The Flavor of Desire

Written for the On The Job Challenge 2024, this is a different kind of workplace romance. Thanks to badgirlinpurple for her editing help and her unflagging kind-hearted encouragment, and thanks to HeyAll for organizing this challenge. All characters in this story are age 18 or older.

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"I'll taste your strawberries and I'll drink your sweet wine." - Glen Campbell

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The Flavor of Desire

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"Lubricant sales are up six percent, and the entire line of douche products is doing better than expected, not up from last month but still thirteen percent above our first quarter expectations."

"Thanks Fran, that's the kind of financial report I like," said Lauryn, the company's CEO, sitting at the head of the boardroom table, her executive staff seated all around it. "All twelve of our primary products are in black numbers this month. Excellent work everybody. Let's keep this trend going. These healthy profits are covering the cost of developing our new pills that flavor vaginas. Which reminds me, has anybody come up with any more naming ideas?"

"Pussy Fruit, maybe?" came a suggestion from one of the staff. "I thought it sounds a little like that one you said we can't use, 'Juicy Fruit'.

"Pussy Fruit. Hmm, I don't know," said Lauryn. "I like it, it's got a nice ring to it, but it's probably too profane. We need a name that can be on store shelves."

"How about Love Candy," another said.

"Ooo, that one's interesting. It's not really candy, though. The pills themselves are flavorless."

"Yes, but...the other night, when I tried the one that makes you cherry-flavored, my partner said my pussy tasted like candy."

"Okay, yes. My husband said something similar. Maybe the 'candy' angle is not so bad." Lauryn glanced at each of her executive staff, all of them women. "Anybody else have an idea on this?"

"I still think Flavors For Sex is nice and simple and to the point."

"How about Taste My Twat," said another, drawing chuckles from all around the table.

"That one's a little too on the nose. Let's all keep thinking about it. How's the testing going at home? Anyone have any issues? Are our partners happy? Any side effects showing up, or...any questions or concerns?"

"I've been keeping track of everyone who's trialing it at home," said Talia, the company's vice president. "So far so good."

"That's what I like to hear," said Lauryn.

Talia chimed in again. "The one thing I was wondering about, though, is whether we're truly able to understand the flavors properly. Say, for example, that a strawberry flavored vagina is a rich and exciting taste, but the peaches-and-cream flavor is okay but maybe not as exciting. By testing them one at a time with our husbands and partners at home, not even on consecutive days probably, it's difficult to get a read on something like flavor strength."

"Yes, I see what you mean," said Lauryn. "Any ideas on how we can get around that? How can we learn more?"

"A bigger company would have a clinical trial," said Talia. "Design it scientifically to test things all at once somehow. Like pharmaceutical companies do when they test their new drugs."

Lauryn nodded, lightly tapping her gold pen on her notepad. "Thank God our pills aren't a drug that we have to get through the FDA. So, a more simplified clinical trial, what would it look like, in this case?"

Talia quickly thought about it. "We could contract it out to a testing company, but that would be expensive and time consuming. Designing the test and handling the logistics 'in-house' would solve those problems but...would we want to?"

"Sure, why not," said Lauryn. "We're a scrappy company, we've got plenty of smart people, in the lab and here in the boardroom. Figuring out ideas is what I pay you all the big money for. Let's brainstorm this. What are some ideas?"

Talia nodded. "Okay, so...maybe...to really discern the differences between the flavors, maybe it should be just one 'taster', tasting each one right after the other. Just one 'taster', so as to eliminate the variable of different people having different taste sensitivities. Does that make sense?"

"So, clearly we'd need to hire someone for this task," said Lauryn. "The first question is, should this 'taster' be a man or a woman?"

"It's not really just one person to hire, though, is it?" said another of the women sitting around the boardroom table. "Don't we need a whole panel of people, the taster plus a group of women to take the flavorings?"

"Oh, right," said Lauryn. "I guess I was still stuck in thinking about how we've been doing it at home, taking the flavorings ourselves. But yes, you're right, we'll need to bring in quite a few people for this. The trick is, where, and how. This isn't something we can call up our temp agency for. Tasting fruit-flavored vaginas is...more than a little unusual."

"It's a sticky situation," said one, drawing chuckles.

"What about volunteers?" asked another, named Gabby. "I mean...it wouldn't be unpleasant work."

Another at the table, named Renee, smiled. "Gabby, you throwing your hat in the ring? Where's the sign-up sheet? Maybe some of the rest of us want in on this."

"Would that even be something we can do?" asked Talia. "I mean, what are the ethics? We'd absolutely have to have Mya look into the legality of this. We'd need an airtight legal contract to remove any worries about sexual harassment blowback."

"Blowback, wow," said Renee. "Sounds hot. That means the taster is a guy, right?"

The others nervously chuckled.

"I'm still wondering about the numbers here," said Lauryn. "We have six flavors right now, so we'd need six women if we want each to be a different flavor."

"The other day you mentioned that the lab told you the chocolate flavor is almost ready to try. Is that still on track?"

"Yes, the first samples are being formulated, so that makes seven flavors, seven women. That's a lot to find. Maybe using volunteers isn't such a bad idea?"

A spirited discussion ensued, all around the table in the windowless private boardroom...

"Have we decided if the taster should be male or female?"

"I read somewhere that women have better taste buds than men do. It's scientifically known, I think."

"Yes, I've read that."

"But a big portion of our sales will be to women who are heterosexual. But not all, of course. So, we'll need a male taster and a female taster."

"They should work together, taste-testing the same flavors at the same time, to eliminate any variables."

"Wow. This is...making me warm," said the oldest, Fran, fanning herself with a file folder.

"Seven women with their legs spread, and two tasting tongues going at it? Where's that volunteer sheet. I'm in," said another.

"I want to say I am, too, but...wow, is this for real? Is this happening?"

"Okay, good discussion everyone, but let's all just take a breath, take a step back for a minute," said Lauryn. "Mya, what's your lawyerly opinion about the legality of all this? And what should all of us be thinking? Is it right for those of us on the board to be volunteering for this?"

"I don't see why not," said Mya. "It's just a matter of writing up a good contract for everyone to sign. It'd be a non-disclosure kind of thing, for everyone, including the tasters. If it's written up correctly it would keep everything quiet, and nobody outside would know anything except the results. We can write up the findings in a scientific way. We should be able to find out just what we need to know."

"Yes, that sounds promising," said Lauryn. "Okay, so, say we do this. Where? And how? Middle of a workday in this locked boardroom, or...?"

"I have a question," said Jessica. "The two tasters, the man and the woman, where are you finding them?"

"That's a big question, yes," said Lauryn. "Anyone have any ideas?"

Jessica spoke up again. "I mean...the reason I asked is...I might...volunteer for that. I mean, I'm a woman, so I've maybe got those better taste buds, and..."

"And you're a gay woman and that's certainly a demographic we'll hope to sell to," said Lauryn, nodding. "How does everyone feel about this? Shall we keep this particular volunteer position 'in house'?"

"Maybe we should keep the whole thing 'in house'," said Renee. "I can think of a couple guys in the warehouse who might wanna have a taste..."

Nervous chuckles all around the table.

"Oh my gosh, that new blond warehouse guy. I said hi to him in the parking lot. Big blue eyes, just the right little bit of gray in his beard..."

More chuckles.

"Let's keep this professional, shall we?" said Lauryn. "As much as we can, anyway. So, what do we think about all in-house, with air-tight non-disclosure. A show of hands if you think it's a good idea."

All raised their hands.

"Wow. Okay. A show of hands if you think Jessica should be the female taster."

All raised their hands, though some slower than the others.

"Jessica, you're our first participant," said Lauryn. Any thoughts on how this should take place?"

"Right here in the office, maybe, or in the lab? I mean, if it was somewhere outside of here, and my partner found out about it, it wouldn't look as...work related. Do you know what I mean?"

Lauryn nodded. "Yes. That's a good point. Okay everyone, so, how do we fill out the rest of this roster? It's not exactly the kind of sign-up sheet we can post on the break-room bulletin board for all to see. We've got Jessica, so we need to find one male taster to work with her and seven women to take the flavor pills."

"I volunteer."

"I'm in.

"I guess...I'm in?"

Lauryn smirked. "Gabby, you sound unsure."

"No, I'm...sure. Yes. I'm in."

"You'll tell Brandon?"

"I'm not allowed to, right?" Gabby said. "I've kept company secrets from him before. I'm okay with that."

"A full non-disclosure agreement?" asked Fran, the oldest woman on the executive board. "Everyone involved will sign it?"

"Yes, it'll have to be a good one," said Talia. "Mya, you can word it so it's a complete gag order? Fully legally binding?"

"Yes, no problem."

"Okay, then...I'm in," said Fran. "And no, I'm not telling Brian. And yes, I am blushing, so stop looking at me."

"Fran, are you sure?" asked Lauryn. "This needn't be a situation that strains a marriage."

"It isn't," said Fran. "It's work. Testing what may be our biggest product yet. It's important, and I want to do it."

"That's a nice way of looking at it," said Mya, the youngest of all these nicely dressed executives, a lawyer for three years now. "Okay, I'm in."

"Wow," said Lauryn. "I'd hate to be the hypocrite who says this shouldn't be done because some of us are married, so...looks like I'm joining you. Us married girls need to stick together, right? Wow, this all got much more interesting than I was expecting today. We're truly all getting in on this? Strength in numbers I guess, right? How about it, are we all solidly in on this? There's seven of us. That's what we need, right?"

"It is," said Talia, "but Jessica's a taster, so...if there's soon to be seven flavors we'll need one more woman."

Sitting confidently at the head of the table, Lauryn nodded. "Before we tackle that, let's first see what we have here. Are we really all wanting to do this? I don't want peer pressure to sway any of you into doing this."

"It's not," said Mya, always quiet and thoughtful. "I want to help. I'm glad we're all doing it."

Lauryn nodded. "Any ideas for who we should ask to fill the open positions? We need one more woman, and a nice, sensible man."

"I'm serious about that new warehouse guy. He seemed quiet, not a big talker, you know? That's good, right? And he doesn't look dumb."

"Yes, but...does he have an exceptional tongue?" smirked Renee.

More chuckles around the table.

"How do we even ask somebody about doing this?" asked Lauryn.

Talia looked at Mya. "They'd have to sign a non-disclosure about the interview itself, maybe?"

"I can get right on that," said Mya. "I can write up a specific non-disclosure that will allow us to ask anyone we want. And, if you want me to, I'll go down to the warehouse and have a casual chat with this new guy, just to see if he seems reliable."

"Good," said Lauryn. "Anyone have any other suggestions?"

"How about Warren in accounting?"

"How about Kobe in design?"

"How about Zach?"

"Oh, wow, Zach, the hunky maintenance man. I like it."

Lauryn smirked. "Okay, ladies. We're drifting from our professionalism. Let's keep this on track and businesslike."

Renee chimed in. "I'm just spitballin' here, but...have we thought farther ahead? What happens when we want to test a new flavor? Should we maybe have the contract written so the guy is, like, on call? Maybe a month from now we'll need to do this all again."

"I can write it up that way," said Mya, making a note of it on her legal pad.

"Or we could get a different guy each time. Different guys have different taste, probably."

"Maybe the test would tell us more if we had a panel of men, even for this first time."

"Warehouse Blue Eyes, Warren, Zach, and Kobe."

"That's four, plus Jessica," said Talia. "It would only take two more guys to have the same number of tasters and tastees. That'd be a much better scientific sample, don't you think?"

Lauryn smirked. "I wish all our board meetings were this spirited. I'm temped to say this is all crazy and we should throw the idea in the dustbin, but...science is a thing, and better samples are better samples. Let's do it. Let's find, if we can, one more woman to join us on the 'flavor' side, and six men to join Jessica on the 'taster' side. We'll keep it all in-house, all strictly legal and under wraps, and we'll do it here, in this boardroom, as soon as possible. A simple product testing. Even though it's simple, and legal, it is unusual, so let's keep this to ourselves, shall we? Confidential and professional. Okay everyone, let's make it happen."

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A few days later, just after 5pm, Larry Jones looked over the contract that lay on the table before him, the bright white of the paper a stark contrast against the deep mahogany brown of the big table that was the imposing centerpiece of the quiet, windowless, white-walled boardroom. He'd already signed a non-disclosure agreement the day before, but this new one went into more detail, and some of it surprised him. He glanced at the six other men and the one woman who were sitting at the table with him. He glanced at a few of the nicely dressed women who were standing, seemingly nervously, at the head of the room. Knowing that they are the executives at the company, he didn't stare at these women. It was hard not to, though, for he was curious. He felt a bit conspicuous sitting there wearing company supplied work pants and a short-sleeved shirt with his name on it, the uniform he always wears working in the warehouse. He was glad the nice maintenance guy, Zack, was here at this table and dressed similarly, the four other men dressed in 'business casual' office attire.

Hearing other men signing their names, Larry did the same, scribbling his name in a somewhat nervous way. The Vice President of the company, a pleasant-looking woman named Talia, collected the contacts one by one, looking closely to make sure they were properly signed. "Good." "Good." "Good," she said, one at a time, until she'd collected all seven. "If you all are wondering, the rest of us signed the same agreement. These will go to the legal department and be a part of a special file that will stay confidential. No one except those of us in this room is to know anything, anything at all, about this testing or the methods we use here today. Is that clear to everyone? Not your spouses, not your friends, no one."

Lauryn saw agreement all around, so she stepped forward and took over the meeting. "Okay, so, now that we're all here, and all on the same page, and all legally bound by this, let's get on with this product test. For anyone who may not know, I'm the CEO, Lauryn, and I thank you all for staying and working this overtime today. We're not sure how long this will take; maybe an hour, maybe more. Hopefully we can do this efficiently and you won't miss too many drinks at happy hour.

"So, let's reveal your challenge here today. As you know, we create, produce and market women's hygiene products, but what you don't know is that our lab has been working on a new kind of product, having to do with, shall we say, the flavor of a woman. We've already discussed with you, individually and in our preliminary non-disclosure meetings, that you're all over eighteen-years old and, with the exception of Jessica, you're all heterosexual men, so I'll be speaking more freely from here on out. I'm assuming you've all performed oral sex on a woman?"

Seeing all the men nodding, she continued. "Good. Yes. I actually never have, myself, but I believe others when they say women have a 'flavor'. A so called 'pussy' tastes like pussy, is that correct?"

Some of the men smirked. Most of them nodded.

"What if I told you we've developed a simple pill that a woman can take that changes the flavor of her...pussy...to orange, or strawberry, or fresh peach, or any of a total of seven flavors. Would you find that intriguing? Good, I thought you might. So, here we are, ready to test this product. Jessica is our female taste tester, she'll be working with you men, and the other seven of us women have all taken a pill, each one of us a different flavor, and you seven tasters will sample each of us and make notes of your findings using the forms on the clipboards Talia is passing around. Each of you will sample all seven of us, then maybe we'll go around again, so as to see how the flavors hold up over time, and also how they hold up throughout the, shall we say, the 'wetness' cycle a woman goes through. When we're wetter is it better, taste-wise, or is it diluted? These are the kinds of questions we hope to answer, along with the basic questions, like, can you even tell which flavor is which, and which flavors are more pleasant, and why. Feel free to make any notes you wish; all your thoughts are relevant. Okay, I think that about covers it. Any questions?"

Warren, who works just down the hall in the accounting office, looked a bit confused. "We're here to...taste your pussies? Am I...getting that right, or...?"

Lauryn smirked. "That's exactly it, Warren. Taste and compare. I'm sure you have a better understanding now of why we were so insistent on secrecy and non-disclosure. I'm also sure some of you are aware that I'm married, and some of the other women are married, and some of you men are married. If that's a problem, we completely understand, and any of you can opt-out of this project. Does anyone feel that way?"

Talia chimed in. "We've decided to think of this as nothing more than secretive product testing. Lot's of company's do it. It's not an unusual thing. We're looking at it that way and we're all holding onto that idea."

Warren nodded. "I can...do that. Secret product testing. Yeah, that's a thing."

The other men nodded, not saying a word, seemingly still dumbstruck by the surprising details of this evening 'project'.

"Good," said Talia. "So we're all staying? We're all ready to get started?"

Lauryn felt herself blushing a little. "If you men don't mind turning your backs to us, we'll...get ourselves ready."

Larry and the other men stood up from their chairs and went to the foot of the room, near the windowless door that was closed tight, and they stood there, not looking at the women.

"Would one of you latch that lock on the door, please," said Lauryn.

Kobe reached for it and latched it, the loud mechanical 'click' a stark contrast to the soft, rustling sound of women's clothing. He and the other men listened in the quiet, the sound of cotton and linen, satin and silk. When the soft sounds quieted a bit, they could hear the women moving, and chairs moving. Zach and one of the others wanted to turn and ask if they could help, but they stood still, silent, with hearts thumping, waiting for instruction. The soft scent of women's perfume sweetened the air, air that seemed to be warming.