Chapter 11

On Monday morning, Brad left on a sales trip and Kim felt lost. In no time flat, she had cleaned the apartment but then had nothing to do except to feel lonely. Brad wasn’t due back until Friday, but he had warned her that he might not even be back for the weekend. His trip would take him to northern California and into Oregon. As she sat nursing a cup of coffee, Kim’s feeling of loss quickly morphed into a feeling of misery.

Then the phone rang. It was George Harrison, chairman of Aerospace Technologies. “Kim,” he began, “I’m not supposed to do this. We said months ago that you would only come back to work when you asked to come back—”

“Consider me to be asking!” Kim interrupted. “Brad just went off on a sales trip and I’m miserable. Now where do I report and what do you want me to do?”

“Well...” he began, “the word around is that you have a new car. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it’s really a road car, right? High-speed grand touring?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look, Kimberly, why don’t you come into the office — we’re not that far away — and Bill and I will explain what we have in mind.” He paused and then added, “And don’t bother to dress. Whatever you’re wearing right now would be fine.”

“But what if I’m not dressed at all?” she asked with a giggle.

“Better yet!” he replied with a aural leer.

Kim was at the office less than fifteen minutes later and was told by the receptionist that George Harrison and Bill Miller were waiting for her in George’s office. The two explained that they were reacting to a suggestion from an employee — unnamed — regarding sales.

“Look,” George explained, “we’re a machine-tool company, but our salesmen aren’t engineers. The suggestion — made by a senior salesperson, by the way — is for us to use team selling: a salesman and a technical support person. Kim, since what we’re now selling are tools you designed yourself, there’s no one in the entire company better qualified for that technical position than you.”

Then the two men explained that she was to meet a salesman at a hotel in Los Angeles. He had their itinerary and had arranged sales appointments. All she would need would be her car — the salesman had a rental car that he was returning — and mostly work clothes. “Oh, yes!” Miller added, “And this.” With that he presented her with a brand new AT hardhat which Kim accepted with a grin.

Racing back to her apartment, Kim quickly packed, put her gear in the car and was off. As she drove she realized that this was her first opportunity to use her car for anything other than around-town driving. She loved the idea of being able to get it out on the open road.

Although it wasn’t quite spring yet, the day was warm and the car’s air conditioning system fortunately worked very well. She grinned to herself when she drove up to the designated hotel and saw the car jockeys falling over each other in a rush to get behind the wheel of such a magnificent machine.

The doorman brought her overnight bag into the hotel and she went to the front desk, not at all sure what to do next. Only then did she realize that the salesman she was to meet had never been identified.

“Hi, sweetie!” Brad whispered in her ear.

Spinning around, she found herself in his arms. It felt wonderful. And although they were standing at the front desk, they kissed.

This is utterly ridiculous! Kim tried to tell herself. We were together all night; it’s not like I haven’t seen Brad in weeks... Notwithstanding, her subconscious mind wasn’t buying what her conscious mind was trying to sell. Admit it, turkey! You’re madly in love with this guy!

Finally they eased apart after both heard those lovely bells. It was only the sound of arriving guests clearing their throats that finally got them to move.

“You’re all checked in, hon,” Brad informed her. “Let’s go.”

Arriving at their room — what Kim initially thought was her room — she found it was a suite and they were together in it.

Well, she thought, no need to worry about whose room we’re sleeping in tonight. Then to Brad she asked, “But what about our expense accounts? What will people say?”

“‘People’ I don’t know about; George and Bill will only ask if we had fun.”

“Did they know you were going to get a suite for us?” she asked wide-eyed.

“Sure. And it’s actually cheaper than two rooms. The company is saving money.”

After washing up, they went down to eat. The hotel’s main restaurant turned out to be a unit of a national chain of white-tablecloth units of which California had scores from all of them. They had a quiet drink and an excellent dinner. It turned out to be very enjoyable for both of them. Each thought they were acting like a married couple and were even talking as if they were, neither said a word to the other about their thoughts. Their conversation was extraordinarily wide-ranging; even though they had been living together for weeks, there was no shortage of things to talk about.

In bed together that night after Kim had gone down on Brad and he had spent nearly an hour feasting on her gushing pussy with her in orgasm for almost the entire time, she found her head resting on his shoulder while she was lying on her side facing him and molding her slender body to his.

“Mmm ... Thank you, Brad. You were wonderful,” she said softly. Then after a pause she asked, “When are you going to fuck me? A couple of times tonight I thought you were about to. Why didn’t you?”

“It’s not time yet.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means it’s not time yet,” he repeated.

“But... ?”

“When are you going to marry me?” he asked.

Kim was about to squawk, but thought better of it. “What do you mean, marry you? Bradley Kramer, get real! You can’t be serious. A guy as handsome as you are can have any girl he wants. There’s no way you would be willing to settle for a plain girl with a nothing body!”

“You’re absolutely right about that,” he agreed. Then he kissed her soundly and went to sleep.

Being left hanging like that, Kim was certain she wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.

The next thing she knew, the phone was ringing with their wake-up call.

Over breakfast in the coffee shop, Brad filled her in on their first sales call. They were visiting a medium-sized manufacturing company of precision parts. The company, Johnson Manufacturing, was interested in possibly replacing an old Aerospace Technologies machine tool. It was one of the very first units AT had ever made and had served the company well. Thus their interest in buying a replacement from AT.

Kim was concerned about wearing Levi’s and a work shirt, but Brad assured her she was fine. Nonetheless, she felt odd driving up to the company in Levi’s while Brad was wearing a business suit with a tie.

Arriving at Johnson, she grabbed her hardhat and followed Brad to the reception area. A secretary soon appeared to take Brad to his appointment and a few minutes later a man appeared to greet Kim. He introduced himself as Sam Baxter, the plant manager, and led the way back to the plant floor.

As soon as they reached the floor, Kim was glad she was wearing what she was. It was already hot and, since it was still early in the day, it was going to get hotter. If the production area was air-conditioned it wasn’t having much effect.

Sam took her to an AT machine and introduced her to its operator, Mary. Kim noted privately the fact that at Johnson, like so many other companies these days, people didn’t seem to have last names. Baxter introduced Kim as the technical expert from AT, and Kim found herself greeted with a frown.

The machine was a small stamping press. Mary took a small sheet of steel from a stack, carefully positioned it in the press, then activated it. After the machine cycled, she removed a formed and punched object, the nearly-finished product. To Baxter’s surprise, Kim wanted to continue to watch the operation, and did. After it had stamped out six objects, Kim took all six and carefully examined them.

Then she pointed out to Baxter in Mary’s hearing that the objects were not identical. “I don’t know what your customer’s tolerances are, but I would have to rate these as pretty marginal,” she said.

“I did it exactly the way I was supposed to!” Mary exclaimed defensively.

“I know you did,” Kim agreed. “I was watching very carefully. You positioned every blank in exactly the correct spot.” Turning to Baxter, she said, “I’m afraid this machine is shot.”

Mary glared at Baxter who reddened. Finally he admitted, “Okay, Mary, I was wrong and you were right. You’ll get your production bonus for the last quarter. I’m sorry you’ll get it a little late, though.”

“If it wouldn’t upset things too much, could you give Mary an unscheduled extra break right now? I would like to shut down this unit and look it over carefully,” Kim said.

Baxter nodded and Mary marched off triumphantly to the plant cafeteria for coffee. With the machine shut down and secured, Kim began to open access ports to look at its innards. When she saw the oil in the oil sump she softly whistled. After pointing it out to Baxter, he called over his maintenance chief, Harvey.

Kim asked him what oil was being used and Harvey proudly replied, “It’s oil we get through a consortium led by Chester Klem. He’s the maintenance guru for all the metal-benders out here. We’ve only been in it for a short time, but we’ve already saved almost $300!”

Kim rolled her eyes. “Harvey, this oil is not up to the required spec. And if you read the warning plate, you’ll see that failure to use the required grade of oil and/or change filters appropriately voids the machine warranty.” She smiled to try to take away some of the sting. “Of course, this machine is long since out of warranty, so it doesn’t matter much. But it could matter a great deal on newer machines, and it’s absolutely vital on the newest equipment we’re shipping now.”

“But Chester says that lube oil is lube oil so we might as well buy the cheapest,” Harvey protested.

“Chester Klem may know machine tools, but he doesn’t know much about lubricating oil,” Kim explained. “Our new equipment specifies a fully-synthetic motor oil. The reason is we’re guaranteeing precision ten times greater than this machine could deliver when it was brand new. The only way we can get that is with synthetic oil. It can and does maintain its film strength at a thickness that’s only a very small fraction of what conventional oil like this can do without breaking down.

“If you tried to use this oil, parts would not be properly lubricated — the oil couldn’t thin down enough to operate in the machine’s very tight clearances. You would have direct metal-to-metal contact, and the machine would be totally fried in a matter of a few weeks.

“I would strongly urge you to change now.”

“Are you sure?” Sam Baxter asked.