Impulse - Results

*** Authors Note: Part 7 obviously picks up where Part 6 left off. While I make the suggestion to read from the beginning, a couple of refresher notes:

Characters previously introduced:

Phil - Main protagonist. Wealthy 40-something white male who reshaped his entire life following a workplace accident. Has had a lifelong tendency to act rather impulsively, sometimes with mixed results.

Stacy - Originally, Phil's physical therapist and friend

Karen - Originally, Stacy's roommate

Katie - Karen's daughter and Phil's new assistant.

Paul - Phil's live-in personal assistant who disappeared mysteriously, most likely robbing Phil of all his possessions in the process. A minor character at most.

Part 6 started with getting Katie up-to-speed with the building redevelopment project and added a quick romp-in-the-hay for Phil, Karen and Stacy while Katie was away for the weekend. After getting back home, Katie and Phil spent the day at the beach where she pushed the lines of flirtation. Karen, hearing the news, flatly explains to Phil it would not be a problem if he had sex with her daughter.

This part is significantly longer than previous releases (and also takes a while to get to the sex) but I hope you can appreciate the entire journey for what it is.

--------------------------

For the next few weeks, work went well. Everyone's routine was just as it had been. Katie and I were putting in many hours on the job. Karen and Stacy were busy with their own careers and routines. We often crossed paths in the shower. We often had meals together.

Karen and I had sex twice.

Stacy and I once.

Katie and I never came even close.

It was a lazy friday evening after a hard week of work. The top floors were coming to completion and we were beginning to get in shipments for the seventh floor rehab, mostly basic infrastructure stuff, studs, drywall, wiring, etc. We had determined that none of us minded having small bedrooms and appreciated the large, open living space so the seventh floor would be similar to that. Mostly open but with 4 bedrooms in each corner of the level. This gave each of us two walls of windows and some privacy as well as the living space offering a totally open concept that allowed occupants to conveniently view both the water or the city at any point.

Anyhow, we were still in our old apartment and I decided to go soak in the hot tub. Katie was already in it.

"What's up, boss," she asked me as I dropped the boxers and t-shirt I had already stripped down to after getting home, "gonna' come soak your old bones?"

"These old bones certainly need it," I replied, lifting my leg up and over the wall of the tub and into the water.

"Awww, I was just kidding you, Phil. You're not old. Well, at least nobody would think you were old until they say that bushy forest of pubes you got there. Decided not to take my advice on a trim?"

In lifting my one leg up and over I realized I placed my package directly into her line of sight.

"This again? What's it with you and my pubes?"

"Oh, nothing. Just noticed is all. Plus, I know that people sometimes get into habits. You need to break out of your old routine and live a little."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So says every 20-year-old. I know you don't want to hear it, but everything you think is new and awesome, people my age have done before. Everything."

I had slipped into the water fully. I could see the wheels in Katie's mind turning.

"Not everything," she said after a moment.

"Everything."

"Nope."

"Really? What haven't I done?"

"You haven't done me."

Her response caught me surprised and I sat stunned for a moment before I bellowed out a laugh. I honestly wasn't expecting her answer.

"You know, you got me."

Katie didn't say anything else, instead sat quietly with a little smirk on her face. Pretty much at the exact same moment, Karen and Stacy walked in together.

"Yes, yes, yes. Reading my mind." Stacy was speaking while she was taking off clothing, leaving a little trail from the door to the tub. "Just what I needed."

"Stacy had a rough day," Karen called over to us from the kitchen as she went through some mail.

"The worst," Stacy said as she climbed into the tub with Katie and I. "Had to ditch my first client ever today. Some asshole that was referred by another client. He decided that because we worked in close contact with another it was his opportunity to feel me up. Wasn't even subtle about it. I kicked him to the curb during his first workout. At least I get his deposit out of it."

Karen was taking off her clothing as well as she walked over to the tub. "Well," she spoke, "if all of you are already in there. When in Rome..."

We all chatted, mostly about work. A little more about Stacy's bad day. A bit about the progress on the new apartment. Everyone was excited about the process of moving into a brand-new place and that actually brought something to my mind.

I told all three that there was a major manufacturer's home show coming up in Las Vegas for the building industry. It was an annual convention that allowed people in the industry to see all of the cool new products that were coming out. I tended not to go more than every 3-4 years but with the new apartments... and our own, I thought it might be fun to take a break and go see the options. Personally, I loved the stuff. Professionally, it was important. I told Katie that it was going to be required for her but hoped that Karen and Stacy would join us.

Stacy immediately declined. "I hate Vegas and home decor just isn't my thing, Phil. I trust whatever you decide to do will be fine with me."

Karen immediately accepted. "That sounds awesome."

The show was still a ways off, 4 or 5 weeks, so I told Katie to keep it in her head to buy us three tickets and make room reservations for all of us once we got back in the office on Monday.

The rest of the weekend flew by as they so often do. Katie took off to see her friends again, leaving me and the older girls in the house. With how busy our schedules were we did a little bit of cleaning and housework, catching up on laundry and shopping, a lot of relaxing, a lot of nothing. No threesomes, no orgies, no sex of any type, actually. We did see a movie on Sunday afternoon, the first movie I had seen in probably 3 years and the first matinee any of us had attended in ages. It was a very "normal person" weekend.

Our normalcy broke up only slightly on Sunday evening when Katie got back and Karen picked on her for most likely having tanlines again... to which Katie flashed her lightly tanlined breasts and stuck out her tongue at all of us. Then again, not normal for most... very normal for us.

When Monday came upon us Katie and I devised a strategy for renting the new apartments. They would be completely finished by the end of the week and it obviously made the most financial sense to have customers in as soon as possible. She questioned me as to why I wasn't more fiscally responsible with having deposits in from lined-up tenants and I couldn't give her a good reason. Old habits are hard to break. The plan was that I was going to stay out of the mix. It was common to have young, attractive women show high-end units such as these to prospective clients. Similar to show models at conventions, they were well spoken and knew the details of the product, just happened to be also nice to look at. Obviously Katie was not going to be typical khakis/jeans and workbooks attire that she wore to work on a daily basis, so I tossed her some money and told her to buy some new clothes. Of course I had no idea where to go or what to buy and prayed that she would get some advice from Karen in that regard. A couple of days later she showed our first apartment wearing a form fitting black pencil skirt paired with a crisp white blouse and heels. It didn't look like it was the easiest thing to walk in but, sexism aside, she looked like a million bucks... and about 7 or 8 years older (in a good way). I watched from afar as she greeted the customer, professionally showed the apartment, offered the details of the lease and signed them on the spot.

She was really good.

Everyone was free that night so we went out to a celebratory dinner, Katie's choice. Her decision was picking one of the most casual restaurants in the area at which we had a smorgasbord of food and drinks, everyone just picking away and having a great time. As with so much of our social time together, the atmosphere was light, the company great. The only shock to the evening was when Katie made a significant announcement.

"I've decided I'm not going to go back to school."

Our conversation immediately died.

"Oh, really," Karen responded, somewhere between a question and a statement.

"Well, depending on what I can work out with Phil, I am not going to go back full time... and not necessarily immediately."

Katie went on to tell the group the same things she told me at the beach some time back: how she loved her job, how she was learning so much, etcetera, etcetera. I could see that Karen had a bit of a skeptical look on her face.

"Okay, but what if you decide to move on? What if Phil decides to go another direction and no longer has room for you in the business."

"Well," Katie responded, "I get that. Plus, I really want to get a degree. Maybe I am being naive or even a bit elitist, but I really think I should have one. I know how people are and if I were to tell them that I never finished college they look down on you a bit. It's just one of those things that is expected these days."

The look on Karen's face softened a bit but I could tell that Katie was not out of the woods yet. Katie continued her story.

"So, I called the local school that I was planning on starting at and found out that more than 50% of my courses will transfer to a new degree because the vast majority of them are Gen Ed. Unfortunately, the bad news is that means I wouldn't be going into school technically as a Junior but more of a Sophomore who has extra credits. The better news is that if I go back for Business, which I think will be the best case for me, their course schedule is pretty wide open and I think I can take courses during non-business hours and a bit more non-sequentially as compared to Sports Medicine."

I saw that a small smile was starting to grow on Karen's lips. It was obvious that this wasn't a rash decision by Katie, rather one that she had put a decent amount of time and research into.

"So, what's great is that as long as Phil will still have me I can continue working full time with him and then take a series of night-school and online courses to still get my degree in 2 years. I figure it is going to be tough but I know that I can do it. Plus, if it gets to be way too much, I can always lighten my coursework a little bit and extend the amount of time that it would take to get a diploma. Heck, I already know people who are taking 5 years for their Bachelor's going full time, no reason I can't extend it a bit going kinda' part time."

Karen didn't respond verbally immediately, instead just stood up and walked over to Katie, pulling her out of her chair and wrapping her in a warm hug.

"Apparently you aren't a kid anymore," Karen said to her. "While you will always be my baby it seems you are really figuring things out on your own."

"Thanks, Mom. Though I couldn't have done any of this without you. Even as basic as if you hadn't met Phil none of this would even have been a consideration."

Karen pulled me out of my seat and into her embrace with Katie, giving me a healthy smack on the lips in the process. We stood there for a moment before sitting down. Katie spoke directly to me.

"Of course, like I said, it somewhat hinges on whether any of this is okay with you. Obviously we sometimes work some late hours. I can only imagine that it might start getting worse with tenants. You would have to be okay with me going to class."

I chuckled. "Of course I am okay with it. If a degree is important to you we can make it work."

Stacy, most likely feeling a bit left out of the exchange, picked up her glass and offered a toast.

"Alright," she announced, "here's to everything being awesome!"

We all lifted our glasses and cheered to our good fortune.

----------------------

Of course, as many say, good fortune can only be appreciated when there is bad fortune to balance it against.

Thankfully it wasn't another injury or problems on the jobsite. The apartments flew off the shelves (so to speak) and we had full occupancy (at least the leases, even though most had not moved in yet) within 2 weeks.

It also wasn't my relationships with Karen and Stacy... or even Katie for the most part (though we didn't quite have the same type of relationship) as things were going well with everyone.

The bad fortune, if you can even call it that (and admittedly, many wouldn't) dealt with a minor issue involving the upcoming Vegas trip.

It was two weeks before the trip and I had booked flights for all three of us. I still had a habit of just paying for everyone. Karen most certainly could have afforded her own ticket but with buying for myself and Katie anyhow I figured I could go ahead and do it. In the apartment Karen and Stacy made sure they were not totally taking advantage of my wanting them to be around and insisted on taking care of all utilities, food and other random expenses.

Anyhow, I had just purchased our tickets and was telling Katie about our flights and potential itinerary when I saw her face drop. She had no other reaction other than turning white for a moment. About 90 minutes later she explained the situation.

With how busy we had been she had completely forgotten to buy convention tickets or book us hotel rooms. She was able to purchase convention tickets, no problem... hotel rooms were the issue. It seemed that there were multiple conventions in Vegas that week and just about everything was booked up. She tried looking for three rooms but was just unable to find them anywhere. What she was finally able to secure was a single room in the hotel connected to our convention center as well as two more in different, distant hotels. The good news was that each had a king bed. The bad news is that we would not be even close to one another when bedtime came. It sucked and I admit I wasn't happy about the news or with her dropping the ball, but what were we going to do? I told her that we would figure out who got what room once we got there.

Who would be going soon turned into another dilemma.

Karen came home from work flustered and upset. She didn't even say hello, rather simply said that she wasn't going on the trip with us. Basically, some sort of software scheduling issue that resulted in too many people getting the okay to be off. Of course, as the high person on the totem pole, Karen absolutely could have just said she was still taking her vacation and others would potentially need to cancel theirs... but she didn't. She rationalized that her little 3-4 day jaunt, while nice, was not worth someone else having to cancel something bigger and potentially closer to their heart.

So, she was out and I quickly cancelled her reservation. We just had to figure out the hotel rooms. Katie somewhat pushed my hand with that one.

"Phil? I was thinking about this and I was wondering, when we are in Vegas if, uhm... if we could share a room? I know you probably don't particularly like the idea and I will try to continue looking for a hotel with two rooms, but I am just really nervous about being there, basically by myself."

She had a point. My mind raced back to what Karen had told me previously, that Katie was still a young woman who was trying to figure her way. I did also think about how she had come onto me a few times and as to whether or not this was a ploy to get me alone but, I figured, with the sheer amount of times we were alone together as it was, if it hadn't already happened there is no reason it would on the trip.

"Let me think about it, okay," I responded. "Keep looking for two rooms and I will see what I can do from my end. Maybe one of my contacts will have an option for us."

My response was total crap. Yes, I did want her to continue looking for rooms and I hoped that she would. The reality was that I did think that both of us would be more comfortable in our own space. But, it wasn't like I had any 'contacts' like I said to her. I was a medium level local player in the property development and management business. I was barely a step above a local homeowner and probably 30 steps below the large, national companies or celebrities that could offer purchasing power or free marketing respectively. Nobody was going to be offering me any freebies or rooms that weren't available on the normal hotel website.

And so, a couple of weeks later, as we got off the plane in McCarran and headed to our hotel, gossipers had an arsenal of material seeing an unattached 40-something man checking into a room with his lovely, equally unattached 21-year-old assistant.

Again, of course, I was full of crap.

Nobody knew us.

Nobody was following us.

Nobody cared.

It wasn't as if there was a huge scene and people were staring. In fact, Katie sat with the luggage while I stood in line at the resort to check us in. There was nothing special about us at all.

Which, of course, meant that there was no reason for the front desk to make any changes to our reservation.

I asked about additional rooms, but all standard rooms were fully booked.

I asked about multiple beds, but the hotel only had King sized.

I asked about upgraded suites, but was thoroughly unwilling to pay the $6700 per night for the "3 bedroom villa suite with butler service and private pool."

Because there was nothing special about us, we were treated respectfully and efficiently and sent on our way to our single room.

I was beginning to dread the prospect.

If I had the need, I wanted to be able to throw my stinky gym clothes in the corner and let them sit and stew. I wanted to be able to fart if I ate too much. I wanted to be able to take a crap and not worry about killing someone.

The thoughts were ludicrous, of course. I wasn't trying to impress Katie, nor she me. We had been living together for months. There was nothing we hadn't experienced with each other already.

The room was nice, though a little on the small side. It had everything that was to be expected and advertised. A king sized bed, a single armchair "seating area" and a desk. The bathroom was quite nice and looked to be recently renovated. There was a very large shower stall and a huge vanity and mirror combo that ensured that we would both be able to prepare ourselves at the same time when needed.

We had gotten in the day before the show was to start intentionally because we wanted to have some daylight hours for free time. With it being her first time in Vegas, Katie wanted to see all of the touristy attractions. Dropping our bags in the room, we headed on out to see the sights.

And see the sights we did.

We saw the Bellagio fountains. We saw the Caesar's Forum Shops and the Venetian Shops and the inside of Paris. We walked through New York, New York and rode the roller coaster and walked through the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. Katie also took it upon herself to take as many of the escort business cards that she could get her hands on as we walked down the strip citing them as some sort of collector's item. We got some dinner from a food truck and, as the sun began to go down, we watched the Fremont Street Experience and went to the top of the Stratosphere and caught even the volcano show at the Mirage. We bounced from one end of the city to the other and back again, allowing us to somewhat decompress in between each new barrage of sights, sounds and emotions. I had seen just about all of these things before, but could even admit that it was nice doing them again and it was even better with Katie, who proved to be excellent company.