Heaven’s Gate
76 Happy Holidays
The holidays were a mixture of peace and chaos. We had to get numbers together and talk over the whole proposal to merge with CEN. It seemed like Rose and I were in non-stop meetings and, thankfully, Rebecca was right there with us.
“Mr. Duval and Mr. Grissom will be here Wednesday afternoon. They asked that Mr. Davis and Mr. Pratt join them. Do you want the rest of your board here?” she asked us Tuesday morning.
“I’d like Courtney with us,” I said.
“And Hannah,” Rose added. “Otherwise, I think this is Louise’s show. I don’t think any of us have any idea what we’re really talking about in the way of numbers.”
“And Lamar,” I said. “He’d be the one doing most of our negotiations as our General Counsel.”
“Are you sure you don’t want Elaine and Samantha there? They are the only other ones on your board. Elaine is off tomorrow,” Rebecca chuckled as she made some notes. I looked at Rose and nodded. “You two need to take an afternoon off and sneak away,” she said. “The world will run just fine if it can’t reach your cell phone for a few hours.” Ever the mom. She considered Rose and me to be the parents of our casa and she was our mom, ready to point out which of our cónyuge and children needed special attention. Everyone seemed to think of us that way, even though I had children with Dani and Liz with one on the way in Courtney. Rose was still my Matrón.
We got the meeting taken care of and there were only two things that surprised any of us. The first was that we were far wealthier than I ever imagined. Hearthstone Entertainment no longer looked like the child being absorbed into the big cable network. We were responsible for nearly all the original programming on the network. We’d even discussed taking over the poorly produced news show in the evening. When it came to Hearthstone and CEN, we were on a remarkably even footing.
The second bit of news was that Miss Polly was retiring at the end of this season in South Bend. It was hard to imagine morning television without the woman who had hosted The Homemakers’ Hour for the past thirty years.
“She has a new assistant on the show who will take over this summer. I stepped out of producing and directing a couple of years ago to focus on the executive role. I think we have a good team that will take the show forward. Polly and I will no longer be actively producing new material but we own the company. All we’ll be doing is collecting residuals, royalties, and profits. I don’t see any conflict of interest for us in the merger,” Harvey said.
“Congratulations, Harvey,” I said. “Big plans for retirement?”
“For thirty years, I’ve planned schedules and productions for Polly. I think she has planned the next thirty,” Harvey laughed. They were only in their early sixties. I figured thirty more years was probably a good guess for Polly’s plans.
The parents’ consortium that put up the rest of our startup capital was fine with the new arrangement. They had done well on their initial investment and each member of the consortium received quarterly returns. No one had ever asked to sell his share. We all agreed that we were in a position to proceed with due diligence as we moved toward a merger.
I talked to Courtney as I pulled her into my office after the meeting to rub her tummy. She was really barely showing at almost five months. I opened the front of her gi and kissed our child.
“Boy or girl?” I asked.
“Surprise,” she giggled. “Dawn is supervising my pregnancy and you know she doesn’t believe in extra exams and ultrasound. I think she’s pregnant again, too. There’s just something about her that glows.”
“I know they planned to give it one more try at getting Larry a son. Personally, I don’t think he really cares. He’s a doting dad over Ellie, Leslie, and Teri. How’s this merger deal sitting with you? Are you okay with it?”
“Mmm, lover,” Court said as she pushed her pants down and sat on the edge of my desk. “You’d better make sure the passage is maintained.” She sighed as I leaned in to lick her. I noticed my door was slightly ajar and saw Rebecca pause outside and pull it closed. “Our Internet business is almost entirely focused on CEN at the moment. That plus the twins’ dating site. I have a lot of ideas on how we can make it grow but no time to focus on it. The deal for merging Price Internet Services in with CEN is a good one. I can afford to buy the extra five percent from funds I’d planned to use for expansion. They will fund our further development at CEN. I’m keeping Price Engineering focused on the video suite. One of the applications we’re working on, though, would allow us to stream compressed video over the Internet, decompressing on the user’s box. The merger agreement explicitly excludes software development, so I’ll still benefit from the licensing of the new software, even if it’s used on CEN.”
“I’m so proud of you, my courtesan. You are phenomenal.”
“Proud enough to put your hard dick where your mouth is?”
“Your wish is my command.”
Thanksgiving weekend, Dani was my guest on Date Night In. After the show, we went back to the master suite and stayed there the rest of the weekend. That sounds like a lot, but it was just Sunday. About noon, when it became obvious that we weren’t coming out, there was a knock at the door.
“What?” I called. I was just holding Dani in my arms and we were petting each other.
“Room service,” Liz called out. The door opened and Liz brought a tray of food for us with a pot of coffee. “You don’t need to come out of your room all day and the kids all promised not to disturb you, but we figured you’d need a little nourishment and coffee at least.” She giggled and came over to the bed and kissed us each on the cheek. “When you two are like this, everyone in the house is calm and cuddly. Take your time.”
We did. We had our coffee and breakfast, then took a shower. We played and groomed each other. I shaved Dani’s legs and underarms. She shaved my face. I brushed her hair and dried it. By then, she had to rewet my hair in order to return the favor. I’ve seen those nature shows where monkeys groom each other. We didn’t have any bugs to pick out of each other’s hair and eat, but we took our time making sure all parts of our bodies were inspected and touched. It was one of the most intimate days I’ve ever spent. We oiled and massaged, brushed and combed, shaved and trimmed, kissed and made love. And then we did it all again.
The following weekend, date night was not as calm, but it was certainly as sexual. Renee had just turned 31 and was my date. We did not return to the master suite, but instead went to her apartment. There, after an hour of the most sensuous kissing I’d ever experienced, we consummated what we’d started fifteen years ago. It was loving, but sometimes pretty rambunctious as we relived what we almost did when I was fifteen. There was no longer the thin film of her underwear between our genitals. The feeling was exquisite. It was more like having fun with an old friend than it was like having a new lover. I knew we’d do it again, but we wouldn’t be in a long-term relationship.
On the sixth, episode one of What’s Wrong With This Picture? aired. We’d done a lot of research with Sarah’s help and the first episode aired on Monday night, with the second on Wednesday. On Wednesday, the first episode was repeated right before the next one. This gave people who had seen the first episode time to spread the word among their friends. And it gave new viewers the opportunity to catch up before they became immersed in the next portion. Episode three aired on Thursday night. The following week, episode four played on Monday. Then on Tuesday, all three previous episodes played with episode four running in the one-hour timeslot before episode five on Wednesday. Thursday the sixteenth the miniseries came to a very successful conclusion. The whole series would run again the first week of January.
It was successful. The CEN forum that Courtney had set up for the show got hundreds of hits. The most common question was ‘When is she coming back?’ Nikki and Hannah smiled at Melanie.
“You have a new script to memorize, sweetie,” Hannah said. “And your automatic increase in pay goes into effect on January first.” Melanie hugged Hannah for a long time. She even had a little hug for me.
The following Friday was Christmas Eve and we all gathered around the tree and fire in the town square. Between the ritual burning of the log and calling out of good memories, we had adoptions to make and the usual announcements. I noticed that there were a number of strangers at the celebration this year. I recognized most of them, but they weren’t actually a part of the tribe. Some of our employees were there with their families or significant others. Parents of kids who were attending the academy showed up. And there were a few people from the neighboring community to the southwest. As a result, our announcements were kept pretty general. There were no weddings announced. Melanie and Stephanie were officially welcomed to the Tribe of Delight. The children had all practiced and memorized a mummers’ song in school that they performed to the delight of everyone in the square.
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