TM-246: What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?
[OOC: star_archer and highball_jordan used with permission. Takes place after the threads in this entry. This post contains R-rated content.]
What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?
Step 1: Dress to Impress.
Sharon spent far too much time picking out a dress. She’d never been a particularly girly person. In her youth she’d been a tomboy; in her adult life, a secret agent. When she wasn’t wearing a uniform, she was in jeans and t-shirts, shorts and tops, baseball caps and ponytails. Most of the times in her life when she’d worn a dress had been related to an undercover mission, and on the rare occasions when she had needed to wear a dress to be herself - at a formal SHIELD function, or an especially nice dinner with Steve - she’d always felt a little like a child playing dress-up.
But playing dress-up was exactly what Sharon wanted to do right now. She wanted to look and feel like a woman in the most clichéd and problematic sense of the word. She wanted the kind of plunging neckline and short hem that SHIELD would never allow, she wanted her hair and makeup to be flawless, and she wanted to wear completely impractical shoes. She was a woman, and she needed that to be good enough.
In the end, she found a dress that met most of her requirements. She paid more for it than her meager savings should have allowed, brought it home, and was all dolled up by the time Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen knocked at her door.
Step 2: Have a Plan.
As soon as she’d opened the door, Sharon knew she’d made the right decision. Their eyes swept over her immediately, appreciative glances that took in the whole of her body before lingering at her chest. Hal and Ollie were about as subtle as Sharon would have predicted of two people who would ask a woman out after talking to her for ten minutes on the internet. Sharon wasn’t complaining.
She also wasn’t complaining about the men themselves, who cleaned up even nicer than their pictures implied. She smiled. “Punctual.”
“We would have been early, but you know how things go when you come in on flying green horses,” Hal replied, smooth as anything. “Cloud traffic.”
“Try flying cars next time,” Sharon said, without missing a beat. She grabbed her purse. “There’s a bar around the corner. Let’s go.”
Ollie grinned. “I like a lady who knows what she wants.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting, drinking, and chatting about road trips and alien encounters in a quiet booth in the back of a bar. By the time her second drink arrived, Sharon had kicked her impractical shoes under the table and was running her stocking feet up the ankles of the men across from her.
Step 3: Know What You Want.
Five cocktails and many professional anecdotes later, Sharon had managed to push Steve’s face out of her mind just enough to go through with what she’d planned all along.
“How would you boys like to go back to that nice hotel room of mine?” she asked, without shame, her Southern accent slipping in stronger than usual from the alcohol.
The two charming bastards exchanged a glance. “I thought you’d never ask,” Hal replied. Ollie signaled a waiter, paid their tab, and gestured toward the door. “After you.”
In less time than it had taken the waiter to bring their first drink, the three had made it back to the hotel room, and Sharon’s overpriced dress (and the sheer black bra and panties she’d bought with it) were lying on the hotel floor.
Step 4: Enjoy Yourself
It would be a bit of a cliché to say that Oliver Queen knew how to hit a target, but Sharon didn’t care very much about original description when she was flat on her back and biting back moans and gasps. Likewise, original language wasn’t necessary to describe just how good Hal Jordan was at certain things that in no way involved his magic ring (though they easily could have, and Sharon considered making a request before deciding that she’d had enough of all-powerful cosmic devices).
But it was good. Good in a way that Sharon had honestly never experienced, or even conceived. She’d been with a few men before Steve, but she’d been young, then; inexperienced teenagers and early twentysomethings rarely make the best lovers. Then there was Steve, who, for all his effort, couldn’t truly give her pleasure when he was feeling none himself. And then there had been the parade of men after (and between) her times with Steve, men so tripped up by the idea of living up to the assumed sexual legacy of Captain America that they’d barely been able to perform.
But if there was one thing that Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen did not have, it was an inferiority complex. They knew they were good at this, they knew they wanted this, and they were giving it their all. They made her feel alive, in control, and wanted. She was making her own choices, and those choices were being rewarded. In the aftermath of the first wave, Sharon smiled up at the men, blissful and spent, and didn’t regret a thing.
Step 5: Know What You Really Want
But as the orgasm and the alcoholic haze began to fade, the thoughts descended again. Thoughts of the hell of the past year, thoughts of the blankness of the future before her, and thoughts of Steve, forty blocks away, pounding Tony Stark into a mattress that probably cost more than a month’s stay in this hotel room.
If the boys noticed her melancholy expression, they didn’t let on. They were lying on either side of her, breathing heavily and letting their fingers roam over various parts of her body, waiting for her to make the next move. Sharon turned her head from one side to the other. She knew she was in charge, here. Hal and Ollie were here for fun. Sharon was the one with intent, and they were willing to follow along.
It was the most control she’d had of anything in a year and a half. Maybe she could use it to learn something.
Sharon sat up, and turned to Hal before she could change her mind. “Now, I know you told me you’re straight. But you wouldn’t mind putting on a little show for me with your friend here, would you?”
She held her breath for the reaction. Hal and Ollie exchanged glances over her naked torso.
“Come on, pal,” Ollie said, with a smirk. “Let’s give the pretty lady what she wants.”
And before Sharon could let out her nervous breath, the men were kneeling on either side of her and reaching out to grasp each other by the shoulders. Their lips crashed together, their hands fisted in each other’s hair, and Sharon got the distinct impression that this was not the first time they had done this.
Sharon watched, mesmerized by their heat, by their obvious affection. She squinted and tried to see, in these men, what the man she had spent most of her adult life loving was seeing. But the goatee was on the fair head, not the dark one, and even as these “straight” men obviously enjoyed each other’s lips (and more, as they continued far past what Sharon had intended to request), they were still touching her. A hand would fall to her breast, a mouth would dip down to her mouth, and soon enough she was part of it fully again, and all three of them were touching each other, doing the kinds of things Sharon had only seen in certain Eurasian brothels.
Sharon wasn’t going to understand Steve and Stark by being with Hal and Ollie. She wasn’t going to magically make sense of the mess her life had become. But she was going to have fun, and feel good, with men who wanted to fuck her even when they were titillated by each other. And that, really, was what she needed right then. Let the past and the future be damned. For tonight, she was going to enjoy herself, and not think about the consequences of anything.
What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?
Step 1: Dress to Impress.
Sharon spent far too much time picking out a dress. She’d never been a particularly girly person. In her youth she’d been a tomboy; in her adult life, a secret agent. When she wasn’t wearing a uniform, she was in jeans and t-shirts, shorts and tops, baseball caps and ponytails. Most of the times in her life when she’d worn a dress had been related to an undercover mission, and on the rare occasions when she had needed to wear a dress to be herself - at a formal SHIELD function, or an especially nice dinner with Steve - she’d always felt a little like a child playing dress-up.
But playing dress-up was exactly what Sharon wanted to do right now. She wanted to look and feel like a woman in the most clichéd and problematic sense of the word. She wanted the kind of plunging neckline and short hem that SHIELD would never allow, she wanted her hair and makeup to be flawless, and she wanted to wear completely impractical shoes. She was a woman, and she needed that to be good enough.
In the end, she found a dress that met most of her requirements. She paid more for it than her meager savings should have allowed, brought it home, and was all dolled up by the time Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen knocked at her door.
Step 2: Have a Plan.
As soon as she’d opened the door, Sharon knew she’d made the right decision. Their eyes swept over her immediately, appreciative glances that took in the whole of her body before lingering at her chest. Hal and Ollie were about as subtle as Sharon would have predicted of two people who would ask a woman out after talking to her for ten minutes on the internet. Sharon wasn’t complaining.
She also wasn’t complaining about the men themselves, who cleaned up even nicer than their pictures implied. She smiled. “Punctual.”
“We would have been early, but you know how things go when you come in on flying green horses,” Hal replied, smooth as anything. “Cloud traffic.”
“Try flying cars next time,” Sharon said, without missing a beat. She grabbed her purse. “There’s a bar around the corner. Let’s go.”
Ollie grinned. “I like a lady who knows what she wants.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting, drinking, and chatting about road trips and alien encounters in a quiet booth in the back of a bar. By the time her second drink arrived, Sharon had kicked her impractical shoes under the table and was running her stocking feet up the ankles of the men across from her.
Step 3: Know What You Want.
Five cocktails and many professional anecdotes later, Sharon had managed to push Steve’s face out of her mind just enough to go through with what she’d planned all along.
“How would you boys like to go back to that nice hotel room of mine?” she asked, without shame, her Southern accent slipping in stronger than usual from the alcohol.
The two charming bastards exchanged a glance. “I thought you’d never ask,” Hal replied. Ollie signaled a waiter, paid their tab, and gestured toward the door. “After you.”
In less time than it had taken the waiter to bring their first drink, the three had made it back to the hotel room, and Sharon’s overpriced dress (and the sheer black bra and panties she’d bought with it) were lying on the hotel floor.
Step 4: Enjoy Yourself
It would be a bit of a cliché to say that Oliver Queen knew how to hit a target, but Sharon didn’t care very much about original description when she was flat on her back and biting back moans and gasps. Likewise, original language wasn’t necessary to describe just how good Hal Jordan was at certain things that in no way involved his magic ring (though they easily could have, and Sharon considered making a request before deciding that she’d had enough of all-powerful cosmic devices).
But it was good. Good in a way that Sharon had honestly never experienced, or even conceived. She’d been with a few men before Steve, but she’d been young, then; inexperienced teenagers and early twentysomethings rarely make the best lovers. Then there was Steve, who, for all his effort, couldn’t truly give her pleasure when he was feeling none himself. And then there had been the parade of men after (and between) her times with Steve, men so tripped up by the idea of living up to the assumed sexual legacy of Captain America that they’d barely been able to perform.
But if there was one thing that Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen did not have, it was an inferiority complex. They knew they were good at this, they knew they wanted this, and they were giving it their all. They made her feel alive, in control, and wanted. She was making her own choices, and those choices were being rewarded. In the aftermath of the first wave, Sharon smiled up at the men, blissful and spent, and didn’t regret a thing.
Step 5: Know What You Really Want
But as the orgasm and the alcoholic haze began to fade, the thoughts descended again. Thoughts of the hell of the past year, thoughts of the blankness of the future before her, and thoughts of Steve, forty blocks away, pounding Tony Stark into a mattress that probably cost more than a month’s stay in this hotel room.
If the boys noticed her melancholy expression, they didn’t let on. They were lying on either side of her, breathing heavily and letting their fingers roam over various parts of her body, waiting for her to make the next move. Sharon turned her head from one side to the other. She knew she was in charge, here. Hal and Ollie were here for fun. Sharon was the one with intent, and they were willing to follow along.
It was the most control she’d had of anything in a year and a half. Maybe she could use it to learn something.
Sharon sat up, and turned to Hal before she could change her mind. “Now, I know you told me you’re straight. But you wouldn’t mind putting on a little show for me with your friend here, would you?”
She held her breath for the reaction. Hal and Ollie exchanged glances over her naked torso.
“Come on, pal,” Ollie said, with a smirk. “Let’s give the pretty lady what she wants.”
And before Sharon could let out her nervous breath, the men were kneeling on either side of her and reaching out to grasp each other by the shoulders. Their lips crashed together, their hands fisted in each other’s hair, and Sharon got the distinct impression that this was not the first time they had done this.
Sharon watched, mesmerized by their heat, by their obvious affection. She squinted and tried to see, in these men, what the man she had spent most of her adult life loving was seeing. But the goatee was on the fair head, not the dark one, and even as these “straight” men obviously enjoyed each other’s lips (and more, as they continued far past what Sharon had intended to request), they were still touching her. A hand would fall to her breast, a mouth would dip down to her mouth, and soon enough she was part of it fully again, and all three of them were touching each other, doing the kinds of things Sharon had only seen in certain Eurasian brothels.
Sharon wasn’t going to understand Steve and Stark by being with Hal and Ollie. She wasn’t going to magically make sense of the mess her life had become. But she was going to have fun, and feel good, with men who wanted to fuck her even when they were titillated by each other. And that, really, was what she needed right then. Let the past and the future be damned. For tonight, she was going to enjoy herself, and not think about the consequences of anything.