Chapter 10

Tuesday Morning.

For two nights in a row, Margaret was too tired to fuck. David shook his head and thought, Either we must be getting old. Or she is having bigger reactions than she wants to admit with respect to the business.

Margaret was sound asleep. She had helped kill and butcher seventy-seven people yesterday, forty of them she had killed herself. She was bone-tired. David’s overtures were carefully dismissed by saying, “Honey, I am plain tired”.

At Findlay’s, Helen was up dicing peppers and onions to put into egg substitute to make omelets for everyone. Adding the imitation bacon bits, mushrooms, and processed cheese food, and soon she would be joined by a hungry group of people, she was sure.

The first down was Candy. Kid woke up happy in the morning. Not like Helen’s daughters. You needed dynamite to get them out of bed.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Helen said. “How are you today?”

“Tired. I did a lot of work yesterday, especially at the end. Had a bit of an argument with that last woman about going through the door. She was nasty, argumentative, and said that “if she was white, she wouldn’t be here.” What I had to say to her was “Well, don’t take it out on me, argue with the folks on the other side of the door.” Got her to follow me. That was the only time I was not real nice. I cut that woman and let her hang by herself.”

“You going to be okay when we do the same thing tomorrow?” Helen asked.

“I think so. I bounce back pretty good normally,” Candy said. “Don’t like people who are mean, though. And I don’t like myself when I run into them.”

“Darling, that is the advantage of a Greek membership and a college education. You have the ability to do the nastiest things to the nastiest people in the nicest way. And never get your skirt dirty,” Helen said laughing.

“Helen, you have to teach me how to think like that.”

“I will, darling. If you promise me that you won’t cut my nerves when the time comes?”

“I promise. I probably won’t be the one to do you anyway. Probably it will be Margaret or Chris.”

“Actually, I prefer you to Margaret. I would prefer to have my husband not fuck the woman who slit my throat.”

“Well, that is kind of hard on me,” Candy said. “Mark is cute and I need some dick too. If you put it that way, I won’t get any from him. And Margaret will. That isn’t fair. She gets to go out and I only get those who are let in.”

“When you put it that way, I guess I am being kind of selfish. Okay. For you only, there is an exception. And I will put it in writing. But you have to deal with him. I can’t order him,” Helen said.

“Well, if you don’t order him not to, I can work the rest,” Candy said with a smile.

“You minx,” Helen retorted.

“A very good friend of mine told me to be adaptable. Which is why I took James upstairs.”

“How was he?”

“Okay. He was kind of reserved. I don’t think he has had a young woman for a long time. But he was good and hard for a long time and I got off on top.”

“So we heard,” Helen teased.

Candy blushed, embarrassed. “I tried to be quiet,” she said quietly.

“Honey. When you are cumming, it is God’s gift to you to be as loud as you want as long as you want. Don’t ever worry about that,” Helen admonished. “All three of us hussies laughed at it. We laughed at it, not at you. Happy laughs. Okay?”

“Okay. If you say so.”

At that moment, the rear entry door chimed. Going to the admission panel, Candy hit the answer code.

“Hello. Who is it?” She asked.

“It’s Tim from H&S. I am here to pick up.”

“I am sorry you are early but we can’t let you in until the Findlay’s or another of our supervisors arrives,” Candy answered.

“Aww. But I got a permission slip,” Tim said.

“What does that mean?” Candy asked.

“It means his wife gave him permission to fuck around. Here is your dick for the day, dear.”

“Not until David or someone else gets here. Remember what Carol and David said about third parties? That was why I had to top Melissa.”

“But, child, we are all on the short stick anyway. What do we have to lose?”

“We all have it to lose,” Candy said. “Remember, we all get rounded up and termed. Besides, I think I want Barbara to do blood tests first. Just because we are here, does not mean we have to get something venereal.”

“Party pooper. But you are right on the last point. No need everyone coming to a bad ending.”

“Sorry, Tim. But we have to wait until we get clearance from David,” Candy said.

“Okay. Understood.”

Chris, Marty and Carl arrived about thirty minutes later. After buzzing the door, Candy came down and let them in. Marty told Tim in no uncertain words to behave himself.

“We have a lot of work to do and we don’t need any problems. We have your last batch to carve up. They have been hanging in the cooler and we need to get them pieced and boxed.”

“Max said you didn’t have to carve them small. Just box in loin, roasts, hams, thighs and calves. Our meat cutters can do the rest. In fact, I could take them on hooks in the truck.”

“Let David talk with you guys about that. We don’t want to get any flashback about not piecing things out and marking.”

“Well, none of you are supposed to do anything until after breakfast. Helen and Carol are cooking and it smells good,” Candy said, while leading the way to the break-room.

You know Marty thought Maybe this place needed a woman’s touch all along. Breakfast is not a bad fringe.

Coming into the plant, David was not surprised to see the truck from H&S. He was surprised to see Barbara’s car as well as Christen’s. Christen only worked three days a week.

After Candy buzzed him in David was greeted by the sound of giggling and laughter down the hall. Coming down the hall to the break room he saw Helen, Carol, Liz and Candy as well as Barbara and Christen all drinking coffee. The laughter was light and stress free.

“Well, ladies, it is a pleasure to see all of you here. Even the ones that don’t have to be here,” David said.

Barbara look up and said, “I just wanted to get a jump on tomorrow. Eighty is a lot of sample kits and it was a rush to make them up as we went.”

“And I just wanted to meet all the new people you brought into here,” Christen said. “We are all wondering when you are going to relax the rules on dragging the men upstairs.”

Candy got red in the face but bravely added, “Yes. We have to have some recreation here.”

“You got pretty well ‘recreated’ yesterday morning, as I remember,” Carol remarked with a smile.

“And yes, I thank you very much. But we are going to need more,” Candy said while still blushing.

“Hussy,” Helen said.

“Takes one to know one,” Candy rejoined with a smile.

Sensing that this sort of banter was best left among the females in the room, and being outnumbered, David took his coffee with him and went down the hall to his office.

Going through his e-mail and voice mail only took a few minutes. He was at first surprised to see e-mail from USDA division office. Suddenly, David remembered what Carl had said. Better get onto that.

“USDA. How may I direct your call?”

“David Findley for Mr. Davenport.”

“Hold on, sir.”

“Mr. Davenport’s office. How may I help you?”

“David Findley of Findley processing.”

“And what is this in regards to?”

“A private matter,” David replied.

“Just a moment.” About a minute later the voice came back onto the call and said, “Just a moment and I will transfer you.”

“Charlie Davenport.”

“Mr. Davenport, this is David Findley. Carl German told me to expect your call and I am returning your call.”

“Thank you for returning my call, Mr. Findley. I normally don’t interfere with local government, but my daughter is scheduled for this week, and she was supposed to go to Myers and Hitchcock. But they aren’t much better than H&S. Carl told me that the plant you have is a lot better and that Carla would be treated better.”

“Well, Carl has watched our plant for a long time and he keeps us straight. We do have some programs we are putting in place that he likes, and we also have some special processing we are doing as well. If your daughter would like, she can call us here and come in today or Thursday for an intake discussion. No processing on Tuesday or Thursday, and we will help make things easier. Then we could do her on Saturday which is our catch up and light day.”

“What do you do on an intake?” Davenport asked. This sounded a little strange.

“I have some counselors here who help to make sure that all the loose ends are tied up. Will’s, documentation, last minute things that you don’t want to forget. We are developing a checklist. We also make sure that any special requests that we can provide are taken care of.”

Davenport was quiet for a moment. It was strange that a slaughterhouse was doing this. “How long have you been doing this?” he asked David.

“It is something I have had in mind for a while. We started last week. And we have a different model for mass production as well. My wife just passed exclusion and she is now getting involved in the business. She is telling me all the things I didn’t do right before.”

“They do that, don’t they?” Davenport laughed.

“Yes. But I see that she was right. I should have had her come in with me a long time ago.”

“So. What are the next steps?” Davenport asked. He really had no clue.

“Tell you what. Have her call me, and if she can come down today we will do intake. If she likes us, I will help her to get through the re-assignment process. No use doing it behind her back. Leave her some choice in this,” David said.

“Okay,” Davenport said. He was shocked. He would not have expected to have them allow his daughter to interview them. Cows, sheep and sows don’t get to select their slaughterhouse. This fellow was a little strange.

David’s next call was to his friend at the MAB. Delores had left him her personal line and he wanted to ask her a couple of questions about the reassignment process.

“Assignment Board, this is Delores.”

“Delores, this is David Findley at Findley Processing. I was wondering if you had a moment.”

“Good morning, David. What can I help you with? You getting another re-assignment?”

“Actually I wanted to talk to you about that too. I have a young woman that may want to come here from Myers and Hitchcock. And I was wondering if the selectee can do any of that legwork themselves?”

“Well, they can, to a certain extent. If they log into the MAB web site, and select status at the information page, they go into an area where they can see their assignment. If they enter in their SSN, they can then modify their selection. There are only a few selections on the page. Let me see something.”

David was entertained by the sound of keys typing for a few minutes and suddenly Delores said “Now that is interesting. The selection for H&S and for M&H was listed but yours was blanked out. I need to get that fixed. Just one second. There. Now your place is listed too. I guess we didn’t get a feedback from your father when we made this web page. David, could you do me a favor, dear?”

“Almost anything, Delores.”

“I am going to send you a e-mail as a request to be included in the selection page of the assignment support services page. If you could agree to that and send that back to me so I have electronic copy in file that would be great.”

“I sure will. Now when would a selectee make this choice or modification?”

“Any date prior to the last report date. We don’t start to block until last date of report.”

“Great. Now I have another question. Can a woman who is not a selectee but is in the lottery make a preference choice?”

“Now you know we had a lot of dust up about that a few years ago. H&S and M&H both wanted to keep allocations guaranteed to their operations. But there was a lawsuit on that which opened up the choice. So we were required to do this page I just talked to you about. Now on the lottery page, we have a page for input choices, but no one ever does. Most women prefer to wait until their number is called and just show up. I know I put it out of my mind as much as I could.”

“Okay. So I go to the lottery page and go to where?”

“Client services. Two pages down you have a link that goes to prospective client choices. From there it looks for your SSN and PIN and gives you selections. Wait just a second. Yes, you are there. And you aren’t blocked. So someone who is in the lottery could select you in advance of being picked. Are you looking to advertise? H&S does.”

“Really? Where?”

“On the page of selections they have a box at the bottom for their business. It has a link to that reporter’s story from last year.”

“So I could put something there too?”

“Sure. You have to pay for it. Advertising is about $1500 a month.”

“That could be money well spent.”

“I am not sure, I have only seen eight women who chose their slaughterhouse before they were picked. And two of them never did get picked.”

“Well, you have to do what you can. It is a tight market. I got your e-mail, and I am signing and sending it back to you right now.”

“Thanks, David. That just keeps everything covered if there is an audit.”

“Delores, as always, thank you. I have to go to get some things done here. Let me know if I can ever help you.”

“I am too old to be selected, but I will keep you in mind for anyone I know.”

After adding the two pages to his browser favorites, David pushed them to all of the computers on the network at Findlay. Now all he had to do was teach his “staff” how to sell.

Three hours later, leaving his office, David noticed that the break-room was empty. He refilled his coffee cup and went down to reception where he was greeted by Helen and Candy talking to three women.

“Hello, David. Clair, Jeannie and Amy missed yesterday and I was going to ask you if we could help them today? And this young woman is Carla Davenport. She said that father said he was going to talk with you and that she wanted to as well.”

“Ladies. We would be happy to help you. Helen, why don’t you help these three through the standard intake and Candy, keep Carla company for a few minutes while I check in back.”

Standing next to Helen, David whispered, “I have to help you a bit with Carla, and we are doing a re-assignment. We will do that when I get back.”

Helen nodded her head and started to prepare envelopes for the three late arrivals.

David walked down the hallway to the examination rooms where he found Barbara setting up trays for tomorrow. “Barbara, Want a full day’s pay?”

“What for?”

“I have at least three to be processed, maybe a fourth, and I am going back to check on the status of storage.”

“Okay. I could use the money,” Barbara said.

That reminds me, I have to get to Max and get the settlement for Friday and yesterday. David thought.

Going on to stripping, David asked Christen if she could help with four today. “We will be finished quick. I will pay you for the morning.”

“David, I can always use the money. Thanks.”

David went through the back access door and around to the plant and found that Chris, Meyer and Gus were all working on bodies. By count, there were twelve on hooks left. “Hey, guys. Got room for four more? “ David asked.

“Boss, we will, but we will be working the whole day.”

“So I pay you. Is that so bad? Where is that driver for H&S?”

“Sitting in his truck. Barbara did a blood test of him and found out he had the clap. He has to figure out how to explain it to his wife.”

“Why did he get a blood test here?”

“Cause Helen told him he couldn’t fuck anyone here if he didn’t have a STD test as of today. Barbara pulled it and found it.”

Hmm. My people are changing my rules on me, David thought. Still, women peak at forty and he had three in that range. And Candy was a sweet little thing too. I guess I better think this through some more.

“So, do I have to talk to the ladies about what is acceptable behavior?” David asked.

“Sure. You do that boss. Let them tell you what is acceptable behavior,” Marty retorted with a laugh. “ I am sure your Missus and the rest of these will tell us all what the rules on pussy are pretty soon.”

David snickered in agreement. Smiling, he moved on through and back up to the office. Have to get that settlement done. Don’t want Max to drag it out.

Meanwhile, Helen was helping the three women with their paperwork while Candy was talking with Carla.

“Do you work here?” Carla asked.

“Yes. I do a little of this and a little of that. Mainly, I just help people,” Candy answered.

“So, how are they? How do they treat people?”

“Well, I am one of them and I think I treat people pretty good.”

“Yeah, but you are a woman. How do the men treat you?”

“Actually the men are very gentle. And I will be with you all the way through.”

“Really? I was afraid of all kinds of things. Like being abused. I mean, I am meat, but I’m still me.”

“Honey,” Candy leaned forward saying, “Do you see anyone here who is meat? We are all people. You come in here a person. You don’t get treated like meat until you are just meat. And that is not while you are alive.”

“So. How do they kill you?”

“Carefully. It is almost painless.”

“Really?”

“Yes. So tell me about yourself.”

“I am twenty-three years old, married for two, and I think I am pregnant. What will they do about that?”

“We have a nurse here that verifies pregnancy. And we do a sex determination of the baby. If it is a boy, you go home. If it is undetermined, I guess they keep you here until they can figure out if it is a boy or a girl. How far along are you?”

“I am six weeks along.”

“I don’t know how well we can determine, but they sent my friend Stacy home Friday and she was only two months along.”

“Wow. She was lucky.”

“Sometimes luck happens. Anyway, I think Helen is finished with Clair, Jennie and Amy. I am going to take them on back to the Exam room. I will be back up here and we can talk again soon.”

David came into the reception just as Candy was disappearing to the back with her string. Carla was sitting with Helen looking at the computer.

“Howdy, ladies. Sorry, I was doing that boss thing and walking around bothering people. So, Carla, What do you think of us so far?”

“Different. Dad said you would do an intake today and maybe do processing tomorrow or Thursday?

“Sure. We are normally open Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but we have had a much larger workload lately and we are doing catch up. Has Helen taken you through the questionnaire?”

“We were just going through that now,” Helen said.

Going through the new questionnaire, Carla said after a few minutes “Wow. You guys check everything. Bank accounts closed, credit cards closed, will finished, utilities notified, pets taken care of. This is like a real checklist.”

“We don’t want people to worry about last minute things they forgot about,” David said. “My wife would kill me.”

“Your wife works here?” Carla said.

“His wife is my best friend. She has a very active interest in the business,” Helen said. “In fact, I got reassigned, just like you are thinking of, so David and his team could process me, instead of a bunch of strangers.”