Chapter 62: Recovery and Construction

Mark

We all rested a little easier with Myron Tanner out of the picture. The Meadows house was taking shape rapidly, and Doug Reed, our construction manager, still wanted to make good on the June 30 completion date. At the end of May almost all of the wallboard was complete, and interior painting and finish carpentry was starting – five weeks to go. Doug had crews working on the house around the clock. He was also sleeping at the house site, and I discovered he had been since March first. This was one dedicated man.

As the inside of the house took shape, Doug had some of the finish landscaping done outside, specifically concrete paths around the house, sod, and some of the shrubbery. The spring rains nicely cooperated and kept everything lush and taking root.

I was back and forth to Europe a few times, even seeing Brita and Nils about once each month, although that was not my primary intent. Each time, Brita and I connected in many ways, including sexually. That magical connection between us was always there; something spiritual between us that was almost eerie. Nils never seemed to mind, and a few times had a female friend join us to round out our foursome.

One of the friends turned out to be Petra Olsen, the woman who Brita was grooming as her ‘Strong Number 2’ at Danskpharma. Petra was about forty-two, blonde, blue-eyed, toned and shapely, and had a beautiful personality overlying a smart woman skilled in the management of a multi-billion a year pharmaceutical giant. Needless to say, we hit it off right away.

Petra liked me. I liked Petra. I liked sex. Petra liked sex. We made some beautiful music together on each of my trips, not that I was over-throwing Brita for her, only that Brita enjoyed watching the two of us make love part of the time. Petra even went out of her way to be sure she was available whenever I was going to be near. Once, she even joined me in Paris for an evening and night that left us both breathless.

Elsa got released from the hospital after what turned out to be a six-week stay just to be on the cautious side as far as the healing of her leg went. She could stand on locked knees and barely walk upon her release, had a wheelchair, and was restricted for another month to the condo until her physical therapy started. She used the wheelchair for a couple of weeks, and then slowly started to walk all the time with a walker or two canes. She had already started to get back in shape, at least from the waist up. She was sitting and doing weights and stretches, including her own version of sit down yoga.

I went to her first physical therapy session. In theory, I was her driver. In reality, we rode in the limousine tailed by a war wagon. The physical therapist had talked to Elsa’s doctor, and gotten an agreement on the type of exercises and homework assignments for her. What they didn’t know was how intensive Elsa could be about pursuing a goal. In this case, her goal was to quickly rehabilitate back to the way she was before the shooting took out her femoral artery.

The PT put her through a series of exercises mostly aimed at strengthening her quadriceps and other leg muscles that had atrophied while she was bedridden. He explained that the bullet and the operations on her leg had damaged them, and then along with her other leg muscles had atrophied further because she had to be off her feet for so long. He had her trying to use stairs, sitting and rising from chairs, sidestepping, and walking over low barriers that forced her to lift her leg with the atrophied and damaged muscles. That first day, she could barely do any of the exercises. We all could see her frustration.

The appointment with the PT was an hour long. We went back to the condo, and I got her back to the unit and ensconced in the living room. She was thoughtful, and somewhat frustrated about her weaknesses.

I left for work, and when I got back home for dinner, I found a note from Elsa: ‘I have my cellphone. I’m exercising in the building. Call me, but don’t worry. Love, Elsa.’

I called her right away. “Elsa, where are you?”

“I’m in the emergency stairwell on my way up to the condo. I’m exercising by going up and down the stairs. I’m on my way up from floor seventeen right now, so I’ll be a few minutes. It’s slow going. I did better going downstairs because gravity was working in my favor.”

I accepted that, but went out past the elevator to where the stairway terminated at my penthouse unit on the thirtieth before going up to the roof. I couldn’t see or hear anything, but I tried. I sat on the top step and waited, perusing email messages on my cellphone.

After about an hour, I could hear some shuffling, panting, and swearing a few floors down. The sounds came from Elsa. She was swearing about what lousy shape she’d ended up in after so short a period of time.

I walked down a flight and met her as she came up from the twenty-eighth floor. “How far down did you go to start?” I asked.

She grimaced as she climbed up to the landing. “All the way. I walked down and then started back up. I’m done for the day. I can barely move; only eighteen more steps. Do you know there are eighteen steps between each floor, except for the first three floors in the building and those are twenty steps per floor.”

Elsa slowly hobbled up the last eighteen steps, and then slowly walked into the living room. She collapsed on the sofa and lay back. She kept repeating, “No pain, no gain.” Finally, she said, “I need to rest. I just walked up and down ... holy shit ... a thirty-story building. That’s almost as tall as the empire state building.”

I went to get her a glass of water, but by the time I got back she was asleep on the sofa. I made a couple of ‘Ahem’ sounds, but she was out cold. I checked her pulse and circulation in her bad leg as I’d been taught, and then covered her with a blanket. She’d totally tired herself out.

Else repeated her up and down journeys every day after that, working up to four round trips a day in much shorter time periods.

The next Saturday, Elsa begged to be taken out to The Meadows to see the progress on the house.

Alice Grace, our decorator, had been busy on our behalf for weeks. She’d done her interviews, and then brought dozens of pictures and catalogs by to seek our opinion about certain pieces of furniture and art objects. She met us at the house, and set up a computer, projector, and screen in one of the unfinished rooms.

We were shown pictures of key rooms at The Meadows with different wall colors, furniture, art, and knick-knacks. She worked the way an optometrist did, showing you two different décors for the same room and having you pick the one you prefer, and then taking that preference and comparing it to another and another design for the same room. Alice moved from foyer to living room to dining area to family room to media room to kitchen and then to the outside areas near the pool and spa. She carefully recorded all our responses.

The second weekend in May, Alice asked for a meeting with all of us together. Elsa was still housebound, and the others arranged their schedules to spend Saturday afternoon with her.

Alice again met us at The Meadows with a screen and projector connected to her computer. She started with an explanation of what we would see. “I have taken the opinions and ratings of everything we’ve talked about from the seven of you – no easy task, I might add. What you are about to see is a walk-through of The Meadows as it will appear when we’re through. The colors, designs, patterns, hues, furniture, décor, and art you will see represent the best compromise of your preferences in some situations.

“Many things you agreed uniformly that you preferred. On one or two items, particularly some of the furniture, your opinions were all over the map, so I made a choice that seemed to blend well with the other items in the room area. If you see anything that really upsets you, please speak now. We’re about to place the final orders for furniture, draperies, and such tomorrow.”

Alice started her computer animation. It smoothly walked us up to a nicely landscaped entrance to the giant stone-faced mansion. The front door magically opened and we were in the foyer looking through to the back of the house, out those windows, and across the huge yard to our small forest. The instant impression was ‘Wow!’

The walkthrough took the viewer into the living room, again a ‘wow’ room. We turned and looked around in a slow three-hundred-sixty degree scan, taking in all the features, including the modern staircase, the cathedral ceiling, and the attention to detail in every corner of the room. I was blown away, and I found myself loving and appreciating every aspect of the room. I had thought I loved the condo, and I did, but this was over the top. There were ooohs and aaahs on everything Alice showed us.

She continued the walk-though of every public room, and then each of the bedrooms and other rooms, even the utility areas. Occasionally, she would say a few words about what we were looking at when it wasn’t obvious.

Alice came to the master bedroom, and I could tell this was an area that had perplexed her, because she started to blush and her narration words became halting, shy, and betrayed her embarrassment.

“Errr, this is the master bedroom with another of your super beds so that ... you can all ... be together ... to sleep and ... other things.”

Ever the tease, Elsa asked in a straight voice, “What do you mean ‘other things’?”

“Errr, you know the things you do in bed.”

Melanie picked up the tease as she was prone to do when sex was involved, “You mean fuck?”

Alice kind of nodded and turned a more scarlet color. She mumbled, “I guess.”

Sheila playfully and uncharacteristically joined in, “Well, we make love too. It’s not all tab A going back and forth in slot B at a pleasuring pace.”

Izzy threw in more bait as she tossed out to Sheila, “Well, you can lick my pussy anytime you want. I thought we all liked to make love to each other too; you know, girl on girl and not just fuck the guys. What you did to me this morning was spectacular.”

Cindy teased Izzy, “You haven’t been on my tongue for a while. I’m still learning new oral skills. I bet I could bring you off in less than five minutes.”

Not to be outdone, KC said, “I challenge you to a jill off in our new bedroom. Look at the erotic art on the wall. That titillates the brain and makes me horny. While you guys are doing each other, I’m going to have a meaningful part of Mark deep inside me driving me to new heights of pleasure.”