Poor and Proud

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."