Family Curse Ch. 06

"The scavenger hunt thing is an old tradition. The inheritance goes back many hundreds of years and as of right now, no one knows were it came from or how it came to infect our family. I inherited it from my mother's grandfather's cousin. He left clues for me as well and I spent ten years tracking everything down. Does that seem cruel? It was a kindness according to him. In centuries past a simple letter would be left attempting to explain what was happening. But it was never good enough. The person with the inheritance would start digging and digging to try to find a way to discover more about it all. So about four hundred years ago someone with the inheritance before me invented this journey of discovery and left clues all over Europe for his successor to uncover. It was an attempt to add meaning to the search while also making sure that the successor understood full well that there were no real answers at the end of any search. It would all just be a dead end after an exhausting journey.

"So let me say clearly right here. There is no end to this. It will go on for the rest of your life, even in old age. It was probably how I died. Did they say anything about that at my funeral? I would just love to see the looks on everyone's faces if they had.

"In the deposit box I have in New Orleans, you'll find a key. That key opens a vault in Rome that one of our predecessors had built for us. In it is all the documentation you'd ever want and I can guarantee you there is nothing else to find. I've been there and looked through it all. I can save you the trip. We all eventually come to the same realization. There is no ending it. There is no getting out of it. There is no transferring it or pausing it. As a young man, you might think this is the best thing in the world but once you find a love, a true love, a woman that you want to be with for the rest of your life, the inheritance hurts.

"I myself found such a woman. I used my money and my contacts to arrange an impossible situation. We were alone, just the two of us on an island in the south pacific. There should have been no one around us for at least a thousand miles. And yet, when it came time for love, we were not allowed to be alone. Miraculously someone arrived to join us. For five years, she tolerated me and my inheritance but in the end, she could stand sharing me no longer. She couldn't live with the memories of seeing other women having sex with me or the memories of what she herself was doing with them.

"And for all the sex I had in my life, I never had any children. I don't know why. Some of our predecessors did have children and some of them didn't. I wouldn't be able to tell you why. What I can tell you is that any crazy scheme you might have to end the inheritance will certainly not work. Our predecessors tried so many different things in order to be faithful to their wives. Some would try to just never have sex. One of them even castrated himself but that didn't stop the women coming after him. Nothing worked. Blinding won't work and drugs won't work. Don't mutilate yourself.

"Every manner of ritual and blessing has already been tried on the spiritual side of things. There isn't a supposedly holy place or magical crystal that hasn't been put to the test and been found ineffective. One of us defiled the black square thing in Mecca. One of us went to live in a cave on Mt Athos and discovered that even there he would not be left alone by women. Another got himself put in prison under maximum security but even steel bars couldn't keep them out.

"One of the strangest cases was when someone became a vampire in an attempt to end it. Yes. Go ahead and go back and read that again. A vampire. Indeed. They are real according to the documents in Rome. One of our predecessors claims to have become one in an attempt to end the inheritance. His is a very sad story. I'll not relate the details of it here. It's too bloody for my tastes. The lesson of it though is that his little stunt did not work and eventually led to him committing unspeakable crimes much worse than what he was attempting to avoid and of course he wasn't able to avoid it so it was folly from the beginning.

"On a happier note, buried in the documents in Italy is the cure for vampirism in case you ever need it. You'll never guess what it is. Baptism. Of all things. But there are rules about how it works so I won't get into it. Also, before you get any ideas, baptism will not cure the inheritance. That's been tried too. So has becoming a priest in over a dozen different religious sects.

"A doctor friend of mine once told me that for some diseases they try to cure and for others, where there is no cure, they just try to manage. That's what you're going to have to do. You'll have to learn to manage. Best you know that now and not get your hopes up on some crazy scheme you've deluded yourself into thinking will work. You'll only hurt yourself and the woman you love.

"The best advice I can give you is to use the inheritance to your advantage. Then you're at least getting something out of it. Any woman you truly want to love and be with, let her go. Let her be with someone else. If you really have to be with her, make sure she's ok with being with other women and being homosexual with other women every time you want to have sex.

"I did try once to create a stable group where I'd be with the same two women at the same time all the time. But there something about the way the inheritance works that just doesn't allow it to really happen. The way of thinking during it and outside of it is so different for the women that it will just never work out. For about a year and a half I forced the situation where I was with only them and for a few months they even conceded that it must be so because it kept happening but eventually it could not last. They eventually started to feel like I was keeping them prisoner. It wasn't true but that was how she felt. Once the first one ran away I knew the second would follow and so she did soon after.

"We don't get to know love, not one on one love the way other people do. Just be happy that the inheritance will never make you be with a woman that you are not at least on some level attracted to. If you're not interested, then they aren't interested. Also, as far as I know, no woman with one of those sex infections has ever bothered me. I've never been infected with any of that venereal bug stuff and I've been with women all over the world.

"Also, don't keep the women under the influence for too long. That can cause them to kind of go crazy when they come out of it. I had a couple of women with me for nearly a week and it almost broke them.

"Oh, but I bet you haven't figured out how to open the doors yet. I won't spoil it for you but I'll let you know it can be done. I'll let you figure it out on your own. That's the fun part. But yes, you can get away, just expect whoever you're with to follow you around and never leave your side, not for a second. It can be fun at big parties with two women worshiping the ground you walk on but don't do that for more than a day or you're asking for trouble. You've been warned.

"Well, that's about all I have for you. I can't think of anything else right now. I suppose if you're reading this, I must be dead so you can't ask me questions. But honestly I think that's it. I know this is a big thing to put on someone so young. I'm sorry for that. But enjoy the money and if you can try to enjoy the sex. You'll find it is a lot better once you can be at peace with the fact that it's going to happen and you can't stop it. You'll have to eventually give in and go with it anyway so best turn it into something you enjoy instead of something you fear."

"PS: if you're wondering why I picked you, I didn't. I just knew you were the one to get it the same as the one who gave it to me knew I'd be the one. When the one who will get it after you is born, you'll know it. And no, I don't know what would happen if you died in a car wreck before the next is born. Knowing the way it typically goes, the next one would just inherit the thing anyway. Don't be stupid like the one who died climbing Mt Everest.

...

There was actually more to the letter but the rest was just a detailed explanation of where all the fake clues were in the world. But I still had to read it and ponder if I should still take the time to go track all these clues down. I guessed maybe I would when I was older, maybe, just out of curiosity.

The vault sounded interesting as well but would probably have to wait until after high school. For tonight, there was nothing more I could do on any of this so I decided to get some sleep. Even as tired as I was, my uncle's words kept repeating in my head over and over and over again. He really was going to send me all around the world on a wild goose chase.

There was a kind of logic. Take advantage of the curse. Don't fear it, just use it. But what about Terri? I'd never had to share Terri. Never. Uncle John claims he had to share the woman he loved but I'd never had to share Terri. Why?

...

The next day my father had me wear a tie and slick my hair down like an idiot. He drove me out to the offices where his company conducted business. He showed me several different parts of the operation and then brought me up to the office to show me 'the books'.

Pushy, pushy, pushy. He was being ever so pushy to try and get me to agree to his plan to take back control of the company. In order to do so, it would require liquidating all the assets he knew I had. He promised over and over that I'd get every cent back and then some.

Not to be alone with the pushing, my mother called him several times and asked to speak to me. She'd ask if I understood everything and pushed for me to quickly say that I was going to help buy back the company. It took all my willpower not to roll my eyes or gnaw at the inside of my mouth.

I supposed it would be a very big decision to do this if the 200K was all I thought I had. Sure, it had come to me unexpectedly and could go just as quickly. It still hadn't really sunk in that it was my money to do with as I pleased.

Then came the hard sales close. My father put a document in front of me and asked me to sign it. I asked to read it and he seemed hesitant to even let me do that before I signed it. However, it wasn't much of a standoff before I was going over the thing line by line. He was trying to be sneaky but about what? I fully believed my father would just take my money and screw me over in a heartbeat. Maybe that wasn't fair but it was how I felt.

"I think," I began to say as my father guided my hand to the place where I was supposed to sign. "I think" I repeated; "I want to talk about one part."

"Which part is that?" my father said with annoyance.

"Well, you've already set the price and what percentage of the company you want me to buy. How do you know your partners will agree to that?"

"They will. I've already got verbal assent. Just so long as you sign first, they're in. No problem."

"If you want me to do this, then I think we should do it right." He did not look like he liked the sound of that but I continued. "I want to meet with the partners and learn how to make the agreement myself."

"Son, you have to understand. These are serious, high powered people. They don't have free time for that kind of thing and besides, they've all got decades of negotiating skills that you don't have. They'll talk circles around you and before you know it, you've given them all your money and gotten nothing of value in return."

"So basically they're thieves."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm not sure I want to have anything ..."

"Son! They're not thieves. Ok. Sigh. Ok, look. It's easy. I've already worked it out. Please, just sign this. Ok. You have no idea the amount of money we're about to make."

"Call them back and ask them how much they want for a full buyout then."

"No." he said sternly shaking his head. "That will tip them off and they'll never sell. Trust me. I know these people. As soon as we go for more than this they'll start looking into things and then ..."

"Ok. Ok. I get it. Fine, I'll sign but I have two ... no three conditions."

"What?"

"You have to take this paragraph out." I was referring to the part where it said I entrusted my father to make decisions about my shares for me for a year.

"Well, son, that part is in there because you're still in high school and I can't always reach you on the phone."

"Sorry, you have to take it out. We can make arrangements but I'd rather not have that in there. It makes me very uncomfortable."

"But you do understand that as operating partner, if I can't reach you for any reason I have authority to make decisions about the company as I see fit."

"Sure. Can you just change the paragraph to say that?"

He forced himself to smile. "Certainly. Let me get Barbara to do that for us. Anything else?"

"Yeah. I want names and contact details for the people who own shares with us."

'You know you can't just go bothering them."

"I know. But if I'm going to be partners with them, I figured I should at least have their contact details. This is supposed to be me learning how to do this, after all."

"And you can't release this information if a reporter calls and asks to talk to you."

"I understand. And for my third condition, I want you and mom to lay off."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a girl I'm seeing. Maybe at times she'll come see me and maybe at times I'll go see her. Ok. I'm an adult. Please stop chasing me down whenever ..."

"You know we'd do the same for either one of your sisters."

"Which is probably why Terri moved out and locks her door when you come by. You have to learn to trust me. I'm not going to go break the law and I'm not going to go do drugs or anything. Give me some slack. Please. I'm not asking you to never be concerned at all but just trust me a little. You're trusting me to buy two hundred thousand dollars worth of your company but you won't trust me to go see a movie with a girl? That doesn't make sense."

"Ok. I see your point. Maybe me and your mother have been a bit over protective. But only because we love you. Believe me, if you weren't our son, who we both love very much, we wouldn't care what you did."

They got the contract altered, and gave me the contact information. I signed the form and as soon as I did my father was on the phone with my mother to let her know. He really sounded like he had a huge feeling of relief too.

He then immediately drove me to the bank to set in motion the transactions needed for me to actually pay for it all. My father even tried to sit in with me on the meeting with the banker. I asked him to trust me and he let me handle that part by myself. While my father was waiting I left out the back door with one of the bank security guards and we went a few blocks farther down to the other bank. I took care of some business and then I came back to the branch where my father was waiting. They brought me to a back room and then stacks of cash were placed in front of me. It was all very surreal. So much money. It kind of made me tremble even just to see it.

I signed a form and then they gave me a special check for $200K to give to my father as per the conditions of the contract that I'd signed. Then I left my banker with some instructions on what to do with the rest of the cash.

My father was overjoyed to get the check the same day, not knowing that I hadn't gone about producing it the way he thought I might. Then it was my turn to wait as he did what he needed to do with the money. He was so happy when he finally finished that he hugged me right in the bank lobby.

"You know, I think I'm going to change the name of the company. What do you think of Ferris and Son's? Huh? Rebranding will give us an excuse to revitalize all the..." He went on and on, all the way back home. At the house, my mother was super friendly as well. It almost made me think I'd get an invite to my sister's birthday party.

I had dinner with them and then I got ready to leave. On my way out to wait for the taxi ride I'd summoned, I popped back into the house for a moment. My little sister was watching TV while my parents were slow dancing to music that apparently only they could hear over by the dining room table.

"So, just in case any of you want to call Unsolved Mysteries later, I'm off to go do unspeakable things with college girls. Don't wait up."

Later that night, my sister found me waiting outside her apartment. She was worried at first that our parents would find us together but I reassured her. Not once that night were we bothered. Nor the next night when I came to spend the night with Terri again.

On Saturday, she wanted to be cautious and asked me to spend at least that night at the pool house to keep our parents from being suspicious. I didn't care. I had gotten the promise that they'd leave me alone and as far as they knew, I was sleeping with college girls.

By Tuesday of the following week, Mrs. Carver had finally found someone to replace me. I stayed on at the coffee shop for another couple of days until the new guy got the hang of things. Then I was free. I thanked Mrs. Carver for giving me a chance and letting me learn the coffee business. Then, at the end of Thursday, I didn't work there anymore but Mrs. Carver asked if she could call me to fill in if ever the new guy was sick or anything.

I had spent every night since Sunday at Terri's. Even when she wanted me to stay at the pool house I just didn't listen and she wasn't going to turn me away. The first three nights we had sex over and over again but the fourth night we were just happy to be together.

As it happened, when Friday came she had the day off and I had no more job. We drove out of town together and went to a popular water park. We presented ourselves to people as boyfriend and girlfriend and no one questioned it.

That night, instead of driving all the way back to town, we stayed in a countryside hotel and practiced being husband and wife. It was practice we were going to need too because everything was locking into place for our little fake wedding that was actually going to be real. The way I was setting it up, we were going to be cast in a student film and we'd have to film a wedding scene in a church. Everyone would be there to wish us well, believing that it was all fake. I supposed from a legal point of view, it would be fake since we couldn't do the state paperwork on this. However, I had Rev. Sean locked in to really do a wedding and my sister was on board with really doing a wedding but only me, my sister, and the reverend would know it was real. And in our new life together we'd actually have wedding photos and a wedding video and everything.

There were several times when I was scared that the curse would happen. I was worried. But as long as I was with Terri, it just never did. I could finally feel safe. I could finally let my guard down.

The next week, I was practically moved in with my sister. I still went to the family home to check on things with the pool house and to hear from my parents that everything was just so wonderful now that they had my money. I wondered how long that was going to last.

...

The next Friday night was the big event that my father had told us about. We all got on a plane and flew to another city. Then we had to all get changed into super fancy stuff because movie stars, politicians, and even alleged royalty was going to be there. If wearing a tie was bad, wearing a tux was worse. At the place where the party was going to be held we had to pass through a bunch of security just to get in. I had to take off my shoes and then put them back on while some other asshole just got waved through. I can tell you, I was already not feeling the vibe of this place. Whatever was going on, it was not worth all this, at least not to me.