The Price of Experience

Chapter 1

The Awakening

We had been waiting a long time in the reception area. Richard, our business and finance partner looked restless. He only submitted to a suit and tie for these rare occasions. He preferred board shorts to boardrooms. Most nervous of all, but looking totally stunning was my beautiful wife, Yuliana. It had been her idea to be here as part of the team for the pitch. She had witnessed too many times when Richard and I had returned from previous meetings with VCs and investment funds, cautiously, but excitedly optimistic, only to get the email politely declining, or worse, just silence.

"I want to be there Seb! I want to see what's going wrong with the pitch when you do it. There must be something, because your idea is brilliant. It's important, it'll treat literally millions of people better than what they get now and none of these greedy VC idiots seem to get it!" Her eyes momentarily flashed something sudden and fierce as if from a far-away forest.

There had only been two women in my life who had loved me totally, with the unshakeable belief that I stood head and shoulders above those around me: my mother, gone from this world far too young, and this incredible miracle, now my wife, who had stepped into my life as if from my own imagination.

Right now, I could see that something was agitating her. She was sat opposite me in one of the slightly awkward deep armchairs in the waiting area. Her knees in their classy, subtly patterned sheer black tights were rapidly opening and closing an inch or two and shifting the hem of the black business-style, but very sexy, cling skirt, she was wearing. Just long enough to still be professional, short enough to raise any male's pulse rate. Suddenly she twisted up out of the chair and walked briskly over to me, bending down to whisper in my ear,

"Really sorry, but I just have to go for a pee darlingest!" A stray strand of bronze-blond hair brushed my cheek,

"Right now?" I whispered back, "They might call us in any moment - you better be quick."

"I will, sorry, all that coffee they gave us when we arrived!" She regained her usual poise and walked up to the Receptionist giving her the quick warm smile that endeared her even to other women - the Receptionist smiled, gesturing down the corridor and Yulia disappeared, her high heels skimming at speed with complete sureness.

I began to feel a tremor of nerves in my stomach as I thought, "This is crazy, why did I let her talk me in to including her in this pitch -- it's so typical of her, so keen to help me that she ends up putting me in an impossible position! She is totally inexperienced at this, and the investment panel will probably think we are completely unprofessional, but how could I possibly tell her without hurting her feelings......"

"Dr Sterling, the panel are ready for you now."

Of course -- it was like a curse, we always seemed to start our meetings on the back foot one way or another!

The door behind me had opened and we were being summoned in.

Richard got up looking anxiously down the corridor and I opened my briefcase, made a show of adjusting some papers and prayed that Yulia would reappear. Rule number one, never make an investment panel wait (especially one with far eastern representatives). Damn it, I thought, it was clearly not meant to happen as we had planned, we would have to dump the section we had developed with Yuliana, it will just have to be Richard and me, the same as usual. I nodded to Richard, and we walked through the doors into the boardroom. Four dark suited middle-aged men, two probably British and two from maybe China and a small dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses, sat at one end of the long board table. They looked powerful, formidable, and coolly polite, only an older man in jeans and tweed jacket who was sitting behind them in a corner smiled warmly and half rose from his seat before reseating himself.

The projector was on the table and clearly linked to a large plasma screen in front of the panel. I opened my laptop and connected it and the system immediately mirrored my screen. I took a last look at the now closed doors to the room and started my usual greetings and introductions extolling Richard's experience and expertise in finance and development and starting to outline the history of the concept.

Abruptly, the faces of the panel snapped round to a loud clattering of the entrance doors as Yuliana entered slightly breathless and apologising loudly, I winced as I saw the eyebrow of one man raise as he glanced at the other Brit who gave a brief smirking smile and flicked his eyes to the ceiling.

"And this is my associate Yuliana who manages marketing and strategy" ... Yulia had a strand of her hair falling free from the carefully business-like style she had arranged for the meeting and I could see that her short skirt had ridden up a little on one stockinged leg, but with her high cheekbones, eyes like huge dark pools and the swell of her breasts in the Valentino white shirt, above a figure-to-die for, she looked like something from Olympus that had fallen to earth. She walked towards the panel as if expecting to shake hands and then clearly realised this wasn't going to happen so took a step back and gave them a radiant smile with unwavering eye-contact dealt sequentially to each of them. I immediately knew she would not let herself be demeaned by these executives.

"Yes -- I am also Dr Sterling, Mrs Sterling in my spare time." she said with charming grace, a winning smile, and a hint of steel.

The senior man gestured to the chairs beside me for Richard and Yulia to sit and there was a palpable step up in the attention we were receiving. One of the panel was furtively stealing as many glances as he could at my wife while playing it unperturbed and disinterested.

I started the PowerPoint presentation.

Things started well. I outlined and enthused about the concept and thankfully I could see they had grasped the novelty of the ideas we had patented and were getting some of the ways the device could be applied. I explained some of the most exciting ways in which it could radically change how to achieve real cures for what were currently untreatable patients, but I began to get the usual feeling that my audience was slipping away from me. Curtly, the woman in dark glasses cut-in with a strong American accent,

"This is really fascinating Dr Sterling, but can we get an idea of incremental numbers of patients this system will treat and the number of units you will expect to sell in the first 3 years post regulatory approval?"

I realised, my section of the presentation was being hurried on and she was giving the cue for the profit and risk analysis. The plan had been to keep Richard till the end, but we were clearly being told to jump to where the VCs had their real interest - the bottom line - the money they would make and how fast. I flashed an apologetic look to Yulia and handed over to Richard.

Richard got up with a momentary nod to Yuliana who just nodded calmly back, realising we would have to revise our order of battle, and watched him launch in to a closely reasoned and realistic outline of the costs of development at each phase and the options for the company being acquired or of going into production. Unlike during my part of the presentation, the panel were now busily making notes and copying numbers from the slides. Yulia got up and handed each of the panel a summary of the key finance points while he was speaking, she had to bend forward to pass the final portfolio to the guy at the end of the table and as she did, she leant slightly across the American woman. Simultaneously, I caught her male admirer stealing a good look down the front of her blouse no doubt catching a stimulating view of the skin of her breasts curving above the white lace of her bra. The American woman irritatedly moved her head as if she now could not bear to miss a moment of the PowerPoint slide show and thrust the portfolio away from her into the centre of the table.

Yulia paused dangerously and I looked quickly to catch her eye to get her to just sit down. She smiled sweetly to me and made her way back to her seat. Richard was now fielding questions from the panel, but I could see the project's timescale was an issue. Richard was one of the very best Chief Operating Officers and had come to us because he believed in our project, even though we could pay him far less than he could get on the open market, but he had one flaw, he was relentlessly honest. If they had fully comprehended this, they would have realised that this meant when he told them they would turn a $5M dollar investment into a $1billion dollar exit in 6 years" time it was actually true, but they wanted to hear 3 years and Richard was not budging from 6.

We could all feel the energy in the room ebbing away and the body language was all breathing out, reading glasses coming off, and the American woman fidgeting with her briefcase.

Richard looked apologetically over to me and Yulia.

Cutting him short, the head of the panel began, "So to sum up we would have to be looking....." He got no chance to finish as Yulia stood up purposefully, leaned over and snapped the presentation screen to blank with a flourish and now I could see that the danger I had sensed in her was about to erupt.

"I see what is happening," she said, measuring her gaze to each of the panel, "and don't for a moment think this is the first time! Seb and Richard have taken this brilliant system, this revolutionary gift to the world to panel after panel like you and ...why do we bother!" Now she turned up the force of her address, "You don't really listen, you just see if we tick the boxes for your narrow little investment formulas." She was standing with high heels set apart and drawn to her full height with her breathing coming fast, a flush of cherry pink was spreading on the skin above the swell of her rising and falling breasts up into her neck and cheeks. She looked like the figurehead of some Viking warship beaching and ready to take no prisoners. "Your expertise is in how to safely screw over the people with genius and vision and the ability to actually change the world for the better, so you can all stay safe in your tedious, cowardly little investments and find second-rate products that you can promote to scam everyone in to keeping you rich and untouchable." She was panting slightly, and her lips were parted and suddenly she looked round at me with a desperate look of anguish and regret and her eyes shouted, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry you were right, I shouldn't have come." All I could feel was that there was a hot feeling of potential tears swelling behind my eyes which I had to fight to keep down - she was magnificent - totally unsuited to this grimy little world where we had to lie with half-truths if we were to get anywhere. A world where she felt I should be a conquering hero, not slinking out of the room with a 'We'll be in touch...' and another rejection. I didn't care. The pitch was clearly a disaster, all I cared, was that she was mine.

The panel had all acquired the mask like fixed smiles of those with the power to sign execution orders. I looked at them and then at Yulia and Richard and just said,

"Let's go."

Yulia took a deep breath, averting her eyes from the panel and turned to leave with the faintest of tremors that I could now see moving in her. Richard was just behind her; we could hear chairs scraping as the panel got up behind us as we reached the door. I motioned Yulia and Richard to go through, but as I too stepped forward to leave, there was a clear and commanding call from the other end of the room in a light French accent,

"One moment please!" We all automatically stopped in our tracks, including the panel. I turned to see the older man who had been sitting silently in the corner throughout the meeting holding my gaze with an air of control - and maybe even respect...

"Dr Sterling, that is, Mr., Dr Sterling, if you would grant it, I would crave a few moments of your time to speak to you in private." He looked across at the panel with a gentle smile and nod and they immediately nodded vigorously confirming they would leave and packed their things, swiftly gliding past us one by one through the doors mostly avoiding eye-contact, except for Yulia's admirer who gave her a placatory smile as he exited. I looked at Yulia and Richard with some bewilderment as I really didn't know what was in store for me,

"You better wait outside I guess - I think I should talk to him - yes?"

"Guess so" said Richard equally perplexed. Yulia was looking very straight at the older man at the end of the room, I knew she was taking some instinctual measure of him,

"Yes," she said emphatically and seriously and turned closing the door behind her and Richard.

The Frenchman motioned to a chair at the board table,

"Please come and sit Dr Sterling. I am Comte Maret-Ronchon and the panel you just met are my directors." We sat at the far end of the table, and he poured us each a glass of water.

"I apologize for the lack of vision from our people. I have given them very narrow protocols to follow. The formula works well, but ...it tends to promote safety and mediocrity. I read your application and decided I would attend -- it's been quite a while." His smile was warm, but with an intensity, a tension in him, an excitement even. "Your presentation was impressive - your belief in what you are doing is persuasive, but I hadn't expected to find that it affected me so deeply."

I could feel a tingling in my whole body and my throat felt dry - I could sense we might be on the verge of being granted the funding I had chased and dreamed of for so long - it would change everything in my life.

"I have a proposal for you," he said, "but... it is a little unusual and I will need to explain some things about myself before I put it to you. These things are of a highly confidential nature, and I am afraid Dr Sterling I must ask if you would be kind enough to place your phone on the table and turn it off - please do not feel offended - so many people record their meetings now."

"Of course." I placed my phone on the table.

"Four years ago, the woman who had transformed my life, who inspired me to be who I am, my beautiful wife, died. It was quite sudden and unexpected and .... catastrophic. She had driven me to seek experiences and explorations of the world and of myself that thrilled and enriched us both beyond our dreams. Before she died, she made me swear on my love for her, that I would continue the journey and the adventures that we had begun to seek out together for ourselves and that I was forbidden to retreat in to mourning.

Do you mind me talking in this way Dr Sterling? Should I stop or can I continue?"

"Please Comte, I feel honoured you should tell me these things." I said, not daring to disturb the strange direction this meeting was following and yearning only to hear that the funding was ours...

"I have tried to fulfil her wish Dr Sterling; I have immersed myself in the most beautiful women wealth and power could either buy or attract to the flame. Every attempt has burned in my disinterest or dissatisfaction. I took the most expensive, shall we say, 'courtesans' to Indian palaces and awoke lusts that maybe they did not know they had, invited media celebrities to fantasy islands where the games progressed from fun to perversity, and drank the juice of plants in an African forest where women were given to me in rituals like a god -- I could not find an echo of my beloved Clara in any of this. But today, when your wife walked into our meeting, my breath froze in me, because I felt I was seeing her again, not in physical looks, although your wife is all that any man could wish for in female beauty, but in the force of her soul and her... magnificence. You know entirely what I am talking of Dr Sterling, and it tells me a lot about you, that she has chosen you....

I have a proposal for you. I will fund your project, whether you choose to accept my proposal or not. There are two options: one option is, I will give you the 5 million dollars your colleague asked for and leave my panel to deal with the arrangements." I felt like leaping out of my chair and shouting with triumph but tried to stay calm.

"But," he went on, his eyes locked on mine, "you will find that for a project such as yours 5 million will only suffice if you meet no delays, no unforeseen obstacles...and life is not like that. The other option is that I will personally supervise funding you with 20 million dollars delivered as you achieve certain milestones that I will set you. You and your wife." Suddenly his face lost its urbane composure, and I could see he was deadly serious.

"The milestones will be of a sexual nature and will allow me to live again. They will also take you and your insanely attractive Yuliana to places neither of you even knew you wanted to go." I felt a cold sweat under my business shirt, was this crazy aristocrat offering me $20 million to fuck my wife!? I was struggling to control a surge of anger, but at the same time, I was almost aroused by the spell he had drawn me into...

"On my birthday each year after we married," he continued with his thoughts clearly recreating his past, "my wife would grant me a very special present...she was from a background where she had been schooled to be discrete, demur, afraid of anything that could be seen to be flaunting her incredible beauty. She believed that making love should be something pure and to do with love alone, I felt she was afraid of allowing herself to recognize her own desires. I always gently encouraged her to allow herself to accept more pleasure from me, always with resistance, but often, ultimately with surprise at her own reaction. Her orgasms would be intense but followed by a sense of guilt and denial that she had enjoyed the acts I persuaded her into. Once each year, on my birthday, she would grant me a wish - I could choose what she called "one of your naughty little perversions" and she would do what I asked." He looked at me steadily, "I want you to relive one of these experiences with your wife and film it for me." I could feel my breathing uncomfortably tense, the conversation was so unexpected, so outrageous and yet there were elements in his story that I realised mirrored my own unspoken thoughts so closely. I knew I wanted his $20 million dollars and I knew I wanted to tempt my gorgeous wife along the thrillingly transgressive path that his story hinted could open up Yuliana"s cautious attitude to sex in just the way it had for his wife.

"What experience would we have to film?" I asked with a dry mouth.

"That is where you will need to follow your own imagination, your own instincts Dr Sterling -- I only have one requirement, you must ask your lovely wife to do something, of a sexual nature, that she has never done before and I need to see her do it on camera."

"And if I can persuade her to do this, you will give the $20 million to the project?"

"No, I will give the first $2 million and each month afterwards a further $2 million if the quality of what you give me allows the arrangement to continue".

"And what if you aren't ...satisfied." I asked, my distaste for this selling of my most intimate life with my precious wife beginning to anger me,

"Then it will be your choice either to walk away from our arrangement with a minimum of $5M, or may be to accept some guidance from me." He said it without any sign of the usual hardness of attitude that I would expect from a financial deal, more with kindness. I felt he sincerely wanted a friendship with us rather than exploiting us for his gain - it was the strangest conversation I had ever had.

As I left the room and closed the door behind me, I expected Yuliana and Richard to be waiting for me outside, but the receptionist told me they had gone down to wait for me in the lobby on the ground floor. As I went down in the lift my mind was whirling, should I just tell them we had $5M and forget the rest, but I knew I wanted the $20M and I knew in my gut that it wasn't only that I wanted the money, I wanted the thrill of this crazy plan that the Comte had tempted me with, like an intoxicating adventure.