Work in Progress (2) : Tied and Kneed

Henri is a mean little s.o.b. Now that he's got Maurice in his power, he's going to make him suffer and good. 

Poor Maurice never knew Henri hated him so much during all those years they'd been working together. But he should have guessed. After all, he was never the last to make fun of Henri for his stuttering, for still not being married at his age, and many other things the guys at work found strange. Henri seemed to be taking it well, accepting to be the butt of the other workers' jokes. But inside, he was seething with rage.

And then, things started happening in both their lives. And the lives of the other workers. The plant where they all worked was bought by a company which had some unusual management methods. As soon as they were in charge, all employees sat through some tests designed to detect unused potential. It turned out that Henri had plenty of unused potential and he was sent to the company's management school. He came back a changed man, self-assured, no longer the loser sort of man his mates had known. He had been put in charge of the whole production unit, and his first job was to make it efficient again. Of course, some workers had to be "convinced" to change their ways - the ways they'd had since they first started working at the plant. 

"You… You can't mean it," Maurice had said when Henri had first explained what it would take for him not to get the sack.

"Well," Henri had answered with a nasty smile, "you're not exactly a model of efficiency. There's literally dozens of young men ready to take your place if you get laid off. So you'd better do as I say."

Maurice knew his former workmate, now his chief, was right. He needed the job. Where would he find another one at his age. Reluctantly, he had to agree to Henri's conditions.

And the conditions were that each time that Maurice didn't reach his objectives for production, he would have to submit to corporal punishment. It had begun with spankings, then gone up to canings, and from there to more and more elaborate punishment. Maurice's performance had improved, but Henri's requirements had become more severe too, so poor Maurice was left to wonder when Henri would finally be satisfied with his work. 

He wouldn't have liked the answer.