As taught by the instructors, King's managerial theories and entrepreneurial goals seemed sound.
Maybe King wasn't the threat after all, Bill thought. Maybe it was the petty bureaucrats under him, the over-zealous managers who misused the power they were granted.
The training went on for several days. In addition to lectures from three separate instructors, he was given readings and worksheets that reinforced the lessons he'd been taught verbally, and tests that measured his retention of that knowledge. He memorized the standard Store layout and the hierarchy of positions within each retail outlet. Eventually, he was brought into another classroom with other management trainees and they all participated in a roundtable discussion of general Store management techniques and addressed specific problems and incidents that were bound to come up during the course of their work. His fellow trainees proved not to be incipient monsters or tyrants in training but merely ordinary men like himself who were trying to make the best of their situation.
He even became friendly with several of them.
Each evening, he was rewarded for a good day's work with a generous present, always accompanied by a humorous card signed by Newman King. One night it was a palm-sized camcorder and a large-screen television, one night it was keys to a new Lexus, one night it was a gift certificate for free ski lessons and a week's stay for him and his family at The Store's executive condo in Aspen, Colorado.
Each evening he was also offered a bath and a massage by the parade of beautiful women who delivered his dinners, and though he always declined the bath, he accepted the massage his second night. His muscles were aching, and the woman said that she was a certified masseuse. The idea of having trained hands relieve the pain and tension in his muscles sounded wonderful. Following her instructions, he undressed in the bathroom, came out with a towel wrapped around his waist, and lay down on the bed. She did his back first, and the massage was indeed fantastic. All pain fled beneath the ministrations of her expert fingers.
She rolled him over and started working on his thigh muscles, and against his will he became aroused. She noticed, slid her hands under the towel and touched him there, but he pushed her away, feeling guilty and embarrassed. Smiling, she continued with the massage.
The ritual was repeated each night.
He began to take all of this luxury for granted. It was not a hard thing to get used to, and he started to feel that he deserved to be pampered after his long day of lessons. Restraint, denial, and asceticism were worthy and noble, all well and good, but there was something to be said for the high life.
As King wrote in _The Manager's Concordance_, rejection of and disdain for the material world were merely ways for the have-nots to make themselves feel morally superior to the haves.
"And in retail," he wrote, "we are only concerned with the haves."
The man was on to something, Bill thought that night as he sipped champagne and received his massage. The man knew what he was talking about.
He closed his eyes, let the beautiful masseuse do her work.
2
Training ended with a daylong practice session in which he acted as manager over a group of employees in a huge Store mock-up.
The week had been building up to this, with an increasing number of tests and quizzes focusing on appropriate reactions to specific in-store situations.
King's rules were harsh, but within his broad boundaries he provided a lot of leeway for individual managers to assert their own personalities, and it was clear that today Bill was supposed to show King and his corporation the stuff he was made of.
There were no other trainees in the classroom today, only himself, and he was issued a black leather uniform and told to put it on. He did so, and was taken by elevator to a gigantic room that was an exact double for the Juniper Store. For all Stores. He walked slowly up the main aisle, marveling at the thoroughness of the illusion, the extent of the make-believe. There were employees and customers, fully stocked shelves, and piped-in Muzak. Everything, down to the last detail, was perfect. This was all located somewhere within the Black Tower, but it was indistinguishable from a real Store.
He was led by the instructor to the manager's office, was given a Xeroxed sheet that described a short history of the "problems" facing this particular Store, and was left alone to perform his managerial duties.
He loved it.
The power felt good, and he was comfortable exercising it. He found that he liked having authority over people, liked having them answer to him, liked making decisions, and he easily and quickly addressed the problems that had been created for him. He held a meeting with the department managers, went over sales figures, approved exchanges and refunds. While performing his rounds of the departments, he caught a teenaged boy shoplifting, and a feeling of satisfaction coursed through him as he ordered security to detain the boy and call the police. On a monitor in the Security room, he caught something none of the observers did -- a female clerk smoking marijuana in one of the rest room stalls. He fired the girl and was gratified to see her cry.
He was on his feet all day. The experience was tiring but exhilarating, and back in the classroom that evening he was handed a printout that critiqued his performance.
He had received an almost perfect score.
The instructor smiled at him, shook his hand, handed him a diploma.
"Congratulations," the instructor said. "You have successfully completed The Store's manager training course."
"That's it?"
The instructor laughed. "That's it. You've graduated. You are now qualified to run your own Store."
He was exhausted but happy as he returned to his luxury suite. A three course dinner was waiting for him, still steaming hot, and he ate it gratefully, sorting through the new pile of videotapes that had been provided for him. There was no woman tonight, but he wasn't in the mood for a massage anyway, and he didn't bother to call for one. Instead, like the first night, he soaked in the whirlpool bath and watched a movie before crawling into bed and instantly falling asleep.
He awoke in the middle of the night with a woman straddling him.
The room was dark, lights off, doors and drapes all closed, and he could not tell how she had gotten into his suite. He had locked the door before going to bed, thrown the dead bolt, but of course he had always known in the back of his mind that if King wanted someone to be able to enter his room, that person would be able to do so.
He felt soft thighs gripping his midsection, pubic hair touching his stomach.
He was quickly kissed by sweet feminine lips, a warm tongue was lightly flicking against his own, and a few seconds later the pressure on his midsection disappeared.
Then she was kissing him between his legs. Her mouth began working on him and it was the most exquisite thing he had ever experienced. There was no hesitation, no sloppiness, no scraping of teeth, no awkward tongue, only smooth velvety lips and an unfailingly even rhythm that made him hard almost instantly.
He wanted to push her off, wanted to tell her to stop, but he lay there unmoving, saying nothing, letting her continue. He felt guilty, horribly, tremendously guilty, absolutely reprehensible, but, God help him, he did not want it to stop. It was wrong, it was immoral, it was a violation of his marriage vows and everything he had ever stood for.
But it was also the best sex he'd ever had.
Tonight's present, he thought. His reward for today.
Courtesy of Newman King.
He told himself he shouldn't do this, couldn't do this, had to put a stop to it, but in his mind he was already rationalizing the experience. The sex had been forced on him, he'd been sleepy, too tired and confused to react; he hadn't known what was happening, and by the time he did figure it out too was too late.