The Initiative Test

"What is this? Some sort of spin-off from The Apprentice?" Sharon looked around half expecting to see a film crew lurking in the wings.

"Well, maybe a bit inspired by that," Micky Masters looked back at her with that smirky sort of grin that only the most self-satisfied people manage. Micky was one of those self-made millionaires. You know the sort, started as a barrow-boy or selling mail-order tin whistles and ended up an international businessman despite having no discernible talent.

But the job was good. Personal Assistant to international jet-setting businessman at a cool one hundred thou a year. That was why Micky said he wanted the best. That was why he needed the two remaining candidates to show their initiative, to show their ability to deal with difficult situations, to triumph over adversity, to plan, to act, to succeed. This was what he had explained. That was why he had set the Initiative Test.

"The task is simple," he explained in his faux-Cockney cheeky-chappy voice, "you are going to be taken to Trafalgar Square, and you will be left there with nothing. All have to do is use your initiative to get back to my office here in Wapping. The one who gets back first wins and the other..." He put on a face which he thought mimicked the bloke on the telly, "will be fired!"

Though how he could fire somebody he hadn't actually employed yet was never explained.

"Are you up for it?"

Sharon looked at her rival. Samantha Wilde was a public schoolgirl, the sort of smug, 'I'm superior and I know it' type of public schoolgirl that Sharon couldn't stand.

(Just a reminder to gentle readers unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the English language or indeed it's educational system that a public school is a particularly posh private school which wouldn't let the public within a country mile of its gates).

"Piece of cake," she said. It was the sort of thing public schoolgirls said.

Sharon considered. She hated games like this. Childish public schoolgirl games. But she wasn't going to be beaten. Sharon was the product of the state school system. No way was she going to let this posh twit win. Not with a hundred grand at stake.

"Absolutely," she said.

"Excellent," said Micky. He got a sort of perverse pleasure from wielding power, from using his money to get people to humiliate themselves. 

They travelled in to central London immediately, stuck in the back of a van. Micky explained that this was essential to avoid any possibility of either candidate arranging for some assistance. 

Sharon spent the time surveying her opponent and planning how she was going to get back. She surveyed Samantha: a tall girl, six foot and a bit, slim, stupidly well groomed with her hair tied up in a chignon. She looked, she thought, like the sort you get on The Apprentice, the one who says 'I am simply the best. I'm the one they all have to beat. They call me 'The Conductor' because everybody dances to my tune' and such pompous rubbish - and usually gets fired in the first round because they don't know how to buy a bus ticket ('always take a taxi myself'). As she completed her assessment she planned her strategy. That was what was always needed - a strategy. Two main plans formed in her mind: hitch a lift or beg. She'd heard you could make pots of money begging. It seemed the best idea.

Samantha noticed her looking at her and leant over, "Commiserations," she said.

"Sorry?"

"Commiserations. At losing so gracefully."

"But I haven't lost. Who says I'm going to lose?"

"Foregone conclusion dear. I always win. They call me The Conductor because everyone dances to my tune," she waved her arms like someone conducting an orchestra and gave the sort of self-satisfied laugh of a girl who thinks she has said something witty.

Pompous twat, thought Sharon, and at that moment made up her mind that she was going to win at any cost.

And they passed the rest of a most uncomfortable journey in silence, before the van finally pulled up and Micky climbed in the back. 

"Okay, my little apprentices," he said. He savoured the moment. He was going to enjoy this, "Take your clothes off and get ready to get out."

Sharon looked back at him stunned.

"What!"

"Well, I did say you were going to be left here with nothing. Clothes are something. It would be too easy if you had clothes. You would just have to hitch a lift or beg some money off someone. No. This is a real test of initiative. I'll wait outside for you," and with that he hopped out the van and left the girls to it.

Sharon looked across at Samantha. 

"Don't look at me," she drawled in her awful Sloaney accent, "the job's yours if you go through with it. You'll win," she smirked at Sharon as if she didn't care a fig about the position because she had a daddy who was an MP and would get her an internship at his company.

"It's not as if I care about the stupid job. Daddy is an MP and will find me an internship at his company."

Damn her. Sharon had so wanted to beat her; to wipe that silly smirk off her face. Well she would show her. She wondered if Samantha had had some inkling, some definite knowledge perhaps, that this was going to happen. That would be why she was smirking. She'd think Sharon wouldn't go through with it. Well if she thought that she had another think coming.

She kicked off her shoes and looked across at Samantha. She gave a little look of surprise, then shrugged. 

She'd done it now. She'd committed herself. She couldn't back out now. Defiantly she pulled down her jeans and unbuttoned her blouse. No way would she give any indication that she was embarrassed or worried. That would be to show weakness and that was a sure route to disaster.

She unhooked her bra and as nonchalantly as she could she tossed it aside. But a tell-tale flush came to her cheeks, and spread like a mottled rosy rash to cover her neck and her breasts. She was blushing. She knew it, but she could do nothing about it; she just hoped Samantha hadn't noticed. But of course she had.

Saucy little minx, thought Samantha, and cringing beneath that bluff exterior. Nice titties as well. Not too big and not too small. She was good looking, yes, Micky was going to enjoy this. It was fun to think of her running round London in her birthday suit. That would be really funny. She leant back and waited for Sharon to remove her final garment.

She's actually going to sit there and watch me pull my knickers down, thought Sharon, but what else could she do? Her knickers came down and off and Samantha looked at her with a smirk."

"Out we get," she said, opening the van door.

Sharon had been so obsessed with winning she had forgotten she still had to get to Wapping stark naked. And she was going to have to start in the busiest part of London.

The van door was flung open and before she knew it she was standing there completely nude with the egregious Micky giving her the once over.

She certainly was good tottie, he though: nice figure, neatly trimmed, perky tits; in other circumstances he would have given her one before they set off, but there was business to attend to; choosing his new apprentice.

As for Sharon, she could feel eyes boring into her as she looked wildly round. What had she done! She was naked! My God! She was completely naked!

The two girls stood side by side as Micky surveyed them.

"It looks like only one of you has followed instructions," he drawled, "that makes my job easy. I can make my decision now."

Sharon breathed a sigh of relief. A crowd was already beginning to form. It would soon be all over.

"Sharon," said Micky, "you've done everything that I asked. You followed instructions to the letter. You've shown the four things that I look for in a girl who's going to work for me: courage, initiative, and a nice pair of tits," he turned to Samantha, "You, on the other hand have done flip all to try and get the job except somehow persuade this gullible idiot to parade her tits in public. That was of course the real initiative test. Whoever could get the other girl to strip naked in public would get the job."

He turned to Sharon and pointed his finger.

"Sharon. You're fired."

Sharon stood rooted to the spot, her face beetroot red as the embarrassment of her nude exposure to the London crowds struck home. She made a grab at the van doors to escape and get her clothes back. They were locked.

"My clothes," she shrieked, "give me my clothes back!"

Samantha just smiled and waved her arms as if conducting an orchestra. It had all been so easy.

"Dance to my tune loser," she said, taking out her mobile phone and turning on some music, "Dance to my tune."

Sharon knew what she had to do if she wasn’t going to be left there.  As the crowds gathered round, completely nude, the flush of embarrassment spreading to cover the whole of her nude body, she started to dance.