Shifting Gears Ch. 25-26

Chapter 25 -- A Sudden Change in Direction

Tom plunged over eight inches of awesome man meat into my pussy as I lay almost spread-eagled on Mike and Grace's living room sofa. Mike was fucking Connie nearby, Owen was balls deep in Candy on the facing sofa, and Grace was being plundered by Chad in the big cushy chair. The evening was young.

Tom was a mildly sophisticated business man from the Denver area. He'd been discovered on a dating website by Grace and Mike, as they looked for a single male to balanced out the fun they had with Connie, Chad, and Candy. Tom had passed muster, and once the situation had been explained promised to never 'get romantic' with Connie. She would have to ask him if she wanted anything more than a friends-with-benefit relationship, and even then, they only did the FWB thing when they were together with other couples.

Tom was about fifty, drove an older Porsche, and read extensively about everything going on in the world. We thought he should try to go on Jeopardy. I teased him when that comment was made: 'Alex, I'll take sex for a thousand, please.' Tom did understand sex, a woman's body, and how to get the most mileage for a man his age. He loved oral.

The fifth orgasm of the night slammed into my body, and I also felt Tom's jettison of a large load of cum into my inner depths. For him, there'd never been a question, but what, after cuddling after our mutual orgasms, that he would go down on me and clean up the territory. That brought me to orgasm number six and a great appreciation for the new man.

I cuddled with Tom and watched the others finish up the round. Everyone looked happy. Grace eventually got up and did her sexy walk into the kitchen and brought back water bottles for everyone. Sex was hot work.

I continued to cuddle with Tom. He had me in his lap with an arm around me, his hand cupping my breast. I liked that he paid attention to me that way.

Mike said, "Well, tomorrow is a work day, so I suspect we might want to think about an earlier bedtime that we did on Saturday night." Everyone nodded.

Owen and I had been asked by Mike and Connie to come to Denver, both for our weekend debauchery, as well as to actually do some billable work on some week days. We again stayed with Mike and Grace at their home.

Monday, Owen went off to work with Mike. There had been some problems with their network security, including what appeared to be one partly successful hacking attempt. Mike's hope was that Owen would be able to find and fix the holes that existed in their Internet presence.

I left and connected with Connie at her new and enlarged jewellery and design center in the downtown galleria. Her locale was now several jumps upscale from when I'd first met her, and she attributed her success to my work in marketing and her online presence. She was increasingly known in the country and Europe as a source for beautiful jewelry.

Connie spent several hours with me talking about her hopes for her business and also for her marketing sphere of influence. I took copious notes and then also interviewed several of the people that worked for her. I explained to her what I thought I could do, and pointed out where I thought I'd run into problems making her every wish come true. One of my consultant friends had cautioned me to always manage client expectations. Better to exceed expectations than to fall short.

At the end of the day, we joined Chad and Candy, Owen, and Mike and Grace for dinner at a Thai restaurant. We did not do a 'group grope' as we had the night before. After dinner, we went our separate ways, although Owen did spend the night with Grace, as I cuddled up with Mike in his bed; and yes, we all had sex, of course.

Tom has asked me to have coffee with him on Tuesday morning. I wondered what he had in mind. He'd been evasive about his work, so I just turned off my curiosity to let him come to me. I had the feeling he was an executive for some company, but not much else.

I met Tom at a Starbucks that he'd given me directions to. He was waiting and full of smiles. He was casually dressed and his clothes were definitely not Walmart quality. He had high-end tastes.

Tom and I did some small talk, but I could tell there was a large issue on his mind. He finally shifted to his primary purpose for our meeting.

"Brie, I talked extensively to Mike, Candy, and Connie about the work you did for them, and then, with a little more effort I checked out a few of your others clients and your previous work for Knightsbridge near where you live. I am impressed and I think you can help me -- help us.

"I work for an engineering company -- PiRsquared Engineering or simply PR. I actually head the group, and own controlling interest. I am assuming this discussion is extremely confidential. I want to sell my asset to another company. I know who might pay top dollar for it, including buying me out as well as the other shareholders. That's top secret.

"I need to dress up PR and make it more appealing in the meantime, to attract that bid I seek, as well as to attract new business and help me close on some of the things we're bidding on. The activities to do those are all congruent, I think.

"I've beat on our information technology department, but they lack creativity. Their technically astute, I assume, but I need someone like you who is creative and innovative, and who can blend the business, marketing, and public technology presence. Owen impressed me, and I assume that he could help you with some of the I.T. stuff."

I held up my hand. "What does your company do? How big is it -- ten people, a hundred?"

Tom smiled. "We have six-thousand people scattered around the world. We're a multi-billion dollar a year business, highly profitable, and we take on some very high-risk projects from time to time. Those pay well, but if we fail, we could lose our shirts. We have the London Cross-City Rail project, and are also competing to rebuild the port of Colombo in Sri Lanka. We helped add another shipping lane to the Panama Canal. We have other projects that are less visible, but very large ranging from skyscrapers to sections of controversial rail lines in this and other countries. We do the engineering, kind of like an architect designs a house and makes sure it won't fall down. Others built it and we ensure they do it to our specifications. Most of our projects go on for years not months."

I gasped, "Oh. Are you sure you want me? I'm... a nobody."

"Yes. I've vetted you and think you're the right person for what I have in mind. You just have to scale up your thinking from six people to six thousand."

Tom spent the next hour laying out what he thought could happen. This would call on every pore of my body to be efficient, effective, and transformational on his behalf. He knew I had a couple of other people working for me, and expected that they'd also be involved and that I'd also hire more people -- many more."

I was speechless. He wanted me to set up a full-fledged consulting company and start charging him for our services to improve his company in dozens of different ways.

I followed him back to his company's headquarters in my rental car, and he introduced me to some of his other executives that were in offices near his. I was glad that I was sharply dressed. A few of them knew of my impending presence. I wondered whether they had the long knives out."

Tom, his top marketing VP, the I.T. director, and I went to lunch. I had to put on my 'big boy' persona. I thought I asked astute questions to the two other men as we ate, and I got a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.

In terms of weakness, they were all engineers and thought that way. They saw the problem of improving public presence as a black box with inputs -- the world situation and need for large projects, and outputs -- what they did as a company. Inside the box they were supposed to win contracts, even mammoth ones, create the support systems around the world, crank out the engineering plans and management expertise and oversee the delivery of the results on time and in budget. The 'people' side of the equation was given short shrift.

Later, as Tom and I talked alone, he asked what I thought of the two men. I gave him my frank assessment -- too focused on engineering, and not enough on either marketing or the innovative application of technology.

Tom smiled, "I knew I had the right person. Get to work." He laughed.

I still didn't know what I needed to do. "Tom, I need to write a proposal, but this job is so big that I don't even know how to price my services. This could take a long time, too."

"I expect that. Just give me a one-page letter that states that you will deliver custom management consulting expertise to me at a rate of $150,000 per month. For what I expect, you'll bill your time to me at $800 per hour. I figure that's what you're worth. That's what McKennitt Consulting wanted to charge me for their top people, and they didn't have a wit's idea about what I was even talking about. Further, they did not level with me, as you did, about their opinions of the men I've introduced you to. I can trust you, I'm sure. If you need more money than what I just stated, let me know and we'll do another letter contract or expand this one. Needless to say, we have deep pockets and this is important.

I blubbered, "Tom, that's $6,400 per day just for me."

"I know. Bill out Sheri and Maryann at a little less, and your other people as you see fit on that same scale. I know you have a few other jobs, and you should honor those, and even get yourself other new business. You should also charge your time today to this project." I wondered how he knew about Sheri and Maryann, but didn't ask.

"I'll want to talk to the rest of your management team, and dive down in some areas talking to other managers and project leaders."

"Good way to start. My secretary, Tara, can help set up the meetings." He yelled out the door of his office and a gorgeous redhead came in and we met. She looked like she walked out of a dream, and had more smarts than anybody else I'd met except Tom. She was charged with helping me set up meetings and such. I could see we'd be friends."

After Tara left, I whispered to him, "Does our... outside relationship overly complicate things?" I thought of how good his cock had felt inside me the night before as he spewed about a gallon of man cum inside me after a long fuck session.

Tom shook his head. "If it does, let me know. I compartmentalize and I suspect that you do, too. On this job, by the way, if anybody asks, we met at a cocktail party and I was impressed with your credentials, so vetted and hired you on a tentative basis to see what you could do for our company. There's a lot of truth to that story. Mike, Candy, and Connie recommended you, too. Also, if I'm not happy about something you're doing, you'll hear about. Conversely, I do lavish praise, so expect that, too."

"Do any of the others in our outside group know about this?"

"To some extent, yes. Mike knew I might hire you today, so that's not a secret. All the motivations behind what I'm having you do are better left unstated. Keep it limited to merging technology and marketing for PR Engineering, and that should gloss over the details."

I had a flash of insight. "I'd like to start by interviewing Tara."

Tom looked surprised, but chuckled. "You'll get right to the core of the matter. She's worked for me for twelve years, and yes, we are occasionally intimate."

I was right about Tara. We spent two hours together over coffee. She got someone to sit in for her to handle calls. She knew how the company really ran, where the skeletons were buried, and who was sleeping with whom. She pulled out a pictorial of the company's organization chart and spent an hour going over each of the positions with me. I highly valued her own opinions.

After we had some rapport, she asked me, "Did Tom tell you that we have a friends-with-benefits relationship? I also know that about your little sex club that he's just joined."

I replied, "He did tell about the two of you in one short sentence. Is there more to it?" I deflected the conversation away from the 'sex club'.

"Maybe. I love him deeply, but I know he has a wandering eye and needs variety to be happy. I guess that's led to me feeling about the same way. We tolerate each other's outside friendships. He told me that he really enjoyed sex with you, and I'm glad. I like you."

"I'm honored and the feeling is mutual. Have you ever entertained the idea that we could all get together?"

Tara sat back, suddenly thrown into deep thought by my question. "Oh! I never thought of that option. I'm so... heterosexual... and I've been a one-man girl except for a dalliance here and there." She studied me in a thoughtful way.

I just shrugged as though to tell her to think about it.

I also asked, "Have you even thought of taking on one of the divisions here, or running part of the business?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't be accepted. Even the head of HR is an engineer. I don't have an engineering degree. I have an MBA on top of a BA in English. Knowing many hidden facts about Edgar Allen Poe is not a frequent topic around here. The MBA does help me as Tom's EA, to sort out the players, and to advise Tom. I wouldn't have it any other way."

* * * * *

Tom was in our contingent of sexual players the evening after he'd basically told me that I was going to work for him. I was sure that he took pleasure in knowing that he was scrambling my brain in multiple dimensions of business seriously overlapping with sex.

There were eight of us that went out to dinner together and then congregated at Mike and Grace's house. I wondered whether their neighbors had started to wonder about the comings and goings on at their lovely home.

Tom focused on me to start with, and I was so on edge that the sex was truly a relief to calm me down. Tom tried to reassure me that he was my partner and wouldn't let me fail. I had to trust him.

As he was buried balls deep in my little pussy, I told him my opinion about Tara, and how she cared for him. I suggested that we both work on her to get her to come to our sexual evenings so that she could spread her talents around a bit. He loved that idea and pumped even harder into my quim. He loved that she called it a 'sex club', but didn't make any corrections to her opinion.

That evening we pretty much stuck with one partner for two rounds. Tom plundered my sexy body again, as Mike focused on Candy, Chad on Connie, and Owen on Grace.

In a rare move, I was told, we all slept over at Mike and Grace's home. Fortunately, they had two guest rooms, plus a sleeper sofa in their media room. We filled them with fucking people and eventually went to sleep. Maybe that should have been people fucking.

I interviewed three of the executives the next day, and then Owen and I caught a flight for the east coast that got us home about midnight. I wrote up my interview notes on the plane, and pondered what I was discovering.

I told Owen that I wanted to talk to him about my new project the next day -- billable hours. He knew I'd landed something big, but not how large until we talked. He was blown away. Basically, I'd landed a job that rated at $1,800,000 per year. I didn't tell him everything, but explained my impressions of the I.T. organization and asked what he'd do.

He had some great observations. "What you told me is that they have some traditional systems aimed at keeping track of business once they have it -- time sheets, chargeable hours, invoicing, and all the financial reporting and asset management systems. You mentioned nothing about any HR systems other than payroll, and it appears that marketing and business development don't get any technical support except their own Excel spreadsheets. Those don't count. They need a CRM -- a customer resource management system, for one.

I took a lot of notes, and also announced that he was a member of my client team for PR Engineering.

We had some other discussions and then the two of us made love just before going out to a late lunch. I loved nooners.

I met with Sheri and Maryann in the afternoon, bringing them up to speed on the new project. They were ecstatic about the new business because they knew I needed more business to keep them employed. I didn't realize their concern for living so close to the edge until they said something.

We all put the word on the street that I was hiring. I didn't want to hurt Knightsbridge by raping their marketing department, but I was sure I'd get a couple of people from there once the news got around. I also went on the local professional job board on the Internet and posted two positions: one for someone skilled in the marketing of engineering professionals, and another with experience in CRM and marketing information systems.

A week later, I had a hit on one of the posted jobs from someone I knew that didn't work at Knightsbridge -- Todd Summers. I never knew much about Todd other than he occasionally showed up at one of Jake's monthly orgies -- even as a waiter, and that he was a good fuck. His resume looked good for filling the first post, plus he also knew a thing or two about marketing information systems.

I interviewed Todd at an outside table at Starbucks. He was surprised to find that I was the person hiring and that I had some serious work for him. We kicked various ideas around for two hours, and he accepted my job offer on the spot. He needed to give two-weeks' notice where he worked.

That afternoon, Sheri showed up on my doorstep with a flyer she'd gotten in the mail about a five-day course that started on the following Monday on marketing information systems. We looked up the syllabus on the Internet, and then called and got the names of several past attendees at the course to use as references for whether we should attend. The result was that Maryann and Sheri went off the following week to the course that was given in Tampa.

Sheri had me come up to Tampa on Wednesday afternoon to meet someone she'd been romancing that was one of the course instructors -- Dale Dryfuss. Dale was a personable hunk and smart as a whip. He also was a part-time I.T. director for a manufacturing company and was interested in leaving that steady income because no one there appreciated all that technology could do in that business. "They just want to count things -- money and widgets," he complained.

I hired Dale, contingent on him making me smarter about I.T. systems, particularly in the marketing area. He'd start the following Monday. He leaped around with joy over his good luck.

Kevin called me on Thursday, to my surprise. After he got me on the phone, he said, "Make me an offer I can't refuse."

I told him, "Sex with me and a job that'll take you to Denver and other great cities in the world. You've already met some of the Denver people at Jake's parties, and I'm pretty sure they'll love you there, too." I also named a salary figure.

Owen had talked to me about what I pay people versus what I charge for them in our consulting work. I needed to have them be at least twenty-five percent billable to break even on their base pay. I also wanted to pay bonuses if Porter Consulting was doing well. Above that, the company made money -- I made money. We'd need to stockpile money to handle the down times, and I was sure there would be between large jobs.

I hired Kevin at a hefty salary increase for him, and he about choked when I told him what his billing rate to clients would be. I also told him he'd better help market our consulting services as a moderately senior guy in my new company, so that we could keep him and others busy.

In telling Kevin that he needed to market, I realized that my new little consulting company needed the same kind of attention that PR Engineering did. I just filed that away; we could come later, or in the odd moment when one of us had an idea for our own website and market advancement.