Team Building

by Robin Roseau

  “Sure,” I said. “Need time to make your other wagers?”

  “Not at all.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “What isn’t fair?” she asked.

  “I’m not doing that!” I said more loudly. “No. That’s not fair! You can’t make me tell them.”

  She snorted. “I think I’m caught up again.”

  “No,” I said. “No! Not fair!”

  I slumped in the chair until Tara asked me, “Selena, what’s wrong?”

  “She’s threatening me,” I said. “She tried to bribe me to tell you why I don’t see my family often. I refused. Now she’s threatening me. She said there are people in the room who wagered with her she can’t convince me.” I paused. “Fuck. You can just make me, I bet.” I paused again. “Oh.” I smiled and sat back up. “Then I’m not telling them.”

  “Is it that scandalous?” Tara asked.

  “It’s nobody’s business.” I paused. “No!” I screamed. I paused then slumped again.

  “You realize they’re all very confused,” said the voice.

  “Fine,” I said. “Fine. But you stop messing with me. Pick on someone else after this, and don’t give me to anyone again, either.” I paused then looked around. Then I said, mumbling, “Mom has Down’s Syndrome.”

  There was a pause, then Tara asked, “Selina, I don’t understand.”

  I sighed. “My mother has Down’s Syndrome. She’s really sweet, really, really, sweet, but she has Down’s Syndrome. I don’t put photos up of her because it’s no one else’s business. I don’t see her exactly on the holidays because they upset her. It’s just too busy, between Dad taking her to her parents, and to his parents. I sneak away for weekends, but I don’t really talk about it. And I don’t see my sister because she’s deployed.”

  “Deployed?”

  “Afghanistan,” I said. “Dad did his best, but Roxy had to do the whole ROTC thing to go to school. And then she helped pay for me to go. I once asked Dad why he married mom, and he told me how in high school, he was an utter dork, and none of the other kids, guys or girls, were nice to him, but Mom asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and his mom made him say ‘yes’. They had a really nice time, and he discovered she was as good at taking care of him as he was at the sort of care she would need.”

  I paused. “There. I told them. Happy?”

  There was a pause, and then Tara said, “I think that’s very sweet, Selena.”

  I said nothing, but I nodded. Then, under my breath, I asked, “Was that convincing?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Total lie?”

  “You tell me,” I said.

  She laughed. “I’m reading your biorhythms, and I can’t tell.”

  “No comment.”

  “Well,” Joy said. “That’s an interesting story. And we wouldn’t be playing this game if we didn’t ask the question. How much of that story is true? There were several major points. We’ve identified them. Everyone is voting.”

  It took a minute, then Joy walked over to stand at my feet. “What’s the truth?”

  I looked up at her for a moment. “I know the lines because my little sister was good at remembering her lines but spent a lot of time working out how to say them so they flowed well.”

  “Not your big sister. Why did you claim a big sister?”

  “Because who would believe I’d remember all those lines from that long ago?” I asked. “I was trying to convince them I’d played Romeo. I will point out I’m not the one who came up with this game.”

  “Right,” she said. “What else.”

  “My sister did do ROTC, but she’s in the Navy, not the Army. My mom teaches high school math.”

  “No Down’s Syndrome.”

  “No,” I said. “The reason I don’t go home for holidays is because my mom and my aunt take trips during school breaks. I go with when my sister can join us. That isn’t very often. There’s no grand conspiracy, though. No scandal. Nothing at all juicy. I don’t talk about them because I don’t talk about personal stuff at work very much.” I smiled. “What were the results?”

  Of the available points, two-thirds decided I was finally telling the truth. Because I’d peppered the truth and lies together, I got just over half who voted “truth” to the lie about my mother.

  And finally, I was released from the center of attention.

  * * * *

  Tara’s turn came up. I had advance warning and knew what quote she was going to get. “All that is necessary for the triumph…”

  “How do I coach her?” I asked.

  “Whisper, and she’ll hear.”

  “Tara, can you hear me?” I whispered. She turned, and her eyes found me. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” She nodded. “It’s considered an Edmund Burke quote.” She offered another tiny nod. “Except there’s no indication he ever said or wrote it.” At that, she cocked her head. “It doesn't appear in any written work directly attributed to him. There’s a suggestion it’s one possible translation of something Plato once wrote. I suspect most people here have heard it, and no one is going to doubt you if you attribute it to Burke. The reality is: no one seems to know who originally wrote it in something resembling that form, but it was almost certainly not Burke. He may have said it, but the first written examples are from far younger sources.”

  She played it straight. She offered the whole quote, said it was commonly attributed to Burke, but then said, “But no one can find any papers where he actually wrote it, and probably never did wrote it. He may have said it, but there’s no evidence. No one seems to know where the quote originated.”

  All three of her opponents said the quote was right, but were positive Burke had said it. Joy gave Tara the points, and she flashed a smile at me.

  For her next point, she got, “All the world is a stage.”

  “Shakespeare again,” I whispered. “I’m not sure which play. All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. But there’s another form. If all the world is a stage, then I want better lighting.” She smiled. “You could make up something about Patrick Stewart during a convention panel. My sister had a tee-shirt with that on it, and I had the impression it wasn’t new.”

  She nailed the delivery, although she changed it. Supposedly he was getting bad lighting during filming of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he rattled it off. It comes up at conventions from time to time, and everyone gets a good laugh at the story.

  They bought it.

  A minute later, during someone else’s turn, Tara whispered to me, “Can you hear me, Selena?”

  “Yes,” I whispered back with a nod.

  “Why are they letting you help me?”

  “Payment for my games earlier,” I said. “We’re a team, after all, and face it: you were sucking wind.”

  “Big time. Thank you.”

  “It’s just a game,” I said.

  Chapter Six

  Our team did well. More importantly, people appeared to have fun. Tara climbed out of a negative personal score, and in the end, while our team didn’t win, we came in second.

  And then the voice said, “We’re giving you to someone, but you may choose.”

  “I want you to choose,” I said. “Give me to someone who is under stress but will appreciate me.”

  The voice paused. “So be it.” Lights appeared in my screen, and it took seconds before I zoned out.

  My next coherent thought involved me kneeling, staring at someone’s feet. Her hand was on my shoulder, and she was talking to other people at the table. But then I looked up to see… Tara.

  She was smiling at me. “There you are,” she said. “You may rub my feet.”

  During dinner, she gave me little tasks, and she fed me from her own hand. Each morsel she gave me was ambrosia, and I smiled at her for each one, kissing her fingers with each.

  But finally she ordered me to stand. I looked around, and I saw perhaps a third of the
women were, like me, entirely naked, and attending to one of the other women. But then Tara drew my attention. “I would like a massage.”

  I smiled broadly.

  * * * *

  I gave her a massage, and she moaned her pleasure. Finally she asked me to help her sit up, and once she had, I knelt, my head bowed. She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Are you able to talk?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “What is it like?”

  “I’m sorry, Tara. I don’t know what you are asking.”

  “You belong to me.”

  “Yes, Tara,” I said.

  “What is that like?”

  I looked up. “It is my life,” I said. “It is wonderful. Do I please you?”

  “You do,” she said. “Would you like to go to my room with me?”

  “Yes.”

  She dressed. I didn’t. Once we arrived, I saw her room wasn’t any larger than mine, which I thought was surprising. But she pulled me to her. “I don’t know if I can find pleasure, my pet.”

  I smiled. “May I try?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  She let me do everything. I undressed her, and then I took her hand and led her to the bed. And then I spent a half hour touching, kissing, licking, and whispering, whispering how good she tasted, how good she made me feel, how much I enjoyed belonging to her. I whispered and touched and kissed and did everything to tease her until she put pressure on my head, guiding me where she wanted me.

  She didn’t have any trouble finding pleasure. No, she didn’t have any trouble, not the first time, or the second, or the fifth.

  But finally she said, “Enough. Let me hold you.” I crawled up into her arms, nestling against her.

  “Tara,” I whispered. “They owe me an Alteration. They can make this permanent.”

  “Selena,” she replied. “They already have.”

  “Good.”

  “Sleep now.”

  And I did.

  Chapter Seven

  I didn’t wake until morning, or if I did, I don’t remember. But I woke in the morning to the sound of crying. I rolled over and saw Tara, sitting on the bed, her back to me, and she was crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up. I moved to her, pressing against her back. “Tara, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “Oh god, Selena, don’t touch me.”

  I pulled away. “Tara,” I said. “What did I do?”

  She looked over her shoulder at me, tears streaming down her face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were perfect.”

  “Let me help,” I said. “Please, Tara, let me help.”

  “That’s the Alteration talking.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said.

  “You belong to me.”

  “Give me an order.”

  “Touch your nose.”

  I didn’t. I moved back and wrapped around her. “Please tell me. Did you get bad news?”

  “I slept with an employee. Oh, god, Selena.”

  “Knock it off,” I said. “One. I signed a release. Two. While I didn’t specifically mention you, I told them to give me to someone under a lot of pressure, someone who would appreciate me, and the list of people who might fit that description is short. Three. I liked it. Four. Even if you never touch me again, I’m not going to sue you. Nor do I have any expectations. Were you going to fire me?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Are you selling the company?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You liked it.”

  She gave a sob. “They Altered both of us. I never would have agreed.”

  “You were letting them do all sorts of things to me.”

  “They told me they could help, but only if I let them Alter me.”

  “That seems to have worn off.”

  “I know. God. I made all of you come. I’m going to have twenty lawsuits.”

  “I bet you don’t.”

  “I already heard. Half the men quit.”

  “Well, until you hear from lawyers, I think you shouldn’t worry about it. There’s nothing you can do at this point. It’s beyond the point of damage control, and besides, you didn’t do anything but invite us here for a team-building exercise. Everything that happened after that was Altered Events.”

  “I made them come. It’s an official work event.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “The things I did to you.”

  “I know,” I said. “Can we do them again?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” I said. “You liked it. I liked it.”

  “That’s because you were Altered.”

  “And apparently, I like being Altered a lot more than I thought,” I replied.

  “You don’t remember what I did to you. What’s your first memory?”

  “Gosh, I was pretty young.”

  “Of belonging to me.”

  “Kneeling to you at the dinner table,” I said.

  She began crying again.

  “Hey,” I said. I wrapped around her a little more tightly. “Was it a sex fest or something?”

  “No,” she said. “Just…”

  “Like an old-fashioned hypnosis show. Each of the pets helped to entertain everyone else?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Tell me, Tara.”

  “Do you remember you were naked?”

  “Yes, and?”

  “Do you remember getting naked?”

  “No, but as I was clothed earlier and I wasn’t later, I presume at some point, clothing was removed. I don’t feel particularly sore anywhere, so whatever happened wasn’t too abusive.”

  “You and…” She trailed off again.

  “Whatever it was, was that the worst?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Tara,” I said. “Are you angry at me?”

  “No.”

  “And no matter what happened, I’m not angry at you. And given that you haven’t told me to leave, and I’m holding you like this while we’re both naked, and given that you had several very good orgasms, and given that I loved giving them to you, can we come to the conclusion that you and I have grown closer?”

  “Oh, god,” she said.

  “While I wouldn’t say I mean this quite this literally, if there’s never a repeat, I don’t care. Okay, I’d love a repeat, but I’m not going to stalk you for it.”

  “Selena.”

  “But you’re mortified,” I said, a little dully.

  “I ordered you to…”

  “To do the things they Altered you to order me to do.”

  “They were my ideas!”

  I kissed her shoulder, and then I pulled away. I found my clothing in a neat pile on the desk. I dressed slowly. Tara didn’t move. Once I was dressed, I turned to her. “I gave myself to you,” I said. “I didn’t know for sure they’d give me to you, and I couldn’t ask, because it would be sucking up, or something. But what I remember, I enjoyed. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same way. You need to get over it, or I’ll take that severance package you were offering. I don’t intend to work for a woman who can’t look at me. But for the record, I’d do it again, if you asked. I might pursue one of the other offers I’ve received. I think I may have become closer with a number of my coworkers. Furthermore, I had grown to hate coming to work for the same reasons you did. I don’t know what tomorrow is going to be like, and I don’t know how you’re going to look at me, but for the first time in two years, I’m looking forward to work.”

  And then I stepped out the door.

  * * * *

  I found Evie at breakfast. “I want to talk to you.”

  “After breakfast.”

  “Now.”

  She paused. “All right.”

  “Somewhere private.”

  “All right.” She gestured and led me to an unused conference room. We turned to each other. “What is it, Selena?”

  “Tara thinks half
the people here are going to sue her. Fix it.”

  She laughed. “We’ve never had that happen. Never. Do you want to know why?”

  I put a hand on my hip. “Sure.”

  “Because we don’t do a thing to any of you that you don’t ask us to do, and we have recordings of you asking.”

  “I asked you to give me to Ida?”

  “No. You asked for help doing penance, and you asked to help Tara. It was after the dragons ate you that you asked for the rest. Selena, Tara knows all this.”

  “All of it?”

  “Well, no, but she should know she won’t get sued.”

  “Well, she’s up in her room sobbing,” I said. “So maybe with the stress she’s been under, she doesn’t remember, or something.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “Thank you.” I paused. “I had a nice time.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Tara thinks I should be mortified if I knew what I did after the lying game.”

  “I would be.”

  “Why don’t I remember?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “No, I understand you might not remember. I want to know why. Tara said the things were her idea.”

  “Yes, well, they weren’t.”

  “They were mine?”

  “No, but I can’t say more.”

  “Fine. I want to know what happened. I can’t talk intelligently with her if I don’t know what I did.”

  “Your good attitude might disappear.”

  “You owe me an Alteration,” I said. “I thought I’d use it for fun. I’ll use it for this.”

  “No,” she said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” She leaned closer and whispered into my ear. It didn’t make sense, but then, slowly at first, then in a rush, I remembered.

  I froze, but then I turned my head and kissed her cheek. “You smell nice,” I whispered. “If you ever want to play, call me.”

  “We really did program you with our numbers,” she said, stepping back.

  “Do you do that with everyone?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

  “If you don’t hear from me, call me. Please. If you’re serious.”

  “Then we will.”

  “Good.” I turned away and headed for breakfast.