Amy's Security Continues

"There's wine, beer or cola in the fridge if you'd like to help yourself." To prove my point, I held up my messy hands. "You want something to drink?" I shot at Amy as an afterthought.

Amy couldn't help but notice the cold demeanour in my voice, and lowered her head slightly, realising for the first time that this meeting was going to be harder than she anticipated. "Hello Sam, and thank you, a wine would be nice. Megan's right, you are looking well."

Megan opened a bottle of white wine and poured two glasses, handing one to Amy. "Which way to world's end? I want to check out the view," she indicated with a sweep of her hand that held the bottle of wine. "I'll leave you two to duke it out, but just remember,' she said pointing the bottle in my direction. "I'm not here to bury bodies or clean up a crime scene, so play nice."

I smiled at Megan's reference to me falling off the end of the earth and I pointed out the back door, commenting, "You don't have any worries with me, there's a fishing rod out on the deck if you'd like to try your hand."

Megan rolled her eyes, "Not likely! I wouldn't know what to do with it, even if I did happen to catch one." With that she sauntered out the door, leaving Amy and I to our little chit chat.

"Take a load off and tell me why you're here!" I told her as I pointed to a chair and went back to chopping herbs.

Amy hesitantly took a seat and looked around trying to find a way to lighten the mood, "Nice place you have here, small but nice!"

I stiffened; my irritation at her being here was starting to surface. "This isn't a social call Amy!" I went back to murdering some basil, "Just get it off your chest and we can both get back to living our own lives!"

Amy stifled a gasp, took a sip of her wine for fortification, "May I ask one question?"

I sighed, "You can ask all the questions you want Amy, that doesn't mean that I'll answer any of them, but hell, take your best shot!"

"Why did you leave?" I turned to see Amy watching for any tell tale sign that I was going to explode. I suppose she knew from years of living with me and knew by my actions that I was taking great effort to control my temper.

I threw the knife down and turned to Amy. "You don't need a fucking BA in rocket propulsion to understand my motives Amy. You're a high flying Vice President now. You must have some brains to get to where you are; surly you can figure it out."

Amy winced at my dig about the way she'd worked her way up within her company and I could see her irritation rise to the surface. "That was a low blow even for you Sam! I am quite capable of doing my job. What I'm not capable of is mindreading."

I folded my arms and just stared at her for a long minute. Amy looked like she was wilting under my gaze. "You're right Amy! You're not a mind reader, and there aren't too many people who are, if any, but to be effective in a job like yours, you need to be able to read people, and understand and second guess their motives. That is what a good Exec does; he finds the talents of his/her employees and exploits them for the company's good. That doesn't mean that he does it maliciously, it has to be a win/win situation. Do you really want to know what I think of you and your talents Amy?"

I saw a shiver run the length of her spine at my question. She was pretty sure what I was going to say and I was fairly sure it didn't instil any confidence in her, but I think she thought she needed to keep me talking to have any chance of getting what she needed. She straightened her shoulder, "Ok Sam! I'll bite, what are your thoughts on my corporate talents?"

I almost laughed out loud at Amy's pathetic attempt at goading me and went back to my cooking, "You're a bulldozer Amy! You have the finesse and subtleties of a bull in a china shop!"

This statement threw her I know, and her gaping mouth said it all. Of all the things she thought I'd say that wasn't even on the list. "A bulldozer?" Was all she could say for a minute or so, then, "Would you care to elaborate on that statement?"

I smiled inwardly as I kept chopping. "Yes Amy! A bulldozer! You take the most direct route to your goal, which may not even be the route of least effort, and you don't analyse the situation! You don't look around you and ask yourself who you can help, who will be helped into helping you! You don't think of anyone but yourself! You don't sit back and ask yourself what is the best line of attack! You just go in, put your head down and heaven help anyone who gets in your road. And that is why you're in the unenviable position that you now find yourself. You have burnt your bridges and laid waste to the ground before you."

I could see a tear start to form in the corner of her eye as she listened to my tirade. For the first time since I have known her, she was at a loss for words.

"No I don't!" Was all she could manage.

Her weak rebuttal said it all, "Everything I did was for us Sam, but your ego has made you blind to it. I understand that I hurt you, and I have told you a thousand times how sorry I am for that! If you had just stayed long enough, I would have been able to bring you in on my plan. You still haven't told me why you left!"

I tasted the sauce and added some more salt. "I saw the writing on the wall, and I'm not stupid Amy! I know you were coming in to cull the deadwood; you're the hatchet man or woman as the case maybe, sent in to remove the people that needed to be taken out so that the company could move forward, and I'm in full agreement that there was a need for it. All I did was make it easier for you to make those decisions."

I saw a look of anticipation; this was where she wanted this discussion to go. "Sam Beckman, for a smart man you certainly do some stupid things. I had no intention of firing you. And if you had any resemblance of smarts, then you would have known that. As I said before, what I did, I did for us! I did it so you could see all your dreams come true.

Good ploy! She going for the heart strings, and stroking my ego at the same time, but then I never said she wasn't good at stroking. I was just miffed about what else she stroked.

"I can't count the times we sat in the kitchen at home with you going on about how the fools at the top were keeping the company on its knees with their inept management. I believed in you Sam! I believed you when you said that you could pull the company up by its boot straps! I'm now in a position to help you put your ideas into practice. I knew you could do it, and I busted my ass to give you your shot at it. I went out on a limb with my bosses, and said that I could bring your company into big profits. And what'd it get me?"

Arr! Now it's the all your fault gambit.

"You left me hanging in the breeze, without even giving me a chance to tell you what I had in mind! I've been battling on; putting in long hours to try and do what you said could be done. All I need is a little help from the one and only man I have ever loved. That's you Sam; I need you! Between the two of us we can sit back and reap the rewards that our union has accomplished.

Hmmm! The, I love you, and this is our future arrow.

"I'm not stupid enough to think that we'll get back together, although I dream about it all the time. No! I see now that if we work at it, we can have a good business relationship, and be happy. So! What do you say? How about a truce and we get to work, and together we can show them that we're a force not to be trifled with?"

Amy took another sip from her wine glass and sat back. She seemed happy that I had stood there and listened and hadn't interrupted. But now her impetus had waned, she had stated her case and it was up to me to make the next move.

I had finished making the sauce while Amy gave her speech, and was now putting a pot of water on to boil for the spaghetti, the only thing I could think of were the last words of Julius Caesar "Et tu Brutus!" Betrayal! Those were the first thoughts I had, had when I first found out about her whoring for her company, and the reasons she gave.

For all of Amy's pap, there was one niggling thought that kept banging away in the back of my mind, and those three words had encapsulated her past and present actions. "Ok Amy! A good executive looks at all the angles and then makes their decision on the best course of action. Just say for argument sake that I buy into your so called brilliant plan. What is it that gives you the idea that I can be of any help to you?"

I could see annoyance in Amy's eyes at my question. I suppose to her it was obvious. "I told you before that I believe you have the ability to pull this off, and that you have the standing in the company to garner the support of the troops, so to speak. They trust you and respect your opinions. The blocks you have encountered in the past have all been upper management and they have been swept aside by my taking over as VP. I don't understand what you're trying to say?"

I smiled sadly at Amy's naivety, "You can't see that the very action of your taking over the helm has negated my effectiveness in garnering support. But I'm not surprised! And the reason I say that is, because of your refusal to believe that you have done anything wrong. Others don't see it that way Amy."

I saw the alarm on Amy's face as I went on, "Have you ever wondered why you're having trouble gathering support for your ideas? The rumour mill has done more than an adequate job of informing all the staff of your business practices and ethics, and I might add, with not so much as one word from me.

Amy's face was a mask; I was getting into territory that she wanted left well enough alone. "All they see is a whore who has leapfrogged her way to the top by opening her legs to anyone who could help her rise up one more rung of the corporate ladder, leaving more deserving employees to scrounge for scraps in her wake."

Amy had the good grace to wince, "They know you cuckolded me in our marriage, and it's something that had made working there difficult, until I realised that I still had my dignity and their respect the day I cut ties and divorced you. If I took you up on your proposition, then I'd be effectively tell everyone that everything you did was ok, and now instead of being a cuckolded husband, I'd be making myself a cuckolded employee. I'd lose their respect, and my ability to function would go straight down the toilet!"

Amy had tears forming again in the corner of her eyes as I gave my negative appraisal of her proposition. Her faith in her stand started to crack, "I don't believe you Sam! I have shown that I'm prepared to work hard, that all I did was to get myself into a position of influence to get the job done. I am more than capable of doing the job, otherwise Jason wouldn't have given it to me."

I shook my head, my anger and annoyance was morphing into sadness. I now saw that Amy actually believed her own press, that her mind had, maybe for self-preservation, refused to acknowledge the truth of her position. "Did Jason come to you about the takeover, or did you press for it?"

Amy wiped her face with a tissue she'd taken from her purse, and straightened with a little hope, "It doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks. I'm not Jason's puppet! I went to him, and I have to tell you he put up a lot of barriers until he allowed me to go to the board of directors to state my proposal."

I nodded in recognition. It was as I had feared how the merger had got off the ground. "Just as I thought! Let me ask you one thing? Was Jason ball deep in your pussy when he gave in to your wishes to speak to the board members, or were you giving him a blowjob?"

If Amy's eyes hadn't given her away immediately, then the gasp surly sealed her fate. Trying to gather her wits she asked, "Why do you think that?"

I chuckled at her reaction to my query, "Do you know why I was good at my job Amy?" I continued beyond my rhetorical question. "Since I can remember, I have made profiles on everyone I meet, and before you embarrass yourself, that includes you as well. The problem I had with your profile is I didn't take my love for you into account. I stupidly thought that since you loved me then I could trust you implicitly. It's a mistake that has cost me dearly and I changed your profile to suit, because as my dear old grandfather once told me, 'No use getting older son if you're not going to get any smarter!' "

"I judge people not just by what they say, but what they then do, and if it fits their profile, then I can either work with them or around them. Either way I seem to be able to get the best of any situation. Knowing the sort of person Jason is I don't believe he gives a fat rat's ass whether you succeed or fail. If you fail, he'll wipe his hands of you and point to the board, saying that they were the ones who approved your proposal."

I could see the light dawning in her eyes as I continued, "If you succeed, then he takes the credit for bring an up and coming executive into a position that has increased the profit margin. He wins no matter whether you succeed or fail. So there goes your thinking that you have support from above. Jason doesn't care whether you're smart enough put your shoes on the right feet or dumb enough to believe you can pull off this coup, as long as you keep the end of his cock wet, he'll be happy. You're on your own Amy; a little fish in a big pond and the piranha are hungry."

Amy fidgeted with her tissue. Everything I had said had validity, and it must have frightened her to think that she was in bigger strife than she first thought, but true to her modus operandi she shut her mind off to the possibility that she couldn't bring about her security.

"So you think I can't do this?"

I shrugged, "No Amy! No I don't think; I know you can't do this!" I noted the anger rising in Amy but I pressed on, "It won't be cocks you'll be getting up your ass; it'll be a fucking big Saturn five rocket which will launch you right out of your VP job and into corporate oblivion. Where will your precious security be then Amy?"

I turned away from her to calm myself down. "From what I hear all you have managed to do while you've been there is spin your wheels and create so much smoke that everyone else is having trouble doing their jobs!"

I turned back to watch Amy's reaction to that. "I'll be surprised if there isn't a twenty five percent downturn in quarterly profit at the next stockholders meeting! But all that is supposition! You can give this charade any spin you like, but it all comes back to your reasons for doing it in the first place. Let me tell you what I know and what I think. You told me that you love me and that you did this both for us!"

Amy was visibly shaking under my tirade but nodded in agreement.

"But by your own admission, it's all about your own security; it has nothing to do with mine, or ours. If you loved me as you keep telling me, then you would have moved heaven and earth to get me to stop working myself to death. What was it you said? I was a heart attack waiting for a time and place to happen."

I waited for her to think back before continuing, "You didn't try, or if you did it wasn't very convincingly. No, you just went ahead and fucked yourself into a position of security waiting for me to start pushing up daisies. You could have threatened to divorce me if I didn't slow down and think of us. I'm sure that would have got me thinking in the right direction, and I know your infidelity certainly did! It's why I'm here now and feeling great for it."

"I love you Sam! I didn't want to divorce you."

"You didn't want to divorce me, but you were prepared to sit back and let me work myself to death? That sounds really loving?" I finished sarcastically.

I smiled inwardly; Amy couldn't refute my argument and couldn't hold my gaze. "I didn't mean what I said back then, and I do love you even now. I regret a lot of what I said to you back then."

My grim face must have showed doubts. I'm also sure that Amy believed what she was saying. "I don't have any doubt that in your own way, you love me Amy, but that has nothing to do with our situation. Don't you see! I can't trust you now, either in a personal relationship or in business."

I decided to end this discussion.

"This is how I see it now! You have finally got as close as you can to the top! There is no one else you can fuck to get any higher. You'll have to wait for Jason to retire or kick the bucket before you'll be in line for CEO and you thought this would be a good opportunity to cement your position in the company and lay claim to the coveted CEO position."

Amy went to object, but I held her off. "That's where your little scheme of taking over my old firm comes in! You take over and seduce me into working my ass off again to feather your own nest. I'm dumfounded that you actually expected me to fall in line and do your bidding. I thought for sure that it was obvious that I wasn't a wimp when I kicked you out the first time. Then I realised it was most likely my fault, that I had set you up for you to fail."

I could see that Amy was struggling to keep up. One minute I was saying it was all her fault, and now I was accepting responsibility. "You're not making any sense Sam! I think it's you that has it all back to front."

I hung my head and sighed in exasperation, "Ok Amy! You've heard the adage of being cruel to be kind! Well I wasn't being kind! I lead you up the garden path, when in fact I should have chopped you down and kicked you in the cunt while you were down! Cruel to be kind! But instead I went to Jason and made him keep his promise to make you VP, and he did. I loved you enough to not want to see you hung out to dry, even though you deserved it! I made a mistake because it made you think that there was a chance that I could be talked back into your arms. Your little love cards on my birthday, Christmas, and any other occasion you could think of confirmed it time and time again."

I rose to check the sauce, and added more water to the now almost dry pot. "If I had done what I should have done, then you'd have disappeared to some unknown location where no one knew you, licked your wounds and started again, hopefully a little wiser. That is what I want you to do now; just walk away and start again."

The tears were brimming again. "You'll have to go back to some secretarial job, but at least that won't be as bad as what will happen if you stay and try to fight this out. You'll be lucky if your job description allows you to lick stamps while being fucked up the ass by some pimply face mailroom jerk over the sorting table!"

I watched Amy as my words hit home. I tried to lay it on thick, and it saddened me to see defiance in her face instead of resignation. "I know I hurt you Sam! God I kick myself every day for it, but what you have just said is downright malicious. You have no belief in me at all and after all the belief I have in you. Well if that's what you think then sit back and watch, and I'll show how it's done."

Just then there was a knock at the door. "Come in!" I snapped in irritation.

"Is everything all right Sam? I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something."

I sighed at losing my temper, and looked at my watch, not realising just how much time had elapsed. "I'm sorry Vivian, no please come in. Amy was just leaving." I shot a look at her and waited for her to get up.

Amy looked at Vivian standing in the doorway to the living room. She was a good five, maybe ten years younger and pretty as a picture, slim with long flowing dark auburn hair. I couldn't help notice the look on Amy's face as she realised why she was here. She looked back to me. I was just staring at her blandly, and then her eyes took in the food simmering away on the stove, then back to me again.

The tears started to fall as the penny dropped. I looked over my shoulder at the dinner I was preparing for Vivian and myself and realised what Amy was thinking. "What? You thought this was for you? I told you in the beginning that this wasn't a social call, so don't go getting all upset that I'm having a friend over for dinner. You and I are finished, we have been for years. The only reason I allowed you to come here is to knock some sense into that stupid head of yours."