Chapter 6: Getting Caught Up

Monday July 21, 2008

After the fun and games Monday morning I drove the Porsche to work, there is a special thrill to driving that car far too fast on city streets. I took the long way to the office, to get the most hi-G turns. despite the longer route I beat the usual time by two minutes - but I needed a refill on NOZ. It was just as well, I had a lot of boring stuff to check up on. For starters there was a lot of boring emails related to the business meetings between the partners. Sam would download me the essentials in less time with more information content.

During the middle week of July (July 12 to 20) the law firm partners have a partners-only business meeting that is scheduled for the entire week. Only the partners and a limited number of service girls and support staff are allowed in the building. Holding the meeting in July means there is usually less business to discuss at the year end, allowing more time for social, family and holiday events. This July meeting usually takes up four relatively relaxed days, with the partners gathering in small groups for informal evening socials the rest of the time. These often include some friendly self-arranged wife exchanges by the couples and, for those who are into it, group sexual activities.

There is usually formal social for July. Also, at the social gatherings during the other months, the overnight pairings for the wife-exchange are made by Barnes, he supposedly has a system. However, during this business meeting week all the partners are in town and have no business appointments like dinners or early breakfast meetings so they can arrange their own wife exchanges with people they have enjoyed in the past or people they have not spent the night with and want to try on. That may include non-partners who are married. In short, it is usually a relaxing week with very little business and plenty of social fun.

However, this year due to the sudden unexpected loss of partners in May and June, the week-long business meeting consumed much more time than usual, including evening sessions, killing all late-night fun plans.

The first items on the agenda was the allocation of client responsibilities for the lost partners, a subject which naturally pitted partner against partner with no quarter available. Emotionally it was gladiator combat for those involved. Each of the remaining partners was going to see more work, make nice with more assholes, and collect more money, the question was how these were balanced, given that they all thought they worked too much to keep up with their own basic greed plus the spending habits of their wives. A related question was how many new people they would they hire, and how many current employees they would promote to partnership, and how many present partners would retire. Since Barnes was hired the firm only brought in experienced lawyers with significant experience at the starting level, they did not hire new, cheap untested law-school graduates, looking for a gem. They also did not hire partners (Barnes was the last), nobody trusted a new partner with the care needed, and the profits from, our current clients. Given the current workload, some wanted to discuss a change in this policy, to hire some ‘clerks’ to help with their workload. It was a contentious issue.

Every time the issue came up Barnes got upset and started a tirade.

There was also a small group (3 partners) who wanted to consider hiring female lawyers, to offer services to additional classes of clients. However, given the current excess of work associated with our present clients, that was a short discussion.

The other issue for July business meetings was budgeting, which really turns into the same issues. Clearly they needed to increase security funding, and Samantha had some proposals. Barnes was not happy about this, Sam was again in a position of strength on a short clock, and after seeing the carnage of the explosions the partners were not of one mind in terms of how spending might best be increased using computer services versus alternatives (security teams) that were, inevitably, more intrusive.

The net result was that the meetings stretched long every day, over the entire week as well as both weekends, with no social days at all, and some issues were still unresolved on Monday July 21 when everybody else was back in the building and partners had meetings with paying clients scheduled.

As a consequence, the wives missed their husbands for the relaxed extended small social gatherings that usually took place during the week. For some, entertaining in their home was something they looked forward to, a high point and a way for the wives to compete, so a few partners showed signs of an unquiet home life where they slept on the couch.

In the past the August meeting had been a car-race picnic. However, after my NOZ-breathing Porsche dominated all those events - making them no fun for anybody else - they were seeking some other theme for a family social gathering. Finally somebody suggested combining the August and September socials into a 3-day weekend event during the Labor Day holiday (August 30, 31 and September 1). The organized wife exchange would be Saturday night (August 30) and the new informal small group exchange (A.K.A. Slave Auction/Orgy) was proposed for Sunday night. Proposals for the unresolved issues from July would be settled in short business lunch meetings - no speeches, just a 5 minute summation, then vote. This seemed reasonable and the resolution was passed at 7:03 PM Sunday - well past the “last minute” for all concerned, people were late for their dinner reservations of foie gras, duck, and a selection of fine wines. It left Barnes with the task of finding a location for the gathering and a format for the auction/orgy.

In the hours after that decision was made, David Barnes encountered some push back from those members with families at home. It seems that younger couples, both with and without kids, were willing to give up two days, but not three, for the law firm social. They thought that one day at the end of summer, before school started, was not too much to ask for “just” family time. I guess they had a point.

From experience, Barnes knew that law partners would go after the wives of other lawyers, they liked strange pussy and it was the low-hanging fruit. He started the wife-exchange to turn that illicit desire into something organized with social bonding, an above-board divorce deterrent. Guys had 39 strange pussies they could explore with assurances of safety. In that it was successful, the firm had no divorces of partners since they started the practice. But he also recalled how the wife-exchange was optional the first year and some partners (or their wives) threatened to quit unless adjustments (substitutions like his daughter) were made, so Barnes made some adjustments.

The same sort of revolution was happening again, he got a dozen calls in the first 2 hours after people got home and told their wives what was planned.

So while I was having a pleasant flight back from Peru, Barnes had to make an executive decision. There was an upside, making Sunday night optional saved a lot of money in terms of meals and drinks and room rental. But he had become attached to the novel idea of a slave auction one night and a wife exchange the other night. What to do?

Rose, who had some special liberties with her father’s body, helped him make a reasonable decision, he shifted the regular wife-exchange from Saturday night to Friday night, people could arrive before or after dinner, then have a social party Friday night. Then he set up Saturday with the “group thing” starting with a toga-clad supper outside. Rose had not been to college, but the Penthouse literature gave her some ideas of what the easily removable togas led to. The approved designs for male and female togas were a work in process. Assuming a facility could be found, kids and non-participating folks would be in another more family-friendly section of the resort.

There was a note about the “informal small group exchange” that was looking for ideas. One suggestion was allowing more wives (meaning married associates and their young wives) to participate. Another idea was to include all lawyers, but not their dates into the auction of the wives, forming bidding in groups. With more women than men the ‘slaves’ could expect to be with more than one guy during the night of play. Interestingly, this proposal came from some of the partner’s younger wives/substitutes, who were “curious about fresh chicken instead of the same old turkeys.” There were also ideas floated about bringing in outsiders (like young members of the computer firm) and about running a serious slave auction of some sort - with the games concluding outside where people could see. Apparently some younger ladies had asked for an oldster gang-bang as an alternative of the usual one-and-done night games.

I sent a quick email to Abril, we would have to talk on Wednesday. As it stood, she and I were going to be married in the middle of August. It would be a fake wedding, strictly to meet the requirements of partnership. But it might impact her participation in any orgy. The June social showed that her body was widely desired, so whatever she and a few of her friends favored might carry the day.

I immediately sent out announcements of our upcoming wedding, and mentioned that the draft of my brief would be in before that. By mid-day more than half the firm replied with good wishes, regrets about not coming to the wedding (we expected these) and great hopes to see Abril at the social.

Stern replied to my announcement, with a CC: to Barnes that “maybe some out-of-date rules could be amended.”

Rose Barnes and some of the other partner exchanges “substitute wives” were lobbying for a location with an “clothing optional” pool and sun-bathing area to replace the public outdoor event as an annual event. It was another way to get younger wives acquainted with younger, unmarried associates.

Swimming naked with young guys they had not had instead of the old guys they usually fucked? What could go wrong with that?

At this late date David Barnes was unsure that a location would be available, but some of the wives knew of a private facility - essentially a private man-made lake which had been booked solid for the weekend until two large customers filed for bankruptcy. (There was a lot of business for bankruptcy lawyers in 2008.) The bankruptcy judge said corporate assets were not available for such things (because he was not invited), so the Mesa Rancho Del Mar y Sol, which was normally a pricy isolate property, had 100% of their space suddenly available for a critical weekend at a very reasonable rate. Even better, the location was “modular” for groups, so having “adult” and “family” sections was easily arranged.

Part of the deal was that Barnes gave the Mesa a brief on deposits made before bankruptcy, The brief cost Barnes nothing (he pulled it out of his files). The corporate lawyers wanted their deposit money refunded but our legal opinion prevailed, so the Mesa was very pleased with us and could come out ahead even if they gave us a big discount, which Barnes insisted on. Those who had been there said the food and accommodations at Mesa were on the par with their usual expectations. The travel distance was much longer, but as this was our first 3-day social the wives were in favor of it.

What closed the deal was when somebody sent an anonymous email to the lawyers reminded them that it was three days at a location where their wives would not be shopping.

Barnes made the deal quickly, working overnight. Both sides were motivated so within 12 hours after the partner’s meeting broke up he had a location, if not a fleshed out plan. When I arrived Monday the dates were already on the revised schedules and the staff was working to fix the few conflicts with meetings previously scheduled.

Samantha’s next computer contract was also discussed at the partner’s business meeting. The first solid decision was that cameras covering the building lots would be installed. It would have been a long bitter fight, but after the explosions the firm’s insurance company essentially made this a requirement by upping the deductible without them. With inside information Samantha and I could have held the law firm up by charging slightly less than what the increase of insurance would be without the cameras, but she gave them a more reasonable quote, and was the only offer that met the privacy concerns of the partners. That left the question of confidentiality. One of the junior partners knew this stuff and suggested language that worked for everybody.

Essentially, Sam (working in secret for me) would build and run the system, but as soon as it was up and running the data stream and the recorders would be sold to the law firm as “electronic notes” covered by client confidentiality rules.