Chapter 55: The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living

February 3, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“This may be our last talk,” I said to Doctor Mercer.

“Why?”

“You remember the power struggle I talked about?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve decided to kill her instead!” I laughed.

“I’m glad you laughed, because if I thought you were serious, I’d have to report it!”

“I AM serious. But I also won’t do it!”

“Then you aren’t serious. What happened?”

I had no secrets from Doctor Mercer at this point, save my Outfit connections, so I told her the story from start to finish.

“What is it with you?” she laughed. “Is there ANY woman who won’t have sex with you?”

I chuckled, “Besides you?”

“Don’t even joke about that, Steve,” Doctor Mercer said firmly. “That would be cause for me to have to drop you as a client.”

“Sorry. I was being flip. But yes. Believe it or not there are women who have no interest in me. And that includes women I would like to be with.”

“Do you feel that her having sex with you obligates you to hire her?”

“No way,” I said. “And Dave would make the final decision. I’d only exercise a veto. I’ll have Jeri submit her name and résumé.”

“Do you think SHE felt sleeping with you was a quid pro quo?”

“No. I talked her half to death first. You know my way. And I got NO indication of anything like that. When she brought it up, it didn’t seem to me that she implied it, either. Granted, I can’t be absolutely sure of anyone’s motives, but I’m reasonably sure.”

“Well, if there was no quid pro quo and Dave does make the decision, I don’t see a problem with hiring her. The problem arises if someone ELSE thinks there was some linkage.”

“The only ones who know are my wives, which is the rule, Jeri, and the girl herself, of course,” I chuckled.

“You are a smart ass! Do you believe this girl can keep that confidence?”

“Yes. She didn’t want anyone to know what was going on. That was clear before we had sex.”

“While I certainly wouldn’t recommend this kind of behavior, I suppose you intend to do it.”

“Yes.”

“You know I can’t condone all this playing around.”

“I know that,” I said. “Would you rather I gave up this lifestyle and decided to sleep with Bethany?”

“No! If THOSE are my choices, and it’s BS to say that they are, you know what I’d pick!”

“I do. And nothing has changed, Doc. I understand just how fraught with danger that would be. It’s not a decision I would take lightly, if I were going to make it.”

“It sounds as if you aren’t.”

“As I said, nothing has changed. I’m keeping my promise to you and to her.”

“Good. So tell me why you felt the need to sleep with this young woman.”

“Need? I didn’t. Desire? Yes. I know it’s against the social norm, but you have to know by this point I simply don’t care. My wives know I’m promiscuous. They knew that going in. To quote Jessica, she doesn’t care if I have sex with other women so long as I’m a good husband, a good father, and follow her rules. Kara is of the same mind. She’s been with me even longer. Bethany couldn’t accept that. That’s why she ended up with Nick. It’s why so many girls chose other life partners. This is who I am. I like who I am. I don’t WANT to change it.”

“You’ve always been honest about that, and it’s refreshing. We’ve talked about why I think you’re like you are and how I think you should change. But, if you aren’t harming anyone, or yourself, and you are keeping the commitment you made to your wives and your children, it’s hard to argue with you. Your family seems to be doing well and so does your business. And you have a clear understanding of yourself, as well as of the situation with your sister. I’m curious. Would you allow me to speak to Jessica, Kara, Elyse, and Abbie?”

“Absolutely. I’ll have each of them call you to set up a time to talk.”

“Would you allow me to talk to Jesse?”

“That is NOT up to me,” I chuckled. “I may be CEO of the house, but Jennifer is the Lord High Ruler of the Universe, Ultimate Goddess, and Universal Controller on that matter! I agreed to that seven years ago before we conceived Jesse!”

Doctor Mercer laughed, “Have her call me, please. She would need to be on that call anyway.”

Our time was up, so we hung up and I headed to the office. When Jeri arrived, I got up from my desk and went out to her workstation.

“Conference room. Now.”

Jeri looked shocked, but followed me.

“What kind of game are you playing?” I asked harshly.

“What? What happened? What are you talking about?”

“Was this all a setup? A demonstration? An education?”

“You’ve totally lost me. What ARE you talking about?”

“Did you know Kajri was going to ask for a job?”

“No!” Jeri said, sounding shocked. “Oh my God! No! I didn’t! I promise! I had no idea!”

“Good,” I said softening my countenance.

“Did you really think I would do that?”

“This is about a power relationship. You put on a real display for me, so I had to be sure.”

She nodded, “I understand. I talked to her last night and she seemed happy and VERY satisfied!”

“And that little display of wealth and power was for my benefit?”

“That’s just a taste of what it’s like to have ‘fuck you’ money. When you went to Ohio, your Navy friend flew you in her Piper, I think you said. My friend flew us to New York in a Gulfstream. That family’s money makes my mom look like a pauper. I told you it’s a different world. When you and Jessica come to the Gala, you’ll see more. I’ll show you more. You need to understand the people with whom you are dealing. They are used to getting their way. Always.”

“I hear you. I bought a painting the other day and felt it was pricey. Then I saw the stuff in your apartment that had to cost more than Jess, Kara, and I would make in years! And the private chef? And the balcony!”

Jeri giggled, “She told me about that! It must have been cold!”

“She was warm!” I grinned.

“The place was spotless. Thank you.”

“I should thank you. So tell me, how far does this business arrangement go?”

“All the way. Well, not quite, because Howard wouldn’t countenance me sealing deals with you that way. Or with anyone for that matter.”

“Jesus,” I breathed.

“I promise you right now, there will be deals offered to you that will include sex if you want it. It’s currency, just as money is. And, if you play the faithful husband, there will be an endless string of society women and girls who try to corrupt you to gain power over you!”

“Do you realize how crazy this is?”

“Is it? Ask Doctor Barton about all the screwing around that goes on in the hospital, with all the quid pro quos you can imagine. Or at a big law firm. I promise, Kajri was NOT a quid pro quo any more than you and I were. What did you tell her about the job?”

“That she should give you her résumé later this week after I talked to you. You give it to Dave. Go through the process. I won’t veto, obviously. I did have a good talk with her and I think she’d be valuable.”

“Me too. Salary might be an issue. You would need to hire her as a Level III programmer, I think.”

“That’s up to Dave,” I said. “It has to be.”

“Understood. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did. She said she wants to move into the city and start coming to my place for the Rap Sessions.”

“It’ll be good for her. Now she needs to meet a nice guy. Well, another one; one who can actually be her boyfriend.”

“Jeri, just be careful how you present the lessons. Don’t make assumptions. And no more assignations.”

She smiled, “Unless I miss my guess, you’ll have to fight them off!”

I shook my head and we left the conference room. After the staff meeting, I went to Elyse’s office to discuss the idea of a permanent studio apartment. After she stopped laughing, she decided that it actually made sense and said she’d have Kimmy work on it.

“You’re really going to Japan for a month a year or so from now?”

“I think I need to. Sensei wants me to go for six months, but he also knows I can’t really do that.”

“I might have to stow away in your bag!” Elyse said with a longing smile.

“You and Birgit? Think she’s going to be happy about it?”

“Probably not. She misses you when you’re away.”

“I know,” I said.

I went back to my office to meet with Sam and Penny about Dante’s project. That took the rest of the morning. During the afternoon, I returned phone calls, worked with Cindi and Mario on the conversion plans, and met with Julia and Dave about development issues. I made the usual walk to the hospital with Kara, ate dinner, went to karate, took a shower, and then brewed a pot of lemon tea.

Michelle arrived just before 9:00pm. I took the tea and two of my Russian tea glasses and we went to the Indian room. After a brief look around the room, she gestured to the low table and the floor pillows. We sat down and I poured tea for both of us.

“It’s your dime,” I grinned.

“I hope you don’t mind if this bounces all over the place. I have so many things I want to talk about!”

I chuckled, “That’s fine. How about you tell me a bit about you? Then I’ll do the same.”

“I know a lot about you from listening to you at the Rap Sessions! So about me. I’m from Lansing, Michigan. I think you know I went to parochial school from K through 12. I went to Mass every Sunday, and every morning before school. I still go on Sundays, and three times during the week. I’m sure you can guess my family is very Catholic. I have four younger brothers and one younger sister. She’s right in between the boys. At one point, I thought I wanted to be a nun, but then I decided I wanted to do something in the medical field. I don’t want to be a doctor, but maybe I could be a hospital administrator, or run a large elder care facility, or something like that.

“I lived a pretty sheltered life, though it wasn’t so strict that I didn’t do normal things. I could go to the movies, and read any books I wanted. When I came to Chicago, it was scary at first, but I was so curious about the world and people that I got over that pretty quickly. I met Laurie who invited me to come here back in October, and let’s just say my mind was blown by some of the stuff I heard. I didn’t say too much until two weeks ago. And that was probably the craziest day in my entire life!”

“You handled it really well. I was actually surprised, based on the things I’d gleaned from the little you’d said before, and then what you said two weeks ago. That took a lot of guts!”

“I told you, I’m curious, and my curiosity got the best of me. But it was strange, as I said. I wondered afterwards if I’d gone completely insane, but by the end of the week I realized that it made sense. All that stuff you’ve been saying all along about keeping an open mind and learning and experiencing things. Do you know what the surprising thing is?”

“No,” I said.

“It hasn’t changed my core values. I still believe everything I believed the first day I came here, but now I understand more about why I believe it, and what others believe. It’s really strange.”

“No, it means your core values are strong, which is a good thing. It also means that you are willing to listen to others and learn from them, even if you don’t change your mind.”

“How do you come up with your core values?” Michelle asked. “I know you’ve said you’re agnostic.”

“I don’t recall if I said I was raised Roman Catholic or not. I stopped going to church when I was fourteen because my core values were changing due to outside influences.”

“But you have very Catholic ideas about abortion and divorce, even if you think they should be legal.”

“My core value is ‘do no harm’, but that’s usually not possible, so it works out as do as little harm as possible.”

“Not ‘do good’?”

“Define ‘good’,” I grinned. “I don’t think we’ll agree on a definition. Fundamentally, I want to hurt no one and I want everyone to simply leave me alone.”

“But aren’t there universal truths?”

I smiled, “Math. Logic.”

“How can you not believe in God?” Michelle asked with a look of confusion on her face. “Isn’t life ultimately meaningless without God?”

“I’ve struggled with that question for fifteen years. Let me tell you a story.”

I spent the next twenty minutes telling her about Birgit, Stephie, and Nick, and my quest for meaning.

“Wow. With all those people close to you dying, and all so young, I can see how you would question. Perhaps even shake your fist at God and demand an answer.”

“I did. And I didn’t get one. The closest thing I’ve come to believing is Russian Orthodoxy, but even that can’t answer my ultimate question.”

“Which is?” Michelle asked.

“‘Why?’” I smiled. “The same thing a young child asks over and over when you try to explain something to them. Well, I’m that young child, constantly asking ‘Why?’ no matter what answers I get. They aren’t enough.”

“But God is there for you if you let him rule your life.”

“Which god? According to whom? Mohammed? Jesus? Buddha? Each of them has many followers who fight others who believe in the same god. Look at the split just among Christians. I’ve read the Bible. Ask Becka if you want, or Kara, but I know it really, really well. And to be honest, I don’t see it as pointing to the Roman church as the sole bearer of truth. Of all the groups, it seems the Orthodox come the closest.”

“I see you have icons over there. Do you pray?”

“Rarely. I also have a statue of Loki, and one of Krishna, one of Shiva, and one of Shakti. I’m partial to Loki.”

“Isn’t he a Norse god?” she asked.

“Yes. The trickster. The god of chaos. I find that more likely to be true than the Bible. No offense.”

“None taken,” she said with a smile. “You’re being nice about it. I can be nice back. I’m really curious about you. You’re very different from anyone I’ve ever met. Intelligent. Witty. Intriguing. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“You challenge everything everyone believes. That makes you dangerous. Not as in you’re going to physically hurt me or anything, but talking with you is like sparring with the devil.”

I grinned, “I don’t know that I’ve been compared to Satan before. Though Lucifer does mean ‘Bringer of Light’!”

She laughed, “So that’s what you’re doing? The light shining in the darkness?”

“Yes, but light of my own choosing. And I like to shine it in the nooks and crannies and probe for weaknesses.”

“Have you found any?”

I shook my head, “None so far. But I want to be careful with you.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

“Because I think breaking your will as I did with Becka would be a grave sin.”

“You believe in sin?”

“A figure of speech.”

“What happened with her?”

“She was a fundamentalist evangelical and she felt it was her mission in life to force that on everyone else. I explained the error of her ways in no uncertain terms. And challenged her core beliefs. I found the cracks, drove the wedge in hard, and exploded her world view. Doing that to you would be evil.”

“Interesting. Why?”

“Because you are interested in learning. She wasn’t. You’re curious. She wasn’t. You love. She hated.”

“Thank you,” Michelle said with a smile.

“You also have consistent core principles, and you live them. She didn’t. Well, not the way she should have in my view. It was her own internal contradictions that ended up destroying her world view. I just provided the spark for the fuse, so to speak.”

“I think I can learn a lot from you. That’s why I’m here. You taught me a couple of valuable lessons two weeks ago, and yesterday. And I think the boys learned some very valuable lessons both times, too.”

“What lessons?”

“For the boys, not to objectify women and not to always equate nudity and sex.”

“And you?”

She smiled, “To have the confidence to take a real risk. To have the openness to learn.”

“Then I’ve achieved my true goal,” I said.

“That is what these sessions are really about, isn’t it? To get us to think. To consider alternatives. To see new ways to think, and to challenge us.”