A Woman In Full: Sharon's Journey Continues; Part XI, Ducks In A Row free porn video

A Woman In Full: Sharon's Journey Continues Part XI - Ducks in a Row In the early morning hours, especially after several days of almost continual work, her mind began to waver as the fog of exhaustion descended and worked its maddening tricks. Lines of text on the printed page jumped and swayed, and her eyes burned with fatigue. A deep yawn made the compelling case for sleep. I should stop, she thought. No, you're close, her mind rebelled. I've been saying that for days, she realized. She sat back on the couch, resting her aching spine against the soft upholstery. Relief was instantaneous. Sleep crept in to claim her almost immediately... No. She got up and walked into the kitchen, going to the sink and splashing cold water on her face. There was still coffee in the pot that Sharon had made. She poured a cup and placed it in the microwave to heat it. Sharon. She'd been such a wonderful, supporting, loving wife through all of this. And her payback has been to be outed on the most infamous gossip page in the city. Well, those bastards would pay. Because Sharon insisted on going forward. The microwave beeped. She took out her steaming mug of coffee. She padded back to her workstation, the coffee table. It had been the only place to put the boxes of Kate's files. She was going through them now. Kate. Sharon had nailed her right from the get-go. She'd sniffed out her phoniness, the fact that she was a user, and she'd even warned her. When we were separated, her mind finished the thought. Fatigue receded, at least for a time. Pain could do that. So could shame. She'd known as soon as Sheila Levinson had mentioned Kate that she would have to revisit that part of her life and career that she most wanted to forget, when she had cheated on Sharon. Kate had appealed to her vanity and seduced her with the promise of easy promotion to a level long denied her. And then Ben Coffey had been nailed for sexual harassment, down in the Charlotte office. He'd made repeated loud comments about Stacy Wood, a quiet, nerdy looking girl, being a lesbian. As it happened, she was very quietly engaged to an equally quiet young man in another department, and when Ben's comments made the ever-increasing rounds, the young man broke off the engagement. Stacy went home and took an overdose of sleeping pills. Fortunately, her roommate had found her and called an ambulance, but in the aftermath the entire story had come out. Ben had been fired, but Kate and Bernice Grady, head of Human Resources, had urged Jocelyn to go down and talk to the troops in person to lay down the law, and she'd done so. She was still proud of what she'd said at that town hall meeting. It had been a rant against both intolerance and gossip. Kate had come into the office she maintained in Charlotte afterward with tears in her eyes. They had talked into the afternoon. At one point, Kate had shifted in her seat and the hem of her skirt had risen, revealing that she was wearing lace-top thigh high stockings. Jocelyn's gaze had lingered. One thing had led to another...Kate had suggested a lovely little inn she knew of in San Juan...the lie to Sharon had been easy... It had only been Monday morning, when they were getting ready to head back on the first flight out, that she'd discovered that the bracelet Sharon had given her was missing. She'd asked at the desk that it be sent to her if anyone turned it in. Kate had suggested it be sent to her instead, so that Sharon would not find out. It had been found later that morning and when the inn had called the house, Sharon had answered. Their relationship had nearly been destroyed. All of this came back to her when she found a note in Kate's files from the inn, a cover note sent with the returned bracelet. That fucking little whore. She got up now and walked to the French doors at the front of the house, looking out onto the deserted streets, the empty park, and the gaslights flickering on 20th Street. What a grand hostess Sharon would have made in the 1890s, she suddenly thought. Sheila had been right. Kate had been in the middle of all of it. Brad had likely put her up to coming on to her as part of his campaign to protect himself if questions were raised. And once Sharon had walked out, leaving her suddenly alone, her judgment had been severely impaired. She took another gulp of coffee. Too bad for Kate, her mind continued, that she didn't do anything to protect herself. She drained the cup and went back to the kitchen. There was one more cup in the pot. She drained it and heated it in the microwave. Wait a minute. Who says she didn't? She took a sip of coffee, but it was steaming hot and burned her lip. The hot liquid seemed to snap her finally to full alert. She thought back on the day Kate was fired. Brad had seemed relieved, and had approved her being told of her dismissal by an HR heavy, being allowed to pack only her personal things - which turned out to be a couple of photos of her on a cruise from years before and a few knick knacks - and then being escorted out by two burly security officers and packed off in a cab. Tom Devon had been the only Controllers Division manager in the office at the time, and so he had been ordered to pack up her files. But no one had ever told him what to do with them. What was the letter from the inn doing in the box with investment files? "She has to have saved something else," she said aloud, now. She went back to the couch and opened box #2. She went slowly, methodically, but it was an eclectic collection of business correspondence that ran the entire breadth of the Controller's Division activities. She'd saved mostly correspondence from the senior officers of the company, including Bernice Grady. "What would they have had to say to each other?" It wasn't very substantive material, mostly related to proposed reorganizations and position re-evaluations. But she noticed that Kate seemed to bump things to Bernice at the slightest opportunity, and always got a warm reply. "Was she fucking Bernice, too?" It was a notion that made her shudder. Bernice was close to sixty, a plus-sized woman with white hair, narrow metal-rimmed glasses and a penchant for pant suits and stack-heeled oxfords. One Monday morning e-mail from Bernice to Kate began, "Hi, BD." BD? She came to an accordion folder that was tied closed. It was heavy. When she opened it, there was a thick stack of papers held together by a rubber band, and a thin manila folder underneath that. She pulled out the folder. There was a handwritten note from Bernice attached. "Hi, BabyDoll..." I'm going to be ill, Jocelyn thought with a smile. "Here is a copy of Brad's contract. Please make sure it does not fall into anyone else's hands but his. Congratulations on being part of his privy council, but be careful, my dear. He may ask for things you wouldn't want to provide. B." She was now fully awake and alert. The question of why Holloran would have asked for his employment contract was brushed aside. He hadn't asked, Kate had. There had to be something in it that was key to the transactions. She read through it. All the usual contractual stuff, bonus clauses, stuff like that. A $10 million bonus based on earnings targets - how sweet was that? Earnings. Sheila had said that the insurance transactions moved liabilities off the books, at a modest cost but with a large gain recognized from the lowering of the liabilities. The spider's web of derivative transactions, all of them contracts that were about batches of assets and liabilities but didn't actually transfer any assets or liabilities, had the effect of re-assuming the financial risk without re-assuming the actual insurance risk. "Yes," Jocelyn had said, "but who actually holds the derivative contracts?" "Oh, a bunch of foreign trusts and stuff, all offshore." Jocelyn blinked twice. "I'm an idiot," she said aloud. "It's been staring me right in the face all the time." Technically, that wasn't true. It had only been staring her in the face once she realized that the derivatives and the reinsurance contract were connected, and all the cost accounting nonsense and the presentation of the contracts themselves had been to make it as hard as possible to connect them. It was getting light out. She drained the coffee cup. She went back and looked at the earnings reports, which she had downloaded to her new laptop as a matter of course. They went back three years. Sure enough, there it was. The reinsurance transaction had turned a very modest earnings year into a very respectable one. But because the return transactions had all been booked through entities that weren't included in the financials, the liabilities were no longer reflected on the books. In other words, they had booked only one side - the positive one - of a transaction that netted to zero, or actually a slight negative when the costs of doing the deal had been factored in. Sheila's marching orders had been to hide any evidence that the deals were connected. She hadn't thought about why that might be until very late in the game. And she never had gotten the answer, but she knew that Kate knew. Sharon was up by eight. She came out in her nighty and groaned when she saw that Jocelyn had not been to bed. "Please make a fresh pot of coffee for me," she said as she typed away furiously at the laptop. "Can't break my choo choo of thought." Sharon was itching to ask questions, but refrained. She had only rarely seen Jocelyn like this, teetering on the edge of exhaustion and pushing through. She went to the kitchen to make coffee. When it was ready, she brought it out in a clean mug. "Thanks," Jocelyn said, still typing and still not looking up. "What time does the office supply place on 23rd open on Sunday?" "Ten. Why?" "That printer of yours also functions as a copier, doesn't it? Sharon nodded. "Okay. I need a case of paper and a couple of toner cartridges. I've got a lot of copies to make and I don't want to run dry in the middle. Can you do that for me?" "Of course." Sharon was back by eleven, as a burly cab driver carried in two cases of paper and two double boxes of toner cartridges. She tipped him and he left. "I figured I'd buy extra, just in case. Whatever you don't use, I probably will." For the next few hours, they worked together, copying, printing, organizing and packaging the whole package. There were five copies - one to give to the SEC, one to give to the company, one for Jack, one for Jocelyn and one for Michael Chung, in case it had any relevance for the defamation suit against the Sun-Trib. Sharon cleaned up the apartment, taking the files that Jocelyn had already arranged and putting them in order in boxes. Jocelyn would only keep the most sensitive items in the safe in the basement, while everything else would be turned over to Jack for storage in the firm's secure storage facility. Jack himself came over later in the evening, and Jocelyn, now running solely on nervous energy, presented him with the fruits of her labor and a surprisingly succinct explanation of what had happened. "So," Jack said. "In the end, Brad Holloran concocted a series of convoluted transactions to get some insurance reserves off the books without actually reducing the company's liabilities, all to nab himself a neat $10 million bonus." "Yep," Jocelyn said. "But with the transaction reversing at the end of this year, the publicly disclosed earnings forecast reflected that and the market has devalued the stock. Holloran figured he'd be able to simply extend the deal but the counterparty wants to unload the entire mess from their books." "And that was enough to ignite a board revolt?" Jocelyn shrugged. "I think somebody got a tip," Sharon said. "Or else someone had a stock play in mind." "So do I," Jack agreed. "How will the SEC look at Jocelyn, now?" Sharon pressed. "With this level of documentation, which not only shows the deal but also shows the lengths to which they went to keep the facts from her, both when she was Senior VP of Finance and CFO? I'll move to have the Wells Notice dismissed before the end of our meeting tomorrow." "What meeting?" Jocelyn asked. "The meeting that Holloran wants you to attend, the one he was trying to keep me out of," Jack said with a laugh. "It's a meeting with the SEC." Sharon stood up, glared at Jocelyn and pointed toward the back of the apartment. "You! Young lady! Get to bed this instant!" "I guess I'll be going," Jack said. Sharon walked him to the door and kissed him on the cheek. Jocelyn didn't go right to bed. She took a long, hot bath, and Sharon found her asleep in the tub. She woke her by taking the sponge and washing in all right places. "Shit!" Jocelyn blurted, instantly awake. "Sorry to have startled you." Jocelyn apologized. Sharon got her rinsed off and out of the tub, and then dried her off like a child. She then got her into a nightgown and led her off to bed. Sharon changed, thinking that Jocelyn was asleep, and after doing her usual routine, slid into bed next to her. "That was a good mothering bit tonight," Jocelyn murmured in the darkness next to her. "Get to sleep." But Jocelyn turned to face her, and kissed her on the nose. Sharon giggled. "I've been thinking about what comes next," she said. "We have a wonderful life together, but lately it's been a little too weighted on my side. I couldn't have survived this if not for you, so loving and sweet and supportive, the perfect wife." "You're exhausted," Sharon whispered, like a mother to a child. "Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning." "I've been wrong, Sharon, and you've been right. Maybe there is some risk involved, but we deal with risk all the time. If you can accept it, so can I. And I know how much you want it." She stopped when Sharon placed her hand on her head. "I love you forever," Sharon said. "But please stop. Please don't say something in the dark that you might have to take back in the light of day," The silence seemed unending, and for a moment she thought that Jocelyn had finally fallen asleep. But she hadn't. At last, she spoke. "When this is over, I want to try to have a baby." She could tell the next morning that Jocelyn was still very tired. But the signs of deep exhaustion had eased. She showered, had a light breakfast and was fortified with coffee. When she came out at eight o'clock, dressed in her best navy blue skirt suit, white satin blouse and navy heels, she made a formidable impression. "Maybe they'll send me the same place they sent Martha," she said. It was a joke she couldn't have made a few days earlier. "But I meant what I said last night. I want to have a baby." "So I heard. We'll see." Jocelyn packed up her things. Sharon used the moment to bring up an idea she had mentioned before regarding Bart. "I don't mind the idea," Jocelyn said, "and I admire you for wanting to try. But I just don't think he'll go for it." The driver rang the bell and came in to carry out the box of documents. She held Jocelyn tightly. She was trying not to cry. "I love you and I'm so proud of you." "I love you, too." Jocelyn reached for her briefcase and gave a happy wave as she left. "I'll call you when I can." She went out that morning for a walk. It was a gorgeous day, and summer would soon be upon them. She looked in the park for Julie and Amber, but they weren't around. Then she remembered that Julie had had a doctor's appointment for little Bryan that morning and wouldn't be around until later. She walked down Irving and then over to Broadway, eventually finding herself at the Strand. I really do need to being KC here some day, she thought. She found old, out-of-print copies of two novels she'd read long ago and she pounced. At $8 apiece, how could you go wrong? She walked back up Broadway, crossing 14th and staying on Park Avenue South as she passed Union Square. There were lots of people strolling around and through the park, but she soon spied a familiar figure, in his customary place, sitting with his back up against the stone wall. "It's the good queen of the north," he called out to her. "Hello, Bart," she replied with a smile. She noted that he looked cleaner than he had the last time she'd seen him. "Back at your old haunts, I see." "Hard to stay away, m'lady, hard to stay away." "How are you doing?" she asked as he struggled to stand up. He shrugged. "Straight, sober," he said. "I know that counts a lot with you." She laughed. "But a little light," he added. She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty. She hesitated before she gave it to him. "What's our deal?" "Food only," he intoned. She gave him the bill. "How do you know I won't just change my mind?" She looked him in the eye. "Because you wouldn't," she replied, very softly. "There aren't too many things you believe in, Bart, but whatever our friendship is, that's one of them." He looked at the ground. "Like I said," he said at last, "you are one very smart lady." He went on to say that she would be pleased to know that he had thus far had a pretty good week, money wise, and had refrained from buying any kind of drug. "Although I did polish off a bottle of wine I found," he added. "Medicinal purposes only, you understand." She asked if that meant he was cleaning himself up, and for once he didn't laugh at the notion. He just grinned. "Then I have a proposal for you, and I would like you to listen," she said. "In the basement of our townhouse is an area that could be made into a studio apartment. Jocelyn and I are willing to let you have it, rent free, until you get on your feet. I'll also help you find some kind of employment so you can get back to supporting yourself. Once you do that, we'll work out a mutually acceptable rental agreement." He offered to carry her bags and they began walking slowly up Park. "What's in them?" he asked. She told him they were books. He chuckled and said, "I remember carrying Emily Baxter's books home from school in the fifth grade. I had a crush on her like you wouldn't believe." "Did it lead to anything?" she asked. She was fascinated that he had said anything about his past at all. "Not then. We were at a block party that summer, and we were just kind of hanging out together, and she informed me that I could kiss her. Of course, I did. Then her family moved away." "Aw." "Well, that's not the end of the story. I get to college, and who's sitting next to me in English lit class but Emily. She still remembers the kiss. We go back to the dorm and get reacquainted. Afterwards, we're lying in that tiny bed together, and she informs me that this means I have to marry her. "It's all light and teasing, just like when she had told me I could kiss her when we were eleven. So, I say, sure. Two months after we graduate from college, we're married." They walked an entire block without saying anything. "We never had kids," he said at last. "She blamed me for that. Maybe because I was never that ripped up about it. When I lost my job, she decided I'd made the marriage fail and she left. Shit, the marriage was her idea in the first place, going back to that kiss when we were eleven." They were on 20th Street, now. "The thing is, I got married to the wrong woman 'cause I let someone else decide. She wanted me to go into accounting, so I went, and that turned out to be the wrong career because I let someone else decide. Then I got fired because of things that someone else had decided I should do." "And you think, now, that I'm trying to decide how you should live?" Sharon asked. "Aren't you? Not anything specific, but just, y'know, get off the streets, clean yourself up, make something of yourself...the thing is, and I don't mean you at all, 'cause you are the most wonderful lady I ever met, but most people who want you to make something of yourself mean they want you to make yourself something different from who you really are. And the one thing I've been since I been on the streets is something no one else wants me to be." Sharon smiled to make sure he knew she was on his side. "That's not the same thing as something you want to be," she said. "But that's just it, kind, sweet, smart, beautiful lady. It is exactly the same. All I want is to not be something someone else wants me to be. Simple, uncomplicated, easy to achieve." Her face fell. "It's like I told you," he went on. "The only way to beat the system is to drop out of it. You and your lady are fighting it on another front, and that's cool. But, really, fix up that old studio, rent it out to some yuppie college graduate looking to make his way I the world and make a ton of money off it. And if you can occasionally drop a few Washingtons on me, it'll be much appreciated." They were at the front door. He gave the packages back to her. "I sure hope I didn't hurt your feelings," he said. She shook her head. "And I hope I didn't hurt yours," she added. "Hell, no! Laid a Jackson on me!" There was a message on the machine when she got inside. "Hi, darling. Sorry I missed you. Probably won't be able to call for hours. Don't worry." The tone was neutral. "She's worried," Sharon said. She heard the front door open, and steps going up the stairs. Halfway up, they stopped. A moment later, she heard them come back down, followed by a tentative knock on the door. "Hello, David," she said. "Early for you." "Half day, 'cause of exams. Can we talk?" She let him in. "I was just going to make some lunch," she said. "Would you like to join me?" "No, thanks." It was a bereft-of-hope mumble. She took some things out of the refrigerator and set them on the counter, while he flopped down in a chair in the small breakfast nook. She sliced some tomatoes, cucumbers and mushrooms and then crumbled some cheese into a bowl with fresh romaine lettuce. The bowl was enough for two or more. "Want to come inside?" she asked. "It's too cramped in here to eat." He followed her in. She sat at her usual place at the dining room table and he sat to her right. There were two plates and two forks, and there was a small bowl of her homemade dressing with a serving spoon. She spooned out a small helping of salad for herself and then some dressing. "You sure you don't want any?" she asked. He shook his head. "I saw KC yesterday," he said. "She said she just can't deal with the idea of me as a girl right now, and that maybe we just need some time apart. She asked me to stay away from her and Ty." "I'm so sorry, David," she said, placing her hand on his. But he pulled it away. "Your advice wasn't very good," he said, his eyes narrow and accusing. "On the contrary," she said, "my advice was the only way to go, as long as you wanted a long term relationship with her and wanted to give expression to your femme self. You didn't want to suppress Deanna for good for the sake of the relationship, did you?" "No." "Well, there you are." "You sound like you think everything's okay." She sat back and regarded him kindly. "You were going upstairs when you came in. Planning on spending the rest of the afternoon as Deanna?" "No." She resumed eating her salad. "You feel she betrayed you?" "Kinda." She looked up. He was staring at her plate. "Stop being so proud and take some," she said. Silently, he took the bowl and spooned out most of the remaining salad onto his plate, then poured most of the remaining dressing on top. She giggled and said, "you sure don't eat like a girl." He ate in large bites and quickly, but quietly. "I know you won't believe this," she said, "but everything is okay. Not necessarily for you and KC. I have no way of knowing what will happen with that. But she gave you the right answer - you each need to be away from the other for a while. "Neither of you really knows what you want. You both have conflicted feelings. You want KC, but you want to be Deanna, too. She wants you, but it's David, not Deanna, that she wants. You have to decide how much you might be willing to give up of Deanna to have KC. She has to decide how much, if any, of Deanna she can accept in order to have you. "You're both young. And willful. And stubborn. But mostly young. And so it will take time for your emotions to calm down, for each of you to reflect, and for each of you to decide where you stand. Then, you can talk, and negotiate. And maybe compromise." "But why should I give up who I am?" he cried. "Because if you really do love KC, that's who you are, too. But the problem is that no matter how much you love someone, you can't control how they think and what they feel. Each person's life belongs only to that person. "That's why I won't try to tell you what I think you should do. Because your life belongs only to you, and I have no right to express an opinion on what you should do with it. Just like no one has the right to tell me what to do with mine." He finished his salad in silence. He thanked her and moved toward the door. "Don't be morose," she said. "I just have a feeling she's never gonna want me." It was late when Jocelyn got home that night. The initial meeting, the one Holloran had tried to get her to attend without Jack, had been short but full of drama, as he had thundered at her and called her a sellout. "You were just as much a part of this as I was," he yelled. "Really?" she replied. "Oh, do please try to prove that. Because this whole case is full of proof to the contrary." "Mr. Holloran, you entered into a transaction that purported to move tens of millions of dollars of liabilities off your books," Jack said, "when in fact it did no such thing. The subsequent increase in earnings triggered a ten million dollar bonus for you. The reversal of the transaction at the end of this year will depress the company's stock price, thereby damaging the shareholders to whom you have a fiduciary responsibility. "Now, I could be wrong, but when I went to school, that was called civil fraud. However, I'll leave that call to the SEC and the Justice Department. In the meantime, my client will turn over documentation to the SEC that lays out, in detail, the nature and purpose of the transactions, the manner in which they were executed, and the attempts to cover them up." Randall Platt had objected that it was all subject to interpretation, and that preventing sudden peaks and valleys in earnings was part of a chief executive's responsibility. "If that's the case," Jack replied with a shrug, "then you never had anything to worry about. My client and I will let the documentation speak for itself." From there they had gone into the meeting with the SEC. As soon as Jack began to lay out the incriminating e-mails, Platt claimed that they were privileged. "These are notes between two accountants working for the same employer," Jack noted. "It is well established that no privilege attaches. And any confidentiality that might have pertained to Mr. Holloran's employment contract was broken when he became a subject of this investigation. Besides, once the head of Human Resources released the document to a third party with no need to know, any expectation of confidentiality ceased to exist." Jack had then also given over a formal statement that Jocelyn had prepared and signed. True to his word, Jack had requested that the Wells Notice to Jocelyn be withdrawn, and after lengthy discussion as to the legality of such a move, he was assured that whether it was withdrawn or not, there would be no further action against her. "I'll want a written statement to that effect," he'd said. It had been agreed. After the meeting, Jack had assured Jocelyn that she had nothing to worry about. "Holloran, though, had better get used to the idea of life in orange pajamas." "There's an emergency board meeting on Wednesday," she said as they sat down to dinner. "Our Chief Operating Officer, Howard Mason, to whom I tendered my resignation this evening, begged me to stay on and to attend the meeting with him. I told him I'll attend the meeting but that I really did want to leave. He asked me to think about it." Sharon thought she should stay on. "I thought you wanted me to resign." "I did. But that was before we knew how this would all come out, when all either of us could see was disaster. But it occurs to me now that staying on with a chief executive you can trust, a board that appreciates you and a staff that respects the hell out of you might mean that you have finally come home. "And if you're really serious about having a baby, that will present its own series of choices if we succeed." "I am serious, darling. I know you want a baby and I realize that I do, too. Very much. I'll get her into the world and you take charge from then." They both laughed. "You look exhausted," Sharon said. "I'm very worried about you. Get plenty of sleep tonight. Finish out the week and we'll see what happens."