Chapter 1

I'd just purchased a going business, or so I believed. One that was located in an area far from my family roots. I'd been born and raised in California, but the business was located up in Oregon, in one of the small cities close to Portland. Owning a beef jerky distributor ship wasn't something I'd ever aspired to. I'd just kind of fallen into it, almost by accident, after winning half ownership of it in a private, no limit Hold 'Em poker game being held at a mutual friend's house over in Manhattan Beach.

Dave Towns, the fellow I'd won the half interest from, looked to be around twenty five years old, and he wasn't much of a poker player. His eights full of nines had been no match for my four nines. He used his half of the jerky business as collateral for the almost one thousand dollar bet he'd called to see my winning hand.

He had the choice of just calling all in with the little he had in front of him for the bet, but he'd wanted to make the call for all of my bet money instead. Since I had an 'immortal lock' of a hand, I had allowed him do it. Under the terms of our deal, he'd had thirty days to come up with the little more than nine hundred he'd need to give me in order to buy back his ownership interest. I waited six weeks for him to show up before I finally decided he wouldn't ever be coming back to see me again.

Even after him not showing up again to redeem his note, I probably would have just written the whole thing off to being a bad bet on my part, if Madeline, my girlfriend of two years, hadn't finally given up on me and suddenly packed up and moved out of our beach front apartment. I'd say her move was very unexpected, except for the fact that she'd been warning me for the better part of the past year that she was getting tired of me not taking my life or any of my other responsibilities more seriously. Without her there to pay her half of the rent, there was no way I could keep up with the twenty five hundred a month we'd been paying each month.

I was a professional mid limit poker player, one with less than twenty thousand dollars in my playing bankroll. Most of what I managed to win each month went towards paying my share of our living expenses. A good limit Hold 'Em poker player could average a little more than one big bet an hour, playing in the poker rooms of Southern California. I usually played in the fifteen/thirty, twenty/forty, or twenty five/fifty dollar games. In a decent year, I'd bring home forty to fifty thousand. So far, I'd always had fairly decent years, but everything I earned went to supporting my lifestyle. Before I'd become a real professional player, I'd worked by selling central air conditioning at night, for three long years, in order to earn enough of a poker bank roll to go play full time for my living.

I knew I was just one long losing streak away from having to quit playing for a living, or, at least, from having to go back to work to raise myself another poker bank roll again. Knowing this, my life had taken on something of a quietly desperate quality. This too had led to my break up with Madeline. I wasn't getting anywhere with my life, and I wasn't having any fun while just marking time with it either. Madeline's leaving was the final straw that made me decide to pack up and leave the area.

My decision to head up to Oregon had more to do with me having some hope of being able to sell my half ownership in the beef jerky distributor ship while I was up there in that area. I figured I might be able to get a few hundred for it at least, either from the other half interest owner, or maybe even one of the customers, or other employee's of the company.

I found the address that Dave Towns had on one of his business cards he'd given me the night I'd won his share in the company. It turned out to be a small office in an industrial park. The office part was in the front, and the back area was where all the real business got done. It had one of those roll up bay doors that you could drive a small box van into. Inside, I met the other owner, a young woman who turned out to be Nancy Towns, Dave's younger sister.

It didn't take long for me to find out that I'd ended up owning a half interest in a nearly failed business. Dave had started the business himself, using money he'd borrowed from his parents. He'd gotten his sister involved in the business by offering her a half interest in it, instead of his having to pay her for her time.

Nancy ran the office herself, and sold beef jerky to many of the local small markets, liquor stores, and gas stations. She told me that all these customers were one's that Dave had set up himself. All she was doing was delivering what they needed to replace the product they had previously sold since her last visit. She said she was barely making enough with the route she had to pay the jerky manufacturer and to keep the rent paid on the office. She said the office rent was only five hundred a month. I found out she still lived at home, with her parents, and that she had an old beat up Datsun pick up truck she made all her deliveries in.

While we were discussing all this, several people from the industrial park came in and bought jars of the jerky or pepperoni sticks she kept in the back part of the building. She charged them fifteen bucks for a jar of the jerky, and nine for a jar of pepperoni sticks. That seemed pretty cheap to me and I asked her about it.

"These are all guys who work here in the park. There are more than a hundred small businesses in here, mostly machine shops, or some kind of auto related businesses. Dave always sold to them at our normal wholesale prices, so I do too. We earn a few hundred extra every month by doing that. Without it, I'd have to shut things down here. Even with it, there isn't enough money for me to give you anything for what my brother sold you."

"How much are you paying for the jerky?"

"We get the jerky for nine dollars a jar, and the pepperoni for six. Those are really good prices, and the man who makes it for us is our uncle. There are forty pieces in each jerky jar, and thirty pieces in the pepperoni canisters."

While we'd been talking, up to that point, she'd sold at least six jars of the jerky, and three or four more of the pepperoni sticks. She'd made more than forty bucks in the fifteen minutes I'd been there talking to her. She must have read my mind, because she looked at me and told me that there was always a rush on Monday morning's because the guys wanted to make sure they bought enough snacks to last them for the rest of the work week. Most of them would be broke until they got paid again on Friday or Saturday. For a few of them, the jerky or pepperoni would be all they had for their lunches until they were paid again.

"If I can't get any money for my half interest in the business, can I buy some product from you at your cost? I'd like to go around to some of the other industrial parks and see if I could sell some there."

"You'd need to pay me in cash for it. How much would you need?"

"How about four cases of the jerky, and two of the pepperoni?" Both came in cases of six jars each I'd noticed.

"We have Teriyaki, regular, and peppered for the jerky. Mostly, the Teriyaki sells the best, then the regular. You should take three cases of the Teriyaki, four jars of the regular, and two of the peppered. The pepperoni comes in regular and spicy. Maybe one case of each is the best for them. You'll need samples of each item too. Uncle Earle makes up these sample bags for each kind, bits and pieces of the jerky, and end snips off the pepperoni. He gives them to us for a dollar per bag. I sell them for two dollars sometimes, if someone doesn't have enough money for a whole jar. You should buy twenty five bags of the jerky, twenty Teriyaki, four regular and one peppered. Maybe another fifteen of the pepperoni samples, ten of the regular, and five of the spicy. If you do it right, you should sell enough of the sample bags to pay for all your give away sampling."

I ended up handing over three hundred and twenty eight dollars to her. I'd always liked beef jerky anyway, and I figured I could eat at least half of it myself, before it went bad, in case I couldn't really sell any of it.

Back in my own truck, I opened one of the sample bags to see what the Teriyaki flavored jerky tasted like. It was damn tasty, a lot better than what I was used to from the jars I bought pieces out of at the gas stations I used to buy from in L. A. I opened one of the sample packs of the regular Jerky, and it was pretty sweet too, and much softer than what I was used to buying. I wasn't too big on pepperoni, but I figured I better taste it too, just to satisfy myself it wasn't horrible tasting or anything. I didn't like pepperoni sticks that were too greasy, but this really surprised me. It tasted great and didn't have that real greasy aftertaste to it. I tried some of the spicy one too, and liked it as well.

I started driving around, looking for industrial parks, and discovered there weren't as many of them as I was used to seeing in Los Angeles. I stopped in a few small mini strip malls though, and found out that places like beauty parlors and beer bars were good places to pass out my samples in. I ended up selling quite a few jars of the jerky and the pepperoni sticks to the beer bar owners, after first giving out free samples to all their customers. I ended up selling one jar of each flavor jerky and pepperoni I was carrying in two different beer bars, and another three jars of the jerky in a beauty shop.

Just before lunch time I discovered a large industrial park over in Portland, and started handing out my free samples right and left to a group of hungry guys who were all standing around waiting for the "Roach Coach" to come by. People kept coming out of their shops, then hurrying over to where I was to see what everyone was crowding around me for. I went through a lot of samples over the next fifteen minutes, and ended up selling my last fourteen jars of jerky, and seven of my last eight jars of pepperoni. I even sold off twenty two packs of my samples at two bucks a pack. When I left that park, all I had was one jar of spicy pepperoni sticks, and about six bags of sample pieces.

I counted up all the money I'd taken in that morning, discovering, as I did so, that I'd cleared a hundred and seventy five bucks, and still had some product left to sell. Not bad, I thought, not for three hours of effort on my part. I'd established a couple of things; that I could sell the product, and that I'd enjoyed myself while doing it. I always loved playing poker, but whenever you were doing it for your living, it was no longer just an enjoyable past time.

While I was driving back to Tigard, I was giving some thought to staying in the area and adding to my net worth. I couldn't see myself settling down long term in this area, but I figured I could afford to spend some time to see where this jerky business might end up taking me.

"How did it go, Ralph?" Nancy seemed more anxious than she'd been when I'd left her earlier in the day.

"It went well enough, I guess. I was pretty much sold out by lunch time. All I have left are some sample bags and a jar of the spicy pepperoni sticks. People really seem to like the products, especially at the reduced prices we sell them for."

"I need to talk to you about that, Ralph. I went over to see Uncle Earle after you left, to let him know what Dave had done, losing his half of the business to you like he did. My Uncle says I should shut the business down now, and come over to his plant to work directly for him. Until you showed up here this morning, we both thought Dave would be coming back here to work on the business. That was the main reason why I was sticking it out. Now, it doesn't look like he plans to come back here at all."

"So, I guess that means I'm screwed as far as ever getting anything for my half of this business then?"

"Uncle Earle told me he'd continue selling to you, if you wanted to keep buying from him after I told you what he's decided to do. He said he'll sell you the Jerky for sixty dollars a case, and the pepperoni for thirty nine a case. The samples you can keep buying at a dollar a pack. Those are all good prices still, better than any other wholesaler would get from him. He said you can sell in any territories you want to. He won't give anyone exclusive sales territory."

"How soon would you be shutting things down here?"

"I just gave notice to the end of this month. You can work out of here until then, if you want to. I'm going to be over at my Uncle's plant in Milwaukie, starting tomorrow morning."

Nancy reached out with a business card in her hand. It read Earle Towns, Beef Jerky, Pepperoni Sticks, and Summer Sausages. There was an address, and two phone numbers on the card too. I noticed there wasn't a name on the card for his business, other than just his own name.

"How do I get more product? Do I have to drive over there to get it?"

"You need to speak with my uncle about that, Ralph. He told me to give you his card if you might be interested in doing more business with him. All the product I have left I need for my own deliveries for the rest of this week. Here's a key to the front, and another one for the padlock on the door here. You have to come in through the front door in the morning. I talked to Mr. Shipley, the man who leases out space here in the park. He told me you could stay on here for the same monthly rate if you wanted to. You need to go see him if you do. If you do stay here, you can take over the delivery route I've been doing. I've got a list with all the addresses, and who to see for payment."

"You're just giving me the business then? That doesn't seem right to me, or fair to you either."

"It wasn't really a business without Dave being here. I was just kind of watching over it for him until he decided what he wanted to do with it. I never believed my half was worth anything. It was just his way to get me to come down here and work for him for nothing. Dave is a user of people."

I ended up finding myself an apartment less than a mile from the business. It was a one bedroom place, and not in the best of shape either. The rent was incredibly low though, and I'd never cared too much about appearances anyway. That had all been Madeline. She was the one who thought living upscale was the best way to go. I'd never wanted to be held hostage to such a huge monthly rent.

It took me fifteen minutes to switch the rent over into my name for the industrial park the following morning. No new cleaning deposit, and no mention of first and last month's rent. Five hundred a month, including lights and water. That was less than forty cents a month per square foot of space.

After I'd gotten the lease on the office squared away, I drove over to Milwaukie to meet Earle Towns. He was a tall, bluff faced man, with balding white hair kept long on the sides and in the back. He had no hair at all on the top of his head. He seemed friendlier than most people, insisting on giving me a tour of his smokehouse. I discovered that the huge bulk of his business was in making private label product for other smokehouses. Some were in the immediate area, but many were from out of state. He told me that the big edge he had over his competition was in his ability to purchase the meat he needed at a much better cost than his competition. He never explained how he managed this, only that he did.

I learned a lot more about how beef jerky and pepperoni was made than I'd ever wanted to know before. Most of his plant was given over to making chubs of summer sausage which he claimed to sell all over the country. He had one pound, two pound and three pound sausages, and about six or eight different types of it that he manufactured and processed. He told me he sold more than twenty million dollars of those products every year.

I put in my first order directly with him, ordering more than three thousand dollars worth of jerky and pepperoni sticks. He seemed somewhat surprised to find that I had that much cash on me.

Most poker players are generally adverse to keeping their money anywhere that they can't get to it in a hurry. I'm no exception to that general rule either. I always knew how big my bank roll was because It was never further than fifty feet from me. After paying for my new product, I had sixteen thousand and some change left.

When I was leaving, I ran into Nancy coming down from where the main offices were. Uncle Earle had his office downstairs, right next to all the smokers and ovens.

"Ralph, how did it go with Uncle Earle?"

"It went well. I bought some product, and he's going to have it delivered to me later today. By tomorrow, I'll be back out on the road, trying to make some new sales."

When I'd first seen Nancy she'd been wearing a man's flannel shirt, one of those Pendelton's I think they're called, and denim jeans with cowgirl boots. She looked like she was about nineteen years old, with shoulder length black hair, and with two front teeth on top that were bent towards each other. She wasn't buck toothed, but they did stick out in front just a little bit.

She had looked kind of cute and innocent when I first met her. Now, in a dress with high heels on and her hair put up, she looked older, and more sophisticated than she had looked before. Her teeth hadn't changed though, and, for whatever reason, I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss her with those prominent teeth of hers.

"Mr. Shipley called Uncle Earle and told him you'd decided to stay with the office. Uncle Earle owns the park, in case you didn't already know that. He kept your rent low just like he set it for Dave. Can you give me a ride back to the park? I rode in with Uncle Earle, but he wants to go over to Lake Oswego to play golf this afternoon with some of his old drinking buddies. I can walk home from the office."

I ended up driving her over to her house. It was less than half a mile from my new apartment. It seemed like a nice, older house, that her parents owned. The neighborhood might not have been that good, but the house itself looked well cared for. She leaned inside my passenger door window after getting out of my truck, thanking me for the ride.

"I'll be over at the office in the morning to pick up some of the product I left there. If you want to, you can drive me around while I make my deliveries. It will give me a chance to show you where all the accounts are, and to introduce you to some of the store owners and clerks."

"Sounds great. What time?"

"I'll get there at eight, and we can leave as soon as we're loaded up and ready."

I hadn't had any prurient thoughts about Nancy until she'd leaned into my window to speak with me. When she did that, the front of her dress kind of dropped down, putting both her breasts on open display for me. She had nice small breasts, and wasn't wearing any type of support for them. I could see her light pink nipples and areola's. From the way her nipples were extended out, and from all the crinkling going on in her areola's, I was certain that she was deliberately giving me this delicious peek at her delectable nubbin's. She held that pose for a long time. Her radiant smile when she said goodbye to me erased any possible doubts I might have had about how deliberate her provocative pose had been.

I'm twenty eight years old, tall and slimly built, with glasses. I look like a prototypical nerd. I am somewhat nerdish I guess. I like math, am an inveterate reader, and have a true affinity for any games requiring some mental agility. In the past, before Madeline, I'd usually done quite well with girls and women. The two years she and I had been together had been the least amount of sex I'd gotten since my sophomore year in high school.

Madeline wasn't a big fan of recreational sex. We'd managed to average no more than having sex twice a week, and that had only started happening at all after the first six months of courtship from me. Before that, I hadn't so much as managed to get a finger in her. I really believed I loved her though, and so I stuck it out and persevered.

After we finally did it this one memorable night, I then discovered that Madeline had been trying to turn over a new leaf with me, having been promiscuous, her words, not mine, since her junior year of high school. To Maddy, five guys in eight years was considered promiscuous.

The sex hadn't been that good for me, but, since I knew I really loved her, I made do. It was only when she kept complaining about everything that I began to doubt the possible permanence of our love. Towards the end, as I later realized, I hadn't done a single thing to change myself to make things easier for her to take.

At least a small part of the reason I'd wanted to get away from Los Angeles had been my not wanting to have to deal with Madeline's next boyfriend. We had most of our friends in common. Many of those had been Maddy's friends more so than mine.

My friends were all degenerate gambler's, according to Maddy, while her friends had been ever so much more refined and pleasant to be around. I'd never told her about her two best girl friend's, or about how they once offered to rock my world if I agreed to having a nice little threesome with them.

The next morning I showed up at my new office at seven thirty. Nancy was already there, and had separated her delivery order into the middle of the floor in the back area. It took us only a few minutes to load everything up in the back of my pick up, and then we locked everything up and went out on some deliveries. We were driving to the first delivery, a small mom and pop market over in Oregon city, when Nancy started flirting openly with me.

"Did you think I was too terrible when I did that leaning in your window thing?"

"No. In fact, I was a little bit disappointed when I saw you dressed like you are today. I was hoping you'd have another dress on."

"I never dress up when I go out on deliveries. Usually, when I wear that dress I had on yesterday, I have a bra on too. Sometimes I like to tease guys though. Tell me what you thought when I leaned over like I did?"

"I'm not sure I thought anything. I was too busy looking to do much thinking. You have very nice breasts."

"You had to be thinking something. Tell me what it was."

"I don't remember thinking anything while you were leaning on the door like that. Earlier I was thinking something, while we were riding to your house, but I don't remember any thoughts while you were giving me that lovely peek at your titties."

"What were you thinking before, then?" Nancy had turned in the seat so her leg was up near the center console and she was facing towards me.

"I was wondering how it would feel to kiss you." I had decided to move things forward, letting her know I was definitely interested in her.

"Because of my front teeth, you mean?" She gave me a bright smile, putting the aforementioned teeth on prominent display. She didn't seem overly self conscious about them.

"Because of your whole smile. Your mouth looks very sexy when you smile." I was getting hard then, thinking about how my cock would look, going in and out of her pretty mouth. I saw her eyes checking my crotch area out. She wasn't trying to hide where her visual focus was.

We made about forty deliveries that day. Most of them, the owners, or at least one of them, were in the store. Nancy knew everyone by name, and handled the product sales and subsequent payment with relaxed, low pressured, ease. I could see that she was well liked by all her customers. We were finished before three that afternoon. Nancy tried to share some of the profits with me, but I wouldn't accept any of it from her.

"Well, we're done with the route deliveries for this week. Think you can handle next week's all alone?"

"Probably, but it sure won't be as much fun, or half as stimulating when I do."

"That's a very nice thing for you to say to me. Everybody else around here has known me since I was a baby. I don't get very many chances to show off some of the other sides of my personality."

"There are more sides than you've already shown me?" Nancy laughed when I asked her that. A low, throaty, kind of laugh, not one that you'd expect to be hearing from such a young, innocent looking girl.

"Believe me when I say that there's a lot more. Sometimes, that's about all I think about. Mostly it is a fantasy that I know I'd never really do. I don't want to shock anybody, especially my relatives. Unfortunately, I'm related to over half the people I know. You can't very well go around teasing your cousins. This is a very small community we have here too. If I ever really did something anywhere around here, it would get back to my family in a matter of hours. I already know that much for a fact."

"Oh, really? It sounds to me like you may have tried to act out some of your fantasy's already?"

"Maybe, but I'm not telling. Mostly though, I'd just love to have a chance to tease some guys. Around here though, you try to do just a little bit of teasing, and the boys will either rape you, or else they'll go around telling everybody that they got in your pants. Both those things have happened to me already."

"I'd never rape you, and I sure wouldn't spread any stories about you. I also happen to love being teased by pretty girls."

"No guy would ever be willing to admit that he'd rape a girl, but quite a few have."

"I wouldn't. You can trust me not to do anything to take advantage of you like that. You can even tie my hands behind my back if it would make you feel any safer."

"Really? What about after? When I let you get loose, you'd find a way to take your revenge on me."

"I can show you how to tie knots that I could get out of by myself, after. It would just take me some time to do it. You could be gone by the time I undid those knots."

"You're serious, aren't you? I was mostly just kidding around about wanting to tease you. I was having some fun with you, that's all it was."

By this time I'd finished driving us back to the industrial park. I figured it was too late for me to go out to try to do some selling myself. I mentioned this to Nancy and she laughed at me.

"Why are you laughing?"

"You're getting call reluctance already. Most people get it, sooner or later, but they either get it right away, before they sell anything, or else sometime later, after they've been selling for awhile. You only lasted one morning. That might be a record for getting it the soonest. I think that's what happened to Dave too."

"I'm not sure what this call reluctance is, but I'm pretty sure I don't have it. If it was earlier, say right after lunch, I'd go out and expect to make some sales. It's after three thirty now though, and by the time I got anywhere to try to sell, it would be after four."

"You sound just like all the other salespeople Dave ever hired and trained. A million excuses about why it isn't a good time for them to get started selling."

"This is beginning to sound like a challenge. Is that what it is? I'll bet I can go out and sell at least ten jars before six o'clock. If I do, what will you give me?"

"If you don't, what will you give me?"

"If I don't, I'll take you to any restaurant, within fifty miles, and let you order anything on the menu."

"No. I can get that from lots of other guys."

"What do you want then?"

"Funny you should ask me that. You said you have your own apartment now, right?" I nodded that she was right. "If you don't sell at least ten jars before six, you give me the keys to your apartment for this weekend, so my girl friends and I can have ourselves a party there. You have to buy us some Tequila, vodka, gin, and some mixes, and some beer and wine too. You have to leave us alone all weekend too, so you'll need to find another place to sleep."

"How many people will be there? I just signed my lease, and I'd hate to get kicked out before I even got a chance to live there."

"There will only be five of us, including me. We won't be that loud either. We've partied together before and haven't gotten into any trouble."

"Okay, now tell me what I win if I do sell at least ten jars by six o'clock tonight?"

"We'll go over to your apartment and I'll take off all my clothes for you for one hour. You can look all you want to, but no touching me, okay?"

"How will you know if I sold ten jars or not?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm going to ride along with you to make sure. Ten jars, at the regular prices, and sample bags won't count, right?"

"Deal, let's shake on it." I put out my hand and she took it. She had a big smile on her face. She really must have believed I wasn't going to sell those ten jars.

I loaded up plenty of each type of product. Two cases of each style of jerky and a case each of the two pepperoni's. I grabbed sample bags for each product too. Once I had all the product I'd need, I drove straight back to that industrial park I'd gone to that first day I'd tried selling. It was only two days since I'd sold a lot of product there, but I was counting on word of mouth advertising to get me some new sales.

It was a bit after four o'clock when we got there, and, as luck would have it, the "Roach Coach" was just leaving when we pulled up in my truck. Someone saw and recognized me right off the bat, calling me the Jerky Guy.