Gotta Pay the Piper Ch. 08

I was embarrassed. I knew what had happened. It had never been so bad since I was a kid. Lenore smiled at me. "Are you back?" I nodded. "Bas, we will help you. This is NOT on you. You are the rock, the center but we will do the work. It is your sense of justice or doing right that has us here. Let us do the rest." I calmed. Lenore talked to me for a while, telling me she would make sure it worked. "Bas your sense of justice is just one of the things that endears you to me. Your job is to relax, to enjoy, to live life to its fullest. Leave the actual work to the rest of us." I slowly nodded.

I had always been the details man. I looked at the task at hand and tackled it in full. Now this woman I loved, and yes, I knew I loved her, told me to relax and enjoy. That would require a whole new change in thought pattern. Then I realized it was not such a departure from history. Christine had done the same thing with me. The difference was I had only her, Joanne and myself on my radar. Plus my company, of course. I had experts running the business side of my company allowing me to concentrate on those areas I excelled. And I had Christine to supervise it all. Now I had Lenore. The question was could I trust Lenore like I had Christine? Yes, I could.

"Why don't you drive out to the Hacienda and fill that last tag on your hunting license?" Lenore suggested. I looked at her in surprise. "Seriously. The evening is young. Go get another buck. Then Saturday or Sunday we will go butcher them. Let me work on things here. You go. I'll buy a license in the morning. Sarah did it so I can too." I got off my ass. I looked at my phone for the weather forecast to see how I needed to be dressed and left.

"Hey, dude!" Derek greeted me. "Ready to take down another deer?" I nodded. I suspected Lenore had called ahead. I said as much. "Yep. But don't think about it. Let me give you some advice. There is a point where the world moves beyond you. Sometimes it is even your own small portion of the world that changes. I told you before I let the collective wisdom take over here at the Hacienda. Well, you have your own hacienda. Call it whatever you want, but it is your new world. It does not have to consume you. Let it run around you. You reach out and touch things that suit you. Let the other things go. I had the idea of raising crawdads a few years ago. Clarice did most of the actual work. But I had fun with it. We learned from others how to flood the fields, and when to start harvesting. Now Clarice takes a few minutes to determine all those things and we have somebody do the work. I just enjoy the harvest and am there when we have a boil. The rest is not my problem. I sorta watch it happen and might offer my input. I do those things I enjoy. Like shooting deer this time of year. Later it will be those feral hogs. I know you feel you have to be part of the details. But you are the idea man, the decision maker. Just dictate and let the details get covered by others."

I smiled. Somehow this man had a way of getting me to relax. To take on his point of view. "I heard you lined up some wild atonement for Atwell's victims." I said I did. "When Wanda got to confront the jerks who got her into trouble initially, I was stoked. To tell you the truth I was a little shocked how it panned out. I knew what was going to happen. The guards seem to encourage Wanda. But when she twisted those guys' scrotums and punched them, I still had a hard time. I mean as a man seeing another guy get his balls nailed made me cringe. Even thinking about it now. She needed it and those guys deserved it. So let what happens tomorrow go."

I was more concerned with how I would handle all the slaves I seemed to be adding to my household.Those were the ones I would be responsible for, but Derek dropped back to a different position. I realized that was deliberate. He said those concerns were for tomorrow and for now I have something else to do. I took him up on his advice to get my rifle and climb up into the blind. A scant hour later we were dropping the guts onto the ground away from our hunting area. "Let's see if we butcher them Saturday or wait until Sunday." he said. "John and his boys are coming out tomorrow. I told those boys if their grades aren't up to par, no hunting. John laughed his ass off. He'd threatened their cars. Pressure makes a person perform. I'm betting the boys have performed and we will have a job getting all the meat processed."

"I want you to understand though. I am at a point where I am outside the drama. I push a few buttons and watch what happens. You can be in the same boat. You are richer than I ever will be. Use it. Play with it." Derek offered. I could tell he was repeating what he told me earlier.

"Lenore called you and told you about my breakdown, didn't she?" I said.

"Not a breakdown, Bas. Don't think of it that way. You just realized you crammed more into your backpack than you can carry by yourself. You need to let a few others share the load." Derek said. "I have felt overwhelmed a few times, too." he said to soften the blow. "You felt overtaxed. I have been there myself. Hell, it almost killed me. I don't even try to keep up with the women. Now I play. I call it play. Others call it living life. You should too."

I was a little upset when I had my talk with Lenore that night. I was still embarrassed. I don't know why. She was unrepentant. She told me she did what was needed. "I wanted you to talk to Derek. See how he handled things. The Hacienda is far more complicated than what we have. My point is Derek learned to sit back and let the system work. He does his part. He sees everything but lets most of the business part go." I groused that Derek did not have my problems, my 'condition'. "No, he doesn't. He has his own." Lenore said. "Plus he is an old man in comparison. He has a good income from what his slaves produce. He lets their work provide the major portion of what his household needs. He has his investments which I know he lets others control. He does well. He has everything he wants or needs. My point is OUR household is covered from outside. You have freedom to do whatever you want without watching the money angle. " Lenore said.

"So you are saying I am rich." I offered. ""And can do what I want."

"I am saying you have a parachute." Lenore corrected me. "You are in position to do what you want. What you think is right. I'll help you manage the money part. WE will do this together, for as long as you want us to." I felt more relaxed than I had in the past couple days.

"So you agree with what I proposed for tomorrow." I asked tentatively. She shook her head.

"You are doing what you think is fair and right." Lenore said. "I won't say either way. It is on you. My job is to help you see it through." I wondered if that was non-approval. She told me to not second guess her words but to make my own decisions. Damn this was tough. I knew what I thought was right. But I wanted validation. Lenore was not going to give it. Not in those words. She pointed to my bathroom and told me I stunk of dead deer and deer guts. I went to shower.

I emerged in my boxer briefs to find Carol naked and in the same position Rene had been the night before, on her knees on my bed. "Carol says she is pretty sure she did well on her exam today." Lenore said. "So she is gonna send a little time with us." I grinned. Lenore knew how to get my mind off other problems. We did to Carol what we had done to Rene and Sonya. All of us had a great time. Before we sent Carol back to her room later, Lenore gave her a warning. "Your scores on that exam better have been good. Otherwise, not only will you get your butts blistered, I'll use a big dildo up your asses. And hard enough you will not like it." Carol assured her she and Rene had studied hard. I laid back and let Lenore do her thing. I had a good night's sleep, my anxieties on hold.