Chapter 11: ... And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

December 13, 1988, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The drive to Wisconsin let me think through everything that had happened over the weekend. My as yet unexplainable slip with Kimmy and Jolene's revelation that she had fallen in love with me. As I drove across the border between Illinois and Wisconsin, I decided that of the two, the situation with Jolene was a bigger problem. With Kimmy, we'd already talked about how we'd handle our relationship and that we both knew that at some point, hopefully far into the future, it would come to an end.

The situation with Jolene was much more complicated. Neither of us was going to leave the dojo, and we'd be working very closely together. Starting in March, we'd be partners, and we'd have no choice but to be with each other, in a very close relationship. Anything else would incur the wrath of Sensei Jim. The problem was, Jolene wasn't sure she could handle it.

She'd told me that she desperately wanted to make love with me. Not fuck, but make love. I could do that without causing myself any issues, but I didn't think that Jolene could. For her, such an act would be equivalent to a commitment to a romantic relationship, something she also desperately wanted, but something that simply wasn't possible for me to do.

It wasn't that I didn't like Jolene a lot, but I didn't have any romantic feelings for her. Even if I hadn't been with Kara and Jessica — well, just Kara now — I couldn't have a romantic relationship with Jolene because I didn't feel that way about her. I did care for her, but I didn't love her the way I loved Jessica, Kara, Elyse, Jennifer, or, for that matter, Kathy and Bethany.

And that was the thing — I still loved Jessica. I might hate her for what she had done, and I might think the relationship was over, but that didn't mean I didn't love her. The problem was that it didn't seem to matter anymore. All I wanted was for Jessica to talk to me, to tell me what she was thinking, and to decide together about our future, if there was one. After eight weeks, I didn't think that there was. Jessica had thrown away our marriage, and more importantly, her medical career. I just didn't get it.

Nothing made any sense. Sometime during the week, the DNA test results would come back and confirm that Rachel was my daughter. And then the real struggle would commence — to ensure that I had a chance to be with my daughter, to bond with her, and to let her know I loved her. From everything Gwen had told me, Carla was going to fight me tooth and nail, either to gain a larger child support payment as Bethany suggested, or to gain full custody, as Gwen suspected. For me, the money was irrelevant. I'd agree to something generous, and not even think twice about it. What I wouldn't do was let Carla keep me from seeing my child.

My mind involuntarily returned to Kimmy. What was my relationship with her? Was it just sexual? I didn't think so. Was it just companionship? I didn't think that was true, either. There was something going on and I didn't know what it was. Well, that wasn't quite true. I liked being with her. A lot. I liked her simple approach to life. In some ways, she reminded me of Elyse, though she didn't have Elyse's drive and determination.

That made Elyse something of an enigma. She liked things simple, but she was as driven as any of the rest of us to get what she wanted. I wondered, after everything that had happened since the previous Tuesday when she'd taken me to task, if I might not have made a mistake in turning down her offer of marriage. After all, I'd more or less ended up where she'd suggested I would if we'd done that. The only difference was, I spent most nights with Kara instead of Elyse. Switch that around, and what Elyse wanted would have happened. And, to be honest, everything else, except for Jessica, would pretty much be the same. Except I knew that was a 'What if?' that wasn't quite so predictable.

But what was it about Kimmy that was so special beyond that similarity? She was cute, but I had access to all manner of cute girls. She was sweet, but so were the girls I usually chose for sex partners, including Jacquelyn and Hope. She wanted to please me, but then again, so did Kara, Elyse, Leila, and other girls that were available to me. She made no demands, but if I was honest, neither did Kara nor Elyse. Jessica had, but I'd never felt she was controlling. So what was it?

I pulled into the parking lot at Belarus with that question still swirling around in my head, with no answer. I wondered if I'd ever have an answer to that question. I wasn't sure that it mattered, really, because she was, in effect, a mistress. That thought made me chuckle because I remembered Connie offering me exactly that. I could have her sexy body, and a mistress as well, so long as I gave her children and helped her take over Don Joseph's empire. But I couldn't do that to Joyce, even IF I'd had an inclination to be with Connie beyond a good fuck. I never had that inclination.

I pushed all of those thoughts out of my mind as I locked the doors on my BMW and walked to the front entrance of the Belarus office. As usual, my first stop was to see Viktor Bykov, who had tea ready for us to drink. We had a good chat for about fifteen minutes before I went to see Chris Gibson and go over the changes that she needed me to make. I made sure that I waddled into the office and gave the correct greeting, causing Chris to smile. She gave me a quick hug, and we got down to work.

"This looks like a full day's work," I said after we went over the requirements. "To be safe, we should probably have sandwiches brought in so I can work through lunch. I don't want to have to make a trip up tomorrow or Thursday."

"You could stay the night if need be," she said with a sparkling smile.

"I have to be back to teach karate class tonight," I said. "I didn't think it through completely. I've been more than a bit distracted lately. Sorry about that."

"Because of the issues at home? Those are still going on?"

"Yes. Things will start being resolved this week, but it's probably going to be a couple of months before everything is sorted out."

"So dinner is out?" she said, pouting.

"I think it has to be. Let me get started on the programs."

"If you finish early, we could go somewhere," she said.

Kara and Elyse had actually encouraged me to have my 'Milwaukee dalliance', as they called it, but I'd pointed out that I'd picked the wrong day for that. I really did need to get all the work done today, because I'd be on vacation in the UP with Kara starting on Sunday, and before then we had the NIKA Christmas party, which once again fell on my anniversary. Not that it mattered much this year.

"Let's see how things go," I said with a friendly smile.

I went to the office next door and logged in to the computer. Of all the days since Jessica had left, I needed to focus more today than any other. I had a lot to do, and very little time. And my schedule for the rest of the week would make it very difficult to come back. And that would mean coming up after Christmas, which would be an unacceptable delay. I closed my eyes, banished thoughts about my personal life, and got into my zone.

"Steve!" Chris said sharply, snapping me out of my zone.

"Sorry, I was really deep into this," I said.

"I called your name FOUR times! I finally raised my voice. How do you do that?"

"I basically turn off all outside input and lose myself in the task."

"Our lunch is here. I hope you don't mind that I ordered Chinese. I got four small orders because I didn't know what you liked."

"I'll eat just about anything," I said.

"Including me?" she smirked.

"If only I had the time!" I chuckled. "Rain check for next time?"

"On the condition that you spend the night with me," she said.

"I can probably manage that. But no contrived work! Did you hear from your guy in Slidell?"

"Yes. He has the Wyse terminal, and the modem hooked up, and the phone line plugged in. I told him we'd work on that after lunch."

"Good. If you don't mind bringing the food in here, I want to finish this code. I'm almost done."

"Sure," she said.

I ate and worked, while Chris ate and watched me. I finished my lunch and the last bit of code at about the same time. Chris cleared away the remnants of our lunch, and then we called Ronnie, the service manager in Slidell, and spent the next hour getting his terminal working. Actually getting the modem connection was the easy part. Getting reports to print through the second serial port on the terminal was tricky, but we got it to work. After a few tests, we agreed everything was good, and I went back to working on the last piece of code.

I was fairly confident I could finish because I'd allowed two hours to get things working with the Louisiana repair facility and we'd only used about ninety minutes. That extra thirty minutes was just the margin I needed, and I wrapped up the final changes, including testing, just after 4:00pm. All that was left was for Chris to test and verify the changes, and we accomplished that by 4:30pm. That gave me just enough time to make it back for karate, given that I'd need to deal with rush hour traffic.

"I wish you could stay," Chris said.

"Me, too. But I'm sure you'll have more work for me sometime early in the year. If you can, save up enough to have a full day."

"Oh, I will!" she grinned. "And you save your strength. You'll need it!"

We hugged, and she walked me out to my car. After another hug, I got in and started my drive back to Chicago. Part of me had wanted to stay, but I had to keep my commitments. Elyse had impressed on me how important those were, and as much fun as Chris was, I needed to be at karate, and I needed to work with Jeri. I also had my dates with Jacquelyn, and missing those would upset her and might cause problems with the plan to end that relationship in less than three weeks.

I had called the office mid-afternoon to check my messages, but Kimmy reassured me that Gwen hadn't called and promised that she'd call me immediately if Gwen did call. I'd also made a call to Alex Saunders to confirm all the arrangements for Wednesday night, and he reassured me that he had everything under control, and that Elyse had been in touch to confirm as well.

Things were going about as well as I could expect at this point. A call from Gwen would confirm everything, and then I'd get on with that. At some point, Jessica was going to have to do SOMETHING, though I had no idea what it was. I couldn't control either of those two situations, and I just had to wait for them to be resolved by others. Once we had the test results, then I'd have something to do, though in reality, Gwen would do most of the work. I'd have decisions to make, but I'd already decided to go for the jugular. I could do nothing less.

December 14, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"Hi!" Jacquelyn said brightly.

"How are you today?" I asked.

"Happy because you're here!"

"You remember that I'm going to be on vacation next week, right?"

"Yes! And I'll run every day. School is out for two weeks as of Friday. How much time will you have during the week after Christmas?"

"Want to get in as much as you can?" I smirked.

"Oh yes! And I won't be in school, so you could come in the morning if you wanted, and we could have more time!"

"I do have to work a bit," I said. "But that week is usually pretty calm at work."

"I accepted a date for the Friday after New Year's! Joey Stapleton. He's a sweetheart!"

"I'm glad to hear that! Now, what did you have in mind for today?"

"More practice! On Friday, you can teach me something new!"

"How about we both use our mouths at the same time today?"

"What did you call that?"

"69. Because of how our bodies would look if someone were watching."

"I don't know if I could have sex in front of someone else!" she said, blushing.

"Forget about that and let's go up to your room!"

She squealed in delight and ran up the stairs to her room. I followed a bit more sedately, but once I was there, there was nothing sedate about our coupling. I was going to miss the unique feel of her pussy, but I knew that this couldn't continue. She did as well, because she knew her parents would never tolerate our relationship, and she wanted to date. I was happy that Jacquelyn had a healthy attitude towards what we were doing, and that she was an enthusiastic, eager partner. I left her house happy and very satisfied, and returned to the office.

I didn't stay long, because most of us were leaving early to get to the party. Zeke had offered to stay in the office to answer the phones until 6:00pm, which was 4:00pm in California. Barbara had let all of our West Coast customers know that we'd be closing an hour early, and that gave Zeke just enough time to get to the Bucktown Bistro by 7:00pm.

"How was your exam today?" I asked Kara as we dressed for the party.

"Fine. I should have an A on the test. I'll have straight A's this semester."

"Good! And teaching went OK for your first semester?"

"I had my evaluation yesterday. The students liked me."

I chuckled, "Because every single straight male in the class had the hots for you!"

"What does Melanie say? You use every advantage that you have! But I don't flirt. I won't do that."

"Do you even have to?" I smirked.

"Oh shush!" she giggled. "Finish getting dressed! We don't want to be late!"

When we were dressed, we went downstairs and said 'good night' to Birgit, who was with Veronica, who also had Matthew because Elyse was going to be at the NIKA party just as we were. We found her waiting for us in the great room, and the three of us walked out the back door to my car for the drive to Bucktown.

"Did our West Coast folks arrive?" I asked.

"Yes," Elyse said. "I told them to just check into the hotel and not bother coming to the office. They'll all come in for the morning, then Cynthia and Barbara will head back to California in the afternoon. Andy will be here until next Wednesday. He'll be shadowing Zeke while he's here, plus he'll spend time with Cassie and Jack on Saturday. Penny, Tasha, Terry, and Zeke are taking him out on the town on Sunday. I told them to charge it to the company because it's a team-building exercise."

"Good idea," I said.

"Does everyone at work know that you and Jess are separated?" Kara asked.

"Yes. Not the details, just that we're separated. They know she won't be here tonight. The party being tonight is a mixed-blessing. It takes my mind off what today is, but also drives it home."

"You're holding up pretty well, Snuggle Bear. You'll be surrounded by most of your friends, plus all of your staff."

"It was a good idea to invite Kathy and Kurt and Jennifer and Josie," Elyse said. "After all, Jamie and Jackie are already going to be there, along with Karl and Ginny."

"I know they aren't directly involved with NIKA, but they've helped me so much that I felt I should do it."

"I was surprised that Joyce is going to be here," Kara said.

"Jake will be home on Friday. I don't think we'll hear from her for a month!" I smirked. "They have about five months to make up for!"

"Your dad will be here, right?"

"He came up with Joyce. They'll stop in the office tomorrow morning before they head home."

We arrived at the Bistro and Alex greeted us at the doorway.

"Welcome!" he said, shaking my hand and exchanging cheek kisses with Kara and Elyse.

I returned the favor by kissing Sam, though I stole a light kiss on the lips.