"What was that?" her mother asked in her usual nagging tone.
"Nothing, mom, forget about it. Now what were we talking about?"
Her mother was off on one of her typical tirades. Ever the worried mother, to the point that sometimes Susan was concerned that one day her mother would just fall apart. Her mom had been a housewife and stay at home mother and she did not have any experience in the business world beyond making love to Susan's father once every two or three months when he was home from his overseas business trips. Susan had taken after her dad, who had made a killing for himself as a consultant and headhunter for large communications corporations. He had died of a heart attack when he was only 65 years old, leaving Susan's mother with a tidy sum of money but lonely as hell. She got out her loneliness by calling Susan all the time and reminding her to carry mace and to avoid talking to strangers. Susan was surprised her mom had never bought her a chastity device so that she could just keep her pussy on lockdown and safe from the predators. Of course, that still left her mouth open and even if she managed to seal off all her holes, she was sure her mother would be concerned about her getting humped by deviant men or just being shot in the head over her purse and a pair of shoes. Perhaps it was this incredible fear of men, which Susan's mother had instilled in her from a young age, that had contributed to her gravitation towards women. By the time she graduated high school, Susan had come out confidently as a lesbian. In spite of the fact that she only pursued women, her mother never let up and never ceased to remind her how dangerous it was to interact with men. Right now she was busy comforting her mother that yes, in fact, it was safe to give a presentation for work.
"Yes, mom. You know I am always careful at these big conventions," Susan said, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, Susan," her mother continued, histrionically, "you know that you can never be too careful! I know how these drunk salesmen are. All they do is drink, take people's money, and do terrible things to women." Susan often wondered to herself if her mom had not perhaps been raped by one of her father's business associates at some point.
"Mom," Susan moaned, "you know I am a lesbian, right? These men all know it and they leave me alone. I do my business, make my money, and go home. It is that simple, it always has been. I don't know why you let yourself get so worked up all the time."
Her mother wouldn't give up yet. "Honey, you are the Best Health Pharmaceuticals top salesperson for Vieeg-gro in North America. You know the men at that conference are taking more of the samples then they sell. And once their dicks get all hard, they don't care if you are a lesbian or not. Heck, they would probably screw an dog if it had female privates!"
Susan was complexly exasperated. She didn't have any way to talk sense into her mother and besides, it was almost time for the show. "Very good, mom. I'll take all of your excellent advice into consideration today. I'm the keynote speaker, and I am due in stage in just minutes, mom. I have to go now. Love you, bye," and she hung up the phone before her mom could have the last word.
Checking her reflection one last time in the mirror and feeling satisfied, Susan hung up the phone, exited her car, and took some deep breathes before she walked onto the stage, and began her speech.
There were more than three thousand people in the audience, mostly male, and they were all excited to hear Susan's speech. A lot of these guys came to the national sales conference just to see Susan. She was young and hot, and even those in the crowd who did have trophy wives had found that even trophies gather dust with age and after a certain amount of time the attraction fades. Most of them were so busy on the road making sales and fucking escorts they didn't even look twice at their wives when they got home. They just bought them the obligatory valentine's roses, the birthday necklace, and a shiny new ring or pair of earrings at Christmas and left it at that. But Susan, she had something that really got them all going. And the fact that she was a lesbian just made her all the more interesting. It was like she was untouchable, and there was nary a fellow in the audience who had not spent some time jacking off to a fantasy of Susan and some hot, porno chick.
When the cheers died down, Susan began her talk. "Hello Best Health Representatives! I'm happy to speak to you today about our best selling product on the market, Vieeg-gro, keeping men in North America hard as a rock and making a fortune doing it, all with no physical contact!" The crowd went wild. Susan's mom had been right, at least two thirds of the crowd was on it right now, delving into their own stash of samples they were supposed to be providing to doctor's clinics and psychiatrist's offices around the country.
Susan continued, "I bought my third house last month. Another beach house, this time on the Florida coast. My other beach house is in Big Sur, so you know I am often taking coast to coast flights. Always first class! I am on my fourth sports car, and I am just getting started, boys! Now how about you? Are you making your dreams of wealth come true with Vieeg-gro?"
The crowd went wild again, hungry with thoughts of fucking Susan in well-decorated beach houses with high ceilings overlooking scenic oceans.
Now it was time for the real pitch: "For all you new sales people, I am here to promise you that this too can happen to you. And more! Much, much more can happen to you. And it isn't even hard. It's not hard at all. But when you get them hard, you make lots of cash. Big, hard, cold cash. Now that's something we all want to feel in our pant's pocket! So I want to encourage all you rookies out there to keep selling and never give up! And for all of you who have been with the company but are still struggling to break through, let me promise you, if you can step up your game just a little bit each month and maintain your enthusiasm, you will get your big break soon! Thank you Best Health Pharmaceuticals for giving me this wonderful new life!" With this she walked off the stage, letting the crowd go wild in her absence.
She knew she had done a good job. That was the whole gig with sales. Someone had to be at the top making the money. Then there was a large middle tier of managers who eeked out enough to buy some nice suits and took out big loans for a decent car and a mediocre house. They would never make it big but they were so far up their asses in debt they had to keep trying. They were the ones that lured in the rookies. The kids fresh out of business school, the liberal arts grads who came from wealthy families but found themselves assed out after college with no career, and the bums who had gotten laid off from every other job and now thought they had what it takes to make it in sales. They all got paid on commission and most of them never made jack shit. They were essentially free labor, and they provided their own cars, paid for their own gas, racked up credit card debt hoping to break through, thinking "hey, my supervisor has an alright car and a house. If I can just get to his level, I'll be doing alright." Of course, they never got to his level. And he never got to Susan's level. There could only be one top salesmen. The rest were just there for show.
It honestly amazed Susan to think that this sort of unethical business model could thrive and function for so long, but it was what America was built on. Wealth for the one percent and the other ninety-nine percent get to drown in debt. Her dad had taught her not to feel guilty. That was key, never ever under any circumstances feel guilty. Once you start feeling guilty you have lost the game.
Backstage, Susan was surprised to find Joe Gleason waiting for her.
"Mr. Gleason," Susan started, "what are you doing here? Since when were you in this division?"
Mr. Gleason answered Susan's question with a warm hug. She could feel his own boner through his pants, pressing up against her. Ugh, she squirmed, wishing she had heeded her moms advice and bought some mace. Or else carried a sharp needle in her pocket and she could just poke these touchy feely perverts. That would get 'em.
"Susan, we need to talk. Best Health Pharma has a much larger vision for you, if you are ready for a new role with more responsibilities. Let's get out of here though and go somewhere we can talk with a little bit more privacy. How about dinner at the Hyatt? I'll give you all the details then."
Sus
an agreed, and that night she and Joe Gleason drank martinis and dined on the most expensive dishes on the menu, enjoying the moonlight as it fell through the large bay windows of the dining room.
"Susan, first of all, let me congratulate you for being such a hard worker. You have done an amazing job with the Vieeg-gro campaign. You have made a lot of money for yourself and for the company, and I would guess that you maybe have had some fun while doing it too?" Susan nodded in agreement. It had been fun selling all this crap, it seemed to prove her assumption that men were idiots who think with their dicks. Joe continued, "and sure, Vieeg-gro helps a lot of men. And it also makes a lot of women very happy and thankful. But we have another fine product, one that helps people who really need it in a much better, more therapeutic way."
When she heard this, Susan really perked up. She was intrigued. Sure she loved money but sometimes she felt a bit hollow. She didn't really think Vieeg-gro helped any women. She knew it was mostly used on escorts, hookers, call girls, and prostitutes—whatever you wanted to call them. It was probably a very rare instance when a devoted housewife was made happy by one of those little blue pills she had been peddling the past few years. They were the epitome of the corruption of American life. A man too old to actually cheat on his wife pays for a pill so he can fuck a woman he paid for, because heaven knows that all the women his age are too old and ugly for him and none of the young women are going to touch him for free. That defined the sickness that was eating away at the heart of the nation quite well. It also summed up Susan's hatred of the male species.
Unfortunately, Joe's plan to "help" people was not as helpful as it could be, but he laid out his plans to Susan as if it was all gravy.
"You see, Susan, there is are a lot of coal miners and timber workers living in West Virginia. It is a real blue collar state and these guys work very hard to provide for their families in this changing world. There are thousands of them each day pulling muscles or hurting their back on the job, struggling with pain when they finally get home to play with the kids and greet the wifey. Sometimes the pain gets so bad it should put them out of work, but they have to keep going, day after day, because they don't make enough to have savings. These poor guys are out on the job site gritting their teeth and just bearing it. They are in desperate need of effective pain relief," Joe told her.
Susan was listening, but never much of a drug user herself, she was a little bit unsure of what her colleague was getting at. "Why don't they just take an aspirin? Wouldn't that help with the pain? And Best Health doesn't make aspirin… Besides, how much money could you really make selling something like that? You would have to sell it by the truckloads, you know all these guys probably have their wives go to Walfart and buy it in bulk on the cheap. Real cheap," she muttered, shaking her head as she thought about it. She wasn't interested in anything cheap, even if it did mean helping people. She was no philanthropist. It just wasn't her bag.
Joe could have laughed in her face, but he didn't. In her naiveté she reminded him of his own wife, and so he felt bad ridiculing her for her idiocy. "No, Susan. This product is much better than Aspirin and it is very expensive too. One table costs about thirty bucks. And the best part of it is that they work so well that after they pop one, they want to take anywhere from four to twenty-six pills a day. It's a gold mine!"
Susan paused to do the math. "Umm, okay. So, ten a day at thirty dollars would be 300. Twenty a day would be 600. Now, how could they possibly make that kind of money working in the coal mines?"
Joe shared with her the secret of it all: "They don't pay for it, Susan. No one working in a coal mine could come up with that kind of moolah. But they all have health insurance. The health insurance pays for everything. Money in our pockets and they can take as much as they like. As many as they need to keep themselves pain free."
It was all starting to make sense, but Susan was still having some problems wrapping her head around the whole thing. "Alright, I get that. Health insurance is going to cover their pain, but how many people are actually getting injured so bad they need a prescription for it? I mean, I need a whole lot of people taking these things or else I am not going to make any money."
Joe applauded her, "you are very bright, Susan. That is why I wanted to work with you. We did a pilot run in one of the smaller mining towns in West Virginia, a small town with only 400 people. Our representative there sold 3,200,000 of these tablets at $30 a pop. You can do the math, Susan. In fact, you probably just did. And that was one town with 400 people. I'm here tonight to offer you the whole state of West Virginia, that is a population of 1.9 million people."
Susan's eyes goggled, imagining how many beach front homes she could buy with that kind of money. She could retire once she was done with this project. And besides, she would be helping people!
Joe confirmed what she was thinking, "that's right, Susan. Not only will you make a killing but you are going to be helping people. This product is so much more useful than Vieeg-gro, and it is much more beneficial to the public. Not only will you be able to join the ranks of the super wealthy, but you will essentially be performing a public service."
Susan was sold. "Okay, but who am I going to be selling this stuff to? Do I have to visit the coal mines and timber factories? I don't think I really want to do that…" Susan was thinking about all the working class men she would have to pitch to. Her mother had told her about the blue collars. They were even worse than the white. They were savages and degenerates, almost no better than animals. They boozed and schmoozed and let their brains atrophy while they used their physical strength to bring in paltry sums of money until their bodies simply collapsed in exhaustion.
Joe reassured her that she wouldn't need to get involve with the local yokels. "That's the best part of this job, Susan. You only need to visit the doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals. Plus, all the patients are so appreciative of this product that they all want it or need it. It is an easy sell. A slam dunk, you might say," Joe laughed. "So what do you say, Susan? Are you up for it? When can you start? I was thinking we should have you out there by the top of next week if you are ready to make the switch." Susan agreed that sounded just fine.
"Trust me, you won't regret it. It's a lot easier. Less time, more money," Joe smiled.
"Sounds great, I mean, why not?" Susan laughed.
The two of them shook hands on it. The deal was on.
Chapter 4, Grandpa Jerry, Feeling Good
Back in West Virginia, Debbie brown was driving a cherry red BMW sports car down Route 52 to Kermit. The beamer was one of her favorites—the red matched her hair color and she had the stitching in the black leather seats done in red, giving the vehicle a real punch. She knew her relatives would balk when they saw her pulling up in a BMW, but she figured she could just pass it off as a rental. It had been over twenty years since she had last visited Kermit and she was surprised at how different things looked now. Back then it had been a small but clean town, a vibrant and welcoming little place like something out of the television series Mayberry R.F.D. There was Andy, and Barney, and Ms. Bee. An idyllic place where nothing much happened and everyone was polite and got along. Now it was a dirty ghost town. The roads looked like they had not been maintained once since the last time she had visited and many of the shops on the main drag were boarded up and closed for any future business. It was sad. Debbie had never been one for the small town life, but she respected the people that lived in the town and she wondered how their families were surviving in what was clearly a failing economy. As she continued her slow crawl along main street, she passed by what appeared to be the only thriving business in the whole town. It was Good Buddy Pharmacy, a store that Debbie remembered even from long ago. When she was a kid and used to visit Kermit she loved going to the soda fountain at Good Buddy and getting an Italian soda. They had all sorts of flavors and every time it was a fun treat. The old Good Buddy had been a small little mom and pops establishment with an old time feel and peeling paint and creaky floor
boards to match. The Good Buddy that was before her now was a whole different beast.
Good Buddy Pharmacy had been completely remodeled. It had taken over three or four of the surrounding stores and incorporated it into one large megapharmacy. There was a bright shining neon sign that read "Good Buddy" and had a logo of a friendly teddy bear with his arms moving back and forth giving a salute, just like a good buddy might. It looked like a CVS or a Rite-Aid you might find in New York's Times Square. It certainly looked out of place in dusty, musty old Kermit. Debbie was eager to get to her grandpa's house so she didn't stop to check out the interior of the store. It was certainly clear the Good Buddy was the only place in this town still doing brisk business, and they were making a killing. She would ask Grandpa Jerry about it when she saw him.
Suddenly she realized that she had forgotten the exact directions to Grandpa Jerry's house, it had been so darn long. She also noticed that there were a good number of the small town's residents out on the street gawking at this hot young lesbian woman in a cherry red BMW. Oops! Well, she figured that there was no harm in asking one of them for directions so she stopped her car, rolled down the window, and hollered at one of the gawkers, "Hey there, how are ya doing? Do you happen to know my grandpa? His name is Jerry and he lives with my cousin Loretta."
Of course, in a small town like this, they knew Jerry and Loretta. They had a hard time believing that this bombshell was the grandchild of Jerry, but they provided her with the proper directions in a helpful, friendly manner, and Debbie was back on her way.
Grandpa Jerry and Loretta lived about a mile out of town off of a little back road. When you got off of Route 52 you got onto Route 40, and then transferred to a small dirt road. The sun was already going down and Debbie was not happy to still be driving around Kermit searching for her family. She was even feeling like she perhaps regretted the trip. All the gawking had thrown her off a bit. But then she saw it, Grandpa Jerry's house. Even though it had been twenty years she still recognized it. Back when she was a girl Grandpa Jerry had a good job with the coal mine and the house was modest but neat. Now it looked just like the town of Kermit: old, dilapidated, and abandoned. It was a shame, to say the least.
Lesbian Billionaire Page 20