Tuesday, September 5th 2007, 10:49 a.m., San Francisco, California

"You better watch this boss," my secretary Patricia instructed as she walked across my office to the cabinet that held a large screen, flat panel TV.

"What?" I asked as I looked up from the proposal I'd been examining.

"It's also on the Internet ... the news outlets ... youtube ... I think even youporn ... I just got a call from Joyce in our PR department."

"And the subject is?" I asked as I watched the TV screen flicker into life.

"The Scouries families courageous efforts to save the environment," Patty said with a little chuckle and the raising of her eyebrows.

"She is no longer a Scouries," I grumbled, immediately knowing my ex had to be up to another of her hair brained schemes. "I divorced the lunatic eleven years ago."

"Oh I'm not talking about mommy," she answered, then paused before adding, "It's young Miss Scouries who's in the news today."

"Miss Scouries? You mean Melissa?" Patty nodded. "But what could she be doing? She's at school," I said as I watched the scene unfolding on the screen.

"What the fu-" I spat out, my eyes and mouth suddenly open in shock.

"The video was shot down the coast ... past Carmel ... right on the ocean ... on some land abutting the State Park."

"She's nude?" I asked as I watched the screen. Seven people, three girls and four men, were jabbering away up into a boom microphone that was being held in front of them. And although certain parts of their bodies were digitally scrambled to prevent breaking who knows how many FCC rules, it was obvious that all of them were naked. Paddy nodded.

"My daughter's camped out nude in a tree? To protect the forest?"

"Yes sir. That interview was taped earlier. Then they all separated and went to their own tree."

"Their own tree?"

"Your daughter's now up in the SCOURIES TREE sir, or that's what the big sign at its base proclaims anyway," Patty added as I watched the figures on the screen disperse. My secretary was clearly having way too much fun telling me the story. I looked up and scowled at her.

"Didn't we just mail her tuition check this week?" I barked out as the camera trailed after my eighteen year old daughter as she wandered through the woods until she came to a tree. A tree which had a four foot by six foot sign attached to it which announced in big letters, 'THE SCOURIES TREE', and then below that in smaller letters, 'Please Help Us Save the Forest', and below that, 'THE GREEN COALITION'. The lens of the camera followed my innocent little girl as she mounted a rope ladder and started to climb upwards.

"Yes sir. And unfortunately sir many of those same shots are on the Internet and they aren't exactly censored in the same way."

"For something like eighteen thousand bucks?" I asked as I remembered the check I'd signed just the other day. I was starting to get really pissed off. I watched as Samantha disappeared up into the leafy foliage.

"Yes sir."

"To Dartmouth University which just happens to be in state of New Hampshire if I'm not mistaken."

"Uh huh."

"Then what the hell is she doing seventy feet up a goddam tree, bare ass naked in Northern California?"

"Maybe its one of those team building programs all these Colleges seem to be sending all their students on these days," my secretary offered.

"She's alone up the tree isn't she? What kind of goddam team can you build if you're sitting alone on a branch of a tree?" I demanded in my most sarcastic voice.

"Maybe its part of a business course, they could be studying branch management," my secretary suggested with a grin. This change in our typical workday routine was something she was truly enjoying.

"Could you please get my ex on the phone Miss Summers," I ordered.

"I'll do my best boss," she answered with still a trace of a smile on her lips.

"And..." I started but then the import of her previous words about the Internet finally struck me. "You mean those videos are on the Internet uncut?" I asked, remembering the view the camera had of my girl's naked little butt as she climbed the ladder.

"Yes sir."

"Have you seen them?"

"Yes sir ... would you like me to bring it up on your screen?"

"No I do not want you to bring them up on the screen," I said emphatically. But as I waited for Patty to get hold of my ex my fingers danced across the keyboard in front of me, taking just seconds to find a site with the offending video. On this site alone it already had 134,916 registered views, a 5 star rating and more than a 700 comments blogged in.

And unfortunately my daughter happened to be the most photogenic of the group of tree huggers the media had already labeled THE SEQUOIA SEVEN. So of course the camera panned quickly across the fat broad and the scrawny brunette with hardly a pause as it sought out her youthful charms. The four men, led by a bearded guy I thought I recognized, were almost completely ignored.

"Mrs. Scouries is on the phone now sir," Patty announced from the door. My eyes were locked on the screen in front of me.

"That's no longer her name," I growled, then asked my secretary, "When did Melissa grow tits?" I hardly recognized this stunning girl on the screen.

"I think it started maybe five or six years ago boss ... you know ... puberty and all that," she answered as she walked behind me and looked over my shoulder.

"But ... but they seem ... sorta full grown," I stammered as I looked at the full, round, firm breasts that had led my daughter through the forest.

"She's eighteen boss."

"She didn't get a breast job did she?' I asked even as I knew with absolute certainty these were god given, one hundred per cent, natural grown specimens. These guys moved exactly like they were supposed to.

"Of course she hasn't had implants," Patty responded as she gave me a dirty look, but then started to laugh.

"What?" I demanded.

"At least we're lucky she's not one of those modern girls who shave every hair down below."

"But she certainly trims it," I grumbled as my eyes latched onto the triangle of thick, curly pubic hair growing between Melissa's long, sculpted thighs.

"After you finish with Mrs. Scouries I think we better sit down and decide what to do about the media sir. Shall I get Joyce and her boss up her?"

"Why?" I asked even though I knew.

"I'm afraid you're name has already been linked to the SEQUOIA SEVEN sir. Your daughter seems to have captured the bulk of the attention so far and a lot of bloggers are already speculating that this group is sponsored by ScouriesComputersInc. I've had calls from all the local papers, the TV stations ... even CNN."

"Fuck!" You better get Graham and Sue from Marketing too. And some of their team. In the conference room in ten minutes," I ordered as I punched the button on my phone.

"Is this one of your brilliant ideas?" I demanded down the line to my ex.

"Doesn't it make you just so proud?" the excited voice of Celeste Moon, the ex Mrs. Scouries asked me. "To see our little girl fighting for the future of our planet."

"Yes Ms. Moon, it really makes my day to see my innocent little daughter prancing around nude on every TV and computer in the country," I said sarcastically, my voice rising louder with each word.

"We always agreed Brad that she shouldn't be ashamed of her body," my ex, a born again hippie, a girl who'd been raised on a commune, and who, after four years at Harvard and then seven married to me and living in San Francisco, had retired to the commune she'd been raised on with my daughter.

"That doesn't mean she had to become the naked poster girl for wacky eco terrorists," I said softly and clearly, knowing it was pointless to get angry with Celeste. "Was it your idea? She was supposed to be at Dartmouth this week."

"I was as surprised as you. She and David Osborne told me this morning. The whole group was here-"

"David fucking Osborne," I yelled down the line, finally realizing who the bearded leader of the group was. "I knew I recognized that prick..."

"He graduated from Cal Berkley last May ... then he brought a group from school back with him ... they're all environmentalists," my ex told me. "Melissa's been hanging out with them a lot this summer."

"He's a little jerk, always was," I said as I remembered the little brat who used to run wild around the commune fifteen years earlier when I still used to visit it. And then a truly revolting thought hit me. "Is he fucking Melissa?" I demanded as disgusting visions of my virginal daughter being ravaged by this ugly, bearded hippy flooded into my mind. As I talked I clicked through various Internet sites until I found a picture of David from the press conference in the woods.

"I don't think so," my ex said unconvincingly.

"The guy's got a tiny little dick ... god, it almost looks deformed ... why would she want to sleep with him?" I demanded.

"Size isn't everything Brad ... just because you're built like a-"

"If he's put his cock in Mel I'll fucking cut it off and then hang it from his bloody tree," I promised.

"She's just trying to protect our forests Bradley ... to stop your rich friends from cutting down every tree in this state," Celeste said angrily.

"My friends? They are not my fucking friends! And the hell with you too," I hissed back down the line.

"What are you going to do? She's your daughter ... You're not really mad at her are you?"

"Of course I'm mad at her. She doesn't have the bloody courtesy to tell her father what's going on in her life? ... I'm going down there to see her this afternoon ... why the fuck are these idiots letting them cut down the trees anyway? What's Arnold thinking; they're a bloody national treasure."

"That's just what Melissa said," my ex said grimly.

Five minutes later I was sitting in the boardroom with my V.P.'s of Marketing and Public Relations plus seven of their smart young people. The V.P.'s were scowling while their underlings were smiling, talking among each other excitedly as they worked away on their laptops.

I started with my secretary. "I'm going down there as soon as we finish here; call the helipad and make sure they're ready for me."

"Yes sir."

"I want a Winnebago or something up there too ... fully equipped ... a cook," I ordered, then remembering added, "and a guard ... an armed guard. Call Stan in security and arrange something. I want that tree protected 24/7."

I could see the curiosity in everyone's eyes as I spoke. "She's gotta eat ... I mean what the hell can she cook seventy feet up in the air?"

"I think they eat dried fruit and nuts sir, they're usually vegetarians," one bright eyed marketing genius offered. He'd certainly never met my meat eating daughter.

"What's the guard for sir?" a fairly new employee, Ashley, a short haired blond girl who looked like she was sixteen, asked me.

"To make goddam sure no wild grizzly bear gets the idea into its pea sized brain to climb the effing Scouries tree and eat my little daughter."

"I don't think there are any bears around there sir," another whiz kid told me.

"She's not that little sir," another added. I knew whose naked pictures this soon to be unemployed prick had been watching all morning.

"Or one of the fifty thousand registered sexual perverts that roam our wonderful state," I added in a voice that ended any further discussion.

"I'll get right at it sir," Patty promised as she got up to go.

"Wait a sec," I ordered.

"Yes sir?"

"Just how exactly is my daughter keeping herself up in this wonderful Scouries tree? Do they have a platform to sit on or something?"

For seconds no one answered before finally a kid at the other end of the table tentatively raised his hand.

"I don't think I've met you before," I said as I looked over at him.

"Greg. Greg Williams ... in marketing ... I just started three months ago sir. Cornel M.B.A.," he said proudly, then added, "We all think you're daughter is setting a wonderful example sir." All the others at the table smiled and nodded their heads in agreement at this ass kissing comment.

"And do you know happen to know what's holding these seven people up in these trees Greg?" No one missed the impatience in my voice.

"I checked sir. This morning after I heard..." he stammered.

"And," I encouraged.

"Mainly ropes and pulleys sir. They have small platforms but they sleep in harnesses I believe."

"Jesus," I muttered as a vision of my naked daughter swinging at the end of a rope seventy feet above the ground flashed into my brain. "Patty, call Mario Caputo, tell him I want him to go with me on the helicopter ... that I have an urgent job for him. Today! Tell him to drop everything."

"The contractor?"

"Yes," I said dismissing her. Then I turned to the people around the table and asked, "So you're the experts, how's this going to affect ScouriesComputer anyway?"

As it turned out we had a difference of opinion. My V.P.'s were scared shitless and wanted to distance us as far as possible from the story. "What if they have bombs or something?" my senior P.R. man even asked.

"My daughter the mad bomber?" I replied.

However, the seven twenty-something year olds around the table, recent grads from the best schools in America, saw the whole enterprise in a different light. Surprisingly, and unanimously, they agreed with the 'tree huggers' goals, agreed that it was time to stop the despoiling of our natural resources.

"They always want more," Ashley said without specifying who 'they' were. She didn't have to — we all knew. "You know sir, I just wanted to take off my clothes in solidarity when I heard the news this morning ... right at my desk ... I was so proud I worked for a company that cares," she added as her confreres around the table nodded their heads in agreement.

I couldn't help checking her out as she talked ... cutest face imaginable ... great little tits...

"And from a business standpoint it may make sense too sir," Greg from Cornel offered.

"Why?" I challenged while realizing I was secretly happy we had people like this working for the company.

"The comments on just about every site are positive sir, like ten to one for. And not just Americans! People everywhere, England, Australia, India, heck even China ... they're all thanking us."

"We're getting e-mails ... thousands already ... saying the same thing," someone else enthused.

"But what about sales? That's what pays our salaries," I challenged grimly.

"It's too soon to say sir," Greg the numbers guy quickly replied. "But there's already been a measurable uptick ... we'll know more by tomorrow morning."

"Some of those trees have been here five hundred years Mr. Scouries ... five hundred years!" Blond Ashley insisted. I knew she didn't give a shit about sales and yet couldn't summon up any anger towards her.

"There's another thing sir," Greg interrupted. "Guess who's one of the people involved in the project. One of the people who is planning on building a twenty-five thousand square foot mansion right about where the 'Scouries Tree' is now standing?" Looking around the table I could see that none of the others had any idea.

"Who?" I finally asked.

"None other than the owner of our largest competitor — Mr. William Cates," Greg said smugly, stunning every one at the table.

"That cocksucker!" I spat out angrily and then, my decision made, announced, "There is no way that little prick is going to cut down my tree." People started to clap.

"I'm going to fight them ladies and gentlemen. But the company is something else. Jobs are at stake. I can take a leave of absence-"

"It's our forest too sir. All of ours," Ashley announced. "All our employees ... our customers-" Everyone at the table were nodding their heads in agreement.

"You really think we should back them? Openly? Officially?" I finally asked everyone at the table. And although I could see that my V.P.'s were nervous it was equally clear that we all wanted to. Especially since every one of us hated Cates with a passion.

"We'll decide tomorrow," I finally decided. "Once we've seen the overnight sales, the press reaction. After I've made sure they don't have any bombs," I said with a grin as I stood up. "I want you guys working together ... a marketing ... a P.R. plan ready for me tomorrow by ten. Okay?" I asked the room as my eyes moved around the table, stopping momentarily on every person. Everyone knew we were going ahead.

"Sir ... Mr. Scouries," I heard just after I'd turned towards the door.

"Yes Ashely?" I asked as I turned back to the beaming beauty.

"I just want to say I'm so proud to work for you sir ... for ScouriesComputers ... and please tell your daughter that there are thousands of people backing her ... and ... and that my friends and I will be down there this weekend to support her and help protect the Scouries tree."

"Will you be clothed or naked Miss Boone?" I asked with a smile but had to fight the tear forming in the corner of my eye.

"I'll be happy to take off my clothes to save a five hundred year old tree," she answered in total sincerity. This little girl was too perfect for words.

"I'll drive you down Ashley," I heard Greg, my Cornel M.B.A., offer as I left the room. And couldn't help but wonder just what was motivating him, the prospect of Ashley's naked tush or his desire to save the forest.

Ten minutes after the meeting had ended I was strapped into the front seat of the company helicopter that had just landed on the front lawn of the ScouriesComputerInc company campus. Mario Caputo, the contractor who'd build my new house and had worked for me for years, was already in the back seat. I briefed him as we flew south and just forty-two minutes later, just after three p.m. in the afternoon, we set down in a clearing about a half mile from the 'Scouries Tree'. Patty had arranged to have us met by an ATV and within minutes I was deposited seventy feet below my daughter at the base of the now famous tree. Leaving Mario at the bottom I started to climb.

"Who's there?" I heard called down through the leaves above me. My daughter's voice. "Is that you David?"

I didn't answer as I struggled up the rope ladder that looked like it might break at any second. "DAAAAADDY!" my daughter squealed when my head finally popped through the leaves five feet below her. One of her hands flew to her groin and the other to her chest as she tried to cover herself. She was standing on what looked like a three foot by six foot, half inch thick plywood sheet that was precariously placed in a nook of the tree formed by two branches and the tree trunk. She had a rope halter around her waist.

"A little late for modesty my dear Melissa," I said as I pulled myself up onto the sheet. I was gasping from the climb.

"What are you doing here?" my daughter demanded haughtily.

"Well I was planning on flying to Dartmouth next weekend to see how my kind, wonderful, considerate, intelligent, hard working daughter was doing ... the daughter I love and who I've always believed loved me ... but then I heard about the famous Scouries tree and so I figured I'd just come down here and check out the naked girl who was sitting in my tree."

"I didn't-" my daughter started, a little pout on her lips. Then she stopped in mid sentence, a blush blooming on her cheeks. I just waited her out. Second after second. She broke first. "I do love you. I shoulda told you ... I know I should have daddy. But-"

"But what effing what?" I demanded. Then the bloody plywood sheet started to teeter! "Christ!" I yelled as I grabbed my daughters hand to steady myself. Slipping on the sheet of plywood I quickly found myself scrambling to save myself from a seventy foot fall and ended up with my feet on one of the large branches and my butt up against the trunk of the tree with my startled and naked daughter, who was at the extreme limit of her rope harness, in my arms.

"Mario, get up here now," I ordered into the walkie-talkie I quickly grabbed from my belt as I franticly held on to Melissa. "Hurry!"

"Mario?" my daughter asked.

"You are not staying here tonight," I promised as I hugged my daughter even tighter.

"I was fine until you came," Melissa said huffily as we both tried to regain our balance. Then she said, "Mr. Caputo?" when Mario's head popped up through the foliage.

"Afternoon Miss Scouries," he greeted as he shyly tried to avert his eyes.

"But ... I mean ... what are you ... Daddy?" Melissa stammered as her eyes jumped back and forth between us.

I said nothing as I watched Mario take in Melissa's new home. "Jesus," he finally muttered as he slowly shook his head. "Are you trying to kill yourself Miss?"

"It's perfectly safe," she insisted but I could see a concern growing in her eyes as hers followed his.

"You're going to live up here twenty-four hours a day for how long?" Mario asked as he slowly shook his head. "Heck, you know better than that Miss S," he scolded.

"All of us are in the same boat," my daughter responded. "It's to save these trees for future generations, don't you understand? We didn't have much time ... we had to rush."

"I understand miss. I also understand there won't be any future Scouries generations if you fall out of this tree ... or if you freeze to death," he added as he let his eyes roam over Mel's naked body.

"I have a blanket," Melissa started to explain before I cut her off.

"If she's going to stay up here Mario," I said, knowing my daughter could be as stubborn as my ex, "we better build a platform, eight by ten, maybe even ten by twelve ... with walls ... maybe aluminum floor plate over an aluminum structural base. Put a rug on it ... get a better ladder ... a satellite dish for communications ... maybe some kind of awning she can unroll if it starts to rain." I didn't tell either of them but I'd already decided I'd be camping up out here too and wanted to make sure I had some creature comforts. "I'll want a futon or something up here too," I ordered.

"Are you crazy daddy? We're trying to save the trees, not fill them with furniture, not kill them."

"Won't hurt it miss," Mario explained as he pulled a digital, laser measuring tape out of his pocket and started to get measurements, clearly interested by the challenge. Within two minutes the three of us were sitting on a wide branch with our feet dangling out into open air as Mario entered the measurements into the Building Design program he had on his laptop.

Melissa, who was hoping to become an architect some day, was as fascinated as I, an Engineer by education, was. We both peppered him with questions and suggestions as he worked.

"But it'll take too long to build ... it'll be impossible to get it up here," were Melissa's final objections as we looked at the final 3-D plan of the proposed platform.

"Just small beams and decking miss, aluminum ... hardly weighs anything ... we lift it up in four or five parts ... piece of cake. I built tree houses more complicated when I was a boy."

"But it'll take days-"

"All this stuff 's in stock miss ... some sawing ... mechanical joining when its up in the tree ... heck, I'll download this to the shop as soon as I get back to the helicopter ... it'll be finished by midnight," he mused aloud as his brain worked through the problems.

"Could you fly it up tonight ... say before it got light next morning?" I asked, trying to forestall any more objections from my daughter. "We could install it at first light, before anyone was the wiser."

"Miss Scouries can't stay up here tonight though," he insisted as he looked from Mel to me.

"But I can't leave the tree, I promised the others," she objected, "not until the bastards agree to our manifesto."

"We won't tell anyone you've left," I argued. "Mario, you better get going ... get them to drive you back to the helicopter ... call me when you're back in your plant. I'll take care of Miss Scouries. She definitely won't be spending the night up here."

"Yes sir," he said, then slipped off the branch and swung onto the ladder and then almost immediately disappeared down into the foliage.

"You're staying?" my daughter asked.

"You don't think I'm leaving the Scouries tree all alone do you?"

"It's the Melissa Scouries tree, it's not yours," my daughter insisted with a grin. "Where are you going to stay anyway? Are you going to sleep on the ground or something?"

"No my darling daughter I'm not. In fact your father, and you too by the way, are going to sleep in the forty foot deluxe, Winnebago motor home that just happens to be parked just over there," I answered as I pointed downward through the leaves. "And while we eat a meal prepared by a chef that the estimable Miss Summers has arranged for us, an armed ScouriesComputerInc Guard will patrol the environs and protect my tree."

"It's my tree," Mel laughed.

"Our tree," I agreed, "now let's get out of here."

"I don't want anybody to see me leave," Melissa delayed.

"I'll go first ... call you when the coast is clear," I promised as I swung onto the ladder and slowly started down. I was standing at the foot of the ladder, holding it steady, when, minutes later, I saw my daughter appear about twenty-five feet above me. Well, I saw her legs first, round runners calf's that led up to long, well developed hamstrings which disappeared into two firm but perfectly rounded cheeks ... And with each rope step she descended her inner thighs split for a second and exposed her vaginal lips and a hint of the pinkness between them.

"Don't you have any clothes?" I hissed when her feet were about five feet above my head. My eyes hadn't left her slowly descending crotch for one second. My cock was boiling under my denim jeans. For my bloody daughter for crying out loud.

"It's a nude protest daddy," Mel answered back, but then, as she turned to look down, her foot slipped and she was suddenly hurtling outwards and down, shrieking out a, "Caaaaatch me daddy."

Well I sorta caught her. I ended up flat on my back on the ground with my naked daughter atop me, her pink tipped breasts in my face, seemingly trying to smother me.

"Are you all right," I dimly heard through the soft flesh covering me.

Opening my mouth to speak I somehow swallowed half of a perfectly shaped breast. Unconsciously my tongue wetly snaked out and found and then stroked the pebbly nub at its tip. Tasted it before my lips hungrily closed and sucked. My cock was throbbing against her thigh.

"Oh Daaaaaddy," a muffled groan sounded in my ear but Melissa didn't move for seconds, even seemed to push her body even harder against mine. Finally she urgently pulled back and sat up. "Oh Daddy, I'm so sorry ... are you alright? Did I hurt you?" she asked as she sat astride my chest, her pink slit a bright inviting gash easily visible through her dark pubic triangle just inches from my face. But there was something else besides concern in her soft brown eyes. Desire? Huh? My eyes quickly tracked back to her pink insides. My tongue hungrily slipped out from between my lips.

"Mr. Scouries ... sir ... are you hurt?" The voice came from the guard I'd brought from town. He was rushing across the clearing towards me, gun drawn.

"Yeah, don't shoot Joe. No problem, this naked girl just for a second thought she was Tarzan ... in fact she's my daughter," I finished as I sat up, having been freed by Melissa who'd jumped to her feet. One of her hands modestly covered her groin.

"I know sir," he said as he glanced at his boss's naked child. Whose nipples, incredibly long nipples as it turned out, were standing erect.

"It's cold," she answered to the unasked question in both Joe's and my eyes as she covered her chest with her free hand.

"Melissa, this is Joe Morgan, he's with our company security unit. Joe, this is Melissa."

"Hi Joe," my daughter said, then after hesitating, offered him her hand. The one that had been covering her little triangle of dark pubic hair. He actually started to redden.

"It's unsafe up there Joe, Melissa's going to sleep in the Winnebago tonight. The only one allowed anywhere near the tree is Mario and his crew ... they should be here sometime around dawn. Do not tell anyone Miss Scouries has decamped for the night."

"Yes sir."

"And you do understand your instructions Joe?"

"Yes sir. No one goes up this tree without yours or Miss Scouries approval."

"Exactly. Do you have someone to spell you," I asked as I took Mel's arm and prepared to lead her off.