Once Upon a Starry Night

Excerpt from: Once Upon a Starry Night

Tom came across the information quite by accident in a company newsletter and sat there staring at the picture that, if not for the different name, would have been like staring in the mirror. Brian Bentley, line foreman, had recently gotten a safety award.

Funny how you could own a business and not know anything about the people who worked there. Well, that wasn’t really the case since Tom owned a dozen companies across the country and until last week, Blackstone Tool & Die hadn’t been in his portfolio. There was no reason he should know Brian.

He turned to look out the window of his suite, but the Pittsburgh night held no appeal. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, rubbing his hands across his face. God, he was tired. Normally he ran his empire from corporate offices in New York. If Blackstone hadn’t been so closely tied to one of his other companies he wouldn’t have stepped in when he found out it was in financial trouble. It needed more than an infusion of cash, but Tom would have to spend time determining exactly what, so he planned on staying in Pittsburgh through December.

He had never really wanted the responsibility of keeping so many different companies operating in turbulent economic times, but it had gotten dumped in his lap when his father had unexpectedly died. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it; in fact he was very good at it. And now he couldn’t seem to shirk the growing responsibilities.

He watched it start to snow. Thousands, no, billions of huge flakes dropped past his window to become part of a landscape that all blended together. Wouldn’t it be great to just be one of the masses? Like a snowflake that wasn’t any different from the next one, unless you put it under a microscope. To be just one of the boys, drinking a beer on Friday night with friends or taking a girlfriend to a movie.

That made him think of Sarah, his current fling. He wouldn’t call her a girlfriend by any stretch of the imagination. He cringed, recalling her screeching voice when he called to tell her he wouldn’t be in town for all the holiday parties she loved to attend. He wouldn’t even continue to see her except she was a great—no, make that a super fuck. Their sex marathons were well worth the extravagant charges to his credit cards.

He should call and see if she wanted to come to Pittsburgh. His cock swelled just thinking about what she could do with her mouth. He snorted. Sex or not, there was no way Sarah would leave New York City for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, especially this time of year. And did he really want her here? Her tantrums had begun to wear. Perhaps this trip to check out Blackstone Tool & Die had been prophetic after all.

He stood and watched one snowflake all the way to the ground where it immediately got lost in the accumulating whiteness. He glanced over at the newsletter; Brian Bentley’s picture staring back at him as a plan formed. A totally irrational, utterly insane plan.