College Chastity Choice Game 2

I was driving back from work. I had a great day and honestly, I think I am finally getting the hand of it.

Smiling at the red light, I realized that college seriously over prepared me.

For example, we only got a single 3 hours class on synchronizing traffic lights. That's it. Well, now it's one of my main tasks and honestly? 1 hour might have been enough.

Granted, it was in my traffic management class which offered a lot of the background for it and honestly, without the rest of that class I wouldn't be able to effectively do my job.

But did I need to study four years for this? I suppose I did because already, I am being made to sit on more advanced topics. Already, I have promotion prospects.

The thing I fully understood that many of my classmates didn't, is that the task isn't what's important.

For example, I had to re-time the lights in Beverly Hills, no not the one in California, the one in Florida. So, before I even made it to town, I had studied maps, traffic reports, DOT planning documents.

In other words, I did my research.

Then, commuted there and installed traffic counting devices. These are pneumatic tubes I install to boxes on the side of the road which record every car passing over them and thus, I can have an overview of the actual traffic volume.

The model we bought claims to be 99% precise but to be honest, I think it's closer to 90% in actuality and yet, offers pretty decent counts.

Why? Because there are both false positives and false negatives and they almost cancel each other out so that you reach close to 99%, but accidentally.

So, I ran the boxes, every day, for a month. I would go to download data from the boxes every two days, including some weekends.

Daphne, my wife, came with me twice and we made it a sort of date! After all, the data retrieval takes at most 30 minutes, but the commute is a good 40 minutes.

The first time, we stopped at Papa John for some pizza, but the second time, we ate at Papa Willies Bar and Grill and caught a live rock show of a cover band which (badly) did classic rock songs. The food was good.

I think we had a good time. Daphne sure was in a good mood.

My point is, when I synchronized the lights, that was a single evening of work: I can't do it in the middle of rush hour. It took me about 3 hours in total.

But I had 2 months of preparation, there were another 2 weeks of analysis and data collection followed by a long report.

Why only 2 weeks compared to a month initially? Because the first two weeks of the initial period were the exploratory phase. I needed to know what I was looking for. Once I did, I measured, and measured, and ensured that everything was fine.

I did have to tweak a timing to prevent too large platoons in the evening, but I did that on the 4th day and didn't need to restart the testing.

But during the measurements, what did I do? I completed a long an extensive report. It was 82 pages long, with diagrams, timing charts, traffic tables and green book extracts as a reminder.

That's what civil engineering is about. What's important isn't the operation of changing the light timing. That's easy enough. What's important is the report that comes out of it!

I could have picked other timings. I could have made other choices. Sure, I was reviewed by my boss, by the city and by the county. But that was on my preliminary report. When they didn't know what to do.

Now that it is in place, some people will not be happy because they might wait longer at their specific intersection, or because their particular commute is longer. Those whose life got better will not thank the city. They will just go on with their lives, often not realizing that they see much fewer red lights, provided they follow the speed limits.

So, everyone harmed by the adjustments will complain and those helped will remain quiet. My report, will help the city stay strong and know that they are on the right path.

It also means that the next person they hire, perhaps my firm and thus, me, will have a leg to stand on to save money.

And that, is the secondary goal of any engineer. To save our employer and client money. Sure, in my case, my primary goal is making traffic more efficient by a more proper management of platoons, but the secondary objective is to save them money.

Right... platoons. Stop signs create a loose traffic flow but slow down everyone. Traffic lights tend to group cars in a small group we call a platoon. Those platoons have huge advantages despite people hating them. First, they give a pause in the traffic flow for the side roads to receive service.

As soon as the platoon has moved on, the main street is empty, and the light can be turned red so that people will jump on it. They will be blocked on the next red light on the main street, which they will hate with a passion "Why am I getting two reds in a row", but if synchronized, it will be their last one as they slowly form a new platoon or join the previous one.

Another is that while they increase fender benders they tend to reduce fatal accidents. When drivers are alone on the road, they tend to speed and be more reckless. When in a platoon, they are more sensible.

That, is specifically why I was hired by the Beverly Hills city council. Well, that my firm was hired and I was assigned. They had a few serious accidents during "rush" hour with speeders "rushing" to get to work and crashing into each other.

Their initial request was to make their streets safer, but we explained (as in, my boss explained) that platoons would both make people on time and make the streets safer.

They would need to patrol the streets initially to prevent people from racing to catch the earlier green light, but eventually, they would understand that the lights would be synchronized and just relax. Or so is the plan.

I make it home and see that of course, Daphne is home. Her car is in the driveway. She works at the college where we both studied, but she didn't finish her degree and took a job at the cafeteria, in union hall.

It was weird in my last year of college to buy my lunch from my fiancée but she was happy with her job. It was not complicated, she could socialize with a few of the students and she seemed to enjoy speaking with the naturists on campus.

Not that she was ever interested in naturism itself...

I get in and find her sitting at the kitchen table, with a notepad, a little stack of paper and a pen. Shit. We are about to have that conversation again.

"Hey Daphne"

"Sit down Justin. We need to talk"

"I know what you will say"

"If you do, you will sit down and listen to me, very carefully"

Except that I know exactly what she will say.

But I sit. It's not like I can avoid the talk.

"Justin, you know that there is only one thing I want from our relationship. When we began dating, I explained it and you agreed"

"I agree because", but she raises her hand. If I keep talking, she will yell over me. I don't have a choice, I shut up.

"Good. You agreed to my terms. You asked me to marry you, I repeated my objectives. You agreed to them. You did. We prepared our wedding. I repeated to you my objectives. You not only agreed to them, you followed them. During the wedding preparation, everything I had in mind, you followed. I was happy, Justin. Our little vacation that passed for our honeymoon followed those rules. We bought this house according to them. We were on a roll, Justin. Things were moving along. I felt progress. And then, over the last few days, you resumed taking liberties. So, you know what I have here. Don't you?"

"Your female led relationship contract"

"Our female led relationship contract, Justin. Which I want you to sign, or I will divorce you, and if you recall, we signed a prenup with a female led relationship in mind "

I swallow hard. I am fine with a female led relationship. I don't mind that. And I was happy to sign that prenup, even if it basically bankrupts me. My problem isn't with what is on the contract, it's with what is not on the contract.

I am willing to submit to her. She is so hot when she takes charge. It's not like I didn't let her control things. It's just that her contract is so.... final. And it's not what I want.

I take a deep breath. It's time for me to negotiate the terms of my submission to my wife.