Part 14 Teenager In Love

On the way back to the hotel I pulled him into a jeweller where we chose an engagement ring. It wasn’t flashy but I could see the worried look on his face at the price.

I chuckled, “I’ll get it today and get the boss to take it out of your wages during the summer.”

That done he put it on my finger and I kissed him before paying the account and we went back to the hotel.

On the way in I asked, “Tonight, I want to eat before bed, those late night snacks are no good for my stomach,” so we had a drink until the restaurant opened and then ate our dinner before going up to bed.

I think the waiting did him good because he was extra full when he finally came and I had to get out of bed carefully and go and clean up afterwards.

We stayed in bed until mid-morning Sunday and then showered, dressed and went out to find somewhere for brunch. After I had paid the account I put my suitcase in my car. His clothes were getting a bit whiffy by now so he took me back to his rooms where I waited until he changed, there being a ‘No Sex’ rule in the quarters.

We then strolled around the city sights and had a good lunch before he went back to studies. I went and got in my car to drive home, arriving late in the afternoon.

During my time down at the cottage Albert had been busy. I now had papers to change Susan’s name to Samantha that I signed and they got put through.

We worked with the clinic and they were able to re-issue the paperwork for Samantha Saunders with an unknown date of birth, to Samantha Schurbert with the birthday in December 2043.

Thus, I became genuinely Samantha Schurbert, daughter of Albert, and he couldn’t be more pleased. When the brothers were told there was a mixed reaction; the nice one giving me a hug and a kiss and saying “Hello, little sister” while the other just gave me a hug and said nothing.

Albert asked me what I would like to do in the company and I said I would like to work in HR.

I started in March and really enjoyed having a purpose to wake up to. With my wide experience of being both male and female and sometimes in-between I was able to work with everyone who came to see me and soon got a nickname of “Auntie Samantha”.

There was an underground LGTB group in the factory and I was able to commandeer a room for them to use for their meetings and they appointed me as their ‘Honorary Woman in Charge’ so I got a badge made with that which I wore whenever one of them made an appointment for a visit to HR.

Albert saw the badge one day and had a big laugh as I told him how it came about. He got one made for himself that had ‘Honorary Man behind the Woman in Charge’ and came to a couple of meetings of the group in their room.

This was taken as a token of acceptance by the group and their attitude towards the company changed for the better with them all trying to help the guy who helped them. When the brothers found out about it one laughed; and the other didn’t.

I made regular weekend trips to visit Jerry and sometimes we would have Sunday lunch with his tutor before I left.

I came to realise that they were working on something totally new, involving making electricity from the change of temperature.

It was all over my head but Jerry explained that like harnessing a different element, the system they were working on acted with temperature differences.

They had already made a tiny amount of current with a temperature change of twenty degrees and it showed that the idea was good.

When I was alone with Albert one day, I spoke to him about the concept and he got excited. He said that this would work in places where there is little sunshine and would even work everywhere at night, when normal solar panels were useless.

Next time we had lunch, not long before the summer break, I put it to Jerry and his tutor that Schurbert Solar would fund a three month study in their R&D section to see if the idea really had wings.

I told them that, as Jerry would be living at the house, the tutor and his family could stay with us as well. I also told Jerry that his very first weekend home would include playing at a dance for the local service club.

During that summer we had five gigs playing at local halls and it was a lot of fun. The tutor had brought his wife and two daughters to stay with us and they came along to every show and all had a good time.

During the week we were all at the factory, me in HR and them building the first test rig of household size. The wife and girls spent their days touring the district and generally relaxing.

One gig we had was a bit different from the others. Jerry was up for his twentieth birthday and Albert said we would have a party for him.

We set up the games room as a dance floor again, the big doors could be opened and, because it was summer, we just had an awning outside in the patio to shelter from the sun.

We had it catered so that everyone could enjoy themselves and the usual crowd was invited. It was a lot of fun, us playing for a while in the afternoon, food being served, some dancing to the juke box and then us playing in the evening again.

The only low point in the day was when the surly brother got me alone outside and accused me of ‘wriggling my pretty ass into the company and spending his inheritance on trivial parties.’ I told him he was stupid on so many levels it wasn’t even funny.

By the time Jerry and his tutor needed to be back at the university they had managed to develop a five watt output from a twenty degree temperature change and were both over the moon, as were the rest of R&D.

From then on we worked in conjunction with the university to perfect the system. I was very happy having Jerry in my bed every night and I was looking forward to the day he and I would get married. I was very much a teenager in love and my joy infected the rest of the house.

At the end of July Barry and his father tendered for the company transport business and won it fair and square. This brought one of the brothers into an incandescent rage and he called for a board meeting to air his grievances.

The company board had Albert as the Managing Director, the older brother as CEO, four eminent local dignitaries as Treasurer, Secretary and two board members, plus the surly one and a member of the staff as a staff representative.

I wasn’t there when I was accused of providing inside information to my friends in the tender process and he demanded that I be dismissed immediately.

The board took a break while I was summonsed and I arrived with the guy who had overseen the tender.

I refuted any idea that I had been involved and the guy explained that the tender papers showed that Barry and his father had put in a better figure well before any other companies. There was no way I could have assisted them, not knowing what they were up against.

I supported him and the board agreed that the accusation was purely supposition without substance.

The staff representative said that my time in HR had improved the atmosphere in the factory and that productivity had lifted by five percent since I started. Then one of the board members said that he was considering full retirement and nominated me to take his place.

I looked at Albert and the brothers and could see that they were totally surprised at this development. The surly one turned bright red and then accused me of being a gold-digger ring-in who was no more a member of the family than the ceremonial ash-tray in the middle of the board-room table.

I spoke up, “Look, I’m as much part of this family as you. I can prove it beyond a shadow of doubt. I’m happy to take a DNA test if you’ll take one as well. If I’m not better than ninety-five percent a match with you I’ll pack my bags and leave. Nominate someone to oversee the test from the non-family board members and let’s sort this out once and for all.”

The Company Secretary was the one to oversee the test and then I and my ‘brother’ were booked at a local GP who would take the samples.

Two weeks later the results were read out to another meeting of the board and I was shown to be close to ninety-nine percent a Schurbert, as I and Albert had expected.

That board meeting was given the note from the retiring member and I was nominated and elected as the replacement ordinary board member. I did hear that my ‘brother’ stormed out of the room muttering oaths.

The following evening I heard shouting from downstairs and looked down to see him having an argument with Albert, still saying that I had no right to be in the house.

I went down and asked Albert to go and get himself a drink because I wanted to say something to my ‘brother’ in private.

He went off to the kitchen and I took my ‘brother’ into the parlour.

He refused to sit down and snarled, “What do want to say, bitch. You’re stealing my inheritance. I can see it now, my father leaving you and your hippy boyfriend the house when it should be mine, I tell you, mine!”

I said quietly, “I may have no memory of you abusing my body when I was twelve but I have photographic proof of the scars around my vagina which must have come from that time.”

His went red and snarled “This is a wind-up, you’re just saying that. It’s a total fabrication!”

“OK” I said, “When we were clearing my bedroom for painting we found an envelope behind the vanity. Ask Jerry, he was there. It looked like the first draft of a suicide letter where Susan laid it all on the line. Your request for sexual experimentation. Her idea that it may be interesting and then your savage abuse of her when she was helpless under you.”

“It was hard reading for me because it had happened to this body. I’m just lucky to not have those memories. Your mother took her ‘on holiday’ when she had the tears stitched and it scarred her mind for the rest of her short life.”

He shouted, “You could have forged that note.”

“What about the letters you wrote to her? What about the one that starts ‘Sweetest Suzi’, or the last one that called her a ‘conniving blackmailing bitch.’ They were even harder to read.”

His face went white and he snarled, “You wanted it as much as me, bitch. You led me on, telling me that I was your man. It wasn’t my fault you couldn’t take a real man!”

He turned on his heel and went to the door that would take him to the hallway. I stood trembling until I heard the roar of his car heading down the drive.

As I stood I felt arms around me and was enveloped in a hug from a crying Albert.

“Oh, my baby” he sobbed “I thought that something had happened but I didn’t know it was his fault.”

“You heard, then?” and he held me tighter.

“Yes I heard it all. I find it difficult to think that he’s a son of mine. Do you still have those papers?”

“No, I burned them all but he doesn’t know that.”

He kissed my forehead, “Good!”

Part 15 I Walk the Line

We went into the kitchen where a glass and a bottle stood. He must have just stopped and come to listen.

He put the bottle and glass away and filled a kettle, pulling a couple of mugs from the shelf.

“Nice cup of coffee, I think,” he said, “Good for thinking with.”

While the water was coming to the boil he called the eldest son and asked him to come to the house as soon as he could and bring his wife with him.

We were just sitting with our empty mugs in front of us when they arrived, having not said a word in that time. You could almost see his brain working.

When his son and wife arrived we all went into the parlour where he poured a stiff drink and put it in his son’s hand, “Have this ready, you’re going to need it.”

He then related what had transpired and was able to remember the discussion almost verbatim.

The older son was getting madder as he heard what his sibling had done and I could see his wife weeping.

I just sat and looked at the floor; I had started this by just wanting to warn the younger brother off, not expecting that he would hang himself on his own words.

At the end of Alberts’ speech my nice brother came over to me and knelt by my chair to hold me in his arms, “I apologise, Samantha, for not being there when my sister needed me. I was in university at the time and was preoccupied with exams. Nothing was said to me at the time but I remember my mother going away with Susan for a while because she sent me a postcard. I remember the card particularly because she put, ‘Wish you were there’ instead if ‘Wish you were here’ and it looked odd.”

Albert then announced, “I’ve been thinking since I heard his little tirade. He always wanted this house and he’ll not get it, not now. I’m going to see my lawyers tomorrow and take him out of my will. My estate will go to the two of you with Samantha getting the house and you getting extra cash to even it out. I know that you’re happy where you now are so that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

My brother looked at me, “As long as I’m welcome here, it will be perfect.”

The discussion then turned to the business and the decision was to wait until we knew what his actions would be after tonight and then react in an appropriate manner without bringing the family issue into it.

We all then had a stiff drink to settle our nerves before everyone headed for their own beds. Next day there was a letter addressed to the MD and CEO at reception which was the resignation letter, effective immediately.

The only thing, some weeks after that, was a card in an envelope addressed to me that was delivered to the factory. It was a picture of a secluded beach in South Africa and on the back were three words asking me to do something that I had not been able to do since my experience with the water feature.

Next time my nice brother, Arthur, and his wife Eunice came to the house I showed him the card and he snorted, “Typical!”

He then told me that we had a company that monitored patents and name registrations for us and his brother had turned up in Durban and was trying to patent some of our older designs in South Africa under the Schurbert SA company name, not being successful as our patents were world-wide.

“The silly sod never bothered to keep up with what we were developing and had no knowledge of what your Jerry and the R&D boys are doing. His main job, other than being on the board, was almost ceremonial in the distribution area which is why he was so mad at Barry getting the contract. He was taking cut-backs from his own mates with trucks to deliver our products.”

Things were almost normal in the run up to the year’s end, if you didn’t factor in my twentieth birthday.

I spent a bit of time with the gardeners planning our autumn flowers and the beds did look good.

Whenever Jerry was back he was immersed in the work he was doing but we did get our nights together. He had, by now moved all of his stuff to the house, his clothes not taking up much room in the big wardrobes and his music gear in the music room along with mine.

Arthur had already organised patents for the new process with Jerry included in the owners so, even if it didn’t work as hoped, Jerry would get some returns if someone else perfected it. That was something we hoped wouldn’t happen.

In those months between going onto the board and my birthday, I made it a project to learn as much as I could about our products. I put on an assistant in HR who could contact me in an emergency and spent a lot of time down on the shop floor, walking the line and talking to anyone who wanted to talk to me.

Some days Arthur and I did the walk together and we got on first name terms with an awful lot of our employees. It did help that they had overalls or dust coats with their names embroidered on the pocket. There were ones that we got fairly friendly with, mainly the supervisors and inspectors.

We generally finished at R&D where we kept abreast of the new idea. One day we walked in and everyone was high-fiving.

The supervisor told us that the university had sent an upgrade for the computer programme and they had got five watts out of a ten degree temperature change. The thing about this system was that it was becoming clear that a typical unit would be about the size of a loaf of bread in the first version, much of the internals being a small computer powered by a NiCad battery that monitored the temperature change and modulated the power output. All we needed to get to was about a hundred watts per degree and we could put together a viable package.

I asked them if it would be possible to create a product that used a similar method but utilised wind or temperature effects on a thin screen and the power generated by the differences in tension across the screen, sort of like harvesting the strain in a tree trunk in a wind. The supervisor looked interested and I forgot about it once I went home.

Home, yes, the house was home to me and my family. I was becoming Samantha, the twin sister without the hang-ups and now called Albert Daddy without thinking about it.

I was his baby girl and he made sure no-one forgot it. I never asked for anything and tried to pay my way, even taking over the salary of Maisie as my personal secretary as well as maid.

In November I went back to the clinic for tests and was passed with flying colours. They had not operated on anyone in a year but had been busy looking through the records to see where things had gone wrong for the biker.

The decision was that both patients needed to be as close as they could be, my family link with Susan proving that. They were not giving up but, by the same token, they would not operate on anyone who did not meet the requirements. Everyone now who applied were getting their family tree looked at closely to find any relative with brain problems.

My birthday bash was as frantic as the one last year. We ate, drank, danced and we in the band played for the last part of the evening.

One of the things a bit different was how I was accepted. Those who had put Susan on the cards before now put Samantha or even Sammi. I made sure I opened up all the cards and gifts in front of the givers and lined them up on the snooker table, down the centre so you could look at them when you went for food.

The shock for me was when I opened the card from my grand-parents. Inside was a multiple share certificate in the company and I gasped, “Thank you, but surely I can’t take this, it’s far too much.”

My grandfather said “You deserve it as someone keeping our grand-daughters body alive but, more than that, you deserve it for being the grand-daughter we thought we had lost.”

I hugged and kissed the two of them and took the certificate to put it safe in my guitar case near the instruments. I was playing the Gibson full time now and was very careful with its transportation, even around the house.

I did get another item from my mothers’ collection and Jerry gave me a very sexy nightie which he told me was his present to himself. I told him he should wear it himself then.

I got to wear it that night but only for about ten minutes.

After that it was a short madness up to Christmas and New Year again. We did a lot of partying and playing and there was no-one this time to look unhappy at our antics. In fact, Arthur and Eunice really had a good time and Albert spoke to everyone and danced with a lot of older ladies, some of whom were single at the moment! It was now close to three years since his wife had passed away.

In the New Year I kept up my time with HR as well as getting down onto the shop floor. I had a wealth of knowledge now and there were times when Arthur, me and the staff representative on the board could steer them clear of dangerous decisions and point them towards new ways of working.

As such, the company output improved as efficiency went up. Jerry was in his last year at the university and we had a meeting in June; the board to be given the results of our project so far.

The R&D had been tight and very few people had knowledge of what was going on and that day was the one where the board was to authorise further funding.

The board-room was full with the extra bodies and the head of R&D was there to give his report with a small test unit, set up with various gauges.

It didn’t look much but a new feature was a foot long flat mast that stuck out of the box. He set up a fan and a small heater and gave me a wink as he did so.

When the presentation took place, it floored everyone not in on the experiments. The box was turned on, using the internal battery and there was a zero power output. He then switched the heater on with a timer that shut it off again after thirty seconds then back on again after another thirty seconds.

There were gasps as the output gauge showed twenty watts with every change of the heating cycle. The R&D then passed over to Jerry who explained how the power was being generated.

He then said “Now I’m going to add another factor, a slight breeze. This is not turning a blade but is just going to play on this mast. It was invented by Samantha about six months ago.”

He turned the fan on with the unit set to swing from side to side. Every time the breeze passed over the unit, the power output doubled!

“It’s such a simple but brilliant concept I would ask her to marry me if I hadn’t already done so.”

Albert made sure that everyone realised that this was just the start of development and must remain secret, though patents had been applied for with the mast concept being put in my name.

During that summer a unit was put in the safest place possible, on top of the house. It was a lot bigger, about the size of a bar fridge with a row of masts that looked like the teeth of a comb. It was actually a bank of twenty smaller units packed inside.

Jerry would monitor it with a computer before he went into the factory with me. It put out about as much output as a one kilowatt solar set-up but did this at night as well as long as the temperature changed or there was a breeze.

Jerry graduated with Honours and was asked to stay and complete his doctorate course with his thesis being based on the generator unit.

It would be another couple of years but we had another event at the end of that summer that had a profound effect on my life.

After we had Jerrys’ twenty-first bash Jerry and I got married and I walked the aisle on the arm of a beaming Albert to join Jerry at the altar, standing there with Barry as Best Man.

I coerced Miranda into being my Maid of Honour and I must say we made a good looking wedding party. The reception was at one of the hotels in town and we had a band there to play for us. My dancing the bridal waltz with my man was one of the greatest moments of my life.

We had our wedding night in the hotel, making gentle love while we could hear the band still playing downstairs.

After that we flew down to the West Country just to relax and calm down. I had stopped taking the pills and was now enjoying the sex with the added chance of getting pregnant.

By the time my twenty-second came around I was, indeed, pregnant.

Little James Boyer came into the world in time for his father’s twenty-third birthday. Jerry and Samantha Boyer were ecstatic and so was his grandfather, Albert.

The music room was now also a nursery and the yellow colour still worked for that.

Marianne Gregory © 2022