can make her my Senior Sales Manager. Her baby sister in the messenger office can replace her.”
Rose said, “We already have someone with that title. Manny Westermann.”
I said, “WTF? I have not met him or even heard of him before now.”
Ox said, “Manfred Westermann is a crony and protégé of John Nicholson. He hides anytime you are around.”
I said to Ox, “Was being the operative word. Please give me a report on him. If he is so much dross, he needs replacing right now - if not much sooner.”
Ox said, “He’s a big bully of a man.”
I said, “All the better. I could stand to have a little scrap.”
Ox sent a video of him browbeating several females here.
I said, “OX! He intimidates our women? Fuck that shit! I should have been told about his bullying before this.”
I said, “OK, make Nicholson gone as of right now! Then - show me the way to Westermann’s office.”
I walked down the hall. I pushed the door so hard, it came off the hinges.
I shouted, “YOU’RE FIRED, NOW GET THE FUCK OFF MY PROPERTY! ”
“Fff-fuck you, you little weasel, I work directly for Nicholson.”
I said, “I fired him before you.”
“NOW - get the fuck out, or else!”
“Or else what?”
I said, “You won’t like the Or else,” and I smiled at him like a hungry shark.
He came right at me as expected. I was armored, so I slid aside and punched his jaw as hard as I could. I heard the crunch, and he fell to the ground spitting teeth. He will be eating soup for a few weeks. My armored hand had barely felt it.
I grabbed his belt and easily dragged him out and down the hall through a large crowd of shocked onlookers. Then we turned through a crowd of applauding people.
At the bottom of the stairs, I led him straight out front.
I said to him quietly, “If I see you here again, I-WILL-KILL-YOU, do you understand me?”
He mumbled, “I’m going to come back and kill you.”
I said, “Ox, that’s the secret word. The minute he is alone, pop him way out west past the Kentucky area. Maybe near a pack of hungry wolves. That ain’t murder, it is justice.”
“Hungry wolves it is.”
As I walked in, the whole building had turned out to clap their hands. Men shook my hands, and women hugged me. I took my time with the women. I gave every female a quick wet kiss.
As I walked past, they each stood there dumbfounded because they had all just been muddled. Some women touched their lips. I did not kiss the men!
In Rose’s office, she closed the door after me.
She said, “What about Nicholson?”
I said, “I already got rid of him. I could not have two angry men at two ends of the executive hallway doing what they wanted. I made him disappear. Right now, Nicholson is meandering around lost and confused in Philadelphia. You may want to send a messenger for Patsy to come here. After all, her husband was fired, and he ran off from her. Very tragic, very tragic indeed, isn’t it?”
She smiled knowingly and looked dazed. I smelled her. I had made her horny.
Unfortunately, there was an untimely knock, and Rose answered the door.
Flora said, “You wanted me?”
I said, “I wanted you. You are being promoted. Westermann has been fired. The best person to replace him seems to be you. You know the pipe tobacco products and the people here. Your sister is too pregnant to travel. Go to Westermann’s former office and see if you can make heads or tails of anything there.”
I handed her a 50-dollar gold coin. “Oh, and go get some manager saleslady clothes. I will see you in the morning. You and I are going to tour all the remote stores that sell our products. We can do that in the next few days or weeks.”
After she left looking a bit overwhelmed, I said, “Rose, you are the boss here. This is your baby to manage; now you have lost that monkey on your back. Do the best you can I have faith in you. I suggest getting rid of everything in Nicholson’s office. Repaint it, hang new drapes, buy new furniture, the good stuff. You move in there. Get an assistant.”
She said, “So, I am really the big gal here? A female manager. Holy cow.”
“You always were, dear. You ran this place well without any help from Nicholson. I gotta run now. See you in the morning.”
Ox had me in the Flying Fish, aka Pez Volador, heading west-ish towards Franklin.
Ox put me behind a small storage building. I walked out and tracked Mathew down in the main factory building.
I asked”, How goes the cigarillo business?”
“We have rolled a lot of the ones you came up with; The Ordinary Man.
“The Connecticut shade and Connecticut broad-leaf came in. We also got a large shipment of Corojo. The new mixer, Alberto Bescós, is here and hard at work inventing a better cigarillo. We have not hit the perfect combination yet, but he says we are getting close.
I said, “So, you have continued making The Ordinary Man?”
He said, “The Taíno started out well and got faster and faster as they went along. We stopped rolling the cigarillos for now and returned to cigarettes. We had too many cigarillos.”
He continued, “We also got new packaging for both of them.”
I said, “Please show me what the new packaging looks like.”
Cigarillos were arranged in a cigar box in groups of 200. The boxes have waxed paper around them to keep them fresh longer.
Cigarettes are more complex. Eight cardboard packs are inside a cardboard cigarette carton.
Each individual cardboard cigarette pack has a top that opens and closes. Each pack holds 20 cigarettes. Cigarette packs are wrapped in wax paper like the cigarillos.
With 8 cigarette packages to a Carton, there are 160 cigarettes to a carton. Cartons can be easily broken down into individual packs. This is similar to how it’s done on Earth 23. Someone had been given a few ideas to go with. This is getting better.
Each case of cigarettes had 20 cartons wrapped in a brown paper bundle.
Mathew showed me we already had tin cigarette boxes coming in. A tinsmith in Suffolk was making them.
I said, “Have you figured out the cost per cigarillo or cigarette?”
He said, “No, my assistant Soraya Guerrero has. Would you like to go to the office?”
The figures Soraya showed me did not include capital expenses, such as the buildings.
They did include tobacco ingredients. It also did not include ongoing costs such as room, board, and clothing costs, let alone wages. The cost for their rooms was an approximation.
The cost to make the cigarillos and cigarettes was calculated from FOB Franklin, VA. Most costs would change as we got better at what we were doing.
I said to them, “Let me think a minute, you two should go do something. I have to figure out a lot regarding the costs of cigarillos and cigarettes.”
They left.
Ox sent me a video of Westermann running from a pack of wolves. I watched until he was pulled down.
I muttered, “Beat and scream at my employees - asshole.”
“Ox? Anything to say about profits, if any?”
He sent “Here are the totals to date, including everything. Broken up over three years, this is the approximate actual cost per unit. It also lists the recommended introductory price. This does not break even and does not pay back any capital costs. Are profits something you are worried about?”
I said, “Not really. Production cost minus 10 or 15% would be good for the first year. Will that open up a new market?”
Ox said, “In the typical retail tobacco pouch, there is one ounce of tobacco, or 28 grams. The street price for the tobacco is 20 cents per 50 papers, plus 5 cents. That’s 25 cents for the nearest equivalent to our pack of cigarettes. It will make 30 cigarettes, after you roll them.
Ox said, “We should use .9 gram of tobacco per unfiltered cigarette. That would equal 18 grams of tobacco per pack.
( ‘Unfiltered?’ Please not now. )
Ox continued, “Our wholesale cost for a 50-50 blend of burley and Virginia tobacco is 8 cents per pack. Add papers, labor costs, transport, and printing for the cartons and packs, and the price runs up to 9.7 cents per pack. If we give away the cigarette packs at 8 cents wholesale and set the retail price at 14 cents. It will compete best at that price. The convenience is what will initially sell our products.”
Ox said, “The cigarette retailer will do much better than you will. We should do this during the first introductory period. Later on, we raise the price in small steps.”
Ox said, “We won’t make anything; in fact, there will be a constant small drain in the first couple of years.”
Ox continued, “There is another issue. We computed what it would take to expand enough to meet the demand three years from now. We will need a heck of a lot more of everything then. We are talking a lot more tobacco, and at least 100 workers will be rolling cigarettes full-time. Then we would need a warehouse, more employees to handle transportation.”
We see two options. One option would be to start with cigarillos only. We use the profits from that to ease slowly into ready-made cigarettes. It’s either that or we start selling cigarettes in small introductory markets at first. We can do that so growth can be controlled.
I said, “What are you hinting at? If I want to supply almost all cigarettes to everybody in New England, I can’t. I will need a much larger factory and a lot more tobacco?”
Ox said, “Yes. We always knew there would be several years of losses to gain market share. We computed that giving them away at or under actual cost was required for us to gain traction in the market.”
He went on, “When we first discussed this, we anticipated selling for three years under our cost. We can hit break-even in three years, then gradually raise prices in steps. Bear in mind, this is the basic Morgan’s First Pre-rolled cigarettes. Better quality cigarettes will have a higher price, of course.”
I said, “Of course, I get it. I guess you have figured it out, and I can afford to lose money for now?”
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