Chapter 1: Sometimes chemicals don’t mix

Although I was stepping up to receive my Doctorate in Chemistry, I wouldn’t say that my life has always been easy.

My name is Thomas Prentis. I am 31 and am engaged to fellow Chemistry Ph.D. student, Heather Thompson. I am a member of the Prentis family. That is the family that runs and owns most of Prentis Chemicals. Prentis Chemicals was founded by my mother’s great-grandfather. When my grandfather passed away, he held 40% of the company. He left 30% to my mother and 10% to me when he passed.

My mother is Dr. Joanne Prentis the controlling CEO of the company. I say “controlling” because she wants to control everything. From what I understand, that was one of the reasons that my father, George Hogan, left when I was 4. Unfortunately, my father died in a car crash shortly after he left us.

Why is my last name Prentis and not Hogan? Well, my mother again. After my father passed. She changed her and my last name to her maiden name so that the family name would continue. During the time I grew up, it was like I never had a father as she had removed all photos and anything else that could be a reminder that he ever existed. She even denied my father’s family access to see me.

I was always studious in school, although under my mother’s thumb, I wasn’t given many options. No sports, very few friends (unless she saw a benefit to them), and unless it was a tour of a lab, we never went on any family vacations. My mother didn’t see the need for them thinking that if they weren’t Chemistry related, vacations were a waste of time. I graduated at the top of my class in high school and although I was inclined to go into Chemical Engineering, my mother wouldn’t have it and forced me to choose Chemistry. “Chemists invent the things that Chemical Engineers just produce.” She always said.

Although my heart wasn’t 100% into it, I did excel in College, I was in the top 5% of my class and then went on to do my Master’s and now my Ph.D.

My mother got her Ph.D. at Harvard, so I am getting my Ph.D. at Harvard. I wanted to go to MIT or Stanford. The one additional advantage of Harvard was that I was on one coast of the country and my mother was on the other in San Francisco. This gave me the distance to grow up and establish myself without her constant controlling presence. You can’t get a Master’s and a Ph.D. without having some backbone.

Of course, if I hadn’t followed my mother’s advice, I wouldn’t have met my fiancé Heather Thompson. Heather is 32, 5’ 4”, and cute as a button. Maybe other people don’t think so, but I do. We met on the first day of orientation for the Ph.D. program at Harvard. I was planning to ask her out, but my CEO alumni mother, on one of her regular visits to Harvard, met Heather on one of her lab tours and ensured she came to dinner with us.

Heather was star-struck by my mother, so although Heather and I get along famously, sometimes I wonder if she is with me because of my mother. We dated for the first two years in the program, and I proposed shortly after we moved in together. We plan to get married after we are secure in our jobs after graduation.

Once the ceremony was over, Heather, my mother, and Heather’s parents went out for a celebratory dinner. We had a great conversation about the future and where we planning to go after graduation. Heather wanted to do research work for a chemical company, I wanted to work at a college doing research and teaching. My mother sat, amused with the conversation. She didn’t add or detract from the conversation. I thought it was rather unusual of her not to “control” the conversation, but I knew she was likely up to something.

And then I found out. Once dinner was completed, my mother stood up. She said, “Heather, Thomas, I want to let you know how proud I am of both of you. I also want to let you know that I have secured positions for both of you at Prentis Chemicals. Congratulations.”

Heather jumped up and ran to my mother and gave her a big hug. She said “Thank you. I am so excited; I was hoping to get into one of the Chemical companies.” Her parents were all smiles and congratulated both of us.

I had a strained smile on my face, knowing that again, my mother was trying to keep me under my thumb. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so waited to have a conversation alone with my mother about Heather and my future.

My mother then went on to say, “Heather, I read your dissertation, and the company would benefit greatly to have you move forward with ideas around synthetic clean energy fuels.”

“Ah,” I thought to myself. “She wants Heather. I am just along for the ride.”

Later, Heather took her parents to their hotel, I finally had my alone time with my mother. I had previously expressed some interest in accepting a research position at Harvard.

“Mother, you know that I was leaning towards a research position at Harvard”, I told her.

She replied, “Well, how would you and Heather be married if you were at Harvard and she was with me at our research facility in California? You know she will accept the job.”

“You could have mentioned it to me before your big announcement,” I exclaimed. “Well, I guess I could look at research opportunities at Stanford.”

“Nonsense, you need to work for Prentis Chemicals, so eventually you can continue the family name”, was her response. “Now there is no need to talk through this further.” And she walked out of the room.

Based on past experience, I knew there was no way for me in College research. Even if I were to line something up, she would use her influence to interfere. Best for me to suck it up for now and see how “great” it will be for me to work for my mother.

When Heather got back to the apartment, she was still full of energy. She dragged me to the bedroom and practically ripped my close off. I figured the conversation I wanted could wait until morning as I started to suck on one of her nipples and we fell into the bed.

After an exhausting and pleasurable night, after we sat for breakfast, I brought up the conversation that I knew was likely not going to end up going in my favor. “You know we had discussed plans after graduation. What happened to that job you were considering in Boston and my position at Harvard?”

Heather replied, “Don’t be silly. Do you understand the opportunity that your mother is giving us?

“I know. She sees an opportunity around your research, but she also wants to keep me under her thumb.” I replied.

“Don’t be silly. She isn’t doing this to control you. She wants you to be part of this next big discovery so that we will be able to take over the company once she retires.” Heather responded. “Just think about it.”

I took a few days and thought about the pluses and minuses. The biggest minus was losing Heather, so we moved to San Francisco and started work.

3 years later, Heather was close to a breakthrough in her work on the new clean energy synthetic fuel. It would reduce plane emissions by 50% with minimal change to plane engines. I was doing a related project to her work, which sometimes required that I get results from her team before my project could move forward.

The only reason why I was able to make any progress on my project was due to one of Heather’s assistants, Jennifer Panich. Jennifer had a Master’s in chemistry and was working part-time on her MBA. She had this wonderful ability to view projects at 10,000 feet and could see how they worked and their value. Where Heather was really cute, Jennifer was a knockout. Think Brenda Song like knockout.

Her parents were from Thailand and had emigrated to, of all places, Madison, Wisconsin. Jennifer was born there and received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in Chemistry. She then received her Master’s in Chemistry from the University of San Francisco and then started to work for Heather after her graduation. She started shortly after Heather and I moved to San Francisco.

Jennifer and I had started spending more time with each other. Having lunches together and when Heather would cancel dinner with me to work late or to have a business dinner with my mother. She would actually ask Jennifer to go out to dinner with me. I think that she thought that if I wasn’t eating alone, then I wouldn’t hassle her about her late hours. That had been an issue early in the project as I had kept complaining to her that she didn’t need to work so hard. This project was going to take years and she is going to burn herself out at this pace. Her reply as always that she didn’t want to disappoint my mother.

I did get my mother to force Heather to take time off. She got the argument that Heather was going to burn herself out. We had some great vacations and long weekends together. When we had these times together, it was just like when the two of us were at school together. We were a proper couple. The issue was when we came back to work and the third party in our relationship was part of the picture, my mother. It was like a switch turned on in Heather when she returned to the company and my mother. Heather so idolized my mother that I became the third wheel.

We were still living together and still engaged, but she never brought up the subject of getting married and I decided not to pursue it for now. I even suggested that since we were both making good money that we buy a condo or house so we wouldn’t keep wasting money on rent. She wasn’t interested.

When it came to sex, it all depended on the project. If she was having a day where there was a surge in progress, we would have energetic and satisfying sex. When things weren’t going well and she would be extremely frustrated, she would basically use me as a sex toy. Once she got off, she would turn over and fall asleep.

Remember my interest in Chemical Engineering, well, I did manage to audit some Chemical Engineering courses during my Masters and Ph.D. That gave me a few insights into the complexities of turning a discovery into something that can be produced economically. My project was a variation of Heather’s fuel. It didn’t reduce emissions quite as much as Heather’s, but I saw an issue with Heather’s fuel. It wouldn’t be easy to manufacture. My version would be. Jennifer could see that, so ensured that I got the information that I needed.