When The Butterflies Come

by Rosemary Ness Bitner

  She was hired two days later. She came to the office in dungarees and a halter top. All the staff members noted the oversized tits and there was some speculation Rublina had implants, but based upon comments from several women about the way they jiggled, it was concluded she hefted original equipment.

  As a condition of employment, Rublina was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement with respect to any conversations or happenings or meetings of any kind which took place in David’s office. She agreed that if she violated this non-disclosure she would immediately be liable and owing all sums paid to her from the date of employment. She was also required to purchase a home in the tiny suburb of Rondel Hills. The down payment was put up by David and Rublina signed a note to refund the down payment if she were terminated for any reason, for cause or otherwise. She was also required to sign a note to him for the mortgage amount owning on the house, and he made the monthly payments. This arrangement made her ask the first sensible question of her employment.

  “David, honey babe, why are we signing all these papers?”

  “For tax reasons,” he replied.

  Rublina was given a spacious corner office and an assistant who did all her work for her. Her days consisted of showing up for work when she pleased, usually drunk, polishing her nails, and reading fashion magazines. Her blissful routine was short-lived.

  David called her into his office on the first day of her third week and informed her that her drinking was to stop. He also told her that she needed to take better care of her breasts because cancer was a heightened risk for women with large breasts. He gave her a list of required foods to eat and had delivered to her home three hundred pounds of raw oats. She was instructed to adhere to her new diet and eat massive helpings of oats for optimal breast health. After a month of her new diet, her breasts would be ‘checked’ to see if she complied with his requirement for healthier eating.

  A month elapsed and Rublina was summoned to David’s office. A private nurse was there dressed in street clothes. The nurse held a breast suction apparatus which attached to an electric pump. This looks like something freaky is going on here. What are these two about to do to me? Then she remembered the part about the job description, the training requirement, the notes she’d signed. This funny-looking little man owned her. Well, how bad could it get? After all he doesn’t want to fuck me. She looked at David and smiled.

  “Hi ya, honey babes. What would you like me to do here?”

  “Rublina, I’d like you to meet Ms. Sinclair. She’ll be your monitor for your health project. I’ll leave while Ms. Sinclair conducts her first examination.” With that introduction, David left his office.

  Rublina sized up Ms. Sinclair. She’s a skinny athletic health nut type. Maybe I’m on a health program to make me look more like her. No way! Ms. Nursey has no tits and no ass.

  “Please sit on the sofa, Rublina.” Ms. Sinclair was all formality and professionalism.

  “Okay, hon, whatever you say.” Rublina was obliging.

  “Very good, now remove your blouse and bra please.”

  Rublina complied. “Is this a full exam, or are you just checking my tits?” she asked. This place is fucking weird. I do absolutely nothing and get paid for it. Now this prim beanpole nurse is going to play with my tits? Bring it!

  Once Rublina was naked to the waist, Nurse Sinclair attached two suction cups to her nipples.

  “Hey, tell me what’s going on here. I’ve never had this kind of examination before.” There was alarm in Rublina’s voice as she began wondering just what she’d signed up for.

  “These are suctions, dear. They won’t hurt you. They’ll just exert some sucking pulls on your nipples.”

  “Why in the hell do you want to have a machine sucking my nipples?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know, dear? They will stimulate your breasts as if an infant child is suckling you. I’m simply showing you how the machine works so you’ll know how to use it. Mr. Sustack wants your breasts to be in perfect health, and the best way to ensure that is to have you suckled by the machine several times a day, just like an infant would suckle you. There’s also an identical machine, all assembled, being delivered to your home this afternoon. You are to suckle the machine every four hours, day and night, until your breasts produce milk.”

  “Wait. This is crazy! Don’t you know I’m not even pregnant? I haven’t been pregnant for seventeen years!”

  “So you were young when you had your last child. How old were you?’

  “I was fifteen. His father left me and took off for California with some surfer chick. He was a worthless bastard, that one. But he sure was good-looking and he sure could fuck. We fucked all night long. The crazy thing is I still miss him.”

  “Yes, that does seem crazy, but it’s your life. Obviously you live in the moment and don’t think things through very well.”

  “What do you mean by that, huh?”

  “Oh, nothing, forget it. I’m just here to show you how to use the equipment and to make sure it’s in good working order.”

  “I thought David said this was my first examination. When’s my second one, and what are you examining exactly?”

  “Your milk production, dearie. Your next exam will be in a month, then every two weeks until I know you have good flow.”

  “What in the fuck? Why do I need good milk flow?” Rublina didn’t relish the idea of becoming a breast-feeder to some machine.

  “Didn’t Mr. Sustack tell you, dearie? You’re being conditioned to breast-feed him. Mr. Sustack needs your human breast milk.”

  “Jesus H. Christ! Motherfucking, and hell no! I am not going to let that old man drink milk out of my tits. This is fucking crazy!”

  “Now, now, dearie, it’s not as bad as you think. It actually feels good to be suckled, and you’ll be doing a great human kindness and getting very well paid for it. At night, when Mr. Sustack can’t be with you to suckle, you’ll just have to put the machine on for a few minutes to quickly drain you. You’ll actually start to enjoy it.”

  “You’re nuts! This whole idea is nuts! I won’t do it! Get away from me, you fucking pervert.” Rublina was becoming hostile.

  “Oh, dear, Mr. Sustack told me this might happen. He said I should remind you of the terms of your employment and your financial obligations to him. If you’d rather go back to your old insect-infested apartment, that can be quickly arranged. However, Mr. Sustack will garnish your future wages wherever you find employment until your debts to him are fully discharged. He figures with the loss on a quick sale of your house, you’ll owe him about a hundred thousand or more and you’ll be working for what amounts to minimum wages for the next ten years or longer. It’s just a friendly reminder, dearie. Now, shall we act like sensible adults?”

  “You fucking bitch. You’re in on this with him, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t do private duty work for free, now do I? You don’t expect to be paid to do nothing, do you? This is America and the free enterprise system, after all, dearie. Now be a good girl and settle yourself and let me put these cups on your nipples.”

  With her role in better focus, Rublina relented. The cups were placed in massage mode, which meant they gently pulled her nipples and alternatively pushed hard against them, all in the effort to stimulate milk production.

  Rublina sat back on the sofa and let the machine do its work. “Jesus H. Christ! If anybody knew this guy ran a money management firm with real money in it, they wouldn’t believe it. No fucking way! This whole place is full of weird shit and I’ve only been here three weeks.”

  “And always remember, dearie, you are contracted to silence. One word of anything that goes on here and you will be the sorriest girl in Plaintown.”

  “You know him, don’t you?”

  “Cousins, dearie, just cousins through marriages, but yes, we’re cousins. Everything is in the family, even our little quirks and foibles. Just enjoy yourself. You’ll be doing a human kindness. There’s no shame in kindn
ess. And by the way, dearie, these are for you.” Ms. Sinclair handed Rublina a cardboard box sealed with packaging tape.

  “What’s this for?” Rublina had trepidations about any gifts from this nurse from the dark side.

  “These are your supplies. They will last you one month, and then you’ll get refills. The small cans contain nutritional supplements you must take daily. The capsules in the jar are to enhance your hormone production so you’ll lactate more easily. The balm is for soothing your teats after they’ve been suckled, and the rubber-coated clamps are for your nipples. You are to wear the clamps in the evening and daily when you are not in the office. They ensure the nipples remain in a heightened state of stimulation so you’ll lactate more freely.”

  “So I’m Mr. Sustack’s human milk cow now, complete with my animal feed and instructions.” Rublina held back her tears.

  “Relax, dearie. Look at it this way. You only need to work for two twenty-minute periods five days a week and you’ll be highly paid. Isn’t that what you were looking for when you answered the advertisement?”

  Rublina didn’t respond. She was bewildered. She was agreeing to be a sex slave of a different sort than she ever imagined and she began an effort to rationalize her victimhood status. Obviously the outlet for some psychological disorder that held David in its grip, she tried to tell herself she was somehow helping another human being, but her rationalization couldn’t overcome her innate fear for her future. She sat back and closed her eyes, her mind drifting. She tried to imagine the machine was her infant son of seventeen years ago, but there was a dark undercurrent to her apprehension. What have I gotten myself into?

  EAGLES AND INSECTS

  Sometimes certain stocks and certain markets are like fires. They start out with a spark that smolders in tinder; then emboldened fledgling flames lift up and lick dry kindling, which ignite with the vigor of fresh drafts of air. Kindling’s heat forces the dormant logs to finally yield and burn with a sustained flame. Fires draw in more fuel, and stronger air gusts sucked into the fires fan their flames to before unimagined heights. Finally the finite fuel exhausts and the flames die into coals that glow, which in turn return to smoldering embers and die out into exhausted coldness and powdery ash that simply blows away, leaving nothing.

  Initial investors may find success and their enthusiasm from the growth of some initial spot of money’s growth licks their greed palate and kindles the urge to invest more. Once they invest more, they move the air some by talking about their investment to friends and family, or even their broker. As the initial group feels vindicated by price appreciation, the venture gains more participants, like crows to a feast. The fresh fuels of monies propel the value of the venture to heights previously unimagined, yet awed and rationalized. And finally the money fuel exhausts until the venture returns to earthly valuations, unless the inevitable unknowns or competitors arrive to reduce the venture’s worth to nothingness, and all that is left are worthless stock certificates suitable for framing.

  The mutual fund industry, itself a major investor in companies of all sorts, was in its initial transmogrification when Bob first began marketing the UGGA Universal Global Growth Fund. At the time he made his first sales call, there were some two hundred competitors nationwide sponsoring some three hundred different funds. The industry morphed from a monthly investment repository for small-saver investor types to a repository for cannibalized monies from the upstart term life insurance industry’s ‘buy term, invest the difference’ sales assault on whole life insurance policies. The original fund companies were pleasant gentlemen competitors sharing a growing but definable limited marketplace. But then the Fed took the financial markets into steadily rising valuations with extremely accommodative monetary policies.

  Why Greenspan’s Fed did what it did is not anything anyone will ever know, but attempts to reason Fed policies that would change the world as America knew it may be worth pondering, not for the captains of industry or the Chinese industrialist owners of slave labor shops which benefitted so greatly from the monetary largess, but by Americans who were screwed out of their jobs by it all. Perhaps the Fed received marching orders from the Bank for International Settlements. Perhaps the BIS felt pressure from industrialists to denude America’s unionized workforce of its bargaining power by making credit so available for American consumers to buy ascendant China’s newly favored nation status factories’ outputs. Thereby, with the blessings of bribed Washington politicos who welcomed China into the World Trade Order with open arms, America’s overpaid unionized labor force got screwed through the wall.

  It was a fabulous time to be an investor. Company labor costs evaporated when payrolls of twenty-dollar-an-hour American labor were replaced with fifty-cent-per-hour Chinese labor. Sales were upbeat as America’s consumption army gobbled up lower-priced Asian goods and telephone service centers sprang up in India. Stocks rose. Flames of greed fueled from investors’ kindling reached the board rooms of the mutual fund industry. The board members, those staid wizened cigar smokers, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and ordered up fresh pots of coffee. Cobwebs were wiped off the planning boards. There was money to be made. It was time for change.

  Somebody in some fund boardroom came up with a brilliant idea. The proffered reasoning went something like this: “If we only take in money with our one fund, when this Fed lunacy ends, people will just take their money back out of that fund and stick their money into a bank account. We have no idea when this will happen, so let’s have a companion money market fund to go along with our regular fund and let the investors try to manage their money themselves by moving it into our money market fund. That way, we don’t actually have to manage for big market changes by raising cash in the regular fund and trying to redeploy it, but we do keep a management fee coming in from that investor no matter whether the investor thinks the market is going to go up or down! Hell, the cross flows between the funds will probably largely net out anyway because some of the people will always think the market is going up and some will always think it’s going down!”

  That man—it was still an old boys’ industry then, so that genius had to be a man—received a cigar, a champagne toast from his fellow board members, and many pats on the back. The industry no longer had to attempt to manage money like the old days, no longer had to worry about earning their fees. All it had to do was package investment fund products under any sort of cockamamie marketing scheme and have the sales force pitch the theme de jure to a receptive public that was beginning to bring their monetary fuel to a growing fund industry. The industry grew its fund product offerings into small capitalization, large capitalization, old people funds, young people funds, funds for dummies, for geniuses, for warmongers, for bunny huggers, for communists who wanted to be capitalists, for capitalists who pretended to be communists. All in all, some nine thousand funds proliferated since that genius birthed that first thought in that fund boardroom, but the industry still only had its original two hundred sponsoring companies, give or take a dozen or so. Oligopolies are like that, a small number of players all doing essentially the same thing at essentially the same price. The regulators were lobbied and bribed to keep the competition stymied and the public blindfolded, and the profits were carved up amongst the ‘in’ crowd.

  The product-selling game changed along with the industry’s structure. No longer did it matter as much how well money was managed within a particular portfolio for the overall well-being of the fund complex. What mattered was how well the sponsoring underwriters could package and sell particular funds at particular times in particular markets. Deceptive sales practices were walked past the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is heavily influenced by the Investment Company Institute, the industry’s lobbying arm. Nonsensical adds like, “Some large percentage number of our funds beat some benchmark average,” were allowed to be aired without disclosing that, as a percentage of total assets in the fund group, the beat number was a meaningless comparison. But for the great
unwashed, the ads worked and the money poured in. The public believed there were brains there, when the group put out a dozen different funds with different strategies, closed and killed the doggy performers and merged their assets into one of their other funds. Other practices allowed were to show off a red-hot record for a start-up fund and then bullshit investors without making honest disclosures. Sales literature claimed only the owners of the fund sponsoring company had invested there until now, and it had a million-dollar investment requirement. Plus, until now it was only available if you were a New Jersey resident. But now, you schmucks could own it too because it’s now magically available in all fifty states and the minimum investment has been dropped to—gasp—only a hundred dollars. What is never disclosed to the schmucks is that this same fund sponsor had similarly incubated ten other funds, but those others all had dog-shit records. The duds were killed and were never marketed because they would show how stupid the fund managers really were.

  It’s one thing to offer a competing product concept in an open marketplace, but when distribution channels get kickbacks to block competing ideas from being presented to the end customer, the effect upon a company which depends upon sales for its lifeblood is no different than an automobile engine that depends upon the electrical current from the alternator reaching down the wire harness to the end-point spark plugs when the wire harness is removed. The spark can’t reach the combustible cylinder because the wires to its end point are blocked off. The engine ceases to run.

  The man in the competitor boardroom who had the brilliant idea to proliferate funds reaped marketing success. The ability of salesmen to control clients’ monies by moving their assets from fund to fund within a family of funds had tremendous appeal to broker-dealer distributors of funds, especially since these fund families gave continuous sales commissions to the dealers and their sales reps for keeping the clients’ assets captive in a given fund family. It was a concept called the 12B-1 fee, poorly understood and opaque to clients but paid to distributing firms based upon assets the dealer kept with the fund group. Aggregated over many sales representatives and clients it was big money, and when a firm’s sales representative quit the firm, the funds’ residual commissions still flowed to the distributing dealer.