Chapter 14

Fall colors were late and on the drive home they were amazed at some of the bright colors still so vibrant on the way home. Little was said until Joe was suddenly struck by some of her words before they made love in the park.

“Did you always imagine me in your little masturbation fantasies? I mean, every night is a lot.” Joe said quietly as he looked at her, her eyes fixed on the road in her own thoughts.

“Funny you say that, I was just thinking that too. Yes, you were the only one. I always thought you would sneak in my room, thinking you spent every day looking for me. That was why I freaked out when the male nurse stood beside the bed with his cock out saying he wanted to masturbate with me. His cock was only 6 inches from my face and I know what he wanted. I always fantasized you would wake me like that, standing there with your cock out for me to suck and make happy for you. The other was you crawling under the covers and licking my pussy and clit to wake me. But, every night once I got in bed I was convinced I was in Limbo and Philly was the angel who would bring me to heaven. Nutty, huh?” She said, unsure of her state at the time.

“After the state I was in I am in no place to call anyone nutty. Our minds lead us down strange paths and we have no control, it seems. At least you remember everything about the time. I don’t recall a thing.” Joe said reaching over to pat her thigh.

“Remembering may be a curse, like with me. I was so mad I betrayed you.” Selena said quietly.

“PLEASE, get over that. I no more think you betrayed me ... You had no control and you damn near died trying to fight him off. Now just stop that or maybe I WILL think you’re a little nutty.” Joe said scolding her.

“Can we take a ride someday and hope to get a chance to see her? I have to admit I’m curious.” Selena said changing the subject fast.

“I’m not sure Philly would OK that for you, at least right away, and she’s the one who can come up with her identity. Let’s begin to put our lives back a bit more before we think about that. I don’t think you need the emotional high or low it will cause.” Joe said tenderly so she knew he was with her in her curiosity and not just appeasing her.

“When do our lines go live?” She asked, wondering when they would get their trading and monitoring capabilities back.

“They said it could happen today. I saw them working on the lines yesterday and I thought it would be on line this morning, but nothing as of when we left.” Joe answered, obviously anxious to get started watching stocks and making some deals.

“How long until credit lines are open?” She wondered.

“As soon as we are wired I can do some bank transfers to prepay anything until I re-establish a line of credit.” Joe answered with a sigh.

“Remember, we have the houses, we have enough money and I’ll be going back to work, as far as I know, ... don’t get too cute and try to show the world Joe Johnson is back. With the economy as soft as it is we should lay low.” She said with a poke in his ribs as she turned onto Sheridan and headed home.

As they turned into the blind drive and drove up Scott Hanson was letting a man with a telephone truck into the house.

“You two don’t answer phones? I called each of you to come back and let this guy in. You need a new modem to get the stuff you want. Your stuff is 10 years old.” Scott said with a chuckle as he walked the repairman in.

Joe took out his phone and there was an arrow beside the missed call from Philly and it revealed 2 missed calls from Scott.

“We were busy Daddy. We took a walk, took a ride, and bought a new car in between.”

“From the look on your face there was more than walking and riding in your afternoon.” Scott said as a sly grin curled his lip.

“We ARE married Daddy, wouldn’t hurt you and Mom to take “a ride” some time too.” She said to him happy that she could be a little more liberal with talk of such things.

“Why do you think I called both of you a couple of times before finally having to come up here? I may have been busy myself.” Scott said stone faced as he walked back into check on the repairman.

Joe Johnson couldn’t believe his ears, to hear the ever stoic and proper Scott Hanson speak so openly to his daughter, but he was glad.

Before going into pepper the repairman with questions about the lines he thought it best to return the call to Philly and he punched the reply key on his phone waiting to have her answer.

“Hi Joe, is Selena with you? I would like to talk to you first.” Philly said.

“She just stepped in the house talking with her Dad, I’m alone. What’s up?”

“Jack Spagner is not the Father of that baby, but Selena is the Mother. I know that much. In the DNA experiments where Emory Richards kept the baby DNA he has quite a few other hospital employees and I’m going to see if we can find a match to find out who else raped her. They were all volunteered for the experiment so it shouldn’t be a hassle.” Philly told him; sorry she had more bad news for him.

“Did you screen it with mine?”

“Your DNA? Why?”

“We made love on our short lived honeymoon that night. I did have the reversal and my sperm counts had to improve.” Joe said hopefully.

“I don’t have your DNA, but Edison probably does. Can you call Dr. Culver and release it for me?”

“Sure, I’ll do that now. What should I tell Selena?”

“Don’t hold anything back. She needs to trust us, and you especially, in order to break down any walls she has left. Tell her what we’re doing.”

“Test my DNA first before you do anyone elses, OK?”

“OK, I’ll be back to you tomorrow.” Philly said before hanging up.

Joe walked into the house and Scott was walking out ahead of the serviceman.

“He says your computers are a little behind the times for the set-up you want, talk to him.” Scott said as passed the baton to Joe.

“Where’s Selena?” Joe asked.

“On the phone in the bedroom, WSGG called for her as soon as she walked in.”

Joe looked at the service guy and simply said, “All hell is breaking loose at once here. My computers are a little old? Can we upgrade?”

“That’s not us, Sir. However, speaking for myself, for the high tech set-up I just put in, that old Gateway is past its usefulness, even the OS is way, way outdated.” The young man said honestly.

“Damn, I thought I could get by for a bit, until I caught up with myself. I’ll just get a new one ordered. What would you recommend?”

“First of all, let me congratulate you for finding your way home, so to speak. Incredible story. Secondly, what you had before, having a Mac and a Windows system, is still the best way to go for what you seem to want to do. Your Father said you had them talking to each other and could run anything, you might STILL better do that to avoid conflicts and shutouts. There is a new Mac OS and I think there’s a third build on Windows 7 for business, ... Professional, I think it’s called. If you get those, I would be glad to come back and reset you here, just to see how it works. Here’s my card with my pager number. I’ll make a special trip for you. I don’t live far from here.”

“Well, um ... OK, ... um... (he said looking down at his card) Francis! I’ll call you.”

“Please call me Franny. It would be my pleasure to help you out.”

Joe showed Franny the way out and went back to the bedroom, noticing that Scott had hustled his way out of the house and was headed down the drive as Franny was leaving.

“Maybe he did have a promise waiting for him.” Joe thought as he made his way to the bedroom and saw Selena walking out beaming bright, smiling ear to ear, still on the phone.

He opened his cell and called Dr. Culver to give her permission to release his DNA to the lab doing the work for Philly Flowers. He ended his call just as Selena was walking back to him as she wrapped her call with WSGG.

She threw her arms around Joe, so excited she could hardly speak. “The boys want me back. I can stay as long as I want, but if I give them 18 months and get Deneigh on track and trained, they’ll be satisfied and call my service 12 years as far as the value of my seat in the partnership. My parents never dissolved it to leave it as part of the PolyTech endowment.” She bubbled.

“So it’s been gaining value all these years?”

“Well, gaining and losing. The Wall Street debacle that the government created hurt a lot of their clients and shook their credibility, but they never wavered, Ross said. Those who took their advice and weren’t swayed by the media reports and mistruths are all back to where they were or better. Our value is up quite well, Slim managed it for my parents.” She reported.

Then the bubbly, cheerful, mood seemed to run out of her as she took a look of deep pondering.

“Now that I know they want me back, the question is, do I want to go back? Did we miss so much life that we can never regain it? Do we take a bow and fade off? I told them that if I declined and didn’t return I would pay back their investment in me so they could use it for another student. The new partner, Jamaica Browne, went through a lot the same hoops as me, but Ross isn’t as happy as he thought they might be with her. She has 4 and half months of probation yet and he hopes I might help her out as well.” She said in serious tones, not having any real answers yet.

“New York can be a tough place to make it like you did.” Joe said.

“I’m sure she doesn’t have a centering force like you there, to teach you The City either.” Selena said, re-hugging her face to Joe’s shoulder and holding it there, thinking.

“So it sounds like you’ve already made the decision to go back.” Joe said, a little dejected they hadn’t talked it over.

“No, No, No! I’m like the actress who is nominated for the Oscar and loses saying the honor was being nominated. I’m so happy they WANT me back, and would be excited to HAVE me back. Joe I’ve been out of the loop and away from it all for 9 years and they haven’t skipped a beat in their respect for my talents. Do you know how humbling that is? They have 2 prospective partners who are a little shy on the extra mile you have to go, and they want me to hold their hands to see if they can get through, ... when they have 3 or 4 of the best financial minds on earth there. Come on Joe, think about it! BUT, you know I wouldn’t make any decision like this without you. We have to plan how we continue our lives, what we’ll do, how we’ll do it. It’s another reason I think the trip to Jamaica and Negril is important. We can be away and think without distraction. And ... make love 5 times a day and not wear clothes all day if we don’t want to.” She said defending herself and adding her own wish for the beach at Negril.

“I wasn’t convinced about the Jamaica trip until now. We have a lot to think about and a lot to decide upon. Sure, the thought of living our lives away in our new homes and moving from one to another on a whim is what we wanted and talked about before, BUT, doesn’t it seem like there are challenges and tasks in life that we’ve missed or passed over? ... or can we get by without them? If we really try to bring a child, or even two, into the world, can I enjoy fatherhood when I’m 60, or 70?” Joe mused.

“Could we enjoy parenthood once school starts and we have to stay in one place for 9 months every year? That’s the one bothering me. Those 9 years were the time we were to use to settle into all of this and send our child off to college before you were 60.” She said still holding her face to Joe’s shoulder while pondering aloud the thoughts she had heretofore kept to herself.

“The nine years may have taken away our opportunity to have a baby? I thought it was so important to you.” Joe asked, knowing it was her dream.

“It is,” she said starting to cry, “It might seem selfish, but I don’t want to share you until you’re 70 or more and then get our freedom if he or she goes to college and have you too old to enjoy our total freedom. We could board a child at some fancy school, but then WE wouldn’t be raising it to our ideals. I’m so confused and don’t want to bring a child into this unless we settle down. We haven’t settled down in all the time we’ve been together and being gadabouts is the prize we aimed for.” Selena said, continuing to cry as reality was settling in.

“Fuck! You see? Not thinking my age would be a problem as we got older has become the problem. I’ve screwed up your life like all the naysayers said I would.” Joe said rubbing her back and feeling a little sorry he said the words aloud.

“Don’t be a jerk Joe! I have NO life without you. Loving you is my greatest accomplishment, no matter what you think. I never would have made it past the probation on Wall Street without you, I would be nowhere!! Damn you for saying that!” She said as she slapped the arm she had been hugging repeatedly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I guess I want wallow in self pity ... OH, I almost forgot after YOUR phone call. The DNA for the child you had does match you, but not Jack Spagner. She’s trying to get the OK to check the rest of the DNA in the sample files the employees volunteered for in the experiment Philly told us about.” He told her after his own mea culpa, keeping in he and Philly’s no holding back promise.

“Oh my GOD! Have they checked YOUR DNA? I can’t believe anyone else in that hospital laid a hand on me. What if that baby was OURS?” She asked with hope and regret in her tone. “I thought we decided NOT to interfere with the girl’s life, no matter what. She could never be ours, but Philly IS getting my DNA profile from Edison.” Joe said sadly.

“Not “ours” as to take possession, but ours as in made by our love, by our own egg and seed. Taking the child away from her parents would only serve us and cause so many problems. When you hear of that happening I think it’s so selfish.” Selena said clarifying, “but I would love to see her, see what she’s like.”