Chapter 26: Love in the Air

“Are you Paul Taylor?” a perky brunette woman with pouty lips and blue eyes asked as I stood outside the doors of the Egyptian Theater in Park City.

“I am,” I answered, and as I recognized her, I added, “And you’re Susan Dey.”

She smiled and nodded. “I saw the documentary short about you yesterday. Did you know we’re practically neighbors?”

“Really? How’s that?”

“I was born in Pekin, Illinois.”

I laughed. “We are practically neighbors. What brings you out to Sundance and Park City?”

“I’m in one of the dramatic entries: ‘The Trouble with Dick’. It premiered last night. Today I’m catching a couple of films.”

“Me, too,” I said as the line started moving.

“Well, I just thought I’d say hello and wish you well.”

“And to you,” I said. “I’ll try to catch your film.”

She waved and we parted ways. I got a few more looks after that, and several women asked if they could take a picture with me. I tried to be nice, and saw Alison across the street laughing at me. I was glad to make it inside and find a seat. By then I had begun regretting coming alone.

Jeryl had opted for a little skiing, and sent me on my way to fend for myself. She enjoyed the parties we had gone to last night, and had enjoyed meeting some celebrities; but she soon realized being a celebrity, or the fiancéŽ of a celebrity, was not always fun. As the two ladies next to me chatted about the documentary that was about me, I found myself more embarrassed than flattered. I was glad when the lights finally dimmed.

Two hours later, I made my escape, and decided I was done with screenings this weekend. I spotted Alison outside, with Tom, as I exited the lobby of the theater.

“What’s up?” I asked as I approached them.

“I need to talk to you about selling some rights to the film. Cannon Films has made an offer.”

That surprised me. We started walking toward one of the Festival venues to get out of the cold that seemed to be following the shadows as the sun sank. “What sort of offer?”

“They want to buy the TV rights for the short. Evidently they’re trying to put together several documentaries into a TV special. They want me to come aboard, to help put it all together, as well.”

“That’s great, Tom! Of course we’ll do a deal. Get what you think is fair.”

I tried to turn away from the doors before us. I was ready to call it a day. We were flying out early in the morning.

“You’ve got to be there,” he insisted. “You own fifty-one percent of the rights. I need your signature, to sell.”

Of course he did. I sighed.

“Okay. Do we have firm offer?”

He nodded.

“Let’s go inside and get Kelly on the phone. If she’s not at the house, Matthew should be able to track her down. She can come down and review any paperwork before it’s signed.”

We headed inside looking for a phone. Instead of getting to bed early, we spent an hour glad-handing buyers and producers in the film world waiting for Kelly to show up. When she finally did, we got down to business and soon had a contract everyone could live with. Once signatures were done, we had to have a celebratory toast. Then we did a little press photo-op and announced the deal.

I didn’t get back to the house until after midnight. Jeryl snuggled up next to me in bed as I softly complained about how tired I was.

“Should have gone skiing,” she said before giving me a kiss goodnight.

The next morning, we were up early to head down to the airport. We were back at Stanford in time for our afternoon classes, and then had Hunter and Lila over for dinner at the house. It took most of the week for us to settle back into the routine of classes, studying, handling business correspondence and making a little time for ourselves and our friends.

Alison headed back to London to check up on her business, and to ‘put out a fire’ with Lloyds. While she had yet to share our bed in California, we always felt a sense of loss when she left us for work.

Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, so I decided to do it up right. I managed to convince Hunter to let me treat him and Lila as well. We drove to San Francisco and spent the day doing romantic tourist stuff before checking into the Drake Hotel on Union Square. We changed into formal wear and had dinner in the restaurant before adjourning to our rooms to celebrate privately.

That weekend seemed to set the tone for the first half of the semester. Hunter and Lila seemed to be at our house almost as much as we were. It was fun having another couple around to share our doings. Hunter joined me in my morning runs three days a week and then encouraged me to spend time at the pool with him. It was a different kind of workout than I had been doing, but I found myself enjoying it.

My project was moving along well. I had run ‘Charlie’, my robot, up our stairs but was still tweaking some code to make its gait smoother. The week before spring break was my presentation for both my E.E. and M.E. senior projects. I made certain I was ready for them. Jeryl seemed to breeze through her classes. I asked her about it one of the few nights we ate alone.

“These classes are all about stuff I’ve already done,” she answered. “Remember when you told me there would be some time when I realized I had more experience than my professors?”

I nodded.

“It’s now that time. The other day, one professor was lecturing about taking a medical device to market. I raised my hand and asked why not just license it, and he looked like he had swallowed a fish, whole. I jumped in with both feet and ran through calculating a reasonable licensing scheme instead of trying to raise capital and establish a manufacturing capability. He thought he could put me in my place by having us calculate one, three, and five year valuations. Then he looked like he had sucked a lemon when the licensing approach netted thirty percent more at the five year point because there were no capital costs to repay for start-up expenses.”

“Good for you.”

“Good for us,” she said. I arched an eyebrow. “It means we’re doing the right thing with your inventions. It also means I have more time to finalize things for the wedding.”

“Is there much left to do?”

“No, but I keep going over everything. The logistics are the big thing, making sure everyone has tickets and rooms booked and that sort of thing.”

“Are you going to tell me where it’s at yet?”

She smiled and said, “Since you’ve been so good about it, I guess I will. It’s the same place where you proposed to me. Will a beach wedding in Maui be alright with you?”

“It will be perfect. It’s set for the weekend after graduation, right?”

“You know it is. It’s also Memorial Day weekend, so no excuses on not remembering our anniversary. We’ve got everything planned.”

“Who’s the maid of honor?”

“I wanted Alison, but she actually declined. She insisted she wanted to make sure we were safe. Then I thought of asking Kelly, but Jordan and Jyl would feel left out if I asked your stepsister instead of one of my own sisters.”

I nodded. “So who is it then?”

“Lila, and don’t you dare let her know she was the second choice!”

“Of course not. Do I still get to plan the honeymoon?” I asked.

“You do. We can leave anytime after the 27th. I’ve got our accommodation on island covered through that week, so if we want to stick around a while we can.”

“Perfect.”

“I guess I shouldn’t even bother asking where we’re going, should I?”

“Nope. You’ll like it. I promise.”

“Come on, sexy,” I said as I grabbed Jeryl by the waist, and pulled her toward the stairs. Hunter and Lila were laughing at us. I had just come in the door after my last class before spring break, waved at them, and then grabbed Jeryl.

“What are you doing, Paul Taylor? We have company!”

I ignored her protests, picked her up, and put her over my shoulder. She pounded my back as I laughed.

“‘Charlie’ climbed the steps! Up and down. My project is finished, and it is time for spring break. I’m taking you up to change.”

“Change into what? she asked as I marched into our room and tossed her on the bed.

“Traveling clothes,” I said with a grin. “You’ve got twenty minutes and then the bus is leaving with whatever you’ve got on and what you’ve packed.”

“What?”

I ran back down stairs before Hunter and Lila could leave.

“Hey, Midshipmen,” I barked at them. “You have twenty minutes before we are picking you up for a trip. Pack light. No arguments.”

Lila played along and popped to attention and saluted. “Aye, Aye, sir!”

She grabbed Hunter’s hand and dragged him from the couch and out the front door.

Matthew came in from the kitchen. “I take it things went well?” he asked.

“Very well. Now, go fetch my evil stepsister and her bag. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

I ran back upstairs. Jeryl was carefully laying things out on the bed to pack. “You could have sprung this on me earlier, Paul. Where are we going so I know what to pack? I can’t find some things I’d usually take.”

I gave her my best imitation of an evil laugh, grabbed the stack of underwear she had laid out along with a couple of skirts and tops and dumped them all into the open carry-on.

“There, you are packed.”

“Hey!”

I ducked back into the office before she could work up any real anger and grabbed the bag I had secretly packed for her the day before.

“Here. Now you’re packed. Let’s go.”

I threw my weight around a few more times before everyone was in cars and on the way to the airport. Three couples climbed into the G-400 at the airport, and we took off a little over two hours after I had finished my presentation.

Jeryl and Kelly were surprised to see that we had a stewardess aboard for this flight. The attractive blonde lady wasted no time opening a bottle of champagne and pouring us all glassfuls.

After my toast to spring break, Jeryl put her foot down. “Where are we going, Paul?”

“Spring break, where else?”

“Daytona Beach? Palm Beach? Where?”

“A little further south,” I said.

“Paul.”

I could tell she was losing her patience.

“Saint Lucia. The house is ready for us.”

“Saint Lucia?” Lila asked.

“Yep.”

“You didn’t tell us to bring passports, Paul,” Lila said with a disappointed frown.

Jeryl gave me a furious look. I smiled.

“Got that covered,” I said.

I reached into my satchel and pulled out Lila and Hunter’s passports. Lila paled.

“How did you get those?”

“You guys really shouldn’t leave things like this lying about,” I said with a smirk.

I wasn’t about to say that I had conspired with Hunter to have them. Lila unbuckled her seatbelt and walked around to me to grab her passport. Then she hit me, hard.

“Ow!”

“Serves you right for stealing.”

I rubbed my shoulder and Hunter came to my rescue with a laugh.

“Don’t be mad, Lila. I took them yesterday and gave them to Paul. He told me what he was planning. Why do you think I resisted your attempts to go home and ‘kick off spring break with a ‘bang?’”

The tension that had filled the plane dissipated.

“So, how long to get there?” Lila finally asked.

“About eight hours, so have a drink,” I said and motioned for the stewardess to refill the glasses.

We settled down and sipped our champagne. We played some cards before having a light dinner. Then everyone found comfortable spots to sleep for the remainder of the flight.

We had taken off around six in the evening, which was ten at night in Saint Lucia. We landed just after six AM local time. We cleared customs without a problem and climbed onto the private bus I had arranged for the forty-minute drive to the house.

We were all mostly awake by the time the bus made it up the winding road to the house. Lila oohed and ahhed at the lush green grass and landscaping. Hunter and Matthew were more reserved, but still impressed. We stopped in front of the modern entryway lined with white tile and glass block walls.

“Friends, let’s go see how it looks,” I said.

We climbed off the bus and headed inside. The tour was brief, because everyone immediately gravitated to the wide balcony overlooking Soufriere Bay, facing the Pitons on the far side.

“What a view,” Hunter said as he stopped beside me.

“Everyone else came out and stood in the warm morning sun to admire the view before noticing the fresh fruit, juice and coffee set out for us.

“Someone likes us,” Matthew said as he began putting a plate together.

We all ate a bit and then decided to sort out our rooms. Jeryl and I settled into the master, after making sure everyone else was taken care of. I opted for a quick shower, while Jeryl stripped and went to lay out on the private balcony our room had. It was above and off to one side of the main patio area. As I came out of the shower, I was surprised to hear voices from the balcony. I went out with a towel around my waist to find Alison stretched out in her own naked glory next to Jeryl.

“I think spring break just got a lot more interesting,” I said.

Alison shielded her eyes from the sun and smiled. “Do you think you could help with the sunscreen?” she asked.

“There you are,” Matthew said as he stepped into the small outbuilding I had put up after buying the estate in Saint Lucia. He paused as his eyes adjusted to the interior light. “I thought this was a non-working vacation,” he said as he looked around the workbenches I had installed.

“Shh,” I said as if the beaker I held was volatile. I swirled the liquid and then poured it through a filter.

“What is that?” he asked softly as he stepped closer.

I carefully set the beaker down and then scrapped the filtered particulate into another small container. I set the container on the bench, peeled off my gloves, and raised my face shield with a dramatic sigh.

“It’s a new nanotube formulation,” I answered at a normal volume, making him jump. I laughed.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist giving you a hard time after you caught me out. It is a non-working vacation for you. You’re here as a friend and Kelly’s date, and not as my P.A.”

I stood up and stretched.

“However, since I am the boss, those rules don’t apply to me,” I said haughtily.

“Really? Will they suddenly apply if I mention it to Kelly or Jeryl?”

“Now, Matthew, you wouldn’t want to do anything foolish like that, would you?”

We laughed together and I cleaned things up.

“What’s it do?” he asked as I put the compound into a small shipping pouch.

“I think it will be a better formulation for armor. If we can scale production up, it should block radiation nicely. It’s a boron-nitrite and boron carbide formulation. I want to get it sent up to Austin for them to play with.” I ejected a hard-sided floppy disk from the Macintosh Plus computer on the bench and put it into the package as well. It had my encrypted notes that only Dr. Wilkerson would be able to decrypt, since I had used his specific key to encode it. I sealed up the package. It was already addressed.

“So what were you looking for me about?” I asked as we headed for the door.

“The girls want to go shopping.”

I groaned.

“Exactly. Hunter begged off saying we men were going sailing. Lila doesn’t believe him, so said they weren’t going until they saw us on the water. Rather than admit that we’d rather drown than go shopping again, I came out to find you so we could sail out into the bay until they’re gone and then come back and relax.”

I locked the door to the lab and we headed into the main house.

“Hunter!” I called. “Are you ready to sail yet?”

Four pair of female eyes turned to stare at me as I walked onto the balcony. Hunter smiled. Alison arched an eyebrow.

“You said we’d go out this morning,” I continued. “Have you checked the boat out yet?”

Hunter smiled. “I was waiting for you. Is it down on the beach?”

“It’s supposed to be. Let’s grab our gear and go. Ladies, I understand you’re going into town for a little shopping. Have fun.” I gave Jeryl a quick kiss and then headed upstairs to change to a bathing suit.

When I came back downstairs Matthew, Hunter, and Alison were waiting for me.

“Alison? I thought you were going into town with the girls.”

She gave me a knowing smile. “I decided I’d rather sail. Philip went to keep an eye on them.”

I shrugged, and looked at Hunter.

“You do know how to sail, don’t you, Navy man?”

He nodded and said, “Of course, but it depends on what sort of boat you have,” he added as a caveat.

I laughed and grabbed a backpack with water and towels in it, and headed for the gate leading to the stairs going down the cliff to the private beach. Everyone followed along and we were soon standing before a black-hulled catamaran. I went over to the boat shed and got the rudder assembly while pointing out the sails and dagger boards for them to carry out.

Hunter got demoted to first mate since he had no experience on anything except the ‘420’ the midshipmen all learned to sail on. He did at least know all the terminology and how to rig the sail. Soon we were moving away from the beach using the mainsail only and getting a feel for the boat.

“Paul, this looks like a Hobie Cat, but different,” Hunter said as we settled onto a broad reach away from the island.

“It’s based on it, but I had it custom built. It uses our materials as much as possible so it’s both stronger and lighter. I’ve been anxious to give it a go. I had a couple of guys in Newport Beach working out the kinks, last summer. Let’s see how it goes with the jib out,” I said.

Hunter started to move forward but I waved him back to the rudder. “Keep it on this tack,” I said and ran out the jib from its furled position around the forestay. I let the sail luff after checking the rigging and returning aft by the rudder.

“Okay, you land lubbers,” I said to Matthew and Alison. “We’re going to pick up a little speed, so hang on. Stay on the high side of the boat as much as you can,” I said as I trimmed the jib and pulled in the mainsail.

The daggerboards bit water as we sailed closer to the wind and picked up some speed. Hunter and I moved out to the wings and I extended the handle on the rudder to keep us under control. We both had grins on our faces as the windward hull began rising out of the water.

Our ‘pretend’ sail turned into a full day. We zipped around the bay as everyone had a chance to man the rudder and sails. Hunter and I finally dropped Alison and Matthew at the beach and decided to see how well it could really do. In addition to the wing seats, we clipped on the trapeze and hiked out on a fast tack. It was exhilarating as we rushed through the water with the wind blowing. We came about smartly and took another tack back toward the beach. We dropped our sails and pulled up the daggerboards just in time to coast in over the small waves. Everyone was on the beach to greet us.

“Wow, that looked like fun,” Lila said as she came up and gave Hunter a hug and kiss.

“It was a blast,” he said. “Maybe next time you’ll sail instead of shop,” he added with a grin.

She smiled and kissed him again. Matthew and Alison helped drop the sails and secure the boat as everyone else began planning a bonfire on the beach after dinner. It turned into a perfect end for the day.

Alison slipped into the bed beside me in the pre-dawn light. “Where did you go?” I asked softly so as to not wake Jeryl.

“Just checking on things. Philip and Tiffany have things covered, but I had a feeling and wanted to see for myself.”

She kissed my shoulder and then my ear. I shifted around to hug her to me.

“It’s been nice having you with us, this week,” I said between kisses to her lips, cheeks, and collarbone.

Alison gave a small shiver of excitement and stroked my head.

“It has. Keeping it secret from the others has given me a delicious added thrill. I’m sure Kelly suspects, but she is too busy keeping Matthew’s attention where it should be.”

I rolled over a little further and lowered my head to capture a nipple between my lips. Alison sighed and pushed her breast against me. I smiled and continued licking.

“God, Paul, you know you’re the only man that’s ever gotten me so excited? And you’re almost young enough to be my son.”

“Hardly, unless you had me at fourteen,” I said as paused in my sucking and took a breath. I kissed her between her delightful breasts and then began kissing lower.

She stopped me from going down on her. “Not this morning. I love when you do, but I’ve got to get up soon and start making preparations for leaving.”

“Don’t you have people you pay for that?” I asked before giving her another passionate kiss.

“Yes,” she replied breathlessly a minute later, “but they don’t love the people they’re protecting. I do, and I want to make sure they are protected fully.”

She kissed me hard once more, and then slipped back out of bed. I watched her stretch toward the ceiling and then bend over to touch her toes. She shot me a saucy look with her head near her knees and then straightened. She blew me a kiss and headed for the shower.

I watched until she was gone and then rolled over to cuddle with Jeryl some more. As she spooned back against my erection, she moaned softly.

“I love it when she gets you worked up for me,” she said as she opened her eyes.

We made love slowly, with passion, until Alison came back out in a towel. Jeryl was astride me, working her hips in slow circles.

“If you don’t pick up the pace,” she said after kissing Jeryl good morning, “you’ll miss your flight.”

Jeryl maintained her slow circles.

“He owns the fucking plane. It will wait. Now kiss me again,” she demanded.

Alison did. Watching their slow tongue dance gave me the visual stimulation I needed. I grabbed Jeryl’s hips and began thrusting up as she continued her gyrations. Soon, we both came. Alison kissed me and then Jeryl once more and headed out of our room and back to hers. We lay in bed until I softened, and then slowly made our way to the shower.

Packing followed breakfast and soon we were all loading ourselves onto the bus for the trip back to the airport. It had been a fun, relaxing vacation for us all.

“So the G-400 can handle Hawaii to Naples?” I asked Alison when we had a minute alone back at the house near Stanford.

“Yes. You’ll have to refuel twice and I’ll arrange a crew change to coincide with refueling. Maui to Vegas to New York to Naples. Maui to New York is just beyond the range of the G-400. Next time you build an airplane, give it a 6,000-mile range. It would simplify things greatly.”

I laughed. “That one crashed, but we’re working on it. The boat will meet us there?”

She nodded. “I’ve told them to be in port on the 26th and take on supplies. We should arrive on the 29th if we depart on the 27th. We’ll have about seventeen hours in the air, and four hours on the ground, refueling.”

“Wow, it’s going to be a long trip.”

“I’m sure a honeymooning couple can find some way to spend the time,” she said with a grin. “Especially when it will just be them and their head of security on the plane.”

“Oh? No pilots?”

“They’ll have their instructions. You wont see them except at take off and landing, for the first two legs.”

“And on the boat?”

“Philip will be flying out ahead to be the chef for you. Two others will be aboard to augment the crew.”

“Augment?”

“They’re a very professional bunch running this charter, mostly ex-Navy and Marines. British for the most part, so much more professional than their Yank counterparts.”

She said it deadpan, and I laughed.

“I’m going to tell Lila and Hunter you said that,” I teased.

“And spoil your surprise honeymoon? I doubt it.”

She smirked and then stuck out her tongue at me, playfully.

I pretended to scowl at her.

“Remind me to spank you for that,” I joked.

“You shouldn’t tease me with promises you won’t keep,” she shot back.

“Just wait until I do keep it. I’ll have Jeryl help hold you down.”

Alison smiled and then came close to me.

“If you do that,” she whispered, “I might try to get in trouble more often.”

Then she kissed me. Before I could respond, she broke the kiss and headed for the door.

“I’ll let you know if anything changes in the plans,” she said as she left.

“What plans?” Jeryl asked after passing Alison at the door.

“Alison’s spanking after our wedding,” I growled.

Jeryl smiled. “Oh, goodie! Can I help?”

I hoped Alison heard her.

“Well, Paul, this should be the last time we need to meet, unless you blow your finals,” Professor Hamilton said as he sat back behind his desk.

“I certainly plan on not doing that, sir,” I said with a grin.

“Your senior project was very well done. How did you feel about the GRE?”

I shrugged. “Not bad. I thought the P.E. exams were much harder.” I had opted to sit both my Professional Engineer exams this spring.

“Ah, yes, how do you think you did?”

“The Computer Engineering exam was harder than the Thermal and Fluid Systems, but I felt pretty good about both.”

“Why did you find the Computer Engineering one harder?”

I chuckled. “This will sound arrogant, but there were many questions that were behind the state of the art, based on what I’ve seen from Dr. Freis’ lab.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “He’s working with a graphene base as a semiconductor and magnetic loop gates for persistent RAM on the chip.”

“Graphene?”

“A single atom thickness of carbon. He’s getting some edge losses, but it is still a much better conductor. Right now, he can only accomplish low yields for production, but I’m hoping I can help improve that.”

I had never seen Dr. Hamilton show emotion, but now he was visibly agitated. “And the reason we’re not doing that research here is because of the patent ownership issue we talked about last fall?”

I nodded.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If it’s any consolation, my attorney is already talking to the University about adding Stanford to our endowment program.”

“And we’d work on this new chip?”

“The endowment is just that, a gift of funding to the University. If you are interested in pursuing a specific line of research, we solicit proposals in targeted areas twice a year. We’ve excluded Stanford from that process for the past four years, to avoid any potential conflict of interest.”

He shook his head. “Paul, when bureaucracy gets in the way of research, it’s a sure sign that someone’s priorities are really messed up.”

I smiled and said, “Well, Professor, I can’t promise anything, but if you put forth a proposal to continue developing the FLO language on distributed microprocessor networks, I think there is a very good chance we would pick up the funding.”

Now he had a gleam in his eye.

“And you would come back to review the work?”

I nodded and he smiled.

“How much research?”

“Just make it realistic.”

“I will. I’ll also be talking to the administration about a waiver for your research if you’d like to pursue your masters in that area. I think you might be onto something with these networked systems of independent processors.”

“I certainly believe in it. Once I graduate, I hope to start publishing again on some inventions that will leverage the capability. Time will tell.”

“I wish you well, Paul. Usually, this is where we would discuss letters of recommendation and introduction for potential job openings, but you hardly need those, do you?”

“No, sir. But I do thank you for the offer.”

“Come on, lazybones!” Jeryl said as she grabbed my foot which was the only part of my body not under the sheet on our bed.

“Why? Graduation isn’t until four.”

“Four for you. Mine’s at ten. You know that. If you wanted to sleep more, you shouldn’t have stayed up all night trying to knock me up.”

That woke me up. I turned over and flipped back the covers.

“What?”

She was grinning at me, as she stood by the bed fresh from the shower with just a towel around her.

“I thought that would get your attention. Don’t worry, my period should start next week. Now, get your sexy butt out of bed, so I can change the sheets before our folks get here for breakfast.”

I moved toward the bathroom. “I thought we were going out.”

“That was last week. Philip is here to cook for us, and watch the house, as Alison and some of the others head off to Maui to get ready for the wedding. Didn’t I tell you that, yesterday?”

“No,” I grumbled.

I got in the shower, and mechanically began going through my morning routine. I hadn’t worked out this morning, obviously, and was slow waking up as a result. The time since our spring break vacation had flown by. Graduation for the individual schools had started yesterday. Jeryl’s was this morning, as she said, and mine was this afternoon. We also had to go to Lila and Hunter’s commissioning ceremony tomorrow morning at ten.

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