The Passenger

This story takes a while to get started. I apologize if slow development is not your thing. There are no graphic sex scenes in the story, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll have to go elsewhere. Like all of the stories I write, this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of a character described in this story to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All persons described as participating in sexual activities in this story are 18 years of age or older.

THE PASSENGER

I scribbled "Matthew P. Harper" on the "Attest" line of the last conveyancing document, above my typed name and title, "Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary" and handed it to my paralegal to affix the corporate seal. As soon as the bank confirmed that the wire transfer had been received in the Kohler family's account, Sun Fiber Systems, Inc. (we called it SunFiSys) would become property of one of the nation's largest cellular antenna companies and the three Kohler principals of the company would be collectively roughly five hundred million dollars wealthier. The workforce would be sharing in a substantial sum as well. The Kohlers had always been generous to their employees. In addition to annual cash bonuses, they had created a phantom stock program in anticipation of the day when the family would sell the company. The program, designed to promote employee retention, provided employees a potential windfall if they remained until the company was sold. The benefits ranged from about half a year's salary for the receptionist to healthy seven figure amounts for the senior, non-family officers that ensured those officers would never have to work again. I was one of the latter.

SunFiSys built and leased dark fiber networks, installing the fiber optic cables over which telecommunications signals traveled. The company would construct the fiber network, pull it into the customer's data room and allow the customer to provide the electronics that generated and received the signals traveling across the fiber. The Kohler's timing had been exquisite. In the twelve years I'd been there, we'd grown annual revenues seven-fold while holding EBITDA margins at or above sixty percent annually. The company would install cables containing anywhere from twenty-four to four hundred eighty-eight strands of fiber. Generally, the customer leased anywhere from four to twenty-four strands, with the remaining strands in the cable available for use by other customers. The leases generally ran a minimum of five years and the lease payments for the initial term would more than cover the construction costs. Any subsequent customer using fibers in the same cable paid similar lease rates, but the only additional costs were the connections from the existing cable to the customer's data room. It was a marvelous business.

The buyer had thought so as well, although their interest was more focused on the fiber network, which now had plant in seven states, rather than the customer base. The new owners were in the midst of a small cell antenna build-out and our fiber would provide the means to connect their cellular antennas to the telecommunications systems of their various customers, most of whom were major telecommunications companies.

I'd been at SunFiSys for twelve years. Twelve years of sixty-five to seventy hour work weeks. Twelve years of never having a vacation longer than four days and only two of them. Twelve years during which I'd lost four relationships because of work. Three had been with "Ms. Right Now" and not something over which I'd shed much in the way of tears, but the end of the last relationship had been extremely painful. It was doubly painful because of the timing of the breakup.

I'd first met Alexis Morgan at a continuing legal education program. She'd sat down next to me at the lunch lecture table. She caught my attention immediately. Those of you of a certain age will remember the actress Adrienne Barbeau. Alex (for that's what she would later ask me to call her) was a somewhat lusher version, not classically beautiful in the current twenty-first century sense, but definitely sexy and appealing. In talking, I discovered she had recently become a partner at one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Philadelphia. She was (I would later learn) thirty-three years old at the time we met, five years younger than I was. Our conversation revealed a brilliant intellect, a sparkling personality, a vibrant sense of humor and an interesting way of looking at the world. I was immediately smitten. I'd later learn that Alex also was extremely stubborn and had a real temper. But the last was something I'd not encounter until well into the future.

I'd gotten her business card before lunch ended and had asked if she'd like to have dinner some evening. She expressed interest. Because her schedule and mine were equally booked, it took almost a month to clear a date where we could get together. I made a reservation in one of Philadelphia's best restaurants. Ever cautious, she met me there rather than having me pick her up at her condominium.

Dinner was a smashing success. As I put her in a cab to go home, I got a kiss on the cheek and a promise to do this again as soon as possible. The second date took only two weeks to schedule. That was an equally successful evening. After that, we were together almost every weekend. Unlike any of the three "Ms. Right Nows", I took my time with Alex. We had been dating for almost four months before we first were intimate. She turned out to be an enthusiastic and quite vocal lover. The walls in her condominium must have had excellent soundproofing, as none of the neighbors complained.

We'd been dating almost a year before she introduced me to her parents. I was somewhat surprised to find out that they lived within a few miles of my townhouse in Doylestown, the county seat of one of the counties adjacent to Philadelphia. Her father, Richard ("not Rick") greeted me with enthusiasm; her mother, Meredith, was far more restrained, in part because I was almost forty by that point, still unmarried and with no children. Her mom wanted grandchildren and I didn't look like the type to be entering into initial fatherhood at age forty. If only she'd known what was coming down the pike.

I was unable to reciprocate. I was an only child, born to parents in their mid-forties and both of my parents had died shortly before I met Alex. Seeing her with her family reminded me of how much I wanted to have a family of my own. I needed to readjust my priorities, something I'd begun to give thought to, but had not yet acted upon.

For Alex's thirty-fifth birthday, I'd planned a special getaway at a romantic bed and breakfast on the Delaware River with dinner at one of the finest restaurants in the area. Prior to dinner, I'd given Alex her birthday present, a pair of one carat diamond studs. She'd been enthusiastically grateful, so much so that we'd almost missed our dinner reservations. The warm reception the gift generated only confirmed my decision to ask Alex to move in with me over dinner.

As part of the planning for this weekend, we'd agreed to forego any business calls except for true emergencies. We had ordered and were sharing a bottle of wine and an appetizer when my cell phone all but blew up. I sent the first five calls to voicemail before seeing the sixth was from my boss, Harry Kohler, the SunFiSys CEO. That I had to take. Alex looked a bit unhappy when I told her that this must be something important as Harry never called me on a Saturday evening. I stepped away and out into the parking lot to take Harry's call.

It was a legitimate emergency. In fact, it was a fiasco. One of our contractors in California had been performing a horizontal bore to install underground ducts to allow fiber cable to be installed in the central business district of the city in which we were constructing the network. As was required by California law, we had contacted the local "One-Call" agency and they had supposedly marked out the location of the various underground utilities. They had mismarked the location of a thirty-six inch water main by more than twelve feet. The contractor had hit the main, rupturing it, creating a huge geyser of water and flooding the local streets, plus cutting off the water flow to a substantial portion of the central business district. The city authorities were berserk about the problem and I spent the next two hours in a series of calls trying to address the problem.

When I finally got off the phone and re-entered the restaurant, I was greeted by the maitre d', who was holding a "to-go" box and an invoice. I handed him my credit card to handle the bill, adding a generous tip. He informed me that my companion had waited an hour and then taken an Uber from the restaurant. I'd been so focused on the water main problem that I'd never noticed Alex's departure.

When I got back to the B&B, I found that Alex had packed her things and departed. Sitting in the middle of the bed was the box containing the diamond studs I'd just given her along with a note. The note was brutal. It read, "I hope you will someday find a woman that you care more about than that damn company. I'd hoped it was me. Clearly it isn't. Don't try to apologize or make excuses. We're finished! DON'T CONTACT ME EVER AGAIN! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU OR HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN!!!" I told you she had a temper.

I was crushed at my stupidity and even more crushed at losing the woman I'd begun to think

was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Leaving the diamond studs on the bed had been as clear a message as ever she could send - she was done with me. And it was my own damned fault.

Ironically, it was only a month later that the cellular antenna company had approached the Kohlers to purchase SunFiSys. Due diligence took about a month and within two months after the initial contact, we were sitting at a closing table signing documents and wiring funding.

The purchaser was terminating the entire senior management team. I questioned the wisdom of that prior to completion of some sort of integration process, but the severance agreement included a full year's pay, including my target bonus, and a very strict one-year non-compete provision. For the next year, I couldn't work in any aspect of the telecommunications industry. Between the severance and the payout from the phantom shares, this was more of a theoretical than practical problem. As long as I wasn't stupid, I had enough money at age forty to never work again. I turned in my company cell phone, which was the only one I had used for the last twelve years. Had I given the matter some thought, I'd have transferred the number to my new personal cell phone, but I there were few people who I cared about enough to stay in contact with and I could just let them know how to reach me. I put a permanent "out of the office" message on my company email and landline and walked out the door, unemployed for the first time since I'd turned fifteen.

The summer I turned fourteen, my parents had both retired. Dad had been a suburban policeman for forty years, retiring at the rank of lieutenant. Mom had been a schoolteacher for thirty-five years. Dad decided we were going to see the country, so he bought a 24-foot long motor home. We planned the route by thumb tacking a map of the U.S. to the breakfast room wall, putting little marks at every site any of us wanted to see. We then laid out a route that let us hit the maximum number of sites, hooked our compact car to to the motor home, and drove west from the Philadelphia suburbs. When we reached South Dakota, we turned left. When we reached Arizona, we turned left again. And when we reached Georgia, we turned left for the third time. After two months and over nine thousand miles, we returned home just in time for me to begin the new school year. Needless to say, my "what I did last summer" essay for English class was a hit with my teacher and the envy of my fellow students.

I decided to do something similar, giving myself a minimum of nine months to make the trip. I had a year before I could re-enter the telecommunications industry and more than enough money. Because we hadn't reached the west coast, I planned a trip that would take me first through New England, then west all the way to Washington, and down the west coast through Oregon to California. From there, I planned to see some of the states in the middle of the country which mom, dad and I had missed on our trip. I figured that if I got back after about nine months of my non-compete period, I'd have plenty of time to look for a new job. And so I would have, had circumstances not intervened.

I bought a used low-mileage 24 foot motor home. It was far better equipped than the one my parents had owned a quarter century before. The unit slept five and had sufficient power to pull my Camry, which I'd use once I parked the unit in an area I wanted to explore. The dealer had given the unit a thorough going over before I took delivery and there was still considerable time left on the warranty, so I wasn't too worried that this was not a brand new unit. Before leaving, I put my townhouse up for sale, giving my attorney, Michael Sullivan, power-of-attorney to sign anything that needed to be signed to sell the property. I also deposited enough money in his escrow account to cover any potential repairs that might be required after the home inspection, left him my new phone number, and started my trip.

I was about six weeks into the trip when the transmission on the motor home went just south of Erie, PA. I called the local RV dealer, who had the unit towed to his lot. The repairs would be covered under warranty, but it would take ten days to two weeks to get the parts. In the interim, I was stuck where I was.

I booked a motel room with an open-ended departure date and settled in. Most days, I woke early, went to the motel's gym, then walked to the diner down the road for breakfast. I'd spend the day either hiking, fishing, or exploring local museums and historic sites. I'd go back to the diner for dinner, then spend the evening in the motel room reading on a Kindle.

The diner was small and somewhat off the beaten path, operated by a married couple in their fifties. The husband cooked and the wife ran the front of the house. The couple worked fourteen hour days, having help in the form of a couple of part-time young women only during the two-hour lunch rush. Once they realized I was going to become a regular, the wife, Sharon by name, began chatting with me as she took my order and after I finished my meal. Within a few days, she'd gotten the story of my trip out of me and expressed envy at the opportunity. She'd even brought her husband, Mel, out a couple of times to listen to tales of the trip so far. They were a lovely pair, clearly still in love after over thirty years of marriage and a lifetime of long, hard days.

The RV dealer finally called me to tell me he had the parts necessary to put me back on the road. The evening before I planned to depart, I told Sharon and Mel that tomorrow would be my last breakfast with them. I'd connected enough with them that I was going to miss them.

The next morning, I stopped to have breakfast one last time. Sharon came over to my table and sat down across from me. It was the first time she'd done that. She looked at me and said, "Matt, are you still planning on driving out to Washington when you leave here?"

"Yes, I am. It will take a while and it certainly won't be by the most direct route, but I plan to reach there eventually."

"Could you see it in your heart to do us a favor? Would you consider taking a passenger?"

"Won't Mel object?"

Sharon laughed. "Not me. One of the girls who works for me at lunch from time to time."

I looked at her, a bit befuddled. "Why would someone want to ride in an RV with no privacy for a couple of months to get to a place she can fly to in a few hours or take a bus to in a few days?"

"It's a long, sad story, Matt. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version." And she did.

The girl's name was Kelly Jones. She was a foster kid who had aged out of the system when she turned 18 and graduated from the local high school. Her foster parents had agreed to let her stay with them after the payments stopped, but the former foster father had forced himself on her and she was now two months pregnant. When she'd refused to have an abortion, he'd beaten her. She'd fled to Sharon and Mel's house and was sleeping on their couch. She had no money and precious little else, but one of her foster sisters had offered to take her in after she aged out if she could get herself out to Washington. The foster sister had married a guy who'd enlisted in the army after graduation and was currently stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.

"Why doesn't she just report the assault and the beating to the local police?"

"The foster father's brother-in-law is the local chief of police. It's not the first time he's beaten a foster kid. The cases always get buried. Plus, if she has the baby here, they'll harass her until she moves. She has no one and nothing except this offer out on the west coast."

"Can I meet her before I answer your question?"

"Sure. She's helping Mel out in the kitchen. I'll go get her."

Sharon brought her out. I don't think I've ever seen a young person who looked more beaten down by life then Kelly, not even the homeless on the streets of Philadelphia when I was going to law school there. She was almost emaciated, wearing clothes that were so worn they were nearly transparent. Her face was a rainbow of blues, greens, yellows and purples and she had a black eye and a split lip. She never once looked me in the eye as she sat down next to Sharon. I'm not a violent person, but if I'd had the opportunity at that moment, I think I'd have beaten that foster father within an inch of his life.

I introduced myself and asked her to tell me a little bit about herself. Without looking at me, she began to speak in a whisper so low I could barely hear her. "I've been in foster care since I was six. My mom ODed. I never met my father and don't even know his name. I've had seven different social workers in the last twelve years. I think I've been in fourteen foster homes. The last one was the worst. I turned 18 earlier this year and aged out of the system. They said I could stay if I did chores and helped with expenses, so I've been waitressing part time when Sharon can use me. My so-called foster father forced himself on me when I turned 18 and has been coming into my bedroom on a regular basis. My foster mother knows and hasn't tried to stop him. I think she watches sometimes when he has sex with me. He got me pregnant and then beat me up when I wouldn't abort the baby."

"Have you told anyone about this other than Sharon?"

"Who would I tell? His wife's brother is the chief of police. I've been told that I'm not the first girl he's done this to."

"Why do you want to go to Washington?"

"There was another foster kid at my high school. She dated a guy a couple years older than she was who enlisted in the army. He came back for her when she graduated and married her. She always told me that I could come live with them after I graduated."

"Have you been in contact with her recently?"

"I got a letter from her about two months ago. She knew I was almost aged out and told me to come see her once I finished school. She said her husband has a friend who's looking to get married and that he could be interested in me."

"Do you have an address?"

"Right here." She pulled out the letter with a return address from her purse.

"How about a telephone number?"

"I don't have a phone, so I never got one."

At this point, a little alarm bell went off in my head, but I continued.