I don't know whether I was naïve or just plain stupid, but it had to be one or the other that put me in the situation that I was in. And that? Driving away from the home of my sister in law with her husband's video camera and Beretta 94F on the seat beside me. I don't come off looking too good in the story that led me to this point and all I can say about it is what I said in the first paragraph – naïve or just plain stupid!

It all started fifteen years ago when I met Beverly McKay. It was lust at first sight on my part and it took me two weeks of trying almost daily to get her to go out with me. It took another month to get her on a bed with me and after that it was 'Katy bar the door' as we had sex anywhere we could and as often as we could.

It was great sex and Bev was one hot mama, but we both knew after the first couple of weeks that we were not right for each other, but that didn't stop us from fucking up a storm for almost nine months. It might have gone on longer, but Bev met Brad and I was history.

Three months later as I was moving through the Boom Boom Room looking for a honey to grace my bed that night I saw Bev and Brad come in and they had a raven haired beauty with them. I didn't go and say hi to them because I was a bit uncomfortable around Brad. He knew about the nine months I spent with Bev and while he'd never said anything to me I always felt that he was keeping a close eye on me when he was around. He really didn't need to though because even though I was a horn dog I did have some standards. I would not go after a married woman. I admit that I've had a few, but only because they hid the fact from me. Once I found out that they were wed I dropped them.

Even though I was avoiding Bev and Brad they had seen me when they came in and maybe twenty minutes after they had arrived Bev came up to me and told me that she needed a favor.

"My sister Barb just moved back to town and she is here with me tonight. She is a little on the nervous side because she doesn't know anyone here. Will you please join us and keep her company? I know she wants to dance, but she hasn't liked the looks of anyone who has asked her so far. I told her that I knew you and that you were a nice guy so help me out here please?"

"Knowing me as well as you do you are still willing to inflict me on your sister?"

"You aren't a bad guy Rob. You always took no for an answer. You kept trying until I stopped saying no, but you always stopped when I told you to."

I did join Bev, Brad and Bev's sister Barbara. Barb was a stone fox and by the time we returned to the table after our first dance I wanted her and not just as an evenings bed buddy. By the end of the evening in my mind I was already picturing the ring I was going to buy her. By the time we said goodnight I had a date with Barb for the next evening.

We had a great time on that date and when I took her home I had a date for Friday evening. For the first time since high school my goal was not the immediate bedding of my date. I took things slow and was extremely careful not to do anything that might put Barb off.

It was our sixth date before we kissed and even then it was Barb who made it happen. She had kissed me on the cheek on every date since the third, but on the sixth she kissed me on the lips and we stood in front of Bev and Brad's door necking for about ten minutes before she pushed me away and said:

"Good night sweetie."

On our next date the necking took place in my truck and lasted for over a half an hour. Once again it was started by Barb. When I pulled up in front of the house she slid over next to me and said "Kiss me" and of course I did and I kept doing it until she pulled away. I walked her to the door, got one last steamy kiss and then I headed back to my condo.

Yes, my condo. I guess it is time for a little about me. I'm Robert Dawson – Rob to my friends – and I'm a twenty-four year old college graduate with a degree in Business Management. I wanted to go for Electrical Engineering, but my dad was paying and he insisted on Business Management. He insisted because it would prepare me for moving into his business. The business was actually a holding company that had several going concerns among its properties.

Dad had started a construction company that had done so well that he bought a building supply company in order to give him better pricing on materials. The construction and building supply companies kept growing and dad bought a foundation and forms outfit to give him better pricing on concrete for his basements and footings. Next was a block of properties that he could build houses on followed by a landscaping company to finish off the houses that he built. And it went on and on like that.

Every summer from the time I turned thirteen was spent working for one or another of dad's companies as dad started to prepare me for taking over from him someday. That was his plan, but not mine. By the time I was eighteen I knew that I didn't want to take over from him. Not that I disliked the business, but because I didn't want to live the life he led.

The business consumed him. Up at five and off to work, rain or shine, weekdays and weekends and home late more often than not. I watched his marriage to my mom disintegrate slowly. He made lots of money and mom lacked for nothing. Big fancy house, a new luxury car every year, a maid to take care of the house and a gardener to take care of the grounds. Membership at the country club and enough credit cards to buy a small country. The one thing she really wanted she couldn't have. Dad!

I spent more time with him than she did, but only because he drug me off to work with him. Weekends, holidays, vacations and spring breaks were all spent working at one or another of his companies. Mom would have preferred to work with him as his PA or something just so she could spend some time with him, but he wouldn't have it.

"No wife of mine is going to have to work. I'm doing all this for you. I want you to have the life you deserve."

The problem with that was that it wasn't the life she wanted.

I was not going to live like that, but I was a realist. I didn't have to look for a job after graduation. I was guaranteed a job with a good salary and more than likely I would inherit the whole thing someday. I say more than likely because it wasn't a sure thing. Dad had a way of getting back at those who pissed him off and I belonged to that club.

It wasn't a month after going to work for my dad as a full time employee that I had an occasion to tell dad that his life was not going to be mine. I was working ten or twelve hours a day during the week and one Friday around two in the afternoon he called me into his office and told me that I was going to have to work the Sanderson project over the weekend and I flat out told him that I was not going to do it.

"Friday nights and the weekends are mine and I have no intension of spending them at work."

Then I got the lecture about responsibility and the needs of the company and how I needed to learn all the ins and outs and I could only get that experience by putting in time. I let him finish and then said:

"I know the ins and outs. You forget that you have had me working here since I was thirteen. I'll give fifty or sixty hours during the week, but the weekends are mine. I have absolutely no intension of turning out like you and spending every waking moment working, I am going to have a life outside of Dawson Enterprises."

He didn't like it, but short of firing me there wasn't anything he could do about it. I left his office, went home and changed clothes and then I went out on the prowl. That Friday was a turning point in my life. Not only was it the day I let my father know that Dawson Enterprises wasn't going to consume me as it had him, but it was on that Friday night's prowl that I met Beverly which in turn led to my meeting Barb.

As I drove home to the condo I'd bought with the trust fund I'd come into when I graduated from college (Mom had insisted that dad set it up) I contemplated my relationship with Barb. More to the point I contemplated on how hard or far to push things.

For the first time in my life I had a woman that I didn't want to lose. I'd had other ongoing relationships, but I had always known that they weren't going to last and knowing that I was not overly cautious about what I said or did. I did not want to do or say anything that would push Barb away.

Add to that Barb's actions. She had made the first moves as far as make out sessions were concerned and I had to wonder what that meant. Was she sending me signals? I had no frame of reference because it was always me pushing forward in my other relationships. I'd never had a woman make the first move. Was Barb telling me that..." "Oh fuck! Give it up" I thought as I parked the truck in my parking space. "Too much thinking is almost as bad as not thinking things through at all." Just before falling asleep I decided on what I needed to do.

The next day I took an early lunch and paid a visit to Zales. That evening I took a knee in front of Barb and asked her to be my wife. The response was not what I expected.

"Gee Bob, I'm flattered that you feel that way about me, but we don't know each other well enough to be taking a step like that."

"I know you well enough that I'm on my knee asking."

"But I don't know you well enough to say yes."

"Oh come on Barb. You know everything about me up to and including my hat size."

"True, but I don't know about the most important thing that I need to know. I like you Rob; I like you a lot. Actually I like you an awful lot and it may even be love or something growing into to love, but I am a very sexual person Rob and the man I marry is going to have to be able to keep up with me. I have tried my best to lure you into the bedroom to see what you can do, but you can't seem to take the hint. I have to wonder why. What are you hiding? What are you afraid that I might discover?"

"None of that. I've been afraid of making a move that might push you away from me."

"Then I think what you need to do is take me to your place, get me naked and see if we have a future together."

It was a long night and I believe that I gave a good account of myself. I guess she thought that I was a good enough fit where she was concerned because she said:

"There is one thing that you need to know before you slide that ring on my finger and I'm telling you ahead of time that you are not going to like it."

"Whatever it is it isn't going to scare me off."

"We will see. I have a trust fund that my grandparents set up for me. I don't come into it until I'm thirty-five. I could have had it at twenty-five if I would have gone to college, but I hated high school and just couldn't see another four years going to classes. Anyway, one of the stipulations of the trust is that if I marry before coming into the trust the man I marry must agree to sign a prenuptial agreement."

"I don't see a problem with that."

"You haven't read the agreement yet. One of the clauses is that if either party is unfaithful the unfaithful party leaves the marriage with nothing. You see the problem? We are not even officially engaged and we are already talking about adultery. Not even married and we are discussing how to end it."

"It is only a piece of paper Barb and it means absolutely nothing. If anything I can look at it as an insurance policy against you cheating on me. Would you cheat on me knowing that it could cost you your trust? Hell no you wouldn't."

I got off the bed and went to where my pants had fallen when I'd hurriedly striped down to get on the bed with Barb. I got the ring out of my pants pocket and then for the second time in twelve hours I asked Barb to marry me and that time she said yes.

Six months later we were married and eleven months after that we were the parents of twin boys. Sixteen months after that, almost to the day, Barb gave me twin girls.

The condo was sold and I had a six bedroom house with four baths built on two acres. Barb became a stay at home mom until the kids were all in school and then she took a part time job as a receptionist at a law firm. We didn't need the money, but she said she needed to get out of the house and do something.

Her hours were set so she didn't need to be to work until after she'd gotten the kids off to school and she got off about half an hour before they were due home. She did have to work every other Saturday and while I didn't much like it I kept my mouth shut to keep the peace.

Life settled into a routine. I bowled one night a week on the team that the company sponsored in the Tuesday night men's house league at Starlight Lanes and Barb spent Tuesdays and some Thursdays working with Bev who had taken up selling Tupperware. We went out for dinner and dancing on either Friday or Saturday and usually with Bev and Brad.

Our love life was pretty damned good and even after fifteen years of marriage we were still going at it five or six times a week. The only dark spot, at least for me, was that Barb would never let me have her sexy ass. She said she had tried it with two previous boyfriends (long before she met me) and she had hated it. I didn't press the issue since nothing else was off the table and I got as much as I could handle anyway. As far as I was concerned I had a great marriage. A superb marriage.

There was a bad period during our thirteenth year while I was trying to get over the death of my parents. They had chartered a flight to go to Cabo San Lucas for their fortieth anniversary and somewhere between home and Cabo the plane disappeared. No wreckage was ever found and after the will was read I found myself standing at the helm of Dawson Enterprises.