Chapter 25

I looked around me. We were sitting in the screened enclosure I'd had built. I built it because it had gotten way to crowded at the dining room table for family meals, and this was my solution, at least for the summer.

Jose and his family were there. We were more friends than employer/employees, thanks in part to our business venture. Maria had decided to become a vet, saying it would be handy for the family business. Ursala and Laura were always there for our traditional Sunday dinners(that's lunch to you non-southerners), as were Leah, Dorian, and their children, if they weren't working. They'd had a little brother for Cat, which she found fascinating.

Tory's mother surprised us all a few months back by moving to our area. She had divorced her husband, sold the house she got in the settlement, and with the money she had gotten besides, was very comfortable. She brought the two youngest daughters with her. My girls insisted on buying her a house in the same development as Leah and Dorian. Laura and Ursala also had a house in the neighborhood. Realtors loved us, because just as soon as they found out who was interested, they stood firm on the price, knowing we'd pay.

So you get the idea, Sunday lunch could get really crowded, especially if the youngest girls brought friends or boyfriends, which was pretty well all the time. I think the food was as big a draw as the company. Sofia would go all out with the Mexican dishes, Ursala would usually counter with a Greek dessert and some meat dish, usually lamb, Laura would bring veggies, and ocassionally catfish, which she knew I'd love. Carmella(Torys' mom) knew a few Columbian dishes, and made the best fried chicken I'd ever tasted. The meals made me glad the girls had put a home gym in.

I loved it when a baby cried and three heads would snap around. Was it D W(Dorian William), Ursala Leah, or Carmella Laura? Yes both my first two were girls. We became something of a local legend, when I showed up three times in seven weeks for a birth. First was Cathy, two weeks later it was Leah, and then Tory. I held my first child, and seven weeks later my second, experiencing feelings I'd never had before. I was immortal now, my blood would run in the veins of generations to come. I prayed they would all have good lives, and I would live long enough to see at least the next generation. It was a very humbling realization. Every man in the universe should experience fatherhood, in my opinion. Maybe the world would be better.

We sat down and had a long talk. We decided one more each, and after that they would be getting into the danger zone. So when the girls turned one, we would start all over. Was I happy? Damn right I was.

We had our own studio now, and our no nonsense approach to making movies was almost legendary. Our studio had a nickname in Hollywood, The Factory, because we ground out movies the way other companies manufactured products. And just like a manufacturing plant, if you didin't produce to expectations you were fired. Big name actors sometimes declined parts if we were invovled, knowing we wouldn't put up with anything stupid or unprofessional. Others lobbied to get parts, glad to work in a professional environment where the drama was saved for the screen. The series Leah and Dorian developed was in its' third season, and had won numerous awards, including three Emmys. I even got one on for best script, along with Leah. The Issabella movie we had done was one of the best grossing romances that year.

I had written three more Battle Babes, and was thinking of winding it down. They had been fun to write, and had made me very rich, but I was tired of them. I was looking for an epic way to end it.

To my amazement, one of my mysteries made the bestseller lists. The lead character, private detective and struggling actor Dirk Hanson stood six feet three, had jet black hair and piercing blue eyes, classic good looks and a body that looked like it was chiseled in stone. His nickname in the industry was Dark Handsome, a play on both his looks and name.

Dark Handsome and the Princess Of Porn was so well received, we decided to make it into a movie. Who knows, it might end up as a franchise. The plot included an indepth look at the dying industry, being replaced by amateurs on the internet, with embezzlement, corruption, and murder thrown in. He even falls for one of the women he met, and is wondering in the last lines in the book if he could ever have a relationship with her, considering her career choices. I was already two thirds done with the sequel.

The jewel in my film industry crown, as far as I was concerned, was what would turn out to be a series of movies on the history of Canada. I'd always been a history geek, and went to as many museums as I could find, fascinated by the events that shaped countries. Sylvia Shining Fox, now an established star on Canadian television, got me started, taking me to a museum dedicated to the Voyageurs, the backbone of the French fur trade from the sixteen hundreds until its' end in the late eighteen hundreds. Fur traders would search France for workers, getting a lot from orphanages. Some jumped at the chance, some were coerced, outher were outright sold into the trade. The perfect candidate had to be small, around five two, and weigh less than a hundred and twenty pounds. They had to be able to endure eighteen hour days paddling a canoe, and have the ability to carry their own body weight for extended distances. The canoes were enormous craft, holding from twelve to thirty-six paddlers, their supplies, and their trade goods, which they exchanged for furs. The life was hard and many did not survive. Those that did often became successful, and were encouraged to find Indian wives to cement the relationship between the traders and the tribes. This practice led to the beginnings of the Metis Nation, which ended tragically in 1885.