Chapter 8

The next morning it was Jack's cell phone that woke them.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Phillips?" a professionally cheerful voice asked.

"Yes?"

"This is Miss Jefferies at Smith and Brown Distributing. Ms. Krieger has called an emergency meeting for this morning, and your attendance is required."

"What time?"

"Nine AM."

"Uh, it's now eight fifteen."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, please inform Ms. Krieger that I am on my way and will be there as soon as I can, but it takes 45 minutes to get there with no traffic."

"Very well, sir. Good morning."

Jack jumped out of bed and ran to his workstation to double-check his e-mail. He confirmed there was nothing new from good old S&B, his 'nightmare client'. Feeling slightly better, he rushed through his morning ablutions and dressed while talking to Genie. "I have an emergency meeting, then a meeting with a potential new client. Do you want to come with me or hang out here?"

"Do you mind if I come with you?"

"No, but you will need to come as your ghost self again, at least once we get close to their office."

"Ok."

Jack grabbed his laptop case and they dashed out the door at eight thirty.

It took them just over an hour to get to the office building, record time in Monday morning traffic, although Jack didn't drive particularly fast or recklessly. He decided early in the commute that he was not going to be pushed around by S&B anymore. They were once a great client to work with, but after a wholesale staff change a couple of months ago, things had quickly gone down hill. They were now erratic and unrealistically demanding, mostly due to the administration of one Ms. Krieger, the new operations manager.

Genie disappeared from the passenger seat as they pulled into the parking lot. Jack parked, entered the building, rode the elevator up to S&B's floor, and presented himself to the receptionist at almost exactly 9:45.

"Yes, Mr. Phillips, they are waiting for you in the conference room."

"Thanks."

He walked to the proper door and quietly opened it and entered the room. Ms. Krieger turned her prune faced, steel gray hair-bunned countenance toward him immediately. "Mr. Phillips, you are forty five minutes late. That is completely unacceptable."

He had been expecting something like this, and was prepared. "Ms. Krieger, you will need to take that up with whoever chose to call me at eight fifteen this morning to attend a meeting at nine. It takes forty five minutes to drive here with absolutely no traffic. This was common knowledge to your predecessors. It is completely ridiculous to expect me to get here in that amount of time during Monday morning rush hour, not to mention the additional time I need to gather my materials. In the future, if you request my presence at a meeting, you will give me sufficient notice if you expect me to arrive on time."

Ms. Krieger stared at him coldly as he took a seat, a stare he knew she used on many of her employees to dominate them. He stared calmly back, refusing to be kowtowed. It was remarkable what having your own Genie did for one's backbone, even if she was 'only' a sexual one. As they continued the stare-down, he smiled inwardly. He was fairly certain it was she herself who had directed he be called at eight fifteen for a nine o'clock meeting, and thus that he had just implied she was pretty much an uninformed idiot.

She finally harrumphed and said, "We'll get back to you in a few minutes, Mr. Phillips." She turned her glare on someone else.

As he waited, he woke up his laptop and pulled his files for S&B from his bag, figuring he would need them in the coming confrontation. He then idly looked around the table, pulling up the magic tote board on the women to pass the time. There were only two women, and that was if you counted Ms. Krieger. He checked her first, wondering if her dominating practice at work was part of some larger dominance thing she had going on. Aside from lacking her virginity, though, her tote board was almost puritanically bland.

He then looked at Margaret, one of the few old employees left in the meeting, and a fairly cool one. Before he could read anything on her though, she noticed his gaze and looked back. He indicated Ms. Krieger with a twitch of his head and rolled his eyes. She bit her upper lip to stop from grinning. Luckily Ms. Krieger was squawking in another direction and didn't notice. Margaret returned her attention to the tirade, and he returned his to her tote board. He studied it for a moment, then thought, Genie?

Yes, Jack?

What am I seeing here? It looks like her sexual interest is fairly high and varied, while her experience, while fairly frequent, is pretty narrow. Does that mean anything in particular?

Just that she is fairly typical of many women her age.

How so? Jack asked.

Well, it's a similar situation to what we discussed the other day in the mall. Just as this society's traditions and stereotypes prevent many young men and women from enjoying sexual activity until long after they are actually ready, so do those traditions and stereotypes prevent women, and to a lesser extent men, from experiencing as wide a variety of sexual activities as they would like for fear of endangering their standing in society.

That's pretty deep. To translate, she doesn't want to suggest anything that might be seen as kinky by her sexual partners because she doesn't want to look like a slut or a freak?

Pretty much, Jack, although it goes a bit beyond that. She also worries about her career if her reputation is 'tarnished', things like that.

I see. Does she have a boyfriend?

She has someone who she sees fairly regularly. They are both career driven, so it's currently mostly a sexual relationship.

Ok, and does he also have some activities he might like to try, but hesitates to suggest or request them for similar reasons?

Yes.

Well, what say we have them loosen up around each other enough to discuss what they would like to try, knowing that they won't be judged by the other person. They should try what they are both comfortable with. Even if a particular activity doesn't really interest one of them, that person might gladly participate in exchange for the same consideration from the other for a different activity. And each should feel safe in the knowledge that, no matter how their relationship ends, if it does, they will both be discreet about their sexual activities. Will that work ok without changing their personalities, you know, who they are?

Tingle. That should work fine, Jack.

Ok, then make it so! Goodness knows she needs something fun in her life, what with having to work every day in the hell hole this place has become.

Right on cue, Ms. Krieger barked, "Mr. Phillips. Would you care to explain why our latest pricing schedule is not yet posted on our website, a clear violation of our contract with you?"

He took a moment to refocus his attention on her and collect his thoughts. "Because you have not sent me the price file. The last one I received was last month's."

"Not true, Mr. Phillips, and even the one you mention was posted late, also in violation of our contract. Mr. Wesson?" She turned to one of the cronies she had brought in with her to replace existing staff.

Mr. Wesson turned a smarmy smirk Jack's way. "I sent you the pricing file Friday afternoon at four PM, Mr. Phillips," he said, indicating his own laptop.

"I see. Odd that I never received it. My e-mail server has not been down. Would you mind showing me the message?"

"Absolutely," Mr. Wesson said, obviously relishing the opportunity to prove Jack was shirking his contractual duty.

Jack rose and walked behind Mr. Wesson's chair. He studied the message Mr. Wesson highlighted in his sent folder for a moment, and then said, "Um, yeah, Mr. Wesson, the beginning of my e-mail address is spelled j-a-c-k, not h-a-c-k. No wonder the message never arrived. You typed my e-mail address incorrectly."

Mr. Wesson's smirk quickly evaporated as he looked fearfully at Ms. Krieger, but before anyone else could say anything, Jack requested, "Could you click here, please?" indicating Mr. Wesson's inbox. He did, probably to postpone Ms. Krieger's wrath rather than to accommodate a request from Jack. "Now scroll down a bit... ah, here it is. If you will open that unread message, sent to you a couple of minutes after you attempted to e-mail me, I believe you will find an automatic notification that your e-mail was sent to an invalid e-mail address." Jack turned to face the harpy.

"Ms. Krieger, I'm sorry, but there is no way for me to post a pricing file which was not sent to me. Mr. Wesson's predecessor and I had an informal but effective system in place to prevent this sort of thing, where he would make a follow-up phone call to me after sending the file, just so I knew it was coming. We only needed the system once, near the beginning of my contract, when there was an issue with your e-mail server. When I didn't receive the file within thirty minutes of the time he called, I called him back and he successfully resent the file. Simple and effective. I requested that Mr. Wesson implement the same system, but he refused."

Ms. Krieger glared at Mr. Wesson for a moment, but then turned back to Jack. "Well if your system is so smart it can let Mr. Wesson know that he typed your name wrong, why didn't it just send the message on to you."

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then replied with obviously forced patience, "Ms. Krieger, what happens if you dial a wrong phone number, an invalid phone number?"

She blinked at the apparent change of subject. "Well, the little recording comes on to tell you that you have dialed a phone number which is not in service. What does this have to do with... ?"

Jack interrupted, "So, if the machine is so smart that it knows you are dialing a wrong number, why doesn't it connect you with the number you meant to dial?"

"Well..."

He could tell she understood what he was getting at, if not the specifics, and that she didn't want to reply, so he answered for her. "Because the machine can't read your mind to find out which one of the thousands of possible numbers you really meant to call. The same goes for the e-mail server."

She blinked at him for a moment, then rallied and attacked again. "Regardless, Mr. Phillips, our contract clearly states..."

"Ms. Krieger," he interrupted in a firm voice, "let me remind you of a few things in the contract you keep trying to bludgeon me with. It states that the price file you are so concerned about is to be delivered to me no later than eight AM on the second Friday of each month. I then have eight business hours to post it to your website, barring any unforeseen technical problem, the possibilities of which are also outlined in the contract. You mentioned the lateness of last month's posting. That was due to you getting the pricing file to me three business days late. It was posted to your website within two business hours of my receipt. This was not a breach of contract on my part.

"This month's file is not posted yet because I have not received it due to multiple errors by one of your own staff members. One: he mistyped my email address, an address which should have been in his address book since he uses it on a regular basis, by the way. Two: he chose to ignore an obvious error message which he received within a couple of minutes of sending the original file, and three: he chose to abandon a working backup plan without being willing to explore any alternatives. None of this is my fault.

"Oh, and by the way, Mr. Wesson just proudly mentioned his attempt to send me the file on Friday at four PM. That's six business hours after your own deadline. If I had received that file at four on Friday, I would have until three today to post it per the stipulations in the contract. You called me in one and a quarter business hours after you thought you had sent the file."

He paused, but before Ms. Krieger could respond, he said, "One other thing the contract stipulates, something I notice has not been a topic of your discussion, is that I am to be paid my fee on the first day of each month. I have not received last month's payment, or this month's. This puts you over forty five days past due, and definitely IS a gross breach of contract, wouldn't you say?" He couldn't resist adding, "You have read the contract, right?"

At this point she looked about ready to lose it, apparently not knowing how to handle having her will so stymied by anyone, especially a lowly contractor. Through gritted teeth, she said, "Mr. Phillips, you will accompany Mr. Wesson to his office to obtain the price file, after which you will work in a spare cubicle until the website has been updated."

"No Ms. Krieger, I will not. Per the contract, if at any time your payments to me are more than 30 days overdue, any and all support of your website will halt until ALL overdue fees are paid. Out of professional courtesy, I had planned to update your website on Friday before informing you of the halt until fees were paid. At this point, I am afraid I will need all payments before any more work is done. But I will do this," he looked at his watch, "I have a meeting with another client at one PM, after which I can stop back by here and..."

"YOU HAVE OTHER CLIENTS?!" Ms. Krieger all but shouted, her eyes bugging out. He expected her to start foaming at the mouth. "Wait... right... here," she sputtered, and stormed quickly out of the room.

Mystified, Jack looked around the table to try to get some clue as to what this latest insanity was. He didn't get much, though, as everyone looked to be intently studying the toes of their shoes, perhaps wishing they could join them under the table. So, he shrugged and waited calmly.

A moment later she stormed back in. Sounding like a school headmistress addressing a misbehaving child, she said, "You will come with me, boy. Now."

Jack rose. "Ms. Krieger, you will speak to me in a professional manner or this meeting is over."

She smiled a nasty smile. "Very Well. Mr. Phillips, would you please come with me. Mr. Brown would like a few words with you." This resulted in a few gasps from around the table. Mr. Brown was one of the co-Presidents of the company. The other, Mr. Smith, had passed away several years ago.

Jack smiled back. "Certainly," he said cheerfully.

He followed her down the hall and into an elaborately but tastefully decorated office. Behind the desk sat an erect, elderly gentleman.

"Mr. Brown, here he is," Ms. Krieger said obsequiously.

The elderly man looked up from the papers he was reading. "Mr. Phillips, I understand that you are guilty of several severe subcontractor contract infringements. Would you care to explain yourself, or do we need to do this in the courtroom?"

"Well, sir, may I ask first whether you have read the contract in question?"

"No, not your particular one, but Ms. Krieger has filled me in on all the pertinent facts."

"Sir, it has become quite apparent over the last hour or so that Ms. Krieger has pretty much no clue what is in my contract." She started sputtering at this, but Jack continued, "I respectfully but strongly recommend that you read the contract in its entirety before we continue. I have a photocopy of the signed contract here if you don't wish to take the time to find your original."

"Copies can be altered," Ms. Krieger hissed.

Jack turned to confront her. "Ms. Krieger, your accusation is unprofessional and illogical. Both your company and I have signed and notarized copies of the original contract. What good would it do me to try to pass off an altered photocopy?" He turned to Mr. Brown, "Sir, if this is the kind of treatment I continue to receive from your employee, then we CAN continue this in the courtroom."

"That's enough, Ms. Krieger. Let me have the contract, son."

Jack handed him the papers, then sat down to wait. He passed the time by toying with the idea of giving Ms. Krieger an irresistible compulsion to fuck German Shepards.

Finally Mr. Brown said, "Very well. Now, Ms. Krieger, please tell me your concerns again."

"Well, sir, Mr. Phillips refuses to uphold his end of the contract and post our pricing on the website in a timely manner. Even worse, he has other clients."