Chapter 186: My First Day as a Millionaire

Saturday, May 7, 2005 (Continued)

Once I was sitting at my desk again, with my schoolwork open around me, I couldn't help noticing that this wasn't a particularly thrilling way to spend my first morning as a multi-millionaire, but I couldn't think of what else to do (not strictly true, as Carol was sitting a few feet away and I had no trouble thinking of what I'd like to do with her). To distract myself, I decided to spoil myself by writing the sexy spreadsheet that I'd thought of before: Julia had suggested a big notice board at school that would list my day-by-day profits from my day trading cover story. Prof had suggested the profits started low and built up higher and higher, reaching just over half a million at the end. I wanted to write a spreadsheet that would generate the daily values for me, in a fun way.

I fired up Excel and specified the first three variables from which everything else was going to flow:

1. Amount To Allocate: $6,700,000.

2. Over How Many Days: Julia had suggested $500,000 as the top value. Linearly between $0 and $500,000 meant an average daily profit of $250,000, but I wanted a learning curve rather than linear, so the average might be closer to $350,000. That would need 19-odd days. So I started with an initial value of 20 in this field.

3. Learning Ratio: I chose 5. This was how much better I wanted to seem to get. My last day's profit would be 5 times higher than my first day's profit, with the days in between interpolated.

In the working area of the spreadsheet, I had the first column containing the day number, from 1 to HowManyDays (20). The second column was a "Base Amount", a flat allocation of the amount, AmountToAllocate / HowManyDays ($6,700,000 / 20 = $335,000).

The next column was a little fancier. I wanted it to be a "Learning Factor", a factor that modified the base amount up or down to simulate me apparently having a learning rate. I wanted to multiply the first day's profit by 1/Sqrt{LearningRatio}, and the last day's profit by Sqrt{LearningRatio}, so the last day's profit would be LearningRatio (5) times higher than the first's, and to interpolate the other 18 days. That was quite easy to do, but resulted in a distortion because the linear interpolation between 0.45 and 2.24 produced an average value of 1.34. The factor had to average 1.00, or I'd end up 'earning' more than $6.7 million. The obvious solution was to normalize all the ratios by dividing them by 1.34. So I ended up with a "Learning Factor Raw" column, followed by "Learning Factor Normalized" column, which was the previous row's value divided by the average of the previous column.

The next two columns were two random numbers between 0.5 to 1.5, with the next column ("Random") being the average of the previous two, as a simple way of dampening the random variations.

The last column was the "Daily Profit", calculated as the "Base Amount" ($335,000) times "Learning Factor Normalized" times "Random". I rounded the answer to the nearest thousand, which looked nicer. The Daily Profit formula had an IF statement, so if DayNumber equaled HowManyDays (i.e., it was the last day), then its value was AmoutToAllocate minus the sum of all the previous daily profits, to guarantee that the total amount of profit was correct.

Then I created a graph of the "Daily Profit" column.

I hit F9 (Recalculate) repeatedly, waiting for a graph that looked as if I'd learned quickly initially then slowed down, had the last day with a value just over $500,000, and in which the daily variations looked 'nice'.

It only took a few seconds to hit a combination of random numbers that produced a sexy looking graph, so I copy/pasted the resultant values into the next column (so they wouldn't be lost the next time Excel recalculated). The last two values were $501,000 and $519,000, so I cheated by manually changing them to $499,000 and $521,000. I could imagine the excitement that would have occurred at school if I'd reached $499,000 in one day, followed by $521,000 the next, followed a day later by $0 because, "I stopped because I have enough money now, and besides, exams are coming up soon and I really should do some revision."

I leaned back to admire the spreadsheet. I thought of showing it to Carol, but it wasn't really her thing, so I just admired it for a few more seconds, then exited Excel. Sigh.

My non-sexual way of celebrating my wealth over with, I turned to my schoolwork. Us multimillionaires lead exciting lives.

Half an hour later there was a knock on the study door. "Just me," called Prof's voice.

Prof entered, then told us, "My PI advisor got back to me with the information I requested. I've booked a company to come to Corvallis on Monday to sweep our houses, cars and workplaces. It'll take them most of the day and they'll need access to your car at some stage. After school should be fine. They'll either be at your house or ours, so find them and give them your car to check, okay?"

"With pleasure."

[Both Mom and Dad took a risk by declining to have their workplaces swept. Dad didn't have one, and laughed at the idea of someone spending hours listening to lawn mowers being discussed and assembled. He didn't talk about anything sensitive to our family in the middle of the factory floor anyway. Mom would have to inform her boss to have her workplace swept by a security team (they'd notice several guys waving electronic instruments all over the place, crawling under desks, lifting the ceiling tiles, etc.) Actually Mom wouldn't be able to get the team anywhere near her desk unless she got permission first, and that would have to go way up the ladder in her company, and would no doubt piss off several senior managers. Mom discussed it with Vanessa and Prof and they agreed not to worry about it. If there were any bugs on us, the baddies should be frantically getting rid of them, knowing that a team was coming to sweep for them on Monday. Prof and Vanessa weren't concerned about having to tell their bosses. Prof said his Department Head would find it amusing and interesting.]

Prof continued, "I've also got the list of phone models not to buy. I'm going to go buy myself a new one now, do you want me to pick you up one too?"

"Yes please. I've gotten used to having one and find it a nuisance to be without."

Carol started making peculiar noises, so we turned to look at her. She explained, "Guys are weird! How can you just let Prof buy a phone for you sight unseen? Don't you want to check them all out yourself?"

"Why? I just want a phone. If I went with Prof, I'd buy the first one they showed me, and Prof can do that just as well as I can. Actually Prof, you should probably call Julia first, in case she's got some specific requirements. I know she talked about getting one with a camera, which might be useful one day. And maybe one that can record more than three minutes of audio too, although I can't say I'm fussed about either issue particularly."

"Okay. I'll call her from the store once I see what choices they've got."

"But," objected Carol, "don't you care what it looks like? The color, style, image, etc."

"Good point, Carol. Prof, please get me a phone that conveys the image that I'm a wonderful guy, very smart and with a great sense of humor. If it comes in a color that makes girls want to remove their panties, then that'd be good too."

"Haha. Of course. I was thinking of going for, 'Distinguished and Refined' myself. I think Vanessa would be upset with me if I bought a phone that caused girls panties to fall down all around me."

Carol accused, "Guys are impossible! You've got no idea how important it is to choose the right phone, have you?"

We agreed we didn't.

"Don't blame me if Julia takes one look at it, throws it away, then takes you to the store herself."

"Umm, yeah, I can see that happening. Maybe I should let Julia choose my phone. She does tend to have pretty strong opinions about unimportant stuff like this." Carol poked her tongue out at me.

Prof chuckled. "Okay. I'll just get one for myself."

Prof left. I made a mental note to think about buying Carol a new cellphone - of her choice - for her birthday in a couple of months. [Carol beat me to it, getting herself a new one almost immediately. I made a mental note that I needed a new mental note for what to get Carol for her birthday.]

Carol said, "I saved you from making a big mistake there."

"It's a good thing my sister can help me avoid mistakes with my girlfriend, and vice versa, because I sure need help."

We went back to schoolwork, until I heard the doorbell ring. I suspected Ava was early, so Carol and I went down to check. Yep.

It was a nice reunion, although Ava was much less frantic than I'd expected. She hadn't known enough to be worried, merely that Carol and Julia had been worried. It was soon clear that she also didn't know about the danger of being overheard by bugs, because she started talking about Carol's and my relationship. Fortunately I could cut her off fast enough, saying, "Ava, let's go somewhere pleasant to talk, and have some lunch in a while too. Can we go in your car, because I've been driving hundreds of miles recently." Also because we didn't have to worry about her car having a bug.

That was agreed. We told Andrew we were going for a drive, then headed out.

We got in the car, and started driving down Julia's street. Ava asked, "Where're we going?"

No one cared much, and after a minute or two Ava said, "Can I ask for something?"

"Of course. What have you got in mind?"

"I missed seeing you bowl 300 because I'd been a bad girl just before that. Can we see if we can get a lane and you do that again. I like bowling, and I'd love to see you do that."

I didn't want all the drama again, but I'd previously thought of a solution to that. That left the problem of the baddies following me to the bowling alley and seeing me do my thing there. It was unlikely, but it was possible, and it might give them a clue about how Prof had won at roulette.

I said, "Okay. But there are a couple of conditions. First, I will bowl strikes every time, but every frame we'll rearrange who bowls when, that way the scorekeeping computer won't know that I've bowled a perfect game. I don't want all the fuss or publicity of another perfect game. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I think so."

"That won't be as exciting as the usual way, but you'll see that I've done it, even if the computer and all the other patrons don't understand that I did. Do you still want to do it?"

"There won't be any excitement at all. That's a pity, but I guess I'd still like to see you do it, even if it will seem very flat."

"The second condition is that I want to drive us to the alley."

"It's not far. It's easier if I do it."

#3: <Make it an order. And don't explain either. We need to find opportunities to train Ava.>

"Ava, I ORDER you to pull the car over and let me drive."

"Oh. All right."

Carol started looking frantically around, so I quickly said, "Carol, everything's fine. I'm just training Ava."

"Oh. I was worried for a second."

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't think of that."

Ava had pulled over, we swapped seats, and I started off. I explained, "I'm going to do some strange driving to check to see whether anyone's following us."

"Don't crash my car please! I don't want..."

"Sorry Ava. I won't do that. When I said 'strange driving', I didn't mean dangerous or fast. It'll be fine. I wouldn't want to crash a car with most of my favorite girls in it, would I?"

Carol suggested, "Not to mention you as well."

"Yeah, that's a good point too. I'm sorry I've worried you both in the space of a single minute. I think I should shut up now, to avoid saying something else stupid."

I did some strange but very safe driving. If anyone was following me, they were doing so by helicopter. Having thought of that, I parked and stuck my head out the window. No visible helicopters. We eventually arrived at the bowling alley.

I got Ava to book it and get the shoes, in case the counter staff recognized me. Carol was going to have a game too, which was good. She'd sat out the last time we were here. Carol warned us, "I hope you won't mind. I won't be any good."

"Of course we won't mind, sweetie. It's not a competition. We're just having fun and killing some time before lunch. It'll be good to see you enjoying yourself. Besides, I've got a feeling that at least a third of the time your scorecard is going to show strikes."

We had to wait for a lane, it being a busy day, so we got a booth in their little food area and chatted over drinks. Quietly, because my conversations tend to be weird. I told Ava more about my "Driving halfway around America in order to do a bit of fishing." It was a pretty boring story, so it didn't take long. I was deliberately avoided mentioning any hint of financial success, thinking that Julia might prefer to be the one to tell Ava about that. Unusually for me, I was quite proud of myself for bringing off the roulette coup, admittedly with a LOT of help from Prof. But Julia was FAR more proud of me than I was, so she'd get much more pleasure from breaking the news to Ava than I would.

Ava and Carol talked more about the school social scene. We spent quite a while talking about the pop quiz about me, and the progress being made with the pipeline system. Apparently there'd been a great deal of talk about me last week, which had taken on extra weight when strange people started asking questions about me. Carol and Ava went into quite a lot of detail about some of the stuff, like what some of the questions had been on the pop quiz, which girls had gotten what scores, what some of the funnier answers had been, etc. Also which girls had already joined pipeline groups, either in the first intake or waiting to be chosen for the second or third intakes a few weeks from now. I recognized a fair proportion of the names, but I really didn't care much about the groups' memberships. I'm sure that had I been at school the whole time, I would have been very interested in the conversation, but it seemed somewhat trivial in comparison to recent events in my life.

I thought about next weekend's trip to LA. I could see that we might find Ava's help useful in fooling the other girls about Carol's not being in our room overnight. From Ava's point of view, Carol and I being in a hotel away from parental supervision was a perfect opportunity for us. From my point of view, it was "the sooner the better" for Ava to succeed in pushing Carol and me together.

Julia was certain to invite other girls on the trip. The opportunity to play mind-games with the extra girls she took, and the girls she chose not to take, would be irresistible. Not to mention that taking other girls would GUARANTEE that the story would get ALL over school. Unfortunately, it also meant that Carol and I wouldn't be able to do anything in the plane, which was a great pity because having sex in a plane's bed would be SO COOL! Which would make getting Carol into my bed in the hotel even more 'urgent'. I very much liked the idea of Julia, Carol, Ava and I all sleeping together in LA. I made a mental note to check with the pretty concierge that the hotel bed would be big enough for four. She was going to start getting the RIGHT impression about me.

Eventually, as I knew she would, Ava started edging toward the topic of Carol and me getting together, "Did you miss Carol while you were away?"

"I missed all my family, Ava."

"No, I mean ESPECIALLY Carol?"

I looked at Ava seriously, quietly asking, "Ava, how are you doing at keeping my secrets?"

Ava was a little startled at the change of topic, then she said, "I haven't said anything to anybody. I know better than to do that."

"Nothing about any marathons?"

"Nothing. Not even to Mom or Dad. I promise I haven't."

"Nothing about Nipple Power?"

"I wouldn't even know HOW to talk about that! I've said nothing about it. That's why I'm not locked up in padded room, haha."

"Because unless you're TOTALLY trustworthy, I can't even start to think about Carol the way you're hinting."

Ava urged me to believe her, "I am! I promise. I haven't said a word to anyone about any of it. I won't ever break my word about any of that."

"I'm not accusing you of anything. I've been away and busy, so I have no reason to believe you've said anything. I'm just making sure you understand how important it is that you keep ALL my secrets."

"I do, I do. You're very, very special, and I'm going to prove that you can trust me. I don't want to let you down. I think it's incredible that you've let me into your life the way you have. I'm just an ordinary girl and you're..."

"You can stop right there. I didn't pick hundreds of ordinary girls but I did pick you, so you can't be ordinary. I'm just saying that I won't even BEGIN to think about Carol that way unless I could trust you. And I have to trust you for the long term too. Not just for a week for two, but for years. I don't want you to spill the beans a year from now. Actually, you won't be able to spill the beans even if you wanted to, because I'm not going to do anything for a year or two anyway."

"What? I don't understand."

"I'll START thinking about it now, but it's going to take me a year or two before I decide to do anything. It's a very serious step, and it can't be undone, so I'm going to be extremely careful. Besides, Carol and I will know each other our whole life, so there's no hurry."

"But you two are PERFECT! You..."

"Shush, Ava. Not so loud."

Ava continued much quieter, "I'm sorry. It's just that you HAVE to! It'd be sin not to."

"There's no hurry, it's definitely not something that should be hurried, especially as both of us have to be totally convinced it's a good idea. I haven't had time to even start thinking about it yet, and I doubt Carol's that interested anyway, so I..."

"She is! She is. Tell him Carol. Carol told me she's having those feelings."

Carol said, "I also said it was something I thought I'd grow out of. Just a hormone imbalance, or something."

"But you two..."

I interrupted, "This probably isn't the best place to talk about it, Ava. We should drop it, okay?"

"But... {sigh}. I guess so. When can we talk about it?"

"I expect I won't be so busy after exams have finished."

"But that's MONTHS away!"

"Haha. Less than 2, but I guess 1.75 months counts as 'months away'. Anyway, there's no need for me to even think about it unless Carol feels strongly enough about it, which she obviously doesn't." I made a mental note to suggest to Carol that she tell Ava virtually the same thing (that Carol was waiting for me). That'd drive Ava up the wall!

I added, "Changing the subject slightly, I have a feeling you might be learning a new secret shortly Ava. Julia will be telling you something good. Maybe tonight, or..."

"Julia's PREGNANT!"

"Haha. That's not it. Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not going to be 'Aunt Ava' anytime soon. It's something else entirely different. Julia might tell you tonight, or sometime in the next few days."

"What is it?"

"You must think I'm MUCH braver than I am, to steal Julia's thunder like that. I won't even buy myself a new cellphone without her approval, so there's..."

"{Giggle}," from Carol.

It was nice to know my little joke was appreciated, so I gave her a smile as I kept talking, " ... no chance of me spoiling her fun by telling you. You'll have to wait and see."

"Meanie! How about a hint?"

"Sorry. That's not a good way of keeping something secret."

"Then why did you tell me there was a secret in the first place?"

"Because I'm a 'meanie', haha. I thought you might enjoy the anticipation, and I knew I'd enjoy the teasing, haha."

Ava showed me the point of her tongue.

I wasn't sure what and when Julia would tell Ava, but I knew Julia would either be telling Ava that she [Ava] was invited on a private jet to LA, or she'd just be telling Ava that I was rich. Either message was currently a secret, and would probably remain a secret for a few days after Ava learned of it.

I subtly changed the subject, "Were your parents okay with their dinner changing to Sunday?"

"Yes, meanie. It made no difference to them. Are you still going to stay overnight? We've got school the next day, but there's no reason you couldn't stay overnight, is there?"

"Have you discussed this with Julia already?"

"Yeah. She said you all could: you, her and Carol. If we squeeze close all four of us will be able to sleep in the bed."

"What do your parents think of that idea?"

"Umm, they might be thinking that Carol will be on the sofa."

"And if they get up before us in the morning?"

"Umm. It'll be okay. I'll say Carol slept on the other side than you did."

"What happens if there's some giggling and playing around while Carol's in the room. Obviously there won't be anything full-on, because that'd be inappropriate, but there could be a bit of playing around. Wouldn't your parents be scandalized by that?"

"We could be quiet."

"Haha. Somehow I suspect that four people playing around aren't going to be quiet enough. And I obviously meant playing around in two PAIRS Ava, not all together, so stop looking so hopeful. I don't like the idea of upsetting your parents. They've got more than enough to deal with already. What do they think of you being in a threesome?"

"Mostly they ignore it. They call you my boyfriend, but call Julia, 'Julia'. Things like that."

"They're not angry, or upset?"

"No. I wouldn't let them pick on Julia. She's being VERY good to me."

#4: <Not as good as she is to us!>

"Your parents are already letting you do what you want, so there's no need to bulldoze them about anything. I'd be happy if all we did was gently encourage them to be more comfortable about the threesome they know about. Adding more can come after they're comfortable with the first part. Let's keep whatever sex we have consistent with what they already know. If it seems okay for Carol to sleep in the same bed, then we can do it, but no playing around. Okay?"

Ava agreed, "Okay. I didn't think about it from their point of view."

"It's fine. One thing I'm a little worried about is that I lost a lot of college studying time while I was away. I need to catch up, so I'll get up early at your place and drive to the Williams' to study. I'll come back to your place about the time everybody's waking up, so you'll barely know I've gone. My being away half the night will be a good excuse for Carol sleeping in the bed."

"Aww, do you have to leave?"

"You'll be asleep yourself, so you'll never know."

"But it doesn't feel right."

"I understand, but you're going to have to get used to it. I can't afford to lose the time or I'll badly disappoint Prof, and I VERY much do not want to disappoint him."

Carol said, "Ava, you can't hold him back. A good girlfriend wouldn't do that. We can't keep up with him, and we'd be wrong to ask him to slow down."

Ava said, "You're right. I was being selfish. Sorry, Mark."

"That's okay. I think you've adapted to our relationship fantastically well in every other way, so don't worry about it. I'll make a confession that sometimes I do silly things too. I lost my cellphone during my trip, and earlier today I was going to let Prof choose my new phone for me when he bought a new one for himself. How silly was that!"

Ava had no trouble laughing quite loudly at me.

Carol joined in, and I suffered their ridicule and abuse for a couple of minutes. When I had a chance I asked, "Ava, how are your parents holding up health-wise?"

"Pretty good to look at. They sometimes don't feel well, but they're both on meds which control most of it. Why?"

"I was just asking in general. I know almost nothing about cancer, how it affects people, how it's treated, or any of that stuff. Do they like Chinese food?"

"They don't eat it much..."

"Oops. Sorry, Ava; I just thought of something. Carol, do you know if Lily knows I'm back in town? I'd hate for her to still think I was away, or not be sure whether the dinner was on or not."

"I don't know," answered Carol. "Do you want to borrow my phone to call her?"

"I didn't memorize her number. Can I borrow your phone to call Julia please?"

"Of course." Carol handed it over, saying, "Speed dial 2." I could guess who #1 was.

I called Julia. Before I could say a word, Julia gushed, "Carol! We're having the BEST time. We've looked at some FANTASTIC homes."

Julia heard an excited but surprisingly deep-throated 'Carol' say, "That's GREAT news! How soon will it happen?" (I was choosing my language to hide from Ava what we were talking about.)

"Oh, hi darling. No time soon. None of the ones we've seen are suitable."

"I thought you said..."

#1: <Give it up.>

" ... Never mind. I called to ask about Lily. Does she know I'm back? I'm worried about her family being very inconvenienced over the dinner."

"Yeah, she knows. She's been very worried about you, and asking me two or three times a day for news about you."

"Oh. I'm surprised to hear that. She never struck me as that sort of girl."

"No, me neither," agreed Julia. "I don't understand her."

"Boy! If you don't, then I'm going to give up even trying to. I've got NO chance! I'm surprised she hasn't called me then."

"I told her you'd lost your phone and that you were too busy catching up on all the stuff you'd missed while you were away. How did the work on our anniversary present go?"

"Very well." Figuring that if anticipation was good, then anticipation of anticipation had to be good too, I added, "It's looking fantastic. You're going to love it. I'm going to tell you and Carol all about it when you get back."

"I thought you wanted to keep it a secret?"

"Maybe I should. What do you think, should I tell you in advance about the fantastic, wonderful, awesome time you're going to have, or should I keep it secret until it happens?

"Tell! Tell NOW! It sounds REALLY good?"

"It's even better than that! It's REALLY, REALLY good, haha."

"So what is it?"

"I'll tell you when you get back. I want to see the look on your face."

"Tell me now and I'll get Mom to photograph my face."

"Haha. Not even close. I'll wait for you to get back. Changing the subject, Prof volunteered to pick me up a cellphone when he got one for himself, but I..."

"You DIDN'T! Please tell me you didn't? Dad's got no idea what style of phone to get for you."

To get her back for raising my hopes about having found a house for us already, I said, "They all make calls, so what does it matter?"

"Argh! Even you can't be that foolish. You must know that you couldn't let Dad buy you one. It'd be totally wrong."

#1: <When Julia's under pressure on a critically important issue, her politeness goes right out the window. This is a big deal for her, so we'd better not tease her anymore. It wouldn't be nice, and she'd kill us later.>

"Of course I didn't let him buy me one, Julia! What sort of dummy do you think I am?" Before she could answer, I added, "Carol and I discussed the pros and cons, and we mutually decided that it might be better to let you be involved in such an important decision."

"Phew. You had me worried there. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing that Carol saved the day, right?"

"She might have even have saved the whole week, given how critically important this issue is."

"You don't get it, do you?"

"I don't even get that there's anything to get. Don't worry, I won't buy one without your 'guidance'."

"Thank goodness! It's good that you've got two girlfriends, so we can take turns looking after you."

"Sounds good to me. I'll let you get back to your onerous, boring task."

"Thank Carol for me please. Love you both, bye."

#2: <Loves me, but won't let me buy my own phone. I guess some things are just too important.>

I gave the phone back to Carol, saying, "Julia says she loves you and 'Thanks' over the cellphone thing. Apparently my letting Prof buy my phone would have been a VERY bad idea."

"I thought so."

"You thought right. I think you probably saved my life, haha. Anyway, Lily knows I'm back, so no worries there."

We chatted for a few more minutes, then got our turn to play.

Carol was pretty bad at bowling, but we didn't care. Both Ava and I started giving her some pointers, but I quickly learned to let Ava be the head coach, as she was much better at giving useful bowling advice than I was. I knew very little about bowling, other than how to cheat to get 300 every time. Carol improved noticeably during the game, especially because Ava gave up some of her turns to Carol. My swapping bowling positions every frame meant none of us cared two hoots about following the correct procedures. Carol enjoyed herself.