The Morning Light

Chapter 3 - Timmy is led to the s*******r.

Chapter 3 - Timmy is led to the slaughter.If Miriam had learned anything as VP of production at the giant Midwest Agriculture Conglomerate where she had earned her executive spurs, it was how to intimidate an underling. Not that Timmy was officially an underling, not at all. According to the organizational chart he was her boss, but in truth her real boss was her old college roommate, June Bracken. And even June was more like a co-conspirator than an actual boss. But nonetheless, Timmy was clearly intimidated right now, and she intended that he would remain so.

He was seated in a very low, beige, easy chair to the right front of her desk. Angela perched attentively on the edge of a straight-backed wooden chair to the left. Gloria relaxed at the end of a rather formal sofa to the back of the room, out of Timmy's sight. Miriam stood leaning against her desk, with her back to the amber afternoon sun, and looked down at Timmy. She knew that the light would spill around her, masking her in a sort of glow that Timmy could only look up into.

She began, “What say we begin with a recap of how TRB got to this point?”

“Oh, sorry,” interjected the brash, inexperienced intern, “but should I use my laptop for notes?”

“No, you should not! You take your notes by hand, give them to my personal assistant to edit and type up on her Selectric, then I review and adjust them as needed. After that you shred every scrap of your original notes! Is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes, Miriam, no problem, I totally get it, no problem at all. I will do that for sure, OK!”

“Good, now where were we? Oh yes, how the hell did we get into this ridiculous position, Timmy? You created an amazing company built on nothing more than your mathematical genius at measuring and squeezing uncertainty. And, of course, in finding, cultivating, and teaching the best f*****g programmers in the world. You found some deep-pocket customers in the government security community, hooked them on your methods, and wormed your way deeply into their daily analytic production processes. And for the last ten years it has worked beautifully. Is that a fair statement, Timmy?”

But Timmy was having a bit of a hard time concentrating on the CEO’s words. Something about Miriam’s pose, leaning casually against her modern desk, was distracting. The halo of amber sunlight around her and her powerfully muscled calves pushing her black, three-inch pumps forward, was slightly arousing him. And it didn’t help that Angela’s short, sunny skirt was riding dangerously high on her tanned thighs. The combination inevitably made his small c**k fill just enough for the pink girdle to do its job. The confining pinch served powerfully to remind him of the invisible tether that had just today bound him ever more firmly to his Mistress.

“What?” mumbled Timmy. “Oh, yes, but really it was just that I was first to market. Any number of my colleagues at Oak Ridge could have done the same. I mean the ideas were simple, it’s just that I had a good patent attorney who got me rights to what we were all doing. And then, well, you know the rest.”

“Yes, right,” Miriam replied offhandedly, but then paused and looked deeply and intensely into Timmy's downcast eyes before she continued, “But now we have a problem, don’t we?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “It’s one that Gloria, June, and I have been mulling for several months. You know what it is, don’t you?”

Timmy replied, “I’m not sure exactly – but..”

“Exactly! We have gotten too goddammed big, rich, and important. We are in the sights of the takeover artists from a whole passel of huge government contracting firms. They are sniffing around, probing for weakness. Basically they want our business, they want our boys, they want our contacts, and they really want our cash flow. They want, want, want. And June, given her lifestyle choices, doesn’t care for the intense scrutiny, as I am sure you understand. ”

With that, Angela scrunched even closer to the edge of her chair, and in her fresh, supple mind, the phrase, “lifestyle choices” kept resonating. There was something in the air, something hidden, something that was causing a familiar sensation in her young body. “Oh, f**k, this is good!” she thought. “Wow!”

“So,” Miriam continued, “we have a plan, and we start implementation tomorrow, just as soon as you and June sign off on it. Which will happen this afternoon. Since you two jointly own seventy-three percent of TRB, we can do nothing without both your signatures. You will sign here in my office and then I will take the documents down to the Santa Barbara Club where June is lunching. Is that satisfactory?”

“But, what???? What plan?”

“Well, before laying out the plan for you, let’s go over what our options are. Of course, June and I have pretty much already decided, but here are our options: One, we sell. Simple, clean, and we all walk away with a nice payoff. Two, we go public. Susan thinks we would have an opening day price of around $20 per share and she thinks we could easily sell ten million shares. But then we would surrender a lot of control and the transparency required would most definitely limit our freedom of action. Three, we stay private and, based on our cash flow, we borrow big time from the vulture bankers to bulk up our war chest.

“Then we go on our own acquisition spree. With this one, there would be no immediate payoff, but we would still have full control, and the endgame could be absurdly huge. In fact, if I have read the global tech economy correctly, and we get the right partners, the potential is unlimited. In fact, we have already identified three companies that are an almost perfect complement to our skills, so, while it sounds crazy, it is most definitely doable.”

Timmy, who, of course, had thought through these options since more or less the beginning of TRB, was not really paying attention to Miriam’s exposition. He was really much more aware of the fact that Gloria had stood up and was now standing directly behind him, and that Angela had rotated her youthful body so her slightly open knees were aimed directly at him, and that Miriam had uncrossed her legs at the ankle causing that haunting sound of nylon on nylon.

Plus, Timmy knew his wife. He knew with pretty near certainty what she would do. And, what the f**k, why not. So far the ride with her had been thrilling, better than anything he had ever imagined. And who needs more money, just for more money. They, like most people he socialized with, had plenty of the stuff. But nobody else had an incredible wife that could, and did, make him want to crawl on his belly and leave a trail of goo from his drooling prick as he wriggled closer and closer to her glorious golden snatch. And that, sadly, was what Timmy craved, not a bigger Porsche, if they even made one.

“So, what are your thoughts?” asked Miriam.

Timmy looked up and replied, “June wants option three, doesn’t she?”

Miriam nodded, turned around and swiveled the computer screen to face Timmy. In the window of a Skype session it showed the smiling face of Susan, the LA corporate lawyer June had hired. “Susan will guide you through the documents you have to sign today and answer any questions. But, Timmy, you know that June loves you, and will always take care of you, and that nothing we decide today is ever going to change that.”

“Yeah, right,” thought Timmy, “at least until she finds a handsome, big-dicked, alpha male who rocks her world. Maybe even the guy who was filling those condoms in her bedroom last night.” But all he did was nod and say, “I understand. Where do I have to sign?”