My better half Silvi is the kind of woman every man wants. Pretty, smart as a whip, sexy as hell and willing to boot?
What more is there? She keeps a spotless house, I pitch in willingly and help with that, the rewards are wonderful. Plus she makes bread rolls from scratch that almost need to be tied down to keep them from floating away. There are seldom leftovers around our little ranch house in the suburbs.
Silvi seems to always have an answer when a problem crops up, that is a big part of our success in business.
I had an idea years ago, made a part for a popular car. It worked, it was cheap, and improved the heck out of the vehicles. I was making them by hand in my garage when Silvi and I met.
I remember the day she watched me cut out the metal framework, hand laminate the coating on. It took me about 15 minutes to make the piece.
I had orders for 100 of them, so I was a bit too busy to talk to her much. She wandered off. Later that evening she said, "I found a machine that might help you."
I looked at the stacks of books and flyers she had layed out. Simple punch press. No more heating and bending each piece by hand. More consistant, and fast.
I looked at the price tag, $21,000.00!! I started to put the flyer down, no way did I have that kind of money.
"How many can you sell, Dan?"
"All I can make."
A light bulb went off.
The company was only too happy to write a "lease to buy" agreement, 15 days later here it sat on my floor.
That led to me making 15 an hour instead of 4. Next it was a rollover mill, now it was 25 an hour, a lamination machine followed quickly.
I had to rent a building, she talked me into buying one. 25,000 sq. ft., It was huge! Soon we had a helper, then two of them, then 30. More equipment, Some new designs that solved similar problems with other vehicles.
The building got too small, we bought the offices next door. I have a feeling she had that planned from the day she started trying to convince me to buy the first place.
Life was good, things were going well. We had staff, vacations, enjoying our lives.
Then that writeup in a National magazine. It was only a couple of days before factory reps showed up. I was higher than a kite, dealerships buying our product lines was BIG bucks!
One day I was sitting in my office, daydreaming about the trip we had to a resort. Silvi and I got a little over the top, hired a couple of local massage therapists.
One of those things that just happened, we ended up having sex with them in our hotel room. Not a normal deal, I came to find out. For some reason the four of us clicked that day.
Silvi and I really didn't have a jealousy or hard feelings about that, after all, we both did it. We also didn't do it again.
But she knew now that I liked showing her off, and she liked it too. So there were a few incidents.
One that stood out was at that same resort, Silvi had put on her tiny little yellow Bikini to go lay by the pool. I realized she had removed the liners, the thing was almost transluscent dry.
I had an idea of what it would look like wet.
We had plopped down on the deck chairs, people were coming and going, no big deal. They looked at us but that was all.
Then 3 college types had come out, they were sitting by the pool, just sunning themselves. Silvi got up and headed for the pool, their eyes followed every motion.
She swam to the other end and back, then started up the concrete steps.
She looked to be totally naked!
I was farther away, I could see her nipples through the material plain as day, the bottoms clung to her hairless pussy like skin. Since Silvi has fairly large and protruding lips, and she had carefully shaved, that was spectacular!
She strolled by the guys nodding as she came towards me. I had to grab a towel to cover my crotch at the vision.
I was thinking about that when Terry, my receptionist rang me to tell me a broker was waiting to see me.
I shook off the thoughts, reached for my order pad, expecting to write a sale.
Terry ushered two men into my office. They introduced themselves as Walt Hall and Dale Okasaki. Walt was about 40 or so, Dale much younger. Dale looked to be mostly Japanese.
We shook hands. Walt reached in his briefcase and set a rail on my desk. I picked it up, it looked just like one of our best product lines.
I turned it over. The tag read, "Made in Taiwan."
My heart skipped a beat.
"We are asking for bids." Walt said, with no fanfare.
"Counts?"
"250,000."
My mind was rushing numbers, this piece was our best mover, and we sat on a 100% profit margin to materials cost ratio.
No point in adding it up, $22.00 net times 250,000 units?
Up until then we had been filling retrofits, aftermarket stuff. I glanced down at the card on my desk, this was OEM buyers.
I quickly mentioned a figure and a six week delivery date, cutting the margins by 50%.
"Way too high, and we need 3 weeks."
Double up on my shifts and I knew we could hit 3 weeks, but the "way too high" part gave me pause.
"What numbers are you looking for?"
"How about we discuss it further over dinner?"
"All right."
"Company is nice." Walt said.
Their meaning hit me, we shook hands and they left.
I sat there for a long time, thinking. Foreign competition, I hadn't forseen that. Sure, we had copyrights, just try to enforce them in China and Taiwan.
I called Silvi.
"Need you. Quick!"
She was there in 20 minutes. I explained what was going on. She listened, ran out her calculator, came up with our bottom line. Then she was on the phone, checking on materials costs internationally.
Soon she was back, even at 10% they were going to cut us lower, we both knew it. No way could our $20/hour payroll compete with them.
We both knew the next step was sub-labels, and we would be finished. Had to be handled somehow.
I explained to Silvi about the "company" comment. She smiled and picked up the phone, one call, all set. I have no idea how she knew to do that, I would have never even known who to call.
We were as set as we could be.
That evening, we dressed for the meeting. I had on my best suit, Silvi came out in that slinky black dress I love so much.
"Isn't that a bit much?"
She smiled.
"250,000 units."
I just shrugged, off we went.
Silvi was taking no chances, our driver pulled by an apartment complex, out came a stunning blonde named Connie. She hopped in the Limo and almost instantly reached for a drink. Her left breast just sorta rolled over and popped out of the loose top of her gown. She tucked it back in, going, "Oops!"
I just grinned. The next stop we picked up Carol, tall, slender, looked like she just stepped out of the movies. I would have gotten a woodie at the sight of her but my mind was still frazzled with numbers.
Walt and Dale arrived at the bar just minutes behind us, we got our table and settled in.
I kept waiting for them to start asking about prices and supply, they never did. Silvi had already warned me to not mention a thing, make them take the lead.
Dale was pleased with Connie right off the bat, she knew her job and snuggled right in, each move she made was intended to tease and excite. That lady could get half a nipple out of her top with almost no effort.
Carol took a more aloof approach, Walt was doing his best. It was almost like she knew to make him work at it, that seemed to get him going.
The meal went fine, small talk, lots of sexy comments, a couple were directed at Silvi, too. No doubt Silvi was also stunning, and she was also into the game.
I was getting frustrated, but I managed to not yell out, "Do you want the damned things or not?"
Even with all of the sexy talk, beautiful ladies, my dick was limper than a 80 year old priest's at a Nun's picnic.
This all dragged on and on, finally about 11 PM Walt suggested we all retire to their hotel suite.
I signed the check, noting the $2200 price tag. Connie and Carol went with Walt and Dale to the hotel. Our driver was waiting dutifully for us, we followed along.
I asked Silvi what the two ladies had cost us, she said, "$2000.00 each, plus a bonus if they stay all night."
I just took a deep breath, thinking this better fucking work.
Just then the phone rang. Silvi picked up, listened.
"How many?"
"How soon?"
"That will work, do it."
She hung up.
"What the hell was that?" I asked her.
She patted my leg.
Now I WAS getting frustrated.
We got to the hotel room, Dale already had music going, and was dancing with Connie, who was in real danger of having her top fall off. His eyes were fixed on the front of her dress, I realized he was also getting a little drunk.
