Chapter 35: What Did I Miss?

July 31, 2000, St. Martin, Leeward Islands, Lesser Antilles

“Maria Cristina, would you mind if I had some time alone with Steve?” Annette asked after breakfast on Monday morning.

“No, I don’t mind at all! Go on, I’ll clean up and get some sun.”

Annette got up and I followed her out of the kitchen, and then up the stairs to the master bedroom, where she shut and locked the door. She held out her arms and I hugged her and we exchanged a soft kiss, which she broke, then moved to sit on the loveseat. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her.

“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked timidly.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve done everything exactly the way I wanted and I thought maybe you wanted something different.”

I smiled, “I truly prefer what we did together - slow, gentle, and loving.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Is there something you wanted to do, besides what we did?”

“No. Would you make love to me one last time?”

“Yes, of course.”

We stood up, undressed, and got into bed. We exchanged a soft French kiss, and then I shifted so I could suckle her lovely breasts, and awhile later, between her legs to I could enjoy the flavor and feel of her plump labia and tight tunnel with my lips and tongue. When she’d had a pair of good orgasms, I moved on top of her, positioned myself, began a deep French kiss, then pushed forward slowly until I was fully embedded in Annette’s soft, silky folds. She wrapped her legs around me and we began our final slow dance which culminated with me firing jet after jet of cum into her spasming pussy.

We lay coupled together until I softened, and then got out of bed and went to the shower. We lovingly washed each other, then embraced under the warm spray.

“Can I ask for one more thing?” Annette inquired.

“What’s that?”

“I realize there isn’t much chance, but do you think you could come back alone and we could spend a few days together making love?”

“I can’t promise anything, and you know my situation.”

She laughed softly, “You’re spoken for, but I can have a fantasy!”

“Fantasies are good,” I replied. “I’ll give you my phone number and take down yours. I can’t make any promises, but I would very much like to spend a few days making love to a sweet, pretty French girl. May I ask what you said to your parents?”

“That I made a friend who was studying to be a medical doctor and I was enjoying my time with her and her boyfriend.”

“And when I come back?” I asked.

She laughed softly, “I’ll tell my parents I wish to spend a few days experiencing «la petite mort» at the hands of a wonderful lover!”

“That might not be the best strategy,” I replied.

“Actually, my parents weren’t upset about me letting Marc have me, only with him cheating on me. They were concerned about me being pregnant or getting a disease, but he used a rubber.”

“That’s good, but not perfect.”

“Which is what they said at my doctor’s office and why I had both tests.”

We got out of the shower and took turns drying each other, then dressed and went downstairs.

“I think I’ll go home so you have some time together,” Annette announced.

She gathered her things, hugged Maria Cristina, then hugged and kissed me. We walked her to the door, said ‘goodbye’, and when Annette left, Maria Cristina and I changed into our bathing suits and went out to get sun for the final time on our trip.

“She asked me to visit,” I said.

“She talked to me about it, to make sure it would be OK with me and your wives. What did you say?”

“That it was a good fantasy and that I’d see if it would be possible.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? You can obviously afford it and your wives won’t object.”

“That’s true, but I need to be careful about her feelings.”

“After talking to her, I’m sure she’ll be fine. She is infatuated with you, and you gave her her first orgasms with a guy, so you’ll always be special, but she has a much more European attitude towards love affairs. So, if you come back, she’ll relish the time, but she won’t expect anything long-term. And, once she goes to Paris or London for college, she’ll find many more options. I think you should come back.”

“And our talk about dalliances?” I asked.

“Blame me,” she said with a soft laugh. “I fulfilled MY fantasy when she slept in the same bed with us, and when we watched each other make love with you.”

“And no desire to experiment?” I teased.

“Exactly as much as you have!”

I laughed, “A good point! We have about three hours before we need to leave; what would you like to do?”

“Once I finish working on my tan, I think I’d like you to fuck my brains out until it’s time to leave!”

“Your wish is my command!” I chuckled.

July 31, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

“Dad!” Birgit squealed when Maria Cristina and I walked into the house early Monday evening.

“Hi, Pumpkin!” I replied as she nearly bowled me over.

I swept her up in my arms, hugged her tightly, exchanged a kiss on the forehead for one on the cheek, then put her down to hug Ashley and Stephie.

“Hi, Babe,” I said once the kids had their hugs.

“Hi, Tiger! How was St. Martin!”

“A typical vacation for your Tiger!” I chuckled.

“Of course it was!” Jessica laughed. “Come upstairs to unpack and you can fill me in!”

“Gladly,” I replied with a leer.

Birgit rolled her eyes as Jessica and I went upstairs to the master bedroom. We quickly undressed and got into bed and a few minutes later, she was impaled on my rigid shaft, then lay down on top of me. I wrapped my arms and legs around her and she began to grind softly.

“So?” she asked, slightly breathless.

“You remember, I’m sure, that Maria Cristina and I planned to make love on a secluded beach? Well, we had an unintentional voyeur - a sixteen-year-old girl who was there because she wanted to be alone. She chose to watch us, then greeted us as we left.”

“Tiger gets another virgin!”

“No, she was there because she broke up with her boyfriend who cheated on her. She’d been with him once. She invited me back.”

“Of course she did!” Jessica said, breathing a bit heavier.

“And in other news, Maria Cristina is going to accept a date with Lieutenant Michael Knox. Next Sunday will be our last night together, unless she’s not actively dating.”

“That came out of the blue,” Jessica replied, then moaned softly and shuddered as her pussy gently massaged my shaft.

“He asked her out at the Fourth of July party and she put him off until next month because of Iron Mountain and our planned trip to St. Martin.”

“That was an unexpected development!”

“Yes and no,” I replied. “It was going to happen at some point, and a guy she feels might be interesting appeared, so she has to explore. She reserved the right to ask to resume our sexual relationship at any point when she’s not dating.”

“And Liz is likely to do the same thing in the not too distant future, right?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I replied.

“What about the long-term third?”

“We’ll see, but Suzanne seems like the perfect candidate - she has no desire to marry or have kids.”

“And she’s a true convert to the ‘Church of Steve’!”

Jessica moaned again and I felt wonderful ripples along my shaft.

“True,” I agreed. “How is Kara?”

“Fine. We talked yesterday, and she’s expecting us to call tonight.”

“We should do that now,” I teased.

“You move from this bed before I’m done with you, and you’ll be talking two octaves higher!” she growled.

“After Sunday, you’ll have me to yourself for two weeks, except for one Friday when I’m with Liz.”

“So, this girl in St. Martin?”

“French, sixteen, and sexy,” I replied.

“Will you go see her?”

“I have so many other things going on that it won’t be for several months at least. I have my annual checkup at Mayo, my trip to Colorado Springs, and then the business trip to South America. The soonest I could go would be December. I’ll worry about it once all of those things are out of the way. Dalliances are fairly low on my priority list.”

“And your emotional state?”

“Will be fine. I realize the balance is changing because of Maria Cristina, but I think things are stable enough. Remember, I’ve been programming, not running the company, for a couple of years now, and that’s made a huge difference.”

“True,” Jessica gasped as she had another orgasm.

“Enjoying yourself?” I asked with a silly grin.

“Six or seven more should do it,” she said breathlessly. “Then we can call Kara.”

August 1, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

“What did I miss?” I asked Stephanie on Tuesday morning.

“Not much,” she replied. “We filed our response, along with motions for summary judgment, as well as a motion to intervene in the suit against DCP, so it’s a waiting game. Samantha has filed hers as well, and Jonah Goldberg filed for Patent Partners and SKJ. Otherwise, nothing exciting is going on. Kimmy booked your Colorado Springs trip, and EZI confirmed the dates for your trip to South America.”

“And I’ll be at Mayo for a couple of days the week after next for a battery of tests.”

“How was St. Martin?”

“Relaxing; I may go back for a few days later in the year.”

“What’s her name?” Stephanie asked with a smirk.

“Who says there’s a girl?” I asked.

“Why would you go back to St. Martin otherwise?”

“Did I say I was going alone?”

“No, but you said ‘I’ not ‘we’!”

“Oh, please!” I protested.

“So, her name?” Stephanie asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Annette,” I chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“Thirty-three years! And maybe once the divorce is final I’ll take a pair of young Navy ensigns on a REAL voyage of discovery.”

“Just promise one thing,” I replied with a grin.

“What?”

“NO DETAILS!”

We both laughed and I went to my office where I greeted Kimmy and then Penny, and sat down at my desk. It took me about twenty minutes to catch up on email and my inbox. I also had two calls to return - Melissa and Samantha. I called Melissa first.

“Are you seriously having dinner with Dante tonight?” she asked.

“Jennifer told you?”

“Yes. Are you nuts?”

“Dante was a valuable business partner; he and I made a lot of money together. And remember what I always said about him.”

“That you didn’t hate him because that would have required you expend emotional capital for which he was unworthy. But if he’s unworthy for that, then how can he be worthy of your friendship?”

“You’ll forgive me for quoting Lincoln, but as he said - ‘With malice toward none, with charity for all‘. There’s no point in carrying a grudge against Dante. We beat him, and he acknowledged that fact. He hasn’t bothered either of us since I bought Peach from him and turned it into our Athena division. Why not be nice to him?”

“Because he’s an asshole?”

“So? I’m sure there are people who think that about me, too.”

“Oh give me a break! Who?”

“Michelle certainly did. The named partners of Volstead and Braun in Cincinnati. Braun’s kid.”

“That sounds like a company of jackasses, and their opinions really don’t matter!”

“Michelle?”

“Sorry, no, I meant the lawyers and Braun’s kid. Michelle is a different story. But she never thought you were an asshole. A sinner, yes; but an asshole? No way.”

“Fine, but why shouldn’t I be cordial to him? It doesn’t harm me in any way, and it might do him some good.”

“You can’t save the whole world all by yourself!” Melissa protested.

“No, but if I can improve my little part of it, I’m sure going to try.”

“I’ve said my piece. See you for lunch when you get back from Mayo?”

“Sounds good.”

I disconnected the call then dialed Samantha’s private number. Keri answered and said Samantha was on the phone, but that she’d call back, which she did about ten minutes later.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You’re the fourth person to know, but Brian and I are expecting in March.”

“Congratulations! You, Brian, and your mom?”

“Yep. Well, my OB/GYN knows, too, but that’s different.”

“Tell Brian congratulations as well, and I’ll see him at Guys’ Night on Saturday.”

“Thanks. I assume your sister filled you in on the lawsuit?”

“Yes, that the answers are in, along with motions for summary judgment.”

“Do you plan to take any action if we win?”

“There really isn’t anything for which I can go after them; the software theft is covered by the agreement we signed years ago and if not, by laches.”

“That’s the rule that says you can’t wait too long to make a claim after you find out about it?”

“Exactly. At this point, we just beat them back and continue on as before. I’m seeing a growing trend in competition by litigation.”

“Is that new?”

“I don’t know the exact case that started it, but there is one from 1993 all of our attorneys are referring to - MAI Systems Corp v. PEAK Computer, Inc - which says that to prevail on a copyright claim, the plaintiff must prove ownership of the copyright and that the defendant copied a protectable expression. And a follow-on case, NFLC v. Devcom Mid-America, is an appellate decision which works in our favor because it makes the point that simply viewing the source code isn’t a copyright violation. We never, ever loaded it onto our computers.”

“I thought you were relying on the transfer of copyright and the license?”

“We are, but the attorneys argued in the briefs that even without the license, we aren’t in violation of copyright law in any way, shape, or form.”

“What do they have left?”

“Theft of trade secrets and the same allegation that BLS made - that we disassembled their code in violation of their customer license. But we never did that. Our conversion tools simply dump the raw SQL database to flat files, manipulate them, clean them up, and then put them in a format to import back into the SQL server with our schema. We don’t need to look at our competitor’s code if they use SQL, whether it’s Microsoft or MySQL.”

“So what DO they have?”

“As far as I can tell, only trying to prove that DCP didn’t actually hold the copyrights. But even if that’s the case, we STILL haven’t violated copyright law. Edwards could, in theory, try for money damages against DCP for selling and licensing copyrights they didn’t hold, but given nothing we do relies on those, we’re basically in the clear.”

“Then why take the licenses?”

“Ironically, to prevent this kind of action against us,” I replied.

“What about Skye and the others?”

“What about them? There was no non-compete and she didn’t reveal anything about the Lone Star internals. She was working on our customizable interface. It was Kajri who built the configuration files to mimic Lone Star’s system. And we know from Apple v. Microsoft that ‘look and feel’ aren’t subject to copyright. We took great pains to make sure every field on the screen was labeled with OUR labels, not theirs. So while the layout was the same, the words were different. That’s the equivalent of the ‘Recycle Bin’ icon instead of the ‘Trash’ icon.”

“Wouldn’t their attorneys know all of this?”

“Of course. But that doesn’t mean they can’t find a novel argument which might get some play. Or perhaps it’s all about extracting money from DCP and we’re just collateral which might yield some money to make it go away. Or, and I hate myself for saying this, we’re missing something.”

“That has to be it, doesn’t it? Either we’re missing something or it’s simply a shakedown against DCP with hopes I’ll pay them to go away as well. Or both.”

“I’m still leaning towards greenmail for you. For me it could be that, or something we haven’t thought about just yet.”

“But they have to lay their cards on the table, right?”

“Only claims, not theories or arguments. Remember, the initial filings are simply a recitation of basic facts and beliefs, and then a list of claims you’re going to seek to prove in court. And those claims can be amended once discovery is complete. And maybe that’s it - they want a peek at something they can’t otherwise see. But we went through this the previous times - they aren’t going to get customer lists or anything proprietary.

“One approach might be to claim we actually copied their code into ours, but we didn’t do that. We didn’t copy any code from them. If they want to push that, we’ll hire an independent company to compare their source code and look for identical code blocks - similar isn’t enough for them to win because in some cases there really is only one reasonable way to do things. Some algorithms are so common, they’re published in books.

“They’d also look for common variable names, and so on. Ours all follow our standards which were first established when we started NIKA. So even if we have ‘caseNumber’ as a variable and they have the same one, that’s not sufficient. That said, we wouldn’t, because that’s not specific enough. Ours would be something like ‘NIKA＿masterCaseNumber’ or ‘NIKA＿subCaseNumber’. And those generally match the field name in the database schema.”

“You’re losing me now!” Samantha laughed. “Careful or I’ll start talking about ‘alpha’, ‘beta’, ‘volume reversals’ and other stuff!”

I chuckled, “You know I don’t go for technical trading.”

“Mr. ‘Buy and Hold’! About as conservative and traditional as they come.”

“It works for me. Anyway, right now, we’ll let the lawyers do their ‘motion practice’ and we’ll see what comes of it. The key is getting ‘intervenor’ status in the case against DCP, but that seems like a lock based on everything we know.”

“Based on the theory of preventing a miscarriage of justice?”

“More or less, yes. Anyway, tell Brian I’m happy and congratulations. We’ll see you guys on Saturday!”

We said ‘goodbye’ and hung up.

“When is she due?” Penny asked.

“March.”

“She needs to have a girl - Stephen is going to need a playmate!”