Empty Nesters Ch. 02

The case lasted almost 15 months, rather short for a case like that. The doctors were, initially, represented by the three largest law firms in town. Against that army of lawyers, we handled the case with three lawyers: me, Glenda, and an associate from our old firm who had gone with Glenda named Amas Zeiyan. Amas was 28 when the case started. While she was US born, she was the daughter of an Egyptian father and an American mother. The result was a striking young woman with straight black hair and a Mediterranean complexion, large brown eyes, a large chest, narrow waist, and long legs. Amas was also a talented lawyer and a hard worker.

The tone for our working relationship was set, accidentally, one hot Sunday in September a few months after suit was filed. We had just received a large production of documents from the defendants. Glenda and I were in her office reviewing the documents. We had been nude together many times before at the nude swims and on vacations with her boyfriend and my wife. We weren't expecting anyone else in Glenda's office and thought it would be somewhat more pleasant to be nude while we reviewed the documents.

We'd been at it about an hour. I was sitting in the conference room leaned back in a chair with my bare feet up on a side table. My legs were spread a bit and my dick and balls were hanging between my legs, facing one of the conference room doors. Glenda had just walked back into the room with two more cups of coffee when the door I was facing swung open. Amas started into the room. She saw Glenda first, then turned to look at me. Amas didn't say anything for a moment. Then, she smiled and quipped, "Will, I'd heard you put powerful things in your briefs. It appears that was true."

Glenda started apologizing to her young partner, explaining that we hadn't been expecting her or anyone else to come in that Sunday. "No apology needed," Amas replied. "You two have a great idea. I wish I'd thought of it. I'm always open to new ways of working." Amas kicked off her shoes, pulled her knit top over her head, undid her bra and tossed it in a chair, unbuckled her jeans, and slid her jeans and panties off in one fluid motion. Amas was another of those women, like Glenda, who were very attractive clothed but were truly beautiful nude. The three of us reviewed documents in the nude for another six hours.

Because we were thin on lawyers, all three of us took depositions. Amas took a long, contentious, and very good deposition of the senior member of one of the defendant physicians' groups. Near the end of the deposition, the august older doctor told Amas, on the record, that she should "go back where you came from."

Without missing a beat, Amas replied "I go home to Columbus at least once a month." Her father was a long-time professor of physics at the state's flagship public university. Amas had been born in our state's capital city.

The case effectively ended for the defendants when I deposed their expert witness. He had written a lengthy report which, I found when I started checking the literature he cited as support for his conclusions, was complete bullshit. I finally got him to admit that the real basis of his opinion that Dr. DOD's treatment methods were not safe was that they had not been used long enough in clinical settings to know whether they were safe. That was a Catch-22 because, according to the expert, you could not consider these treatments safe unless they had been used safely on patients, but you should not use them on patients until they were deemed to be safe. The expert, a doctor in his late sixties, gratuitously added that he did not consider any treatment safe that he had not personally been trained on, and he had not been trained on any new methods of treatment in almost twenty years.

We filed a motion to exclude the expert's testimony, known as a Daubert motion. The defendants responded by adding another lawyer, this one from out of town. I was told later this was because the doctors thought their local lawyers, most of whom I knew, were being too "gentle" with me. The new lawyer's first act in the Daubert hearing was to approach the bench and say, "Your Honor, before we go any further, I think you should see this. The original of this photograph was purchased in a shop in New York last Saturday." He handed a single sheet to U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Bright, turned, walked away from the bench, and, with a look of complete triumph, handed a sheet to me.

The sheet was a copy of one of the early photographs Chris had taken of April and me, nude with our arms behind each other's backs, facing the camera. I knew Magistrate Judge Bright, and I knew she didn't tolerate gamesmanship, but I was not sure how she'd react to this.

Judge Bright stared at the picture for a moment. "Ok," she said, "we've established that counsel and his wife stay in very good shape. What does that have to do with whether I should exclude this witness's testimony?" My new opponent hadn't expected that reaction and struggled for an answer. While he was stammering, Judge Bright addressed me: "Counsel, would you like this picture entered into the record? I understand it is already in the public domain, but you might gain some admirers around the courthouse."

"I will leave that to the Court's sound discretion," I replied.

Believe it or not, the photo fiasco was the high point of the hearing for the defendants. They called their expert to the stand and had him directly contradict much of his testimony in his deposition. I pointed out those contradictions on cross-examination. Judge Bright found the expert was "unreliable and unscientific," and excluded his testimony from the trial in toto. Defendants now had no evidence at all showing their ads might be true.

Judge Bright had gone back into chambers. The opposing lawyers were with their clients in the hall trying to make this disaster for their case sound less disastrous. Glenda, Amas, and I were starting to leave the courtroom when the Judge's law clerk poked her head through a door and said, "Mr. Stone, Judge Bright would like to see you for a moment."

"Oh shit," I thought. "Here it comes." I followed the law clerk into chambers and into the Judge's office. Judge Bright, a slender, rather cute blonde, was sitting behind her massive desk.

Holding up the nude picture of April and me, Judge Bright said sternly, "Counsel, I didn't know you did this sort of thing." I didn't know what to say in response. The Judge's face suddenly broke into a smile. "Will," she said, "you look too good naked for a man your age. Tell April I said hello." She handed the picture to her law clerk, saying, "Janet, find an appropriate place for this in chambers."

I walked back into the courtroom, where Glenda and Amas waited with questioning expressions. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell them what had happened in chambers. I just said, "another example of why it is a good thing this town is small enough that the judges and lawyers all know each other."

Our case for Dr. DOD settled not long after the Daubert hearing. The defendant doctors agreed to pay Dr. DOD $ 6 million in quarterly payments over four years. Glenda and Dr. DOD had agreed on a one-third contingent fee. Every quarter for four years, each of Glenda, Amas, and I received almost $ 42,000 from this case. Maybe practicing law wasn't that bad after all, but I was still hesitant to return to the habit full time.

Back at the office, of course, I had to explain the picture to Glenda and Amas. The three of us had seen each other nude many times by that point. Amas looked at the picture and said, "Damn, your wife is beautiful."

"I think she is," I replied.

"Who took this?" Glenda asked. I had to explain about Chris Feldman. I chose to omit mention of the work April and I did with Doreen.

An expression came on Amas's face that was both embarrassed and naughty. "Solomon and I have wanted to pose for some nudes of the two of us together," she said. "Do you think your guy Feldman would do them?"

"I'll ask if you want me to," I replied.

Seeing that I was treating her question as normal, Amas seemed more confident. "Please do," she said.

I was not surprised that Chris was willing to shoot some nudes of Amas and Solomon. I was surprised that Amas invited April and me to the shoot. "I've enjoyed looking at her husband naked," Amas said, "so its only fair the April get to see my boyfriend naked." I had met Amas's boyfriend Solomon Kaufman. He was a young architect. My major impression of him from our meetings was that he was very quiet. If he had agreed to Amas's invitation to us, he had gone up in my estimation.

April and I took Amas and Solomon to Chris's studio. Amas and Solomon stripped without hesitation and seemed to enjoy posing nude. Solomon was very slender, with dark, wavy hair, and a complexion I guess you could care swarthy. Nude, you saw that he had well-defined muscles. I learned later that he was a very good tennis player. He and Amas made a very attractive couple.

April and I are both of northwest European heritage and have light complexions. The contrast with Amas and Solomon gave Chris an idea. Once he had finished shooting Amas and Solomon, he said, "I think putting both couples together would make some appealing pictures. Of course, I'll pay all four of you." Seeing that posing nude had not adversely affected me professionally, Amas agreed immediately. I'm not sure Solomon was quite as enthused, but the look on Amas's face won him over. Rather than Amas and Solomon getting dressed, April and I stripped off and joined them in front of Chris's camera.

Neither Amas nor Solomon were reticent about touching us once April and I got naked with them. That gave Chris ideas. He had the four of us pose in a group hug, which he shot from all sides, above on a ladder, and below lying on his back among our bare feet. He had April and Solomon pose in a nude embrace, he said to highlight the contrast in complexions and ages. Chris had Amas and me do the same. Amas was rubbing her belly against my dick, and I had a visible hard-on when we ended the pose. "Will gets excited around naked women," April quipped.

Gwen was in her senior year of undergrad by the time we finished the Dr. DOD case. I'd missed about a year and a half of her college. Paul had gotten his doctorate but was staying in Boston as a research assistant until Gwen graduated. Paul had lined up an entry level faculty position in Heidelberg starting in the fall. Gwen would be following him there to do her post-graduate study.

Christmas of Gwen's senior year was a bit unique. Gwen and Paul were, of course, in town visiting us and Ute and Iens. The holiday did not have the same significance for Amas's and Solomon's families, so they were both in town. Glenda's father had passed, and her mother was in a nursing home. I'm not sure what the story was with Keith's family, but our close friends were all around for Christmas.

April and I hosted Christmas dinner for Gwen and Paul, Ute and Iens, Amas and Solomon, and Glenda and Keith. That wasn't unique by itself, but we thought the fact that it was a nude Christmas dinner made the occasion unique. Glenda was doing a great job of keeping the weight off, so we had five nude women in the house who ranged from very attractive to drop-dead beautiful. That fact was not lost on any of the men. There was a lot of hugging, kissing, and touching. We were all in very stable relationships, so no one was upset if someone squeezed the boob or stroked the dick of someone else's partner.

Glenda and Amas had been pushing me to join their law firm from early in the Dr. DOD case. I had resisted because I was didn't think I was ready to return to the animosity and dishonesty that surrounded most litigation. April was pushing me to join Glenda and Amas too. "You're bored," she had told me. "You get lethargic and depressed when you're bored." I think she just wanted me out of the house more.

In early December, Glenda and Amas had proposed an arrangement intended to address my concerns about keeping my workload under control but carrying my share of the financial load. April and I had thought about it and talked about it and neither of us could find any real problems. I used Christmas dinner to announce that I was joining Glenda and Amas on the terms they proposed. To mark the event, I posed nude in front of our Christmas tree with Glenda nude on one side of me and Amas nude on the other side. That picture became the semi-official firm photo for Porter, Zeiyan, and Stone. We framed a copy and put it up in the reception area of our office. No one could accuse us of failing to make full disclosure.

I'm going to move the story ahead about four years. April and I were in our fifties. Gwen and Paul were married. Paul was teaching and doing research. Gwen was a Europe-based analyst for an American investment bank. Iens's company had wanted to promote him back to Germany, but Ute did not want to abandon the practice she had built here. Showing more consideration than I think most U.S. companies would have, Iens's firm created a U.S.-based position for him to protect his visa status so he could get some of the benefits of the proposed promotion and Ute could retain her medical practice here.

My business relationship with Glenda and Amas had worked better than I had expected. Despite being business partners, the three of us had become even better friends. To the amusement of our receptionist/secretary/paralegal, there were many days when all three of us went nude in the office. Glenda and Keith had been together close to twenty years without marrying. They seemed perfectly happy. My sense was that Amas and Solomon were getting close to getting married.

My sense was correct, but things turned out very wrong. What I did not learn until later was that Solomon had proposed and Amas had accepted. Amas's parents liked Solomon and were thrilled. However, when Solomon told his parents, the shit hit the fan. Solomon's father Menachem was an immigrant to the U.S. He had served in the IDF and had been stationed in the Sinai at the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Menachem had never been happy about his son dating a woman who was half Egyptian, and Solomon marrying one was intolerable.

Glenda and I were totally unaware of any problem until Amas failed to show for a meeting with a client one morning. We tried her cell phone and home landline but got no answer. Fearing something might have happened to her, I drove to the new, upscale condo project where Amas and Solomon were renting a unit. Something had indeed happened, but not the type of thing I feared.

The door to their unit was ajar when I arrived. I knocked but got no response. Pushing the door open, the unit looked somewhat disheveled, as if someone had gathered things up quickly. Walking farther into the unit, I saw Amas asleep or passed out on the sofa. An empty bottle of rum lay on the floor. There was no sign of Solomon. Satisfied that Amas was breathing and in no apparent distress, I thought it best to let her sleep. I called Glenda and told her what I had found. I said I would stay with Amas until she woke up and told us what was going on. Then, I called April. April and Amas had become close friends. Whatever was going on, I wanted April there to help Amas.

When Amas awoke, with what seemed a man-eating hangover, she told us Solomon had left. According to Amas, Solomon had told her that his family had given him an ultimatum: break it off with the "Egyptian girl" or be ostracized. Solomon's family was tight-knit, and he couldn't face the prospect of being completely excluded from it. Solomon had told Amas that a job had been arranged for him with a cousin in Tel Aviv and that's where he was going. We never saw Solomon again.

Amas had been deeply in love with Solomon and his abandonment was shattering for her. Her professionalism re-emerged to the extent that she was back at work in a couple of days. Glenda and I kept a close eye on her at work. She seemed depressed and distracted. The larger group of Glenda, Keith, April, and I were struggling to figure out how to help her.

We sensed that Amas was too depressed to feed herself. I invited to dinner at our house the first night of her return to the office. I was pleasantly surprised that she accepted, following me home from work in her car. Amas had too much to drink and fell asleep on our sofa. April and I should have prevented that. When Amas awoke the next morning, a Friday, she insisted that I ride in with her. April called her during the day and the two of them had a long talk. Amas brought me home that night and had dinner with us again. We watched her drinking much closer that night and didn't let her have much. She fell asleep on our sofa again, out of emotional exhaustion I assume.

Even tough Amas was asleep, April took me into another room. "Will," she said, "I talked with Amas for a long time today. She's taken a huge hit. Not all, but a big part of the hit was to her self-esteem. She's concluded that she isn't attractive enough or sexy enough that Solomon would choose her over his family."

"Ok," I said. "What do we do about that?"

"She needs a lover," April said. "Someone who will prove to her by direct action that she is beautiful, sexy, and engaging."

"She dated Solomon so long," I replied. "I don't know of any other men she is close to. That's going to take time."

"There is one man whom she is close to and admires," April said.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"You," April replied.

"Wait," I said, "you want me to become Amas's lover? That's one of the goofiest things I've ever heard!"

"You're closer to her than any other man now that Solomon's gone," April responded. "You've known her several years. You are partners. She respects you, and there is mutual attraction."

"Still," I said.

April cut me off. "There is no 'still' or 'but,'" she said. "You care about Amas, don't you?"

"Yes, but...." I replied.

April cut me off again. "I told you there is no 'but.' Glenda and I talked about it. We both think this is the right course." April paused for a moment, before adding, "I, your wife, am telling you I want you to start fucking a beautiful woman twenty years younger than I am and you're arguing with me? You need to get Amas off so well and so often she forgets about Solomon."

"But" I said, "won't it hurt her worse if I can't get off? I've been making love to the best. What if Amas doesn't stimulate me the way you do?"

"You haven't had sex with another woman for twenty-five years," April said. "How do you know I'm the best? I'm over 50. Amas is barely over 30. She can probably do things for you I'm no longer capable of." April paused again, before adding, "Will, you must do this for Amas."

Don't misunderstand, Amas was a gorgeous woman. Solomon had made an incredibly stupid decision in my opinion. But I had been completely faithful to April since we started dating seriously. Sex with another woman was a huge line for me to cross. Having been unable to shake April from the harebrained idea, I hoped to undermine her support. I called Glenda.

Unfortunately, Glenda agreed completely with April. Glenda also used "fiduciary duties" on me. As business partners, Glenda, Amas, and I owed each other a duty to do what was best for our firm, even if that created individual detriment. Glenda's analysis was that providing Amas with an emotional and physical relationship to ease the pain of Solomon's abandonment would make Amas more productive and benefit the firm. Glenda did not see any downside for me. I had my wife and my business partner, the two women closest to me, telling me to start fucking a younger, beautiful woman. It still didn't feel right, but what was I to do?

At April's direction, I carried Amas upstairs to our bedroom. When she had been with Solomon, they both undressed immediately any time they came into our house. That Amas had stayed clothed that night said something about her emotional state. April and I undressed her. She came around a little while we were doing that. April soothingly told her to relax, we were putting her to bed. It was still early, so April and I went back downstairs.