A note to readers:
This is a long story that unfolds chapter by chapter through the eyes of two protagonists - Mark and Elsa, and as in many of my other stories involves a growing spate of horny characters.
Every ten chapters or so I will provide a short summary at the start of that episode to bring new readers up to date (see start of Ch. 90).
This story could appear in a number of genres (Loving Wives, Incest, Lesbian, Fetish, and more) depending on the chapter, but the overall theme is Group, so I have applied this moniker to all chapters. The story is still being written, yet I intend to post a new chapter every couple of days. Enjoy.
Chapter 95 - New Candidates For The Family. Trouble in Vegas
Mark
Tom sat in a relaxed position on my sofa next to Mel and Andy. I sat in my usual casual chair on the other side of the coffee table. We'd been talking for the past half-hour about the Gigabit Cellular Technology program Tom had taken over and beefed it up to where large strides were being made almost daily in getting things to market.
Tom said, "The big accomplishment over the past month was to complete the patent applications on GCT. There are two-dozen separate elements that we've applied for. We don't think anybody has anything like it. We submitted the applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's fast track program. With some luck we'll have the patents issued in about eleven months instead of three years. They are so slow, even with the extra payment for a fast track. We included copies of our laboratory notebooks with the applications to prove the authenticity of our application claims, and we included some of the prototype test results."
Melanie leaned in, "But the best news is that Tom knows someone at the Federal Communications Commission. He showed them some of the prototype results and they are over the moon about the whole concept. They are pressuring the USPTO for immediate action, AND they want broader tests as soon as possible in both a major metropolitan area, such as the city, and a rural area. They're almost pressuring
us
to move faster."
Tom chuckled, "I was thinking of the city as one test bed, and St. Croix for the rural area test bed. The island has good cellphone coverage but their Internet speeds suck. I think the best they have is DSL, and that peaks out at just over a megabit per second. We'll be offering the island something a thousand times faster without needing to lay fiber, although the two large towns have some dark fiber underground as of a decade or so ago."
I probed, "How's the budget?"
Tom said, "We've spent about ten million of your twenty, and I think we're ahead of schedule and certainly my initial expectations. We could start on the city trial tomorrow if we can get Verizon to go along with us. An outfit called Broadband Caribb serves the island. To be honest we don't know much about them, but they do seem to have some kind of a program to fire up the fiber in parts of the two metro areas on the island. They're aiming at businesses right now for anything close to what we could offer in terms of speed, so they're only focused on Christiansted and Fredericksted."
"Do we want to become a provider for the island?"
Tom made a face. "No. There's not enough margin to be made and we'd be the focus for a million customer complaints. We don't want to deal with that end of things any more than we already do. I want to try working through the provider that's already up and running. They've already got the infrastructure in place; we just piggyback on it."
I stood, "OK, I'm happy."
Izzy appeared in my office doorway, "Sorry to interrupt, but you have a conference call with our Swedish manufacturing plant scheduled in ten minutes." She looked hopefully at me to be sure I remembered the purpose of the call.
I asked Izzy, "Is Sheila joining us?"
"She's already in the teleconference room talking to her counterpart over there. As soon as you appear the others will be there in seconds and the main purpose of the meeting can get underway."
The others stood and we parted ways. Tom said as he was leaving, "See you later for a ride home. Remember?"
Melanie stepped in, "I won't let him forget. See you at six-thirty."
* * * * *
Getting off the elevator at home a few hours later I got immediately greeted by Stacy. She rushed into my arms with a bucket load of kisses.
She immediately informed me, as someone often did, of the whereabouts of those not visible in the room. "Elsa and Julie are with the babies; they'll be out soon. Cindy is working late and said not to wait dinner on her. KC is working at the gallery and won't make dinner. Marcia is on the west coast, as you know. Alice is seeing a client until nine o'clock. Deke is trying to finish up a wiring job in Hyattsville. Carter will be here in about thirty minutes, and everybody else is here." She gestured into the living room where the rest of the family sat around.
As I pondered what I wanted to do about dinner, Stacy greeted Tom, Sheila, Melanie, and Izzy. As I glanced around I noted two faces I didn't see all the time. June Mayer, KC's sister, was chatting with Mike, and next to them in a separate conversation sat Kate Kenworthy and James. Elsa had cued me in that both June and Kate wanted to join the circle. Working at the dining room table I saw Tori, Kate's teenage daughter, but she had her head into some serious homework assignment so hadn't registered our arrival. I held back an opinion when she told me about June and Kate, since I felt I might have too much influence on the outcome and I really wanted it to be a family decision. Secretly, I loved the idea of Kate joining us, but I didn't know June all that well.
June and Kate saw me and both excused themselves and came over and gave me welcome home kisses. I effused over the two of them, commenting that I was surprised to see Kate since I knew she had to work at Club Infinity that evening. She explained that she was headed over there after the dinner she'd been invited to. She laughed and jested, "I guess that's if you approve the invitation that Elsa made." She glanced over at her daughter and added, "I come with a trailing daughter too."
"Oh, I most certainly approve. I am hungry. How about we go down the street to our little French restaurant?"
Several heads nodded and there was some moving around in the room until we were all ready to head out as a group. Just as we were about to leave Elsa and Julie appeared.
Elsa was carrying Philip Emerson, who saw me and instantly started to babble about 'Da da. Da da. Da da." Elsa came and kissed me, "Hello, Da da. The two of us are going to dinner too. No one wanted to cook."
Julie kissed me as she passed by, but then passed off a baby to Sheila, and then went and really laid a long succulent kiss on Tom. They nuzzled into each other in a way I hadn't noticed before, and I also saw some intimate whispering going on - little love words between the two of them.
Sheila carried Patricia as we headed out. Patricia was Alice and Deke's baby. A couple of people in the family had taken to calling the baby 'PT' but no one else had latched onto that moniker yet except the baby who seemed to know when people were talking about her.
June relieved Julie of KC and Mike's baby Jenny, cuddling and cooing into her niece as we strolled along in the early evening hours the one block to the restaurant. Despite the winter temperatures, the evening was relatively mild and windless. I watched June carefully, and saw that she was just oozing love for the infant, showering the baby with hugs and kisses despite the minimal feedback babies of that age provided in return.
As I looked around, I noted that Julie had walked hugging Tom's arm to her as the pair continued to talk with each other about their day. He looked pleased as Punch with her attention and I guessed that they'd couple up later that night. They'd been doing a lot of that since they met. I walked along with Elsa and Philip Emerson in my arms. We also chatted about our days and some plans for the weekend.
We were met by the grand-mère of the family that ran the restaurant. She escorted us to our dinner nook, got a high chair for Philip Emerson, and then sat with us and cooed over the babies while we ordered dinner and drinks from her son.
I'd bought the restaurant the Cadillac of high chairs since we were there so much and Philip had outgrown his baby carrier. A couple of the guys had lugged along two of the baby carriers to put PT and Jenny in. Both infants had fallen asleep during the short walk and didn't wake up when put in the carriers. Philip looked on a sugar high, and wanted to simultaneously join in all the conversations going on around him, so he proved to be noisy the entire meal. Elsa assured me that his behavior was the tip of an iceberg. As she said, "He hasn't learned to ask 'Why?' about everything, but he will."
In a way, my son's animation was good because he would probably sleep through the night once we got him changed and put to bed. In turn, Elsa and I would get a good night's sleep as well the others who chose to be in our bed, although Elsa or I were the ones who got up at night to deal with Philip Emerson.
As dinner ended, I saw our waiter bring June a large takeout bag. She picked up Little PT, and then was struggling to carry the bag as well. I went over and relieved her of the bag. "Let me help. What's in here, leftovers?"
"Oh, no. Those are dinners for Alice, Cindy, KC, and Deke. Thank you."
"That was nice of you to get dinners for them."
"They don't know it yet, but I guessed they'd want something when they each got home after a long day. Thank you for buying dinner for all of us. Sometimes I think we forget to be grateful for what you do for us, especially us outsiders."
"Walk with me, and tell me about June." I referred to her in the third person but she smiled at my interest in her.
'I'm pretty simple in a way. Just turned twenty-three, two years out of college, business and accounting major, and now working for an accounting firm."
