Chapter 10.
Progress.
Over the next few weeks I spent a great deal of time writing up invention disclosures. Mostly I worked in the office. Ann was in and out. She was doing things relating to school as well as writing up patent disclosures. When we had a group of five or six completed we would have Ivan witness them and send them off to Ann's patent attorney in Boston. Ann was right: Ivan is a really nice guy.
One area of Ann's education was weak: Chemistry. She wanted to take the Chem-II finalso she went to work studying chemistry. She plowed through the chemistry I and II textbook. She made a friend for life with one chemistry professor by explaining her approach to quantum mechanics to him. She had an elegant approach to the nature of the chemical bond. After all theoretical chemistry is really applied quantum physics.
A pattern slowly developed where I would sleep in my home three or four nights a week and spend the other nights in the apartment. Both Fil and Ann seemed to be happy with this arrangement.
We got
3i
all set up.
Ivan does some consulting work. One of his clients had a really nasty problem. One that was unexpected and a major defense contract was at risk. It turned out that one of our inventions was an elegant solution to this problem. Ivan told them that one of his students had just filed a patent with the answer. We met with them and they really wanted the patent, even though it was still only an application. They had no doubt it would be granted. Ann wanted to licence it to them but they insisted on buying it outright. We sold it to them for half a million dollars.
3i
was off to a good start.
Ann and I started giving each other massages. We liked using oil. This tended to be messy. Requiring changing bed sheets and the oil often soaked through. Finally we invested in a massage table. We set it up in the first bedroom.
With a bit more money in the company coffers I upgraded to two huge monitors on pivoting wall mounts. Ann was happy with hers.
We discovered an electrically controlled movie screen at one end of the large conference room. We invested in a high power computer projector to take advantage. It worked perfectly off the laptop.
Nightmares
I seldom have nightmares. Most of my dreams are reasonably pleasant although they are often weird in the sense that what is happening is far removed from anything in my life. My dreaming changed somewhat after my visit to the Wells family in that they tended to be happier. I could not remember a single unhappy dream since the visit.
I find about one third of my dreams are third person. That is I as the dreamer am watching the action as opposed to participating in it.
But three nights running I had a real nightmare. The first two nights I was watching two utterly depraved people torture a girl to death. The setting was the inquisition. A priest and a torturer were trying to get the girl to confess to heresy and name others involved as well. Each night I woke up literally shaking. On the second night I got up and took notes, hoping this might put an end to the dreams.
Ann and I talked about the dream but did not reach any conclusions.
The third night I was sleeping with Ann and we had made love earlier. Our telepathic link was in place. This time I was the girl and the dream played out in even more detail. Ann got up and made even better notes. I woke up in a sweat as the girl in the dream died.
I got up and went looking for Ann. I was almost a basket case. Ann was clearly shaken as well. We hugged, she held me and let me cry. I don't remember ever crying over a dream before but this one seemed so real and so horrible. The smugness of the priest only added to the terror. We both wondered if things like that ever actually happened. We both found ourselves hoping they hadn't.
The next night I had a pleasant dream. Over the next week I managed to put the dream behind me. I really did not want to think about it. Neither did Ann.
Hiring Joyce .
We decided that it might be good to hire someone to cover the office. We put an ad in the paper advertising for a: Secretary/receptionist/office manager/janitor/general assistant.
We received three inquires. The first girl wanted to know all about her pay and benefits while expressing absolutely no interest in what her duties would be. The second girl was even worse, she seemed to have difficulty putting together a coherent sentence. The third girl was named Joyce. She was everything the first two weren't. Intelligent, interested, interesting, ready to work, quick to smile, ready to be genuinely helpful and ready to learn. She was a pretty girl: nice figure, cute face, light brown hair.
We explained: "We do not have nearly enough work to keep you busy for the full time we have you here but we feel that the office should be covered in terms of the phone and the door 9 to noon and 1 to 4 on working days. The place also needs to be maintained, general cleaning and so on. We would also want you to take care of the routine government paperwork, pay the bills and so on. Ann lives upstairs and it would be good if you were to take care of the apartment also."
Joyce smiled and replied: "Basically you want me to take care of everything here that you do not want to bother with. OK, I am willing to do that. Am I right that this job starts small but can grow as your business grows into whatever I can grow it into?"
Ann responded: "Yes."
We took time to explain our relationship and how the company came to be formed. We explained that we really were not sure what its future will be but we were going along with what seemed to be spiritual direction.
Joyce thought this was neat. She also thought that one aspect of the job was to keep her mouth shut. We said definitely.
We took her on the grand tour. She decided this was a neat place. She liked the spiritual books on the library shelf. Only later would she discover the sacred sex and Tantra books. She also liked both the photo studio and the bidet. She had never actually used a bidet.
She finally said: "I want to work here. I am even willing to take minimum wage if that is what it takes."
Ann telepathed to me: "This is the girl we want."
I responded: "Yes definitely."