Chapter 1

I was sitting at my desk at work, early Tuesday morning, in a grim mood. The old man had just yesterday announced that he will be leaving the day-to-day operation of the company, because of family reasons. I had known that his wife Marion was sick but it turned out that it was much more serious than they had first thought. He cashed in his ownership and resigned so that he could spend time with her. Which I guess more or less meant her remaining time. Damn, he was only a dozen years older than me and it was only a bit more than two years ago when my wife and I had seen them at my fortieth birthday party. When I saw him yesterday he looked like an old man, and I understood it very well. If something similar would happen to my wife of twenty years, Helen, I would certainly be as devastated as he was.

Yet, this morning, I'd have hoped that the old man would have been a bit more open a little bit earlier. I was quite sure that he had thought that he had made a good decision when he had sold his part of the company to an old and already rich business friend. That was not the problem, at least not for me. The problem was that the new major owner had installed his smart-assed, fresh from college son, as the head of operations. If the first half of the day was any indication, he was just an asshole. Okay, as I was a bit of a loner at work, I could work with assholes; but it takes quite a lot of fun away from your work if your boss is an idiot asshole, with a tendency towards micromanaging.

I was not really worried about my position. I was a senior analyst in our smallish but very successful investment banking company. Besides that, I was a minor owner, through my own private company. On top of that, I was the one who had the final word in all major transactions. Our reputation was outstanding, especially when we were talking about long-term investments. Even I had to admit that most of it was because of my work. For some reason, it seemed to others that I had some sort of sixth sense when it came to guessing which companies would be successful in the future, and which were 'flash-in-the-pans'. The truth was that it was mostly hard work and digging. Of course, you had to know where to dig, and what to watch for, as well.

The company that my new boss had just dropped on my desk yesterday smelled just like a hoax to me, but he had taken a look at it by himself and he was sure that this was something that we should recommend to our clients. He had just ordered me to find out how to make the most of it. I almost said to him that to me it looked like something we or our clients should not step on, or we both would be scraping shit off the bottom of our shoes! While being very unhappy, I of course did not say that to him. I promised to analyze it. After all, I used to like my job. Maybe I'd be able to like it in the future, too. Being only a minor owner, I decided not to mention to him the type of additional clauses I had in my contract. Maybe he'd learn with time; but meanwhile, we were playing with MY money too! I had no intention of wasting any of my money.

When my laptop chirped that I had an incoming feed, I was puzzled, as it was coming from some device I did not know. After a moment, I understood. It was that cheap piece of Chinese electronics they marketed as a security camera, or a parking aid as when installed in your garage, which would then automatically connect to your mobile and show the view from it. That piece of crap had a hundred other useful applications, if it only would work. As a final attempt, during the weekend I had connected it to our wireless network, and tried to connect the device with my laptop with little or no success. Well, it seemed to be working now. I clicked on the direct link, as I was curious to see what would be the quality of the video it would be showing.

It was a good thing that I had installed software during the weekend that automatically started recording the video onto my hard disk as soon as the stream started, as I was in no shape to make that kind of intelligent decision myself. If I had thought that my Tuesday morning had begun badly, it had just turned from bad to the very worst!

The video showed my wife Helen, and my supposed best friend Samuel, preparing for some action in our bedroom. According to the fluency of their actions, this was far from being the first time they'd done it. Absentmindedly, I noticed that the quality of the video was quite good. I decided to check if the audio was working, as well. Almost immediately, I wished that I hadn't done that.

I do have a very analytical mind, and I don't rush into action blindly. I like to think about the things a lot before taking action, provided I have the time. I think that the first people to recognize that were my parents and my big sister ... who was two years my senior. She was not a bad person, but for whatever reason she occasionally did some things that could be considered bad; but, being a cute little girl, she usually got out of it without a hitch.

I was six years old when I got a plastic model aircraft as a gift. I took my time to assemble it. Once it was completed, I was damned proud of it. What I had done also impressed my parents and some of their friends, which made my sister very envious.

Then, one day when I had been playing outside with my friends, my mother came to me and explained that my sister had accidentally dropped my model plane and it had shattered into pieces, but that I shouldn't be angry with my sister because it had been an accident and she would apologize to me. My sister was standing behind my mother with tears in her eyes.

Even if I was only six, I could see from her eyes that it had not been an accident, but something that she had done on purpose.

I got my payback three months later. She had several Barbie dolls, but one them was her absolute favorite. My opportunity came when my father was re-painting some of our furniture. For once, he had left one of the paint cans open. I did get whipped on my bottom by my father, even though I said that it was an accident and apologized to my sister. I got tears in my eyes, but I did not cry aloud. I made sure that I looked my sister straight in her eyes whenever possible for the rest of the day. My mother was furious, and made me buy my sister a new doll from the money I had saved, and ordered that I was not allowed to go outside to play with my friends for a month. My father did not want to argue with my mother, but I think that after the incident he looked at me with some respect. My big sister was afraid of me.

The next big episode happened when I was a high school freshman and my sister was a junior. She had been a late bloomer, and was not noticed by the jocks until her junior year. But the beginning of that year was torture for her, as there were three guys who always tried to grope her. They claimed that they would not stop until she give them certain services. I was not supposed to know any of that, but I guess that, being a bit of a silent type, it allowed me to be more observant than many others. I could see that my sister was a wreck, and was just about to give in to them just to get it over with.

After one month at school, I already had quite a good idea about the teachers and how they would react in different situations. So I made sure that the teacher I wanted was close when I approached the leader of those three. I came to him saying that I was delivering a message from my sister. The dork smiled when I came close to his ear.

"My sister says that she'd suck you, but she'd heard that you are such a pencil-dick, that she'd rather suck a lollipop!"

Not very original, but it served its purpose. Once he understood what I had said, he pushed me over against the lockers and threw a punch towards me. He did not know that I had seen him in action before. I was well under his punch when it hit the lockers. While he was partially off balance, I punched his knee from its side, which was right in front me. There was a crunching sound as something gave in the knee, and he screamed. That alarmed his lackeys, who then attacked me. As a result, I got a broken nose and a one week suspension; but I reconnected with my big sister. Of course, my mother was furious with me again, and I was again grounded for a month.