by J. J. Hunt
When Monday morning arrived, they were all too happy to have something to occupy them. Thea’s visit to her mother’s house had been a bust, after trying to tell her to stop using the app, it led Thea onto a double date. And Ollie’s parents weren’t the slightest bit impressed he’d found himself a job, instead, they were annoyed he was yet to use his degree.
The three of them reported to Jeffrey at the control centre.
He gathered the newbies. “Morning. I have your desks sorted, you’ll be near Alexa for the first few weeks, as our senior agent, if you need anything, ask her first.”
“So, where are we sitting?” Thea asked.
Jeffrey threw his hands above his head and rolled his eyes. “I said, if you need anything, ask her first, Alexa knows.”
Alexa waited in the wings beside the control centre, waiting to swoop in and guide them to their new desk space. They were all on a new row, each sat around Alexa. She took the middle seat, with Max at one side and Thea at the other, and opposite her was Ollie.
“I’m basically taking care of you,” Alexa said. “The supervisors don’t do shit, unless someone is being verbally abusive, but after two swear words, you can inform the member you will terminate the call. Easy-peasy.”
They took their seats and set their desks up, logging into their user interfaces and going through people’s accounts.
Alexa glanced over to the control centre, but they didn’t look back. “Something they probably didn’t tell you. They monitor everything we do,” she said. “From the people you’re hooking up with to the time you spend in the bathroom. Everything. Candy’s basically an idiot who doesn’t know how to dress herself.”
Max chuckled to himself in agreement. “She said something about keeping calls under 8 minutes, but that’s about it.”
Alexa’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. “We have interaction clients, and they track everything in the company time, so as soon as you’re logged in, you’re available to take calls, once you click to do something else, you’re no longer available,” she said.
“I know, I’ve worked in a call centre before. I get what they do.”
Alexa clapped her hands twice. “Congratulations. Then you know this company is no better. And it’s Belinda’s job, up there to monitor you guys. She compiles how much work you do, how much time you’re available without work, and if you meet quotas, you receive monthly bonuses.”
The sound of money created a large collective gasp. Bonuses were always a game changer, especially when you knew what you needed to do to reach them.
Ollie stood to look over Alexa’s desk. “So?” He glanced at Max and Thea. “How do we get bonuses? What are our quotas?”
She waved a hand at him, telling him to sit down. “Jeffrey will go over those in his one-to-one meetings, sometimes they’re easy, like sucking his dick, and other times they require you to do real work.”
Max paused and reached out for Alexa. “Huh?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Suck his dick, an instant three-hundred bonus in my bank.”
Ollie stood again. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“He can’t do that, surely,” Thea said.
Alexa raised her hands and slowly let them fall. “Relax. Sucking dick is easy.”
Heads turned as a tall black-haired woman wearing a floor-length beige trench coat walked in through the double doors, bashing them against the walls with her sheer strength. Large round sunglasses covered her eyes and commanded attention. Rosie, the receptionist, chased at her heels.
“Dee, Dee, I need to talk to you,” Rosie yapped.
“It’s Deandra to you, and I’ll talk to you later,” she snapped back.
Rosie stopped chasing and dropped by the wayside. Deandra powered through, walking passed Veronica’s office and into the dark office next door. Alexa rushed in after her, leaving the newbies to fend for themselves.
“Dee,” Alexa said.
Deandra kissed the air. “Allie, sweetie.” She sighed heavily, dropping herself into her office chair. The room was dimly lit from the lights above. Deandra flipped off the overhead lighting with her middle finger. “Pissing eco lights.”
Alexa looked around the office. “You’re back?”
“Of course. They tried to send me away and get clean again, but you can’t take alcohol into rehab, and apparently, you’re not allowed to make your own vodka from potatoes either.” She pressed her fingers into her temples. “Now, isn’t that ridiculous.”
“You’ve only been gone a week,” Alexa said.
Deandra pulling her legs under the desk and rummaged through her drawers. “That’s all I needed. Otherwise, I’d go crazy.”
Slowly, Alexa approached her. “I thought you said the big boss sent you.”
She laughed. “Who? Clark Neal? Don’t get me started on him. Does he know I used to work for Sony? I was headhunted to be the senior VP of product development.” She lugged a bottle of vodka from her desk drawer. “And where the hell is Juan?”
Alexa patted the back of a chair. “Veronica gave him an extended holiday because you weren’t here.”
Deandra grabbed two shot glasses and pounded her fist on the table. She lined the glasses up. “He’s my assistant, what’s she doing?” She poured the vodka.
“I don’t want one,” Alexa said.
“Ha!” Deandra threw herself back in her chair. “They’re both for me.” She grabbed one and slammed it to the back of her throat, she grabbed another, and slammed that one too. “This company is overrun with incompetent people. Get me Juan back.”
Juan Rodriguez was Deandra’s assistant, and sex on tap, he was there to refill her cup and satisfy her whims and needs. He was paid well for it, although he wasn’t paid for the sex, nobody was, but it was still considered services rendered.
Rosie knocked on Deandra’s office door. “I’m sorry, but I need to tell you something.”
Deandra put one finger in the air and poured a single shot. She gulped it down, gasping as the fire water hit the back of her throat. “Hit me with it, piss face.”
“You used your entry key,” Rosie said. “Lara called and asked if you were still in rehab, I said, I don’t know, then she said I’d be fired if I lied, so I told her you were here and you hadn’t finished your time in rehab.”
“And?” She slammed another shot glass on the table. “Spill.”
“She’s coming back into the office.”
Deandra stood. She took the bottle of vodka and the lid as she meandered around the office to sit against her desk. “Great, Salud.” She poured another shot in the lid. “I have some great ideas to tell her, like a sex toy powered by a mobile phone. It beats having to find a room, and it can be done from anywhere in the world. We have fast food, why don’t we have fast sex?” She chuckled.
The manager, Veronica, and the other supervisors stood in the doorway of Deandra office. They stared while Deandra took another shot and cheered to their good health.
Candy pushed through into the office. “Did I hear correctly? Lara is coming into the office.”
“Tomorrow,” Rosie said.
“Fuck.” Veronica stomped one of her stiletto heels into the floor. She turned and grabbed Jeffrey by the arm. “I’m tense,” she said behind her gritted teeth, escorting him to her office.
An internal memo was sent out moments later to all the staff, including the newbies who were none the wiser, and only heard of Lara in passing from Candy.
The entire department switched to high alert for the rest of the day, except Deandra, she slept in her office, excommunicated to stay inside by Alexa, otherwise she was dangerous, and the whole reason for rehab was because alcohol made her crazy, and she had zero idea on portion control.
EIGHT
Tuesday came, offering a routine for the newbies. They walked through the office floor, smiling and happy, waiting for their life to be sucked from them like call centre jobs did to so many others.
Candy pulled Thea into the training ro
om. “Thea. I need you.”
Max and Ollie watched but left her, even though they knew how crazy Candy was left alone in the room with her. They also knew her crazy could extend to three people at once.
Thea glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Yeah? I should really get logged on.”
“No.” Candy grabbed Thea’s arm to stop her. “I need help, I haven’t taken enough good cleavage shots, and Lara is already in the building,” she said. “I need help choosing which one to set as my picture on the app.” She handed her phone to Thea.
“Um. Okay.” Thea flicked through the pictures, each one the same, a top-angle looking down on her body, usually with one arm beneath her breasts pushing them higher to give the illusion they supported themselves naturally. Thea chose one at random. “This one.”
Candy shook her head. “Too showy. You can almost see my nipple.”
“This one?”
“I’m not smiling, how can you choose the one I’m not smiling in?”
“Maybe you could—”
“Forget about it,” she said, snatching the phone from Thea. “I’ll ask someone with a penis, maybe I’ll get more sense out of them.”
Thea joined Max and Ollie at the desks. Ollie collected their cups. “I’ll make coffees,” he said. “Thea got the last ones.”
They had fifteen minutes before they were set to begin the work day and be available on the lines. The call centre wasn’t full of staff, some dwindled in, but most people were late daily, blaming it on the tube.
Lara Jürgen, the senior VP of sales and merchandising, stood in the kitchen, waiting impatiently for the kettle to boil. She tapped her foot, the sound could be heard throughout the hallway.
Ollie stopped at the sight of her. She wore the highest red-bottomed heels, and a skirt with a small slit up the side, his eyes followed the natural path of her body, seeing the white chiffon blouse and her breasts bulging out from where she hadn’t buttoned up anything past her belly button.
She looked at him in the same way, noting what he was wearing. “You must be new,” she said, she offered a hand and he gave her a cup. “Well, I wanted to shake your hand, but I don’t think there’s enough water to fill three cups.” She pushed the cup back into his hand and turned away.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “I’m new.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m Oliver, well—Ollie for short.”
Lara pulled out her phone. She pushed a finger in the air to signal, one minute, and kept it there while she scrolled through her phone. “Ah.” She showed him his profile on the app. “Is this you? Your private pictures leave a lot to be desired.”
He didn’t say a word. She poured hot water into her cup and left. Finally, he took a giant breath and placed the cups on the counter. He splashed cold water on his face before filling the kettle to boil. Alexa joined him minutes later.
“Oh, my fucking god,” she said. “I saw you walk right in here, I was about to tell you before you came in, but you’d left, oh my god, what did she say?”
“She’s intense,” he said.
“Intense?” Alexa asked. She pushed Ollie up against the wall and grabbed his dick outside his pants. “This type of intense?”
Ollie’s eyes opened wider. “Nope, but I wouldn’t mind.”
She peeled herself away and hummed. “Anyway, the number one rule is not to use the kitchen until she’s finished, and also not using the bathroom if she’s in there, which doesn’t even apply to you because you’re a guy, but Lara is going to be the CEO of the company soon.”
“She is?”
Alexa chewed on her lip and closed her eyes. “From what I’ve heard, in meetings, and whenever Deandra is drunk, apparently she’s blackmailing the CEO for his job.”
Ollie’s jaw fell slack. She chuckled, enjoying how easy it was to startle newbies, and that’s all she would usually do for the month they were here.
Alexa knew only one of the newbies would survive after the first month, and even then, they would only last a few months more, it takes a specific person with a certain mindset to work for a company where sex is a commodity used to buy and sell.
They sat at their desks with their fresh instant coffees prepared to go live at 9 A.M.
Emails came flooding through, one after the other, first, they’d send an email back to thank them for their email and say they’ve opened an investigation into their email and they should receive a response within the next 24 hours, although realistically, their issues were generally easy.
Beep.
“Thank you for contacting Fling, the fun, flirty, hook-up app. All calls are monitored for training purposes, how can I help you today?” Thea asked, softly as taught by Flossy. She read directly from a sheet of paper.
“Yes!” A voice of triumph. “I want to know why you’ve deleted my account. I can’t log on, and it keeps asking me to contact customer support, and when I try, which I have been doing all morning, it keeps telling me you open at nine, and what’s the use in that, I’ve been trying to get laid since 2 A.M.” The man spat in a gruff voice.
“Okay,” she said. “Please can I take your account number?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t get into my account.”
“How about your telephone number?”
He sighed. “It’s the one I’m calling on, right now.”
Alexa listened in closely to her conversation. She nodded along to her and gave her a thumb’s up as she assisted the member.
Ollie and Max were both working on emails, a sure sign they wouldn’t receive any calls through. They pulled their headsets down to their necks, relaxing from the heat behind their ears.
“I met the woman everyone was going crazy over yesterday,” Ollie said, sipping his coffee. “She has the corner office.”
“How was she?”
He chuckled. “Um. Intimidating.”
“Oh, shit, well I think that’s her,” Max said, glancing up as someone stomped out of the corner office. A blonde in her high heels and tight pencil skirt.
Ollie turned with wide eyes. She clocked his eyes and raised her eyebrows at him. She stopped by their desks and Veronica’s office door. The blinds were closed, but it was visibly bright inside. Lara didn’t knock, she forced her way inside to see Veronica sat with her legs up on her desk and Jeffrey on his knees between her legs.
“Come on,” Lara said. “My time is precious. I need to talk.”
Veronica jumped out of her seat and patted her skirt down.
“This place is crazy,” Ollie whispered.
Lara caught his eye as she turned.
Jeffrey rushed out of the office, buckling his belt up and straightening his shirt. Lara walked around the office in a circle. She closed the door and looked at the papers thrown everywhere across her desk and floor. Her upper lip turned.
“We need to talk,” Lara said.
“Sorry you had to see that.”
Lara’s face cracked a smile. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I’m glad you’re getting some, even if it is still by that bottom feeding supervisor. You have a pick of the crop, what’s your staff turnover?” She waved a hand. “Forget that. It’s high, they’re all in their twenties, when was the last time you had someone in their twenties inside you?”
Veronica took a deep breath. “A few weeks ago, someone from the app.”
“I keep my youth by making sure I don’t have sex with anyone who’s not in their twenties,” she said. “I’m 47, look at my complexion.”
“You do look amazing,” Veronica said.
Lara took a seat in front of the desk and brushed at her knee with the back of her hand. “Anyway, as I was saying, we need to talk. I need numbers, I need stats.”
“Okay, well,” Veronica said, filling the silence as she tapped on her mouse and brought files on her computer. “The company is growing exponentially. Agents are handling up to three times more emails than the previous quarter. Social media interaction is high, we went viral
with a UK agent’s tweet, that was amazing for the company image.”
Lara laughed, placing a hand over her mouth. “No, about the agents themselves,” she said. “I want to know how they’re doing, not some stats from their interaction client.”
“What like?”
“Tell me who’s using the app the most, who’s having the most flings, I want to know if they’re releasing themselves or at least expressing themselves at work. Do we have any serial masturbators?”
Veronica grit her teeth, looking passed Lara’s head to the closed blind, picturing the agents on the call centre floor. “Hands above everyone, Quinton Dane, he’s the highest scoring agent. The supervisors have alerts set to send them emails when one of their teams has a fling,” she said. “He’s making great use of the company gloryholes, although I think he’s scared a few people in the past with coming on too strong.”
“That’s why we have NDAs,” Lara said. “And a hefty penalty of a million pound if they break it.” She chuckled to herself, pulling out her phone. “And can you tell me some more about this guy, he’s new, I know that.” She stood and handed her phone to Veronica.
On Lara’s phone was a picture of Ollie and his fling profile.
“Oliver,” Veronica said. “He has nice arms, I haven’t been there yet, but he’s adjusting.”
“And what about his thing with this agent,” she said, and flicked through to the next picture, a screenshot of Thea’s profile. “I see most of his account time is spent on her.”
Veronica hummed. “They live together, I think, but there’s nothing there.”
“Make sure there isn’t,” Lara said. “Relationships will be the death of this company. We’ve accommodated for people with long-term flings, but we can’t let anything organic come, otherwise, I’ll block them from seeing each other, and you know I hate getting my hands into the technical side nitty gritty.”
“Rest assured.” Veronica placed a hand on her chest. “I won’t let this go any further.”
“Good, send him to my office in fifteen minutes,” Lara said.
