I am a 75-year-old high school dropout. I have never taken a creative writing class in my life and prior to my first story in March 2019 (which stunk, don't bother reading it) the last story I wrote was in 1962 and was about how I spent my summer vacation and I believe my grade was a D. This is to encourage anyone who thinks they won't like this one not to bother reading it is a long story over 31,000 words. This story is fiction' A hotel like this one probably does not exist. All characters are figments of my imagination. It is far-fetched and unlikely in real life. I self-edited it using Grammarly until it crashed and MS word editor. The story is inspired by Bigguy33's story "We Need to Talk" which is probably far better than my drivel. Thank you Bigguy for the blanket permission. I did try to reach him but received no response. Thanks also to the great Vandemoium1 for the beta read or in is case I guess Alpha read. You will notice a number of similarities to Bigguy33's story mostly in the beginning and ending. I do hope you like it. Again if you do not like BTB don't waste your time on this one.
Over The Top
I was in a great mood driving home to my loving wife Stephanie and our 18-year-old daughter Theresa. My name is Luke Gibson, and we have been married for almost twenty years.
Even at 42, Stephanie was a beautiful woman. We could never go out dancing without a few younger men asking her to dance. It could be annoying at times, but it was also complimentary in its way. Our daughter Theresa recently turned 18 and hung out with her best friend, Carolyn Cree, and her boyfriend, Duncan Dean. I sometimes worried that she and Duncan were getting a little too close for my comfort. My wife told me to chill because she had spoken to Theresa several times and said she was saving herself, at least for the time being. I overheard Carolyn and Theresa talking once and heard her say she was in love with Duncan and was sure he was the one. She also told Carolyn that they had discussed marriage.
After earning my computer sciences degree, I got my first and only job with Sanderson Intelligence Services. We were a software programming company. With all the computer fraud and theft going on, we Increasingly started getting involved in protecting client computers. After a few years, we evolved into a white hat hacking organization. We were so successful that my boss, Otto Sanderson, offered me a 30% discount on a 35% percent partnership in the business. The purchase was instead of the annual bonus but was too good an opportunity to refuse. Eight years later, his health was deteriorating, and his second wife, Helga, insisted he retire so she could take care of him, and they could enjoy whatever time he had left together. So, I bought an additional 35% leaving him as a 30% inactive partner so he would still have his fingers in the pot and receive a steady income throughout his retirement.
A few years before I went to work for Otto, he had gone through a very acrimonious divorce. One of the results of which was that he was forced to sell his business at a huge loss to settle the divorce. A few years later, he started Sanderson Intelligence on a shoestring so small it would only fit a toddler's foot. When he hired me, the payroll was late more than once, but he somehow managed to meet his obligations eventually.
Otto recognized my potential not long after he hired me, and I think, coupled with my loyalty, his desperate need for operating capital, and the fact that, as a partner, I would have to accept the occasional missing paycheck without recourse, he offered me the partnership. The first condition he insisted on was that in the event of a marriage, partners would have to sign ironclad prenuptial agreements that would be updated every two years at the annual partnership meeting. The prenups were traditional except for the infidelity clause. This allowed the cheating spouse to walk away with $1000 for each year of marriage and nothing else. If Steph ever caught me cheating, my entire partnership would revert to Stephanie, and I would leave the marriage with nothing more than $1000 for each year together. In addition to the prenup, he also insisted that everything of value we own be purchased by the partnership. This included our homes, our cars, our cell phones, our jewelry, and even our furniture. This was all explained to our wives, who signed off on it every two years.
My then fiancé Stephanie was very offended by a prenup, but Otto was insistent, and she saw the opportunity the partnership offered and very reluctantly signed. She did not hesitate to tell Otto how she felt about it, though. Otto just smiled and nodded his head while she was signing. Although we held an annual partnership meeting, we only required our wives to attend on alternate years. During the alternate year meetings, we updated all our partnership documents, including the prenups, and buy-sell agreement, life insurance policies for all four of us, key man policies for Otto and me, and all other documents pertinent to the partnership.
Stephanie hated those meetings and was outspoken about her disdain for them. She barely paid any attention to them. Over the past few years, I noticed she spent more time texting her friends or reviewing Facebook than anything else. When it came to signing the documents like the prenup and her life policy, she just signed and initialed wherever the lawyer told her to without reading or paying attention to what the document was. This would prove disastrous for her in our not-distant future.
Now it was ten years since Saul had turned the CEO position over to me and gone into semi-retirement. With all the computer theft through phishing, spoofing and outright hacking our company has grown rapidly. Without sounding too prideful I had developed some strong software to prevent hacking and we had become a leader in the anti-hacking security world. In the process it became necessary for me to become a first-class hacker to stay one step ahead of the crooks.
I just left a meeting with my partner Otto, two of our attorneys, our CPA, and representatives of an investment banking company from New York. They had been in our offices for the past two weeks exploring the potential for a public offering. We were thrilled and shocked to learn our little company was now worth well more than $350 million, maybe as much as $450 mil. They wanted the IPO to be for 75% of the company, with Otto and I keeping 25%. The CPA estimated I would walk away with $200 to $210 million before taxes, and Otto would see 30% of that.
Even better news was that the underwriter would allow us to remove all our private property from the partnership before the IPO. On top of all of that, Otto and I would still retain 25% of the company valued at about $100 million. I would be CEO and the largest shareholder. Otto would remain a semi-retired consultant. Is it any wonder I was ecstatic driving home?
I knew something was wrong the moment I walked into the house. Stephanie was sitting at the dining room table with a glass of wine and a grave face. I walked over to kiss her hello, and she turned her face to me, so I ended up kissing her hair. She said, "Luke, please sit down. We have something serious to discuss." I asked, "would grab me a beer while I take a leak and change, and then we can talk." In our entire marriage, she had never insisted we speak as soon as I walked in the door, not even when she let me know she was pregnant for Theresa. So, I set my cell to record and put it upside down in my shirt pocket so there was little interference to the speaker. I do not know if this was the smartest or the most prescient thing I'd ever done. All I know for sure is I've never regretted it.
I learned a long time ago that when I was in a serious conversation, it was best to record the discussion in case I had a need to review it later. I neglected to tell Steph I was recording, but only because I did not realize how serious a talk we would be having.
Anyway, I returned to the table and sat down with my beer. She was extremely nervous and, after a few minutes, blurted out, "I have been having an affair for the past year." Of course, I was flabbergasted.
After about a three-minute fish impression, I was finally able to ask, "why?"
She responded, "As I approach menopause, my libido is increasing. You are slowing down, and I need more; you just don't satisfy me any longer."
"When we were first married, my libido was about three times stronger than yours, and you are very aware that I would have done it three times a day every day, but I respected your parameters and left you alone, and now this is how you pay me back?"
"That is true, but I don't think that is a fair comparison," she said with a guilty look.
I was thinking, "of course you don't," but didn't say it.
I said, "I assume you are telling me this because you have decided to give him up. We should seek counseling to get past this as amicably as possible."
