The Layered World Pt. 03

In the dark, at five, other hands were pulling him to the kitchen, where coffee was almost ready. "This is your gym morning. Don't be grouchy, you need it. Come back here to shower and we will have reports ready."

He was out the door, leaving the three of them sipping their coffee. Jennifer was in the middle and got hip checked from both sides. She blew them kisses and asked, "What was that all about last night?"

They kissed and bit and chewed, sending her hopping and jumping. "You just experienced Jay Manco when he is worried about one of his people being underappreciated."

She put her head down and sighed. "I wish I could just swoon, like the Victorian girls did. How do you cope when he lands on you like that?"

Her sister had Jennifer in a clinch, pestering her fine tits. "You quietly say to yourself that no other man is ever likely to treat you like that and just enjoy."

Sam was nibbling her earlobe and thrusting her tongue inside the ear. Sybil's hand was under the fleece, having at the raw nipple. She was squeezed between them at the hip.

"Am I required to have girl sex when he is not around?"

The attack intensified. "Absolutely not, but if you don't..."

By the time Jay returned, sweaty and worn down, his helpers were dressed for work and school. Several printouts were on the kitchen counter, and eggs were ready for the pan when he was.

Sam looked at the travel possibilities with him. He said, "What about the noon flight the day after tomorrow? Does that fit other schedules? We shouldn't call Kelly, she may be in bed early. But send her an email in case she is rattling around."

Chapter 13 - Cupertino

The agent who scanned his passport at SFO gestured toward the door and said, "We've been expecting you, Mr. Manco, that gentlemen near the door would like a word."

He had only his briefcase and a duffel. The PA's kept a wardrobe for him, which made travel easier. He could afford his own plane, of course, but had decided early on that it was an expensive way to fly that would not assist his desires to be inconspicuous.

The man in the navy blue suit said, "If you would come with me, sir, we will be just a moment."

The windowed cubicle behind an anonymous door had one occupant, who rose. "We are pleased to have you in San Francisco, Mr. Manco. Would you please have a seat." He turned to a computer screen and clicked a few times. Jay wondered whether it was some kind of ruse. The man looked up, "I am Jim Williams, the site supervisor for security. The message here asks that we inquire about your onward travel plans. There is concern in Washington about individuals with a tie to the Ukraine crash."

Well done, Jay thought. A plausible connection. "I am on my way to our office in Cupertino. As a global insurer, we worry about every bombing. Our clients do as well."

"Could you tell me how long you will be in the US on this trip?"

"That is hard to say, given the unstable situation. Is there a particular reason you ask? My whereabouts are noted in your system, I'm sure."

Williams smiled, "You are an important person, Mr. Manco. Homeland Security does what it can to look out for people like you. Here is my card with a direct line if anything comes up we should know about."

Jay stood and shook his hand. "I appreciate the attention. I suppose not everyone brought to your office is in the same situation?"

"Not at all, sir."

His limo was at the curb and he ducked in the back. They were almost to the freeway when he noticed that the hat on the driver seemed a bit strange. Then he noticed the eyes in the rear view mirror.

"How the hell did you do this?"

She giggled. "Gave the driver three hundred dollars to find his girlfriend for the rest of the day. Said I would make it good with the company."

Kelly was the oldest of them by the large margin of a year. When they were all together, she was the automatic housemother and gloried in it.

"Are you taking me somewhere, or are we just out for a drive?"

"What about the cottage at Mom's vineyard?"

"I see. Things are under such fine control that you can pretend to kidnap me for gigolo fun?"

"Climb up here with me." It was an awkward move and she pushed her hand in his crotch, then looked at him and mouthed "kiss."

She wanted more, but he said, "Drive, or there will be consequences."

In thirty minutes, the limo nosed into a driveway, next to Kelly's blue BMW convertible. She said, "Don't ask, just transfer the luggage." They drove away, headed up the twisty climb toward the vineyard.

"There is a long hot list, but I want attention first. I've been hearing about your new girlfriend."

"I asked the others if it was agreeable to go to five from four?"

"We are impressed by her fine mind for numbers, and some of us have discovered her fine body as well?"

"She is a screamer. Can be embarrassing in the wrong place. I wanted her to join me on this trip, but maybe you heard she is off our numbers for several months so she can finish school and not be torn between the two?"

"Yes. Is she ok about that?"

"No. I told her it was ok to be bitchy with us."

"That's not exactly the words I heard. Didn't you say 'cross, prickly and perfectly awful?' "

He had one of her hands and was nibbling and sucking her fingers. She felt herself gushing and knew he was building her up. Only ten minutes more.

"If she can't come here, perhaps I could visit there?"

"Hmmm. If I am reduced to answering your phone, what about all the secrets that will come tumbling out? The lovers on the side?"

She glared at him. "You are going to suffer...."

She led him to the small bedroom at the back of the cottage, with a view of the hills and the grapes on their trellises in the foreground. The fancy antique quilt was swept to the floor as she tumbled with him, landing on her back.

"Don't talk. Don't say anything. Use your cock the way you are supposed to."

She was seriously deprived, her body moving under him and arching up. He answered back, his cock familiar to her woman parts, which wetly welcomed him. "Oh, shit, this is nice. Why can't you be the regular guy I get to come home to every night?"

He said nothing until she had gasped through two orgasms and his spurting cock had filled her.

She lay on top, the sheet over, catching her breath. He kissed her face, neck and shoulders. "You are my woman and I love you dearly." His hands rubbed on her back and tight ass.

She licked his lips, "I shouldn't have said that. We are all treated better than we deserve."

The long flight and stress of the last few days had him napping as she slid to his side and closed her own eyes.

When he awakened, the sun had gone behind the hill. She was eyeing him with a sweet little smile. "Jennifer will make a fine fifth." She kissed him softly.

"You have it wrong. I am the one who is treated better than he deserves."

She puttered in the small kitchen with its expensive gas and wood stove. A white wine bottle was on the counter and she pointed to the glassware cupboard. The towel wrapped around her threatened to fall.

"Can you bring me up to date while you cook?" His eyes crinkled as he watched her and sipped the wine.

She grinned, "Aren't you asking a bit much? Naked and cooking and talking work all at once?"

She saw where his eyes were and tossed the towel to one side. "If my front is singed, you are responsible."

Like the others, she spent hours on body maintenance. Her roommate when she first moved to Cupertino had been a biker and she had taken it up. Her thighs showed the results and she loved to scissors him when they wrestled. He folded every time.

"The Chinese are ignoring the plane crash. As usual, can't tell from here what their involvement might be. The local rep was after me today about the promised followon order for the new chip. We need to talk about that.

"The rest of Asia is all business, as they like to do. Tomorrow morning, we should sit down in the office and go over our procurement strategy.

"My mom is threatening to cut me off if I do not produce the secret boyfriend."

He reached out an arm and she folded into him, shivering. "At this late date, you are supposed to be free of mother slavery. What can I do to help?"

Dinner was in the oven, so she walked them, glasses in hand, back to her bed. Since he had asked, Kelly filled him in on personal history she had never related.

Patricia had married Allan when he was an intern at UCLA and she was majoring in film. Her father had made a great deal of money in Hollywood, and she deluded herself with the idea that family money and a pretty face could turn her into an actress.

The marriage was in trouble almost from the beginning. Allan thought his wife understood the time demands on someone getting an M.D. Patricia thought her husband callous and unfeeling. Within months, they realized a divorce was coming, but Patricia had done something stupid about her pills and was pregnant. Whatever else was wrong, she carried Kelly to term, and the baby thrived from the beginning.

Her father's latest girlfriend, a striking Latina dancer named Rosario, seeing Patricia's delusions about acting, a husband, and other things, convinced Kelly's father that tough love was necessary to salvage a precarious situation. One evening at a private dinner, Patricia was informed that she was moving to the hills above Palo Alto. Full time help, including a nanny for Kelly, was included. If she did not choose to accept his plan, all funds, present and future, would cease.

A few days later, after entirely too much gin, she called and said she would take the move north.

Jay kissed Kelly's forehead and said she didn't need to keep going.

"The next part is better." She kissed him back, on the lips, and pulled his arm tighter around her.

For several months, Patricia rotted inside the house on the rolling twenty-five acres. The housekeeper, who had been paid to keep Rosario informed, said things were going downhill. A visit was arranged, and Patricia shoved out the door for a long hike on her beautiful property.

"Senora," said Rosario, "if you continue to neglect your child, she will be taken away from you. She is a wonderful little girl and deserves better. In Mexico, this land would be considered a gift from heaven. If you can't find something you enjoy more, then hire a man to help you plant fruit trees and grapes and make this a real farm."

Twenty-two years later, Skyline Vineyard wine sold well and the vineyard was a commercial success. Her father served it to his picky dinner guests. The spoiled woman from Westwood got her hands dirty every day and enjoyed it. But she was a thoroughly unlikeable person, and when Kelly was six, the young girl announced that she was going to live with her doctor father.

Jay asked, "Why are we here, in a guest house on her farm? How did you fix things up with her?"

She answered, in a quiet voice, "You can imagine how hung up I was about my own mother. I don't think I saw her more than a dozen times while I was a teenager. When you and I decided I would open the office here, I was really worried. But she fell in the vineyard and broke her ankle. I came to see her. She was on her patio in shorts, with one of those blowup casts, madder than hell at the world, and at herself for falling. I gave her a hug and a kiss, and we had a miracle conversation. All kinds of things came tumbling out and she started smiling and laughing. We made a deal that I would come for dinner and gossip once a month and it is good for both of us. She asked me to use this house whenever I liked."

Kelly was teary and kissing him, full of emotion from the story.

"Does she know I am not just any old guy in your life?"

She laughed, "I tried to keep you out of my love life, I really tried, but a couple of weeks ago, she looked me straight in the eye and said, 'You're sleeping with him, aren't you?' "

Her wiggling had attracted Jay's hand, which returned a wiggle between her legs.

Breathless, she stuck out her tongue and said, "There was no way I could get out of that. She had me, just like you do right now. I hope you are nice and hard, because I need him."

Jay thought, as she screamed and beat on him, that wild Kelly was a woman he wasn't giving up any time soon.

She sat up, riding his cock, calling him terrible names, and smiling ear to ear.

"After hearing that story, is it ok if we invite her to dinner here tomorrow evening? She isn't really an old witch anymore."

"Only if you allow me to help with dinner." He reached and tickled her and pulled the twisting body into his arms. In the kitchen, he set her on the counter and handed a phone.

"Call her and I will work on food." The casserole needed another twenty minutes. He found a fresh glass and poured more wine.

While the phone was ringing, she pointed to her bare bottom sliding on the marble counter and mouthed, "Bad, bad, bad."

"Hi mom. Jay was on time and we are at the guesthouse for a couple of days. Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow evening?"

After fending off an effort to have them go to Patricia's house, it was agreed she would come to them at six. Jay mouthed, "Fish or meat?"

More brief conversation and Kelly hung up. "Typical mom. Not just fish, but fresh salmon right off the boat at the coast." They hugged, and she complained about the mess of his stuff right under her. He helped her down and made a show of licking the marble as she screeched and ran for the bathroom.

When she returned, he was serving the meal. She hung around his neck and he reached up under the robe and palmed her high, firm breasts. She whispered, "A few hours with you sure does fix a girl up."

After dinner, she led him to a bench in the pasture next to the house and they watched an almost full moon rise above the East Bay ridgeline, casting its orange glow over the hills.

He kissed her and said, "What if I married each of you in a different country and we kept it a big secret?"

She pulled his hair and said, "You are so silly. What about the babies? This is not Saudi Arabia."

"Yes. Silly." And carried her to bed.

Because of the time change, he was awake early, lying against her warm flank and speculating about the next moves by the extremists. What Sybil had said about wanting his money, not him, was important. He was confident that he was smarter than the jihadists about money. But they, emulating Arab ways a millennium old, were devious, secretive and immensely clannish. The combined tie of race and religion made them formidable foes. The imagined injury to their heritage from heathen Westerners made young blood run hot and deadly.

Chapter 14 - Meeting Tricia

Kelly stirred next to him. She needed the sleep and he slipped quietly away to the kitchen, taking his phone. While the coffee brewed, he placed a call.

"I'm sorry to disturb you again on the weekend."

"Oh shit, I should have known the new deal wouldn't work. What is it now?"

"Do you know that you have the loveliest voice imaginable? The lilt? The edge, when I have done something to irritate you?"

"You are setting me up. I'm a schoolgirl with a crush and will do anything."

"I was thinking a few days in the California sun would improve your study habits."

"Oh my god, you will be the death of me. I thought this was forbidden."

"I have an idea on a topic of interest to you that we need to discuss face to face."

"You are the most devious man on the planet. Invite a girl to California for sun and fun and work, all together."

"I don't want you traveling alone. Is Scarafina available?"

"Just a sec." He heard her hollering down the hall, "Fina, are you interested in a quick trip to California?"

Suddenly, a breathless voice, "Jay, we haven't met, but I feel like I already know you. Are we really flying to California?"

"There is a price, young one. The two of you may need your self defense skills. These are tough times."

He heard noise in the background, and a loud whump. A voice speaking, "He says I may need my black belt."

Jennifer was back. "Damn, Jay, did she have to take me down?"

"I'll send Sam a note to put you on the next BA flight, in first class. Find a way to dress conspicuously inconspicuous. Maybe the daughters of a Silicon Valley billionaire going home on school break. Kelly will meet the plane. I was red tagged on my way through immigration and advised not to evade my minders."

The voice changed, realizing this was serious shit, to use a college term. "Hey, we know how to stay alert. See you soonest."

He was hanging up when a warm body pressed against him and her voice whispered, "You are bringing Jennifer here?"

"Yes, with her roommate, who is a tough customer when she needs to be. No one will get away with a casual attack. And one of your trusted security people will keep watch on the airport rendezvous."

He poured them coffee and asked, "Do you suppose someone watching you might have planted a bug here?"

Her eyes widened, showing the thought had not occurred to her. She motioned him through the door to the pasture, her bare legs shining in the first sunlight. Maybe they needed a good hike.

"Would they bug my once in a while sleepover place? Before last night, no one has ever been here with me." She stuck out her tongue at him. He stared at her.

"What?"

"I was wondering how it would feel to have you here in the tall grass, with the dew on it and on you."

"And getting my ass all green." She tried to cuff him and collapsed in his arms instead.

He whispered in her ear. "I have a top, top secret idea that needs exploring. That's why Jen is coming. Sybil clued me in the other day. She said, 'Jay, they don't want you, they want your money.' "

Kelly smiled, "We can go on a hike. Over on the coastside in the open fields where anyone else will be seen. And we can get the salmon too."

"Let's spend an hour in your office now, while the traffic is light. We can talk to Sam on the secure line about flight arrangements."

* * *

They were in Kelly's office, looking at Sam on the encrypted video channel. She was in workout clothes and didn't look happy.

"I thought you said she had to study?"

He tried humility. "I was sleeping with this one and had an important idea. I need her brain here."

"Sleeping or?"

Kelly laughed and said, "He actually was. I woke up and he was gone. I found him in the kitchen talking to her."

"Has he been nice to you?"

"Very. He is the best tension release anywhere. Better than working out. Have you been in the park?"

"Yes. He owes me a session when he gets back. My trainer is improving the kick boxing. Do you want me to put them on the plane today or tomorrow? There is always space in first class."

"Sooner is better. Tell them to travel light. Kelly can fix them up with clothes here."

Sam could tell he wasn't joking. "I'll get them out of here as soon as I can and email you the arrival. Be good to them, they are new to our games."

Kelly had her arm around his neck. "I told him that I would supervise."

They were cresting the pass to the coast when she said, "Patricia has a pool at her house. Should we ask for tanning privileges for your proteges?"

"The new Mom won't mind?"

"She will be out of her mind with curiosity. If tonight goes well, I will slip it into the conversation."

Noontime found them on a bluff well back from the ocean, gazing across artichoke fields. The fog had burned off and the sun warmed their backs. He got to admire her muscled rear again.

"There is a bench up here in a bit. I don't like your keeping me in the dark."

He tore his eyes and his mind away from Kelly's charms and thought about his idea, which was complicated and required him to hold back pieces of the plan from his women. And might not succeed, with possibly fatal results. He had long since passed the threshold of being a target. He suspected that his opponents, and even his erstwhile friends, expended considerable energy attempting to discover his secrets. Maybe that is what was keeping him alive. Dead men don't give up secrets.