Chapter 30: Offers and Considerations

October 28, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“Deborah, stay, please,” I said when my inner circle rose to depart. “And Kimmy, close the doors, please.”

“OK!” Kimmy said. “What about Penny?”

“Her meeting usually lasts another fifteen minutes, and we should be done by then.”

She nodded and pulled the glass doors shut.

“What’s up?”

“I need to give you a new responsibility,” I replied.

“For Pete’s sake, I just got the raise and bonus! Don’t I get to enjoy it?”

I chuckled, “I can offer another fringe benefit if you’re interested. I’ll even waive the policy!”

“You do remember I’m a lesbian, right?”

“I do,” I grinned.

“I have half a mind to say ‘yes’ just to see what all the fuss is about,” she said, then paused for effect, “but then I remember I’m a woman, and unlike men, I can use my WHOLE brain!”

I chuckled, “Nice. But they can be screwed out, or so the saying goes.”

“‘Fucked out’, to be pedantic.”

“Oooh, she’s a member of the Bar and now she feels comfortable swearing in front of the boss!”

“I’m just following directions.”

“Does that work for EVERYTHING?”

“You’re incorrigible!”

“I’ve been told that many times. And you know I enjoy teasing you because you’re a good sport.”

“And the day I actually take you up on it, you’ll have a heart attack and die.”

I chuckled, “I’ll take the risk.”

“You think you know me that well, do you?”

“Reasonably, anyway.”

“Business first,” she said.

I nodded, “Of course. You heard the discussion about Bob Larson. His job, as I said, is going to be to guide us through what amounts to a doubling in size over the next two years or so. For both personal reasons, and the reasons we discussed before I left, I need to take a hands-off policy. That means letting him develop procedures and policies, based on his experience. I can’t interfere much, if at all, without undermining either him or Elyse.”

“And I’m the sapper?” Deborah asked.

“An apt analogy, though not an accurate one. I don’t WANT to undermine him, but I do want to make sure that the policies and procedures reflect NIKA’s ethos. That’s YOUR job now.”

“Mine? I’m Corporate Counsel, not Human Resources! That’s like playing for the other team!”

“Save THAT discussion for after the business talk!” I smirked.

“I didn’t MEAN it like that!”

“I know. But what I’m asking you to do is keep the policies in line with my philosophy.”

“I don’t think he’s going to sign off on policies that let you bang the staff!”

“Me either,” I chuckled. “But you know what I meant. You know the ethos here, or «kami», as I call it, and you’ve written quite a few policies for Keri, Elyse, and me. You’ll have to sign off on anything Bob wants to implement. Nudge him the right direction. If he does something you truly feel undermines the ethos, talk to Elyse. She can bring it to me.”

“Why not have HER do it?”

“Same problem - she undermines his authority if she simply makes decrees. YOU were the one who argued for an independent HR manager. I got you one. Now help me make sure he doesn’t fuck up my company. That IS your job.”

“It seems a bit underhanded.”

“Really? Are you going to let him do anything which violates the law? Or creates a huge legal risk?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I did.”

“And if he were to bring you a policy which you knew, without question, would piss off the staff or cause them serious consternation, would you tell him?”

“Obviously.”

“So just how underhanded am I being by telling you, who has to be my most trusted confidante going forward, to do your job of protecting NIKA and protecting me?”

“Interesting. I know you’re going to hate this, but you’d have made an excellent trial attorney.”

“YOU, I’ll let get away with that backhanded insult; in private.”

“All kidding aside, Steve, you’re damned good with rhetoric and logic. And you instinctively know how to get someone to give you the answer you want.”

“Usually,” I smirked.

“OK, wise guy! One-time offer - at lunch we go to the NIKA loft apartment and you put your money where your mouth is!”

I shook my head, “You’re saying that because you’re sure I’ll say ‘no’. BUT, because I didn’t expect you to say it, I might say ‘yes’ just to call your bluff, thus creating the circumstances that lead teenage boys to do the dumbest things you can imagine!”

“Not just teenage boys! Men in general! And a few women, too.”

“It’s the sophisticated version of the ‘double-dog dare’,” I chuckled.

“True. Or a suicide pact!”

“I can see that.”

“Seriously,” Deborah asked with an arched eyebrow, “is that something you really want to do?”

“I think the more important question is whether it’s something you would seriously consider AND having considered it fully, you would do.”

“I think this is the weirdest conversation we’ve had to date.”

“Stick around,” I chuckled. “It’ll probably get weirder.”

“Well as a member of the Bar, I’m pretty sure that for any agreement, there needs to be an offer and consideration, then a review of the terms, and a meeting of the minds.”

“Congratulations. You passed Contract Law I. Even I know that much!”

“Make an offer with proper consideration; if it’s interesting, we negotiate terms, and if there’s a meeting of the minds, we have a deal.”

“It’ll be FAR more than minds that meet!” I grinned.

“How DO you do that?”

“What?”

“Talk a girl out of her panties with such ease and without sounding like a male chauvinist pig?”

“Your panties are still on,” I replied.

“Except you know full well that you have me actually considering it, and you ALSO know that as soon as I was willing to consider it, you had achieved what you wanted!”

“You could always say ‘no’,” I replied.

“Except, instinctively somehow, you know I won’t. Jesus, it’s a good thing you aren’t a serial killer!”

“So far as you know,” I chuckled. “I never did tell you about Virgin Slayer!”

“What the heck is that?”

“Our former nanny wrote a screenplay about a guy who seeks out virgins, seduces them, then kills them with an ice pick. You know, ‘penetrating trauma’ as a parallel to the other penetration. You never see the killer’s face during sex during most of the movie, because it’s about the police detective tracking him. At the end, you do see the guy deflowering then killing his twelfth, and final, victim - the police detective’s underage daughter. But the detective has already ruled out the actual killer. After the credits, you see the killer checking into a bed-and-breakfast in rural Sweden.”

“God, that’s sick, but you’d sell millions of copies.”

“Probably for that very reason! Anyway, she wanted me to star. I guess she thought I could play the part of a serial killer.”

“Right, because it had NOTHING to do with your proclivity to talk girls out of their panties, or their hymens, evidently.”

“You were serious about what you said before.”

“It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve had effectively infinite success with your, let’s call them targets, not victims.”

“Want to know the funny thing?”

“There’s something funny about this?”

“Funny as in ‘odd’, not funny as in ‘ha-ha’. Of the girls I’ve been with, probably more than ninety-five percent came to me, not the other way around.”

“I suspect you know why, too. Your damned bedroom eyes! Is ANYONE immune?”

“As far as I know, only one woman on the planet,” I chuckled. “Well, excluding blood relatives.”

And, I thought, my wives STILL gave me grief about that one woman at the party when it happened!

“Yeah, blood relatives would be naturally immune,” Deborah observed.

From my eyes, yes, but my sister had had OTHER reasons to pursue me.

“So,” I said with a grin, “the offer is simple, I think. A period of sexual activity with said activity and its duration to be agreed as part of the terms. The consideration is a bit more difficult. I could be totally gauche and say the right to ask for a repeat at any time, but that consideration would actually be to my benefit. Perhaps something along the lines of one significant favor to be granted, no questions asked, with the only limitation being that it not violate the law or my agreement with my wives.”

“OK, now you could write fucking contracts, too!”

“I think that’s what we’re doing, writing a fucking contract!”

“Oh for Pete’s sake!” Deborah gasped, trying to stop from laughing. “Your oral skills are unbelievable!”

Now I guffawed, “How do YOU know?”

“I did it again, didn’t I?”

“No offense, but being older, and working hard to become a dirty old man after being a dirty young man, this kind of wordplay has been stock and trade since I first dated Melanie Spencer when I was fourteen and she was fifteen. Jennifer was VERY good at it. In fact, she still is. We’ve had to tone it down a bit because of Josie. Pete, on the other hand, just rolls his eyes at Melanie and me.”

“I know I’m probably going to step in it again,” Deborah said pensively, “but seriously, the way you worded that could have come right out of some textbook. Well, minus the open-ended consideration to which no lawyer who represented you would allow you to agree.”

“Finding a consideration which isn’t directly offensive or which doesn’t serve my interests more than yours is pretty tough. I mean, even saying something like ‘orgasms’ really doesn’t work, because it’s assumed in the offer itself.”

“Not in my experience,” Deborah said ruefully.

“Experimenting with guys while trying to reconcile your sexuality?”

“Jennifer! That’s why you understand!”

“Yes. But, and I’m speaking just a bit out of school, she could with me. I doubt she could with anyone else. I can’t explain it, but we had this weird connection. We still have it if we try, but back then we didn’t have to try. We just KNEW what the other person was thinking and wanted. It was like a perfect joining of two souls. But in the end, she’s a Kinsey 7, except for me.”

Deborah nodded, “A couple of failed experiments, including one full penetration. It did nothing for me. I mean zero. But I think part of that was the fact that the guys were in High School and had little or no experience. I obviously didn’t have much. The first time I was with a girl, I was seventeen and she was twenty. She’d had several lovers before me. Let’s just say it was like night and day!”

“My first was nine years older than me when I was fourteen. She was a good teacher.”

“Holy shit! Talk about robbing the cradle.”

“It’s complicated, but she didn’t take advantage. Anyway, although I usually boast about my ability to provide endless strings of orgasms, I can’t make that promise based on new information of which I’ve just been made aware. That said, I will represent that I offer a unique set of skills and abilities, and in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, and will commit to bringing all of these to bear in an attempt to ensure that the implied consideration in the offer is fulfilled.”

“You are TOO funny.”

“Do you know how many contracts I’ve read over the years? Probably more than you have!”

“I suspect so. You’re OK with an open-ended consideration?”

“Unless you think money or some other thing with inherent value is not ridiculously offensive.”

“I think I’m with you on that page. Money, gifts, or promotions would turn my stomach, especially promotions, because any job that requires me to sleep with the boss is one in which I’m not interested.”

“What about one which requires you NOT to sleep with the boss?” I asked.

“Is this some sort of weird test?”

I shook my head, “No, just throwing out an additional possible factor. We teased ourselves into this situation and I’ll be damned if I’m going to agree to something that’ll mess up our relationship.”

“You are the strangest person I have ever met. And before you say anything, that’s a GOOD thing. You look at things from every angle, analyze them, then act on your analysis, often getting advice from those closest to you. And you don’t flinch when your analysis goes against your own desires, or shows your thoughts to be wrong. Most people fail at those last two.”

“I’m not much for ‘damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!’”

“That’s our friend Dante.”

“If there was a name that would cause reverse blood flow to important organs, that’s it!”

“Your brain?” she laughed.

“That, too!”

“Let me think about it.”

“Take as long as you like, and make sure you make the right decision.”

“And what’s that?”

I smiled, “What’s best for you, NIKA, and me, in THAT order.”

“Are you SURE you want to step aside in favor of your sister?”

“As I’ve said before, all those qualities you see in me? She’s better. If there is one person on the planet who can out-think me, outmaneuver me, or outfox me, it’s my little sister. That’s been true for as long as I can remember.”

Except during her breakdown after we broke up. But she was over that at this point, or at least had come to terms with it such that it wasn’t a major impact on her day-to-day life or our relationship.

“She’s that good?”

I nodded, “She’s that good.”

Deborah left just as Penny returned, and I went to my workstation to continue catching up on everything that had happened while I was away. Most of it was routine, with only a few things which actually needed action on my part. I disposed of them before lunch, and after lunch, returned calls from my two weeks away. That comprised a good chunk of the afternoon, as did a couple of items which Elyse brought me.

That evening, after dinner and karate, I sat down with Jennifer and Josie and made my pitch for a ‘domestic manager’. They both laughed at the title, but agreed it wasn’t a bad idea, and wouldn’t affect them much except for paying slightly more into the pool to support her than they were for babysitting.

“She could clean the coach house as well,” I said.

“We have that under control,” Jennifer said. “You know we like our privacy.”

I chuckled, “Says the woman who lives with our son!”

“OK, THAT turkey is a completely DIFFERENT problem, but you get my point.”

“I do. He really is coming into his own.”

“Have you dealt with the fallout from today?”

“Birgit announced he needed a spanking. I declined. I told her to take it up with you two!”

“Oh, great!” Josie said. “ONE terrorist in the house isn’t enough, so you send us another one?”

“Hey, it was YOUR son who had her in tears today.”

“He’s YOUR son, too,” Josie protested.

“Does that include buying a Nintendo 64 without getting the ‘stink eye’ from you?”

“Never mind,” she groused. “And yes, I do remember electronics were part of the agreement. I just felt his Super NES was sufficient.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, I’ll replace his Mac sometime next year, too.”

“What’s wrong with the current one?”

Jennifer smirked, “No ‘Tint control’!”

“What?” Josie asked.

“An old Bloom County strip,” I said. “Where Oliver Wendell Jones throws away his Banana PC Junior because a new model came out with ‘tint control’. Exaggeration for effect.”

“But not by much,” Jennifer laughed.

“I upgrade all the computers in both houses on regular schedules,” I replied. “And the next console upgrade replaces the one in the boys’ room in the house. Can I change the subject, please?”

“Sure.”

“The protest game? When will it be played?”

“Friday afternoon instead of practice. Mr. Eaton will pick up Jesse as he usually does. I’ll be at the game, but Josie couldn’t get the afternoon off.”

“I’ll be there. What time?”

“4:00pm.”

“Then I’m going to go console a daughter for a bit before bed.”

I left the coach house and found Birgit and took her to my study where I sat in one of the leather chairs and she sat in my lap and snuggled.

“Jesse was mean!”

“Pumpkin, you know he does things just to upset you! And when you get upset, that makes him want to do them even more. If you just ignore him, he’ll stop!”

“But he was mean to me!”

“I know, and Aunt Jennifer and Aunt Josie will talk to him, but you know he’ll do it again.”

“Why?”

I chuckled, “Because he’s a boy...”

“ ... and boys are REALLY dumb!” she said, completing her own catchphrase.

“Boys do lots of things that annoy girls. Sometimes they do things to get attention, like when your brothers bug girls they like. Sometimes they do things just to annoy the girls, usually to their own sisters!”

“But he doesn’t do that to Ashley or Stephie!”

“And they don’t try to give him orders like they are the Princess of the Universe!”

“I needed his help!”

“Did you think about asking him to help, instead of ordering him to help?”

“But I needed him!”

“Yes, but we aren’t in the Navy. Nobody gives orders here!”

“You and Mom and Mom do!” Birgit protested.

“Not very often, but sometimes adults have to do that. We have to keep you all safe and healthy, and sometimes that means giving orders. You know we usually ask you to do things, we don’t tell you. I’ll point out you offered to do my laundry with help from your sister which was very nice. But then you should have asked Jesse to help you carry the heavier bag.”

“He’d still be a booger-face!”

I chuckled, “Have you been reading Calvin & Hobbes again?”

“Yes! Suzie is in charge of Calvin!”