A Grip on Reality Ch. 01

"We're here tonight to honor my friend and partner Ben Mitchell as Banker of the Year," Perry Bergen intoned from the dais to applause from the audience in the ballroom of the Palace Hotel.

Sitting at the head table just to the right of the podium, Ben tried to look simultaneously humble and gratified. The truth was that he'd rather be almost anywhere else that night. Recognition and publicity made him intensely uncomfortable. Yet he had to admit that it felt pretty good to be celebrated for the dream that he'd striven so hard to make a reality. "At least," he rationalized, "it's good publicity for CFB."

The Community First Bank was an idea that he'd been developing and refining ever since college. Instead of creating a bank that would vie for large corporate accounts, Ben had based his business model on serving individuals and families. "Investing in People" was the bank's slogan.

Many people had told him that retail banking was dead. In fact, when he'd submitted his idea in the form of a paper for his Banking and Finance course in college, the professor had given him a failing grade because "your idea will never work." Even Perry Bergen, the Finance major who had become his friend, had his doubts. Basically everyone hated his plan except the people in the community who were his target customers. In an age of impersonality, they loved the personal service Ben offered. They took advantage of his small business loans and personal lines of credit, and repaid his faith with a remarkably low default rate.

The result had been that Ben's bank, which he had idealistically named the Community First Bank, turned a profit well ahead of its forecast, growing at a rate that had amazed industry analysts. Now the word was that it was only a matter of time before one of the big boys came knocking with an offer to acquire the bank. Such a buy-out would have been extremely lucrative for Ben, but he had no interest in selling out because he believed so strongly in what he was doing.

As Perry's speech droned on, his wife slipped back into her seat beside him and handed him a cup of coffee. Ben smiled and gave her a quick kiss in gratitude. His addiction to caffeine was almost his trademark - he was never without a cup or mug in front of him.

"Of course, it hasn't always been easy for Ben," Perry continued from the podium. "He's faced major challenges along the way."

Hearing Perry's words, Ben thought somberly, "They don't know the half of it!"

Growing up, Ben Mitchell had made three major decisions about his life. Teenagers frequently make such decisions, but unlike most Ben actually kept his.

His first big decision was to avoid alcohol in all forms. The reason for this was simple: his mother was an alcoholic. While Ben was still in grammar school, she had managed to function fairly well. She wouldn't start her drinking until dinner; then she kept going until she would fall asleep and Ben's father carried her off to bed.

Gradually, though, drinks with dinner grew into cocktails over lunch. Once that became the norm, Ben had quickly learned to avoid her as much as possible in the afternoons. He'd never forgotten the time he hadn't eaten all the chili she'd prepared for lunch and she'd drunkenly thrown the rest of it in his face.

His father was not oblivious to the problem and had tried repeatedly to change the course of his wife's downward spiral. He'd taken her liquor bottles and poured the contents down the drain; she simply became more resourceful at hiding her booze. He'd taken her spending money away; she replaced it with the grocery money.

When interventions and counseling sessions failed, Ben's father was forced to accept the truth that he couldn't save his wife unless she helped. Unfortunately, she adamantly refused to admit that she had a problem. So his Dad shifted his attention to Ben, focusing on protecting his son as much as possible from the side-effects of his mother's illness.

Although he had a promising career at the bank where he worked, Ben's father turned down several promotions in order to remain at the bank branch near their home. He wanted to be close to his son in case he was needed. There had been several occasions when Ben's mother had forgotten to pick Ben up from school. Later, when her driving became problematic, Ben's father sold her car and Ben began riding the school bus.

His father's precautions paid off the day that Ben came home from middle school to find the front door wide open and their house empty. Tearfully he had called his father, who rushed home to be with his son. After a futile search of the area, the father called the police. It was three days before they found her, sleeping in a homeless shelter downtown. Even worse, she refused to come home, a decision that hurt both father and son, though in different ways.

Ben's mother never did return home. A year later, police found his mother unconscious under a bridge. By then Ben's father had divorced her for abandonment. But she was still Ben's mother, so father and son went to see her in the charity ward where she was being treated. Ben would never forget what a person dying from cirrhosis of the liver looked like, and he swore never to touch alcohol as long as he lived. Instead, coffee became his drink of choice, and he was seldom seen without a mug in front of him.

Ben's second major decision had been to become a banker like his father. His Dad had always been a major influence, and as his mother began to withdraw from Ben's life, his father became that much more important. So it was little surprise that Ben decided to be like his Dad when he grew up.

But the path to get there had not been straightforward. During his teenage years Ben rebelled against his father like so many teenagers do. It was during Ben's first year in college that things came to a head.

Ben was attending the local branch of the state college and living at home to save money. His Dad expected Ben to follow the same rules he'd had during high school, and Ben resented the lack of freedom. Having lost his wife, Ben's father, not surprisingly, was overprotective of his son.

After a semester filled with tension, the conflict came to a head during the holidays. Already chafing under his father's restrictions, Ben's feelings catalyzed when news of a banking scandal hit the papers. That was all the idealistic young man needed to decide that his father was part of a bankers' plot to oppress the nation's poor.

To dramatize his disdain, Ben boldly declared that he would not observe any holiday festivities because the season was just a capitalist conspiracy between retailers and bankers that took advantage of the gullibility of the poor. Instead of arguing, Ben's father ordered his son into the car on Christmas Day and drove him through one of the poorer sections of the town. He slowed down and pointed toward a small home on one side of the street. "See that home? I arranged the loan that helped the owner to buy that house," he told his son.

"But it's a crummy little house in a terrible neighborhood," Ben exclaimed.

"Maybe so," his father acknowledged, "but it's his home and he works hard to keep it up. More importantly, he's building equity, which means that with any luck he'll get the money he's put into it back and make a little profit to boot. Isn't that worth something to him?"

Twisting and turning through the streets of the neighborhood, his Dad took Ben by a home with a three-year-old car sitting in the driveway. "I helped loan the woman who lives there enough to buy that car," he told Ben proudly.

"So she bought a used car, so what? That just means she has a car note to pay along with all her other bills," Ben sniped.

His father nodded gravely. "That's right, Ben, but buying that car meant that she could get a better job across town, and that meant more money for her family. And here's another thing: if she had financed her car through the dealer instead of with our bank, she'd probably be paying significantly more each month."

At the next house they passed, a large tow truck sat in the driveway. "Our bank loaned him the money to buy that truck several years ago. Now he has his own towing business, and since he got on with AAA he's making a good living for his family. Sure the bank charges interest on the loan, but I don't think we're exploiting him. That loan means that he's got a chance to make something of himself."

After he'd pointed out several similar examples, Ben's father turned their car back toward their home. "Banking and lending are like anything else, they can do good or harm," he told his son. "But done fairly and honestly, banking is a lever that can help people do more than they thought was possible."

Ben said nothing on the ride back, but it was clear to his father that his son was thinking about what he'd seen. Sure enough, the next semester Ben switched his major to Business and began taking courses in banking and finance. Later he would tell people that the ride on Christmas Day had been the thing that helped him commit to that path.

That same excursion also helped change Ben's perspective on his father. Before he'd seen his Dad as an inflexible parental figure who didn't understand his son's needs. But hearing his father's enthusiasm for his work gave Ben a new insight into his father's personality. At first Ben merely asked his father questions about banking and his work at the office. After a while he began to seek his Dad's opinions on a variety of subjects. Finally, he dared to ask about his mother, and he learned about his Dad's carefully concealed pain and the shame he felt in not being able to save his wife from her addiction.

This new closeness between father and son was something that Ben cherished, and he was even more grateful when, during Ben's sophomore year in college, his father had a massive heart attack and passed away. Ben's sense of loss was at least partially mitigated by the closeness he'd developed with his father in the last year of his life.

After the funeral, Ben found he had even more reason to be grateful to his father when he learned that he was the beneficiary of a substantial life insurance policy. There was enough money to allow Ben to finish college and start his career with a nice nest egg left over. Many young men would have been tempted to travel the world and enjoy life to the fullest before settling down to work. Ben had other plans. The nest egg his father had provided became the seed money to fund Ben's dream: starting his own bank. It also enabled Ben to pursue the third decision he'd made.

Ben had made that decision back in his sophomore year in high school. He had signed up for a community service project at his school, and on the day that the group of student volunteers met for the first time, he saw Elizabeth Pearson. Afterwards, he couldn't say exactly what had happened, but he was so overwhelmed by the sight of her that he didn't hear the sponsor of the group call on him. The other kids laughed and Elizabeth had turned to look at him as well. Ben blushed furiously and looked down at the sign-up sheet in front of him. When he finally dared to look up, he found Elizabeth still looking at him with a strange expression on her face.

After the meeting, Ben was still embarrassed, but before he could escape, Elizabeth was suddenly standing in front of him. "Why were you staring at me like that?" she demanded.

Confronted by this vision of the opposite sex, Ben's mind lost all capacity for rational thought. To his horror, he heard himself blurt out, "I was thinking that you were the girl I want to marry some day!" Then he clapped his hand over his mouth as though trying to stop his words before they could escape and humiliate him even more.

Elizabeth looked at him in shock and said, "That is so funny."

Ben wanted to die on the spot, but something in Elizabeth's tone of voice made him pause and listen.

She looked at him very solemnly. "I was thinking the same thing about you."

From that day on the two of them were a couple. At first their romance was the source of much amusement among their classmates, but the two of them were oblivious to everything except each other. After a while it was simply an accepted fact that Ben and Elizabeth were together and would always be so.

When Ben's father learned about their relationship, he was concerned. "I'd much prefer you date a variety of girls in your class. That way you'll learn more about them and about yourself," he'd told his son. Ben didn't even bother to argue - his decision had already been made.

As Ben's father came to know Elizabeth, however, he felt much more comfortable with his son's choice. The girl had a sweet temper, was well-behaved and consistently earned a place on the Honor Roll in school. And, he had to admit, she certainly was attractive. She was tall and slim; in fact, when they first met she was an inch or two taller than Ben because she'd gotten her growth spurt early. She had red hair that hung down to her shoulders and framed her pretty face perfectly. "She's the All-American Girl," Ben's father thought admiringly.

Seeing how strongly Ben and Elizabeth felt about each other, Ben's father took his son aside and tried to give him the lecture on responsible sex. After hemming and hawing around the subject, he finally said, "What I'm trying to say is that neither of you wants any babies just now."

Ben just grinned and put the man out of his misery. "It's alright, Dad, you don't have to worry. Elizabeth wants to wait to have sex until we're married, and I've promised her I will."

His father left the conversation mightily relieved that it was over and even more impressed with his son's girlfriend. "I just wonder if they'll be able to keep that promise," he thought, remembering how he'd felt when he was a teenager.

Against all odds, the two young people had managed to do so all the way through high school. That's not to say that they remained perfectly chaste; inevitably they'd managed to graduate from first base to second and then on to third. Nevertheless, on many nights Ben had gone home from a date with blue balls. But he loved Elizabeth so much he was willing to bear the discomfort for her sake.

There had never been any question that the two of them would go to the same college, and with their excellent grades there was little doubt of their both getting accepted. By that time they'd been dating so long that both their families felt perfectly comfortable with the two of them going off together. Even their plans to move in together after their freshman year caused no alarm. The master plan had long since been set: the two would marry immediately upon graduation.

But, as they say, men plan and the gods laugh. The sudden death of Ben's father changed everything. Ben dropped out of school for a semester and moved back home to deal with the funeral, to handle his father's estate and to grieve for the person whose importance in his life was rivaled only by Elizabeth.

She had wanted to drop out as well to help Ben, but he wouldn't hear of it. "There's nothing you can do. This is my responsibility and I intend to spend all my time doing what needs to be done so I can return to college next semester. You stay in school and graduate on time," he told her. Reluctantly, she did so.

As the weeks passed, Elizabeth's friends on campus urged her to get out and enjoy herself a little. After a while she did, believing that Ben wouldn't want to her to become a recluse. When she started to appear at parties and campus activities, it didn't take long for some of the men to hit on her. To every invitation she was unfailingly polite and unbendingly strong - she was Ben's and she would wait for him.

For Ben's part, he avoided socializing at all. His grief obviated any desire for parties, and when he could manage it he drove over to the college to be with Elizabeth. It was during one of these visits that things changed.

The loss of a parent is a big blow at any time and a sudden, early loss is even harder to cope with. On an intellectual level, Ben knew this, so he was not surprised at how depressed he felt. What he had not expected was how subdued Elizabeth became. Both of them had missed each other terribly, but

Ben had expected Elizabeth to be excited to see him. Instead, she was reserved and quiet.

They had gone out to dinner together, but instead of going out dancing afterwards Ben had taken her back to the one-room apartment. They sat down on the sofa together and Ben held her by the shoulders so he could look into her face. "What is it, babe? I know all this has been almost as hard on you as it's been on me, but is there something else that's bothering you? It's okay, you can tell me."

She looked at him, and tears began to well up in her eyes, frightening Ben. "Your Dad's death was such a shock to me," she said quietly. "He was a wonderful man and he was so sweet to me and . . ." With that she began to cry so hard that she couldn't continue to speak.

Ben's eyes were leaking too, but he still couldn't understand what Elizabeth was trying to say. She blew her nose on a tissue and then tried to get control of herself. "It was so sudden, and it scared me," she went on. He pulled her to him to comfort her, and she let him hold her for a minute or two before gently pushing him away.

"The thing is," she said, "what if it had been one of us?"

"Oh, babe, no! Don't think about things like that. We're both young and healthy. There's no need to worry," he said, trying to reassure her.

"But something could happen," she said stubbornly, "and I couldn't help thinking about it." She paused and Ben saw a look of determination come over her face. "Anyway, I've decided. I don't want to wait any more. I want you to make love to me right now."

With that she began to pant and then she launched herself at Ben, straddling him and kissing him frantically. Ben was caught off guard, and he struggled to understand the sudden change. "But I promised," he said, trying unsuccessfully to hold her off.

"Screw the promise," she growled. "I want you to take me now!"

With that she began urgently rubbing her panty-covered crotch against his growing erection, and a wave of raw desire swept over him. He clumsily tried to pull her blouse out of her skirt at the same time that she was fumbling with the buckle of his belt. As the couple desperately tugged and pulled at their clothing, an observer would have laughed at their struggles, but Ben and Elizabeth felt nothing but heat and passion.

When his pants and undershorts were around his ankles and her panties dangled off her foot, she pulled him down on top of her. He tried to touch her but she shoved his hand away almost angrily. "No, do it now! I need you to take me now!" With that he yielded to her desire and his own, and drove himself all the way into her. She gasped and gave a little yelp, then wrapped her legs around his and pulled him even tighter. Her hips began to rock and he found himself thrusting in time to her rhythm.

"Yes!" she yelled, "You're doing it, you're fucking me! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Then there was no thought, just animal instinct driving him to mate with his female. He matched her cries with his own grunts and the two of them surged repeatedly against each other until she screamed and he cried out in long-suppressed ecstasy.

When their breathing had returned to normal, he lifted up enough to look at her face. To his shock he saw that she was crying again. "Did I hurt you?" he asked in a panic. "Oh, no," she said quickly. "I'm just so happy. Now, no matter what happens, we made love to each other." He laughed with relief and crushed her to him in his own happiness.

Afterwards, the two of them realized they had not used any protection, and they went through several anxious weeks before Elizabeth's period returned. From that point on they agreed that they would always use protection.