The Words - An Autobiography

Naked Hide and Seek

The following day a taxi delivered us and everything we owned, including a large ring of keys, to take occupancy of the mansion that was our new home. We hauled our luggage, computers, and one guitar through the grand foyer and up the grand staircase. I followed my wife, assuming that she'd already chosen the suite we would occupy, the one with only the entrance to the library balcony further down the hall. Then we went exploring, again, I assumed, or preparing for our first game of naked-hide-and-seek. I was surprised that we were still wearing clothes until she led me out our back door for the first time. She was right. We found several old cars parked in the carriage house garage. They all looked nearly new, polished to a sheen, without any trace of dust.

My wife knocked at the door of the apartment above. When no one answered, I reached for the doorknob. She pushed my hand away, then loudly announced, "We're planning to have loud, wild sex in our new bed, which might occupy us a few hours. Then we intend to try out all the interesting spots we discover while playing a little naked-hide-and-seek so that you're aware."

All of which we proceeded to do. We played our first game of naked-hide-and-seek, but not before properly familiarizing ourselves with our new bed, bath, and shower, and my wife enjoyed her first use of the bidet, which she declared was wonderful. I caught her the first time starting up the library ladder and made my earlier vision a reality. A short time later, I found myself sprawled on my back on the dining room table after my wife came flying from the butler's pantry to tackle me.

Fully clothed once again, following several hours of vigorous naked-hide-and-seek, we ventured out to explore the larger garage and discovered more old cars - beautiful, expensive old cars, in perfect condition, polished to a sheen. By then, I assumed that my wife was right again. We could easily cover the cost of the house by auctioning off a few of those old cars, maybe only one. Or the wine in the basement. But we had more urgent priorities over those first few days in our new home, and we could get back to the cars and wine if we ever found ourselves more strapped for cash than time.

We rarely wore clothes that the first week unless I counted wrapping myself in a bedsheet to take delivery of the pizzas we ordered every evening or my wife modeling very naughty nighties and lingerie. Then, a few mornings after we'd moved in, my wife asked me to accompany her to the basement, and I flashed back to her remark about us tying one another up, but it turned out she only wanted us to select a bottle of Champagne. "It's our anniversary," she reminded me. "I hope there are a few bottles left that are still good since they're so old. Otherwise, we'll need to go out to buy some, and I'd prefer to stay home, drink Champagne and play more naked-hide-and-seek."

"No, I didn't forget," I told her. "I already have a few bottles chilling. Let's find out whether they're still drinkable." Open bottle in hand a few minutes later, both of us having swallowed a healthy mouthful and agreeing it wasn't just good but excellent, I touched her shoulder and told her, "You're it!"

I ran, taking the bottle with me. We were conveniently both wearing our naked-hide-and-seek clothes. We'd shared a laugh at the possibility of discovering our real estate agent running through the house in her game-appropriate clothes, yelling, "I'm here. I knocked. No one answered. Can I play?"

I will point out that one of the occasionally less than pleasant aspects of running through the house playing naked-hide-and-seek - which should be obvious to nearly any man who has ever participated in a sport - was the rule precluding me from wearing even a jockstrap. But, my wife, finding me bent over in pain, offered to kiss it and make it better, and, with enough patience, she always succeeded.

As I suspected, my wife not only wanted to have sex in every bedroom, in every bed but on every piece of furniture we now owned as well. Once she started her new job, she reminded me, she'd be working eighty to a hundred hours a week again. She figured I wouldn't be too far behind getting my startups going. She wanted us to have as much fun as we could until then. Not that we wouldn't still have our fun. Just not two solid weeks of naked-hide-and-seek and general debauchery.

Somehow, we never encountered either the husband or the wife occupying the carriage house until my wife took me to introduce us a few days before she started her new job. She explained that the coupled had agreed to stay on and continue their duties, cleaning the house and maintaining our cars, and the husband serving as our chauffeur. So, she wouldn't need to call a taxi to go to work or get a ride home, having already arranged for her daily commutes.

She asked, "Would it be too pretentious of me to arrive in a chauffeured limo on the first day of a new job?"

I don't know whether she'd forewarned them what to expect when she'd apparently slipped out while I was sleeping to introduce herself and engaged them to stay on. Or if they'd become accustomed to moving about the house unobtrusively and figuring out for themselves when it was safe to be where. Since, otherwise, the house was keeping itself dusted and cleaned. During one of the few unexpected and embarrassing encounters we later had, the wife mentioned that they'd been young once too. Maybe not with quite so much energy or creative ways of expressing.

The plan from the beginning had been that Bob would come west and join us as soon as we settled. I'd assumed he'd stay in one of the other second-floor suites, which he did for a few days. But the evening he arrived, he was barely through the front door when my wife yelled from the balcony, "Naked-hide-and-seek! You're it!"

She was, of course, wearing her naked-hide-and-seek clothes. Bob reflexively looked up, hearing her voice, then immediately turned away before she'd cried, "Bob! Hi!" and ran across the balcony toward the stairs, then stopping, realizing Bob's discomfort with her nudity, and told him, "Sorry, Bob. I should probably put on some clothes."

Once Bob got over his shock and the fulfillment of his fondest fantasy, he asked if it might not be better if he stayed in the mother-in-law's apartment above the carriage house. "In case a spontaneous game of naked-hide-and-seek breaks out again. I don't want to interfere with your fun."

I laughed. It was a bold statement for Bob. Then informed him that the apartment was occupied, but there were others we could check out above the larger garage or other rooms in other areas of the house that we'd try to avoid in the future. He thought an apartment above the larger garage was probably the safer option.

I offered Bob an equal partnership in Telepathic Collaboration, Inc. and Magick Hat, Inc., which he declined. The ideas were mine, he insisted. The software was mine. The seed money was mine. He had no living expenses and would be completely unfettered to do what he wanted most. He did have a little money put away, and since we would be keeping him fed, he wouldn't even require a salary for a while. He figured he'd be plenty rich, plenty soon enough.

He finally agreed to take twenty-five percent of the shares, no more, but he insisted on paying me for them - twenty-five thousand dollars for a quarter-million shares. He knew that wasn't nearly enough, but he wanted to contribute something, and that was all he had, every cent. I was hesitant to take his money, then decided to deposit it in a separate account, intending to give it back once he accepted the idea that the ideas were his as well, more than he wanted to give himself credit. And he'd suggested getting a patent that resulted in us having the money we did.

After my wife began her new job, Bob and I spent several weeks assembling our lab in the largest of the basement's empty spaces. I purchased enough computers and other hardware to recreate what we'd had back at the university, only newer and better. I had our electrical service upgraded and new internet service installed. The agent for the internet service provider was taken aback by the bandwidth I requested. "For a home service?" He suggested I contact a commercial provider instead. So I did, and even they wanted to argue about the requested bandwidth. Right from the start, even with as much bandwidth that was currently commercially available, I knew lag would be our second most significant problem, with RF interference leading the way by a large margin. And we began cobbling together Magick Hat prototypes and writing enough software from memory to provide basic demos and proofs of concept. But, if we were to have any success, we knew we'd need to do far more than that.

My wife promised Bob we wouldn't play naked-hide-and-seek in the basement, the larger garage, or the yard. Anywhere else, he might want to announce himself loudly if he didn't care to see our naked bodies, or worse. Bob blushed and nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. And my wife apologized for making him uncomfortable.