The Carrot & The Big Stick Ch. 01

Predictably, I had to resort to the same method the next 2 evenings as well, and once more when Monday morning finally arrived.

...

Entering through the office front door, I sort of had a plan for the day: I would try to fix her computer first opportunity I could. Get it over with as soon as possible.

I headed straight to her office and knocked twice, but got no answer.

I waited 30 seconds and tried again. No answer.

So much for that plan.

I went up to my office and logged in to my mail. I don't read or answer mail in my private time. Apparently, she had sent me an email 2 hours earlier at 6:00.

Hello Jon,

As evident by this mail, I've fixed the login issue.

However, we have other matters we need to discuss.

I am available at 11:00 in my office.

Do knock, Jon.

Sincerely,

Jessica Maroonda

Well, I knew what other matters meant. I was extremely glad to see that she didn't make any written accusations in the mail at least. Maybe there was still a chance this could work out... somehow.

I tried to do some accounting work, but the numbers kept slipping out of my mind, so I ended up answering mails and doing some organizing I'd put off in favor of more important stuff.

Finally the time arrived, and I went down and knocked on her door.

"Come in" she answered.

I got unwanted flashbacks as I opened the door, but managed to block them out.

She had moved her desk to the center of her office, and it felt a little like I was entering a principal's office seeing her sitting in her chair waiting for me.

"Good to see you actually know how to knock, if you're asked to at least. Please sit down, Jon."

Yeah, I deserved that one. I didn't really want to sit down, but didn't see any good way of avoiding it.

"I had a look through the company documentation and procedures," she started.

"Umm.. Ok?"

"I'm surprised you didn't manage to follow the relevant procedure on Friday, as it is one of the few procedures your department has. A particularly well-written one too."

Where is she going with this, and why is she praising me? She must know I wrote it. It says so on the front page of it.

"In my admittedly fresh career, I've already had the opportunity to work in several large companies. Serious companies. I must say, compared to their internal quality control procedures, this company is severely lacking."

I had no foundation to contest her claim. Besides working some summer jobs when I was a student, this job was also my first even if my job description had changed significantly. I simply didn't have the same experience as her to make comparisons.

"To fix this, and to ensure my department can confidently inform our clients that we are a serious and professionally run company, we're going to have to be ISO 9001 certified."

Although not legally required, my department had been planning on getting the 9001 certification soon. While not a massive task, it did require integrating some software with our other main system and writing up quite a few missing procedures. As often happens though, management had always prioritized the large, important projects instead, and it had been repeatedly delayed.

In hindsight, that might've been the wrong prioritization, but our company had also seen significant growth many years in a row without making any costly mistakes, and it did so by focusing on getting the jobs done. Still, it was long overdue, and she was probably right that it would help sales.

"Ok..." I said, nodding my head. "That's been planned for a long time. We just delivered our largest project to date. It does seem like good timing to do it now, before things pick up again."

Her stern expression softened into a slight smile, and I relaxed a little.

"Very good! Then I'm happy to share that it's already been approved." She said, "I talked to our CEO Sarah this morning, and when I mentioned it she immediately asked me for an estimation. I was initially hesitant to give her an answer, but apparently she can be quite... insistent... when she wants something from you. I told her that although it's a lot of work, because our IT department has such a good reputation of being highly competent and capable, four weeks of dedicated work should be sufficient."

Oh, she's sneaky.

She had clearly gone behind my back, gotten involved in something that was clearly my responsibility, and taken things out of my hands. While I got a bit annoyed, it didn't really matter in the end. It had to be done regardless. Now was as good a time as any.

I had a question though: Why did Sarah allow this to happen?

The 45 year old businesswoman was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. Normally she had keen eyes for such things, not letting herself be manipulated by anyone. In fact, when she stepped in as CEO 4 years ago, she had immediately stomped down hard on any behavior within the company, even clearing up several long standing animosities that were disrupting work. Everyone, including the people she had corrected, had in the end been thankful for that.

Nobody can be perfect though. Everyone makes mistakes, I thought, and my mind focused back on the matters at hand.

Four weeks is a little bit ambitious, but definitely doable if I dedicate 3 of my guys to work on the back-end and I do the planning and internal tutorials.

"Ok, after people are back from vacation in four weeks, and after we do the post-project cleanup which is going to take about two weeks, we can.." I started, but she interrupted me.

"Oh, that's four weeks from today." she said.

"What!?" I said, taken aback. "But for the next four weeks I'm the only one from IT here!"

That's when I saw. Her smile wasn't pleasant, it was predatory.

"Ooooh, no!" she said with wide eyes and a despondent look. A little bit too wide and a little bit too despondent.

"Well, I've also heard rumors you're quite the capable man underneath that unassuming exterior, so I expect you to perform and handle it. Am I wrong?" She was looking at me with narrowed eyes and raised eyebrows, as if challenging me to contest it.

My mind was still playing catch up, I didn't really know what to say. When I didn't respond, she seemed to assume I had no objection and her smile returned, carrying on by giving instructions.

"Excellent! I will help as well. Sarah thought I should lead this project, seeing as I have relevant experience with it. It'll also let you focus on implementation."

Her smile deepened as she continued.

"I've already made a list of the project's timeline, work, and milestones." she said, and handed me a sheet of paper.

Hesitantly, I took it out of her hand. As my eyes scanned her list, I was outraged.

Apparently she expected me to do 3 days worth of work every single day going forwards. This was absurd, it just wasn't going to happen! I finally found my voice.

"This.. This is just too much work! 4 weeks can be done, but after everyone is back from vacation! So I can put 3 people on it! We also first need to clean up after the busy project we just finished.."

Apparently, that wasn't the answer she was looking for, and her anger flared up.

"So you're telling me this company isn't in desperate need for clear guidelines, especially ways to ensure they are properly understood and actually followed?" It was clear she was referring to Friday's incidents.

"What!? Eh... No! That's not what I'm saying!" I said, taken aback.

She just stood there, apparently waiting for a proper answer.

Perhaps... This wasn't as horrible as it first seemed.

If this is the price I have to pay for her to sweep what happened under the rug, I should be thanking her from the bottom of my heart. 4 weeks of hard work is a bargain if I can avoid any harassment charges after what happened.

Although it kind of felt like blackmail, I had to admit it was a much better outcome than any of the scenarios I had been playing out in my mind during the weekend, so I resigned to my fate.

"Fine." I said. "I'll have to refresh my coding skills, but I can probably get it done."

"Good!" She snapped. "It's good to see you being sensible." She rose up and walked around her desk. I felt myself tensing up as she got closer.

She was wearing a normal professional shirt, blazer and skirt.. but their features all seemed to accentuate her figure somehow. As she walked over, I could also see she had the barest hint of a cleavage, well within what was acceptable, but also way more than what I needed right then with her breasts subtly bouncing with each step. I quickly looked away.

I needed to leave.

Before I could though, she had walked over and stood right in front of me, looking at me intensely, and extending her arm for a handshake.

"I think this will be a great first project, don't you?"

I had to look her in the eyes for this, and hesitantly did.

I'm so much taller than her, was the thought that immediately struck me, as I turned and looked at her.

She had to be around 165 centimeters, while I was 192. This resulted in an angle that, combined with her ample bosom, made it easy for me to see down her cleavage. While I managed to not look directly, my eyes and brain conspired to savor the sight.

Is she not wearing a bra? No, I can see a hint of fabric down there..

I was getting hard again - I needed to hurry this along.

I quickly grabbed her small hand and shook it.

"I... I hope so." What a stupid thing to say.

She had a surprisingly strong grip for her size, and she held on when I started letting go, her face going serious.

"I assume you'll be able to control yourself and that... thing... while we're together? I'm only giving you this one chance, you know."

I didn't know what to say without sounding like a pervert, especially seeing I was already getting chubby at this point. God, she smells good too. It didn't smell like perfume, just... like a proper woman.

When she finally let go, I couldn't do anything but nod, and quickly turn to hide my growing bulge. It was a little bit awkward to open and exit through her door without turning sideways, but luckily I managed.

Unfortunate for me, it seemed she had also scheduled daily follow ups, in-person.

...

I worked overtime every single day. I hoped I would at least get some days off, but that soon seemed like a naive fantasy.

Although she didn't increase the scope of work, she did push for everything to be perfect. When I protested against her insane standards, she would look at me with a scornful look and a raised eyebrow, as if saying "are you really going to throw away this", and I would begrudgingly get back to work.

To her credit, even if her contribution to the project was limited, she did good work and seemed to work just as much as me. When I finally finished up around ten or eleven in the evening, I could sometimes see the light in her office still on and her bike in the lobby. Workaholic indeed.

Of course, the biggest trouble was her follow-ups.

She would visit my office and insist that I show her what I was working on. When I did, there was always something about her that was excruciatingly distracting.

Sometimes, she would sit next to me in an ergonomic chair she had found somewhere, in which case her breasts would constantly be at my eye height in my side vision. She probably had trouble finding shirts that were large enough for her small frame, because her large breasts really stretched her shirts. Sometimes I could even see the faint hint of nipples coming through, which really didn't help.

Other times, she would sit down on my desk with her legs close and pointing towards me, which wasn't much better. I couldn't help but be distracted by her trim legs, shins and ankles, and the notion that if she ever spread her legs a bit too much, I would get to see other assets too.

Many times when we were discussing something, she would look at me with this very intense gaze while I was talking, making me deeply uncomfortable. I figured, either she was just focusing on what I was saying and this was her normal intense behavior, or she was actively sitting there hating me and looking back at me as an act of challenge. Regardless of where she looked, she talked in a very matter-of-fact way. I couldn't do anything else but try to act as normal as possible the whole time, including just looking back into her eyes as uncomfortable as it was.

Every time she visited had the same predictable result though, and I soon discovered no amount of wanking could prevent it. Even her intense stare started to arouse me.

One time, when she was wearing trousers for once, she even knelt down by my side casually and leaned on my desk with her hands crossed in front of her. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but with the size of her breasts they were pushed up and accentuated to an extreme degree. I was surprised the seams of my pants survived that time.

Luckily, I managed to hide my raging erections as long as I was pushed up against the desk in a writing position. That time she had knelt down though.. I had been extremely anxious. When getting up and kneeling down, she had even been low enough down to look under the desk. I have no idea why she didn't see my engorged dick that time.

To avoid walking around with that outline of a cock on my pants and making that mistake again, I waited in my office until my boner subsided on its own,

every, single, time,

and sometimes that could take a long time indeed. Each time I felt like a massive pervert.

As torturous as it was, there were some glimmers of positivity.

A very pleasant surprise was that we did seem to work well together. Great even, the rare times she seemed to forget herself and didn't act in her usual stuck-up and strict manner.

I found that one of my initial assumptions had been correct; it was refreshing to work with someone who could be very direct. Our communication was overall very efficient and seamless. I also found myself impressed by her capacity to understand things she apparently had limited knowledge about, and how good her feedback on my work was.

One time, when she actually kept her distance for once and I was feeling quite comfortable, I cracked a joke to which she had really, really laughed at for 2 whole seconds, before catching herself and immediately going back to serious-mode. She had looked seriously cute when laughing, something that didn't go unnoticed by my lower body buddy either.

So much for remaining decent for at least a single interaction with her, I had thought to myself then.

...

I had hoped things would get better and she would mellow out over time, but things had only been getting worse. Yes, her demeanor slipped more and more often, but when she did, she would redouble her efforts to act even more coldly next time, accompanied by a push for even higher standards of work.

For 22 days straight, I had worked from morning to nearly midnight, but despite working my ass off, we were falling behind according to her insane schedule. It was now early in the morning on Tuesday of the fourth week, and the completion of the project by the end of the week seemed more impossible now than ever.

Upon seeing some of the documents I had created coming back for their 5th and 6th revision, my patience was wearing quite thin indeed. I was exhausted, grumpy, and fucking horny as hell too, having been too tired to even wank when arriving home after work the past few days. I was starting to wonder if the whole thing was actually worth it, or maybe being accused of harassment would have actually been preferable, hell, maybe being sentenced and sent to jail would've been better. At least I could relax there.

I really, really need a break and some proper quality sleep, I thought. It felt like my brain was enveloped in molasses. My sleep had been getting worse and worse too, never a good sign. After sitting at my desk and reflecting for a while, it just made more and more sense.

To hell with it, I'm taking a day off!

The second I had made my decision, I felt a little bit better.

She'll just have to accept it! If she reports me, so be it! Right now, I don't care!

So that's what I did. I wrote a simple email saying: "I'm taking a day off. I'll be back tomorrow," shut down my computer and cellphone, and went home. I was heading straight for bed...

As I left the office, I felt a strong rush of relief that I didn't have to suffer her daily visit that day.

She had started haunting me in my dreams too at this point. Probably due to me not getting a proper wank off for too long. I had been waking up with memories of pale naked skin rubbing against me, caressing soft tits pressing into me, gentle breathy moans playing in my ears, and the sensation of a tight wet vulva embracing my dick.

The dreams I could remember usually started out with her in my office with her sitting next to me in one of her usual titillating positions. The feeling of being tortured would build and build until I could stand it no more and simply had my way with her.

In one dream, one I remembered especially well, I'd replayed our first encounter with a twist. Instead of just standing there gawking at her breasts however, I had walked over and grabbed her, spinning her around and bending her over her desk, pulled down her skin-tight bike shorts and rammed my cock straight into her pussy - somehow I had already been naked. Apparently I enjoyed myself so much in that dream that it ended up as my first wet dream since I was 15.

As you probably have guessed, these dreams were not exactly helpful when attempting to control myself during her visits, so yeah, It was wonderful to skip it for once.

Once home, I was lucky I had gotten undressed before putting my head on my pillow. I was immediately unconscious, and remained so until my alarm sounded at 6:30 the next day, almost 24 hours later.

Yeap. I really needed sleep at that point.

Chapter 3: The Littoral Explosion

I felt like a million bucks compared to the day before. Finally, my head felt clearer and I could think straight, maybe better than it had been since before the incidents and start of the project.

Suddenly, the project and the mountain of work that remained didn't seem as daunting, and the cup of coffee that morning tasted better than it had in what felt like a lifetime.

Fortunately I found out that my good mood persisted even when I arrived at work. After only an hour, I had decided that the remaining documents that still weren't approved were in fact good enough. I was more than qualified to make that call. Yes, I still had to do some programming work, but nothing so critical that it couldn't be fixed later on.

Apparently Jessica had sent me a crass reply to my mail just minutes after I had sent it, and I noticed I didn't get that lump in my stomach upon reading it. I quickly replied to it, sharing my decisions and work I had planned for the day. I would still do things according to her schedule, just speed things along greatly compared to before.

I started to print out the final documentation to have physical copies of the procedures available, which meant I spent most of that day in one of the storage rooms we kept the printers and company documents in. It wasn't until later in the evening, with me still happily and efficiently working on making binders, she finally showed up.

I saw her head pop through the open door and look around. When she spotted me, I could see anger flashing in her eyes.