A Well-lived Life 3 - Book 6 - the World Turned Upside Down
Copyright© 2026 by Michael Loucks
Chapter 1: Who Was That Man?
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 1: Who Was That Man? - Following Steve's return from San Francisco, a stranger comes to the door of the Compound with a stunning claim about Ray's past. Is it fact? Fiction? Both? If true, the claim could have far-reaching repercussions, not just in the Compound. What Steve uncovers only adds to the intrigue. The kids are growing up and running into struggles of their own — school, sports, Scouts, and relationships. A trip to Saint Martin brings a revelation for Birgit. And much, much more.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa mt/ft Ma/ft Fa/Fa ft/ft Mult Polygamy/Polyamory First
While this story was inspired by actual persons and events, certain characters, characterizations, incidents, locations, and dialogue were fictionalized or invented for the purposes of dramatization.
December 24, 2002, Christmas Eve, Chicago, Illinois
🎤 Birgit
"MOM!" I screamed. "MOM! COME QUICK! IT'S DAD! HE FAINTED!"
I'd seen him sag to the floor, and he was leaning against the jamb, with some strange guy asking him if he was OK. I hurried over to Dad, and he looked dazed. A few seconds later, both my moms came running to the foyer along with everyone else.
"Kara, get my bag from our room! Quick!" Mom said to Mom.
Mom dashed away and up the stairs.
"Steve?" my mom, the doctor, said to Dad. "Steve!"
"Sir, what happened?" Suzanne asked the guy at the door.
"I'm not sure," the guy said. "I was talking to him, then suddenly he turned pale, sagged, and slid down along the frame of the door."
"What did you say?!" Mom, the doctor, demanded.
"I'm not sure I should share it with anyone else," he said.
"I'm OK, Jess," Dad said, sounding a bit weak and groggy.
"I'll decide that!" Mom, the doctor, said fiercely.
"I can stand," Dad said, shaking his head as if to clear it.
"Don't you dare!" Mom, the doctor, said fiercely.
My other mom came back with the black doctor's bag, and Mom, the doctor, took out her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and checked on Dad. She said his pulse was 80, which was high, and his blood pressure was 80/50, which was low, even for him. I remembered what Grandpa Al and Doctor Mary had said, and in a couple of minutes, both would change — his pulse would be in the low 60s, and his BP would be up to 90/60.
"Jess, it's clearing," Dad said. "Help me up and to my study. Ask Mr. Samet to come in. I'll explain after I talk to him."
"What happened?" Mom, the doctor, demanded to know.
"Not now, Jess," Dad said. "I'm fine."
"No, you are not!" Mom insisted. "You had a syncopal episode! You haven't had one in a long time."
"I know," Dad replied. "Can we move inside and close the door, please, and invite Mr. Samet in."
My moms helped Dad stand up and move inside, and the stranger stepped into the house. I closed the door behind him and looked suspiciously at him, wondering what he'd said to Dad that had caused Dad to have what Mom called a 'syncopal event'.
"I can walk to my study," Dad said. "Please, this is very important, and I have to speak to Mr. Samet alone."
"He's serious, Jess," Mom said. "Maybe you should let him?"
"Do I tell you how to handle polymer experiments?" Mom snapped at Mom.
"Jess, please," Dad said. "I need to do this. It's critically important."
"What's more important than your health?"
"Nothing, but I'm home, you're here, and Mr. Samet will call you if there's a problem. Please, Jess."
"Mom, I think we should," Albert interjected. "It has to be very important, or he'd listen to you."
Mom fumed, but she was outnumbered, and eventually, we walked Dad to his study, and Albert brought Mr. Samet in. Once they were both sitting in the big leather chairs, I offered tea or coffee, but they both declined, and everyone left the room, closing the doors behind us.
————— 🎤 Steve
"Are you OK?" Steve Samet asked once we were sitting in my study.
"I have a minor medical condition, and one of the ways it manifests is syncopal episodes — fainting spells. My wife is a trauma surgeon and is obviously concerned, but doctors at Mayo, Johns Hopkins, and Karolinska in Sweden don't believe it's life-threatening. It happens when my blood glucose is around what is normal for most people, and I receive shocking information."
"I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have just blurted that out, but you were suspicious, and I suspected you were about to send me away."
"I was. You're going to have to explain how you ended up here, and not at my dad's house."
"Because the only document my private investigator has found so far with his name on it, along with an address, is this house. We found a marriage license in Los Angeles, but it was a dead-end because there were no property records with his name in California."
It dawned on me just then that literally everything was either in my mom's name as Judy Deye, or if my dad had to put his name on something, he'd used 'Ray Deye'. I also knew he'd used corporations, such as X&B Investment Corporation, to keep his name off many things, including property in California. I wondered, then, why he'd allowed his name on the deed to the house. That was an interesting question to ask in the future.
"You're going to have to explain how we get from point A to point B," I said.
"Do you believe me?"
"I don't disbelieve you," I replied. "I need more information to evaluate your claim."
"I was born out of wedlock in January 1950 to Marion Fitz and Lewis B. Hano. They married in September of that year and divorced when I was around 5. My mom married Gilbert Samet, and my surname was changed. I don't remember much about my birth dad, and Mom wasn't interested in helping me find him, so I started with what I knew — his name and birthdate, and his New York residence. So little is stored in computers, so it took quite a bit of work in archives, but eventually, the investigator found enough information to connect Lewis B. Hano with Lewis B. Tobias.
"His name was changed from Tobias to Hano when his mother, our grandmother, remarried, though there is quite a bit we can't figure out. There is some evidence he was in an orphanage at some point. We also found that our grandfather married our grandmother after his first wife died. She died of influenza in 1915, perhaps Spanish Flu. Our dad, if you'll allow me to call him that, was born five months after the marriage of our grandmother."
"Oops."
"Yeah. Anyway, I tracked down some military records, but then everything disappeared, and there was no record at all of Lewis B. Hano anywhere. The investigator found some tenuous link between a man named Ray Adams and Lewis Hano, and when birthdates, birthplaces, and other information lined up, and through the internet site ancestry.com, he finally found the marriage certificate in Los Angeles County, along with your birth certificate and that of your brother. I guess you have a sister, too."
He didn't find hers in Los Angeles County because she was born in Palm Springs, which was in Riverside County. Remembering that triggered a memory of my first NASCAR race at Riverside Raceway. He'd never find the Bermuda Dunes house because the deed had been in the name of X&B Investment Corporation. I quickly pushed that aside and concentrated on the topic at hand.
"If all of that is true," I said, "then you know my mom's name, and should have been able to track her down. Or my brother."
"The PI said that, despite searching, he found zero references to 'Ray Adams' in any public records, and wasn't sure where he might have landed, or if he was still married. Because that was a dead end, he followed your trail, which was straightforward. He found you in Chicago and turned up the deed for this house, which actually has your dad's name on it. The PI called me with the information yesterday, and I drove down from Michigan to see you face-to-face. Had that not worked, we'd have followed your brother's trail."
Which, if they could search criminal records, would have led him directly to my dad, as Jeff still lived at home.
"I'm going to guess you have a report from the PI that documents everything you just told me?"
"Yes."
"Please don't take this the wrong way, but what exactly do you want?" I asked.
"Nothing other than to meet my dad. If I could have done it without disturbing you, I would have."
"What about the rest of your family?"
"Estranged," Mr. Samet said. "I haven't seen my stepdad or my mom in over twenty years, nor my siblings."
"You'll pardon me if I find this all a bit far-fetched."
"And yet, your tone and demeanor say you think what I'm saying might be credible, and you're trying to decide what to do."
"If what you say is true, it paints a very different picture of my dad than the one he's related to me, but more importantly, what he told my mom. If all of this turns out to be true, it could blow apart my parents' marriage. Is it that important to you?"
"If you were in my shoes, what would YOU do?" he asked.
"That's a damned good question," I replied. "I suspect I wouldn't be able to let it go. When was the last time you saw your dad?"
"Around 1953, or about ten years before you were born, because he and my mom separated. Do you know what makes me certain?"
"No."
"Both our names are the same, albeit with alternate spellings."
"Which names?" I asked.
"You don't know?" he asked.
"Know what?"
"Your birth certificate originally read 'Steven Marc', with a 'v' and a 'c', but was corrected to 'Stephen Mark', with a 'ph', and a 'k' about two months after you were born."
And with that, I knew he was right. There was no doubt in my mind.
"I didn't know that, but my Social Security Card, which was issued when I was a baby, something extremely rare in those days, had my name spelled 'M-A-R-C'. I had the SSA correct it a few years ago, to match my birth certificate."
"It was 'Steven Marc', with a 'v' and a 'c', there, too, but changed about the time your birth certificate was changed. They obviously made an error correcting it."
"Son of a bitch," I said, shaking my head. "I'm convinced you aren't going to let it go, and figuring out where he is would be a hop, skip, and a jump now that you've confirmed my identity and his. Will you do something for me?"
"What's that?" Mr. Samet asked.
"Agree to not make this public? That is, don't link anything on ancestry.com, and don't reveal it to anyone else? If you agree, I'll see if I can arrange for you to meet my dad, and we'll find out the truth together."
"I have no reason to out him or reveal anything. When could I meet him?"
"Ultimately, it'll be up to him if he wants to meet you. If he says 'no', what will you do?"
"I suppose I have to honor that. Do you think he'll refuse?"
"I think if I set up a completely private meeting that nobody knows about but you, me, and him, there's a good chance he'll say 'yes'. I'll speak to him and see what he has to say. If he's amenable, I'll arrange a completely private meeting for the three of us."
"That would work."
"OK. Let me have your contact information; I'll speak to him today and try to set up the meeting."
"What are you going to say?"
"I suppose the best approach is to say that someone approached me with a proposition, and I felt he should listen to it. A bit of subterfuge, but I think he'll forgive me for that. If he says 'yes', I'll get some proposed dates from him and get in touch with you."
"I can accept that, and I promise, no matter what happens, to not violate anyone's privacy or do anything that would wreck your parents' marriage. What will you tell your wife?"
It wasn't 'wife' — it was 'wives', which presented an interesting set of challenges, as did telling my daughter. I didn't like keeping secrets, though some had to be kept. I trusted my wives, but this information was like a container of nitroglycerin, and one small bobble might set it off.
"That's tricky, and I'm not sure. I need to think about it."
"I'll leave you because I want to get back to Michigan."
"I'm somewhat surprised you traveled on Christmas Eve."
"You don't know that, either?"
It dawned on me, and it was something I'd speculated about, and now I knew.
"You're Jewish, and so was your Dad."
"Yes."
"You just clarified something I suspected, at least based on the family name."
"Our grandfather was a Russian Jew, and our great-grandparents on our grandmother's side were Russian Jews, all of whom emigrated."
"Damn!" I said, shaking my head.
"What?"
"I have a number of Russian friends, many of them made before the Berlin Wall came down, and I never had an inkling I might have Russian blood."
"You're a true believer now?" Steve Samet asked.
"So many little things add up that did not add up before. I'm curious, but did you uncover anything about his military service or work for a government agency?"
"He was mustered out of the Naval Reserves in 1952, and his last assignment we can find was USS Biddle. As for government agencies, by which I'm sure you mean the CIA, that was the speculation the investigator made based on the complete disappearance of records and not finding ANY records for Ray Adams or Lewis Hano between 1953 and 1961."
Dad had never mentioned Biddle, and I wondered whether that was part of some OSS subterfuge or was information I simply didn't have because Dad hadn't told me the whole story.
"I know some other details that fit," I said. "He met my mom in Las Vegas in 1961 and was there because he was friends with Cuban expatriates. I also met a man who met my dad in Cuba and knew him as Lewis B. Hano. If we add our two stories together, I think that part is true, as he said. The 1950s are a complete blank in everything I know, and allegedly, he worked for the OSS, then the CIA."
"He had a TV sales and service business in New York after the war."
"I'm positive you made THAT connection," I said.
"Which connection?"
I laughed, "What are my dad's initials?"
"Oh crap!" Steve Samet exclaimed with a smile. "I missed that one! RCA!"
"Yeah," I replied with a smile of my own.
"I'll leave you to your holiday celebration. I'm assuming you're Christian?"
"Agnostic, but we follow the Christian tradition at Christmas. Let me walk you out."
"Was the second blonde my half-sister?"
"No," I replied, hoping he'd drop it.
"OK. You're obviously being circumspect, and I get that, so I won't press. I very much appreciate you talking to me and being honest with me, and I'm very sorry about causing you to faint."
"It's OK," I said. "I'm not sure it could have been avoided."
We got up, and I walked him to the door, where we shook hands. Once he'd left, I walked to the sunroom and suppressed a sigh.
"Hi, Al," I said. "I'm fine."
"I'll be the judge of that! Your study, now!"
Fighting Al would only make things worse with Jessica, so I complied, and we went to my study, where Al did a much more thorough exam.
"So?" I asked.
"Your vitals are in the normal range for you. Did you eat carbs this morning?"
"No. I had a few, and I mean a few, last night in San Francisco because I was in the Admiral's Club, and the selection was limited. I took propranolol proactively, and I slept fairly well on the red-eye back to Chicago."
"Define 'few'."
"An apple with my first meal of cold cuts and cheese, with a slice of whole-grain bread; that was around 5:00pm. Then, around 9:00pm, a banana, cold cuts, cheese, and a slice of whole-grain bread. No soda, no desserts, no candy, no cookies. Only water to drink, though I didn't drink anything on the flight because I slept, so I might be a bit dehydrated. I did drink water and a mug of tea with my breakfast of bacon and eggs."
"That's the complete truth?" Al asked.
"Yes. I followed my diet strictly in San Francisco. I even passed on the fantastic bread that Ruth's Chris serves and had a double order of broccoli to substitute for the potatoes. I also had a decent amount of exercise."
"Then what in the seven hells caused you to have a syncopal episode?"
"Al, I can't share that," I said firmly.
"Who was that guy you just walked out of the house?"
"His name is Steve Samet, and I just met him today. I can't tell you more."
"Why not?"
"Answering that would tell you more. I honestly cannot say."
"Steve, you know me," Al said. "I won't judge, and I won't violate your privacy."
"If I tell you, you cannot repeat this to a single person, ever. I mean that. You can't even mention it to me unless I bring it up first. No exceptions, no leeway."
"What the Hell?" he asked.
"Do you agree?"
"Yes. Call it doctor-patient confidentiality because it caused a medical incident."
"Barring a deception worthy of the KGB or MI6 on their absolute best days, the man who was just here is my half-brother."
"What?!" Al asked, his face showing extreme surprise.
"You heard me," I said. "Everything lines up, and it appears my dad was married in the early 1950s, and had kids, at least one out of wedlock, under the name he said he used in Cuba, which, by the way, Felipe confirmed."
"You're sure this guy isn't some kind of fraudster?"
"Positive? No. But so much of what he said and what I know lines up."
"Out of wedlock?"
"He was born in January 1950, and my dad married his mom in September of that year."
"How did he link the names?"
"Something an investigator found on the website ancestry.com, which has old records, with more being added each day. Somehow, he linked the names, then traced the scarce facts to find my parents' marriage certificate. He couldn't find my dad because, well, there are things I know about my dad I simply can't share. The investigator found my birth certificate, then found me, and found my dad's name on the deed, so Mr. Samet was sure he had come to the right place."
"I think I can see why you had an episode! What are you going to do?"
"If my dad agrees, set up a meeting for Thursday, and let my dad decide what to do after that. Maybe the guy is a fraudster, but if so, the story he spun won't help because if he isn't my dad's son, my dad will say so. Also, how hard would it be to actually track down my dad now that he knows where I live, and simply needs to trace my history, or locate my brother? The company website includes my bio, mentions Milford and Cincinnati, and lists my dad as an investor and member of the Board, but only with basic details. Given that, how long do you think it would take someone to find my brother, who still lives with my parents?"
"Why didn't he go directly to your dad?"
"Everything was always in my mom's maiden name, or as 'Ray Deye'. My dad also used a corporation to hide ownership of businesses and properties. I always thought it was to keep his new identity hidden because of the CIA, but now I wonder."
"You think he was hiding from the previous family?"