28 comments/ 113096 views/ 8 favorites Poor and Proud By: Winterfrog Many thanks to techsan for his editing of this story. * I was in my best mood at a beautiful sunny Friday morning in May with no clouds visible in the blue sky over our village outside a Scandinavian town. The time was exactly 9.12 when I took the phone call, which within a short time would mean such serious problems for so many people in our village. I will always remember that time because I happened to look at the clock on my office wall and think, "Who cares about business so early on such a lovely Friday morning?" My old friend and most important customer, Jonathan Storm, did and he did very much because he sobbed when he began speaking to me. He had serious problems and could not see any other solution than filing for bankruptcy. Therefore he could not pay either my outstanding big bills or any other bills because the lawyer had told him that it was against the law to pay anything at all during the present circumstances and besides he had nothing to pay with. After Jonathan had ended his call, I was sitting in shock for several minutes. He had always paid his bills on the dot. Never failed a day. My business with him had gone well and over the whole time increased in a slow but very safe way. That very day it had reached 52 percent of the annual income of my company, which was far from a wise solution to have so many eggs in the same basket as the old people used to say. But it was, at least for me, impossible say "no thanks" to an old friend and a good customer when he had increased his orders. Of course, we subscribed to an efficient credit information system on the net and did a standard check with his orders as all other orders but never got any warning. Wise or not, that's the reality for a subcontractor and there's always a risk that it can have some kind of a domino effect when the most important player is falling down, because it usually causes many others to follow. My pretty wife, Nathalie, used to share my office with me as a kind of part-time secretary but that day she had stayed at home to fix some matters relating to our twins 10 year party on Saturday. The first thing I had to do after recovering from my shock was to stop all ongoing production to Jonathan's company. I went out to my foreman and told him that we would stop all production and shipping to JS & Son, which would cause rumors to circulate among the employees. Therefore I decided tell him to stop all activities one hour before the usual time and give them as much information as I had collected until then. After that I went into Mrs. Peterson, who was responsible for the company's economic matters, gave her information about what happened and together we began to analyze our situation. Though our economy was on a very good level with some funds for such situations, it didn't matter what we did, it was a question of time or rather how much time we got to find solutions? The next question was what we could do to extend that time. The third question was what solution could save the company and the jobs for so many people in the village? With more than fifty percent of the incoming money gone, we still had most of all usual expenses left and it would take several months before they would began to decrease in any appreciable level because we had to pay from one to six months wages to the people we had to fire. Even finding new products and increasing sales would both take time and money. It was a terrible day for me, the worst I ever had at the job, indeed. After much calculating Mrs. Peterson and I found out that with the help of the most difficult possible solutions we could survive until Christmas if we didn't find new and profitable customers again. We used to close the business at one o'clock on Fridays during summertime and that terrible Friday all employees were present in the storeroom where I held my speech at twelve o'clock. I told the truth, that it had began with JS & Son's main customer's serious problems and the domino effect had knocked out JS & Son and almost us too but, though I wouldn't throw in the towel before all other possibilities were investigated, it would mean difficulties for many of us in the near future and negotiations with the unions would begin on Monday. Nathalie wasn't happy when I came home and told her what happened at the job. For some strange reason, she began accusing and cursing me for causing the problem. Her main problem seemed to be losing her position as "the leading lady" in our village, which made me angry and shouting at her that such crap was of no importance in the present situation. It was not a fun weekend at home though the party for our twins went fine. There were no traces of any spark between Nathalie and me in our bed any longer. I got a strange feeling that now when I really needed her support, she didn't care a shit about me any longer. Mrs. Peterson, my foreman Eric, Peter our marketing man and I had a meeting on Sunday where we began to plan tactics for our negotiations with the unions. To everybody's surprise I put Nathalie on the list of people who had to quit their jobs in the first wave. There were two important reasons for me to do that. The first: she had never been of much use for the company and her negative attitude against me was of no advantage at the office for the time being. Her job was invented to get her a good health insurance and save money for her pension funds. The second reason was simple because it would help me to get many others, who needed the job much more than she, to understand the serious situation. However I only told her the second reason and did my best to explain that it wasn't a disadvantage if she got a new job away from the company for a while until the worst problems were solved, Nathalie didn't understood my reasoning at all. She became furious, very furious indeed. It didn't matter that I even made my best efforts to explain to her how much we needed the fresh money she would get if she found a job. With red figures in the company books, we otherwise had to live on our savings in one way or other. Her salary would be a good help to the family economy. As the old saying says, "An accident never comes alone", two other of the most important customers wanted to see me on Thursday the week after Jonathan's phone call. One Martin E. Malund obviously was some kind of spokesman for both of them because his cohort didn't open his mouth during our short meeting. Martin had a simple request: they had been offered a much better price for similar products in Bulgaria, but for old friendship and sympathy with my problems they would continue their business with me if I gave them an extra 12% discount. I wished both of them "Bon voyage" to Bulgaria. On Friday my foreman told me that he was sorry, but had received such a nice offer for a new job he couldn't resist. He tried to explain that it was his duty to support his family in the best possible ways. I told him that I understood his problems and offered to let him quit that day if he wanted. He did. More shit would happen. On the next Monday the local bank cancelled the two rather small loans my business had there and one of my suppliers wanted payment in advance for my orders in the future. I began to feel like a boxer who had been knocked down to the floor several times but managed to get up on the eight count every time but had to know that the referee could possibly stop the match the next time it happened. A bad thing to me was that my marriage was in turmoil though Nathalie had gotten a good full time job in the nearby city within a week. She still blamed me for causing the problems at the company and in her opinion it was my fault we recently hadn't been invited to several of the local social events we always used to attend before the "Bad Friday" hit us. One positive thing was that now I could sort out my real friends. I began to wonder if my life would be much easier if I dumped Nathalie now when we had almost nothing left to share. At least it would be a cheap divorce. Even my marketing man jumped off the sinking ship but I didn't care much about that because he had been of very limited use in the present situation. I began to wonder if there was any bottom to the black hole I was falling down. Then, at last, I got the first positive sign. The boss for a business consultant company in the nearby city came to see me. I knew that his company had done some good jobs but charged a very high fee, which I could never pay. At first I regarded him as a vulture who wanted to get the last remaining pieces of a prey but to my great surprise he offered me a very interesting deal based on "No fix - No fee". The simple reason for his unusual offer was that he wanted a real "Mission Impossible" to use as a reference in their marketing and it would be difficult to find anything better for that purpose than my company. I agreed to that and accepted his offer. Two days later I met Camilla Ekman, an easygoing pretty woman in her early thirties. She was properly dressed in a very expensive dark striped business suit and expensive looking, probably Italian, high heels. Everything in her equipment was of best quality. Obviously I became pale when I began to think about what they had to charge for her services for giving her a salary that afforded her such expensive things. She had read my mind, smiled and said, "Don't be afraid. I'm not a mean whiz." "I didn't mean to offend you but I got the impression that you are used to deal with more important matters than a almost bankrupt company in a sleeping village." She began to laugh and said, "The first day is for free and I promise to wear something more casual tomorrow if you prefer." She was a very positive acquaintance, who spent two days at my office collecting details about my business. Before she left the second day, she gave me a sweet smile and said, "We'll fix it." "I love optimists." "So do I and I hate to lose challenges." I began to get fed up with the problems in my marriage. Our once in time great sex life had lost most of the hot sparks mostly because she currently happened to be very tired when she got in bed. During the few chances I got to fuck her she had began asking, "Will you be kind and do it quickly?" Not much of a sex life to care about. Of course, I began to suspect that she got what she wanted somewhere else, but she hadn't left any visible clues and had not been on any new evenings out. The most important matter, which kept me from demanding divorce, was that she was a good mother to our twins and they needed her very much during that difficult time. I had made several suggestions about a time out for a while for solving our problems. But she denied that we had more problems than average people and to my surprise said to me that everything could be better again. One day I got an interesting Email via one of the anonymous services on the net. "Dear sir, your wife and her womanizing boss are going together to a strange conference with the two of them as the only participants and their conference will obviously be held in his room because nothing else is booked. The conference area is supposed to be his bed. Further information about hotel and date will follow within a few days. Your real friends." Of course it was a bad message, very bad indeed, but I was already so deep in the shit that the only thing, which could hurt me was if something happened to the twins. My first thoughts were that I'd demand shared custody and solutions to all the matters about being a single parent. Nathalie became a problem, but her chilly behavior toward me led me to suspect her taking part in some crap. Instead of supporting me when I needed her as best she could, she had drifted away from me. Two days later I got the missing information and decided not to say anything to Nathalie but if she went to that hotel, I would book a room, go there and see what really happened. More shit happened at the job. Camilla's suggestions for making important changes to the administration made Mrs. Ericsson so furious that she threatened to quit her job if I let Camilla go on with her intentions. I did. I accepted Camilla's suggestion to promote a young bright minded secretary to take over Mrs. Eriksson's job. It was a good choice because she didn't have any old routines in her backpack and the others accepted her promotion. We did an equal thing with the foreman's job and promoted one of our own employees after Camilla's suggestion and Camilla intended to take care of the marketing for some time. Then Nathalie told me at a Monday evening that she would be out of town Wednesday night for some important strategy conference and I had no reason to object after she had told me the same time and place were the same I'd been told in that anonymous message. I asked Camilla if we could change cars for a night, which she agreed when I told her my reason. I was sure that Nathalie would not recognize her Peugeot 307 at the hotel's garage, if she stayed in her lover's car when he parked. But before I got Camilla's car keys she told me that whatever I felt against my wife and her lover boy I had no right to use violence against any of them. She told me that she worked hard on my case with the good assistance of her co-workers when she needed it and didn't want all those efforts spoiled by a damn vendetta. I was at the hotel before Nathalie and her lover and after some innocent flirting with the reception girl I told her that an old classmate of mine would probably be in town on business and she told me that Nathalie's employer had a double room booked for one night. I bribed her to send me a message as soon as he checked in. I got the call less than one hour later and understood that they wouldn't open their door if they had time to begin fucking. I hurried to their room knocked on the door and shouted, "Room service." When Nathalie opened the door, I pushed her aside, closed the door behind her, rushed into the room and saw that her very surprised lover was a Kim Ahlman, whom I had met at several conferences but never liked. I told him, "So you are the damn creep who fucks my wife. Isn't Kim a girl name? What the hell are you? Are you really a man or are you a woman so my cheating slut wife has turned to a lesbian?" Kim took the humiliation in presence of Elise because he remembered what I did during the last conference. A big man had harassed the female speaker with lot of stupid questions. I had enough of his crap and told him to shut up or I would throw him out in the street if he opened his big mouth to harass her again. He did it after only a few minutes and I used the Kubotan in my key chain to cause him so much pain at his wrist that he followed me like a good boy out to the street, where I gave him a knee to his balls so he calmed down and didn't came back to the conference room. A Kubotan is a simple small plastic stick, which is very efficient when properly used. Only a few people sitting close to the troublemaker had seen me using it. Kim, who had been at some distance thought it was only my grip on his wrist that turned the big bastard to obey and follow me out. Now Kim was afraid and feared for the same treatment that I gave the big man, so he run around the double bed for protection on its other side. Nathalie was obviously in some kind of a shock because she had remained silent during the whole action. I ignored Kim and asked Nathalie, "In which room will you spend the night? In here with that coward sissy or with me in mine?" She looked at me with horror and disgust before she replied, "I'll stay here in this room." "Okay, slut, feel free to stay as long as you want. I don't want you back." Nathalie whispered to me, "You damn looser. I don't care a shit about what you want." I replied, "Adios my damn cheating whore." I left their room and went to my own room where I rang Kim's wife and told her that her husband was sharing a hotel room with my soon to be ex-wife. I told her the name of the hotel, the phone number to the hotel and their room number. Then I took a nap for an hour, checked out from the hotel and left for home. Many thoughts and questions circled in my head during the drive back home. Obviously Nathalie had lost all her love for me since she had not made me listen to all the usual crap like "I'm sorry, it is not what you think and please forgive me." Without hesitating a single second she had chosen to stay with her lover instead of coming with me to my room. In some strange way I even felt some relief because my lousy marriage was over now in reality and would be legally in six months. The only positive matter was that I had taken control over myself and I had succeeded in resisting the strong temptation to beat the crap out of that coward scumbag she preferred before me. It was my present situation as a big loser, which helped me to accept the divorce. Only few months earlier it had been a catastrophe, but now it was only one of my many steps while falling towards the bottom of my black hole, if there was a bottom. Though I already must be down at some of the very deepest levels, I still had a feeling of continuing falling down. The next day I took care of some economic matters and divorce papers from the court. I offered her 50/50 of everything including our huge debts and shared custody of the twins. I had already moved all her personal belongings to the spare bedroom when Nathalie came home after work the next day and began cursing me for destroying Kim's marriage by persuading his wife to charge into their room at seven o'clock in the morning and scream about divorce. Her only comment to her own divorce papers was that she wanted to show them to a lawyer before she signed them. Some of Camilla's connections had given her information about a possible co-operation with an interested company in Poland. She and I went there for a three-day trip. The short meeting on the first day after our arrival there didn't give much hope. However, when Camilla and I met for dinner at our hotel the first evening my heart began to beat much faster when I saw her dressed up. She was gorgeous, very gorgeous, indeed. There was a five-man dance band of fair quality playing and during our first dance after dinner I found out that Camilla was very keen at dancing. In the beginning the band played mostly fast tunes but later in the evening there were much more slow tunes. During those tunes I imagined that Camilla got closer and closer to me with every new dance. While resting at the bar she had told me that it was a very pleasant evening for her. I will never doubt that she had made such a strong impression on me and got me so horny that I must had been thinking with the wrong head and hopefully thought that she was living in some kind of modern relationship where a good fuck on the side could be okay now and then. However, during a very slow tune I got her into a dark corner where I got my right hand high under her short skirt and caressed her inner thigh. She almost froze to a statue and said, "Please stop." I did, and instead of shouting and screaming she took my hand and led me to a more lighted area in the bar where she asked me to sit down. Then she asked me to look at the ring finger on her left hand with two golden rings and said, "These rings are symbols of two of the most happiest moments in my whole life. Engagement and wedding to a man I really love and I will never cheat on him. Nobody is perfect, not even he because he is a lousy dancer. But he trusts me and has no objections if I happen to dance several tunes with a keen dancer like you at some party now and then because he knows that I will never go further than dancing with any of them." What could I say? I said, "I'm sorry, very sorry. I thought that I had reached the bottom in my black hole but now I'm feeling that I'm still falling." Poor and Proud She replied, "Let's go to the bar for a nightcap and call it a night after that." At the bar we took two big drinks each and talked about some personal matters before we parted for the night. At breakfast I once again told her that I was sorry and ashamed for acting so stupid last night. Camilla told me that she had no hard feelings and she understood that it was fifty percent her own fault for going too far with temptations but nothing had really happened. The meetings with the Polish went much better than expected and during the afternoon we signed a contract. Camilla joked and said that at least I had found a ladder and taken the first step up from my deep black hole. The Polish invited us to a nice restaurant to celebrate the contract during a pleasant evening. During the flight home Camilla invited me to dinner at her home the next Saturday evening and I accepted her invitation. On the dot, as the custom is in this country, I rang the bell of her nice house, holding a bunch of flowers. She was as sweet as usual when she opened the door, hugged me and led me in to a very tastefully furnished living room and introduced me to her husband Sebastian, her little daughter Rebecca who was sitting on his knee drinking from her bottle and one additional woman in her mid-thirties, whom she introduced as Elise. Camilla left us for the kitchen and her husband excused himself and said he would try to get Louise to sleep. I took a closer look of Elise and noted the she was dressed down rather than dressed up for the evening. Her hair was in a simple ponytail and she had almost no make up and a long dress, which didn't show much of her legs. I began to think that introducing Elise and me to each other could be one of the main reasons for this dinner. I suspected that Elise wasn't really amused at this kind of game and didn't want me interested in her for sex reasons. When Elise and I were alone I asked her if she was willing to surprise Camilla and Sebastian and have some fun during the evening. She gave me a very sweet smile and accepted my suggestion. Camilla rejoined us from the kitchen; she asked that we excuse her for leaving us alone and hoped we had a pleasant chat. Elise gave her a bright smile when I replied, "Yes indeed, we had such a pleasant chat that we agreed to have a date tomorrow." Camilla got a very strange look in her face when she turned to Elise and asked her, "Is that really the truth?" Elise was obviously a very good actor because she played her part well when she replied, "Oh, yes, it is and I really look forward to it." I continued, "Me too." When their child was sleeping, Sebastian came back to us and we were sitting at a table eating of Camilla's great dinner when she told the news about us to Sebastian, who was as surprised as his wife. Elise and I played our game the whole evening and when we left that night we shared a taxi. During the trip we agreed to have a date on Sunday just as we had told Camilla and Sebastian. Elise had asked me if it was okay that her six years old daughter Jennifer joined us during our walk in the park and I had no objections. We had agreed to begin with a kind of combined open-air walking and quiz competition in a spare time area and thereafter have lunch at the golf restaurant in the neighborhood. Elise's cell phone rang during our walk and it was Camilla who wanted to know if we had joked with her during the dinner. Elise told her the truth that we were walking in a quiz competition together with Jennifer and so far we had succeeded in finding out the right answers. Then she gave the phone to me and said that Camilla wanted to say some words. I thanked Camilla for the very pleasant dinner and told her that Elise, Jennifer and I had a good time together during our walk in the park. Camilla wanted to know more and asked, "What the hell did you do to Elise? We left you alone for a couple of minutes and you two had arranged a date. Incredible. Did you know her before?" "No, I didn't and we didn't do anything unusual. Don't you believe in love at first sight?" "Not in one minute between two strangers." I asked her to give my thanks to Sebastian and that she was a lucky girl who had found such great husband. Elise and I got a good laugh at our joke and she said, "My sister Annelie is Camilla's best friend and I'm sure that she is getting some gossip from Camilla right now. I can promise you a month's salary if Annelie doesn't call me within an hour Annelie rang after 35 minutes. Elise told her that Camilla had invited her for dinner where she had met a guy. Now we were on date and Jennifer was with us. Like most children in her age, Jennifer liked McDonalds and had persuaded me to change our lunch to be there instead of the Golf Restaurant. Elise continued with telling Annelie that we had a good time and everything was fine. Then she turned to me and said with a bright smile. "Much noise for an innocent date." "We ought to have more dates." "Are you honest?" "Yes, I am and teasing Camilla isn't the only reason I would like see you again." "Could you please tell me some other reason?" "Yes, you Elise and I promise to take you out to something much better than McDonalds" "Why me?" "Because you are lovely. Yes you are." "If you want any further dates with me, I want you to tell me the truth about you and Camilla. I got a feeling yesterday that she and you are in a very tight relationship." "Camilla and I have been working very close together on an important project and both of us are, for very different reasons, very much depending of the results. I want to save an almost bankrupt company, which means saving my own and my employee's jobs. Camilla's job was almost a mission impossible, which none of her more experienced collogues dared to take. I can say that fixing my problems will take her a quantum leap up the stairs to the top of her company where she belongs." I continued, "Yes, we have been working tightly but for most of the time via phone and computers. Sebastian has been a good support and back up for her. Camilla says that choosing the right jargon in every situation is an important part of her job. But I've seen her very formal and ice-cold during some negotiations with people who think they can take advantage of her. Am I qualified for the next date?" "Yes." We went to McDonald's and Jennifer, who was happy because I had agreed with her in spite of Elise's objections when she wanted go to McDonald's instead of the Golf Restaurant, said that I was the best of her mom's boyfriends. When I tried to ask her about how many there were, Elise interrupted us by saying that she hadn't had any at all. I smiled at her and said, "I would like to know if an almost bankrupt entrepreneur can be qualified to apply for that honorable position?" Blushing a little she replied, "It depends on his personal qualifications." It was no reason to rush into a new relationship until I knew her much better, so I found it best to avoid further questions in that matter. However, after lunch we decided to take a tour with an old restored small steamboat at a nearby lake and after that we went to the mall for a DVD I had promised buy for Jennifer. Then Elise suggested dinner at her place and we arranged it with take-away from a kebab shop. She was living in a three-room apartment near the town center and her place was in good order and gave a positive first impression. While Jennifer was watching her new DVD, Elise asked me how much Camilla had told me about her and I told her the truth, "Nothing at all." Elise told me that she was 36 years old, working with administration at one of the leading industries outside our city and had been divorced for almost two years from Jennifer's father after she discovered him having an affair for two months. Elise's sister Annelie and Camilla were best childhood friends why Camilla sometimes invited her to a dinner or a party. Camilla had told her that she wanted to introduce Sebastian and a business friend of hers for each other and it would be more fun with four at the table. She had described me as a good guy, newly divorced and probably of some interest to her, a suggestion Elise didn't like very much. Elise liked Camilla and accepted her dinner invitation but had refused to be a kind of sex object for her customers. That's why she had dressed as un-sexy as possible; she liked my joke about the date, had a good time during the dinner so she had accepted our date today and not regretted it a single second during the whole day. I gave her a short version of myself: Kenneth Hillman, 43 years old, father of twins, boy and girl, bought a company with two employees 18 years ago in a village outside the city and they had increased to 42 people when the shit hit the fan. Today there are 20 left. Camilla's company has done a great job during the restoring process and I hope we can begin to take back people rather soon. I met my wife Nathalie 16 years ago and we had been married for fourteen years. She was some kind of a "Belle de village" and I was regarded as an up and coming man in local business. In my opinion we had a good marriage and a happy family with our now 10 years old twins but her happiness lasted only as long as she was the important man's wife in our village. When the company fell onto serious problems she took a job in town and began cheating on me with her boss. I found them together in a hotel room and phoned his wife, who went to that hotel early the next morning, found them together in his room, dumped him and filed for divorce. Nathalie and her boss are living together today. Then Elise told me that her ex-husband was still a problem because he turned to a nasty stalker when he got drunk. He was forbidden to be closer than 50 meters to her apartment but didn't care much about that and the authorities didn't do much about that. The police used to take him away but they could only keep him a few hours. We continued with pleasant small talk and before I left she invited me for dinner the next Friday evening, which I of course accepted. On my way home I had a feeling that once again I had climbed up from my black hole. Though a large number of my acquaintances and so-called friends were "gone with the wind" when I had lost my money and importance in the social life in our village, I still had a bunch of real friends left. Benny Jensen was one of them. We met during my short time as a biker and then we did our army service in the same platoon of an infantry regiment and got involved for a long time with two horny twin sisters in the garrison town. Benny remained as a biker and because we, at least now and then, were living on different sides of the law we used to help each other with some favors when we had serious problems. I called him on Monday morning and told him that I had met a nice divorced woman who had a serious problem with a stalking ex-husband. When Benny got the stalker's name and address, he only said, "I heard you had some other problems so you can forget this one. Good luck with the bride." Obviously my bad luck had turned to something better because at breakfast one of my employees asked if somebody was interested in two tickets to the Wednesday evening dance at a hotel with one of the best bands in the country, which been sold out for a month. I was quick enough to take that chance and rang Elise, who accepted that date. Then I got a call from the real estate broker who told me that the bidding on my house was much higher than expected, which meant that there would be something left even for me after I had settled Nathalie out of my life economically. We still had shared custody of our children but she had begun inventing excuses to limit her weeks with the children to three or four days. When I picked up Elise on Wednesday evening, I met a completely different person than when we met at Camilla's dinner. Perfect make up, her hair done and dressed in a rather short black skirt and a gray top with some silver threads. It was the first time I saw her legs and they were great. She smiled and asked, "Will I do?" "You are great!" At the hotel as soon we were in the foyer we met Nathalie and Kim. To my great pleasure I could see that a comparison between my soon to be ex and she who hopefully would my new was, without any doubt, in favor for Elise. Nathalie didn't look happy when I introduced them. "My dear friend Elise, this is my ex-wife Nathalie and that creep with her is Kim Ahlman, her new girlfriend." Nathalie shouted, "Bastard." But Kim obviously still feared me and took the humiliation without any attempts to attack me. When we were a distance from them Elise had a worried look in her face and asked, "Why did you call her boyfriend her girlfriend?" "Because Kim is a girl's name and he behaved like a girl. No real man would have taken such humiliation." "You are a bit naughty, aren't you? Kim is a unisex name. There is a Kim on our national soccer team. You ought to know that." So what? I didn't care a shit about his name, but it gave me an opportunity to show Nathalie that she had dumped a real man for a coward wimp. We had a pleasant meal before the dance band began to play. Elise and I danced well together and had a good time. Then we met Elise's sister and her husband at the dance floor. They were there together with Camilla and Sebastian and invited us to their table, where they took in Champagne to celebrate Elise and me. Elise became horrified and said, "For heavens sake it's only our second date." Her sister's husband replied, "Your body language says more than a thousand words. Both of you are invited to have dinner with us on Saturday evening so your number of dates will increase." We had a very pleasant evening and when Camilla hooked me for two tunes, she looked me straight in my eyes and asked, "What have you done to Elise? I have never seen her so happy before." "I can only be what I always used to be. I can't pretend to be anything better than that." "Be a good boy and you will be a lucky boy." After the dance Elise invited me into her place for a nightcap and even offered to let me sleep over if I accepted doing that without sex for two reasons: she had her period and it was only our second date. I accepted but after some goodnight kissing I had got a real hard on, which made her a bit amused when she felt it. For several reasons, mostly because she continued her touching, it remained stone hard. After a while she felt sorry for me, took off my boxer shorts and began kissing, licking, wanking my hard cock and finished with a good sucking. Of course, I couldn't resist that unexpected treatment for very long time before I had to let it go, and as it was big load, we had a good laugh when she had to replace the sheets and said, "It's better because we'll do it the proper way next time." "I really look forward to that, yes indeed." "Me too." Our next date was on the next Friday evening at her apartment. When I rang her doorbell with my wine, flowers and a big candy bag, it was Jennifer who opened the door. Inside the apartment I was greeted by one more girl of Jennifer's age and a bit stressed. Elise explained that her babysitter had gotten ill and Elise now was her babysitter's babysitter. She told me it was up to me if I wanted to skip the date or join her as babysitter. I told her that if we liked the situation, whatever it is, it would be fine. It was a funny evening with much laughing. We played several different family games with the girls, who got tired around eleven o'clock when Elise and I could have a little supper with some wine. When we had gotten in the bed, I licked her to an intensive orgasm and then fucked her in the missionary position to one more, a bit less intensive orgasm. She began to cry and said that it was because she was so happy to have met me and loved me so much. I told her that I was in love with her and then, without any suggestions from me she went down and sucked me stone hard again, climbed up on me and began riding me slowly. When she felt that it was getting close for me she began to move faster and faster until she felt me soften in her. She remained on me for a while and I said; "You've faith in your pills." She replied, "What pills?" "I thought..." "Why should I take any pills? I haven't slept with a man in two years and my period ended yesterday so you don't have any reason to worry. By the way, what would you do if I got pregnant?" "Do my very best to be a good dad to our baby." "Are you honest?" "Yes." The children were awake before me, so I didn't get a morning fuck but I got a great breakfast in bed. In the morning we went to the supermarket shopping for the poor sick single mom, who had gotten slightly better. Elise asked me if it was okay that we kept the child for one more day and I had no reason to say no. After the shopping we went to my house and Elise found it very nice and when she saw the "For Sale" signs she asked if there was no way to save it. I told her that Nathalie demanded her money and it was almost sold. Then we went to my company and Elise was surprised once again when she found that it was much bigger and much more modern, clean and in much better order than she had expected. She was really impressed and agreed that Camilla had done a good job when she helped me to save it. Though the profit was still on a very limited level, it was increasing and the red figures were hopefully history. Once again Jennifer and her friend decided where to have lunch and neither Elise nor I were very happy about their choice but accepted it without objections. Even Elise's parents were invited to her sister's dinner at Saturday evening and they were nice people but had a bit too many questions, which neither Elise nor I could answer, at least not then. Because we had both children with us, we said goodnight rather early. Even that evening Elise and I got in one good fuck and afterwards we talked about our secret desires about sex; to our great relief we found out both of us had almost equal interests and neither of us would accept cheating. We decided to be open with each other if either of us got some ideas and wanted something extra. Elise was happy that her ex had not stalked her since we met and had obviously accepted that their relationship was history. I left early on Sunday morning because I had some matters to attend before I had to pick up my twins for my week. We decided that Elise and Jennifer would come to my house to see my twins Monday evening. When I brought the children home after lunchtime, Nathalie said that she wanted talk about some matters with me and suggested we meet at the Thai restaurant at Wednesday evening, to which I agreed. I had talked a lot with my twins about Elise and Jennifer and Monday evening went by without any problems. Elise became a bit worried when she heard about Nathalie's and my meeting on Wednesday evening, not thinking that I would take Nathalie back but more me accusing Nathalie of different things and making an already bad relationship worse. Elise offered to baby-sit my twins, which I accepted and I promised her that I would be polite to Nathalie when I met her. On Wednesday evening I met a nicely dressed Nathalie, who was in a pleasant mood and our dinner went fine with small talk about our children and pleasant memories from our marriage. Then after some silence she told me that she had came to the conviction that her affair and present time relationship with Kim was a big mistake, which she regretted very much. Neither she nor Kim had wanted their affair to be known by his wife or me. To be honest I didn't give a shit, but said only, "Such things happen. Nobody is perfect and we learn as long as we live." Poor and Proud She looked straight in my eyes and asked, "How about you? Have you missed our marriage? Or at least the many good times we had together?" "To be honest, you choose the right time to leave me because I had and still have so many other problems that I haven't had much time to think about the past because I must focus all my efforts on the future." "Is it possible for me to be included in your future?" "Of course, you are the mother of my children." "Our children want both their mother and their father. We can still stop the sale of their home and be a family again. Can't we?" "No, because I don't want to live there, neither in that house nor in the damn village a day longer than necessary. Our divorce doesn't make any difference about our children's parents. Your boyfriend will never be their father and Elise will never be their mother. It will always be you and me but I can't see any reason for us living together for that reason." "We can still hope that time will heal our wounds." "Yes, it hopefully will." That was it. I had remained polite, not raised my voice and resisted all temptation to call her names. We shared the bill, shook hands and parted. Back in my house Elise immediately asked me if I had any news to tell her and I told her Nathalie's suggestion and my reply. Then she asked if I had managed to avoid accusing Nathalie for all the problems and calling her names. I told her the truth that it had been a very polite meeting and I had avoided saying anything at all when Nathalie said that Kim was a mistake because it was her problem. Why should I care? Elise asked me if I was greedy man when I told her about the shared bill but accepted my explanation that my reason was avoiding giving Nathalie any signals about personal interest for our meetings. Then life began to roll on at increasing speed. I had to live somewhere when my house was sold and when I asked Elise about buying a house together, she became very interested, began immediately searching for suitable alternatives and within a short time we had found our dream house. It was expensive but not impossible and we signed the contract but had to wait two months before moving in. The sale of her apartment and my part of my house gave much more than we had dreamt about getting. One evening Elise held up her left hand and asked me if I could imagine what was missing. I asked, "A ring of gold?" "No." "Two rings?" "Yes." I proposed, she said "yes" and as it was the "second trip" for both of us we decided not to make much noise of it. We planned on a wedding at the city hall and a weekend trip to Euro Disney in Paris with our children. Our relationship had begun at Camilla's dinner, so we invited her and Sebastian for dinner on a Saturday evening to celebrate our engagement. I noted that they gave each other some funny looks when we told them about our plans about a small wedding and asked them to be our only witnesses, because it was they who had brought us together. Sebastian began coughing and said, "Brought together? We left you alone for two minutes and you fell in love. Incredible, but truthful." However, they agreed to be our witnesses and join us at a lunch afterwards. Parties for friends and relatives would be held later when we got the house in order. My company began to show better and better results and several people who had left us during the crisis were back again. Camilla spent most of her time at my company with marketing and was very good at that. Sebastian had introduced me to a gang of funny guys who used to meet twice a month for shooting replicas of the famous old Colt Peacemaker black powder gun. Elise's and my wedding was planned on a Wednesday and the week before Sebastian rang us and invited us and our children for dinner and asked us to be dressed up for the wedding pictures because his friend, a professional photographer, wanted to take them before the dinner because he would be out of town on Wednesday. We didn't see any problems with that because for an eleven o'clock wedding in the city hall Elise had bought nice blue dresses for her and the girls, while the boy and I would be wearing dark suits. Elise was worried about the flowers but Sebastian told her that the photographer would fix it afterwards. On Saturday evening Sebastian rang us and said that he had sent a taxi to pick us up. To our surprise he had sent a limousine and the driver told us that he was doing his job and had no comments when we asked about the journey, which to our surprise went out of the city and ended at an old historic mansion, which was restored and used for conferences during the weekdays and for birthday and wedding parties during the weekends. Camilla and Sebastian met us outside the front door and told us to wait a minute and that we had to go in a special order when we went in. Then Sebastian said a word in his cell phone, the doors opened and we went in with the children first, Elise and I with Camilla and Sebastian behind us. We got a shock; the restaurant/ballroom was filled with people, now standing at dinner tables and among the people I recognized my employees with spouses, friends and relatives. A band played Mendelssohn's Wedding March while we walked along the aisle to the other side of the room, where we saw a small table with a white cloth. On the table were two lighted candles, a bible, a ring and Elise's wedding flowers. Elise was pale and held my hand in a firm grip. Then one of the guys from the black powder gang, dressed as a priest came to us and said, "We, your relatives and friends are gathered here to share and celebrate your happiness. But first we must have a short official ceremony to have something to celebrate." Then he held the standard wedding ceremony of the national church, which is almost the same as in all equal countries. Though it was a total surprise, it was a beautiful ceremony with both religious and secular music. Everything was professionally recorded on a DVD. It was the most amazing surprise party I ever heard about in our Scandinavian town. The whole evening was great with so many people involved. Sebastian gave an amusing speech, which began with how Elise and I met and how she was blooming like a nice flower after she had met me. Even one of my employees had many positive things to say about me. Elise's boss was a good speaker and said that her fellow workers had noted a sudden difference in her manners and were wondering until they found out the reason. After the dinner, the party went on with dancing to a good band and when the kids became tired, Elise's sister and her husband had a rented a family room at the estate where they had a room for the kids. About two o'clock at night, Camilla gave me a room key and said that if we wanted to spend the night there was a nice room waiting for us. We went to the band and the vocalist gave us the microphone so we could give a short speech and once again thank everybody for a pleasant and memorable surprise. In our room we found an ice bucket with a bottle of Champagne and a bowl with strawberries. Elise was worried about a big bill for the party but I suggested she save such problems for the next day and enjoy our great night. We had very tender long lasting sex with some breaks for Champagne and strawberries. Epilogue Of course, we got billed for all private matters we had booked in advance for our wedding but didn't succeed in getting any further information about payment for the party. We understood that Camilla and Sebastian had been two of the leading characters organizing it and I even found out that Camilla's employer was one of the main owners of the mansion but all our questions about our bill got a friendly but resolute reply that it wasn't anything for us to worry about. Even our relatives, friends and my employees refused to tell us anything. My company's co-operation with our Polish sub-contractor went well and it began to give us a fair profit. Our former customer, Martin E. Malund, had so many problems with his cheap Bulgarian supplier that he wanted a negotiation with us for a big order and I got him to accept a 9 percent increase in our previous prices. Still now and then I can feel how it was to fall down in my "black hole" and I'm very grateful to the two women, without whom I probably would have still been down there. Thanks to Camilla I could save my company, my own and many other people's jobs. However the best of everything is that I met Elise and got a loving wife.