Chapter 37: Consulting and Escorting

I drove Mel to the airport one Thursday. She’d arranged with Jane to fly over and spend a week to ten days consulting on integrating the decorating and design software into the larger CAD software applications that the venture capital company had already invested in at Thames Software.

The G-rated version of her plan was that she’d have the weekend to decompress and get over her jet lag. Mel speculated that while Jane said those words, they were a euphemism for going out and carousing – either to the sex club again or possibly as an escort date.

Jane had been enthralled with Mel and was certain that she could sell The Pixie as an escort to one of her steady clients. My wife was enthused about the idea. I think her trip to Europe was motivated more about a desire to try high-end escorting that seeing to the software that she and Katie had sold.

I had a text on Friday morning when I got up that she’d safely arrived and was established for her stay at Jane’s flat in London. She sent a couple of pictures of a well-decorated and very upscale apartment that apparently was in the South Kensington area of the city.

Near lunch hour in Columbus, we got a text from Mel that she had a ‘date’. I was sure that was code for an escort assignment. I wrote back, “Be safe”.

My own life was very full both at work and at home, with a new ‘wife’ – Helen, and a third child to contend with – Meghan. Meghan and Ashley were out of the same mold. They were both precocious and smarter than their age of seven might suggest. I think someone had slipped a robot equipped with A.I. into our midst. They seemed to have an answer for any question that came up.

We did family stuff and I took everyone to dinner at Chuck E. Cheese – a favorite for the three kids. There was a clown there that came to the table and did tricks for the kids and kept them mesmerized for twenty minutes. He then got the whole restaurant singing some karaoke songs, which was kind of crazy. I took a few videos while there and sent them to Mel. They were, of course, PG rated. I was hoping for some X-rated videos in reply.

Back home, we got the kids ready for bed, and I picked up with my ‘happy’ ghost story again, talking about the helpful things that ‘our’ friendly ghost did and some of the silly things, such as taking socks and putting them back in the washing machine but leaving the mate in the dresser drawer.

Later, the four adults cuddled in bed. I made love to each of the women and Helen again got treated to multiple bouts of lovemaking by each of us. I think we all had a diabolical intent to keep her having orgasms. We accomplished that because after ninety minutes of sex play, Helen closed her eyes and didn’t wake up until morning. We’d exhausted her.

Saturday morning, we did breakfast and went about our planned tasks and hobbies. Helen went home to attend to various cleaning and laundry tasks at her apartment. Meghan stayed playing with our kids. I was beginning to think of her as ‘my’ kid.

Katie, Tracy, and I had an hour talk about what we should be doing differently. We’d already eliminated all our debt: mortgages – even for our parents, home equity loans, and student loans, mainly. We’d set aside $2 million as an emergency fund, and the rest of our loot was divided among some highly recommended investment advisors tasked with generating growth and wealth.

We’d put a lawyer and CPA on retainer, the latter being sure we were compliant with all Federal and state taxing authorities. At their recommendation, we’d kept the limited liability corporation or LLC functioning to handle the consulting, and also the miscellaneous use of the contract staff that DDS had been using to develop and service the large software package that got sold.

The lawyer set up a family trust, and created some other documents that essentially gave Katie and Tracy the same rights as a ‘wife’ in the state. Mac and Helen asked for us to wait a bit to do that for them.

Of course, we were avoiding publicity or announcing to anyone outside our nuclear group what was happening. Gary and Mackenzie knew the business had been sold, but not the amount or any but a few of the details. They also knew of Mel’s consulting trip and the various possibilities of her trip.

The accountant had recommended some philanthropy, and we’d tasked him to set up the Pearson Family Trust. We started with $2 million in a donor-directed fund. Mel, Tracy, and Katie directed some of money immediately to a woman’s shelter and to the local head start program.

We talked about private school for the kids, or home schooling with good tutors, but took no action for the time being. I did suggest that we each get a new car. We had a relatively new ‘mom bomb’ that could handle all of us around town and even on a long excursion, but the rest of us were driving much older models except for the truck that I got as a perk through work because it was job related.

Tracy definitely wanted grad school in the field of A.I. and cyber security. We did a set aside for the rest of that program.

Katie said, “What about a place in the sun over the winter – a home in a warmer climate, like in the Caribbean? We could import a teacher for the kids and home school them there, and it’d just be someplace without cold, snow, ice, and dreary weather.” I wrote that down on our wish list so we could add Mel into the discussion when she got back from the U.K.

Our conversations shifted to what Mel on a ‘date’ would be like. The Pixie could get dolled up and look very sophisticated almost at a moment’s notice. Going on a ‘date’ with some advance planning, I was sure that she could set the London on fire. I hope somebody took photos.

Our speculation about a ‘date’ ended just after our lunch. Several sedate photos arrived showing Mel, Jane, and two debonaire men that looked monied sitting outside at some pub along the Thames having a Pimm’s Cup, from the looks of what was on the table. The men were genuinely dashing, and even looked royal in some way.

Jane and Mel were in what I might refer to as ‘high casual’ clothes. My guess, too, is that Mel’s outfit was brand new as of that morning from some boutique in Mayfair. She and the dress looked expensive. The dress also showed a lot of her thighs, almost to her bare hip, and certainly Mel’s top emphasized her upper assets to advantage. Jane didn’t look too shabby either. They were all laughing and smiling in the pictures that I guessed the coaxed somebody into taking for them.