Chapter 68

I threw myself into working again, concentrating on performing in the one arena I felt comfortable in. We sent out five teams to California and another five up the Eastern seaboard opening accounts in all significant population centers. It worked out very well for us. Well enough that we started recruiting sales people from all across the country. While I didn't involve myself with the selling or the training, I did provide all the logistical and financial support needed.

The sales figures started climbing significantly as each new trained sales team went out into the field and began opening new accounts for us. We opened a new sales training office in Delaware and another in Omaha. We started getting a better group of applicants as soon as it became known that we were hiring for openings across the country. Kyle, and four of his original sales team members, were switched over to finding people to purchase the sales routes being set up. The income from these route sales started becoming a major source of money being used to underwrite travel expenses and sales incentives.

My trading continued being extremely lucrative and successful. I'd made minor adjustments, becoming faster at identifying developing profitable trading opportunities. There seemed to be no end of the speculators who seemed willing to take the other side of any trades I wanted to implement. When all the information available, and the fundamental price bias favored one of my positions, I started loading up with considerably larger numbers of contracts. These I held longer, unless it became obvious that something had occurred to change the underlying assumptions I'd made.

It seemed like every week I broke the records I'd set the week previous for both my profits and the trading volume. I had purchased a computer program that assessed my trading risk based on historical trading patterns as well as many other points of trading data. According to it, my risk exposure was nominal. In fact, according to my program, I needed to increase my exposure by a significant degree in order to enhance the probability of taking full advantage of the trading opportunities I was foregoing. I spent several weeks running the recommended trading changes alongside my then current trading strategies, simulating the new trading method being recommended. At the end of three weeks, convinced of the benefits to taking more risks, I began trading more aggressively. My profits more than doubled, even though I had to unwind trades for no gain, or for slight losses much more frequently than in the past. It didn't take too long for me to become comfortable with the new pace of trading.

By late October or early November, my father began to get worried that we were going to outstrip our production capacity due to the increasing growth of the rate of our Quick Snacks sales. We already had five plants dedicated to producing product for the vending and mini market route sales. It was a problem for him, but a problem that created its own solution. The Quick Snacks program was beginning to throw off significant sales at a margin comparable to the vending results.

Even the cost of new sales was less than those of the vending operations, considerably less, because we weren't paying for the delivery or for the route maintenance functions like we had to with the vending routes. Moreover, we didn't need to pay anyone to let us put our product in their buildings.

Dad went back to our bankers in New York and negotiated a new, separate, credit facility just for the Quick Snacks program. This facility was large enough to provide for the most optimistic growth of the sales program any of us had dared projecting. As soon as the facility was signed and accepted, three new plants started construction. We also bought contiguous land for the Nashville plant, and undertook a plant expansion that converted more area to baking, and provided packaging and storage space over in the newly built plant facility.

Professionally speaking, things couldn't have been better. Personally, I started admitting to myself I was very depressed. I no longer felt close to anyone, and, I wasn't getting any satisfaction from those other parts of my life that were going well.

I worked hard to get ahead of things at the Birmingham plant, even bringing in Gene and Larry Macklinson to oversee two critical parts of the Quick Snacks operation. I put Larry in charge of handling the logistics for Kyle's team, and the Southern sales teams that were still out opening new accounts in the South. Gene took over all the national account sales teams logistics for me. I gave both men detailed instruction for what they needed to do.

I had called in Gene first, interviewing him at some length before telling him what I wanted from him. He was still unhappy about the job offer being limited to him implementing my instructions. It took some negotiating, but we were finally able to come up with an arrangement he could live with. I was only going to be providing him with the initial framework, a broad outline for him to fill in with his own touches.

He'd be the one making all the implementation decisions within that broad outline. We both knew it was a face saving gesture for Gene, since I would be in daily phone contact with him to oversee his actions and approve his decisions before they were implemented. I knew Gene would actually welcome my input to him. His entire career would have gone better if he'd had someone helping him to steer clear of some of his more disastrous ideas. He knew he needed the help, he just didn't want to acknowledge that he did.

Larry was a different case altogether, being mostly concerned about only two things. One was where his place would be in the chain of command. Being the eldest brother, he felt like he should be given his chance to finally lead. He didn't like being unable to command Kyle's actions. I told him that Kyle reported only to me, but I did say I'd listen to any suggestions he might want to offer. As for him wanting his chance to lead, I assured him that he would be competing with Gene's results. Whoever I thought had done a better job would be given even greater responsibility. That seemed to satisfy him. Gene might not have wanted to compete, but after spending more than twenty years not being allowed to be the leader, Larry was ready to show what he could do.

The other problem was with the compensation package both brothers were being offered. I had long since discovered that all the Macklinson family knew exactly how much any other Macklinson was making. Kyle and Billy Ray were both earning more than I was offering to Larry or Gene. Phil was making slightly more now then they would as well. In fact, their sister earned more than either of them were scheduled to make. Cindy was due a raise as well, one that would put her either at or just slightly below what Gene and Larry were supposed to be earning.

I knew I had to address this issue directly with Larry. I explained my view that compensation should be based on the added value an employee brought to the company. I told him I would observe closely what his efforts did to increase our productivity, and to enhance the overall operation within his department. After I was satisfied that I knew what effect his efforts had brought us, I'd sit down with him again and renegotiate his compensation. He asked me for some time frame for when I'd be able to adequately evaluate this. I told him I would sit down with him again after he'd been on the job for ninety days. He tried to make it sixty days until I told him that I doubted sixty days would be sufficient for him to have had that much of an impact. I was about to agree to his request for sixty days though, when he reversed himself to say he would wait for the ninety day period.

In the end, I was happy that I hadn't just gone ahead and told Larry that it was a 'take it or leave it' offer. I had intended to do just that at first. I only changed my mind about doing it because I didn't know if Gene would quit in protest or not. I did go into Larry's interview knowing that I wasn't going to allow him to dictate what his pay should be to me. If he had refused to take the job at the initial wage I'd offered him, I would have found someone else to do that job for me.

Shortly after Gene and Larry were back on board and had gotten familiar with what was required of them, I announced that I'd be taking some time away from the plant to attend to other business matters. I didn't tell anyone where I was going or for what purpose, simply letting it be known that I planned to maintain daily phone contact with some of my key people, and that I expected them to function at a high enough level that they could find ways to implement any instructions I'd be giving them during the period when I'd be away from the plant. I waited for a week after I made my announcement, more or less expecting someone to do something to interfere with my plans. No one did.

I told my father that I needed to get away, to get some time for myself. He asked me some questions, but once I told him that my trading would continue during the time I was away from the office, he just asked me to keep him informed about things. I could tell he was worried about me, they all were. My father seemed to realize he shouldn't try to take any action to attempt to dissuade me from going ahead with my intended plans. He knew I wasn't happy, and while he was concerned, he didn't feel it was his place to try to intercede with me.

I called Joyce at home, telling her that I was at a point where I knew I needed to make some changes, admitting to her that I wasn't very happy with the way my life was going. I told her I was going to be away from the office more, telling her I wanted to think about my future. I did say I'd stay in touch with her, by phone, if she wanted me to. She told me she'd appreciate that, saying it was mostly so she wouldn't need to be as worried about me.

I flew my plane from Birmingham to a private airport not far from Dr. Fellows clinic. I took a taxi over there then checked myself in as a voluntary admission. Dr. Fellows had agreed I could check myself back out of the clinic at any time.

The only person I took into my confidence about my planned stay at the clinic was Frank Clooney. I only told him about it because I needed access to funds, so that my stay at the clinic could be paid for without me having to resort to using any other accounts that could be traced back to me by the various members of my family.

It wasn't necessarily a secret, me returning to the clinic, but I didn't want to tell anyone until I knew if it was going to be something I thought was beneficial. I was there as much for the comfort of being able to tell myself I was attempting to do something, as for any other reason.

I wasn't confident that anything would change, or that Dr. Fellows could assist me with relieving my personal unhappiness. I'd considered going to another therapist, but in the end, decided there was too much of my past history that Dr. Fellows already knew. With anyone else, I'd have to begin all over again.

Dr. Fellows and I had discussed my living situation and the way I was feeling extensively during frequent phone conversations. She told me she was uncertain herself about whether she'd be able to help me much with my current situation. In the end, even though neither of us expressed much optimism about the outcome, we both agreed to try.

I had it set up so that I'd stay in the clinic, as an inpatient, for two weeks during the first phase of my therapy. I would spend the early part of each week day working on my trading activities and making any outgoing business calls I felt were necessary. During all the afternoons and evenings, I'd make myself continuously available to the doctor so that she could work me into her schedule in any manner she felt was convenient for her.

The first two weeks, we did nothing, except for the two of us talking for hours at a time. There were no drugs or medications administered, and no hypnosis or attempts at counseling or giving advice. We simply talked with each other. She kept asking me questions about how I saw things, and I tried to answer them to the best of my ability. Always, while I tried to answer her, she would interrupt and point out something I'd said and either ask me a question about that, or else tell me something else I'd said earlier that either contradicted what I'd just said or expressed that same thought in a slightly different way. I flew back to Birmingham, pretty much convinced that nothing had changed for me during my first two week stay.

The doctor and I had agreed that I would have the next three weeks, from the time of my leaving the clinic, until after the first of the year, to myself. She told me to do whatever I normally would, but to think about what we'd been discussing. After the three weeks were up, she expected me back at the clinic for a one week follow up. After that week, I'd make visits to her clinic every other week for a five day's stay each visit. She told me we would continue like that until one of us thought any subsequent visits would no longer be productive.

I only agreed to keeping up this arrangement because my trading had been going as well as it ever had, and Gene and Larry seemed to have everything I'd assigned them to well in hand. Even my father had made several comments about how smoothly things were moving while I was taking my time away. I began taking pleasure in being able to keep things on track without having to be there overseeing everything.

I had about ten people I was keeping in touch with at least several times each week. All of them seemed to be either performing as well as I needed them to be, or else, like Joyce, were people I checked in with who had no responsibilities under my jurisdiction.

I made it a point to speak with Mama and Gerta both, several times a week. I didn't tell them what I was doing, but several things Mama had said to me led me to believe she at least had some idea about what I was up to.

Whenever I called her, she made it a point to be very encouraging. She was always telling me that she knew I was going to find a way to get everything in my life back working again. She made repeated references to her father, explaining that he had often sought out places of solitude to allow himself to work through his own problems. She made it plain to me that I had her full support, just as long as I stayed in some kind of contact with her and the others.

By others, she meant Joyce, my father, and people I knew in the business. Again, it helped with her that the trading had been progressing so well, and also that the Quick Snacks program was showing every sign of becoming a real money making winner.

Mama always loved success. People who knew how to make her money were given every possible benefit of the doubt. I don't mean to imply that she didn't love me for my own self, only that my success, in the business, and with my trading, had elevated that love, and had bought me her forbearance to some limited extent.

The one definite thing I had accomplished during this time away from the office, and this was something that really pleased me, was the resumption of my daily phone conversations with Joyce. I'd taken to calling her at night, usually right after nine o'clock when I knew the kids were in bed, and she'd be free to talk with me.

At first, we spoke mostly about business, and the need to increase shipments as the new account sales being generated created greater product demand. When we were through discussing business, she'd fill me in about what was going on with the children. She was curious about where I was and what I was doing, but all I told her was that I'd gone away to do some thinking.

After a week of talking mostly about business, and a little about the children, we started talking more about ourselves, and about all the changes we both were being forced to make. We were both unhappy with most of the changes being forced upon us by our changed domestic circumstances. There were fewer functions each of us were able to delegate. We even started discussing how each of us perceived my changed attitudes, and how they affected my way of thinking and of talking.

We didn't exactly argue about any of this. Neither of us expressed any change in the beliefs that had led to our separation. The biggest change was that neither of us thought I was going to change. In spite of that shared belief that I wasn't going to change, we continued talking. For the first two weeks of my new attempt at therapy, my increased communications with Joyce were really the only concrete improvement I could point to with confidence. It was enough for me though. We were talking, and each of us was doing it in spite of having accepted that we were at an impasse as far as what my personality now was.

Back in Birmingham after leaving the clinic, I was surprised with how easy it was for me to get caught up with all that I'd missed. I seemed to be able to accomplish more than I had before I left. Cindy even made a comment to the effect that I seemed changed. She said I seemed more relaxed to her than I had been before. During my absence, I'd had her traveling around to several different bakery plants under the Macklinson's Bakeries umbrella. I had her looking into some production questions that I needed some answers for. Cindy had become someone I felt I could rely on to find things out for me. This was only as long as they didn't have anything that might conflict with her own family's interests. There, I chose not to rely on her findings.

She had done her usual thorough job for me, finding out what I needed to know, while at the same time, making copious other notes for me about things she had observed, things that she had either found interesting and wanted me to know about, or things she suspected I might find to be important information, for one reason or another.

Many of the notes she'd made raised further important questions for me. The answers she'd found for my earlier questions had made some of my future decisions much easier to formulate. I thanked her for doing such a good job, careful to praise her more for what she had accomplished on her own initiative. I told her about several changes I would be making also, based on the extra information she'd gotten for me.

"I really like the differences I see in you since you came back from your trip, Kenny. Being more relaxed and less intense now, it makes you seem more like your old self. Whatever's happening, it's making you easier to be around."

I knew she was curious about where I'd been and what I was doing. Quite a few people were. I'd been asked, in numerous ways, about where I'd been, and what I'd been doing, during my two weeks away from the office.

I still believed that no substantive changes had occurred in me because of the time I'd spent at the clinic. If what people were commenting on was anything, it was me being more relaxed because Joyce and I seemed to be getting on better.

There is a certain change in attitude I've noticed that takes place as soon as the confidence pendulum begins to swing in the opposite direction. I was beginning to feel more positive about things. It was this renewed optimism that was being sensed by those who knew me well. It made them see what they wanted to see, and it made them start to feel better about things too. Cindy was an example of this, I thought.

Cindy had hinted, several times, in those first days following my return to Birmingham from the clinic, that she'd be open to her and I getting together, for dinner, or just to talk, somewhere away from the office. I didn't make any comment to show her that I was interested in taking her up on any of those hinted offers. After a few times of her overtures being left unaccepted, she stopped making any further invitations like that to me. I was working on one problem at a time. Joyce was my first, and at that time, only, focus as far as my personal situation was concerned.

Right before Christmas, I asked Joyce if it would be all right for me to come spend the holiday with the children. We had previously discussed what her plans were for them before I told her what I'd like to do. What I had in mind for a visit wasn't anything special or fancy. I just wanted to be included in their Holiday celebrations. I loved watching their excitement at Christmas. I'd already sent packages out to California, and over to Shirley's new house, for my other children. I had shopped for all the children myself, and I wanted to be there to see them as they opened up my presents. I didn't want to spend another Christmas alone again.

Of all the things I'd talked about with Doctor Fellows, the one thing that was troubling me the most was not being around my children while they were growing up. This was something that had bothered me right from the beginning. It was the consequence that kept popping into my head first whenever I thought about the high cost of my not being acceptable to Joyce.

I had mentioned several times to the doctor, that I'd settle for just having my children with me again. She had asked me many questions about that, drawing me out at length about my feelings for each child, and my feelings for each of my wives. She kept coming back to this even when we were speaking about other things, things not directly related to my family situation.

I had explained carefully, that being a part of the children's lives once again wasn't all I wanted. Instead, it was just the very least I was willing to settle for and not end up feeling as lonely and unhappy as I then felt. We kept getting off on these side tangents, whenever we talked about what I thought constituted either happiness or unhappiness for me. This happened a lot, almost whenever we talked together. It caused us problems.

Sometimes, it ended up being very irritating to me that she would constantly do that. Other times, I could begin to see where she was going with her side trips away from what I wanted to talk about. It was as if she were deliberately leading me away from what I'd come to seek her help with. I had to assume she had good reasons for doing it. She knew how much it upset me most times when she did it. In spite of that, she continued doing it. When I yelled at her about it, she still wouldn't stop doing it. Sometimes, when I was yelling at her, I said things she thought were important, and we'd begin our next conversation speaking about whatever I'd said.

I ended up staying in Ridgeline for five days, even though Joyce and I had only agreed on me being there for Christmas day. I spent the first two nights with my parents, and with Gerta and Hans. I went over to the house on Christmas morning, but somehow ended up spending three nights at home with my children.

Shirley surprised me on Christmas morning by bringing our children over and leaving them at the house for the whole time I was there. I saw her only when she came to drop them off. We were polite to each other, but remained somewhat strained with each other. She was obviously still upset with the way I'd treated her the last time I visited.

Joyce and I were much less strained on that Christmas visit. Probably some part of it was all our phone conversations, and part of it was because we had both began treating our marriage as though it were over. We spoke in person much like we had been for the past few weeks over the telephone. Feeling like we'd ended our marriage left both of us dealing with the consequences and emotional impact of such a big decision. We spoke about everything, but carefully, both of us hoping to avoid another big fight. We played it safe.

We were both excited about the growth in the Quick Snacks program, and with the easing of all the financial constraints on my father. Our new credit facility had put an end to his need to juggle around the company finances in order to support our internal expansion costs in areas where adequate funds for it just hadn't been available.

On my final evening at the house, Joyce approached me with a proposition to have a night of sex with her. She came right out and asked me if I'd be willing. She had deliberately waited until the night before I was scheduled to leave, not wanting to spoil my visit with the children in case it didn't work out. She was honest about that and told me beforehand why she had waited.

"What's changed now to make you think it would be all right for us to do this again?" I was a little surprised at her request, and was very curious about what had changed her earlier reasoning enough to allow her to be asking me to do this with her.

"For one thing, I've been very horny ever since that last visit. I've been lonely too, since all the others left. Asking you for this is my Christmas present to me. I know this is the best chance for me to help both of those things without having to go out and be doing something I'd definitely be pretty uncomfortable with. We don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought that it might be something that was all right with you too."

"I'm not saying it isn't what I want too. I'm just a little surprised that you waited until now to bring it up. I guess its all right. We're still married, and I wasn't the one who wanted us to ever stop making love."

"Don't go getting into that with me, Kenny. We'll just end up getting into another fight if you do. I want us to call a little truce, just for one night. I'm tired of being around you and getting tensed up all the time. If we do this, all I'm asking is that you don't make it like it was the last time. Okay? I want us to have some real sex this time, like we used to have."

I nodded my agreement to her, not really trusting myself to say anything. In my mind, our doing this risked all the progress we'd been making since my last visit. We were at least talking together now. I didn't want to say or do anything that would change that condition.

On the other hand, except for a couple of times, sex with Joyce had always been a source of comfort and pleasure for both of us. It was one way I might be able to communicate with Joyce, a way to show her, without any words, how much she still meant to me. It was a risk, I knew that, but a risk I believed I needed to take. I was horny too, and I wanted to be with her on a basic fundamental physical level again.

We ended up going to bed together at around eleven o'clock. I was flying back to Alabama the next morning, expecting to have Hans drive me to the airport at around ten o'clock.

It was strange being back in bed with Joyce after so many failed attempts on both our parts. Both of us started out being a little shy, tentative and uncomfortable. Our first kisses were very tentative and awkward, with me trying to be more gentle and less demanding than I would have preferred.

Fortunately, for both of us, Joyce soon made it abundantly clear that this time she didn't want either gentle or loving. She had a need to be fucked. She was frustrated and angry about how things were with us, and she blamed me for all that had gone wrong. She tried to take her frustration out on me by making me service her. She tried to treat me like I'd seen her treat one of the other wives when the two of us had ganged up on one of them. We ended up engaged in some sort of a contest of wills. Me with the greater strength, but holding back, and her with the greater need and trying to take by force what she felt she needed.

It went like that for a few intense and frustrating minutes, with neither of us willing to give the other what they wanted. It ended up with the impasse being broken by me taking command, and trying to fuck her into submission. In the beginning she resisted me, refusing to be subdued. Through it all, we each managed to take our own separate pleasures. It wasn't making love, it was fucking, plain and simple. We went at it hard and nasty, me dominating her physically, and her goading me on to an even greater effort by refusing to acknowledge it was me in control. I would say it was maddening for me, but it was so intense, on a purely physical level. I came three times before my cock lost its stiffness.

In the physical sense, we both went beyond our usual boundaries. I was rougher, but she much more resistant. She fought, but not to get away, only to seize control of our sexual activity. I refused to yield to her. The emotional pleasures were obviously not there for either of us. In spite of their absence, it was still satisfying to me on several other levels. It wasn't just good for me either, Joyce responded physically with much more than even her usual high level of orgasmic energy, several times pressing herself rigidly against me and gripping my cock tightly in her vaginal sheath as she came too. She wasn't holding anything back, but it wasn't a loving joining, not the kind of sex married people like us usually would have. It was more of an athletic competition, or a pitting of two wills against each other. It was almost fighting, but the purpose wasn't to hurt your opponent.

At one point, I rolled off of her, completely spent, thinking that it was all over. Joyce wouldn't allow that, taking me in her mouth and sucking me back up to the point where I was hard enough for her, then mounting me from above, and riding me feverishly, until she had achieved several more cums while she was in control. I hadn't been able to cum while she was on top of me, but when she finally rolled off of me, she made no offer that I should continue in another position to achieve my own release. In her mind she had defeated me, taking what she wanted and leaving me wanting more. In my mind, it seemed similar to that as well. I was too tired and too physically satisfied to argue the point further with her.