Lightning Rods (10 page)

Anyway he just stood there, realizing he was going to have to do something, and also that the one thing he couldn’t do was go around to the Ladies to say case dismissed. From what he could see, this was absolutely typical of the half-assed way the thing had been set up. It didn’t seem to have occurred to anybody that if for some reason things didn’t go according to plan, there could be a need to get the message across. All they would have had to put in was a light switch with some prearranged signals, or a slot with some preprinted messages, but no, that was too easy. So that was part of it, just the sheer aggro of the fact that there was no other option available. And then, when he thought about why it was giving him the creeps he realized it was a knee-jerk reaction with no real justification in reality. It was a free country. Nobody was making anybody do anything they didn’t want to; in fact the company was probably paying a lot of money to compensate them for their time. Besides. This was something experts had determined was helpful in increasing the productivity and job satisfaction of male employees. Wasn’t there a chance that these guys were on to something?

Because let’s face it, whatever else you might think of Joe, he’d really done his homework. The guy knew his stuff. All this research on baboons in captivity—you can’t just shrug something like that off. And it suddenly occurred to Mike—of course, later he realized he was giving Joe too much credit, but this was what he thought at the time—that maybe it was clinical and unvarnished for a
reason
. Maybe it wasn’t
meant
to be erotic. The point was not to plug into whatever mental trip someone might want to be on, the point was to provide a physical release for physical needs.

And then he thought Well, since it’s
there
.

So he set aside his skepticism for the moment and availed himself of the facility. It was quite a strange experience in some ways. Still, it was enjoyable enough for what it was.

Anyway, almost straight away he noticed that he was experiencing an unusual sense of well-being. He hadn’t been aware of his attention straying while he was trying to concentrate, whether to sex or to anything else, but for a significant period of time afterwards he felt more focused on the job in hand than he had for a long time.

Also, instead of hurrying away after work to go to the gym, he ended up staying an extra hour to finish off something that had been pending.

Obviously somebody knew exactly what they were doing. They had worked out that the human male animal needs a release. Even if he isn’t actually aware of it, getting that release would improve his performance. You had to give them credit for going ahead with something a lot of people would consider unorthodox. They had probably come up against a lot of skepticism before people had had the chance to experience first hand just how helpful it could be.

It later turned out that seventeen out of the first twenty responded in exactly the same way.

They went in expecting something hot and found the reality fell a long way short of their expectations. But there was no way to tell the girl to go away. And while they were mulling that one over, and thinking it was so crude no one but Ed Wilson would see anything in it at all, they would suddenly remember all the information they’d been given on the baboon in captivity. They would realize that the clinical, unerotic environment was there for a reason. And they would remember that experts had determined that the male animal performs best if certain physical needs are given a release.

Being competitive, results-orientated individuals, they took a professional approach: If something will improve your performance,
go
for it.

What about the other three?

Well, two out of three wanted nothing to do with it.

The third was Ed Wilson.

TAKE OFF

Pete was one of the men who wanted nothing to do with it. There are all kinds of crazy people out there; who was there higher up in the organization who would be crazy enough to listen to them? And no matter
who
was that crazy, the obvious question you had to ask yourself was, is this something I want to be seen to be involved in? Is this something I even potentially want anyone to know I had anything to do with? Screwing someone from behind in the disabled john? To say this was a question you had to ask yourself implied that there was a possibility in a million years that you would be that dumb. But he had kept his counsel to himself, because this is the kind of thing where if anyone does it other people can’t afford to be seen to disapprove.

What he actually said was that he was in a relationship. The fact was that even if it hadn’t been a stupid idea for other reasons it would not be a good idea for anyone in a relationship. Not that he noticed that stopping some of the others. But if you’re in a relationship it’s important not to have anything you would rather the other person didn’t know, because sooner or later they will sense that something is going on. Also, there are some things that there is no point expecting a woman to see in the light you might see it.

As far as he was concerned it was offered as a purely physical convenience, to be availed of in the spirit it was intended. Questions of fidelity would not really apply in that kind of situation. But if you were to try to explain that to someone you were serious about you would be wasting your time. Anything you might say to show why it
wasn’t
infidelity would only make matters worse. You might think a woman would get upset if you fell in love with someone else, and that it would be completely obvious that screwing someone through a hole in the wall was not a meaningful activity in that context. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. If you know what’s good for you you’ll leave well enough alone.

Besides, if you’re actually in a relationship it’s important to be able to satisfy the needs of the other person.

He wouldn’t have minded trying it just once, to see what it was like, but safety first. You never know where there may be a concealed camera these days. You can’t be too careful.

In his opinion this attitude was justified after just one week.

It was getting on for 11 o’clock in the morning, everything pretty much as normal, a day like any other day, when suddenly the fire alarm went off. It wasn’t the time of day when they usually had drills, and at first everyone just assumed it was a mistake, but it kept going, and finally an announcement was made telling everyone to get out of the building. So they all cleared out of the building and stood around on the lawn, and after about fifteen minutes a car turned up, and the guy who had explained about the facility got out of the car and entered the building. He was gone about ten minutes, and then he came out and told everyone they could go back to work.

Later word started to get around. What had happened was that some asshole had tried to ski off-piste. Lose the condom. Or go anal or something. And the lightning rod had set off the alarm. Once that happened, apparently, the cubicle could only be opened from the outside. The anonymity of the offender was preserved by clearing the building of all other personnel, while a representative of lightning rods came to reprimand the individual and inform him of the suspension of privileges he had incurred.

At first everyone had just assumed it was Ed Wilson, but it turned out Ed Wilson was actually out of town, so nobody knew
who
the guy was. So you could say anonymity was protected. But as far as Pete was concerned, this was not a situation you even potentially wanted to be in. You could see where they would have to have something like this for the girls’ protection, but the potential for having your cover blown was such that he personally wanted nothing to do with it.

Bill was initially suspicious. He had already experienced difficulty in concealing the fact that he was gay; he suspected that this was really a covert ploy to flush out gay members of staff, while ostensibly doing nothing more sinister than keeping Ed Wilson under control. Even though he was suspicious he couldn’t help but be amused. The thing was so absolutely typical of the way straights would pick up on something introduced by the gay community and rob it of all the things that had made it worth doing in the first place. In fact what it just went to show was what pathetic sex lives straights had, they had to be really desperate. If it had come right down to it he might have been able to use the facility if he had had to, but he noticed one or two other guys said they were in relationships. So he just said he was in a relationship. He had a laugh about it with Luke afterwards.

Ed Wilson thought that people had overreacted to some incidents that had gotten blown way out of proportion. All he had done was make the mistake of thinking he was working with people with a sense of humor. But the way he looked at it was, if people were going to take it that way, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

EUREKA!

A couple of weeks went by. No one had complained about the toilet. No one had complained about the fact that there was no element of the unexpected. But it kept bothering Joe. He tried not to let it bother him. He went on selling the product with all the force and eloquence at his command, just as if he had unshakable confidence in a product that featured a disabled toilet standing by. But all the time it was there, at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t right.

A good salesman pays attention to his instincts. Even if a product is selling, even if the customer appears satisfied, if you’re dissatisfied with some feature of the product sooner or later the public is going to catch up with you. Or, to put it another way, a competitor is going to come along who has ironed out that particular wrinkle. If you can get to the wrinkle first, while building on the brand loyalty you have hopefully established, you’re way ahead of the game.

An ordinary salesman, of course, can only voice his concern to head office in the hope that it gets passed on to product development. Joe being Head Office, Product Development, and Sales all in one, all he had to do was let his salesman’s instincts carry out their war of attrition at a subconscious level. Finally it was just too much. Law or no law, something was going to have to be done.

For once, Joe made a point of not taking any paperwork home. He was going to take the evening off and just brainstorm for a while and see what came of it.

He decided to just take it one thing at a time. The first thing was all this nudity. For whatever reason, an already naked body is just not as big of a turn-on as one where there is some nudity yet to be achieved. The perennial appeal of the striptease relies on this very fact. Now, for purposes of anonymity it was obviously of the essence that female staff should not have any of their
own
clothes visible. Shortsightedly, he had been just assuming that meant they shouldn’t have any clothes visible at all. Whereas there was absolutely
no
reason why they shouldn’t be actually
wearing
a tight skirt such as he used in his fantasies—the type of skirt that wouldn’t ordinarily be worn to an office anyway, so there wouldn’t be a chance of unfortunate misunderstandings. He could just bulk buy a supply of short, tight skirts in manmade leopardskin, and they could be kept in some kind of storage container in the Ladies disabled, and the gals could slip into one before going on duty.

Once he’d cracked that one he wished he’d taken the time to confront the problem earlier. Because the toilet was another kettle of fish.

He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, but somehow the solution eluded him.

By this stage the rest of the guinea pigs had adjusted somehow, and the project had gotten through the initial rough patch. The way the guinea pigs saw it was, you don’t expect Vitamin C to taste like an orange. You take it because it’s good for you. And after they’d tried it a few times they didn’t really notice most of the features that at first had seemed strange.

Then Joe introduced the short skirts and the high heels and the whole thing took off.

But one of the things that people commented on later was just how little had been done to prepare people psychologically for the kind of outspread a scheme like this might have. In the early stages virtually nothing was known about the effect of using lightning rods on individuals whom the facility was meant to protect. The least Joe could have done, people felt, was to monitor participants carefully for adverse collaterals. One of the many things people couldn’t get their heads around was the fact that Joe had basically gone into business after a
single study
involving getting members of an office to play computerized Spin the Bottle. And frankly, to call it a study was stretching it. Basically all he’d been doing was seeing what he could get away with. Responsible employment psychology this was
not
.

It was hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that there were some painful surprises in store for some of Joe’s guinea pigs. The only thing that was surprising was that anyone could have been surprised.

LET DOWN

Chris was one of the first to discover that the seemingly straightforward sexual harassment preventative could lead to unanticipated and tragic consequences.

The funny thing was that he just thought it was funny to begin with. He had no strong feelings about it one way or another. It could be that it would be helpful for guys who were not getting satisfaction elsewhere. This was not really a problem for him, and when he was at work he liked to think one hundred percent about work, so he did not really expect to make much use of the facility.