Chapter 7

J. Carlton Scott, III, was miserable today. He had been miserable the day before as well; and the day before that; and every day since his divorce from his ex-wife, Madison, had become final six months earlier. On some days, the activities of running his inherited ... well, 'Empire' would probably be an apt description of it, kept him from being totally miserable every waking hour.

Carl and Madison had met during their college days in the Greater Philadelphia area. Maddy was at Bryn Mawr College in the section of town that carried that name, while Carl attended The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in downtown Philly. They had married one year after he finished at Wharton to allow her to finish at Bryn Mawr, and had enjoyed almost a decade of matrimony together--most of it joyous, but some of it shaky.

Finally, when Carl had learned what he termed 'The Horrible Secret, ' he had filed for divorce.

They had put up with some strange lifestyle elements together when Carl had worked for J.A.M. Aluminum in Middlebury, Vermont. These lifestyle elements had been part of the prerequisites for Carl's successful rise to the position of Senior VP within that company--to go along with his superior business acumen and his success on behalf of the company at more junior levels.

It had been at a party for J.A.M. just the previous year that Carl had overheard a piece of information that had driven a stake in the heart of his marriage. What Carl had heard that day had left him as one of the 'walking dead' for over two months before he had decided to call it off with Maddy. He had refused to talk to Maddy directly after that, choosing to let the lawyers handle the negotiations. She had wanted to believe that Carl had finally come to find their somewhat free-love lifestyle elements abhorrent enough to call it off, but he had never let on to her that this was not his REAL reason for letting her go.

The actual reason was simply too disgusting in his mind to let pass; and, since he had refused to talk to her after filing for the divorce, they had never discussed that actual reason. The divorce had been finalized months later and Carl had been taken to the cleaners by Madison's lawyers. He had found financial salvation only through the provision of his late father's estate that set him up in his dad's open position as head of the Pearl Foundation.

Carl was still sorting through his mind this morning just what he wanted his newly-acquired staff here at the offices of the Pearl Foundation to call him. In his previous working career--actually, ever since he had attended and graduated from Wharton--he had simply been 'Carl.' That's what his old friends and what Maddy--here his eyes lost focus as he reminisced briefly about their loving decade together before the divorce--had called him.

Carl's late mother had called him 'C3, ' as she did not want to confuse her household, to include the domestic staff, as toward whom she was directing her usual vitriol--at his late father, J. Carlton Scott, Jr. or at him, J. Carlton Scott, III. And she absolutely refused to call him 'Trey;' one of the few things in her marriage about which she had agreed after her early years with her husband. His late dad and most of the older members of the board referred to him as 'Young Carl'--to distinguish him from the late 'Old Carl'--while the staff called him 'Mr. Scott.' His PA here at the Pearl Foundation, Yvonne, simply called him 'Boss.'

The voice of that very last person about whom he had been thinking broke through his ruminations. "Boss, you need to get your head in the game here before you meet with the board. I mean, they know that you are in charge, but they can also smell your hesitation sometimes." Yvonne, while normally very formal and businesslike, could be rather blunt when she had to be.

Yvonne had come to be a real treasure in Carl's mind; personally, yes, but mainly professionally. She was thirty-one, just two years younger than Maddy--damn, did he always have to compare the women he met to his ex-wife? The executive PA had already shown Carl over the past seven months just how well she handled the activities here at the Pearl Foundation.

Yvonne deconflicted schedules, made any and all travel reservations and accommodations for Carl and the other senior board members, and kept everything going like clockwork. She also advised Carl on the personal agendas and the weaknesses of the other board members beforehand, so that Carl could hold his own at the meetings.

Yvonne also had a killer body; and her other physical features were movie-star-quality. Carl knew this because the third day after he had assumed the mantle of Chairman, several months following the death of his father, Yvonne had come in at her now-routine point during mid-morning to discuss upcoming events. That day, however, Carl's jaw had dropped when he saw Yvonne wearing what would have been a woman's business skirt-suit, except that the skirt portion had a designed slit almost up to her waist on her left side. And the jacket that she had worn up top, which was buttoned at its only buttonhole ... was ALL she had worn up top. There had been no blouse visible at the lapels of the jacket and, the way the chest area of the jacket had been undulating, there had obviously been no bra underneath either.

Yvonne had sat down in front of Carl and, crossing her legs slowly and grandly--à la Sharon Stone, flashing to him the fact that there was no covering of any kind under her skirt between Carl and Yvonne's naked pussy--she had begun to relate to him his schedule for the next two days, as she normally did, reading from her tablet PC. Needless to say, Carl could not keep his attention on the facts being relayed to him by the gorgeous woman, as he had been mesmerized by her sexiness.

He had been annoyed at himself at the same time. This was symptomatic of his problems in the area of sex that he had dealt with for his whole life since entering puberty.

Carl's mother had tried to raise him with the strict morals of her very conservative northeastern Episcopal upbringing. But his father had been an out-and-out hedonist, causing much conflict in his household, until Old Carl had finally moved out of the house and had abandoned Young Carl's shrew of a mother; but she had refused to cooperate in any form of divorce--it just was NOT done in her family--so they had remained married but separated until she had died when Young Carl was a junior in college. She had, while still alive, exerted her puritanical control over the teenage development of 'C3' as she called him, including her strict ideas of morality, leaving him with some of her stuffiness even after her passing.

When Young Carl had graduated from Wharton, he had not been a virgin. But that was only because of a party where friends got him drunk and set him up with a cute blonde. He had awakened and been shocked to find the girl riding his cock and smiling down at him. He had not thrown her out; but, when she had kissed him afterward and left, he had showered, dressed, and called his mother to confess his sins. His mother had chastised him a bit and then advised him to choose his friends more carefully.

His father, Old Carl, had maintained contact and had brought Young Carl to his townhouse in Boston several times during the boy's late teens and early adulthood. There, the old man had tried to get his son to lighten up and enjoy life a bit more, and to throw off some of the emotional shackles that his mother had placed on him--without much success.

Young Carl had told his father that his mother believed Old Carl to be nothing more than a 'glorified pimp, procurer, and pornographer, ' despite the lofty designation of his business as a 'Foundation.' Old Carl had honestly told his son that not all of the activities overseen by the Pearl Foundation may be ones with which people in so-called polite society would feel comfortable, but the activities in question were emotionally healthy, enjoyable to a majority of Americans who indulged in them, and they were definitely lucrative to the Foundation.

Those activities also served to provide a basis for leverage in certain business, economic, social, and political circles. Old Carl would remain deliberately vague with his son concerning the details at that point in their discussions. It was enough for Old Carl to begin to prepare Young Carl with the idea that he might someday be the man in charge at the Pearl Foundation.

Well-propagandized by his mother, Young Carl had been aghast at that idea back then of running such a 'Foundation.' It was amazing, the son had later noted, just how much the financial realities following his own divorce from Maddy and his resignation as a Senior Vice President at J.A.M. Aluminum had allowed him to accommodate reality, both mentally and emotionally over the past year.

At that fateful third-day mid-morning meeting with Yvonne, Carl had been unable to resist the woman's approach to his executive chair following the conclusion of her reading over his itinerary. Yvonne had knelt at Carl's feet, unzipped his fly, and proceeded to give him the most fantastic blow job he had experienced in recent memory. After swallowing his cum, Yvonne had licked him off, tucked his cock back into his pants, and zipped him up. Then she had smiled at him without saying a word and had left the office. Later that morning, Carl had noted that Yvonne still had the slutty business suit on. But she had at least donned a silk blouse and bra underneath the jacket for the rest of the business day. She had never dressed with such revealing clothing again since that day.

The two of them had not had any more sexual encounters, but Yvonne would now frankly ask Carl once or twice a week if he needed for her to arrange for his sexual relief. She indicated that there were several ladies on staff, single and married, who would be willing to have sex with Carl with just a short notice and minimal time to prepare; say, thirty minutes. Carl could have them go out with him, or they would accommodate him right here in his office if he so desired.

To date, Carl had declined. Yes, he was horny, but he was still--damn, had it been seven months already--hurting inside at having tossed aside the one woman whom he had truly loved with all his heart; his ex-wife, Madison. He just could not seem to get on with his life and meet someone new with the idea of a relationship, either emotional or just sexual, until he was finally over her. 'You'd think I could hate the bitch after what I heard that day, ' thought Carl for the thousandth time this month.

"Boss, are you listening?" Yvonne's chastising tone brought Carl back to the present. "Are you ready for the board meeting?" Carl blinked, looked up, nodded, reached for his leather executive folder, and stood to follow his PA into the conference room for his meeting with the board members.

Sunday was the only time the Foundation's board could meet, as most of the members were not engaged full-time with the Pearl Foundation; they were actually legitimate businessmen in various enterprises throughout the northeastern U.S. and had to be at their normal places of business the next day, Monday, when America went back to work after relaxing for the weekend. The board meeting today only lasted about an hour, but one item on the agenda still had Carl mildly upset an hour after he had returned to his office.

Damn! Mo! A Trustee!

"Why have I not been informed until now about Mr. Morris having been brought on board as a Trustee for one of the Foundation's main regional activities?" asked Carl with a touch of anger, still tinged with his surprise from the meeting earlier. He had discovered at the board meeting that Mr. Richard 'Mo' Morris had been brought in personally by his father, near the time of Old Carl's death during the past fall, to be the Trustee overseeing the training facility for long-term escorts--Courtesans and Cavalier Servente--at Middlebury College; the one designed to appear as a collegiate social organization, and called the 'Sigma Lambda Tau Society.'

"Well, Boss," Yvonne told him, "the Trustees actually only meet once annually to discuss budgets, income flow, and monetary distributions. The subject simply has not come up till now. Do you have a problem with Mr. Morris being a trustee? I hope not, as your father made it especially clear to all that he wanted Mr. Morris was to be the Trustee for the Middlebury enterprise."

"Not a problem, Yvonne; it is just a shock," Carl told her. "He is the President of J.A.M. Aluminum, and MY former boss. Until the spring of last year, I was one of his Senior Vice Presidents at J.A.M. Aluminum. So his placement as a Trustee on a board that I now seem to be overseeing seems to have caused somewhat of a role reversal here, and it could prove to be ... awkward, I guess. That's all."

"Are you sure that's all?" Yvonne had put her tablet computer down and looked her boss carefully.

"No," Carl answered his PA truthfully but hesitantly, "But I guess it is just something that I will have to accept if the Foundation is to continue according to the instructions that my father laid out in his will and in other papers that he left behind for me when he died."

Having been forced to sell back his shares of J.A.M. Aluminum at his departure from that company, because J.A.M. was privately held--and he had signed just such a sell-back agreement when he had been brought on board as just a Junior Vice President--and having been raped by his ex-wife's attorney and the court system following his divorce, Carl had been left with little choice. His financial situation had been in the toilet and he found that his father had left him with an opportunity to more than correct his dismal financial situation by taking over the leadership of the Pearl Foundation. But it had cost Young Carl something else as well.

It had cost him his former position on what he had considered the 'Moral High Ground.'

Carl had been required to reevaluate his position concerning his late father's outlook on life--compared to that outlook which his mother had tried to instill in him during his youth--and the activities in which the late patriarch had been an active participant or overseer. Now Young Carl had to force himself to become what his late mother had termed a 'glorified pimp, procurer, and pornographer.'

Carl's newly-acquired empire, the Pearl Foundation, encompassed--while keeping very low visibility--the capitalizing and follow-on income streams not only from highly aggressive investments, but from such ventures as adult film studios and video sales; highly valued and professional escort services in several major cities; and several up-scale gentlemen's clubs in the western part of the U.S. The Foundation was also involved in some highly visible legitimate charitable work, such as scholarships for deserving students, aid to battered women's shelters, and private adoption services for orphans or unwanted children born out of wedlock.

There was even a segment of the Foundation that arranged for business consulting for firms that needed 'hired guns' with certain expertise to correct their business models and help them become competitive once more. There was also a Federal-tax-exempt 527 organization within the Foundation serving to fund several political action committees (or PACs) that aided campaigns for candidates that espoused pro-business positions (and, under the table, the campaigns of pro-business political candidates around the country, but especially within the northeast United States).

Then, there was the legitimate immigration of young men and women for employment in the U.S., but with well-hidden strings attached requiring them to be involved in sexual activities to some degree--yes, it was human trafficking, but without any of the brutality of the Russian mob; just contractual arrangements for services leading to support in attaining education, employment, and, finally, U.S. citizenship and eventual freedom from any further obligations to the foundation.

And, finally, there was a pizza company--of all things--that included delivery of quality sex along with quality pizza. Carl could only shake his head at the imagination and warped ingenuity and sense of humor of his late father, as well as for some of his dad's other idiosyncrasies. For some strange reason, Old Carl had left specific instructions that his young heir had leeway to reorganize the activities of the Pearl Foundation as he saw fit, but he must NOT change or stop the Pizza Grande operation--curious.

Sunday evening--Brooke and Jeremy.

Brooke had chosen to try to take a nap after brunch on Sunday afternoon, but was only able to doze. It did not really bother her that she did not drift off, though. Jeremy was trying to help her while he watched television, by keeping the volume low; he was watching ESPN's coverage of the end of Spring Training for the Major League Baseball teams, with a Grapefruit League game going on in Sanford, Florida between the Braves and the Orioles. ESPN2 had a Cactus League game on between the Mariners and the Rockies, and Jeremy would flip the stations to watch each game for a few minutes at a time.

Around five-thirty, the four Montpelier Sigma Lambda Tau Society members were picked up by their limo driver, Hector, and were driven to the building where they were to meet up with Peggy Cornwall and Joyce Duncan. Those two ladies were standing by Peggy's BMW 550i Gran Tourismo. Derek contemplated the Milano metallic beige sedan and wondered what it would be like to be able to afford a car that comes in right at seventy grand.

Melanie and Brooke rode with Peggy, while Derek and Jeremy rode in Joyce's Land Rover. The trip only took about five minutes, and both vehicles pulled up outside of a conference center on the outskirts of Montpelier. Both Peggy and Joyce handed off their keys to the young men performing valet parking for those arriving at the center.

Once inside, Peggy and Joyce moved with a purpose, with their young charges in tow. They entered a medium-sized conference room which had a light buffet set up to one side. There were men and women in business attire scattered around the room, but some were congregated at the buffet line. Peggy motioned with her chin and the group with her moved toward a group of well-dressed Asian gentlemen conversing over drinks at the side of the room.

"Mr. Kitagami," began Peggy, as she extended her hand. "It is so nice to see you again." The man, who appeared to be at least a decade older than Peggy--it was difficult for Brooke to tell, as she was not that familiar with the signs of aging for Asian men--did not quite smile, but his eyes reflected amusement and pleasure at seeing the American woman approach him.

Kitagami reached out to take Peggy's extended hand and give it a shake. He drew up into a formal stance and gave a brief head bow. He said, "Ms. Cornwall. It is a pleasure to see you again." Jeremy and Brooke both noted that Mr. Kitagami did not have the typical difficulty that Japanese non-English speakers had in producing the correct phonemes. He still had the tendency to speak slowly, even though his English was quite easily understood. Something about his expression and general demeanor also told Jeremy that this was a man who was comfortable in just about any setting and who probably wielded a lot of power in the boardrooms of the businesses with which he was involved.