I grabbed her and pulled her onto my lap. We kissed for a long time.
"I love you, Victoria."
"I love you too, Scott. I'm so happy. I made an appointment with Dr. Winston for next week."
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A month later we went for a sonogram. Everything looked good and this time, it was a boy.
Victoria was more relaxed this time. I had also put her to work. I needed her to prepare a list of all the places I had money, to obtain original documents I lacked for each account, and to prepare a list of beneficiary or pay on demand designations. I assumed most of those would need to be revised.
I also explained to her my desire to put estate planning in place for us, so we would do that first and then change the dispositive designations to conform.
We had an excellent estate planning attorney in our firm, so Victoria and I met with him and made most decisions during that meeting. There were a few that we needed to discuss. The first was about guardians for minor children, an admittedly difficult topic to think about.
The other topic had to do with inheritances for our children. It's one thing to leave a couple hundred thousand dollars each to children at any age. It's quite another to leave tens of millions. This was complicated by what my parents had told me about their estate plan. I would eventually receive all the stock, and my siblings would receive most of the cash. Above a certain cash level, I would receive the rest.
The point is, my children would likely inherit a shitload of money, and for their sake, giving it all to them immediately might be more damaging than any other option. That required another meeting.
Eventually we made all the decisions and signed the documents. Victoria worked on getting all the forms we needed to sign to funnel all the cash and investments into the trust at our deaths.
That whole process of estate planning and funding documents lasted almost her entire pregnancy. Just two weeks before she gave birth to Nathan, we signed the last of those forms and submitted them.
"I understand now why you had me do all that. You wanted me to know our finances inside and out. That means a lot to me, Scott."
"That was certainly a major reason, but also I knew you could get it done accurately."
She had shared with me her spreadsheet listing everything and showing recent end-of year statement values. Our holdings now were just over $42 million. When she showed me that, she told me she was finally convinced we could afford that honeymoon we took!
One other thing happened that year. Roscoe died. He was about 12 years old--older than I had known--and he just went downhill in a big hurry. Victoria and I both cried when we took him to the vet to be put down. Losing a dog can be so hard.
I mentioned that loss to one of my law partners, someone I knew to be a dog lover. He told me of a neighbor whose wife had died. They had a female brown lab that was only three years old, and the family needed to find a home, because the husband would soon go into a care facility. I had him call the family immediately.
"Victoria, I'm calling to ask whether you trust me."
"Ummm, of course I do, but this sounds awfully open-ended."
I told her about the dog. She was excited.
"Go see it. You know dogs. If you think she's a keeper, bring her home."
I met the family, and they brought Sadie out to the front yard. She was calm and friendly. She came to me to sniff and get acquainted, and then rolled over for belly rubs.
That was how we filled the void left by Roscoe's death. Victoria immediately loved Sadie, and Sadie was careful around Natalie. She instinctively knew to be protective of our baby.
"Scott, I hope for one thing. She's a lab, so I imagine she'll love going on boat trips with us and swimming in the lake, but I sure hope she doesn't fart!"
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I was again present to greet our newest family member--Nathan, in this case--and once again, Victoria cried when she heard Nathan cry for the first time.
The mothers appeared together again and cried. I watched Victoria nurse Nathan the first time.
A few weeks before, Victoria had moved Natalie to bottles and formula. I learned by licking formula powder off my finger I never want to taste the dry power again! That cannot be healthy.
Dr. Winston again told Victoria four weeks until sex. Victoria immediately marked three weeks from that day on her calendar.
"There's no way I'm waiting four weeks again. There was no tearing, so my recovery should be similar to last time.
So it was, that three weeks later, we had sex again. Victoria screamed--mostly for joy, I think--as she impaled herself on me.
The next night, she wanted to talk to me. I figured she wanted anal again. We had only done that one time after our first time.
"Honey, would you be upset if I wait a little longer for our next child? I was more tired with this pregnancy, although the delivery was easier. I think I should allow myself more recovery time."
"Sweetheart, you know your health is more important to me than anything. Go back on birth control. When you're ready and you want to, we'll make another baby."
"Can we have anal sex tomorrow night?"
I called it. Order has been restored in the universe.
The next night we had anal sex for the third time and it was so much fun. We knew the ropes and moved ahead confidently. This time, however, we decided to have her face down with a pillow under her waist. When I entered her, I was drilling downward. She said afterwards it was a very different feeling. I loved her description:
"Scott, I felt like there was a steel rod down through me, pinning me to the bed. It was almost a bondage thing, because there was nothing I could do but absorb the impact. This was my favorite anal experience so far."
Within a couple of months, we had resumed all our sexual familiarity.
When Natalie reached eighteen months and Nathan was four months old, we took 5 days and went out on the lake. Sadie had the time of her life. As we were motoring across the lake she was watching--and quivering from excitement. We dropped anchor near an island again, so we could easily take her to do her business.
One difference was in the boat. I had installed a sealed trash container for dirty diapers. We had a lot of them! The nasty part was disposing of the trash liner at the end. I felt like we needed hazmat suits and environmental impact filings!
It was a fun week! We swam a lot, and even had a floating chair for Natalie. Victoria held Nathan, naked of course. I mean who needs a water-logged diaper?
Victoria got to spend time sunbathing. In the nude, of course. One result of that was no tan lines. The other was I tied her to the bed and had my way with her.
One night I gave her an erotic massage. I had so much fun making her moan, due to the soothing nature of the massage, and making her cum. She answered with a stunning blowjob. We seemed to sleep in the nude most nights on the lake.
Our days there passed too quickly. We also decided to talk to her parents and mine about each set of grandparents taking Natalie and Nathan for 5-6 days when Nathan was almost a year old. That was still eight months away, but we wanted to plan something special.
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Our trip seemed far away, but the months slipped past quickly. We wanted to celebrate our third wedding anniversary in style, so we found a cruise out of Rotterdam that visits Norwegian fjords and the Orkney Islands in Scotland, before returning to Rotterdam. Seven nights, eight days.
We decided to fly into Rotterdam two days early for some sightseeing and jet-lag coping. We planned to stay one night there on our return, before flying home. It ended up being about 12 days total.
We bought first-class air travel. Victoria cringed when she saw the price, but looked at my face and simply said, "I know, I shouldn't worry about it." We also booked a suite on the cruise ship.
We were willing to splurge, because this was our first real trip since we got married, definitely the first since Natalie was born. Still, Victoria was worried about missing her babies. We bought a wi-fi package on the ship so we could video call over WhatsApp with the kids. Not that either of them will care!
Victoria had stopped birth control, hoping to get pregnant soon, maybe even on our cruise.
It was on our first night on the ship. We had just left Rotterdam and had watched the sunset. The next day was going to be a day at sea. We had been to dinner and were back in our suite.
"Scott, I've had an idea on my mind that I want to bounce off you. I've thought a lot about my exceptional luck in getting out of my prior life, and how Sophia and Wendy didn't. I still cry when I think about them. My parents played a huge role, but I also found you.
"Here's my idea. How about if your company announces The Sophia Nelson Foundation. It will have as its purpose providing counselling for girls trying to escape prostitution. We could build a facility that offers medical treatment, housing, counseling, legal resources--whatever would make sense. Excellent security--really locked down.
"We fund it with seed money and then seek contributions from other big-name companies in the area. It would be tax-deductible and good PR for any company to participate. I think it would have to start out with a limit of perhaps 8 women. Not for one-night stays, but only for those willing to commit, knowing they would not get another chance. I know that sounds harsh, but girls working the street learn to lie to cope.
"I know this idea is rough, and we need to bring together experts in this area and build something meaningful and effective.
