Chapter 1: A Hard Man Is Good To Find

You know how it is on a new job; everyone smiles a lot, very insincere and tells you how glad they are to meet you and all that phony bullshit. At the same time they are also making up their minds if they really want to like you or not. It's pretty much the same anywhere you go. It was my first " Casual Friday" on the new job. I began to work for Hundley Creations the previous Monday week and at the time had barely started to get settled in and organized.

The office staff mostly came to work in jeans and tee shirts on Friday feeling they had really done something daring. I wore what I always did, jeans, plus a tee shirt with a "message" printed on it. Those shirts were my trademarks. I started wearing them right after I first got out on my own. They were the symbol of my independence and "maturity." This time the message printed in bold letters across my chest stated in black letters, "Good Girls Swallow." Barely two months past my twenty-second birthday, I had two major interests in life, work and sex, but not necessarily in that order. However, because of my chosen profession, my two main interests in life were usually mixed together.

Hundley Creations designed and created everything from custom-made models of ships, cars or whatever you wanted a scale model for, to molds used in injection plastics. In my department, I did lay ups for precision molding and custom prosthetics. Or as far as that goes semi working arms and legs for the movie industry. The mixed bag of people working in my department ranged from the mostly gay "creative staff" to the mostly straight fabrication crew. Fiberglass lay ups and mold making for special projects was a part of my job. Technically I was considered as a member of the "creative" team. But I was straight and got in a couple of fights when I explained "no" did not mean "perhaps. No matter their sexual orientation, there are always a few pushy assholes everywhere you go.

Pert, sexy Nadine Wrigley had been hired the same day as me. Her shoulder length light brown hair sat off an innocent pixie like face highlighted by the most delicious looking lips any woman could dream of owning. I wanted to kiss them the very first time I saw her in personnel. Her non-intellectual job was to push a delivery cart around to the different departments delivering mail, memos and whatever else needed delivering.

The rest of her matched her face. She had just recently graduated from some religious school where copping a feel was more than enough to send you to hell where you burned for all eternity. To me she was a blank page waiting to be written on and I wanted my pen to be the one that did the first writing. Unfortunately I never did get the chance.

That Friday morning she stopped her cart by my work area, brought me a package to sign for and read my tee shirt message. She read it again, frowned and asked, "Swallow what?"

What the hell? I thought as I mentally shrugged my shoulders and explained. By the time I finished my short explanation she was very pissed.

"You filthy creep!" She slapped my face hard and I laughed and rubbed my cheek as she stormed off to make her next delivery. That was on Friday morning.

The following Monday morning my time card was missing from the rack. In its place was a note, "Charles V. Harwood, please report to Ms. Hundley. Oh shit, the Dragon Lady, I thought. Someone else had called her that and it stuck in my mind as being entirely appropriate. I had forgotten all about the Friday slap.

"Ms. Hundley wants to see me," I told the receptionist at the front desk. She sneered at either my tee shirt or me, or both, nodded and buzzed me on through.

I pushed the gate open and hurried through to Ms. Hundley's office. A small brass sign on the door with black lettering stated a simple, "Roberta Hundley." As I stepped through the door she looked at me and frowned.

"Close the door," she commanded.

Still in the dark I closed the door. Her glistening black hair hung down her back. The charcoal pinstriped power suit fit her lean form accentuating her almost greyhound like body. Pert breasts, I estimated them to be probably a B-cup, or even a generous A, made small twin mounds in her suit coat. Grim, just like the Addams Family, was my only thought. I closed the door as she commanded and said "Hi, I'm Charles."

"Yes, I know precisely who you are. The next task is to find out exactly what you are. What do you have to say for yourself?" Right then she did look just like the Dragon Lady in an old black and white war movie I saw on TV not long ago.

"Say about what?" I asked her. "I don't know what you're talking about." I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was deep shit. Just what that problem was I had no clue. I scanned my conscience for something, anything I could have done to piss somebody off. I had forgotten all about sweet looking Nadine.

"I'm referring to the incident on Friday morning when you solicited oral sex from our newest delivery person, Nadine Wrigley." She paused for the longest time before continuing. "Sexual harassment is not tolerated in this company in the least. Now, before I write up your termination papers, perhaps you can shed some light on the matter. I have your complete personnel record from your last employer, so please save me any futile protestations of ignorance or innocence. Speak." It sounded like she was giving a command to a dog.

"This is total bullshit," I told her. "Besides, those personnel files are confidential. You can be sued for mere possession them. That is an invasion of my privacy."

"Charles, from what I have read here," she paused and waved a thin sheaf of papers at me, "you have nothing private about you anywhere. It says here you cast multiple molds of your erect genitalia and created what you called cocksicles. You did this on company time, using company resources. The only reason you weren't fired then and there was the frozen pops were only handed out to the females in your department and none of them would sign a complaint."

"Hey, lighten up. My department head helped me a whole lot when I made that mold. First I had to mix up the casting plaster and then I had to."

"Yes, yes, I am aware of the kind of help your supervisor gave you. The help, ah," she emphasized the word "help." She coughed and continued, "Her help was quite extensive, I imagine. I am aware of the steps such a project would entail." I could not read the woman at all. Her face was stern as a general ordering up a firing squad.

She continued, "Then there was the matter of five pregnancies in your department. There were you, eighteen women of varying ages and one other male who had no interest whatsoever in women all working together. What are you, a sexual plague? How many of those women did you have sex with?"

"That is none of your business," I told her. I needed that job badly. Right then, though, she had begun to piss me off big time.

A small smile creased her thin lips. "Very commendable. Most men would have bragged their heads off when asked such a question. What about the five pregnancies?" This woman was not going to give me any slack at all.

"Look, if you're going to fire me, go ahead. I need this job very much. I have three balloon payments coming up and if I get fired right now I'll lose my car, my Harley and in time, probably my condo." I took a deep breath. "Either fire me or send me back to my job." I looked at her and waited.

"You'll go back to work when I tell you and not before. You are on company time, not your own so I say when you work and where." She leaned forward and looked up at me, "Now how about those pregnancies?"

I wondered what was so interesting about pregnancies. "What in hell do you want from me? One of the girls who got pregnant never had sex with me in any way that could get her pregnant."

"How so?" she asked, openly curious now.

"We went sixty-nine every time," I told her angrily. I fought desperately to control my temper. It seemed I might not get fired, so I tried to play along and hope I'd somehow not lose my new job.

"Ah yes, that is what she told her friends. I thought her parents aptly named her 'Monica'. What about the other four?"

"Buffy I never touched. She named me as the father because her boyfriend walked out and she wanted someone with a job. I was the designated daddy. DNA testing also proved I wasn't the father of two more of them."