Chapter 66

Day Sixty-six - Wednesday

There was a heavy pressure on my hips. Something felt very nice on my,,, oh yeah, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come right now.

My eyes opened as my juices jetted up into Sue who was quivering and shaking while coming with me as she was riding the pony. When we finished, she lay on me cuddling, kissing, and saying that she needed that.

She gave me a kiss and pulled off me to get out of bed. On the way out of bed she leaned down and sucked my shrinking dick into her mouth saying, "We taste so good together."

I made coffee while she used the pot, and then got into the shower. As soon as I joined her she was trying to stimulate me into more sexy activity. She didn't have to twist my arm at all. We kissed, I sucked her big nipples and caressed her breasts, then got behind her so I could slide into her and pound away until we both came again. This time we washed off and made it out of the shower.

We turned on the patio light just before six and waited less than a minute before Glenda made her appearance followed by Ruth. Next were Hanna and Debbie. Sandy and Mandy came over, saying they had sent their guys home last night with some things to think about.

They said that since Sue had approached them about her house and the house next to them, they had to think about whether they were really ready to settle down with guys, instead of remaining with each other as they had for so many years. Mandy thought that Drew was a really good man and Sandy thought Bob was a jewel, but they might miss each other too much.

Sue never minces words and suggested that the four of them live together. That way there could be some mixing and matching going on sometimes. That way the guys wouldn't mind if the girls wanted to play with each other, especially if they got to watch. Sue said, "You never know, you four may be another ideal poly family."

Sandy said she liked the idea, but was going to have to work on Bob, as he was a little backwards about some things. Mandy said that so far Drew had not backed off from anything she had said or done. She felt he might be kinky enough to go along with all of this.

Charlie and Shawna showed up dressed for work. Charlie said, "You might have to get me one of those high school kids to help me but I'm going to try today to see how I do."

Phil and Judy showed up with our breakfast sandwiches and donuts. Bob and Drew pulled up together right behind them and came onto the patio to get some kisses from Sandy and Mandy.

I told everyone that I had to close on the property next to the shop this morning, so they all had to get along without me micro-managing them for a change. There was the appropriate laughter, saying that I never said anything to anyone but if they didn't see me about once an hour they felt something must be wrong.

Everyone was gone except Sue's people, and Glenda and Martin. Glenda said, "Kinda like old times, huh, Steve?"

"You're right Glenda, you and I started this coffee thing in the morning together. I sure do thank you for being such a friend. I must have liked it as you can see, I stayed around."

Sue said, "I remember your first morning out here. I was watching Steve move around. I could see he limped a little and thought we should get together and match limps. The more I watched him the more I really wanted to meet him. Guess I got to do more that just meet him, didn't I?" Sue was rubbing her belly.

I kissed Sue and asked, "Want to go with me? You are a fifty percent owner of the company."

"No, I have a ton to do this morning. We are about to introduce an entire line of sexy tops for busty ladies. Our headline is going to be 'If you got 'em, flaunt 'em.' You're going to love them, the way you ogle cleavage. Anyway, you need to do this with Ben so you know he can be an ally when you need him."

We kissed again before I drove downtown in the miserable traffic to get to Ben's office. I actually found a parking space at the curb and put eight quarters in for two hours. The building Ben's office was in is beautiful and very pretentious. I was impressed, but then I live in a trailer park. I laughed at that thought.

Twenty-four floors up, I entered Ben's offices. He had an older lady as a receptionist and I could see a little younger lady working at her desk down the hall. Ben came out to greet me and showed me to his very lavish office. I thought the big office at the shop was nice, but this was unbelievable. All mahogany paneling with polished wood bookcases and matching furniture. Even his desk was cleared, except a small neat stack of paper in front of his chair.

Ben said the closing would be in his conference room as soon as Mr. Wainwright showed up. He had asked me to come early so he could go over the property deal with me one more time.

He sat at his desk and I sat in on of the chairs in front of his desk. The problem was that I sunk down too low and couldn't see the top of the desk with my knees in my chin. I stood in front of the desk and said for him to talk. He wanted me to sit, but I finally had to tell him that his chairs were very uncomfortable, as they sat too low. He frowned, but finally accepted that I would rather stand.

Ben explained about the taxes and the right of way. The county had to have access through my property to the creek behind the property. There was a gate in the back with a county lock on it for their access. There also was a front gate that had one of their locks on it as well so they could go in and out as they needed. This didn't prevent me from using the land except two places where there were gates. The price had been reduced significantly which was satisfactory with me.

Ben's receptionist announced that Mr. Wainwright and his attorney were in the conference room, so Ben and I went in also.

After the hand shaking and greetings were complete, I sat across from Wainwright saying, "Let's get this done so I can work on some other property."

We did all the signing and I wrote a great big check. Wainwright's lawyer used the phone to confirm funds were in the bank to cover the check and the deal was done. Ben looked over everything and said he would file the transfer with the county and I now owned a total of thirty acres of commercial property, amazing.

I invited Wainwright to come out for evening drinks again if he were in the area. I told him Sue would enjoy having him out. I apologized that I had to leave so soon, but said there was a couple of important projects that needed finishing this morning. I shook hands with everyone, leaving happy that I didn't have to stay around and kibitz any more that I already did.

At the shop, I immediately went next door to the contractor and told him that we were full steam ahead on all fronts. Make the partition a hundred feet wide, but I also want to extend the offices across the entire front, keeping the same theme as they are now. Fairly small offices, with each having a door to the warehouse and a door to the front hallway, as that should cover any office space I might need in this building.

The contractor showed me that they had already sealed the roof with white rubber paint. He had me get into a bucket with him and the big crane lifted us up to see the roof of the building. Smack in the middle was a giant circle with S&S in the middle. He said the front and the two sides would have a giant S&S too, as it was free advertising. This building could be seen from some of the major roadways.

His landscape guy had all the weeds down and was turning the soil to plant grass. He said that after the ground was planted they would roll it with a light roller to compact the soil.

The contractor told me the inspector that was handling the building cleared the condemnation as the doors were repaired and modified for safety. The only thing we needed to do for the factory portion of the new building was to have sprinklers installed. This had already been planned.

As I was leaving, the telephone guy pulled up and said that he would need to trench between the two buildings. I told him to make sure that any conduit he put in would be big enough to handle at least the same amount of equipment as we had in the present building. I told him to put phones every fifty feet in the partitioned area, and every one hundred feet, front and back in the big warehouse area. The offices should all have phone and data wiring and they should repeat the way they had done before, where there is a phone jack there should be a data jack.

He asked about video. Sure, put another monitor in my office with at least four feeds from the big shop area. He was also to put a monitor in Tiny's, Ruth's, Phils, and the big corner office,...

Back at the shop, Debbie was loading equipment onto the Winston Cup race day trailer with Carl and Sam. They thought they had too much equipment, but said they had thought they had too much the previous week too. I told the guys good luck and explained they would probably be in competition with the truck guys. Carl said that it would be no contest as the Busch and Winston cup races were full of big money teams, whereas the truck teams sometimes were a little hungry.

The motor folks were loud and obnoxious today. Thank goodness no one from outside the company could hear what was being said. They were all being nasty today, probably because they had a new pair of ears to hear their banter. They did keep Charlie laughing though.

Abe asked when he could start putting completed equipment into the building. I told him that as soon as the building was cleaned and painted, he could run stuff right over. He should wait until the wide paved roadway between the two buildings was complete too. I did say that he could start parking his used ready to rebuild equipment in the lot over there as they were received here. He might as well leave the ones he had staged in this lot where they are, instead of wasting time to move them back and forth.

I went up stairs and told Tiny and Phil the building was ours and that they needed to get a ride up on the lift so they could see the top of the building. They both almost ran out of the office to get a chance to ride the crane bucket above the height of the new big building.

Ruth's new helper was on the phone calling potential candidates for the new shop. Jed had given her a list of over a hundred people. She was calling them all to have them apply as soon as they could.

My desk had a stack of message notes with papers attached to them so I would know what the customer's really wanted. It took me almost two hours to work through them, but as always, the effort yielded several orders. I even got a work order to repair a giant lift a customer had, that had been broken for nearly a year. The customer was having a truck come for it immediately. He asked if I had any idea what it would cost to repair it. I told him that it definitely would be less than half of a new one and would have a year's warranty as well. That made him happy.

Considering most of those giant lifts were near a hundred grand, I felt safe in my estimate. Big companies that used big lifts were used to big bucks for equipment.

The whole time I was returning calls, Debbie was giving me more messages. She said a bunch of them were people wanting to sell me something. It would be rude if I didn't return the call so I rushed through the salesmen except for a welding supply firm that wanted to see the truck that was on the Internet. They said they wanted to market the truck for us.

A Ford dealer in St. Louis wanted to market the body for us as well. I gave them the prices and what the minimum truck was, but said the F650 was best for the body. He asked if we put any out on consignment. I laughed, saying we were so far behind on orders already, that it might be a couple of years before we had to put some bodies out on consignment.

Lunchtime was here, because Sue walked in asking me to take her to our favorite restaurant. She got to hear how the morning closing went and the plans we had for the new shop. When I told her about the S&S on top of the new building she said she would look for it when she, Betty, Joan, and Hanna went to New York for the big fashion show coming up. Sue said she had five items that would be worn by models in the big showing.

This was the first I knew about a trip.

Sue explained that they just found out today that they could get their fashions into the show. She asked me if I wanted to go with her. I really did, but probably should stay here to keep watch. I told her I would ask everyone to get their opinion today, and tell her this evening if that would be soon enough. I asked why her new fashion designer wasn't going. Sue said she refused to travel and would rather stay home and work.

As we were eating, I asked if Jim, Tom, or Al were going. She said that so far the girls wanted it to be an all girls thing. I told her that I shouldn't be the one to break up their party. She just needed to take lots of pictures and take care of the critter she was carrying. Sue hugged me saying that the all girl trip should be a lot of fun and should be fairly innocent. She said she would take care of herself and that she had an appointment with a gynecologist tomorrow morning to confirm what we already knew.

"So how soon is this trip?" I asked interested in the details.

"We will leave Thursday morning, the showing will be Friday evening and again on Saturday afternoon. We are going to return either Saturday night or Sunday morning depending on the travel agent. I would really like to be back Saturday night."

"Thursday, as in tomorrow Thursday?"

"Yes, like I said this came up at the last minute. The manufacturer is going to pay all our expenses because they get the production credit, while we get the design credit."

"Well let's get out of here as you have a lot of getting ready to do. Have your girls talked to their husbands yet?"

"They all told their husbands this morning. I waited to tell you at lunch as I kind of wanted you to go along but you're right, this will be an all girls' party. It should be fun."

Back at the shop, I talked briefly to Tom and Al to see what they thought. They were happy their wives were going to be honored to show their designs. That was good enough for me, if they felt okay about it, so did I.

I walked over to the new building to see how they were doing. There was a giant machine that was blowing a liquid insulation on the entire ceiling and another two were working on the walls. This was more of a major project than I thought. What surprised me was the stuff that looked like liquid, instantly hardened and expanded into an insulating foam of between six and eight inches thick. A unique feature was that the foam settled flat, without ripples or waves. I was impressed that it even stuck to the roof without dripping.

I checked in the motor shop to find Charlie doing pretty well. He had the bike that Shawna had torn down divided into separate jobs. Charlie said he was better at heads so he was working over the heads, porting them for better flow.

I walked up to him and asked, "Hey Charlie, are you going to need a helper? Someone to chase stuff for you or to help you bust a tough nut?"

"Not yet, so far so good. When I start putting this thing back together, I might need some help. If you find a kid that wants to learn bikes, especially Harleys, bring him to me. I love to teach kids what these scooters are all about."

Shawna was working on a race car motor. I asked her whose it was. She said, "It came from one of the people who bought one of our engines. This is the one ours replaced. The customer wanted to know what was wrong with it and if we could rebuild it."

"What have you found so far?" I asked.

"Not a lot. It appears that it may be too tight. Whoever built it did a decent job. So far it balances pretty well and the heads and manifold were prepared well too. Look here," Shawna pointed to the head, "See these valve stems, they've been rubbing on the guides. Was it lack of oil, a bent stem or the guide not honed properly? The rings in the cylinders are so tight I had to oil them and slowly pull them. There needs to be some clearance, that's what rings are for to finish sealing the combustion chamber."

The little redhead stood back a second and said, "If I didn't know better, I'd say this motor was put together by a mechanic fresh out of school. He was trying to do too good a job and ended up building a dud. He should have been able to see these problems on a performance test though. I wonder how it passed through the people checking and testing it."

"Are the heads salvageable?" I said looking at all the scoring on the valves and guides.

"Yeah, I can rebuild the whole thing. It's a shame to have ruined so many expensive parts though. I'll do the whole thing, build it the way it's supposed to be built and write up what was wrong, without an opinion. I'd rather get the kid that did this and teach him how to do it right. He had the right idea, but forgot about tolerances."

I wandered over to the rebuild department and found Abe by himself. I got him to walk up front with me so I could ask him a couple of questions in private.

"Abe do you think Jed might become so enamored with the big lifts that he'll not be able to handle the main rebuild shop too?"

"I think he'll be alright, Steve, he's used to handling multiple departments and projects at the same time. He's probably not used to your idea on perfection though. You and I will have to double check for a while to make sure he understands we do not let a time constraint create imperfect quality. That's the best thing you could have ever said to me. I can't stand any of my work to be second best. I think all my guys have it in their head that's the only way a product leaves our shop. I make them do stuff over all the time. They hate it if they miss something and I catch it. It's almost like a game now between all of them. They have that board up in the shop with my gigs in fence posts. Last week the high gig guy had two. When we first started the board, the high man had like almost twenty. You and I will watch Jed to make sure he understands what quality is."

"Thanks, Abe. If you see he can't handle both shops, let me know and we'll find you another assistant. Maybe we should anyway and have Jed be the assistant over in the big lifts and another guy be the assistant here. That way you can just go around and check the work on both sides."

"I like that idea. It would give me enough time to work with more of the technicians. We have some good ones, but they can all still learn, and you know how I love to teach."

"Good idea Abe, find another guy. I want you so relaxed, I'll have to wake you up to get your attention and the men so good at what they do, they know they are the best."

Abe was thinking about something else, so I prodded him a little, "What else is on your mind. I can tell when you have a question but can't get it out."

"You can tell, huh? I want us to get a uniform service for all our people in the entire shop. I don't want the uniforms mandatory but if they would rather get a uniform service's clothes dirty then I think that would be a good benefit for them. What do you think? Would uniforms be a good idea?"

"That would be a great idea, Abe. I'll start right now to get someone out to get the guys sizes and start as soon as possible. Make sure everyone knows that they don't have to wear uniforms. They still have to buy their own steel-toed boots, but we'll still provide them safety glasses that they have to wear. That's a great idea, Abe, thank you."