"Blond, Brunette, or Redhead?"

"Blond, Brunette, or Redhead?"​

The Concierge looked up and instantly donned a wide smile. "Mister Barker, good evening to you, sir, and welcome back to The Harrison."

As Robert approached the Front Desk, he smiled to the man and returned the greeting. He shed his over coat and shook off the water, countering the man with, "Good might not be the appropriate word for it. Any word on the forecast, Jimmy."

The Concierge cringed at the name -- James! he would have corrected to anyone else -- then quickly rid his face of the expression and answered, "More rain, I'm afraid sir. No end in sight 'til the weekend."

James tapped at the screen before him as Robert laid his overcoat over the Automated Bell Hop unit that was carrying his carry-on bag in one hand, his briefcase in another, and his umbrella in a third. James announced, "I have you in your usual room, Mister Barker."

"No," Robert said, "Let's try something new today."

James donned a concerned expression. "I'm sorry, sir. Were the ... accommodations of your last room unsatisfactory in any way? Shall I make a report to--"

Robert waved off his question, saying "No, Jimmy, I was very happy with the room and its accommodations. I'm just in a mood for something different tonight."

James returned his eyes to the screen as he began typing again. "Very well, sir. Would you like me to find you a room or would you prefer to use the Self Registration Booth?"

"Let's do that," Robert answered, already turning and heading for the far wall with the Bell Hop following a few yards behind. He arrived at and opened the door to a small booth. He sat, and immediately a 3D visual of an attractive woman appeared.

"Welcome, Mister Barker," the automated Clerk said, reading the RIF chips in his wallet and knowing instantly who he was, what type of room he had selected in previous visits, and what his typical likes and dislikes in accommodations were. "May I assist you in finding a room, or is there another service--?"

"Room, please," Robert cut in.

"Very good, sir. Suite or single, ...?"

"Suite."

"Very good, sir," the Clerk, responded. "There are 122 rooms available. View of the river or the park...?"

"No preference," Robert responded, pulling out his PDA and tapping at its screen to view the next day's schedule. As the Clerk began to ask the next question, Robert cut in quickly, correcting, "Park. View of the park, please."

"Very good, sir" the Clerk acknowledged. "There are 84 rooms available. Blond, brunette, or redhead, sir? Or would you like to see the miscellaneous menu...?"

Robert chuckled. He'd gone miscellaneous once, a gal with wild streaks of blue and platinum. He'd been told by a coworker familiar with this particular Hotel that unnatural hair dos typically meant unnatural accommodations, and he'd been in the mood for something different on that stay. And he'd gotten it -- far too much of it! "Redhead, please. I prefer my fiery personality without the actual flames."

As he chuckled, knowing that the Clerk could detect the tone of his joke but probably wouldn't understand its meaning, the procedure continued. "Very good, sir. There are 18 rooms available for natural redheads and 8 additional rooms available for non-natural red heads. Do you prefer either--"

"Natural," he cut in, wondering with a smile, Does a bottle of red dye come with the attitude of a natural redhead?

Robert's sex life had begun as few men outside of Ireland itself had started their own, with his first four girl friends being redheads, strawberry blonds, or dye jobs. They'd all been girls and, later, women full of piss and vinegar. He had some good memories of those days ... and twice as many bad ones, making him wonder whether he was making the right choice now.

"Very good, sir," the Clerk continued. "Please state an age preference if desired."

"Skip step," Robert said.

"Very good, sir. Please state body type preference if--"

"Skip remaining steps, please," Robert ordered. "Show profiles please."

"Very good, sir."

On the screen before Robert, the images of 18 women appeared. With the exception of the nature of their hair color, they ran the gambit of ages, body styles, and skin colors. Robert studied the faces for a moment, then tapped his finger tip upon the Eliminate icon associated to a few of the faces. Each of the women was beautiful in her own way, of course; a hotel like this one didn't keep its Four Star Rating without both a variety and excellence in its accommodations, but Robert knew what he liked and these particular beauties just didn't say nice room to him.

"Profile room 1414, please," Robert commanded.

"Very good, sir," the Clerk responded. The rest of the other rooms faded away to ghostly images and the portrait of the woman identified as Room 1414 was replaced with a recording video of her. She stood before what looked like a stilled pond, backed by rocky cliffs. Robert recognized it as the enclosed pool area behind the Hotel where, tomorrow, he'd be meeting with his clients for breakfast.

Room 1414 wore a long frilly dress that wafted in a light breeze. As the Clerk began reading the particulars of the woman -- age, background, education, and more -- 1414 turned around fully several times as if modeling the dress for the cameras at a runway fashion shoot. She had a beautiful figure, and it only took one spin for Robert to make a decision about where he'd be laying his head down this evening.

"Would you like a synopsis of the accommodations provided by Room 1414, sir?" the Clerk asked.

"Yes, please,"

"Very good, sir. Would you like me to include the ratings provided by previous guests of Room 1414, sir. If so, please indicate your preference of average versus median ratings, current years ratings versus career ratings, and--"

"Whatever, please, just ... read it!" Robert was beginning to be annoyed with the level of detail the Clerk was able to provide. Sometimes, he believed, this modern age was simply able to provide too much customer service. How things have changed since earlier in the century, he thought. He could still remember sitting sometimes for hours waiting to talk to a customer care provider for his cell or electric or car service providers.

A smile crossed his face at the thought; it wasn't actually him who usually did the hours of waiting, but instead one of his assistants. Robert Barker didn't wait for anyone. Life was too short to be sitting on hold, or as his aides called it, ignore. Over the years of his business life -- when Robert heard of one his employees sitting there on ignore, wasting the time he was paying them for -- it became commonplace for him to rectify situations using his money. Sometimes he paid for back doors to Customer Service Managers, direct lines to their desks so that never again would his assistants sit there on hold. Other times, he joined their Boards of Directors, which gave him -- or, more accurately, his aides -- increased access.

More often than not, though -- particularly if a company's stock was undervalued -- Robert simply bought the entity and designated either a Middle Management type or even a CEO who was to be at his beck and call -- again, more specifically, his aides' beck and call -- twenty four hours a day.

Many of his friends and acquaintances had chuckled over the years at this little quirk of his. He'd wasted millions, they'd quipped, just to save a few minutes of hold time on the phone. Robert brushed their playful criticisms aside, pointing out that in each and every case where he'd gained some sort of control, he instituted reforms in the Customer Service departments, telling his friends, "So that you won't have to sit on hold the next time you call in for help."

Ironically, this little quirk was what made him the very, very wealthy man he was today. After personally sitting on ignore with first a Customer Service Representative, the a C.S. Manager, then a Supervising Manager, and finally a Division Vice-President for an accumulated three and a half hours, Robert invested half of his available cash reserves in an up and coming computer technology firm and fired the entire upper Management Staff the day after becoming the company's majority stock holder.

"What are you working on?" he asked of the Research and Development department a week later, adding, "And how can my billions help you make it better?"

Nine years later, Arti-Intel was the largest and most valued company in the world. Using a series of artificial intelligence chips and software programs, the company changed society in two drastic ways. First, they'd made it possible to practically eliminate people from the customer service equation with computers and robots that didn't just listen to words and calculate what their speakers were trying to communicate, but instead actually hearing and understanding like real people. Second, they'd begun replacing people in other industries by not only creating inexpensive, dependable machines that could do just about any job a human could do, but they'd even been able to build machines that could fix machines.

Robert could still remember his great-grandfather -- a submarine sailor in the late 20th century -- saying that the only reason men had been sent to sea on ships or into space on rockets was that while a machine could do just about anything a man could do, they couldn't fix things when they broke.

"So long as they can't fix each other," the salty old dog had said again and again, "machines will never be able to replace people!"

And now, of course, they were. Robert and his geniuses at Arti-Intel made it happen. And society had changed because of it. The Press blamed Robert personally for the 5,500 people a day who were losing their jobs specifically because of the new technologies Arti-Intel was providing. But ... what was he supposed to do about it now? The world thrived on changed; all he and his people did was provide it to them.

Of course, this world had always been and always would be a Man's World, and the greatest victims to job loss across the globe were women. About the only jobs still secure from replacement by machines were some of the more intricate manual labor jobs, particularly extreme muscle jobs in the rugged outdoors; and these of course typically went to the stronger sex, the males.

Robert often heard people say about this gender inequality in the work place, It isn't fair! His reluctant response typically was, It's not about fair. It's about genetics.

Which, of course, brought Robert's thinking back to the hotel. Across the world, such facilities -- Accommodation Hotels -- were now commonplace. Women of all ages were now only an service in hotel rooms, no different than a wet bar or mini-fridge or breath taking view. They were part of the room, there to provide a service, and while the extent of the accommodations each woman offered varied, they were usually much more than she would typically offer her lover or husband under the old paradigm of relationship. The more one offered, the more she gained, as in any customer service position.

As Robert listened to the Clerk continuing with 1414's services synopsis, the details became more sexual and more graphic in nature, listing all of the things the woman did, as well as how she had been rated at making these particular accommodations. On the screen, an icon appeared that read Additional Video? Robert reached out and pressed the icon.

The video, which had been a loop of about 30 seconds of 1414 simply showing off how good she looked in her dress, was replaced almost seamlessly with the continuation of the video, in which she began undressing. She reached up to her shoulders and pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders, dropping the gown to gather about her ankles. Wearing nothing but a strapless bra and a tiny thong, she stepped away from the bunched dress and turned slowly to reveal her back side. She reached up to the middle of her back and unsnapped her bra, allowing it to fall to the ground. Her hands moved to her hips, pulling the waist bands downward until the tiny pair of panties pulled over her buttocks and down from between her thighs and, too, fell away.

She turned back to the camera, rocking her weight from one leg to the other as she wrapped her arms up and around her auburn mane, the movement emphasizing her young, firm breasts.

Robert marveled at the perfection of the woman. She was a well sculpted example of womanhood to begin with. Then, only improving upon what the Gods had given her, she had what Robert called a teasing tan, a light bronzing of her skin that left a hint of a bikini bottoms tan line that said, Sometimes I wear'em ... sometimes I don't!; as well as a tiny vertical strip of hair on her otherwise shaven pube that seemed to point invitingly to one element of her accommodations.

"Mister Barker...?"

Robert realized that the Clerk had ceased speaking. "Excuse me, what did you say?"

"Do you require more information on Room 1414, sir?" she asked. "I sense indecision. Would you like to look at another room, Mister Barker?"

"No, thank you," he answered reaching down to position his solid erection more comfortably. "Room 1414 will do just fine."

"Very good, sir. How many nights...?"

Robert stared at Room 1414 for a moment. When the Clerk repeated the question, he responded, "Please arrange an open-ended stay. I may be staying the full week."

"I'm sorry, sir," the Clerk said with automated regret. "Room 1414 has a previous booking. Three nights, including this evening are available. Would you like to book another room at this time for--"

"No," Robert cut in, disappointed. He wasn't the type of man who liked to change rooms in the middle of a business trip unless the current room was totally unsatisfactory. "No, that's alright. Book me for three nights and ... I'll just cut the trip short if I must."

"Very good, sir," the Clerk continued, her upbeat tone returning.

Robert's registration information came up on the screen. He acknowledged the information, exited the booth, and headed for the elevators, followed by the little four armed Bell Hop.


OOC -- This post is mostly just informational -- laying out the idea behind the story -- but if some one wants to play the part of the red head, you could post an Interest Reply at My Open RPs Thread.

Yanni tapped at the door marked 2511, used his key card, and called out, "Miss Garner ...? Maintenance."

"Come on in, Yanni," a soft female voice called back. "I'm in the bedroom."

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "James said you had a leaking sink...?"

"In the bedroom, Yanni," she repeated again.

He hesitated. Per the Hotel's rules, Yanni wasn't supposed to be in a Tenant's apartment while she was there without either a female escort -- a neighbor or friend of the Tenant -- or someone from Management, which essentially meant James. But it was late, almost 9pm, and the stuck-up Concierge wouldn't have left the Front desk for this task even if he'd still been on duty.

Yanni started down the narrow hallway slowly, looking about himself. It was a rather unimpressive room, relative to the other rooms in the 35 story structure. When he stepped out of the hall into the living room, he was surprised to find it nearly empty, with only one old recliner and a coffee table. A year earlier, he'd been here to replace a broken window and the Room had been filled with expensive furniture and real wood shelf units.

Where had every thing gone to...?

Yanni didn't typically gossip. Who was he going to swap rumors with? He and James were the Hotel's only human employees, and company policy dictated that he wasn't to discuss anything but the maintenance work he was engaged in with the tenants of the Harrison.

But not engaging in gossiping didn't mean that Yanni didn't hear things.

For more than two years, Room 2511 -- Elizabeth Garner to Yanni -- had been a Private Room, on permanent reserve by one Guest. About 15% of the rooms in the Hotel were private. Most were leased by a specific client, while others were leased by Corporations; the Tenants accommodated the better clients of the companies, as well as members of the Board of Directors and other notable people.

Yanni knew all of this, of course. He'd worked here for almost ten years and knew the current leasing or renting situation of each and every Room. The lease agreement for Elizabeth's unit was still in effect ... yet ... Yanni hadn't seen nor heard about any guests visiting her in six or seven months.

Accommodation who weren't on a long term lease couldn't afford to not have guests. The average Tenant of The Harrison needed to have their Suite rented a minimum of two nights a week just to pay the lease and utilities; it took another night to pay for the weekly medical check ups legally required of all Accommodations; and any other nights spent occupied were simply profit, to be used for other personal expenses.

So ... is this how Miss Garner is paying the bills, Yanni wondered, selling all of her things?.

Yanni knew that most Tenants in Private Rooms were given expense accounts to ensure that their Suites were always stocked and ready for their client's unexpected visits; and, he'd overheard often, most Tenants skimmed a little off the top and stuck it away for a rainy day.

Six months of rainy days? Yanni wondered. Could Miss Garner have done this...?

"Miss Garner...?" Yanni called out again.

"In here."

Yanni turned -- and his heart jumped high into his throat as he saw Elizabeth through the decorative glass that separated her bedroom from the rest of the Room.

He diverted his eyes quickly, saying with obvious embarrassment, "I'm so sorry, Miss Garner. I didn't know you were... I mean ... if you have a Guest I'll come back in--"

"Wait! Don't leave, Yanni," Elizabeth said. She stepped out from beyond the glass, facing him, totally nude. "I need your help, Yanni."

The maintenance man kept his gaze firmly on the carpeted hall as he practically stuttered, "But Miss Garner, you're ... well, you don't ... you know, you're ... well, naked."

"I know that, Yanni," she said, chuckling. "That's kind of the point."

"I ... I don't understand," he said, his Eastern European accent -- which he tried to hide at all times -- beginning to show as the nervous excitement pumped his heart.

"I have some repairs that need to be done, Yanni," she said, beginning to walk his way. He took a step back and she told him not to be afraid, that he was fine. "I have been ... neglecting things. Simple things, that have become big problems, Yanni. And I need someone with your handy man skills to correct them."

"Yes, Miss Garner, but ... but--" He glanced up briefly, to find her just a couple of yards awsy ... tantalizingly close. "--but you don't have any clothes on, and I'm just a maintenance worker."

She was almost within arms reach as she said, "Yanni ... I'm out of money. I can't pay my lease for next month, let alone pay you for repairs. I ... I need to make some other kind of arrangement with you to get this work done. Do you ... do you understand what I'm saying...?"

He did, of course. He knew what these women did to stay in their Rooms; he wasn't an idiot. And he knew that, when there weren't enough Guests to pay the bills, sometimes the women made accommodations for others, from managers at the grocery store to meter readers from the electric company to chauffeurs for the town car services that often carried the Tenants to important events.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to Elizabeth's implications, so he simply stood his ground and remained silent.

"I'm sure you know what I mean, Yanni," she said with a knowing tone. She laid a hand upon his chest, caressing it softly as she moved her body close to him. "If I make an accommodation for you ... do you think you could find the time to do some work on my place afterward?"

Again he didn't answer, but he was by now allowing his gaze to travel over the woman's body. She was beautiful, perfect; Yanni didn't understand why any man would give up on having this erotic being as what amounted to an indentured sexual servant.

He felt Elizabeth's hands at his belt, his snap, his zipper; before he knew it, his pants were at his ankles and she was giving him a little push, dropping him into the dining room chair behind him. She snatched up a pad from atop a bar stool and dropped it between his ankles, then knelt down between his thighs.

"Yanni...?" she said softly, "Are we going to be able to help one another...?"

She began stroking his penis, which very quickly hardened to flag pole status. She asked him the question again with playful tone, then leaned over his crotch, licked at his erection, then took the full length of it deep into her mouth.

"Oh... my..." Yanni moaned at the feel of her warm, wet lips and tongue upon him. He let his head fall back as she began bobbing up and down, taking him fully in and fully out again, and after far too short a period of time, he erupted in his mouth, his penis leaping again and again for what simply seemed forever.

When his breathing had returned to a somewhat normal level, he looked down to Elizabeth -- who was licking his dick and her finger clean of his cum -- and said, "Just ... make me ... a list, Miss ... Garner."

She smiled and thanked him, standing and heading to her bedroom to prepare for bed, saying over her shoulder, "List is on the kitchen table, Yanni. Tomorrow then...? And ... can you show yourself out?"

Kyle Templeton was reading from the woman's application on an ePad as he walked and nearly bowled her over as he entered his office. He laughed, embarrassed, and begged, "So sorry, please forgive me ... clumsy of me."

"No worries, Mate," she replied, smiling nervously. As the man sat behind his deck, he gave her a questioning look. She laughed again, anticipating his question. "No, I'm not Australian. Well ... sort of, but not legally. My grandmother was from there, but my folks were born here. We traveled to and from every year. The lingo, old and new ... it just kinda sticks."

He gave her an understanding smile and looked down to her application as he said, "Take your clothes off, please."

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. "Excuse me...?"

He continued to read, then -- realizing she either hadn't heard his request or hadn't understood it -- looked up to her and asked, "You're here for the opening at The Harrison, yes?"

"Hotel job, right...?" she asked, still obviously shocked by his request.

These days, women were accustomed to having to put out to interviewers in Human Resource departments, and later -- in followup interviews -- to Supervisors, Managers, and/or Owners of the companies they were interviewing for. But to hear this man so quickly come right to it like that even surprised her. She wasn't so sure she was willing to part her thighs for just a "Customer service job, right...?"

Kyle sat back into his chair and studied her for a moment. He laid the ePad on his desk and asked, "How did you hear about this job?"

"Coffee shop," she answered vaguely. When he gave a tell me more gesture, she added, "I heard a couple of women saying that there was an opening at The Harrison ... so I thought..."

As he watched, her eyes began to gloss over. It wasn't the first time he'd seen tears in his office, and it wouldn't be the last. She obviously had no idea what the opening at the Four Star hotel was; and he was certain she wasn't prepared for the job description. He tapped an icon on the ePad and, turning it toward her, slid it across the deck to her; her application page had been replaced with the job description. "Did you read this page?"

She scooted closer to the desk and looked at the ePad. She shook her head, answering, "No, sir. I didn't get to it before I was called to your office by the intercom."

"Please read it ... thoroughly," he told her, rising and standing over her. "This opening ... it's ... well, it's not what you were expecting it to be."

He stepped out from behind his desk, snatched up his coffee cup, and said, "I'll be back. If you're not here when I return, I wouldn't blame you. This is ... this is not for every woman, so..."

He smiled to her as she looked up from the ePad at him. He headed out as he called back, "I'll give you about fifteen to think about it."

In the Employee's lounge, Kyle told of the woman's surprised response to the strip request to his one and only Co-Worker; since the introduction of the Automated Screening System, affectionately known as the big A.S.S., thirty-three of their fellow employees had been let go. The hiring portion of the employment agency -- which served more than 200 clients and supervised over 6,000 employees -- was now operating on a total of six workers and a manager who wasn't even in the state, let alone the same city or building. The only reason Kyle and his Co-Worker were both still there was because each had agreed to a 35% pay cut and elimination of health and retirement benefits.

Kyle finished his coffee, checked the time, and said with a smile, "I should get back. She should be gone by now, and I have fourteen other applicants for the position who I hope understand what the word accommodation actually means."

"Fourteen...?" the man laughed. "Are you sure you have the stamina for this?"

He left to the chuckles of his Co-Worker and entered his office once more ... to a bit of a surprise.

"I'm ready to continue my interview," she said with a soft, shy tone that he would never have expected from a woman so beautiful and sexy that she had to have had men crawling over themselves to get to her all her life.