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Inital Public Offerings Ch. 01

By: FD45



This story is dedicated to the Makers: those who throw their hats in the ring and take a chance making something that others judge without taking any risks. 

I would also like to thank mikothebaby for her efforts on this piece and all the other editors on Literotica. That is a tedious and frequently thankless job, but like Angelina Jolie's make up artists, they make us writers look good. They are the refiners.

Any remaining errors are my fault. I hope you enjoy the story. This is the first part.

There is little sex in this story, but a lot of passion.

Outside of my office, my secretary of all of 6 months was yelling at a man who was trying to burst into my office. From the sounds of it, security was there as well. And yet Mindy, a temp that I happened to take a shine to, was loyally stopping all of them. But I don't know how long she could do it.

If I had a future in the company, I'd give her a raise.

It was decision time. The actions I took were going to change my life immensely. I carefully punched in the number I had to look up on my iPhone. "Hello? Hi Randy. My name is Jim Reynolds. I need you to process an order for me..."

***

This isn't where my story started. It really started about a week back.

***

 Log In

"Just sign the damned paper, Jim." Andrew said to me. "I've already vetted it. It's standard boilerplate for an IPO. Just don't sell until I tell you to."

I looked keenly at Andrew Schwartz, our business asshole. His face seemed distracted and a little put out. This seemed to be the ten thousandth document that I'd signed in the last week and all of our nerves were getting on edge. Harry Loeb, our unfortunately named lawyer, gave me a nod. Both of them had been with me when we started Ipswitch Inc. a bunch of years ago so I signed.

Finally, Gordon Jenkins broke out a bottle of champagne and poured as the four of us toasted finally getting on the NASDAQ as the newest IPO starting Monday. Ipswitch Inc does custom designed software for router systems and, if I do say so myself, we have some innovative work. Andrew was the business maven, Gordon oversaw installation and product development, Harry was our lawyer, and I designed the code. Yes, it was more complicated then that. We had a hundred employees and wanted to get the money to hire more. A lot of businesses had expressed interest in our work and our numbers were good enough for Andrew to shop our company to a bunch of underwriting banks. We were nowhere near big enough to touch a Goldman Sachs, though they had a tiny piece of us through some complicated money wrangling that I really didn't bother to understand. I mean, my job was code and making sure my code writers were organized and pulling in the same direction. That's why we had Andrew. He handled the business side of the deal.

We had finished our toasts when Andrew came up and put his hand on my shoulder. "So what's happening with the Nerd Herd? The new version churning along?"

I sighed. "Please don't let them hear you say that. Yes, we're on schedule and it should be done soon." It was a bit of contention between the two of us. Andrew was pushing for new product for his sales team to sell, while I wanted to make sure that the product was of very high quality without under servicing our current customers. I'd been doing code and IT for a long time before we started our own company, and I knew that customers who weren't serviced became ex-customers. Obviously we were at loggerheads frequently, but with Harry and Gordon acting as referees, we had a good working relationship and had come to a balance. He pushed me to perform and I restrained his over exuberance.

"You're going to have a problem with this IPO and the shares thing." Andrew was referring to my stance on the board. I was finishing school in 2000 and had joined up with a tech company. My new bride Allie and I were buoyant at my future prospects, and my first job had included a generous package of company shares.

Anyone who remembers that time knows how many tech companies imploded. While we hadn't been one of those 'paper millionaires', racking up a large amount of debt, our compensation left us nothing when my first job crashed and it was a very cold and lonely time to be a software designer. Most of my fellow classmates were in similar predicaments.

Based on my experience, I made sure that we paid money to our designers, not just shares of a private company. Andrew thought it would be cheaper and add more incentives to give them shares. Having eaten my fair share of post collegiate ramen noodles, I disagreed. It came to our 'board', the four of us. Gordon was with me on this, being similar in age, but Andrew showed us the financials until Harry hammered out a compromise: everyone got a base salary, but they had the option of getting shares in lieu of bonuses and other compensation. It must have been a good agreement because Andrew and I were both deeply dissatisfied.

Still, he had a point. Those who bought shares now had the potential of having them ride reasonably high in the next three months. Those who didn't might be resentful. I had several of our workers trying to shift their packages at the last minute.

"We should go back to the party." This bit of final business, of course, had to be celebrated with a party. Andrew had insisted. For one thing we needed to keep our venture capitalists happy. For another, those of us married had to keep our wives happy. 

It had been a very rough couple of months, between analysts breathing down our necks and vetting the various underwriters who wanted our business. It was a funny thing, starting an IPO. It was like a delicate teen aged romance, with the both parties checking out if we were 'sexy' enough for the other in terms of immediate share growth and 'stable' enough for long term potential. This meant long hours. Andrew, a bachelor, ate and drank business and it meant nothing to him. Even during the party, he had CNBC on a television somewhere in view, albeit muted.

"How are things going with you and Allie?" he asked as we came to the top of the stairs looking down on his modern living area. It was typical Andrew: modern, open, and designed to be seen with lots of windows everywhere. The entire back wall was a window to the outside. 

I looked at my wife of 11 years. She was in her element, talking, glad handing, even flirting with the various friends and business people that were invited. Her blonde hair was nodding as she smiled at some witticism told by an over 60 businessman who invested with us in the early days. His hand was familiarly holding her elbow. She laughed, pressed her hand against his chest, moving him back and held her glass up, showing it empty and headed to the bar. It was a nicely practiced gesture which put up boundaries without offending. In other words, pure Allie.

"Well...you know, Andy. It's like most relationships: a sine wave. It goes up and it goes down." I traced it in the air for him. 

"You are such a nerd." He laughed at me.

I pretended to laugh with him. "I'm not a nerd, I'm a fledgling entrepreneur."

"Don't quit your day job."

I looked at him 'Why do you ask?"

"You guys were all bellyaching about your wives and such. I figured I'd ask." he said, studying me.

I frowned. "She hasn't liked the hours of writing code, but I figure when she sees the money the IPO brings in, she'll get over it. If there's anything she likes besides me; it's money." He chuckled in agreement. Allie had wanted to be high maintenance for a long time and had inflicted her desires for a nice life as quickly as our budget allowed. We'd had conflicts on the issue, but nothing out of the ordinary, or so I thought.

I left him and wandered over to where she was talking to a couple, taking a moment to stop at the buffet and load up a plate of noshes. The strange woman was a standard California girl in a green dress and the man with her had rugged good looks and wavy brown hair. Time for me to show the flag. Allie chatted with the two of them merrily, catching my approach out of the corner of her eye.

"...that's funny. And this is Jim." she introduced me, raising her hand and gesturing to me.

"Her husband Jim." I said. 

She gave that little pause that meant what I did had tweaked her but she continued like nothing had happened. "Of course you're my husband. We have matching wedding rings, silly." 'Silly' was slightly stressed.

"Well, of course we noticed." the woman said laughingly.

"You're wearing a wedding ring?" the man asked slyly. 

The woman smacked his arm, pressing her lips together. "Be nice."

He laughed "Just kidding. I'm Phil and this is Terry, my wife, so don't you go making a play for her, dude." He slid his arm around her waist.

I extended my hand. "Jim Reynolds." We shook.

We had set our boundaries and started chatting. Things were going well. He had a few questions about the business which I didn't totally flub and then some guy who wasn't looking where he was going nudged my elbow, causing me to spill my plate which I was juggling one handed as I stood and talked. "Oops!" The salsa spilled down my shirt.

"Oh Jiiimm" my wife chided. She quickly knelt and started to clean up the mess on the carpet. "This is going to stain. Don't step in it." she said unnecessarily. I hadn't moved. 

"I can see why your parents didn't name you 'Grace'." Phil said. 

I rolled my eyes at him and Allie grabbed my arm. "Come on. We need to fix that shirt."

"I can get it." I said, dabbing at it with a napkin I had grabbed.

"It's silk!" she said, continuing to drag me to the kitchen. We didn't stop there and went right through a back door into the utility room around a corner where I'd never been before. "Strip off your shirt." she snapped at me.

"I don't know why you're all huffy. It was an accident. The guy ran into me."

"You could have moved out of the way." She opened an upper cabinet, glanced inside for a few moments, grabbed a bottle of Shout and started to get the stain out in the utility sink. Now I'd spend the rest of the night with a wet shirt. God forbid we call it an early night.

I sighed. This had plagued my marriage from the beginning. She loved me, but she always thought I was a bit maladroit. I guess it came from my tech education. I mean, I bathed regularly and didn't leer down girls dresses. I had never been to a Star Trek convention. But I had odd hobbies and odder friends. At least they were odd to a girl who was more prone to the social scene then the parent's basement.

You may think that she was cold when we got home and you'd be half right. During the drive, I got the usual 'post game' analysis of what I did to embarrass her. She thought of it as 'helping me grow.' I thought it was just being bitchy.

But when we got home to the bedroom, she immediately stripped her blouse off. "Show me what you got, big guy." she said in a husky voice. You see, she's a very social person. When she goes out into her element, like a party or a gathering or even a political meeting, it lights her fire. So unless I behaved horribly or she was already pissed about something, our nights after a party were quite energetic.

I was barely able to get the soiled shirt open before she was kneeling and working on my belt. "Come on come on!" she said, pulling my fly open and unbuttoning my waistband. Two quick tugs on my boxers and her mouth engulfed my penis, which barely had time to wake up from his slumber. I watched her head bob up and down on Mr. Happy and considered how lucky I was. Sure she was a bitch some of the time and she had a hole in her wallet, but in most other regards, she was a pretty good wife.

She slowly pulled up her skirt and revealed the tops of her stockings. That was another thing we agreed on. She loved high end stockings, not panty hose, and I was more then willing to pay the price. I smiled broadly as she pushed me onto the bed and started stalking up my frame. "I had such a good time tonight. Let me show you how much." She moved the gusset of her thong to the side and impaled herself while moving my hands up to her breasts. They were still magnificent after eleven years. Of course, avoiding kids helped.

I loved to watch her slide up and down on my cock as I lightly pinched and fondled her. She put her head back and made those little sounds which put a shiver down my spine. Normally, we spent the beginning on mutual oral, but occasionally, she decided to forego that and go straight to the fucking. It was traditional of us for her to ride out her orgasm first, though she was less satisfied on top. It helped me last a lot longer and she could get warmed up.

She gave a little shudder and I felt her vagina clench, her head still back. I slid out from under her and positioned myself behind her, pushing her down on all fours. She gasped in appreciation and I slid into her, making my strokes slow and measured as I tried to keep control. This position was always incredibly erotic to me and it was hard for me to keep control. "Jim...now now NOW!" she said in a gasping breath.

This was the signal. I pulled out of her and flipped her on her back and shoved into her hard! Her legs wrapped around me tightly and I started thrusting, no longer caring about lasting at all. She gave two great shudders and bucked a little bit as I once again felt her clench on my cock. I groaned and filled her with my sperm. She liked sex but she LOVED missionary position and we always ended that way.

We laid there panting for a few moments and I was about to reach for her when she rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. "That was wonderful Jim, but I need to clean up." I watched her golden ass undulate toward our master bathroom and heard the water run. That was one of the things I didn't appreciate so much. Once she was done with sex, she was done with sex. She didn't seem to be appreciating the afterglow as much these days.

Coming back, she stopped at her dresser and slid into a nightgown. I guess seconds weren't in the cards. She tossed me a warm washcloth and climbed into bed, shutting off the light, her clothes still scattered around on the floor.

***

Bugs in the System

It was the very next day that things started to get odd. We had our signing party on a Friday and I was lounging at home. Our house was at that transition point from 'house' to 'mansion'. It was very well equipped and had been one of the occasional fights we had over money. Allie wanted a place 'befitting our station' and I wanted a place we could afford easily. Granted, I was bringing over a quarter mill a year in salary and company profits, but that wasn't a lot in California. I was uncomfortable with the cost of the place.

I was NOT uncomfortable with the house itself! I had to give Allie credit. It was very nice and homey, nothing like the cement California house that Andrew favored. She had decorated it very well and had even done so under budget, though the occasional knick knack kept showing up.

I sat in my paneled den, and had just cut a bunch of code when my email announcer dinged. I booted it up and saw it was from my buddy Karl. I hadn't heard from him since I sent him the parameters for our beta version of our new programs and I thought it might be some of the design work I farmed out to him.

It wasn't. Instead, it was this:

Jim, some guy came by my mother's house to talk to me about the Ryleh Beta. Of course I was at Sheila's at the time, so I missed him. He said he wanted to discuss things with me confidentially. He knew the Beta number."

I met Karl back in Middle School. We fell together because my family had moved to an isolated ranch house in the middle of nowhere and the only kid within 10 miles was Karl...and I found out why. Karl had Complex Tourette's Syndrome. This was before Tourettes was particularly well known; certainly before any HBO special. And kids can be cruel. Karl was an angry boy, so his parents moved him to a farming community.

For lack of anyone else, we were thrown together. We initially had our ups and downs as companions. But that first summer, something magical happened: his parents bought him a Sega Genesis.

Within the first week, his mother had to pop the circuit breakers to get us out of the living room. By winter, we were both shoveling driveways, collecting cans and doing any number of chores to be able to buy the next big video game. Castlevania, Mortal Combat and Sonic were our constant companions. Eventually, we got a few more guys into the game. While Karl played, he didn't have his ticks.

Karl got a lot less angry, but he never quite got over his shyness. He let me do the negotiations when we worked, whether it was sitting dogs, mowing lawns, or doing odd jobs.

When I decided to go to college, Karl practically begged me to go to the same school as him and be his roommate. I agreed. We both went into computer science, born of our love of video games and what we thought the future held.

Unfortunately, while most cases of Tourette's diminished with age, Karl's did not. In school, I was his roommate, confidant and sometimes tutor. I had other friends I palled around with, which made me feel guilty, but I also wanted to get laid and Karl was a bit of a buzz kill when it came to cruising chicks. So I split my social life between him and the 'meet' market. 

I had met Allie in my Junior year and we started to get very serious in Senior year. She didn't interact with Karl much since I kept those two sides of my life separate. Outside of an occasional movie together, we traveled in different circles. And looking back, my relationship with Allie helped pull me away from my friendship with Karl. I felt bad about it on reflection, but it was something that happens in all relationships, particularly when a girl gets involved.

Allie had always been much more social, and we complemented each other nicely. She was even less fiscally savvy then I was (I have math skills). Once, I had asked her why she accepted my overtures well after we had started dating, and she said quite forthrightly that I was 'the package'. 

"The package? What's that?"

She looked at me with that slightly condescending way that girls sometimes do when you say something that they think you should already know. "You know...the package."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, now would I?"

"The package is what a girl wants in a guy. For most girls, it's pretty much the same. You need to be nice. You need to be kind of handsome. Too handsome is no good cause you might play around and ugly is no good at all. You need to be easy to be around. You can't be an asshole. You need to be sporty enough, or in shape enough to be manly. You need to be a bit taller and you need to have good career potential. There's a lot more, but that's the basics."

I blinked at her. "Isn't that a bit calculating?"

"Nor more so then you checking out my cooking, my family and my ass." she said frankly. "That's what dating is all about: finding a suitable mate. Most people don't realize it but they choose who they love. I happened to choose you, big guy!" She wrapped her arms around me and laid a kiss on me hot enough to curl my toes and I thought of better things to do then continue the discussion.

We got married, expecting things to be wonderful. Then the internet bubble popped. We were both scrambling for work, me doing data entry, and she doing retail to make ends meet. Since we had moved to California, we were isolated from most of our old friends.

It was about 6 years after graduation that I ran into him again, when I went home to attend my dad's funeral. After getting some things arranged, I saw him in a red smock in the back of a Pizza Hut. Frankly, I was appalled, and extended my trip by a day so I could talk to him. He was still looking for a good job, but since so many people were also looking, and he had a number of social gaffes and no experience, he was scraping by with menial labor.


Inital Public Offerings Ch. 01



We had just started our business and I was running into a lot more code then I could cut effectively myself, so I offered him a deal: I'd send him some work and he'd do it for free on his time off.

I know what you're thinking: I'm a dick. But my business was cash strapped and I couldn't afford to pay him a thing. We were a real company, however, and he could at least show some work on his resume when he was job hunting. And not to put too fine a point on it, his skills might not be up to the task and working for me would give him time to polish them for a real world environment. If he worked out and we became successful, I'd be able to pay him. So there was a lot of upside for both of us.

Long story short, he accepted, improved enough to get on the books and I had been outsourcing code to him and paying him standard wages for the last three years. The only thing was, he worked back home in Ohio, not in Silicone Valley. He had never met any of the other workers and I was the only person he dealt with personally.

Who had gotten in touch with him? The computer software industry has a broad friends feeling to it at times, but there was still a good bit of poaching of talent and software designs. Just look at the Steve Job/Bill Gates affair as an example. Someone had found and looked up Karl. But how did they know that Karl, in Bum Fuck Ohio, was doing software design for a California IPO and furthermore doing it well?

I turned this over in my head for a while. On the one hand, I felt good for him. He had come a long way from Pizza Guy to someone worth poaching. On the other, I didn't like the implication about someone knowing about him. As far as I knew, only our company knew of his existence, and I was his only direct point of contact. That didn't mean that there weren't a half dozen people at our job who knew a 'KarlWTF@google.com' cut code for them. He didn't only communicate directly with me. But only HR and I had his personal information. Either someone had leaked something or some other company had made a lot of effort to look up a Karl Gretzler in the entire nation.

I sighed and tabled it for now. I could ask some pretty pointed questions with the HR department later. I felt good for him. It would be a confidence boost for him to actually be courted. I didn't for a moment think he would go for it. He liked what he had right now: a girl, a well paying job and being near his mom. And if he did go to another company?

I mulled that question. It would hurt but it would be good for him. Since he found Sheila, I wasn't his only friend. He needed to look out for himself and I would feel good for him.

I looked at the screen and thought a moment. Then I typed:

Have you been sending out resumes? How did they find you? I have no idea what is happening. How do they know about Ryleh? And you are sure about the Beta number? 

Hackers talked shop all the time. Still, there was a big difference between discussing what version you were up to and actually trying to steal code. I was sure that Karl wouldn't do that, particularly since he had warned me. Something else for me to check on, to see if anyone was trying to steal code. That wasn't the troubling bit. Knowing where Karl used to live...that set a small alarm flag in my head. Could it be as simple as someone just checking the alumni rolls at our school and cross checking me with other people in our corporate board? Something to consider.

The rest of the weekend was pretty boring. I stayed at home and put on Lord of the Rings as some background noise as I cut code. Ryleh (So I love Lovecraft. Sue me. Andrew made me promise that I could name our work projects, not the market names. Spoilsport) was our latest version which provided router security and pretty high networking speeds. It wasn't totally innovative. It wasn't a Windows, or a new operating system. But it was able to improve speeds and also had a side effect of allowing older systems to get enough of a boost on performance so one could put off buying a new computer system, which the marketing guys seemed to think was a gold mine. Better to spend a few tens of thousands of dollars on new software then hundreds of thousands on new systems. It was a temporary measure, but weren't most of them in business?

Allie came in and looked at the television and sighed. "How many times have you watched that thing?" she said.

"Lost count. I like noise in the background when I'm working." I said, still engrossed in my computer.

"You should put on some new movies. Stay current. Not just this fantasy crap."

I looked up at her. This had been a recurrent theme recently. "If I recall, when I took you to them a few years ago, you said they were outstanding."

She pouted slightly. 'Well, yes. But they were new and they were hot and people weren't making fun of them back then. Now, it's like a nerd obsession."

I sighed "Honey...these are classic movies. They will go down as one of the great sets of movies made in our time. And I like other kinds of movies too. I just prefer to watch these sometimes."

"Oh yeah! Like 'Hunt for Red October', 'Metropolis' and 'Wrath of Khan'. See?"

"All classics! These things have lasted the test of time. Like those muscle cars...whatchacall them? The ones with the horse logo..." I twitted. She loved those cars.

"A Mustang!" she said emphatically. "I wish you were cool enough to buy a Mustang." she groused. "Why don't you?"

"Because I have a perfectly good car. Maybe when I replace it." I equivocated.

I mulled. I was getting rich enough to buy a nice car like a 'stang. And it would make Allie happy. She always cooed over some of the 'hawt' toys owned by our friends. The problem was, I wanted to carry more then two people in comfort. Like if we had kids one day, thought that seemed more and more unlikely.

*

The next day was hectic. We just went public and a lot of our people just wanted to stare at the stock ticker. The mood in the room was mixed. Those who went with salary and a normal retirement were morose or vainly trying to be happy for their comrades, who were alternatively giddy or morose. I could tell where our stock was just by the sounds of groans or jubilation coming from the work room. Generally, the cheers were beating out the groans two to one.

I was tried hard not to let myself get obsessed with that. We still had code to write and customers to maintain. It was easy to get bogged down in the 'quick' money but the quick money came from making the hard money first. Without a product or good service, we'd be another pets.com.

I did some quick mental calculations. I'd just seen another $5,000 added to my net worth. Okay...I said tried. I'm no saint.

I was about to get back into Ryleh, but my email dinged at me. I used the same tone for all my email announcers, so that brought Saturday back to mind. I spent some time looking for mass downloads of code and checked into the security of the VPN we had set up for Karl and me. Nothing showed.

I checked my email finally. Still no reply from Karl. I sent him another note asking him about the progress on his module of code and re-requested he tell me about this person.

I got home late that night, and Allie had already gone to bed in a sulk. I know this because normally, no matter how late I got in, she'd snuggle next to me and throw her arm over my chest. Not so tonight. I noted that she'd been sulking a lot lately. I felt guilty about my late nights.

Work proceeded as normal. People were still watching the stock ticker. I grumbled good naturedly about putting a block on financial sites. Jared, one of our programmers just grinned at me. "And how long do you think it would take a room full of computer programmers to get around your firewall?" The rest of them just laughed and William waved his iPhone at me and stuck out his tongue impudently.

"That's great," I smirked. "Now all you so called internet millionaires have twice the reason to buckle down with unpaid overtime just like I do." This was met with groans from the stock holders and wicked laughs from those without stock options.

When I got into my office, Hector, my second in command in programming, was sitting in the chair in front of the desk, studying the room. "Hey. I wanted to talk to you about something." He stood up as soon as I entered. Mindy had given me a heads up before I entered.

"Hector." I greeted him, looking at him quizzically. "What's up?"

"Could you look at the multiplex 5.05 subroutines? I'm not sure that those guys are doing the job." he asked a bit nervously.

I considered this. "That's Reg and Ryan's section." I frowned a bit. "They seem competent. What's the problem?"

He started to describe the problem to me. "...and I'd like it if you could check out some of their source code for the errors."

"We didn't have a problem with that module on the last run."

"Well, we have a problem now."

"Okay." I said. "I'll get to it." He stood there, looking at me expectantly. I just looked at him. "I said, I'd get to it. Now was that all?"

He snapped out of the look. "Yeah...I guess so." he said, sounding disappointed.

"Okay. Why don't you see if you can get a sense of where it's falling apart so I don't have to wade through a couple thousands of lines of code. You are their supervisor."

He got this blank look. "Okay boss." he said very mildly and turned and left.

***

Error Messages

The next day was taken up by a bunch of problems. Andrew asked that I give an interview about our company, so I spent the morning that way. I have to say, the pimple faced kid asked some good questions, though he seemed to know less about business then I did. He seemed pretty awed to talk to me and acted...well, like a young college kid. Toward the end of the interview, I asked him 'What publication do you work for?" trying to find out exactly what trade publication hired out of high school.

"Oh...I do a tech blog which is pretty well received. I got 20,000 hits last year." he told me.

I wanted to storm out of there, but I tried to be gracious and leave as quickly as politely possible. After all, this young schmuck hadn't scheduled my appointment. I went to lunch, which included a couple of stiff drinks. Andrew was pulling another one of his fucking jokes, or was taking this business thing WAY too far! I'd been giving interviews to seemingly everyone and his brother and now this! No more. That was what he was hired to do.

Mellowed by the booze, I went back to work and started to look into that code that Reg and Ryan dropped the ball on. I spent about two hours checking the details, but then decided I needed to pull back. I pulled up the email trail. Two weeks ago, the module had already been signed off as working by itself. I looked for a verification email and couldn't find one. That was funny because I was sure that it had been.

That afternoon, when I arrived home early for a change, things got worse.

I got an email from Karl.

It said: 

Wvz. Fbeel gb or fb yngr trggvat onpx gb lbh. Furvyn naq V qvq n jrrxraq guvat. Lbh tbg n ceboyrz. Fbzr shpxre vf nfxvat zr ubj sne V'ir tbggra jvgu Elyru naq vs V jnf nyzbfg svavfurq. Ur xarj qrgnvyf gung jr qvfphffrq ynfg jrrx. JGS? Ubj qvq ur svaq zr?

It took me a moment to understand what he did and I went to find a translation site. The message was in the rot13 code. Essentially, you took the number of a letter: A = 1, and added 13 to it, so that A translates to N. It was a simple code but enough to confound a lot of people, at least for a while.

Translated, it said:

Jim. Sorry to be so late getting back to you. Sheila and I did a weekend thing. You got a problem. Some fucker is asking me how far I've gotten with Ryleh and if I was almost finished. He knew details that we discussed last week. WTF? How did he find me?

I sat back with a sick sense of dread in my stomach. You see, six months ago, when I had visited my mother, I had run into a zaftig young lady named Sheila on my flight to Columbus. She was reading a book on the neurological problems of Tourette's and I talked to her about it. Her younger brother had Tourette's and she was studying medicine. I mentioned my friend Karl, who was one of the rare cases whose symptoms hadn't diminished with age. She wanted to meet him as a case study. It turns out she wanted to study him even more closely and he moved into her place two months ago. He was as happy as I had ever heard him. His work was suffering some, but I cut him some slack. I'm no saint myself and I understood.

The problem was, Human Resources only had his old address with his mom's place on file. The only place that had his new address was my planner at home.

I started to type a response, but stopped. Karl was a smart cookie. He wrote in code. He thought there was a chance that our message might be read by someone else. We used a VPN for him to transfer his code with very high level of encryption to keep it safe from prying eyes. The problem was, it would only keep these emails safe from people outside the company. If it was true that these people knew what we discussed last week, something was rotten in Denmark. I had cancelled last week's design meeting because of all the additional IPO and PR work. So where was all this information coming from?

I opened my day planner. There, big as life, was Karl's name with his address crossed out and Sheila's written under it. I had done it weeks ago and never thought to pass it along to HR. One of life's many chores which got pushed off due to shifting priorities.

My queasy sense of dread intensified. Had someone been in my house?!? I thought of all the people who came and went. Allie, of course. Swati, our housekeeper. All of Allie's friends who came over. The occasional workman. Had we had any work done recently? I tried to keep current on social engineering techniques and of course we had a good security system but so many people came into the house. Heck, we had a pool boy, a lawn service, and a Terminex man, and that was just off the top of my head! And what else had been left or examined?

So far, I thought I could deal with this myself. The problem was expanding and while I was good with managing my staff, writing code, could balance a check book and even pick out a stock or two, I wasn't good at this political stuff. And in my view, security and reading people was definitely political. And for political, I had to go see Andrew.

I looked in the kitchen for Allie. She wasn't around, but there were some rapidly cooling cartons of Chinese food waiting for me next to the microwave with a note telling me she was hitting a spinning class. It seems there was some cycling phenomena where one prepped for a simulated ride up Mt. Everest and she had been doing extra workouts to give it a try when it came into town.

Well, this saved me the awkward conversation of asking her which of her friends was nosing around my den, at least until Andy had given me some suggestions. And I really didn't want to believe it was Swati. She had been with us for two years and was a saint, in my opinion, though Allie had her issues. I think it was a woman territorial thing.

I sighed, got into my car, and went to Andy's.

***

Two hours later, I walked back into the kitchen. I frowned at the cartons of food, now stone cold and absently put them in the fridge for later. Once done, I must have stood there for a couple of minutes, my mind running in circles.

I finally came to a decision and went to the upper shelf of the pantry where we kept the replacement bottles of booze. No doubt we had an open bottle of scotch at my huge globe bar that I just had to have, bought from the Skymall magazine after one of my many business trips, but my mind wasn't thinking straight right now. I broke the seal on a new bottle and splashed some in a tumbler with ice. Then I slumped into the breakfast nook booth.

So that was how she knew where the Shout was.

Idly, I picked up the phone and hit a speed dial number. "Hi. This is Jim, cocksucker. Tell her not to come home. She has no place here." I hung up before I could hear anything else. Five minutes later, the phone rang in a new era to my life.

***

I hadn't bothered to call ahead. Call it a bit of social ineptness which paid long dividends.

I was trying to make sense of everything when I got to Andy's place. The list of suspects was long. Like I said, it was one of those Mission type houses with a lot of glass in the front and in the back where it looked over the valley.

I got out of the car and headed to the front door. Night had fallen and the lights inside were bright. Through a side window next to the double wide, carved oak door, I saw a trail of blonde hair and a cheek of female posterior go around the corner.

I stopped...and got a grin on my face, my original intentions gone. I'd like to rationalize my actions but I can't. I wanted to get a look at the newest conquest that Andrew was nailing. He had a lot of fine tail, as he put it, in the past and from what I could see, this woman was traipsing around his place totally naked. So, I snuck around the back. I'm not perfect; I admit it. I'm a breathing male! I'd get a peek and then decide whether to bother him or not.

I had wandered down the pavers set in white gravel to around the side and I peeked into the large glass wall there. She was standing at the bar, in her naked glory, the light giving a golden sheen to her skin. She looked over her shoulder with a coquettish look and put her hands on the upper shelves while arching her back and standing on tip toes. Her derrière was pertly displayed. And it was Allie. She wasn't climbing Everest today.

There was a motion to the left and Andrew came into view, striding over to her. His hands stroked up her flanks and cupped her breasts as she willingly let him. His fingers pinched at her nipples and I was able to get a glimpse of a quickly masked wince. Her nipples were very delicate. 

I felt numb and dumb. What was this? A mistake? A fling? Please God, let it be he's blackmailing her! She leaned her head back and gave him a series of short but passionate kisses while his hands strayed down to her buttocks and caressed them. She still looked beautiful, but I wasn't aroused at the sight of her..

I could see their lips moving as she moved her hands down to the shelf at her waist. He was saying something. His rampant penis poked at her rear. She shook her head but smiled. Then she bit her lip, tilted her head in that so familiar gesture she got when she was considering something, and she replied to him. He loped off upstairs. While he was gone, she went over to her purse, which was next to her pile of clothes and she pulled out a sheaf of papers and looked it over. She read silently and then jerked her head up, shoved them back in, and languidly walked back to the shelves. Asshole showed up, carrying a small white and blue tube. She leaned with her back to the shelves, her breasts jutting toward him. He walked forward, offering the tube to her.

She put a hand to his chest. For a moment, I hoped she was going to call a halt to this charade, but she knelt and took him into her mouth, sucking him in and bobbing her head to get him hard again.

At this point, some small bit of sense trickled back into my head and I pulled out my iPhone and started recording. I needed proof...for something. My head hadn't gotten around to what I needed proof for, but the nerd in me wanted evidence, even as I was filled with a sense of rage and shame.

Finding him hard enough, she took the tube and slathered a liberal dose onto his cock, slowly and evenly rubbing her left hand up and down, her wedding ring winking in the light. Satisfied, she stood and turned, looking over her shoulder. He put his hands on her hips and started pushing at her cheeks again, but she turned and her features got a sharp expression as she said something. Then she reached behind her and laid his penis in the cleft of her ass, nestling it lengthwise along the seam. She then started to rhythmically squeeze her buttocks and roll her hips up and down to jerk him off with her ass, her hands reaching behind her to grab his hips.




Inital Public Offerings Ch. 01



At this point, I had seen enough and I waked in a daze toward my car. I don't remember the drive home.

***

The next morning, Swati came in and looked at the empty bottle of scotch lying on the kitchen table. She'd already passed my car parked catty corner in the drive, so her look was pensive as she saw me in my bathrobe and boxers eating a reheated plate of pork lo mein for breakfast at 10 a.m.

"How are you Mr. REEnalds?" she asked in her sing song voice.

"Hi Swati." I said glumly.

"Are you seek, Mr. REEnalds?" she asked, her eyes darting around the house. Normally, I was out and I saw her at the end of the day, not the beginning unless I was working at home. She was a fifty or so illegal Hindu woman whom we hired for cleaning. I know. In California, we were supposed to hire Mexicans. Allie considered it avante gard.

"No. I'm not sick."

"Ah." She set her bag and her tiffin lunch box down and walked through the kitchen into the living room. There, she no doubt saw the message light on the phone blinking with dozens of messages and the pile of pictures of Allie stacked in the corner, facing the wall. "Meesuss REEnalds is away?" she asked innocently.

"Yes." I said sadly. For some reason I added "Permanently."

She considered this for a while. "Good." she finally said, bobbling her head back and forth sideways in that curious way she had. And that pretty much told me everything I needed to know about my marriage.



Inital Public Offerings Ch. 02



Lock Out

I didn't go to work that day. This was terra incognita to me. One doesn't go into a marriage expecting a divorce. Well, we don't do that in Ohio. California might be a different animal. How did you divide ten years of stuff? How did you deal with money?

About once every half an hour, the phone rang. I checked the caller id every time. If it was her, I didn't answer. If it was one of her multiple friends, I didn't answer. If it was that asshole, I didn't answer. If it was unknown, I didn't answer.

Short story was, I didn't answer.

She didn't show up that day. I was of two minds about that. On the one hand, if I saw her, I wanted to strangle her for her rampant disrespect. On the other, I would have liked to see that she cared enough to come home and try to fix things.

I'd like to say I was direct and focused and in charge of life, but I wasn't. Swati cleaned up the garbage and wandered around doing her business, which seemed to be equal amounts cleaning and talking into her cell phone at high volumes in Hindi, no doubt discussing the newest developments in the lives of her employers. At least she was having a good time.

I puttered.. Last night, I had taken down all of her many pictures of her. It was quite a pile. I used to be proud of her and her beauty but right now, I couldn't stand to see her, even in a photo. I had considered breaking all of them, and torching our big wedding book, I had calmed down and decided that I always had lighter fluid, but I could only burn it once.

I was, in turn, looking up marriage counselors, divorce attorneys, movers, hit men and large scale liquor shipments as my emotions seesawed back and forth. Around lunch, Swati gave me a plate of something and some ice tea, which I needed because is seems that Hindus treat chilies as a vegetable and not a spice. I appreciated the gesture and it wasn't bad. She looked in on my regularly, no doubt to make sure her paymaster wasn't suicidal and to update her social network. God I had gotten cynical.

Toward the end of the day, I retreated into some X Box. I was still mulling over a lot of things and I needed to zone out to let the various bits and pieces in my mind settle down. Programmers are like that. We'll do nothing for two days and then suddenly buckle down and write code for 36 hours straight, driven by a creative imperative and Mountain Dew, though I had switched to iced tea since it was easier on my stomach. Now I was in 'standby' mode.

I was lonely and cold in my bed. It wasn't that she was missing but the fact that this might be permanent. I still didn't want to see her. Those images played in my mind. I recognized that staccato series of kisses from our own relationship. And she while she had denied both of us her ass, she had never offered me that consolation prize before either. Did I know who she was? Do you ever know who anyone is?

I called out for the next morning, but told Mindy that I'd be in later that afternoon.

The Whore showed up around noon.

Swati, God bless her, heard the key in the lock and rushed over to open the door. "Who EES it?" she asked.

My wife looked up from where she was holding her key at a suddenly open door. "It's me, Swati." she said shortly.

"Oh...hello! Mister REEnalds, Meees Allie is here to see you!" My wife was in the midst of pushing by Swati and she stopped, her face expressionless. Swati had called her 'Meesus REEnalds' for the last two years. She didn't know it yet, but Mrs. Swati had just earned herself a very nice bonus.

My wife turned. "Swati, this is my house and you don't need to announce me. I live here."

"Whatever you say Mees Allie. Can I show you to the LEEving room?"

"No, you can't!" She strode down the hallway, dropping her purse onto the side table as always. When she looked up, she saw me standing right there, glaring at her. She started visibly and took a step back.

"Allie." No greeting. "I told you not to come."

"This is still my house, Jim, and we have a lot to talk about."

"I think there was a lot to talk about...before. You seem to be taking this very well." And she was. She was well made up and was wearing clothes I'd never seen before. I wondered for a moment if she went shopping yesterday or if she had clothes at Andrew's place. 

"Yesterday was pretty bad, but I got over it and have make up." she said, with a small rueful smile. We moved naturally into the living room. I sat in a single chair, since I didn't want to sit next to her.

"Is this the conversation where you tell me it's a one time mistake; that's it's just sex, and that it won't happen again?"

She paused, looked at her hands. "No. This is the conversation where I ask for a divorce. Do you really think I'm stupid enough to risk our marriage over a mere affair?" 

"Well, no wonder you recovered from it so quickly. You already had my replacement picked out. And it seems that you took him for a test drive or ten. Or were you always fucking around behind my back?"

She looked incredibly uncomfortable. "Can I..." she stopped. "Swati! Can you get me a glass of white wine? You want anything?" she asked me.

"No. We have hemlock if you'd prefer." There was no sound of acknowledgement from the kitchen.

"Swati!" Again nothing. "What's gotten into her?" she said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.

"Morals? Principles? Character?" I said to her back. She gave me a look.

As soon as her back was turned, I went to her purse. That night, she had looked at some papers during sex. Now women were natural multitaskers, but during sex? That indicated something important, at least to me. Inside wasn't one, but two sets of papers. One was a Dissolution of Marriage Decree with our names on it. The other, surprisingly, was a legal document on Ipswitch letter head. I checked out the first line and then the doorbell rang. I got a glance outside and saw a man in a cheap suit with a bundle of papers distorted through the side windows.

I grabbed the papers and rushed out through the kitchen. When I passed her, Allie started to grab at my arm. "Jim! Where are you going? Swati! Answer the door!" she threw at the seated Indian. Swati earned another bonus by just sitting there drinking her tea. She knew who filled her rice bowl, or whatever they say in India. "Jim...we need to talk! You can't run away! Swati!"

I shook her off and opened the door to my car, as Allie gave up on holding me and ran down the hallway toward the front door. Clicking the garage door opener, I started to drive away. I ducked down below the windshield, risking a crash so the man, whom I could peripherally see out of the corner of my eye, couldn't get a good look at me.

You see, one of the movies I had liked was called 'Serving Sara.' It was a stupid romantic comedy, remembered by me primarily because it had Elizabeth Hurley in it and it was one of our rare date movies during our struggling years. In it, a process server played by Mathew Perry needed to serve divorce papers to Sara for financial reasons. The main premise was that the timing and location of the process serving was critical for both parties.

The other factor was that in my two years in this neighborhood, there had NEVER EVER been a stranger who knocked at our door. It was friends, hirelings or relatives. So the fact that just at the time that my soon to be ex wife was home a stranger just coincidently knocked set alarm bells in my head.

Of course, the fact that the other paper was a proxy voting card from one Allie Reynolds nee' Taylor to one Andrew Schwartz for her shares was another clue. The problem was, Allie didn't have any shares, I did. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say 'we' still had shares, something she seemed intent on changing.

I guess I should feel lucky that she didn't try to knock me off. And it was ironic that she had picked that movie.

Up until that point, I hadn't connected my problems with Karl and someone sniffing around Ryleh to the fact that my wife was fucking around on me with my business partner. But now there seemed a certain elegant symmetry to it all. Allie had more then enough access to my records to keep track of how things were going with our newest version of software. Dozens of innocent questions over the last couple of weeks suddenly didn't seem so innocent. It was almost done. And I'm betting that was what they were waiting for before they sprang this on me. It was just their rotten luck that I had gotten some warning before this all fell on my head.

But what should I do? I noted that I had automatically driven to my work. I drove to my parking space...and noticed Hector's convertible in there. Fast work that. More things started to click in my head. I parked in Andrew's space, since he seemed to like sharing things without asking.

I had no idea if the process server was following me or if there was another one close by, so I hustled to the front entrance, slowing only long enough to drag my key along Hector's door and punch a hole through the cloth roof right over the driver's seat. I tried to resist, but I couldn't help but think that Hector was in this up to his thinning hair.

I walked past security and George picked up the phone but didn't try to stop me. When two owners of the company were fighting, it was a difficult situation to pick sides. I took advantage by going by the stairs to my floor.

I entered the work area and the dynamic of the room changed. Suddenly conversations petered out; the rhythms of keyboards slowed. Mindy stood there. When she saw me, she waved a sheet of paper at me "What is this shit?"

"Later, Mindy." I said.

"Hector is in there." she shouted at my back.

Inside, Hector was taking down one of my diplomas off the wall and setting it into a box. "I thought I told you I didn't...ACK!"

I grabbed the rear part of his necktie and gave it a long and steady yank as I dragged Judas out of my office with him bent over, gasping for air. I grabbed one of his diplomas on the way out and shoved his fundament so hard with my foot that the cubicle wall outside my office knocked over, causing Gloria to shriek.. He was busy tugging his tie open so he could breath, his face turning red. I flicked his diploma at him like a throwing star and the corner took him in the chest as the glass in the frame shattered.

Mindy stood there, holding the paper in both hands across her skirt with her mouth wide open. "Hold my calls, dear." I said mildly. She nodded dumbly.

I briefly reentered the office, but found it necessary to throw a box of crap out onto the currently kneeling Hector, to the tinkle of glass and electronics. I clicked the lock on my door closed and drew the shades. I could hear voices murmuring outside.

So far, I had been operating on autopilot, but I needed to start thinking, because sure as hell Asshole and the Whore had a game plan. They probably spent whatever time they weren't fucking, however little of it there was, and got the divorce decree and the process servers moving.

While I was sitting there, I idly logged into the desktop computer. I got an error message. I tried again, typing more slowly. Again a failed log in. If I tried again, it would lock up. That piece of shit Hector, who also had administrator access, had removed my password! Choking was too good for him.

Of course, being a hotshot computer professional, I had a back door. Yup...a back door...and I picked an easy to remember password too so I wouldn't forget it. And it was...? I wrote off my computer, though I wasn't sure exactly what I would do with it in this situation.

She had a proxy card to give Andy the stock votes to do whatever he wanted. The four founders owned half the stock, and a good bit of the venture capitalist stock was non-voting, as were the shares doled out to the employees. Call it two thirds of the voting shares were with us four.

How would she get her hands on shares? Buying them? No. That divorce decree probably demanded that she got half of my shares. I wouldn't be able to oppose Andy anymore unless I could swing both Harry and Gordon to my side, which was a stretch. If I only swung one, then I'd match what Andy carried, and as sure as the Lord made little green apples, he probably had a couple of the venture capital voting shares already proxied to him.

There was a knocking at the door. "Jim! It's me, Gordon. Can we talk?"

I'd worked closest with Gordon, so I went to the door. "Gordon, are you alone out there?"

"What? Look, open the door and let's talk."

I considered this. "Do you know what that son of a bitch and that slut did?"

There was a pause. "Look...it's ugly. I get that. Hearts wander and...shit happens. People fall out of love all the time. But you can't let this destroy the business! I've worked too hard fo this whole thing to fall apart now. You need to be professional about it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Andy told me. They fell in love and they want to marry. I'm sorry. It happens. But we don't need any bad press."

I was sputtering I was so angry. "Are you kidding me? They both fuck me over and try to steal MY company and you're saying to suck it up and roll over for this?"

"It's just as much my company as yours!" he shouted. "And I'll be damned if you blow our shot at the big time for a piece of pussy!" There were a couple of gasps from the other side of the door, no doubt from some of our few female programmers.

I was quiet for a few seconds. "Jim?" he said a bit more calmly.

"Yeah, I'm here. First off, that 'pussy' was my wife. And I wasn't the one who decided to risk the company for sex. I'm the goddamn victim here! If you want to blame anyone, blame them!"

His voice got a lot more conciliatory. "I understand. Why don't you come out and talk about it?"

A strange voice said "Are you his boss? Cause if you are, I can give it to you."

"Fuck you, Gordon!" I know. Not original but it had been a bad day so far.

What the hell was I going to do? If I stepped out of that door, I'd get served and they'd get the company. But I couldn't stay in here. Security had keys to all the doors and I was just delaying the inevitable. Beyond that, how could I hope to work with these people again after what they did to me? I had a modicum of pride and seeing that swaggering jackass Andrew would be too much to bear for however many dividend checks or profit sharing.

The knob jiggled. "Hey! Stop that! He said no callers." Mindy screamed at someone. The jiggling stopped.

Okay. I was backed into a corner. I was going to lose my share of the company one way or another. A glimmer of an idea came to me. In California, that bitch would get a large share of my assets no matter what. But I didn't want either Andrew or Allie to profit from my sweat. She didn't deserve any of it, and he didn't deserve to control it. How could I swing that?

I picked up my iPhone and dialed the number I looked up. Which is where this story started.

"Hello? Hi Randy. My name is Jim Reynolds. I need you to process an order for me..."

"Yes sir?" the too young voice on the other side of the phone.

"I want to sell about 1,000,000 shares of Ipswitch Inc. My account number is 5467-3692."

"That's a lot of shares sir. In fact...."tapping sound "That's all of them."

"Yup. I want them sold."

"Sir...the stock is an IPO and it has a lot of growth potential..." he said, loyally. He was actually trying to give me good advice!

"I know. I just want out. I made my money and I'm done. Think of your commission check."

***

Two minutes later, my iPhone dinged with verification.

Three minutes after that, there was a feminine squawk outside and the rattle of keys in my door.

An ugly man in a cheap suit came in followed by a pair of disgruntled security guards and Mindy, rubbing her fanny.

They all wondered why I was smiling with my arm around the process server, holding a clock on display while Mindy recorded it on my iPhone.



Inital Public Offerings Ch. 03



I would like to rethank mikothebaby for her quick and thorough efforts to fix my prose. I've changed things since I got the version back, so all errors are still my responsibility

There is no sex in this portion of the story

*

I opened my eyes Friday morning and there was a very young Indian girl in my bedroom standing there with a tray. "Mrrph hrrm!" 

"Good morning Mr. Reynolds. Here is your breakfast."

"That's wonderful. Who are you?"

"I'm Prathee."

I nodded like that meant something to me. I looked at the tray. The only thing I recognized was coffee. There were these white pancakes and some reddish something next to it. "Thank you Prathee. What is this?"

"It's breakfast!"

"Yes, but what's breakfast?"

"It's the morning meal, silly." She giggled.

I dropped it. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a teacher convention day and my grandma is looking after me. Is that okay?" she said, suddenly concerned.

"Well...welcome. Um...do we have any normal food?"

She giggled again. "I'll talk to grandma. She isn't good at cooking American food." She grabbed one of my 'pancakes', dipped it in the red stuff and popped it in her mouth. "It's a sin to let food go to waste." she said impudently

"Well, enjoy. No coffee for you."

I spent the day contacting some legal friends to find out the name of a good divorce attorney. Believe it or not, I didn't trust any of the three corporate attorneys who worked for us, starting with Harry. That proxy document had to come from somewhere. 

Have you ever tried to get a lawyer on the phone? It's a trial.

After a few hours of telephone tag, I finally got on with my friend Judith. I explained the situation and she commiserated with me for a few minutes but she quickly got to the point. "Do you want a lamb, a pit bull or a fox?"

"Excuse me?" 

"It's pretty simple. A lamb tries to get things done fast, compromises a lot and besides racking up some billable hours, avoids pissing everyone off. I don't normally suggest people like that, but if you want to avoid an acrimonious divorce, they might work."

"Next!" I said definitively.

"O-kay! A pit bull wants to fight. If you want to make the other side bleed, they are your pick..." 

There was a 'but' hanging in the air. "Yes?"

"But if you pick a pit bull, you better be ready to bleed yourself. They are fighters. It's all they do. It's all they know HOW to do. You use them when the other side is afraid of bleeding."

"And a fox?" I asked, engaged in this conversation. I had never considered the different personalities or tactics of lawyers.

"A fox tries to see the big picture. They don't fight when a kind word will do. A pit bull will fight to win, even if he can't win by fighting. A fox tries different options, including fighting."

"So I want one of them, right?"

" You would think. Problem is, foxes are rare and honestly, sometimes foxes outwit themselves. And they aren't as conciliatory as a lamb nor as aggressive as a pit bull."

I considered all the angles I was likely to face in the upcoming divorce. "I don't think I have a choice. I want a fox. This is likely to get messy."

"There is one more thing about foxes. They are the bimbos of the legal profession." she continued.

"Excuse me?" I repeated.

"Beautiful Blondes with a huge rack. Very popular. So they can pick and choose their clients. I'll give you a name or two, but you're on your own getting them to take you as a client."

"I'll take that chance."

As it happened, Roland C Thurman Esquire was pleased to take my case. It seems one client had a heart attack and died on him, so he had an opening. Law is a funny business. We met and had a very long discussion. He gave me a load of homework to do.

I arrived home a little after four. 

Swati was standing at the door with Prathee next to her looking uncomfortable. The woman was frowning. "Mister REENalds, Mees Allie arrived with a man and stole things!"

"Stole things? Like what?"

"Clothes. Jewels. Your laptop." 

I rushed into the den, panicked. My laptop was still in it's case at the desk. "It's still here, Swati."

"No. The PEENK one."

"Oh...that's hers."

"She ees the cheater. She shouldn't get to keep her dowry."

I sighed. "If that's the worst that happened..."

"You should change thee locks." she said firmly.

"The...oh...call a lock smith then. I'll leave that to you." She stood there looking at me. "What?"

"I need money."

"Oh." I felt stupid. I dug out my wallet and pulled out a couple of hundred dollar bills and handed them to her. Allie usually handled this side of the bills.

She patted my shoulder gingerly. "You don't worry, Mister REEnalds. I fix everything." 

Smells and noises were coming out of the kitchen. A radio was belting out some female singing in a foreign tongue. I poked my head into the kitchen and another Indian woman was staring at me, as she stood over a bunch of pots and pans putting out a mélange of scents. "Hello MEEster REEnalds!"

"Um...hello." It seemed my life was making less and less sense as time passed.

Swati was behind me again. "Mister REEnalds, the phone was ringing all day."

"Did you answer it?"

"NO Mister REEnalds! Mister Andrew was not being pleasant!" Her tone said exactly how unpleasant she thought he was. Think shoe scrapings. I happened to agree.

I retired to the den to check on the messages. I hadn't been there for one minute before Prathee showed up with an iced tea on a tray. "Here you go Mr. Reynolds."

"Thank you Prathee. I'd prefer something a little stronger."

"You want stronger tea, Mister Reynolds?"

The idea of getting drunk in front of a child seemed like a very bad idea, so I gave up on getting drunk today. "Never mind. Who was that in the kitchen?"

"That's the cook you wanted, Mister Reynolds."

"Cook? What do you mean 'cook'?"

"You wanted American food, so Grandma got brought in Tripti."

"I never said to hire..." I trailed off. The kitchen smelled very good. "We'll discuss it later."

I checked the machine. Andrew's voice spewed out.

"You son of a bitch! What did you do? The underwriters are calling and they AREN'T happy, you cocksucker! I told you not to sell until I Okayed it! Call me immediately! We need to fix this with them!"

Beep

"This is the second message, you bastard! I know I fucked her, but that's no reason to be like this. You need to call me right away! They're getting upset and want to know why the hell you violated lock out! You signed the paper and you pull this shit? We need to fix this before the end of the trading day EAST COAST TIME! What the hell am I supposed to tell them?"

Beep

"Maybe you could tell them that you fucked my wife, you asshole." I heard a giggle as Prathee stood there. "Sorry Preethee. Please don't tell your Grandmother."

"It's Prahthee, and I've heard it all in school. Here is your tea." she offered another glass.

I resumed listening, idly sipping.

It's three p.m. East Coast time! Why isn't your cell phone on?..."

Because I don't want to talk to you, dick! I decided to watch my language as well.

They're talking legal counsel! Is this some stupid sick revenge?"

Well, it sounded like Andrew was having a miserable day, and I felt much better, though I didn't understand what this 'lock out' was. There were dozens more messages and I really didn't feel like listening to the rest of them right now.

I was going to log onto my computer and look it up when there was some shouting from the front door.

"Mister REEnalds! Someone to see you." said Swati with an odd tone.

I went to the front door and Mindy was standing there, a thunderous expression on her face. "Hi Mind. What's up?"

"First off, you can tell your goon that I'm not that slut! And they fired me!" Swati clucked her tongue in disapproval.

"Goon?" I poked my head out the front door and there was a Hindu man in a turban and a mustache. He raised his hand to his forehead in a salute. "Mrs. Swati?" I asked.

"That is Mr. Singh. He offered to watch house until my cousin can fix locks." she explained as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

"When can your cousin fix the locks?" I asked.

"When he gets out of jail."

Naturally! I turned to Mindy as more explicable situation. "Let's talk in the den.

"Is Miss staying for dinner?" Swati asked very blandly. I quirked an eyebrow at Mindy and she shrugged and then nodded.

"Yes." A spate of high volume Hindi was sent kitchen ward and an equally high volume response came back.

At this point, I had Mindy's elbow in my hand as I guided her toward my den. "Would you like a drink ma'am." Prathee asked. 

Mindy demurred with a shake of her head and looked at me. "Exactly how many people work for you?"

"One...I think."

She gave me an arch look. "Are you sure?' 

I was beginning to have my doubts, so I changed the subject. "So, what happened after security led me out of the building?" I asked.

She giggled. "I can't believe you did that to Hector. Anyway, Mr. Schwartz yelled at me a bit. Then he formally announced that Hector was taking over the section because you were having 'personal problems.' When he was asked, he hinted that the stress of work was making you unstable." She rolled her eyes. "I don't know where he might have gotten that idea. So what is happening?"

"Well, I caught Allie and Andrew fu..." I stopped and looked around for the girl "cheating on me. It seems she was going to ambush me with a divorce right after we finished the new project and give have my voting rights to Andrew. That's what that mess was in the office. The guy was serving me and Hector seemed to know it was coming."

"That BASTARD!" Her eyes flared and she pushed her brown hair out of her face. There was a distant clucking sound from somewhere in the house.

"Which one?" 

She quirked her head. "I guess I'm spoiled for choice. She really did that to you? Oh you poor thing!" she commiserated. "What are you going to do?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. "I don't think that is going to work out like they planned. But it seems I'm getting a divorce." A grimace crossed my face. "It's been a rough couple of days."

She grabbed my hand and looked at me earnestly. "That was a rotten thing to do and you don't deserve it. I'm sorry I came over here to yell at you now. My problems aren't nearly as large. Do you think you could at least give me a good recommendation?" 

"Of course." Hesitating, I had to ask the next question. "How did the staff take it?"

It was her turn to pause. "No one knows what's going on. The good mood from going public is all gone. All they know is that you attacked Hector and that Andrew is acting like you are gone. There was a hell of a lot of shouting today and all the big bosses; Mr. Jenkins, Loeb and Schwartz were meeting all day. Greta" Schwartz's secretary, "told me about it. You aren't very popular with them for some reason."

"Be still my heart." came my dry response.

Continuing, she said, "No one is happy. But they need to work, you know? It's a very bad economy. It was really nice to be at a place that was doing well...hopefully IS doing well. What's going to happen?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean with you. With the company." She watched me searchingly.

"Well, I'm already served with divorce papers and I won't work with Andrew again. Since I don't see him resigning, I guess that means I'm out of there. As for the company, that is not my problem anymore."

"Are you going to be okay?"

Sighing, I nodded. "You know what? It's a divorce. They happen a lot. I'm not sick. I am still the programmer I used to be so I can find something and I made a bunch of money from the company so far. It hurts and I hate them both, but life goes on. I'd love to get drunk, but Prathee is running around so..." It struck me that it might be why Swati brought her granddaughter here, to keep me from becoming self destructive.

"Well, she was very pretty but I don't think your wife is nice and I think she's foolish. Andrew isn't respectful or responsible. And he already knows what kind of a woman she is."

"Mister REEnalds. Deener!"

By mutual agreement, we tabled my marital woes and I actually enjoyed the meal. It was curry prawns and I'd never had anything like it. She got a tour of the house and murmured admiring comments. The stack of pictures got a rueful laugh and we agreed to keep in touch.

***

Since I didn't have to write code for those bastards anymore, I adjusted my schedule. That meant I was awake at 1 a.m. when my front door opened and a strange Indian man in a coverall came in. He waved to me. "Hello Mr. Reynolds." Then he started to dismantle my locks. I wandered over to the windows, checking outside for U.S. Marshals or cops.

"Did you get let out of jail?" I asked him.

He gave me a strange look. "Yes Mr. Reynolds."

"Good. I hope bail wasn't too high."

He looked very offended and muttered in Hindu at the doors. He left, leaving me the new keys and refusing to take any money.

The weekend was spent on the phone. I started by calling my mother. That turned into a long and dragged out conversation. She offered to come to California, but I said that my house was already full of people, which required its own explanation. She felt sorry and had quite a few harsh words for Allie, whom she had originally liked a lot. You had to hand it to Allie; she made a good first impression on people. Too bad she had the morals of a snake.

In some ways, I should have seen it coming. She was very pragmatic in how she approached our relationship and that should have raised a few warning bells. But I honestly thought we had some bedrock attraction and affection. It seems that I was only half right.

Next up, I sent a long email to Karl, telling him exactly what had happened. I told him that just because I didn't work there, that there was no reason for the both of us to be fired. I reminded him that he had a girlfriend now and he needed to think of both their needs. If nothing else, he should talk to Sheila about it before he made any rash discussions. In fact, I joked, he might be able to take Hector's job.

Swati showed up in the morning. "Swati. Aren't you off on the weekends?" I felt sure that she wasn't around when it was just me and Allie.

"You need me to clean Mr. REEnalds. Did Pradeep fix the locks?"

"Yes, he did. Thank you." I didn't want to mention that I wasn't exactly comfortable with a felon fixing my locks. "What's he doing now?"

"He's back in jail."

"Oh...is he on a work release program?"

"Not released! He works there. Good job. He's a locksmith." 

You know, maybe Allie had a point about my social skills. Luckily, Swati brought Prathee along again and I was able to tender apologies for my idiocy last night with her acting as translator. She thought it was hilarious. They stayed the entire weekend, including Tripti, my new cook. My plans to play X-Box and drink Scotch were stillborn.

There was one unpleasant task to do. You see, Allie and I used to have a very developed social schedule, more her doing then mine. We had planned to catch an art gallery with another couple. In fact, it was Phil and Terry from the party just last weekend. How much life had changed in a week! I caught Terry on the phone and I told her rather bluntly that Allie and I were getting divorced, that I had caught her cheating with our prior host and I would regretfully be unable to attend the opening. Yes, I felt embarrassed as hell, but I wasn't going to sugar coat things and be the villain of the piece. Since we had just met, she felt awkward asking questions of a virtual stranger, but made sympathetic sounds and hurried good byes.

Monday came as it does and while I felt twin holes where my work and my marriage used to be, it still felt good to be able to wake up late and not be responsible to anyone. My good mood lasted until about ten, when there was another knock on my door.

There stood the same process server in a different cheap suit. "You have been served." he said, displaying an envelope, his eyes shifting around nervously, perhaps looking for another psychotic secretary or picture taker.

"Listen asshole. I already got the divorce decree, or don't you remember?"

"How could I forget? Why don't you read the papers and have a nice day." he said mildly, trudging away, muttering. I guess that process servers develop a thick skin.

I started to read the papers. It seems that our primary underwriting bank was suing me for violating our lock out agreement.

I had just finished reading it when the doorbell rang again...

***

"Are you Mr. James Reynolds?" the young blond woman with acne scars asked me, eyeing us with trepidation. We had moved a picnic table to my front yard and Mindy, Roland, and I were parked at it with a pile of papers in front of us. 

"Yes yes. Please give the summons to Ms. Johnson there. Let me sign. Who is this one from?"

"It's from a Troy Anderson. He's seeking damages for lock out." Mindy said in a bored fashion.

"Do you get served a lot?" the woman asked.

"You have no idea." I said honestly

In fact, it had been a constant rain of summonses since this morning. After the third process server arrived, I called Mindy and Mr. Thurman give me a hand and work on my divorce. We moved the entire operation outside. It was a very pleasant California day. Why not enjoy it? The woman walked off, muttering under her breath. I seemed to have that effect on people.

"I have to admire a man who bears up to such a...train wreck as well as you have, Mr. Reynolds. And thank you for getting me out of the office today." my attorney said.

"Don't mention it. Every time I say 'things can't get worse' they do. So I'm just going to smile and let this all play out. How many summonses is that now, Mindy?"

Picking up her legal pad, she nibbled her lower lip as she mentally counted. "That's eight from underwriters, three from Ipswitch: one for property damage, one for a hostile workplace environment, and another for taking actions harmful to the company in violation of your board responsibilities; a civil action by Hector and one from the bitch to freeze community property transfers, a little late if you ask me. Thirteen total."

*** When a company goes public, they go to a bank to actually sell the shares. They can do it more efficiently then we could. They don't tell us how to fix computer routers and we don't tell them how to sell stock.

When they first go public, a company does not want to flood the market with shares. The bank and the company made money off the sale of the stock and they wanted to control the number on the market. Our net worth, at least on paper, was about $50 million dollars. If we offered 50 million shares, it would be a dollar a share at best! So only a small portion of the company was offered for sale to test the waters and set the price higher.

Since the owners usually owned a majority of the shares, they had to sign a 'lock out' agreement. Essentially it says that I'm not allowed to sell any shares for at least a 3 month period. There were close to 8 million shares in our company and we originally only sold a million. I had, with my action, unwittingly doubled the amount of shares on the market, cutting the price by at least half. 

I would like to be clear on this: I didn't know what I was doing. I'd been signing papers for days. I specifically farmed out all the business details to Harry and Andrew and depended on their advice, which I foolishly thought would be in my best interests. That doesn't make what I did less wrong.

My only intentions were to leave the company with my dignity and my assets intact, while denying my wife a share of the company I built and keeping Andrew from getting control and screwing everyone else over. It didn't matter that Gordon had suddenly become a backstabbing weasel. He shouldn't profit from his treachery. And I had no intentions beyond that.




Inital Public Offerings Ch. 03



I certainly hadn't intended on the sequence of events which unfurled.



Inital Public Offerings Ch. 04



Cascading Errors

The mass of summonses was because there were a lot of people pissed at me. Most underwriters spread the risk around. So we had one primary underwriter, and 7 others who were also selling shares, including, I'm proud to say, Goldman Sachs. I have to admit to a certain pride at being sued by an institution of that level of prestige. It made me feel that I had hit the big time.

However, one truism for an legal matter is they move with glacial slowness, particularly at the corporate level. Much more personal matters intruded earlier.

His Honor sat behind his desk, as a decorative stenographer took notes. Bryson Coopersmith was representing the Slut, who was in attendance, and he was in rare form. "His actions were deceptive and detrimental to the well being of my client. He specifically sold his appreciating assets simply to deny my client her legitimate share of community property. I have here a dozen examples of what a successful tech IPO is expected to appreciate in its first three months..."

I tuned him out as I examined Roland Thurman Esq. He was sitting in front of the judge, his gray hair a wispy halo around his head. His glasses were resting on top of his head, his chin lying on his chest and his hands folded upon his tweed enshrouded paunch. I kept wanting to kick him awake, but I suppressed the impulse. I had enough on my plate without facing assault charges. From what the last month had been like, it wouldn't be surprising.

"...and then, to top it off, he returned a signed divorce decree along with all the shares." he wound down.

It was true, and almost made me want to drop Mr. Thurman as my counsel. We read over the divorce decree three times and by the Wednesday after she had served me, Thurman made me not only sign her decree, but forced me to buy up 500,000 shares of Ipswitch Inc to give to my 'darling wife'. Luckily Prathee wasn't home because I tied one on right after I clicked the purchase and transfer order.

The Judge looked askance at Mr. Coopersmith. "Aren't they the papers your own client had served upon Mr. Reynolds?"

"Exactly your Honor." Thurman snoozed from his chair.

"Sir, they were served under the current conditions of the company, not after Mr. Reynolds crippled the company with his illegal actions."

"Not illegal. It is a civil matter. And as Mr. Coopersmith knows, IPO investments, particularly in a tech company, are highly speculative..."

When I had sold the shares, I had 'hit', actually 'made' the top of the market. Our initial price was $6 a share and we had gained a dollar per share when I sold. So I realized 7 million dollars. My attorney, God damn him, convinced me that I should repurchase 500,000 shares of Ipswitch Inc to fulfill the divorce decree. But by that time, the shares had dropped to $2.5 a share. So instead of the $3.5 million she thought she would get, she got $1.25 million in share price plus another $500,000 in real estate, furniture and accounts. She had specified a number of shares as community property, not a particular value. Much more then she deserved, in my opinion. But suddenly, she had the difficulty of arguing how giving her exactly what she wanted was now a BAD thing. It was a very bittersweet moment. Save a million but give the Slut the shares she so desperately wanted.

Of course, this decision totally reversed my stance on keeping Andrew from getting his hands on the company, something I was foursquare against. Thurman had talked to me about this at length before this meeting. "Look Jim. You are already out. What does it matter to you who is in charge? This lets you keep your money and if what you say is true about Mr. Schwartz, they'll rue the day themselves." There was a nagging uncertainty in my gut about that, but I grudgingly decided to sign.

The large sheaf of papers thwaped on the judge's desk. "What's this?" he asked.

"If I don't miss my guess," Thurman said, without opening his eyes, "that is Mr. Reynold's theatrically offered rebuttal to 'manipulation and deceptiveness'. You'll find records of maxed out credit cards to the tune of $50,000 for clothing, jewelry purchases and cash advances made by Mrs. Reynolds on the day after her husband found out about her infidelity. So, my question to Mr. Coopersmith is if he is offended by a spouse making arbitrary and fiscally harmful decisions upon the other spouse at the last minute in principle, or only when my client does it?"

"Your honor!" Bryson protested.

"He has a point, Counselor. You're asking to overturn your own settlement."

There was more arguing, but nothing further was decided. Lawyers!

Leaving with Mr. Thurman, I asked "Do you think we'll get away with this?"

"Hell no! This is California. If you want fair, get divorced in Ohio next time. But now the onus is on them and it's likely they'll get less then the half of what they are asking. Judges are human...occasionally. They sometimes reward clever tricks and earned comeuppance if it's legally justifiable." He flicked a look at his watch and hefted his briefcase. "I have to get some depositions, so I'll talk to you later." That was too bad. I wanted to discuss some other things that Allie had neglected to put in her divorce decree.

I was considering whether to bring some KFC home when her cloud of perfume announced her presence. "Hello Allie." I didn't need to mention that both of our lawyers would have kittens if they caught us having a normal conversation together. But what was the chance I'd be having a normal conversation?

"Jimmie."

"What do you want?" My patience was limited, but I had to admit to a certain curiosity. There was a small part of me that hoped she'd come to regret her decision, that she felt she made a terrible mistake. Admitting that would be soothing to my soul. I even wanted her to want to reconcile. Oh, don't get me wrong; I wanted it so I could crush her hopes...mostly...I think. The wistful memories of days gone by and my blue balls were conspiring to make me consider irrational options. "And don't call me that."

"Okay." She quirked a grin. "MEESter REEnalds, I haven't talked to you in forever."

Snorting with laughter, my tension dropped about two notches, which was no doubt her intention. She was still savvy and she knew me reasonably well. She must have if she could pull the wool over my eyes in so total a fashion. I had to watch her, but I wanted some answers to my questions. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, and punched in my code, checking my calendar. "I don't have to be back at work until four...ever. Want to grab a coffee?" She nodded guardedly, but with a certain amount of anticipation, or so I thought.

We retired to one of the courtyard cafes and found a table in an isolated section. She wore a nice silk blouse which I hadn't seen before. It was a chaste looking thing. Hiding her round heeled nature was probably sound legal strategy. "That's a nice blouse." I tried to start casually but she could see the clench in my jaw as I said it.

She sighed. "This is all fucked up. I know what you are thinking and you're partly right. You really caught us off guard. We didn't know what you were going to do; if you were filing restraining orders or had a process server coming to our place the next day, so we were scrambling ourselves. Which meant," she grimaced, "that I made sure I had enough stuff to live off of for a while."

"Walmart was having a sale." I said dryly. "You didn't need to go to Sax. But I understand your feelings now."

"You do?"

"Yes. Andrew has a bad habit of not paying for his pussy which is why he's still single."

Her breath hissed inward. "That was uncalled for. We're discussing marriage."

"Well, it makes me feel better that you aren't just throwing a perfectly good marriage away for some meaningless sex. So what was your game plan?"

Looking into the foam of her mocha crappachino (sic), Allie mustered her thoughts. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to finish up Ryleh, the company was supposed to go through the roof. We'd argue a bit more, I'd file for divorce and after we...I mean you got a chance to get over the hurt, I'd hook up with Andrew openly and we could go on with life without ruining your business relationship or the company. I didn't want to hurt you more then necessary. Andrew didn't either."

"Yeah sure. He's a prince. And when did you two start fucking?"

"That...developed. Look, does it matter? I don't want to get into that. Andy is a people person like me. We're...compatible in ways that you and I weren't."

"It matters to me. Because it seems that your plan involved fucking him until all this happened. And I agree. You're both cheaters. Sounds like the stress of the IPO was a nice excuse for a divorce. You didn't draw up that proxy card for something months from now. I recall I used to be the 'package'. So...what happened to us?"

"Nothing happened!" was her bitter response. "That's exactly the problem. Nothing! Happened! You were still the same guy who I married back in the dorm rooms. You have your little X-Box, and your stupid movies and it takes an act of God and the promise of whore sex to get you out of our house to a social event to act like a normal adult!"

"A normal adult? So...you're telling me that we're getting a divorce because of my entertainment choices?. Because I don't want to go to a wine tasting or boring plays? You're leaving me because I don't like Brie?!?" My fists were clenched in anger.

"You're trying to make me out to be the bad guy. I'm not! I wanted a soul mate. Someone who liked and respected the things I wanted. We were supposed to grow together. But you didn't change! I grew...and I wanted more."

"So...starting an IPO before I'm 37 is nothing?"

"It's not nothing. I'm proud of what we did." she said in a mollifying fashion. "I'm not saying you're a bad guy. You're a great guy. You're just not a great guy for me."

"We? Excuse me?" I said disbelievingly.

"We. I sacrificed. The hours you were gone. Those crippling loans we took out. Making clothes last and trying to feed us on our lousy paychecks. Putting up with cold and lonely nights. Having my friends who married portfolio managers and lawyers call me and not being able to go out with them because I couldn't afford my share of the dinner check. I had to flirt with all those venture capitalists...Stop!" she said firmly. She saw the expression on my face. "I flirted. I'm not a whore. But I networked my ass off to make sure that this company got off the ground."

"So you say. What do you call a woman who screws his business partner for his share of the business?"

"I earned my share of that money." she replied hotly.

I tried to rein in my temper. "So...you're equating talking to people with actually making something. You lived with me. I cut code for days and days. You know how many 18 hour days I put in. And I know it took a toll on our marriage. But I made it. Not you in a low cut dress. Without me, all you're selling is yourself. Certainly not Andrew. There is only so long you can sell a piece of crap product without it being any good. If it wasn't for my code, he'd be selling cars in Fresno or something. Some people sleep alone in bed for decades and it doesn't do what I did."

"If I hadn't supported you, you wouldn't have been able to do what you did. I was there encouraging you and making sure you were taken care of and nursed you when you were sick. I was a good wife to you."

"Yes...a good wife. And yet as soon as you could comfortably escape, you pulled the 'eject' handle." I held my hands up to forestall her comments. "I can see, however hurtful it is, that you wanted out of the marriage. Sometimes things don't work out. But there are certain...protocols you should have followed. We fight, we file, lawyers hammer out an agreement. Maybe you get a slice of the company and a bigger money package. Maybe we just split things in half. But you should have divorced me because you were unhappy, not because you chose to fall in love with someone else. And certainly before you started fucking someone else. Marriage means that you stop shopping for the package, not that you look to trade up at the first opportunity. I don't think you're a whore; I think you're a thief."

"I was hoping that you'd come to your senses and talk your lawyer into offering me something fair." Came her flat reply.

"I'm being as fair as you were. Tell me...has it ever occurred to you that maybe Andrew is just using you to take control of the company?"

She smiled at me in that condescending way. "I'm not an idiot. It occurred to me, but it isn't likely and it doesn't matter. " Her hands gestured down her frame, over her over her breasts, her taunt waist, her thighs. "I AM the 'Package'. I'm easy to get along with and very beautiful. I can pick and choose who I want to be with. And if Andrew is foolish enough to drop me, I'll be okay. For one thing, I'll retain those shares. A proxy vote card can be reversed. And it will be an easy matter to find someone else. That's the power of the pussy."

"Yes...or a similar word starting with a 'c'." Her face grew thunderous. I slid off the chair. "I'll take your suggestions under advisement." I said diplomatically.

"Jim..." she looked at me beseechingly. "This doesn't have to get ugly. Let's be adult about this."

"You mean roll over for you to get exactly what you want? Sure." I had to get away from her. I knew she was pragmatic, but what was it they said: that pragmatism is the first step on the road to being a sociopath? It seemed to fit.

I walked out of the court house and pulled out my iPhone. That's a nice blouse... the speaker said

Allie was right in one regard: it was time for me to start growing up.

***

It was a slow news cycle business wise, both for the bad and the good. What this meant was that the legal problems of our IPO got a lot of press on Bloomberg and CNBC. Andrew must have sweated bullets over that.

But I noticed that suddenly, the press comments started characterizing me as the scam artist of the tech sector. The talking heads on Squawk Box were speculating that I hadn't written the code; that I willfully waited for a good increase in the stock price before I illegally sold my shares, laughing my way to the bank, while leaving the hapless workers in a lurch.

Since I wasn't a business guy, I really hadn't paid much attention to this. My mother, bless her heart, finally asked me how I could let the press walk all over me like that. If I didn't look after my interests, who would? I mean besides Swati and co.

Still, after the conversation with Allie, I realized that Andrew wasn't going to roll over either. And the way he fought was with words and sales. Now, having remembered my backdoor code...eventually, I could have snuck in and totally destroyed Ryleh. But the fingers would have pointed at me, and correctly so. Besides, I didn't want to destroy the company. I just wanted Andrew and Allie to feel pain.

My first step was to contact Allie's attorney for a phone number. The second was to scroll through my calendar. I had given a lot of business interviews in the weeks before the IPO. Maybe it was time to talk to them again...

***

The ugly man sat nervously across from me. Yup, it was the same process server. He was bald with a jutting lower lip and heavy features and I'd been seeing a lot of him. 

"Would you like some tea?" I asked.

"I'm fine."

"I'm sorry about that day. Making you chase me around. I just needed to do a couple things before I let you serve me."

"That's fine. It was one of my more interesting days. Besides, I get paid mileage."

I laughed and started to use Google map. "Uh...what are you doing?" he asked, licking his lips.

"Maximizing your profits." I responded as I handed him the envelope to be served.

****

"Mister REEnalds! It is Mees Allie on the phone!"

I wonder what this was all about I smirked. I might have a guess or two.

"You ASSHOLE! You absolutely indescribable ASSHOLE!"

"Hi Allie. How are you? Still fucking Andrew?" There was a clucking sound from the hall.

"How could you do that to me? I was your wife for close to 11 years!"

"I could ask you the same, babe."

"You gave them our conversation? And those pictures???That was a private conversation between the two of us! Car salesmen are offering to show me 'the good life!' Photographers are following me around! My mother...oh God my mother! You are painting me like a gold digging whore! "

"Please, please," I said modestly, "you didn't need any help from me. But since we're on the subject, who has been feeding the news all those smears about me?" Silence was my reply. "Since you two have been using your 'social skills' to smear me as some 'Bernie Madoff', I figure I'd use the 'power of the pussy' to make sure my side of the story got at least a little play. I never thought it would go national! You should be complimented on how much of a 'package' you are. Think of it as me helping you expand your choices. Remember how long Debra LaFave was in the news?"

An incoherent scream was my only response and suddenly the line was dead. It seems that she resented the fact that I sent her little conversation to some of the reporters smearing me. Of course, I just had to add our photos from Cancun. She always favored small bikinis. I always was proud of her beauty. Now I got to share my pride. From what I could see, she was on display about three times an hour for the last three days.

All in all, it was a good day.

But on to Andrew. Allie fucked me out of a relationship and she'd have gotten part of my business no matter what, but I had to wonder how much that slimy cocksucker had worked to seduce her. From her words, she was still shopping for a life partner and neglected to tell me about that fact.

His call came a day or so later.

"Why the hell did you have me served at my gym?" His voice was guarded and suspicious. Good. I felt no need to reveal that I picked that spot out because it was farthest for the process server to drive. His kids had piano lessons. Andrew, that slimy weasel, would assume it was because of some strategic reason or to embarrass him. Let him wonder.

"Oh good. He found you. How does it feel to be ambushed?"

"Is that what this is about? Cheap revenge?"

"I consider it very expensive revenge, thank you very much."

"What do you mean 'Ipswitch Version 5.0 and all derivative software developments?' You can't do that! It would cripple the company!"

"Now now. I'm not forbidding you to use my software. But since I am no longer part of the company, I feel my efforts should be rewarded."

Cliff, the ugly process server, had ambushed Andrew at his gym with a letter of intent. You see, I had single handedly designed our original software bundles (with a little help from Karl) and it was owned by me! It was licensed to the Ipswitch company. I had done it this way because I wasn't sure if Ipswitch would get off the ground and I wanted to be able to maybe shop it to a different software company in the event of failure. After all, I had a family to support...The irony was killing me.

Because I was a founder with a huge amount of shares, the profits of our company went into my pockets, so I waived any royalty checks or reinvested it. But I had never signed any documents waiving my rights to the copyright. And there was a tricky (read expensive) legal argument that all the subsidiary versions of the software, worked on by me, were also owned by me. Sort of like a movie. I owned the character of Harry Potter, even though another writer or studio used his likeness.

"Look...we have to be able to come to some kind of accommodation. What do you want?"




Inital Public Offerings Ch. 04



'Well, I'd like my wife and company back, but both have been tainted by a low piece of shit backstabbing asshole. So that is off the table. How's the share price?"

"You fucker! I'll see you in court!"

"Ah. You rub the very nub...which seems to be all you have to offer sexually. Allie must be doing this for the money from what I saw."

"Saw?" his voice was even more guarded.

"Enough of that. Past history. If all the lawsuits are dropped by you and the venture capitalists, I think we could come to a reasonable fiscal accommodation."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"How did you talk my wife into bed? You'll think of something."

"I can't control the underwriters."

"I didn't mention the underwriters." I said reasonably. "I'll have to deal with them myself." It was time to twist the knife. "One more thing. You need to talk your fucktoy into not contesting the divorce agreement."

"I don't want to get involved in your marital..." 

My mocking laughter cut him off midsentence. I noticed that he didn't defend Allie's honor. "You made yourself involved, and if California had alienation of affection lawsuits, you'd be staring down the barrel of one of them, with video."

"She isn't going to go for that."

"That isn't my problem. If you don't, we're talking injunctions for fair use...AFTER my divorce is settled. She isn't seeing a dime of that. It wasn't mentioned in her divorce settlement." Allie was in a bit of a bind. She had demanded that assets be frozen in her settlement. Each of us could only gain access to small amounts of money. I got more because I was maintaining a house and she wasn't. Since she maxed out her credit cards, she needed money. And if this put a nice wedge into their fuck fest or their nice couple hood, well, I felt just terrible about that. As for me, I was having a blast on E-Bay selling off the pieces I didn't like and was appalled at some of the prices I was getting. I'm sure I'd hear about it legally later, but at this point, I didn't care and she didn't know.

"Why are you being this way? If you wreck the company, you're going to hurt a lot of people, not just us two."

"Funny how you never thought about that when you started this. Don't play the sympathy card, Andy. You can't pull it off. I'm not interested in debating this. You have my letter. Think real hard about that."

***

Operator Error

So far, I've had my share of fun. Yes, they stabbed me in the back, but I hit them hard financially and emotionally. If Andrew wanted to save his company, he had to get Allie to agree to her financial screwing. If she wanted the shares she fucked to get to be valuable, she needed to make sure the company was actually worth something. But she just got publicly savaged and wanted to be paid. I couldn't see Andrew being particularly sympathetic to her plight. From what I understand, there were a couple reporters taking pictures of them all the time. Just to get her goat, I mentioned to her in an email that I was being approached for movie rights. No, it wasn't true, but what did I care? You can imagine her response.

My perspective started to change when I had a surprise visitor. I had just gotten back from my morning run and sipping some fresh squeezed watermelon juice as Tripti was making some Idali for breakfast and Swati was enjoying the first of many tea breaks. 

The doorbell rang and we all looked at each other. Was it another process server? Swati got up frowning to go get it. "Mister REEnalds...It's a Mister Low-ub."

Harry Loeb, my erstwhile business partner walked into my kitchen. He was in a Polo shirt and slacks, not his normal business ensemble. "Hello Harry. To what do I owe the honor?"

He looked a bit subdued. "Jim."

"Shouldn't you be at work, writing proxy documents, shuffling our corporate structure, or something?"

He winced. "We missed you at the last couple of board meetings."

I laughed at him. "Fat chance." I paused, curious "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you were never formally removed from the board."

"I can't believe that wasn't your first order of business after I got served."

"I came here to hear your side of the story. When Schwartz told me that you sold us out, I was pretty pissed at you. You violated lock out and exposed the entire company legally. I'm the one who drew up those motions and I planned on skinning you." He fell silent.

"I hear a 'but' coming."

"But then I saw the news with Allie on it. And that raised a few questions. Andrew told us that the two of them were attracted to each other and that you flew off the handle at their friendship."

"And you believed that of me?"

"I had a hard time believing it, but I also had a hard time believing that you would choke Hector and throw him out of your office. Anyone can crack."

I considered this. 'You have a point. It was a stressful couple of days."

"Why don't you tell me about them?"

I told him my story. I told him about people knowing things they shouldn't know, about people approaching Karl to finish Ryleh, about catching Allie and Andy boy fucking. I offered to show him the video, but he declined. I showed him the proxy vote card and he read it silently.

"This looks like Jenkins's work. I always figured him for a weasel. I never signed off on this and I didn't know about it. When I saw those shows with Allie and those tape excerpts, I asked Andy a few questions, but I really didn't need to because Allie answered his home phone."

"So what are you going to do about Jenkins?"

"Hmm? Nothing."

"Nothing? Why the hell not!"

"Because as soon as I heard her voice and listened to his half assed rationalizations, I quit as chief counsel for the company. I'm not going to work with a person who acts like that."

When I heard this, I put my glass down and covered my face as I tried to get a grip. It was...humbling, truly humbling. Did I have that much character? Nothing I had done so far had required any, only needing me to respond. I was fully aware of my character flaws.

Once I felt I had enough control not to embarrass myself, I reached over and hugged him. "Thank you." I said over his shoulder.

"Hey! Don't get all girly on me. It's not like I sold my shares or gave up my board position. I am a lawyer. Besides, I wanted to work harder on my golf game."

"Would you like something to drink?" I finally remembered to offer.

***

It was an informative conversation. It seems that Ryleh had to be delayed, and the income stream that they guessed would be available, wasn't. The programming department was up in arms. Hector never got over the humiliation of me slamming him out of my office and his sudden elevation rubbed people the wrong way. They weren't working as efficiently. Besides that, it seems that Karl quit too. Before he got Sheila, he was an animal, cutting code for hours. A couple of corporate officers went to Ohio to try to talk him into staying with a SERIOUS salary increase.

"Does your friend's Tourette's include an uncontrollable use of invective?" Harry asked me. They had a general idea of his problems, even if they hadn't met him.

"No. Just twitches and growls." I said confused.

"Then it wasn't Tourette's." Harry said dryly.

"Poor Karl!" I said, feeling low at dragging my friend into this.

"Poor Karl? Joel and Mark said they if it wasn't for his girlfriend, they weren't sure they were walking out of there and they refuse to go back!"

"And Gordon?" I asked.

He looked at his diet coke. "Gordon...is in a hard place. His wife was a bit of a spendthrift like yours. And he didn't rein her in as effectively. He's young like you and a bit more emotionally invested. I know for a fact that he didn't know about them sleeping together until after things started to blow up." He winced once again. "And he choose sides too."

"So it's Gordon and Andy running the company?" He nodded.

"And they are having financial and personnel problems."

"What?"

"A number of venture capitalists have been asking pointed questions. If they could get out of their holdings, they would. Phil Turner is leading that group."

"Phil?"

"Yes. I'm not sure he gives a rat's ass that Andy is screwing a married woman. He strongly cares that Andy was willing to do that to one of his closest business partners. The fact that he also has a pretty little wife probably isn't coincidental. Let's just say that Andy's parties are a lot less well attended by his business partners. If the men don't disapprove, their wives certainly do and from what I understand are being quite vocal on that point. In fact Marge," Harry's wife, "is fully behind my decision regarding the job. She wanted you to know that if you need anything at all, she's more then happy to help."

"Tell her thank you for me. What's this about personnel?"

"A few people left the company over all of this. Not sure about their motives. Because of the lack of income and a few vendors quietly moving to our competitors.." he gave me a look of askance, but I shook my head," well, things haven't been rosy and they let several people go."

"That's terrible."

"It is. But what are you going to do? They want to staunch the bleeding. I'm not blaming you for this. But it's still happening."

We promised to keep in touch and he left, apologizing for the mess he really wasn't responsible for.

I sent Karl an email thanking him for his support. 

He sent one back:

Don't worry. I'm not working for them again! And I can't believe the awful lies they are telling about you in the news. I'm working on fixing that. Karl

What the hell was he planning? I was getting a sick feeling in my stomach and it wasn't just Karl. I started to not sleep well. You would think with a bazillion lawsuits, a divorce, betrayal and bankruptcy that it was amazing I was sleeping at all, but so far, I'd been able to avoid most of it. There were a few stressful nights which requires a bit of Southern Comfort to take the edge off, but lately it was getting worse, so much so that Prathee started to show up again and they switched me to decaf. These girls didn't miss a trick.

So it was that Prathee called to me one day "Mr. Reynolds. You're on You Tube." she said, looking up from my laptop where she was supposed to be working on homework. I came over and looked over her shoulder.

On the screen was Karl. He was obviously stressing hard. His tics were pronounced and every third word seemed to be a yip, but he had made a video excoriating the press, Andrew, Allie and telling everyone what a prince of a guy I was, not only giving him his first job, but introducing him to his fiancée. His fucking FIANCE! My best friend in the world, who hated to ask a woman for money when we were shoveling sidewalks, was putting himself out there publicly and offering to give media interviews!

"Prathee...why don't you go outside and play." I said huskily.

"Mr. Reynolds, I'm not done with my homework."

"Prathee!" She scurried.

I lost it. Karl hadn't told me he was engaged, and yet here he was, quitting his job and garnering media attention on my behalf. ME! The guy who left him alone during Homecoming because I wanted to nail Rebecca Goldstein. The guy who was frequently embarrassed by him with Allie. The guy who used him to help build this company with free labor.

And it wasn't just him. He lost his job...and so did Gloria, a single mom with a kid. Mindy. George from security who was supplementing his pension. Fully a dozen people or more from our company and from the sounds of it, the rest were on the edge. They had gone into business with us and we, as employers, had an obligation to them as well. Yes, I wasn't the prime mover, but my actions had more then contributed to their woes. Just because I was the victim of Andrew and Allie didn't give me license to victimize other people.

I recalled what Judith had told me a month or so ago: But if you pick a pit bull, you better be ready to bleed yourself. They are fighters. It's all they do. It's all they know HOW to do.

I had gotten so focused on winning and causing the most damage, that I forgot there were a lot of innocent victims out there as well. Andrew, that cocksucker, was right, even as he was only using it for a manipulative ploy: A lot of people were getting hurt by my actions.

It was up to me to change all that.

***

My first action was to send another letter of intent to the company stating that I had no intention of seeking any fiduciary recompense for my copyright royalties for the next 18 months. I didn't give up my rights, but I didn't see how tying up their finances right now would be good for the people who would get hurt the worst by my actions.

We had gone public to raise cash and had spent a good half mill or more to go public in the first place. The stock price had sunk and Andy boy was having a hard time getting more investors.

It seems that businessmen value honesty and are married. Neither of these lent themselves to trust him in any kind of relationship. Those that weren't married were divorced...and Andy was a divorcee nightmare.

As for Allie, I sent her a personal email telling her I'd go for a 50-50 split if she unfroze our assets. I even offered to sign a document to that effect. Needless to say there was a lot of suspicion, but I tried to reassure her to the best of Thurman's ability.

Lastly, I got a list of names from Human Resources and checked my company directory. Mindy was a lot of help as we started my new project. 

The first thing I did when they unfroze was to cut a check for Karl for the two years of work he did for me which he wasn't getting paid. Yes, he wasn't very good back then, but I made it a substantial lump sum and tried to add as much inflation as humanly possible to make sure he got the most money possible. If nothing else, I wrote, he should take it as an early wedding present. I also told him to seriously reconsider taking them up on the job offer. Karl is a proud guy, which was why he was so angry for so long. I'm guessing that Sheila was pragmatic enough and persuasive enough to get him to do the smart thing, because I was happy to see my check cleared pretty quickly. Suddenly, sleeping wasn't a problem anymore.

I sent an email to every fired person from the company and offered anything within my power to help them find a new job. Needless to say, I took a lot of shit from a lot of angry ex employees.

Many of them wanted nothing to do with me. I made sure they had my email and phone number and bid them luck. Others were happy to take my help. I called every programmer, vendor, client and personal friend to find them a job.

In a lot of cases, that wasn't enough. The economy in California sucked that badly. At this point, I bit the bullet and started to pay some to relocate. George wanted to go to Florida where his social security might be enough to live. Gloria wanted to be closer to her mother.

I only used my half of the money.

What were my motives? I'd hurt a lot of people and I wanted to make it right. I couldn't control what people like Andy and Allie did to me, but I could control how I acted afterward. Frankly, they were beneath me. They'd gotten hurt already and I had nothing more I wanted to do to them.

***

So it came as a huge surprise when I got a phone call from Allie. 

"Hi...Jimmi...Jim?"

"Hello Allie. How are you?"

"I'm okay. Thank you for asking. I wanted to know if I could meet you. Maybe for a drink somewhere. Frank's? It was a bar we went to occasionally.

"Our lawyers wouldn't like us talking together."

"Forget our lawyers. This isn't about our divorce. It's about something different."

"When and where?" She gave me the relevant information and my schedule was pretty wide open of late. I said goodbye and put the phone in it's cradle. "You can come in now." I said to the door.

A sheepish Mindy and Swati came in. "I assume you heard everything?" I had long since given up on trying to keep secrets from these two. They nodded. "What do you think?"

Swati looked at Mindy, giving way to her. "You should go." Mindy said "You need closure. I'm not sure what this is about, but it doesn't hurt to listen."

Swati nodded in agreement. "But be careful Mister REEnalds. She's a tricky one." Always good advice.

***

I got to Frank's and she was already in a back booth, dressed very well. Not overly sexy but attractive. I slid across from her and ordered a drink. This was her show and I figured she should take the lead.

"You're looking well." She started.

"I've had a lot of free time, so I've been exercising. What do they say: It takes a divorce to get a man into a gym."

"It's working for you." She fidgeted. "I'm in an apartment now."

"Oh?" I waited.

"Yes...well...the thing with Andy didn't work out as well as I thought it would. I'm not blaming you for it. I blame how we got started in the first place. You didn't help with those paparazzi camped on our doorstep, but we sort of brought it on ourselves."

"Sort of." I agreed placidly. 

"I've heard what you're doing with the ex employees and I want to help out."

"Help out?' I was puzzled. I doubt she knew one in ten of our workers.

"Yes. I want to contribute some money and some time. Make a phone bank, network. You have to admit I know a lot of people and you're probably running a bit low by now. But this was a brilliant idea. It has great optics. I could get People Magazine lined up to help us..."

"Optics?" I sighed.

She could sense my sudden change in tone. "Of course it's the right thing to do. But it's brilliant on your part because not only does it help out a lot of people, but it also has the added benefit of rehabilitating your image."

And the image of anyone else working with us who had taken a beating. I could see the wheels spinning in her head.

"Allie..." I said, trying for a soft let down.

Her shoulders slumped. "You aren't going to let me help, are you?"

"No. I'm not. I'm not doing this because of optics. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do." I shrugged. "Of course, one of the people I'm going to help get a job is me, so don't give me a halo. How did you find out about it anyway?"

"That little secretary of your's is feeding information to the press. One of the reporters is a friend of mine and told me about your project." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're sleeping with her, aren't you?"

It was my turn for a little smile to curve my lips. "Do you recall 'The Bob and Tom Show' back when we were in Ohio?"

She was baffled at my sudden change in subject. "Vaguely. They were funny in a weird way. I know you loved it." My entertainment choices again.

"Bob had a saying: Show me a beautiful woman and I'll show you a guy who's tired of fucking her."

She gasped. "Excuse me? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that if you had asked me for a divorce before you had started fucking Andy, if you had been open and honest, we wouldn't be here today. I'd have given you a fair divorce. Did you think you were the only person dissatisfied?"

"But but but...you never let on!" Her ego had a very hard time accepting that I had any reason to be dissatisfied.

"No. Because, as you so poignantly put it, you chose who you love. But what you forgot was that you need to make that choice every day. Even when your wife is a snob. Even when she spends too much money. Even when she can be an annoying bitch."

"You hypocrite! You're doing the same thing! Looking at that little secretary as a replacement!"

I shook my head again. "No. I wasn't. Yes, I took a shine to her months ago, but at worst, I was window shopping. Thinking what that new coat would look like on me. I never expected you to steal my coat so I needed another. So we aren't fucking. But that doesn't mean I'm not seeing what might be down the road."




Inital Public Offerings Ch. 04



"So this is the end?"

"For you and me? Yes. It's all over except the paperwork." She looked a bit sad, a bit mad, got up, and stiffed me with the bill. But I didn't mind.

The important stuff was done. Back when this began, I talked to Swati about how to handle this whole divorce thing. She said this: "Mr. REEnalds, those two do what they do by being hidden. You need to tell the world what they did, so they can't do it again."

So I couldn't allow her to soften her image. And I also couldn't take her money. You see, part of my strategy with the underwriters was to let them know that they could pursue me all they wanted. My coffers were empty. They'd have more luck getting blood from a stone. A few of the smaller holders had already dropped their suits and the rest, faced with the PR nightmare, were making noises. Mindy was asking the employees I helped out to talk to the press. Wanting to sue the man who was spending his fortune to rescue them? As Allie put it, horrible optics.

How did I lose $3.5 million dollars so fast? A good bit of it was spent on unemployment or relocation or retraining. I owed it to my ex-coworkers.

But Swati wanted to become a citizen. And there still existed the 'million dollar investor' visa program. The potential immigrant doesn't even need to spend the money. They just need to invest it! She and Prathee would become citizens very soon. And they needed an investment advisor. Any question who that might be? Pradeep even agreed to forgive me for calling him a criminal.

Karl, my best friend, got a HELL of a check for services rendered. And in the course of time, I'd be getting part of that wedding gift back for my own wedding. Or something. Maybe I'd defrag his computer for a million.

Let's just say that Mindy is not complaining about her compensation package as my assistant. In fact, I'm letting her cover most of the bills these days. She's not complaining, though we are still taking things slow.

As I said before, I'm no saint, though I play one on TV.

One half of this last chapter was edited by mikothebaby. The mistakes are when I ignore her suggestions or make other changes.

I want to thank Mandy01 for giving me a great line for the story about pragmatism. Thanks Amanda.

And I want to thank my readers for their patience. I wouldn't be writing these stories without the encouragement of you all. Please feel free to critique away. If you would separate plot, from grammar, from technical points I got wrong, I'd appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed the story.