A Birthday Present - 001

After their kids were married and starting families of their own, Abe had suffered a heart attack that left him with an extreme case of erectile dysfunction. It had nearly destroyed him emotionally. Rachel had been supportive and encouraging. They had explored all of the possibilities medically but nothing seemed to work. His emotional state deteriorated as he struggled with being unable to perform as a man. Rachel had never complained, but he knew she was suffering as well. She was a healthy, vibrant and beautiful woman. Abe knew what she was needing and missing. He decided to do something about it and had contacted an ad offering fantasies for couples. That eventually brought them into contact with Tig.

Abe had lost a little toe out of that deal. Presumably it was to convince Rachel that unless she submitted to Tig, Abe would lose successive body parts until he was nothing but a loose collection of unattached limbs. She had acquiesced. From there the stories could have been interchanged. Rachel never recovered. She was now living with her sister in New York City. She and Abe were still married but, according to Abe, she was never able to reconcile the events. If he approached her for even the briefest touch, she recoiled and often became physically ill.

Dan was able to learn later that between Abe and John, they had almost as much money as the Saudi's. He also learned that they were willing to spend it almost without end to help with the revenge angle. They were the bankroll behind this whole conspiracy.

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Two weeks later, Dan was with Richard at Nathan's in a back office. They chit chatted about nothing of any importance until two more men knocked on the door and entered. Richard quickly introduced Aubrey Jones and Ben Peters.

Aubrey looked like any other run of the mill businessman you see in and around New York. He was the quintessential "gray man." Hardly anyone would give him a second glance under most circumstances. He was their IT guy. What Aubrey didn't know about the internet and communications hadn't been invented yet, and he probably had a good guess what it was before the inventor had the patent.

Dan did learn, in time, that Aubrey was married to Glenna. Glenna was his college sweetheart. When his kids were in high school, Glenna had strayed a bit in apparent frustration with Aubrey's dedication to his work. Aubrey easily found out what was going on. They went to counseling and worked hard to save their marriage. The counselor had advised them to broaden their social network and to look at some activities that would keep them together and encourage their sexual life. Aubrey had no problem with that and Glenna had taken up the challenge. She kept them busy with dance lessons, recreational activities, and travel. Aubrey, by his own admission, liked what was happening and encouraged Glenna. That was when she found the fantasy weekend ad in a local magazine.

They had talked about the possibilities and Glenna, to Aubrey's surprise, expressed a role play fantasy centered around medieval times with a dark BDSM component. After a lot of discussion and research, Aubrey had agreed and Glenna set up the weekend. Like all the others, it was Tigs opportunity and he took full advantage of iot. To his surprise, Glenna had acquiesced quickly to Tigs demands and spent the weekend in a makeshift dungeon at the hands of some skilled dominants. When all was said and done, Glenna had tested positive for at least three STDs and expressed a desire to continue as a submissive. Aubrey had no inclinations as a dominant and they had quickly divorced.

Ben was something a little different. He was small and wiry. Dan was to discover that he had been the product of a loveless marriage in a household of alcoholics. He had been bullied in school because of his size and the knowledge in the community about his parents. He grew up distant, reserved, and introspective. He found his niche with a computer. During his highschool years, he excelled at every computer class he took.

Looking back, anyone that was savvy enough could have chronicled his progress by what everyone considered to be a set of coincidences. There was the collapse of a local business that seemed prosperous one day and ended up in bankruptcy the next. The family that owned the business was also the family of one of the young men who ridiculed and persecuted Ben.

There was a case of a young woman in Ben's class who had humiliated him time and time again in public. When the local newspaper headlined with pictures of the young woman's mother in the arms of another man while her husband stood smiling in the background was a hot topic for weeks around town. The young woman and her mother quickly moved several states away.

Ben had found his power in the dark side of the internet. He became a well known name in the hacker community and for several years was involved in several schemes that bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars. He was eventually caught and spent several months in a federal prison until he had shown an FBI agent a vulnerability in the Department of Justice computers. He pointed it out when paperwork suddenly appeared in the system shortening his sentence, ordering an immediate release without parole, and apparently issued by a notoriously corrupt federal judge.

The FBI had been incredulous and after the paperwork was completed and Ben was free, he sat the FBI agent down and showed him exactly what had happened and how it worked. He then offered his services to the FBI as a contractor to find the weaknesses in their systems. From there his fame and fortune grew.

Ben had not been directly affected by Tig's schemes. However, his sister and brother in law did. He was never sure about the exact fantasy that his sister had arranged, but the result was the same. By the time the authorities were involved, his brother in law was short three fingers. Apparently Ben's sister held out longer than might be understood. In the end, she swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills and downed it with a glass full of vodka. Ben took the loss hard.

Now, sitting in Richard's office in the rear Nathan's, the four men began to discuss the complicated plan that Richard had outlined. That first meeting lasted until the sun was again peeping over the horizon. As they finally decided to break up, Richard had offered to cook them all breakfast in the restaurant kitchen. It was the first of many such meals the four would spend together.