Pheasant Construction

PHEASANT CONSTRUCTION

It was cool at night, refreshingly cool, cool in the canyon. And it's dark too, almost pitch black, no lights from any visible buildings. I can hear night noises. The babbling of the river, distant vehicle sounds from the highway and other less distinguishable noises. Nocturnal animals stealthily stalking their prey.

I guess I fit into that category too, tonight. Dressed darkly I am also waiting on my prey. Strangely calm my overwhelming emotion is of calm anger. Anger and vengeance.

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I met Marshall Pheasant on a job site some years ago. I had been hired to do the landscape and exterior living area of a new build in Forest Meadow west of town. The entire development of Forest Meadow was a magnet for Californians fleeing that decaying state with their fists full of appreciated real estate gains. Moving to Central Oregon.

Central Oregon has this ideal climate. Not much rain, but enough precipitation to create abundant winter snow on the mountains for skiers. Sunny nearly 300 days per year. Cold through the winter giving a nice change of seasons to the climate. It is not that unusual to be sitting in the sun one day and have it snow the next.

The recreation is superb. Powdery snow for skiers, rivers, lakes and hiking throughout the area, great for all types of outdoor recreation.

There are some downsides to this migration. The big two I can think of are increased real estate prices and Californians. I have noticed that drivers have become far ruder, in a hurry. There is a general arrogance that 5-10 years ago was rare. It's here to stay now. The good news is they have money and they want things built. For me this outweighs the negative byproducts.

When I first met Marshall I was 28. He must have been a good 10 years older. Kind of a big, charismatic guy, a little loud and generally of good humor. This particular day he was not in any type of good mood.

He was yelling at the finish carpenter. I had noticed a sloppiness about the work while I was finishing the deck, but I hadn't said anything.

"This is a high end home," Marshall yelled. "How in Hell do you think this workmanship is acceptable?" He went on.

They had stepped outside, in my area, so the carpenter could smoke. I heard everything.

"What do you expect man!," the carpenter replied between puffs. "This material is shit!"

"You're going to have to re-do all the mitre's. And it's on your dime, I'm not paying labor on a re-do that you screwed up!" A red faced Marshall bellowed.

"Fuck that," spat out the carpenter. "I quit!" And he grabbed his tools and left.

"God damn it." Marshall was grumbling to himself. "Now what." Then he looked at me. Then he looked at my work.

All my corners were square, my spacing was correct. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and this outdoor living space looked great, I must say.

At that point we began talking. He asked if I could finish the kitchen. We looked at it, and walked the project. Marshall pointed out the areas that needed to be fixed because of the sloppy craftsmanship. I saw a half dozen other spots that needed help too. He asked me how long it would take me to finish.

"Estimate I'd have 30 hours in here to fix this right." I told Marshall.

He stopped rubbing the back of his neck for a moment, I knew he was mentally calculating his hit to the bottom line.

"I pay $40 an hour, and you've got 25 hours to get this done." He told me.

"No thanks." I said, and started picking up my tools and heading for the trailer.

"Wait, wait," he called after me. "Alright, you've got 30 hours."

"Since it's our first job together," I said, "I'll give you my discount rate, $60 per hour." I told him.

We finally settled on 30 hours at $50 per hour. I told him I would start tomorrow. I also gave him a material list of things I needed first thing in the morning.

As we shook hands he said, "kid, you haven't even told me your name." He said.

"Kevin Cotton," I told him.

"I'm Marshall Pheasant," he told me.

"Yeah, I know." And that's how we met.

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That first year I was a contract employee of Pheasant Construction. I still did some jobs on my own, but not many. Marshall kept me quite busy. At the end of that first year I realized something. I was making good money and the work was plentiful, but I wasn't growing my own business.

In a small construction business the best way to build your brand is through word-of-mouth reputation. You build something nice for someone and they tell their neighbor. That neighbor tells someone else. And your reputation grows. And so does your business.

I wasn't getting any of that. I was an employee of Pheasant Construction to the customers. The brand that was being built through my work was Pheasant Construction.

I called Marshall and explained my situation. In the past year we had become if not friends certainly friendly. I had met his wife Belinda, been to his home and shared beers occasionally after work.

I told him I needed to cut back my hours with Pheasant Construction.

"I need to build my own business," I told him. "I love working for you Marshall, but I need to think long term about my future."

I could tell this was a bit of a shock to Marshall. He told me to not make any permanent decisions yet. He asked me to meet with him tomorrow after work at the office.

The next night at the office I met with Marshall and his older sister, Claudia Pheasant-Brown. I did not know her well, she rarely spoke to me. Claudia was the financial person at Pheasant Construction. She took care of the books, paid bills, collected money and did the payroll.

Marshall with great formality asked me to sit, he and Claudia had a proposal for me.

"Kevin, we want you to be a partner in Pheasant Construction." Marshall explained with a broad grin.

I was a little confused by all this. "A partner?" I asked.

"Yes, Claudia has all the details." He said. "She can tell you the basics and then we can get our lawyer to take care of all the legal parts. What do you say?" He said as he reached across the table to shake my hand with that broad grin once again.

The basics were this. Marshall owned 60% of the business, Claudia owned 20% and I would own the remaining 20%. The following Friday we all met at the lawyers office and he reviewed the partnership agreement.

I did not understand it all. There were clauses for the partnership shares changing, valuations based on business, annual meetings, subordinated loans, dividend dispersal and many other details.

After a while I didn't even try to understand it. I just signed where they told me. Throughout the process I got the distinct impression that Claudia was angry about something. That anger seemed focused at me. I barely knew the woman, what could I have done to her?

Pheasant Construction quickly evolved into a distinct separation of responsibilities. Claudia ran the accounting side of the business. I was project manager in the field, often working on projects myself. Marshall was the main guy. He sold jobs, met with suppliers, networked with developers and built our brand. He was the face of the company.

Our vehicles all had a distinct red Pheasant logo on the sides. They were easy to identify, they were our brand. With my work and Marshall's leadership our business grew. Though some of the labor was done by subcontractors I hired a full time employee to help me.

My employee was a young man who I had worked with previously. His name was Angel Menendez. Angel was a hard worker, learned quickly and rarely spoke. 2 things I learned about him: 1. He's married with 2 young children and fiercely loyal to his family. 2. He was also loyal to me.

Business was great. With all the influx of Californians and others our business grew. We were known as a high quality contractor. We were able to be profitable on our jobs and the profits were shared as partners. Our brand grew and we were making money.

My life was great professionally, but at close to 30 years old, I was lonely. There are plenty of young attractive women in Central Oregon. There was a real bar scene downtown. I had been out in that scene a few times. It was kind of fun, but not really my style.

I preferred a lifestyle of outdoor activities. When not doing things in the wilderness I was working on the small pre war house I had bought in an old neighborhood near downtown. I far preferred having a backyard barbecue with friends over than going to the fancy bars in town. The problem was it was hard to meet many people with my preferred lifestyle.

Part of my work day included picking up material from our different suppliers. Occasionally I had to get things from the big box home improvement retailer in town. While there I happened to notice a cute, petite dark haired girl working in the paint department.

Every time I went there I tried to find a reason to flirt with her in paint. I learned her name was Tracie, she had been working at the home center for almost a year. I also learned she occasionally moonlighted hanging wallpaper. I told her I may be able to use her on one of our jobs if she was interested. She said she was. One other thing I noticed was no wedding or engagement rings.

Over the weeks we became friendly and talked regularly. One time when we were chatting a big dark haired supervisor scolded her for neglecting a customer. He gave me a look as he walked the aisles. Tracie seemed a bit intimidated by this guy.

After her customer had left I asked her "Who was that guy."

"That's Chad, he's the coordinator for my department." She said this and glanced furtively around to make sure he wasn't near her.

"Chad gets mad if I don't do what he wants." She said.

I noticed her blush a little after saying this. Hmmm, I wonder what he is wanting her to do? Tracie was a little cutie. She has a sort of teenage girl innocence about her. She also had a youthful girlish voice. Was this guy trying to prey on her?

"Here he comes," she said and quickly moved away. "I get off in fifteen minutes, I don't want him to make me work a long shift," she said as she gave me a quick nervous smile.

Walking away I thought, what the hell, I'm going to ask her to go get a bite to eat with me. She can always say no. Nothing ventured.

I moved to the back of the store where the employee entrance is located. About 20 minutes later I saw her exit, walking quickly toward a group of parked cars.

I pursued and was about to call her name when Chad, the bulky store coordinator, ran up and grabbed her shoulder, spinning the petite Tracie around. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying but what I did see was a big sloppy asshole trying to bully an innocent young woman.

She was shaking her head "no" when I showed up.

"Everything OK here?" I asked calmly, looking towards Tracie.

"This is none of your business pal." Exclaimed Chad.

I was staring at Tracie, and she looked frightened.

"Are you OK?" I asked Tracie.

She was looking at Chad with fear and back at me. She opened her mouth to speak and no words came out. I was ignoring Chad.

All of a sudden he grabs my shoulder as if to turn me away from Tracie.

Now, here are a few physical details. I'm estimating Chad's about 6'3, 250 fairly soft pounds. One of those guys who is used to getting their way just by their bullying physical size.

On the other hand I'm right at 6' even and when I checked earlier this week, 180 lbs. I have to say they are a fairly solid 180 pounds.

So when this asshole grabs my shoulder I shrug his arm off, my elbow smacking his forearm, I'm still looking only at Tracie. The shrug was pure instinct.

By the time I turn towards Chad his face has gone red and he is angry. The haymaker was so slow and weak I barely needed to duck. My straight right to his soft gut doubled him over. I put my arm loosely around Tracy's shoulder and ushered her away.

Last I saw Chad he was on his hands and knees bellowing about Tracy losing her job and an assault charge against me. Fortunately I noticed a security camera almost directly over us. With his grabbing of Tracy, and attacking me first, none of his threats worried me.

A couple things happened in short order: 1). Tracie didn't get fired. 2). She quit and got a better job, (I helped her). 3. She focused more on her business, "Tracie's Wallscaping" (I helped here too). 4. We became a couple.

I learned a lot about Tracie in these first few weeks. Full name; Tracie Marie Talcott. She is an only child and was raised mostly without a father. Her Mom lives is Prarieview, a high desert town about an hour away. Her Mom is a chain smoker on the edge of poor-dom. Any closeness they have comes from the fact that they are the only family each other has.

They don't share many other common interests or much affection.

Another thing I discovered about Tracie is she has an incredible body. Like a gymnast, lean and sinewy with a beautiful petite but feminine round ass. Not much in the boob department but beautiful, easily erectable nipples. The lack of breast does not bother me. Tracie is constantly apologizing about this anatomical characteristic.

I tell her to not worry about it.

The first time we had sex, she was reluctant. I later pieced together the reason was her poor self image because of flat chestedness. I've got to say that the rest of her body far more than made up for her petite breasts.

The other thing she did was overcompensate with effort in her lovemaking.

When we finally got naked together for the first time she immediately went down on me. Her oral sex technique was skilled and energetic. It was like a race for her. I patiently slowed her down. I turned her on her stomach and gave her a slow sensuous massage.

Nude I would start at her calves and give long slow strokes all the way up to her upper back. She shivered with pleasure. Of course when I stretched all the way up to her upper back my erection was nestled snugly in the cleft of her round muscular ass. I nearly lost it here a couple of times.

After getting her relaxed I gently turned her over and sucked those erect nipples and trailed my tongue down her abdomen. She kept reaching for my erection and I had to firmly and kindly, with my actions, let her know it was my time to take care of her.

I teased around her beautiful pussy and clitoral mound. She kept thrusting her body toward my tongue, straining for contact. I continued to tease her. Slowly I began a light flickering on her most sensitive of areas and her excitement wound tighter.

Finally I made full frontal contact and she exploded with a very vocal climax.

As I began to start the insertion of the erection into her hot moist slit I saw that she was silently crying.

"What is it," I quietly asked.

She just shook her head and said nothing.

"Tracie, why are you crying?" I asked again.

She put her arms around me and hugged me tightly. Now we're both naked, I'm fully erect and I can feel the moistness of her excitement. I could have plunged right in, but I wanted to know what she was crying about.

Finally she said to me, "I didn't know boys would do that to girls too, I thought . . . um . ." And then she trailed off.

This gave me a bit of an insight into her sexual history. Sounds like there was a lot of oral sex only going one way in her past. This was about to change.

Well we ended up fucking that night, three times to be exact. There was more oral sex and other things in the months that came. Tracie still was active and vigorous in the bedroom but she learned how to get her own sexual pleasure too.

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We were married in a small ceremony. Her Mom, my family, Marshall and Belinda Pheasant, a few others attended and I invited Angel & Ynez Menendez. Angel and I worked together daily and we had created a strong comfortable bond.

Life was good. Tracie and I grew closer. She was very loving in all ways. I taught her about the outdoors. Fishing, hiking, mountain biking and other activities that we can experience at our fingertips living in Central Oregon.

As we grew together I learned some other things about Tracie. To my surprise, she seemed more attracted to the nightlife of downtown than I did. Occasionally we would walk into town to a restaurant or to meet friends at a bar. Tracie's eyes would light up and she always wanted to stay as long as possible. At first it was kind of cute.

There were a few other things I learned about Tracie. She was a super neat freak about the kitchen being clean, but her clothes in the closet and dresser were a disorganized heap. She was constantly misplacing her keys, her phone, her sunglasses only to find them a few days later.

She also had this sort of kinky, I guess you'd call it game, that she liked. I'll describe what happened the first time I discovered it:

I got home one night from work and noticed her little Corolla in the driveway, so I knew she was home. All the lights were off. When I walked into the kitchen there was a lit candle and a note on the table "find me, leave the lights off". Huh!? So I searched the house in the dark for Tracie.

When I finally found her in a closet she was nude. I started to say something and she put her finger to my lips to hush. She climbed into my arms and I carried her to our bed. Our bed was covered in towels. She handed me a bottle of baby oil and lay spread eagle on the towels.

I rubbed the oil all over her body. One spot she needed no further lubrications was her freshly completely bald pussy. My erection slid right in to her there, and a couple of other spots too. The silent sex was incredible.

When I asked her about it later. She just smiled and said that she liked to play hide and seek. That's all she said. From then on I knew when I came home and the lights were off, we were playing hide and seek.

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Pheasant Construction was booming. We had a nice backlog of work and we were getting known as a high quality custom builder and remodeler. Angel's carpentry skills were improving too. I could leave him on jobs without a worry.

My day would begin with getting Angel set up early. Going to one of our subcontract crews and getting them pointed in the right direction. I would then go to a high precision custom job that I would work on.

That Fall we had a real interesting custom build in the expensive Aspen Glen area. The ground had a small arroyo or depression nearly in the center of the spot where the house would ideally sit. I proposed to the owners that we cantilever the home above the depression and have a dry creek bed flow under the house.

They loved the idea. So essentially I was building a wooden bridge over the arroyo that the house will be sitting on. It was ambitious and I had to do some research on building the bridge-like structure. Some structural engineering went into the plan. Angel and I worked exclusively on it.

It turned out beautiful. The home was featured in a regional consumer home magazine. Pheasant Construction was identified as one of the up and coming innovative new builders in the Pacific Northwest. Of course Marshall was in his element pontificating about how we like to push boundaries, create environments, blend in with nature etc.

It didn't bother me that Marshall was assuming credit for Angel and my craftsmanship. I received a nice bonus and I made sure that a good percent of my bonus trickled to Angel.

Demand for our services increased. We were able to raise prices and Angel and I were getting bonused on each completed jobs. We could also be selective about what jobs we took.

Later that Fall I had an interior remodel of an office in a large house on acreage west of town. This was a high precision job with high expectations. I worked on it alone.

The client was named Preston Balfour. Balfour made his money in real estate development throughout the west. He had been in Central Oregon for nearly 20 years and his house was actually a huge ranch west of town. He wanted a mahogany paneled study with built in bookcases. You can imagine fine cigars and brandy being consumed in this type of room.